ABUSE TRACKER

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

January 28, 2019

Jesuitas reciben nuevas denuncias contra Renato Poblete

[Jesuits receive new complaints against Renato Poblete]

CHILE
La Tercera

January 27, 2019

By María José Navarrete

Fuentes del caso señalan que esta semana se tomará declaraciones y pedirán documentos sobre el sacerdote.

La Compañía de Jesús informó hoy sobre la existencia de nuevas denuncias de presuntos abusos cometidos por el fallecido sacerdote Renato Poblete, quien fuera capellán del Hogar de Cristo entre 1982 y 2000.

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.

Pennsylvania lawmakers return, but not to debate over clergy abuse bill

EASTON (PA)
Associated Press

January 28, 2019

Lawmakers are returning to the Pennsylvania Capitol, but they haven’t revisited a response to child sexual abuse scandals since the debate’s collapse on last year’s final voting day.

The Legislature’s new two-year session begins in earnest Monday, with little mention of legislation reflecting the state attorney general’s grand jury report on child sexual abuse in Pennsylvania’s Roman Catholic dioceses.

Legislation proposed last year would give now-adult victims of child sexual abuse a two-year reprieve from time limits in state law that otherwise would bar them from suing perpetrators and institutions that covered it up.

The provision was recommended by the grand jury, and backed by Attorney General Josh Shapiro, Gov. Tom Wolf, the House of Representatives, Senate Democratic leaders and victim advocates. It was opposed by Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati and the Senate’s huge Republican majority.

“We need you to hear this,” the Pennsylvania grand jury wrote in its report finally released on Tuesday.

The provision passed the House overwhelmingly last month, but Republican senators said they considered it unconstitutional and warned that cash awards in such lawsuits carried serious consequences for church charities.

Scarnati says he has no plans to restart legislation and is satisfied by how Pennsylvania’s dioceses have moved to set up victim compensation funds.

That includes the Allentown diocese, which administers to 251,000 Catholics in a five-county area that includes the entire Lehigh Valley. Under the Allentown fund, victims will give up their right to sue the church, but they will not be silenced if they accept money from the fund.

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.

Pope aims to ‘deflate’ expectations for abuse summit, says no to married priests

ROME (ITALY)
Crux

January 28, 2019

By Inés San Martín

Pope Francis has said he wants to “deflate” expectations for his Feb. 21-24 summit for presidents of bishops’ conferences on clerical sexual abuse, saying it’s mostly about transmitting a “catechesis” on the “drama” of abuse.

The pontiff also rejected the idea of optional celibacy for Catholic priests, though he did leave open the possibility of ordaining married men in remote locations and for specific sacramental purposes.

Asked about his expectations for the summit, Francis said the initiative was born in the C9, a group of cardinals that advise him on reform of the government of the Church. Three of those cardinals were removed late last year, two of them over allegations of either covering up abuse or of having sexually abused minors.

“We saw that some bishops didn’t know what to do, didn’t understand, did one thing good and another one bad,” the pope said.

Hence, he said, the C9 felt the need to offer a “catechesis” to bishops’ conferences that would make the “drama of children who’ve been abused” comprehensible.

The second scope of the meeting, Francis said, is to teach bishops how to respond when facing an allegation of abuse by a member of the clergy. Thirdly, he wants the February meeting to lead to “protocols” on how Church leaders should handle abuse cases.

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

Seeing light through the priest sex abuse storm

BUFFALO (NY)
WBFO Radio

January 28, 2019

By Marian Hetherly

Many have voiced the opinion that giving more laity – and, specifically, women – positions of leadership in the Catholic Church would help avoid sexual abuse scandals like the one now consuming the faith and its faithful. In the Buffalo diocese, there are a series of positions open to lay people, but ultimate power always remains with clergy. Even so, one empowering model may light the way to the future.

Bishop Edward Kmiec approved guidelines for what are called Pastoral Administrators in 2007, in the wake of a growing priest shortage. It was another six years before Bishop Richard Malone began to implement the model.

Sister Lori High was appointed Pastoral Administrator after the parish pastor retired and so the priest serving as temporary administrator could move into the sacramental role.

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.

Catholic abuse scandal galvanizes Mount Angel seminarians’ resolve

KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

January 28, 2019

By Dan Morris-Young

Has the onslaught of church sex abuse and authority exploitation disclosures of recent months given men who are actively discerning priestly vocations pause to step back, hold the church in contempt, even walk away?

Apparently not at Mount Angel Seminary in Oregon, according to students, faculty and staff there.

If anything, the crisis seems to have galvanized the resolve of many priesthood-seekers at the West Coast’s largest seminary to serve the church rather than stiff-arm it.

“I have noticed no decrease in zealousness for the priesthood” on campus, Anthony Rosas, a seminarian of the Diocese of Orange, California, told NCR. “Of course, we talk about it. You have to call a spade a spade. This has been awful.”

A convert, Rosas said his parents naturally wanted to know about the sex abuse crisis but they remain supportive of his vocation. After visiting with friends and priests of his home diocese as well as reflecting “on the need for strong, holy priests,” Rosas said he is more resolved than ever to reach ordination.

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

New Boston College report on the priesthood addresses pressing need

KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

January 28, 2019

By Michael Sean Winters

The Boston College School of Theology and Ministry has distinguished itself again at sentire cum ecclesia, thinking with the church, about an issue of enormous ecclesial importance, issuing a short, 10-page report entitled “To Serve the People of God: Renewing the Conversation on Priesthood and Ministry.” Like the two-way immersion network for Catholic schools run by Boston College’s School of Education and their groundbreaking research into Hispanic ministry in parish life, this recent study puts the university’s intellectual resources at the service of a pressing need for the church in the United St

The importance of seminary formation is evident in the pages of NCR. Peter Feuerherd recently reported on the scandal that is Sacred Heart seminary in Detroit, which has become a hotbed of opposition to Pope Francis. Feuerherd also reported recently on Jesuit formation at Boston College, and how that formation actually presages some of the features of this study. And our reporting on many of the discussions surrounding clergy sex abuse all focus, of necessity, in large part on priestly formation, such as Dan Morris-Young’s report on a panel at Santa Clara University last October.

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

Buffalo Diocese offers more than $8 million to abuse victims

BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

January 28, 2019

By Jay Tokasz

The Buffalo Diocese so far has offered more than $8 million to nearly four dozen people sexually abused as children by priests, according to victims and lawyers who represent them.

Diocese officials declined to comment on the number of offers to date that have been made or the overall dollar amount. They also would not say how many claims to the diocese’s Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program have yet to be decided upon or when the program will conclude.

But in interviews with lawyers and victims The News has learned that at least 47 victims have received offers that collectively amount to about $8.1 million. The offers ranged from $10,000 to $650,000.

Some victims already have been paid. Lawyers took a third of the offers for themselves in cases where they were retained. Other accusers are still deciding whether to accept the money and give up their right to sue the diocese, even as the State Legislature prepares to adopt legislation that will clear the way for more civil lawsuits in sexual abuse cases.

The State Assembly and Senate are scheduled to vote Monday on a Child Victims Act that includes a one-year “look-back” provision allowing abuse victims to sue even in cases that go back decades.

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.

Harassment By The Church Continues: Transfer Orders and Warning Notices for Protesting Nuns

Feminism in India blog

January 28, 2019

By Alice Abraham

Life has not been easy for the five nuns from Kerala who had protested against the inaction of the Church and police authorities in the aftermath of rape allegations against Bishop Franco Mullackal. The Missionaries of Jesus had asked the four nuns, Sister Anupama, Sr. Alphy, Sr. Josephine, and Sr. Ancitta to comply with a transfer order which was issued earlier and to move out of the Kottayam mission where they were residing to different places. Sr. Neena Rose who was staying with the survivor nun has now been issued transfer order and is asked to report to the Superior General of Jalandhar on January 26th,. All of them have refused to comply with the order and is staying together with the survivor.

In September, the five nuns from the Missionaries of Jesus mission had staged an indefinite hunger strike near the Kerala High Court premises in Kochi for weeks under the banner ‘Save our Sisters’. They demanded the arrest of Bishop Mullackal who is accused by the nun from the same missionary several times between 2014 and 2016. The protest was called off only after the arrest of the Bishop and his removal from his post as Bishop of the Jalandhar diocese in Punjab. He was arrested and was in jail for three weeks until he got bail.

These protests had begun a movement in the Catholic church history which have been silencing many sexual harassment cases all over the world. However, the situation of the nuns and the priests who participated in the protests are getting worse day by day as they are facing pressure and mental harassment from the church authorities.

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.

‘I’m a mad DA’: Brett Ligon won’t back down from investigating Conroe priest accused of molesting children

HOUSTON (TX)
Houston Chronicle

January 27, 2019

By Nicole Hensley

Brett Ligon has not been to Mass since the Sept. 11 arrest of Father Manuel La Rosa-Lopez.

A longtime Catholic, he was married at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Conroe in 1993 and moved in recent years to St. Matthias the Apostle in Magnolia.

Now the district attorney of Montgomery County, he can’t bring himself to go back.

“I haven’t been to Mass since we arrested the priest — but that’s a personal issue,” he said. “I’m a mad DA, which is what victims need. We don’t need a DA who’s looking for forgiveness.”

Ligon, 50, made no secret of his ties to the Conroe church where La Rosa-Lopez worked as more than 60 local, state and federal law enforcement officials descended on the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston’s headquarters on Nov. 28, looking for evidence linked to accusations that the priest molested two young parishioners over a three-year period.

And Ligon’s made it clear he won’t stop there — warning that other members of the clergy who may have done wrong will come under scrutiny from his office.

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.

Editorial: Child Victims Act brings some justice for those who suffered sexual abuse

BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

January 27, 2019

The Catholic Church’s bishops in New York State made the right decision to change course and back passage of the Child Victims Act.

The Senate and Assembly are expected to approve the legislation on Monday that will expand the statute of limitations for child sex abuse victims and open a one-year “look-back” period for victims of any age to bring lawsuits over alleged sexual abuse.

The state Catholic Conference stated its support after legislators agreed to wording that ensures the bill applies to victims of alleged abuse from public schools as well as religious and private schools. That prompts the question: Why weren’t public schools included all along?

The church opposed previous versions of the bill, which were held up by the former Republican majority in the Senate. The church objected to being singled out for legal responsibility for incidents of child sexual abuse that have also taken place in other public and private institutions.

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.

Priest sexual abuse scandal takes a toll on Catholics

WATERBURY (CT)
Republican-American

January 27, 2019

The Archdiocese of Hartford held the first of three Masses of Reparation Sunday in Manchester for the victims of the priest sexual abuse scandal, but it’s not only the victims who are suffering.

Catholics attending Mass in Torrington and Waterbury said the release of the list of credibly accused priests was painful, especially for those who knew those named.

“I knew a lot of the men on that list and I think what needs to be remembered is a lot of them aren’t around anymore to answer for it. You can’t buy into it,” said Shawn Pace of Waterbury.

”The men I did see and are gone were great men,” he said. “Your faith in God is your faith in God and Catholics need to stick with that faith.”

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.

Making spiritual amends: Archbishop celebrates Mass for victims of priest sexual abuse

MANCHESTER (CT)
Republican-American

January 27, 2019

By Aaron Joseph

More than 200 Catholics flocked to a Manchester church Sunday afternoon to pray for the victims of the priest sexual abuse scandal, the first of three such Masses planned in the Hartford archdiocese.

Archbishop Leonard Blair celebrated the Mass at the St. Bartholomew Church building of St. Teresa of Calcutta Parish in Manchester to make spiritual amends to victims of sexual abuse by priests, providing solace for those who attended.

“It was a beautiful reparation mass, and it brought peace to a lot of people’s hearts,” said Dorothy Brindisi. “The church is trying to do the right thing and bring people together and hope for the future.”

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

January 27, 2019

Baton Rouge clergy sex abuse: Answering key questions before diocese releases list

BATON ROUGE (LA)
The Advocate

January 27, 2019

The Diocese of Baton Rouge is expected on Thursday to release a list of priests who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse. Ahead of the release, The Advocate tracked every known allegation of abuse involving a Baton Rouge priest. Here’s what we found.

How many known priests have been accused of sexual abuse?

At least 15 priests who have served in the Diocese of Baton Rouge were accused of sexual abuse. Half were named when the Archdiocese of New Orleans released its list, two more were on a list of accused Jesuit priests and the remaining five have been the subject of civil suits or criminal charges involving sexual misconduct.

How many known victims are there?

Upward of 60 victims say they were abused by priests who spent time in Baton Rouge, though we may never know the full number. Two priests accused of abuse especially drove up the victim count. At least 30 people accused through lawsuits one Baton Rouge priest, Christopher Springer, of abuse. And a lawyer who represented people who said they were abused by Gerard “Jerry” Howell estimated Howell had 25 to 50 victims.

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.

EXCLUSIVE: The Pedophile in the Pulpit: How a Respected Pastor Abused Hundreds of Children for 40 Years, and No One Knew

SOMERSET (PA)
Christian Broadcasting Network

January 27, 2019

By Heather Sells

John and Clara Hinton arrived in Somerset, Pennsylvania in 1972. Just two years into their marriage and with a young daughter, the young couple was eager to start their ministry at the Somerset Church of Christ, a small congregation in the rural community.

John had completed a Bible degree at Oklahoma Christian University and served as a youth pastor when he stepped into the pulpit.

“We were kids when we moved to Somerset, Pennsylvania. We were 22 years old,” said Clara. For her, years of dreams were coming together. “I had prayed from a young child up for a Christian husband. That’s all I ever wanted was a Christian husband and I wanted to be a Christian wife and mother.”

The two would go on to have eleven children and Clara considered John to be a model husband and father. She described him as soft-spoken and thoughtful, fixing her breakfast every morning.

“He was my spiritual leader. We would spend many hours talking about God and our faith and our service within the church,” she said.

He was also engaged with their children, never missing a game or a concert. “He played with them. He hung out with them. He was that person,” said Clara. “In fact, women in the church would often tell me ‘I wish my husband was like yours.'”

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.

Priest sued for abuse in OK appears on KS list of accused clerics

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

January 25, 2019

A priest from the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City who was sued for sexual abuse in 2003 appears on the list of clergy with “substantiated allegations” released today by the Kansas City Kansas Archdiocese.

While Fr. David “Dave” Imming reportedly never worked in the KS Archdiocese, we know that he retired from the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and moved to Kansas in 2001.

Fr. Imming was sued in 2003 in Oklahoma for alleged sexual abuse. At least six others came forward during the lawsuit.

We beg anyone who may have been abused by Fr. Imming, or anyone who saw or suspected such abuse, to contact law enforcement. SNAP, or groups like us, are also available to assist survivors, witnesses and whistle blowers as they come forward.

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

Sex abuse victim testified against janitor from his deathbed

NEW YORK (NY)
New York Post

January 26, 2019

By Susan Edelman

On his hospital deathbed, Stephen Erickson, 55, finally got a chance to testify under oath that the janitor at his Catholic middle school had repeatedly raped him as a boy.

He hoped a jury would hear his words of anguish from beyond the grave.

In a highly unusual move, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Gerald Connolly last month granted an emergency request to let Erickson give a sworn statement to “preserve his testimony” for a lawsuit he wanted to file against the church.

Wasting away from terminal skin cancer, Erickson gave a videotaped sworn statement from his bed at Albany Medical Center on Dec. 12.

He died seven days later.

According to a transcript obtained by The Post, Erickson accused Eugene Hubert, a janitor at St. Teresa of Avila School in Albany, which he attended in 1977 to 1978, of sexually assaulting him “three times a week.”

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

A call for opinion: How have you responded to the Catholic church’s acknowledgment of sexual abuse?

HARTFORD (CT)
Hartford Courant

January 27, 2019

The Courant would like to hear from people across Connecticut who are willing to share their personal stories about how the recent disclosure by the Archdiocese of Hartford that dozens of priests have been credibly accused of sexual assault have affected them — their faith, their fears, their views on organized religion, their hopes for moving forward.

For Catholics, the disclosures have raised questions about their relationship with the church and their own local parishes. For survivors of sexual assault, the disclosures can be both cathartic and painful. For many, the revelations have been emotionally wrenching and painful.

We are interested in personal stories and honest reflections from the deeply faithful and the estranged. We hope these stories will help provide context for anyone struggling with the repercussions of these revelations.

If you are interested, please send an essay of about 650 words to opinion@courant.com, or by mail to The Hartford Courant, Opinion Department, 285 Broad St., Hartford, CT 06115.

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.

Sex abuse victims deemed ‘ineligible’ for settlements upset with Buffalo Diocese

FBUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

January 27, 2019

By Jay Tokasz

When the Buffalo Diocese offered childhood victims of clergy sex abuse a chance to be compensated for their pain and suffering, Jeffrey M. Shaw filed a claim.

He alleged the Rev. Joseph Rappl abused him in 1981, when he was 11 years old and Rappl was an associate pastor in Lewiston.

The diocese acknowledged that Rappl had been credibly accused of sexually abusing children.

But in December, Shaw received a letter stating that he wasn’t eligible for compensation.

The diocese has offered several dozen victims awards ranging from $10,000 to $600,000, but Shaw is among several other victims who were determined to be ineligible. Diocese officials stipulated last March when they announced the program that only victims already known to the diocese at the time would be eligible for compensation.

“I feel like I’ve been dismissed by the church,” said Shaw, who lives in Maryland. “It seems that an institution that talks about morals and ethics and doing the right thing would want to do the right thing.”

Shaw said he first reported his abuse to the diocese in April or May, but he had told other people years earlier, including a friend, his ex-wife and a therapist. He made a claim with the Buffalo Diocese with the help of Mitchell Garabedian, a Boston attorney who represents more than 100 clients in similar compensation programs in other dioceses in New York.

Another client who accused Rappl of abuse prior to last March did receive an offer from the diocese, said Garabedian. So the diocese was using an arbitrary date to refuse to make Shaw an offer, despite knowing that the priest was credibly accused, he said.

“The Diocese of Buffalo has acted in a calculated fashion to exclude many claims,” he said. “It underscores how little the Diocese of Buffalo cares about childhood victims of clergy sexual abuse.”

Lawlor F. Quinlan, a lawyer for the diocese, would not comment on how many applicants to the Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program were deemed ineligible due to the diocese’s time restriction. He also declined to answer questions from The News about how many awards have been offered so far and for how much.

“The diocese intends to provide a report on the IRCP after the program is concluded. At this point, the program is ongoing,” Quinlan said.

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

Letter to the editor: Hiding problem priests shows church’s failure

PORTLAND (ME)
Press Herald

January 27, 2019

Both Cheverus High School in Portland and Scranton Prep in Pennsylvania, two relatively obscure Jesuit schools, served to house predatory men, as many as five at a time. When the Jesuits published the names, I knew several, including some who had been guests at my home.

Bill Nemitz illustrates this point in his Jan. 20 column, “Dangerous times at Cheverus High.” Indeed, the men of the class of 1979 would have been easy targets. Back in the day, I was a target, too, but somehow avoided such a fate.

When the grand jury impaneled by the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office released the data on clergy abuse in the Catholic Church, I found the name that had been missing from the website BishopAccountability.org. As the grand jury’s report states, the Rev. Joseph F. Houston and “a minor female” – my sister – were seen leaving a motel late at night on several occasions in 1971, as reported to Bishop J. Carroll McCormick.

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.

Denunciante de sacerdote Renato Poblete: “Me siento con la responsabilidad de decir que fui yo”

[Whistleblower in Renato Poblete case speaks up: “I feel responsible to say that it was me”]

SANTIAGO (CHILE)
Emol

January 27, 2019

Marcela Aranda Escobar, profesora de teología de la PUC, aborda por primera vez las denuncias en contra del fallecido ex capellán del Hogar de Cristo, por las que hay en marcha una investigación canónica.

“Soy Marcela Aranda Escobar, ingeniero mecánico y teóloga. Soy profesora de la Facultad de Teología de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, hago clases de teología y también en el programa de Pedagogía en Religión Católica de la UC. Soy mamá de una hija que quiero mucho y, además, vivo con mi padre ya anciano. Me siento sobreviviendo con gran esfuerzo, mucha ayuda especializada y el cariño de mis amigos por abusos horrorosos”. Revisa la entrevista completa en la edición de este domingo de “El Mercurio”.

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.

Obispo Emiliano Soto sobre casos de abusos en iglesias evangélicas: “Se dan en menor escala debido a que el pastor está casado”

[Bishop Emiliano Soto on abuse cases in evangelical churches: “They occur on a smaller scale because the pastor is married”]

CHILE
La Tercera

January 27, 2019

By Juan Pablo Sallaberry

Para la autoridad de la Iglesia Evangélica Pentecostal Reformada, el celibato influye en que la religión católica registre más casos de abusos sexuales. Agrega que en las iglesias cristianas “no hay encubrimiento”.

El obispo Emiliano Soto, presidente de la mesa ampliada de entidades evangélicas y protestantes de Chile, señala que aunque los casos son más acotados que en la Iglesia Católica, el tema de los abusos sexuales también preocupa a las iglesias cristianas.

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.

Renato Poblete: Golpe al corazón de los jesuitas

[Renato Poblete: The heartbeat of the Jesuits]

CHILE
La Tercera

January 27, 2019

By Carla Pía Ruiz and Gloria Faúndez H.

La develación de la denuncia por delitos de abuso sexual, de poder y de conciencia en contra del sacerdote Renato Poblete generó un escenario totalmente incierto para la Compañía de Jesús, ya afectada por una nueva acusación -que se mantenía en reserva- en contra del exprovincial Eugenio Valenzuela.

Ocurrió entre fines de noviembre y principios de diciembre pasado. La cita era urgente, explicó el provincial de los jesuitas, Cristián del Campo. Habían sido convocados todos los jesuitas de Santiago. Tal era la gravedad de la situación, que incluso quienes estaban fuera del país participaron. Vía Skype intervinieron en la reunión los religiosos que estaban en Argentina, en Perú y hasta algunos que estaban en Roma. Eran 60 en total.

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

Los delitos sexuales que impactan a las iglesias evangélicas y protestantes

[Sexual crimes in the Evangelical and Protestant churches]

CHILE
La Tercera

January 27, 2019

By S. Labrín and JP Sallaberry

Aunque se registran menos casos que en la Iglesia Católica, en la última década se han abierto causas penales contra 42 pastores de iglesias cristianas por abuso. Casi el 60% de ellas tiene condenas.

Trescientos días de cárcel, la imposibilidad perpetua para trabajar con menores de edad y una vigilancia por 10 años de la autoridad, fue la condena que el pasado 15 de enero recibió Leonardo Bustos Paredes, pastor evangélico de la comuna de María Pinto, en la Región Metropolitana, tras reconocer que abusó sexualmente de una menor de 13 años entre 2016 y 2017.

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

Montserrat, mito y realidad

[Montserrat, myth and reality]

SPAIN
El País

January 26, 2019

By Francesc Valls

En estos momentos la mejor noticia de esta esta crisis es la creación de una comisión de transparencia que indagará denuncias sobre supuestos abusos a menores que afecten a los benedictinos

La salida a la luz pública de la denuncia de presuntos abusos sexuales que sufrió Miguel Hurtado cuando tenía 16 años (1998) por parte del monje de Montserrat Andreu Soler, responsable del grupo scout del monasterio, ha sacudido el imaginario catalán. Eran muchos quienes cruzaban los dedos para no ver salpicada a la abadía por el escándalo de la pederastia. El encubrimiento de dos abades —Cassià Just y Sebastià Bardolet— trató de echar tierra sobre el asunto y llegar a un acuerdo con la víctima. Los actuales responsables del monasterio aseguraron que, de producirse ahora, llevarían el caso ante la justicia civil.

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.

State should investigate Catholic Church abuse

RACINE (WI)
Journal Times

January 27, 2019

“The Church’s credibility has been seriously undercut and diminished by these sins and crimes, but even more by the efforts made to deny or conceal them,” Pope Francis wrote in a letter to U.S. bishops about abuse over the years. “This has led to a growing sense of uncertainty, distrust and vulnerability among the faithful.”

In recent years, more has come to light about abuse from the past with the release of lists of priests who are accused of abusing children.

The Milwaukee Archdiocese released a list of alleged offenders in 2004; earlier this month, the Diocese of Green Bay released the names of 46 priests who committed sexual offenses against minors dating back more than 100 years. But many secrets remain to this day.

In light of the substantial number of abusers and victims around the state and nation, Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm called earlier this month for a statewide investigation of the church’s response to abuse allegations.

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

Pope to California pilgrim: clerical sex abuse is a ‘horrible crime’

PANAMA CITY (PANAMA)
Crux

January 27, 2019

By Christopher White

Pope Francis told an American pilgrim taking part in World Youth Day that clerical sex abuse is a “horrible crime” and that “even if it is just one person, the Church should not tolerate it.”

The pope’s words came in response to a question from 29-year-old Brenda Berenice Noriega from California who was one of ten young people selected to have lunch with Francis on Saturday.

The meal took place behind closed doors without any press or cameras, but in an interview with Crux following the lunch, Noriega stressed that the pope emphasized solidarity with victims and caring for their pain.

The pope’s remarks to Noriega marked the first time he addressed the issue of clerical sexual abuse. Earlier on Saturday, during a Mass with priests and religious women and men, the pope encouraged them to remain strong in the faith despite the Church being “wounded by sin.”

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January 26, 2019

Francis to religious in Panama: Don’t grow weary, despite sins of Church

PANAMA CITY (PANAMA)
Crux

January 26, 2019

By Inés San Martín

Young people, prisoners, politicians, and bishops have all enjoyed an opportunity to get a boost from Pope Francis so far during his visit to Panama, and on Saturday morning, it was the time for priests and religious women and men to receive one. While Francis told them it is understandable that they might feel weary at times due to the “sins” of the Church, he encouraged them to keep their hearts open to God.

“We know that not just any word can help us regain energy and prophecy in our mission,” Francis said in his homily during the Mass he celebrated in Santa Maria La Antigua cathedral. “Not just any novelty, however alluring it may seem, can quench our thirst. We know that neither knowledge of religion nor upholding past or present traditions, always makes us fruitful and passionate ‘worshipers in spirit and truth’.”

The pope’s homily was rooted in a passage from the Book of John where Jesus, tired from his journey, rests near a well and asks a Samarian woman to draw water and “Give me a drink.”

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SIGUE DETENIDO PADRE PEDERASTA

MéRIDA (MEXICO)
Tribuna Campeche [San Francisco de Campeche, Campeche, Mexico]

January 26, 2019

By Tribuna

Read original article

Los casos de sacerdotes pederastas, registrados en distintas partes del mundo y del país, parecían alejados de nuestra entidad, sin embargo, a finales del 2018 el cura Gustavo Alberto Z.T., fue inculpado de violación equiparada y abuso sexual contra I.E.Z.P, un estudiante del Colegio Victoria, que era parte del Seminario Menor de Nuestra Señora del Carmen, el cual administraba el acusado.

Aunque todo parece indicar que la Diócesis de Campeche mantiene en secreto este grave caso, y que habría desterrado al presbítero de toda actividad clerical, ahora el inculpado en audiencia de ayer catalogada como privada ante la jueza de Control, Alejandra Flores Verástegui, buscó conseguir su libertad, pero la audiencia se prorrogó hasta el miércoles 30.

Cristina P.K., mamá del menor —que vive en Campeche— pudo enterarse de lo sucedido, en la carpeta judicial 110/17-2018/JC-II, se indica que él estudiaba en el Colegio Victoria, y que recibió una llamada del sacerdote Mario Ascencio León, quien le dijo que algo grave estaba sucediendo.

PRESO

Pese a que Gustavo se encuentra encarcelado, y que el abuso sexual sobre el menor venía ocurriendo desde el 2016, fue hasta diciembre pasado cuando la Policía Ministerial lo detuvo, pero ayer en una nueva audiencia no se pudo determinar su situación jurídica, porque se amplió hasta el próximo miércoles.

De la situación jurídica del “padre”, se puede resumir –según el número de apelación 207/18-2019/S.M- que el 19 de diciembre fue imputado, pero ese día pidió la ampliación del término constitucional, y cuando se reanudó la audiencia inicial lo sujetaron a prisión, sin embargo, su defensa ganó una apelación y ayer se repitió el proceso.

HECHOS

El expediente contra el clérigo, quien fungía como director espiritual del Seminario Menor, revela que desde diciembre pasado, un juez de Control le dictó auto de vinculación a proceso por los delitos antes mencionados, además de que se le impuso como medida cautelar prisión preventiva de siete meses.

Dentro de las acusaciones en contra de “padre” Gustavo, que reveló el agraviado, se detalló que “al menor de edad le vendaba los ojos y le ordenaba que se quitara toda la ropa, que se imaginaría cosas que le iba diciendo el cura, que se imaginara cosas sexuales, que imaginara una niña que le gustara, que imaginara que estaban sosteniendo relaciones sexuales, y que en ese momento lo comenzó a masturbar”.

En el relato plasmado en dicha denuncia, se establece que el abuso sexual comenzó desde el 2016 —es decir el presbítero Gustavo practicaba diversas formas de sexo con el menor—. Pues aunque el ultrajado sentía asco por lo que hacía, debía obedecer ya que el cura era su “consejero espiritual”.

GANA APELACIÓN

Cabe mencionar que la defensa del “padre”, a cargo de Alicia Delgado Chan alegó durante la audiencia de diciembre, y después en una apelación ante el Tribunal de Alzada, que el menor con 13 años, podía ver lo bueno y lo malo.

La abogada, férrea en sus alegatos durante la apelación, afirmó que la jueza Alejandra Flores, se justificó al decir que el menor se encontraba en el seminario y que por eso nunca dijo nada, pero que por lógica el agraviado tuvo que tener contacto con sus padres y contarle hasta algún familiar, incluso remata diciendo que “toda duda siempre debe favorecer al reo”.

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Visitador apostólico confirma que nombraron nuevos sacerdotes para reemplazar a indagados por abusos

[Apostolic visitor confirms appointment of new priests to replace those investigated for abuse]

CHILE
BioBioChile

January 24, 2019

By Gonzalo Cifuentes and Diego Barría

Cuatro sacerdotes de la Arquidiócesis de Puerto Montt están siendo investigados y fueron denunciados ante el Vaticano por el administrador apostólico Ricardo Morales. Se trata de: Dionisio Muñoz, Eugenio Céspedes, Dario Nicolas y Tulio Soto. Contra los 3 primeros pesan denuncias por abuso sexual y para el último, delitos administrativos.

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Papa Francisco acepta renuncia de dos sacerdotes de O’Higgins acusados de presuntos abusos sexuales

[Pope Francisco accepts resignations of two O’Higgins priests accused of sexual abuse]

SANTIAGO (CHILE)
Emol

January 26, 2019

By Fernanda Villalobo

Héctor Fuentes y Freddy Gorigoitia habían presentado su renuncia en agosto pasado al administrados apostólico, el obispo Fernando Ramos.

La Diócesis de Rancagua informó que el Papa Francisco acogió la solicitud presentada hace unos meses por Héctor Galvarino Fuentes Aguilera y Freddy Gorigoitia González, dispensándolos de las obligaciones del sacerdocio. De esta forma, ambos religiosos quedaron excluidos del estado clerical, explicó el Obispado de Rancagua mediante un comunicado.

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Ignacio Sánchez: El caso de Renato Poblete “será un golpe muy duro para la credibilidad de la Iglesia”

[Ignacio Sánchez: The case of Renato Poblete “will be a very hard blow for the Church’s credibility”]

CHILE
La Tercera

January 26, 2019

By Carlos Said

Rector de la Universidad Católica cuenta que su plantel está apoyando a la denunciante y llama a la comunidad católica a involucrarse en la reconstrucción de la fe. “No podemos dejar a la jerarquía a cargo de esto”, afirma.

La semana pasada, la Iglesia Católica se vio golpeada nuevamente por una denuncia de abuso, esta vez contra el sacerdote jesuita Renato Poblete, uno de los hombres más importantes en la historia del Hogar de Cristo y quien falleció en 2010. Su congregación ya abrió una investigación, cuyos resultados se anticipa generarán un alto impacto. Así lo cree el rector de la U. Católica, Ignacio Sánchez, quien dice que es labor de todos los creyentes ocuparse de la crisis. La denunciante, cuya identidad La Tercera se reserva, es profesora de ese plantel y el rector cuenta que la están acompañando en el difícil momento que atraviesa.

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El tibio ‘mea culpa’ de los responsables de abusos sexuales a menores en la Iglesia española

[The tepid ‘mea culpa’ of those responsible for sexual abuse of minors in the Spanish Church]

SPAIN
El País

January 24, 2019

By Héctor Llanos Martínez

La serie documental ‘Examen de conciencia’ intercala testimonios de víctimas con los de la Conferencia Episcopal, Maristas y los propios agresores

Para Miguel Hurtado, todos los casos de abusos a menores en la Iglesia Católica española, como el que él sufrió en 1997, acaban igual. “Las congregaciones nunca denuncian a la policía”, lamenta en la serie documental Examen de conciencia, que estrena Netflix este viernes 25 de enero. La semana pasada, con 37 años de edad, se atrevió por primera vez a dar el nombre de forma pública de su agresor: Andreu Soler, por aquel entonces monje del monasterio de Montserrat.

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Bishop of Diocese of Baton Rouge plans to release names of priests accused of abuse

BATON ROUGE (LA)
WAFB TV

January 26, 2019

By Mykal Vincent

The Bishop of the Diocese of Baton Rouge says they’ve set a date for the release of the names of priests credibly accused of abusing minors.

In a release sent out Saturday afternoon, Bishop Michael Duca said they’ve completed their review of the files and will release the list of names Thursday, January 31.

In what the Bishop called a “difficult decision,” he says he’s convinced that bringing more facts to light will help victims start to re-establish trust in the catholic church.

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Pope says weary Church ‘wounded by her own sin’ in reference to abuse

ROME (ITALY)
Reuters

January 26, 2019

Pope Francis said on Saturday the Roman Catholic Church was weary and “wounded by her own sin,” in an apparent reference to the global sexual abuse crisis.

Francis made the comment in the homily of Mass for priests, nuns, and members of Catholic lay organisations in Panama City’s newly renovated cathedral of Santa Maria Antigua, the first in mainland America, which was completed in 1716.

The pope has called a summit of the heads of national Catholic churches at the Vatican from February 21-24 to discuss what is now a global sexual abuse crisis.

The meeting offers a chance for him to respond to criticism from victims of abuse that he has stumbled in his handling of the crisis and has not done enough to make bishops accountable.

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Their view: Diocese program deserves a chance, but it does merit scrutiny too

WILKES-BARRE (PA)
Times Leader

January 26, 2019

What to make of the Diocese of Scranton’s new “Independent Survivors Compensation Program”?

On the face of it, ignoring past actions both within this diocese and throughout the United States Catholic hierarchy, and ignoring outside pressures for stronger action in the long-standing sex abuse scandal that has plagued the Church, this feels right.

It makes sense to hire an outside group to administer a compensation program. It’s laudable and logical that the program is open to all victims, whether victimized by a priest of the diocese proper (there is an important distinction between a diocesan priest and priest practicing within the diocese), as well as by someone from a religious order or a lay employee of the diocese.

The program includes the critical caveat that even victims who have not yet reported past abuses can participate after reporting abuse in writing to a District Attorney’s Office.

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Archbishop addresses release of list of clerics with substantiated allegations

KANSAS CITY (KS)
The Leaven

January 25, 2019

By Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann

Today’s Leaven makes public a list of all Catholic clergy with substantiated allegations of sexual abuse of minors for whom we have files in the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas dating from the 1940s to the present.

To assist the archdiocese with this effort, we engaged the services of Husch Blackwell, a law firm with expertise and experience conducting similar types of reviews for many entities, organizations, and public and private educational institutions. We asked Husch Blackwell to provide us with an objective and comprehensive understanding of more than a thousand files of Catholic clergy dating back more than 75 years.

Each name on this list represents a grave human tragedy. Each name represents a betrayal of trust and a violation of the innocent. The sexual abuse of children and youth by Catholic priests contradicts our church’s teaching on authentic love, the beauty of human sexuality and the dignity of the human person. What was done to victims by those who were called to be spiritual fathers is cause for great shame. On behalf of the church, I apologize to each victim and pledge our commitment to do all that we can to assist with your healing.

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Retired Munhall Catholic priest arrested, charged with child sex abuse

PITTSBURGH (PA)
The Tribune-Review

January 25, 2019

By Megan Guza

Allegheny County police Friday arrested a retired Catholic priest for the alleged assault of a 10-year-old boy in 2001, authorities said.

The Rev. Hugh J. Lang, 88, was a priest at St. Therese in Munhall at the time of the alleged assault, said police Inspector Andrew Schurman.

Schurman said the alleged victim, who he did not identify but lives in another country, saw the media coverage of the statewide grand jury report alleging decades of abuse and cover-ups within six Catholic diocese, including the Diocese of Pittsburgh.

Schurman said the individual called the Attorney General’s abuse hotline after seeing the coverage, and the complaint was forwarded first to the Childline program and then to county police.

Lang retired in 2006, and the diocese acknowledged the newfound allegations against him in August, placing him on leave. A diocesan spokesman said at the time it was the first allegation leveled against the clergyman.

The alleged victim told police the abuse happened during alter server training, during which Lang pulled him away from the other boys and took him to a room in the basement of St. Therese, according to the criminal complaint.

He told police Lang called him a troublemaker and told him to take off his clothes, according to the complaint. Lang allegedly took a Polaroid photo and told the victim he would show the photo to others if he didn’t behave.

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The church needs Vatican III

KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

January 25, 2019

By Pat Perriello

Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore has taken unilateral action to address the sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church. He should be commended for doing so. While his efforts are unlikely to resolve many of the problems associated with the crisis, it is at least a decision to act rather than waiting for permission.

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However, the church is faced with a crisis that goes even beyond the sex abuse atrocities. There is a fracturing within the church of historic dimensions. Pope Francis himself has lost credibility, as members of the hierarchy feel emboldened to criticize him directly. They not only question his actions on the crisis but go after his leadership and commitment to what they see as unchangeable doctrines.

Bishops have accused the pope of lacking clarity in his statements on homosexuality and divorce. According to the Times, less than half of U.S. bishops attended the January retreat which Francis had encouraged the bishops to hold back in September.

Should the bishops act on their own? How does Francis and the church reestablish unity — or can they? Certainly, prayer to the Holy Spirit for guidance is in order, but what can be done?

I agree with Pope Francis when he says that credibility “cannot be regained by issuing stern decrees or by simply creating new committees . . . as if we were in charge of a department of human resources.”

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Can church and university prevent more corruption by power?

MANCHESTER (CT)
Journal Inquirer

January 26, 2019

By Chris Powell

At the admirable direction of Archbishop Leonard Blair, the Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford this week more or less came clean about the sexual abuse perpetrated by its priests during the last six decades.

The archdiocese identified 48 priests who had been credibly accused and reported that it had paid more than $50 million in the resulting damage claims. About half the priests cited are dead and most of the misconduct seems to have occurred prior to 1990, though it wasn’t acknowledged and its victims compensated for many years. The archdiocese has commissioned a retired Superior Court judge to investigate and report on the scandal.

Some of the victims seem to want to be victims forever, but the biggest victim here is the church itself, having betrayed the trust of parishioners for so long and covered up until recently and then suffering a devastating financial penalty. Institutional charity and spirituality itself have been gravely damaged just when they are most needed, what with the country and Connecticut falling apart in hateful politics and incompetence.

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3 Biloxi priests credibly accused of abuse: report

NEW ORLEANS (LA)
Times-Picayune

January 25, 2019

By Kim Chatelain

Three priests in the Catholic Diocese of Biloxi were removed from ministry after they were credibly accused of sexual misconduct of minors, the Biloxi Sun Herald reported.

In a release on Thursday (Jan. 24), the Diocese identified them as former priests Jose Vazquez Morales, Jerome J. Axton and Vincent The Quang Nguyen. In all three cases, the Diocese notified the District Attorney’s Office, the newspaper reported.

The list does not include alleged abuse reported to have happened outside the Diocese by extern clergy who served in the Diocese, or allegations from before the Diocese was founded in 1977, the Sun Herald reported. The Diocese of Jackson, Mississippi, is expected to release names of priests credibly accused of abuse this spring.

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Two late priests with Lyon County connections on KCK archdiocese ‘substantiated allegation’ report

EMPORIA (KS)
KVOE TV

January 26, 2019

By Chuck Samples

The Catholic Archdiocese of Kansas City has announced 22 priests have had substantiated allegations of sexually abusing minors over the past 75 years as similar investigations continue in Catholic dioceses across the country.

On the list are two late priests that served Lyon County parishes during their careers. Lambert Dannenfelser, a Franciscan, served Emporia’s Sacred Heart Church from 1969 to 1974. He also served Olpe’s St. Joseph Church. The diocese says there was more than one allegation against Dannenfelser, although it does not specify how many. It also lists his estimated abuse timetable as 1989. Dannenfelser, a native of Cincinnati, Ohio, spent time in missions in New Mexico and also served around the Cincinnati area before he died in 2006.

Another Franciscan, Steven Lamping, served at St. Joseph Church in the 1940s and 1950s, according to online archive information. The diocese says his estimated time frame of abuse was the 1950s, and there are multiple allegations of sex abuse against Lamping, who has since died. St. Joseph was his only church assignment, according to information provided by the archdiocese. Additional information about Lamping is not immediately available.

Archbishop Joseph Naumann says “each name on this list represents a grave human tragedy” and that “each name represents a betrayal of trust and a violation of the innocent.” None of the priests on the list are currently in ministry, according to the archdiocese.

The abuse of children by priests has been in headlines periodically since the late 1980s, but the most recent batch of headlines hit last summer when a grand jury in Pennsylvania found that church leaders had covered up abuse by hundreds of priests dating back decades.

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Victim speaks out after KCK diocese names 22 former priests in sexual abuse report

KANSAS CITY (KS)
Fox 4 News

January 25, 2019

By Shannon O’Brien

The Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas released a new report Friday, naming more than 20 priests accused of sexual abuse.

The Archdiocese newspaper, The Leaven, lists 22 priests who the Archdiocese believes have substantiated claims of clergy sexual abuse with a minor.

The Archdiocese of KCK enlisted Chicago-based law firm Hush and Blackwell to look at over 1,080 files dating back to the 1940’s through today, to help determine what sexual abuse may have taken place in the diocese over the past 75 years.

The list of 22 names is the result of that review. Read the report and entire list of names here.

Some of them are known abusers. Other names are new. According to the list, none of the 22 men are currently ministering in the archdiocese.

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Raif: What happened to accountability and repentance?

LONGVIEW (TX)
Longview Nwqa Journal

January 25, 2019

By Gayle Raif

I find it really disheartening, but unfortunately not surprising, to read about sexual abuse perpetrated by Christian leaders. The most prominent news is about the Roman Catholic Church.

Pope Francis has addressed the rampant sexual abuse among Catholic clergy, citing a Pennsylvania grand jury report that showed more than 300 predator priests in that state had raped and molested more than 1,000 victims during a 70-year period. It also happened in Washington, D.C., where an abusive cardinal resigned, and in other places in the U.S. and every country where there is a Catholic church.

Protestants are not off the hook, because it’s also happening with them. Unfortunately, many of our Christian leadership — pastors, other ministers, even church office workers — forget to whom and for whom they are responsible. It seems they have come to believe that if they can hide their private thoughts, desires and actions but function publicly in a “spiritual” way, then all is right with God and their leadership.

Alas, that attitude permeates our society, but also excuses actions of adults, even pastors and religious leaders. The most prominent pastor to be accused of sexual abuse of women is Bill Hybels, now former pastor of Willow Creek Community Church just south of Chicago. He, as well as all the church staff and other ministers, have resigned.

It is happening in other churches, even in Longview. A recent series in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram alerted us to rape and indecency of pastors in the Fundamental Baptist Church, as well as another pastor who is now in prison for having sexual relations with a teenager.

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Sex-Abuse Claims Against Fairfield University Non-Profit Settled For $60M

FAIRFIELD (CT)
Daily Voice

January 25, 2019

By Zak Failla

Fairfield University and four other religious and charitable organizations have reached a $60 million settlement regarding alleged sexual abuse from a graduate.

In a statement released on Friday, the university announced that it has “agreed to a second and concluding legal settlement with a group of individuals who came forward with allegations that they were sexually abused in Haiti in the late 1990s and early 2000s by Douglas Perlitz, a Fairfield University alumnus.

The lawsuit was brought on behalf of Haitian minors by Mitchell Garabedian, a Boston-based lawyer, who has made a name for himself representing hundreds of clergy sexual assault victims.

According to Fairfield University, the announcement relates to Project Pierre Toussaint, a charity that was established in 1997 by Perlitz, designed to support underprivileged boys in Haiti. The multi-phase program fed, clothed, provided shelter and educated the young boys. In 2008, Perlitz was found to have been “grossly abusing his position, sexually assaulting some of the young men in his car.”

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$60M Settlement In Sex Abuse Claims Against Fairfield U Graduate

FAIRFIELD (CT)
The Patch

January 25, 2019

By Vincent Salzo

The settlement is in connection to sexual abuse claims against a Fairfield University graduate’s charity in Haiti.

Fairfield University, along with four other defendants, have reached a $60-million settlement in connection to sexual abuse claims against a Fairfield University graduate’s charity in Haiti. Douglas Perlitz established the charity known as “Project Pierre Toussaint” in 1997 aimed at helping underprivileged young men in Haiti.

“Many of our community members were inspired by this effort and gave generously to support it,” according to a joint statement from Frank J. Carroll III, chairman of the board of trustees, and Mark Nemec, president of Fairfield University, to the campus community announcing the settlement. “Eleven years later, in 2008, the University learned that Mr. Perlitz had grossly abused his position, sexually assaulting some of the young men in his care.

“Though some members of our community donated time and resources to the project. Fairfield University played no role in the management or governance of Project Pierre Toussaint. The University was not aware of Mr. Perlitz’s crimes before they were publicly reported. Regardless, our community was shaken by these revelations.”

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Fairfield University, others settle Haiti sex abuse case for $60M

HARTFORD (CT)
Fox 61 TV

January 25, 2019

More than 130 people who say they were sexually abused as children at a now-defunct charity school in Haiti would receive $60 million in a legal settlement with a Connecticut Jesuit school and other religious organizations, lawyers and school officials announced Friday.

The class-action lawsuit filed in federal court in Hartford involved poor and often homeless boys who attended the Project Pierre Toussaint School in Cap-Haitien over a period of more than a decade beginning in the late 1990s. A founder of the school, Fairfield University graduate Douglas Perlitz, is serving a nearly 20-year prison sentence for sexually abusing boys there.

The defendants include Fairfield University, the Society of Jesus of New England, the Order of Malta and Haiti Fund Inc., which financially supported the Haiti school. The lawsuit alleged they were negligent in supervising Perlitz and failed to prevent the abuse.

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Jesuit school, others settle Haiti sex abuse case for $60M

HARTFORD (CT)
Associated Press

January 25, 2019

By Dave Collins

More than 130 people who say they were sexually abused as children at a now-defunct charity school in Haiti would receive $60 million in a legal settlement with a Connecticut Jesuit school and other religious organizations, lawyers and school officials announced Friday.

The class-action lawsuit filed in federal court in Hartford involved poor and often homeless boys who attended the Project Pierre Toussaint School in Cap-Haitien over a period of more than a decade beginning in the late 1990s. A founder of the school, Fairfield University graduate Douglas Perlitz, is serving a nearly 20-year prison sentence for sexually abusing boys there.

The defendants include Fairfield University, the Society of Jesus of New England, the Order of Malta and Haiti Fund Inc., which financially supported the Haiti school. The lawsuit alleged they were negligent in supervising Perlitz and failed to prevent the abuse.

“What we learned in these cases is that impoverished Haitian children were sexually abused and then left in pain, agony and without hope,” said Mitchell Garabedian, a Boston lawyer representing the 130 plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit.

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January 25, 2019

Former New Ulm Diocese Priest Faces Sex Abuse Accusations in Texas

MANKATO (MN)
KEYC TV

January 25, 2019

A priest who had served in the Diocese of New Ulm from 1983 to his retirement in 2016 is accused of sexual abuse of two minors in 1976.

At that time, Fr. William Sprigler served in the Archdiocese of San Antonio, Texas.

The Diocese of New Ulm said it has not received any allegations of sexual abuse of minors against Fr. Sprigler during the time he served its parishes.

Texas law enforcement is handling investigation into the 1976 allegations believed to be credible. Since 2016, Fr. Sprigler has filled in at parishes in Florida.

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Substantiated cases of sexual abuse include multiple priests assigned to Shawnee Mission area parishes

SHAWNEE MISSION (KS)
Shawnee Mission Post

January 25, 2019

By Jay Senter

The Catholic Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas today published a list of 22 priests who it says are credibly accused of sexual abuse against minors.

In a special issue of The Leaven, the archdioceses’ newspaper, Archbishop Joseph Naumann said the list was being released after an extensive investigation conducted by the law firm Husch Blackwell, whose Chicago office reviewed approximately 1,080 clergy files from the past 75 years.

The information included in the archdioceses’ report shows that 11 of the priests were assigned at one point or another to a parish in the Shawnee Mission area, and another was credibly accused of abuse during a visit to Roeland Park. The report does not indicate at which parishes specific incidences of abuse may have taken place.

Some of the priests implicated in sexual abuse served at St. Agnes in Roeland Park; St. Ann in Prairie Village; Queen of the Holy Rosary in Overland Park; Holy Cross in Overland park; St. Joseph in Shawnee; Holy Trinity in Lenexa; and Good Shepherd in Shawnee.

In a column accompanying the publication of the names, Naumann apologized and said the church stood ready to assist victims:

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Mountain Home priest accused of rape won’t face new trial; future with diocese is unclear

BOISE (ID)
Idaho Statesman

January 25, 2019

By Ruth Brown

The Mountain Home priest accused of raping an intoxicated man who was renting a room from him will not face a new trial, but his future with the Roman Catholic Church remains unclear.

The Rev. Victor Franz Jagerstatter’s trial in 2017 was declared a mistrial after the jury could not reach a unanimous decision. At the time, prosecutors said that one juror refused to deliberate the verdict. After the mistrial, the alleged victim was deployed on military duty, and in July 2018, the charge was dismissed without prejudice, meaning there won’t be an immediate retrial, but further litigation is possible.

At the time of the rape charge, Jagerstatter was a priest at Our Lady of Good Counsel in

The airman at Mountain Home Air Force Base told police that he went home intoxicated after a party in July 2016, fell asleep fully clothed, and then awoke partially undressed, according to previous Statesman reporting. The airman told police that he did not give permission for any sexual contact, according to court documents.

Multiple calls by the Statesman to the Elmore County Prosecutor’s Office this week to ask about the case were not returned.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Boise still has Jagerstatter listed as being on administrative leave, and he no longer appears on the diocese website. Spokesman Gene Fadness said Jagerstatter is not living in church property.

“Technically, he remains a priest at this moment, but he has not been given a new assignment, nor will he be in the future,” Fadness told the Statesman in an email.

A decision on whether Jagerstatter will be disciplined within the church has not been made, but the Diocese of Boise sought advice from the Vatican.

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Church sex abuse summit a bid for ‘concrete change’: Vatican

ROME (ITALY)
AFP

January 25, 2019

The Vatican said Friday that next month’s meeting of Church leaders in Rome was a unique chance to tackle the “terrible plague” of child sex abuse by Catholic clergy.

“This will be an unprecedented occasion to face the problem and really find the concrete measures so that when the bishops will come back from Rome to their dioceses, they will be able to face this terrible plague,” Vatican spokesman Alessandro Gisotti said.

Gisotti played down questions over why Pope Francis failed to speak out against clergy sex abuse during his ongoing visit to Panama.

The pope addressed hundreds of bishops from across Central America on Thursday, the first full day of his five-day visit to Panama for World Youth Day, but never mentioned the scandals.

It was the largest gathering of bishops since he announced the February summit with Church leaders from around the world to discuss the biggest crisis facing his papacy.

Gisotti said the Church was under “incredible pressure” and that the issue was never far from Francis’ mind.

“What I want to underline is that it is not necessary that every speech with every bishops conference — or every situation where there are young people — he has to face this problem,” Gisotti told a news conference on the sidelines of the giant meeting of Catholic young people, where he faced questions on the omission.

He said the issue “is really very very present” for the 82-year-old pontiff.

e said the 21-24 February meeting with the presidents of bishops conferences had been called amid an “extraordinary situation”.

“You can understand how important this meeting is for the pope,” said Gisotti.

“This is not the beginning of this battle, it is a painful journey. Probably the most painful journey we can imagine. And this has been said by Pope Benedict and now Pope Francis. So we understand there is an incredible pressure.”

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List of names in Diocese of Monterey’s report comes up short, say two groups

MONTEREY (CA)
Monterey Herald

January 25, 2019

By James Herrera

When the Diocese of Monterey published the results of its review of clergymen’s personnel files a few weeks ago, it listed 30 who had been credibly or plausibly accused of sexual misconduct with a child going back to the 1950s.

Yet critics are quick to say this is not a complete picture because of the criteria the review used to determine whose names would be listed.

At the outset of the review, Bishop Gerald Wilkerson, apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Monterey, outlined the objectives of the review, saying: “We want to assure people that any priest who has a credible accusation of child abuse against him is no longer in ministry. Our hope is that an outside firm brings transparency and assurance that this is a true and accurate account.”

But an organization that tracks clergy sex abuse cases says the Diocese of Monterey failed at that.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests has compiled a list of 18 names it feels should be included on a complete list. To compile this list, the organization used information from Bishop Accountability, an organization that aims to facilitate the accountability of bishops in the United States.

SNAP is a self-help group of more than 25,000 members for clergy sex abuse victims. Its support groups meet in over 60 cities across the globe. Its response to the Diocese of Monterey’s Report of Credible Allegations immediately after it was published Jan. 2, can be found at bit.ly/2sOEjYI.

Paul Gaspari, a lawyer with Weintraub Tobin, the outside law firm the Diocese of Monterey tasked with conducting the review, responded to assertions made by SNAP by saying: “I trust you recognize that Bishop Accountability is not independent and the ‘database’ is far from accurate.”

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DC attorney general: ‘We’re not targeting the archdiocese’ with mandatory-reporting bill

WASHINGTON, DC
WTOP TV

January 25, 2019

By Neal Augenstein

With the past two archbishops of D.C. — Cardinals Donald Wuerl and Theodore McCarrick — at the center of the national discussion on clergy sex abuse, the District’s attorney general is proposing legislation to add clergy to the list of “mandatory reporters.”

“We’re not targeting the archdiocese, or any other religious entity,” Attorney General Karl Racine told WTOP. “What we’re doing is seeking to protect young people.”

A spokesman for the Archdiocese of Washington, Ed McFadden, told WTOP that the archdiocese has “trained and required all priests, religious employees and all volunteers of the archdiocese to serve as mandated reporters,” and suggested that the District is now catching up with the church.

“We, of course, have met with the archdiocese lawyers,” said Racine. “We also have a faith-based council, which is an informal group that we meet with from time to time” to discuss laws that may affect religious institutions, he added.

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Retired Pittsburgh priest, 88, charged with sexual abuse of child in early 2000s

PITTSBURGH (PA)
WTAE TV

Jan 25, 2019

A retired Catholic priest who came under investigation in the wake of last year’s state grand jury report was arrested Friday on charges that he assaulted a 10-year-old boy during altar service training in 2001, Allegheny County police said.

The Rev. Hugh Lang, 88, was released on nonmonetary bond after turning himself in for arraignment by District Judge Thomas Torkowsky. Police said Lang was charged with sexual abuse of children, aggravated indecent assault, unlawful contact with minors, corruption of minors, indecent assault and indecent exposure.

Lang, of Castle Shannon, was serving at Saint Therese of Lisieux in Munhall when the alleged assault happened in June 2001, police said.

The alleged victim, identified as John Doe, told police that Lang removed him from the other boys in training and took him to a CCD room in the church basement, according to the criminal complaint.

“After Father Lang and John Doe entered the room, Father Lang locked the door. Father Lang then told John Doe that Doe was a troublemaker and instructed Doe to remove his clothes,” the complaint said. “After John Doe removed his clothes, Father Lang took a Polaroid photograph of John Doe while he was standing naked. Father Lang showed the photo to John Doe and warned him that if he didn’t behave, he would show the photo to others.”

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What is in the Child Victims Act?

BUFFALO (N.Y)
WIVB TV

January 25, 2019

By Chris Horvatits

Another big vote is expected in Albany next week, as lawmakers are scheduled to take up the Child Victims Act. The measure, which has passed the Assembly previously, has stalled in the Senate several times in recent years.

It’s a bill which victims of child sex abuse have been fighting for, especially those involved in the clergy sex abuse scandal. In part, it extends the statute of limitations for both civil and criminal cases concerning abuse.

With Democrats taking control of the Senate from Republicans this year, it faces a much more optimistic future than it did in previous years.

James Faluszczak, an abuse victim who now advocates for victims of clergy sex abuse, will be in Albany when the vote is taken on Monday.

“I’m going to Albany on Monday to, first of all, thank the members of the Senate and Assembly who are supporting this legislation. I’m going to celebrate with victims,” Faluszczak said.

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Retired Munhall Catholic priest arrested, charged with child sex abuse

ALLEGHENY (PA)
Trib Live

January 25, 2019

By Megan Guza

Allegheny County police Friday arrested a retired Catholic priest for the alleged assault of a 10-year-old boy in 2001, authorities said.

The Rev. Hugh J. Lang, 88, was a priest at St. Therese in Munhall at the time of the alleged assault, said police Inspector Andrew Schurman.

Schurman said the alleged victim, who he did not identify but lives in another country, saw the media coverage of the statewide grand jury report alleging decades of abuse and cover-ups within six Catholic diocese, including the Diocese of Pittsburgh.

Schurman said the person called the Attorney General’s abuse hotline after seeing the coverage, and the complaint was forwarded first to the Childline program and then to county police.

Lang retired in 2006, and the diocese acknowledged the newfound allegations against him in August, placing him on leave. A diocesan spokesman said at the time it was the first allegation leveled against the clergyman.

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Kansas diocese inquiry into abuse of minors names 22 clerics

KANSAS CITY (MO)
Associated Press

January 25, 2019

By Margaret Stafford

A law firm that reviewed 75 years of clergy files in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas found 22 substantiated claims of sexual abuse against priests or other clerics, the archdiocese announced Friday.

The archdiocese released the names of all 22 men in its publication, The Leaven . None of the 22 men are currently ministering in the archdiocese, according to list. Eleven have died; seven have been “laicized,” meaning they were removed from clerical service; one was “removed from ministry;” one was last known to be at a friary in Denver; and the status of two others are unknown.

Archbishop Joseph Naumann said in a column in The Leaven that it is difficult to “discern the truth” of an event from decades ago, especially when the accused is deceased and other people’s memories have faded.

“The list that we are providing today is accurate based on the information we possess at this moment,” Naumann wrote.

The Husch Blackwell law firm reviewed about 1,080 clergy files to compile the list. A report based on the investigation has been shared with the Kansas attorney general’s office and the list will be updated if more information becomes available, the archbishop said.

The archdiocese hired the law firm in August when the Catholic Church was shaken by a grand jury report that found abuse by up to 300 priests in six Pennsylvania dioceses over the last 70 years, and reports that Pope Francis and other church leaders knew about sexual misconduct allegations against the former archbishop of Washington, Theodore McCarrick, but rehabilitated him anyway.

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‘A grave human tragedy’: KCK archbishop names 22 priests credibly accused of sex abuse

KANSAS CITY (MO)
Kansas City Star

January 25, 2019

By Judy L. Thomas

The Catholic Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas on Friday released the names of 22 priests in its files who have had substantiated allegations of sexual abuse of minors made against them in the past 75 years.

“Each name on this list represents a grave human tragedy,” said Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann in a statement published Friday in The Leaven, the archdiocesan newspaper. “Each name represents a betrayal of trust and a violation of the innocent.”

In addition to the 22, the list includes four priests whom the archdiocese said have had previously publicized allegations that were not able to be substantiated.

None on the list is in current ministry in the archdiocese, Naumann said.
The list was compiled after a review of about 1,080 clergy files dating back more than 75 years, the archdiocese said. The review was conducted by the Chicago office of the Husch Blackwell law firm.

A report based on the findings was provided to the Kansas attorney general, the archdiocese said. Naumann said the list will be updated if new information comes to light.

Of the 22 clergy on the list, 10 were priests of the archdiocese, according to The Leaven. Eleven are dead and seven have been laicized, or removed from the priesthood. The status of some others are unknown.

Naumann said the sexual abuse of children and youth by Catholic priests “contradicts our church’s teaching on authentic love, the beauty of human sexuality and the dignity of the human person.”

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List of 22 clergy with substantiated claims of sexual abuse released by KCK Archdiocese

TOPEKA (KS)
Topeka Capital-Journal

January 25, 2019

By Katie Moore

The Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas released Friday the names of 22 clergy with substantiated claims of sexual abuse involving a minor.

The Chicago office of law firm Husch Blackwell reviewed about 1,080 clergy files, according to the archdiocese’s publication The Leaven.

Of the 22 listed, 10 were priests in the archdiocese. Eleven have died and seven have been laicized. Laicization occurs when a cleric officially returns to the lay state.

One of the named priests, Martin Juarez, led St. Matthew’s Parish in Topeka. Scott Goodloe said in August that he was victimized from 1981 to 1984 by Juarez and a claim was settled in 1999.

A lawsuit filed last year accuses a “Father M.J.” of abuse. The lawsuit is ongoing in Wyandotte County, where the archdiocese is based.

“Survivors of sexual abuse have for many, many years asked the Church to make publicly known those wrapped in the robes of a priest who have abused children,” said attorney Rebecca Randles, who is representing the alleged victim in the case. “The partial list provided by the Archdiocese of Kansas is a start but does not go far enough to provide real transparency regarding abuse of children and vulnerable adults. It is our hope that the attorney general’s office will undergo a complete investigation similar to that in Pennsylvania.”

A grand jury report on six dioceses in Pennsylvania, released in August, found more than 1,000 child victims. It included details about how priests used religious rituals and the threat of eternity in hell to rape children, the Associated Press reported.

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Fairfield University, religious charities agree to $60 million settlement for 133 children sexually abused at Haitian school

HARTFORD (CT)
Hartford Courant

January 25, 2019

By Nicholas Rondinone

Eight years after Douglas Perlitz was sent to prison for using school, shelter and food to get boys to perform sexual acts, an attorney for the 133 victims said they struck a $60 million settlement with Fairfield University and other religious charities that supported Perlitz’s charity for homeless boys in Haiti while ignoring signs of the widespread abuse.

The homeless boys, some now men, were abused in the late 1990s and early 2000s while living at a school run by Project Pierre Toussaint, a school created by Perlitz, a 1997 graduate of Fairfield University. One lawsuit includes a claim that one of the victims, a minor, was sexually abused by another person involved with the school, but that individual has not been charged criminally.

“This settlement is life changing for my clients. As you know, Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere,” said Mitchell Garabedian, a Boston-based attorney representing the boys. “The victims were homeless without food, without clothing and without medicine… They are sick and have been sick. They are starving for the longest period. This is life changing.”

Garabedian said they have asked a federal judge in Connecticut to consider creating a class-action lawsuit and then approving the settlement fund already agreed upon by the school and charities, including the Order of Malta, Haiti Fund Inc. and the Society of Jesus of New England. The class-action lawsuit would encompass 51 current lawsuits and 82 claims vetted by attorneys, Garabedian said.

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Substantiated Allegations of Clergy Sexual Abuse of a Minor

KANSAS CITY (KS)
Archdiocese of Kansas City

January 25, 2019

BRAYLEY, JOHN
Affiliation: Oblate missionary, Montreal, Canada
Year of birth: Unknown
Year of ordination: Unknown
Last known status: Deceased
Estimated timeframe of abuse: 1980 while visiting friends in Roeland Park
More than one allegation: No

DANNENFELSER, LAMBERT
Affiliation: Franciscans (OFM)
Year of birth: Unknown
Year of ordination: Unknown
Last known status: Deceased
Estimated timeframe of abuse: 1989
Pastoral assignments:
• Sacred Heart, Emporia
• St. Joseph, Olpe
More than one allegation: Yes

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More abuse survivors and witnesses step forward in Missouri Catholic clergy probe

ST. LOUIS (MO)
Post Dispatch

January 25, 2019

By Kurt Erickson

An estimated 70 people have completed an online form saying they were either a victim or a witness to abuse by Catholic priests as part of an investigation underway by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt.

That number is up from the 50 survivors and potential witnesses who contacted the office in the first month of the probe, which was launched in August by Schmitt’s predecessor, Republican U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley.

Although a spokesman for Schmitt provided an update on how many people have contacted the office, he said he could not provide answers to the Post-Dispatch about other aspects of the investigation, including how many attorneys are working on the case and whether there is a timeline to conclude the proceedings.

“The other questions I can’t comment on since this is an ongoing investigation,” said Chris Nuelle.

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Igreja católica da PB tem de pagar R$ 12 milhões por abuso sexual, diz TV

[Catholic Church of Paraíba has to pay R $ 12 million for sexual abuse, says TV]

PARAÍBA (BRAZIL)
Diario de Pernambuco

January 21, 2019

A Justiça do Trabalho condenou Arquidiocese da Paraíba a pagar R$ 12 milhões de indenização por exploração sexual cometida por padres contra crianças e adolescentes, segundo reportagem do programa Fantástico, veiculada na noite deste domingo (20/1), pela TV Globo. Na Justiça, os envolvidos negaram os crimes.

[Google Translation: The Labor Court condemned the Archdiocese of Paraíba to pay R $ 12 million in compensation for sexual exploitation committed by priests against children and adolescents, according to a report on the TV show Fantástico, broadcast on Sunday night (20/1) by TV Globo. In court, those involved denied the crimes.]

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Pope’s anti-abuse summit needs to hear from ‘designated survivors’

DENVER (CO)
Crux

January 25, 2019

By Charles Collins

When over 180 bishops’ conference presidents and other Church leaders descend on Rome next month for a global summit on clerical sexual abuse, they will hear from some of the victims themselves. Yet a Jan. 16 Vatican communique making this announcement did not mention the names of those who would be giving the presentations.

Likewise, when the organizing committee for the Feb. 21-24 summit was named in November, the statement mentioned that “some victims of abuse by members of the clergy” would be involved in the preparations. When Crux asked who they would be, we were told they might be named at a later date – so far, they haven’t been.

When Irish abuse survivor Marie Collins resigned from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors in 2017 – following English survivor Peter Saunders’ exit the previous year – the commission’s president, Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley, told Crux: “Perhaps having survivors who were known as survivors was part of the reason they got so much attention.”

The Vatican seems have taken this concern to heart: When new commission members were announced last year, the statement said “the members of the commission include both victims of clerical sexual abuse and parents of victims.” But the announcement also said that none of them wished to be identified as such, with the Vatican explaining it was “defending each person’s right to choose whether or not to disclose their experiences of abuse publicly.”

When La Civilta Cattolica revealed in February 2018 that Pope Francis told Jesuits in Peru that he “regularly” met with abuse survivors on Fridays in his residence, the Vatican spokesman said “the meetings are held with the utmost privacy, in respect of the victims and their suffering.”

In fact, none of the participants of these meetings have ever spoken about it (Crux has independently confirmed that such meetings have taken place.)

It’s important to note that many survivors of sexual abuse don’t want to publicize the fact, and just because someone has chosen not to take up an advocacy role doesn’t mean their voices shouldn’t be heard by the leaders of the Church.

But there was a reason Saunders and Collins, longtime advocates for the victims of clerical sexual abuse, were appointed to the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, and it went beyond the ability to relate their personal experiences to members of the Vatican hierarchy – they were in a unique position to hold the Church to account.

During their time on the commission, both survivors were vocal about what they thought needed to be done, both at the commission and within the wider Vatican. And, as O’Malley put it, they got attention.

Most observers said that was the problem.

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The Catholic church faces its past

LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Guardian

January 24, 2019

Last year investigations around the world showed that historical sexual abuse within the Catholic church had been covered up for decades. India Rakusen talks to two survivors and hears from the Guardian’s religion correspondent Harriet Sherwood on how the church plans to move forward. Plus: the Guardian’s Tom Phillips on Juan Guaidó’s attempted take over in Venezuela

Presented by India Rakusen with Harriet Sherwood and Tom Phillips; produced by Rachel Humphries and Axel Kacoutié; executive producers Nicole Jackson and Phil Maynard

In February, Catholic bishops from around the world will attend a summit at the Vatican to discuss how to tackle child abuse within the church. Last year a series of inquiries shook the church, embroiling Pope Francis in the biggest crisis of his papacy. Investigations found that historical sexual abuse had been covered up for decades, and thousands of victims gave evidence of rape and abuse.

In the UK, the national inquiry into child sexual abuse is examining the extent of any institutional failures to protect children by the Catholic church in Birmingham. Birmingham was chosen as a case study because it is the largest archdiocese in England. India Rakusen hears from two survivors who gave evidence at the inquiry, while the Guardian’s religion correspondent Harriet Sherwood discusses how the church has responded and whether it can recover from this scandal.

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Clergy sex abuse survivors in Chuuk, Pohnpei sought

GUAM
Pacific Daily News

January 25, 2019

By Haidee V Eugenio

A law firm representing dozens of Guam clergy sex abuse plaintiffs is now also reaching out to child sexual abuse survivors in Chuuk and Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia, from the 1950s to the present.

The law firm of Berman O’Connor & Mann is seeking individuals who may have been victims of sex abuse while a minor and while attending Catholic schools and Catholic parishes in Chuuk and Pohnpei.

Public notices have been placed on Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and notices in the FSM may follow, according to Attorney Michael Berman, who represents some three-dozen Guam clergy sex abuse plaintiffs.

At least two priests, now deceased, have been identified by the law firm in potential lawsuits involving cases in Pohnpei and Chuuk.

“The process in the FSM is just beginning,” Berman said.

Pohnpei, Chuuk and other FSM residents have moved to Guam throughout the years, under a compact with the United States.

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No one ‘should ever stop being vigilant’ of risk

LONDON (ENGLAND)
Church Times

January 25, 2019

By Hattie Williams

THE Church can “never again be trusted” to protect children and adults from being abused under its care — not unless it relinquishes, at all levels, the unquestioned deference that comes with power, accepts accountability, and has the policies in place to reduce the likelihood of abuse.

This was the view expressed by the first independent chair of the National Safeguarding Panel, Meg Munn, in her first interview since she was appointed at the end of last year (News, 21 September). She took over from the Bishop of Bath & Wells, the Rt Revd Peter Hancock, who is the lead bishop on safeguarding for the Church of England.

Speaking in Church House on Thursday of last week, Ms Munn said that no parent, carer, or friend should ever stop being “vigilant” of safeguarding risks in any organisation, including the Church.

“Unless the Church is getting it right now, unless it has done everything it possibly can in terms of preventative messages — checking people who are being put into positions of authority, holding people to account, and dealing with concerns — then that trust can never be built up.

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Lawsuit: Dallas priest gave boy oil massages, touched privates in church rectory

DALLAS (TX)
WFAA TV

January 24, 2019

By Mark Smith and Jason Whitely

Childhood photos are difficult for him to look back on.

“Only when you personally have gone through something like this do you understand what it looks like to not want to exist anymore,” said the 33-year-old man, who asked that WFAA not publish his name.

In a lawsuit he filed last year under the name John Doe, he is suing the Catholic Diocese of Dallas alleging that a priest named Timothy J. Heines, “sexually, emotionally, and physically abused” him.

“Ten years of my life were taken by a man that I thought cared for me and loved me in a church that I thought protected me and wanted to shepherd me as a young Christian,” the plaintiff told WFAA.

At age 12, his parents separated, and he said his mother got him involved in a local Catholic parish where he met Father Heines.

The priest soon began taking the young teen to dinner and buying him haircuts and expensive clothes while in high school.

“When we got back to the rectory at nighttime, he would encourage us to try on the clothes in front of him,” he said, “and he’d take out a camera and take pictures.”

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Sexual assault victims in Wisconsin often wait months to see charges filed, review shows

MILWAUKEE (WI)
USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

January 25, 2019

By Keegan Kyle

The woman was standing in her Wood County home, physically and emotionally frazzled, when she called 911 in March 2017.

She remembers her heart pounding. She was about to tell police that her neighbor had groped her and tried to pull her into his bedroom.

It took three months of investigation before detectives asked prosecutors to file charges. They believed the man was guilty of fourth-degree sexual assault.

Seven months later, more than 300 days after she called 911, the woman opened the mail to find a letter from prosecutors saying no charges would be filed. The decision itself was painful, but the way she learned about it only added to the sense of isolation she felt from the district attorney’s office, she said.

“You can’t call me up and tell me that?” she said. “Nobody can call me up and tell me we’re finally reviewing your case? You’re just sitting there in the dark.”

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Church, wider-culture continue to address sexual harassment, abuse in #MeToo age

NEW YORK (NY)
Episcopal News Service

January 24, 2019

By Lynette Wilson

Sexual misconduct and harassment includes more than stranger or acquaintance rape and physical abuse. In some instances, inappropriate touching, an unwanted kiss on the cheek, an awkward embrace or a hand placed too low on a woman’s back—all are more obvious forms of sexual harassment.

Other forms are less obvious, more insidious. Commenting on a woman’s appearance, inviting a woman into one’s office on the pretext of a meeting, when really, the intention is of a sexual nature. Referring to women and girls as “baby,” “honey” and “sweetheart.” Talking over women and deferring to men in meetings. The enduring gender pay gap.

Or, common forms women clergy confront in The Episcopal Church. “You’re too young to be a priest.” “You’re too pretty to be a priest.”

In the wake of the Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment scandal that rocked Hollywood and led to the downfall of powerful men across industries and professions, The Episcopal Church began its own examination of ingrained behaviors, practices and policies affecting women in January 2018.

A year and one General Convention later, Resolution D034, establishing a three-year suspension on the statute of limitations for sexual misconduct committed by clergy against an adult, became effective Jan. 1.

“A three-year suspension, that’s huge,” said House of Deputies President the Rev. Gay Clark Jennings, in an interview with Episcopal News Service. “We are suspending the statute of limitations because we want to hear your voice.”

Resolution D034 was one of 24 resolutions addressing sexual harassment, abuse, sexism, inequality and discrimination submitted by the Special Committee on Sexual Harassment and Exploitation; a 49-member, female-only committee appointed by Jennings.

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Church historian says sex abuse poses biggest threat to church in 500 years

KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

January 25, 2019

By Robert McCabe

A month before the start of a global summit in Rome on the sex abuse crisis, a prominent church historian and theologian said last week that the issue poses the biggest challenge to the church in 500 years.

“This is not like the Protestant Reformation; it’s not,” Massimo Faggioli, a Villanova University professor, said in a talk at Immaculate Conception Church in Hampton, Virginia.”But in my opinion, it’s the most serious crisis in the Catholic Church since the Protestant Reformation.”

In an hour-long presentation, Faggioli set out to show how and why this particular moment in the history of the church has become so critical and what the crisis is telling Catholics about the state of the church. The talk was sponsored by the Bishop Keane Institute, a ministry offered by the parish, which brings prominent Catholic speakers to southeastern Virginia.

While the crisis has gone global, said Faggioli, one strain of it is peculiar to the United States, where it is inseparable from such hot-button issues as sexuality, homosexuality and gender. The scandal in the United States has resulted in a “theological crisis,” he said. The crisis is also being used by some, according to Faggioli, to mount a campaign opposing Pope Francis.

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Archdiocese won’t reveal all accused priest names

HOUSTON (TX)
KHOU TV

January 24, 2019

By Jeremy Rogalski

“Houston, we have a problem.”

That is how SNAP, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, titled a local meeting Thursday, one week before the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston is expected to release a list of all priests credibly accused of sexually abusing a child.

“I believe it won’t be complete,” said Michael Norris, leader of the Houston chapter of SNAP.

Norris cited other cases of abuse underreporting, such as the Diocese of Buffalo and dioceses in Pennsylvania and Illinois, where outside investigations revealed many more priests accused then originally reported by the Church.

He also criticized the handling of Father Manuel LaRosa Lopez, a local priest arrested in September on four counts of indecency with a child. One of his accusers blamed Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, who oversees the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, for not removing LaRosa Lopez from ministry and transferring the priest to another parish.

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A reckoning on clergy sex abuse

PITTSBURGH (PA)
Post Gazette

January 24, 2019

By Josh Shapiro

The release of a report by a statewide grand jury detailing the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests in Pennsylvania, and an institutional cover-up across six dioceses stretching all the way to the Vatican, has sparked a movement and reckoning across our country.

Since the grand jury released its 884-page report in August, my office’s Clergy Abuse Hotline has received more than 1,450 calls. Our agents return every call, and a number of calls are of interest to us and have sparked new investigations.

While the report identified 301 predator priests, the criminal statute of limitations in Pennsylvania prevented my prosecutors from charging all but two offenders. The two priests we did charge, Father John Sweeney of the Diocese of Westmoreland, and Father David Poulson of the Diocese of Erie, both received significant prison sentences and are behind bars.

While not every victim of clergy abuse received the same sense of closure as Sweeney’s and Poulson’s victims, it has mattered greatly to many survivors that they have been able to share their truths and feel that people finally heard them.

I’ve heard that from victims in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and every corner of our commonwealth.

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Diocese of Biloxi Releases Names of Three Clerics Accused of Abuse

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

January 24, 2019

Today the Diocese of Biloxi released the names of three clerics that have been “credbily accused” of abuse.

We are grateful that Catholic officials have taken this small and belated step forward by disclosing these names. Some of this information has been kept hidden for years, and its release will provide comfort to victims, or family members of victims, who have been suffering alone and in silence.

However, since the Diocese openly acknowledged that it excluded “alleged abuse reported to have happened outside the Diocese by extern clergy who served in the Diocese, or allegations from before the Diocese was founded in 1977,” the list is incomplete on its face. If Bishop Louis F. Kihneman has information related to other abusers that spent time in the Biloxi Diocese, even if they abused elsewhere, then he should immediately release those names as well. Continued secrecy not only endangers today’s children, it also impedes victims’ healing.

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Superior Diocese cooperating with Ericksen probe; to release list of other abusive priests

WAUSAU (WI)
Wausau Daily Herald

January 25, 2019

By Laura Schulte

The Catholic Diocese of Superior says it is cooperating with officials investigating the case of a priest accused of assaulting minors the 1980s.

Dan Blank, the diocese’s director of administrative services, told USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin that the diocese was an intermediary in the reporting of a case filed Jan. 11 accusing former priest Thomas Ericksen of sexual assault of an unconscious victim.

Blank said the victim came to the diocese, which immediately recommended contacting law enforcement in Sawyer County.

Ericksen, who is now 71, was arrested on Nov. 16 in Minneapolis. He faces four separate charges stemming from his time at St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Winter: two charges of second-degree assault of an unconscious victim, one count of first-degree sexual assault of a child and one count of second-degree sexual assault of a child.

Ericksen was a priest in Rice Lake, Rhinelander and Merrill before he transferred to Winter.

Sawyer County investigators, who had looked into complaints about Ericksen in 1983, renewed their probe in 2010 after learning of more alleged assaults. Police obtained a confession from him in 2016, when he admitted to investigators that he had “fondled” three boys in Winter, as well as two boys in other Wisconsin cities, according to the criminal complaint.

The diocese has received a subpoena for documents, according to online court documents.

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January 24, 2019

Accusers speak out against priest sex abuse at Houston event

HOUSTON (TX)
Houston Chronicle

January 24, 2019

By Nicole Hensley

A former Conroe priest cried in front of Cardinal Daniel DiNardo and one of his accusers while delivering an apology for the sexual abuse with which he has now been charged, the accuser said Thursday.

The woman, who has asked not to be publicly identified, told survivors of priest abuse gathered Thursday night that the meeting took place after Manuel La Rosa-Lopez was allowed to continue his priestly duties.

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La Rosa-Lopez has been charged with four counts of indecency with a child in connection with two accusers, a man and the woman who shared their stories at the Freed-Montrose Neighborhood Library in Montrose.

He is accused of molesting the woman while assigned to the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Conroe. She was a teenager when the abuse is said to have taken place.

“I know a lot of people who attend Sacred Heart in Conroe,” she said. “That parish is on fire for justice. That means a lot to me.”

She is among three accusers who claim La Rosa-Lopez inappropriately touched them. The third accuser, who came forward in October, said he was abused as a 12-year-old altar boy at St. Thomas More Catholic Church in Houston.

The meeting — hosted by Houston’s Survivors Network of Those Accused by Priests chapter — comes a week before the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston is slated to make public a list of priests with credible child sex abuse accusations.

Michael Norris, who heads the Houston chapter, is keeping his expectations low.

“It won’t be complete,” Norris told about two dozen people in the audience.

SNAP President Tim Lennon and researcher Siobhan Fleming said that if the ratio of accused priests in Houston is comparable to what was uncovered in a sweeping Pennsylvania grand jury report in August, there could be 180 to 343 clergy members accused locally. The number is a startling estimate beyond what former Bishop Joseph Fiorenza revealed in 2004.

He said that from 1950 and up until that point, only 22 diocesan and religious order priests, and four deacons, had been accused of molesting children. During that time, the diocese had also distributed $3.6 million in settlements.

The Houston Chronicle has independently identified up to 20 priests who could be on the list, according to court records, police reports and interviews.

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A ‘new covenant’ in Ireland

LONDON (ENGLAND)
Church Times

January 25, 2019

By Madeleine Davies

When the Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, welcomed Pope Francis at Dublin Castle last August, he did not flinch from reciting a catalogue of the “dark aspects” of the Roman Catholic Church’s history (News, 31 August 2018).

“In place of Christian charity, forgiveness, and compassion, far too often there was judgement, severity, and cruelty: in particular, towards women and children and those on the margins,” he pronounced. “Magdalene Laundries, mother-and-baby homes, industrial schools, illegal adoptions, and clerical child abuse are stains on our State, our society, and also the Catholic Church. Wounds are still open.”

Overshadowing the visit, already fraught with fears that the Pope would fail abuse survivors, were fresh revelations from across the Atlantic. A grand jury had concluded that more than 300 priests had abused more than 1000 children in Pennsylvania. It was, Mr Varadkar noted, “a story all too tragically familiar here in Ireland”.

His speech was complimentary towards the Pope himself, fulsome in its acknowledgement of the Church’s gifts — the schools that it had established “in the open air next to hedgerows”, the “brave missionary priests and nuns” — and appreciative of the ties between faith and the fight for independence.

But nobody watching could be left in any doubt about the balance of power. It was time, he told the Pope, for “a more mature relationship” between Church and State: “a new covenant for the 21st century” — one in which “religion is no longer at the centre of our society, but in which it still has an important place”.

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Child Sex Scandals in the Catholic Church and Schools May Bring Legal Changes

Legal Reader blog

January 24, 2019

By Ryan J. Farrick

Several states, including New Jersey and New York, are contemplating major changes to the way they treat lawsuits filed by victims of child sex abuse.

Decades of lobbying to extend the statute of limitations for victims of child sex abuse are beginning to pay off.

This year, writes the Associated Press, has seen an unprecedented number of state-level breakthroughs. The policy shifts are likely related to widespread and high-profile lawsuits filed against the Roman Catholic Church.

New York, claims the AP, makes a stellar exhibit. A recent takeover of the state legislature by Democrats ‘seems almost certain’ to begin working on legislative fixes to what’s widely regarded as one of the nation’s most restrictive laws.

Changes are also on track in Rhode Island and New Jersey. Pennsylvania has spent months grappling with its statute of limitations; in August, a grandy jury accused at least 300 Catholic priests of abusing more than 1,000 children in the past seven years. Since August, legal extensions and fix-it proposals have been bounced back and forth between the state House and Senate.

Right now, legal recourse for childhood victims of sexual abuse is limited. According to the Associated Press, only a handful of states—including California, Minnesota, Delaware and Hawaii—have “lookback window” laws. Under their purview, victims are entitled to file civil lawsuits against institutions which caused them harm.

California’s one-year window opened in 2003.

Hundreds of civil actions have since been filed, with the Catholic Church alone paying out more than $1 billion in damages. State activists and legislators are attempting to instate another lookback window this year.

St. Anthony Catholic Church in Guam. The Archdiocese of Guam, a U.S. territory, declared bankruptcy last week in an effort to manage financial fallout from a sex abuse scandal of alarming proportions. Image via Wikimedia Commons. Listed as public domain.
Large payouts in California, Delaware and Minnesota have all prompted local dioceses to file bankruptcy. The Catholic Church, insurance agents and the Boy Scouts of America have all lobbied against the creation and updating of lookback windows across the United States

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Former Laurel priest named in list of clergy accused of sex abuse

BILOXI (MS)
WDAM TV

January 24, 2019

By Jayson Burnett

The Catholic Diocese of Biloxi released a list Thursday of priests credibly accused of sexual misconduct against children and teenagers.

The list includes the names of three priests with allegations dating back to 1989. One of the names on the list was Jose Vazquez Morales.

In 2016, Morales pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a child in Jones County in 2015 and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was originally charged with two counts of sexual battery of a minor. The judge who sentenced Morales also ordered he be deported to Mexico upon his release.

Vazquez worked as a pastor at St. Francis Xavier Parish in Wiggins. He also served as an associate pastor in Laurel, Hattiesburg and Lucedale from 2009 to 2015, which is when the Diocese of Biloxi first became aware of the allegations against him.

The other two names on the list released Thursday are Jerome J. Axton and Vincent the Quang Nguyen. According to the diocese, Axton was accused of sexual misconduct on a teenage girl in 1989 and was prohibited from ministering in 1992. Nguyen was accused of misconduct with female minors and adolescents in 1989 and was prohibited from ministering the same year.

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NYS lawmakers expected to vote on Child Victims Act on Monday

NEW YORK (NY)
WKBW TV

January 24, 2019

By Charlie Specht

After years of debate, New York State appears on the verge of reforming what advocates have called its outdated laws that bar many victims of child sex abuse from seeking justice in court.

State lawmakers are expected to vote on the proposed Child Victims Act on Monday, according to Governor Andrew Cuomo, which would expand the statutes of limitation for child sex abuse victims. The bill had languished for years in the Republican-controlled State Senate, but Democrats now control the upper chamber and have said passing the law is a major part of their agenda.

“For too long, society has failed these survivors of abuse and their traumas at the hands of authority figures have only been compounded by a justice system that denied them their day in court,” Cuomo said in a statement. “In New York, this ends now. I’m proud to say the time is now to pass this critical legislation to end this heinous injustice once and for all and give these victims their day in court.”

The New York Daily News and The Buffalo News first reported these developments.

The proposed law could have devastating effects on the Buffalo Catholic Diocese, which has been embroiled in a sex abuse scandal since last March. Buffalo Bishop Richard J. Malone has been under intense pressure to resign since confidential church records obtained by 7 Eyewitness News showed he returned a priest to ministry despite allegations of inappropriate contact with a child and allowed another priest to remain in ministry despite multiple allegations of adult sexual misconduct. Records also showed Malone withheld the names of more than 60 accused priests from the public, releasing a list of 42 names in March when an internal list contained more than 100 priests .

New York’s bishops had opposed the law but have reportedly dropped their opposition in the wake of political reality and the agreement by state lawmakers to also allow victims to sue public institutions, as well as private. The State Attorney General’s Office and the FBI are investigating the Buffalo Diocese and other dioceses in New York.

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Roundtable discussion: How to handle Catholic Church sex abuse scandal

HOUSTON (TX)
KPRC TV

January 24, 2019

By Sophia Beausoleil

A roundtable discussion just started in Montrose about the sexual abuse scandal swirling around the Catholic Church.

The discussion comes exactly one week before the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston is expected to release a list of priests accused of sexual abuse.

A victims’ advocacy group is hosting the discussion.

The leader of the group, Michael Norris, said members question if the archdiocese will be fully transparent. They also want to know what church officials’ definition of credibility is.

“What’s credible? We’ll talk about that tonight. What defines credibility? Because we don’t know what defines credibility for the Catholic Church. I know what credibility means to me. They haven’t shared with us what their rules are about it being credible,” Norris said.

Authorities arrested Rev. Manuel La Rosa-Lopez last September after investigators said a man and woman accused him of abuse when he was at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Conroe in the late 1990s to early 2000s.

Later, authorities executed a search at the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston in connection with the case.

After the sexual abuse accusations against La Rosa-Lopez and other priests started to come to light, the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston announced it was compiling a list and would make it public.

“Also the fact that they talk about being transparent, we don’t know … who is the investigator looking at all of these files? Who is that individual? What files were given to them?” Norris said.

On Thursday afternoon, KPRC2 spoke with Norris, who is the leader of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP.

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Albany’s fast start: Child Victims Act, gun laws next up

ALBANY (NY)
Newsday

January 24, 2019

By Yancey Roy

Continuing their rapid pace, state legislators say they will approve next week a far-ranging package of gun-control measures and a bill to allow victims of long-ago child sex abuse to sue their abusers.

The Senate and the Assembly plan to vote Monday on the “Child Victims Act,” which would suspend the normal statute of limitations for bringing sex-abuse claims to permit individuals up to 55 years old to file civil claims and allow a one-year “look back” period for victims older than 55 to file lawsuits.

On Tuesday, lawmakers plan to focus on gun control. The measures include banning so-called bump stocks and restricting gun ownership rights of those deemed a danger to themselves or others (known as the “red flag” bill), state officials said. Other bills that could be part of the package include strengthening “safe storage” laws and prohibiting the arming of schoolteachers.

The flurry of activity follows the Democrats’ takeover of the Senate, which had been controlled by Republicans for all but a few years over the last five decades.

Controlling both legislative houses now, Democrats have hit the ground running in the first month of the 2019 session, approving sweeping bills to change laws on abortion, voting, campaign financing, college tuition aid and teacher evaluations. They’ve also scheduled hearings on sexual harassment in the workplace.

In almost every instance, Democrats are acting on bills that had been adopted by the Assembly but were stalled by the GOP-controlled Senate.

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Stuck in the Middle

NEW YORK (NY)
Commonweal Magazine

January 24, 2019

By Massimo Faggioli

Many symbols of Catholicism have changed, receded, or even disappeared, to be replaced by others. But not the Catholic priest. The church’s presence in education, culture, and social work may not be as visible as it once was, but the priest’s role remains conspicuous. When most people think of Catholicism, they still think of a man in a Roman collar.

A seminar sponsored by Boston College that ran from September 2016 until the summer of 2018 has produced an interesting document on priesthood and ministry, with a noteworthy set of proposals on the formation of future priests. The document, published in the last 2018 issue of Origins, is titled “To Serve the People of God: Renewing the Conversation on Priesthood and Ministry.” The group that produced it includes men and women, lay and ordained Catholics, scholars and pastoral ministers. It was chaired by Richard Gaillardetz of the Boston College theology department and Thomas Groome and Richard Lennan of the School of Theology and Ministry at Boston College.

The introduction of the nine-thousand-word document makes clear that the focus is on the formation of diocesan priests, not members of religious orders or new ecclesial movements such as the Neocatechumenal Way. The focus is also on the United States: the authors acknowledge that some of their proposals may not be applicable to other countries.

The document’s first part, “Ministry in the Life of the Church,” addresses the ecclesiological foundations of ministry in the life of the church—the sacramentality of the church and the ecclesial nature of all its ministries. The second part is devoted to “A Profile of the Well-Formed Priest,” presenting the priest in all his aspects: as a preacher, as leader of worship and prayer, as collaborative leader, as public representative of the church, and as practitioner of pastoral charity.

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Abuse victims await list of accused Catholic priests

HOUSTON (TX)
KTRK TV

January 24, 2019

By Christine Dobbyn

Survivors of alleged sexual abuse along with their supporters will gather in Montrose on Thursday night.

The gathering comes just days before a list of credibly-accused priests is released by the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston.

“First of all, I don’t expect them to report them all,” said Michael Norris, who says he is a survivor of sexual abuse by a Catholic priest.

RELATED: Archdiocese accused of withholding documents in priest sex case

He is the leader of the Houston chapter of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

“What we’ll find is it will be a low number, that’s what I’m expecting,” Norris said. “They won’t put everyone on that list. There’s a lot of order priests that come through this diocese that won’t be on that list.”

In November, law enforcement took thousands of pages of documents following a search warrant on the Archdiocese offices.

The Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office is overseeing the case of Father Manuel La Rosa Lopez. He’s charged with four counts of indecency with a child.

Two victims allege they were sexually abused as children while at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Conroe in the late 1990s to early 2000s. La Rosa Lopez was last assigned to a church in Richmond before being arrested.

It could be next year before La Rosa Lopez goes to trial as thousands of documents are being evaluated.

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Biloxi Diocese names 3 priests ‘credibly accused of sexual misconduct’

BILOXI (MISSISSIPPI)
Sun Herald

January 24, 2019

By Jill Toyoshiba

Three priests in the Catholic Diocese of Biloxi were removed from ministry, and one was incarcerated, because they “were credibly accused of sexual misconduct of minors,” the Diocese announced Thursday.

The Diocese identified them as former priests Jose Vazquez Morales, Jerome J. Axton and Vincent The Quang Nguyen. In all three cases, the Diocese notified the District Attorney’s Office, a news release said.

The list does not include alleged abuse reported to have happened outside the Diocese by extern clergy who served in the Diocese, or allegations from before the Diocese was founded in 1977. Allegations from the latter will be released in the spring by the Diocese of Jackson, the release said.

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Pittsburgh Deacon Sentenced, SNAP Urges Outreach

PITTSBURGH (PA)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

January 24, 2019

A Catholic deacon in the Diocese of Pittsburgh has been sentenced for criminal sexual solicitation of a minor.

Rosendo F. “Ross” Dacal was sentenced today to two years of probation for two felony convictions related to sending sexually explicit material to an undercover police officer posing as a teenage boy. The clergyman pleaded guilty to the charges in October.

Deacon Dacal will not be jailed, so we worry that he may still pose a risk to others. As a result, we are begging anyone who may have been abused by the Deacon, or anyone who saw or suspected such abuse, to contact law enforcement. SNAP, or groups like us, are available to assist survivors, witnesses and whistle blowers as they come forward.

Deacon Dacal was arrested in 2018 on charges related to sending and soliciting obscene images from an undercover police officer he thought was a 14-year-old boy. Following his arrest, he was suspended from his assignments at All Saints Parish in Etna and the Allegheny County Jail. We also know the Deacon previously taught

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Mascoutah priest charged with child porn could undergo mental exam before trial begins

BELLEVILLE (IL)
News Democrat

January 24, 2019

By Dana Rieck

The Mascoutah priest accused of possessing child pornography and drugs will undergo a mental examination before moving toward a trial after his lawyer filed a motion for an evaluation last week.

On Jan. 9, 2018, Gerald R. Hechenberger, former associate pastor of Holy Childhood Church and School in Mascoutah, was charged with possessing and distributing child pornography and possession of methamphetamine. He was freed on $25,000 cash for bond after a judge lowered his original $2 million bail.

“Since (Hechenberger’s) attorney has reasonable cause to believe that (Hechenberger) may at the present time may be mentally incompetent so as to be able to understand the nature of the proceedings against him, and unable to assist in the preparation of his own defense, (Hechenberger’s) attorney is requesting that the Court order an examination of the defendant to determine his current fitness,” his defense attorney James A. Gomric wrote in the motion.

Gomric did not immediately return calls for comment.

Assistant State’s Attorney Steve Sallerson said now that his defense attorney has raised a bona fide doubt as to Hechenberger’s mental fitness Judge Zina Cruse has ordered Dr. Daniel Cuneo to conduct the examination.

A hearing is scheduled for Feb. 21. This hearing will be to determine where the case will go from here.

As of Thursday, Hechenberger was scheduled to stand trial March 18.

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With Catholic Church resistance fading, state set to pass Child Victims Act

BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

January 24, 2019

By Tom Precious|

State lawmakers on Monday are poised to OK measures raising the statute of limitations in child sex abuse cases, as the Catholic Church is signaling it will drop its long-held opposition if public schools are specifically included with religious and private schools in one major provision of the legislation.

The bill’s Senate sponsor said Thursday afternoon that such a demand is being met in the final bill.

Democrats, now in control of both legislative houses, have vowed since before the November elections that they would push through a series of bills that were blocked when the Republicans were in the Senate majority until this month. They’ve already done so on measures involving abortion, election laws and immigration.

The Child Victims Act, which has been opposed over the years by the Catholic Church and some other organizations, is set to be passed Monday by the Senate and Assembly. It will raise the statute of limitations that victims of child sex abuse can try to bring civil or criminal cases against their abusers and open a one-year “look-back” period – also called a “revival window” – for victims of any age to bring lawsuits over alleged sexual abuse that may have occurred decades ago.

“This is legislation that has been languishing for years under previous Republican majority leadership, and under the current Democratic leadership we recognize how important it is we are finally bringing justice to victims of child sexual abuse,” said Sen. Timothy Kennedy, a Buffalo Democrat.

The New York State Catholic Conference, which has raised concerns about the one year look-back period, among other provisions, on Thursday declined comment until it could see the actual legislation that will be coming to the Senate and Assembly floors on Monday. The group represents the church’s bishops based in New York State.

The Catholic Church has maintained that previous efforts would carve out for the look-back period just private schools, and not the 700 public school districts in New York. The bill goes beyond just schools, whether private or not, to include other settings, including churches, Boy Scouts or other institutions.

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McCandless Catholic deacon in child sex sting gets probation, community service

PITTSBURGH (PA)
Tribune-Review

January 24, 2019

By Natasha Lindstrom

A Roman Catholic deacon from McCandless was sentenced Thursday to two years of probation and 100 hours of community service for convictions related to sending sexually explicit material to an undercover police officer posing online as a teenage boy.

Deacon Rosendo “Ross” Dacal, 74, pleaded guilty in October to felony counts of criminal solicitation of sexual acts via computer files and images and criminal use of a communication facility.

Washington County Common Pleas Judge Gary Gilman sentenced Dacal to two years’ probation for each count, with the sentences to run concurrently. Gilman further ordered Dacal to obtain mental health treatment, court records showed.

Dacal’s attorney, Robert Del Greco Jr., could not immediately be reached.

Following Dacal’s arrest last April on five charges , the Diocese of Pittsburgh placed Dacal on administrative leave. His security clearances at the Allegheny County Jail, where he was a chaplain, were revoked.

Dacal had served the All Saints Parish in Etna since 2011.

“The charges against (Dacal) are disturbing,” Diocese of Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik said at the time. “We had no previous knowledge of his alleged activities.”

As of Thursday, Dacal remained on leave and cannot function as a deacon, said the Rev. Nicholas Vaskov, spokesman for the diocese.

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Former pastor of Chicago, Waukegan parishes cleared of sexual misconduct allegation

CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

January 24, 2019

By Jacqueline Serrato

A popular Chicago priest who formerly served as pastor at Most Blessed Trinity Parish in Waukegan was declared not guilty this week of sexual misconduct with a minor.

The Rev. Gary Graf was the pastor of a parish in Chicago’s Hermosa neighborhood when an underage employee of a sister church accused him of inappropriate sexual behavior in July of last year.

In a bench trial on Wednesday, Cook County Circuit Judge Daniel Gallagher declared the priest not guilty, WGN first reported.

The 17-year-old employee initially said he received a phone call from Graf’s secretary, who told him that Graf was attracted to him. He also said the priest rubbed his shoulders inappropriately and offered him a free car. The minor said he immediately told his parents.

The Archdiocese of Chicago removed Graf from the ministry pending an investigation. The Department of Children and Family Services investigated the matter and ruled the allegations to be “unfounded.”

From the moment the church alerted authorities and criminal charges were pressed, Graf has maintained his innocence.

It is up to the archdiocese to decide when or if Graf will return to San Jose Luis Sanchez del Rio Parish.

The parish is a consolidation of three churches: St. Francis of Assisi on Taylor Street, Philomena in Hermosa, and Maternity BVM in Humboldt Park. Graf was pastor in Waukegan for 14 years before taking another assignment in 2009, and he also served as pastor at St. Gall in Chicago.

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Priest caught on secret recording admitting to sex with teen, complaint says

NEW JERSEY
NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

January 23, 2019

By Ted Sherman

A New Jersey priest charged last week with the sexual assault of a teenager nearly three decades ago served as the youth director at St. Ceclia’s Church in Iselin at the time of the alleged incidents, and had sex with the victim in New Jersey, Florida and Washington, D.C., according to criminal complaints filed by the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office.

The teen also performed oral sex on the priest, the Rev. Thomas Ganley, according to the complaints and affidavits of probable cause released in response to a public records request. Ganley was a parochial vicar at St. Philip and St. James Catholic Church in Phillipsburg and a chaplain at St. Luke’s Warren Campus Hospital until his arrest on Wednesday — just two days after the victim in the case, who is now 42, came forward.

The complaints also revealed that the priest was recorded in a “consensual intercept” with the victim, in which he admitted sexual conduct. In a later interview with investigators, he conceded he had sex with the victim on multiple occasions, according to the affidavit that was filed in the matter.

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Lawsuit alleging sexual abuse by former Falmouth pastor settled

EAST FALMOUTH (MA)
Cape Cod Times

January 23, 2019

By Wheeler Cowperthwaite

2 plaintiffs each receive $200K in case that argued church negligence.

Two men who filed a lawsuit alleging they were sexually abused for years by a priest in St. Anthony’s Parish have each received $200,000 settlements.

Their attorney, Mitchell Garabedian, announced the October settlements Tuesday as the Archdiocese of Hartford released the names of 48 priests found to have been credibly accused of sexual abuse. Garabedian said the list was a “small step in the direction of healing for clergy sexual abuse survivors,” but said the archdiocese should also release “the names of those who participated in the cover-up.”

The link between the Falmouth case and the Hartford archdiocese is the Most Rev. Daniel Cronin, who served as bishop of the Fall River Diocese, which includes the Cape and Islands, from 1970 until 1991 and then became archbishop in Hartford, Connecticut, until his retirement in 2003. Cronin was named as defendant in the lawsuit because he supervised Monsignor Maurice Souza, who was assigned to St. Anthony’s from 1977 to 1986, and the suit said he “knew or should have known” about the abuse.

“Agents” who worked for Cronin and were supervised by him knew the boys spent the night at the rectory with Souza and went on overnight, out-of-state trips with him, the suit said.

Souza died in 1996 at age 83.

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How Clergy Abuse Survivors Are Challenging The Church’s Cover-Ups

WASHINGTON (DC)
Sojourners Magazine

January 23, 2019

By John Noble

Over the past few decades, sexual abuse survivors, whistleblowers, and journalists have exposed a horrific pattern of sex abuse and cover up in the Roman Catholic Church. As a Catholic millennial, I have never known a church unmarked by the abuse crisis. In the bathrooms at my Catholic high school and my small Midwestern parish, I distinctly remember posters detailing who I should call if I was abused or assaulted by an authority figure. Last year, the Pennsylvania grand jury report and Cardinal Theodore McCarrick revelations made my generation aware of this crisis in a renewed way. Too often, in responses, the voices of survivors themselves are lost.

I recently had the opportunity to discuss the current state of the Roman Catholic Church’s sexual abuse crisis with Tim Lennon, a survivor of clergy sexual abuse. Lennon is the president of the board of directors of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), a nonprofit support network for survivors of sexual abuse by religious and institutional authorities. The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity.

John Noble, Sojourners: Tell me about the history of SNAP.

Tim Lennon: SNAP was originally founded in 1988 by Barbara Blaine, a survivor of sexual abuse by her parish priest. She found others abused within the Church, started support groups, and that grew and grew. Now SNAP is a network of over 25,000. We’re a peer network. None of us are experts. We’re survivors helping survivors. Our mission is to help survivors, protect children, and do advocacy around laws around exposing predators and those that cover up for predators. Most survivors of abuse, especially child sexual abuse, never come forward. We provide an opportunity for people to tell their story within a community where they are believed and supported.

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Chisholm Supports Probe of Clergy Sex Abuse

MILWAUKEE (WI)
Wisconsin Public Radio

January 24, 2019

By Mary Kate McCoy

Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm is calling for a statewide investigation into the Catholic Church’s response to allegations of child sexual abuse over the past 50 years.

The call comes at a time when dioceses across the country are under heightened pressure to release names of priests with credible accusations of abuse against them.

Just last week the Diocese of Green Bay released the names of 46 priests who are known to have committed sexual offenses against minors dating back to 1906. Green Bay Police Chief Andrew Smith urged victims of abuse to go directly to law enforcement officials — not the church — Friday.

Chisholm told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel he hopes to team up with Attorney General Josh Kaul and district attorneys across the state to review decades of clergy abuse allegations.

Peter Isley, a clergy abuse survivor and founding member of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said the likelihood of an investigation is higher than it ever has been.

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‘Nobody Is Going to Believe You’

UNITED STATES
The Atlantic

March 2019 Issue

By Alex French and Maximillian Potter

The Bohemian Rhapsody director Bryan Singer has been trailed by accusations of sexual misconduct for 20 years. Here, his alleged victims tell their stories.

Over the past two decades, Bryan Singer’s films—The Usual Suspects, Valkyrie, Superman Returns, four of the X-Men movies—have earned more than $3 billion at the box office, putting him in the top tier of Hollywood directors. He’s known for taking risks in his storytelling: It was Singer’s idea, for instance, to open the original X-Men movie with a scene at Auschwitz, where a boy uses his superpowers to bend the metal gates that separate him from his parents. Studio executives were skeptical about starting a comic-book movie in a concentration camp, but the film became a blockbuster and launched a hugely profitable franchise for 20th Century Fox.

Singer’s most recent project debuted in November. Critics gave Bohemian Rhapsody—which chronicles the rise of the rock band Queen—only lukewarm reviews, but it earned more than $50 million in its opening weekend. By the end of December, it had brought in more than $700 million, making it one of the year’s biggest hits.

The film’s success should have been a triumph for Singer, proof of his enduring ability to intuit what audiences want. In January it won two Golden Globes, including the award for best drama. But Singer was conspicuously absent from the ceremony—and his name went unmentioned in the acceptance speeches. He had been fired by 20th Century Fox in December 2017, with less than three weeks of filming left. Reports emerged of a production in chaos: Singer was feuding with his cast and crew, and had disappeared from the set for days at a time.

On December 7, 2017, three days after The Hollywood Reporter broke the news of Singer’s firing, a Seattle man named Cesar Sanchez-Guzman filed a lawsuit against the director, alleging that Singer had raped him in 2003, when Sanchez-Guzman was 17. The day after that, Deadline Hollywood published an interview with a former boyfriend of Singer’s, Bret Tyler Skopek, in which Skopek described a lifestyle of drugs and orgies.

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Vatican summit to create task force to aid bishops in safeguarding

WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service

January 24, 2019

By Carol Glatz

Since the work of child protection must continue after the February meeting at the Vatican on safeguarding, one organizer said they plan on creating a “task force” with teams on every continent.

The task force would be just one of a number of “concrete measures that we want to offer the bishops of the world,” Jesuit Father Hans Zollner told the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano Jan. 24.

“One of our main ideas,” he said, “is that this encounter is another step along a long journey that the church has begun and that will not end with this meeting,” which will bring presidents of the world’s bishops’ conferences, the heads of the Eastern Catholic churches and representatives of the leadership groups of men’s and women’s religious orders to the Vatican Feb. 21-24.

A task force made up of child protection experts “will probably be instituted in the various continents where the church is present,” and they will travel from place to place, said Father Zollner, who is a member of the meeting’s four-person organizing committee, president of the Centre for the Protection of Minors at the Pontifical Gregorian University and a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

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It’s not about women priests

KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

January 24, 2019

By Phyllis Zagano

The question of women deacons has nothing to do with women priests.

What? And, why?

Well, to begin with, historical documents — canons, liturgical texts, and other writings — speak freely and regularly about women deacons, not priests, “ordained” or “blessed.” Facts are facts.

Fact #1: The terms “ordained” and “blessed” were used interchangeably in both the East and the West. For example, Canon 21 of the Council of Auxerre (561-605), about 100 miles southeast of Paris, places restrictions on a priest “once he has received the benediction.” We see the same for women deacons: some documents call them “ordained,” some call them “blessed.” A few revisionist historians have attacked the evidence. A New York seminary priest-professor insists women were “only” blessed. His authoritative text is a book published in 2000 by a former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Gerhard Müller. More about that book later.

Fact # 2: Women deacons performed some tasks akin to those performed by men deacons, but women deacons also performed tasks men deacons did not. Women deacons anointed women during baptism; women deacons anointed ill women and brought them the Eucharist; women deacons took charge of women in the assembly; women deacons catechized women and children and they looked after their needs. And, we know of a woman deacon who managed a local church’s finances. Not every woman deacon did all these things in every time and place, but across space and time they regularly performed diaconal duties.

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Abuse scandal takes toll as numbers on Washington March for Life fall

LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Tablet

January 24, 2019

by Michael Sean Winters

The annual March for Life in Washington, D.C. was more muted this year as the Catholic Church, which supplies the vast majority of the marchers, continues to lick its wounds from the re-emergence of the clergy sexual abuse scandal last year, writes Michael Sean Winters.

The march, held on 18 January, the Friday before the anniversary of the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalised abortion, nonetheless drew tens of thousands of participants, including many Catholic school students.

Washington’s Cardinal Donald Wuerl bowed out of the annual Youth Mass in the sports arena, which was instead celebrated by Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Christophe Pierre. Cardinal Wuerl had faced questions about when he first learned about allegations that his predecessor, the former cardinal Theodore McCarrick, had inappropriate relationships with seminarians.

Just two cardinals and 40 bishops attended the Vigil Mass the night before. The event traditionally attracts almost all of the cardinals and about 100 bishops.

Archbishop Joseph Naumann, chair of the bishops’ conference’s Committee on Pro-Life Activities, was the principal celebrant at the Vigil Mass, held in the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. The archbishop, who is considered a leader of the hierarchy’s conservative wing, addressed a range of issues in his homily, including the clergy sexual abuse crisis, immigration, poverty and racism.

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Bishops address abuse scandal with U.S. pilgrims at World Youth Day

PANAMA CITY (PANAMA)
Catholic News Service

January 24, 2019

By Rhina Guidos

As Pope Francis was arriving in Panama Jan. 23, bishops from the United States wasted no time addressing the sex abuse scandal back home during a popular event aimed at American and other English-speaking World Youth Day pilgrims.

“It’s not easy being Christian, it’s not easy being Catholic … especially today when things in the church are difficult,” said Bishop Edward J. Burns of Dallas, addressing the sex abuse scandal in a room of hundreds of U.S. young adults attending the FIAT Festival for U.S. pilgrims at Panama’s Figali Convention Center. The event was sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Knights of Columbus and FOCUS.

“How often do we hear our friends say to us: I’m done, I’m bowing out. I will have no more of this, ” Bishop Burns said. “My friends, I want you to tell your friends that you’d never separate yourself from Jesus because of Judas. You’d never do that!”

Many in the room applauded.

“Yes, you look at the church today,” he continued, “and there have been some who have betrayed us, some even in church leadership.”

But he told the pilgrims to “stay strong, stayed focused, stay steady.”

The message was well received by those in the room, including Kennedy Horter, 16, of Indiana.

“I don’t let people come between me and God,” said Horter, wrapped in a U.S. flag.

She said she was not going to judge priests and other good people in the church by the actions of men who likely were never priests “spiritually.”

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A church in crisis

NORTH SMITHFIELD (RI)
The Valley Breeze

January 23, 2019

In a recent newspaper article, I read where the Vatican is preparing to defrock Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, archbishop of Washington, for sexually abusing children.

Another report indicated that the Illinois district attorney is working to expose the names of 500 priests who have also been charged with sexually abusing kids. It’s disgusting. Where does it end?

The shock of widespread clerical sexual misconduct has been reported on an almost daily basis. No crime is more repulsive than the abuse of a child.

Clerical sexual abuse of children may prove to have cataclysmic results. A church with 2000 years of history is passing through a time of crisis.

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