ABUSE TRACKER

NAIROBI (KENYA)
Nairobi News

January 2, 2019

By Eric Wainaina

The Nairobi Catholic Archdiocese has kicked out a priest, who is under investigation for sexual misconduct.

A priest from Githunguri in Kiambu, who was mid last year accused of sleeping with female parishioners — including schoolgirls and married women — will remain suspended until the outcome of the investigation is vetted and a verdict made at the church headquarters in Rome.

This is after a tribunal formed by John Cardinal Njue filed a report, which sources said had been forwarded to the Vatican.

The youthful priest — who has since left John Paul II, a Catholic institution in Murang’a where he had been banished — was accused of luring young women to his residence and having sex with them.

The residence would at times host lewd parties where girls would be served with alcohol.

He would also arrange outings in hotels where, among other things, the girls would swim naked.

PROCURE ABORTIONS

Some of his victims were reported to be minors. When the girls got pregnant, the priest allegedly helped them to procure abortions.

In one incident, according to sources privy to the priest’s amorous behaviour, he reportedly paid a Sh40,000 bribe to conceal his wayward behaviour.

After the issue was brought to the attention of the church leadership in September last year, Cardinal Njue, who is also the Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Nairobi, and Auxiliary Bishop David Kamau announced his suspension until the matter is concluded.

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KURAVILANGAD (INDIA)
Associated Press

January 2, 2019

The stories spill out in the sitting rooms of Catholic convents, where portraits of Jesus keep watch and fans spin quietly overhead. They spill out in church meeting halls bathed in fluorescent lights, and over cups of cheap instant coffee in convent kitchens. Always, the stories come haltingly, quietly. Sometimes, the nuns speak at little more than a whisper.

Across India, the nuns talk of priests who pushed into their bedrooms and of priests who pressured them to turn close friendships into sex. They talk about being groped and kissed, of hands pressed against them by men they were raised to believe were representatives of Jesus Christ.

“He was drunk,” said one nun, beginning her story. “You don’t know how to say no,” said another.

At its most grim, the nuns speak of repeated rapes, and of a Catholic hierarchy that did little to protect them.

The Vatican has long been aware of nuns sexually abused by priests and bishops in Asia, Europe, South America and Africa, but it has done very little to stop it, The Associated Press reported last year.

Now, the AP has investigated the situation in a single country — India — and uncovered a decades-long history of nuns enduring sexual abuse from within the church. Nuns described in detail the sexual pressure they endured from priests, and nearly two dozen other people — nuns, former nuns and priests, and others — said they had direct knowledge of such incidents.

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CHICAGO (IL)
WLS TV

January 2, 2019

By Jessica D’Onofrio

Hundreds of Bishops from across the country will gather in north suburban Mundelein Wednesday for the start of a week-long spiritual retreat. This comes amid growing outrage over clergy sexual abuse.

Protestors are outraged over how the sex abuse scandal has been handled and they have several demands of the Catholic Church.

This demonstration also comes following the discovery of a stunning Vatican letter which blocked U.S. bishops from addressing the church’s sex-abuse scandal. Anti-clergy abuse activists say the summit will have “no credibility” if it’s led by prelates who cover-up sex crimes against children.

During Wednesday’s protest, activists will call on Pope Francis to remove Cardinal Blase Cupich from his prominent role in the upcoming February worldwide Papal Summit on Abuse.

A scathing preliminary report issued recently by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan revealed that at least 500 clerical predators were not reported by Cardinal Cupich and his fellow Illinois bishops.

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The Media Project

January 1, 2019

By Terry Mattingly

It was in 1983 that parents told leaders of the Diocese of Lafayette, west of New Orleans, that Father Gilbert Gauthe had molested their son.

Dominos started falling. The bishop offered secret settlements to nine families – but one refused to remain silent.

The rest is a long, long story. Scandals about priests abusing children – the vast majority of cases involve teen-aged males – have been making news ever since, including the firestorm unleashed by The Boston Globe’s “Spotlight” series that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2003.

This old, tragic story flared up again in 2018, and Religion News Association members selected the release of a sweeping Pennsylvania grand-jury report – with 301 Catholic priests, in six dioceses, accused of abusing at least 1,000 minors over seven decades – as the year’s top religion story.

“The allegations contained in this report are horrific and there are important lessons to take away from it,” said Michael Plachy, a partner at Lewis, Roca, Rothgerber, Christie, a national law firm that emphasizes religious liberty cases. However, “to be candid, much of what’s in this report has been known for years. … It’s important, but it’s mostly old news.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
Associated Press

January 2, 2019

By Jeff Karoub

U.S.-based Roman Catholic bishops will gather Wednesday for a weeklong retreat near Chicago on the church sexual abuse scandal that organizers say will focus on prayer and spiritual reflection and not formulating policy.

The retreat begins a day after The Associated Press reported that the Vatican blocked U.S. bishops from taking measures last year to address the scandal because U.S. church leaders didn’t discuss the legally problematic proposals with the Holy See enough beforehand.

The rebuke from Rome was contained in a letter from a Vatican official before the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops met in November. The move stunned abuse survivors and some other Catholics demanding actions.

The retreat also is a prelude to a summit of the world’s bishops at the Vatican next month to forge a comprehensive response to the crisis that has lashed the church.

The meetings follow two blistering reports during 2018 from state attorneys general — in Illinois and Pennsylvania — alleging negligence by state church leaders.

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TUAM (IRELAND)
Irish Central

January 1, 2019

The big stories for 2019 are mostly signposted but I consider the Tuam babies scandal to be potentially the biggest of all. Yes, folks bigger than Brexit, which has utterly dominated the news in 2018.

The announcement that the excavations of the underground sewer will commence was made by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.

“We anticipate that there’ll be excavations in Tuam in the latter half of 2019 because we have to pass legislation in the Oireachtas giving us, the Government, the power to do the excavations,” said the Irish leader, according to RTÉ.

“Because, for lots of reasons, we don’t have the power to do that.

“So we’ll have to pass that legislation in the New Year, and we’d envisage carrying out the first excavations in the second half of 2019.”

The task will be to seek out the bodies of perhaps hundreds of little children who are allegedly buried there. It means that if bodies are found it will be Ireland’s mini Auschwitz, a place of death where thousands of little souls were condemned to pain and suffering and then discarded in sewer cesspools.

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OMAHA (NEBRASKA)
Omaha World-Herald

By Christopher Burbach

December 29, 2018

A national organization of priest sexual abuse survivors is stepping up its push for Cardinal Daniel DiNardo to resign as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests says DiNardo, formerly bishop of Sioux City, Iowa, is unfit to lead the bishops’ response to the latest Catholic sexual abuse crisis because of allegations that he covered up abuse by priests in Iowa and Texas. Tim Lennon, president of SNAP’s board of directors, and others plan a press conference Saturday in Sioux City.

U.S. bishops are expected to take measures to address the crisis after they, led by DiNardo, meet in February with Pope Francis and other bishops in Rome.

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DES MOINES (IA)
Des Moines Register

January 1, 2019

By Shelby Fleig

Survivors of sex abuse by Catholic clergy are calling for the resignation of Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, the former bishop of Sioux City, from his post as President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

DiNardo, currently the archbishop of Galveston-Houston, is accused of covering up abuse cases in both Iowa and Texas. According to a statement released by the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), DiNardo helped conceal admitted abuse by the Rev. Jerome Coyle and allegations against the Rev. George B. McFadden while serving as bishop of Sioux City from 1997 to 2004.

“SNAP believes that the Cardinal’s role in covering up abuse in both Sioux City and Houston make him unfit to lead the USCCB,” SNAP said in the statement. If law enforcement seized records from the Sioux City diocese, “they would find that additional crimes were concealed” by DiNardo and others, the statement read. The group first called for DiNardo’s resignation in November.

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PROVIDENCE (RI)
Catholic News Service via National Catholic Reporter

December 31, 2018

Retired Bishop Robert Mulvee of Providence died Dec. 28 at the St. Antoine Residence in North Smithfield, following a brief illness. He was 88.

“Bishop Mulvee was a good and gentle shepherd of God’s people. He was a faithful follower of Christ who served the church with dignity and compassion,” said Providence Bishop Thomas Tobin in a statement.

A funeral Mass will be celebrated Jan. 10 at the Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul in Providence followed by a burial at St. Ann Cemetery in Cranston.

Mulvee was bishop of Providence from 1995 to 2005.

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NEW SOUTH WALES (AUSTRALIA)
Ilawarra Mercury

January 1, 2019

By Joanne McCarthy

A legal roadblock stopping child sexual abuse survivors from suing churches and other powerful institutions has been “condemned to the scrapheap” from today, said NSW Attorney-General Mark Speakman.

NSW Government legislation abolishing the so-called “Ellis defence” takes effect from today after more than a decade where it blocked many survivors from seeking justice against the institutions that failed them.

“I’m pleased my first item of business in 2019 is to condemn the ‘Ellis defence’ to the scrapheap and create a fairer civil litigation system for all child abuse survivors,” Mr Speakman said.

The “Ellis defence” was a legal precedent set in 2007 when former altar boy John Ellis lost a landmark civil action against the Catholic Church for child sexual abuse.

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WASHINGTON D.C.
NBCWashington.com

December 31, 2018

By David Culver

[Video]

A Virginia man who says ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick abused him for years starting when he was an 11-year-old boy is showing his face for the first time since testifying to the Vatican.

“There were times when McCarrick always wanted to get me alone for his own ability to prey on me,” James Grein said.

Grein said McCarrick began abusing him decades ago at his family’s New Jersey home. He says McCarrick groped him several times and the abuse got worse as he got older.

“And he told me that he was my pathway to God and that I need to trust him,” Grein said.

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MANILA (PHILIPPINES)
The New York Times

December 31, 2018

By Jason Gutierrez

President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines has admitted to sexually assaulting a housemaid when he was a teenager in a speech that drew condemnation from women’s groups, but which his office later dismissed as a joke.

Mr. Duterte has made headlines around the world for remarks that run the gamut from innocuously bawdy to dangerously sexist, including jokes about rape. His speech on Saturday to local officials, however, appeared to be the first time in which he publicly admitted to personally assaulting a woman.

In a speech that focused his ire on the Roman Catholic Church — a powerful political foil in this predominately Catholic country — and what the president sees as its hypocrisy, Mr. Duterte recounted a confession he made to a priest about entering the bedroom of a maid and assaulting her.

“I lifted the blanket,” Mr. Duterte, 73, said. “I tried to touch what was inside the panties.”

“I was touching. She woke up. So I left the room,” he added.

The priest, he said, told him to say, “five Hail Marys because you will go to hell.”

Mr. Duterte’s comments were intended to shed light on the church’s sexual abuse crisis, but instead drew outrage from his own critics, who called on him to immediately resign.

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VATICAN CITY
Associated Press

January 1, 2019

By Nicole Winfield

The Vatican blocked U.S. bishops from taking measures to address the clergy sex abuse scandal because U.S. church leaders failed to sufficiently consult with the Holy See beforehand about legally problematic proposals, according to a letter obtained by The Associated Press.

The Nov. 11 letter from the Vatican’s Cardinal Marc Ouellet provides the primary reason that Rome balked at the measures that were to be voted on by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops at its Nov. 12-14 assembly. The blocked vote stunned abuse survivors and other Catholics who were demanding action from U.S. bishops to address clergy sex abuse and cover-up.

Ouellet’s letter undermines the version of events provided by the conference president, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo. It could also provide fodder for questions during a spiritual retreat of U.S. bishops, dedicated to the abuse crisis, that opens Wednesday in Chicago.

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WASHINGTON (D.C.)
Catholic News Service via America

December 31, 2018

By Carol Zimmermann

2018 will no doubt be remembered as a dark time for the U.S. Catholic Church.

Catholics felt betrayed by church leaders accused of sexual misconduct and cover-up revealed this summer and this cloud still hung over the church at the year’s end.

In June, allegations were made against then-Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, retired archbishop of Washington, accused of sexually abusing a minor almost 50 years ago and having sexual contact with seminarians while he was a bishop in New Jersey.

A month later, Pope Francis accepted Archbishop McCarrick’s resignation from College of Cardinals and suspended him from public ministry, ordering him to a “life of prayer and penance” until the accusations against him were examined in a canonical trial.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Catholic News Agency via National Catholic Register

December 31, 2018

By Ed Condon

The Archdiocese of New York told a California Catholic college in December that a local priest had never been accused of sexual abuse, even while the priest was being investigated by the archdiocese for several abuse charges. An administrator at the college called the letter “a lie,” and said she can no longer trust assurances from the archdiocese.

On Dec. 4, the New York archdiocese issued a letter stating “without qualification” that Father Donald Timone had “never been accused of any act of sexual abuse or misconduct involving a minor.”

In fact the archdiocese first received in 2003 an allegation that the priest had sexually abused minors, and it reached settlements with alleged victims (and surviving family members) in 2017.

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BOSTON (MA)
Church Militant

December 31, 2018

By Stephen Wynne

The rector of a troubled Massachusetts seminary has been forced out of the archdiocese of Boston.

Monsignor James P. Moroney, former head of scandal-ridden St. John’s Seminary in Brighton in the archdiocese of Boston, is being recalled to his home diocese of Worcester. Announcing the transfer Friday, Worcester authorities explained that beginning January 1, Msgr. Moroney will serve in the diocesan office for divine worship and as interim rector of the Cathedral of St. Paul.

Moroney’s transfer follows allegations that he allowed a ‘toxic culture’ of homosexual abuse and cover-up to flourish during his tenure at St. John’s.Tweet
The reassignment is being painted in a positive light. Worcester Bp. Robert J. McManus said he is “grateful” that the monsignor’s “pastoral leadership skills will once again be placed at the service of his home Diocese.” Moroney echoed his new bishop’s sentiments, saying, “I am deeply grateful for my time at St. John’s Seminary and look forward to serving the people of Worcester in the years to come.”

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NASHVILLE (TN)
Nashville Tennessean

December 31, 2018

By Anita Wadhwani and Holly Meyer

Former Nashville Catholic priest Edward McKeown, convicted in 1999 of the rape of a teenage boy a decade after he was forced from the priesthood, died Sunday while serving a 25-year sentence. He was 74.

McKeown, who was incarcerated at South Central Correctional Facility in Clifton, Tennessee, died at a local hospital of natural causes, a prison spokeswoman confirmed.

McKeown pleaded guilty to abusing a 12-year-old boy in his neighborhood over a three-year period. He was due to be released May 1, 2020.

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ROSARIO (ARGENTINA)
Crux

December 30, 2018

By Inés San Martín

Despite being at the heart of a clerical sexual abuse crisis rocking the Catholic Church in Chile, the president of the bishops’ conference, Santiago Silva, who’s been subpoenaed on charges of cover-up, has decided to skip a Feb. 21-24 Vatican summit to address the issue and send the conference’s secretary instead.

Silva is one of the eight Chilean bishops who’ve been called in by the prosecutor’s office, but one of the few in this group who’s still heading a diocese. Most of those bishops have been removed by Pope Francis since May, when all the bishops of Chile submitted their resignations.

Also among those being investigated by civil authorities, but who remains as the head of a diocese, is Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati of Santiago. The pontiff is expected to accept his resignation in upcoming months.

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NEW YORK POST

December 31, 2018

By George Weigel

No one with a sense of justice can fail to be outraged when, in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” a jury in Maycomb, Ala., bows to social pressure and convicts an innocent man of a crime he couldn’t have committed.

Something similar took place last month in real-world Melbourne, Australia, where Cardinal George Pell was falsely and perversely convicted on charges of “historic sexual abuse” dating to the 1990s.

The facts of the case have been hard to come by, owing to a media gag order issued by the trial judge. A journalistic feeding frenzy has long surrounded Pell, the former Catholic archbishop of Melbourne and Sydney and later the Vatican’s chief ­financial officer.

The trial judge was rightly concerned that opening the proceedings would make it impossible for Pell to get a fair trial on charges he forcefully denies. That order has left Australians largely in the dark. But certain facts are known, and others can be reasonably inferred.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Herald

December 31, 2018

The Archbishop of Boston this month forwarded to the pope’s U.S. representative concerns sent to him about a New York priest who was in active college and parish ministry while under investigation for charges of sexual abuse.

The cardinal forwarded the correspondence the day after media reports emerged detailing the allegations made against the priest.

On December 21, Cardinal Sean O’Malley sent to Archbishop Christophe Pierre correspondence he had received regarding Rev. Donald Timone, a priest of the Archdiocese of New York who was being investigated by the review board of that archdiocese.

“I note the seriousness of the allegations [redacted] presents with regard to Rev. Timone,” O’Malley wrote, in a letter published Dec. 28 by Spanish Catholic news site Religión Digital.

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