ABUSE TRACKER

BINGHAMTON (NY)
Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin via PressConnects

February 7, 2020

By Anthony Borrelli

A Binghamton man has accused a former staff member at the Salvation Army’s Youth Center of sexually assaulting him when he was a homeless 16-year-old during the latter months of 1985.

The now-51-year-old man’s lawsuit, filed Monday in Supreme Court of Broome County under New York’s Child Victims Act, doesn’t name the suspected abuser but it refers to him as a “John Doe” — an agent, administrator and/or officer with the Salvation Army.

Alleged repeated acts of sexual abuse, including rape, harassment and violence, were committed between September and December of 1985, according to the lawsuit. Seven defendants are listed: the Salvation Army, its Open Door Youth Center now known as the Salvation Army of Binghamton, and five “John Does,” one of them described as the “principal abuser.”

The lawsuit accuses the abuser of grooming the 16-year-old victim while working as a counselor at the Youth Center, someone who became a guiding force in the victim’s life.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Magazine

February 8, 2020

By Victor Fiorillo

It wasn’t until a patient revealed her abuse at the hands of Larry Nassar that psychiatrist Liz Goldman decided to go public with her own sexual assault in the Lower Merion School District.

Hi, this is Dr. Liz Goldman. Please feel free to leave me a message, and I will return your call within 24 hours. I apologize, but I am not accepting new patients.

[Beep.]

Those are the words that Sarah Klein heard when she called Bryn Mawr-based psychiatrist Liz Goldman in November of 2015. Klein, 36 at the time, had recently moved from Florida to the Main Line and just had a baby, and she was looking for a therapist, in part because her doctors told her she might be suffering from postpartum depression.

Klein, an intense, stylish attorney with piercing eyes, delicately asked around for references, the way you do when you’re new to the area and in search of something a bit more personal than, say, a plumber or an auto mechanic. She’d get the number of a therapist and make the call, but she heard the same thing over and over again: no new patients.

Eventually, one therapist who couldn’t fit Klein in gave her Liz Goldman’s number. Klein made the call. In spite of what she heard on Goldman’s voicemail greeting, Klein left a message. Goldman retrieved Klein’s message just after a longtime patient canceled an appointment scheduled for the next afternoon. She immediately called Klein and offered her the spot.

“To this day, I have no idea why I did that,” says Goldman, a comparatively introspective woman who’s been in private practice since 2003, when she was chief resident of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. “I never do that. I hadn’t seen a new patient in maybe 10 years.”

Klein sat on the couch in Goldman’s ground-floor office in a sprawling brick apartment complex just off Lancaster Avenue and told the doctor about some of her struggles. What Klein had to say at that time was pretty garden-variety compared to some of the cases Goldman has handled, which have ranged from psychosis to full-blown personality disorders. But Klein clearly needed help, and she continued seeing Goldman regularly for the next two years. Then the regular visits stopped, and Klein vanished from Goldman’s world.

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PHOENIX (AZ)
12 News

February 7, 2020

By Bianca Buono

https://www.12news.com/article/news/local/valley/lawyer-says-former-valley-priest-accused-of-sexual-abuse-is-too-sick-to-go-to-court/75-793b4080-3bca-4036-8461-0cf157e64002

John “Jack” Spaulding was indicted in January. His lawyer says days before the indictment, Spaulding was diagnosed with a “mortal illness.”

A former Valley priest accused of molesting multiple children did not appear in court on Friday morning.

In January, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office announced that Father John “Jack” Spaulding was indicted and accused of sexually abusing at least two boys under the age of 15 between 2003 and 2007.

Spaulding was due in court Friday for his arraignment. He did not show up. But families of victims, clergy, and Bishop Thomas Olmsted did.

It was an emotional morning for those like Katy Soukup.

“It’s painful and it’s hurtful,” Soukup said.

According to a lawsuit, her brother, David, was sexually abused by Spaulding in the 1980s. After turning to drugs and crime to cope with his trauma, David’s father shot and killed him in self-defense in 2010.

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DENVER (CO)
Catholic News Agency

February 4, 2020

La Plata, Argentina – Pope Francis has dismissed from the clerical state Argentine priest Roberto Juan Yannuzzi, founder and superior of the Miles Christi (Soldier of Christ) Institute, who has been found guilty of abuse.

The order has locations in the U.S. dioceses of San Diego and Detroit, as well as Argentina, Mexico and Italy.

Archbishop Víctor Manuel Fernández of La Plata, Argentina, where the institute was founded, said in a Feb. 2 statement that Pope Francis made the decision because Yannuzzi “has been found guilty of crimes against the sixth commandment with adults, the absolution of the accomplice, and the abuse of authority.”

The abuse involved male religious who were members of the Miles Christi Institute, which Yannuzzi founded, the statement said.

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MARTINSVILLE (VA)
Martinsville Bulletin

February 4, 2020

The First Amendment, the mission statement of our democracy, holds self-evident two primary rights for each of us: to say freely what we think and to practice the religion we prefer without interference from the government. Oppression against those tenets is why a group fled England on boats and why their (and our) ancestors made those protections the first in our Constitution.

So it is with ultimate irony that a proceeding today in Richmond could determine if a free religion can limit free speech – even to the point of firing and keeping quiet an employee for doing the job he is supposed to be doing, which is comforting the afflicted.

Maybe what Father Mark White really has been doing is inflicting the comfortable of the Catholic Church, because we find the steps the church has taken to censor his comments and threaten his calling to be both repugnant and ridiculous.

*

But among those were the eyeballs of his superior – Barry Knestout, the bishop in Richmond — and quite possibly others from the Vatican. Because someone decided Father White needed to keep his fingers still and his mouth shut when it came to the church’s practices. We suspect those orders were handed down from above the bishop’s pay grade.

Now Father White did not hesitate in his writings to be frank about what he saw as his church’s failings. He was enflamed by the fact that one of the guilty was Cardinal Theodore Edgar McCarrick, the man who had ordained him as a minster. Father White told Bill Wyatt of the Bulletin that he began to recognize how McCarrick had conducted himself, that he now sees how McCarrick might have signaled his interest in the men who said he had abused them.

Fueled by righteous anger and his oath to protect the innocent from the abuse of anyone in any way, Father White challenged the way his church was protecting the perpetrating priests more aggressively than they were those injured innocents.

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DENVER (CO)
Catholic News Agency

February 3, 2020

By Jonah McKeown

Fort Worth TX – A Fort Worth diocesan priest who resigned his post and later attempted to rescind his resignation has dropped a lawsuit against Bishop Michael Olson and the Diocese of Fort Worth— a lawsuit which alleged that the bishop had defamed him by implying he is a threat to children.

In June 2018, Olson asked Father Richard Kirkham, former pastor of St. Martin de Porres parish in Prosper, Texas, to resign his pastorate, because the priest did not report to authorities what appeared to the bishop to be a case of a priest abusing a vulnerable adult.

Last week, Kirkham dropped the lawsuit he had filed in June 2019. In that lawsuit, Kirkham and his attorney had argued that the bishop had, in interviews with the Star-Telegram, implied that Kirkham’s removal was because he posed a danger to minors and the vulnerable.

According to Kirkham’s attorney, John Walsh, the lawsuit was dropped because Olson eventually clarified that Kirkham’s resignation did not result from any failure to report the sexual abuse of child, and there are not any allegations that Father Kirkham has sexually abused a child.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

February 3, 2020

By Amanda Milkovits Globe Staff,Updated February 3, 2020, 6:01 a.m.

Providence RI – A parishioner in East Providence has filed a federal class action lawsuit against the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, after media reports that as little as 10 percent of collections go to charity.

Every year, the Conference of Catholic Bishops solicits for donations from parishioners at Catholic churches around the country for the “Peter’s Pence Collection.” The fund is advertised as a collection to help victims of war, natural disasters and disease throughout the world.

David O’Connell says in his lawsuit that he donated to Peter’s Pence at Sacred Heart Church in 2018 because he thought the money was going to the needy.

Then, last month, the Wall Street Journal and other media in Italy reported that millions of dollars were actually going to “plug holes in the Vatican’s administrative budget” — along with investments in other unusual projects.

“Hundreds of millions of dollars over the last several years has been diverted into various suspicious investment funds, which in turn have funneled the money into such diverse ventures as luxury condominium developments and Hollywood movies, while paying fund managers hefty, multi-million dollar commissions,” Providence lawyer Peter N. Wasylyk and Marc R. Stanley of the Stanley Law Group in Dallas, Texas, wrote in the lawsuit filed Jan. 22 at U.S. District Court.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service via Crux

February 8, 2020

Los Angeles Archbishop Jose H. Gomez, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has appointed Suzanne Healy, the former victims assistance coordinator for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, as the new chair of the National Review Board, effective in June.

Healy, a retired marriage and family therapist, served as the victim assistance coordinator for the Los Angeles Archdiocese from 2007 to 2016 and for the past three years she has been a member of the National Review Board.

Prior to her work in the Los Angeles Archdiocese, she served as a high school counselor and before becoming a therapist, she served in strategic planning experience for AT&T Pacific Bell.

Healy will succeed Francesco Cesareo, who concludes his term as chair after the bishops’ June 2020 meeting. Cesareo, president of Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts, has served as the review board chairman since 2013.

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VATICAN CITY
Associated Press

February 7, 2020

By Nicole Winfield

Pope Francis will release his eagerly-awaited document on the Amazon next Wednesday, with attention focused on whether he will approve calls by the region’s bishops to ordain married men to address a priest shortage there.

Speculation about Francis’ decision has intensified in recent weeks after retired Pope Benedict XVI co-authored a book insisting on the “foundational” need for a celibate priesthood. The book, excerpts of which were published Jan. 12, appeared to be a direct attempt by the retired pope and his conservative allies to influence the thinking of the current one.

Vatican officials sought to defuse that idea Friday, saying Francis had turned over his document to the Holy See for translation on Dec. 27, before “From the Depths of Our Heart” came out. They said Francis’ text did not undergo any changes since then.

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BRONX (NY)
Fordham Ram

February 6, 2020

By Erica Scalise

Rev. Nicholas J. Langenfeld, former social welfare professor in the Graduate School of Social Services, prior recipient of the President’s Medal and the eponymous figure of the Rev. Dr. Nicholas J. Langenfeld Chair in Social Research at the university’s Graduate School of Social Sciences, has a credible allegation of sexual abuse of a minor against him listed by the Diocese of Green Bay.

The university revoked Langenfeld’s honors in 2019, posthumously, following its knowledge of the allegation. The Langenfeld Chair was renamed the Sister Thea Bowman Chair according to Bob Howe, director of communications for the university. The Fordham community was not notified of these changes.

According to Howe, there is no central list of revoked honors.

The university publicly rescinded Bill Cosby’s honorary degree in 2015 in light of sexual misconduct allegations against him and Charlie Rose’s honorary degree in 2017 following sexual assault allegations brought against him. In the case of Langenfeld, Howe said the university did not make a formal statement because he was long deceased when the university revoked the honors.

Langenfeld is not on Fordham News’ list of priests connected to the university with credible allegations of sexual abuse of a minor. Howe said the lack of update was an oversight.

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DENVER (CO)
Catholic News Agency

February 7, 2020

By JD Flynn

Women who made allegations against a priest in the Legionaries of Christ say the religious order’s newly elected superior general mishandled the situation, allowing the priest opportunities to cross boundaries with women even after complaints against him had been made.

But the Legionaries of Christ say that Fr. John Connor, who was this week elected worldwide leader of the group, has not been negligent in his oversight responsibilities in the religious order.

“He does, however, believe there is room for improvement when working toward a culture of zero abuse,” Gail Gore, a spokesperson for the Legion told CNA Feb. 7.

Connor became the North American territorial director for the Legionaries of Christ in 2014. Three years later he received two reports about boundary violations on the part of Fr. Michael Sullivan, a priest of the order.

In that year, one woman reported that Sullivan had treated her in a way that seemed to cross boundaries, while she was still an adolescent.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

February 7, 2020

https://www.ncronline.org/news/accountability/ncr-today/your-thoughts-catholic-confusion-continuing-abuse-crisis-and-more

It should not surprise anyone that the public disclosure of the crimes committed by sex predator priests has made being a priest more difficult and less pleasant for their non-predator colleagues.

Nevertheless, the “turmoil” caused by the public’s knowledge of these criminals and their crimes vanishes when contrasted with the lifelong damage that is inflicted on the innocent children who have been raped and otherwise used for the sexual gratification by men who are said to be the servants of God.

We should save our sympathy for the raped children and let the non-predator priests resolve their own “turmoil.” Perhaps the solution is for the priesthood to rid itself of the sex predators among its members and see to it that more predators are prevented from joining.

Please consider reporting how many of America’s 17,000-plus Catholic parishes were not “served” by a sexual predator priest between, say, 1951 and 2000. I picked the last five decades because of the very long time between (a) the average age of the victim at the first rape (11) and (b) the average age of the victim when such rapes are reported (44).

ROB BLIGH
San Antonio, Texas

***

These are the men (priests mentioned in article) who should be running our archdioceses. They know the real heartbeat of the parishes that make up the archdioceses are not the cardinals and bishops that parishioners rarely encounter.

I am tired of receiving “My dear brothers and sisters” letters from someone who doesn’t know who is part of their archdiocese and stays behind a partition of staff to fend off questions!

MARY WALLACE
Emerson, New Jersey

***

I empathize with U.S. priests who feel the pressure and turmoil. The situation in Ireland is not dissimilar.

A factor unnecessarily adding to the pressure is a failure to recognize how much has changed in the understanding of child sexual abuse in the past 40 years. The article refers to “This cover-up … a lot are angry at bishops and the institutional church for screwing up.”

We insist today on the highest standards of dealing with allegations of abuse. It is unjust, and anachronistic, to judge the actions of those dealing with allegations 40 or 50 years ago as if they had our knowledge. The wisdom and best-practice of those times are the folly and outrage of today. They did not have our knowledge of how widespread abuse is, nor of the effects on those abused, nor how to deal with abusers. This is true of priests and of legal, medical and social professionals.

PADRAIG McCARTHY
Dublin, Ireland

***

This excellent article described well how hard it must be to be a good priest in the midst of a severe shortage of ministers.

There is a simple solution: Ordain women. Give parishes to women who have already been ordained as Catholic priests. I have been to two of these ordinations. As I see these women, in vestments at the altar proclaiming the gospel, performing the Eucharist, my first thought is: what is the church afraid of?

A man says, “I have been called to the priesthood” and everyone rejoices. He then works to pass the requirements of the seminary and enhance his spiritual life. A young woman says, “I have been called to the priesthood” and the church says, “No, you haven’t.”

From the beginning, with the great women saints, until today when sisters are at the border and women are running schools and parishes, what more do we have to do prove that we are the equal of men in our love for the message of Jesus? The church would rather close parishes than share priestly power with women. One might say that the church has brought this burden of overworked priests on itself.

MARGUERITE DELACOMA
Evanston, Illinois

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ROME
Catholic News Service

February 7, 2020

By Cindy Wooden

During a general chapter meeting largely devoted to their order’s sexual abuse crisis, the Legionaries of Christ elected U.S. Father John Connor as superior general for the next six years.

Connor, who will celebrate his 52nd birthday Feb. 15, has been the territorial superior for North America since 2014. He was elected superior general Feb. 6 in Rome.

A native of Severna Park, Maryland, Connor is the first superior general of the Legionaries who was not born in Mexico, where the order was founded in 1941.

Ordained to the priesthood Jan. 2, 2001, Connor has ministered mainly in New York, Philadelphia and Atlanta. He holds a degree in finance from Loyola College in Baltimore and studied philosophy and theology in Rome.

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OKLAHOMA
McAlester News

February 6, 2020

By James Beaty

A two-night series on the Oxygen television network focuses partially on a case that went through the Pittsburg County court system in 2013 and 2014.

Details of the case and what preceded and followed it are included in a new investigative series called “The Witnesses,” set to air at 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 8 and 9, on Oxygen, a pay television network owned by NBCUniversal.

The program covers what the network calls a five-year investigation into policies of the Jehovah’s Witness organization by Trey Bundy, of the Center for Investigative Journalism. It tells the stories of four individuals who reported to police that they were sexually abused as children, including two women from McAlester.

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ST. PAUL (MN)
CNS

February 3, 2020

By Dave Hrbacek

Gina Barthel went to a priest while in New York to find healing from childhood sexual abuse.

She got the opposite.

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LONDON (UK)
Church Times

February 7, 2020

By Hattie Williams

A SURVIVOR of clerical abuse had his settlement reduced by more than one third by the Church’s insurer, Ecclesiastical, based on the evidence of a psychiatrist who had never met the claimant, his lawyer has confirmed.

The story was first reported in the Insurance Post on Tuesday. The survivor — referred to as Tony — alleges that he was abused by two individuals. He suffered from mental-health issues after he first disclosed the abuse — an experience that he described as a “reawakening” of the trauma.

In 2017, Tony rejected an offer of settlement from Ecclesiastical. He was in hospital, having attempted to take his own life, when a lower offer was made. A Part 36 offer is routinely made by either the claimant or the defendant as a tactical step to convince the other party to settle the claim early, without the matter having to go to court. It must be accepted within 21 days.

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BROOKINGS (SD)
The Brookings Register

February 7, 2020

By Terry Mattingly

The email was signed “Worried Wife,” and contained a blunt version of a question Bronwyn Lea has heard many times while working with women in and around churches.

The writer said her husband had become friends with another woman his own age. There were no signs of trouble, but they traded messages about all kinds of things. This was creating a “jealous-wife space” in her mind.

“Worried Wife” concluded: “I need a biblical perspective. What is a godly view of cross-gender friendships, and how should they be approached within the context of marriage?”

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MEMPHIS (TN)
FOX 13

February 4, 2020

By Leah Jordan

Memphis-based Church of God in Christ is named in a lawsuit which details decades-old allegations of sex crimes.

The suit also names two New York churches, and an assistant pastor.

Warren Curtis alleges he was sexually abused in a New York church when he was a child.

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DENVER (CO)
Associated Press

February 6, 2020

A Colorado reparations program for people abused by Catholic priests when they were children paid more than $1 million to nine of 78 people who submitted claims.

The filing deadline was Friday and 60 cases are under review, The Colorado Sun reports.

One of the independent administrators of the Independent Reconciliation and Reparations Program for the Archdiocese of Denver, the Diocese of Colorado Springs and the Diocese of Pueblo said another $500,000 in payments are due to four other victims.

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LONG BEACH
Long Beach Post

February 6, 2020

By Kelly Puente

Long Beach resident Manny Lemos joined the Boy Scouts of America in the early 1970s after his father died, hoping the organization would give him a sense of belonging.

Lemos said he was 11 when an assistant scoutmaster befriended him and then began sexually abusing him during camping trips to Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear. The abuse, which continued until he was 14, had a profound affect on his life, he said.

“I was too afraid to tell anyone because I didn’t think anyone would believe me,” said Lemos, now 61. “But now I’m ready. I want it to be known what this man did to me.”

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ST. GEORGE (UT)
St. George News

February 3, 2020

By Hollie Reina

In the 2019 fiscal year, the Utah Division of Child and Family Services received 42,428 reports of child abuse or neglect, according to their annual report. Of that number, 21,401 were accepted for formal assessment by Child Protective Services and 10,828 confirmed child victims were found.

All of those numbers were up from 2018, according to the same report.

Kristy Pike, director of the Washington County Children’s Justice Center, said that rising numbers are not necessarily a bad thing. In most instances, that means better reporting of child abuse and neglect, she said.

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JEFFERSON COUNTY (MO)
Leader Publications

February 4, 2020

The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office and state authorities are investigating abuse allegations against former employees at a day care program run by Victory Church, 1 Victory Drive, southwest of Pevely.

The Victory Children’s Center of Victory Church is under investigation, Sheriff’s Office Capt. Gary Higginbotham said Jan. 31.

On Jan. 15, the Children’s Division of the Missouri Department of Social Services notified the Sheriff’s Office that it was investigating alleged abuse that occurred this year, Higginbotham said.

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MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL
Star Tribune

February 05, 2020

By Erin Adler

Two young women made credible claims against a former Burnsville church pastor when they accused him of having inappropriate sexual relationships with them more than 15 years ago, an investigation by the church has concluded.

The Rev. Wes Feltner, a former lead pastor at Berean Baptist Church, was found by the investigation not to be “above reproach,” meaning that he behaved in a shameful way not “free from sinful habits” and deserving of “rebuke or censure” in the eyes of church elders, according to a recent statement from the church to congregants.

A meeting for the congregation was held Jan. 23 to explain the investigation’s results. Church leaders didn’t return phone calls, and a relative of Feltner’s said he didn’t want to comment.

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UNITED STATES
Fox News

By Stephanie Nolasco

Sarah Brooks was sitting next to her father in his pickup truck when she confessed to him she had suffered sexual abuse at the hands of two church members.

Brooks was just 17 at the time, but she claimed it all started when she was just 15.

“I deliberately chose that moment,” she told Fox News. “I didn’t want to look at him in the face. I knew something wasn’t right and I just didn’t know what to do about it. He said, ‘The best thing to do is tell the truth. That’s the only thing you can ever do.’ That’s when I proceeded to tell him what had happened to me, all the touching and kissing that occurred.”

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Christian Post

February 7, 2020

By Richard Land

Question: There have been disturbing reports about child sex abuse in churches, sometimes even the father being the perpetrator, and pastors and counselors saying that the perpetrator has repented and pushing reconciliation and forgiveness even though the victim believes the perpetrator is faking it and feels unsafe. Church leaders have even pushed for children to forgive and live with the father who sexually abused them and some have resulted in continual abuse. How do you balance repentance, forgiveness, born-again theology, and protecting the victim and preventing further abuse – both in a counseling setting and in a church setting? How do you deal with a convicted child sex abuser joining the church and setting up proper protection while also needing to recognize someone beyond their past sins?

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
Nola.com

February 6, 2020

By Ramon Antonio Vargas

Two men who filed lawsuits claiming they were raped as children by janitors at Jesuit High School’s Mid-City campus have moved to dismiss their cases after receiving financial settlements.

The plaintiffs’ attorney, Roger Stetter, said Thursday that both sides had agreed not to disclose the amounts and terms of the settlements, which were negotiated through a mediation process.

As is standard with such agreements, neither the school nor the religious order that runs it acknowledged any wrongdoing. But Stetter said his clients stood by their claims that they were sexually molested decades ago by Gary Sanchez and the late Peter Modica.

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SCOTLAND
Scottish Catholic Observer

February 7, 2020

An audit of two Scottish dioceses reveals scale of healing abuse wounds but some progress is being made, reports Peter diamond

More work is needed in building trust, an independent audit of safeguarding practices in two Scottish dioceses has recommended.

Both the Archdiocese of St Andrews & Edinburgh and Galloway Diocese welcomed the report, which was published on Thursday, January 30, yet reviews of safeguarding processes within the two dioceses have noted ‘healing’ was still ongoing and called for more support for abuse survivors.

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FRANKFURT (GERMANY)
Catholic News Service

February 6, 2020

The first synodal assembly on the future the Catholic Church in Germany drew both praise and some criticism, with many of the 230 participants lauding what they called a special atmosphere in the debates on key reforms.

Cardinal Reinhard Marx, president of the German bishops’ conference, said the spirit of the talks had been “positive and encouraging” and referred to the synodal path process as a “spiritual experiment,” reported the German Catholic news agency KNA.

Thomas Sternberg, president of the Central Committee of German Catholics, which represents laypeople, said: “No one is disputing the other’s piety here.” A “new image of the church” had been seen in the Frankfurt talks, he said.

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SANTIAGO (CHILE)
CNA

February 6, 2020

Pope Francis on Wednesday appointed bishops to the dioceses of Osorno and San Bartolomé de Chillán, both of which had been left vacant in 2018 amid the sex abuse scandal of the Church in Chile.

On Feb. 5 Bishop Jorge Enrique Concha Cayuqueo, O.F.M., was named Bishop of Osorno, and Father Sergio Hernán Pérez de Arce Arriagada, SS.CC., was named Bishop of San Bartolomé de Chillán. Both had been serving as apostolic administrators of their new respective sees.

The chanceries of both Osorno and Chillán had been raided in September 2018 amid an investigation into sexual crimes against minors committed by members of the Church.

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SUMTER (SC)
The Sumter Item

February 7, 2020

By Brian J. Clites

Roman Catholic Bishop Richard Malone resigned in December 2019 after intense public criticism for his handling of the clergy sexual abuse crisis in the diocese of Buffalo, New York.

His departure came three months after the Vatican announced what’s called an “apostolic visitation” – a religious investigation that allows the pope to swiftly audit, punish or sanction virtually any wing of the Roman Catholic Church – into Malone’s diocese or region.

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PENNSYLVANIA
National Catholic Reporter

February 4, 2020

By Sarah Salvadore Accountability

At Villanova event, Hans Zollner calls out past systemic failure in reporting, stopping abuse

In a Jan. 29 talk at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, Jesuit Fr. Hans Zollner said that clericalism is the root cause of the damage done to the church and called out past systemic failure in reporting, punishing and stopping abuse.

“There is general mistrust and suspicion on cardinals and bishops. This is not just happening in U.S. and Australia — the level of trust on bishops is below zero. And this has devastated an institution that is built on trust and faith,” he said.

Zollner, a professor of psychology and president of the Center for Child Protection, at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, spoke as part of a series examining the sex abuse crisis. Zollner spoke on the situation of the church across the globe.

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LANSING (MI)
Associated Press via U.S. News and World Report

February 6, 2020

A former Roman Catholic priest in Michigan will be tried on sexual assault charges for allegedly abusing a 5-year-old boy after a 1987 family funeral, Attorney General Dana Nessel said Wednesday.

Vincent DeLorenzo was bound over for trial after a hearing before Grand Blanc District Court Judge Christopher Odette. The judge also increased DeLorenzo’s bond from $100,000 to $200,000. He remains in Genesee County Jail.

DeLorenzo, 81, is accused of abusing the boy from 1995 to 2000. The child was a student at Holy Redeemer Catholic Church school in Burton. The alleged victim testified he was raped by DeLorenzo in the second grade. Defense attorney Michael Manley has said his client “maintains his innocence.”

Although the alleged crime took place more than 10 years ago, Michigan’s statute of limitations is suspended when a defendant leaves the state for any reason. DeLorenzo admitted when he resigned from a Flint-area parish in 2002 that he had sexually abused a child. He wasn’t charged at the time.

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PROVIDENCE (RI)
Associated Press via National Catholic Reporter

February 6, 2020

By Jennifer McDermott

Rhode Island’s attorney general said Feb.6 he expects to release a public report later this year with findings from his review of allegations of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clerics in the state.

Democrat Peter Neronha continues to review the allegations to figure out what happened, what the response was and whether anyone can be held responsible in Rhode Island, one of the most heavily Catholic states.

Neronha, who met with reporters at his office Thursday, said he couldn’t yet say whether any criminal charges will be filed. The challenge with such cases nationwide is that many perpetrators are dead, he added.

At a minimum, Neronha said he anticipates writing a public report and releasing it later this year to describe the allegations, the response, whether he deems the response appropriate and whether sufficient safeguards are now in place.

The goal is to write it in the style of the 2018 landmark grand jury report on sexual abuse by Catholic clergy in Pennsylvania, he added.

Neronha gained access in July to nearly 70 years of records from the Diocese of Providence for his review, shortly after the diocese released a list of 50 clerics, religious order priests and deacons it deems to have been credibly accused of sexually abusing children, dating to 1950.

The diocese voluntarily agreed to a new memorandum of understanding to give the attorney general and the Rhode Island State Police access to all complaints since 1950, whether deemed credible by the diocese or not.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Agency via National Catholic Register

February 6, 2020
.
By Hannah Brockhaus

Pope Francis will make the final decision on when to publish a highly-anticipated report on former cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the Vatican’s Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said Thursday.

“I think that [the report] will come out soon, I cannot tell you exactly when,” Cardinal Parolin told a small group of journalists Feb. 6.

Speaking on the sidelines of a conference on holiness, the cardinal said “we are trying to speed up the time to arrive” at the publication of the report on the Vatican’s internal investigation into the disgraced former cardinal.

Cardinal Parolin did confirm that he expects the document to be released “in the near future.”

“However, the publication depends on the pope. The work that is done is done, but the pope must give the final word,” he added.

The Vatican announced that it would conduct an internal review of files on McCarrick’s career in October 2018. McCarrick was a cardinal and the archbishop of two major American sees before he was found guilty of serial sexual abuse and laicized in 2019, following a canonical process.

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PHOENIX (AZ)
News 12

February 7, 2020

By Bianca Blanco

https://www.12news.com/article/news/local/valley/lawyer-says-former-valley-priest-accused-of-sexual-abuse-is-too-sick-to-go-to-court/75-793b4080-3bca-4036-8461-0cf157e64002

Father John “Jack” Spaulding was indicted in January. His lawyer says days before the indictment, Spaulding was diagnosed with a “mortal illness.”

Father John “Jack” Spaulding was due in court for his arraignment.

But he did not show.

According to a motion filed by his lawyer, Greg Meell, the 74-year-old was diagnosed with a terminal illness just a few days before Spaulding’s indictment in January, so he was too sick to appear in court.

The document said Spaulding is weak and called attending Friday’s hearing a “threat” because of illnesses like the flu spreading around.

The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office announced in January that Spaulding was indicted and accused of sexually abusing at least two boys under the age of 15 between 2003 and 2007.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

February 6, 2020

By Philip Pullella

Work on a Vatican report into disgraced ex U.S. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick is complete and it may be released in the near future but Pope Francis will have the final word on timing, the Vatican’s number two said on Thursday.

McCarrick was expelled from the Roman Catholic priesthood a year ago after a Vatican investigation found him guilty of sexual crimes against minors and adults and abuse of power.

The 89-year-old, once a power-broker as Archbishop of Washington, D.C. from 2001 to 2006, is the highest profile Church figure to have been dismissed from the priesthood in modern times.

In 2018, Francis ordered a through study of all documents in Holy See offices concerning McCarrick. The four U.S. dioceses where he served – New York, Metuchen, Newark, and Washington, D.C. – carried out separate investigations to feed into the Vatican report.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
Catholic News Service via The Tablet

February 6, 2020

By Gia Myers

Up to 200 people gathered at the conference to broaden their understanding of the global sex abuse crisis.

The Church has been damaged by the sexual abuse crisis, but people have been damaged more, according to a leading Vatican safeguarding expert.

Fr Hans Zollner SJ, a member on the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, told a conference in the US: “Much damage has been done to the church” due to clergy sexual abuse, said Fr Zollner, “but more damage has been done to human beings.” In responding to this crisis, “many people are engaged in the same mission: a safer church and a safer world,” he said.

Almost 200 people filled the Driscoll Hall Auditorium at the Augustinian Catholic University of Villanova in Pennsylvania, looking to deepen their understanding about global perspectives on the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church.

The evening event was the third conference in the four-part series of discussions with Catholic theologians hosted by Villanova to examine the abuse crisis. It featured Fr Zollner, a licensed German psychologist and psychotherapist with a doctorate in theology and one of the church’s leading experts in the area of safeguarding minors.

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LA CROSSE (WI)
La Crosse Tribune

February 6, 2020

By Kyle Farris

The Diocese of La Crosse has released the names of seven more priests who have been credibly accused of sexually abusing children.

These additions, made Wednesday, include two priests who held assignments in La Crosse and four who worked at a now defunct Jesuit boarding school in Prairie du Chien.

They are:

– Benedict Adams (St. Anthony Retreat Center, Marathon)
– J. Michael Cannon (Campion High School, Prairie du Chien)
– Thomas R. Haller (Campion High School)
– J. Roger Lucey (Campion High School)
– Charles Meyer (St. Rose Convent, La Crosse)
– James V. O’Connor (Campion High School)
– Michael A. Spegele (St. Francis Hospital, La Crosse)

At least five of the priests have died, and the other two were long ago dismissed by the Society of Jesus. It is unclear whether Cannon (dismissed in 1997) and Haller (dismissed in 1982) are still alive, still working with children or still serving in religious roles.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Associated Press

February 6, 2020

By Claudia Lauer and Meghan Hoyer

In the wake of revelations that scores of Roman Catholic priests and religious workers credibly accused of child sexual abuse are living unsupervised in communities across the country, state officials face a quandary: Should they screen former clergy members who seek licenses for jobs that put them in contact with children? And, if so, how?

An Associated Press investigation last fall found nearly 200 accused clergy members had been granted teaching, mental health or social work licenses, with roughly six dozen still holding valid licenses to work in those fields in 2019.

Since then, at least 20 states have started using church-released lists of priests and employees who faced credible allegations to screen applicants or check for current state teaching, foster care and therapy licenses — and, in some cases, have revoked credentials.

As part of the church’s attempt to be more transparent about its ongoing sexual abuse crisis, more than 170 dioceses and religious orders have publicly released lists of clergy members they found to be credibly accused of abuses ranging from rape to child pornography.

Over 5,300 priests, clergy members and a handful of lay employees — more than 2,000 of them still living — are on the lists. But because most were never convicted of a crime, the allegations of child abuse never appeared in licensing background checks, the AP’s investigation revealed.

Church and law enforcement officials have said there is little they can do to monitor or restrict the nearly 1,700 mostly former clergy members the AP found living without supervision because many voluntarily left the church or were laicized, which means they are permanently restricted from the priesthood and return to private citizenship.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
WTAE

February 6, 2020

Munhall PA – An 89-year-old retired priest who was found guilty of sexually abusing a then-11-year-old-boy in 2001 was sentenced to nine to 23 months and 29 days on Thursday afternoon.

The Rev. Hugh Lang was found guilty on six of eight charges he sexually abused a boy in the basement of Saint Therese Church in Munhall.

The judge shaved one day off of the sentence so Lang would not go to state prison. The execution of the sentence does not start immediately because there are issues over a motion to dismiss because of statute of limitations.

Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Mark Tranquilli convicted Lang in a non-jury trial but Judge Anthony Mariani will be the new judge, because Tranquilli has been ordered not to hear any cases after he allegedly made a racially charged remark during a closed-door meeting involving an assistant district attorney and a defense attorney.

The victim returned from Southeast Asia last year to testify against Lang.

Lang was on the witness stand for nearly an hour during his trial, testifying in his own defense. He insisted he does not know the victim and never abused him.

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PHOENIX (AZ)
News 12

February 6, 2020

By Bianca Buono

https://www.12news.com/article/news/local/valley/lawyer-says-former-valley-priest-accused-of-sexual-abuse-is-too-sick-to-go-to-court/75-793b4080-3bca-4036-8461-0cf157e64002

Father John “Jack” Spaulding was indicted in January. His lawyer says days before the indictment, Spaulding was diagnosed with a “mortal illness.”

A former Valley priest accused of molesting multiple children is due in court Friday morning. The only problem? The priest likely won’t have to show up.

“When the innocence of a child is taken from them, it is an absolutely unspeakable act,” said Maricopa County Attorney Allister Adel shortly after the indictment.

In January, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office announced that Spaulding, 74, was indicted and accused of sexually abusing at least two boys under the age of 15 between 2003 and 2007.

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VATICAN CITY
Associated Press via U.S. News and World Report

February 7, 2020

By Nicole Winfield

The Legion of Christ religious order, discredited years ago by its pedophile founder, has elected an American priest as its new superior as it seeks to recover from new sex abuse and cover-up scandals that have renewed calls for it to be disbanded.

The Rev. John Connor, 51, is the first American to lead the Mexico-based order. His election Thursday was a sign that the Legion’s heavily Mexican hierarchy realized it needed to send a signal that it is changing course, 10 years after it first promised reform.

Among Legion priests, Connor is seen as a reformer. But he has also been accused of mishandling a case of a priest accused by several women of crossing physical and emotional boundaries in the U.S. The priest was only recently removed from ministry even though initial reports about his behavior were received in 2017.

Connor, who has been in charge of the Legion in North America since 2014, has apologized for those who were hurt. And he has acknowledged that the Legion overall has not handled abuse cases properly and must now “wade through the sins of our past” to try to regain the trust of the faithful.

The Vatican took the Legion over in 2010 after determining that its late founder, the Rev. Marcial Maciel, sexually abused at least 60 seminarians, fathered at least three children, and built a cult-like order to hide his crimes.

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VATICAN CITY
Associated Press via Southeast Missourian

February 5, 2020

By Nicole Winfield

Another founder of a Catholic religious movement has been defrocked for sexual misconduct and abusing his power, the latest in a string of purportedly orthodox, charismatic priests who turned out to be predators.

Pope Francis defrocked the Argentine priest, Roberto Juan Yannuzzi, after a four-year investigation determined he had sex with adults under his authority, absolved them of the sin during confession and otherwise abused his power.

The pope’s decision was made public this week in a statement by the archbishop of La Plata, Argentina, where Yannuzzi in 1994 founded the Miles Christi community. The name is Latin for “Soldier of Christ.”

The movement is a religious order of priests, religious brothers, consecrated women and laity with a presence in Argentina, Italy, Mexico and in the U.S. dioceses of Detroit and San Diego, according to its website.

In a statement, Miles Christi said its members had denounced Yannuzzi’s abuse and “irregularities” starting in 2016.

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FRESNO (CA)
Fresno Bee

January 31, 2020

By Yesenia Amaro

The Diocese of Fresno faces a second lawsuit in less than a month filed under the state’s New Child Victims Act.

The suit accuses Father Miguel Flores of sexual abuse claims of which he was acquitted after a criminal trial in 2002.

The lawsuit filed Tuesday in Fresno County Superior Court also names as defendants St. Paul, Tranquility Roman Catholic Church and Immaculate Heart of Mary Roman Catholic Church. The alleged victim, who is only identified in the lawsuit as Jane Doe was about 16 years old when the alleged abuse by Flores took place. She is now 34.

Flores was placed on administrative leave on Feb. 28, 2019, after a report from a third party came to light in connection with the 2002 case in which he was acquitted. He was serving at St. Joseph Church in Bakersfield when he was placed on leave.

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ST. PAUL (MN)
Catholic Spirit – Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

February 4, 2020

By Maria Wiering

The Congregation for Bishops in Rome has authorized Archbishop Bernard Hebda to further investigate claims that Bishop Michael Hoeppner of Crookston interfered with an investigation of clerical sexual misconduct, according to a Feb. 4 statement from the archdiocese.
Judge Tim O’Malley, director of the Office of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, will oversee the investigation, serving as the archbishop’s delegate.

The statement says that the investigation will continue to look into claims that the bishop, “had engaged in ‘acts or omissions intended to interfere with or avoid civil or canonical investigations of clerical sexual misconduct’ as prescribed by the motu proprio, ‘Vos estis lux mundi.’”

Pope Francis promulgated the “motu proprio,” meaning an edict personally issued by the pope, in May 2019 to set new worldwide norms for reporting sexual abuse and to hold bishops accountable for abuse and/or its cover-up. It states that if a bishop is accused of misconduct, the Holy See will mandate his metropolitan archbishop to investigate the claim. As archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Archbishop Hebda is metropolitan archbishop of the bishops in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota.

Bishop Hoeppner, 70, is reportedly the first sitting U.S. bishop to be investigated under the new norms. In September 2019, The Catholic Spirit reported that Archbishop Hebda had been mandated to conduct a preliminary investigation of Bishop Hoeppner’s actions. Archbishop Hebda noted at that time that he had engaged qualified laypeople, including staff from the archdiocese’s Office of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment and its Ministerial Review Board, to conduct the investigation.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

February 6, 2020

By Maria Panaritis

At first, the number seems huge: The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has paid out nearly $39 million to 181 sexual-abuse victims through the compensation fund it opened last year.

Wow, you might think to yourself. Finally, the institution whose leaders allowed generations of children to be destroyed by the sexual depravity of countless priests while bishops and monsignors helped cover it up, is paying up from the treasury it so immorally had fought to protect.

But don’t be fooled. This is a mammoth number only when you consider how difficult victims have found securing just compensation in one of the nation’s largest Catholic dioceses thanks to resistance by the church itself.

Accountability has arrived, yes. But at discount rates.

The $39 million tally, provided to me this week about the clergy-abuse compensation fund created after the 2018 grand jury report into Catholic clergy abuse in Pennsylvania, is well below what the five-county archdiocese would likely have paid in court — if it had not helped block a state law that would have allowed a flood of lawsuits.

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FLINT (MI)
ABC 12/WJRT

February 5, 2020

Bond doubled as Flint-area priest bound over to trial

A former Catholic priest is facing trial on sex charges dating back to his work at parishes in Burton and Flushing in the 1980s to 2000s.

Vincent DeLorenzo is facing three counts of first-degree and three counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct from 1995 to 2000 in one case and one count of first-degree criminal sexual conduct from 1987 in the second case.

DeLorenzo is accused of touching a boy inappropriately more than a hundred times from 1995 to 2000. The now-30-year-old testified he was in elementary school at Holy Redeemer Catholic School in Burton.

The man said the abuse ranged from groping to DeLorenzo digitally penetrating him.

“I thought it was tickling. I thought it was fun. And he turned it into somewhat of a game at first,” he testified.

The alleged abuse stopped when the boy left the school in 2000.

DeLorenzo also is accused of touching a 5-year-old boy inappropriately in 1987 after a relative’s funeral at Holy Redeemer.

“He said if you tell anyone your uncle will not become a priest,” the now-38-year-old testified.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Oxygen Media

February 5, 2020

By Jill Sederstrom

Last year, 23 states and the District of Columbia adopted some reform impacting statute of limitations laws, giving victims of sexual abuse more opportunities to have their voices heard.

Statute of limitations laws have long silenced the voices of sexual abuse victims—but new legislation in multiple states could give victims of abuse more power in legal battles.

Just last year New York passed the Child Victims Act, a legislative move that could finally give many victims of childhood sexual abuse their day in court.

But New York isn’t alone. In 2019, 23 states and the District of Columbia had reform go into effect that impacted the statutes of limitations, according to data from ChildUSA, a think tank for child protection.

Some states made changes to their criminal child sex abuse laws, other states made changes to civil child sex abuse laws and some of the states made changes to both types of laws, a spokesperson from the organization told Oxygen.com.

An increasing number of states are also eliminating the statutes of limitations for criminal cases to be filed for some crimes, which depending on the state, could include child molestation, rape or first-degree felonies.

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ALBUQUERQUE (NM)
KOB 4

February 4, 2020

A former Catholic priest, accused of raping a six-year-old boy, was found not guilty, according to a spokesperson with the attorney general’s office.

Prosecutors claimed Marvin Archuleta, 81, raped the boy in 1986 inside Holy Cross Catholic Church in Santa Cruz.

The former priest was arrested in 2019 at his northeast Albuquerque apartment. The arrest was the result of a two-year investigation conducted by the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office.

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ALBUQUERQUE (NM)
KOB 4

February 5, 2020

By Chris Ramirez

A former New Mexico Catholic priest who was acquitted of child rape is now walking free, but some victims feel that justice was not served.

Isaac Casados of Española was one of those people hanging on to hope that Marvin Archuleta would be found guilty. Casados said he suffered abuse at the hands of Archuleta in the early 1990s when he was an altar boy at Holy Cross Catholic Church in Santa Cruz.

“He would touch you on the chest, then on the leg, then he would brush his hands on your buttocks and it was though he was testing you—grooming you as to what comes next,” he said.

Casados said light touches evolved into full-on sexual assault.

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TULSA (OK)
Tulsa World

February 4, 2020

By Randy Krehbiel

https://www.tulsaworld.com/news/house-committee-advances-legislation-to-eliminate-statute-of-limitations-for/article_f303512b-2afc-5e4f-8251-14103f45dd01.html

A bill that would repeal the statute of limitations on sex crimes involving minors advanced from an Oklahoma House of Representatives committee over concerns about defendants’ right to a fair trial.

House Bill 3024, by Rep. Carol Bush, R-Tulsa, passed the House Judiciary Committee, 12-5 on Tuesday, with most of the opposition coming from attorneys.

“How does this impact the defendant’s right to a fair trial, when you seemingly endlessly extend the statute of limitations,” said Rep. Terry O’Donnell, R-Catoosa. “From my perspective as an attorney, a defendant is entitled to a trial while memories are fresh (and) witnesses are available. Extending the statute of limitations, doesn’t that impair the defendants’ access to that potential evidence?”

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CROOKSTON (MN)
Crookston Times

February 5, 2020

Congregation for Bishops in Rome says archbishop in St. Paul will instead be involved in cases of abuse

The Congregation for Bishops in Rome recently specified that during the investigation of Crookston Diocese Bishop Michael J. Hoeppner, the faculty to deal with cases of sexual abuse against clerics of the Diocese of Crookston has been transferred from Bishop Hoeppner to Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis.

In an official statement released by the Diocese of Crookston Tuesday, it was announced that the Archbishop was authorized by the Congregation to conduct further investigation related to claims that Bishop Hoeppner had engaged in “acts or omissions intended to interfere with or avoid civil or canonical investigations of clerical sexual misconduct” as prescribed by the motu proprio, Vos estis lux mundi.

Judge Timothy O’Malley, Director of the Archdiocesan Office of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment, will serve as the Archbishop’s Delegate for the investigation.

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MEMPHIS (TN)
WMC

February 3, 2020

By Janice Broach

COGIC being sued by man alleging sexual abuse

The Memphis-based Church of God in Christ is being sued by a man who says he was sexually abused in the 1970′s. The allegations involve two churches in New York State.

The sexual abuse claims in this lawsuit allegedly happened decades ago and that is why it was filed under the Child Victim’s Act, a law in New York that extends the statute of limitations involving sexual abuse.

The Memphis based Church of God in Christ is named in this lawsuit because the headquarters is in Memphis. The now 57-year-old man from South Carolina filed the lawsuit in Albany County Supreme Court in the state where he alleges the crimes happened.

The lawsuit names St. John’s Church of God in Christ in Albany, New York and the former assistant pastor Dirome Williamson from Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Also named St. Mathew’s Temple Church of God in Christ in Utica, New York.

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INDIANAPOLIS (IN)
Indiana Lawyer

February 5, 2020

By Katie Stancombe

A bill that would have done away with the statute of limitations for certain child sex abuse crimes is making headway in the 2020 Indiana General Assembly. But some advocates are disappointed in how the bill has panned out.

Indiana Senate Bill 109, proposed by Sen. Michael Crider, R-Greenfield, initially aimed to extend the amount of time survivors have to bring criminal charges against their abusers. Under current state law, Hoosiers who were sexually abused as children have until age 31 to criminally prosecute those who harmed them.

An amendment authored by Sen. Mike Young, R-Indianapolis, to SB 109 would ultimately keep the statute of limitations in place, but allow for three exceptions to the rule if one of three things occurs: DNA evidence sufficient to charge the offender is discovered, a recording of the crime is revealed, or a confession is made.

From that point forward, law enforcement would have five years to pursue a criminal prosecution, even if the age 31 statute of limitations has passed. Those exceptions are also offered for survivors of rape, introduced in a 2015 bill authored by Crider known as “Jenny’s Law.”

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

February 3, 2020

By Michael Sean Winters

Pope Francis poses with people during his general audience in Paul VI hall at the Vatican Jan. 29. (CNS/Paul Haring)
Next month, we will celebrate the seventh anniversary of the election of Pope Francis. In some ways, it is hard to remember what we were feeling before it became obvious that this first pontiff from the Americas would be a reforming pope. In other ways, it seems like yesterday that Pope Benedict XVI resigned from his office and flew off to Castel Gandolfo. And, so before we start the looks back and looks ahead for this anniversary’s occasion, it is good to ground ourselves. Fortunately, at hand is just the book to do it, Austen Ivereigh’s Wounded Shepherd: Pope Francis and His Struggle to Convert the Catholic Church.

Just as Ivereigh’s 2014 biography The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope helped many of us better understand what experiences had formed the new pope before his election, this new book provides a much needed, lucidly written, look at the past seven years. Remarkably, he does so in part by taking a swipe at his earlier biography! At a June 2018 meeting, the pope warned Ivereigh against the “great man” myth in writing his book:

I realize now that ‘The Great Reformer’ contributed to that myth, written in the dizzying first months of his pontificate, the parallels with his life — how he appeared at moments of crisis in the church — offered an irresistible narrative: cometh the hour; cometh the man. I cringe now that I even likened him to a gaucho riding out at first light.

Okay, okay: The gaucho reference was cringeworthy. But, Ivereigh’s biography, combined with Elisabetta Piqué’s Pope Francis: Life and Revolution were indispensable early volumes that helped the rest of us understand Jorge Maria Bergoglio’s life before March 13, 2013.

I suspect that Chapter 5 of the current volume will be the one that most engages an American audience, as it focuses on the pope’s real conversion on the clergy sex abuse issue. At first, the pope had received lousy information about the situation in Chile. After he was faced with ongoing and credible objections, he dispatched Archbishop Charles Scicluna to investigate, and Scicluna documented the depth of the problem and how wrong the pope had been. The pope took this very public self-correction to heart.

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WOODBURY (NY)
News 12

February 5, 2020

There are calls for the name of a priest accused of sexually abusing a child to be removed from a building in Glen Cove.

Attorney Mitchell Garabedian says his client was sexually abused by Father Eligio Della Rosa in 1964 at St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church.

“He asked my client to meet him in the pews of the church and my client did,” says Garabedian. “And that’s where my client was sexually abused by Father Della Rosa, by Father Della Rosa instructing my client to perform oral sex on Father Della Rosa at the age of 14.”

Garabedian, who has represented other abuse victims, says his client wants Della Rosa’s name removed from a building at the Church of Saint Rocco in Glen Cove.

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MELVILLE (NY)
Newsday

February 5, 2020

By Zachary R. Dowdy

The attorney for a former parishioner of a Rocky Point Roman Catholic Church — who claims a priest abused him in the pews there a half century ago — is demanding the clergyman’s name be removed from a Glen Cove church.

Mitchell Garabedian, a Boston-based attorney representing people who claim they were abused by priests, said he recently reached an out-of-court settlement with the Diocese of Rockville Centre against Father Eligio Della Rosa, who allegedly forced his client to perform oral sex on him in the pews of St. Anthony of Padua Church in Rocky Point in 1964.

The alleged victim was 14 at the time, Garabedian said, adding that he reached a settlement in the “low six figures” in September through the church’s voluntary Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program. The mechanism, which was established by the Diocese of Rockville Centre in 2017, operates outside of the court system.

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.

BROOKLYN (NY)
The Tablet – Diocese of Brooklyn

February 5, 2020

By Christopher White

Empty Suit? Still No Lawsuit Nearly Three Months After Attorney Mitchell Garabedian Made Sex Abuse Allegation Against Bishop DiMarzio

Despite claims that he intended to file a lawsuit with an allegation of child sex abuse against Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio in December, attorney Mitchell Garabedian says he is still preparing his case.

When asked by The Tablet on Jan. 30 about the delay, Garabedian replied that he’s “just preparing” the lawsuit.

Joseph Hayden, Bishop DiMarzio’s attorney, told The Tablet that the bishop is eager to clear his name, adding the allegation is from more than 45 years ago, which he believes raises credibility issues from the outset.

“We look forward to the filing of the lawsuit so Bishop DiMarzio can have his day in court,” said Hayden, an experienced trial attorney. “Bishop DiMarzio is ready, willing and able to defend this lawsuit as soon as the court will be able to hear the matter, because the allegation is not true.”

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OXFORD (MS)
Get Religion

February 4, 2020

By Julia Duin

A few weeks ago, a giant in the Catholic and charismatic Christian world died quietly in Florida at the age of 94. Francis MacNutt was a man who in his time was as radical as another Francis, the current pope, is today.

*
I also still have a copy of a terse statement from the National Service Committee of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal that ran in the April 1980 issue of New Covenant magazine, which was the voice of the renewal. The statement said in part:

“Francis’s decision to leave the priesthood without laicization and to marry saddens us greatly. We know that his action is objectively, seriously wrong and we believe that for him it is a tremendous personal mistake…We strongly believe in the principles of obedience in the) Catholic Church and we cannot support what Francis has done …

But MacNutt never looked back. His wife quickly gave birth to a daughter, then a son. They relocated from Clearwater to Jacksonville at the invitation of then-Diocese of Florida Bishop Frank Cerveny to operate an ecumenical healing center in conjunction with the diocese. When MacNutt spoke with Pugh, he was even more adamant that celibacy should not be a requirement for priests and that clergy who ask to leave in order to marry shouldn’t be punished by the church.

Years later, I did a piece for the Washington Times on men like MacNutt who left the priesthood and one of the most common questions from these ex-priests was why they were excommunicated — while sexually abusive priests were not. Even former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was defrocked following revelations of his sexual abuse of seminarians and under-age boys, was not excommunicated.

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VERMILLION (SD)
SDPB

February 4, 2020

By Lee Strubinger

South Dakota lawmakers will hear a bill that strips the statute of limitations for adults who bring lawsuits on sexual abuse they experienced as children.

Similar bills have failed in the past.

It’s been 10 years since state lawmakers placed a statute of limitations on child sex crimes. It says any over the age of forty can only recover damages from any person or entity that perpetrated the sexual abuse act.

Since then, one group of Native women have been trying to overturn that statute of limitations. They are trying again this year.

Louise Charbonneau alleges she and her nine sisters are the victims of sexual abuse perpetrated at the St. Paul Indian Mission in Marty in the 1950’s and 60’s.

They allege being deloused with the insecticide DDT, being shown Nazi propaganda and being told their parents will go to hell if they tell them about their abuse.

Charbonneau says the bill will protect South Dakota children by giving them a window for child sex abuse victims to come forward.

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SEATTLE (WA)
Seattle Times

February 5, 2020

By Asia Fields

Before Garry Boulden was a victim advocate with the Seattle Police Department — guiding victims and their families through the aftermath of tragedies — he was a Catholic priest in Spokane, where he was accused of molesting a child.

The accusation wasn’t public when Boulden was hired 31 years ago but the department knew of it by at least 2003, when Spokane police investigated a report of possible child sex abuse by Boulden in the 1970s and ’80s. That investigation didn’t go forward at the alleged victim’s request, and no charges were filed.

The accusation became public knowledge in 2004 when the woman sued the Spokane Diocese, which settled with her and more than 100 other people who filed unrelated lawsuits in bankruptcy. A search for Boulden’s name online now brings mixed results: those about his work with homicide victims’ families next to articles about the lawsuit and his name on the Spokane Diocese’s and Seattle Archdiocese’s lists of credibly accused priests.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

February 4, 2020

By Thomas Reese

The Vatican is getting ready to release a report on former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was found to have sexually abused minors and slept with seminarians. The report, mandated by Pope Francis, will need to be detailed and comprehensive if it is going to satisfy the public’s demand for more transparency in the church.

Few scandals have rocked the Catholic Church like the story of McCarrick’s sexual abuse of minors and seminarians.

His actions are shocking enough, but the fact that such a predator could rise to be a cardinal in the Catholic hierarchy is flabbergasting. Well-connected with the rich, McCarrick was a superb fundraiser. He was also respected by political and religious leaders around the world. He often played an unofficial diplomatic role for the Vatican. The scandal is especially devastating to progressive Catholics who saw McCarrick as a moderate on church issues and a strong supporter of Catholic social teaching.

The McCarrick report needs to respond to simple questions that may require complex answers: Who knew what, when and where about McCarrick’s activities? What do we know already?

No one appears to have known about McCarrick’s abuse of minors until the first victim came forward in 2017 to request assistance from the New York Archdiocesan Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program. The victim said the abuse had taken place in the early 1970s when McCarrick was a priest in New York. The archdiocese immediately reported it to Rome, and the pope told New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan to investigate. In the meantime, McCarrick was banned from public ministry. He was forced to resign from the College of Cardinals and was dismissed from the clerical state in February 2019.

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CHARLOTTE (NC)
WFAE

February 5, 2020

By Sarah Delia

It’s been more than a month since the Charlotte Diocese released its list of clergy credibly accused of sexual abuse involving minors. The diocese says the process to publish the list was a thorough one that included hiring an independent investigative firm to review its files. But the list has received criticism about being incomplete.

Since the Charlotte Diocese list was released in the waning days of December, Terrence McKiernan of the watchdog group Bishop Accountability.org has repeatedly said names are missing.

One of those names is Harold Johnson.

“Harold Johnson was a Boston priest, ordained in 1949 who worked for most of his career in Boston but spent three years working at St. Patrick’s in Charlotte,” McKiernan said.

Johnson was included on a 2011 list released by the Boston Archdiocese of credibly accused clergy. His assignment history — where he served and correlating years — are included. He died in 2009.

From February 1957 to October 1959, Johnson worked at St. Patrick in Charlotte. At that point the entire state was under the jurisdiction of the Raleigh Diocese. The Charlotte Diocese wasn’t formed until 1972.

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ANCHORAGE (AK)
Alaska Public Media

February 4, 2020

By Casey Grove

None of the Catholic priests reported to have been involved in sexual misconduct in a 50-year review of records released last month by the Anchorage Archdiocese was ever convicted of a crime. There is also no indication the report has prompted any new criminal investigations since its release.

The report, made public Jan. 16, is based on an independent commission’s review of the church’s records. It lists 14 employees of the Anchorage Archdiocese, 13 of whom it says engaged in sexual misconduct with minors or vulnerable adults and one who was caught viewing child pornography. The allegations span from 1956 to as recent as 2015.

Ten of the men are alleged to have engaged in misconduct while in Alaska. Four are accused of misconduct elsewhere, after serving in Alaska.

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BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

February 4, 2020

By Jay Tokasz

Christ the King Seminary, which for 163 years trained men to become Catholic priests, will be shut down in May at the end of the current academic year, as the Buffalo Diocese slashes costs amid a clergy sex abuse scandal that’s led to a dramatic downturn in giving.

The Rev. Kevin Creagh, seminary rector and president, announced the decision on campus this afternoon to faculty, staff and students, following votes of the board of trustees and members of the seminary corporation.

Creagh cited diocesan financial constraints and “uncertainties surrounding future vocations” in explaining the closure.

“This is very difficult for us. It’s a very sad and disappointing moment in our history. It’s the end of an era,” he said.

Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger, chairman of the seminary board of trustees, said the seminary has been operating for the past decade with average annual deficits of $500,000 and was no longer sustainable.

“The bottom line is the task of the seminary, which is primarily academic, is something that cannot be sustained given the resources that we have right now,” he said. “We can’t continue to operate at a deficit budget.”

The announcement followed a fiscal year 2019 in which the diocese suffered $5 million in operating losses, due primarily to a steep decline in donations from parishioners who have been stunned and angered by the diocese’s handling of clergy sex abuse allegations.

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SYRACUSE (NY)
Syracuse.com

February 4, 2020

By Patrick Lohmann

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse has reinstated a priest who was accused of sexually abusing a boy in the early 1980s.

Rev. Paul Angelicchio went on voluntary leave in November while a diocese review board investigated the person’s allegation of abuse.

The review ruled it could not substantiate the allegation, the diocese said in a news release this weekend:

“Based on the information available at this time and the refusal of the complainant to cooperate in an independent investigation, the Diocesan Review Board was unable to substantiate the allegation. Bishop (Douglas) Lucia has accepted the Board’s findings.”

Angelicchio was restored to his position as pastor of St. John the Baptist Church in Rome on Saturday, according to the diocese.

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WILLMAR (MN)
West Central Tribune

February 4, 2020

By Alex Derosier

https://www.wctrib.com/lifestyle/faith/4921749-Crookston-bishop-faces-further-investigation-loses-authority-to-handle-sex-abuse-allegations

Crookston MN – The Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis has been cleared by Catholic Church leadership to continue its probe into the Crookston bishop’s alleged cover-ups of clerical sexual abuse.

The Congregation for Bishops in Rome authorized Archbishop Bernard Hebda to proceed with further investigation into Bishop Michael Hoeppner, who has been under investigation since September, according to a Tuesday, Feb. 4, statement from the Catholic Diocese of Crookston.

In addition to the continued investigation into the Crookston bishop, the authority to handle priest sex abuse cases has been transferred to Hebda, the Crookston Diocese said.

Judge Timothy O’Malley, director of ministerial standards and safe environment for the archdiocese, will serve as Hebda’s delegate in the investigation, the diocese said.

The investigation by Twin Cities church authorities came after an allegation surfaced in 2017 that Hoeppner silenced a victim of abuse.

The bishop was named in a lawsuit brought by Ron Vasek that claimed he was sexually abused by Crookston Diocese priest Monsignor Roger Grundhaus about 40 years ago. According to the complaint, Hoeppner coerced Vasek to sign a letter denying his own allegations.

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DENVER (CO)
Colorado Sun

February 5, 2020

By Jesse Paul

The deadline to file claims with the reparations program, created voluntarily by Colorado’s three dioceses, was Friday. There are still more than 60 claims to sort through.

Colorado’s reparations program for people abused by Catholic priests when they were children has already paid out more than $1 million to nine of the 78 people who submitted claims by Friday’s filing deadline.

Another $500,000 in payments are due to four other victims and more than 60 cases still are being reviewed, said Camille Biros, one of the independent administrators of the reparations program.

The reparations program was created through a voluntary agreement between the Catholic Church and Colorado’s Attorney General’s Office after a third-party investigation into child sexual abuse by priests in the state’s three Catholic dioceses.

The investigators’ report was released in October. It found that at least 166 children had been molested by at least 43 priests since 1950.

Biros said she’s not expecting other claims to be filed since the deadline has passed. “The only way we would be expecting more is if somebody calls and there clearly is a legitimate reason why they couldn’t get it to us on time,” she said Tuesday in an interview with The Colorado Sun.

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NEW YORK (NY)
CBS News

February 5, 2020

By Li Cohen

Father Jamie Forsythe has always felt his purpose was to be a priest. He pursued that calling even after he pleaded guilty in 1989 to a charge of attempting to take indecent liberties with a 15-year-old boy in Kansas, serving time in prison, and being laicized — officially removed from the priesthood — by the Catholic Archdiocese of Kansas City.

Forsythe, then in his 30s, was released from prison after less than four months of his one-to-five-year sentence, and eventually found work at Metropolitan Community Church of the Black Hills, a progressive Christian church in South Dakota that primarily serves LGBTQ worshippers. Forsythe was ordained within the Metropolitan Community Church denomination in 1996, according to the Rapid City Journal, and began working at the Black Hills church in January 2000. But when the congregation discovered in 2002 he had failed to register as a sex offender in the state, he resigned from his post and made his way to Wilton Manors, Florida.

That’s where Forsythe found a job at Holy Angels, nestled in a strip mall between a tapas bar and a Peruvian restaurant.

It is part of a church system called The National Catholic Church of North America, but it is not affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church. Forsythe was hired as a priest there in 2005, according to the church. The alternative diocese is home to about 200 parishioners in seven parishes in Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Washington, D.C.

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WAUSAU (WI)
Wausau Daily Herald

February 5, 2020

By Laura Schulte

La Crosse – The Diocese of La Crosse has so far released no information about the number of children who were sexually assaulted by the 25 priests on its list of abusers, nor any details about when or where the abuse happened.

The diocese released the list of credibly accused abusers on Jan. 18 but said Bishop William Patrick Callahan would not take questions about the release, nor did the Catholic institution provide any background information about the firm that conducted the review, Defenbaugh & Associates, of Kaufman, Texas.

Since the day the list was released, diocese spokesman Jack Felsheim has not responded to multiple messages from the Wausau Daily Herald requesting an interview with the bishop. The founder of Defenbaugh & Associates told the Daily Herald he couldn’t disclose information about the investigation.

The review found that 25 priests who served in churches and schools in the diocese over several decades had been credibly accused of abusing children, but left out many details.

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A Santa Fe jury deliberated less than three hours Tuesday before finding former priest Marvin Archuleta not guilty of raping a first grader at a parochial school in Santa Cruz in the late 1980s.

A jury of seven women and five men found the ex-priest not guilty on two counts Tuesday after a 3½-day trial during which Archuleta’s accuser testified the alleged assault shook his faith and caused him to spend much of his adult life trying to escape the memories through drug and alcohol abuse.

In his opening statement last week, Archuleta’s attorney argued the priest was working in Maryland at the time of the alleged assault, referring to newspaper clippings and baptismal records as evidence.

Archuleta, 82, declined to comment following the jury’s verdict. He embraced several supporters who sat through the trial and shuffled out of the courthouse with the help of a walker. His accuser was not present.

“We’re very pleased with the jury’s verdict,” said Archuleta’s attorney, Ryan Villa. “I think the evidence was clear Marvin Archuleta was in Maryland the entire time of the alleged victim’s first year [in school]. There wasn’t any evidence to the contrary, and frankly the story just didn’t add up.”

Archuleta’s case was the first to come out of state Attorney General Hector Balderas’ ongoing investigation into claims of child sex abuse in Roman Catholic churches throughout New Mexico.

The Attorney General’s Office charged the former priest in February 2018 with criminal sexual penetration of a child under 13 and kidnapping after his accuser — now an adult — told a special agent Archuleta tied him up with a belt and raped him when he was 6.

Archuleta’s accuser told jurors he remembered being called out of class at Holy Cross Catholic School in Santa Cruz during the 1986-87 school year and being taken to the sacristy, where priests keep their vestments and other items for Mass. He was left alone with Archuleta, who he said made him kneel on a chair before sexually assaulting him while saying, “This is God’s love.”

He said he was “110 percent sure” Archuleta was the man who assaulted him.

“I am inspired by the tremendous courage of the survivor and his family,” Balderas said in an email Tuesday. “While we are disappointed with the jury’s verdict, we will continue to stand up for survivors of decades-old abuses in these complex cases.”

According to a criminal complaint, Archuleta was ordained in 1970 and served as a priest in the Archdiocese of Santa Fe from 1970-78 and from 1987-94.

The Archdiocese of Santa Fe named Archuleta in a list of priests accused of sexual misconduct.

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After agents served a search warrant on the archdiocese, investigators found a file containing other sexual assault allegations against Archuleta. He has been accused of sexual abuse in several lawsuits against the archdiocese. Most were settled out of court, and two are still pending.

Allegations against him appear to have first emerged publicly in the 1990s when a lawsuit claimed he invited an altar boy, 14, on a cross-country trip to Washington, D.C., during 1971 and fondled the child.

That case ended with a settlement.

Celine Baca Radigan, a spokeswoman for the archdiocese, could not be reached for comment late Tuesday but told The New Mexican in March that church officials first received a report accusing Archuleta of abuse in 1994 and immediately removed him from the ministry and “restricted his priestly faculties.”

He was never reassigned within the archdiocese, she said.

Following his dismissal, Archuleta was sent to Maryland for an evaluation and then to the Vianney Renewal Center near St. Louis, which offered rehabilitation and reconciliation for priests and was a stopping point for clergy accused of abuse, according to a 2019 story in The New Mexican.

The facility is operated by the Catholic organization Servants of the Paraclete, which ran a similar rehabilitation facility in Jemez Springs.

In 2002, ABC News found Archuleta working at a church in Mexico City.

The Attorney General’s Office has also charged another former priest, Sabine Griego, with raping a child while working at a parochial school decades ago.

Griego, 81, who has been living in the Las Vegas, N.M., area, worked in Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Ruidoso and Las Vegas before he was removed from the priesthood in 2005. He has been accused of abusing more than two dozen people.

He is scheduled to stand trial in June for on charges he repeatedly raped a female student over a two-year period beginning in 1988 when the girl was 7.

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VISALIA (CA)
Visalia Times-Delta

February 3, 2020

By James Ward

The Diocese of Fresno is being sued by a woman who says she was sexually assaulted as a teenager by a Roman Catholic priest who once served in Visalia.

The case had previously been the focus of a 2002 Kings County criminal case in which Rev. Miguel Flores was found not guilty of three counts of rape, two counts of witness intimidation and one charge of criminal threats.

Flores was put on leave by the diocese in 2019 after new allegations surfaced about the 2002 case involving the 16-year-old girl.

Flores’ suspension came after the Diocese of Fresno announced in February 2019 it would review charges of sexual abuse by priests and other church officials dating back to 1922.

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BAKERSFIELD (CA)
The Sun

February 4, 2020

By Alex Tavlian

A now-suspended priest in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno is the subject of a new lawsuit centering on allegations of sexual abuse of a 16-year-old girl in the early 2000s.

Los Angeles attorney Paul Mones filed a lawsuit against the Diocese and two of its churches alleging they were negligent in supervising Father Miguel Flores and failing to warn about his potential actions, given prior knowledge.

The suit was raised under a new law, Assembly Bill 218, which grants sexual abuse victims previously barred by the statute of limitations a three-year window to initiate action. The law came into effect Jan. 1.

The woman, identified as Jane Doe due to her status as a minor at the time of the alleged abuse, filed a complaint with law enforcement in 2001 after incidents while Flores served at Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Hanford.

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PROVO (UT)
Daily Herald

February 3, 2020

By Connor Richards

https://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/majority-of-utahns-support-removing-clergy-exemption-for-reporting-child/article_ab2f0c74-f2b1-5636-9d67-279cdb5a3dc5.html

More than three-quarters of Utahns support legislation to remove reporting exemptions for clergy and other religious leaders who learn about abuse during a religious confession, a new poll has found.

The poll was conducted by The Salt Lake Tribune and Suffolk University between Jan. 18-22. Of all respondents, 67% said they “strongly support” legislation removing clergy exemptions for reporting child abuse while 11.2% said they “somewhat support” such legislation.

Only 7% of respondents said they were “strongly opposed” to legislation removing reporting exemptions for religious leaders and 4.4% said they were “somewhat opposed.” 10.4% of respondents said they didn’t know how they felt. The poll included 500 respondents and has a margin of error of 4.4%.

While Utah law mandates that any adult who learns about child abuse report it to legal authorities, there is an exemption for religious leaders who learn about abuse from a perpetrator during a confidential confession. Rep. Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, is sponsoring a bill, House Bill 90, to remove this exemption.

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TORONTO (ONTARIO, CANADA)
CBC News

February 3, 2020

By Kerry McKee

Canada’s Justice Ministry found approximately 13 per cent of men are sexually abused. The majority never tell.

[Photo Caption] William O’Sullivan has been picketing every Sunday for 18 months outside the parish in Welland Ont. after being sexually abused by a priest as a child.

There’s a growing trend in Ontario.

Men are speaking out about the sexual abuse they have suffered and demanding resources, or setting up their own groups, to access support.

“We call it the MenToo movement,” said Bob McCabe, a survivor of sexual abuse at the hands of a priest.

To tackle sexual abuse, Catholic Church must match words with concrete action: survivor

The abuse started in 1963 when McCabe was 11. He didn’t tell anyone about it for 29 years, when he finally told his mother. It took another two decades for McCabe to speak out publicly and take legal action against his perpetrator.

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BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

February 2, 2020

By Mike McAndrew

Seven St. Mary’s High School students had sexual contact with a female student in a boys’ locker room four years ago, and the school responded by expelling the girl instead of calling police, according to a new Child Victims Act lawsuit filed Friday.

The plaintiff, who was not identified in public records, alleged in the lawsuit that she was a minor who was left unsupervised with the seven students in a locker room of the Lancaster school on Feb. 9, 2016. The students, who were not identified, had unpermitted sexual contact with her, she alleged.

The seven students had been recruited to St. Mary’s to play on the school’s sports teams, the lawsuit alleges.

Instead of reporting the incident to police, school officials expelled the girl two weeks after the incident, the lawsuit claims.

The girl sued the Buffalo Diocese and St. Mary’s High School under the Child Victims Act. The case alleges that the diocese and the school were negligent in failing to supervise the seven students, that they knew or should have known of other similar incidents involving the seven students, that they failed to protect the girl, and that they retaliated against the girl.

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MECHANICSBURG (PA)
PennLive

January 31, 2020

By Ivey DeJesus

One of the most outspoken and recognizable faces in the clergy sex abuse survivor community is taking his public advocacy up another notch: Shaun Dougherty is making a bid to represent the state’s 35th Senatorial District.

Doughtery, a Democrat from Johnstown, on Friday officially filed his candidacy with the state, and by Monday expects to launch his campaign.

The 35th District represents Cambria and Bedford counties, along with parts of Clearfield County.

Dougherty’s candidacy brings him full circle to a pivotal moment that changed his life and, he said, marked the beginning of his healing.

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WEST PALM BEACH (FL)
CBS 12

February 2, 2020

By Lexi Nahl

A Port St Lucie woman is taking her fight for justice for survivors of military rape to Washington D.C.

Harmony Allen has been pushing for justice since her rapist walked free in 2018.

She says she was raped by her Sergeant on an air force base in Texas 20 years ago.

Veteran Harmony Allen pictured the day after she said her instructor raped her.

“He slammed me up against the wall and he held his forearm against my throat,” Allen told CBS12 News of the violent attack.

Harmony Allen said she reported the rape multiple times, but the military kept sweeping it under the rug because she was afraid to name her perpetrator.

Her rapist was eventually convicted and sentenced to jail time in 2017, but was released just two years later after a military court of appeals ruled on the statute of limitations for these cases.

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PARIS (FRANCE)
Associated Press via Seattle Times

February 3, 2020

By Samuel Petrequin

The head of the French skating federation will be grilled Monday by the country’s sports minister following a string of accusations of sexual abuse and rape by a coach on underage skaters.

Didier Gailhaguet is not directly targeted by the claims but will be asked about coach Gilles Beyer, who has been accused of rape and continued to work with the federation following an investigation that raised suspicion in the early 2000s.

Gailhaguet was called in following the publication of a book last week in which Sarah Abitbol, a 10-time French champion and bronze medalist in the pairs at the 2000 world championships, accused Beyer of raping her between 1990 and 1992 when she was a teenager.

“I’m expecting him to give me explanations on how, and why these cases took place,” French sports minister Roxana Maracineanu said.

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NEWARK (NJ)
Archdiocese of Newark

January 28, 2020

By Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

The physical and mental health of the Archbishop Emeritus John Joseph Myers has suffered a serious decline.

After a recent visit with his family in central Illinois, Archbishop Myers decided to remain in the region of his birth where he is receiving specialized care and can be visited by his family as well as the clergy of the Diocese of Peoria.

I ask all the faithful in our Archdiocese to pray for Archbishop Myers that the mercy of God comfort and strengthen him in this moment of fragility.

The Archdiocese has begun preparation for the sale of his retirement residence in Hunterdon County. After members of his family have collected his personal possessions, the home and property will be sold and the funds will be returned to the Archdiocese.

Sincerely yours in Christ the Redeemer,

Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin, C.Ss.R.

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WOODLAND PARK (NJ)
NorthJersey.com

January 28, 2020

By Abbott Koloff

Archbishop John J. Myers, the former head of the Newark Archdiocese who was criticized for his handling of priest abuse scandals, has moved to Illinois to be near family for health reasons, and the church will sell his Hunterdon County retirement home — which stirred controversy six years ago when church funds were used to build an expansive wing and an indoor pool.

Myers, who led the archdiocese for almost 16 years, held on to the house amid criticism that included a 2014 petition containing 17,000 signatures urging him to sell it. At the time, Pope Francis urged clergy to live simply, removing a German bishop because of his lavish lifestyle, and a Catholic leader in Atlanta agreed to sell a mansion built as his residence.

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DENVER (CO)
Crux

January 31, 2020

By Christopher White

New York – After a long delay, the archdiocese of Newark will finally be able to sell the mansion of retired Archbishop John Myers, who has now moved to Illinois.

In a statement earlier this week, Cardinal Joseph Tobin said that Myers’ physical and mental health is now in “serious decline.”

“After a recent visit with his family in central Illinois, Archbishop Myers decided to remain in the region of his birth where he is receiving specialized care and can be visited by his family as well as the clergy of the Diocese of Peoria,” wrote the New Jersey cardinal on January 28.

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BUFFALO (NY)
WBEN

February 3, 2020

By Mike Baggerman

Victims only have until August 14 to file civil action against abusers

More than 1,300 civil suits have been filed since the one-year look-back window for the Child Victim’s Act took effect last August. Now, there is a push in Albany to extend the window for another year.

The current look-back window for victims to file civil claims on old cases expires on August 14. That means as of that date, past instances of sexual abuse against a minor cannot have any civil litigation, unless it is within the statute of limitations. New instances of abuse can have civil suits brought up to the age of 55.

Extending the Child Victim’s Act look-back window has received near unanimous praise from those who pushed for its original passage. The Catholic Church and insurance companies lobbied against the original bill because of its financial impact on lawsuits and settlements.

“This first year of the CVA window in New York State has been liberating for a lot of survivors of not just clergy abuse but of all kinds of different types of institutional sexual abuse,” James Faluszczak, a survivor of clergy sexual abuse, said. “It takes a little bit of time, especially for those who are maybe unaware of that possibility of seeking discovery or restitution or whatever the goal is, to come to terms with the fact that I might have to talk to someone now. It’s not an easy decision to make.”

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
Catholic Herald from Catholic News Agency

February 3, 2020

Pope Francis meets Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby (CNS photo/L’Osservatore Romano)
The Church of England will not be withdrawing its recent pastoral guidance affirming that sex is reserved for married, heterosexual partners, despite an apology over the statement from two of the ecclesial community’s bishops.

The guidance, “Civil Partnerships – for same sex and opposite sex couples. A pastoral statement from the House of Bishops of the Church of England”, was issued last month after civil partnerships were first made available to heterosexual couples.

The guidance draws a clear distinction between marriage and civil partnerships, noting that sexual relations are not proper to the latter.

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DENVER (CO)
Catholic News Agency

January 30, 2020

By Andrea Gagliarducci

Genoa, Italy – The selection of new bishops has been a central topic of discussion during the meetings of the C6 Council of Cardinals, tasked with drafting the reform of the Roman Curia. A new procedure being used to select a successor to the Archbishop of Genoa, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, could be a trial run for a new method.

On Jan. 14, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, archbishop of Genoa, turned 77 and ended the twoyear prorogation of his mandate Pope Francis granted him. There will be no further extension of his mandate. On Jan. 23, the Apostolic Nuncio to Italy, Archbishop Emil Paul Tscherrig, , was in Genoa to deliver a lecture on “Pastoral Conversion in Pope Francis’ teaching.” It was expected that the nuncio would give some clue on who the next archbishop of Genoa would be. It was not so. Archbishop Tscherrig confirmed that Pope Francis accepted Cardinal Bagnasco’s resignation, and he then informed the audience of the Pope’s intentionto follow a new procedure for choosing the next shepherd for the Church in Genoa.

According to standard – and long-established – procedure, the Apostolic Nuncio conducts the consultations before the appointment of a new bishop. The Nuncio sends questionnaires and letters to priests, lay people involved in the Church’s activity, and other interested people, in order to draft a profile of the possible bishops-elect. After this process, the Nuncio sends to the Congregation of Bishops a set of three potential candidates, and this set of three is then submitted to the Pope. The Pope can choose any person he wants, also outside of the set of three.

In Genoa, however, Pope Francis is using a different method this time. He sent a circular letter to the priests of the archdiocese, asking them to draft a reflection on the state of the Church in Genoa and to suggest their own short list of three possible new archbishops.

It is the first time this procedure takes place. It is yet to be seen whether Pope Francis will use it according to circumstances or if he will institutionalize the new method in the Curia reform.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
Catholic Herald

February 3, 2020

By Ed Condon

Whether he turns his attention to the furthest corner of the Amazon, or to reforming his own curia in Rome, Francis may find that all roads lead through Berlin in 2020

The year 2020 is one month old and already stacked high with expectation for Pope Francis.

The long-awaited McCarrick report is due “early” this year; so too is an expected apostolic exhortation following the Synod on the Amazon. Also on the horizon is a long-trailed but still to be delivered new constitution reforming the Roman curia.

But bubbling under the surface is one question which could ultimately define the whole of Francis’s papacy: what will he do about the Germans?

*
The issue of clerical celibacy has been a contested topic in Rome, before and after the Amazon synod. Cardinals Marc Ouellet and Beniamino Stella made public interventions defending the discipline in October. More recently, Cardinal Sarah published a book with contributions from Benedict XVI mounting a resolute defense of the practice.

While official papal spokesmen have underscored Francis’s personal commitment to celibacy, the settled wisdom is that a narrow carve-out for the Amazon might meet with papal approval. But the pope’s freedom to treat the Amazonian question discretely may prove limited.

An end to mandatory celibacy is widely touted as one of the expected outputs of the German synodal process, and the bishops there have been explicit that they would seize on any exception made for the Amazon.

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FRONT ROYAL (VA)
LifeSite News

January 31, 2020

By Diane Montagna

In a new testimony touching upon the election of the next Pope, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò has alleged that the cardinal whom Pope Francis recently approved to preside over the next papal conclave was involved in covering up the misdeeds of infamous Legionary of Christ founder, Marciel Maciel.

In a statement released on January 31 and titled “The faithful have the right to know” (see official English text below), Archbishop Viganò asserts that Pope Francis’s confirmation of Cardinal Leonardo Sandri as Vice-Dean of the College of Cardinals is a “masterpiece of deception.”

On Saturday, January 25, the Holy See announced that Pope Francis had confirmed the election of Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, 86, and Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, 76, as Dean and Vice-Dean of the College of Cardinals respectively. The announcement came one month after Cardinal Angelo Sodano, 92, resigned as Dean of the Sacred College.

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EVANSVILLE (IN)
Evansville Courier & Press

February 1, 2020

By Michael Doyle

A church-led investigation into a former Evansville youth pastor who was accused of pastoral abuse by two Evansville women last year has found that the women’s claims were credible.

A public statement from Berean Baptist Church of Burnsville, Minnesota, concluded that Wes Feltner’s treatment of, and relationships with, Megan Frey and JoAnna Hendrickson about 17 years ago when he was youth pastor at First Southern Baptist of Evansville were inappropriate.

The church also found that Feltner misused church funds to pay for his own personal expenses, that he had made misleading statements to Berea elders regarding his job candidacy at another church and that he was generally unreliable and often absent in stewarding church initiatives.

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UNITED STATES
The New York Times

February 1, 2020

By Jessica Silver-Greenberg, Katherine Rosman, Sapna Maheshwari and James B. Stewart

A Times investigation found widespread bullying and harassment of employees and models. The company expresses “regret.”

Victoria’s Secret defined femininity for millions of women. Its catalog and fashion shows were popular touchstones. For models, landing a spot as an “Angel” all but guaranteed international stardom.

But inside the company, two powerful men presided over an entrenched culture of misogyny, bullying and harassment, according to interviews with more than 30 current and former executives, employees, contractors and models, as well as court filings and other documents.

Ed Razek, for decades one of the top executives at L Brands, the parent company of Victoria’s Secret, was the subject of repeated complaints about inappropriate conduct. He tried to kiss models. He asked them to sit on his lap. He touched one’s crotch ahead of the 2018 Victoria’s Secret fashion show.

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TEXAS
The Texas Monitor

February 2, 2020

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office is being pressed by citizens to investigate clergy sexual abuse, although his office has said it cannot began an examination on its own, KXAN reported.

The TV station’s open records request shows that a dozen people have asked the AG’s office to launch an investigation since Catholic dioceses across the state released lists on Jan. 31, 2019, of priests accused of abuse.

One of the letters to the AG’s office came from 18-year-old Juleanna Culilap. Her AP government teacher encouraged her senior class last spring to write letters to political leaders about issues important to them.

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BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

February 2, 2020

By News Editorial Board

The Catholic Diocese of Buffalo faces many agonizing questions, two of which are how best to handle the tsunami of sexual abuse allegations against its priests and how to reclaim the support of parishioners who have stopped giving as a result of the revelations.

Both factors are leading the church toward a decision to seek protection in federal bankruptcy court. Both factors also share a solution: Don’t hide.

The diocese says it is on the verge of seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. It is facing at least 230 lawsuits while simultaneously struggling with a catastrophic loss of support. The diocese ended 2019 $5 million in the red as many members refused to donate to an organization that tolerated the sexual assaults of children, and did it in ways that ensured further abuses would occur.

The diocese is in its own pain – agony of its own making – but the way forward is clear. To best serve the adults who were abused as children and to regain the trust and support of those who have turned away, the diocese needs to be open about what its leaders did to children and, even more important, what it did to cover up those abuses. It needs, in other words, to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

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UNITED STATES
The New Yorker

February 2, 2020

By Paul Elie

February 2, 2020

[PHOTO: The conflict between traditionalists and progressives in the Roman Catholic Church has hardened around Popes Benedict XVI and Francis and tipped toward an open dispute.]

Of the many fanciful scenes in the movie “The Two Popes,” the most striking is one set in 2012, in which Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the future Pope, from Argentina, teaches Benedict XVI, the current Pope, from Germany, how to tango. Bergoglio (Jonathan Pryce) has spent two days in private meetings with Benedict (Anthony Hopkins). No such encounter took place, but the screenwriter dreamed it up in order to present the very real differences that have emerged between the progressive Bergoglio and the traditionalist Benedict over the future direction of the Church. When the time comes for Bergoglio to depart, the men exit the papal apartments, via a tourist-thronged Sistine Chapel, and go to where a black Mercedes-Benz is waiting to take Bergoglio to the airport. Apropos of nothing, Benedict points out that even the radical Saint Francis of Assisi, Bergoglio’s future namesake, got some things wrong. Bergoglio replies that the saint loved to dance and suggests that if he’d lived in modern times he would have done the tango. “Come, I’ll show you,” he says. The camera moves in, and they dance: two men, both past threescore and ten, one in black, one in white, face-to-face, hand-in-hand, lurching across the paving stones.

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VICTORIA (AUSTRALIA)
Victoria Advocate

January 31, 2020

By Elena Anita Watts

Victoria police have reopened an investigation into a 2018 abuse accusation into a priest who worked in Victoria after new information surfaced.

Victoria police have reopened an investigation into a 2018 accusation by a Nazareth Academy student of abuse by a priest after receiving new information, police and diocese officials said Friday.

Police have declined to reveal details about the case, including the priest’s name, the nature of the abuse and new information, because the investigation is ongoing, said Senior Police Officer David Brogger, spokesman for the Victoria Police Department.

“This is an active investigation so the department cannot release information,” Brogger said. “The accusation was originally reported in 2018, and more information prompted the police department to reopen the case.”

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ENGLAND
BBC News Online

February 2, 2020

By Sandish Shoker

A man who spent his childhood locked in a cellar, only to then be abused when he was taken into care, has said it took years to get used to the real world.

Stephen Smith was beaten by his parents and kept hidden away until he was 13, when he found himself at the notorious mental health hospital Aston Hall in Derbyshire.

The 59-year-old musician and artist said this “strange childhood” led to him struggling to cope as he grew older.

The harrowing details have now been put into a book which he hopes will encourage more male victims to speak.

Mr Smith grew up in Sherwood, Nottingham, and from birth, was only allowed out of the cold, dark cellar for hospital trips for a fractured skull or broken bones inflicted by his father.

One day, after having his back split open by a spade, medical staff raised the alarm and he was rescued.

Mr Smith said he has never had answers on why his parents kept him hidden throughout his childhood.

“I never saw them after I was taken away and they died while I was in care,” he said.

“I couldn’t imagine my life being any worse and then next thing I found myself at Aston Hall. It’s like I was out of the fire and then thrown back in again.”

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STEUBENVILLE (OH)
Herald-Star

February 2, 2020

To the editor:

The Diocese of Steubenville, under the leadership of Bishop Jeffrey Monforton, should follow the recent example of Bishop Robert Brennan of the Diocese of Columbus in an article published on Jan. 25. The Diocese of Columbus has taken steps to examine its policies regarding the sexual abuse of minors with the creation of a task force, and hired a law firm to determine whether more names should be added to a list of credibly accused priests. The diocese in March released a list of 34 clergy members accused of sexual abuse.

The list now includes 50 names. Monforton should follow Brennan’s lead and hire an independent law firm (possibly the same law firm the Diocese of Columbus utilized) to review its files for additional credibly accused priests.

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EUROPE
New Humanist

December 30, 2019

By Madeline Roache

In the early hours of a February morning, three men dressed in black, carrying a ladder and ropes, slipped through the quiet streets in the northern Polish city of Gdansk. They decided to do what the city council had refused to. It was still dark, only hours before the opening of a Vatican summit on child abuse. The men slung a rope around the clay neck of a high-up statue and pulled hard until it toppled over, breaking away from its stand and crashing to the ground.

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UNITED STATES
Tribune-Democrat

February 2, 2020

By Chip Minemyer

Many Roman Catholic dioceses are now releasing the names of priests who have had credible allegations of child sexual abuse brought against them.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that those lists are often “inconsistent, incomplete and omit key details,” according to a report out this week from ProPublica, a nonprofit watchdog news agency, and the Houston Chronicle.

Reporters Lexi Churchill, Ellis Simani and Topher Sanders pulled together 178 lists from U.S. dioceses and religious orders that represent the postings as of Jan. 20.

They created a searchable database “that allows users to look up clergy members by name, diocese or parish.”

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PHILADELPHIA
Philadelphia Inquirier

February 2, 2020

By Maria Panaritis

After 18 years of chronicling the horrors of clergy abuse within the Pennsylvania Catholic Church, including cover-ups that helped hundreds of predator priests avoid a single day in jail, the church may finally be due a round of applause.

Namely, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

I usually have fierce criticism for this institution that serves 1.3 million Catholics across five counties. Today, I urge congratulations. It has shown itself capable of something that has been tragically elusive for years regarding children harmed by the scourge of abuse.

It happened a few days ago in a Bucks County courtroom. And apparently, coincidentally, the gesture came the day before the official naming of Archbishop Nelson Pérez as the successor to Charles Chaput.

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