ABUSE TRACKER

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

July 20, 2020

Recién de adultos pudieron denunciar a un cura por abuso, pero para la Justicia el delito prescribió

LA PLATA (ARGENTINA)
Clarín [Buenos Aires, Argentina]

July 20, 2020

By MARIANA IGLESIAS

Read original article

Ricardo, Julieta y Valeria acusaron al sacerdote Héctor Ricardo Giménez por las agresiones sexuales que sufrieron hace más de 40 años. “Uno denuncia cuando puede”, dice él, que borró los recuerdos por décadas.

Como cualquier domingo, ese 3 de junio de 2018 Ricardo fue a casa de su madre a buscarla para compartir el día en familia. Ella siempre dejaba sobre el hogar algunas fotos viejas. Había cuatro: sus primas en fiestas familiares, su madre coloreada cual muñeca de porcelana, la perra Liz y su primera comunión. Vio al monseñor bendiciéndolo con su mano en la cabeza, y a su abuelo, sastre, que era el padrino, y le había confeccionado el traje azul a medida para la ceremonia. Tomó su celular y sacó foto a aquella foto. 

El sábado siguiente Ricardo fue de paseo con su esposa y sus cuatro hijos a Luján. Entraron a la Basílica. Hacía mucho tiempo que no entraba a una iglesia. Les habló a sus hijos de las siete veces que había peregrinado a Luján junto al grupo de seminaristas de la iglesia Santa Clara y sus compañeros del colegio.  

El lunes 25 Ricardo vió un tuit que linkeaba a una nota periodística sobre 62 curas denunciados por abuso sexual en la Argentina. Entre ellos, el padre Héctor Ricardo Giménez. Instintivamente buscó la foto en el celular, Ahí estaba Giménez, medio de costado. Aquella foto la había visto muchas veces, pero era la primera vez que veía a Giménez. El mundo se abrió bajo sus pies. Recordó.  

-¿Dijiste alguna mala palabra?- preguntó serio el cura. 

-Mmm… sí… boludo…- balbuceó Ricardito.

-Eso es una enfermedad… 

El cura Giménez lo apretó contra su cuerpo y le tocó los genitales. Ricardito tenía 8 años, se confesaba por primera vez. Se preparaba para la comunión. Giménez siguió haciendo lo mismo en cada confesión. Metía la mano bajo los pantalones y lo tocaba largo rato. 

Después de la comunión lo nombró monaguillo. Para la familia de Ricardito fue todo un orgullo. Los abusos aumentaron: el cura le hacía beber el vino mistela que usaba en los oficios, le daba ostias no consagradas, le decía que debía confesarse y lo abusaba. Ricardito quedaba paralizado, luego asistía en la misa como un autómata y salía corriendo a su casa ni bien terminaba. Una vez, la mezcla del vino, el humo del incienso y la ansiedad por irse le provocaron un desmayo. La misa se suspendió. 

De chico Ricardito tenía un sueño recurrente: un monstruo corpulento de ojos saltones lo miraba dormir. Aterrorizado, se tapaba con la manta para no verlo, porque además sabía que no había nadie más en la casa. Sus padres nunca estaban cuando aparecía el monstruo.

Tras leer la nota periodística en la que aparecía Giménez, Ricardo se conectó con Julieta Añazco, una integrante de la Red de Sobrevivientes de Abuso Eclesiástico, quien le contó que ella también había sido abusada por Giménez. Y que estaba en contacto con otras 50 personas que habían sido abusadas por el cura.

Cuando Julieta me confirma que el segundo cura de la foto era el Padre Ricardo, inmediatamente su rostro de ojos grandes, y anteojos de cuerpo de plástico negro y grueso ocupó el lugar de la cara del monstruo que me acechaba, la pesadilla se tornó real y pude reconectar emocionalmente con el niño que fui, emergió con fuerza la memoria enterrada y el impacto que recibí fue muy grande“, escribió Ricardo. Ahora Ricardo escribe, le hace bien. 

“Ver la foto, entrar a una Iglesia, hablar de las peregrinaciones a Luján me removieron 44 años. Cuando Julieta me confirmó quién era Giménez todo volvió a mi cabeza. Llevaba 44 años reprimido. El dolor en el cuerpo fue literal. Tuve que desenterrarme, salir de la tierra. Y cuando recordé todo fui a denunciarlo”, cuenta Ricardo a Clarín. Habla de “tormentos”. 

Realizó la denuncia en la Cámara Criminal y Correccional 49 de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, donde le respondieron que el delito había prescripto. Apeló. Casación contestó lo mismo: prescripto. Presentó un recurso de queja en Casación. Se lo rechazaron. 

“No puede ser que un delito así prescriba. Uno olvida para protegerse. Uno denuncia cuando puede. Es imposible que este delito tenga un límite de años. El dolor sana cuando tiene condena el que lo causó. El abuso no prescribe hasta que obtenés Justicia“, enfatiza Ricardo. 

El cura Héctor Ricardo Giménez tiene 84 años y está en un asilo de ancianos. Ese fue el castigo que le impuso el Arzobispado de La Plata. Tampoco puede dar misa. Pero sale a hacer las compras, va a la plaza, y tiene muy cerca a montones de niños y niñas que visitan a los abuelos del Hogar San Marín. 

Julieta Añazco fue abusada por el cura Héctor Giménez en los campamentos de verano a los que iba cuando tenía 10, 11 y 12 años. Pudo denunciarlo 30 años después, cuando lo vio dando misa y todo volvió a su memoria. Era 2013. En la Fiscalía N° 6 de La Plata descubrió que Giménez tenía denuncias desde 1960 y dos causas judiciales. La primera, de 1985, hecha por la madre de unas niñas que testificaron los abusos del cura. El juez lo absolvió porque consideró que “los tocamientos” eran “caricias”. La segunda causa era de 1996, por abuso a cinco niños. La Justicia lo condenó a ocho años, pero la Cámara de Apelaciones de La Plata lo excarceló por una caución juratoria presentada por la Iglesia, asegurando que se haría cargo de que Giménez no daría misa ni estaría cerca de niños durante la condena. Alegaron “dignidad eclesiástica”. Giménez nunca pisó una cárcel. 

Ahora Julieta forma parte de la “Campaña Contra la Prescripción de los Delitos de Violencia Sexual”, que busca equipararlos con la tortura. Son muchas personas abusadas, no sólo por curas, también por familiares. Valeria Regner también integra la campaña y también fue abusada por el cura Giménez. 

Lo llama “depredador”. A ella la abusó entre sus 7 y sus 9 años. Durante el año, cada vez que se confesaba en la Iglesia Madre de la Divina Gracia de Gonnet, en calle 23, entre 485 y 487. En el verano, en los campamentos que organizaba el cura en el campo de una gente amiga de Bavio. 

Yo no quería confesarme porque él me sentaba a upa, me apretaba fuerte, me tocaba toda… -recuerda Valeria, 47 años, niñera-. En los campamentos los abusos eran a la hora de bañarnos. Teníamos que hacerlo todos juntos, en grupo, todos desnudos, y él nos enjabonaba“. 

Después de un verano, algunos padres alertaron de esta situación y Giménez fue trasladado de Iglesia. “Yo dejé los abusos de lado hasta que los volví a ver, a entender, en 2013, hablando con Julieta. Descubrimos que Giménez venía siendo trasladado de un lado al otro desde los años 60. Sólo en mi círculo cercano al menos 20 personas fueron abusadas por él“.

Valeria escondió los recuerdos mientras su cuerpo la empujaba a conductas autodestructivas: excesos de comida, drogas, alcohol y parejas tóxicas. En 2013, cuando los abusos se convirtieron en palabras, hizo la denuncia ante la Justicia. Respuesta: prescripción

“Seguimos luchando mientras esperamos que la Justicia cambie y estos casos no prescriban. Al menos tuvimos una alegría este año. La Policía fue al asilo de ancianos a tomar muestras de sangre y huellas dactilares de Giménez, y ahorafigura en el Registro de Delincuentes Sexuales. Lloramos de la emoción. Al menos fue un reconocimiento a nuestras denuncias”, dice Valeria.  

Días atrás, la diputada Lorena Matzen presentó un proyecto de ley para que los abusos sexuales contra niños, niñas y adolescentes menores de edad sean considerados delitos de lesa humanidad y no prescriban nunca

En 2011 se sancionó la “ley Piazza” (por Roberto Piazza, abusado de niño), que permitió que la prescripción se tomara a partir de los 18 años de la víctima. En 2015 se sancionó la ley 27.206 llamada “Respeto a los tiempos de las víctimas”, de la senadora Sigrid Kunath. La ley establecía que la prescripción corriera desde que la víctima pudiera hablar tuviera la edad que tuviera. Pero la decisión final de la prescripción queda en la Justicia. Lo que busca el proyecto de Matzen es que sea una ley que no se preste a diversas interpretaciones: los delitos sexuales contra menores no prescriben nunca. 

En la presentación del proyecto en el Congreso, Ricardo planteó unir fuerzas y armar la “Red Federal en Contra del Abuso Sexual en la Infancia”. Ya son más de veinte grupos y asociaciones, y se están acercando más. Entre todas representan a cientos de víctimas y sobrevivientes de abuso sexual, no sólo eclesiástico. La mayoría ocurren en el propio hogar: siete de cada diez abusos son de un familiar. 

Opinión: “Es necesario que se respete el derecho al tiempo”

“¿Por qué no lo dijo antes?”, “Hablan ahora porque quieren perjudicar a la institución”, “¿No tenía entonces una amiga en quien confiar?”, “¿Qué está buscando diciéndolo ahora?”, “Me suena algo raro que recién ahora lo cuente ¡luego de 20 años!”. Son expresiones de periodistas al conocer el relato de mujeres sobre la agresión sexual sufrida en otros momentos de sus vidas, o de jóvenes abusados cuando niños en instituciones religiosas.

Poderosas organizaciones niegan que el lugar más peligroso para niños y niñas es su propio hogar o también para los menores las instituciones que tienen total control sobre sus cuerpos.

Las agresiones sexuales producen un profundo impacto psico-biológico que obliga al psiquismo a reprimir recuerdos para mantener la estabilidad psíquica con la menores consecuencias en el cotidiano vivir. Algunas personas recuerdan imágenes de la agresión y otras acceden a recuerdos por un estímulo, por ejemplo, escuchar una música o percibir un olor.

Re-encontrarse con la experiencia traumática no es nada fácil pues obliga a ver el contexto del “allá y entonces”, aceptar los abandonos afectivos, la soledad de esos momentos, la falta de palabras para explicar lo que sucedía y la imposibilidades de compartir, ya que es frecuente que los adultos o cuidadores no quieran escuchar. Están presentes las amenazas del agresor, la culpa por la imposibilidad de detener la acción depredadora, la profunda vergüenza y la dificultad para entender lo sucedido. Re-encontrarse con el trauma muchas veces es además enfrentar poderosas organizaciones religiosas.

Quienes fueron agredidos sexualmente sólo hablan cuando están en condiciones de hacerlo y no por la imposición de la ley o del funcionario judicial.

El sufrimiento personal no puede ser regulado desde fuera por un almanaque. Es necesario que se respete el derecho al tiempo, el que se puede tomar la persona que fue víctima. Tiempo para poder hablar, para poder reparar y sanar.

Enrique Stola Médico Psiquiatra

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.

Missouri diocese: 3 new credible abuse cases against priest

SPRINGFIELD (MO)
Associated Press

July 20, 2020

The Springfield-Cape Girardeau Catholic Diocese has reported receiving three new allegations of sexual misconduct involving a retired priest, and that a review has found the allegations to be credible.

The Rev. Gary Carr, who is now retired, was initially named in April when the diocese released a report outlining another credible report of abuse made against him by a man who said he was 10 to 13 years old when he was abused. The new report involves men who say they were children when Carr abused them in the 1980s and early 1990s, television station KYTV reported Monday.

Church officials said the new allegations have been forwarded to the Butler County prosecuting attorney. No criminal charges have been brought against Carr.

Carr, 65, was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau in 1982. He was placed on administrative leave and restricted in his ministry in 2008, and that action was affirmed in 2016. He is now retired and living in St. Louis. A telephone listing for Carr could not be found Monday.

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This 1800s Law Helps Shape Criminal Justice in Indian Country: And that’s a problem—especially for Native American women, especially in rape cases

NEW YORK (NY)
New York Times

July 19, 2020

By David Heska Wanbli Weiden

There was something of a scramble, after the Supreme Court ruled in McGirt v. Oklahoma that much of Eastern Oklahoma was now officially Indian Country.

Under the doctrine of tribal sovereignty, the state of Oklahoma could no longer prosecute serious felony cases involving Native Americans on reservation land. But there was little clarity about other critical jurisdictional questions.

Shortly after the McGirt decision was handed down, the Oklahoma attorney general and five Native nations in Oklahoma agreed that the state would continue to prosecute crimes committed by non-Native Americans on reservation lands. Tribal authorities would possess joint jurisdiction over Native offenders for most crimes.

For the most serious offenses, the federal authorities would prevail, prosecuting Native citizens for serious felonies under the federal Major Crimes Act. But relying on this law, enacted in 1885, could create its own problems, especially for Native American women. And especially in rape cases.

The Major Crimes Act gives the federal government exclusive criminal jurisdiction — investigation, trial and corrections — for major felony crimes that occur on Native American reservations. Congress passed the law after the murder of a well-known Native leader from my own nation, the Rosebud Sioux Tribe. In that case, Chief Spotted Tail was assassinated by one of his own people, Crow Dog, for reasons that are not clear.

Shortly after the murder, tribal elders met and decided upon the restitution — money, goods and horses — that Crow Dog’s family would pay to Spotted Tail’s people. Traditional Lakota law relied heavily upon the principle of restorative justice, and the arrangement satisfied both families. But the Native principle of justice and reparations offended many American lawmakers, who held radically different views on punishment and retribution, and viewed the penalty as being too lenient. So Crow Dog was arrested by state police, charged with murder in federal court and sentenced to death by hanging.

But Crow Dog’s lawyer petitioned the United States Supreme Court, which ruled that the federal government had no right to intervene in an Indian nation’s criminal affairs absent an act of Congress.

Crow Dog was freed. But Congress passed the Major Crimes Act, thus ensuring American Indians would never again have the authority to decide the outcome of any serious felony case.

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Pastor Aeternus’ Real Gem — It’s Not Papal Infallibility

IRONDALE (AL)
National Catholic Register

July 18, 2020

By Fr. Raymond J. de Souza

Although the 150-year-old document affirmed the definition of papal infallibility, that does not touch the daily life of the Church in the same way as does the affirmation of the universal jurisdiction of the pope.

One of the most routine things the Holy Father does is appoint bishops. Almost every day there are a few appointments, and the fact that he is doing so is wholly unremarkable. It wasn’t always that way, and it is that way because of what the First Vatican Council did 150 years ago.

On July 18, 1870, the Council approved Pastor Aeternus ,its dogmatic constitution on the Church. It is most well known for the definition of papal infallibility, that the pope cannot err when teaching ex cathedra (authoritatively) on matters of faith and morals.

Important as that affirmation was, it does not touch the daily life of the Church in the same way as the other teaching of Pastor Aeternus, namely the universal jurisdiction of the Roman pontiff.

The Council’s language was technical, but sweeping: “Wherefore we teach and declare that, by divine ordinance, the Roman Church possesses a pre-eminence of ordinary power over every other Church, and that this jurisdictional power of the Roman Pontiff is both episcopal and immediate. Both clergy and faithful, of whatever rite and dignity, both singly and collectively, are bound to submit to this power by the duty of hierarchical subordination and true obedience, and this not only in matters concerning faith and morals, but also in those which regard the discipline and government of the Church throughout the world.”

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Vatican in legal fight over luxury flats

LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Times

July 20 2020

By Sean O’Neill, Chief Reporter

The secretive world of Vatican finances will be laid bare in a legal dispute examining the alleged use of charitable donations from churchgoers around the world to buy prime London property.

Two claims have been lodged at the High Court against the Vatican over the purchase of 60 Sloane Avenue, a Chelsea block earmarked for development into luxury apartments.

The cases pit the Pope and the Holy See against Raffaele Mincione, a millionaire financier who is the former fiancé of the model Heather Mills, the ex-wife of Sir Paul McCartney.

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Raffaele Mincione takes Vatican to High Court

LONDON (ENGLAND)
Daily Mail

July 20, 2020

By Rory Tingle

Heather Mills’s ex-fiance takes Vatican to High Court over £450m deal that saw Catholic church use worshippers’ charitable donations to buy prime London property

Heather Mills’ former fiance has taken the Vatican to the High Court over a £450million deal that allegedly saw the Holy See use worshippers’ charitable donations to buy prime London property.

Millionaire financier Raffaele Mincione previously owned 60 Sloane Avenue, which once housed the Harrods showroom, and has now begun two legal claims over the Vatican’s purchase of the building.

The case could throw rare light on a complex web of transactions involving Swiss banks, Luxembourg investment houses and, allegedly, millions of pounds worth of donations from Roman Catholics as part of the annual Peter’s Pence appeal.

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A text with contributions from local Churches that will be kept up-to-date

VATICAN CITY
Vatican News

July 16, 2020

By Cardinal Luis F. Ladaria SJ

The Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith presents the new Vademecum for handling cases of sexual abuse of minors by clerics.

The “Vademecum on certain points of procedure in treating cases of sexual abuse of minors committed by clerics” is the result of numerous requests sent by Bishops, Ordinaries, Superiors of Institutes of consecrated life and Societies of apostolic life to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to have at their disposal a tool that could help them in the delicate task of correctly conducting cases regarding deacons, priests and bishops when they are accused of the sexual abuse of minors. Recent history attests to greater attention on the part of the Church regarding this scourge. The course of justice cannot alone exhaust the Church’s response, but it is necessary in order to come to the truth of the facts. This is a complex path that leads into a dense forest of norms and procedures before which Ordinaries and Superiors sometimes find themselves lacking the certainty how to proceed.

Thus, the Vademecum was primarily written for them, as well as for legal professionals who help them handle the cases. This is not a normative text. No new law is being promulgated, nor are new norms being issued. It is, instead, an “instruction manual” that intends to help whoever has to deal with concrete cases from the beginning to the end, that is, from the first notification of a possible crime (notitia de delicto) to the definitive conclusion of the case (res iudicata). Between these two points there are periods of time that must be observed, steps to complete, communication to be given, decisions to take.

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Diocese of Scranton seeks stay of sex abuse cases

WILKES-BARRE (PA)
The Citizens Voice

July 20, 2020

By Terrie Morgan-Besecker

The Diocese of Scranton wants the state Supreme Court to stay all activity in lawsuits filed by five men who allege they were molested by a priest until the court rules on a critical legal issue that could nix the cases.

In a recent court filing, attorneys for the diocese estimate it will incur over $200,000 in attorneys’ fees gathering evidence that lawyers for the victims are seeking. Those fees would be wasted if the Supreme Court ultimately overturns an Allegheny County case that extends the statute of limitations for sexual abuse victims to file suit.

Kingston attorney Kevin Quinn filed separate lawsuits last year on behalf of five men who allege the Rev. Michael Pulicare, who died in 1999, sexually abused them in the mid-1970s, when they were children attending St. Joseph’s Church in the Minooka section of Scranton.

The lawsuits, filed in Lackawanna County Court, name as defendants the diocese, the Most Rev. Joseph C. Bambera, bishop of Scranton, and retired Bishop James C. Timlin.The viability of the suits hinges on the Supreme Court’s pending review of a Superior Court decision in a lawsuit Renee Rice filed against the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown.

In that case, Rice’s claims initially were dismissed because they fell outside the statute of limitations. The Superior Court overturned the ruling, finding that, when a case involves accusations the church concealed the abuse, a jury should decide if the victim’s delay in coming forward was reasonable.

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Bankrupt Buffalo Diocese paying $162,000/year for P.R. consultant

BUFFALO (NY)
WKBW 7 ABC

July 16, 2020

By Charlie Specht

Survivors decry lucrative contract with Tucker

Earlier this year, the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy after it was faced with hundreds of lawsuits alleging sexual abuse by priests.

But despite its financial problems, the diocese is now paying big bucks to change its image — and that’s not sitting well with survivors of abuse.

Few have benefited from the diocese’s decision to declare bankruptcy as much as Greg Tucker, who has been working as a behind-the-scenes adviser to interim Bishop Edward Scharfenberger since the bishop’s introductory news conference last December.

The national public relations consultant replaced former diocese spokesperson Kathy Spangler soon after former Bishop Richard J. Malone’s resignation. He’s now making hundreds of thousands of dollars from a diocese that says it is financially insolvent.

Records filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court show the diocese paid Tucker more than $93,000 from December through February.

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Bishop Malesic plans to continue sharing joy of the Gospel in Cleveland

WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service (USCCB) via Catholic Philly

July 17, 2020

By Dennis Sadowski

Cleveland – Bishop Edward C. Malesic, the newly appointed bishop of Cleveland, said his main desire as he makes the transition from heading the Diocese of Greensburg, Pennsylvania, to shepherding his new diocese is to communicate the joy of the Gospel to people.

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In response to a question about falling church attendance, fed in part by the clergy sexual abuse scandal as well as misperceptions of church corruption and mean-spiritedness, Bishop Malesic called on the church to continue restoring its credibility.

When confronted by people who say they have left the church because they believe the church has left them, Bishop Malesic said he attempts to “communicate what the church is, what the Gospel is.”

“I think the church has become much more transparent today. The church doesn’t tolerate people who would abuse a child in any position within the church. Priests who do abuse children should be treated like everyone else, and maybe treated a little differently, a little more harshly because they’re leaders in the church,” he said.

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Diocese of Rockville Centre receives at least $3 million in federal PPP loans

GARDEN CIY (NY)
Long Island Herald

July 16, 2020

By Briana Bonfiglio

The Diocese of Rockville Centre has received somewhere between $3 and 7 million from the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program, according to data released from the U.S. Treasury Department and Small Business Administration.

The Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP, was established to help small businesses suffering losses due to the coronavirus pandemic. The data shows $1 to 2 million given to the Catholic Cemeteries of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockville Centre, listed under the address for Cemetery of the Holy Rood in Westbury, and $2 to 5 million given to the Diocese’s Catholic Charities, listed under the address for Holy Trinity Diocean High School in Hicksville.

Sean P. Dolan, the Diocese’s communications director, could not be reached for comment; however, Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, of Oklahoma City, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, has released a statement on the issue, which the Diocese posted on their website.

“The loans we applied for enabled our essential ministries to continue to function in a time of national emergency,” he wrote. “Shutdown orders and economic fallout associated with the virus have affected everyone, including the thousands of Catholic ministries — churches, schools, healthcare and social services — that employ about 1 million people in the United States.”

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Erie County man alleges a police officer molested him as a boy

BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

July 20, 2020

By Matthew Spina

An Erie County man alleges in a recent Child Victims Act lawsuit that he was molested decades ago by a police officer assigned to advise students on personal safety, including the need to be wary of strangers.

The man, now in his 40s, says the officer victimized him in the early 1990s, when he was a student with Genesee Valley BOCES, which serves Genesee, Livingston, Steuben and Wyoming counties.

The suit filed Friday identifies Christopher Ferrara, a former staff member with the Wyoming County Sheriff’s Department’s “Officer Bill” program, as the molester.

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The Child Victims Act, which temporarily waives the statute of limitations on decades-old abuses, has unleashed hundreds of lawsuits against major institutions in New York, especially the Catholic Church, schools and nonprofits that cater to children, such as the Boy Scouts. But the complaint filed days ago appears to be the first locally to stem from the actions of an officer assigned to work with students.

However, while it is rare for police to molest their students, it’s not unheard of. In 2015, The Buffalo News compiled a database of more than 700 instances of police sexual misconduct from around the country. Around 5% of the cases involved officers assigned to work with young people – school resource officers, DARE officers and Explorer post advisers, for example.

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The church has no need to apologize for Paycheck Protection Program loans

NEW YORK (NY)
America Magazine

July 14, 2020

By Matt Malone, S.J.

My late philosophy professor, W. Norris Clarke, S.J., was always telling me to “interrogate the premise” of an argument. He believed that, generally speaking, most conclusions follow logically from their premises; so if an argument is false, it is likely because one or more of its premises is false. I apply this skepticism to news stories published in America and elsewhere. This is important because reporters mostly live in a two-dimensional world. Their task is to record events quickly by reducing complex phenomena to their simplest formulation.

The problem with that approach is that it can distort the very reality reporters are seeking to make clear. A good example is a news story published by The Associated Press on July 10. The lead paragraph was as follows:

The U.S. Roman Catholic Church used a special and unprecedented exemption from federal rules to amass at least $1.4 billion in taxpayer-backed coronavirus aid, with many millions going to dioceses that have paid huge settlements or sought bankruptcy protection because of clergy sexual abuse cover-ups.

Shocking, no? But is that what happened? All of the facts cited are true. Indeed, as far as I can tell, all of the facts cited in the story are true. But how are those facts related to one another, if they are related at all?

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Fresno nonprofits, churches make up large number of PPP loan recipients

FRESNO (CA)
San Joaquin Valley Sun

July 19, 2020

By Daniel Gligich

Dozens of nonprofits based in Fresno and Clovis received Paycheck Protection Program loans to help negate the coronavirus pandemic-caused economic downturn.

The program, run by the Small Business Administration and created by the CARES Act, grants businesses loans of 2.5 times payroll, up to a maximum of $10 million. Businesses can have the loans forgiven if they meet certain criteria set by the SBA, such as using at least 60% of the loan on payroll expenses.

According to a SBA data of PPP loan recipients, no Fresno area nonprofits received the maximum loan amount. However, two organizations received loans of at least $2 million.

Hospice care provider Hinds Hospice and behavioral health provider Kings View were both granted loans in the $2-5 million range.

There were 11 nonprofits to receive a loan of at least $1 million: Big Picture Schools California, California Home for the Aged, Central California Blood Center, Central California Legal Services, Exceptional Parents Unlimited, the Chaffee Zoo Corporation, Hume Lake Christian Camps, Inspire Charter School, Promesa Behavioral Health, The Arc Fresno/Madera Counties and The Fresno Center.

Several other nonprofits received loans between $350,000-1 million, including the Marjaree Mason Center, the Boys and Girls Clubs of Fresno County, Fresno Christian Schools, the Fresno Rescue Mission, Girls Scouts of Central California South and the San Joaquin College of Law.

Nonprofits that received between $150,000-350,000 in loans include the Central Valley Community Foundation, the Poverello House and Valley Public Television.

Outside of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno, many other local churches came away with a combined millions of dollars in PPP loans.

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These parishes took PPP loans. Here’s why

DENVER (CO)
Catholic News Agency

July 18, 2020

By Mary Farrow

When the coronavirus pandemic necessitated widespread shutdowns, Catholic parishes were among those to feel the financial pinch almost immediately. No people in the pews meant no money in the collection basket. Mass after Mass, weekend after weekend, that loss added up.

Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Denver, Colorado is one such parish whose already-precarious financial situation was thrown in jeopardy by the pandemic.

To keep paying his small staff, Fr. Joseph Lajoie applied for a Payment Protection Program (PPP) loan through the Small Business Administration. The loans were meant to support the essential needs of small businesses and nonprofits affected by coronavirus shutdowns.

An article from the Associated Press published last week criticized the “U.S. Roman Catholic Church” for reportedly accepting between $1.4-$3.5 billion work of PPP loans. In fact, there is no single entity that is the U.S. Roman Catholic Church. Rather, each parish operates as its own small nonprofit, and weekly donations help to employ the priest, along with the employees who maintain the parish and its ministries.

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Class Disparities and Child Abuse in Ireland 2020

PETROLIA (CA)
CounterPunch

July 17, 2020

By Kerron Ó Luaine

The newly formed government of the Twenty-Six County state in Ireland has been in existence less than a month but is already mired in several controversies; the usual circuses thrown up by capitalist society with governments lurching from each to the next without any alteration to the status quo.

One of them is worth looking in some detail at as it highlights an important rift between socialism and liberalism on a particularly vexatious question as well elucidating some of the dynamics currently at play within the Irish far-right.

The scandal concerns the newly appointed Minister for Children, Roderick O’Gorman of the Green Party, and his association with LGBT activist Peter Tatchell, a man alleged by many to be a paedophile apologist.

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McCarrick Bombshell: It’s So Much Deeper Than Anyone Knows

FERNDALE (MI)
Church Militant

July 20, 2020

While the world has been waiting on Pope Francis and his crooked cabinet to release the report on the evil empire and clerical accomplices of homopredator and former cardinal, Theodore McCarrick, another much more quiet route to the truth has been quietly moving along out of the public eye.

James Grein — the premier victim, so to speak — is suing McCarrick, the archdiocese of New York, the diocese of Metuchen and the archdiocese of Newark. He’s able to file these suits because both New York and New Jersey lifted their statutes of limitations last year.

Part of each of these lawsuits entails Theodore McCarrick actually being deposed by Grein attorney Mitchell Garabedian. Garabedian is the noted attorney from the original homopredator scandal cases dating back to Boston in 2002. Specifically, regarding the long-anticipated McCarrick report from Rome, Grein has been told by Pope Francis’ attorney that it’s not only done, but has been for a while.

One of the startling revelations —and a fact that brings into serious question the validity of the final report (if it’s ever released) — is that James Grein, the main victim of McCarrick for years, was never interviewed during its preparation. Not once.

The pope’s personal attorney — who was in charge of creating the report — is San Francisco attorney Jeffrey Lena. Lena recently interviewed Grein by phone for eight hours over multiple days, collecting notes for the Vatican Archives. Lena is part of a Vatican apparatus that has no interest in the truth, but merely an interest in protecting the institution, shielding it from legal consequences or financial liability.

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Egyptian Coptic Priest Defrocked Following Allegations of Sexual Abuse, Paedophilia

MELBOURNE (VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA)
Egyptian Streets

July 19, 2020

Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church’s spokesperson announced on Saturday evening that Pope Tawadros II has decided to defrock priest Rewiess Aziz Khalil, a priest of the Diocese of Minya and Abu Qurqas who had been residing in North America, following allegations of sexual abuse and paedophilia.

The first statement, published on Facebook, was released by the Diocese of Minya and Abu Qurqas, announcing that Reweiss Aziz Khalil had been stripped of his title and returned him to his pre-ordination name Yousef Aziz Khalil.

A separate letter by Pope Tawadros II, Papal Decree 6/20, posted in English on the Church’s spokesperson’s Facebook page, recognised earlier claims by victims of Aziz Khalil that he had previously been defrocked and also announced his defrocking.

“After reviewing the records of the recent investigation related to Reweiss Aziz Khalil, a priest of the Diocese of Menia and Abu Qurkas, who presently resides outside of Egypt, and after taking into consideration the prior decrees defrocking him for his repeated infringements that are unacceptable to the Priesthood and its ministry, we have decided, in addition to our previous decree dated Feb 26, 2014 defrocking him from all ministry in the Coptic Orthodox Church, effective immediately, he is hereby laicized and must return to his former pre-ordination name of Yousef Aziz Khalil. He is hereby stripped of his priestly rank,” read the letter signed by Pope Tawadros II.

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July 19, 2020

Coptic Church strips alleged paedophile priest of clerical status

EGYPT
The National

July 19, 2020

Decision by Pope Tawadros II comes as MeToo movement builds in Egypt

Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church has stripped a priest accused of paedophilia of his clerical status, including the Christian name he was given when ordained, in the latest chapter in the ancient church’s struggle to modernise and stay relevant.

The church’s move, meanwhile, added another layer to the MeToo wave gripping Egypt since dozens of women began last month to publicly share on social media stories of sexual harassment and assault they experienced. Their decision to publicise their ordeals was triggered by the case of a privileged young man accused by dozens of women last month of sexually assaulting and blackmailing them.

The church’s move against the priest was announced in a statement issued on Friday night by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of the orthodox church, which has by far the largest following among mainly Muslim Egypt’s estimated 10-15 million Christians.

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Victims of JRR Tolkien’s son among hundreds in line for larger Church sex abuse payouts

UNITED KINGDOM
The Telegraph

July 19, 2020

By Catherine Pepinster

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/19/victims-jrr-tolkiens-son-among-hundreds-line-larger-church-sex/

Archbishop of Birmingham wants to offer ‘compassionate, listening response to victims and survivors’ of clergy including Fr John Tolkien

Hundreds of people abused by Catholic clergy could be in line for larger compensation payouts after a landmark decision by the Archbishop of Birmingham.

The Telegraph can reveal that the Church has agreed to triple the compensation paid to a survivor of abuse by Father John Tolkien, the son of J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings.

The Archdiocese of Birmingham took the unprecedented decision to reopen previous financial settlements to two abuse victims, a year after it was severely criticised by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) for its handling of cases.

Compensation is normally given after claims are settled on a full and final basis, but the Archdiocese has agreed that it needed to rectify further what happened to two victims….

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Lawsuit against Diocese of Shreveport claims priest sexually abused boy in the ’70s

SHREVEPORT (LA)
Shreveport Times

July 19, 2020

By Emily Enfinger

A lawsuit was recently filed against the Diocese of Shreveport seeking damages on claims of sexual abuse that occurred in the 1970s of a then child among other accusations.

The plaintiff is identified on the court document under the alias of “Paul Doe” because he is a sexual assault victim.

John Denenea, one of the attorneys representing Paul Doe in the lawsuit, told The Times that the client’s intent in filing the suit “is not to get a quick settlement,” but rather to obtain the truth and to pursue acknowledgment and recognition of the injuries he sustained.

The plaintiff is being represented by attorneys Soren E. Gisleson and Joseph E. “Jed” Cain of Herman, Herman & Katz law firm; Denenea of Shearman-Denenea law firm; and Richard Trahant of Trahant Law Office. The attorneys have been named in articles by NOLA.com as representatives of similarly-natured cases in the New Orleans area.

The Times contacted the Diocese of Shreveport for a comment or response to the lawsuit. In an email, the Diocese’s Communications and Public Relations Director, Mark Willcox, said he was working on getting a response to The Times as soon as possible but a response concerning the lawsuit was not received as of Saturday at noon.

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[COMMENTARY] Message from Cardinal Dolan: The Paycheck Protection Program and the Archdiocese of New York

NEW YORK (NY)
Archdiocese of New York

By Cardinal Timothy Dolan

July 15, 2020

Dear Family of the Archdiocese of New York,

May I intrude on what I hope is a relaxing summer with a not-so-pleasant subject?

Last week, the Associated Press published a scurrilous article, heavy on innuendo, about Catholic dioceses, parishes, schools, charitable organizations, and other institutions that rightly received assistance from the federal government to pay their employees during the Covid-19 crisis. Many news outlets picked up the story, which implied that there was something amiss in Catholic institutions receiving paycheck protection money. Many of you have called or emailed me, wanting to know if the story was true. My answer, quite simply, is absolutely not! It was misleading at best, outright false at worst. Here’s why.

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Piden elevar a juicio la causa contra sacerdote por abuso sexual de menores

[They ask to bring to trial the case against a priest for sexual abuse of minors]

SAN NICOLÁS DE LOS ARROYOS (ARGENTINA)
San Nicolás News

July 17, 2020

Cinco denuncias lo involucran junto al portero del jardín de Belén de San Pedro Anselmo Ojeda y a la preceptora de la institución María Rubíes

[GOOGLE TRANSLATION: Five complaints involve him along with the doorman of the San Pedro garden of Anselmo Ojeda and the tutor of the María Rubíes institution]

Tras cerrar la etapa de instrucción, el fiscal Hernán Grande de Baradero de la UFI N°5, pidió al juez de garantías Román Parodi del Juzgado N°1 de San Nicolás, la elevación a juicio de la causa donde el Sacerdote Tulio Mattiussi de la iglesia San Roque, el portero del Jardín Belén Anselmo Ojeda y la preceptora de la misma institución María Rubíes, están acusados de abuso sexual a menores con acceso carnal agravado y reiterado por corrupción de menores. Actualmente la causa en proceso de traslado a las partes y los padres como particulares damnificado, piden sostener la calificación de acceso carnal y corrupción de menores.

[GOOGLE TRANSLATION: After closing the investigation stage, the prosecutor Hernán Grande de Baradero of UFI No. 5, asked the judge of guarantees Román Parodi of the Court No. 1 of San Nicolás, the elevation to trial of the case where the Priest Tulio Mattiussi of the San Roque church, the doorman of the Jardín Belén Anselmo Ojeda and the tutor of the same institution María Rubíes, are accused of sexual abuse of minors with aggravated and repeated carnal access for corruption of minors. Currently, the case in the process of being transferred to the parties and the parents as private individuals affected, ask to support the classification of carnal access and corruption of minors.]

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Pericias psicológicas indican que el denunciante del cura de Santa Rosa no fabula

[Psychological expertise indicates that the complainant of the priest of Santa Rosa does not fable]

SANTA ROSA (ARGENTINA)
Diario Textual

July 19, 2020

Peritos psicológicos dictaminaron que el hombre de 30 años denunció haber sido abusado sexualmente por el cura santarroseño Hugo Pernini, cuando era menor de edad, no está fabulando. «No hay elementos que indiquen fabulación o mentiras», dijeron fuentes con acceso al expediente judicial a Diario Textual.

[GOOGLE TRANSLATION: Psychological experts ruled that the 30-year-old man reported having been sexually abused by the priest from Santa Rosa, Hugo Pernini, when he was a minor, he is not fabled. “There are no elements that indicate fabulation or lies,” sources with access to the judicial file told Diario Textual.]

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Vatican Releases Guide on How Leaders Must Handle Abuse Allegations

VATICAN CITY
NetNY.tv and Catholic News Service

July 16, 2020

By Melissa Butz and Carol Glatz

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith released a 17-page document offering a step-by-step guide for how bishops, religious superiors and canon lawyers are supposed to handle accusations of alleged abuse by clerics against minors.

While nothing in the text is new, nor does it reflect any change to current church law, the handbook is meant to present clear and precise directions, procedures as well as attitudes church leaders should have toward victims, the accused, civil authorities and the media.

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Bishop Malesic plans to continue sharing joy of the Gospel in Cleveland

CLEVELAND (OH)
Catholic News Service via Crux

July 19, 2020

Dennis Sadowski

Bishop Edward C. Malesic, the newly appointed bishop of Cleveland, said his main desire as he makes the transition from heading the Diocese of Greensburg, Pennsylvania, to shepherding his new diocese is to communicate the joy of the Gospel to people.

How to do that, he said, will be determined with the diocesan staff and the people of the Cleveland Diocese.

“I’m looking forward to walking with you as your new bishop and being part of our local church together,” he said during a news conference at Cleveland diocesan offices as he was introduced July 16. “Every change in my life has come with new blessings and I cannot wait to see what blessings await me in this diocese, my new home,” Malesic said.

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Vatican issues manual for bishops on handling reports of sexual abuse of minors

VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Agency

July 16, 020

By Hannah Brockhaus

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) issued Thursday a manual to help bishops and dioceses follow Church procedure in respect to accusations of sexual abuse of a minor by a cleric.

The vademecum, released July 16, is one of the last documents promised by the Vatican following its February 2019 abuse summit.

The handbook does not issue new norms or make alterations to current Church law, but is intended as a guide for bishops, dioceses, and religious communities on how to follow Church procedure in sex abuse cases.

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Isolated Pope Francis Faces Yet Another Setback in Pandemic

VATICAN CITY
Wall Street Journal

July 7, 2020

By Francis X. Rocca

The world-wide restrictions on public events to deal with the coronavirus pandemic are the latest blow to Pope Francis, whose pontificate has been struggling in recent years to sustain the progressive hopes that the Argentine raised early in his reign.

The pandemic has hindered Pope Francis’ ability to communicate his teachings and promote his causes, from the environment to the rights of migrants, as well as his efforts to tackle the Vatican’s financial troubles. The lack of public events and personal interactions are particular burdens for a pope who is more at home communicating with crowds than in dealing with the Vatican’s bureaucracy.

Even before the pandemic, the early progressive trend of his pontificate, exemplified by openings toward divorced and gay Catholics, had run out of momentum amid internal church divisions. A series of scandals over clerical sex abuse of minors in various countries around the world, as well as affairs involving financial mismanagement at the Vatican, had cast a shadow on the institution.

Now, in the eighth year of the 83-year-old pope’s reign, some Vatican insiders and observers are even looking toward its end. “The Next Pope” is the title of two books scheduled for publication over the next few weeks. Both are by conservative authors, but conservatives aren’t the only ones feeling restless.

“On some issues the potential for institutional change by Pope Francis seems to have reached a limit,” said Massimo Faggioli, a theologian who has been one of the pope’s most enthusiastic supporters. He cited the pope’s recent decision not to loosen rules on priestly celibacy and his resistance to the ordination of women as deacons, a lower rank of clergy. On both issues, the lack of change disappointed progressive Catholics.

Mr. Faggioli wrote in an article this spring that “supporters of Pope Francis and his efforts to reform the Catholic Church are concerned that the dynamism of his pontificate has begun to wane.” A reason for this, he says, could be a desire to maintain unity between liberal Catholics and the pope’s increasingly vocal conservative critics.

Progressives remain happy with Pope Francis’ emphasis on social and economic justice and the environment. But the pandemic has sharply curtailed his ability to promote such causes, even though he believes the global health and economic crisis has made doing so all the more urgent.

“The stakes are his place at the table to shape the postcoronavirus world order,” said John Allen, president of Crux Catholic Media and the author of numerous books on the Vatican. “If he is not able, because of the inability to travel or the inability to do big public events in Rome, to project himself into the conversation, then he loses a measure of relevance.”

Major papal events have been postponed until as late as 2023. The pope has ceased to travel, and most of his appearances at the Vatican now take place on video with only a small audience physically present. The one-on-one encounters that once provided some of the most compelling images of his reign have become all but impossible. He is currently on his annual “staycation,” skipping his weekly public audiences to rest within Vatican walls for the month of July.

Pope Francis made some memorable appearances during the darkest period of Italy’s coronavirus outbreak this spring, including a dramatic ceremony in an empty St. Peter’s Square and morning Masses seen by millions on TV and the internet. But the Vatican stopped transmitting the Masses in May once churches in Italy reopened, and since the reopening of the economy in Italy and elsewhere, the pope’s relative solitude has been less representative of his flock.

“He was very good at using the image of the desert, but now that we are no longer in the desert he has to invent new forms of communication,” said Sandro Magister, a Vatican expert who writes for Italy’s L’Espresso magazine.

Internal Vatican business has also slowed on account of the pandemic. The international Council of Cardinals, which has been advising the pope on a revised constitution for the Vatican since 2013, last met in February. But the most important impact of the pandemic has been on finances, with drastically reduced income from the Vatican Museums and commercial real-estate holdings worsening an already yawning budget deficit for the Holy See.

The Holy See’s deficit doubled in 2018 to roughly €70 million ($78.7 million) on a budget of about €300 million. More recent numbers haven’t been released but the Vatican’s finance chief, the Rev. Juan Antonio Guerrero Alves, said in May that revenue this year could drop as much as 45%. Pope Francis’ annual charity collection, which The Wall Street Journal revealed has been used largely to plug the deficit, has been postponed this year from June to October.

Pope Francis has said that the Vatican’s internal investigation of a scandal over investments in London real estate is evidence of reform, but the affair has cast doubt on the integrity of the Vatican’s financial watchdog, which had been the biggest success story in efforts to restore the city state’s international credibility on financial matters.

The clerical sex-abuse scandal also continues to cast a shadow over the pontificate.

Almost two years after a former papal envoy to the U.S. accused Pope Francis of ignoring sexual misconduct by former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, a former archbishop of Washington, the Vatican still hasn’t released a long-promised report explaining how Mr. McCarrick rose to power despite widespread rumors of his misconduct going back years. Aggravating an image of insensitivity on the topic, last month the pope reinstated Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta, a longtime protégé of his, in his job at the Vatican, even though the bishop is still facing charges of sexual harassment in their native Argentina.

Last year, the pope promulgated legislation making it easier to discipline bishops who abuse or cover up abuse and he relaxed the secrecy rules for church documents relating to abuse. But advocates for victims complain that the legislation doesn’t require reporting of crimes to the civil authorities or allow the independent oversight by laypeople proposed by U.S. bishops.

“I’m sad and baffled that Pope Francis has been so regressive on the abuse issue,” said Anne Barrett Doyle, of BishopAccountability.org, a Boston-based group that tracks abuse cases. “I don’t expect that we’ll see any more initiatives from him, even though the twin crises of child sexual abuse and coverup remain unsolved.”

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July 18, 2020

Their new schools knew nothing about allegations against these teachers. Should they have?

SAN JOSE (CA)
Mercury News

July 18, 2020

By Daniel Wu

At least 3 teachers accused of sexual misconduct at Presentation High still working in education

Kathryn Leehane wasn’t surprised to discover that former Presentation High teachers, named last week in a bombshell report that exposed years of sexual misconduct and coverups at the San Jose Catholic girls school, were still teaching in the Bay Area.

She had suffered through her own experience of being sexually abused by a teacher at the prominent school when she was a student in the 1990s. And over the weekend, screenshots and tips popped up in her phone. They traced how another teacher, accused in the report of a non-consensual sexual encounter with a former student, had left Presentation for a Daly City public high school and then moved to a San Mateo middle school — all within the last three years. Leehane knew exactly how.

“As long as he had a clean record police-wise, the other schools wouldn’t have known,” she said.

That’s why Leehane and other advocates have been lobbying California lawmakers to pass legislation to make sure career paths like that can’t happen again. But for years, their effort has stalled in the face of opposition from teachers’ unions and civil liberties groups. Leehane hopes the scathing Presentation report can bring a new urgency to the fight.

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East Bay Catholic priest charged with sexual battery against woman

OAKLAND (CA)
San Francisco Chronicle

July 17, 2020

By Matthias Gafni

Five months after the Catholic Diocese of Oakland placed the Rev. Varghese “George” Alengadan on leave following accusations of inappropriate behavior, the Alameda County district attorney announced Friday that the priest has been charged with one count of misdemeanor sexual battery involving a woman last year while he oversaw St. Joseph Basilica.

Alengadan, 67, unlawfully touched “an intimate part of Jane Doe” against her will and for his sexual arousal, Assistant District Attorney Michael Nieto alleged in a complaint signed Thursday. He allegedly assaulted the woman on July 24, 2019, the same month four diocese employees and one volunteer at the Alameda church made sexual harassment claims against Alengadan. Last fall, the diocese conducted its own investigation and found the priest engaged in inappropriate conduct of a sexual nature with the women, leading to his resignation from his post there, according to the diocese.

He was eventually placed on leave after a former parishioner came forward with earlier allegations of sexual misconduct by Alengadan.

“Father George held a position of trust, authority and power at St. Joseph Basilica in Alameda,” said Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley. “As pastor of the church and the school, there existed a power imbalance over others that compounds the impact of sexual abuse. His position made his actions all the more devastating to the victim.”

After the allegations last July, Alengadan was removed from the Alameda church and transferred to Christ the King in Pleasant Hill, where he continued with his priestly duties. When parishioners learned of the criminal probe in February, they angrily protested his presence at that church and Alengadan was moved again.

In an exclusive interview with The Chronicle in February, a woman recalled an earlier encounter with Alengadan in 2002 in which he allegedly fondled her before he was supposed to officiate her wedding.

The parents of the alleged victim said they immediately reported the 2002 allegations to the diocese, deciding against going to police because they trusted the church to handle it internally. But they said they never received a response. The mother again alerted the diocese of the complaint in 2016, sending an email to Bishop Michael C. Barber, but said again nothing was done.

The diocese had originally told The Chronicle that Alengadan had no earlier allegations of sexual impropriety, but later acknowledged it received the mother’s 2016 email. The revelation led the diocese to place Alengadan on leave and to launch a new investigation into how the diocese handled the earlier complaints.

On Friday, the diocese said the victim in the criminal case also made the allegations to the diocese last year.

“Father George Alengadan is currently on administrative leave, following the Diocese’s protocols when serious allegations are presented,” the diocese said. “Under the terms of this canonical decree, Father Alengadan is not able to present himself in public as a priest, which includes he cannot celebrate a public Mass or other sacraments. The decree continues to be in effect and can only be lifted by Bishop Barber.”

The Chronicle has been unable to reach Alengadan. He is not in custody and has a court hearing Monday, according to the district attorney’s office.

Alengadan served as a pastor at three parishes. In 2017, Barber named him one of the diocese’s outstanding clergy. He sat on the bishop’s Priests Personnel Board, a sounding board for the bishop, and also worked as director of priests and deacon formation in the chancery office.

“It takes courage for victims and survivors of sexually motivated crimes, especially those crimes committed by a clergy member or other person in power, to report the crimes,” said O’Malley, whose family has been Oakland diocese parishioners. “To all victims and survivors, I say that my office will bring perpetrators to justice while providing support and resources to enable victims to work through and overcome the trauma of the assault.”

The district attorney’s office asked anyone victimized or who has additional information about Alengadan to contact Alameda prosecutors at 510-272-6222.

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Erie diocese facing lawsuit over fund for abuse victims

ERIE (PA)
GoErie.com

July 17, 2020

By Ed Palattella

Filing of writ signals suit in Erie County Court. Claims linked to St. Hedwig Catholic Church and its long-closed school.

The Catholic Diocese of Erie is the subject of a potential lawsuit over its victims’ compensation fund, a program the diocese created as an alternative to allowing victims to sue over clergy sexual abuse.

Two anonymous plaintiffs have filed paperwork indicating they plan to file a full-blown suit against the diocese in Erie County Court.

Their lawyer told the Erie Times-News that the full details will come out in later filings, but that the plaintiffs are suing because the diocese denied the claims they submitted to the compensation fund, created in 2019.

“The diocese would not offer them anything on the matter,” the lawyer, Bernard Tully, of Pittsburgh, said on Friday. “They voluntarily participated in the program and were not offered anything.”

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Commentary: New York Times’ Bias Is Not Always Obvious

NEW YORK (NY)
CNSNews.com

July 17, 2020

By Bill Donohue

The opinion editor of the New York Times, Bari Weiss, resigned this week after being shamed for doing her job. She criticized what she saw as a censorial workplace, one that was biased against conservative opinion. Indeed, she said she experienced “unlawful discrimination” and a “hostile work environment.”

What Weiss endured was widely covered by the media. What the media do not cover are the multiple instances of bias of a more subtle nature, and in this regard, the New York Times is hard to beat. Take, for example, two news stories that were recently posted online.

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Leadership roundtable wants broad reforms for accountability and transparency in church finances

UNITED STATES
Catholic News Service via The Dialog

July 17, 2020

Broad reforms that would contribute to greater accountability and transparency regarding church finances are needed to address the financial crisis the church faces and is intensifying because of the coronavirus pandemic, said a report emerging from a winter summit of lay, religious and clergy leaders.

The report assembled by the Leadership Roundtable from February’s 2020 Catholic Partnership Summit called for the Vatican and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to “create structures and laws for ethical financial leadership.”

The document, “We Are the Body of Christ: Creating a Culture of Co-Responsible Leadership,” also offered recommendations that emerged from three other sessions during the two-day summit.

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Former Alameda St. Joseph Basilica Priest Charged With Sexual Battery

OAKLAND (CA)
KPIX-TV

July 18, 2020

A former parish priest at Alameda’s St. Joseph Basilica has been charged with misdemeanor sexual battery on an adult, according to Alameda County prosecutors.

Varghese Alengadad, 68, also known as Father George, was a priest at St. Joseph Basilica when the alleged battery took place on July 24, 2019.

The charges sent shock waves through the island’s Catholic community.

“Father George held a position of trust, authority and power at St. Joseph Basilica in Alameda,” Alameda County District Attorney Nancy

O’Malley said in a statement. “As Pastor of the church and school, there existed a power imbalance over others that compounds the impact of sexual abuse. His position made his actions all the more devastating to the victim.”

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When emotions tip scales

AUSTRALIA
The Weekend Australian

July 18, 2020

Michael Xu lost five years of his life after a uni friend lied to cover up their sexual encounters. His conviction, like that of George Pell, points to a trend.

By Richard Guilliatt

Among the many shocking accounts of church sexual abuse that have been heard in recent years, the story one man outlined to police in the Victorian city of ­Geelong in September 2015 was particularly horrific. A former student at the local Catholic college St Joseph’s, the fragile 61-year-old remembered one teacher there as a sexual sadist who had violently raped him on more than a hundred occasions in the 1960s, beginning when he was just 10. The man he identified as his attacker was the school’s now-retired Grade 6 teacher, Brother John Tyrrell of the Christian Brothers.

The shameful history of the Christian Brothers was by then well known, and only four months earlier it had been aired again when the Royal Commission into institutional abuse held public hearings in Ballarat. The Catholic Church has paid out more than $200 million to victims of the Christian Brothers, and St Joseph’s in Geelong had harboured its share of offenders, including the notorious Robert Best, jailed for offences against more than 30 young boys at various Catholic schools. These latest allegations, from a man we will call Alan Francis*, appeared to add another terrible chapter to that history.

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Priest who raped 16-year-old girl wishes to marry her

INDIA
IndiaGlitz.com

July 17, 2020

An ex-catholic priest, identified as Vadakkancheril Mathew alias Robin Vadakkancheril, who was convinced of raping a minor girl in 2016, has moved the Kerala High Court on Wednesday seeking temporary suspension of his 20-year sentence to enable him to marry the rape survivor. The move has invited the wrath and condemnation of people.

In his plea, the 52-year-old priest reportedly said that the only impediment to the marriage was his priesthood and now he is eligible for entering wedlock as he had been dispensed with priestly duties and rights by the Pope and has been reduced to the state of a layman. The girl is now 20 years old. According to the prosecution, in May 2016, the accused induced the victim to go to his bedroom. Thereafter he committed rape and sexual assault against the victim. As a result, the victim became pregnant and gave birth to a baby boy in May 2017. The baby has been under the supervision of the Child Welfare Committee and has been part of two orphanages. Regarding the priest’s suggestion, public prosecutor Suman Chakravarti reportedly said, “Every rape convict can then offer to marry the survivor, we cannot encourage such suggestions.”

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Lessons learned: St. Louis archbishop-elect leaves a community still reeling from a bombshell report on clergy sex abuse

ST. LOUIS (MO)
St. Louis Post Dispatch

July 18, 2020

By Jesse Bogan

A narrator’s voice on a show about the Sistine Chapel triggered John Doe’s memories of horror he experienced as a 9-year-old altar boy. He survived being gang raped and other abuses by Roman Catholic clergy that were so traumatic they took some 50 years to resurface.

Doe ultimately wanted the Springfield Diocese in western Massachusetts to know what had been done to him in the early 1960s — not just by rank-and-file priests, but by the late Bishop Christopher J. Weldon, whose reputation was still untarnished from leading the diocese from 1950 to 1977.

Doe’s quest for justice, however, would victimize him even more. It took six years for his story to be validated, and only after initial investigations by church officials were found to be rife with mistakes and possible deception.

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What Ted McCarrick’s ‘social networks’ could teach the Church

UNITED STATES
Catholic News Agency

July 17, 2020

By Kevin Jones

There are social networks, and then there are social networks. The term is usually used these days to refer to apps and sites like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, and other places where online connection takes place.

But in a more technical sense, a social network is the structure formed by the complex web of ties between groups and individuals — the connections that link us. Think about the “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” and you’re thinking about social network theory.

The bishops of the Catholic Church form that kind of social network. And mapping that network can provide some insight into how the Church functions, and how abusers might function within Church networks.

Two experts have used the science of social network mapping approach to consider how influential sexual abusers like ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick went unchecked in the Church, and how both problematic responses to sexual abuse by clergy—or good practices to reform the Church—might propagate through the bishops’ links with each other.

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Vicar general of Chicago Catholic archdiocese appointed new bishop of Joliet diocese

ILLINOIS
Chicago Tribune via Yahoo News

July 17, 2020

By Claire Hao

The vicar general of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago has been appointed as the new bishop of the Diocese of Joliet, it was announced Friday.

The Rev. Ronald Hicks replaces Bishop Daniel Conlon, who resigned in May after four months of medical leave. Bishop Richard Pates will step down as the apostolic administrator of the diocese, a position he has held since Conlon was granted the leave in December.

Hicks, 52, will be installed on Sept. 29 at the Cathedral of St. Raymond Nonnatus in Joliet.

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Statute of limitations reform: A bittersweet, overwhelming success

UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary (blog)

June 26, 2020

By Joelle Casteix

This week, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) reported that allegations of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church TRIPLED in the past year.

There is only one reason for this huge increase in reports: Statute of Limitation Reform. Survivors in many states (California, New Jersey, New York, Arizona) now have the right to come forward in the courts to expose the men and women who abused them and the institutional actors who covered it up.

Let’s talk about the major questions this report raises:

Why didn’t these survivors come forward sooner?

They may have come forward years ago … but the church would never tell us.

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Former National Review Board chairman cites ‘mixed progress’ on clergy sex abuse

UNITED STATES
Our Sunday Visitor

July 9, 2020

By Brian Fraga

After eight years as chairman of the National Review Board, a lay committee that advises the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on addressing clergy sex abuse, Francesco C. Cesareo says the Catholic Church in the United States has made “some progress, but a mixed progress.”

“There’s still some work to be done going forward in order to tighten up the charter and the processes that are part of it,” Cesareo said in reference to the U.S. bishops’ 2002 Dallas Charter that instituted new norms to investigate clergy sex abuse cases.

During his two consecutive four-year terms as chairman of the National Review Board, which ended in June, Cesareo often pushed to amend the charter, to make it less vague and more responsive to new information. He advocated for the laity to have a greater role in keeping clergy accountable and lobbied for a more independent annual auditing system to monitor how dioceses and Church institutions are complying with the charter.

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July 17, 2020

El Arzobispado santafesino recibe denuncias por abuso ante la atenta “mirada” de Storni

SANTA FE (ARGENTINA)
Uno Santa Fe [Santa Fe, Argentina]

July 17, 2020

By Bárbara Favant

Read original article

El Arzobispado lanzó un “sistema” para que se puedan presentar denuncias por abuso sexual a miembros del clero, pero admitieron que no están capacitados para hacerlo. Aún tienen la imagen del cura denunciado por 47 seminaristas en las salas de la institución

“La Iglesia no necesita hacerse ningún examen de conciencia, y mucho menos pedir perdón a la sociedad argentina”, dijo el arzobispo Edgardo Storni en una homilía el 25 de mayo de 1995. La cita aparece en “Nuestra Santa Madre” de Olga Wornat, un libro de 2002 sobre la “Historia pública y privada de la Iglesia Católica Argentina”. Allí se describió la cantidad de abusos sexuales cometidos por el obispo –a quien lo llama “El Rosadito“– desde 1984 hasta la publicación de la investigación periodística, y cómo las denuncias de los afectados habían llegado hasta el Vaticano pero institucionalmente no se hizo absolutamente nada para frenar el horror.

En el libro se describe un cuadro pintado al óleo de la figura de Storni. Se detalla que se lo retrató con su aspecto de la juventud con sus pomposos atuendos que le gustaba exhibir en público, pero que había ordenado con los años que sea colgado en una de las habitaciones de la planta baja del Arzobispado y mandó a hacer uno más grande. La razón, habría sido que las manos allí se le ven desproporcionadas, muy grandes. La pintura sigue en ese lugar aún hoy, junto a otras de todos los arzobispos que tuvo la ciudad de Santa Fe. Tal vez se sostiene como símbolo, quizá estandarte, del statu quo de la iglesia que se ve representado en su imagen y la de aquella frase que dijo en el 95 en pleno festejo por el día de la revolución.

Storni fue llevado a juicio a partir de una investigación que se inició el año de la publicación de Wornat. Ocho años antes, en 1994, el arzobispo había sido sometido a una investigación ordenada desde el Vaticano, y liderada por José María Arancibia, después de haber sido acusado de abuso sexual en base a 47 testimonios de seminaristas. En 2003 fue sobreseído por la justicia santafesina de los delitos que se le imputaron por los hechos cometidos contra dos seminaristas que denunciaron abusos de los hechos que había investigado la fiscalía, pero sirvió para que se le dé forma a la causa.

Y en 2006 el exseminarista Rubén Descalzo denunció a Storni. El clérigo fue condenado por la jueza María Amalia Mascheroni a ocho años de prisión –el denunciante había solicitado 15– por abuso sexual agravado en 2009; pero luego, en 2011, la Cámara de Apelación Penal de Santa Fe declaró la nulidad de la sentencia. “Ha quedado palmariamente demostrado con la cantidad de testimonios arrimados a la causa e indicios, que las situaciones vividas dentro de los claustros eran anómalas irregulares y perjudiciales para los seminaristas que han venido trayendo su versión para esclarecer los hechos”, había dicho la jueza Mascheroni en su sentencia.

La conmoción de la condena fue enorme en la ciudad, y en el país. Fue la primera vez en Argentina que se condenaba a un obispo por delitos sexuales. Sin embargo, murió impune en 2012, en una casa que le había comprado la Iglesia en La Falda, Córdoba, en la que se mantenía con una pensión de privilegio desde el 2002.

Otro de los escándalos resonantes fue el testimonio del cura José Guntern, que dijo haber enviado una carta a Storni en la que le pidió: “… que reflexiones en Cristo y tomes conciencia de la gravedad de tus actos”. Fue luego de haber tomado conocimiento de que uno de los seminaristas que tenía a cargo había sufrido un abuso por parte del arzobispo. Como respuesta, cuatro sacerdotes –Hugo Capello, Marcelo Mateo, Edgard Stoffel y Mario Grassi– lo presionaron para que se rectifique y se retracte de sus dichos.

En el 2016 por primera vez en el país hubo una condena civil a la iglesia. La jueza Beatriz Forno de Piedrabuena del Juzgado de Primera Instancia de Distrito en lo Civil y Comercial Nº 3 condenó a los herederos de Storni y al Arzobispado de Santa Fe por daños y perjuicios a pagar casi un millón de pesos al sobreviviente Descalzo. El arzobispo José María Arancedo ordenó apelar esa resolución, y finalmente en 2018 otro tribunal desestimó la demanda por “prescripción”.

El legado de Storni

En la provincia fueron cuatro los casos resonantes de miembros de la Iglesia que fueron denunciados, condenados o procesados por abusos sexuales: Storni, Viviana Fleitas, Luis Brizzio y Néstor Monzón.

En el libro de Wornat también se señaló a Mario Grassi, asesor legal del colegio Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe en ese momento, como alguien que “tuvo varios problemas con adolescentes, a los que habría intentado abusar”. Luego de la presentación de la investigación en la Feria del Libro de Santa Fe en 2002, un grupo de unos 90 padres de la institución educativa se reunió para analizar los hechos y solicitaron que sea retirado de su cargo. El juez de Instrucción Julio César Costa procesó en 2002 por “coacción” en perjuicio del padre José Guntern a los sacerdotes Marcelo Mateo y Hugo Capello. Sus pares Edgar Stoffel y Grassi quedaron acusados como partícipes de ese hecho. La medida judicial alcanzó, además, al escribano Ricardo Chaminaud, quien fue procesado por el delito de “falsedad ideológica”. Fueron finalmente absueltos. A Grassi lo enviaron como párroco a la Iglesia Nuestra Señora de la Merced en San Justo desde 2006 hasta su muerte en 2014.

El cura Carlos Vece, de la arquidiócesis de Storni, discípulo e “íntimo amigo” del arzobispo, que murió en 2000, fue denunciado ese mismo año en una radio de la ciudad por un adolescente que se había escapado del Colegio Concepcionista San Cayetano (Vece era el representante legal) por abusos sexuales y castigos corporales. Las denuncias se ratificaron en el Juzgado de Menores de Santa Fe. “Falleció sin que la Justicia, que proclamaban padres de alumnos víctimas de sus abusos, lo rozara siquiera. Es probable que Dios, harto de esperar en vano la justicia terrenal, haya ejercido la suya matándolo y remitiéndolo a Satanás”, dice Wornat en su libro.

• LEER MÁS: Víctima del cura Brizzio: “No debería haber prescripción para estos delitos”

Fuentes eclesiásticas revelaron a UNO Santa Fe que Luis Brizzio de vivió hasta mayo de 2019 en los establecimientos de la parroquia Santuario San Francisco Javier, de la ciudad de San Javier, por varios años. Allí mantuvo un perfil bajo, tenía servicio de limpieza y no se lo vio por fuera de las instalaciones. A cargo de esta parroquia está el cura Sergio Capoccetti. Hoy, se encuentra en el Monasterio Benedictino Santa María de los Toldos, en la provincia de Buenos Aires. Brizzio fue denunciado en 2014 por abuso a un adolescente de 16 años en un retiro espiritual. Quien denunció fue la víctima ya adulta y por los tiempos establecidos en la ley no se inició un proceso judicial en el Estado.

Cuando el abusado se acercó a la iglesia, las primeras reuniones se dieron con el entonces obispo Storni. “Cuando a mí me ocurre esto mi familia y yo no sabíamos que Storni era abusador, ni que tenía denuncias de abuso. Con los años cuando eso se supo públicamente ahí entendí que no era que no habían hecho nada sino que lo habían encubierto”, dijo el denunciante a este medio en 2019.

El arzobispo de Santa Fe en 2015, José María Arancedo, abrió una investigación canónica a Brizzio por “comportamiento indebido” y lo removió de sus tareas pastorales en una parroquia de Esperanza. El denunciante recibió un documento del arzobispado de Santa Fe que dice: “La respuesta de la Congregación Romana una vez analizadas las actas de la investigación previa y que oportunamente se envió según lo estipulado por el Código de Derecho Canónico concluye que al producirse el hecho el denunciante era mayor de edad. Por lo tanto, no se trata de un caso de abuso de menores, según lo determinan las nuevas normas reservadas a la Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe”. La mayoría de edad para la Iglesia Católica –que cabe recordar, tiene su propio Estado– es de 16 años. Jamás se investigó el abuso de poder y la víctima jamás tuvo una respuesta de parte de la iglesia.

La monja Viviana Fleitas fue denunciada en un libro por la exmonja Sandra Migliore. Allí, la víctima dijo haber sido abusada cuando estaba en el noviciado y era menor y además contó abusos a otras compañeras. Fleitas es la primera monja denunciada por abusos en el país. Los hechos habrían ocurrido en el convento que su congregación, las Hermanas Educacionistas Franciscanas de Cristo Rey, en San Lorenzo, Santa Fe. No hubo investigación canónica ni respuesta de la Iglesia sobre este caso.

El sacerdote Néstor Monzón fue condenado en diciembre de 2019 a la pena que pidió la querella, 16 años de prisión, por ser autor material de abuso sexual gravemente ultrajante a una nena y un nene de tres años en la parroquia “María Madre de Dios”. El tribunal estuvo presidido por la jueza Claudia Bressán, junto con sus pares Santiago Banegas y Martín Gauna Chapero. Los jueces además ordenaron que ingrese al Registro Nacional de Datos Genéticos Vinculados a Delitos contra la Integridad Sexual, creado por la Ley 26.879 y reglamentado en julio del 2017. Allí se almacena información genética de autores de delitos sexuales con el fin de cruzar datos con las investigaciones de delitos de abuso sexual y poder encontrar a los responsables. Es la primera vez que un sacerdote condenado de la provincia entra en ese registro.

Cuando los abusos fueron detectados, la madre de uno de los menores comenzó un juicio canónico al mismo tiempo que hizo la denuncia penal que siguió el curso que finalmente les trajo algo de justicia a las víctimas. La asesora legal del obispado, Gabriela Contepomi, lo llamó por teléfono a Monzón para advertirle que lo estaban investigando y le dijo “borrá todo”. La conversación quedó grabada y ahora la mujer deberá enfrentar un juicio oral por “encubrimiento agravado del delito de abusos sexuales gravemente ultrajantes”. Le sugirió que elimine toda posible prueba que pueda generar compromiso a cualquier persona de la Iglesia, y que en caso de ser citado a tribunales actúe como que no sabía nada. Incluso se escucha cuando le sugiere que haga “acting” de sorpresa. El celular del sacerdote estaba intervenido por orden del juez y por eso quedó todo grabado. Se puede escuchar el audio haciendo clic aquí en Reconquista Hoy.

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Adult abuse case: accusations of grave mishandling across Church jurisdictions

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholic Herald

July 17, 2020

By Christopher Altieri

A priest of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, Fr Kevin McGoldrick, is quietly seeking voluntary laicization after that archdiocese investigated a claim he sexually assaulted a young woman who had been in his spiritual charge. The Philadelphia archdiocese determined the allegation to be credible roughly seven months after they received it directly from the victim. The victim had originally taken her complaint to the Diocese of Nashville, where she alleges the incident occurred, but Nashville never opened a formal investigation.

The Catholic Herald has obtained significant documentation corroborating the victim’s claims and raising concerns about the handling of the matter in several Church jurisdictions. The case reinforces longstanding concerns regarding the Catholic Church’s handling of similar matters at every level of the hierarchy and in religious congregations. The main facts of the case are as follows:

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Ex-priest indicted on wire fraud charges

STARKVILLE (MS)
WJTV

July 16, 2020

By Jade Bulecza

A non-profit organization is calling for a bishop to step down after a ex-priest was indicted on 10 counts of wire fraud.

Prosecutors said Father Lenin Vargas faked having cancer and scammed parishioners to donate money for personal expenses.

Vargas was the pastor of St. Joseph Catholic Church in Starkville and Corpus Christi Catholic Church in Macon.

According to indictment papers, he contracted HIV before September 2014. The Catholic Diocese of Jackson covered his treatment.

Prosecutors said he lied, telling his parishioners he had cancer and needed to raise money to cover those expenses. Mark Belenchia of SNAP Mississippi, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said Vargas took advantage of people.

“This is not about Christianity or church or anything like that,” said Belenchia. “It’s about an institution that’s willing to protect itself and its assets. It’s all about the flow of capital.”

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Priests question fund appeal for camp cited in Bishop Weldon abuse report

GOSHEN (MA)
The Berkshire Eagle

July 16, 2020

By Larry Parnass

Like all camps that can’t open this summer, the one the Springfield Diocese owns alongside a cool mountain reservoir is hurting for money.

This week, the Dalton priest who runs Camp Holy Cross passed the hat.

“If you are able to help, please send a donation,” the Rev. Christopher Malatesta, the camp’s executive director and leader of Dalton’s St. Agnes Parish, wrote in an email sent to all priests in the Catholic diocese. “We are looking for donations in any amount.”

What he got instead, from at least two priests, was censure. That’s because the camp’s name was linked to clergy sexual abuse in the independent report released June 24 by retired Judge Peter A. Velis.

Velis says that in the course of evaluating a Chicopee man’s allegations against former Bishop Christopher J. Weldon, he and his investigator zeroed in on the possibility that assaults occurred at the Goshen camp in the early 1960s.

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NEWS: PRIEST SUSPENDED FOLLOWING ALLEGATION OF MISCONDUCT

DES MOINES (IA)
Diocese of Des Moines

July 10, 2020

Bishop William Joensen suspended a priest of the Diocese of Des Moines, Father James Kirby, on Friday, July 10 following an allegation of inappropriate conduct.

While suspended, Father Kirby may not engage in public priestly ministry including celebrating Mass or other sacraments, and preaching. In the meantime, he is not to initiate contact with any parish leadership of St. Elizabeth Seton Parish, where he is pastor.

In addition to the ministerial aspects of his suspension, Bishop Joensen imposed the following additional restrictions: Father Kirby cannot contact the complainant or her family, nor any woman under age 30 unless she is a family member. He cannot enter any taverns or bars and must avoid bars in restaurants.

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Police seize Mincione’s phones in Vatican corruption probe

WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Agency

July 15, 2020

By Ed Condon

Vatican prosecutors, working with Italian authorities, have executed a search and seizure warrant against the Italian businessman Raffaele Mincione, the man responsible for the controversial investment of hundreds of millions of euros on behalf of the Holy See Secretariat of State.

In a seizure carried out on Mincione Wednesday morning at an hotel in Rome, investigators seized electronic devices, including cellular phones and iPads, according to Corriere della Serra.

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Humanity 2.0 Chairman Fr. Philip Larrey Named Dean of Philosophy at Vatican’s Pontifical Lateran University

VATICAN CITY
GlobeNewswire

July 16, 2020

Pontifical Lateran University names its Chair of Logic and Epistemology to Dean

Humanity 2.0, focused on identifying and removing the most significant impediments to human flourishing in collaboration with the Holy See (Vatican), is proud announce on July 3rd Humanity 2.0 Foundation Chairman Father Philip Larrey was officially confirmed Dean of Philosophy at the Pontifical Lateran University in Vatican City. The news comes on the heels of a majority vote from the Council of the Philosophy Department placing Fr. Philip Larrey as the front runner. In a formal confirmation on July 3rd, 2020, the Pope’s Vicar General for Rome and Grand Chancellor of the University, Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, confirmed the appointment.

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THE GYMNASTICS FACTORY

UNITED STATES
ESPN

July 14, 2020

Story by Bonnie D. Ford and Alyssa Roenigk, Illustrations by Louise Pomeroy

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE KAROLYI RANCH

For almost 20 years, top U.S. women gymnasts would pack a bag, say goodbye to their parents and take a monthly trip that ended with a long drive down a dirt road to a remote compound in a Texas forest. “You drive through the woods for like 15 miles and then you see this green gate,” says 2012 Olympic gold medalist Jordyn Wieber. “That’s when I knew we were pulling up to the Ranch. I started getting this pit in my stomach.”

The U.S. women’s gymnastics national team training center was located at the ranch home of Bela and Martha Karolyi, coaches who had defected to the U.S. from Romania in 1981 after the Olympic success of their protégé Nadia Comaneci. The couple amassed unprecedented power in the sport and brought historic success to the U.S. program. As the Karolyis’ influence grew, so did the importance of the Karolyi Ranch. From a few rustic buildings within a national forest, it became the center of women’s elite gymnastics in the United States.

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Letter: Former Kirkwood students brave for coming forward

ST. LOUIS (MO)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

July 16, 2020

By David Clohessy

Regarding “Kirkwood schools to pursue independent investigation of sex abuse allegations” (July 13): Hooray for former students Katie Pappageorge and Jill Wilson for their courage in speaking up about the abuse they suffered at the hands of a teacher. Kids are safer when victims speak up and report child molesters. As a society, we must learn to be grateful to every victim who comes forward, no matter how long it takes.

At the same time, however, the sooner victims act, the sooner kids are protected. So it’s especially gratifying to see these brave women stepping up at such a young age.

They are to be especially commended for using their names publicly. That’s a tough step for a victim of sexual violence to take. But it helps reinforce a crucial message: The shame in child sex cases belongs solely with those who commit and conceal it, not with those who are hurt by it.

We hope the inspiring example set by Pappageorge and Wilson will prod other who may have seen, suspected or suffered abuse or misconduct in high school to call police, report wrongdoers and safeguard youngsters while helping themselves recover in the process.

David G. Clohessy • St. Louis

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BBC VIDEO – Vatican releases handbook on dealing with sexual abuse

LONDON
BBC World News

July 16, 2020

By Sophia Tran-Thomson

[VIDEO]

The Vatican has published new guidelines for Catholic bishops on how to handle allegations of child sexual abuse by members of the clergy. The twenty-page handbook outlines the steps to be taken from the moment an allegation is reported to the conclusion of the case. Sophia Tran-Thomson has this report.

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Former priest indicted as feds, Jackson Diocese reach agreement on criminal complaint

MISSISSIPPI
Starkville Daily News

July 15, 2020

By Ryan Phillips

A former Starkville priest accused of defrauding parishioners out of tens of thousands of dollars for fraudulent medical expenses has been indicted by a federal grand jury on 10 counts of wire fraud.

On top of that, the Catholic Diocese of Jackson, who is accused of being aware of the fraud and actively working to cover it up, has reached an agreement with the federal government in connection to a criminal complaint filed separately against the Diocese.

Lenin Vargas, the former pastor for St. Joseph Catholic Church in Starkville, saw the indictment filed in February, receiving 10 counts of wire fraud, according to court documents unsealed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Aberdeen by Judge Sharion Aycock,

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Media Statement: Mississippi Priest Indicted for Financial Crimes, SNAP Calls for Bishop’s Resignation

MISSISSIPPI
SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests)

July 16, 2020

A Mississippi priest who yesterday was indicted on 10 counts of wire fraud was apparently known to church officials in the Diocese of Jackson as a fraudster. Bishop Joseph Kopacz should resign his position immediately for repeatedly lying to parishioners and the public.

This case is yet another example of why we rarely trust the information put out about church officials regarding cases of clergy abuse. For decades, church officials have repeatedly proven they care most about their reputations and their wallets and will lie willingly to the public to protect those two things, often at the expense of children and the vulnerable. The information released in this case by the Department of Homeland Security that demonstrates that Bishop Kopacz “repeatedly lied” to parishioners is just the latest proof.

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Ex-Mississippi priest Vargas indicted. Affidavit accuses diocese of lying to parishioners

MISSISSIPPI
Mississippi Clarion Ledger

July 17, 2020

A former Mississippi priest, accused of lying about having cancer, concealing an HIV diagnosis and advocating a fictitious orphanage in Mexico in an attempt to defraud parishioners, has been indicted on 10 counts of wire fraud.

Additionally, an affidavit filed by Homeland Security Investigations in federal court against the Catholic Diocese of Jackson alleges the church allowed parishioners to be defrauded for years. When questioned by a parishioner who had given money to the priest, the affidavit alleges Bishop Joseph Kopacz lied repeatedly. However, the U.S. Attorney’s Office has entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the diocese.

Lenin Vargas, a former priest with the Jackson diocese and pastor at St. Joseph’s in Starkville and Corpus Christi in Macon, was indicted on 10 counts of wire fraud on Feb. 26 in the Northern District of Mississippi, according to newly available court documents.

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‘So Much Trauma’: Report Alleges Decades-Long Sexual Abuse at San Jose Catholic Girls’ School

SAN JOSE (CA)
KQED-TV

July 16, 2020

By Polly Stryker

Presentation High, a Roman Catholic girls’ school in San Jose, recently released a report by a Sacramento law firm reviewing allegations of sexual abuse or misconduct over 47 years, from 1970 through 2017. The report found credible allegations against three English teachers, a Spanish teacher, a religion teacher and an assistant water polo coach — none of whom work at Presentation High today. The Mercury News reported at least three of the faculty went on to work at other Bay Area educational institutions or with students.

The high school’s Board of Directors and its new school president hired the Van Dermyden Maddux Law Firm last fall, two years after allegations of past abuse surfaced in a 2017 Washington Post perspective by a former student, Kathryn Leehane.

She remembers her Spanish teacher at Presentation High teacher touching her inappropriately in 1990.

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Leadership Roundtable calls for new financial standards for church

UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

July 17, 2020

By Christopher White

A new report by Leadership Roundtable recommends establishing national standards for financial management for dioceses across the United States, along with an annual, publicly shared audit of financial policies and practices. It also calls for the church to invest in more training and support for young adults interested in ministry.

The proposal is modeled after the “Dallas Charter,” which was implemented by the U.S. bishops in 2002 and established national protocols for child protection and would be codified in the church’s canon law. The Leadership Roundtable is an organization devoted to promoting best management practices in the church.

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Bishop Malesic followed ‘servant leadership model’ in Greensburg diocese, headed to Cleveland

GREENSBURG (PA)
TribLive.com

July 17, 2020

By Shirley McMarlin, Deb Erdley And Paul Peirce

Jennifer Miele got a glimpse into the heart and soul of Bishop Edward Malesic soon after he assumed his duties in the Diocese of Greensburg in 2015.

“On day one, he gave me his cellphone number and said to use it any time,” said Miele, a former television news reporter who is chief communications officer for the diocese. “My 5-year-old daughter got hold of my phone and FaceTimed him three times. I was mortified, but he told me not to worry about it because when someone called, he had to answer.

“He said, ‘I’m just glad to see someone whose hair looks worse than mine at 5 a.m.,’ ” she said.

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Vatican issues guide for investigating priests accused of abuse

ROME (ITALY)
The Tablet (U.K.)

By Christopher Lamb

July 16, 2020

The Vatican has issued a detailed guide for how Church leaders should handle allegations of abuse by clergy against children.

The handbook, a Vademecum, sets out how bishops and religious superiors should investigate abuse, including the obligation to report allegations to civic authorities.

Although the instruction manual effectively summarises existing laws, it is the first time the Vatican has published how the internal Church process for investigating and prosecuting abuse cases works. This tool was proposed by the landmark abuse summit which took place in the Vatican on 21-24 February 2019, in the latest attempt to forge a unified Church response to the abuse crisis.

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Vatican publishes handbook for bishops and religious superiors to guide response to abuse allegations

ROME (ITALY)
America

July 16, 2020

By Gerard O’Connell

In a major step forward in combating the abuse of minors and vulnerable adults by clergy in the Catholic Church, the Vatican has today published a “vademecum” or handbook to guide bishops and superiors of religious orders in dealing effectively with allegations of abuse by clergy.

The 32-page document includes 164 articles that contain up-to-date legal norms and best practices that bishops and superiors of religious orders should follow whenever they receive an allegation of abuse of minors by clergy or come to know of such abuse. Cardinal Luis Ladaria Ferrer, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, told Vatican News that the text was drafted with input from the local churches and will be updated.

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Vatican pushes for uniform approach in handling clerical abuse

ROME (ITALY)
Crux

July 16, 2020

By Elise Ann Allen

In a bid to universalize the Catholic Church’s approach to handling clerical abuse cases, the Vatican Thursday issued a new handbook outlining the procedures to follow when an ordained minister is accused of abusing a minor.

The request for a manual was made during the Feb. 21-24, 2019, global summit on the protection of minors at the Vatican, which drew together the heads of all bishops’ conferences worldwide.

That gathering was, in part, held to break the notion that clerical sexual abuse was primarily an issue in the West, and to get bishops on the same page in terms of best-practices, as some countries are more advanced in safeguarding policies than others.

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Bishops get guidance on abuse claims

ROME (ITALY)
Washington Post

July 16, 2020

By Chico Harlan and Stefano Pitrelli

In the latest attempt to address its long-running crisis over clergy sex abuse, the Vatican on Thursday published guidelines for bishops that lay out how to handle such cases and direct them not to dismiss accusations that are submitted anonymously, seem vague or appear initially dubious.

The guidelines do not include any changes to church law, and they continue to give bishops some latitude as they conduct preliminary investigations into abuse claims. But they amount to a formal manual for what the Catholic Church considers best practices — at a time when it has pledged to act with more transparency after years of bruising scandal.

As part of the guidelines, bishops should report claims to civil authorities if it is “considered necessary to protect the person involved or other minors from the danger of further criminal acts.”

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New Vatican manual advises bishops on how to report sex abuse claims

Agence France-Presse via The Journal

July 16, 2020

The new advice says bishops “should” report claims – but critics have said it should be mandatory.

The Vatican has released guidelines for bishops and other senior officials on dealing with clerical child sex abuse claims, clarifying rules on tackling a decades-old scandal plaguing the church.

The manual, which includes a form to be filled out detailing the alleged crime against minors, does not include any new laws but was drawn up after Pope Francis called for the procedures to be laid out step-by-step, it said.

It strengthened advice to officials on reporting claims to civil authorities, saying they “should” do so, even if not obliged to by law in the country in question, especially if necessary to protect the person involved or other minors.

Previous official guidelines have told clerics to follow local laws on whether claims should be reported to police.

Critics of the church have long insisted bishops and others should be ordered, not merely urged, to report crimes.

“While this language is incrementally stronger than the Vatican’s usual rhetoric, the difference doesn’t matter. This is merely a manual – it carries no weight under church law,” said Anne Doyle, co-director of the abuse tracking site Bishop Accountability.

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Vatican issues new manual on reporting sex abuse of minors

DW (Deutsche Welle)

July 16, 2020

The Catholic Church issued new guidelines to the clergy, indicating they should contact police if there is suspected abuse. The Church had long opposed such an idea, saying it could lead to wrongful prosecution.

The Vatican published guidelines for bishops and other senior officials on Thursday on how to deal with child sex claims within the clergy.

The manual includes a form to be filled out detailing the alleged crime against minors. It also urged leaders to be serious about perceived small offenses and recommended going to the police, even if they were not legally required to do so.

It contains more than 160 guidelines for conduct, including not ignoring anonymous allegations, social media posts accusing a church member of misconduct, or allegations outside of the statute of limitations.

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Vatican’s new guidance on sexual abuse investigations emphasizes involving police

MSN

July 16, 2020

By Zack Budryk

A long-anticipated Vatican manual on investigations of possible sexual abuse directs bishops to report all such allegations to police, even in cases where they are not legally obligated to do so.

Under the Catholic Church’s new policies, “even in cases where there is no explicit legal obligation to do so, the ecclesiastical authorities should make a report to the competent civil authorities if this is considered necessary to protect the person involved or other minors from the danger of further criminal acts.”

The manual, which is not legally binding, also requires clergy to obey “legitimate” subpoena requests and directs against outright dismissal of anonymous allegations or those that fall outside the statue of limitations without further investigation, The Associated Press reported. Allegations should only be dismissed out of hand if a bishop determines “manifest impossibility,” such as the accused being elsewhere at the time of the allegation.

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July 16, 2020

Vatican Tells Bishops to Report Sex Abuse to Police (but Doesn’t Require It)

ROME (ITALY)
The New York Times

July 16, 2020

Advocates for abuse victims had long asked the Roman Catholic Church to make this change, but said the new guidance still gives bishops too much leeway.

By Elisabetta Povoledo

The Vatican has told bishops around the world to report cases of clerical sex abuse to civil authorities even where local laws don’t require it — a step that abuse victims and their advocates have demanded over the decades in which the scandal has roiled the Roman Catholic Church.

The Vatican also urged bishops to investigate even abuse claims that seem to be “doubtful,” or are made anonymously, rather than dismissing them outright.

But the new instructions are not binding and were not enshrined in the church’s canon law, prompting criticism that the Vatican still gives bishops too much leeway in judging the conduct of their priests. The instructions were instead part of a new handbook intended to guide bishops and religious superiors who may have little experience handling abuse cases.

“What is important to remember today is that it is still allowable under canon law for a bishop to not report a priest who is raping a child; it is still allowed for thousands of the world’s bishops,” Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, a victims advocacy and research group, said in a telephone interview.

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Vatican to Bishops: Believe Little Kids, Investigate All Sex-Abuse Claims

VATICAN CITY
Daily Beast

July 16, 2020

By Barbie Latza Nadeau

In an astonishing change in policy, the Vatican has published new guidelines for dioceses around the world about how to handle claims of clerical sex abuse. After thousands of children were abused amid decades of coverups and payoffs, the Vatican now urges local bishops to investigate claims “even if they seem unfounded” and to report them to local secular authorities even if the country guidelines do not mandate reporting unproven claims.

The new 16-page document is called Vademecum, which is Latin for “handbook” and includes a form for local bishops to fill out, including such advice as taking vague claims from anonymous sources seriously, and that they “should be appropriately assessed and, if reasonably possible, given all due attention.” The document also states, “Even in cases where there is no explicit legal obligation to do so, the ecclesiastical authorities should make a report to the competent civil authorities if this is considered necessary to protect the person involved or other minors from the danger of further criminal acts.” The document does keep one blind spot, pointing out that priests who hear confessions of clerical abuse from other priests are under no obligation to report them.

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New Vatican Guidance Urges Clergy To Report Cases Of Sexual Abuse

VATICAN CITY
National Public Radio

July 16, 2020

By David Welna

The Vatican on Wednesday published a handbook for clergy and church lawyers that lays out the steps to follow when investigating and reporting alleged cases of sexual abuse of minors and others by priests, deacons and prelates.

A Vatican official described the “vademecum,” as the document is titled in Latin, as simply a “tool” for correctly conducting probes into such allegations.

“No new law is being promulgated, nor are new norms being issued,” Cardinal Louis Ladaria, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, writes in the in-house outlet Vatican News. “It is, instead, an ‘instruction manual’ that intends to help whoever has to deal with concrete cases from the beginning to the end.”

But the handbook does go further than the instructions Pope Francis issued in a May 2019 apostolic letter titled “You Are the Light of the World.” In that missive, the pontiff instructed church authorities to report suspected cases of sexual abuse to civil authorities when required to do so by local laws.

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[Media Statement] Vatican issues handbook of procedures on abuse cases – Response by BishopAccountability.org

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has published its long-awaited vademecum, or handbook, on handling abuse cases. Initial reports are focusing on the document’s language about civil reporting. Point #17 of the handbook says that church officials “should” report to civil authorities if they think the victim or minors might be in danger.

While this language is incrementally stronger than the Vatican’s usual rhetoric, the difference is of little consequence.This is merely a manual – it carries no weight under church law. What matters is the prevailing canonical norm about civil reporting in Vos Estis Lux Mundi, the reporting law issued by the Pope last year. That norm, Article 19, says that VELM’s new reporting procedures should be applied “without prejudice” to state law. The provision in its entirety reads: “These norms apply without prejudice to the rights and obligations established in each place by state laws, particularly those concerning any reporting obligations to the competent civil authorities.”

That’s not a recommendation to report. It’s a minimal nod to civil obligations, and its implications are devastating: as Pope Francis knows, clergy are exempted from reporting child sexual abuse in most countries.This means that under current canon law, most of the world’s bishops still are allowed not to tell civil authorities that a priest is raping a child.

If Pope Francis is serious about waging an “all-out battle” against child sexual abuse, he should order every church official to report allegations to civil authorities. The Vatican often observes that in certain countries, reporting a sex crime could put the accuser or accused at risk. That’s no reason not to mandate civil reporting in the scores of countries where it is safe to do so. The Vatican could specify the few unsafe countries, and exempt bishops who work there from the civil reporting obligation.

News reports today are also highlighting Point #50, which says that Ordinaries must cooperate with civil court orders to surrender documents. Hierarchs should not obstruct justice, in other words. This provision too is minimal, and falls far short of what the Vatican should be ordering, which is the proactive release of abuse files to civil authorities. Point #50 is simply prudent self-protection on the part of the Holy See. It knows that the church is facing a new era of accountability worldwide. Church offices are being raided by police, and from Chile to Colombia to the United States to Poland, civil authorities are accusing bishops of cover-up. Increasingly, civil courts are demanding that church authorities turn over information about sexual assaults of children. That the Vatican is now advising non-obstruction is hardly praiseworthy. (cont’d)

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Vatican issues Vademecum: procedures regarding cases of sexual abuse of minors

VATICAN CITY
Vatican News

July 16, 2020

By Isabella Piro

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) publishes an “instruction manual”, a step-by-step guide to help ascertain the truth in cases of minors who have suffered abuse on the part of a member of the clergy.

Substantially, the Vademecum provides precise responses to what can be called the most frequently asked questions. It is an instruction manual which, in a bit more than 30 pages and 9 chapters, responds to the main questions to several procedural steps regarding how cases of the sexual abuse of minors committed by members of the clergy should be handled. It is not, however, a normative text. Nor does it introduce new legislation on the subject. Rather, it is a tool designed to help Ordinaries and legal professionals who need to apply canonical norms to actual cases regarding the delicta graviora (more serious delict or crime). The Vademecum says such crimes referred to as delicta graviora “constitute for the whole Church a profound and painful wound that cries out for healing.”

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Opus Dei confirms one of its priests sentenced by Vatican for abuse

ROSARIO (ARGENTINA)
Crux

July 16, 2020

By Inés San Martín

Through a statement released on Thursday, Opus Dei publicly acknowledged the first sentence issued by the Vatican against one of its priests for sexual abuse.

“The Opus Dei prelature in Spain asks for forgiveness and deeply regrets the suffering caused to the victims,” says the statement. “We ask God to bring comfort and healing to those affected.”

Father Manuel Cociña, 72, was found guilty of molesting one young man, who was 18 when the abuse began in 2002 in Spain. The sentence was issued on June 30, and the priest was given 15 days to appeal. When the time to do so expired – on Wednesday at midnight – the sentence from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith became finalized.

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Vatican Publishes Manual for Bishops on Handling Sex-Abuse Reports

ROME
The Wall Street Journal

July 16, 2020

By Francis X. Rocca

Document summarizes Catholic Church law regarding sexual abuse of minors by clergy and steps for the disciplinary process

The Vatican Thursday released an instruction manual for bishops on dealing with reports of clerical sex abuse, in a step toward a more unified response to a long-running scandal for the Catholic Church and the reign of Pope Francis.

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Judge denies media request to unseal files on Saints owner

NEW ORLEANS (LA)
Associated Press

July 15, 2020

By Jim Mustian

A judge has denied a request by news organizations including The Associated Press to unseal court records involving the mental competency of billionaire Tom Benson when he rewrote his will to give his third wife ownership of the New Orleans Saints and Pelicans sports franchises.

The news outlets argued public interest in the 2015 case had been heightened by revelations this year that Saints executives engaged in a behind-the-scenes public relations campaign to help the Archdiocese of New Orleans contain the fallout from a clergy abuse crisis.

“Legitimate questions are being raised about the connection between the team and the local Roman Catholic Church,” attorneys for the news organizations wrote in a court filing.

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Lawsuit alleging sexual abuse by priest filed against Catholic Diocese of Shreveport

SHREVEPORT (LA)
KTAL/KMSS

July 15, 2020

A civil lawsuit alleging repeated sexual abuse of a minor by a priest has been filed against the Shreveport Catholic Diocese.

The lawsuit, “Paul Doe vs. the Diocese of Shreveport” accuses the late Rev. William Allison, a priest who served under the Alexandria Catholic Diocese from 1949 until his death in 1987, of sexually abusing the plaintiff during his two-year tenure at Our Lady of Fatima in Monroe, when he was an altar boy in the fifth or sixth grade.

It also accuses a person named “Henry,” who allegedly lived with the Rev. Sam Polizzi in the Catholic rectory on the campus of then Northeast Louisiana University in Monroe (now ULM), of raping him when he was in the first or second grade.

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Former priest indicted as feds, Jackson Diocese reach agreement on criminal complaint

STARKVILLE (MS)
Starkville Daily News

July 15, 2020

By Ryan Phillips

A former Starkville priest accused of defrauding parishioners out of tens of thousands of dollars for fraudulent medical expenses has been indicted by a federal grand jury on 10 counts of wire fraud.

On top of that, the Catholic Diocese of Jackson, who is accused of being aware of the fraud and actively working to cover it up, has reached an agreement with the federal government in connection to a criminal complaint filed separately against the Diocese.

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Indiana archdiocese sued over liability insurance response

INDIANAPOLIS (IN)
Associated Press

July 16, 2020

An insurance company is suing the Indianapolis archdiocese, alleging that it failed to disclose allegations of child sexual abuse by a Catholic priest when it applied for liability insurance.

Underwriters for Lloyd’s of London contends in a federal lawsuit filed Monday that when the archdiocese applied for excess sexual misconduct liability insurance in June 2019, it failed to disclose abuse allegations against Rev. David J. Marcotte reported months before its application was filed.

The lawsuit asks a judge to rescind the insurance policy and render it void, The Indianapolis Star reported.

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Wyoming prosecutors not pursuing retired-bishop abuse case

CASPER (WY)
Associated Press

July 16, 2020

Prosecutors in Wyoming have again decided not to pursue sexual abuse charges against a retired Roman Catholic bishop accused of abusing boys over decades.

They felt they couldn’t successfully prosecute Bishop Joseph Hart after reviewing a police investigation, Natrona County assistant district attorney Michael Schafer said Tuesday.

Hart was among the highest-ranking church officials around the world facing prosecution and other sanctions for alleged sex abuse.

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Vatican directs world’s bishops to report abuse claims to civil authorities

ROME
National Catholic Reporter

July 16, 2020

By Joshua J. McElwee

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith directed the world’s Catholic bishops July 16 to investigate claims of sexual abuse against minors even when they appear unfounded, reminding the prelates that failure to do so can lead to their removal from office for negligence of duty.

In a new handbook outlining step-by-step how bishops and religious superiors should investigate reports of abuse by clerics, the congregation also appears to make the Vatican’s first blanket request that church officials forward all such reports to civil authorities, including in countries where that is not required by law.

Pope Francis had previously obligated bishops and superiors to abide by existing civil reporting laws.

The new document, known in Latin as a Vademecum, is not a series of laws or norms. Cardinal Luis Ladaria, the head of the doctrinal congregation, likened it in a statement to an “instruction manual,” meant to help bishops understand the specific procedures they should follow in receiving and investigating abuse claims.

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Vatican says bishops should report sex abuse to police

VATICAN CITY
Associated Press

July 16, 2020

By Nicole Winfield

The Vatican told bishops around the world on Thursday they should report cases of clergy sex crimes to police even when not legally bound to do so, in its latest effort to compel church leaders to protect minors from predator priests.

The Vatican issued a long-awaited manual for bishops and religious superiors on conducting in-house investigations into allegations of priests who rape and molest minors and vulnerable adults. While the Vatican has had detailed canonical norms in place for two decades, the laws continue to be ignored by some bishops who dismiss allegations by victims in favor of protecting their priests.

While the manual doesn’t have the force of a new law, it goes beyond the current Vatican policy about cooperating with law enforcement agencies, prosecutors and police. That policy requires bishops and religious superiors to report allegations of sex crimes with minors only where local laws requires it.

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Vatican handbook on sex abuse cases urges reporting to authorities

VATICAN CITY
Reuters

July 16, 2020

By Philip Pullella

The Vatican is advising bishops to report cases of sexual abuse of minors by priests to civil authorities even if they are not obliged to by local law, toughening its official guidance on an issue that has rocked the Catholic Church in recent years.

The advice is contained in a new 20-page “vademecum”, or guidebook, issued on Thursday by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It contains some of the clearest language on reporting sexual abuse ever in a Vatican document.

Previous Vatican documents required clerics to report any cases of abuse to Church superiors but said they should follow local law on whether they are obliged to report alleged sexual abuse to civil authorities.

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Complaint Alleges Springfield Bishop Covered Up Clergy Abuse

SPRINGFIELD (MA)
New England Public Media via NPR

July 15, 2020

By Adam Frenier

An advocate for clergy sexual abuse survivors said he’s filed a complaint against the Springfield Roman Catholic bishop, accusing Mitchell Rozanski of trying to cover up allegations against priests.

The complaint is being lodged with the Catholic Bishops Abuse Reporting Service, which is set up to look at misconduct by a bishop or cardinal.

Olan Horne, an advocate and clergy abuse survivor, said the allegations go beyond those outlined in a report released by retired judge Peter Velis — which validated abuse claims against former Springfield Bishop Christopher Weldon.

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Criminal law hinders quest for justice in Depok abuse case

INDONESIA
The Jakarta Post

July 16, 2020

By Budi Sutrisno

A recent case of child sexual abuse at a Catholic church in Depok, West Java, sheds light on the flaws and complexity of Indonesia’s criminal law, which has hampered the victims’ quest for justice for a crime reportedly committed over a period of 18 years.

Only three of at least 21 altar boys allegedly molested by 42-year-old church caretaker Syahril Parlindungan Marbun since 2002 have filed legal reports, and the Depok Police say they cannot “process” one of those reports because of a “lack of evidence”.

Police said they considered that claimant just as a witness rather than a victim in the case because the alleged crime happened 12 years ago, so police could not make a physical forensics report.

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Edward C. Malesic named new Bishop of Cleveland’s Roman Catholic Diocese

CLEVELAND (OH)
WKYC-TV

July 15, 2020

By Tyler Carey and Ryan Haidet

The 59-year-old has been Bishop of Greensburg, Pennsylvania since 2015.

After a months-long vacancy, Cleveland’s Roman Catholics has selected its next leader.

Pope Francis has appointed Rev. Edward C. Malesic as the next Bishop of Cleveland. The announcement was made at 6 a.m. Thursday. He will be introduced at a 10 a.m. press conference. You can read his full bio at the bottom of this story.

“Father Don Oleksiak will continue serving as diocesan administrator until Bishop-designate Malesic’s installation on Sept. 14 during a Mass in the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in downtown Cleveland,” officials said.

Malesic has served as Bishop of Greensburg, Pennsylvania since 2015, and will now sit as the Diocese of Cleveland’s 12th bishop since its formation in 1847.

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Cardinal Pell describes his time in prison

AUSTRALIA
Catholic News Service via The Catholic Weekly

July 16, 2020

Prelate says he never felt abandoned by God

Cardinal George Pell, 79, a former senior adviser to Pope Francis, has broken his silence two months after the country’s High Court overturned his conviction for historical sexual abuse of two teenagers.

“From the first night, I always had a breviary (even if it was out of season), and I received Holy Communion each week,” Cardinal Pell wrote in an essay for US Catholic magazine First Things. The story was reprinted in The Australian.

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My Time in Prison

UNITED STATES
First Things

August 2020

By George Cardinal Pell

There is a lot of goodness in prisons. At times, I am sure, prisons may be hell on earth. I was fortunate to be kept safe and treated well. I was impressed by the professionalism of the warders, the faith of the prisoners, and the existence of a moral sense even in the darkest places.

I was in solitary confinement for thirteen months, ten at the Melbourne Assessment Prison and three at Barwon Prison. In Melbourne the prison uniform was a green tracksuit, but in Barwon I was issued the bright red colors of a cardinal. I had been convicted in December 2018 of historical sexual offenses against children, despite my innocence, and despite the incoherence of the Crown Prosecutor’s case against me. ­Eventually (in April of this year) the High Court of Australia was to quash my convictions in a unanimous ­ruling. In the meantime, I began to serve my sentence of six years.

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Former Fort Collins priest granted parole after imprisonment for sexually abusing teens

COLORADO
Coloradan

July 15, 2020

By Sady Swanson

The former Fort Collins priest imprisoned in 2007 for sexually assaulting child parishioners in two counties has been granted parole.

Timothy Evans, 57, was sentenced to 14 years to life in prison in 2007 for sexually assaulting a teen boy who worked at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church, where Evans was a pastor.

Evans’ last request for parole was denied after a Dec. 2 hearing at the Fremont Correctional Facility in Canon City, where Evans is being held. Evans acknowledged the hearing was his third since he became eligible for parole in January 2018.

The parole board announced last week that Evans had been approved for parole after his June parole hearing. Evans will be eligible for release on July 30, according to a Department of Corrections spokesperson.

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Church issues warning as claims of sexual abuse surface in Fiji

FIJI
RNZ Pacific

July 16, 2020

By Christine Rovoi

The Catholic Church in Fiji has warned any priests found to have abused children will be severely dealt with.

The warning comes amid allegations of sexual abuse by the church’s priests as revealed in a report by Television New Zealand claimed a man was molested by a priest in Fiji when he was a child.

The warning comes amid allegations of sexual abuse by the church’s priests as revealed in a report by Television New Zealand claimed a man was molested by a priest in Fiji when he was a child.

The report claimed that the NZ Catholic Church had moved certain brothers and priests – who had sexually abused children – to the Pacific including Fiji.

The head of the church in Fiji, Archbishop Peter Loy Chong, said he emphathised with the victims of sexual abuse – “with their hurt, anger, trauma and feelings. I emphathise with the pain that victims and their families have experienced and continue to experience”.

“On behalf of the church, I express our remorse for past failures and extend our sincere regret and deep sympathy to the victims of sexual abuse. The church apologises for any abuse perpetrated by clergy or religious.

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Ex-principal facing retrial admits abuse

NEW SOUTH WALES (AUSTRALIA)
Newcastle Herald

July 16, 2020

By Luke Costin

After years of denial, trial delays and a hung jury, a former Sydney Catholic college principal has finally admitted he preyed upon boys at his school.

Peter Nicholas Lennox, now a frail 81-year-old, was permitted to remain seated as he pleaded guilty on Thursday to indecently assaulting two boys at St Paul’s Catholic College, Manly in the 1970s.

“The tide waits for no man and today the tide comes in,” one victim wrote in a letter tendered to the NSW District Court.

That student, then aged 12, was set upon by the Christian Brother after being kicked out of science class in 1977.

Led to a chemical room and questioned about why he was out of class, the Year 7 boy was fearful he was going to get the strap, court documents show.

But instead, Lennox spent five to 10 minutes rubbing his hand over the crotch of the boy’s school pants.

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July 15, 2020

Arquidiócesis Villavicencio investiga a 5 sacerdotes por abuso sexual

[Archdiocese of Villavicencio investigates 5 priests for sexual abuse]

VILLAVICENCIO (COLOMBIA)
El Tiempo

July 14, 2020

By Nelson Ardia

La denuncia fue presentada el pasado 24 de junio. Dos de los sacerdotes señalados ya murieron.

[GOOGLE TRANSLATE:The complaint was filed on June 24. Two of the named priests have already died.]

Un nuevo caso de abuso sexual contra menores de edad involucra a cinco sacerdotes, reveló este martes en un comunicado la Arquidiócesis de Villavicencio.

La denuncia fue presentada el pasado 24 de junio por un ciudadano mayor de edad, ante esa organización religiosa. El hombre señala que el abuso se produjo hace más de diez años, cuando era menor de edad.En el caso están involucrados cinco sacerdotes, dos de los cuales ya fallecieron. Los otros tres están suspendidos junto a una decena de religiosos que están involucrados en otra denuncia por abuso sexual y cuyo caso ya está en manos de la Fiscalía.

[GOOGLE TRANSLATE: A new case of sexual abuse against minors involves five priests, the Archdiocese of Villavicencio revealed in a statement Tuesday.

The complaint was filed on June 24 by a citizen of legal age, before that religious organization. The man points out that the abuse occurred more than ten years ago, when he was a minor. Five priests are involved in the case, two of whom have already died. The other three are suspended along with a dozen religious who are involved in another complaint for sexual abuse and whose case is already in the hands of the Prosecutor’s Office.]

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ESPECIAL // Iglesia mexicana sigue protegiendo a sacerdotes acusados de pedofilia en México y EU

TOLUCA (MEXICO)
Metapolítica [Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico]

July 15, 2020

By Por Eduardo Pérez Arroyo

Read original article

Según un documento oficial del Senado de la república, cerca del 30% de los sacerdotes católicos que existen en México han cometido algún tipo de abuso sexual contra menores de edad. Muchos nombres son públicos, y Metapolítica los rastreó en el padrón de ministros de culto actualizado hasta el pasado 10 de julio y constató que muchos de ellos, al menos en el papel, siguen siendo parte de la iglesia mexicana. Más claro: hasta hoy, la iglesia católica de México protege a delincuentes pedófilos. 

Tuvieron que pasar casi 400 años para que la iglesia católica aceptara que Galileo tenía razón y que la tierra no es en realidad el centro del universo. Hoy, 23 años después, la iglesia mexicana aun no parece aceptar el peligro inherente que entraña proteger a pederastas. 

Desde hace varios años la iglesia protege a sacerdotes acusados de abusos sexuales, pederastia y distintos delitos. Y lo hace en el mismo país en que estalló el escándalo más mediático, aquel que convirtió al victimario en el símbolo de la degeneración sexual al interior del clero: Marcial Maciel, acusado por primera vez en 1997. 


HOY, EN 2020, LA IGLESIA MEXICANA CONTINÚA PROTEGIENDO A DELINCUENTES CONFESOS.  

La información contenida en esta nota proviene de denuncias abiertas, conocidas y públicas difundidas en los últimos años en distintos medios de comunicación. Y la razón de esta nota, cuyos datos han sido recopilados de manera intermitente desde el año 2019, es la última carta de la iglesia de Chihuahua en defensa del exgobernador Javier Duarte. 

Fiel a su costumbre —el estado vaticano, el papa y la misma iglesia católica son ante todo actores píticos— una parte de la iglesia mexicana decidió intervenir directamente en la política contingente. El pasado 10 de julio la Arquidiócesis de Chihuahua pidió oraciones para que el ex gobernador del estado, César Duarte Jáquez, fuese juzgado “conforme a derecho”. Y el vocero y sacerdote Gustavo Sánchez pidió un proceso justo, agregando —en directa alusión al presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador— que esperaba que ni hubiera “ni revancha ni argucia política, que resplandezca la verdad y no intereses personales para revalidar a nadie” 

Con o sin derecho, la iglesia deslizó una posible corrupción en autoridades oficiales del estado mexicano. 

ESE HECHO CONSTITUYE, A JUICIO DE ESTE MEDIO, UNA RAZÓN SUFICIENTE PARA ABORDAR OTROS TEMAS POLÍTICOS Y JUDICIALES QUE COMPETEN A LA PROPIA IGLESIA CATÓLICA. 

Este es un repaso de los criminales presuntos y confirmados que la iglesia mexicana mantiene en funciones, según del último padrón oficial de ministros de culto en México en poder de la Secretaría de Gobernación.  

Los casos

Según el artículo 12 de la Ley de Asociaciones Religiosas y Culto Público vigente en México desde el 15 de julio de 1992,  

“para los efectos de esta Ley, se consideran ministros de culto a todas aquellas personas mayores de edad a quienes las asociaciones religiosas a que pertenezcan confieran ese carácter. Las asociaciones religiosas deberán notificar a la Secretaría de Gobernación su decisión al respecto. En caso de que las asociaciones religiosas omitan esa notificación, o en tratándose de iglesias o agrupaciones religiosas, se tendrán como ministros de culto a quienes ejerzan en ellas como principal ocupación, funciones de dirección, representación u organización”. 

Es decir, el que aparezcan los nombres cuestionados en el directorio vigente de ministros de culto es responsabilidad de la propia Iglesia católica, tal como lo es el eliminar los nombres en caso de que los sacerdotes ya no tengan nexos con ella. 

Según un documento oficial del Senado de la república, “los datos del Departamento de Investigaciones sobre Abusos Religiosos (DIAR) y el Centro de Investigaciones del Instituto Cristiano Mexicano (CICM) indican que el 30% (4 mil 200) de los 14 mil sacerdotes católicos que aproximadamente existen en México, cometen algún tipo de abuso sexual en contra de niñas y niños”. 

Pero en muchos casos la iglesia mexicana, en lugar de denunciar a la justicia, les encomienda labores oficiales.

Esta nota no destapa nombres que estuviesen ocultos. Todos los sacerdotes mencionados ya han sido exhibidos antes por organizaciones o medios de comunicación, de manera que no hay riesgo de perturbar investigaciones en proceso. La labor consistió básicamente en rastrear los nombres y cruzar la información con el último padrón actualizado de ministros de culto en México. En todos los casos aquí expuestos se enlaza incluso el nombre de los sacerdotes a una nota en que se denunció su situación. 

TAMBIÉN HAY UN ENLACE DIRECTO AL ÚLTIMO DIRECTORIO DE MINISTROS DE CULTO EN MÉXICO, DE MANERA QUE CADA LECTOR PUEDA COMPROBAR LA INFORMACIÓN POR SÍ MISMO. 

La tarea de realizar un listado de curas protegidos o relacionados con la Iglesia Católica es compleja. Y lo es no porque implique un trabajo mayúsculo, sino porque en México ninguna diócesis o arquidiócesis ha elaborado o difundido alguna lista oficial de sacerdotes implicados en cualquier acto de abuso sexual como sí lo ha hecho, por ejemplo, la iglesia de EU (pese a que en México apenas este año la iglesia admitió que al menos 271 sacerdotes están bajo investigación). 

En México, distintas voces como el exsacerdote Alberto Athié o el mismo Partido de la Revolución Democrática han exigido en distintas ocasiones liberar la lista de los sacerdotes relacionados con delitos de ese tipo en México, sin éxito. Por el momento, listas parciales están en poder del Vaticano (también acostumbrado al secretismo), organizaciones denunciantes o medios de comunicación. 

De tal manera, en la práctica la única información disponible es la que parece en esas fuentes. Es decir, la única manera de acceder a ellos es haciendo un rastreo directo de los casos. 

Esta fórmula conlleva un alto margen de error debido a que los mismos nombres pueden estar en distintas etapas de posibles procesos judiciales, o incluso absueltos. Como ocurre normalmente con cualquier investigación en México, el secretismo de las instituciones implicadas, en este caso la iglesia, no ayuda a la transparencia. 

Para elaborar este texto se tomaron en cuenta dichas notas de prensa y el directorio de ministros de culto en México, dependiente de la secretaria de Gobernación y por tanto, en teoría una fuente fiable de información. Para evitar errores básicos, los nombres expuestos en esta nota se obtuvieron a medios nacionales de prestigio (que son los que aparecerán en los links), evitando los blogs o fuentes en teoría menos fiables de información. 

También se excluyen expresamente a los sacerdotes que aparecen como absueltos, sobre cuya labor hay información difusa o no confiable o que solo aparecen con el primer nombre y el primer apellido, dado que la falta de mayor información pudiera generar alcances de nombre que generara errores. 

Al menos en el papel, es un hecho que los siguientes sacerdotes trabajan hoy para la iglesia católica mexicana o conservan nexos directos con ella. La lista contiene los nombres de muchos que en distintos momentos fueron acusados de pederastia (y en el caso de uno de ellos, de estafa). Destaca el nombre de José Antonio Pinal, expulsado de Estados Unidos por pedófilo y quien en su momento admitió haber abusado sexualmente de menores de edad. Hoy trabaja en la diócesis de Cuernavaca. 

Sacerdotes acusados de pedofilia que aún están en el DIRECTORIO DE MINISTROS DE CULTO POR ENTIDAD FEDERATIVA actualizado al 10 de julio del 2020:

NOMBRE DEL SACERDOTEPARROQUIA, DIÓCESIS O ZONA EN QUE TRABAJALINKS CON ACUSACIONES
Noé Pérez Cortés Registrado en la Diócesis de Apatzingán; trabaja en la parroquia de la Santísima Trinidad en Celaya, Guanajuatohttps://bit.ly/38Y8JMg 
Eugenio Sánchez Malagón Registrado en la Diócesis de Apatzingánhttps://bit.ly/3fwCMwV 
Francisco Javier Bravo Hinojosa Registrado en el padrón de Salesianos de don Boscohttps://bit.ly/3h0bJum 
Francisco Velázquez Trejo Registrado en la Diócesis de Campechehttps://bit.ly/3eugTgn 
Felipe René Tlayeca Soledad Registrado en la Arquidiócesis de Tijuanahttps://bit.ly/32lOPcU 
Danilo Pietro ZaniniRegistrado en la Parroquia Nuestra Señora de Loreto en Tijuanahttps://bit.ly/3j7iMDq 
Juan Carlos Ackerman AyónRegistrado en la arquidiócesis de Tijuanahttps://bit.ly/32jTrjw 
Benigno Medrano FloresRegistrado en la arquidiócesis de Tijuanahttps://bit.ly/2OuAuTo 
Aurelio Castillo AguilarRegistrado en la arquidiócesis de Tijuanahttps://bit.ly/32nlI9c 
José Antonio Pinal CastellanosRegistrado en la diócesis de Cuernavacahttps://bit.ly/3fAoqfg 
Guillermo Gil TorresRegistrado en la Parroquia de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción en Angostura en Mexquitic de Carmona, S.L.P.https://bit.ly/3fAoITo 
Heladio Ávila AlvearRegistrado en la Arquidiócesis de Guadalajarahttps://bit.ly/2Wmtpsh 
Gregorio Bautista Hernández (acusado de estafar a indígenas) Registrado en el padrón de la diócesis de Huejutlahttps://bit.ly/3h1THYB 
Rolando Blasi Villatoro  Registrado en San Andrés, Mixquic Tlahuac, D.F.https://bit.ly/38WPeDV 
Jerónimo Chávez Mendoza  Registrado en la arquidiócesis de Tlalnepantlahttps://bit.ly/3exboOa 
Heider Jaimes OrduzRegistrado en la Parroquia de la Asunción de Sentispac, Nayarithttps://bit.ly/30gbNiO 
Juan Manzo Cárdenas  Registrado en la Congregación Salesianos de San Juan Bosco, provincia de Cristo Rey y María Auxiliadorahttps://bit.ly/3fvvTw4 
Roberto Durán Camiña  Registrado en la arquidiócesis primada de Méxicohttps://bit.ly/3fxYCAb 
Fernando Martínez SuárezRegistrado en la prelatura de Chetumalhttps://bit.ly/2CeidXP 
José de Jesús Cruz Rodríguez  Registrado en la Parroquia de Nuestra Señora de La Candelaria en Ahualulco, S.L.P.https://bit.ly/3jaQacC 
Noé TrujilloRegistrado en la Parroquia de Nuestra Señora de La Soledad en Soledad de Graciano Sánchez, S.L.P.https://bit.ly/2ZuP2bF 

Fuentes: 

  • Directorio de ministros de culto por entidad federativa de la Secretaría de Gobernación, 18 octubre de 2019. Link: https://bit.ly/3eyfeXo
  • Directorio de ministros de culto por entidad federativa de la Secretaría de Gobernación, 10 de julio de 2020. Link: https://bit.ly/3exvisv

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A Megachurch Reels After Learning Pastor Let His Professed Pedophile Son Work With Kids

CALIFORNIA
Huffington Post

July 14, 2020

By Carol Kuruvilla

John Ortberg, the senior pastor at California’s Menlo Church, allowed his son to continue working with children, despite the confession.

The leaders of a California evangelical megachurch are under fire for bungling the church’s response to a youth ministry volunteer’s confession that he was attracted to minors.

The Menlo Church volunteer in question first told Senior Pastor John Ortberg about his feelings two years ago, though congregants weren’t officially notified about the situation until January. That the volunteer was the pastor’s younger son, John “Johnny” Ortberg III, was kept secret until a whistleblower leaked the news late last month.

The younger Ortberg denies acting inappropriately towards children and to date, no one has come forward with allegations claiming otherwise. But the revelation of his identity has heightened scrutiny of the church’s response and raised questions about whether John Ortberg ― who allowed his son to continue volunteering with children for over a year after hearing about the disordered attractions ― should remain the church’s senior pastor.

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FILM: ‘The world is waiting, the survivors are waiting for justice’

WESTMEATH (IRELAND)
Westmeath Examiner

July 15, 2020

When the US gymnastics team dominated the 2012 Olympics in London, few people knew something far darker was going on away from the sequins, medals and winning smiles.

It was the biggest sexual abuse scandal in sporting history.

Team doctor Larry Nassar’s victims included some of the most famous female athletes in the sport, including Simone Biles, Aly Raisman and McKayla Maroney.

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Head Of Catholic Church In Fiji Apologises To Victims Of Sexual Abuse

FIJI
Fiji Sun

July 15, 2020

By Shalveen Chand

“The overwhelming number of priests and religious are faithful men and women who share the horror and grief that all people feel when sexual abuse is brought to light”

For the first time, the Catholic Church in Fiji has apologised to victims of sexual abuse perpetrated by foreign clergies.

The head of the Catholic Church in Fiji, Archbishop Peter Loy Chong, said behaviour of some clergies had brought shame to the church.

This followed a report by New Zealand media that foreign priests accused of sexual abuse were sent to Pacific Island nations to avoid prosecution.

A method used to evade authorities by the church in the past.

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Weinstein Plaintiff Caitlin Dulany on Collapse of Settlement: ‘I Was Stunned’

NEW YORK (NY)
Variety

July 14, 2020

By Gene Maddaus

Caitlin Dulany is one of the nine named plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit against Harvey Weinstein. On Tuesday morning, she was listening to the court hearing, expecting that the judge would give his preliminary blessing to a settlement that would send $18.9 million to Weinstein’s accusers in the class action case.

Instead, in a surprise move, Judge Alvin Hellerstein torpedoed the deal, leaving Dulany shocked and in a state of grief.

“I was stunned,” she told Variety on Tuesday afternoon.

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Federal Judge Rejects Harvey Weinstein’s $19 Million Settlement With Alleged Victims

NEW YORK (NY)
NPR

July 14, 2020

By Vanessa Romo

A federal New York judge has thrown out a proposed $18.9 million settlement between convicted rapist and former movie producer Harvey Weinstein, and several women.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein said the offer failed to adequately compensate many of the victims who allege they were sexually assaulted or raped by Weinstein.

He also faulted the money included in the settlement that would help pay Weinstein’s legal bills.

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‘Entourage’ Star Kevin Connolly Accused of Sexual Assault: ‘I Want It to Be Known That He Is Dangerous’

UNITED STATES
The Daily Beast

July 15, 2020

By Marlow Stern

A few years ago, Gracie Cox moved back to her hometown of Charleston, South Carolina. She’d spent 17 years in New York City, working her way up the ladder as a costume designer on films and television shows. You’ve probably seen her work—Gossip Girl, Orange Is the New Black, The Good Wife, Girls. Cox had grown weary of the incredible demands Hollywood places on its below-the-line crew members. So now, in lieu of dressing A-list stars in fabulous frocks, her days are filled with children.

“I work as a therapist treating children’s mental health,” she says. “All of my clients are from under-resourced communities of color, so the work is very different. A lot of my clients are trauma survivors, so I feel my own experience has helped me inform the work I’m doing now. And I’m happy to be doing it.”

That experience still haunts Cox. This is not the first time she’s shared it. Cox has told her story for years. She’s confided in friends, colleagues, her therapist. In late 2017, just after the Harvey Weinstein story broke, she spoke to reporters for BuzzFeed. She even tried hiring Gloria Allred, the famed women’s rights attorney. But thus far, what she says happened to her that night has not been made public. One reason is that the man who she says attacked her—Kevin Connolly, of Entourage fame—“may not seem like the most powerful guy but his reach is very far, and the people he knows have a lot of power.” (Connolly contends that it was a “consensual encounter.”)

Cox didn’t originally intend on entering the world of entertainment. After studying fashion and textile design at FIT, she was working at a tiny shop in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, sewing together handbags, when she befriended a costume designer who generously offered to let her intern on a film she was dressing. That was in 2002.

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Government Should Step In to Right the Catholic PPP Loan Situation

UNITED STATES
SNAP

July 14, 2020

According to Catholic News Service, the US Catholic Church collected almost 10,600 individual loans during the first round of government stimulus. This figure is triple the amount estimated by the Associated Press, which reported that at least $1.4 Billion had been borrowed among at least 3,500 loans. Extrapolating those AP figures to the number of grants acknowledged by CNS, it would appear at least $5 Billion has been awarded to Catholic entities nationwide.

The 8,000 US parishes that received funds are slightly less than half the 17,000 parishes throughout the United States. And according to CNS, Catholic entities are going after more funds during the next round of the PPP.

The typical business that receives a PPP loan is not likely to own its building or have an endowment, but rather to be a small, local business that is in danger of laying off staff or closing its doors. Conversely, the Catholic Church in the US owns its parishes, schools, and buildings, often with no debt. It employs professional money managers to oversee its portfolio of investments and – as this situation demonstrates – professional lobbyists to advance their interests in Washington.

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Guideline published to deal with sexual abuse

FIJI
The Fiji Times

July 15, 2020

By Viliame Ravai

The Catholic Church in Fiji has learnt “from our weakness” and published a ‘Guidelines for Dealing with Sexual Abuse’ in 2014, says Archbishop Peter Loy Chong.

Speaking to the media yesterday, he said the guideline directs those who had suffered abuse by a priest or religious elder — or by anyone working for the church — to immediately report the matter to the police, no matter how long ago the abuse occurred.

“Furthermore, the church should not interfere in any way with the proper processes of criminal or civil law,” he said.

He said the church had also taken steps to vet foreign clergy.

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Bellevue Baptist faces civil suit stemming from sexual battery by former employee

MEMPHIS (TN)
Baptist Press

July 14, 2020

By Diana Chandler

Parents of a teenage girl who was sexually abused by a former part-time employee of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tenn., are suing the church. The suit alleges negligence in allowing James Hook “complete discretion and freedom to have personal and private encounters with volunteers and minors.”

Hook, who was employed on Sunday mornings as the church’s preschool wing coordinator from January 2017-March 2019, pleaded guilty in January to sexual assault by an authority figure. He had been arrested in May 2019 after police found him and the girl, 16, underneath a blanket in the back of his car in a local park. He was sentenced to six months in jail and 4 ½ years probation.

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Opinion: ‘Pray for Your Poor Uncle,’ a Predatory Priest Told His Victims

NEW YORK (NY)
The New York Times

July 15, 2020

By Elizabeth Bruenig

As former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick became a powerful figure in the church, several boys from one family say he targeted them.

Rain fell in New York City four days before Christmas of 2018. Francis M. had planned to be in the city that day for business, but he had dutifully put aside time when asked to answer questions at the Archdiocese of New York offices about his experiences with “Uncle Ted” — former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.

A tall, broad-shouldered man nearing 60 at the time, with blue eyes and steely gray hair, Francis had been in enough depositions in his career as an attorney to know how these question-and-answer sessions went. He assumed he would relate the story of his interactions with Mr. McCarrick, which began when he was 11, and then he would return to his usual routine.

Mr. McCarrick’s downfall had been as dizzying as his rise. Once the archbishop of Washington D.C., and a cardinal who boasted of his close ties to Pope Francis, Mr. McCarrick had established himself as a gifted fund-raiser, helping to found the Papal Foundation, a charity with a $200 million endowment. But in 2018, his reputation collapsed in a rush of accusations that he had sexually abused adult seminarians and a teenage boy. More accusations followed, and in 2019 Mr. McCarrick was defrocked — the first time an American cardinal had been removed from the priesthood.

Francis — who asked me to refer to him and his family members only by their middle names and last initials, to protect their privacy — was not surprised, but neither did he feel that the news had much to do with him. He wasn’t a victim, he thought. He had never felt like one. He had explanations for all the times Mr. McCarrick had insisted that Francis share a bed with him as a boy and for the ways the man had touched him when he did. Mr. McCarrick was lonely, Francis had told himself; plenty of clergymen were. And Francis had turned out well: A father of four with a happy marriage and lucrative work, he had little reason to meditate on the former cardinal.

But as Mr. McCarrick’s case gained national attention, Francis began discussing it with his brothers and male cousins. He told me that in October 2018, one of his brothers reached out to the Archdiocese of New York, and by December, five members of Francis’ family, all men, had agreed to testify in the inquiry the Vatican had ordered it to undertake. An attorney representing Mr. McCarrick repeatedly declined to comment on the allegations made in this article. As of 2019, Mr. McCarrick still maintained his innocence.

“I had anticipated that reciting long-ago facts wouldn’t be upsetting,” Francis told me when we first met in January of last year, at his vacation home in the frozen Catskills.

“But the more I went over in my mind the experiences I had and what they really constituted — with the perspective of an older man — I really understood for the first time as an adult the premeditation and cunning that Ted brought to his predatory activities, right under the eyes of my parents and aunts and uncles.”

Francis said that he was one of five members of his family who testified against Mr. McCarrick in the church’s inquiry.

The experience left him shaken. There were all of the usual questions victims ask themselves: How had his parents missed what Mr. McCarrick was doing, and why had he allowed younger family members to wander into the cardinal’s grasp? How had it changed him, and could he recover? And then there were more fundamental questions: Could a religion whose earthly stewards sinned so cruelly really be true? Supposing it wasn’t, how could he leave the only church he had ever known? Supposing it was, how could he stay?

Established in 1927 in the Throgs Neck neighborhood of the Bronx, the church of St. Frances de Chantal came into its full glory in 1970, when its severe brick exterior was finally erected beneath a tall, spartan cross. In October of that year, Cardinal Terence Cooke visited the parish to celebrate a Mass of Dedication. Francis recalled that Cardinal Cooke brought with him a delegation of clergymen from the Archdiocese of New York, including an up-and-coming monsignor by the name of Theodore McCarrick.

A parish priest introduced the affable Mr. McCarrick to the nine members of the M. family, Francis, who was then 11, told me. Mr. McCarrick was 40, a slightly built man with an almost elfin look. He was just back from a four-year stint as the president of the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico and had recently been made assistant secretary for education in the archdiocese. In 1971, Cardinal Cooke would make him his personal priest secretary.

Mr. McCarrick soon became a regular visitor at the M. household, where his status in the church made him something of a celebrity. Francis recalled that “Ted” always wore his clerical garb, unlike the more casual clergymen around town. “When Ted came to dinner, he was like the candy man,” Francis told me. He would bring souvenirs: “Rosary beads from Fátima, a medal blessed by the pope, a necklace from the Philippines.”

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Allegation of clergy sexual abuse cover-up filed against Springfield Bishop Mitchell Rozanski

SPRINGFIELD (MA)
The Republican / Masslive.com

July 14, 2020

By Anne-Gerard Flynn

Olan Horne, a long-time advocate for clergy sexual abuse victims, has filed an allegation that Springfield Bishop Mitchell T. Rozanski engaged in a cover-up with the Catholic Bishops Abuse Reporting Service.

Horne said his complaint is not solely based on a recent investigation by retired Judge John Velis that determined how the Springfield Diocese handled allegations of abuse against the late Bishop Christopher J. Weldon was “greatly flawed.”

Horne said his evidence includes other cases in which he said alleged clergy sexual abuse was only addressed by the diocese and made public after prolonged advocacy by victims and their supporters.

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