ABUSE TRACKER

Retired Superior Court Judge Thomas Dilts handled child abuse cases for 16 of his 20 years as a family court judge serving Somerset and Hunterdon Counties.

Presiding over an average of 120 cases per week, he saw each day as an opportunity to make an impact in the lives of children and families. 

As he approached retirement, Dilts knew that he wanted to continue to help children who have been abused and neglected, and realized there was more work to be done from the other side of the bench. He shared this vision in his retirement speech, and, within a week, 15 colleagues answered the call to action, forming the Children’s Hope Initiative in fall 2011.

Eleven of the original 15 board members continue to serve the organization today.

Statistics shared on their website, ChildrensHopeInitiative.org, underscore the critical needs the organization works to address. In the United States, a report…

View Cache

Rosario, Argentina – Hours before boarding the plane towards his new post, the papal representative in Mexico called the land of Our Lady of Guadalupe a “faithful” place, but also “scourged by violence, by death.”

Archbishop Franco Coppola, Apostolic Nuncio in Mexico, expressed his gratitude for having represented Pope Francis for a little more than five years as he celebrated Mass for the World Day of Peace, commemorated by the Catholic Church every January 1st, in Latin America’s most famous shrine, dedicated to La Morenita.

The Italian diplomat stressed that Mexico is a “rich country”, because it has “many material and human resources,” but warned that peace will not be achieved here as long as there is so much inequality.

“There is a part that lives with dignity, and there is a majority that lives poorly, that lives in poverty; unable to fulfill basic needs, lacking instruction (education), and lacking decent…

View Cache

Father Lawrence Johnson held guilty for abusing a minor boy now faces canonical procedures

Indian Cardinal Oswald Gracias has recommended the Vatican to resume canonical procedures against a Catholic priest, who was convicted of sexually abusing a minor boy.

Father Lawrence Johnson, 55, a priest of the Archdiocese of Bombay (now Mumbai), was sentenced to life imprisonment by a special court dealing with sexual offenses against children on Dec. 29.

The priest was also charged with violating several sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.

Cardinal Gracias, who is also the archbishop of Bombay, in a statement on Dec. 31 said that “as the case has been concluded in the courts, I am recommending to the Roman Offices that the canonical proceedings which were suspended due to the ongoing hearings be now resumed.”

Father Johnson was arrested on Dec. 2,…

View Cache

A curious trio of billboards went up across Rockford in November. They showed five men in Roman collars bracketed by angry red type: “Not one more penny! Until you reinstate our priests.”

The appeal to withhold contributions from the collection plate was the latest in-your-face gesture from the Coalition for Canceled Priests, a group that formed in the Chicago suburbs last year to advocate for clerics it says have been unfairly removed from the Roman Catholic ministry by bishops.

Its provocative tactics, which have also included a Lincoln Park rally and a viral endorsement from Mel Gibson, reflect its belief that public and financial pressure are more likely to get results than working through the church hierarchy.

“I’m not saying that all bishops are bad, far from it, but there’s a lot of corruption going on,” said co-founder the Rev. John Lovell, who has been sidelined for nine…

View Cache

There has been a “devastating” decline in religious practice among young people in Poland, says one of the country’s most senior church figures, Wojciech Polak, the archbishop of Gniezno and Primate of Poland.

He admits that the Catholic hierarchy’s failure to deal with sex abuse by clergy has been a primary cause, and has called for the church to continue the process of “purifying” itself.

However, Marek Jędraszewski, the archbishop of Kraków, has questioned his colleague’s interpretation, arguing that in fact the church has been a “victim” of the pandemic and young people’s growing use of technology.

Polak pointed to recently published data showing that less than 25% of young Poles now regularly practise religion. In the early 1990s, the figure was almost 70%.

“These are simply devastating numbers,” said Polak, in an interview with the Polish Press Agency (PAP). “A very strong re-evaluation is taking place in the young generation.”

Asked…

View Cache

An attorney who represented multiple people allegedly sexually abused by local Catholic priests is now seeking damages against another religious institution: the Guam-Micronesia Mission of Seventh-day Adventists.

According to a lawsuit filed Dec. 31, 2021, by attorney David Lujan, the new case stems from misconduct alleged to have occurred in June 2012.

At that time, the victim in the suit, a U.S. citizen identified only as a man with the initials “AA,” came to Guam from the Philippines to complete his high school education.

The man, who was 16 years old in 2012, became acquainted with Danny Dial, who was serving as the church’s director, according to court documents.

“Since Dial was from Mindanao in the Philippines where AA was also from, and both speaking the same dialect, Dial asked AA’s guardian if AA could stay with him a few days so he could take AA and show him Agana…

View Cache

A man has successfully sued the Catholic Church after a court found it had vicarious liability for sexual abuse he says he suffered from a notorious priest 50 years ago.

Key points:

• The Catholic Church has been found liable for its priest’s abuse of a five-year-old boy in 1971
• The ruling is believed to be the first of its kind in Australia
• Other victims of the priest were compensated out of court this year

The Victorian man’s lawyers believe it is the first such ruling in Australia.

Father Bryan Coffey was convicted in the Ballarat County Court in February 1999 of multiple counts of sexual assault against other children, and was given a three-year suspended sentence.

He died in 2013.

The man told the Victorian Supreme Court that Coffey had sexually abused him at his parent’s Port Fairy home on two occasions in 1971, when the assistant priest was visiting.

The…

View Cache

Let’s pause for a moment and reconsider a very loaded and tricky word that shows up all the time religion-news coverage (as well as political coverage, of course).

That word is “reform.”

For really, really, loyal GetReligion readers, I will admit that I am, in part, flashing back to this 2008 GetReligion post: “Who gets to “reform” what?” Once again, let’s look at some of the language that shows up in online dictionaries when you search for that term. To “reform” an institution or a law means to:

* make changes for improvement in order to remove abuse and injustices; “reform a political system” * bring, lead, or force to abandon a wrong or evil course of life, conduct, and adopt a right one; “The Church reformed me”; “reform your conduct” … * a change for the better as a result of correcting abuses; “justice was for sale…

View Cache

HAS Christmas ended? Is the story over? Did we learn anything from the Christmas nativity story, and what values did the Church draw from it and teach us? Will we face 2022 with a new determination inspired to live out and practice the values of the Gospel?

The Christmas belen (manger scene) that depicts the baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes and surrounded by adoring parents Mary and Joseph, the shepherds and animals will be dismantled and removed from churches. But will it and the story it tells be removed from our minds and hearts? That is the story of Jesus of Nazareth that brought the love of God into the world, that elevated the rights of children and women to the highest level and that has called us to respect the rights of children and women and stop child abuse.

That Jesus who was born to a life of poverty in…

View Cache

Thank you, Lisa McGinley, for your article “Money is the least of what the church has to lose” (Dec. 26). As a Catholic priest in West Virginia, I follow the “Abuse Tracker” website closely and found your article there. You have expressed many of my concerns more clearly and concisely than any other article I have seen. You have given us a very helpful perspective on our hypocrisy of failing to practice what we preach. We are seriously undermining our stated mission by destroying our credibility.

In all of the Gospels, hypocrisy by religious leaders was the ONLY situation that brought out Jesus’ anger!

I am grateful to journalists and attorneys who, whatever their motivation, have forced the church to face up to our systemic faults and grant some justice to our victims. They have also forced…

View Cache

A former Northland priest accused of child sexual abuse has died.

The Rev. David Tushar, 72, died Dec. 23 in Las Vegas, where he was living in retirement. Born in Eveleth, Tushar served as a priest in Northeastern Minnesota for nearly 35 years before he was placed on leave in 2019 pending an investigation into allegations of abuse at a previous placement.

Tushar attended Crosier Seminary in Onamia, the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, Gregorian University in Rome, and Catholic Theological Union and Loyola University in Chicago. He was ordained to the priesthood for the Congregation of the Holy Cross in 1976.

The allegations were related to his earlier service as a Holy Cross Father and Catholic School teacher in Niles, Illinois, from 1978-79. After Tushar was deemed “credibly accused” by the Diocese of Duluth in 2019, the case was sent on to the Vatican. He was also removed…

View Cache

Lawmakers in the Colorado General Assembly passed legislation in June giving new power to people who’d survived sexual abuse decades ago — and survivors and their attorneys said Thursday they’re planning to move forward with several cases once the law takes effect in the new year.

The statute of limitations had expired for these survivors, leaving them without the ability to hold abusers accountable. But Senate Bill 21-88 represented a major victory for child sexual abuse survivors and their advocates after years of advocacy and several failed attempts at passing similar state legislation.

“I faced years of sexual abuse in a high school here in Denver from Catholic clergy,” said Brian Barzee, who spoke at a Nov. 18 news conference with his lawyer, Michael Nimmo, to raise awareness about SB-88. “It’s only because of this new law that any of us are ever going to have a voice…

View Cache

The archbishop of Bombay Oswald Cardinal Gracias has “sought pardon” from the community after the conviction of a Catholic priest under the POCSO Act. He said he continued to pray for both the victim and his abuser.

On December 29, Fr Lawrence Johnson, former priest of Christ The King Church in Shivaji Nagar, was sentenced to life imprisonment for sodomising a 13-year-boy inside the church in 2015.

The Cardinal on Friday said: “I was very distressed to learn that Fr Lawrence Johnson was convicted of aggravated sexual assault on a minor. I deeply sympathise with the victim and the family. I ask pardon that a representative of the Church, appointed to be in charge of the community, was responsible for this.”

He addressed the victim’s mother’s accusations that the church “abandoned and harassed” them during their struggle for justice. “Several invitations by my secretary to the victim’s parents…

View Cache

The life sentence awarded to Fr Lawrence Johnson by a POCSO court has restored the faith of the victim’s family in “justice and Jesus”.

The boy’s mother in a tearful interview said that “Jesus had answered her prayer at Christmas”. “The courts have pronounced Fr Lawrence guilty today. But I held him guilty on the very day of the assault. He even knelt before me and admitted his crime. My faith in the men that run the Church is broken but my faith in Jesus is unshakeable.”

The 13-year-old faced the latest in a series of assaults inside Christ The King Church, Shivaji Nagar, Govandi, on November 27, 2015 that left him bleeding and bruised. He is now 18 years old, and is still undergoing treatment for bodily ailments apart from suffering hallucinations and nightmares.

His mother said, “Supporters of Fr Lawrence even held a morcha against us while we…

View Cache

A special court on Wednesday convicted and sentenced to rigorous life imprisonment a Catholic priest Father Johnson Lawrence for sodomising a young teenaged boy in 2015, under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. The boy was 13-year-old.

In December 2015, the priest then 52 years old was arrested by Mumbai police. He has been in prison since.

During the pronouncement of the verdict, the priest was present in court before special Judge Seema Jadhav who found him guilty of offences under section 6 (aggravated penetrative sexual assault) and 12 (sexual harassment) of POCSO.

Special public prosecutor Veena Shelar had examined nine witnesses to prove the case against the accused.

The Priest’s defence was one of complete denial. His counsel Avinash Rasal argued that there was no evidence against him and to demonstrate he examined two defence witnesses, members of the Legion of Mary who said there were six-seven…

View Cache

A northeastern Indiana priest has agreed to plead guilty to child solicitation and sexual battery charges for allegedly sexually abusing a teenage girl and a young woman.

The Rev. David Huneck was charged in October with felony child solicitation and sexual battery and several misdemeanor charges.

If the 31-year-old priest pleads guilty to the felony charges and a judge accepts his plea at a Jan. 27 Whitley County hearing, the misdemeanor charges would be dropped.

The Journal Gazette reports that Huneck was charged after two females, ages 17 and 19, reported two incidents in which Huneck allegedly sexually assaulted them.

Huneck resigned in September from his parish and a role at a Fort Wayne Catholic high school after the Catholic Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend said it became aware of allegations of sexual misconduct.

The diocese became aware of the allegations against Huneck on Sept. 19. A statement from Bishop Kevin…

View Cache

An Athens orphanage at the centre of a probe into the alleged abuse of five boys between the ages of 7 and 11 had refused to declare the number of children in its care, Deputy Minister for Social Affairs Domna Michailidou told Kathimerini on Tuesday. 

“When we launched the [online] platform for fostering and adoption, we asked all [child care] facilities in the country to register the children they hosted, in order for them to join the system,” the minister said. “The specific facility refused to do so until the last moment. I had to call them on the phone and press them. They were the last in Greece to follow the instructions.” 

Michailidou also said that there is also a pending complaint against the orphanage from 2017 alleging illegal adoptions, which “has not yet been fully investigated.”

The facility was placed under investigation after a written complaint from a…

View Cache

Nebraska Attorney General Douglas J. Peterson did our state a service Nov. 4 when he released his detailed report on child abuse committed by Catholic Church officials in the Omaha, Lincoln and Grand Island Dioceses.

I doubt that few people — including good, faithful Catholic Nebraskans — don’t hang their heads in sorrow when reviewing the details: credible allegations of sexual abuse and/or misconduct against 51 priests, four deacons and two teachers by a total of 258 victims dating back to Jan. 1, 1978.

Our first human reaction is to cry out “Why?” Which is usually followed by thoughts of, “How are we going to get even?” Then we sober up, realize that revenge accomplishes nothing, but doing nothing demonstrates nearly a tacit approval of serious criminal behavior.

That is why I’m taking some well-thought-out next steps when the legislative session begins in January to give Nebraskans the…

View Cache

Marking the conclusion of a yearslong effort to protect survivors of child sexual abuse and hold institutions that cover up abuse accountable, the Child Sexual Abuse Accountability Act goes into effect tomorrow, January 1, 2022.

The law – sponsored by Senators Jessie Danielson (D-Wheat Ridge) and Rhonda Fields (D-Aurora) and Representatives Dafna Michaelson Jenet (D-Commerce City) and Matt Soper (R-Delta) – allows survivors of child sexual abuse to sue schools, government entities, or private institutions that cover up sexual abuse, as well as the perpetrators, and seeks to prevent future instances of sexual abuse. 

“No child should ever have to suffer sexual abuse, but for far too long our laws have failed to protect the youngest victims of these unspeakable crimes, and today we say no more,” said Sen. Danielson. “This law ensures that actions taken by abusers and institutions to harm our little ones can no longer be swept under the rug,…

View Cache