Search Results for: graff

AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

November 24, 2015

Shannon Deery
Herald Sun

VANDALS have lashed out at court and church buildings across the city over the Catholic Church’s handling of sex abuse cases.

Just a day after the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse continued its probe of the Melbourne Archdiocese vandals attacked the church’s Melbourne headquarters.

Graffiti was sprayed across the Catholic Archdiocese offices in East Melbourne, while at the County Court, where the commission is sitting, vandals also sprayed sledges aimed at key church figures.

The graffiti was covered and painted over earlier today.

Cardinal George Pell will return to Melbourne next month to answer allegations he covered up abuse cases, ignored complaints of assaults and tried to bribe a victim of stay silent about being molested. He has consistently denied the allegations.

The Royal Commission is examining the Church’s handling of abuse cases between…

AUSTRALIA
NT News

BY MEGAN NEIL AND CHRISTOPHER TALBOT AAP NOVEMBER 25, 2015

GEORGE Pell hung up the phone when a former Catholic school principal asked him to publicly back the man’s attempts to deal with a bizarre pedophile priest, an inquiry has heard.

GRAEME Sleeman says he wrote to Cardinal Pell, then the Melbourne archbishop, about a decade after he resigned as principal of Doveton’s Holy Family Primary School in 1986 in frustration that nothing was done about parish priest Peter Searson.

Mr Sleeman was unable to get another job as principal of a Catholic school and said he wanted the Melbourne archdiocese to provide some support for his loyalty.

“I put my career on the line. I’d lost superannuation. I believed that I was a good educationalist and I was being deprived of carrying out my trade,” Mr Sleeman told the child abuse royal commission on Wednesday.

…

AUSTRALIA
The Age

November 25, 2015

Christopher Talbot

A Melbourne court and a Catholic Archdiocese building have been defaced with graffiti accusing Cardinal George Pell of covering up child sexual abuse by priests.

Graffiti scrawled in black paint across the windows and pillars of the Catholic Archdiocese building in East Melbourne said: “child molester Pell” and “put Pell in jail for cover up”.

“Put Pell in jail” has also been sprayed on the Victorian County Court in Melbourne’s CBD.

The graffiti spotted on Wednesday morning on the East Melbourne building was quickly painted over and covered with black plastic.

The words on the court were covered but are still visible from inside.

Cardinal Pell has not been accused of sexual abuse and has denied allegations he ignored complaints or covered them up.

AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Anti-Catholic graffiti relating to the church’s handling of child sex abuse cases has been scrawled across a church building and a court in Melbourne.

Police said one of the abusive messages named the former Archbishop of Melbourne, Cardinal George Pell.

They were written on the Victorian County Court and a building belonging to the Melbourne Archdiocese.

Court workers tried to scrub off the graffiti this morning and have erected black plastic to cover what remains.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is using the County Court building to hold hearings into the way the Melbourne Archdiocese responded to child sexual abuse complaints.

VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

John L. Allen Jr. | Jan. 31, 2014 …

By now, many people have commented on the Rolling Stone cover story on Pope Francis, particularly the “Benedict bad, Francis good” framework the piece adopted. (Words such as “dour” and “disastrous” about Benedict loomed large.) A Vatican spokesman called the contrast between the two pontiffs “superficial journalism” marked by “a surprising crudeness.”

To be fair, comparisons between Francis and his predecessor are inevitable, and there’s no getting around the point that Francis is more of a crowd-pleaser. For sure, too, there is a shift in tone under Francis in what could be described as a “moderate” direction, though it might better be expressed as the ascendancy of the church’s pastors and diplomats over its theologians and canon lawyers.

That said, it’s also clear that Francis tends to get credit for several perceived reforms…

NORTHERN IRELAND
Derry Journal

Published on Tuesday 8 May 2012

A Derry priest has praised local parishioners who removed offensive anti-clerical graffiti daubed on a church at the weekend.

The word ‘Paedos’ – with an arrow pointing towards the front door entrance – was painted in large black lettering on the front of St Joseph’s in Galliagh some time late on Saturday night or early Sunday morning.

Rev. Michael McCaughey, parish priest of the Three Patrons parish – which includes Galliagh – says both clergy and parishioners were “shocked and distressed” to discover the graffiti.

In 2018, Pennsylvania became the epicenter of the Catholic clergy sex abuse crisis with the release of a statewide grand jury report detailing decades-old concealment of the systemic abuse of hundreds of minors at the hands of more than 300 priests.

Scores of survivors of abuse across Pennsylvania looked to Pope Francis, widely considered a church reformist, to bring about transformative and substantive change in the church that could lead to healing and closure for the many broken adults who had suffered at the hands of priests.

For many survivors of clergy sex abuse that day never came.

Pope Francis, 88, died Monday morning, the Vatican announced, after battling multiple health issues that led to his hospitalization for five weeks earlier this year.

On Sunday, the pontiff, despite doctors’ orders, made an Easter Sunday appearance on St. Peter’s…

Critics say that the Archdiocese of Santa Fe’s roster of “credibly accused” priests should be longer — by 59 names — but the church currently has no intention of adding them.

If you have experienced sexual assault, sexual violence or unwanted sexual contact, you can contact the Rape Crisis Center of Central New Mexico at (505) 266-7711

When the Archdiocese of Santa Fe filed for bankruptcy on Dec. 3, 2018, church officials said they were dangerously close to burning through their financial reserves after settling lawsuits with nearly 300 survivors of sexual abuse that occurred in this huge religious district, which encompasses 19 counties in central and northeastern New Mexico and the cities of Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Los Alamos and Taos.

As part of the proceedings at the federal bankruptcy court in Albuquerque, any “creditor” — the legal term used for abuse survivors — who had a financial claim against the…

With just weeks until a third-party investigation of International House of Prayer-Kansas City (IHOPKC) is completed, the organization that commissioned it has come under fire for removing a trusted voice from  the Senior Advisory Team for the investigation. But after facing intense backlash from the abuse survivor community, the organization—Tikkun Global, a Messianic Jewish network—reversed course and today reinstated the removed advisory team member, Ron Cantor.

Cantor has publicly stood with survivors of alleged abuse by International House of Prayer Kansas City (IHOPKC) Founder Mike Bickle. And last September, when months of negotiations for a mutually-acceptable investigation broke down between an Advocate Group for Bickle victims and current IHOPKC leaders, the Advocate Group asked Cantor and Tikkun for help.

Cantor was instrumental in finding a third-party to investigate the allegations that survivors found acceptable—Jim Holler of Firefly Investigations. Tikkun commissioned that investigation and has previously stated that Holler’s investigation…

Those who protested outside Catholic churches believe they would have been arrested if such laws were in place

Survivors of clergy abuse have expressed deep concern at proposals to ban protests outside places of worship, with lawyer John Ellis saying a blanket ban would have seen him arrested outside a Sydney cathedral last year.

Anthony Albanese on Wednesday backed proposals in New South Wales and Victoria to ban such protests after an arson attack on the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne and antisemitic vandalism in Sydney.

Speaking about the proposals, the prime minister said he “cannot conceive of any reason, apart from creating division in our community, of why someone would want to hold a demonstration outside a place of worship”.

This rankled abuse survivors, particularly those who engaged in what they describe as a respectful demonstration outside St Mary’s cathedral in Sydney after George Pell’s death, and others who have tied ribbons…

A professor at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium has claimed the university is intentionally downplaying a looming visit by Pope Francis, driven by anger over sexual abuse scandals as well as “shame” about Catholic identity and a “business and marketing logic” which views being identified with the institutional church as potentially detrimental to enrollment.

Pope Francis is scheduled to visit the university on Sept. 27 to help celebrate its 600th anniversary, as part of a broader three-day trip to Luxembourg and Belgium.

Yet Bart Maddens, a professor of political science at the university, charged in a recent piece for the Flemish magazine Doorbraak that the papal visit is being “covered up,” noting that there’s no mention of it on the home page of the university web site, even under the “events” tab, nor is there any reference on a page dedicated to the anniversary celebrations.

Moreover, Maddens writes, the pope’s meeting…

Gerard Gorman faced unimaginable horror as an 11-year-old boarder in County Armagh. The pain haunted him for decades – then he took on the church

It was November 1970 and Northern Ireland was sliding into the Troubles, but for Gerard Gorman, a new pupil at St Colman’s College, the horror of that era began when Fr Malachy Finegan summoned him into a room, closed the door and told him to sit on a sofa.

Gorman was 11 years old and small for his age, with big blue eyes. Two months earlier, he had started as a boarder at the Catholic boys’ school in Newry, County Armagh. Staff tended to be aloof or intimidating, except Finegan, the religious education teacher, who was solicitous and avuncular.

More than half a century later, Gorman can still picture the scene on that autumn day. He had been with other boys, running to the dormitory, when Finegan beckoned…

Embattled International House of Prayer-Kansas City (IHOPKC) admitted it likely mishandled some past reports of misconduct and promised to make structural changes during an announcement Sunday at IHOPKC’s Forerunner Church.

IHOPKC Spokesman Eric Volz told the Forerunner congregation that IHOPKC’s initial “historic review of reported misconduct” revealed that “a few” reported incidents “likely were not handled properly.”

But Volz said that “most of those incidents happened under the watch of leaders who are no longer here.” He also claimed that the “number of known incidents” is “low,” given the size of IHOPKC, its 25 years in operation, and more than 20,000 staff who have served at IHOPKC.

Two recent high-level IHOPKC leaders—Executive Director Stuart Greaves and David Sliker—resigned last month, following allegations they had mishandled past allegations of misconduct.

TRR reached out to IHOPKC’s press office, asking for clarity about who mishandled the prior reports of misconduct. IHOPKC’s Executive Leadership Team…

While Catholicism may be universal, as a sociological matter the Vatican definitely isn’t. Although its personnel may come from all over the world, its internal culture, psychology and business models are all quintessentially Italian.

Until a pope takes up the suggestion of newly minted Coadjutor Archbishop Christopher Coyne of Hartford, Ct., and moves the Vatican out of Rome, Italian realities therefore will continue to exercise a disproportionate impact on shaping the outlook and perceived priorities of Vatican officials.

That point comes to mind amid what organizers are describing as a budding “revolution” in Italy around the issue of violence against women, driven by national outrage over the brutal murder of a 22-year-old young woman named Giulia Cecchettin by her ex-boyfriend. Her gruesome death, which has dominated the Italian media for a fortnight, represents merely the latest instance of what Italians are now calling an epidemic of femicide.

According to data…

In 1819, the federal government instituted a program of state-sponsored abductions and forced assimilation of Native American children. It lasted 150 years and spawned a legacy of horrific abuse. Now, survivors and their descendants are speaking out

Sitting at his dining room table at his home in Snohomish County, Washington, Matthew Warbonnet, 77, pensively flips through a binder of black and white photos. His long, salt-and-pepper hair is pulled into a low ponytail and a multicolored beaded necklace rests around his neck. He squints and smiles while pointing to pictures of himself and his siblings from when they attended the Catholic-run, federally-funded, St. Francis Mission on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. He pauses to stare at a photo of a young boy gleefully holding a puppy. That boy was him, before the neglect and violence started at St. Francis.

“You know,” he says, haltingly, “I can’t remember anything before…

Across the US, there are 7,386 state legislators. Roughly 200 of them were picked for leadership positions in their respective chambers. A man in Pennsylvania just won the election to such a post. Why is this big news to abuse victims and advocates? Because he is State Rep. Mark Rozzi and now the Speaker of the State House of Representatives. The New York Times just ran a nearly-full page article about him. 

Here are some interesting facts about Rozzi:

• • He is a survivor of child sexual abuse by a Catholic priest
  • He disclosed this publicly
  • His revelation prompted at least two other victims to come forward
  • He sued his perpetrator and the diocese that ordained and supervised him
  • He disclosed criminal investigations into the Allentown and Harrisburg dioceses
  • He testified before a grand jury investigating predator priests and church cover-ups in Pittsburgh
  • He publicly called on Pope…

It was after a pair of Catholic churches caught ablaze last summer, one in Southern California and another in Florida, that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops decided to start documenting and tracking vandalism at Catholic sites across the country.

The two fires occurred on the same morning: July 11, 2020. One destroyed the rooftop of the historic San Gabriel Mission — the fourth of a series of missions across California that Fr. Junípero Serra founded during the Spanish colonization era. The other ignited in Queen of Peace Catholic Church as parishioners prepared for Mass in Ocala, Florida.

Nobody was injured, but Aaron Weldon — of the bishops’ Office of Religious Liberty — said the fires were “the impetus for us to start monitoring these sorts of events.”

Since then, the U.S. bishops’ conference has tracked more than 105 incidents of vandalism of Catholic…

An Oct. 10 vandalism of the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Denver, Colorado, was the 100th incident of destruction to Catholic sites in the U.S. since the U.S. Bishops Conference began tracking the phenomenon in May 2020.

“These incidents of vandalism have ranged from tragic to the obscene, from the transparent to the inexplicable,” said Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, chair of the USCCB Committee for Religious Liberty, and Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City, chair of the USCCB Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development in a joint Oct 14 statement. “There remains much we do not know about this phenomenon, but at a minimum, they underscore that our society is in sore need of God’s grace.”

The Oct. 10 incident at the Denver cathedral included satanic and hateful graffiti spray painted on the exterior wall and door. The next day, the 101st incident took place…

France’s top bishop has been summoned by the interior minister after saying that the pact of secrecy would prevent a priest from reporting sex crimes against children that were revealed during Catholic confession.

Following the publication of a report this week about sexual abuse of children by the clergy, Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, who is archbishop of Reims and head of the Bishops’ Conference of France, said in a radio interview that the secrecy of the confession rite takes precedence over the laws of the republic.

Under French law, anyone who is aware of a sex crime against a minor is obliged to report it to the authorities and risks heavy fines and imprisonment if failing to do so.

“Nothing takes precedence over the laws of the republic in our country,” French government spokesman Gabriel Attal said on Thursday.

He added that Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin – who…

Archdiocese bans Father Rhéal Forest from sermons in wake of remarks to parishioners

WARNING: This story contains distressing details.

A Catholic priest has been banned by a Manitoba archdiocese from speaking publicly after accusing residential school survivors of lying about sexual abuse to get more money from court settlements, and after he joked about shooting those who wrote graffiti on churches, among other comments. 

The statements were made over weeks of services at St. Emile Roman Catholic Church in Winnipeg, and were included in videos on its Facebook page.  

During a July 10 mass Father Rhéal Forest — who was temporarily placed at St. Emile while the parish’s regular pastor, Father Gerry Sembrano, was on vacation — said residential school survivors lied about being sexually abused so they would receive more money during the settlement process with the federal government.

“If they wanted extra money, from the money that was given to…

EDMONTON — Outrage directed at the Catholic Church for its role in Canada’s residential school system continues, with more churches allegedly set ablaze and faithful followers questioning their loyalty to the institution.

While some continue to call for a Papal apology, others have renounced the church altogether, unable to come to terms with the atrocities carried out by religious leaders.

“I’ve struggled with my feelings for the church and its position on many issues, including Indigenous rights, and I felt I’d reached this moment where I couldn’t take it anymore,” writer Bernadette Hardaker told CTV National News from her home in Orangeville, Ont.

In a recent editorial published by the Globe and Mail, Hardaker – who now describes herself as a former Catholic – said she was ashamed that she “upheld an institution that dodges and waves instead of taking responsibility.”

What started as an urge to write the Pope…

Sometimes, an investigation can turn up answers. Sometimes, they turn up questions.

It would have been nice if the Office of the State Inspector General discovered either in the dive into why a constitutional amendment never made it to the Pennsylvania primary ballot.

On May 18, the voters were supposed to decide whether to change up the constitution and allow survivors of child sex abuse legal recourse denied them by time. Because of missteps in the Department of State — which was supposed to advertise the amendment months earlier — that didn’t happen.

With some things, that might be annoying but not actually hurtful. Deadlines are missed every day, right? But missing this deadline meant people who already had been abused and denied justice for years were inadvertently victimized again by the government.

The inspector general didn’t find that someone deliberately botched the process — despite then-Secretary of State Kathy…

HARRISBURG — “Internal systemic failures” were behind the Wolf administration’s bungling of a statewide referendum that would provide legal recourse to survivors of child sexual abuse, according to a much-anticipated report released Wednesday.

The Office of State Inspector General found no evidence that the administration’s failure to advertise the proposed constitutional amendment as required was deliberate or the result of outside pressure or “intentional malfeasance.”

But it did find the Department of State, which oversees elections, had no formal or written process in place for ensuring referendums appear on the ballot. There was also little, if any, executive oversight or staff training — a chronic complaint from employees interviewed for the inquiry — and paltry communication between the various bureaus within the department that are responsible for getting questions on the ballot.

The Department of State, according to the report, “lacked executive oversight, written policies and procedures,…

A report issued Wednesday found lacking oversight and systemic failures – not willful disregard – within the Pennsylvania Department of State resulted in a botched constitutional amendment.

The Office of the State Inspector General’s probe of the incident found no evidence of “deliberate or intentional malfeasance” at play when department staffers forgot to advertise a proposed constitutional amendment that would open a two-year litigation window for survivors of child sex abuse after the Legislature passed its authorizing legislation, House Bill 963, in November 2019.

“On behalf of the Department of State, I apologize to the victims of abuse for the additional pain and distress we have caused them,” said Acting Secretary Veronica Degraffenreid during a news conference on Wednesday. “We are committed to ensuring such a failing will never happen again.”

Constitutional amendments must pass in the General Assembly in two consecutive legislative sessions before appearing before voters…

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — An internal investigation into an apparent bureaucratic blunder by Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration that scuttled a statewide voter referendum sought by victims of childhood sexual abuse found no evidence of a deliberate attempt to derail it.

The Office of Inspector General’s report, released Wednesday, said agents interviewed 22 current and former state employees and reviewed the email accounts of nine state officials for any evidence of outside influence or intentional acts.

Rather, it said, Wolf’s Department of State — which oversees elections and professional licensing and has about 500 employees — had no executive office, bureau or executive staff member responsible for overseeing internal processes for constitutional amendments.

The referendum was to be on whether to give victims of childhood sexual abuse a fresh opportunity to sue their abusers and complicit institutions, a proposal propelled by damning investigative reports in 2016 and 2018 on Pennsylvania’s…

Vigilante parents dug under a preschool, searching for secret tunnels. The police swapped tips on identifying pagan symbols. A company that sells toothpaste and soap had to deny, repeatedly, that it was acting as an agent of Satan.

Early in the 1980s, baseless conspiracy theories about cults committing mass child abuse spread around the country. Talk shows and news programs fanned fears, and the authorities investigated hundreds of allegations. Even as cases slowly collapsed and skepticism prevailed, defendants went to prison, families were traumatized and millions of dollars were spent on prosecutions.

The phenomenon was so sprawling that, in its aftermath, it took on several names, like the ritual abuse scare or the day care panic. But one name has increasingly stuck: the satanic panic.

“The evidence wasn’t there, but the allegations of satanic ritual abuse never really went away,” said Ken Lanning, a former F.B.I….

The Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday affirmed a decision by a lower court that First Amendment protections shield religious employers from some lawsuits in certain cases of clergy abuse.

But the court also overturned part of the lower court’s decision, saying it erred in not allowing plaintiff John Doe to bring expert testimony backing his claims of intentional failure to supervise clergy before a jury.

The case now returns to the St. Louis County Circuit Court.

The decision came in the case of John Doe 122 v. Marianist Province of the United States and Chaminade College Preparatory Inc.

According to the 6-0 Supreme Court opinion, written by Judge Paul Wilson, Doe has said Marianist Brother John Woulfe, his counselor at Chaminade about 50 years ago, sexually abused him.

Doe filed suit against the high school in 2015, alleging negligent supervision and intentional failure…

PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

February 1, 2021

By Julian Routh and Peter Smith

Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar will soon resign after her department failed to advertise an amendment to the state’s constitution extending the statute of limitations for child sex abuse victims to file actions in civil court against their abusers, Gov. Tom Wolf announced Monday.

Her resignation will take effect on Friday, Mr. Wolf said.

The omission is a stunning setback in an effort by victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests and others to gain a window of time in which they could sue over abuse that happened years or decades ago, beyond what the current statute of limitations allows.

The effort, building on grand jury reports in 2016 and 2018 on the long histories of abuse in Catholic dioceses around the state, would have enabled victims to sue dioceses or others deemed complicit in the…

MUHLENBERG TWP. (PA)
69 News

May 27, 2020

A Berks County lawmaker has filed a sexual abuse lawsuit against the Diocese of Allentown and its Holy Guardian Angels parish in Muhlenberg Township.

State Rep. Mark Rozzi said he was sexually abused by the Rev. Edward Graff in the 1980s, which is beyond the statute of limitations. His attorneys said they want to use a loophole in a similar suit, where the statute of limitations ran out.

Rozzi said he learned the diocese knew Graff had a history of abusing children after seeing the 2018 statewide grand jury report on clergy abuse.

AUSTRALIA
The Age

April 8, 2020

By Jewel Topsfield

Scrawled on doors under a gothic-revival arch at St Patrick’s Cathedral in East Melbourne – where Cardinal George Pell’s accuser had alleged he was sexually abused – was graffiti next to a dripping upside-down cross.

The night after Cardinal Pell was released from jail after the High Court ruled there was reasonable doubt requiring his acquittal of charges that he abused two choirboys in the 1990s, graffiti was also spray-painted on the cathedral forecourt.

SPRINGFIELD (IL)
Illinois Times

April 25, 2019

By Bruce Rushton

Images of Bishop Thomas John Paprocki for this article are by Jonah Harjer, a Springfield artist who was born in Chicago and grew up in the 1980s in Miami, where he was influenced by the local skate and street culture. He was drawn to painting graffiti,Illustrations by Jonah Harjer
A quarter-century ago, the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago was in crisis.

A priest had been indicted for sexually abusing a child. Lawsuits were pending. Priests were removed from parishes after the church appointed a commission – two laypeople, plus the auxiliary bishop – to investigate sexual misconduct cases and recommend improvements. After the commission issued its report, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin in 1992 turned to Thomas John Paprocki, then chancellor for the Chicago archdiocese and, since 2010, bishop for the Diocese of Springfield.

For a decade, Paprocki was an insider…

LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Guardian

February 23, 2019

By Jamie Doward

The head of one of the country’s most powerful Catholic orders was made aware of sex abuse allegations dating back to the 1970s at one of its schools but did not alert the authorities – contrary to the recommendations of a church commission on which he sat.

The wide-ranging Independent Inquiry Into Child Sexual Abuse has been shown a handwritten document compiled by Abbot Richard Yeo, who as president of the Benedictines conducted an inquiry at St Benedict’s School in Ealing, west London, in June 2010 following reports that there had been widespread abuse of pupils by teachers and monks.

The year before Yeo’s visit, Father David Pearce, the former head of the junior school, had been jailed for eight years – reduced to five on appeal –after being found guilty of abusing five boys over a 36-year period.

…

ALBUQUERQUE (NM)
Rewire.News

August 27, 2018

By Kathleen Holscher

The emphasis on largely white contexts in national media coverage of Catholic clerical sexual abuse in the United States obscures the ways race and colonialism have structured the crisis in other communities.

Like others who study American Catholicism, I’ve spent time recently with the Pennsylvania grand jury report naming credible allegations of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy. The heavily publicized, 900-page document is a civic tour de force; it names 301 Catholic priests who, during the twentieth century, were employed across 6 dioceses in Pennsylvania. It records their alleged crimes—and those of bishops who protected them—in excruciating detail.

From the vantage point of Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I live and teach, the grand jury report provides not only a horrific portrait of some parts of Catholic life in a mid-Atlantic state; it offers reminders too…

ALLENTOWN (PA)
The Daily Beast

June 22, 2018

By Victoria Albert

A court just muzzled the ‘damaging’ findings on decades of Catholic clerical abuse. But it’s not over. ‘We are coming for them,’ says a state rep who was raped by a priest at 13.

Mark Rozzi thought he was days away from justice, or at least the beginning of it.

It started when he was 13, and a priest at his school in Hyde Park, Pennsylvania, started grooming him. For months, the Rev. Edward Graff talked with Rozzi about sex, gave him alcohol, and showed him pornography. Then, one fateful day, he raped him in a rectory shower.

Rozzi didn’t report his abuse for 26 years. But he later learned that during that period, Graff was transferred multiple times between parishes, and allegedly abused children in Texas, too. In 2002, Graff was arrested on child-abuse…

PENNSYLVANIA
The Guardian

June 11, 2018

By Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Rome

State attorney general to release 884-page report detailing decades of sexual abuse and cover-ups by the church

Mark Rozzi can remember the feeling of the tall grass brushing against his bare legs on the day he and a close friend desperately ran out of the rectory in Hyde Park, Pennsylvania.

Rozzi, who was 13 at the time, had just been raped by his priest, the Rev Edward Graff, and remembers thinking in that moment, as he ran through a field, that he would take his terrible new secret to his grave.

When he got home and was peppered with questions by his mother – a Sicilian from Messina who sensed something was wrong – he lied and said Graff had dropped his towel in front of the boys. He did not tell her about the things he came…

PENNSYLVANIA
Trib Live

May 22, 2018

By Debra Erdley

A statewide grand jury report on sexual abuse within Catholic dioceses, including the ones in Greensburg and Pittsburgh, could be an opening for another effort to abolish Pennsylvania’s statute of limitations for child sexual assault.

At least that’s what state Rep. Mark Rozzi, D-Berks County, said he intends to push for when the widely-anticipated report is released.

“It’s definitely going to be a battle,” Rozzi said. “There are people who need this.”

The 47-year-old lawmaker, who accused the late Rev. Edward Graff of molesting him in his Berks County Catholic school when he was 13, believes everyone who has lived through sexual abuse deserves more time to take their case to court.

Texas authorities arrested Graff in October 2002 on charges of molesting a teenage boy. He died a month later at age 73.

Rozzi testified before the statewide grand…

IRELAND
The Irish News

Patrick Murphy
03 December, 2016

BAD news for some Protestant graffiti artists: they may soon have to replace the traditional “No Pope here” with “Pope here – but not for very long”.

Yes, the Pope is coming to Ireland. Northern nationalists are celebrating their prediction that he will come north, which suggests that they do not see the north as part of Ireland. (It’s a bit like the way they used to complain about the British army occasionally crossing the border. It implied that the army had a right to be in the north.)

So, apart from re-writing some slogans, what will a papal visit mean for Ireland, north and south? The answer is that its legacy will probably be more political than religious. …

While the Pope’s visit is part of a worthy programme of renewing family pastoral care, his visit has a…

PENNSYLVANIA
Los Angeles Times

Molly Hennessy-Fiske

Each morning when he wakes and walks to his shower, Mark Rozzi is reminded of a priest from his childhood, and the nightmare that unfolded in the rectory back in 1983.

He was a 13-year-old student and altar boy at Holy Guardian Angels Catholic Church and school in his hometown of Reading, about 65 miles north of Philadelphia, when he was raped in the shower by the Rev. Edward Graff.

Rozzi said he managed to get away and told his parents, who complained to the principal, but Graff was never prosecuted. Instead, like so many other priests accused of abuse, he was transferred to other churches, Rozzi said. Eventually, the priest was arrested in Texas and died while in custody before trial.

Rozzi later discovered that several of his friends had been abused by Graff as well; one struggled for years with mental…

PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call

Other priests with ties to the Diocese of Allentown who have been charged with crimes:

•The Rev. Thomas Bender, sentenced to seven years’ probation in 1988 for molesting a teenage Pottsville boy in the 1980s.

•Monsignor Steven T. Forish, charged with soliciting boys for sex in south Bethlehem in 1996, acquitted in 1998. Charged with asking a 26-year-old man for “sexual favors” in Greensburg, Westmoreland County in August 2006. He was killed in a car crash in Carbon County in December 2006.

•The Rev. Edward R. Graff, a priest in the diocese for 31 years, was arrested in Texas in October 2002 on charges of molesting a teenage boy. Graff died at 73 in jail in November 2002.

•The Rev. James J. Mihalak, charged with indecent assault of a 17-year-old boy he picked up hitchhiking in the Tamaqua area in 1997. He was convicted in…

PENNSYLVANIA
Reading Eagle

As state lawmakers debate a plan to make it easier for victims of childhood sexual abuse to seek justice, abuse survivors are coming forward to tell their stories.

The day is seared into Thomas Humma’s memory.

It was the moment, he said, that he finally broke free of the priest who snaked into a central role in his life only to sexually molest him.

Though Humma hasn’t told his story publicly until now, parts of it have been recounted in media reports, at press conferences, even during state legislative sessions.

His story is intertwined with that of his childhood friend Mark Rozzi, who’s since become a state lawmaker representing part of Berks County and an advocate for abuse victims.

Their alleged abuser, Edward R. Graff, died in 2002 while awaiting trial in Texas on charges he abused a 15-year-old boy there.

Humma, who grew up in…

PENNSYLVANIA
Washington Post

By Colby Itkowitz April 18

Mark Rozzi dropped out of college and was working at his family’s window and door installation company when a tragic life event inspired him to make a drastic career change. He went into politics.

He did it for one reason: justice.

Rozzi had vowed when he was 13 to never speak of what happened to him when he was a boy. He wouldn’t tell anyone that a priest at his parochial school in Berks County, Pa., had lured him with McDonald’s and beer and pornography for weeks before raping him in a rectory shower. He buried his secret, but the shame and the guilt were always there, haunting his dreams and fueling his depression.

But in March 2009, when a second childhood friend who also had been a victim of the priest’s abuse killed himself, Rozzi was inconsolable. He blamed himself…

MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson and Associates

4/15/2016

Fr. Bernard Steiner, Fr. Richard Gross and Fr. Edward Ardolf publicly identified for the first time

Doe 62 Complaint
Doe 172 Complaint
Doe 294 Complaint

(New Ulm, MN) – Three sexual abuse survivors have identified three priests from the Diocese of New Ulm as child abusers. The priests, Fr. Bernard Steiner, Fr. Richard Gross and Fr. Edward Ardolf, are being publicly named for the first time.

Fr. Bernard Steiner: Steiner was ordained in 1964 in the Diocese of New Ulm and worked in several parishes throughout Southern and West-Central Minnesota during his clerical career, including parishes and schools in Springfield, Sanborn, Dawson, Clarkfield, Lafayette, Winthrop, Appleton, Holloway, Comfrey, Madison, Granite Falls, Clara City, Raymond, Benson, Clontarf, Danvers, DeGraff, Lamberton, Green Isle, Faxon Township, Jessenland and Henderson. Steiner retired from active ministry in 2005. Doe 172 was abused at…

DEUTSCHLAND
Katholisch

[Vandals caused damage at a Catholic church in Wurtzburg. The contents of a large area of graffiti on a wall of the tomb featured bold references to the diocese’s handling of sexual abuse allegations. Police estimated the damage at 10,000 euros.]

Die Kiliansgruft in Würzburg ist Ziel einer Vandalismus-Attacke geworden. Am vergangenen Sonntag wurden in der Grabstätte Wände und eine Statue mit beleidigenden Graffiti beschmiert, teilte das Bistum am Dienstag mit. Der oder die Täter sind bislang unbekannt, die Kriminalpolizei hat die Ermittlungen aufgenommen.

Am Nachmittag oder Abend des Sonntags hätten die unbekannten Täter eine Statue des NS-Märtyrers Georg Häfner in der Gruft der Neumünsterkirche in der Würzburger Innenstadt mit Sprühfarbe beschmiert, heißt es in der Mitteilung weiter. In der Kirche befindet sich auch die Grablege der als Frankenapostel bezeichneten Diözesanheiligen Kilian, Kolonat und Totnan. Die Inhalte eines großflächigen Graffito an einer Wand der Gruft stellten laut…

PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Review

BY BRAD BUMSTED | Monday, March 7, 2016

HARRISBURG — When his wife was pregnant in 1996, Mark Rozzi said he “prayed to God we wouldn’t have a boy.”

Rozzi, 44, a Democratic state House member from Reading, had a reason for that prayer. Rozzi says he was raped by his priest at the Holy Guardian Angel Catholic Church when he was 13. The vast majority of sexual abuse by priests is perpetrated against boys, experts and national studies suggest.

Rozzi, elected in 2012, is at the forefront of an effort in the state Legislature to provide greater criminal and civil recourse to child sexual assault victims. One bill would eliminate the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse in criminal and civil cases. Rozzi is sponsoring legislation that would raise the age from 30 to 50 years for an adult victim of child sex abuse to…

AUSTRALIA
Chronicle Daily

by David Chambers on 08/12/2015

Graeme Sleeman says he wrote to Cardinal Pell, then the Melbourne archbishop, about a decade after he resigned as principal of Doveton’s Holy Family Primary School in 1986 in frustration that nothing was done about parish priest Peter Searson.

“I put my career on the line”. In testimony for the Royal Commission’s investigation, witnesses have charged that the cardinal was aware of a widespread abuse and even that he attempted to secure a victim’s silence by offering a bribe.

Then the archbishop ended the call. Mr Sleeman agreed with Cardinal Pell’s barrister Sam Duggan that the archbishop first said “I can’t do that”. Graffiti calling for Cardinal George Pell to be jailed has appeared on a building in Melbourne.

AUSTRALIA
Sky News

AAP

A Melbourne building has been spray painted with graffiti calling for Cardinal George Pell to be jailed over allegations he covered up cases of child abuse by priests.

The graffiti was found on the building in East Melbourne on Wednesday morning and police say they have not yet been contacted about it.

The graffiti appeared a day after the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard testimony that priests laughed at victims and told them they would go to hell.

CALIFORNIA
Courthouse News Service

By MIKE HEUER

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) – The Archdiocese of San Francisco cannot dismiss accusations that it failed to stop students at a boys school from sharing up-skirt photos of a teacher, a federal judge ruled.

A “triable issue exists” on claims the archdiocese contributed to the civil rights violations that caused the teacher’s emotional distress, U.S. District Judge William H. Orrick found on Friday.

Orrick did dismiss claims of Federal Employment and Housing Act violations against Junipero High School, but denied the archdiocese’s motion in all other respects.

“The archdiocese’s actions in response to each successive act of harassment fell short in many ways,” Orrick wrote. “The school (and the Archbishop’s office) did not appear to learn from, or respond to, each instance of harassing conduct or to prevent similar occurrences in the future.”

Biology teacher Kimberly Bohnert sued the archdiocese and Junipero Serra…

UNITED STATES
Los Angeles Times

By MOLLY HENNESSY-FISKE

Each morning when he wakes and walks to his shower, Mark Rozzi is reminded of a priest from his childhood, and the nightmare that unfolded in the rectory back in 1983.

He was a 13-year-old student and altar boy at Holy Guardian Angels Catholic Church and school in his hometown of Reading, about 65 miles north of Philadelphia, when he was raped in the shower by the Rev. Edward Graff.

Rozzi said he managed to get away and told his parents, who complained to the principal, but Graff was never prosecuted. Instead, like so many other priests accused of abuse, he was transferred to other churches, Rozzi said. Eventually, the priest was arrested in Texas and died while in custody before trial.

Rozzi later discovered that several of his friends had been abused by Graff as well; one struggled for years…

MINNESOTA
Hutchinson Leader

Posted: Wednesday, March 18, 2015

By TERRY DAVIS davis@hutchinsonleader.com

The Diocese of New Ulm has been named in 12 Notices of Claim alleging sexual misconduct with a minor by four priests of the diocese, including one who served St. Anastasia Catholic Church in Hutchinson for 11 years.

The Rev. Dennis Becker, the only one of the four still alive, served here from June 1987 to June 1998, before moving on to churches in Kandiyohi and Lake Lillian. He retired in July 2000. He was the only one of the four not previously identified by alleged victims of abuse, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

According to a press release issued by the diocese to area churches March 6, the allegations that put Becker on the list stem from his time at Winsted’s Church of the Holy Trinity in 1964 to 1965, soon after the 1962 ordination…

MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Diocese of New Ulm

Contact: Office of Communications Release #487
Diocese of New Ulm March 6, 2015
(507) 359-2966; FAX (507) 354-0268
dnu@dnu.org

Statement on 12 Notices of Claim

NEW ULM, Minn. – The Catholic Diocese of New Ulm, Minn., has been named in 12 Notices of Claim
alleging sexual misconduct involving a minor by four priests of the diocese:

• Fr. Dennis Becker (retired)
• Fr. David Roney (deceased)
• Fr. John Murphy (deceased)
• Fr. Michael Skoblik (deceased)

The parishes at which the alleged abuses took place have also been named in the claims. Below is a list of the parishes named in the claims, the priest named, and the time period of the alleged abuse.

• Church of the Holy Trinity, Winsted (Fr. Becker, 1964-1965)
• Church of St. Francis, Benson (Fr. Roney, 1965-1967)
…

GlobalPost

Jean MacKenzie
March 12, 2014

It’s official: Pope Francis is a rock star.

Rounding off a remarkable first year this month atop the Catholic Church, the man once called Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio has gone from a relatively obscure Argentine cleric to one of the most recognizable brands on the planet.

In addition to taking his place in the Rolling Stone magazine’s pantheon of pop-culture icons he was named Time’s Person of the Year and now features prominently in Rome’s graffiti as Super Pope, the White-Caped Crusader.

“He brings a spirit of hope,” says Sister Simone Campbell, head of Network, a US Catholic social justice lobbying group. “Hope and change.” …

But that may not be enough to calm the critics.

A recent report by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child took the Vatican to task for its slow and flawed response to the…

IOWA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dubuque – The Witness

Sexual abuse occurred
over 35 years ago

For The Witness
DUBUQUE — Following mediation, the Archdiocese of Dubuque announces that it has completed structured settlement agreements with several persons who reported that they were sexually abused as minors by priests of the archdiocese.

Twenty-six individuals retained the services of a Waterloo law firm to present their cases. All of the abuse, according to the claims, took place more than 35 years ago. Most occurred in the 1950s and 1960s.

Of the 10 priests named by the claimants, nine had been named previously and were already included on the “Table of Accused Priests” found on the Archdiocesan Web site. Priests accused of sexual abuse of minors and named in this mediation are the following: the Reverends John T. Reed (deceased 1996), Joseph Patnode (deceased 1977), Patrick McElliott (deceased 1987),…

IOWA
CBS 2

[with video]

Updated: Wednesday, August 28 2013

DUBUQUE, IA (CBS 2/FOX 28) — Leaders of the Archdiocese of Dubuque say they have reached a settlement agreement with more than two dozen people claiming sexual abuse by priests more than 35 years ago. 26 people claim they were abused by priests in the 1950’s and 1960’s in Dubuque.

Those accused of sexually abusing minors are Rev. John T. Reed (died in 1996), Joseph Patnode (died in 1977), Patrick McElliott (died in 1987), William Schwartz (removed from priesthood in 2005), Louis Wunder (died in 1990), Louis Wendling (died in 1969), Peter Graff (died in 1976), Robert Reiss (removed from priesthood in 1997 & died in 2005), Allen Schmitt (removed from ministry in 2002), and Robert Swift (died in 1980).

The Archdiocese has agreed to pay $5.2 million dollars to the law firm representing the plaintiffs. In a statement…

IOWA
KWWL

Posted: Aug 28, 2013

Written by Becca Habegger, Multimedia Journalist

DUBUQUE (KWWL) –
In a release Wednesday morning, the Archdiocese of Dubuque announced it is paying a total of $5.2 million to a group of 26 people who claim they were abused as minors by priests in the archdiocese.

The alleged abuses took place more than 35 years ago, most of which occurred in the 1950s and 60s.

Victims named a combined total of 10 priests.

The Archdiocese of Dubuque keeps a list on its website of priests publicly accused of abuse. Nine of the 10 priests accused of abuse in this particular settlement were already on that list, which can be found here.

According to the archdiocese, “priests accused of sexual abuse of minors and named in this mediation are the following: the Reverends John T. Reed (deceased 1996), Joseph Patnode (deceased 1977), Patrick McElliott…

IOWA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: August 28, 2013

Statement by Steve Theisen of Hudson IA, Iowa director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 319 2311663, Ltreggiefan@cs.com )

Twenty six clergy sex abuse victims have settled child sex abuse and cover up cases against the Dubuque Catholic archdiocese.

I applaud each of these brave survivors. Like all who have suffered clergy sex crimes and cover ups, they endure and continue to endure the life-long consequences from trusting someone in a collar or a habit.

Like a small minority of those who have suffered clergy sex crimes and cover ups, they have found the strength to come forward, expose predators and seek justice. All Iowa citizens and Catholics owe them a debt of gratitude.

At least 83 clergy sex abuse victims, represented by one law firm, have settled cases against…

IOWA
Telegraph Herald

Posted: Wednesday, August 28, 2013
BY MARY NEVANS-PEDERSON TH STAFF WRITER MNPEDERSON@WCINET.COM

Another 26 claims of clergy sexual abuse against priests with the Archdiocese of Dubuque have been settled for cases from the late 1940s through the 1970s.

The Archdiocese paid a total of $5.2 million to the abuse survivors: 22 men and four women, according to attorney Chad A. Swanson of the Waterloo, Iowa, firm Dutton, Braun, Staack & Hellman. The firm has resolved 83 clergy sexual abuse claims against the archdiocese since 2006.

The priests named in the latest group of claims are John Reed, Joseph Patnode, Patrick McElliot, Robert Swift, William Schwartz, Robert Reiss, Allen Schmitt, Louis Wunder, Louis Wendlin and Peter Graff. All the priests are dead except for Schwartz, who was dismissed from the priesthood by Pope Benedict in 2005, and Schmitt. Schmitt has had his priestly duties curtailed, but…

NEW YORK
New York Law Journal

Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, &c., Appellants v. National Union Fire Insurance Company of Pittsburgh, PA., &c., Respondent, et al., Defendant, No. 69

New York State Court of Appeals
Civil Practice / Contracts / Insurance Law / Torts
New York Law Journal May 8, 2013

Opinion by Judge Rivera. Judges Read and Pigott concur. Judge Smith concurs in result in an opinion. Judge Graffeo concurs in part and dissents in part in an opinion. Chief Judge Lippman took no part.

Decided May 7, 2013

David B. Hamm, for appellants.
Barbara I. Michaelides, for respondent.

*1
JENNY RIVERA, J.:

‌This insurance coverage dispute involves the apportionment of liability for a settlement between the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn (the Diocese), and a minor plaintiff in an underlying civil action charging sexual molestation by a priest. We agree with the Appellate…

ARGENTINA
Albany Times Union

By MICHAEL WARREN, Associated Press

Updated 11:58 am, Tuesday, March 19, 2013

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Before he became Pope Francis, Argentina’s Catholic leader took the first steps toward granting sainthood status to priests and other Catholics who were murdered in July 1976 as Argentina’s dictatorship was killing thousands of so-called “subversives.”

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, confirmed Tuesday that it was Jorge Bergoglio who approved the beatification cause of Carlos de Dios Murias, a Franciscan priest killed in Argentina’s La Rioja province, where his mission had challenged the interests of powerful local leaders.

A fellow Franciscan priest, a Frenchman named Gabriel Longueville, was found alongside Murias. Both had their eyes gouged out and hands cut off, allegedly after being kidnapped by a military death squad. A Catholic lay worker who collaborated with them, Wenceslao Pedernera, was found beaten to death days…

UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

I highly recommend T.F. Charlton’s essay right now at Religion Dispatches, re: the culture of abuse being exposed by lawsuits filed against Sovereign Grace Ministries (SGM). Chariton grew up in an SGM church. He describes the group as “a U.S.-based church-planting network (they say ‘family’) of predominantly white, suburban, reformed evangelical congregations.” This church-planting network sprang from Covenant Life Church (CLC) of Gaithersburg, Maryland, which is named in the lawsuits filed against SGM.

As Charlton notes, Lou Engle, the influential dominionist pastor who founded The Call and who has been in the thick of the movement to export American-style homophobia to Africa, got his start with CLC. Chariton also maintains that it’s no accident that SGM and CLC have ended up facing lawsuits alleging that this movement has fostered a serious culture of abuse of women and children: as he maintains, that…

BALTIMORE (MD)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on May 16, 2012

Today, a new bishop has been officially installed as the Archbishop of Baltimore. Bishop William Lori previously worked as the Bishop of Bridgeport, CT, having led the diocese there since 2001. During Lori’s tenure, he has made several questionable and objectionable decisions.

One particular case was the handling of Fr. Jean Marie DeGraff. Last December, a Connecticut newspaper disclosed that Fr. DeGraff was arrested in October for allegedly molesting at least one child in Canada in 2010 and 2011. From 2007 to 2008, DeGraff worked at St. Mary Parish on Greenwich Avenue and other churches in western Connecticut, and during that time he had been the subject of allegations of abuse. Rather than remove Fr. DeGraff, Bishop Lori instead sent him to Canada where he was able to abuse another child.

Earlier,…

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Graffiti

April 18, 2012

Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Philadelphia prosecutors say they’re having trouble getting a West Virginia priest to come testify in a clergy-abuse case.

Monsignor Kevin Quirk is an aide to Bishop Michael Bransfield of the Wheeling-Charleston diocese.

Quirk was a judge at the church’s in-house trial of the Rev. James Brennan who faces sexual-assault charges in criminal court.

Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington wants Quirk to testify to the accuracy of statements Brennan allegedly made during the canonical trial. Blessington said Tuesday that Quirk had agreed to testify in Philadelphia, but said he had to notify Bransfield.

NEW JERSEY
The Record

BY JUSTO BAUTISTA
STAFF WRITER
The Record

PALISADES PARK — Parishioners at a church on East Brinkerhoff Avenue were up in arms on Sunday after someone beheaded the statute of their beloved patron saint.

“This is horrible,” said an outraged parishioner.

“There’s no head. Is nothing sacred anymore?” said the parishioner referring to the incident at his church and the recent spate of vandalism in Bergen County, where synagogues in Hackensack and Maywood were defaced by anti-Semitic graffiti and a synagogue in Rutherford was firebombed, an incident that resulted in the arrests of two Lodi men, one of whom was charged with nine counts of attempted murder. …

And in November, an unemployed cook in Morris County was charged with desecration of a venerated object and criminal mischief for allegedly smashing a memorial to victims of clergy sex abuse. Police said a sledgehammer…

CONNECTICUT
CT Post

David Hennessey, Staff Writer

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

About five years ago, a visiting priest from Haiti was looking for a parish in the Diocese of Bridgeport to call home for a time.

His travels brought him to St. Mary’s Parish on Greenwich Avenue, whose pastor offered the priest, Jean Marie DeGraff, room and board while DeGraff was working in the diocese and advocating for his impoverished home country of Haiti. In return, DeGraff performed duties around the parish as needed, including assisting with Mass and speaking with parishioners, a role he filled between 2007 and 2008.

DeGraff, who became a priest in the Society of St. Jacques in Haiti in 2004, traveled throughout the diocese, which encompasses Fairfield County, with the permission of Bishop William Lori, speaking at parishes about his home country.