ABUSE TRACKER

AUSTRALIA
Bay93.9

April 28, 2020

By Rebecca McDonald

A pedophile priest has admitted to sexually abusing more boys.

Gerald Ridsdale has pleaded guilty to more than dozen charges including indecent assault, against four victims on the Surf Coast and in the state’s west.

The abuse occurred during the 1970s.

The court heard two brothers were abused when the former priest took them rabbit shooting.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

April 27, 2020

By Adam Cooper

Gerald Ridsdale – arguably Australia’s most prolific paedophile priest – has admitted abusing more children who were in his care, but his lawyer has argued his jail term should not be increased.

Ten counts of indecent assault and four of buggery against four boys in the 1970s took to 69 the number of Ridsdale’s known victims, the County Court heard on Monday, though it is not known exactly how many lives he damaged over 27 years of offending while a parish priest across western Victoria.

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GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

April 27, 2020

By Haidee Eugenio Gilbert

Judge balks at $75K monthly fee in church bankruptcy case

A federal judge held off deciding on clergy sex abuse claimants’ proposal to hire a financial adviser for up to $75,000 a month, saying the fees are “exorbitant” and the bankrupt Archdiocese of Agana “is not Lehman Brothers,” a global financial services firm.

Chief Judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood of the District Court of Guam said more money spent on professional fees means less money for each clergy sex abuse survivor.

“And if the debtor becomes insolvent, it not only negatively affects the debtor and all the creditors, but it will also have a massive impact on the entire Catholic community that the debtor serves,” the judge wrote in her April 24 order.

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
Nola.com

April 24, 2020

By Ramon Antonio Vargas and Amie Just

Attorneys for an alleged clergy sex abuse victim asked a New Orleans judge Friday to reject a court official’s recommendation that hundreds of emails between the New Orleans Saints and the Archdiocese of New Orleans should remain hidden from public view.

The plaintiff’s legal team argued that the recommendation from retired Judge Carolyn Gill-Jefferson erred on several counts, including her suggestion to also seal all materials uncovered in the future by the discovery process of the lawsuit in question.

“No defendant or third party had sought such sweeping relief,” a plaintiff filing said Friday.

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HAWAII
KITV4-TV

April 27, 2020

By Paul Drewes

Hawaii courts have filled with last minute filings for sexual abuse cases.

Fall out from a slew of recently filed sexual abuse lawsuits has a trustee from Punahou Schools stepping down.

According to the school, Monica McLaren voluntarily stepped down from the Board, after her husband Christopher McLaren was named in one of several civil cases against Punahou.

Hawaii courts have filled with last minute filings for sexual abuse cases.

“There was sexual contact within months of first meeting me outside of Kekuhaupi’o gym,” said former Kamehameha Schools student Daniel Kaohimaunu. His revelation of abuse at Kamehameha Schools also comes with a lawsuit.

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UNITED KINGDOM
InternationalFreeThought.org (blog)

April 27, 2020

By Keith Porteous Wood

In March, a most egregious infraction of secularism in France passed almost unnoticed. Former priest Bernard Preynat was not imprisoned despite having been found guilty of the sexual violence against minors on a huge scale over decades.

He had been sentenced to five years in prison but was released pending appeal.

Preynat had friends in high places. He enjoyed the protection, in knowledge of his crimes, of the most senior Catholics in France. No less than five successive Cardinal Archbishops of Lyon – Renard, Decourtray, Balland, Billé and Barbarin.

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ACADIANA (LA)
KATC-TV

April 27, 2020

By Chris Welty

The release of a priest convicted of molesting a teenage boy is raising questions for the judicial system and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Michael Guidry is out on bail tonight.

One-year-ago this week, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison, with three years suspended, after pleading guilty to molestation of a juvenile.

According to court records, Guidry’s defense counsel, Jane Hogan, requested an emergency appeal hearing due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Guidry’s attorney appeared before the court through video conference and waived her defendant’s appearance. Guidry’s defense then submitted an emergency motion for bail, which the court granted and set at $10,000 over objections from state prosecutors.

Survivors of clergy sex abuse want accountability.

“This perp is a dangerous perpetrator and what does that say to the individual he sexually abused? I don’t care how long ago it was,” said Kevin Bourgeois.

He’s a survivor of clergy sex abuse and a volunteer leader of the Survivor Network of those Abused by Priests in New Orleans. Bourgeois is disturbed that convicted priest Michael Guidry is out on house arrest.

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SPRINGFIELD (MO)
KY3-TV

April 27, 2020

The Springfield-Cape-Girardeau Diocese reports a review board determined inappropriate physical/sexual misconduct involving a priest.

Father Gary Carr became an ordained priest in 1982. He then served at several churches and schools in the diocese, including in Springfield, Monett and West Plains (See entire list below).

The allegations involve a male student between the ages of 10-13. The report has been forwarded to the Stoddard County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office in southeast Missouri. This is only a report from the diocese. Police have not arrested Father Carr.

The Diocesan Safe Environment Review Board has determined that an allegation of inappropriate physical/sexual misconduct involving Fr. Gary Carr meets the criteria for publication as it satisfies the prevailing standard of Semblance of Truth.

The allegation involves a male, now an adult, who recently reported that nearly 30 years ago, when he was then between the age of 10-13 years old, Fr. Carr made inappropriate physical/sexual contact with him. This report has been forwarded to the Stoddard County Prosecuting Attorney, the jurisdiction where the incident is alleged to have occurred.

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DALLAS (TX)
Associated Press

April 27, 2020

Dallas Roman Catholic diocese has removed a priest from the ministry after sexual abuse allegations arose in the Colombian archdiocese where he formerly served.

Oscar Mora was among 19 priests suspended last month by the Catholic Archdiocese of Villavicencio after the allegation arose earlier this year, The Dallas Morning News reported Monday.

The archdiocese alerted Bishop Edward Burns in Dallas that one of the priests in the Dallas diocese was among the 19 suspended.

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MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
AAP via 7News

April 27, 2020

By Benita Kolovos

Unpublished findings about Cardinal George Pell’s handling of child sexual abuse complaints have been cleared for release by the Victorian government.

Attorney-General Jill Hennessy has advised her federal counterpart Christian Porter that blacked-out sections of two reports from the institutional child abuse royal commission can be released, after the High Court overturned the cardinal’s convictions for child sexual abuse earlier this month.

“The government is not aware of any impediments to the un-redacted versions of these reports being tabled and published at this time,” the government said in a statement on Monday.

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AUSTRALIA
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

April 26, 2020

By Karen Percy

Key points

– The Catholic Church had long denied Stephanie Piper was abused by Father Gerard Mulvale in the 1970s

– The Archbishop of Melbourne apologised to Mrs Piper after a review by the former chief justice of the Victorian Supreme Court

– The 95-year-old mother’s lawyers said the apology is too little and too late

It’s taken 26 years, reams of legal documents and many tears, but Eileen Piper has done what she set out to do — cleared the name of her daughter, Stephanie, who was abused by a Catholic priest in the 1970s.

In December, Mrs Piper, 95, received a written apology from Melbourne’s Archbishop, Peter Comensoli, and the Pallotine order of priests which, for years, had denied the crimes of Father Gerard Mulvale.

“I am relieved — but I’m still hurt,” she told the ABC.

[PHOTO: Stephanie Piper a week before she died, in 1994.]

In the 1970s, Mrs Piper was an active parishioner at St Christopher’s in the Melbourne suburb of Syndal, now part of Glen Waverley.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

April 27, 2020

By John Ferguson

Someone had to pay for the many abuses of the Catholic Church … and there was Cardinal George Pell.

George Pell and his supporters won’t have been surprised that news of another police investigation into the cardinal broke just days after his High Court acquittal of child sex abuse.

For months, rumours about another possible complainant had been swirling among Catholic circles, and through the streets of Ballarat and the broader survivor community.

But, as is the case with so much that revolves around the 78-year-old, who knows what to believe and how much, if any, weight to give the latest claim?

Given the emphatic High Court ruling on the St Patrick’s Cathedral abuse convictions and the failure of any of the original charges to go the full distance, the report on a fresh complainant was greeted by Camp Pell with a depressing sense of weariness rather than profound alarm.

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AUSTRALIA
The Secret Barrister (blog)

April 23, 2020

I am pleased to host this guest post by Edward Henry QC, of QEB Hollis Whiteman, reflecting on the case of Pell v The Queen [2020] HCA 12, and what the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) in England and Wales can learn from the High Court of Australia.

————————–

On 7th April Cardinal Pell was cleared by the High Court of Australia of wrongful allegations of historic sexual assault on a chorister. In its judgment, the HCA found that for all five charges, there were many improbabilities that had not been fully considered by the jury, amounting to “a significant possibility,” the judges wrote, “that an innocent person has been convicted.” Edward Henry QC considers that cases involving historic allegations of sexual abuse can present a real danger of injustice, which the CACD too often seems to ignore. The approach of the HCA is one the CACD should adopt in making an assessment of whether a conviction is ‘unsafe.’

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VIRGINIA
Patheos (blog)

April 25, 2020

By Barry Duke

A Virginia priest who established a blog in which he posted entries critical of the Church’s handling of the clergy sex scandal has being removed as pastor of both Saint Francis of Assisi Church in Rocky Mount and Saint Joseph’s in Martinsville and reassigned as a prison chaplain, necessitating a move two hours away.

But a defiant Fr Mark White, above, of the Diocese of Richmond, says he’s not going anywhere until established Church law has run its course. What’s more, he relaunched the blog which he agreed to shut down in November 2019 when ordered to do so by Richmond Bishop Barry Knestout.

When the COVID pandemic brought an end to public Masses and sacramental life in general last month, White sought permission from Knestout to resurrect his blog as a means of staying in touch with parishioners who were now isolated from the sacraments and from each other.

He received no response from the bishop so he went ahead and put it back on line.

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MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
The Guardian

April 27, 2020

By Melissa Davey and Australian Associated Press

Victorian attorney general advises her federal counterpart that blacked-out sections of two reports can be released

Unpublished findings about Cardinal George Pell’s handling of child sexual abuse complaints have been cleared for release by the Victorian government.

Attorney general Jill Hennessy has advised her federal counterpart, Christian Porter, that blacked-out sections of two reports from the institutional child abuse royal commission can be released, after the high court overturned the cardinal’s convictions for child sexual abuse earlier this month.

“The government is not aware of any impediments to the un-redacted versions of these reports being tabled and published at this time,” the government said in a statement on Monday.

However she added, “The removal of redactions is entirely a matter for the royal commission into institutional responses into child sexual abuse”.

The decision to release the findings rests with Porter given the royal commission completed its work and released its final report in December 2o17.

The royal commission’s final report contains dozens of redacted pages about the Catholic church and Pell’s handling of child abuse allegations in the Melbourne archdiocese and Ballarat diocese. This was because of the legal action against Pell underway at the time, with the report published just months after Pell was charged with child sexual offences. The findings remained redacted throughout his criminal trials and subsequent appeals because of fears they could prejudice a jury. Since Pell won his appeal before the high court in April there has been pressure on the government to make the commission’s findings regarding Pell public.

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MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

April 27, 2020

Victoria’s Attorney General, Jill Hennessy, has said there are no legal impediments to prevent the release of unredacted portions of the findings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The unanimous High Court decision acquitting George Pell earlier this month cleared the way for the release of some unpublished findings of the Royal Commission relating to his evidence about the way in which allegations of abuse were handled in the Catholic diocese of Ballarat.

Cardinal Pell was questioned about what he may have known about paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale and the offending of other priests.

He was also scrutinised about the Catholic Church’s hardline approach to sexual abuse cases during his time as archbishop of Sydney.

Now that Cardinal Pell has been acquitted, the Federal Attorney-General, Christian Porter can table the Royal Commission’s unredacted reports in Parliament.

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PEQUEA (PA)
Associated Press

April 23, 2020

An Amish bishop failed to notify law enforcement that a church member allegedly confessed to sexually assaulting three girls, authorities said..

Levi Esh Sr., 63, was arraigned Wednesday on felony and misdemeanor charges and his bail was set at $25,000. It wasn’t known Thursday if he has retained an attorney.

Esh failed to report the church member’s confession about sexual assaults that occurred around 2012 and 2013, according to Pequea Township police. They cited witnesses within the Amish community who said that while Esh’s church excommunicated the member, Esh only had the matter “handled internally” in order to keep it quiet.

Esh is bishop of two congregations in Lancaster County.

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MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
National Catholic Reporter

April 27, 2020

by Gail Grossman Freyne

George Pell is a cardinal in the Catholic Church. And that is where the problem lies. It lies as well in the institution. The two are inextricably intertwined so that the fate of one informs the other.

Some, like Pope Francis, say, “I would like to pray today for all those persons who suffer an unjust sentence because someone had it in for them.” The Vatican News reported that the pope made this statement at his morning Mass in Santa Marta, shortly after the news broke that the High Court of Australia had quashed the convictions against Pell.

The Vatican is understandably relieved that the final appeal of their erstwhile No. 3 in command has been successful. But the church cannot reasonably take comfort from the high court’s decision because, if the cardinal’s appeal had failed, they would not have taken the blame for his actions. They never do. When one priest is caught, he is simply a random “bad apple”— nothing wrong with the rest of the barrel, we’re told.

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HONOLULU (HI)
Honolulu Civil Beat

April 24, 2020

By Yoohyun Jung

At least 16 plaintiffs are named in six lawsuits. Other schools also have been sued in the weeks leading up to a deadline Friday.

Kamehameha Schools, endowed by the state’s largest private landowner to educate children of Hawaiian descent, faces a new wave of sex abuse claims from former students coming forward just before the statutory deadline to file such lawsuits.

At least six lawsuits involving 16 plaintiffs filed in recent weeks include new claims against Dr. Robert Browne, the disgraced psychiatrist whose abuse of students already led the school to pay $80 million in a settlement, as well as newly accused teachers, an administrator and dorm advisors from the 1970s and ‘80s.

The teachers and staff are accused of abusing their positions of power to sexually molest and assault students, in some cases giving them alcohol or illicit drugs to facilitate their abuse. The plaintiffs say the school turned a blind eye.

In 2012, the Legislature approved a statute allowing victims to file civil claims against their abusers long after the statute of limitations had passed. The time limit had been extended every two years until this year, when another extension was going to be considered. Then the COVID-19 pandemic put the Legislature into an abrupt recess.

Now, with the window closing Friday and no extension in the works, attorneys have been flocking to the courts to file new claims against Kamehameha Schools and other institutions, including the Roman Catholic Church and a few other schools.

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BUFFALO (NY)
WIVB 4

April 24, 2020

By Chris Horvatits

In mid-March, the coronavirus crisis forced the Diocese of Buffalo to hold masses without congregations present. The Most. Rev. Edward Schafenberger, Albany’s bishop who is temporarily in charge of Buffalo’s diocese, says some parishes may never hold a public mass again.

“It would depend upon the parish’s own unique circumstances,” Scharfenberger said Friday. “It’s not too dramatic to assume that some just may not be able to re-open again. There may need to be some sort of mergers.”

Many parish’s across the diocese have been holding mass via Facebook or Youtube over the past month. That means parishioners are unable to place money in the collection bins during mass. Scharfenberger was unable to provide specific information on parish finances across the diocese. But he provided estimates.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service via Angelus

April 24, 2020

By Dennis Sadowski

The federal small-business loan program created in response to the coronavirus pandemic has allowed the Diocese of Nashville, Tennessee, to keep all of its part-time employees on board.

For that, school superintendent Rebecca Hammel is grateful.

She told Catholic News Service that 10 schools received loans under the Small Business Administration-administered Paycheck Protection Program.

Loan amounts ranged from $89,900 to $1.95 million and allows the school to continue paying part-time workers even though they are not reporting to work, Hammel said. The remaining six diocesan schools are in line to receive loans once new legislation replenishing the program takes effect, she added.

“It’s just been a blessing to our schools,” Hammel said of the program.

The House of Representatives April 23 passed legislation already approved by the Senate that would allocate an additional $310 billion into the Paycheck Protection Program. President Donald Trump has said he would sign the legislation.

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NEW YORK (NY)
First Things

April 23, 2020

By Mark Bauerlein and George Weigel

The latest installment in an ongoing interview series with contributing editor Mark Bauerlein. On this episode, George Weigel and Mark discuss Cardinal George Pell’s acquittal.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Catholic News Service via National Catholic Reporter

April 24, 2020

By Cindy Wooden

Vatican City – For some priests and seminarians, “women represent danger, but in reality, the true danger are those men who do not have a balanced relationship with women,” said Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops.

The cardinal was interviewed about the role of women in seminaries and seminary formation for the May issue of the women’s supplement to the Vatican newspaper; the interview was published April 24 by Vatican News.

Asked if a lack of women involved in priestly formation programs is to blame for the discomfort women and priests can experience in each other’s company, the cardinal said, “the problem is probably deeper” than that and begins with how women are treated in one’s family.

“There is awkwardness because there is fear — more on the part of the man toward the woman than the woman toward the man,” he said.

“We must radically change” how priests interact with women, the cardinal said, which is why “during formation it is important that there is contact, discussion, exchanges” with women.

Having women on seminary formation teams as professors and counselors, he said, also “would help a candidate interact with women in a natural way, including in facing the challenge represented by the presence of women, attraction to a woman.”

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HONOLULU (HI)
Associated Press

April 26, 2020

By Jennifer Sinco Kelleher

Eight men were sexually abused when they were Boy Scouts in Hawaii in the 1960s and 1970s, they alleged in a lawsuit filed Friday as the state’s window closed on allowing child sex abuse claims that would have been barred under a statute of limitations.

Various states and Washington, D.C., extended or suspended statute of limitations to allow child sex abuse claims stretching back decades. In Hawaii, a window for filing old claims was first opened in 2012. It was reopened in 2018 and closed Friday.

The lawsuit by the eight men now living in Hawaii, California, Oregon and Washington state also comes while attorneys urge potential victims to come forward as Boy Scouts of America works on its bankruptcy plan.

The Boy Scouts filed for bankruptcy protection in February in an effort to halt hundreds of individual lawsuits and create a huge compensation fund for men who were molested as youngsters decades ago by scoutmasters or other leaders.

The Scouts resorted to Chapter 11 in hopes of surviving a barrage of lawsuits, many of them made possible by changes in state laws to allow people to sue over long-ago sexual abuse.

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SOUTH PORTLAND (ME)
Press Herald

April 23, 2020

By Matt Byrne

The justices affirm 10 of the 11 convictions against Ronald Paquin, 77, a former Catholic priest from Massachusetts, leaving his 16-year prison sentence unchanged.

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court on Thursday upheld all but one of the 11 convictions of a former priest who is serving 16 years in prison for sexually assaulting a boy during multiple vacations to Maine in the 1980s.

Ronald Paquin, now 77, was found guilty in 2018 of 11 counts of gross sexual misconduct. A York County jury acquitted him of similar charges related to a second boy. A judge sentenced him last year to 20 years in prison with all but 16 years suspended.

Paquin was one of the priests exposed in the early 2000s by a sweeping Boston Globe investigation into clergy sex abuse. He pleaded guilty in 2002 in Massachusetts to repeatedly raping an altar boy between 1989 and 1992, beginning when the victim was 12.

He spent more than decade in prison and was defrocked in 2004. Once he was released, he was indicted on criminal charges in Maine related to conduct that occurred between 1985 and 1988 in Kennebunkport. Paquin was arrested in 2017.

Paquin’s attorneys focused on two main issues in their appeal: That Paquin’s defense attorneys did not have access to the victim’s criminal history information at trial, and argued that the trial judge was wrong not to compel the state to turn over that information. Another issue dealt with whether two of the 11 counts Paquin faced violated the constitutional protection against double jeopardy.

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PORTLAND (ME)
Associated Press

April 24, 2020

Maine’s highest court has upheld convictions on 10 of 11 counts for a defrocked priest who was sentenced to prison for sexually abusing an altar boy during trips to the state in the 1980s.

Ronald Paquin, 77, had already served more than 10 years in prison in Massachusetts. Last year, he was ordered to serve another 16 years in prison in Maine.

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled Thursday that two counts violated Paquin’s constitutional double jeopardy protection against being punished twice for the same crime, and it vacated one of the counts.

But the court dismissed other arguments, including the defense contention that the victim’s criminal record should have been presented, along with questions about expert testimony about victims of sexual crimes.

Paquin’s case in Massachusetts was a critical piece of a sexual abuse scandal that consumed the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, and he was portrayed in the Oscar-winning movie “Spotlight,” about The Boston Globe’s investigation.

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NORTH ANDOVER (MA)
Eagle Tribune

April 24, 2020

By Mike LaBella

Haverhill – Maine’s highest court has upheld convictions on 10 of 11 counts for a defrocked priest who was sentenced to prison for sexually abusing an altar boy during trips to the state in the 1980s.

Ronald Paquin, 77, had already served more than 10 years in prison in Massachusetts. Last year, he was ordered to serve another 16 years in prison in Maine after his conviction in late November 2018 on 11 of 24 counts of gross sexual misconduct.

Paquin served at St. John the Baptist Church in Haverhill from 1981 to 1990, and St. Monica Church in Methuen from 1974 to 1980.

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled Thursday that two counts violated Paquin’s constitutional double jeopardy protection against being punished twice for the same crime, and it vacated one of the counts.

But the court dismissed other arguments, including the defense contention that the victim’s criminal record should have been presented, along with questions about expert testimony about victims of sexual crimes.

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HONOLULU (HI)
Hawaii News Now KHNL / KGMB

April 24, 2020

By Rick Daysog

At least 100 come forward with new sex abuse allegations as filing deadline ends

At least 100 former students, medical patients and church members have come forward with new allegations that they were sexually abused years ago.

Many are victims of known sex offenders — pedophile priests, doctors and teachers.

But at least five ex-Punahou girls basketball players — including MMA champ Ilima-Lei MacFarlane and former University of Hawaii women’s basketball standout Shawna-Lei Kuehu — are raising new sex abuse allegations against their former coach Dwayne Yuen.

Attorneys said the lawsuits are just the tip of the iceberg.

“I know (that) for a fact, because I’ve talked to people who are still out there and are still undecided about coming forward,” said attorney Randall Rosenberg.

A large number of the suits are against the Catholic Church, which is paying out millions to settle prior cases.

“Some of the conduct is so reprehensible that you wouldn’t believe someone of the clergy would do it. But unfortunately, we’ve seen it over and over again,” said attorney Mark Gallagher who represents dozens of victims.

Bishop Larry Silva acknowledged the lawsuits at a recent Sunday mass.cannot tell you how it turns my stomach to read of the abuse these people have suffered, and not only that, but how their faith was damaged,” said Silva.

Lawyers said that many of these new cases will go to mediation and not to a courtroom because the accused priest, teacher or doctor is a known offender.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

April 23, 2020

The release of the study of the Ordination Class of 2020 reveals a great sign of life and hope in the Church in the United States, despite the midst of uncertainty in the world brought by the Coronavirus pandemic. At a moment when the faithful are prone to despair and struggle with the sadness of not having the sacraments available, and the public celebration of the Mass suspended, this profile of the 2020 Ordination Class is a ray of light. It is a tangible sign of God’s continued care for His Church. As a part of its mandate, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations sponsors an annual survey, in conjunction with the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), of the members of the current year’s Ordination Class. Each of the men to be ordained in the coming months shows the loving work of God to sustain His Church through the calling of new priests to minister His saving Sacraments and preach the Good News. The survey shows a wide variety of men from varied backgrounds who have all responded to God’s call to serve His people. Below is a summary of the results of the findings of the CARA study.

This year, 77% of the 448 identified members of the Ordination Class of 2020 responded to the survey. Of those responding, 82% will be ordained to the diocesan priesthood and 18% will be ordained to the priesthood for an institute of religious life or society of apostolic life. Some of the major findings of the report are:

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DENVER (CO)
Catholic News Agency via Angelus

April 24, 2020

A survey of the 2020 priestly ordination class was published by the U.S. Catholic bishops’ conference (USCCB) on Thursday, a slightly smaller class than in 2019.

Sponsored by the bishops’ Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations, the survey is conducted annually of U.S. seminarians who are about to be ordained to the priesthood. The USCCB collaborates with the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) to produce the survey.

Ordination class sizes have varied over time, according to previous CARA reports. In 2006, there were 359 potential ordinands identified by the survey (though not all responded), a number that rose to 475 in 2007 before dipping to 401 for the class of 2008—many of whom would have entered seminary in 2002, the year that clergy sex abuse scandals in the U.S. were widely reported.

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PERTH (WA, AUSTRALIA)
6PR 882 Radio

April 22, 2020

By Gareth Parker

A McGowan Government minister and former student of CBC Fremantle has publicly criticised the Christian Brothers for a lack of care towards the victims of child sexual abuse.

Dave Kelly, the MLA for Bassendean, attended CBC Fremantle in the 1970s from grade 4 to grade 12.

Today on Mornings with Gareth Parker he has revealed his disgust with the Christian Brothers for failing to reckon with their shameful past in dealing with the legacy of child sexual abuse.

Mr Kelly said the public revelation in 2013 that one of his former teachers, Brother Daniel McMahon, had abused children was the trigger for him to write to the management of CBC Fremantle to ask what the school would do about notifying former students and inviting them to come forward.

“The Principal wrote me a very brief reply, it said my letter had been referred to the Catholic Church’s Office of Professional Standards. The letter than referenced the Royal Commission which was then underway then assured me it would be taken seriously and that was the end of the letter,” he said.

“It (the letter) was absolutely silent on (the issue of notifying former students) but it led you to believe that they’d referred it to the appropriate authority within the Catholic Church and something would be done about it. I then heard absolutely nothing from the school on that issue.”

Underwhelmed with the school’s response, he pursued the matter with the leadership of the Christian Brothers in Australia.

At a meeting at Parliament House in 2015 with Br Peter Clinch, the head of the Christian Brothers, and another member of the order’s council Br John Webb, Mr Kelly claims it was acknowledged that the Christian Brothers knew Brother McMahon had abused children.

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BARROW-IN-FURNESS (ENGLAND)
The Mail

April 21, 2020

By Joe Fletcher

https://www.nwemail.co.uk/news/18392807.barrow-reverend-nick-donnelly-proved-right-senior-catholics-child-sexual-abuse-conviction-overturned/

A Furness cleric said he had been ‘proved right’ after senior Australian Catholic Cardinal George Pell had his conviction for sexually abusing two boys overturned by the High Court.

Rev Nick Donnelly, deacon of the Our Lady of Furness parish, which incorporates St Mary’s Church on Duke Street, Barrow, received hate mail and even a death threat over the issue.

“Twitter can be a hateful place,” said Rev Donnelly. “It was somebody posting in Ballarat (Victoria, Australia), who basically said if I showed my face in Ballarat I’d get my noggin smashed in.”

However, Rev Donnelly, who lives in Barrow, believes his support has been vindicated by the release of Cardinal Pell after more than 400 days in prison, with a bench of seven judges unanimously ruling in the cleric’s favour.

The cardinal’s original appeal, it was determined, had ‘failed to engage with the question of whether there remained a reasonable possibility that the offending had not taken place.’

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PINELLAS PARK (FL)
Legal Examiner – Saunders and Walker Law Firm

April 23, 2020

By Joseph H. Saunders

Fr. Mark White, a Catholic priest of the Diocese of Richmond in Virginia is emerging as a man of courage and integrity within the ranks of the clergy. He has been willing to do what few clergy have been-that is speak truth to power.

In October 2008, he started a blog under his own name in an attempt to reach those who don’t go to church. However, the blog evolved and has delved into heretofore unchartered waters-a Catholic priest criticizing the bishops for mishandling the priest abuse crisis.

White closed his blog in November 2019, after his bishop ordered him to do so. But after the COVID-19 pandemic led to the cancellation of Masses with the faithful, he decided to resume blogging, as a way to stay in communication with his parishioners. Bishop Barry C. Knestout, the head of the Diocese of Richmond and White’s immediate superior, didn’t care for the criticism and ordered the priest to stop writing negative pieces about the church.

But after the COVID-19 pandemic led to the cancellation of Masses with the faithful, he decided to resume blogging, as a way to stay in communication with his parishioners.

His decision to challenge his bishop’s order, however, meant that on Monday he lost his job as pastor of two parishes in Martinsville and Rocky Mount: Bishop Barry C. Knestout sent a letter to White’s parishioners communicating the decision, and then the priest received an email himself.

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EAST TAWAS (MI)
Ven Johnson Law via Iosco County News-Herald

April 23, 2020

Detroit – Earlier this week, the Michigan Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal in a negligence lawsuit against the Catholic Diocese of Grand Rapids (Catholic Diocese). The lawsuit accuses the Catholic Diocese of negligence in the sexual abuse of a then 15-year-old male student, Brandon Bowman, who was repeatedly sexually assaulted by his then 34-year-old female teacher, Abigail Simon.

Over three months in 2013, Simon sexually assaulted Bowman on multiple occasions. Simon was assigned by her employer, Grand Rapids Catholic Central High School/Catholic Diocese of Grand Rapids, to tutor Bowman in order for him to remain eligible to play high school sports. Later that year, Simon was arrested for criminal sexual conduct (CSC), stood trial in 2014, and was convicted of CSC and sentenced to eight to 25 years in prison, a sentence she is currently serving.

In 2015, Bowman filed a civil suit against the Catholic Diocese and claimed it responsible for the assaults due to the negligent hiring of Simon and in the lack of appropriate supervising of her.

Discovery in the civil lawsuit uncovered that multiple teachers and administrators expressed concerns about Simon’s behavior with young men who she was tutoring. One teacher reported the following statements to the school principal.

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SYDNEY (NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA)
Sydney Morning Herald

April 23, 2020

By Georgina Mitchell

A former Scout leader has been jailed for a maximum of 31 years and 6 months after he preyed upon young boys for more than two decades, sexually abusing nine children including a seven-year-old boy.

Mario Henry Aliverti, 61, assaulted six boys while he occupied leadership roles at a Scout group in south-west Sydney between 1985 and 1989. One boy was abused again by Aliverti in 1991.

Those boys, who were aged between 11 and 15, were subjected to a range of persistent assaults including being masturbated against their will, being touched indecently, and having Aliverti penetrate them, causing significant pain.

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ANN ARBOR (MI)
Associated Press via Jacksonville Journal-Courier

April 24, 2020

By Larry Lage

A legal team that says it represents more than 100 people who allege they were abused by a deceased University of Michigan sports doctor on Friday announced the first step in filing a lawsuit against the school.

The Anderson Survivors Legal Team said it has filed 20-plus notices of intent to sue the Ann Arbor school, its board and Dr. Robert Anderson’s estate. A lawsuit would be among an rising wave of legal action against the school, which is investigating allegations of decades of sexual abuse by Anderson.

“We have credible evidence that the University of Michigan received complaints regarding Dr. Anderson and failed to properly investigate, discipline and sanction Dr. Anderson for his abusive and harassing conduct,” attorney John Manly said.

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BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

April 22, 2020

By Jay Tokasz

A Buffalo Diocese priest who campaigned for Bishop Richard J. Malone to resign because of a clergy sex abuse scandal is stepping down as pastor of one of the diocese’s largest parishes.

The Rev. Robert W. Zilliox announced in an email to parishioners Wednesday morning that he will leave on May 1 as pastor of St. Mary Church in Swormville. Zilliox said he asked Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger for relief from his pastoral responsibilities so he could take a sabbatical.

“After much prayer and discernment,” Zilliox said in his email, “I have come to the realization that it is now time for me to step back and rest for a time in order to tend to my own personal spiritual and emotional needs.”

Zilliox emphasized in a text message to The Buffalo News that the move was by his request and was not a punishment from Scharfenberger. He said he was too busy with parish business to immediately comment further.

A spokesman for the diocese said Zilliox has Scharfenberger’s “prayers and full support” to take a break from his pastoral work.

Zilliox was among a handful of clergy who criticized Malone’s handling of a clergy sexual abuse scandal that began unfolding in the Buffalo Diocese more than two years ago. Malone resigned in 2019, a few months after Zilliox circulated a letter among clergy calling for the bishop to step down and a poll by The Buffalo News revealed that nearly 86% of area Catholics wanted him to go.

Pope Francis appointed Scharfenberger, bishop of the Albany Diocese, to replace Malone. Scharfenberger is serving as apostolic administrator in Buffalo until a new bishop is named.

Malone assigned Zilliox in 2018 to St. Mary’s to replace the Rev. Robert Yetter, who resigned as the longtime pastor after being accused of making unwanted sexual advances on two adult men, including one who said the priest tried to kiss him and grab his groin area. Documents leaked to WKBW-TV showed that Malone initially had kept Yetter in ministry despite the allegations against the priest. The documents also showed that Malone allowed another priest, the Rev. Arthur Smith, to remain in ministry despite warnings from an elementary principal that Smith displayed inappropriate behavior around a child.

The revelations outraged many members of the parish of 2,800 families and prompted Paul L. Snyder II, a parish deacon and prominent area businessman, to call for Malone’s resignation.

Both Zilliox and Snyder criticized Malone in interviews on the CBS news magazine show “60 Minutes.” Zilliox had worked in the chancery as the diocese’s canon lawyer prior to his appointment at St. Mary’s.

At the time the “60 Minutes” episode aired, Zilliox revealed to his congregation that a priest had sexually abused him nearly 40 years ago. He did not immediately name the priest, but later told The News that the Rev. Gerald A. Smyczynski molested him when he was a 13-year-old parishioner at St. Barnabas Church in Cheektowaga.

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DENVER (CO)
Colorado Sun

April 22, 2020

By Jennifer Brown

The program, which was announced in October, stems from a massive review of church files that revealed abuses of 166 children going back decades.

The Catholic Church so far has paid more than $3 million to 28 victims of priest abuse in Colorado as part of a review of claims by an independent committee.

The work of the oversight committee is ongoing, but its leaders announced Wednesday that they have received claims from 91 victims of abuse by priests who worked in one of Colorado’s three dioceses.

The Independent Reconciliation and Reparations Program, which began in October, is run by Kenneth Feinberg and Camille Biros, who handled similar compensation programs for priest abuse victims in New York, New Jersey, California and Pennsylvania. The three dioceses in Colorado — Denver, Colorado Springs and Pueblo — agreed when the program was announced to abide by the administrators’ compensation determinations.

The paid claims include at least one from each of the dioceses, program spokeswoman Amy Weiss said.

The reparations program comes after a massive review of the church’s files by an independent investigator.

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MANCHESTER (NH)
Ink Link

April 21, 2020

By Damien Fisher

Nashua – The lawsuit alleging the religious order that operates Nashua’s Bishop Guertin High School knew about a teacher’s history of sexual abuse is not going forward as scheduled.

The lawsuit brought by a former student against Bishop Guertin High School and the Brothers of the Sacred Heart Order was set for a jury selection earlier this month in the Hillsborough Superior Court – South, but it was recently reset to Sept. 21 due to the COVID-19 precautions.

The former student, now an adult living in New York, claims that Bishop Guertin teacher, Brother Shawn McEnany, sexually assaulted her when she was a student during the 1990s.

According to the lawsuit, McEnany was convicted in 1988 of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl when he was a teacher at the St. Dominic Regional High School in Lewiston, Maine. St. Dominic was also owned and operated by the Brothers of the Sacred Heart. As a result of that conviction, McEnany was required to register as a sexual offender and he was barred from teaching in Maine, according to the lawsuit. In 1990, Bishop Guertin hired McEnany to be a teacher in Nashua.

According to the lawsuit, school officials knew about McEnany’s conviction and hired him anyway.

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SURRY HILLS (NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA)
The Australian

April 23, 2020

By John Ferguson

Victorian authorities are still weighing up whether to support the release of redacted child sex abuse royal commission com­men­tary about Cardinal George Pell.

The federal Attorney-General, Christian Porter, has written to the Andrews government to determine whether it is now possible to release dozens of pages of the final abuse report, which includes commentary on Cardinal Pell.

Mr Porter wrote to Victorian authorities last week seeking clarification from the government and investigators about whether the commission redactions could now safely be made public.

The letter was sent after a ­Herald Sun report suggested another complainant had emerged whose story was being examined by ­Victoria Police.

The Australian understands the Andrews government favours a quick release of the redactions, but police are yet to formally state whether this should happen.

Premier Dan Andrews spoke to Scott Morrison soon after the High Court quashed Cardinal Pell’s five sex convictions and freed him from Barwon Prison, where he finished the last of his 405 days in solitary confinement.

Mr Andrews called for the royal commission commentary to be released. It is understood Mr Porter’s letter was sent to ­Victorian Attorney-General Jill Hennessy last week, and she will have to give the go-ahead.

The Premier’s strident call for the royal commission comment­ary to be released underpins where the government’s position is on the matter. The only stumb­ling block would be if police and prosecutors believed the release of the information could harm any future possible court action.

The Australian is not suggesting Cardinal Pell will be charged and police have refused to say if they are investi­gating the cardinal. It was reported that a complainant had emerged and spoken to police about events in the 1970s.

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ULTIMO (NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA)
ABC

April 8, 2020

[This article includes the full text of Witness J’s statement and a video interview with Vivian Waller, his lawyer.]

The former choirboy who accused George Pell of abusing him in the 1990s says he hopes the High Court’s unanimous acquittal of the Cardinal does not discourage survivors from reporting abuse.

*
In a statement issued this morning, Witness J said he respected and accepted the court’s decision and thanked police for their work:

I respect the decision of the High Court. I accept the outcome.

I understand their view that there was not enough evidence to satisfy the court beyond all reasonable doubt that the offending occurred.

I understand that the High Court is saying that the prosecution did not make out the case to the required standards of proof.

There are a lot of checks and balances in the criminal justice system and the appeal process is one of them. I respect that.

It is difficult in child sexual abuse matters to satisfy a criminal court that the offending has occurred beyond the shadow of a doubt.

It is a very high standard to meet — a heavy burden.

I understand why criminal cases must be proven beyond all reasonable doubt.

No-one wants to live in a society where people can be imprisoned without due and proper process.

This is a basic civil liberty. But the price we pay for weighting the system in favour of the accused is that many sexual offences against children go unpunished.

That’s why it remains important that everyone who can report to the police does so.

I would hate to think that one outcome of this case is that people are discouraged from reporting to the police.

I would like to reassure child sexual abuse survivors that most people recognise the truth when they hear it.

They know the truth when they look it in the face. I am content with that.

I would like to thank the police and the Office of Public Prosecutions for their work. I have felt well supported through this journey.

My journey has been long and I am relieved it is over. I have my ups and downs. The darkness is never far away.

Despite the stress of the legal process and public controversy I have tried hard to keep myself together. I am OK. I hope that everyone who has followed this case is OK.

I thank the media for respecting my privacy and for continuing to protect my identity. This has allowed me to stay on track with my recovery and wellbeing.

This case does not define me. I am a man who came forward for my friend who, sadly, is no longer with us.

I am a man doing my best to be a loving dad, partner, son, brother and friend.

I am doing my best to find and hold joy in my life and to provide a safe and loving home for my family.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

April 22, 2020

By Peter Smith

An Amish bishop in Lancaster County was arraigned Wednesday on charges of failing to report to law-enforcement authorities that a church member allegedly confessed to sexually assaulting three girls.

Pequea Township police allege that Levi S. Esh Sr., 63, failed to report a church member’s confessed sexual assaults on three girls around 2012 and 2013.

Police cite witnesses from within the Amish community who said while Mr. Esh’s church excommunicated the alleged perpetrator, he only had the matter “handled internally” in order to keep the incident quiet. When two congregants raised concerns about the case in October 2019, they told police that Mr. Esh said “it’s been taken care of, and it’s none of your business.”

Mr. Esh faces felony and misdemeanor charges of failing to report or refer a case of suspected child abuse to authorities.

The Post-Gazette reported in its “Coverings” series in 2019 that Amish and Mennonite elders, part of the self-described Plain church tradition, have often treated sexual abuse allegations as sins to be dealt with through internal church discipline rather than as crimes, and that victims are often pressured to reconcile with abusers who make a profession of repentance.

This is the first case in at least recent memory in which a Plain church leader is charged for failing to report child abuse in Lancaster County — home to the world’s largest Amish population.

But other cases have arisen in Pennsylvania. In 2019, a Mennonite pastor was convicted in Huntingdon County of endangering the welfare of children for preventing or interfering with the reporting of child abuse. In 2017, an Amish bishop in Dauphin County was convicted for failing to report suspected child abuse. Both received probation.

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LANCASTER (PA)
Lancaster Online

April 22, 2020

By Dan Nephin

In what appears to be the first such case of its kind in Lancaster County, an Amish bishop has been charged with failing to report suspected sexual abuse.

Levi S. Esh Sr. 63, of Pequea, was charged Tuesday with one felony and one misdemeanor count of failure to report to appropriate authorities.

According to charging documents, in late October 2019, two concerned members of the Amish community met with Esh on one occasion, and another occasion, Esh and other Amish leaders about sexual abuse.

“They were told once, ‘It’s been taken care of and it’s none of your business’ and then at the second meeting, ‘We aren’t talking about it’ and ‘it’s none of your business let it go,’” the documents said.

The members then went to police.

The underlying matter concerned John G. Beiler, 41, of Providence Township, who was recently charged with sexually assaulting three girls several times between 2011 and 2015. The girls were between 12 and 14 years old at the time.

According to court documents, Beiler confessed to church leaders to abusing the girls and was told to confess to the girls’ father. Beiler was then excommunicated and Esh told the girls’ father that church leaders were keeping a close eye on Beiler.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Religion News Service

April 22, 2020

By Claire Giangravé

Vatican City – In early February, the second-highest-ranking prelate in the Vatican told news outlets that a long-awaited report into the ascent of disgraced former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick would be published in the “near future.”

[Photo caption:] Former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, left, then the archbishop of Washington, confers the chalice during the ordination of Mark White in 2003.

In 2018, Pope Francis ordered that the Vatican investigate all of the documentation it had collected over the years regarding McCarrick, including data gathered in the dioceses of New York; Metuchen and Newark, New Jersey; and Washington, D.C., where he had served.

Almost three months after the February announcement, the report has still not seen the light of day.

A previous Vatican investigation found McCarrick guilty of sexual abuse against minors and seminarians and laicized him, stripping him of his red hat and removing him from the priesthood. McCarrick, who was once the most influential figure in U.S. Catholicism, is now a recluse and has vehemently denied the accusations made against him.

Many remain eager to see the forthcoming report, especially those who knew or were influenced by McCarrick, who is accused of using his position as a cardinal and Vatican liaison to sexually abuse seminarians and even underage boys.

For the Rev. Mark White, 49, born and raised in Washington, D.C., the revelations surrounding McCarrick that emerged in late 2017 struck him “like a punch deep in the gut.”

Born to a Protestant family, White converted to Catholicism in college and immediately afterward entered the seminary to become a priest. In 2003, he was ordained to the priesthood by McCarrick – who was the archbishop of Washington from 2001-2006.

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FERNDALE (MI)
Church Militant

April 23, 2020

SSPX: ‘Sympathetic to Perverts.’

One of the tragedies among many resulting from the invasion of modernism into the Church — blossoming in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council — is the reaction from some faithful Catholics.

Since it was the celebration of the Mass itself that was the most obvious change that occurred in the Church 50 years ago, many Catholics reacted by clinging ever more tightly to the Old Rite, the Traditional Latin Mass. Various groups sprung up that essentially placed all their eggs into the basket of the Traditional Latin Mass — the most notable probably the Society of St. Pius X, commonly known as the SSPX.

In 1988, concerned that the Society, dedicated to the ancient form, would die with his death, the leader, Abp. Marcel Lefebvre, disobeyed Pope John Paul II and illicitly consecrated four bishops who would carry on the work of the Society after his death. All were immediately excommunicated and their act deemed schismatic by John Paul.

In the intervening decades, the Society has dug in its heels, forming its own hierarchy, marriage tribunals, seminaries, chapels, schools, communities and administrative arms — none of which answer to the jurisdiction of Rome.

But at the heart of the Society is its devotion to the liturgy of the Traditional Latin Mass. And while the Society itself — strictly speaking — is only a society of priests and bishops, there is a sizable portion of laity who are adherents to the Traditional Latin Mass and the Society, almost to a fault. And herein, a serious problem has arisen.

In this structure, many of the SSPX laity who are unquestioning of their clergy would never demand accountability from them. That has created an environment within the Society itself where abusive clergy can easily take advantage of children, young males and women.

There have in fact been so many cases of abuse that the Society itself has been the target of a statewide criminal investigation in Kansas. The small community of St. Mary’s Kansas, a main hub of the SSPX, is the focal point of investigators’ probing.

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LEWISTON (ID)
Associated Press via Lewiston Tribune

April 23, 2020

Boise – A former Boise priest convicted of possessing violent and extreme child pornography will be sentenced to 25 years imprisonment, an appellate court ruled.

William “Tom” Faucher, 74, was sentenced in December 2018 without the possibility of parole after pleading guilty to distribution of sexually exploitative material, possession of sexually exploitative materials and drug possession, the Idaho Statesman reported.

Faucher appealed the ruling, arguing that the sentence was excessive and that the court failed to look at multiple circumstances, including his age, physical and mental infirmities, his community support, his alcohol abuse and lack of criminal history.

The Idaho Court of Appeals disagreed, arguing the District Court considered those factors “at length.”

Faucher had more than 2,000 photos and videos depicting child sexual abuse on his computer and phone, prosecutors said, adding that there was evidence that he also had online conversations about wanting to rape and kill children.

Some of the evidence was simply Faucher engaging in role playing, his defense attorney said.

In October, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Boise announced Faucher was stripped of his priest title and banned from serving as a member of the clergy.

Faucher remains in custody at the Idaho State Correctional Center in Kuna.

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ALBANY (NY)
Times-Union

April 20, 2020

By Cayla Harris

Activists had hoped that the state Legislature would take up at least two bills supporting survivors of sexual abuse this legislative session, but with an uncertain schedule amid a pandemic, they worry the measures will be left on the backburner.

Survivors of sexual abuse and members of the advocacy group Safe Horizon hosted a press call on Monday urging legislators to resume session and pass the Adult Survivors Act. The measure – like the Child Victims Act that went into effect in August – would open a one-year look-back period for adult victims to pursue previously time-barred lawsuits against their alleged abusers.

“If and when someone chooses to come forward, their pathway to justice should not be time-barred or limited to results from a fraught criminal justice system,” said Marissa Hoechstetter, a survivor of sexual assault. “Lawmakers must stay in remote session and provide all survivors a chance to access justice on our own terms.”

Safe Horizon has also hosted several press conferences pushing for an extension of the Child Victims Act’s look-back window, which will expire this summer. More than 1,800 cases have been filed since the period opened in August, but many survivors whose alleged abusers are not linked to well-known institutions have reported challenges finding lawyers.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Commonweal

April 21, 2020

By Massimo Faggioli

Pell’s Acquittal Won’t End the Church’s Culture Wars

In setting aside the guilty verdict against Cardinal George Pell on sexual-assault charges, Australia’s High Court effectively concluded the criminal-justice aspect of a case that has consumed the nation and the Catholic Church for years. But the April 7 ruling doesn’t really settle anything in the relationship between the church and the Australian state, nor is it likely to resolve the clash between the different “kinds” of Catholicism in Australia and elsewhere. In fact, the decision will probably keep the contentious debates alive, perhaps for a long time to come.

Pell had been charged with assaulting two thirteen-year-old boys in the sacristy of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne in 1996. From the beginning, there was nothing normal about the way the proceedings against him unfolded. The first trial ended in a hung jury. In a second trial, he was found guilty by unanimous ruling. Then, in an appeal heard by three judges, two found him guilty while the third, Justice Mark Weinberg, dissented in a lengthy 204-page opinion. Meanwhile, a “suppression order” applying to cases involving sexual abuse resulted in what amounted to secret trials that in countries like the United States would be considered unconstitutional. The proceedings were kept under wraps from the public as they happened, and only a handful of people were permitted to hear testimony. The media was not allowed to report on the details of the trials until the verdicts were publicly announced.

Now Pell has been acquitted. In their unanimous ruling, the seven High Court judges pointed to egregious mistakes in the police investigation, and legal errors in the decisions of previous courts. But that does not mean the cardinal has been found innocent. Australia’s High Court can’t declare guilt or innocence; it issues decisions based only on the rules of evidence, and in the case of Pell, it found insufficient evidence to support the guilty verdict.

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CARLTON (VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA)
Inside Story

April 13, 2020

By Jeremy Gans

If the High Court is right about the evidence on timing, what went wrong during the prosecution and hearings?

When George Pell’s jury announced its verdict at 3.45pm on Tuesday 11 December 2018, just one thing was certain about his case: it would end in the High Court of Australia. Pell was always going to appeal any finding of guilt to Victoria’s Court of Appeal and whoever lost there (Pell again, in the event) was always going to turn to Canberra for redress.

How the national court would finish the case was another matter. It could have ended with a whimper, with Pell’s name appearing in an online list of special leave applications with the word “dismissed” next to it. Or it could have ended with a bang, with Australia’s top judges deciding the case for themselves. At 10am last Tuesday, the latter happened, when seven justices swept away earlier decisions by twelve jurors and three judges.

Fourteen months ago, when news of Pell’s guilty verdict belatedly broke, many observers studiously ignored the High Court’s looming role. His critics relished calling Australia’s top Catholic a “convicted paedophile.” Victoria’s premier chastised a former prime minister for visiting him in prison. But Pell’s accuser always knew better: “Everything is overshadowed by the forthcoming appeal.”

Something of the reverse happened last Tuesday, when the High Court revealed what most who attended its Canberra hearing last month already knew: Australia’s cardinal would again be the nation’s biggest story. As Pell was driven from his locked-down prison into a locked-down city, his supporters relished saying that he had been found “innocent.” “Let us #PrayTogether today,” tweeted the Pope for Lent, before garbling a prayer “for all those persons who suffer due to an unjust sentence because of someone had it in for them.” The premier refused to “comment” on the decision, telling “every” victim, “I believe you.”

But Pell’s guilt or innocence on the charges against him has never changed and never will. He did not become less guilty last Tuesday. Nor did he become less innocent on that other Tuesday in 2018. He has been either guilty or innocent of the rape of two children for the past twenty-three years and will remain so forever. No court ruling — or punditry or politics — can alter what actually happened in St Patrick’s Cathedral during six short — or agonisingly long — minutes after a Sunday mass in mid December 1996.

Instead, the proceedings against Pell have always been about how the courts — and the rest of us — will respond to the claim made against him. For the courts, the sole issue is whether Pell’s prosecutors were able to prove beyond reasonable doubt what happened in 1996. In 2018, the jury unanimously decided that the prosecution had proved what happened, which is why Pell spent most of 2019 in Barwon Prison. Last Tuesday, the High Court unanimously decided that it hadn’t, which is why Pell will spend most of 2020 in Sydney.

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CARSON CITY (NV)
Carson Now

April 20, 2020

By Jeff Munson

The Division of Child and Family Services on Monday announced 62 agencies, including 5 new agencies, will be awarded the annual Victims of Crime Act Assistance Formula Grant funding for the 2021 State Fiscal Year (SFY21) totaling $20 million.

$1.1 million in innovative funding was awarded to 13 agencies that will provide services to targeted projects and programs aimed to serve victims of crime who are homeless, to prevent Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC), to assist when children are secondary victims of domestic violence and to bring telehealth services for victims of crime in rural areas of Nevada.

“We are happy to be able to award these funds to the dedicated service providers who stand ready to help Nevadans,” stated Ross Armstrong, Administrator of DCFS. “It is our hope that through focused innovative awards we’ll continue to enhance Nevada’s Victims of Crime system.”

The VOCA Assistance Formula Grant supports thousands of victim assistance programs throughout the nation each year. The states awarded the grant provide subgrants to local community-based organizations and public agencies who serve victims directly. Direct assistance to crime victims includes crisis counseling, telephone and on-site information and referrals, criminal justice support and advocacy, shelter, therapy, and additional assistance. Funds may also be used to develop new programs that address emerging needs, gaps in services, and training of victim service advocates.

In addition to the $1.1 million allocated to innovative services, $18.9 million will be used for traditional services and it is estimated that more than 118,000 survivors will be served through these programs.

Under the VOCA Program Guidelines, funding priority is given to programs serving victims of sexual assault, domestic violence, and child abuse. Ten percent of the total funding must be allocated to victims of violent or property crime, or victims who are “previously underserved,” which indicates that the particular victim population historically or currently has not had access to or been provided with specialized or adequate services.

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LYNCHBURG (VA)
ABC 13 News WSET

April 19, 2020

By Kaicey Baylor

Martinsville – Parishioners at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Martinsville and St. Francis of Assisi in Rocky Mount say their priest Father Mark White did nothing wrong.

“He deserves justice,” said Joe Kernan, a member at St Joseph Catholic Church. “He deserves not to be mistreated.”

Church members are disappointed in the Bishop’s decision to remove their priest.

Joe Graf with St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church says Father White used his blog again as a way to reach out to his congregations during the pandemic.

“They were a very good way for communicating to us,” said Graf.

Richard Long, a member of St. Francis of Assisi says the bishop appeared at the mass yesterday unexpectedly.

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MARTINSVILLE (VA)
Martinsville Bulletin

April 17, 2020

By Teresa Biggs

https://www.martinsvillebulletin.com/opinion/letters_to_editor/letter-to-the-editor-bishops-comments-were-inappropriate/article_579504d9-b221-5179-94f9-6986ef620060.html

I find the publication of Bishop’s Barry Knestout’s letter noting a number of issues regarding the pastor St. Joseph Catholic Church, Father Mark White, to be very inappropriate (“My case against Father Mark White’s blog,” March 22). As a shepherd, the bishop knows he should be a point of care and compassion. He has forever eliminated that concept from his charge, where he swore to uphold.

His comments should have been kept private and only in a setting of love. The fact that none were correct seems to be a minor matter in this series of events.

As a lifelong Catholic and as a member of St. Joseph, I ask for forgiveness from my many Protestant friends that they had to “listen” to our pastor being so belligerently described.

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PHOENIX (AZ)
Arizona Republic

April 21, 2020

By Mary Jo Pitzl

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-child-welfare/2020/04/21/bisbee-man-confesses-hes-molesting-his-daughter-church-tells-bishop-not-report-abuse/2876617001/

When a Bisbee man told his Mormon bishop he was sexually abusing his own five-year-old daughter, the bishop provided counseling. He involved the man’s wife in the sessions, apparently hoping that knowledge of her husband’s activities would prompt her to keep their children safe.

What the bishop didn’t do was report the abuse to police. He didn’t have to. Although Arizona law classifies clergy, as well as many others, as mandatory reporters of child abuse, there is an exception for clergy to not report if they believe it is “reasonable and necessary within the concepts of the religion.”

The bishop’s counseling sessions apparently had little effect. The man continued to molest his daughter, and later, after her birth in 2015, his infant daughter. He made videos of the encounters and posted them on pornographic websites, which were eventually discovered by Interpol, reported to his employer, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and led to criminal charges.

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Arizona’s mandatory-reporting law requires clergy, among many others, to contact law enforcement or child-welfare officials when they suspect child abuse.

But the law also allows clergy to not report if they are told of the abuse in confidence or during a confession. In those cases, state law says, clergy may withhold a report if the clergy member feels it is “reasonable and necessary within the concepts of the religion.”

Thirty-two states besides Arizona have such exemptions, commonly called the “clergy-penitent privilege.” They are a necessary protection of the First Amendment guarantee of religious freedom from government dictates, say attorneys who have represented religious institutions.

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SYDNEY (NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA)
Catholic Weekly – Archdiocese of Sydney

April 22, 2020

By Monica Doumit

High Court decision was vital to more than one person

In light of the quashing of the conviction of Cardinal George Pell by a unanimous decision of the High Court of Australia, I was approached by a certain national broadcaster for an interview. They wanted me to provide some commentary on what the decision meant for Catholics in Australia.

The interview didn’t end up going ahead, but I still had the opportunity to reflect on the question. Without wanting to be rude, the conclusion I came to is that the final ruling of the High Court wasn’t nearly as significant for Catholics as I had expected.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Cardinal Pell. I am thrilled that the High Court saw what so many others did: that the allegations against him were simply implausible given the ample unchallenged evidence in his favour, that the judges wrote a decisive, joint decision that confirmed that a jury – acting rationally – ought to have doubted his guilt, and that they ordered his immediate release. And I am grateful he is now free.

But as I reflected on what the decision meant for Catholics in Australia, I don’t think it meant that much at all. Whatever the outcome of the case, the position of Catholics in Australia was always going to remain the same.

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YOUNGSTOWN (OH)
WKBN 27

April 11, 2020

Ernest “Ernie” Formichelli, 67, passed away Saturday, April 11, 2020, following a one-year battle with cancer.

Ernie was born August 22, 1952, in Youngstown, the son of Peter and Irene Leone Formichelli.

He was a 1970 graduate of Cardinal Mooney High School and in 1976, he graduated from Youngstown State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Education.

“Mr. Form” began his career as an educator in 1976 at Cardinal Mooney High School, where he was the chairman of the History Department. During his 36 years at Cardinal Mooney, “Form” coached freshman football and tennis. A countless number of those student athletes earned local and state honors during his tenure. Coach Formichelli was instrumental in the growth of the tennis program at Cardinal Mooney. After many years of utilizing Mill Creek MetroParks tennis facilities as a home court, “Coach Form” served as the driving force in raising private funds for the construction of the school’s own tennis facilities.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

April 20, 2020

By Javonte Anderson

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-catholic-church-camp-abuse-settlement-20200420-46wf43egifcq7hs65omkx36txy-story.html

The Archdiocese of Chicago has agreed to pay a $2.1 million settlement in a lawsuit that alleged a 7-year-old girl was sexually assaulted at a Catholic church camp in 2015, according to a news release from the law firm representing the girl.

The law firm, Romanucci & Blandin, did not name the camp where the abuse occurred, but a spokesman said it happened at a church in suburban Cook County.

The girl, who is now 12, was repeatedly abused by a camp counselor at the church, playground and in a classroom, according to Antonio Romanucci, one of the girl’s attorneys.

The girl told a teacher about what happened, and the teacher notified the girl’s father, according to the release.

“When the father confronted the priest and church leaders, they discouraged the father from calling police, saying the allegations would ruin the girl’s reputation and negatively impact attendance at the church,” Romanucci said in the release.

The archdiocese declined to comment.

The counselor who the girl said abused her had a “suspected history” of mental health concerns, according to the release.

“The church leaders involved had knowledge that this man should not be responsible for young girls, and chose to look the other way,” said Martin Gould, another of the girl’s attorneys.

The settlement comes as the archdiocese is facing financial pressure from the COVID-19 pandemic.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Associated Press

April 21, 2020

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago has settled a lawsuit that alleged a 7-year-old girl was sexually assaulted at a church camp in 2015, an attorney for the girl announced Monday.

Attorney Antonio Romanucci in a news release release did not name the camp where the alleged assault took place. However, he said the girl, now 12, was repeatedly abused by a camp counselor in multiple locations at a suburban Chicago church.

The girl told a teacher about the assault, who notified the girl’s father. According to Romanucci, the archdiocese discouraged the father from calling police, contending the allegations would ruin the girl’s reputation and hurt attendance at the church.

A spokesperson for the archdiocese declined to comment on the case.

Romanucci asserted the unidentified counselor who the girl accused of abusing her had aroused suspicions about his mental health. It wasn’t immediately known if charges were filed in the case.

“The church leaders involved had knowledge that this man should not be responsible for young girls,” said Martin Gould, another attorney representing the girl.

Romanucci said the case reflected “continued negligence by church leaders.”

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BRIDGEPORT (CT)
Connecticut Post

April 20, 2020

By Kendra Baker

Danbury – The pre-trial hearing of the former local priest accused of sexually assaulting two boys has been rescheduled from April 24 to June 19.

Jaime Marin-Cardona, 51, is charged with three counts of fourth-degree sexual assault, three counts of risk of injury to child and three counts of illegal sexual contact. He pleaded not guilty to all nine charges.

The warrant for Marin-Cardona’s arrest alleges that he groomed two boys over the course of four years, and sexually abused one of them over the same period of time.

The alleged abuse began in 2014 — the same year Marin-Cardona became a priest at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church on Golden Hill Road.

He was placed on administrative leave Dec. 11, after the Diocese of Bridgeport’s Sexual Misconduct Review Board learned that the state Department of Children and Families had substantiated allegations of abuse against him.

The Columbia native’s most recent service was at Saint Mary Parish in Bridgeport, according to Bishop Frank J. Caggiano of the Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport.

Marin-Cardona was released on $500,000 bond, with conditions, last month. The conditions of his release include wearing a tracking device and comply with protective orders.

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BOULDER (CO)
University of Colorado

April 16, 2020

What happens when communities lack law enforcement?

For many of us, this may seem like a theoretical question. But through reporting based on hundreds of public records requests and interviews, Anchorage Daily News Special Projects Editor Kyle Hopkins found that one in three Alaskan communities have no law enforcement of any kind.

(Loren Holmes / Anchorage Daily News)Hopkins’ three-part investigative series “Lawless”––produced in a partnership between the Daily News and ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network––is the winner of this year’s Al Nakkula Award for police reporting, co-sponsored by the Denver Press Club and the University of Colorado Boulder’s College of Media, Communication and Information.

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In addition, the judges give special mention to a collaboration with Marquette University’s Public Service Journalism O’Brien Fellowship and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that produced the series, “Unsolved: The Devil You Know.” Through both a podcast and written series, Journal Sentinel Criminal Justice Reporter Gina Barton investigated the cold case of Father Alfred Kunz, who was murdered in a rural Wisconsin town in 1998.

“Like the ProPublica assistance, such partnerships, similar to the one that produced last year’s Nakkula winner, help illustrate how outside groups with a desire to help local journalists play an increasingly important role in doing important work for local communities during these challenging times for local newsrooms,” Plunkett says.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican News

April 20, 2020

The Holy Father has appointed as deputy prefect of the Vatican Apostolic Library the distinguished Dr. Timothy James Janz, scriptor graecus and director of the Printed Books Department of the Vatican Apostolic Library.

Dr. Timothy James Janz was born in Basle on 1 April 1966. He carried out his classical studies at the University of Laval, Québec, Canada, and was subsequently awarded a degree in classic Greek literature from the La Sorbonne University of Paris and a doctorate in classics from the University of Oxford.

He entered the Vatican Apostolic Library as deputy assistant, and has published numerous articles, monographs, contributions and reviews both on the Greek tradition of the Bible, the Septuagint, and on classic Greek texts and the catalogue of Greek manuscripts of the Vatican Apostolic Library.

In addition, he has collaborated on various projects in the same Library, and was gradually promoted until he was appointed as Scriptor graecus in 2011, and director of the Printed Books Department in 2016.

He is a member of the Board of the Library.

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DENVER (CO)
Crux

April 20, 2020

By John L. Allen Jr.

Rome – Recently Inés San Martín of Crux brought to my attention a notice in PC Gamer about a Polish software developer who’s announced a new computer game called “Pope Simulator.” Apparently it opens with a conclave in which the player is elected pope, and then presents various scenarios that require decisions.

“Our idea assumes the possibility to use, among others, the pope’s so-called ‘soft power,’ and consequently influence the fate of the world and interfere in international politics,” Ultimate Games CEO Mateusz Zawadzki said announcing the game.

A spokesman for Ultimate Games told me they’ve spent about $72,000 developing the game and that they haven’t set a price yet for it, which is projected to launch in 2021 for PCs and later on consoles such as Xbox and PlayStation, but probably the price tag will be in the range of $9 to $19.

I got a laugh, because my experience over more than 20 years is that a free version of “Pope Simulator” – admittedly without a slick graphics interface – is already the favorite indoor sport of the Catholic Church, and has been ever since I can remember.

Almost every Catholic, it seems, has an opinion about what the pope should do or not do. Especially in the social media age, folks also have ready platforms for expressing those opinions. In addition to reporting on the actual pope, a lot of our time on the Vatican beat is spent covering potential “Pope Simulator” adepts with a following and a cause.

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DENVER (CO)
Catholic News Agency

April 17, 2020

Los Angeles – The Archdiocese of Los Angeles will lead nine days of prayer and reflection for healing from sexual abuse, from April 18-26.

“This novena is offered for those directly harmed by sexual abuse, both in and outside the church,” Heather Banis, Victims Assistance Ministry Coordinator for the archdiocese, said April 17.

“Together we will pray for healing of our Church and communities, as we struggle to understand, atone, restore and re-imagine our church, our schools, and our neighborhoods, in the wake of the scandals that dominate the news, particularly as Catholics.”

April is marked as Child Abuse Prevention Month in the United States. With much of the world under lockdown amid the coronavirus pandemic, domestic violence advocates and other groups are warning that lockdowns may make those vulnerable to abuse even more vulnerable.

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WOODLAND PARK (NJ)
NorthJersey.com

April 15, 2020

By Abbott Koloff and Alex Nussbaum

A Brooklyn priest set to become the Diocese of Paterson’s new bishop said Wednesday that he wants to reach out to people who feel estranged from the church and that he is eager to get started in his new job — though the coronavirus pandemic has pushed back his installation indefinitely.

Bishop-elect Kevin Sweeney was introduced during a video press conference Wednesday morning after the Vatican announced that it had accepted the resignation of the current bishop, Arthur J. Serratelli, who at 75 had reached the age of retirement.

Pope Francis has been promoting priests who reflect his views to positions of power in the church. Asked for his own thoughts on reaching out to gay Catholics and allowing Communion for people who have been divorced or don’t accept all of the church’s teachings, Sweeney, 51, didn’t offer specifics. But he laid out a broad desire for a welcoming church.

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Serratelli took over the diocese after Bishop Frank Rodimer’s retirement in 2004 — a time of turmoil for the church in the aftermath of a child sex abuse scandal related to allegations of some church leaders covering up wrongdoing by priests.

Serratelli gained a reputation for upholding traditional Catholic values and called on those who didn’t believe in all of the church’s teachings to refrain from receiving Communion. That mirrored the leadership of former Archbishop John Myers in the Newark Archdiocese, where Serratelli served before moving to Paterson.

Cardinal Joseph Tobin, who was selected by Francis to take over from Myers in Newark, has made a point to reach out to people who have been on the margins of the church community, holding a meeting with gay Catholics shortly after he was installed.

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BROOKLYN (NY)
The Tablet – Diocese of Brooklyn

April 15, 2020

By Christopher White

Pope Francis has named a Brooklyn priest, Father Kevin Sweeney, as the next bishop of Paterson, New Jersey.

Bishop-elect Sweeney, who is 50 years old, currently serves as the pastor of St. Michael’s parish in Sunset Park. He will become the eighth bishop of Paterson, succeeding Bishop Arthur Serratelli, who sent his resignation to Pope Francis last year when he reached the retirement age of 75.

The announcement of Father Sweeney’s new post was made by the Vatican and the apostolic nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Christophe Pierre, on April 15.

Father Sweeney is a native of Queens, New York where he grew up in the Whitestone neighborhood and was a member of St. Luke’s parish. From 1984-1988, he attended Cathedral Prep where he was an all-star player on the baseball team.

In 1997, Bishop Thomas Daily ordained Father Sweeney a priest for the Diocese of Brooklyn. He was assigned as parochial vicar to the parish of St. Nicholas of Tolentine in Jamaica, Queens and then to Our Lady of Sorrows in Corona, Queens.

In 2004, Bishop DiMarzio named Father Sweeney the Vocations Director of the Diocese of Brooklyn.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholc News Service

April 15, 2020

Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Bishop Arthur J. Serratelli of Paterson, New Jersey, and named Father Kevin J. Sweeney, a priest of the Diocese of Brooklyn, New York, as his successor.

Bishop Serratelli is 75, the age at which canon requires bishops to turn in their resignation to the pope. Bishop-designate Sweeney, 50, will be the eighth bishop of Paterson.

The resignation and appointment were announced in Washington April 15 by Archbishop Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States.

Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio issued a congratulatory statement about Bishop-designate Sullivan’s appointment, saying, “I could not think of a better choice.”

As a priest, he has served the diocese for 22 years, Bishop DiMarzio said, “and is an outstanding example of a parish priest. I know he is a man of prayer and is a zealous advocate of vocations to the priesthood.”

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TOLEDO (OH)
Toldeo Blade

April 18, 2020

A nationwide third-party reporting system is in place for sexual abuse-related complaints against bishops in the Catholic Church. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops authorized the development of Catholic Bishop Abuse Reporting System in June, in response to Pope Francis’ May Apostolic Letter Vos estis lux mundi addressing sexual abuse and bishop accountability.

The new reporting system is operated by Convercent, Inc., described as an independent, third-party entity responsible for transmitting confidential reports both to the Holy See and to the local metropolitan archbishop responsible for initially assessing reports. Cincinnati Archbishop Dennis Schnurr presides over Ohio, including the Diocese of Toledo.

The new system does not replace existing protocols for reporting complaints against priests, deacons religious or laity. Confidential report regarding a bishop can be submitted online at ReportBishopAbuse.org or by calling 800- 276-1562.

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NEW YORK (NY)
First Things

April 15, 2020

By George Weigel

The unanimous decision by Australia’s High Court to quash Cardinal George Pell’s convictions on charges of “historic sexual abuse” and acquit him of those crimes was entirely welcome. Truth and justice were served. An innocent man was freed from imprisonment. The criminal justice system in the State of Victoria was informed by Australia’s supreme judicial authority that it had gotten things badly wrong. The anti-Pell haters in the Australian media were reminded that their power has limits.

Yet there remains a lot to be reckoned with in the aftermath of this case, which bore all the tawdry hallmarks of a witch hunt.

Did the government-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) collude with a corrupt Victoria police department in a sleazy attempt to dig up alleged crimes where none had been previously reported? Why did so weak a case ever come to trial, given compelling evidence that what was said to have happened simply could not have happened in the timeframe and circumstances alleged by the complainant? Why was the jury never informed that the complainant had a history of psychological problems? What effect did the lynch mob atmosphere in Victoria have on the hung jury in the cardinal’s first trial, and on the incomprehensible guilty verdict rendered by the jury in the retrial? Why was the cardinal forbidden to say Mass for over 400 days, even when in solitary confinement?

These are questions proper to Australia and should be examined by the public authorities there; a parliamentary inquiry into the behavior of ABC and the Victoria police seems the least that ought to be done. The Pell affair also has implications for other countries and for the world Church, as public officials and Catholic leaders continue to grapple with the societal-wide plague of the sexual abuse of the young.

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SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA)
Catholic Weekly – Archdiocese of Sydney

April 20, 2020

By Fr Frank Brennan

Cardinal George Pell has been acquitted of all charges of child sexual abuse by Australia’s highest court – the High Court of Australia. In criminal cases, they usually sit only a bench of five judges. In Pell’s case, the full bench of seven sat. They knew the world was watching. They often write separate opinions. But in the case of Cardinal Pell they all put their name to one judgment. They unanimously upheld his appeal and in almost record time.

At the appeal, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) for the State of Victoria where Pell was charged appeared in person. She submitted to the court that if the judges were minded to uphold the appeal, they should at least refer the matter back to the Victorian state court for final determination. All seven High Court judges described that submission with one word: ‘specious’. This highlights why the Pell trial needs some background legal context to be readily understood by readers who have not been closely following parliamentary inquiries, court cases and royal commissions in Victoria.

Readers need to understand that all is not well with the system of criminal justice in Victoria. Cardinal Pell has been a major casualty in this clash and decline of institutions. The unsuspecting complainant who brought the case against him has had to suffer untold additional trauma because of the shortcomings of the Victoria Police and the office of Public Prosecutions.

Some background is needed. In Victoria, there is a long running royal commission investigating how the Victoria Police came to enlist a defence barrister as a human source to inform on her own clients. In the area of criminal justice, the abuse of process does not get much worse. It’s estimated that this gross abuse by the Victoria police brings into question about 1300 convictions, including some of the most awful criminals in the state. One of the key persons with involvement in this perverse police operation was Graham Ashton who is now the Victorian Police Commissioner.

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SURRY HILLS (NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA)
The Australian

April 20, 2020

By Chris Mitchell

The police and media campaign against him was part of the culture wars, Cardinal George Pell told Sky News’s Andrew Bolt last Tuesday. He is correct.

Policing and journalism were once dominated by Catholics, partly because both were open to people from lower socio-economic backgrounds. That has changed as more women with excellent university results have joined the media and editors have hired specialist reporters from the law, finance and accounting fields.

Jack The Insider, this digital site’s Peter Hoysted, has written here and in his book, Unholy Trinity: The hunt for pedophile priest Monsignor John Day, about the history of Victoria Police protecting pedophile priests. The Age’s crime-writing doyen, John Silvester, has made the same point.

Discussing the High Court’s 7-0 quashing of Pell’s conviction, Silvester wrote on April 7: “The police record on these cases is ­lamentable. For many years, ­rather than do their job, there was a key group of senior police who ­actively sabotaged prosecutions against priests.”

In the media, there was a long tradition of ignoring such stories. Last week, this column discussed a seven-year series about pedophilia by priests, brothers and politicians published by Brisbane’s The ­Courier-Mail from the mid-1990s. These stories culminated in lengthy jail sentences for abusers, and school and church payouts to victims upwards of $100m.

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SURRY HILLS (NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA)
The Australian

April 18, 2020

By Angela Shanahan

Only a week after being exonerated by the High Court, Cardinal George Pell is now, we are told, the subject of yet another historic sexual assault accusation by a new accuser. This “news” was leaked to the Herald Sun, pre-empting Andrew Bolt’s revealing interview with the cardinal that finally made clear to the public, who were not aware of proceedings at the trial, that despite many witnesses providing contrary evidence, the cardinal was condemned by the word of just one accuser.

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Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews reiterated the “we believe you” mantra. Child protection campaigner Hetty Johnston made it clear in an interview with Chris Kenny on the day of the High Court verdict that in child sexual assault cases, campaigners want the onus of proof shifted so that we begin from a point of belief in the “victim”. Children don’t lie, she says. But Pell’s was an adult accuser. He might have been sexually molested at some stage in his life, or he might not.

There is another recent case against a high-ranking prelate that illustrates this point. Max Davis is the Catholic Bishop of the Australian Defence Force. He has had a long, distinguished career and is well thought of by ordinary soldiers, particularly as he has been to various areas of deployment, including the base at Tarin Kowt in Afghanistan.

However, in June 2014, Davis was charged with having indecently assaulted a 13-year-old boy in 1969. The one com­plain­ant was followed by more and eventually there were six counts related to the period between December 1968 and October 1972. Davis had been a young teacher and a dorm master at St Benedict’s College New Norcia, for some of that time. The charging of Davis was sensational as, until Pell, he was the highest ranking prelate charged with this offence.

But what happened next well illustrates the problem of shifting the onus of proof. All the victims swore that their abuser was Davis, that he was one of the brothers, even to describing the famous Benedictine habit. However, contrary to that testimony, Davis was a lay person — he was not ordained until 1971 and he was never in the Benedictine order. Davis left the school in the late 1960s, went into the seminary and was ordained in 1971. While he was at the school he was not “Brother Max”, as was claimed, he was simply Mr Davis. The trial became a fiasco when it became clear the police had not checked the enrolment records at the school at the same time as Davis was there. One of the accusers was not enrolled.

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ANN ARBOR (MI)
M Live

April 19, 2020

By Steve Marowski

Attorneys from across the country have filed lawsuits against the University of Michigan on behalf of clients who say they were abused by late athletic doctor Robert Anderson, but some law firms that haven’t yet taken legal action are trying to find other avenues of justice for their clients.

Anderson was a doctor at the University of Michigan from 1968 to 2003. He served as the director of health services until 1980, when he was moved to the athletic department. Anderson died in 2008.

Ten years later, former UM wrestler Tad Deluca wrote a letter to Athletic Director Warde Manuel, detailing abuse he says he endured at the hands of Anderson. A police investigation followed and UM opened a hotline Feb. 19 for abuse victims to report their experiences. The university has since received at least 229 unique complaints against Anderson.

Dozens of former UM students have reported instances of genital fondling and anal penetration during unnecessary hernia and prostate exams. Some report more overt sexual acts.

With scores of victims coming forward to report abuse, a plethora of law firms have begun taking action against the university.

Each firm has taken a different path to seeking justice for their clients. Some have met with UM and its lawyers, some have demanded responses from the university and for Attorney General Dana Nessel to investigate, and others have filed lawsuits, including individual and class-action complaints, against UM and its Board of Regents.

Here’s what those firms are doing and how they’re approaching cases for their clients.

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DETROIT (MI)
Detroit Free Press

April 16, 2020

By David Jesse

University of Michigan Athletic Director Warde Manuel did not follow university policy when he forwarded a letter alleging sexual assault by a former football team doctor to the university’s lawyers instead of the school’s Title IX investigators.

Because lawyers got to see the letter before any investigator, they got an early warning of potential liability to the school.

There are about 40 lawsuits pending in federal court against U-M alleging the university covered up Robert Anderson’s sexual assaults of student athletes for decades. There could be many more lawsuits to come — at least three other prominent lawyers have said they each have dozens of potential victims, none of whom have filed suit yet.

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MONTROUGE (FRANCE)
La Croix

April 14, 2020

By Massimo Faggioli

Massimo Faggioli dissects the theological and institutional limits of Francis’ pontificate

There is a serious risk that Pope Francis is losing the support of the people who want to see him succeed and keep the Church from falling into the hands of those who have set their face against change.

This is an important moment, because the 83-year-old is showing few signs that he understands that many of the strongest believers in his efforts at Church reform are becoming disillusioned.

The seventh anniversary of his election as Bishop of Rome, on March 13, coincided with the peak in awareness of the coronavirus pandemic. It was impossible at that moment to delve into complex analysis of his pontificate.

But living in lockdown in order to contain the spread of COVID-19 has now become the new normal, and it will be for some time in many countries. It provides an opportunity to try and take a more careful look at what has happened to Francis’ pontificate in the last few months.

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MONTROUGE (FRANCE)
La Croix

By Massimo Faggioli

April 15, 2020

Massimo Faggioli dissects the theological and institutional limits of Francis’ pontificate

Supporters of Pope Francis and his efforts to reform the Catholic Church are concerned that the dynamism of his pontificate has begun to wane.His very important spiritual insights lack a clear systematic structure that can be placed in a theological framework and an institutional order.

Recent events – such as his decision to ignore a suggestion by the Amazon bishops to ordain married priests, and his establishment of a new study commission on the female diaconate that does not appear in favor of ordaining women deacons – suggest to reform-minded Catholics that his pontificate is in crisis.What is the current situation telling us?

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

April 20, 2020

By Michael Sean Winters

When Massimo Faggioli offers a critique of this pontificate, as he did last week at La Croix in a two-part essay, here and here, everyone should take notice. Not only is Faggioli one of the leading ecclesiologists in the universal church, but he has been strongly supportive of Pope Francis.

The first thing to note is how Faggioli engages the topic: He is deeply respectful, expressing concern not scorn, his analysis does not lead him down a rabbit hole in which the conversation is suddenly devoid of the ecclesial set forth at Vatican II. His concerns about ecclesial structures were acquired by careful readings of Yves Congar, not from an MBA program or political campaign. Faggioli’s language is always ecclesial language, never some bizarre extrapolation of Foucaultian ideas about the relationship of power and sexuality nor an ecclesiological variation of game theory. He knows that the church is a gift, not Silly Putty, and there are limits as well as possibilities baked into the constitution of the church.

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UNITED STATES
Celebrity Insider

April 16, 2020

By Charisse Van Horn

Child USA CEO Marci Hamilton and Child USA Ambassador Corey Feldman have released a movie viewing guide for sexual abuse survivors before the return of the documentary (My) Truth: The Rape Of 2 Coreys. The movie carefully lays out an alleged pedophile network that actor Corey Feldman says not only abused him but sexually abused Corey Haim as well. Due to the intense subject matter and some graphic detail regarding sexual abuse, Marci Hamilton and Corey Feldman have released the guide to offer suggestions to help survivors deal with any triggers that may arise from watching the movie. Tickets go on sale on April 18, 2020, and the movie will begin streaming on-demand beginning April 22, 2020. The only legitimate place to purchase tickets and view the movie is the official website at www.mytruthdoc.com.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

April 19, 2020

By Goya Dmytryshchak

Victorian private schools, religious entities and other organisations who don’t sign up to a redress scheme for child sex abuse survivors may lose funding, the state government will announce on Sunday.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse recommended a national redress scheme to provide survivors with support such as compensation.

Victoria’s Attorney-General Jill Hennessy said 49 non-government organisations operating in the state had not signed up to the scheme, which has a June 30 deadline.

They include private schools, religious entities, sport and recreation groups, and community, youth and family services.

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COLUMBUS (OH)
Associated Press

April 17, 2020

A federal judge on Friday partly unpaused litigation against Ohio State University over decades-old sexual abuse by a team doctor, while making clear that mediation toward possible settlements should continue as the lawsuits proceed.

More than 350 former athletes and other men alleging mistreatment by the late Richard Strauss sued the school for failing to stop the doctor despite concerns raised during his tenure, but much of the legal action has been on hold as the cases were in mediation.

Ohio State announced last month that it reached a settlement with nearly half the men; details weren’t disclosed. Some of the other accusers had asked the judge to let them resume litigation.

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ST. ALBERT (ALBERTA, CANADA)
St. Albert Gazette

April 18, 2020

By Scott Hayes

Séan McCann’s appearance on the Arden Theatre stage might be delayed till the fall but you can prepare for his talk – a fundraiser for the St. Albert Community Foundation – with his new memoir just released this week.

DETAILS: One Good Reason / Written by Séan McCann with Andrea Aragon / 240 pages / $29.95 / Nimbus Publishing

These are the days to find the good stories to read – the important stories, real ones, the ones that come from the heart and speak to making the best of bad, horrible situations.

On that note, Séan McCann just released his memoir One Good Reason this week. Co-written with his wife Andrea Aragon, it’s a deep dive into the Great Big Sea singer/songwriter’s lifetime of mental anguish caused by sexual abuse by a Catholic priest when he was just a teenager in a small town in Newfoundland. That torment and the secrecy he kept about it resulted in his alcoholism, which spurred on his own misbehaviours. Creative and celebrated though he was (and still is), he spent much of his life in a bottle and that, we all know, never comes without its own new miseries springing forth.

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GRAND RAPIDS (MI)
MLive.com

April 18, 2020

By Melissa Frick

The Michigan Supreme Court shot down a young man’s appeal in a negligence lawsuit against the Catholic Diocese of Grand Rapids that was previously dismissed in Kent County Circuit Court, the Associated Press reports.

The lawsuit accuses the diocese and three Catholic school employees of negligence in the sexual abuse of a Catholic school teen who was assaulted by a tutor. The victim, who was 15 at the time of the abuse, accuses the defendants of failing to prevent Abigail Simon, a former Catholic school tutor, from abusing him.

The teen filed the lawsuit in 2015 against the diocese, Grand Rapids Catholic Secondary School and three administrators, claiming not enough was done to prevent high school tutor Abigail Simon from abusing the teen.

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GRAND RAPIDS (MI)
Associated Press

April 17, 2020

The Michigan Supreme Court has turned down an appeal from a young man who accused the Grand Rapids Catholic Diocese of negligence for failing to prevent a sexual relationship with a high school tutor.

It wasn’t unanimous. Three justices — Bridget McCormack, Richard Bernstein and Megan Cavanagh — said Friday they wanted to hear the case.

The state appeals court in 2018 agreed with a Kent County judge who had dismissed a lawsuit against the diocese and school officials. They said they were unaware of the relationship between Abigail Simon and a teenager at Catholic Central High School in 2013.

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VIRGINIA
Crux

April 18, 2020

By Inés San Martín

In Oct. 2008, Father Mark White started a blog under his name in the hopes that his preaching would reach those who don’t go to church. Ever since, he’s written about God, Kobe Bryant, and being pro-life, as well as sharing his homilies.

But he’s also been critical of the way some within the hierarchy of the Catholic Church addressed the clerical sex abuse crisis. The targets of his criticism have included Pope Francis and his own Diocese of Richmond in Virginia, which he’s called “opaque.”

White closed his blog in November 2019, after his bishop ordered him to do so. But after the COVID-19 pandemic led to the cancellation of Masses with the faithful, he decided to resume blogging, as a way to stay in communication with his parishioners.

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National Catholic Register

April 17, 2020

By Father Raymond J. de Souza

COMMENTARY: The Australian cardinal addressed key issues associated with his wrongful conviction and imprisonment, including the incendiary claim that it might have been desired by corrupt officials in Rome.

For the first time since July 2017, Cardinal George Pell spoke at length. In a television interview taped on Holy Saturday at a seminary in Sydney, he answered questions for nearly an hour about his ordeal, which ended with a thumping acquittal by Australia’s High Court the previous Tuesday. In the course of his answers, Cardinal Pell made four important points and addressed the incendiary claim that his wrongful conviction in Melbourne might have been desired by corrupt officials in Rome.

Suffering of the Innocent

Asked about how he endured the charges, the public defamation, the trials and the incarceration, Cardinal Pell insisted that his inner peace was not disturbed because he knew that he was innocent. The only time during the interview that he appeared annoyed was when he was asked if he had considered suicide.

“I am a Christian!” he replied, incredulous that the possibility would be raised.

Cardinal Pell’s answer clarified what is true for Christians, above all during Holy Week. The suffering, even death, of the innocent is not a theological problem for Christians. If Jesus, innocent of all sin, could be falsely condemned to death, then the suffering of the innocent does not pose a challenge to the faith on a theological level.

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AUSTRALIA
Australian Associated Press via 7 News

April 16, 2020

By Karen Sweeney

Former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett has been blasted for his “inappropriate” comments about judges after Cardinal George Pell’s High Court acquittal.

Mr Kennett called for the resignation of Victorian Chief Justice Anne Ferguson and Court of Appeal President Chris Maxwell after their decision on Cardinal Pell’s earlier appeal was overturned.

A jury convicted the cardinal on five child sexual abuse charges in December 2018 and the judges ruled the verdict should stand after a two-day appeal hearing last August.

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AUSTRALIA
Mama Mia (blog)

April 16, 2020

This post deals with child sex abuse and might be triggering for some readers.

The past couple of weeks have been fraught for our family. Not only are we all home-bound due to coronavirus, but we have been following the media surrounding Cardinal George Pell almost hypnotically. We are invested.

You see, my husband is a survivor of Catholic sexual abuse.

It occurred in the 1980s, when he was a boarder at a well-known school for boys. The signs were there but I did not put it all together until over a decade into our relationship and two children later.

He would latch on to any media stories about paedophiles. He would watch certain movies over and over, most notably ‘Spotlight’ (about an American Newspaper that uncovered multiple instances of abuse) and ‘Sleepers’, a story of four boys who were abused in jail and seek revenge.

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Catholic World Report

April 6, 2020

By George Weigel

It is imperative for the future of the Australian criminal justice system, and indeed for the future of Australian democracy, that a serious examination of conscience followed by a serious public reckoning take place.

The unanimous decision by Australia’s High Court to quash a guilty verdict and enter a verdict of “acquitted” in the case of Pell vs. The Queen reverses both the incomprehensible trial conviction of Cardinal George Pell on a charge of “historic sexual abuse” and the equally baffling decision to uphold that false verdict by two of the three members of an appellate court in the State of Victoria last August. The High Court’s decision frees an innocent man from the unjust imprisonment to which he has been subjected, restores him to his family and friends, and enables him to resume his important work in and for the Catholic Church. The decision also begins the process of rebuilding international confidence in Australia’s criminal justice system, which has been badly damaged by the Pell case—although there is much more remedial work to be done on that front, especially in the State of Victoria, Ground Zero of the Pell witch hunt that raged for years and that culminated in this tawdry affair.

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AUSTRALIA
Catholic News Agency

April 8, 2020

The High Court of Australia this week overturned Cardinal George Pell’s conviction for five alleged counts of sexual abuse, and despite his release from prison, Pell is likely to face several civil lawsuits from alleged abuse victims and their families.

The High Court on April 7 overturned Pell’s 2018 conviction for alleged abuse of two choir boys. The father of one of the alleged victims in the criminal case— who has since died— is suing the Catholic Church, claiming Pell’s alleged abuse was the reason for his son’s “sudden turmoil” in 1996, according to his lawyer Lisa Flynn.

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KOTTAYAM (INDIA)
Global Sisters Report

[Note: This is an old article]

February 25, 2020

By Saji Thomas

Defense attorneys petitioned court to ban media coverage, social media discussion

The rape case against Bishop Franco Mulakkal took a new turn over the weekend when a new allegation of sexual misconduct against the prelate emerged a day before he was to appear in court in Kerala, India. The second accuser, a member of the same congregation as the first, is already a witness in the pending trial against the bishop.

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WINSTON-SALEM (NC)
Winston-Salem Journal

By Michael Hewlett

April 17, 2020

Sex abuse allegations made against Children’s Home house parents. Accuser says abuse occurred in the 1970s.

A lawsuit filed Thursday alleges that a husband and wife serving as house parents at the Children’s Home repeatedly molested an orphaned Winston-Salem boy in the early 1970s, as well as other children. The suit claims officials were negligent and failed to report abuse to local authorities.

The lawsuit says the house parents were eventually fired over the allegations but were never charged with a crime. The accuser is now a 59-year-old still living somewhere in North Carolina. His attorneys filed the lawsuit in Mecklenburg Superior Court against the Children’s Home and the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church, which ran the Children’s Home at the time of the alleged abuse. The Western North Carolina Conference is headquartered in Huntersville in Mecklenburg County. The Conference now contributes revenue and volunteers for what is known as Crossnore School & Children’s Home.

Richard Serbin, one of the accuser’s attorneys, said North Carolina’s Safe Child Act of 2019 paved the way for the lawsuit, providing a two-year window for child sexual-abuse claims to be brought. The statute of limitations is eliminated during that two-year window.

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GREENSBURG (PA)
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

April 16, 2020

By Natasha Lindstrom

A New Hampshire man is suing the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh based on allegations that three priests sexually assaulted him in the 1960s and early ’70s, court records show.

The lawsuit filed Wednesday in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court further accuses the diocese and co-defendant Bishop David Zubik of “protecting child sexual abusers” by refusing to provide information that could help identify two of the three accused priests.

The diocese did not return a request for comment late Wednesday.

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LAS VEGAS (NV)
KSNV

April 16, 2020

By Peter Valencia

A new round-the-clock hotline is now available for targeted for LGBTQ+ victims of crime in Southern Nevada.

The Center, located near Maryland Parkway and Lewis Avenue, said it will staff more than 125 volunteer advocates to point victims to the right services.

“It has been a long-term goal of The Center to launch a victim hotline to serve our community,” said Holly Reese, Community Engagement Manager for The Center.

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PENNSYLVANIA
TribLive.com

April 16, 2020

By Josh Shapiro

We’re working overtime right now in the Office of Attorney General — protecting your financial security and stopping price gouging during the public health emergency — and still meeting our core responsibilities to public safety. In fact, we just won two major victories that will protect Pennsylvanians from the most dangerous sexually violent predators.

Survivors of sexual assault inspire our office with their strength and resilience. The emotional trauma and physical abuse they’ve endured is heartbreaking and drives our fight against the devastating impacts of sexual violence in our commonwealth. Preventing these crimes and supporting survivors is a critical obligation of the Office of Attorney General.

Thanks to our efforts, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court just overturned a decision that would have undermined public safety and torn away a key protection for all Pennsylvanians. In this case, the court agreed that the commonwealth can continue to notify parents, neighbors, schools and child care centers every time an especially dangerous sexually violent predator moves into their community. The people on this list were convicted of abusing someone already, and a judge found they had a disorder that compels them to commit sexually violent offenses. There are currently 2,269 people in Pennsylvania on this list and, thanks to our office, you’ll know if one of them lives in your neighborhood.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

April 16, 2020

Four lawsuits have been filed this month against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh — two of them also naming Holy Family Institute in Emsworth — by plaintiffs alleging that as minors they were were sexually abused by priests or other employees decades ago.

The lawsuits were filed in Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas and allege, among other things, that the defendants engaged in fraud and conspiracy.

They are the latest in a line of lawsuits based on a legal theory that is now before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in a test case. Abuse claims from long ago would normally be barred under the statute of limitations. But the plaintiffs argue they were victims of a conspiracy of coverup that continued right up to the release of a 2018 statewide grand jury report into sexual abuse in Pittsburgh’s and five other dioceses. The plaintiffs allege this brings the cause of action to within the statute of limitations.

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VATICAN CITY
Church Militant (blog)

April 7, 2020

by Bradley Eli, M.Div., Ma.Th.

Pope Francis is praying for those who are persecuted by an unjust sentence. He did so shortly after news broke that Australia’s High Court acquitted Cdl. George Pell of sex abuse.

Without mentioning Pell’s name in his homily at Casa Santa Marta on Tuesday Francis said, “I would like to pray today for all the people who suffer an unjust sentence because of aggressive persistence [against them].”

A Vatican press release the same day was more specific: “The Holy See, which has always expressed confidence in the Australian judicial authority, welcomes the High Court’s unanimous decision concerning Cdl. George Pell, acquitting him of the accusations of abuse of minors and overturning his sentence.”

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BUFFALO (NY)
The Buffalo News

April 16, 2020

By Phil Fairbanks

The Buffalo Diocese is spending a lot of money defending itself.

Hundreds of clergy sexual abuse lawsuits. A landmark bankruptcy case.

The result is a legal bill totaling more than $2 million the past year alone.

And the meter is running.

More than half of the money paid out by the diocese – $1.4 million – went to Connors LLP, the Buffalo law firm handling more than 260 Child Victims Act lawsuits against the diocese.

Headed by Terrence M. Connors, one of the state’s preeminent defense attorneys, the firm has represented the diocese for years and is seen as one of its primary defenders, both in court and in public.

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AUSTRALIA
Lawyers Weekly

April 16, 2020

By Naomi Neilson

It is “legally wrong” to assume that the merit of future cases brought in the criminal or civil jurisdictions for assault by a priest is weakened by the George Pell decision.

A law professor with La Trobe University conceded that the High Court of Australia’s ruling left a “trail of devastation” from victims of sexual abuse by priests of the Catholic Church, but the decision will have little to no effect on the future of similar cases.

Gideon Boas said each future case will be determined by reference to the particular facts and evidence and, beyond the fact that all historic sex abuse cases suffer from difficulties associated with the delay of trial, the Pell decision will not ultimately be the drawcard.

“It would be unfortunate and legally wrong if the message in the community was that the High Court’s ruling has weakened the strength of, or point in, bringing such cases to court or making properly founded allegations,” Professor Boas said. “The risk of this messaging is that victims will give up or not bother coming forward.”

Importantly, the allegation that concerned the High Court’s ruling is “the beginning of the real analysis of Pell’s involvement and complicity in child sex abuse in the Catholic Church and, in particular the Ballarat [diocese]”. As such, it is predicted that Cardinal Pell will face other civil proceedings concerning allegations of cover-ups in the churc

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ROCHESTER (NY)
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

April 16, 2020

By Gary Craig

The Roman Catholic Dioceses of Rochester and Buffalo have sued the federal Small Business Administration for refusing to allow the dioceses to seek emergency loans to offset the loss of money during the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The refusal of the Small Business Administration, or SBA, has nothing to do with the fact that the dioceses are religious institutions; faith-based and nonprofit organizations can seek the loans.

However, the SBA is not providing financial help to businesses in bankruptcy proceedings. Both the Diocese of Rochester and the Diocese of Buffalo are seeking bankruptcy protection in the wake of hundreds of claims of sex abuse by priests and nuns.

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HAMILTON (ONTARIO, CANADA)
Catholic Register

April 19, 2020

I am always perplexed by others who are appalled at the sexual abuse cases within the Catholic Church and, more recently, the allegations of sexual, emotional and spiritual abuse by Jean Vanier. Most become incensed and wonder why abuse victims wait so long to tell their tale.

Dr. Nuala Kenny gives insight in her book Still Unhealed. It takes males at least 25 years and females at least 18 years before they can even acknowledge the abuse. Why? Because the profound shock and shame — physically, emotionally, psychologically — is like being hit by a truck. The rebound takes years, if ever it can occur.

Children carry all this pain and secrecy to adulthood at great consequence to their quality of living, trust in relationships and sexual expression with partners. They carry an overwhelming sense of helplessness.

Dr. Kenny certainly has pegged the problem in our Catholic homes and communities and in the Church at large.

Rose Galbraith,

Hamilton, Ont.

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CANADA
Toronto Star

April 16, 2020

By Marcia Kaye

Michelle Good never went to a residential school. But as the daughter and granddaughter of people who did, the long-time advocate for residential school survivors says a certain question often comes up. As she explains in a note to reviewers of her new book, it’s a question that those who never attended such schools — the last of which closed almost a quarter-century ago — have for those who did: Why can’t they just get over it and move on?

“I choose to believe that this response arises from a lack of awareness,” she wrote. And as one who straddles both worlds — she didn’t go to such a school but her life has been surrounded by survivors — she’s well positioned to heighten that awareness. To that end, Good, a member of Saskatchewan’s Red Pheasant Cree Nation, has written the novel “Five Little Indians.”

Despite its glib title — a nod to the classic Agatha Christie mystery “Ten Little Indians,” whose title in turn comes from an offensive 19th-century minstrel-show ditty — the novel is an intense depiction of how life unfolds for five likeable young people once they’re out of residential school.

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RICHMOND (VA)
Richmond Times-Dispatch

April 16, 2020

A Catholic priest in Virginia says he’ll continue to serve two parishes despite the Richmond Diocese’s order to remove him over a blog that’s been critical of the church. Rev. Mark White told the Richmond Times-Dispatch earlier this week that he would remain as priest and is seeking legal counsel to defend his position. He said the canonical process must run its full course. White maintained a well-known blog that was critical of the church’s handling of the sexual abuse scandal. He served as the priest of St. Joseph Catholic Church in Martinsville and St. Francis of Assisi in Rocky Mount.

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