ABUSE TRACKER

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

August 26, 2017

Four more arrested in aggressive Christianity group

NEW MEXICO
KRQE

By Katherine Mozzone
Published: August 25, 2017

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – Authorities continue to delve into the secret lives of aggressive Christianity members out of Fence Lake, New Mexico.

The Cibola County Sheriff says four more people were arrested Wednesday, for failing to register the births of their 11 kids.

Days after allegations of child sex abuse surfaced against the Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps, more members are in custody and were caught trying to leave their compound with two vans full of kids.

Deputies arrested Amos, Victoria, Ruth and Timothy River on felony warrants.

According to the Washington Post, authorities were there trying to pick up children for interviews when they found two vans leaving the compound, south of Gallup.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

Bessborough sale won’t affect ability to examine site

IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Saturday, August 26, 2017 Conall Ó Fátharta

Former residents of the Bessborough Mother and Baby Home in Cork have been assured that plans to sell it will not affect the power of the Commission to examine the site.

The Irish Examiner revealed that the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary intend to sell the site of the former Mother and Baby Home in a process that could take up to two years. The sale will not include the cemetery and remembrance site areas.

The campus is more recently the setting for the Bessborough Centre, a charity that works with vulnerable families.

However, the facility in Blackrock is also being examined by the Mother and Baby Homes Commission. It has come under intense scrutiny in recent years over activities alleged to have occurred there when it was a mother and baby home, including the possible falsification of death certificates to facilitate clandestine adoptions here and overseas.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

This ex-vicar wrote a child sex abuse fantasy starring himself

UNITED KINGDOM
Liverpool Echo

BY NEIL DOCKING
25 AUG 2017

A paedophile ex-vicar who wrote a twisted child sex abuse fantasy featuring himself was today jailed for 20 months.

Former Church of England reverend Paul Battersby downloaded 1,730 indecent images between November 2014 and January 2017.

Police also seized a shoebox full of children’s clothes when they raided the 68-year-old’s flat in Old Hall Street, Liverpool city centre.

Liverpool Crown Court heard they then discovered disturbing fantasy literature on the persistent sex offender’s computer equipment.

Iain Criddle, prosecuting, said: “Perhaps equally worrying, other items were recovered.

“From the defendant’s computer was recovered a fantasy story, which appears to have been penned by him, regarding child abuse.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

Magdalene protesters seek ‘full redress’

IRELAND
The Times

Ed Carty
August 26 2017
The Times

Survivors of Magdalene laundries have staged a protest outside a former Catholic workhouse in Dublin and called for a memorial and a full redress scheme.

Their action follows the United Nations criticism of Ireland for its lack of an independent and thorough investigation and its call for the prosecution of members of the Catholic Church.

The rally was held off Sean McDermott Street in Dublin, the site of the last Catholic workhouse to be shut, a fortnight after the committee against torture report accused the government of failing to live up to commitments to investigate the religious institutions.

Angela Downey, who was born in Castlepollard mother and baby home after her mother, Mary, had been raped and was sent to a laundry, called for the name of every woman who toiled in the institutions to be immortalised in stone.

Pressing her hand against the crumbling back wall of the workhouse run by the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity, she said: “My mother spent 15 years in the laundries. The children weren’t recognised at all. We weren’t entitled to anything. They should do something for us now.” The survivors are also seeking a day of commemoration to remember those affected by the laundries.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

Australian priest rips confession proposal as government ‘intrusion’

AUSTRALIA
Angelus

August 26, 2017 – By Catholic News Agency

An Australian priest has called the Royal Commission’s recent proposal to enforce law requiring that clergy face criminal charges if they do not disclose details of sexual abuse revealed in the confessional a breach of religious tolerance. Fr. Kelvin Lovegrove, Episcopal Vicar for Clergy in the Archdiocese of Sydney, told CNA Aug. 24 that he was “surprised” by the suggestion made by the Royal Commission that priests be forced “to break the law in regard to the Seal of Confession.”

“Australia is religiously tolerant country, and many people have emigrated to Australia from other countries so that they can freely practice their faith,” he said, calling the proposal “an intrusion by the Government into the realm of the spiritual relationship between priest and penitent, which up until has been sacrosanct.”

He said the proposal is out of step with expectations for others who maintain similar confidential relationships, noting that “other professionals such as psychologists, lawyers and journalists are not required to break confidences in regard to confidential information between them and their clients.”

Fr. Lovegrove’s comments come less than two weeks after Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, established in 2013, on Aug. 14 released a sweeping 85 proposed changes to the country’s criminal justice system.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

Judge dismisses several counts in Bishop Thomas O’Brien sexual-abuse case

ARIZONA
Arizona Republic

Jerod MacDonald-Evoy, The Republic | azcentral.com Aug. 25, 2017

The judge overseeing a lawsuit accusing Bishop Emeritus Thomas O’Brien of sexual abuse has ordered that several counts focusing on the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix be dropped.

The counts related to the former bishop’s alleged sexual misconduct still stand.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge David Udall dismissed counts of public nuisance, fraud, fiduciary fraud and negligent infliction of emotional distress, leaving eight of the original 14 counts.

The counts that were dropped alleged the church had financial and oversight responsibilities related to O’Brien’s alleged actions.

In their motions to dismiss multiple allegations in the lawsuit, attorneys for the church contended that some of the accusations were too broad and sweeping. Declaring the Phoenix Diocese a public nuisance would be akin to “creating a new law,” defense attorney John Kelly said in the church’s response.

The lawsuit, filed in September 2016, accuses O’Brien, now 81, of sexually abusing the plaintiff from 1977 through 1982, when the plaintiff was a boy.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

Priests urge paedophiles to go from confession box to police

AUSTRALIA
Sunday Herald Sun

Ashley Argoon, Sunday Herald Sun
August 26, 2017

PROMINENT priests say they would urge paedophiles to go to police if they admitted to crimes in confession.

Well known men of the cloth say they would refuse absolution, with the only penance for a person who committed such a serious offence to be the “full force of the law”.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse recommended priests be charged for not reporting confessions of paedophiles. Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart has said the confessional seal should remain.

But Fr Brendan Reed from Our Lady of Good Counsel and All Hallows Parish said those who admit to those crimes in confession should expect one result.

“The public expect, and the church expects, that it is such a serious sin the penance has to be no less than handing themselves in,” he said.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

Archbishop Denis Hart is talking nonsense on marriage equality and child abuse

AUSTRALIA
Sunday Herald Sun

KATIE BICE, Sunday Herald Sun

THE Archbishop of Melbourne is doing the Catholic Church and its followers a disservice. In the past fortnight, Denis Hart has made his views known on two controversial issues and at least once, arguably twice, has been grossly out of step with community expectations.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse released a report with 85 recommendations, including that priests be forced to report details of child sex abuse made in confession. It urged criminal charges against priests who failed to do so, saying there should be “no excuse, protection nor privilege” for those who fail to comply. Hart, however, believes confessions should be respected: “Confession in the Catholic Church is a spiritual encounter with God through the priest,” he stated. “It is a fundamental part of the freedom of religion. Outside of this, all offences against children must be reported to the authorities and we are absolutely committed to doing so.”

I don’t profess to have ever met or had a conversation with God, but I’m going to take a stab and say he’s no fan of child molesters. And you’d think the leaders of a body that oversaw one of the greatest human tragedies outside war time would listen to and accept any recommendations to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

And Hart’s stance seems to go against what he says on another issue riling the Catholic Church, same-sex marriage. Last week he issued a public letter cautioning that any change to marriage legislation would threaten the “health and future of our society”. Part of the public letter read: “Yes, human rights are important. But so are human responsibilities. We are responsible for the impact of our decisions on future generations.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

Cibola sheriff tells court about inquiry into child abuse

NEW MEXICO
Albuquerque Journal

By Russell Contreras / Associated Press
Published: Friday, August 25th, 2017

GRANTS – A paramilitary religious sect rocked by child sexual abuse allegations appeared to be a small, poor group living in a secluded ranching area in western New Mexico who complained they were mere victims of constant persecution by people who didn’t really understand their reading of the Christian Bible.

But authorities say the trustees of the Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps are owners of thousands of acres of land and benefited from a wealthy, high-ranking member who aided them in avoiding law enforcement by hiding children throughout its vast holdings.

Those holdings and regular deceptions by leaders, authorities said, made it difficult for the small Cibola County Sheriff’s Office to investigate allegations of child abuse and child sexual abuse that former members say went back years.

Speaking before a magistrate judge on Friday, Cibola County Undersheriff Michael Munk gave a glimpse into his agency’s two-year investigation of a sect that former members say treated followers like slaves and often physically beat children who had no records of being born. That investigation led to the Sunday raid of the group’s Fence Lake compound and the arrest of four members.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

Vic Marist brother in court over sex abuse

AUSTRALIA
7 News

Jacqueline Le
AAP / August 25th, 2017

A former Victorian school principal has appeared in court to face multiple charges of indecent assault against students.

Marist Brother Gerard McNamara attended Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Friday charged with multiple indecent assault offences against five boys at Traralgon.

One incident is alleged to have taken place after a student was summoned to see McNamara for misbehaving in class, the court was told.

McNamara is also accused of punching the student shortly after.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

August 25, 2017

Alto a la persecución política contra jTatik Raúl Vera: ciudadanos y ONG

MONTERREY (MEXICO)
Desinformémonos [Ciudad de México, Mexico]

August 25, 2017

By Redacción Desinformémonos

Read original article

El gobierno de Coahuila, a través de su gobernador, Rubén Moreira Valdez,  ha iniciado una persecución política y la criminalización de Fray Raúl Vera, obispo de la Diócesis de Saltillo situación que se da en el marco de la presentación ante la Corte Penal Internacional de La Haya del informe “Asesinatos, desapariciones y torturas en Coahuila de Zaragoza, crímenes de lesa humanidad”. 

78 organizaciones civiles y 216 personas denuncian la persecución legal y la criminalización a Fray Raúl Vera López por parte de Rubén Moreira Valdez, gobernador de Coahuila, al señalar públicamente a don Raúl como responsable de que sacerdotes acusados de pederastia se sustrajeran de la acción de la “justicia” estatal al “tardarse en denunciarlos”. 

En el informe presentado en la Corte Penal Internacional se solicita se abra un examen preliminar de las graves violaciones a derechos humanos cometidas en el estado en el periodo que va entre 2009 y 2016.

La carta publicada por la Diócesis de Saltillo señala que “El uso político y represivo que hace de la procuración de justicia desgasta más un aparato que debería de estar atendiendo la crisis de graves violaciones a los derechos humanos y combatir la impunidad que impera en Coahuila,”

El Centro de Derechos Humanos Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, Frayba, se suma a las voces que exigen: ¡Alto a la persecución política contra jTatik Raúl Vera López!, caminante que persevera en el acompañamiento a los pueblos en la defensa de los derechos humanos.

Aquí la carta de apoyo ciudadano al obispo de Saltillo:

“Alto a la persecución política contra Fr. Raúl Vera López”

Hace unos días fueron publicadas en diversos medios de comunicación las declaraciones de Rubén Moreira Valdez, gobernador de Coahuila, en las que señala que la tardanza de Fr. Raúl Vera López en denunciar a sacerdotes por el delito de pederastia ocasionó que éstos se sustrajeran de la acción de la “justicia” coahuilense.

Lo anterior, evidentemente se da en el marco de una persecución legal y criminalización mediática en contra del obispo de la Diócesis de Saltillo, derivada de la comunicación que presentó, en conjunto con Fuerzas Unidas por Nuestros Desaparecidos en Coahuila y Familias Unidas en la Búsqueda y Localización de Personas Desaparecidas de Piedras Negras, ante la Fiscalía de la Corte Penal Internacional por delitos de lesa humanidad ocurridos en Coahuila durante los últimos ocho años.

Entendemos que ante la incapacidad de investigación que caracteriza a la Procuraduría General de Justicia de Coahuila, el señor Moreira Valdez se encuentre molesto porque con esa incapacidad será muy difícil dar con los presuntos responsables y esto puede afectar más sus estadísticas en materia de justicia y frente a ello, espera que monseñor Vera López haga su trabajo, como en el caso de las familias de personas desaparecidas, y se los entregue, sin embargo, ojalá recuerde que investigar los delitos, encontrar, procesar y sancionara los responsables es la responsabilidad del Estado y de nadie más.

Son, por tanto, bastante lamentables las declaraciones de Rubén Moreira en contra Fr. Raúl Vera López, pues muestran una estrategia ruin que conocemos bastante bien.

El uso político y represivo que hace de la procuración de justicia desgasta más un aparato que debería de estar atendiendo la crisis de graves violaciones a los derechos humanos y combatir la impunidad que impera en Coahuila, que no es un tema menor y que precisamente la denuncia ante la Fiscalía de la Corte Penal Internacional, por parte de familiares de personas desaparecidas, la evidencia escandalosamente.

Le recordamos al señor Moreira Valdez que la investigación 075/2014, iniciada por el mismo gobierno de Coahuila, fue abierta desde 2014. Es vergonzoso que tres años después, lejos de haberse esclarecido los hechos, se pretenda culpar a un testigo por un trabajo que no realizó el Ministerio Público, que deja ver, además, que el caso sigue en la impunidad, como todo en Coahuila.

Hacemos un llamado al mecanismo de Protección de Personas Defensoras de Derechos Humanos y Periodistas a estar atento de la situación que se vive en Coahuila con el hostigamiento por parte del Sr. Rubén Moreira Valdez en contra de quienes exhiben la realidad que vive el estado”.

Firma de personas (216) 

Abelardo Bermúdez Alcaraz – Abigail Pineda Trujillo – Adrián Cerda – Adriana Erandi Santamaría Nájera – Alberto Serdan – Ana Cristina Vázquez Anchondo – Ana Laura Marines – Ana María Lozano Andrés – Angélica Rodríguez Monroy – Antonio Adalberto Godínes – Antonio Evangelista Román – Aquilina De Labra Mata – Armando Ibarra – Armando Valdez Vargas – Arturo Guízar Sánchez – Arturo Rodríguez – Arturo Zuazua – Benjamín Gamboa – Bernardo García Jiménez – Bibiana Salamanca García – Blanca Estela Sánchez Aguilar – Blanca Villalobos Salgado – Brenda Ivonne Rangel Ortiz – Brenda Ramón Moreno – Camerina Vega Núñez – Carlos Aurelio Ramírez Moreno, Sacerdote de la Iglesia Anglicana de México – Carlos Cruz Santiago – Cecilia Soler – César Alán Santamaría Nájera – Cindirella Peralta Soto – Clara Luisa Covarrubias Márquez – Cosme Torres Flores – Crisanta Mendoza Villa – Cristina Auerbach Benavides – Cruz Elvira Gaona De la Peña – Daniela Rea – Diana Montufar Albarrán – Diego Sarabia Villalobos – Diógenes Díaz Beiza – Dora Alicia Valero de REMOS – Dora Alicia Valero Gómez – Dr. Armando Duarte – Dr. Eduardo Nieto Vázquez – Dr. J. Natividad Maldonado Pérez – Dr. Jonathan Torres Torres – Dr. Luis Felipe Maldonado Nájera – Dra. Nidia Borja Velázquez – Edgar Cortés – Eduardo Alonso Tello – Eduardo Valdez Vargas – Elaine Domínguez Alonso – Elisa María Jaime Garza – Elizabeth Aída Pérez Messino – Elizabeth Covarrubias Nájera – Elpidia Hernández Macedonio – Emilio Arizpe Narro – Emma Pérez García – Ernestina Lomelí Sánchez – Esmirna Torres Méndez – Estela Araiza Palacio – Evelia Rivera Landaverde – Evelia Torres Pineda – Evelyn Madhú Taylor Torres – Everardo Martínez Pineda – Fabián Rodríguez Reyna – Fausta Valdez Vargas – Felipa Vargas Mendoza – Fernanda Ontiveros Rodríguez – Flor de la Peña – Fr. Tomás González – Francisca Vega Núñez – Francisco Gonzáles Díaz – Francisco Urbano Martínez – Fray José Montes C. – Fray Ricardo Riego Castillejos – Fray Roberto Velázquez T. – Fray Rodolfo Montes de Oca N. – Gabriel Valdez Morales – Gabriela Juárez – Gabriela Santamaría Nájera – Gerardo Rodríguez – Gerardo Segura – Giovanni Reyez López – Gloria Angélica De la Peña Ramos – Guadalupe Cruz – Guillermina González – Guillermina Salinas Corea – Guillermo López – Gustavo García Torres – Gustavo Mejía González – Gustavo Nájera Mondragón – Héctor Villalobos Salgado – Herlinda Olmedo Pérez – Imelda Belmares – Irma Chávez González – Isabel García Jiménez – Isela Alvarado Maldonado – J. Asunción Aguilar Mendoza – Jackie Campbell – Jaime Antonio Valdez Vargas – Janeth Caamaño Barragan – Javier Sicilia – Jessica Pineda Gutiérrez – Jesús Bermúdez Alcaraz – Jesús Jaime Nájera – Jesús Robles Maloof – Jimena Esquivel Leautaud – Jorge Verástegui González – José Bermúdez Alcaraz – José Guadalupe Sánchez Suárez – José Júnior Carachure Hernández – José Luis Barajas Camacho – José Luis Barajas Herrera – José Luis García – Juan Alberto Sánchez Aguilar – Juan Carlos Gamboa – Juan Francisco Aldape – Juan Gamboa – Juan García Jiménez – Juan Manuel Chávez Ortuño – Juan Pablo Fernandez – Juana Macedonio Pascual – Juana María Ávila Alanís – Juliana Maldonado Caraza – Julio Gamboa – Julissa Maldonado Caraza – Laura Karmina Aguilar Martínez – Laura Rosario Barajas Herrera – Leonel Martínez González – Libia Nájera Gómez – Lorena Reyna Olvera – Lucía Arias Nájera – Luis Gamboa – Lulu Colunga Domínguez – Ma. del Carmen Jiménez Pulido – Ma. del Rosario Nájera Gómez – Ma. Elena Rodríguez Núñez – Ma. Elizabeth Nájera Gómez – Ma. Josefina Contreras Moreno – Ma. Magdalena López Paulino – Macheli Flores Reyna – Magali Hernández Candelario – Manuel Antonio Vásquez Alvarado – Manuel Cleto Pérez – María del Rosario García Valero (Puebla, Pue.) – María del Rosario Sandoval – María Eugenia Amaya F. – María Teresa García Valero (Morelia, Mich.) – María Yamilet Gutiérrez Ramírez – Maricela Gamboa – Maritza Gutiérrez Cerros – Martha Alicia Cabello G. – Martha Alicia Camacho Loaiza – Martha Elena Valdez Vargas – Martha Grisel Galarza Maldonado – Martínez Pineda – Matilde Santos – Mayra Alvarado Maldonado – Melania Santamaría Borja – Melita Alcaraz Pliego – Miguel Ángel Covarrubias Nájera – Miguel Ángel Mendoza Carachure – Miguel Valdés Villarreal – Miguel Valdés Villarreal – Minerva Bañuelos Aguirre – Mirna Marcelo Reyes -Mirna Medrano Águilar – Olivia Villalobos Salgado – Omar Benítez Pérez – Pablo Núñez Pineda – Paola Clerico Medina – Pascuala Arroyo Cabrera – Pbro. José Salazar Salazar – Pbro. Julián Andrés Verónica Fernández – Pedro Jasso – Pedro Medrano Ponciano – Pilar Escalona – Porfirio Mendoza Carachure – Praxedes Aguilar Mendoza – Ramiro López Ramírez – Ramsés Salgado Pérez – Raúl Herrera Mendoza – Raúl Soto Bello – Raymundo Espinoza Hernández – Refugio Hernández Macedonio – René Sánchez Torres – Ricardo Villarreal Dávila – Rocío Culebro – Rosa Chávez – Rosa Esther Beltrán Enriquez – Rosa Idalia Gracia Terrazas – Rosa Idalia Gracia Terrazas – Rosa Isela Gamboa – Rosa Ofelia Vázquez – Rosario Brondo – Ruth Reynoso Tranquilino – Sabina Aguilar Sebastián – Samia Cruz Rivera – Sandra Gómez Rivera – Sandra Luz Román Jaimes – Sergio Meneses Durán – Silvia Elda Ortiz Solís – Silvia Salazar Oliva – Silvino Alonso Ocho – Sofía Ochoa Mendoza – Sonia Salazar Terrazas – Sylvia Farías García – Tania Beatriz Aguirre Garcia – Teresa Sordo – Ulises Álvarez Nájera – Víctor Santiago Aguilar – Virgilia Aguilar Martínez – Xipactly Chávez Reynoso – Yadira González Hernández – Yolanda Cardona Arellano – Yolanda Torres Cardona.

Firma de organizaciones (78) 

Actuar Familiares contra la Tortura (AFT) – Alas de Esperanza de Allende Coahuila, A.C. – Alianza de Amor – Asociación Canadiense por el Derecho a la Verdad (ENVERO) – Asociación de Derechos Humanos del Estado de México, (ADHEM) – Asociación de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos y Víctimas de Violaciones de Derechos Humanos en México (AFADEM-FEDEFAM) – Asociación Nacional de Abogados Democráticos (ANAD) – Brigada de Búsqueda de Fosas Clandestinas, A.C. – Búsqueda Colectiva Coatzacoalcos zona Sur – Caritas de Saltillo, Diócesis de Saltillo – Caritas Siderúrgica, Diócesis de Saltillo – Casa del Migrante, Diócesis de Saltillo – Casa LOYOLA Saltillo – Cause Ciudadano, A.C. – Centro de Derechos Humanos Antonio Esteban (CDHFE) – Centro de Derechos Humanos Coordinadora 28 de Mayo, A.C. – Centro de Derechos Humanos Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, A.C. (Frayba) – CEP-Parras – Colectivo Democracia Popular – Colectivo pensamiento crítico volver a Marx – Colectivo Reco – Colectivo Sí a la Vida – Comedor San Francisco A.C., Diócesis de Saltillo – Comisión Diocesana de Misiones – Comité 68 Pro Libertades Democráticas – Comité de Defensa de Derechos Humanos (CHOLOLLAN) – Comité de Familiares de Personas Desaparecidas en México, Alzando Voces, (COFADDEM) – Comunidad Indígena de San Francisco Xochicuautla – Consejo de Cristo en Línea, Diócesis de Saltillo – Consejo Federal Ejecutivo Nacional e Internacional del Frente Mexicano Pro Derechos Humanos (FREMEXDEHU) – Desaparecidos Justicia, A.C. – Enjambre Digital – Equipo de Vicaría de Animación Pastoral (EVAP) – Equipo Diocesano de Animación Pastoral (EDAP) – Espacio Libre Independiente Marabunta, A.C. – Familia Pasta de Conchos – Familiares Caminando por la Justicia – Familiares en Búsqueda María Herrera, A.C. – Familiares Enlaces Xalapa – Familias de Acapulco en Busca de sus Desaparecidos, A.C. – Familias Unidas en la Búsqueda y Localización de Personas Desaparecidas de Piedras Negras – Frente Mexiquense por una Vivienda Digna (FMPVD) – Fuerzas Unidas por Nuestros Desaparecidos en Nuevo León – Fundación Diego Lucero, A.C. (FDL) – Grupo Buscando a Nuestros Desaparecidos y Desaparecidas Veracruz – Grupo Grafitos Colombia – Grupo VIDA Laguna, A.C. – Instituto Mexicano de Derechos Humanos y Democracia, A.C. – Jóvenes ante la Emergencia Nacional – La Alameda Morelos – Liga Mexicana por la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos, A.C. (LIMEDDH) – Mujeres de Michoacán, A.C. – Nueva Constituyente Ciudadana Popular – Obras De la Cruz del Santuario de Guadalupe – Observatorio Eclesial – Observatorio Nacional de Prisiones México (ONP-México) – Orden de San Agustín – Panadería Tres Espigas – Parroquia San Nicolás de Tolentino – Pastoral de la Comunicación, Diócesis de Saltillo – Pastoral Juvenil, Diócesis de Saltillo – Pastoral Social – Por Amor a Ellxs – Red de Solidaridad Sacerdotal – Red Retoño – Red Solidaria Década contra la Impunidad – Red Solidaria Década contra la impunidad – Red Unidos por los Derechos Humanos, A.C. – Red Universitaria de Monitores de Derechos Humanos, (RUMODH) – Regresando a Casa Morelos, A.C. – ReverdeSer Colectivo – Sabuesos Guerreras, A.C. – Saltillo Despierta – Secretariado Social Mexicano – TGM Quality Services – Uniendo Cristales, A.C. – Unión de Madres con Hijos Desaparecidos de Sinaloa, años 70´s – Vicaría Carlos Dávila, Diócesis de Saltillo – Vicaría fray Juan Larios, Diócesis de Saltillo – Voces Unidas por la Dignidad Humana, A.C. – Voces Unidas por la Vida.

Este material periodístico es de libre acceso y reproducción. No está financiado por Nestlé ni por Monsanto. Desinformémonos no depende de ellas ni de otras como ellas, pero si de ti. Apoya el periodismo independiente. Es tuyo.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

Concerns raised over church mediation costs

GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

Andrew Roberto | andrew@postguam.com

Suspended Archbishop Anthony Apuron remains steadfast in his refusal to make a settlement in the sexual abuse allegations made against him.

On Aug. 25 in the District Court of Guam, Apuron’s legal counsel, Jacqueline Terlaje, reiterated that she would not be participating in meetings on Sept. 4 and 5 in Honolulu to discuss mediation protocols with defense attorneys for alleged victims, plaintiff counsels for the Boy Scouts of America and Archdiocese of Agana, and special mediator retired Judge Michael Hogan.

Plaintiffs Walter Denton, Roy Quintanilla, Roland Sondia and Doris Concepcion – on behalf of her late son, Joseph “Sonny” Quinata – filed lawsuits against Apuron and the archdiocese. The four men alleged they were sexually abused by Apuron when they were young altar boys in the 1970s.

According to Post files, Terlaje filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuits filed against Apuron and the Archdiocese of Agana because the victims’ claims are time-barred and Public Law 33-187 is “inorganic and unconstitutional.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

USA TODAY ARTICLE DISTORTS CHURCH’S RECORD ON ABUSE

UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on a story in today’s USA Today:

Parishes Across Nation Under Shadow Of Abuse,” blares a headline in today’s USA Today. The subhead is even more misleading: “Latest revelations are sign that the church’s problems with its priests are not over.”

The implication is obvious: the crisis of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests is still ongoing, and the Church is still failing to protect children. And that is the message that comes across to the casual reader of the almost 2,500 word article.

A more careful reading, however, contradicts that conclusion. For while the article highlights recent reports of abuse, and current or recent court cases and settlements in dioceses around the country, we see that the vast majority of actual or alleged incidents are from decades ago, some even “dating back to the 1950s.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

‘Burn it to the ground’: What should be done with Magdalene laundry buildings?

IRELAND
The Journal

Mary Merritt was sent to a Magdalene laundry on Sean McDermott Street after refusing to work at High Park laundry, Drumcondra. On the day she arrived, she still refused to work, and was sent to another laundry in Donnybrook. She refused to work again and was sent back to the first laundry.

In total, she spent 14 years in High Park. When she was released at the age of 31, she had to have all her teeth taken out and she discovered she was blind in one eye.

“I’d never seen a toothbrush,” she said. During her time there, she says she had no access to proper healthcare, doctors, education, or basic life skills – let alone her right to freedom.

Today, she and other survivors gathered outside the last Magdalene laundry to be closed on Sean McDermott Street in Dublin city, to share their stories and ask the government to include the last survivors’ opinions on what should be done with the institutions that represent a tragic failure in our State’s short history.

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Magdalene laundries’ survivors renew calls for memorial and redress

IRELAND
Irish News

Ed Carty
25 August, 2017

SURVIVORS of Magdalene laundries, and their relatives, have relived the horrors of rape, abuse and lost lives as they renewed calls for a memorial and full redress.

A rally was held off Sean McDermott Street in Dublin, the site of the last Catholic workhouse to be shut, a fortnight after a damning United Nations report criticising the Irish government for failing to live up to commitments to the women.

It is four years since former taoiseach Enda Kenny apologised to those incarcerated in the laundries and their families.

Angela Downey, who was born in Castlepollard Mother and Baby Home after her mother Mary had been raped and was sent to a laundry, called for the name of every woman who toiled in the institutions to be immortalised in stone.

Pressing her hand against the crumbling back wall of the workhouse run by the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity, she said: “My mother spent 15 years in the laundries.

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‘You were always in the clutches of the nuns’

IRELAND
Irish Times

Kitty Holland

Mary Merritt (86) was six-and-a-half stone when, aged 31, she left High Park laundry in Drumcondra, Dublin, in 1961.

At protest in Dublin on Friday, where she was one of about 40 people calling for a memorial to survivors of the Magdalene laundries, Ms Meritt also said, during her 14 years in the laundry she was given neither pads when she was having her period, nor a toothbrush.

“When we were having our period we just had to get on with it,” she said. “When I came out of the laundry I had to have all my teeth out they were so rotten. And I was blind in one eye.”

The protest, outside the old Gloucester Street laundry on Sean McDermott Street, heard from several survivors, as well as Orla O’Connor, chief executive of the National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI) and local councillor Gary Gannon of the Social Democrats. The laundry at that site was the last to close, in 1996.

More than 10,000 women and girls spent time in Catholic Church-run Magdalene laundries from the early 20th century, until 1996. Many were sent for the “crime” of being unmarried and pregnant, and they worked without pay in the laundries which supplied services to State-run bodies, hospitals and hotels.

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New Jersey priest claims he uploaded child porn to get back at God for making him lose at poker

PENNSYLVANIA
New York Daily News

TERENCE CULLEN

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Friday, August 25, 2017

A prison-bound New Jersey priest contests he only uploaded child pornography to his computer to get back at God, who’d been making him lose at poker.

Father Kevin Gugliotta will serve 11½ to 23½ months in prison and must register as a sex offender, according to reports.

The priest, who previously worked in the Archdiocese of Newark, was busted last year when police found child porn on his computer at his Gouldsboro, Pa., apartment last year.

Investigators found the 55-year-old priest uploaded the illegal material several times between July 9 and Aug. 29, 2016, the Pocono Record reports.

The disgraced cleric was hit with 20 counts of child porn and another 20 of disseminating images of children involved in sexual acts.

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Priest kept child porn as ‘revenge’ on God for poker losses

PENNSYLVANIA
Philly.com

AUGUST 25, 2017

HONESDALE, Pa. (AP) – A New Jersey priest says he was trying to get revenge on God for poker losses when he collected computerized child pornography at his weekend home in Pennsylvania, according to his attorney and court records.

The Rev. Kevin Gugliotta was sentenced Thursday to 11½ to 23½ months in the Wayne County jail, receiving credit for 10 months he’s already served. He pleaded guilty in March to a single count of disseminating child pornography after prosecutors dropped dozens of other charges that he possessed and distributed child porn.

Pretrial records show the 55-year-old Gugliotta told probation officers he felt God was attacking him when he lost poker tournaments and games, and got “revenge” by collecting the porn.

“That was his reason,” defense attorney James Swetz said. “He’s not happy that’s how he felt, as the judge indicated. There are other ways to handle issues and handle anger.”

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How I discovered my childhood priest was in the Ku Klux Klan

UNITED STATES
Washington Post

He had taught me to venerate Confederate history.

By Maria Santos Bier August 25

The Rev. William M. Aitcheson was my childhood priest and my history teacher. A fervent advocate of the Confederacy, he used to joke about “Saint Robert E. Lee” in his homilies at church. When I was in middle school in the early 2000s, he taught a Civil War history class for the home-school group at my church in the small Shenandoah County town of Woodstock, Va.

He was also a former Ku Klux Klan member, who in 1982 was fined $26,000 for burning crosses in the yard of an African American family and on the grounds of two Jewish establishments — a fine he had never paid. Before that, he was charged with six cross-burnings in Maryland and with sending a threatening letter to Coretta Scott King. He had also been charged with making pipe bombs and was found with various weapons and bombmaking materials in his bedroom and basement. But I didn’t uncover those latter facts until this month, when I stumbled onto a discovery that would eventually prompt Aitcheson to step down temporarily from his public ministry. He wrote in an op-ed that his service to God had changed and redeemed him. But I knew he wasn’t being entirely honest.

I remember him as an imposing figure who took his history lessons to us home-schoolers very seriously. He had a reputation for being a bit gruff, but he was never unkind to me, and I recall him fondly. He knew so much about history, and I trusted him when he taught us that the Civil War was fought for states’ rights, not slavery; that the South’s cause was noble and just.

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Ex-pastor sentenced to 30 years for sex offenses involving teen

FLORIDA
NWF Daily

By WENDY VICTORA

FORT WALTON BEACH — The former pastor of a local church was sentenced Thursday to 30 years in state prison and a lifetime designation as a sexual offender by Judge William F. Stone.

Larry Michael Thorne had been found guilty earlier this summer of lewd and lascivious battery on a victim between the ages of 12 and 18 and sexual battery on a victim in the same age range, according to a press release from the First Judicial Circuit State Attorney’s Office.

Thorne was arrested Nov. 14, 2014 after the victim reported that he’d had sexual contact with her on numerous occasions. The abuse started when she was 14 and ended when she was 17, according to news accounts.

The sexual molestation included sexual intercourse. These criminal acts occurred repeatedly in Thorne’s home in Fort Walton Beach.

The sexual abuse stopped only when the child disclosed it to a pastor at the church she began attending after she had been able to distance herself from the defendant.

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Royal Commission update

AUSTRALIA
Lexology

BLM

Paula Jefferson

Australia August 24 2017

In the past six months the Royal Commission has continued its work as it nears its end date and final report (due in December). As ever many of the recommendations it makes are not specific to Australia but are of wider application and remit and worthy of consideration for good safeguarding practice and procedure elsewhere in the world including recommendations for reform to criminal justice, reporting abuse disclosed during the seal of the confessional and the misconceptions about memory which impact upon the responses to disclosure.

The most recent publications have included the following:

Research reports

Carer recruitment – 40% of those people who gave their evidence in private sessions (the equivalent of the IICSA truth project) reported abuse in out-of-home care. This report, titled ‘A national comparison of carer screening, assessment, selection and training and support in foster care, kinship and residential care’, highlighted difficulties in attracting and retaining foster carers, that there is only a limited pool of residential care workers and that high staff turnover are all barriers to the provision of high quality out-of-home care which is important to prevent child sexual abuse. The report also found that foster carers required more training on the sexual exploitation of young people in care.

Regulatory bodies – although the bodies considered in the report ‘Oversight and regulatory mechanisms aimed at protecting children from sexual abuse: Understanding current evidence of efficacy’, are specific to Australia there are parallels in the conclusions to the concerns which have been raised in the past in the UK about such organisations as the CQC.

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Sexorgien im Priestergewand

RUMANIEN
TAZ

[Corneliu Bârlădeanu, bishop of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Huşi, Romania, has been removed from office because of homosexual relations. At the same time, the Synod, the highest ecclesiastical body, decided to remove the accused from the priesthood. The former bishop, who was demoted to a simple monk, was also prohibited from any pastoral activities and ordered his compulsory stay in a monastery.]

Die Orthodoxe Kirche feuert einen schwulen Bischof. Die Ultranationalisten und fundamentalistische Kreise klatschen Beifall.

BERLIN taz | Corneliu Bârlădeanu, Bischof der Rumänisch-Orthodoxen Kirche in Huşi, ist wegen homosexueller Beziehungen seines Amtes enthoben worden. Gleichzeitig beschloss die Synode, das höchste kirchliche Gremium, den Beschuldigten aus dem Priesteramt zu entfernen. Dem zum einfachen Mönch degradierten ehemaligen Bischof wurden zudem jede seelsorgerischen Tätigkeiten untersagt und sein Zwangsaufenthalt in einem Kloster angeordnet.

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Kinder hätten Missbrauch „zugestimmt“: Britische Behörde verweigert Opfern Entschädigung

GROSSBRITANNIEN
Epoch Times

[A British agency is criticized for refusing to pay damages for abuse victims. The “Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority” (CICA) is to use a law gap which excludes a compensation when the victim “consents”.]

Von Anna Samarina

Eine britische Behörde verweigerte fast 700 Missbrauchsopfern die Entschädigung. Begründung: Die minderjährigen Opfer hätten dem sexuellen Missbrauch zugestimmt.

Eine britische Behörde steht in der Kritik, Entschädigungszahlungen für Missbrauchsopfer zu verweigern. Die „Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority“ (CICA) soll dabei eine Gesetzeslücke nutzen, die bei „Einverständnis“ des Opfers eine Kompensation ausschließt, kritisieren Hilfsorganisationen, wie der „Independent“ am Sonntag berichtete.

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Peter Saunders from Wimbledon is urging victims and survivors of child sexual abuse to tell their stories via The Truth Project

UNITED KINGDOM
Your Local Guardian

A man from Wimbledon is urging victims and survivors of child sexual abuse to tell their stories to an inquiry in October.

Peter Saunders says he was sexually abused as a child. He sits on a panel for the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse and has also set up his own support organisation, National Association for People Abused in Childhood (NAPAC), from which he has recently stepped down as chief executive.

The independent inquiry is examining the extent to which institutions and organisations have failed to protect children in England and Wales from sexual abuse.

As part of the Truth Project, people who experienced sexual abuse will have the opportunity to tell a representative of the inquiry anything they want to. Information gathered in the project sessions will be anonymous, but feed into recommendations to government about how institutions can better protect children in the future.

Anyone interested in taking part can fill out the form at https://www.iicsa.org.uk/share-your-experience/submit-information-online and will be able to share their experiences from October. Participants can give as much or as little information as they feel comfortable with, and are welcome to suggest measures that could help future policy.

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District Court suggests different judge as mediator for sex abuse cases

GUAM
Pacific News Center

By Jolene Toves – August 25, 2017

A global settlement was also suggested but Attorney David Lujan argued against it.

Guam – Talks of a Global Settlement and a different federal judge to mediate the process were the highlights of Friday’s hearing regarding the sexual abuse lawsuits filed against the Archdiocese.

District Court Chief Judge Francis Tydingco-Gatewood suggested in court that all parties consider utilizing a sitting federal judge such as Chief Judge Alex Munson instead of hiring private mediator Retired Federal Judge Thomas Hogan, which could possibly cost up to $10,000 a day.

At this time, a meeting to finalize the mediation process to be used is scheduled for September 4 in Honolulu, followed by a meeting with Hogan. Judge Tydingco-Gatewood has given all parties until September 12 to notify the court if they would like Munson to oversee the mediation.

Also discussed was the possibility of a global settlement.

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Private mediator for church sex abuse cases comes with hefty price tag

GUAM
KUAM

By Krystal Paco

How deep do their pockets go? The Archdiocese of Agana likely to go for broke due to the millions of dollars in lawsuits it faces from decades of clergy sex abuse. And although a majority of the cases are anticipated to be settled out of court – getting a private mediator to serve as a middleman will come at a hefty price tag.

That was the issue raised in court today – and why the chief judge herself is proposing a cheaper alternative.

Private mediator or sitting judge? Parties in the nearly 100 cases of clergy sex abuse could save thousands of dollars if they opt for the latter. Attorney Jacque Terlaje said, “I was told by my colleagues that the rate that is being proposed for this private mediation is a $10,000 per day just for the mediator.” Terlaje represents Archbishop Anthony Apuron.

The plaintiffs’ attorney, David Lujan, meanwhile, staying mum on the price of his chosen mediator, only commenting, “I can’t say it.” When asked whether it might be $10,000, he replied, “Whatever it is, it is.”

On Friday, Chief Judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood called parties to her courtroom to propose they use a mediator already on staff. namely Judge Alex Munson. Not only is he an experienced mediator, his services would be at no expense to parties. Parties agreed to consider her recommendation, but only after meeting with Oregon-based private mediator and retired federal judge Michael Hogan on September 5 in Hawaii.

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Former KKK member, now a Catholic priest, went public after journalist’s inquiry

VIRGINIA
Religion News Service

By Yonat Shimron

(RNS) — It was not images from the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., that spurred a Virginia priest to come forward this month and confess he was a Ku Klux Klan member charged in several cross-burnings in Maryland and other offenses 40 years ago.

Rather, it was a journalist who had contacted the Diocese of Arlington and said she learned that the Rev. William Aitcheson’s legal name matched that of a man arrested in the 1970s.

Diocesan officials then confronted the priest.

“Aitcheson was approached about this, he acknowledged his past and saw the opportunity to tell his story in the hopes that others would see the possibility of conversion and repentance,” the diocese said in a statement.

Until earlier this week, Aitcheson served as parochial vicar at St. Leo the Great in Fairfax, Va. He has since been granted a leave of absence.

In a personal essay published in The Arlington Catholic Herald, the priest appears to be motivated by the national news to acknowledge his past: “The images from Charlottesville brought back memories of a bleak period in my life that I would have preferred to forget.”

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Billy Graham’s Grandson Says Protestants Abuse Kids Just Like Catholics

UNITED STATES
Vice

JOSIAH M. HESSE
Aug 25 2017

Basyle “Boz” Tchividjian is shining a spotlight on the sexual abuse of children in Protestant churches—a scandal he says may be larger than that of the Catholic church.

Basyle “Boz” Tchividjian walks a fine line. On one side, he’s the ultimate evangelical insider. His grandfather was the famed evangelical preacher Billy Graham, who exerted immense influence over American politics, culture, and theology. Tchividjian has followed in the family business, teaching law at Liberty University, the Christian college of famed Baptist pastor Jerry Falwell. On the other side, he’s one of the most articulate critics of evangelical institutions, at times sounding like a new atheist prophet alongside Richard Dawkins or Bill Maher. He says that churches can be ideal environments for sexual predators who target children. And that traditions of shame, male power structures, and public relations myopia help keep abusers in positions of power and the abused silent.

Tchividjian sees it as his Christian duty to root out abuse in the church, and to build defenses against it. His organization, GRACE (Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment) has been hired to investigate high profile Christian institutions like Bob Jones University and New Tribes Mission. GRACE revealed frightening levels of sexual abuse and, as he told me during our interview, “the common thread of institutional protection at the expense of the individual.”

Tchividjian has even had to deal with sex scandals in his own family. In 2015, he removed his brother Tullian Tchividjian from his job at GRACE after it was revealed that Tullian had committed what the GRACE board described as a “gross misuse of power” in his extramarital relations with adult members of the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Over the years, Tchividjian has come to recognize that many churches do not have policies in place to deal with accusations of abuse. And too often they blame the victims for seducing their abuser. In an attempt to combat this, Tchividjian recently co-authored The Child Safeguarding Policy Guide for Churches and Ministries, attempting to help church leaders address difficult questions about predators in their communities and how to avoid further harming someone who has already been traumatized.

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Rhode Island Catholic boarding school says ‘credible’ evidence has emerged of sex abuse committed decades ago by two monks

RHODE ISLAND
Daily Mail (UK)

By Associated Press and Dave Burke For Mailonline

‘Credible’ evidence of sex abuse at a Roman Catholic boarding school in Rhode Island have come to light, leaders have revealed.

A report has been released by the Portsmouth Abbey School apologizing to victims of Father Bede Gorman and Father Geoffrey Chase.

The alleged abuse happened between 1959 and the early 1980s, it reveals.

Gorman died in 1885, while Chase, who left the school in 2002, is in his 80s and ill, the report reveals.

A letter from leaders at the school states: ‘We stand by those who were wronged, and are committed to helping past victims, providing therapy for them as needed.’

And it continued: ‘Our hearts break for these victims and their families. Their trust and faith in the sacred mission of Portsmouth was violated.

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Federal judge offers court services for clergy abuse mediation

GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio, heugenio@guampdn.com Aug. 25, 2017

U.S. District Court Chief Judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood on Fridayoffered the use of a sitting federal judge to mediate the proposed settlement of nearly 100 clergy sex abuse cases, at no cost to the parties. She said the parties should consider reaching a global settlement — one that resolves all of the cases.

It costs $10,000 a day in fees to hire a private mediator, Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron’s counsel, Jacqueline Terlaje, told the chief judge during a status hearing Friday.

Nearly 100 lawsuits have been filed, accusing Guam clergy members, Boy Scouts leaders and others associated with the Catholic Church of sexually abusing children decades ago. All of the lawsuits name the church as a defendant, and 77 of the lawsuits were filed in federal court.

Retired Saipan Bishop Tomas A. Camacho’s counsel, William Fitzgerald, told the judge that the 86-year-old bishop won’t be able to contribute toward paying a private mediator in any settlement. Fitzgerald is representing Camacho without charge.

Mediation for the cases is scheduled for early October, and attorneys in the federal and local cases are scheduled to meet in Honolulu Sept. 4 and Sept. 5 with retired judge Michael Hogan to discuss mediation protocols.

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Former Fife pupil wins landmark compensation claim after years of abuse

SCOTLAND
The Courier

by Claire Warrender
August 24 2017

An abuse survivor has become the first person in Scotland to secure compensation from the notorious Christian Brothers.

Dave Sharp was awarded a five figure sum after a 40 year fight for justice.

The 59-year-old, who was repeatedly beaten and raped when he was a pupil at St Ninian’s residential school in Falkland, hopes his case will pave the way for hundreds of other victims to come forward.

“This is not about money and it’s not a story about Dave Sharp,” he said.

“It’s about every child who has been abused in Scotland and about making these institutions accept liability.”

Dave was awarded compensation despite his abuser, former headteacher Brother Gerry Ryan, never being charged with any offence.

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Amid Italian abuse scandal, question remains of Church oversight

ITALY
Crux

Claire Giangravè
August 25, 2017

A lay Catholic association in southern Italy, under scrutiny after its leader was arrested on charges of sexually abusing up to six underage girls during a span of 25 years, managed to avoid being subjected to the authority of the local diocese — raising concerns about Church oversight over such groups.

ROME – As a controversy in southern Italy surrounding a lay association whose leadership has been accused of sexual abuse continues to unfold, one question that won’t go away is how the group was able to act with basic independence from the diocese in which it’s located over several decades.

“Do we obey the Gospel or the bishop?” members of the group asked in an article published in a local newspaper back in January of 1978 – and, by all evidence, they chose their interpretation of the Gospel, spurning attempts at ecclesiastical oversight.

As practices in the group, known as the “Catholic Culture and Environment Association” (ACCA), drifted further away from official Church teaching – which would later lead, allegedly, to the sexual abuse of multiple young girls – the local diocese, Acireale on the Italian island of Sicily, seems to have allowed it to drop off its radar.

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Former Vic priest faces sex abuse charges

AUSTRALIA
9 News

A former Catholic priest and principal of a Salesian school in Victoria is fighting charges he sexually abused three students during the 1970s and 80s.

Frank Klep, 74, appeared in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court via video link on Friday charged with four counts of indecent assault against a male, which allegedly occurred while he was a priest and teacher at Salesian College Rupertswood at Sunbury.

Counsel for Klep plan to cross examine police and the complainants during a two-day committal hearing due to begin on November 28.

The hearing will determine if Klep should stand trial.

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August 24, 2017

RSS-affiliated group writes to Pope Francis and demands apology for ‘religious discrimination and the rape of women’ by Christians in Meghalaya

INDIA
Daily Mail (UK)

By Siddhartha Rai

The right-wing in India is taking its fight to re-create India in its own image even further afield.

The battle for the RSS and its many affiliated groups has moved away from the major metropolitan areas and towards the far-flung regions of the North East that are sometimes overlooked.

In anger over the alleged cases of so-called religious discrimination, domination and the rape of women by the Christian missionaries in the North East, an RSS-affiliated legal rights body has written an angry letter to none other than the religious leader of worldwide Catholic Church, Pope Francis in the Vatican.

Pope Francis, full-name – His Holiness Pope Francis, Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman Province, Sovereign of the Vatican City State, Servant of the servants of God – has yet to acknowledge the letter.

The right-wing legal body has threatened Pope Francis with legal action in India if he fails to condemn the acts of his community members in India, it would sue the Indian leadership of the Church in a court of law.

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DEVELOPING: Picketer Says Bergen Catholic Ignores Sex Abuse Victims

NEW JERSEY
Paramus Daily Voice

Cecilia Levine

ORADELL, N.J. — A picketer carrying a sign accusing Bergen Catholic High School of ignoring sex abuse victims has been lingering outside of the Oradell school Wednesday and Thursday mornings.

The man carried signs at the corner of Oradell and Forest avenues saying “BCHS IGNORES VICTIMS” and “TEN SEX VICTIMS AWAIT JUSTICE.”

NOTE: It is unclear if the man is claiming he is a victim. Daily Voice is gathering more information.

Nearly one year ago to the day, the all-boys high school reached a settlement with 21 men who accused staff of sex abuse in the 1960s and 1970s. The victims shared the $1.9 million settlement money, NJ.com reported.

The following October, eight more men came forward also claiming sex abuse at the school.

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Diocese says it learned of priest’s KKK past decades ago

VIRGINIA
CBS Evening News

[with video]

FAIRFAX, Va. — A priest in Virginia made a very public and shocking confession this week about his earlier life as a cross-burning member of the Ku Klux Klan.

William Aitcheson, 62, made a confession in an essay published Monday, writing, “My actions were despicable … while 40 years have passed, I must say this: ‘I’m sorry.'”

He wrote that “images from Charlottesville brought back memories of a bleak period in my life that I would have preferred to forget.”

CBS News’ Errol Barnett reports a spokesman for the Arlington diocese said Thursday: “At the time he began ministry here in 1993, the diocese learned of his past as well as his sincere conversion of heart.”

The spokesman also said Aitcheson’s “past was not common knowledge to current staff 24 years later.”

Philip and Barbara Butler have been reluctantly recalling the night they were terrorized by the KKK as newlyweds.

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Former Aurora priest agreed to deportation to avoid sexual abuse trial, prosecutors say

ILLINOIS
Aurora Beacon-News

Dan Campana
Aurora Beacon-News

Former Aurora priest Alfredo Pedraza-Arias asked a federal judge in June for a “voluntary removal” from the United States, a decision Kane County prosecutors suggest he made to evade a trial on charges of sexually abusing two young girls.

That allegation by prosecutors is contained in a third motion seeking to have 51-year-old Arias’ bail revoked in order to delay his deportation until after he stands trial beginning Sept. 18.

Arias has pleaded not guilty to multiple counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse stemming from an investigation that authorities said revealed he fondled the girls — who were under the age of 6 — at Aurora’s Sacred Heart Church between 2012 and 2014.

Arias, charged in 2016, returns to court Friday for a third hearing on his bail.

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USA Today offers old news on Catholic priests and sexual abuse, missing some newer angles

UNITED STATES
GetReligion

Terry Mattingly

When you hear the term “breaking news,” what do you think of?

I think news consumers, at this point, are pretty skeptical about this term. They know, of course, that there really is such a thing as breaking news. Major decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court are breaking news. The attack on the GOP softball team was breaking news. Another van mowing down citizens on London Bridge would be breaking news.

Also, there are @POTUS tweets that justify the “breaking news” label. There are, in my opinion, many more that do not. And have we reached the point where “Game of Thrones” developments are truly “breaking news”? If not, I’m sure that’s just around the corner.

Anyway, like a few religion-news consumers, I received the USA Today email push product that pinned the “breaking news” label on a long, long news feature with this headline: “Across the nation, priest sexual abuse cases haunt Catholic parishes.”

Now, I have followed clergy-abuse cases since 1982 or thereabouts – press coverage exploded in 1985 with the Gilbert Gauthe case in Louisiana. Here at GetReligion, we have poured out oceans of digital ink discussing the many waves of this story. It’s a horrifying scandal and, along with the ghastly cover-ups by some bishops, totally deserves the word that Catholic conservative Leon J. Podles used as the title of his brutal, horrifying book — “Sacrilege.”

But when I saw this “breaking news” label, I immediately wondered: “Really? What has happened now?” Let me stress that I think there are angles of the scandal worthy of new and in-depth coverage (along with the massive and largely uncovered scandals in other major institutions, such as public schools).

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Despite allegations elsewhere, no new priest abuse cases here since 2012

NEW YORK
Democrat & Chronicle

Sean Lahman, @seanlahman Aug. 24, 2017

In June, a 41-year old man sued the Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse, claiming that one of its priests had molested him years earlier, beginning when he was 12 years old.

It’s a story that has been repeated across the state during the last few years, as new victims have come forward to say that priests had sexually abused them as children. Since 2014, there have been new cases reported in almost every diocese in New York state, including Albany, Buffalo, Long Island, New York City, and the Hudson Valley.

But not in Rochester.

In June of 2012, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester published a list of priests who had been the subject of “credible allegations” of sexual abuse within the previous ten years.

In a column that accompanied the list’s publication, then-Bishop Matthew Clark apologized to abuse victims and praised the efforts of the diocese to stamp out sexual abuse.

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Rev. Lawrence R. Strittmatter – Assignment History

OHIO
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Ordained in 1957 for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, Lawrence “Larry” Strittmatter was a parish priest and long-time principal of Elder High School. The archdiocese began to receive allegations in at least 1979 that Strittmatter was sexually abusing his students. In 1981 he was sent to counseling and transferred for a short while to a parish on the other side of the city. In 1982 he was named pastor of Our Lady of Victory parish. He was removed from the parish in 1988 after more allegations, sent to treatment, then reassigned to St. Albert the Great in Dayton OH, which is in the northern reaches of the archdiocese.

In the Spring of 2002 a man reported to law enforcement and the archdiocese that Strittmatter molested him on three occasions in 1979 and 1980, when the man was an Elder student. Strittmatter’s accuser said that the priest invited him to join him in games of racquetball at the club, and that the abuse happened afterwards, in the shower. In June 2002 Strittmatter was suspended from ministry. Subsequently, more former Elder students came forward with similar allegations of abuse by Strittmatter. By September 2003, twenty-eight men had accused Strittmatter in lawsuits. At least one claimed the priest abused him as a fourth-grader at Our Lady of Victory. It has been estimated that Strittmatter may have had nearly 100 victims.

The archdiocese was convicted in November 2003 on five counts of misdemeanor cover-up of sexual abuse of children by its priests. Strittmatter was laicized in 2006.

Ordained: May 25, 1957
Laicized: 2006

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Diocese settles sex assault claim against pastor’s son

CONNECTICUT
CT Post

By Daniel Tepfer

MILFORD – The Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut agreed Thursday to pay a settlement to a local woman who claimed she was sexually assaulted at St. Peter’s Church when she was 12 by the pastor’s adult son.

The terms of the settlement were not disclosed. The settlement was reached as the case was to go to trial before a jury in Superior Court here against the diocese, the church and its former pastor, Andrew Osmun.

The pastor’s son, Jesse Osmun, is serving a 15-year federal prison sentence for sexually assaulting young girls at a school in South Africa where he was working while in the Peace Corps.

“This case clearly shows why it is so important for those charged with watching our children to follow the policies and procedures that are put in place for their protection,” said Douglas Mahoney, of the Bridgeport law firm Tremont Sheldon Robinson and Mahoney, who represented the woman. “If those policies that were in place had been followed by Reverend Osmun, Jesse Osmun would never have been able to assault other young girls.”

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Priest sentenced in Wayne County child porn probe

PENNSYLVANIA
The Times-Tribune

STAFF REPORT / PUBLISHED: AUGUST 24, 2017

A Roman Catholic priest from New Jersey caught up in a Wayne County child pornography probe went before a judge Thursday to learn his fate.

The Rev. Kevin A. Gugliotta, 55, of Mahwah, was sentenced by President Judge Raymond L. Hamill to 11½ to 23½ months in the Wayne County Correctional Facility, District Attorney Janine Edwards said.

The sentence includes the more than 300 days Gugliotta has already spent in jail, meaning he could be eligible for parole in about 1½ months, his attorney, James Swetz, said.

Gugliotta had pleaded guilty in March to one count of dissemination of child pornography. In October, Wayne County detectives filed more than 40 felony counts of possessing and disseminating child pornography against him for uploading files from a Lehigh Twp. apartment he referred to as his “day off place,” investigators said.

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Priest Sentenced in Child Porn Case

PENNSYLVANIA
WNEP

AUGUST 24, 2017, BY JIM HAMILL

HONESDALE — A priest from New Jersey was sentenced Thursday for having child pornography at his home in Wayne County.

Kevin Gugliotta was sentenced to 11 and a half to 23 and a half months in prison and must register as a sex offender.

He pleaded guilty earlier this year to having child porn on a computer at his apartment in Gouldsboro.

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The Catholic church must stop blaming victims: children cannot consent to sex

UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Dino Nocivelli

Thursday 24 August 2017

What has consent got to do with child abuse? A simple question, which should have a simple answer. A child under the age of 16 is in law unable to consent to sexual acts. The age of consent exists for a reason: to protect vulnerable members of society who have not yet developed the emotional or physical maturity to engage in sexual relationships.

Yet years of revelations about child sexual abuse have shown that this is not a settled question even within trusted institutions that should know better. The independent inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham found police officers believed girls as young as 11 could consent to sex. In Rochdale, council employees said they thought victims of child sex abuse were “making their own choices”. And in my own work as a lawyer representing survivors of child sexual abuse, I’ve seen how the Catholic church, when dealing with allegations of child sexual abuse, often looks to place blame straight at the feet of a victim.

Two years ago, the Catholic church was swift to publicly condemn Father Gino Flaim, a priest in northern Italy, who in the context of discussing paedophilia said some children seek attention from priests that they do not receive at home, and some priests give in to this.

But I have received court documents and legal correspondence from the Catholic church’s lawyers that seem to support the idea children can consent to sex. This includes allegations of consent in child abuse cases (where my teenage client had been raped by his family priest, who was in his 60s), a priest who alleged one of my clients was a “child prostitute”, and a priest who felt sexual relations with children caused them no harm.

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Pastor on child sex charges offers to do DNA test to clear his name

JAMAICA
Loop

The Corporate Area pastor who has been charged for allegedly raping and impregnating a 12-year-old girl, has consented to do a DNA test to help clear his name.

Kenneth Blake, 56, of Harbour View in St Andrew, appeared in the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court on several charges on Wednesday, and signed an order authorising the DNA test after his attorney indicated to the court that Blake was prepared to take the step in a bid to establish innocence on his part.

The churchman, who heads the Harvest Temple Apostolic Church on Slipe Pen Road in the Corporate Area, faces charges of rape, grievous sexual assault, forcible abduction, sexual touching, and sexual intercourse with a person under the age of 16 years old.

The allegations are that he had sex with the child on several occasions in 2015, resulting in her getting pregnant.

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Rape trial of Indian priest triggers security lockdown

INDIA
Gulf News

New Delhi: The trial of an Indian spiritual leader accused of rape has triggered a security lockdown, with police closing schools and converting a cricket stadium into a jail in case his followers erupt into violence if he is found guilty.

Thousands of Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh’s supporters have begun assembling close to the court in the state of Punjab, where he is on trial for raping two women in cases that date back to 2002.

A verdict is expected on Friday.

“The verdict could lead to potential large-scale unrest and violence,” Ajay Kumar, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Law and Order, in Panchkula city, told journalists.

Singh, a burly, bearded man who has scripted and starred in his own films, commands a near-devotional following — he claims in the millions — in the northern states of Punjab and Haryana, where his Dera Sacha Sauda group is based.

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Couple wants to meet former KKK leader turned priest who burned cross on their yard

MARYLAND
WJLA

by Richard Reeve/ABC7

COLLEGE PARK, Md. (ABC7) —
For Phillip Butler and his wife Barbara, it began with a neighbor’s phone call.

“Told me there was a cross,” he recalls. “I don’t know if it was smoking or burning, I don’t know which one it was, in our front yard.”

The Butlers say since that summer night in 1977, they’ve never forgotten the sight of the 6-to-7 foot cross, wrapped in rags, reeking of flammable fluid.

“I’d never seen a cross,” Barbara Butler told reporters. “You see something like on television or something like that, but to really have one in your yard… is there that much hatred in your heart?”

Her husband says as he took down the cross, before calling the police, his mind was ticking.

“Someone is against us,” he remembers thinking. “What did we do to put the cross in our yard?”

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‘We Didn’t Deserve This’: Couple Targeted by Klansman-Turned-Priest Speaks

MARYLAND
NBC Washington

The African-American couple who had a cross burned on their front lawn by a Ku Klux Klan leader who is now a Catholic priest in Virginia said the priest’s actions were “almost unforgivable” and refused to meet with him until he named other members of the hate group.

Father William Aitcheson, a priest in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Arlington, burned a cross in 1977 on the couple’s lawn in College Park, Maryland, News4 reported.

Philip and Barbara Butler spoke out Tuesday and said that even though the priest was criminally convicted, he never apologized or paid them $23,000 in court-ordered restitution. The priest also never identified other KKK members, which Philip Butler urged him to do.

“He needed help to put that cross up,” Philip Butler said.

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Judge tells pastor not to be alone with anyone under 18

JAMAICA
The Star

Andre Williams
August 24, 2017

The pastor charged with sexual assault involving a teenage girl has been granted $1.5 million bail, and was told that he is not to be left alone with anyone under the age of 18.

Pastor Kenneth Blake of the Harvest Temple Apostolic Church, who is accused of sexually assaulting and impregnating a 14-year-old, was offered bail yesterday when he appeared before the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court.

Blake, 56, was charged by the Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse recently, following allegations that he had been molesting the child since 2015, when she was just 12.

He is charged with rape, sexual touching, having sexual intercourse with a minor, grievous sexual assault of a minor under the age of 16, and forcible abduction.

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Priest Scandal Telenovela Drives Chile’s Mega TV to Ratings High

CHILE
Variety

Anna Marie de la Fuente

‘Perdona Nuestros Pecados’ (‘Forgive Us Our Sins’) and other telenovelas rule Chile’s airwaves

SANTIAGO DE CHILE – Thanks to six hours a day of telenovelas, stripped Mondays to Fridays, Chilean broadcaster Mega TV has dominated the country’s television landscape over the past three years. But one particular telenovela has gripped this country of some 17 million inhabitants, driving Mega TV’s ratings to historical levels.

“Perdona Nuestros Pecados” (“Forgive Us Our Sins”) has generated average ratings of 27.4 in its 10 p.m. time slot, nearly triple that of competing programs on its next biggest rival, Canal 13. Credit also goes to a newish executive team, led by CEO Patricio Hernandez, who joined the company in 2013; head of content Patricia Bazan; production and operations chief Andrea Dell’Orto; and Juan Ignacio Vicente, head of content and international Business. Before the new team took over, Mega TV’s average rating was 4.3 in 2013, compared to its current average of 11.2, said Vicente.

In June 2016, Discovery Communications acquired a 27.5% stake in the channel, which now airs four hours a week of Discovery programs and is partnering with Discovery on the Chilean version of the global TV giant’s reality show “Say Yes to the Dress,” (“Vestido de Novia”). …

Stripped Monday to Thursday, the 1950s-set “Perdona Nuestros Pecados” centers on a priest who seeks to avenge his sister’s suicide after she’s abandoned by the man who impregnates her. However, the priest falls in love with the culprit’s daughter, complicating matters even more. In a staunchly catholic country, the idea of a priest seeking vengeance and engaging in a forbidden romance makes for compelling viewing. Mega TV had to build a village and a church as it knew no church would allow the program to film within their hallowed walls.

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Former Utica priest seeks dismissal of child abuse claims

NEW YORK
Observer-Dispatch

By GREG MASON / gmason@uticaod.com

A defrocked Utica-area priest has joined the Syracuse Catholic Diocese in seeking to dismiss a lawsuit stemming from claims that he sexually abused a child several decades ago.

Felix Colosimo filed a motion earlier this month to dismiss a lawsuit making its way through federal district court in Connecticut. The suit, submitted by California resident Matthew Strzepek, alleges Colosimo abused the plaintiff between 1987 to 1990.

Strzepek, who lived in Marcy, was then 12 to 15 years old. He is seeking $25 million in damages, each, from Colosimo and the Syracuse Catholic Diocese, the latter of which Strzepek accuses of being liable and failing to respond appropriately to Colosimo’s abusive actions.

The diocese, finding Strzepek’s allegations credible, removed Colosimo from priestly ministry in 2014.

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Apuron continues to fight law that allows for civil sex abuse lawsuits

GUAM
Pacific News Center

By Janela Carrera – August 24, 2017

Archbishop Anthony Apuron’s canonical trial is still pending in Rome.

Guam – Dethroned Archbishop Anthony Apuron, through his legal counsel Atty. Jacque Terlaje, is continuing his fight against four lawsuits filed against him in federal court for civil damages related to sex abuse allegations.

Terlaje responded to the alleged victims’ attempts to keep the cases alive, arguing that the passage of the law in 2016 does not apply retroactively. In 2016, the statute of limitations for civil claims of sex abuse was lifted, giving way for victims of sexual abuse to seek damages against their perpetrators and the institutions they either worked or volunteered for.

But Terlaje once again argues that the law is ambiguous in its detail surrounding the timeframe for filing these civil claims. She believes the law does not apply retroactively.

Terlaje points to a line in the statute that states “at any time,” which she says is not a sufficient expression of legislative intent for the statute to be applied retroactively.

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Don’t Tell Us To Move On

UNITED STATES
SOME PEOPLE LIVE MORE IN 20 YEARS…

AUGUST 23, 2017
ASHER LOVY

There’s this nutty idea people have that being involved in anti abuse activism somehow means that I haven’t moved on from what happened to me, that somehow the efforts I undertake to organize actions against organizations and people who enable abuse are indicative of some underlying unhealthiness, and an unwillingness to heal. I hear it all the time from people. They couch it in sympathy, as if they’re only concerned with my wellbeing when they wonder aloud why I ‘obsess’ over this topic so much.

I have moved on. Quite literally. I moved on from my abusive home. Then I moved on again to a community I now feel a part of. I moved on to a well-paying job that I actually enjoy (most days, anyway). I’ve got a good, reasonably comfortable life here. I’ve got nothing to do with my abusive family anymore, and haven’t for years. I’ve found people who accept me the way I am, and care about me unconditionally. I’ve got everything one needs for a good, peaceful life.

But what about the thousand of kids who don’t have that? What about the ones who are still being abused, still living in communities that enable their abuse, blame them for it, throw them out for talking about it? What about them? I understand that for a lot of people speaking up publicly is dangerous, precisely because of the oppressive nature of these communities and their power structures, but why do people think that concern for the people left behind somehow indicates an inability to move on?

It’s precisely because I was able to so thoroughly move on that I’m even able to engage in this kind of activism. I don’t have a family to lose because I’ve already lost it. I have a job outside the community, so I don’t have to worry about getting fired for my activism. I’ve rejected the shidduch system already, so I don’t have to worry about being disqualified by shadchanim. I’ve built a life for myself outside of the community that abused me, which gives me the luxury of being able to criticize it without fear of reprisal.

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Pastor G’s appeal of child sex abuse convictions denied by Texas court

TEXAS
WTVR

BY VERNON FREEMAN JR.

FORT WORTH, Tx. — The appeal of child molestation convictions by former Richmond pastor Geronimo Aguilar was denied Wednesday by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

Aguilar, also known as Pastor G, is severing a 40 year sentence after being convicted in 2015 of seven charges related to sexually abusing multiple minors.

The former pastor and founder of the Richmond Outreach Center (ROC) church, was convicted on two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child under fourteen years of age, three counts of sexual assault of a child under seventeen years of age, and two counts of indecency with a child by contact.

A Texas jury found Aguilar guilty of sex crimes against two sisters who he started to abuse when they were 11 and 13 years old. The girls, now women, said they were abused in the 1990s while Aguilar was a pastor at their church in Texas.

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Cross-burning victims to priest: Apology is not enough

UNITED STATES
Associated Press

By MATTHEW BARAKAT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Phillip and Barbara Butler hadn’t given much thought to the man who burned a cross on their front lawn 40 years ago.

Then they heard the startling news Tuesday that the perpetrator had become a priest and was ministering to Catholics not far from their home.

“I didn’t know what to say. It was unbelievable,” Phillip Butler said Wednesday at a news conference.

The priest, the Rev. William Aitcheson, went public with his old Klan affiliation Monday, writing a column in the diocesan newspaper.

He said his past was not a secret, but he felt compelled to make it more public after seeing images of violence at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville.

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Judge sets $5 million bond for leader of paramilitary Christian sect

NEW MEXICO
KVIA

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) – A judge has ordered that a leader of a New Mexico paramilitary Christian sect who is facing child sex abuse charges be held on $5 million secured bond.

Cibola County Magistrate Court Judge Larry Diaz set bond Tuesday for Peter Green following a raid of the armed compound of the Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps.

Peter Green, also known as Mike Brandon, faces 100 counts of criminal sexual penetration of a child on suspicion of raping a girl from the time she was 7.

Sect co-leader Deborah Green, who also is facing child sex abuse charges, was ordered held on a $500,000 secured bond. Deborah Green was arrested on charges ranging from failure to report a birth to child abuse and sexual penetration of a minor.

The group, founded in California, says the allegations are “totally false.” James Green is strongly denying his wife and other members hurt children, telling KOAT-TV of Albuquerque the allegations were a surprise.

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Sheriff: Sect leaders blocking investigators from children in abuse inquiry

NEW MEXICO
KOB

Caleb James
August 23, 2017

CIBOLA COUNTY, N.M. — There are 11 children possibly in danger inside a secretive religious militia compound hidden deep in rural western New Mexico, and law enforcement tells KOB they aren’t being allowed inside.

It is the latest development in a troubling saga that began to unfold Sunday with the arrest of one of the commune’s members on 100 counts of sexual abuse of a minor.

From the air, the rural Fence Lake compound appears fortified. The Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps — the organization behind the mountain commune — is referred to as a religious militia by law enforcement. Classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the sect on the fringe of society is now the focus of a child abuse investigation into two crimes.

After a raid on the compound Sunday, member Peter Green is accused of 100 counts of sexual abuse of a minor — a girl investigators say was raped at least four times a week since she was 7. Group member Stacey Miller was also arrested in Truth or Consequences in connection with the 2014 death of her son on the property. Sect leader Deborah Green was also arrested in that case.

According to Cibola County Sheriff Tony Mace, the commune’s cooperation with investigators ended Wednesday. James Green, the group’s founder, had agreed to allow FBI investigators to interview children still living on the compound.

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Ex-members detail abuse claims against Christian sect

NEW MEXICO
Palm Beach Post

Associated Press

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.
A paramilitary Christian sect with members facing child sex abuse charges evaded law enforcement authorities for years by hiding births, physically punishing followers and quietly operating in isolated areas of New Mexico, former members say.

In interviews with The Associated Press and in court documents, the ex-members also alleged that leaders of the Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps exercised control over followers by forcing them into hard labor and refusing to give their children medical care.

When members complained, sect co-leader Deborah Green would hold “trials” against them for questioning her authority, which Green said came directly from God, former members Maura Alana Schmierer and Julie Gudino said.

The trials led to banishment to isolated sheds without toilets and from the sect’s compound without being allowed to take their children, the women said.

“It was a form of brain-washing,” Schmierer, who left the group in the late 1980s and sued, winning a $1 million award when it was based in Sacramento, California, told the AP.

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Portsmouth Abbey School names sex abusers from 1959 to early 80s, offers apologies, therapy

RHODE ISLAND
Providence Journal

By Donita Naylor
Journal Staff Writer

Posted Aug 23, 2017

PORTSMOUTH, R.I. — Leaders of the Portsmouth Abbey School and Monastery have released a report that contains “shameful news” of “credible allegations of sexual abuse” between 1959 and the early 1980s, and of corporal punishment in the ’60s and ’70s.

A letter emailed Wednesday to members of the Portsmouth Abbey community contained an apology to the victims of Father Bede Gorman, who died in 1985, and Father Geoffrey Chase, who is in his late 80s and is ill. He left the school in 2002, the letter said.

“We stand by those who were wronged, and are committed to helping past victims, providing therapy for them as needed.”

The letter — from Regents chairman W. Christopher Behnke ’81, Abbot Matthew Stark for the monks and Headmaster Daniel McDonough — also promised that Gorman’s name would be removed from the athletic fields, squash center and two annual prizes that had been named in his honor, and that the review of policies, safety protocols and training programs at the school would continue.

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School: Investigation Finds Credible Sex Abuse Allegations

RHODE ISLAND
US News

[Letter to the Portsmouth Abbey Community]

PORTSMOUTH, R.I. (AP) — A Catholic boarding school in Rhode Island says an investigation has found credible new allegations of sexual abuse committed decades ago by two monks.

The Portsmouth Abbey School sent a letter Wednesday summarizing the allegations and apologizing to any victims. The abuse is alleged to have occurred between 1959 and the early 1980s. The school says one of the accused monks has since died, and the other is critically ill.

The school hired a law firm to investigate after the sudden resignation of its chancellor last year. Last August, the firm reported no findings that he did anything illegal, but responses to that report surfaced new allegations against the two monks, who had been previously accused of abuse.

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St Edmund’s College teacher on trial for alleged historic sex abuse

AUSTRALIA
Canberra Times

Michael Inman

A former Canberra school teacher was sacked from St. Edmund’s College after allegations of improper conduct with a student, a court has heard.

The alleged victim did not go into detail with the school headmaster at the time and then kept his silence after Garry Leslie Marsh’s termination.

The ACT Supreme Court has heard that coverage of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse stirred memories and prompted the alleged victim to report the matter to police 35 years on.

But the defence says this passage of time disadvantaged the accused as it made it harder to challenge the allegations.

Marsh, 72, of Sydney, is on trial before Justice John Burns accused of indecent assault and buggery.

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Here’s how to prevent sex abuse at N.E. schools, groups say

UNITED STATES
Boston Globe

By Brian MacQuarrie and Travis Andersen GLOBE STAFF AUGUST 23, 2017

Spurred by growing allegations of sexual misconduct at private schools, two groups that represent more than 1,000 of the institutions released recommendations Wednesday for preventing the abuse of students by teachers and other staff members.

The draft report is believed to be the first comprehensive review of procedures to curb sexual misconduct at the schools, many of them boarding facilities whose missions often encourage close interaction among students, faculty, and staff.

Many proposals focus on boundaries between students and adults, such as refraining from the exchange of personal information, and the scope and duration of off-campus trips. The recommendations would bar teachers and students from shared sleeping accommodations during outings and set clear guidelines on physical contact.

The draft also urges strict background checks on all hires at the private schools, regardless of position, in an effort to keep sexual offenders from finding new jobs that could put them in close proximity with students.

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‘I was raped, beaten and hung by the neck’ Christian Brothers abuse survivor wins five-figure payout after 40-year fight for justice

SCOTLAND
Daily Record

BY JAMES MONCUR
24 AUG 2017

An abuse victim has won a 40-year fight to secure compensation from the ­notorious Christian Brothers monks.

Dave Sharp was awarded a “significant five-figure sum” decades after he was repeatedly raped and beaten at St Ninian’s residential school in Fife.

He is the first person in Scotland to win a payout from the Catholic order, who ran residential schools for children across the world.

The payment is likely to allow hundreds of other Scottish victims to win compensation for historical abuse at various organisations.

Dave, 59, said: “I hope my payment is the first of many the Christian Brothers are forced to make to those men whose lives have been wrecked because of the treatment they received as children in ­Scotland’s residential homes and schools.

“There are dozens of victims out there who have far stronger cases than mine.

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August 23, 2017

LDS bishop pleads guilty to sexually abusing two underage males

UTAH
Daily Herald

Kurt Hanson Daily Herald

An LDS bishop charged with sexually abusing two underage males in his ward pleaded guilty to his crimes Wednesday in Fourth District Court.

The defendant, Erik Hughes of Mapleton, entered guilty pleas to two second-degree felonies of forcible sexual abuse and one third-degree felony of tampering with a witness. Hughes, 51, pleaded to what he was originally charged with. No charges were reduced as a part of his plea arrangement.

Hughes’ attorney, John Allan, told Judge Thomas Low that as a part of the agreement, no other charges in relation to the allegations of abuse can be leveled against Hughes.

Allan said the alleged victims approve of the agreement.

Police reports state a now 18-year-old man told police in April that Hughes had drugged him and sexually assaulted him several times about three years ago.

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Tampa man accused of sexual battery of 12-year-old girl inside church

FLORIDA
Bay News 9

By Saundra Weathers, Reporter
Last Updated: Wednesday, August 23, 2017

TAMPA —
A Tampa man had sex with a 12-year-old girl inside a church Aug. 20, police investigators say.

Le’Angelo Wilkerson, 27, is accused of having sex with the girl in a bathroom and then a classroom at Rehoboth Faith Cathedral Church on N. 40th St., Tampa Police said.

Tushara Jones said the girl was her 14-year-old daughter’s friend and that girl was visiting the church for the first time. She said her daughter walked in on the act.

“My daughter walked in the bathroom with the girl that was missing. She said she was going to the bathroom,” Jones said. “My daughter walked in the bathroom and caught them having sexual intercourse, and he groped my daughter’s butt and told my daughter to come and show her how it was supposed to be done.”

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Former Marist teacher says he barely remembers student he is accused of indecently assaulting

AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Elizabeth Byrne

A former Marist College teacher accused of indecently assaulting a student in the early 1980s has said he struggled to even remember the boy.

David Kisun, 71, is facing three charges of indecent assault.

Kisun was charged after the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse hearings in Canberra.

The alleged victim, who was aged nine at the time, told the ACT Supreme Court he was given a seat in the back row of the class.

He said Kisun would stand behind him and put his hands inside his clothing while the rest of the class was working.

He said at other times Kisun kept him inside at lunch and recess and assaulted him.

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Papal abuse commission considers restructuring, survivors may lose direct role

ROME
National Catholic Reporter

Aug 23, 2017
by Joshua J. McElwee

ROME — Pope Francis’ commission on clergy sexual abuse is considering whether to restructure itself so that it no longer includes the direct participation of abuse survivors. It is evaluating the possibility of creating instead a separate advisory panel of individuals who have been abused by clergy.

A member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors revealed the group’s consideration of the idea in an NCR interview Aug. 14, saying that one of the commission’s work groups has been tasked with weighing the pros and cons of such a change.

The commission appears likely to discuss the possible restructuring at its next plenary meeting in Rome in mid-September, when the original three-year terms of its members are set to expire.

“I think that may be a more productive [way] of ensuring the voice of survivors in the work of the commission,” Krysten Winter-Green, the commission member, said of the potential change. “I do not know that it’s critical that a survivor needs to be actually on the commission.”

“No decision has been made about this,” she stressed, adding: “I think the voice of survivors needs to be heard by this commission. They need to have input into every facet of the operation. How that is accomplished remains to be seen, but it will be accomplished.”

Consideration of a change in structure for the papal commission comes as the group has in recent months faced public questioning of its effectiveness in stopping future abuse of children and vulnerable people in the Catholic Church. The group now appears to be in the midst of a significant phase of transition.

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Religious Group Committed ‘Horrific’ Crimes Against Children, Police Say

NEW MEXICO
International Business Times

BY JULIANA ROSE PIGNATARO

Four members of a religious group based in New Mexico were arrested this weekend and charged with more than 100 counts of criminal sexual penetration of a minor and child abuse. Deborah Green, Peter Green, Joshua Green and Stacey Miller, all part of the Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps were arrested Sunday morning, the Cibola County Sheriff’s Office confirmed.

The group, based out of Cibola County, purports to be “aggressive and revolutionary for Jesus.” Photos on the website show members dressed in military garb and contain references to “spiritual ammo” and “holy war.” The Southern Poverty Law Center, however, lists the sect as a hate group.

The sheriff’s office began its investigation last year after two members who allegedly escaped the commune told authorities that Deborah Green and Stacey Miller allowed Miller’s 12-year-old son to die of the flu. Miller later told investigators “she wanted to trust God.” She was charged with child abuse after authorities arrested her. Deborah was charged with neglect resulting in the death of a child, as well as sexual assault of a minor and child abuse. Authorities alleged that Deborah had sexually assaulted her daughter’s 5-year-old daughter in 2001 after the child was smuggled in from Uganda.

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Sacramento woman: Happy to see military Christian sect shut down

CALIFORNIA
KCRA

Tom Miller
Reporter

A Sacramento woman is speaking out after four members of a military-style Christian group were arrested.

Maura Schmierer left the sect in 1989 but still remembers the horrors she endured. The group started in Sacramento before ending up in New Mexico.

Now, nearly 35 years later, the leader of the Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps has been arrested, along with three others.

Schmierer said she is happy to see that the sect could finally shut down.

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Cops Accuse Christian Commune of Smuggling and Raping Children

NEW MEXICO
Vice

JOSIAH HESSE
Aug 23 2017

The Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps is known for its eccentric, militaristic brand of religion. This week, cops accused key leaders of horrific acts, including some that resulted in a child’s death.

On Sunday, police arrested current and former members of a Christian group in New Mexico for a litany of alleged crimes. According to a report on Monday by ABC affiliate KOAT-7 Action News, one member was charged with 100 counts of sexual penetration of a girl who was allegedly smuggled into this country from Uganda. The warrant used to make the arrest, which was viewed by VICE, further claims the group concealed the births of multiple children and the death of at least one boy, whose remains were buried on the group’s private property.

The Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps (ACMTC) of Fence Lake is an isolated, militaristic religious organization. In 1981, Deborah and James Green formed the group in Sacramento, California. Previously, they have been accused of familiar cult-like tactics of controlling member’s finances, limiting contact with the outside world, and isolating members without proper food, water, or hygiene. Since their inception, they’ve been listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group.

The investigation leading to Sunday’s arrest began last year, when two female members of the group claimed to have escaped—and told the Cibola County Sheriff’s Office of almost unspeakable horrors.

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The Latest: Christian sect raid plan to avoid violence

NEW MEXICO
Washington Post

By Associated Press August 22

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The Latest on a New Mexico military-style Christian sect facing child abuse charges (all times local):

2:15 p.m.

A sheriff says authorities carefully planned a raid of a New Mexico paramilitary Christian sect amid a child sexual abuse investigation to avoid potential violence.

Cibola County Sheriff Tony Mace told The Associated Press on Tuesday deputies surprised the sect’s Fence Lake, New Mexico, compound during church services to make sure everyone was located in one place.

Mace says authorities were concerned armed sect members might try to stop deputies’ attempt to arrest leaders on child abuse and child sexual abuse charges.

During the Sunday raid, authorities arrested three members in connection with a child abuse and child sex abuse investigation. A former member was arrested in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.

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AUTHORITIES EYE IMMIGRATION STATUS OF CHILDREN FOUND AT SECT

NEW MEXICO
Associated Press

BY RUSSELL CONTRERAS AND MORGAN LEE
ASSOCIATED PRESS

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Authorities investigating a paramilitary Christian sect for child sexual abuse say they looking into whether the New Mexico group brought children into the country illegally. Former group members say leaders kept them and the children living at sect’s compound in “slavery.”

Cibola County Sheriff Tony Mace told The Associated Press Tuesday that investigators found numerous children during a Sunday raid of the armed Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps in remote Fence Lake.

Exactly where the children came from is unknown because the sect apparently kept members from reporting births to state officials, Mace said. A former sect member says the group illegally brought at least one child to the United States from one of its foreign missions, which according to its website were operated in Africa, India and the Philippines.

“The children were trained not to talk to law enforcement or to hide from law enforcement,” Mace said.

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Militant Christian cult charged with sexually abusing children

NEW MEXICO
New York Post

By Tamar Lapin

Members of a military-style Christian group in New Mexico have been arrested for what authorities are calling horrific crimes against children.

Peter Green of the Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps in Fence Lake was arrested Sunday morning and faces 100 counts of criminal sexual penetration of a child, local station KOAT reported.

Deborah Green and her husband James Green are the “Generals” of the sect, according to their website and are responsible for commanding their army to spread Christian ideals throughout the world. The Southern Poverty Law Center lists the organization as a hate group.

Deborah Green and members Stacey Miller and Joshua Green also face charges including child abuse, bribery of a witness and not reporting a birth.

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Child Protection Sunday

AUSTRALIA
Catholic Outlook

The Catholic Church in Australia observes Child Protection Sunday on 10 September 2017.

The Australian Catholic Church’s Child Protection Sunday runs in conjunction with National Child Protection Week. This year we are focusing on a Royal Commission’s key element that when children participate in decisions affecting them and are taken seriously an institution is better prepared to be child safe. Our theme is: “See Me, Hear Me”.

In the first reading for Child Protection Sunday the Prophet Ezekiel speaks of “being a sentry to the House of Israel’. That image captures well one element of the role each of us has in regard to Children.

As Pope Francis outlined before leading the crowds in the Angelus prayer in March last year it is important to “Listen: this is the key word. Do not forget, listen to the sick and marginalised, or among families.” As a sentry, each of us plays a part in listening to what the children have to say, making sure that every child is safe and protected from abuse and harm.

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Rauner signs sexual abuse legislation

ILLINOIS
Herald-Tribune

By Pete Spitler
Editor@heraldtrib.com
updated: 8/22/2017

Perhaps lost in the noise of the school funding fight was news that Gov. Bruce Rauner signed legislation on Aug. 11 that removes the statutes of limitation for sexual abuse crimes.

The bill, Senate Bill 189, now allows for the prosecution of those crimes at any time. Previously, victims had to report crimes within 20 years after they turned 18.

SB 189 took effect as soon as it was signed and applies to future felony child sex crime cases, as well as current criminal cases in which the previous statute of limitations has not expired.

According to sponsor State Sen. Michael Hastings (D-Tinley Park), the legislation puts in place “best practices for dealing with sexual assault cases statewide and puts in place a system that will encourage survivors to come forward and receive justice when they are ready.”

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Across the nation, priest sexual abuse cases haunt Catholic parishes

UNITED STATES
USA Today

In May 2003, Thomas O’Brien, then bishop of the Diocese of Phoenix, admitted to sheltering at least 50 priests accused of sexual abuse, often shuffling them around to parishes across the state.

O’Brien’s admission, released under an agreement with the county attorney, acknowledged he “allowed Roman Catholic priests under my supervision to work with minors after becoming aware of allegations of sexual misconduct.” He also waived his own immunity should sexual misconduct allegations against him surface.

Thirteen years later, in a lawsuit filed last September, O’Brien — now bishop emeritus — was accused of sexually abusing a grade-school boy.

In recent months, USA TODAY Network reporters at the Pacific Daily News have uncovered scores of allegations involving 14 Catholic priests on Guam, where a former altar boy’s accusation last summer that Archbishop Anthony Apuron sexually abused him in the 1970s has prompted other revelations.

Abuse cases also have roiled Catholic parishes elsewhere the nation, sometimes decades after evidence of the crimes first emerged.

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August 22, 2017

Apuron: Law did not remove time bar for suits

GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

Mindy Aguon | The Guam Daily Post Aug 22, 2017

Suspended Archbishop Anthony Apuron believes every citizen should be afforded due process and the right to defend against a cause of action that has long expired, according to court documents filed in four civil suits filed against the leader of Guam’s Catholic Church.

In a motion filed by his attorney, Jacqueline Taitano Terlaje, Apuron contends the District Court of Guam must dismiss the lawsuits filed against him and the Archdiocese of Agana because the victims’ claims are time-barred and Public Law 33-187 is “inorganic and unconstitutional.”

Apuron and his attorney maintain that the law that amended Guam’s statute of limitations for child sexual abuse did not “retrospectively revive” the plaintiffs’ time-barred and lapsed claims to file suit against him.

Terlaje wrote, “Every person who cannot defend him or herself due to the passage of time and loss of evidence suffers extreme hardship and oppression.”

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IRISH CHURCH AIMS TO END STIGMA FOR THE CHILDREN OF PRIESTS

IRELAND
Associated Press

BY NICOLE WINFIELD
ASSOCIATED PRESS

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Bishops in Ireland have created detailed guidelines to address an issue the Roman Catholic Church has tried to keep under wraps for centuries: the plight of children born to Catholic priests and the women who bear them.

The policy, approved in May and made public recently, states that the wellbeing of the child is paramount. It says the mother must be respected and involved in decision-making, and that the priest “should face up to his responsibilities – personal, legal, moral and financial.”

The guidelines are believed to represent the first comprehensive public policy by a national bishops’ conference on the issue, which has long been shrouded in secrecy given the perceived scandal of priests having sex. While eastern rite Catholic priests can be married before ordination, Roman Catholic priests take a vow of celibacy.

The policy is, in many ways, the fruit of a campaign by an Irish psychotherapist, Vincent Doyle, who discovered late in life that his father was a priest.

With the strong backing of the archbishop of Dublin, Doyle launched Coping International, an online self-help resource for the children of priests and their mothers. The aim, he said, was to help eliminate the stigma he and others like him have faced, and educate them and the church about the emotional and psychological problems that can be associated with the secrecy often imposed on them.

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Local religious group in spotlight for horrific crimes against children

NEW MEXICO
KOAT

Megan Cruz
General Assignment Reporter

CIBOLA COUNTY, N.M. —
The leader and three members of a religious group based in Cibola County were arrested over the weekend for what investigators called horrific crimes against children.

Charges include over 100 counts of criminal sexual penetration of a minor and child abuse.

The Cibola County Sheriff’s Office says deputies arrested Deborah Green, Peter Green, Joshua Green, and Stacey Miller of the Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps Sunday morning. According to the group’s website, Deborah and her husband James are the “Generals” and command their army to spread Christian ideals throughout the world. They’re based out of Fence Lake in western Cibola County.

Sheriff Tony Mace says his office first started investigating the group last year when two members claimed they just escaped the commune. They told deputies Deborah and another member Stacey Miller allowed Miller’s 12-year-old son to die of the flu in 2014.

“It was a horrible situation,” said Cibola County Sheriff Tony Mace.

According to arrest warrants, no one took the boy to the hospital. Puss started leaking from his forehead and he lost his ability to speak and move his right side. He was buried on the property and no one reported his death.

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THE LATEST: NEW MEXICO CHRISTIAN SECT: ABUSE CLAIMS ‘FALSE’

NEW MEXICO
Associated Press

GRANTS, N.M. (AP) — The Latest on a New Mexico military-style Christian sect facing child abuse charges (all times local):

1:30 p.m.

A New Mexico military-style Christian sect says claims of child abuse and child sexual abuse by leaders are false.

The Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps in Fence Lake, New Mexico, said in a statement that allegations “are totally false” and similar to others the group has faced over the years.

A criminal complaint says sect leader Peter Green is facing 100 counts of criminal sexual penetration of a child.

Court records show three other members of the group also were charged with child abuse crimes.

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FORMER SECT MEMBER HAS BEEN TRYING TO EXPOSE GROUP FOR YEARS

NEW MEXICO
Associated Press

BY RUSSELL CONTRERAS
ASSOCIATED PRESS

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A former member of a military-style Christian sect says that for years she’s been trying to draw attention to the New Mexico group whose leader has been charged with dozens of counts of child sexual abuse.

Maura Alana Schmierer told The Associated Press on Monday that she had been interviewed by investigators recently about the Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps.

Schmierer left the sect in the late 1980s. She said she’s “been trying to expose them for years” and appeared in a National Geographic Television show documenting her experience.

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Military-style Christian sect leader is charged in massive child sex abuse case that a former member says she has been trying to expose for years

NEW MEXICO
Daily Mail

AP

A leader of a New Mexico military-style Christian sect is facing dozens of child sexual abuse charges in a case that authorities say is connected to widespread abuse by the religious commune.

Peter Green of the Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps in the remote community of Fence Lake was charged with 100 counts of criminal sexual penetration of a child.

Sect members Deborah Green, Joshua Green and Stacey Miller also face various charges ranging from child abuse, bribery and not reporting a birth.

All four were arrested on Sunday.

A former member, Maura Alana Schmierer, said on Monday that she’s been trying to draw attention to the New Mexico group for years. Schmierer added that she had been interviewed by investigators recently about the group.

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‘My actions were despicable’: Catholic priest steps down after revealing he was a Ku Klux Klan member decades ago

VIRGINIA
Washington Post

By Dana Hedgpeth and Michelle Boorstein August 22

A Catholic priest in Arlington, Va., is temporarily stepping down after revealing he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan and burned crosses more than 40 years ago before joining the clergy.

In an editorial published Monday in the Arlington Catholic Herald, the Rev. William Aitcheson described himself as “an impressionable young man” when he became a member of the hate group. He wrote that images from the deadly white-supremacist and white-nationalist rally in Charlottesville “brought back memories of a bleak period in my life that I would have preferred to forget.”

“My actions were despicable,” wrote Aitcheson, 62. “When I think back on burning crosses, a threatening letter, and so on, I feel as though I am speaking of somebody else. It’s hard to believe that was me.”

In a statement, Catholic Diocese of Arlington Bishop Michael F. Burbidge called Aitcheson’s past with the Ku Klux Klan “sad and deeply troubling.”

Aitcheson served with the Catholic church in Nevada before being transferred to Arlington, where he is originally from, church officials said in a statement. He was ordained in 1988 and has served in a variety of positions at parishes in Nevada; Arlington; Fredericksburg, Va.; and Woodstock, Md. His latest assignment was as parochial vicar, or assistant to the pastor, at St. Leo the Great in Fairfax City.

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Former El Paso priest admits to sexual misconduct

TEXAS
KFOX14

by Adriana Candelaria | Jessica Gonzalez

EL PASO, Texas (KFOX14) —
A priest who once served at El Paso churches has admitted to sexual misconduct with a teenage girl during the 1980s.

Miguel Luna, 67, who served at eight El Paso parishes, was ordained for the Diocese of El Paso on July 1, 1982.

In 2013, Bishop Mark Seitz removed Luna from the ministry upon the recommendation of the Diocesan Review Board.

A spokesperson for the diocese said the recommendation was made because allegations of sexual harassment had been made but not involving a minor.

It wasn’t until last year that a woman who asked to remain anonymous, came forward, saying that Luna had sexually abused her years ago when she was a teenager.

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Boy Scouts files brief in Apuron abuse case

GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio, heugenio@guampdn.com Aug. 22, 2017

The Boy Scouts of America, which faces 54 lawsuits accusing former Scouts leaders of sexually abusing children on Guam, recently filed a “friend of the court” brief in one of the abuse cases filed against Archbishop Anthony Apuron and the Catholic Church on Guam.

District Court of Guam Magistrate Judge Joaquin Manibusan on Tuesday rejected the brief, stating the Boy Scouts are not a party to the Apuron case, and their brief does not provide unique or relevant information.

The Boy Scouts, which wants the cases dismissed, had asked the court to separately address some of the arguments related to the abuse cases. That’s because the Boy Scouts have presented a different set of arguments as to why the cases should be dismissed.

A 2016 law retroactively removed the statute of limitations on civil cases related to child sex abuse, prompting nearly 100 lawsuits to be filed against the Catholic Church and clergy members. More than half of those lawsuits also accuse the Boy Scouts — primarily because of abuse allegations against former Guam priest Louis Brouillard, who also was a Scoutmaster here. He is accused of sexually abusing boys on church grounds and during outings with the Boy Scouts.

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Pastor spared jail for beating children with belts and wires

UNITED KINGDOM
Metro

Georgia Diebelius for Metro.co.uk
Tuesday 22 Aug 2017

A pastor who blindfolded children and whipped them with belts, has been spared jail.

Rose Amadasun was reported to the police by South Norwood Leisure Centre after she was seen hitting youngsters with wires and not feeding them for days on end.

According to witnesses, the pastor of the Shine Forth Evangelistic Ministry in central London, shouted ‘Jesus’ as she beat the children.

If they screamed she would ‘force them to fast’ for several days as punishment.

Amadasun, 49, of South Norwood, South London was arrested on suspicion of causing actual bodily hard on June 30 2016.

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Ribbons show solidarity

AUSTRALIA
Shepparton News

by TARA WHITSED AUGUST 22, 2017

Coinciding with Child Protection Week (September 4 to 10), the Tatura Sacred Heart Parish will show its support by taking part in the Loud Fences initiative next month.

The parish will hand out coloured ribbons at Mass on September 3 and 10 when parishioners will be invited to tie them to the fence afterwards.

Parishioner Judith Steele said ribbons would also be available in the foyer of the Church.

‘‘So we invite everyone in the community to join with Sacred Heart parishioners in tying a coloured ribbon on our fence throughout the month of September to express support and solidarity for the victims of abuse of any kind,’’ she said.

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Queensland school ‘failed’ student after gang-rape allegation

AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

Jorge Branco

A Queensland boarding school failed to properly care for a student after she was allegedly gang-raped by older boys while boarding there in 2006, a royal commission has been urged to find.

Counsel assisting the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, David Lloyd, made submissions harshly criticising Townsville’s Uniting Church-run Shalom Christian College’s response to the trauma.

He said, 10 years on, the school still did not have enough money to provide a safe environment for its students.

During hearings in Sydney in November last year, the young woman’s tearful parents said they were pressured not to press charges against the four men involved because they came from “well known and influential families” and that former principal Christopher Shirley was “trying to paint a bad picture of my daughter”.

Mr Shirley gave evidence that he did not try to blame the student, referred to as CLF, and that he did not tell her parents not to report the matter to police.

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Royal Commission: North Queensland school failed student after indecent assault by boys

AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Isobel Roe and David Chen

A north Queensland Indigenous boarding school did not have the money to properly care for a student after she was indecently assaulted by older boys, according to the findings of a lawyer assisting a child sex abuse inquiry.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard in November last year that the 14-year-old girl was assaulted by four boys behind a classroom at Shalom Christian College near Townsville in 2006, when the students were supposed to be in the boarding house.

The victim’s parents told the royal commission that after the incident, the boys were put into lockdown at the school, and their daughter sent to another school campus and offered no counselling or care.

The findings, by counsel assisting the royal commission David Lloyd, were released on Monday

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Diocese revamps review board; follows pledge in March to make changes

PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

By David Hurst
dhurst@tribdem.com

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown is overhauling the Diocesan Review Board initially established 15 years ago to help internally investigate abuse allegations.

In line with a multistep reform plan outlined in March by the diocese and the United States Attorney’s Office, Bishop Mark Bartchak announced the appointment of an all-new, seven-member review board that will now be comprised of area professionals, one Catholic priest and at least two people representing other Christian faiths – a first for the board.

“In the interest of providing objectivity and transparency, two of the review board members are from other Christian churches,” diocese spokesman Tony DeGol wrote in a release to media.

“All of the newly-appointed members were recommended to the bishop because of their personal integrity, expertise and experience,” he added.

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Ex-El Paso priest accused of sex abuse served at 8 parishes

TEXAS
KXAN

Daniel Marin/KTSM
Published: August 21, 2017

EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) – A former El Paso priest accused of committing sexual abuse decades ago served at eight local parishes, the Catholic Diocese of El Paso said Monday.

At a news conference, El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz said the ex-priest, Miguel Luna, 67, admitted to sexual misconduct with a “young female adolescent” in the 1980s. Luna has since been removed from the ministry.

The allegation came to light last November, according to Seitz who declined to say which parish was involved to protect the identity of the accuser.

The diocese said it has contacted El Paso police but the victim, now an adult, wishes to remain anonymous and no criminal charges have been filed.

The state of Texas has no statute of limitations for felony criminal cases involving sexual assault of a minor or indecency with a child. There is a limitation of 15 years from the victim’s 18th birthday for civil cases.

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Nottinghamshire MP named as core participant in the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

UNITED KINGDOM
Nottingham Post

BY HANNAH MITCHELL
21 AUG 2017

A Nottinghamshire MP has been named as a “core participant” in the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in Nottinghamshire.

The inquiry will look into claims of abuse over a 60 year period in Notitinghamshire after it was announced in 2015 that Nottinghamshire’s councils would be among the first to be investigated by the independent inquiry.

John Mann, Member of Parliament for Bassetlaw, first applied to be a core participant in March but was declined by the chairman Professor Alexis Jay on the grounds that he had not played a significant role in relation to the matters.

However, Prof Jay announced in May that she had reconsidered her view and the MP would play an important role in the inquiry.

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Bartchak appoints members to diocese’s review board

PENNSYLVANIA
Altoona Mirror

Aug 22, 2017

Ryan Brown
Staff Writer
rbrown@altoonamirror.com

Bishop Mark Bartchak named a new slate of members for the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown’s Dio­cesan Review Board, fulfilling a plan he first publicly detailed in March.

The new membership sweeps out past members of the board, which the state attorney general once described as a tool for concealing sexual abuse allegations. The revamped board is part of a series of changes Bartchak promised at a March press conference alongside federal prosecutors.

The Review Board’s seven new members are the Rev. Leo F. Arnone, Joyce Cunningham, Joseph Grappone, Todd Mahalko, Robert Skelly, Brent Stoltzfus and the Rev. Miles Zdinak. They are set to review sexual abuse allegations and determine clergymen’s suitability for the ministry.

Diocese Secretary for Communications Tony DeGol said he was unable to immediately provide further biographical information on the new members Monday. Searches online, however, suggest the new board includes a licensed social worker, a former state police trooper and a Carpatho-Russian Orthodox priest, among others.

“(Bartchak) feels that each of them brings a great deal of expertise in their respective fields,” DeGol said. “You have some who have backgrounds in law enforcement, in pastoral care, some in psychological treatment.”

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August 21, 2017

Children of priests: ‘an invisible legion of secrecy and neglect’

UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Aug 21, 2017
by Patricia Lefevere

No one knows the number of sons and daughters of Catholic priests in the United States or in the world, but what is known is that hundreds — perhaps thousands — of these offspring have lived in secret, hiding their fathers’ past from the world, frequently even from family members.

Still other children of clergy dads have grown up not knowing who their real father was, often mistaking him for an uncle, godfather or some other male friend or relative whom they have known from their youth. In many instances, the children of Catholic priests have failed to have their emotional, legal and financial needs met.

When they have discovered who their real father is — often later in life — some of these daughters and sons have undergone spiritual disillusionment, unable to separate themselves from the faith they love and have been raised in, and the man who did not, or could not, come forward and be a genuine dad to them. Some have experienced psychological trauma from having to carry a secret — a lie — for life.

These are among disclosures presented in a two-part series on the progeny of priests published by The Boston Globe’s Spotlight team Aug. 19 and 20 and written by Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist Michael Rezendes. In interviews over many months, the investigative news team found that children of Catholic priests “form an invisible legion of secrecy and neglect.”

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Judge: Baton Rouge diocese, area Catholic priest to remain in suit involving confessional

LOUISIANA
The Advocate

BY JOE GYAN JR. | JGYAN@THEADVOCATE.COM AUG 21, 2017

A state judge refused Monday to dismiss the Roman Catholic Diocese of Baton Rouge and a priest from a 2009 lawsuit by a woman who says that when she was a teenager she told the priest she was being sexually abused by a church parishioner, but he did not stop the alleged abuse or report it.

A legal battle over whether a Louisiana priest should have reported a teenager’s claims of s…
District Judge Mike Caldwell said it will be up to an East Baton Rouge Parish jury to decide whether what Rebecca Mayeux allegedly told the Rev. Jeff Bayhi in the confessional was in fact a confession as defined by the Catholic Church, and therefore confidential, or whether she was merely seeking support and guidance instead of confessing sins.

Caldwell and a state appeals court both ruled last year that Mayeux can tell a jury what she allegedly told Bayhi in the confessional.

The Louisiana Supreme Court also ruled last fall in the long-running case that a priest has no duty to report confidential information heard during the sacrament of confession.

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Former priest for the Diocese of El Paso allegedly admits to sexual misconduct with a minor

TEXAS
KVIA

EL PASO, Texas – The Diocese of El Paso announced on Monday Miguel Luna, a former priest, allegedly admitted to sexual misconduct with a young girl in the 1980s.

The victim reached out to the diocese in November of 2016, and the Diocese conducted an investigation.

“It is directly contradictory to the sacrificial love to which a priest has committed himself before God,” Bishop Mark Seitz said. “I am deeply sorry for the pain caused by these actions of Miguel Luna, and ask those who know of other situations of misconduct or abuse to please inform law enforcement and the Diocese.”

Luna was removed from ministry back in 2013.

“There had been some accusations against him that would probably be labeled sexual harassment,” Seitz said. “We determined after an investigation from the review board that he needed simply to be removed from ministry.”

The Diocese said Luna was ordained July 1, 1982. Here is where Luna has served:

Blessed Sacrament
Corpus Christi
Our Lady of Assumption
Our Lady of Peace — Alpine
San Antonio De Padua
San Lorenzo
St. Joseph Mission — Fort Davis
St. Mary Mission — Marathon
St. Matthew
St. Pius X
St. Thomas Aquina
St. Thomas/St. Joseph — Kermit

The Diocese of El Paso said it is reaching out to all of its parishes to learn if there any more potential victims. The victim who came forward in 2016 wishes to stay anonymous and is not pressing charges.

“We have informed the El Paso Police about this case, about Luna. They’re ready with their Crimes Against Children, that respond and would help any victims who come forward to them after this notification.” Seitz said.

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Diocesan Review Board announced

PENNSYLVANIA
We Are Central PA

Hollidaysburgh, Blair County, Pa – Bishop Mark Bartchak has announced the appointment of an entirely new membership for the Diocesan Review Board. The group assists in the assessment of allegations of sexual abuse of minors and if a cleric is suitable for ministry.

The members of the review board are as follows: Rev. Leo F. Arnone, Joyce Cunningham, Joseph Grappone, Todd Mahalko, Robert Skelly, Brent Stoltzfus and Rev. Miles Zdinak.

According to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Charter for the Protection of Children and Youth, every diocese is to have a review board. The majority of the members must be Catholic lay persons not employed by the diocese. The board is a confidential consultative body.

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Diocese names new members of review board

PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

by Matthew Stevens

HOLLIDAYSBURG – The Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown has named the members of its new review board.

The objective of the board is to assess allegations of sexual abuse of minors.

The board consists of Catholic members not employed by the diocese and two members of other Christian members.

The new members are Rev. Leo Arnone, Joyce Cunningham, Joseph Grappone, Todd Mahalko, Robert Skelly, Brent Stoltzfus and Rev. Miles Zdinak.

The newly-appointed members were recommended to Bishop Mark Bartchak and have experience in pastoral care, education of children, safe environment for children, psychological care and treatment of sexual abuse of minors and law enforcement.

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Falsely Accused Catholic School Teacher in Philly *Finally* Released From Prison; Philly Media Doesn’t Care

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
TheMediaReport

Philadelphia Catholic school teacher Bernard Shero, who was falsely convicted in 2013 along with the late Rev. Charles Engelhardt in a high-profile trial for child sex abuse that never occurred, is finally going to be a free man.

After being falsely accused of sex abuse by a lying drug addict named Danny Gallagher, Shero will exit prison after serving four-and-a-half years of a maximum 16-year sentence.

The news was first reported by journalist Ralph Cipriano at BigTrial.net.

An insider blows the lid off

Regular readers of this site have long known that Gallagher’s claims of abuse are wildly false (see this and this for background). It is now an incontrovertible fact that the Philadelphia D.A.’s office – spearheaded by D.A. Seth Williams, who now sits in solitary confinement on multiple charges of corruption and bribery – orchestrated a malicious scheme against innocent men and the Catholic Church based on Gallagher’s bogus stories.

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