Documenting the Catholic Sexual Abuse and Financial Crisis – Data on bishops, priests, brothers, nuns, Pope Francis, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
Saturday, May 9, 2026
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.
The Archdiocese of Agana issued a statement yesterday afternoon regarding the recent sex abuse allegations.
Guam – In the release, Coadjutor Archbishop Michael Byrnes said that, while emotions pale in comparison to the pain suffered by the victims, the Archdiocese expresses its deep sadness and continues to pray for those who have experienced sexual abuse by clergy or staff, and who continue to suffer because of it.
Archbishop Byrnes adds, “our Archdiocese’s commitment to strengthen our vigilance in this area and ensure that all our children and adults grow in their faith protected in a fully loving, nurturing and safe environment.” The statement also encourages victims to seek professional counseling, which is offered by the Hope and Healing initiative.
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.
By Edmundo Carrillo / Journal Staff Writer
Published: Friday, June 2nd, 2017
SANTA FE, N.M. — A woman who claims she was sexually abused by two teachers at the Temple Baptist Church in Santa Fe when she was a child is now suing the church after she married and had children with one of her alleged abusers.
A lawsuit filed in Santa Fe District Court last week maintains that the woman, identified only as “Jane Doe” in the document, was abused hundreds of times while she was enrolled at the church’s school, across Yucca Street from Santa Fe High, in the mid ’90s.
She married one of those men when she turned 18 and she started having children with him at 19, the complaint says, but the couple is now divorced. Neither alleged abuser is identified in the suit.
The abuse happened at the church, as well as homes of church members, including the victim’s home, according to the suit.
The filing says the church had a culture “wherein male leaders held substantial power over the lives of minors – particularly minor female students at the Church and School” and says they “used the power vested in them as teachers, supervisors and as religious figures to sexually abuse Plaintiff as a minor.”
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.
A 47-year-old church pastor in Menlo Park was arrested on suspicion of six counts of sexual assault, including instances involving children, police said Thursday.
Victor Elizandro Tax-Gomez, who lives in East Palo Alto, was arrested Thursday after an interview at the Menlo Park Police Department, officials said.
Tax-Gomez was booked into San Mateo County Jail on suspicion of the following charges:
sexual penetration with a foreign object of a juvenile under 16
sexual penetration with a foreign object of a juvenile
sexual penetration with a foreign object of an adult
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.
MENLO PARK, Calif. (KGO) — The pastor of a small congregation in Menlo Park is in jail, accused of the unthinkable. Police say he sexually assaulted both children and adult members of his church.
As members of El Senor Justicia Nuestra Iglesia arrived for 7:30 mass, they found out their pastor, Victor Elizandro Tax-Gomez, was in jail.
Menlo Park police arrested Tax-Gomez on Thursday after several people came forward with similar stories of sexual abuse as children and as young adults.
“A person who is in a position of power is able to prey on people, it really is kind of disturbing because normally those people in power are trusted by the victims,” Menlo Park Police Cmdr. Dave Bertini said.
Church member Guadalupe Robles isn’t surprised by the accusations. She says some people mentioned he touched a female member’s breasts and she then left the church.
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.
A Roman Catholic order in the United States has filed for bankruptcy protection as it announced a $25.5 million settlement for dozens of alleged child sex abuse victims.
The Crosier Fathers & Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection at a US Bankruptcy Court in the District of Minnesota on Thursday.
Attorney Mike Finnegan from Jeff Anderson & Associates PA said: “We applaud the strength and courage of all of the sexual abuse survivors who have come forward and shared their truths.
“The Crosiers are doing the right thing by working with survivors in order to facilitate a transparent and fair resolution for everyone involved.”
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.
A SELF-CONFESSED paedo priest whose conviction for indecently assaulting a schoolboy in the 1970s was quashed has been awarded legal costs for his successful appeal.
The Catholic Church had funded Tadhg O’Dalaigh’s legal representation, according to lawyers for the Director of Public Prosecutions, who had opposed the costs application on grounds that he was “not out of pocket himself”.
The 73-year-old last week successfully appealed his conviction for indecently assaulting a schoolboy at Colaiste Chroi Naofa boarding school in Carrignavar, Co Cork in the 1970s.
O’Dalaigh, of Blackrock, Dublin, had been found guilty by a jury and was sentenced to five years imprisonment with the final two suspended on December 18, 2014 for the offence.
This sentence was served by the time his appeal was determined.
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.
NEW YORK — Director Ryan White’s visually striking, atmospheric documentary series “The Keepers” examines the unsolved murder in 1969 Baltimore of popular 26-year-old Sr. Cathy Cesnik. Presented in seven one-hour installments, “The Keepers” began streaming on Netflix May 19.
A former English teacher at Archbishop Keough High School, an archdiocesan academy for girls, Sr. Cesnik was on a year’s leave of absence from her order, the School Sisters of Notre Dame, and working in the city’s public education system at the time of her death. She was likely killed — so the filmmakers hypothesize — because she knew too much about her former colleague, Fr. A. Joseph Maskell.
Long after it came to light through the accounts of his victims, that Fr. Maskell, a chaplain and counselor at Keough, sexually abused multiple students during his time there.
The extensive descriptions of the priest’s vicious crimes — in egregious violation of his sacred trust — will sicken, trouble and outrage viewers, faithful Catholics above all. With one notable exception, however, the presentation of these unsettling details isn’t lurid.
During an interview with former Jesuit priest Gerry Koob, who was close to Sr. Cesnik and a suspect in her murder, Koob bizarrely accuses a Baltimore detective of intimidating him during the initial investigation by showing him the dead woman’s private parts, severed from her body by the killer.
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.
After binge-watching seven episodes of Netflix’s gripping new true crime series The Keepers, it seems we’ve been left with more questions than answers regarding the shocking murder of Sister Catherine Cesnik back in 1969. And to this day, the killing of the Catholic nun in Baltimore remains unsolved, as does the case of Joyce Malecki, the 20-year-old woman who was found dead only a few days later.
However, after wading through an incredible amount of evidence and upsetting allegations of sexual abuse embedded within the documentary, there are a select few that crop up time and time again as the potential perpetrators of the horrific crimes. So, without any further hesitation, here are some of the theories regarding the decades-long question of who actually killed Sister Cathy.
1. Monstrous Father Joseph Maskell
From the outset, Father Joseph Maskell — the counsellor and Chaplain at the Archbishop Keough High School — remains the man at the center of the heinous crimes in The Keepers. For years, he systematically sexually abused scores of young girls under his care, and after one of the victims (“Jane Doe,” or Jean Wehner) came forward to Sister Cathy regarding the extensive sex ring, the nun swore to “do something” about it. In doing so, many believe that she marked herself out as a target.
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.
[Content Warning: The second episode of The Keepers contains narratives of sexual assault, child abuse, and rape.]
The Keepers episode 1 opened with a straight-forward analysis of the forensic details of the case of Sister Cathy Cesnik, but things get much darker and deeper in the second part of this series.
We open with the poetic journalist Tom Nugent interviewing Jane Doe, now revealed as Jean Hargadon Whener. Whener immediately asserts her belief that Cathy had been murdered by someone she knew, with the implication being that Cesnik was killed over some kind of forbidden knowledge about the school where she worked.
Whener proceeds to give some truly shocking information throughout the episode about the abuses she suffered as a student at the hands of various teachers, priests, and higher-ups at Archbishop Keough High School. Whener’s accusations have implications beyond the school as well. There is a suggestion that police may have been involved, too.
The formerly anonymous whistleblower’s details are absolutely gruesome and difficult to sit through, and most of the episode is dedicated to her testimony. Without going into too many specifics: Whener states that she was repeatedly raped and sexually assaulted by the priests who ran the school, with Father Maskell as the main perpetrator. Whener was led to believe this was part of a spiritual rehabilitation program, and increasingly dissociated from the experiences, coming forward to no one and remaining silent about her experiences. Her descriptions are truly nauseating. Whener also claims that there were, at least on one occasion, cops present during the rapes.
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.
Staff writers, News Corp Australia Network
June 1, 2017
CARDINAL George Pell has said he is “hanging in there” as he waits to find out if he will be prosecuted over historic child sex charges.
Cardinal Pell told The Australian outside his home in Rome that he was not guilty of any crimes against children.
“Let me just repeat, I am not guilty of any crime,’’ he said. “I have co-operated fully and will co-operate fully and I await the decision.’’
When asked how he was feeling, he responded: “I’m hanging in there.’’
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.
By Gregory Yee gyee@postandcourier.com Jun 1, 2017
A Catholic priest in New York was charged in Charleston on Thursday for allegedly sexually abusing minors while he was a volunteer in the Holy City more than 30 years ago.
Freddy Washington, a 53-year-old resident of West 138th Street in Harlem, faces two counts of criminal sexual conduct with a minor under 11 years old, and one count of committing a lewd act on a child under 14 years old, according to court and jail records.
Washington appeared in bond court on Thursday where he was given $100,000 bail on the lewd act charge, according to jail records. No bail was given on the criminal sexual conduct charges.
He is a member of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, also known as the Spiritans, according to a statement by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston. The abuse dates back about 35 years — the early 1980s — when Washington was a volunteer at St. Patrick Catholic Church on St. Philip Street.
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.
Five more people have come forward with sex abuse allegations against the local Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts.
Of those accused is the late Archbishop Felix Berto Flores. 62-year-old A.J.R. alleges he was 11 years old when then priest Flores abused him while he was serving at the Agana Cathedral. Additionally, three more people – one of them female – have come forward accusing Fr. Louis Brouillard of sexual molestation, the crimes occurring when he was serving at the Malojloj parish. The victims were identified as E.V., E.T. (a female), and S.M.T. Victim S.M.T. also alleges sexual abuse by Fr. Juan Camacho and Boy Scout Leader Edward Pereira – both of whom are deceased. The 5th victim to file is S.D.E. He alleges he was sexually assaulted in 1955 by a scout leader in Sinajana identified as Miguel Salas. S.D.E. was 12 years old at the time of the alleged sexual 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.
There are now 72 reported victims of child sex abuse, with the latest filing a complaint against defrocked priest, Raymond Cepeda.
Guam – Raymond Cepeda served as a priest at the Santa Barbara Catholic Church in Dededo and at the Cathedral Basilica, and was defrocked in 2009 after he was accused of sexual abuse in 2004.
The latest complaint filed yesterday through attorney David Lujan was by a man using the initials R.Q. This is the sixth time Cepeda has been named as the offender in these church abuse cases. What’s a little different about this alleged victim is that R.Q. was not an altar server. He claims to have been abused when he was taking confirmation classes at the Dededo Parish, of which Cepeda was in charge.
One of the requirements for the class is for students to perform community service at the church. R.Q. was tasked to be a reader for the 5:30 p.m. mass every Saturday. In court documents, R.Q. alleges that Cepeda would have him stay at the rectory after mass. While there, the complaint says Cepeda would fondle and sexually abuse R.Q. almost every week.
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Jasmine Stole , jstole@guampdn.com June 2, 2017 | Updated 21 minutes ago
A 62-year-old man has accused the late Archbishop Felixberto C. Flores of sexually abusing him more than 50 years ago at Cathedral Grade School, according to one of the latest lawsuits filed against the Catholic Church in federal court.
Flores is the third church leader from the Marianas accused of sexual abusing a minor. Guam’s Archbishop Anthony Apuron, who succeeded Flores, and Saipan’s Bishop emeritus Tomas Camacho also have been named in lawsuits alleging child sexual abuse.
Flores’ accuser is identified as A.J.R.
The lawsuit states A.J.R., around the year 1966, was a student at Cathedral Grade School in Hagåtña and Flores was a priest. Flores called to A.J.R. from the entrance of the rectory, then showed his genitals to the boy, who was about 11 years old at the time, the complaint states.
Flores reportedly had his hands on A.J.R’s shoulder and pulled the boy closer to him. A.J.R. kicked the priest in his private parts and fled, court documents state.
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Summary of Case: James Tamburrino was ordained for the Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel (Carmelites) in 1998. There are indications that he worked with the Carmelite missions in Peru prior to ordination. In the late 1990s he was assigned to St. Simon Stock parish in the Bronx.
Tamburrino was accused in a March 2000 lawsuit, along with three St. Simon Stock priests, of having sexually abused a teenage boy during 1996-1998. The boy was working as a secretary in the parish rectory where he said the priests plied him with alcohol and “gay child porn,” paid him for sexual favors, had him watch them perform group masturbation, then threatened to harm him if he told. The boy and his family reported the alleged abuse to the archdiocese and the Carmelites in 1999; they said they were pressured to sign a release. All four priests were transferred out of St. Simon Stock the same year. Tamburrino was assigned as chaplain to a psychiatric center while residing at the Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Middletown NY. The alleged victim claimed he was receiving anonymous harassing phone calls which led him to fear for his life and move out of state. After news reports about the case in June 2001, Tamburrino was suspended from ministry. He continued to be supported by his Order through at least 2002.
Tamburrino was living in Rome, NY in July 2005 when he was arrested for taking erotic photos of a 15-year-old boy at a Rome hotel, and approaching another teen boy for the same purpose. He was convicted in March 2006 and sentenced in June 2006 to 5-15 years in state prison. He is a registered NY State Level 2 Sex Offender.
Ordained: 1998
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CHARLESTON, SC (WCSC) –
A New York priest has been charged with sexually assaulting children at a Charleston church 35 years ago.
Freddy Washington appeared in bond court on Thursday in connection to accusations that he sexually assaulted two children at the St. Patrick’s Catholic Church on St. Phillip Street where he worked as a volunteer in the early 1980s.
According to Washington’s lawyer, his client who is a priest at St. Mark the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church in Harlem, has been put on sabbatical by the church.
“When he was notified of these charges through the necessary process he volunteered to come here,” said Washington’s lawyer Eduardo Curry.”Because he believes he is innocent and did not commit these charges.”
Washington has been charged with two counts of criminal sexual conduct under the age of 11 and lewd act on a child under the age of 14.
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A New York Catholic priest has been arrested and charged with sexually abusing two boys while he was serving as a volunteer in a Charleston church more than 30 years ago.
Freddy Washington, 53, was arrested by Charleston Police and booked into the Al Cannon Detention Center on Thursday. Washington is charged with two counts of criminal sexual conduct with a minor, and one count of committing lewd acts on a child under 14.
Affidavits from the Charleston Police Department show Washington is accused of sexually molesting two boys while he was a volunteer at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Charleston between 1982 and 1984.
Washington was not an ordained minister at the time, according both to police and a statement provided Thursday by the Diocese of Charleston. A spokesperson for the Diocese said Thursday Washington is a member of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit (Spiritans), and is currently serving as a priest at a parish in the Diocese of Rockville Centre in New York.
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A Catholic religious order has filed for bankruptcy protection and agreed to a $25.5 million settlement to pay 43 sexual abuse survivors.
The Crosier Fathers & Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in federal bankruptcy court in Minneapolis Thursday.
“The decision to file for reorganization was difficult, but given the number of claimants who came forward when the state of Minnesota opened the statute of limitations for asserting claims of sexual abuse, we believe a Chapter 11 reorganization is the only way that all claimants can be offered a fair and just resolution within the Crosiers’ limited financial resources,” said Prior Provincial Thomas Enneking in a statement.
Crosier ran a prep school, which is where much of the alleged abuse occured in the 1970s and 1980s. The school has since closed.
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A former Chatham priest and the Roman Catholic Diocese of London are being sued by three women who say they were sexually abused as teens.
The women are seeking $3 million in damages from former priest James Blonde and the diocese in separate lawsuits filed May 4 in London.
None of the allegations have been proven in court.
When contacted by Postmedia News, the diocese said in a statement that it does not comment on lawsuits that have been filed.
The women, identified only by their initials in their statement of claims, said in their lawsuits that Blonde abused them in the early 1970s when he served at Blessed Sacrament parish in Chatham.
The women’s allegations have a similar pattern. In their claims, they said Blonde began hugging them when they were about 13 years old. Then he began to touch their body parts over their clothes, followed by more intimate touching and sexual activities, the statements say.
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A 48-year-old man alleges he was sexually abused and molested by a priest while attending confirmation classes at Santa Barbara Catholic Church in Dededo in the early 1980s.
The man, identified as R.Q. to protect his identity, filed a lawsuit through his attorney David Lujan in the District Court of Guam against the Archdiocese of Agana and former priest Raymond Cepeda, who was defrocked in 2009 or 2010, court documents state.
Abused, molested ‘regularly’
The civil complaint alleges that Cepeda “regularly” sexually abused and molested R.Q. after Saturday night baptismal Masses in the Dededo parish rectory. After Mass, Cepeda allegedly instructed the teen not to leave and to follow him to the rectory where he would fondle and sexually abuse him, the lawsuit states.
Occasionally, R.Q. said he would attend functions away from the church and alleges Cepeda would offer to take him home. The teen did not want to go but obeyed because Cepeda was a priest, court documents state.
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Australia’s most senior Catholic Cardinal George Pell said he was “hanging in there’’ awaiting the decision of Victorian police on whether he will be prosecuted over historic child-sex charges.
Cardinal Pell, looking less robust than when he fronted the specially convened Rome sitting of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse last year, emerged from his Rome home overlooking the walls of the Vatican with another cardinal in tow.
Cardinal Pell, 75, told The Australian he was innocent of the claims being made against him.
“Let me just repeat, I am not guilty of any crime,’’ he said as a posse of special police surrounded his chauffeur-driven car.
“I have co-operated fully and will co-operate fully and I await the decision.’’ When asked how he was feeling, he responded: “I’m hanging in there.’’
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Coadjutor Archbishop Michael Byrnes released a statement expressing sadness and offering prayers to the latest individuals to step forward with claims of decades-old sexual abuses against former Guam Catholic priests and a former parochial school teacher.
“As the designated shepherd of the Catholic Church of Guam, I acknowledge the newest lawsuits and allegations of clergy sexual abuse filed by individuals known by the initials of A.N.D., G.J., and B.J. as well as Mr. Francis Charfauros and Mr. Troy Torres,” Byrnes said in a written statement.
“Our sadness deepens with each new person who comes forward sharing allegations of abuse against clergy or staff of our archdiocese,” he said. “Any emotions pale, however, compared to the excruciating pain and feelings all victims of abuse suffered and in most cases, continue to suffer.”
The archdiocesan statement mentions the accused. Some of the victims came forward only with their initials in lawsuits filed against the archdiocese and other parties. Others used their full names in their lawsuits.
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(Minneapolis, MN) – Today, the Crosier Fathers & Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in United States Bankruptcy Court, District of Minnesota. The Crosier order is a Roman Catholic religious order of priests and brothers with communities in Phoenix, Arizona and Onamia, Minnesota. The Crosier order is the 18th Catholic Diocese or Religious order to file for bankruptcy protection in the United States.
Sexual abuse survivors and the Crosiers have worked together to reach a framework for a $25.5 million dollar agreement to fairly compensate survivors of child sexual abuse by members and an employee of the Crosier order. Currently, there are 43 child sexual abuse cases pending in Minnesota courts.
“We applaud the strength and courage of all of the sexual abuse survivors who have come forward and shared their truths,” said Attorney Mike Finnegan. “The Crosiers are doing the right thing by working with survivors in order to facilitate a transparent and fair resolution for everyone involved.”
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RUTHERFORDTON, N.C. (AP) — The Latest on the trial of a North Carolina minister who is accused of assaulting and kidnapping a gay church member (all times local):
1:30 p.m.
A North Carolina man has testified that he thought he was “going to die” when members of his evangelical church beat and choked him to expel his “homosexual demons.”
Matthew Fenner testified Thursday at the start of the assault trial of Brooke Covington, a 58-year-old minister at Word of Faith Fellowship in Spindale, North Carolina.
Fenner said Covington was the ring leader in a January 2013 beating involving numerous congregants. He said Covington pointed out his sexual orientation, saying, “God said there is something wrong in your life.”
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RUTHERFORDTON, N.C. (AP) — A North Carolina man thought he was “going to die” when members of his evangelical church beat and choked him for two hours to expel his “homosexual demons,” he testified Thursday.
Matthew Fenner was the first person to take the stand in the assault and kidnapping trial of Brooke Covington, a 58-year-old minister at Word of Faith Fellowship in Spindale, North Carolina.
Fenner, 23, said Covington was the leader in a 2013 beating involving numerous congregants. He said Covington pointed out his sexual orientation, saying, “God said there is something wrong in your life.”
Fenner said he had cancer as a child and had a biopsy one week before he was assaulted.
“I’m frail and in my mind, I’m thinking, ‘is my neck going to break, am I going to die?'” Fenner said.
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BOSTON —
A prominent minister, who blessed the governor at his inauguration in 2015, is among the group of 10 men accused of trying to purchase sex for a fee from undercover Boston detectives.
Archie Livingston Foxworth, 68, of Hull, is accused of responding to an online ad posted by the Boston Police Department’s Human Trafficking Unit, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office.
Foxworth is the senior pastor of Grace Church of All Nations located in Dorchester. He offered a blessing at Gov. Charlie Baker’s inauguration in 2015.
Foxworth and the nine other men were arrested at the location where they agreed to meet undercover detectives, the DA’s office said.
The DA’s office said that nine of the 10 men were arraigned Wednesday. In addition to Foxworth, that includes: Murat Inamli, 50, of Brookline; Zian JIang, 20, of Boston; William J. Marchant, 54, of Norwood; Eswin Esteban, 39, of Chelsea; Benjamin Silver, 40, of Somerville; James M. Rose, 59, of Boston; Thomas Holt, 42, of Belmont; Nikunk B. Patel, 27, of Revere.
The tenth suspect, Andrew Kyriacou, 51, of Shrewsbury, is scheduled to be arraigned next week.
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Prominent Boston Bishop A. Livingston Foxworth was among those caught up in a recent undercover prostitution sting, reports The Boston Herald.
Allegedly seeking sex services, Foxworth on Tuesday responded to a phony Backpage.com ad placed by Massachusetts State Police.
According to police, Foxworth agreed to pay the “prostitute” — actually an undercover detective — $150 and provided his cell phone number and a Pine Street address during the exchange, according to The Herald.
Foxworth later arrived at the address and police confirmed that the cell phone number was indeed his.
Foxworth, senior pastor at the Grace Church of All Nations in Dorchester since 1979, appeared Wednesday in Boston Municipal Court, where he faced a single charge of paying for sexual conduct. Nine others were caught up in the same undercover prostitution sting — a regular exercise conducted by authorities statewide with the aim of reducing demand.
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Bob McGovern, Jessica Heslam Thursday, June 01, 2017
The prominent Boston minister who blessed Gov. Charlie Baker after he was elected to the Corner Office was caught soliciting a prostitute during an undercover police sting that also reeled in nine other would-be johns, authorities said.
A. Livingston Foxworth, the senior pastor at the Grace Church of All Nations in Dorchester, was arraigned yesterday in Boston Municipal Court on a single charge of paying for sexual conduct. He was released without bail after a brief appearance.
Foxworth gave newly elected Baker and his wife, Lauren, a blessing in November 2014 during a Grace Church of All Nations service.
“Gov. Baker is saddened by this news and is confident the courts will examine the facts and reach an appropriate decision,” said Lizzy Guyton, a spokesman for Baker. “The Baker-Polito Administration has made combating human trafficking a priority by working across state government to enact anti-trafficking policies and proposing legislation to give law enforcement more tools to crack down on trafficking-related crimes.”
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The Archbishop of Canterbury is being challenged over his links to a Christian camp at the heart of a police investigation for abusing children.
Justin Welby previously said he helped at Iwerne Christian camps in the mid 1970s but moved to Paris in 1978 and after that had ‘no contact’ with the organisation and in particular John Smyth – the former chairman who groomed and beat more than 20 boys and young men – during the time the abuse allegedly took place.
But new documents show Welby gave a talk at one summer camp in 1979, also attended by Smyth.
He told Channel 4 News with dozens of talks across different camps throughout the summer, it was ‘not an unusual occurrence’ for people to return to speak.
‘A talk on reading the Bible, which I did as a one-off in 1979, does not make anyone a member of an “inner circle”,’ he insisted.
But the papers shown to the TV channel challenge Welby’s previous account that he had no contact with the camp at the time of the abuse. Another document shows Welby’s address in Paris, suggesting he may have been in regular contact with the camp.
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The Archbishop of Canterbury is facing questions tonight over his links to an evangelical Christian under police investigation for beating young men.
Following revelations by this programme four months ago, Justin Welby admitted he had worked with John Smyth at Christian holiday camps, but insisted he had “no contact at all” with the camps after 1978. New evidence now challenges this account.
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Victorian police chief Graham Ashton has said the decision on whether or not to charge Cardinal George Pell over historical child sexual assault allegations “is not far off”.
Mr Ashton this morning described the investigation of Cardinal Pell as “very complex.”
“These allegations are complex and there’s a lot in it in terms of the inquiries that have been made, the work that’s been done and the legal advice,” he said.
“I’m not going to comment on this particular case, but I’ll make the overall statement that you can often get different views around investigations and it’s not always the case of total agreement or total dissent.”
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RUTHERFORD COUNTY, N.C. (WLOS) —
A jury of eight men and four women has been seated to hear the case against a Spindale minister on trial for abusing one of the church’s members in 2013.
The 12-member jury was seated about 3:25 p.m. Wednesday to hear the case against Brooke Covington. Late Wednesday afternoon, one of two alternate jurors was selected to hear the case.
Selection for the last alternate juror will begin at 9:15 a.m. Thursday. Among the jurors is a former law enforcement officer.
Covington, who is one of four Word of Faith Fellowship church members charged with assaulting and kidnapping Matthew Fenner in January 2013, walked out of the Rutherford County Courthouse surrounded by church members just after 5 p.m. Wednesday. Other members from Word of Faith Fellowship were in the courtroom Wednesday, listening to the jury selection process.
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BELLINGHAM, Wash. – A former youth pastor at Bellingham Baptist Church is going to prison for raping a teenager.
Christopher Trent plead guilty to four counts of third-degree child rape.
He was sentenced to 5 years in prison.
The girl says she was 13 when Trent started sexually abusing her.
Some of the abuse happened at the church.
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Victoria’s top cop has hinted that police could be split over a decision whether to charge Cardinal George Pell with historic child abuse offences.
It was not unusual for police to have different views, particularly in complex matters, chief commissioner Graham Ashton said this morning.
Nevertheless, a decision was closer, he said.
Mr Ashton also revealed that the Taskforce Sano would liaise with lawyers for Cardinal Pell and the victims if a decision was made not to charge the senior Vatican figure.
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On the third floor of a building behind Haymarket station in Edinburgh, a suite of offices has been converted into a hive of legal activity by the Scottish child abuse inquiry.
In the largest of the rooms, lawyers, representing the inquiry itself, victims’ groups and about a dozen care organisations filled out much of the space. Everything was calm, ordered and obviously well paid. The inquiry has already cost £5.7 million.
But in this same room were high emotions, and people ready to speak of bitter experiences. The few public seats were occupied by victims of abuse and their friends, while outside in the sun many more held a vigil.
The scale of the inquiry is vast, with its remit dating back to 1930. Its first hearing was yesterday and evidence from at least 60 residential institutions will be presented.
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By: Lucie Edwardson Metro Published on Wed May 31 2017
A Calgary Catholic School District (CCSD) teacher has been formally charged after an alleged decade-old sexual relationship with a student.
Staff Sgt. Dominic Mayhew, of the Calgary Police Service (CPS) child abuse unit, said Edwin Cay Arias, 45, is charged with sexual assault and sexual contact with a youth by a person in a position of trust or authority.
Mayhew said the investigation began in January after a woman—who is now in her 20s— came forward to police to inform them she’d been in a relationship with a teacher while she’d attended Bishop McNally High School in the city’s northeast between 2007 and 2009.
Officials from the Calgary Catholic School District said Calgary police informed them of the investigation in January of this year.
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Calgary’s Catholic school board did not suspend a teacher under investigation for inappropriate sexual contact with a student until he was charged about four months later, because police indicated he was not a threat to current students.
Education officials said they were first told in late January that police were investigating an allegation from a woman that she had an inappropriate sexual relationship with a teacher while she was a student at Bishop McNally High School between 2007 and 2009.
At a news conference Wednesday, the school district said the police service was “quite confident” that there was no current risk to students.
“Obviously, the safety of our students is our top priority, and it’s a difficult situation, of course, so we worked with the Calgary Police Service,” said Tania Van Brunt, director of communications for the Calgary Catholic School District.
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Two former residents of An Grianán training centre will learn today if the High Court will allow them to be admitted to the Magdalene redress scheme. During the case, it was revealed that the Ombudsman was already formally investigating the scheme. Conall Ó Fátharta reveals the extraordinary nine-month row between the Ombudsman and the Department of Justice which could have far-reaching consequences for the scheme
THE determination of two women to go to the High Court to fight a decision by the Department of Justice to exclude them from the Magdalene redress scheme has led the Ombudsman to launch a full investigation into whether the scheme has been administered fairly.
While the case has received the smallest amount of publicity, it could have far-reaching consequences for the Department of Justice in terms of how it has administered one of the largest redress schemes in recent years.
The Ombudsman has confirmed it is to investigate possible “prima facie evidence of maladministration” of the scheme by the department — a significant development by any stretch.
The inquiry will consider whether the application process operated in an open and fair manner and whether the department relied on information that was irrelevant and/or incomplete, when deciding on a person’s eligibility under the scheme.
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PRINCIPALS of Catholic schools have jointly apologised for sexual abuse inflicted on students at their schools.
In a move likened to the Australian Government apologising to the Stolen Generation, Edmund Rice Education Australia today led a “National Ritual of Apology” for victims of abuse at schools including St Patrick’s Ballarat, St Kevin’s College Toorak, and Parade College.
In a special session at the organisations national principals’ conference in Canberra, chief executive Wayne Tinsley read a “long overdue statement of acknowledgment and regret”, with principals and representatives of all 34 Edmund Rice Australia schools endorsing each point in unison saying “For this we apologise”.
Dr Tinsley read the statement, beginning: “Today we begin a journey of major change by publicly acknowledging the sexual abuse of students in our schools, some dead, some above, some unknown.
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In a historic first, a Catholic education body has apologised to sexual abuse victims who were harmed in its schools.
Edmund Rice Education Australia, which governs schools previously under the control of Christian Brothers, met with victims and made the apology at an event in Canberra on Thursday.
St Patrick’s College headmaster John Crowley joined Ballarat sexual abuse survivors Andrew Collins and Peter Blenkiron on the trip to the nation’s capital for the historic apology.
Speaking at the event, Mr Crowley said the apology allowed all those involved with the Christian Brothers to “acknowledge openly and honestly the full extent of what has happened”.
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SURVIVORS who say they were abused as youngsters in residential care heard a succession of “profound” and “unreserved”apologies from organisations on the first day of Scotland’s national child abuse inquiry.
Groups including Quarriers, Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul, Sisters of Nazareth, De La Salle Brothers, the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland and Crossreach, the social care arm of the Church of Scotland, were among those voicing regret for past cases of abuse or alleged abuse.
The apologies were offered in opening statements from a range of bodies as the public hearing phase of the far-reaching inquiry into historical allegations of the abuse of children in care in Scotland got under way. It followed remarks from chairwoman Lady Smith who said the process will be “painful” for many, but necessary to achieve “real, substantial and lasting change”.
In their opening remarks, representatives of Quarriers and the Marist Brothers offered “unreserved” apologies to anyone who was abused in their care.
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The Catholic school body, Edmund Rice Education Australia, apologised on Thursday morning to survivors and victims of child sex abuse who were pupils at their schools, including St Edmund’s college.
The EREA has responsibility for over 50 schools in Australia, including ones previously governed by the Christian Brothers in Canberra.
But anti-child abuse campaigner Damian De Marco said the apologies were meaningless without change.
“We have had so many apologies and the Catholic church continues on with business as usual. Why don’t the [EREA] stand up and speak out about fixing the problems in the Catholic church? Because they don’t have the courage,” Mr De Marco said.
Speaking to The Canberra Times on Thursday afternoon, EREA executive director Dr Wayne Tinsey said the body couldn’t implement change inside the church.
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Rome, Italy, May 31, 2017 / 11:05 am (CNA/EWTN News).- An international congress in Rome this autumn will bring together experts to focus on the problem of online sexual abuse of minors and how to better safeguard children on the internet. The Oct. 3-6 meeting is hosted by the Pontifical Gregorian University’s Center for Child Protection and will conclude in an audience with Pope Francis during which he will be presented a “Declaration on Child Dignity in the Digital World.”
According to a May 31 statement, there are 3.2 billion internet users worldwide, children making up over one quarter of these – about 800 million users. These children and adolescents “are vulnerable to entirely new forms of harm and abuse such as trolling, cyberbullying, sextortion, and grooming for sexual exploitation.”
The international congress “will focus on the latest scientific research and technical understanding in this field, bringing together global experts and decision makers to discuss the risks and challenges of the digital age and its impact on the dignity of children.” The invitation-only meeting intends to bring in more than 140 academic experts, leaders in business and civil society, high-level politicians, and religious representatives recognized around the globe. The four days will include keynotes, plenary sessions, workshops, and a discussion forum focusing on the fields of cyber protection, cyber education, and cyber responsibility.
Afterward, the conference will issue a “Call for Papers” with the hope to stimulate innovative research and solutions to the problem of child protection online. The congress is organized in partnership with WePROTECT Global Alliance, a movement dedicated to changing the handling of online child sexual exploitation around the world, and Telefono Azzurro, a non-profit whose purpose is the protection of minors from abuse and violence.
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In an historic first, Edmund Rice Education Australia has made an official apology on behalf of its schools to victims of sexual abuse.
The apology was delivered at the EREA national principle’s conference in Canberra on Thursday, which featured representatives from more than 50 schools from across the country as well as sexual abuse survivors.
St Patrick’s College headmaster John Crowley joined Ballarat sexual abuse survivors Andrew Collins and Peter Blenkiron on the trip to the nation’s capital for the historic occasion.
Speaking at the event, Mr Crowley said the apology forced everyone involved in Catholic education to “acknowledge openly and honestly the full extent of what has happened”.
“Over the past two years there have been times of silence from senior leaders in Catholic education in response to the work of the Royal Commission,” Mr Crowley said.
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Haidee V Eugenio , heugenio@guampdn.com June 1, 2017
The Archdiocese of Agana issued a written statement Thursday, stating it continues to pray for all victims of child sexual abuse, and has once again asked people to use the “Hope and Healing” initiative which provides professional counseling to anyone who has been abused by clergy or church employees.
“As the designated shepherd of our Catholic Church on Guam, I acknowledge the newest lawsuits and allegations of clergy sexual abuse filed by individuals known by the initials of A.N.D., G.J. and B.J. as well as Mr. Francis Charfauros and Mr. Troy Torres,” Archbishop Michael Jude Byrnes said in a statement.
The statement was issued before another abuse lawsuit was filed by a man with the initials R.Q.
Byrnes also said he extends his prayers and that of the entire church to the latest people who filed lawsuits.
“I ask all people to continue to pray for them, the individuals who have come forward before them, as well as all who have been devastated by the evil of abuse,” Byrnes wrote.
The archdiocese is now facing 70 clergy sex abuse lawsuits accusing clergy, and two other lawsuits, accusing a Catholic school teacher, filed in the Superior Court of Guam and the U.S. District Court of Guam.
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Cardinal George Pell, emeritus Archbishop of Sydney and now resident in Rome, is Australia’s most senior prelate. Known for his orthodoxy and direct speaking, Pell has become the center of an increasingly strident media storm in Australia, related to the child sexual abuse crisis. Australian police now hint that they have enough evidence to charge Pell with acts of sexual abuse—yet they have failed to do so.
I have been watching George Pell for years. This makes me sound abnormal, but let me explain: As an Australian Catholic who grew up in the terrible years of the 1970s and 1980s, utterly confused by liturgical and doctrinal chaos, I found Pell something of a north star and navigation point. A big man, carved out of the same granite as my father’s family, Pell was a constant reassuring presence in the background of my religious life. I have met him in person a number of times, and seen him in situations where he did not know that he was being observed closely by a small female behind a pillar.
Australia suffered from the same ecclesiastical malaise as the rest of the West, and thousands of disaffected Catholics despaired of anything ever changing. Then in the mid-1990s, something did: George Pell was named Archbishop of Melbourne. I was in Melbourne when the news became public, and the rejoicing, underpinned by sheer disbelief in our good fortune, was ecstatic. All of us felt that at last, the tide had turned. …
I don’t believe he is guilty of sexual offenses, but my opinion on this doesn’t matter. What I do observe is the way in which his name has become an insult to be spat out by mainstream media commentators, and the way in which he is now depicted as a sort of giant evil balloon of conservative morality and hypocrisy. These reactions are vastly out of proportion to what George Pell has publicly said and done in his lifetime. They are also mostly made by people who would have difficulty in picking George Pell out of a group photograph.
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Perth’s Anglican Church has revealed known sex offenders are being asked to sign “worshipping agreements” if they want to attend parish services under strict supervision arrangements.
The details come after figures released as part of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse hearings appeared to show Perth had a high number of sex offenders attending Church services compared with other cities.
In March, the director of professional standards for the Perth diocese of the Anglican Church, Tracie Chambers-Clark, told the royal commission she was “managing” 57 people of concern in the diocese.
By comparison, only two people were being managed in Sydney, with 15 people under supervision in Brisbane.
Ms Chambers-Clark told the royal commission the Perth Church had amended its policies so that anyone who was seen to be demonstrating “problematic behaviour” or was putting people at risk had been blocked from attending services.
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A former friend of rapist priest Eugene Fitzpatrick is in shock after learning the man who regularly visited her family home had been abusing children for decades.
Maddie Noonan, 59, said had she stayed in the area she wouldn’t have thought twice about leaving her children with the popular cleric of Our Lady and Saint Joseph in Balls Pond Road.
Fitzpatrick, 68, was sentenced to 22 years in jail on Friday after being found guilty of raping a boy between 1986 and 1992 while working at the church, and sexually assaulting another in the 1960s and ’70s.
Police believe there may be more survivors of his abuse, and have urged anyone suffering in silence to come forward.
Fitzpatrick was a close friend of Maddie and her family, who lived a stone’s throw from Our Lady and Saint Joseph. To her, he was the friendly parish priest who restored her faith in the Catholic church.
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Haidee V Eugenio , heugenio@guampdn.com June 1, 2017
Former Catholic priest Raymond Cepeda, who was defrocked by the church, allegedly sexually abused a boy attending confirmation classes and other church functions from around 1983 to 1984, a lawsuit filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court of Guam on Thursday states.
The now 48-year-old man, identified in court documents only as R.Q., was 14 or 15 years old when the alleged abuse happened, the lawsuit states.
R.Q., now living in Washington, is represented by attorney David Lujan. He is the 70th person so far to file a Guam clergy sex abuse lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Agana, naming a priest as the abuser. Two other childhood sexual abuse cases filed against the church did not name priests or clergy.
The lawsuit states Cepeda was a priest at Santa Barbara Catholic Church in Dededo when the alleged sexual abuse happened.
R.Q. was assigned as a reader during baptismal Mass. One day, Cepeda instructed the boy not to leave the rectory, where he later sexually abused him, the lawsuit states.
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A retired priest whose conviction for indecently assaulting a schoolboy in the 1970s was quashed has been awarded legal costs for his successful appeal.
The Catholic Church had funded Tadhg O’Dalaigh’s legal representation, according to lawyers for the Director of Public Prosecutions, who had opposed the costs application on grounds that he was “not out of pocket himself”.
Last week, The 73-year-old, of Woodview, Mount Merrion Avenue, Blackrock, successfully appealed his conviction for indecently assaulting a schoolboy at Colaiste Chroi Naofa boarding school in Carrignavar, Co Cork in the 1970s.
O’Dalaigh had been found guilty by a jury and was sentenced to five years imprisonment with the final two suspended by Judge Donagh McDonagh on December 18, 2014 for the offence, a sentence which he had served by the time his appeal was determined.
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When you write a book which details allegations of paedophilia against a man who was once one of the nation’s most powerful people, curious things happen. One of the crazier things is a tiny circle of people who still unquestioningly defend this person, saying he could not possibly have committed acts they know nothing about and accuse you of leftist bias.
How on god’s green earth, you ask yourself, did the prospect that someone might have abused children suddenly become a matter of left and right?
Let this be known: George Pell’s politics are of zero interest to me. But this is Australia’s most senior Catholic cleric. He’s a man who for years was telling the rest of us how to live our lives – not least how to live our sex lives (a matter with which, as I document in Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell, he was somewhat preoccupied). He has been accused many times of abusing little kids.
Those accusations now form part of a comprehensive investigation by Victoria Police’s Taskforce SANO. I think that warrants a look. It often occurs to me that this band of defenders, who shrink with each day in number as the allegations pile up, have painted themselves into a corner and now flail about, trying to come up with something to throw back at those who would tumble down their rather shaky house of cards.
But it also strikes me that when you are someone, like they are, who interprets everything in the world from a single, unshakeable, ideological standpoint, you make the erroneous assumption that everyone else does too. Here’s the thing: I don’t. Journalists, unlike people who rant at clouds for a living, are constantly required to look into things that perhaps challenge our world view.
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One story above all others which can reduce me to tears is the story of Anthony and Chrissie Foster.
What heartbreak after so many years of fighting the Catholic Church for justice for their daughters, two of whom were sexually assaulted by a priest, that Anthony Foster died unexpectedly last week.
This is a man who endured years of stonewalling to find justice for the survivors of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, including two of his three daughters. As chairman of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Justice Peter McClellan said: “With dignity and grace, Anthony and Chrissie generously supported countless survivors and their families whilst also managing their own grief”.
Anthony Foster was a tireless advocate for the survivors of sexual assault by priests. He died following a stroke. It is such a tragic loss for those still seeking a way through the grief and anguish they have suffered at the hands of appalling out of control predatory priests. His wife Chrissie was by his side, as she has been through every step of this heartbreaking, tragic story. Their marriage only became stronger as they fought for justice for the survivors, where many other relationships broke down irretrievably.
It was years before their daughters could describe to their parents the sexual assaults they experienced at the hands of local priest Kevin O’Donnell, which then explained something of their own behaviours as teenagers.
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An inquiry into allegations of abuse of children living in care in Scotland opens today, with the Church of Scotland among a number of bodies set to give evidence.
The first hearings take place in Edinburgh on Wednesday and are expected to last several weeks.
Faith based organizations as well residential and foster care providers are due to give evidence as well as expert witnesses, the Scottish Government and survivors.
It will cover a period within living memory of anyone who suffered such abuse, no later than 17th December 2014.
The inquiry aims to establish to what extent institutions and bodies with legal responsibility for the care of children failed in their duty to protect children in care in Scotland, as well as seek to identify any systemic failures in fulfilling that duty.
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CHARITIES and church groups queued up to apologise on the opening day of the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry (SCAI) as the long-awaited investigation took evidence in public for the first time.
The chair of what is expected to be Scotland’s biggest and most expensive public inquiry, Lady Scott, had invited them to do so, using their opening statements to consider ‘retrospective acknowledgement’ if abuse had taken place.
Some were more forthcoming than others. Quarriers offered an “unreserved apology” to those abused while in the care of the charity, via Kate Dowdalls QC, while Laura Dunlop QC for the Church of Scotland’s social care arm Crossreach said it was “Inescapable that the church has provided the setting in which children were abused. That is profoundly regretted by all … connected with the Church of Scotland in any way.”
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Scotland’s national child abuse inquiry has heard a succession of apologies from organisations to survivors who say they were abused as youngsters in residential care.
Groups including Quarriers, Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul, Sisters of Nazareth, De La Salle Brothers, the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland and Crossreach, the social care arm of the Church of Scotland, were among those voicing regret for past cases of abuse or alleged abuse.
The apologies were offered in opening statements from a range of bodies as the public hearing phase of the far-reaching inquiry into historical allegations of the abuse of children in care in Scotland got under way.
It followed remarks from chairwoman Lady Smith who said the process will be “painful” for many, but necessary to achieve “real, substantial and lasting change”.
In their opening remarks, representatives of Quarriers and the Marist Brothers offered “unreserved” apologies to anyone who was abused in their care.
Canon Boyle, representing the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland, told the hearing in Edinburgh that Archbishop Philip Tartaglia had offered a “profound” apology in 2015 to those harmed as a result of the actions of anyone within the Catholic Church.
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Father Joseph Maskell, a previous chaplain at Archbishop Keough High School in Baltimore, is the key “villain” of Netflix’s recently released docu-series The Keepers. Maskell’s name is intrinsically tied to allegations of systematic sexual abuse at Keough, an all-girls high school, and the murder of Sister Catherine Cesnik, both of which are large focuses of the series. Father Maskell died of a major stroke on May 7, 2001, at the age of 62, seven years after escaping the Archdiocese of Baltimore and fleeing to Ireland. He has never been officially charged with any of the accused crimes.
A controversial figure even before the premiere of The Keepers, Maskell had been accused of abuse many times over the years without any of the accusations sticking. A 2015 feature from Huffington Post did a deep-dive on the Cesnik case before The Keepers introduced the masses to the nun’s story, and reported on what Maskell’s fate entailed.
See, Maskell has never, to this day, been charged with any wrong-doing, though he’s been accused of abuse many times over the years. The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests reports that “Baltimore City prosecutors have charged only three of the 37 Baltimore priests who have been accused of sexual abuse since 1980,” according to the Huff Post article. “Just two of those priests were convicted, and one of those convictions was overturned in 2005.” Charging a priest, it turns out, is a hard thing to do, especially when that priest is as well-connected as Maskell seemed to be.
Maskell in particular was a difficult target. At the time, he served as the chaplain for the Baltimore County police, the Maryland State Police and the Maryland National Guard. Maskell kept a police scanner and loaded handgun in his car, drank beer with the officers at a local dive bar, and often went on “ride-alongs” with his police friends at night to respond to petty crimes or catch teenagers making out in their cars.
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A former Cottingham priest has appeared in court to face charges of historic child sex abuse.
Canon Terence Grigg, 83, is charged with nine offences of indecent assault and two charges of buggery.
The charges relate to incidents said to have taken place between 1975 and 1995 involving five different under-age boys.
Seven of the charges involve alleged assaults at his former rectory in the village. Two others are alleged to have been committed at the Liberal Club in London.
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The abuse of children in care has been described as a source of “sorrow” and “overwhelming shame” as a series of organisations offered apologies to survivors. The national child abuse inquiry, which is being led by Lady Smith, held its first public hearing in Edinburgh today.
Lady Smith said is was a “tragedy” many survivors had died without accountability for what happened to them, including a leading campaigner who died just weeks ago.
In opening statements to the inquiry, a number of care providers and religious orders gave “unreserved apologies” for physical and sexual abuse that took place in the past.
Representing the Catholic Church, the Bishops Conference of Scotland said “red flags and warning signs” had been missed.
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The first hearing in the Scottish child abuse inquiry has heard apologies from organisations which ran children’s homes around the country.
More than 60 institutions, including several top private schools and church bodies, are being investigated.
The inquiry, which is being chaired by Lady Smith, is looking in detail at historical abuse of children in residential care.
It is expected to report in late 2019 – four years after it was set up.
The opening session in Edinburgh heard apologies from groups who said they “deplored that physical sexual abuses could occur”.
They included Quarrier’s, Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul, Sisters of Nazareth, Good Shepherd Sisters, De La Salle Brothers and Christian Brothers.
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Peter Marghella was just 12 years old in 1973 when he attended “Camp Spes Mundi” in Hope Falls, New York. It was there that Marghella was raped and sexually abused by Father Kenneth O’Connell, the Boy Scout Chaplain of the camp and pastor of Saints John and Paul Parish in Larchmont until his death in 1984.
“He raped me, he sodomized me. It was the most painful thing I have ever experienced in my life,” Marghella told FiOS1 News.
Marghella is just one of hundreds of victims who have come forward, taking his claims to the Independent Reconciliation Compensation program, created by Timothy Cardinal Dolan in 2016, for victims and survivors of clergy sexual abuse.
However, Marghella’s attorney, Mitchell Garabedian, who has represented hundreds of victims of sex abuse, says that the program is simply a step in the right direction, not a solution to a much bigger issue within the Catholic Church.
“There isn’t one victim I’ve ever represented who wouldn’t give all the money back they’ve ever received in exchange for not being abused.” Garabedian told FiOS1. “They all want the truth, they all want to know what the Catholic Church knew about, for instance, Monsignor O’Connell? When did they know it? Why didn’t they stop him from abusing children?”
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The chief executive of Caranua, the independent statutory organisation charged with managing a fund to improve the lives of survivors of institutional abuse, should “step aside” an Oireachtas committee has heard.
Senator Lynn Ruane called on Mary Higgins to resign from her role, at the Education Committee on Tuesday. All committee members present said they had had significant complaints from survivors about their engagement with Caranua.
Ms Higgins said she was not aware of the complaints and it was difficult for Caranua to address them as a result.
Caranua, which means ‘new friend’, was established under the 2012 Residential Institutions Statutory Fund Act, to manage a €110 million fund provided by the religious, to improve survivors’ lives. Survivors can apply to the fund for grants for such services as counselling, medical treatment, education or therapies.
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The Knights of Columbus have been a fixture in the American church for the past 135 years, the friendly uncle of the family who oversees the Friday fish fries, occasionally going off to secret ceremonies and, at a certain level of membership, breaking out odd costumes replete with cape, sword and plumed hat for special occasions that often involve members of the hierarchy.
But as our recent examination of the organization’s spending on the national and international levels shows, the Knights are far more than parish helpers and a ceremonial presence (See link below). The Knights of Columbus organization has moved well beyond its original mission of rescuing widows and children from penury and giving young Irish lads a path to assimilation into American culture.
The degree of wealth the organization has amassed from its insurance business and other ventures, and the influence it exerts within the church and in shaping the Catholic narrative in the public square raise serious questions for 21st-century Catholicism. Those questions should be pursued, from the highest levels of the Vatican to the Knights’ local chapters — about the nature of spending, about exorbitant salaries of Knights’ executives, about the increasingly political nature of the organization’s involvement in the culture and the influence of that ideological approach within the church.
Though the organization donates abundantly to charity, and members volunteer countless hours for good causes, its funds also fuel some of the most divisive agents in society and some of the most strident and acrimonious voices within the church. …
We cringe for the future of the Catholic community having arrived at the point where the leader of one of the most influential Catholic organizations in the world can describe as “pro-life” an administration that, among other regrettable anti-life initiatives:
* Brutalizes refugees and migrants, tearing families apart by deporting people who have no greater wish than safety, opportunity and hard work;
* Is willing to rip health care from tens of millions of people;
* Denies climate change and jeopardizes creation itself with retrograde policies on the environment;
* Intends to increase defense spending more than $50 billion while cutting social welfare programs for the most vulnerable;
* And whose leader, the president, boasts openly of sexual conquests that many would describe as assault.
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A Queensland Catholic priest wrestled naked with an altar boy who had come to him for support and groped his genitals, police will allege.
Father Michael Joseph McKeaten’s case was mentioned in court on Wednesday, less than a month after he withdrew from the ministry and more than 25 years after the alleged sexual offence.
He ministered at more than half a dozen parishes and was still the parish priest at two schools west of the Gold Coast until earlier this month, when he was farewelled by students with a cake at his final mass.
The priest of 38 years was expected to take the helm of four parishes in Ipswich but last Tuesday, the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane revealed he had alerted them of the charge and withdrawn from “active ministry”.
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A Queensland priest charged with an historic sexual offence will appear in court in July.
Father Michael Joseph McKeaten withdrew from his duties earlier this month after notifying church authorities he had been charged over an alleged sexual offence believed to have occurred in the 1990s.
He was not required to appear at a hearing at Brisbane Magistrates Court on Wednesday with the matter adjourned to July 3.
He is charged with one count of procuring a sexual act by false pretence.
A lawyer representing McKeaten declined to comment.
The priest was ordained 38 years ago and has served in parishes and schools across south-east Queensland, most recently at the Beaudesert parish – south of Brisbane.
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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse
30 May, 2017
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has released a new research report that finds children with problem or harmful sexual behaviours should have access to effective therapeutic services.
The Royal Commission contracted researchers from the University of Melbourne, the Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network and Vanderbilt University’s Peabody Research Institute to examine current best evidence on treatment for children with problem sexual behaviour (aged under 10 years), harmful sexual behaviour (aged 10-17 years), and children who have sexually offended (aged 10-17 years).
It finds information about the children who have received treatment is limited, particularly for children outside of the juvenile justice system and for children with problem sexual behaviour under the age of ten.
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A Wichita Falls man has been accused of inappropriately touching a child several years ago.
Russell William Detwiler, 74, is charged with indecency with a child by sexual contact. He was booked into Wichita County Jail Thursday morning and was being held in lieu of $10,000 bail.
According to an arrest warrant affidavit:
A licensed therapist reported to Wichita Falls police that a 14-year-old patient made an outcry of sexual abuse against Detwiler.
The girl was forensically interviewed at Patsy’s House Child Advocacy Center. During the interview, the girl said one time while she was at Detwiler’s house he placed his hand inside her pants and was “feeling around.” She said he touched her inappropriately but did not penetrate her digitally.
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WICHITA FALLS, TX (KAUZ) –
A man is behind bars charged with Indecency with a child following a call to Wichita Falls Police.
On April 26 a licensed therapist reported that one of her patients, a 14-year-old girl, made an outcry of sexual abuse against Russell William Detwiler, 74.
The victim was interviewed about the outcry at Patsy’s House by a trained forensic interviewer.
During that interview, the victim said Detwiler had touched her inappropriately on more than one occasion.
The investigator spoke to the victim’s mother who said she had previously confronted Detwiler about these allegations. …
A check of the Sacred Heart Catholic Church website directory shows Detwiler listed as a deacon for the Parish.
Newschannel 6 is working to learn if Detwiler is still a deacon there.
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THE Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry will focus on the abuse of children in care with the first hearings starting today.
The inquiry will raise public awareness of institutionalised abuse and reveal the reality of the suffering of child victims.
Senior judge Lady Smith is chair and will lead the inquiry. She has been a judge since 2001 and brings a wealth of experience.
The judge was appointed chair of the inquiry after lawyer Susan O’Brien QC quit the post along with another panel member, Prof Michael Lamb, last year.
When do the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry hearings start?
The first hearings of the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry will start on Wednesday May 31, in Edinburgh.
It is one of the most far reaching public inquiries to take place in Scotland and the first round of hearings will see opening statements from the organisations asked to appear.
Expert witnesses will then discuss the laws governing children in care in Scotland up to 1968; the early development of care services in Scotland; attitudes towards children and the prevalence of child abuse in Scotland.
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A far-reaching inquiry into historical allegations of the abuse of children in care in Scotland will begin hearing evidence on Wednesday.
The first phase of the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry will hear evidence from faith-based organisations and residential and foster care providers.
Expert witnesses, the Scottish Government and survivor groups will also give evidence at the hearings.
The inquiry is examining historical allegations of the abuse of children in care and has been taking statements from witnesses since last spring.
It covers the period within living memory of anyone who suffered such abuse, no later than December 17 2014.
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The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry will hold its first hearings in Edinburgh.
It will hear evidence from faith organisations and carers regarding allegations of historical abuse in Scotland.
Expert witnesses and survivor groups will also speak at the hearings, which begin on Wednesday.
The inquiry has been taking statements from witnesses since last spring.
It will consider whether or not institutions failed in their duty to protect children in care from abuse and attempt to identify any systemic failures.
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The first hearings in the Scottish child abuse inquiry are getting under way in Edinburgh.
More than 60 institutions, including several top private schools and church bodies, are being investigated.
The inquiry, which is being chaired by Lady Smith, will look in detail at historical abuse of children in residential care.
It is expected to report in late 2019 – more than four years after it was set up.
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Allegations of inappropriate sexual contact with a student have led to the arrest of a teacher at a northeast high school.
The Calgary police child-abuse unit announced Tuesday that a 45-year-old Bishop McNally High School teacher, whose name has not yet been released, will be charged in connection with sexual offences dating back more than a decade.
Police began investigating in January 2017 after a former student at the high school reported that she had an inappropriate sexual relationship with a teacher between 2007 and 2009.
The alleged incidents occurred at several residences in Calgary, as well as at the school, according to a news release from police.
“Despite the age of consent in 2007 being 14, the suspect was in a position of trust and authority over the victim for the duration of alleged offences,” police said in the release.
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Calgary police said a teacher has been arrested in connection with an investigation into “inappropriate sexual contact with a student dating back more than a decade.”
On Tuesday evening, police said two charges are pending against a 45-year-old man: sexual contact with a youth by a person in authority and sexual assault.
In January, detectives began investigating a complaint from a former student at Bishop McNally High School in the city’s northeast. Police said she told them she “had an inappropriate sexual relationship with a teacher” while she was a 16-year-old student at the school and alleged the encounters happened both at the school and at several different homes in the city.
On Tuesday, police said even though the age of consent is 14, they expect to lay charges because the suspect “was in a position of trust and authority over the victim for the duration of alleged offences.”
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A Calgary teacher is facing charges relating to incidents at Bishop McNally High School that began in 2007, police said in a release Tuesday.
“In January 2017, detectives began an investigation into a complaint from a woman who alleged she had an inappropriate sexual relationship with a teacher while she was a student at Bishop McNally High School between 2007 and 2009,” said police.
“The victim was 16 years old when the offences began. The incidents are alleged to have occurred at several residences in Calgary, as well as at the school.”
‘Position of trust’
A 45-year-old man was arrested Tuesday and charges of sexual contact with a youth by a person in authority and sexual assault are pending.
The suspect was in police custody Tuesday evening waiting to have the charges read.
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BY MEGHAN POTKINS, POSTMEDIA
FIRST POSTED: TUESDAY, MAY 30, 2017
Allegations of inappropriate sexual contact with a student have led to the arrest of a teacher at a northeast high school.
The Calgary police child-abuse unit announced Tuesday that a 45-year-old Bishop McNally High School teacher, whose name has not yet been released, will be charged in connection with sexual offences dating back more than a decade.
Police began investigating in January 2017 after a former student at the high school reported that she had an inappropriate sexual relationship with a teacher between 2007 and 2009.
The alleged incidents occurred at several residences in Calgary, as well as at the school, according to a news release from police.
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A federal health watchdog is investigating a Catholic nun who has practised as a psychologist assessing candidates for the priesthood in Sydney for the past eight years despite allegedly being unregistered.
Sister Lydia Allen, who told a royal commission she conducts psychological assessments at the Seminary of the Good Shepherd in Homebush, is under investigation by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency which oversees the registration of health professionals.
Only psychologists registered with the Psychology Board of Australia, which works in partnership with AHPRA, can use the title psychologist.
Sister Allen appeared before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse earlier this year where she was questioned about her role at the seminary, which is one of the largest in Australia with 50 seminarians.
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As Victoria Police deliberate whether or not to lay charges against Cardinal George Pell, they are also weighing up whether to prosecute a potential world leader. This bold notion is not purple media prose. It is simply stating the facts.
Cardinal Pell strenuously denies the allegations made against him.
The Ballarat-born 75-year-old is potentially the pope in waiting. All it takes is for Pope Francis to die suddenly, and one of the 120-odd Cardinals will be the next pope. It could be Cardinal Pell.
Cardinal Pell is the head of the Vatican secretariat for the economy. Effectively he is the third in charge of the 1.2 billion-member Catholic Church. The Cardinal has diplomatic immunity as a Vatican official, and Australia has no extradition treaty.
In the modern era, laying serious or criminal charges against a Cardinal-Archbishop has not been done in free and democratic nations where immunity could apply.
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It is with much sadness that we learned of the sudden death of Anthony Foster in Melbourne over the weekend.
Anthony and his wife Chrissie dedicated their lives to seeking justice for victims of child sex abuse.
In 2010, when I was still living in Rome, I read the book Hell on the Way to Heaven in which they told the harrowing story of the sexual abuse of their daughters by a Catholic priest. I was deeply moved by their suffering but also inspired by their determination, courage and resilience.
Back in Melbourne as an Auxiliary Bishop, I sought them out and eventually met them on a number of occasions. I was kindly received into their home a few times and offered hospitality – a privilege I treasure. Each time we met, the Fosters would share with me their pain and suffering. They would also challenge me to do all I could as a church leader to treat victims and their loved ones with the Christian justice we profess.
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A priest has been convicted of abusing children across four decades as detectives urge other victims to come forward.
Eugene Fitzpatrick, 68, of Raymond Avenue, Canterbury, was jailed for 22 years after a jury convicted him of seven counts of indecent assault, four of indecency with a child and two of buggery.
All of the sex attacks took place in the 1960s, 70s, 80s and 90s.
The indecent assault and indecency offences were committed against one victim in the Islington area, while a second child was victim to buggery offences at Our Lady St Joseph’s Catholic Church in Hackney.
Fitzpatrick was convicted at Blackfriars Crown Court on Thursday and sentenced the following day.
DC Lorraine Simpson and DC Klementina Balint, the investigating officers, said: “Eugene Fitzpatrick is a predatory sex offender who abused his position of trust, preying on vulnerable youngsters and subjecting them to horrific sexual abuse over a period of years.
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Jorge Fitz-Gibbon , jfitzgib@lohud.com May 30, 2017
One of the worst panic attacks for Peter Marghella came during the Gulf War as he sat in a military tent in the sweltering heat of Bahrain.
For Marghella, a highly decorated U.S. Navy medical officer, the 17 years that had lapsed since his encounter with the Rev. Kenneth O’Connell at an upstate New York Boy Scout camp had done little to quell his nightmares.
“I took out the pistol and I cocked it and I put it in my mouth,” Marghella said. “I was literally just about to pull the trigger when the command surgeon, who was in the room next to me, divided by a partition so he couldn’t see me, just started talking to me.”
“I can’t remember what it was,” he said. “It was just kind of innocuous banter. He talked with this kind of South Carolina drawl. And I just started to concentrate on what he was saying and I took the gun out of my mouth.”
It was the second near-suicide for Marghella, and it came seven years before he finally sought help and opened up about his childhood nightmare.
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BY KENNETH LOVETT STEPHEN REX BROWN REUVEN BLAU
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
When Peter Marghella hurt his ribs wrestling with some friends at summer camp he had no idea it would change his life forever.
Marghella, who was 12 in 1973, was away at Camp Spes Mundi in Hope Falls, when, he says, a priest sodomized him inside a private house.
The priest, Kenneth F. O’Connell, suggested Marghella stay with him after the injury, away from the other campers, so he could keep an eye on him throughout the night.
“Sometime in middle of the night, I woke up and O’Connell had crawled into bed with me naked and sodomized me,” Marghella recalled Tuesday.
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ST. PETERSBURG, May 31 (RAPSI, Mikhail Telekhov) – Investigators have completed a probe into the Russian priest Gleb Grozovsky, who stands charged with sexual abuse of children, RAPSI learnt in the St. Petersburg prosecutor’s office.
A prosecutor is to make a decision on the approval of indictment within 10 days, and then the case will be forwarded to court, a representative of the prosecutor’s office said.
According to investigators, Grozovsky committed several crimes against minors in 2011 and 2013.
In 2013, he fled to Israel and applied for citizenship. However, his application was dismissed.
In April 2014, Grozovsky was put on the international wanted list. Israeli police arrested him in September. In January 2015, a court in Jerusalem ruled that the priest should be extradited to Russia pursuant to the European Convention on Extradition. The ruling was appealed but rejected. In April 2016, the Justice Minister signed an order on Grozovsky’s extradition.
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There are certain sins which should never be forgiven. A pedophile priest with HIV who admitted to raping 30 girls aged between 5-10 years has been absolved by the Roman Catholic Church and will not face criminal charges. This basically means that he has been declared free from guilt.
Spanish Language news site urgente-24 reports:
THE PRIEST JOSE ATAULFO GARCIA WAS ACQUITTED OF ANY CRIME BY THE ARCHDIOCESE PRIMADA DE MÉXICO AFTER CONFESSING TO HAVE SEXUALLY ABUSED DOZENS OF GIRLS IN THE INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY OF OAXACA, REPORTS THE PLATFORM ‘ANONYMOUS’ OF MEXICO. THE CRIME OF ABUSE AND RAPE OF 30 GIRLS BETWEEN THE AGES OF 5 AND 10, ADMITTED BY THE CLERIC HIMSELF, ADDS TO THE FACT THAT GARCIA IS A CARRIER OF HIV.
NEITHER THE STATE OF MEXICO NOR ANY ORGANIZATION DEFENDING THE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN HAS SPOKEN ABOUT THIS ACQUITTAL, PROBABLY DUE TO THE RESPECT THAT THE CATHOLIC CHURCH INSPIRES IN INDIGENOUS AREAS. IN ADDITION, THIS RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION HAS A GREAT INFLUENCE IN MEXICAN INSTITUTIONS: OF THE LARGE NUMBER OF VICTIMS, ONLY 2 DARED TO OFFICIALLY DENOUNCE.
Watch!
One of the victim’s mother wrote a letter to the Pope to take action against the Pedophile priest, but was shunned by the Vatican. Only 2 of the 30 rape victims have openly denounced the acquittal.
The Pope has also gone soft on the pedophile priest saying that these kinds of actions by the Church are designed to make a more merciful church. If the highest authorities decide to forgive the perverts and rapists, then this will lead to an environment that will breed more pedophiles in the future. The Roman catholic Church has had a long history of pedophilia and sodomy across the globe, including the US.
Jay Greenburg references the Boston Globe in his commentary on what the Church has engaged in.
THE ISSUE WAS THRUST INTO THE NATIONAL SPOTLIGHT IN 2002 WHEN THE BOSTON GLOBE REVEALED THE EXTENT TO WHICH THE LOCAL ARCHDIOCESE SHIELDED ABUSIVE PRIESTS FROM BEING EXPOSED TO THE PUBLIC EVEN THOUGH IT KNEW THEY POSED A DANGER TO YOUNG PARISHIONERS. THE GLOBE EXPOSÉ, WHICH DETAILED ABUSE CASES THAT NUMBERED IN THE THOUSANDS OVER A SPAN OF SEVERAL DECADES, INSPIRED OTHER VICTIMS TO COME FORWARD, LEADING TO AN AVALANCHE OF LAWSUITS AND CRIMINAL PROSECUTIONS.
NOT ONLY DID THE FLOODGATES OPEN IN THE US, BUT THE CATHOLIC CHURCH WAS ALSO FORCED TO CONFRONT CASES IN OTHER COUNTRIES, INCLUDING MEXICO.IN 2004, THE VATICAN RE-OPENED A PRIOR INVESTIGATION AGAINST MARCIAL MACIEL, WHO WAS ACCUSED OF SEXUALLY ABUSING MINORS AS WELL AS FATHERING SIX CHILDREN BY THREE DIFFERENT WOMEN.
THOUGH THE ALLEGATIONS SPANNED DECADES AND THE EXTENT OF HIS CRIMES WAS KNOWN TO CHURCH OFFICIALS, IT WAS ONLY IN 2006 THAT THE VATICAN FORCED MACIEL, ONE OF ITS MOST POWERFUL CLERGYMEN, TO RETIRE FROM ACTIVE MINISTRY.
Jesus was specific when He addressed what one does to little children.
But Whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a Millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. -Matthew 18:6
If this continues, people will lose faith in the Church. How can the Church shield a criminal. The Pedophile priest should not be forgiven for the pain he has inflicted on young girls. No one is above the law. The priest should face the consequences for his actions. If justice is denied, the church will never be able to restore its credibility. We firmly believe that there should be Zero tolerance policy towards such criminals.
Source & Credit: Tim Brown
Washington Standard
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A man who suffered horrific sexual abuse at the hands of priests at a Fife school is staging a vigil tomorrow (Wednesday) as the Scottish child abuse inquiry gets under way.
Dave Sharp, now 58, spent six years at the then St Ninian’s School in Falkland, where from the age of 10 he says he was brutally raped, drugged, beaten, shut in a coffin with the lid closed and even taken to Ireland to be passed around men at sex parties.
His abuser, Father Gerry Ryan, has since died, but two men were jailed last year for abusing boys at St Ninian’s between 1977 and 1983.
Following his ordeal, Dave slept rough on the streets and succumbed to drink and drunk addiction.
But he’s now a campaigner for other abuse survivors and has set up a charity, SAFE – Seek and Find Everyone – with the aim of encouraging them to come forward and make their voices heard.
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The Philadelphia Courts website still lists Tuesday as the start of Monsignor William Lynn’s retrial, but an unresolved defense appeal means the former church official won’t face another jury for months, perhaps not until 2018.
Lynn, currently a free man, was convicted in 2012 of recommending the Archdiocese of Philadelphia transfer a known pedophile priest.
Much of Lynn’s three-month trial focused on clergy sex abuse allegedly committed by 21 priests over several decades. Some examples dated back to the 1940s — well before Lynn was a supervisor with the archdiocese.
Common Pleas Court Judge Gwendolyn Bright, who is presiding over the case, has ruled that Lynn’s next trial will spend far less time on these “prior bad acts.”
In late April, Bright ruled that prosecutors could detail allegations against three priests, according to court documents. Lynn’s lawyer then filed an appeal to the Superior Court of Pennsylvania.
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FARGO — The Catholic Diocese of Fargo has placed a priest on paid administrative leave after he told church officials about “concerns that had been brought to him regarding his interaction with youth,” Bishop John Folda said in a statement Saturday, May 27.
Father Thomas Feltman, pastor of St. John the Baptist’s Catholic Church in Wyndmere, N.D., and St. Arnold’s Catholic Church in Milnor, N.D., won’t be performing any priestly duties and won’t be living on diocesan property while the complaint is investigated, diocesan spokesman Paul Braun said.
Braun said the diocese has reported the matter to the Richland County Social Services. When asked to elaborate on Feltman’s “interaction with youth,” Braun declined to comment.
“The diocese is cooperating fully with authorities, but due to the ongoing investigation, the diocese is referring all questions to the Richland County Sheriff’s Office,” Braun said.
A phone message left Saturday for the sheriff’s office investigator handling the case was not returned.
On Saturday, Bishop Folda told members of the Milnor and Wyndmere parishes that it was the previous week when Feltman told the diocese of the concerns about his dealings with youth.
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A former priest who subjected London children to decades of “horrific sexual abuse” including rape has been jailed for 22 years.
Eugene Fitzpatrick, 68, was found to have sexually assaulted one boy in Islington, as well as raping a boy at Our Lady St Joseph’s Catholic Church in Hackney.
The offences were all committed in the 1960s, 70s, 80s and 90s, police said.
But police fear that the “predatory sex offender” could have assaulted other children in that time, and have pleaded for survivors of his abuse to come forward.
Fitzpatrick, of Raymond Avenue, in Canterbury, was convicted at Blackfriars Crown Court on Thursday, May 25, of seven counts of indecent assault, four counts of indecency with a child and two counts of buggery.
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WAHPETON, ND – Law enforcement officials are releasing few details about an investigation involving a Catholic priest in the Diocese of Fargo.
The Richland County Sheriff’s office is looking into allegations involving Fr. Thomas Feltman, the pastor of St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Wyndmere and St. Arnold’s Catholic Church in Milnor.
Investigator Josh Beto says he can’t comment on the details of the case, but says it involves “inappropriate activities.”
Beto says the sheriff’s office became involved last week after the department was contacted by Richland County Social Services.
He says at this time, he considers the investigation “open-ended” and can’t discuss the number of potential victims.
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FORMER priest Eugene Fitzpatrick has been jailed for 22 years for historical sex abuse, and detectives are urging any further victims to come forward.
Fitzpatrick, 68, of Raymond Avenue, Canterbury was convicted at Blackfriars Crown Court on Thursday, May 25 of seven counts of indecent assault, four counts of indecency with a child and two counts of buggery.
He was sentenced to 22 years’ imprisonment the following day.
The offences took place between the 1960s and 1990s.
The indecent assaults and indecency offences were committed against one victim in the Islington area throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
The first assault took place in Tufnell Park in 1965 when Fitzpatrick was 17 years old and the boy was under the age of 8.
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On a frigid day in November 1969, Father Joseph Maskell, the chaplain of Archbishop Keough High School in Baltimore, called a student into his office and suggested they go for a drive. When the final bell rang at 2:40 p.m., Jean Hargadon Wehner, a 16-year-old junior at the all-girls Catholic school, followed the priest to the parking lot and climbed into the passenger seat of his light blue Buick Roadmaster.
It was not unusual for Maskell to give students rides home or take them to doctor’s appointments during the school day. The burly, charismatic priest, then 30 years old, had been the chief spiritual and psychological counselor at Keough for two years and was well-known in the community. Annual tuition at Keough was just $200, which attracted working-class families in deeply Catholic southwest Baltimore who couldn’t afford to send their daughters to fancier private schools. Many Keough parents had attended Maskell’s Sunday masses. He’d baptized their babies, and they trusted him implicitly.
This time, though, Maskell didn’t bring Wehner home. He navigated his car past the Catholic hospital and industrial buildings that surrounded Keough’s campus and drove toward the outskirts of the city. Eventually, he stopped at a garbage dump, far from any homes or businesses. Maskell stepped out of the car, and the blonde, freckled teenager followed him across a vast expanse of dirt toward a dark green dumpster.
It was then that she saw the body crumpled on the ground.
The week prior, Sister Cathy Cesnik, a popular young nun who taught English and drama at Keough, had vanished while on a Friday-night shopping trip. Students, parents and the local media buzzed about the 26-year-old’s disappearance. People from all over Baltimore County helped the police comb local parks and wooded areas for any sign of her.
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RUTHERFORD Co., N.C. (WSPA) – Jury selection is expected to begin Tuesday in a trial connected to church abuse allegations.
Five members of Word of Faith Fellowship were charged in 2015 after a former member claimed he was attacked for being gay.
The church disputes the former member’s claims, as well as allegations of abuse that others say they also endured.
Justin Covington, 20, Brooke Covington, 56, and Adam Bartley, 25, all of Rutherfordton, along with Robert Walker Jr., 26, of Spindale, were indicted on charges of second-degree kidnapping and simple assault.
Sarah Covington Anderson, 27, of Rutherfordton, faces the same charge and one count of assault inflicting physical injury by strangulation
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By MITCH WEISS and HOLBROOK MOHR, Associated Press
RUTHERFORDTON — Jury selection began Tuesday for a North Carolina church minister accused of beating a man to expel his “homosexual demons.”
Brooke Covington, 58, a longtime minister at Word of Faith Fellowship in Spindale, North Carolina, is the first of five church members to face trial in the case. Each defendant will be tried separately.
Covington has pleaded not guilty to charges of kidnapping and assaulting former church member Matthew Fenner in January 2013. If convicted, Covington faces up to two years in prison.
Fenner, 23, said he was leaving a prayer service Jan. 27, 2013, when nearly two dozen people surrounded him in the sanctuary. He said they slapped, punched, choked and blasted him — a church practice that involves intense screaming — for two hours as they tried to expel his “homosexual demons.”
As part of an ongoing, two-year investigation into abuse of Word of Faith Fellowship congregants by church leaders, The Associated Press interviewed four former church members who said they witnessed Fenner’s assault.
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[A clergyman is now focus of an investigation in the Korntal community.]
Von Franziska Kleiner 29. Mai 2017
Bei der Aufarbeitung des Missbrauchsskandals rückt nun ein Pfarrer in den Fokus, der die Brüdergemeinde seit den 1950er Jahren geprägt hat.
Ditzingen – Erzieher, Hausmeister, Lehrer – und nun sogar der Seelsorger der Gemeinde: Auch der inzwischen verstorbene Pfarrer der Pietistengemeinde in Korntal soll zu den Mitarbeitern gehören, die in der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts in Einrichtungen der evangelischen Brüdergemeinde Korntal Kindern psychische und physische Gewalt angetan haben.
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.
Australia plans to ban convicted paedophiles from travelling overseas in what the government said is a world-first move to protect vulnerable children in Southeast Asia from exploitation.
Australian paedophiles are notorious for taking inexpensive vacations to nearby South-east Asian and Pacific island countries to abuse children there.
Australian officials said no country has such a travel ban.
They said 2,500 new convicted paedophiles would be added to the sex offender register each year and would also lose their passports.
The register contains 3,200 serious offenders who will be banned from travel for life.
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A Catholic priest who repeatedly raped and assaulted boys has been jailed for 22 years.
Father Eugene Fitzpatrick, 68, was found guilty of the horrific attacks at Blackfriars Crown Court on Thursday and sentenced the next day.
He raped one boy multiple times between 1986 and 1992 while working at Our Lady and Saint Joseph Roman Catholic Church in Balls Pond Road, Islington.
He also indecently assaulted another boy throughout the 1960s and 1970s. The first offence took place in Tufnell Park in 1965 when he was just 17 and the boy aged under eight.
Fitzpatrick was found guilty of 11 counts of indecent assault and indecency with a child relating to the first victim, for which he received a total of five years.
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A VICTIM of historic child abuse at a Catholic Church children’s home is to make an emotional return to her hometown in a bid to trace her long lost family.
Kate Walmsley, 60, was seven years old when she was taken from her home in Glasgow and placed in the care of the Sisters of Nazareth in Derry following the break-up of her parents’ marriage.
While there she was regularly sexually assaulted by a priest and beaten by the nuns.
After more than five decades away from home Ms Walmsley is to make her first trip back to Scotland on Wednesday where she hopes to trace some family members.
Ms Walmsley said: “I have always wanted to go back to the place where I remember being happy, before all the abuse. I finally feel it is time.”
“I just want to stand on the street I used to live with my parents. I have so many happy memories of there.
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MSGR. KENNETH F. O’CONNELL – PUBLICLY NAMED AS A SEXUAL ABUSER FOR THE FIRST TIME
SIX-FIGURE SETTLEMENT REACHED IN ARCHDIOCESE OF NEW YORK INDEPENDENT RECONCILIATION AND COMPENSATION PROGRAM AGAINST MSGR. KENNETH F. O’CONNELL WHO WAS THE CHAPLAIN OF THE NATIONAL CATHOLIC COMMITTEE ON SCOUTING
Peter Marghella, formerly of the Bronx, New York, was approximately a 12 year-old child when he was sexually abused by then Fr. Kenneth F. O’Connell, a New York Archdiocesan priest and Boy Scout chaplain, when Peter Marghella attended Camp Spes Mundi (Latin for “hope for the world”) in Hope Falls, New York, as part of Troop #21 which was located in Mount Vernon, New York. Fr. Kenneth F. O’Connell, who eventually became Msgr. Kenneth F. O’Connell (hereinafter referred to as Msgr. Kenneth F. O’Connell), was chaplain of Troop #21.
Msgr. Kenneth F. O’Connell was Chaplain of the National Catholic Committee on Scouting (1973-1975). After Msgr. O’Connell’s death at the age of 54 in 1984, the National Catholic Committee on Scouting instituted an award (Spes Mundi Award), named after the camp Msgr. Kenneth F. O’Connell founded, honoring an adult who financially supports the promotion of the Catholic faith through scouting.
Msgr. Kenneth F. O’Connell was also executive director of the Catholic Youth Organization of the Archdiocese of New York. When he passed away, Msgr. Kenneth F. O’ Connell was Pastor of Sts. John and Paul Parish in Larchmont, New York.
Peter Marghella was also sexually abused as a child by Br. Damian Galligan, FMS, a Marist Brother.
Peter Marghella, his attorney, and advocate will be available by telephone to discuss the sexual assault by Msgr. Kenneth F. O’Connell, who has been named for the first time, and the recent settlement with the Archdiocese of New York Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program.
Contacts
Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, Boston, MA – 617-523-6250 – garabedianlaw@msn.com (portrayed in “Spotlight”)
Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D., Road to Recovery, Inc. – 862-368-2800 – roberthoatson@gmail.com
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.
Historic abuse survivor Kate Walmsley fought back tears as she told of the heartbreaking moment she was ripped from Scotland more than 50 years ago.
The mother of two was shipped from her home in Glasgow to the “giant doors” of an infamous children’s home in Derry, Northern Ireland, aged eight.
Within minutes of arriving, she was stripped, scrubbed with Jeyes Fluid and had her beautiful long hair shorn off, as a matter of protocol.
And a seven-year nightmare of abuse at the hands of nuns and priests began.
Kate survived and waived her right to anonymity to give heart-wrenching testimony at the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry in Belfast in 2014.
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A former Catholic priest jailed for molesting boys in the 1970s and 80s has admitted charges against three new victims.
Mark Mannix Brown, 74, appeared in the Hamilton District Court on Tuesday, where he pleaded guilty to four charges of indecent assault and attempted sodomy.
Some of the charges are representative.
He was remanded on continuing bail by Judge Kim Saunders, to be sentenced on July 19, following the compiling of a pre-sentence assessment and a restorative justice conference with one of his victims.
Brown was jailed for 15 months in 1990 for sexual offending against altar boys.
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The media frenzy surrounding Cardinal George Pell is the lowest point in civil discourse in my lifetime. I’m 64.
What we are seeing is no better than a lynch mob from the dark ages. Some in the media think they are above the law both overseas and at home. Deep pockets of your boss or lesser pockets on your victim, build bravado. If your assets aren’t on the line you can trash a reputation with gay abandon.
The systemic abuse of predominantly young boys in churches, government institutions and schools and the cover up is a stain on our past. It did irreparable harm to many young people and the Catholic Church was a chief perpetrator. Even the Victorian Police joined in the cover up.The career of a good and decent policeman who didn’t want to let sleeping dogs lie was ruined.
At least they’ve sought to right that wrong. Whether they have pursued everyone involved in ruining that career, and everyone who covered up, I don’t know. Throwing out principle, treating Pell as guilty from the start won’t right all the wrongs perpetrated on innocent children. It will simply perpetrate other evils.
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