ABUSE TRACKER

MARYLAND
CBS Baltimore

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — A DNA sample taken from the remains of former Baltimore priest A. Joseph Maskell does not match DNA from the murder scene of Sister Catherine Ann Cesnik, according to the Baltimore County Police Department.

In January 1970, Sister Cathy’s decomposed body was discovered in a field in Lansdowne.

A recent WJZ investigation revealed that the 26-year-old was about to blow the whistle on widespread sexual abuse at the hands of Maskell.

Baltimore County police revealed first to WJZ that they exhumed Maskell in February to get his DNA.

Maskell, a former guidance counselor at Archbishop Keough High School, has long been suspected in Cesnik’s death. Cesnik also worked at the school.

But on Wednesday, police say they received lab results from Bode Cellmark Forensics in Lorton, Va., that excluded Maskell as a contributor to DNA preserved from the crime scene.

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MARYLAND
WBAL

Wednesday, May 17, 2017
Tyler Waldman, WBAL NewsRadio 1090

A DNA sample from the exhumed remains of a former priest doesn’t match DNA from the murder scene of a Catholic nun whose death has attracted renewed interest 47 years later.

Baltimore County police on Wednesday said they got the results from an accredited laboratory that ruled out A. Joseph Maskell as a contributor to DNA preserved from the scene where Sister Catherine Ann Cesnik was killed.

Her body was found in a Lansdowne dumping area in January 1970. She was last seen alive at her Baltimore City apartment before she left to run errands in Edmonson Village the previous November. Police believe whoever killed Cesnik accosted her as she was returning from the store and forced her back into her car. They believe she was driven to Monumental Avenue, where she was assaulted and murdered. Her car was found in the early morning hours the next day.

At the time, Cesnik was on sabbatical from the church and teaching at Western High School in the city.

Cesnik’s death is the subject of a seven-episode Netflix series premiering Friday titled “The Keepers.”

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

By Tom Jackman May 17

The unsolved slaying of Sister Catherine Ann Cesnik in Baltimore in 1969 hit another dead end Wednesday when police learned that DNA from a long-deceased priest did not match crime scene evidence that Baltimore County cops have preserved for almost five decades.

In February, police exhumed the body of the Rev. A. Joseph Maskell, the former chaplain at Archbishop Keough High School in Baltimore, where Cesnik had taught. Years after Cesnik disappeared in November 1969, and was discovered in the Lansdowne area of Baltimore County in January 1970, a number of women came forward and accused Maskell of sexually abusing them while he was at Keough. Two of the women sued Maskell, the high school and the Archdiocese of Baltimore in 1994, but the suit was dismissed due to an expired statute of limitations. Maskell became a suspect in Cesnik’s death but denied any involvement to police. He died in 2001.

The death of the popular “Sister Cathy” is the subject of an upcoming documentary series, “The Keepers,” to be released Friday on Netflix.

Baltimore County police said Maskell’s DNA was sent to Bode Cellmark Forensics in Lorton, Va., to develop a DNA profile. The profile was compared with crime scene evidence and did not match, police said.

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CONNECTICUT
New Haven Independent

by CHRISTOPHER PEAK | May 17, 2017

Hartford — After two full days of testimony from the plaintiff’s witnesses, Rabbi Daniel Greer’s team presented a short-winded rebuttal Tuesday morning in a civil trial here over accusations of long-running sexual abuse.

Defense attorneys called only two witnesses — Greer and his longtime secretary, Jean Ledbury — and wrapped their questioning after less than 45 minutes.

Throughout the trial, the defense lawyers have tried to slight the rabbi’s accusers, Eliyahu Mirlis and Aviad Hack, as a troublemakers with ulterior motives. Mirlis filed the suit in U.S. District Court charging that Greer, a prominent rabbi who built an Orthodox community and renovated homes around a yeshiva in New Haven’s Edgewood neighborhood, repeatedly sexually abused him from 200 through 2005. Greer invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when asked on the stand about those allegations.

On Monday, Sarah Greer, the rabbi’s wife, testified that she never liked her husband’s accuser, from the time he started at the Yeshiva of New Haven. On Tuesday, Ledbury recounted an episode when Mirlis stole and made a copy of the school’s keys. More recently, she added, she saw Facebook pictures of him waterskiing, allegedly showing him apparently unfazed by his the trauma of his teenage years.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on a Netflix documentary series, “The Keepers,” that will premiere on May 19:

Netflix is about to air a series that imputes the integrity of the Archdiocese of Baltimore for its handling of a miscreant priest from the 1960s. It relies heavily on conjecture and voodoo psychology. It must: it lacks the evidence to make its case. But it will surely feed the appetite of those ready to believe the worst about the Church.

The series focuses on the unresolved murder of Sister Cathy Cesnik. It invites the audience to consider whether she was killed to cover-up sexual abuse at the high school where she worked, Archbishop Keough in Baltimore.

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AUSTRALIA
Northern Daily Leader

Breanna ChillingworthBreanna Chillingworth
@breannachill

17 May 2017, 6 p.m.

A FORMER New England priest accused of indecently assaulting young boys has appeared in open court for the first time, two weeks after he was extradited from Queensland by detectives.

David Joseph Perrett was flanked by his brother, Ron Perrett, also a retired priest, in Armidale Local Court on Wednesday morning.

He is facing nine counts of indecent assault on a male after a lengthy investigation spearheaded by Armidale detectives.

Perrett, now aged 79, was not required to enter pleas to the charges as the DPP sought court orders for a brief of evidence.

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AUSTRALIA
Catholic Register

BY CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE
May 17, 2017

SYDNEY – Public prosecutors have submitted recommendations to Victoria Police on whether to try Australian Cardinal George Pell on decades-old abuse allegations, but their advice has not been made public.

Until police decide how to proceed, Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher said he will not be commenting on the case.

“Justice must be left to run its course,” Archbishop Fisher said in a statement May 17.

Archbishop Fisher said Cardinal Pell, currently head of the Vatican Secretariat for the Economy, “has cooperated in every way with multiple police, parliamentary and Royal Commission investigations.”

“Everyone supports just investigation of complaints, but the relentless character attacks on Cardinal Pell, by some, stand the principle of innocent-until-proven-guilty on its head,” Archbishop Fisher said. “Australians have a right to expect better from their legal systems and the media. Even churchmen have a right to ‘a fair go.'”

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

May 18, 2017

TESSA AKERMAN
ReporterMelbourne
@TessaAkerman

PIA AKERMAN
ReporterMelbourne
@pia_akerman

Cardinal George Pell is expected to return to Australia voluntarily if police lay charges over histor­ical sex-abuse allegations but health fears could force him to take a slow sea voyage.

As Victoria Police detectives weigh up whether to initiate proceedings after further advice from the Director of Public Prosecutions, senior Australian Catholics threw their support behind the cardinal and turned on his critics for denying him a “fair go”.

Cardinal Pell, 75, is serving as prefect of the secretariat of the economy to the Vatican, a role he has held since 2014.

He has strenuously denied all allegations. Although Australia has no extradition treaty with the Vatican, supporters of Cardinal Pell believe Australia’s most senior Catholic would return home voluntarily to face court if he were charged on a brief of evidence that prosecutors have now sent back to detectives for a second time, without a recommendation on court action.

Speaking in Rome, Cardinal Pell strongly denied any wrongdoing, declaring: “I’d just like to restate my innocence, I stand by everything I’ve said at the royal commission and in other places.’’

Asked if he was prepared to ­return, Cardinal Pell replied: “I will continue to co-operate fully.”

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Tuesday, May 16, 2017

By Fiachra Ó Cionnaith
Irish Examiner Political Correspondent

Cabinet ministers will be told today to make a decision “quickly” on the potential excavation of the entire Tuam mother and baby home in order to identify the people buried at the site.

Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone will issue the call as she outlines plans for a Government group to begin appointing technical experts to oversee the work.

Earlier this year, the Government confirmed the presence of the bones of hundreds of babies and children at a former septic tank on the grounds of the Tuam site.

Ms Zappone is expected to say that specific decisions on the appointment of technical experts must now be taken “quickly” to have the best chance of identifying remains and assisting relatives of the people involved.

The Irish Examiner understands the minister will tell Cabinet colleagues these measures will include site excavation options; best international practice for identifying the remains; and technical work on how to protect human remains on the site during excavation.

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IRELAND
IrishCentral

James Wilson @jameswilson1919 May 17, 2017

Ireland’s Minister for Children Katherine Zappone is seeking cabinet permission to order a complete excavation of the notorious mother and baby home in Tuam.

The Irish Examiner reported that she will urge colleagues to “quickly” back her call so her department can begin to put together a working group to oversee the project.

The excavation is expected to be lead by experts from overseas and is expected to comply with international best practice. The team will also have to preserve the children’s remains on the site after excavation.

Currently, no excavation is planned for any of the other mother and baby homes in Ireland but it is expected that, in due course, they, too, will be excavated.

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TEXAS
Waco Tribune-Herald

By PHILLIP ERICKSEN pericksen@wacotrib.com

Baylor University on Tuesday night was served with a seventh Title IX lawsuit which alleges as many as eight football players drugged a student and took turns raping her in 2012.

The plaintiff, who filed the lawsuit as “Jane Doe,” remembers hearing the players yell, “Grab her phone! Delete my numbers and texts!” following the rape in an off-campus apartment with glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling, according to the suit.

The lawsuit comes as Baylor continues to deal with fallout from a sexual assault scandal that led to the firing of President Ken Starr and head football coach Art Briles and the resignation of Ian McCaw as athletics director almost a year ago.

“These girls affected by this are seeking their day in court,” Houston lawyer Muhammad Aziz, who represents the plaintiff, said by phone Wednesday. “We thought about this a lot, and me and my client thought about it and discussed it. Eventually, we decided to proceed. Really, what we are seeking to enforce is just a safe education environment for the girls at the school.”

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IRELAND
Wicklow News

Former Rathnew priest Denis Nolan was sentenced to eight years in jail this week for the rape and sexual assault of a young boy.

The former priest has 20 previous convictions relating to sexual assault but refuses to admit his guilt.

He was described in court as “cold and calculating” he is already serving time for the abuse of another local boy.

The abuse of his victims first came to light in May of 2012.

The 64-year-old denied two counts of rape and four of sexually assaulting the boy in Co Wicklow between January 2005 and September 2006.

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GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

Mindy Aguon | For The Guam Daily Post

“I never told anybody back then. Who was gonna believe me? Back then it was very strict.” – B.J., describing abuse by former Guam priest Louis Brouillard

As he walked with his cane into the grassy area leading to Lonfit River, there was trepidation in his step. This was the first time he’d been back in more than 40 years.

The hot sun beating down on him caused beads of sweat to run down his forehead as he became weak, having flashbacks of a traumatic trip to this river in the early 1970s.

“He told me it was time to become a man,” the 57-year-old man said as his voice faded.

B.J., using initials to protect his identity, was only 12 years old when he was brought to Lonfit River by then-Father Louis Brouillard.

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BURUNDI
La Depeche

Jean-Marie, prêtre burundais, a été accueilli en 2014 par le diocèse de Pamiers. Il en a profité pour commettre trois agressions sexuelles, dont une sur mineure de moins de 15 ans. À chaque fois, même scénario. Jean-Marie, rentré dans son pays depuis, se retrouve avec elles pour discuter, les prend dans ses bras, les colle contre lui alors que son sexe est en érection et les caresse. Pendant sa garde à vue, il a plus ou moins reconnu les faits. «Étant malade et privé d’activité valorisante, il a pu décompenser», note le psychiatre à propos de Jean-Marie. Ce qui ne manque pas d’étonner le ministère public : «Il ne peut plus dire la messe, donc il compense par des agressions sexuelles», ironise François Hébert.

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BURUNDI
Xinhua

BUJUMBURA, May 17 (Xinhua) — The Burundian police on Tuesday afternoon arrested a priest over rape accusations, the country’s police spokesman told a press conference on Wednesday.

“Abbot Jean Marie Ciza working in Gitega Archdiocese was arrested yesterday afternoon in Gitega town. The prosecutor who ordered his arrest accuses him of having raped a school girl,” Burundian Police Spokesman Pierre Nkurikiye said.

Nkurikiye indicated that the arrested priest was the private secretary of the Archbishop of Gitega, adding that he had recently escaped from France where he had committed rape.

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MARYLAND
WJZ

BALTIMORE (WJZ)– There are shocking new allegations from a woman who told only WJZ she was sexually abused by a Baltimore County police officer and a priest when she was just 11 years old.

WJZ is protecting the identity of the woman who is being called Abby.

She is still terrified of police decades after horrific abuse by one powerful officer, who picked her up and raped her repeatedly for years.

Once Abby said he forced her to have sex with other officers and a catholic priest.

“He actually raped me with a cross,” she says.

“He” was Father Neil Magnus. Once he was finished, Abby said the Baltimore County police officer raped her next, then one by one other officers took turns.

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AUSTRALIEN
Bluewin

Der australische Kurienkardinal George Pell – einer der höchsten Würdenträger im Vatikan – muss in seiner Heimat mit einer Anklage rechnen. Ihm wird zur Last gelegt, als junger Priester in den 1970er und 1980er Jahren mehrere Jungen sexuell belästigt zu haben.

Die Polizei im australischen Bundesstaat Victoria bestätigte am Mittwoch, dass eine Stellungnahme der Staatsanwaltschaft dazu geprüft werde. Der 75-Jährige war früher Erzbischof von Melbourne und Sydney. Heute ist Pell im Vatikan für den Haushalt zuständig und damit die inoffizielle Nummer drei der katholischen Hierarchie.

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SCOTLAND
The National

Janice Burns, Journalist / @janthenational

SURVIVORS of historic sexual abuse are today making a plea for more to be done to find Scotland’s missing abuse victims.

Seek and Find Everyone Abused in Childhood, also known as SAFE, has made the call to action with only two weeks left before the formal inquiry into historic abuse starts taking evidence.

SAFE, a group of survivors who have set aside their own time and money to campaign on this issue, want to send a message to all those survivors who are too afraid to speak out.

Survivor and spokesperson for SAFE, Dave Sharp, said: “We understand that victims are looking for like-minded people to connect with. Survivors are looking for people who understand their vulnerabilities and uncertainties and SAFE wants to help them find a path to justice and to have their voice heard.”

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ITALIA/ARGENTINA
Rete L’Abuso

[Pope Francis has sent inspectors to Argentina to investigate the alleged abuse at a home for deaf children.]

Colpo di scena, almeno per noi che in Italia siamo abituati ad un eccesso di riguardo nei confronti del clero, ma in Argentina, pur restando il rispetto per l’abito talare, di fronte alla legge si è tutti uguali.

Ed è così che i due 007 inviati da papa Francesco per “indagare” sull’orribile vicenda degli abusi sessuali sui bambini sordi nell’Istituto cattolico Antonio Provolo di Mendoza, da investigatori, si sono trasformati in test per la procura, sottoposti quindi anche al segreto istruttorio e se entro venerdì non risponderanno a quelle che sono le richieste, potrebbero ritrovarsi anche incriminati per falsa testimonianza, come secondo l’articolo 275 del codice penale argentino che punisce con la reclusione da un mese a quattro anni.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

MAY 17, 2017

Megan Neil
Australian Associated Press

The absence of an extradition treaty with the Vatican would potentially complicate matters if Cardinal George Pell is charged with abuse offences unless he returns to Australia voluntarily.
Victorian police are deciding whether to charge Australia’s most senior Catholic over historical sexual assault allegations, which Cardinal Pell has repeatedly denied.

Australian National University professor of international law Donald Rothwell believes Cardinal Pell, who has been co-operating with the police investigation, will want to return to defend himself if charged.

“I really do not think that given what we know of Cardinal Pell and given what we know of the Pope’s position on these issues that it would come to a serious legal tussle,” he told AAP on Wednesday.

“I think more than likely Cardinal Pell would want to return to Australia to mount a vigorous defence to these charges if they are brought against him.”

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

CARDINAL George Pell has proclaimed his innocence, after the Herald Sun revealed Victoria Police had received the final advice to decide whether to charge him following historical sex abuse allegations.

Cardinal Pell on Wednesday said he would “just like to restate my innocence”.

“I stand by everything I have said at the Royal Commission [into institutional responses to child sexual abuse] and in other places,” he told Channel Seven at the Vatican.

“We have to respect due process, wait until it is concluded and obviously I will continue to co-operate fully.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Courier

Beau Donelly
17 May 2017

UPDATE: Ballarat’s Cardinal George Pell is being subjected to relentless character attacks instead of being regarded as innocent until proven guilty of abuse allegations, Sydney’s Catholic Archbishop Anthony Fisher says.

Victorian police are deciding whether to charge Australia’s most senior Catholic after receiving final advice from the state’s Director of Public Prosecutions about historical sexual assault allegations.

Archbishop Fisher said the decision rests with police and until then “we must wait and see”.

“Justice must be left to run its course,” he said in a statement on Wednesday.

“Everyone supports just investigation of complaints but the relentless character attacks on Cardinal Pell, by some, stand the principle of innocent-until-proven- guilty on its head.

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ROME
7 News

[with video]

Cardinal George Pell has proclaimed his innocence from Rome after allegations of child sexual abuse as Victorian detectives consider whether to lay charges.

Cardinal Pell addressed the allegations outside his Rome apartment on Wednesday and said he would “continue to cooperate fully” with a police investigation.

“(I would) just like to restate my innocence,” he said.

“I stand by everything I’ve said in the Royal Commission and other places.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail

By Brianne Tolj For Daily Mail Australia and Australian Associated Press

An ABC journalist claims Cardinal George Pell’s lawyers urged her to delete any correspondence between them after she asked for an interview.

Louise Milligan said she tried to contact the cardinal and his lawyers repeatedly while working on her book ‘Cardinal: The rise and fall of George Pell,’ which looks at the allegations of child sexual abuse surrounding him.

‘I made several attempts to try and engage with him, through his office and his lawyers and he declined to take up that invitation except on the most onerous grounds, which included giving him the entire manuscript of the book. I’ve never heard that happen in two decades of journalism,’ the 7.30 reporter told 9News.

‘When we refused to do that his lawyers asked us to destroy the correspondence and if we didn’t destroy the correspondence they wanted us to give it back to them.’

Cardinal Pell has since slammed Milligan’s recently published book as a ‘character assassination.’

He has strongly denied the allegations.

‘Each and every allegation of abuse and cover up against him is false. The book is an exercise in character assassination,’ a statement from Cardinal Pell’s office issued on Monday night reads.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

By Kate Kachor

An ABC journalist has claimed Cardinal George Pell’s lawyers demanded she destroy all correspondence between them or return it after refusing their “most onerous” terms in exchange for an interview with Australia’s most senior Catholic for her book on his role with the church.

Louise Milligan, an award winning reporter with 7.30, endeavoured to contact the Victorian-born Cardinal – who is now based in The Vatican – a number of times about the allegations of child sexual abuse against the Catholic Church and his role as one of its leaders for her book, ‘Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell’.

“I made several attempts to try and engage with him, through his office and his lawyers and he declined to take up that invitation except on the most onerous grounds, which included giving him the entire manuscript of the book. I’ve never heard that happen in two decades of journalism,” Milligan told nine.com.au.

“When we refused to do that his lawyers asked us to destroy the correspondence and if we didn’t destroy the correspondence they wanted us to give it back to them.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Advertiser

Mitch Mott, The Advertiser
May 17, 2017

A FORMER St Peter’s Woodlands Grammar School staff member has been charged with the sexual assault of a student more than 25 years ago.

The Glenelg primary school wrote a letter to old scholars, informing them a former teacher, now aged in his 50s, had been charged after an investigation began in 2015.

Principal Christopher Prance urged former students to contact police if they had any information or further accusations against the teacher.

“I have written this letter to you to keep you and others in the school community informed,” Mr Prance said in the letter.

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JAMAICA
Jamaica Observer

KINGSTON, Jamaica (JIS) – State Minister for Education, Youth and Information, Floyd Green, is encouraging the church to undertake more activities that support the government’s programmes aimed at curbing child abuse.

Speaking at a recent child abuse forum at the Webster Memorial United Church in St Andrew, the state minister said the church’s actions are critical in assisting to create the environment that assures an abused child that “there is somebody they can turn to for assistance”.

Green said child abuse poses a major challenge for Jamaica, as state agencies with responsibility for safeguarding children’s welfare receive an average of 1,200 reports of child abuse each month.

“We are talking about 1,200 children who are in very difficult and trying circumstances who need to be helped,” he added.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Peter Gunders

Child protection advocates hope a film dealing with one young woman’s battle to fight institutional cover up of abuse in Toowoomba will inspire others to tell their stories.

“I was brought up in an era where children had to be seen and not heard,” said author and lawyer Stephen Roche, for whom Don’t Tell is an intensely personal story.

Based on Mr Roche’s book of the same name, the film is the story of a Toowoomba school student, known only as Lyndal, her experience of abuse while a boarder at a prestigious Anglican school in the 1990s, and the legal proceedings that followed 11 years later.

“I think it’s a film about justice,” Mr Roche said.

The high-profile case has been credited by Bravehearts founder Hetty Johnston as an important step leading to the Royal Commission into Institutional Reponses to Child Sex Abuse.

“If she wasn’t such a courageous girl all those years ago, we wouldn’t know what had occurred at this place,” Mr Roche said.

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WEST VIRGINIA
Bluefield Daily Telegraph

By GREG JORDAN Bluefield Daily Telegraph

PRINCETON — After citing a lack of remorse and attempts to discredit a victim, a special judge sentenced an admitted transgender man to spend between two to 10 years in prison for first-degree sexual abuse.

James Lilly, 25, of Bluefield was brought before Special Judge John A. Hutchinson of Raleigh County, who was appointed after Circuit Court Judge Derek Swope recused himself. Lilly pleaded guilty in August 2016 in Mercer County Circuit Court to three counts of first-degree sexual abuse. Each charge carries a penalty of one to five years in prison.

Lilly, a former youth pastor, was arrested Jan. 12, 2016 and later indicted on 28 counts of first-degree sexual abuse as well as charges of third-degree sexual assault and incest. After his arrest, Lilly told detectives with the Bluefield Police Department that he was transgender and in the process of becoming a woman.

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CALIFORNIA
Fox 40

WOODLAND — A Woodland woman has filed a lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento, alleging she was sexually assaulted by a former parish priest.

The suit accuses Father Renerio Sabuga Jr., took advantage of the woman being a victim of childhood sexual abuse, and abuse throughout most of her adult life, and positioned himself as a counselor to her, paying her visits at her home and sending her text messages.

She alleges Sabuga, also known as Father Jong, ultimately sexually assaulted her in her home. She didn’t file suit immediately, only after the church prohibited her from singing in the church choir. The woman also asked the Diocese to pay for more counseling.

Kevin Eckery with the Diocese of Sacramento released the following statement:

“In 2014, Fr. Jong received a written warning and was briefly suspended for what we understood to be an inappropriate relationship with an adult woman. In 2016, we received information that the relationship in question had resumed even after Fr. Jong had been suspended and warned to terminate the relationship and refrain from such conduct. As a result of that additional information, Fr. Jong was terminated, his visa was revoked and he returned to his native diocese in the Philippines.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

AAP

Cardinal George Pell is being subjected to relentless character attacks instead of being regarded as innocent until proven guilty of abuse allegations, Sydney’s Catholic Archbishop Anthony Fisher says.

Victorian police are deciding whether to charge Australia’s most senior Catholic after receiving final advice from the state’s Director of Public Prosecutions about historical sexual assault allegations.

Archbishop Fisher said the decision rests with police and until then “we must wait and see”.

“Justice must be left to run its course,” he said in a statement on Wednesday. “Everyone supports just investigation of complaints but the relentless character attacks on Cardinal Pell, by some, stand the principle of innocent-until-proven- guilty on its head.

“Australians have a right to expect better from their legal systems and the media.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

[with video]

Beau Donelly, Melissa Cunningham

Cardinal George Pell maintains he is innocent of historical child sexual assault allegations as police decide whether to charge the senior Catholic figure.

Victoria Police received advice from the Director of Public Prosecutions about its investigation into Cardinal Pell, days after fresh details of the claims were aired.

Police and the DPP would not comment on the advice, but is understood the brief suggests that there is sufficient evidence to charge Cardinal Pell.

Cardinal Pell, who was a priest in Ballarat before becoming Archbishop of Melbourne, is accused of sexually abusing a number of boys.

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ROME
9 News

[with video]

Cardinal George Pell has proclaimed his innocence as detectives in Australia investigate abuse allegations against him.

“I’d just like to restate my innocence, I stand by everything I’ve said in the Royal Commission,” he told 9NEWS outside the Vatican this afternoon.

“We have to respect due process, and wait until it’s concluded. Obviously I’ll co-operate fully.”

The cardinal did not answer directly when asked whether he would return to Australia amid investigations over historical sex abuse allegations against him.

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AUSTRALIA
Associated Press

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australian police said Wednesday they were a step closer to deciding whether to charge a top Vatican cardinal over allegations of sexual assault dating back decades.

Cardinal George Pell, Pope Francis’ top financial adviser and Australia’s most senior Catholic, has long been dogged by allegations he mishandled cases of clergy abuse when he was archbishop of Melbourne and, later, Sydney. More recently, Pell has faced accusations of child abuse himself when he was a young priest in the 1970s. Pell, who runs the Vatican’s economy ministry, has repeatedly denied all the allegations.

Last year, detectives from Australia’s Victoria state flew to the Vatican, where 75-year-old Pell agreed to be interviewed over allegations of sexual assault, police said.

A police statement on Wednesday said investigators have since received advice from Director of Public Prosecutions John Champion, the state’s top prosecutor, on the sexual assault investigation.

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NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

BY THOMAS MORIARTY tmoriarty@njadvancemedia.com,
NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

NEWARK — A former member of Sacred Heart Parish who attended Seton Hall Preparatory School is suing both institutions and the Archdiocese of Newark, claiming they failed to protect him from repeated sexual abuse by two priests in the 1960s.

The plaintiff, whose representatives asked that he be identified only as “John Doe,” claims Revs. Robert Gibney — who was a priest at the now-closed Vailsburg church — and William Giblin, the former headmaster of Seton Hall Prep, both sexually abused him in the 1960s.

Gibney, who died in 2012, is alleged to have abused the boy on several occasions. Giblin, who died in 2011, is alleged to have abused the boy at the prep school, according to John Doe’s lawyer, Mitchell Garabedian of Boston.

In addition to the priests’ alleged injuries to him in violation of New Jersey law, Doe’s two complaints in state Superior Court seek punitive damages for what the lawsuits claim were gross negligence and intentional misconduct by the institutions, whose officials he says should have known of the abuse and prevented it.

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CONNECTICUT
New Haven Independent

CHRISTOPHER PEAK | May 16, 2017

Hartford — During the three years when Eliyahu Mirlis claimed Rabbi Daniel Greer sexually molested him, why didn’t Mirlis try to stop it?

Why didn’t the teenaged student phone his parents in New Jersey and flee to another school in another state?

Why didn’t he fend off the 60-year old man, weakened by a hernia?

Why didn’t he admit the alleged abuse to the assistant dean, Aviad Hack, another one of Greer’s alleged victims, or to Ezi Greer, the rabbi’s son and Mirlis’s closest friend?

Why didn’t he report the case to the state’s child welfare agents, who were investigating the Yeshiva of New Haven?

“That’s probably a hard question to answer, but I want to ask you to try,” Antonio Ponvert, Mirlis’s attorney, said after his client took the witness stand on Monday afternoon here in U.S. District Court.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Beau Donelly

Victoria Police has received advice from the Director of Public Prosecutions about its investigation into Cardinal George Pell, days after fresh details of historic sex abuse allegations were aired.

Detectives from the Sano taskforce, the squad set up to investigate historic child abuse allegations, will now consider the DPP’s advice, police spokeswoman Creina O’Grady said on Tuesday night.

“Victoria Police can confirm that it has received advice from the Director of Public Prosecutions relating to a current investigation into historical sexual assault allegations,” she said.

“As with any investigation it will be a decision for Victoria Police as to whether charges are laid. As this remains an ongoing investigation, we will not be commenting further at this time.”

Police would not comment on any recommendations contained in the brief.

Cardinal Pell, Australia’s highest ranking Catholic official, was interviewed by three members of Victoria Police in Rome last October. The 75-year-old took part voluntarily.

Cardinal Pell has always vehemently denied sex abuse allegations made against him.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

James Campbell and Keith Moor, Herald Sun
May 16, 2017

TWO MEN CLAIM PELL SEXUALLY ABUSED THEM

POLICE have received their final advice from the Director of Public Prosecutions on its investigation into historic sex abuse allegations against Cardinal George Pell — and the force must now decide whether to charge Australia’s highest-ranked Catholic.

The Daily Telegraph can reveal that the Victorian police force has received key advice from John Champion SC regarding a brief of evidence prepared by officers after they interviewed the 75-year-old in Rome last October.

It is understood that Victoria’s DPP has advised police that based on its assessment of the evidence they can charge the Cardinal. But despite the green light, the DPP advice makes it clear that ultimately it is up to police whether to act.

Asked about the status of the case, police spokesman Charlie Morton said: “Victoria Police can confirm that it has received advice from the Director of Public Prosecutions relating to a current investigation into historical sexual assaults.

“Detectives from Taskforce Sano will now take time to consider that advice. As with any investigation it will be a decision for Victoria Police as to whether charges are laid. As this remains an ongoing investigation, we will not be commenting further.”

The Daily Telegraph ­revealed in February last year that the Sano taskforce was investigating allegations that Cardinal Pell sexually abused up to 10 boys between 1978 and 2001 during his time as a priest in Ballarat and when he was archbishop of Melbourne.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail

By Sinead Maclaughlin For Daily Mail Australia and Australian Associated Press

Advice on historical sex abuse allegations against Cardinal George Pell has been sent to Victoria Police by the state’s Department of Public Prosecutions.

It must now be decided whether Australia’s most senior Catholic official will be charged over allegations of sexual abuse.

Allegations the Cardinal abused boys while a priest in Ballarat were aired last year and a new book released on Monday makes further claims.

The 75-year-old has denied all abuse allegations made against him and called the book, titled Cardinal: The rise and fall of George Pell, ‘an exercise in character assassination’.

Victoria Police confirmed in a statement on Tuesday night that it had received advice from the DPP ‘relating to a current investigation into historical sexual assault allegations’.

‘Detectives from Taskforce Sano will now take time to consider that advice,’ the statement reads.
‘As with any investigation it will be a decision for Victoria Police as to whether charges are laid. As this remains an ongoing investigation, we will not be commenting further at this time.’

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

Victorian police have received advice from the state’s Director of Public Prosecutions regarding further historical sex abuse allegations involving Cardinal George Pell.

Detectives from Taskforce Sano will now take time to consider the advice before deciding whether or not to take further action.

‘As with any investigation it will be a decision for Victoria Police as to whether charges are laid,’ the force said in a statement issued on Tuesday evening.

‘As this remains an ongoing investigation, we will not be commenting further at this time.’

News Corp newspapers reported that the advice relates to allegations against Australia’s most senior Catholic official, who has vehemently and repeatedly denied all abuse allegations made against him.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

May 17, 2017

TESSA AKERMAN
ReporterMelbourne
@TessaAkerman

JOHN FERGUSON
Victorian EditorMelbourne
@fergusonjw

The decision on whether to charge George Pell with historical sexual-abuse allegations now rests with Victoria Police after the Office of Public Prosecutions ­yesterday returned the brief of evidence.

A police spokesman confirmed advice from Victoria’s Director of Public Prosecutions John Champion SC concerning the investi­gation of Cardinal Pell had been received.

The OPP advised police that, based on its assessment of the evidence, they could charge the cardinal, Melbourne’s Herald Sun reported last night. Despite the green light, the advice made it clear that ultimately it was up to the police whether to act. “Detectives from Taskforce Sano will now take time to consider that advice,” police spokesman Charlie Morton said last night. “As with any ­investigation, it will be a decision for Victoria Police as to whether charges are laid.”

Cardinal Pell has strenuously denied all allegations.

It is understood the latest ­development took lawyers for the cardinal by surprise.
Cardinal Pell, Australia’s highest-ranking Catholic, had been sent to the OPP.

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AUSTRALIA
Crux

Police in Australia will “take time to consider … advice” from prosecutors over the allegations Cardinal George Pell engaged in inappropriate behavior with young people decades ago. The cardinal, currently the head of the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy, has issued a “vehement” denial of all accusations against him.

According to multiple media reports, Cardinal George Pell, currently the head of the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy, could face legal charges in his native Australia over decades-old allegations of sexual abuse.

Police in the Australian state of Victoria, in which Pell’s home Diocese of Ballarat is located, confirmed on Tuesday they “received advice from the Director of Public Prosecutions relating to a current investigation into historical sexual assault allegations.”

Pell has long denied the allegations vehemently.

The police investigations surround accusations that Pell inappropriately touched two young boys while swimming in the late 70s, and that he exposed himself in a change room in a surf club in the 1980s.

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AUSTRALIA
The Canberra Times

Katie Burgess

The barrister contracted to independently review the Canberra-Goulburn Catholic Archdiocese’s decision to place a disgraced priest next to two Canberra primary schools has quit.

Sydney barrister Jane Seymour had been brought on to scrutinise the breakdown in communication that led Father Brian Hassett, a priest with substantiated complaints of improper conduct towards children, to be housed next to Sts Peter and Paul Primary School and Malkara School without either principals being told of his background.

But Ms Seymour handed back the brief several weeks ago to take up a role with the NSW Industrial Relations Commission, The Canberra Times has learnt.

A spokeswoman from the archdiocese confirmed Ms Seymour was no longer conducting the review and had been replaced by another Sydney barrister, Juliet Lucy.

“As per the brief given to Jane, and subsequently Juliet, the timeline is for the review to be finalised by the end of May. The archbishop will then respond to the report by the end of June,” the spokeswoman said.

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TENNESSEE
The Greenville Sun

By Ken Little
Staff Writer

A Sullivan County judge has denied a petition for post-conviction relief seeking a new trial for former Catholic priest and Greene County resident William Casey.

Casey’s lawyer said Monday he will file an appeal on the April 26 ruling by Criminal Court Judge James F. Goodwin.

Casey, now 83, was found guilty of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and two counts of aggravated rape in 2011 by a Sullivan County Criminal Court jury.

The longtime Camp Creek community resident was sentenced in November 2011 to a 35-year prison term. Casey won’t be eligible for parole consideration until 2025 when he is 91, according to the state Department of Correction.

The sex abuse charges stemmed from conduct that occurred in 1979 and 1980, while victim Warren Tucker attended a Kingsport school associated with St. Dominic Catholic Church in Kingsport. Casey was a priest at the church and Tucker was an altar boy.

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CALIFORNIA
Sacramento Bee

BY SAM STANTON
sstanton@sacbee.com

Dorothy Small met the new priest at Woodland’s Holy Rosary Catholic Church in April 2014, and almost immediately the Rev. Renerio Sabuga Jr. began inviting her out for bicycle rides or dinner, Small says.

Within weeks, she said, the priest – known to parishioners as “Father Jong” – would confide in her with intensely private thoughts.

“I’m a man like any other man,” she recalled him telling her. “I can do everything like any other man, just from the waist up.

“I can’t have sex.”

In a matter of months, that stance changed as Small and Sabuga became close and the priest pursued her romantically until Feb. 17, 2015, when the priest “cornered (Small) in her bedroom and sexually assaulted” her, a lawsuit filed Monday in Sacramento Superior Court alleges.

The allegations in Small’s lawsuit are explosive, charging that church officials routinely ignored Small’s requests for help. Her suit was filed by Sacramento attorney Joseph George against the Sacramento Catholic Diocese, Sabuga and Holy Rosary priest Jonathan Molina.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Bistum Hildesheim

[The bishopric of Hildesheim has filed a complaint against a teacher of the Hildesheimer Marienschule who admitted sexual assault against a teenager.]

16.05.2017

Das Bistum Hildesheim hat gegen einen Lehrer der Hildesheimer Marienschule Strafanzeige gestellt, der sexuelle Übergriffigkeit gegenüber einer jugendlichen Schülerin zugegeben hat.

Der Pädagoge wurde vom Unterricht suspendiert und fristlos entlassen. Außerdem darf er die Schule nicht mehr betreten.

Die Eltern der Schülerin informierten die Schulleitung in der vergangenen Woche über den Missbrauch. Der zuständige Direktor der Hauptabteilung Bildung im Bischöflichen Generalvikariat Hildesheim, PD Dr. Jörg-Dieter Wächter, lud den Lehrer daraufhin unverzüglich vor. Im Gespräch mit Wächter gab der Mann zu, sexuell übergriffig geworden zu sein.

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DEUTSCHLAND
inFranken

[The teacher of a Catholic school in Hildesheim has allegedly abused a minor pupil. Now he was dismissed summarily and reported to the police.]

Das Bistum Hildesheim hat gegen einen Lehrer der katholischen Marienschule in Hildesheim Strafanzeige wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs Schutzbefohlener gestellt. Der Pädagoge habe zugegeben, gegenüber einer jugendlichen Schülerin “sexuell übergriffig” geworden zu sein, teilte das Bistum am Dienstag (16. Mai) mit. Er sei vom Unterricht suspendiert und fristlos entlassen worden. Außerdem dürfe er die Schule nicht mehr betreten. Bischof Norbert Trelle zeigte sich “schockiert und bestürzt”.

Lehrer gibt Tat in Gespräch mit Schulleitung zu

Die Eltern der Schülerin informierten dem Bistum zufolge die Schulleitung in der vergangenen Woche über den Missbrauch. Der zuständige Direktor im Bischöflichen Generalvikariat Hildesheim habe den Lehrer daraufhin unverzüglich vorgeladen. Im Gespräch habe der Mann seine Tat zugegeben.

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NEW JERSEY
Road to Recovery

“John Doe” has filed a civil action in Essex County Superior Court in Newark, New Jersey, alleging that two Archdiocese of Newark priests sexually abused him as a minor child on numerous occasions. “John Doe” originally contacted Attorney Mitchell Garabedian of Boston, MA

“John Doe” alleges that Fr. Robert Gibney sexually abused him as a minor child on numerous occasions when Fr. Robert Gibney was assigned to Sacred Heart Parish in the Vailsburg section of Newark, New Jersey, in approximately 1962/1963

“John Doe” alleges that Fr. William Giblin, a former Headmaster of Seton Hall Preparatory School, sexually abused him as a minor child from approximately 1966-1967 on numerous occasions when Fr. William Giblin was assigned to Seton Hall Preparatory School as Dean of Men and possibly another position or positions. Seton Hall Preparatory School was located at the time on the campus of Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey

What
A press conference announcing the filing of a civil lawsuit in Essex County, Newark, New Jersey Superior Court, by “John Doe,” a victim of childhood sexual abuse in approximately the 1960s by two Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey, priests, Fr. Robert Gibney, and Fr. William Giblin

When
Tuesday, May 16, 2017 at 11:00 AM

Where
On the public sidewalk outside Seton Hall Preparatory School, 120 Northfield Avenue, West Orange, New Jersey, 07052

Who
Members of Road to Recovery, Inc., a non-profit charity based in New Jersey that assists victims of sexual abuse and their families, including its co-founder and President, Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D.

Why
Allegations:
“John Doe” was a minor child at Sacred Heart Parish in the Vailsburg section of Newark, New Jersey, in approximately 1962/1963 when he was sexually abused on numerous occasions by Fr. Robert Gibney who was assigned by the Archbishop of Newark to serve as a priest at Sacred Heart Parish in Newark, New Jersey. “John Doe” was a minor child attending Seton Hall Preparatory School in South Orange, New Jersey in approximately 1966/1967 when he was sexually abused on numerous occasions by Fr. William Giblin who was assigned by the Archbishop of Newark, New Jersey, to serve at Seton Hall Preparatory School in South Orange, New Jersey. “John Doe” has filed an action in the Civil Division of Essex County Superior Court, Newark, New Jersey requesting compensatory and punitive damages against the two named defendants and the Archdiocese of Newark; Sacred Heart Parish; Seton Hall University, and Seton Hall Preparatory School

Contacts
Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D., Road to Recovery, Inc. – 862-368-2800 – roberthoatson@gmail.com

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | May. 16, 2017

VATICAN CITY
The Vatican’s financial watchdog registered a three-fold decrease in suspicious transactions undertaken in the city-state’s financial institutions in 2016, stating in a yearly report the downtick indicates more effective implementation of Pope Francis’ reforms.

The Financial Information Authority, or AIF, says in the report that it marked 207 activities as questionable last year and suspended four suspicious transactions worth a total of 2.1 million Euro. In 2015 the agency had marked 544 activities and halted 12 transactions worth 15.3 million Euro and $2.4 million.

The AIF says in the report, released Thursday, that the decrease indicates “an ever-increasing and effective implementation of reporting requirements.”

The agency also reveals it made 22 reports to the Vatican’s Office of the Promoter of Justice, the city-state’s prosecutorial division, for possible review of crimes including fraud and “serious tax evasion, misappropriation and corruption.”

The watchdog agency gave the statistics in its fifth annual report. The agency, which was started by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010 but continued and strengthened under Francis, has been working to bring the Vatican’s diverse set of financial organizations into compliance with international standards.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Altoona Mirror

MAY 16, 2017

BOSTON — A former Episcopal priest, who has been living in Bedford, Pa., has been given an 18-month sentence after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting a student during trips to Boston in 1973.

Howard “Howdy” White, 75, was associate chaplain at St. George’s School in Middletown, R.I., when he took a 15- to 16-year-old boy on several overnight trips, including two to Boston where the teen was sexually assaulted. White had been accused of five counts of assault and battery.

Since moving to Bedford in 2007 until last year, White had served as a part-time replacement priest at St. James Episcopal Church in Bedford. Church officials suspended him in January 2016, and Audrey Scanlan, Episcopal bishop for central Pennsylvania, formally removed White from the priesthood in October.

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IRELAND
Sunday World

A FORMER priest who raped and assaulted a child he had paid to do his gardening has received an eight-year prison sentence.

Denis Nolan (64), formerly of The Presbytery, Rathnew, Co Wicklow, is already serving a sentence for sexually abusing a different child six years ago and has since been defrocked.

Last March, a jury at the Central Criminal Court convicted him of six counts of oral rape, defilement and sexual assault in his home between 2005 and 2006.

The victim was aged between 10 and 11 at the time.

Nolan, who was a parish priest in Co Wicklow and served on the board of management of a local school, had denied the charges.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

Making institutions criminally liable for failing to report child sexual abuse is likely to encourage reporting, the head of the child abuse royal commission says.

The royal commission is considering whether other states and territories should follow the lead of NSW and Victoria in having an offence relating to failure to report.

The issue of abuse being known to a responsible person in an institution but not reported to the authorities has been raised in number of its public hearings.

The criminal law does not generally impose a positive duty requiring a person to act, commission chair Justice Peter McClellan says.

‘Failure to report abuse to the authorities may leave a child, or perhaps a number of children, exposed to abuse,’ he said in a speech to be screened at a National Council of Churches conference in Melbourne on Tuesday.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Paul Kennedy

Every major Australian church has been cautioned to better protect children or risk illegitimacy.

In a speech to the National Council of Churches, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse chairman Justice Peter McClellan urged religious leaders to act on his recommendations.

“What we can be certain of is that any institution which does not acknowledge past wrongs and the need for change will lose the confidence of Australians,” he said via a recorded video.

“The community will not accept the legitimacy of any institution which does not give priority to the safety and wellbeing of the children for which it has responsibility.”

Justice McClellan detailed the exhaustive work of Australia’s largest royal commission, which has examined 1.2 million documents and heard evidence from more than 1,200 witnesses over 440 sitting days.

They have wide-ranging powers to cross-examine, obtain evidence, and protect witnesses
Fifty-nine per cent of abuse reported to the royal commission has come from within religious institutions.

Justice McClellan revealed the commission had referred 2,025 cases to police and other authorities but only 127 have been acted upon.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

[with video]

Tuesday, 16 May 2017

The Hon Justice Peter McClellan AM
Chair, Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

National Council of Churches
Safe as churches? Conference

Thank you for inviting me to address your conference today. I am sorry that I am unable to deliver this address in person. Unfortunately the other demands on my time have made that impossible.

I last spoke to you in September 2015. Since that time the Royal Commission had held a further 25 public hearings. That brings the total number of public hearings to 57. Our public hearing program concluded in March this year with a discussion of the nature, cause and impact of child sexual abuse.

Our public hearing program was extensive. We examined more than 1.2 million documents. We heard evidence from more than 1,200 witnesses. The Commissioners sat for more than 440 days. Hearings have been held in every state and territory and in a number of regional centres and towns.

In addition to the hearings in which we sought to understand the conduct of individuals and institutions, the Commission has conducted public hearings with a policy focus. These include Case study 24 – Out of Home Care and Case studies 38 and 46 into Criminal Justice issues.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Kevin Doyle
May 16 2017

International experts are to be brought in to provide advice on the potential mass exhumation of bodies from the Tuam Mother and Baby Home site.

The Government will today consider the ‘next steps’ for the site, where it is believed hundreds of dead babies were buried by nuns between 1925 and 1961.

Among the decisions to be taken in the coming months is whether officials believe it will be possible to ID any of the remains.

Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone will update the Cabinet on developments at the site since it was revealed in March that “significant quantities” of human remains were found.

Ms Zappone’s office declined to comment ahead of her Cabinet briefing, but it is understood she will tell colleagues decisions need to be taken quickly.

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OKLAHOMA
News 9

BY JESSI MITCHELL, NEWS 9

OKLAHOMA CITY – Gov. Mary Fallin signed a bill into law last week, giving child sex abuse victims longer to come forward, but critics say an amendment to the bill may actually be detrimental to some of the victims.

HB1470 was part of the Hidden Predator Act, meant to increase protections to child sex abuse victims. A paragraph was added, however, that protects the employer of the abuser, and some attorneys fear that clause is unconstitutional.

In March, Rep. Kevin McDugle (R-Tulsa) opened up for the first time about being molested by his youth minister. McDugle shared how hard it was to talk about the incident for decades and urged his colleagues to allow victims up to the age of 45 to come forward.

“That one night, for me, took me 35 years to get to a point that I could actually openly talk about it,” McDugle said. “I’m a Marine Corps veteran, a drill instructor, so it’s not a story that I wanted to tell.”
When the act passed through the legislature the bill’s author Rep. Carol Bush (R-Tulsa) commended voters in support of the bill in a letter, stating, “The Legislature has done right by the victims of these crimes, and I’m humbled to have played a part in extending the statute of limitations.”

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KANSAS
KOAM

[with video]

May 15, 2017
By Mike Mahoney

PITTSBURG, KANSAS –
Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt congratulated state lawmakers Monday for making the state a better place for victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. Governor Sam Brownback recently signed a couple of bills that will aid those victims.

One bill extends the statute of limitations for sexual assault victims. The other elevates domestic assaults from simple battery to aggravated battery.

Brooke Powell is a program director at Safehouse, a program with a Pittsburg office that aids victims. She’s thrilled the statute of limitations are being extended to aid victims of sexual assault. It will mean her clients can receive crime victim’s assistance even if the sexual assault happened more than two years ago.

The bill sets the two year statute of limitations to the day a victim is notified that DNA testing has identified a suspect’s genetic profile.

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NEW JERSEY
Road to Recovery

Newark Archbishop Cardinal Joseph Tobin to hold Town Meeting at Holy Family Parish, Nutley, New Jersey, to “meet and greet” Catholics of the Archdiocese of Newark

Since Cardinal Joseph Tobin became the Archbishop of Newark, he has “dragged his feet” in settling credible cases of sexual abuse by Archdiocesan clergy, thus acting contrary to the statements of Pope Francis

It is time for Cardinal Joseph Tobin to justly and fairly settle cases of sexual abuse by Newark Archdiocesan clergy in a timely manner so the victims can try to heal and gain a degree of closure through validation

What
A press conference and demonstration calling on Cardinal Joseph Tobin, the new Archbishop of Newark, to settle cases of childhood sexual abuse by Catholic clergy and other religious persons that have stalled, thus re-victimizing childhood clergy sexual abuse victims

When
Tuesday, May 16, 2017 from 6:30 PM until 8:00 PM

Where
On the public sidewalk outside Holy Family Parish, 28 Brookline Avenue, Nutley, New Jersey 07110

Who
Members of Road to Recovery, Inc., a non-profit charity based in New Jersey that assists victims of sexual abuse and their families, including its co-founder and President, Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D.

Why
Since Cardinal Joseph Tobin became the Archbishop of Newark several months ago, the Archdiocese of Newark has stalled settling cases, thus causing further harm to and re-victimization of victims. The stalling has prevented victims from trying to heal and gain a degree of closure through validation. Contrary to the statements of Pope Francis, the Archdiocese of Newark has ignored the claims of childhood sexual abuse victims through the tactic of stalling. Demonstrators will call on Cardinal Joseph Tobin to settle childhood sexual abuse claims in a timely manner so that victims are treated fairly and justly, thus allowing them to try to heal and gain a degree of closure through validation.

Contact
Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D., Road to Recovery, Inc., 862-368-2800 – roberthoatson@gmail.com
Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, Boston, MA – 617-523-6250 – garabedianlaw@msn.com

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Melissa Davey
@MelissaLDavey
Monday 15 May 2017

The head of the royal commission into child sexual abuse, Justice Peter McClellan, has referred 2,025 incidents of abuse to authorities since 2013, provoking 127 prosecutions to date.

McClellan will share the figures at the National Council of Churches conference in Melbourne on Tuesday via a video address. He will tell the conference the volume of referrals was so great that there may be further prosecutions once they had been fully assessed by police.

The commissioners have held more than 6,700 private sessions for survivors of institutional abuse. While some survivors gave evidence during the commission’s public hearings throughout the country, many more chose to give evidence to the six commissioners in private.

To date, the commission has analysed the information from 6,302 of those private sessions, and McClellan will for the first time reveal the breakdown of institutions in which those survivors were abused.

Thirty-two per cent of survivors who attended a private session reported abuse in a government institution, while 10% reported abuse in a secular institution. Religious institutions comprised 59% of reported abuse.

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VIRGINIA
The News & Advance

Christopher Cole

A home-school Christian ministry leader in Campbell County has filed a nearly $1 million defamation suit against a Lynchburg woman, her husband and a law professor over an internet blog post alleging he made inappropriate contact with her years ago.

Rickey G. Boyer also seeks millions of dollars in damages for alleged conspiracy against his home-school business Character Concepts by the woman, Ashley Easter, along with Robert William Easter.

The defamation claim names a Liberty University professor, Basyle Tchividjian, as one of the defendants.

Boyer filed the suit April 14 in Lynchburg Circuit Court, but the complaint had not been served on the three defendants as of Monday. Once served, they will have 21 days to respond.

According to the lawsuit, Ashley Easter defamed him by publishing a blog article titled “Rick Boyer Sr. and Sexual Boundary Crossing: My Story,” which she put on her blog in April 2016.

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IOWA
The Daily Reporter

Monday, May 15, 2017
Russ Mitchell, Northwest Iowa Publishing

Kevin Grimes, the former DaySpring Assembly of God pastor and director of the nonprofit Spencer Dream Center had to make at times tearful admissions Monday as part of a plea agreement surrounding allegations of sexual abuse.

Grimes confirmed that he sent “inappropriate text messages” and images to young men who attended his church and arranged meetings to “engage in sexual activity,” with other male victims.

“I accept full responsibility for what I’ve done,” Grimes told told District Court Judge Don Courtney.

The sexual advances are illegal and led to six criminal charges — Grimes isn’t allowed to use his position as counselor to take advantage of vulnerable people under his care. Altogether, four men came forward with enough information to warrant a criminal complaint.

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IRELAND
Crux

John Allen, Inés San Martín and Claire Giangravè
May 16, 2017

On Saturday, Pope Francis called Marie Collins, an abuse survivor who recently quit his Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors citing Vatican resistance to reform, a “great woman” and said she’s “right on some things.” In a Crux interview, Collins expressed gratitude but also said that the Church still needs uniform global standards and a way to hold bishops accountable.

A survivor of clerical sexual abuse and a former member of a panel created by Pope Francis to lead the reform effort said Monday that while she’s grateful for positive things the pope said about her over the weekend, she also wants the commission to push back against perceived Vatican resistance to reform that she insists led her to resign.

Marie Collins, an Irish lay woman, told “The Crux of the Matter” on the Catholic Channel, carried by Sirius XM, “If resistance continues, then the commission itself should speak. It shouldn’t be up to one member having to resign to make it public.

“If there is resistance, it’s got to be overcome, because there’s no place for resistance to change when it comes to child protection,” Collins said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Tablet (UK)

16 May 2017 | by Mark Brolly

Pell’s Rome office has accused the book’s publisher of “interfering with the course of justice”

Cardinal George Pell’s Rome office says he will not seek to respond to allegations against him in a new biography released on Monday, “other than to restate that any allegations of child abuse made against him are completely false”.

Fairfax Media reported on 13 May that ‘Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell’, by Australian Broadcasting Corporation journalist Louise Milligan, contains allegations of abuse involving two choirboys at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne in the late 1990s while then Archbishop Pell was Archbishop of Melbourne.

Fairfax, publisher of The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne’s The Age newspapers, said the book records the testimony of one alleged victim, a man now aged in his 30s, and the family of a second alleged victim, who died from a drug overdose in 2014. Soon after the alleged abuse took place, both boys asked to leave the choir, the book says.

The newspaper group also reported that the book contains new information about the child abuse cover-up within the Catholic Church in Australia, including allegations that Cardinal Pell – Prefect of the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy since 2014 and before that Archbishop of Melbourne from 1996-2001 and Archbishop of Sydney from 2001-14 – knew about paedophile priests earlier than he claimed.

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IRELAND
The Irish Sun

By Eavan Murray
15th May 2017,

SERIAL paedophile Fr Denis Nolan has been sentenced to eight years for the rape and sexual assault of a young boy.

The disgraced Wicklow-based former priest, described in court as “cold and calculating”, is already serving time for sickening abuse of another teenage lad.

The 64-year-old fiend denied two counts of rape and four of sexually assaulting the boy in Co Wicklow between January 2005 and September 2006.

The court heard Nolan’s horrific crimes left his victim feeling that he would be better off dead.

In sentencing Judge Patrick McCarthy said the accused engaged in a concentrated effort to groom his victim who was “a child of great innocence”.

The victim was aged 13 when the abuse began after Nolan gave him a chance to work in his garden.

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NEW YORK
New York Times

By SAM ROBERTS
MAY 15, 2017

Thomas V. Daily, the bishop emeritus of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, who raised tens of millions of dollars to repair schools and churches but whose last years were marred by criticism of how he had handled the church’s sexual abuse scandals in Boston and Brooklyn, died early Monday in Queens. He was 89.

A diocesan spokeswoman announced his death, at the Immaculate Conception Center in Douglaston, where he lived at the Bishop Mugavero Residence, named after his predecessor, Francis J. Mugavero. …

But the bishop’s legacy was clouded by criticism, coupled with his own second thoughts, about his response to lawsuits by people alleging that they were abused as minors by priests in Brooklyn and especially in Boston. Bishop Daily had been chancellor and vicar general in the Diocese of Boston under two former archbishops, Cardinal Humberto Medeiros and, briefly, Cardinal Medeiros’s successor, Cardinal Bernard F. Law.

It was Bishop Daily who allowed the Rev. John J. Geoghan on a planned two-month sabbatical to Italy before placing him back in the same parish near a family whom Father Geoghan had traumatized. Bishop Daily informed neither law enforcement nor the parish priest of the allegations against Father Geoghan, who became the country’s most notorious example of a predatory priest.

Bishop Daily was named as a defendant in dozens of suits filed by people who claimed that Father Geoghan, who was later defrocked, had molested them in his three decades as a priest. In 2002, the Boston archdiocese settled the Geoghan lawsuits for millions of dollars.

Father Geoghan, who was accused of molesting almost 150 boys, was convicted of groping a 10-year-old boy and was serving a sentence of nine to 10 years in a Massachusetts state prison when he was strangled by another inmate in 2003.

Asked in a deposition why he never investigated whether Father Geoghan had molested children beyond those of a family he had met with in 1982, Bishop Daily replied: “I’m not a policeman. I am a shepherd. I am a pastor who has to go after the Lord’s sheep and find them and bring them back to the fold and give them the kind of guidance and discipline them in such a way that they will come back.”

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AUSTRALIA
Starts at 60

Cardinal George Pell has slammed allegations made about him in a new book, describing it as “character assassination” and an “interference with the course of justice”.

Lawyers representing the cardinal have demanded an apology and retraction from media outlets Fairfax and The Guardian over articles detailing the child sexual abuse claims made in ABC journalist Louise Milligan’s book Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell.

Published by Melbourne University Press, the book was released on Monday and includes unsubstantiated allegations against Cardinal Pell over his role in the sex abuse scandal surrounding the Catholic Church.

Last year Milligan interviewed two men who claimed Pell abused them in the 1970s when he was a priest at Ballarat.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY
DALE W. EISINGER
STEPHEN REX BROWN
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Monday, May 15, 2017

Victims of sexual abuse by priests urged fellow survivors Monday to enroll in a compensation program founded by Timothy Cardinal Dolan.

Phase II of the Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program is open to anyone who has not previously reported a complaint of abuse to the Archdiocese.

Only victims abused by a deacon or priest in the Archdiocese of New York are eligible.

Applicants face a July 31 deadline.

“Your window of opportunity is only open until the end of July,” said Shaun Dougherty, 47, who was abused as a child by a priest in Pennsylvania.

“Protect future generations of children from having to live the nightmare that we lived again.”

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MICHIGAN
The Alpena News

MAY 16, 2017

JORDAN SPENCE
jspence@thealpenanews.com

ALPENA — The second alleged victim in the case against Sylvestre Obwaka, who is accused of accused of raping another priest, will not be allowed to testify over the phone.

The second victim’s possible testimony was discussed during a hearing Monday in 53rd Circuit Court.

“For the record my position is that testimony telephonically would not be permitted,” Judge Scott Pavlich said. “He would have to appear and give testimony.”

Pavlich said if the prosecution wants to have this person testify — the victim is male and alleged a sexual assault took place sometime around 2003 — they would have to provide more details.

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GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

Neil Pang | The Guam Daily Post May 15, 2017

“We extend our prayers to the claimant, known by the initials of B.W.J., and his family.” – Archdiocese of Agana

The same day news of a new lawsuit alleging child sexual abuse at the hands of a Catholic school teacher became public, the Archdiocese of Agana issued a response apologizing to the newest victim as well as those recently named in several other lawsuits.

“The Archdiocese of Agana acknowledges the latest lawsuit and allegation of child sexual abuse filed involving Ray Caluag, a former music teacher at Saint Anthony Catholic School in Tamuning in the 1990s,” the Archdiocese of Agana stated. “We extend our prayers to the claimant, known by the initials of B.W.J., and his family.”

According to Post files, B.W.J.’s suit filed Sunday names Ray Caluag, a former music teacher at Saint Anthony Catholic School, who also may have taught for a few years at St. John’s School, as his alleged abuser.

The plaintiff is a former Saint Anthony Catholic School student who alleges in the case he was sexually molested and abused by Caluag, who was his music teacher in the early 1990s. According to court documents, B.W.J. alleged he was abused by Caluag in 1993 after he got a ride home with his former music teacher following a rehearsal for a school Christmas play.

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NEW YORK
QNS

By Robert Pozarycki / rpozarycki@qns.com / Monday, May 15, 2017

Retired Bishop Thomas V. Daily, who led the Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens for 13 years until becoming ensnared in the global Catholic Church sex abuse scandal, died early on Monday morning, May 15, at his Douglaston residence at the age of 89.

Daily became the sixth Bishop of Brooklyn in 1990 after previously serving as the first Bishop of Palm Beach, FL. A native of Massachusetts, he was ordained a priest by the Archdiocese of Boston in 1952 and would serve the first eight years of his ministry at St. Ann’s Church in the Boston suburb of Quincy.

In 1960, Daily left St. Ann’s for five years and headed to Lima, Peru as part of the Missionary Society of St. James the Apostle, working with the poor in the South American nation. He would return to St. Ann’s in 1965 as its assistant pastor until 1971, when he was appointed by Boston Cardinal Humberto Sousa Medeiros as his secretary and, later vicar for temporalities.

Daily was named an auxiliary bishop in 1975 and appointed the following year as vicar general for the Archdiocese of Boston. After his stint in Palm Beach, he arrived in Brooklyn in 1990 at a time when the entire diocese was undergoing financial hardship.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

Allegations aired in a new book of sexual abuse by Australia’s highest ranking Catholic official, George Pell, are nothing but “character assassination” says the cardinal.

The book, Cardinal: The rise and fall of George Pell, by ABC journalist Louise Milligan was released by Melbourne University Press on Monday.

“Each and every allegation of abuse and cover up against him is false. The book is an exercise in character assassination,” a statement from Cardinal Pell’s office issued on Monday night reads.

“The decision by MUP to bring forward the publication of the book prior to any findings by the Royal Commission and while allegations are still under consideration by the Victorian Office of Public Prosecutions is a blatant attempt to interfere in the course of justice.

“Unlike MUP, the Cardinal will not interfere with the course of justice. He will await the outcome of due process before launching defamation action.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

May 15, 2017

Allegations aired in a new book of sexual abuse by Australia’s highest ranking Catholic official, George Pell, are nothing but “character assassination” says the cardinal.

The book, Cardinal: The rise and fall of George Pell, by ABC journalist Louise Milligan was released by Melbourne University Press on Monday.

“Each and every allegation of abuse and cover up against him is false. The book is an exercise in character assassination,” a statement from Cardinal Pell’s office issued on Monday night reads.

“The decision by MUP to bring forward the publication of the book prior to any findings by the Royal Commission and while allegations are still under consideration by the Victorian Office of Public Prosecutions is a blatant attempt to interfere in the course of justice.

“Unlike MUP, the Cardinal will not interfere with the course of justice. He will await the outcome of due process before launching defamation action.”

Milligan has covered the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse and last year interviewed two men who claimed they were abused by Pell in the 1970s, when he was a priest at Ballarat.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

May 16, 2017

TESSA AKERMAN
ReporterMelbourne
@TessaAkerman

Lawyers representing George Pell have demanded an apology and retraction from Fairfax and The Guardian over articles ­repeating child sexual abuse alle­gations made in a new book ­described by the cardinal as a “character assassination”.

The legal demands were sent to the media outlets at the weekend after a book made a series of allegations against Cardinal Pell over his role in the sex abuse scandal engulfing the Catholic Church.

They include unsubstantiated claims of wrongdoing by Cardinal Pell, who has stridently rejected any misconduct.

The articles published at the weekend reported allegations made in ABC journalist Louise Milligan’s book Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell, published by MUP.

In a statement to The Australian last night, a spokesman for the cardinal responded by saying: “Each and every allegation of abuse and cover up against him is false. The book is an exercise in character assassination.

“The decision by MUP to bring forward the publication of the book prior to any findings by the royal commission and while allegations are still under consideration by the Victorian Office of Public Prosecutions is a blatant attempt to interfere in the course of justice.

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RHODE ISLAND/MASSACHUSETTS
Providence Journal

By Jacqueline Tempera
Journal Staff Writer

BOSTON — Former priest Howard W. White pleaded guilty to five counts of assault and battery for his abuse of a student with whom he twice traveled from St. George’s School in Middletown, R.I., to Boston in the 1970s.

TIMELINE:

White, 75, is one of six named perpetrators in the sex-abuse scandal that has consumed the Episcopal prep school since 2015. He was the subject of a Journal investigation that showed White has left a trail of sex-abuse allegations spanning more than four decades.

The Boston abuse happened when White befriended a male student, who 15 or 16 years old during his time at St. George’s School, according to Jake Wark, a spokesman for Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley. The victim, who chooses to remain unnamed, says White lured him with fancy dinners, movies, and his Porsche.

White raped the boy in Boston hotel rooms, prosecutors said. When the boy confronted White, then an assistant chaplain, asking him to stop, White said: “I’ll tell you what. It’s not going to stop. If you try to stop, I’ll make your life difficult,” according to prosecutors.

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MICHIGAN
WLNS

OKEMOS, Mich. (WLNS) – A 66-year-old Okemos priest was arrested over the weekend and charged Monday afternoon with embezzlement of $100,000 or more. He was charged in the 55th District Court.

Rev. Jonathan Wehrle was a pastor at St. Martha Parish.

He was released on a $5,000 bond earlier today. Wehrle’s next court date is set for May 25.

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NEW YORK
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

By Rob Abruzzese, Legal Editor
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Ama Dwimoh, a candidate in Brooklyn’s district attorney race in the fall, held a press conference near the steps of Borough Hall on Friday afternoon to call upon New York lawmakers and Gov. Andrew Cuomo to pass the Child Victims Act (CVA).

“We are here to demand that the state Legislature pass the Child Victims Act so that thousands of brave men and women who are survivors of child sexual abuse can finally get their justice,” said Dwimoh, who created the Crimes Against Children Bureau at the Brooklyn DA’s Office.

The CVA would give survivors of child sexual abuse older than 23 a one-year window to file civil charges against their abusers, and it would eliminate the statute of limitations for any future cases in both criminal and civil court. It would also remove a 90-day notice of claim for public institutions that help to shield them from liability.

“One in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused as children in New York state,” Dwimoh said. “That’s a problem. More than half of the sexually abused children live in the same household as their abusers, and many are financially dependent on their abusers well into their 20s.

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NEW YORK
Troy Record

By Sarah J. Burger
For Digital First Media

Nearly one year ago I published an article titled “Call to Action: Protect our children, not predators.” Unfortunately, in 2016 New York again chose predators by failing to pass the Child Victims Act. With just over one month remaining in the current legislative session, the state legislature needs to choose our children.

Presently, there are bills pending in the Assembly and Senate to eliminate the time restrictions in criminal and civil actions to prosecute certain sex offenses committed against a child less than 18 years of age. Under current law a victim of child sex abuse has only until age 23 to bring a case against their perpetrator. Since victims of childhood sex abuse do not come to terms with their abuse until well into adulthood this protects the predator and leaves many victims without recourse.

The proposed bills eliminate the time limit or statute of limitations to commence childhood sex abuse cases for future cases and allows a one year retrospective window to lift the statute of limitations on past cases to allow adult survivors to seek civil damages. New York remains one of a few states nationwide to have not enacted similar legislation. The most powerful lobby against the Child Victims Act is the Catholic Church who historically had covered up child sex abuse by shuffling the clergy predator from parish to parish. In the fall of 2016, the Archdiocese of New York announced an “independent program” to investigate sex abuse claims and compensate sex abuse victims in exchange for their silence and release of all claims against the Church. The timing is not a coincidence because the Catholic Church has initiated similar programs in other States whenever statute of limitations reform makes significant progress.

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NEW YORK
Newsday

Updated May 15, 2017

By Marci A. Hamilton and Kathryn Robb

THE BOTTOM LINE
* New York State needs to extend its too-short statutes of limitations.

New York is among the worst states in the United States for justice for child sex-abuse victims. That is because its statutes of limitations are prohibitively short.

While much of the country was expanding statutes of limitations in the past 25 years, New York has stood still. Victims must sue the perpetrator by age 23 and a responsible institution by age 21. There is no limit for the victim who seeks to press charges for rape but for most other child sex crimes, the victim has until the age of 23. These time periods are too short.

New York’s statute creates groups of victims:

Group 1: This includes those whose claims have expired — the vast majority of the state’s victims.

Group 2: This includes children who are being sexually assaulted now, so their claims are still live, but odds are that they will be unable to press charges or sue before the statute expires. It takes most victims into their 30s, 40s and 50s before they are ready to come forward. Some never do.

Group 3: This is the largest, and it includes the New York public, which knows less about existing child predators than most every other state in the country. Only Alabama, Michigan, and Mississippi statute of limitations laws are as bad.

The average citizen may ask, quite fairly, what takes these victims so long to come forward? The answer: It is the way the brain processes trauma, or, rather, what happens when it can’t. It’s no good blaming a victim for not coming forward when he or she can’t; the predator has paralyzed the voice of the victim.

Simply, sexual predators cause harm that leads to silence and confusion — and New York law punishes the victims for the silence and trauma predators caused, and that leads to more harm. This is a vicious cycle in which predators are the only winners.

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CONNECTICUT
New Haven Independent

by CHRISTOPHER PEAK | May 15, 2017

Hartford — Defense attorneys for Rabbi Daniel Greer tried to prohibit a blogger who has intensely chronicled Greer’s sexual abuse case from entering a courtroom here — by misrepresenting a legal document.

William Ward, a Litchfield attorney, told a judge here that the rabbi’s legal team had obtained a restraining order against Lawrence S. Dressler, the author of at least 185 online posts about Greer.

In fact, the lawyers had only recently turned in their application for a protective order; a hearing on the matter was still 11 days away.

“Next time, read it more carefully,” Michael P. Shea, the presiding U.S. District Court judge, admonished Ward, shaking his head in noticeable frustration.

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RHODE ISLAND
Daily Mail (UK)

By Associated Press and Ariel Zilber For Dailymail.com

A former Episcopal priest who worked at an elite Rhode Island boarding school has pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a student during trips to Boston in 1973.

Prosecutors say Howard White Jr., who was stripped of his priesthood by the Episcopal Church, received an 18-month sentence.

Prosecutors say the now 75-year-old White assaulted the boy during two overnight trips to Boston when the boy was 15 and 16, and White worked at St. George’s School in Middletown, Rhode Island.

White, of Bedford, Pennsylvania, was freed on personal recognizance after pleading not guilty in December.

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UNITED STATES
Legal Examiner

Posted by Mark Bello
May 15, 2017

Many of my readers know that I recently wrote the book, “Betrayal of Faith“. Some of you may have already read it; thank you and I hope you enjoyed it. For those that are not familiar with the book, “Betrayal of Faith” is a fictional account of two teenage clergy abuse victims and their mother who hire a lawyer, file a lawsuit and begin a “David vs. Goliath” legal battle, seeking justice against a corrupt church. The book is based loosely on an actual case I handled toward the end of the 20th Century. In this legal thriller, the Church defends the case vigorously and dispatches “The Coalition”, a clandestine internal organization within the church. “The Coalition” and its mysterious leader orchestrate a conspiracy to cover-up the priest’s prior misconduct and thwart, by any means necessary, all attempts at holding the church accountable in a court of law. In the book, The Coalition will stop at nothing, even criminal activity.

Fast forward to today, a typical day in Minnesota in the 21st century. Such cases of clerical abuse still occur, but now there is an additional problem on the rise – a real-life “Coalition” is trying to cover up transgressions of the past. As I read the following case I wondered, does fact mimic fiction in our 21st century courtrooms?

A man on the verge of being ordained a Church deacon has filed a lawsuit against a Minnesota bishop and diocese on the grounds of blackmail and coercion. The case represents the first time that a U.S. bishop has been individually sued for coercion by a victim.

In 2010, the victim visited with the bishop in question to explore how he would go about becoming a deacon. At that time, he told the Bishop about having been molested by a priest at the age of 16. According to the current lawsuit, the Bishop advised him to tell no one, suggesting that the truth would damage that priest’s reputation. This intimidation led to silence, while the mane continued with his deaconate program. Consequently during this time, his son was ordained a priest.

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SCOTLAND
Irvine Times

A retired priest is to stand trial accused of historical sex abuse.

Francis Moore, 81, faced the allegations during a hearing at the High Court in Glasgow last week.

One boy is said to have been attacked at a primary school in North Ayrshire while a second was allegedly abused at a leisure centre.

It is claimed a third boy was a victim at Irvine Beach.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Associated Press

BOSTON (AP) — A former Episcopal priest who worked at an elite Rhode Island boarding school has pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a student during trips to Boston in 1973.

Prosecutors say Howard White Jr., who was stripped of his priesthood by the Episcopal Church, received an 18-month sentence.

Prosecutors say the now 75-year-old White assaulted the boy during two overnight trips to Boston when the boy was 15 and 16, and White worked at St. George’s School in Middletown, Rhode Island.

White, of Bedford, Pennsylvania, was freed on personal recognizance after pleading not guilty in December.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Tom Roberts | May. 15, 2017

The Knights of Columbus refused to answer specific questions about data on its Form 990 tax filings and turned down an invitation to have the organization’s leader address issues raised by the documents. But a spokesman issued a lengthy, seven-point justification for the organization’s activity as well as an assessment of NCR’s journalistic intentions and how our reporters might better spend their time.

In preparing the story, NCR submitted to the Knights a list of questions seeking more details about entries lacking description on the Form 990 filings and other details regarding the filings. The Knights of Columbus was also asked to provide some further details about the compensation of Supreme Knight Carl Anderson, as detailed in the main story. Spokesman Joseph Cullen responded with a terse line or two saying the organization followed the law and that it did not discuss tax filings.

The much longer email response came when NCR sought an interview with Anderson through Cullen and sent an email describing the comments about the Knights by Catholic historians Massimo Faggioli of Villanova University and David O’Brien, long-time historian and social analyst, retired from College of the Holy Cross. Because they were not named in the email, Cullen presumed they were anonymously cited.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Tom Roberts | May. 15, 2017

WASHINGTON
The Irish Catholics who poured into the United States by the hundreds of thousands in the mid-19th century, hoping to escape famine and professing a faith that was despised by many, strained to gain a toehold in a hostile culture.

The Knights of Columbus was born out of that struggle, one of a spate of fraternal and beneficial organizations to emerge in Catholic circles in an effort to provide protection and a path to assimilation into a new country. Founded in 1882, the Knights’ original mission was to save women and children from poverty through an insurance program.

But today, one wonders what Fr. Michael McGivney, the charismatic young priest who founded the Knights of Columbus in a church basement in New Haven, Connecticut, would make of his organization. Almost 2 million men call themselves Knights of Columbus, and the organization reported revenues of more than $2.2 billion in 2015, the latest year such information is available. Moreover, in the past decade, the organization has donated $1.55 billion to charity, according to the Knights.

Much of the Knights’ influence occurs behind the scenes, but it’s not hidden. Most of it is contained on tax forms that are public and that nonprofits are required to file annually. The data in this report is largely contained in Knights of Columbus’ 990 tax forms filed for the years 2013, 2014 and 2015, as well as from news releases and other statements contained on the organization’s website. While no simple means exists to measure the effect of the Knights’ spending, there is hardly a corner of the Catholic world where the resources of this international force have not left an impression.

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UNITED STATES
Roman Catholic Diocese of Raleigh

This morning, it was announced that Father Bernard E. Shlesinger, III, a priest of the Diocese of Raleigh, will be ordained a bishop and will serve as Auxiliary Bishop for the Archdiocese of Atlanta.

Below is the public announcement released by Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory of the Archdiocese of Atlanta:

With deep gratitude, I want to thank His Holiness Pope Francis for the appointment of The Reverend Bernard E. Shlesinger, III, a Priest of the Diocese of Raleigh as an Auxiliary Bishop of Atlanta. Bishop-Elect Shlesinger [Ned] comes to us from a diocese within the Ecclesiastical Province of Atlanta where he has longed enjoyed the endorsement of the bishops of our Province and the well-deserved respect, admiration, and affection of the clergy, religious, and faithful of the Diocese of Raleigh. I warmly welcome him to the Archdiocese of Atlanta and I look forward to working with him in service to this local Church.

Ned is a man of prayer, prudence, and apostolic zeal. He has served in many different capacities within the Diocese of Raleigh as a Pastor, Vocation Director, Member of the Presbyteral Council, and recently as Director of Spiritual Formation for Saint Charles Borromeo Theologate in Philadelphia. He is eminently qualified to assume these new responsibilities as Auxiliary Bishop in Atlanta and I welcome him with an enthusiastic and jubilant heart. I am certain that we all will come to know and love him and discover how truly fortunate we are to have been sent this man of faith and pastoral skill.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Pope Francis has appointed Father Bernard E. Shlesinger III, a priest of the Diocese of Raleigh, North Carolina, to be an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Atlanta.

Bishop-designate Shlesinger, 56, is currently the director of spiritual formation at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia.

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UNITED STATES/IRELAND
Irish Independent

Aoife Kelly
May 15 2017

A priest who moved to Ireland from the US in the mid 1990s has been linked to the murder of a nun in Netflix’s new documentary The Keepers.

The seven part series, which debuts on the streaming site on Friday, examines the unsolved murder of Catholic nun Sister Cathy Cesnik, in Baltimore in 1969.

Nobody has ever been charged despite a lead emerging in the 1990s when one of her former students at Keough High School came forward to claim she was sexually abused by the high school’s chaplain Father Joseph Maskell.

She also revealed that she was taken to see Sister Cathy’s undiscovered body and was told, ‘See what happens when you say bad things about people.’

Police believe she was murdered to prevent her revealing abuse at the school.

In The Keepers director Ryan White goes beyond the murder and uncovers clergy abuse, repressed memories and government and religious institutions that he says “at best, dropped the ball over the last 45 years – and, at worst, covered it up.”

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AUSTRALIA
thereelbits.com

Summary
4.0 stars

A deeply thoughtful examination of the persistence of truth and the way the legal system puts the victim on trial in this moving and impeccably cast drama.

While 2015’s Oscar winning Spotlight explored the journalistic investigation into child sex abuse in the Boston area by numerous Roman Catholic priests, Australia’s own disgraces had only recently been brought to light. The 2013 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard hundreds of tales of systemic cover ups of the crimes of child abusers.

Over a decade before, lawyer Stephen Roche represented a young woman who was abused while in the care of an Anglican preparatory school. This landmark case formed the basis of his subsequent book, and the inspiration for director Tori Garrett’s debut feature DON’T TELL. Following the suicide death of a former client, Roche (Aden Young) is initially reluctant to involve himself in the case of the troubled Lyndal (Sara West), but together they doggedly take on the Church in a quest for justice.

Earnestly told, the strength of DON’T TELL is in its unwavering commitment to the notion of truth. A few bits of legal terminology notwithstanding, the story is told through the accurate lens of a legal procedural. Like an extended episode of Law & Order: SVU, albeit told in a far less formulaic manner, the reality of the adversarial system and unreliable witnesses play an important role in the pursuit of justice. Yet the structure of the film never allows the Chruch’s defence barrister (Jacqueline McKenzie) to become the villain of the piece, with that role falling on the administrators of Lyndal’s school and perhaps more broadly on the system at large.

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GUAM
Pacific News Center

Written by Donna De Jesus

Former St. Anthony Catholic School music teacher, Ray Caluag, is the latest offender named in the recent complaint.

Guam – After 65 reported lawsuits against the church, the 66th is the first to file a child sex abuse complaint against a Catholic school and a former teacher.

There’s strength in numbers, and more abuse victims are finding the courage to speak out about the once-unspeakable acts that were committed against them when they were innocent children frozen into silence.

Last week saw a total of 65 child sex abuse lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Agana and former clergymen. Yesterday, another complaint was filed, but this time, a former Catholic school teacher was named as the offender.

Ray Caluag was a music, drama, and religion teacher at St. Anthony Catholic School, an Archdiocese of Agana-run elementary and middle school supervised by the Sisters of Mercy.

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NEW MEXICO
Albuquerque Journal

By Olivier Uyttebrouck / Journal Staff Writer
Monday, May 15th, 2017

A Bernalillo County man alleges in a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Santa Fe that he was sexually abused as a boy by two priests in the late 1980s at a South Valley church.

The lawsuit alleges that the Rev. Edward Donelan and the Rev. Laurier Labreche abused him while he served as an altar boy at Church of the Ascension Parish in Albuquerque.

The alleged abuse began in 1989 when the man, identified only as John Doe 66, began serving as an altar boy and continued until he was 13, according to the lawsuit, which was filed last month in 2nd Judicial District Court in Albuquerque.

It is the latest of 66 lawsuits filed by Albuquerque attorney Brad Hall against the archdiocese alleging clergy sexual abuse.

Attempts by the Journal to contact Labreche were unsuccessful. Public records list Labreche as an Albuquerque resident, but no one answered the door at the listed residence this week. Nor did anyone respond to a written message left at the house.

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IRELAND/UNITED STATES
The Times (UK)

Sean O’Driscoll
May 15 2017
The Times

A defrocked priest who fled from the United States to Ireland to escape murder and sexual abuse allegations worked as a psychologist in Co Wexford, the Ferns diocese has said.

A file compiled by the diocese on Joseph Maskell shows that he had a contract with the local health board to provide counselling services, according to Father Joseph Carroll, a spokesman for the Ferns diocese.

He also posed a priest and said Mass in Wexford, even though he had been stripped of his ministry.

The archdiocese of Baltimore, Maryland, last year paid out compensation to 11 women who said that Maskell sexually abused them while he was offering psychological and career counselling at their high school. In 1994, Maryland police found a box of the girls’ psychological reports that Maskell buried in the grounds in a Catholic cemetery, after a tip off from the cemetery groundskeeper. The Baltimore archdiocese stripped him of his ministry as a result.

Maskell, who fled to Ireland in 1995, is a suspect in the murder of Sister Catherine Ann Cesnik, whose body was found in Maryland in 1970.

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IRELAND/UNITED STATES
Irish Mirror

A priest based in Ireland in the 90s is the subject of a new Netflix documentary linking him to a nun’s murder.

The late Father Joseph Maskell arrived here in 1994 after fleeing the US as he was about to be arrested on child abuse charges.

Police investigating the 1969 slaying of Sister Catherine Ann Cesnik in Baltimore exhumed his body in February with DNA results expected this summer.

The Keepers, which will premiere on Friday, was directed by Ryan White and he claims both government and religious institutions “at best dropped the ball over the last 45 years – and, at worst, covered it up”.

He also said it was “chilling” to think Fr Maskell could have been around children in Ireland.

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GUAM
KUAM

Updated: May 15, 2017

By Krystal Paco

A 64th victim files suit against the Church for child sex abuse – not against a priest, but a teacher.

And a teacher who reportedly still works with children, just not in Guam. Filed in the District Court of Guam on Sunday night, 35-year-old B.W.J. alleges it was in December of 1993 when he was sexually molested by St. Anthony School music and religion teacher Ray Caluag.

According to the complaint, B.W.J. was only 11-years-old when the teacher was supposed to drop him home from an after school rehearsal. Instead of going straight home, they made a stop at the teacher’s house. Inside the room, the boy was instructed to lay on the bed where the teacher allegedly spooned, caressed, and groped and fondled him before masturbating and digitally penetrating the seventh grader.

The teacher told him not to tell anyone because “parents and others wouldn’t understand the type of love I have for my students.” After the incident, B.W.J. distanced himself from the teacher and went to a new school the following year.

The complaint lists the Archdiocese of Agana, St. Anthony Catholic School, and Ray Caluag as defendants. Represented by attorney David Lujan, B.W.J. is suing for $5 million.

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GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

Mindy Aguon | For The Guam Daily Post May 15, 2017

“Parents and others wouldn’t understand the type of love I have for my students.” – Ray Caluag, quoted in a recently filed sex-abuse lawsuit

After more than 60 sex-abuse lawsuits named former priests as alleged perpetrators, a new lawsuit accuses a former Guam Catholic school teacher for the first time in recent years.

And unlike the previously filed cases, in which the former priests no longer hold positions in the church that directly involve children, the newly accused still teaches music to youth, but he’s no longer in Guam.

This latest Guam case was filed yesterday by a 35-year-old man against former St. Anthony Catholic School teacher Ray Caluag, the school, and the Archdiocese of Agana, which has jurisdiction over the Catholic school.

The plaintiff, identified through his initials, B.W.J., filed the lawsuit electronically in the District Court of Guam.

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MAINE
Morning Sentinel

BY KATE MCCORMICK
MORNING SENTINEL

WATERVILLE — A week after the sudden removal of Rev. Larry Jensen, longtime priest at St. Joseph Maronite Catholic Church on Appleton Street, parishioners struggle to reconcile the allegations that led to his ouster with the man they came to know over the last decade.

Jensen, 62, was relieved of his duties last week following a “substantiated” allegation of sexual abuse of a minor 15 years ago in Connecticut, according to Michael Thomas, vicar general of the Eparchy of Saint Maron of Brooklyn, New York. On a cold, rainy Sunday, members of the St. Joseph’s congregation expressed shock and sadness over Jensen’s abrupt departure.

“He wasn’t just a standoffish priest,” said Margaret May Lambert, who, along with her mother, has attended St. Joseph’s since 2013. “He was family to a lot of us.”

Little is known about the accusations against Jensen except that the alleged male victim was 17 years old at the time of the incident and did not attend the St. Anthony Maronite Catholic Church in Danbury, Conn., where Jensen served for eight years before coming to Waterville, according to Thomas. When confronted about the alleged abuse, Jensen neither admitted nor denied it, though he did say this was an isolated incident. As of last week, Thomas said he had received no additional sexual abuse complaints regarding Jensen.

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RHODE ISLAND/MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

By Cristela Guerra GLOBE STAFF MAY 15, 2017

A former associate chaplain at St. George’s School in Rhode Island has pleaded guilty to molesting a student during trips to Boston in 1973. Howard White Jr., who was also accused of sexual abuse in three other states and stripped of his priesthood by the Episcopal Church, received an 18-month sentence, according to Jake Wark, spokesman for the Suffolk County district attorney’s office.

Officials in the Suffolk District Attorney’s Office said last year that the charges against White grew out of a Rhode Island State Police investigation into allegations of sexual assault and sexual misconduct by former faculty and students at the elite prep school in Middletown, R.I., going back to 1970. He was arraigned in Suffolk Superior Court last December.

“The parties came to an agreement on a plea and sentence that we thought was fair,” said David Duncan, White’s defense attorney.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail (UK)

AFP

Vatican finance chief George Pell accused sections of the Australian media of interfering in the course of justice Monday as he denied new child sex abuse allegations.

Pell, Australia’s most senior Catholic cleric, was interviewed in Rome by Australian police last October over historical sex assault claims against him. No charges have yet been laid.

It coincided with the final stages of a long-running national inquiry into institutional responses to child sex abuse. Pell has appeared before the royal commission three times, once in person and twice via video-link.

During his evidence, he admitted he “mucked up” in dealing with paedophile priests in Victoria state in the 1970s.

A book by investigative journalist Louise Milligan, “Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell”, now includes fresh details on allegations against him, and new information claiming a cover-up within the Catholic Church.

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GUAM
KUAM

Updated: May 15, 2017

By Krystal Paco

Rain or shine, there’s no stopping the picket line. Dozens of protestors continued their march to have now suspended Archbishop Anthony Apuron defrocked. Sunday’s picket marks the 46th week of Sunday protests outside the Hagatna Cathedral. Laity Forward Movement’s Therese Tayama has been with the group since its inception.

“I’m still here because a little over a year ago there was just a group of us with one purpose in mind, and that was to bring change and progress to our church, and those changes are happening now and we must continue on because we can see that this is going to be, this is going to bring about what is much needed and that’s why I’m here,” said Tayama.

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SCOTLAND
Sunday Post

Written by Gordon Blackstock, 15 May 2017

VICTIMS who claim they suffered horrific sexual abuse at a Scots school have been snubbed by an official inquiry – despite being backed by the PM who said they helped set it up.

When she was Home Secretary, Theresa May wrote to a former pupil of Fort Augustus Abbey school to thank him for his “invaluable” help setting up the English Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in 2015.

But the evidence of former Scottish pupils like him who attended that infamous boarding school is now unlikely to be heard at the powerful inquiry in London.

Last week, Fort Augustus Abbey was left off the list of schools to be examined by the IICSA later this year.

The snub has prompted fury among those who claim their lives were ruined by what they experienced at the boarding school.

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