ABUSE TRACKER

INDIA
Kaumudi

KANNUR: The Thalassery court has set aside the petition given by the investigation team for getting the custody of Fr Robin Wadakkumchery, the main accused in the Kottiyur sexual abuse case. The plea will be considered tomorrow; it was not considered by the court, citing the negligence in attaching the affidavit to the petition.

The court has also postponed to March 14, the anticipatory bail plea submitted by three accused in the case.

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CANADA
The Suburban

By P.A. Sevigny
The Suburban

Following his third arrest on assorted sex charges that are alleged to have been committed between 1994 and 2011, police investigators now believe 56 year-old Brian Boucher – a Catholic priest – may have assaulted several more boys (minors) over the past decade and they want to hear about it. As of last week’s court appearance, Boucher now stands accused of sexual interference, sexual contact, sexual assault and at least one ‘break and enter’ after which he was released under very strict conditions and forbidden to be in the presence of minors.

When the police first began to hear allegations about the priest’s activities during the summer of 2015, they began to investigate assorted complaints with the full cooperation of the Archdiocese of Montreal. However, as Boucher was still a working priest in Montreal’s Town of Mount Royal when he was recently arrested, people want to know what the diocese knew about Boucher and why they continued to move him around from parish to parish all over the island during the twenty years that preceded his arrest. As Boucher worked out of churches located in Senneville, Dorval and Lasalle from 1985 to 2015, police have reason to believe that the priest may have assaulted several of his victims long before there were any questions raised about the priest’s erratic behavior – especially when he was working with children.

According to SPVM media spokesman Benoit Boiselle, Boucher was first arrested, then released (with conditions) back in January with a promise to appear back in court at a later date. Following more complaints, he was once again arrested after which he was relieved of his duties and sent to live in a convent in the east end of the city where he will remain until his trial. In a statement released last week following the Boucher arrest, Bishop Alain Faubert repeated that the Catholic Church had a ‘zero tolerance’ policy towards any kind of abuse, and that it offered its full cooperation with the police once it was aware of the allegations that were being made against Father Boucher.

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INDIA
The News Minute

The fact that an intricate network of multiple organisations spanning across two districts is working to thwart the investigation is clear.

Haritha John
Megha Varier

Wednesday, March 08, 2017

Ten days after the police arrested Fr. Robin Vadakkumchery, prime accused in the rape and subsequent impregnation of a 16-year-old girl from Kannur district, and with just one day to go for his judicial custody to end, the Kerala police is still trying to arrest the remaining seven accused in the case. These seven people include five nuns, an administrator and pediatrician at the hospital run by the church.

While Fr. Robin is the prime accused in the case, all the others have been booked for covering up the rape, pregnancy and delivery.

The police investigation so far has revealed that a network of various Christian institutions carefully planned and covered up the crime – to save their own face, and to save one of their own.

And as the investigation progresses, the fact that an intricate network of multiple organisations spanning across two districts is working to thwart the investigation is clear.

Although the police team has combed a number of convents in the district, police sources told The News Minute that they are facing “practical difficulties” with regard to arresting the remaining accused.

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OHIO
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Robert A. Stricker was ordained for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati in 1948. After two years of study in Rome he returned to Cincinnati, where he assisted at St. William’s in Price Hill and taught at Elder High School. In the mid-1950s he was a student of library science for a year at Catholic University in Washington DC. He went on to work for many years as a librarian for the Cincinnati archdiocese. In 1974 Stricker was assigned to parish work, as an assistant in White Oak and, from 1997 until his retirement in 1993, he was pastor of St. Boniface in Northside. He regularly celebrated mass during retirement at St. Theresa’s in Mount Airy.

In 1993 a man told archdiocesan officials that Stricker had sexually abused him as a boy in the 1950s at St. William’s. The allegations were deemed unsubstatiated and Stricker was kept in ministry. His accuser came forward again in May 2008, with additional information. Bishop Pilarczyk stated that the allegations had “some semblance of truth.” Stricker was placed on leave. An internal investigation found again that the allegations could not be substantiated and Stricker was returned to ministry in July 2008.

Ordained: 1948
Retired: 1993

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Amy Molloy
March 8 2017

A mother has spoken out about the heartbreaking experience of losing her baby son – and how it took 34 years to get his death cert.

Kathleen Byrne, who is now 70, went into a maternity ward in Airmount Hospital in Waterford to have her second baby in 1966.

She went into labour while going to the bathroom and her baby fell down the toilet.

From then on, she claimed the nurses and a Sister Barbara in the hospital “took over everything”.

A week went by and Kathleen was told her son had “taken a turn” – the nurses sent for a priest and he was christened Patrick.

Nobody would tell her what was wrong with Patrick and he was sent to Dublin for a “minor procedure”.

She never saw Patrick again.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Today

James Macintyre 08 March 2017

A right-wing Catholic commentator has dismissed the Tuam mother and baby home atrocity as ‘fake news’, as the Irish Prime Minister said the home was a ‘chamber of horrors’.

Bill Donohue of the Catholic League in New York contradicted bishops as well as politicians by writing that accounts of up to 800 dead babies at the home in County Galway are a ‘lie’ and a ‘hoax’.

‘It was a lie in 2014 and it is a lie in 2017,’ he said. ‘There is no evidence of a mass grave outside a home for unmarried women operated by nuns in Tuam, Ireland, near Galway, in the 20th century. The hoax is now back again, and an obliging media are running with the story as if it were true.’

The comments come as the Irish Taoiseach Enda Kenny said the discovery represented a mass grave and ‘a social and cultural sepulchre’.

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IRELAND
The Journal

Updated 3.40pm

CATHERINE CORLESS HAS said she believes more remains of babies and children are likely to be buried under a playground near the former site of a mother and baby home in Tuam, Co Galway.

Galway County Council (GCC) has said there is no record to indicate any human remains were discovered during the construction of a housing estate adjacent to the former Bon Secours home in the 1970s.

In a statement to TheJournal.ie, the local authority also said there are no records of the discovery of human remains during the subsequent development of a playground at the site.

The council added that all relevant records have been made available to the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Michael O’Regan, Eoghan MacConnell

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said he sees no reason why an interim report from the Commission on Mother and Baby Homes to the Government should not be published.

Mr Kenny said he had not read the report which had been submitted to Minister for Children Katherine Zappone some time ago.

That report was furnished months before a statement from the commission last Friday in which it said it was “shocked” by the discovery of human remains of a significant number of babies and infants up to three years of age on the site of the former mother and baby home in Tuam, Co Galway. These were found during a test excavation carried out between last November and February.
Heated exchanges

The Taoiseach was responding in the Dáil to Independent TD Catherine Connolly amid heated exchanges during which she claimed he was insulting the women of Ireland.

“I am as committed as anybody else to seeing that we deal with this once and for all,” Mr Kenny responded.

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IRELAND
Meath Chronicle

Wednesday, 8th March, 2017

Story by Gavan Becton

OPINION: Time to rethink St Patrick’s Day in wake of Mother & Baby Home scandals
Just over a week from now, St Patrick’s Day will bring hundreds of thousands of citizens onto the streets and into the pubs to celebrate our Irishness, our heritage and our culture.

Enda Kenny will be on hand at the White House to present his last bowl of shamrock to the new American President Donald Trump while our cabinet ministers will scatter to the four corners of the world to bear witness to the greatest marketing exercise a country could ever hope to have.

But surely this year it must ring all so hollow and vacuous. Wearing silly hats, waving plastic shamrocks and cheering on the marching bands will all seem well, just wrong. Especially now.
The devastating revelations from the Mother and Baby Homes Commission investigation have been truly horrendous to read. And we’re told the discoveries in Tuam are just the ‘tip of the iceberg’. There could be upwards of 4,000 babies buried – or discarded – in unmarked graves and pits of institutions across the country, Paul Redmond, chairman of the Coalition of Mother and Baby Home Survivors said this week.

The investigating Commission chairman, Judge Yvonne Murphy described the extent of the horror unearthed at Tuam as “shocking.”

It’s against that backdrop that you try to imagine a public sickened to the core by events hidden in plain sight in recent decades wanting to dance a jig and proclaim to the world how wonderful it is to be Irish.

Maybe St Patrick’s Day should be an occasion for the Irish people to take a more introspective look at what happened here in our very recent past and reclaim 17th March in memory of all those tragic infants and their mothers – those who never stood a chance under a regime that visited unspeakable horror on them while masquerading as humble servants of God.

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IRELAND
Hot Press

08 Mar 2017
Niall Stokes

We Cannot Exonerate The Catholic Church In Relation To The Tuam Babies
Confirmation of the fact that the remains of hundreds of babies were buried in a so called ‘Mother and Baby’ home in Tuam, Co. Galway is testament to just how sick the attitude to sexuality promulgated by the dominant Church in Ireland really was. In special edition of The Message, on International Women’s Day, Hot Press editor, Niall Stokes reflects on an issue that has provoked outrage and anger.

So now we know. Catherine Corless was right.

A local historian from Tuam, in Co. Galway, Catherine had heard the stories about children dying and being placed in undocumented graves in the ‘mother and baby’ home in the town. It niggled away inside her, the feeling that it was wrong, that a terrible injustice had been done to the children who had died. And besides, what is history, if it isn’t about establishing the truth about what happened in the past? Would it not be right to establish their names and to erect a memorial plaque? She decided to start digging.

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IRELAND
Newstalk

8 Mar 2017
Kenneth Fox

President Michael D Higgins has called the recent findings of human remains in Tuam, a necessary step in “blowing open the locked doors of a hidden Ireland”.

Speaking at a reception to celebrate International Women’s Day 2017, President Higgins dedicated some time in his speech to the recent findings in Tuam.

Mr Higgins said “there are dark shadows that hang over our meeting, shadows that require us all to summon up yet again a light that might dispel the darkness to which so many women and their children were condemned, and the questions left unanswered as we moved on.

“The recent horrifying revelations of a mass grave of babies in Tuam, discovered as a result of the relentless work of local historian, Catherine Corless, is another necessary step in blowing open the locked doors of a hidden Ireland.

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IRELAND
Galway Bay FM

Galway Bay fm newsroom – The President is commending local historian Catherine Corless for her work in exposing the Tuam babies scandal.

Speaking at an International Womens’ Day reception at Aras an Uachtarain, Michael D Higgins described last week’s revelations of a mass grave at a former mother and baby home in the town as horrifying.

The President says he hopes the commission of inquiry into Mother and Baby homes will put the truth on the record.

He says he’d like to see it do so in a way that respects the memory of these children, their families, and their mothers.

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IRELAND
Breaking News

Update 7.40pm: There are calls for tests to be carried out in Tuam, where the Bon Secours sisters ran a hospital.

RTÉ reports that there are calls for the tests to be carried out at a former burial site as the HSE has secured approval for extensive works at the old Grove hospital in Tuam.

Claims have been made that children were buried on the site from 1950 to 1970.

The area is a different location to the former Mother and Baby home in the town.

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INDIA
The Hindu

The police on Wednesday arrested a youth under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act 2012 on charges of sexually assaulting a minor girl in the district.

According to the police, Sijo George,23, who was the coordinator of the Kerala Catholic Youth Movement under the Mananthavadi diocese, had allegedly molested a 16-year-old girl .

As a the coordinator of the movement, the accused sexually assaulted the girl who was brilliant in studies and she became pregnant, the police said. Sijo resigned from the post on March 3 after the vicar of of his parish directed him to resign when the inciden came to light, the police added.

The girl gave birth to a child at a private hospital in Kozhikode on December 28. Later the baby was shifted to an adoption centre under a church in Kozhikode district promising her family that the youth would marry the girl when she turned 18 years.

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INDIA
Kaumudi

MANANTHAVADY: Not long after the news of Fr Robin Wadakkumchery sending shock waves across the State, another startling news emerged from Manathavady diocese on Wednesday evening – a minor girl from Panmaram in Wayanad was allegedly abused and impregnated by Kerala Catholic Youth Movement (KCYM) diocese coordinator.

Based on a complaint, police took KCYM coordinator Sijo George into police custody. “The victim delivered a baby three months ago and the new born is now in a Kozhikode Orphanage,” the police said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Record

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

As we enter into the season of Lent this year, we do so immediately after the conclusion of the final hearing into the Catholic Church of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual abuse.

I recently issued a Pastoral Letter to our Catholic community in relation to this matter, and I would encourage you to read it if you can. Among the many urgent questions raised by this shocking reality of sexual abuse in our Church is the “how” question. How could this possibly have happened in a Church which is supposed to be the “salt of the earth and the light of the world”? How could clergy and religious, who were supposed to be living signs of the presence of the Lord among his people, betray this trust so cruelly and so comprehensively? How could people to whom we entrusted our children in schools and other Church settings cause so much pain?

There are many complex answers to these confronting questions. I will not rehearse them here. The Royal Commission has brought them out into the open and they must now be dealt with. One that perhaps has not yet been fully considered is the spiritual cause of this tragedy. It is this that I would invite you to reflect on as we enter our Lenten journey together in 2017.

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ILLINOIS
Northern Public Radio

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan testified in support of Senate Bill 189. It would eliminate the statute of limitations for child abuse and assault crimes.

She cited the case of former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who was convicted in a hush-money scheme related to several boys he admitted to molesting while a high school wrestling coach. Madigan said Hastert inflicted “unbelievable pain” on the youth he molested at the school, and only got a “slap on the wrist.”

She also said it can take abuse victims several years to come forward.

“We should never be in a position where a police officer or prosecutor tells an adult who survived a childhood sexual assault, and has courageously come forward, that there is no possibility of holding the offender accountable.”

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ILLINOIS
WSIU

AP

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, citing the actions of former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, is pushing for the elimination of statutes of limitations on child abuse and assault crimes.

Madigan on Tuesday testified before the Senate Criminal Law Committee in support of Senate Bill 189, which the committee passed and sent on to the full Senate for consideration. She said children who suffer sexual assault and abuse often spend a lifetime recovering from the violations.

Madigan said Hastert inflicted “unbelievable pain” on the youth he molested at the school where he coached wrestling before entering politics. She adds he only got a “slap on the wrist.”

The 75-year-old is serving a 15-month sentence in federal prison for violating banking laws as he sought to silence one of his victims with hush money.

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ILLINOIS
Capitol Fax

Wednesday, Mar 8, 2017

* From a press release received last night…

Attorney General Lisa Madigan today urged members of the Illinois Senate’s Criminal Law Committee to pass legislation to eliminate the statutes of limitations for felony criminal sexual assault and sexual abuse crimes against children.

Madigan testified today before the Senate Criminal Law Committee in support of Senate Bill 189 to eliminate Illinois’ statutes of limitations that can allow child predators to go unpunished. Joining Madigan in testifying was Scott Cross, a survivor, Sen. Scott Bennett, the bill’s sponsor, and St. Clair County State’s Attorney Brendan Kelly.

The bill passed unanimously and heads to the full Senate for consideration.

“Children who suffer sexual assault and abuse often spend a lifetime trying to recover from the violations they have experienced,” Madigan said. “There should be no limitation on the pursuit of justice for felony sex crimes committed against children. We must ensure survivors are able to come forward in their own time and receive the support they need and deserve.”

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iILLINOIS
News-Gazette

Tom Kacich

SPRINGFIELD — Legislation that would remove the statute of limitations for felony sex crimes committed against minors, such as the recent case involving former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, sailed through an Illinois Senate Committee on Tuesday.

SB 189, sponsored by Sen. Scott Bennett, D-Champaign, was approved unanimously by the Senate Criminal Law Committee.

Among those testifying in favor of the bill were Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Scott Cross, one of Hastert’s victims when the former Republican Party powerhouse was a wrestling coach at Yorkville High School in the 1970s.

Hastert was never charged with any state crimes because the statute of limitations — generally 20 years after a victim’s 18th birthday — had run out. But he was convicted of violating federal banking laws for paying hush money to one of four victims who prosecutors had identified.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on how the media have covered the Tuam, Ireland “mass grave” story:

No media outlet has done a more consistently accurate job reporting the “mass grave” story than the New York Times. Not only did it not fall for this bogus story when it first surfaced in 2014, it actually poked holes in it. Its coverage in 2017 has also been flawless. Kudos to the Cleveland Plain Dealer for picking up the Times story.

Unlike other Irish sources, the Irish Echo got this story correct.

The BBC fell for the “mass grave” bunk in 2014. Now in 2017, it had covered this story accurately, absent any sensationalistic talk about a “mass grave,” until late Tuesday, when it used the term in reporting on comments from Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service – Bulletin

Appointment of auxiliary of Washington, U.S.A.

The Holy Father has appointed Rev. Fr. Roy Edward Campbell as auxiliary bishop of Washington, U.S.A. Rev. Fr. Campbell, of the clergy of the same archdiocese, is currently pastor of the “Saint Joseph Parish” in Largo, assigning him the titular see of Ucres.

Rev. Fr. Roy Edward Campbell

Rev. Fr. Roy Edward Campbell was born on 19 November 1947 in Pomonkey, Maryland, in the archdiocese of Washington. After attending the Archbishop Carrol High School in Washington (1961-1965), he obtained a bachelor’s degree in zoology, anthropology and chemistry from the Howard University of Washington (1965-1969) and a diploma in banking management from the University of Virginia in Arlington (1990-1992). For several years he worked in the banking sector, becoming vice-president and project manager of the Bank of America. He carried out his ecclesiastical studies at the then-Blessed John XXIII National Seminary in Weston in Massachusetts (2003-2007).

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post

By Julie Zauzmer March 8

The newest bishop helping to lead the Washington area’s Catholics will be a lifelong resident of the region who has served as a priest in several of its churches.

The Rev. Roy Edward Campbell Jr. will serve as auxiliary bishop, one of three bishops who assist Cardinal Donald Wuerl in running the Archdiocese of Washington, the church announced on Wednesday morning.

Campbell, currently priest at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Largo, replaces Bishop Martin D. Holley, who served 12 years as auxiliary bishop in Washington before Pope Francis appointed him Bishop of Memphis in August.

The archdiocese said that Campbell, 69, grew up in Southern Maryland and in the District. At Howard University, he majored in zoology with minors in anthropology and chemistry, the archdiocese said. He spent his career in banking while volunteering in Catholic churches, until eventually entering Pope St. John XXIII Seminary — a Massachusetts school for men who decide to enter the priesthood later in life — and being ordained in 2007. Since then, he has been a priest at several District churches: Saint Augustine’s, Immaculate Conception and Assumption.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Christian Post

BY FELIX N. CODILLA III, CHRISTIAN POST CONTRIBUTOR
Mar 7, 2017

The police in Hampshire, England are investigating a British barrister for sadistically beating teenage boys in Christian summer camps that he ran in the past five decades. Suspect John Smythe, 75, has spent that past three decades in South Africa, but is now reportedly in Bristol to face the accusations against him.

Dozens of victims, mostly in their 50s, have come forward to tell their ordeal under Smythe. One of them is Christian author Mark Stibbe, now 56. He recalled the time when he was 17 back in the ’70s and he first received a whipping for committing the sin of masturbation.

“I remember being so appalled by how vicious the first lash was that I couldn’t scream,” he told New York Times. “You’re in this tiny shed full of canes with this man. I felt utterly powerless,” he added. Stibbe received at least 30 more floggings that left him bleeding and collapsed on the floor.

Based on accounts, Smythe lured his victims from Winchester College, a top private school in Britain. He invited them to join a summer camp run by Iwerne Trust which he chaired at that time. He would befriend the boys who were yearning for a father figure in boarding school and gain their trust.

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IRELAND
Kildare Nationalist

TUESDAY, MARCH 07, 2017

The names of almost 800 children who died in two of the country’s largest mother and baby homes were given to the HSE by a religious order in 2011, writes Conall Ó Fátharta.

This revelation shows the State was aware of the vast number of deaths in Bessborough in Cork and Sean Ross Abbey Roscrea three years before the Tuam babies scandal made global headlines.

The Irish Examiner has previously revealed that concerns over infant mortality rates and other practices at Tuam and Bessborough were raised by senior HSE personnel in 2012.

A report about concerns over Bessborough deaths was forwarded to both the Department of Health and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs that year.

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IRELAND
Galway Bay FM

Galway Bay fm newsroom – An Taoiseach has described the mass grave at the site of the former mother and baby home in Tuam as a ‘chamber of horrors.’

In a powerful Dail speech this afternoon, Enda Kenny said the men of the time are not blameless.

He said that the nuns who ran the mother and baby homes didn’t kidnap the children, but society was responsible too.

In an emotional address to the Dail, he said the issue must be dealt with now, and not in 20 year’s time.

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IRELAND
Today FM

The Chairperson of the Coalition of Mother and Baby Home Survivors shares his story.

Paul Redmond, Chairperson of the Coalition of Mother and Baby Home Survivors (CMABS), shared his own personal story of the 33 years he spent trying to trace his birth mother.

In the wake of the Tuam mother and baby home scandal, Paul spoke about how difficult it was for him to find information about his mother. He finally had a 40-minute phone conversation with her, but as he explained, it wasn’t an easy situation.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By JACK CAHILL
7th March 2017

RTE’s Prime Time was back on Irish screens tonight and Miriam O’Callaghan was reporting live from Tuam.

The topic was of course that of the mother-and-baby home in Tuam, Co. Galway.

Last week a Commission of Investigation confirmed that remains of infants and children were found buried in the grounds of the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, Co Galway.

The ‘significant number’ of children’s remains dated back to the era when the home was operational on the site.

On tonight’s episode of Prime Time, Miriam O’Callaghan travelled to Galway to report directly from Tuam.

The show asked if similar excavations are now needed in other mother and baby homes and what Ireland should do next.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Wednesday, March 08, 2017

By Elaine Loughlin
Political Reporter

An investigation into mother and baby homes could be widened to take in far more institutions as the Government has ordered a scoping exercise into the scandal.

The Government is to look at whether a probe should be, or indeed can be, expanded after the bodies of more than 700 babies were uncovered on the grounds of a former home in Tuam, Co Galway.

Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone confirmed to Cabinet she would be setting up the scoping exercise to find out whether or not it would be advisable to extend the inquiry. It is understood Ms Zappone is very “mindful” of public calls from both individuals and groups in the aftermath of the revelations of mass burials in a number of chambers in the Co Galway mother and baby home.

However, during yesterday’s cabinet meeting, ministers were told the details of the scoping exercise will not be announced until after the St Patrick’s Day Dáil break.

A small scoping exercise will then begin but the Government will also have to take the independent nature of the commission into consideration. It is understood the department is in close contact with the commission.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Wednesday, March 08, 2017

Conall Ó Fátharta and Cormac O’Keeffe

Mother and baby home campaigners have said as many as 180 institutions that dealt with unmarried mothers and children need to be examined by the commission.

It comes as the Irish Examiner revealed two death registers listing almost 800 names of infants who died in Bessborough and Sean Ross Abbey mother and baby homes were handed over to the HSE in 2011 by the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

Last week, the Mother and Baby Homes Commission confirmed “significant quantities” of infant remains were found at the Tuam site.

The Adoption Rights Alliance (ARA) and Justice for Magdalenes Research (JFMR) said hundreds of agencies dealt with unmarried women and their children, not simply 14 mother and baby homes.

“We are aware of over 180 institutions, agencies and individuals who were involved with Ireland’s unmarried mothers and their children. Little is known of the conditions and practices — including burial practices and grave locations— of these institutions, most of which are not on the commission’s terms of reference,” said a statement.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Lorna Siggins

Galway County Council said on Tuesday night there was “no record to indicate” the discovery of human remains during the construction of houses on the Tuam mother and baby home site in the 1970s, or during subsequent development of a children’s playground.

In a statement, the local authority said it had “reviewed all relevant files connected with the development of houses and a playground, in the vicinity of the site”.

It said the “relevant files and records” had been made available to the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes.

Last week an excavation of the site in Tuam found remains of a “significant” number of babies and infants. Local research records 796 infants and children as having died in the home run by the Bon Secours Sisters between 1925 and 1961.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Wednesday, March 08, 2017

By Juno McEnroe
Political Correspondent

Infants were taken from their mothers and sold, starved, trafficked, and in some cases denied life itself, Taoiseach Enda Kenny said in relation to the Tuam buried babies scandal.

Addressing the Dáil on shocking revelations about the finding of infant remains at the Bon Secours site in Tuam, Mr Kenny failed to agree to amend the terms of the mother-and-baby inquiry. Instead, he insisted that the work of gardaí and the local Galway coroner must go ahead independently while there is a need to deal with the “sad legacies of the past”.

In a passionate response during leaders’ questions in the Dáil, an outraged Mr Kenny described how the Tuam site reflected the larger neglect of Irish society in years gone by.

“Tuam is not just a burial ground, it is a social and cultural sepulchre. That is what it is. As a society in the so-called ‘good old days’, we did not just hide away the dead bodies of tiny human beings, we dug deep and deeper still to bury our compassion, our mercy and our humanity itself,” declared Mr Kenny.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Tim O’Brien

A Co Kildare woman has compiled a portfolio of artwork based on her impressions of life in the State’s Magdalene laundries and mother and baby homes.

Fiona Gordon (19), from Prosperous, produced the works based on her understanding of her mother’s adoption at just two months old from Sean Ross Abbey in Roscrea, Co Tipperary. The pieces were completed using materials such as charcoal and fabrics.

Ms Gordon decided to explore themes of maternal separation and adoption as part of her portfolio of art work at the Ballyfermot College of Further Education in Dublin.

The works depict documents including adoption papers, coffin orders, birth certificates and pinafores that would have been associated with the institutions.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

[with audio]

Lorna Siggins

“Everyday she’s on the boat
When it pulls out from the quay
Far from small town eyes she floats
Across the Irish Sea..”

Tuam band the Saw Doctors made reference to the State’s attitude to unintended pregnancy in the lyrics of their song Everyday.

The Bon Secours mother and babies home had been closed for 35 years when Leo Moran and Davy Carton wrote it, but Moran has never viewed attitudes to women as being particular to their town.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Eilish O’Regan and Cormac McQuinn
March 8 2017

A scoping exercise to examine if the Commission of Investigation into mother and baby homes should include more institutions was promised yesterday.

The Cabinet agreed that an exploratory exam should be carried out after calls for more county homes to be included in the investigation.

It followed the public outcry in the wake of the discovery of human remains at a former mother and baby home run by the Bons Secours sisters in Tuam, Co Galway.

The Government has made no decision as yet on the extent of the proposed scoping exercise.
But more details would be made public by Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone after the St Patrick’s weekend and it should last for around six weeks.

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FLORIDA
News4Jax

By Lynnsey Gardner – Investigative reporter , Jim Piggott – Reporter , Vic Micolucci – Reporter, anchor , Elizabeth Campbell – Reporter , Heather Leigh – Reporter , Francesca Amiker – Reporter , Erik Avanier – Reporter

JACKSONVILLE BEACH, Fla. – Investigators announced Tuesday that a dismembered body found at a Lake City gas station 23 years ago was identified last year as a 16-year-old Nassau County boy who had been reported missing from Jacksonville and that they had arrested a Jacksonville Beach man in connection with his death.

Ronnie Leon Hyde, 60, is charged with the 1994 murder of Fred Laster, and the FBI and Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office began exhaustive searches Tuesday of Hyde’s homes on Fourth Street in Jacksonville Beach and Thelma Street in Jacksonville’s Talleyrand neighborhood.

Columbia County investigators have worked the case since the body of a young man was found outside a dumpster at a BP gas station at the U.S. 441 exit of Interstate 10. Using DNA technology, the remains were identified last February as those of the teenager.

Fred Laster’s family may have jump-started the investigation. Years after the teen disappeared, one of his cousins said she started searching cold cases online and, in 2015, she spotted the cold case poster and showed it to his siblings, who recognized the photos on the flier.

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IRELAND
RTE News

The Religious Sisters of Charity who ran the former Donnybrook Magdalene laundry in Dublin have said they do not have any concerns that former residents may be buried in unmarked graves on the site or elsewhere.

Their statement follows concerns raised in a planning application for the redevelopment of the laundry that there may be unmarked graves on the site because of its past as a Magdalene laundry.

The site is due to be redeveloped into apartments by a Gibraltar-based property company.

An archaeological assessment attached to the planning application raises concerns about “the potential for burials in the area.”

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IRELAND
Dublin Live

BY BARRY ARNOLD
7 MAR 2017

Dublin city’s senior archaeologist warned a private developer that a Magdalene Laundry site in the capital could contain human remains.

Dr Ruth Johnson said the property at The Crescent, Donnybrook could contain remains in September 2016, five months before the shocking discovery inTuam last week.

Hundreds of remains were found at the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, Co Galway.

“The proposed development consists of the former lands of Saint Mary’s Convent and the Magdalene Laundries.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Sinead Pembroke

On hearing the reports in the media about the discovery of a mass grave at the site of the once mother and baby home in Tuam, it nearly feels as though we are discovering abuses perpetrated by the Catholic Church in Ireland, in State-funded institutions for the very first time.

Yet, this isn’t the first time, and as the daughter of a survivor of a Christian Brother institution, it feels like we’re back there again, when these abuses started to emerge in the media for the first time.

There have been numerous inquiries into institutions that were State-funded and run by Catholic congregations, and the type of revelations we have been hearing recently about mother and baby homes were already being told by survivors of these institutions, yet were largely ignored. Why is this information only coming to the forefront now? And why wasn’t this investigated properly before, along with the other institutions?

Reluctance

This comes down to the great reluctance of governments (both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael) and the various public sector departments involved, in establishing these inquiries and redress schemes, in the first place. Usually they were established after years of campaigning from survivors, survivor groups and individuals.

For example, the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (CICA) was only established after Mary Raftery’s documentary series for RTÉ called States of Fear. The Magdalene Redress scheme was only set up after Justice for Magdalenes (JFM) went to the UN Committee against Torture (CAT) to make a case of State involvement with the Magdalene Laundries.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

The Religious Sisters of Charity have said they are not concerned that former residents may be buried in unmarked graves on the site of a former Magdalene Laundry in Dublin 4.

An Gibraltar property firm is due to build an apartment complex on The Crescent in Donnybrook and in a planning application concerns were raised during the archaeological assessment about “the potential for burials in the area”.

The assessment reads:

“There are no clear records as to what happened to some of the women who operated within the laundries once they died. It remains a possibility that some are buried within the area of the proposed development.”

It also warns that “ground disturbances … will have an adverse and negative impact on archaeological deposits …This includes possible burials relating to the former use of the site as a Magdalene Laundry.”

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AUSTRALIA
Tamut and Adelong Times

By Frances Vinall – March 8, 2017

Current Catholic priest for the Tumut parish, Father Sijo Jose, has spoken about the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The Royal Commission has been investigating child abuse allegations against the Catholic Church, and other institutions, for over three years.

They revealed that 4,444 victims have made complaints to the church involving 1,880 alleged perpetrators within the Catholic hierachy over the past 35 years.

The true number of victims is estimated to be significantly higher, as that number only includes those who reported their abuse to the Dioceses.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Rachel Browne

The NSW government’s child abuse reporting hotline is clogged with thousands of less serious cases that do not warrant high level investigation, a royal commission has heard.

Department of Family and Community Services secretary Michael Coutts-Trotter told the inquiry the large volume of less serious reports affected resources available for the more severe cases, known as “risk of significant harm” reports.

Almost half the reports made to the FaCS child protection helpline in 2016 did not meet the criteria for statutory action, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard.

“We have effectively 100 child protection caseworkers receiving reports of risk that don’t clear the statutory threshold and we really want to try to free that effort up to be more effective in keeping children safe,” Mr Coutts-Trotter said.

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KENYA
Vatican Radio

The Bishop of Nakuru Diocese in Kenya, Maurice Muhatia Makumba, has called on heads of Catholic Private Education Institutions to eradicate bullying and abuse in schools.

“In contemporary Kenya, we have been witnessing a culture that seems to condone and perpetuate the abuse of pupils and students by peers or adults such as, bullying, corporal punishment, sexual abuse and harassment, sexual orgies, sexual perversions, violence, cultism, drugs and substance abuse,” stated Bishop Muhatia.

“With effective leadership, educational institutions can prevent, detect and respond to such evils before they ruin our young people,” he said.

The Chairman of the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops Commission for Education and Religious Education was speaking Tuesday during the opening ceremony of the 3rd Annual Conference for the Catholic Private Educational Institutions Associations (CAPEIA) at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA) in Nairobi.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Sydney Morning Herald

Nick Miller

London: “The word is kidnapped,” Edward Delaney says, of his being sent to Australia as a seven year-old, condemned to a boyhood of horrific abuse.

On Tuesday, he told Britain’s inquiry into child sexual abuse that he recently burnt his British passport, in fury at the injustice done to him – and to his parents, who had asked for him to return, but were fobbed off with the lie that he was in a better place.

Mr Delaney, 67, from Melbourne, was born in England to a single mother and lived in an orphanage while his mother saved money for rare visits from London.

But the orphanage signed papers to send him to Australia.

“I was purely and simply kidnapped out of a country, taken from my mother,” he told the inquiry. He was one of thousands sent in the post-war period, recruited by Anglican and Catholic institutions such as the Fairbridge Society.

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AUSTRALIA
Catholic Outlook

Dear brothers and sisters,

The Royal Commission has begun the so-called Catholic wrap-up. The three week final hearing focuses on not individual cases but the contributing factors and the deep causes of child sexual abuse and cover up in the Catholic Church in Australia over the last 60 years. All of the serving archbishops and several bishops including myself had to appear in front of the Commission and give our testimony in the witness box. It was not exactly like the Nuremberg trial. But in many ways, it was unprecedented.

It was a threshold moment and a transition point of profound significance for the Church in this country. Admission of systemic dysfunction, catastrophic failure and criminal negligence on the part of Church authorities of all levels gave credence to an institutional pathology. What is required for the Church to rid itself of this cancerous illness moving forward is not simply to treat the symptoms. We need to go to the root causes. We need to go back to the drawing board. We must have the courage to see how far we have strayed from the core values of the Gospel and to face up to the task of metanoia, that is, repenting of our sins and converting to the person and message of Christ, the humble suffering Servant.

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GUAM
KUAM

Updated: Mar 08, 2017

By Krystal Paco

With the Archdiocesan Finance Council behind him Archbishop Michael Byrnes announced the establishment of a settlement fund of $1 million to aid victims of child sexual abuse. He said it will be developed and administered by a third party to establish the procedures for payment of claims. He said they are actively searching for an administrator of the fund.

“The establishment of the fund to aid victims is another concrete step in our effort to reach out to victims of child sexual abuse and do all that we can to help them … and help them heal… and help them find peace… help them find a sense of closure for what they dealt with fo so many years, the Archbishop said. AFC President Richard Untalan says the administrator does not necessarily have to be from Guam, but they are looking for someone with a legal background. He added the $1 million in the fund is just the starting point.

The money is from the liquidation of certain church assets but was not specific. When asked whether the RMS was part of the liquidation, Untalan said no but everything is on the table. He added currently an assessment of the property is being conducted. In total he said the church has assets of $132 million. The AFC is hoping to establish the fund in one month. Untalan says this shows our serious intent that we want this fund to operate independently and to address the sexual abuse victims.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio, heugenio@guampdn.com March 8, 2017

Archbishop Michael Jude Byrnes announced Wednesday the establishment of an initial $1 million aid fund for Guam’s clergy sex abuse victims.

“The establishment of this settlement fund to aid victims is just another concrete step in our effort to reach out to victims of child sexual abuse and to do all that we can to help them, to help them heal, to help them find peace, to help them find a sense of closure for what they dealt with for so many years. We know that money alone will not heal (their suffering), but to aid the healing with opportunity for counseling and any other kinds of service of assistance they might require,” Byrnes said.

Byrnes said there will be no requirement that claimants keep the fact or amount of their payment confidential. He said if new abusers are identified during the claims process, they will be reported to law enforcement and to the archdiocese by a third-party fund administrator, as required by law.

Archdiocesan Finance Council President Richard Untalan said the $1 million fund isn’t meant to settle out of court the $115 million in lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Agana.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Burton Mail

A children’s charity has told survivors of sexual abuse that they will be “listened to” in an attempt to get them to come forward, after a former teacher who assaulting a boy more than 35 years ago was finally caught.

Raymond Peter Thompson, from Burton, was given a 16-month jail sentence, suspended for two years, when he appeared at Newport Crown Court on Friday, February 17, for the offence, which the family of the victim said has ruined his life.

Thompson had been a teacher at a primary school in Burton, and also taught a class at a Sunday school for a Baptist church in the town. He committed the offence while on a camping trip with the church in Sandown on the Isle of Wight between July 1, 1980, and August 31, 1980.

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GUAM
KUAM

[with video]

Updated: Mar 08, 2017

By Krystal Paco

With the Archdiocesan Finance Council behind him, Archbishop Michael Byrnes announced the establishment of a settlement fund of $1 million to aid victims of child sexual abuse. He said it will be developed and administered by a third-party to establish the procedures for payment of claims. He said they are actively searching for an administrator of the fund.

His Excellency announced, “The establishment of this settlement fund to aid victims is just another concrete step in our effort to reach out to victims of child sexual abuse and do all that we can to help them to help them heal, to help them find peace. To help them find a sense of closure for what they dealt with for so many years. We know that money alone will not heal – but it can aid the healing.”

AFC president Richard Untalan says the administrator does not necessarily have to be from Guam, but they are looking for someone with a legal background. He added the $1 million in the fund is just the starting point. The money is from the liquidation of certain church assets but was not specific. When asked whether the RMS was part of the liquidation, Untalan said no but everything is on the table.

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GUAM
Pacific News Center

Written by Timothy Mchenry

The Archdiocese Finance Counsel held the first of several press conferences to discuss church finances in the wake of multiple clergy sex abuse lawsuits.

Guam – The Archdiocese of Agana has set up a fund created to help the victims of clergy sexual abuse. But, chairman of the newly-created archdiocese finance council said, the church is hurting financially, and has begun to liquidate assets to help recover from the multiple lawsuits facing the church.

“What I’d like to present to you today is the establishment of a fund to aid victims of child sexual abuse,” said Byrnes.

According to Byrnes, the fund has a current balance of 1 million dollars but is not limited in the amount it will generate. Modeled after a similar fund established by the Archdiocese of New York. So how does it work exactly?

AFC chair Rich Untalan emphasized the need for the administering of funds and the fund itself to be free of church influence which he says is important to allow victims to gain a sense of comfort when discussing their abuse.

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GUAM
Associated Press

BY GRACE GARCES BORDALLO
ASSOCIATED PRESS

HAGATNA, Guam (AP) — The Roman Catholic Church of Guam has established a $1 million settlement fund for victims of child sexual abuse.

In a news conference with his nine-member archdiocese finance council, Archbishop Michael J. Byrnes said the funds will become available as soon as the archdiocese has put in place an administrator who will be supported by an independent third party. After these are in place, Byrnes said victims can contact the administrator directly. He added victims’ confidentiality will be respected.

To date, 24 victims have filed a lawsuit for clergy child sexual abuse against the archdiocese of Agana in Guam.

Byrnes said the archdiocese has taken steps to revamp its sexual abuse policy.

“We will show no tolerance to abusers,” Byrnes said.

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OHIO
Dayton Daily News

Jeremy P. Kelley
Monday, March 6, 2017

A claim of sexual abuse against Aaron Chivington, a Fairborn pastor who coached middle school basketball for Fairborn City Schools, has been ruled unsubstantiated.

“I knew that the stories that were told about me were greatly exaggerated versions of the truth, so I really wasn’t worried about if we were going to be cleared, it was just a matter of when,” he said.

Chivington was placed on administrative leave by the school district Jan. 5 after complaints were lodged against him by a parent, according to Fairborn Superintendent Mark North.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – Conversations

Joanne McCarthy’s stories in The Newcastle Herald helped spark a world-first Royal Commission.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse began in 2013 and concludes this year.

Joanne first started reporting the activities of paedophile priests in the Hunter-Maitland Diocese of the Catholic Church in 2002.

Many of their victims were very young children when they were terribly abused.

And while she’s won acclaim for her work, hearing so many victims’ stories has taken a toll.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Altoona Mirror

Editorial

The reforms announced Monday by the Altoona-Johnstown Catholic Diocese in regard to addressing allegations of child sex abuse are an encouraging step that all should welcome.

Still, there are unanswered questions that many parishioners of this diocese likely are harboring in the aftermath of the news conference at which the positive moves were announced by Bishop Mark Bartchak and acting Western District of Pennsylvania U.S. Attorney Soo C. Song.

To briefly recap:

– A five-member Independent Oversight Board for Youth Protection, whose mission will be to advise diocesan officials on child abuse prevention and enforcement, will be established.

– All members of the current review board, which is charged with advising the bishop on abuse cases, will be replaced.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

Joanne McCarthy
8 Mar 2017

CONVICTED Catholic paedophile priest Vince Ryan and convicted Hunter Marist Brother Romuald have been charged with fresh child sex offences over three decades.

Strike Force Georgiana Detective Senior Constable Luke Briggs charged Mr Ryan, 78, with six child sex offences on Wednesday, including three charges of indecently assaulting two boys, aged 10 and 11, at St Joseph’s Primary School at The Junction in 1973 and 1974.

He was also charged with three offences involving a boy, aged 9-12, at Cessnock between 1988 and 1991. He was charged with two sexual assault offences and one charge of attempting sexual intercourse with the boy.

Mr Ryan was jailed for 14 years in the late 1990s for offences against nearly 30 Hunter boys.

On Monday Strike Force Georgiana Detective Senior Constable Simon Grob charged former Hamilton Marist Brother Romuald – real name Francis Cable – with 14 offences against five victims aged 13-14, between 1971 and 1974.

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GUAM
Pacific News Center

Written by Donna De Jesus

55-year-old Anthony Flores shared his story and urges other victims to come forward.
Guam – The Archdiocese of Agana now has 24 victims filing a lawsuit against the church for allegations of child sexual abuse, after 55-year-old Anthony Flores came forward, accusing former priest Father Louis Brouillard.

Brouillard was also a scoutmaster with the Boy Scouts of America. After four decades, Anthony Flores broke his silence about the abuse. Flores is one of many victims to come forward and file a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Agana, but this is the first time the Boy Scouts of America were named as defendants and the first time a lawsuit has been filed jointly with a mainland law firm, Pfau Cochran Vertetis Amala PLLC.

Flores told PNC that he decided to come forward when two other victims accused the church of abuse. He says he served as an altar boy with them in the 1970’s, and tried to help by reporting the abuse to Monsignor Zoilo Camacho at the time, who Flores says did not believe him.

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GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

Mindy Aguon |For The Guam Daily Post Mar 8, 2017

Two former altar boys have come forward and filed lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Agana and the late Father Antonio C. Cruz for alleged sexual abuse that occurred on the parish grounds at Our Lady of Peace and Safe Journey Catholic Church in Chalan Pago.

Richard Scroggs, 57, and Tomas Afaisen De Plata, 62, allege they were sexually abused and molested by Cruz when he was the parish priest.

De Plata alleges that he was repeatedly sexually molested by Cruz. In September 1963, Cruz offered to pay De Plata to help clean the Chalan Pago parish rectory. The lawsuit states that Cruz left to meet another priest then returned and called De Plata to his bedroom and began performing oral copulation on him. In the midst of the sexual act, Father Louis Brouillard entered the room and took pictures of Cruz performing oral sex on the 11-year-old boy, the lawsuit alleges.

Brouillard allegedly told Cruz, “I’ll give you the pictures later.” Cruz instructed De Plata not to say anything and paid him $50.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio, heugenio@guampdn.com March 8, 2017

One of two additional clergy sex abuse lawsuits filed Wednesday said a now-deceased priest kept nude photos of “numerous altar boys” and priests “committing sexual acts on minors.”

Tomas Afaisen De Plata and Richard Daniel Scroggs’ separate complaints bring to 26 the total number of clergy sexual abuse lawsuits filed thus far against the Archdiocese of Agana and Catholic clergy.

De Plata, now 62, said the now deceased Rev. Antonio C. Cruz sexually abused him as an altar boy multiple times around 1963 to 1965 when he was 11 to 13 years old. He and Scroggs are represented by Attorney David Lujan.

The complaint says Cruz handed him an envelope with $50 in exchange for not saying anything about Father Louis Brouillard taking a photo of Cruz while performing a sexual act on De Plata at the rectory of the Our Lady of Peace and Safe Journey Catholic Church in Chalan Pago.

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UNITED STATES
Lexology

Sedgwick LLP

Cara Vecchione
USA March 7 2017

In Nat’l Union Fire Ins. Co. of Pittsburgh, PA v. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, No. 653575/2014, 2017 WL 748834 (N.Y. Sup. Ct., N.Y. Cty. February 27, 2017), a New York trial court held that the Diocese must pay multiple self-insured retentions per year — one per occurrence — in a coverage dispute involving claims that foster care agencies affiliated with the Diocese negligently placed ten children with an abusive foster mother over a twenty-two year period.

The trial court tracked the reasoning of the Court of Appeals in a separate coverage dispute concerning claims of sexual abuse by a priest, Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Nat’l Union Fire Ins. Co. of Pittsburgh, PA, 21 N.Y.3d 139 (2013). In Diocese of Brooklyn, the Court of Appeals made clear that the “unfortunate event” test should be applied to determine whether separate incidents are characterized as one occurrence, absent policy language demonstrating an intent to aggregate the incidents into a single occurrence. The Court of Appeals dismissed the argument that the acts of abuse should be deemed a single occurrence because they amounted to “continuous or repeated exposure to substantially the same general harmful conditions.” Applying the “unfortunate event” test, the Court of Appeals held that numerous incidents of molestation by the same priest against one plaintiff constituted multiple occurrences, in part because the acts of abuse took place in several locations over a six year period and were not precipitated by the same causal continuum.

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UNITED STATES
Voice of the Faithful

Rev. Thomas P. Doyle, who has a doctorate in canon law and five master’s degrees, sacrificed a rising career at the Vatican Embassy to become an outspoken advocate for church abuse victims. Since 1984, when he became involved with the issue of sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy while serving at the Embassy, he has become an expert in the canonical and pastoral dimensions of this problem—working directly with victims, their families, accused priests, and Church officials.

SNAP is well known by sex abuse survivors throughout the world. It’s also well known by those who still believe the clergy abuse phenomenon is a gross exaggeration that is primarily about harming the Church.

SNAP was started by Barbara Blaine in 1988. Barbara is a survivor of sexual violation by a priest whom she and her family trusted. She was violated as a pre-teen. By the time she was a young woman the scars were still as painful as ever. Barbara started SNAP as a support group for other survivors because, as she herself has said, “No one else would help so we had to help ourselves.”

Barbara was dead right. I have been involved with survivors since 1984. I have heard many … more than I can count … tell their sad and shocking stories. All were from devout Catholic families and naturally turned to the Church for help, but to their added shock they found they were being ignored, lied to, threatened into silence and in general treated as if they had some sort of communicable disease. Barbara Blaine experienced this and had the courage to stand up rather than stay a victim.

SNAP grew steadily because the number of victims increased when the media began actually covering it and not burying it. SNAP and the LINKUP were the only places victims could go for support. The Church was no help. In fact, when victims got involved with the Church, even to a minor degree, they almost always ended up being re-traumatized.

By the nineties, SNAP members were not just sitting in rooms listening to each other’s stories. They were organizing for a purpose: to get the attention of the bishops and the institutional church. Sex abuse by clerics was far more widespread than anyone imagined and certainly far, far worse than the Church spokespersons claimed.

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IRELAND
Evening Echo

A woman has revealed how her baby boy “was just left to die” days after he was born in a mother-and-baby home in Co. Cork in 1961.

Bridget, who is in her 70s and lives in England, rang RTE Radio One’s Liveline today to tell of how her son William was born in Bessborough, Cork, but died after only six weeks.

She described how her baby fell ill after only three days in the institution, but was only brought to hospital nearly three weeks later despite Bessborough knowing that her baby “was desperately ill”.

She said she believes her baby would have survived if he received the medical attention he needed at the time.

She also revealed how nuns said her baby “would be easier to sell” because he was a boy, and they insisted on giving him a Catholic name, rather than the name she wanted, for the same reason.

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INDIA
New Indian Express

By Babu K Peter | Express News Service

KOCHI: Even as a deluge of support pours in for Fr Robin, accused in the Kottiyoor sexual abuse case, the Kerala Theological Association (KTA) has issued an apology while accepting “the clergy may have deviated from the pious path”.

KTA, an organisation of priests, members of religious congregations and laymen engaged in research in theology, has tendered the apology in a statement to the victim, her family, the Catholic community and to society. “The unfortunate incident evokes nothing but apology. We apologise for deviating from the spiritual way and for misleading the people,” a statement issued by Fr Vincent Kundukulam said.

“It is an opportunity for priests to do a self-introspection. There is no point in covering it up by saying “we are also humans, after all,” he said.

Society holds priests in high regard as the people have great expectations from them. Emotional outbursts and reactions on media indicate how much trust and respect they have reposed in them, the statement said. It’s a misconception a person becomes divine once he is ordained a priest. If you consider priesthood as a profession and drift away from Jesus and the poor, you will fall, he said.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Denise Calnan
March 7 2017

A woman has told of how nuns at a mother and baby home forced her to change her baby son’s name “so he would be easier to sell”.

Bridget, who rang RTE Radio One’s Liveline today, told of how her son William was born in 1961 in Bessborough, Cork and died just six weeks later. Bridget, aged in her seventies and who now lives in England, described how she sensed something was wrong the moment she arrived at the mother and baby home.

She also described how nuns were “delighted” when they saw she gave birth to a baby boy, as he would “be easier to sell” and insisted that he be given the Catholic name of Gerard for the same reason.

She said she believes her baby would have survived if he received the medical attention he needed at the time.

Bridget was working in Ireland when she fell pregnant aged 17. She joined a work agency to get a travel fare to the UK where she continued to work until the summer before her due date.

“They paid my fare so I went to London and was working away, but I had it in the back of my mind, ‘what am I going to do?’,” an emotional Bridget told Liveline.

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IRELAND
The Guardian

Emer O’Toole

It has been confirmed that significant numbers of children’s remains lie in a mass grave adjacent to a former home for unmarried mothers run by the Bon Secours Sisters in Tuam, County Galway. This is exactly where local historian Catherine Corless, who was instrumental in bringing the mass grave to light, said they would be. A state-established commission of inquiry into mother and baby homes recently located the site in a structure that “appears to be related to the treatment/containment of sewage and/or waste water”, but which we are not supposed to call a septic tank.

The archbishop of Tuam, Michael Neary, says he is “deeply shocked and horrified”. Deeply. Because what could the church have known about the abuse of children in its institutions? When Irish taoiseach Enda Kenny was asked if he was similarly shocked, he answered: “Absolutely. To think you pass by the location on so many occasions over the years.” To think. Because what would Kenny, in Irish politics since the 70s, know about state-funded, church-perpetrated abuse of women and children? Even the commission of inquiry – already under critique by the UN – said in its official statement that it was “shocked by this discovery”.

If I am shocked, it is by the pretence of so much shock. When Corless discovered death certificates for 796 children at the home between 1925 and 1961 but burial records for only two, it was clear that hundreds of bodies existed somewhere. They did not, after all, ascend into heaven like the virgin mother. Corless then uncovered oral histories from reliable local witnesses, offering evidence of where those children’s remains could be found. So what did the church and state think had happened? That the nuns had buried the babies in a lovely wee graveyard somewhere, but just couldn’t remember where?

Or maybe the church and state are expressing shock that nuns in mid-20th century Ireland could have so little regard for the lives and deaths of children in their care. The Ryan report in 2009 documented the systematic sexual, physical and emotional abuse of children in church-run, state-funded institutions. It revealed that when confronted with evidence of child abuse, the church would transfer abusers to other institutions, where they could abuse other children. The Christian Brothers legally blocked the report from naming and shaming its members. Meanwhile, Cardinal Seán Brady – now known to have participated in the cover-up of abuse by paedophile priest Brendan Smyth – muttered about how ashamed he was.

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IRELAND
The Journal

[with video]

TAOISEACH ENDA KENNY used strong and emotive words in the Dáil today when discussing the Tuam mother and baby home revelations.

Today, Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone agreed to carry out a “small scoping exercise” to assess if it is possible to expand the existing terms of reference to include other homes into the commission of investigation into mother and baby homes.

Speaking in response to a question from Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin in the Dáil today, Kenny said, “we gave them up because of our perverse, in fact, morbid relationship with what is called respectability”.

The Taoiseach was addressing the Dáil following last week’s revelations that substantial amounts of human remains were discovered on the site of a former mother and baby home in Tuam, County Galway.

Since the discovery, a number of survivors have called for the commission of investigation into mother and baby homes to be expanded.

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IRELAND
Irish Sun

By ADAM HIGGINS
7th March 2017

MORE than 6,000 women and children died in Ireland’s mother and baby homes, according to a survivor group.

Last week it was revealed the bodies of 800 babies were hidden in a septic tank in Tuam at one of the horror facilities run by the Bon Secour nuns.

The Coalition of Mother and Baby Home Survivors today called for an urgent meeting with the Taoiseach to resolve the outstanding issues facing their elderly members.

The Coalition is made up of seven different survivors groups including Adoption Rights Now, The Bethany Home Survivors, Beyond Adoption Ireland, Adopted Illegally Ireland, The Castlepollard Mother And Baby Home Group, The Survivors and Victims of Institutional Abuse and The Adoption Coalition Worldwide.

The group are urging the Government to include all living survivors in the Commission of Inquiry that will look at what happened in these institutions.

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PENNSYLVANIA
We Are Central PA

[with video]

Johnstown, Pa. – For victim advocate Shaun Dougherty, the memorandum of understanding between the U.S. Attorney and the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese represented great talk, but wants to see great action.

Dougherty believes the Diocese should join the push for retroactivity as the step to preventing child sex abuse crimes. He explained, “I applaud the Bishop for the first step, I’d like to see him take the next big step and support Rep. Rozzi’s bill.”

Rep. Mark Rozzi’s bill would allow the elimination of the statue of limitations to apply to past cases. Dougherty believes that law would bring the great action he’s looking for instead of just the joint memorandum.

He explained, “First of all, it’s just a memorandum. This isn’t anything legally binding. The Bishop could have just been making a speech today. You know, he has to follow up on the things that he’s said. A law, is a law. And that changes everything.”

Even though it’s not legally binding, Bishop Mark Bartchak assured that this isn’t just talk and there is no going back. He said, “By putting all this out in the public, I can’t shrink from this and I don’t intend to.” He later continued, “God help a Bishop that comes later who tries to undo that because we need to protect children.”

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INDIA
Times of India

Mahir Haneef | TNN | Mar 7, 2017

KOCHI: A nun, who has been named as accused in a rape case involving a minor girl by a priest at Kottiyoor in Kannur, has approached the Kerala high court seeking anticipatory bail.

The pre-arrest bail plea was filed by sister Ophilia, who was the superintendent of the orphanage.

She and four other nuns are accused of trying to cover up the crime and have been charged with offences under provisions of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO). The girl, a plus one student, had given birth to a child at Christuraj Hospital at Koothuparamba.

After the delivery, the child was taken to orphanage where the petitioner was the superintendent. Sister Ophilia is the eighth accused in the case and is accused of not informing the child welfare committee about receiving the child.

In the petition to the high court, the nun said she has nothing to hide and that she had recorded receiving of the child in the register maintained at the orphanage.

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IRELAND
Joe

BY ALAN LOUGHNANE

Something for your Wednesday night.

TV3 will broadcast a shocking documentary which looks into the true scale of the scandal involving Mother and Baby homes this week.

Following the horrific discovery of a mass grave in Tuam last week which contained the bodies of as many as 800 babies, TV3’s documentary will look into the scandal which saw tens of thousands of women incarcerated against their will and exceptionally high rates of infant mortality.

Featuring interviews with people who lived in the homes, the documentary was originally aired in 2014 but will be shown again on TV3 at 11pm on Wednesday.

It examines how the scandal was not isolated in the Catholic Church but tells another story of Bethany Home in Dublin, run by the Church of Ireland. In this home child mortality rates were exceptionally high and mass graves were also used.

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IRELAND
Midlands 103

Sinn Féin wants Gardaí to secure the sites of the former mother and baby homes in Castlepollard and Roscrea.

Mary Lou McDonald says the message they have received from survivors is that the State hasn’t responded appropriately to the discovery of a mass grave in Tuam, Co. Galway

The Coalition of Mother and Baby Home Survivors has today called for more institutions to be included in the commission of inquiry.

Fourteen former homes are being examined including Manor House in Castlepollard and Sean Ross Abbey in Roscrea.

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IRELAND
The Journal

THE COMMISSION OF Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes might be expanded to include more institutions, according to a report from the Irish Times this morning.

The current terms of reference, or the guidelines for what the inquiry will look into, will focus on 14 mother and baby homes and four county homes.

But after the confirmation that a ‘significant’ amount of foetal and children’s remains were found in a sewage system near the Tuam mother and baby home, the government is considering expanding the terms of reference to include more institutions.

According to the Justice for Magdalenes research organisation, there are 180 institutions, agencies and individuals who were involved with unmarried mothers and their children.

The Coalition of Mother and Baby Home Survivors say that approximately 35,000 women and girls went through nine mother and baby homes, including the one at Tuam, between 1904 and 1996.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Colm Keena

The Bon Secours order of nuns which ran the former Tuam mother and baby home now runs one of the largest private hospital groups in Ireland and has a substantial property portfolio.

The order’s hospital group produced a profit of €2.3 million in 2015, during which year it paid €3 million to the order in rent.

Founded in France, the first sisters from the Bon Secours (good help) order came to Ireland in the years after the famine and were soon involved in providing a range of services to the sick and the poor.

The order opened its first hospital in 1951, in Glasnevin, Dublin, and the group now also operates hopitals in Galway, Limerick, Cork and Tralee, as well as a care village in Cork. In 2015 it had about 2,700 staff who worked with 350 medical consultants and saw more than 200,000 patients.

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IRELAND
Galway Bay FM

Galway Bay fm newsroom – A Ballinasloe man is seeking leave to bring judicial review proceedings against Tusla in a bid to get all information that exists concerning his infant sister’s time at the Tuam mother and baby home.

73 year old Peter Mulryan, of Derrymullen is taking the action to find out what happened to his infant sibling, who was born at the home in 1954.

The High Court heard that Mr Mulryan is extremely ill with cancer and is anxious to find out what happened to his sister Marian Bridget Mulryan.

According to the Irish Times, records show she died in February 1955, just nine months after her birth at the home – but Mr Mulryan is unsure if she died, if she was trafficked, or if she is buried in the pit at the home.

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UNITED STATES
International Business Times

By Ewan Palmer
March 7, 2017

A leading US-based conservative civil rights campaigner has once again dismissed reports that remains of hundreds of babies and infants found in a sewage chamber at a home for unmarried mothers and their babies in Ireland as “fake news”.

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, said there is “no evidence” that up to 800 babies had been buried at the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home site in Tuam, Co Galway, as part of a cover-up dating back to the 1920s.

This is despite an official report by the Irish Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes saying a “significant quantities of human remains” of babies and infants ranging from 35 foetal weeks to two to three years old had been discovered in several underground chambers located below the disused institution.

A spokesperson for the Commission added they were “shocked by this discovery and is continuing its investigation into who was responsible for the disposal of human remains in this way.”

Donohue previously described the claims of the discovery of the remains as “fake news”. Writing in Catholicleague.org, he added: “It was a lie in 2014 and it is a lie in 2017. There is no evidence of a mass grave outside a home for unmarried women operated by nuns in Tuam, Ireland, near Galway, in the 20th century. The hoax is now back again, and an obliging media are running with the story as if it were true.”

In a separate post, Donohue has repeated his claims the story of the discovery of hundred of babies and children in Tuam is a untrue.

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IRELAND
Connacht Tribune

Galway Bay fm newsroom – Sinn Féin says the Garda Commissioner needs to make a statement on the developments at the former Mother and Baby home in Tuam.

The party says the one message it has received from survivors is that the State hasn’t responded in the way they had expected in relation to the discovery of a mass grave.

Meanwhile, the Children’s Minister will today brief her cabinet colleagues on the latest developments in relation to the discovery.

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IRELAND
RTE News

Gardaí say they are liaising with the local coroner in Co Galway, following the revelation that significant quantities of infants’ remains were found on the site of the former mother and baby home in Tuam.

It is understood any decision on garda involvement in the matter will be made following considerations by the coroner.

The matter was referred to the north Galway coroner by the Mother and Baby Home Commission of Investigation, following analysis of bones found in two underground structures.

The 1962 Coroners’ Act states that unexplained deaths have to be reported, regardless of when they are thought to have occurred.

Scientific analysis of the remains found in Tuam has dated them to the same period when the Bon Secours sisters operated a home in the town.

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IRELAND
Galway Bay FM

Galway Bay fm newsroom – A white ribbon protest will take place later this week outside the Bon Secours Hospital in Renmore in light of the Tuam babies scandal (10/03 ).

The event is being organised by People Before Profit Galway.

The group claims that the institutional structure which involved the Bons Secours order, state agencies and the Catholic Church are to blame.

PBP Galway is outlining a number of demands including the creation of a memorial to the victims, and that the Bons Secours group re-consider the existence of their order.

The white ribbon protest will get underway outside the Bon Secours Hospital at 5.30 on Friday evening.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Tuesday, March 07, 2017

Enda Kenny has described the horror of the Tuam buried babies discovery but refused to commit to widening the inquiry so that up to 180 institutions are investigated, writes Juno McEnroe, Political Correspondent.

Amid claims in the Dáil that the commission of investigation terms are inadequate, Mr Kenny said he would not interfere with the independent probe as well as the separate role of gardaí and coroners.

He was speaking after the shock confirmation last week that “significant” infants remains have been found at the former Church-run site in Galway.

Mr Kenny described the find as a “social and cultural sepulchre”. He conceded that the State had been responsible for placing children in the mother-and-baby institutions.

Mr Kenny also said it was important to deal with the issue now rather than wait another 20 years.

But he refused to address calls to extend the remit of the inquiry.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Marie O’Halloran

Taoiseach Enda Kenny described Ireland of the era of mother and baby homes as a “social and cultural sepulchre” or tomb.

In an angry response to the discovery of the remains of children in Tuam, Mr Kenny described it as a “chamber of horrors”. He said “we better deal with this now” because if they did not another taoiseach in 20 years would be saying, “if we only knew then, if only we had done then. But his or her then is our now. And now we do know and now we have to do now, all of us in this House together.”

The Taoiseach said “we need some little time to reflect on the issue.”

He was responding to Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin who said “there must be a resolve by Government and Oireachtas to once and for all address the gaps in services for children in this country by a resolve to comprehensively invest in these services”.

The Fianna Fáil leader highlighted the lack of services including the current homelessness of 2,500 children.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

[with video]

State broadcaster RTÉ has produced a poignant video to remember the 796 children who died in the Tuam Mother and Baby Home.

The video, which runs for almost five minutes, lists each infant along with the year they died and their age.

“The work of Catherine Corless brought to light 796 children’s death certs relating to the home in Tuam. Here are all of their names,” the broadcaster said in a tweet from the Claire Byrne Live show.

Ms Corless, an amateur historian, is credited with bringing to light the burial of children in an unmarked ground on the property.

Ms Corless has written in the Irish Independent this week about the 798 death certificates in total she investigated (two of the children were buried in the main Tuam graveyard as they were orphans).

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

John Downing
March 7 2017

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has described the Tuam Mother and Baby Home – where hundreds of babies’ remains were discovered – as “a chamber of horrors.”

In a very strongly-worded response to questions about the controversy, Mr Kenny said the Tuam revelations did not only concern a mass grave – but “a social and cultural sepulchre.”

Mr Kenny said the revelations were a cause of shock and shame across the country. He said the nuns who ran mother and baby homes did not “kidnap children” – society gave up the children to these nuns, in part to spare them the viciousness of gossip.

“Women of that era had an amazing capacity to self-impregnate,” he said with irony in reference to widespread hypocrisy in Irish society in recent generations.

The Taoiseach was replying to questions from Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin who praised the work of historian, Catherine Corless, in bringing these cases to light. He condemned the treatment of single mothers, who broke societal rules on sexual behaviour, and the treatment of their children.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A victim of physical and sexual abuse at a Catholic orphanage in Australia has revealed how he turned on one of his tormentors – threatening to cut his throat if he “laid a finger on him”.

Edward Delaney told the inquiry into child abuse a Christian Brother had regularly beaten him with a strap, to which a hacksaw blade had been fixed.

He was among thousands of children sent to Australia in the post-war period under UK government-approved schemes.

Mr Delaney said it was “kidnapping”.

The first phase of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in England and Wales is looking at the way organisations have protected children outside the UK.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

[Tuam babies horror is “fake news” says Bill Donohue of the Catholic League – IrishCentral]

Bill Donohue comments on the accuracy of Irish Central:

Irish Central employs dunces. Here’s the latest proof.

Cahir O’Doherty likes to write boilerplate stories, and as a result his ability to get facts straight is seriously compromised. He, like many others, is experiencing apoplexy over my analysis of the fake news story about a “mass grave” containing the bodies of 800 children in Tuam, Ireland.

He says that Catherine Corless, the person peddling the hoax, “never spoke of” a mass grave. Wrong. On May 25, 2014, Alison O’Reilly of the Irish Daily Mail quoted Corless saying, “I am certain there are 796 children in the mass grave.”

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SCOTLAND
The Times

Will Humphries
March 7 2017
The Times

A church minister who killed himself has been accused by his wife of having affairs with seven of his congregation, it is claimed.

The Rev Iain Campbell was head of the Free Church of Scotland and a Presbyterian scholar whose recorded sermons were listened to by thousands of followers around the world.

His death in January aged 53 shocked devout communities on the Isle of Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides, where the Sabbath is strictly observed.

Hundreds would gather to hear Mr Campbell, a father of three, deliver 40-minute sermons on the perils of sin and the sanctity of marriage, but now the Free Church of Scotland is investigating allegations said to have been made by his wife, Anne, 54, that he had committed adultery among his flock. The church, which has about 15,000 adherents, said that it was taking the allegations very seriously and would act on them.

A source told the Daily Mail: “It is said Anne was suspicious about Iain’s activities and confronted him, allegedly after finding compromising emails in his trash files. After first taking an overdose, he hanged himself in hospital in Stornoway. He died later in Glasgow. He is now accused of up to seven affairs, all with full church members.

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NEDERLAND
Express

Marie Collins, een Ierse vrouw die in haar jeugd seksueel misbruikt werd door een priester, heeft ontslag genomen uit de commissie die paus Franciscus adviseert in de strijd tegen kindermisbruik in de kerk.

De Pauselijke Commissie voor de Bescherming van Minderjarigen werd drie jaar geleden door de paus in het leven geroepen met als doelstelling maatregelen voor te stellen die kinderen en minderjarigen binnen de kerk moeten beschermen tegen pedofilie. De katholieke kerk kwam de voorbije decennia herhaaldelijk in opspraak vanwege seksschandalen met minderjarigen en dat in zowat alle landen waar ze actief is.

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We Are Church

After more than 3 years in office the efforts by Pope Francis to reform the Roman Catholic Church are stalling. The conservative curia are fighting to retain power and control and are blocking reforms by Pope Francis to make our church more compassionate in the image of Christ. The most powerful dicastry in the Vatican is the Congregation for Doctrine and Faith (CDF) with Cardinal Gerhard Müller at its head. The CDF has now been shown to have:

* Refused the request from the Pontifical Abuse Commission that all letters from survivors should receive a reply
* Refused to allow a tribunal to be set up to investigate and censure bishops regarding covering up sexual abuse
* Refused to change the processes it uses for investigating priests & religious which are unjust and in breach of natural justice

Sigrid Grabmeier, Chair of We Are Church International, said, “The CDF has come to symbolize those aspects of our Church that serve to protect and preserve institutional power, often at the expense of the people of God. Many Catholics see it as perverting rather than exemplifying the Gospel. For the good of our Church, substantive change—a conversion, really—is needed in this important office. And quickly.”

In order to move forward towards a renewed and reformed church We Are Church International call on Pope Francis to replace Cardinal Gerhard Müller with someone who will introduce transparency, justice and compassion in the CDF.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service – Bulletin

Appointment of auxiliary bishop of Saint Louis, U.S.A.

The Holy Father has appointed as auxiliary bishop of Saint Louis, U.S.A., Msgr. Mark S. Rivituso, of the clergy of the same archdiocese, assigning him the titular see of Turuzi. Msgr. Rivituso is currently vicar general.

Msgr. Mark S. Rivituso

Msgr. Mark S. Rivituso was born on 20 September 1961 in Saint Louis, Missouri, in the same archdiocese. After attending the “Saint Mary High School” in Saint Louis, he carried out his ecclesiastical studies at the “Cardinal Glennon College Seminary” and the “Kenrick Seminary” in Saint Louis. He subsequently obtained a licentiate in canon law from the “Saint Paul” University of Ottawa, Canada (1996).

He was ordained a priest for the archdiocese of Saint Louis on 16 January 1988.

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IRELAND
The Journal

DEIRDRE WADDING WAS 18-years-old when she entered the Bessborough mother and baby home in Cork.

It was 1981, and though Wadding said she was not a victim of “cruelty or physical abuse”, she, like the other girls at the home, suffered emotional and psychological abuse that would stay with them for the rest of their lives.

“I shared a room with a girl who was only 13-years-old, she was a child. I was 18, she sobbed her heart out for her mother every night and I mean it was incredibly, incredibly traumatic,” she said.

“The trauma of banishment, you had the trauma of guilt and shame that was imposed by the very fact of being there. You had the enormous trauma and sorrow of loss of your child being placed for adoption and that’s something that’s left a lasting impact on my life.”

Speaking to TheJournal.ie earlier today, Wadding, who is a People Before Profit councillor in Wexford, explained that all of the girls in the convent were given a new name that they could pick themselves – she chose ‘Ciara’.

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IRELAND
Irish Mirror

BYAMY COLES
7 MAR 2017

A mother and baby home survivor said he was close to being “one of those children left in a mass grave” after he suffered multiple illnesses as a baby.

Derek Leinster was born in the Protestant Bethany Home, in Rathgar, Dublin, in 1941.

At four-and-a-half-months old he was “torn” from his mother’s arms and left to suffer through horrific diseases like pneumonia and diphtheria.

Fortunately he survived, but was dangerously close to becoming one of the 220 babies and toddlers who died at the home between 1922 and 1949.

Derek said many of them were buried in paupers’ graves.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Luke Byrne and Ryan Nugent
March 7 2017

Dublin city’s senior archaeologist has told the private developer of a former Catholic institution that the site may contain human burials.

Dr Ruth Johnson indicated that because the property at The Crescent, Donnybrook, was a former Magdalene Laundry, it could contain remains.

Significantly, her observation was made as part of the planning process in September 2016, five months before the confirmed discovery of children’s remains at the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam last week.

There are calls for every Magdalene Laundry, mother and baby home and industrial school to be searched for secret deposits of human remains – and to halt development on these sites until this is completed.

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UNITED STATES
IrishCentral

[THE DUNCES AT IRISH CENTRAL – Catholic League]

Cahir O’Doherty @randomirish March 07, 2017

He says not to believe the Commission of Investigation, don’t believe the Irish government, don’t even believe the Catholic Bishops, who have just reacted with “shock” and “shame” at the discovery of “significant human remains” at the former Mother and Baby Home at Tuam, County Galway.

Only Bill Donohue of the Catholic League in New York knows the truth – the same kind of “truth” Holocaust deniers might approve of.

He says it is all ‘fake news,’ nothing to see, no one to be held to account over 800 dead children in a Mother and Baby home in Tuam, County Galway.

He besmirches the memory of helpless young children, some literally emaciated and starved to death, in pursuit of his own grandiose and grotesque need for attention.

He’s the only one who knows the story of a “mass grave” in County Galway is pure hokum. “It was a lie in 2014 and it is a lie in 2017,” he writes.

“There is no evidence of a mass grave outside a home for unmarried women operated by nuns in Tuam, Ireland, near Galway, in the 20th century. The hoax is now back again, and an obliging media are running with the story as if it were true.”

He is contradicting his own Catholic bishops, who accept the horror of what happened at the home.

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IRELAND
Irish Sun

BY ED CARTY
7th March 2017

SURVIVORS of institutions for unmarried mothers and their babies have called for an urgent meeting with the Taoiseach over demands to extend an inquiry into deaths in the homes.

A commission set up to investigate alleged abuse at one Catholic Church facility in Tuam, Co Galway has excavated part of a burial site and found a “significant” quantity of human remains in “underground chambers”.

The Coalition of Mother And Baby Home Survivors said it wants all living people who passed through that home or any of the other facilities to be included in a statutory investigation.

A spokesperson said: “It is deeply unfair and hurtful to our community that so many of our fellow survivors have been omitted from the inquiry.

“The real issue here is Ireland’s treatment of single mothers and their babies, not what happened to some of them behind the high walls of the mother and baby homes.

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IRELAND
Newstalk

7 Mar 2017
Stephen McNeice

Last week, the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes confirmed the discovery of a ‘significant amount’ of children’s remains at the site of a former Bon Secours home in Tuam.

The Co Galway home operated between 1925 and 1961. It is believed several hundred children were buried at the site, and the recovered remains are likely to date from the 1950s.

Politicians on all sides of the political divide have condemned the find, while the Archbishop Bishop of Tuam Michael Neary said he was horrified and greatly shocked to learn of the scale of the discovery.

Meanwhile, journalists from Ireland and around the world have descended on Tuam amid international shock and horror over the discovery.

Newstalk Drive reporter Henry McKean visited the Dublin Road Estate in Tuam – built in the 1960s and 70s on the site of the former mother and baby home.

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MALTA
Malta Today

A new judge will be assigned to the case of 10 victims of clerical sex abuse after a court upheld the appeal and declared that the men would suffer a breach of their right to a fair hearing if the judge currently presiding over the case failed to recuse himself

Matthew Agius 7 March 2017

The Constitutional Court has effectively ordered the recusal of a judge hearing a claim for damages by 10 victims of clerical sex abuse, saying the victims’ fears that the sitting judge’s involvement in Church-related organisations objectively justified their fears of bias.

Former residents at the Missionary Society of St Paul’s St Joseph Home in Hamrun, Lawrence Grech, Joseph Magro, Leonard Camilleri, David Cassar, Noel Dimech, Angelo Spiteri, Raymond Azzopardi, Charles Falzon, Philip Cauchi and Joseph Mangion had filed a claim for damages against the Missionary Society of St Paul following the 2012 conviction of defrocked Missionary Society of St Paul priests Fr Charles Pulis and Fr Godwin Scerri. Pulis and Scerri were sentenced to five and six years’ imprisonment respectively for sexually abusing a number of boys in their care.

When this case was allotted to judge Joseph R. Micallef, the victims had asked him to recuse himself, citing the judge’s connections to the Church as President of a foundation which runs Catholic radio station Radju Marija.

But Mr Justice Micallef had been of the opinion that the rules regulating recusal in the Code of Organisation and Civil Procedure precluded him from abstaining from hearing the case and that he was therefore obliged to hear it.

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MALTA
Times of Malta

A case concerning sexual abuse at a church home run by the Missionary Society of St Paul is to proceed before a different judge, with plaintiffs winning a partial victory in court today.

After a long legal battle, the court of appeal presided by Chief Justice Silvio Camilleri, Mr Justice Giannino Caruana Demajo and Mr Justice Noel Cuschieri pronounced that the civil case filed by the ten victims against the Attorney General, the MSSP, the Maltese Archdiocese as well as the two convicted priests, Godwin Scerri and Charles Pulis, should no longer be heard by Mr Justice Joseph R Micallef.

The issue stemmed from the victims’ claim regarding the possible partiality of Judge Micallef in view of his current role as President of the Radio Maria Association.

The plaintiffs had claimed that the judge’s close affiliation with the religious organisation could give rise to a bias which could in turn result in a possible breach of the plaintiffs’ right to a fair hearing as safeguarded under the Maltese Constitution as well as under the European Convention on Human Rights.

In the course of the civil proceedings for damages, the plaintiffs had raised this plea demanding the recusal of Mr Justice Micallef. The plea was however rejected by the judge himself who declared that he was bound by the laws of procedure to continue to preside over the case.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Tim Healy
March 7 2017

Three victims of paedophile priest Brendan Smyth should get a new hearing of damages claims after it emerged senior clerics were aware of the abuse, the Supreme Court was urged.

The three, in the late 1990s, settled actions in Northern Ireland for between £16,000 and £25,000 (€18,500-€28,900) over abuse by Smyth.

The cases by the man and his cousin were against Smyth himself, the Norbertine order and the late Cardinal Cahal Daly.

His sister’s case was just against the Norbertines, who paid all the settlement monies, with no admission of liability.

In 2014, the High Court halted actions the three brought here against Bishop Leo O’Reilly as representative of the Kilmore diocese over 2012 information in which it was alleged there was a failure to stop Smyth’s abuse in 1975.

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AUSTRALIA
Canberra Times

Katie Burgess

The Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn has revealed another former priest living next to a Canberra school could be a concern to the community.

It is understood the archdiocese is in the process of removing the ex-priest from accommodation next to Ainslie School, in Canberra’s north.

The revelation came less than a week after three priests were moved from a retirement home for clergy next to two southside schools.

After the ACT Education Directorate asked the archdiocese if there were any other “arrangements” that would not meet community expectations in place, they were advised there was an “arrangement” next to Ainslie School.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Pat Oliva
March 7, 201

Each time I see the Laity Forward Movement and the Concerned Catholics of Guam organizations in the news, they remind me I should feel shame and disgrace for our church. Moreover, they tell everyone (including Protestant church members) that our church has no dignity. They claim membership of the Catholic community, which is easily misconstrued as representation for all Catholics on Guam.

I want to say they do not represent me, a proud Chamorro Catholic.

I understand members of both esteemed organizations want retribution for those who may have done wrong. But do they realize that each time they picket and each time they speak up in the media or are seen out in public as a group, they are nourishing that same division in our church that they themselves are praying to heal? They drag the face of our Catholic Church — the whole church — in the mud in the eyes of everyone, even in front of the Protestant churches and their members.

It says, “Take a look at how bad our church is,” and they say it over and over and over again. Is that really what they are trying to accomplish, and deliberately so? Do they realize this is the image they are conveying, or perhaps they do realize it and just don’t care? Well, whether they realize it or not, it is what it is.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

by Daniel Hamburg

JOHNSTOWN – Monday, bishop Mark Bartchak announced sweeping changes in the Catholic church to protect victims of child sex abuse.

Victims of abuse by clergy are reacting to news of those reforms, including one victim, originally from Johnstown, who says he was abused as a child.

Shaun Dougherty said that Monday’s press conference was a step in the right direction, but more needs to be done in Harrisburg at the state capitol to pass actual law.

Dougherty said he was surprised by the announcement, but happy to see it.

“It was the first big step for the church in moving forward,” Dougherty said. “I think it was a crucial first step for future generations of victims.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
Altoona Mirror

MAR 7, 2017

RYAN BROWN
Staff Writer
rbrown@altoonamirror.com

The Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown and the U.S. Attorney’s Office revealed a series of broad reforms Monday, aimed at preventing child sex abuse and responding swiftly to future allegations.

The new policies and advisory bodies, revealed at a joint press conference by acting Western District of Pennsylvania U.S. Attorney Soo C. Song and Bishop Mark Bartchak, come roughly a year after the state attorney general issued a forceful report detailing decades of child abuse cases and cover-ups.

Under the agreement, the diocese will establish a five-member Independent Oversight Board for Youth Protection, slated to advise officials on child abuse prevention and enforcement. The diocese is also set to establish new rules for contacting law enforcement and publishing accused clergymen’s names, to reform its allegation review board and to hire a consultant and a new official to handle abuse, according to the document.

“One year ago I made a public pledge to victim-survivors. … Today I reaffirm that pledge,” Bartchak said.

Song stressed that the memorandum doesn’t constitute a court order; Bartchak was a “willing partner” in the process, she said.

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