ABUSE TRACKER

DEUTSCHLAND
netzwerkB

[Forgotten how to cry]

Meine Eltern haben sich 1957 scheiden lassen. 1957 sind Mutter, eine meiner Schwestern und ich nach Westerland/Sylt zu meinen Großeltern gezogen und dort bin ich in Kampen eingeschult worden. 1961 ist meine Mutter mit meiner Schwester und mir nach Nürnberg gezogen weil sie hier Arbeit gefunden hatte. Ihre Wohnung war für uns 3 zu klein und so hat sie meine Schwester und mich ins Nürnberger Heim „Stapf“ getan. Und dann ging es los.

In dem Heim war es so dass unter den kleineren schon das Gesetz der Stärke herrschte. Die dortigen Nonnen haben als Erziehung Prügel ausgeteilt. Hunger war an der Tagesordnung und wenn man sich trotzdem mal was genommen hat musste man sich auf eine eingeschaltete Herdplatte setzen oder die Hand drauf legen. Als ich mal eine Außentreppe runtergefallen bin hab ich mir eine einigermaßen schwere Gehirnerschütterung geholt. Ein Arzt wurde nicht hinzugezogen, die Gehirnerschütterung musste so ausgeheilt werden. Als es mir aber immer schlechter ging durfte ich doch zum Arzt der einen Schädelbasisbruch festgestellt hatte. Ich landete endlich im Krankenhaus.

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DEUTSCHLAND
netzwerkB

[Georg Ratzinger rejects accusations]

netzwerkB Pressemitteilung vom 11.01.2016

Priester und Lehrer sollen bei den Regensburger Domspatzen von 1953 bis 1992 mindestens 231 Kinder misshandelt haben – 50 Kinder seien davon auch Opfer sexueller Gewalt geworden. Der Bruder des emeritierten Papstes Benedikt XVI. soll von den Vorgängen gewusst haben. Davon geht der von Bistum und Chor mit der Klärung des Skandals beauftragte Rechtsanwalt Ulrich Weber aus.

Ratzinger hat diese Vorwürfe zurückgewiesen, von den Missbrauchsfällen im Chor etwas gewusst zu haben.

Norbert Denef, Vorsitzender des Netzwerks Betroffener von sexualisierter Gewalt (netzwerkB), teilt hierzu mit:

Der Vorwurf, Ratzinger hätte von den Missbrauchsfällen im Chor etwas gewusst, wiegt schwer. Rechtsanwalt Ulrich Weber wird beweisen müssen, wenn er seine Behauptung aufrecht erhalten will.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Regensburg Digital

[The revelation of Ulrich Weber]

Wie um Gottes Willen konnte das Einsetzen eines unabhängigen Aufklärers zu unabhängiger Aufklärung führen? Da wird der Messwein im Kelch sauer. Wie konnte es zu diesem Fehler kommen und was bleiben dem Bistum nun für Optionen?

Von Martin Stein

Die Pressekonferenz des Ulrich Weber zu den Missbrauchsfällen unter den Regensburger Domspatzen stellt eine Zäsur in der deutschen Kirchengeschichte dar, einen Paukenschlag, einen Donnerhall, der hallt und hallt und immer noch hallt und noch lange hallen wird, und der in der Regensburger Diözese vor allem eine Frage aufwerfen wird, diese eine, einzige fragenswerte Frage: Wie, um Gottes Willen, konnte das Einsetzen eines unabhängigen Aufklärers dazu führen, dass unabhängig aufgeklärt wird?

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IRELAND
Christian Today

Ruth Gledhill CHRISTIAN TODAY CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

The founder of Ireland’s Association of Catholic Priests has said he has found it hard to maintain faith in the Church after being silenced four years ago.

Fr Flannery, a member of the Redemptorist Congregation, complained about the lack of support he had received and of the lack of process around his case at the Vatican, where the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith silenced him in 2012 for questioning whether Jesus founded the priesthood. He has also been criticised for his liberal views on women priests and homosexuality.

“I just think it’s so frustrating, the Irish bishops have never even contacted me in the last four years. Never shown me any element of support,” he told Miriam O’Callaghan on RTÉ Radio 1. “They are in senior positions in an institution that is conducting affairs in a totally unjust and abusive fashion and they do nothing about it and I find that intolerable.”

Last August he was prevented by a bishop from giving a talk in Cork because he was told he was not allowed to exercise a public ministry, the Irish Examiner reported.

The Association of Catholic Priests, a voluntary organisation set up in 2010 to reflect on the Catholic Church in Ireland and on society, has more than 1,000 members. It is not recognised by the Church, however, and has never been asked to meet the Papal Nuncio to Ireland.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Bianca Hall
Reporter for The Age

Men who rape children under 12 are less likely to be jailed in Victoria, and are being jailed for less time than those convicted of raping adults.

The shocking statistics have emerged as Victoria’s Sentencing Advisory Council launches an investigation into what the state’s courts are taking into account when judging the seriousness of sexual offences against children.

The council is due to report to Attorney-General Martin Pakula on the sentencing of offenders convicted of the sexual penetration of a child aged under 12 in June.

Its own data shows that between July 2009 and June 2014, 72 men were convicted in Victoria of sexually penetrating a child younger than 12 (no women were convicted of the same offence in that period).

Of those men, 75 per cent were jailed. The median length of jail sentences was four years.
Almost 14 per cent received a wholly suspended jail sentence, and another 8.4 per cent were handed partially suspended sentences, community-correction orders or community-based orders. Another 2.8 per cent either received youth justice orders or had their charges discharged or dismissed.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

By David Clohessy

Ever seen that headline in your local newspaper? Me neither.

It’s absurd, isn’t it? There’s a word for a guy who uses a pistol or rifle to get what he wants from a bank teller. That word is “robber.”

There’s also a word for an adult who uses sex or power to get what he or she wants from a child. That word is “predator.”

OK, so why does my local newspaper have this headline today: “Woman accused of sex with boy.” Phrases like “sex with” imply consent. And consent is not possible in child sex cases. And it doesn’t matter whether the predator is male or female.

[St. Louis Post-Dispatch]

Again, does the bank teller have a “financial transaction with” the robber? Of course not.

Another pet peeve are phrases like “the girl performed oral sex on her teacher.” At best, that makes the child sound and seem like an equal partner. At worst, it makes the child sound and seem like the initiator.

The child is the victim. The abuse is perpetrated on him or her. The adult is the initiator. And the criminal. Period.

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UNITED KINGDOM
International Business Times

By Henry Austin
January 10, 2016

Paedophile bishop Peter Ball, who was jailed for 32 months in October 2015 after admitting he abused 18 young men between 1977 and 1992, was allowed to escape with a caution after the original investigation in the early 1990s under a deal allegedly agreed by police and the Church of England.

However, a 29-page report written by detectives investigating the allegations of sex abuse in 1992 and 1993 warned the then Bishop of Gloucester had “been less than truthful”.

“He has hidden his sexual desires behind the role of religion,” detective inspector Wayne Murdock and acting detective sergeant Andrew Wasley wrote in the dossier, which was obtained by The Sunday Times.

After meeting with the legal team of Ball, 83, the officers recorded that “the defendant would be prepared to accept a ‘formal caution’ for an offence of gross indecency”, would resign from the church and go abroad and do missionary work.

Charging Ball would “counter any possible suggestions of an establishment cover-up”, Murdock wrote, although he noted it would “probably have a devastating effect on the church, which is already in turmoil”.

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ITALIA
Rete L’Abuso

[A priest is accused of child abuse in Cosenza.]

COSENZA – Nessun indizio utile è affiorato dai computer sequestrati a un sacerdote cosentino accusato di molestie sessuali ai danni di un ragazzino di dodici anni (LEGGI LA NOTIZIA QUI e QUI). Nessun file scabroso, né tantomeno materiale pedopornografico. Nel frattempo, emergono nuovi dettagli sull’inchiesta, in particolare sulla denuncia che, alcuni mesi fa, ha dato il via all’inchiesta.

A quanto pare, infatti, un ruolo decisivo nel coinvolgimento degli inquirenti, sarebbe stato rivestito dalle suore della casa famiglia in cui vive il ragazzino, presunta parte offesa della vicenda. Sono queste le due novità filtrate dagli ambienti investigativi e relative all’indagine sul conto di un prete di 50 anni, fino a poco tempo fa insegnante di religione in una scuola media del centro città. E proprio in un’aula dell’istituto, lo scorso ottobre, si sarebbe verificato l’episodio incriminato, ovvero la molestia – consistita in una carezza nelle parti intime – che il giovane sostiene di aver ricevuto dal suo professore.

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GERMANIA
Rete L’Abuso

Un’inchiesta in Germania ha accertato 231 casi di abusi compiuti sui bambini del coro della cattedrale di Ratisbona negli anni in cui era diretto dal fratello di Benedetto XVI.

Pestaggi, torture, violenze. Pedofilia. Per almeno 40 anni i bambini del coro delle voci bianche della cattedrale di Ratisbona in Baviera hanno subito di tutto da alcuni dei loro educatori. In 231 sono stati sottoposti ad abusi di ogni genere al buio delle stanze della storica istituzione fondata nel 975 e diretta per 30 anni fino al 1994 da mons. Georg Ratzinger, fratello del papa emerito Benedetto XVI. Sono le conclusioni dell’inchiesta commissionata dalla direzione del Coro nel 2010 all’avvocato Ulrich Weber rese note venerdì 8 gennaio durante una conferenza stampa a Ratisbona. La notizia è velocemente rimbalzata dall’Europa negli Stati Uniti, dove il New York Times è uscito con un importante articolo, ma senza passare per l’Italia. Nessuna delle grandi testate nostrane le ha degnato la giusta attenzione. Non il Corriere, non Repubblica e nemmeno Vatican Insider de La Stampa. Strano, perché di solito non perdono occasione per sparare in prima anche i sacri starnuti vaticani.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Tammox Alternative

Mal wieder ein Update aus Regensburg.

Über Jahrzehnte waren die Regensburger Domspatzen die Wirkungsstätte des weltbekannten „Orgel-Ratz“, also dem heute fast 92-Jährigen Georg Ratzinger, der von 1964 bis 1994 als Domkapellmeister der Chef der Regensburger Domspatzen war.
Während seiner Zeit gabt es rund 2000 „Domspatzen“, von denen rund ein Drittel sexuell missbraucht wurde.

Ob der ältere Papstbruder womöglich selbst sexuell übergriffig wurde, ist nicht bekannt.
Vielfach berichtet wurde aber von seiner ausgesprochen sadistischen Ader.
Er geriet in regelrechte Prügelorgien, warf mit Stühlen nach zehnjährigen Schülern. Ratzinger prügelte so von Sinnen auf seine Schüler ein, daß ihm vor Wut das Gebiss rausflog und durchs Klassenzimmer geschleudert wurde.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Katholisch

[Georg Ratzinger, former choir director at Regenburg cathedral, said he knew nothing of sexual abuse of boys in the choir. They now know that more than 200 children were abused and the number could go higher.]

Georg Ratzinger, Bruder des emeritierten Papstes Benedikt XVI., hatte nach eigenem Bekunden keine Kenntnis von sexuellen Missbrauchsfällen bei den Regensburger Domspatzen. Davon habe er in seiner Zeit als Domkapellmeister “überhaupt nichts gehört”, sagte der Prälat der “Passauer Neuen Presse” (Montag).

Mit Blick auf die Prügelvorwürfe verwies der 91-Jährige darauf, Schläge und Ohrfeigen seien damals “in allen Erziehungsbereichen wie auch in den Familien üblich” gewesen. “Bei den Domspatzen hatten sie keine andere Bedeutung als in den genannten Bereichen auch”, so Georg Ratzinger, der von 1964 bis 1994 den weltberühmten Knabenchor leitete.

Der vom Bistum Regensburg beauftragte Rechtsanwalt Ulrich Weber hatte am Freitag einen Zwischenbericht zu den Prügel- und Missbrauchsvorwürfen gegeben. Er sprach von mindestens 231 Fällen von körperlicher Gewalt; in 62 Fällen kam es demnach zu sexuellen Übergriffen “vom Streicheln bis zur Vergewaltigung”. Weber schätzt, dass von den 2.100 Kindern in der Vorschule des Chors in Etterzhausen und Pielenhofen zwischen 1953 und 1992 rund ein Drittel geschlagen wurde.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston.com

JANUARY 10, 2016

BY ALLISON POHLE

Stan Doherty didn’t believe what he was reading when he opened his copy of The Boston Globe on January 6, 2002. He saw the first article in a series about the widespread and systemic abuse of children by clergy members in the Catholic Church—a church he was part of. He closed the paper, incredulous.

That month, hundreds of his fellow parishioners began to gather outside the 11:30 a.m. mass at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston to demand the resignation of one of the church’s clergy members, Cardinal Bernard Law. The Globe found Law had kept abusive priests, including Rev. John Geoghan, in the ministry for years despite allegations of child sexual abuse. (Geoghan was accused of abusing more than 100 children.)

But Doherty couldn’t bring himself to join them. He didn’t want the allegations to be true.

That all changed after he read a story on one of the victims who killed himself because he couldn’t recover from the abuse he had experienced.

“After that, I went out in front of this church and decided I wasn’t going to let them get away with this,” Doherty said. “Well, turns out, they did.”

Doherty and a group of about a dozen survivors and advocates, who informally call themselves the “sidewalk family,” have held a vigil of hope in front of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross for more than 14 years. This Sunday was the last for Doherty, and fellow advocates Ken Scott and Paul Kellen, both of whom have been present for more than 650 Sundays.

They’ve run out of hope.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Mirror

11 JAN 2016

BY JAMES HORE , SOPHIE EVANS

Liam Cann, 22, from Essex, groomed and engaged in sexual activity with boys as young as eight after bribing them with FIFA points on Xbox online

A church bell-ringer who sexually abused young boys was caught after he repeatedly made the same typo when he hacked into a victim’s Facebook account to send messages proclaiming his innocence.

Liam Cann, 22, was jailed for 10 years after grooming children as young as eight by giving them money and bribing them with FIFA points – used to buy players and kit in the Xbox online game.

Once he had won their trust, he would then engage in sexual activity with them, prosecutors said.

When concerns were raised about Cann’s actions, the bell-ringer hacked the Facebook account of one of his six victims to send messages to his own Facebook account.

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UNITED STATES
Church Militant

Here’s the headline: As much as half of priests and bishops in the U.S. may be homosexual. Now the details.

Back in 2000, just as news of the homosexual priest sex abuse crisis was beginning to break, the Kansas City Star did an in-depth exposé on a horrible topic: the large number of homosexual priests dying of AIDS. The newspaper’s reporting brought to public light, for the first time on this kind of scale, the issue of homosexuality in the priesthood — albeit through the tragic lens of AIDS.

The newspaper conducted extensive research into the related issues of AIDS and homosexuality within clerical ranks and religious communities. Far from denying the paper’s stories, the bishop of Kansas City at the time, Raymond Boland, admitted the findings were true and said, “Much as we would regret it, it shows that human nature is human nature.”

The issue of the AIDS death aside (God rest their souls), it reveals the reality of homosexuality in the ranks of the ordained — and not just its presence, but its overwhelming presence.

The same time the KC Star was publishing its series of reports, another report, much less known, was also being circulated, this time in private meetings in the Church. It was prepared by the National Federation of Priests’ Councils, a group born from the liberal days of the Sexual Revolution in the wake of Vatican II.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Monday, January 11, 2016

Niall Murray

Fr Tony Flannery has spoken about his frustration at the lack of support from the Catholic bishops since being withdrawn from public duties over his views on reforming the church.

The founder of the Association of Catholic Priests said his experience of the last four years, having been ordered by the Vatican not to minister publicly or to speak or write about his views, makes it hard to have much faith in the Church.

Fr Flannery spoke of the lack of process surrounding his dealings with the Vatican, which demanded he make public statements renouncing his views in relation to women priests and homosexuality, issues on which he opposes Catholic policy.

“I just think it’s so frustrating, the Irish bishops have never even contacted me in the last four years. Never shown me any element of support,” he told Miriam O’Callaghan on RTÉ Radio 1. “They are in senior positions in an institution that is conducting affairs in a totally unjust and abusive fashion and they do nothing about it and I find that intolerable.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Passauer Neue Presse

Der frühere Regensburger Domkapellmeister Georg Ratzinger (91) hat Vorwürfe gegen ihn im Zusammenhang mit Fällen von Missbrauch und Misshandlungen bei den Regensburger Domspatzen zurückgewiesen. Im PNP-Interview (Montagsausgabe) sagte der Bruder des emeritierten Papstes Benedikt XVI.: “Von sexuellen Missbräuchen habe ich überhaupt nichts gehört in meiner Zeit. Mir ist nicht bekannt geworden, dass sich damals ein sexueller Missbrauch ereignet hätte.” Ratzinger war von 1964 bis 1994 als Domkapellmeister Leiter der Regensburger Domspatzen.

Zur pädagogischen Praxis in der ehemaligen Internatsvorschule der Domspatzen, wo Schläge an der Tagesordnung waren, sagte der 91-Jährige: “Schläge, das heißt Ohrfeigen, waren nicht nur bei den Domspatzen, sondern in allen Erziehungsbereichen wie auch in den Familien üblich. Bei den Domspatzen hatten sie keine andere Bedeutung als in den genannten Bereichen auch.” Ratzinger, der sich zur Zeit in Rom aufhält, bekannte sich in einem Begleitschreiben zu dem schriftlich geführten Interview aber ausdrücklich zu Aussagen in einem früheren PNP-Interview aus dem Jahr 2010, wo er die Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs und pädagogischer Gewalt bei den Regensburger Domspatzen um Verzeihung gebeten hatte.

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GERMANY
The New York Times

By MELISSA EDDY
JAN. 10, 2016

REGENSBURG, Germany — The Rev. Georg Ratzinger, the elder brother of former Pope Benedict XVI, said in an interview published Sunday that he had no knowledge that young boys in an internationally known German church choir he directed for 30 years had suffered sexual abuse.

“I did not hear anything at all about sexual abuse,” Father Ratzinger, 91, told a Bavarian regional newspaper, Passauer Neue Presse. “I was not aware that any sexual abuse was taking place at that time.”

Reports of physical and sexual abuse in the choir, the Regensburger Domspatzen in Bavaria, first emerged in 2010 as part of a nationwide wave of revelations linking officials of the Roman Catholic Church in Germany to the mistreatment of children. But an internal report by the church identified only 72 cases of abuse in the Regensburg Diocese, most involving severe corporal punishment.

Last week, Ulrich Weber, a lawyer commissioned by the choir to look into accusations of beatings, torture and sexual abuse, presented his initial findings, based on more than 140 interviews, roughly half of them with victims, and an examination of archives. Mr. Weber estimated that from 1953 to 1992, every third student at a school attached to the choir suffered some kind of physical abuse. He said the mistreatment at institutions linked to the Domspatzen included at least 40 cases of sexual violence.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

By Michael Levenson GLOBE STAFF JANUARY 10, 2016

They have become a familiar presence outside the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston, a half-dozen men and women who gather every Sunday to protest what they call the Catholic Church’s inadequate response to the clergy sexual abuse crisis.

But now, 14 years after they launched the demonstration, several of the founding members said they are giving up, convinced the church will never take the steps necessary to protect children from abuse.

“I’ve decided that, after 14 years, the church is not going to change,” Kenneth Scott, 76, said as he staged his final protest with five others huddled under umbrellas outside the soaring cathedral on Sunday.

“I’m still a supporter of people who have been abused by the church and people who have been abused in general and will continue to help them,” said Scott, a retired investment analyst from Beacon Hill. “But I’m not going to stand out here in sleet, snow, rain, hail, and all that good stuff, because that’s clearly not an effective ministry.”

Brian Harlow, a 41-year-old North Cambridge resident who said he is a survivor of clergy sexual abuse, came Sunday to express his gratitude to the protesters, who stand silently on the sidewalk and hold signs displaying the photos of abuse victims.

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IRELAND
The Journal

UNTIL QUITE RECENTLY, the influence of the Catholic Church in Ireland could be felt in every town across the country.

The Church was respected, and somewhat feared, with the local priest being one of the most powerful people in the community who was never to be questioned.

After countless reports and tribunals into decades of systemic abuse within the Church, Irish people know all too well the devastating aftermath that relationship has had on communities.
It is something small Irish towns and villages have in common with the city of Boston.

The new award-winning Hollywood movie, Spotlight, starring Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Stanley Tucci and Rachel McAdams, focuses on the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation carried out by the Boston Globe newspaper into the Catholic Church’s cover-up of child-molesting priests.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Nicola Anderson

PUBLISHED
10/01/2016

Fr Tony Flannery, the liberal Redemptorist priest who has been taken out of ministry by the Vatican for his outspoken views, has claimed that the Church would not talk to him when it came to addressing their complaints about articles he had written.

The cleric, who was taken out of ministry for writing articles the Vatican claimed were out of step with Church doctrine in the Redemptrist magazine revealed that the Papal Nuncio has “refused” to meet the Association of Catholic Priests which represents 1,000 priests across the country, while attending “every dog fight in the country.”

He was interviewed on RTE Radio One’s ‘Miriam Meets…’ programme, alongside his brother, the former Fine Gael director of elections, Frank Flannery.

Mr Flannery accompanied him to a couple of meetings in Rome when he was going through the ordeal and explained that: “You never know who your accusers are, there is no process,” describing it as: “beyond medieval.”

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CALIFORNIA
The Wrap

By Mikey Glazer on January 9, 2016

A continually updating diary of the who, what, when, where, and why around Los Angeles over Golden Globes weekend, from The Party Report’s Mikey Glazer

“Spotlight” star Rachel McAdams is bringing Sacha Pfeiffer, the woman she portrayed in the film, to the Golden Globes on Sunday, TheWrap’s Party Report has learned.

McAdams played the Boston Globe investigative journalist on the team that broke the sex abuse scandal and coverup in the Catholic church. The investigation and reporting plays out in Tom McCarthy’s Oscar-nominated drama, which is nominated for a “Best Picture – Drama” Golden Globe.

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VIRGINIA
WHSV

HARRISONBURG, Va. (WHSV)

In a press release, Eastern Mennonite University said:

“Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) has suspended Luke Hartman from his role as vice president for enrollment, effective immediately.”

“The suspension comes as a result of a January 8, 2016, misdemeanor charge of solicitation of prostitution following an investigation by the Harrisonburg Police Department and the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office.”

“’We invite prayers for all those affected during this difficult time,’ said President Loren Swartzendruber.”

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VIRGINIA
The Mennonite

Luke Hartman, vice president of enrollment at Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) in Harrisonburg, Va., was charged Jan. 8 with solicitation of prostitution. In a statement released Jan. 9, EMU announced Hartman’s suspension, effective immediately. Hartman was one of 10 individuals charged as part of a sting operation conducted by the Harrisonburg Police Department and Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office.

According to Lieutenant Chris Rush of the Harrisonburg Police Department, Hartman was charged and released with a summons to appear back in court at a later date. In a Jan. 9 phone call, Rush said that this undercover operation was part of ongoing investigations in the Harrisonburg area.

Hartman began his role as a vice president at EMU in August 2011. Prior to this role, he served as assistant principal at Skyline Middle School in Harrisonburg and an educational consultant for Harrisonburg City Public Schools.

Hartman also served as associate director of admissions, men’s varsity basketball coach and taught in the education department at Hesston (Kan.) College from 1996-2004. He was also a popular speaker at Mennonite Church USA conventions, speaking most recently at the Phoenix 2013 gathering.

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VIRGINIA
DNR Online

Posted: January 9, 2016
By PETE DELEA

HARRISONBURG — Eastern Mennonite University announced Saturday it has suspended Luke Hartman from his role as vice president for enrollment, effective immediately.

The suspension comes after he was among 10 people charged Friday with solicitation of prostitution during a joint sting operation by the Harrisonburg Police Department and Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office.

“We invite prayers for all those affected during this difficult time,” said President Loren Swartzendruber, according to a statement.

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UNITED STATES
The New York Times

By KATE MURPHY JAN. 9, 2016

Tom McCarthy is the director and co-writer of “Spotlight,” a film about the journalists who exposed widespread sexual abuse of children by Roman Catholic priests in Boston and the wider institutional cover-up.

READING Between work and kids, I’m not reading as much as I’d like, which is why I’m leaning into short stories. My wife, who is also a writer, turned me on to “Tenth of December,” a collection by George Saunders. Sometimes it feels very realistic and then it will jump into feeling more fantastical. I’m always interested in people who can subtly, or maybe not so subtly, play with genre.

I’m also reading “The Hug Machine,” by Scott Campbell, because it’s my daughter’s favorite book. It’s about a little boy who will hug anything, whether a tree or a porcupine. He’s not afraid of hugging. A friend of mine gave it to me. When you get a good children’s book from a fellow parent who loves books, it’s such a treat.

LISTENING Brian Koppelman’s podcast, “The Moment.” He’s a writer and director who has been around a long time and has a very impressive résumé. He just really enjoys talking about the creative process and digging in deep.

For music, I listen to the National all the time. Their album “High Violet” may be one of my favorite albums of the last decade. I reached out to them when I was directing “Win Win” and they ended up writing a song for the closing credits of the film. There’s something very sophisticated about their sound; something very orchestral. There’s a density to their music that’s highly effective.

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NEW YORK
Church Militant

by Peter O’Dwyer • ChurchMilitant.com • January 10, 2016

A group of parishioners from a Catholic church in the Bronx have filed a lawsuit against their own pastor as well as the archdiocese of New York and Cdl. Timothy Dolan, claiming to be victims of both financial fraud as well as a diocesan-wide cover-up.

Father Peter Miqueli is alleged to have stolen more than $1 million to pay for a drug-fueled lifestyle over a 10-year period at two parishes: St. Francis Cabrini on Roosevelt Island and St. Frances de Chantel in the Bronx.

Father Miqueli is accused of skimming money off the collections and using it to purchase sex sessions with a gay-for-pay prostitute named Keith Crist. The stolen money was also allegedly spent on illegally obtaining drugs and purchasing a house in New Jersey.

The archdiocese of New York, including Cdl. Dolan, was notified repeatedly of Fr. Miqueli’s misbehavior, but each time the parishioners were stonewalled and Fr. Miqueli was left essentiall unpunished. In one case, a worker is reported to have been fired after meeting with auxiliary bishop Gerald Walsh, in retaliation for attempting to blow the whistle on Miqueli.

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CHILE
24 Horas

Cerca de treinta personas se mantiene al interior de la iglesia y aseguran que se quedarán ahí durante toda la jornada.

Un grupo de personas se tomó la catedral de Osorno para exigir la renuncia del Obispo Juan Barros, quien ha sido vinculado y acusado de ser encubridor de los abusos de Fernando Karadima.

Cerca de treinta personas fueron las que ingresaron a la iglesia portando un lienzo y pancartas pidiendo la salida del obispo designado en la diócesis local por el Papa Francisco.

En un comunicado los manifestantes explicaron que llevaron a cabo la “ocupación litúrgica, dada la grave e insostenible que afecta a la Iglesia de Osorno desde el nombramiento de don Juan de la Cruz Barros”, publica Emol.

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CHILE
La Nacion

Un grupo de laicos y laicas de la ciudad de Osorno ocupó la catedral de la localidad para manifestarse en contra del obispo Juan Barros, a quien acusan de ser encubridor de los abusos cometidos por Fernando Karadima.

Portando lienzos y entonando cánticos, los manifestantes protestaron pacíficamente debido a “la grave e insostenible crisis que afecta a la Iglesia de Osorno desde el nombramiento el 10 de enero de 2015 de don Juan de la Cruz Barros como obispo”, según informaron a través de un comunicado.

En uno de los lienzos ingresados a la catedral se leía: “Juan Barros, hermano nuestro en la fe, por amor a la iglesia chilena, te suplicamos, te exhortamos, te exigimos tu renuncia”.

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CHILE
Bio Bio

[A victim of priest Fernando Karadima insists that the Pope should apologize to people of Osorno for his defense of Bishop Juan Barros.]

El Papa Francisco mantuvo una reunión privada con el Cardenal Ricardo Ezzati en el marco del Sínodo de la Familia durante la jornada de ayer. A esta cita también asistieron los obispos de Rancagua y Melipilla, Alejandro Goic y Cristián Contreras.

Este encuentro, que se mantuvo en las dependencias del Vaticano, se dio meses después de la controversia por un video difundido donde el Papa realiza una defensa abierta al Obispo de Osorno, Juan Barros, indicando que la ciudad chilena sufre por “tonta”.

En ese contexto y frente la toma de la Catedral de Osorno, en la que fieles pedían la renuncia del Obispo Barros, Juan Carlos Cruz, víctima de Karadima afirmó que los fieles osorninos no son tontos y que el Pontífice debiese pedir perdón a la ciudad de Osorno.

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CHILE
Crux

By Inés San Martín
Vatican correspondent January 10, 2016

ROME — Laypeople in Chile opposed to Pope Francis’ appointment of a bishop with ties to the country’s most notorious abuser priest have occupied the local cathedral, demanding the bishop’s resignation.

The demonstration came on Saturday, the anniversary of the day Pope Francis announced the appointment one year ago.

“We’re Catholics who oppose the pastoral exercise of Bishop [Juan de la Cruz] Barros,” the group, which calls itself the “Lay Men and Women of Osorno,” write in a statement issued Saturday night.

Osorno is a small diocese in southern Chile with a Catholic population of roughly 125,000. Francis appointed Barros its bishop in January 2015.

On Saturday, Osorno’s Cathedral of St. Matthew was occupied by some 30 people carrying signs demanding Barros’s resignation. On the same day, Pope Francis welcomed the top three representatives of the Chilean Catholic hierarchy to the Vatican, presumably, in part, to discuss the controversy around Barros.

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RHODE ISLAND
Providence Journal

Posted Jan. 10, 2016

Evidence of serious crimes at St. George’s School, an elite private Episcopalian boarding school in Middletown, has come to light — after the school despicably left families, students and the public in the dark for decades. The full truth must come out, and school officials and advisers must accept full responsibility for their role.

Early last year, St. George’s began its own investigation into accusations of systematic sexual assault at the school during the 1970s and ’80s, a time when such matters were far more likely to be kept quiet. In a Dec. 23 report to alumni, Headmaster Eric Peterson and board chair Leslie Heaney apologized for sexual abuse by several former staff and students.

“The School underscores its regret, sorrow and shame that students in our care were hurt,” the two wrote in the 11-page report. “We commit ourselves to taking responsibility; to healing those wounds, and to making every effort to mend the fabric of the St. George’s community.”

Those are welcome words, but there are still grim questions to be answered.

The investigation, basing its finding on “credible first-hand accounts,” identified 26 victims of abuse by staff, 23 of them by three employees. Lawyers for the victims say the number is even higher — that more than 40 victims have come forward in the two weeks since the news came out. The school’s former legal counsel — Rhode Island Supreme Court Justice William Robinson — was also involved in putting pressure on a teen who complained of wronging, one victim and her lawyer charged.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

CHRIS MARSHALL
Saturday 09 January 2016

BISHOPS who allegedly colluded in the cover-up of child abuse are maintaining their “iron grip” on the way the Catholic Church treats victims, it has been claimed.

The Church recently published details of how it plans to implement the recommendations of the McLellan Commission, which called for an “unmistakable and unequivocal” apology for victims. But despite a “profound apology” issued by Archbishop Philip Tartaglia, survivors of abuse say the Church is continuing to fail them.

In an open letter, In-Care Abuse Survivors (Incas) said those who had been abused by priests had not been consulted in the drawing-up of the plan which sets out how the Church will implement the McLellan recommendations.

Last August, Archbishop Tartaglia begged forgiveness from victims, saying the Church had been “shamed and pained” by what had happened.

It followed the publication of the report by the Very Rev Andrew McLellan, a former Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, who said safeguarding victims and potential victims was the “greatest challenge” facing the Church.

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GERMANY
The Daily Beast

Barbie Latza Nadeau

An investigation has revealed hundreds of young choirboys may have been abused in sadistic rituals at a choir run by Pope Benedict’s Brother.

ROME—The priests at the Regensburg, Bavaria boarding school for boys liked to make the students take off their clothes and bend over for either a violent whipping or forcible anal sex. Sometimes the priests made them drink red wine. Sometimes the priests masturbated in front of the children. Other times they made the children masturbate for them, perform oral sex or fondle each other.

The complaint is not about just one or two isolated cases. At least 231 and more likely as many as 700 boys who attended the school between 1953 and 1992 were subjected to what has been described by the victims as “ritual abuse,” according to Ulrich Weber, a German lawyer commissioned by the choir who represents the alleged victims. “I have here 231 reports of physical abuse,” Weber told reporters at a press conference in Regensburg on Friday when he presented a report based on an eight-month investigation into the alleged abuse. “The abuse ranges from sexual assault and rape to food deprivation to the boys who were less cooperative.”

The bulk of the abuse, which also included canings, forced gluttony and anal penetration with foreign objects, happened in the mid-1970s to boys being groomed for the world-famous Domspatzen boys choir of Regensberg’s St. Peter’s Cathedral during the time when a certain Father Georg Ratzinger was the choir leader. Ratzinger, who will turn 92 next month, is the elder brother of Josef Ratzinger, better known as Pope Benedict XVI. He conducted the choir from 1964 to 1994. When asked if Ratzinger knew what was going on, Weber said “After my research, I must assume so.”

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ROME
Irish Independent

Michael Kelly on the real-life Vatican scandal that has rocked the Church in Rome to its core and reads like a raunchy ‘Da Vinci Code’ sequel

If novelist Dan Browne penned a tome, the gist of which had a female aide of the Pope seducing a monsignor to steal Vatican secrets, papal spokesmen would be aghast. Dismissals of the book as “mere fantasy” would surely be immediately forthcoming.

But more often than not, fact is stranger than fiction, and the latest dispatches from Rome make for salacious reading. Francesca Chaouqui, who was a key adviser to Pope Francis on economic reform, now stands accused of sleeping with Spanish priest Msgr Lucio Ángel Vallejo Balda on the pretext of receiving documents about alleged financial mismanagement which prosecutors claim she duly leaked to the press.

Chaouqui strenuously denies the sexual relationship and that she leaked any documents. The fact that Balda is linked to the notoriously secretive Opus Dei movement within the Church has only added to the intrigue. It was Browne’s The Da Vinci Code that made famous in the popular imagination Opus Dei by way of the character of the murderous monk Silas. But not even Browne’s stretched imagination could scarcely have written the latest saga.

Vatileaks has become the byword for scandals that have rocked the Holy See in recent years. Pope Benedict XVI resigned just weeks after receiving a 300-page dossier on the scandal that reached its height under his tenure with the trial and imprisonment of his butler, Paolo Gabriele, for stealing files from the papal apartment.

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UNITED STATES
The Open Tabernacle: Here Comes Everybody

Posted on January 10, 2016 by Betty Clermont

For over three decades, the Republican Party has used the Religious Right to energize conservative Christians to political activism and to get out the vote. Republicans running for office in numerous states and the U.S. Congress are preparing for battles in 2016 over discrimination protection for LBGT persons, religious exemptions for nonprofits and businesses objecting to gay marriage and contraception, and greater restrictions on abortion and Planned Parenthood.

At the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) annual General Assembly in November, “their first assembly since gay marriage became legal nationwide, they vowed to uphold marriage as only the union of a man and a woman and to seek legal protections for those who share that view. Some bishops said they were committed to reversing the U.S. Supreme Court same-sex marriage ruling last June … Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City said a concerted effort was needed to ‘build a consensus’ to do so. As a model, he pointed to new state laws that have made it harder to obtain an abortion.”

USCCB president, Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, “highlighted the bishops’ push for religious exemptions for charities, schools and individual for-profit business owners who oppose gay marriage and other laws and regulations.”The assembly “also heard an address from Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, the Vatican’s U.S. ambassador who was behind Pope Francis’ controversial meeting with Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who briefly went to jail rather than comply with a court order to issue same-sex marriage licenses … The ambassador received two standing ovations from the bishops.”

Confirming the reason for his “secret, emotionally charged” meeting with Davis, Pope Francis stated that “conscientious objection” by “government employees” is a “human right” on the flight back to Rome.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Sunday Times

Jonathan Corke and James Gillespie Published: 10 January 2016

FULL details of a deal agreed by police and the Church of England to caution a paedophile cleric rather than charge him are revealed today in a dossier obtained by The Sunday Times.

The 29-page report details the conclusions of two detectives who investigated Peter Ball, then Bishop of Gloucester, in 1992-3 over allegations of sex abuse. Ball received a police caution at the time and was brought to court only last October, when he admitted the abuse of 18 young men between 1977 and 1992. He was given a 32-month prison sentence.

One of his victims, Neil Todd, killed himself in 2012.

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VIRGINIA
13NewsNow

[with video]

Eric Kane, 13NewsNow.com

PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WVEC) — Police have charged a Chesapeake church elder with sexually assaulting a teenage boy for more than a year.

Following a nearly month-long investigation, police arrested Jason N. Ellis, 40, on November 19.

He faces nine felony sexual assault charges in connection to multiple encounters he had with the teen dating back to 2014.

In some cases Ellis forced himself upon the boy, showed him pornography, asked for sex and touched him inappropriately, according to court documents.

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GERMANY
The Independent (UK)

Lizzie Dearden @lizziedearden

More than 200 children in a choir formerly conducted by the former Pope’s brother may have been beaten and sexually abused over almost four decades in Germany.

There is no suggestion that Georg Ratzinger was involved in the alleged crimes, which are now the subject of an investigation, and he denies knowledge of the incidents.

Mr Ratzinger, the elder brother of Pope Benedict XVI, was a led the Regensburger Domspatzen boys’ choir from 1964 to 1994.

The choir, based at St Peter’s Cathedral in Regensburg, Bavaria, traces its origins back to the 900s and is famous throughout Germany and beyond, performing for the Queen during a state visit and being commemorated with a 2003 postage stamp.

Ulrich Weber, a lawyer leading the probe commissioned by the Catholic diocese of Regensburg, said the 231 alleged victims included 50 who made “plausible” claims of sexual abuse at the choir and two associated boarding schools between 1953 and 1992.

More than 140 people were interviewed as part of his eight-month investigation, which included that almost a third of all pupils at the schools in Etterzhausen and Pielenhofen suffered some form of abuse, including sexual assault ranging from touching to rape.

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GERMANY
Newser

By Michael Harthorne, Newser Staff
Posted Jan 9, 2016

(NEWSER) – At least 231 members of a Catholic boys’ choir in Germany were physically abused over four decades—largely while the choir was conducted by the brother of former Pope Benedict XVI, the New York Times reports. That number comes from Ulrich Weber, a lawyer hired by the Regensburger Domspatzen choir to investigate abuse allegations that arose in 2010, according to AFP. Previously, the local Catholic Diocese had capped the number of victims at 72 and offered $2,700 in compensation, the Times reports. According to AFP, the abuse—which included “severe beatings and food deprivation”—started as early as 1945 and lasted until 1992. Weber says at least 40 of the 231 cases are instances of sexual abuse, including rape, the Times reports.

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MORE than 200 children may have been abused, some sexually, by adults working with a Catholic children’s choir run by the brother of Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI.
GERMANY
Herald Sun (Australia)

German lawyer Ulrich Weber said the 231 alleged victims included 50 who made “plausible” claims of sexual abuse at the Regensburger Domspatzen boys’ choir and two associated boarding schools between 1953 and 1992.

Weber, who was commissioned by the Catholic diocese of Regensburg, said that former Domspatzen conductor Georg Ratzinger must have known of at least some of the abuses. Ratzinger, the older brother of Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, has previously denied knowledge of the incidents.

Allegations of abuse surfaced several years ago, at a time when the Catholic Church’s handling of such claims was being widely scrutinised following a series of high-profile cases in Europe and the United States.

Weber said his eight-month investigation involved interviews with more than 140 people, including 70 alleged victims. He concluded that almost a third of all pupils at two primary feeder schools for the choir, one in Etterzhausen and one in Pielenhofen, suffered some form of abuse.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philly.com

JANUARY 10, 2016

by Mike Newall, Inquirer Columnist.

Brian McDonnell lies in his small, dark room under the crucifix on his wall, praying Hail Marys on his blue plastic rosary beads. Symbols of a church that had forsaken him, but one that he has never abandoned.

He worries that he is dying. It is all he thinks about.

“I don’t know how long I’m going to last,” he said the other afternoon. “I just feel like I’m fading quick. I just fall asleep saying Hail Marys.”

Brian suffers from schizophrenia, dementia, and depression. The manifestations of his mental illness are inextricably intertwined with the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of a priest as an altar boy at now-closed St. Gregory’s in West Philadelphia.

“He suffers delusions because he cannot reconcile his faith in the Church with what happened to him,” prosecutors wrote in the 2003 Philadelphia grand jury report on sexual abuse in the archdiocese.

Brian is wasting away.

He is 70. He believes he’s 121. He believes he is “half Jesus” and “100 percent Michael the Archangel.” He believes he has raised the dead.

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GERMANY
International Business Times

BY AMY NORDRUM @AMYNORDRUM ON 01/09/16

An attorney has indicated the number of children physically or sexually abused by priests while serving in a choir run by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s brother at their Roman Catholic school in the German city of Regensburg totals 231. That’s more than three times as many cases as had been reported previously by the church.

Ulrich Weber, a lawyer hired by the church, announced the new cases Friday in conjunction with his investigation into the scandal centered on the Domspatzen (Cathedral Sparrows), which is the official choir at the Regensburg Cathedral dedicated to St. Peter in Bavaria state. The first allegations of sexual abuse there were made public in 2010 when a well-known composer named Franz Wittenbrink told the German magazine Der Spiegel he had been abused while enrolled at the boarding school.

Weber said the reported sexual abuse encompassed offenses such as fondling and rape, while the reported physical abuse included beatings and the withholding of food. He said victims named 10 perpetrators, according to Agence France-Presse.

The alleged abuse occurred between 1953 and 1992. For 30 of those years, the choir was run by the older brother of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who resigned as pontiff in 2013 due to declining health.

Overall, 2,100 students participated in the choir during that period. Weber said he expects as many as one-third of its participants may have been abused over the years. Last year, the church began paying compensation of 2,500 euros ($2,730) to each victim.

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on January 9, 2016

On Sunday, the Chicago Tribune ran a page-one piece about the case of Fr. Bruce Wellems, a Chicago priest who admitted to luring a seven-year-old boy from basketball games and then sexually abusing him multiple times during the course of a year.

Wellems was an older teenager at the time. Did the Claretians (the religious order to which Wellems belongs) adhere to their promises of transparency and tell Catholics about Wellems? No … in fact, Claretian officials ordered their priests to destroy emails about Wellems and his crimes.

In 2014, did the Archdiocese of Los Angeles adhere to their promises of transparency and give parishioners in San Gabriel the correct information about Wellems? Did they post information about Wellems’ admission on their website, the parish website, or attempt to reach out to other potential victims?

No. They made one announcement from the pulpit, and then kept parishioners in the dark about the allegations. In fact, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and Archbishop Jose Gomez allowed parishioners to believe that the allegations and admissions stemmed from a “consensual dating relationship.”

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TEXAS
KLTV

SMITH COUNTY, TX (KLTV) –
A Lindale pastor has resigned after being arrested on a prostitution charge.

Ronald Wayne Stribble, 66, of Lindale, was arrested Jan. 6 and booked into Smith County Jail. He was later released on $500 bond.

Tyler Police spokesperson Don Martin says Stribble had been communicating with a woman on social media earlier in the week and agreed to meet her at the LaQuinta Inn on Loop 323 in Tyler. Police were tipped off about the meeting by an anonymous source and sent an undercover officer to meet with the pastor on Wednesday.

Martin says Stribble gave the undercover officer enough information to have him arrested at the scene for soliciting prostitution.

Stribble is a senior adult pastor with First Baptist Church of Lindale. According to the church’s website, Stribble has been affiliated with the church since 1990 and has served as the music pastor for 20 years.

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UNITED STATES
PopeCrimes& Vatican Evils.

Paris Arrow

Ulrich Weber, the lawyer representing the alleged victims from the Regensburger Domspatzen boys’ choir in Bavaria (which traces its roots to the year 975), said the longtime head of the cathedral choir, Georg Ratzinger – (brother of former Pope Benedict XVI-RATzinger ) — must have known of the numerous cases of sexual and physical mistreatments as he was the head of the prestigious choir from the mid-60s to the mid-90s — during the period of almost four decades of sex abuses. Weber said, “After my research, I must assume so.”

Weber said, I have here 231 reports of physical abuse…. 50 victims spoke of 10 perpetrators…victims could go up to 700 because at least every third child out of the 2,100 pupils in the choir and an attached school suffered and had been subjected to physical violence. These ranged from beatings to food deprivation, sexual assault and rape. However, the actual number of victims could be much higher.

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GERMANY
USA Today

David Gibson, Religion News Service January 9, 2016

Allegations that more than 200 boys in a Catholic-run choir and two connected schools in Germany were abused over the span of several decades, some of them sexually, have brought the church’s abuse scandal uncomfortably close to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, whose older brother directed the famous Bavarian choir during that time.

The allegations were reported by an attorney, Ulrich Weber, who had been hired by the Diocese of Regensburg last year to investigate claims of abuse at the Regensburger Domspatzen choir and two feeder schools between 1953 and 1992.

Weber told a news conference in Berlin on Friday that at least 50 of the 231 alleged victims made “plausible” claims of sexual abuse.

Benedict’s brother, Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, conducted the historic choir from 1964 to 1994. Asked if Ratzinger, now 92 and still living in Regensburg, had known of the abuse, Weber said: “After my research, I must assume so.”

“The events were known internally and criticized, but they had almost no consequences,” Weber said. The cases are too old to be prosecuted, he said.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic World Report

Vatican City, Jan 9, 2016 / 06:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Amid the lengthy process of reforming Vatican communications, the Secretariat of State has stated that the Holy See press office’s administrative and human resources branches are to be handed over to the new Secretariat for Communications.

The announcement came in a Dec. 21, 2015 letter signed by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State.

The letter also noted that the press office’s Bollettino, used to deliver official information, will remain under the control of the state secretariat, in accordance with Pastor bonus, the 1988 apostolic constitution of St. John Paul II which regulates the functions and tasks of the Roman Curia’s dicasteries and departments.

The Holy See press office’s other activities, however, will be coordinated with the communications secretariat so as to “secure the unification of all the communications processes, which are within the competence of the Secretariat for Communications.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
Blackbird PR News

Posted on: January 9, 2016

CHICAGO, Jan. 8, 2016 /satPRnews.com/ — The Archdiocese of Chicago today announced the appointment of Mary Ann Hynes as its general counsel. Ms. Hynes was the first female general counsel of a Fortune 500 company and has most recently been senior counsel at the Chicago office of Dentons, the world’s largest law firm by number of lawyers.

“Mary Ann brings enormous experience and a solid record of high performance that has won her the admiration of her colleagues and community leaders,” said Archbishop Blase J. Cupich. “We welcome her to our team and look forward to the contribution she will make to our mission.”

Ms. Hynes, who joined Dentons in 2013 is a governance and compliance expert with more than 20 years of service on the boards of Fortune 500 companies and nonprofit organizations. She is a seasoned strategist with extensive mergers and acquisitions and integration experience and a focus on mining, high tech aerospace and industrial products, commodity-based manufacturing and media /software companies. She worked for seven years at Ingredion, Inc., (formerly Corn Products International), as a senior vice president, general counsel and chief compliance officer. Ms. Hynes began her career and spent 25 years at CCH, a WoLTErs Kluwer business, rising to the rank of vice president and general counsel.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Catholic Church spent millions providing for paedophile priests

January 10, 2016

Chris Vedelago, Cameron Houston

The archdiocese of Melbourne funnelled nearly $200,000 to a suspected paedophile after he fled overseas, funding his “retirement” for nearly a decade while he was hiding from authorities.

Father Ronald Pickering, who is known to have abused at least 16 children, successfully evaded justice in Australia and died in Britain in 2009.

In early 1993, Pickering “retired” from his Melbourne parish and fled to England in the face of mounting allegations of sexual abuse.

Despite being personally aware of complaints as early as 1986, then Melbourne Archbishop Frank Little ordered Pickering’s retirement entitlements be boosted in the wake of his impromptu departure.

“At this time the Archbishop does not intend appointing Father Pickering as Pastor Emeritus. However, he would appreciate your regarding Father Pickering, in this exceptional case, as qualifying for receipt of those monies which would normally be granted to PEs,” the Priests Retirement Foundation was instructed.

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GERMANY
AFP

At least 231 children at a famous boys’ choir school in Germany were victims of physical abuse, a lawyer tasked by the Catholic institution to probe allegations said Friday, giving a far higher figure than thought for the scandal, which dates back decades.

The Domspatzen, a 1,000-year-old choir in Regensburg, Bavaria, was dragged into the massive sexual abuse scandal plaguing the Catholic Church in 2010, when allegations of assaults that took place several decades ago went public.

The choir was run by Pope Benedict’s elder brother, Georg Ratzinger, from 1964 to 1994 when most of the claimed abuses took place.

Ratzinger has said that the alleged sexual abuse was “never discussed” in the time that he ran the choir attached to the boarding school.

Lawyer Ulrich Weber, who had been commissioned by the diocese to look into the cases, said at a press conference Friday that his research, which included 70 interviews with victims, uncovered abuse that took place from 1945 to the early 1990s.

“I have here 231 reports of physical abuse,” he said.

These ranged from sexual assault to rape, severe beatings and food deprivation, said Weber.

“The reported cases of sexual abuse in Regensburg were mostly concentrated in the period of the mid to end 1970s,” he said, adding that “50 victims spoke of ten perpetrators”.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Regensburg Digital

[Lawyer Ulrich Weber said they know of 231 people who were abused but they believe the number is much higher and could go to 700.]

Der Zwischenbericht von Rechtsanwalt Ulrich Weber zu Gewalt und Missbrauch bei den Regensburger Domspatzen straft den in der Vergangenheit behaupteten Willen des Bistums Regensburg zur Aufklärung erneut Lügen.

Ich bin unabhängig und ich sag, was ich will. Ohne es explizit auszusprechen, ist das die Botschaft die Ulrich Weber sowohl an die Verantwortlichen im Bistum als auch an die Betroffenen von Gewalt und Missbrauch bei den Regensburger Domspatzen sendet. Am Freitagvormittag hat der als Aufklärer eingesetzte Rechtsanwalt nach acht Monaten Recherche seinen ersten Zwischenbericht vorgelegt. Und es sind nicht nur die nackten Zahlen, die erneut ein beschämendes Licht auf das Verhalten des Bistums werfen. Weber legt auch klar: Die gewalttätigen und sexuellen Übergriffe waren intern bekannt, ohne dass daraus Konsequenzen gezogen worden wären. Es fällt der Name Georg Ratzinger, aber auch – auf Nachfrage – jener der Domspatzen-Ikone Theobald Schrems.

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DEUTSCHLAND
BR

Der langjährige Chef der Regensburger Domspatzen, Georg Ratzinger, muss nach Überzeugung des Opferanwalts Ulrich Weber von den zahlreichen Misshandlungsfällen bei dem Knabenchor gewusst haben. Weber sprach von 231 Vorfällen. Der Vorstand der Domspatzen reagierte bestürzt.

eder einzelne Fall berühre die Mitglieder des Gremiums “im Innersten” und mache sprachlos, sagte Roland Büchner, Chorleiter und Vorstand der Regensburger Domspatzen. Der Vorstand wiederholte deshalb auch “in tiefer Erschütterung und Scham” seine Entschuldigung “gegenüber allen Opfern von Missbräuchen und Misshandlungen in Einrichtungen der Domspatzen”.

Zugleich gab es seitens des Stiftungsvorstands Lob für Rechtsanwalt Weber. Man sei “froh und dankbar”, dass er mit seiner Arbeit offenbar gut vorankomme und auch von den Opfern als Gesprächspartner akzeptiert werde. Seitens der Stiftung wolle man ihn auch künftig in allen Belangen vorbehaltlos unterstützen. Es sei wichtig, “dass er den eingeschlagenen Weg weiterhin unabhängig und transparent gehen” könne.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Deutsche Welle

Bei den Regensburger Domspatzen haben Priester und Lehrer über Jahrzehnte mindestens 231 Kinder geschlagen, gequält oder sexuell missbraucht. Das gab der Rechtsanwalt Ulrich Weber bekannt, der von der katholischen Kirche und dem weltberühmten Chor mit der Aufklärung des Skandals betraut wurde. Die in seinem Zwischenbericht genannte Zahl der Misshandlungsfälle ist wesentlich größer als bisher angenommen. Weber geht davon aus, dass die Dunkelziffer noch deutlich höher liegt. Er rechnet damit, dass etwa jeder Dritte der rund 2100 Schüler der “Spatzen” zwischen 1953 bis 1992 unter körperlicher Gewalt litt.

Weber sprach seit Mai 2015 mit zahlreichen Opfern, Verantwortlichen und dem Missbrauchsbeauftragten des Bistums Regensburg. Zudem hatte er Einblick in die Geheimarchive, Personalakten des Bistums sowie die persönlichen Notizen des Generalvikars. Nach seinen Recherchen wurden 50 der 231 bislang ermittelten misshandelten Kinder auch Opfer sexueller Gewalt. “Die sexuellen Übergriffe reichten von Streicheln bis zu Vergewaltigungen.” Viele Kinder hätten von Prügeln, blutigen Schlägen mit Rohrstock, Schlüsselbund oder Siegelringen berichtet. “Bettnässern wurde die Flüssigkeitsaufnahme verweigert”, erläuterte Weber. Zudem seien Mitschüler bei Ermittlungen zu Falschaussagen gedrängt worden.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Suedwest Presse

Den Knabenchor der Regensburger Domspatzen kennt fast jeder. Was bisher nicht öffentlich war, ist das Ausmaß der Gewalt, mit der die Buben über Jahrzehnte zu Höchstleistungen gezwungen wurden.

PATRICK GUYTON | 09.01.2016

Der Prügel- und Missbrauchsskandal bei den Regensburger Domspatzen war offenbar um ein Vielfaches größer als bisher angenommen. Laut einem am Freitag vorgestellten Zwischenbericht des Sonderermittlers Ulrich Weber, ein Regensburger Rechtsanwalt, soll knapp ein Drittel der insgesamt 2100 Buben in der den Domspatzen angehörenden Vorschule Etterzhausen/Pielenkofen, einem Internat, von körperlicher Gewalt betroffen sein. Vielfach kam es auch zu sexuellem Missbrauch. Weber wertet die damaligen Zustände in den katholischen Einrichtungen als ein “System der Angst”.

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DEUTSCHLAND
RP

Regensburg. Die Zahl der nun vorgelegten Misshandlungsfälle ist wesentlich höher als bisher angenommen.

Bei den Regensburger Domspatzen haben Priester und Lehrer über Jahrzehnte mindestens 231 Kinder geschlagen, gequält oder sexuell missbraucht. Das gab der Rechtsanwalt Ulrich Weber bekannt, der von der katholischen Kirche und dem weltberühmten Chor mit der Aufklärung des Skandals betraut wurde. Die in seinem Zwischenbericht genannte Zahl der Misshandlungsfälle ist wesentlich größer als bisher angenommen. Weber geht davon aus, dass die Dunkelziffer noch deutlich höher liegt. Er rechnet damit, dass etwa jeder Dritte der rund 2100 Schüler der “Spatzen” zwischen 1953 und 1992 unter körperlicher Gewalt litt.

Weber sprach seit Mai 2015 mit Dutzenden Opfern, Verantwortlichen und dem Missbrauchsbeauftragten des Bistums Regensburg. Zudem hatte er Einblick in die Geheimarchive, Personalakten des Bistums sowie die persönlichen Notizen des Generalvikars.

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DEUTSCHLAND
N-TV

Ihre Stimmen begeistern die Menschen in der ganzen Welt, doch hinter den Kulissen der Regensburger Domspatzen spielt sich über viele Jahre Schreckliches ab: Priester und Lehrer schlagen, quälen oder missbrauchen mindestens 231 Kinder sexuell. Und das über Jahrzehnte. Das gibt der Rechtsanwalt bekannt, der mit der Aufklärung des Skandals betraut ist. Er rechnet damit, dass etwa jeder Dritte der Schüler zwischen 1953 bis 1992 betroffen ist.

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GERMANY
The New York Times

By ALISON SMALE
JAN. 8, 2016

BERLIN — At least 231 children who sang in a boys’ choir led for 30 years by the brother of former Pope Benedict XVI were abused over a period of almost four decades, a lawyer investigating reports of wrongdoing said Friday.

The lawyer, Ulrich Weber, who was commissioned by the choir to look into accusations of beatings, torture or sexual abuse, said he thought that the actual abuse was even more widespread.

At a news conference in Regensburg, Bavaria, where the choir traces its roots to the year 975, Mr. Weber estimated that from 1953 to 1992, every third member of the choir and an attached school suffered some kind of physical abuse.

He attributed the beatings and other mistreatment mostly to Johann Meier, director of a lower school attached to the choir from 1953 until his retirement in 1992. Mr. Meier died suddenly later that year, Mr. Weber said. A 1987 investigation of reported abuse did not prompt the choir’s leaders to remove Mr. Meier or take other action, the lawyer said.

Asked whether Benedict’s brother, the Rev. Georg Ratzinger, who conducted the Regensburg choir from 1964 to 1994, had known of the abuse, Mr. Weber said, “After my research, I must assume so.”

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WISCONSIN
Reedsburgh Times-Press

Jess Kaehny Guest columnist

After being charged with multiple sexual assaults of a teen girl, David Knoble, 48, a church music director in Reedsburg, shot himself Dec. 30. Partly due to the public nature of the case and his suicide, it will continue to affect the family and church members involved as well as the community for some time to come.

Unfortunately, child sexual abuse in our country and our community is all too common, despite often being hidden and unknown. According to Darkness to Light (www.d2l.org), a national organization working to end child sexual abuse, about 1 in 10 girls and boys will be sexually abused before their 18th birthday, and more than 90 percent are abused by someone they know.

Perpetrators often groom their victims and the victims’ families into believing they are someone they can trust. According to court documents in the case, the teen girl believed she was his girlfriend and he manipulated her into keeping his behavior secret.

The Reedsburg Times-Press reported they had a “sexual relationship,” but a 16- or 17-year-old girl cannot give consent. Sexual intercourse, even sexual contact, without consent isn’t sex or a “sexual relationship” – it’s sexual assault. According to the charges in the case, he took advantage of her just like he did the 13-year-old girl back in 2004, a crime for which he only needed to pay a $335 fine. These are the two girls we are aware of, but did he sexually abuse more teens?

As adults, it’s up to us to pay attention. It’s our responsibility to stop and prevent child sexual abuse. Just like the teen’s mom who followed up on a gut instinct that something was wrong from a text message, we need to ask questions and follow up when people cross boundaries with children.

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UNITED STATES
BR

January 8 2016 by Aaron Earls, LifeWay Christian Resources

Nearly half of the background checks requested by churches through LifeWay’s program with backgroundchecks.com reveal some type of criminal offense.

Most of those are minor incidents such as speeding tickets, but 21 percent of inquiries discovered misdemeanors or more serious crimes, LifeWay’s Jennie Taylor said.

Since 2008, when LifeWay began its relationship with backgroundchecks.com, more than 11,300 churches and religious organizations have conducted nearly 230,000 background checks using the program. In the past year, more than 2,100 churches have signed up through the LifeWay ONESource program.

CrossPointe Fellowship in Holmes Beach, Fla., has been using backgroundchecks.com for five years. Sandy Watts, ministry assistant at the church, said, “We feel it is vital to be able to assure parents who entrust their children to us that the adults caring for and supervising their children are safe and have a clear background.”

Watts said most of their checks returned clear, but the few that have been flagged allowed church leadership to talk more deeply with the individuals and sometimes suggest other areas of the church that might be better suited for their service.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Church funds priest on the run

January 10, 2016

Chris Vedelago, Cameron Houston

The Catholic Church has spent millions of dollars providing pensions, housing, and private medical insurance to convicted paedophile priests despite branding them “evil” and having most defrocked.

The Melbourne archdiocese alone is still financially supporting six former priests who have been convicted for committing sex crimes against children.

Parishioners have unwittingly been partly funding the assistance through their donations into church collection plates, which they believed went towards the local church or fundraising for retired priests.

Church records show two of the paedophiles, priests Wilfred Baker and David Daniel, received hundreds of thousands of dollars alone in annual pensions and entitlements.

Their victims received one-off payments of $31,000 to $37,000 under the church’s Melbourne Response redress scheme.

The decision to continue financially supporting disgraced priests was made by senior church figures in Melbourne and the top advisory council at the Vatican, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, according to documents tendered to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

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GERMANY
The Peninsula (Qatar)

Berlin: At least 231 children at a famous boys’ choir school in Germany were victims of physical abuse, a lawyer tasked by the Catholic institution to probe allegations said Friday, giving a far higher figure than thought for the scandal, which dates back decades.

The Domspatzen, a 1,000-year-old choir in Regensburg, Bavaria, was dragged into the massive sexual abuse scandal plaguing the Catholic Church in 2010, when allegations of assaults that took place several decades ago went public.

The choir was run by Pope Benedict’s elder brother, Georg Ratzinger, from 1964 to 1994 when most of the claimed abuses took place.

Ratzinger has said that the alleged sexual abuse was “never discussed” in the time that he ran the choir attached to the boarding school.

Lawyer Ulrich Weber, who had been commissioned by the diocese to look into the cases, said at a press conference Friday that his research, which included 70 interviews with victims, uncovered abuse that took place from 1945 to the early 1990s.

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GERMANY
Deutsche Welle

A lawyer representing 231 people has alleged that his clients faced abuse by adults working with the Domspatzen, a Catholic choir in Bavaria. Several victims alleged sexual harassment.

Ulrich Weber, the lawyer representing the alleged victims, was commissioned by the church diocese to look into the cases.

In a press conference on Friday, he said: “I have here 231 reports of physical abuse.” These ranged from beatings to food deprivation, sexual assault and rape, Weber told journalists.

“The reported cases of sexual abuse in Regensburg were mostly concentrated in the period of the mid-to-late1970s,” he said. According to the lawyer, “50 victims spoke of 10 perpetrators” at the Regensburger Domspatzen boys’ choir and two associated boarding schools between 1953 and 1992.

However, the actual number of victims could be much higher, Weber said, because at least every third child out of the 2,100 pupils in the choir had been subjected to physical violence.

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GERMANY
Press TV (Iran)

A lawyer in Germany says 231 children suffered physical abuse at a famous boys’ choir school in Germany over a period of roughly 50 years in the past century.

“I have here 231 reports of physical abuse,” Ulrich Weber told a press conference on Friday, reporting on his investigation concerning the Domspatzen school in the city of Regensburg in southeastern Germany.

The abuses, which took place from 1945 to the early 1990s, ranged from sexual assault to rape, severe beatings, and food deprivation, he said.

“The reported cases of sexual abuse in Regensburg were mostly concentrated in the period of the mid to late 1970s,” said the lawyer, who has been commissioned by the diocese of Regensburg to do the investigation.

“Fifty victims spoke of 10 perpetrators,” he added.

Former Pope Benedict’s elder brother, Georg Ratzinger, was the head of the choir from the mid-60s to the mid-90s, while the pontiff spent a five-year term as bishop there from 1977.

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RHODE ISLAND
Rhode Island Public Radio

By JOHN BENDER & ELISABETH HARRISON

Two more private schools have reached out to alumni and parents in connection with allegations of sexual abuse at St. George’s School. The schools notified current and former families that a former employee, the Rev. Dr. Howard White, has been accused of sexual misconduct at St. George’s.

White, an Episcopal priest, was dismissed from St. George’s in 1974, after the school says he admitted to sexual misconduct with male students. The abuse was apparently never reported, and White went on to serve as academic dean and chaplain at Chatham Hall, an all-girls Episcopal boarding school in Virginia.

Another private school, Asheville Country Day in North Carolina, would later hire White as assistant headmaster. The school is known today as the Carolina Day School.

Current Headmaster Kirk Duncan said he is not aware of any sexual abuse allegations related to White’s tenure.

“At this point, we have not heard from our community that there were any kinds of concerns while he was here,” said Duncan.

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MISSOURI
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

By Tony Messenger

In 1983, Father Daniel O’Connell served as a religious mentor to a young female student from Holy Cross College. The Jesuit priest was a chaplain at Loyola University of Chicago. The student, who in legal filings is known as Jane Doe MB, was studying abroad in Italy, where Loyola had a campus and Father O’Connell was assigned.

Over the course of two semesters, O’Connell sexually assaulted Jane Doe MB.

For a while, she kept her silence.

Two years later, I was a freshman at Loyola, living in a coed off-campus dorm called Gonzaga Hall that had its own resident priest.

Father Daniel O’Connell was that priest.

He was my religious mentor.

So it was with a considerable amount of shock and sadness that I opened an email from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, last week describing two legal settlements with women who, like me, trusted Father O’Connell, but, unlike me, were horribly violated by him.

Jane Doe MB had actually settled with the Jesuits back in 2003, when the religious order found her allegation against Father O’Connell credible and paid her $181,000. Part of that agreement called for keeping the abusive priest away from other women in a ministerial setting, which didn’t happen, leading to a new settlement of $82,000.

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UNITED STATES
Forward

[with audio]

Sam Kestenbaum
January 8, 2016

In a conversation with his lawyer and public relations advisor, Marc Gafni, the controversial spiritual leader, speculated about suing the Forward as a “test case” and said that the public campaign denouncing him was driven by Jews who are upset about his new think tank’s success.

The conversation occurred December 30 after the end of an hour-long interview with the Forward about allegations of sexual misconduct that have dogged Gafni, a former rabbi, for decades. The interview was held on a recorded conference line requested and arranged by Gafni’s team; a member of that team sent a copy of the recording to the Forward that included the discussion.

In it, the ex-Renewal rabbi shows a side of himself at odds with his public persona. Gafni said “the Jews are upset” with his success and revealed that he is considering legal action against critics or journalists; even before publication, he discussed the possibility of suing the Forward.

“Let’s have a separate meeting, and figure out — do we want to sue someone and who would that be?” Gafni said to Michael Wright, his press representative, and Christopher Marston, his lawyer. Earlier in the conversation, Gafni said: “If we do decide to take action someplace, maybe the Forward would be the test case.”

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Jan. 8, 2016

Statement by David Clohessy, director of SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 566 9790, davidgclohessy@gmail.com)

Two women have settled abuse lawsuits – totaling $282,000 – against the Jesuits and an ex-professor and priest at Fordham University because he abused them. The predator also taught at Georgetown University in Washington DC and became the president of St. Louis University in Missouri (All three are Jesuit institutions.)

[St. Louis Post-Dispatch]

[Riverfront Times]

And one of the cases is only the second of its type anywhere. It could open the door to more cases against Catholic officials. It charges that Jesuits violated a contract they made with the victim to keep the predator priest out of public ministry.

These highly unusual abuse and breach of contract lawsuits are very encouraging. We hope and believe other victims will start using this tactic. (More on this below.)

We applaud both of these women for their courage, their persistence and their concern for others who may be hurt or betrayed by Jesuits.

–The first victim, “Jane Doe MB”

In this just-settled “breach” Fr. Daniel O’Connell “was accused of sexually assaulting a 20-year-old college student in 1983,” according to the New York Times. (She now lives in New York.)

[New York Times]

In 2003, Jesuit officials “found the accusation credible,” paid her $181,000 settlement and agreed to remove O’Connell “from a teaching post at another Jesuit institution” and bar him “from public ministry” or any activity in which he could develop a relationship with a woman.

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INDIA
Mumbai Mirror

By Jyoti Shelar, Mumbai Mirror | Jan 9, 2016

A 51-year-old Catholic priest from Govandi, recently arrested for sexually abusing a teenage boy, is also being investigated by a three-member committee instituted by the Archdiocese.

The Catholic community will be paying close attention to the legal and ecclesiastic proceedings—this is the first case to come to light after the Catholic Bishop Conference of India (CBCI) set a protocol to deal with child sexual abuse by the clergy, that was then approved by the Vatican.

The Shivaji Nagar police arrested Fr Lawrence Johnson on Nov 27 for allegedly abusing a 13-year-old boy at a church. Johnson, now in judicial custody, was arrested under Section 377 (Unnatural sex) and several sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.

“The charges are grave and we have taken the allegations seriously,” said Fr Nigel Barrett, spokesperson for the Archdiocese. As per the recently formulated protocol, the three-member committee appointed by the diocese will conduct a thorough investigation and submit a report to the cardinal. That report will be sent onward to Rome, and if the Vatican decides there is due cause, another line of investigation may be ordered. Based on final findings, the accused could be suspended or defrocked.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abuse by Priests

By David Clohessy

“Some bishops were booted out (last year) because of their records on sex abuse.” So claims a writer for Crux.

He’s wrong.

Michael O’Loughlin writes “Advocates for victims of clergy sex abuse often lament that bishops have not been held accountable for their handling of the crisis, but in 2015, a few bishops were removed from office for precisely that reason.”

Nope.

First, no one was “removed” from office. They voluntarily resigned. (There’s a difference. Just ask anyone who’s ever been fired.)

Second, two of the three prelates O’Loughlin cites – Twin Cities Archbishop John Nienstedt and Scottish Cardinal Keith O’Brien – were accused of COMMITTING and CONCEALING sexual misconduct.

They resigned but no one really knows why. For concealing? For committing? For becoming incapable to effectively govern their dioceses? Who knows?

For decades, prelates caught COMMITTING sex crimes or misdeeds have resigned. So if this is the reason they’re gone, this is nothing new.

[Crux]

Again, to be fair, no one knows whether Nienstedt or O’Brien resigned “for their handling of the crisis” or not. It’s wrong for a journalist to make this assumptions.

(There are, of course, two culprits here. Vatican officials could have been honest about the reasons for resignations. Or these prelates could have been honest about the reasons. Shame on all of them for their secrecy.)

So to be more accurate, in 2015, one bishop LIKELY stepped down from his post because he hid clergy sex crimes: Kansas City Bishop Robert Finn. Again, we don’t know for sure because neither Vatican nor Kansas City officials will SAY exactly why Finn stepped down.

(And note that Finn resigned three years after he was criminally convicted of having done so.)

What if the Vatican shocks us all by declaring tomorrow that Nienstedt and O’Brien both stepped down because they concealed sexual wrongdoing, not because they committed it?

We’d still be perfectly accurate in saying that “bishops have not been held accountable for their handling of the crisis.” Why?

Because voluntary resignations do not count as “being held accountable.” Being defrocked, demoted, disciplined and denounced by one’s superiors or by a court of law – THAT’s “being held accountable.” Being stripped of income and titles and prestige – THAT’s “being held accountable.”

And because three bishops resigning for hiding abuse – out of thousands who could and should – hardly represents any real change.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Stephen Naysmith, Social affairs correspondent / Thursday 7 January 2016

Adult victims who were abused in care in childhood are threatening to walk away from an inquiry set up by the Scottish Government.

One of Scotland’s leading campaign groups made up of people who suffered abuse in children’s homes or residential care accused the minister responsible, Angela Constance, of reneging on a pledge to meet with them and a commitment too remain personally involved in helping them achieve justice.

Scottish Labour accused the education and lifelong learning secretary of jeopardising the future of the independent inquiry into the historic abuse of children in care which she herself set up in December 2014.

Alan Draper, parliamentary liaison officer for In Care Abuse Survivors (Incas) said members were ready to withdraw from the public inquiry after Ms Constance rejected several appeals to meet. The group wants her to honour promises they say she made last year, including commitments to seek solutions to the time bar which makes it impossible to bring civil cases over many historic cases, and address a separate legal block to pursuing civic cases over any child abuse suffered before 1964. They also want clarity about what legal and financial support will be available for abuse survivors.

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UNITED STATES
The Mennonite

Written By: Gordon Houser

Films generally rely on drama to attract the attention of viewers. And with viewers’ attention spans becoming shorter and shorter, a drama like Spotlight is a rarity.

The film tells the story of the investigation by a team at the Boston Globe newspaper, beginning in 2001, of cases of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests in the Boston diocese.

That investigation took many months of sustained, difficult work. And the film is faithful in showing the careful, persistent work that journalism requires, especially in uncovering a story of such magnitude.

Marty Baron, an outsider—“an unmarried man of the Jewish faith who hates baseball”—arrives from Miami as the new editor of the Globe and assigns a team of journalists to investigate allegations against John Geoghan, an unfrocked priest accused of molesting more than 80 boys.

The paper’s “spotlight” team, the oldest continuously operating newspaper investigative unit in the United States, is led by editor Walter “Robby” Robinson and includes reporters Michael Rezendes, Matt Carroll and Sacha Pfeiffer. They interview victims and try to unseal sensitive documents.

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NEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, N.M., Jan. 7, 2016

By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Independent correspondent
religion@gallupindependent.com

ALBUQUERQUE – Plans to finalize a settlement agreement in the Diocese of Gallup’s Chapter 11 case are moving forward, according to statements made by diocesan attorneys during a status conference before U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David T. Thuma Wednesday.

Fifteen attorneys representing clergy sex abuse claimants, the Gallup Diocese and its insurers, two Franciscan provinces and St. Bonaventure Indian Mission and School attended the hearing either in person or telephonically. The hearing, which moved quickly, featured little discussion and was notable for its lack of disputes or dissension.

Thomas D. Walker, the diocese’s Albuquerque bankruptcy attorney, said a proposed settlement agreement will be circulated next week to all the different parties in the case, with some of the attorneys working to draft their own revisions.

“And so progress is being made,” Walker told Thuma. A meeting scheduled for Friday, he added, will focus on the non-monetary terms of the agreement.

Susan Boswell, the diocese’s lead bankruptcy attorney, said she hoped a reorganization plan will be filed in early February.

Young Kim, an attorney for Michael P. Murphy who was hired to be the future claims representative, voiced one unresolved problem during the hearing Wednesday. Citing confidentiality issues, Kim declined to provide names or details about the circumstances, but he told Thuma he had not been able to make progress getting one of the parties to return his calls and talk with him.

The judge said he wouldn’t press Kim about who he was “trying to talk to” and “why they aren’t calling him back,” but he left that open as a subject for future discussion.

“If there’s a problem, I want to hear about it,” Thuma said.

The only other concern raised about the proposed settlement agreement came from Assistant U.S. Trustee Ronald Andazola. The position of his office, Andazola said, was that all the terms of the settlement should be public information.

The next status conference is scheduled for Jan. 19.

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GERMANY
The Globe and Mail (Canada)

BERLIN — The Associated Press
Published Friday, Jan. 08, 2016

More than 200 children may have been abused, some of them sexually, by adults working with a Catholic children’s choir in southern Germany, a lawyer tasked with investigating the allegations said Friday.

Ulrich Weber said the 231 alleged victims included 50 who made “plausible” claims of sexual abuse at the Regensburger Domspatzen boys’ choir and two associated boarding schools between 1953 and 1992.

Weber, who was commissioned by the Catholic diocese of Regensburg, said that former Domspatzen conductor Georg Ratzinger must have known of at least some of the abuses. Ratzinger, the older brother of Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, has previously denied knowledge of the incidents.

Allegations of abuse surfaced several years ago, at a time when the Catholic Church’s handling of such claims was being widely scrutinized following a series of high-profile cases in Europe and the United States.

Weber said his eight-month investigation involved interviews with more than 140 people, including 70 alleged victims. He concluded that almost a third of all pupils at two primary feeder schools for the choir, one in Etterzhausen and one in Pielenhofen, suffered some form of abuse.

The sexual assaults ranged from stroking to rape, he said.

“The events were known internally and criticized, but they had almost no consequences,” Weber said.

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GERMANY
The Guardian

Agence France-Presse in Berlin
Friday 8 January 2016

At least 231 children at a famous boys’ choir school in Germany were victims of physical abuse, according to a lawyer tasked by the Catholic institution with investigating allegations, giving a far higher figure than thought for the scandal, which dates back decades.

The Regensburger Domspatzen, a 1,000-year-old choir in Regensburg, Bavaria, was dragged into the massive sexual abuse scandal plaguing the Catholic church in 2010 when allegations of assaults that took place several decades ago went public.

The choir was run by Pope Benedict’s elder brother, Georg Ratzinger, from 1964 to 1994 when most of the claimed abuses took place.

Ratzinger has said that the alleged sexual abuse was “never discussed” in the time that he ran the choir attached to the boarding school.

Lawyer Ulrich Weber, who had been commissioned by the diocese to look into the cases, said at a press conference on Friday that his research, which included 70 interviews with victims, uncovered abuse that took place from 1945 to the early 1990s.

“I have here 231 reports of physical abuse,” he said.

These ranged from sexual assault to rape, severe beatings and food deprivation, said Weber.

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CALIFORNIA
Orange County Weekly

BY MATT COKER
FRIDAY, JANUARY 8, 2016

Youth pastor Brandon Ernis Lee McDade pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Thursday to molesting five boys under the age of 16 on Grace Hills Church property in Aliso Viejo.

The 30-year-old, who resides in Laguna Hills or Mission Viejo (depending on if you believe his Facebook profile or the Orange County District Attorney’s office respectively), also molested one of the boys at an Orange County movie theater and another at a San Bernardino County camp, during church-sponsored youth trips, according to prosecutors.

The alleged crimes happened between June 2009 and this past December, the OCDA claims. Sheriff’s deputies who’d been contacted by an alleged victim’s parent arrested McDade on Dec. 9, and he was released from jail after making his $20,000 bail. But an additional victim was discovered in the ongoing investigation after the arrest, the OCDA claims.

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MAINE
Church Militant

by Joseph Pelletier • ChurchMilitant.com • January 7, 2016

PORTLAND, Maine (ChurchMilitant.com) – The diocese of Portland, Maine is being sued over allegations that a former bishop covered up a sex abuse scandal.

In seperate civil complaints filed in November, six men claim they were sexually abused by Fr. James Vallely, a Portland diocesen priest, between 1958 and 1977 and that the bishop worked to protect the abusive pastor.

The victims, who were between the ages of 8 and 15 at the time, allege the abuse occured in three different parishes while they served as altar boys of the respective churches.

According to four of the victims, the abuse occured while Fr. Vallely was a priest at St. Michael Catholic Church in South Berwick; a fifth claims he was sexually abused by Vallely in Portland’s St. Dominic Catholic Church; the last asserts Vallely molested him while acting as visiting pastor at St. John Catholic Church in Bangor in 1969.

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INDIA
The Freethinker

Thirty children, all from poor familes, have been removed by police from two homes run by the Emmanuel Seva Group in Greater Noida and Meerut.

According to this report, one of the rescued kids – a boy aged 9 – alleged that he was forced to convert to Christianity, hung by the wrists from a ceiling fan, starved for days and beaten mercilessly for failing to recite Bible passages.

The child, who along with his younger sister and brother had been confined to the home for three years, said their stay was like a “jail term”.

I was allowed to meet my parents once a month for only 15 minutes. The only thing I was taught was the Bible. They forced me to memorise its passages.

They gave us good clothes whenever visitors came. They made us stand in line and recite Bible passages. Once the guests left, the shelter in-charge snatched away our clothes, sweets and gifts and we were back in rags again.

His 11-year-old sister said the children were forced to sleep on a dirty floor that was littered with rodent droppings.

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MISSOURI
Lawyer Herald

A former president of St. Louis University was sued by two women over sexual abuse. Daniel O’ Connell was a known professor at St. Louis and in the late 1960. On Wednesday, according to an activist group, one woman was said to have received a total of $281,000 to settle Daniel O’ Connell’s case. The woman also claimed that officials breached an agreement to bar the professor from teaching.

During the counselling sessions in 1960, a female undergraduate alleges that Daniel O’ Connell used his authority in school to sexually abuse. And in 2012, the same woman filed a lawsuit stating that the professor held her on his lap while indulging in masturbation. The woman said that Daniel O’ Connell told her that sex would bring her closer to God. Daniel O’ Connelly and the lawyers of St. Louis University denied such allegations.

From 1974-1978, Daniel O’ Connell became St. Louis University’s president, however the allegations of sexual abuse did not stop. It was reported last week that St. Louis University and the Jesuits of Missouri Province agreed to pay ‘Jane Doe 929′ $200,000 to settle the 2012 case filed against the professor. Days before reaching an agreement with Jane Doe 929, another victim went to file lawsuit against Daniel O’ Connell again. The University then agreed to pay her $81,000.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 8 January 2016 (VIS) – The Holy Father has appointed:

– Fr. Juan Carlos Elizalde Espinal as bishop of Vitoria (area 350, population 329,000, Catholics 298,000, priests 291, permanent deacons 5, religious 738), Spain. The bishop-elect was born in Mezkiritz, Spain in 1960 and was ordained a priest in 1987. He holds a licentiate in spiritual theology from the Pontifical University of Comillas in Madrid, and has served in a number of roles in the archdiocese of Pamplona y Tudela, including director of diocesan university residences, parish priest and professor of theology and head of pastoral ministry of the Public University of Navarra. He is currently episcopal vicar of the zone of Pamplona-Cuenca-Roncesvalles. He succeeds Bishop Miguel Jose Asurmendi Aramendia, S.D.B., whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same diocese upon reaching the age limit was accepted by the Holy Father.

– Cardinal Ricardo Blazquez Perez, archbishop of Valladolid, Spain, as member of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA).

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

IF there is one issue that is guaranteed to inflame passions within the Catholic Church, it is sexual health. In late August 2004 Cardinal Keith O’Brien, the then President of the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland, attacked the Scottish Executive’s forthcoming sexual health strategy. The country faced one of the biggest challenges to its morality in a generation, he argued, as sexual health service providers pushed a “value-free agenda, focusing on a biological/mechanical approach to sex education.” He demanded that the Executive consider alternative approaches which set sexual activity within a moral context.

Much has changed since then but the Church still keeps a close eye on the issue. Now it has rounded on part of a new Scottish Government strategy to address teenage pregnancy. A plan to locate sexual health drop-in centres near schools was not merely “sinister”, it said, but redolent of an “underhand” strategy to impose a moral standpoint opposed to the Catholic schools’ moral perspectives. It also argued that Catholic schools could not be required to signpost young people towards family planning services such as emergency contraception. However, it is worth mentioning that the Church supports other parts of the strategy and approves of the manner in which sex education now focuses on relationships rather than on the sexual act in isolation.

Much concern has been expressed over under-age sex leading to unwanted pregnancies and to single, teenage motherhood, with all the impact on society that that implies. But great efforts have been made to address the rate of teen pregnancies. Last summer it emerged that the Scottish rate had fallen to its lowest-ever level. In 2007 it was 57.7% per 1,000 population: in 2013 it was 37.7%. Clearly, much intelligent, thoughtful work had gone into achieving this reduction, but much more remains to be done in addressing the fact that the number of young women who become mothers is still much higher in deprived areas.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Frankfurter Allgemeine

Bei den Regensburger Domspatzen hat es wesentlich mehr Misshandlungsfälle gegeben als bisher angenommen. Von 1953 bis 1992 seien mindestens 231 Kinder von Priestern und Lehrern des Bistums verprügelt oder sexuell missbraucht worden, sagte der von Bistum und Chor mit der Klärung des Skandals beauftragte Rechtsanwalt Ulrich Weber am Freitag in Regensburg.

„Die sexuellen Übergriffe reichten von Streicheln bis zu Vergewaltigungen“, berichtete der Rechtsanwalt. Weber geht davon aus, dass die Dunkelziffer der misshandelten Kinder noch deutlich höher liegt. Er rechnet damit, dass etwa jeder Dritte der rund 2100 Vorschüler zwischen 1953 bis 1992 unter körperlicher Gewalt litt.

Webers Zahlen sind deutlich höher sind als diejenigen, die das Bistum Regensburg im Zuge seiner eigenen Nachforschungen vor rund einem Jahr öffentlich gemacht hatte. Im vergangenen Februar hatte das Bistum mitgeteilt, dass Berichte von 72 früheren Mitgliedern des weltberühmten Chors aus den Jahren 1953 bis 1992 vorlägen, die so schwer geschlagen worden seien, dass von Körperverletzung auszugehen sei. Die Kirche hatte zudem angekündigt, jedem von ihnen eine Entschädigung von 2500 Euro zu zahlen.

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GERMANY
The Local

Fresh cases of abuse in Regensburg cathedral choir were revealed by investigators on Friday, who said at least 231 children have been abused by priests and teachers since the 1950s in a scandal that has rocked the Bavarian city.

Lawyer Ulrich Weber, who is leading the investigation in Regensburg, said on Friday that between 1953 and 1992, at least 231 children were beaten or sexually abused by priests and teachers of the diocese.

This number was much larger than previously thought – 72 cases of abuse had been reported by last April.

“The sexual abuse ranged from fondling to rape,” said Weber.

He added that the number of unreported cases would bring this figure higher, estimating that around one-third of the 2,100 students during that time period were subject to physical violence.

The Domspatzen – or “Cathedral sparrows” – boys choir of St. Peter’s Cathedral has been plagued by scandal since reports of sexual abuse in Church communities across the country first emerged in 2010.

At that time, a Berlin school announced that around 50 former students had reported they were sexually abused by priests. Afterward, lawyers for victims came forward with allegations of abuse at dozens of other Catholic institutions.

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DEUTSCHLAND
N-TV

[“Domspatzen” scandal is widening]

Der älteste Knabenchor Deutschlands begeistert Menschen in aller Welt. Im Februar 2015 wird jedoch ein Missbrauchsskandal bei den Regensburger Domspatzen öffentlich. Der zuständige Anwalt korrigiert die Zahl der Opfer nun deutlich nach oben.

Bei den Regensburger Domspatzen haben Priester und Lehrer über Jahrzehnte mindestens 231 Kinder geschlagen, gequält oder sexuell missbraucht. Das gab der Rechtsanwalt Ulrich Weber bekannt, der von der katholischen Kirche und dem weltberühmten Chor mit der Aufklärung des Skandals betraut wurde. Die in seinem Zwischenbericht genannte Zahl der Misshandlungsfälle ist wesentlich größer als bisher angenommen. Weber geht davon aus, dass die Dunkelziffer noch deutlich höher liegt. Er rechnet damit, dass etwa jeder Dritte der rund 2100 Schüler der “Spatzen” zwischen 1953 bis 1992 unter körperlicher Gewalt litt.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Berliner Morgenpost

[More than 200 children were abused in the Regensburg cathedral choir.]

Bei den Regensburger Domspatzen wurden laut Medienbericht mehr Kinder missbraucht als bisher bekannt. Sie wurden nicht nur geschlagen .

Regensburg. Bei den Regensburger Domspatzen hat es wesentlich mehr Misshandlungsfälle gegeben als bisher angenommen. Von den 1950er bis in die 1990er Jahre hinein seien mindestens 231 Kinder von Priestern und Lehrern des Bistums Regensburg verprügelt worden, sagte der vom Bistum mit der Aufklärung beauftragte Rechtsanwalt Ulrich Weber auf einer Pressekonferenz am Freitag.

Weber geht in seinem vorgestellten Zwischenbericht davon aus, dass die Dunkelziffer der misshandelten Kinder noch deutlich höher liegt. Er rechnet damit, dass etwa jeder Dritte der rund 2100 Vorschüler zwischen 1953 bis 1992 unter körperlicher Gewalt litt.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Bistum Regensburg

[Bishop Voderholzer speaks of cases of sexual abuse and physical violence in the diocese.]

Liebe Schwestern und Brüder im Herrn, zu den schweren Lasten und den bedrückenden Erfahrungen des Bischofsamtes gehört die Konfrontation mit den Fällen sexuellen Missbrauchs durch Priester und kirchliche Mitarbeiter und die Fälle von körperlicher Gewalt, vor allem in der Einrichtung in Etterzhausen und Pielenhofen, die erst jüngst wieder in der Öffentlichkeit dargestellt wurden und viele Menschen auch über das Bistum hinaus tief betroffen gemacht haben und betroffen machen.

Sie dürfen mir glauben: Es schmerzt mich und tut mir in der Seele weh: jeder einzelne Fall, hinter dem ja ein Mensch steht, eine Kinderseele in diesen Fällen, schwer gequält, oft für das Leben gezeichnet. Ich kann es nicht ungeschehen machen und die Betroffenen nur um Vergebung bitten.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Bistum Regensburg

Nach achtmonatiger Untersuchungszeit ist es nun möglich, konkrete erste Ergebnisse zu den Missbrauchs- und Misshandlungsfällen bei den Regensburger Domspatzen herauszugeben. Besonders wichtig ist mir bei dieser Zwischenbilanz auch, dass die Opfer über den Weg der Offentlichkeit zum Stand meiner Arbeit informiert werden.

Die Ausgangssituation: Zum Zeitpunkt meines Einstiegs hatte das Bistum die Zahl von 72 anerkannten Opfern körperlicher Gewalt eingeräumt und konkret zwei wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs verurteilte Beschuldigte, die in Zusammenhang mit den Domspatzen standen, namentlich genannt. Für mich waren zunächst vor allem intensive Opfer-, Verantwortungsträger- und Drittgespräche wichtig, um einen eigenen Eindruck vom Umfang der Taten zu bekommen.

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AUSTRALIA
The Local

A Catholic priest from Lower Austria who had what he claims was a consensual love affair with a younger man has been sentenced to four years in prison for rape and sexual assault.

When the allegations first surfaced, Father Fabian’s parishioners reportedly rallied around to support him, with the Kurier newspaper reporting that his sexuality and close relationship with the adult son of a family friend was an open secret.

The 49-year-old was sentenced by a court in Wiener Neustadt for repeatedly drugging and sexually assaulting his 26-year-old acquaintance. The sentence was upheld on Thursday by the high court in Vienna – with the judge saying it was important to send a signal to the clergy that sexual assaults will not be taken lightly.

His lawyer, Michael Dohr, maintains that the relationship was a love affair and “a private matter which had nothing to do with his position as a pastor – so saying this will act as a deterrent to others is a joke.”

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DEUTSCHLAND
Volksfreund

[Bettenfeld) Wolfgang Focke’s life is not easy – and it never was. He has spent in four children’s homes nearly 18 years. There he was raped by his own admission, beaten and forced to diverse works. Today the 69-year-old lives in Bettenfeld and is still fighting for reparation.]

(Bettenfeld) Wolfgang Fockes Leben ist nicht einfach – und das war es nie. Fast 18 Jahre hat er in vier Kinderheimen verbracht. Dort wurde er nach eigener Aussage vergewaltigt, geschlagen und zu diversen Arbeiten gezwungen. Heute wohnt der 69-Jährige in Bettenfeld und kämpft noch immer für Wiedergutmachung.

Wolfgang Focke erzählt seine Lebensgeschichte. Es ist eine dieser Geschichten, die sich selbst der Autor eines Horrorromans nicht besser hätte ausdenken können. Wolfgang Focke ist eines der bekanntesten Gesichter der Missbrauchsszene. Das ehemalige Heimkind hat seine Geschichte bereits in vielen Talkshows und Zeitungen erzählt. In unzähligen Ordnern und Sammelmappen hat er penibel die Dokumente aufbewahrt, die sein Schicksal belegen. Mit seinen Ordnern ist er nun nach Bettenfeld gezogen. Von dort aus führt der 69-Jährige seinen Kampf um Wiedergutmachung und Entschädigung fort.

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DEUTSCHLAND
BR

[The longtime head of the cathedral choir, Georg Ratzinger, must have known of the numerous cases of mistreatment in the boys’ choir in the opinion of victims lawyer Ulrich Weber. Weber announced today at a press conference that overall he found 231 incidents of sexual abuse involving boys in the choir.]

Der langjährige Chef der Regensburger Domspatzen, Georg Ratzinger, muss nach Überzeugung des Opferanwalts Ulrich Weber von den zahlreichen Misshandlungsfällen bei dem Knabenchor gewusst haben. Das gab Weber heute bei einer Pressekonferenz bekannt. Insgesamt sprach er von 231 Vorfällen.

Auf die Frage, ob Ratzinger die Missstände bekannt gewesen seien, sagte der vom Bistum Regensburg als Sonderermittler eingesetzte Anwalt wörtlich: “Davon muss ich ausgehen.” Der 91–jährige Georg Ratzinger ist der Bruder von Papst Benedikt. Er war 30 lang, bis 1994, Domkapellmeister und Leiter des weltberühmten Knabenchores. Ratzinger hält sich aktuell in Rom auf und war für eine Stellungnahme nicht zu erreichen.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Spiegel

[Significantly more cases of abuse at Regensburg Cathedral Choir]

Priester und Lehrer des Regensburger Bistums haben mindestens 231 Kinder misshandelt, das geht aus einem Zwischenbericht zur Aufklärung der Vorfälle bei dem Domspatzen-Chor hervor. Die Dunkelziffer könnte noch deutlich höher liegen.

Bei den Regensburger Domspatzen hat es wesentlich mehr Misshandlungsfälle gegeben als bisher angenommen. Von 1953 bis 1992 seien mindestens 231 Kinder von Priestern und Lehrern des Bistums verprügelt oder sexuell missbraucht worden, sagte der von Bistum und Chor mit der Klärung des Skandals beauftragte Rechtsanwalt Ulrich Weber in Regensburg.

“Die sexuellen Übergriffe reichten von Streicheln bis zu Vergewaltigungen”, berichtete der Rechtsanwalt. Weber geht davon aus, dass die Dunkelziffer der misshandelten Kinder noch deutlich höher liegt. Er rechnet damit, dass etwa jeder Dritte der rund 2100 Vorschüler zwischen 1953 bis 1992 unter körperlicher Gewalt litt.

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ITALY
ANSA

(ANSA) – Cosenza, January 7 – ‘Vatileaks 2′ defendant Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui defended herself at a press conference Thursday, saying she had been trying to help Pope Francis and not bidding for a place in the Roman Curia when she allegedly gave journalists confidential documents.

“My problem was helping the Holy Father, not getting a place in the Curia,” said the Calabrian-born PR expert, who denies passing on files to the journalists for two expose’-style books.

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ITALY
ANSA

(ANSA) – Cosenza, January 7 – Vatileaks 2 defendant Francesca Chaouqui said Thursday she would never betray confidential remarks by Pope Francis or divulge the content of classified documents.

“No one will ever find out from me anything about conversations I had with the pope or any documents I got and read,” she told a press conference.

“I will never betray my State secrecy,” she said, “even if my son should be born in prison”.

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ITALY
ANSA

(ANSA) – Cosenza, January 7 – Vatileaks 2 defendant Francesca Chaouqui said Thursday her co-defendant Msgr Lucio Vallejo Balda passed confidential Vatican financial documents on alleged financial mismanagement and overspending to two journalists who used them to write two books.

“It’s true, it was me who introduced the two journalists to Msgr Lucio Vallejo Balda, but there was never any agreement to pass them private papers,” she told a press conference at her home town of San Sosti in Calabria.

“It was Msgr Balda who handed over those documents to show that reform had not been put into practice,” she said.

Chaouqui and Balda – who claims she had a brief affair with him – are among five Vatileaks 2 defendants.

Vallejo Balda and PR expert Chaouqui were both members of the now-defunct COSEA commission set up to advise Pope Francis on the reform of the Holy See’s economic and administrative structure.

Investigative journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi and Vallejo Balda’s former assistant Nicola Maio are also on trial.

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ROME
Manila Bulletin

AFP

A former PR consultant to the Vatican on trial along with four others for leaking or publishing secret papers said on Thursday she would not ask Pope Francis for a pardon.

“Those who are innocent do not ask to be pardoned,” Francesca Chaouqui told journalists, ruling out a similar course of action to former pontiff Benedict XVI’s butler who was found guilty in the first Vatileaks trial in 2013 but later pardoned.

Chaouqui insisted prosecutors have “nothing that could lead to a conviction”, and the only thing that ties her to the leaks are accusations made against her by Spanish priest Lucio Vallejo Balda, who is also on trial.

Vallejo Balda has portrayed his former friend Chaouqui as a manipulative temptress, saying he was tempted to break his vow of celibacy because of her sexual advances, a claim she has rubbished.

Chaouqui insists that while she did stay in a hotel with him in Florence, he shared the room with his mother that night.

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ILLINOIS
WTMJ

Roman Catholic priest Bruce Wellems has served as a youth advocate and community organizer in one of Chicago’s poorest and most dangerous neighborhoods. Sexual molestation allegations against Fr. Wellems when he was a teenager have raised questions on whether or not he should be allowed to continue his ministry.

The Chicago Tribune reports that when this misconduct surfaced during his time serving in California, Los Angeles’ Archbishop removed him instantly. Afterwards, Fr. Wellems returned to Chicago where their archbishop is now trying to determine the best course of action concerning Fr. Wellems’ misconduct.

Wellems admits to the allegations, but claims that his past actions do not reflect the person he is today.

“These allegations had nothing to do with who I was as a person,” Fr. Wellems says. “In my adult life I’ve done nothing against children. There’s nothing that’s ever come up.”

What do you think should happen to Fr. Wellems? Should he be allowed to continue his ministry, or should he be defrocked? Jeff Wagner will be discussing the topic in the 12 p.m. hour.

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CALIFORNIA
Orange County Register

By ALMA FAUSTO / STAFF WRITER

A former youth pastor at an Aliso Viejo church has been charged with sexually assaulting five boys under the age of 16, the District Attorney’s Office said Thursday.

Brandon Ernis Lee McDade, 30, of Mission Viejo, is charged with two felony counts of committing lewd acts upon a child under the age of 14, four felony counts of lewd acts on a child between ages 14 and 15, and two misdemeanor counts of child annoyance. He also faces a sentence enhancement for having multiple victims.

Authorities say the incidents happened between June 2009 and Dec. 20, 2015. At the time, he was working at Grace Hills Church in Aliso Viejo and had access to children. McDade had been employed by the church for approximately six years, Orange County Sheriff’s Department officials said after his arrest.

“McDade is accused of sexually assaulting the victims while the victims were on church property,” according to a statement released by the Orange County District Attorney’s Office. “The defendant is accused of molesting one of the victims at a movie theater in Orange County and molesting another victim while the victim was attending a youth church camp in San Bernardino County.”

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TEXAS
KTXS

By Andrew McMillan, Digital Media Assistant, amcmillan@ktxs.com

ABILENE, Texas –
The former Anson youth pastor accused of having a sexual relationship with an underage girl was caught because of a suspicious vehicle report, according to search warrants filed in Taylor County.

Callan Rice, 26, was arrested Dec. 28 for indecency with a child after confessing to the crime.

Court documents say police responded to a suspicious vehicle call on Dec. 20 behind the old Genghis Grill building on S. Clack Street. The officers found Rice and a girl under the age of 17 inside Rice’s truck. The child denied that she had any intimate involvement with Rice.

The officers found their stories suspicious and made a report.

The next day, the girl’s father told an officer he had concerns that Rice had sexually abused his daughter, court documents say.

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SCOTLAND
The National

JANICE BURNS

A SECOND group of people who suffered abuse as children have threatened to boycott the public inquiry into historical allegations in Scotland.

White Flowers Alba (WFA) has already indicated it will take no part in the process and now members of the In Care Survivors’ group (INCAS) have said the Scottish Government was treating them with contempt and could be set to follow suit.

Ministers have insisted the public inquiry, chaired by Susan O’Brien QC, is the widest Scotland has ever seen, and it will investigate abuse in residential settings such as boarding and secure schools as well as among foster families.

These include allegations of abuse at the former Fort Augustus Abbey School and its junior school in East Lothian.

However, survivors have said it fails to address many other cases, including where priests abused children in parishes, and in youth organisations.

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CONNECTICUT
CT Post

By Neil Vigdor Thursday, January 7, 2016

A Catholic priest who fought to clear his name from being associated with a $12 million sexual abuse settlement against the Diocese of Bridgeport and was a cousin of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has died.

The Rev. Joseph J. Malloy, 71, who was assigned to parishes in Bridgeport, Trumbull, Stratford and the gov ernor’s home city of Stamford , died Saturday at Stamford Hospital. He was laid to rest Wednesday.

The clergyman went to his grave maintaining that he never fondled a former altar boy at St. Catherine of Siena Church in Trumbull, as he was accused of doing by the unidentified parishioner and the man’s attorney.

But the diocese, beset by 26 claims of sexual abuse, agreed to include Malloy in the 2001 settlement that named five other priests. All but two of them were defrocked.

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ILLINOIS
Chicago Tribune

David Rutter

In 2005, this was a snippet of Bishop Joseph Imesch’s then-sealed sworn deposition detailing two decades of child sexual abuse by Joliet Diocese clerics under his management:

Imesch: “As far as I can remember, I think (priest) Gary (Berthiaume) admitted to me that he had done it before the conviction.”

Lawyer for abuse plaintiffs: “If he had told you that he had committed the offense against the child, isn’t that evidence of the crime?”

Imesch: “That’s a job for the police. I’m not going to get involved in that. That’s not my responsibility. … I’m not going to say, ‘Hey, police, go check on my priest.’ ”

This is a terrible sin’s haunting indifference, which, despite settlements under duress, the Catholic Church still can’t expunge from its ecclesiastical collar. The blood of innocents does not wash off so easily.

Imesch is dead two weeks now. The church found no way to bury his deeds, except to ignore them.

Imesch fought for a decade to shield his secrets, as he had protected known abusers, and decried the court’s bad manners for ultimately revealing them.

So many children. So many hideous wrongs left unpunished.

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