ABUSE TRACKER

VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 7 January 2016 (VIS) – Today, the Holy Father erected the apostolic exarchate for Syrian Catholics in Canada with territory taken from the Eparchy of Our Lady of Deliverance of Newark. The Holy Father appointed Fr. Antoine Nassif as first exarch of the newly-erected apostolic exarchate. Bishop-elect Nassif was born in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1969 and ordained for the Syrian Catholic patriarchal eparchy in 1992. After ordination he served in various roles including: principal of the school of Charfet, Lebanon; vice-pastor in two parishes; and, most recently, as rector of the Patriarchal Major Seminary of Charfet. He speaks French, English, and Italian.

Yesterday, 6 January, the Holy Father appointed:

Bishop Luiz Gonzaga Fechio as Bishop of Amparo (area 2,084, population 381,500, Catholics 314,000, priests 53, permanent deacons 1, religious 123), Brazil. Bishop Fechio was previously auxiliary of Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

Bishop Juarez Sousa da Silva as Coadjutor Bishop of Parnaiba (area 20,839, population 623,000, Catholics 514,000, priests 48, religious 69), Brazil. Bishop da Silva was previously bishop of the Diocese of Oeiras, Brazil and apostolic administrator of Sao Raimundo Nonato, Brazil.

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NEVADA
The Eagle

Associated Press

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Testimony has begun in the trial of a former storefront church pastor and international fugitive accused of sexually assaulting girls in his Henderson congregation under the guise of counseling.

Otis Holland’s defense attorney Carmine Colucci told a jury Thursday the teenage girls accusing the former United Faith Church congregation leader of abusing them might have concocted stories because they thought they loved Holland.

Prosecutor Robert Langford told jurors many of Holland’ church teachings revolved around the idea that most women have desires but sexual hang-ups that prevent them from achieving spiritual goals.

The 59-year-old Holland has pleaded not guilty to 17 felonies including child sexual assault, lewdness and bribing a witness.

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NEVADA
Las Vegas Review-Journal

By David Ferrara
Las Vegas Review-Journal

A former Las Vegas pastor used his church as an outlet to rape several minor girls, a special prosecutor said Thursday during opening statements of a sexual assault trial.

Otis Holland, now 59, fled Southern Nevada in 2011 after Henderson police issued an arrest warrant alleging several counts of sexual assault of a victim younger than 16 years old, one count of child abuse and one count of conspiracy to commit a crime.

“Mr. Holland’s church was unique in one very dark way: he had a fundamental belief about spirituality and sexuality,” said Robert Langford, who is prosecuting on the case. “And that’s what this case is going to be about. He believes you could not begin to attain spirituality if you were troubled by your sexuality. And that’s what he preached.”

Holland was the pastor for United Faith Church, which held services in a storefront on Hacienda Avenue, near Tropicana and Eastern avenues. He met privately with the girls under the guise of “counseling” them about sexual issues, and then performed sex acts on them, Langford said.

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RHODE ISLAND
Boston Globe

By Bella English GLOBE STAFF JANUARY 08, 2016

After weeks of public pressure, the board of trustees at embattled St. George’s School agreed on Thursday to appoint a new “third party independent investigator” to oversee a comprehensive investigation of sexual abuse at the school. The decision was announced in a joint statement by board chair Leslie Heaney and by rape victim Anne Scott, speaking on behalf of SGS for Healing, a group of victims and other alumni.

The decision came after a two-hour meeting between attorneys for the victims and trustees of the prestigious Episcopal preparatory school in Middletown, R.I, and was the first accord between the two sides.

Since December, when Scott went public with her story, accounts have grown of sexual abuse at St. George’s. More than 40 former students have told lawyers they were raped or molested at St. George’s, mostly in the 1970s and 1980s, by what both the school and victims’ attorneys acknowledge were at least nine staff or student perpetrators.

The new investigator will be agreed upon by both the board and the victims, and they hope to appoint someone next week.

“Today’s decision is a very important first step in what we hope will be a process of reconciliation and healing,” Scott said.

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MINNESOTA
The Journal

January 7, 2016
Associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A federal bankruptcy judge has approved the sale of a building owned by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Judge Robert Kressel on Thursday approved the sale of the Hayden Center to the Minnesota Historical Society for $4.5 million. It’s the first of four real estate holdings expected to be sold by the archdiocese this year.

The archdiocese filed for bankruptcy protection last January, saying it couldn’t pay for mounting claims filed by people who said they were sexually abused by clergy.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

BY MARIA MILLER THURSDAY, JANUARY 7TH 2016

BEDFORD, Pa. — A Bedford County pastor has been removed from his position after accusations of sexual abuse in the 1970s and 1980s. Rev. Howard White will no longer serve as a fill-in pastor at St. James Episcopal Church after the Episcopal Diocese removed him this week.

The allegations against White stem from a boarding school in Rhode Island where authorities said more than two dozen students have come forward.

Rhode Island state police said that boarding school has acknowledged it didn’t report abusers to authorities and has apologized for not doing more. In the meantime, an attorney for three alleged victims has released documents from the school that he says show White was fired and asked to stay away for at least five years.

Three alleged victims identified in an internal investigation by St. George’s School in Middletown, Rhode Island, allege their abuse came at the hands of White.

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RHODE ISLAND
The New York Times

by KATHARINE Q. SEELYEJAN. 7, 2016

BOSTON — St. George’s School, an elite Rhode Island prep school embroiled in a widening sexual abuse scandal spanning decades, said Thursday that it would commission a new, independent investigation into allegations of misconduct against former staff and former students.

The investigation is to be undertaken by a third party to be chosen with the approval of a group of victims who have been critical of the school’s handling of the matter.

The school and the victims group, which calls itself “S.G.S. for Healing,” said in a joint statement that the investigation would be independent, comprehensive and not limited “in scope or time period and will be conducted in a manner sensitive to victims who may have already provided information.”

The Rhode Island State Police are conducting a separate investigation. And the Episcopal Diocese of Central Pennsylvania has restricted a retired priest from his duties after the priest was named Tuesday by lawyers for former students as having molested three boys at St. George’s in the 1970s.

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UNITED STATES
First Things

by Philip Lawler
1 . 8 . 16

Any major American newspaper would immediately fire a reporter who was caught using composite characters or inventing quotations for his stories. Hollywood naturally plays by different rules. A film “based on” a true story is considered acceptable; “recreated” dialogue is the norm. We expect print journalists to report on things as they are, while filmmakers are free to depict things as they might have been.

Spotlight, in which director Tom McCarthy recounts how the Boston Globe blew the lid off a simmering sex-abuse scandal in the Boston archdiocese, is a paradoxical product. The film pays tribute to dogged investigative reporters, while itself blithely ignoring the standards to which those journalists adhered. Somehow it works. Treating a historical episode as a drama, Spotlight successfully conveys the essence of the story: the frustrations and triumphs of the reporters, the enduring agony of abuse victims, and the flavor of life in a city dominated by disaffected Irish Catholics.

None of the characters in Spotlight behaves quite like the real people I know. (The portrayal of Cardinal Bernard Law, by Len Cariou, is particularly weak, conveying neither the strength of personality nor the tragic flaws of that unhappy prelate.) Yet the actors are thoroughly convincing insofar as they show how their characters might have behaved in given circumstances. Strong performances (particularly by Mark Ruffalo as Michael Rezendes and Michael Keaton as Walter Robinson) and lively pacing drive the story forward. And the plot line—the breaking of a major news story—sustains the excitement.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Altoona Mirror

January 8, 2016
By Ryan Brown (rbrown@altoonamirror.com) , The Altoona Mirror

A retired priest working as a long-term substitute at Bedford’s St. James Episcopal Church was placed on administrative leave this week after he was named in a decades-old abuse case unfolding at a Rhode Island boarding school.

The Rev. Howard White has worked as a “supply priest” – a temporary priest without full powers – at St. James for eight years before his suspension, Bishop Audrey Scanlan, head of the Episcopal Diocese of Central Pennsylvania, said in an interview. On Tuesday, former students at Rhode Island’s prestigious St. George’s School identified White as one of several previously unnamed suspects in a sexual abuse case there.

“I have moved to immediately restrict Fr. White’s ministry and to provide for the pastoral care of the congregation that he currently serves,” Scanlan said Wednesday in a written statement. “I have no information that leads me to believe that there have been any incidents of abuse at St. James, Bedford, but it is imperative that we employ all the safeguards that are available to us while the investigation (continues).”

Allegations against White and other former St. George’s employees date to the 1970s and ’80s, with alumni now claiming at least 23 students faced sexual abuse. A school investigation published in December claimed “Employee No. 2” – now identified as White – had engaged in inappropriate contact with at least three male students before or during 1974.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Valley News

By Michael Rubinkam
Associated Press
Friday, January 8, 2016

An Episcopal priest has been suspended from a Pennsylvania church after being accused this week of molesting three boys at an elite boarding school in Rhode Island more than 40 years ago.

More than two dozen students allege they were molested or raped at St. George’s School in Middletown, R.I., in the 1970s and ’80s. A lawyer for three former students named the Rev. Howard White on Tuesday as being among the six perpetrators the school identified after an internal investigation.

White has not been charged with a crime, and did not return a phone message left Thursday at his home by The Associated Press. He told The New York Times on Tuesday that the allegations were “news to me.” Asked by the newspaper if he had been fired because of the accusations, he said, “That isn’t really true.” He told The Boston Globe he had no comment.

A retired priest, White has been serving as a long-term, fill-in pastor at St. James Episcopal Church in Bedford, Penn., about 100 miles east of Pittsburgh.

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UNITED STATES
New York Daily News

BY LAURA BULT NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Updated: Thursday, January 7, 2016

Ten women filed a bombshell lawsuit Wednesday alleging decades of sexual assault and rape by the longtime leader of Christian homeschooling ministry, Bill Gothard, who preaches modesty among women and has ties to Republican politicians and the reality TV Duggar family.

The lawsuit is the latest development after numerous women who sought counseling at Gothard’s Institute of Basic Life Principles, a prominent religious homeschooling ministry, came forward accusing the magnetic leader of sexual abuse, some of whom were minors at the time

The 81-year-old unmarried former president of the IBLP resigned from the ministry in 2014 after more than 30 women said they had been molested by him, according to the Washington Post, which first reported the story.

The lawsuit filed in an Illinois circuit court includes allegations that range from sexual harassment, inappropriate touching and hand-holding, molestation and rape, according to the complaint provided to the Daily News by the lawyers representing the women at the Texas Gibbs Law Firm.

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ILLINOIS
Chicago Tribune

Christy Gutowski
Chicago Tribune

More former followers of the DuPage County-based Institute in Basic Life Principles have joined a multimillion-dollar lawsuit alleging leaders of the renowned conservative ministry conspired to cover up decades of inappropriate conduct.

Five additional women, totaling 10 plaintiffs, filed an amended 110-page lawsuit Wednesday in DuPage County alleging they were victims of “sexual abuse, sexual harassment and inappropriate/unauthorized touching” while they were participants, interns or employees of the institute.

Besides monetary damages, the women asked a judge to impose a “constructive trust” on IBLP’s assets to prevent leaders’ alleged plans to liquidate resources estimated at more than $100 million while they close the institute’s headquarters near Oak Brook and relocate to Texas “in an attempt to flee the jurisdiction (state of Illinois) where this wrongful conduct occurred,” according to the lawsuit.

In October, five of the women sued IBLP and its board of directors. Naperville attorney Shawn Collins later sought to dismiss the suit on behalf of IBLP, arguing it lacked specific facts such as dates, acts and named perpetrators to support such claims. Lawyers for the women did not fight the challenge and instead refiled the suit this week with the addition of five more accusers.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Rye & Battle Observer

A former Rye priest pleaded guilty to charges in connection with more than 3,000 indecent pictures of children yesterday (Wednesday, January 6).

Paul Clarke, formerly of Watchbell Road but now lives in Manchester, entered the pleas at Lewes Crown Court.

The 71-year-old had been charged with possessing an indecent image of a child, possession of prohibited images and making a total of 3,100 indecent images of children.

Clarke, of Redclyffe Road, Urmston, Greater Manchester, was arrested after a search of his home in the residential presbytery attached to St Anthony’s Church on November 13, 2014.

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RHODE ISLAND
ABC News

By MICHAEL RUBINKAM AND DENISE LAVOIE, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jan 7, 2016

An elite Rhode Island boarding school agreed Thursday to hire a new, independent investigator to look into allegations of sexual abuse made by at least 40 former students covering four decades.

Lawyers for the people who allege they were molested or raped by former school employees and students said they reached an agreement late Thursday with administrators at St. George’s School, a $56,000-a-year coeducational, Episcopalian school in Middletown, Rhode Island.

Many of the alleged victims had questioned the thoroughness of the school’s first investigation, which was led by the law partner of the school’s attorney. In a report last month, the school said that investigation found that 26 students had been sexually abused in the 1970s and ’80s by six former employees. The school acknowledged it didn’t report abusers to authorities at the time and apologized for not doing more.

Since then, Massachusetts lawyers Eric MacLeish and Carmen Durso said they have heard from at least 40 people who say they were abused by former staffers and students at the prep school.

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MINNESOTA
Duluth News Tribune

By Tom Olsen

A U.S. bankruptcy judge has set a May 25 deadline for victims of child sexual abuse by priests to file claims against the Diocese of Duluth.

Judge Robert Kressel set the deadline, also known as a “bar date,” after a hearing Thursday morning in Minneapolis. The deadline gives victims the full opportunity to seek damages under the Minnesota Child Victims Act, which is set to expire the same day.

The diocese filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last month after being hit with a $4.9 million verdict in the first case to go to trial under the Child Victims Act.

At the time of the filing, the diocese was already facing five additional lawsuits and 12 claims stemming from abuse allegations. Victims’ attorneys said they expected those numbers to swell ahead of the filing deadline.

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MINNESOTA
Fox 21

Raeanna Marnati, Web Producer, rmarnati@kqdsfox21.tv

In court Thursday, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Kressel gave creditors, including survivors of childhood sex abuse, until May 25 to file claims in the bankruptcy case.

The decision requires all information about survivors of sexual abuse to be kept confidential.

The Diocese of Duluth filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection on December 7.

The decision to file bankruptcy came after a Ramsey County jury awarded $8.4 million to a man who says he was molested as a boy by a priest form the Duluth Diocese.

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MINNESOTA
The Legal Examiner

Posted by Mike Bryant
January 7, 2016

Survivors of sexual abuse have until May 25, 2016 to seek justice against their attackers. That is just a little over firm months away. The Window that has been limited due to bankruptcy by the diocese is part of a federal court order. Anyone who was sexually abused by an priest of the diocese, or who believes the diocese is liable for their abuse must act before the May 25 bankruptcy filing.

Nationally renowned priest abuse attorney Jeff Anderson’s website details instructions. There are a number of key points:

• You must file a claim by May 25.
• Your privacy and confidentiality can be protected.
• Filing your claim can help you and help protect children.

Please act now, because any further delay will result in loss of your right to make a claim

Abuse of children and the continued silence by the offenders needs to be prevented. If you suffered, saw, or suspected such events, it is important to know that there is help out there.

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MINNESOTA
Northlands News Center

By Kevin Jacobsen

January 7, 2016

Duluth, MN (NNCNOW.com) — A Bankruptcy judge has set a deadline in the Diocese of the Duluth bankruptcy case.

Judge Robert J. Kressel set a May 25th deadline for creditors, including survivors of childhood sexual abuse, to confidentially file claims

The decision requires all information about survivors of sexual abuse to be kept strictly confidential.

“Any survivors out there who are suffering in silence, blaming themselves, can now confidentially get help and take action,” said attorney Mike Finnegan, “But time is running out.”

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RHODE ISLAND
SGS for Healing

From: Community.stgeorges.edu on behalf of Board Chair
Thursday, January 07, 2016 6:05 PM
Subject: Investigation Update

Dear St. George’s School Alumni and Parents,

On behalf of the Board we want to provide an update concerning an agreement reached today with the Alumni/Victim group “SGS for Healing.” Details can be found in the following statement. We remain committed to an ongoing dialogue with survivors and to ensuring a safe environment for all students at St. George’s.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 7, 2016, 5 p.m.
Joint Statement of St. George’s School and the
Alumni/Victim’s Group SGS for Healing

As a result of an agreement reached this afternoon between St. George’s School and the Alumni/Victim Group “SGS for Healing,” the Board of Trustees has announced that it will retain a third-party independent investigator to be agreed upon by the parties in order to oversee a comprehensive investigation of sexual abuse at St. George’s School. This investigation will not be limited in scope or time period and will be conducted in a manner sensitive to victims who may have already provided information.

Said Leslie Heaney, SGS Board Chair: “The Board is committed to a truly impartial investigation. There is nothing more important to us than that the review be thorough and exhaustive, and that its findings are found to be reliable and credible by all parties, particularly the victims.”

Anne Scott, from the SGS class of 1980 said. “Today’s decision is a very important first step in what we hope will be a process of reconciliation and healing. We look forward to the input of all alumni/victims on today’s developments and the new investigation.”

For further information, please contact:
For St. George’s School: Joseph Baerlein, (617) 443-9933
For Anne Scott and SGS for Healing: Eric MacLeish, (617) 817-1797 or Carmen Durso (617) 728- 9123.

Yours truly,
Leslie B. Heaney ’92
Chair of the Board of Trustees
St. George’s School • 372 Purgatory Road, Middletown, RI 02842

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RHODE ISLAND
WPRI

[with video]

Nancy Krause with The Associated Press
Published: January 7, 2016

BEDFORD, Penn. (WPRI/AP) –St. George’s School in Middletown announced Thursday it will hire a third party investigator to look into claims of sexual abuse.

The bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Central Pennsylvania announced this week she has suspended The Rev. Dr. Howard White in the investigation into widespread allegations of sexual abuse at the school.

White, who has not been charged with a crime, is a retired priest who has been serving as a long-term fill-in pastor at St. James Episcopal Church in Bedford, about 100 miles east of Pittsburgh.

In a statement to Eyewitness News, St. George’s School and the Alumni/Victim’s Group “SGS for Healing” said:

As a result of an agreement reached this afternoon between St. George’s School and the Alumni/Victim Group “SGS for Healing,” the Board of Trustees has announced that it will retain a third party independent investigator to be agreed upon by the parties in order to oversee a comprehensive investigation of sexual abuse at St. George’s School.

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NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

By Mark Mueller | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on January 07, 2016

An arrest warrant has been issued for a suspended New Jersey priest who admitted to a reporter in August that he engaged in a sexual encounter with a teenage boy 13 years ago.

Union County’s presiding municipal court judge, Joan Robinson Gross, issued the warrant for the Rev. Manuel Gallo Espinoza Thursday afternoon, one day after the alleged victim in the case filed a sexual assault complaint in Plainfield Municipal Court.

The Rev. Manuel Gallo Espinoza, seen in social media photos (top), fled the country in 2003 after a 15-year-old boy accused him of rape. At bottom is a copy of the visa he received when he returned to the United States to work as a teacher.

The accuser, Max Rojas Ramirez, contends Gallo Espinoza raped him in the rectory of a Plainfield church just before Easter in 2003, when he was 15. The priest, who was removed from ministry by the Archdiocese of Newark after the accusation was made, then fled to his native Ecuador.

It’s not known where Gallo Espinoza is living now. In June of last year, NJ Advance Media disclosed he had returned to the United States to work as a teacher in Maryland and Virginia before disappearing in 2014.

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NEW JERSEY
Failed Messiah

Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com

Rabbi Yosef Kolko will remain in prison.

The former haredi camp counselor from Lakewood, New Jersey will serve the rest of 15-year sentence in state prison after a two-judge appellate court panel rejected his claim that he was coerced by members of the haredi community to falsely plead guilty to sexually assaulting an 11-year-old child in his care at the camp, the APP reported.

Judges Harry G. Carroll and Thomas W. Sumners of the Appellate Division of Superior Court ruled yesterday that Kolko’s claims were meritless.

Kolko pleaded guilty in May 2013 during his trial.

Kolko was a counselor at the Yachad summer camp run by the Yeshiva Bais Hatorah School in Lakewood. He also taught at Yeshiva Orchos Chaim School in Lakewood. The abuse took place there in 2008 and 2009, when the child was 11- and 12-years-old.

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NEW JERSEY
Asbury Park Press

Kathleen Hopkins, @Khopkinsapp January 7, 2016

TOMS RIVER – A former Orthodox Jewish camp counselor from Lakewood will remain in state prison after judges rejected his claims that he was coerced by his religious community to falsely admit he molested a youngster in his charge.

A two-judge panel on Wednesday refused to allow Yosef Kolko to take back his guilty plea to multiple sexual assault charges in a high-profile case that exposed how Lakewood’s Orthodox Jewish community handled molestation allegations.

Judges Harry G. Carroll and Thomas W. Sumners of the Appellate Division of Superior Court deemed meritless Kolko’s claims that he was coerced to plead guilty to aggravated sexual assault, attempted aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child who had attended a Yeshiva summer camp where he once worked as a counselor.

As a result, Kolko, 39, of Lakewood will continue to serve a 15-year term in state prison, imposed in 2013 by Superior Court Judge Francis R. Hodgson.

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UNITED STATES
Talking Points Memo

ByALLEGRA KIRKLAND
Published JANUARY 7, 2016

A prominent leader in the conservative Christian homeschooling movement was accused of sexual abuse and rape in a lawsuit filed Wednesday by 10 former members of his ministry, The Washington Post reported.

The suit alleges that Bill Gothard, the former head of the Institute in Basic Life Principles, sexually abused some of the women and concealed sexual abuse committed against other young women by family members. One unnamed plaintiff also alleged that Gothard raped her after she reported to the ministry that she had been raped by her father, according to the report.

Gothard told the Post on Wednesday that the rape and sexual harassment allegations against him were false.

“That’s horrible,” he said. “Never in my life have I touched a girl sexually. I’m shocked to even hear that.”

Gothard, who is 81 years old and has never been married, resigned from the ministry in 2014 after more than 30 women accused him of molesting and sexually harassing women he worked with at the ministry.

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CALIFORNIA
Monterey County Weekly

Sara Rubin

People who have met Marc Gafni describe him as magnetic, the kind of person who draws you in. The part-time Pacific Grove resident has built a successful career as a spiritual leader, author and speaker. He’s a founder of the Center for Integral Wisdom, an “activist think tank” based on promoting a philosophy of personal and cultural transformation.

Gafni, 55, himself has gone through transformations in his career, working under different names in different countries, in the religious and secular realms.

Judy Mitzner knew Gafni in 1986, when he was Mordechai Winiarz, a 24-year-old orthodox Jewish rabbi, and she was an observant 16-year-old. She was staying with him and his wife, and says he approached her basement bedroom, said “You know what you want,” and climbed into bed naked with her.

“At the time, the rabbinate said, ‘We’re sorry to hear that, but we’re going to deal with it internally,’” Mitzner recalls.

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NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

By Mark Mueller | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on January 07, 2016

Five months after a suspended priest admitted to a reporter that he had a sexual encounter with a 15-year-old boy in 2003, the alleged victim filed a criminal complaint against the clergyman in municipal court Wednesday, saying prosecutors have been slow to act in the case.

The accuser — Max Rojas Ramirez, now 28 — said his sexual assault complaint is intended to speed a resolution in authorities’ investigation of the Rev. Manuel Gallo Espinoza, who has been sought for questioning by the Union County Prosecutor’s Office.

“I want him to be charged,” Ramirez said before filing the complaint Wednesday afternoon in Plainfield Municipal Court. “I want justice to be served. It’s been a long time, and nothing has happened.”

The Rev. Manuel Gallo Espinoza, seen in social media photos (top), fled the country in 2003 after a 15-year-old boy accused him of rape. At bottom is a copy of the visa he received when he returned to the United States to work as a teacher.

Because the charge is an indictable offense, a Superior Court judge must find probable cause to support it before issuing an arrest warrant. Ramirez said a hearing on the issue had been tentatively set for Feb. 1. The prosecutor’s office, which has not brought its own charges, declined to comment on the complaint.

New Jersey lawmakers abolished the statute of limitations on sexual assault in 1996.

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MICHIGAN
Deadline Detroit

January 7th, 2016

A former priest who was defrocked over sexual abuse allegations, was one of three people killed in a car crash in Livonia earlier this week, The Detroit News reports.

Joseph Sito, 80, of Livonia, who had been a priest at several Mettro Detroit parishes, died in the Monday accident. Two people in another car also died.

The News writes that Sito was laicized by the Vatican in 2004, which means the Vatican returned him to the status of layman and severed his ties with the archdiocese.

“It’s a tragic accident,” Ned McGrath, spokesman for the local Archdiocese, according to the News reports. “I guess he had a medical event. Three people are dead. It’s a terrible thing.”

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

By Jean Hopfensperger Star Tribune JANUARY 7, 2016

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis was back in bankruptcy court Thursday, where a judge approved the $4.5 million sale of an archdiocese building to the Minnesota Historical Society.

The St. Paul property was the first of four real estate holdings slated to be sold this year. There are signed bids on the other properties, including the archbishop’s home.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Kressel approved the sale of the Monsignor Hayden Center at 328 W. Kellogg Blvd, a former Catholic school that currently houses most of the archdiocese’s offices. In November, the Minnesota Historical Society signed a purchase agreement for the property, which sits across the street from the society’s museum and library.

Kressel, however, was critical about the length of time — more than six months — that the property was on the market. The center is a desirable piece of real estate, he said, located just outside downtown St. Paul.

“I feel like a lot of time and money went into marketing this,” he said.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Banbridge Leader

A serving soldier admitted abusing a boy from a residential home run by Anglican missionaries in Lisburn but was never prosecuted, a public inquiry lawyer said.

The serviceman first came to Northern Ireland at the start of the Troubles in 1969 and visited Manor House Children’s Home in Lisburn to take children on day trips and play football, his testimony to police said.

Stormont’s power-sharing administration has established an independent probe which has received allegations of physical and sexual wrongdoing at the institution run by the Society for the Irish Church Missions to the Roman Catholics.

Christine Smith QC, counsel for the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) Inquiry, which is being held in Banbridge, said one alleged perpetrator was later interviewed by police.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Lisburn Today

This week the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry turned its attention to claims of abuse at Manor House, the former children’s home in Lisburn.

Manor House, which closed in 1984, was run by the Society of Irish Church Missions (ICM), an organisation with links to the Church of Ireland.

The Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry is investigating child abuse in residential institutions in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 1995.

The allegations of abuse relating to Manor House have been made by some former residents who lived at the home during periods in the 1940s, 1960s and 1970s.

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SCOTLAND
STV

A group of people who were abused as children are threatening to withdraw cooperation from the public inquiry into child abuse in Scottish institutions.

The group, In Care Abuse Survivors (Incas), says repeated requests for meetings with the minister who ordered the inquiry have been turned down.

But the Scottish Government claims abuse survivors have had “unprecedented levels of access” to ministers and civil servants.

Incas spent years campaigning for before education secretary Angela Constance ordered the Historical Child Abuse Inquiry in December 2014. The group, which represents hundreds of people, who were abused in care, now says it has concerns over the way the inquiry is developing.

After a meeting with Ms Constance in May 2015, Incas says they have not been granted an audience with the minister since. The group has now accused her of treating them with “contempt and indifference.”

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

CHRIS MARSHALL
07 January 2016

Survivors of historical child abuse are threatening to boycott a public inquiry into the issue amid criticism of the education secretary.

The group In-Care Abuse Survivors (Incas) said it was being “treated with contempt” by Angela Constance.

The national inquiry began its work late last year under the leadership of Susan O’Brien QC.

However, many survivors of abuse feel the remit of the inquiry is too narrow because it only covers those who were abused in residential care. There are also concerns about compensation payments and access to legal aid.

In a statement, Incas said: “Survivors have made repeated requests for a face-to-face meeting. Ms Constance has, however, continued to refuse to engage with survivors.”

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SCOTLAND
BBC Scotland

By Reevel Alderson
BBC Scotland’s social affairs correspondent

A second organisation representing survivors of child abuse in Scotland has threatened to boycott the public inquiry established to investigate historical allegations.

Members of the In Care Survivors’ group (INCAS) said the Scottish government was treating them with contempt.

Another organisation, White Flowers Alba (WFA) has already indicated it will take no part in the process.

Ministers have insisted the inquiry, announced in 2014, is the widest ever.

Chaired by Susan O’Brien QC, 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.

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RHODE ISLAND
Rhode Island Public Radio

By ELISABETH HARRISON & JOHN BENDER

As the St. George’s sexual abuse allegations continue to unfold, an Episcopal reverend named in the investigation has been relieved of some duties in the small Pennsylvania town where he now works.

The Rev. Dr. Howard White served as an assistant chaplain at St. George’s, a prep school in Middletown, in the 1970s. In a report prepared by attorneys representing the alleged victims, White is accused of sexual misconduct with male students during his time at the school.

The report states that White was ordered to leave the school for at least five years, by then-headmaster Tony Zane. White subsequently worked at another boarding school after leaving St. George’s. He has since retired and works as a long-term supply priest at St. James Episcopal Church, in Bedford Pennsylvania, a small community about 100 miles east of Pittsburgh.

The head of the Pennsylvania diocese, Bishop Audrey Scanlon, has “restricted” White’s duties, and she announced the decision in a letter to church members issued on Wednesday. Scanlon writes that she has “no information” that would leave her to believe there have been incidents of abuse at St. James.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tampa Bay Times

Associated Press
Thursday, January 7, 2016

An Episcopal priest was suspended from a Pennsylvania church after being accused this week of molesting three boys at an elite boarding school in Rhode Island more than 40 years ago.

More than two dozen students allege they were molested or raped at St. George’s School in Middletown in the 1970s and ’80s. An attorney for three former students named the Rev. Howard White on Tuesday as being among the six perpetrators the school identified after an internal investigation.

White, who has not been charged with a crime, is a retired priest who has been serving as a long-term fill-in pastor at St. James Episcopal Church in Bedford, about 100 miles east of Pittsburgh.

Episcopal officials moved swiftly after his name surfaced, saying he would be subjected to church discipline.

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GERMANY
Süddeutschen Zeitung

January 7, 2016

[The number of cases of abuse of youth in the Regensburg diocese’s cathedral choir is much higher than previously known.]

– Die Zahl der Missbrauchsfälle bei den Regensburger Domspatzen liegt wesentlich höher, als bisher bekannt.

– Das geht aus dem Zwischenbericht des unabhängigen Chefaufklärers Ulrich Weber hervor.

– Er geht davon aus, dass mindestens jeder dritte der 2400 Domspatzen zwischen dem Zweiten Weltkrieg und den frühen Neunzigern zum Gewaltopfer wurde.

By Andreas Glas

REGENSBURG – Bei den Regensburger Domspatzen hat es wesentlich mehr Missbrauchsfälle gegeben, als bisher bekannt gewesen sind. Das sagte der mit der Klärung des Missbrauchsskandals beauftragte Rechtsanwalt Ulrich Weber im Gespräch mit der Süddeutschen Zeitung.

Seinen Recherchen zufolge seien bis in die Neunzigerjahre hinein mindestens 200 Kinder von Priestern und Lehrern des Bistums verprügelt und darüberhinaus etliche Kinder sexuell missbraucht worden. Die Kirchenleute hätten teils regelmäßig misshandelt, auch Vergewaltigungen habe es gegeben. Was die Zahl der sexuellen Übergriffe betrifft, will Weber nähere Details an diesem Freitag im Rahmen einer Pressekonferenz in Regensburg nennen.

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RHODE ISLAND
Morning Edition, National Public Radio

January 7, 2016

On Wednesday’s show, some 40 former students at St. George’s School in Rhode Island said they were abuse by staff members starting in the 1970s. The former head of the school has responded.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Associated Press

January 7, 2016

By Michael Rubinkam

An Episcopal priest has been suspended from a Pennsylvania church after being accused this week of molesting three boys at an elite Rhode Island boarding school more than 40 years ago.

Dozens of students allege they were molested or raped at St. George’s School in Middletown in the 1970s and ’80s. A lawyer for three former students named the Rev. Howard White on Tuesday as being among the six perpetrators the school identified after an internal investigation.

White is a retired priest who has been filling in at St. James Episcopal Church in Bedford, about 100 miles east of Pittsburgh.

Episcopal officials say he would be subjected to the church’s disciplinary process.

White has not been charged with a crime. He did not return a phone message left at his home Thursday.

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CHILE
Publimetro

January 7, 2016

Por consiguiente, el padre Manuel Hervia puede reintegrarse al ministerio sacerdotal sin ninguna restricción, en concordancia con lo que estime el Arzobispo de Concepción, arquidiócesis en la cual el sacerdote está incardinado.

El Arzobispado de Santiago, luego de haber concluido el proceso judicial penal realizado a instancia de la Santa Sede en el Tribunal Interdiocesano de Santiago en contra del presbítero Manuel Enrique Hervia Olave, denunciado por supuesto abuso sexual de menores, comunica que el fallo es absolutorio.

Por consiguiente, el padre Hervia puede reintegrarse al ministerio sacerdotal sin ninguna restricción, en concordancia con lo que estime el Arzobispo de Concepción, arquidiócesis en la cual el sacerdote está incardinado.

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El Arzobispado de Santiago dio a conocer el fallo absolutorio del Tribunal Interdiocesano sobre la presunta responsabilidad del prebístero Manuel Hervia en relación a un caso de abuso sexual.

CHILE
24HORAS.CL TVN

January 5, 2016

El Arzobispado de Santiago comunicó el fallo absolutorio del Vaticano contra el prebístero Manuel Hervia, denunciado por el presunto abuso sexual a nueve niñas -entre cinco y nueve años- en un hogar de menores en el hogar San Francisco de Regis de Santiago en 2011.

A través de un comunicado, la autoridad eclesiástica comunicó la resolución y detalló que el cura se reintegrará a sus funciones.

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[Church absolves priest accused of sexual abuse of minors]

Manuel Enrique Hervia Olave señaló que “abusar de un niño, una niña o un joven es un pecado espantoso y un delito grave”.

CHILE
La Nación

January 5, 2016

[The Archbishop of Santiago reported that after the conclusion of the criminal trial conducted at the request of the Holy See at the Inter-diocesan Tribunal, the presbiter or Manuel Enrique Hervia Olave was acquitted of the charges of sexual abuse that weighed against him from 2011. — Google Translate.]

El Arzobispado de Santiago comunicó que, luego de haber concluido el proceso judicial penal realizado a instancia de la Santa Sede en el Tribunal Interdiocesano, el presbítero Manuel Enrique Hervia Olave fue absuelto de las acusaciones de abuso sexual a menores que pesaba en su contra desde el año 2011.

Tras el fallo, “el padre Hervia puede reintegrarse al ministerio sacerdotal sin ninguna restricción, en concordancia con lo que estime el Arzobispo de Concepción, arquidiócesis en la cual el sacerdote está incardinado”, dice el comunicado.

También a través de una declaración pública el sacerdote indicó que “esta sentencia absolutoria canónica viene a confirmar lo mismo que ya los tribunales de justicia del Estado chileno habían establecido en abril del 2013”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Freethinker

January 7, 2016

By Barry Duke, Editor

[Photo caption: Anthony McCallen, 69, left, and James Carragher, 75, this week began lengthy jail sentences for sexually abusing boys in their care at St William’s residential home and school run by the Roman Catholic De La Salle order in Market Weighton, Yorkshire, until its closure in 1994.]

According to this report, former chaplain McCallen, an ordained Roman Catholic priest, was jailed for 15 years for 11 sex offences, including one of male rape, against four boy He was cleared of eight other charges.

McCallen, of Whernside Crescent in Ingleby Barwick, Stockton-on-Tees, had previously been jailed for two years for abusing two boys, children of his parishioners at the Sacred Heart Church in east Hull, and other offences.

Former headmaster Carragher, a member of the De La Salle order, was jailed for nine years for 24 sexual offences, including three counts of male rape, against seven boys. Carragher, of Cearns Road in Prenton, Wirral, was cleared of a further 30 charges.

It was his third conviction for abusing pupils at St William’s, for which he was previously jailed for 21 years.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Ulster Star

January 7, 2016

This week the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry turned its attention to claims of abuse at Manor House, the former children’s home in Lisburn.

Manor House, which closed in 1984, was run by the Society of Irish Church Missions (ICM), an organisation with links to the Church of Ireland.

The Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry is investigating child abuse in residential institutions in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 1995.

The allegations of abuse relating to Manor House have been made by some former residents who lived at the home during periods in the 1940s, 1960s and 1970s.

They claim the abuse was perpetrated by some staff, visitors and other children at the home.

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[Priest accused of sexual abuse in children’s home is acquitted in Chile]

CHILE
ACI Prensa

January 6, 2016

By Bárbara Bustamante

SANTIAGO, 06 Ene. 16 / 11:17 am (ACI).- El Arzobispado de Santiago de Chile informó de la conclusión del proceso eclesiástico contra el sacerdote Manuel Enrique Hervia Olave, a quien se absolvió tras haber sido acusado de abusos sexuales en un hogar de menores de Chile en el año 2011. Tras la sentencia, el presbítero podrá volver sin restricción alguna a ejercer su ministerio.

A través de un comunicado dado a conocer ayer, el Arzobispado informó que “luego de haber concluido el proceso judicial penal realizado a instancia de la Santa Sede en el Tribunal Interdiocesano de Santiago en contra del presbítero Manuel Enrique Hervia Olave, denunciado por supuesto abuso sexual de menores, comunica que el fallo es absolutorio”.

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UNITED STATES
USA TODAY

January 7, 2016

By Brian Truitt

Awards don’t always play out the way viewers might expect, so USA TODAY’s Brian Truitt predicts who will win and who should win in top movie categories at the 73rd Golden Globe Awards (NBC, Sunday, 8 p.m. ET/5 PT).

DRAMA

Carol

Mad Max: Fury Road

The Revenant

Room

Spotlight

Will win/should win: Spotlight

There is clear competition for the Oscar best picture front-runner, from sprawling epic Revenant to artful action movie Mad Max to the sumptuously 1950s Carol. However, director Tom McCarthy’s look at The Boston Globe’s exposé of the Catholic Church abuse cover-up is an amazingly crafted affair, so expect the journalism drama to continue its awards season run here in a big way.

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CALIFORNIA
The New York Times

January 7, 2016

By Michael Cieply and Brooks Barnes

LOS ANGELES — About 45 minutes into “The Big Short,” Adam McKay’s “true story” — or so it says on the billboards — of Wall Street greed, the actor Finn Wittrock turns to the camera and confesses, “O.K., so this part isn’t totally accurate.”

No, he admits, the real-life counterpart to his character didn’t find a road map to the housing crisis of the mid-2000s lying around the marbled lobby of a JPMorgan Chase tower. Actually, he and his investing partner had heard and read about it elsewhere. But, hey, lighten up. It’s just a movie ….

… Even “Spotlight,” Open Road Films’ critically acclaimed look at The Boston Globe’s investigation of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests, has its fact-conscious detractors.

“Over all, I think the film is a misrepresentation of how the Church dealt with sexual abuse cases,” said David F. Pierre Jr., who has criticized the film’s veracity online and has challenged The Globe’s investigation in his book “Sins of the Press: The Untold Story of The Boston Globe’s Reporting on Sex Abuse in the Catholic Church.” In a phone interview, Mr. Pierre said that the movie’s biggest flaw was its failure to portray psychologists who, as cases surfaced, assured church officials that abusive priests could be safely returned to their duties after treatment.

Tom Ortenberg, Open Road’s chief executive, said in an email, in part, “Mr. Pierre is perpetuating a myth in order to distract from real stories of abuse, stories that continue to come to light every day.

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UNITED STATES
GetReligion

January 6, 2016

By Bobby Ross Jr.

We’ve said it before: Negative posts about media coverage of religion are so much easier to write than positive ones.

When critiquing a less-than-perfect story, there are flaws to point out. Unanswered questions to raise. Bias to criticize.

But when a story hits all the right notes — compelling subject matter, fair treatment of all sides, no sign of where the reporter stands — it’s tempting to say, simply, “Hey, read this!” and move along.

That’s the case with Godbeat pro Manya Brachear Pashman’s in-depth report on whether a Chicago priest should return to ministry after revelations of teen misconduct:

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Police found him with about 800 milligrams of a “rocklike substance believed to be crack cocaine”

NEW YORK
Associated Press

January 7, 2016

By Michael Balsamo

MINEOLA, N.Y. – A New York priest whose sister was beheaded by her son in 2014 was arrested Wednesday on drug possession charges after he was caught with crack cocaine, police said.

Rev. Robert Lubrano pleaded not guilty to charges of criminal possession of a controlled substance after being arrested at a motel in Bethpage, Long Island, early Wednesday morning.

The 63-year-old Lubrano, who police say is a Roman Catholic priest but isn’t currently working at a church, was arrested after officers conducting a separate narcotics investigation saw him exchange cash with another man in the motel’s parking lot, police say.

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ROME
Crux

January 7, 2016

By John L. Allen Jr., Associate editor
john.allen@cruxnow.com

Pope Francis is famously a pontiff who seems to be missing an “off” switch, but the first quarter of 2016 shapes up as a period so dense with activity it may tax even his prodigious reservoirs of energy.

From foreign policy challenges to a potential turning point in Catholic/Jewish relations, from a six-day trip to Mexico that includes a stop at the US border, to a jam-packed schedule for his jubilee Year of Mercy, the opening part of the year promises to be full of drama.

No doubt it will all seem memorable and consequential at the time, but looking back, those moments may be recalled as no more than early tremors of what could be the new year’s first papal earthquake: Francis’ much-anticipated apostolic exhortation drawing conclusions from his two tumultuous synods of bishops on the family.

That document is now expected sometime in late February or March, with one hypothesis being a release date of March 19, the feast of St. Joseph and a patron of the family.

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ROME
Crux

January 6, 2016

By John L. Allen, Jr., Associate editor
john.allen@cruxnow.com

Pope Francis closed out the holiday season Wednesday by calling Catholicism to a new sense of missionary hustle, urging the Church to reach out to all the peoples of the world and insisting that “mission is her vocation.”

“To proclaim the Gospel of Christ is not simply one option among many,” the pope said, “nor is it a profession.” Instead, Francis said, it’s the “very nature” of the Church.

“There is no other way,” he said.

To accomplish that goal, the pope said, requires Christians “to go forth, to leave behind all that keeps us self-enclosed, to go out from ourselves and to recognize the splendor of the light which illumines our lives.”

In other words, for 2016 Pope Francis seems to want a Church on the move.

The pontiff made the comments in his homily for the traditional Jan. 6 Mass of the Epiphany, a feast that celebrates the moment when the Christmas star led the Magi, or three wise men, to the infant Jesus. On the Vatican’s calendar, the feast of Epiphany is considered to mark the close of the holiday season.

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LIBERIA
AllAfrica

The News

The Episcopal Church of Liberia has indefinitely suspended its priest assigned in Grand Kru County in connection with the alleged raping of a 10-year-old girl in the county.

In a release issued last evening from the Church, Archbishop Jonathan B.B. Hart said the church is shocked and dismayed about news report concerning the involvement of its priest in “this barbaric and heinous act.”

Bishop Hart, who is also Archbishop of the International Province of West Africa, explained that the priest will remain suspended from all functions of the Episcopal Church of Liberia until he can exonerate himself in a court of law.

He keeping with Canon XXIX, Bishop Hart constituted ‘The Ecclesiastical Court’ made up of three priests of the Episcopal Diocese to further investigate the allegation levied against the priest.

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MISSOURI
KMBZ

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – A Kansas City deacon has been placed on leave after the diocese says he admitted to having an affair with a woman, violating his marriage vows.

After receiving an allegation in October, the diocese conducted an investigation.

Deacon Dwayne Katzer admitted to the allegations, and has been removed from service as Director of the Diaconate and Diaconate Formation Offices.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

5 January

Individuals and organisations that wish to be designated as a core participant in relation to the following investigations are being asked to submit their applications before 5 February 2016:

The Anglican Church
Lambeth Council
Cambridge House, Knowl View and Rochdale

A core participant has a formal role as defined by legislation. Core participants have special rights in the Inquiry process. These include receiving disclosure of documentation, being represented and making legal submissions, suggesting questions and receiving advance notice of the Inquiry’s report. It is not necessary to be a core participant in order to provide evidence to the Inquiry.

Applicants should read the guidance for potential core participants and the Inquiry’s FAQs. In particular applicants should note that applications should be set out in writing on no more than 4 sides of A4 paper and as a minimum should include the information set out at paragraph 14 of the guidance.

It will not be necessary for victims and survivors who attend a Truth Project session to be designated as core participants, as the Inquiry will not make individual factual finding on the basis of what is said during the private Truth Project Hearings. They will however enable the Inquiry to piece together a broader picture of the scale and nature of institutional child sexual abuse in England and Wales.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

4 January

The research strand of the Inquiry is seeking to commission researchers to carry out a Rapid Evidence Assessment (literature review) to answer the following question;

“What can be learnt from different jurisdictions, outside of England and Wales, about the role of institutions in preventing child sexual abuse and exploitation?”

To express an interest in receiving the full tender documents, when they are published in the week commencing 18th January, please go to the Crown Commercial Services Contracts Finder website (notice SO16186) before the 15th January.

Please direct any queries about the research through the Contracts Finder website.

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MISSOURI
The Kansas City Star

BY IAN CUMMINGS
icummings@kcstar.com

A deacon in the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph was removed from service after being accused of violating his marital vows with a woman, according to an announcement from the diocese on Tuesday.

Bishop James Johnston removed Deacon Dwayne Katzer from his position as director of the Diaconate and Diaconate Formation Offices. Deacons are ordained ministers of the Catholic Church who perform various tasks, including baptisms and officiating marriages and funerals. Married men can become deacons.

Katzer also was removed from all other ministerial duties and placed on administrative leave for an indefinite period, according to the statement.

Diocese officials said the allegation against Katzer came in October, prompting an investigation by diocese officials.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

By Sarah Pulliam Bailey January 6

Ten women on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against Bill Gothard, who for decades was a major force in the conservative Christian homeschooling movement, charging him and leaders in his ministry with sexual abuse, harassment and cover-up.

Gothard, who urged Christians to shun things like short skirts and rock music, is accused of raping a woman. The same woman says she was raped by one of the ministry’s “biblical counselors.”

The lawsuit is part of a battle between dozens of women and the Institute in Basic Life Principles, which was until recently an influential homeschooling ministry, and its charismatic leader Gothard, who urged Christians to focus on their “biblical character” and have large families. Gothard has never been married.

Gothard, 81, resigned from the ministry in 2014 after more than 30 women had alleged that he had molested and sexually harassed women he worked with, including some who were minors.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

The child pornography market is expanding dramatically and viewing it could be the catalyst for some to engage in hands-on abuse of children, experts say.

The warning is contained in a research report to the child sex abuse royal commission as it tackles how to abuse-proof institutions where children are at risk.

The report on child exploitation material in the context of institutions says while there is no evidence to support a direct causal link between viewing child pornography and abuse, the “material may be a strong risk factor” for people already disposed to sexual aggression and deviancy with children.

The report prepared by University of Tasmania researchers says the market for child exploitation material is expanding and easy to access even within workplaces.

Jeremy Prichard and Caroline Spiranovic, who have published research on the explosion of child porn on the internet, point out that research in the area is relatively new and very few studies have examined child pornography in the context of workplaces.

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UNITED STATES
Verdict

Marci A. Hamilton

The movement to eliminate and revive expired statutes of limitations (SOLs) for child sex abuse made significant progress in 2015. It also inspired a new and related SOL reform movement for all rape victims, young and old, as the SOLs became a major factor in the dozens of out-of-statute allegations against Bill Cosby, as I discuss here. Finally, there is a decided trend in SOL reform that needs to be stemmed and reversed before our children will be safe: legislators’ willingness to let institutions off the hook.

The SOL reform movement is also increasingly global. There is a growing global movement to extend or eliminate the SOLs in many countries, and particularly in Australia, where the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has conducted searching inquiries into many arenas of abuse, from churches to schools to sports.

The movement also hit the big screen with the release of the award-winning motion picture, Spotlight, which chronicles the Boston Globe journalists’ path to breaking the story of the Catholic hierarchy covering up priest abuse and illustrates how the SOLs blocked justice. It also educates the public on the dynamic of sex abuse cover up—it takes a connected set of adults to ignore the serial victimization of children while powerful men protect their positions of power. Like the Cosby revelations, Spotlight educates the public about the costs of abuse and the perils of blocking justice for the deserving.

The Good: Steps Forward in SOL Reform for Child Sex Abuse Victims

Following the trends of recent years, over a dozen states considered serious SOL reform in 2015, and a number of them made significant progress. As I discussed in my half-year review, here, Georgia took the most remarkable leap forward, while Pennsylvania and New York continue to be controlled by the viselike grip of the Catholic bishops, or, in other words, stalled. For a snapshot of all of the states in 2015, look here.

Other states continued to make incremental improvements as Florida eliminated its criminal SOL for 16- to 18-year-olds; Indiana extended its criminal SOL to age 31; and Utah eliminated the civil SOL against the perpetrator. While each of these reforms left much to do in each state, they were good developments for child protection and will identify hidden predators in the future.

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WISCONSIN
Chippewa Herald

LARRY ANNETT For The Herald

IF YOU GO
“Spotlight”
Now showing at Micon Cinema in Eau Claire
Rated R, 2hr., 20min.
Showtimes:
Wednesday, Jan. 6 -Thursday, Jan. 7, 7:25 p.m.
Friday, Jan. 8 – Sunday, Jan. 10, 9:40 p.m.
Friday, Dec. 25 – Thursday, Dec. 31: 1, 4, 7 and 10 p.m.

Spotlight (now playing at Micon — Eau Claire) is a lightly fictionalized story of the team of Boston Globe reporters who in 2002 exposed pedophile priests and the Catholic Church’s attempts to cover-up their behavior.

How do you make a movie about horrific child abuse without showing the abusers, much less the abuse itself? Even documentaries show the crime scene and dwell on the emotional recollections of the survivors. But writer/director Tom McCarthy has built an engaging narrative where the action is largely limited to watching reporters plead with their sources to tell them the truth.

Although this story eventually became an international scandal, its seeds could not have found a more fertile soil than Boston, a city obsessed with ethnic politics and a church that dominates the city’s working classes — a city where every confrontation carries the weight of tribal loyalties.

The movie’s story is not about child abuse per se, but about how a small group of tenacious reporters uncovered the priests’ behavior and how the church marshalled its resources to protect itself. As one of the reporters tells a church lawyer, “we’ve got two stories here: the sexual abuse by priests and the story of a group of lawyers who have turned child abuse by priests into a cottage industry. We’re going to print one — you decide.” The crimes may be unforgivable, but the cover-up is unconscionable.

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NEVADA
Las Vegas Now

[with video]

By Nikki Bowers | nbowers@8newsnow.com
Published 01/06 2016

LAS VEGAS

The jury in the Otis Holland trial was seated Wednesday evening.

The former Las Vegas pastor is on trial for allegedly sexually assaulting children. According to law enforcement officers, Holland lured young girls in his congregation by offering private counseling sessions.

After the allegations were made, Holland fled to Mexico, but he was eventually arrested in Tijuana.

The youngest victim is said to now be 12 years old.

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MINNESOTA
WXOW

WINONA, Minn. (KTTC) — –
A new civil lawsuit has been filed against the Diocese of Winona, alleging sexual abuse of a teenager in 1962.

The Hamilton James law group filed the lawsuit Tuesday on behalf of the victim. A criminal complaint says Fr. Richard Hatch was a priest at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Winona when he allegedly sexually abused a boy who was 13 or 14 years old at the time.

The complaint alleges the Diocese knew about Hatch’s behavior, but did not not address the misconduct.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

A group of Catholic parishioners in Melbourne’s south-east are calling for their parish priest, Father John Walshe, to be removed, after it was revealed he was investigated over alleged sexual abuse.

The ABC revealed last month a Catholic Church investigation found Father Walshe had sexually abused an 18-year-old trainee priest in 1982.

In 2012 the church apologised to the victim John Roach and paid compensation of $75,000, but it did not make the finding public.

More than 100 people from the parish met to discuss the matter on Wednesday night.

A spokeswoman told the ABC they passed a resolution saying they had lost faith in Father Walshe and wanted him removed as their parish priest.

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RHODE ISLAND
People

[documents and video]

BY CHRIS HARRIS @chrisharrisment 01/06/2016

Two New England attorneys are saying they’ve been in touch with more than 40 alumni of an affluent Rhode Island boarding school that allege staff members or other pupils sexually assaulted them during the 1970s and 1980s.

PEOPLE spoke Wednesday with Eric MacLeish, one of the two lawyers behind a press conference held on Tuesday in which four graduates of the St. George’s School in Middletown accused school officials of covering up years of systemic abuse.

“I have never run across anything like this,” MacLeish, who has spent his career representing victims of childhood sexual abuse, tells PEOPLE; he’s a St. George’s alum.

“Officials were not reporting claims from students but instead, imposing gag orders on those victims,” MacLeish explains. “There are prosecutable crimes that occurred here and I expect more victims will be coming forward.”

At Tuesday’s press conference, MacLeish and his co-counsel, attorney Carmen Durso, issued a 36-page response to findings released by St. George’s headmaster, Eric Peterson, and the school’s Board of Trustees back in December.

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MASSACHUSETTS/RHODE ISLAND
NBC 10

BY ADAM BAGNI, NBC 10 NEWS WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6TH 2016

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — A former headmaster at St. George’s School in Middletown denies claims that he covered up, or ignored, student allegations of sexual abuse.

The elite prep school is currently engulfed in a major sexual abuse scandal.

Tony Zane, who ran the school from 1972-1984, spoke exclusively to NBC 10 News on the steps of his New Bedford home Wednesday.

“I never called her crazy,” he said.

The 85-year-old is fighting off allegations from the 1970s and ’80s. Alleged victims claim he protected sexual abusers and was anything but supportive.

“I walked into his office. I told him what happened. He looked at me and said, ‘You’re just a distraught young lady. You’re mentally unstable,'” said alleged victim Katie Wales Lovkay.

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FLORIDA
Tampa Bay Times

By Sara DiNatale, Times Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 6, 2016

TAMPA — Tampa Preparatory School has sent a letter to parents informing them of the private school’s connection to an unfolding sexual abuse scandal in Rhode Island.

Franklin Coleman, a Tampa Prep music teacher from 1997 to 2008, has been accused of sexually abusing boys while working at St. George’s School, an Episcopalian prep school in Middletown, R.I.

One of the accusers, Hawkins Cramer, spoke with the Tampa Bay Times on Tuesday and said Coleman sexually abused him while he was at St. George’s from 1981 to 1985.

Coleman did not respond to several attempts by the Times to contact him this week. He denied comment to a New York Times reporter outside his Newark, N.J. home Tuesday. He told the reporter to “talk to my lawyer,” but did not provide a name. He has not been charged with any crimes.

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PENNSYLVANIA/RHODE ISLAND
Episcopal Diocese of Central Pennsylvania

Author: Diocesan staff
Published: Wednesday, January 6, 2016

January 6, 2016
Feast of the Epiphany

Dear members of the Diocese of Central Pennsylvania,

You may have read in today’s newspapers that a member of our Central Pennsylvania clergy, the Rev. Dr. Howard White, is among the subjects of an investigation into widespread allegations of sexual abuse during the 1970s and 1980s at St. George’s School in Middletown, Rhode Island. The Rev. Dr. Howard White served at the school during this time and is now a retired priest who currently serves as a long-term supply priest at St. James Episcopal Church, Bedford (PA).

St. George’s School recently released the report of its investigation and the Rhode Island State Police are conducting a criminal investigation into episodes discussed in that report. Yesterday, former students of St. George’s named Fr. White as one of the alleged abusers described in the report.

I learned about this situation as it was developing from my colleague, the Rt. Reverend W. Nicholas Knisely, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Rhode Island, who serves as an ex officio member of the board at the school. I have moved to immediately restrict Fr. White’s ministry and to provide for the pastoral care of the congregation that he currently serves. I have no information that leads me to believe that there have been any incidents of abuse at St. James, Bedford, but it is imperative that we employ all the safeguards that are available to us while the investigation of the Rhode Island State Police continues and while the formal ecclesiastical discipline process involving Fr. White unfolds. The Diocese of Central Pennsylvania is committed to upholding our policy of Zero-Tolerance of any adult sexual misconduct and/or child abuse by any member of the clergy, staff persons or volunteers.

If there are those in our diocese who have a need to talk about this or any related incidents, please know that I am ready to listen and respond in a confidential pastoral manner or make provisions for appropriate care.

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RHODE ISLAND
Providence Journal

By Karen Lee Ziner
Journal Staff Writer Posted Jan. 6, 2016

A Pennsylvania bishop moved swiftly to restrict the Rev. Dr. Howard White, former assistant chaplain at St. George’s School in Middletown, from his Pennsylvania church ministry following Tuesday’s revelation that White “is among the subjects of an investigation into widespread sexual abuse during the 1970s and 1980s.”

The Rev. Canon Audrey Cady Scanlan, Bishop of the Diocese of Central Pennsylvania, wrote a letter to members of her Episcopal diocese Wednesday that explains her decision. White is now a retired Episcopal priest serving as a long-term supply priest at St. James Episcopal Church in Bedford, PA.

White was named in a document released by three St. George’s alumnae at a Boston press conference Tuesday. The women, Anne Scott (Class of ’80), Katie Wales Lovkay (’80) and Joan Reynolds (’79), were sexually abused by the school’s former athletic trainer the 1970s.

Their document rebuts an investigative report that the school issued in December, and calls for an independent investigation and accuses the school of covering up the abuse for decades. The response document identifies by name several former St. George’s staff — White among them — whom the school’s report references as perpetrators, by number only.

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ROME
The Bookseller

Published January 6, 2016 by Natasha Onwuemezi

The International Publishers Association (IPA) and the Italian Publishers Association (AIE) have condemned the Vatican for attempting to jail two authors who alleged corruption and financial wrongdoing in the Holy See.

The authors – journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi – are on trial along with three Vatican employees over documents leaked from the Vatican and then published in two new books: Avarice by Fittipaldi and Merchants in the Temple by Nuzzi.

The pair have been charged with criminal misappropriation and misuse of leaked documents. The three Vatican employees have been accused of illegally obtaining and leaking confidential documents.

According to the Telegraph, the books “lift the lid on alleged financial mismanagement within the Holy See, including the alleged use of charitable donations for refurbishing lavish apartments for cardinals and a former Vatican secretary of state.”

The IPA has joined with the AIE and European journalism and freedom of speech watchdogs to condemn the Vatican, with IPA president, Richard Charkin, calling the court case an “affront to the dignity of journalists and publishers everywhere.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Altrincham Today

Two former victims of an Altrincham schoolteacher jailed for nine years over a “shocking abuse of trust” have collaborated on a new Radio 4 documentary telling the inside story of the trial.

The Abuse Trial, which will be broadcast on Monday at 8pm, will be presented by journalist David Nolan and executive produced by Phil Maguire of PRA Productions.

Both are former pupils of St Ambrose College in Hale Barns, and both suffered abuse at the hands of Alan Morris, who was subsequently jailed for nine years in August 2014 in a case that involved dozens of old boys.

Nolan waived his right to give evidence at the trial in order to work on a behind-the-scenes short film for Granada Reports, which went on to win a Royal Television Society award.

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MICHIGAN
The Detroit News

Candice Williams and Mark Hicks, The Detroit News January 5, 2016

Officials have released the names of three people killed Monday afternoon in a multi-vehicle crash in Livonia.

Joseph Sito, 80, of Livonia, Suzanne Wernette-Robb, 67, of Redford Township and Bernadine Karby, 88, of Livonia all died from multiple injuries in the crash at Five Mile and Levan, according to the Wayne County Medical Examiner’s Office on Tuesday. The manners of death have been ruled an accident.

According to police, Sito was heading west on Five Mile about 4 p.m. when he crossed the center line, striking an eastbound Ford Focus.

A Ford minivan also was involved in the crash; several occupants reported injuries, police said.

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MICHIGAN
The Detroit News

One of the three people killed in a multi-car crash this week at a Livonia intersection was a former priest at several Metro Detroit Catholic parishes who was defrocked over sex abuse allegations.

Joseph Sito, 80, of Livonia, who died in the Monday accident, was laicized by the Vatican in 2004, said Ned McGrath, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Detroit. By laicizing Sito, the Vatican returned him to the status of layman and severed his ties with the archdiocese.

“It’s a tragic accident,” McGrath said Wednesday. “I guess he had a medical event. Three people are dead. It’s a terrible thing.”

According to police, Sito was westbound on Five Mile about 4 p.m. Monday when he crossed the center line and his car struck an eastbound Ford Focus. A Ford minivan also was involved in the crash, which also killed two occupants of the Focus: Suzanne Wernette-Robb, 67, of Redford Township, and Bernadine Karby, 88, of Livonia.

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MISSOURI
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

ST. LOUIS • Two women who sued a former St. Louis University president over abuse allegations — including one that claimed officials violated an agreement to bar her alleged abuser from teaching — have settled their cases for a total of $282,000, an activist group said Wednesday.

One suit claimed that the Rev. Daniel C. O’Connell sexually abused the student in 1983, while she was studying overseas and he was a chaplain. Both were associated with Loyola University Chicago at the time.

In 2003, she received a $181,000 settlement that included, among other things, promises that he would not teach again at a Jesuit institution and that he be barred from public ministry, according to the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

She sued in 2013, claiming Jesuit officials violated the agreement by allowing O’Connell to teach and speak at universities and engage in public ministry in Germany. Lawyers for O’Connell and Jesuit officials denied the allegations.

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MISSOURI
Lake News

Posted Jan. 6, 2016

Laclede County
After a mistrial in December, the trial of a California, Mo. man – accused of multiple counts of statutory rape and sodomy and one count each of forcible sodomy, forcible rape and sexual abuse from alleged incidents in 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2005 – has been moved and rescheduled.

Travis R. Smith, a former pastor in the region, is reset to begin April 18, 2016, at the Laclede County Courthouse. He was arrested in 2012 by the Missouri State Highway Patrol with additional charges filed later in Moniteau County Circuit Court.

The charges stem from allegations made by two different women.

Smith’s trial had formerly gotten under way with jury selection on Dec. 7, 2015. The trial was cut short though when the defense attorney requested the mistrial.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A Roman Catholic priest has pleaded guilty to five charges in connection with more than 3,000 indecent images of children.

Paul Clarke, 71, from East Sussex but now living in Manchester, entered the pleas at Lewes Crown Court.

He had been charged with possessing an indecent image of a child, possession of prohibited images and making a total of 3,100 indecent images of children.

He is due to be sentenced on 5 February.

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NEW YORK
WABC

BETHPAGE, Long Island — A Roman Catholic priest from Long Island is facing drug charges after police said they caught him in what appeared to be a drug deal at motel in Nassau County early Wednesday morning.

Nassau County police said detectives were on an unrelated narcotics investigation at the Bethpage Motel on Hempstead Turnpike, when they saw two men exchanging money in the parking lot. One was in a car, the other staying at the hotel.

After the exchange, officers saw the driver of the car pull away – but they said he didn’t use a turn signal when pulling out of the lot, so they pulled him over.

Police said the driver, 32-year-old Michael Oyola of the Bronx, had a clear bag of a substance believed to be marijuana on him, and he was placed under arrest.

Officers then found 63-year-old Robert Lubrano of Farmingdale, who they saw go into the motel after the exchange.

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CANADA
The Catholic Register

BY MICHAEL SWAN, THE CATHOLIC REGISTER
January 6, 2016

A $21-million shortfall in Catholic fundraising has added another challenge to the task of reconciliation between Canadian churches and Native communities.

As the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission landed in Ottawa last month, accountants have been dealing with the failure of the “Moving Forward Together” campaign.

Catholic agencies, which ran more than 60 per cent of the federal government-mandated residential schools, were expected to raise $25 million as one part of the final settlement between aboriginal communities, churches and the government to cover the damage done by the schools to generations of young indigenous Canadians. But the “best-efforts” campaign raised just $3.7 million.

The four national churches which were party to the agreement have been sorting out final payments into the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. As a result of the Catholic fundraising campaign falling more than 80 per cent short of its goal, a reimbursement has been made to the Anglican Church of Canada in addition to some other adjustments.

As the largest operator of residential schools, the Catholics made the largest funding commitment to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation – $79 million.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

Two former residents of a Protestant children’s home in County Antrim have told an inquiry they were sexually abused by an Army member.

One witness told the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry that the soldier abused him in a playroom and bedroom at Manor House in Lisburn.

He said his alleged abuser bought sweets and gifts for children at the former Church Of Ireland home.

The inquiry is examining child abuse in residential homes in Northern Ireland.

Meat

Giving evidence via videolink from Australia, the man, who is now in his 60s, said the soldier “manipulated us children”.

“I think he may have abused other children,” he added.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Times

Gerry Moriarty in Banbridge

Two men have said they were sexually abused as children by a visiting British soldier at a residential home run by Anglican missionaries, the North’s Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry has been told. Both men are now resident in Australia.

One of the witnesses said that the soldier treated those he allegedly abused as “just pieces of meat” at the Manor House Children’s Home near Lisburn, Co Antrim during the 1960s.

That witness who gave evidence by video link on Wednesday said he did not complain at the time because “as children we were told never to open our mouths and that children should be seen and not heard”.

He said that he entered the home in 1964 after his family, which was originally from Northern Ireland, returned from Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He said his parents had divorced and his father, who seldom visited, was given custody.

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DEUTSCHLAND
NDR

[No new investigation after abuse in Hildesheim diocese]

Der Fall eines Missbrauchs an einem Mädchen durch einen Priester aus dem Bistum Hildesheim wird juristisch nicht wieder aufgerollt. Es hätten sich nach einer erneuten Prüfung keine Hinweise auf weitere Straftaten ergeben, sagte der Sprecher der Berliner Staatsanwaltschaft, Martin Steltner, dem NDR. Neue Ermittlungen gegen den inzwischen vom Bistum suspendierten Priester Peter R. seien damit ausgeschlossen. Ein Verfahren wegen Strafvereitelung gegen das Bistum komme nicht in Betracht. Der Mann hatte in einem Fernsehbeitrag des WDR im vergangenen November eingeräumt, im Jahr 2006 das damals elfjährige Mädchen aus Hildesheim in seiner Wohnung sexuell bedrängt zu haben. Im selben Beitrag wird dem Bistum vorgeworfen, die zentrale Rolle von Peter R. bei mehr als 100 Missbrauchs-Fällen am Berliner Gymnasium Canisius-Kolleg in den 1970er- und 1980er-Jahren vor der Staatsanwaltschaft verschwiegen zu haben. Seine dortigen Taten sind inzwischen verjährt.

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SCOTLAND
Scottish Catholic Observer

Motherwell’s Fr Paul Morton was cleared of historical allegations of abuse by police in May, but he remained away from parish until Church investigation was completed

A canonical investigation into a Motherwell Diocesan priest has cleared his name.

Fr Paul Morton (above) of St Bride’s in Cambuslang stepped away from his parish in 2014 after allegations of historical abuse t were made against him. In May last year, a police investigation found he had no case to answer.

A Church investigation was conducted following safeguarding procedure and has now concluded, with Bishop Joseph Toal of Motherwell recommending to the Holy See that no further action is required.

“I recently concluded the preliminary canonical investigation into the evidence available following the conclusion of the police investigation into the allegations made against Fr Paul Morton,” Bishop Toal said in a statement. “In forwarding the papers of the canonical investigation to the Holy See I recommended that no further canonical action is necessary.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Evangelisch

[The Berlin public prosecutor’s office does not want to continue the investigation into a case of abuse in the Catholic diocese of Hildesheim again, according to a NDR report.]

Die Staatsanwaltschaft Berlin will laut einem NDR-Bericht die Ermittlungen in einem Missbrauchsfall im katholischen Bistum Hildesheim nicht wieder aufrollen.
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Nach der erneuten Prüfung des Sachverhaltes hätten sich keine Hinweise auf weitere Straftaten ergeben, sagte der Sprecher der Staatsanwaltschaft, Martin Steltner, am Dienstag dem Sender. Auch ein Verfahren wegen Strafvereitelung gegen das Bistum komme nicht in Betracht.

Der WDR und “Spiegel Online” hatten dem Hildesheimer Bischof Norbert Trelle vorgeworfen, er sei Hinweisen auf Übergriffe des Priesters Peter R. (74) nicht konsequent nachgegangen. Der WDR hatte den bereits neun Jahre zurückliegenden, aber nicht verjährten Fall Ende November in einer Fernseh-Dokumentation wieder aufgegriffen. An Pfingsten 2006 soll der inzwischen suspendierte Peter R. in Berlin ein damals elfjähriges Mädchen aus Hildesheim sexuell bedrängt haben.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Victims to Archbishop: Fire your review board
They OK’ed admitted child predator for ministry, even after Priest yanked in LA for abusive past
Chicago board refused to meet with victim
Newly exposed documents say cleric would have no unsupervised contact with kids
But cleric still works with kids, presents himself as priest
Archdiocese, Cupich defies zero tolerance vow, group says

What: At a sidewalk news conference, victims of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church will attempt to hand-deliver a letter to the Chicago Archbishop. The letter cites a Chicago Tribune story about an admitted predator priest in Chicago. It also demands that Archbishop Blase Cupich:

– Fire all members of the lay review board for allowing the admitted predator to be reinstated as a priest,
– Remove the cleric from any location and job where he can have access to kids, and
– Make public announcements, post online warnings to all churches, groups, and neighborhoods about the priest’s past.

The letter also:

– Exposes new letters to the victim from church officials that state that the cleric would not be allowed alone with children,
– Shows how Cupich is not following the letter or the spirit of zero tolerance, and
– Highlights how the cleric is still working as a priest around families and children.

Where: Outside of the headquarters of the Chicago Archdiocese
835 N. Rush St. (at Pearson) in Chicago
When: Wednesday, January 6 at 1:30 p.m.

Who: Two-three members of a support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPNetwork.org), including a Chicago woman who is the organization’s founder and long-time president

Why: Newly exposed documents show that the Archdiocese of Chicago and their lay review board reinstated a priest who admitted to sexually abusing a child, even after church officials promised the victim that cleric would have no unsupervised contact with kids.

As a result, sex abuse victims are giving a letter to Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich demanding that he fire his lay review board members, take action to ensure that an admitted abuser has no contact with children, and keep his promises of zero tolerance when it comes to sexual abuse.

A new page one Chicago Tribune story reveals that a Chicago priest, Fr. Bruce Wellems, has admitted to sexually abusing a seven-year-old, while he was an older teen. Despite the admission and the fact that the priest was removed from the LA Archdioces for breaking the US Catholic Bishops’ policy of zero tolerance, the cleric was reinstated in Chicago and still works with families and children. The Chicago Archdiocese Lay Review Board, the group in charge of investigating sex abuse cases, did not meet with Wellems’ victim during their review of the case.

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UNITED STATES
The American Spectator

By Mary Claire Kendall – 1.6.16

“Continuing my walk I reflected that a Church which could inspire such confidence in a child, making its priests, even when unknown, so easily approachable could not be as scheming and creepy as so often made out. I began to shake off my long-taught, long-absorbed prejudices.”
— Alec Guinness, Blessings in Disguise, referring to an incident during filming of The Detective (1954)

The recent film Spotlight should be commended for featuring the Boston Globe’s storied investigative team and their Pulitzer Prize winning reporting that, as Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, Archbishop of Boston, said in a late October statement to the Pilot, forced the church “to deal with what was shameful and hidden.”

Directed by Tom McCarthy, who also wrote the screenplay with Josh Singer, the film stars some of Hollywood’s brightest lights — Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, John Slattery, Stanley Tucci, Brian D’Arcy, Liev Schreiber, and Billy Crudup — and has solid production values.

But, it doesn’t get everything right.

The Church, the film posits, is institutionally flawed. Priests cannot possibly live a celibate life. Therefore, until the church reforms its rule requiring priestly celibacy, it will continue to have problems and lose adherents, including, notably, the reporter Sacha Pfeiffer, played by McAdams, whose faith, in contrast to that of her beloved grandmother, crumbles before our eyes; or in the case of Mike Rezendes, the lead reporter on the case, whose faith continues to lie fallow.

Yet, in his statement to the archdiocesan paper, O’Malley also said, “The Archdiocese of Boston is fully and completely committed to zero tolerance concerning the abuse of minors. We follow a vigorous policy of reporting and disclosing information concerning allegations of abuse.”

Would that Hollywood would adhere to the same strict rules when it comes to its own pedophiles which, in its case, are not just a small fraction but rather omnipresent.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Hollywood’s own institutional child abuse scandal dwarfs by orders of magnitude that in the Church. Even child actress Shirley Temple was sexually abused by producer Arthur Freed when she was 12, according to her 1988 autobiography, Child Star.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

PARENTS at two Melbourne Catholic primary schools are demanding the resignation of their priest, who recently defended Cardinal George Pell.

In their first group protest meeting last night, parents from St Patrick’s Parish Primary in Mentone and St John Vianney’s in Parkdale are set to make a plan to call for scandal-hit Father John Walshe to quit his post.

In December, Fr Walshe gave evidence at the royal commission about his recollection of a 1993 phone call between Cardinal George Pell and a child abuse victim.

He had been asked to make a statement by Cardinal Pell’s legal team.

Shortly afterwards, it emerged Fr Walshe had some years earlier been accused of abusing a teenage seminarian in the early 1980s after the pair had been drinking together.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

Two men have denied abusing 26 children at a Catholic boys’ home in Bedfordshire more than 40 years ago.

James McCann, 79, of Suffield Court, Swaffham, Norfolk, is charged with 18 sexual assaults and 48 assaults in connection with St Francis Boys Home, Shefford, between 1963 and 1974.

John Cahill, 73, of Chandos Court, Bedford, has been charged with six sexual offences against four boys.

The pair pleaded not guilty to all charges at the Old Bailey in London.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Wednesday, January 06, 2016

By Conall Ó Fátharta
Irish Examiner Reporter

The HSE expressed repeated concerns that the past actions of Bessborough adoption agency meant it had to be indemnified against any legal action taken by people seeking their records.

The concerns were raised throughout 2009 and 2010, in material released under Freedom of Information Act, as the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary prepared to cease operating Bessborough as an adoption agency and transfer some 15,000-plus files to the HSE. An undated memo of a meeting the HSE held with the management group from the religious order notes its desire to “manage liability for past Bessboro responsibility and ongoing re their activities as an adoption agency when and if it arises”.

In a letter on February 8, 2010, to solicitors representing the order, childcare manager in the HSE South region, Mike van Aswegen, said the HSE needed this assurance, as it had reason to believe that the past practices of the agency had “not always been exemplary”.

“In your correspondence, you refer to the need for providing an indemnity. I believe that in this case we will need to be provided with this comfort, as we have good reason to believe that the practice from the agency has in the past not always been exemplary,” he wrote.

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RHODE ISLAND
NECN

[with video]

Former students who claim they were sexually abused at a Rhode Island Boarding school are asking those abusers to be held accountable, along with school officials, who they say covered up the abuse for years.

The alleged abuse happened in the 70’s and 80’s at St. George’s School, in Middletown, Rhode Island.

Those abused are saying they want to have criminal charges filed, and because there is no statute of limitations in Rhode Island, their wishes may be granted.

There are 40 formers students who have come forward saying they were abused by staff or older students. However, school officials, who have admitted they have conducted an internal investigation and found serious abuse, say they found 26, not 40 former students, who were abused.

Katie Wales Lovkay reminded herself to breathe before she shared her story of alleged sexual abuse with a roomful of reporters. She says nearly four decades ago — as a student at the elite Episcopal prep school St. George’s in Middletown Rhode Island — she was repeatedly molested by a male athletic trainer.

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RHODE ISLAND
Town and County Magazine

by SAM DANGREMOND
JAN 5, 2016

St. George’s School, a boarding school perched on an idyllic 125 acres overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in Middletown, RI, looks like an academic paradise.

But recent developments in a nascent sex scandal suggest that more than 40 students may have been the victims of abuse at the school—mostly in the 1970s and 1980s—according to the Boston Globe.

In December, St. George’s released the findings of an investigation it conducted into allegations of abuse. The report found that “23 students were sexually abused by three school employees in the 1970s and ’80s … The perpetrators were fired, but the prep school did not report them at the time to child protection services, as mandated by law.

“In addition, three other employees during the same period engaged in sexual misconduct with a single student apiece, bringing the total to 26 victims of staff abuse, according to the draft report to alumni, signed by headmaster Eric Peterson and board chair Leslie Heaney,” the Globe reports.

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FLORIDA
Fox 13

[with video]

By: Tina Jensen, FOX 13 News
POSTED:JAN 05 2016

TAMPA (FOX 13) – A choir director who was fired from a prep school in Rhode Island for sexual misconduct with students, went on to teach at Tampa Prep for more than a decade.

Attorneys for victims of students at St. George’s School say Franklin Coleman is accused of fondling students, “grooming” them by providing alcohol and companionship before abusing them. He was fired from the school in 1988 and began working at Tampa Prep in 1997.

Kevin Plummer, head of Tampa Prep, told FOX 13 News in an email that the school first learned about the allegations against its former choir director on Tuesday. Attorneys representing alleged victims of Coleman and other staff at St. George’s School say Tampa Prep was notified by at least one victim in 2004.

Coleman continued to work at the school until 2008, when he was given an award for outstanding faculty from Tampa Prep alumni, according to the school’s website. Plummer said Coleman left the school “of his own volition.”

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RHODE ISLAND
WGBH

Anne Scott, the woman who’s brought to light a growing sexual abuse scandal at St. George’s School in Rhode Island, says she was raped by a teacher there nearly 40 years ago. On Tuesday, the list of survivors grew by dozens. Scott, and two of her lawyers, Eric Macleish, a major player in the Catholic Church sex abuse crisis and Larry Lessig (@lessig) one-time candidate for president, both of who have a similar tale, discuss.

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RHODE ISLAND
GoLocalProv

Wednesday, January 06, 2016

GoLocalProv News Team and Kate Nagle

On Tuesday, at a press conference in Boston, three St. George’s School alumni and their attorneys called for an independent investigation into sexual abuse at the preparatory school Middletown, Rhode Island.GoLocal reported Tuesday that the Rhode Island State Police investigation into St. George’s is expanding, with the number of victims coming forth continuing to grow.

In an interview with one of the lawyers for the survivors — Carmen Durso – GoLocal received updated information on Tuesday.

Durso on Record

“The experience with situations like this where there a number of survivors — you only get a small percent of those who got abused to come forward,” said Durso. “When you have an unusual situation like this with so many coming forward and 700 plus publicly supporting them, that gets more people. I expect more to come forward. As for those going public, it’s up to each individual person. There are numbers of people who are able to tell someone but coming forward publicly is not something they can do.”

“Regarding the criminal investigation, it is my understanding there is no statute of limitations of rape in Rhode Island. It’s technical though — not everyone who was sexually assaulted was raped,” said Durso. “Therefore the elimination of the statute of limitations isn’t going to apply to everyone. There are some of the victims who said who said there are raped, and the RSIP have indicated they are pursuing these claims.”

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FLORIDA
Tampa Bay Times

By Sara DiNatale, Times Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 5, 2016

TAMPA — Hawkins Cramer said he found the courage to confront his abuser in 2004.

It was two decades after he said he was molested at a prestigious Rhode Island prep school. So he said he picked up the phone and called Franklin Coleman, the choral teacher who promised him a future in music but who Cramer said fondled him.

But Cramer said he was stunned to learn back then that Coleman was still teaching: at Tampa Preparatory School.

Cramer said he told Coleman to resign from teaching. He told his former teacher what happened was wrong.

“I was nervous and sweaty about it,” Cramer, 48, told the Tampa Bay Times on Tuesday, “and more just, like, angry, and I was kind of speaking through gritted teeth.”

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RHODE ISLAND
CBS Boston

[with video]

By Bill Shields

BOSTON (CBS) – “I was repeatedly raped by Al Gibbs for a two year period,” said an emotional Anne Scott. On Tuesday, Scott and other former students at the prestigious St. George’s School in Rhode Island gathered in the law offices of attorney Eric MacLeish to recount their horrific stories.

“It was horrible,” says Katie Wales, who says she was also raped by Al Gibbs, the school’s athletic trainer in the late 70’s. “I became known as the slut of the school, that I would show my body to anybody.”

Lawyers for the victims say they’ve identified seven former staff members who abused students there, at least 40 victims. “There is no explanation, quite frankly, for an environment like St. George’s School, which allowed these predators, dressed up like sheep, to prey like wolves, on children at this school,” said attorney Eric MacLeish.

“I was publicly raped while I was at St. George’s as a freshman in 1978 by a fellow student,” says Harry Groome, who was just 14 years old when the attack happened.

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RHODE ISLAND
CNN

By Ray Sanchez, CNN

(CNN)Rhode Island State Police are investigating allegations of sexual abuse of more than two dozen students by employees of the prestigious St. George’s School in the 1970s and ’80s — abuse the school admitted it “failed on several occasions” to report to authorities.

In a news conference Tuesday, victims of the alleged abuse and their lawyers called for an independent investigation of the abuse and criticized the school’s response to the allegations.

The school, in a statement released Tuesday, said it “deeply apologizes for the harm done to alumni” and for how its handling of the abuse “served to compound this harm.”

“We recognize the long-lasting impact of sexual abuse and are dedicated to working with survivors to aid them in healing from its painful aftermath,” the statement said.

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RHODE ISLAND
Boston Globe

By Bella English GLOBE STAFF JANUARY 05, 2016

Angry and tearful survivors of sexual assaults at St. George’s School called on the school Tuesday to scrap its own investigation and hire an independent investigator to fully unearth the extent of abuse at the prep school, much of it in the 1970s and ’80s.

Their comments came at a packed press conference called by attorneys Eric MacLeish and Carmen Durso, who say they have been contacted by more than 40 former students with stories ranging from molestation to rape at the oceanfront Episcopalian school in Middletown, R.I.

The attorneys revealed the names of two alleged staff perpetrators of the abuse; in an earlier report by St. George’s, the men had been identified only by number.

“Employee Perpetrator #2” was identified by Durso as the Rev. Howard W. White Jr. The school’s report said this perpetrator was fired in 1974 after a parent reported “inappropriate conduct” with a male student. St. George’s recent investigation revealed such conduct with at least three students, and said his name has been given to Rhode Island State Police.

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RHODE ISLAND
Washington Post

[Video: Victims speak out about abuse at Rhode Island prep school]

By Sarah Kaplan
January 6

Harry Groome was just 14, a newcomer from a small Pennsylvania town, eager to fit in at his tony New England boarding school. His tormentors were seniors, one was even a prefect. They had superior social standing, not to mention numbers and size. So when they told him to keep quiet, he did.

Not that his silence stopped the whole school from knowing what happened to him: the teenage Groome was forced to stand atop a trashcan, he told the Boston Globe, pull down his pants and underwear, and bend over while an assailant raped him with a broomstick.

Attacks like the one on Groome were something of an open secret at St. George’s School, the alma mater of Astors and Vanderbilts, the poet Ogden Nash and Sen. Claiborne Pell, where dozens of alumni say they were sexually abused. According to the Globe, a 1979 yearbook includes a photo of Groome in a trashcan, a hockey stick beside him. The caption reads, “It’s better than a broomstick!”

The perpetrators were never punished, and Groome carried the trauma of his abuse through three years of high school and the following two decades. When, in the early 2000s, he finally reached out to school officials, telling them what had happened, he says he was not taken seriously.

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RHODE ISLAND
San Francisco Chronicle

January 6, 2016

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A statement released by the Episcopal bishop of Rhode Island calls for “appropriate disciplinary proceedings” against two clergymen and a third person named in reports of past abuse at a prestigious boarding school in Middletown.

The Providence Journal reports (http://bit.ly/1PMjNOv ) the Rt. Rev. W. Nicholas Knisely said Tuesday that he’s been in contact with state police and is “following their direction” as they continue to investigate allegations of abuse at St. George’s School during the 1970s and 1980s.

Knisely said one of the priests is accused of abusing students and the other allegedly failed to report claims of abuse as outlined by state law. The third person is also accused of sexual abuse.

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RHODE ISLAND
Providence Journal

By Karen Lee Ziner
Journal Staff Writer Posted Jan. 5, 2016

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The Episcopal bishop of Rhode Island is calling for “appropriate disciplinary proceedings” against three people named in recent reports of sexual abuse at St. George’s School in Middletown in the 1970s and 1980s.

The Rt. Rev. W. Nicholas Knisely said in a statement Tuesday that he is in contact with Rhode Island State Police, “and I am following their direction as the investigation is being carried out” into the episodes discussed in a report issued by the school in December and in media coverage.

“As of this morning, two Episcopal priests and a third person who has worked in Episcopal congregations have been named in the report or ensuing media coverage,” Bishop Knisely wrote in a letter to clergy released shortly after a Boston news conference about sexual abuse at the elite private school.

“One of the priests allegedly committed abuse and the other allegedly failed to report allegations of abuse made against a St. George’s employee as mandated by state law,” Bishop Knisely wrote. “The third individual is alleged to have committed abuse.”

“I have been in touch with bishops in whose dioceses the three men reside, and am currently working with other church leaders to make sure that appropriate disciplinary proceedings are initiated in this case,” Knisely wrote.

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RHODE ISLAND
WBUR

By FRED THYS

BOSTON Attorneys say 40 credible victims have come forward alleging they were sexually assaulted during their time at St. George’s, a private Episcopalian boarding school in Middletown, Rhode Island. The allegations involve seven former staff members at the school and four former students.

Three former students traveled to Boston Tuesday afternoon to talk about their abuse.

Katie Wales would have graduated in 1980. She used to go see athletic trainer Al Gibbs, now dead, because she injured her back riding a horse. She said Gibbs would lead her through the boys locker room and lock her inside the training room.

“And there was the, ‘Oh, I have to work on your back but you can’t have your T-shirt or your bra on, because I can’t work on your muscles that way,’ ” Wales recounted during a press conference Tuesday. “And then that turned around into, ‘Well, I have to work the front muscles also.’ And then, ‘Oh, let me show you how to dry yourself on your private areas.’ ”

Anne Scott did graduate in 1980. She said Gibbs raped her repeatedly over a two-year period.

“I was threatened not to tell. If I told anyone, he would come after me and I would be in trouble,” Scott said. “I said nothing to anyone. I developed an eating disorder. I developed post-traumatic stress disorder, dissociative disorder, major anxiety and depression.”

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RHODE ISLAND
The New York Times

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
JAN. 5, 2016

BOSTON — The scope of a sexual abuse scandal at St. George’s School in Rhode Island widened substantially on Tuesday as lawyers reported that at least 40 former students had made credible reports of sexual abuse, and in some cases rape, by seven former staff members and four students over three decades.

At the same time, a spokesman for the school, which had made public its own investigation late last month, now characterized that investigation as “preliminary” and said that it would soon name who would be carrying the investigation forward. “The work remains ongoing,” the school said in a statement.

Lawyers for the victims said that the abuse took place from 1974 through 2004. Four of the seven former staff members are still alive, and in at least two cases appear to be working in settings with young people. None have been charged criminally.

Together, the school’s report, which said that staff members sexually abused 26 students in the 1970s and ’80s, and the lawyers’ reports of some 40 total victims, paint a picture of unchecked sexual misconduct at the elite prep school in Middletown.

“The magnitude and scope of this is already approaching the largest private school sexual abuse case that we’ve seen, which was at Horace Mann, where 62 victims came forward,” said Eric MacLeish, a lawyer who, with Carmen L. Durso, is representing some of the victims. The accusations at the Horace Mann School came to light in 2012.

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