ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED KINGDOM
Hull Daily Mail

Former priest Anthony McCallen and former headmaster James Carragher have been jailed for sexually abusing boys at the St William’s care home and approved school. Simon Bristow reports on how they were caught.

VULNERABLE boys sexually abused at a children’s home may have felt they had to go along with it to “stay alive”, the officer in charge of the inquiry has said.

James Carragher, 75, and Anthony McCallen, 69, were yesterday jailed for a total of 24 years for abusing children in their care at the former St William’s approved school in Market Weighton.

Former headmaster Carragher, a member of the Roman Catholic De La Salle order, which ran the school, was jailed for nine years for 24 sexual offences, including three now known as 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.

Former chaplain McCallen, an ordained Roman Catholic priest, was jailed for 15 years for 11 sex offences, including one now known as male rape, against four boys.

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AUSTRALIA
InDaily

Megan Neil

The Catholic Church knew it had pedophile “time bombs” in its midst.

It not only let them keep ticking away but also covered up the pedophiles’ evil deeds to protect its reputation.

The extent of the cover-up is still being dissected by the child abuse royal commission but victims advocacy group Broken Rites spokesman Dr Wayne Chamley expects its report will be absolutely scathing of the Catholic Church.

“The commission is unpicking a conspiracy,” Dr Chamley said.

“These bishops collectively have been running this conspiracy certainly since 1992.”

Minutes of a special issues committee meeting at the 1992 Australian Catholic Bishops Conference reveal: “It was agreed that there are serious ‘time bombs’ ticking away in a number of diocese at the present time.”

The focus was on treating the accused offender fairly, even though the minutes reveal the special issues committee – set up to deal with allegations against priests – agreed “the prognosis for offenders to be returned to any form of active ministry as a priest is not good”.

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RHODE ISLAND
Rhode Island Public Radio

By ELISABETH HARRISON

In a written statement, St. George’s School “deeply apologizes” for the harm done by employees and former students accused of sexual abuse.

“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 school said on Tuesday.

The statement followed an afternoon press conference in which attorneys for several former students said they have received 40 “credible reports of abuse” from alumni, more than the school has previously acknowledged.

“Three quarters of these reports have been made in the last 20 days,” wrote the attorneys, Eric MacLeish and Carmen Durso in a response to the school’s internal investigation. “The total number of alleged staff perpetrators of abuse is seven, with the most recent in 2004. The total number of students reporting rape by other students is four.”

St. George’s School, in its investigation, found 26 credible accounts of abuse by former students, involving six former school employees. The school also found some evidence of student-on-student sexual violence.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
TheMediaReport

Ever wonder about some of the characters who file questionable abuse accusations against Catholic priests? Well, look no further than the case of Rev. Xiu Hui “Joseph” Jiang, a falsely accused priest in St. Louis who has bravely filed a defamation lawsuit against his accuser as well as SNAP and the St. Louis police department.

Fr. Jiang and his lawyers have been trying to serve court papers on his accuser. But, lo and behold, his accuser – identified only by his initials in pleadings and represented by SNAP contributor/lawyer Ken Chackes – has never been found at the address listed for him publicly, his residence appears vacated, and by all appearances he has been actively evading service.

[**Click to read Fr. Jiang’s court filing regarding his accuser**]

And as a recent court filing now reveals, Fr. Jiang and his legal team have found that they are not the only ones trying to locate the guy. It turns out that Fr. Jiang’s accuser already has 2 liens and 16 judgments entered against him, and still other process servers are trying to serve him with even more legal papers.

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ROME
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor January 5, 2016

ROME — Sooner or later, it seems, every good cause in Catholicism gets its martyr.

St. Thomas More, for instance, is celebrated for his loyalty to the pope when England split from Rome in the 16th century, and more recently, Blessed Oscar Romero of El Salvador has become the patron saint of defending the poor.

Today, 34-year-old Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui, the woman at the heart of a controversial Vatican criminal trial over leaks of secret documents, is volunteering for the role — in fact, she’s basically clamoring for it — of martyr for Pope Francis’ much-vaunted project of financial reform.

In her case, “martyrdom” doesn’t mean death, but accepting a prison sentence — theoretically as many as eight years, but more realistically probably closer to two or three — for allegedly leaking those documents, despite vehemently claiming she didn’t do it.

She says that perhaps only the spectacle of sending an innocent woman to jail, forcing her to give birth to the child she’s expecting behind bars, may jar the consciences of the Vatican’s old guard. She fully expects to be convicted, and says that under no circumstances will she ask for, or accept, a papal pardon.

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MAINE
Maine Public Broadcasting

By SUSAN SHARON

PORTLAND, Maine — Six men, now in their 40s and 50s, have filed separate lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Diocese in Portland alleging that they were sexually abused by the same priest when they were altar boys. The men accuse Father James Vallely of sexual assault and inappropriate sexual conduct as far back as the 1950s and up until the late 1970s in several different parishes in Maine: St. Michael’s in South Berwick, St. Dominic’s in Portland and St. John’s in Bangor.

The lawsuits, filed in Cumberland County Superior Court, were brought by attorney Mitchell Garabedian who represented victims of the Boston clergy sex abuse scandal that is now the subject of the movie Spotlight. Garabedian has previously represented alleged victims of Father Vallely in Maine and says during his last litigation he came across evidence that shows Bishop Daniel Feeney of Portland had knowledge of what was taking place.

“In my last case it was discovered that Bishop Feeney, and this was discovered in a letter, knew in about 1956 that Father Vallely was sexually abusing children; yet he did not warn the public about the sexual abuse. He did not act to protect children,” says Garabedian.

Though the alleged abuse is decades old, Garabedian says under Maine law he can bring a cause of action under what’s known as “fraudulent concealment,” the idea that the Diocese had knowledge that Father Vallely ws a sexual predator and didn’t take action to disclose anything to the public until 2009. The statute of limitations in a fraudulent concealment case is six years and Garabedian says he has filed the lawsuits within that window. He says the abuse took place when the boys were between eight and 15 years old.

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MARYLAND
News-Tribune

CUMBERLAND – A former soccer coach at Bishop Walsh High School in Cumberland has been charged with having an inappropriate relationship with a student at the school.

According to the Allegany County Combined Criminal Investigation Unit (C3I), Catherine Martha Czapski, 24, of Cumberland, was arrested Tuesday after a criminal summons had been issued charging her with five counts of fourth degree sex offense by a person in a position of authority.

The charges are the result of an investigation into allegations that Czapski, who was the girl’s soccer coach at Bishop Walsh at the time, was engaged in an inappropriate sexual relationship with a 17-year-old female student at the school.

The allegations first came to light when the Archdiocese of Baltimore received information about the possible inappropriate relationship between Czapski and the student. The Archdiocese contacted the Allegany County State’s Attorney’s Office and the investigation was turned over to C3I.

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MAINE
WCSH

Chris Rose, WCSH January 5, 2016

PORTLAND, Maine (NEWS CENTER) – Six men who claim they were abused by a Catholic priest in Maine many years ago have filed civil lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland.

The alleged abuse happened between 1958 and 1977. The statute of limitations for their allegations has expired but their attorney is moving forward with the cases anyway. Boston attorney Mitchell Garabedian filed the cases in Cumberland County Superior Court claiming something called Fraudulent Concealment.

Robert Hoatson is a former priest who now works with sexual abuse victims. Back in April he passed out copies of a letter written by a retired priest to a diocese official. It describes a conversation between the priest and another priest about five boys who had reported being abused at St. John’s Church in Bangor by Fr. James Vallely. Hoatson says the six altar boys who filed the lawsuits were abused after diocese officials were aware of those allegations.

“So we’re talking about twenty plus years when bishops new about this man’s abuse and did nothing, didn’t tell the public and didn’t do anything about it”, Hoatson said.

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RHODE ISLAND
Episcopal Bishop of Rhode Island

Just before Christmas, St. George’s School in Middletown released a report concerning numerous cases of sexual abuse at the school in the 1970s and 80s. The findings of the report have been widely reported by the media. St. George’s is an Episcopal school and I serve as an ex officio member of its board. For that reason, I want to speak to you about the role of the diocese in responding to these events.

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. 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. 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 the case of the clergy named.

As has been reported in the media, the Rhode Island State Police are conducting a criminal investigation into episodes discussed in the report. I have been in contact with the State Police and I am following their direction as the investigation is being carried out. I can say little more at this point about the situation, but I want you to be aware that you may have people in your congregations or in the communities you serve whose lives have been touched by the terrible events at St. George’s, and that you may be called upon to respond to them with the utmost pastoral sensitivity.

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RHODE ISLAND
GoLocalProv

Tuesday, January 05, 2016
GoLocalProv News Team

Reverend W. Nicholas Knisely, Bishop of Rhode Island, has released a letter to the clergy of the diocese apologizing for the conduct at St. George’s School in Middletown.

Read the Letter Below

Just before Christmas, St. George’s School in Middletown released a report concerning numerous cases of sexual abuse at the school in the 1970s and 80s. The findings of the report have been widely reported by the media. St. George’s is an Episcopal school and I serve as an ex officio member of its board. For that reason, I want to speak to you about the role of the diocese in responding to these events.

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. 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. 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 the case of the clergy named.

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MINNESOTA
KSTP

Jennie Lissarrague
Updated: 01/05/2016

A new lawsuit has been filed against the Diocese of Winona on behalf of a man who said he was abused by a priest in 1962.

The lawsuit says the victim, who was a parishioner and student at St. Mary’s Catholic Church and School, was abused by the Rev. Richard Hatch when the victim was 13-14 years old.

The Hamilton James law group filed the lawsuit, which claims the Diocese of Winona acted negligently by exposing the victim to Hatch and for failing to properly supervise Hatch.

The lawsuit says the church had information that Hatch was a threat to children before he was transferred to St. Mary’s, citing a May 1964 letter from the chancellor of the Diocese of Winona that said, “Father Hatch was a problem here in our Diocese during the years of his service” and “was accused of many indiscretions and much imprudence.” The letter also called Hatch “a very disturbed man,” according to the lawsuit.

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MARYLAND
WCBC

January 5th, 2016 by WCBC Radio

On 01/05/2016 Investigators with the Allegany County Combined Criminal Investigation Unit (C3I) charged 24 year old Catherine Martha Czapski, of Cumberland, after a criminal summons had been issued charging her with five counts of 4th Degree Sex Offense by a Person in Position of Authority.

The charges are the result of an investigation into allegations that Czapski, who was the girl’s soccer coach at Bishop Walsh High School at the time, was engaged in an inappropriate sexual relationship with a 17 year old female student at the school.

The allegations first came to light when the Archdiocese of Baltimore received information about the possible inappropriate relationship between Czapski and the student. The Archdiocese contacted the Allegany County State’s Attorney’s Office and the investigation was turned over to C3I.

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MARYLAND
Your 4 State

CUMBERLAND, Md.

A Cumberland woman is facing allegations of five counts of 4th degree sex offense by a person in a position of authority.

On Tuesday, Officials with the Allegany County Combined Criminal Investigation Unit (C3I) charged 24 year old Catherine Czapski, the girl’s soccer coach at Bishop Walsh High School, with the alleged crimes for an inappropriate relationship with a 17 year-old female student.

An investigation was launched when the Archdiocese of Baltimore received information about the alleged inappropriate relationship between Czapski and the student.

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MARYLAND
WTOP

CUMBERLAND, Md. (AP) — Allegany County law enforcers have charged a high school soccer coach with having sex with a 17-year-old female player.

Twenty-four-year-old Catherine Martha Czapski of Cumberland was charged in a criminal summons with five counts of fourth-degree sex offense by a person in position of authority. The charges were reported Tuesday in a news release by Allegany County Combined Criminal Investigation Unit.

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MARYLAND
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore

January 05, 2016

The following is an official statement from the Archdiocese of Baltimore:

The Archdiocese of Baltimore has received an allegation involving Ms. Catherine Czapski, 24, who has served as soccer and track/cross-country coach and substitute teacher at Bishop Walsh School, a K-12 Catholic school in Cumberland, Maryland. Catherine Czapski is alleged to have engaged in sexual activity with a minor female student at the school.

The allegation was brought to the attention of the Archdiocese through an anonymous phone call to its Office of Child & Youth Protection. The Archdiocese was able to determine the source of the call and reported the matter to the Allegany County State’s Attorney’s Office and to the Department and Child Protective Services of the Department of Social Services. Today, civil authorities in Allegany County charged Catherine Czapski with five counts of fourth degree sex offense by a person in position of authority.

Catherine Czapski was informed Monday that she was prohibited from working or volunteering at any parish or school in the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Catherine Czapski served as a soccer coach at Bishop Walsh from 2013-15 and as a substitute teacher and track and cross-country coach from 2014-15.

Families of current students and recent school graduates are being informed about this matter. The Archdiocese and the school are encouraging anyone with information about this or any other possible incident of abuse to report it to civil authorities and to the Archdiocese and/or Bishop Walsh. The Archdiocese and the school have offered counseling assistance and pastoral care to the student and to others who may have been affected.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore and Bishop Walsh High School are unaware of any other allegation that Catherine Czapski engaged in sexual activity with a minor.

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RHODE ISLAND
International Business Times

BY JULIA GLUM @SUPERJULIA ON 01/05/16

A group of former prep school students from St. George’s School in Middletown, Rhode Island, were preparing to hold a news conference Tuesday to demand an independent investigation into a sex abuse scandal they say took place — and was covered up — in the 70s and 80s. The alleged victims and their attorneys planned to reveal their response Tuesday to a recent report released by the Episcopal boarding school confirming 26 such cases.

“We want the facts and the responsibility,” attorney Eric MacLeish told the Providence Journal. “The board report was a sanitized version of the truth.”

The 11-page report, which came out Dec. 23, found three former staff members “engaged in sexual misconduct with regard to multiple students,” the New York Times reported. Three other staffers abused single students, and some students abused other students.

Four of the six implicated employees were fired after the allegations surfaced years ago, but the institution “failed on several occasions to fulfill its legal reporting requirements,” according to the report. Some staffers went on to work at schools elsewhere in the country.

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RHODE ISLAND
Patch

By MARK SCHIELDROP (Patch Staff)
January 5, 2016

BOSTON, MA—Three women who were sexually abused decades ago as teenagers at St. George’s School in Middletown said Tuesday that the elite preparatory school’s administration is still trying to cover-up systemic rape, molestation and victimization of students that occurred there in the 1970s and 1980s.

All three were victimized by now-deceased former athletic director Al Gibbs, who was allowed to retire in 1980 after years of abusing girls. And in recent weeks, more than 40 more victims have come forward to report being abused not just by Gibbs, but a former chaplain, a former musical director and other students as well.

Calling for an outside independent investigation and a major change in how the school is handling sex abuse claims, the victims, Anne Scott (‘80); Katie Wales (‘80); and Joan “Bege” Reynolds (‘79), said at a Boston press conference in the office of their lawyers that the school’s current headmaster has continued a decades-long effort by the school to silence and intimidate victims to avoid a public scandal.

Victims are dissatisfied with the school’s own internal investigation of sexual abuse claims after learning that the investigator appointed by the school was described in an April alumni letter as independent but is actually a partner in the law firm that represents the school. The report also doesn’t address how the school failed to report an overwhelming number of sexual abuse reports from victims over the years to state authorities, including the police and the state Department of Children Youth and Families.

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RHODE ISLAND
Boston.com

By Eric Levenson @ejleven
Boston.com Staff | 01.05.16

More than 40 people have relayed stories of sexual abuse that occurred at St. George’s School in Rhode Island in the 1970s and ’80s, two attorneys representing the victims told The Boston Globe .

The attorneys, Eric MacLeish and Carmen Durso, and several victims plan to hold a press conference on Tuesday to call for a truly independent investigation into the alleged abuse, the Globe reports.

A report last month from St. George’s School said that an independent investigation had found 26 instances of abuse by six separate school employees from that time period. A total of 23 students were abused by just three employees, the report found.

However, several victims said that the “independent” investigative lawyer is the law partner of the prep school’s legal counsel.

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MAINE
Bangor Daily News

By Judy Harrison, BDN Staff
Posted Jan. 05, 2016

BANGOR, Maine — Six men who claim they were sexually abused between 1956 and 1977 by the Rev. James Vallely, who is now deceased, have sued the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland claiming the bishop at the time knew the priest was abusive and fraudulently concealed it.

The complaints, dated Nov. 20, 2015, were filed in Cumberland County Superior Court, according to Mitchell Garabedian, the Boston attorney representing them.

The men are seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages. The Bangor Daily News is not naming them because they may be victims of sexual abuse.

Dave Guthro, spokesman for the diocese, declined Tuesday in an email to comment on the pending litigation.

“As always, [current] Bishop [Robert] Deeley encourages anybody who may have information about any case of sexual abuse of a minor by a church representative to contact civil authorities and Michael Magalski, director of the Office of Professional Responsibility for the Diocese of Portland,” Guthro said.

The diocese previously acknowledged there were credible abuse allegations against Vallely.

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MAINE
Boston.com

By Hilary Sargent
Boston.com Staff | 01.05.16

Six men who say they were sexually abused by a Catholic priest decades ago have filed civil lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, according to the Portland Press Herald.

The men are represented by Mitchell Garabedian, the Boston attorney who has worked for many victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, as well as Bangor attorney Brett Baber, the Press Herald reports.

The individual lawsuits were filed on November 20.

According to the Press Herald, which obtained copies of the complaints, the men say they were abused by Reverend James P. Vallely, who is now deceased, over a 19-year period beginning in 1958.

The six men were all altar boys, between the ages of 8 and 15, during the time the abuse allegedly occurred, the Press Herald reported.

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MAINE
Daily Mail (UK)

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Six men have sued the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, claiming church leaders concealed allegations that a priest sexually abused children for decades.

The suits, filed in November by men from Maine, New Hampshire and New York, were made public this week and accuse the diocese of covering up abuse by the Rev. James Vallely. The men say Vallely sexually abused them from 1958 to 1977 when they were ages 8 to 15.

Their lawyer, Mitchell Garabedian, said Tuesday that the suits claim the church “fraudulently concealed” Vallely’s abuse. Vallely died in 1997 in Florida.

The concealment claim opens the way to sue even though the statute of limitations for sexual abuse has expired. Garabedian said former Bishop Daniel Feeney, who led the diocese from 1955 until his death in 1969, knew Vallely abused minors but did nothing, allowing him to continue to abuse children.

The evidence that Feeney was aware of the abuse came from a letter revealed recently as part of a separate lawsuit that indicated the diocese knew about Vallely’s abuse in 1956, Garabedian said. The diocese had previously said it knew of credible allegations against Vallely going back only to 1977. Written in July 2005, the letter from one priest to another in the diocese says Feeney transferred Vallely to a different parish in 1956, shortly after learning of the sexual abuse allegations.

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RHODE ISLAND
SGS for Healing

We care about St. George’s School. We seek healing and accountability. This Tumblr page makes available all the information we have so far about allegations of sexual abuse at St. George’s School, a private co-ed boarding school in Newport R.I. We want this site to become the single repository for all the information and relevant documents, and we will keep it up to date. Please share any information you might have commenting in a reblog or emailing us: sgsforhealing@gmail.com.

Report: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B671iuPUPTPHbU01ME1QQ2lDcVk/view?usp=sharing

Exhibits A- N: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B671iuPUPTPHbk55cWh2TW12a3M/view?usp=sharing

Exhibits O-HH: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B671iuPUPTPHLTFLbHRvOXJQbGs/view?usp=sharing

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ALABAMA
AL.com

By Jonathan Grass | jgrass@al.com
on December 28, 2015

Mobile police have made an arrest in the case of a 17-year-old who was shot and stabbed earlier this month.

The male victim was found in the trunk of a car the morning of Dec. 13. The car was outside Corpus Christi Church on McKenna Drive.

Police say the teen was shot in the leg and also had a stab wound. His injuries were not life-threatening. He was treated at the hospital and later released.

Police have determined that the man who was taking care of the victim was responsible for the crime.

Reginald Michael Reed, 55, was arrested Monday and charged with first-degree kidnapping.

Mobile police spokeswoman Charlette Solis said Reed and the victim were staying at a hotel when the incident happened. Reed’s story differs greatly from the video evidence, according to investigators.

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ALABAMA
Fox 10

By Renee Dials, FOX10 News Anchor

MOBILE, AL (WALA) –
The man charged with kidnapping a 17-year-old appeared in court Wednesday morning for a bond hearing. Some new details involving the case were brought out in the hearing, including the first mention that the teenager may have been the victim of sexual abuse.

Reginald Reed, 55, appeared in court for his bond hearing this morning without an attorney. Reed is charged with kidnapping a 17-year-old boy who was found shot and stabbed inside the trunk of a vehicle in the parking lot of Corpus Christi Church on December 13.

Judge George Hardesty read the allegations from the complaint filed by a Youth Services Detective. The document contains the first mention of possible sexual abuse in the case.

It states Reed abducted the teenager; “with the intent to inflict physical injury”, or to “violate or abuse (him) sexually”.

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ALABAMA
Fox 10

By Bob Grip, FOX10 News Anchor

MOBILE, AL (WALA) –
Reginald Michael Reed, the suspect in the kidnapping of a 17-year-old boy who had been shot and stabbed and left in a car in the parking lot of Corpus Christi Catholic Church, was not required to undergo background checks before being hired to perform janitorial work at that church.

“Mr. Reed is an independent contractor,” explained Msgr. Michael Farmer, Vicar General of the Mobile Archdiocese.

Reed was not a short-term, temporary employee. In an e-mail sent to parents of children at Corpus Christi School, principal Joan McMullen wrote about Reed, “He has worked as the church’s maintenance person for many years. Recently, he has been helping with maintenance at the school.”

Reed, who is 55 years old, was arrested on December 28, 2015. Metro Jail records show Reed has an arrest record in Mobile County dating back to 1995 for crimes that include cocaine possession, marijuana possession, possession of a controlled substance, driving with a suspended license and improper tag.

In a statement sent to FOX10 News anchor Bob Grip, Msgr. Farmer wrote, “In accordance with archdiocesan policy, background checks and safe environment training are required of all employees and of volunteers who have substantial contact with minors.”

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

A serving soldier admitted abusing a boy from a residential home run by Anglican missionaries in Northern Ireland 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 near Belfast 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, said one alleged perpetrator was later interviewed by police.

“He took children on day trips, played football, and admitted having feelings for MH41 (one of the residents).

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Times

Six people have made allegations of physical and sexual abuse at a residential home for children run by Evangelical Anglican missionaries in Northern Ireland, a lawyer has told the North’s Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry.

The home was run by the Society for the Irish Church Missions to the Roman Catholics, which was established to convert Catholics to Protestantism.

It ran Manor House Children’s Home, near Belfast in Lisburn, Co Down, from 1927 to 1984.
The organisation also had links to the Church of Ireland.

Two people have already given public evidence on the allegations during an earlier module of the inquiry concerning the transfer of child migrants to Australia.

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ILLINOIS
Canton Daily Ledger

By Michelle Sherman
Editor

Posted Jan. 5, 2016

LEWISTOWN
A former youth pastor convicted of criminal sexual abuse pleaded guilty on Monday to one count of misdemeanor attempted unlawful presence in a daycare center.

Jason Phillips, 41, of Glasford, was sentenced to 300 days in Fulton County Jail, a $500 fine and $432 in court costs in Fulton County Court by Judge Thomas B. Ewing for the Class A misdemeanor.

Four Class 4 felony charges of being present on the property of a child care facility were dropped.

He was arrested Aug. 6 by Canton Police officers for allegedly dropping off two children at His Little Children Child Care Center in Canton on four separate occasions between July 31 and Aug. 6. On two of those occasions he was spotted inside the building, a violation of the terms of the sex offender registry.

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RHODE ISLAND
WPRI

[with video]

BOSTON (WPRI) — Former students of a Rhode Island private school came forward Tuesday with allegations of sexual abuse by school employees.

At a news conference in Boston, attorneys said 40 men and women claim they were abused at St. George’s School in Middletown in the 1970s and 1980s.

The alleged victims also accuse administrators of covering up the incidents and are now calling for an independent investigation at the school, according to the attorneys.

An internal investigation conducted by the school, which WPRI.com reported last month, found that more than two dozen students were sexually abused by six school employees. Two of the alleged perpetrators include a current Episcopal priest & an assistant school choir director in New York City.

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MAINE
Portland Press Herald

BY DENNIS HOEY STAFF WRITER
dhoey@pressherald.com | @DennisHoey | 207-791-6365

Six men who claim they were sexually abused more than 35 years ago by a Roman Catholic priest at parishes in Maine where they were altar boys have filed individual lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland.

Copies of the complaints were provided to the Portland Press Herald on Monday by the plaintiffs’ attorney, Mitchell Garabedian of Boston.

Supporters of the men plan to hold a press conference in front of the diocese office in Portland Tuesday to discuss the lawsuits.

The six civil complaints were filed Nov. 20 in Cumberland County Superior Court in Portland. Garabedian said Brett Baber of Bangor will serve as his clients’ local attorney.

In the lawsuits, the plaintiffs allege that they were abused by the Rev. James P. Vallely between 1958 and 1977. All the men were altar boys at the time and ranged in age from 8 to 15 when the abuse allegedly occurred.

The plaintiffs are now between the ages of 46 and 59.

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UNITED STATES
Forward

Sam Kestenbaum
January 5, 2016

Marc Gafni, a once-promising Jewish leader dogged by allegations of sexual improprieties stretching back years, has returned to the public eye as a leader of a California think tank.
But his stunning re-emergence, trumpeted in a recent New York Times article, has elicited a new wave of condemnations from Jewish leaders.

Rabbi David Ingber, an influential Renewal rabbi in New York who once studied with Gafni but has long since severed ties, says anyone who knows Gafni has a responsibility to warn others about him.

“We are calling for other organizations to pull their support for him,” said Ingber. “We did not do enough before to warn people about this person. I feel responsible. I am implicated.”

Ingber organized a petition of denouncement, which carries the names of around 100 other Jewish leaders, including rabbis Donniel Hartman, Avi Weiss, Sharon Kleinbaum, Ebn Leader and Joseph Telushkin. The petition specifically names Whole Foods, whose co-founder and CEO, John Mackey, is on the board of Gafni’s think tank. Posted on December 30, it now has more than 2,500 signatories.

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ROME
BBC

Gianluigi Nuzzi, author of the book “Merchants in the Temple”, discusses his Vatican exposé. The allegations include using charitable donations to plug financial holes and accepting money from Philip Morris International in exchange for promoting cigarette products. Nuzzi is now on trial for using illicit means to obtain the documents. The Vatican declined to comment on the claims while Philip Morris issued the following statement:

“The allegations concerning Philip Morris in the book wrongly portray what is nothing more than a standard commercial contract related to the sale of duty free tobacco products in the Vatican State Tobacco Store.”

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (first written in 2010, updated 2 Jaunuary 2016)

A prominent Australian Catholic Church leader, Archbishop Philip Wilson, has claimed (in 2010) that during his rise from junior priest to church administrator, he “knew nothing” about the sexually-abusive behaviour of fellow-priests — even though he lived and worked with some of these criminals. Does Wilson’s “know-nothing” attitude help us to understand his rise to the top of the Australian church hierarchy? Wilson’s senior roles eventually included the managing of the church’s response to clergy sexual abuse, as well as being appointed as the archbishop of Adelaide. In March 2015, Archbishop Wilson was charged by police with concealing child sex abuse allegedly committed by another priest during the 1970s. After being charged, Wilson went on indefinite leave from his archbishop role. However, he has decided now to resume work as the archbishop in January 2016, despite the fact that the concealment charge is still awaiting him in the court system.

From 1996 onwards, Wilson was a long-time member of the Australian bishops’ National Committee for Professional Standards — the body that was established to oversee the management of the church’s sexual-abuse crisis.

In 2001, Wilson’s fellow bishops elected him as the chairman of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference — at a time when the worldwide Catholic hierarchy was being accused of having covered up clergy sex-abuse crimes. He held this top position for the next ten years.

This career rise is quite significant for someone who says he formerly “knew nothing” about clergy sex crimes.

Background

Philip Edward Wilson was born in 1950, the eldest of five children, and grew up within the Maitland-Newcastle diocese, north of Sydney. This is one of the eleven Catholic dioceses in New South Wales.

After finishing his schooling, he was accepted by the Maitland diocese as a candidate to enter a seminary in Sydney to study in for the priesthood.

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MINNESOTA
Noaka Law Firm

Posted on January 5, 2016 by patricknoaker

Bishop More Interested in Bank Loan Than Protecting Children from Child Predator

St. Marys Photo(Winona, Minnesota – January 05, 2016.) Today, the Hamilton James law group filed a civil lawsuit on behalf of a former Winona man against the Diocese of Winona relating to sexual abuse by Fr. Richard Hatch in 1962 when the boy was 13 – 14 years of age and a parishioner and student at St. Mary’s Catholic Church and School. Documents released by Hamilton James reveal that the Winona Bishop was more concerned about Fr. Hatch’s loan with the First National Bank of Pipestone than Hatch taking children with him to Florida.

In the civil Complaint, a man described as John Doe 121 brings claims of negligence against the Diocese of Winona for exposing him to alleged sexual predator Fr. Richard Hatch and for failing to properly supervise Fr. Hatch, thereby endangering children. According to the Complaint, Fr. Hatch sexually abused Doe on and around the premises of St. Mary’s Church and School in approximately 1962, when John Doe 121 was approximately 13 or 14 years old.

According to the Complaint, in a letter of July 13, 1961, the Bishop warned Hatch to be more careful with money, and then threw in a line about the protection of children. In the letter, the Bishop stated “I have spoken to you several times in regard to your apparent disregard and lack of concern for debts which you have and which you incur,” “Such actions jeopardize the good name and reputation of the Church and particularly of individual priests.”

The Complaint also states that the Diocese of Winona had information that Fr. Hatch was a threat to children. The Complaint also specifically cites another document showing the Diocese knew Fr. Hatch was a sexual threat to parish boys prior to transferring Hatch to St. Mary’s. In a May 28, 1964 letter from Msgr. Emmett F. Tighs, Chancellor of the Diocese of Winona, stated that “Fr. Hatch was a problem here in our Diocese during the years of his service.” In that same letter, Msgr. Tighs also confirmed that Fr. Hatch “was accused of many indiscretions and much imprudence” and Msgr. Tighs also described Fr. Hatch as “a very disturbed man.”

Professor and Attorney Marci Hamilton put this case in the national context: “Once again, a diocese failed to prioritize the protection of children, and instead focused on bureaucratic details while children suffered. While it is no longer surprising, it is no less of a shock to the conscience.”

“This case is very upsetting,” said Minneapolis attorney Patrick Noaker, a veteran child sex abuse lawyer, “because the Diocese could have easily avoided the sexual abuse of this boy entirely. “Patrick is one of the attorneys representing John Doe 121. “The Bishop knew that Fr. Hatch had been sexually inappropriate with parish boys in St. James and instead of removing him, the Bishop transferred him to St. Mary’s in Winona exposing unsuspecting parents and children to a dangerous sexual predator.”

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ITALY
Daily Mail (UK)

By SARA MALM and GIANLUCA MEZZOFIORE FOR MAILONLINE

A former nun has claimed that she was forced to engage in daily self-flagellation and encouraged to write her vows in her own blood while living in a convent in southern Italy.

The woman, now in her 30s, alleges that nuns of Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate, which has its headquarters in Frigento, Avellino province in Campania, took part in the rituals in the 1990s.

In addition to the punishing rituals, she says she was fed out-of-date yoghurt and corned beef, which the nuns were told would not affect them if they ate it ‘with true obedience’.

In an interview with an Italian newspaper where she makes the damaging allegations, the former nun shows off a post card with her vows, signed by the head of the order.

She claims the vows were written using in her own blood, on the day of her initiation in 1996, when she was 17 years old.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

TOM KINGTON
THE TIMES
JANUARY 6, 2016

The Italian Renaissance philosopher who rejected Christian morality and kickstarted the cynical art of modern politics may have hated the church after he was sexually abused as a boy by a priest, a scholar has claimed.

Niccolo Machiavelli, whose 16th-century work The Prince defined the callous pursuit of power, probably was abused by his Latin teacher, a priest, leaving him with a bitter view of Catholic teaching, according to Robert Black, an emeritus ­professor of history at the University of Leeds whose findings have ben published in Italy.

Claims that Machiavelli was abused were first made a decade ago, based on a 1515 letter that the Florentine received from Francesco Vettori, a friend.

“Vettori wrote, ‘We are all corrupt thanks to the teachers our parents hired who had their way with us, and we have never got over it’,” Professor Black said.

Speculation grew that he was discussing Paolo Sassi da Ronciglione, a priest who taught ­Vettori and Machiavelli.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Independent Catholic News

Pope Francis: Untying the Knots; the Struggle for the Soul of Catholicism
By Paul Vallely, Second edition, Bloomsbury, 16.99

Rebecca Tinsley

This is an emotional roller coaster of a book. Like a cliff-hanging thriller, Vallely describes the institutional challenges facing Pope Francis, and the dark forces working against his attempts to reform the Church, “to let God’s Holy Spirit blow where it will along corridors and through rooms which were stuffy and airless.”

But fans of Francis should beware: Vallely’s recounting of Jorge Bergoglio’s now-infamous role in the arrest of two priests during Argentina’s dirty war will leave the reader unsettled. Equally uncomfortable is the author’s examination of the Pope’s tardiness in tackling clerical child abuse, and his patronising attitude to women.

Yet, Vallely paints a vivid, sympathetic picture of a remarkable man, surrounded by vicious Vatican vipers willing his failure. Anyone of faith reading Francis’s words in this volume cannot fail to be moved by the Pope’s courage, humility, and decency. Francis’s clear articulation of what it means to be a follower of Christ is bracing and life-enhancing to those who want an outwardly-looking, merciful church.

Other biographers have mused on how the stern Bergoglio became today’s embodiment of love, tolerance and forgiveness. Drawing on interviews with people who have known the Pope for decades, Vallely focuses on Bergoglio’s soul-searching exile in Cordoba, and his critical analysis of why he had so misplayed his Jesuit leadership back in Argentina.

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UGANDA
Citifmonline

During his November visit to Africa, the continent which now counts nearly 200m Roman Catholics, Pope Francis said that children were some of the greatest victims of Africa’s historical exploitation by other powers. He also urged young Africans to resist corruption.

But should the Vatican be doing more to put its own house in order? A BBC investigation has uncovered evidence that church land in Uganda is being used for child labour.

Alex Turyaritunga has first-hand experience of child exploitation, albeit of a more extreme kind. “I was a child soldier, nothing can take that away from my memory,” he tells the BBC. “I remember the war in 1994. I had a gun around my shoulder.”

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

Australia’s most senior Catholic Cardinal George Pell should not be a scapegoat for the church’s cover-up of child sexual abuse by clergy, a victim and advocates say.

Ballarat abuse survivor Andrew Collins says the Vatican’s third most senior official is in a unique position to address the cultural issues in the church being investigated by the child abuse royal commission.

“Do we want to see Cardinal Pell go? No. I think they’re in positions where they can do a lot of good,” Mr Collins told AAP.

“If he is a scapegoat that takes the focus off the culture in the church.

“He does have a position of power in Rome to actually change things for the better.”

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UNITED STATES
Washington Times

By Renee Garfinkel – – Monday, January 4, 2016

When I hear about the latest bone-chilling crime committed by a member of a group, I ask, “Is this the action of a few very bad apples, or is there something rotten about the barrel?”

The question becomes more poignant when the “barrel” in question is a religious community. If you’re fortunate enough to belong to a religious community, you know its many benefits — fellowship, mutual aid, spiritual connection and worship, to name a few. Perhaps the greatest spiritual gift is the opportunity for self-examination that supports moral change and personal growth. Every religion I know of includes the possibility for individual repair, repentance and renewal.

But what happens when the community itself is in need of repair? What if problems in the community implicate a “bad barrel?”

Too often, a religious community will resist facing the possibility of its own culpability in the moral failures of its members. The current movie “Spotlight” brings to the screen the real-life situation of pedophile priests in the Catholic Church. The church and the larger Boston community colluded in denial and cover-ups for many years.

Those who tried to expose the crimes found themselves sidelined, maligned and intimidated. It took an outsider with investigative resources and the power of the press, a new, non-Bostonian editor of the Boston Globe, to see that the problem was systemic. It led up through the highest levels.

Boston was indeed a bad barrel. Only when that truth was faced could the institution begin to change, its victims begin to heal.

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RHODE ISLAND
New York Daily News

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Former students who say they were sexually abused at a prestigious Rhode Island boarding school are holding a news conference in Boston to call for an independent investigation into the abuse.

St. George’s School in Middletown announced last month that it found 26 students were sexually abused by six school employees in the 1970s and 1980s. It acknowledged it did not report abusers to authorities at the time.

Lawyers for some of the victims say their own investigation found 16 additional victims. They say they also identified an additional staff member who abused children and seven ex-students who abused others.

They say they plan to release more information during Tuesday’s news conference.

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UNITED KINGDOM
National Secular Society

Posted: Mon, 04 Jan 2016 by Keith Porteous Wood

New revelations about the extent of the letter-writing campaign to help disgraced bishop Peter Ball escape charges raise urgent questions about the extent of the establishment cover-up, writes Keith Porteous Wood.

Former Bishop of Gloucester Peter Ball was recently jailed for 32 months aged 83 for offences relating to sexual activity with almost twenty young males. The Crown Prosecution Service had investigated allegations twenty years earlier but they had told Ball in 1993 that despite “sufficient admissible, substantial and reliable evidence” it was prepared to deal with the matter out of court. Ball was let off with a caution and resigned as bishop. The CPS have recently conceded that this was the wrong decision.

It is widely thought that Ball escaped more serious charges and a trial in 1993 because of a massive establishment cover-up; reportedly 2,000 letters were sent to justice authorities on Ball’s behalf.

Freedom of Information requests, including by the Telegraph and the BBC, have led to the release of a few of these letters and confirm that some were from key establishment figures. A former Home Office Secretary of State (now Rt Hon Lord Renton) wrote, seemingly accepting the accusations, that “the further shame of criminal action seems far too great a punishment”.

The Rt Hon Lord Justice Lloyd wrote to both the Detective Inspector and Chief Constable describing Ball as “the most … saintly man I have ever met”, thanking the former for “being so understanding when we spoke on the telephone”. Several senior masters from public schools also wrote.

Hopefully it will emerge, perhaps from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, who was responsible for organising this high level campaign, of such magnitude that it apparently succeeded in perverting the course of justice. That the letters were orchestrated is suggested by a phrase used in a letter from Radley College Abingdon: “I gather it may be helpful for you to hear from those who have known Bishop Peter Ball for a long period of time.” Who suggested that “it may be helpful”?

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Times

Sean O’Neill Chief Reporter

January 5 2016

Lord Carey of Clifton, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, pleaded for Peter Ball despite having a detailed report on sex abuse allegations against the bishop.

It was revealed last week that the peer had written in early 1993 expressing “urgent concern” to a chief constable whose force was investigating Ball, who resigned later that year, and to the director of public prosecutions.

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ILLINOIS
The Herald-News

By The HERALD–NEWS

JOLIET – Less than a week after the funeral of one Diocese of Joliet bishop, a former diocese auxiliary bishop has died.

The Most Rev. Daniel Ryan died Thursday in Naperville at age 85, according to a news release from the Diocese of Springfield, where Ryan served as bishop for 15 years.

Ryan was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Joliet in 1956 and was assigned to be assistant pastor at St. Paul the Apostle Parish in Joliet and chancery notary, according to the Joliet diocese website. After studying canon law at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome, he returned to the diocese and was named assistant chancellor. He was appointed diocesan chancellor in 1965, before becoming vicar general in 1977.

Ryan then served as pastor of St. Michael Parish in Wheaton starting in 1979, before he was named auxiliary bishop in 1981.

In 1983, he was named the seventh bishop of Springfield, a position he held until his resignation in 1999.

Ryan’s resignation was abrupt, according to The State Journal-Register, and an independent investigative report in 2006 stated Ryan fostered “a culture of secrecy” that discouraged priests from coming forward about sexual misconduct. The report also stated that Ryan engaged in sexual misconduct with adults, which he used his authority to conceal, according to The State Journal-Register. Some Masses Ryan celebrated were picketed, but he was never charged or prosecuted.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

Abuse allegations at a children’s home run by Protestant missionaries will be investigated by the Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry this week.

Manor House children’s home in Lisburn, County Antrim, was run by the Irish Church Missions (ICM), an organisation with links to the Church of Ireland.

Manor House closed in 1984.

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

Disputed

It has already heard testimony from former residents of Manor House, who alleged they were abused at the children’s home.

One man, a retired company director, told the inquiry in September last year that he became a teenage prostitute in Australia after suffering abuse at Manor House.

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RHODE ISLAND
Providence Journal

By Karen Lee Ziner
Journal Staff Writer Posted Jan. 4, 2016

BOSTON — Past and present St. George’s School administrators have attempted “to silence victims” to “prevent a scandal” over accusations of systemic sexual abuse dating to the 1970s and 1980s, says an attorney for three St. George’s alumni who are pressing the issue.

Attorney Eric MacLeish spoke in advance of a news conference Tuesday at which he and three women who say they were sexually victimized in the 1970s by the school’s former athletic trainer Al Gibbs, are scheduled to release a rebuttal to a Dec. 23, 2015, report by St. George’s School.

That report by St. George’s headmaster Eric Peterson and Board of Trustees Chair Leslie Heaney, based on a 10-month investigation, identified 26 victims of abuse by several staff in the 1970s and 1980s. It included an apology that underscored the school’s “regret, sorrow and shame that students in our care were hurt.” It stated that the school has forwarded information about other alleged perpetrators, including three students, to state police.

MacLeish and alumna Anne Scott, who says she was raped by Gibbs, have called the school’s report “a sanitized version of the truth,” and are calling for an independent investigation. They have challenged the school’s use of an investigator who works for the same law firm that represents the school.

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RHODE ISLAND
Boston Globe

By Bella English GLOBE STAFF JANUARY 05, 2016

Harry Groome is 52 now, a successful marketing man with a wife and two kids, but his freshman fall at St. George’s School is only a bad memory away. At age 14, he arrived at the prep school in Middletown, R.I, excited to be leaving his small Pennsylvania town and settling into dorm life.

Each floor had three prefects, seniors selected by the faculty for their leadership, whose job was to oversee the floor and make sure the boys were in their rooms at night. One prefect proved more terrifying than helpful, recalled Groome.

“If he was on duty, it was mayhem,” said Groome, who lives in Arlington.

One Saturday night in early November, when the other two prefects were away on college visits, the third prefect called the boys into the hallway. He had a few other seniors with him, perhaps a half-dozen boys in all, Groome recalled.

He commanded Groome to stand atop a heavy-duty plastic trashcan, pull down his pants and underwear and bend over, according to Groome. He then penetrated the boy with a broomstick, Groome said, in an assault that lasted about a minute.

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RHODE ISLAND
Boston Globe

By Bella English GLOBE STAFF JANUARY 05, 2016

Two attorneys representing victims in the burgeoning sex abuse scandal at St. George’s School say that more than 40 people have contacted them with stories ranging from molestation to rape by staff and students at the Episcopalian prep school in Middletown, R.I., most of it in the 1970s and ’80s.

Some of those victims and the attorneys will hold a press conference Tuesday criticizing the school’s own investigation, detailed in a report last month, which identified 26 victims of sexual abuse at the prestigious school. The critics are also expected to call on the school to hire an independent agency or law firm to look into what happened to students on the hilltop campus overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

“Their report was just damage control,” said Hawk Cramer, a school principal in Seattle, who said he was molested by a St. George’s faculty member when he was a student there from 1981 to 1985.

Attorneys Eric MacLeish and Carmen Durso say that while most of the people who have come forth were abused by St. George’s staffers, the attorneys have also have heard from two male and one female alumni who report being raped by fellow students. All three “can name alleged perpetrators, and two can name witnesses,” said MacLeish.

Rhode Island State Police detective commander Joseph Philbin said that “a very active, ongoing investigation” began several weeks ago, though he would not comment on specific cases. Rhode Island is one of the few states that have no statute of limitations for rape.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
News Letter

A public inquiry into alleged child abuse will turn its attention on Tuesday to a residential home run by evangelical Anglican missionaries in Ireland.

The Irish Church Missions was established to convert Catholics to Protestantism. The conservative organisation ran Manor House Children’s Home near Belfast in Lisburn, Co Down, and had links to the Church of Ireland.

The Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) Inquiry will begin hearing evidence of alleged wrongdoing at the home during public sessions in Banbridge, Co Down.

The missionaries are governed by Anglican evangelical clergy and laity who are concerned for Gospel growth in Ireland.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call

Laurie Mason Schroeder

ALLENTOWN — An Allentown man who admitted he used a hammer to kill a pastor in a city rooming house last year was sentenced Monday to six to 12 years in a state prison.

Jose Colon, 20, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in September, saying he lashed out because he woke up and found pastor Luis Herrera attempting to rape him.

‘I just raged. I can’t describe it,’ Colon told Lehigh County Judge Robert L. Steinberg. ‘I’ve never been through that before, that kind of rage.’

The killing occurred March 23 at 733 Washington St. Herrera, 47, rented a room at the home and was known in the community as a pastor who helped troubled youth, First Assistant District Attorney Steven Luksa said at Colon’s plea hearing.

Herrera’s obituary in The Morning Call listed him as a pastor at the Pentecostal Church of Christ in Allentown.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A former chaplain and ex-principal of a Roman Catholic children’s care home have been jailed for abusing boys.

Anthony McCallen and James Carragher were convicted of a total of 35 sex offences against 11 boys between 1970 and 1991 at the former St William’s Children’s Home in East Yorkshire.

McCallen, 69, was jailed for 15 years and Carragher, 75, for nine years.

Leeds Crown Court heard it was the third time former head Carragher had been jailed for offences at the home.

Sentencing the pair, Judge Geoffrey Marson QC said: “Each of you targeted some of the most vulnerable boys. You groomed them and abused them for your own sexual gratification.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Wirral Globe

A former head of a children’s home from Prenton – who has already served 21 years in prison for sexually abusing boys – has been jailed for a further nine years.

James Carragher, of Cearns Road, was head from 1976 to 1990 of St William’s – an approved school for boys with behavioural problems in Market Weighton, East Yorkshire, run by the Catholic De La Salle order.

Carragher, 75, was jailed for seven years in 1993 and a further 14 years in 2004 for offences he committed at St William’s.

On Monday, he was jailed for nine years at Leeds Crown Court by a judge who said he and co-defendant Anthony McCallen had the boys at the school “effectively trapped” and added: “It is difficult to imagine a worse case of breach of trust”.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

Gordon Hill still has the two shillings, nine pence and a halfpenny he left St Joseph’s Orphanage with in 1959.

It is a memento of the 16 years he spent in Victorian orphanages, from the time he was five months old.

With his St Joseph’s coins in his car, Mr Hill has twice driven the 3600km from his Geraldton home in Western Australia to Victoria to be at child sex abuse royal commission hearings into the Catholic Diocese of Ballarat.

The 72-year-old is determined his story of physical, sexual and emotional abuse and those of others, including his sisters and brothers, are heard and not forgotten.

‘I’m their voice.’

Mr Hill – whose name at ‘St Joey’s’ was 29, his locker number – was five when he was first abused by a priest in the ‘horror rooms’ downstairs.

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UNITED STATES
Church Militant

By Erwin Wolff

The lamentable situation in Belgium continues unabated. In October 2014, a priest accused of sexually abusing a minor was appointed priest for the town of Middelkerke, in the Bruges diocese, raising a public outcry. The matter was resolved only by the man’s refusal to accept the appointment — but the bishop responsible for appointing him— Jozef de Kesel — never apologized for the mishap.

On November 6, 2015, that same bishop was announced as the new archbishop of Brussels, replacing orthodox appointment Abp. André-Joseph Léonard, who had reached the age of 75, with its mandatory letter of resignation.

As spokesman for Pro Familia, a pro-life apostolate based in Belgium, we believe the new appointment of Abp. Jozef de Kesel is a grave mistake.

December 12 was the installation date for the new archbishop of the Mechelen-Brussels archdiocese. The ceremony in the Mechelen cathedral was attended by leading figures, including the Catholic king and queen of Belgium, as well as the man considered the unofficial “boss” of the Belgian Church — Koen Geens, head of the Belgian Department of Justice, who pays the salaries of all the Catholic bishops and priests in the country.

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NEW YORK
Catholic Courier

By Jennifer Burke/Catholic Courier

Bishop Salvatore R. Matano has appointed Karen Rinefierd as coordinator of safe-environment education and compliance for the Diocese of Rochester.

In this newly created position, she will coordinate safe-environment efforts at parishes and for various diocesan departments. Rinefierd, who previously has served as diocesan pastoral-planning coordinator and coordinator of leadership formation for parishes, will work with the directors of diocesan departments and with parish safe-environment coordinators to ensure compliance with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.

“The new position of coordinator of safe-environment education and compliance will help us to continue our diocese’s longstanding commitment to create a safe and holy environment for all through constant vigilance, education and diligence, ensuring that we are in compliance with the mandates set forth in the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People,” Bishop Matano said.

In her new role, Rinefierd will:

* Work with Bishop Matano; Father Daniel Condon, the diocesan chancellor; and the diocesan review board to establish, maintain and oversee compliance with safe-environment policies for the Diocese of Rochester.

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MINNESOTA
Northlands News Center

By Ramona Marozas

January 4, 2016

Duluth, MN (NNCNOW.com) — A St. Louis County civil case against the Duluth Diocese centered around an un-named alleged abuse victim is slated for an eight-day jury trial.

Doe 28 brought a civil suit against the diocese three years ago, claiming sexual abuse of a minor by Father Robert Klein.

A Diocese of Duluth priest at the time of the alleged abuse, Klein worked at Duluth’s Sacred Heart Church and St. Jean’s School.

The Diocese of Duluth is under court order to produce all records on child sexual abuse by clergy from 1956 to 1974.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Reveal – The Center for Investigative Reporting

By Trey Bundy / January 4, 2016

Claims that Jehovah’s Witnesses hide child sexual abuse from secular authorities have surfaced again in England.

The Daily Mail reported last week that Ian Pheasey, a 54-year-old Jehovah’s Witness, was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for choking young girls for sexual gratification in the 1990s.

Prosecutor Nicholas Taplow said that Pheasey’s victims were told to keep quiet and that “the matter was swept under the carpet by the church.”

Meanwhile, in the North Sea coastal town of Hartlepool, England, an ex-Jehovah’s Witness told The Northern Echo last month that his former religion endangers children.

“It is very difficult for people, maybe young people, in the church to go to the police,” said Steve Rose, who claims the Witnesses have kicked him out and shunned him.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

A public inquiry into alleged child abuse will turn its attention today to a residential home run by evangelical Anglican missionaries in Ireland.

The Irish Church Missions was established to convert Catholics to Protestantism. The conservative organisation ran Manor House Children’s Home near Belfast in Lisburn, Co Down, and had links to the Church of Ireland.

The Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) Inquiry will begin hearing evidence of alleged wrongdoing at the home during public sessions in Banbridge, Co Down.

The missionaries are governed by Anglican evangelical clergy and laity who are concerned for Gospel growth in Ireland.

It is a recognised mission agency within the Church of Ireland and the worldwide Anglican Communion, with offices in Belfast and Dublin, the organisation’s website said.

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KENTUCKY
CBS News

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A former Catholic priest accused of taking inappropriate pictures of students at his school is facing nearly three years in federal prison for viewing child pornography on a computer.

Stephen Pohl pleaded guilty Monday in federal court to one count of accessing child pornography. The 57-year-old was head pastor at St. Margaret Mary Catholic Church, which includes a school campus in eastern Louisville.

Federal prosecutors said they reached a plea deal with Pohl that, if accepted by a judge, would send him to prison for 33 months. Pohl would also be subject to lifelong supervised release after his prison term and would be required to register as a sex offender.

Pohl appeared in U.S. District Court in Louisville dressed in a suit and tie with some family members looking on. After the hearing, he reported to U.S. Marshals to be taken into custody.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Martin Moylan Jan 4, 2016

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has a buyer or bidder for several properties the church has put up for sale.

If the bankruptcy court approves, the Minnesota Historical Society’s will pay $4.5 million for the three-story Hayden Center on Kellogg Boulevard in St. Paul. The archdiocese had been using the building for office space.

Meanwhile, currently unidentified parties have bids on other archdiocese real estate in St. Paul and Northfield, including the chancery across the street from the St. Paul Cathedral.

Paul Donovan, whose firm has been marketing the properties, said the chancery is an attractive location for residential projects. “Whether senior housing or market-rate, mainstream housing, we think that’s a good opportunity for that,” he said.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Big Trial

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

The state Supreme Court on New Year’s Eve turned down an appeal by Bernard Shero in the Billy Doe case.

On June 12, 2013, Shero, then 51, was sentenced by Judge Ellen Ceisler to 8 to 16 years in jail after he was convicted by a jury of rape of a child, attempted rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a child, endangering the welfare of a child, corruption of a minor, and indecent assault.

The Supreme Court decision means that Shero is out of appeals on the state court level. In a 36-page decision last March, a panel of three Superior Court judges ruled that seven appeals issues raised by Shero, a former Catholic school teacher, “are either waived or devoid of merit.”

The state Supreme Court decision was more succinct. In a one-page order, the court declared, “And now, this 31st day of December, the Petition for Allowance of Appeal is DENIED.” The only other sentence on the page mentioned that “Justice Eaken did not participate in the decision of this matter.” That’s because Justice Eaken is presently serving a suspension with pay in the “porngate” scandal pending a trial by a judicial ethics board.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philly.com

JANUARY 4, 2016 T

by Joe Slobodzian

After six postponements, former Roman Catholic priest James J. Brennan has a new retrial date – Oct. 24 – on the 2011 charges of attempted rape of a 14-year-old boy in 1996.

The new trial date was agreed on Monday by Assistant District Attorney Meghan Goddard and defense lawyer William J. Brennan [not related to his client], working with courtroom staff for Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Gwendolyn N. Bright.

Some 3-1/2 years have passed since June 22, 2012, when a Philadelphia jury announced it could not reach a verdict in the case against the 52-year-old. This time, a seventh date may be the charm: Bright ordered Brennan – a busy, high-profile criminal defense lawyer — and Goddard attached for trial. That means that the judge has dibs on Goddard’s and Brennan’s time for what is estimated will be a three-day jury trial.

Just to be sure, Bright has set a status hearing for March 4 and a “trial readiness conference” on Oct. 17.

Brennan, who is charged with attempted rape and child endangerment, was one of the five original people – a monsignor, three priests and a parochial schoolteacher — charged in 2011 following a county grand jury investigation into how officials of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia handled child sex-abuse complaints against priests.

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MAINE
Road to Recovery

Fraudulent Concealment by the Diocese of Portland, Maine, for decades leads to Civil Complaint filings by six (6) courageous childhood clergy sexual abuse victims of Fr. James Vallely

A copy of a church document obtained through legal discovery by Attorney Mitchell Garabedian (617-523-6250) indicates that the late Bishop Daniel J. Feeney knew of the sexual abuse of minor children by Fr. James Vallely in approximately 1956

The document obtained is a copy of a letter written by a currently-retired Portland, Maine, priest to a co-chancellor of the Diocese of Portland, Maine, purported to be Msgr. Marc B. Caron, in 2005. The letter indicates that as far back as approximately 1956, the late Bishop Daniel J. Feeney knew about allegations of sexual abuse against Fr. James Vallely at St. John’s Parish, Bangor, Maine. Bishop Feeney, while bishop of Portland, Maine, did not notify the public about Fr. Vallely being a sexual abuser. Subsequent to the notification, Fr. James Vallely was transferred by the late Bishop Daniel J. Feeney from St. John’s Parish, Bangor, Maine, to St. Dominic’s Parish, Portland, Maine. Fr. James Vallely was also stationed at St. Louis Parish, Limestone, Maine; Holy Name Parish, Machias, Maine; and, St. Michael’s Parish in South Berwick, Maine

What
A press conference announcing the filing of six (6) civil complaints of childhood clergy sexual abuse against Fr. James Vallely, deceased priest of the Portland, Maine, Diocese, by six (6) courageous childhood clergy sexual abuse victims of Fr. James Vallely who were parishioners of St. Dominic’s Parish, Portland, Maine, (approximately 1958-1960); St. John’s Parish, Bangor, Maine (approximately 1969); and St. Michael’s Parish, South Berwick, Maine (approximately 1975-1978). Although Fr. James Vallely was not assigned to St. John’s Parish in Bangor, Maine, in approximately 1969, he did return to that parish in approximately 1969 to participate in at least one Catholic Mass where he met the victim.

When
Tuesday, January 5, 2015 at 11:00 am

Where
On the public sidewalk in front of the headquarters of the Diocese of Portland, Maine, 510 Ocean Avenue, Portland, Maine 04103 – 207-773-6471

Who
Dr. Robert M. Hoatson, Co- founder and President, Road to Recovery, Inc., a non-profit charity based in New Jersey that assists victims of sexual abuse and their families; 862-368-2800

Why
During earlier litigation against Fr. James Vallely, the Diocese of Portland, Maine, produced a copy of a letter written by a currently retired Portland, Maine, priest in 2005 which revealed that the Diocese of Portland and the late Bishop Daniel J. Feeney had knowledge of multiple accusations of sexual abuse of minor children against Fr. James Vallely as far back as 1956. The uncovering of that document has led to the filing of six (6) civil complaints of childhood sexual abuse against Fr. James Vallely and the Diocese of Portland, Maine. The Diocese of Portland fraudulently concealed the sexual abuse information about Fr. James Vallely, thus enabling childhood sexual abuse victims of Fr. James Vallely from approximately 1958 until 1978 to file court claims against Fr. James Vallely and the Diocese of Portland, Maine

Contacts
Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D. – Road to Recovery, Inc. – 862-368-2800
Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, Boston, MA – 617-523-6250

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MINNESOTA
Wall Street Journal

By TOM CORRIGAN

he Roman Catholic Diocese of Duluth, Minn., which filed for bankruptcy last month following an $8.17 million clergy sexual-abuse verdict, has asked a judge to give victims until May to come forward with abuse allegations.

In bankruptcy-court papers, the diocese asked Judge Robert Kressel to impose a May 25 deadline by which victims must file specially written—and highly detailed—claim forms in order to seek compensation. A hearing on the proposed claims deadline, also known as the bar date, is scheduled for Thursday.

The requested deadline would give victims the full benefit of the Minnesota Child Victims Act, which expires May 25. The act, passed by the Minnesota legislature in 2013, lifted the statute of limitations for sexual-abuse cases in the state for three years, leading to the waves of abuse-related lawsuits. Other states like Delaware have enacted similar acts, known as “window” legislation.

When it filed for bankruptcy, the Diocese of Duluth faced six lawsuits and 12 additional claims of abuse, according to the Rev. James Bissonette, vicar general of the diocese. In other diocesan bankruptcies, the number of claims has grown significantly as more victims come forward to seek compensation ahead of the deadline.

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KENTUCKY
Fox News

Associated Press

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – A former Catholic priest accused of taking inappropriate pictures of students at his school is facing nearly three years in federal prison for viewing child pornography on a computer.

Stephen Pohl pleaded guilty on Monday in federal court to one count of accessing child pornography. The 57-year-old was head pastor at St. Margaret Mary Catholic Church, which includes a school campus.

Federal prosecutors reached a plea deal with Pohl that, if accepted by a judge, would send him to prison for 33 months. He will be sentenced March 29.

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MISSOURI
Berger’s Beat

January 1, 2016 11:49 am | Author: berger

For $82,000, a woman has settled her unusual civil case against St. Louis University, the Jesuits and ex-SLU prez Fr. Daniel O’Connell. She reports having been sexually abused by the priest when she was a 20 year-old student. Her suit, however, charged Catholic officials with “breach of contract” because they promised her they’d keep Fr. O’Connell out of “public ministry” but reneged. (It’s believed to be only the second abuse-related “breach of contract” ever settled against the church hierarchy.)

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KENTUCKY
The Courier-Journal

Matthew Glowicki, @MattGlo January 4, 2016

A Lousiville Roman Catholic priest accused of viewing child pornography pleaded guilty Monday to a single felony count of accessing child porn.

Stephen Pohl, 57, a former pastor at St. Margaret Mary Catholic Church, originally entered a not guilty plea after he was arrested in August 2015. He changed his plea Monday afternoon in U.S. District Court.

Under the terms of a plea agreement, Pohl would serve 33 months in federal prison, followed by supervision by U.S. Probation and Pretrial Services for the rest of his life.

The case had been set for a Jan. 12 trial.

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KENTUCKY
WHAS

LOUISVILLE (WHAS11) — Stephen Pohl, a former pastor at St. Margaret Mary church, pleaded guilty on Jan. 4 to one count of accessing child porn with the intent to view it.

The investigation into Pohl began because a child from St. Margaret Mary told his parents he felt weird about pictures Pohl had taken.

This change of plea has canceled the trial. It was originally scheduled for February.

He is accused of viewing explicit images in his office and living space at the parish.

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KENTUCKY
WLKY

LOUISVILLE, Ky. —The former pastor of St. Margaret Mary charged with child exploitation pleaded guilty at a change-of-plea hearing in federal court Monday.

Stephen Pohl resigned in August after allegations surfaced that he had accessed and viewed child pornography.

Pohl pleaded guilty to access with intent to view.

The judge will now decide whether or not to accept the plea.

As part of the plea agreement, prosecutors recommended two years and nine months in prison, lifetime supervised release and required registration as a sex offender and convicted felon.

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ILLINOIS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Statement by Eric Johnson, victim of Fr. Bruce Wellems

Silence should never be a choice when it comes to any case of sexual abuse. Turning your back and doing nothing only allows the predator to gain skill in his craft, while allowing the cycle to continue.

For the past 20+ years, I have tried to inform people about Wellems, only to be met with walls of silence, denial, and lies. His attitude of “that was the culture back then” and his excuse of “behavior I exhibited as a teenager was taught behavior” is reprehensible.

At no time in a civilized culture has raping a child been acceptable. His self-prescribed penance of setting himself up to work with troubled youth is even more disturbing. He was a skilled predator at 15, presenting himself as a normal youth with a girlfriend, while repeatedly committing horrendous crimes behind his façade. I can only cringe at the thought of him being placed in his environment of choice, with young boys.

Up to 2014, Wellems has led his peers and superiors to believe that this was a consensual relationship between teenagers.

A 15-year-old having sex with a 7-year-old is a crime, and was a crime in the 70s, and yes, a sin. His partial admittance of abuse, lined with fabricated timelines, locations, and minimized contact, is shameful. His claim of being abused is quite timely and suspicious, given the fact that it was never mentioned to another reporter before Manya.

Lastly, Wellems continues to shamelessly talk about himself and the repercussions, which speaks volumes. Wellems says “As much as I hate going through this, maybe it’s good”

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GEORGIA
WSAV

Bishop Raymond Lessard, Bishop Emeritus of Savannah, died Sunday at his home in St. Vincent de Paul Seminary in Boynton Beach, Florida.

Bishop Lessard served as the Catholic Bishop of Savannah From 1973 to 1995. He was serving at the St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary for the last twenty years as spiritual director and professor of ecclesiology.

After a visitation at the seminary on Saturday, his body will be transfered back to Savannah to be received at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist on Monday.

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GEORGIA
WTOC

SAVANNAH, GA (WTOC) –
Bishop Raymond W. Lessard, Catholic Bishop of Savannah for 22 years, died on Sunday at his home at St. Vincent de Paul Seminary in Boynton Beach, FL.

Bishop Lessard served from 1973 to 1995. He has served at St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary in Boynton Beach for the past twenty years as a spiritual director and professor of ecclesiology.

A visitation will be held at the seminary at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 9. The Mass of the Resurrection will be celebrated at the seminary at noon.

Bishop Lessard’s body will be transferred to Savannah, where he will be received at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist at 3 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 11. Visitation will be held from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. An evening prayer service including the Office for the Dead will be held at 7 p.m.

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GEORGIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release Monday, January 4

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 503 0003 cell, SNAPdorris@gmail.com)

Bishop Raymond Lessard, who was bishop of Savannah for twenty-two years, has passed away. We hope he will be not be buried with “full honors” given his record of concealing child sex crimes.

During his time as the head of the diocese, a serial predator priest, Fr. Wayland Brown, sexually violated a number of young boys. Brown was convicted in Maryland and served five years of a ten year sentence and was laicized in 2004. In a sentencing memo, prosecutors showed church personnel files that prove the Savannah Diocese received warnings, time and time again, from priests and others who noticed Brown’s troubling actions with young boys. But neither Bishop Lessard nor his staff took any action to protect kids, alert parents or call police. The memos also show that Bishop Lessard did not cooperate with the investigation of Brown’s crimes in 1986.

[BishopAccountability.org]

According to BishopAccountability.org, there are at least 12 publicly accused South Carolina predator priests. We strongly suspect that more than two dozen child molesting clerics have actually spent time in the diocese.

We see no evidence that Lessard acted responsibly in these cases or at best, did anything but the bare minimum.

When we ignore wrongdoing, we encourage wrongdoing. And when Catholic officials, in 2015, keep treating their most disgraced complicit colleagues as heroes or saints, they encourage other church employees to ignore, conceal and enable child sex crimes and cover ups.

Several Penn State officials – including the school’s president and popular football coach – were fired or ousted for letting one perpetrator have continued to access children. Imesch did that for about two dozen perpetrators. Yet he remained in office, suffering no penalties whatsoever, and is being honored today with elaborate funeral proceedings.

It’s not just Penn State. All kinds of institutions hold the “top dog” responsible for wrongdoing he or she engaged in or even failed to stop. One institution is the exception: the Catholic church. And this is not changing.

Over decades, Lessard knowingly put hundreds of children at risk of sexual violence by quietly assigning perpetrator priests to parishes, repeatedly showing no concern for the safety of those children or compassion for those who were sexually violated.

Honoring Lessard would rub salt into the deep wounds of caring Catholics and suffering victims. It would send a disturbing message to others in the church hierarchy: “No matter how much harm you do to children, don’t worry. We’ll stand by you to the end.” And it would send a disturbing message to child sex abuse victims: “Your pain means nothing to us. We care only about protecting the reputation of powerful prelates.”

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 3 January 2016 (VIS) – The Holy Father has appointed:

– Fr. William Ernesto Iraheta Rivera as bishop of Santiago de Maria (area 2,866, population 563,000, Catholics 449,700, priests 85, religious 88), El Salvador. The bishop-elect was born in Jayaque, El Salvador in 1962 and was ordained a priest in 1988. He has served in a number of pastoral roles in the archdiocese of San Salvador, including deputy priest, parish priest, director of the “Rosa Blanca” school centre, moderator of the archdiocesan curia, director of Caritas and episcopal delegate for education. He is currently pastor of the “San Marcos” parish. He succeeds Bishop Rodrigo Orlando Cabrera Cuellar, whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same diocese upon reaching the age limit was accepted by the Holy Father.

– Fr. Celestin-Marie Gaoua as bishop of Sokode (area 12,610, population 1,300,000, Catholics 153,000, priests 65, religious 87), Togo. The bishop-elect was born in Wahala, Togo in 1957 and was ordained a priest in 1986. He has served in a number of roles, including rector of the St. Paul minor seminary and the Fr. Jeremie Moran seminary in Atakpame, and missionary fidei donum in the diocese of Sokode, where he was parish vicar, pastor of the Cathedral parish and parish administrator. He is currently rector of the national philosophical major seminary Benoit XVI in Tchitchao, Kara, Togo. He succeeds Bishop Ambroise Kotamba Djoliba, whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same diocese upon reaching the age limit was accepted by the Holy Father.

– erected the eparchy of St. Mary, Queen of Peace, of the United States of American and Canada, for faithful of Syro-Malabar rite.

– appointed Bishop Thomas Mar Eusebios Naickamparambil, apostolic exarch for Syro-Malankars resident in the United States of America and apostolic visitor for the faithful in Canada and Europe, as the first eparchial bishop of the new eparchy of St. Mary, Queen of Peace, of the United States of American and Canada.

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UNITED STATES
Boston Herald

James Verniere Monday, January 04, 2016

NEW YORK — Boston made a great showing with voters at the 50th annual meeting of the National 
Society of Film Critics at Lincoln Center.

“Spotlight,” the Boston-shot drama about the Boston Catholic Archdiocese pedophile priest scandal and how it was exposed in an award-winning series by The Boston Globe in the early 2000s, took the group’s Best Picture prize.

The film also took the screenplay award, and “Spotlight” director Tom McCarthy was runner-up in the Best Director category. That award went to Todd Haynes, director of the 1950s lesbian romance “Carol,” starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara as the film’s lovers. “Carol,” shot by Edward Lachmann in super 16mm to add to the film’s dreamy, period look, took the Best Cinematography award. Both films are expected to do well at the Oscars.

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KENTUCKY
WDRB

[with video]

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — A change is expected Monday in the case of a Louisville priest accused of child exploitation.

Former St. Margaret Mary Parish pastor Stephen Pohl was scheduled to go on federal trial this month. By he is now scheduled to appear for a change of plea hearing.

Authorities say Pohl violated federal child exploitation laws, when he was pastor at the parish on Shelbyville Road. He was first charged with the crime back in August and resigned after a student came forward. The boy said he was asked to pose in provocative positions.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Daily Times

By Christine Flowers, Delaware County Daily Times
POSTED: 01/02/16

Tenacity is a good thing. If you believe in something strongly enough, it’s a sign of character to keep fighting for your version of justice.

Maureen Faulkner is an example of admirable tenacity, investing decades of her life, all of her youth and much of her middle age to making her husband’s murderer accountable for his death. Mumia Abu-Jamal is still alive, and has brainwashed some addled activists into believing that he’s a victim of a racist system. But the fact that he is still behind bars and reviled as subhuman by most of those who have a soul is in large part attributable to that small and mighty woman’s crusade.

But there are those crusades that pass for a form of justice and are, instead, vindictive witch hunts carried out for a variety of reasons. There is the desire for revenge. There is the desire for publicity. There is the desire for something to tamp down the guilty nausea that roils in the gut of those who did nothing to prevent a crime, and who therefore grasp at any opportunity to say, “here, I’m making amends! Please forgive me!”

The prosecution of Monsignor William Lynn is a fascinating, and tragic, combination of all those things. It is an attempt to get that pound of flesh from a Catholic church that is hated and vilified by ex-Catholics, non-Catholics and troubled Catholics. It is a way of strutting one’s professional cred in front of an admiring audience, one that will cheer any attempt to slay the evil abusers (even imaginary ones, like the owners of the McMartin Pre-School.) It is an effective method for those who looked the other way while abuse was occurring on their watch to pay a penance beyond five Hail Marys and a command to “go and sin no more.”

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UNITED STATES
PopeCrimes& Vatican Evils.

Paris Arrow

Argo &“saint” John Paul II are make-believe legends of Hollywood and the Vatican, the twin cities that “lie for a living” http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2013/07/argo-john-paul-ii-are-make-believe_11.html

Pope Francis says this is “the Year of Mercy”. Who are we kidding? The modus operandi of the Vatican is deception (by using Christ as bait)”. Below is our analysis of Pope Francis’ prayer for the Year of Mercy and his specific deceptions contained in his prayer – which prove his endless Vatican Circus of Deception as the greatest Jesuit Master of Deceits.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Tablet

04 January 2016 | by Sean Smith

FoI request uncovers letters of support for convicted ex-bishop from establishment figures

Lambeth Palace has said that a review into how the Church of England investigated the Peter Ball case will be “detailed” and will be “published”.

Ball, the retired Anglican Bishop of Gloucester, was jailed for 32 months in October for historic sex offences against 18 teenagers and young men.

The Church of England launched an independent investigation after it emerged during sentencing that Ball was let off with a caution in 1993 after molesting a novice monk.

Lambeth Palace’s latest response comes after a Freedom of Information request published this weekend uncovered a series of letters from prominent people to the director of public prosecutions and chief constable in charge of the original investigation into Ball defending the former bishop – including two from a former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

January 4, 2016

Shannon Deery
Herald Sun

CARDINAL George Pell toured the Somme battlefields just weeks before poor health forced him to cancel a trip to Melbourne to testify at the child abuse royal commission.

Victims of child sexual abuse were angered when the cardinal, 74, backed out of personally appearing at the inquiry in December, citing a longstanding health problem.

His doctors deemed it was unsafe for him to make the long-haul flight from the Vatican to Australia.

He offered to give evidence via video link, but his appearance before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was instead postponed.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

January 3, 2016

Patrick Begley
Journalist

A former Hillsong Church minister who became a motivational speaker faces domestic violence charges after he allegedly assaulted his wife in a “fit of rage” on New Year’s Eve.

Police from The Hills Local Area Command in Sydney’s north-west arrested Pat Mesiti at his home about 11pm on Thursday.

“The accused was heavily intoxicated and in a fit of rage over a family issue,” Sergeant Michael Plass said.

Mr Mesiti was charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm and common assault. Police have sought an apprehended violence order on behalf of his second wife, Andrea. Mr Mesiti has not yet been required to enter a plea to the assault charge and it is not known if he will oppose the AVO application.

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UNITED STATES
WNYT

By Craig Thornton
Story Published: Jan 3, 2016

It’s hard to see the movie Spotlight, unaware of the great critical acclaim it has received (even if you have managed to dodge reading the raves). The positive swell continues and it is now considered the favorite for the best picture Oscar. A film’s power and effectiveness is often measured by its resonance after you have seen it. Do you think about it hours later, days later, even weeks later? The fact that Spotlight is so low-key and it has such tremendous resonance is one reason why it’s getting great buzz. Devoid of cinematic flashy devices or gimmicks or over the top performances, the film harnesses its power from its seeming simplicity.

In 2001, the Boston Globe gets a new editor in chief, Marty Baron (Leiv Schreiber) and he assigns a group of investigative reports nicknamed spotlight to investigate a nearly forgotten case of priest child sexual abuse that was only cursorily written about. The team of four is headed by Walter Robby Robinson (Michael Keaton) and includes Sasha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams), Matt Carroll (Brian d’Arcy James) and Mark Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo). As this team begins to uncover and discover the scope of the Catholic Diocese sexual abuse and cover-up their investment in finding out the truth increases. So does their shock and disbelief. Films usually work best with a central protagonist, but in Spotlight there is an ensemble and it works to its advantage. As each reporter is affected by the magnitude and disgust of their discoveries, so are we, as the audience. This “outside looking in” approach as more and more facts are slowly revealed underscores the outrage that society feels about this infamous page in Catholicism and the Boston legal system in history.

Director and co-writer Tom McCarthy (co-written with Josh Singer) have constructed an engrossing, detailed, controlled story that never overplays its hand or dips into melodrama or didactic grandstanding. Faced with an overwhelming responsibility to the journalists, victims and to their audience to entertain and illuminate the ghastly depravity of the institution of Catholicism that allowed the abuse; the filmmakers succeed without a graphic reenactment of the abuse or overly salacious details purposely designed to shock.

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MASSACHUSETTS/RHODE ISLAND
Carmen L. Durso

A growing list of alumni say they were sexually assaulted by staff or students at St. George’s School in Newport. Because the school is in Rhode Island, which has no statute of limitations for rape, sex abusers from this elite prep school may finally be prosecuted. On Tuesday, Jan. 5th, at noon, the victims speak out at a Boston press conference. Four abuse survivors will call for an independent investigation of crimes at St. Georges. Pennsylvania arrested Bill Cosby just before the clock ran out on prosecuting him. Rhode Island can still make its cases. This and more will be addressed at 12 pm, Tuesday at 255 State Street, 6th floor, Boston.

Several victims are represented by Massachusetts attorneys Eric MacLeish and Carmen Durso, who have spoken to multiple survivors since the Boston Globe ran a front page story on December 14th about abuse at the school. They have identified 42 school victims, with more coming forward. Victims have named seven former staff members and seven ex-students as abusers. MacLeish attended St. George’s for three years. He and Durso previously represented hundreds of victims in the Boston clergy abuse cases.

Just before Christmas, St. George’s issued a report on its ten month investigation of sex crimes at the school, mainly in the 1970’s and ‘80s. The school’s account got national coverage, but Anne Scott, who was abused by serial molester Al Gibbs, the former athletic trainer called that 11-page report a “sanitized version of the truth.”

On Tuesday, Scott and three other victims will counter the official St. George’s School report with the results of their own investigation, state the case for an independent investigation, and make news with new disclosures. For instance, their rebuttal will reveal that:

• Two ex-St. George’s staff members — an assistant chaplain and the choir director, left the school after they admitted to sexual misconduct with male students. No mandatory abuse report was made by the School. They both went on to work in schools and churches and are still in settings where they are at risk to reoffend.

• Two students were raped at the School in front of others by students using a broomstick and a lacrosse stick. Four alumni have made allegations of rape and intend to cooperate with the RI state police in its investigation. Current school administration has been aware of abuse reports from victims since 2004, but failed to contact police until Ms. Scott came forward.

• Past St. George’s administrators repeatedly broke Rhode Island’s law that requires schools to report credible allegations of sexual abuse of minors. Letters obtained in the new report prove it.

• St. George’s current administration tried to “gag” victims from talking about Gibbs abuse in 2012 and 2015, yet the administration now wants “transparency”

• The rape of one student was so widely known on campus, it was openly referenced in the school yearbook.

• This victim, who will speak at the press conference, notified the current headmaster of the rape in 2011, but no report was filed with the state police until early November of this year.

• The school’s “independent” investigation was headed by an attorney whose law partner represented the school. This fact was not disclosed to victims asked to come forward by the current Headmaster in April of 2015 when he “encouraged” victims to talk this attorney.

St. George’s is a boarding and day school, with graduates from some of America’s most famous and powerful families. Tuition is $56,000 per year for boarders. There are 396 boys and girls total, from 9th through 12th grades.

Copies of the investigative report prepared on behalf of the survivors, along with relevant correspondence and photographs, will be available at the news conference.

For more information, contact:
Carmen L. Durso, Esquire
DURSO LAW
LAW OFFICE OF CARMEN L. DURSO
175 Federal Street, Suite 1425
Boston, MA 02110-2287
Tel: 617-728-9123 – Fax: 617-426-7972
carmen@dursolaw.com
www.dursolaw.com

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Michael Charland was a priest of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, ordained in 1971. He was assigned to parish work, was an assistant principal and counselor at a preparatory seminary, and he was involved in campus ministry and Teens Encounter Christ. He worked in the the dioceses of Belleville IL, La Crosse WI, New Ulm MN and the archdioceses of San Antonio TX, Milwaukee WI, St. Paul and Minneaopolis MN and Ontario, Canada. He was laicized in 1989. In 2002 a man reported to the St. Paul and Minneapolis archdiocese that Charland sexually assaulted him in 1981 during a retreat, when the man was a 17-year-old boy. Charland’s accuser said the priest kissed him then ground his pelvis against him. In October 2014 Ramsey County Attorney John Choi announced that Charland’s case could not be prosecuted due to the statute of limitations. As part of an April 2015 settlement with the Oblates, a law firm announced publicly in July 2015 that Charland was one of seven credibly accused O.M.I. priests. Charland was working as a therapist in a Woodbury MN counseling center at the time of the announcement. By September 2015 his name was no longer on the center’s website.

Born: June 22, 1945
Ordained: August 21, 1971
Laicized: November 5, 1989

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UNITED STATES
Forward

Mira Sucharov
January 3, 2016

With the recent New York Times profile airing the troubling past of Jewish spiritual guru Marc Gafni, issues of sexual impropriety by spiritual leaders in the Jewish community are again being brought to the surface. Past reports include Washinton D.C. Rabbi Barry Freundel’s covert filming of more than 50 women in the mikvah; New York-based Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt and allegations of his sexual inappropriateness with minors (brought to light earlier this year in The New York Times); and the case of Rabbi Ephraim Bryks of Winnipeg and his alleged abuse of minors in the 1980s.

Every instance is unique, but there are common themes across cases of sexual impropriety by spiritual leaders.

Perhaps most obviously is the issue of power.

Michael Plaut, a clinical psychologist who has chaired a state-wide task force in Maryland examining professional boundaries, is clear about the limits of relationships in situations where there is a power differential. “A patient cannot give consent to sexual behavior with a professional by definition,” he said. This is even more relevant in the case of a spiritual leader, Plaut added. Such a leader may, in the mind of a congregant, be “identified with a deity, so the level of dependency may be even greater.”

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 10/17/2014

Prosecutors will not charge seven priests and one deacon accused of sexually abusing children decades ago, but four other cases remain open, Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said Friday.

Four of the cases were closed by the St. Paul police because the suspect was dead or not identified, or the case was impossible to prove. One of those cases involved two priests.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Sun on Sunday

A CATHOLIC priest has been sacked from a university over allegations of a relationship with a student.

Father Paul Rowan, 47, is said to have become close to mum-of-two Charmaine Garton, now 33, around two years ago.

Fr Rowan is understood to be appealing November’s decision to dismiss him, but also faces a church probe into his conduct.

He was senior lecturer and programme director of theology and religious studies at St Mary’s University, in Twickenham, South West London. Undergraduate Charmaine, who ran for the university’s student union presidency in 2013, is said to no longer be at the university.

Popular Fr Rowan, from Warrington, Cheshire, boxed for England under 19s. He joined St Mary’s in 2008.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By JULIAN ROBINSON FOR MAILONLINE
3 January 2016

A Catholic priest has been sacked from a London university amid allegations he had a relationship with a 33-year-old student, it has been claimed

Father Paul Rowan was reportedly dismissed from his job as senior lecturer and programme director of theology and religious studies at St Mary’s University, in Twickenham.

It came amid claims he had become close to undergraduate Charmaine Garton – a mother-of two – about two years ago.

According to the Sun on Sunday, Father Rowan is understood to be appealing against the decision, which was made in November.

But the 47-year-old is also due to face a church probe, it is claimed.

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KENTUCKY
WDRB

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — A former Louisville priest accused of child exploitation is expected to change his not guilty plea.

Stephen Pohl is expected to change his plea on Monday.

Pohl was a priest at St. Margaret Mary Parish on Shelbyville Road.

He was first charged with the crime last August and resigned after a student came forward saying he was asked to pose in provocative positions.

Pohl could spend 10 years in prison if he’s convicted.

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UNITED STATES
Vulture

By Josh Singer and Stacey Wilson Hunt

Vulture is speaking to the screenwriters behind 2015’s most acclaimed movies about the scenes they found most difficult to crack. Our first post of this season takes a look at Best Picture front-runner Spotlight. As screenwriter Josh Singer describes below, it was an early scene, featuring the introduction of a new character and the different perspective that he brings to the Boston Globe, that Singer and co-screenwriter/director Tom McCarthy found most challenging.

Before the real Marty Baron started at the Boston Globe in July 2001, he sat down with a number of the leaders at the paper. One of these sit-downs was with Walter “Robby” Robinson (Michael Keaton in the film), the head of the Spotlight team. According to Marty (Liev Schreiber), when he sat down with Robby, he had no idea what the Spotlight team was. And, having never spent much time in Boston, all he knew about the town was what he’d managed to read in books (and the Globe) in the three weeks prior. Robby, on the other hand, had gone to BC High and Northeastern, and worked for the Globe for over 20 years. Classic outsider versus insider, rife with tension and possibility. The scene should write itself, right? Wrong.

David Simon on Spotlight, His Pal Tom McCarthy, and the Death of Print Journalism
This was the last scene we shot, and we were writing up until we handed it over to Liev. It’s not an overstatement to say that we worked on this scene for three years. We wrote it. And wrote it again. We put it down, picked it back up. Thought we were done. We weren’t. Introducing a character is always hard, especially when you’re trying to also get across a lot of exposition.

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MINNESOTA
Hibbing Daily Tribune

Posted: Sunday, January 3, 2016

by Tony Potter Staff Writer tpotter@hibbingdailytribune.net

HOYT LAKES — An author with Iron Range connections has published his fourth book.
Jim Koepke, who grew up in Hoyt Lakes, has released the novel “Confessions of a Priest.” It mirrors the sexual abuse crisis and situation that occurred recently at the St. Paul Archdiocese.

The story begins with a local parish priest confronting his bishop about his handling of someone accused of sexual abuse. Although he had nothing to do with it, the parish priest’s life is turned upside down as he needs to cope with the turmoil caused by the occurrence.

“The book is not a hit piece on the church or priests,” Koepke said. “In fact, I have an extremely positive review written by a Catholic priest as my story details how to embrace a negative situation and focus on making something positive come out of it.”

The reason he wrote the book was because there had been so much press about sexual abuse in the Catholic church during the last several years.

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MINNESOTA
Canonical Consultation

01/02/2016

Jennifer Haselberger

It was in July of 2014 that Commonweal Magazine broke the story that Archbishop John Nienstedt had authorized an investigation into his own conduct as a result of complaints received from priests, former priests, and seminarians. That investigation was entrusted to, and then removed from, a team of attorneys from the Greene Espel law firm in Minneapolis. While the results of the investigation have never been made public, what is known is that at least one matter under investigation was the emeritus Archbishop’s relationship with Curtis Wehmeyer, a former priest of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis currently serving prison sentence for sexually abusing minors.

The scandalous nature of the investigation’s findings can be deduced by how strenuously the Archdiocese has fought to keep those findings secret- even from the prosecutors who have charged the Archdiocese criminally. Priests, lay people, and the general public have all called upon the Archdiocese to release the report, but even after Nienstedt’s resignation no action has been taken. Instead the Archdiocese has demurred, indicating that releasing the report would only embarrass the Church, those who made complaints, and would serve no purpose but to ‘out’ Archbishop Nienstedt.

However, now there may be a more pressing reason to release the report. Rumors are flying that at long last Nienstedt will be moving out of the Summit Avenue Residence (likely in preparation for the sale of the building), and taking up residence at a rectory somewhere in the Archdiocese. This could put the Archbishop in close proximity to priests, seminarians, and parish staff, not to mention school children and minors affiliated with the hosting parish or neighborhood. Given the concerns that have been raised about his conduct (including his conduct towards minor males while on World Youth Day trips), disclosures regarding the risks associated with his residency seem to be necessary.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Altoona Mirror

January 3, 2016

By Phil Ray (pray@altoonamirror.com) , The Altoona Mirror

The Rev. Joseph D. Maurizio Jr. of Central City in Somerset County faces a prison term up to 30 years for sexually abusing and photographing children while on missionary trips to the Pro Nino orphanage in El Progresso, Honduras, according to documents filed in U.S. District court in Johnstown.

Maurizio’s Altoona attorney Steven P. Passarello on Wednesday filed a petition asking U.S. District Judge Kim R. Gibson to sentence Maurizio below the recommended federal guidelines, pointing out the priest is 70 years old and has led an exemplary life that included 28 years in the clergy.

The priest was convicted on Sept. 22 of five of eight counts by a federal jury in Johnstown, but in a post-trial opinion, Gibson dismissed one of the counts because it involved a young man who initially gave statements confirming Maurizio’s abuse but then recanted when called to the witness stand.

Sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 2.

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ILLINOIS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Statement by Barbara Blaine of Chicago, president of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (312 399 4747, bblaine@SNAPnetwork.org)

Chicago Archbishop Cupich and LA Archbishop Gomez can’t be trusted to keep their promises.
In a long and troubling new article, the Chicago Tribune asks “Should Chicago priest return to ministry after revelations of teen misconduct?”

To be concise, the answer is no.

[Chicago Tribune]

Fr. Bruce Wellems admits repeatedly sexually abusing a seven-year-old boy. At the time, Wellems was an older teenager. When confronted with these facts in Los Angeles, Fr. Wellems attacked the messenger, saying reports of his abusive acts had “no factual basis.”

[Pasadena Star-News]

Archbishop Blasé Cupich should not put Fr. Wellems back into priestly ministry. No bishop should. This is a “no brainer.” Why take the risk?

Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez won’t let Fr. Wellems work in a parish there. Cupich evidently disagrees. He should hold a news conference and explain his irresponsible behavior with this admitted predator. Cupich should also explain why he’s been secretive about this case.

Fr. Wellems’ backers try to spin this as a story of sin and redemption. That’s disingenuous at best and downright dangerous at worst. This is a story of crime, not sin, and of recklessness, not redemption.

In a bizarre twist, when our group warned California parents and parishioners about Fr. Wellems, he attacked us, saying we’re guilty of “poor judgment” and “victimizing the thousands of families in the parishes where I have worked.”

Catholic officials in at least two states have long kept Catholic families in the dark about Fr. Wellems’ past. If they truly feel he is not a risk to re-offend, why won’t the honor their pledges to be “transparent” and be open and public about Fr. Wellems’ admitted crimes? Why won’t they be honest with parents and let them make their own decisions about whether to trust Fr. Wellems around their kids.

Instead, church officials kept quiet about his past and put children at risk.

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles is not much better. Although they did remove Fr. Wellems, they posted no public announcement and duped parishioners about the scope and scale of Fr. Wellems’ crimes.

If Fr. Wellems had admitted to embezzling money before he was a priest, we doubt that Catholic officials would be so “forgiving” and let him act as a treasurer.

Making excuses and minimizing crimes by calling them “sins” endangers children. Violating “zero tolerance” pledges by keeping admitted molester priests in ministry puts children in harm’s way.

Fr. Wellems may never be jailed for his crimes. But he can be removed from all work with children and youth. Parishioners can be informed and warned. Children can be kept safer.

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CALIFORNIA
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on January 2, 2016

NEWS EVENT: Victims to leaflet mass attendees

LA Priest admits he repeatedly abused a child

But Catholic officials let him work in parishes

In 2014, they “quietly removed” him from LA church, misled parishioners about cause
And they insisted that incriminating documents be destroyed

Now, despite “zero tolerance” policy, he may be put back on the job

What:
As Catholics enter and leave mass, sex abuse victims and their supporters will hand out leaflets that show LA Catholic officials:
— quietly removed a priest in 2014 who admitted sexually abusing a child, and
— mislead parishioners about the priest’s crimes.
The fliers urge Catholics to demand that LA’s archbishop:
— reach out to families who were endangered and church-goers who were duped by LA Catholic officials, and
— publicly disclose everything they know about this sex abusing priest and all sex-offending clerics.

When:
Sunday, January 3 at 10:30 am

Where:
Outside of the LA Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, 555 W Temple St (at Hill), Los Angeles

Who:
Five to six adults who were sexually abused as children who are members of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org), the nation’s largest support group for people who have been sexually abused in religious or institutional settings.

Why:
A new page one Chicago Tribune story reveals that a former Los Angeles priest admitted to sexually abusing a seven-year-old. Local church officials kept LA Catholics in the dark about allegations, and then allowed him to work in another parish.

[Chicago Tribune]

Fr. Bruce Wellems acknowledges that when he was around 16, he repeatedly sexually assaulted a seven year old. Catholic church officials kept silent about Fr. Wellems’ admission for years and kept him on the job. Both actions, SNAP contends, violate an allegedly binding national abuse policy that mandates “zero tolerance” of abuse and “transparency” in abuse cases.

Until 2014, Fr. Wellems was a priest at the San Gabriel Mission. Then Los Angeles officials learned of the abuse reports. Although they sent him back to Chicago, LA Archbishop Jose Gomez and other church officials didn’t publicly disclose the allegations on their website, the parish website, or any other sources. They also misled parishioners, claiming that Fr. Wellems had not abused a child but faced allegations from a “consensual dating relationship.”

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UNITED KINGDOM/AUSTRALIA
Independent (UK)

Adam Luck

The Church of England has been accused of a cover-up over allegations that a chaplain at the Australian school attended by the Prince of Wales was a paedophile.

At the Australian royal commission into child abuse in September, the Reverend Norman Smith was accused of raping a pupil at Geelong Grammar School in the late 1960s.

Now a 68-year-old former churchwarden has come forward to say that the Church dismissed his earlier claims that he was abused by Mr Smith in Sussex in the early 1960s.

Alan Baker, from Gloucestershire, has also written to Prince Charles to ask if he can provide any information that would help his case for damages.

“I would like to know what the links were between Geelong and the Church of England and the Anglican Communion,” said Mr Baker.

“Was it a coincidence that Smith abused me and then moved to Australia and then abused a child in Australia and moved back to the UK to take up a position as a vicar? The Church of England has treated me disgracefully and dismissed my complaints even though they must have known about the Australian allegations.”

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UNITED STATES
New York Daily News

BY LARRY MCSHANE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Saturday, January 2, 2016

His address changed across the decades: Brooklyn, Israel — and now, California. His name changed, too, from Mordechai Winiarz to Marc Gafni.

For two women from his past, there was one constant for the Jewish scholar-turned-New Age guru — he was the man who shamed and molested them as teens during the 1980s.

The pair — one was 13, the other 16 — shared their stories last week with the Daily News as Gafni’s alleged 20th century indiscretions crashed hard into his 21st century incarnation.

Gafni, in an emotional interview with The News, denied the accusations of sexual misconduct made by the women.

“This is sexual McCarthyism,” insisted Gafni, who provided polygraph tests to support his position. “What they’re doing is social media rape.”

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RHODE ISLAND
WCVB

MIDDLETOWN, R.I. —Former students who say they were sexually abused at a prestigious Rhode Island boarding school are calling for another investigation after the school issued a report acknowledging the accusations.

An internal investigation recently found that 26 students at St. George’s School were sexually abused by six school employees in the 1970s and ’80s.

The private coeducational Episcopal school in Middletown sent a report to alumni in which school officials apologized and detailed the credible allegations. Administrators at the time fired three staff members but didn’t report the matter to state authorities.

Lawyers representing some of the 26 former students said they’ve identified at least 39 accusers and called the report a “sanitized version of the truth,” the Providence Journal reported.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Washingtonian

By Harry Jaffe | January 3, 2016

Bethany Murphy grew up in a trailer park outside Rochester, New York.

Her father was Jewish, her mother Catholic. When they divorced, they gave her a choice between the two faiths.

“The Jesus statues creeped me out,” Murphy says. “And the story about Jesus being reborn didn’t seem plausible.”

Her mother—the gentile—explained that Jews were “people of the book.” Bethany, then seven, loved books. “I was sold,” she says. She later read My Name Is Asher Lev and The Chosen. “From then on, I was a Jew.”

Often, she was the only Jew. She recalls kids throwing quarters at her on the school bus. One day, a girl said, “Hitler didn’t finish his job.” Bethany spat in her face.

Her mother did the job of teaching her about Judaism. It took. At Rutgers, Bethany minored in Jewish studies. Many of her friends were Orthodox, the most observant Jews.

But Jewish pedigree is matrilineal. Membership in the “tribe” is passed down through the mother. Because Bethany’s last name was Murphy, everyone figured she had taken her father’s name and her mother was Jewish. In fact, it was the other way around.

It wasn’t until Bethany traveled to Israel that it hit home. Sure, she tried to follow kosher dietary laws and observe the Sabbath, and she could speak some Hebrew. But to be considered a Jew, she’d have to convert.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Star

By Joe Hinton / Published 3rd January 2016

It comes as a member who throttled young girls for sexual gratification was jailed after his crimes were kept secret by the church for more than 25 years.

Ian Pheasey first attacked a sevenyear-old girl while he was working as a volunteer librarian at the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Warwick in the 1990s.

Last week Pheasey, from Warwick, was jailed for five years after pleading guilty to assaulting one girl causing her actual bodily harm and indecently assaulting two others.

Prosecutor Nicholas Taplow told Warwick Crown Court the parents of one of his victims, a 14-year-old girl, “chose to conceal the sexual nature of the incident and told her not to say anything about it”.

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