ABUSE TRACKER

NEVADA
Inquirer (Philippines)

Associated Press

LAS VEGAS, United States — After years of delays, a former storefront church pastor and international fugitive is due for trial Monday in Las Vegas on allegations that he sexually assaulted girls in his congregation under the guise of counseling.

Otis Holland, 59, faces life in prison on charges he abused girls as young as 7. He has been in jail since his arrest in January 2012 in Tijuana, Mexico. Known to his United Faith Church congregation as “Reverend Otis,” he was featured before his arrest on the television show “America’s Most Wanted.”

“He told my mother that he was going to take me for counseling,” a 21-year-old woman testified during a preliminary hearing in February 2013. She said she was 14 when Holland first took her after Sunday church services to a limousine fitted with a back seat that reclined into a bed and used a sex toy on her.

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INDIA
New Indian Express

By Cithara Paul Published: 03rd January 2016

NEW DELHI: The Catholic Church in India is aiming for a cleaner image this new year as the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) has decided to deal with priests accused of sexual abuse through severe punishments, including defrocking them.

In the past, many sexual abuse allegations have been made against Catholic priests. The Catholic Church has taken this decision following Pope Francis’ exhortation against erring priests. As per the new procedures, Archdioceses (districts under archbishops) have been asked to take a sympathetic stand towards the victims who allege sexual abuse by priests instead of adopting a holier-than-thou attitude, which it had been taking so far. Also, the archdioceses will be duty bound to carry out investigations against such priests, and will have to send probe reports to the Vatican.

“There will be no place for any abuser in the Catholic fold. Vatican will decide on the case considering the reports and may even suggest defrocking of the priests, if found guilty,” said a source.

Defrocking (removal of their rights to exercise the functions of the ordained ministry) is the ultimate punishment a priest can receive in the Catholic establishment.

“Pope Francis has set a new beginning and we are happy that the Indian church is following his ideas. The fact that Catholic Church is even considering defrocking in itself shows the seriousness attached to the idea,” Francis Joe Saldana, a Church activist, said. The Catholic establishment is also mulling over taking steps such as seizing passports of accused priests to stop them from fleeing the country. It is also working out a plan to hire corrections staff to monitor guilty priests. The Catholic Church has also decided to be more compassionate to the abuse victims, who are mostly children. It has decided that only licensed therapists would be appointed to counsel abuse victims. The current practice is to ask nuns or priests to counsel the victims.

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ILLINOIS
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on January 2, 2016

Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich has a lot of explaining to do about why he has allowed a priest—who has admitted to sexually abusing a child—to remain a priest and work with kids.

In fact, in light of a Chicago Tribune article today, I think Cupich should step down for his blatant disregard for zero tolerance when it comes to sexual abuse.

Priests who have EVER sexually abused a child should NOT be in ministry. Especially if that ministry involves youth. Period.

A scenario:

You have teenager who has been kicked out of school, struggles at home, and is dabbling with drugs and violence. English is not your first language. Maybe your immigration status is less than ideal. You are working two jobs and have younger children.

A local priest reaches out to you and asks if he can help your son. You say yes. Why? Because church officials have promised Zero Tolerance when it comes to sexual abuse. You trust them. You believe that Zero Tolerance means that this priest has NEVER abused a child. Soon your child joins the priest’s marimba band and travels with the priest. You invite the priest into your home. He babysits your younger children.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

Manya Brachear PashmanContact Reporter
Chicago Tribune

Should a priest’s sexual misconduct as a youth bar him from ministry? That’s the question facing Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich.

For decades, the Rev. Bruce Wellems, a Roman Catholic priest with the Claretian Missionaries, has served as a father figure for young men in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood.

But when revelations of his sexual misconduct as a teenager resurfaced in 2014 shortly after his religious order transferred him to California, Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez removed him from ministry immediately. He returned to his former neighborhood to resume work as a youth advocate and community organizer.

Now Cupich must decide whether the popular priest can wear a collar, celebrate Mass and officially return to active ministry. Wellems, 58, admits to the abuse, though his recollection of the details and how long it lasted differs from the victim’s.

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

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UNITED STATES
Crux

By Michael O’Loughlin
National reporter December 30, 2015

Keeping up with news about the Church is always interesting, but 2015 was a banner year in many ways. There was the release of a first-ever encyclical on the environment, vigorous debates about religious freedom after the legalization of same-sex marriage in Ireland and the United States, an intense back-and-forth about how the Church deals with the modern family, and of course, Pope Francis’ three-city tour of the United States.

Here are some of the biggest stories from 2015, as told through Tweets from Crux, our staff and contributors, and you, our readers. …

Some bishops were booted out because of their records on sex abuse.

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

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COLOMBIA
Caracol Radio

[The Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court in Colombia has upheld the sentence of 33 years imprisonment handed down against the pastor of the Church of Our Lady of Candelaria de Cali – William de Jesús Pérez Mazo – finding him guilty of the crime of sexual abuse of youngsters under 14 years.. Mazo Perez is accused to sexually abusing four minors who were left to sleep in the rectory.]

La Sala Penal de la Corte Suprema de Justicia ratificó la condena de 33 años de prisión proferida contra el párroco de la Iglesia Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria de Cali, William de Jesús Mazo Pérez, al hallarlo responsable del delito de abuso sexual con menor de 14 años.

La Corte tomó la decisión al considerar que Mazo Pérez se aprovechó que cuatro menores de edad se quedaban a dormir en la casa cural, y los obligó a sostener relaciones sexuales a cambio de dinero e invitaciones a comer.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Wochenblatt

[Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Muller said the situation where money was found behind a sausage can in his office has ended. The 20,000 euros in cash was said to have been sent from dioceses around the world to handle cases of sexual abuse by clergy.]

Kardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller hat die Würstchendosen-Affäre für beendet erklärt. Doch ein neues Buch wirft die Frage auf, ob der Geistliche auf 300 Quadratmetern in bester Lage in Rom logiert.

Die Würsteldose in der Glaubenskongregation hat heuer eine gewisse Berühmtheit erlangt. Laut einem Bericht der Bild-Zeitung fand man bei einer Razzia dort im Büro des Verwaltungsleiters hinter einer Würstchendose 20.000 Euro in bar. Der Bericht schlussfolgerte, dass es sich um Geld handelte, das die Diözesen weltweit zur Aufklärung und Prävention sexuellen Missbrauchs in der Kirche nach Rom schicken. Der frühere Regensburger Bischof Gerhard Ludwig Kardinal Müller ist oberster Aufklärer – ein Umstand, der durchaus für Kritik sorgt, weil Müller selbst in seiner Zeit als Regensburger Bischof einen Priester, der bereits Kinder sexuell missbraucht hatte, in Riekofen im Landkreis Regensburg wieder eingesetzt hatte.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Zeit

[“The Church is not a philosopher Club”]

Interview: Evelyn Finger

DIE ZEIT: Herr Kardinal, dürfen wir fragen, wie Sie Weihnachten gefeiert haben?

Gerhard Ludwig Kardinal Müller: An Weihnachten war ich, wo ich hingehöre, im Petersdom an der Seite des Heiligen Vaters. Mit meiner Hausgemeinschaft feiere ich Weihnachten immer mit Gebet, Gesang und der Lesung des Weihnachtsevangeliums, so wie es einem deutschen Gemüt guttut.

ZEIT: Die Christen haben ein dramatisches Jahr hinter sich. Was war für Sie 2015 das Wichtigste?

Kardinal Müller: Das Wichtigste für die Glaubenskongregation ist immer dasselbe: dass wir dem Heiligen Vater in seinem Lehramt dienen und uns auch um “Delikte” gegen die Glauben oder gegen die Heiligkeit der Sakramente kümmern müssen. Wir, das sind nicht nur die 45 Mitarbeiter in unseren drei Abteilungen Glaubenslehre, Disziplin und Ehefragen, sondern auch etwa 25 Kardinäle und Bischöfe als Mitglieder sowie 30 theologische Konsultoren in Rom.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Kolner Stadt-Anzieger

[Pastor Jansen allowed to work again although he has been accused to sexual boundary violations.]

Erftstadt.

Das Verfahren gegen den Liblarer Pfarrer Winfried Jansen, der im Februar dieses Jahres wegen des Vorwurfs sexueller Grenzverletzungen entpflichtet worden war, ist immer noch nicht beendet. „Wir hoffen auf eine baldige Lösung“, sagte Christoph Heckeley, Pressesprecher des Erzbistums Köln, auf Anfrage.

Pfarrer Jansen musste sich im Zuge des Verfahrens auch einer psychologischen Begutachtung unterziehen. „Das Ergebnis ist selbstverständlich vertraulich“, sagte Heckeley.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Times

Lucy Bannerman
Published January 2 2016

A former Archbishop of Canterbury has been urged to explain why he wrote to police in praise of a disgraced bishop who initially escaped prosecution for sexual abuse.

Lord Carey of Clifton has always insisted that he did not interfere in the case of Peter Ball, a former bishop of Gloucester and a friend of the Prince of Wales.

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VATICAN CITY
Rome Reports

[with video]

The new year has started and the Pope’s plate is full as he is already busy with upcoming plans and projects.

NEW DOCUMENTS
During this year, probably before mid-March, Francis will publish an official papal document on the family. Technically it is an “apostolic exhortation”, which will reflect on the ideas of the recent Synod.

Some months ago he hinted he would like to sign this document in Nazareth, yet it is uncertain whether he will return to the Holy Land to fulfill his dream.

TRIPS
Yes, he will travel to Mexico. On Friday, Febuary 12th he will be in Mexico City and then visit other states like Chiapas, Michoacan and Chihuahua.

If there are no surprises, the other major trip of the year will be in July to the land of John Paul II. On July 31st the Pope will close in Krakow the World Youth Day with millions of young pilgrims.

GREAT CEREMONIES
The largest ceremony of the year will probably be the canonization of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, which almost certainly will be in early September.

REFORM OF THE CURIA
This year will begin to materialize simplifying the Vatican Curia. In January, the first expected major changes in the Secretariat for Communication, and shortly after the new two congregations (one of lay people and other on social justice), which they encompass most current pontifical councils.

CARDINALS
This year 10 cardinals will turn 80 years old and will lose the right to participate in a conclave. It is a figure high enough that the Pope decided to name new cardinals.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Philly.com

JANUARY 3, 2016

PROSECUTIONS ARE like snowflakes, no two the same. Sometimes, you have a low-profile drunken-driving case where the defendant is a first-time offender, the district attorney doesn’t have too much skin in the game and is willing to offer a plea deal, and no one except the parties involved will ever know about it.

And then there are those cases that catapult a prosecutor into the cable-news firmament, cementing his or her status as a legal and political superstar for years to come (assuming, that is, the prosecutor ends up winning).

It’s not a good thing to become famous as the district attorney who screwed up a slam-dunk conviction, like Marcia Clark, who will forever be known as the woman who let O.J. Simpson try on a glove.

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams is aiming to be one of those prosecutors who don’t end up as the laughingstock on a future Nancy Grace marathon.

He has taken on the prosecution of Monsignor William Lynn, who is forced to answer for a hierarchy’s perfidy and absorb the vengeance of unleashed ex-Catholics and an ambitious prosecutor who is aiming either for a halo or higher office.

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RHODE ISLAND
Providence Journal

By Jacqueline Tempera
Journal Staff Writer

Karen Lee Ziner
Journal Staff Writer Posted Jan. 1, 2016

MIDDLETOWN, R.I. — On a sprawling hilltop overlooking the Atlantic sits St. George’s School, an elite private Episcopal boarding school established more than a century ago. Known for its prestigious alumni and oceanic views, the preparatory school has been a coveted location for the country’s youth since 1896.

But recently revealed accusations of systematic sexual assault at the school during the 1970s and ’80s have cast a shadow on the bucolic campus’ glowing reputation.

St. George’s School has publicly apologized for sexual abuse by several former staff and students during that period. Administrators at the time fired three staff perpetrators, but never reported the matters to state authorities as Rhode Island law required.

Headmaster Eric Peterson and board chair Leslie Heaney wrote that apology in a Dec. 23 report to alumni that followed a nearly year-long investigation begun earlier in 2015. Among the factors: “the evolving landscape of best practices” by peer institutions that have faced similar issues.

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

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MINNESOTA
Mesabi Daily News

Lisa Rosemore Herald-Review

A Grand Rapids man convicted of setting a fire in the Grand Rapids United Methodist Church in 2011 has been found competent to proceed in a criminal case alleging he molested two children.

Robert Evans Shepard, 71, has been charged with two counts of felony second degree criminal sexual conduct in connection with the suspected abuse. At Shepard’s first court appearance on the charges in October, Itasca County District Court Judge Jon Maturi ordered an evaluation to determine if Shepard was competent to proceed in the case against him.

In a brief hearing Tuesday afternoon, Maturi said after reviewing the report from the evaluator it appeared Shepard was competent to proceed.

Maturi set Shepard’s next court hearing for 8:30 a.m. on Jan. 12 before Itasca County District Court Judge Lois Lang.

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UNITED STATES
Record Searchlight

By LINDSEY BAHR, AP Film Writer

Mark Ruffalo never walks in “Spotlight.” His very slowest is just shy of a flat out jog. It’s a minor detail, but it’s crucial to appreciating why this studied, smart look at The Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into the abuses of the Catholic Church is also utterly exhilarating.

This is the kind of simmering process film that makes you want to roll up your sleeves and do some work. To knock on some doors, ask some questions, ignore warnings, crack open a beer, burn the midnight oil and really do something — or maybe that’s just what every journalist watching this film will think.

After all, investigative print journalism isn’t the most cinematic of endeavors. It’s tedious and quiet and there are more dead ends than big revelations. It’s a test of endurance — a long distance run where the finish is not even clear.

Of course, unlike an ongoing investigation, we know the outcome here already. The trick of “Spotlight” is making the potentially unsexy “how they got there” into not only one of the best movies of the year, but one of the best journalism movies of all time.

Spotlight refers to the paper’s four person investigative team responsible for exposing the systematic cover-up of the pedophilia of more than 70 local priests — editor Walter “Robby” Robinson (Michael Keaton), reporters Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams) and Michael Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), and researcher Matt Carroll (Brian d’Arcy James).

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MISSOURI
Christian Today

Jonah Hicap 01 January 2016

Prosecutors dropped the charges against a deaf church official in Missouri who was accused of sexually molesting a male churchgoer with disability.

Rodney Sexton, a treasurer at the Deaf Liberty Baptist Church in Overland Park, was charged in Johnson County with aggravated sexual battery of a 31-year-old male, who is deaf and has a mental age of an eight-year-old, according to KCTV5.

Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe dropped the charges against Sexton a day after the latter appeared in court for the first time.

Sexton is also on the roster of sign language teachers at Maple Woods Community College in January and also once taught at the Metropolitan Community College (MCC).

He faced six felony sex charges involving a child in the 1980s and was convicted on two counts and served time in prison. He is not listed on the Kansas Sex Offender Registry as his convictions occurred before 1994. Sexton was released from prison in 1989 and released from probation four years later.

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ILLINOIS
Springfield Journal-Register

Steven Spearie
Correspondent

Posted Jan. 1, 2016

Most Reverend Daniel Ryan, who served as bishop of the Springfield Catholic Diocese for 15 years but abruptly resigned in 1999, died Thursday in Naperville. He was 85.

Ryan died at Sunrise of Naperville North, an assisted living facility, said a source in the Springfield diocese who didn’t want to go on the record. Ryan, who was bishop emeritus of the diocese, had been under hospice care.

His death was confirmed by several sources, including by Marlene Mulford, a spokeswoman for the Springfield diocese.

An independent investigative report in 2006 stated that Ryan fostered “a culture of secrecy” in the diocese that discouraged priests from coming forward with information about sexual misconduct by other priests in the diocese, which covers 28 counties in central Illinois.

Personally plagued by sexual abuse allegations, some masses that Ryan celebrated around the diocese were picketed, though Ryan was never charged or prosecuted.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

By Charles Moore 01 Jan 2016

On April 8 1945, Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian and anti-Nazi, was condemned to death in Flossenburg concentration camp by an SS judge, without witnesses, defence or records. He was executed the following dawn. On the day of his sentence he sent a message, via a British prisoner, to George Bell, the Bishop of Chichester.

Bonhoeffer regarded Bell as the greatest friend of the German Christian resistance to Hitler (“I feel ashamed when I think of all your goodness”). His message was “Tell him that for me this is the end but also the beginning – with him I believe in the principle of our Universal Christian brotherhood… and that our victory is certain.”

More than 70 years later – last October – the current Bishop of Chichester, Martin Warner, issued a “formal apology” to an unnamed individual who was “at the time [the late 1940s and early 1950s] a young child”, and announced the settlement (with an unspecified sum paid) of “a legal civil claim regarding sexual abuse against the Rt Rev George Bell”. Bishop Warner said “I am committed to ensuring that the past is handled with transparency and honesty.”

Bishop Bell died in 1958. When he was thus condemned 57 years later, he had no witnesses in his defence and, indeed, no defence. There are no published records of the process which condemned him. The decision was made by the “core group” of “safeguarding professionals” and the bishops of the diocese, under the Church of England’s National Safeguarding Team. They decided, not on a level of proof that would satisfy a criminal court, but “on the balance of probabilities”, that Bell had committed the alleged acts. There was no “transparency” about the past: we shall not be told what the alleged acts were, who the “victim” was and what the evidence consisted in.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Evening Standard

HANNAH AL-OTHMAN

The Church of England has apologised to victims of a shamed Bishop after it was revealed a former Archbishop of Canterbury was among a number of establishment figures who reportedly wrote to police in his support.

The letters, which have come to light as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service, were written in support of the then Bishop of Gloucester Peter Ball, who was being investigated for sex offences in 1993.

In one letter, Lord Carey said Peter Ball was in “torment” because of the investigation, according to the BBC.

Ball was jailed for a string of historic offences in October, including two counts of indecent assault.

While Bishop of Lewes, he hand-picked 18 vulnerable victims to commit acts of “debasement” in the name of religion, including praying naked at the altar and encouraging them to submit to beatings.

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UNITED KINGDOM
PoliticsHome

Written by
Emilio Casalicchio
Last updated
01.01.16

A former Conservative minister wrote to the Director of Public Prosecutions in defence of a bishop who was under investigation for, and later convicted of, child sexual abuse.

Tim Renton, who had been Arts Minister in John Major’s government, wrote more than 20 years ago that the “shame” of criminal action would be “far too great a punishment​” for former bishop of Lewes and Gloucester, Peter Ball.

The inquiry against Mr Ball was dropped, but a fresh probe in 2012 led to his conviction last year for 18 counts of sex abuse against vulnerable young men between 1977 and 1992.

Mr Ball, now aged 83, was sentenced to 32 months in prison after pleading guilty to the offences.
Writing to the DPP during the original investigation, then-Mid Sussex MP Mr Renton said had never heard a “breath of any suggestion of impropriety” regarding the period that Mr Ball was bishop in his former constituency of Lewes.

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VATICAN CITY
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor January 1, 2016

ROME — Although Pope Francis at times can come off almost as an angry Old Testament prophet in his critique of injustices and abuses of power, he rang in the New Year instead by extolling all the good in today’s world, referring to it as part of an often unseen, and under-appreciated, “ocean of mercy.”

In an almost poetic turn of phrase, he insisted that an “ocean of mercy” stands in contrast to the “torrent of misery, swollen by sin,” evident from scanning daily headlines.

Francis didn’t take his eyes off the realities of the world, acknowledging during his noontime Angelus address on Friday that “we all know a New Year doesn’t change everything, and that many problems from yesterday will still be there tomorrow.”

Although Christians believe in a loving God, Francis warned, God does not use a “magic wand” to simply make problems disappear.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Sun

THE names of MPs, a High Court judge, a magistrate, public school headteachers and clergy who defended a pervert bishop were revealed yesterday.

Disgraced Peter Ball, 83, was jailed for two years and eight months in October for indecent assaults on 18 teenagers and young men.

His Old Bailey trial heard cops received 2,000 letters in support of him.

The former Bishop of Lewes and Gloucester dodged charges in 1993, accepting a caution for gross indecency against a lad of 16, but carried on working in churches.

The CPS has released letters sent from Establishment figures to police and the Director of Public Prosecutions that year.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Christian Today

Ruth Gledhill CHRISTIAN TODAY CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
01 January 2016

Senior establishment figures wrote letters to the Crown Prosecution Service and leading police officers in support of disgraced Church of England bishop Peter Ball. They included the former Lord Justice Anthony Lloyd, the late Tory Tim Rathbone who was Prime Minister David Cameron’s godfather and the former Tory Cabinet Minister Tim Renton. Ball, 83, is currently in prison after being sentenced last October for a string of offencs against 18 teenagers and young men between 1977 and 1992. Lord Justice Lloyd wrote to the Chief Constable of the Gloucestershire force, which was investigating Ball, and said: “He is the most gentle upright and saintly man I have ever met.”

The 12 letters were released after The Telegraph and BBC submitted Freedom of Information requests. The law which allows the requests is currently being reviewed due to cost.

Among those who wrote letters to Barbara Mills, Director of Public Prosecutions, was former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey of Clifton. He was clear that he did not wish to influence the decision to prosecute, but he wrote two letters. In the first, in February 1993, he said his first reaction to allegations of indencent behaviour with an adolescent was that it was “improbable” and that the allegations had caused Ball “excruciating pain and spiritual torment”. In the second, a month later, he expressed concern about Ball’s “fragile health”.

Tim Rathbone wrote to Gloucester Police that it was “literally inconceivable” that Ball would ever become involved with anyone in in the way “insinuated” by “the newspapers”.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

JANUARY 2, 2016

Gerard Henderson
Columnist

Australians concerned about freedom of religion in this country would be well advised to look beyond the present and likely future debate over same-sex marriage.

Already, what was until recently the traditional view, that marriage is a union between a man and a woman, is being presented as offensive at best and discriminatory at worst by some who advocate what they term marriage equality.

It is not only many believers who hold the traditional view about marriage. However, it is possible that the Catholic Church and some other Christian denominations, plus adherents of Hinduism and Islam, will be targeted for their attitudes on this issue by government tribunals and the like in the future. The first instance is already manifesting itself in Tasmania with respect to the Catholic Church.

For an example of how current government-funded institutions regard religion, attention should be given to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. The royal commission has done good work in revealing the extent of mainly historical cases of child sexual abuse in churches and secular and government institutions up until relatively recent times.

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OREGON
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: A native of Mexico, Angel Armando Perez entered El Seminario Mayor de Guadalajara at age 20. After 7 years he took two years off, returned briefly, then entered Mount Angel Seminary near Portland, OR in 1996. He was ordained for the Archdiocese of Portland in 2002, at age 37. He was assigned to parishes in Corvallis, Coos Bay and Woodburn. In August 2012 Perez was arrested on charges of sexual abuse, use of a child in a display of sexually explicit conduct and furnishing alcohol to a minor. Perez had invited a 12-year-old boy to spend the night with him after a church party, the night before a planned trip to the mountains. The priest and the boy drank beer and watched a movie, then went to bed. The boy awakened to find Perez fondling him and taking pictures with a cell phone. The boy ran into the street and sought help from neighbors who were outside. Perez chased the boy, wearing only his underwear. When the neighbors said they were going to call the police, Perez fled. In April 2013 Perez pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 6 years, 3 months in prison. The boy’s parents filed a lawsuit in April 2014. The archdiocese settled with them in December 2014.

Ordained: 2002

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Times

John Simpson Crime Correspondent
January 1 2016

A former Archbishop of Canterbury intervened on behalf of a disgraced bishop who initially escaped prosecution for sexually abusing 18 priests.

Peter Ball, who had been the bishop of both Lewes and Gloucester, received a caution when initially he was accused in 1993, but last year he was jailed for two years and eight months after confessing to misconduct in a public office and indecent assaults.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By TOM KELLY FOR THE DAILY MAIL

A predatory bishop escaped prosecution for sex abuse for 22 years after leading Establishment figures told police and prosecutors he was a ‘saint’.

Two Archbishops of Canterbury, Tory MPs – including David Cameron’s godfather – a senior judge and public school headmasters mounted an extraordinary campaign to protect Peter Ball after he was accused of molesting a teenage novice monk in 1993.

In letters to police chiefs and the Director of Public Prosecutions they variously complained that the allegations had caused the bishop ‘excruciating pain’ and claimed it was ‘literally inconceivable’ that he could have committed the offences.

Twelve letters have been released following requests under the Freedom of Information Act – which has exposed numerous scandals but which is threatened by a government review set up after ministers claimed the law is ‘too costly’ to administer.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Church of England

31 December 2015

“It is a matter of deep shame and regret that a bishop in the Church of England was sentenced earlier this year for a series of offences over 15 years against 18 young men known to him. There are no excuses whatsoever for what took place, nor for the systematic abuse of trust perpetrated by Peter Ball.

We apologise unreservedly to those survivors of Peter Ball’s abuse and pay tribute to their bravery in coming forward. They have had to endure a long wait for justice over decades. We also remember Neil Todd, whose bravery in 1992 enabled others to come forward but who took his own life before Peter Ball’s conviction or sentencing.

Peter Ball systematically abused the trust of the victims, many of whom who were aspiring priests, whilst others were simply seeking to explore their spirituality. He also abused the trust placed in him by the Church and others, maintaining a campaign of innocence for decades until his final guilty plea earlier this year.

Operation Dunhill – which led to Peter Ball’s conviction – began as a result of the safeguarding officer at Lambeth Palace working with survivors in raising concerns about Peter Ball. The approach to the police was a proactive step on the part of the national Church leading to a self-initiated referral via CEOP (Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre) to Sussex Police in 2012. This led to active co-working between Lambeth Palace, the Diocese of Chichester and Sussex Police on a complex enquiry with full information sharing.

In October of this year the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, commissioned an independent review of the way the Church handled the Peter Ball case. The independent review will examine the Church of England’s cooperation with the police and other statutory agencies and the extent to which it shared information in a timely manner. It will also assess the extent to which the Church both properly assessed the possible risk that Bishop Ball might pose to others and responded adequately to concerns and representations submitted by survivors.

Consultation with the Church’s National Safeguarding Panel – which includes members of survivor’s groups – has been taking place since October to identify a suitably independent chair of the review. It is hoped that the terms of reference for the reviews, its independent chair and other members of the group will be announced early in the New Year.

The Archbishop has confirmed that the report of the review will include a detailed account of how the case was handled within the church and will be published. We will also be co-operating fully with the Justice Goddard Inquiry who have announced they will also be looking into the Peter Ball case.

Over recent years the Church of England has been persistent and determined in dealing with allegations of abuse against clergy be they living or deceased. We are painfully conscious of our past failings and are committed to ensuring the highest levels of safeguarding in all our churches.

The Church of England always takes any allegations of abuse very seriously and is committed to being a safe place for all. To this end we have robust procedures and policies in place. But we can never be complacent. Any survivors or those with information about church-related abuse must always feel free to come forward with confidence that safeguarding procedures will be followed.

Should anyone have further information or need to discuss the personal impact of this news the Church has worked with the NSPCC to set up a confidential helpline no. 0800 389 5344.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Belfast Telegraph

A former Archbishop of Canterbury reportedly wrote to police in support of the then Bishop of Gloucester, who was being investigated for sex offences in 1993.

The letter has come to light as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service.

In the letter, Lord Carey said Peter Ball was in “torment” because of the investigation, according to the BBC.

The Church of England (CoE) apologised “unreservedly” to Ball’s victims in response to the letter last night.

In October Ball was jailed for a string of historic offences, including two counts of indecent assault.

While Bishop of Lewes, he hand-picked 18 vulnerable victims to commit acts of “debasement” in the name of religion, such as praying naked at the altar and encouraging them to submit to beatings.

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VATICAN CITY
GMA News

January 1, 2016

By JEAN-LOUIS DE LA VAISSIERE, AFP

VATICAN CITY, Holy See – Pope Francis faces a tough 2016, Vatican insiders say, with no let-up in his physically demanding schedule or the political battles over his efforts to modernize the Church.

The 79-year-old pontiff, who eschews holidays and has appeared worn out at times during the last year, has already scheduled major trips to Mexico (February) and Poland (July).

Visits to Kosovo and Armenia (to mark the 100th anniversary of the World War I mass killings) are expected to be added to his diary while France and his native Argentina are also seen as possible destinations in the next 12 months.

Laid low by the flu over Christmas, Francis nevertheless had the energy to insist that his wave-making shake-up of Vatican governance would be pursued in the New Year.

“The reform of the Curia (the Vatican bureaucracy) will progress with determination, clarity and resolve,” he said in his end-of-year message to the faithful.

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ROME
The Guardian

Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Rome
Friday 1 January 2016

When Francesca Chaouqui was summoned two months ago to a meeting with Vatican police, the public relations expert – who had served on a prominent Vatican commission examining financial reforms – willingly went along. She assumed it would be an hour-long affair.

Instead, the 33-year-old was arrested, interrogated and held for 72 hours within the Vatican walls – apart from a short stint in hospital after falling ill – and says she was denied access to a lawyer. “I was wearing very light clothing because I had been at home, and I stayed in those clothes for three days,” she told the Guardian in a recent interview.

Since then, having been charged by Vatican prosecutors with leaking confidential documents to two journalists, a crime under Vatican law punishable by up to eight years in prison, Chaouqui has emerged as an unlikely protagonist in the biggest scandal to rock the Vatican under Pope Francis.

At the centre of the case are allegations that Chaouqui and two others stole documents they had gathered in the course of work on the Vatican commission and leaked them to journalists who used them to write explosive books about alleged financial mismanagement of church funds. The pope himself has suggested Chaouqui was lashing out at the church because she had not been offered a permanent position after the commission she served on was disbanded.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Harriet Sherwood Religion correspondent
@harrietsherwood
Thursday 31 December 2015

Letters written by a former archbishop of Canterbury and a coterie of establishment figures – including a former government minister and a high court judge – in support of a bishop accused of sexual abuse more than 20 years ago have been disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act.

The confidential letters to police and prosecutors springing to the defence of Peter Ball, the former bishop of Lewes and Gloucester, are likely to fuel accusations by survivors of sexual abuse of a cover-up at the heart of the Church of England and wider establishment.

Ball escaped prosecution at the time, resigned his post as bishop and retired to a rented cottage on the Prince of Wales’s Duchy of Cornwall estate. After a fresh investigation was opened in 2012, Ball, now 83, was sentenced to 32 months in prison in October 2015 after pleading guilty to abusing 18 vulnerable young men between 1977 and 1992.

George Carey, who was archbishop of Canterbury at the time when police were investigating claims of sexual abuse by Ball, wrote to the director of public prosecutions and the chief constable of Gloucester police in February 1993. While repeatedly stressing he was not trying to influence the outcome of the investigation, Carey wrote of Ball’s “excruciating pain and spiritual torment” and the implications for the state of his mental health.

A separate letter from Tim Renton, then the Conservative MP for Mid Sussex and a former government minister, spoke of Ball “suffer[ing] terribly” during the investigation while implicitly acknowledging that the bishop may have broken his vows of chastity.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Newsworks

BY BOBBY ALLYN

There’s a testy exchange in the movie “Spotlight,” about the Boston Globe’s investigation into child sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church, between the paper’s recently appointed editor and its publisher.

“You wanna sue the Catholic Church?” says the publisher, played by John Slattery.

“Um. We’re just filing a motion, but, yes,” responds the new newsroom boss, played by Marty Baron.

“You think it’s that important?” the publisher says.

“Yes I do.”

The Globe’s motion persuaded a judge to unseal documents that turned out to hold some of the most damning evidence against the church.

The Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office said the sexual assault charges leveled against Cosby on Wednesday were triggered after a move not that dissimilar.

Attorneys for Associated Press reporter Maryclaire Dale filed a motion to unseal depositions of Cosby answering questions from investigators over four days in 2005. The conversations were part of a civil lawsuit filed by a Cosby accuser that was settled and never went to trial.

Dale won on July 6, 2015, when U.S. District Judge Eduardo Robreno ordered that the AP’s motion to intervene and obtain access to documents under seal be granted.

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UNITED STATES
Hollywood Reporter

by Scott Feinberg

The man who oversaw the landmark sex abuse investigation — which you can read here — says he has no complaints about the resulting film, which moved him to tears and which he hopes will provoke renewed interest in investigative journalism.

“There’s something oddly incongruous about all of the events and the red carpet interviews that surround a movie when you’re dealing with a subject that’s as serious as this one,” says Marty Baron, the former editor of The Boston Globe, in reference to Spotlight, the acclaimed new film — in which he’s played by Ray Donovan’s Liev Schreiber — about the Globe’s 2002 investigation that exposed a massive sex abuse scandal in the city’s Catholic Church, for which the paper was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2003. “But,” he acknowledges with a laugh, “it’s been fun.”

Three years ago today, Baron, 61, left the Globe to become the editor of The Washington Post — another publication famous for its investigative reporting — and, in so doing, thought he was closing a chapter of his life that had been unlike any other. He’d covered important stories for decades, but the Catholic Church investigation “was the most meaningful work that I’ve been involved in,” he says, “because it had such a direct impact on people’s lives — not politicians, but ordinary people. It had such a profound impact on the Catholic Church then, and even today I think its impact endures. Its impact went way beyond the Church and went into how other major institutions deal with accusations of sexual assault.”

Eight years ago, long before he left the Globe, Baron was approached by producers Nicole Rocklin and Blye Faust, who said they were working on putting together a film about the paper’s coverage of the scandal. He was forewarned, however, that it might not come to fruition — “It’s a difficult subject, and not everybody loves journalists,” he notes. A few years later, the producers lined up Josh Singer and Tom McCarthy to pen a script, and Baron says, “When Josh and Tom really started doing their research, I had a sense that this really might be real — but I knew that they had to obtain financing, as well, and that that would be a huge challenge.”

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CALIFORNIA
Imperial Valley Press

Friday, January 1, 2016

By JULIO MORALES, Staff Writer

El Centro resident and former pastor Mark Quinn Anderson, who is accused of engaging in and attempting to engage in lewd acts with a minor, is scheduled to be arraigned in court on Monday following his arrest Wednesday in the Los Angeles area by the U.S. Marshal’s Service.

Anderson was booked into the county jail on Thursday afternoon and was being held on a $75,000 bond, according to the Imperial County Sheriff’s Office. He is being charged with nine felony counts in connection to the alleged sexual molestation of two juvenile females.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Adelaide’s Catholic Archbishop Philip Wilson has announced he will return to his post this month, despite facing a charge of concealing child sexual abuse.

Wilson has been on indefinite leave since March, when he was charged by New South Wales police.

The charge relates to when he was a junior priest, living and working in the Hunter Valley.

Wilson has pleaded not guilty to concealing the serious indictable offence of the now-dead paedophile priest James Fletcher in the 1970s.

In a letter published on the Catholic Archdiocese’s website, Wilson said he had “decided that it is now appropriate for me to end my leave and resume my duties as Archbishop of Adelaide”.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Morning Times

Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Bill Cosby’s lawyers went on the attack Thursday after the comedian’s arrest, calling the sexual assault charges a flawed, politically motivated case that will not hold up in court.

They are expected to try to gut the prosecution’s case or get it thrown out altogether by a variety of means, including preventing some of Cosby’s numerous other accusers from taking the stand; blocking the use of testimony he gave in a decade-old lawsuit; and making an issue out of the 12 years it took to file charges.

OTHER ACCUSERS

While Cosby is charged with drugging and sexually assaulting just one woman, Andrea Constand, legal experts predict a key pretrial battle over whether some of the dozens of other women who have accused the comedian of violating them can testify, too, to prove he had a “modus operandi.”

“Prior bad acts” are sometimes allowed as evidence in criminal cases, but judges often take a dim view of such testimony because it can be so damaging. They typically require prosecutors to prove it is directly relevant.

“We don’t want a jury to say, ‘If he did it once before, he must have done it now,'” said Philadelphia attorney Jeffrey Lindy, who is unconnected to the Cosby case.

Lindy helped defend a Catholic Church official whose child-endangerment conviction for shielding a pedophile priest was overturned by an appeals court in December.

The reason: The prosecution put on weeks of testimony about the handling of 21 other priests under suspicion, even though the defendant wasn’t charged in connection with any of them. The appeals court called it overkill — in legal terms, more prejudicial than probative.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

By Tom Symonds
Home Affairs correspondent

A former Archbishop of Canterbury wrote to police in 1993 with letters of support for the then Bishop of Gloucester who was being investigated for sex offences, it can be revealed.

Ex-archbishop George Carey said Peter Ball was in “torment” as a result of a police investigation, letters released by the Crown Prosecution Service show.

It was “improbable” he was guilty, the letters show he told police.

Ball, 83, was jailed for a string of offences against young men in October.

He was sentenced to 32 months for misconduct in a public office and 15 months for indecent assaults, to run concurrently.

‘Church cover-up’

Lord Carey also wrote in a letter to Barbara Mills – then the director of public prosecutions – that Ball’s health was fragile and the decision to prosecute should be made “as speedily as possible”.

The letters have been released by the CPS in response to a Freedom of Information (FoI) request by the BBC and others, after it emerged that members of the establishment had written personal letters on Ball’s behalf.

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ROME
ANSA

(ANSA) – Rome, December 31 – A former member of a commission on the Holy See’s economic-administrative structure has said she has given up and expects to go to jail for leaking Vatican documents. “I will be sentenced,” public relations specialist Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui wrote on Facebook. “I am innocent but I will be found guilty.” The Commission for Reference on the Organization of the Economic-Administrative Structure of the Holy See (COSEA) was set up by Pope Francis in July 2013 to help put the Holy See’s finances in order. Chaouqui as well as Spanish Monsignor Lucio Vallejo Balda and his administrative cleric have been charged with leaking documents to journalists that showed corruption and questionable financial practices in the Vatican. “There is no chance that the Vatican court, after arresting me and setting in motion a trial that was to have been over in a few days and is instead lasting for months, and after this matter has made headlines across the world, will simply say ‘we were wrong’ and ‘we put an innocent person behind bars’,” she added. “Thus, I will be sentenced. Without any proof or reason. I will pay for having obeyed the pope and not listening to those who said that ‘the pope leaves while the Curia stays’.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

By David Clohessy

“Of all these predator priests, which one worries you the most?” That was the question a fellow survivor put to me recently.

My immediate thought was “How on earth could I pick one?” My next thought was “Geez, this is gonna keep me up tonight.” And it certainly did.

The first name that popped to mind was Fr. Ronald H. Paquin, who’s recently been released from prison. He is known to have sexually abused more than 40 boys. Once, with four boys in his car, he crashed while driving drunk. One boy died and another was badly injured.

Then I realized that Fr. Paquin probably sprang to mind probably because he’s portrayed briefly in the film Spotlight.

I realized that kids may be a little safer from Fr. Paquin than other predators because he must register as a sex offender and because the abuse and cover up crisis has gotten so much coverage in Massachusetts.

Then I thought of about four guys in quick succession.

Fr. Henry Willenborg (who spent time in Illinois, Missouri and, most recently, Wisconsin) who reportedly molested a teen, impregnated an adult parishioner twice, suggested an abortion, fathered and ignored a child. Since 2009, Catholic officials say they’re investigating all of this alleged wrongdoing by the slick-talking and charismatic Fr. Willenborg.

–Fr. Willenborg’s time in Missouri reminded me of another ex-Missouri cleric, Br. William C. Mueller, who lives in San Antonio and molested more than 50 kids in Missouri, Colorado and Texas while teaching in Marianist schools.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

Former Lord Justice Anthony Lloyd and David Cameron’s late godfather Tory MP Tim Rathbone among figures who wrote in support of former Bishop of Gloucester, Peter Ball, one said he was a “saint”

By Nicola Harley 31 Dec 2015

The Establishment figures whose intervention helped a disgraced Bishop evade prosecution for decades have finally been revealed following an investigation by the Telegraph.

The former Bishop of Gloucester, now aged 83, groomed and abused 18 aspiring young priests over a period spanning 15 years and was finally jailed in October.

Peter Ball had escaped justice over the same charges years earlier after he was given support by a member of the Royal family and establishment figures.

A Freedom of Information request by the Telegraph has led to the release of the letters written by some high profile figures in his support, they include former Lord Justice Anthony Lloyd, former Archbishop of Canterbury Donald Coggan and David Cameron’s late godfather Tory MP Tim Rathbone, who gave Mr Cameron his first work experience in the House of Commons.

Mr Rathbone, who died from cancer in 2002, aged 69, wrote that he found it “literally inconceivable” that Ball would ever become involved with anyone in the way described.

Anthony Lloyd, who was a Lord Justice at the time, described Ball as a “saint” in one of more than 2,000 letters sent to the Crown Prosecution Service and Gloucestershire Police in his support from acquaintances.

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Dec. 31, 2015

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)

A woman who was sexually abused by a Jesuit who became the president of St. Louis University has become the second victim to settle a “breach of contract” case against Catholic officials. We applaud her for her courage, her persistence and her concern for others who may be hurt or betrayed by Jesuits.

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

–In this just-settled case, a New York woman was sexually violated by Fr. Daniel O’Connell (then a professor, later the president of SLU), who is believed to still be living in St. Louis. According to the New York Times, Fr. O’Connell “was accused of sexually assaulting a 20-year-old college student in 1983.” In 2003, his Jesuit supervisors “found the accusation credible,” paid her $181,000 settlement and agreed to remove O’Connell “from a teaching post at another Jesuit institution” and bar him “from public ministry” or any activity in which he could develop a relationship with a woman.

[New York Times]

In 2010, this woman filed a suit accusing O’Connell’s Jesuit supervisors of breaking that promise by letting him teach in Oklahoma, engage in public ministry in Germany, and speak at symposia and seminars at several universities.

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AUSTRALIA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Adelaide

December 30, 2015
15/1816

To my dear priests, deacons, religious and to all people of the Archdiocese of Adelaide.

By now most of you would be aware that in March 2015 I was charged with an offence in New South Wales under section 316 of the Crimes Act 1900.

When I learned about this charge, I decided that it was appropriate that I take time on leave to enable me to reflect and consult widely about the charge. I have done so over the last 9 months and after deep thought, prayer and reflection, I have decided that it is now appropriate for me to end my leave and resume my duties as Archbishop of Adelaide.

I have taken this decision now for many reasons, including the fact that I do not know how long it will take for the charge against me to be resolved. I cannot responsibly remain on leave indefinitely given my serious responsibilities as Archbishop of Adelaide. I have made a commitment in faith to the People of God in the Archdiocese of Adelaide and it is a commitment that I feel I can longer defer.

I will therefore end my period of leave and resume my duties in January 2016.

Some people may disagree with my decision and I respect that. In no way should this decision be interpreted as my not taking this matter very seriously. On the contrary, I take the charge extremely seriously. In recognition of that, and also in recognition of the importance of public accountability and transparency, when I resume my duties I will take no role in professional standards matters in the Archdiocese of Adelaide, and nor will I be involved in the professional standards work of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference or my former work with the Truth Justice and Healing Council until this matter is resolved.

Finally, I would like to thank all of those people who have expressed support and good wishes during what has been a very trying and difficult time. I have been greatly heartened by this and I thank you so very much.

I am limited in the further comments I am able to make at this time because the matter is still before the Court but insofar as I am able to do so I will keep you all informed of any updates.

Philip Wilson
Archbishop of Adelaide

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

Adelaide’s Catholic Archbishop will resume his duties despite still facing a charge of concealing child sexual abuse.

Archbishop Philip Wilson took leave in March after he was charged with one count of concealing information about a serious indictable offence.

Wilson, 64, pleaded not guilty in May to concealing information about the 1971 sex assault of a 10-year-old boy by pedophile priest James Fletcher in Maitland.

In a letter published on the Catholic Archdiocese of Adelaide website on Thursday, Wilson said he had decided “after deep thought, prayer and reflection” to return from leave in January.

“I have taken this decision now for many reasons, including the fact that I do not know how long it will take for the charge against me to be resolved,” he wrote.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Gaynor Dumat-ol Daleno, December 31, 2015

The public discord between two sides in Guam’s Catholic community spilled over into 2015 from the previous year.

In January last year, while a Vatican delegation visited Guam, dozens of island Catholics held prayer protests. In one of their prayer protests, they held statues and rosaries as they walked along the stretch of busy Farenholt Avenue to a monastery compound, where the Vatican delegation had been holding private meetings.

The delegation met separately with people who follow the Neocatechumenal Way and separate meetings for those who hold on to the old traditions of the island’s Catholic church.

Months earlier, Concerned Catholics of Guam demanded, in part, for Archbishop Anthony Apuron to be fiscally transparent, and questioned Apuron’s association with the Neocatechumenal Way.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

A retiring Australian bishop accused of trying to protect himself and the Catholic Church over pedophile priests is seeking forgiveness from anyone he may have disappointed.

The Pope has accepted Brisbane auxiliary bishop Brian Finnigan’s resignation after he reached retirement age, the Vatican’s press office has announced.

Bishop Finnigan, 77, submitted his resignation to Pope Francis in 2013, a requirement for bishops when they turn 75.

“In a pastoral career spanning more than 40 years, there have been disappointments and challenges,” Bishop Finnigan said in a letter to fellow clergy in the Brisbane archdiocese on Thursday.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Guardian staff and agencies
Wednesday 30 December 2015

An Australian bishop accused of protecting himself and the Catholic church at the child abuse royal commission has resigned.

The pope has accepted Brisbane auxiliary bishop Brian Finnegan’s resignation upon his reaching the retirement age, the Vatican’s press office has announced.

Finnegan, 77, was accused of not being candid about his knowledge of paedophile priests in a bid to protect himself and the church during his December evidence to the child abuse royal commission’s inquiry into the Ballarat diocese.

Finnegan was secretary to the bishop of the Ballarat diocese, Ronald Mulkearns, between 1979 and 1985 when the priest Gerald Ridsdale was abusing children in parishes within the diocese.

Finnegan repeatedly told the commission he was unaware of Ridsdale’s abuse at the time and had no concerns about the priest.

But the commission heard evidence Finnegan had been phoned by a mother who was concerned about Ridsdale’s interactions with her eldest son.

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AUSTRALIA
Premier

Thu 31 Dec 2015
By Hannah Tooley

Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of an Australian bishop who has been accused of being evasive over an abuse inquiry.

Brian Finnegan was accused of not sharing his knowledge of alleged paedophile priests in an attempt to protect himself as well as the church.

The Vatican’s press office has announced that the pope has accepted the resignation of the Brisbane auxiliary bishop, upon his reaching the age of retirement.

Mr Finnegan, 77, has been accused of not being open with his knowledge of alleged paedophile priests during his December evidence to the child abuse royal commission’s inquiry into the Ballarat diocese.

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WASHINGTON
The News Tribune

BY STACIA GLENN
sglenn@thenewstribune.com

A 20-year-old man who works at a Tacoma middle school and volunteers as a Youth for Christ pastor pleaded not guilty Wednesday to molesting a 14-year-old girl he met at youth camp.

Adam Parks is charged with four counts of third-degree child rape. He pleaded not guilty and bail was set at $100,000.

The abuse is alleged to have taken place from March to December in a church office, art camp and Parks’ car.

Parks was a lunchtime supervisor at Gray Middle School, head of security at Zion River Church and a volunteer for Youth for Christ, records show.

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WISCONSIN
Beloit Daily News

REEDSBURG, Wis. (AP) — Police say a Reedsburg church music director has killed himself after he was charged with sexually assaulting a teenage girl who was a choir member.

Officers went to check on the welfare of 48-year-old David Knoble Wednesday morning. As officers approached the front door, they heard a gunshot from inside. Police forced their way in and found Knoble dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Knoble was accused of having sexual contact with the girl for more than a year, beginning when she was 16. Knoble denied the charges to investigators.

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KANSAS
AlterNet

By David Edwards / Raw Story December 30, 2015

A church treasurer in Overland Park, Kansas has been accused of sexual abuse — and it’s not the first time.

KCTV reported that Rodney Sexton was accused of molesting a 31-year-old disabled churchgoer “who is deaf and functions like an 8 year old.” Sexton is also deaf.

It was not immediately clear if officials at Deaf Liberty Baptist Church in Overland Park knew that Sexton faced six sex-related charges in the 1980s while working at a school for the deaf.

He was convicted on two counts of sodomy and aggravated indecent liberties with a child in that case. Although he served time in Kansas prison, he was not placed on the sex offender registry because the crime occurred before 1994.

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AUSTRALIA
The Courier-Mail

December 31, 2015

Daryl Passmore
The Courier-Mail

A BRISBANE bishop has quit after being accused of not being honest in giving evidence at the sexual abuse royal commission.

Auxiliary Bishop Brian Finnigan — one of the city’s three most powerful Catholic Church figures — had his resignation accepted by Pope Francis yesterday.

In a letter to fellow clergymen, he made no direct reference to his appearance before the commission earlier this month. But he wrote: “In a pastoral career spanning more than 40 years, there have been disappointments and challenges.

“From those whom I may have disappointed, I seek forgiveness.’’

Bishop Finnigan was slammed by counsel assisting the Royal Commission, Angus Stewart SC, two weeks ago for lacking compassion and not being candid in his evidence about his knowledge of paedophile priests in the 1980s.

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AUSTRALIA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane

BISHOP Brian Finnigan will begin the new year in retirement from his episcopal ministry after Pope Francis officially accepted his resignation yesterday.

The Holy Father accepted the resignation of Brisbane Auxiliary Bishop Brian Vincent Finnigan, aged 77, on December 30, 2015, two years after he had presented it to Pope Francis.

Diocesan bishops are canonically requested to present their resignation to the Holy Father at 75 years of age.

Bishop Finnigan served as auxiliary bishop of Brisbane for 13 years and wholeheartedly welcomed his retirement in an official letter sent to clergy in the archdiocese.

“I am grateful that it has now come to pass,” Bishop Finnigan said.

“At 77 years of age, energy levels and mental agility have diminished.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Courier

By Melissa Cunningham
Dec. 31, 2015

A bishop who was accused of putting himself and the reputation of the Catholic Church ahead of “truth and compassion” for victims has resigned.

Outgoing Brisbane Auxiliary Bishop and former secretary to Ballarat Bishop Ronald Mulkearns, Brian Finnigan, officially resigned from his senior leadership position in the Catholic Church late Wednesday evening.

The Courier understands the Vatican formally accepted the resignation from the office of Auxiliary of the Archdiocese of Brisbane at 10pm Australian time on Wednesday.

The Archdiocese of Brisbane, confirmed his resignation to The Courier on Thursday morning.

Bishop Finnigan had reached the age limit for being a Catholic bishop.

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AUSTRALIA
Adelaide Now

Andrew Dowdell
The Advertiser

THE Archbishop of Adelaide, Philip Wilson, will return to his post next month despite still facing criminal charges of concealing child sexual abuse.

Archbishop Wilson has been on leave since March after he was charged by NSW Police with allegedly concealing sexual abuse perpetrated in the 1970s by his then-housemate, paedophile priest James Patrick Fletcher.

The Archbishop, who has maintained his public silence since being charged, on Wednesday announced he would return to his duties in January through a letter addressed to “priests, deacons, religious and to all people of the Archdiocese of Adelaide”.

“Some people may disagree with my decision and I respect that,” Archbishop Wilson wrote.

“In no way should this decision be interpreted as my not taking this matter very seriously. On the contrary, I take the charge extremely seriously.”

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INDIA
The Hindu

The police team investigating the sexual abuse of a 14-year-old girl by a Catholic priest at Puthenvelikkara have booked a government doctor for failing to report a child sexual abuse case.

The police said the doctor, identified as Ajitha, was booked under Section 19 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act, 2012.

As per the case, the doctor did not alert the police in spite of knowing that the girl had been sexually abused.

A complaint filed by the girl’s mother stated that the doctor had prescribed contraceptive tablets to the class X girl on March 29 this year.

Anticipatory bail

Meanwhile, officials said the doctor was booked after she had moved the court for anticipatory bail in October.

Figarez, former parish priest of Lourdes Matha Church, Puthenvelikkara, surrendered before the Ernakulam Rural police superintendent on December 8 after absconding for about eight months.

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UNITED STATES
PopeCrimes& Vatican Evils.

Paris Arrow

vimeo.com › Marcel Herman Films › Videos
13 août 2015
From 3-time Academy Award winner Mark Jonathan Harris, Executive Producer James Gray, and Lost for Life director Joshua Rofé comes a documentary film about Sheldon Kennedy, former NHL hockey player & survivor of sexual abuse – providing a startling & never before seen look at recovery from childhood sexual abuse trauma.
For Press Inquires contact Ingrid Hamilton ingrid@gat.ca & joshuarofe@gmail.com
Official Site: swiftcurrentdoc.com
Facebook: facebook.com/swiftcurrentdoc
Twitter: @SC_DocFilm

A very good movie about pedophilia on little boys who were abused by their hockey coach is “Swift Current” – starring the real victims themselves, Sheldon Kennedy et al — with actual documentary footage – directed by 3-time Academy Award winner Mark Jonathan Harris. The victims tell their own story and they are more powerful and more authentic than Spotlight and its Hollywood A-listers actors (who were paid millions of dollars to shift focus more on the journalists and the victims are secondary). “Swift Current” contains real videos, real photos of the victims who tried to commit suicide, real court room scenes and real photos of the serial abuser who was caught and jailed. Sheldon Kennedy now has a charitable foundation that helps victims of pedophilia and pederasty and rape. Here are several comments on the movie “Swift Current” (which Spotlight can never claim for itself in its pathetic desperation for an Oscar buzz. Read our Spotlight articles in the list below).

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UNITED STATES
Newsweek

BY PAUL J. HANLY JR. ON 12/30/15

As we head into 2016 and the official start of the awards season, “Spotlight,” which tells the true tale of a Pulitzer Prize–winning team of Boston Globe reporters that unravels the Catholic Church’s decades-long attempt to cover up the sexual misdeeds of its clergy, emerges as a clear favorite.

The film reveals the shame, embarrassment and fear of sex abuse victims as they weigh whether to risk it all by outing one of the world’s most powerful institutions.

Frustratingly, few moviegoers will realize that the story is actually much bigger than what the film depicts in two key ways. The most mind-blowing revelations, in fact, may still be enshrouded in darkness.

Sexual abuse of children by those associated with the Church is by no means confined to the abbeys of Boston. In 2014, the Vatican released a report revealing that 848 priests, globally, had been defrocked for raping or molesting children over the past decade, and 2,572 other offending priests had been given lesser sanctions.

According to news reports, between 2004 and 2013, the U.S. Catholic Church has spent almost $3 billion in costs related to widespread abuse allegations, including settlements and attorneys’ fees, therapy for victims and support for offenders.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

AAP

An Australian bishop accused of protecting himself and the Catholic Church at the child abuse royal commission has retired.

The Pope has accepted Brisbane auxiliary bishop Brian Finnigan’s resignation upon his reaching the retirement age, the Vatican’s press office has announced.

Bishop Finnigan on Thursday said he submitted his resignation to Pope Francis in 2013 and was grateful it had now come to pass.

“At 77 years of age, energy levels and mental agility have diminished,” he said in a letter to fellow clergy in the Brisbane archdiocese.

“In a pastoral career spanning more than 40 years, there have been disappointments and challenges.

“From those whom I may have disappointed, I seek forgiveness.”

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WASHINGTON
KOMO

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 30TH 2015

TACOMA, Wash. – A 20-year-old middle school employee and Youth for Christ volunteer has been arrested for investigation of third-degree child rape after admitting to a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old girl, according to court documents.

The suspect, identified as Adam Z. Parks, pleaded not guilty to all four counts of third degree child rape during his arraignment Wednesday in Pierce County Superior Court. He was ordered held on $100,000 bail.

According to the case file, Parks met the girl years earlier and got to know her through his role as a volunteer with the Youth for Christ program at Gray Middle School in Tacoma, where he also worked as a lunchroom supervisor.

Parks began counseling and texting the girl after a close relative of hers died, and the relationship became sexual shortly afterward, court documents show.

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TEXAS
KTXS

By Jamie Burch, News Director, jburch@ktxs.com
POSTED: Dec 30 2015

ANSON, Texas –
A former youth pastor in Anson is out of jail and out of a job after police say he had an inappropriate relationship with an underage girl in his youth group.

26 year old Callan Rice is charged with indecency with a child, a second degree felony.

Police say Rice was recently fired by Bethel Assembly in Anson after he was caught meeting privately with the girl who is under the age of 17.

According to incident report, Rice had sexual contact with the girl and has confessed to the crime.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 30 December 2015 (VIS) – The Holy Father has:

– appointed Fr. Jose Fortunato Alvarez Valdez as bishop of Gomez Palacio (area 27,405, population 585,000, Catholics 468,000, priests 51, religious 76) Mexico. The bishop-elect was born in Mexicali, Mexico in 1967 and was ordained a priest in 1998. He holds a degree in theology and patristic sciences from the Agostinian Patristic Institute, Rome, and has served in a number of pastoral roles in the diocese of Mexicali, including diocesan coordinator of vocational pastoral ministry, vicar of the cathedral, chancellor, parish priest and dean. He is currently pastor of the Nuestra Senora del Perpetuo Socorro, defender of the bond of the diocesan tribunal, and member of the presbyteral college, the college of consultors and the economic board.

– accepted the resignation from the office of auxiliary of the archdiocese of Brisbane, Australia presented by Bishop Brian Finnegan upon reaching the age limit.

– appointed Fr. Aparecido Donizete de Souza as auxiliary of Porto Alegre (area 13,530, population 3,395,000, Catholics 2,527,000, priests 362, permanent deacons 58, religious 1,487), Brazil. The bishop-elect was born in Primeiro de Maio, Brazil in 1964 and was ordained a priest in 1992. He holds a licentiate in spirituality from the “Teresianum” Pontifical Institute of Spirituality and has served as parish in a number of pastoral roles in the diocese of Cornelio Procopio, Brazil, including parish vicar of the cathedral, parish priest, rector of the “Menino Deus” seminary and of the “Sao Jose” major seminary. He is currently pastor of the “Sao Francisco de Assis” parish, spiritual director of the seminary and diocesan assessor for liturgical pastoral ministry.

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UNITED STATES
Tablet

By Mark Oppenheimer

On Friday, my article about the controversial ex-rabbi Marc Gafni was posted online at The New York Times website; it ran in the print edition on Saturday, December 26. Since then, it has received a tremendous amount of attention, and generated some very significant questions, many of them having to do with who supported Gafni, and when, and why.

As readers of that first piece know, Gafni, 55, who worked as a rabbi in both the Orthodox and Renewal wings of Judaism, long ago admitted that when he was 19 and 20 he had repeated sexual encounters, over a nine-month period, with a girl who was 13 and then 14 years old. In 1986, Gafni was accused of twice groping 16-year-old Judy Mitzner, a student involved with his Jewish outreach program, once getting into bed with her completely naked. (She was staying with him and his wife during a rough period at home.) He once told a reporter that the first girl was “14 going on 35” and that they were “in love”; the second girl was, he told me, “highly initiatory.”

Gafni’s also been accused of plagiarism, of emotionally abusive relationships with women at his Jewish Renewal community in Israel (which imploded after his multiple liaisons), and, in 2011, of sleeping with a woman he was counseling, which led her employer, a book publisher, to cancel Gafni’s book contract. (At the time, the employer, publisher Tami Simon, gave a statement to a blogger about why she was dropping Gafni, and the woman who alleged the affair recently confirmed the story to me. Speaking with me, Gafni denied that the relationship was a breach of ethics because, he said, he was not counseling the woman.)

Yet Gafni has continually found students and financial backers. The question is, who are they? And what is their reasoning?

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KANSAS
KVTV
Posted: Dec 29, 2015

By Dave Eckert, Assignment Editor
By DeAnn Smith, Digital Content Manager
By Angie Ricono, Investigative Reporter

OVERLAND PARK, KS (KCTV) –
Charges have been dropped against a deaf church leader who is accused of molesting a church goer with disabilities.

Prosecutors are refusing to discuss the decision involving a convicted sex offender.

Rodney Sexton had been charged in Johnson County with aggravated sexual battery. Sexton was initially accused of molesting a 31-year-old man who is deaf and functions at the level of an 8-year-old child.

On Tuesday, Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe dropped the charges against Sexton. This was just a day after Sexton made his first court appearance.

The mother of the 31-year old is furious at Howe and his office.

“Disappointed is way past the word,” the woman said. “We want action. We want somebody to take action.”

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CONNECTICUT
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford

The Archdiocese of Hartford, having conducted an extensive and thorough investigation of the child sexual abuse allegation involving Father Murasso, has determined that the allegation was not substantiated. That being the case, Father Murasso is being returned to ministry here with all his priestly faculties having been restored. That means Father once again has the ability to celebrate the Eucharist and other Sacraments, as well as attend to the temporal and pastoral needs of the Catholic Church and its parishioners.

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CONNECTICUT
New Haven Register

By Ed Stannard, New Haven Register
POSTED: 12/29/15

A Roman Catholic priest who was accused of child sexual abuse as director of the St. Francis Home for Children in New Haven in the 1990s has been cleared of the charge by the Archdiocese of Hartford.

The Rev. Jeremiah N. Murasso has returned to his parishes of Blessed Sacrament Church and the Shrine of St. Anne in Waterbury. He was director of the St. Francis orphanage, also known as Highland Heights, from 1992 to 1995. The home closed in 2012 after 160 years.

Murasso also served at St. Joseph Church in New Haven from 1982 to 1985 and at St. Vincent de Paul Church in East Haven from 1985 to 1989. While director of the St. Francis Home, Murasso was pastor of St. Vincent Ferrer Church in Naugatuck.

A statement by the archdiocese posted this month said it had “conducted an extensive and thorough investigation of the child sexual abuse allegation involving Father Murasso” and “determined that the allegation was not substantiated.”

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CONNECTICUT
Hartford Courant

Associated Press

NEW HAVEN — A Catholic priest accused of sexually abusing children while serving as director of a New Haven orphanage in the 1990s has been cleared of all charges by the Archdiocese of Hartford.

The New Haven Register reports (http://bit.ly/1Sm1PD2 ) the Rev. Jeremiah Murasso has returned to his parishes in Waterbury after the archdiocese “conducted an extensive and thorough investigation” into the allegations of abuse at the St. Francis Home for Children.

A statement released by the archdiocese says the investigation found that the allegations against Murasso were not substantiated.

Murasso ran the orphanage, also known as Highland Heights, from 1992 to 1995 while he was pastor of St. Vincent Ferrer Church in Naugatuck. The home closed in 2012 after 160 years of service.

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INDIANA
The Republic

Dennis McCarty editorial@therepublic.com
Published: 12/29/15

A few Fridays ago, my better half, Kate, and I decided to take in a movie. Our choice was “Spotlight,” the docudrama about newspaper coverage of the Boston Archdiocese sex abuse scandal.

This topic hits close to home with me. I’ve been on the receiving end. It’s not something I talk about a lot, but from about ages 8 to 11 I was a sexually abused child. More than 50 years have passed, but it still bites me from time to time.

I’m a movie buff, though. “Spotlight” got phenomenal reviews, and everyone said the abuse part was tastefully and delicately handled. So off we went, figuring everything would be just fine.

Which it was, mostly. I’m definitely glad I saw the movie. But about halfway through, I started to tear up. Then the part that really got to me was when the reporters began to realize just how many Boston children had been sexually abused: hundreds.

That’s when I burst out crying.

Yep. Crying.

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MALAWI
Malawi 24

Fresh investigations into Malawi’s Kalibu Academy in Chileka, Blantyre that Malawi24 has seen have revealed that current Headmaster, Paisley Mavutula is a leading mastermind behind different abuses faced by employees and students at “Christian” run Kalibu Academy.

Kalibu, which currently has 800 students in secondary school – almost 600 of them boarders – professes on its website to have “the spirit of excellence that reaches the heavens,” but what our investigation at Malawi24 has uncovered is quite the opposite.

A recently released year-long inquiry into verbal, physical and homosexual misconduct done to employees and alumni of the boarding school identified Headmaster Paisley Mavutula and school founder Michael Thomas Howard as the main perpetrators.

Abuse at Kalibu dates back to days before ground was even broken on the first building at the school and continues into the current year, 2015.

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AUSTRALIA
Bendigo Advertiser

By Erin Handley
Dec. 30, 2015

A Castlemaine woman was left deflated after a local Catholic church removed ribbons she had strung to symbolise support for victims of child sexual abuse.

Melinda Webster said she tied ribbons in pink, green, red and purple, with tags explaining their meaning, to the front entrance at St Mary’s Catholic Parish in Castlemaine last week, only to return two hours later and find them gone.

Ms Webster said she was “not surprised, but disappointed” by the ribbons being removed from the church so swiftly.

Two years ago, at the age of 50, her own husband disclosed his own history of abuse in an interstate boarding school.

Father Wahid Riad of St Mary’s in Castlemaine said he had not removed the ribbons, although some of his parishioners had mentioned them to him and they may have taken them down.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

Nick Swedberg and Erin Gallagher
Daily Southtown

Bishop Joseph Imesch spent nearly three decades as a dedicated shepherd to the members of the Joliet Diocese.

In that time, he forged deep bonds of friendship, and fought hard for major changes to the church he believed were due.

But his 27-year tenure was not without its black marks. Many in and outside the church criticized his involvement in the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal, saying he sheltered accused priests by shuffling them among parishes.

As mourners recalled both the good and the bad, Imesch’s body was laid to rest Tuesday in Resurrection Cemetery in Romeoville. The 84-year-old had retired as third bishop of the Joliet Diocese in 2006, but remained an emeritus bishop until his death last week.

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PHILIPPINES
Sojourners

By David Gibson, Religion News Service 12-29-2015

Hoverboards earned a reputation as maybe the most dangerous gift for kids this holiday season, given their penchant for catching fire and inducing nasty spills.

But they’re apparently also perilous for Catholic priests who get it into their heads it might be a good idea to use one during Christmas Eve Mass — while the congregants are shooting video on their smartphones.

The priest in this case is in the Philippines and has not been named, even though the video has gone viral.

But the Diocese of San Pablo knows who he is and on Tuesday (Dec. 29) announced that the pastor “was wrong” and has been suspended because the Mass “is the church’s highest form of worship. Consequently, it is not a personal celebration where one can capriciously introduce something to get the attention of the people.”

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KENTUCKY
WKYT

CAMPTON, Ky. (WKYT) – A preliminary hearing was held on Tuesday for a Powell County pastor facing two counts of sexual abuse. The hearing was held in Wolfe County since there is not any court in Powell County this week.

After listening to testimony from Powell County Sheriff’s Deputy Robert Matthews the judge did decide there is enough evidence to send the case to the grand jury.

During his testimony, Deputy Matthews explained what led to his arrest of, Steve Williams, the pastor of Bowen First Church of God.

Matthews explained how the 11-year-old alleged victim told investigators her pastor was driving her and her sisters to West Virginia for a white water rafting trip back in August.

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AUSTRALIA
The Tablet (UK)

29 December 2015 | by Mark Brolly

Every case heard by Australia’s Royal Commission into child sexual abuse is uncovering ineptitude, maladministration, cover-ups and corrupt practices, according to the Church’s Truth, Justice and Healing Council head. Francis Sullivan described unprecedented and “almost palpable anger” at the recent hearing into abuse at Catholic parishes and institutions in the Victorian Goldfields city of Ballarat.

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ILLINOIS
Patch

By SCOTT VIAU (Patch Staff)
December 29, 2015

OLIET, IL — With the burial of deceased Bishop Joseph Imesch Tuesday, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests is deploring the full honors that are being bestowed on him.

Geneva SNAP leader Kate Bochte said in a statement that the honors are an injustice to the sexual abuse victims.

“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,” Bochte said in a statement.

According to the Joliet Diocese, Imesch’s “tenacity” gained him the respect of fellow bishops.

“He diligently attempted to have a pastoral letter on women approved by the Conference,” the Diocese said in a release on its website. “Though he was unsuccessful, he exemplified perseverance and great courage.”

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UNITED STATES
Crux

December 29, 2015

Q | Dear OMG,

If one were a secretary to a bishop, did all his typing and filing and office work, and knew about sexually abusive priests, moving them around, filed the complaints, etc., would one have the moral obligation to do something or to keep silent to protect the bishop and one’s job?

— Wondering in Wichita

A | Dear Wondering,

The answer here is very clear. Any person who has knowledge of a priest (or a teacher or a coach or any other adult) sexually abusing children (or physically abusing them) is bound by morality – and, it turns out, by civil law – to report that person to the authorities. There is no moral argument for protecting the bishop, and only a selfish one for protecting one’s own job.

During his visit to Philadelphia earlier this year, Pope Francis vociferously condemned the perpetrators of the rampant sex abuse crisis and those who abetted the cover-ups, declaring that “I commit myself to the zealous watchfulness of the Church to protect minors, and I promise that all those responsible will be held accountable.”

There are those who claim that sex abuse allegations ought still to be secret, or private, in keeping with canon law – but in 2002, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops enacted the Charter for Protection of Children and Young People, which requires any diocese faced with allegations of sex abuse to report those allegations to the police.

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NEW MEXICO
National Catholic Reporter

Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola | Dec. 29, 2015

GALLUP, N.M.

After recently beginning its third year in bankruptcy court, racking up more than $3.2 million in bankruptcy costs and participating in three court-ordered mediations, the Gallup diocese is on the verge of brokering a settlement with clergy sex abuse claimants.

News of that impending settlement was confirmed by James Stang, legal counsel for the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors, which represents abuse claimants, in brief statements made to U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David Thuma in Albuquerque Dec. 16.

No details of the financial settlement were provided during the hearing, which lasted less than 15 minutes. The nonmonetary terms of the settlement are currently being negotiated, Stang explained. No timetable was given as to when details are expected to be finalized.

Reaching an agreement with the abuse claimants is a major step toward achieving a consensual plan of reorganization for the diocese, which filed its Chapter 11 petition on Nov. 12, 2013. At the time of the filing, the diocese was facing 13 clergy sex abuse lawsuits in Arizona and an additional number of out-of-court abuse claims.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

A Jehovah’s Witness strangled girls for sexual gratification – but his crimes were “swept under the carpet” for more than two decades

By Agency Reporter 29 Dec 2015

A Jehovah’s Witness who strangled young girls for sexual gratification has finally been jailed after his crimes were covered up by the congregation at his church for more than two decades.

Ian Pheasey, 54, went unpunished for more than 25 years after his activities were “swept under the rug” by the church he attended.

A court heard that Pheasey first attacked a seven-year-old girl while he was working as a volunteer librarian at the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses, in Warwick, in the 1990s.

Pheasey was eventually caught after another of his victims went to the police after learning Pheasey was working at a hospice. Pheasey was arrested in October 2014 and charged with offences between 1989 and 1994.

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ILLINOIS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2015

Statement by Kate Bochte, SNAP leader, Geneva IL 630-768-1860, keight@sbcglobal.net

Today, a deceased Joliet Catholic bishop will apparently be buried with “full honors” while dozens of church officials and hundreds of church members look on and quietly tolerate this hurtful injustice.

[Chicago Tribune]

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, Imesch 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. At best, he treated victims with disdain. At worst, he treated them as enemies.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 29 December 2015 (VIS) – The Holy Father has appointed:

– erected the new diocese of Barisal (area 20,708, population 15,183,927, Catholics 29,685, priests 19, religious 33), Bangladesh, with territory from the diocese of Chittagong, making it a suffragan of the metropolitan see of Dhaka, Bangladesh.

– appointed Bishop Subroto Lawrence Howlader, C.S.C., auxiliary of Chittagong, as first bishop of the diocese of Barisal, Bangladesh.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

December 29, 2015

Graham Downie

Unless and until there is proof of collusion or involvement by Cardinal George Pell, or he admits any guilt, he must be presumed innocent.

With a couple of friends on December 19, I declared I wanted to write in defence of Cardinal George Pell, only to be trumped two days later by Amanda Vanstone writing in Fairfax Media under the same heading.

I do not hold her allegiance to the Catholic Church nor do I find Pell a particularly likeable person. He represents an almost extreme version of his church’s teaching, particularly with the subjugation of women, the treatment of people who have been divorced, and to homosexuals.

Nevertheless, Pell has been effectively accused of colluding with known paedophiles though he has for at least 13 years denied so doing. Allegations made this year to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse were given wide media coverage in 1993 when former priest Gerald Ridsdale was first charged with the sexual abuse of numerous children.

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MINNESOTA
The Legal Examiner

Posted by Mike Bryant
August 27, 2015

I have written a couple of times about statements that have been made by St. John’s Abbot John Klassen. Through out most of the responses has been the ongoing mantra that:

* All the names have been disclosed
* No one accused is still active
* All of the accusations are old

This past week, Rev. Thomas Andert was removed as Prior at St. John’s Abbey. As second in charge behind the Abbot his job was described on the Abbey website as:

Father Prior Tom Andert OSB is entrusted with the general monastic oversight of Saint Raphael Hall. The director is assisted by an advisory committee of the abbey, and several monks, including Abbot John, take turns celebrating Mass in the chapel.

Will the investigation into this removal stand up to the mantra? Only if the Abbey can show there were no prior credible allegations. Keep in mind what was found in the Archdioceses files:

“Normally, common sense would dictate that we withhold information from the public………”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Legal Intelligencer

Max Mitchell, The Legal Intelligencer
December 29, 2015

The Philadelphia district attorney has asked for reconsideration of an appellate court’s recent decision to vacate the conviction of Monsignor William J. Lynn, the first Catholic Church administrative official convicted of endangering the welfare of children abused by other priests.

District Attorney R. Seth Williams announced Monday that he filed an application to have a nine-member en banc panel of the Superior Court hear reargument of numerous issues on appeal in the case.

Although Lynn, who had served as secretary for clergy for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, had been convicted under an earlier version of Pennsylvania’s law criminalizing endangerment of the welfare of children, a split three-judge panel of the Superior Court overturned that conviction Dec. 22. Along with reversing Lynn’s sentence of three to six years’ incarceration, the ruling in Commonwealth v. Lynn remanded Lynn’s case for a new trial.

The majority opinion, written by Judge John T. Bender, had said the trial court had admitted a “high volume of unfairly prejudicial other-acts evidence.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
WPVI

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) — Philadelphia’s district attorney wants an appeals court to take another look at the case of a Roman Catholic Church official whose conviction over his handling of sex-abuse cases was overturned last week.

Monsignor William Lynn has been imprisoned intermittently since his 2012 trial. By a vote of 2 to 1, a three-member Superior Court panel overturned his conviction ordering a new trial.

It decided Lynn’s trial judge allowed too much evidence concerning prior bad acts or cover ups protecting abusive priests from a time before Lynn had any actual authority to supervise priests in the 1990s.

The appellant found the sheer volume of those prior bad acts could have unfairly prejudiced jurors against Lynn.

But the DA’s office is now asking the entire Superior Court to hear its arguments, saying the prior bad acts were brought in so jurors could understand the ongoing pattern of how the church dealt with some abusive priests.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Newsworks

BY KATIE COLANERI

The attorney for Monsignor William Lynn — the first Roman Catholic Church official in the country to be convicted for mishandling allegations of clergy sex abuse — is hitting “pause” on his plans to seek Lynn’s early release.

The Philadelphia district attorney’s office is asking the state appellate court that last week overturned Lynn’s conviction to reconsider that decision.

At a news conference Monday, District Attorney Seth Williams said his priority is making sure the landmark conviction remains in place.

“If necessary we will … have another trial,” Williams said. “But we hope it doesn’t get to that.

“We’d like to spare the victim from having to come back to court and all of the witnesses from having to testify and be revictimized by having to share such personal stories,” he said.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CNN

By Tal Trachtman Alroy, CNN
Mon December 28, 2015

(CNN)The Philadelphia District Attorney said Monday his office will use every resource to ensure that Monsignor William Lynn remains in prison for his involvement in a sexual abuse scandal that rocked the Catholic Church in Philadelphia.

Seth Williams, the city’s district attorney, said his office filed a petition asking a state appellate court to reconsider its December 22 decision to overturn Lynn’s conviction. Lynn, once a high-ranking Roman Catholic Church official, was convicted on child endangerment charges in 2012. Lynn is in Waymart prison in northeast Pennsylvania, where he has served 25 months on and off.

A three-judge panel of the Superior Court reversed the verdict, which had marked the first time U.S. prosecutors charged a senior church official for failing to stop priests who committed abuses against children. It was the second time the conviction was overturned by the Superior Court.

Williams is seeking a decision on the appeal by the full Superior Court.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

Last week, a panel of three state Superior Court judges overturned the conviction of Msgr. William J. Lynn and ordered a new trial for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s former secretary for clergy.

But Lynn isn’t getting out of jail anytime soon. For at least the next month, he’ll continue to work as the prison librarian at SCI-Waymart for 19 cents an hour while lawyers back in Philadelphia continue to do battle over his case.

Standing in the way of Lynn’s release is Philadelphia District Attorney R. Seth Williams. At a press conference today, the D.A. announced he was appealing the decision by the panel of judges to the entire state Superior Court. Williams requested an “en banc” re-argument of the case before all nine judges on the appeals court, rather than just a three-judge panel. If he gets turned down, the district attorney pledged, he’ll appeal to the state Supreme Court, where the D.A. has a winning track record.

The Superior Court reversed Lynn’s conviction in 2013 and Lynn got out of jail. The D.A. appealed. The state Supreme Court promptly reversed the reversal and Lynn was sent back to jail at the D.A.’s request.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

December 29, 2015
By Jeremy Roebuck / The Philadelphia Inquirer

PHILADELPHIA — Prosecutors urged a state appellate court on Monday to reconsider its decision to overturn what had been the first conviction nationwide of a Roman Catholic Church official for covering up child sex abuse by priests.

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams asked the Pennsylvania Superior Court for a chance to reargue the case against Monsignor William J. Lynn in front of a full court panel of the nine judges.

His request came a week after a three-judge panel ordered a new trial for Lynn, perpetuating what has been an up-and-down legal fight for the 64-year-old monsignor three years after his conviction on child endangerment charges.

“We will continue to fight to keep Monsignor Lynn in state custody, where he belongs,” Mr. Williams told reporters. “We have to do all that we can — especially when an institution uses institutional power to protect pedophiles.”

Lynn’s lawyer, Thomas A. Bergstrom, said the move by Mr. Williams’ office was not entirely unexpected.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Morning Call

Errin Haines Whack
Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA — Despite losing on appeal twice, Philadelphia’s district attorney said Monday he will continue to fight to keep a Roman Catholic church official who will soon be eligible for parole in prison over his handling of sex-abuse cases.

District Attorney Seth Williams filed an application for the full nine-member state Superior Court to rehear the case against Monsignor William Lynn. Last week, a three-judge panel of the court overturned Lynn’s conviction in a 2-1 decision and awarded him a new trial.

Lynn, 64, was convicted in 2012 of endangering a policeman’s son who said he was sexually assaulted as a boy by two priests and a teacher — including a previously accused priest who had been transferred to the boy’s parish. Lynn has been imprisoned off and on amid a wild legal journey.

He was the first church official ever charged over his handling of abuse complaints.

“My office will continue to use all its resources to ensure that Monsignor Lynn remains in state custody,” Williams said during a news conference at his office, adding that the Superior Court has not yet addressed all 10 issues raised by Lynn in his appeal.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
Concord Monitor

By RAY DUCKLER
Monitor staff
Tuesday, December 29, 2015

David Ouellette, 53, had one correction to make.

Yes, Catholic priests were more than merely respected figures in his community when he was growing up in Rochester. They were placed on a pedestal, revered, almost God-like, right?

“You got most of that right,” Ouellette told me. “The only thing you have wrong is that they weren’t looked at as God-like. In my family, they were God.”

That’s why Ouellette’s parents believed their son was safe during those overnights at the church rectory, alone with a priest named Father Joseph Maguire.

Maguire died in prison 10 years ago, convicted of raping three altar boys in Dover through the 1970s. A few years later, he began molesting Ouellette, 15 at the time.

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UNITED STATES
The Courier-Journal

William F. McMurry December 29, 2015

Aptly named Spotlight, the recently released film focuses on the Boston Globe’s investigation of the decade’s old conspiracy to protect pedophile priests perpetrated by the leaders of the Catholic Church. Those of us who watched a similar story unfold here in Louisville will find the events depicted in this riveting film, all too familiar.

Spotlight takes its name from the newspaper’s elite group of investigative reporters whose apparent autonomy allowed them to pick and choose where the Globe would focus its investigative resources. Enter the Globe’s newly hired editor in chief, Martin Baron. In the film, Baron takes his lead from a Globe op-ed piece written by Eileen McNamara that questioned the large number of sexual abuse lawsuits, all against a single priest.

As the film progresses it becomes increasingly clear that it is Baron’s leadership that motivates what would become a historical investigation, an investigation that would lead to the revelation that the Boston Archdiocese knowingly and willfully shuffled abusive priests from parish to parish within the Boston Archdiocese without warning the parishioners of the imminent threat to their children.

The film also “spotlights” Mitchell Garabedian, an eccentric attorney, who in July 2001 represented 80 adults against the Boston Archdiocese, each claiming he or she was sexually abused as a child. There are problems with Garabedian’s lawsuits, as the legal time for filing them may have expired, resulting in little to be gained for the victims.

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KENTUCKY
WLKY

[with video]

LOUISVILLE, Ky. —Prosecutors said a Louisville pastor once wrote a letter admitting to sexually abusing children, and now they want to use that letter in court.

Allen Lehmann faces charges of sodomy and sexual abuse. The alleged incidents took place between 1993 and 2000.

The 76-year-old Lehmann was a substitute teacher in Valparaiso, Indiana, when the charges were filed last year. He was also a minister at an Assembly of God Church in Louisville.

Lehman’s defense attorney said the letter doesn’t involve the cases in which he is charged, and that it can’t be used as evidence against him.

Prosecutors said it shows how Lehman preyed on children.

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ILLINOIS
Daily Southtown

Nick Swedberg
Daily Southtown

Family members of Joseph Imesch, the longtime bishop of the Joliet Diocese who died last week, remembered him Monday for his warm personality and tireless efforts to help those in need.

Visitation was held from 1 to 8 p.m. Monday at the Cathedral of St. Raymond Nonnatus in Joliet. Imesch died Dec. 22 at the age of 84.

A funeral Mass will be held at 11 a.m. Tuesday at the cathedral, 604 N. Raynor Ave.

Imesch, known for his support of women and gay rights in the church, spent 27 years as the third bishop with the Joliet Diocese before retiring in 2006.

But his tenure was embroiled in controversy toward its end because of his actions to downplay the Catholic Church’s scandal involving sexually abusive priests. Imesch faced allegations that he failed to report to police the sexual abuse of children by priests and transferred abusive priests to new parishes rather than removing them from ministry after they received mental health care.

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CALIFORNIA
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on December 28, 2015

On the heels of proposed federal legislation and a CA ballot initiative to eliminate statutes of limitations for sex crimes, California State Sen. Connie M. Leyva (D-Chino) is “seeking to introduce a bill in January that would eliminate the statute of limitations for rape and other related crimes.”

According to the Vallejo Times-Herald:

In an interview, Leyva cited U.S. Department of Justice numbers on rape convictions, calling the statistics “shocking.” “Only two in 100 rapists would actually be convicted and do any kind of time in prison,” Leyva said, when reached by phone.

“That was shocking to me. I also don’t feel like the numbers are getting any better.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
ABC News

By ERRIN HAINES WHACK, ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
PHILADELPHIA — Dec 28, 2015

Despite losing on appeal twice, Philadelphia’s district attorney said Monday he will continue to fight to keep a Roman Catholic church official who will soon be eligible for parole in prison over his handling of sex-abuse cases.

District Attorney Seth Williams filed an application for the full nine-member state Superior Court to rehear the case against Monsignor William Lynn. Last week, a three-judge panel of the court overturned Lynn’s conviction in a 2-1 decision and awarded him a new trial.

Lynn, 64, was convicted in 2012 of endangering a policeman’s son who said he was sexually assaulted as a boy by two priests and a teacher — including a previously accused priest who had been transferred to the boy’s parish. Lynn has been imprisoned off and on amid a wild legal journey.

He was the first church official ever charged over his handling of abuse complaints.

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UNITED STATES
The Nation

December 29, 2015

In 2003, the Globe Spotlight team, an investigative unit of Boston Globe won the journalism’s most distinguished prize – the Pulitzer Prize for its fearless and wide-ranging coverage of child abuse and molestation by Catholic priests and the systemic cover-up by Church. The series of investigative reporting of horrific crime penetrated clandestineness and silence behind the criminality, stimulated regional and global reaction and created an atmosphere for massive changes within the Church by telling the truth.

The seasoned director, writer and actor Tom McCarthy’s new directorial work Spotlight follows the true story of Boston Globe’s investigative journalistic team’s audacious reportage of gigantic sexual scandal, shielded by Catholic Church during a three–decade spree. The powerful journalistic docudrama concentrates on the approach of who done it, exposing the huge scale machination, probing the elements of power and sovereignty, exploitation and secrecy. Not only that, it also explores psychology of victimhood – the emotional trauma and desolation victims had to endure throughout their life.

It all begins in 2001 when new editor-in-chief Marty Baron, played by Liev Schreiber, recruits the Spotlight crew to look into allegations of child abuse by one local pedophile priest. The Spotlight squad – Michael Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams) and Matt Carroll (Brian d’Arcy James) led by editor Walter Robinson (Michael Keaton) – started probing the issue deeply, soon it becomes evident that disturbing scandal and settlements are actually happening within Catholic Church.

As their investigation progresses from one to few and finally to dozens of egregious cases of molestation and immorality, the courageous reporters struggled to follow the root-cause of out of court settlements, involvement of lawyers and massive corruption plague in the system, as editor Robinson declares:

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, Dec. 28, 2015

Statement by Karen Polesir of Amber, SNAP Philly director (267-992-9463, karenpolesir@yahoo.com)

We’re grateful that Philly prosecutors continue defending the conviction of a high ranking Catholic official who helped conceal clergy sex crimes. We hope Seth Williams prevails in his latest move to hold Msgr. William Lynn responsible for his devious and hurtful cover ups.

[Philly.com]

The potential deterrence effect of this case – encouraging whistleblowing and discouraging cover ups in child sex cases – cannot be overstated. Nor can the case’s healing impact – on the thousands of victims of the 136 publicly accused Philly predator priests and the dozens of other predators whose identities remain hidden – be overstated.

It’s tragic that of the hundreds of current and former Philly Catholic officials who ignored or hid known and suspected child sex crimes, only one can apparently be prosecuted for this heinous wrongdoing. But we are grateful that Philly’s DA persists in his effort to hold that one cleric accountable. We wish prosecutors in other jurisdictions would show similar diligence.

A judge claims that evidence of widespread corruption by archdiocesan staff in child sex cases is prejudicial to Msgr. Lynn. Our view is that when an institution is riddled with deception, callousness and recklessness, such evidence is crucial and is the only way to expose and prevent more corruption.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
PhillyVoice

BY JOHN KOPP
PhillyVoice Staff

District Attorney Seth Williams is filing paperwork to reargue the case against Monsignor William Lynn, a convicted Catholic priest who was awarded a new trial last week by a Pennsylvania appeals court.

Williams is expected to formally announce Monday his response to the Pennsylvania Superior Court’s decision, which has ruled Lynn did not receive a fair trial when he was convicted of mishandling reports of child sex crimes. The court ruled the trial judge allowed jurors to hear too much evidence about the wrongdoing of priests who had abused children.

Lynn once oversaw the work of 800 priests in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia as secretary of the clergy. He was sentenced in 2012 to three to six years in prison for failing to supervise a priest accused of sexual misconduct who later sexually assaulted a 10-year-old boy.

At the time of his conviction, Lynn was the highest-ranking Catholic priest to face charges for covering up abuse by priests. His trial refocused attention on a sex abuse scandal that roiled the faithful across the United States and undermined the church’s moral authority around the world.

Victims groups decried the court’s decision, saying Lynn was a key part of a Catholic hierarchy that put the careers of priests above the safety of children.

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on December 28, 2015

Felicia Friesema is teaching me to live.

Felicia is the wife of my friend Steve Julian.

Steve and I met a number of years ago—when his former high school principal was exposed as a predator priest. Although Steve was not a victim, the priest and Steve had tangled over an editorial then-student Steve had written for the Damien High School (LaVerne, CA) student paper.

Finding out the priest was a predator only confirmed Steve’s less-than-amicable feelings for the guy. The story of the priest was the inspiration for Steve’s play ALTARCATIONS/What Kind of God?

I loved having lunch with Steve. We’d talk about the play (a little) and then we’d talk about life. Stuff. Each other.

Because we weren’t in each other’s social circles, we had a bit of freedom to bounce problems off each other. We could talk about our fears (his was health, ironically) with candor—without causing the other to worry.

He taught me to be patient. To embrace silence in a conversation. I love his friendship and I love him. And when Steve talked about Felicia, he glowed.

This year was going to be their second Christmas as a married couple. Steve told me how he envisioned a long and happy life together (and his continual Facebook updates were testament to that).

But things have changed.

Very recently, Steve was diagnosed with a stage four Glioblastoma Multiforme. It’s a tumor in his brain that is robbing him of his memory, his motor skills, and his words. (For those of you who know Steve as the morning host of KPCC’s Morning Edition, you know how tragic this is).

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WASHINGTON (DC)
JTA

By Uriel Heilman
December 28, 2015

WASHINGTON (JTA) – Though it’s been more than a year since Rabbi Barry Freundel was hauled away in handcuffs for installing secret cameras at his synagogue’s mikvah, his crime still casts a shadow over his longtime Orthodox congregation, Kesher Israel.

Three civil lawsuits are pending against Kesher by women who presumably used the ritual bath adjacent to his Washington synagogue and were filmed by the rabbi while undressing (the women are identified as Jane Does in the lawsuits). The congregation, which is struggling financially, has yet to begin a search for Freundel’s permanent replacement. And many congregants are still grappling with a range of complicated feelings related to the betrayal by their rabbinic leader.

“It’s like the person you put on a pedestal urinated on you,” said one longtime congregant who asked not to be named. “I don’t think the effects are done. These effects go through the generations.”

Despite Kesher’s challenges, many community members and leaders say the congregation turned a corner with Freundel’s sentencing in May to 6 1/2 years in prison – 45 days for each of the 52 voyeurism counts.

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