ABUSE TRACKER

ARKANSAS
Arkansas Matters

NEWPORT, Ark. – A former chaplain for the Arkansas Department of Correction has been charged with 50 counts of Sexual Assault in the Third Degree.

Kenneth L. Dewitt, 67, of Woodruff and Saline counties is alleged to have committed these crimes from January 2013 through September 2014.

The charges were announced in a news release issued Thursday by Henry Boyce, Third Judicial District Prosecuting Attorney.

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ARKANSAS
The Daily Beast

Suzi Parker

Bill Gothard’s evangelical teachings found fans in Mike Huckabee and the Duggars, but he and another pastor allegedly used by them to take advantage of women.

LITTLE ROCK — Arkansas prison chaplain Kenneth L. Dewitt was charged last week with 50 counts of third-degree sexual assault for allegedly pressuring three inmates at a women’s state prison into providing him sexual favors.

Dewitt based his prison classes on the teachings of Bill Gothard, an influential evangelical minister who is also accused of sexually harassing as many as 30 women under his influence. Gothard has deep ties to former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who opened prisons to his teachings, and the Duggar family, who sent their son Josh to be counseled under a Gothard program after he molested two of his sisters.

Gothard, who received a degree in biblical studies from Wheaton College, became popular in the 1970s with a program called Basic Youth Conflicts, which focused on seven life principles based on the Bible. In 1989, he changed the name of the program, which by now had become a profitable business, to Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP), based in Oak-Brook, Illinois. Over the years, Gothard also created many spin-off ministries and businesses including the Advanced Training Institute (ATI), a popular Christian-based homeschooling program that the Duggars use and promote. In fact, Josh met his wife, Anna, during the Duggars’ annual trip to the ATI conference, and family members appeared at the IBLP conference this year.

The ultra-conservative ministries also include programs on anger control, financial management, prison rehabilitation, and marriage counseling. (Gothard has never married.)

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UNITED STATES
Christian Today

Shianee Mamanglu-Regala 21 December 2015

A group fighting human trafficking is experimenting with ways to help save the hundreds of thousands of children who have been trafficked out of, or into the United States.

The Alliance for Freedom, Restoration and Justice said it has been working with Gateway Church in Dallas and many other churches and organisations to mobilise churches in America and worldwide to do their part to fight the problem and protect children from possible exploitation and slavery.

“It’s a massive problem,” says Ashleigh Chapman, president and chief executive officer of the alliance in Dallas, Texas. “The FBI and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children pegs the number [of victims] at 300,000 children [in America alone].”

“We are deeply concerned that many are being trafficked in this nation. Many are being raped for profit every night. It’s pornography, selling children online through the dark web. It is prostitution of children on the streets. It’s a horrible thing,” she was quoted by Newsmax as saying.

Chapman said the alliance has created the Engage Together Church Teaching Series, an eight-session series to equip churches with the knowledge, resources and strategies they will need to combat sex trafficking and protect the vulnerable in their communities.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

The Catholic archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, has strongly defended the 2009 Murphy report on the handling of clerical child sexual abuse in the archdiocese, while praising the work of the late bishop Dermot O’Mahony, who was criticised in that report.

“I stand over the conclusions of the Murphy report,” he said, pointing to the fact that nobody had challenged it in the courts.

The report found that Bishop O’Mahony’s handling of complaints and suspicions of child sexual abuse was “particularly bad”, adding that he had been aware of such complaints involving 13 priests.

At the bishop’s funeral in Dublin last Tuesday, auxiliary bishop of Dublin Eamonn Walsh said the deceased had been “scapegoated in a society that at the time ignored the principle of equity, audi alteram partem, to hear the other side”.

Bishop Walsh said his late colleague “stood silently before his hearers knowing that to speak would cause greater pain to those who suffered”.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Sarah MacDonald
PUBLISHED
21/12/2015

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has strongly defended the findings of the 2009 Murphy Report into the handling of clerical sexual abuse in the Dublin diocese following criticism of the treatment of Bishop Dermot O’Mahony.

Bishop O’Mahony died on December 10, aged 80.

At the conclusion of his funeral Mass, Bishop Eamonn Walsh said the society in which Bishop O’Mahony lived “ignored the principle of equity – audi alteram partem – hear the other side”.

However, speaking to journalists yesterday after a Mass and rite to open a Door of Mercy at the Pro Cathedral in Dublin, Archbishop Martin said that Bishop O’Mahony had had “ample opportunity during the working of the commission and afterwards” to put his case across.

He said Dr O’Mahony had had “a robust engagement” with Judge Yvonne Murphy’s commission.

He was assisted by “very competent” lawyers, paid for by the archdiocese of Dublin following his refusal to use the diocese’s lawyers.

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CALIFORNIA
The Orange County Register

By THERESA WALKER / STAFF WRITER

Age: 45

Role: Author, speaker and advocate for victims of sexual abuse; western regional director for Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

Bio: Victimized by her high school choir director in the late 1980s, when she was a teenager, Casteix emerged in 2003 as an outspoken critic of the Catholic Church and its handling of child sex abuse cases. In 2005, she won a $1.6-million settlement from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange. Since then, she’s continued to advocate on behalf of abuse victims around the world. She lives in Newport Beach.

Why she’s an influencer: In August, Casteix published her book, “The Well-Armored Child: A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Sexual Abuse.” Earlier, she gave a TEDx talk on responsibility and empowerment and, in June, she was named an Ambassador of Peace by the Violence Prevention Coalition of Orange County. In September, during Pope Francis’ visit to the United States, Casteix made several media appearances, calling for transparency from the Vatican in dealing with abuse.

Biggest challenge: Lingering reluctance to the idea that people who have been sexually abused should speak out and be acknowledged as victims. “There’s a certain closed-mindedness, the idea that these bad things can’t happen here and everything is fine in my home.”

Work philosophy: “It is a series of very, very small vicious battles that are slowly pushing the needle in the direction it needs to go.”

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NORTH CAROLINA
Catholic News Herald

CHARLOTTE — Effective immediately, Oblate Father Albert J. Gondek has been temporarily removed from ministry following an accusation of child sexual abuse alleged to have occurred about five years ago.

Father Gondek, a priest with the Wilmington-Philadelphia Province of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales for nearly 50 years, served as pastor of Our Lady of the Rosary of Church in Lexington for the past 17 years. “In consultation with Bishop Peter J. Jugis,” head of the Diocese of Charlotte, his order placed him on administrative leave from his pastorate “in an abundance of caution” while an investigation of the allegation is conducted, a Dec. 19 statement from the province’s spokesman Father Kevin Nadolski said.

“The allegation was reported to the Oblates from an incarcerated man who claims Fr. Gondek touched him in a sexually inappropriate way about five years ago when he was 18. The man also claimed that this occurred with minors, who have not come forth,” the statement said.

“The Oblates and the (Charlotte) diocese will work with local law authorities to address this matter,” the Oblates’ statement continued.

Holy Rosary parishioners were informed of the allegation Dec. 19 by members of Father Gondek’s order who are staffing the parish this weekend.

During the investigation Father Gondek will not publicly celebrate Mass or the sacraments or exercise ministry. “He will live in an Oblate community, outside of North Carolina, that is not connected to a church property,” the Oblates’ statement said.

The move to place Father Gondek on administrative leave follows the U.S. bishops’ Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, and does not imply guilt or innocence. The charter, adopted in 2002, codifies the Church’s commitment to respond effectively, appropriately and compassionately to cases of abuse of young people by priests, deacons or other Church personnel.

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NORTH CAROLINA
The Dispatch

By Steve Harrison
The Charlotte Observer (TNS)
Published: Sunday, December 20, 2015

A pastor of the Our Lady of the Rosary Church in Lexington has been placed on administrative leave after an allegation that he sexually abused minors about five years ago.

The Rev. Albert J. Gondek will not publicly celebrate Mass or exercise ministry during the investigation, according to a news release from the Diocese of Charlotte.

The diocese said a man who is incarcerated said that Gondek “touched him in a sexually inappropriate way” about five years ago, when the man was 18. The man said that the same contact had also occurred with minors.

The news release said the diocese would work with local law enforcement during the investigation.

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NORTH CAROLINA
Fox 8

LEXINGTON, N.C. — A Lexington priest was placed on administrative leave after being accused of sexually abusing minors about five years ago.

The-Dispatch reported that Rev. Albert J. Gondek of Our Lady of the Rosary Church will not be able to publicly celebrate Mass or exercise ministry during the investigation.

The diocese told The-Dispatch that a man came forward and said Gondek “touched him in a sexually inappropriate way” when he was 18. He also said Gondek had done the same with other minors.

Now, the diocese is working with law enforcement to complete the investigation.

Gondek was the subject of a similar investigation in 2007. The diocese told The-Dispatch that Gondek was reinstated after two investigations found no evidence to back the allegations of sexual misconduct.

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ITALY
Breitbart

An enthusiastically pro-mass migration progressive bishop has been questioned by police over his use of church funds after €430,000 were found to have been misappropriated.

Bishop Domenico Mogavero was questioned by Italian financial police on Thursday this week after he was found to have some €180,000 resting in his personal account. The former diocesan economist Father Franco Caruso is also under investigation, having allegedly spent a further €250,000 of church money.

Some of the money is alleged to have been given to another priest who was suspended and jailed in 2011 for sexually assaulting another man, begging the question whether the corruption in the case may go deeper than merely fiscal.

The Sicilian bishop involved is responsible for the diocese of Mazara Del Vallo and has been active in welcoming migrants to the area. He is also a long standing critic of right-wing politics in the country, and was outspoken against the former right-wing government of Silvio Berlusconi, reports TheLocal.it.

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ITALY
GlobalPost

Agence France-Presse on Dec 20, 2015

An Italian bishop aided and abetted a paedophile priest, telling him to avoid the police and shrugging off warnings the prelate was meeting teenage boys on Grindr, Italian media reported Sunday.

Priest Antonello Tropea, 44, was arrested after a police investigation allegedly uncovered he was using the US-based gay dating app to pick up the teenagers, with whom he sexual relations in his car or his rectory in Calabria.

Bishop Francesco Milito was accused by a prosecutor of failing to investigate widely-spread reports of the priest’s activities and encouraging him to “continue as before”, according to the reports.

Police suspicions were raised after officers found Tropea in a car in a secluded spot with a teenager, and the priest not only said he was a physical education teacher but had suspicious objects in his rucksack.

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CANADA
CBC News

The Law Society of the Northwest Territories is launching an action group to study ways that northern lawyers can respond to recommendations from the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was released last week.

Shannon Cumming, president of the law society said the project will confront the legacy of residential schools in the N.W.T. and find ways for lawyers to contribute to reconciliation.

“As lawyers that have an obligation to act in the public interest we think we need to inform ourselves about things that have happened in our history,” Cumming said.

“This is the start of a conversation among lawyers about how we can work together to help see if we can find some ways to respond to the calls to action from the TRC.”

The report urged the Federation of Canadian Law Societies to ensure that lawyers receive training in cultural competency, “which includes the history and legacy of residential schools.”

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ITALIA
Il Fatto Quotidiano

[A priest has been arrested for pedophilia in Goia Tauro. It appears that Bishop Francesco Milito knew of the priest’s behavior.]

E’ quanto emerge dall’ordinanza di custodia cautelare nei confronti di un sacerdote a cui è stato sequestrato materiale pedopornografico, droga, vibratori e lubrificanti. Il giudice scrive che l’alto prelato della diocesi di Oppido Mamertina-Palmi “pur al corrente delle voci che circolavano non ha adottato nessun provvedimento”. Su Facebook pagina a sostegno del parroco

di Lucio Musolino | 19 dicembre 2015

“Gli chiesi circa 40 euro per un rapporto orale e lui me ne offrì 20. Io accettai”. È agghiacciante il racconto del ragazzo minorenne abusato dal sacerdote della Piana di Gioia Tauro arrestato venerdì 18 dicembre dalla squadra mobile di Reggio Calabria che, durante la perquisizione nella canonica del religioso, ha sequestrato numerosi file con immagini e video pedopornografici, 16 grammi di marijuana, lubrificanti, un vibratore, manette, cerotti afrodisiaci. Ma anche uno strumento per l’aumento delle dimensioni del pene.

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CALIFORNIA
KRON

By Mario Sevilla, KRON
Published: December 20, 2015

PINOLE (KRON) — An East Bay youth pastor has been arrested on suspicion of molesting two girls, and authorities believe there may be more victims, Contra Costa County Sheriff’s officials announced Friday.

Gabriel Lopez, 34, of Pinole, was booked into County Jail in Martinez on Dec. 10 on six felony counts of child molestation following a two month investigation.

According to authorities, Lopez was an “at will” employee at the Valley Bible Church where he worked as a youth pastor from July 2011 to March 2015. The victims, both female juveniles, participated in the church’s student ministry, officials said.

The girls also attended school in the John Swett Unified School District, the Sheriff’s Office said. Lopez worked as a “walk on” volunteer coach for John Swett High’s football team.

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RHODE ISLAND
Boston Globe

By Bella English GLOBE STAFF DECEMBER 14, 2015

Anne Scott entered St. George’s School as a 10th-grader in 1977, just a few years after the prestigious prep school first admitted girls at its campus in Middletown, R.I. She was a good student, and a three-sport athlete, from the suburbs of Wilmington, Del.

But a month after she arrived, a field hockey injury brought her into the orbit of the school’s longtime athletic trainer. He molested and raped her, and threatened to come after her if she told anyone.

For years, terrified and ashamed, she did not. Finally, in her mid-20s, her life a shambles of diagnoses and hospitalizations, she told her parents, who took her to see Eric MacLeish, an attorney who would later gain renown representing abuse victims of Catholic priests. It was his first sexual abuse case.

MacLeish filed a lawsuit seeking $10 million, but when the school pushed back aggressively, Scott backed off — and moved abroad to rebuild her life.

This year, almost 40 years after she first arrived at St. George’s, Anne Scott felt strong enough to pursue her unfinished business with St. George’s.

Reunited with MacLeish, she has sought not money but accountability from the school — an end to what she and her attorney call a pattern of coverup and denial concerning the alleged sexual assaults of multiple students at the school in the 1970s and 1980s. They have urged the school to launch an investigation, to inform alumni of its findings, and to set up a therapy fund for victims.

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RHODE ISLAND
Change.org

[petition]

We, the undersigned, insist that St. George’s School take clear and powerful restorative action to assist the many alumni from the school who were sexually assaulted as students at St. George’s.

Dozens of alumni have come forward since The Boston Globe ran its story, Former student forces R.I. prep school to confront its past, on December 15th, and yet many do not feel safe in recounting their experiences as part of the School’s “independent investigation” or appealing to the victims’ assistance fund set up by the school. This is because the investigation is being undertaken by a law firm that represents the School. The fund is administered by that same firm. And, as a condition for reimbursement from the fund, alumni are required to agree not to tell anyone that St. George’s is paying for their therapy. At the same time, the School gives no assurance that it will uphold the confidentiality of alumni seeking reimbursement.

Many alumni who were abused at SGS by Gibbs and other former employees have contacted us since the Boston Globe story appeared on the front page of Boston Globe on December 15. They have also contacted our lawyers. Almost all of these alumni need clinical help and there are several alumni that are suffering from PTSD, depression or other mental illness and who have expressed thoughts of suicide. SGS has refused to engage in discussions with us on the need to appoint an independent clinician who can provide crisis management counseling, case management and referrals for alumni who require immediate care.

St. George’s “independent” investigation and victims’ assistance fund are inconsistent with the approach taken by virtually all other independent schools in similar situations. When faced with credible allegations of sexual abuse, the majority of those schools have retained independent clinicians to coordinate mental health assistance for alumni and have hired investigators with no prior relationship with the school.

Many alumni who did tell their story to St. George’s prior to December 15th feel devastated and betrayed now that they realize the investigator they had been assured was “independent” is actually the law partner of St. George’s own legal counsel.

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NEW YORK
12 News

Several parishioners in Pearl River are defending a local priest accused of abuse.

Monsignor John O’Keefe, a former priest at St. Margaret of Antioch, is being investigated by the church following multiple abuse allegations.

Two incidents reported by one man, allegedly took place in the Bronx, and in Virginia back in the 1980s.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Thu, Dec 17, 2015

Joe Humphreys

A trust controlling the only Catholic school to be divested to a non-denominational patron insisted on getting “fair” economic value for the arrangement, correspondence released under the Freedom of Information Act shows.

The Edmund Rice Schools Trust (ERST), an entity chaired by Mr Justice Peter Kelly that controls the property interests of the Christian Brothers, refused to surrender a vacant school premises to the Department of Education to promote diversity of patronage until it had secured financial concessions, the documents reveal.

They also show that Mr Justice Kelly clashed with the department over his non-attendance at a meeting between it and the ERST board in February 2013 to discuss the planned divestment.

The department had then sought to obtain the building at Basin Lane, Dublin, for a nominal rent under a 24-year lease to “provide for a level of security of tenure” for the new patrons Educate Together.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
UTV

Fr John McManus, a senior priest who stepped aside from his role after claims of abuse were made against him has returned to the ministry more than three years after being cleared of any wrongdoing.

The allegations against the Portaferry priest were first reported to the Diocese of Down and Connor child safeguarding office in early 2011 but the Public Prosecution Service later decided Fr McManus had no case to answer.

He always denied the allegations but temporarily left the Diocese when police investigations began.

Bishop Noel Treanor welcomed Fr McManus’ return with a statement on Sunday.

He said: “I am pleased to announce the return of Fr John McManus to priestly ministry within the Diocese.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DECEMBER 21, 2015

John Ferguson
Victorian Political Editor
Melbourne

Cardinal George Pell’s chief critic and accuser has failed to declare in his public statement to the child sex abuse royal commission that he indecently assaulted a 12-year-old boy he groomed while performing youth work.

David Ridsdale has emerged as a de facto spokesman for Ballarat victims of Catholic abuse and has accused Cardinal Pell of impropriety during a 1993 telephone conversation discussing Mr Ridsdale’s abuse at the hands of his uncle Gerald.

David Ridsdale, now 49, is the most well-known victim of Gerald Ridsdale, who as a priest in the Ballarat diocese abused hundreds of children, including relentlessly attacking his nephew.

However, David Ridsdale failed to detail in his statement to the commission, the centrepiece of his evidence, how he had groomed the 12-year-old boy in 1984 while working for the YMCA. The Australian has established he used his position as a YMCA activities leader to indecently ­assault the child on two occasions in bushland outside Ballarat, about 100km west of Melbourne.

The evidence against David Ridsdale, then 18, was that he tricked the boy into joining him on a visit to a local video store but drove him to bushland and then exposed himself. David Ridsdale refused to comment to The Australian, which offered through his lawyers to articulate his full story on the assaults.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Live

BY MAURICE FITZMAURICE

A priest who had been facing abuse allegations is back saying Mass nearly three and half years after prosecutors said he had no case to answer.

Fr John McManus celebrated Mass along with Bishop Noel Treanor in Portaferry, Co Down last night and this morning (Sunday Dec 20) in Ballygalget.

The move came after he stepped aside in 2011 after allegations were made against him. However in June 2012, the Public Prosecution Service said there was no case to answer.

Fr McManus, from Portaferry, had always denied any wrong-doing but stepped aside during the investigation.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

A senior priest who was cleared of abuse allegations more than three years ago has returned to his duties.

Fr John McManus, from Portaferry, County Down, stepped aside in March 2011 during an investigation.

In June 2012, the Public Prosecution Service decided he had no case to answer.

Fr McManus told parishioners he was “delighted and privileged” to be joining them in celebrating Mass.

“The last time I celebrated Mass in this Church of Saint Patrick was on 9 March 2011, Ash Wednesday, when I informed you that I had requested administrative leave from ministry for the duration of the necessary inquiries.

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CALIFORNIA
Contra Costa Times

By David DeBolt ddebolt@bayareanewsgroup.com

POSTED: 12/19/2015

HERCULES — A former Valley Bible Church youth pastor and John Swett High School volunteer football coach has been arrested on suspicion of molesting two girls, the Contra Costa Sheriff’s Office said.

After a two-month investigation, Pinole resident Gabriel Lopez was booked into County Jail in Martinez on Dec. 10 on six felony counts of child molestation, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

Authorities said the 34-year-old worked from July 2011 to March 2015 as an “at will” youth pastor at the Hercules-based church, which was founded in 1971. The victims, both female juveniles, participated in the Valley Bible Church Student Ministry, officials said.

They also previously attended school in the John Swett Unified School District, the Sheriff’s Office said. Lopez worked as a volunteer coach for John Swett High’s football team. He is in custody on $520,000 bail.

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ALABAMA
Daily Home

By GARY HANNER, Home staff writer

Two women who were in Brian Pesnell’s youth group at a church in Fultondale 15 years ago are speaking out on how he was inappropriate with them both when they were teenagers.

Pesnell, 40, of Amelia Circle in Moody, was arrested Dec. 16 on charges of child sex abuse. Pesnell turned himself in at the St. Clair County Jail in Pell City. He was later released on a $25,000 bond.

Both women asked to remain anonymous because Pesnell is out of jail and they fear he would harass them. To protect their identity, The Daily Home will refer to one as Riley and the other as Sarah.

Riley’s story

Now 31, Riley said back in 2000 at the age of 16, she attended Gateway Baptist Church in Fultondale and was in Pesnell’s youth group.

“He was inappropriate with me on several occasions. I informed my parents, and they allowed me to stop attending his youth program,” Riley said. “The first time it happened was when we were on a youth trip to Nashville.

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IRELAND
The Journal

FOR THE BETHANY Home survivors, 2015 was a year of continuing to campaign for justice.

They had some good news in that they were included in the commission of investigation into mother and baby homes, but now they fear that all the survivors won’t live to see their experiences recognised.

In 2016, they want to finally see some movement on the investigation, one Bethany Home survivor, Derek Leinster, indicated. The commission has three years to do its work.

Leinster lives in the UK and was brought up in Northern Ireland, but spent some of his childhood at the Bethany home. His mother gave birth to him there and he said he was subject to neglect but there and after being sent to live with another family.

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KENTUCKY
WLKY

By Kimberly Crowe

POWELL COUNTY, Ky. —A Kentucky minister was arrested after being accused of sexually abusing two girls in his church.

According to the Powell County Sheriff’s Office, deputies arrested Steve Williams, 52, Friday afternoon. He is charged with two counts of sexual abuse of a minor.

Officials said the charges stem from allegations that Williams inappropriately touched two girls, one during a field trip and the other at church.

“You have a defendant who has access to all kinds of different children through the church that he pastored,” Chief Deputy Robert Matthews said. “You have to act fact to make sure you don’t have any more victims.”

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KENTUCKY
Lex 18

A school bus driver and youth pastor in Powell County is currently facing shocking allegations. 52-year-old Steve Williams is accused of sexually abusing at least 2 minors.

“That’s just appalling. I hope it’s not true. Everybody is wondering, did he really do this? I hope to God he didn’t,” said Powell County resident Carla Reeves.

Williams was a school bus driver for Powell County Schools and pastor of the Bowen First Church of God for about two and a half years. Powell County deputies say the church has one of the largest youth groups in the area, and Williams was very involved with many children in the congregation.

“It’s somebody we trust with our children. It’s not just some guy at the grocery store that rolls your buggy out and helps you with groceries. He’s driving a bus, he’s taking care of our children,” said Powell County resident Don Reeves.

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FLORIDA
Naples Daily News

By Eve Samples, Treasure Coast Newspapers

There’s a scene in the movie “Spotlight” that Marty Baron gets asked about all the time.

It’s his first day on the job as editor of The Boston Globe. The year is 2001. Baron (played by actor Liev Schreiber) is in a news meeting, and other editors are describing the stories their reporters are chasing.

Baron asks, rather directly, how the newsroom plans to follow up on a column about secrecy surrounding the case against a priest, Rev. John Geoghan, accused of serial sexual abuse of children.

Baron suggests challenging the Catholic Church in court to unseal legal documents that could reveal the role of church leaders.

Silence follows.

“The general response when there’s silence is, ‘Why don’t we talk about it after the meeting?’ ” Baron said, recalling the real-life scene.

During a telephone interview last week, I pressed Baron on this.

How did he have the guts, on Day 1, to challenge the most powerful institution in his new city?

He didn’t see the move as gutsy. It’s the essence of a journalist’s job.

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UNITED STATES
Reading Eagle

By Steven Henshaw

There’s a scene in the critically acclaimed film “Spotlight” in which a Boston Globe reporter is told by a civil servant that he can’t see the file in a court case.

The reporter argues that those documents, which contain Boston archdiocesan records pertaining to the sexual abuse scandal involving a Catholic priest who was the subject of numerous victim lawsuits, were not sealed by a judge.

But the clerk isn’t risking his neck, so the reporter tracks down a judge to intervene.

The judge points out that a lot of sensitive stuff is contained in the file.

“With all due respect,” the reporter replies, “that’s not the point.”

Many of my colleagues can relate to this scene. Custodians of public records sometimes feel it’s their job to block access to reporters on grounds that someone could be hurt or embarrassed if certain information got out.

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NEW YORK
The Journal News

Jane Lerner and Michael D’Onofrio, mcdonofrio@lohud.com December 19, 2015

Rockland authorities are prepared to launch an investigation into a longtime Pearl River priest who has been accused of sexually abusing a child more than 30 years ago.

But no allegations of wrongdoing in Rockland by Monsignor John O’Keefe, a pastor at St. Margaret of Antioch, have been received by authorities, Rockland District Attorney Thomas Zugibe said Saturday.

“At this time there are no allegations of misconduct in Rockland County,” Zugibe said.

His office has been in touch with the Archdiocese of New York, which earlier this week told St. Margaret parishioners that O’Keefe was suspended from the parish where he has served since 2003.

Zugibe urged anyone with information to contact the Orangetown police, whose jurisdiction includes Pearl River.

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UNITED STATES
The Independent (UK)

Rupert Cornwell Washington @IndyVoices

It’s called Spotlight, after the name of The Boston Globe’s in-house investigative reporting unit. It opens in Britain next month. And it may just be the finest film about journalism that’s yet been made.

Let’s start with the place: America’s most Catholic city: Boston, with its dark-panelled clubs, its Brahmin caste with family ties to the very founding of America, its liberal and decent flagship newspaper, its Irish and Italian tribes, and its fanatical embrace of the local sports teams, none more so than the Red Sox. Into this ordered, generations-old universe steps a complete outsider, the Globe’s new editor, Marty Baron. He is a Floridian by birth, Jewish by faith and he hates baseball.

In his very first days on the job in 2001, a Globe column catches Baron’s eye; it’s about paedophile priests, a topic that has frequently cropped up, but which has never been properly investigated. Maybe the paper had never really tried, aware that some 55 per cent of its readers were Roman Catholics, and daunted by a sense that the church measured its existence not by human lifespans but by eternity.

Midway through the film comes a wonderful scene where the outsider meets the ultimate insider. Baron is paying a courtesy visit to Cardinal Bernard Law, Archbishop of Boston, close to the Pope and the Curia in Rome and probably America’s mightiest Catholic churchman of his day. Ah, says Law, the city works best when our two great institutions work in tandem. Baron gently demurs. As he leaves, the cardinal summons an underling to give the editor a present. Baron unwraps it in his car as he leaves. It is the Catholic catechism.

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IRELAND
The Sunday Times

Colin Coyle Published: 20 December 2015

PRIESTS will no longer have to undergo garda vetting unless they work with children or vulnerable people, following lobbying by the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland.

Under legislation introduced in 2012, anyone engaged in “work or activity as a minister or priest, or any other person engaged in the advancement of religious beliefs” had to be vetted by gardai.

In October, Teresa Devlin, chief executive of the board, met officials from the Department of Justice and requested a change to the provisions so that clergy would require garda checking only when “engaged in activities which consist mainly of working with children”.

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VATICAN CITY
Europe Online

Vatican City (dpa) – A top cardinal has pledged to return 150,000 euros (163,000 dollars) after he was exposed in the so-called VatiLeaks 2 affair for having his retirement flat redone at the expense of a Vatican hospital for children.

Tarcisio Bertone, former no. 2 under Pope Benedict XVI, was said to have received 200,000 euros from the Foundation of the Ospedale Bambino Gesu to renovate a 300-square-meter penthouse inside Vatican walls.

“Cardinal Bertone, recognizing that what happened damaged the Bambino Gesu, has decided to help us, devolving the sum of 150,000 euros,” said hospital president Mariella Enoc, as quoted by the ANSA news agency on Saturday.

Her announcement came on the day Bertone‘s successor paid a pre-Christmas visit to the clinic‘s patients and staff. “What I can say is that the issue is being solved, or rather, has been positively solved,” Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin said.

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ROME
Channel News Asia

Rome – An Italian cardinal accused of using charity money to refurbish his luxury apartment has donated 150,000 euros ($163,000) to the Catholic foundation which allegedly footed the bill, media reports said Saturday.

Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s former Secretary of State, a role equivalent to prime minister, has insisted he paid for the 300,000 euros renovation of the flat overlooking Saint Peter’s Square himself.

But a document published in a book this month by Italian investigative journalist Emiliano Fittipaldi purportedly shows he used 200,000 euros from the Bambin Gesu Foundation which collects donations for a children’s hospital in Rome.

“Acknowledging that what has happened has been detrimental to the Bambin Gesu, Cardinal Bertone wanted to meet us half way, donating a sum of 150,000 euros,” the hospital’s president Mariella Enoc said Saturday, according to the reports.

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ROME
BBC News

An Italian cardinal has donated €150,000 (£109,000) to a Catholic charity which allegedly footed the bill for renovations to his luxury flat.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone was donating the money for medical research “to make amends”, said Mariella Enoc, head of the Bambino Gesu Hospital.

Cardinal Bertone said he had paid for the work on his residence himself.

However, documents leaked to reporters earlier this year allege the €200,000 came from the Bambino Gesu Foundation.

The foundation collects donations for a children’s hospital in Rome.

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ROME
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

By FRANCES D’EMILIO Associated Press

ROME • An Italian cardinal whose penthouse apartment was reportedly renovated using funds from a Vatican-owned children’s hospital is making a large donation for medical research in a bid to make amends, the hospital’s president said Saturday.

Bambino Gesu Hospital President Mariella Enoc told reporters that Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone is donating 150,000 euros ($165, 000) for research on orphan diseases.

Bertone has insisted that he paid for the renovations himself. The scandal put him on the defensive, since lavish lifestyles clash with Pope Francis’ insistence that prelates live modestly.

Bertone was formerly the secretary of state, the Vatican’s No. 2 official, under Pope Benedict XVI and for the first months of Francis’ papacy. Now 81, he no longer holds any top Vatican post.

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UNITED STATES
PopeCrimes& Vatican Evils.

Paris Arrow

According to Nuzzi, one of the Vatileaks 2 Italian journalists, (read more here http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2015/11/2-italian-journalists-defy-vatican.html), the average price tag for sainthood comes to about €500,000. “We then have to consider the costs of all the thank you gifts required for the prelates who are invited to festivities and celebrations held at crucial moments in the process, to say a few words about the acts and miracles of the future saint or blessed,” he writes. “Record spending on these causes has reached as high as €750,000.”

Mother Teresa has surpassed that amount more than ten times because she already sent to John Paul II and hoarded in the Vatican Bank more than $100 million dollars that were meant to build a hospital and a university in India, (read more http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2011/07/mother-teresa-was-not-living-saint.html).

But what is more troubling about the half-truth saint Mother Teresa – is what she did may not been so Christian or Christ-like after all. Eyewitness and volunteers said — that while it’s true she helped a lot of people who were dying in the streets of Kolkata, she also did NOT help them become better or to live longer – but rather she helped them to die faster by saying to them: “You are suffering like Christ on the cross. So Jesus must be kissing you.” See specific page here. And she denied any medical help to those who could have been treated and cured even by simple antibiotics. Christopher Hitchens wrote in detail about her practise in his book, The Missionary Position: Mother Theresa in Theory and Practice

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ITALY
Europe Online

Italian journalist Emiliano Fittipaldi speaks to dpa after his Vatican scandal revelations prompt a top cardinal to return 150,000 euros for misusing funds intended for a children‘s hospital.

Vatican City (dpa) – Emiliano Fittipaldi revealed last month how former top cardinal Tarcisio Bertone used a 200,000-euro (217,000-dollar) grant from a Vatican children‘s hospital to renovate his retirement penthouse.

The Italian journalist, who is facing a Vatican criminal trial for publishing a book on the Bertone affair and other financial shenanigans, spoke to dpa after it was announced that the cardinal would return 150,000 euros.

dpa: What do you think about this development?

Fittipaldi: It proves that even in Italy investigative journalism, reporting on real and verified information, can make a difference. Now I hope that was what wrongly taken away from the hospital will be invested in the right way, namely on medical research.

I also hope this will only be the starting point. My book also talks about the hospital‘s secret bank accounts worth 500,000 euros at the IOR [Vatican bank] and at [the Vatican central bank] APSA, invested on multinationals like PepsiCo. This has nothing to do with its mission.

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VATIKAN
Radio Vatikan

[Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski died of a heart attack, the Vatican said.]

Der des Kindesmissbrauchs angeklagte Vatikandiplomat Erzbischof Jozef Wesolowski ist eines natürlichen Todes gestorben. Das hat nun auch ein weiterer medizinischer Befund ergeben, wie der Vatikan am Freitag mitteilte. Die chemisch-toxologische Untersuchung von bei der Autopsie entnommenen Proben wurde von Gerichtsmedizinern durchgeführt, die dazu von der vatikanischen Staatsanwaltes am Tag nach dem Tod des Erzbischofs beauftragt worden waren, hieß es.

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DEUTSCHLAND
NDR

[Abuse: Victims’ association calls for further steps]

Nachdem der Hildesheimer Bischof Norbert Trelle am Freitag zum ersten Mal Versäumnisse bei der Aufarbeitung eines Missbrauchsfalls eingeräumt hat, der im Jahr 2010 gemeldet wurde, fordert der Opferverband Eckiger Tisch weitere Konsequenzen. Die Stellungnahme des Bischofs gehe nicht weit genug, heißt es. Immerhin werde eingeräumt, dass sich das Bistum nicht richtig verhalten hat, sagte Matthias Katsch, der Vorsitzende des Verbands. Er sei allerdings der Meinung, dass jemand Verantwortung für dieses Fehlverhalten übernehmen müsse – etwa durch einen Rücktritt. Außerdem hätte er sich gewünscht, dass sich Bischof Trelle für das Fehlverhalten entschuldigt, so Katsch. Das sei aber nicht der Fall.

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ALABAMA
WKRG

[with video]

A local pastor is accused of sexually abusing teenagers and committing sodomy for at least the past seven years in Washington County.

48-year-old Tommy Joe Newberry has been arrested by the Washington County Sheriff’s Office on counts of sodomy 2nd degree, sexual abuse 1st and 2nd degree, and enticing a child to enter for immoral purposes.

Newberry is a pastor at Red Creek Church of God in Buckatunna, Mississippi.

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ALABAMA
WTVM

[with video]

By Kellie Jones, FOX10 Investigative Producer

WASHINGTON COUNTY, AL (WALA) –
A Washington County pastor has been arrested on child sex abuse charges.

Washington County Sheriff Richard Stringer told FOX10 News Tommy Joe Newberry was taken into custody Wednesday afternoon.

Sheriff Stringer said Newberry was placed under a $36,000 bond Friday.

Investigators say Newberry, who is the pastor of the Red Creek Church of God in Buckatunna, Mississippi, is facing several charges of sexual abuse, sodomy and sexual enticement of a child.

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ALABAMA
AL.com

By Erin Edgemon | eedgemon@al.com
on December 18, 2015

A south Alabama pastor sexually abused at least six underage boys over the course of several years, Washington County Sheriff Richard Stringer said.

Tommy Joe Newberry, 48, of Millry, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with second-degree sodomy, first-degree sexual abuse and second-degree sexual abuse, court records show. Additional charges could be forthcoming.

Newberry is the pastor of Red Creek Church of God, which is near the Alabama/Mississippi state line.

He was released from the Washington County Jail after posting $36,000 bond on Friday.

Stringer said the sexual abuse occurred over the course of several years beginning as early as 2003.

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SCOTLAND
The Press and Journal

18 December 2015 by David Kerr

A former Catholic monk at Fort Augustus Abbey school is to be extradited from Australia to face child sex abuse charges.

The Crown Office has confirmed they haven begun proceedings against Father Denis Chrysostom Alexander.

The final decision on whether he will return to Scotland to face charges will be taken by the Australian authorities.

Last night a spokeswoman for the Crown said: “Crown Counsel have instructed proceedings against Denis Alexander.

“Charges are being finalised with a view to seeking his extradition.”

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

A FORMER Catholic monk who taught at the Fort Augustus Abbey school is set to be extradited from Australia to face charges of child sex abuse.

Victims have long called for Fr Denis Chrysostom Alexander to face trial in Scotland.

He denies the allegations.

Run by Catholic Benedictine monks, Fort Augustus Abbey school in the Highlands closed in 1993.

Allegations of decades of child sexual and physical abuse at the exclusive boarding school were made public in June 2013.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Culture

December 18, 2015

In an exhaustive report for Australia’s Catholic Weekly, Monica Doumit clears up several popular misconceptions about the role of Cardinal George Pell in the sex-abuse crisis, and the cardinal’s responses to a royal investigation commission.

Cardinal Pell did not seek to postpone his appearance before the royal commission, Doumit emphasizes. When he disclosed that a medical condition would prevent him from flying to Australia to testify in person, the cardinal offered to provide his testimony on schedule by a video link. The commission’s chairman declined that offer.

Moreover, it is unlikely that Cardinal Pell’s testimony will offer any dramatic new insights, Doumit writes: “There is sufficient evidence already publicly available which provides us with a very clear and comprehensive picture of the response to the allegations made against the cardinal.”

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NEW YORK
News 12

Local parishioners received letters Friday detailing a sexual abuse investigation into their monsignor.

Monsignor John O’Keefe has led the parish at the Church of St. Margaret of Antioch, but has been on medical leave for a couple of months. He is under investigation by district attorneys in two different states over allegations of abusing a minor.

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NEW YORK
Patch

By ALFRED BRANCH (Patch Staff)
December 18, 2015

Monsignor John O’Keefe, former head of Stepinac High School and the priest at St. Margaret of Antioch Church in Pearl River, has been accused of sex abuse of a minor — 30 years ago.

Timothy Cardinal Dolan wrote the parishioners a letter Wednesday describing the charges and explaining the process.

He said the archdiocese received an allegation that on two occasions more than 30 years ago, O’Keefe had abused a minor. That allegation was shared with the Rockland and Bronx county district attorneys and forwarded to the district attorney in Virginia, where one of the incidents is alleged to have taken place. Their determination was that the allegations were credible, and so the archdiocese has put its policy into effect.

O’Keefe, 70, may not function as a priest until the matter is resolved; the whole matter is being reviewed by professionals and the lay advisory board; and he is in a supervised setting undergoing evaluation and risk assessment, the cardinal said.

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NEW YORK
Daily Voice

PEARL RIVER, N.Y. — Allegations of sex abuse against the well-known monsignor of Church of St. Margaret of Antioch in Pearl River have prompted an investigation by the Rockland district attorney’s office, according to multiple reports.

The New York Archdiocese has removed Monsignor John O’Keefe from practicing, parishioner were told in a letter from Cardinal Timothy Dolan that went out on Friday afternoon. O’Keefe had been out on medical leave.

The case involves alleged incidents with a boy that allegedly occurred in the 1980s at Cardinal Hayes in the Bronx and, that same person claims, on a trip to Virginia, according to News 12.

The allegations have not been substantiated and O’Keefe denies them, Dolan said in the letter.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Michael Owen
SA Bureau Chief
Adelaide

A family that has been battling for 15 years for compensation after their disabled son was ­abused by a South Australian Catholic school volunteer in the 1980s has settled its claim with the church.

Peter Mitchell, the father of the victim, now aged in his 40s, yesterday said the confidential settlement “means a great deal in going towards my son’s care and we can finally start moving on after so many years”.

“The Catholic Church has settled our case after 15 years of battling for compensation for my disabled son’s sexual abuse by a pedophile at their school,” Mr Mitchell said yesterday.

“This showed just how horrific the abuse and failures of the church were at St Ann’s Special School, with 30 other disabled children being abused.

“As a parent, I’ll never be able to fully recover from how this has hurt my son.”

Mr Mitchell said he had launched an online petition two years ago because the church was “refusing to come to the table to negotiate”; it had attracted more than 110,000 signatures.

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AUSTRALIA
Gympie Times

Colin Claridge | 19th Dec 2015

IT’S Christmas time. A time one prays for peace, happiness, joy and all good wishes to our fellow God’s creatures. However, there is sadly one creature who purports to be one of God’s most superior creatures who isn’t giving any presents to Australians this year. In fact, many of us were highly anticipating his arrival last week, only to be severely disappointed by his no-show.

We were expecting the appearance at the Royal Commission investigating Institutionalised Child Abuse of Cardinal George Pell. However, survivors have again been dealt a cruel blow and denied the opportunity of seeing this bloke grilled in a forum where he would be regarded as being no better than anybody else.

After the previous week, where we saw counsel for one institution accuse one survivor of “making it up”, we were hoping that the appearance of Pell would be a better week. Because let’s face it, accusing a survivor of abuse of “making it up” is an attitude that clearly points to why we are having this inquiry in the first place. Isn’t it? I’m actually dismayed that the Commissioner didn’t pull counsel up on that statement.

So, after we were hoping that it would be Pell to be the one being the subject of a grilling. Now, I must confess that I have never liked the bloke and it had nothing to do with his close personal friendship with a recently deposed PM. Deep in my heart, I have always had this gnawing feeling that there was something not quite right about that chap.

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INDIA
The Hindu

The priest arrested in connection with a case relating to the rape of a minor girl at North Paravur on Friday filed a bail petition in the Kerala High Court.

Fr. Edwin Figarez, the accused, who went into hiding after the registration of the case, was arrested recently by the police. He had fled to the UAE and thereafter to other states. In his bail petition, the accused who is a priest with the Lourdes Matha Church, Puthenvelikkara, said he was innocent and the case had been foisted on him.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

DECEMBER 18, 2015

How we got here

• In 2013, the Legislature passed the Minnesota Child Victims Act. It gives people until May 2016 to file sex abuse lawsuits about incidents that happened years, even decades ago.

• The law prompted a wave of lawsuits against the six Catholic dioceses in Minnesota, as well as other churches, the Boy Scouts of America, and recently the Children’s Theatre Company.

• In January 2015, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, saying it would not be able to pay all the claims. That is still in mediation.

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ALABAMA
WVTM

[with video]

By Fred Davenport

TALLADEGA COUNTY, Ala. —A former associate pastor at Munford Baptist Church is being accused of more sex crimes, according to Moody police.

In 2011, a grand jury indicted Brian Pesnell of Moody on rape and sex abuse charges. Now, he’s facing additional charges.

“He was indicted by a grand jury last week for sexual abuse for a child under 12 and enticing a child,” said Lt. Eric Hansen with the Moody Police Department.

“It’s very troubling because you want to think that that’s the place to go for peace to build your faith and it didn’t work that way,” said a church member who did not wish to be identified.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Register

BY MARK SHEA 12/17/2015

“The good news about the Catholic Church,” said a friend of mine “is that it’s like a big family.”

“The bad news about the Catholic Church,” he continued, “is that it’s like a big family.”

A basic fact of life is that the same Body of Christ that is the sacrament of salvation, the fountain of so many graces, the home of so many amazing and wonderful people, so much healing, so much beauty, and the glorious treasury of saints to whom we owe so much…that same Church is the scene of incredibly devastating hurts dealt out by traitors, perverts, scoundrels, monsters, selfish jerks, liars, grasping careerists, Pharisees, libertines, and fools.

Just about everyone has a story to tell: the scheming chancery functionary bent on inflicting economic harm on some struggling Catholic self-employed businessman; the priest who was an insulting, despair-inducing buffoon in the confessional; the sexually abusive cleric and the bishop who protected him; the Church Lady with her petty hurtful gossip; the jackass who poses as the uber-pious Catholic while he cheats on his wife; the nun who shamed and scarred the little girl in third grade; the crazy mom who destroyed her kids lives while yakking about God, dragging them from one quack visionary to the next and then running off with the priest; the liturgist who decided the mandate was not “Feed my sheep” but “Try experiments on my rats”; the Catholic schoolteacher who destroyed your shot at college because she was a vindictive psycho who hated males.

It is, in fact, a story as old as the New Testament. Jesus’ story is, after all, a story of betrayal. It’s easy to forget that Judas was, at one time, a friend of Jesus’. And so one of the great psalms of the Passion records the messianic sufferer lamenting, “Even my bosom friend in whom I trusted, who ate of my bread, has lifted his heel against me” (Psalm 41:9).

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AUSTRALIA
The Courier

By Melissa Cunningham
Dec. 18, 2015

A survivor likened the Royal Commission into Child Sex Abuse to peeling back the layers on an onion.

Each time you peel back a layer, there is another underneath but slowly and steadily you move closer to the core of it. To the truth. With each layer another survivors emerges from out of the darkness with their own story to tell. Often, their stories are so gut-wrenchingly similar, it’s as if each of the survivors are holding a mirror to one another. And, there are those who don’t have a voice because they’ve died prematurely and the ones who turned to suicide because the pain of the sex crimes was too great to bear. The commission gives the ones they left behind somewhere to finally place their precious story in the hope their death will be a part of a profound change to protect children of the future.

A friend told me recently how her dad had been sexually abused by priest in Ballarat diocese. He never told her about the abuse until she nursed him on his death bed. For as far back as she could remember, her dad had been a broken man. He loved his kids immensely but his path was one of self destruction, alcoholism, violence and relentless sadness.The hardest part for her, was the glimpses she would catch of the man her dad could have been had his childhood not been so abruptly interrupted. She described it as being like dropping a rock into a pond. Its effects are felt for a long time before the final ripples reach the shore and come to rest.

After he died she wrote everything down in the hope that one day she would have somewhere to put his story. She made a submission to the Royal Commission this year. There are so many stories like hers. The Catholic Church believes that the abuse is in the past but the fact remains people live with this every day. Until the church acknowledges the extent to which it covered-up sex crimes against children, the hurt will continue. The church hierarchy of today must answer for the past. All is needed is one courageous priest for truth to prevail. For eight days, I caught a glimpse into the lives of survivors who carry this burden everyday. I saw a man, barefoot, unkempt, with wild long hair, sitting on the floor outside court-room because it was all too much. I saw men wipe tears from their eyes. I saw mothers cry for the sons they had lost. It was incredible strength and sadness. But I also saw so much hope in their hearts and eyes of the Ballarat survivors. One of the survivors Peter Blenkiron said to me hope for the future must overcome everything else. He said admission from the church would pave the way for healing and change across the world. The survivors are the light in the darkness. It’s time the church showed their courage.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

December 19, 2015

Chris Vedelago, Cameron Houston

The Catholic Church attempted for nearly a decade to conceal incriminating documents about child sex abuse using a controversial legal tactic that it has since renounced as “inappropriate”.

The bid to manipulate “legal privilege” to keep its records from public disclosure was one in a series of controversial measures taken to protect the reputation and assets of the church after complaints about paedophile priests began “coming out of the woodwork” in the 1980s.

Internal documents show the Australian Catholics Bishops Conference – a panel comprising the church’s senior leaders in Australia – was warned in April 1988 that church records were vulnerable to discovery and public disclosure in the event of civil lawsuits by alleged victims.

The problem would be summarised by Bishop Peter Connors as “too many people are keeping too many records” in 1992, according to a document obtained by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The records at risk of exposure included the findings of internal investigations, interviews with alleged offenders, and correspondence among church officials and insurance underwriters about the cases.

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MINNESOTA
Catholic Spirit

Maria Wiering | December 18, 2015

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office entered into a settlement agreement Dec. 18 on a civil petition the county filed against the archdiocese in June. Archbishop Bernard Hebda, the archdiocese’s apostolic administrator, called the settlement “the latest and most public indicator that this archdiocese has earnestly embarked on a journey of self-reflection, evaluation and action.”

“If there were any doubts about the archdiocese’s pledge to keeping kids safe, the provisions announced today, going beyond what the law would require, should help put those doubts to rest,” he said at a news conference.

The 24-page agreement outlines child protection measures the archdiocese has already implemented or has promised to implement, and Ramsey County’s oversight of those measures for three years.

Among them are continuing the role of the archdiocese’s newly established Ministerial Review Board in examining claims of clergy sexual abuse, creating a comprehensive set of policy documents readily available online, and an increased level of involvement from lay people at the parish, seminary and school levels.

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CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles Daily News

By City News Service
POSTED: 12/18/15

A settlement was reached between the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and two brothers who sued alleging they were sexually molested nearly three decades ago by a visiting cleric from Mexico, an attorney for the archdiocese said Friday.

The plaintiffs, now young men, were between 9 and 11 years old when they were allegedly abused by Father Nicolas Aguilar-Rivera on the grounds of St. Agatha Church in Los Angeles in 1987. They sued the archdiocese in June 2014.

“Plaintiffs were both terrified of Father Aguilar-Rivera’s conduct and frozen because of their obedience to and reverence of Father Aguilar-Rivera,” their lawsuit stated.

Los Angeles police believe the boys were among some 26 boys molested during a nine-month period in 1987-88.

Attorney J. Michael Hennigan, on behalf of the archdiocese, said the settlement was reached Wednesday, the same day Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Barbara Scheper heard a defense motion to dismiss the case, then took the issues under submission.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

18 December

On 5 January 2016, the Inquiry will invite applications from individuals or institutions that wish to be designated as a core participant in relation to a number of its investigations. The inquiry is not able to accept applications before 5 January, so please do not submit your application before the Inquiry provides further details on this date.

In advance of those announcements the Inquiry has published the following documents on the Library page of its website:

Protocol for potential core participants; and

FAQs for potential core participants

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MINNESOTA
America

Dec 18 2015 – 5:47pm | Kevin Clarke

The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office announced a landmark civil settlement with the Archdiocese of Saint Paul-Minneapolis related to a civil case that alleged grave breakdowns in the archdiocese’s child protection policies and execution of same. According to Ramsey County Attorney, John Choit, the primary objective of the settlement is to transform the organizational culture of the archdiocese “into one that is vigilant about ensuring that no child will ever again become the victim of clergy sex abuse.”

“Today’s historic agreement increases oversight and transparency to systemically change how the Archdiocese protects children and responds to suspected incidents of child sexual abuse,” said Choi. “As a result, it is my expectation that the facts of this case will never be repeated and the protection of children will forever be of paramount importance within this Archdiocese.”

The agreement runs for three years and will include oversight and enforcement mechanisms by Ramsey County authorities. An accompanying criminal action remains active case and will proceed toward resolution, the county attorney’s office reports.

Archbishop Bernard Hebda, Apostolic Administrator, in a letter to parishioners, described the agreement as “an opportunity for us to do all we can to make sure children are as safe as possible now and into the future.”

For the archdiocese’s priests and parishes, he said the settlement will “require all of us to renew our commitment to continue building a culture that makes the protection of children a priority.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MINNESOTA
CBS Minnesota

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — A 12-person panel comprised of doctors, lawyers and church laypersons will oversee any suspicions of clergy sex abuse in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

It’s part of a breakthrough settlement reached on Thursday with the Ramsey County Attorney to resolve a civil suit that was filed last June.

Under the terms of the settlement, efforts to assure the safety of all children will be scrutinized by annual audits and reports to the county and district court.

Allegations and settlements involving clergy sex abuse have plagued victims and the Archdiocese for years. It has also resulted in forcing the church into bankruptcy protection and the departures of top Archdiocese leaders.

In June, Ramsey County Attorney John Choi took legal steps with hopes of preventing future abuses. Under the agreement, that framework is now in place.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MINNESOTA
Wall Street Journal

By TOM CORRIGAN
Dec. 18, 2015

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis settled civil charges that it failed to protect children from abusive priests in a deal that allows Minnesota prosecutors to continue pursuing criminal charges against the archdiocese.

The settlement, unveiled Friday during a hearing in Ramsey County Court in Minnesota, requires the archdiocese to improve how it handles clergy sex abuse allegations and to establish more rigorous oversight practices. The archbishop must also apologize to, and offer to meet with, victims of an abusive priest and their families.

The archdiocese, home to 187 parishes and 825,000 parishioners, didn’t admit any wrongdoing under the settlement and denied the specific civil charge of contributing to the need for protective services for children.

In a letter posted Friday to the archdiocese’s website, Archbishop Bernard Hebda, who is serving as the administrator of the Twin Cities archdiocese until a new archbishop is appointed, said the archdiocese agreed to more than it would have been compelled to do by a court but that it and prosecutors share the goal of ensuring children’s safety.

“It should be no surprise that we have diligently been working together since [June] to find the best ways to make the achievement of that shared goal a reality,” he said. “Today’s agreement will require all of us to renew our commitment to continue building a culture that makes the protection of children a priority.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MINNESOTA
New York Times

By TODD NELSON and MONICA DAVEY
DEC. 18, 2015

ST. PAUL — The Roman Catholic archdiocese here has reached an agreement with prosecutors in a civil case accusing church officials of failing to protect children from sexual abuse.

The unusual settlement, announced Friday in a Ramsey County courtroom, calls for more transparency when claims of child sexual abuse are raised and would allow prosecutors and courts to monitor the church’s progress on such matters for three years.

John J. Choi, the Ramsey County prosecutor, said the most important provision of the settlement was that all allegations of clergy misconduct, including sexual abuse of a child, would be examined by a board made up mostly of lay people. Such boards exist in most dioceses, and most include lay people. But here, one or two clergy members typically determined how to proceed.

The settlement must also be approved by the federal bankruptcy judge overseeing the archdiocese’s reorganization.

In June, Mr. Choi filed six criminal charges, misdemeanors with maximum fines of $3,000 each, accusing the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis of failing to protect children from sexual abuse. Both sides said they were continuing to discuss the charges, which are pending, even as the deal was struck on the civil petition that accompanied them.

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KANSAS
Kansas City Star

BY IAN CUMMINGS
icummings@kcstar.com

A Missouri man has filed a sexual abuse lawsuit against a priest who formerly worked at a Roeland Park church.

The suit, filed earlier this week, alleges that in the mid-1980s a St. Agnes Catholic Parish priest abused the victim, who was then between 15 and 17 years old.

The suit says the cleric held parties at a Table Rock lake house where he provided liquor to minors and sexually abused them, at times taking the victim on trips to California, Hawaii and the Cayman Islands.

The victim, now in his 40s, lives in Missouri, according to Rebecca Randles, the Kansas City attorney who filed the case. The priest was identified in the lawsuit only by the initials J.H.W., Jr.

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NEW YORK
The Journal News

[with copy of a letter from Cardinal Timothy Dolan]

Michael D’Onofrio, mcdonofrio@lohud.com December 18, 2015

A Rockland priest who once led Archbishop Stepinac High School in White Plains has been suspended after a “credible” allegation that he sexually abused a minor more than three decades ago, the archdiocese told parishioners.

Monsignor John O’Keefe, a pastor at St. Margaret of Antioch Parish in Pearl River, was accused of abusing the minor on two occasions, according to a letter issued on Wednesday to members of the parish from Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York.

See the entirety of Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s letter below.

O’Keefe has denied the allegations, which have not been substantiated, Dolan wrote.

“But in keeping with the policy and practice of the archdiocese, … Monsignor O’Keefe is not permitted to publicly function as a priest until the matter is resolved,” Dolan said in the letter.

O’Keefe, in 1992, was named the first president of Archbishop Stepinac High School. He is also listed on the school’s Alumni Hall of Fame on the school website.

In 2003, he was reassigned to St. Margaret’s. While pastor of St. Margaret parish in 2012, O’Keefe celebrated his 40th anniversary of his ordination.

Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for the archdiocese of New York, said the archdiocese was contacted by a lawyer from the person making the allegation. The person alleged two acts of abuse — one in New York and another in Virginia — happened in the early 1980s.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MINNESOTA
National Catholic Reporter

Brian Roewe | Dec. 18, 2015

The St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese will be subject to judicial oversight by local authorities for the next three years to certify compliance with a series of provisions aimed at protecting children from sexual abuse, under the terms of a new civil settlement announced Friday.

The agreement, presented in district court by the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office and the archdiocese, concludes the civil aspect of charges Attorney John Choi brought this summer against the local church; the criminal case, which includes six misdemeanor charges each carrying $3,000 fines, is ongoing, Choi said during a press conference.

But he emphasized several times the importance of the “unprecedented and landmark civil settlement,” which he said goes beyond the impositions that a court could have enacted under child protection laws. The agreement establishes two independent audits in 2017 and 2018 to ensure compliance; if the archdiocese is found noncompliant, it will an opportunity to correct deficiencies before the matter proceeds to the courts. At the end of the agreement, the attorney’s office agrees to dismiss the civil action.

With the archdiocese having filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, the agreement must be approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, which the archdiocese said could come at a hearing early next year.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Patch

By DANIEL LIBON (Patch Staff)
December 18, 2015

A former Milton man who pleaded guilty to extorting the former rabbi for Temple Israel will serve time in prison.

Nicholas Zemeitus, 31, was sentenced Friday afternoon to four to five years in a state prison with three years of probation to follow, according to the Norfolk County District Attorney’s office. The state requested a prison term of six to eight years.

In November, Zemeitus admitted to extortion and larceny charges in a scheme to blackmail former Temple Israel Rabbi Barry Starr. In 2011, Zemeitus encountered Starr after responding to an online listing for sex with an older woman. When Zemeitus arrived at Starr’s home, he was greeted by the former rabbi who was wearing women’s clothing.

Starr gave Zemeitus $100 to remain quiet, but the he threatened to go public with underage sex allegations, which Starr denied happened and authorities found no evidence of.

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NEW YORK
WABC

PEARL RIVER, New York (WABC) — The Archdiocese of New York said an allegation of abuse against a Rockland County priest has been deemed credible by law enforcement officials.

The allegations involve Monsignor John O’Keefe of the St. Margaret of Antioch Parish in Pearl River.

The archdiocese said it was barred from speaking about it until the investigation was complete.

The victim accused the Monsignor of abuse on two separate occasions, once in New York and once in Virginia.

The allegations have only been deemed credible, not substantiated.

Monsignor O’Keefe has denied the charges, but is barred from publicly performing his duties as a priest until the Archdiocesan investigation is complete.

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KANSAS
KAKE

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A Missouri man has filed a civil lawsuit accusing a Kansas City, Kansas, area Catholic priest of abusing him three decades ago.

The lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday in Wyandotte County court, also claims authorities at the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas, knew of the abuse and failed to do anything to stop it. The lawsuit does not name the victim and identifies the accused priest with initials.

The lawsuit claims the sexual abuse occurred at a lake house in the 1980s when the alleged victim, who is now in his 40s, was between 15 and 17 years old.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MINNESOTA
Ramsey County Attorney’s Office

[with video]

Friday, December 18, 2015 – 12:30pm

The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office (RCAO) today announced a settlement agreement of the Civil Petition filed in Ramsey County District Court on June 5, 2015 against the Archdiocese of Saint Paul & Minneapolis (Archdiocese). The criminal action remains an active case and will proceed toward resolution in Ramsey County District Court.

The historic civil settlement agreement creates systemic change in how the Archdiocese protects children and responds to suspected incidents of child sexual abuse. The Agreement, which runs for three years, includes oversight and enforcement mechanisms by the RCAO and the Ramsey County District Court.

Press release: County Attorney announces landmark civil settlement to protect children (PDF)

Archdiocese settlement agreement (PDF)

Archdiocese petition from June 2015 (PDF)

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MINNESOTA
Reuters

MINNEAPOLIS | BY DAVID BAILEY

A Minnesota Catholic archdiocese has settled a civil lawsuit brought against it by a county prosecutor over the alleged failure to protect minors from sex abuse by clergy, the archdiocese and county attorney said on Friday.

A criminal case brought by the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in June along with the civil complaint remains pending in county court, prosecutors said.

The archdiocese covering a large part of the Minneapolis and St. Paul metropolitan area filed for bankruptcy in January and the settlement requires U.S. Bankruptcy Court approval.

The civil complaint and criminal charges were the latest development in the child sex abuse scandal involving the Catholic Church in many U.S. cities.

Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said the settlement’s objective was to make the archdiocese vigilant about ensuring that children will no longer be victims of sex abuse by clergy.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Carol Glatz Catholic News Service | Dec. 18, 2015

VATICAN CITY
An autopsy revealed the ex-papal nuncio, who was awaiting a Vatican trial on charges including the sexual abuse of minors, died of a heart attack, the Vatican said.

The laicized former archbishop, Jozef Wesolowski, died of natural causes, specifically, “acute myocardial infarction,” and “other external factors” were ruled out, the Vatican said in a communique Dec. 18.

Vatican magistrates had postponed a criminal trial against the former nuncio in July due to the defendant’s ill health. The proceedings had been adjourned until an unspecified future date because the defendant had been sent to an intensive care unit in a public hospital in Rome after experiencing a “sudden illness” the afternoon of July 10 — the day before he was scheduled to appear at the trial’s opening session.

The 67-year-old Polish national, who also had Vatican City State citizenship, died in a Vatican residence Aug. 27.

While initial autopsy results released in August said he died of a “cardiac incident,” the Vatican City’s promoter of justice appointed a forensics team to conduct an investigation that followed internationally recognized protocols, the Vatican communique said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Melissa Davey
@MelissaLDavey
Friday 18 December 2015

Stephen Woods, a survivor of horrendous sexual abuse at the hands of three religious figures within the Diocese of Ballarat when he was a schoolboy, says his belief in truth and justice has “taken an utter beating” over the past fortnight.

Woods has sat and watched as most of the former priests working within the diocese between the 1970s and early 1990s told the royal commission into institutional responses into child sexual abuse that they could not recall information about being informed of the abuse by victims, their concerned parents, or church staff.

They also gave evidence that they did not know the circumstances around known abusers being removed from parishes, often to other parishes where they continued to abuse.

Woods was sexually abused by the notorious pedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale, who has been convicted of 138 offences against children, as well as by the then principal of St Alipius Primary School, Robert Charles Best, and the religious teacher Brother Ted Dowlan. Two of his brothers were also abused. He says he carries the memories and consequences of what happened to him with him every day.

So it was painful for him to watch as the commission, armed with the testimony of dozens of survivors, and documentary evidence, questioned former diocese staff – only to have them so often respond with “I don’t recall”.

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CALIFORNIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, December 18

Statement by Joelle Casteix of California, SNAP Southern California director (949-322-7434, jcasteix@gmail.com)

We are very proud of these brave men who used the civil justice system to get accountability for the crimes of Nicolas Aguilar Rivera. They came forward and demanded justice, even though they faced huge odds.

[Patch]

Those odds were made even worse by the actions of Cardinal Mahony and other church officials, who covered up Rivera’s crimes.

This is not a time to be complacent when it comes to clergy sex abuse and cover-up. We fear there may be a whole new generation of victims suffering in shame and silence. We urge anyone who has seen or suspected abuse to report to law enforcement.

We also want to reach out to other victims and assure them that they are not alone and help and support are available.

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CALIFORNIA
Patch

By ALEXANDER NGUYEN (Patch Staff)
December 18, 2015

A settlement was reached between the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and two brothers who sued alleging they were sexually molested nearly three decades ago by a visiting cleric from Mexico, an attorney for the archdiocese said Friday.

The plaintiffs, now young men, were between 9 and 11 years old when they were allegedly abused by Father Nicolas Aguilar-Rivera on the grounds of St. Agatha Church in Los Angeles in 1987. They sued the archdiocese in June 2014.

“Plaintiffs were both terrified of Father Aguilar-Rivera’s conduct and frozen because of their obedience to and reverence of Father Aguilar-Rivera,” their lawsuit stated.

Los Angeles police believe the boys were among some 26 boys molested during a nine-month period in 1987.

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NEW MEXICO
News Channel 10

Posted: Dec 18, 2015

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) – Attorneys for a New Mexico diocese say they are finalizing a settlement in the case that has kept it in bankruptcy court for two years.

The Gallup Independent reports (http://bit.ly/1jl8YBA ) lawyers for the Diocese of Gallup and the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors, which represents clergy sex abuse claimants, confirmed in court Wednesday that a settlement is in the works.

They did not provide details and said an agreement has not been signed yet.

Unsecured Creditors Committee attorney James Stang said they are still working out the non-monetary terms of the settlement.

Neither Stang nor Susan Boswell, lead bankruptcy attorney for the diocese, indicated when the agreement is expected to be finalized.

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KANSAS
Topeka Capital-Journal

Posted: December 18, 2015

By The Associated Press

KANSAS CITY, Kan. – A Missouri man has filed a civil lawsuit accusing a Kansas City, Kansas, area Catholic priest of abusing him three decades ago.

The lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday in Wyandotte County court, also claims authorities at the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas, knew of the abuse and failed to do anything to stop it. The lawsuit does not name the victim and identifies the accused priest with initials.

The lawsuit claims the sexual abuse occurred at a lake house in the 1980s when the alleged victim, who is now in his 40s, was between 15 and 17 years old.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release, December 18, 2015

Statement by Barbara Blaine, President of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (312-399-4747, bblaine@snapnetwork.org).

Vatican officials are fast-tracking sainthood for Mother Teresa. It should be noted that her long time Spiritual Adviser was a serial predator, Jesuit, Fr. Donald McGuire ( http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2012/01_02/2012_01_11_Jamison_TaintedSaint.htm) who was criminally convicted.

When it is advantageous for Catholic officials to move quickly, like sainthood for popular figures “Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II, they move quickly. But when it is advantageous for church officials to move slowly, like the clergy sex cases, they move slowly.

SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is the world’s oldest and largest support group for clergy abuse victims. SNAP was founded in 1988 and has more than 20,000 members. Despite the word “priest” in our title, we have members who were molested by religious figures of all denominations, including nuns, rabbis, bishops, and Protestant ministers. Our website is SNAPnetwork.org)

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VATICAN CITY
The News & Observer

BY ALVISE ARMELLINI
dpa

VATICAN CITY – Mother Teresa’s path to sainthood was cleared Friday, after the Vatican confirmed that Pope Francis had approved a decision to attribute a second miracle to the Catholic nun who dedicated her life to India’s poor.

Italian bishops’ newspaper Avvenire first reported Thursday, on Francis’ 79th birthday, that the pontiff ratified the findings of the Vatican’s saint-making committee on the miraculous healing of a man suffering from serious brain disease. …

Teresa is a revered figure throughout the world, but her speedy path to sainthood – in modern times, second only to John Paul II’s, who made the grade in 2014 nine years after his death – has not been without its critics.

“It should be noted that her long time spiritual adviser was a serial predator, Jesuit Father Donald McGuire, who was criminally convicted,” Barbara Blaine, President of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said Friday.

“When it is advantageous for Catholic officials to move quickly, like sainthood for popular figures Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II, they move quickly. But when it is advantageous for church officials to move slowly, like the clergy sex cases, they move slowly,” she added.

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

Roy Speckhardt
Executive Director, American Humanist Association

The Catholic Church continues to struggle with the crisis originating from its widespread and at least decades long practice of allowing child molesters within its midst to escape justice for their crimes. In a number of cases the failure to take responsibility for the actions of their clergy went as far as allowing abusive priests to continue to work with young children vulnerable to attack. The severity of the public backlash with both Catholics and non-Catholics may have even contributed to the abrupt departure of Pope Benedict XVI, who left office with just 43% of Americans viewing him favorably.

The Church’s new, more popular Pope Francis, viewed favorably by 70% of Americans, publicly committed to righting the church’s wrongs when it comes to child sex abuse. The Pope met with sex abuse victims in Philadelphia to apologize for the church’s complicity in their abuse, saying that “God weeps” for the sexual abuse of children.

But the Pope and Church hasn’t done much more than speak about child abuse, and have instead chosen to continue many of the irresponsible practices which led to the current situation. As Laurie Goodstein noted in an article for the New York Times, “Francis appears to have accepted the resignations of three American bishops who were in the midst of escalating scandals over their mishandling of abuse allegations: two bishops in Minnesota in June and one in April in Kansas City-St. Joseph in Missouri, where the bishop was the first to ever be criminally convicted of shielding a pedophile priest. But the bishops were allowed to leave office without the Vatican’s ever making clear why, and all three remain bishops.” This latest action is part of a long appalling tradition within the Catholic Church which allows either the perpetrators or enablers of child sex abuse to escape persecution and often keep their rank within the church.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

ITALIA
Diretta News

[After the scandal involving Francesco Micciche, the former bishop of Trapani, who was accused to of embezzlement, misappropriation, libel and slander, another high priest has come under investigation in Sicily. The prosecutor of Marsala questioned Domenico Mogavero, Bishop of Mazara del Vallo, who is former undersecretary of the Italian Bishops Conference (CEI) and Commissioner for Migration, one of the most active religious initiatives of solidarity with the refugees who landed on the island. According to prosecutors, the bishop could have embezzeled 180,000 euro from the curia.]

Dopo lo scandalo che ha coinvolto l’ex vescovo di Trapani Francesco Micciché, accusato di appropriazione indebita, malversazione, diffamazione e calunnia, un altro alto prelato è finito sotto inchiesta in Sicilia. La Procura di Marsala ha interrogato Domenico Mogavero, vescovo della diocesi di Mazara del Vallo, ex sottosegretario della Conferenza episcopale italiana e commissario Cei per le migrazioni, uno dei religiosi più attivi nelle iniziative di solidarietà verso i profughi che sbarcano sull’isola. Secondo i magistrati, il vescovo potrebbe essersi appropriato di 180mila euro della Curia, mentre l’ex economo, don Franco Caruso avrebbe ‘messo in tasca’ 120 mila euro della diocesi. Secondo Stefano Pellegrino, avvocato del vescovo, i fatti oggetto dell’indagine risalirebbero al biennio 2010-11 ma riguarderebbero ‘anomalie’ già denunciate dal prelato alla Procura.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Madeleine Baran Dec 18, 2015

It’s been a year since Ben Spanier took his life.

His parents say his problems began 20 years earlier, when he was a student at St. John’s Prep in Collegeville. They say their son wasn’t the same after he began spending time with the Rev. Tom Andert, a prominent priest who was placed on leave earlier this year for a separate allegation of sexual misconduct.

The Spaniers say they’re coming forward now because they want the culture at St. John’s to change. Ben Spanier had attempted suicide before. His father, Eric, will never forget picking up the phone that night in 1994. On the other end of the line was the Rev. Tom Andert, the head of the boarding school at St. John’s, where Ben was a junior.

“I answered the phone,” Eric Spanier said. “He was calling from the emergency room in the hospital, so it was a shock.”

He said he was relieved the priest was there to care for his son.

“I was extremely grateful,” he said. “I mean, he was there and he was taking my place, and I was in Colorado. He was in Minnesota, at his bedside. So I was very appreciative for him being there, I expressed that. We really didn’t have any reason to suspect there was a problem with Ben’s relationship with the headmaster.”

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DEUTSCHLAND
NDR

[Trelleborg admits failures in abuse case.]

Der Hildesheimer Bischof Norbert Trelle hat sich am Freitag in einem Brief an die Priester, Diakone und Mitarbeiter des Bistums gewandt und sich zu den Missbrauchsvorwürfen eines Mädchens gegen einen Priester aus dem Jahr 2010 geäußert – und durchaus eigene Versäumnisse eingeräumt. Dabei setzt sich Trelle detailliert mit den gegen ihn Vorwürfen auseinander, die Ermittlungen gegen einen Pfarrer im Ruhestand wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs zu spät angezeigt zu haben. Die damals 14-Jährige hatte von “deutlichen Annäherungsversuchen” des Geistlichen berichtet, das geht aus einer Mitschrift des Bistums hervor, die die Staatsanwaltschaft inzwischen angefordert hat. Dagegen schildert Trelle in dem Bischofsbrief, das Mädchen habe sich in einem ersten Gespräch 2010 “sehr zurückhaltend geäußert”. Ein Gesprächsangebot mit den erziehungsberechtigten Großeltern habe es auf Bitte des Mädchens nicht gegeben. Stattdessen sei ihm geraten worden mit seiner Religionslehrerin oder der Therapeutin darüber zu reden.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Die Welt

[The Hildesheim bishop has admitted mistakes in handling the abuse case of Father Peter R.]

Hildesheim (dpa/lni) – Der Hildesheimer Bischof Norbert Trelle hat Fehler im Umgang mit dem Missbrauchsfall einer 14-Jährigen eingeräumt, den Vorwurf der Vertuschung aber zurückgewiesen. Der Hinweis auf einen Missbrauchsvorwurf gegen einen Geistlichen sei 2010 aus heutiger Sicht zu spät an die Staatsanwaltschaft weitergegeben worden, teilte Trelle am Freitag mit.

«Dass wir damals so entschieden haben, bedauern wir heute sehr», erklärte der Bischof. «Aus heutiger Sicht und mit der Erfahrung von fünf Jahren Aufarbeitung von sexuellem Missbrauch würden wir heute anders entscheiden und vorgehen», betonte Trelle in einem Schreiben an die Bistumsmitarbeiter.

Im März 2010 habe die 14-Jährige bei einem ersten Gespräch keinen sexuellen Übergriff erwähnt, so Trelle, sondern eindeutig nur Belästigungen durch Pater Peter R.. Dieser stand damals allerdings im Zentrum des Missbrauchsskandals am Berliner Gymnasium Canisius-Kolleg mit mehr als 100 Opfern.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

Elizabeth Mohr
emohr@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 12/18/2015

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has agreed to implement new child-protection procedures as part of a settlement agreement with the Ramsey County attorney’s office, which filed a civil suit against the church in June.

The archdiocese will immediately begin implementing “practices, procedures — action … to do everything we can to protect children,” attorney Joe Dixon, who represents the archdiocese, told the court Friday.

The civil case was filed at the same time the county attorney’s office filed criminal charges against the archdiocese, accusing top-ranking officials of failing to protect children and parishioners from sexually abusive clergy.

At the time, the county attorney’s office said the civil petition against the archdiocese was “intended to seek legal remedies to prevent the archdiocese from allowing this behavior (from) ever happening again,” according to a statement.

As part of the agreement, the civil case will be put on hold for three years as the archdiocese implements its plan, coming back to the court with progress reports every six months. At the end of the three-year period, if the archdiocese has held up its end of the deal, the county attorney’s office will dismiss its case.

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MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

Date: Friday, December 18, 2015
Source: Archbishop Bernard Hebda, Apostolic Administrator

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I wanted to reach out directly to you regarding the Settlement Agreement the Archdiocese and the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office announced Friday morning.

From the time I first arrived here in June – two weeks after the charges were filed — I have worked to learn as much as I can about the events surrounding Curtis Wehmeyer and his abuse of children under his care at Blessed Sacrament Church in St. Paul.

From that same time, the Archdiocese was engaged in dialogue with Ramsey County Attorney, John Choi, and his staff. We immediately realized we all had the same goal; to make sure children are safe in our churches, schools and communities. So, from the first time our team and the County Attorney’s team met, we worked together to find the best ways to make that a reality.

We also involved and consulted with the Board of Directors, Archdiocesan Finance Council, the Ministerial Review Board, the College of Consultors (an advisory group of priests), and priests who have been or are currently in leadership positions. They all agreed that this Agreement is the right thing to do to provide safe environments.

All of that dialogue, collaboration and hard work came together on Friday morning when a judge accepted the Settlement Agreement with the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office. Let me assure you, much of what is in the new document are things we are already doing, while others are practices and procedures that are already working in some dioceses around the country. We are agreeing to implement the plan under a set deadline and to be held accountable for that commitment.

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MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

Date: Friday, December 18, 2015
Source: Tom Halden, Director of Communications

Q: What does this Settlement Agreement really mean?

A: It means that the Archdiocese has voluntarily agreed to implement the enhanced safe environment Settlement Agreement and submit to external auditing in 2017 and 2018. At the end of the 36 month review period, Ramsey County District Court has agreed they will drop the civil charges.

Q: Was the Archdiocese forced into this Agreement?

A: No. We made the decision not to fight the charges in court because we share the common goal of protecting children with the Ramsey County Attorney and his staff.

Q: How will the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office be able to verify that the Archdiocese is following the new Settlement Agreement?

A: There will be both internal and external audits of the Agreement and reporting mechanisms that must be followed.

Q: Aren’t there Constitutional concerns with the state (Ramsey County) involved in overseeing a religious institution?

A: The Archdiocese is still free to run its ministries, operations and other programs as it sees fit. We chose to enter into this agreement because the Settlement Agreement serves to enhance our mission of faith. It is at the heart of the church to protect children and vulnerable adults. Jesus said, ““Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me (Matthew 9:37).”

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MINNESOTA
Bring Me The News

Civil charges against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis will be stayed under a settlement agreement, which requires the church to implement new policies that protect children.
The settlement, filed in court Friday morning, was reached between the archdiocese and the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office, which brought criminal and civil charges against the church in June related to a sex abuse case. (Read the full agreement here.)

At a press conference Friday morning, Ramsey County Attorney John Choi called the settlement “groundbreaking,” saying it “ensures systemic change, and creates a framework of accountability” that increases oversight and transparency of the archdiocese.

It means a “cultural shift” in how the church will protect children and respond to sex abuse allegations going forward, Choi said.

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MINNESOTA
KSTP

[with video]

[the agreement]

Jennie Lissarrague

An “unprecedented” settlement agreement has been reached with the Ramsey County prosecutor in the civil case against the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis.

Archdiocese officials appeared in Ramsey County District Court at 9 a.m. Friday for a hearing.
Prosecutors say the agreement in the civil case provides a framework for better oversight of the archdiocese over the next three years. Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Tom Ring says the goal is to create an environment where no child will again be abused.

Archdiocese attorney Joe Dixon says the settlement made public in court Friday must still be approved by a bankruptcy court, but both sides pledge to begin work immediately.

“This historic agreement ensures systemic change and creates a framework of accountability that increases oversight and transparency and ultimately supports a cultural shift in how the archdiocese protects children and responds to alleged abuse,” Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said.

Choi outlined several highlights of the settlement agreement during a news conference Friday:

* The archdiocese agreed to be subject to the oversight of the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office and courts for three years as they continue to transform their organization’s culture.

* The archdiocese agreed to implement important compliance standards that incorporate best practices from across the country along with new standards that don’t exist anywhere else.

* They will set forward a clear standard of response so that it will no longer be possible for leaders to say that they didn’t know about suspected child abuse.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) The Vatican said on Friday that an autopsy has confirmed that its former Apostolic Nuncio to the Dominican Republic died from a heart attack.

A statement released by the Holy See’s Press Office said the autopsy on Jozef Wesolowski was conducted by a team of coroners named by the Vatican prosecutor, in accordance with international guidelines and protocols.

The statement said the toxicology tests confirmed that the former envoy died a natural death “excluding any other external causes.”

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MASSACHUSETTS
Metro West Daily News

By The Associated Press

Posted Dec. 18, 2015

BOSTON — Parishioners who have occupied a Roman Catholic church since it was closed 11 years ago will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to settle their dispute with the Boston archdiocese.

St. Frances X. Cabrini parishioners plan to ask the high court to review a ruling by a Massachusetts court that found they are trespassing at the Scituate church. The state’s highest court declined to hear the case but parishioners are hoping the U.S. Supreme Court will agree to review it.

The parishioners will ask a state judge on Monday to put the case on hold while they petition the high court.

The church was closed in 2004 as part of a reorganization following the clergy sex-abuse scandal.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston.com

By Allison Pohle @AllisonPohle
Boston.com Staff | 12.18.15

The parishioners who have spent 11 years keeping a vigil in the closed St. Frances X. Cabrini church in Scituate were dealt another blow two weeks ago when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court denied their request for further review by the courts.

At the time, Jon Rogers, a spokesperson for the Friends of St. Frances, a group of about 100 parishioners have kept a 24-7 vigil in the church, said they would “throw every option onto the table.”

An 11-year vigil is in jeopardy after the high court rules against South Shore parishioners
That means appealing to the United States Supreme Court.

But first, the group will appear in Norfolk Superior Court Monday afternoon. After the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court denied their request for further review, The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston filed a motion to have the parishioners removed from the church by January 8. In response, the Friends of St. Frances filed an emergency motion in Norfolk Superior Court to try to have any future orders from the Archdiocese suspended as they work on their appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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ITALY
ANSA

(ANSA) – Reggio Calabria, December 18 – Reggio Calabria police on Friday arrested a 44-year-old priest on charges of paying for sex with a minor, misrepresenting his identity, luring a minor, and possession of child pornography. He was arrested in the rectory of a parish church in the Piana di Gioia Tauro valley and taken to jail.

Police began an investigation last March after finding the priest in his car with a minor in a secluded and rarely frequented area.

Police said the minor told them the priest paid him 20 euros for sex that took place in the priest’s car shortly before police arrived on the scene.

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MINNESOTA
Fox 9

ST. PAUL, Minn. (KMSP) – The Ramsey County Attorney’s office and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis announced Friday morning they’ve reached a settlement agreement after attorney John Choi filed criminal and civil charges against the archdiocese last summer for failing to protect children from a priest.

Choi called the settlement a “systemic change” and “cultural shift,” which bars church leadership from concealing clergy abuse.

Choi filed criminal charges against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in June “to hold it criminally accountable for its failure to protect children” which are connected to 3 separate victims of sexual abuse by former Catholic priest Curtis Wehmeyer, who is currently serving a 5-year prison sentence for molesting two boys in his parish in a camper parked outside the Church of the Blessed Sacrament.

The 24-page settlement says all future abuse allegations will go before a ministerial review board instead of one or two clergy members. The Ramsey County Attorney’s office will oversee the review board and other processes for the next 3 years.

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MINNESOTA
KARE

Dana Thiede, KARE December 18, 2015

ST. PAUL, Minn. – The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis have hammered out a settlement involving a civil case accusing the Archdiocese of failing to protect children from predatory priests.

Ramsey County Attorney John Choi will share details of the settlement in a press conference shortly.

A criminal case filed in conjunction with the civil proceedings is moving forward. That matter was continued during a hearing Friday morning. The next court date will be set four to six weeks down the road.

Choi and his office levied civil and criminal charges against the Archdiocese for failing to monitor the activities of former priest Curtis Wehmeyer. Wehmeyer was convicted in 2012 of sexually abusing two brothers and possessing child pornography while serving as pastor at the Parish of the Blessed Sacrament on St. Paul’s east side. He is currently serving a 5-year sentence.

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VATICAN CITY
Chronicle Herald (Canada)

NICOLE WINFIELD THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published December 17, 2015

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis entered his 80th year on Thursday amid hopes among his critics that it will be his last — at least as pope.

While Francis remains enormously popular among most rank-and-file Catholics, a small but vocal group of conservatives who have never much cared for his radical agenda have grown increasingly strident in criticizing the pope now that there is little doubt left about his priorities.

They have taken aim at the just-concluded synod on family issues, where the divisive issue of communion for the civilly remarried took centre stage. They have raised alarm at Francis’ call for a more decentralized church and his loosening of the Vatican’s marriage annulment process. They have winced at his environmental alarmism, wondered what’s in store for Catholic orthodoxy in this Holy Year of Mercy and blasted as sacrilege the recent screening of nature shots on St. Peter’s Basilica.

The Remnant, a small, traditionalist U.S. newspaper, last week penned an open letter begging Francis to change course or resign, arguing that his papacy was “causing grave harm to the church.” Organizers say a few thousand people have signed onto the petition.

“You have given many indications of an alarming hostility to the church’s traditional teaching, discipline and customs, and the faithful who try to defend them, while being preoccupied with social and political questions beyond the competence of the Roman pontiff,” the newspaper said. “This appalling situation has no parallel in church history.”

To put it more simply: “Many people in the Vatican want Francis dead,” said Francesca Chaouqui, the woman at the heart of a leaks scandal currently convulsing Francis’ Vatican.

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MINNESOTA
Canonical Consultation

[The letter from Archbishop Bernard Hebda]

Dear Brothers,

I wanted to reach out directly to you regarding the Settlement Agreement the Archdiocese and the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office announced this morning.

When I first arrived here in June two weeks after the charges were filed the Archdiocese was already engaged in dialogue with Ramsey County Attorney, John Choi, and his staff. It was quickly recognized that we shared one major goal: making sure children are safe in our churches, schools and communities. It should be no surprise that we have diligently been working together since then to find the best ways to make the achievement of that shared goal a reality.

In the course of our conversations with the Ramsey County Attorney’s office last October and November, it began to become apparent that there existed a potential for a negotiated Settlement in the civil action that had been brought against us. Those representing the Archdiocese in the sensitive discussions that ensued recognized that it would be important to get broader input, not only from our Corporate Board and Archdiocesan Finance Council but also from our clergy. I am very grateful to Fr. Mike Tix (formerly the head of the Presbyteral Council) and Fr. Don DeGrood (presently the Vicar for Clergy), who invested countless hours in recent weeks pouring over the various proposals for moving forward.

With today’s court appearance looming large, the terms of an Agreement solidified last weekend and it became possible and desirable to engage in a more formal and even broader consultation. This past Wednesday, I sought the advice of the College of Consultors and the Archdiocesan Finance Council and I asked for a resolution of the Corporate Board of Directors that would authorize me to execute the Agreement, given that the suit had been brought against the Corporation. The recently-formed Ministerial Review Board was also consulted. I am grateful to all who participated in those efforts.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

By Chao Xiong Star Tribune DECEMBER 18, 2015

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Ramsey County Attorney’s office reached a settlement agreement Friday morning in a precedent-setting civil case accusing it of failing to protect children from a predatory priest.

A criminal case against the church is ongoing and will be scheduled for another pretrial date in the future.

Ramsey County Attorney John Choi’s office said he will have a news conference soon. The archdiocese will convene its own news conference after Choi’s office speaks.

“You’re making a significant effort to protect not only the children … but citizens,” Ramsey County Chief Judge Teresa Warner told attorneys for the state and church Friday.

The settlement would require the church to create an action plan to protect children, but its exact terms were not immediately revealed Friday. The church would have to periodically report its progress to the court.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Riham Feshir Dec 18, 2015

Ramsey County prosecutors and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis have reached a settlement that would pave the way for dismissal of civil charges related to clergy sex abuse.

The settlement was announced in a pretrial court hearing Friday morning on the civil case and a related criminal case the county brought against the archdiocese.

Under the agreement, civil charges would be stayed for three years while the church puts in place its policies and practices to protect children. The church would have to submit progress reports to the court every six months.

The civil case would be dropped after three years if the court is satisfied with the church’s actions.

The hearing did not address what would happen with the criminal charges. The criminal pretrial hearing that was set for Friday was continued for a few weeks.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.