ABUSE TRACKER

VATICAN CITY
Daily Star (Lebanon)

Associated Press

VATICAN CITY: The Vatican says an autopsy has confirmed that its former ambassador to the Dominican Republic, who died on the eve of his sex abuse trial, suffered a heart attack.

The autopsy on Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski was conducted by a team of coroners named by the Vatican prosecutor, and the results were deposited with the Vatican tribunal earlier this week. The Vatican made the results public Friday.

In a statement, the Vatican said the toxicology tests confirmed a natural death “excluding any other external causes.”

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 18 December 2015 (VIS) – The Holy See Press Office today announced that on 14 December, the report on the chemical toxicological examinations carried out on samples taken during the autopsy of Msgr. Jozef Wesolowski was submitted to the Chancellor’s Office of the Vatican City State Court of First Instance.

The conclusions of the Report definitively confirmed what had already emerged from the post-mortem examination; that is, that death was ascribable to natural causes (acute myocardial infarction), excluding other exogenous causes.

The various investigations were conducted in strict accordance with the guidelines and protocols recognised at international level, by a Board of medical examiners appointed by the Promoter of Justice the day after the Prelate’s unexpected death.

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TEXAS
KTSA

A San Antonio woman claims she was abused by Fr. Joseph Angeli back in the early 1960’s wants a response from the Archdiocese.

Robert Hoatson works with victims of sexual abuse by Clergy members. He tells us the woman was abused by the Priest while he was serving in Hondo and it turns out, the late Fr. Angeli had been accused of sexually abusing young girls while serving in Boston too.

He says the woman wants the Archdiocese to verify her allegations and settle her claim so she may heal and move on with her life.

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DEUTSCHLAND
kath.net

[Munich (kath.net/KNA) Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller has again countered reports about an alleged slush fund headed by him in the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In an interview with the magazine “Focus”, he said the story was nonsense and it was stupid to be disseminating rumors.]

Präfekt der Glaubenskongregation: «Jeder, der nur ein wenig Verstand im Kopf hat, erkennt die böse Absicht.» Dabei deutete Müller an, dass der Urheber nach seiner Einschätzung «eher nicht» im Vatikan, sondern in Deutschland zu suchen sei.

München (kath.net/KNA) Kurienkardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller ist erneut Berichten über eine angebliche schwarze Kasse in der von ihm geleiteten vatikanischen Glaubenskongregation entgegengetreten. In einem Interview mit dem Magazin «Focus» wies er die am 9. Dezember von der «Bild»-Zeitung verbreitete Story als «Nonsens» und «Verbreitung von dümmlichen Gerüchten» zurück.

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NEW MEXICO
The New Mexican

An attorney filed four lawsuits in state District Court on Thursday against the Archdiocese of Santa Fe and three New Mexico priests, alleging they sexually abused young children in different parishes across the state.

The lawsuits accuse Bernard Bissonnette, Sabine Griego and Edward Rutowski of sexually abusing boys in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. The suits, among dozens of similar complaints filed by attorney Brad Hall in recent years, claims the Archdiocese of Santa Fe is responsible for the priests’ alleged actions. They seek punitive damages.

Hall filed the lawsuits in the 2nd Judicial District Court in Albuquerque.

One suit alleges Bissonnette raped a man identified as “John Doe 56” hundreds of times between 1968 and 1973 when he was between the ages of 7 and 12. During that time, the suit says, John Doe 56 was an altar boy at St. Alice Parish in Mountainair.

One of two suits against Griego, filed on behalf of a man identified as “John Doe 51,” says the priest sexually abused a boy more than 20 times between 1975 and 1977, when the boy was between the ages of 10 and 12. The boy was an altar server at Our Lady of Sorrows Parish in Las Vegas, N.M.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
SC Now

BY JESSICA IMBIMBO Morning News jimbimbo@florencenews.com

A Darlington youth minister has been arrested on two counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a minor, according to the Darlington city police.

The Rev. Kamron Eugene Reames of Georgiana Lane was arrested Thursday after allegedly touching a male juvenile inappropriately on at least two occasions, Police Chief Daniel Watson said.

The alleged victim reported the conduct to adults and the Darlington Police Department initiated an investigation.

Watson said Reames was arrested shortly after the investigation, when “compelling evidence supporting the complaint was substantiated.”

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ALABAMA
WTVM

[with video]

By Lauren Bale

HUNTSVILLE, AL (WAFF) –
Members of Covenant Presbyterian Church say religious leaders did everything right after learning one of their own was accused of sex abuse.

Police say Youth Minister Christopher Alfaro sent obscene material to children. Pastor Hal Oakley said as soon as he learned about the situation he went straight to police.

Member Sarah Savage said she has been going to Covenant Presbyterian for the last 12 years and both her daughters went to preschool there. While she and her whole family are obviously in shock she said she is pleased with how the church handled this difficult situation.

She said the church has been up front from the beginning, letting parents and children know what was happening every step of the way.

“It’s best to just be as truthful as possible and face it,” Savage said. “And if you have that love and that fellowship you can make it through these tough things.”

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ALABAMA
The Daily Home

Gary Hanner, St. Clair Times associate editor, ghanner@thestclairtimes.com

A Moody man arrested Wednesday on charges of child sex abuse was formerly the associate pastor and youth minister at Munford Baptist Church.

Brian Pesnell, 40, of Amelia Circle in Moody, turned himself in at the St. Clair County Jail in Pell City on Wednesday morning.

According to a story published in The Daily Home in February 2010, Pesnell was named associate pastor at the church in 2006. When he came on board, there were only around a dozen youth in the ministry classes. The youth grew to about 300 in number while Pesnell was there.

Back in March 2011, Pesnell was indicted for rape in the second degree and sexual abuse in the second degree by a St. Clair County grand jury. It was unclear Thursday what the status of the 2011 case was.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Wicked Local Marblehead

By Marc J. Wortman

Posted Dec. 17, 2015

MARBLEHEAD
I was a bit reluctant to see “Spotlight,” the true story of the Catholic Church’s priest child-sexual-abuse scandal and cover-up, even though this film is quickly gathering the momentum to be an Oscar front-runner, (recently nominated by the Golden Globes and the SAG Awards, which are reliable predictors for the Academy Awards). Sometimes it’s a tough choice on a Saturday night whether to see an action-packed “popcorn” movie and escape into the fun and fantasy or actually choose to see a serious movie about child abuse.

“Spotlight,” delivers a truthful and non-sensationalized portrayal of one of the biggest scandals in modern history, told from the vantage point of a handful of Boston Globe investigative reporters in 2001. The movie is based on the reporting done by the Spotlight section of the Globe, known for its independent, hard-hitting and in-depth stories. From a pure moviemaking point of view, “Spotlight” is very close to a perfect film, and reminds me of how I felt after watching 2013’s Best Picture Winner, “Argo” – silent and breathless.

The veteran actor and writer Tom McCarthy (who wrote the screenplays for “Up” and “Million Dollar Arm”) is the director of “Spotlight.” He is also the co-writer, along with Josh Singer, of this daring and disturbing script. I predict an Oscar nomination for McCarthy not only for directing but also for Best Screenplay. “Spotlight” is reminiscent of the iconic newspaper movie, 1976’s “All The President’s Men,” which told the story of Nixon and Watergate from the perspective of the two newspaper reporters that untangled the web of lies that ultimately led all the way up to the presidency. In an NPR interview, Tom McCarthy actually referenced several films as direct influences on “Spotlight,” including “All the President’s Men,” as well as Sydney Lumet’s 1982 Oscar-nominated film, “The Verdict.”

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MINNESOTA
Canonical Consultation

12/17/2015

Jennifer Haselberger

The Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis is scheduled to appear in Ramsey County Court tomorrow, and the buzz is that a settlement is going to be announced.

If what I am hearing is correct, the settlement will not resolve the criminal case. Instead, it will respond to the issues outlined in the civil petition, and grant the court jurisdiction over some aspects of Archdiocese’s safe environment/child protection efforts.

Interestingly, the Archdiocese has not, to my knowledge, informed any of its clergy about the proposed settlement or its terms, despite the fact that they will likely be the ones most impacted (as was the case with the settlement in the Doe 1 case, with its child protection protocols). Since the rumors suggest that the criminal charges are still pending, victims and others seeking financial compensation from the Archdiocese are unlikely to experience negative consequences regardless of what the agreement contains.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

The Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, “vilified” members of the clergy who were criticised by the Commission of Investigation into the handling of child abuse allegations by the Dublin archdiocese, a leading priest has said.

The criticism by Fr Tony Flannery comes just days after a bishop and a priest defended the reputation of Auxiliary Bishop Dermot O’Mahony – a figure who was severely criticised by the inquiry – at his funeral.

Saying that the commission had “serious faults”, Fr Flannery, the co-founder of the Association of Catholic Priests, wrote on his website: “I never met, nor had I any dealing with, Bishop Dermot O’Mahony.

“Until the Murphy Report, anything I ever heard about him was positive – a warm, gentle, caring man who was a shining light in a Church that could often be harsh and judgmental,” he wrote.

The commission, led by Ms Justice Yvonne Murphy, inquired into the handling of clerical child sex abuse allegations in Dublin’s Catholic Archdiocese between 1975 and 2004. Its report was published in November 2009.

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MASSACHUSETTS
NECN

[with video]

By Alysha Palumbo

It’s a victory for a Massachusetts man denied employment based on his sexual orientation.

A Massachusetts Superior Court judge ruled Thursday that the all-girls Catholic high school Fontbonne Academy in Milton had violated anti-discrimination laws when it rescinded a 2013 Food Services Director job offer to Matthew Barrett after he listed his husband as his emergency contact.

“What the court focused on was that this person’s job has nothing to do with religion. Fontbonne can’t simply deem all of their employees to be ministers when their job has nothing to do with religion,” GLAD attorney Ben Klein said.

Barrett, a Dorchester resident, told necn earlier this month that the case has been “very emotional.”

Through his GLAD attorneys, Barrett said he’s “ecstatic” with the ruling.

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NEW MEXICO
KOB

Created: 12/17/2015
Blair Miller, KOB.com

Four more men have filed lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Santa Fe alleging priests sexually abused them when they were boys in New Mexico.

The new lawsuits come in addition to more than 10 others that claim the boys were abused by priests with the Archdiocese of Santa Fe.

One of the lawsuits implicates Father Bissonnette, who worked at the Servants of the Paraclete in Jemez Springs before he moved to the Santa Fe Archdiocese. Many of the previously-filed cases involve priests from Servants of the Paraclete.

Two of the other new lawsuits implicate Father Sabine Griego, who worked at Our Lady of Sorrows in Las Vegas and Queen of Heaven in Albuquerque.

The other implicates Father Edward Rutowski, who worked at St. Jude Thaddeus in Paradise Hills.

Attorney Brad Hall is handling the majority of the lawsuits. He says that many of the priests implicated in the sexual abuse were from New Mexico – contradicting a common belief much of the abuse stemmed from out-of-state priests who were sent to our state for “rehabilitation.”

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CANADA
APTN

APTN National News

Following the first meeting on the road to reconciliation Aboriginal leaders said they are encouraged by what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told them behind closed doors.

” We wanted to say how proud we were to be part of the conversations today, to see people starting to do things in a different way,” said Dawn Harvard, president of the Native Women’s Association of Canada. “I think we’ve seen that here today, is what can be accomplished if you go in with that desire to dialogue.”

Natan Obed, national leader for Canadian Inuit said he is encouraged by the meeting with Trudeau and members of his Cabinet.

“What we were looking for is a renewed Inuit to Crown relationship,” said Obed. “That relationship can only happen with the type of meetings we had this morning, and the respect for the, for all Inuit organizations in a way that we haven’t seen in a number of years.”

He said he looks forward to “renewing” the relationship in a tangible way.

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AUSTRALIA
Catholic Weekly

By Monica Doumit December 15, 2015

In this past week, we heard news that Cardinal George Pell’s testimony before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse would be delayed after his treating cardiologist deemed it unsafe for him to take the long-haul flight back to Australia.

The news prompted the expected reaction from mainstream and social media, with scepticism, scorn and derision being the most popular responses.

There has also been a lot of misinformation being spread, the most serious being that the cardinal sought to delay the giving of his evidence.

This is, of course, untrue.

Allan Myers QC, the lawyer appearing for Cardinal Pell, asked that the cardinal be permitted to provide his evidence via video link. Mr Myers noted that video evidence is used all the time in hearings, particularly for witnesses who would otherwise have to travel a long distance. Indeed, two witnesses appeared via video link before this same hearing in the same week in which the application was made on behalf of Cardinal Pell.

And Gerald Ridsdale, the perpetrator of many of the crimes being looked at in the Ballarat hearings, gave evidence over a number of days via video link in May.

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on December 17, 2015

The Carrot: Money

Last week, the US Senate proposed a bill that would give states money if they enacted legislation that extended or eliminated unexpired statutes of limitation for child sexual abuse. (In other words, if your time is up, it’s up. But if not, you could have your statute extended or eliminated.)

The bill’s language does not differentiate between civil and criminal laws. According to the bill: There is authorized to be appropriated to carry out this title $40,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2016 through 2025. Is that enough to get states on board? We will have to see.

Read the full text here.

The Stick:

Going to the Voters After CA Governor Jerry Brown vetoed TWO bills that would have extended crime victims’ rights and exposed child predators, one man is taking the issue straight to the voters.

In California, a sex abuse victim (who rose to fame after being acquitted of beating up his priest perpetrator) has received the CA Secretary of State’s approval to gather signatures for a ballot initiative that would eliminate California’s civil and criminal statutes of limitations (going forward) for child sexual abuse:

From the Mercury News:

The initiative written by the 48-year-old San Francisco man would wipe out the legal deadline barring prosecutors from filing criminal charges against child molesters and victims from suing them after a certain period of time. It would apply only to children molested after its adoption, not to Lynch and others like him.

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TEXAS
Port Arthur News

By Mary Meaux

A Port Arthur priest is under investigation by the Port Arthur Police Department and Child Protective Services following an allegation at St. Catherine Catholic School.

Bishop Curtis Guillory of the Diocese of Beaumont issued a statement regarding the allegations.

“The Diocese of Beaumont is committed to fostering a safe, comfortable and positive environment for all whom we serve. We are deeply concerned to learn that a little more than a week ago Child Protective Services and the Port Arthur Police initiated an investigation into an allegation at St. Catherine School in Port Arthur, TX,” according to the statement. “The allegation is against Fr. David Placette, pastor of St. Catherine Church. Keeping in mind the interests of all involved, and in accord with the norms of the U.S. Bishops’ “Charter for the Protection of Young People,” I have placed Fr. Placette on administrative leave from all priestly ministry, pending both civil and ecclesiastical investigations into the matter. Because the matter is now under investigation, I am unable to provide additional information at this time.”

Shari Pulliam, media specialist with the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, said school investigations are confidential. In cases like this at the conclusion of the investigation Child Protective services will send their findings to the school and Texas Education Agency.

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TEXAS
12 News Now

New information today behind the investigation into an allegation made against a Port Arthur priest with the Port Arthur Police Department and the Texas Department of Family Protective services.

Father David Placette, who is the pastor of St. Catherine Church, is being investigated following an allegation made against him. There is no word on the nature or severity of the allegation.

The Diocese of Beaumont will be conducting its own investigation into allegations made against Father David Placette, pastor of St. Catherine Church in Port Arthur, and 12News has learned the names of the members of Diocesan Review Board that will be conducting that end of the investigation. The Board will work in conjunction with the Port Arthur police and the state.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

A former Catholic monk faces extradition from Australia amid claims of abuse at a Highland school.

Former students of the Fort Augustus Abbey boarding school in Inverness-shire, which closed in 1993, allege they were molested and beaten by staff over a number of decades.

A BBC investigation in 2013 identified Denis Alexander, now resident in Australia, as one of the accused.

A police investigation was launched and prosecutors said today that charges will be brought against him.

A Crown Office spokesman said: “Crown Counsel have instructed proceedings against Denis Alexander.

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NEW YORK
National Catholic Reporter

Peter Feuerherd | Dec. 17, 2015

Accusations of theft. A lifestyle of the rich and famous on a salary of about $30,000 per year. A man-man-woman triangle.

If there is a formula for a New York tabloid story, the case of Fr. Peter Miqueli, accused of embezzling more than a million dollars from two parishes, is exhibit A.

A lawsuit brought by some of Miqueli’s parishioners — he subsequently resigned his Bronx pastorate last week — charges him with theft from weekly collections and a church thrift shop, all to allegedly finance a prescription drug habit and to support Keith Crist, a bodybuilder friend, with a cash purchase of a $264,000 house in New Jersey and the rent on a Manhattan apartment, among other items.

Tatyana Gudin, a woman identified as Crist’s former girlfriend, has offered explicit details into the priest’s relationships which have become fodder for the city’s tabloids, including this story in the New York Post.

Both Miqueli and Crist have been unavailable for comment while Gudin has provided media outlets with a steady flow of information about the alleged sexual and financial improprieties. Miqueli, in his resignation letter to the parish, denied the charges and said he was cooperating in an archdiocesan investigation into the alleged embezzlement.

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NEW YORK
Catholic News Agency

By Adelaide Mena

New York City, N.Y., Dec 17, 2015 / 06:56 am (CNA).- The Archdiocese of New York says that it takes seriously accusations in a recent lawsuit claiming that a New York priest embezzled money and maintained scandalous personal habits, while also saying that a diocesan investigation has found nothing to substantiate the allegations.

“The Archdiocese has been investigating these allegations for many months, and has repeatedly requested any information or documentation that might substantiate the allegations that have been made,” Joseph Zwilling, communications director for the Archdiocese of New York, told CNA in a statement.

“Thus far, no evidence has been offered, and our forensic audit has thus far failed to uncover evidence of embezzlement,” he said. “We have been in touch with the District Attorney since the summer, and have promised to turn over anything that might be criminal in nature. We urge anyone with such evidence to do the same.”

The suit alleges that the Fr. Peter Miqueli, former pastor of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Church on Roosevelt Island and St. Frances De Chantal Church in the Bronx, was engaged in a “million dollar embezzlement scheme,” taking funds from his former parishes’ collections over the course of a decade.

In addition, the suit alleges, Fr. Miqueli “used the donations to grow his personal wealth, purchase a house in New Jersey, take dozens of international vacations, purchase and use illegal drugs,” and pay for the sexual services of a male escort.

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NEW YORK
Catholic Culture

December 17, 2015

The Archdiocese of New York has denied receiving evidence to support charges that a pastor has stolen parish funds to pay for a drug-fueled homosexual relationship.

“The archdiocese has been investigating these allegations for many months, and has repeatedly requested any information or documentation that might substantiate the allegations that have been made,” said archdiocesan spokesman Joseph Zwilling. “Thus far, no evidence has been offered.” He added that an audit by the archdiocese did not find evidence of embezzlement.

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KENTUCKY
WHAS

MEADE CO., Ky. (WHAS11) — An area Catholic priest accused of sexually abusing children goes before a judge.

Father Joseph Hemmerle appeared before a Meade County judge Thursday morning, Dec. 17, during a pretrial conference.

Hemmerle’s defense asked the judge to consider splitting the case in two so the priest could be tried separately over the allegations that date back to the ‘70s.

The prosecution argued that a single indictment was brought against Hemmerle because the victims’ complaints were similar in nature; all of them alleged the priest preyed on young boys.

The judge scheduled a final pretrial conference for 9 a.m. Jan. 7.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Wir Sind Kirche

[Reaktionen zur ARD/WDR-Dokumentation “Richter Gottes” bezüglich des Hildesheimer Priesters Peter R.]

[The Catholic lay organization We Are Church is questioning Bishop Trelle of the Hildesheim diocese on the way he handled the issue regarding abuse allegations against priest Peter R.]

Sehr geehrter Herr Bischof Trelle, sehr geehrter Herr Weihbischof Bongartz, es ist anzuerkennen, dass das Bistum Hildesheim ein Präventionssystem installiert hat und am Aschermittwoch dieses Jahres (18. Februar 2015) auch ein öffentliches Schuldbekenntnis, insbesondere zu den Verfehlungen der Verantwortlichen abgelegt hat 1. Auch anlässlich der Vorwürfe gegenüber dem verstorbenen Bischof Heinrich Maria Janssen Anfang November 2015 zeigte sich die Bistumsleitung zuhörbereit.

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SCOTLAND
BBC Scotland

By Mark Daly
BBC Scotland Investigations Correspondent

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.

The move to bring Fr Denis Chrysostom Alexander back to face trial in Scotland follows criticism by his alleged victims that the Crown was dragging its heels over the case.

It comes after a two-and-a-half-year inquiry, sparked by a BBC Scotland investigation.

Fr Chrysostom denies the allegations.

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

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ARIZONA
Catholic Sun

Christ brings beauty out of brokenness. Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted emphasized this during a Mass he celebrated for survivors of abuse and their families Dec. 1.

“As followers of Christ, we know that only in Him is it possible to find true peace,” Bishop Olmsted said. “Only Christ can mend broken hearts. Only Christ can renew hope. In this Mass we ask the Lord to heal all those who are suffering from abuse in the Church.”

The Mass of Healing and Reconciliation was held at Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in Phoenix. Throughout the liturgy, Bishop Olmsted pointed out that those who have suffered occupy a special place in the Heart of Christ.

“Jesus found that those who listened and received the Good News were the poor, the persons without guile, those who knew that they needed healing and mercy, and often those who had been mistreated and overlooked in society.”

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Declan Brennan
PUBLISHED
17/12/2015

Former priest and serial child abuser Tony Walsh will serve a maximum of two years for the sexual assault of a child in the early 1970s, a court has heard.

Walsh was a seminarian at the time of the offence, which is the earliest recorded case of child abuse by him. He went on to become known as the “Singing Priest” for his role in a traveling all-priest group before he was defrocked.

Walsh (61), formerly of North Circular Road, Dublin was convicted after a trial at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court of the indecent assault of a female at St Lukes, Kilbarron Park, Kilmore, Dublin on a unknown date between April 17, 1973 and September 9, 1976.

He had pleaded not guilty to the offence. The victim was aged between seven and ten at the time when Walsh locked her into a room and forced himself on her.

Walsh is currently serving a 16-year sentence imposed on him in 2010 for the rape and abuse of three schoolboys. His release date is in October 2020.

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DEUTSCHLAND
netzwerkB

netzwerkB Pressemitteilung vom 17.12.2015

Bischof Trelle vom Bistum Hildesheim soll „Missbrauchs-Vorwurf“ vertuscht haben, laut SPIEGEL ONLINE 15.12.2015.

Von komplettem „Versagen“ und „Rücktritt“ ist die Rede.

In Deutschland gibt es bei Straftaten gegen die sexuelle Selbstbestimmung keine Melde- und Anzeigepflicht. Insofern hätte Bischof Trelle, wenn er angeblich einen „Missbrauchs-Vorwurf“ vertuscht haben soll, nicht gegen die gesetzliche Norm unseres Staates verstoßen. „Vertuschen“ ist in Deutschland durch die aktuelle Gesetzeslage legal.

netzwerkB fordert schon seit 2010 eine Anzeige- und Meldepflicht bei Straftaten gegen die sexuelle Selbstbestimmung – Bischof Trelle könnte so gesetzlich zur Verantwortung gezogen werden, wenn der Vorwurf der Vertuschung ihm nachgewiesen würde.

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TEXAS
Beaumont Enterprise

By Dan Wallach Published Thursday, December 17, 2015

The Diocese of Beaumont has placed a Port Arthur parish pastor on leave pending a civil and church investigation into possible physical abuse, the diocese has confirmed.

A website, www.bishop-accountability.org/abusetracker, posted information about the suspension of Father David Placette, pastor of St. Catherine’s Parish in Port Arthur.

In a statement attributed to KBMT, Bishop Curtis Guillory is quoted as saying, “I have placed Father Placette on administrative leave from all priestly ministry, pending both civil and ecclesiastical investigations into this matter. Because the matter is now under investigation, I am unable to provide additional information. at this time.”

Barbara Dorris, outreach director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, based in St. Louis, said even though Catholic bishops had promised transparency in connection with priest abuse, the manner in which Placette’s case is handled is opaque.

“We don’t know why he was removed. This is not open and transparent. When did the diocese learn? When did the the police learn?” Dorris said.

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TEXAS
Fox 4

Updated: Thursday, December 17 2015

PORT ARTHUR — The Diocese of Beaumont has issued a statement saying investigations have been opened after an allegation was lodged against Fr. David Placette, Pastor of St. Catherine Church in Port Arthur.

Bishop Curtis J. Guillory issued the following statement to KFDM 6 News relating to an allegation made against at Fr. Placette:

The Diocese of Beaumont is committed to fostering safe comfortable, and positive environment for all whom we serve. We are deeply concerned to learn that a little more than a week ago Child Protective Services and the Port Arthur Police initiated an investigation into an allegation at St. Catherine School in Port Arthur, TX.

The allegation is against Fr. David Placette, Pastor of St. Catherine Church. Keeping in mind the interests of all involved, and in accord with the norms of the U.S. Bishops’ “CHARTER for the Protection of Children and Young People,” I have placed Fr. Placette on administrative leave from all priestly ministry, pending both civil and ecclesiastical investigations into this matter.

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TEXAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release Thursday December 17

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

We are grateful that civil authorities are handling the investigation of Port Arthur cleric Fr. David Placette. But now is not the time for complacency. It’s time for every single person who may have seen, suspected or suffered crimes or misdeeds by Placette – or cover ups by church officials – to come forward, get help, call police, expose wrongdoers and protect kids.

[12 News Now]

We are glad he has been removed, but urge Catholic officials to be open and transparent about what they know and when they knew it.

We hope anyone who saw, suspects or suffered child sex crimes will find the courage to speak up, report to law enforcement, and start healing.

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AUSTRALIA
Australian Jewish News

FORMER Yeshivah principal Rabbi Avrohom Glick described a function at the school last week where he shared the stage with child sexual abuse victims as a “significant step”.

Rabbi Glick, who was principal when more than a dozen students were abused by paedophiles, acknowledged and apologised for the mistakes and the failings of the past.

“I realise and I regret that in the past the true impact of child abuse, and the pain and suffering that abuse caused to victims and their families were not fully understood,” Rabbi Glick said.

“I am sincerely sorry and I apologise for that pain and suffering.”

He commended advocates for victims who have shed light on the issues of child sexual abuse and the victims for their courage to speak openly.

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TEXAS
12 News Now

PORT ARTHUR –
Father David Placette, who’s the pastor of St. Catherine Church, is being investigated by Port Arthur police and Child Protective Services, following an allegation made against him.

The Diocese of Beaumont confirmed this in a statement.

In the statement, Bishop Curtis Guillory says, “I have placed Father Placette on administrative leave from all priestly ministry, pending both civil and ecclesiastical investigations into this matter. Because the matter is now under investigation, I am unable to provide additional information. at this time.”

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NEW YORK
Church Militant

Cardinal Dolan is coming under increasing scrutiny for his failing to act over the course of nearly two years in the case of the homosexual priest embezzling up to a million dollars to fund his sadomasochistic sex fantasy with a live-in boyfriend. ChurchMilitant.com has obtained various letters and documents sent more than a year ago by parishioners here at St. Frances de Chantel parish in the Bronx to the cardinal and his staff alerting them to huge financial problems at the parish.

Included with the letters are financial statements from Fr. Peter Miqueli’s personal investment accounts showing account totals of almost $700,000. They were ignored. And that’s curious.

Amid a flurry of charges over a long period of time that Fr. Miqueli was stealing enormous amounts from the parish, why wouldn’t Cdl. Dolan simply call Fr. Miqueli into his office and ask for an explanation? It was certainly within his authority to ask for an accounting from Fr. Miqueli. But it never happened.

Around this same time, according to the lawsuit, Fr. Miqueli also purchased a house in cash for more than a quarter million dollars. Yet amidst all these allegations and, at the very least, unusual financial dealings for a priest, the cardinal never once approached Fr. Miqueli and asked him about any of this.

Another red flag ignored included in the package sent to the cardinal and his staff was a photocopy of a check that Fr. Miqueli wrote to himself against the parish Mass Stipend account for $14,000 — something he’s not allowed to do, in addition to the gigantic sum of money involved. Yet no one ever questioned Fr. Miqueli — most of all, Cdl. Dolan.

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ALABAMA
WDAM

[with video]

By Kaitlin Chappell

HUNTSVILLE, AL (WAFF) –
Huntsville police have charged a youth minister with 30-year-old Cristopher Alfaro with transmitting obscene material to a child.

They said 30-year-old Cristopher Alfaro allegedly used his position to help commit these crimes.

Representatives with Covenant Presbyterian Church said Alfaro was formerly the Director of Youth Ministry and was removed from the position some time ago.

Investigators said someone from the church reported Alfaro to police, prompting an investigation on Nov. 10.

Alfaro turned himself in to police Tuesday morning.

If your child or a child you know has been a victim of exploitation, you are encouraged to contact Huntsville police at 256-722-7100.

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ALABAMA
News Courier

Huntsville police on Wednesday arrested a 30-year-old youth minister on two counts of transmitting obscene material to a child, said Lt. Stacey Bates, public information officer for Huntsville Police Department.

Cristopher Bernal Alfaro of Huntsville is accused of using his position as a local youth minister to commit the crimes, Bates said in a press release.

Anyone who believes his or her child, or any other child, has been a victim of exploitation is asked to call the Police Department at 256-722-7100.

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ALABAMA
AL.com

By Crystal Bonvillian | cbonvillian@al.com
on December 16, 2015

Cristopher Bernal Alfaro, 30, is charged with two counts of transmitting obscene material to a child. Lt. Stacy Bates, a Huntsville police spokesman, said Alfaro used his position to commit the alleged crimes.

The name of the church Alfaro is affiliated with was not immediately available, and no additional information was released Wednesday. The investigation into Alfaro’s actions is ongoing.

He was released from jail Tuesday on $25,000 bond for each charge.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Liberal

By ANNETTE BLACKWELL
Dec. 17, 2015

TWO NSW government departments put 15 Aboriginal women through legal hell rather than acknowledge what was already known – they had been grossly abused at a remote state-funded children’s home at Brewarrina.

A report published on Tuesday by the child abuse royal commission says the Crown Solicitors Office and the Family and Community Services department breached state model litigant policy “in multiple ways” when dealing with civil claims by former residents of the Bethcar Children’s Home.

The home for disadvantaged Aboriginal children was founded in north western NSW in 1969.

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KANADA
Spiegel

Der kanadische Premierminister Justin Trudeau verlangt von Papst Franziskus eine Entschuldigung für die jahrzehntelange Misshandlung minderjähriger Ureinwohner in kirchlichen Heimen. Er werde den Papst direkt auffordern, sich in dieser Frage zu positionieren, sagte der Politiker laut Medienberichten am Mittwoch auf einer Pressekonferenz.

In Kanada waren seit 1874 rund 150.000 Kinder von Indianern, Mestizen und Inuit von ihren Familien und ihrer Kultur getrennt und unter Zwang in kirchliche Heime gesteckt worden, um sie so zur Anpassung an die weiße Mehrheitsgesellschaft zu zwingen. Viele von ihnen wurden in den Heimen misshandelt oder sexuell missbraucht. Mindestens 3200 starben, die meisten an Tuberkulose.

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KANADA
Watson

[Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he will ask Pope Francis to apologize for abuse in the residential schools.]

Der kanadische Premierminister Justin Trudeau will Papst Franziskus auffordern, sich im Namen der katholischen Kirche bei den Ureinwohnern für die jahrzehntelange Misshandlung von Kindern in kirchlichen Heimen zu entschuldigen.

Er werde den Papst «direkt» auffordern, sich in dieser Frage zu positionieren, sagte Trudeau am Mittwoch auf einer Pressekonferenz. Die kanadische Wahrheits- und Versöhnungskommission hatte am Dienstag ihren Abschlussbericht zur Praxis vorgestellt und empfohlen, dass der Papst sich bei den Ureinwohnern entschuldigen solle.

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BRASIL
Globo

O bispo diocesano de São Carlos (SP) Paulo Sérgio Machado, que em setembro foi flagrado dirigindo com sinais de embriaguez, renunciou ao cargo nesta quarta-feira (16) após o papa Francisco confirmar o pedido. A decisão foi publicada no Boletim Diário da Sala de Imprensa do Vaticano. Até a nomeação de um novo bispo, Dom Airton José dos Santos, arcebispo metropolitano de Campinas, assume a diocese como administrador apostólico.

Dom Paulo completou 70 anos no último dia 22 de novembro e depois de 26 anos como bispo, dentre os quais nove em São Carlos, pediu ao papa, como presente de aniversário, ser bispo emérito. Os motivos da sua renúncia são expressos em uma carta que ele mesmo escreveu ao santo Padre. “Já me sinto cansado. Tem muita gente boa por aí para me substituir. Não quero servir de peso a ninguém”, expressou.

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VATICAN CITY
ANSA

(ANSA) – Vatican City, December 16 – Pope Francis on Wednesday accepted the resignation of Brazilian bishop Paulo Sergio Machado as head of the diocese of the city of Sao Carlos.

The 70-year-old monsignor was stopped in September, when Brazilian police observed him zig-zagging through a Sao Carlos intersection, almost colliding with another vehicle and almost running over a pedestrian.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 16 December 2015 (VIS) – The Holy Father has:

– accepted the resignation from the pastoral care of the diocese of Sao Carlos, Brazil, presented by Bishop Paulo Sergio Machado, in accordance with canon 401 para. 2 of the Code of Canon Law.

– appointed Msgr. J. Gregory Kelly as auxiliary of Dallas (area 19,457, population 3,847,430, Catholics 1,165,582, priests 213, permanent deacons 144, religious 205), United States of America. The bishop-elect was born in LeMars, United States of America, in 1956 and was ordained a priest in 1982. He holds a Master of Divinity from the University of Dallas in Irving, Texas, and has served in a number of pastoral roles in the diocese of Dallas, including parish vicar, chaplain at the University of Texas, parish priest, director of priestly vocations, vicar forane, rector ad interim of the Holy Trinity seminary, and member of the college of consultors, the presbyteral council and the board of directors of the University of Texas. He is currently vicar for the clergy. In 2013 he was named Chaplain of His Holiness.

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BRASILIEN
Katholisch

[Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Brazilian Bishop Paulo Sergio Machado who was arrested by police for drunk driving. This was announced by the Vatican on Wednesday.]

Papst Franziskus hat die Abdankung des brasilianischen Bischofs Paulo Sergio Machado akzeptiert, der von der Polizei betrunken am Steuer erwischt worden war. Dies teilte der Vatikan am Mittwoch in Rom mit. Machado machte von der Möglichkeit des Kirchenrechts Gebrauch, dass Bischöfe bei “schlechter Gesundheit oder anderen schwerwiegenden Gründen” um eine Aufgabe ihres Amtes bitten können.

Der Bischof der Diözese São Carlos im Bundesstaat São Paulo soll Mitte September nach einem Fest im Zick-Zack-Kurs unterwegs gewesen sein und fast einen Fußgänger und ein anderes Auto gerammt haben. Die brasilianische Polizei stellte dem Portal “Globo” zufolge starken Alkoholgeruch beim Bischof fest und fand in seinem Wagen eine leere Weinkaraffe und ein Glas. Der 70-Jährige wurde kurzzeitig festgenommen.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Wicked Local Waltham

By Bill Whelan
wwhelan@wickedlocal.com

Posted Dec. 16, 2015

WALTHAM
A Waltham native scored a major victory in her fight against child sex abuse laws last week when the Massachusetts Supreme Court reaffirmed a 2014 law extending the statute of limitations for lawsuits filed by victims of child sex abuse.

The ruling is just the latest development in years of legal battles fought by Rosanne Sliney, a Waltham native who lives in Burlington, and her supporters.

“This is a victory for literally thousands of people in Massachusetts,” said Sliney’s lawyer Carmen Durso, who has been fighting to change the statute of limitation laws since 2003.

With the help of her lawyers and the non-profit organization Massachusetts Citizens for Children, Sliney helped convince the state legislature to amend the child sex abuse statute of limitations in 2014. Previously, a civil lawsuit had to be filed within three years of the victim’s 18th birthday, or three years since the abuse could have reasonably been discovered. The amendment changed the law to 35 years after the victim’s 18th birthday or seven years after the abuse was discovered, instead of three.

Sliney filed a lawsuit in 2012 that alleges she was sexually abused hundreds of times by her uncle, Domenic Previte Jr., as a child, starting when she was 5 years old in 1968 and until she was 14 years old. The abuse allegedly went on at Previte’s home in Waltham and at businesses he owned in surrounding towns.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

By Rachel Riley GLOBE CORRESPONDENT DECEMBER 17, 2015

A married pair of pastors at a Lowell church have been convicted in connection with the rape and assault of a child, the office of Middlesex District Attorney Marian T. Ryan said Wednesday.

Oscar Sanchez, 35, was found guilty Tuesday in Lowell Superior Court of charges including child rape, indecent assault and battery, and reckless endangerment of a child, prosecutors said. His wife, 42-year-old Luisa Osorio-Sanchez, was also found guilty of assault and battery and reckless endangerment of a child.

The victim lived with Sanchez and Osorio-Sanchez at their house in Lowell, Ryan’s office said.

Sanchez sexually assaulted the victim for over ten years, beginning in 2003, under the pretense that he was praying with her in her room, Ryan’s office said. His wife, who knew of the sexual abuse, physically attacked the victim, according to prosecutors.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Lowell Sun

By Lisa Redmond, lredmond@lowellsun.com
UPDATED: 12/17/2015

LOWELL — Oscar Sanchez, the pastor of a small local church, was convicted of repeatedly molesting and raping a girl for years while his wife and co-pastor, Luisa Osario-Sanchez, was found guilty of abusing the child and allowing the sexual assaults to continue.

After a four-day trial in Lowell Superior Court, a jury found Sanchez, 35, of Lowell, guilty of: aggravated child rape (four counts), rape of a child by force (four counts), rape (two counts), and one count each of indecent assault and battery on a person under 14, indecent assault and battery on a person over 14, and reckless endangerment of a child, according to the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office.

The jury found him not guilty of one count of rape.

Osario-Sanchez, 43, of Lowell, was convicted of assault and battery and reckless endangerment of a child. She was cleared of assault with intent to murder.

Sentencing of the couple is scheduled for Jan. 15.

During the trial, the victim, now 19, testified that the sexual abuse began when she was 6. She testified that Oscar Sanchez would come to her bed at night and molest her under the guise of praying with her. The victim lived with the couple.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A former chaplain and an ex-principal of a Roman Catholic care home have been found guilty of abusing boys.

Anthony McCallen, 65, was chaplain at the now defunct St William’s Children’s Home in East Yorkshire, where James Carragher, 75, was head.

The pair denied a total of 87 sex offences against children at the home between the 1970s and the 1990s.

Leeds Crown Court heard Carragher, a convicted sex offender from Merseyside, took boys naked swimming late at night.

The jury heard they both preyed on boys aged between 10 and 16 years old.

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UNITED KINGDOM
ITV

Two former members of staff at an East Yorkshire approved school have been found guilty of 35 counts of sexual abuse of boys over two decades.

James Carragher, 75, the former principal of the now defunct St William’s Children’s Home in Market Weighton, was found guilty of 24 charges of sexual abuse by a jury at Leeds Crown Court. It is the third time he has been convicted of abusing boys in his care.

Carragher is a former member of the De La Salle Brotherhood. The group released the following statement.

“We totally condemn, without reservation, any action or behaviour which harms young people. The behaviour of James Carragher was a deep betrayal of the Order’s mission to the young and of the trust that was placed in him as a De La Salle Brother. He was dismissed from the Order following previous conviction.

Likewise, we condemn the behaviour of Anthony McCallen when he was Chaplain at St William’s. He used his status as a priest to commit serious offences which was a total betrayal of his priesthood and of the trust placed in him as Chaplain.

We deeply regret what happened at St William’s and the harm that was done there through the behaviour of both Carragher and McCallen. Our hearts go out to all victims of abuse and their families.

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AUSTRALIA
The Courier

By All stories by Melissa Cunningham
Dec. 17, 2015, 1:30 p.m.

DAY ONE

Mulkearns in palliative care, will not give evidence

In her opening address on Monday, counsel assisting the royal commission Gail Furness said Bishop Ronald Mulkearns remained subject to a summons to appear before the commission, but is receiving palliative care and is unfit to give evidence. Read more.

Victim and nephew to convicted paedophile takes to the stand

Lawyers for Cardinal George Pell have suggested clergy sex abuse victim David Ridsdale misunderstood a conversation between him and the senior Vatican official in which he claims Cardinal Pell attempted to bribe him. Read more.

Fresh allegations about Pell emerge

Allegations against Australia’s most senior clergy at the Vatican continue to mount, with new claims emerging he told another parish priest disgraced paedophile Gerald Ridsdale was having sex with boys again. Read more.

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AUSTRALIA
The Courier

By Matthew Dixon
Dec. 17, 2015

Clergy sex abuse survivors have every right to be concerned and angry about Cardinal George Pell’s lack of an appearance at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Very few people were actually surprised.

This community, like so many others, has grown very used to the church failing to address what occurred so many years ago.

While the instances may have occurred some time ago, the pain and agony it has inflicted on so many is still being felt and it, now if not more than ever, must be addressed. This community as a whole has faced up to the terrible history inflicted on the region by the way the Catholic church has handled the matter.

It is something this community should be very proud of. It has stood by the survivors, and shown support for action. Even more so when you consider how the Catholic church have approached the matter.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Yorkshire Post

A FORMER head of a children’s home in East Yorkshire is facing jail for a third time after he was found guilty of a string of historical child abuse offences.

James Carragher, 75, was found guilty of 21 counts of indecent assault and three serious sexual assaults at Leeds Crown Court on Tuesday, Humberside Police said.

A jury at Leeds Crown Court was told that Carragher was jailed for seven years in 1993 and a further 14 years in 2004 for offences he committed at St William’s – an approved school for boys with behavioural problems in Market Weighton, East Yorkshire.

Carragher was on trial with a former chaplain at St William’s, Anthony McCallen, 69.

McCallen was found guilty of 10 counts of indecent assault and another serious sexual assault, by a jury which had been deliberating for more than a week.

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ITALY
The Guardian (UK)

Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Rome
Tuesday 15 December 2015

Pope Francis has always said Christians should seek out “encounters”, meetings that expand one’s understanding of the other and increase the capacity for love.

But there is one encounter the pope has steadfastly avoided since his election in 2013. Angelo Scola of Milan, the powerful and conservative Italian cardinal many thought would be pope before the surprise choice of the Argentinian Jesuit known as Father Bergoglio, received word of the latest apparent snub last week.

A bulletin released by the Vatican press office announced that the archbishop of Milan had regrettably been informed by Francis’s number two, the secretary of state Pietro Parolin, that Francis’s planned trip to Milan in May was off because the pope had too many commitments in Rome. Last year, Francis fell ill shortly before two planned meetings with Scola.

The highly anticipated visit to the fashion and finance capital of Italy, which happens to be the most important archdiocese in Italy, if not Europe, would happen in 2017 instead, the Vatican said. …

“The pope does not like the idea of the church being in bed with politicians or politics. The Italian hierarchy is very … political and tied in to business and politics. Scola represents that kind of church,” said Robert Mickens, a longtime Vatican journalist and editor-in-chief of Global Pulse magazine.

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AUSTRALIEN
Kathpress

[Cardinal George Pell has cancelled his appointment to appear before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.]

Canberra, 11.12.2015 (KAP/KNA) Der australische Kardinal George Pell hat einen Termin bei der staatlichen Missbrauchskommission abgesagt. Ursprünglich sollte sich Pell am Mittwoch als Zeuge vor dem Ausschuss in Melbourne äußern. Die Anwälte des Kurienkardinals machten gesundheitliche Gründe für die Absage geltend, wie es in einer am Freitag veröffentlichten Mitteilung der Untersuchungskommission hieß.

Ein Angebot von Pells Anwälten, ihn per Video aus Rom zu der Verhandlung zuzuschalten, lehnte der Ausschussvorsitzende Peter McClellan demnach ab. Pell habe sich ausdrücklich bereiterklärt, persönlich vor der Kommission auszusagen, erklärte Richter McClellan. Die zu klärenden Sachverhalte seien zudem zu “komplex”.

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CANADA
VICE News

By Justin Ling

December 16, 2015

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expecting to have a tete-a-tete with the head of the Catholic Church in order to ask for his Holiness to apologize for the century of abuse inflicted on Canada’s indigenous people in the church-run residential schools.

Trudeau made the promise to ask for Pope Francis’ mea culpa on Wednesday, after a meeting designed to start the process towards reconciliation between Ottawa and the generations of Aboriginal people who were taken from their homes and forced into a residential school system rife with abuse.

The start of the “new era” of Canada’s relationship with the territory’s Aboriginal peoples comes after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its final report on Tuesday. Amongst its 4,000 pages of testimony and historical accounts were 94 calls to action, drawing a roadmap for how Canada could repair its fractured relationship with its indigenous peoples.

Those recommendations were sketched out in an interim report, published last June. The report called on the government to do everything from re-invest in Aboriginal media to bridge the health gap between aboriginal and non-aboriginal Canadians.

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TEXAS
WFAA

Monica Hernandez, WFAA December 16, 2015

DALLAS – Pope Francis made an exciting announcement for Dallas Catholics Wednesday morning.

The Vatican announced that long-time Dallas Priest Monsignor John Gregory Kelly has been named a bishop, and will serve as one of two auxiliary, or assistant, bishops in the Dallas Diocese.

Bishop Kevin Farrell held a news conference Wednesday morning at the Dallas Diocese to celebrate the announcement, calling it “an early Christmas gift.”

It’s clear that Kelly is already well-loved in Dallas. The news conference was packed with people who have worked with him in his 34 years serving as a priest for the Dallas Diocese.

Kelly, 59, began his remarks Wednesday morning with a sense of humor, joking that he got a call from Washington last week, and should have known not to answer.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

AAP

A Catholic bishop showed no compassion for victims of a pedophile priest, an inquiry has heard.

Retired school teacher Ann Ryan said she tried to get former Ballarat bishop Ronald Mulkearns to help families still hurting from the abuse inflicted by Gerald Francis Ridsdale in the Victorian town of Mortlake in 1981 and 1982.

Ms Ryan told the child abuse royal commission a local woman told her in 1989 her son had been badly sexually abused by Ridsdale.

Ms Ryan, who taught at Mortlake’s St Colman’s Parish School, said she contacted Bishop Mulkearns a number of times and was angered by his responses.

“I thought he showed no compassion, empathy or intent to do something to help the victims and their families,” she told the commission.

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UNITED STATES
Advocate

BY DAWN ENNIS
DECEMBER 16 2015

U.S. Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois is asking Pope Francis to rein-in an antigay Cardinal who has targeted the out U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republic.

Cardinal Nicolas de Jesus Lopez Rodriguez went so far recently as to denounce Ambassador Wally Brewster to reporters, using a slur and saying he should “focus on housework, since he’s the wife to a man,” rather than get involved in his country’s politics.

According to Durbin’s letter to Pope Francis, the Cardinal has even organized church-sponsored public protests against Brewster, who hails from Illinois and whom Durbin calls a personal friend.

The Illinois Democrat makes it clear in his letter that Brewster is legally married according to the laws of the United States.

Durbin, who is Roman Catholic, also wrote that he accepts the challenge the Pope made in his historic address to a joint session of Congress, to “defend and preserve the dignity” of all people, and appealed to Francis to step in, despite church policy against marriage equality.

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CANADA
CBC News

By Susana Mas, CBC News

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he will seek a formal apology from Pope Francis for the Roman Catholic Church’s role in residential schools, a day after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission made public its final report into the legacy of the schools.

The commission has called upon the Pope to apologize to residential school survivors and their families for the Catholic Church’s role “in the spiritual, cultural, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children in Catholic-run residential schools.”

Trudeau met with the leaders of five national aboriginal organizations in Ottawa on Wednesday to discuss the findings of the commission.

Asked if he would urge the Pope to apologize, Trudeau said “different churches, including the Catholic Church, are very much engaged with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and I am certainly intending to work with the Catholic Church, including with the Holy See, to move forward with implementing that recommendation — to ask him directly to engage with this issue, yes.”

Trudeau said while he could not guarantee the Pope would issue an apology, he was prepared to have that conversation with him, given the opportunity.

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CANADA
CTV

The Canadian Press
Published Wednesday, December 16, 2015

OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confesses he can’t compel an apology from the Pope for the role of the Catholic Church in Canada’s residential school system.

But Trudeau says he looks forward to raising the matter with the pontiff.

Trudeau met for more than two hours this morning with leaders from five indigenous organizations, capping a week that saw the Truth and Reconciliation Commission deliver its final report on the legacy of residential schools.

The commission made 94 “calls to action” towards reconciliation in a preliminary report last June — including an apology from the Pope — and the Liberals pledged to implement the entire report.
About 60 per cent of Canada’s residential schools were run by the Catholic Church between the 1840s and 1996, when the last school closed.

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DEUTSCHLAND
NDR

[Problems are mounting for the Hildesheim diocese. The Berlin public prosecutor’s office has requested a transcript made of a conversation with an alleged abuse victim. The conversation was of a 14-year-old talking about clear overtures of abuse from a clergyman. The prosecutor is now resuming its investigation against the priest. This priest was considered one of the major abusers at Carisius College in Berlin. The allegations at Canisius was time-barred but the Hildesheim case in much newer and apparently is not time-barred.]

Das Bistum Hildesheim gerät nach Bekanntwerden eines Missbrauchsfalls aus dem Jahr 2010 immer stärker unter Druck. Die Staatsanwaltschaft Berlin hat nun eine Mitschrift des Bistums Hildesheim angefordert, die Kirchenvertreter über ein Gespräch mit einem mutmaßlichen Missbrauchs-Opfer angefertigt hatten. Darin spricht eine damals 14-Jährige über deutliche Annäherungsversuche eines Geistlichen. Die Staatsanwaltschaft prüft nun, ob sie ihre Ermittlungen gegen den Priester wieder aufnimmt, der auch als einer der Haupttäter im Missbrauchs-Skandal am Berliner Canisius-Kolleg gilt – seine dortigen Taten sind allerdings inzwischen verjährt. Im Fall der heute 20-jährigen Frau hatte die Staatsanwaltschaft ihre ersten Ermittlungen 2011 gegen Zahlung einer Geldauflage eingestellt.

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CALIFORNIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2015

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

A statewide petition drive to make California kids safer by repealing archaic, predatory-friendly laws will soon start. We applaud this move and the brave survivor who’s responsible for it.

[Mercury News]

Will Lynch, who was sexually violated as a child by a Jesuit priest, has begun a ballot initiative to repeal the arbitrary criminal and civil statutes of limitations on child sex crimes, the time limits that prevent most child victims from exposing their perpetrators in court and prevent most prosecutors from pursuing those molesters.

We in SNAP believe there should be no statute of limitations on these heinous, life-altering crimes. These statutes give those who commit or conceal child sexual abuse the incentive to intimidate victims, discredit witnesses, threaten whistleblowers, destroy evidence, stonewall police, and deceive prosecutors, so that the deadline to charge or sue the wrongdoers passes. It’s astonishingly irresponsible and callous to let this reckless injustice continue.

Many states have relaxed, reformed or revoked these dreadful statutes. A handful have gone further and adopted temporary repeals or “windows” that enable any child sex abuse victim to use the civil courts to take action against and warn the public about child molesters. http://sol-reform.com/

We hope millions of California citizens sign these petitions and vote for this sorely-needed measure. We also challenge California Catholic officials to put their muscle behind this effort. Bishops talk the abuse prevention talk. They rarely walk the abuse prevention walk, however. In fact, they often oppose secular legal reforms that would protect kids. So we urge them to honor their repeated pledges to put the safety of children first by throwing their political weight and vast resources behind this struggle.

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TEXAS
Road to Recovery

Pedophile priest sexually abuses in approximately 1960 while assigned to the Archdiocese of Boston, MA, and then after being transferred to the Archdiocese of San Antonio, TX, sexually abuses again

The late Fr. Joseph Angeli was a San Antonio Archdiocesan priest who sexually abused at least one minor female in approximately 1962 when Fr. Joseph Angeli was assigned to St. John the Evangelist Parish in Hondo, TX, and this was after he sexually abused two minor females while assigned to St. Philip’s Parish in Boston, MA, in approximately 1960

Fr. Joseph Angeli allegedly sexually abused minor females in Massachusetts and Texas. He was also assigned to Catholic parishes in New Mexico and was transferred between and among at least four Catholic Dioceses in the United States from approximately 1960 until 1980 – Boston, MA; San Antonio, TX; El Paso, TX; and Las Cruces, NM

The Archdiocese of San Antonio should reach out to the female sexual abuse victim of Fr. Joseph Angeli, verify her allegations, and settle her claim so she may heal and receive a degree of closure

What
A press conference and demonstration alerting the media, Catholics of the San Antonio Archdiocese, and the general public that a serial pedophile priest, Fr. Joseph Angeli, sexually abused at least one minor female in approximately 1962 when Fr. Joseph Angeli was assigned to St. John the Evangelist Parish in Hondo, TX. Fr. Joseph Angeli previously sexually abused two minor females in approximately 1960 while assigned to St. Philip’s Parish, Boston, MA

When
Thursday, December 17, 2015 at 11:00 am

Where
On the public sidewalk in front of the headquarters of the Archdiocese of San Antonio, TX,
2718 W. Woodlawn, San Antonio, TX 78228 – 210-734-2620

Who
Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D., Co-founder and President of Road to Recovery, Inc., a non-profit charity based in Livingston, New Jersey that assists victims of sexual abuse and their families

Why
Fr. Joseph Angeli was an Italian-born priest who was ordained in 1942 and assigned to several Archdioceses and Dioceses in the United States. Allegations of sexual abuse of minor females against Fr. Joseph Angeli have been made as a result of his being assigned to parishes in Boston, MA, and Hondo, TX. Fr. Angeli also served in many parishes in the Diocese of El Paso, TX, and Las Cruces, NM. Two female victims have claimed to have been sexually abused as minors by Fr. Angeli in Boston, MA, in approximately 1960, and another female victim claims to have been sexually abused as a minor in Hondo, TX, in the Archdiocese of San Antonio, TX in approximately 1962 when Fr. Joseph Angeli was assigned to St. John the Evangelist Parish in Hondo, TX. The claims of the two minor female victims of Fr. Joseph Angeli from Boston, MA have been settled financially. The Archdiocese of San Antonio will be called upon to acknowledge the claim made by the female victim from Hondo, TX, verify and settle her claim, and allow her to gain a degree of closure.

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

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ITALY
Malta Today

The venerable master of the clandestine freemasons lodge Propaganda P2, one of Italy’s most sinister organisations believed to be at the heart of a fascist conspiracy, has died

Licio Gelli (born 1919) died on Tuesday, 15 December, at the age of 96 at his house, Villa Wanda, in Arezzo.

La Repubblica dubbed the financier, as the man behind “all of Italy’s darkest mysteries”: in 1981, his P2 lodge was raided by the police, and since then he has been nicknamed ‘the puppetteer’, ‘Belfagor’, and ‘the venerable master’, having played a part in 40 years of scandals against the Italian republic: the Borghese coup, the strategy of tension that rocked Italy in the 1970s, the Sindona bank scandal, the Calvi murder, the Moro assassination, mafia and tangentopoli.

In 2008 he famously declared that Silvio Berlusconi, himself a former member of the P2, was “the only one who could go ahead in politics in Italy” citing him as the man who was putting in action P2’s ‘plan for Italy’s democratic rebirth’ – a clandestine plan to take over the country’s institutions and thwart critical and left-wing opposition.

During the 1930s, Gelli volunteered for the Blackshirts’ expeditionary forces sent by Benito Mussolini in support of Francisco Franco’s rebellion in the Spanish Civil War and subsequently became a liaison officer between the Italian government and Nazi Germany, with contacts including Hermann Göring.

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ITALY
The Local

Licio Gelli, a masonic leader implicated in some of the darkest scandals of Italy’s recent political history, has died in Tuscany aged 96.

Gelli was the head of the secretive ‘P2’ lodge – a masonic structure that exerted considerable political power until it was discovered by Italian investigators in 1981.

P2, or Propaganda Due, was an influential secret network that counted politicians, judges, bankers and senior military figures amongst its members.

Its tentacles stretched throughout the upper echelons of the Italian establishment, although an attempt to have its members jailed for political conspiracy and attempting to destabilise the state finally failed in 1994.

It is best known internationally for having been at the heart of a murder mystery involving both the mafia and the Vatican which centered the body of “God’s banker” Roberto Calvi being found hanging beneath London’s Blackfriars bridge in 1982.

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ITALY
GlobalPost

Agence France-Presse on Dec 16, 2015

Shadowy masonic figure implicated in Italy’s darkest days dead at 96

Licio Gelli, a masonic grand master implicated in some of the darkest chapters of Italy’s post-war history and one of the worst scandals to rock the Vatican, has died at the age of 96.

Gelli, a fascist sympathiser who was the founder and leader of of the notorious P2 masonic lodge, passed away on Tuesday evening at his villa in Arezzo, Tuscany, his family said, according to local media.

P2, or Propaganda Due, was an influential secret network that counted politicians, judges, bankers and senior military figures amongst its members.

Its tentacles stretched throughout the upper echelons of the Italian establishment, although an attempt to have its members jailed for political conspiracy and attempting to destabilise the state finally failed in 1994.

It is best known internationally for having been at the heart of a murder mystery involving both the mafia and the Vatican which centered the body of “God’s banker” Roberto Calvi being found hanging beneath London’s Blackfriars bridge in 1982.

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MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis – Catholic Spirit

Maria Wiering | December 15, 2015

More than 2,000 Catholics participated in one of 10 listening sessions held throughout the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in October and November. Attendees included lay leaders, men and women in consecrated life, priests and deacons, as well as students, seminarians and people who have left formal parish affiliation. They represented at least 80 percent of the archdiocese’s parishes.

The observations and opinions expressed ranged broadly, but over the course of the sessions, several common themes emerged. Attendees were asked to identify the archdiocese’s greatest strengths and challenges, and to share the qualities they would like the next archbishop to possess. …

Greatest challenges

By far, the top challenge identified was restoration of trust between Church leaders and the faithful. Other challenges repeated at each session were the bankruptcy and concern for the archdiocese’s financial stability, the need for healing from clergy sex abuse scandals, and the difficulty of bringing Catholics who have left the Church — especially the young and disenfranchised — back to the community.

Trust. Many perceived a lack of transparency and cited the local Church’s loss of credibility. Some participants said that lack of trust extended to the listening sessions, and they questioned whether their input would be shared or be shared with the aposotolic nuncio ahead of Pope Francis’ appointment of a new archbishop. The presence of a staff member from the nunciature at the last three listening sessions seems to have addressed this doubt for many.

Finances. In January, the archdiocese entered Chapter 11 Reorganization to allow it to address all sexual abuse claims equitably. It continues to work in mediation with victims’ counsel and insurance carriers. To date, legal fees have topped $5 million. Few participants, however, mentioned finances in their written comments.

Healing. Most participants expressed the need for healing from clergy sexual abuse scandals, both for victims and the Church. Several times, healing was tied to transparency and trust. One listening session participant wrote, “Openness and forgiveness need to take place before healing can take place.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

Evidence suggesting senior clergy tried to cover up sex abuse by a disgraced bishop has been uncovered by the BBC.

Two priests raised concerns about Peter Ball but were urged to keep quiet or saw no action taken, it has emerged.

And a couple who worked for now-jailed Ball, former bishop of Lewes and Bishop of Gloucester, said they also tried to raise concerns but were ignored.

Ball’s offending is the subject of an independent review and a national inquiry is looking at Church abuse.

The retired bishop was jailed in October for a string of offences against teenagers and young men.

‘Church did nothing’

Cliff James said he told a priest in 1992 that Ball had abused him.

But he said the priest later received phone calls from three bishops who urged her to make sure he and another alleged victim did not talk to police or the media.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DECEMBER 17, 2015

Tessa Akerman
Reporter
Melbourne

A Melbourne priest has been ­accused of fabricating parts of his statement to the child sex abuse royal commission to save his “good friend” Cardinal George Pell.

Father John Walshe told the commission he was living with Cardinal Pell in Mentone in Melbourne’s southeast when abuse victim David Ridsdale called the then bishop one morning in February 1993.

He recalled an ashen faced Cardinal Pell had said: “David is a mess.’’

Mr Ridsdale previously told the commission that he called Cardinal Pell in the morning and spoke about his uncle, former priest Gerald Ridsdale, abusing him. He claimed Cardinal Pell had said he wanted to know what it would take to keep Mr Ridsdale quiet.

Documents tendered to the commission show that Father Walshe’s draft statement put the phone call between Cardinal Pell and Mr Ridsdale in the late afternoon or evening.

Father Walshe told the commission he had conflated watching Cardinal Pell accompany Gerald Ridsdale to court on the television in the evening and ­Cardinal Pell receiving the call.

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NEW YORK
Catholic Herald (UK)

by Catholic News Service
posted Wednesday, 16 Dec 2015

Fr Peter Miqueli of St Frances de Chantal Parish told parishioners he was ‘not guilty of the charges’ brought against him

A New York priest accused of scandalous behaviour of a sexual and financial nature in a lawsuit filed by his parishioners on December 10 has stepped down as pastor of a church in the New York borough of the Bronx.

Saying that he made the decision to step down “while this unfortunate and regrettable situation is investigated,” Fr Peter Miqueli in a letter to members of St Frances de Chantal Parish that he was “not guilty of the charges” brought against him but “felt that my continued presence here would be a distraction to you, particularly during this season of Advent and Christmas.”

The letter went on to say that Fr Miqueli has been co-operating for months “with the investigations that have been underway to get to the bottom of the allegations that have been brought against me, and I intend to continue in any way possible to resolve this matter.”

The letter was read to parishioners attending Masses at St Frances de Chantal the weekend of December 12-13.

The 36-page lawsuit, filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, includes salacious details of a sexual affair Fr Miqueli allegedly carried on with Keith Crist as well as accusations that the priest took money donated to repair a church pipe organ and used drugs provided by a parishioner. The suit also claims the priest pays part of the monthly rent for Crist’s Manhattan apartment.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) The Press Office of the Holy See has issued a Note in response to the evaluation of the report of the Holy See to the Council of Europe’s financial oversight agency, MONEYVAL, which was submitted last week, on December 8th, and made available to the public by MONEYVAL on Tuesday, December 15th.

The Note recognizes MONEYVAL’s confirmation of the “substantial progress” the Holy See has made over the course of the past two years, toward, “building an institutional and regulatory framework for the prevention and combating of money laundering and the financing of terrorism that is functional and adequate to the task.”

The Note goes on to recall the $11.2 million in frozen assets that the Vatican’s investigative and prosecutorial arm – the “Promoter of Justice” – has frozen pending thorough investigation. It underlines the Vatican’s establishment of a strong international network that enables it to cooperate actively with other countries and international and transnational organizations working toward the same goals of transparency and rule of law.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Australian Associated Press
Tuesday 15 December 2015

A Catholic priest has denied making up key parts of his evidence to the child abuse royal commission to “save” his friend Cardinal George Pell.

Melbourne priest Father John Walshe said he spoke to Pell after Pell’s contentious 1993 telephone conversation with abuse victim David Ridsdale, who alleges he was asked by Pell what it would take to keep him quiet.

Walshe previously gave evidence to the commission that Pell appeared concerned for David Ridsdale after the phone call.

Walshe has been accused of having no memory of key information, after counsel assisting the commission Angus Stewart SC dissected discrepancies between his initial recollection, what he told Pell’s lawyers and his final evidence.

Stewart said: “Father, I put to you that you fabricated these aspects of your statement to save your good friend Cardinal Pell, isn’t that right?”

Walshe replied: “I absolutely deny that”.

Stewart: “You fabricated these parts of your statement to assist your good friend George Pell, isn’t that right?”

Walshe said no.

Ridsdale, a victim and nephew of paedophile priest Gerald Francis Ridsdale, has accused Pell of trying to bribe him by saying: “I want to know what it will take to keep you quiet”.

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

David Edmund Moody

Spotlight is a message movie – not often a promising foundation for either entertainment or art.

But Spotlight succeeds where lesser message movies fail because of its unerring sense of direction in illuminating the source of evil in a complex social network. The pedophilia rampant among the Catholic clergy in Boston some fifteen years ago was hidden for decades before the Boston Globe broke the story. Spotlight hammers home the point that these were not just isolated cases, but part of an institutional disease that affected the Church at the highest levels of its hierarchy.

That institutional disease, moreover, was not confined to the Church, but had ramifications throughout Boston – indeed, the Globe itself had participated in burying the story years earlier. The dots were there to be connected long before the Globe published the facts, had anyone wanted to look – but no one did. Priests molesting choirboys? Playing strip poker with and soliciting oral sex from twelve-year-olds? Nobody even wanted to think about it.

Mark Ruffalo plays the reporter whose diligence and determination to uncover the truth ultimately succeeds against all odds. The reporter has just the right mix of street smarts and scruffy chutzpah to make all the pieces of the puzzle fall into place. Ruffalo is a master of the puzzled glance, ingratiating body language, quick repartee and other accouterments of finesse as a maturing actor.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Lowell Sun

By Lisa Redmond, lredmond@lowellsun.com
UPDATED: 12/11/2015

LOWELL — After allegedly enduring years of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of local church pastors Oscar Sanchez and Luisa Osorio-Sanchez, the victim testified that when she rebelled, she was beaten, choked and subjected to an exorcism.

“They thought I was possessed. They held me down and performed some sort of exorcism on me,” the victim, now 19, testified during the husband and wife joint trial in Lowell Superior Court on Wednesday.

As of 2014, Oscar Sanchez, 35, and Luisa Osario-Sanchez, 43, both of Lowell, were listed on their Facebook pages as co-pastors of The Church of God The Holy Branch on Loring Street in Lowell.

The victim lived with the couple.

Oscar Sanchez has been held on $100,000 cash bail for the past year, after pleading not guilty to charges of: statutory rape of a child (two counts), child rape with force (four counts), rape (three counts), indecent assault and battery on a person over 14 (two counts), attempted murder, and reckless endangerment of a child.

Luisa Osario-Sanchez, who has been free on $15,000 cash bail, has been charged with: assault to murder, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, assault and battery, and reckless endangerment of a child.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Lowell Sun

By Lisa Redmond, lredmond@lowellsun.com
UPDATED: 12/15/2015

LOWELL — Oscar Sanchez, the pastor of a small local church, was convicted of repeatedly molesting and raping a girl for years while his wife and co-pastor, Luisa Osario- Sanchez, was found guilty of abusing the child and allowing the sexual assaults to continue.

After a four-day trial in Lowell Superior Court, a jury found Sanchez, 35, of Lowell, guilty of: aggravated child rape ( four counts), rape of a child by force (four counts), rape (two counts), and one count each of indecent assault and battery on a person under 14, indecent assault and battery on a person over 14, and reckless endangerment of a child, according to the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office.

The jury found him not guilty of one count of rape.

Osario-Sanchez, 43, of Lowell, was convicted of assault and battery and reckless endangerment of a child. She was cleared of assault with intent to murder.

Sentencing of the couple is scheduled for Jan. 15.

During the trial, the victim, now 19, testified that the sexual abuse began when she was 6. She testified that Oscar Sanchez would come to her bed at night and molest her under the guise of praying with her. The victim lived with the couple.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

By Conall Ó Fátharta
Irish Examiner Reporter

A senior HSE social worker revealed in 2011 that Bessborough Mother and Baby Home files contained information on the “quasi-illegal deportation and adoption” of children to the USA, Britain, and Australia.

The revelation is contained in a business plan prepared by principal social worker in the South Lee region, Pat O’Dwyer, in 2011 in preparation for the HSE’s takeover of about 15,500 adoption files from the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary Order which ran the Bessborough, Sean Ross Abbey, and Castlepollard Mother and Baby Homes.

Mr O’Dwyer pointed out that the natural mothers and adopted people had been “badly treated, rebuffed, misled, and in many cases dishonestly misdirected” when seeking information.

“The reality is the intercountry and other groups get a priority service over them. This group within the Bessborough group, from my recent direct experience, have been treated badly, rebuffed, misled, and in many cases dishonestly misdirected.”

“It is my view that they now deserve some respect, support, and to be given a quality social work service, so that they can end their days having had their needs met like our own HSE clients. Is this too much to ask in this climate for this client group?” he said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Courier

By Melissa Cunningham
Dec. 16, 2015.

A Catholic priest has denied fabricating aspects of his testimony to a child sex abuse royal commission in an attempt to “save” Cardinal George Pell.

Mentone parish priest Rev John Walshe has told the commission Cardinal Pell looked “shocked and crestfallen” after speaking to sex abuse victim David Ridsdale, who alleges Cardinal Pell asked what it would take to keep him quiet during a 1993 telephone conversation.

Counsel assisting the commission Angus Stewart SC suggested Fr Walshe was being untruthful in evidence and had “no recollection” of the phone call occurring or Cardinal Pell’s demeanour following it.

“Father I put to you that you fabricated these aspects of your statement to save your good friend Cardinal Pell, isn’t that right?”

“I absolutely deny that,” Fr Walshe responded.

Mr Stewart pressed him further: “You fabricated these parts of your statement to assist your good friend George Pell, isn’t that right?”

“No,” Fr Walshe said.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Celebrant compares Dermot O’Mahony’s suffering in final years to that of some saints

Patsy McGarry

A bishop who was sharply criticised by an inquiry into the handling of clerical abuse allegations in the Dublin archdiocese had been “scapegoated”, an auxiliary bishop of Dublin told his funeral Mass yesterday.

Defending the memory of Dermot O’Mahony, who was also an auxiliary bishop of Dublin, Bishop Eamonn Walsh told mourners he had suffered in “a society that at the time ignored the spirit of equity”.

Bishop O’Mahony had been “a man of great integrity”, Bishop Walsh told the congregation in Shankill, which included the papal nuncio, Archbishop Charles Brown.

Bishop Dermot O’Mahony was ‘a man of great integrity’

Murphy report

The Murphy report followed an investigation into how clerical child sex abuse allegations had been handled in the Dublin archdiocese between January 1st, 1975 and April 30th, 2004.

Bishop O’Mahony’s handling of complaints and suspicions of child sexual abuse was “particularly bad”, the report said, adding that he had been aware of complaints involving 13 priests. He resigned as president of the Irish Pilgrimage Trust, which brought disabled children to Lourdes, and was stood down from attending Confirmations.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Conor Kane
PUBLISHED
16/12/2015

A former priest who taught music in one of the country’s best known private schools has been given a four-year prison term for indecently assaulting a student in the 1980s.

Henry Moloney (77), with an address at Kimmage Manor in Dublin, appeared before Clonmel Circuit Court yesterday. The court previously heard Moloney told Pope Francis in a letter last year he had a history of “abusing young boys”.

He was given consecutive sentences totalling four years.

Moloney had denied all charges against him in a trial earlier this month but was found guilty of seven counts of indecent assault, an eighth charge having been withdrawn.

The court heard he had previous convictions for indecent assault.

The five-day trial heard that the abuse started within a week or two of the beginning of a school year in the 1980s at Rockwell College in Co Tipperary after Fr Henry Moloney, as he was then, asked the victim to join the choir.

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CANADA
Toronto Star

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s searing final report into residential schools calls for a “new vision” for Canada-First Nations relations, based on common respect.

Sphenia Jones is a survivor from the Haida Nation. As a child she was wrenched from her family on Haida Gwaii off British Columbia’s coast, put on a steamer to Prince Rupert and then shuffled on to a train bound for a residential school far inland.

For days, children on that train were “crying all the time, crying, crying, crying,” she told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. On the second day she found a baby abandoned in a corner. “I picked him up. I remember holding him … looking at his face.” There was “nothing to eat, nothing to drink,” she recalls. “I couldn’t give him anything.”

Was the baby Sphenia Jones cradled in her own childish arms that day one of the 3,201 children who are known to have died in the residential schools of malnutrition, tuberculosis, influenza and other scourges, many of them buried, forgotten, in unmarked graves? We will never know. But her story rings cruelly true for other survivors. Many of the 150,000 indigenous children who were uprooted from their communities between 1883 and 1996 faced lives of heartbreak, cultural deracination, permanent separation from family, and privation and abuse. As many as 6,000 may have died in the schools.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Kieran Jones

A report into the abuse of students who attended Hobart’s elite The Hutchins School has found it avoided apologising to an abuse victim in order to protect its reputation.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has released its report after weeks of public hearings last year.

It investigated the school’s response to allegations against former headmaster David Lawrence and teacher Lyndon Hickman as well as the role and influence of the Anglican Church on the response.

A student, known as AOA, was at the school from 1964 until August or September of 1965, and the report states that he was groomed and sexually abused by Lawrence who was headmaster between 1963 and 1970.

Lawrence abruptly resigned from the position and fled overseas in 1970 after being interviewed by Tasmania Police for offences involving sexual activity with another student.

He was never arrested over the incident.

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OHIO
Columbus Dispatch

By Randy Ludlow
The Columbus Dispatch • Tuesday December 15, 2015

The girl was 15 years old when she was raped twice by her pastor during a counseling session in 2008 at Delaware Grace Brethren Church in Sunbury.

Church officials knew the pastor twice had been previously accused of sexual misconduct with teen-age girls, but did not investigate or document the incidents.

A Delaware County jury subsequently found the church negligent and awarded the girl $3.5 million in damages for her pain and suffering.

But, since the judgment was at odds with a state law capping the amount of non-economic damages, a judge reduced the award to the maximum $350,000.

The Ohio Supreme Court was asked on Tuesday to declare the limit on damages unconstitutional when applied to child sex-abuse victims, saying it deprives them of adequate compensation for a lifetime of mental trauma.

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AUSTRALIA
Perth Now

PREVIOUS administrators of a Hobart boys’ school should have been aware of the risk posed to students by predatory teaching staff in the 1960s, a royal commission report has found.

Commissioners Justice Jennifer Coate and Andrew Murray today released their report into the response of The Hutchins School and the Anglican Diocese of Tasmania to allegations of child sexual abuse at the school dating back to the early 1960s.

“Given the number of men who have complained of having been sexually abused when they were students at the school and the number of teachers who are implicated in that abuse, the nature of the school environment clearly placed children at risk,” the report reads.

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AUSTRALIA
Bendigo Advertiser

A WISE man once said: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

With the exception of one word – “good” – this quote perfectly sums up the ongoing Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Day after day of heart-wrenching and anger-inducing testimony demonstrates that men in power did nothing to protect society’s most vulnerable from harm.

These men – men of the cloth, men of high standing, men of intellect – ceased being good men the moment they turned a blind eye to the abuses occurring.

The testimony of Father Lawrence O’Toole highlights the appalling – no, criminal – attitude that allowed child sexual abuse to flourish for decades across central Victoria.

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AUSTRALIA
Women’s Agenda

16 Dec 2015 Dr Cathy Kezelman

Cardinal George Pell withdrew from his much-awaited personal appearance by at the public hearing into the Melbourne archdiocese and Ballarat diocese this week, due to a sudden exacerbation of long-standing heart condition. The move frustrated not only victims and advocates, but also the very process of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Call me naïve, but I am struggling to retain a fundamental belief in the moral rectitude of our institutions, and the compassion of those in a position of power and responsibility within them. The wealth of contentious evidence and damning allegations uncovered makes this a primal challenge, and one in which I believe I am far from alone.

Failure to respond to systemic child sexual abuse is not restricted to religious institutions; nor to the Catholic Church alone. However, allegations have been mounting about the role of the then Archbishop Pell, the integrity of the Catholic Church process, in particularly The Melbourne Response, further challenged in the recent 60 Minutes segment. Searing testimony during the last week’s public hearing into the Ballarat diocese, makes consideration of the Church’s actions, in general, and Cardinal Pell’s role, in particular, pertinent and topical.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

December 16, 2015

Jane Lee

Cardinal George Pell’s former housemate has been accused of lying to a child abuse royal commission to “save” his friend from accusations that he tried to bribe a survivor to keep quiet.

At an earlier hearing, survivor David Ridsdale accused Cardinal Pell of trying to bribe him in 1993, after Mr Ridsdale told the cardinal that his uncle, paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale, had abused him.

Mr Ridsdale claimed that, during a telephone conversation, Cardinal Pell – at the time an auxilliary bishop – had said “I want to know what it will take to keep you quiet”.

Cardinal Pell has always denied this happened and his lawyers have argued that the claim arose out of a “misunderstanding”.

Mentone priest Reverend John Walshe, who was living with Cardinal Pell at the time, told the commission in Ballarat that immediately after the call Cardinal Pell had appeared upset and worried for Mr Ridsdale.

“His demeanour,” Father Walshe said, “was not that of a person that had been in a rude or angry conversation”.

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IRELAND
Herald

Susan Gately – 16 December 2015

A heartfelt apology by a bishop criticised in the Murphy Report was never made public, giving the perception he did not express remorse, his funeral Mass was told.

Bishop Dermot O’Mahony wrote to the Archdiocese of Dublin and its Archbishop in 2009 profoundly regretting if any “action or inaction” of his “contributed to the suffering of even a single child”.

Bishop O’Mahony died on December 10, aged 80, following a long illness.

His brother, Gerry O’Mahony, told mourners at St Anne’s Church, Shankill, Co Dublin, that as his apology was not published, the public never believed he had shown remorse.

“It was something that haunted him to the very end of his life,” Mr O’Mahony added.

The Murphy Report into child sex abuse found Bishop O’Mahony had failed to tell the National Rehabilitation Hospital, Dublin diocesan authorities or gardai that Fr Noel Reynolds, who was a chaplain to the hospital, had a problem with child sexual abuse.

Mr O’Mahony yesterday described his late brother as “gentle, deeply spiritual, caring, a great believer in justice and peace and the dignity of man, in particular the handicapped, underprivileged and the voiceless”.

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CALIFORNIA
Mercury News

By Tracey Kaplan
tkaplan@mercurynews.com

By the time Will Lynch was ready in the mid-1990s to report he’d been sexually abused as a child by a priest on a camping trip, there was nothing police could do about it. The abuse had happened about two decades earlier when he was 7, and the legal window then for bringing charges against the priest had closed by the time he reached 13.

Lynch and his brother sued and won a sizeable legal settlement from the diocese in 1998. And Lynch was able to expose his alleged assailant and draw statewide attention to the fact that child molesters can evade prosecution after he punched the priest in Los Gatos and was tried and acquitted three years ago by a sympathetic Santa Clara County jury. But it still grates on Lynch that a legal technicality allowed the priest to escape criminal prosecution.

Now, Lynch is working to change that. He’s been cleared by the secretary of state’s office to gather signatures for a ballot measure that would wipe out California’s criminal and civil statutes of limitations for sex crimes against children, a move already adopted by New York, Texas and Florida in criminal cases.

The initiative written by the 48-year-old San Francisco man would wipe out the legal deadline barring prosecutors from filing criminal charges against child molesters and victims from suing them after a certain period of time. It would apply only to children molested after its adoption, not to Lynch and others like him.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

A Catholic priest has been accused of fabricating his statement to the child abuse royal commission to help his friend Cardinal George Pell.

Father John Walshe gave evidence at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse about a 1993 telephone call between Cardinal Pell and child abuse victim David Ridsdale.

What was said in the call and the tone of the conversation are in dispute.

In May, Mr Ridsdale told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse the conversation ended acrimoniously after Cardinal Pell allegedly said: “I want to know what it will take to keep you quiet.”

Cardinal Pell denies ever trying to bribe Mr Ridsdale and rejected the suggestion the phone call ended acrimoniously.

On Tuesday, Father Walshe, who was living with Cardinal Pell at the time, backed the Cardinal’s version of events. …

Inconsistencies in priest’s story

But documents tendered to the commission on Wednesday showed in an initial conversation with Cardinal Pell’s legal team earlier this month Father Walshe was vague on the details of what happened 22 years ago.

Commission chair Justice Peter McClellan pointed out several inconsistencies between that initial conversation and Father Walshe’s statement, in particular that the telephone call in question occurred during the morning and not the evening.

Justice McClellan: I take it when you were first asked about this you didn’t remember a morning call.
Father Walshe: No. There was no real talk about timing, I didn’t focus on that.
Justice McClellan: Well you talked about the evening. You didn’t remember a morning call. Is that right?
Father Walshe: At that stage I didn’t because it was the first time I’d addressed it.

The documents also indicated Father Walshe was initially unsure when speaking to Cardinal Pell’s lawyers whether he was actually in the house at the time of the call.

Justice McClellan: You also told them you weren’t sure, you think you were in the house when the call was made.
Father Walshe: That was at the beginning, yes. As I said, I had to sit and think. It was the first time I’d revisited the matter over 20 years basically.

After close to an hour of questioning, counsel assisting the commission, Angus Stewart SC, accused Father Walshe of trying deceive the royal commission.

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AUSTRALIA
The Standard

By Melissa Cunningham
Dec. 16, 2015

A FORMER Mortlake teacher was applauded after taking the stand at the royal commission into child sex abuse on Wednesday.

Ann Ryan, a teacher at St Colman’s School in Mortlake from 1973 to 1996, revealed a Ballarat bishop lacked “compassion or empathy” when told about disgraced priest’s Gerard Ridsdale’s rampant sexual abuse in the town.

Mrs Ryan, of Warrnambool, said she was once a staunch Catholic, but the church’s response to child sex crimes had destroyed her trust in people and authority.

During her testimony, Mrs Ryan spoke of a broken community which had to rebuild with no help from the Catholic Church.

Mrs Ryan said she immediately disliked Ridsdale and was increasingly disturbed by changes she observed in children after he began working there in 1981. Ms Ryan said grade five and six boys became absorbed with things of a sexual nature.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Express

By KATIE MANSFIELD
PUBLISHED: Wed, Dec 16, 2015

Retired Christopher Bosworth, 57, was arrested at his home in Wales by detectives from Essex Police in September 2012 following sexual assault allegations dating back to the 1980s.

Bosworth, of Cae Greynor in Tycroes, was jailed for historical sexual offences committed in Essex and north-west London.

The four victims in the Essex Police investigation, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were in the Wickford area in Essex and the Willesden and Kingsbury areas in London in the 1980s and 1990s.

Bosworth was a psychiatric nurse in Kingsbury where he committed offences against two of the male victims. He was also Catholic priest in Willesden at the time of offending.

The former priest denied the charges but a jury at Basildon Crown Court found him guilty following a three week trial.

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UNITED STATES
Commonweal

Timothy P. Schilling
December 2, 2015

John Boyne
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $26, 325 pp.

A quarter of the way through John Boyne’s novel A History of Loneliness, we find the book’s narrator and main character looking for a seat on the train. Fr. Odran Yates is a young Irish priest on his way to visit a friend. The packed train confronts him with the dismaying possibility of having to stand for the next two and a half hours, but he quickly sees the advantage and disadvantage of being a priest in Ireland in 1980. The advantage is the deference his collar summons: several passengers, including a pregnant woman, offer him their seats, and one man insists on buying him lunch. The disadvantage is unwelcome attention: he’s not hungry, and watching eyes keep him from speaking freely with the woman across from him.

How times change! Later in the novel, we find the same Fr. Yates being interrogated in a police station in 2011—his reward for having tried to help a lost child in a department store. Thirty years on, in the era of the sexual-abuse crisis, his collar calls up doubt and hostility as quickly as reverence. In this changing environment, Fr. Yates struggles to make sense of his own calling.

Boyne’s attention to the circumstances of priestly life in real-world Catholic Ireland was what drew me to this latest book by the author of the best-selling novel The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. I’ve often wondered how it is to be a good priest in the age of suspicion. How does one bear it and keep courage? A History of Loneliness, drawing in part on Boyne’s consultation with priests in Dublin, gives us an inside view of the struggle. In the acknowledgments, Boyne addresses himself to the direct victims of clergy sexual abuse, but also to those “dedicated and honest priests who have seen their lives and vocations tarnished by the actions of their colleagues.”

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CANADA
Hamilton Spectator

OTTAWA — Excerpts from the seven-volume, 3,766-page Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada:

“Canada’s residential school system for aboriginal children was an education system in name only for much of its existence. These residential schools were created for the purpose of separating aboriginal children from their families, in order to minimize and weaken family ties and cultural linkages, and to indoctrinate children into a new culture — the culture of the legally dominant Euro-Christian Canadian society, led by Canada’s first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald.”
———
“Children were abused, physically and sexually, and they died in the schools in numbers that would not have been tolerated in any school system anywhere in the country, or in the world.”
———
“The number of students who died at Canada’s residential schools is not likely ever to be known in full. The most serious gap in information arises from the incompleteness of the documentary record. Many records have simply been destroyed.”
———
“The most basic of questions about missing children — Who died? Why did they die? Where are they buried? — have never been addressed or comprehensively documented by the Canadian government.”
———
“Cultural genocide is the destruction of those structures and practices that allow the group to continue as a group. States that engage in cultural genocide set out to destroy the political and social institutions of the targeted group. Land is seized, and populations are forcibly transferred and their movement is restricted. Languages are banned. Spiritual leaders are persecuted, spiritual practices are forbidden and objects of spiritual value are confiscated and destroyed. And, most significantly to the issue at hand, families are disrupted to prevent the transmission of cultural values and identity from one generation to the next.”
———
“The Canadian government pursued this policy of cultural genocide because it wished to divest itself of its legal and financial obligations to aboriginal people and gain control over their land and resources. If every aboriginal person had been ‘absorbed into the body politic,’ there would be no reserves, no treaties, and no aboriginal rights.”

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CANADA
The Globe and Mail

HAYDEN KING AND ERICA VIOLET LEE
Contributed to The Globe and Mail
Published Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2015

Hayden King is Anishinaabe from Beausoleil First Nation on Gchi’mnissing in Huronia, Ont. He is the director of the Centre for Indigenous Governance at Ryerson University in Toronto.

Erica Violet Lee is Nehiyaw from Saskatoon, Treaty 6 territory and Métis homeland. She is a philosophy student at the University of Saskatchewan.

The final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was released Tuesday, weighing 25 pounds and containing more than two million words. It is the culmination of six years of painful testimony from residential school survivors, a wide-ranging public education campaign by the commissioners, and the hope for beginnings of a substantive conversation on the meaning of reconciliation among Canadians.

But before we discuss reconciling, we need truth.

While the utility of the 94 “Calls to Action” made by the TRC in July 2015 and again today are critical as we look towards the future, it is the historical record of residential schools that is required reading for Canadians to understand the contours of the grotesque campaign. That record is confirmation of colonial crimes against indigenous peoples on this land. It is recognition that 150,000 indigenous children were taken from their homes, and yes, that is genocide.

The physical and sexual abuse, the brainwashing, the experimentation, the massive scale of disease and death defies comprehension. Chairman Murray Sinclair remarked this week that the final report underestimates how many indigenous children were lost to residential schools. We may never know the number.

We would add to the apocalyptic accounting those lives lost to sexual and gender violence, homelessness, substance abuse, suicide, and poverty; all of which remain endemic after the last residential school closed, and all of them undeniable consequences of a system designed to assimilate and erase.

It is understandable, then, that the notion of reconciliation is complicated.

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CANADA
Truth and Reconciliation Commission

TRC final report

Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future

What We Have Learned

The Survivors Speak

The History, Part 1 – Origins to 1939

The History, Part 2 – The History, Part 2 | 1939 to 2000

The Inuit and Northern Experience

The Métis Experience

Missing Children and Unmarked Burials

The Legacy

Reconciliation

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CANADA
CTV

Marlene Leung, CTVNews.ca
@MarleneLeung

Published Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Aboriginal children attending residential schools died at a higher rate than school-aged children in the general population, and were often buried in unmarked graves, according to the final report from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

The commission released its final report Tuesday afternoon, marking the culmination of six years of research and interviews with more than 6,000 residential school survivors and their families.

It is estimated that more than 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Metis children were separated from their families and forced into residential schools over much of the last century.

The final report contains an entire volume dedicated to the children who died or went missing while attending residential schools. It also sheds light on the poor practices used at the schools to record the deaths, bury the dead, and inform the students’ families.

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CANADA
Hamilton Spectator

OTTAWA — Justice Murray Sinclair says the entire country must join a journey to reconciliation between aboriginals and non-aboriginals — and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has promised to join that journey.

The head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Tuesday wound up a six-year odyssey that chronicled decades of suffering and tragedy in thousands of pages of testimony from victims of the residential school system.

He ended it at with a clarion call for action at a formal ceremony marking the delivery of the commission’s final report.

“Change, of course, will not be immediate,” he said. “It will take years, perhaps generations, but it is important for Canadians to start somewhere and ultimately to create those tools of reconciliation that will live beyond today.”

A survivor in the audience wept as Sinclair spoke of how the commission’s work changed his life and those of his two fellow commissioners.

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CANADA
CBC News

[with video]

By Susana Mas, CBC News

Justice Murray Sinclair, the chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, says today marks the beginning of a new chapter in relations between indigenous and non-indigenous Canadians.

“I stand before you here, hopeful that we are at a threshold of a new era in this country, said Sinclair to an emotionally charged room filled with many residential school survivors and their families, moments before he unveiled the commission’s final report in Ottawa.

The final report is a detailed account, spanning nearly 4,000 pages, of what happened to indigenous children who were physically and sexually abused in government boarding schools.

Two chairs at the front of the room were left empty to symbolize the more than 3,200 indigenous children who died in residential schools — a number Sinclair said he estimates to be much higher.

Commissioner Justice Murray Sinclair, Commissioner Chief Wilton Littlechild and Commissioner Marie Wilson (right to left) listen to a speaker as the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation commission is released, Tuesday Dec. 15, 2015 in Ottawa. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

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CANADA
Ottawa Citizen

MARK KENNEDY, OTTAWA CITIZEN

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has pledged that Canada will fully accept its “failings” in the century-long saga in which thousands of aboriginal children were sent to residential schools, where many endured physical and sexual abuse.

Trudeau made the promise Tuesday to hundreds of people gathered at the closing event of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which released its final report after several years of study.

Trudeau’s remarks were met with cheers and standing ovations from those in the room – many of whom were former residential school students. Former prime minister Stephen Harper skipped a similar event last June where the TRC unveiled its summary report.

Trudeau had already endorsed the work of the TRC and said he will implement its proposals, although many do not fall under federal jurisdiction.

Trudeau did not lay out in detail Tuesday the recommendations he will put into action. But he noted that one of them – an inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women – will be established. As well, as the TRC recommends, he said the government will implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

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DEUTCHSLAND
Spiegel

Von Peter Wensierski

[Intrusive hugs, kisses, expensive gifts, nights in the same room and invitations for a joint visit to Berlin between a 60-year-old priest and an underage girl are obviously no problem for the bishop of Hildesheim. All this was reported by the girl on March 4, 2010, but neither then nor today Norbert Trelle is particularly alarmed.]

Für den Hildesheimer Bischof sind aufdringliche Umarmungen, Küsse, teure Geschenke, Übernachtungen im selben Zimmer und Einladungen zum gemeinsamen Berlin-Besuch zwischen einem über 60-jährigen Priester und einem minderjährigen Mädchen offenbar kein Problem.

All das wurde von dem Mädchen am 4. März 2010 gemeldet, doch weder damals noch heute zeigt sich Norbert Trelle besonders alarmiert. Er entschuldigte auf einer Pressekonferenz vor wenigen Tagen sein Verhalten mit folgenden Worten: Dass ein Priester “dem Mädchen gegenüber solche Zeichen der Zuwendung gegeben hat – Wangenkuss, oder wie man das sagt, so zur Begrüßung”, das sei “ja heute unter Jugendlichen fast schon Gang und Gäbe”. Da gingen bei ihm als Bischof “nicht alle roten Lampen an”.

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