ABUSE TRACKER

AUSTRALIA
Courier-Mail

MICHAEL MADIGAN THE COURIER-MAIL APRIL 16, 2015

A NUN forced a boy to perform oral sex on her at Neerkol Orphanage while another Sister of Mercy forced a child to eat his own vomit, a Royal Commission was told.

Joseph Kiernan, a former resident of the orphanage outside Rockhampton, has told the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse of sadistic physical and sexual abuse at the notorious orphanage, west of Rockhampton, in the 1960s.

Another witness Diane Carpenter, 62, alleged she was once locked in a hot room and forced to drink her own urine to remain hydrated.

Other allegations aired yesterday in the commission, which has convened in the central Queensland city of Rockhampton for two weeks, include the alleged rape of a girl by a man wielding a broom stick.

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AUSTRALIA
The Morning Bulletin

Austin King | 16th Apr 2015

ALLAN Allaway says he was ripped from his mother’s arms when he was a tot.

He was just an innocent six-month-old.

Allan claimed authorities from the State Government’s Children’s Department (at the time) stole him off his mother and delivered him to the Neerkol Orphanage nursery.

He claimed the “bureaucrats” often made immoral judgments that women who were single couldn’t look after their children.

When he was about five years old, Allan would always ask for his mother.

The nuns at the orphanage would often beat him because of this and say to him “Your parents are dead”, he claimed.

When he turned 14 years old, Allan claimed he worked as a “slave” on farms around Yeppoon.

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AUSTRALIA
The Observer

Austin King | 16th Apr 2015

JOSEPH Kiernan wasn’t supposed to live for long after he was born.

But he lived, only to endure years of alleged sickening physical and sexual abuse at Neerkol Orphanage.

Everyone on the first level of the Rockhampton Courthouse listened, transfixed by the shocking details of Joseph’s evidence to the Royal Commission panel, during yesterday’s hearing into the Neerkol institution.

The Royal Commission heard that Joseph, 54, was a very sick baby.

He told the commission his mother was told he wouldn’t live long and “she should just forget about me”.

The Department of Children’s Services placed Joseph at Neerkol Orphanage when he was seven years old.

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CIUDAD DEL VATICANO
La Tercera

EFE

[Pope Francis and the Council of Cardinals will study solutions to potential liabilities of bishops and other superiors in cases of sexual abuse by religious. Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi told reporters the president of the commission, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, introduced to the “C9” which reconvened this week his concern about this issue and the need to give answers.]

El Papa Francisco y el Consejo de Cardenales estudiarán soluciones a posibles responsabilidades de los obispos y de otros superiores en casos de abusos sexuales cometidos por religiosoP.

El portavoz del Vaticano, Federico Lombardi, relató a la prensa que el presidente de la Comisión para la Tutela de los Menores, el cardenal Sean O’Malley, presentó al “C9”, que se volvió a reunir esta semana, la preocupación por este tema y la necesidad de darle respuestas.

O’Malley pidió al Papa y a la Comisión de cardenales que se está ocupando de la reforma de la Curia soluciones sobre “procedimientos” también del tipo jurídico y “competencias” para actuar cuando se crea existan casos de “abuso de poder, omisiones o coberturas” por parte de los responsables eclesiales ante delitos de abusos sexuales.

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CIUDAD DEL VATICANO
El Nuevo Herald

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
04/15/2015

CIUDAD DEL VATICANO
El tema de responsabilizar a los obispos por no proteger a los niños de depredadores sexuales llegó de lleno el miércoles a la agenda del papa Francisco cuando la persona que ha designado para tratar este asunto presentó el caso del nombramiento de un controvertido obispo en Chile.

El encargado de la junta asesora del papa Francisco en materia de abuso sexual, el cardenal Sean O’Malley, exhortó al pontífice y a sus otros cardenales asesores a tratar la responsabilidad de los obispos de proteger a los niños, y la necesidad de castigarlos cuando no lo hagan, en una de sus reuniones periódicas el miércoles.

El Vaticano dijo que el objetivo de O’Malley es “establecer procedimientos apropiados para evaluar y adjudicar casos de ‘abuso de poder’ en este tema, especialmente por personas en cargos de responsabilidad en la Iglesia”.

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AUSTRALIA
The Courier-Mail

MICHAEL MADIGAN THE COURIER-MAIL APRIL 16, 2015

THE Catholic Church appears to have accepted the full extent of its shameful past at Neerkol as it faces a catalogue of extraordinary allegations of sexual aggression and cruelty against society’s most vulnerable people, orphaned children.

Francis Sullivan, chief executive of the Truth, Justice and Healing Council, made it clear outside the commission yesterday this was no place to challenge the testimony of witnesses and offered unequivocal support for sexual assault victims. Outdated attempts to handle abuse allegations internally had ended and the Church was determined to do all it could to right past wrongs, Mr Sullivan said.

Anyone approaching the Church about child sexual abuse was now immediately encouraged to speak to law enforcement agencies, he said.

Mr Sullivan’s council has already supported the Royal Commission’s chairman Peter McClellan, who wants governments to establish an independent national redress scheme, funded by the institutions responsible for the abuse.

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CANADA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, April 15

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, 314 566 9790, SNAPclohessy@aol.com, davidgclohessy@gmail.com

Shame on Bruce Campbell and every official with the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board for their reckless, callous and dangerous practice of secrecy in child sex abuse cases.

[Mississauga News]

We call on Toronto Cardinal Thomas Christopher Collins to discipline top administrators of this school and issue a strong public statement that known or suspected child sex crimes in Catholic facilities must be immediately reported to parents, parishioners, police, prosecutors and the public. Every delay in reporting, every hour of secrecy, gives accused criminals more chances to destroy evidence, intimidate victims, threaten witnesses, discredit whistleblowers, fabricate alibis, and even flee the country. Every hour serious accusations of clergy sexual misconduct are kept quiet, other innocent children and vulnerable adults are left in harm’s way.

The school’s public relations man claims that Fr. Roth occasionally went into elementary and secondary schools to help deliver liturgies and was always accompanied by a staff member in what were large group settings. We suspect he’s lying. And even if he’s not, this is irrelevant. It takes only seconds for a child predator to shove his hands down a boy’s pants or his tongue down a girl’s throat. These predators are usually very cunning and manipulative, able to win the trust of both students and staff. So this pathetic effort to reassure parents that Fr. Roth allegedly had little chance to hurt Dufferin-Peel students is stunningly irresponsible.

It’s also possible that Fr. Roth befriended and molested kids of school staffers or kids in the neighborhood around the school. But apparently Dufferin-Peel officials don’t care to try to find out.

Catholic officials can always find or invent excuses for doing little or nothing to reach out to others who may have been sexually assaulted by clerics. But these excuses (like “Roth had limited interaction with students and the allegations against him reportedly occurred in a non-school setting, in another country, and the priest had no history of wrongdoing with the Dufferin-Peel board”) are incredibly irresponsible and self-serving. Take the claim that Fr. Roth “had no history of wrongdoing with the Dufferin-Peel board. So does that mean that the school would hire a teacher or staff who had molested a dozen kids in a dozen different schools, so long as he “had no history of wrongdoing” with THEIR school? That’s preposterous.

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VATICAN CITY
Gazzetta del Sud

Vatican City, April 15 – A senior cardinal on Wednesday asked Pope Francis to put the issue of bishops’ accountability in pedophilia cases on the agenda for upcoming meetings of the Council of Cardinals, said a Vatican spokesman. Cardinal Sean O’Malley, chairman of the Commission for the Protection of Children, asked that Francis and council deal with issues around the responsibility of bishops to protect children. O’Malley and members of the commission dealing with sex abuse of children met recently in Rome. Meanwhile, the Council of Cardinals advising the pope on reforming the Roman Curia, the so-called C-9 group, was also meeting this week and is scheduled to meet again in July.

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CALIFORNIA
KEYT

[with video]

Tracy Lehr, KEYT – KCOY – KKFX Reporter, tracy@keyt.com

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. –

Some registered sex offenders will be able to live by schools and parks under a new court ruling.

The California State Supreme Court ruled that the voter-approved Jessica’s law ban on all registered sex offenders goes too far.

The ruling stems from a San Diego County case, but will soon be applied statewide.

Corrections officers will determine on a case by case basis whether a parolee is allowed to live near schools and parks.

Santa Barbara County District Attorney Joyce Dudley said, “The California sex offender management board has long recommended tailoring residency restrictions to fit the offender and the offense. The California Supreme Court noted that when applied to all offenders the restriction has created many problems and made it impossible for law-enforcement to track offenders when a new crime is committed because their whereabouts are unknown. Transient sex offenders are a bigger danger to public safety than the ones whose residence address is known to police. this change will be in the interest of Public Safety because it will allow law enforcement to keep closer track of offenders. High risk child molesters will still not be able to live near schools or parks.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Eastbourne Herald

Jonathan Graves, the former priest at St Luke’s Church at Stone Cross, has today been charged with 11 sexual and child cruelty offences involving three alleged victims.

Fifty-seven-year-old Jonathan Graves, of Jervis Avenue, a former Church of England priest, was charged when he answered police bail today (Wednesday) having first been arrested in November 2013.

He has been charged with three offences of indecent assault on a boy aged 11 to 13 between 1987 and 1990; three offences of indecency with the same boy during the same period; three offences of cruelty against the same boy over the same period; one offence of indecent assault on an adult woman between 1994 and 1995; and one offence of indecent assault on another adult woman in 2002.

Graves was charged on the authority of the Crown Prosecution Service.

He is due to appear on bail at Hastings Magistrates Court on Wednesday May 13

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CALIFORNIA
SFGate

By Bob Egelko
Monday, April 13, 2015

An Alameda County woman who was molested as a child by a fellow member of Jehovah’s Witnesses, who took her with him on door-to-door preaching, is entitled to $2.8 million of the $15.6 million in damages she won at trial, a state appeals in San Francisco court ruled Monday.

However, the First District Court of Appeal overturned $8.6 million in punitive damages against the religion’s then-governing body, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, for failing to warn members of the North Fremont Congregation that Jonathan Kendrick had previously molested his stepdaughter.

The court said churches have no legal duty to warn members that one of their fellow congregants was a sex offender, and observed that such warnings “would discourage wrongdoers from seeking potentially beneficial intervention.” But the court said Watchtower and leaders of the congregation had failed to properly supervise Kendrick during his door-to-door recruitment activities for the church and were responsible for leaving him alone with Candace Conti during a two-year period that started in late 1994, when she was 9 years old.

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ILLINOIS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, April 15

Statement by Kate Bochte of Chicago, SNAP leader (630 768 1860, keight@sbcglobal.net)

Now that Joliet Catholic officials have settled more child sex abuse and cover up cases – involving five priests, 14 victims and $4.137 million – the question is “What will Joliet’s bishops do now to protect kids from and help other victims of the 39 publicly accused predator priests in this relatively small diocese?”

If bishops refuse to take action, we urge Joliet’s dozens of priests to act.

In particular, we call on Bishop Daniel Conlon and Bishop Joseph M. Siegel to warn families about and protect kids from a four-time predator priest who continues to minister even now. He’s Fr. Carroll Howlin:

[SNAP]

But with all 39 of these priests, more outreach should be done and more warnings should be issued. If I knowingly let my unsafe violent dogs loose, one bites you, and I pay you, my obligations don’t end there. I still have a duty to make sure my pets don’t hurt others. Bishops have that duty too. But they rarely take it seriously.

This latest settlement involves one priest who was on the job as recently as 2012. At least two of them showed troubling signs of deviancy in seminary (but were ordained anyway). At least two of them worked outside the diocese, and we suspect that Catholic officials elsewhere have not warned their flocks about those two.

(The five are Fr. Lawrence Gibbs, Fr. James Nowak, Fr. Fred Lenczycki. Fr. Michael Gibbney and Fr. Myles White.)

We commend Steve Janik of Wheaton and the other brave men who reported their suffering and took legal action to expose wrongdoers, get justice, warn others, protect kids, start healing and deter cover ups. We hope this settlement will bring them some sorely-needed and long-overdue comfort and closure.

We encourage them to stay in recovery programs and therapy and continue the painstaking, tough process of rebuilding their lives and restoring their trust. No one event – a conviction, a trial, a settlement, a suspension, a defrocking – can magically erase decades of pain or reverse decades of self-destructive behaviors that plague most child sex abuse victims. So we beg these courageous men to stay focused on their own care and well-being, and not assume that the lingering effects of horrific childhood betrayal will suddenly vanish because this legal struggle has ended.

Finally, we beg every single person who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes or cover ups in Joliet to break their silence, get independent help and take steps to safeguard other innocent kids and vulnerable adults from clerics who commit or conceal heinous crimes.

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ILLINOIS
Patch

Joliet Diocese Settles Victims’ Abuse Claims Against ‘Savage, Scary’ Priests for Over $4M

By DENNIS ROBAUGH (Patch National Staff)
April 15, 2015

In February 2006, a judge allowed transcripts of depositions involving the Joliet Diocese to be made public. Bishop Joseph Imesch’s deposition, conducted on Aug. 11, 2005, included details about how he handled priests accused of misconduct involving young boys. Imesch retired in June 2006.

The deposition was conducted by attorney Jeff Anderson, a Minneapolis attorney who specializes in clergy abuse cases, and focused on the actions of the Rev. Gary Berthiaume, who was brought into the Joliet Diocese by Imesch in 1987 even after he was convicted of sexual abuse; his transfer of the Rev. Larry Gibbs; his handling of the Rev. Fred Lenczycki, convicted of molesting Hinsdale altar boys; the Rev. Ed Stefanich, convicted of molesting a Woodridge girl.

RE: REV. GARY BERTHIAUME
IMESCH: “As far as I can remember I think Gary admitted to me that he had done it before the conviction.”

ANDERSON: “If he had told you that he had committed the offense against the child, isn’t that evidence of the crime?”

IMESCH: “That’s a job for the police. I’m not going to get involved in that. That’s not my responsibility.”

RE: REV. LARRY GIBBS, accused in police reports of skinny dipping with boys and playing nude games

ANDERSON: “And when you put him in that parish you didn’t alert the parishioners where you assigned him that he had had a credible allegation of sexual abuse, did you?”

IMESCH: “I don’t think that’s a credible allegation if nothing was charged.”

IMESCH: “Well, I think what happened happened. It was not considered a crime or a criminal activity so there was no reason for me not to transfer him.”

ANDERSON: “It is correct to say that you knowingly continued priests in ministry until the charter required their removal and you knew that credible allegations had been made against those clergymen, correct?”

IMESCH: “Yes.”

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CANADA
Mississauga News

By Roger Belgrave

PEEL – Peel’s Catholic school board said it is normal practice to keep parents and the community in the dark when a staff member is accused of criminal wrongdoing, such as the sexual assault of a minor.

“What we do is go on our practice and our practice has been not to communicate on allegations or charges against individual staff members,” said Bruce Campbell, chief spokesperson for the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board.

The explanation comes after allegations of sexual abuse by a priest working for the board surfaced in January, but were only recently brought to light by the board.

Father James Roth reportedly committed suicide in February after confessing to sexually assaulting a young boy 14 years ago.

Roth was working as a priest-in-residence with the board until the latter part of January, when he was removed from ministry after the allegations were reported to police. He had been with the school board since 2008.

Roth was a member of the Oblates of St. Francis De Sales order based in Ohio, but on assignment with the Archdiocese of Toronto and working at the Dufferin-Peel board.

A complainant contacted police in the United States to report Roth sexually assaulted him in Michigan when he was about nine years old. When informed by police of the allegation, the order recalled Roth from his position at the school board and he returned to the United States for an investigation launched by the church.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Apr. 15, 2015

VATICAN CITY The cardinals advising Pope Francis on reforming the church’s central bureaucracy have discussed the issue of accountability for Catholic bishops who mishandle cases of clergy sexual abuse, the Vatican spokesman said Wednesday.

Addressing the latest meeting of the Council of Cardinals during a press briefing, Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi said the prelates have put the issue “on the table” after being presented with it by Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley.

“It is not that they might have made a precise project or a document” on the issue, Lombardi said. “But the theme is explicitly, let’s say, on the table of the C9, and the intention is now to find a way to proceed in the deepening of the competence in these cases.”

The Council of Cardinals is a group of nine prelates advising the pope on reforming the Vatican bureaucracy, known as the Roman Curia. The council is frequently referred to as the C9.

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VATICAN CITY
ABC News

VATICAN CITY — Apr 15, 2015

Associated Press

The issue of holding bishops accountable for failing to protect children from sexual deviants arrived squarely on Pope Francis’ agenda Wednesday as his point-man on sex abuse raised the case of a controversial bishop appointment in Chile.

The head of the pope’s sex abuse advisory board, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, urged the pope and his other cardinal advisers to take up bishops’ responsibility to protect children — and the need to punish them when they fail to do so — during one of their periodic meetings Wednesday.

The Vatican said O’Malley’s aim was to “come up with appropriate procedures and modalities to evaluate and adjudicate cases of ‘abuse of office’ in this area, especially by people in positions of responsibility within the church.”

O’Malley tabled the agenda item at the request of four members of the advisory board who traveled to Rome over the weekend for an emergency meeting with O’Malley over the appointment of Bishop Juan Barros in Osorno, Chile.

Victims of Chile’s most notorious abuser, the Rev. Fernando Karadima, say Barros witnessed their abuse decades ago and did nothing, and then defended Karadima against their claims when they came forward later. They say that makes him unfit to lead a diocese where he’d be responsible for protecting kids.

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CALIFORNIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, April 14

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, 314 566 9790, SNAPclohessy@aol.com, davidgclohessy@gmail.com

The largest jury award ever in a church child sex abuse and cover up case has been reduced by an appeals court. This is a heart-breaking ruling that will mean more children will be sexually assaulted, more predators will go undetected and more employers will act more recklessly, callously and deceitfully.

[Reveal News]

Our hearts go out to Candace Conti and her family. They have now been betrayed three times – first by irresponsible, secretive and self-serving Jehovah’s Witness officials, then by a child molester named Jonathan Kendrick, and now by an appeal court that apparently values the freedom of adults to avoid independent scrutiny over the freedom of children to avoid heinous sex crimes.

Expecting purportedly “spiritual” officials to warn their flocks about child molesters, this court claims, would be too “burdensome.”

Frankly, it’s just hard for us to understand that whatever “adverse social consequences” the duty to keep predators away from kids might cause that would be worse than the “adverse social consequences” millions of men, women and children have endured and are enduring because of those who selfishly commit and conceal horrific sexual violence against the vulnerable.

The court worries about “the burden” that might be caused when church officials have a “reason to believe that a congregation member is capable of doing harm.” But for heaven’s sake, Kendrick admitted sexually assaulting a child, was protected by Jehovah’s Witnesses officials, then went on to sexually assault another child. So who cares what church officials “believed” he was capable of? They knew, from his own admission, that he had already sexually had abused a child. They should have called 911. They should have never deceived their flock. They should have never given him a chance to hurt another child.

This ruling is a tragedy. Our nation has just become safer, not for kids, but for those who put their own reputations, comfort and careers ahead of the well-being of innocent boys and girls and vulnerable men and women.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

April 15, 2015

Chloe Booker

Police are digging up the grounds of a former Ballarat orphanage associated with historic sexual and physical abuse, searching for children’s remains.

The remains are suspected to have been buried at the once Damascus University site before the orphanage closed in 1968.

The investigation was sparked when former orphanage residents raised the issue at Ballarat City Council meetings discussing redevelopment plans for the 200 Victoria Street site.

Former orphanage resident Phyllis Read laid a “blood claim” to the site at a 2012 meeting.

“I say it’s our blood, so it’s our land,” the indigenous woman said.

Her sister, Edith Orr, asked at a 2013 Ballarat City Council meeting how the remains of children allegedly buried there would be respected if it was redeveloped.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

By Kathy Mellott
kmellott@tribdem.com
Kathy Mellott

Posted on Apr 15, 2015

Three former Bishop McCort Catholic High School students who were sexually abused by Brother Stephen Baker will receive $50,000 each in compensation, a Boston-based attorney said Tuesday.

The three, who have not been named, are in addition to 88 former Bishop McCort students named in an Oct. 21 settlement providing between $60,000 and slightly more than $120,000 each.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, Province of the Immaculate Conception of the Third Order Regular Franciscans and Bishop McCort are all part of the settlement with the victims, according to information provided by attorney Mitchell Garabedian.

No additional information was provided by Bishop Mark Bartchak of the Altoona-Johnstown diocese.
“As always, the diocese does not comment on matters that involve litigation,” Tony DeGol, secretary for communications, wrote in an email.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 15 April 2015 (VIS) – The ninth meeting of the Council of Cardinals (C9), which began on 13 April, was brought to a close this afternoon, according to a briefing by the director of the Holy See Press Office, Fr. Federico Lombardi, S.J.

The Council of Cardinals dedicated the majority its work regarding reform of the Roman Curia to two aspects: reflections on the methodologies to be followed for work during 2015 and 2016 in order to be able to effectively accomplish the task of preparing the new Constitution, and a rereading of the interventions by the Cardinals in relation to reform of the Curia made during the recent Consistory (there were over sixty interventions on this theme with useful indications and cues, both for the prologue of the constitution and for specific aspects of reform).

The orientation towards the constitution of two dicasteries – one competent in fields of charity, justice and peace, the other regarding the laity, families and life – would appear to be confirmed.

The Council also focused on the issue of the reorganisation of Vatican media, following the submission of the final report of the Commission presided over by Lord Chris Patten.

It is expected that the Pope will constitute a Commission to consider how the recommendations of the report can be put into practice. This body will also include members of the Patten Commission, to ensure continuity.

Finally, Cardinal O’Malley, president of the new Commission for the Protection of Minors, under the auspices of the same Commission, has proposed that the Pope and the Council consider the theme of “Accountability” with regard to the protection of minors, in order to establish appropriate procedures and methods for evaluating and judging cases of “abuse of office” in this area, especially on the part of persons holding responsibility within the Church.

Further meetings of the Council of Cardinals are scheduled to take place from 8 to 10 June, 14 to 16 September and 10 to 12 December 2015.

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PENNSYLVANIA
New Jersey Herald

Updated: Apr 15, 2015

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. (AP) – An attorney says three more former students at a western Pennsylvania Catholic school have settled sexual abuse suits involving a Franciscan friar who worked there nearly 20 years ago.

Boston attorney Michael Garabedian tells the (Johnstown) Tribune-Democrat (http://bit.ly/1FK9zVv ) that each of the cases settled for $50,000, or a total of $150,000.

In October, Garabedian and other attorneys announced an $8 million settlement on behalf of 88 former Bishop McCort High School students alleging abuse by Brother Stephen Baker, who committed suicide in January 2013.

Since then, other alleged victims have come forward to sue the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese – which ran the school when Baker worked there – and others. A diocesan spokesman declined comment.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By William Rollo

A teenager who was raped at a Queensland orphanage and fell pregnant was told by nuns she had the devil inside her, the royal commission into child sexual abuse has heard.

The woman, who gave evidence under the name AYL, was raped when she was 14 by a worker at St Joseph’s Neerkol Orphanage, near Rockhampton, in 1965.

She was taken to the Good Shepherd’s home in Brisbane to give birth in front of nuns, who she was not permitted to talk to, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard.

“The baby was taken from me by one of the nuns who assisted in the delivery of the baby and was told I was ‘having the devil taken out of me’,” AYL said.

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AUSTRALIA
International Business Times

By Barsha Baruah on April 15 2015

A first person’s account of a child sex abuse inquiry revealed she was reportedly raped “well over 100 times” by a priest at St. Joseph’s Neerkol Orphanage Rockhampton in central Queensland. ABC News reported that The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse found out that the children were treated brutally at the orphanage.

Meanwhile, in a previous investigation it was found that hundreds of children were sexually abused, beaten and forced into hard labour there. In fact, the orphanage has always been under numerous police and government inquiries, one notably being by the former Queensland governor Leneen Forde in 1999.

The Royal Commission, which is monitoring how the institutions such as schools and churches dealt with allegations related to child sexual abuse, will hear evidence from 18 witnesses for the next two weeks. Among the 18 cases, 13 are from the former residents of the orphanage, who were abused there between 1940 and 1975.

Listen In To Couple Of The Witnesses

A witness named AYB narrated her experience of being sexually abused by a former priest at the orphanage, Father Reginald Basil Durham. She told the investigation that her abuse began when she was only 11. She said, during Father Durham’s visit to the family home on Christmas Eve, he started taking advantage of her sexually. She, not only felt powerless and robotic but also felt enslaved.

When he kissed her, she said, “He was a smoker and the taste was horrible.” But he told her to keep everything secret.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (article updated 14 April 2015)

When Broken Rites launched its national telephone hotline in September 1993, our first callers included former inmates of a Catholic orphanage (St Joseph’s Home, at Neerkol, near Rockhampton, Queensland). Some of these callers said they were sexually assaulted by Father Reg Durham, who was the “chaplain” at this orphanage from 1965 to 1997. We referred these callers to an appropriate unit of the Queensland Police, and this resulted in Father Reg Durham being jailed in 1999 for child sex crimes. In 2015, Australia’s national child-abuse Royal Commission is holding a public hearing in Rockhampton into the church’s coverp-up of child-abuse at this orphanage.

Meanwhile, as well as referring these victims to the police, Broken Rites also advised the victims about other ways of obtaining justice. As a result, the matter was raised in the Queensland Parliament in September 1996. Parliament was told about the physical and emotional abuse committed by nuns and sexual abuse committed by priests at the Neerkol orphanage from the 1940s to the 1970s. Rockhampton’s Bishop Brian Heenan immediately circulated a letter in his parishes, refuting the allegations of abuse as “scurrilous” and “scandalous”.

The allegations against Durham were investigated by Rockhampton detectives. In February 1997, Father Reginald Basil Durham was charged with counts of rape and 41 of indecent dealing, involving two girls and a boy, between 1960 and 1967. When Durham’s first committal hearing began in June 1997, some unpleasant secrets surfaced about sexual and physical abuse at Neerkol. One man, who was aged 59 in 1997, said that children who ran away from the orphanage were captured, stripped naked and flogged in front of the entire assembly.

Realising that the Neerkol secrets would eventually become public at Durham’s trial, the church swung into damage control. The Sisters of Mercy (operators of the orphanage) published an apology to those inmates “who suffered spiritual, psychological, sexual and physical abuse at Neerkol.” Bishop Heenan retracted his September 1996 denial about the abuse. In a public statement in 1998, Heenan told Neerkol victims: “I regret that I did not acknowledge those sufferings when you first raised them and that my first reaction was one of disbelief.”

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INDIA
India Today

A four-year-old boy was allegedly sexually abused by a temple priest in Faridabad, police said.

According to a complaint filed by Dharmendra, a resident of Arya Samaj Mandir at SGM Nagar, on April 7 morning he saw the boy coming out of Pandit Amirchand’s room, they said.

When asked what he was doing in the room, the boy narrated the incident following which Dharmendra reported the matter to the head of the institution, police said.

Dharmendra was asked to keep quiet to avoid any bad name to the temple. Soon after, media and locals reached the spot and he was asked to give a written complaint, they said.

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INDIA
Mid-Day

Faridabad: A four-year-old boy was allegedly sexually abused by a temple priest here, police said today. According to a complaint filed by one Dharmendra, a resident of Arya Samaj Mandir at SGM Nagar, on April 7 morning he saw the boy coming out of Pandit Amirchand’s room, they said.

When asked what he was doing in the room, the boy narrated the incident following which the Dharmendra reported the matter to the head of the institution, police said. Dharmendra was asked to keep quiet to avoid any bad name to the temple. Soon after, media and locals reached the spot and he was asked to give a written complaint, they said.

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ILLINOIS
PRWeb

Chicago, IL (PRWEB) April 15, 2015

According to court documents, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Joliet has agreed to pay $4,137,500 to resolve the claims of fourteen (14) men who were the victims of abuse by priests of the Diocese from the 1960’s through the 1980’s. The men are represented by the Chicago-based law firm of Hurley McKenna & Mertz, PC., and the Seattle-based firm of Pfau Cochran Vertetis Amala PLLC.

Four of the men had previously filed suit (2013 L 391-394) in the Will County Circuit Court. The suits alleged that the Diocese of Joliet allowed known or suspected predators and pedophiles to meet with young boys at remote or private locations outside the presence of other adults. The complaints expressly allege that the plaintiffs were sworn to strict secrecy by their abusers. The alleged incidents took place in private living quarters, at off-site “retreats,” and in the back row of a school classroom. Several of the alleged incidents involve priests plying minors with alcohol and then taking advantage of them. One allegation in the suit involved an elaborate ruse in which the plaintiff was persuaded to strip out of street clothes and don a loincloth so that the priest could “practice” administering funeral rites.

The complaints allege that the Diocese of Joliet knew or should have known about the risk of abuse, or actual incidents of abuse, and yet engaged in a pattern and practice of hiding what it knew, and covertly transferring pedophile priests around the diocese and out of state – ultimately to protect its interests instead of the interests of the children entrusted to it, that it had a duty to protect.

While most of the victims wish to remain anonymous, two victims are willing to speak to the media to discuss their claims on April 16, 2015, at 10:00 a.m. at the office of Hurley McKenna & Mertz, 33 North Dearborn Street, Suite 1430, Chicago, Illinois 60602.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION (including copies of lawsuits) please contact:
Mark R. McKenna
Hurley McKenna & Mertz
33 North Dearborn Street, Suite 1430
Chicago, Illinois 60602
(312) 553-4900
(312) 553-0964 – fax

Home

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SCOTLAND
The National

APRIL 15TH, 2015 KATHLEEN NUTT

A LEADING campaigner for victims of abuse in Scotland’s children’s homes has died just weeks before ministers are due to unveil the remit of a long-awaited public inquiry into the scandal.

Elizabeth McWilliams, who was in her late 70s, was left traumatised by her childhood in care and had been actively involved in the support group In Care Abuse Survivors (Incas). She passed away earlier this month in her home in Glasgow after many years suffering from ill-health.

Friends say it is a tragedy she did not live long enough to see the statutory inquiry she had long campaigned for get under way.

Alan Draper, parliamentary officer for Incas, told The National: “It is very, very sad that Elizabeth has passed away.

“She was a very active member of Incas, had previously been on its committee and spoken many times to the media about her experiences in care.

“She was involved for many years in the campaign and it is tragic she didn’t see her hard work come to fruition.

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VATICAN CITY
Crux

By Inés San Martín
Vatican correspondent April 14, 2015

ROME — Two personnel moves announced by the Vatican Tuesday marked the first time Italians have claimed senior positions under Australian Cardinal George Pell, the pope’s hand-picked reformer and someone for whom breaking the Italian monopoly on money management has been a keen priority.

Italian Rev. Luigi Mistò was named secretary of the Administrative Section of the Secretariat for the Economy, the new department Pell heads, after being appointed by Pope Benedict XVI in 2011 as head of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA).

In practice, the new job means that Mistò will no longer manage the real estate portfolio of the Vatican, officially estimated at around $700 million, though some observers believe the real total may be several times higher. Instead, Mistò will implement procurement systems and manage Vatican personnel, in both cases reporting directly to Pell.

Mistò has been working closely with Pell since the Australian prelate was tapped personally by Pope Francis to head the Secretariat for the Economy in 2013.

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UNITED STATES
The Remnant

Written by Elizabeth Yore

“Look at what they do, not at what they say.”
– Ex-Communist Louis F. Budenz –

Editor’s Note: Remnant columnist, Elizabeth Yore, is an international child protection attorney who has investigated several cases of clergy sex abuse of children. She served as Special Counsel and Child Advocate to Oprah Winfrey. She is the former General Counsel of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and former General Counsel at National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. She is quite obviously a well-qualified expert in the field of child abuse prevention, which is why her testimony in this case is so disturbingly apropos. MJM

They still don’t get it.

With great fanfare and media fawning, Pope Francis appointed Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley to head the new Vatican Child Protection Commission to protect children from clergy sex abuse. O’Malley said the new commission would advise the pope about the protection of children and the pastoral care of victims of abuse.

Among the members of the child protection commission, was a clergy sex abuse victim, and an array of lay members from the medical, political, academic and diplomatic arena, along with two Jesuits. There was no legal document, no formal mandate or structure assigned to the commission, leaving some to criticize the commission as mere “window dressing.”

The Pope assured Catholics that reform had finally arrived to the Vatican.

Pope Francis underscored the reform with stern words, “families need to know that the church is making every effort to protect their children and they should also know that they have every right to turn to the church with full confidence, for it is a safe and secure home.”

Tough talk from the Pontiff, si?

Not so fast.

A year later Pope Francis is embroiled in a bitter scandal over his appointment of a Chilean Bishop who is accused of not only covering up clergy sex abuse of minors, but also of being present and observing the actual abuse of three male minors during the abuse. Chilean Catholics are red hot over this outrageous appointment. So much for the “reform Pope.”

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

[with video]

SAMANTHA LANDY, CHRISTOPHER GILLETT HERALD SUN APRIL 15, 2015

TWIN sisters who grew up at a Ballarat orphanage with a ­history of abuse and neglect are adamant a police search for bodies on the site will reveal the extent of the horror that unfolded there decades ago.

Phylis Read and Edith Orr, 49, have argued most of their lives that there are children’s bodies buried at the site but said they were always told to “keep our mouths shut”.

Their push for the dead to be respected went public in 2013 after the City of Ballarat asked for objections to a residential and commercial development on the site.

“We know they will find ­remains,” Ms Read said as she watched archaeologists and ­forensic crews dig up ground at the site yesterday. “We almost ended up in there with them.”

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GUAM
Pacific News Center

Written by Janela Carrera

Father Wadeson was ousted last year after it was discovered that he had been previously accused of sexual molestation.

Guam – Outsted priest Father John Wadeson will be reinstated to the ministry at the Archdiocese of Agana after the Archdiocese of Los Angeles appeared to have cleared his name for the record.

Father Wadeson was removed from the Archdiocese of Agana after it was revealed that he had twice been accused of sexual molestation in the 1990s. The issue blew up in the local community as some accused the Archdiocese of turning a blind eye to Father Wadeson’s history.

His name appeared on a list of accused priests in 2004 and he was even banned from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

However, in a statement issued yesterday, the local Archdiocese says the Los Angeles Archdiocese cleared Father Wadeson’s name noting that a re-examination was conducted last year and they concluded that no settlement was made and Father Wadeson was never convicted. As a result, he remains a priest in good stsanding.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Australian Associated Press
Wednesday 15 April 2015

A former resident of an infamous central Queensland orphanage has said she tried to blow the whistle on sexual abuse she suffered while in care but was ignored by authorities.

The royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse sitting in Rockhampton has heard that sadistic punishments and sexual abuse were rife at St Joseph’s Neerkol orphanage, which was run by the Sisters of Mercy from 1885 and 1978.

A former resident, Diane Carpenter, 62, told the second day of a public hearing that while at Neerkol in Rockhampton she was sexually abused by a priest called Michael Hayes and by a member of a foster family who took her in during holidays.

Carpenter said she was frequently physically assaulted and abused by the Sisters of Mercy, and detailed one occasion when she was locked in a hot room and forced to drink her own urine to stay hydrated.

She told the inquiry she reported the sexual assaults to a state children’s department inspector in Rockhampton, and later to two separate police officers, but no action was taken.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

A former resident of an infamous central Queensland orphanage says she tried to blow the whistle on sexual abuse she suffered while in care but was ignored by authorities.

A royal commission sitting in Rockhampton has heard that sadistic punishments and sexual abuse were rife at St Joseph’s Neerkol Orphanage, which was run by the Sisters of Mercy from 1885 and 1978.

Former resident Diane Carpenter, 62, told the second day of a public hearing that while at Neerkol in Rockhampton she was sexually abused by a priest called Father Michael Hayes and by a member of a foster family who took her in during holidays.

Ms Carpenter said she was frequently physically assaulted and abused by the Sisters of Mercy, and detailed one occasion when she was locked in a hot room and forced to drink her own urine to stay hydrated.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

A girl was gang raped at a central Queensland orphanage and gave birth to a child when she was 14, a national inquiry has heard.

A woman made the claims at a public hearing of the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse in Rockhampton on Wednesday.

The inquiry is investigating experiences of children at the Neerkol orphanage near Rockhampton between 1940 and 1975.

The woman, referred to as AYL, said she was 10 when she was sent to Neerkol in 1961.

There, she said, she was routinely raped by a male employee from 1963 and in claims aired publicly for the first time said on one occasion the man and two other employees bound, gagged and raped her at the orphanage.

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ILLINOIS
Patch

By LORRAINE SWANSON (Patch Staff)
April 15, 2015

Savage. Scary. Those are just a few of the words used to describe five Roman Catholic priests named in an out-of-court settlement for $4.137 million by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Joliet.

James Nowak, Michael Gibbney, Lawrence Gibbs, Myles White and Fred Lenczycki were once trusted priests who allegedly preyed upon young boys spanning Will and DuPage County parishes from the 1960s to 1980s. None of the accused priests are today involved in active ministry.

The boys — some of them now men in their sixties — claim that they were abused in school classrooms, private living quarters and a cabin owned by one of the priests’ families.

One of the allegations involved an elaborate ruse in which one boy was tricked into stripping out of his street clothes and donning a loin cloth so that one of the abusers could practice “administering” funeral rites.

The settlement culminates a previous lawsuit filed by four men in Will County Circuit Court. Their suits alleged that Diocese of Joliet allowed known or suspected predators and pedophiles to meet with young boys at remote or private locations outside the presence of other adults.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Today

Great theologians and serious sin: Does John Howard Yoder’s history of sexual abuse discredit his work?

Lucinda Borkett-Jones CHRISTIAN TODAY FEATURES EDITOR 14 April 2015

Mennonite leader and thinker John Howard Yoder abused numerous women in the 70s and 80s.
How far can a theologian go wrong before we dismiss his whole body of work? It’s a question that has been raised by a recent investigation into Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder’s sexual abuse of women during the 1970s and 80s.

Yoder isn’t just respected in the Mennonite tradition, he’s regarded as a major figure in theological and philosophical ethics. The abuse was not a secret – it’s been widely documented – but has nonetheless been overlooked for many years.

His most well known book, The Politics of Jesus, published in 1972, is considered a classic on Christian pacifism. But while he is remembered for his contribution to theology, he also hurt a large number of women through an ‘experiment’ in sexuality, which he based on a theological theory.

For the first time since Yoder’s abuse came to light in the 1990s, the Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Indiana held a special service of ‘lament, confession and commitment’ on March 22 this year.

Yoder, who died in 1997, was a theology professor at the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary from 1960 until his resignation in 1984. He was also president of Goshen Biblical Seminary for a three-year period during the 1970s and taught at the University of Notre Dame for 30 years. In 1994 the two Mennonite seminaries joined and were later named the Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS).

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ARKANSAS
Times Record

We know child abuse occurs.

We read the most horrible of the stories. We are aware of the statistics — in 2013 in the United States, there were about 679,000 cases of child abuse and 1,484 children died because of abuse.

We do not need a Child Abuse Awareness Month.

What we need is for child abuse to be stopped, to be prevented.

We need Stop Child Abuse Month.

Fortunately, we have April — National Child Abuse Prevention Month.

Knowing there were 33,353 reported cases of child abuse and neglect in Arkansas in 2013, as reported by the Arkansas Department of Human Services 2013 Statistical Report, makes us aware we need to do something.

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OREGON
KOIN

[with video]

By Brent Weisberg (Twitter: @BrentKOIN)
Published: April 14, 2015

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN 6) – The trial of a senior pastor for the North Clackamas Bible Community reportedly linked to sex crimes began on Tuesday as prosecutors outlined their case during opening statements at the Multnomah County Circuit Courthouse.

Pastor Michael Sperou, 64, walked confidently into Judge Cheryl A. Albrecht’s courtroom Tuesday morning wearing a white dress shirt, dress pants and a tie. He has remained out of custody since posting bail pending trial. He was arrested June 19, 2014 by federal officers.

Deputy district attorney Christine Mascal told the jury that “Pastor Mike,” as he is known in his church, “controlled everything and everybody.” She outlined the “tortured history” and years of alleged sexual touching at the hands of Sperou.

Sperou is charged with three counts of unlawful sexual penetration in the first-degree. The alleged abuse occurred three separate times between May 1995 and December 1996, Mascal said. Police identified a total of seven victims who made claims against Sperou, Mascal said. The statute of limitations has expired for six of those people.

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OREGON
The Oregonian

By Rick Bella | The Oregonian/OregonLive
on April 14, 201

A Happy Valley pastor sank into drug abuse and heavy drinking, leading to sexual abuse of young girls who lived with him in a communal church, if you believe Multnomah County prosecutors.

But if you believe defense attorneys, Pastor Mike Sperou of the North Clackamas Bible Community has been unfairly accused because the girls — now grown women — have had their memories contaminated by shoddy police interviews and conversations with others who dislike Sperou.

The conflicting pictures emerged Tuesday, the opening day of Sperou’s trial before Circuit Judge Cheryl A. Albrecht on three counts of first-degree sexual penetration. A grand jury indictment charges Sperou, 64, of placing his fingers inside the vagina of Shannon Clark while she lived at one of the church’s homes in the 1990s.

The Oregonian/OregonLive generally does not disclose the names of alleged sexual abuse victims. But Clark and other women connected with the case have come forward, asking that their stories be told.

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OREGON
The Oregonian

By Rick Bella | The Oregonian/OregonLive
on April 14, 2015

A Happy Valley church was launched with an idealistic commitment to Christian scholarship, but it gradually deteriorated into an authoritarian, cult-like organization that ignored heavy drinking, drug abuse, adultery and sexual abuse of children by its pastor, according to court testimony Tuesday.

That’s the picture of the North Clackamas Bible Community painted by prosecution witnesses in the trial of Pastor Mike Sperou, charged with abusing a girl under the age of 12 who lived with him in a communal setting.

However, defense attorney Steven J. Sherlag, active during cross-examination, asked several former church members if they complained about Sperou’s behavior or simply moved away from the church’s cluster of rented homes that straddle the Happy Valley/Portland city limits.

The answer in every case was “no.”

“You chose to participate in a small, faith-based community — isn’t that so?” Sherlag asked former Assistant Pastor David Martin, who left the church in 1996.

“Yes,” Martin said.

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CALIFORNIA
U-T San Diego

By Peter Rowe.APRIL 14, 2015

During a 1 p.m. Mass at St. Thérèse of Carmel Catholic Church Wednesday, a large and leaderless flock will acquire a new shepherd.

Robert W. McElroy, 61, will become the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego’s new bishop. The diocese, embracing nearly 1 million people across San Diego and Imperial counties, had been without a bishop for seven months. McElroy’s predecessor, Bishop Cirilo Flores, succumbed to cancer last September, less than two years after assuming the post. …

Calling the sexual abuse scandal “the great tragedy of the church in the last 50 years,” he said he would remove from ministry or diocesan office anyone who has abused minors.

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AUSTRALIA
The Morning Bulletin

Austin King | 15th Apr 2015

OLD demons came back to haunt former Neerkol Orphanage residents who lived at the institution between 1940 and 1975.

The witnesses who will give evidence throughout the two-week hearing were expected to identify the main alleged offenders of sexual abuse as Father John Anderson (deceased), Father Reginald Durham (deceased), Father Cahill (deceased) and Kevin Baker.

Mr Baker, a former employee at the orphanage, denies the allegations of sexual abuse.

A witness, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, yesterday gave evidence about the sexual abuse she suffered from Fr Durham.

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AUSTRALIA
The Morning Bulletin

Austin King | 15th Apr 2015

FORMER Neerkol Orphanage resident Mary Adams could never be whole again.

The “cracks” of severe trauma from her childhood, when she was a resident at St Joseph’s Orphanage in Neerkol, prevented her from being so.

Those cracks were the permanent scars she received, from the physical, sexual and psychological abuse, at the orphanage between the 1950s and 1960s.

Mary, 64, along with her brother and sister, were placed there in 1951 after her mother fell into financial difficulties.

During her moving testimony at yesterday’s Royal Commission hearing into Neerkol, Mary said she was two years old and her sister about four when they were placed into the care of the Sisters of Mercy.

She was placed in a nursery and moved to the “big girls’ dormitory” when she turned five years old.

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AUSTRALIA
Eureka Street

Andrew Hamilton | 15 April 2015

Two weeks ago one Melbourne church was burned down, and fires were started in two other churches.

The media response to the fires focused on Rachael Griffiths’ remark that she was happy to see her former parish church, St James, Gardenvale, in Melbourne, go up in flames because of the predatory behaviour of one of its parish priests. It also speculated whether the fire may have been lit by a victim of abuse.

My own feelings about the destruction of St James were mixed. I was baptised and made my first confession and communion there. I was also an altar server, where I helped with the ritual and experimented in such pyrotechnics as putting gunpowder in the incense and making a blow torch out of the fly spray and candle, so mixing the boyhood dough of piety, responsibility and mischief that might later be baked into a living adult faith. Later I returned to the church to celebrate my first Mass and my mother’s and father’s funerals, as well as other family events. So the church is a place of remembered blessing.

But more recently at the beginning of celebrations at St James I have felt bound to acknowledge that for some of those present this church would be a holy place, but for others a demonic place. And indeed for me, as for most former parishioners of my own and the next generation, it has become associated irredeemably with a parish priest who preyed on many children and bullied many older women. He redecorated the church in his own style, and devastated many lives in his own way. So the church is a place of remembered blasphemy.

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ILLINOIS
Chicago Tribune

By Christy Gutowski
Chicago Tribune

The Diocese of Joliet agreed to pay a $4.14 million settlement to 14 men who said their childhood priests molested them decades ago while assigned to various suburban churches, plaintiff attorneys announced Tuesday.

The five priests involved in the settlement were previously identified by the diocese as having had at least one substantiated allegation of sexual abuse. But the settlement revealed new allegations with more victims.

Four of the 14 men had filed a lawsuit, while the others were part of out-of-court negotiations. The alleged acts occurred in the 1960s through the 1980s.

One of the newly named victims, Steve Janik, a consultant from Wheaton, said he was repeatedly abused by Rev. James Nowak during a three-year period beginning in the 1960s when he was 12 years old and attended Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Lombard.

Nowak, 77, who is retired, also served at Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Naperville. Janik, 61, said he reported his abuse in summer 2012 after he read an article about another man who came forward with similar allegations.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

By Miranda Forster
April 15, 2015

A girl was gang raped at a central Queensland orphanage and gave birth to a child when she was 14, a national inquiry has heard.

A woman made the claims at a public hearing of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Rockhampton on Wednesday.

The inquiry is investigating experiences of children at the Neerkol orphanage near Rockhampton between 1940 and 1975.

The woman, referred to as AYL, said she was 10 when she was sent to Neerkol in 1961.

There, she said, she was routinely raped by a male employee from 1963 and in claims aired publicly for the first time said on one occasion the man and two other employees bound, gagged and raped her at the orphanage.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By William Rollo and Marlina Whop

A woman has told an inquiry how she was sexually abused by a priest and forced to drink her own urine to stay hydrated at St Joseph’s Neerkol Orphanage at Rockhampton.

Diane Carpenter, who lived at Neerkol intermittently until she turned 17, was giving evidence at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which is holding public hearings in the central Queensland city.

The inquiry is continuing to hear evidence from former residents of the orphanage, where hundreds of children were physically and sexually abused from the 1940s to 1970s.

Ms Carpenter, one of several Aboriginal children at the orphanage, said her sexual abuse at the hands of Father Michael Hayes, who ministered to the Indigenous children, was witnessed by another priest.

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CALIFORNIA
Center for Investigative Reporting – Reveal

By Trey Bundy / April 14, 2015

Candace Conti drew worldwide attention in her fight against the Jehovah’s Witnesses when a jury awarded her $28 million in damages – the largest verdict for a single victim of child abuse against a religious organization in U.S. history.

The amount was later reduced to $15.6 million, including $8.6 million in punitive damages.

Now, three years later, an appeals court has eroded her courtroom victory even further by ruling that the leadership of the Jehovah’s Witnesses had no duty to warn congregants that a confessed child molester was one of their own. As a result, judges eliminated the punitive damages in the case. Conti still stands to receive $2.8 million.

The decision by the California Court of Appeal is the latest ruling in a rash of lawsuits aimed at Jehovah’s Witnesses policies directing elders to keep child abuse secret from their congregations and secular authorities.

Conti, who is no longer a Jehovah’s Witness, had sued her abuser, her former congregation in Fremont and the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York – the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ parent corporation – in 2011. She claimed that Watchtower policies allowed a Witness named Jonathan Kendrick to molest her repeatedly when she was 9 and 10 years old.

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MINNESOTA
Canonical Consultation

Jennifer Haselberger

Earlier this month, the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis posted the following announcement regarding Father William Stolzman on its website. …

From Archbishop John Nienstedt, Archbishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis

This weekend, Rev. William Stolzman returned to public ministry as a retired priest who celebrates Masses on a fill-in basis.

In 2008, the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis received an allegation that Rev. William Stolzman sexually abused a minor in the 1970s while serving in the Diocese of Rapid City, S.D. At the time, law enforcement investigated and did not refer the case for criminal charges. After an investigation by the Archdiocese, the Clergy Review Board reviewed the case and recommended that Rev. Stolzman remain in ministry.

In January 2015, the Archdiocese reopened its investigation of the alleged 1970s abuse and Rev. Stolzman was placed on a leave of absence. He has not exercised priestly ministry during the investigation. The recent investigation did not uncover any additional information that was not known to the Clergy Review Board in 2008 that would support the allegation of abuse. Therefore, I have decided to reinstate his faculties and permit Rev. Stolzman to resume public ministry.

The wording of the announcement suggests that the Archdiocese was either unable to locate the alleged victim or he declined to participate in the investigation. For my previous post on this matter, please click here.

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

AUSTRALIA
ABC Brisbane

[with audio]

by Jacquie Mackay

Leneen FordeThe Royal Commission into Child Abuse is currently holding it’s first regional public hearing here in Central Queensland looking into what happened at St Joseph’s Orphanage Neerkol.

However this isn’t the first time that there has been information taken about this orphanage – 17 years ago former Queensland Governor Leneen Forde took information from more than 300 people and looked at the histories of more than

150 orphanages and detention centres for ther inquiry into institutional child abuse.

Her report made 42 recommendations, 41 of which were adopted by the Queensland Government.

Leneen Forde says that the Forde inquiry was the first real opportunity for these former orphanage residents to give their testimony and has paved the way for such information to come out at a national level in this Royal Commission.

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ITALIA
Brescia Today

[A priest in Brescia had sex with boys at the oratory and masturbated with a rosary.]

Un ragazzo di 32 anni, Andrea B. di Rovigo, ha presentato nei giorni scorsi una denuncia presso il tribunale ecclesiastico di Brescia contro il parroco di un Comune della Bassa, accusato di aver avanzato nei suoi confronti proposte esplicite di attività sessuali.

Assieme alla denuncia, il cui deposito è stato firmato dal vicario giudiziale monsignor Marco Alba, Andrea ha fornito anche una serie di materiali inequivocabili, dagli ‘screenshot’ delle conversazioni avvenute su skype e whatsapp, ad alcuni video in cui si vede il sacerdote compiere veri e propri atti sessuali, anche di natura blasfema.

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

AUSTRALIA
The New Daily

Apr 15, 2015
EBONY BOWDEN AM Producer

Notorious orphanage subject of police investigation after claims children ‘disappeared overnight’.

A forensic team is digging up the grounds of a former orphanage in regional Victoria after allegations children were buried at the site before its closure in the 1960s.

The claims were first raised at a council meeting by two former residents at the Ballarat Orphanage after the site was sold to developers in 2011.

In a statement, police said they had received information children were buried at the site, and were working with The Coroner’s Court to investigate the allegations.

Speaking to the ABC, Frank Golding, who lived at the site as a child, said children would disappear in the middle of the night.

“I think that part of it is that children just disappeared overnight, sometimes they would be ill and they simply wouldn’t be there at roll call the following morning,” Mr Golding said.

“We had no information on what happened to those children, there were never any formal farewells … so I think in an era where children were also quite viciously punished at times and had illnesses which were neglected, that leads to speculation, and it’s not just confined to the Ballarat Orphanage.”

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GUAM
U-T San Diego

HAGATNA, Guam (AP) — A Roman Catholic priest is being reinstated after a church investigation cleared him of allegations he molested two boys while serving in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in the 1970s.

The Pacific Daily News (http://bit.ly/1ze3Bdc ) reports the Archdiocese of Agana said Tuesday that the Rev. John Howard Wadeson has been fully reinstated to public ministry. The archdiocese didn’t say whether Wadeson would return to Guam.

Wadeson was stripped of his duties and left Guam last July amid community concerns about his past. He says he was falsely accused but left because he didn’t want the accusations to tarnish Guam’s archbishop.

A 2004 clergy-abuse report by the Los Angeles archdiocese lists Wadeson as being credibly accused of molesting two people between 1973 and 1977.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Mirror

4 April 2015 By Jilly Beattie

The Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry also heard lamb stew was made but the meat was off and the nuns at Nazareth House, Belfast, forced them to eat it

Nuns allegedly forced children as young as five to ear their own vomit in exchange for a holiday.

The Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry heard how youngsters at Nazareth House in South Belfast had been promised a holiday if they ate their dinner.

In a statement read to the hearing, a witness said a lamb stew had been made but the meat was off and the nuns forced them to eat it anyway, reports Belfast Live.

And with the 66-year-old ex-Nazareth House resident taking the stand on oath, she was challenged: “You have said the smell was horrendous but the nuns made you eat it otherwise no one would go on holidays.

“You were literally eating your own vomit. Each of the children as young as five were doing this.

“You said it seemed to go on for hours.

“If you didn’t eat your stew, somebody else ate it for you because you all wanted to go on your holidays.

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GUAM/CALIFORNIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, April 14

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

Quietly and with little explanation, LA Catholic officials have reversed themselves on a twice-accused predator priest. That priest has now been put back to work. This is incredibly reckless.

[KUAM]

In a 120 word statement printed on April 10 in the LA archdiocesan newspaper, church officials now claim “there is no reason to preclude Father John H. Wadeson from serving in priestly ministry” and he is a “priest in good standing.”

In the 1970s, he was accused of molesting two kids.

Years ago, the LA archdiocese listed him as “credibly accused” and banned him from ministry.

Last year, the San Francisco Archdiocese withdrew his priestly privileges.

Last year, an archdiocese in Guam suspended him.

But now, Archbishop Jose Gomez thinks Fr. Wadeson is OK to put in a parish around kids. And Guam’s archbishop apparently agrees. Shame on both of them.

The statement by the LA archdiocese says that last year, “at the request of Father Wadeson a reexamination of the matter was conducted.” We fear that dozens of credibly accused child molesting clerics will now start asking their bishops to “re-examine” their cases and that some of them will find a more sympathetic hearing before church officials desperate to fill empty positions. If even one credibly accused predator priest, nun, brother, seminarian or bishop gets a job around kids again, based on such a “re-examination” by another bishop, that will be a travesty.

Years ago, reluctantly and belatedly, under tremendous pressure, Los Angles Catholic officials publicly released the names of hundreds of proven, admitted and credibly accused predator priests. As best we can tell, until now, they’ve never gone backwards and said “We were wrong about this guy. We should have never listed him as ‘accused.’”

In fact, we don’t know of a single Catholic official on the planet who has disclosed child sex abuse allegations against a priest who has later said “Oops, I made a mistake. I shouldn’t have done that.”

We’ve said this before and we’ll say it again: At least four church officials must step up here, tell the truth about Fr. Wadeson.

First, San Francisco Archbishop Cordileone should tell what he knows about these allegations and explain why Fr. Wadeson was apparently allowed to work as a priest there even though he was ousted elsewhere. Not one of his aides. Not one of his spokespersons. But the archbishop himself.

Second, the Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez should explain, in detail, why LA officials banned Fr. Wadeson from ministry and why he’s now reversing this decision. He should release all necessary documents, post them on his website, and keep them there.

Third, the Guam Archbishop Anthony Apuron should explain why he let a credibly accused child molesting cleric work unchecked in his archdiocese and why he suspended him this past year.

Fourth, the head of the religious order to which Wadeson belongs – the Divine Word Missionaries – should explain this situation in detail and take steps to ensure Fr. Wadeson does not present himself as a priest.

We believe each of these prelates has a moral and civic duty to use their websites, parish bulletins and pulpit announcements to beg anyone who saw, suspected or suffered crimes by Fr. Wadeson to call police immediately.

And it should go without saying – but we’ll stress it here – that US bishops pledged “zero tolerance” of abuse and “one strike and you’re out.”

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

UNITED STATES
dotCommonweal

Grant Gallicho April 14, 2015

“It’s an outrage,” Peter Saunders told the National Catholic Reporter, that Pope Francis appointed Juan Barros–a man accused of covering up and witnessing a priest’s acts of sexual abuse–bishop of Osorno, Chile. (Barros denies both allegations.) “That man should be removed as a bishop because he has a very, very dubious history–corroborated by more than one person,” according to Saunders, a member of the pope’s new Commission for the Protection of Minors, and a clergy-abuse victim. Saunders went so far as to say that he would consider resigning if he doesn’t get an explanation. He wasn’t the only commission member who was shocked by the pope’s decision. “As a survivor, I’m very surprised at the appointment in Chile because it seems to go against…what the Holy Father has been saying about not wanting anyone in positions of trust in the church who don’t have an absolutely 100 percent record of child protection,” said Marie Collins. On March 31 the Holy See announced that the Congregation for Bishops had found no “objective reasons to preclude the appointment.”

That did not sit well with Saunders, Collins, and two other members of the commission (there are seventeen in total). So they flew to Rome last weekend for an unscheduled meeting with Cardinal Sean O’Malley, president of the body. What a difference a day makes. “The meeting went very well and the cardinal is going to take our concerns to the Holy Father,” Collins told NCR on Sunday. The group issued a brief statement explaining that while they are not charged with investigating individual cases, “The process of appointing bishops who are committed to, and have an understanding of child protection is of paramount importance.” The statement continued: “In the light of the fact that sexual abuse is so common, the ability of a bishop to enact effective policies, and to carefully monitor compliance is essential. Cardinal O’Malley agreed to present the concerns of the subcommittee to the Holy Father.” That’s quite a bit different from decrying the appointment as an outrage. Did Cardinal O’Malley bring them back from the brink simply by listening? What’s going to happen after he shares their concerns with Pope Francis?

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

GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Written by
Gaynor Dumat-ol Daleno
Pacific Daily News

A Guam priest who was stripped of his public duties last year, after a decade-old clergy sex abuse allegation surfaced, has been cleared, the Archdiocese of Agana announced yesterday.

Father John Wadeson “has been reinstated fully to public ministry,” the Archdiocese of Agana stated.

Wadeson left the Redemptoris Mater Seminary on Guam in July last year.

A decade ago, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles issued a report listing Wadeson among 113 priests who were accused of sexual abuse in a 75-year span in the archdiocese, out of more than 5,000 priests who served there. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles issued a public apology in 2004 over the allegations.

Last year, at the request of Wadeson, the archdiocese of Los Angeles conducted “a reexamination of the matter,” the Archdiocese of Agana stated, citing its Los Angeles counterpart.

“Having reviewed the documentation presented by Father Wadeson, and following the 2014 re-examination, the archdiocese has concluded that there is no reason to preclude Father Wadeson from serving in priestly ministry,” the Archdiocese of Agana stated, quoting the Los Angeles archdiocese.

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

AUSTRALIA
9 News

More former residents of a central Queensland orphanage are expected to detail physical and sexual abuse by Catholic priests and nuns before a national inquiry.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard harrowing accounts on Tuesday of abuse from both a former resident of the Neerkol orphanage and a past employee, on the first day of a public hearing in Rockhampton.

One woman said she was sexually assaulted more than 100 times by a priest who is now deceased, while the other related stories of public floggings and humiliation.

On Wednesday, the commission is expected to hear from former Neerkol residents Diane Carpenter and David Owen who claim they were molested by two different priests at the orphanage.

Mr Owen, 76, is also expected to describe how he suffered beatings and floggings dispensed by the Sisters of Mercy, who ran the institution from 1885 to 1978.

Advocacy group Care Leavers Australia Network chief executive Leonie Sheedy said it was the first time the Sisters of Mercy had been under the spotlight.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Pope Francis, in a blistering criticism, listed at the Vatican’s Christmas party 15 “spiritual illnesses” that he suggested senior Catholic Church officials are especially prone to. In the current Harvard Business Review, a prominent consultant perceptively analyzes these “illnesses” from a management expert’s perspective. Please see, “The 15 Diseases of Leadership, According to Pope Francis“, here,

[HBR]

The management expert correctly observes that the Catholic Church is a bureaucracy: a hierarchy populated by less-than-perfect souls. In that sense, he notes, the Church is not much different than many corporate and other organizations. Of course, the Catholic hierarchy is unaccountable compared to most other organizations’ senior management. Bishops’ management performance (including the pope’s) is generally secretive and is neither reported on by independent public auditors nor subject to oversight by shareholders or publicly elected officials. Usually, the Vatican feeds the frequently opportunistic religious news reporters the latest papal pontifications, and these reporters parrot them with little attention usually to the pope’s actual course of action.

In light of my personal experience in the half century since I took a Harvard Business School management course, I think the author has apt and wise insights. Indeed, his analysis suggests to me that the pope himself seems to suffer at times from several of these illnesses. This was very evident in his recent mistaken appointment of Chilean Bishop Barros, his snubbing of his own non-clerical abuse commission members who visited his residence, and his “family-less” Family Synod. One “illness” in particular that caught my attention is the “disease of closed circles”. The author describes this as follows: ” … where belonging to a clique becomes more powerful than our shared identity. This disease too always begins with good intentions, but with the passing of time it enslaves its members and becomes a cancer which threatens the harmony of the organization and causes immense evil, especially to those we treat as outsiders. ‘Friendly fire’ from our fellow soldiers, is the most insidious danger. …

The lack of public accountability and secretiveness was recently noted in an interview by the perceptive Jesuit educated former Wall Street lawyer, Posner, the author of the troubling and comprehensive book, “God’s Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican” . Posner reportedly stated: ” I knew it would be difficult to get inside the {Vatican’s} Secret Archives… . More disappointing than being turned away from the archives, was that Vatican Press Office simply ignored for years several dozen requests by snail mail, fax, email, and telephone messages, seeking interviews with a long list of people who worked at Vatican City. I am accustomed on my book projects to someone not wanting to interview. Occasionally, when I reach out to an individual, their way of saying “no” is simply not to answer. But I have never had the department that is serving as a press office for both a sovereign country as well as one of the world’s biggest religions, simply ignore all requests for assistance. It served as a vivid reminder that the Vatican’s press office is still antiquated when it comes to cultivating good media relations.“

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on April 14, 2015

It’s not 1984 anymore. But Saturday Night Live forgot that this past weekend.

Yesterday, I discussed what we can learn from the awful Barbara Walters/Mary Kay LeTourneau interview aired last Friday.

But ABC is not alone in its total disregard for the damage caused by adult women who sexually abuse children (girls and boys). NBC is right at ABC’s heels.

In a skit in Saturday’s episode, a male child victim of sexual abuse by a teacher is portrayed as lucky and happy about the abuse. The accused teacher, who is very attractive, is let off by the judge who gives the victim a celebratory “fist bump.”

Like I said yesterday, handwringing is not going to save a single boy from abuse. Being upset or feeling “triggered” will not stop this kind of horrific portrayal of the sexual abuse of boys.

Instead, we need to empower ourselves and our children to make sure that the “hot for teacher” stereotype is shut down permanently and that women who abuse boys are punished.
How do we do that?

Talk to your boys (and girls, too) about sexual abuse when it is age appropriate. Tell them that sexual behavior between adults and children/teenagers is a crime. It does not matter whether the adult is a woman or a man. Encourage your children to report abuse or suspected abuse.

Shut down the “teenage fantasy” stereotype. Sure, it may be a “fantasy” for a teenage boy to be with a beautiful woman. But my eight-year-old wishes that he could shoot a cannon. He also wants to have a real gun and drive in NASCAR. But he is neither old nor mature enough to do any of these things. He will hurt himself and be damaged, possibly for life … just like how teenage boy is horribly damaged when he is sexually exploited by a female teacher.

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NEW YORK
Road to Recovery

Brooklyn, New York Bishop Nicholas Di Marzio is holding a Mass in his Cathedral for clergy sexual abuse victims but he will not help pass legislation that will give childhood victims of clergy sexual abuse their day in court in order to obtain justice and allow for healing

Bishop Nicholas Di Marzio has not done the right thing relative to several cases of clergy and religious sexual abuse in the Brooklyn Diocese and as a result has re-victimized clergy sexual abuse victims

What
A demonstration alerting victims of clergy and religious sexual abuse, in particular, to the dangers of attending religious ceremonies that pretend to promote healing and hope but only give bishops and their assistants more reason to deceptively claim that they are truly serious about promoting healing and protecting children, teenagers, and vulnerable adults in the Catholic Church.

When
Wednesday evening, April 15, 2015 from 6:30 PM until 8:00 PM

Where
On the public sidewalks outside St. James Cathedral Basilica, 250 Cathedral Place, Brooklyn, NY in Downtown Brooklyn (near Jay Street and one block north of Tillary Street)

Who
Members of Road to Recovery, Inc., a non-profit charity that assists victims of sexual abuse and their families; other survivors, and supporters

Why
Catholic bishops deceptively conduct healing and hope Masses and prayer services for victims of sexual abuse and their families when they should be focused on promoting healing and protecting children, teenagers, and vulnerable adults through legislation and the courts. A healing and hope Mass only serves to make the local bishop and his child abuse office feel like they are accomplishing something. In fact, Bishop Nicholas Di Marzio has consistently attempted to block legislation that would give sexual abuse victims their day in court in New York State, and he has barred victims from getting the services they need to heal. Victims are better served when bishops stop blocking legislative attempts, such as the Child Victims’ Act, sponsored by a Brooklyn diocesan Catholic legislator, Assemblywoman Marge Markey, which would hold clergy sexual abusers and their enablers accountable.

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

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

NEW JERSEY
Asbury Park Press

Shannon Mullen, Asbury Park Press April 14, 2015

TRENTON – The federal kidnapping case against the Lakewood rabbi dubbed “The Prodfather” lacks a critical piece of evidence, his attorney told the jury Tuesday: an actual cattle prod.

Robert Stahl, representing Rabbi Mendel Epstein, said there were no electric shock devices or other weapons recovered in 2013 when the FBI swept into an Edison warehouse and arrested a group of men wearing dark clothing and disguises with ties to Epstein, a well-known authority on contentious religious divorces within the insular Orthodox Jewish communities in Brooklyn and Lakewood.

In his closing statement, Stahl suggested that the 69-year-old rabbi was “puffing and exaggerating” when he talked to undercover FBI agents about abducting, beating and tasering Jewish men in the testicles until they agreed to grant their wives divorces.

Stahl said his client only meant to reassure someone he believed to be a “desperate” wife who was counting on the rabbi to pressure her husband into providing her with a get, the document that proves a marriage has been dissolved under Jewish law.

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NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

By MaryAnn Spoto | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on April 14, 2015

TRENTON — Rabbi Mendel Epstein engaged in puffery and exaggerations when he talked about torturing husbands to extract divorces from them but he was not involved in a federal kidnapping scheme, his attorney told jurors on Tuesday.

As the federal kidnapping and conspiracy trial of the Lakewood religious leader winds down, defense attorneys are summing up two months of testimony that federal prosecutors argued on Monday shows Epstein and three others employed criminal practices to get those divorces.

“A crime may have been committed here, but it wasn’t federal kidnapping,” said Epstein’s attorney, Robert Stahl. “We all know what the goal of what happened here was.”

Stahl said Epstein was “puffing” to put at ease a woman who told him she was desperate for a divorce in order to start a new life. That woman was actually an undercover FBI agent.

Epstein, 69, is on trial before U.S. District Judge Freda Wolfson in Trenton along with his son, David “Ari” Epstein, and two other rabbis, Binyamin Stimler and Jay Goldstein on charges they were part of a kidnapping conspiracy to force Orthodox Jewish husbands to grant their wives religious divorces.

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NEW JERSEY
Newsday

TRENTON, N.J. – (AP) — The lawyer for an Orthodox rabbi accused of using brutal tactics to force unwilling Jewish husbands to divorce their wives says his client was “puffing and exaggerating” when he talked to undercover FBI agents.

Robert Stahl made his claims during his closing argument Tuesday. Stahl acknowledged that while some crimes may have been committed, he said 69-year-old Mendel Epstein was not part of a kidnapping conspiracy.

Stahl said Epstein was “puffing” to put at ease a woman who told him she was desperate for a divorce in order to start a new life. That woman was actually an undercover FBI agent.

Epstein faces charges of conspiracy to commit kidnapping and attempted kidnapping with his son and two other orthodox rabbis.

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

AUSTRALIA
The Morning Bulletin

ROCKHAMPTON Bishop Michael McCarthy (pictured) and Sisters of Mercy leader Berneice Loch have released a joint statement in relation to the Royal Commission hearing into Neerkol Orphanage.

Here is what they said:

Together we give our wholehearted support to the work of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse which will conduct a public hearing in Rockhampton, from this week.

Through the work of the Royal Commission, people who have been so badly impacted by childhood sexual abuse can be heard.

It is our sincere hope that survivors and their families may experience some healing from the opportunity the Royal Commission provides.

We renew our heartfelt apology to people who have suffered child sexual abuse by church personnel and again we extend this apology to their families and all others who have shared in their suffering.

During the coming weeks we offer our prayers and support for all who have bravely stepped forward to share their story.

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

VATICAN CITY
The Daily Beast

Barbie Latza Nadeau

ROME — It must be hard to be the pope sometimes. You are either damned if you do—like when he speaks his mind—or damned if you don’t, as in the latest scandal rattling the Vatican, in which Pope Francis stands accused of nixing France’s ambassadorial candidate to the Holy See because he is gay.

On Jan. 5, French President Francois Hollande offered Laurent Stefanini’s curriculum vitae to succeed former Ambassador Bruno Jouber, who has moved on to another position within the French embassy. Generally, the Vatican approves such applications within six weeks with a letter of acceptance. It traditionally refuses applicants with radio silence, which is how Stefanini’s nomination has been received. The Vatican press office has not commented on the matter.

Some Vatican watchers have called the French nomination a true test of Pope Francis’s willingness to not judge devout gays, as he so famously pronounced early in his papacy when he told journalists on the papal plane that he did not feel worthy to judge a devout priest who happened to be gay.

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VATICAN CITY
U.S. News

By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis’ finance minister is on the move, literally.

Four months after he raised eyebrows by taking up residence in the Vatican bank, Cardinal George Pell is moving out and into the permanent offices of his new economy secretariat.

The move coincides with a major reorganization of the Vatican’s financial structures ordered by Pope Francis as part of his reform of the Vatican’s administration. It also removes any question of Pell’s direct authority over the bank, which is governed by a separate commission of cardinals who report to the pope.

Francis tapped the straight-talking Australian to bring order and efficiency to the Vatican’s complicated finances. Pell has promised a new era of transparency, budgeting accountability and internationally accepted accounting standards, and has been given broad oversight powers.

But he has ruffled feathers within the Vatican’s old guard, and some saw his decision to move into the vacant, spacious presidents’ office of the Vatican bank as a symbolic assertion of control over the institution. Vatican reporter Andrea Tornielli noted that Pell’s presence in the bank might have led to confusion about who really ran the show there, him or the cardinal’s commission.

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MONTANA
Independent Record

Landon Hemsley
Independent Record

Bankruptcies are painful for many, but especially for those who are owed money they will never receive.

As part of the Diocese of Helena’s bankruptcy proceeding, the court released a document entailing the 20 creditors who lost the most when the Diocese declared bankruptcy.

Two of the 20 creditors were identified one group of 95 and a second group of 268 “abuse claimaints.” The amount of money these two groups of claimants lost in the bankruptcy is not revealed in the court documents. One of the claimants had two separate claims in the document, bringing the total of known claimants to 17.

The Diocese is passing through a chapter 11 bankruptcy, which means the Diocese has declared that it is working to restore its ability to pay obligations that it is presently unable to honor; it has not declared that it will be unable to pay those obligations forever.

Most of the claimants held deposits in a private bank the Diocese had set up for itself. Called a Deposit and Loan (D&L), funds from this private bank were used in day-to-day operations of the Diocese and its parishes in addition to maintaining and building facilities.

With respect to many of the creditors that lost money in the D&L, the Diocese has established a restoration trust operated by members of several different parishes and not by the Diocese central office. The Diocese says it is confident this trust fund will be able to bring some recovery in the future to those creditors who lost substantial amounts in the D&L, but while the trust is attempting to bring the D&L back from the dead, those creditors are out of luck.

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GUAM
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Agana

April 14, 2015

On April 10, 2015 the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles in its weekly diocesan newspaper, The Tidings, published a report stating the Archdiocese of Los Angeles had conducted a thorough re-examination of the whole issue concerning the alleged accusations against Father John H. Wadeson. The Tidings made the announcement in its print edition.

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has concluded that there is no reason to preclude Father Wadeson from serving in priestly ministry showing that all the rumors and alleged calumnies against him were unfounded.

The Archdiocese of Agana therefore announces that Fr. John Wadeson has been reinstated fully to public ministry according to a decree dated April 13, 2015.

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

DELAWARE
Delaware Law Weekly

Gina Passarella, Delaware Law Weekly
April 15, 2015

A sex-abuse victim’s suit against his personal injury and trust and estate lawyers can proceed over the victim’s allegations that his attorneys negligently created a trust to hold proceeds from a settlement with his abuser.

The plaintiff, who Delaware Law Weekly will not name under a policy of not identifying sexual abuse victims, sued his lawyers at Jacobs & Crumplar and the Neuberger Firm after his family-member trustees misused funds in his trust. He alleged the lawyers, who helped him secure the settlement with his sexual abuser, negligently created the trust and negligently selected the trustees.

The law firms and attorney defendants, who also included estate planning attorney Edward Luria, filed a motion to dismiss, arguing failure to state a claim and collateral estoppel given the Delaware Court of Chancery’s prior ruling in a separate case that found the trustees violated their fiduciary duties.

In order to consider that prior Chancery Court action, Superior Court Judge Robert B. Young said he had to convert the motions to dismiss to summary judgment motions.

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

GUAM/CALIFORNIA
The Worthy Adversry

Posted by Joelle Casteix on April 14, 2015

KUAM announced today that former LA priest John Wadeson has been reinstated in the Archdiocese of Agana (Guam).

I have written about Wadeson in the past. According to the Los Angeles Archdiocese, he was twice accused of sexually abusing children and had been banned from working as a priest there.

According to a statement published in The Tidings (the Archdiocese of LA Newspaper), the LA Archdiocese did a investigation and “concluded that there is no reason to preclude Father Wadeson from serving in priestly ministry.”

This decision was based on the fact there has never been a settlement paid on an abuse case against Wadeson. According to the statement, when the allegations first arose, the Society of the Divine Word (the order to which Wadeson belonged) investigated the claims and found them “unverified.”

Here are my issues:

* According to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and every other diocese across the US, the payment of a settlement does NOT equate implied guilt on the behalf of the accused. If this were the case, former San Diego Bishop Robert Brom would have been removed years ago. (He paid a former seminarian a confidential $250,000 settlement for allegedly coercing the victim into sex)

* Why didn’t Wadeson do something immediately when the LA Archdiocese published reports that he was twice accused? If in the same position, I would do everything in my power to clear my name immediately. And I would be public about it to ensure that I was adhering to transparency.

* What does “unverified” mean? That there was only one victim? There were no witnesses? What is a “verified” allegation?

And probably the most troublesome:

*Why would Agana Archbishop Apuron publish this statement?

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UNITED STATES
HBR

Gary Hamel
APRIL 14, 2015

Pope Francis has made no secret of his intention to radically reform the administrative structures of the Catholic church, which he regards as insular, imperious, and bureaucratic. He understands that in a hyper-kinetic world, inward-looking and self-obsessed leaders are a liability.

Last year, just before Christmas, the Pope addressed the leaders of the Roman Curia — the Cardinals and other officials who are charged with running the church’s byzantine network of administrative bodies. The Pope’s message to his colleagues was blunt. Leaders are susceptible to an array of debilitating maladies, including arrogance, intolerance, myopia, and pettiness. When those diseases go untreated, the organization itself is enfeebled. To have a healthy church, we need healthy leaders.

Through the years, I’ve heard dozens of management experts enumerate the qualities of great leaders. Seldom, though, do they speak plainly about the “diseases” of leadership. The Pope is more forthright. He understands that as human beings we have certain proclivities — not all of them noble. Nevertheless, leaders should be held to a high standard, since their scope of influence makes their ailments particularly infectious.

The Catholic Church is a bureaucracy: a hierarchy populated by good-hearted, but less-than-perfect souls. It that sense, it’s not much different than your organization. That’s why the Pope’s counsel is relevant to leaders everywhere.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

APRIL 15, 2015

Sarah Elks
Reporter
Brisbane

The Catholic Church’s insurers scolded Rockhampton’s Sisters of Mercy for issuing a “prejudicial” unreserved apology to hundreds of children who suffered alleged sexual abuse and bashings in their orphanage decades earlier.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse yesterday heard ­evidence of shocking abuse — ­including rapes by priests, public floggings, ritual humiliation for bed-wetters, and scant education — at the nuns’ Neerkol orphanage, which housed about 4000 children between 1885 and 1978.

When abuse complaints from former residents surfaced in the 1990s, the Sisters of Mercy worked with survivors to draft and publish an apology in 1997 to those victims of “physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual abuse”. The following month, however, Catholic Church Insurance Limited wrote to one of the order’s nuns, criticising the apology.

“The reason why you have ­issued an apology is well understood, and your concern for the victims and your recognition of their plight are recognised from a pastoral viewpoint,” the letter read. “However, CCI is entitled to consider the extent to which the position of the insurer has been prejudiced in relation to those cases in respect of which a claim may be subsequently submitted.”

The Sisters of Mercy and the Rockhampton Diocese of the Catholic Church ended up settling out of court with 72 abuse survivors. By June 1999, $790,910 had been paid in compensation.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Daily

ByJasper Johnson April 14, 2015

A United States bankruptcy court recently granted the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis an extension for its bankruptcy restructuring, postponing the deadline until Nov. 30. Most of the discourse regarding this bankruptcy, which the archdiocese filed because of numerous sexual abuse lawsuits, focuses purely on finances.

In my mind, this detracts from the root cause that no one likes to address — sexual abuse. The church needs massive organizational restructuring, and finances are only a small part of the solution.

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has a sordid record as far as sexual abuse goes. The current Archbishop John Nienstedt and his two predecessors, Harry Flynn and John Roach, were involved in cover-ups of sexual abuse.

Flynn and Roach were both members of the Ad Hoc Committee on Sexual Abuse by Priests, whose goal was to address sexual abuse problems. However, the archbishops went on enabling monstrosities. Empty promises of reform are insufficient and do nothing to address the chronic, underlying problem that led to the church being swamped by legal payouts.

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TEXAS
The Raw Story

TRAVIS GETTYS
14 APR 2015

A Texas couple fled to Mexico after a failed attempt to raise a starved toddler from the dead, police said.

Officers received an anonymous tip March 26 that the 2-year-old boy had died nearly a week earlier but was not reported, according to NBC News.

Police went to a Balch Springs home, which also operated as a church, where they were told a “rising ceremony” had been performed four days earlier in an attempt to resurrect him, the network reported.

The child’s body was taken to Mexico the next day by his parents and other members of the Congregacional Pueblo De Dios, police said.

Investigators have not yet located the parents or church congregants.

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CHILE
ADN

[con audio]

[Catholic University Students protested against the appointment of Bishop Barros.]

Estudiantes de la U. Católica se manifestaron en contra de la designación del obispo Barros

La designación de Juan Barros Madrid como obispo de Osorno sigue generando controversia tras ser sindicado como encubridor de Karadima,. Este lunes, un grupo de estudiantes de la Universidad Católica se manifestó en contra del prelado, en el centro de extensión de la casa de estudios.

Frente a las diversas protestas por el nombramiento, el Arzobispo de Santiago Ricardo Ezzati señaló que todo el mundo tiene derecho a expresarse. Consultado por la permanencia de Barros en el cargo, Ezzati dijo que eso lo debe responder el Papa.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

The defense lawyer for Father Andrew McCormick today accused the district attorney’s office of prosecutorial misconduct for trying to put a Catholic priest in jail “by any means necessary.”

The D.A.’s office “took every witness at their word no matter how fantastical the story was,” Trevan Borum complained to reporters outside the Criminal Justice Center.

Borum, a former prosecutor himself, said that the D.A.’s office didn’t do their homework, but “Thank God we did.” Speaking moments after a judge lifted a gag order, Borum told reporters about how the defense went out looking for witnesses to refute the prosecution’s case.

“They were easy to find,” Borum said, including a former altar boy now a state trooper who discredited a key prosecution witness. That’s how Borum managed to thwart a district attorney’s office that he said was “looking to convict a priest at all costs.”

After two heavily publicized trials in 14 months, however, both of which ended in deadlocked juries, “Father Andy” faces “an uncertain future,” his lawyer said. The priest is on administrative leave with the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and still has to face a church hearing over alleged boundary violations. Then there’s the matter of his reputation, his lawyer said, after being accused in the media and the courts of something he didn’t do, an attempted rape of a 10-year-old altar boy.

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AUSTRALIA
The Courier

By RACHEL AFFLICK Aug. 14, 2013

The alleged burial of children at the former Ballarat Orphanage has been referred to the Coroner and Victoria Police.

Former orphanage resident Edith Orr raised the issue at a Ballarat City Council meeting earlier this year, asking how the remains of children allegedly buried on the old orphanage site would be respected if it was redeveloped.

The issue comes after the council received a formal application to rezone the site, which has been sold for a residential subdivision with a medical centre and shopping complex.

Yesterday, a spokesperson for the Office of Aboriginal Affairs Victoria said the department had referred the concerns to Victoria Police and the Coroner for further investigation.

Ms Orr’s sister, Phyllis Read, laid a “blood claim” to the Victoria Street site last year, declaring at the September 14 Ballarat City Council meeting: “I say it’s our blood, so it’s our land”.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Police are digging up the grounds of a former Ballarat orphanage, in a search for the remains of children.

Police began the search on Monday at 200 Victoria Street, which was once home to the Ballarat Orphanage, the Ballarat Children’s Homes and finally Damascus College.

The site was sold to developers in 2011, who applied to have it rezoned for commercial and mixed use.

Ballarat mayor John Phillips confirmed that the allegations had been raised at a council meeting in 2013, when the council were considering plans to redevelop the site.

He did not confirm that the council then referred the claims to the coroner and the Government.

The site is under police guard.

“The investigation relates to alleged activities that may have occurred whilst the orphanage was operational, prior to its closure in 1968,” Victoria Police said in a statement.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

April 14, 2015

Chloe Booker

Police are digging up the grounds of a former Ballarat orphanage associated with historic sexual and physical abuse, searching for children’s remains.

The remains are suspected to have been buried at the now Damascus University site before the orphanage closed in 1968.

The investigation was sparked when former orphanage residents raised the issue at Ballarat City Council meetings discussing redevelopment plans for the 200 Victoria Street site.

Former orphanage resident Phyllis Read laid a “blood claim” to the site at a 2012 meeting.

“I say it’s our blood, so it’s our land,” she said.

Her sister Edith Orr asked at a 2013 Ballarat City Council meeting how the remains of children allegedly buried there would be respected if it was redeveloped. …

Former residents have alleged horrific sexual, physical and emotional abuse.

Allegations include that Catholic nuns “procured children” for notorious paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Culture

Pope Francis has named Msgr. Luigi Mistò, 62, as the secretary of the administrative section of the Secretariat for the Economy.

Msgr. Mistò will assist Cardinal George Pell, the secretariat’s prefect, in his personnel and budgetary oversight of the Vatican’s dicasteries.

In 2011, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Msgr. Mistò the secretary of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA), whose purview has been reduced since 2014 to acting “as a guardian for moveable goods entrusted to it by other institutes of the Holy See,” in the words of the 1988 apostolic constitution on the Curia.

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on April 13, 2015

Barbara Walters’ interview with convicted child molester Mary Kay LeTourneau and her once-victim-now-husband Vili Fualaau was gut wrenching. The romanticization of the abuse was awful enough. But giving a woman like LeTourneau a platform to justify what she did is reprehensible.

Being outraged or upset about the interview doesn’t help anyone. But talking about her predatory patterns can help keep children safer. The more we understand how she thinks, the more we can see her behavioral patterns in other people who may abuse or try to abuse children.

1) Mary Kay LeTourneau is a narcissist. It’s all about her. LeTourneau wants to get off of the sex offender registry because she feels like she has “served her time” for what she still believes is a “love affair” with a 13-year-old boy. Predators tend to be narcissists, with very limited understanding of boundaries. According to the narcissist, the child “comes on to them” and “the predator is the real victim.” This also traps the victim, who believes that the abuse was his/her fault or that they are “hurting” the predator by reporting or refusing. In my opinion, Fualaau is trapped and blames himself. LeTourneau groomed Fualaau and sexually abused him. Period.

She should and must remain a registered sex offender, just like a man convicted of the same crimes.

2) She got a pass because she is a woman predator. Yes, she was convicted. But Barbara Walters would never have interviewed a predator who married a victim if the predator were male. Walters and ABC have no comprehension of the damage LeTourneau has done. (Speaking of networks perpetuating the “hot for teacher” stereotype, we can look at Saturday Night Live’s skit this weekend where a male victim of child sexual abuse by a woman is portrayed as the luckiest kid around.)

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NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

By MaryAnn Spoto | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on April 13, 2015

TRENTON —In his own words, Rabbi Mendel Epstein told an undercover FBI agent that he wore two hats as a religious leader – one rabbinical and one criminal.

That statement, captured in video surveillance in 2013, was played for jurors on Monday as they hear federal prosecutors’ and defense attorneys’ summations of eight weeks of testimony in a trial accusing Epstein and three others of conspiring to force husbands into granting their wives religious divorces.

“Mendel Epstein is telling you right here what he is – he’s a criminal,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Wolfe told jurors after playing a segment of video in which Epstein claimed to describe the two roles he played in his Orthodox Jewish communities in Lakewood and Brooklyn.

“Don’t confuse the defendants’ religious beliefs with criminal acts,” Wolfe said toward the beginning of her nearly four hours of closing arguments. “You’re here to judge Mendel Epstein for acts he did while wearing his criminal hat.”

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AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

Children housed in a notorious central Queensland orphanage were subjected to repeated physical and sexual abuse and allegedly punished if they spoke out, a national inquiry has heard.

Thirteen former residents of the Neerkol Orphanage near Rockhampton are set to describe their traumatic experiences at a public hearing of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Counsel assisting the commission Sophie David SC said the allegations centre on three priests, now

Ms David told the hearing in Rockhampton that the former residents, many who can’t be identified by name, will speak of how they were beaten by nuns and repeatedly sexually abused by priests connected to the orphanage.

She said many former residents will say they were too frightened to report the abuse, while others reported being physically punished for speaking out.

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CANADA
CTV

Tamsyn Burgmann, The Canadian Press
Published Monday, April 13, 2015

VANCOUVER — Strappings, beatings with a pointed stick and orders to stand in the classroom corner for speaking her own language were among “horrific” measures that erased Darlene Bulpit’s ability to pass along her First Nations heritage to her two children and three grandchildren.

The 66-year-old from the Shishalh Indian band, on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast, was allowed to go home at night and grins when she recalls learning to hunt with her brothers and bringing home “the prize.”

Each morning she trudged back to school with dread.

As a day scholar for eight years, Bulpit said she suffered similar harms as thousands of aboriginals who survived the residential school system. Yet unlike her peers, she was excluded from the federal government’s historic apology in July 2008 and was never awarded compensation.

The woman is among hundreds of First Nations plaintiffs who attended the notorious schools by day and now want to sue the Canadian government contending they were overlooked in the reconciliation process.

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GUAM
KUAM

By Sabrina Salas Matanane

The Archdiocese of Agana has reinstated Father John Wadeson to practice ministry in Guam. Last July Archbishop Anthony Apuron removed the priest following the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), calling on him to have him removed.

SNAP said Fr. Wadeson was accused twice of child molestation and had been banned from the Los Angeles Archdiocese.

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles conducted a thorough re-examination of the whole issue concerning the alleged accusations against Father Wadeson. They had concluded that there is no reason to preclude Father Wadeson from serving in priestly ministry, showing that all the rumors and alleged calumnies against him were unfounded.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

A ten year legal battle has finally come to an end for one sex abuse victim, who has reached a settlement with the Catholic Church.

Pedophile bus driver Brian Perkins sexually abused disabled students at St Ann’s School in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He was eventually jailed for his crimes for six years but died in prison in 2009.

7News understands the church has agreed to pay a six figure sum to compensate one of his victims and, just days ago, agreed to formally settle with a second.

A further five cases brought against the church on behalf of Perkins’ disabled victims are now expected to be resolved by the end of the year.

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OREGON
The Oregonian

By Aimee Green | The Oregonian/OregonLive
on April 13, 2015

A Happy Valley pastor scheduled to go to trial this week to fight accusations that he sexually violated a kindergarten-age girl in the mid-1990s suffered a setback last week.

A judge will allow jurors to hear testimony from six other women who claim that pastor Michael Sperou sexually abused them, too, when they were children. But because the statute of limitations has passed for those alleged “prior bad acts,” Sperou can’t be prosecuted for them.

The statute of limitations hasn’t passed for the youngest of Sperou’s alleged victims, the subject of this week’s trial.

Attorneys were selecting a jury Monday. Opening statements are expected to begin Tuesday. Sperou denies the allegations.

Multnomah County Circuit Judge Cheryl Albrecht ruled Friday that jurors also will get to hear from other former members of the Southeast Bible Church. Those members say that the cultlike organization required them to live in a network of homes in Happy Valley and Portland, sometimes with entire families in a single bedroom and children living in closets.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Robert Mickens | Apr. 13, 2015 A Roman Observer

The seas have suddenly become a lot more agitated for Pope Francis, who up to now has proven to be amazingly unsinkable in the face of any kind of adversity.

But in the last few weeks, he has found himself in the midst of several minor crises and controversies that if not resolved well could work to undermine his credibility with many Catholics and deal a blow to his project for reforming the church.

The polemics range from the unprecedented and violent protests that cut short the installation Mass last month of a bishop he appointed in Chile to a diplomatic storm with Turkey after he repeated his long-held conviction Sunday that the killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915 was, in fact, a “genocide.”

Sandwiched between these more sensational incidents are troubles hidden from public view. Most of them concern episcopal politics and power struggles, especially inside the Vatican.

However, one of them spilled into the press just last week: a supposed Vatican stalemate with France over the appointment three months ago of the new French ambassador. Reports say the pope has refused to give the Holy See’s approval (“agrément”) to the French envoy, which is required before he takes up the post, because the diplomat is said to be openly gay.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

By Miranda Forster
April 14, 2015

A former resident of a central Queensland orphanage has told a national inquiry how nuns administered public floggings and forced bed-wetting children to stand with soiled sheets draped over their heads.

Retired nurse Mary Adams, 64, suffered repeated emotional, physical and sexual mistreatment at the hands of nuns and priests at the Neerkol orphanage near Rockhampton in the 1950s and 1960s, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard.

Sobbing uncontrollably at times, Ms Adams told the hearing in Rockhampton she was punched, slapped, pulled by her hair and on one occasion flogged with a skipping rope so forcefully she struggled to walk for days.

Boys who tried to run away from Neerkol were publicly flogged with horse whips and those who wet the bed were forced to stand with the soiled sheets draped over their heads.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC Brisbane

[with audio]

by Jacquie Mackay

As you’d probably be aware the Royal Commission hearing on the St Joseph’s orphanage at Neerkol begins today, but what of the former orphanage buildings?

The site is now owned by Stanwell Corporation which has closed off the area to the public, but a couple of years ago a petition called for the restoration and opening of the Orphanage, Grounds and Burial Sites to the public.

Belinda Brown began the petition because she says that families, friends & the public have a right to honour, remember and grieve the Neerkol story.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

Queensland women have recalled gut-wrenching memories of abuse at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse today.

Mary Adams sobbed through her statement, saying she remembered yelling “You are committing a mortal sin” at a priest who abused her as a child.

Another woman known only as AYB said she was repeatedly raped as a child by a Catholic priest, who then made her confess to her “sin”.

The 67-year-old woman was 11 when Father Reginald Durham, her parish priest, began sexually abusing her at her Rockhampton home, the commision heard.

AYB said Fr Durham abused her more than 100 times over the following years, including at his presbytery at the Neerkol orphanage when she worked there as a teacher.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By William Rollo and Marlina Whop

A witness at a child sex abuse inquiry says she was raped “well over 100 times” by a priest at St Joseph’s Neerkol Orphanage Rockhampton in central Queensland.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has heard the treatment of children at the orphanage was “vicious and sadistic”, while an earlier inquiry found hundreds of children were sexually abused, beaten and forced into hard labour there.

The inquiry has begun hearings into how the Sisters of Mercy, the Rockhampton diocese and the state government responded to complaints made by former residents of St Joseph’s Neerkol Orphanage.

The orphanage has already been the subject of several police and government investigations, and a 1999 inquiry led by former Queensland governor Leneen Forde.

After the so-called Forde Inquiry, the Queensland government at the time offered ex gratia payments of up to $40,000 to people as long as they dropped other legal action against the state.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

Abuse victim David Owen to relive pain of abuse at Neerkol orphanage at Royal Commission

DETAILS divulged to the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse about horrific abuse that took place in a Queensland orphanage have been deemed “too lurid” to be made public, but one man is keen for his shocking story to be heard.

The Commission, sitting in Rockhampton from today, has begun to hear from men and women who attended the Neerkol Orphanage outside the city between 1940 and 1975.

The institution has previously been exposed as a place where physical, sexual and psychological abuse was rife during the Forde Inquiry in 1998 and 1999.

David Owen, 76, was one of the victims of abuse to come forward at that inquiry and will now be one of 18 witnesses to front the Commission opening up about his shocking abuse, all because he wants people to care.

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AUSTRALIA
The Morning Bulletin

Austin King | 14th Apr 2015

UPDATE 3.15PM: Former Neerkol Orphanage resident Mary Adams has taken the stand to retell her harrowing experience when she was a resident in the 1950s and 1960s.

She has told of the severe physical and sexual abuse she endured from a Father John, who was relieving at the orphanage during a Sisters of Mercy retreat.

The commission also heard of the emotional evidence by a witness who said she was raped “well over 100 times” by a priest at St Joseph’s Neerkol Orphanage Rockhampton in central Queensland.

EARLIER: EIGHTEEN witnesses, including Neerkol Orphanage survivors and Sisters of Mercy representatives, will share their stories at a public hearing as the Royal Commission into the institution gets underway.

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AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

A Queensland woman has told a national inquiry she was repeatedly raped as a child by a Catholic priest, who then made her confess to her “sin”.

The 67-year-old woman was 11 when Father Reginald Durham, her parish priest, began sexually abusing her at her Rockhampton home, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard.

The woman, identified by the commission only as AYB, said Fr Durham abused her more than 100 times over the following years, including at his presbytery at the Neerkol orphanage when she worked there as a teacher.

She detailed how the now-deceased priest fondled her breasts, forced her to masturbate him, digitally raped her and penetrated her with objects.

“After each time I was sexually abused, I had to go to confession to him and confess my sin of impurity,” AYB told the commission, which was sitting in Rockhampton on Tuesday.

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OREGON
KOIN

HILLSBORO, Ore. (KOIN) — Jury selection begins Monday in the trial of a pastor accused of sexual assault.

Michael Sperou, 64, faces three felonies for unlawful sexual penetration. He is listed on the website of BcResources.net as a senior pastor and founding member of the North Clackamas Bible Community.

Police said Sperou’s arrest stems from a series of 1997 police reports involving juvenile girls who lived within the Southeast Bible Church community, which is now known as the North Clackamas Bible Community.

The churches have operated in Southeast Portland and Happy Valley beginning in 1980.

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OREGON
Huffington Post

By Andy Campbell

An Oregon pastor was charged 18 years after several women accused him of sexually abusing them as minors.

Michael Sperou, 64, faces three felonies for unlawful sexual penetration of people under 12, according to KOIN. Seven women have lived in frustration since their complaints about the Happy Valley pastor in the 1990s went unanswered.

Now, prosecutors are taking a second look at those complaints. Sperou, who was arrested last June, is accused of sexually abusing women — who ranged in age from 11 to 16 at the time — in the Southeast Bible Church community, which is now known as the North Clackamas Bible Community, the Oregonian reports.

Jury selection began in his case this week. Prosecutors found that the statute of limitations had expired on most of the women’s cases, but Sperou was charged based on new allegations by 28-year-old Shannon Clark. The victim said she withheld information from investigators in 1997 because she thought the community was on Sperou’s side.

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AUSTRALIA
Courier Mail

Victims of a ‘reign of terror’ conducted by nuns at Central Queensland orphanage to tell their stories

VICTIMS of a decades-long “reign of terror” conducted by nuns at a central Queensland orphanage are due to tell their stories at a royal commission.

The Neerkol orphanage near Rockhampton has previously been exposed by the Forde Inquiry in 1998 and 1999 as a place where physical, sexual and psychological abuse was rife.

The home, also known as St Joseph’s Orphanage, was operated by the Sisters of Mercy until 1978.

About nine former residents are expected to detail their experiences at a public hearing of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Rockhampton this month.

The scope of the hearing includes their experiences and the responses of the Sisters of Mercy, the Catholic Diocese of Rockhampton and the Queensland government to complaints of child sexual abuse.

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