ABUSE TRACKER

NEW ZEALAND
Stuff

November 30, 2020

By Edward Gay

A man who was sexually abused as a boy at St Patrick’s College, Silverstream only ever wanted the photographs of his abusers removed from the school’s hall, the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care has heard.

Tina Cleary’s father, Patrick Cleary, was sexually abused by two priests when he was aged 12 at the Catholic boys school in 1951.

It took decades for the proud man to be able to tell anyone of the abuse. He told his full story to the Royal Commission in a private session in 2019. He died in July.

His statements were read by his daughter Tina Cleary on Monday. She bought her father’s walking stick to the hearing and held it in the witness box as she read his evidence.

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CINCINNATI
WCPO-TV, Channel 9

December 7, 2020

By Craig Cheatham

Abuse survivor: ‘It needs to come out’

[PHOTO: In personal journals from the 1980s, a Catholic priest repeatedly accused of molesting boys, asks God to forgive him. The Rev. Herman Kamlage worked at eight northern Kentucky churches. He died in 2018.]

BURLINGTON, Ky. — I’ve failed you again. I haven’t been faithful to my office for 10 days.
I still have these primitive urges.
August 9, 1981

In a series of hand-written “love letters” to God, penned over the course of four years, The Rev. Herman Kamlage, a Catholic priest, begged for forgiveness for undisclosed “carnal” behavior that he claimed he could not control.

In July, the Diocese of Covington publicly identified Kamlage — who held positions at eight northern Kentucky parishes — and 89 other former diocesan employees who had “substantiated” allegations of child sexual abuse made against them.

Kamlage died in 2018.

I do all the things I say I don’t want to do. It bugs me but I don’t do anything about it. It’s as tho I’m doing just what I want/chooze (sic) to do. No discipline. And yet, at times, it’s as tho (sic) I can’t help myself. Why?
April 17, 1983

There are more than 100 letters, dated from 1981-85, in three personal journals.

Nearly all of the entries end with Kamlage’s signature.

“It does give you a true insight view into his soul, which I believe is an evil soul” said Dean McCoy, a former altar boy at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Crescent Springs, Ky., where Kamlage was an assistant priest in 1984.

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CHARLESTON (SOUTH CAROLINA)
Post and Courier

December 7, 2020

By Avery G. Wilks

South Carolina’s top Roman Catholic priest says the Vatican has cleared him of wrongdoing after he was accused of sexually abusing a boy as the pastor of a New York church in the late 1970s.

In a message to fellow S.C. priests ahead of Sunday’s mass, Charleston Bishop Robert Guglielmone wrote that he received a letter “stating that the Vatican has determined that the sexual abuse allegation against me has no semblance of truth and is thus unfounded.”

“While not surprising to me, it is very welcomed news as it confirms what I have adamantly stated,” Guglielmone continued. “I am innocent of the accusation that was made against me.”

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NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

December 7, 2020

By Anthony G. Attrino

A 51-year-old man is suing the Diocese of Metuchen and a long-dead New Jersey priest, claiming he was given alcohol and molested while attending Catholic school decades ago.

The lawsuit claims Father Michael Santillo, who died in 2000 at age 50, plied the victim with beer, groped him and took him on a three-day trip to Disney World, where he wanted to watch the student have sex with a prostitute.

Anthony P. Kearns III, who is the chancellor of the Diocese of Metuchen, said Monday he cannot comment on pending litigation.

The lawsuit, filed last week in Superior Court of Middlesex County, claims Santillo met the victim at St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in Perth Amboy while the victim attended elementary school there.

The priest allegedly groomed the victim for several years, creating “a culture and social dynamic” that weakened the student’s ability to resist Santillo, the lawsuit claims.

Santillo used his position and his residence in the rectory “to ingratiate and integrate himself” to the victim throughout elementary and high school, the victim claims in the suit.

In 1983, when the victim was a teenager, Santillo allegedly took him to the church rectory and gave him alcohol. Once he plied the student with “beer and other liquor,” he allegedly molested him, the lawsuit claims.

The priest also took the student on a trip to Disney World in Florida, where “Santillo again purchased and provided minor plaintiff with beer and liquor,” the suit claims.

After the victim drank alcohol, Santillo asked if he could watch the teenager “engage in sexual intercourse with a prostitute that Father Santillo would provide.” The teen refused, the lawsuit states.

While in Florida, the priest again allegedly groped and sexually abused the victim, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit states Santillo left the ministry in 1992 but returned to work in at least one church as an administrative assistant until his arrest in the late 1990s.

Despite multiple complaints of sexual abuse, Santillo was never removed from his position within the diocese, the lawsuit states.

“Instead, Father Santillo’s reign of terror (was) propped up by religious authority,” which allowed him to abuse victims, the suit states.

Santillo, who was known as “Father Mike,” pleaded guilty in June 1999 to sexually assaulting a 13-year-old altar boy and molesting three of the teen’s friends in his living quarters at the church rectory in Perth Amboy.

A judge sentenced Santillo to serve 10 years in the state’s Adult Diagnostic and Treatment Center in Avenel for sex offenders.

Santillo died of lymphoma on May 10, 2000 at St. Francis Medical Center in Trenton, where he had been transferred from the sex-offender treatment center, according to published reports.

In addition to Santillo’s estate, the lawsuit names the diocese, St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church and St. Joseph Parish. The suit alleges gross negligence, along with negligent supervision, hiring and retention.

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WASHINGTON D.C.
Catholic News Agency

December 5, 2020

On Tuesday, the Vatican announced that Bishop Michael Fisher, auxiliary bishop of Washington, D.C., will serve as the next Bishop of Buffalo. He will be installed as bishop on Jan. 15, taking over a diocese rocked by scandals in recent years.

Awaiting Fisher on his first day is a chancery with a tarnished reputation, a diocese named in hundreds of clergy abuse lawsuits, an ongoing bankruptcy process, the possible closure of parishes and schools, and a faithful weary of scandal.

At his introductory press conference on Tuesday, Fisher pledged transparency—and his promise looks to be tested from the beginning.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

December 4, 2020

A bankruptcy court has approved a reorganization plan for the Catholic Diocese of St. Cloud to settle legal claims of clergy abuse survivors.

Two years ago, the St. Cloud diocese announced that it planned to file for bankruptcy after receiving 74 claims of sexual abuse of minors.

Those claims were filed during a three-year window that lifted the statute of limitations on allegations of clergy abuse in Minnesota.

Last May, the diocese announced the two sides had reached an agreement that included a $22.5 million trust to compensate abuse survivors. The diocese also agreed to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

December 5, 2020

By Jennifer Vosters

As a Catholic woman and a diehard science-fiction/fantasy fan, I’m used to feeling underrepresented.

I learned early on not to hold my breath for three-dimensional women to take center stage in the stories and Scriptures, homilies and home-worlds I loved. I learned to connect with Frodo and Harry and Luke — and with St. Paul and St. Francis and Thomas Merton. But to see the heroic spiritual journeys of women at the fore? Mission: Improbable.

Enter “Star Wars: The Clone Wars.”

All the great sci-fi/fantasy franchises involve deeply spiritual themes, but “Star Wars” takes it a step further: There is religion. We get a divine Force, an order of peacekeeping monks, even a common blessing (“May the Force be with you”). But while binge-watching “The Clone Wars” animated series after the release of its much-anticipated final season this spring, I was not prepared for Ahsoka Tano.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Morning Star

December 7, 2020

By Fiona O’Connor

Fiona O’Connor finds that Gabriel Byrne breaks the celebrity mould in his unflinching account of an Irish childhood and subsequent success as a screen actor

“Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.” So wrote Frank McCourt in the opening of Angela’s Ashes, his bestselling spawner of the genre dubbed misery-lit.

In his new memoir, actor Gabriel Byrne has generated his own take on the legacy of an Irish childhood, thus creating perhaps a unique form — that of the celebrity artist opening up to scrutiny many of his most intimate experiences.

In it, the iconic figure, hero and anti-hero of Hollywood classics, offers valuable insight on male vulnerability, particularly so in light of recent church child-abuse scandals and the #metoo movement.

Walking with Ghosts is an account of a working-class upbringing in the harsh economy of 1960s Dublin. Byrne’s father was a cooper in the Guinness brewery, laid off when barrel-makers’ skills were no longer needed and his mother, a nurse, maintained the family.

It was a time when deep faith and submission to rigid Catholic authority was still a social given. Byrne’s excitement in becoming an altar boy and the awe involved in rituals of preparation — boys dressing the priest in his pristine robes, boys learning their Latin — is ended when he was thrown against the wall of a trusted priest and sexually abused when he was 12.

Decades later, Byrne is still unable to confront this man with his crime.

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CINCINNATI (OH)
Cincinnati Enquirer

December 7, 2020

By Teresa Dinwiddie-Herrmann, Jan Seidel, Dan Frondorf and Kathy Weyer

After a two-year investigation, the Vatican recently released a 450-plus-page report about now-defrocked Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and how the Catholic Church hierarchy failed to stop his predatory sexual behavior. Now, local Catholics are owed a similar in-depth investigation into the Archdiocese of Cincinnati and its complicity in failing to protect children from predatory sexual behaviors of local priests, such as Geoffrey Drew.

Although the Drew story is a microcosm of McCarrick’s, the system that allowed both men to go unpunished for decades, in spite of countless complaints, exists in every Catholic diocese, including our own. Drew, former pastor of St. Ignatius of Loyola Parish, was arraigned on nine counts of rape in July 2019, finally halting his access to children.

Shortly thereafter, Concerned Catholics of Cincinnati was joined by over 1,500 area Catholics in petitioning the Vatican and 80 Catholic leaders to investigate the handling of the Drew case by the Archdiocese. In a well-researched document, our group cited complaints about Drew spanning 30 years, three counties and four parishes. These complaints were both in writing and in personal meetings with then-Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Binzer. Even Butler County Prosecuting Attorney Mike Gmoser warned the Archdiocese to “keep an eye” on Drew, to assign him a monitor and to keep him away from children.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
Independent

December 6, 2020

By Josh Marcus

A column in the New York Times accused the site of allowing—and monetizing—harmful and illegal content featuring minors

Mastercard said it is investigating whether one of its customers, the popular adult site Pornhub, features videos of child assault and other illegal activity, after a New York Times column alleged the site contained numerous examples of abusive and illegal content featuring minors.

“We are investigating the allegations raised in the New York Times and are working with MindGeek’s bank to understand this situation, in addition to the other steps they have already taken,” Mastercard said in a statement to Bloomberg News, referring to Pornhub’s parent company, which accepts Mastercard payments via an intermediary. “If the claims are substantiated, we will take immediate action.”

Visa is taking similar steps.

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DENVER (CO)
La Junta Tribune-Democrat

By Robert Boczkiewicz

https://www.lajuntatribunedemocrat.com/story/news/2020/12/06/investigator-pueblo-diocese-improves-process-reporting-misconduct-child-sex-abuse-catholic-church/3850402001/

An investigator of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests said the Pueblo Diocese has set up systems to significantly improve its handling of reports of misconduct.

Investigator Bob Troyer, a former federal prosecutor, also said the systems, which are new, are yet untested.

Troyer worked last year and this year for the Colorado Attorney General’s Office to delve into hundreds of cases of sexual assaults by priests in the state’s three dioceses: Pueblo, Colorado Springs and Denver.

In a new report last week, Troyer said at least 59 children were sexually abused by 23 priests from 1950 to 1999 in the Pueblo Diocese, which stretches across southern Colorado. It includes Otero, Crowley and Bent counties.

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SPRINGFIELD (MA)
The Republican

December 6, 2020

By Anne-Gerard Flynn

Bishop-designate William Byrne, who will be ordained Dec. 14 as the 10th bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield, is the author of the recently published “5 Things with Father Bill,” that tackles diverse topics and offers brief insights on each.

Cardinal Sean O’Malley of the Archdiocese of Boston will be the principal celebrant and consecrator for the invitation-only Episcopal Ordination and Installation Mass at 2 p.m. at St. Michael’s Cathedral.

Byrne has been a parish pastor for more than two decades in the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., and his ministries there have included outreach to Catholic members of the Congress as well serving as chaplain for the University of Maryland’s Catholic Student Center in College Park, Maryland.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Tribune-Review

December 5, 2020

It can be hard to calculate damages when you can’t see the breakage.

Crash a car, and the body shop can tell you precisely what it will cost to turn bent and twisted metal back into a shiny vehicle with a sleek paint job. Burn down a house, and the insurance company knows to the penny how much it takes to replace it.

But how do you know the cost of a human spirit? If anyone should know, it should be the Catholic Church, an organization built on the saving and tending of the soul.

On Thursday, the Kenneth Feinberg Group announced the end of two years of work as independent mediator for the Diocese of Pittsburgh in the aftermath of the clergy sexual abuse grand jury report unveiled in 2018.

The mediator reported a bottom line of $19 million paid out to 224 claimants. It is the latest set of figures in a terrible math problem.

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DENVER (CO)
Reuters

December 1, 2020

By Keith Coffman

The Roman Catholic Church has paid out $7.3 million to more than 70 people sexually abused during their youth by priests in Colorado parishes, settling claims dating back over two decades, authorities said on Tuesday.

The settlement, capping a 22-month investigation, was announced by Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser in a supplement to a report first released last year when a victims compensation fund was set up.

Over the past year, investigators uncovered 46 new cases and identified nine more priests as offenders not named in the initial report, including the late Monsignor Charles Woodrich, who was known nationally for his outreach to Denver’s homeless community.

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.

DENVER (CO)
Reuters

December 1, 2020

By Keith Coffman

The Roman Catholic Church has paid out $7.3 million to more than 70 people sexually abused during their youth by priests in Colorado parishes, settling claims dating back over two decades, authorities said on Tuesday.

The settlement, capping a 22-month investigation, was announced by Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser in a supplement to a report first released last year when a victims compensation fund was set up.

Over the past year, investigators uncovered 46 new cases and identified nine more priests as offenders not named in the initial report, including the late Monsignor Charles Woodrich, who was known nationally for his outreach to Denver’s homeless community.

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
National Catholic Register

December 5, 2020

By Robert Klesko

Our clergy cannot neglect the power of regular and prayerful fraternity.

I was pleasantly surprised that my articles from last year “The Diaconate and the Abuse Crisis” and “The Deacon as Moral Watchman” caused a little discussion online. I was pleased to find a wonderful critique by Deacon Matthew Newsome (Diocese of Charlotte) on his blog Test Everything. Deacon Matthew concludes, “Klesko argues for more deacons serving in administrative roles on the diocesan level. But even just increasing social opportunities for priests and deacons to bond with one another as brother clerics, especially with their bishop, would be a much-welcomed move in the right direction.”

I was thinking of this within the context of the recent desecration and scandal in the Archdiocese of New Orleans and the McCarrick report. In both cases, there were failures of fraternal support and correction. In both cases, there was a kind of clerical isolationism that perpetuated sinful behavior. After reflecting on these examples, it is clear that the Church failed in her obligation to correct the erring and to protect the vulnerable. The need for reform becomes more urgent!

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
National Catholic Register

December 5, 2020

By Robert Klesko

Our clergy cannot neglect the power of regular and prayerful fraternity.

I was pleasantly surprised that my articles from last year “The Diaconate and the Abuse Crisis” and “The Deacon as Moral Watchman” caused a little discussion online. I was pleased to find a wonderful critique by Deacon Matthew Newsome (Diocese of Charlotte) on his blog Test Everything. Deacon Matthew concludes, “Klesko argues for more deacons serving in administrative roles on the diocesan level. But even just increasing social opportunities for priests and deacons to bond with one another as brother clerics, especially with their bishop, would be a much-welcomed move in the right direction.”

I was thinking of this within the context of the recent desecration and scandal in the Archdiocese of New Orleans and the McCarrick report. In both cases, there were failures of fraternal support and correction. In both cases, there was a kind of clerical isolationism that perpetuated sinful behavior. After reflecting on these examples, it is clear that the Church failed in her obligation to correct the erring and to protect the vulnerable. The need for reform becomes more urgent!

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 YORK (NY)
New York Post

December 2, 2020

By Kenneth Garger

A security guard at a Manhattan church has accused a priest of sexually assaulting her after she says she caught him watching gay pornography in his office on Nov. 4, according to reports.

Ashley Gonzalez, 22, was working her second day on the job at the Church of St. Michael in Midtown when Fr. George Rutler allegedly attacked her, News 12 reported.

Gonzalez said the alleged assault came after she filmed a man — who she says is Rutler — watching porn on a church computer.

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 YORK (NY)
New York Post

December 2, 2020

By Kenneth Garger

A security guard at a Manhattan church has accused a priest of sexually assaulting her after she says she caught him watching gay pornography in his office on Nov. 4, according to reports.

Ashley Gonzalez, 22, was working her second day on the job at the Church of St. Michael in Midtown when Fr. George Rutler allegedly attacked her, News 12 reported.

Gonzalez said the alleged assault came after she filmed a man — who she says is Rutler — watching porn on a church computer.

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.

SCOTLAND
Daily Record

December 6, 2020

By Jenny Morrison

Victim N was locked in cupboards, beaten with a stick and sexually abused when he was being looked after as a child.

An abuse survivor has secured £100,000 in damages after being molested and beaten while in care.

The man – known as Victim N – was locked in cupboards, beaten with a stick and sexually abused when he was being looked after as a child by the Sisters of Nazareth Catholic order.

He was then moved to council-run Auldhouse Care Home in Glasgow, only to be subjected to worse violence.

Victim N, now 58 and living in England, raised a legal action after spending decades coming to terms with what happened.

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.

SCOTLAND
Daily Record

December 6, 2020

By Jenny Morrison

Victim N was locked in cupboards, beaten with a stick and sexually abused when he was being looked after as a child.

An abuse survivor has secured £100,000 in damages after being molested and beaten while in care.

The man – known as Victim N – was locked in cupboards, beaten with a stick and sexually abused when he was being looked after as a child by the Sisters of Nazareth Catholic order.

He was then moved to council-run Auldhouse Care Home in Glasgow, only to be subjected to worse violence.

Victim N, now 58 and living in England, raised a legal action after spending decades coming to terms with what happened.

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.

ALBUQUERQUE (NM)
Albuquerque Journal

December 6, 2020

By Colleen Heild

The century-old, shuttered St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in downtown Raton is up for sale. And what a “great value,” a real estate listing touts, with an asking price of $199,500.

Wendy Mileta went to Mass there years ago. Her parents paid for its stunning stained-glass window in honor of her great-grandparents. Now she is the listing agent for the historic former church that Colfax County records show is owned by the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. Also for sale is a vacated Catholic school in the northeastern New Mexico city of about 7,000.

A dispute over St. Patrick’s and hundreds of other church properties is at the crux of three new lawsuits pending as the archdiocese’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization enters its third year without a settlement.

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.

ALBUQUERQUE (NM)
Albuquerque Journal

December 6, 2020

By Colleen Heild

The century-old, shuttered St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in downtown Raton is up for sale. And what a “great value,” a real estate listing touts, with an asking price of $199,500.

Wendy Mileta went to Mass there years ago. Her parents paid for its stunning stained-glass window in honor of her great-grandparents. Now she is the listing agent for the historic former church that Colfax County records show is owned by the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. Also for sale is a vacated Catholic school in the northeastern New Mexico city of about 7,000.

A dispute over St. Patrick’s and hundreds of other church properties is at the crux of three new lawsuits pending as the archdiocese’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization enters its third year without a settlement.

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 ZEALAND
Radio New Zealand

December 6, 2020

By Andrew McRae

A man has presented a harrowing testimony of being terrified as a boy for every day of school through two years, at the Abuse in Care inquiry.

Known only as John, the 52 year said he was sexually abused 40 years ago at the Marist-run Xavier Intermediate School in Christchurch, between 1980 and 1982, by principal Brother Giles.

John describes Giles as a very loud, big man who used fear and intimidation to get what he wanted.

John was at the school for only a short time before Brother Giles took an interest in him.

He said it started with grooming.

”When he was grooming me it was about two or three times a week, but once the sexual abuse started it would be sometimes a couple of times a day. Other times it would be two or three days break. I never knew whether it was going to be today, tomorrow or the next day.”

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 ZEALAND
Radio New Zealand

December 6, 2020

By Andrew McRae

A man has presented a harrowing testimony of being terrified as a boy for every day of school through two years, at the Abuse in Care inquiry.

Known only as John, the 52 year said he was sexually abused 40 years ago at the Marist-run Xavier Intermediate School in Christchurch, between 1980 and 1982, by principal Brother Giles.

John describes Giles as a very loud, big man who used fear and intimidation to get what he wanted.

John was at the school for only a short time before Brother Giles took an interest in him.

He said it started with grooming.

”When he was grooming me it was about two or three times a week, but once the sexual abuse started it would be sometimes a couple of times a day. Other times it would be two or three days break. I never knew whether it was going to be today, tomorrow or the next day.”

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.

[Inter-American Commission on Human Rights commits to working with NGOs on clerical abuses]

MEXICO CITY (MEXICO)
Associated Press

December 3, 2020

By Maria Verza

La Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (CIDH) se comprometió el jueves a trabajar con las organizaciones que defienden a las víctimas de la pederastia clerical para garantizar que los Estados americanos protejan mejor los derechos de la infancia y que los abusos sexuales contra menores no queden impunes.

“Tienen nuestro compromiso más firme y absoluto de que estamos en esta causa”, dijo Flávia Piovesan, vicepresidenta de la Comisión durante una audiencia pública retransmitida en las redes de la CIDH.

La relatora de los derechos de los menores, Esmeralda Arosemena, agregó que la Comisión usaría las herramientas a su disposición “para pedir información en el tema de impunidad de los casos que no están siendo resueltos”.

[GOOGLE TRANSLATION: The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) pledged Thursday to work with organizations that defend victims of clerical pedophilia to ensure that American states better protect the rights of children and that children sexual abuse against minors does not go unpunished.

“They have our most firm and absolute commitment that we are in this cause,” said Flávia Piovesan, vice president of the Commission during a public hearing broadcast on the IACHR networks.

The rapporteur for the rights of minors, Esmeralda Arosemena, added that the Commission would use the tools at its disposal “to request information on the issue of impunity in cases that are not being resolved.”]

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.

[Inter-American Commission on Human Rights commits to working with NGOs on clerical abuses]

MEXICO CITY (MEXICO)
Associated Press

December 3, 2020

By Maria Verza

La Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (CIDH) se comprometió el jueves a trabajar con las organizaciones que defienden a las víctimas de la pederastia clerical para garantizar que los Estados americanos protejan mejor los derechos de la infancia y que los abusos sexuales contra menores no queden impunes.

“Tienen nuestro compromiso más firme y absoluto de que estamos en esta causa”, dijo Flávia Piovesan, vicepresidenta de la Comisión durante una audiencia pública retransmitida en las redes de la CIDH.

La relatora de los derechos de los menores, Esmeralda Arosemena, agregó que la Comisión usaría las herramientas a su disposición “para pedir información en el tema de impunidad de los casos que no están siendo resueltos”.

[GOOGLE TRANSLATION: The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) pledged Thursday to work with organizations that defend victims of clerical pedophilia to ensure that American states better protect the rights of children and that children sexual abuse against minors does not go unpunished.

“They have our most firm and absolute commitment that we are in this cause,” said Flávia Piovesan, vice president of the Commission during a public hearing broadcast on the IACHR networks.

The rapporteur for the rights of minors, Esmeralda Arosemena, added that the Commission would use the tools at its disposal “to request information on the issue of impunity in cases that are not being resolved.”]

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.

[Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Tackles Clerical Pedophilia in Latin America]

MEXICO CITY (MEXICO
Associated Press

December 2, 2020

By Maria Verza

La Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos abordará el jueves por primera vez en su historia la pederastia clerical en América Latina, un problema que afecta a 19 países de la región aunque asociaciones de víctimas aseguran que los casos conocidos son sólo la punta del iceberg.

El objetivo es que el sistema interamericano se pronuncie sobre “la responsabilidad de los Estados americanos en el encubrimiento o en la falta de justicia frente a las obligaciones asumidas en materia de derechos humanos de niños, niñas y adolescentes”, afirmó Adalberto Méndez, coordinador legal de la organización para el Fin de los Abusos Clericales (ECA, por sus siglas en inglés).

[GOOGLE TRANSLATION: The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights will address on Thursday for the first time in its history clerical pedophilia in Latin America, a problem that affects 19 countries in the region, although victims’ associations assure that the known cases are only the tip of the iceberg.

The objective is for the inter-American system to rule on “the responsibility of the American states in the cover-up or lack of justice in the face of the obligations assumed in the area of ​​human rights of children and adolescents,” said Adalberto Méndez, legal coordinator from the organization for the End of Clerical Abuses (ECA, for its acronym in English).]

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BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

December 6, 2020

By Jay Tokasz

https://buffalonews.com/news/local/warnings-from-teachers-nuns-even-a-cop-didnt-get-buffalo-diocese-to-remove-priests/article_1c42fc4a-35b0-11eb-825c-6fdcffc61a8b.html

Top officials in the Buffalo Diocese failed to heed alarms about clergy misbehaving with minors, even when the warnings came from nuns, Catholic school teachers and other priests.

Diocese officials waited years, and sometimes decades, to separate accused priests from children and discipline them, according to diocese files revealed in a lawsuit filed last week by Attorney General Letitia James.

Such delays happened even when a Buffalo police captain approached diocese officials with concerns about a priest.

Take the case of the Rev. Dennis A. Fronczak. Two nuns wrote Bishop Edward D. Head in 1990 about Fronczak’s disturbing propensity for tickling girls. Diocese officials acknowledged the seriousness of what the nuns brought to their attention. They noted in a 1991 memo the priest’s “gravely imprudent and highly immature” behavior and a “pattern of activity that seems to be somewhat compulsive in nature.”

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BIRMINGHAM (ENGLAND)
Birmingham Mail

December 6, 2020

By Paul Beard and Charlotte Paxton, Senior Video Journalist

Father Joseph Quigley – former national education advisor for Roman Catholic schools – also beat the boy while he was a parish priest in Warwickshire.

Joseph Quigley, a former national education advisor for Roman Catholic schools, sexually and physically abused a boy while he was a parish priest at a church near Warwick.

A ‘sexual sadist’ priest who worked as a private tutor sexually and physically abused a boy and locked him in a church crypt.

Father Joseph Quigly – who held various ‘presitigious’ roles including as national education advisor for Roman Catholic schools – sexually and physically abused a boy while he was a parish priest in Warwickshire.

The priest – described as a “sexual sadist” – rubbed the teenager’s inner thigh after making him wear gym kit, take showers with the door open, and inflicted ‘sado-masochistic’ punishments on him such as locking him in the church’s crypt.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service via Catholic Philly

December 4, 2020

By Julie Asher

New findings in an investigation into clergy sex abuse in Colorado’s Catholic dioceses show substantiated claims that an additional nine Catholic priests abused minors decades ago.

Released Dec. 1, the findings are in a supplemental report from the lead investigator, former U.S. Attorney Bob Troyer, who continued to look into cases as more survivors came forward after the release of his initial report in October 2019.

“Importantly, the additional substantiated allegations continue to fit the same historical pattern from the first report,” Denver Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila said in a statement. “Over 85% of the incidents occurred more than 40 years ago during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and none of the substantiated incidents occurred in the last 20 years.”

“There are also no substantiated allegations against any current priest in active ministry,” he emphasized.

One of the nine newly identified priests is the late Father Charles “C.B.” Woodrich. Known to most as “Father Woody,” the popular pastor of Holy Ghost Church in downtown Denver was a leader in outreach to the homeless in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

For 15 years, from 1972 to 1987, he also was associate publisher and editor of the Denver Catholic Register, which was the archdiocesan weekly newspaper.

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DENVER (CO)
Colorado Times Recorder

December 4, 2020

By Madeleine Schmidt

Following the release of a report this week on the history of child sexual abuse at the hands of Colorado Catholic priests that identified dozens of new survivors and nine new perpetrators, Denver Archbishop Samuel Aquila seemed to once again downplay the severity of the abuse.

The supplemental report released Tuesday by the Colorado Attorney General’s office was a follow up to a report on clergy sexual abuse released last year. Tuesday’s report, which concludes a 22-month investigation into how Colorado’s three Catholic dioceses sheltered abusers over seven decades, identified an additional 46 abuse survivors and nine priests that came to light since the release of the first report.

Those cases include the late Rev. Charles B. Woodrich, known as Father Woody, who has long been touted by the church as an icon for altruism toward Denver’s homeless population, and Father Joe Walsh, who sexually abused children living at the Sacred Heart Orphanage in Pueblo.

In a letter published on the Denver Archdiocese’s website, Aquila seemed to diminish the severity of these new findings, underscoring the fact that in Colorado’s 212 documented abuse cases involving 52 priests, “over 85 percent of the incidents occurred more than 40 years ago,” and that “nearly half of the total incidents were committed by one man, Harold White.”

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ST. PAUL (MN)
Catholic Spirit – Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

December 4, 2020

By Maria Wiering

An investigation of an accusation of child sexual abuse against a deceased former pastor of St. John the Baptist in New Brighton has cleared his name, but revealed that the perpetrator may have been a man who later became a priest.

In a Dec. 2 statement to the parish, Archbishop Bernard Hebda said that the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ Office of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment investigated a claim made earlier this year against Msgr. Paul Koscielniak, who died in 1980. The victim-survivor, then a minor, is deceased. The investigation found evidence that the boy was likely abused on several occasions by an adult at the parish, but the evidence did not support the allegation against Msgr. Koscielniak, the parish’s pastor from 1950-1977.

Instead, the abuser may have been Joseph Wajda, who was a transitional deacon at St. John the Baptist during the time frame the abuse is believed to have occurred, Archbishop Hebda said.

“The abuse was said to have occurred in the early 1970s at St. John the Baptist, where the minor was a student at the school and served as an altar boy for the parish,” he said.

“Records indicate that at the time period in question, Joseph Wajda was assigned to the parish as a transitional deacon as he prepared for his 1973 ordination to the priesthood.”

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ST. PAUL (MN)
Catholic Spirit – Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

December 3, 2020

By Archbishop Bernard Hebda

Dec. 1 marked my 11th anniversary as a bishop. There are some days when my first day as the bishop of Gaylord seems like yesterday, and others when it seems like a lifetime ago. Never having been involved in diocesan administration and never having lived in Michigan, I knew I had a great deal to learn. I only said “yes” because of my confidence in Pope Benedict, and my belief that the Holy Spirit could work through him.

While the diocese of Gaylord has been described as a pine-scented Eden, it presented me with a steep learning curve. The Lord manifested his goodness, however, in giving me a very patient flock. I had initially worried about the weighty responsibility of passing on the teaching of the apostles, and leading the Church liturgically, but I soon learned that a bishop in the United States is challenged in multiple areas: leadership, governance and administration.

I had been out of the country and working in Rome when the Church in the United States was rocked by the abuse crisis of 2002, so the Dallas Charter had not really been an everyday, lived reality for me before I came home to serve as the bishop of Gaylord. I knew, however, that the diocesan protocols prompted by the Charter and the related Essential Norms would have to be meticulously followed in any case where the allegation was that a minor had been hurt. As a young, inexperienced bishop, I prayed fervently that I would never be presented with an allegation involving someone under 18. And God was good to me. Yet, I have learned over these last 11 years that the abuse crisis has been, and will continue to be, a lived reality throughout the United States and across the globe.

The recently released McCarrick report reminds us of a reality that has become increasingly apparent to me in the last 11 years: Abuse is insidious regardless of the age of the victim. My heart aches not only for those abused as children, but also for the seminarians and priests, all adults, who felt powerless to come forward to report the abuse they had sustained, or didn’t trust that a bishop or cardinal would be held accountable.

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EASTON (PA)
Express-Times

December 3, 2020

By Sarah Cassi

A former DeSales University priest and advisor to the royal family of Monaco is accused of possessing thousands of images of child pornography, including some described as the torture of very young children, according to federal authorities.

William McCandless, 56, of Wilmington, Delaware, was charged by indictment Thursday with three counts of child pornography offenses, U.S. Attorney William M. McSwain announced.

McCandless, who was previously assigned to DeSales University, appeared Thursday in federal court before Magistrate Court Judge Henry Perkin and was arraigned in the case.

McCandless was placed on house incarceration with electronic monitoring, and ordered to surrender his passport because he has frequently traveled overseas and has numerous contacts abroad, prosecutors said.

“McCandless’ alleged conduct here is extremely disturbing. It occurred not just overseas but continued while he crossed international borders, purporting to do the work of the Church,” McSwain said in a news release. “The innocent children in these images will have to deal with the impact of this alleged abuse for the rest of their lives. We can never make them fully whole again, but we can bring them some measure of justice by investigating and prosecuting the people who drive the demand for this abuse, no matter their affiliations.”

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BUFFALO (NY)
WKBW

December 4, 2020

By Charlie Specht

Connors, LiPuma criticized in AG report

Terrence M. Connors has had so much influence at the Diocese of Buffalo chancery for the past 25 years that some employees privately called him “Bishop Terry.”

But the smooth-talking criminal defense attorney was the subject of criticism in a blistering report by State Attorney General Letitia James that accused the diocese of a “systemic” cover-up of sex abuse allegations. Diocese lawyers were cited 46 times in the highly critical lawsuit filed by New York’s top prosecutor.

And Connors isn’t the only adviser of disgraced Bishop Richard J. Malone who has managed — despite Malone’s resignation a year ago today — to retain his influence inside the Catholic Center as newly appointed Bishop Michael Fisher takes the helm.

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COVENTRY (ENGLAND)
Coventry Telegraph

December 5, 2020

By Paul Beard and Ben Eccleston

The disgraced former national education advisor for Roman Catholic schools sexually and physically abused a boy while he was a parish priest in Warwickshire.

Father Joseph Quigley – described as a “sexual sadist” – rubbed the teenager’s inner thigh after making him wear gym kit, take showers with the door open, and inflicted ‘sado-masochistic’ punishments on him such as locking him in the church’s crypt.

He also beat the boy with a hurling stick during his time at St Charles Borromeo RC church in Hampton-on-the-Hill near Warwick.

The offences took place while he was the parish priest at the church from 2002 until he was forced to resign in disgrace, a jury at Warwick Crown Court heard.

Quigley, 56, now of Aston Hall, Church Lane, Stone in Staffordshire, denied four charges of sexual activity with a child, two of sexual assault, two of false imprisonment and one of cruelty.

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JAMAICA (NY)
Queens Daily Eagle

December 4, 2020

By David Brand

A prominent Queens priest known for his work with drug users and victims of elder abuse has been accused of sexually abusing a homeless teen for two years while working at churches in Belle Harbor and Broad Channel in the early 1970s.

Retired priest Coleman Costello was sued Tuesday in Queens Supreme Court under the state’s Child Victims Act. The lawsuit charges the Brooklyn Diocese, which oversees Queens Catholic institutions, of protecting Costello despite knowing about the abuse.

Plaintiff C. Evan Manderson, 63, says Costello began sexually abusing him when he was a homeless high school freshman in 1971. At the time, Costello was working at St. Francis de Sales church in Belle Harbor. He was running youth programs at a Rockaway Beach rec center when he first encountered Manderson and began showing him affection, a process known as grooming, according to the complaint.

“As a homeless youth, Plaintiff was uniquely vulnerable and incapable of protecting himself,” the lawsuit states.

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NEW YORK (NY)
New York Times

December 4, 2020

By Liam Stack

The Manhattan district attorney’s office said it was investigating the Rev. George William Rutler after a security guard said he attacked her at his church.

A nationally prominent Catholic priest is under criminal investigation after a security guard assigned to his church accused him of sexually assaulting her on Election Day, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said on Friday.

The priest, the Rev. George William Rutler, 75, is accused of watching pornography and masturbating in front of the guard, Ashley Gonzalez, 22, without her consent in his office at the Church of St. Michael the Archangel. He then attacked her physically and sexually when she tried to flee from the room, Ms. Gonzalez told the police.

In a letter to his parish after the accusations surfaced, Father Rutler denied Ms. Gonzalez’s claim that he “improperly touched her.” But he did not respond to her allegation that he had watched pornography and masturbated in front of her.

Part of the alleged encounter was recorded by Ms. Gonzalez on her cellphone. She provided the video clip, which shows a man who fits Father Rutler’s physical description, to law enforcement officials and to The New York Times.

Father Rutler, one of the most influential parish priests in the United States, is a well-known figure in the world of Catholic conservatism, and has been outspoken in his criticism of liberalism and the pontificate of Pope Francis.

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NEW YORK (NY)
New York Times

December 4, 2020

By Nicholas Kristof

Why does Canada allow this company to profit off videos of exploitation and assault?

Pornhub prides itself on being the cheery, winking face of naughty, the website that buys a billboard in Times Square and provides snow plows to clear Boston streets. It donates to organizations fighting for racial equality and offers steamy content free to get people through Covid-19 shutdowns.

That supposedly “wholesome Pornhub” attracts 3.5 billion visits a month, more than Netflix, Yahoo or Amazon. Pornhub rakes in money from almost three billion ad impressions a day. One ranking lists Pornhub as the 10th-most-visited website in the world.

Yet there’s another side of the company: Its site is infested with rape videos. It monetizes child rapes, revenge pornography, spy cam videos of women showering, racist and misogynist content, and footage of women being asphyxiated in plastic bags. A search for “girls under18” (no space) or “14yo” leads in each case to more than 100,000 videos. Most aren’t of children being assaulted, but too many are.

After a 15-year-old girl went missing in Florida, her mother found her on Pornhub — in 58 sex videos. Sexual assaults on a 14-year-old California girl were posted on Pornhub and were reported to the authorities not by the company but by a classmate who saw the videos. In each case, offenders were arrested for the assaults, but Pornhub escaped responsibility for sharing the videos and profiting from them.

Pornhub is like YouTube in that it allows members of the public to post their own videos. A great majority of the 6.8 million new videos posted on the site each year probably involve consenting adults, but many depict child abuse and nonconsensual violence. Because it’s impossible to be sure whether a youth in a video is 14 or 18, neither Pornhub nor anyone else has a clear idea of how much content is illegal.

Unlike YouTube, Pornhub allows these videos to be downloaded directly from its website. So even if a rape video is removed at the request of the authorities, it may already be too late: The video lives on as it is shared with others or uploaded again and again.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

December 3, 2020

By Peter Smith

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh is paying more than $19 million to 224 survivors of sexual abuse by its priests through an out-of-court compensation fund launched in the wake of grand jury revelations in 2018.

The independent mediator, the Washington, D.C.-based Kenneth Feinberg Group, awarded $19,237,000 through the Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program, That averages to $85,879 for each claim that was accepted, according to figures from the diocese’s Thursday announcement.

Bishop David Zubik acknowledged that “nothing can really respond to the kind of trauma that they have experienced” but that the program was to “try to show our support and to try to help in the healing of victims of clergy sexual abuse.”

“The most important reality in all of this are the people that have been hurt,” he said in a video news conference.

The payments ranged from “a few thousand dollars, up to $400,000,” said Christopher Ponticello, general counsel for the diocese. Those who accept payments waive their right to sue.

Fifty-two people who received offers rejected them, and another 70 claims were denied.

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
WWL 4 CBS

December 3, 2020

By David Hammer

https://www.wwltv.com/article/news/investigations/david-hammer/latest-figure-in-new-orleans-clergy-abuse-scandal-worked-with-girl-scouts-was-pines-village-pastor/289-2f7fbc83-f571-426e-9e65-d918fcb77b5e

“Here we are, two years later, and we’re still counting new names. And why?”

For much of the 1970s, the Rev. Joseph M. deWater was known as the Archdiocese of New Orleans’ spiritual director of Girl Scouts for Catholic families, their parents and their leaders.

His name ended up on the side of a gymnasium at the New Orleans East where he spent 15 years as pastor beginning in the mid-1980s, before he retired, moved to a small village in the Netherlands and faded into relative obscurity.

But now deWater’s name has resurfaced locally. The archdiocese on Wednesday revealed that he is facing possible punishment from the church following an accusation that he had molested a minor. Archdiocesan officials said they had shared the allegations with law enforcement.

New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond said he has also suspended deWater, 85, from performing any clerical duties pending the conclusion of the penal process, whose potential duration wasn’t immediately clear.

Attempts to contact deWater for comment haven’t been successful.

The archdiocese’s announcement on deWater didn’t contain any information about the nature of the alleged molestation or provide details on where the clergyman had worked in New Orleans before his retirement. The archdiocese typically withholds such details until investigations into abuse claims deem them credible.

However, newspaper archives and church records suggest deWater at one time maintained a relatively high-profile presence in promoting participation with the local Girl Scouts scene. He was also either pastor or assistant pastor of at least four parishes in the metro area, including a lengthy stint at the since-closed Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in the Pines Village section of New Orleans East.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
Daily Mail

December 3, 2020

By Rachel Sharp

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9014259/Catholic-priest-named-child-abuser-church-camp-1958-deaf-boy-10-disappeared.html

A Catholic priest who was named as a child sex abuser in a new report was a counselor at a church camp in 1958 when a 10-year-old deaf boy disappeared before his skeletal remains were discovered a year later.

Jerry Repola worked at the Catholic Camp St. Malo in Colorado in August 1958, when Bobby Bizup vanished in mysterious circumstances after a day of fishing in the mountains.

Bones belonging to the little boy were found in July 1959 in a spot that had been extensively searched by a 500-strong crew, the Colorado Civil Air Patrol and an Indian tracker the year before.

It has now been revealed that Repola, who died in March 1971 from a long illness, sexually abused a teenage boy when he was a parish priest in Grand Junction in 1967 and authorities believe the boy could be one of several victims.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Associated Press

December 3, 2020

By Don Babwin

The Archdiocese of Chicago has agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by a man who says he was sexually abused as a child by a defrocked priest who was convicted of sexually abusing several boys, the man’s attorney said Thursday.

The settlement agreement announced in a news release by attorney Lyndsay Markley is the latest dark chapter in the story of Daniel McCormack, one of the most notorious pedophiles in the history of the archdiocese.

It is just the latest archdiocese settlement with men who alleged they were abused as children by McCormack, pushing the total payments in such suits past $11 million. After the Chicago Tribune reported that the church agreed to pay more than $7.5 million in 2017 alone, it agreed to pay another $2.9 million the next year.

The archdiocese declined to discuss the latest settlement.

The allegations against McCormack date back decades and involve more than two dozen boys, according to news reports. In 2007, he was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to sexually abusing five boys. In 2009, just before he was eligible for parole, he was designated by the state as a sexually violent person so that he could be held after his release date at a secure state facility. Then, in 2018, a judge at the urging of prosecutors found McCormack to be sexually violent and ordered that he stay in custody indefinitely in a state facility for sex offenders. It wasn’t immediately clear Thursday if he remains in custody.

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BRONX (NY)
Fordham Observer

December 3, 2020

By Jill Rice

[Includes useful timeline by Maddie Sandholm.]

Minors, seminarians and priests accuse longtime archbishop of sexual abuse and abuse of authority

The Vatican released a 450-page report on Nov. 10 about Theodore McCarrick, ex-cardinal of the Catholic Church and Fordham College at Rose Hill ’54, regarding his abuse of power and authority, as well as his abuse of minors, seminarians and priests.

The new report is the result of Pope Francis’ call for a full investigation into McCarrick’s actions in October 2018. Relying primarily on official Vatican documents and correspondences, as well as witness interviews, the report covers McCarrick’s tenure as a priest, bishop, archbishop and cardinal over the past 50 years.

In 2019, McCarrick was defrocked, meaning that he is unable to perform the pastoral and ministerial duties of a priest or to marry, as a layperson — someone not ordained as a priest — would.

Fordham rescinded McCarrick’s honorary degree and has changed the name of its fellowship for a graduate program in International Political Economy and Development to the John Fidelis Hurley, S.J., Fellowship.

Rise to Power and First Allegations

According to the Vatican’s report, McCarrick was appointed as an auxiliary bishop in New York in 1977 under Pope Paul VI. He was then elevated to the seat of bishop of Metuchen, New Jersey, in 1981, and archbishop of Newark, New Jersey, in 1986 under St. John Paul II.

McCarrick was “lauded as a pastoral, intelligent and zealous bishop” and no credible information was present to suggest any misconduct, the report stated. He became the archbishop of Washington, D.C., in 2000 and created cardinal in 2001.

When he was elevated to cardinal, according to the introduction of the report, there were four general allegations against McCarrick.

Anyone who testified against McCarrick remained anonymous, and the report labeled the priests as Priest 1, Priest 2, and so on, for clarity.

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CANTERBURY (NEW ZEALAND)
Star News

December 4, 2020

A man who suffered horrific sexual abuse at two Dunedin schools says an independent body should be established to investigate church abuse cases.
The man, named only as Marc, presented his evidence to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care via video conference from Australia yesterday.

He outlined how, between the ages of 10 and 14, he was raped, sexually assaulted, and physically abused by two Christian Brothers, a priest, and a lay teacher, at St Edmund’s Intermediate School and St Paul’s High School.

The abuse took place in the 1970s and early 1980s.

He named four perpetrators — Br Desmond Fay, Br Vincent Sullivan, Ian Thompson and a local parish priest.

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PUEBLO (CO)
Pueblo Chieftain

December 3, 2020

By Robert Boczkiewicz

https://www.chieftain.com/story/news/2020/12/03/investigator-says-pueblo-diocese-has-systems-handle-abuse-claims/3810142001/

Denver – An investigator of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests says the Pueblo Diocese has set up systems that would significantly improve its handling of reports of misconduct.

Investigator Bob Troyer, a former federal prosecutor, also says the systems — which are new — are yet untested.

Troyer worked this year and last for the Colorado Attorney General’s Office to delve into hundreds of cases of sexual assaults by priests in the state’s three dioceses: Pueblo, Colorado Springs and Denver.

In Tuesday’s report, Troyer said at least 59 children were sexually abused by 23 priests from 1950 to 1999 in the Pueblo Diocese which stretches across Southern Colorado.

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NEW YORK (NY)
New York Post

December 3, 2020

By Priscilla DeGregory

A New York man says the Catholic Church shielded a priest who sexually abused him for years beginning when he was 13 and homeless in Queens in the 1970s, new court papers show.

Evan Manderson, 63, says the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn failed to report the Rev. Coleman Costello to law enforcement — and even allowed him to retire with a clean slate despite the church’s knowledge of his alleged sexual abuse of children, a new Queens Supreme Court lawsuit alleges.

Manderson says he was only 13 and was living on the streets when he met Costello through an outreach program for children in Rockaway Beach, the court documents say.

Costello allegedly groomed Manderson and sexually abused him for two years, starting in 1971, until he was 15, the court papers say.

A younger priest asked Manderson about Costello and his “questions reflect a prior knowledge and awareness that Fr. Costello had previously engaged in sexual abuse of children before Fr. Costello abused plaintiff,” the court documents allege.

“The Diocese, whose agents not only knew of but also facilitated Costello’s abuse
of children, never reported Fr. Costello to law enforcement but, instead, concealed the crimes against children,” the suit charges.

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GREEN BAY (WI)
Press Gazette

December 3, 2020

By Haley BeMiller

Nate Lindstrom spent his life battling the memories of his past — and the priests at the center of it.

The cards arrived every month.

They often had a tranquil photo on the front, a snow-covered scene or a depiction of Jesus in a stained-glass window. The letter’s author wrote in messy cursive as he discussed the Green Bay Packers, family events or his “frozen” Toyota Camry that required a new battery.

The writer, a top clergyman in the Green Bay area, often ended his messages with “God Bless.”

Inside each card, Nate Lindstrom would find a check for $3,500 from the Norbertines of St. Norbert Abbey in De Pere.

The money provided Lindstrom with another month of financial stability. But it also took him back to his days as a teenager in Green Bay, when Lindstrom said he endured sexual abuse at the hands of three Norbertine priests.

According to interviews and documents, the Norbertines quietly sent Lindstrom monthly checks totaling more than $400,000 over 10 years after his parents complained to the Catholic order’s leaders about the harm their son suffered from being sexually abused by at least one priest in the late 1980s.

Lindstrom spent years in therapy and taking medication, and he eventually settled in suburban Minneapolis with his wife and three children. But in 2018, his life changed when the order’s abbot told him the monthly payments would end.

After that, Lindstrom pushed back and reported additional allegations, but those efforts came up empty. The last check arrived in May 2019. He became increasingly depressed and defeated.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

December 3, 2020

By Harold Brubaker

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia has spun off St. John Vianney Center, a behavioral health facility in Downingtown, where for decades priests accused of sexually abusing or raping children were sent for evaluation.

In exchange for its independence as a 50-bed nonprofit psychiatric hospital, the Vianney Center agreed to pay the archdiocese $12 million, according to archdiocesan financial statements published last week.

An archdiocese spokesperson said Vianney Center officials wanted the mental health hospital that has exclusively treated clergy and religious to be financially and administratively independent “while continuing its mission as a Catholic institution,” and it had the means to do so.

“In turn, the Archdiocese was in an environment where there was an immediate need for cash as a result of its plans to fund the IRRP,” the spokesperson said referring to the church’s Independent Reconciliation and Reparation Program, which was started two years ago to financially compensate victims of sexual abuse by priests.

A 2018 Pennsylvania Grand Jury report on sexual abuse by Pennsylvania priests outside of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia sharply criticized the Vianney Center and similar treatment centers in Maryland and New Mexico for doing a shoddy job protecting children from predatory priests.

“When a priest denied allegations of sexual abuse, he usually avoided any diagnosis related to the sexual abuse of children,” the report said. “Moreover, these institutions focused on a clinical diagnosis over actual behavior as reported by the victims. Put plainly, these institutions laundered accused priests, provided plausible deniability to the bishops, and permitted hundreds of known offenders to return to ministry.”

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
WDSU 6 NBC

December 2, 2020

https://www.wdsu.com/article/deceased-priest-added-to-abuse-list-2-more-being-investigated-according-to-archdiocese-of-new-orleans/34851919

The Archdiocese of New Orleans announced Wednesday that it concluded an investigation into allegations of abuse of minors against a deceased priest, who has since been added to the clergy abuse list. The organization also announced investigations into two retired priests.

According to a statement issued by the Archdiocese, the late Fr. Robert K. Cooper has been added to the Archdiocese of New Orleans Report Regarding Clergy Abuse found online at nolacatholic.org.

The Archdiocese said the deceased Fr. Cooper should not be confused with the Fr. Cooper, who is an active pastor in the Archdiocese of New Orleans.

The complete assignment history for the deceased Robert Cooper is below …

*

Two retired priests placed on leave

The Archdiocese also announced it placed two retired priests on administrative leave pending the outcome of investigations lodged against them.

Those priests are Fr. Joseph M. deWater and Fr. J. Luis Fernandez.

Allegations against these priests, including the time frame and location of the allegations, were not included in the Archdiocese statement.

According to the Archdiocese, neither of the retired priests is living in the New Orleans area and neither has a formal pastoral assignment.

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DENVER (CO)
KUSA 9 News

December 2, 2020

By Kevin Vaughan

https://www.9news.com/article/news/investigations/priest-sex-abuse-report-church-camp-1958-when-deaf-boy-disappeared/73-31c23f99-ebb1-422a-b949-2c05e4971ee3

That means three counselors there that summer have now been credibly accused of sexual misconduct with children.

One of the Catholic priests newly named as a child sex abuser was a counselor at a church camp in August 1958 when a 10-year-old deaf boy disappeared under mysterious circumstances, 9Wants to Know has learned.

That makes him one of three seminarians who were counselors at Camp St. Malo that summer who have since had accusations of child sexual abuse sustained after a 22-month examination of church records by investigators working for the Colorado Attorney General’s Office.

Jerry Repola, who died in 1971 after a prolonged illness, sexually abused a teen-ager while he was assigned to a parish in Grand Junction, according to a supplemental report released this week by state Attorney General Phil Weiser.

It followed up on a report released in October 2019. Together, the two reports detail sexual abuse of at least 212 children in Colorado by 52 priests between 1950 and 1999.

The disappearance of Bobby Bizup – and the discovery of his remains nearly a year later high on Mount Meeker west of the camp – were the subject of a long-running 9Wants to Know investigation. It found that two counselors there when Bobby vanished, Harold Robert White and Neil Hewitt, were serial child sex abusers.

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COUNCIL BLUFFS (IA)
The Daily Nonpareil

December 3, 2020

By Tim Johnson

An Iowa priest who served in southwest Iowa early in his career has been restricted by Des Moines Bishop William Joensen after an investigation found evidence of sexual misconduct.

The Rev. Robert “Bud” Grant, who has been on administrative leave since March, will return to ministry with restrictions and supervision, with the approval of the school and Davenport Bishop Thomas Zinkula. He is a faculty member at St. Ambrose University in Davenport and a sacramental minister at St. Andrew Parish in Bluegrass.

The investigation followed an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor during the early 1990s, according to a press release from the Catholic Diocese of Des Moines. Since the investigation began in March, Joensen and the diocesan Allegation Review Committee gathered and reviewed evidence, including the initial complaint, examined an investigative report produced by a third party and consulted with experts in church law. The state attorney general’s office and law enforcement in Polk, Pottawattamie and Scott Counties are aware of the allegation of behavior occurring in the early 1990s.

“The investigation clearly established that the allegation did not meet the criteria of sexual abuse of a minor as defined by church law at the time of the incident, because the complainant was above majority age,” the press release stated. “However, it was also established that Father Grant engaged in behavior in select instances in the early 1990s that violated the Sixth Commandment and his priestly promises.”

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DENVER (CO)
Office of the Attorney General

December 1, 2020

This Supplemental Report concludes 22 months of work investigating and reporting on a 70-year history of (1) Roman Catholic clergy child sexual abuse in Colorado and (2) the Colorado dioceses’ programs and systems for preventing it. Our investigation has produced a reckoning and accounting of the past and a presentation of lessons from which the Colorado dioceses can continue to improve its child-protection practices into the future.

Our Special Master’s Report on Roman Catholic Clergy Sexual Abuse of Children in Colorado from 1950 to 2019 (“First Report”) was issued on October 22, 2019. It can be found at https://coag.gov/app/uploads/2019/10/Special-Masters-Report_10.22.19_FINAL.pdf. That same month, Colorado’s 3 Roman Catholic dioceses launched the Independent Reconciliation and Reparations Program (“IRRP”). Over the ensuing 4 months, the IRRP solicited and reviewed claims from alleged child sex abuse victims of Roman Catholic clergy in Colorado, and it awarded financial compensation (paid by the relevant Colorado diocese) to those victims whose claims it deemed credible. During that period additional victims also made clergy child sex abuse reports directly to the Colorado Attorney General’s Office.

In July 2020, we were then engaged under a new agreement with the dioceses and the Colorado Attorney General’s Office to determine (1) whether those newly reported child sex abuse incidents are substantiated and (2) what Colorado’s 3 dioceses have and have not done to implement the 5-6 improvements to their child-protection systems that we recommended after we evaluated those systems in 2019.

The results of our review of all the newly reported allegations are as follows. All of these incidents occurred between 1951 and 1999:

– We substantiated 46 additional incidents of sexual abuse of children (37 boys and 9 girls) by 25 diocesan priests in Colorado. The majority of the children were between the ages of 10 and 14 when they were abused.

– 16 of those 25 priests were already identified in the First Report. 9 of those priests are newly identified in this Supplemental Report.

– 5 of the newly identified priests served in the Denver Archdiocese. They are Father Kenneth Funk, Father Daniel Kelleher, Father James Moreno, Father Gregory Smith, and Father Charles Woodrich.

– 4 of the newly identified priests served in the Pueblo Diocese. They are Monsignor Marvin Kapushion, Father Duane Repola, Father Carlos Trujillo, and Father Joseph Walsh.

– 23 of those children were sexually abused by 13 diocesan priests serving in the Denver Archdiocese.

– 23 of those children were sexually abused by 12 diocesan priests serving in the Pueblo Diocese …

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DENVER (CO)
Independent Oversight Committee of the Colorado Independent Reconciliation and Reparations Program

December 1, 2020

Because of incidents of historic sexual abuse of minors by priests in the Catholic Church, for many decades the three dioceses in Colorado—the Archdiocese of Denver, the Diocese of Colorado Springs, and the Diocese of Pueblo (the “Colorado Dioceses”)—have had individual programs to help victim-survivors of that abuse. Since 2003, under the national Charter that governs all dioceses in the United States, the Colorado Dioceses have provided care and services to survivors of abuse by diocesan priests under a unified, national approach. Starting in 2008, the Archdiocese of Denver engaged a group of Colorado community leaders (a Colorado judge, the Lakewood Chief of Police, and a vocational rehabilitation specialist) to assist in settling claims of historic abuse. That group of independent professionals asked all survivors to come forward, evaluated their claims, and determined settlement amounts that the Archdiocese would pay to survivors who came forward.

The 2019 Independent Reconciliation and Reparations Program (“IRRP”) is another step in the continuing effort by the Catholic Church in Colorado to responsibly address this historic sexual abuse issue. In January of 2019, the Colorado Dioceses—led by Archbishop Aquila and supported by Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser—openly shared their records to allow a full study of the issue of sexual abuse of minors. This work included the Attorney General and the Church hiring an independent investigator to evaluate the current policies and practices in place for protecting minors from abuse.

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DENVER (CO)
Denver Post

December 1, 2020

By Elise Schmelzer

Revelations about Father Charles Woodrich force reckoning among institutions named after priest

For four decades, Denverites invoked Father Woody’s name as they cared for tens of thousands of people without homes or food.

The local legend, formally known as Father Charles Woodrich, died in 1991, but his legacy remained in annual giveaways to the poor, in one of Denver’s largest homeless shelters, in programs administered by Denver’s Catholic university and in a day shelter for those who are hungry.

That legacy of Denver’s so-called “patron of the poor” was obliterated Tuesday when Woodrich was named as a child sex abuser in a report spearheaded by the Colorado Attorney General’s Office. Woodrich, according to the report, molested three boys between the ages of 12 and 16 in the 1970s and 1980s while he served as the pastor of Holy Ghost Parish in downtown Denver. The priest plied two of the boys with alcohol and asked another to pose in his underwear and took pictures of him, according to the report.

The revelation has forced a reckoning among the institutions that invoke his name in their work.

“He wasn’t the saint that everybody wants to make him out to be,” one of Woodrich’s victims told The Denver Post on Tuesday.

The man, contacted through his attorney and listed as Woodrich’s “Victim #1″ in the report, spoke on the condition he not be publicly identified, citing the stigma attached to the assault. The Denver Post does not name survivors of sexual assault without permission.

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PUEBLO (CO)
Pueblo Chieftain

December 1, 2020

By Robert Boczkiewicz

Denver – Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser released a report Tuesday listing new “substantiated” incidents of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests in the Pueblo Diocese.

All of the newly substantiated incidents occurred between 1951 and 1999, he said. Some of the priests were identified in the attorney general’s first report last year; four are newly identified.

The newly substantiated claims included in Tuesday’s supplemental report concluded 22 months of former U.S. Attorney Bob Troyer’s work investigating and reporting on a 70-year history of Catholic clergy child sexual abuse in Colorado and the Colorado dioceses’ programs and systems for preventing it. Troyer worked for Weiser on the child abuse investigation.

The priests identified in Tuesday’s report include Monsignor Marvin Kapushion, Gary Kennedy, Daniel Maio, John Martin, Duane Repola, Carlos Trujillo, Joseph Walsh, Lawrence Sievers, John Beno, Delbert Blong, Andrew Burke, and William Gleeson.

They served parishes, an orphanage and other Catholic facilities in Pueblo, Rye, La Junta, Walsenburg, Capulin, Grand Junction and Montrose.

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DENVER (CO)
Colorado Sun

December 1, 2020

By Jesse Paul and Jennifer Brown

A supplemental report on abuse in Colorado’s three Catholic dioceses includes allegations against Charles Woodrich, who founded a homeless shelter and was called Denver’s “patron saint of the poor”

Investigators digging into child sex abuse in Colorado’s three Catholic dioceses have identified an additional 46 victims dating back to 1950 and nine more abusive priests, including an iconic Denver advocate for the homeless and poor.

The new revelations were released Tuesday by the Colorado Attorney General’s Office in a 93-page supplemental report that marks the end of a 22-month investigation into the church covering the past seven decades.

The latest report includes allegations that a chaplain sexually abused children living in a Pueblo orphanage in the 1950s, and that a Denver priest whipped a child and fondled him during an estimated 1,000 instances of abuse over five years in the 1970s.

It also names Charles Woodrich, better known as Father Woody, a revered priest who founded a homeless shelter and was called Denver’s “patron saint of the poor.” Father Woody established Haven of Hope, where people who are homeless can go for hot meals and showers, and founded the Samaritan House, a homeless shelter in downtown Denver. He died in 1991.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service via Catholic Philly

December 1, 2020

By Francois Gloutnay

Montreal – For more than three decades, leaders of the Archdiocese of Montreal failed to properly treat the complaints and the red flags periodically raised about Father Brian Boucher, said a report prepared by retired Quebec Superior Court Judge Pepita G. Capriolo.

Instead, church authorities seemed intent on covering the priest’s behavior to protect his and the church’s reputation, she wrote.

In 2019, Boucher was sentenced to eight years in prison for sexual assault of two boys; he was laicized in 2020. But in her 283-page document on Boucher, Capriolo said numerous incidents were reported and called into question during his career. For nearly 40 years, these warnings were all ignored or deemed irrelevant, especially because they concerned adults and not minors.

Capriolo reported not only on sexual abuse, but also physical assault, threats, loss or destruction of secret documents, and even a burglary in the secret archives of the archdiocese. The former judge called the case a “debacle” for the Archdiocese of Montreal.

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PINELLAS PARK (FL)
Legal Examiner – Blog of Saunders and Walker Law Firm

December 1, 2020

By Joseph H. Saunders

I haven’t commented on the much anticipated publication of the McCarrick Report because it fails to offer conclusions. As an advocate for sexual abuse survivors for two decades, I looked forward to reading the Report and gaining insight into the McCarrick saga. However, I came away from the Report disappointed and underwhelmed.

It’s a lengthy piece (449 pages) that offers timelines and the names of key players involved in McCarrick’s rise and eventual downfall, but it offers no conclusions. The first responses to the Report noted that it was highly critical of the previous two popes (John Paul II and Benedict) while leaving Francis virtually unscathed. The later critiques of the McCarrick Report are more balanced and nuanced. They deal with the impact of the Report and its relation to the ongoing problem of sexual abuse of minors in the church.

One analysis in particular is helpful. It comes from a Catholic priest who has had experience dealing with sex abuse as a priest and in his former work as an investigator. Father John Lavers, a Canadian priest of the Diocese of Portsmouth in England, currently serves as the director of chaplaincy with Stella Maris (Apostleship of the Sea) in the United Kingdom. He led a 2012 investigation into allegations of homosexual behavior and activity at Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Connecticut that led to the removal of 13 seminarians, primarily from the Archdiocese of Hartford and Diocese of Paterson, New Jersey. Prior to becoming a priest, Father Lavers served in Canadian law enforcement and national security work.

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AUCKLAND (NEW ZEALAND)
New Zealand Herald

December 1, 2020

By Isaac Davison

A mother who was raped by a Catholic priest says the church investigated the abuse initially moved him to a different school rather than punishing him.

She later complained to police, who twice decided against pressing charges before finally securing a conviction after a review.

Ann-Marie Shelley, now aged 64, appeared before a royal commission of inquiry in Auckland this morning, which is holding hearings on abuse in faith-based institutions.

She was left at Hutt Hospital after her birth in 1955 and placed for adoption through Catholic Social Services.

In a harrowing statement, Shelley described how she was neglected or abused at nearly every stage of her life – at the hands of her adoptive parents, at primary school, at a social welfare home, in an unmarried parents’ home, by a priest, and in a Red Cross shelter.

While she was training to be a nurse at Hutt Hospital, she was raped by Peter Hercock, a school counsellor and chaplain at Sacred Heart College in Lower Hutt.

Hercock’s crimes have previously been reported, but Shelley today spoke for the first time in detail about the way the church handled her complaint. She was critical of church leaders who have since been promoted to prestigious roles in New Zealand.

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DENVER (CO)
Denver Post

December 1, 2020

By Elise Schmelzer

New report brings total number of known abusive priests in Colorado to 52, number of child victims to 212

For two years, Father James Moreno sexually assaulted a teenage boy dozens of times after they met at a Denver Catholic school — including in the rectory of the city’s most prominent church.

Moreno assaulted the boy more than 60 times between 1978 and 1980. He groomed him, gave him alcohol and marijuana, and raped him, according to a report released Tuesday by the Colorado Attorney General’s Office.

The abuse happened all over Denver: in the rooms of St. Andrew’s Preparatory Seminary High School, in Moreno’s car, in the boy’s home, in the rectory of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in the heart of Denver, one block from the state Capitol.

The teen, now grown, reported the abuse to authorities last year after the publication of a state-led investigation into child sex abuse perpetrated by Catholic priests in Colorado. Additional investigation into Colorado’s three Catholic dioceses found nine more priests who sexually abused children, including Moreno and a Denver priest and advocate for the poor known as Father Woody, along with 46 more victims of abusive priests — ending a nearly two-year investigation into the dioceses by state authorities.

The new incidences of abuse included in a supplemental report released Tuesday bring the total number of known abusive priests in Colorado to 52 and the total number of children they abused to 212, according to the independent investigator hired by the Colorado Attorney General’s Office and the diocese. The investigator, former U.S. Attorney Bob Troyer, released his initial findings in October 2019 but continued to investigate as more survivors came forward after the publication of his first report.

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ROME (ITALY)
Associated Press

November 30, 2020

By Nicole Winfield

The pope’s former treasurer, Cardinal George Pell, said Monday he feels a dismayed sense of vindication as the financial mismanagement he tried to uncover in the Holy See is now being exposed in a spiraling Vatican corruption investigation.

Pell made the comments to The Associated Press in his first interview since returning to Rome after his conviction-turned-acquittal on sexual abuse charges in his native Australia. Pell told the AP that he knew in 2014 when he took the treasury job that the Holy See’s finances were “a bit of a mess.”

“I never, never thought it would be as Technicolor as it proved,” Pell said from his living room armchair in his apartment just outside St. Peter’s Square. “I didn’t know that there was so much criminality involved.”

Pell spoke to the AP before the Dec. 15 release of the first volume of his jailhouse memoir, “Prison Journal,” chronicling the first five months of the 404 days he spent in solitary confinement in a Melbourne lockup.

Pell left his job as prefect of the Vatican’s economy ministry in 2017 to face charges that he sexually molested two 13-year-old choir boys in the sacristy of the Melbourne cathedral in 1996. After a first jury deadlocked, a second unanimously convicted him and he was sentenced to six years in prison. The conviction was upheld on appeal only to be thrown out by Australia’s High Court, which in April found there was reasonable doubt in the testimony of his lone accuser.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Times

November 30, 2020

By Nicole Winfield

Rome – Cardinal George Pell, who was convicted and then acquitted of sexual abuse in his native Australia, reflects on the nature of suffering, Pope Francis’ papacy and the humiliations of solitary confinement in his jailhouse memoir, according to an advance copy obtained by The Associated Press.

“Prison Journal,” which recounts the first five months of Pell’s 404 days in solitary lockup, also provides a play-by-play of Pell’s legal case and gives personal insights into one of the most divisive figures in the Catholic hierarchy today. To his supporters and even some detractors, Pell is a victim of a terrific perversion of justice; to his critics, he is the symbol of everything that has gone wrong with the Catholic Church’s wretched response to clergy sexual abuse.

Due out Dec. 15, the book likely won’t budge anyone from either camp, but it is a fascinating read nonetheless. It is at times a spiritual meditation, a defiant assertion of innocence and a morbidly voyeuristic view into the daily grind of prison life – all of it narrated by a man who for a time was one of the most powerful Catholic cardinals in the world.

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WOODLAND PARK (NJ)
Bergen Record via NorthJersey.com

December 1, 2020

By Abbott Koloff and Deena Yellin

[Includes a video introduction by Abbott Koloff and a spreadsheet of the accused with information on diocese, parish or school and town, and years of alleged abuse. See also a printable PDF of the spreadsheet.]

The lawsuits filed over the past 12 months in New Jersey alleging sex abuse by Catholic priests have been numerous — there are more than 230 of them — and varied.

One man said that when he was a teenage student and told the vice principal of a Catholic high school in Bergen County that he’d been abused by a religious brother, the administrator struck the student over the head with a 500-page book, warned him never to speak of it again and imposed a five-day suspension.

A woman said she and other members of her Girl Scout troop were repeatedly abused in the basement of a Hackensack church years ago by a priest who was subsequently moved from parish to parish, eventually arrested in Pennsylvania and charged with sexually abusing a young girl in the Harrisburg area. Four of the Pennsylvania girl’s sisters later said they also were abused.

A girl in southern New Jersey confided years ago to her brother that she had been raped by a priest, who had told her God directed him to have sex with her. The brother responded that he, too, had been abused — by the same priest.

The Record and NorthJersey.com has examined more than 230 sex abuse lawsuits filed in New Jersey against the state’s five Roman Catholic dioceses since Dec. 1, 2019, when the state suspended the civil statute of limitations for such cases. The filings name more than 150 clerics, including dozens not on the church’sown list of 188 credibly accused priests released last year, and trace allegations from the 1940s through the present.

The lawsuits represent more than 240 people who allege they were abused. The bulk of the allegations are from the 1970s and 1980s. About two dozen involve abuse of children who were 5 or 6 years old. While most of the accusers are men, at least 20 women are among the plaintiffs. Almost half of the priests named in the suits are deceased.

Hundreds of additional allegations have been filed with the New Jersey Independent Victim Compensation Program, which was established by the state’s five Catholic dioceses last year to compensate victims who agree not to pursue lawsuits.

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WOODLAND PARK (NJ)
Bergen Record via NorthJersey.com

November 30, 2020

By Deena Yellin and Abbott Koloff

A priest who until last year worked as the New York Giants team chaplain has been accused in a lawsuit filed last week of sexually assaulting a young girl as two nuns held her down at a Montclair parish decades ago.

The priest, William Dowd, had been removed from ministry almost 20 years ago, after two men accused him of sexually abusing them as children at the same Montclair parish — but he was reinstated in 2007 after being acquitted in a church trial.

One of those men filed a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Newark last year accusing Dowd of abuse — a complaint that was settled last month with a payment to the plaintiff, according to the man’s lawyer, Greg Gianforcaro. He declined to specify the amount.

In the latest suit, filed Tuesday, a woman alleges that she was abused by two nuns at the Immaculate Conception parish school in 1969, when she was 8 years old. The woman says that two years later, in 1971, the two nuns took her to Dowd and held her down by her arms and legs while the priest raped her in the parish’s Madonna Hall.

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VATICAN CITY
Associated Press

November 29, 2020

By Frances D’Emilio

Pope Francis, joined by the church’s newest cardinals in Mass on Sunday, warned against mediocrity as well as seeking out “godfathers” to promote one’s own career.

Eleven of the 13 new cardinals sat near the central altar of St. Peter’s Basilica, where Francis on Saturday had bestowed upon them the red hats symbolizing they are now so-called princes of the church.

Two of the new cardinals couldn’t make it to Rome because of pandemic travel complications. The freshly-minted cardinals who did come to the Vatican wore protective masks and purple vestments, as the Church began the solemn liturgical season of Advent in the run-up to Christmas.

In his homily, Francis decried what he called “a dangerous kind of sleep: it is the slumber of mediocrity.” He added that Jesus “above all else detests lukewarm-ness.”

Being chosen to head Vatican departments or eventually becoming pope themselves could be in any of these new cardinals’ future. Cardinals often advise popes and pick the next pontiff by conferring among themselves and then meeting in secret conclave to select one of their own to lead the Roman Catholic Church and its roughly 1.3 billion rank-and-file faithful.

Francis has often warned against clericalism during his papacy, and he picked up on that theme in Sunday’s homily.

“If we are awaited in Heaven, why should we be caught up with earthly concerns? Why should we be anxious about money, fame, success, all of which will fade away?” the pope said.

Deviating from his prepared text, he added: “Why look for godfathers for promoting one’s career?”

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VATICAN CITY
Associated Press

November 29, 2020

By Frances D’Emilio

Pope Francis, joined by the church’s newest cardinals in Mass on Sunday, warned against mediocrity as well as seeking out “godfathers” to promote one’s own career.

Eleven of the 13 new cardinals sat near the central altar of St. Peter’s Basilica, where Francis on Saturday had bestowed upon them the red hats symbolizing they are now so-called princes of the church.

Two of the new cardinals couldn’t make it to Rome because of pandemic travel complications. The freshly-minted cardinals who did come to the Vatican wore protective masks and purple vestments, as the Church began the solemn liturgical season of Advent in the run-up to Christmas.

In his homily, Francis decried what he called “a dangerous kind of sleep: it is the slumber of mediocrity.” He added that Jesus “above all else detests lukewarm-ness.”

Being chosen to head Vatican departments or eventually becoming pope themselves could be in any of these new cardinals’ future. Cardinals often advise popes and pick the next pontiff by conferring among themselves and then meeting in secret conclave to select one of their own to lead the Roman Catholic Church and its roughly 1.3 billion rank-and-file faithful.

Francis has often warned against clericalism during his papacy, and he picked up on that theme in Sunday’s homily.

“If we are awaited in Heaven, why should we be caught up with earthly concerns? Why should we be anxious about money, fame, success, all of which will fade away?” the pope said.

Deviating from his prepared text, he added: “Why look for godfathers for promoting one’s career?”

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SALT LAKE CITY (UT)
KSL

November 29, 2020

By Annie Knox

What began as a routine visit to the deli aisle last year ended in a revelation for Guy Platt.

Platt spotted the Colosimo name on a pork sausage label and wondered if it belonged to a member of the family he recalled from childhood. But an online search turned up a series of mugshots and a more profound connection.

The man he said he remembers sexually abusing and threatening him five decades earlier hadn’t been a schoolmate’s father like he’d thought. Rather, he was a Roman Catholic priest later convicted of victimizing boys in Michigan and Oklahoma, and accused of similar conduct in Utah.

“I was having heart palpitations, those kind of feelings that you get when you’re angry and in shock and when you feel guilty,” Platt recalled in a recent interview.

As adults, Utah brothers Matthew and Ralph Colosimo came forward as victims of repeated abuse by James Rapp in the years following Platt’s own alleged encounters with the onetime cleric.

Platt is now suing the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City for damages of more than $300,000, contending the diocese knew Rapp was “wholly unfit to work around children” but allowed him to do so.

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BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

November 29, 2020

https://buffalonews.com/opinion/editorial/the-editorial-board-attorney-general-shows-complicity-by-malone-in-shielding-accused-priests/article_50b8c190-30c8-11eb-9307-dfd64c22fc43.html

In 2019, a member of a Catholic parish’s pastoral council in Elma told The News that Bishop Richard J. Malone had “taken the blame here and the bullet for years of abuse, years of cover-up.” The state Attorney General’s Office’s investigative report on the Buffalo Diocese released this week suggests that Malone was not an innocent party, but an active participant in the diocese’s repeated instances of turning a blind eye to accusations of sexual misconduct against priests.

The long, devastating history of clergy sexual abuse of children in the diocese of some 600,000 Catholics stretches back decades, long before Malone was installed as bishop here. But as one of the case studies demonstrates in the court filing from Attorney General Letitia James, Malone was one of seven Buffalo bishops who covered up for Rev. Donald W. Becker, who was accused of molesting boys. The attorney general filed a civil suit this week against the diocese, Malone and former Auxiliary Bishop Edward M. Grosz.

Malone resisted calls to resign for more than a year before quitting in December 2019. (Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger took over as apostolic administrator.) The tipping point was the release of private audio recordings in which Malone discussed keeping quiet about an alleged sexual harassment by a priest of an adult seminarian and on another priest’s love letter to the seminarian.

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.

LYON (FRANCE)
EuroNews

November 30, 2020

Interview of Andrew Madden

[Includes three-minute video of the interview.]

Andrew Madden was an altar boy. He had always enjoyed going to the Church and wanted to become a priest. But aged 12, he was abused by Father Ivan Payne. That abuse lasted for several years.

In Ireland, he was the first victim of clerical child sex abuse to go public with his story in 1995.

As part of an Unreported Europe episode focusing on the survivors of Ireland’s child sex abuse scandal at the hands of Catholic priests, Euronews spoke to Madden his personal healing journey.

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 DEHLI (INDIA)
The Print

November 30, 2020

By Milind Ghatwai

[Includes copy of the Vatican decree.]

Fr Anand Muttungal claims he has received no communication from Vatican, and church authorities are running a campaign against him

Bhopal – A Catholic priest who used to be the public relations officer for the Bhopal archdiocese has been dismissed from priesthood for disobedience, abuse of power and sullying the image of the church.

While priests’ dismissals on charges of sexual misconduct are not uncommon, punishment is rarely dealt out on disobedience and abuse of power charges, as in the case of 48-year-old Fr Anand Muttungal. This is the first such instance in Madhya Pradesh.

Muttungal had served as the archdiocese’s PRO for eight years before being removed in 2013.

Archbishop of Bhopal Leo Cornelio said in a statement on 26 November: “…By an official decree, Pope Francis has dismissed Anand Muttungal, the former spokesperson of the Catholic church, from priesthood.”

The archbishop accused Muttungal of repeatedly disobeying church authorities, accusing its leaders in public, engaging in trading and business, and bringing “public scandals to the church and its community”.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Kansas City Star

November 29, 2020

By Laura Bauer and Judy L. Thomas

Word spread inside Agape Boarding School last fall that a report had been made to Missouri’s abuse and neglect hotline and a social worker was on campus to investigate.

Lucas Francis, a student at the time, said he was told that someone had called the state to report that a group of boys was running laps on school grounds in below-freezing temperatures. Francis, one of the boys who said he was forced to run for hours in sleet and snow with only a light jacket on and no cap or gloves, was pulled aside to speak to the Children’s Division worker.

“I was pretty excited because I was finally going to be able to tell them what was going on,” said Francis, now 18, who left the school in March. “I was just going to let them know.”

Until, that is, he said he realized that he wouldn’t be talking to the Children’s Division worker alone. Also inside the parents’ lounge on the sprawling campus, in uniform and waiting for the interview, was Cedar County Sheriff’s Deputy Robert Graves.

Graves, not only a deputy but an Agape alum and long-time employee of the school. Son-in-law of the owner, James Clemensen. And brother-in-law of the school’s principal, Bryan Clemensen.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

November 24, 2020

In the absence of radical reform to an organization now deluged with child sex abuse allegations, the Boy Scouts of America charter should be revoked.

The recent revelation that more than 95,000 claims of sexual abuse have been filed against the Boy Scouts of America has been all but lost in the news cycle dominated by President Trump’s refusal to concede his election defeat and the latest deadly surge of COVID-19 infections. But it should be a shock to the system of every American, given the staggering breadth of alleged abuse of children by those who took an oath to God and country to obey the law, help others, and live honest and moral lives.

As the organization seeks to restructure, settle those claims, and reemerge from this crisis to reclaim its place as a treasured American institution, it is also incumbent on members of Congress — and the Americans they represent — to ask: How did this happen, and should an organization that fostered such widespread abuse be allowed to survive at all?

In February, the Boy Scouts of America filed for bankruptcy in light of hundreds of lawsuits filed against it by people who allege sexual abuse over the course of decades. That triggered a reorganization in bankruptcy court to create a compensation fund to pay out settlements to abuse survivors who assert credible claims. Survivors were given a deadline of Nov. 16 to file claims, which brought tens of thousands more people forward. In a statement, the organization has said it is “devastated by the number of lives impacted by past abuse in Scouting and moved by the bravery of those who have come forward.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
Archdiocese of Chicago

November 28, 2020

By Cardinal Blase J. Cupich

Dear Saint Francis de Sales Parish and School Family,

With this letter, I write to share some difficult news about your pastor, Father David Ryan. In keeping with our child protection policies, I have asked Father Ryan to step aside from ministry following receipt by the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Archdiocesan Office for Child Abuse Investigations and Review of allegations of sexual abuse of minors approximately 25 years ago while he was assigned to Maryville Academy in Des Plaines. Allegations are claims that have not been proven as true or false. Therefore, guilt or innocence should not be assumed.

Father Ryan has been directed to live away from the parish while the matter is investigated, and he is fully cooperating with this direction. Father Jerome Jacob, pastor of Saint Mary of the Annunciation in Mundelein will serve as temporary administrator of Saint Francis de Sales Parish. Father Jacob, a seasoned pastor and Dean of the area will attend to the needs of the parish and school community.

Moreover, as is required by our child protection policies, the allegations were reported to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) and the Cook County State’s Attorney. The persons making the allegations have been offered the services of our Victim Assistance Ministry and the archdiocese has begun its investigation of these matters.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

November 28, 2020

By Elyssa Cherney

The Archdiocese of Chicago says it is investigating allegations that a Lake Zurich priest sexually abused minors 25 years ago while he was assigned to Maryville Academy in Des Plaines.

The Rev. David Ryan, pastor at St. Francis de Sales Catholic Parish in Lake Zurich, was asked to live away from the parish during the investigation and “is fully cooperating with this directive,” the archdiocese said.

In a letter to the parish Saturday, Cardinal Blase J. Cupich wrote that he asked Ryan to “step away from ministry” after the archdiocese received the allegations. The archdiocese reported the allegations to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and the Cook County state’s attorney office, Cupich wrote.

A spokeswoman for the archdiocese declined to provide further details about the allegations, saying in an email, “We have nothing to add to what is in the letter.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
WGN

November 28, 2020

By Andy Koval and Brónagh Tumulty

[Includes a copy of Cardinal Cupich’s letter to parishioners.]

A suburban priest has been asked to step away from his parish following child sex abuse allegations stemming from when he was an executive at a youth academy.

Father David Ryan, a priest at St. Francis de Sales Parish and School in Lake Zurich, has been asked to step away by Cardinal Blase Cupich due to allegations of sexual abuse of minors approximately 25 years ago.

The allegations are tied to when he was an assistant executive director at Maryville Academy, located in Des Plaines. He reportedly became assistant executive director in 1985.

He was promoted to executive director in December of 2003, according to his biography on City Club of Chicago. City Club of Chicago lists him among their board of directors.

At the time, Maryville was serving 1,100 infants, children and youth with a staff of around 900, according to his biography.

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.

CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

November 28, 2020

Ryan has been accused of sexually abusing minors about 25 years ago while he was assigned to Maryville Academy in Des Plaines, Cardinal Blase Cupich wrote in a letter to the St. Francis community.

Father David Ryan, pastor at St. Francis de Sales Parish and School in Lake Zurich, has been asked to step away from the parish while the Archdiocese of Chicago investigates decades-old sexual abuse allegations.

Ryan was accused of sexually abusing minors about 25 years ago while he was assigned to Maryville Academy in Des Plaines, Cardinal Blase Cupich wrote in a letter to the St. Francis community.

Father Ryan was directed to live away from the church, 135 S. Buesching Rd., while the matter is investigated, “and he is fully cooperating with this direction,” Cupich wrote.

The allegations were reported by the archdiocese to the Illinois Department of Children and Family services as well as the Cook County state’s attorney’s office, Cupich wrote.

Neither DCFS nor the state’s attorney’s office immediately responded to a request for comment.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post

November 28, 2020

By Christopher White

https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/biden-and-cardinal-wilton-gregory-share-a-mandate-for-healing-divisions/2020/11/28/73150030-2f4e-11eb-96c2-aac3f162215d_story.html

When Pope Francis needed someone to help heal Catholics in the nation’s capital recovering from the latest round of clergy sex abuse that had engulfed now former cardinal Theodore McCarrick, he tapped Archbishop Wilton Gregory as its new leader in April 2019.

This January, when Joe Biden becomes only the second Catholic president in U.S. history, the politician who pledged to heal America amid a global pandemic, economic dislocation and a racial reckoning will have Gregory as his local pastor.

Both men have been put in their positions with a mandate for reconciliation and are united by a shared admiration for Pope Francis who on Saturday elevated Gregory to the Catholic Church’s College of Cardinals, making him the first African American to receive the honor.

Gregory’s new title is more than mere symbolism. While it will increase his collaboration with the pope and his profile among the U.S. Catholic hierarchy, it also presents him with a rare opportunity for partnership with Biden who has a more complicated relationship with Catholics and with the church than President John F. Kennedy did 60 years ago.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Guardian

November 28, 2020

By Mattha Busby

Ampleforth college says it will appeal against education secretary’s decision

The government has ordered one of England’s most prestigious Catholic boarding schools, Ampleforth college, to stop admitting new pupils as a result of “very serious” failings.

Scandal has surrounded the private school in recent years and an independent inquiry into child sexual abuse published a highly critical report in August 2018 that said “appalling sexual abuse [was] inflicted over decades on children as young as seven”.

Ampleforth’s abbot, Cuthbert Madden, was removed from the post that year following allegations that he indecently assaulted pupils. Madden has denied the claims.

His replacement, Deirdre Rowe, stood down as acting head after 10 months in the role following the release of a highly critical inspection report that found the school did not meet standards for safeguarding, leadership, behaviour, combating bullying and complaints handling.

The Department for Education (DfE) has now launched enforcement action against the 200-year-old institution in North Yorkshire after ruling it had failed to meet safeguarding and leadership standards following an emergency Ofsted inspection.

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NEW YORK (NY)
New York Times

November 29, 2020

By Norimitsu Onishi and Constant Méheut

The scandal surrounding the writer Gabriel Matzneff was not limited to his pedophilia. It also opened a window on the entrenched and clubby nature of many of France’s elite institutions.

Paris – One of France’s most prestigious literary awards, the Renaudot can change a writer’s career overnight. Prizewinners jump onto best-seller lists. Publishers earn bragging rights in a nation that places literature at the heart of its sense of grandeur and global standing.

A striking example is now a notorious one: Gabriel Matzneff, the writer whose career was revived with the award in 2013 before collapsing this year when a woman published a bombshell account of their sexual relationship when she was underage. He now faces a police investigation in a national scandal that has exposed how clubby Parisian elites long protected, celebrated and enabled his pedophilia.

Mr. Matzneff’s win was engineered by an elite fully aware of his pedophilia, which he had brazenly defended for decades. His powerful editor and friends sat on the jury. “We thought he was broke, he was sick, this will cheer him up,” said Frédéric Beigbeder, a confidant of Mr. Matzneff and a Renaudot juror since 2011.

The fallout from the Matzneff affair has rippled through France, dividing feminists and seemingly ending the career of a powerful deputy mayor of Paris. Yet the insular world that dominates French literary life remains largely unscathed, demonstrating just how entrenched and intractable it really is.

Proof of that is the Renaudot — all but one of the same jurors who honored Mr. Matzneff are expected to crown this year’s winners on Monday.

That the Renaudot, France’s second biggest literary prize, could wave away the Matzneff scandal underscores the self-perpetuating and impenetrable nature of many of France’s elite institutions.

Whether in top schools, companies, government administration or at the French Academy, control often rests with a small, established group — overwhelmingly older, white men — that rewards like-minded friends and effectively blocks newcomers.

In France’s literary prize system, jurors serve usually for life and themselves select new members. In a process rife with conflicts of interest that is rarely scrutinized, judges often select winners among friends, champion the work of a colleague and press on behalf of a romantic partner.

The process would never be tolerated in contests like Britain’s Booker Prize or the American Pulitzer, where juries change every year and judges recuse themselves over potential conflicts of interest.

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LYON (FRANCE)
EuroNews

November 28, 2020

[Includes 20-minute interview with interviews of survivors.]

Revelations of sexual abuse inside the Catholic church shook Ireland to its core. Unreported Europe speaks to those who survived the paedophile priests and examines if the church has truly taken responsibility for the scandal.

Our lives are not as normal as other people who haven’t been abused. The abuse has just changed our attitude to life, changed our attitude to people. – Martin Gallagher, Survivor

Ireland has one of the largest Catholic communities in Europe. The Church is rooted into the culture of the country, but when Pope Francis visited Dublin in 2018 his words divided the nation.

Since 2002, multiple reports and investigations have shed light on nearly 15,000 cases of sexual abuse committed in Ireland between 1970 and 1990.

The pontiff had come to apologise for those crimes carried out by members of the Church’s clergy. For many survivors, the visit and remorse that came with it was far too late.

You know, you only have to do a few Google searches to see loads of examples of popes and bishops saying ‘We didn’t know’. Like the rest of society, we didn’t understand such things were possible. They did. They lied. – Colm O’Gorman, Survivor

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ISLEWORTH (MIDDLESEX, ENGLAND)
Sky News

November 27, 2020

By Tim Bake

The school was previously criticised by an independent inquiry into child sexual abuse in 2018.

https://news.sky.com/story/ampleforth-college-36k-per-year-catholic-boarding-school-banned-from-taking-new-pupils-after-failings-12144433

A £36,000-a-year Catholic boarding school has been banned from admitting new students following “serious” failings on safeguarding and leadership standards.

Ampleforth College, which was previously criticised by an independent inquiry into child sexual abuse in 2018, was found to have “prioritised the monks and their own reputation over the protection of children”.

The Department for Education (DfE) sent a letter to the North Yorkshire school’s proprietor on Friday as part of an enforcement action.

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson told the school to stop accepting new pupils to “safeguard the education and well-being of children”.

The letter raised concerns from multiple inspection reports dating from 2016 onwards, and said the institution had failed to meet safeguarding and leadership standards.

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HONG KONG
Union of Catholic Asian News

November 27, 2020

Pope Francis dismisses Bhopal priest who once accused his archbishop and two priests of trying to poison him

Pope Francis has laicized an Indian Catholic priest for gross abuse of ecclesiastical power and office.

Announcing the Vatican decision, Archbishop Leo Cornelio of Bhopal said in a statement that “now, with regret and pain, I wish to formally communicate to everyone that by an official decree from our Supreme Pontiff Pope Francis, on Oct. 22, 2020, Anand Muttungal (Joseph M.T.) of the Archdiocese of Bhopal has been dismissed in poenam (as a penalty) from the clerical state and dispensed from all his clerical obligations, including that of celibacy.”

However, Muttungal, the former public relations officer of Bhopal Archdiocese, said he was unaware of his dismissal.

“I must say that to date I have had no communication from the Vatican,” he said, adding he was not aware of the offense attributed to him that led to his dismissal.

Referring to a criminal case he had filed against Archbishop Cornelio and two other priests from the archdiocese, he said that “… authorities have been trying to get me to withdraw the criminal cases going on against them.”

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BUFFALO (NY)
WBFO NPR

November 24, 2020

By Michael Mroziak

An advocate for clergy sex abuse victims who had actively called for the removal of Bishop Richard Malone is praising the New York State Attorney General for her lawsuit against the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo and its former top leadership.

Robert Hoatson, co-founder and president of Road to Recovery, appeared Tuesday in his usual chosen place for his Buffalo appearances, on the sidewalk across the street from the Catholic Center on Main Street. His podium displayed a sign declaring “Free At Last,” a commentary on behalf of victims.

“We’re free at last, we victims, we advocates, we are free at last because government officials have stepped in and have investigated and concluded that what occurred here was absolutely outrageous in this Diocese of Buffalo,” he said. “Not just with Bishop Malone or Bishop Grosz, or even Bishop Scharfenberger, but for decades and decades and decades before that.”

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IRONDALE (AL)
National Catholic Register

November 13, 2020

By Raymond Arroyo Interviewing Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò

The archbishop, whose explosive letter in August 2018 helped trigger the Vatican investigation into McCarrick’s misconduct, explains why he believes the report is gravely flawed.

More than any other person except for Theodore McCarrick himself, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò is responsible for triggering the 449-page Vatican report released this week that details what other Church leaders knew about the disgraced ex-cardinal’s decades-long pattern of sexual misconduct, and the actions they took or failed to take with respect to what they had learned.

As the report itself documents, the archbishop was the first senior Vatican figure to call concretely for action to be undertaken against McCarrick, at a time when Archbishop Viganò was serving as a senior official in the Secretariat of State. Then, after the archbishop was subsequently posted to Washington as the U.S. nuncio from 2011 to 2016, he was again involved with the Vatican’s handling of the McCarrick file.

And in August 2018, Archbishop Viganò released his initial 11-page “testimony” regarding McCarrick, in which he accused numerous Church leaders of turning a blind eye to McCarrick’s misconduct — including the explosive claim that he personally told Pope Francis about the transgressions following the Holy Father’s election in 2013, and that the Pope ignored this information and tapped McCarrick to carry out duties on the behalf of the Vatican. The firestorm sparked by Archbishop Viganò’s document resulted in the Holy Father’s formal authorization of an investigation of all relevant documentation related to the allegations against McCarrick, and how they were handled.

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IRONDALE (AL)
National Catholic Register

November 25, 2020

By Edward Pentin Interviewing Fr. John Lavers

Father John Lavers, who led a 2012 investigation into allegations of homosexual activity among seminarians at Holy Apostles Seminary, assesses the findings of the McCarrick Report

Vatican City – What are the strengths and weaknesses of the McCarrick Report, and what can be learned from it that could be applied to similar cases in the future?

Father John Lavers, a Canadian priest of the Diocese of Portsmouth in England, currently serves as the director of chaplaincy with Stella Maris (Apostleship of the Sea) in the United Kingdom. He led a 2012 investigation into allegations of homosexual behavior and activity at Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Connecticut that led to the removal of 13 seminarians, primarily from the Archdiocese of Hartford and Diocese of Paterson, New Jersey.

Father Lavers’ investigation also indicated that a homosexual “pipeline” had been created that funneled vulnerable Latin American candidates into some U.S. seminaries where they were sexually exploited, and subsequently ordained as actively homosexual priests in some American dioceses.

And on the basis of the evidence collected for the Holy Apostles investigation, Father Lavers concluded that it was Theodore McCarrick himself who was at the “epicenter” of this powerful influential network that has preyed on seminarians, and has advanced homosexually active clergy within the U.S. Church.

Prior to becoming a priest, Father Lavers served in Canadian law enforcement and national security work. In this interview with the Register, he explains the nature of the report, how it falls short, and what he believes the next steps should be.

Father Lavers, what has been your initial reaction to the McCarrick Report?

I think the expectation of the report may have been overstated, even over-expected by people. It’s a report that would not be classified as investigative, but more of a gathering of data and analysis — almost like how you would approach an academic function: looking at the documents that the Vatican archives would have, as well as other information that they would have pulled from the various dioceses of the United States. But it’s not an investigative report.

And when I use the term “investigative report,” I use it from the perspective of how professional law enforcement, and/or intelligence services, would do, say, an investigation into this and in following all the leads as well as following the evidence. This report does not do that.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service via Union of Catholic Asian News

November 27, 2020

By William Cone

Seminarians were surveyed anonymously about incidents of sexual misconduct at their schools of formation

Policy benchmarks developed from a study of sexual harassment and misconduct at seminaries and religious houses of formation in the United States are being promoted as a way to stem the abuses that came to light recently about former cardinal Theodore McCarrick.

The study was conducted in spring 2019 by the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, and the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University in Washington.

Seminarians were surveyed anonymously about incidents of sexual misconduct at their schools of formation. The study found that, even though sexual misconduct is uncommon, there is low awareness among students of protocols for reporting such infractions.

Following the study’s completion, a group of bishops, seminary rectors, faculty and lay consultants was formed to develop proactive policy guidelines. The policy benchmarks came from that McGrath Seminary Study Group.

“All of these people are very well respected in the field of seminary education and are regarded as reformers, I would say,” said John Cavadini, Notre Dame theology professor and director of the McGrath Institute for Church Life, who convened the study group earlier this year. Two of the group members are presidents of national associations of seminary rectors.

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TORONTO (ONTARIO, CANADA)
Catholic Register

November 26, 2020

In the weeks since the Vatican released its report regarding disgraced former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the blame game has been in full swing.

How is it possible, both critics and friends ask, that such a man as McCarrick could ever rise to the highest levels of the Church? It’s a good question, with not a lot of good answers.

The 460-page report does not lay blame on any one person or group. Instead, it has carefully followed the trail of facts and communiques inside and outside the Vatican regarding who knew what and when and how about the allegations of sexual misconduct against McCarrick. The issue of guilt isn’t addressed in the report; that had been decided by an investigation two years ago that found “credible” evidence against him. He was subsequently removed from the priesthood.

At the heart of the report compiled over two years is the Vatican’s response to the rumours and allegations that had been circulating about McCarrick for years. It’s clear the Vatican was guilty of turning a blind eye, ignoring warning signs and siding with the accused. The good news is that it has chosen not to keep its missteps hidden from public view.

Three popes are central to this story of course, because that’s where the buck stops. John Paul II fares the worst. He heard reports of McCarrick’s behaviour, ordered an investigation, but ultimately chose to believe his denials of wrongdoing, perhaps swayed by his own history in Poland of seeing people unjustly accused. Pope Benedict put restrictions on McCarrick that were largely ignored. Pope Francis was more proactive, ordering further investigation after more claims of abuse surfaced in 2018 and laicizing him last year. McCarrick is now 90 years old, whereabouts not publicly known, and there are no criminal charges filed against him.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
NPR

November 25, 2020

By Sylvia Poggioli

When St. John Paul II died in 2005 after nearly 27 years on the papal throne, his funeral drew millions to St. Peter’s Square. The crowd soon broke out into spontaneous chants of “Santo subito” — “make him a saint immediately.”

Days later, John Paul was put on the fast track, becoming a saint a record nine years after his death.

Now, many Catholics wonder whether that was too hasty. A recent report issued by the Vatican is casting a dark cloud over John Paul.

The report is the result of an investigation into Catholic leaders’ failings in allowing now-disgraced former American Cardinal Theodore McCarrick to rise up the church hierarchy. Its explosive revelations have started to tarnish the legacy of the Polish-born pope and globetrotting media star who is credited with triggering the fall of communism in Europe.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

November 20, 2020

By Tom Roberts

It has long been understood by those who take a measured and thoughtful assessment of his papacy that the story of St. Pope John Paul II was sent off to the printer long before it was ready.

The narrative had not had time to mature, to incorporate the layers of complexity that marks us as truly human, to account for contradictions and flaws. The McCarrick report is the most persuasive evidence to date that the appellation “The Great” was applied too soon. In that regard, the report also serves as warning not to rush to conclusions about the abuse crisis itself.

John Paul II, confronted with the most damaging scandal the church faced in centuries, ignored the disturbing warnings from victims and from bishops entrusted with the care of the flock and instead embraced the adulation and counsel of serial predators. In doing so, he became not a figure of the courage that he persistently demanded of others, but the highest profile example of a corrupt hierarchical culture responsible for perpetuation of the abuse disgrace.

The editors of this publication do a great service to the church, and to sexual abuse victims, by asking the U.S. bishops to put the brakes on the John Paul II cult. It is, indeed, time to rein in the cult that has grown up around a garish superhero version of a pope.

The greatest value of the recent report, however, is not in establishing the weight of blame for the McCarrick debacle, though that is significant. Its greatest value is establishing that for all of his legendary achievements on the international front, at home John Paul II was a rather pedestrian member of a culture that has deep underlying maladies that became manifest in the abuse crisis. What he did, which warrants condemnation today, was not extraordinary at the time. He did what was expected of one deeply invested in and rewarded by the culture. He protected it at all costs, ignoring credible and impassioned warnings about McCarrick and another of his favorites, Marciel Maciel Degollado, founder of the corrupt Legionaries of Christ. The costs have been globally destructive of the church’s credibility and authority.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

November 20, 2020

By Heidi Schlumpf

The McCarrick report, released Nov. 10, attempts to describe how former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick rose through the ranks of leadership in the church despite his abuse of children and vulnerable adults, mostly seminarians. The shorthand for its charge: “Who knew what, and when?”

Although primarily focused on popes, bishops and other church leaders, the report also briefly considers the role of journalists in exposing — or, in this case, not exposing — this particular story.

For those who did not read all 461 pages — and all 1,410 footnotes — I can tell you that the National Catholic Reporter is mentioned in four footnotes, referencing articles we have published about sexual abuse, including an interview with McCarrick, in Rome, by current Vatican correspondent Joshua McElwee in 2014.

Three of those footnoted articles were by NCR’s former Vatican correspondent John Allen, who is now editor of Crux, the now-independent Catholic news website initially launched as a project of The Boston Globe.

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SYDNEY (NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA)
Sydney Morning Herald

November 27, 2020

By Chip Le Grand

Pope Francis has been named as a defendant in a Victorian Supreme Court damages claim by three Aboriginal men who were sexually assaulted as young boys by paedophile priest Michael Glennon after the Vatican knew of his crimes against children but did not defrock him.

It is the first known case in Australia in which victims of clerical sexual abuse have sought to hold the world’s most senior Catholic personally responsible for his church’s failure to take decisive action against predators in its ranks.

The three plaintiffs, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, all claim to have experienced significant, ongoing impacts from their childhood abuse including drug addiction, homelessness and unemployment.

They are seeking compensation and exemplary or punitive damages against Pope Francis, the Archdiocese of Melbourne and Melbourne Archbishop Peter Comensoli for the inaction of their predecessors.

If successful it would represent the first time an Australian court has punished the church – as distinct from compensating victims of abuse – for its failure to protect children from paedophile priests.

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TORONTO (ONTARIO, CANADA)
CBC News

November 26, 2020

By Leah Hendry and Steve Rukavina

‘The sheep are not following the church blindly anymore,’ one former parishioner says

People who tried to warn Montreal’s Catholic Archdiocese about a pedophile priest say they’re sad, angry and overwhelmed by an explosive report outlining the church’s repeated failures to heed their warnings.

The Montreal archdiocese asked retired Quebec Superior Court justice Pepita Capriolo to investigate the church’s handling of allegations against former priest Brian Boucher, who was convicted in January 2019 of sexually abusing two young boys.

Capriolo’s report, released Wednesday, outlines the failures of top officials in the Montreal diocese to take action after repeated red flags about Boucher were raised.

“I have to tell you I’m overwhelmed by what Justice Capriolo has put together,” Kurt Reckziegel, a parishioner at Our Lady of the Annunciation Church in the Town of Mount Royal, said Thursday.

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ATLANTA (GA)
CNN

November 27, 2020

By Daniel Burke and Delia Gallagher

Rome – For the past week, Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Washington, DC, has been holed up in a Vatican guesthouse, receiving meals at his door.

On Saturday afternoon, if all goes as planned, Gregory will step out of his quarters and into history. During an installation ceremony planned for 4pm in Rome, Gregory will become the first African American cardinal in Catholic history.

Gregory will be one of 13 men — and the only American — elevated to the College of Cardinal during Saturday’s ceremony. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, two bishops will not be in Rome, another first in church history, according to Vatican News.

In keeping with the Pope’s concerns for Catholics who have been historically marginalized, the other soon-to-be cardinals include men from Rwanda, Brunei, Chile and the Philippines.

Gregory, 72, already the highest-ranking African-American Catholic in US history, told CNN this week that he has been praying, writing homilies and letters to well-wishers, and reflecting on his new role.

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BRISBANE (QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA)
Catholic Leader – Archdiocese of Brisbane

November 27, 2020

By Joe Higgins

In light of the McCarrick Report, detailing the abuse of disgraced ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Los Angeles auxiliary Bishop Robert Barron appeared on his Word on Fire podcast and praised a name familiar to Australians.

Host Brandon Vogt asked Bishop Barron about how to understand the abuse crisis from a historic lens and how saints had responded to similar crises in the past.

Bishop Barron mentioned the great reformers like St Francis of Assisi and St Ignatius Loyola, and said Australian St Mary MacKillop came to his mind “very powerfully”.

“She (St Mary MacKillop) brought this issue to light and she suffered enormously for it,” he said.

“(She was) facing a Church that was in many ways problematic and dysfunctional, but she brought this issue forward.”

Bishop Barron lamented how many Catholics fell into resentment with the Church over the abuse scandals and other scandals too.

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MONTREAL (QUEBEC, CANADA)
Archdiocese of Montreal

November 25, 2020

By Justice Pepita G. Capriolo

The author of this report was mandated by Archbishop Christian Lépine to investigate “who knew what when” in regard to Brian Boucher’s actions during his career within the Catholic Church and to formulate recommendations to the Archdiocese, with the view that such behaviours not be repeated.

To do so, the author searched for and analyzed in detail hundreds of documents and interviewed more than 60 witnesses. She received the assistance and support of Bishop Thomas Dowd, appointed by Archbishop Lépine as her liaison with the clergy, but she was not in any way directed or censored in her work. Indeed, the author had complete autonomous access to all documents, including those contained in the Secret Archives, which even Bishop Dowd could not consult. Furthermore, she was able to interview anyone whose testimony she judged useful.

The involvement of Brian Boucher in the Catholic Church covers a long period: from his time as a catechist in the mid-1980s to 2019, when he was convicted and sentenced on two counts of sexual assault of a minor. Throughout these years, his suitability as a seminarian and later as a priest was often questioned, but it was only in December of 2015 that a serious investigation began, leading to Boucher’s canonical and criminal trials. Brian Boucher is no longer a priest and is currently serving an eight-year sentence.

Until 2016, no one had come forward and claimed having been Boucher’s victim of sexual abuse while still a minor. No parent had ever brought such a charge against Boucher to the attention of his superiors. But this is no cause for premature exoneration of the Church authorities. Many people had complained about Boucher’s unacceptable behaviour over the years: he was rude, authoritarian, overly intense, intransigent, homophobic, racist, misogynist and verbally, and sometimes even physically, aggressive. These complaints were repeatedly reported to his superiors. Rumours about his untoward interest in young boys had been circulating since the 1980s and communicated to those in charge of the Grand Séminaire de Montréal as well as to the Archdiocese. These rumours later became more concrete: Boucher was observed having a very close and worrisome relationship with a young boy at the end of the 1990s. No concrete evidence of sex abuse was brought forth- but how often is this behaviour caught on camera? Despite the concerns raised over this relationship and brought to the attention of the authorities in ever-increasing detail, no investigation was undertaken at the time.

A contemporary unwanted sexual advance directed at an 18-year-old was dismissed and erased from the collective written memory of the Church. A later, heartbreaking abusive relationship with a 19-year-old student under Boucher’s tutelage when he was Chaplain of the Newman Centre became the tipping point … to send Boucher for psychological treatment!

The overly vague psychological evaluation of Boucher done by the Southdown Institute in 2003 had the disastrous effect of appearing to shield him from any suspicion of being a child molester, until Bishop Dowd began his investigation in December 2015, twelve years later. The reports containing the conclusions based on Southdown’s therapeutic approach also gave the impression that Boucher’s aggressive and inappropriate behaviour had been “fixed.”

Despite Southdown psychological reassurance, rumours persisted and another complaint about inappropriate behaviour with a minor was sent to the diocesan authorities and quickly dismissed in 2006. In 2011, a senior official of the Church wrote a lengthy, detailed summary of Boucher’s ongoing failings in order to stop his reappointment as pastor of a parish. The official left on extended sick leave and Boucher was reappointed.

Boucher was finally caught in his own lies: he claimed that, during his sabbatical studies in Washington, he had been the victim of sexual abuse by a much younger man, a fellow priest. Bishop Dowd investigated this claim and quickly realized, given the evidence he found, that Boucher had been the perpetrator and not the victim. Once a broader investigation was started, Bishop Dowd discovered the existence of at least two child victims.

Boucher’s deplorable story is told in detail over 150 pages of the report.

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MONTREAL (QUEBEC, CANADA)
Archdiocese of Montreal

November 25, 2020

https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/archdiocese-of-montreal-releases-independent-report-on-complaints-against-former-priest-brian-boucher-853098934.html

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Montreal has released the report of an independent investigation into its handling of complaints against former diocesan priest Brian Boucher. The 276-page report, authored by the Honourable Pepita G. Capriolo, retired Québec Superior Court Justice, was made public at a press conference today by Archbishop Christian Lépine with Justice Capriolo.

The Archbishop commissioned Justice Capriolo in November 2019 to investigate “who knew what when” regarding complaints made against Mr. Boucher, from his seminary days until 2019. The Archdiocese had initiated a canonical investigation into his behaviour four years earlier, in 2015.

“I had the support of the Archbishop. At no point did he or any other member of the diocese attempt to limit or restrict my investigations,” the retired justice said during the press conference. The author of the report was given independent access to hundreds of documents and interviewed everyone whose testimony she deemed relevant, which was more than 60 witnesses. The report concludes with 31 recommendations designed to ensure responsibility, transparency and accountability within the organization of the Archdiocese and thus mitigate a recurrence of similar abuses.

The report reveals that, in the course of Brian Boucher’s involvement with the Archdiocese, his suitability both as a seminarian and a priest were the subject of repeated complaints. It was only in 2015 that the diocese undertook a comprehensive investigation into his behaviour.

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MONTREAL (QUEBEC, CANADA)
Montreal Gazette via Strathroy Age Dispatch

November 25, 2020

By Paul Cherry

The culture of silence has ruled supreme within the Catholic Church for years, a former abuse victim says.

The disturbing details that emerged from Justice Pepita Capriolo’s report on how the Catholic Church ignored warning signs and adopted a culture of secrecy as Brian Boucher, now a convicted pedophile, made his way toward being ordained a priest sounded all too familiar to people who represent other victims of sexual abuse at the hands of priests in Quebec.

Boucher, now 58, was convicted last year of sexually assaulting two boys: one while working at Our Lady of the Annunciation Church in Town of Mount Royal, the other at St. John Brébeuf Parish in LaSalle.

Capriolo was asked to do an audit of the time Boucher spent in the Catholic Church and found warning signs were ignored before he was ordained.

“I think we can certainly talk about wilful blindness which was for the longest time the modus operandi of the Roman Catholic Church in Quebec and elsewhere in cases of abuse of children,” said Carlo Tarini, director of communication for the Comité des victimes des prêtres. The group has supported victims of abuse who have filed class-action suits against Catholic orders in the past.

“Certainly, the prevailing method of dealing with pedophile priests was to tell them they should pray to redeem their sins. Unfortunately, prayers have nothing to do with preventing pedophiles from abusing children, which is something the Church should have certainly known,” Tarini said.

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TORONTO (ONTARIO, CANADA)
The Globe and Mail from Canadian Press

November 25, 2020

By Sidhartha Banerjee

Montreal’s archdiocese did little to address complaints against a pedophile priest and seemed more interested in protecting his reputation than his victims, according to an independent review released Wednesday.

Former Quebec Superior Court justice Pepita G. Capriolo’s report highlighted numerous deficiencies in the church’s response to complaints against Brian Boucher. The priest was sentenced in March, 2019, to eight years in prison for abusing two boys.

“Secrecy is everywhere in this file,” Ms. Capriolo wrote in her report. “Secret archives, secret hiding places for sensitive documents and documents so secret they have been eliminated completely.”

Ms. Capriolo told a news conference Wednesday the church improperly handled complaints against Mr. Boucher from the 1980s to the end of 2015. “Yet Boucher’s inexcusable behaviour had been the subject of a slew of complaints from the very start of his career in the church.”

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