ABUSE TRACKER

AUSTRALIA
The Australian

January 13, 2020

By Chrissie Foster

I see red when I think about the Red Mass. The Red Mass is a Catholic mass said at the end of each January for the legal fraternity marking the beginning of the legal year. The Red Mass is a ­European tradition dating back to the year 1310 in England and ­earlier in Paris — 1245.

An invitation to attend the Melbourne Red Mass at St Patrick’s Cathedral appeared on the Victorian Bar website. The Victorian Bar is a “professional association of barristers”. The invitation reads: “As this is Archbishop Comensoli’s first Red Mass since becoming Archbishop of Melbourne, it is important for the legal community of Melbourne to welcome His Grace with as many members of the profession in attendance as possible.”

This is the same archbishop who recently said he would defy new child protection laws rather than report admissions of child sexual assault made in the confessional. Victoria recently passed legislation removing clergy exemption from mandatory reporting of a reasonable belief that a child has been sexually abused. Archbishop Peter Comensoli said he would rather go to jail than obey the new law.

Why should our legal profession “welcome” such a man? A man who publicly announced his intention to commit a crime? And not just any crime, one that disobeys child safety laws? The archbishop is the highest-ranking cleric of the Catholic Church in Victoria. Many clergy obey and follow him. Priests have promised obedience to him. Comensoli’s words and actions are replicated in communities all over Victoria. Why should the legal fraternity welcome someone who dictates that priests should commit a criminal offence by failing to report to the police information about child sexual abuse?

The new law lifting the secrecy of confession was debated in the Victorian parliament last August 29. It was an extraordinary day in parliament. At least 15 members of parliament rose and stated how shocked they were that the Archbishop of Melbourne would choose to protect paedophiles rather than children. Their anger was palpable. And angry they should be, for the reality of Comensoli’s words is to knowingly allow adults to continue to rape and sexually assault children. The archbishop is apparently happy to hear admissions of crimes against children and just let child molesters and rapists go unpunished, unchecked and uncured. This failure to obey the law would allow sexual crimes against children to continue for decades.

In 2003 Catholic priest Michael McArdle swore an affidavit stating that during confession he had disclosed more than 1500 times that he was sexually assaulting children. He made this confession to 30 different priests over 25 years. Not one of those 30 priests stopped him. For decades they just forgave him. This is precisely the situation Comensoli says should remain. What finally stopped McArdle was not the church, but a child going to the police. The church could have reported him to police decades earlier and saved countless children.

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

VATICAN CITY
Associated Press

Retired Pope Benedict XVI has broken his silence to reaffirm the value of priestly celibacy, co-authoring a bombshell book at the precise moment that Pope Francis is weighing whether to allow married men to be ordained to address the Catholic priest shortage.

Benedict wrote the book, “From the Depths of Our Hearts: Priesthood, Celibacy and the Crisis of the Catholic Church,” along with his fellow conservative, Guinean Cardinal Robert Sarah, who heads the Vatican’s liturgy office and has been a quiet critic of Francis.

The French daily Le Figaro published excerpts of the book late Sunday; The Associated Press obtained galleys of the English edition, which is being published by Ignatius Press.

Benedict’s intervention is extraordinary, given he had promised to remain “hidden from the world” when he retired in 2013 and pledged his obedience to the new pope. He has largely held to that pledge, though he penned an odd essay last year on the sexual abuse scandal that blamed the crisis on the sexual revolution of the 1960s.

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

VATICAN CITY
Washington Post

January 12, 2020

By Chico Harlan

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has issued an ardent defense of clerical celibacy, breaking his pledged silence on major church affairs just as Pope Francis is considering an exception that would allow some married men to serve as priests.

Benedict’s remarks, revealed in a new book excerpt published Sunday by the French newspaper Le Figaro, cast light on a once-unthinkable dynamic inside the Roman Catholic Church: A former pope trying to influence his successor in whether the church heeds or breaks with its traditions.

“The ability to renounce marriage in order to place oneself fully at the disposal of the Lord has become a criterion for priestly ministry,” Benedict XVI writes in the book he has co-authored.

In the excerpts, Benedict invokes his own ordination and calls celibacy a sometimes “painful” but necessary step. Though Francis has also defended celibacy — calling it a “gift” to the church and saying it should not be optional — some of the Argentine pontiff’s allies have pushed for exceptions, saying the priesthood needs to modernize and find ways to make up for a severe shortage of vocations.

Bishops meeting in Rome last year recommended that Francis allow the ordination of married men in the particularly remote Amazon region, an endorsement that some traditionalists warned might set off a broader weakening of the church’s millennium-old celibacy requirement. Francis is considering whether to affirm the recommendation.

But no matter what Francis decides, Benedict’s willingness to speak out risks the kind of inner-church tension that analysts worried about when he abdicated seven years ago.

After he stepped down, Benedict — who lives inside a Vatican monastery — vowed silence on key issues to give room for Francis. But he has twice broken that vow in less than a year, with the excerpt Sunday and the release in April of a lengthy letter devoted to clerical sexual abuse in which his theories often contradicted Francis’s.

Benedict and Francis have spoken admiringly of each other, but their different views about the church — Francis has pushed for changes that his predecessor opposed — have caused some traditionalists to rally around Benedict as an alternative authority figure.

“One Pope is complicated enough,” John Gehring, the Catholic program director at the Washington-based advocacy group Faith in Public Life, wrote on Twitter Sunday night. “This is a mess. With great respect to Benedict XVI, it’s time for him to live up to his promise to be ‘hidden from the world.’ ”

“From the Depths of Our Hearts,” was co-written by Benedict and the Guinean Cardinal Robert Sarah, with each authoring certain passages. Sarah, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, is far more direct than Benedict, speaking to Francis directly about the dangers of altering the church’s celibacy practices.

“I am humbly pleading for Pope Francis to protect us definitively of such an eventuality by putting his veto to any weakening or lessening of priestly celibacy, even limited to one region or the other,” wrote Sarah, the head of the Vatican’s liturgical office. “The possibility to ordain married men would represent a pastoral catastrophe, an ecclesiastical confusion and an obfuscation in an understanding of the priesthood.”

A passage jointly written by Sarah and Benedict mentions that they had taken note of the “uproar” surrounding the bishops’ meeting on the Amazon last year. Benedict and Sarah wrote that they could not stay silent.

“If ideology divides, truth unites hearts,” they wrote. “Examining the doctrine of salvation can only unite the Church around its divine Master. We do it in a spirit of charity.”

Benedict, 92, uses a walker and talks barely above a whisper, according to recent footage, but remains mentally sharp. His contributions to the book, according to the excerpts, are steeped in church language. He makes the case that celibacy is a way for priests to give themselves fully to the service of the priesthood.

“To be with God is to set aside what is only the self,” Benedict writes.

Benedict’s personal secretary, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, did not respond to a request for comment.

As the church debated last year whether to allow the ordination of married men in the Amazon, traditionalists warned about the destruction of the priesthood. There are already some celibacy exceptions within the church: married Anglican ministers, in some cases, can join the Catholic priesthood after conversion. But some conservatives worry that the rationale for the Amazon could also be applied to other parts of the world, including Europe and North America, that have shortages of priests.

Sarah argues that lifting the celibacy requirement would not help such areas, but deprive them of true priests.

“We cannot offer them ‘second class’ priests,” Sarah wrote.

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BUFFALO (NY)
The Buffalo News

January 12, 2020

By News Editorial Board

Now we know that Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger is more than bankruptcy curious. The leader in charge of Buffalo’s Catholic diocese told a Buffalo News reporter on Monday that filing for Chapter 11 protection is probable as the diocese faces an onslaught of lawsuits from individuals making claims of clergy sex abuse.

As we have noted before, that would be unfortunate. If it happens – and there are defenses for it – the diocese needs to be as forthcoming about the abuses its priests and bishop committed as it would if the matter were left in state court. There can be no more hiding in dark corners.

While having claims against the diocese moved to bankruptcy court may ultimately result in a more equitable financial settlement for some of the victims than if their cases remain in civil court, it can still leave many feeling they are denied a full hearing.

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

AUSTRALIA
The Australian

January 4, 2020

By James Madden

George Pell’s legal team will seek to have the cardinal’s conviction for child sex offences overturned on the grounds that the Victorian Court of Appeal erred by overlooking the fact that there was reasonable doubt about whether opportunity existed for the crimes to have occurred, and that the onus of proof wrongfully lay with the defendant.

Pell’s final submissions, filed with the High Court on Friday, were signed by barristers Bret Walker and Ruth Shann.

In a hearing set down for March 11 and 12, all seven High Court judges will decide whether to hear the jailed cardinal’s argument that he is in prison only because two judges on Victoria’s Court of Appeal ­rejected his ­appeal after engaging in circular logic and making a ­series of legal errors.

In the submissions, Pell’s legal team argued that his convictions risk a fundamental ­departure “from the defining safeguards of the accusatorial system of criminal justice”.

Pell, 78, was found guilty by a jury of the rape of a 13-year-old choirboy and sexual assault of another at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne in 1996, but Australia’s most senior Catholic has ­always denied any wrongdoing.

Victoria’s Court of Appeal in August upheld Pell’s convictions by two votes to one.

He is serving a maximum six-year jail term.

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AUSTRALIA
Reuters

Jailed Australian Cardinal George Pell, convicted over child sex offences, was moved to another prison last week after a drone flew over the facility where he was being held, local media reported.

Pell is the most senior Catholic official worldwide imprisoned for child sex offences. The former Vatican treasurer is serving a six-year sentence for sexually assaulting two teen-aged choir boys.

“Corrections Victoria can confirm that there was an incident involving a drone flying over the Melbourne Assessment Prison on Thursday,” a Department of Justice spokeswoman said on Sunday in an e-mailed statement.

She declined to comment on Pell, but said that the incident has been referred to the state police for investigation.

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CALIFORNIA
Express Digest

January 8, 2020

The Church of Scientology has argued that they should be able to handle sexual assault allegations against That 70s Show actor Danny Masterson through ‘religious arbitration’ instead of in court.

Four women, including two ex-girlfriends, filed a lawsuit against Masterson in California last year claiming the actor drugged, raped and sexually assaulted them in the early 2000s.

The Church of Scientology is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit after the women claimed they were stalked and harassed by the church in a bid to silence them after they complained.

Masterson is a member of the church while some of women were members around the time of the alleged assaults.

In new court papers filed on Tuesday, the church argued that the women consented to ‘ecclesiastical rule’ when they became members and therefore relinquished their rights to sue.

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RUMSON (NJ)
The Monmouth Journal

January 10, 2020

Holy Cross School in Rumson has been hit with a lawsuit by a former student claiming that a nun at the school sexually abused her more than half a century ago.

Carole Clark, of Cliffside Park, claims in the lawsuit filed in Monmouth County Superior Court that she attended the school from kindergarten to seventh grade “in the 1960s.”

According to the lawsuit, filed by attorney Eric G. Kahn, when Clark was in first grade at Holy Cross, Sister Mary Nazareen, a teacher at the school at the time, “coerced and/or forced” Clark “to engage in improper sexual conduct during the school year when (Clark) was in the first grade.”

The lawsuit further claims that Sister Mary Nazareen “engaged in improper sex acts, sexual assault, sexual contact and sexual abuse” of Clark, while on the grounds of Holy Cross School while Clark was in the first grade.

The lawsuit names Holy Cross School, Holy Cross Parish and the Diocese of Trenton as defendants. It states Clark has suffered “severe and permanent personal and emotional injuries” as a result of the abuse.

The lawsuit seeks judgment against the school, parish and diocese and compensation for damages, together with interest and costs of the lawsuit.

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AUSTRALIA
Lawyers Weekly

January 7, 2020

By Naomi Neilson

The lawyers for disgraced Cardinal George Pell have lodged new court documents that allege previous findings failed to eliminate doubt about his opportunity to offend.

Barrister Bret Walker SC and Ruth Shann said the majority erred in finding opportunity for Cardinal Pell to commit the offences. His lawyers argued in court documents there was insufficient time for the convicted paedophile to sexually abuse two choirboys.

“The majority concluded that if any of the evidence showed impossibility in one respect or another, then the jury must have had a doubt,” the court documents read. “The facts as found by them were the only time the room was empty for five-six minutes was a time when the complainant and the other boy, on the Crown case, were not in the room.”

In November, the High Court of Australia agreed to hear appeal arguments in a special Full Court sitting. The decision will consider both the application for leave and the case, which means there is a chance the court may not grant special leave application.

The 21-page appeal document will be the basis for Cardinal Pell’s final bid to overturn his historic child sexual abuse convictions. His lawyers noted they are seeking no more than four hours for the presentation of an oral argument before the court.

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UNITED STATES
The Wanderer

January 8, 2020

By Don Fier

(Editor’s Note: His Eminence Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke, Patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and Prefect Emeritus of the Apostolic Signatura, recently visited the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse, Wis. On December 9, His Eminence graciously granted The Wanderer a wide-ranging interview and offered many illuminating insights on matters that concern the Church in the present time. Below is part two of this two-part of interview; part one appeared in the issue of December 26, 2019.)

PART TWO

Q. Archbishop Rino Fisichella, the president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, is the editor of a soon-to-be-published volume entitled Catechism of the Catholic Church with Theological Commentary (its publication has been delayed for several months, but it appears it will now be available in early 2020). Can you tell us anything about this new catechism and what its authoritative scope will be?
A. This new issue of the Catechism will not have the authority of the text that was approved for promulgation in 1994, which will continue to be the authoritative text. Whatever commentary Archbishop Fisichella and other contributors offer in the new volume will have the worth of their fidelity to the unchanging doctrine of the Church. This is not some new Catechism of the Catholic Church and should not be viewed as such. I, for my part, urge people to study the officially released Catechism. Once again, I emphasize that whatever authority the new edition has will depend on the correctness of its fidelity to doctrine.

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HOLLYWOOD (CA)
Apple Insider

January 10, 2020

By Mikey Campbell

Oprah Winfrey on Friday said she is no longer attached to a high-profile documentary that explores sexual misconduct in the music industry, adding that the film will not debut on Apple TV+ as planned.

Winfrey in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter said she is stepping away from the as-yet-untitled documentary citing creative differences with filmmakers Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering. The film, which was set to debut at the Sundance Film Festival in January, follows a former music executive who accused industry titan Russell Simmons of rape.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Tribune-Review

January 12, 2020

By Deb Erdley

Nearly 18 months after a Pennsylvania grand jury report unmasked decades of allegations of clergy sexual abuse in Catholic parishes across the state and church leaders paid $84 million to abuse survivors, fallout from the report continues to mount in the courts.

State lawmakers began the process of amending the Pennsylvania Constitution to give abuse survivors with old claims a day in court even as the state Supreme Court weighs a lower court ruling that could set the stage for such claims even sooner.

Locally, court records show there are more than 20 such suits pending against the Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese as well as one in Westmoreland County.

In the latest legal development, Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Christine Ward last week ruled a class-action suit seeking to force the Pittsburgh Diocese to open its abuse archives to survivors may move forward in court.

The ruling comes weeks after a year-end report found seven of the state’s eight dioceses had paid $84 million to 564 abuse survivors who agreed not to sue the church.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Associated Press and WJAC

January 9, 2020

By Crispin Havener

[Note from BishopAccountability.org: See also the text of the Class Action Complaint.]

A Pennsylvania judge has ruled that parents of children in the Roman Catholic Church and survivors of sexual abuse by clergy members can move forward with a lawsuit against the Diocese of Pittsburgh alleging that it has not fulfilled its obligations under state law to report child sexual abusers.

The parents and survivors claim that the Pittsburgh diocese along with the other seven Pennsylvania dioceses have created a public nuisance by failing to report every allegation of child abuse and are asking that they be compelled to release information about all known allegations.

The ruling this week granted a preliminary dismissal to the state’s other dioceses because the lawsuit did not include specific allegations against them. However, Allegheny County Judge Christine A. Ward gave the attorneys for the parents and survivors 30 days to amend the lawsuit to include plaintiffs who believe they have standing before she will consider whether to dismiss the other dioceses as defendants.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
Associated Press via U.S. News and World Report

January 10, 2020

By Marc Levy

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro will report that he headed into his 2020 reelection year with more than $3 million in his campaign bank account, about 40% of what he spent to get elected in 2016 to his first four-year term.

In a preliminary report his campaign gave to The Associated Press, Shapiro, a Democrat, will report to the state that he raised $3.3 million in 2019 and had $3.1 million left over as of Jan. 1. He spent $523,000 last year, partially offset by the $365,000 that he had left over from 2018, according to the report.

His biggest individual cash donor at $250,000 was the Democratic Attorneys General Association, a national fundraising organization. Labor unions poured in more than $800,000, and Philadelphia-area developer Israel Roizman gave $75,000, according to the report. Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat who is close with Shapiro, chipped in $20,000.

Shapiro spent nearly $8 million in 2016 when he beat former state Sen. John Rafferty by nearly 3 percentage points in that year’s general election after winning a low-turnout, three-way Democratic primary.

This time around, no Democrat has stepped forward to challenge Shapiro in the primary.

*

Shapiro’s time as attorney general is perhaps best-known for his office’s groundbreaking grand jury report in 2018 on the cover-up of child sexual abuse in six of Pennsylvania’s Roman Catholic dioceses. The report spawned more than 20 similar investigations in other states and helped prompt the nation’s bishops to approve new steps to deal more strongly with sexual abuse by clergy.

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TUCSON (AZ)
Associated Press via KVOA

January 10, 2020

A Catholic priest in Phoenix has been indicted on charges of alleged sexual misconduct with two boys under 15, prosecutors for Arizona’s largest county said Thursday.

The Maricopa County Attorney’s office said a county grand jury Wednesday indicted John Dallas Spaulding, 74, on six counts of sexual misconduct with a minor and one count of molestation of a child.

Spaulding could not be located to comment on the charges. Defense attorney Greg Meell did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Prosecutors say the boys were sexually abused between 2003 and 2007 when Spaulding was a priest at St. Gabriel parish in Phoenix and St. Timothy parish in suburban Mesa.

The Catholic Diocese of Phoenix said Thursday it contacted law enforcement after receiving a report in June 2019 from a man who said Spaulding sexually abused him when he was a minor.

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PHOENIX (AZ)
Fox 10

January 10, 2020

By Danielle Miller

A former catholic priest in the valley was charged with child sex crimes dating back to the 2000s.

Father John Spaulding, 74, is accused of sexually abusing two young boys in the early 2000s, and Thursday, he was indicted by the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.

According to the Diocese of Phoenix, Spaulding is removed from the ministry and can’t publicly identify himself as a priest.

Mary O’Day works with an organization, SNAP, that advocates for victims and says his alleged abuse dates back several years. “We are very excited that they got a grand jury indictment. It means they found enough evidence and put enough pieces together,” she said.

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PHOENIX (AZ)
12 News NBC

January 10, 2020

By Bianca Buono

Spaulding was indicted Thursday, accused of sexually assaulting two boys under the age of 15 from 2003 to 2007.

A Valley father tried suing the Diocese of Phoenix back in 2012 claiming his son was molested by Father John Spaulding and died because of it.

Nearly a decade later, that priest has been indicted, accused of sexually assaulting two other boys under the age of 15.

In June of 2010, David Michael Pain Jr.’s body was found in a hotel parking lot in Mesa. He had been shot by his father, David Michael Pain Sr. in an act of self-defense.

Pain Jr. had broken into his father’s Scottsdale home while under the influence of meth.

In a lawsuit, Pain Sr. says his son’s behavior was out of control. He says he was suicidal and was abusing drugs. He says it’s because he was molested by his priest, Father John Spaulding.

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ABERDEEN (SCOTLAND)
Press and Journal

January 8, 2020

By Tom Peterkin

Children were subjected to horrendous levels of physical, emotional and sexual assault while at the Aberlour Orphanage in Moray, the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry has concluded.

One youngster considered suicide after being sexually abused at the institution and others were punched, kicked and beaten with implements including belts, slippers and a table tennis bat.

Children were humiliated for wetting the bed and were force fed after being sick on their plates.

Others were so traumatised by abuse at the hands of those in whose brutal care they found themselves they could barely function when they were present.

The inquiry yesterday published a harrowing account of the appalling treatment handed out at the Moray orphanage before it closed in 1967 and in smaller homes operated by the organisation elsewhere in Scotland.

A 150-page document outlined horrendous cruelty suffered by vulnerable children in the care of the Aberlour Child Care Trust and two other Scottish-based residential institutions – Quarriers in Renfrewshire and Barnardos – between 1921 and 1991.

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EDINBURGH (SCOTLAND)
Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry

January 7, 2020

Children were physically, emotionally and sexually abused in harsh regimes

The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry has today 7 January published its findings into residential institutions run by Quarriers, Aberlour Child Care Trust, and Barnardo’s (QAB) between 1921 and 1991. They conclude that children did suffer physical, emotional and sexual abuse.

During the case study, the Inquiry considered evidence about the nature and extent of any abuse of children in care at institutions run by the QAB providers at various locations across Scotland.

The Inquiry also examined any systems, policies and procedures in place at these institutions, and how these were applied.

Lady Smith, Chair of the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry, said: “Children were physically abused, emotionally abused, and sexually abused in harsh, rigid regimes. Many children did not find the warmth, care, and compassionate comfort they needed. Scant regard was paid to their dignity.

“The previous lives of the children who came into the care of the QAB providers had all been blighted in some way, whether by being abused in the family home, the death of one or more parent, parental illness, families who could not cope with caring for them, abandonment, or by other similar circumstances.

“The QAB providers could have made a real and positive difference to every child, but that did not happen. For many, further damage was inflicted upon them.”

The 43 day case study took place between 23 October 2018 and 12 February 2019, during which time the Inquiry heard evidence from 110 witnesses.

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HADDINGTON (SCOTLAND)
East Lothian Courier

January 9, 2020

By Cameron Ritchie

Children in homes in Pencaitland and North Berwick suffered physical, emotional and sexual abuse, the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry has concluded.

Barnardo’s had residential establishments across Scotland, including at Glasclune in North Berwick, which cared for 348 children, and Tyneholm in Pencaitland, which cared for 289 children.

The inquiry heard from more than 100 witnesses between October 2018 and February last year.

Witnesses spoke about physical abuse, force-feeding, chores, washing and bathing, and emotional and sexual abuse.

In a just-released 150-page report, statements from witnesses told of different instances of abuse at the two facilities.

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GLASGOW (SCOTLAND)
BBC Scotland

January 7, 2020

Children in homes run by Quarriers, Aberlour Child Care Trust, and Barnardo’s suffered physical, emotional and sexual abuse, the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry has concluded.

Lady Smith, who is chairing the inquiry, said children who were at the institutions between 1921 and 1991 lived in “harsh, rigid regimes”.

She also said “scant regard was paid to their dignity”.

Quarriers, Aberlour and Barnardo’s have apologised for the abuse suffered.

In her findings, Lady Smith said: “Many children did not find the warmth, care, and compassionate comfort they needed.

“The previous lives of the children who came into the care of the QAB (Quarriers, Aberlour and Barnardo’s) providers had all been blighted in some way, whether by being abused in the family home, the death of one or more parent, parental illness, families who could not cope with caring for them, abandonment, or by other similar circumstances.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
BBC

January 9, 2020

UK authorities are failing to use the powers they have to stop British sex offenders travelling abroad to abuse children, according to an inquiry.

Only a small fraction of orders made against offenders included a ban on foreign travel, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse found.

It cited the case of shamed rock star Gary Glitter, who abused children abroad after an earlier conviction.

The IICSA says the burden of proof for travel bans should be lowered.

The inquiry’s report found measures applied to people convicted of a sexual offence – such as a sexual harm prevention orders (SHPO) – have only had a minimal impact on restricting foreign travel.

Other offenders have been able to breach bans in an attempt to abuse outside of the UK.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA)

January 9, 2020

The Inquiry has published its report on the protection of children outside the UK, focusing on the legal measures designed to prevent British child sex abusers from offending overseas.

The report finds that offenders from England and Wales are travelling to commit extensive abuse of children across the world, including in eastern Asia and Africa.

It concludes that civil orders are not being used effectively to stop offenders visiting other countries where poverty and corruption have left children vulnerable.

High profile cases have highlighted these issues, including Paul Gadd (aka Gary Glitter) who went to Asia to abuse young girls after being convicted of possessing indecent images of children in the UK.

The Inquiry found that civil orders placed on sex offenders rarely include travel restrictions, meaning many known offenders can still go abroad to abuse children.

As of 31 March 2018, only around 0.2 percent of the 58,637 registered sex offenders in England and Wales had their foreign travel restricted. Very small numbers of civil orders restricting travel are made: only 11 Sexual Harm Prevention Orders to this effect were made in 2017/2018 and as at March 2019 there were only six Sexual Risk Orders in place with such a restriction.

The report finds that the disclosure and barring system, including the International Child Protection Certificate which overseas institutions can request when recruiting British nationals, is confusing, inconsistent and in need of reform.

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BOSTON (MA)
Associated Press via Tribune-Review

January 6, 2020

A Catholic priest has pleaded guilty to two counts of “unnatural acts” with a minor for accusations of sexual abuse dating back to the 1970s.

James Randall Gillette was sentenced to five years of probation in Suffolk Superior Court in Boston on Jan. 2, according to court records. More serious charges of child rape and indecent assault and battery on a minor were dismissed, but he still has to register as a sex offender.

Gillette is affiliated with Congregation of the Passion of Jesus Christ, a religious order commonly known as the Passionists. Dan Flynn, director of health and social service at Congregation of the Passion of Jesus Christ, said Gillette has not been defrocked but has been on restrictions that ban him from identifying as a priest or serving in church functions since the 1990s. Flynn said Gillette is currently living privately in Massachusetts. He declined to comment further.

Gillette was briefly in Pittsburgh. According to BishopAccountability.org, Gillette served in 1993 and 1994 at St. Paul of the Cross Monastery in the South Side. As a religious order, it is not part of the Diocese of Pittsburgh.

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PHOENIX (AZ)
ABC15

January 10, 2020

By Joe Enea

Details have emerged about another sexual misconduct complaint against a former Valley priest indicted this week on charges including sexual conduct with a minor.

This week, a Maricopa County Grand Jury charged Father John “Jack” Dallas Spaulding, 74, with six counts of sexual misconduct with a minor and one count of molestation of a child. He is accused of sexually abusing two boys, who were under the age of 15, between the years of 2003 and 2007.

During that time span, Spaulding was a Priest at St. Gabriel’s Catholic Church in Phoenix and St. Timothy’s in Mesa.

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.

PENDLETON (OR)
CNN WIRE

January 10, 2020

An Oregon woman whose husband is in prison for sexually abusing a child is suing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints for reporting his confession to state authorities.

In the lawsuit, Kristine Johnson said her husband confessed his sexual abuse to clergy as required by church rules. That confession was passed along to state authorities, forming the basis of their investigation, she says.

She filed the lawsuit in Marion County Circuit Court last week and seeks $9.5 million for loss of income, emotional distress and her family’s loss of her husband’s companionship. The lawsuit, which argues the church went against its own policy that considers confessions confidential, also seeks an additional $40,000 for his criminal defense.

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.

PHOENIX (AZ)
12News

January 9, 2020

By Mackenzie Concepcion

Jack Spaulding allegedly sexually abused boys at several parishes within the Phoenix Diocese over multiple decades.

A Maricopa County grand jury charged a former Catholic priest on Wednesday in connection with the sexual abuse of two boys under the age of 15 between 2003 and 2007. But the allegations against John “Jack” Dallas Spaulding, 74, go back for decades.

Spaulding was charged with six counts of sexual misconduct with a minor and one count of molestation of a child.

He was a priest at St. Gabriel’s Catholic Church in Phoenix and St. Timothy’s Catholic Church in Mesa when the alleged crimes took place.

But Spaulding is accused of sexually abusing multiple other boys in the years before that. The allegations stretch back to the 1970s — to when he was a young priest in Glendale.

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.

PITTSBURGH (PA)
KDKA

January 9, 2020

A Pennsylvania judge has ruled a lawsuit can move forward against the Catholic Diocese of
Pittsburgh.

The suit by parents and survivors of sexual abuse by clergy members claims the diocese became a public nuisance because they didn’t fulfill obligations under state law to report abusers.

It was originally filed in September of 2018 against each diocese in the state.

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)
Queens Daily Eagle

January 9, 2020

By David Brand

The state senator who sponsored legislation that allows victims of child sex abuse to sue their alleged predators, no matter when the abuse occured, has introduced a bill to extend the window for new lawsuits.

The Child Victims Act took effect in August 2019, eliminating statutes of limitations and enabling survivors to sue their alleged abusers during a one-year “lookback window” that expires Aug. 13, 2020. State Sen. Brad Hoylman sponsored the bill, which passed last legislative session after years of advocacy, and has introduced a new piece of legislation that would extend the “lookback window” for one more year.

“Other states, including California and New Jersey, have instituted multi-year revival windows for civil lawsuits because it can take decades for adult survivors of child sexual abuse to come forward,” Hoylman said in a statement. “To ensure the maximum number of survivors have time to seek justice and further protect the public, New York should extend the Child Victims Act’s revival window for another year before it expires in August.”

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

GUAM
RNZ

January 9, 2020

The Catholic Church on Guam is now facing more than 280 child sex abuse lawsuits, as attempts to settle them get underway.

In the latest lawsuit, a man alleges he was raped and molested by Father Louis Brouillard between 1977 and 1979.

Louis Brouillard admitted to being a paedophile before his death in 2018.

But several other Catholic Church figures, and the institution itself, are named in dozens of other lawsuits for both sex abuse and the subsequent cover-up.

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

VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

January 10, 2020

By Junno Arocho Esteves

A network of clergy abuse survivors has joined calls for an end to lawsuits against a journalist who investigated alleged sexual abuse and financial irregularities within a controversial Catholic group.

In an open letter released Jan. 9, the Ending Clergy Abuse organization, also known as ECA, expressed concern regarding five lawsuits against Peruvian journalist Paola Ugaz by several members of Sodalitium Christianae Vitae.

The lawsuits, the ECA said, are a form of “judicial harassment” meant to punish Ugaz for exposing alleged criminal activities within Sodalitium.

“It is true that we recognize the legitimate right of every person who feels that his or her honor was damaged to take legal action,” the group said. “However, it is unlawful for anyone to abuse this right. In the abusive case of legal actions against Paola Ugaz, it is clear the intention is not to seek justice but to silence her.”

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ROCHESTER (NY)
Spectrum News

January 8, 2020

Another lawsuit has been filed under the Child Victims Act, this time with new allegations of abuse against a local priest.

Several local churches and parishes are named, including St. Boniface in Rochester and St. Paul of the Cross Church in Honeoye Falls.

Attorney Mitchell Garabedian accuses the defendants of providing Father Otto Vogt with access to young parishioners.

The attorney’s client alleged the priest abused him on 60 occasions, starting when he was 10 years old in 1989.

“For me it’s about the emotional aspect,” said John Mchugh, the Rochester-area man who claims Vogt sexually abused him. “I want recognition that it happened. I want a guarantee that there will be systems in place so it never happens again.”

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.

BALTIMORE (MD)
HuffPost

January 9, 2020

By Carol Kuruvilla

After months of grooming and emotional manipulation, Sarah Jackson says the pastor of her Maryland Baptist church called her into his private study and kissed her. She was 17, trembling and numb, while he was 29, married with children. It was the first time she had ever been touched this way.

That was Jan. 3, 2007. The date was imprinted in Jackson’s mind as sexual abuse continued over the ensuing months. Jackson claims the pastor, Cameron Giovanelli, used it as a secret code to initiate intimate text conversations. Giovanelli would text “Jan,” and if she was alone, she would reply “3rd” ― signaling that the coast was clear for him to text freely.

Thirteen years later, Jackson has become a vocal advocate for survivors of sexual abuse. And on Jan. 3 this year, she was composing a victim impact statement to read out loud at a Baltimore County court at Giovanelli’s sentencing for sex offense and assault.

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
Bloomberg

January 8, 20020

By Josh Saul

Dioceses are aggressively moving and reclassifying holdings to shrink the value of their bankruptcy estates.

For most of the 20th century, the Catholic Church in the U.S. minimized the damage wrought by pedophile priests by covering up the abuse. When the bishop of the Davenport, Iowa, diocese was told in the mid-1950s that one of his priests was sexually abusing boys at a local YMCA, he kept it secret. “It is consoling to know that no general notoriety has arisen, and I pray none may result,” he wrote to a priest, capturing the strategy of the era.

Cover-ups worked when victims and their families could be intimidated or shamed into silence. But in the 1980s and ’90s, victims started filing civil lawsuits against the dioceses where the alleged incidents took place. Church leaders across the country kept these suits quiet by settling out of court and demanding nondisclosure agreements in return. Church leaders paid out about $750 million from the early ’80s through 2002, according to BishopAccountability.org, a nonprofit that tracks clergy sex abuse.

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.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Associated Press

January 9, 2020

By Claudia Lauer

A Pennsylvania judge has ruled that parents of children in the Roman Catholic Church and survivors of sexual abuse by clergy members can move forward with a lawsuit against the Diocese of Pittsburgh alleging that it has not fulfilled its obligations under state law to report child sexual abusers.

The parents and survivors claim that the Pittsburgh diocese along with the other seven Pennsylvania dioceses have created a public nuisance by failing to report every allegation of child abuse and are asking that they be compelled to release information about all known allegations. Lawyers for the parents and survivors said the order issued late Tuesday is the first time private citizens have been allowed to challenge the church to prove it is complying with a reporting law.

The order, issued by Allegheny County Judge Christine A. Ward, also sustained the objections from the state’s other seven dioceses to being parties in the lawsuit because there were no specific allegations against them. Ward gave the attorneys for the parents and survivors 30 days to amend the lawsuit before she will consider whether to dismiss the other dioceses as defendants.

The lawsuit filed in 2018, a month after Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro released the state’s landmark grand jury report, asked that the dioceses be compelled to publicly release all information they had given to the grand jury and to provide a mechanism so that alleged victims could review records to make sure their allegations exist in the church’s files, are accurate and have been sent to law enforcement

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.

BRIGHTON (MA)
MassLive

January 07, 2020

By Jackson Cote

Anthony Sgherza was 10 years old when he was first sexually abused by a priest. The 58-year-old said he is now seeing justice nearly a half century later.

James Randall Gillette, a former Catholic priest at St. Gabriel’s Parish in Brighton, was sentenced to five years of house arrest last week for sexually abusing two children in the 1970s, Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins’s office said in a statement.

One of the victims in the criminal case was Sgherza, who said he is still processing Gillette’s prosecution.

“I’m 48 hours removed from having remained silent for 42 years,” Sgherza told MassLive. “Right now, I’m just trying to feel my feet on the ground and breathe and be present with this plethora of emotions.”

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)
Catholic News Agency via National Catholic Register

January 8, 2020

By Ed Condon

Washington, D.C. — Law enforcement officials have conducted interviews with several senior figures at the Papal Foundation, a U.S. based charity which supports the charitable works of the Holy Father.

Officers from the FBI have spoken to at least three foundation staff members over last several months, with enquiries focused on the role of Theodore McCarrick, who served as a board member until his removal from the College of Cardinals in 2018, following charges of sexual abuse of minors. Last year, McCarrick was laicized following a Vatican investigation and his conviction by a canonical process.

“There were questions on how the foundation operates,” one person contacted by the FBI told CNA, though they declined to be named citing confidentiality concerns. “It seemed to be linked to [McCarrick’s] sexual abuse.”

As a cardinal and one of the most senior figures in the U.S. Catholic hierarchy, McCarrick was known to wield considerable influence across the Church, both in America and in Rome. He was also a prolific fundraiser, securing millions of dollars in donations for various causes, sitting on the board of several grant making bodies, and running his own private charitable fund.

Pressing questions remain unanswered about McCarrick’s ability to buy influence and insulate himself from rumors and allegations, and a Vatican report on McCarrick’s career, and how he was able to rise so high despite decades of apparent sexual misconduct and abuse, is due to be released in early 2020.

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.

EVERETT (WA)
The Herald

January 10, 2020

By Zachariah Bryan

Rev. Dennis Champagne served at St. Michael parish from 1979 to 1999. He’s accused of abusing a child.

Snohomish – The Archdiocese of Seattle announced Thursday it has reached a $1.7 million settlement involving a Snohomish priest accused of sexually abusing a child in the 1980s.

The Rev. Dennis Champagne served at St. Michael parish in Snohomish from 1979 to 1999. He was put on administrative leave in 2002, after the archdiocese received a complaint of sexual abuse.

In 2006, he was placed on “permanent prayer and penance,” a penalty by the Roman Catholic Church that removes a priest from public ministry, but stops short of removing his title.

“He is not permitted to administer sacraments, wear clerical attire, or present himself publicly as a priest,” a statement from the archdiocese says. “He is asked to pray for healing and to do penance on behalf of those who have been abused.”

Where or how the alleged abuse took place was not specified. By the time the abuse was reported, it was past the statute of limitations for a criminal investigation, according to the archdiocese. The statement from the archdiocese did not identify who would receive the settlement money.

The agreement was reached through mediation, archdiocese spokeswoman Helen McClenahan wrote in an email.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
Catholic Herald

January 9, 2020

By Fr Raymond de Souza

One of the biggest stories of 2019 took place exactly a year ago. The Diocese of Pittsburgh confirmed that Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington had, in fact, known about Theodore McCarrick’s sexual misconduct, despite his claims to the contrary.

The revelations on January 10, 2019 were a mortal blow to the credibility of prelates, precisely because of Cardinal Wuerl’s prestige and well-earned reputation for being careful and exact. That loss of credibility has poisoned the relationship between bishops and priests. It began long before Cardinal Wuerl, but that he would offer misleading statements so brazenly on such a high-profile case had far-ranging consequences.

Indeed, the Cardinal Wuerl affair was part of a larger story. It was one of the most important of 2019, namely that even the Vatican no longer gets the benefit of the doubt. To the contrary, media outlets are now quite serene about stating flatly that Church officials are not telling the truth.

Recall the facts. In the summer of 2018, after the first allegations against Theodore McCarrick were made public, Cardinal Wuerl was asked what he knew. He insisted that he had no knowledge of any accusations of sexual abuse of minors by McCarrick. But he went further, insisting that he had never even heard “rumours” about McCarrick’s misconduct with seminarians. He compounded his statements to the media by gathering his priests to tell them the same thing.

Yet in 2004, when still Bishop of Pittsburgh, he had heard complaints against McCarrick from a former priest, who alleged abuse by McCarrick when he was a seminarian. Wuerl, nothing if not punctilious about protocols, reported the matter to the apostolic nuncio, the Diocese of Pittsburgh confirmed. In 2006, he was appointed McCarrick’s successor in Washington.

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.

PHOENIX (AZ)
12 News NBC

January 9, 2020

By Mackenzie Concepcion

Jack Spaulding allegedly sexually abused boys at several parishes within the Phoenix Diocese over multiple decades.

A Maricopa County grand jury charged a former Catholic priest on Wednesday in connection with the sexual abuse of two boys under the age of 15 between 2003 and 2007.

John “Jack” Dallas Spaulding, 74, was charged with six counts of sexual misconduct with a minor and one count of molestation of a child.

Spaulding was a priest at St. Gabriel’s Catholic Church in Phoenix and St. Timothy’s Catholic Church in Mesa when the alleged crimes took place.

But Spaulding is accused of sexually abusing multiple other boys in the years before that. The allegations stretch back to the 1970s.

The Diocese of Phoenix said in a statement Thursday that Spaulding was placed on leave from St. Timothy Parish in June 2011 after an investigation found that an allegation of sexual misconduct against him was credible.

Spaulding was prohibited from publicly identifying himself as a priest when he was removed from the ministry.

Since he was suspended, several more similar accusations against Spaulding surfaced.

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.

PHOENIX (AZ)
Arizona Republic

January 9, 2020

By Lauren Castle

A former Catholic priest was indicted by a Maricopa County grand jury Thursday on charges of sexually abusing two boys under age 15 more than a dozen years ago.

John “Jack” Dallas Spaulding faces six counts of sexual misconduct with a minor and one count of molestation of a child between the years of 2003 and 2007.

Spaulding, 74, was removed from ministry from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix in 2011. While serving in the diocese, he was assigned to Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Glendale, Christ the King in Mesa, Santa Teresita in El Mirage, St. Louis the King in Glendale, St. Raphael in Glendale, St. Helen in Glendale, St. Maria Goretti in Scottsdale, St. Thomas the Apostle in Phoenix, St. Gabriel the Archangel in Cave Creek and St. Timothy in Mesa.

He was a priest at St. Gabriel’s and at St. Timothy’s when the alleged acts took place, according to a statement from the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.

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.

HELENA (MT)
Associated Press via Huffington Post

January 8, 2020

The Montana Supreme Court on Wednesday reversed a $35 million judgment against the Jehovah’s Witnesses for not reporting a girl’s sexual abuse to authorities.

Montana law requires officials, including clergy, to report child abuse to state authorities when there is reasonable cause for suspicion. However, the state’s high court said in its 7-0 decision that the Jehovah’s Witnesses fall under an exemption to that law in this case.

“Clergy are not required to report known or suspected child abuse if the knowledge results from a congregation member’s confidential communication or confession and if the person making the statement does not consent to disclosure,” Justice Beth Baker wrote in the opinion.

The ruling overturns a 2018 verdict awarding compensatory and punitive damages to the woman who was abused as a child in the mid-2000s by a member of the Thompson Falls Jehovah’s Witness congregation. The woman had accused the church’s national organization of ordering Montana clergy members not to report her abuse to authorities.

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.

PHOENIX (AZ)
ABC 15

January 9, 2020

By Mike Pelton

A former Valley priest has been indicted on charges including sexual conduct with a minor.

This week, a Maricopa County Grand Jury charged Father John “Jack” Dallas Spaulding, 74, with six counts of sexual misconduct with a minor and one count of molestation of a child. He is accused of sexually abusing two boys, who were under the age of 15, between the years of 2003 and 2007.

During that timespan, Spaulding was a Priest at St. Gabriel’s Catholic Church in Phoenix and St. Timothy’s in Mesa.

Back in 2011, Spaulding was suspended after allegations of sexual misconduct with a minor were deemed credible, according to the Diocese of Phoenix.

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.

WASHINGTON (DC)
NPR

January 9, 2020

By Merrit Kennedy

The Montana Supreme Court has reversed a $35 million judgment against Jehovah’s Witnesses for failing to report child sexual abuse.

A lower court had found that the church illegally failed to report a child sexual abuser to authorities, which allowed him to continue sexually abusing another child.

The unanimous decision from seven state Supreme Court justices found that religious authorities are not always obligated to report child sexual abuse to authorities due to an exemption in Montana state law.

“This is a very disappointing decision, particularly at this time in our society when religious and other institutions are covering up the sexual abuse of child victims,” Neil Smith, a lawyer for the women who were abused as children, said in a statement.

Lawyers for the Jehovah’s Witnesses did not immediately respond to NPR’s request for comment. “No child should ever be subjected to such a debased crime,” lawyer Joel Taylor said in a statement to The Associated Press. “Tragically, it happens, and when it does Jehovah’s Witnesses follow the law. This is what the Montana Supreme Court has established.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses have come under scrutiny in other states and countries for the handling of child sexual abuse claims. For example, a 2016 inquiry by a royal commission in Australia found that the Jehovah’s Witnesses organization there had recorded allegations of child sexual abuse against 1,006 members — but the investigators found no evidence that it revealed any of the reports to authorities.

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.

GLASGOW (SCOTLAND)
BBC Scotland

January 10, 2020

A former Catholic monk who is facing child abuse claims, has been extradited from Australia to Scotland, BBC Scotland understands.

The 83-year-old Australian priest, Denis “Chrysostom” Alexander, taught at Fort Augustus Abbey school in the Highlands.

He has been at the centre of an extradition battle since 2015.

His arrival in Scotland comes seven years after BBC Scotland first revealed claims against him.

Fr Alexander, who had claimed he was too ill to face trial, is expected to appear at Inverness Sheriff Court later to answer multiple charges of child sex abuse. He denies the allegations.

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WAYNESVILLE (NC)
The Mountaineer

January 9, 2020

By Kyle Perrotti

Following the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charlotte’s list of clergy that have been “credibly accused” of child sexual abuse since the diocese’s creation in 1972, District Attorney Ashley Welch’s office has released a statement noting that two of the members worked in her prosecutorial district, which includes Haywood County, back in the 1970s and 1980.

The statement highlights that those who have allegations of abuse by members of the clergy can still come forward. That’s because North Carolina has no statute of limitations on sexual offenses committed against children. In fact, the statement specifically mentions the recent conviction of a former Episcopal priest who admitted to abusing children during the 1980s.

The statement notes Adelbert “Del” Holmes was “credibly accused” of committing child molestation against three minors in Murphy, in 1976 while he was a clergy member.

“The Catholic church became aware of the allegations against Holmes in 1988. Holmes was removed from the ministry in 1991. He died in 2013,” the statement reads. “Holmes was a clergy member at the St. William Catholic Church in Murphy and the Immaculate Conception Catholic Mission in Hayesville. There is no recorded documentation that the Catholic church notified local law enforcement nor the District Attorney’s Office of these allegations when the church was notified in 1988. … Holmes died in 2013, and his death prevents the District Attorney’s Office from being able to prosecute him for crimes he is alleged to have committed in 1976.”

In addition, the statement mentions Al Behm, who was credibly accused of offenses in Kentucky during the 1970s. Behm eventually served as a campus minister at Western Carolina University, although he was not accused of committing any crimes while at the school. He left the ministry in 1993.

The state encourages anyone who has been a victim of child sexual abuse who wishes to file a report to contact their local law enforcement agency and recalls the successful prosecution of former Waynesville Episcopal Priest Howard White for crimes committed over two decades ago.

“If you have been a victim of child sexual abuse, we are committed to seeking justice for you,” Welch said in the statement. “We are able to prosecute individuals when there is probable cause even decades after the crime.”

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FERNDALE (MI)
Church Militant

January 10, 2020

Hello everyone and welcome to this exclusive, breaking news report from Church Militant — news about the potential whereabouts of Theodore McCarrick.

Here’s what we know: After having been defrocked, he took up residence in the St. Fidelis Friary in Victoria, Kansas for roughly the past 17 months.

Approximately a week ago he left the friary — this has been confirmed — and his whereabouts have become the subject of much speculation in the Catholic world.

Church Militant has learned from very reliable sources that his apparent destination was Jacksonville, Florida in the diocese of St. Augustine.

Within the territorial boundary of the diocese is a residence within a gated community — a house where the notorious predator priest Fr. Marcial Maciel died in 2008 — and that house was at the time owned by the Legionaries of Christ, the community Maciel founded decades earlier, and many of whose members were victims of his homosexual predation.

That residence is not directly affiliated with the diocese of St. Augustine, but is geographically within the diocese.

Our sources tell us that they believe McCarrick may be in that house, somewhere in the Jacksonville area. Church Militant is looking and searching for that house.

The timing of all of this is raising a lot of speculation because the Vatican investigation into the McCarrick scandal is due to be released soon, and Church Militant has learned further from sources that “soon” may be as early as this coming weekend.

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.

ALLENTOWN (PA)
Associated Press and Morning Call

January 8, 2020

By Claudia Lauer

Philadelphia – A Pennsylvania judge has ruled that parents of children in the Roman Catholic Church and survivors of sexual abuse by clergy members can move forward with a lawsuit against the Diocese of Pittsburgh alleging that it has not fulfilled its obligations under state law to report child sexual abusers.

The parents and survivors claim that the Pittsburgh Diocese along with the other seven Pennsylvania dioceses created a public nuisance by failing to report every allegation of child abuse and are asking that they be compelled to release information about all known allegations. Lawyers for the parents and survivors said the order issued late Tuesday is the first time private citizens have been allowed to challenge the church to prove it is complying with a reporting law.

The order, issued by Allegheny County Judge Christine A. Ward, also sustained the objections from the state’s other seven dioceses to being parties in the lawsuit because there were no specific allegations against them. Ward gave the attorneys for the parents and survivors 30 days to amend the lawsuit before she will consider whether to dismiss the other dioceses as defendants.

The lawsuit filed in 2018, a month after Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro released the state’s landmark grand jury report, asked that the dioceses be compelled to publicly release all information they had given to the grand jury and to provide a mechanism so that alleged victims could review records to make sure their allegations exist in the church’s files, are accurate and have been sent to law enforcement.

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)
Catholic News Agency

January 9, 2020

Pittsburgh, Pa. – A judge in Pennsylvania is allowing a lawsuit to move forward arguing that the Diocese of Pittsburgh has created a public nuisance by failing to properly report and disclose information on sexual abuse of children.

The lawsuit is filed by both abuse victims and parents of children in the Catholic Church. Their attorney, Benjamin Sweet, said the ruling is unprecedented in supporting a suit filed by individuals who are not alleging abuse against themselves or a family member.

“This is the first time a cause of action has been brought by a non-survivor member of the public and the first time a court has said that is a viable legal strategy, that a private citizen can compel the church to prove it’s complying with the mandatory reporting law,” he said, according to the Associated Press.

He noted that none of the plaintiffs or attorneys are seeking monetary awards or damages in the suit, but said that they hope to push for additional transparency in the Church.

The plaintiffs are asking that the diocese be required to publicly release all of the information given to the Pennsylvania Grand Jury for its 2018 report on sex abuse in the Church in Pennsylvania. They also want a way for people making claims of clerical abuse to ensure that their allegations have been properly filed with the Church and secular authorities, the AP reported.

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.

ROCHESTER (NY)
WHAM 13 ABC

January 8, 2020

By Jane Flasch

Honeoye Falls, N.Y. – A priest in the Rochester Diocese was bounced from church to church in an alleged cover-up of sexual abuse, says a new lawsuit filed under the Child Victims Act.

It is the first lawsuit to name Rev. Otto Vogt. It alleges the abuse happened 30 years ago at St. Paul of the Cross Church in Honeoye Falls.

John McHugh says he was 10-years-old in 1989 when he was singled out by Vogt.

“He ingratiated himself into the family, became friends with the family, went to the family home,” said attorney Mitchell Garabedian of Boston. He has filed hundreds of suits on behalf of victims of clergy abuse.

In this one, he contends Vogt sexually assaulted and abused the child in the office and the rectory over a four-year period. The abuse is alleged to have occurred on “over 60 occasions.”

Vogt would later retire from that parish. Yet from 1951 to 1955, he was moved around eight different churches in five different counties. Garabedian said Vogt was assigned to some of the parishes more than once, and at others he served only about a year.

CVA lawsuit claims Vogt was moved between eight churches in five counties to cover up alleged child abuse.

The lawsuit accuses church leaders of concealing information that Vogt “posed a danger” to children.

“They got him out of Dodge. They just shipped him to the next church,” Garabedian said. “Where were the bishops? Why weren’t they protecting innocent children?”

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DENVER (CO)
Crux

January 9, 2020

By Nirmala Carvalho

Mumbai, India – A 28-year-old nun who left a convent in India claiming mental and sexual harassment, is now facing threatening calls, according to her family.

The nun had been living at St. Joseph’s convent in Kerala, the same state where another nun has accused a bishop of sexually assaulting her on several occasions.

The woman has since left her vows, and is planning on getting married.

Kerala is considered the heart of Christianity in India, and Christians make up nearly 20 percent of the population; in India as a whole, Christians make up only around 2.3 percent of the population.

The woman left St Joseph’s – in Pachalam – in May 2019, after 11 years of service.

On Jan. 4, 28 protesters, led by the Kerala Catholic Church Reformation Movement (KCCRM) held protest at the convent, which belongs to the Assisi Sisters of Mary Immaculate Congregation.

They demanded that the convent provide compensation for the services given by the former nun during the past 11 years.

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VATICAN CITY
Holy See

January 9, 2020

By Pope Francis

http://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2020/january/documents/papa-francesco_20200109_corpo-diplomatico.html

Your Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

A new year is opening before us; like the cry of a newborn baby, it fills us with joy and hope. I would like that word, “hope”, which is an essential virtue for Christians, to inspire our way of approaching the times that lie ahead.

Certainly, hope has to be realistic. It demands acknowledging the many troubling issues confronting our world and the challenges lurking on the horizon. It requires that problems be called by their name and the courage be found to resolve them. It urges us to keep in mind that our human family is scarred and wounded by a succession of increasingly destructive wars that especially affect the poor and those most vulnerable.[1] Sadly, the new year does not seem to be marked by encouraging signs, as much as by heightened tensions and acts of violence.

*

Tragically however, as we know, not a few adults, including different members of the clergy, have been responsible for grave crimes against the dignity of young people, children and teenagers, violating their innocence and privacy. These are crimes that offend God, cause physical, psychological and spiritual damage to their victims, and damage the life of whole communities.[4] Following my meeting in the Vatican last February with representatives of the world’s episcopates, the Holy See has renewed its commitment to bring to light abuses already committed and to ensure the protection of minors through a wide range of norms for dealing with such cases in accordance with canon law and in cooperation with civil authorities on the local and international level.

Given the gravity of the harm involved, it becomes all the more urgent for adults not to abdicate their proper educational responsibilities, but to carry out those responsibilities with greater zeal, in order to guide young people to spiritual, human and social maturity.

For this reason, I have planned a worldwide event to take place on 14 May next with the theme: Reinventing the Global Compact on Education. This gathering is meant to “rekindle our commitment to and with young people, renewing our passion for a more open and inclusive education, including patient listening, constructive dialogue and better mutual understanding. Never before has there been such need to unite our efforts in a broad educational alliance, to form mature individuals capable of overcoming division and antagonism, and to restore the fabric of relationships for the sake of a more fraternal humanity”.[5]

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)
Crux

January 9, 2020

By John L. Allen Jr.

Rome – From the beginning, two things have been true about the clerical sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church.

The first is that the Church failed, and failed miserably, in its duty to protect children and vulnerable adults entrusted to its care. Unearthing those failures, and doing justice for them, is a long-term challenge that’s far from over.

The second is that despite those failures, the Catholic Church also carries generations of wisdom about raising children successfully, about parenting and education and formation, but it’s been difficult to get any of that across in a context in which you put the words “children” and “Church” into a sentence. For most people the third word that automatically comes to mind is “abuse.”

On Thursday, Pope Francis may just have unveiled a strategy for addressing that imbalance, getting the Catholic Church back on offense after decades of being on the defensive.

*

There in the middle of it all, however, was a lengthy treatment of the abuse scandals.

“These are crimes that offend God, cause physical, psychological and spiritual damage to their victims, and damage the life of whole communities,” the pope said.

Francis referred to the extraordinary summit he called in February 2019 with the presidents of all the bishops’ conferences of the world, designed to identify “best practices” in the fight against clerical abuse and to promote a uniform global culture of prevention, detection and prosecution of abuse. Among other things, it was the February summit that prompted Francis to abolish the requirement of pontifical secrecy in abuse cases in December.

What came next is the decisive part.

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DENVER (CO)
Catholic News Agency

January 8, 2020

By JD Flynn

Vatican City – The news that Theodore McCarrick recently moved from the Kansas friary where he had been living has fueled speculation that a report from the Vatican’s internal investigation on McCarrick will soon be released.

But while the report may be completed in Rome, its release may not be imminent, and some U.S. bishops may be quietly hoping for further delays.

The report is the fruit of an internal Vatican investigation into the career of McCarrick, who was a cardinal and the archbishop of two major American sees before he was found canonically guilty of serial sexual abuse and laicized.

In October 2018, just months after sexual abuse allegations against McCarrick first emerged, the Vatican said that Pope Francis had commissioned a study of the Vatican archival files on McCarrick, “in order to ascertain all the relevant facts, to place them in their historical context and to evaluate them objectively.”

Since the study was announced, American Catholics have called for the release of its findings. In recent months, the report’s release has become highly anticipated.

In November, Cardinal Sean O’Malley told the U.S. bishops’ conference that the Vatican intended to publish the report “soon, if not before Christmas, soon in the new year.”

O’Malley said that he had seen a “hefty document,” which was being translated into Italian for the benefit of Pope Francis, before its imminent release.

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TORONTO (ONTARIO, CANADA)
LifeSiteNews

January 7, 2020

By Dorothy Cummings McLean

A report on how McCarrick was able to become a senior churchman―despite allegations of sexual predation on boys and young men, including seminarians and priests―will likely be released soon.

Victoria, Kansas – Ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who has become the face of clerical sexual misconduct in America, has moved out of his Kansas refuge.

Catholic News Agency (CNA) reported today that former cardinal and defrocked priest McCarrick has left the Capuchin community in which he resided since the summer of 2018. CNA stated also that senior Church officials told them that McCarrick had recently moved to a “residential community of priests who have been removed from ministry.” CNA’s sources told the agency that the residence is “rather secluded and away from public attention.” Its location has not been disclosed to the public.

McCarrick is said to be paying for his own rent and board and that he voluntarily took up residence in his new home. The reason given for the disgraced ex-prelate’s move is the pressure his stay at the St. Fidelis Friary was putting on his Capuchin hosts. This was expected to intensify when the report of the Vatican’s investigation into how McCarrick was able to become a senior churchman―despite allegations concerning his sexual predation on boys and young men, including seminarians and priests―is released.

The friary is next to an elementary school.

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PROVO (UT)
Daily Herald

January 8, 2020

By Connor Richards

https://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/utah-lawmaker-aims-to-remove-clergy-exemption-for-reporting-child/article_4a4de860-7ddb-55bb-9d79-77d742911d5b.html

Every Utah adult is required under state law to report confessions of child abuse to law enforcement — unless that adult is a religious leader who learned about the abuse during a confidential confessional.

A state lawmaker wants everyone, regardless of their religious title, to be legally obligated to report child abuse to authorities. So she sponsored a bill that would amend the law to require just that.

Rep. Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, introduced House Bill 90 in the 2020 legislative session. The bill would delete “provisions that exempt, under certain circumstances, a member of the clergy from being required to report child abuse and neglect,” according to its text.

“For me, this is really about protecting children,” Romero said, who proposed the bill after years of discussion with other legislators and child abuse victim advocates. “Children are some of our most vulnerable members of society” and, as a lawmaker, Romero wants vulnerable groups to feel safe.

Utah Code mandates that anyone who “has reason to believe that a child has been subjected to abuse or neglect … shall immediately report the alleged abuse or neglect to the nearest peace office, law enforcement agency, or office of the division.”

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

January 8, 2020

By Peter Rowe

San Diego – Decades after his death, the Rev. Efrén Neri is accused of leading a sordid secret life, raping a 7-year-old girl and fathering a child out of wedlock in the 1950s.

At that time of both incidents, he was assigned to Christ the King parish in Rialto, in San Bernardino County, then part of the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego.

Outside the diocesan offices Wednesday morning, “Jane Doe” accused Neri of raping her in 1958. Wearing a heavy coat, hat and sunglasses to hide her identity, the 68-year-old woman told reporters that she had spent decades beset by depression, anxiety and a deep sense of shame. After contacting the diocese last summer, she received a letter from Mary Acosta, the diocese’s victim assistance coordinator.

Acosta offered “deep sympathy,” 12 counseling sessions and information on the diocese’s Independent Compensation Program.

Doe rejected the offer of mediation — “They can’t be trusted,” she said of the church — and last November sued the dioceses of San Diego and San Bernardino in San Bernardino Superior Court.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post

January 9, 2020

By Antonia Noori Farzan

In recent years, prominent religious institutions have been dogged with accusations that they persistently covered up sexual abuse and failed to report heinous crimes.

But a new lawsuit makes the opposite argument, claiming that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints violated a child molester’s confidentiality by turning his confession over to the authorities.

The $9.54 million suit was filed Friday by Kristine Johnson, whose husband, Timothy Samuel Johnson, is serving a 15-year prison sentence for sexually abusing a child. As the Salem Statesman Journal first reported, the lawsuit alleges that Johnson became aware of her husband’s misdeeds in 2016, but chose not to involve the police. Instead, the couple went to the leaders of their church ward in Stayton, Ore., so that the matter could be handled through Mormon doctrine.

“The Mormon Church is, for lack of a better word, a unique institution,” Bill Brandt, the attorney representing Kristine Johnson, told The Washington Post on Wednesday night. “They firmly believe that they can deal with their parishioners better than law enforcement.”

Timothy Johnson, now 47, went before a council of lay clergy and confessed to the abuse so that he could begin the process of working toward absolution through “fairly intensive” spiritual counseling, Brandt said. But one member of the panel notified the authorities. In 2017, Johnson was arrested on charges of first-degree sodomy, sexual abuse and unlawful sexual penetration for sexually abusing a child under the age of 16. He pleaded guilty to four counts of second-degree sexual abuse the following year.

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.

AXTELL (NE)
NTV News

January 8, 2020

By Steve White

Ord NE – A Catholic priest may learn Thursday if he’s going to prison, as a jury decides if he’s guilty of first degree sexual assault of a woman who insists she was trying to document his missionary work.

Rev. John Kakkuzhiyil’s case went to the jury at 2:30 Wednesday afternoon, after attorneys made their final arguments.

”This is not okay. This is not okay. This is not okay,” prosecutor George Welch recounted the woman’s words, as she said she found the priest on top of her.

A freelance writer who went to a priest’s home on Thanksgiving night 2018 to do an interview says she awoke in his bed to find him sexually assaulting her.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

January 9, 2020

By Haidee Eugenio Gilbert

Some 40 years after he said a priest raped and molested him several times, a former Barrigada altar boy is now suing the entities that he thinks enabled and then covered up the abuses.

To this day, he continues to have nightmares of being sexually abused by the priest, the lawsuit says.

Father Louis Brouillard allegedly raped and molested him in or about 1977 to 1979, according to the $5 million lawsuit filed in local court Wednesday.

The plaintiff, identified in court documents only with the initials D.E.F. to protect his privacy, said Brouillard sexually abused him at least twice a week for about three to four months.

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SAN DIEGO (CA)
KGTV

January 8, 2020

By: Marie Coronel

A 68-year-old woman has filed a lawsuit claiming she was sexually abused decades ago by a priest in Rialto, the latest in a wave of litigation targeting the Diocese of San Diego.

The woman, identified only as Jane Doe, claims she was abused by Father Efren Neri while he served at Christ the King, a San Bernardino County parish that was then part of the Diocese of San Diego.

“For many years, I just lived with it,” the woman said in an interview. “A lot of shame, anxiety all my life.”

Father Neri died in 1982, according to the Diocese. In a statement, the Diocese said there are no reports Neri was ever accused of sexual misconduct with a minor. “None in San Diego, none in San Bernardino and none in Fresno,” the statement said.

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BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

January 7, 2020

By Jay Tokasz and Mike McAndrew

Two former seminarians were charged Monday with harassing an employee of the Buffalo Diocese, a sign of the ongoing tension between diocese officials and those protesting over the clergy sexual abuse crisis.

Matthew Bojanowski, 38, of West Seneca and Stephen Parisi, 46, of Williamsville were arraigned before Buffalo City Court Judge Kevin J. Keane on one count of second-degree harassment, a violation, and released on their own recognizance, Erie County District Attorney John Flynn announced.

*

The two former seminarians said they left Christ the King Seminary after becoming disenchanted with how the diocese handles complaints of clerical abuse and harassment. Bojanowski accused the Rev. Jeffrey Nowak of violating the Catholic church’s seal of confession, sexual harassment and attempted blackmail, and has alleged that former Bishop Richard J. Malone ignored the complaints for months. Nowak, who was put on leave in August, has denied the allegations through his attorney. The Erie County District Attorney’s Office launched an investigation into the allegations against Nowak in September, and a spokeswoman said Tuesday the probe found that no crimes had been committed.

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SACRAMENTO (CA)
Sacramento News & Review

January 9, 2020

By Raheem F. Hosseini

Standing in a hotel near the Oakland waterfront, James Brogan didn’t quite know where to begin, so he did something most sexual assault survivors don’t do—he gave his name.

“It’s wrecked my entire life, every aspect of my life,” he said, not looking past the lectern behind which he stood. “Where do you go?”

Because of a new California law, Brogan and countless other survivors of rapists masquerading as holy men can go to court.

Brogan is a plaintiff in one of a dozen new lawsuits against eight California Catholic dioceses that a law firm filed in concert with a new state law. Jeff Anderson & Associates, a national law firm that represents survivors of clergy sexual abuse, announced the lawsuits in a series of wrenching press conferences designed to spread awareness of Assembly Bill 218, also known as the California Child Victims Act.

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AGOURA HILLS (CA)
Thousand Oaks Acorn

Jan. 9, 2019

Concerning the front-page story which ran in the Dec. 19 Thousand Oaks Acorn, a highly respected local Catholic priest is listed as an “accused area priest” in a box on Page 8 of said Acorn.

The Acorn failed to clarify this priest’s standing in the archdiocese, and the priest’s inclusion in these articles is a gross injustice to his reputation that needs to be rectified.

Fr. Michael Roebert was investigated and exonerated of allegations made by a single accuser many years ago.

A careful study of the website cited in the Acorn as the source for the list, bishop-accountability.org, has a notation from Sept. 16, 2004, stating: “As a result of the investigation and considering the matter in accord with Archdiocesan policy and the requirements of the Charter for Protection of Children and Young People, the Archdiocese concludes the allegations against Fr. Roebert are unfounded.”

Since none of this information is available in your article, please clarify this for your readers. Guilty priests need to be held accountable, and good priests who are falsely accused need to be given the respect and support they deserve.

Bonnie Bates
Newbury Park

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RAMONA (CA)
San Diego Union Tribune / Ramona Sentinel

January 9, 2020

Multiple lawsuits were filed Thursday against the Catholic Diocese of San Diego and numerous local parishes on behalf of alleged victims of childhood sexual abuse, with recently enacted legislation allowing such legal action even if the alleged abuse occurred outside of the statute of limitations.

The suits allege abuse in the 1960s and 70s by now-deceased priests who operated throughout San Diego County, including in Ramona. The victims were previously unable to pursue legal action against the Diocese, but recently enacted AB 218 expands the statute of limitations and opened a three-year window starting this year for victims to file suit.

Attorney Irwin Zalkin said that each time abuse was discovered, priests were simply moved to other parishes where they could continue their behavior, with free access to new victims.

According to Zalkin, the Diocese routinely dealt with the problem of “bad priests” by sending them to desert communities, “where they thought they could hide, where they thought that the people there – mostly Hispanic – would not speak up, and they would be out of the limelight, so to speak.”

Zalkin’s office filed six lawsuits Thursday, Jan. 2, on behalf of 20 victims, but he said around 60 additional lawsuits are still being prepared and will be filed within the next 60 to 90 days.

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Get Religion blog

Jan. 8, 2019

By Terry Mattingly

So, let’s say that there is a major piece of news that breaks concerning the life and times of the man previously known as Cardinal Theodore “Uncle Ted” McCarrick.

This is something that happens quite frequently, even though the disgraced former cardinal moved into the wide open spaces of West Kansas, living as a guest in a Capuchin friary.

Ah, but is he still there?

That leads us to this simple, but important, headline at the Catholic News Agency: “Theodore McCarrick has moved from Kansas friary.” As I write this, I am not seeing follow-up coverage of this development at any mainstream media websites. Here’s some of the key CNA material:

A spokesman for the Capuchin Franciscan Province of St. Conrad told CNA Jan. 7 that McCarrick left St. Fidelis Friary in Victoria, Kansas, just days ago. He has moved to a residential community of priests who have been removed from ministry, senior Church officials told CNA.

The former cardinal made the decision to leave the Kansas friary himself over the Christmas period, sources say, adding that his continued presence in the friary had become a strain on the Franciscan community that was hosting him.

The story notes that McCarrick’s new home remains unknown or a secret and that he is paying his own rent. So why move now?

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ARLINGTON (VA)
Catholic Herald

Jan. 8, 2020

By Zoey Maraist

Angela Boggs was sitting in a small group when her fellow parishioner uttered those words. They were at a listening session at St. John Neumann Church in Reston in the immediate aftermath of the 2018 clergy sexual abuse crisis, and it would’ve been easy to feel dirty after hearing about the terrible crimes committed. But this woman said she was disgusted by her own complicity as a member of the Catholic Church.

“That really touched me,” said Boggs. “(Victim-survivors) have been harmed terribly by our church and we’re accountable. We may not be legally accountable but we are accountable to God for that. We have a responsibility to support people who’ve been damaged by our church.”

Boggs and her fellow parishioners felt angry, hurt and discouraged, but they decided they weren’t powerless. A month later, they gathered to form the Action Committee, an acronym for advocacy, change, transparency, inclusion and ongoing reform regarding clergy sexual abuse.

Of the many facets of the crisis, they decided to focus on the victim-survivors. They read as much as they could and invited speakers to educate them, such as Frank Moncher, the victims assistance coordinator for the diocese, and the victims assistance coordinator of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales, the religious order that staffs St. John Neumann.

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PORTLAND (OR)
Associated Press

Jan. 8, 2020

An Oregon woman is suing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints for $9.54 million after her husband’s confession to church leaders led to his arrest, conviction and imprisonment on child sexual abuse charges.

The lawsuit, filed in Marion County Circuit Court, involves a Turner man convicted of abuse after he confessed to Stayton clergy that he had repeated sexual contact with a minor.

Church officials did not respond to the Statesman Journal for comment.

The man’s confession was meant to be confidential, said the family’s attorney Bill Brandt.

Timothy Samuel Johnson and his wife Kristine Johnson were members of a Stayton, Oregon, Mormon ward when his wife learned he had “engaged in inappropriate conduct” with a minor known to him, according to the lawsuit.

After learning of the sexual abuse, the couple followed church doctrine by having Johnson confess and repent his sins before church clergy and the official church court.

Brandt also said church leaders represented “that whatever the scope of Mr. Johnson’s evil transgressions, the Church and its clergy will spiritually counsel Mr. Johnson to bring peace within his life and family.”

Johnson confessed to local leaders and members of the church court that he had sexually abused a minor.

But what leaders failed to advise Johnson of is that if he confessed to the abuse, they would report his actions to local law enforcement, according to the lawsuit.

Johnson, 47, was arrested in 2017 on charges of first-degree sodomy, sexual abuse and unlawful sexual penetration for sexually abusing a girl under the age of 16.

He later pleaded guilty to four counts of second-degree sexual abuse and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

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RUMSON (NJ)
Patch

Jan. 8, 2020

By Tom Davis

A former student of a Catholic school in New Jersey says she was sexually abused by a nun while she was in first grade, according to a lawsuit filed in state Superior Court.

Holy Cross School in Rumson, Holy Cross Parish and the Diocese of Trenton were named as defendants.

The woman, a Cliffside Park resident, she was abused by Sister Mary Nazareen while she was a teacher at Holy Cross School during the 1960s, according to the lawsuit.

The student was enrolled at Holy Cross from kindergarten until seventh grade, during which Nazareen used her position as a teacher to gain her confidence, according to the lawsuit.

Nazareen ultimately engaged in improper sexual sexual contact with the student while she was in first grade.

The teacher engaged in improper sex acts, sexual assault, sexual contact and sexual abuse of the student, causing the woman to experience severe and permanent personal and emotional injuries, the lawsuit says.

The school, parish and diocese failed to exercise care in supervising the sister in her role and failed to take any action to investigate, the lawsuit states.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
Catholic Herald

Jan. 8, 2020

By Christopher Altieri

Bishop Edward Scharfenberger of Albany, New York, is in a tough spot. Appointed apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Buffalo after the resignation of Bishop Richard Malone, Bishop Scharfenberger is the public face of the Church in a place riddled with scandal and in dire need of urgent repair. But he apparently has little power to effect reform and little information with which to work.

Bishop Malone resigned after 18 months of intense public scrutiny of his leadership, which produced significant evidence of serious mismanagement and attracted the attention of state and federal prosecutors.

“I didn’t know quite what to expect,” Bishop Scharfenberger told Charlie Specht of ABC local affiliate WKBW in a wide-ranging interview that aired earlier this week, “because I really hadn’t been briefed at all.”

The bishop continued: “All I knew is what I read in the papers, to tell you the truth.”

He would have read enough, then, to know that there is a great deal amiss in the diocese, but not always enough to take informed and prudent steps toward remedy.

Observers – the faithful and clergy of Buffalo and beyond, as well as reporters – were surprised to hear Bishop Scharfenberger say that he had not received a copy of the report, which Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn prepared after conducting a fact-finding mission to the diocese late last year.

“I was not given that,” Bishop Scharfenberger told WKBW, “I don’t know what it contains.

“I was not given any documentation or any marching orders that ‘you’re here to clean things up,’ or anything. I was just told to be the administrator of the diocese.”

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TORONTO {CANADA)
Anglican Journal

Jan. 8, 2020

By Joelle Kidd

The Rev. Gordon William Dominey, pictured in 1980 (left) and 2016 (right), was awaiting trial for multiple sexual abuse charges at the time of his death. Photo: Edmonton Police Service
An Anglican priest awaiting trial for multiple sexual abuse charges died Nov. 7.

The Rev. Gordon William Dominey, a priest in the diocese of New Westminster, was alleged to have committed sexual abuses against boys who were inmates at the Edmonton correctional facility where Dominey worked as a prison chaplain in the 1980s. He was charged with 18 sexual assault charges and nine gross indecency charges.

According to the CBC, the Dominey’s two trials, originally scheduled to take place in 2020, were to be adjourned because he was too ill to travel.

Defense lawyer Kent Teskey told the CBC that Dominey was diagnosed with cancer in 2017 and had been undergoing chemotherapy since that time.

A lawsuit has been filed in Court of Queen’s Bench that also names the province of Alberta and the diocese of Edmonton. The group behind the suit is seeking to have the case certified as a class-action lawsuit.

Dominey worked at the Edmonton Youth Development Centre, a youth jail, from 1985-1989.

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DALLAS (TX)
D Magazine

Jan. 2020

By Kathy Wise

Michelle Simpson Tuegel was a key player in the largest settlement ever reached in a sexual abuse case involving an American university. She is also a world-champion water skier and a former capital defense attorney, having represented clients on death row. Those three things are all related, more so than you might imagine.

The eldest daughter of a trial attorney father and dental hygienist mother, Tuegel grew up in Bridgeport, Texas, a small town north of Fort Worth with a sizable lake where she spent her childhood on skis. When I met the 36-year-old attorney in the law office she opened last January, in an exposed brick loft building in Deep Ellum, she was fresh out of a four-hour ESPN interview with some of her gymnast clients. Wearing a stylish floral-print dress and heels, her fingernails painted black, she still exuded athleticism. It was easy to imagine that even at a young age she was taller than average and had that fearlessness that comes from physical confidence, thriving on speed and the challenge of staying upright on a fluid surface.

She made the junior U.S. water ski team and went pro at 15, competing around the world on the national team for six years. It’s still not an Olympic sport, but if it were, it’s a good bet she would have medaled. As it was, the U.S. Olympic Committee paid for her training and she won the collegiate national championship and the World Cup championship as an undergrad at Rollins College, in Winter Park, Florida.

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NEW YORK (NY)
New York Times

January 7, 2020

By Norimitsu Onishi

A French author wrote for years about his predilection for children and continued to win acclaim. Now one of them has spoken out.

Paris – The French writer Gabriel Matzneff never hid the fact that he engaged in sex with girls and boys in their early teens or even younger. He wrote countless books detailing his insatiable pursuits and appeared on television boasting about them. “Under 16 Years Old,” was the title of an early book that left no ambiguity.

Still, he never spent a day in jail for his actions or suffered any repercussion. Instead, he won acclaim again and again. Much of France’s literary and journalism elite celebrated him and his work for decades. Now 83, Mr. Matzneff was awarded a major literary prize in 2013 and, just two months ago, one of France’s most prestigious publishing houses published his latest work.

But the publication, last Thursday, of an account by one of his victims, Vanessa Springora, has suddenly fueled an intense debate in France over its historically lax attitude toward sex with minors. It has also shone a particularly harsh light on a period during which some of France’s leading literary figures and newspapers — names as big as Foucault, Sartre, Libération and Le Monde — aggressively promoted the practice as a form of human liberation, or at least defended it.

A day after the publication of Ms. Springora’s book, “Le Consentement,” or “Consent,” which sold out quickly at many Paris bookstores, the fallout continued. Prosecutors in Paris announced that after “analyzing” its contents, they had opened an investigation into the case and would also look for other victims in and out of France.

In France, it is illegal for an adult to have sex with a minor under the age of 15. But it is not automatically considered rape, unlike in countries with statutory rape laws where people who are underage are considered incapable of giving consent.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
Catholic Herald from Catholic News Agency

January 8, 2020

Bishop Edward Scharfenberger, the apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Buffalo, has said he was not given the results of a Vatican-ordered investigation into the scandal-hit diocese.

“I was not given that,” Bishop Edward Scharfenberger told local news station WKBW in an interview on Monday, regarding the Vatican’s report of the investigation. “I don’t know what it contains,” he said.

Scharfenberger also told WKBW that he was not given a clear mandate by the Vatican when he was appointed as apostolic administrator of the Buffalo diocese in December after the resignation of Bishop Richard Malone.

“I was not sent with a particular mission,” Scharfenberger said of his temporary appointment to Buffalo, emphasizing that Malone resigned and was not “forced out.”

“I was not given any documentation or any marching orders that ‘you’re here to clean things up,’ or anything. I was just told to be the administrator of the diocese.”

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BROKEN BOW (NE)
Sandhills Express and KSNB

January 7, 2020

Ord NE – The trial for a priest accused of sexually assaulting an Ord woman last year is underway.

Fr. John Kakkuzhiyil, former pastor in Ord, is charged with first-degree sexual assault.

14 people, including two alternates, were chosen Monday to serve on the jury for the trial. The 14 include three men and 11 women.

Testimony began late Monday after jury selection.

Kakkuzhiyil was arrested in early January 2019 after a month-long investigation by the state patrol into a claim by an Ord woman who said the priest raped her at his home in late November. Court records indicate that the woman also claims Kakkuzhiyil gave her a couple of drinks beforehand, that she blacked out, and when she awoke she was naked and the priest was performing a sex act.

Kakkuzhiyil pled not guilty in Valley County District Court in Ord on February 18, 2019.

If found guilty on the felony sexual assault charge, Kakkuzhiyil could get up to 50 years in prison.

Up until late 2018, Kakkuzhiyil was a parish priest in Ord and Burwell.

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AXTELL (NE)
NTV News

January 7, 2020

Ord NE – A woman who said she was sexually assaulted by a Catholic priest took the stand Tuesday in Day 2 of the anticipated four-day trial in Ord.

Rev. John Kakkuzhiyil is facing one count of forcible sexual assault in Valley County District Court from a November 2018 incident, and he has maintained a not guilty plea. Kakkuzhiyil was placed on leave in December 2018.

The woman claimed she visited him at his home on professional business, saying she was interviewing him for a project she was working on. She told the court that Kakkuzhiyil asked her to wear a red dress to his home for the interview and asked her to pack a bag.

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AXTELL (NE)
NTV News

January 6, 2020

Ord NE – A woman confronts the man many trust as a spiritual adviser, a man she accuses of sexual assault.

Now a Catholic priest defends himself as he faces a felony trial in Valley County.

Father John Kakkuzhiyil is accused of violating the trust others placed in him, while his attorney paints a picture of two adults who made a mistake that became regret.

“I had no intention of taking advantage of you my dear,” Kakkuzhiyil is heard on a recording made by Sheriff Casey Hurlburt, as he listened to his accuser call the priests.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Bloomberg Businessweek

January 8, 2020

By Josh Saul

In the past 15 years, the church has shielded more than $2 billion in assets by aggressively moving and reclassifying them before declaring bankruptcy.

For most of the 20th century, the Catholic Church in the U.S. minimized the damage wrought by pedophile priests by covering up the abuse. When the bishop of the Davenport, Iowa, diocese was told in the mid-1950s that one of his priests was sexually abusing boys at a local YMCA, he kept it secret. “It is consoling to know that no general notoriety has arisen, and I pray none may result,” he wrote to a priest, capturing the strategy of the era.

Cover-ups worked when victims and their families could be intimidated or shamed into silence. But in the 1980s and ’90s, victims started filing civil lawsuits against the dioceses where the alleged incidents took place. Church leaders across the country kept these suits quiet by settling out of court and demanding nondisclosure agreements in return. Church leaders paid out about $750 million from the early ’80s through 2002, according to BishopAccountability.org, a nonprofit that tracks clergy sex abuse.

The veil of secrecy on these transactions was pierced when the Boston Globe published its investigations into church sex abuse in 2002, sparking public outrage at how clergy had protected their own. From 1950 to 2002, 4,392 priests were accused of abuse, according to a study by John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

January 8, 2020

By Haidee Eugenio Gilbert

With the exception of the Archdiocese of Agana, defendants in Guam’s approximately 280 clergy sex abuse cases have either settled with abuse claimants or they are actively negotiating settlements.

While each sex abuse lawsuit has more than one defendant, almost all have the archdiocese in common as a defendant.

The archdiocese filed for bankruptcy a year ago and has not reached any settlement yet.

The Boy Scouts of America and Capuchin Franciscans have settled with many of the claimants, based on reports of settlement status filed in federal court by attorneys representing defendants and plaintiffs.

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MANASSAS (VA)
CatholicCulture.org

January 7, 2020

By Phil Lawler

As a minor public official in the little town where we live, I am required each January to re-read a summary of conflict-of-interest laws in Massachusetts, and sign a statement indicating that I understand them. So every year I am officially reminded that I cannot participate in a zoning decision involving property that abuts my own, and I cannot accept employment with a firm that needs my board’s approval for a development project. Above all—first and foremost—I am reminded that I cannot solicit or accept gifts because of my official position.

Maybe you have great confidence in my integrity. Maybe you believe that I could render a fair and impartial judgment, even after having been handed an envelope full of cash. But some people are suspicious, and the government of Massachusetts drives home the message that the appearance of impropriety is itself impropriety. So I don’t accept cash gifts (not that any have been offered).

But in recent weeks we have learned about Catholic bishops who lavished gifts on Church officials whose decisions could influence their ecclesiastical careers. Former cardinal Ted McCarrick gave $600,000 to ranking prelates. Bishop Michael Bransfield spread around another $350,000. That’s nearly $1 million in gifts—cash gifts—provided by two prelates who are now living in disgrace, to other prelates who remain in good standing.

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DENVER (CO)
Crux

January 7, 2020

By John L. Allen Jr.

Rome – Normally when one looks ahead at a pope’s new year, it’s either things the pope is expected to do over the coming 12 months that loom largest – foreign trips, for instance, and bishops’ appointments – or things he’s likely to say, such as milestone speeches or sensational media interviews.

There will be all of that for Pope Francis in 2020, but at least for the early part of the year, it seems more likely the biggest papal bombshells will instead come in things the pope is expected to publish, especially two keenly awaited texts: Francis’s conclusions to last October’s Synod of Bishops on the Amazon, and the Vatican’s report on the case of former cardinal and former priest Theodore McCarrick.

Also on that list probably should be Praedicate Evangelium, Francis’s long-awaited overhaul of the Roman Curia, though it’s probably not destined to be the thunderclap the other two texts will represent. Many of its main conclusions have already been made public, including the pope’s plan to make evangelization and mission the engine driving the Vatican’s train.

Both the synod conclusions and the McCarrick report could be out within the first third of the year, and both are likely to fuel debate and controversy for some time to come.

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SALT LAKE CITY (UT)
Salt Lake City Tribune

January 7, 2020

By Kathy Stephenson
·
Utah clergy would be required to report all allegations of child abuse — even those gathered in a religious confessional — under a bill proposed for the 2020 legislative session.

HB90, sponsored by Rep. Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, would, if passed, remove the exemption that clergy now have in certain circumstances for reporting abuse.

Romero said many survivors of sexual abuse — as well as relatives of those who have been victimized — have contacted her to say they support such a change to state law.

“Their perpetrators went to confession, confided in a religious leader, and nothing ever happened,” she said. “The purpose is to get rid of the exemption and hold religious leaders to the same standard as teachers and doctors.”

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CHARDON (OH)
WKYC TV

Jan. 8, 2020

A Strongsville priest who is already facing charges stemming from a child pornography investigation in Cuyahoga County was arraigned on new charges in Geauga County Wednesday morning.

Rev. Bob McWilliams, 39, faces charges of pandering obscenities on accusations he solicited photos from a minor. He was transferred to the Geauga County Jail after posting bail for similar charges in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court last week.

Prosecutors on Wednesday requested a $150,000 bond, which Judge Terri Stupica ordered.

A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Jan. 15.

The investigation started with allegations the priest sent an inappropriate text to a teenager at St. Helen’s Church in Newbury, where McWilliams led the church’s youth program.

In the text exchange, McWilliams posed online as a teen girl and asked a teen boy to send him photos, authorities said.

Once Geauga County officials learned of the texts, they obtained a search warrant for electronics belonging to McWilliams, including a laptop, iPad and cell phone.

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SAN GWANN (MALTA)
Malta Today

Jan. 7, 2020

By Matthew Vella

Malta’s archbishop Charles Scicluna has hailed the abolition of the pontifical secret in cases of sexual violence and clerical abuse of minors, as an important step in working for justice for victims.

Scicluna, whom Pope Francis appointed as the Holy See’s prosecutor on clerical sex abuse cases, said the abolition will mean certain jurisdictions cannot be excused from not collaborating with authorities on such cases.

The abolition of the pontifical secret applies on the reporting, trials and decisions on cases of violence and sexual acts committed under threat or abuse of authority, sexual abuse of minors or vulnerable persons, cases of child pornography, as well as the lack of reporting and the cover-up of the abusers on the part of bishops and superiors general of religious institutes.

“Certain jurisdiction would have easily quoted the pontifical secret because that was the state of the law, in order to say that they could not, and that they were not, authorised to share information with either state authorities or the victim,” Scicluna told Vatican News.

“Now that impediment, we might call it that way, has been lifted, and the pontifical secret is no more an excuse.

“However, the law goes further… information is of the essence if we really want to work for justice. And so, the freedom of information to statutory authorities and to victims is something that is being facilitated by this new law.”

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CHARDON (OH)
WJW FOX 8

Jan. 7, 2020

A local priest accused on child porn charges was moved to a new location.

Father Robert McWilliams is now locked up in the Geauga County Jail.

Court documents said the priest posed as a teen girl to solicit nude photos from a teen boy. The incident happened in May 2017 and was reported in Munson Township.

McWilliams was arrested last month at Saint Joseph Parish in Strongsville. He faces charges in Cuyahoga County, including illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material. He pleaded not guilty.

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SALT LAKE CITY (UT)
Fox 13 News

Jan. 7, 2020

By Ben Winslow

A bill made public ahead of the 2020 legislative session would remove the “priest-penitent” privilege when it comes to reporting abuse cases.

House Bill 90, sponsored by Rep. Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, would demand that a priest, a bishop or any other clergy who receives a disclosure of abuse turn around and report that to law enforcement to investigate. If that clergy member doesn’t, they could face a misdemeanor charge. It also allows for the possibility of civil litigation by a victim, she told FOX 13.

“We’re not attacking their religion. We’re looking to protect children from being harmed,” Rep. Romero said Tuesday.

FOX 13 first reported on Rep. Romero’s proposed legislation back in July. It has garnered the support of the Survivor’s Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP). But now that the bill has been made public, Rep. Romero said she is expecting that some faith groups will weigh in.

“We are still reviewing the legislation and its constitutionality,” said Jean Hill, the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake’s Office of Life, Justice and Peace.

A spokesman for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints told FOX 13 it would need to “review the bill and its implications before taking a position.”

Rep. Romero said her legislation is trying to combat cover-ups involving clergy who either do not report abuse, or move abusers around.

“We’ve seen this in the Catholic church. We’ve seen this in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and we’ve seen this in a variety of religions,” she said. “People get shuffled around, they get moved around.”

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DENVER (CO)
Catholic News Agency

Jan 7, 2020

By JD Flynn and Ed Condon

The disgraced former cardinal Theodore McCarrick has moved from the Kansas friary where he had been living since 2018.

A spokesman for the Capuchin Franciscan Province of St. Conrad told CNA Jan. 7 that McCarrick left St. Fidelis Friary in Victoria, Kansas, just days ago.

He has moved to a residential community of priests who have been removed from ministry, senior Church officials told CNA.

The former cardinal made the decision to leave the Kansas friary himself over the Christmas period, sources say, adding that his continued presence in the friary had become a strain on the Franciscan community that was hosting him.

McCarrick moved to the friary shortly after he was accused in 2018 of sexually abusing minors, seminarians, and young priests.

McCarrick’s new location remains undisclosed. Sources told CNA that the former cardinal arranged his new accommodation for himself, adding that the residence to which he has moved is “rather secluded and away from public attention.”

“McCarrick remains a guest at his new accommodation, but he is funding his own stay and is there by his own choice – no one can make him stay if he does not wish to,” a Church official told CNA.

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NEW YORK (NY)
The New York Times

Published January 5, 2020; Updated Jan. 7, 2020

By Megan Twohey, Jodi Kantor and Jan Ransom

[Follow The Times’s coverage of Day 1 and Day 2 of the Weinstein trial.]

Since the Harvey Weinstein story broke more than two years ago, everything about it has been outsize: the scope of the allegations of sexual harassment and assault, stretching back decades; the number of his accusers, who total more than 80; and the global scale of the reckoning their stories have inspired.

Now, as the Hollywood producer’s criminal trial begins Monday in Manhattan, the outcome already is anticipated as a verdict on much more than one man’s alleged wrongdoing.

Many supporters of the #MeToo movement that Mr. Weinstein’s accusers helped ignite are looking to see whether the legal system can deliver justice for victims. Lawyers for Mr. Weinstein, who lost his company, his reputation and his marriage, are arguing that the case is proof that #MeToo has gone too far. At the courthouse, media from around the world, demonstrators outside and spectators in packed galleries will be watching.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Yahoo Celebrity

January 6, 2020

By Taryn Ryder

Harvey Weinstein’s rape and sexual assault trial began Monday in New York City where the disgraced producer faces a possibility of life in prison. There was no shortage of drama both outside and inside the courtroom — and in Los Angeles. It was also announced Monday he will face sexual assault and rape charges stemming from encounters with two women in 2013.

Weinstein, who was once one of the most powerful men in Hollywood, hobbled into a Manhattan court on a walker passing by a group of accusers — including actresses Rose McGowan and Rosanna Arquette — who call themselves the “Silence Breakers.” They said in a release they were “representing the more than 90 women who bravely came forward to report Harvey Weinstein’s sexual misconduct.”

“He doesn’t realize what he’s done at all and I don’t think he ever will,” McGowan told the crowd on Monday. “He has something sick in his head like many serial rapists.”

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BUFFALO (NY)
WIVB

January 2, 2020

By Chris Horvatits

A new Child Victims Act lawsuit filed Thursday details the lengths the accuser says Church officials took to cover up clergy abuse in the Diocese of Buffalo. It specifically blames Donald Trautman, who served as vicar general and auxiliary bishop in Buffalo before becoming the Bishop of Erie in 1990.

“In the lawsuit, we state that Bishop Trautman covered this abuse up,” said Paul Barr, who represents the alleged victim.

The abuse in question is alleged to have been committed in the early-to-mid 1980s, while Trautman was still in Buffalo, by Rev. Gerald Smyczynski. Smyczynski’s name appears on the list of clergy who are credibly accused of abuse against a minor in the Diocese of Buffalo. He died in 1999.

The lawsuit alleges, “Bishop Trautman expedited an annulment for a member of the plaintiff’s family with the hope of ensuring their silence about the abuses perpetrated by Smyczynski.”

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

January 6, 2020

By Danny McDonald

A Catholic priest who served in a Brighton parish decades ago has pleaded guilty to sexually abusing two children during the 1970s in Suffolk County, according to prosecutors.

James Randall Gillette, 77, pleaded guilty during a Jan. 2 appearance in Suffolk Superior Court to two counts of unnatural and lascivious acts on a child, according to the Suffolk district attorney’s office.

Gillette was sentenced to five years under house arrest, during which time he must wear a GPS monitoring bracelet. Additionally, he must register as a sex offender, undergo sex offender treatment as ordered by the probation department, stay away and have no contact with the survivors or any witnesses in the case, and have no one-on-one contact with any child under the age of 18 unless the minor’s parents are present, according to the district attorney’s office.

He did not receive any prison time.

Messages left with Gillette’s attorneys were not immediately returned Monday evening. It was not immediately clear where he was living or whether he had been defrocked by the Roman Catholic Church.

According to attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who has represented one of the case’s two victims in a separate civil case against Gillette, the priest was ordained in 1971 and was assigned to St. Michael’s in Union City, N.J. between 1972 and 1974. He was then assigned to St. Gabriel’s in Brighton from 1975 to 1978. After that, he had assignments in Mexico City, Honduras, and Pittsburgh. He also lived in New York.

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TUSCALOOSA (AL)
Capstone Report

Jan. 6, 2020

The very future of the Southern Baptist Convention could be in the balance as a lawsuit threatens to undermine church autonomy—a key feature of Southern Baptist polity. Making the situation even more dire, one Southern Baptist entity, the North American Mission Board (NAMB) has in a separate case advanced a legal theory that undermines claims of church autonomy. Now lawyers for sex abuse victims are set to attack this vulnerable area.

Hundreds of Virginia Southern Baptist Churches were subpoenaed in a $82 million sex abuse lawsuit. There are at least 2,000 pages of subpoenas to SBC churches, according to Will McRaney. McRaney revealed the startling information during a Facebook live broadcast Monday evening. McRaney’s sourced included a subpoena recipient and a search of courthouse records. McRaney said he was provided copies of a couple of the subpoenas. The lawsuit was
filed over the summer now includes the local church Immanuel Baptist Church, the Petersburg Baptist Association—the local association, the Baptist Convention of Virginia and the Southern Baptist Convention. The lawsuit was filed in Chesterfield County.

According to Baptist News Global, the lawsuit “involves Jeffrey Dale Clark, a former youth group leader at Immanuel Baptist Church in Colonial Heights, Virginia, serving a 25-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to three counts of aggravated sexual battery and two counts of indecent acts with child by a custodian in 2016. Eight individuals with ages now ranging from 14 to 24 allege they were sexually molested by Clark while he worked as an assistant and leader of the youth group between 2008 and 2015.”

Lawyers expanded the case to assert the Southern Baptist Convention’s failure to do anything about sex abuse among its congregations made it liable for the abuse of children.

McRaney is embroiled in his own lawsuit against the alleged illegal activity of the North American Mission. McRaney claims NAMB and its director Kevin Ezell forced his termination. The evidence made public supports McRaney’s claims, but so far that evidence hasn’t been considered in court. His lawsuit was dismissed and is now on appeal before the federal appellate court.

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FRESNO (CA)
ABC 30 KFSN

January 6, 2020

By Corin Hoggard

A new state law has paved the way for a lawsuit against the Catholic Diocese of Fresno.

It claims a priest active in Reedley right now sexually abused at least two girls decades ago.

One of the women came forward last June about alleged abuse by Monsignor John Esquivel in 1983. The other one is still anonymous, but she says he abused her in 1971. And a new law means there’s no statute of limitations right now.

The memories feel fresh for Sylvia Gomez Ray.

“It was inappropriate touching, groping, massages that were inappropriate that led to groping my butt,” she said.

Six months ago, she accused Esquivel of sexual abuse in 1983 when as a 17-year-old, she worked as a secretary at St. Joseph’s in Bakersfield.

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BAKERSFIELD (CA)
KBAK / KBFX

January 2, 2020

By Emma Goss

The Diocese of Fresno and St. Philip the Apostle church in Bakersfield are being sued. They’re accused of covering up sexual misconduct by a pastor for decades.

Fr. Anthony Moreno, who served as priest at St. Philip the Apostle from July 1979 to December 1980, is being accused of molesting multiple children, according to a law suit filed in Fresno court this week.

“As a 12 year old, I was confused, and I thought I had done something wrong,” Toni Moreland, a Fresno woman who filed the law suit, said at a press conference Thursday morning. She claims she was molested by Moreno while he was serving as priest in Bakersfield between 1979 and 1980. Her father reported the sexual abuse to the church soon after Moreland claims it happened. By December of 1980 he was moved to serve at Church of the Sacred Heart, in Fresno.

“I think that was the most troubling of all things, was to realize that they just moved Anthony to another parish. I thought that was what just happened to me.” Moreland said.

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MERCED (CA)
Merced Sun-Star

January 2, 2020

By Yesenia Amaro

A child sexual abuse lawsuit was filed against the Catholic Diocese of Fresno on Thursday, accusing another one of its priests.

Father Anthony Moreno joined the growing list of priests in the Diocese of Fresno who have been accused of sexual misconduct.

The lawsuit was filed under the state’s new Child Victims Act, also knows as Assembly Bill 218, which lawmakers passed last year. St. Philip the Apostle in Bakersfield is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
San Francisco Chronicle and Bay City News Service

January 1, 2020

An expected wave of lawsuits made possible by a new state law continued Tuesday as attorneys announced new filings in Oakland and San Francisco by victims of alleged childhood sexual abuse by priests.

The lawsuit are permitted by California’s Assembly Bill 218 of 2019, which opened a three-year window for childhood sexual abuse survivors to file lawsuits regardless of when the molestation occurred.

The statute also allows a tripling of financial damages compensation in cases where an effort to hide evidence of child sexual abuse is proved.

On Tuesday, two men in their 50s sued the Roman Catholic Diocese of Oakland in Alameda County Superior Court, alleging they were sexually abused by priests at Our Lady of the Rosary in Union City.

James Brogan, 56, who grew up in Hayward, alleges he was sexually assaulted by Father George Crespin beginning when he was 11 years old.

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BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

January 6, 2020

By Dan Herbeck

Five months ago, Niagara Falls attorney Paul K. Barr had a tough decision to make as he prepared to record a radio advertisement inviting clients to file lawsuits against molesters under the state’s Child Victims Act.

Barr kept asking himself if the commercial should mention that he, too, was allegedly molested by a priest in 1980.

He decided that it should.

“I was 16, a budding athlete. Father Mike took notice,” Barr’s commercial begins.

The ad goes on to tell the story of how the Rev. Michael R. Freeman allegedly molested him at a Niagara Falls church. “I was a victim,” the ad continues. “I know what it’s like and I will take your call.”

Now that the commercial has been running for three months in Buffalo, New York City and in several other states, Barr said he is at peace with his decision to let radio listeners in on one of the most traumatic incidents of his life.

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FARGO (ND)
Legal Examiner – O’Keefe, O’Brien, Lyson, Foss Law

January 6, 2020

By Timothy O’Keefe

Nearly six months after publicly calling for the release of a list of known offending priests in the diocese, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fargo released the names of 31 leaders in the church connected to the sexual abuse of minors. The Bismarck Diocese also released a list of 22 clergy members who likely sexually abused a minor on January 2, 2020.

Notably, the list only includes those involving “substantiated allegations” of minor sexual abuse. The Fargo Diocese has explained its definition of substantiated allegation as “one for which sufficient corroborating evidence establishes reasonable grounds to believe that the alleged abuse in fact occurred.”
The lists include only the clergy member’s name, year of ordination, year of death, and basic status in the church. Twenty-two of the 31 clergy are deceased from the Fargo Diocese’s list, while 20 of the 22 on the Bismarck Diocese’s list are deceased. The Bismarck Diocese also notes there have been no substantiated allegations of sexual abuse of a minor in the dioceses since 1989.

As noted in the New York Times by Tim Lennon, president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, without additional details like “work history, photographs, when the allegations against each clergy member were received and what actions were taken in response,” the release of the list comes off as a “public relations ploy to appease the public.” The Fargo list does not provide where any timeline of when the church learned of the substantiated allegation or took action against these individuals. Further, neither the Fargo nor Bismarck lists provide information about where the living clergy are currently residing.

Media outlets and other organizations tracking public accusations of clergy abuse have also noted some names appear to be missing from the dioceses’ lists. BishopAccountability.org is an organization which maintains a database of publicly accused priests based upon dioceses’ published lists, publicly-filed court records, and news articles. Between the dioceses’ lists and the database, there are at least five clergy members who have allegedly abused individuals but are not on the lists publicly released by the dioceses yesterday. For example, as of August 2019, at least two priests not named on the dioceses’ lists were under investigation for sexual abuse.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

January 7, 2020

By Jamie Manson

Of all of the religious instruction classes that my mother took as a girl, one lesson in particular always seemed to stay with her: the day that the nun explained the church’s teaching on divorce.

A girl in the class asked the sister whether it would be okay to leave her husband if he hit her.

“No,” the nun replied. “Even if he beats you, you have to stay with him.”

When she got home from class, my mother told my grandparents about the lesson. Horrified, they vehemently disagreed with the nun and told her she would have to divorce any man who put his hands on her.

My mother has recounted this story many times throughout my life, and what strikes me most about it is that she, in fact, did stay with a man who hit her. He was my stepfather, and I was 4 years old when I witnessed him punch her. I was never the same again.

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DENVER (CO)
Crux

January 7, 2020

By Christopher White

New York – A major gathering of ecclesial heavy hitters focusing on the future of the priesthood concluded with a call for a reimagining of priestly formation – one that incorporates the laity and women in the process and better reflects the racial and cultural diversity within the U.S. Church.

The two-day symposium at Boston College took place January 2-3 and was organized around “To Serve the People of God: Renewing the Conversation on Priesthood and Ministry,” a document first published in December 2018, which was the result of a series of seminars sponsored by the college’s Department of Theology and School of Theology and Ministry.

*
Both Hanlon Rubio and Groome noted that the abuse crisis was “always in the room,” but the aim of the conference was forward thinking and meant to challenge all parties present.

Citing Pope Francis and his condemnation of clericalism, Groome said that the conference sought to consider what causes it, but more importantly, how to avoid it going forward.

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