ABUSE TRACKER

WALHALLA (ND)
Associated Press

December 19, 2019

By Wong Maye-E and Juliet Linderman

[This article with photographs is part of the series Sundays After.]

The nine Charbonneau sisters grew up straddling two worlds, outsiders in both.

In summer, they lived as white children, the light-skinned daughters of a father born of French lineage in Olga, North Dakota. During the school year, they were shipped off to the St. Paul’s Indian Mission School on the Yankton Reservation in South Dakota, where their Chippewa blood earned them free room and board.

“They called us half-breeds,” said Barbara Dahlen, 67. But they had each other and their bond carried them through those boarding school years filled with brutal beatings, even if the best they could do was lie on their bellies at night in the dark, reaching under locked doors to touch fingers.

They stayed connected as they scattered across the heartland and had children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. But after the death of their mother, new memories began to surface. One by one, the sexual abuse each suffered at the hands of priests and nuns came into focus.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Associated Press

December 19, 2019

By Wong Maye-E and Juliet Linderman

December 19, 2019

They came from different towns and cities, from different ethnic and economic backgrounds. They were A-students and outcasts, people of all ages. From their churches they sought love or guidance, a better education or a place that felt like home.

They were believers_before their trust was tested, fractured or blown apart entirely by sexual abuse at the hands of a priest.

For the faithful, the Catholic Church isn’t only a place of worship but the center of social and cultural life, its doctrines and customs woven into the fabric of families and communities. And its priests and deacons are more than holy men but confidantes, teachers, father figures with unparalleled power. To many, they’re the closest thing to God on earth.

For those abused by priests, the violations are spiritual, the damage inflicted not just on the body and mind, but a system of beliefs.

“Their faith becomes a victim of the abuse,” said Marianne Sipe, a psychiatrist and former nun who works with clergy abuse survivors.

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TOKYO (JAPAN)
Associated Press via National Catholic Reporter

Dec 19, 2019

By Yuri Kageyama, The Associated Press Accountability

During Pope Francis’ recent visit to Japan, Harumi Suzuki stood where his motorcade passed by holding a sign that read: “I am a survivor.”

Katsumi Takenaka stood at another spot, on another day, holding up his banner that read, “Catholic child sexual abuse in Japan, too.”

The two are among a handful of people who have gone public as survivors of Catholic clergy sexual abuse in Japan, where values of conformity and harmony have resulted in a strong code of silence.

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But as in other parts of the world, from Pennsylvania to Chile, Takenaka and Suzuki are starting to feel less alone as other victims have come forward despite the ostracism they and their family members often face for speaking out.

Their public denunciation is all the more remarkable, given Catholics make up less than 0.5% of Japan’s population. To date, the global abuse scandal has concentrated on heavily Catholic countries, such as Ireland, the U.S. and now, many countries in Latin America.

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VATICAN CITY
Associated Press

December 20, 2019

By Nicole Winfield

The Vatican office responsible for processing clergy sex abuse complaints has seen a record 1,000 cases reported from around the world this year, including from countries it had not heard from before — suggesting that the worst may be yet to come in a crisis that has plagued the Roman Catholic Church.

Nearly two decades after the Vatican assumed responsibility for reviewing all cases of abuse, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is today overwhelmed, struggling with a skeleton staff that hasn’t grown at pace to meet the four-fold increase in the number of cases arriving in 2019 compared to a decade ago.

“I know cloning is against Catholic teaching, but if I could actually clone my officials and have them work three shifts a day or work seven days a week,” they might make the necessary headway, said Monsignor John Kennedy, the head of the congregation’s discipline section, which processes the cases.

“We’re effectively seeing a tsunami of cases at the moment, particularly from countries where we never heard from (before),” Kennedy said, referring to allegations of abuse that occurred for the most part years or decades ago. Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Italy and Poland have joined the U.S. among the countries with the most cases arriving at the congregation, known as the CDF.

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DENVER (CO)
Crux

By Elise Harris

December 20, 2019

Rome – When Pope Francis earlier this week abolished so-called pontifical secrecy for cases of clerical sexual abuse, for many Vatican outsiders it was the first time they had ever heard of the concept, which in some circles came off as archaic and, well, secretive.

However, according to experts, the “pontifical secret” is not a moot practice that’s outlived its usefulness, but rather still serves several concrete needs in the modern church, even with the new changes.

Father Francis Morrisey, a Canadian canon law expert, said the concept of the pontifical secret is akin to the legal concept of attorney-client privilege, or the confidentiality a doctor must maintain with their patient.

“If there’s no confidentiality for anything, we have real problems,” he said, speaking to Crux.

The concept of papal secrecy dates back to the 12th century inquisition, when secrecy was widely imposed on those conducting investigations into allegations or suspicions of heresy.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

Dec. 20, 2019

The Vatican department tasked with investigating cases of clergy abuse is reportedly “overwhelmed” by the number of allegations they are receiving. We are glad that survivors around the world have been empowered to come forward and make reports of their abuse, and we hope that this trend continues in 2020.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith has been charged with investigating cases of clergy abuse since 2001, when Pope John Paul II gave this power to then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. The cardinal kept cases of abuse confidential and secret, which not only undermined public knowledge about these cases, but also meant that survivors faced a challenging and hostile environment when coming forward with their reports. The system did not change when Cardinal Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI.

Fortunately, secular law enforcement around the world have been flexing their muscle in the past couple of years in cases against high-profile prelates in countries including Australia, France, and the United States. This has led to more survivors coming forward, and has forced transparency upon an institution that has long tried to cover-up cases of sexual violence committed by bishops, clergy, brothers, nuns, seminarians and other church staff.

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MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
The New Daily

Dec. 21, 2019

Disgraced cardinal George Pell has spent almost all of 2019 in jail, serving a six-year sentence after being convicted of five sexual offences against two 13-year-old boys.

But Pell’s case – which has divided opinion internationally and taken years to get as far as it has – is still not over.

The convicted paedophile will have a final chance to overturn his conviction in March 2020, after the High Court of Australia agreed in November that it would hear appeal arguments.

He was initially investigated by Victoria Police’s Sano taskforce for “multiple offences” said to have been committed while he was a priest in Ballarat in the 1970s and while he was Archbishop of Melbourne in the 1990s.

In June 2017, after more than 12 months of investigation, Pell, now 78, was charged with multiple counts of historical child sexual offences.

He denied the allegations, describing them as “without foundation and utterly false”, and vowed to clear his name. He also took leave from his role as the Vatican’s financial chief to fight the charges.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Angelus News

Dec 19, 2019

By Pablo Kay

Pope Francis’ decision to abolish the obligation of secrecy for Church proceedings related to the sexual abuse of minors by priests was welcomed as a “a tangible, meaningful act” by the Victims Assistance Ministry Coordinator for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

“I am so pleased to see that Pope Francis has removed confidentiality requirements regarding Church proceedings related to clergy sexual abuse,” Heather Banis, Ph.D. told Angelus News Thursday, Dec. 19.

“I see it as a tangible, meaningful act that acknowledges accountability and is respectful of both clergy abuse victim-survivors and civil authorities,” she said.

The pope’s decision lifts the “pontifical secret” for those who report having been sexually abused by a priest and for those who testify in a church trial or process having to do with clerical sexual abuse.

Banis said she sees the decision as a validation of the efforts taken towards transparency in the the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the country’s largest archdiocese, for many years now.

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AUSTIN (TX)
Fox 7 News

Dec. 20, 2019

By Marcel Clarke

The Vatican is lifting the cloak of secrecy from its proceedings into sex abuse cases.

Pope Francis announced he’s abolishing the use of “pontifical secrecy” in sexual abuse cases, meaning Catholic law no longer allows church leaders to withhold information about abusive priests or their victims.

This makes it easier for law enforcement to bring cases against abusers.

Diocese of Austin priest Father James Misko joins Marcel Clarke to discuss how the papal rule change regarding sex abuse cases will impact local Catholic churches.

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TORONTO (CANADA)
CBC News

Dec. 20, 2019

By Jason Warick

His hands shake as he circles the block.

He wants his nightmares, pain and loneliness to stop. Should he kill one of the priests who began raping him at age six? Should he kill himself?

Tears stream down the 25-year-old’s face. He thinks of his promising career as a pitcher. He doesn’t want to give that up.

He drives home and sits awake all night before finally crying himself to sleep.

That was 30 years ago. Basaraba worked with a friend to write down these and other stories of his life.

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DES PLAINES (IL)
Associated Press

Dec. 20, 2019

The Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago is requesting that a statue of a well-known priest be returned, months after it was removed from church property in a suburb.

The statue shows the late Rev. John Smyth with his arms outstretched to a child above him. It was unveiled in 1996 to honor Smyth’s years of work at Maryville Academy in Des Plaines, a home for troubled children.

The Daily Herald reports that archdiocese officials know who removed the statue.

“Neither Maryville nor the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe gave permission for the statue to be removed,” archdiocese spokeswoman Anne Maselli said. “The Archdiocese of Chicago did not remove it. … We expect the statue to be returned.”

Smyth died in April at age 84, a few months after he was accused of sexual abuse. His attorney has denied the allegations. The archdiocese still is investigating, Maselli said.

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ROME (ITALY)
Religion News Services

Dec. 20, 2019

By Claire Giangravé

When Pope Francis announced Tuesday (Dec. 17) that he had abolished pontifical secrecy for cases of clerical sexual abuse, some observers compared the move to a regime opening its secret files, bringing to light years of testimony and documents.

The new protocol will transform legal proceedings and the lives of abuse victims, those accused of abusing them and bishops in charge of exercising oversight.

“This is a tremendous step forward in transparency and the right of victims’ participation” in canonical trials and “also the rights of the accused,” Dutch canon lawyer Myriam Wijlens told Religion News Service in a phone interview Wednesday.

“There are only winners in this; there are no losers,” she added.

Wijlens, a professor of canon law and vice president at the University of Erfurt, knows a thing or two about the handling of sexual abuse cases in the Catholic Church. She has been on the frontier of the clerical abuse crisis since 1987. Her investigations on behalf of bishops and the superiors of religious orders have involved numerous interviews with both sides of abuse cases, the results of which were usually sent to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the powerful office that has defended the church on doctrinal matters for centuries.

In 2008 Wijlens was chosen as the delegate to the World Council of Churches in Geneva by the Vatican department in charge of promoting Christian unity. Pope Francis named her to the Pontifical Council for the Protection of Minors, a sort of papal think tank on sexual abuse, in 2018.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

Dec 20, 2019

By Michael Sean Winters

Pope Francis’ decisions to remove the pontifical secret in clergy sex abuse cases, as well as raising the age for what constitutes child pornography, enact long-sought reforms. The decisions also did something else: They further disproved the dire and depressing verdicts rendered by many pundits on last February’s Vatican summit to address the issue.

A few weeks after that summit brought together the presidents of all the world’s episcopal conferences to address the scandal, all manner of voices, left and right, denounced the event as a failure or, worse, a sham.

Here at NCR, Thomas Doyle complained: The Vatican summit produced no decisive, action-oriented results, just more platitudes and promises. I consider this a positive because it should remove any doubt about whether the Vatican and the hierarchy have the ability or the will to take the radical steps essential to fixing the problem.

Doyle went on to say the only really good thing to come from the summit was the gathering of victims from around the world who held protests outside the summit meeting.

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WELLINGTON (NEW ZEALAND)
Stuff NZ Limited

Dec. 20, 2019

By John Weeks

A New Zealand church abuse survivor says the Vatican’s decision to abolish secrecy clauses for Catholic clerical sex crime cases is “far too late”.

Pope Francis this week announced “pontifical secrecy” would no longer apply to child abuse complaints. The decision meant abuse victims and witnesses would be freed from confidentiality obligations.

New Zealand author Mike Ledingham​ said the Papal announcement was “bull”, many years overdue, and a reaction to the perception churches could no longer dodge being held to account for child abuse.

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HOUSTON (TX)
Chronicle

Dec. 20, 2019

By Robert Downen

He was well-aware of the Catholic Church’s abuse scandal and, during his 13-year tenure as pastor of Houston’s Memorial Church of Christ, helped guide the church as it adopted safeguards to protect children from sexual predators.

But the reports in the Houston Chronicle were different. They hit particularly close to home.

The series, Abuse of Faith, found that hundreds of Southern Baptist church leaders and volunteers have been convicted or credibly accused of sex crimes in the last two decades. They left behind more than 700 victims, most of them children.

The structure of the SBC, a collective of 47,000 autonomous and self-governing churches, enabled predators to move undetected and stifled reforms to prevent abuse, the investigation found.

Duncan’s denomination has a similar organizational structure based on local church autonomy. And so, as the SBC’s abuse crisis came into public view, he came to a realization: No person or place is safe from predators.

“It made me sick,” Duncan said. “I just didn’t want to believe that it could be that rampant, that widespread.”

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HOUSTON (TX)
Chronicle

Dec. 20, 2019

By Robert Downen

He was well-aware of the Catholic Church’s abuse scandal and, during his 13-year tenure as pastor of Houston’s Memorial Church of Christ, helped guide the church as it adopted safeguards to protect children from sexual predators.

But the reports in the Houston Chronicle were different. They hit particularly close to home.

The series, Abuse of Faith, found that hundreds of Southern Baptist church leaders and volunteers have been convicted or credibly accused of sex crimes in the last two decades. They left behind more than 700 victims, most of them children.

The structure of the SBC, a collective of 47,000 autonomous and self-governing churches, enabled predators to move undetected and stifled reforms to prevent abuse, the investigation found.

Duncan’s denomination has a similar organizational structure based on local church autonomy. And so, as the SBC’s abuse crisis came into public view, he came to a realization: No person or place is safe from predators.

“It made me sick,” Duncan said. “I just didn’t want to believe that it could be that rampant, that widespread.”

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ROME (ITALY)
Associated Press

Dec. 19, 2019

The U.N. expert on child sexual abuse praised the Vatican’s decision to abolish the rule of “pontifical secret” for abuse cases and urged further reforms to ensure more justice for victims.

The U.N. special rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children said Thursday that Pope Francis’s decision to make such cases subject to ordinary confidentiality in the Church was a “welcome and long-awaited step.”

Francis passed the law Tuesday, and Vatican officials said the move was designed to facilitate cooperation with civil law enforcement agencies, given it would deprive church leaders of using the pontifical secret as an excuse to withhold documentation.

“The Vatican should now take all necessary measures to ensure that justice and redress for victims around the world is delivered through prompt and thorough investigations that are subject to public scrutiny,” said the U.N. rapporteur, Maud de Boer-Buquicchio.

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ROME (ITALY)
Associated Press

Dec. 19, 2019

The U.N. expert on child sexual abuse praised the Vatican’s decision to abolish the rule of “pontifical secret” for abuse cases and urged further reforms to ensure more justice for victims.

The U.N. special rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children said Thursday that Pope Francis’s decision to make such cases subject to ordinary confidentiality in the Church was a “welcome and long-awaited step.”

Francis passed the law Tuesday, and Vatican officials said the move was designed to facilitate cooperation with civil law enforcement agencies, given it would deprive church leaders of using the pontifical secret as an excuse to withhold documentation.

“The Vatican should now take all necessary measures to ensure that justice and redress for victims around the world is delivered through prompt and thorough investigations that are subject to public scrutiny,” said the U.N. rapporteur, Maud de Boer-Buquicchio.

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ALBANY (NY)
WNYT TV

Dec. 19, 2019

By Jacquie Slater

A special prayer service was held Wednesday at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Albany, for victims of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church.

The event was organized by the Albany Diocese in hopes of helping victims and the community heal.

The service itself was closed to press in order to protect the privacy of victims who wish to remain anonymous.

Before it started, NewsChannel 13 spoke with Bishop Edward Scharfenberger and a victim who has been sharing his story in hopes of offering support to others who have had similar experiences.

The Albany Diocese is among many facing allegations of sex abuse by clergy. Bishop Scharfenberger said the Service of Prayers for Consolation and Hope is for survivors, their families and friends, and anyone who wants to pray.

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ALBANY (NY)
WNYT TV

Dec. 19, 2019

By Jacquie Slater

A special prayer service was held Wednesday at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Albany, for victims of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church.

The event was organized by the Albany Diocese in hopes of helping victims and the community heal.

The service itself was closed to press in order to protect the privacy of victims who wish to remain anonymous.

Before it started, NewsChannel 13 spoke with Bishop Edward Scharfenberger and a victim who has been sharing his story in hopes of offering support to others who have had similar experiences.

The Albany Diocese is among many facing allegations of sex abuse by clergy. Bishop Scharfenberger said the Service of Prayers for Consolation and Hope is for survivors, their families and friends, and anyone who wants to pray.

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RESTON (VA)
CNS News

Dec. 19, 2019

By Janet Patterson

The following commentary is written by Janet Patterson, whose son Eric Patterson (1970-1999) reportedly was sexually abused multiple times by Rev. Robert K. Larson. Larson spent 5 years in jail for sexually abusing altar boys and died in 2014 at the age of 84; Eric Patterson died at age 29 after shooting himself in the head. Clergy abuse expert Dr. Leon Podles estimates there have been between 100,000 and 200,000 clergy abuse victims since 1950 in the United States alone, and possibly up to 2,000,000 victims worldwide.

I stood there, rooted to the spot, stroking my son’s hair, gently touching his cold face, gazing at my precious child. “Eric,” I thought, “oh, Eric.” Then I turned to walk down the church aisle as the funeral attendants closed the casket.

Numb from shock, I joined the rest of my family, clutching my husband’s hand tightly, feeling his arm caressing my shoulder. Now, three years later, I am sitting at Eric’s computer, the one on which he typed his suicide note, painfully recalling the series of events that culminated in his death.

Slowly, painstakingly, our family grapples with the awful truth—our son was sexually abused at the age of 12 by our parish priest.

How could this be? Sexual abuse happens to someone else’s child, in someone else’s family, not ours. Then reality hits. My mind constantly reconstructs the details of Eric’s life; sifting and sorting through memories, wondering what clues I missed, what behavior I didn’t understand at the time.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Associated Press

Dec. 19, 2019

By Juliet Linderman

Angels stand watch from Dorothy Small’s doorway.

Her house is full of them: gold-gilded angels tacked on the wall of her prayer room, painted ones in a semicircle on the coffee table, pale porcelain ones perched on the kitchen counter.

In the morning she sits with the angels, threads a rosary through her fingers and reads from her leather-bound Bible. In the evening, she slips into the hot tub in her backyard, closes her eyes and listens to prayers in French on her headphones. It’s a baptism of sorts, a private ritual that has helped her navigate her shifting faith and emerge, clear-eyed, from one of the darkest and most challenging periods of her life: the aftermath of a sexual assault she endured at 60, at the hands of a priest.

Small, now 65, survived it all because she had to, she said. But to her own surprise, she’s found strength in the solitude.

Her home is her sanctuary. It used to be the church.

For years, the parishioners of her Woodland, California, congregation were family, and she relied on the collective energy of the flock for spiritual fulfillment. But Small said after she reported her relationship with the priest and he was removed from his post, she was ostracized and stripped of her position as soloist in the choir. Her world collapsed.

“I felt awful because I got Father in trouble,” she said. “I thought it was all my fault.”

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BUFFALO (NY)
WIVB TV

Dec. 18, 2019

By Chris Horvatits

Canisius College is the newest target of a Child Victims Act lawsuit. It’s the first time the school has been named as a defendant in a lawsuit related to clergy sex abuse since the CVA window opened up in August.

School officials say they are cooperating with the accuser’s attorney.

The accuser, Matthew Ebert, claims that he was abused by Rev. Charles Lehmkuhl while the Jesuit priest worked at Canisius. In the lawsuit filed Tuesday, Ebert says “Father Lehmkuhl engaged in unpermitted sexual contact” with him from 1973 until 1983 when the minor was between the ages of 7 and 17.

The lawsuit refers to Lehmkuhl as “a father figure and spiritual leader” for Ebert.

Ebert was never a student at Canisius, school officials tell News 4.

“The sole basis for Canisius College being named in this suit is the fact that Fr. Lemkuhl was employed at the college and that some of the acts are alleged to have occurred on college property during the summer when Mr. Ebert came to Canisius to visit Fr. Lemkuhl,” school officials said in a statement.

Lehmkuhl died in 1995.

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BERKSHIRE (MA)
Berkshire Eagle

Dec. 18, 2019

Pope Francis’ decision to end the Vatican’s secrecy policy on sexual abuse cases is a welcome act that had it come years earlier could have spared victims and the Catholic Church itself so much misery. Unfortunately, the new policy contains loopholes that would allow miscreants and the church officials protecting to them to slip through once more.

The decision overturns a 2001 Vatican decree making sexual abuse allegations against clergy a “pontifical secret,” the church’s most classified form of knowledge, which kept those allegations out of the purview of criminal authorities. In abolishing this policy, such information can be turned over to police, prosecutors and judges.

The policy is good as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go far enough. It does not require that dioceses turn over this information, meaning that church officials who oppose this edict can simply ignore it. The Vatican is unclear in its decision as to whether or not it applies retroactively or only to new allegations. Vatican critics note that the Church still hasn’t adopted a policy of automatically defrocking any priest who has abused a child, which undermines the Vatican’s apparently sincere efforts to enact reform.

The Catholic Church’s policy of circling the wagons around credibly accused priests while blaming the victims and the media has done great harm to victims and to the credibility and financial viability of churches all over the world, including in Berkshire County within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield. The most recent example within the Diocese came earlier this year when it denied that a Chicopee man’s accusation that he had been abused by Bishop Christopher J. Weldon when he served as an altar boy in the 1960s was credible. A Diocesan review board made that conclusion even though some board members who took part in the process told The Eagle that they found the accusations to be extremely credible. In June, the diocese acknowledged that the accusations were credible, leaving the integrity of the in-house review process in tatters.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Associated Press

Dec. 19, 2019

By Juliet Linderman

Salvador Bolivar puffs smoke through a long wooden pipe. Two braids hang just past his shoulders. Bear totems perch on the piano, a bundle of dried sage pinned to the wall. Resting beside him is a small drum; he’s just sung four songs in Taino, a lost language of the Caribbean islands, to calm his nerves.

Bolivar doesn’t like to talk about what happened to him without first calling in the spirits of his ancestors to give him courage. It was an encounter with these spirits, he said, that compelled him to break his silence.

They came to him 11 years ago, in a sweat lodge in the Colombian mountains.

“My heart was blown open,” he said. He cried for days. “It was the beginning of the process of letting it go.”

He returned to New York and, for the first time, told his mother and father that the dean of his Catholic high school had sexually abused him.

The experience in the mountains set him on his spiritual path and altered the course of his life. The spirits told him, “You’re going through what you’re going through to have compassion and empathy or someone else, so you’ll be able to help others,” Bolivar said. He clings to this belief. It gets him through his most difficult days.

Bolivar, 48, was born and raised in New York City, the son of immigrants from Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic. He spent his teen years drunk, angry, reckless, prone to outbursts, quick to jump into the middle of any brawl.

His life changed in his early 20s, when his first baby arrived. Fatherhood steadied him, he said. It still does.

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JACKSON (MS)
Clarion Ledger

Dec. 19, 2019

By Richard Conville

In October of this year, Attorney General William Barr gave a major address on religious liberty at the Notre Dame University Law School. With the impeachment process well underway, the speech has gotten little notice, but deserves more, because it reveals so much about Mr. Barr’s religious commitments and how they inform his politics.

The speech is over seven pages long, so I will limit my comments to a small portion that seems to articulate his central thesis–that the country’s “traditional moral order” has experienced serious erosion. He asserts three causes, (1) the “assault on religion,” thus losing “the right rules to live by;” (2) the state (i.e., the federal government) has become the “alleviator of bad consequences” of bad behavior; and (3) “secularists have been continually seeking to eliminate laws that reflect traditional moral norms.”

I disagree with Barr on several points, and you may too. First, to allege there has been an “assault on religion” is pure hyperbole. To blame eroding moral standards on “secularists,” as Barr does, raises the question, why do more people now, than, say, 50 years ago, consider themselves to be secular and not so religious? Could part of the fault lie at the feet of the Church? How has it failed to capture the imagination of those now more secular people? Rather than an assault on religion, traditional religious institutions have been leaking members for decades: no news here. Moreover, the “traditional moral order,” that Barr so highly prizes, was presumably in place during the time of the rampant, world-wide sex scandal involving Catholic priests’ assaults on thousands of young boys. Those “right rules” did not save those children.

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JACKSON (MS)
Associated Press

Dec. 19, 2019

By Juliet Linderman

Mark Belenchia didn’t stay quiet.

He told his mother and his uncle, in the mid-1970s. He told a parish priest, then the vicar general, in 1985. Still, the clergyman Belenchia said sexually abused him when he was a child in Shelby, Mississippi, remained in collar and cassock.

“It showed me that the system says you’re insignificant. It doesn’t matter what you said, or what happened to you,” Belenchia said.

Belenchia would not be ignored. Over the years, his quest for answers, to try and make sense of his own personal tragedy, transformed into a crusade against clergy abuse that’s become his life’s focus. Activism, he said, gives him purpose and direction. Through this work he makes use of his pain, to help other survivors struggling to cope with theirs.

The abuse began when Belenchia was 12 and lasted three years, he said, maybe four. But the events of his youth cast a shadow over his life for decades after.

He felt shame and guilt for allowing himself to get close the priest, who’d decorated the church rectory like a clubhouse and plied young boys from the neighborhood with liquor.

He felt anguish and panic when, at 43, Belenchia plunged into a depressive episode that resulted in hospitalization, intensive psychiatric treatment and an extended leave from his systems engineer position at IBM that eventually turned into medical retirement.

He felt defeated when a bishop told him his story was a one-off, “an anomaly,” and resigned when he reluctantly accepted a $44,000 settlement from the Diocese of Jackson in exchange for a promise not to tell. (In a statement to The Associated Press, a lawyer for the diocese acknowledged Belenchia’s abuse, and said the diocese has not included a confidentiality clause in any settlement agreement since 2002 unless it was insisted upon by the victim.)

He felt empowered to go public after reading an article about two local brothers suing the church, and validated when five men from across Mississippi came to him afterward with stories of their own abuse at the hands of the same clergyman.

And then, Belenchia got angry.

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CAMDEN (NJ)
Cherry Hill Courier-Post

Dec. 18, 2019

By Jim Walsh

Six men have come forward with allegations of childhood sex abuse by Catholic clergy in South Jersey.

The accusers all say they were targeted in the 1970s and ’80s by clerics who exploited their trust and assaulted their bodies.

They are suing the dioceses of Camden and Trenton under a new state law that allows civil actions for sex-abuse claims previously barred by a statute of limitations.

At least eight priests or Catholic brothers from South Jersey parishes are named in six suits filed in state court since Dec. 1.

Two suits claim wrongdoing by separate priests at a Paulsboro parish, including one who allegedly continued his abuse after moving to a church in Cherry Hill.

In another, a former altar boy alleges he was abused by three priests in Collingswood and Magnolia.

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ROME (ITALY)
Religion News Service

Dec. 17, 2019

By Claire Giangravé

Pope Francis on Tuesday (Dec. 17) ushered in a new era of transparency and accountability for the Catholic Church by releasing what was described as a historic document removing pontifical secrecy for cases of sexual abuse and cover-up, allowing lawful authorities to have access to reports, testimonies and documents.

“This is an epochal decision regarding the legal arrangement of the pontifical secret, and it comes at just the right time,” said Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta, the former Vatican prosecutor for cases of sexual abuse, in an interview published Tuesday (Dec. 17) on Vatican News.

In February, Pope Francis called for a Vatican summit on the question of clerical sexual abuse, during which all the major ecclesial representatives, survivor networks and advocates gathered to address the ongoing crisis plaguing the Catholic Church.

On Feb. 20, roughly a dozen sexual abuse survivors from all over the world met with the top leaders at the Vatican, from U.S. Cardinal Blase Cupich to Jesuit priest Hans Zollner, who heads the Center for Child Protection at the Gregorian University in Rome.

The survivors asked the Vatican to enact practical actions to ensure justice for the many who suffered and suffer still because of clerical sexual abuse. Finally, they got their wish, on the day of Francis’ birthday and in the days leading up to Christmas.

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OTTAWA (CANADA)
ESS, iHeartRadio

December 17, 2019

[AUDIO]

By abolishing Vatican secrecy rules as it pertains to sexual abuse cases, the Catholic Church is now allowed to share documents and information with civil authorities. Mitchell Garabedian, the attorney who was at the center of numerous lawsuits against the church, joins Evan Solomon on today’s ESS.

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ROME (ITALY)
Boston Herald

December 17, 2019

By Marie Szanislo

Lawyer says Francis is giving law enforcement what it can already obtain in many jurisdictions

Pope Francis on Tuesday abolished the use of “pontifical secrecy” — the Vatican’s highest level of secrecy in clergy sexual abuse cases — a step that victims and their advocates say is long overdue and only one step toward protecting children and holding child molesters to account.

In abolishing the secret rule, the Pope was giving law enforcement what it could probably already obtain, given the legal power of subpoenas in many jurisdictions, said Boston attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who said he has represented more than 2,000 clergy sex abuse victims over 25 years.

“A truly independent civil authority should be created to oversee what is disclosed by the Catholic Church,” Garabedian said. “It is also now time for Pope Francis to mandate that crimes be reported to the police by bishops, religious superiors and others, and to make documents and testimony public with the appropriate redactions of victims’ names.”

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ROME (ITALY)
Crux

Dec 18, 2019

By John L. Allen Jr.

Tuesday’s news that Pope Francis essentially has abolished the requirement of pontifical secrecy for clerical sexual abuse cases means that robust cooperation with civil authorities is now a cornerstone not only of Church practice, but also Church law.

That’s an important distinction, because in the U.S. and some other parts of the Catholic world, the pontifical secret had already been reinterpreted by bishops and canon lawyers to permit such cooperation, seen as essential not merely in the interests of justice but also to prevent the Church from being exposed to both civil and criminal liability.

As a result, while Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna was, in a sense, right in calling Tuesday’s moves “epochal,” they won’t change much operationally in the American Church.

(The calculus is likely to be different in other parts of the world. For instance, Juan Carlos Cruz, a survivor of abuse at the hand of Chile’s most notorious pedophile priest, heralded Tuesday’s moves as a sea change for his country: “All these excuses of Chilean bishops and other parts of the world and the Curia, are over,” he said. “Today is an important day in transparency and justice for victims.”)

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NASHVILLE (TN)
Baptist News Global

Dec. 18, 2019

By Bob Allen

Leaders of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests criticized a Southern Baptist Convention entity’s fund-raising appeal that touts the denomination’s response to the scourge of sexual abuse in the church as “misleading and insensitive” to victims.

Daniel Darling, vice president for communications at the SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, sent out an e-mail Dec. 16 soliciting tax-deductible donations of $50, $100 or $500 to help the agency “stand with” survivors of sexual abuse and “equip them to make their voices heard.”

An accompanying 2 ½-minute video features Susan Codone, a Mercer University professor, responding to questions including, “How does it feel to know that for the first time, the church is taking the issue of sexual abuse seriously?”

“I have quite a story of sexual abuse in the church, and to be able to have a safe place where I was believed and supported by ministry leaders, to share that with the church and hopefully make the church a safer place, to me that meant everything in the world,” Codone says.

SNAP, a network of survivors of institutional sexual abuse and their supporters launched in 1988, responded with a press release contrasting Codone’s praise for SBC leadership with the “disappointing disparity” experienced by hundreds of abuse survivors “who have received zero support from the SBC.”

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Post-Gazette

Dec. 17, 2019

By Peter Smith

A newly released portion of a 2018 grand jury report indicates that the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh received an allegation of sexual abuse against a priest in the mid-1990s and that the priest admitted his sexual attraction to teenagers.

But he remained in ministry more than two decades longer because, until 2018, diocesan officials felt they didn’t have enough evidence to remove him entirely from ministry.

The new information comes in what may be the last piece of redacted information to be unsealed from the landmark 2018 statewide grand jury report into sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

The priest, the Rev. Richard Lelonis, died in October at age 74. He spent 48 years in the priesthood, but much of the latter half of that career was spent in restricted ministry, away from parish work but still wearing the collar as a priest in good standing, after the 1995 allegation.

Father Lelonis was one of a small number of priests who challenged aspects of the grand jury report into sexual abuse by priests in six Roman Catholic dioceses, including Pittsburgh. Most of that group wanted their names redacted entirely from the grand jury’s report, a move the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ultimately agreed to.

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ST. JOHN’S (CANADA)
The Telegram

Dec. 17, 2019

For the first time in Canada, a Catholic religious order is preparing to publicly release a list of its priests who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse, including where the priests worked and when they worked there.

The head of the Jesuits of Canada, Father Erik Oland, told the Globe and Mail that he made the decision to have a list compiled more than a year ago, after a Pennsylvania grand jury investigation revealed the abuse of more than 1,000 children in that state.

While it may be new in Canada, the process has been established for some time in the United States. The archdiocese of Tucson released a list in 2002, and since then, 145 other dioceses in the United States have followed suit, though some lists have included only priests and clergy who have been convicted of crimes. Six different Jesuit provinces in the United States have also released such lists. The collection of those lists has led to giant open-access files like the ones kept by BishopAccountability.org, which have compiled lists containing thousands of names of offending clergy. (Not all of the lists have been completely voluntary — several were created as the result of settlement agreements for civil abuse cases.)

A private company began reviewing Canadian Jesuit files this October and is using the same standard that has been used in the United States by the religious orders that have already compiled similar lists. The company will establish that allegations against Jesuits are “more likely true than not after investigation.”

There are still major hurdles that have to be addressed in the release of the Canadian information, including privacy and other legal issues, but a clear and open process revealing accused abusers could go a long way towards helping victims, especially those who have had to face obstruction and denial from the church hierarchy in the past.

That is, at least, what the Jesuits are attempting. It remains to be seen if other Canadian dioceses and orders follow the Jesuit lead.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
Catholic Herald

Dec. 18, 2019

By Christopher Altieri

By now, readers will have heard that Pope Francis has issued a rescript lifting the so-called “pontifical secret” under which the Church has until now conducted investigations and canonical trials related to sexual abuse and cover-up, sexual violence, and other similarly grave crimes against minors and vulnerable adults. The pontifical secret remains in force over other matters, but is no longer the default level of secrecy for sex crimes against minors and related offences.

It was one of three changes to Church law the Pope made on Tuesday. Another specifies the acquisition or possession of pornographic materials that exploit subjects under the age of 18 as a grave criminal offence for clerics of any rank. That change may have been longer in coming than observers and advocates for it would have liked, but it is the fulfilment of a promise. A third introduces the possibility for qualified lay persons to act as attorneys in canonical proceedings before the CDF tribunal, in which grave criminal charges are being tried.

Of the three changes, the removal of pontifical secret from sex crime cases involving minors is bound to generate the most discussion.

In an editorial for the Holy See’s official Vatican News outlet, editorial director Andrea Tornielli hailed the change as “a sign of openness, transparency, and the willingness to collaborate with the civil authorities.” Tornielli said, “It is not too much to define it as ‘historic’.”

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CAPE TOWN (SOUTH AFRICA)
Cape Talk AM 567

Dec. 18, 2019

By Qama Qukula

The lawyer for disgraced Bishops College teacher Fiona Viotti says the learners who were involved in sexual affairs with his client should also be brought to book.

Viotti was found guilty of sexual misconduct following an internal probe conducted by the prestigious private school in Rondebosch.

An investigation found that between 2013 and 2019, the former teacher targeted at least five pupils at the boys’ school.

Bishops College has reportedly handed over its internal findings to the police for further investigations. The former teacher could be facing criminal charges.

Meanwhile, Viotti’s lawyer, William Booth, claims that his client had “consensual” sex with her pupils, and he believes they should also be held accountable.

Booth, a top South African criminal lawyer, argues that that the boys involved in the scandal should be taken to task for their part in the “irresponsible” behaviour.

He further asserts that the school should be taking action against the boys who distributed pornographic images of his client.

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CHENNAI (INDIA)
The Hindu

Dec. 18, 2019

A survivor in a rape case in which a priest under the Thamarassery diocese is arraigned as accused has submitted before the Kerala High Court that despite lodging a sexual assault complaint against the priest with the Thamarassery bishop, no action had been taken.

In a petition seeking to implead her in a bail petition filed by Fr. Manoj Plakoottathil, she said in fact she had filed a complaint on June 23, 2017. However, there had been no action. So, she had lodged a complaint with the Chevayur police.

The case
The police case was that the accused allegedly went to the residence of the 46-year-old woman on June 15, 2017 and raped her when she was alone in the house.

Fr. Plakoottathil was then the vicar of Chevayur Nithyasahaya Matha Church. The priest had been charged with the offences under Sections 376 (rape), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) of the Indian Penal Code. Opposing the anticipatory bail plea of the priest, the survivor pointed out that the priest had threatened her that if she disclosed it to anyone she would be socially ostracised. The petitioner feared that there was a possibility of the investigation being sabotaged due to the influence of the accused.

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ROME (ITALY)
National Catholic Reporter

Dec. 17, 2019

By Joshua J. McElwee

Pope Francis Dec. 17 abolished the Catholic Church’s practice of imposing strict confidentiality rules on the Vatican’s legal proceedings in cases involving clergy sexual abuse or misconduct, in a reform sought for decades by abuse survivors and advocates.

In a brief but sweeping new instruction that goes into effect immediately, the pontiff states plainly that the practice, known as the pontifical secret, is no longer to apply to any accusations, proceedings, or final decisions involving clergy abuse.

While such matters will continue to be treated with a lower level of confidentiality, the pope also specifies that anyone who files a report, alleges abuse, or comes forward as a witness to abuse “shall not be bound by any obligation of silence with regard to matters involving the case.”

The new instruction, which contains five short points, is titled Sulla riservatezza delle cause (“On the Confidentiality of Legal Proceedings”).

In a separate action released at the same time as the instruction, Francis also made changes to a set of norms issued by Pope John Paul II in 2001 that define the “grave delicts” the church reserves to the judgement of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

In those changes, which go into effect Jan. 1, the pope redefines child pornography as any inappropriate photographic material taken of minors under the age of 18, raising the age threshold from the previous standard of the age of 14.

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NEW YORK (NY)
America Magazine

Dec. 17, 2019

By Gerard O’Connell

In a decision of enormous importance, long called for by survivors of abuse and their advocates, Pope Francis has abolished the pontifical secret for sexual misconduct cases concerning clerics.

The “pontifical secret” is not related to the seal of the confessional, which remains absolute (and inviolable) in Catholic teaching and practice. Rather, the pontifical secret refers to confidentiality in the church’s judicial handling of clerical sex abuse and other grave crimes (as well as secrecy in other areas, such as some matters concerning the appointment of cardinals and bishops). The secrecy ensures that cases are dealt with in strict confidentiality. Vatican experts have said it was designed to protect the dignity of everyone involved, including the victim, the accused, their families and their communities.

Sources in Rome (who requested anonymity) told America that Pope Francis had to overcome strong internal opposition in the Vatican before issuing this important piece of legislation.
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In September 2017, members of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors had asked Pope Francis to reconsider Vatican norms maintaining the imposition of the “pontifical secret” in the church’s judicial handling of such crimes. He has done so by promulgating a new law that Archbishop Charles Scicluna, adjunct-secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, told America represents “a momentous shift towards transparency” in the Catholic Church’s ongoing response to the abuse scandal.

This was one of two new laws published by the Vatican on Dec. 17 at the instruction of Pope Francis, who celebrates his 83rd birthday on this day. The second law updates the definition of child pornography to cover victims up to age 18. Significantly, too, it allows for qualified laypeople to represent and defend persons in church tribunals in cases of sexual misconduct without having to ask permission. Previously only clerics could do so.

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New York (NY)
National Review

December 17, 2019

By Zachary Evans

Victims of sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic clergy are suing Pope Francis, claiming he and senior Vatican officials knew that a number of priests molested children but kept the revelation a secret, the New York Post reported on Tuesday.

The class-action lawsuit was filed Tuesday in federal court in Manhattan, brought by seven victims of abuse. The sole defendant named in the suit is the Holy See, the governing body of the entire Catholic Church, at whose head is the Pope.

“The Holy See has known for centuries that Catholic priests were using their positions and roles in Catholic parishes and schools to sexually molest children,” the suit alleges.

Pope Francis on Tuesday ended the policy of “pontifical secrecy” to guard information on sexual abuse cases. Archbishop Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s leading investigator of sex abuse crimes, called the move an “epochal decision” that will facilitate greater communication between civil law enforcement and church investigators.

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CLEVELAND (OH)
WJW TV

Dec. 17, 2019

By Peggy Gallek

A prosecutor is urging a judge not to reduce the bond of a local priest who was arrested earlier this month on child pornography charges.

Father Robert McWilliams, was arrested Dec. 5, at St. Joseph Parish in Strongsville. He is facing several charges, including three counts of illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material or performance.

An assistant Cuyahoga County prosecutor says there are allegations in Geauga County that the priest posed as a stranger to extort children into sending him nude videos and pictures. Additional charges could be filed soon.

McWilliams, who remains held in the Cuyahoga County jail, has entered not guilty pleas and his attorney has asked for his $50,000 bond to be reduced.

Cleveland Catholic Diocese priest faces judge on child porn charges, case goes to grand jury

A hearing was held Tuesday afternoon, but Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Carl Sullivan is objecting to any reduction in bond.

“This incident involves a priest, with access to children on a daily basis who is sending and receiving child pornography,” Sullivan wrote in a motion filed with the court. “Also, based upon these charges, the defendant will no longer be able to reside in Strongsville and most likely will leave the county if released.”

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VATICAN CITY
The Associated Press

December 17, 2019

By Nicole Winfield

Pope Francis abolished the use of the Vatican’s highest level of secrecy in clergy sexual abuse cases Tuesday, responding to mounting criticism that the rule of “pontifical secrecy” has been used to protect pedophiles, silence victims and prevent police from investigating crimes.

Victims and their advocates cheered the move as long overdue, but cautioned that the proof of its effectiveness would come when the Catholic hierarchy is forced to respond to national inquiries, grand jury subpoenas and criminal prosecutors who are increasingly demanding all internal documentation about abusers.

“The carnival of obscurity is over,” declared Juan Carlos Cruz, a prominent Chilean survivor of clergy abuse and advocate for victims.

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ROME
CNN

December 17, 2019

By Delia Gallagher

Pope Francis has abolished Vatican secrecy rules for cases of sexual abuse, effectively allowing the Catholic church to share documents and information with civil authorities, and allow victims to be updated of the status of their cases.

The church already shares files with authorities in some countries, such as the United States, but the practice is not universal. Some Catholic churches around the world have invoked the “pontifical secret” to refuse cooperation in certain cases.

Pontifical secret is considered the highest level of confidentiality in church law which covers a number of administrative cases at the Vatican, such as nominations of cardinals, investigations by the Secretariat of State, and by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
The violation of pontifical secrecy can result in excommunication from the church.

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CROOKSTON (MN)
ChurchMilitant

December 16, 2019

By Paul Murano

A group of faithful Catholics in Minnesota are demanding that their bishop step down.

Launching a petition to demand the resignation of Bp. Michael Hoeppner of the diocese of Crookston, the document will be submitted to Cdl. Sean O’Malley, president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

The group cites Hoeppner’s negligence, inaction and mishandling of sexual abuse and child protection, and believe he has failed in his duty to keeping minors in his diocese safe.

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CHARLOTTE (NC)
WSOCTV

December 10, 2019

By Allison Latos

A Charlotte priest at one of the largest Catholic churches in the country was placed on administrative leave Monday after being accused of sexually abusing a minor.

In a statement, Bishop Peter Jugis said Father Patrick Hoare is facing allegations of sexual abuse from when he worked in Pennsylvania 25 years ago, before he joined the ministry.

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ROME (ITALY)
National Public Radio

December 17, 2019

By Bill Chappell

[AUDIO]

Pope Francis is giving legal authorities access to documents and testimony about sexual abuse cases that were previously kept under the Catholic Church’s highest level of confidentiality. By abolishing the concept known as the “pontifical secret” when it comes to clergy misconduct, Francis will also let victims see more information about their cases — and speak out about their experience.

“The person who files the report, the person who alleges to have been harmed and the witnesses shall not be bound by any obligation of silence with regard to matters involving the case,” according to the new policy, which was instituted Tuesday in the form of a rescript — a church decree approved by Francis and signed by the Cardinal Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin.

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ROME (ITALY)
The New York Times

December 17, 2019

By Elisabetta Povoledo

Church officials can now share information with secular law enforcement authorities. Critics said the confidentiality rule led to the concealment of abuse.

The Vatican on Tuesday said it would abolish the high level of secrecy it has applied to sexual-abuse accusations against clerics, ending a policy that critics said had often shielded priests from criminal punishment by the secular authorities.

Removing that cloak of confidentiality, the Roman Catholic Church is changing its stance to make it acceptable — but not required — to turn information about abuse claims over to the police, prosecutors and judges.

In recent years, church officials in the United States and some other countries have shared with civil authorities information about some sexual abuse allegations. But that cooperation, in theory, defied a decree adopted in 2001 that made the information a “pontifical secret” — the church’s most classified knowledge.

Victims and their advocates said the restrictions hampered civil authorities and helped conceal crimes, and they greeted Francis’ new instructions as a step forward.

“Things are decidedly changing,” said Francesco Zanardi, an Italian survivor of clerical abuse and the president of Rete l’Abuso, an Italian anti-abuse group.

Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, a group that tracks abuse in the church, said the pope had taken “an overdue and desperately needed step.”

“For decades, pontifical secrecy has been an obstruction to civil justice, spurring bishops worldwide to thwart prosecutions of abusive priests,” Ms. Barrett Doyle said in a statement. She called changing the policy “a first step toward decreasing the anti-victim bias of canon law.”

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ROME (ITALY)
Catholic News Agency

Dec. 17, 2019

By J.D. Flynn

In a pair of unexpected decrees issued Tuesday morning, Pope Francis removed the obligation of pontifical secrecy from clerical sexual abuse cases, and strengthened the Church’s canonical prohibition against clerical possession of child pornography.

The moves are the latest in a series of efforts by the pope to reform the Church’s approach to clerical sexual abuse and coercion, and sure to be welcomed by Catholics calling for reform on the issue. The legal changes come, however, as observers watch to see how Francis will act on several high-profile abuse cases.

The pope’s decision to end the obligation of pontifical secrecy on cases of abuse, coercion, or possession of child pornography is a move that some reformers and abuse survivors have called for since the emergence of the Theodore McCarrick scandal in June 2018. In fact, the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors recommended the move in 2017, before the McCarrick scandal exploded.

Formally speaking, the pontifical secret binds the secrecy of procedural and substantive acts of a canonical case concerning clerical abuse or coercion, or did, until the pope amended the Church’s law this week. This means that diocesan and Vatican officials will now be free to give summaries of how an internal canonical case was decided, or, if a case warrants it, even to release canonical trial documents themselves.

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NASHVILLE (TN)
Baptist Global News

Dec. 17, 2019

By Christa Brown

With its recent rollout of an online reporting process, the Southern Baptist Convention and its Credentials Committee have once again failed clergy sex abuse survivors and given them yet another reason to distrust the SBC as an institution.

As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse committed by an SBC pastor, I’ve been doing advocacy work related to Baptist clergy sex abuse for over 15 years. During this time, I’ve seen countless examples of institutional and individual betrayals and failures within the SBC, often accompanied by hollow words or duplicitous chicanery. So I’ve become a skeptic.

Over the past year I’ve seen many younger advocates and survivors in Baptist life also become skeptical.

While I whole-heartedly applaud their eyes-wide-open savvy and feel such gratitude for their energy and commitment, I also feel sorrow. When I began this work, I did so in the hope that younger people might be spared the re-traumatizing institutional recalcitrance that I had encountered. But tragically, the cycle seems to be repeating itself.

“The risks of such an unprotected process will almost certainly mean that many survivors will forego reporting.”

Like me, many of these younger survivors started out with some hope that they would be heard and that things would change. But in light of what they have seen at this year’s annual SBC meeting in Birmingham, the uncaring “Caring Well” conference, the ignoring of known survivors, the propping up of known enablers, the image-polishing PR tactics – and all without meaningful denominational action – many are becoming every bit as skeptical as me.

The SBC has effectively trained another generation to be rightfully wary of everything its leaders say about addressing the persistent problem of clergy sexual abuse.

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ROME (ITALY)
Catholic News Service

Dec. 17, 2019

By Cindy Wooden

Pope Francis has abolished the obligation of secrecy for those who report having been sexually abused by a priest and for those who testify in a church trial or process having to do with clerical sexual abuse.

“The person who files the report, the person who alleges to have been harmed and the witnesses shall not be bound by any obligation of silence with regard to matters involving the case,” the pope ordered in a new “Instruction On the Confidentiality of Legal Proceedings,” published Dec. 17.

In an accompanying note, Bishop Juan Ignacio Arrieta, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, said the change regarding the “pontifical secret” has nothing to do with the seal of the sacrament of confession.

“The absolute obligation to observe the sacramental seal,” he said, “is an obligation imposed on the priest by reason of the position he holds in administering the sacrament of confession and not even the penitent can free him of it.”

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BOSTON (MA)
The Conversation

Dec. 16, 2019

By Brian Clites

The Roman Catholic bishop of Buffalo, New York, Richard Malone, became the seventh U.S. bishop since 2015 to be forced out of power for his role in covering up clergy sexual abuse cases. Malone resigned on Dec. 4, stating that his departure stemmed from a recognition that “the people of Buffalo will be better served by a new bishop who perhaps is better able to bring about the reconciliation, healing and renewal that is so needed.”

By comparison, during the prior 35 years, only three U.S. bishops had resigned because of the scandal, even though there were more than 10,000 cases of clergy sexual abuse reported to the American bishops during that time.

In my research, I have found that this increase in bishop accountability is due not to an improvement in the Vatican’s protocols, but rather to the activism of local Catholic reform groups.

I study how survivors and their advocates have exposed the problem of clergy sexual abuse.

Survivors first went public with their stories of abuse in the 1980s. But other Catholics did not begin forming survivor-advocacy groups until 2002, when a series of reports detailing how Cardinal Bernard Law, then the archbishop of Boston, had protected more than 230 abusive priests.

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DALLAS (TX)
Morning News

Dec. 17, 2019

The road back to trust is deservedly long for the Catholic Diocese of Dallas.

The sexual abuse scandal that saw the church harbor abusive priests and shuffle them from parish to parish is impossible to comprehend, so dark and terrible were its intentions and consequences.

We are glad the church has taken and continues to take steps that, we hope, demonstrate a promise that never again will protecting the institution come before protecting the innocent and the vulnerable.

The diocese’s decision to hire a respected law enforcement officer, Dallas Police Deputy Chief Albert Martinez, to supervise the victim’s assistance coordinator and oversee parish security strikes us as an important step.

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TORONTO (CANADA)
Globe and Mail

Dec. 16, 2019

By Tavia Grant

The Jesuits of Canada, a religious order of the Catholic Church, has committed to publishing the names of priests who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse dating back about 60 years.

No other major Catholic diocese or religious order in Canada has made a public commitment of this kind to follow the example of a wave of disclosures in the United States. Many of the U.S. disclosures have taken place since the 2018 release of a grand jury investigation in Pennsylvania that found priests abused more than 1,000 children.

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ROME (ITALY)
Crux

Dec. 17, 2019

By John L. Allen Jr.

Every Catholic, sooner or later, is tempted to despair about “the bishops,” no matter what their particular lament or desideratum. As novelist John Sandford once had his hero detective, Lucas Davenport, put it, “Holy Rollers scream about Jesus, but Catholics scream at the bishops.”

On no front has that been truer of late than the clerical sexual abuse crisis. Indeed, sometimes it seems the lone thing the Catholic left and right can agree on vis-à-vis the scandals is the dismal performance of the hierarchy.

For everyone tempted to such a complaint, however, there’s also Bishop Thomas Dowd.

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ROME (ITALY)
Associated Press

Dec. 17, 2019

By Nicole Winfield

Pope Francis abolished the “pontifical secret” used in clergy sexual abuse cases Tuesday, responding to mounting criticism that the high degree of confidentiality has been used to protect pedophiles, silence victims and prevent police from investigating crimes.

“The carnival of obscurity is over,” declared Juan Carlos Cruz, a prominent Chilean survivor of clergy abuse and advocate for victims.

In a new law, Francis decreed that information in abuse cases must be protected by church leaders to ensure its “security, integrity and confidentiality.” But he said “pontifical secret,” the highest form of confidentiality in the church, no longer applies to abuse-related accusations, trials and decisions under the Catholic Church’s canon law.

The Vatican’s leading sex crimes investigator, Archbishop Charles Scicluna, said the reform was an “epochal decision” that will facilitate coordination with civil law enforcement and open up lines of communication with victims.

While documentation from the church’s in-house legal proceedings will still not become public, Scicluna said, the reform now removes any excuse to not cooperate with legitimate legal requests from prosecutors, police or other authorities.

Francis also raised from 14 to 18 the cutoff age below which the Vatican considers pornographic images to be child pornography — a response to the Vatican’s increasing awareness of the prolific spread of online child porn that has frequently implicated even high-ranking churchmen.

The new laws were issued Tuesday, Francis’ 83rd birthday, as he struggles to respond to the global explosion of the abuse scandal, his own missteps and demands for greater transparency and accountability from victims, law enforcement and ordinary Catholics alike.

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OKLAHOMA CITY (OK)
Associated Press

Dec. 16, 2019

By Ken Miller

The Archdiocese of Oklahoma City said Monday it has substantiated an allegation of child sexual abuse against another priest.

The archdiocese said in a news release that Father Papa-Rao Pasala admitted to “inappropriate though not-yet criminal advances” with a 17-year-old in 2001 when he was assigned to a church in Edmond for one month before returning to his native India.

The archdiocese said it notified the Diocese of Baker in Oregon, where Pasala was serving as pastor and that the Oregon diocese removed him from the ministry on Dec. 6. Oklahoma City archdiocese spokeswoman Diane Clay said Pasala has returned to India for disciplinary action by the Diocese of Nellore and had no way of contacting him for comment.

The Diocese of Baker said in a news release that Pasala “will no longer be allowed to minister in the United States.”

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HAGANTNA (GUAM)
Pacific Daily News

Dec. 17, 2019

By Haidee Eugenio Gilbert

Creditors of the Archdiocese of Agana asked the federal court for a partial summary judgment that, if granted, could pave the way for the use of Catholic parishes and schools’ assets to pay some 280 clergy sex abuse claims.

These include everything from cars and vans to buildings, parishes, schools and cemetery property.

The creditors said the archdiocese, its parishes and its schools “are one and the same under civil law.”

Because they are one and the same, the assets of these parishes and schools “should be available to pay creditor claims,” the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors, represented by Minnesota-based attorney Edwin Caldie, said in court filings pertaining to the archdiocese’s bankruptcy case.

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OKLAHOMA CITY (OK)
The Oklahoman

Dec. 16, 2019

By Randy Ellis

A priest from India who served briefly in Oklahoma City in 2001 as been added to the list of priests who have been credibly accused of child sexual abuse, the Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City announced Monday.

Father Papa-Rao Pasala’s name has been added to the list of credibly accused priests, the local archdiocese announced Monday in a news release.

The archdiocese previously identified 11 other credibly accused priests in a report released last October.

Father Pasala, who served in the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City for a month in 2001, was sent back to India in December of that year after he admitted to what was described at the time as

Father Pasala’s bishop in Nellore, India, was informed of the reason he was sent home at the time the action was taken, the Oklahoma City archdiocese said.

The allegation against Father Pasala resurfaced recently as Oklahoma City’s McAfee & Taft law firm has continued to review files of child abuse allegations against priests within the archdiocese dating back to 1960, the news release said. The McAfee & Taft law firm prepared the previous 77-page report that identified 11 priests as having been credibly accused.

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KAMPALA (UGANDA)
Daily MOnitor

Dec. 16, 2019

By Alex Ashaba

The Bishop of Ruwenzori Diocese, Reuben Kisembo, has pardoned three priests who were suspended in 2017 on allegations of sex scandals and abuse of office.

The pardon came during a church service at St Elizabeth Chapel of Kyembabe Girls yesterday in Fort Portal Town.

The priests are Rev Joel Manyindo, Rev Felix Bataligaya, and Rev Paul Mbusa Kinyerere. They all appeared in church to ask for forgiveness before Christians and the bishop.

“The Rwezori Diocese tribunal (under Church of Uganda) that sat on November 28 received the request of three suspended priests and decided to pardon them but they will be working under probation,” Bishop Kisembo said.

Since 2017, the priests have been requesting the diocesan tribunal and the church for a pardon.

Bishop Kisembo said the priests will work for unspecified probation in the newly appointed places but would not be allowed to conduct church baptism and weddings.

The bishop asked Christians to welcome the priests saying since they had been forgiven by the Church, they need to keep watching them as they serve their probation.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Tablet

Dec. 16, 2019

By Tom Heneghan

Two more cases of clerical sexual abuse have added new twists to the series of accusations that gnaw away at the image of the Church in France.

The murder of an elderly priest last month has slowly brought to light a sordid story of the priest’s sexual abuse of the suspected killer and his father. The Bishop of Beauvais in northern France has been dragged into the scandal.

Fr Roger Matassoli, 91, was found dead on 4 November at his home near Beauvais, choked by a crucifix stuffed down his throat. There were also multiple blows to his body. A 19-year-old suspect named Alexandre was soon arrested but has been held in hospital because he appeared delirious.

A month later, the suspect’s father told a newspaper the priest had abused him years ago and still influenced him as an adult. Matassoli later abused Alexandre and had him clean his house while naked.

The father, given the pseudonym Stéphane by the daily Le Parisien, said the abuse had worsened Alexandre’s mental problems.

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FORT WAYNE (IN)
WISE NBC TV

Dec. 16, 2019

By Jazlynn Bebout

The Diocese of Fort-Wayne South Bend has announced that a local priest has been credibly accused of sexually abusing a minor.

Fort Wayne’s NBC received a statement from The Diocese that says they received an allegation on Dec. 10 against Father Joseph Gaughan, claiming he sexually abused a minor.

Father Joseph Gaughan most recently served as the pastor of Most Precious Blood Parish in Fort Wayne, but alleged abuse occurred over 20 years ago while he served at Saint Anthony de Padua Parish in South Bend.

The Diocese says they have determined the allegation to be credible and have informed authorities. Father Gaughan has also been placed on administrative leave.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

Dec. 16, 2019

Church leaders in the Diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina, announced in May that they would release a list of “credibly accused” clergy by the end of the year. Yet when talking about the impending release, the diocese’s current Vicar General continues to rely on disingenuous troupes, stating that the abuse of children by priests is a “thing of the past.”

Vicar General Patrick Winslow of the Diocese of Charlotte refers to clergy inflicted harm as a “thing of the past” in a recent interview. However, we believe when he is deliberately deflecting attention away from an ongoing problem whose roots have never been addressed by the Church. This is especially true considering his predecessor was found to be credibly accused of sexual misconduct with adults last month, and another Charlotte cleric was put on administrative leave just days ago after allegations of child sexual abuse were made against him.

A man in Fr. Winslow’s position can do much good, or much harm. His pronouncement, we fear, contributes to harm. Calling the clergy abuse scandal a “thing of the past” is a debunked myth that Catholic bishops and leaders have trotted out time and again since the Boston Scandal in 2002. Fr. Winslow should stop repeating these myths and instead look to the facts:

Vicar General Patrick Winslow of the Diocese of Charlotte refers to clergy inflicted harm as a “thing of the past” in a recent interview. However, we believe when he is deliberately deflecting attention away from an ongoing problem whose roots have never been addressed by the Church. This is especially true considering his predecessor was found to be credibly accused of sexual misconduct with adults last month, and another Charlotte cleric was put on administrative leave just days ago after allegations of child sexual abuse were made against him.

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SAN DIEGO (CA)
Union Tribune

Dec. 12, 2019

I object to bigoted comments being made about tens of thousands of young people abused by the Catholic Church. It is a sweeping generality.

The church never abused anyone. Pedophiles lied their way into the church and took advantage of their positions. The clergy’s mistake was to not send parents to the police. If the pedophile confesses to a priest, then the “Seal of Confession” stops the priest from saying anything to anyone. It becomes difficult for them to report them to the police directly or even to their superiors. Therefore, all cases must be reported immediately to them by the parents or the priest to assure the quickest response to the situation.

The Associated Press has reported on similar type of abuse. It found 17,000 cases of abuse by students on students recorded, but not reported, in four years, while the reported cases in the church occurred over 70 years. There is no reporting requirement for these student abuses. Also, the AP feels that many incidents were not recorded and that school staffs ignored many.

What is worse, Wikipedia reports 81% of students were sexually harassed in school, 83% of girls were harassed, 78% of boys were harassed, 38% were harassed by teachers or school employees 36% of school employees or teachers were harassed by students and 42% of school employees or teachers were harassed by each other.

Domenick Amato, Rancho Bernardo

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BOISE (ID)
Catholic Sentinel

Dec.15, 2019

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has informed Diocese of Boise Bishop Peter Christensen that Thomas Faucher, a former priest in the diocese, has been dismissed from the clerical state. Bishop Christensen has informed Faucher of the decision, which the Vatican calls “serious and unappealable.”

Faucher, who also was an official in Oregon’s Baker Diocese in the 1990s and pastor of St. Edward Parish in Sisters, is currently serving a 25-year sentence after pleading guilty to two felony charges of possession of child pornography, two felony charges of distribution of child pornography, and a single felony charge for possession of LSD. Idaho investigators found more than 2,500 files of child pornography on his electronic devices.

“There are no excuses for such behavior by any one of our clergy,” Bishop Christensen said. He urged Catholics and all people of good will to pray for the victims of child pornography or any form of child abuse as well as for all those, including Faucher, “who fall into such depravity, placing the eternal welfare of their souls in serious jeopardy.”

At the time of Faucher’s Feb. 2, 2017, arrest, he had been retired from active ministry for nearly three years and was immediately removed from any future ministry.

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NORWICH (ENGLAND)
Eastern Daily Press

Dec. 16, 2019

A paedophile headmaster left his estate to a Catholic priest and an ex-council leader, we can reveal today, in the hope he could quash his conviction after his death.

Derek Slade died aged 66 in March 2016 while serving a 21-year sentence at Norwich Prison for abusing 12 boys at St George’s School in Norfolk and Suffolk.

Slade was convicted of more than 50 charges including sexual assault, beatings and child pornography at the private school, between 1978 and 1983.

Boys suffered horrific beatings and sexual abuse at St George’s in Wicklewood, which moved to Finborough in Suffolk in 1980 and has since changed its name.

As headmaster, Slade made boys as young as eight strip naked for beatings and then forced them to write essays about the whippings, his trial at Ipswich Crown Court heard in 2010.

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NAIROBI (KENYA)
Daily Nation

Dec. 15, 2019

By Makau Mutua

Let’s separate man-made religious law from holy text. In the Church, canonical law are rules made by ecclesiastical authority, or Church leadership, for the governance of the flock.

It shouldn’t be confused with the Bible. Messianic religions, of which there are two – Islam and Christianity – are guilty of grave historical wrongs.

Established and recognised religions, including some of the largest – Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Hinduism, African religions, and Judaism – involve both individual conscience, belief, and community identity. By and large, public authorities in democracies generally permit religions to establish their own internal rules.

But not all internal religious rules are godly, ethical or even moral. The same is true of religious practices throughout history. Some have been abominable. Others are clearly discriminatory. Today, I focus on two new progressive practices the Catholic Church needs to accept – the ordination of women and marriage of priests.

Recently, the synod of Amazon bishops voted – in a meeting with Pope Francis in Vatican City – to allow married men to become priests. The Amazon plea was largely driven by pragmatic logic. The shortage of priests in the Amazon is so acute that many faithful Catholics go for years without attending mass or receiving the Eucharist. The cure to the problem is hiding in plain sight – allow priests to marry and the shortage vanishes. To his credit, Pope Francis, as he has done throughout his papacy, seemed to signal an opening in special cases. Despite stiff conservative opposition to allowing priests to marry, Pope Francis urged “openness to new ways”. He could rule on the issue by year’s end. Given the politics and dynamics in the Church, it’s doubtful that Pope Francis will go beyond a marginal relaxation of the rules requiring celibacy. But to be clear, celibacy isn’t required by the Bible, or any scripture, although the Apostle Paul recommended it in the First Letter to the Corinthians.

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LAFAYETTE (LA)
KATC News

Dec. 14, 2019

KATC has been awarded a Suncoast Regional Emmy Award for their program focusing on the accusations of sexual abuse in the Diocese of Lafayette.

Congratulations to KATC’s Jim Hummel, Letitia Walker, David Hilbun, Angie Simoneaux, and Wynce Nolley on their work on “The List: Accusations of Abuse in the Diocese of Lafayette.”

You can read that story here.

In a half-hour special report, KATC-TV exposed a long-kept secret in the Diocese of Lafayette: The List of priests who faced credible accusations of sexual abuse involving children.

In the 1980s, the diocese was home to the first reported case of clergy sex abuse in the country. The scandal persisted in this devoutly Catholic region for decades and the diocese eventually acknowledged that 15 priests were credibly accused. Over the years abuse survivors called for the 15 names to be made public, yet the diocese refused. As recently as 2014 a former bishop said he saw “no purpose” in releasing the 15 names.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

December 10, 2019

By Miki Perkins

The head of Australia’s royal commission into child sex abuse has condemned Catholic church leaders for failing to recognise the sexual assault of children as a crime.

Speaking publicly about the royal commission for the first time, Justice Peter McClellan said on Tuesday that commissioners had heard from many leaders of the Catholic church, some of whom argued sexual abuse was a “moral failure” rather than a criminal act.

“I cannot comprehend how any person, much less one with qualifications in theology … could consider the rape of a child to be a moral failure but not a crime,” Justice McClellan said in a speech to the Australian Human Rights Commission. “This statement by leaders of the Catholic Church marks out the corruption within the Church both within Australia, and it seems from reports, in many other parts of the world.”

Rather than ensuring that offenders were subject to the criminal law, ineffectual attempts at “treatment” of offenders was undertaken by the church, he said.

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WESTCHESTER COUNTY (NY)
News 12 TV

December 10, 2019

[VIDEO]

A former student at St. Joseph School in Middletown is accusing a former nun of sexual abuse dating back to the mid-1960s.

The accuser, Pamela Hayes, says she suffered for nearly five years at the hands of Sister Ann Peterson.

Peterson is accused of sexually abusing Hayes from 1963 to 1967, by “hugging, kissing, massaging, caressing and touching her breasts and genitals” according to court documents.

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BUFFALO (NY)
The Buffalo News

December 15, 2019

By News Editorial Board

The interim leader of Buffalo’s Catholic Diocese makes a strong first impression.

Albany Bishop Edward Scharfenberger, who was named the diocese’s temporary administrator after Bishop Richard J. Malone retired this month, had his first public meeting with Western New York Catholics on Dec. 7, at an event at Canisius College organized by the Movement to Restore Trust.

Scharfenberger met with Michael Whalen, whose story of abuse by a local priest set in motion the clergy abuse scandal in Buffalo. The bishop told Whalen, “I believe that our victim survivors, they are our family” and an essential part of the church’s mission.

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PORTLAND (ME)
Associated Press via the Register Citizen

December 15, 2019

A man who says he was abused by a priest has no legal argument to compel the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland to pay for his psychological counseling, a Maine judge has ruled.

David Gagnon, formerly of Biddeford, sued the Portland diocese in small claims court when it avoided paying his $875 counseling bill.

Gagnon, 54, says he was abused by a priest for more than five years when he was a teenager in the 1980s. He reported the abuse to church officials in 1991. Bishop Joseph Gerry issued a letter in 2002 saying that survivors of clergy sexual abuse would be reimbursed for counseling.

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HOUSTON (TX)
Houston Chronicle

December 13, 2019

By Nicole Hensley

A Houston-area priest allegedly propositioned another priest for sex in the months before he was arrested and jailed in 2018 on multiple counts of indecency with a child, according to court records mistakenly made public this week.

In the newly filed documents, Montgomery County prosecutors also say Manuel La Rosa-Lopez raped a woman in 2005. Prosecutors outlined both allegations in a “notice of extraneous conduct and/or bad acts” ahead of the priest’s February trial. The latest encounter happened in May 2018 when La Rosa-Lopez allegedly exposed himself to another priest at a Galveston County hotel and asked for oral sex. After the priest declined, the accused cleric then asked him if he would “like to be assigned to a larger parish.”

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CANADA
The Globe and Mail

December 13, 2019

By Tavia Grant

Survivors of clergy abuse across Canada are mobilizing, with growing calls for greater transparency and accountability in the Catholic church over its handling of sexual abuse cases.

Actions span from London, Ont., where a group of survivors has published names of credibly accused priests, to St. John’s, where the archbishop is under pressure to release names, and Ottawa, where a petition to the House of Commons is calling for a public inquiry.

In Vancouver’s archdiocese, a review committee uncovered 36 sexual abuse cases over the past 70 years, from which nine names were published – the first such disclosure for a Catholic diocese in Canada. The report recommended creating a national review board to hold bishops accountable, and a nationwide registry of credible allegations of clerical sexual abuse.

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
WVUE-TV, Fox8

December 13, 2019

By Chris Finch

A criminal court judge set bond at $1 million for former Catholic Church Deacon George Brignac. The 82-year-old entered a not guilty plea on Friday morning (Dec. 13) at Orleans Criminal Court.

He was booked into jail at 12:23 p.m. on a charge of first-degree rape.

Brignac was formally charged by an Orleans grand jury yesterday for the aggravated rape of a child.

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CHESAPEAKE (VA)
Associated Press via Virginia Lawyers Weekly

December 14, 2019

Trustees of a Chesapeake church claim city workers defamed the organization when talking about allegations of abuse.

Last year, a Chesapeake social worker determined abuse allegations had been substantiated against five Deep Creek United Methodist Church childcare workers. But court records show the city attorney’s office reversed that ruling weeks later, saying the allegation actually were unsubstantiated, according to The Virginian-Pilot.

The lawsuit against the city’s Department of Human Services and two of its workers says the workers published false statements accusing church workers of abuse, tarnishing the church’s reputation and leading more than half its enrolled children to leave. The church once cared for more than 250 children at its two childcare centers.

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TOKYO (JAPAN)
Associated Press

December 14, 2019

By Yuri Kageyama

During Pope Francis’ recent visit to Japan, Harumi Suzuki stood where his motorcade passed by holding a sign that read: “I am a survivor.”

Katsumi Takenaka stood at another spot, on another day, holding up his banner that read, “Catholic child sexual abuse in Japan, too.”

The two are among a handful of people who have gone public as survivors of Catholic clergy sexual abuse in Japan, where values of conformity and harmony have resulted in a strong code of silence.

But as in other parts of the world, from Pennsylvania to Chile, Takenaka and Suzuki are starting to feel less alone as other victims have come forward despite the ostracism they and their family members often face for speaking out.

Their public denunciation is all the more remarkable, given Catholics make up less than 0.5% of Japan’s population. To date, the global abuse scandal has concentrated on heavily Catholic countries, such as Ireland, the U.S. and now, many countries in Latin America.

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LINCOLN (NE)
Lincoln Journal-Star

December 13, 2019

By Riley Johnson

Lincoln Bishop James Conley has taken a leave of absence to seek treatment after being diagnosed with depression, anxiety, insomnia and tinnitus, the diocese announced Friday.

“My doctors have directed me to take a leave of absence for medical and psychological treatment, and to get some much-needed rest,” Conley said in a news release.

“After prayer, and seeking the counsel of my spiritual director, my brother bishops, and my family, I have accepted the medical necessity of a temporary leave of absence.”

Conley’s leave is effective immediately, and Pope Francis has appointed Omaha Archbishop George Lucas to handle the administrative duties for the Lincoln diocese in Conley’s absence, according to the release.

Conley, 64, plans to return to his post after undergoing “the best psychological and medical treatment available to me,” the release said.

In a letter to parishioners, Conley said he’d been dealing with the medical issues on his own.

“For months, I’ve tried to work through these issues on my own through spiritual direction, counseling, and prayer,” Conley said. “It has been difficult to accept that my mental health problems are real health problems, and not just a defect of my character, especially during a year of difficulty for our diocese.”

Earlier this year, the diocese had publicly identified nine former priests who had served in the diocese and been credibly accused of sexual abuse of minors.

The Nebraska Attorney General’s Office is investigating allegations of sexual misconduct in the Diocese of Lincoln and Archdiocese of Omaha.

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NEW YORK
Insider.com

December 14, 2019

By Kelly McLaughlin

– Laura Palumbo, communications director for the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, told Insider that she’s not surprised by Harvey Weinstein’s tentative $25 million settlement with women who have accused him of sexual misconduct.

– Palumbo said having to settle for less than what is deserved is “just a reality” for many victims of sexual assault.

– In the tentative settlement, Weinstein won’t have to admit any wrongdoing, and the funds will be paid by Weinstein Company insurers.

– More than 30 women — both actresses and Weinstein Company employees —have accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct. The settlement would resolve several civil lawsuits that have been filed against him since 2017.

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MEMPHIS (TN)
Associated Press via Lincoln (NE) Journal-Star

December 15, 2019

A Tennessee pastor faces 38 years in prison after being found guilty on 24 counts involving child sex abuse.

News outlets report that 41-year-old Ronnie Gorton received the sentence Friday in Tipton County. He was convicted on charges including sexual battery and statutory rape in August.

Judge Joe Walker said at the sentencing that Gorton used his position of authority as he “groomed minors for his sexual perversion.”

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PORTLAND (ME)
Portland Herald

December 15, 2019

By Eric Russell

The sex abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church has been exposed in large and loud ways over the years – on the front pages of newspapers across the country detailing massive financial payouts to thousands of abuse survivors and the removal or criminal prosecution of hundreds of priests.

Just this year it was reported that more survivors than ever are coming forward, leading to a dramatic increase in financial settlements and a renewed crisis for the church.

But for one abuse survivor, it played out in a much quieter way – in small claims court in Portland, where the local Catholic diocese successfully avoided paying his psychological counseling bill totaling $875.

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ROME (ITALY)
Catholic News Agency

Dec 13, 2019

A senior official at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has defended clerical celibacy in the wake of the abuse crisis.

In an essay published in a Spanish magazine, Fr. Jordi Bertomeu Farnós said that there is “no evidence” celibacy has any relation to instances of sexual abuse, and warned that priests have been unfairly branded a suspect class.

In the essay, published in Palabra Dec. 10, Fr. Farnós laid out the context of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, noting that the high-profile nature of the scandals has resulted in a number of mistaken presumptions about the causes of abuse.

“Although unfortunately, in all social classes, professions, ethnic groups and, of course, religions, there is the phenomenon of child abuse, Catholic priests are seen or even increasingly treated as ‘suspects’ of having committed this horrible crime.”

Speaking against attempts to link the discipline of celibacy to crimes of sexual abuse, Farnós said that “regardless of other circumstances and arguments that have emerged in the recent Synod for the Amazon,” “this conclusion does not present any logical connection with the problem we are dealing with here: there is no scientific data that demonstrates that a married life would put an end to the deviant behavior of these few priests with this sexual disorder.”

“There is no evidence that priestly celibacy directly causes any deviant sexual addiction, as evidenced by those cases of men or women who, due to life’s circumstances, must live as celibate.”

“In addition,” he added, “celibacy has never been considered as a relevant parameter to identify abusers. Rather, most abusers are married men. Priests, mostly celibate men are… usually characterized precisely for their psychological balance, for their availability and selfless delivery to all, not only to the Catholic faithful.”

Farnós went on to offer a strident defense of the discipline of celibacy which, he said, was often unintelligible to modern society.

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DORCHESTER COUNTY (SC)
WCSC Live 5

Dec. 10, 2019

A jury was selected on Tuesday in the trial of a man accused of sexually assaulting multiple young boys inside a North Charleston church.

Jacop Hazlett’s trial will start Wednesday morning. The trial concerns just six of the 23 charges against him including first-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor, three counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor and two counts of first-degree sexual exploitation of a minor.

The trial also only pertains to four of the 15 alleged victims.

It was a long day in court on Tuesday with the jury being selected first.

Pre-trial motions were then made where evidence was presented, without the jury’s presence, to determine which items they will be shown during the trial.

One item prosecutors put forth was a video interview of Hazlett conducted by a police investigator.

In the video, Hazlett can be heard telling the investigator that he touched the private parts of children and took pictures of them as well.

Hazlett says he did this while he was a volunteer at the the Newspring Church.

During this portion of the court hearing, Hazlett was seen crying while watching the interrogation videos.

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NORWALK (CT)
The Hour

Dec. 14, 2019

By Erin Kayata

It was a sighting of the priest allegedly driving a teenage boy alone in his car that prompted a church official to report Rev. Jaime Marin-Cardona.

The report led to an investigation and Marin-Cardona being placed on leave from the church while the state Department of Children and Families and the Danbury Police examine the abuse allegations.

Being alone in a car with a minor violates one of the many policies in the Diocese of Bridgeport’s Safe Environment Handbook.

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PROVIDENCE (RI)
Providencen Journal

Dec. 14, 2019

By Brian Amaral

In a lawsuit filed Friday, John Tormey said his inclusion on the list of clergy who’d been “credibly accused” of sexually abusing minors cost him his job and subjected him to shame, ridicule and disgrace.

A former Rhode Island priest whose name appeared on the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence’s list of clergy who’d been “credibly accused” of sexually abusing minors has sued the diocese and Bishop Thomas Tobin for defamation.

In a lawsuit filed Friday, John Tormey said his inclusion on the list cost him his job and subjected him to shame, ridicule and disgrace. He never sexually abused anyone, he said, and the diocese didn’t give him an opportunity to defend himself before defaming his character.

“My client has been hesitant to take legal action against the institution which he proudly served and has remained faithful to for his entire life, both before, during, and since his service to the ministry,” his lawyer, Christopher T. Millea, said in a written statement. “But his reputation has been irreparably harmed by his inclusion on the list published by the Diocese and Bishop Tobin, and he feels this is his only remedy to such a horrible situation. Mr. Tormey loves his faith and his Church, despite having to take such actions. He looks forward to addressing these claims for the wrongs committed against him by the Diocese and or others in a court of law.”

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HARRISBURG (PA)
Associated Press

Dec. 14, 2019

By Mark Scolforo

A state court system task force wants Pennsylvania to stop issuing grand jury reports, an idea that faces long odds in the Legislature, which would have to pass a new law to halt the practice.

The Supreme Court-appointed task force, consisting of five lawyers and two judges, issued its report last month, just a day or two after lawmakers cast final votes on four bills designed to help victims of child sexual abuse. It was legislation that an investigative grand jury proposed last year, when it found that hundreds of Roman Catholic priests had sexually abused children over seven decades.

The task force’s recommendations are not binding and being forwarded to the high court’s Criminal Procedural Rules Committee. But it will be up to the General Assembly to decide whether to prohibit grand jury reports or, in another recommendation, authorize smaller counties to form regional grand juries.

If the reports are not stopped, the task force majority said, they should at least no longer include information that is critical of people by name if they are not expected to face criminal charges.

A spokesman for the majority Republican caucus in the state House, Mike Straub, said leaders are not inclined to do away with grand jury reports.

“Grand jury reports are one way the courts can communicate with the Legislature,” Straub said, citing the clergy abuse report. “If we dismiss the importance of that work, we are reducing the ability of the three branches of government to effectively communicate and work together in the best interest of Pennsylvanians.”

In the Senate, Republican leaders said they need more time to study the report, while the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Larry Farnese of Philadelphia, said the report was inadequate and wants senators to perform their own review of the grand jury system.

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PUEBLO (CO)
Pueblo Chieftain

Dec. 14, 2019

By Anthony A. Mestas

The Most Rev. Stephen Berg said his hurt is indescribable, knowing that children have been sexually abused by priests in the Pueblo Diocese and throughout the Catholic Church nationwide.

Berg, who grew up in a strong Catholic family and attended Catholic schools, said he wasn’t exposed to anything like this growing up.

“As I became a priest, I was 49 years old. Soon after is really when this stuff started to hit with the Dallas Charter. I was in Fort Worth (Texas), and dealing with these situations has basically been an intrinsic part of my life,” Berg said, thumbing through a notebook containing the Pueblo Diocese’s policies and procedures in dealing with reported abuse.

The diocese has adopted a zero-tolerance policy, removing any priest or minister for any act of sexual misconduct with a minor. And the diocese immediately reports any suspected child abuse to law enforcement and cooperates fully in any investigation.

Since 2002, the church has been designated as mandated reporters. A mandated reporter is a person who, because of his or her profession, is legally required to report any suspicion of child abuse or neglect to the relevant authorities.

Berg says that any reasonable suspicion of sexual misconduct of any kind and any abuse to a child — including physical abuse — is to be immediately reported to the vicar for clergy, the vicar general, the director of human resources and the bishop himself.

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ROME (ITALY)
Crux

Dec. 14, 2019

By Inés San Martín

He is both one of the quietest Vatican officials, and one of the Roman Curia’s least known personalities. He is a member of the team that handles the allegations of clerical sexual abuse that arrive in Rome, and he played a key role in the shakeup of the Catholic Church in Chile which has been ravaged by a clerical abuse crisis.

This means that on the rare occasions Spanish Father Jordi Bertomeu speaks, his words have weight. He did so at length this week in a 2,800-word essay published by the Spanish magazine Palabra, where he discusses the role the hot button topics of celibacy, the Church’s ban on the ordination of women, and homosexuality have on the abuse of children.

In short, none: He argues being celibate, being a man or being gay does not make a person a sexual abuser.

Last year, the Spaniard was tapped by Pope Francis to head to Chile with Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta, another member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), to try to understand the situation regarding clerical sexual abuse in the country. The result was a document thousands of pages long that led to the resignation of the entire episcopate; to date, the pontiff has accepted eight.

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TOKYO (JAPAN)
Associated Press

Dec. 13, 2019

By Yuri Kageyama

During Pope Francis’ recent visit to Japan, Harumi Suzuki stood where his motorcade passed by holding a sign that read: “I am a survivor.”

Katsumi Takenaka stood at another spot, on another day, holding up his banner that read, “Catholic child sexual abuse in Japan, too.”

The two are among a handful of people who have gone public as survivors of Catholic clergy sexual abuse in Japan, where values of conformity and harmony have resulted in a strong code of silence.

But as in other parts of the world, from Pennsylvania to Chile, Takenaka and Suzuki are starting to feel less alone as other victims have come forward despite the ostracism they and their family members often face for speaking out.

Their public denunciation is all the more remarkable, given Catholics make up less than 0.5% of Japan’s population. To date, the global abuse scandal has concentrated on heavily Catholic countries, such as Ireland, the U.S. and now, many countries in Latin America.

All of which could explain why the Catholic hierarchy in Japan has been slow to respond to the scandal, which involves not only children being sexually abused but adults in spiritual direction — an increasingly common phenomenon being denounced in the #MeToo era.

In a recent case, police were investigating allegations by a woman in Nagasaki, the region with the greatest concentration of Catholics in Japan, that a priest touched her inappropriately last year.

Japanese media reports said the woman had been hospitalized for PTSD. Police confirmed an investigation was underway but the church declined to provide details, citing privacy concerns.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Japan launched a nationwide investigation into sexual abuse of women and children this year, responding to the Vatican’s demand for an urgent response to the global crisis.

The results haven’t been disclosed, and it’s unclear when they might be ready. Similar studies have been carried out by the U.S., German and Dutch churches, with the findings made public, and government-mandated inquiries have devastated the church’s credibility in countries like Australia .

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MIAMI (FL)
WPEC CBS 12

Dec. 13, 2019

By Danielle Waugh

Thousands of survivors of childhood sexual abuse in Florida could soon have a window of time to file civil lawsuits against their abusers, even if their statute of limitations already expired.

Lauren Book, a state senator from Broward County, announced legislation this week that includes a one year look back window for child sex abuse claims.

“I think there is a strong will [to pass this legislation] because of the things we have seen in our state: Jeffrey Epstein, and several other cases,” Sen. Book said.

Sixteen other states and Washington D.C. already have some form of a look back law, according to statute of limitations reform advocacy group CHILD USA.

The thinking behind these pieces of legislation is that it often takes child victims many years to report the abuse they suffered and, in many cases, the statute of limitation expires before they’re ready to come forward.

New York is one of the most recent states to adopt a look back window through the Child Victims Act.

The new law allowed Epstein accuser Jennifer Araoz to sue the convicted predator’s estate.

In an op-ed for the New York Times, Araoz wrote: “For years I felt crushed by the power imbalance between Epstein, with his enablers, and me. The Child Victims Act finally offers a counterweight…I hope more states pass similar laws so that more survivors who endured abuse, assault and rape as a child can know what wrestling back their power feels like.”

Jack Scarola, a West Palm Beach-based attorney who represents multiple Epstein accusers in Florida, believes there are many more women like Araoz in South Florida.

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MIAMI (FL)
Legal News Blog

Dec. 11, 2019

By Attorney Adam Horowitz

EWTN News and RealClear Opinion Research partnered to conduct an in depth survey on Catholic voters’ attitudes prior to the 2020 election. When it came to the clergy sexual abuse scandal, the survey reveals that American Catholics are overwhelmingly displeased with the handling of the scandal by their local Bishops. Only 30% of Catholics approve of the Bishops’ handling of the scandal, compared to 55% who disapprove. Their view of the Pope’s handling of clergy sexual abuse was somewhat better than their ranking of their own local Bishops. 44% of Catholics approve of the Pope’s handling of the crisis, while 41% say they disapprove. This data reflects the vast amount of Amenrican Catholics who are angered by the sexual abuse crisis and the inability of Church leadership to address the problem and the spiritual needs of their parishioners.

As the American Catholic landscape has evolved there has been a sweeping desire for modern reformation in the Church beyond just controlling the rampant sex abuse crisis. According to the poll, the majority of Catholic voters are in favor of allowing priests to marry (64% of all Catholic voters) and for women to be ordained as deacons (69% of all Catholic voters).

“This data poll confirms the differences in ethnicity, age, and ideology within the Catholic community that make it such a pastoral challenge for bishops and such an electoral opportunity for politicians,” said John Carr, director of the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
National Catholic Register

Dec. 13, 2019

By Ed Condon

Senior police officials in the Australian state of Victoria discussed by email the way that their 2014 investigation into Cardinal George Pell could deflect public scrutiny from an emerging corruption scandal in the force.

In a 2014 email exchange, then-Deputy Commissioner Graham Ashton and Charlie Morton, assistant director of media and corporate communications for the Victoria police department, discussed how to respond to a high-profile scandal which would hamper the credibility of Victoria police operations.

In an email dated April 1, 2014, Morton advised Ashton not to make a media appearance in response to the “Lawyer X” scandal, because forthcoming announcements about Cardinal Pell could distract media and public attention.

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EDINBURG (TX)
Courthouse News

Dec. 13, 2019

By Erik De La Garza

A former Catholic priest convicted two years ago of murder in the 1960 death of a South Texas schoolteacher is asking a state appellate court for a new trial based largely on hearsay claims from witness testimony.

In a 152-page filing made public on Friday, an attorney for John Feit, 87, urged the 13th Court of Appeals to reverse his conviction, arguing 11 points of error to support the former priest’s decades-old claim that he had nothing to do with the Easter weekend 1960 suffocation death of Irene Garza, an elementary schoolteacher and former Miss South Texas.

Testimony at Feit’s seven-day trial in Edinburg centered around an alleged 57-year-old Catholic Church-led conspiracy blamed for covering up Garza’s murder, one of the nation’s oldest cases brought to trial.

“There were no eye witnesses to corroborate the state’s theory that appellant was responsible,” defense attorney O. Rene Flores wrote in the brief. “There was no physical, scientific, or forensic evidence obtained in the 56 years since the disappearance and murder of Irene Garza that somehow linked appellant to this offense.”

According to Flores, jurors were fed hearsay statements from the onset of the trial and should not have heard testimony from Dale Tacheny, a former monk and key prosecution witness who claimed Feit confessed to murdering a woman – his former parishioner – while the two were at a Trappist monastery in Ava, Missouri in 1963.

On the first day of trial, former TV news reporter turned attorney Darryl Davis testified that Feit escaped justice because prosecutors in the 1960s cut a deal with the Catholic Church: Feit would not be prosecuted for Garza’s murder if he agreed to plead no-contest in a case involving 20-year-old college student Maria America Guerra.

Guerra, who did not testify during trial because of health issues, was attacked by Feit from behind as she knelt to pray in church, prosecutors said. Feit pleaded no-contest in 1962 to a reduced charge of aggravated assault in that case after a trial ended in a hung jury the year before.

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ROME (ITALY)
Catholic News Agency

Dec. 13, 2019

By Courtney Mares

American bishops from the Midwest met with Pope Francis this week with questions about the outcome of the Vatican’s investigation of Theodore McCarrick.

“I did ask about the McCarrick situation. That was something that all of us were very interested in knowing where this was going. And very glad to hear that a report is coming, and not sure when it will be, probably after the beginning of the new year,” Bishop Earl Boyea of Lansing told EWTN Dec. 13.

The seventeen bishops from Ohio and Michigan (Region VI of the US bishops) met with the pope for two hours Dec. 10 as a part of their ad limina visit to Rome, and had the opportunity to ask the pope questions.

Bishop Boyea said he asked Pope Francis about the promised McCarrick report, and that the pope described it for them. He said that the bishops also discussed the report with the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin.

Parolin is “a little more nervous about the reception of this in the public,” he added.

The Vatican announced that it would conduct a review of files on McCarrick in October 2018.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

Dec. 13, 2019

A priest in Kentucky who was convicted of child sexual abuse in 2016 has a parole hearing at 2:00 PM on December 16, 2019 in Frankfort. The hearing is open to the public. We hope that he will be kept behind bars and away from other vulnerable children.

Fr. Joseph Hemmerle was convicted in 2016 for sexually abusing a child at a Meade County summer camp in the 1970s. The cleric subsequently appealed his case to the Kentucky supreme court, arguing that the prosecution had not proven intent. During the trial, Fr. Hemmerle admitted to touching the genitals of not only the victim in this case, but also other children over the 40 years he served as director of Camp Tall Trees. He claims that he was only applying medicine, even though the victim in the case testified that he did not have poison ivy on his genitals. Also, Fr. Hemmerle seems to discount that a 10 year old boy can apply the medicine himself and even their own mother would not touch them in that way at that age. Fortunately, that nonsensical argument was shot down by the justices and Fr. Hemmerle remained in jail.

Now, after serving less than three years of a recommended nine-year sentence from two convictions, the parole board will be reviewing his case on Monday. However, not only has Fr. Hemmerle never expressed any remorse for his actions, but he also argued in this appeal that the court never proved intent.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

Dec. 13, 2019

According to reports, at least sixteen more victims of clergy abuse in Colorado have come forward since the special master’s report was released earlier this year. One of those survivors is sharing his story publicly in hopes it helps others.

We applaud Daniel Masias for speaking out and are confident that his courage and example will help others in Colorado who are still unsure about coming forward or seeking justice. As he says in his statement, he was not interviewed as part of the Special Master’s report.

There is little doubt that the Colorado report naming only 43 priests is deficient. The most glaring hole in the report is the lack of order clerics who abused. The Capuchins, for example, have headquarters in Denver and one of their own, Archbishop Charles Chaput, previously worked as the Archbishop of Denver. He is currently the Archbishop of Philadelphia. We believe one reason no order priests are named in the report may be because of Archbishop Chaput’s outsized influence. The Capuchins from Denver, known as the Province of St. Conrad, have abusers who have hurt children all over their territory. Surely some were hurt in Colorado.

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ROCHESTER (NY)
National Catholic Reporter

Dec 13, 2019

By Sarah Salvadore

When the Rochester Diocese became the first in New York State to file for bankruptcy in September, it didn’t come as a surprise to legal experts. With the state passing the Child Victims Act in August, extending the statute of limitations for sex abuse victims, the diocese was served with hundreds of lawsuits alleging abuse, dating back decades.

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Reeling under the financial weight of clerical sexual misconduct lawsuits, Rochester joined a list of other dioceses across the country that have also filed for bankruptcy protection.

While not surprising, bankruptcy declarations, say victim advocates and legal scholars, deny victims their day in court, cover up wrongdoings and result in lower settlements.

Financial distress is not always the reason a diocese declares bankruptcy. The procedure can be used for a variety of purposes often beneficial to a diocese that wants to avoid the discovery that might be required in a trial, as a means of financial reorganization, or as a path to dealing in the most efficient way with groups of complainants.

Bankruptcy can be used, experts say, to help push aside litigation. Jeff Anderson — a Minnesota-based attorney who represents survivors of clerical sex abuse against the Catholic church across the U.S. — said bankruptcy cases are often used to accomplish financial reorganization.

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MIDDLETOWN (NY)
Times Herald-Record

Dec. 12, 2019

By Chris McKenna

A former parishioner of St. Patrick’s Church on Grand Street alleges in a new lawsuit that both a bishop and another priest at the church sexually abused him when he was a boy.

The accused clergymen are Bishop Austin Vaughn, who was named pastor of the Newburgh church in 1979, and the Rev. Donald Whelan, who was made administrator at around the same time, according to the St. Patrick’s website. Both men are now deceased; Vaughn died in 2000 and Whelan in 1987.

The lawsuit filed in state Supreme Court in Manhattan on Nov. 26 by Jack Shapiro says the acts occurred on church property between 1979 and 1984, but gives no other details. Shapiro’s Manhattan attorney, Peter Saghir, declined on Thursday to discuss the allegations, and said only that his client lives in New York.

The case, which names St. Patrick’s and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York as defendants, is part of a flood of lawsuits filed in New York since Aug. 14 under the Child Victims Act, a state law that gave people who were sexually abused as children a one-year window to bring civil claims that otherwise would be barred by the statute of limitations.

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WATERFORD (IRELAND)
Munster Express

Dec. 13, 2019

A former Catholic priest has been sent forward for trial accused of possessing child pornography.Oliver O’Grady appeared in Waterford District Court last Tuesday December 3rd. He is accused of possessing a video of an underage girl being sexually abused, found at an address in Waterford in 2015.

Mr O’Grady worked as a Catholic priest in California in the 1970s before returning to Ireland in the early 2000s. Mr O’ Grady appeared in Waterford District Court last Tuesday, December 3rd, before Judge Staunton, who referred his case to the next sitting of Waterford Circuit Court.

Judge Staunton directed Mr O’Grady that if he wishes to rely on alibi evidence for the trial, he must give notice within fourteen days. Barrister for Mr O’ Grady, Andrew Walsh, told the Judge that O’Grady would not be making an application for bail, but he did make a request for legal aid on behalf of his client, with the appointment of Solicitor Tracy Horan and one Junior Council to the case.

Mr Walsh also told the Judge that the Book of Evidence for the case had “parts of pages missing text.” Judge Staunton requested that this matter “be attended to as a matter of extreme urgency.” O’ Grady was remanded in custody to Midlands Prison to await trial. He will appear in Waterford Circuit Court on this matter on January 14th 2020.

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ERIE (PA)
Times News

Dec. 13, 2019

By Ed Palattella

A Pennsylvania Superior Court decision provides an option to sue over claims of clergy sexual abuse and cover-ups.

The legal developments are not over in the clergy sex abuse crisis in Pennsylvania.

A lawyer reminded me of that reality as I was writing Tuesday’s article on how much the Catholic Diocese of Erie has spent on abuse claims and related expenses. The figure is nearly $12 million, including about $6 million in payouts from diocese’s compensation fund for victims.

The state General Assembly likely limited the final amount of the payouts in the Erie diocese and other Roman Catholic dioceses throughout the state. Lawmakers did so by pursuing a constitutional amendment that would suspend the statute of limitations and give victims a two-year window to sue, no matter how old the claims.

Legislation failed that would have made the two-year window immediate. The process to amend the state constitution, including a voter referendum, will take years.

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