A digest of links to media coverage of clergy abuse. For recent coverage listed in this blog, read the full article in the newspaper or other media source by clicking “Read original article.” For earlier coverage, click the title to read the original article.
FT. WORTH (TX)
Star Telegram
December 15, 2018
By Neil Nakahodot
After the Fort Worth Star-Telegram published a series of stories about sexual misconduct at independent fundamental Baptist churches, the paper received hundreds of responses
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service
December 14, 2018
By Zita Ballinger Fletcher
An investigation by the Diocese of Hildesheim, Germany, is shedding new light on child sex abuse in Catholic children’s homes in the country in the 1950s. A central figure in the inquiry is an esteemed and controversial figure, Bishop Heinrich Maria Janssen, a former priest in Nazi-occupied Poland awarded Germany’s highest federal decoration in 1966 for postwar charity work.
Volker Bauerfeld, a spokesman for the diocese, told Catholic News Service the allegations against Janssen have “deeply shaken many people” in the diocese, due to Janssen’s status as “one of the most renowned Hildesheim bishops of modern times.”
Although Janssen and his alleged accomplices are long dead, Bishop Heiner Wilmer, the current bishop, is investigating the matter fully to “bring more light into the darkness.” Wilmer is launching a vigorous inquiry to investigate sexual abuse allegedly committed by Janssen and Catholic orphanage chaplains, with the aim of revealing the truth behind a possible local pedophile ring.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
DENVER (CO)
Crux
December 17, 2018
By Inés San Martín
As the clerical sexual abuse scandals continue to work their way through the global church, bishops and religious superiors in Spain are showing similar but also contrasting reactions both to the crime of abuse and the public reactions to it.
During his first remarks as bishop of Avila during his ordination, Jose Maria Gil Tamayo, former secretary and spokesman of the bishops’ conference, said on Saturday that there’s an attempt to “extend an unfair veil of suspicion over the immense multitude of priests.”
He was referring to the recent publication, in several local newspapers, of allegations of clerical sexual abuse and subsequent silence and cover-up. Seeing this “veil of suspicion,” Gil Tamayo said he wanted to offer some words of “encouragement” and “support” for the local clergy, whom he thanked for their service.
“Especially in these moments in which, seeing the sins and crimes that have been committed by the ecclesial community and for which we apologize and work towards their eradication and prevention,” there’s an attempt to discredit the many good priests “who serve God and the people in a faithful, self-denying and exemplary way,” he said, to a cheering crowd.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
GUAM
Pacific Daily News
December 17, 2018
Bt Haidee V. Eugenio
Father Louis Brouillard and Father Antonio A. Cruz sexually abused the same Yona boy on separate occasions in the early 1970s, according to a $10 million lawsuit filed in local court on Monday.
The two priests were assigned to different parishes on Guam in the 1970s, but on various occasions were assigned to conduct Mass at the Saint Francis Church in Yona. Both priests are now deceased.
More: Religious order Carmelites added as defendant in Guam clergy sex abuse lawsuits
More: Lawsuit: Father Antonio C. Cruz, 2 others told altar boy he would go to hell if he told of sex abuse
The two priests, on separate occasions, sexually abused and molested the boy in their individual cars after offering the boy a ride home. Cruz also tried to rape the boy in the car, after abusing him, according to the lawsuit.
The boy, identified in court documents only as J.C.G. to protect his privacy, was a young parishioner who helped clean the Yona church after Mass at his mother’s instructions.
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IRONDALE (AL)
National Catholic Register
December 14, 2018
By Peter Jesserer Smith
Standing at a payphone in Rome, calling his wife in tears, was not how the newly ordained Catholic deacon planned to end a 10-day pilgrimage in Rome.
On a misty night in February 2006, Deacon Mark King called his wife, Susan, to explain he had just escaped a drunken sexual attack from their pastor, who had subjected him to days of sexual harassment and unwanted sexual advances, at a restaurant.
Upon his return to the United States, Deacon King and his wife met with diocesan officials the next morning, where chancery officials prepared his statement, witnessed by the diocesan investigator and notarized by the chancellor of the diocese, documenting the aggressive sexual harassment, sexual advances and propositioning he had received from Father Greg Mullaney, then-pastor of Sacred Heart Church in Groton, Connecticut, during that trip.
Speaking to the Register more than 12 years later, Deacon King said he was very concerned that he might not be the only person targeted by the priest for sex. According to the deacon’s statement, the priest had made many immoral, suggestive and sexually disparaging comments about fellow clergy and laity, including parish employees.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
[Book authors on Chilean Church crisis: the hierarchy failed]
CHILE
La Tercera
December 15, 2018
By M. J. Navarrete
“Católicos y perplejos”, la primera publicación sobre el tema, será lanzado esta semana en la U. Católica.
Joaquín García Huidobro, académico de la Universidad de los Andes: “No se resuelve cambiando un par de personas” ¿Cree que una de las “piedras de tope” para que se resuelva la crisis son los cardenales Ezzati y Errázuriz?
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
[“You judge”: John O’Reilly’s first words after arriving in Rome following his expulsion from Chile]
CHILE
El Mostrador
December 15, 2018
“Dejo todo en las manos de Dios”, alcanzó a decir antes de ser retirado del aeropuerto.
El sacerdote John O’Reilly arribó a Roma tras ser expulsado de Chile luego de cometer abusos sexuales contra menores. A su arribo a Europa, tuvo escuetas palabras, las que fueron captadas por el noticiero de Canal 13. O’Reilly indicó que “juzguen ustedes” ante la pregunta de si es un pedófilo.
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[Network of survivors on O’Reilly’s expulsion: “It’s not a happy ending. No way”.]
CHILE
The Clinic
December 14, 2018
Esta mañana, el sacerdote John O’Reilly dejó Chile. Lo hizo después de cumplir la pena de cuatro años de libertad vigilada dictada por un tribunal civil, el cual en 2014 lo halló culpable de abusos sexuales en contra de una alumna del colegio Cumbres. Pero para la Red de Sobrevivientes de Abuso Sexual Eclesiástico de Chile, su salida no es suficiente: exigen una justicia a tiempo.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
KANSAS CITY (MO)
Kansas City Star
December 15, 2018
By Jill Toyoshiba
A group that represents survivors of clergy sex abuse called on the dioceses of Kansas City and Kansas City, Kan., to post online the names of religious leaders credibly accused of abuse. Some dioceses already are.
A group that represents survivors of clergy sex abuse called on the dioceses of Kansas City and Kansas City, Kan., to post online the names of religious leaders credibly accused of abuse.
David Clohessy, the St. Louis volunteer director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, said some dioceses have already done so, including two in Missouri. But not nearly enough.
“Most bishops say as little as possible,” Clohessy said at a news conference Saturday in downtown Kansas City outside the Catholic chancery offices. “Most bishops post these lists only in the face of intense public pressure.”
He said some only post the lists when forced to as part of the terms of legal judgments or settlements.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
BIRMINGHAM (AL)
WVTM 13 Digital
December 14, 2018
The Catholic Diocese of Birmingham today released the names of priests accused of sexual abuse of minors.
Robert Wilford said one of the priests, Charles Cross, abused him as a teenager in Birmingham in the 1960s. “You don’t forget about it. You never will. I don’t really think about it in detail every day. There’s not a day in my life that some thought doesn’t pop up in my head,” he said.
Wilford said he suffered from depression, alcoholism, and post traumatic stress disorder and came forward decades later. “I was just very irate and decided to go ahead and make it my mission to force Cross out of the priesthood, so that’s why I came forward in 2002,” he said.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
NEW JERSEY
North Jersey Record
December 14, 2018
By Joshua Jongsma
Two advocates who have set up compensation funds for Sept. 11 and Boston Marathon bombing victims will lead up the efforts for survivors of sex abuse by the Catholic Church in New Jersey.
Kenneth R. Feinberg and Camille Biros put together similar funds in New York and Pennsylvania. Together they will design and run the program in the state, the Roman Catholic Bishops of New Jersey stated Friday. They were also administrators for the BP Deepwater Horizon Disaster Victim Compensation Fund.
The program will be funded by the five Catholic dioceses of New Jersey: Newark, Camden, Trenton, Paterson and Metuchen. The Catholic Church of New Jersey has paid $50 million so far in settlements to abuse survivors.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
BIRMINGHAM (AL)
WHNT-TV
December 14, 2018
By Chelsea Brentzel
The Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Birmingham released a list of names of priests accused of sexually abusing minors. The press release is asking anyone with new information to come forward.
The list does not include where the accused clergy served or the allegations against them.
Charles V. Cross
Ordained in 1960, removed from ministry in 1985, forced to retire without privileges in 2002
John J. (Jack) Ventura
Ordained in 1968, transferred to Diocese of Birmingham in 1974, removed from ministry after allegations received in 1985
Charles Bordenca (died 2017)
Ordained in 1955, removed from ministry in Diocese of Birmingham in 1989
Kevin Cooke
Ordained in 1978, removed from ministry in 2002
Jonathan (John) Franklin
Ordained in 1956, removed from ministry in the mid 1980s
Roger Lott
Ordained in 1954, removed from ministry in 1997
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
HOUSTON (TX)
KHOU-TV
December 14, 2018
By Jeremy Rogalski and Tina Macias
Most files are only identified by a last name, but among the few full names listed, at least six are priests who have been publicly accused of sexual misconduct.
Bags of shredded documents, electronics and hundreds of files were among the items investigators seized from a Montgomery County treatment center as part of its sexual assault investigation into a local priest.
Listed among the items taken from the Shalom Center in Splendora in September are files for at least 200 people, according to an evidence log filed in the case and obtained by KHOU. The vast majority of the files are only identified by a last name, but among the few full names listed, at least six are priests who have been publicly accused of sexual misconduct.
It’s unclear how many of the other people listed are priests or why they were seeking treatment. The Shalom Center offers residential, sabbatical and outpatient programs for priests, deacons and male and female members of a religious order.
The center has 20 residential beds and treats more than 400 people a year, according to the Official Catholic Directory. It offers treatment for, “psychological difficulties, interpersonal conflicts, emotional or sexual problems, grief and loss issues, stress and exhaustion, transitional trauma, sexual abuse, addictions,” according to its website.
Former Conroe priest Manuel La Rosa-Lopez, who’s facing four counts of indecency with a child, was treated at the Shalom Center in 2001, and documents about the center found in La Rosa-Lopez’s bedroom reference one of his accusers, according to the search warrant.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
[The bishop of Salamanca allowed accused priest to keep working for three years despite Vatican request]
MADRID (SPAIN)
El País
December 15, 2018
By Íñigo Domínguez
En la web de la parroquia el sacerdote aparece concelebrando misa con el jefe de la diócesis y rodeado de niños recibiendo a los Reyes Magos
El obispo de Salamanca mantuvo tres años, entre 2011 y 2014, a Isidro López Santos, un cura denunciado canónicamente por abuso de menores en 2011, que ya había confesado su culpabilidad y contra el que el Vaticano había ordenado dos veces actuar de forma cautelar hasta la sentencia del proceso eclesiástico. Pero el obispo Carlos López no hizo nada, tan solo le jubiló al cabo de un año y medio, para colocarle en otra parroquia como ayudante de un cura amigo suyo donde continuó con su labor y en contacto con menores. Era la parroquia de La Anunciación-San Mateo, y el blog de esta iglesia demuestra que durante esos dos años, hasta que fue condenado, ejerció como sacerdote a todos los efectos. Es más, en mayo de 2013 aparece en una fotografía concelebrando una confirmación con el propio obispo de Salamanca, que por tanto no podía ignorar que seguía con su actividad. Se ve al cura en celebraciones, comuniones, bautizos, unciones de enfermos, y hasta recibiendo a los Reyes Magos con los niños del barrio. Hay al menos una docena de fechas documentadas con fotografías en el periodo en el que se le suponía apartado. El obispado de Salamanca se ha negado a responder a las preguntas sobre este caso.
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Church Militant
December 15, 2018
By Bradley Eli, M.Div., Ma.Th.
Can’t fight Vatican’s financial corruption or liberal agenda anymore
Cardinal George Pell is appealing the verdict from the Australian jury that found him guilty of actually committing sex abuse. Even if the verdict of guilty is subsequently overturned, it seems certain that Pell will no longer be able to fight financial corruption in the Vatican or the liberal agenda pushing reception of Holy Communion to those living contrary to Christ’s teachings.
It’s worth recalling Pell’s dire warning he gave in 2014 concerning the extreme goals of liberal prelates at the Extraordinary Synod on the Family.
“Communion for the divorced and remarried,” Pell said, “is only a tip of the iceberg. It’s a stalking horse. They want wider changes, recognition of civil unions, recognition of homosexual unions.”
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
[Spain’s religious orders are urged to seek justice against pedophilia]
MADRID (SPAIN)
El País
December 15, 2018
By Julio Núñez
La Conferencia Española de Religiosos reconoce la “gravedad” y la “ocultación” de los delitos y trata con los superiores de las congregaciones la evaluación psicológica de los curas
La Conferencia Española de Religiosos (Confer) ha llamado a los superiores mayores de todas las órdenes y congregaciones religiosas del país para tratar los abusos sexuales a menores en la Iglesia católica, un escándalo que está socavando la imagen de la institución en todo el mundo. El primer encuentro se celebró el pasado miércoles, según un comunicado hecho público este viernes por la institución, en el que la entidad reconoce la “gravedad y la culpabilidad” de estos delitos, “el tratamiento de ocultación que se les ha dado” y se solidariza con las víctimas “en su dolor y reclamo de justicia”. La publicación del documento llegó un día después de que los jesuitas de Cataluña confirmasen que van a investigar los abusos sexuales cometidos en colegios de la orden los últimos 60 años, tras la reciente difusión por EL PAÍS de varios casos que afectan a su orden. La mayoría de denuncias de pederastia que han llegado a este periódico atañen a congregaciones religiosas.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA)
Church Militant
December 14, 2018
By an Australian correspondent in Sydney
Cardinal George Pell, formerly the Pope’s right-hand man for Vatican finances and the face of the Catholic Church in Australia, has been convicted of abusing two choir boys when he was Archbishop of Melbourne in the 1990s.
Pell has categorically denied the allegations.
Although this is the biggest news story in Australia, it is not on the front page of a single newspaper here. The state of Victoria, where Pell was tried, has imposed a suppression order that bans all reporting and comment. So Australians are resorting to overseas websites and Twitter for news.
The full-page headline in The Daily Telegraph, of Sydney, one of Australia’s biggest newspapers, was “It’s the Nation’s Biggest Story” — “yet we can’t publish it.” So there are no facts to discuss — other than the brutal fact that a cardinal has been convicted in a court of law for abusing boys. Who, when, where, how, why are all matters of surmise.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
National Catholic Reporter
December 15, 2018
by Jamie Manson
About two weeks into his pontificate in March 2013, Pope Francis uttered a phrase that would quickly become one of his greatest hits in his canon of quotes: “This I ask you: be shepherds, with the ‘odor of the sheep.’ ”
Francis spoke those words to thousands of clerics who had gathered at the Vatican for the annual chrism Mass, a liturgy traditionally held on the morning of Holy Thursday that celebrates the holiness of the priesthood.
The phrase became a common refrain for any progressive Catholic testifying to the promise of Francis’ pontificate.
But the metaphor never sat well with me. Sure, Francis was suggesting that members of the clergy not stay aloof and removed from the people they serve. But what did it say about the laity? Are we a lost, unwashed and simple herd who were utterly dependent on our priests and bishops for guidance?
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
[New bishop of Ávila thanks innocent priests for their service, assures them church is working to curb abuse]
MADRID (SPAIN)
December 15, 2018
El País
By Julio Núñez
Gil Tamayo, exsecretario de la Conferencia Episcopal, estima que desde la comunidad eclesial se ha pedido perdón y se trabaja para erradicar los abusos
Durante su primera alocución como obispo de Ávila este sábado, José María Gil Tamayo, ex secretario general y exportavoz de la Conferencia Episcopal Española, ha afirmado que “se quiere extender injustamente un velo de sospecha sobre la multitud inmensa de sacerdotes” con las recientes publicaciones sobre los casos de pederastia que se han cometido y silenciado dentro de la Iglesia en las últimas décadas. Por este motivo, Gil Tamayo ha querido dirigir en la catedral de Ávila unas palabras de “aliento” y “apoyo” a todos los curas inocentes que puedan sentirse afectados. “¡Gracias, hermanos sacerdotes por vuestro servicio!”, ha exclamado. El exsecretario de la Conferencia Episcopal también ha subrayado que, desde la comunidad eclesial, piden perdón por los casos de pederastia y ha asegurado que “están trabajando en su erradicación y prevención”.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
[Definitive dismissal of Ricardo Ezzati will be discussed on January 30]
CHILE
Soy Chile
December 15, 2018
La defensa había solicitado el procedimiento el pasado 30 de octubre, pero aún no se había fijado la fecha de la audiencia. El arzobispo de Santiago es investigado por eventuales delitos de encubrimiento en casos de abuso sexual al interior de la Iglesia.
El próximo 30 de enero se discutirá si el arzobispo de Santiago, Ricardo Ezzati, será sobreseído o no de manera definitiva en la causa donde es investigado por eventuales encubrimientos de delitos de abuso sexual, cometidos por miembros de la iglesia catolica.
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[John O’Reilly: after 34 years, the Legionaries of Christ priest leaves Chile]
CHILE
La Tercera
December 15, 2018
By M.J. Navarrete and S. Rodríguez
Tras cumplir su condena por abuso y ante el inminente decreto de expulsión que emitiría el Ministerio del Interior, el sacerdote dejó hoy el país y viajó a Italia. Llega a una residencia de su congregación en Vía Aurelia, Roma. Como tiene antecedentes penales, su defensa trabajará para que en el futuro pueda regresar.
A las 12.40 horas de este sábado, en el vuelo de ALItalia 689 que despegó rumbo a Roma, Italia, el sacerdote John O’Reilly abandonó Chile desde el Aeropuerto de Santiago, 34 años después de que llegó. Lo acompañaba el superior de los Legionarios de Cristo para Chile y Argentina, el presbítero Gabriel Bárcena.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
[“Predator” priest expelled from Miami worked with teens in Spain for years]
MADRID (SPAIN)
El País
December 14, 2018
By Íñigo Domínguez
El cura expulsado de Miami tras una denuncia vivió años con adolescentes e invitaba a los estudiantes a su casa
El obispado de Salamanca no solo movió de pueblo en pueblo durante dos décadas a Francisco Carreras, el sacerdote español expulsado de la archidiócesis de Miami en 1981 tras una denuncia de abusos y enviado de vuelta a su provincia, sino que también lo asignó como profesor a dos colegios públicos de la ciudad. Carreras, de cuyos antecedentes fue informado el obispado desde EE UU y que en una de las denuncias posteriores fue definido como “depredador sexual”, ha sido acusado por tres víctimas localizadas por EL PAÍS en Sequeros y Calzada de Valdunciel. Ahora sale a la luz, según confirman cinco antiguos alumnos y un exprofesor, que también fue docente de religión en el colegio Campo Charro, entre los ochenta y los noventa, y el Rufino Blanco, en la década de los noventa y hasta 2000. Hasta ahora solo constaba su paso por el centro privado Lorenzo Milani.
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[Lay people of Osorno ask for visibility into commission investigating abuses in Catholic Church]
CHILE
BioBioChile
December 14, 2018
By Nicole Briones and Eduardo Palacios
La Agrupación de Laicos de Osorno llamó a visibilizar el trabajo de la comisión que recepciona denuncias de posibles abusos dentro de la Iglesia Católica. El vocero de la agrupación, Mario Vargas, sostuvo que la instancia se transforma en el único instrumento válido para reconciliar a los fieles católicos, entendiendo que existen casos que fueron reportados y puestos en conocimiento de las autoridades eclesiásticas.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
[O’Reilly’s lawyer plans legal action so the priest can return to Chile]
CHILE
La Tercera
December 14, 2018
By Sebastián Rivas
Cristián Muga señaló que “no existió decreto de expulsión” y que la idea es que en un futuro quede habilitado para regresar al país.
“Se nos encomendó acciones legales que le permitan en el futuro volver al país. No existió decreto de expulsión”. Con esas palabras, el abogado del sacerdote John O’Reilly, Cristián Muga, explicó a radio Universo la lógica que seguirán sus acciones luego de que el religioso abandonara Chile este viernes rumbo a Roma, tras cumplir una condena por abusos sexuales contra una menor de edad.
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[Priest O’Reilly leaves Chile for Rome, asking friends: “I beg you not to abandon me”]
CHILE
La Tercera
December 14, 2018
By Sergio Rodríguez
El sacerdote de los Legionarios de Cristo envió un texto a sus amigos en el que también señala que, “con el corazón detrozado, muy confundido y con una salud debilitada, me despido con inmensa gratitud”. El religioso debió salir del país tras una resolución dando cuenta del cumplimiento de una condena por abuso.
“Amigos: con el corazón destrozado y muy confundido y una salud debilitada me despido con inmensa gratitud, aprecio y admiración. La Fe y la Esperanza en el Señor quedan intactas, a pesar del inmenso dolor que oprime la mente y corazón, casi hasta la muerte”.
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CHILE/ROME
Reuters
December 14, 2018
By Antonio De la Jara
An Irish-born priest, who was convicted of sexually abusing a girl in his care at a religious school in Santiago but served no jail time for the offense, left Chile on Friday for Rome after serving a four-year sentence.
Critics have long pointed to the case of the Rev. John O’Reilly as an example of leniency in a country where the Roman Catholic church has long held powerful sway in politics and society.
A judge in 2014 sentenced O’Reilly, a leader of the Legionaries of Christ religious order, to four years of “supervised liberty” for abusing a preteen girl at the private Colegio Cumbres in the affluent neighborhood of Las Condes between 2007 and 2009.
O’Reilly completed his sentence on Dec. 10, according to a statement issued by the Legionaries of Christ on Friday, and Chilean courts subsequently expelled him from the country.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
CAROL STREAM (IL)
Christianity Today
December 13, 2018
By Morgan Lee
(UPDATED) Beth Moore and other leading Christian survivors don’t just want to take the church to task. They also believe it plays a key role in helping victims heal.
[Editor’s note: This post has been updated with comments from afternoon speakers, including Max Lucado, Nancy Beach, and Ed Stetzer.]
“I am a survivor. My home was my unsafe place. My church was my harbor.”
Growing up as a victim of abuse, Bible teacher Beth Moore was grateful that she could escape to her church. But in retrospect, she wished it could have done more.
“I have often wondered what a difference it would have made if that same harbor had not only been a place to hide, but a place to heal,” Moore said during a summit held Thursday at Wheaton College to address the evangelical church’s response to abuse in the wake of the #MeToo and #ChurchToo movements.
The Southern Baptist ministry leader has repeatedly spoken out on the issue over the past year, joining a wave of evangelicals calling on churches to more explicitly condemn, prevent, and help the victims of sexism, harassment, and abuse.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
CHICAGO (IL)
Daily Herald
December 14, 2018
By Katlyn Smith
It’s been a year of pain, fear and strained relationships for Nancy Beach.
The first female teaching pastor at Willow Creek Community Church, Beach was one of the women whose allegations of sexual misconduct against founder Bill Hybels led to his early retirement, the resignations of the entire elder board and the ongoing turmoil at the South Barrington-based megachurch.
“I had no idea, no way to foresee what would happen when I joined my voice with the voices of eventually nine other women in calling out the abuse of power and sexual sin in the life of our pastor,” she said.
Beach joined her voice Thursday with some of the most high-profile figures in evangelicalism at a summit convened by Wheaton College. The Billy Graham Center held the one-day gathering to address sexual abuse and harassment within the church.
“We are here to gather our courage. We are here to face that some of our systems have created susceptibility and unanswered culpability,” said Beth Moore, a prominent Bible teacher and author. “We are here to face that, without clarity of teaching and due diligence in training, we have on our hands environments where victimization thrives.”
Even before the opening of the GC2 Summit on Responding to Sexual Harassment, Abuse, and Violence, the event faced criticism from activists behind the #ChurchToo movement, an offshoot of the #MeToo movement that toppled figures in Hollywood and politics.
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AUSTRALIA
National Public Radio
December 13, 2018
By Bill Chappell
Australian news outlets are grappling with how to handle one of the country’s biggest news stories of the year — even though a judge has barred them from reporting the details. The story revolves around Cardinal George Pell, a Vatican insider who was reportedly convicted of sexually abusing minors this week, and public interest in the case has been intense.
A jury in the County Court of Victoria in Melbourne where Pell, 77, was once archbishop, is said to have found the cardinal guilty of “five charges of ‘historical child sexual offenses’ that go back decades,” according to the Jesuit magazine America. Both that outlet and the Catholic News Agency say they have confirmed the initial report of Pell’s conviction that was published by the Daily Beast. All of the outlets are citing sources who either have knowledge of the case or are “close to the cardinal.”
Australian journalists have been forced to either ignore reports of a verdict or refer to it in only the broadest terms. News Corp Australia, which owns a number of print and online outlets in the country, has said it will challenge the court’s suppression order.
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BILOXI (MS)
Sun Herald
December 13, 2018
By Anita Lee
The first principal at Mercy Cross High School in Biloxi, a Jesuit priest named Francis Landwermeyer, in later years railed against the coverup of pedophilia in the Catholic church but did not live to see himself publicly identified as a priest who abused minors.
Landwermeyer’s name was on a list of 42 Jesuit priests, scholastics and brothers whom the religious order identified as having been credibly accused of abusing minors or vulnerable adults.
His name appeared with those facing more than one credible allegation of abuse.
Landwermeyer is accused of abusing minors in the 60s and 70s. No allegations surfaced during the short year he spent at Mercy Cross, the inaugural 1981-82 year of the former co-ed school lost to Hurricane Katrina on Biloxi’s Back Bay.
The Jesuits’ Central and Southern Province, which released the list, said it is trying to protect victims’ identities by keeping private the specific dates and locations of the abuse to protect victims.
Landwermeyer came to Biloxi from Loyola University in New Orleans, where he was a visiting professor. But he didn’t stay long. Accounts from the Sun Herald say the board had some reservations about Landwermeyer’s performance at the end of his first year, but rather than work to improve, he chose to resign.
“There is no confidence in my ability or trust in my integrity among the persons most significant for my effectiveness,” Landwermeyer wrote in his resignation letter in May 1982.
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VERMONT
VT Digger
December 11, 2018
By Kevin O’Connor
A lawyer who has secured more than $30 million in priest misconduct settlements from Vermont’s Catholic Church has found a decades-old case he believes can be tried under the state’s narrow statute of limitations.
Jerome O’Neill has filed civil papers in U.S. District Court in Burlington on behalf of a former Vermont man now living in Texas who alleges he was sexually abused as a child by Alfred Willis, a former priest for the statewide Roman Catholic Diocese from 1975 until his dismissal in 1985.
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TAMPA (FL)
WFLA
December 10, 2018
By Mark Douglas
Massage Envy is the target of yet another lawsuit involving allegations of sexual assault by a massage therapist.
This lawsuit involves a Winter Garden franchise where a previous therapist recently pleaded guilty in another assault case. That therapist, Cesar Guerrero, received 15 years of probation.
“Lightning doesn’t strike twice in one place often. What are the odds of that happening,” said Tampa attorney Joseph Alvarez, who filed the Massage Envy lawsuit in Hillsborough Circuit court on behalf of his unnamed client.
Alvarez sued Massage Envy a few year ago due to another massage therapist who was simply fired from a franchise in Clearwater when allegations arose and went on to assault other women while working for unrelated massage businesses.
“They’re synonymous with the Catholic Church,” Alvarez said. “It’s a head in the sand approach. ‘We don’t know what’s going on, we can’t control this,’ but the reality is they control everything that happens in and around that business.”
Earlier this year, Sarasota police arrested a Massage Envy massage therapist following several allegations of sexual misconduct.
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ALBANY (NY)
Catholic News Service
December 13, 2018
By Father Kenneth Doyle
Q. The news reports of settlements made in the millions of dollars to victims of clergy sex abuse trouble me. Were there secret assets from wills and estates on reserve for that purpose? Where did all that money come from? (Metuchen, New Jersey)
A. National Public Radio reported in August 2018 that dioceses and religious orders in the United States had thus far paid settlements totaling more than $3 billion to victims of clergy sexual abuse. The settlements have come, not from any “secret assets,” but from a combination of cash, proceeds from the sale of land and buildings, and from insurance payments.
What must be said first, though, is that no financial amount is sufficient to compensate victims for their suffering. As Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda of St. Paul and Minneapolis said in May 2018 when announcing a settlement of $210 million in restitution to several hundred survivors, “I recognize that the abuse stole so much from you — your childhood, your innocence, your safety, your ability to trust and, in many cases, your faith. … The church let you down, and I’m very sorry.”
That settlement fund came from approximately $170 million from insurance carriers as well as the sale of diocesan assets, including its three chancery buildings on Cathedral Hill in St. Paul. The plan stipulates that a minimum of $50,000 be awarded to each claimant. In 2010, when the Diocese of Burlington, Vermont, settled 26 lawsuits for nearly $18 million, it put its diocesan administration building and a former Catholic summer camp on the real estate market to help cover the cost.
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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
ChurchMilitant.com
December 13, 2018
By Anita Carey
Three new victims are suing over abuse they suffered as young boys at the hands of a suspected serial pedophile.
A lawsuit filed on Tuesday is the fourth one alleging homosexual abuse by the former archdiocese of New Orleans deacon, George F. Brignac. All four cases stemmed from Brignac’s tenure at Holy Rosary School in New Orleans, Lousiana. The first suit was settled by the archdiocese for $500,000 in May.
The three new allegations date from the 1980s, and Brignac’s attorney, Martin Regan, told The New Orleans Advocate that his client “has denied the allegations and he’s not been charged or convicted of any criminal offense.”
While two of the victims have not come forward publicly, Morris Daniels told his story to The New Orleans Advocate to showcase the Church’s failure to stop the abuse. Daniels said, “They could’ve done something about it but they didn’t.”
“They didn’t take care of us as kids. They just let it happen,” he added.
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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
WVUE
December 12, 2018
In a new lawsuit, a man claims a Salesian priest in Marrero raped him. The suit was filed Wednesday at Orleans Parish Civil Court against the Salesians of Don Bosco, the Archdiocese of New Orleans and Archbishop Gregory Aymond.
The alleged victim in the new lawsuit says he was 17 at the time of the crime. The suit doesn’t identify the man but names him as “CJ Doe.” He says he met the priest, Salvatore Isgro or “Father Sam,” in 1979 while working at a local hospital to save money for a class ring. That summer, he says Father Sam asked him to care for a Salesian Brother, a double amputee who lived at the Salesians’ residence at Archbishop Shaw High School in Marrero.
At the end of each day, the man says he would pick up a check signed by Father Sam. The lawsuit claims that in November of that year, as the alleged victim went to pick up his check, Father Sam came from behind and put a vial filled with what smelled like ammonia under his nose. The suit claims CJ Doe became dizzy and disoriented, and that’s when the priest pulled down the alleged victim’s pants and raped him.
According to the suit, that was the last time CJ Doe visited at the Salesians’ residence.
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TACOMA (WA)
The News Tribune
December 13, 2018
Editorial Board
Bellarmine Preparatory School, a Tacoma institution since 1928, turned a harsh but necessary spotlight on itself last Friday when it shared information on 23 disgraced Catholic priests and non-ordained brothers previously assigned to the Bellarmine community. All were “credibly accused” of sexual abuse at some point in their Jesuit careers.
Publicly identifying these alleged offenders was the right thing to do. In fact, it was long overdue. Silence and secrecy should no longer be an option. As Bellarmine President Robert Modarelli said in a statement, for too long this scandal has been allowed to “fester unchecked.”
The private school just off South Union Avenue took a lesson from its own Jesuit catechism: Covering up sin only invites more of it.
To date, there is no information tying these men to crimes in the Bellarmine community, and Modarelli says no victims had come forward as of Thursday. It’s unclear how many of the men worked on campus versus serving in other local Jesuit ministries, but all lived within proximity of thousands of area children.
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SALT LAKE CITY (UT)
FOX 13
December 13, 2018
By Ben Winslow
The president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is being sought for a deposition in a lawsuit alleging sexual abuse involving his daughter and son-in-law.
In a motion filed in federal court, an attorney representing six unnamed plaintiffs is demanding an early deposition of LDS Church President Russell M. Nelson.
“Russell N. Nelson is simply a witness,” Craig Vernon, the attorney for the plaintiffs, told FOX 13 on Thursday.
The lawsuit accuses President Nelson’s daughter and son-in-law, Brenda and Richard Miles, of participating in the abuse of children in a Bountiful ward in the 1980s. The allegations claim a number of people were involved in the abuse and suggests it was covered up.
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CINCINNATI (OH)
Cincinnati Enquirer
December 12, 2018
By Dan Horn
St. Xavier High School, Xavier University and other Jesuit institutions in the Midwest will find out next week if they’ve employed Catholic priests accused of sexually abusing children.
The Midwest Province of Jesuits said Wednesday it would release a list naming every priest in the order who has faced a credible accusation of abuse since 1955.
The decision to make the list public comes as the church is under increasing scrutiny from lay Catholics, abuse survivors and criminal prosecutors to resolve a problem that has plagued it for years.
“It’s a step in the spirit of transparency and reconciliation,” said Mike McGrath, a spokesman for the Midwest Jesuits. “There’s been a lot of discussion and debate in the church about this question.”
Jesuit churches and schools were notified this week that the list was coming out on Monday, Dec. 17. The list will be posted on the religious order’s website at jesuitsmidwest.org, and will include the names of the accused priests, the locations and the dates of the alleged abuse.
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DRAPER (UT)
Deseret News
December 12, 2018
By Pat Reavy
A Draper man described in court documents as a “leader” in a local church was charged Wednesday with sexually abusing a boy in his congregation and being lewd around other boys.
Jeffrey Byron Head, 54, a former bishop of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is charged in 3rd District Court with two counts of forcible sexual abuse, a second-degree felony; and two counts of lewdness, a class B misdemeanor.
In May of 2016, Head went to a boy’s house unannounced, asking him about a recent surgery to his genitals, according to charging documents. After asking “to see the surgery,” the boy pull his pants down and Head inappropriately touched him, the charges state.
A church spokesman said Head was removed from his position after the allegations surfaced.
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MANASSAS (VA)
FOX 5 DC
December 13, 2018
By Lindsay Watts
A former youth pastor accused of sexually abusing a teenager from his Northern Virginia megachurch appeared in court Thursday.
A judge ruled that two additional women can testify in Jordan Baird’s trial – a young woman who Baird was convicted of sexually abusing when she was 16 years old and a third woman who prosecutors say had a sexual relationship with Baird that began when she was underage.
Two additional women who say Baird pursued a sexual relationship with them through the church were not allowed to testify. Those women were not minors at the time.
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WASHINGTON (DC)
The Washington Post
December 13, 2018
By Keith L. Alexander
A D.C. judge on Thursday ordered a Catholic priest accused of sexually assaulting three parishioners to remain in jail until trial and said it was troubling that church leaders did not take action when complaints against the defendant were raised several years ago, possibly allowing additional incidents of alleged abuse.
Prosecutors said leaders at the Shrine of the Sacred Heart in Northwest Washington were initially notified in mid-June 2015 of allegations that Urbano Vazquez, an assistant pastor, may have sexually assaulted a teenage girl who was a member of the parish. Alleged assaults involving two other victims occurred between June 2016 and December 2017.
In a hearing before D.C. Superior Court Judge Juliet J. McKenna, Vazquez’s attorney argued that his client should be allowed to return to the secluded parish outside of Pittsburgh where he had been staying, saying he would be watched by priests there as he awaited trial. But McKenna rejected the proposal as she questioned the church’s supervision.
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ENGLAND
The Telegraph
December 13, 2018
By Jack Hardy
The country’s most senior Catholic cleric apologised for withholding evidence of abuse allegations made against JRR Tolkien’s son during his priesthood.
Cardinal Vincent Nichols told an inquiry on Thursday he was focused on settling legal action against the church quickly when, in 2002, he chose not to disclose a key document to a complainant.
The note showed that accusations against Father John Tolkien had been made to the church in 1968 – the only evidence of a contemporaneous complaint made about his behaviour.
But despite lawyers telling Cardinal Nichols – then Archbishop of Birmingham – that the findings supported already credible claims by Birmingham man Christopher Carrie, a briefing paper recorded him saying: “The Archdiocese would prefer not to disclose this document even if it means settling the action.”
On Thursday, the clergyman expressed remorse about his actions as he appeared before the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, which is investigating child protection failings within the Catholic church.
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MANASSAS (VA)
FOX 5 DC
December 12 2018
By Lindsay Watts
For the first time, a Virginia mother is speaking about the sexual abuse her daughter endured at the hands of her church youth pastor.
Earlier this year, Jordan Baird, 27, was convicted on five felony counts of indecent liberties with a minor. He later pleaded no contest to electronic solicitation of a minor. He was sentenced to eight months behind bars and forced to register as a sex offender.
Gloria Harding says her family had attended The Life Church in Manassas for a decade and considered Baird a close family friend. Baird’s parents are the head pastors at the church and employ many members of their family, including Baird’s brothers and his wife.
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VATICAN CITY
La Croix International
December 14, 2018
Jesuit priest says it is naive to think it is just a Western problem as Pope Francis’ convocation of bishops looms
The Jesuit priest who directed the Holy See Press Office for a decade published an article on Dec. 15 anticipating Pope Francis’ convention of bishops at the Vatican in February on the subject of tackling clerical sex abuse of minors
Father Federico Lombardi, who stepped down from press office post in 2016, titled the story, “In the run-up to the meeting of bishops on the protection of minors.” It ran in La Civilta Cattolica, a biweekly Jesuit magazine.
“The entire Church must feel in solidarity, above all with the victims, with their families, and with their church communities that have been wounded by the [recent clerical sex abuse] scandals,” he wrote in the article, excerpts from which were relayed by Catholic News Service.
Father Lombardi, one of the journal’s contributing writers, also serves as president of the board of directors of the Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI Foundation.
He wrote that attendees at the Feb. 21-24 summit need to share their experiences and best practices to tackle this scourge but also acknowledge that many countries have yet to make significant inroads in preventing the abuse of minors by clergy.
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NEW YORK (NY)
The New York Times
December 13, 2018
By Rachel Abrams and John Koblin
In March 2017, Eliza Dushku, an actress known for her work on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” signed on to play a major role in three episodes of the CBS prime-time drama “Bull,” and there were plans to make her a full-time cast member.
Her time on the set began promisingly. The show’s star, Michael Weatherly — a mainstay of CBS’s prime-time lineup for 15 years — seemed friendly. And a producer and writer on “Bull,” Glenn Gordon Caron, told Ms. Dushku she would be more than a love interest.
Then came a series of comments that made Ms. Dushku uncomfortable. In front of the cast and crew, Mr. Weatherly remarked on her appearance, and made a rape joke and a comment about a threesome. Shortly after Ms. Dushku confronted the star about his behavior, she was written off the show. She believed her time on “Bull” came to a sudden end as a result of retaliation.
After she went through mediation with CBS, the company agreed to a confidential settlement that would pay her $9.5 million, roughly the equivalent of what Ms. Dushku would have earned if she had stayed on as a cast member for four seasons.
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YORK (PA)
York Daily Record
December 13, 2018
By Candy Woodall
Attempts to solve many problems found in the Catholic church today can be traced back to a meeting among U.S. bishops in June 2002.
It was five months after the Boston Globe had exposed widespread child sexual abuse by priests and a pattern of cover-ups by the church and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops gathered in Dallas to vote on a new set of policies.
Those policies gave bishops the power to ban from ministry any priest who abused a child. They also made it a requirement for bishops to report all allegations of sexual abuse of minors to law enforcement and check the backgrounds of all staff in contact with kids.
Additionally, the priests removed from ministry would not be allowed to celebrate Mass publicly, wear clerical uniforms or be known as a priest.
Gone were the confidentiality agreements that had silenced victims and protected abusers.
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FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
December 9, 2018
The Star-Telegram began its investigation into abuse at independent fundamental Baptist churches after two men were arrested in February and March on sexual abuse charges at a Mesquite, Texas, church.
Then the church’s pastor, Bob Ross, was arrested in April on a charge of failure to report child abuse. People who had known Ross from his days as youth director at Windsor Hills Baptist Church in Oklahoma said he’d ignored their own abuse allegations and worked for a pastor who wielded absolute control over his congregation by telling members that they would die if they left the church or disobeyed him.
As more and more ex-members of the independent fundamental Baptist movement came forward to the Star-Telegram, a pattern emerged: Despite their use of the word independent, many of the churches were connected with other independent fundamental Baptist churches through colleges and pastoral friendships. And those connections, as well as the church culture, allowed abuse to flourish and abusers to move around the country without consequence.
Ex-members connected reporter Sarah Smith to other members on Facebook and through text messages. The Star-Telegram started a Facebook group of ex-members for informal Q&As and for the ex-members to bring up questions and concerns of their own. The newspaper invited former members to submit videos detailing their experiences in their own words.
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FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
December 9, 2018
They were terrorized, trapped and even sexually abused. Now, these former members of independent fundamental Baptist churches share how their experiences will affect the rest of their lives.
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FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
December 9, 2018
By Sarah Smith
Former members of independent fundamental Baptist churches describe a culture and teachings that affect the rest of their lives. The following quotes are taken from interviews.
GETTING IN
Independent fundamental Baptist church members are either born into the movement and grow up knowing nothing else or are brought into the churches through evangelism. The tight-knit community of motivated people is appealing, especially to vulnerable people.
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FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
December 9, 2018
By Sarah Smith
Pastor Bruce Goddard acted immediately when he learned the principal at Faith Baptist Church’s school in Wildomar, California, had been intimately involved with a 17-year-old student.
He rented the 35-year-old principal a U-Haul and shipped him out of state. He did not call the police.
The accused wound up at First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana, a church affiliated with Goddard’s alma mater, working again with teenagers. The abused girl was later told that church officials in Indiana were aware of his involvement with her when he arrived.
An eight-month investigation by the Star-Telegram shows that what happened at Faith Baptist is just one example in a nationwide pattern of cover-ups and shuffling of suspected abusers among churches and universities that, like Faith Baptist, are part of the independent fundamental Baptist movement.
The cover-ups are reminiscent of the scandals of the Roman Catholic Church, but distinctly different.
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AUSTRALIA
Inquisitr
December 12, 2018
By Manuella Libardi
Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican’s third most powerful official, was found guilty on Tuesday of sexually abusing two choir boys in the late 1990s, a decision that makes him the highest-ranking Catholic Church official to face criminal convictions.
According to The Daily Beast, a jury in Australia returned a unanimous guilty verdict after deliberating for more than three days on the case. The judge ordered the criminal trial to be conducted under a gag order that prevented any details of the trial being made public, the report continues.
The judge placed a suppression order on all press coverage in Australia right before trial proceedings were set to begin in June, according to the judge’s orders reviewed by The Daily Beast. The order was requested by prosecutors and granted to “prevent a real and substantial risk of prejudice to the proper administration of justice,” the order reads, according to the report.
Pell, 77, who is the Vatican’s finance chief and the highest Vatican official to ever go stand trial on sex abuse charges, left Rome in June 2017 to stand trial in Melbourne, the report continues.
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AUSTRALIA
Radar
December 11, 2018
Cardinal George Pell convicted in Australia of child assault.
The Vatican’s third highest ranking official was found guilty of sexually abusing two choir boys in the late 90s.
Cardinal George Pell was convicted by a jury in Australia after a jury deliberated for three days, The Daily Beast reported.
The judge placed a gag order on the Catholic Church official’s trial to prevent details being released during the proceedings. The guilty verdict decision was reportedly unanimous.
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AUSTRALIA
Concise News
December 12, 2018
By Olugbenga Ige
Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican’s third highest ranking official, was found guilty of sexually abusing two choir boys in the late 90s.
Cardinal Pell was convicted by a jury in Australia after a jury deliberated for three days, the Daily Beast reports.
The judge placed a gag order on the Catholic Church official’s trial to prevent details being released during the proceedings. The guilty verdict decision was reportedly unanimous.
Cardinal Pell was the finance chief at the Vatican and reportedly left Rome in June 2017 to stand trail in Melbourne, where he was accused of sexually abusing the choir boys when he was the archbishop.
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AUSTRALIA
the free thinker
December 12, 2018
By Barry Duke
At the end of a trial believed to have cost him millions, the Vatican’s third most powerful official – George Pell – was convicted yesterday (Tuesday) in Australia of all charges relating to the abuse of two choir boys in the late 1990s.
A unanimous jury returned its verdict after more than three days of deliberations
His trial was trial conducted under a gag order by the judge that prevented any details of the case being made public.
Pell, the Vatican’s finance chief and the highest Vatican official to ever go on trial for sex abuse, left Rome in June 2017 to stand trial in Melbourne.
As that trial was about to get underway in June, a judge placed a suppression order on all press coverage in Australia. Prosecutors applied for the order and it was granted to:
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AUSTRALIA
The Daily Beast
December 11, 2018
By Lachlan Cartwright
The highest-ranking Catholic Church official to face such criminal charges.
The Vatican’s third most powerful official has been convicted in Australia on all charges he sexually abused two choir boys there in the late ’90s, according to two sources with knowledge of the case.
A unanimous jury returned its verdict for Cardinal George Pell on Tuesday (Australian time) after more than three days of deliberations, the sources said, in a trial conducted under a gag order by the judge that prevented any details of the trial being made public.
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YORK (PA)
York Daily Record
December 12, 2018
By Candy Woodall
If they can prove torture, there are no statute of limitations laws to keep child abusers safe.
The days of the Roman Catholic Church policing itself are coming to an end.
Federal prosecutors are digging in to the largest investigation of priest abuse ever conducted in the United States, and the effort starts in Pennsylvania.
The investigation began in Pennsylvania, not Justice Department headquarters in Washington, D.C., court filings show.
U.S. Attorney William McSwain in October launched a case from the Eastern District federal court in Philadelphia. First, he subpoenaed all eight Pennsylvania dioceses. Then, he put every bishop in the U.S. on notice not to destroy any records or evidence.
The federal investigation stems from a Pennsylvania grand jury report released in August that reveals a cover-up of systemic child sex abuse that dates back to 1947. Since that time, 301 priests were found to have abused more than 1,000 victims.
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AUSTRALIA
ABC Newcastle
December 13, 2018
By Giselle Wakatama
A survivor of sexual abuse says he was shocked and appalled to learn a paedophile teacher who abused him was still alive decades after Catholic education officials assured him he was dead.
In October, Edward Smith Hall, 68, known as Ted Hall was found guilty of 21 sexual and indecent assault offences in relation to nine boys between 1973 and 1986.
Today several victim impact statements were read in Newcastle District Court, while others were read in a closed court, where media was not allowed.
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AUSTRALIA
The Washington Post
December 12, 2018
By Margaret Sullivan
The front page of Thursday’s Herald Sun newspaper in Melbourne, capital of the Australian state of Victoria, is dominated by a single word in huge white type, all caps, on a black background: CENSORED.
“The world is reading a very important story that is relevant to Victorians,” reads the subhead. “The Herald Sun is prevented from publishing details of this significant news. But trust us. It’s a story you deserve to read.”
The story is, indeed, a blockbuster, especially for Australian citizens: Cardinal George Pell, sometimes described as the third-most-powerful Vatican official, was convicted of all charges that he sexually molested two choirboys in Australia in the late 1990s. (Pell, 77, has been the Vatican’s chief financial officer in recent years; he earlier was the archbishop of Sydney and of Melbourne.)
But because of a court-issued gag order intended to preserve impartiality, the news media has been forbidden from publishing news in Australia on the details of the Melbourne trial, and now on the unanimous decision of the jury.
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AUSTRALIA
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
December 12, 2018
George Pell is one of three “more elderly cardinals” who have been removed by Pope Francis from his advisory body following a Vatican meeting this week.
A Vatican News report on a meeting of the Pope’s Council of Cardinal Advisers this week said 77-year-old Cardinal Pell would no longer sit on the council.
“In October, the Pope had written to three of the more elderly cardinals: Cardinal Pell from Australia, Cardinal Errazuriz from Chile and Cardinal Monsengwo of Congo thanking them for their work,” Holy See press office director Greg Burke said.
“After a five-year term, these three have passed out for the moment.”
Mr Burke said the Pope had not named new cardinals to replace them on the advisory council, which was established in 2013 to help lead reform in the Vatican’s bureaucracy.
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UNITED STATES
USA TODAY
December 10, 2018
Nearly 17 years ago, I woke up from a nightmare I didn’t realize I was in. If you’re a parent whose child has suffered sexual abuse at the hands of someone you know and trust, you will understand what I mean. Sitting in a family counselor’s office, the world as I knew it came crashing down as I learned that my eldest daughter, Lauren, had been sexually, emotionally and physically abused nearly every day from the ages of 12 to 16.
I worked hard to provide my family with a wonderful life and to create a loving and safe environment for my children to grow. I made sure to get references and background checks on everyone interacting with my daughters or son. But I was unable to protect Lauren from the monster living in my own home.
It never occurred to me that sexual abuse could happen to my family, let alone to my children. That is the message I want to send to every other parent out there: Don’t think this can’t happen to you or your children. Child sexual abuse happens in every ZIP code, in every religion and at every socioeconomic level.
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VATICAN CITY
The Associated Press
December 12, 2018
By Nicole Winfield
Pope Francis has removed two cardinals from his informal cabinet after they were implicated in the Catholic Church’s sex abuse and cover-up scandal, shedding embarrassing advisers ahead of a high-stakes Vatican summit on abuse early next year.
The Vatican said Wednesday that Francis in October had written to Chilean Cardinal Javier Errazuriz and Australian Cardinal George Pell thanking them for their five years of service on the so-called Group of Nine, or C-9.
Francis also bid farewell to Congolese Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya, who hasn’t been implicated in the scandal but at age 79 recently retired as archbishop of Kinshasa.
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YORK (PA)
York Daily Record
December 7, 2018
By Candy Woodall
The cascade of reports that we know about might be just the tip of the iceberg.
Until Friday morning, Terry McKiernan had 178 Jesuit priests on a list of abusive clergy members in the U.S.
His list grew after Catholic Jesuit provinces released the names of 153 priests and brothers credibly accused of sexually abusing children.
The Jesuits’ U.S. Central and Southern, and West provinces posted the names on their websites Friday, and the Chicago-based Midwest province plans to post its names Dec. 17.
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CINCINNATI (OH)
WCPO
December 13, 2018
Organization releasing report on Jesuit priests
Some school officials will soon learn if they’ve employed priests or others who have faced “established accusations” of sexually abusing children.
The Midwest Province of the Society of Jesus will release a report Monday to Jesuit institutions, including St. Xavier High School and Xavier University, naming every priest who has been accused of sexual abuse since 1955.
St. Xavier’s president has promised to release the names associated with St. X when they get them.
“This isn’t something we’re trying to hide, this isn’t something we’re proud of, but our goal is to build trust,” president Tim Reilly said Thursday.
Reilly said there is the distinct possibility that priests associated with the school will be on the list.
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PITTSBURGH (PA)
The New York Times
December 14, 2018
By Campbell Robertson
It was a list Charles L. Bailey Jr. had wanted to see for years: the names of the priests in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse who had been credibly accused of sexual abuse.
Mr. Bailey, 67, a longtime local advocate for survivors of abuse by priests, had heard excuses for why such a list was impossible to release. The last bishop said naming accused priests would be a violation of the Ten Commandments. The current bishop said he would not disclose the names, citing the request of unnamed victims.
But then on Dec. 3, Mr. Bailey got a call from a local reporter. It was up, on the diocesan website. Fifty-seven priests. None were still in ministry and most were deceased, including, there on Page 4, the priest who had repeatedly raped Mr. Bailey when he was not yet a teenager.
As the Catholic Church faces a wave of federal and state attorney general investigations into its handling of sex abuse, bishops around the country have struggled with how to react. Some have locked down defensively. Others are waiting on guidance from the Vatican, which instructed American bishops last month to wait on taking any collective action until the new year.
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DENVER (CO)
Crux
December 17, 2018
By Inés San Martín
As the clerical sexual abuse scandals continue to work their way through the global church, bishops and religious superiors in Spain are showing similar but also contrasting reactions both to the crime of abuse and the public reactions to it.
During his first remarks as bishop of Avila during his ordination, Jose Maria Gil Tamayo, former secretary and spokesman of the bishops’ conference, said on Saturday that there’s an attempt to “extend an unfair veil of suspicion over the immense multitude of priests.”
He was referring to the recent publication, in several local newspapers, of allegations of clerical sexual abuse and subsequent silence and cover-up. Seeing this “veil of suspicion,” Gil Tamayo said he wanted to offer some words of “encouragement” and “support” for the local clergy, whom he thanked for their service.
“Especially in these moments in which, seeing the sins and crimes that have been committed by the ecclesial community and for which we apologize and work towards their eradication and prevention,” there’s an attempt to discredit the many good priests “who serve God and the people in a faithful, self-denying and exemplary way,” he said, to a cheering crowd.
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WINSTON-SALEM (NC)
Baptist News Global
December 14, 2018
By Bill Leonard
In our better moments of spiritual self-awareness, we Christians are forced to acknowledge our capacity for actions and ideas that shatter an individual and collective “witness” as followers of Jesus. It’s been like that from the start. Judas Iscariot betrayed him with a kiss. After declaring absolute loyalty, Simon Peter denied Jesus three times: “I never knew the man.” The brothers James and John, perhaps anticipating the Prosperity Gospel, demanded “the best seats” in the coming kingdom. In every era of its history, certain Christian individuals and institutions have compelled an “orthodoxy” from others they refused to require of themselves. Dietrich Bonhoeffer called that kind of gospel cheap grace.
In The Cost of Discipleship (1937), Bonhoeffer called us all to account, warning:
Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting to-day for costly grace. . . . Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth, the love of God taught as the Christian “conception” of God. An intellectual assent to that idea is held to be of itself sufficient to remission of sins. The Church which holds the correct doctrine of grace has, ipso facto, a part in that grace. In such a Church the world finds a cheap covering for its sins; no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin. Cheap grace therefore amounts to a denial of the living Word of God, in fact, a denial of the Incarnation of the Word of God (emphasis mine).
I returned to Bonhoeffer’s admonition after reading a heartrending series of articles recently published in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram regarding years of sexual abuse perpetrated by various “Independent Fundamentalist Baptist” ministers, individuals often protected and “moved on” by their pastoral supervisors or church constituencies.
“Underneath it all is a powerful emphasis on ministerial authority, with pastor-figures as ‘God’s anointed’ whose leadership is not to be questioned.”
After months of research, a group of Star-Telegram investigative reporters documented “at least 412 allegations of sexual misconduct in 187 Independent Fundamentalist Baptist churches and their affiliated institutions” based in 40 states and Canada. Their study suggests that some 168 “church leaders” were accused or convicted of sex crimes against children, with as many as 45 of them continuing in ministry after being identified. The articles detail occasions when women and children were sexually molested by pastoral figures who were then moved on to other churches or church-related ministries. The accusers, almost all females, were often ignored, doubted or blamed for enticing the men.
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WASHINGTON (DC)
The Washington Post
December 14, 2018
A D.C. judge on Thursday ordered a Catholic priest accused of sexually assaulting three parishioners to remain in jail until trial and said it was troubling that church leaders did not take action when complaints against the defendant were raised several years ago, possibly allowing additional instances of alleged abuse.
Prosecutors said leaders at the Shrine of the Sacred Heart in Northwest Washington were initially notified in mid-June 2015 of allegations that Urbano Vazquez, an assistant pastor, may have sexually assaulted a teenage girl who was a member of the parish. Alleged assaults involving two other victims occurred between June 2016 and December 2017.
In a hearing before D.C. Superior Court Judge Juliet McKenna, Vazquez’s attorney argued that his client should be allowed to return to the secluded parish outside of Pittsburgh where he had been staying, saying he would be watched by priests there as he awaited trial. But McKenna rejected the proposal as she questioned the church’s supervision.
“He was in a position of trust and authority,” the judge said of Vazquez. “I am troubled by the number of alleged victims over a number of years of alleged sexual abuse of young girls. And to release him now back in the supervision of colleagues who had been informed of such alleged behavior is troubling to me.”
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By Dana Point Times
December 14, 2018
By Lillian Boyd
Scandal and allegations of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church have spread across the globe—and Dana Point is no exception.
On Wednesday, Dec. 5, the Minnesota-based law firm of Jeff Anderson & Associates released a report on clergy sexual abuse in the Diocese of Orange, which contained information, photographs and assignment histories on 72 clergy accused of sexual misconduct. A spokesperson for the Diocese of Orange says that list is erroneous and overinflated. Of those 72, eight men were found to be, at least at one point, affiliated with Dana Point or St. Edward the Confessor Catholic Church.
Mike Reck, an attorney with Jeff Anderson & Associates, led a press conference the day the report was released at Doubletree by Hilton in Orange, alongside Patrick Wall, a former Roman Catholic priest and Dana Point resident, and three survivors of abuse.
“We’re doing this because the Diocese of Orange is not,” Reck said. “It’s important because the release of these identities sends a message to survivors of abuse that they are not alone, that this matters and that healing can begin. Because we know only with the acknowledgment that this happened, that this was wrong and that this was not the survivor’s fault can the healing begin.”
The list of 72 names was compiled from public records, documents, letters and archives from churches and witness testimony, according to the firm. But the firm’s associates say the list is incomplete, just as it believes lists released by the church in 2004 and 2016 were incomplete.
“The public and the survivors deserve two things. They deserve a complete list, which is full and honest and transparent. And they deserve a full disclosure of what is known and when it was known. This is what allows the healing to start and allows for accountability,” Reck said.
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NEW YORK (NY)
Huffington Post
December 14, 2018
By Carol Kuruvilla
An investigation has uncovered hundreds of abuse allegations against leaders of a conservative, loosely affiliated network of evangelical Christian churches.
The report, published by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Sunday, identified 412 abuse allegations in 187 independent fundamental Baptist (IFB) churches and institutions across 40 states and Canada, with some cases reaching as far back as the 1970s.
The Star-Telegram spoke to more than 200 current or former IFB church members who shared stories about “rape, assault, humiliation and fear.” Many of the stories have already been made public through criminal cases, lawsuits and news reports. However, the newspaper said its reporters uncovered 21 new abuse allegations in the course of its eight-month investigation.
In total, the newspaper said it found that 168 IFB church leaders were accused or have been convicted of sexually abusing children.
Some of the women interviewed suggested that the patriarchal theology preached in IFB churches protects its male pastors from criticism and helps create a pattern of abuse and cover-up.
Interviewees told the Star-Telegram that pastors in IFB churches were treated as if they were chosen by God and beyond reproach. Abusers used their power and position to psychologically manipulate and silence their victims, the women said. And often, even when victims spoke up, the accused pastors would manage to avoid criminal charges and use informal pastoral networks to relocate to another church.
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HAYWARD (WI)
Associated Press
December 13, 2018
A former priest accused of sexually abusing at least three boys in Wisconsin decades ago has been bound over for trial.
Seventy-one-year-old Thomas Ericksen was arrested Nov. 16 at his Minneapolis home. He faces child sexual assault charges for alleged abuse between June 1982 and April 1983, while he was at St. Peter’s Church in Winter, Wis.
The Wausau Daily Herald reported that Ericksen appeared in court Wednesday and his attorney argued that credibility of purported victims had to be called into question due to the amount of time since the alleged crimes. The judge disagreed and bound the case over for trial.
Prosecutors haven’t said why so much time elapsed before charges were filed.
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HOUSTON (TX)
Houston Chronicle
December 13, 2018
By Nicole Hensley
The investigation of a Houston area priest on sexual assault allegations led law enforcement to a cache of files on more than 20 clergy members who faced claims of misconduct over the past decade, including some criminal allegations, according to court records.
The files seized from the Shalom Center in Splendora include details on at least five priests publicly accused of sexual misconduct in Texas, California and Missouri, a Houston Chronicle review found.
The files were listed in an exhaustive inventory stemming from a search warrant executed in September on the Shalom property by Montgomery County law enforcement and Texas Rangers. The files identified priests treated at the center, according to Montgomery County Assistant District Attorney Tyler Dunman.
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SPRINGFIELD (IL)
WJCT Radio
December 12, 2018
By San Dunklau
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan is continuing her investigation of the state’s six Roman Catholic dioceses, and now says criminal prosecution is a potential.
Listen Listening…
0:08 / 0:53 Listen to a summary of the story.
Madigan launched an investigation in August, after a Pennsylvania grand jury report contained “credible” accounts of child sexual abuse incidents committed by over 300 Catholic priests.
The attorney general has been seeking records from Illinois dioceses. She says they should make public the names of priests who have “credible allegations” against them. So far, four of the six dioceses in Illinois have complied, while the other two already had names of priests published.
Madigan says there’s still a lot of information to review.
“It’s become clear that the Catholic Church cannot handle these matters internally. They can’t handle these matters as personnel matters. Crimes were committed.”
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WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service
December 13, 2018
By Father Kenneth Doyle
Q. The news reports of settlements made in the millions of dollars to victims of clergy sex abuse trouble me. Were there secret assets from wills and estates on reserve for that purpose? Where did all that money come from? (Metuchen, New Jersey)
A. National Public Radio reported in August 2018 that dioceses and religious orders in the United States had thus far paid settlements totaling more than $3 billion to victims of clergy sexual abuse. The settlements have come, not from any “secret assets,” but from a combination of cash, proceeds from the sale of land and buildings, and from insurance payments.
What must be said first, though, is that no financial amount is sufficient to compensate victims for their suffering. As Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda of St. Paul and Minneapolis said in May 2018 when announcing a settlement of $210 million in restitution to several hundred survivors, “I recognize that the abuse stole so much from you — your childhood, your innocence, your safety, your ability to trust and, in many cases, your faith. … The church let you down, and I’m very sorry.”
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BUFFALO (NY)
WGRZ TV
.
December 14, 2018
By Steve Brown
Mitchell Garabedian is not hesitant about sharing his feelings on the Roman Catholic Church.
“The Catholic Church is drunk with power. Take away their robes, take away their religion as Catholic priests and they’re just criminals,” said Garabedian.
Garabedian has spent decades representing victims of clergy sex abuse.
Wednesday, in an interview in his Boston office, Garabedian disclosed a number of his clients claiming clergy sex abuse in the Buffalo Catholic Diocese have been interviewed by the FBI.
“Approximately ten”, said Garabedian.
The Buffalo Diocese has been the focus of a federal criminal investigation for months. Diocesan official reports receiving a pair of subpoenas, but little else is known about the probe. Neither the Buffalo FBI office or the US Attorney’s office will even acknowledge there is an investigation.
Ask what agents might have asked his clients about Garabedians said, “I can tell you right now they’re interested in crime of sexual abuse and the cover-up of those crimes.”
But Garabedian would not get into specifics.
The Boston attorney also represents Siobhan O’Connor, the whistle-blower who leaked internal documents while she worked as Bishop Richard Malone’s executive assistant.
When asked if O’Connor had been interviewed by the feds, Garabedian said, “I cannot comment.”
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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter
December 14, 2018
By Heidi Schlumpf
A Nashville deacon who has raised questions about the completeness of the diocese’s recently published list of priests accused of sexual abuse has been removed from ministry for “carrying on a public disagreement with the Diocese,” according to a letter from his pastor.
n the wake of the Pennsylvania grand jury report, more and more dioceses are moving to publish such lists, raising questions about who is — and is not — on them. Deacon Ron Deal first raised concerns in October, after an email to priests and deacons indicated the list would contain only nine names.
The Nashville Diocese eventually released a list of 13 names on Nov. 2; which was updated and corrected on Nov. 8, mentioning three more priests, including two Nashville priests accused of abuse in other dioceses as well as one religious order priest.
Deal and other victims and victims’ advocates believe the list is still incomplete and are calling on state law enforcement officials, including Attorney General Herbert Slatery, to open an investigation into cover-up in all three dioceses in Tennessee.
“We need an independent set of eyes,” said Deal, an attorney who formerly worked for the Nashville Diocese as a construction project development manager and headed the diaconate program.
Diocesan spokesperson Rick Musacchio said the October email to clergy was part of “an effort to make [the list] as complete as possible.” The voluntary release of names indicates the diocese’s “ongoing commitment to transparency, accountability and pastoral care,” he told NCR.
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DETROIT (MI)
Detroit Free Press
December 14, 2018
By Robert Allen
The Archdiocese of Detroit transferred hundreds of parishes this year to a separate real estate corporation, a move critics say is similar to attempts across the country by the Catholic Church to shield assets from lawsuits filed by victims of clergy sex abuse.
For the six-county archdiocese, which includes 313 parishes, this is a first step toward creating an individual corporation for each parish, archdiocese spokesman Ned McGrath said Thursday. He said U.S. dioceses had been encouraged by church leadership to make such a change since 1911, and timing has nothing to do with concerns over lawsuits, which have already cost the church billions of dollars.
Terry McKiernan, co-founder of BishopAccountability.org, which tracks the abuse crisis, said this is a shell game to protect those assets from seizure through lawsuits regarding child sex abuse. He compared it to several other cases, such as a fund the Archdiocese of Milwaukee used to try to protect tens of millions of dollars in assets when it entered bankruptcy.
“I don’t know if Detroit will go in that direction,” McKiernan said. “But clearly, they’re bracing for something.”
Across the United States, about 20 dioceses and other religious orders have filed for bankruptcy protection as a result of clergy sex abuse claims, the Associated Press reported last week. As a result, victims’ advocates say they are seeing trends across the country that include shifting of assets to other funds or parishes, a tactic previously used in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Tennessee and Southern California.
“This is not an unusual step,” said James Stang, a Los Angeles attorney who has represented more than 13 creditors’ committees involving survivors of sexual abuse and now represents victims of former Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. “They will tell you that the transfer of the property to a trust or away from the archdiocese actually reflects their canon law concepts. I look at it as club rules.”
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SAN DIEGO (CA)
Catholic News Agency
December 13, 2018
A trial began Tuesday for the San Diego priest accused of sexually assaulting a seminarian in February. The alleged victim testified Wednesday that the priest groped him in a restaurant bathroom.
The seminarian told the court that he and another seminarian had drinks with Fr. Juan Garcia Castillo at a bar and restaurant on Feb. 3, after an event at St. Patrick’s Parish in Carlsbad, where Castillo served as parochial vicar. He said they had several drinks, and that the priest encouraged him to drink to excess.
The seminarian testified that he went to the bathroom sick after midnight. While he was in the restroom, Castillo allegedly approached him from behind and groped his genitals, twice.
The seminarian said he told the priest to “get away.”
“I walked out of the stall, and I look at myself in the mirror and I said, ‘Oh my God, what has happened to me?’” the seminarian said, according to the San Diego Union Tribune.
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PITTSBURGH (PA)
WPXI TV
December 13, 2018
Two new lawsuits have been filed against the Diocese of Pittsburgh and Bishop David Zubik, alleging they knew about and allowed of priests to sexually assault young boys.
Later Thursday, Zubik announced the formation of the diocese’s compensation fund for survivors of clergy abuse.
The first lawsuit claims that Rev. Carl Roemele molested a victim multiple times when he was 13
The unnamed victim and his family were members of the St. Agatha parish in Bridgeville when the alleged attacks occurred.
According to a lawsuit filed Wednesday, Roemele had a close relationship with the victim’s parents and would take him to a cabin in Donegal where assaults are alleged to have occurred.
The second names Rev. Richard Lelonis, then at St. Luke’s in Carnegie, as the abusive priest.
According to the lawsuit, Lelonis sexually assaulted a boy between the time he was 8 and 12 years old in the late ’60s and early ’70s.
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YORK (PA)
York Daily Record
December 13, 2018
By Candy Woodall
In 2014, Harrisburg Bishop Ronald Gainer decided prayer and penance was the best punishment for a priest who had confessed to sexually abusing multiple children.
Gainer wrote a letter to the Vatican and told the pope he believed the harm done by the Rev. Joseph Pease was being sufficiently repaired.
Pease was 83 at the time and living with dementia, and Gainer believed he couldn’t defend himself in the church’s disciplinary process.
The bishop asked the Vatican to allow Pease to “live out his remaining years in prayer and penance, without adding further anxiety or suffering to his situation, and without risking public knowledge of his crimes.”
Gainer has now changed his mind.
A week after the York Daily Record published a report showing Pease is the only priest among 72 accused in the Harrisburg diocese who is still on the church’s payroll, the bishop is now seeking laicization for Pease.
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IRVING (TX)
CBS News
December 13, 2018
By Kate Gibson
The Boy Scouts of America is exploring a range of options to address it’s increasingly shaky financial situation. Those may include declaring bankruptcy, with the more than century-old organization facing rising legal fees due to lawsuits over its handling of sexual abuse allegations.
In a Dec. 12 letter to employees released by the nonprofit organization, Mike Surbaugh, its chief scout executive, said the nonprofit is “working with experts to explore all options available” to keep the organization’s local and national programs running.
The Boy Scouts has hired law firm Sidley Austin to explore a potential chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, according to The Wall Street Journal. Seeking protection from its debts would stop multiple lawsuits over alleged sexual abuse by Boy Scout workers and volunteers going back decades, while giving the organization space to negotiate with those who sued, according to the newspaper.
The Boy Scouts have a responsibility to “fairly compensate victims who suffered abuse during their time in scouting,” wrote Surbaugh, who added the scouts never knowingly allowed a sexual predator to work with youth.
“We have always taken care of victims – we believe them, we believe in fairly compensating them and we have paid for unlimited counseling, by a provider of their choice, regardless of the amount of time that has passed since an instance of abuse,” he wrote.
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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
December 13, 2018
By Peter Smith
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh on Thursday said victims of sexual abuse by priests could apply for compensation as soon as January under a program run by a law firm that has run similar programs for such victims in New York state dioceses.
Bishop David Zubik did not announce a dollar figure for the fund but said the diocese would pay the amounts from proceeds from past and future sales of properties. He said the diocese may sell its Downtown offices on the Boulevard of the Allies, where Thursday’s press conference announcing the fund was held.
Kenneth Feinberg and Camille Biros lead a Washington, D.C.-based team with experience administering similar funds to compensate victims sexual abuse victims in other dioceses as well as at Penn State. That experience also includes handling compensation funds for such things as the 9/11 attacks, mass shootings and the BP oil spill.
They will be representing Pittsburgh and six other Pennsylvania Catholic dioceses that have announced plans for compensation funds for victims, including those who cannot currently sue for damages because the abuse happened too long ago under the statute of limitations.
The funds come the wake of a withering state grand jury report, released in August. It said more than 300 priests, including at least 90 in Pittsburgh, were accused of sexually abusing more than 1,000 victims over seven decades in six dioceses.
In Pittsburgh, compensation will be limited to those who were sexually abused by diocesan priests or deacons, not by lay employees or members of religious orders working for the diocese. Also not eligible are victims who have already reached financial settlements with the diocese.
“It is not all about money,” Mr. Feinberg said. But for those who are found eligible and receive settlements, it validates “the legitimacy of the claim, sometimes after decades of waiting.”
The program “is completely voluntary,” Mr. Feinberg said. “No victim, no alleged victim is required to come forward.” But those who have already contacted the diocese will be notified of the plan.
People can be represented by a lawyer or file claims on their own, Mr. Feinberg and Ms. Biros said, and they can meet with the team in person if they want.
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TACOMA (WA)
Tacoma News Tribune
December 13, 2018
Bellarmine Preparatory School, a Tacoma institution since 1928, turned a harsh but necessary spotlight on itself last Friday when it shared information on 23 disgraced Catholic priests and non-ordained brothers previously assigned to the Bellarmine community. All were “credibly accused” of sexual abuse at some point in their Jesuit careers.
Publicly identifying these alleged offenders was the right thing to do. In fact, it was long overdue. Silence and secrecy should no longer be an option. As Bellarmine President Robert Modarelli said in a statement, for too long this scandal has been allowed to “fester unchecked.”
The private school just off South Union Avenue took a lesson from its own Jesuit catechism: Covering up sin only invites more of it.
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LONDON (ENGLAND)
Catholic News Service
December 13, 2018
By Simon Caldwell
An English cardinal has told an inquiry into child abuse of his shock at learning that a vicar general of his former archdiocese tried to help two pedophile priests escape to the United States.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse revealed for the first time that Msgr. Daniel Leonard, a former vicar general of the Archdiocese of Birmingham, ordered a priest to tip off Father Samuel Penney that he was about to be arrested and to give him cash to flee to the United States.
It also revealed that Msgr. Leonard, who is now deceased, provided Father James Robinson with a good character reference so he could transfer to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, even though the priest was facing allegations of child abuse in the U.K.
Giving evidence to the inquiry, Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster said: “This comes as a shock to me that such a course of action could have been in the mind of the then vicar general.
“It is shocking. If I understand things correctly, it is criminal intent,” said Cardinal Nichols, president of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, at the Dec. 13 hearing in London.
The cardinal, who served as archbishop of Birmingham from 2000 to 2009, said Msgr. Leonard was in a nursing home when he took over as archbishop, and he met him only once. Cardinal Nichols said he found a “much-diminished old man who was clearly incapable of remembering much.”
Father Gerard Doyle, a parish priest in Stone, England, said in the early 1990s that he received a call from Msgr. Leonard, who instructed him to dress in plain clothes and visit Father Penney at the Gracewell Institute, Birmingham, where he was undergoing therapy following child abuse allegations.
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REDONDO BEACH (CA)
The Beach News
December 11, 2018
By Nathaniel Percy
An internal investigation at a South Bay Catholic school found that two nuns who worked there allegedly misappropriated a “substantial” amount of funds for personal use over a period of years, a letter sent to school families Wednesday said.
It wasn’t immediately clear how much was stolen from St. James Catholic School in Torrance. A specific time period also wasn’t provided by authorities.
One of the sisters had recently retired, according to a church newsletter.
Msgr. Michael Meyers, the pastor at St. James Catholic Church in Redondo Beach, said in the letter that Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, the nuns’ order, is cooperating with the parish and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles to determine exactly how much money may have been taken by the pair.
The church in Redondo Beach oversees the operations of the elementary school located 2 miles away in Torrance.
“Our community is concerned and saddened by this situation and regret any injury to our long relationship with the families of the school,” the Order said in a statement. “The Sisters of St. Joseph both desire and intend to make complete restitution to St. James School.”
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ROCHESTER (NY)
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
December 13, 2018
By David Andreatta
In recently purging another priest from the Diocese of Rochester who was found to have abused children, Bishop Salvatore Matano issued a statement pledging to continue “the many important initiatives we have undertaken” to protect young and vulnerable people.
Among those were the creation of an independent review board to probe sex abuse allegations and advise the diocese; mandatory background checks for clerics and others in the diocese who work with children; and an established code of conduct.
Such initiatives are worthwhile, but they’ve done little to bring justice to victims and even less to restore the shattered confidence in the Catholic Church felt by many of the faithful.
For that, two things need to happen — one plausible, one implausible, and both necessary.
First, the implausible.
There needs to be a public airing of how so many pedophiles got into the priesthood, how so many bishops looked the other way, and how revelations of clerical abuse and cover-ups are still surfacing after journalists peeled back the first layer of the onion 17 years ago.
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[Jesuits of Catalonia become first order in Spain to investigate abuses in their institutions]
MADRID (SPAIN)
El País
December 13, 2018
By Íñigo Domínguez
A raíz de las informaciones de EL PAÍS, admiten que “aún hay una asignatura pendiente en la investigación del pasado” y que la gestión de los casos “ha podido ser deficiente”
Los jesuitas de Cataluña serán la primera orden religiosa en España, y la primera institución de la Iglesia católica en el país, en emprender una investigación interna rigurosa de los posibles abusos sexuales sobre menores cometidos en sus centros. En la línea de las iniciativas realizadas en Francia y Alemania, y mientras la Conferencia Episcopal española se niega todavía a dar ese paso, la Compañía de Jesús y Jesuïtes Educació anuncian en un comunicado que han decidido “emprender una investigación más sistemática de los posibles casos de abusos sobre menores y conductas impropias que en el pasado, remontándonos a los años sesenta, hayan podido suceder en los centros educativos”. La decisión ha sido tomada a raíz de las informaciones publicadas en EL PAÍS que afectan a su orden: “La búsqueda de información sobre algún caso ya conocido nos muestra que necesitamos sistematizar la información que pueda haber”.
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LITTLE ROCK (AR)
Bilgrimage
December 12, 2018
By William Lindsey
As I posted my posting two days ago with an assortment of reports about the sexual abuse of vulnerable people in Christian churches, I had decided that I’d do a follow-up posting featuring some valuable commentary from Jamie Manson about Pope Francis’ “worries” about gay priests. In my view, the critique/discussion of comments by top Catholic officials like the ones Francis has made to Father Fernando Prado about homosexuality and gay priests needs to go hand in hand with reports about abuse of vulnerable people in Christian churches. Where a plethora of reports from various churches, including the Catholic church, demonstrates plainly that the vulnerable people being abused by priests and pastors include females…. Demonstrating that the gays-are-the-problem analysis is a red herring if we really want to get to the root of sexual abuse of vulnerable people in faith communities….
Some very important commentary from Jamie Manson regarding Francis’ muddled, bigoted, scientifically ludicrous comments about homosexuality to Father Prado:
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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
Crux
December 12, 2018
By Christopher White
Thirty years ago, investigative reporter Jason Berry pioneered new territory by covering clerical sexual abuse in Louisiana. Since then, his name has become synonymous with the crisis that continues to loom over the Catholic Church today.
In his new book, City of a Million Dreams: A History of New Orleans at 300, Berry returns to his roots. In an interview with Crux, he details some of the city’s rich Catholic history, its efforts to confront race relations, and why researching some of the city’s saints proved far more fulfilling than his work in Rome.
Crux: You’ve spent decades uncovering and chronicling the Church’s shameful history of clerical sex abuse and cover-up, yet this new book switches gears to tell the story of a city – your city – New Orleans. What prompted you to write this book?
Berry: In 1985, when I began investigating clergy abuse cases in Lafayette, Louisiana my second book was heading toward publication, Up from the Cradle of Jazz: New Orleans Music Since World War II. After six years on that topic I had become intrigued with jazz funerals, how they arose, what they said about the city. As I gathered documents on clergy predators, the narrative taking shape for Lead Us Not into Temptation (1992) became hugely consuming. I came back from reporting trips, numbed by clerical secrets and crimes, and invariably attended the funeral of a musician. As the mourners danced in the streets, I felt strangely happy. My own church made me sad. The city of my birth was sending rhythms of spiritual hope.
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NEW YORK (NY)
The Media Project
December 12, 2018
By Clemente Lisi
The attention of the Catholic world will be on Panama next month when the Central American nation hosts World Youth Day, an event that remains a major part of Saint Pope John Paul II’s legacy.
Started in 1985 and influenced by the “Light-Life Movement” that began in the then-pope’s native Poland two decades earlier, World Youth Day has allowed the church to spread its message directly to young adults who eagerly gather to celebrate as a community. It is that spirit and tradition that accompanies World Youth Day each time it is held somewhere in the world. The five-day event, which starts on Jan. 22, will be a real chance for Pope Francis to try and set things right following a very difficult 2018 for him and the church as a whole.
There is a spiritual hunger around the world by Christians of all denominations. This pope needs to get back to basics and focus on evangelizing like John Paul II did during his 17-year papacy. This Holy Father needs to be less political and more spiritual. He needs to break free from the labels that have been heaped on him by critics and supporters alike. He needs to get back to the universal message of the church that resonates in both industrialized nations and the developing world.
This pope has been a polarizing figure among the faithful. He’s been on the receiving end of much criticism in recent years from conservative Catholics who increasingly believe his mixed messages on homosexuality, birth control and allowing those who have divorced to receive communion runs counter to the catechism.
At the same time, Pope Francis has often demonstrated himself to be a champion of liberal causes and seen by progressive Catholics as someone charting the church on a radically new course more in line with the needs and wants of a modern secular world.
For example, asking “who am I to judge?” in a 2013 news conference when referring to the LGBTQ community has been largely welcomed by non-Catholics and the secular news media. In January 2014, Francis even made the cover of Rolling Stone magazine in a piece that praised him and largely attacked his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI.
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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
The Advocate
December 12, 2018
By Ramon Antonio Vargas
A Louisiana man claims in a new lawsuit that nearly 40 years ago, the regional leader of a Catholic religious order that founded Archbishop Shaw High School dosed him with what might have been chloroform and raped him.
When he confronted Catholic officials this fall about the episode, they tried to prevent it from becoming public despite treating the claim as credible, the 36-page lawsuit filed Wednesday in Orleans Parish Civil District Court says.
The man, whose identity is not revealed in the suit, demands damages from the Salesians of Don Bosco, the Archdiocese of New Orleans and officials with both organizations, including Archbishop Gregory Aymond.
The suit marks the latest legal salvo against the local Catholic Church involving decades-old allegations of clerical abuse in New Orleans and a movement from victims and their advocates to air the claims publicly.
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WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post
Decmeber 13, 2018
A D.C. Catholic priest charged with sexually assaulting two female members of his parish — a 9-year-old girl and a woman — was ordered held in D.C. jail until his next hearing.
Urbano Vazquez, 46, had been allowed to avoid jail while an investigation continued, after he was charged in…
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EVANSVILLE (IN)
Evansville Courier & Press
December 12, 2018
By Noah Stubbs
It’s been nearly three months since Bishop Joseph M. Siegel announced the Catholic Diocese will collect and release the names of priests who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse of minors over the years.
The diocese said in a news release Wednesday that the inspection of clergy records is still ongoing, and the list will be made public in the early months of 2019.
“When complete, the Diocesan Review Board and Bishop Joseph M. Siegel will review the findings to assure that they are as complete as possible,” the release said.
In September, The Message — the diocese’s community newspaper — reported the names had already been listed in previous editions of the publication through the years.
The September announcement came after an Evansville Diocese priest was put on administrative leave after the diocese received a report of sexual misconduct.
Father David Fleck denies the claim of sexual misconduct that allegedly happened decades ago, according to the statement from the diocese.
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CINCINNATI (OH)
WLWT TV
December 12, 2018
By Emily Wood
St. Xavier High School is informing parents, students and alumni about a list of names of alleged sexual abusers.
The list is expected to be released Monday by the U.S. Midwest Province of the Society of Jesus. In an email, St. X wrote, “the Province will release the names of all Jesuit priests, brothers and scholastics under the jurisdiction of the Province who have been the subject of credible allegations of sexual abuse against minors during the period from 1955 until the present.”
The email said St. Xavier is releasing the list “in an effort to be transparent about the past, to precipitate victims who desire assistance and make the intent to protect youth unmistakable.”
The release will include names of Jesuits who were assigned to St. Xavier during their alleged abuse.
Gerry Ahrens is a St. Xavier graduate and a sexual abuse survivor.
He told WLWT Monday will be a great day because victims will finally have acknowledgement of what happened to them by publishing the names of their abusers.
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SAN DIEGO (CA)
NBC 7 TV
December 12, 2018
An attorney and former U.S. Naval officer who was studying to become a priest accused a San Diego-area priest of grabbing his genitals after a night of drinking in a Carlsbad restaurant and bar.
Rev. Juan Garcia Castillo, a former associate pastor at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Carlsbad, is accused of misdemeanor sexual battery for the incident that is alleged to have occurred on Feb. 4.
A 34-year-old testified in court Wednesday that he was a seminary student when he joined Castillo, 35, and another seminary student for a beer at BJ’s in Carlsbad.
Surveillance video shows the three men sitting for more than four hours drinking and talking.
After two hours at the restaurant, the accuser estimated he had finished two and was drinking a third Long Island Iced Teas.
“I was drunk but I knew what was happening,” he said from the stand.
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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Tribune Review
December 12, 2018
By Rich Cholodofsky
The lawyer for a disgraced Catholic Diocese of Greensburg priest who pleaded guilty to molesting a Lower Burrell school student a quarter-century ago pleaded for mercy for his client before a sentencing hearing next week.
In court documents filed Wednesday, defense attorney Fran Murrman asked for no jail time for the Rev. John Thomas Sweeney.
Murrman said Sweeney, 75, is mentally fragile and, through his impending banishment from the church, understands that he will “never escape the consequences of his action.”
Sweeney pleaded guilty in July to one felony count of indecent assault in connection with what investigators said was a sexual assault against a 10-year-old boy who attended St. Margaret Mary Church school between September 1991 and June 1992.
Prosecutors said Sweeney forced the fourth-grader to perform sex acts in a conference room next to his office at the church.
Sweeney had ordered the boy to the room to be disciplined for being disruptive on a school bus, investigators said.
Afterward, a church secretary brought the boy milk and cookies, according to prosecutors.
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MORRISTOWN (TN)
Citizen Tribune
December 12, 2018
By Ken Little
The Diocese of Knoxville has no plans to investigate any allegations of sexual abuse by priests committed within the diocese after 1988, a spokesman said.
The diocese, which includes Greene County, also declined to respond to a request for an investigation by an independent third party of any allegations of sexual misconduct by priests. The request was made by a member of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests group, known by the acronym SNAP.
“Should there be a third party investigation begun to get to the whole truth? Survivors and their advocates unanimously promote this as the next step in getting to the truth in Tennessee,” East Tennessee SNAP advocate Susan Vance recently said.
In November, the Diocese of Nashville released a list of 13 alleged pedophile priests and former priests.
Nine of the 13 priests and former priests are dead. Two others are in prison. None are in active ministry, the Diocese of Nashville said in a news release.
All of the alleged sexual abuse was committed before 1988, when the area currently covered by the Diocese of Knoxville was included in the Diocese of Nashville.
Four of the pastors on the list served at Notre Dame Catholic Church.
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PENNSYLVANIA
The Pennsylvania Record
December 12, 2018
A priest invites an 8-year-old boy into the rectory and begins to kiss him. He sticks his tongue and hands where they don’t belong after offering alcohol to the child and his friend.
The boy pushes back and escapes the situation, but his friend isn’t able to – the boy watches the priest shut the door with his friend behind it.
Outside, the boy smashes a window on the priest’s car while, inside the church, his friend is sexually abused.
A shut door and a shattered window – symbols of silence and anger.
This story is taken from a Pittsburgh lawsuit against the Catholic Church, which for decades protected more than 300 priests across Pennsylvania accused of committing heinous acts on young boys and girls, according to a grand jury report.
And in that grand jury report are more heartbreaking symbols: Where the names of 19 accused priests are listed, black bars of redaction hide them.
Because of a recent state Supreme Court decision, parishioners in five Pennsylvania dioceses will have to wonder whether the names of their current and former priests are behind those black bars of redaction.
Attorney General Josh Shapiro argued that disclosure of the names was allowed by the Grand Jury Act, but the justices ruled it would be harmful to the reputations of the anonymous accused pedophiles. Ugh.
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WASHINGTON (DC)
National Public Radio
December 12, 2018
By Ian Stewart
]
The Vatican announced Wednesday that two cardinals have been let go from a papal council, the day after one of them was reportedly convicted of sexual abuse by an Australian court.
George Pell and Javier Errázuriz both served on the Council of Cardinals, a papal advisory group. Errázuriz had been accused of ignoring sexual abuse by a Chilean priest. Multiple news outlets have reported a jury unanimously found Pell guilty Tuesday of sexually assaulting children in the 1990s, although Australian officials have put a gag order on the trial.
In the announcement, the Director of the Holy See Press Office, Greg Burke, said Pell and Errázuriz had been released in October after “reflection on the work, structure and composition of the Council itself, also taking into account the advanced age of some members.” Pell is 77, and Errázuriz is 85. Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya, 79, will also not return to the council.
Burke said Pope Francis thanked the men for their service on his advisory committee at the time; others in the group had called for their departure.
Pell has said before that he is innocent of the abuse charges, which stem from his time as a priest and archbishop in Australia, calling them “relentless character assassination.” He has a reputation for vigorously defending the church against accusations of sexual misconduct.
As NPR has reported, Australia is grappling with the results of a disturbing 2017 report which “found that seven percent of the country’s Catholic priests between 1950 and 2010 allegedly sexually abused children, and identified 1,880 different alleged perpetrators.”
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JUNEAU (AK)
KTVA TV
December 12, 2018
By: Chris Klint
The Roman Catholic Church in Juneau is examining its records for any possible links of current or former clergy to a vast series of cases in the Lower 48 which came to light in August.
The Diocese of Juneau announced Wednesday the appointment of a three-member commission by Bishop Andrew Bellisario. According to a decree, the independent panel will “review the personnel files of clergy and religious who have served in the Diocese,” as well as any allegations of sexual abuse by staff or volunteers since the diocese’s founding in 1951.
The commission is set to begin its work Jan. 7, with a final report due by June 1.
A database maintained by the non profit group BishopAccountability.org lists just two known cases of clergy abuse in Juneau, the most recent in 1988.
Dominique Johnson, a spokesman for the diocese, said Wednesday that no new allegations of abuse in Juneau have come to light. The commission was instead prompted, he said, by the massive allegations of Pennsylvania sex abuse involving hundreds of clergy members and more than 1,000 victims.
“We just wanted to review our files to see if any allegations have been reported involving our employees, our past employees, since the establishment of the diocese in 1951,” Johnson said.
The Archdiocese of Anchorage announced a similar review in October of any abuse allegations dating back 50 years. Anchorage’s archbishop, Paul Etienne – who barred a Wyoming bishop from public ministry over alleged abuse when Etienne served there – told KTVA last month that the move was part of a focus on transparency.
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SANTA BARBARA (CA)
Santa Barbara Independent
December 13, 2018
by Tyler Hayden
New disclosures by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the Catholic Church’s western Jesuit province have identified more than 200 clergymen accused of child molestation, 12 of whom held lengthy postings in the Santa Barbara area dating back to the 1950s.
The names were made public for the first time this week as part of what church officials described as atonement for the revelations of clergy sex abuse that have roiled the Catholic Church the last two decades, including the longtime protection of predator priests by some of the institution’s top leaders. The names were added to a list that was initially published by the Archdiocese in 2004 and hadn’t been updated since 2008.
“We owe it to the victim-survivors to be fully transparent in listing the names of those who perpetrate this abuse,” said L.A. Archbishop José H. Gomez in a prepared statement. “It is inconceivable that someone entrusted with the pastoral care of a child could be capable of something so harmful,” said Rev. Scott Santarosa, the head of the western Jesuit province. “Yet, tragically, this is a part of our Jesuit history, a legacy we cannot ignore.”
Victim advocates, however, called the release a self-serving strategy to shield the church from further scrutiny and potential criminal prosecution after a Pennsylvania grand jury issued a searing report in August that described how bishops in the state covered up child sexual abuse by more than 300 priests over 70 years. It was the most expansive investigation yet by a U.S. government agency of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.
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