ABUSE TRACKER

AUSTRALIA
The Sydney Morning Herald

June 23, 2018

By Lisa Visentin

The NSW government will pursue extensive reforms as it adopts hundreds of recommendations from the royal commission into child sex abuse, but it has not endorsed new laws to force priests to break the confessional seal.

In a lengthy report released on Saturday, the NSW government formally responded to every recommendation made by the commission, accepting 336 recommendations outright or in principle, and leaving 14 “subject to further consideration”.

In the report, the NSW government acknowledged the survivors of institutional abuse “and the impact of past failures of governments to protect them”.

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ALLENTOWN (PA)
Of The Morning Call

June 21, 2018

By Steve Esack and Tim Darragh

Two paragraphs, 63 words.

That’s all it took for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to halt the pending publication of a lengthy grand jury report detailing decades of child sex abuse claims and possible cover-ups in six Catholic dioceses.

The high court’s majority decision, issued Wednesday, could be unprecedented under the state’s grand jury law, which is revered by prosecutors for its investigative power, decried by some defense lawyers as unconstitutional overreach and the subject of separate judicial and legislative reviews.

But the reasoning behind the justices’ decision is unknown.

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GUAM
KUAM News

June 22, 2018

By Krystal Paco

He’s not your typical man on the run…he’s a priest. Father Adrian Cristobal was given a deadline to report back to Guam last Friday in light of clergy sexual abuse allegations against him. Though he’s been sanctioned by the Archdiocese of Agana and forbidden from acting as a priest in public, is this a strong enough message?

Apparently he’s in no hurry home. “It’s no different from any criminal mind. People don’t generally want to face the music for the crimes they have committed,” said advocate, former priest, and canonist Patrick J. Wall, referring to Father Cristobal. Wall is no stranger to the scenario, having been part of investigations involving priests who abandoned their posts, some as a result of clergy sexual abuse allegations.

“We had a abbot in England who was actually charged with child sexual abuse and he just failed to report to his hearing. And so he was on the run for almost six years. INTERPOL finally found him in Kosovo,” he explained. And so then he was just recently convicted this past year for child sexual abuse., so it does happen.”

Since April, Father Adrian has been named in three clergy sexual abuse lawsuits in the District Court of Guam. The former Barrigada altar boys are only identified by their initials to protect their privacy. L.J.C., J.C.C., and J.E. all allege they were sexually molested by the priest in the 1990s. J.C.C., however, alleges the abuse spanned over a 15-year period – and only came to an end in 2013.

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ALLENTOWN (PA)
The Daily Beast

June 22, 2018

By Victoria Albert

A court just muzzled the ‘damaging’ findings on decades of Catholic clerical abuse. But it’s not over. ‘We are coming for them,’ says a state rep who was raped by a priest at 13.

Mark Rozzi thought he was days away from justice, or at least the beginning of it.

It started when he was 13, and a priest at his school in Hyde Park, Pennsylvania, started grooming him. For months, the Rev. Edward Graff talked with Rozzi about sex, gave him alcohol, and showed him pornography. Then, one fateful day, he raped him in a rectory shower.

Rozzi didn’t report his abuse for 26 years. But he later learned that during that period, Graff was transferred multiple times between parishes, and allegedly abused children in Texas, too. In 2002, Graff was arrested on child-abuse charges after facing dozens of accusations, The Washington Post reports. He later died in jail.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago-Times

June 22, 2018

By Maudlyne Ihejirika

The Rev. Larry Dowling still remembers when he got the call from Cardinal Francis George asking him to consider serving as pastor of St. Agatha’s Church in North Lawndale.

It was 2007, and St. Agatha’s was in agony. The church at 3151 W. Douglas was at the center of the clergy sex abuse scandal rocking the Chicago Archdiocese, with its former pastor, the Rev. Daniel J. McCormack, accused — and later convicted — of abusing five boys.

“When I got off the phone, the scripture that came to mind was Jesus on the seashore with Peter, saying, ‘Do you love me?’ And Peter saying, ‘Yes. Yes. Yes.’ Jesus said, ‘Well if you really love me, I may take you where you don’t really want to go,’” said Dowling, who was then in his 10th year as pastor at St. Denis Church in Ashburn.

“I said, ‘But I still have some things I can accomplish here. I’m comfortable.’ What I heard back was, ‘I didn’t call you to be comfortable.’”

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WILKES-BARRE (PA)
Times Leader

June 21, 2018

We respect the sanctity of the American judicial system, including the necessary secrecy of grand jury proceedings.

That doesn’t prevent us from feeling grossly disappointed in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s order Wednesday indefinitely holding up the release of a grand jury report into the handling of sexual abuse claims involving six of the eight Roman Catholic dioceses across the state, including the Scranton Diocese.

The report is expected to reveal details of widespread abuse and efforts to conceal it and protect clergy by officials within and outside the church.

The court’s two-paragraph order did not reveal who had filed petitions blocking release of the report, only that those petitions had been granted.

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NEW ZEALAND
Stuff.co.nz

June 22, 2018

By Joel Ineson

Darryl Smith says the abuse started on his first night at Marylands – a Christchurch school for children with learning difficulties – in 1971.

Woken from his sleep, the 6 year old was called to a Order of St John of God brother’s office late in the evening and told one of the men responsible for his care wanted to speak about his grandmother. Instead, the man raped him.

The abuse continued over the course of a year and came from other members of the order and older students, Smith said. He eventually told his parents what happened.

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FRANCE
La Croix

June 22, 2018

What resolves things is acceptance, study, prudence, says Francis

Pope Francis in a new one-on-one interview with Philip Pullella, head of Reuters’ Rome bureau has spoken on various issues such as the Holy See’s talks with China, the position of women within the church, migration, populism, Chile’s clerical sex abuse crisis and reform of the Roman Curia.

On talks with China

Pope Francis said he was optimistic about the outcome of normalization talks with the Chinese authorities while at the same time acknowledging that dialogue “is a risk” but still preferred it to “the certain defeat” of not dialoguing with Beijing.

Here is some of what Francis said on the subject.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
WHTM

June 21, 2018

By Priscilla Liguori

Victim advocates and lawyers are outraged after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court blocked the release of a clergy sexual abuse report.

State Rep. Mark Rozzi says he felt like he was punched in the gut after hearing the announcement.

Rozzi was abused by a priest when he was a child and says he wants both the church and victims to know that the fight for transparency isn’t over.

“The abuse is still being covered up, and their lawyers are still fighting their dirty battles for them,” said Rozzi.

Money and power are the reasons Rozzi believes the court indefinitely blocked the report. The court said it was granting anonymous requests.

“When you have all the bishops in this investigation come out and say they support the release of the grand jury but there’s somebody else standing behind them … it draws grave concern,” said Rozzi.

The report was supposed to examine decades of abuse in six Roman Catholic dioceses.

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LOUISVILLE (KY)
SBTS Communications

June 21, 2018

Southern Baptists should not “circle the wagons” amid recent controversies, but instead must become “the first refuge for anyone who is seeking help,” argued R. Albert Mohler Jr. during a recent discussion about the future of the Southern Baptist Convention. He referenced a months-long slew of firings and resignations within Southern Baptist entities, most for reasons of moral or ethical failure.

Mohler said the way forward for the denomination is to lean into the truth and not try to hide or bury these “humiliations.”

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ENGLAND
BBC News

June 22, 2018

The Church of England should take preventative measures to ensure “unsuitable” people do not get into positions of trust, according to Sir Roger Singleton.

Singleton, who carried out a review into how abuse allegations were reported, told Today that the Church needs “improved guidance” on reporting allegations.

His report is due next month and is expected to be highly critical of how the Church recorded past allegations of abuse.

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LANSING (MI)
Detroit Free Press

June 21, 2018

By David Jesse

Michigan State University President John Engler has issued a statement apologizing for an April email in which he attacked a Larry Nassar survivor.

In the email, Engler said Rachael Denhollander, the first person to publicly accuse Nassar of sexual assault, was taking kickbacks from the trial attorneys involved in suing MSU.

Michigan State’s board of trustees will address a plan Friday to pay a $500 million settlement to Nassar’s victims, a meeting that comes amid calls for the school’s interim president to resign over recent comments about some of the women and girls the former sports doctor sexually assaulted.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail Australia

June 20, 2018

By Ekin Karasin

Charlie Pickering has criticised the Catholic Church for refusing to adhere to a new law requiring priests to report confessions of child sex abuse.

Adelaide’s acting Archbishop Greg O’Kelly said last week that confessionals are ‘sacred’ and this cannot be changed.

Charlie hit back at the controversial decision on his ABC show The Weekly on Wednesday, claiming the church was ‘protecting predators in God’s name’.

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ABILENE (TX)
KTAB/KRBC

June 21, 2018

By Erica Garner

An Abilene church daycare worker accused of sexually assaulting multiple children has been indicted.

Benjamin Roberts, 25, was indicted for Continuous Sexual Abuse of a Child Thursday after at least 8 child victims were identified during an investigation that began when child pornography was found at Roberts’ home in April.

Roberts was employed at the Wylie Baptist Church Early Childhood Development Center when he was initially arrested for Indecency with a Child and Possession of Child Pornography and was terminated once he was formally charged.

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LANSING (MI)
The Associated Press

June 22, 2018

By Alice Yin

Michigan State’s board of trustees will address a plan Friday to pay a $500 million settlement to Larry Nassar’s victims, a meeting that comes amid calls for the school’s interim president to resign over recent comments about some of the women and girls the former sports doctor sexually assaulted.

Although the board appears to lack the votes to oust John Engler from his interim perch, the public meeting likely will be heavily attended by people who are fed up with Engler and want him gone. The primary focus of the meeting is the school’s budget, along with the settlement plan.

Some 150 of Nassar’s victims have joined a public crusade to force Engler out of the interim job. Last week, two university trustees also signaled they could call a vote during a board meeting Friday on whether to fire him.

Engler apologized Thursday for his April email exchange suggesting gymnast Rachael Denhollander probably received a “kickback” from her plaintiff’s attorney.

“I didn’t give it the consideration it warranted,” Engler said in a statement. “That was a big mistake. I was wrong. I apologize.”

Trustee board chairman Brian Breslin called Engler’s apology “appropriate and appreciated by a majority of the board.” One of the two trustees who turned on Engler, Dianne Byrum, said she is glad he apologized and hopes he learned from it. But Brian Mosallam, the first trustee to demand that Engler step down, said in a tweet Thursday that the apology “is too little too late.”

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LANSING (MI)
The Associated Press

June 21, 2018

By Alice Yin

Michigan State University’s interim president apologized Thursday for an email remark about one of the gymnasts sexually abused by ex-sports doctor Larry Nassar, the latest sign of turbulence for the former governor tasked with steering the school out of the burgeoning scandal.

John Engler’s apology came more than a week after the public disclosure of his email exchange from April suggesting Rachael Denhollander probably received a “kickback” from her plaintiff’s attorney.

“I didn’t give it the consideration it warranted,” Engler said in a statement Thursday. “That was a big mistake. I was wrong. I apologize.”

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SALT LAKE CITY (UT)
FOX13

June 20, 2018

By David Wells and Kiersten Nunez

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will begin using new guidelines for bishops and other leaders in interviewing youth members.

The guidelines issued Wednesday to LDS church bishops, branch presidents and counselors in bishoprics and branch presidencies include a “Protecting Against Misunderstandings” section, in which interviews with children, youth and women are addressed.

“When a member of a bishopric or stake presidency or another assigned leader meets with a child, youth, or woman, he or she should ask a parent or another adult to be in an adjoining room, foyer, or hall. If the person being interviewed desires, another adult may be invited to be present during the interview. Leaders should avoid all circumstances that could be misunderstood,” the “Protecting Against Misunderstandings” guideline says.

The guidelines also outline the key matters for discussion in interviews with youth, including priesthood ordination, seminary, missionary service and temple-related topics.

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LANSING (MI)
Lansing State Journal

June 20, 2018

By Matt Mencarini

The special prosecutor investigating sexual misconduct at Michigan State University in the wake of the Larry Nassar scandal has accused MSU’s lawyers of interfering with his investigation by withholding documents and last week told the university he will seek a search warrant.

The move followed two months of increasingly terse letters between William Forsyth, who is leading the investigation for the Michigan Attorney General’s Office, and Robert Young Jr., the university’s new general counsel and former Michigan Supreme Court Justice.

Forsyth told Young in a June 15 letter that he also will request a judge or an appointed third party to review the documents and determine what is protected by attorney client privilege and work product doctrine.

MSU’s Board of Trustees requested the AG’s investigation in late January, amid two sentencing hearings for Nassar, the former MSU and USA Gymnastics doctor who sexually abused hundreds of women and girls. Attorney General Bill Schuette then announced that Forsyth, a retired Kent County prosecutor, would lead the investigation. Although the board sought an independent inquiry into the handling of the Nassar matter, Schuette’s office said it would investigate sexual misconduct at the university.

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ENGLAND
The Guardian

June 22, 2018

Negative aspects downplayed to limit reputational damage, former Barnado’s chief finds

The Church of England “botched” an inquiry into historical allegations of sexual abuse, the former head of a children’s charity has found.

Sir Roger Singleton, the former chief executive of Barnado’s, reviewed the church’s own Past Cases Review from 2010. He said the report did not give a comprehensive picture of the problem and that those conducting the inquiry had refused to speak to some survivors.

Singleton said the church “downplayed negative aspects” of the PCR’s findings in public statements to avoid damaging the reputation of the institution and the then archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.

But Singleton, whose report will be published in the coming weeks, said he found no evidence of a deliberate attempt to mislead or that anyone broke the law.

The PCR examined more than 40,000 case files relating to allegations of abuse dating back to the 1950s and concluded that just 13 cases of alleged child sexual abuse required formal action.

After survivors complained that the report was inadequate, Singleton was commissioned to carry out an independent review of how it was conducted. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that it had been “botched in three ways”.

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ENGLAND
BBC News
June 22, 2018

By Donna Birrell & Alex Strangwayes-Booth & Steve Swann

The Church of England “botched” its investigation into alleged cases of abuse, a report’s author has said.

Sir Roger Singleton, who reviewed the Church’s “flawed” 2010 investigation, said it “failed to give a complete picture” of the abuse.

But Sir Roger, whose report is due out next month, said he found “no evidence of a planned deliberate attempt to mislead”.

The Church has outlined four steps for improvement.

They include the creation of an independently-chaired panel featuring survivors which will look at options to redress past cases, an independent ombudsman to review how complaints are handled and a strengthening of the clergy recruitment process.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
NBC Nightly News

June 20, 2018

McCarrick was suspended after an allegation that he abused a teenager 47 years ago was found to be credible and substantiated. Church officials also revealed two past sexual misconduct settlements involving McCarrick.

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PROVIDENCE (RI)
Pension & Investments

June 20, 2018

By Hazel Bradford

Class-action lawsuits on behalf of participants in the insolvent St. Joseph Health Services of Rhode Island Retirement Plan were filed in state and federal courts in Rhode Island.

The 2,700 participants in the plan learned in August 2017 when it was placed into receivership that the plan had been inadequately funded for years, according to the lawsuit filed on behalf of Stephen Del Sesto, the receiver for the pension fund.

At the time, plan administrators asked the Rhode Island Supreme Court to approve immediate 40% across-the-board benefit cuts. The cuts have not yet been approved.

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LAS CRUCES (NM)
Sun-News

June 20, 2018

The Diocese of Las Cruces responded on Wednesday to a lawsuit filed against the Diocese of El Paso alleging sexual abuse of a minor 40 years ago by Father Joaquin Resma when he was a priest at Our Lady of Health parish in Las Cruces. Resma died in 1983.

Until the creation of the Diocese of Las Cruces in 1982, the church was under the jurisdiction of the El Paso diocese. Both the diocese and the church are named in the lawsuit, filed by a Las Cruces man who is not named in the lawsuit in order to protect the accuser.

The Diocese of Las Cruces, serving Catholics in 10 New Mexico counties, is not named in the lawsuit. However, in a media release on Wednesday, Bishop Oscar Cantú pledged that “the diocese will cooperate with the legal process as needed,” adding, “We hold all victims of abuse in our prayers, that they might find healing and peace.”

The diocese also encouraged victims who have not yet reported their abuse to contact the diocese victims’ assistance coordinator Margarita Williams at 575-523-7577 or by email at MWilliams@RCDLC.org. It stated that victims may report confidentially or have their case reported to law enforcement.

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PROVIDENCE (RI)
GoLocalProv

June 21, 2018

The very idea that the Diocese of Providence could file for bankruptcy seems absurd as it historically has been one of the most influential and wealthy institutions in Rhode Island. If it did file for bankruptcy it would not be the first Diocese in the United States to file for bankruptcy to avoid financial claims.

Today, the Diocese of Providence is facing a massive lawsuit by the receiver for the St. Joseph pension fund — a lawsuit that alleges, in part, that Bishop Thomas Tobin and other top Diocesan leaders perpetrated a massive fraud. If the lawsuit is proven to be true then the Catholic Church will have major exposure. The pension fund is underfunded by an estimated $118 million and the 2,700 plus plan members face an uncertain financial future and the potential of as much as 40 percent cuts to their benefits.

The lawsuit crafted by Max Wistow, the attorney who recovered more than $60 million in the 38 Studios case, names not just the Diocese of Providence, but 15 other defendants as well.

Tobin did not respond to questions for this article.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
GetReligion

June 21, 2018

By Julia Duin

On Election Day 2008, I was not following the historic election of Barack Obama to the presidency.

Instead, I was meeting up with a priest. At the time, I was religion editor for the Washington Times.

The documents he gave me were sensational. At first I thought it was about a priest who’d been forced out of the priesthood because he’d been caught fondling two teen-aged boys. Then I read why the priest had done this. In layman’s terms: He said he was an emotional and spiritual mess after having been sexually assaulted in 1987 by none less than then-Newark Archbishop Theodore McCarrick.

Now, perhaps many of you have read yesterday’s news about McCarrick, who went on to become cardinal for the see of Washington, D.C., a most prestigious post. This UPI story describes the bare-bones of the matter:

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WASHINGTON (DC)
NBC News

June 20, 2018

By Elizabeth Chuck and Tracy Connor

Church officials also reveal past allegations of sexual misconduct with adults.

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the former head of the Archdiocese of Washington, has been removed from public ministry by the Vatican following a “credible and substantiated” allegation of sexual abuse involving a teenager from nearly 50 years ago.

As the move was announced, Roman Catholic Church officials in New Jersey revealed that McCarrick, 87, also had been accused of sexual misconduct by adults three times in the past. Two of those accusations resulted in secret settlements, officials said.

In a written statement, McCarrick said he was “shocked” when he learned of the allegation involving a minor some months ago and supported a thorough investigation by the police and the Archdiocese of New York, where he was working as a priest when the abuse allegedly occurred.

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MANILA (PHILIPPINES)
ABS-CBN News

June 20 2018

By Dharel Placido

President Rodrigo Duterte on Wednesday insisted that he respects the Catholic Church and its leaders, even as he continued linking some clergy members to alleged illicit affairs.

Critics have been saying that Duterte’s tirades against priests and the Catholic Church have emboldened killers of 3 Catholic priests slain in the last 6 months.

The President has denied persecuting the clergy and said he cannot order their killings.

“Wala kaming policy na galit kami sa pari, nothing of the sort. As a matter of fact, nirerespeto ko ang Simbahan,” he said in a speech in Mandurriao district, Iloilo City.

“Sa totoo lang hindi ko kayang magpatay ng pari, pati na babae at bata.”

(We don’t have a policy against priests, nothing of the sort. As a matter of fact, I respect the Church. The truth is, I cannot order the killing of priests, women and children.)

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NEW YORK (NY)
TIME

June 20, 2018

By Michael R. Sisak

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the retired Roman Catholic archbishop of Washington, D.C., has been removed from public ministry and faces further punishment over “credible” allegations that he sexually abused a teenager while a priest in New York more than 40 years ago, the church announced Wednesday.

Pope Francis ordered the 87-year-old cardinal’s removal pending further action that could end in his expulsion from the priesthood. A church panel determined that a former altar boy’s allegations that McCarrick fondled him during preparations for Christmas Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in 1971 and 1972 were “credible and substantiated.”

McCarrick, the Washington archbishop from 2000 to 2006, is one of the highest-ranking U.S. church officials accused in a sexual abuse scandal that has seen thousands of priests implicated. The church also acknowledged that it had made previously undisclosed legal settlements with adults who accused McCarrick of sexual misconduct decades ago.

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EL PASO (TX)
New York Daily News

June 21, 2018

By David Boroff

A former priest in Texas accused of sexually abusing and raping a girl for years started by molesting her during confession, authorities say.

Miguel Luna, who served at 12 different locations in El Paso, started abusing the alter server when she was 8 by “kissing her passionately” when she was supposed to be privately admitting her sins, according to the El Paso Times.

“The victim recalled the defendant (Luna) telling her ‘remember this is confession, so whatever happens here stays in here,'” according to the complaint obtained by the newspaper.

The 68-year-old Luna was arrested earlier this month for aggravated sexual assault of a child.

The church was not named in the charges, but Luna was with 12 different parishes after being ordained in 1982, according to KVIA.

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BUFFALO (NY)
WIVB

June 20, 2018

By Evan Anstey

It’s not clear who it is, but the Erie County District Attorney’s Office says a priest accused of improper behavior will not face charges.

According to the DA’s office, a priest within the Diocese of Buffalo had been under investigation. He was accused of inappropriate behavior within the past year.

“The alleged actions by the priest, whose identity will not be disclosed, did not rise to the level of criminal conduct,” the DA’s office wrote.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
WITF

June 20, 2018

By Lindsay Lazarski

Later this month, state Attorney General Josh Shapiro is expected to release findings from a two-year grand jury investigation into widespread sexual abuse and cover-up within six Catholic dioceses across the state.

In anticipation of this report, state Rep. Mark Rozzi, D-Berks, is pushing to end the statute of limitations on child sex abuse cases and give victims abused long ago another chance to file a claim against their perpetrators.

Under current state law, victims of child sexual abuse have until they are 30 years old to file a civil case, and until they are 50 years old to file a criminal case. Rozzi says that’s not enough time.

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SANTIAGO (CHILE)
Catholic News Agency

June 20, 2018

The Chilean province of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary reported Monday that a preliminary investigation is underway on Father Juan Andrés Peretiatkowicz Valdés, accused of sexual abuse and the abuse of power.

According to a June 18 statement, the case involves accusations of acts which “allegedly began at the end of the 1980s.” According to the congregation the priest has had no pastoral responsibilities for five years for health reasons.

“We express our will and commitment to thoroughly and rigorously investigate these acts and resolutely fight against the culture of abuse and cover up,” the congregation stated.

Provincial Superior René Cabezón Yáñez received the information in early May and “immediately began a preliminary investigation.”

The congregation welcomes this investigation “as a desperate cry in search of truth and justice which obliges us as Church to leave behind the poor and overdue job of listening. We believe this is the only way of reparation for those who have been violated or abused.”

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ROME
CRUX

June 20, 2018

By Inés San Martín

In a wide-ranging interview in which he spoke about the ongoing migrant crisis in the United States, Pope Francis also touched on issues such as female ordination, the ongoing Vatican talks with China and the clerical sexual abuse scandals in Chile.

The conversation between Francis and a journalist from British news agency Reuters took place on Sunday afternoon, and sections of it were published on Wednesday. Reuters also provided a transcript of portions of the interview to Vatican journalists.

Clerical sexual abuse scandals and the Chilean case

“I don’t like talking about this now, but I must say this,” Francis told journalist Philip Pullela. “Go to the statistics. The great majority of the abuses take place in the family environment and in the neighborhoods, the neighbors, the families, then in the gym, the pools, the schools and also in the Church, but some can say the [priests] are few, but even if it was only one [priest] it’d be tragic because that priest has the duty to take that person to God and has destroyed the path to God.”

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HARRISBURG (PA)
WNEP

June 20, 2018

By Bill Michlowski

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has blocked the planned release of a report by the state attorney general allegedly detailing decades of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

The two-year investigation by Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro included hundreds of cases from six Catholic dioceses, including Allentown and Scranton.

The report was set to be released this week, but the state Supreme Court issued a stay on the release Wednesday in order to consider legal challenges to releasing the report.

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UNITED STATES
Yahoo Celebrity

June 20, 2018

By Taryn Ryder

Olivia Munn has no regrets about publicly taking on Brett Ratner. Last fall, she was one of six women to come forward to accuse the director of sexual harassment or misconduct in a report by the Los Angeles Times. (Ratner has denied all allegations.)

“Initially, I didn’t publicly call [Brett] out. I wrote a book where I discussed him anonymously,” she reflected in an interview in the Spring/Summer ’18 issue of Rogue magazine. In her 2010 book Suck It, Wonder Woman! The Misadventures of a Hollywood Geek, Munn told a story about an unnamed director who masturbated in front of her on the set of a film in 2004.

The Six star continued, “A year later, [Brett] named himself and went on to lie about me. A few days after that, he was on the Howard Stern show publicly apologizing for lying, saying he was sorry. Yet, two years after that moment, he gets a $450 million licensing deal with Warner Bros.”

Munn’s memory is correct. In 2011, Ratner went on Attack of the Show! and alleged that the two had slept together. “I used to date Olivia Munn, I will be honest with everybody here,” he boasted. “I banged her a few times … but I forgot her … I get it. She’s bitter.” A few days later, Ratner apologized on The Howard Stern Show, saying he “felt horrible” for lying because they were friendly and he had made the actress look like “a whore.”

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UNITED STATES
Daily Mail

June 20, 2018

Last November, she was one of six women who came forward to accuse director Brett Ratner of sexual harassment.

And in a new interview with Rogue magazine, actress Olivia Munn says she has no regrets about speaking out publicly.

‘Where is the line? If you don’t draw a line in the sand and say, ‘I’m not gonna work with these people,’ then it’s going to continue,’ she said.

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BOSTON (MA)
The Associated Press

June 20, 2018

By Steve LeBlanc

A civil lawsuit is alleging former Senate President Stan Rosenberg knew his estranged husband Bryon Hefner posed a risk to individuals at the Massachusetts Statehouse and Rosenberg and Hefner had an agreement or understanding allowing Hefner access to those individuals.

The lawsuit, which names both men, was filed in Suffolk Superior Court on Friday on behalf of an unnamed plaintiff who said Hefner grabbed his genitals without consent on more than one occasion.

The suit alleges the plaintiff suffered ongoing emotional distress and physical harm, including “depression, anxiety, muscle tension, gastrointestinal distress and impaired sleep.”

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WASHINGTON (DC)
The American Conservative

June 20, 2018

By Rod Dreher

This has been a very long time coming:

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the Archbishop Emeritus of Washington, D.C., has been removed from public ministry after a credible allegation he abused a teen 50 years ago while serving as a priest in New York Archdiocese.

Innocence? I believe McCarrick is lying, and that he knows he is lying. I have been waiting for this story to break since 2002.

Back then, I received a tip from a priest who had gone on his own dime to Rome, along with a group of prominent US Catholic laymen, to meet with an official for the Roman Curial congregation that names bishops. It had been rumored at the time that Theodore McCarrick, the Archbishop of Newark, was going to be moved to Washington, DC, and to be made a cardinal. This group traveled to Rome to warn the Vatican that McCarrick was a sexual harrasser of seminarians. The story this priest shared with me was that McCarrick had a habit of compelling seminarians to share his bed for cuddling. These allegations did not involve sexual molestation, but were clearly about unwanted sexual harassment. To refuse the archbishop’s bedtime entreaties would be to risk your future as a priest, I was told.

Rome was informed by these laymen — whose number included professionally distinguished Catholics in a position to understand the kind of harm this would cause –that McCarrick was sexually exploiting these seminarians, but it did no good. McCarrick received his appointment to the Washington archdiocese in 2000.

In early 2002, though, the priest who tipped me off wouldn’t go on the record. It would have meant the end of his priesthood, quite possibly. He gave me the name of a couple of medical figures who had been on the same journey. I called one, who confirmed it, but wouldn’t go on the record. I called the other, who gasped when I said it out loud, and who said, “If that were true, then I wouldn’t confirm it for the same reason Noah’s sons covered their father in his drunkenness.”

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HARRISBURG (PA)
WPXI

June 20, 2018

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court is holding up the public release of a major grand jury report on priest abuse in six Roman Catholic dioceses across the state..

“Just moments ago, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania accepted legal challenges to the issuing of a grand jury report detailing widespread sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. In an unsealed order, the Supreme Court has issued a stay of proceedings to review and decide those challenges,” Attorney General Josh Shapiro said. “My legal team and I will continue fighting tirelessly to make sure the victims of this abuse are able to tell their stories and the findings of this investigation are made public to the people of Pennsylvania.”

The Supreme Court agreed to hear challenges to releasing the grand jury report, which is what is putting the public release on hold.

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DALLAS (TX)
Baptist Standard

June 20, 2018

By Isa Torres

The #MeToo Movement brought to light issues of sexual abuse the church should have addressed long ago, the leader of a workshop at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship general assembly insisted.

“Hollywood has done a better job confronting abuse than the church,” said Pam Durso, executive director of Baptist Women in Ministry.

The #MeToo Movement—started in 2006 by Tarana Burke—only recently was expanded to include #ChurchToo. Durso pointed to that long delay as evidence of churches’ inattention to sexual abuse, when they should have taken the lead.

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MANILA (PHILIPPINES)
UCA News

June 21, 2018

Philippine president’s tirades against clergy prompted series of clerymen murders, critics say

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has hit back at critics and claimed he respects the Catholic Church despite his tirades against bishops and priests whom he has repeatedly accused of corruption and illicit affairs with women.

Rights activists and church groups say the president’s verbal attacks against church leaders have emboldened some people to attack members of the clergy in recent months.

Duterte denied persecuting priests this week, saying that his administration “does not have a policy against priests” and he could not order the killing of church leaders.

“As a matter of fact, I respect the church,” the president said in a speech in Iloilo province on June 20. “The truth is, I cannot order the killing of priests, women, and children,” he said.

While the president was speaking in the town of Cabatuan, church bells tolled as part of a daily symbolic protest against drug-related killings in the country.

Hearing the bells, Duterte stopped talking and waited for the ringing to stop.

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BUFFALO (NY)
WKBW

June 20, 2018

By Charlie Specht

Will recommend diocese keep him away from kids

Erie County District Attorney John J. Flynn Jr. said Wednesday that a Buffalo priest acted “creepy” in touching a young girl in January.

But Flynn said the behavior of the priest does not rise to the level of criminality and so the priest — who he refused to identify — will not face criminal charges.

“While his conduct wasn’t criminal, I would say that to me his conduct is creepy,” Flynn said, adding that he believed the priest was retired but still saying Mass in various parishes.

The alleged victim told someone at her school about the priest’s contact, which Flynn said was alleged to have involved “some sort of touching,” he said.

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KERALA (INDIA)
Gulf Times

June 20 2018

By Ashraf Padanna/Thiruvananthapuram

A court in Kerala yesterday remanded in custody a Catholic priest accused of cheating farmers availing of bank loans.

The police arrested Fr Thomas Peelianickal on Tuesday on complaints by six farmers who claimed he and other officials of the NGO he heads cheated them of their money disbursed by banks.

The priest is the executive director of the Kuttanad Vikasana Samithy (KVS) or the society for the development of Kuttanad, under the Changanassery archdiocese.

The police accuse them of forging signatures of farmers to avail loans for collective farming. It was claimed that the farmers only became aware of the fraud after they started receiving repayment default notices.

Others linked to the fraud, including Rojo Joseph, a leader of the ruling coalition partner Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), are absconding since the police booked them three months ago.

For the past many years, the KVS has been working among the farmers of Kuttanad, an area that witnessed many suicides after the agrarian crisis, promoting self-help initiatives and environmental conservation.

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KERALA (INDIA)
The News Minute

June 20, 2018

Peelianickal is accused in six cases of loan fraud out of which Kerala HC had earlier granted him anticipatory bail in two cases.

Father Thomas Peelianickal who is the executive director of the Kuttanad Vikasana Samithi (KVS) office in Alappuzha, was arrested on Tuesday in connection with an agriculture loan scam in Kuttanad.

The District crime branch team led by Dy SP Vijayakumaran Nair arrested him.

Police said that as per complaints received by them, Peelianickal had availed loans on behalf of farmers’ self-help groups by allegedly forging documents of several farmers.

He is accused in six cases of loan fraud out of which Kerala High Court had earlier granted him anticipatory bail in two cases.

Peelianickal’s arrest was recorded at the CB office in Alappuzha on Tuesday evening and he will be produced before Ramankari Judicial First Class Magistrate Court on Wednesday.

Nair told The Times of India that 14 cases have been registered related to agriculture loan fraud. “As per the evidence we collected, Peelianickal is now accused in only six cases. The investigation is progressing and Peelianickal may become accused in more cases in coming days,” the investigation team said.

Veliyanad Block panchayat member and NCP leader Rojo Joseph is the main accused in the case but he is absconding.

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NEWCASTLE (AUSTRALIA)
Church Militant

June 20, 2018

By David Nussman

Australia’s Abp. Philip Wilson may be world’s highest-ranking cleric to be jailed for failing to report abuse

An archbishop in Australia will likely be facing prison time after a judge found him guilty of covering up child sex abuse, making him the world’s highest-ranking Catholic clergy to be sentenced over abuse allegations.

Archbishop Philip Wilson of Adelaide was brought to trial for allegations of failing to report a sexually abusive priest in the late 1970s. He was found guilty in a Newcastle court on May 22. In a hearing Tuesday, Newcastle Magistrate Robert Stone announced he would sentence Abp. Wilson on July 3.

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SOUTH AFRICA
The Daily Vox

June 21, 2018

By Lizeka Maduna

Following a public outcry over violence and femicide, KwaZulu-Natal churches have called on all communities to stand together and say no to the scourge and other persistent social ills including substance abuse.

EThekwini Community Church’s Bishop Vusi Dube said that religious groups believed that unity and prayers could help overcome the societal ills.

“As the church, we strongly believe that prayer is an invitation for divine intervention as our society battles social ills including rampant abuse of substances; all forms of violence in communities, random murders of women and children, as well as the raping of women and children,” he said.

EThekwini Community Church through a campaign,called ‘One Nation One Voice’ which is set to be launched in September, has worked with Isolezwe Newspaper in a campaign called ‘Sekwanele’.

This new campaign came in the wake of Zolile Khumalo’s death, a twenty-one-year old student from Mangosuthu University of Technology who was shot death at a residence; where numerous women who died through femicide were remembered.

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PHOENIX (AZ)
Arizona Republic

June 19, 2018

By Jerod MacDonald-Evoy

Arizona Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said he has long been aware that his wife was abused by a Catholic priest as a child in the 1990s and is “insanely proud of her for stepping up and telling her story.”

Kristen Lovullo’s claims of abuse first appeared in a report this week by the Buffalo News. After other misconduct claims about the Rev. Dennis Fronczak surfaced, she contacted the outlet and said she was repeatedly fondled by the priest in New York decades ago, when she was 9 to 12 years old.

Torey Lovullo told The Arizona Republic: “Those are hard things to do (coming forward). I’m walking on this side of it with her and I see the challenges that victims go through.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Kansas City Star

June 20, 2018

By Judy L. Thomas

A priest in the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas has been defrocked years after an investigation into multiple allegations of sexual abuse.

The Rev. John H. Wisner was returned to the lay state, or laicized, by a decree issued by Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann, according to an announcement published May 25 in The Leaven, the archdiocesan newspaper. Naumann issued the decree on Dec. 21, the announcement said, and it was affirmed by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on March 2.

The archdiocese said it had received multiple allegations of sexual abuse of minors against Wisner starting in May 2012. He was immediately suspended from active ministry and law enforcement was notified, the archdiocese said. An investigation by the archdiocese found the allegations to be credible, it said, and in November 2012, archdiocesan officials sent the results to the Vatican.

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EL PASO (TX)
KTSM

June 20, 2018

By Andra Litton

The criminal complaint affidavit against a former Catholic Priest accused of sexually assaulting an underage parishioner for seven years was released to KTSM on Wednesday.

Miguel Luna, 68, is charged with one count of Aggravated Sexual Assault of a Child. According to court documents, the alleged victim was interviewed by El Paso Police on October 20, 2017 in reference to the allegations against Father Luna.

The victim, now 36, served as an altar-server at local churches in El Paso when she met Luna. She told investigators that Luna began kissing and sexually abusing her at age 8 during confessions.

She recalled Luna telling her “remember this confession, so whatever happens in here stays in here,” according to court documents.

The affidavit goes on to say that when the girl turned 12, Luna’s sexual abuse escalated. The victim in the case reported to police that the abuse continued until she turned 17.

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BUFFALO (NY)
The Buffalo News

June 20, 2018

By Jay Tokasz

Only five of the more than 60 priests who served in the Diocese of Buffalo and have been linked to allegations of sex crimes involving children have actually been charged with crimes.

Prosecuted were:

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HARRISBURG (PA)
The Inquirer

June 20, 2018

By Angela Couloumbis & Liz Navratil

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has agreed to indefinitely block the release of a grand jury report detailing decades of clergy sex abuse in six of the state’s eight Roman Catholic dioceses.

In a two-paragraph order made public Wednesday, the state’s highest court said it granted requests from unnamed individuals or institutions to prevent the public release of the much-anticipated report.

“The Honorable Norman A. Krumenacker, III, and the Office of the Attorney General are enjoined from releasing Report No. 1 of the 40th Statewide Investigating Grand Jury pending further order of this Court,” it read, citing the Cambria County judge who has overseen the panel’s work.

The order — unsigned and released in the name of the entire court — throws into question the results of a sweeping probe that spanned at least two years and could implicate hundreds of clergy and other officials across the state.

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HARRISBURG (NJ)
The Herald

June 20, 2018

By Melissa Klaric

The grand jury report on sexual abuse within the Catholic Church will not be made public as soon as expected.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued a court order about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday delaying the public release of the 900-page-plus report expected to reveal detailed testimony from victims.

The Most Rev. Lawrence T. Persico, bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Erie, said neither he nor any diocesan official sought a stay of the publication of the grand jury report.

“And thus, (we) cannot comment on the merits of the legal arguments of others,” Persico said. “As demonstrated from the recent revisions to our Policy for the Protection of Children, we are committed to transparency.”

Furthermore, Bishop Persico said the diocese anxiously awaits the Supreme Court’s decision on the matter.

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KHARTOUM (SUDAN)
CNN

June 21, 2018

By Nima Elbagir and Eliza Mackintosh

Editors Note: CNN is committed to covering gender inequality wherever it occurs in the world. This story is part of As Equals, a year-long series.

Amal is 11 years old and seeking a divorce.

The young Sudanese girl was in elementary school when a 38-year-old man asked for her hand in marriage.

Her father accepted the proposal, and Amal (not her real name) was immediately wed.

In Sudan, child marriage has been woven into the fabric of the country’s culture, driven by tradition and poverty. More than a third of girls there are married before their 18th birthday, according to a 2017 UNICEF report, and 12% are wed before they reach 15. Under the country’s 1991 Personal Status Law of Muslims, children can marry when they reach “maturity,” which is only 10 years old. It’s the lowest legal age of marriage in Africa.

Noura in her own words: Teen who killed rapist husband shares her story

The recent case of Sudanese teenager Noura Hussein, sentenced to death earlier this year for killing her husband as he tried to rape her, has focused attention on child marriage in Sudan. Now 19, Noura was just 15 when she was forced to marry a man more than twice her age.

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SALT LAKE CITY (UT)
The Associated Press

June 20, 2018

By Brady Mccombs

The Mormon church for the first time Wednesday posted the list of questions lay leaders are supposed to ask youth during closed door, one-on-one interviews that have come under scrutiny because sexual questions sometimes arise.

Only one of the questions seems directed at finding out about a young Mormon’s sex life: “Do you live the law of chastity?”

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints posted the 13 questions that were previously only sent to local leaders along with updated guidelines and a letter from church President Russell M. Nelson encouraging the leaders to share the questions with children and parents before the interviews.

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COLUMBUS (OH)
The Associated Press

June 21, 2018

By Kantele Franko and Collin Binkley

A now-dead doctor accused of sexual misconduct by former student athletes at Ohio State University said he acted as a team physician at other universities, most of which won’t say if they are reviewing those connections or whether any concerns were raised about him.

Ohio State employment records reviewed by The Associated Press indicate Richard Strauss worked at five schools in the decade between leaving the Navy as a submarine medicine instructor and joining the university in Columbus in 1978.

Strauss researched, taught or practiced medicine at Harvard University, Rutgers University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Washington and the University of Hawaii, according to his resume.

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ALLENTOWN (PA)
The Morning Call

June 20, 2018

By Tim Darragh and Steve Esack

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Wednesday blocked the expected release of a massive report examining sexual abuse and misconduct by priests in six Pennsylvania dioceses, including Allentown.

The state’s high court issued an order barring Cambria County Judge Norman Krumenacker, who supervised the grand jury that heard testimony over two years, and Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro from releasing the report until further order.

The court’s order does not indicate who sought to block release of the report but it indicates the court received more than one application for a stay.

Matt Kerr, spokesman for the Allentown Diocese, said the diocese was not one of the petitioners that moved to block the report.

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ERIE (PA)
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Robert F. Bower was ordained in 1959 for the Diocese of Erie. He was chaplain at Gannon College and at a monastery for women religious in Erie for several years, followed by many years in campus ministry at Edinboro State College as chaplain, Associate Director and then Director. During 1992-1997 Gannon was Administrator of St. Anthony’s parish in Cambridge Springs.

In March 1999 Bowers was arrested on charges of possession of child pornography. Police were alerted by a computer repair shop employee who discovered them while working on Bower’s computer. The pornography was allegedly downloaded between June 1996 and December 1998, and included images of a man sodomizing a five-year-old boy. Bower was placed on leave by the diocese, sent to counseling, then allowed limited ministry during the investigation. Bishop Trautman said he believed Bower’s explanation that he had received the images accidentally; state police said that Bower admitted to obtaining them. The charges were dropped in 2001 on a technicality. Bower resumed full ministry, including at the Edinboro Newman Center and as a supply priest for the diocese.

In April 2002, after the Erie Times-News published a report about his 1999 arrest, Bower resigned. Per the article, in 1982 a secretary at the Newman Center in Edinboro and two other women went to Bishop Murphy with concerns that Bower was receiving gay pornography in the mail. The former secretary said she was fired two days later. Trautman wrote in a letter to the editor that the women’s claims were “outrageous” and lacked proof. The three filed a defamation lawsuit against the diocese and bishops Trautman and Murphy in May 2003.

Bower’s name was included on the diocese’s April 6, 2018 list of credibly accused priests, lay employees and volunteers. It noted that Bower was ‘forbiddn to function as a priest.’

Ordained: 1959

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PORTLAND (OR)
ThinkProgress

June 19, 2018

By Elham Khatami

“It is so difficult walking around, knowing there’s somebody out there who … violated you that deeply.”

Five months after she first reported her sexual abuse to Portland State University’s Office of the Dean of Student Life, Tess Carter says she has not yet heard anything about possible action the school will take against the student and fellow member of the school’s International Socialist Organization who allegedly assaulted her.

According to the Oregonian, Carter and dozens of other PSU students have been protesting the university’s silence for weeks, demanding that the university discipline the student who has been accused by multiple women of emotional abuse and sexual assault over the past year and a half. In the latest protest, which took place last week, the group presented a petition with close to 3,500 signatures to the university’s vice president of enrollment management and student affairs, Jim Fraire.

“It is so difficult walking around, knowing there’s somebody out there who would be so violent to you and violated you that deeply,” Carter, who is not a PSU student, but is a member of PSU’s International Socialist Organization, told The Portland Mercury last week.

PSU’s Office of the Dean of Student Life informed Carter in January 2018 that they would respond within 60 days, but she said she did not receive a formal response when the 60-day timeframe came to an end. According to the Mercury, campus officials cited the Education Department’s loose restrictions when it comes to responding to sexual assault allegations. The Department last year rescinded Obama-era guidance that suggested a 60-day timeframe for a prompt sexual assault investigation, replacing it with “no fixed time frame.”

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COLLEGE STATION (TX)
Sports Day

June 20, 2018

By Ben Baby

A Texas A&M men’s swimmer found responsible for sexual assault by the university has filed a Title IX lawsuit against the school, according to a report.

Austin Van Overdam submitted a federal lawsuit against the university, citing “disparate treatment based on sex,” according to court records. The suit, which was filed in the Southern District of Texas, states that Van Overdam is requesting a jury trial.

The news was first reported by the Bryan College-Station Eagle.

In June 2017, Van Overdam was found responsible of sexual misconduct by A&M’s conduct panel, according to documents the accuser shared on her Twitter account. Van Overdam, who graduated from Houston Langham Creek before swimming at Arizona during his freshman year, redshirted the 2016-17 season, according to the school’s website.

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COLUMBUS (OH)
The Columbus Dispatch

June 19, 2018

By Jennifer Smola

Ohio State University will permanently close its Sexual Civility and Empowerment unit amid concerns that it failed to properly report students’ sexual-assault complaints and that some victims were told they were lying or suffering from delusions.

The university also is eliminating four positions that fell under the unit, known as SCE, and terminating those employees.

A team of independent auditors is helping to review SCE files to ensure Ohio State has fulfilled its obligations to report certain offenses to law enforcement, federal regulators and other authorities, according to the university.

Documents obtained by The Dispatch through a public records request detail a variety of complaints about Ohio State’s SCE and its leadership.

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LANSING (MI)
USA TODAY

June 20, 2018

By Nancy Armour

Michigan State still doesn’t get it.

A university that aided and abetted Larry Nassar and his horrific crimes for the better part of two decades doesn’t get to be indignant or question the women whose lives were shattered. It doesn’t get to play the aggrieved party, be it in public statements or private emails.

And it sure as hell doesn’t get to defend and protect a leader who has dragged the school even further into the abyss when his sole job was to find a way out of it.

More than 130 survivors sent Michigan State’s governing board a letter Tuesday calling for the ouster – voluntary or otherwise – of interim President John Engler. They shouldn’t have had to ask.

Criticism of Engler has grown since last week, when The Chronicle of Higher Education published an email in which the former governor of Michigan suggested that Rachael Denhollander was getting “kickbacks” from trial attorneys. Denhollander was the first woman to publicly accuse Nassar of abuse, telling her story to The Indianapolis Star in the fall of 2016.

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UNITED STATES
The Wrap

June 19, 2018

By Reid Nakamura and Jon Levine

When Chris Hardwick was accused of controlling behavior, emotional manipulation and sexual abuse by his ex-girlfriend Chloe Dykstra last week, the silence from those in his orbit was deafening.

Dykstra described a man who could be controlling and manipulative as he gained more and more success as the host of AMC shows and Comic-Con panels, as well as his own multimedia empire, Nerdist. One former employee said her accusations rang true, and that Hardwick was prone to loud confrontations with employees.

“Nobody’s surprised. Everyone can think back to incidents with Chris that line up with something in that story,” the former employee said. “You don’t see anybody saying ‘That’s not the Chris Hardwick I know,’ because that is the Chris Hardwick most people know.”

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Reuters

June 20, 2018

The Vatican has asked retired Washington, D.C., Archbishop Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, to cease public ministry after finding he was credibly accused of sexually abusing a teenager almost 50 years ago, the archdiocese and McCarrick said on Wednesday.

McCarrick is among the highest-ranking of the more than 6,700 U.S. Roman Catholic clerics to be accused of sexually abusing children since the church’s sex abuse scandal broke in 2002, according to BishopAccountability.org, a private group that tracks the allegations.

McCarrick, 87, was accused of sexually abusing a teenager when he was a priest in New York, he said in a statement. He said he was innocent, but an investigation by the Church found the allegations to be credible and substantiated, the archdiocese said in a statement.

“The Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, at the direction of our Holy Father, Pope Francis, has instructed Cardinal McCarrick that he is to refrain from any public ministry or activity until a definite decision is made,” the archdiocese said. McCarrick said he would follow the Vatican’s instruction.

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BOSTON (MA)
The Associated Press

June 19, 2018

By Steve LeBlanc

A civil lawsuit is alleging former Senate President Stan Rosenberg knew his estranged husband Bryon Hefner posed a risk to individuals at the Massachusetts Statehouse and Rosenberg and Hefner had an agreement or understanding allowing Hefner access to those individuals.

The lawsuit, which names both men, was filed in Suffolk Superior Court on Friday on behalf of an unnamed plaintiff who said Hefner grabbed his genitals without consent on more than one occasion.

The suit alleges the plaintiff suffered ongoing emotional distress and physical harm, including “depression, anxiety, muscle tension, gastrointestinal distress and impaired sleep.”

Attempts to reach Rosenberg, a Democrat who resigned from the Legislature in May, were unsuccessful on Tuesday. Hefner’s lawyer didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

In one case, the plaintiff said that during a ride in Rosenberg’s car in April 2016, Hefner grabbed his genitals over his clothes as Rosenberg rode in the front passenger seat and the two rode in the back seat.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Herald

June 20, 2018

By Laurel J. Sweet

Ex-Senate President Stanley C. Rosenberg and his estranged husband are being targeted for damages in a civil lawsuit by a former Beacon Hill legislative aide who says Bryon Hefner sexually abused him — twice in Rosenberg’s presence, and once at the couple’s North End condo.

The explosive 16-page lawsuit was filed in Suffolk Superior Court by attorney Mitchell Garabedian on behalf of “John Doe.”

Doe’s true identity was immediately impounded by Judge Debra A. Squires-Lee. He is identified only as a resident of Middlesex County who worked as a legislative aide for the House of Representatives.

“The court finds that irreparable and immediate harm may result absent an ex-parte order of impoundment,” Squires-Lee ruled. The seal could be lifted Monday depending on the outcome of a hearing today on whether it warrants extension.

The allegations against Hefner in the civil suit mirror those of one of four men who’ve criminally accused Hefner of sexual abuse. Garabedian declined to say yesterday if it’s the same person.

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UNITED STATES
Good Morning America

June 20, 2018

By Nicole Pelletiere

A year after survivors catapulted #MeToo into a global movement by sharing personal accounts of sexual assault, men are now reflecting on the movement and what it means to them.

In a recent SurveyMonkey poll, FiveThirtyEight, a site that focuses on opinion poll analysis, politics, economics, and sports blogging, surveyed 1,615 adult males. The outlet collaborated with Death, Sex & Money from WNYC Studios– a podcast that features intimate conversations with celebrities and listeners about money, relationships, family, and career.

The participants of the survey were asked how they felt about #MeToo as well as the subject of masculinity.

Here’s what they said.

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SAGINAW (MI)
ChurchMilitant.com

June 17, 2018

By Christine Niles, M.St. (Oxon.), J.D.

Fr. James Bessert alleged to be active homosexual

Only weeks after the abrupt suspension of a deacon over an alleged complaint of sex abuse, sources confirm the diocese of Saginaw, Michigan is removing the director of liturgy from his post — a reported homosexual accused of covering up sexual assault.

Although the diocese has kept the news quiet, multiple reliable sources have confirmed that Fr. James Bessert, director of liturgy in Saginaw, is being removed from his post, making way for Sr. Esther Mary Nickel, RSM, who will replace him.

Bessert, a prominent chancery official, has had his name taken off of the online staff directory for the Office of Liturgy. Church Militant also received news that the Vatican has been involved behind the scenes, and that high-ranking officials in Rome are aware of the ongoing scandals in Saginaw and have placed pressure on Bp. Joseph Cistone to remove various priests.

Bessert has claimed he is “on vacation,” although still in Saginaw.

Bessert is linked to Deacon Jerome Green, abruptly suspended in May only days before his priestly ordination. Inside sources confirm it’s an “open secret” that Bessert and Green have been in a homosexual relationship for years. Neither has publicly addressed the allegations, nor have they responded to Church Militant’s queries.

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NEWARK (NJ)
UPI

June 20, 2018

By Sara Shayanian

Retired Catholic Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the former archbishop of Newark, New Jersey, and Washington, D.C., announced he was stepping down from the ministry Wednesday amid allegations of sexual abuse.

In a statement, the Archdiocese of New York said the Vatican secretary of state, at the direction of Pope Francis, asked McCarrick to step down from the ministry.

The allegations against McCarrick stem from the abuse of a teenager nearly 50 years ago, while the former archbishop was a priest of the Archdiocese of New York.

“This archdiocese, while saddened and shocked, asks prayers for all involved, and renews its apology to all victims abused by priests,” the archdiocese said.

Although McCarrick said he has “no recollection” of the case and was “shocked” by the report, he accepted the pope’s request to no longer publicly exercise his priestly ministry.

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AUSTRALIA
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

June 19, 2018

By Nancy Notzon

Catholic Archbishop Philip Wilson will be sentenced next month for concealing historical child sex abuse after a magistrate reserved his decision at a hearing today.

The Adelaide Archbishop’s lawyers presented several reports from various doctors detailing his medical conditions including diabetes, heart disease and a mild neurological cognitive disorder, which could possibly be Alzheimer’s.

They told the Newcastle Local Court that prison time would exacerbate his deteriorating health and that he could be targeted in prison.

Quoting a report from endocrinologist Dr David Torpy, Mr Temby said incarceration would have a major effect on Wilson’s health and “may even threaten his survival”.

In a landmark magistrate-only trial in May, Wilson was found guilty of covering up abuse by priest James Fletcher in the New South Wales Hunter region in the 1970s.

He is the world’s most senior Catholic to be convicted of the offence.

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COLUMBUS (OH)
Reuters

June 20, 2018

By Gina Cherelus

Ohio State University this week shut down its center dedicated to handling complaints of sexual assault after officials discovered that the service was not properly managing victim reports, school officials said.

The university launched its comprehensive prevention effort to combat sexual misconduct in 2015, at a time of intense public focus on sex assault on U.S. college campuses. Its move to shut down the program comes as the #MeToo movement has intensified focus on sexual harassment and assault in many spheres of American life.

A review conducted by an external law firm revealed that the campus Sexual Civility and Empowerment unit did not properly document and report information about some sexual assault complaints by students, Chris Davey, a spokesman for the university, said in a statement on Tuesday.

A representative for the university did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment on Wednesday.

The program had received national attention in 2015, when then-Vice President Joe Biden visited the school to highlight responses to what the White House termed an epidemic of sex assault on U.S. college campuses.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
CNN

June 20, 2018

By Daniel Burke

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who led the Archdiocese of Washington and was a political force in the nation’s capital, said on Wednesday that he has been removed from public ministry by the Vatican because of a decades-old allegation of sexual abuse.

As a cardinal, McCarrick is one of the highest-ranking American leaders in the Catholic Church to be removed from ministry because of sex abuse charges. He maintains his innocence.

“While I have absolutely no recollection of this reported abuse, and believe in my innocence, I am sorry for the pain the person who brought the charges has gone through, as well as for the scandal such charges cause our people,” McCarrick said in a statement.

The Archdiocese of New York, which led the investigation, said it would not release specific details about the allegation to protect the victim’s privacy. But the archdiocese said a review board composed of jurists, law enforcement experts, parents, psychologists, a priest, and a religious sister found the allegations against McCarrick to be “credible and substantiated.”

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NEWARK (NJ)
Newark Patch

June 20, 2018

By Tom Davis

The sexual misconduct alleged against Cardinal Theodore McCarrick resulted in settlements involving a teen.

A former Catholic church leader in New Jersey has been removed from the ministry in the wake of sexual abuse allegations involving a teen.

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the former Archbishop of Newark, the founding Bishop of Metuchen and Archbishop Emeritus of Washington, D.C., has been removed from the ministry after allegations that he abused a teen 50 years ago came to light, church leaders announced Wednesday. The alleged sexual misconduct resulted in settlements.

McCarrick, 87, said in his statement that he doesn’t recall the abuse but he accepted his removal: “While I have absolutely no recollection of this reported abuse, and believe in my innocence, I am sorry for the pain the person who brought the charges has gone through, as well as for the scandal such charges cause our people,” he said.

McCarrick said he was advised by the Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, that an allegation of sexual abuse of a teenager from 47 years ago had been made against him. At that time, he was a priest of the Archdiocese of New York.

“While shocked by the report, and while maintaining my innocence, I considered it essential that the charges be reported to the police, thoroughly investigated by an independent agency, and given to the Review Board of the Archdiocese of New York. I fully cooperated in the process,” he said.

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NEWARK (NJ)
NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

June 20, 2018

By Kelly Heyboer and Ted Sherman

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the former Archbishop of Newark and Archbishop Emeritus of Washington, D.C., has been removed from public ministry in the wake of allegations that he abused a teen 50 years ago while serving as a priest in the New York Archdiocese.

McCarrick, who accepted the decision, is one of the highest-ranking American leaders in the Catholic Church to be removed from ministry over sex abuse charges.

The allegations against him have been deemed “credible and substantiated” by Vatican officials, McCarrick acknowledged in a statement. However, the veteran cardinal said he does not remember the incident from a half-century ago, and believes he is innocent.

News of McCarrick’s removal came as church officials in New Jersey separately revealed for the first time that the cardinal had previously been accused of sexual misconduct with three adults during his time in the state.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Reuters

June 20, 2018

The Vatican has asked the retired archbishop of Washington, D.C., Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, to cease public ministry after finding he was credibly accused of sexually abusing a teenager almost 50 years ago, the archdiocese and McCarrick said Wednesday.

McCarrick is among the highest-ranking of the more than 6,700 U.S. Roman Catholic clerics to be accused of sexually abusing children since the church’s sex abuse scandal broke in 2002, according to BishopAccountability.org, a private group that tracks the allegations.

McCarrick, 87, was accused of sexually abusing a teenager when he was a priest in New York, he said in a statement. He said that he was innocent, but an investigation by the Church found the allegations to be credible and substantiated, the archdiocese said in a statement.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

June 20, 2018

By Philip Pullella

Pope Francis has said he could accept the resignations of more Chilean bishops following a sexual abuse scandal that has shattered the credibility of the Roman Catholic Church in the South American country.

The pope has already accepted the resignations of three bishops, and all Chile’s remaining bishops have offered to resign after allegations that the abuse, including of children, was covered up.

The scandal was “the work of the spirit of evil,” the pope told Reuters in an interview at his residence in the Vatican.

Asked whether he would accept more resignations, the pontiff said: “Maybe some.”

“I still have to accept the resignations of two (bishops) who have exceeded the age limit. But maybe there’s someone else whose resignation I will accept. In one case, I asked that he be given the accusations in order to give him the possibility to defend himself against the accusations and then we will see,” he said.

Chilean Cardinal Francisco Javier Errázuriz Ossa, one of nine cardinals from around the world appointed by the pope to serve as his special advisers, has been accused by abuse survivors of discrediting victims and not investigating their cases. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Asked whether Errázuriz’s position was at risk on the C-9, the pope said: “The C-9 is not an honor, it’s a job. I do not want to get into the game of cutting heads and seeking scapegoats.”

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NEWARK (NJ)
Archdiocese of Newark

June 20, 2018

By Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin

I recognize that the people of our Archdiocese meet the announcement by the Archdiocese of New York of a credible and substantiated claim of abuse of a minor by Cardinal McCarrick with a range of emotions. I am thinking particularly of those who have experienced the trauma of sexual abuse by clergy – whose lives have been impacted tragically by abuse. To those survivors, their families and loved ones, I offer my sincere apologies and my commitment of prayer and action to support you in your healing.

The Archdiocese of Newark has never received an accusation that Cardinal McCarrick abused a minor. In the past, there have been allegations that he engaged in sexual behavior with adults. This Archdiocese and the Diocese of Metuchen received three allegations of sexual misconduct with adults decades ago; two of these allegations resulted in settlements.

Cardinal McCarrick served this Archdiocese for almost fifteen years. No doubt many of you developed strong relationships with him and appreciate the impact of his service. Those feelings are likely hard to reconcile with the news of a credible and substantiated claim of abuse of a minor. While Cardinal McCarrick maintains his innocence and the canonical process continues, we must put first the serious nature of this matter with respect and support for the process aimed at hearing victims and finding truth.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Archdiocese of Washington

June 20, 2018

[Includes biography of Cardinal McCarrick.]

Statement by Cardinal Theodore McCarrick

Some months ago, I was advised by the Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, that an allegation of sexual abuse of a teenager from almost fifty-years ago had been made against me. At that time I was a priest of the Archdiocese of New York.

While shocked by the report, and while maintaining my innocence, I considered it essential that the charges be reported to the police, thoroughly investigated by an independent agency, and given to the Review Board of the Archdiocese of New York. I fully cooperated in the process.

My sadness was deepened when I was informed that the allegations had been determined credible and substantiated.

In obedience I accept the decision of The Holy See, that I no longer exercise any public ministry.

I realize this painful development will shock my many friends, family members, and people I have been honored to serve in my sixty-years as a priest.

While I have absolutely no recollection of this reported abuse, and believe in my innocence, I am sorry for the pain the person who brought the charges has gone through, as well as for the scandal such charges cause our people.

Statement by the Archdiocese of Washington

Sometime ago, an allegation that falls under the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People was made against Cardinal McCarrick when he served as a priest in the Archdiocese of New York.

The Holy See, which has exclusive authority in the oversight of a cardinal, delegated Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York to investigate the allegation, engaging the review board of the Archdiocese of New York.

In the end the review board found the allegations credible and substantiated.

The Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, at the direction of our Holy Father, Pope Francis, has instructed Cardinal McCarrick that he is to refrain from any public ministry or activity until a definite decision is made.

Cardinal McCarrick, while maintaining his innocence, has accepted the decision.

While saddened and shocked, this archdiocese awaits the final outcome of the canonical process and in the meantime asks for prayers for all involved.

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NEW YORK CITY (NY)
Archdiocese of New York

June 20, 2018

By Cardinal Timothy Dolan

The Archdiocese of New York, along with every other diocese in the country, has long encouraged those who as minors suffered sexual abuse by a priest to come forward with such reports.

As he himself announced earlier this morning, a report has come to the archdiocese alleging abuse from almost forty-five years ago by the now retired Archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who, at the time of the reported offense was a priest here in the Archdiocese of New York. This was the first such report of a violation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People ever made against him of which the archdiocese was aware.

Carefully following the process detailed by the Charter of the American bishops, this allegation was turned over to law enforcement officials, and was then thoroughly investigated by an independent forensic agency. Cardinal McCarrick was advised of the charge, and, while maintaining his innocence, fully cooperated in the investigation. The Holy See was alerted as well, and encouraged us to continue the process.

Again according to our public protocol, the results of the investigation were then given to the Archdiocesan Review Board, a seasoned group of professionals including jurists, law enforcement experts, parents, psychologists, a priest, and a religious sister.

The review board found the allegations credible and substantiated.

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BRIDGEWATER (NJ)
Courier News/My Central New Jersey

June 20, 2018

By Paul C. Grzella

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the retired archbishop of Washington who also served as the Archbishop of Newark and the founding Bishop of Metuchen, is alleged to have sexually abused a minor 47 years ago when he was a priest in the Archdiocese of New York, church officials announced this morning.

As a result of the allegations, called “credible and substantiated” by church officials, the cardinal is stepping down from active ministry.

“While I have absolutely no recollection of this reported abuse, and believe in my innocence, I am sorry for the pain the person who brought the charges has gone through, as well as for the scandal such charges cause our people,” McCarrick said in a statement this morning.

He is the believed to be the first cardinal to step down from active ministry for sexually abusing a minor.

According to a statement from the Archdiocese of New York, the allegations were reviewed by an independent board and were found to be credible and substantiated. The Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, at the direction of Pope Francis, has instructed McCarrick, the now retired Archbishop of Washington, that he is no longer to exercise publicly his priestly ministry, according to the statement.

“Cardinal McCarrick, while maintaining his innocence, has accepted the decision,” Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, said in the statement.

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SANTIAGO (CHILE)
Reuters

June 19, 2018

By Aislinn Laing and Dave Sherwood

Chilean prosecutors said on Tuesday they questioned the Vatican’s top sex abuse investigator as he prepared to fly out of the country following a fact-finding and reconciliation mission ordered by the Pope.

Raúl Guzmán, a prosecutor based in the capital Santiago, said he “interrogated” Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta in the police station at Santiago airport in relation to an abuse case involving 25 Marist brothers and 30 alleged victims.

“We arranged an interview with Charles Scicluna that took place in the offices of the investigative police in the airport before his flight,” he told journalists.

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TEWKSBURY (MA)
The Boston Globe

June 19, 2018

By Michael Rezendes

For 25 years, Jim Graham has tried to prove he is the son of a deceased Catholic priest who grew up in Lowell and graduated from Boston College.

He pulled old adoption records that mention his “alleged father.” He leaned on leaked documents from a friendly priest and petitioned Catholic leaders all the way to Rome, to no avail.

The quest continued Monday afternoon in a Catholic cemetery in Tewksbury, as a backhoe turned up earth on the Rev. Thomas Sullivan’s grave and promised to provide answers once and for all.

“We missed a lot, the two of us,” Graham said, fighting back tears after the exhumation. “Didn’t have much opportunity for father and son.”

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NEW SOUTH WALES (AUSTRALIA)
9News (nine.com.au)

June 19, 2018

By Kim Robertson

Adelaide Archbishop pleads to avoid prison

Lawyers for Adelaide’s Catholic Archbishop have pleaded for him not to be sent to prison, for concealing child sex abuse.

They say he’s at risk of falling gravely-ill behind bars, or being attacked by other inmates.

But prosecutors and victims insist Philip Wilson has shown no remorse, and deserves little mercy.

Archbishop Philip Wilson stayed silent as he arrived to face justice at the Newcastle Local Court.

But inside his Defence lawyers pleaded with a Magistrate to spare the Catholic Archbishop jail, arguing he was so ill, he might not survive prison time.

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KERALA (INDIA)
La Croix International

June 19, 2018

By T.K. Devasia, Kochi

He was charged with rape after a schoolgirl gave birth at a church-run hospital

A Catholic priest in India who was arrested more than a year ago on charges of raping and impregnating a 17-year-old schoolgirl, is to stand trial.

Father Robin Vadakkancherry of Mananthavady Diocese was parish priest of St. Sebastian’s Church in Kottiyoor at the time of the alleged offense.

The 49-year-old priest was arrested and placed in custody in February 2017 after the girl gave birth to a boy.

His diocese, part of the Syro-Malabar Church, suspended him following his arrest.

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ROME
Crux

June 20, 2018

By Inés San Martín, John L. Allen Jr, and Christopher White

Arguably, few people in Australia can say they are more on the front lines in picking up the pieces after the recently concluded Royal Commission into Institutional Sexual Abuse that was highly critical of the Catholic Church than Archbishop Mark Coleridge, elected as president of the country’s bishops’ conference last month.

Despite the challenges, which also include trials of two of Australia’s most renowned clerics, Archbishop Philip Wilson in Adelaide and Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican’s finance czar, Coleridge is convinced that when it comes to fighting clerical sexual abuse, a “change in culture” is needed and is already in motion.

“There’s absolutely no room for complacency, but there is room for encouragement,” Coleridge told Crux on Monday in Rome.

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TASMANIA
SBS NEWS

June 20, 2018

Australia’s Catholic bishops have written to the prime minister opposing laws requiring priests to break the seal of confession to reveal child sexual abuse.

Catholic priests in Tasmania will report child sexual abuse to police but not if it has been revealed during confession.

Australia’s Catholic bishops are rejecting moves to force priests to break the seal of confession to reveal child abuse, with the South Australian church declaring its priests will defy new mandatory reporting laws in that state.

The Tasmanian government also plans to extend mandatory reporting to include information disclosed in a religious confession.

The Catholic Archbishop of Hobart Julian Porteous backs mandatory reporting but not when it means breaking church law that requires priests to uphold the seal of confession.

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LANSING (MI)
The Associated Press

June 19, 2018

By Alice Yin

A letter signed by at least 120 sexual abuse victims of former sports doctor Larry Nassar on Tuesday urged Michigan State University’s governing board to oust interim president John Engler, saying he has reinforced a “culture of abuse” at the school.

The women and girls issued their joint statement three days before the board of trustees’ next meeting and after a week in which demands for Engler’s resignation reached a fever pitch.

Engler, who served as the state’s Republican governor from 1991 through 2002, has resisted pressure to step down. He took over on an interim basis in February after the previous president resigned amid fallout from the Nassar scandal. Media outlets last week reported that he sent emails to another university official in April criticizing lawyers for Nassar’s sexual assault victims and suggesting the first woman to go public with her accusations was probably getting a “kickback” from her attorney.

Among the 123 survivors who signed the letter are Olympic gymnastics gold medalist Aly Raisman, and Rachael Denhollander, a former gymnast who has been one of the most vocal critics of Engler.

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ST. JOHNS (MI)
The Associated Press

June 18, 2018

A state child abuse and neglect investigator has been charged with sexually assaulting a teenager.

The Lansing State Journal reports 34-year-old Daniel William Hulings of Bath Township is free on bond after being arraigned June 7 on seven counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct in Clinton County District Court.

Jennifer Kuiper-Weise, an attorney for Hulings, tells the Lansing State Journal her client has pleaded not guilty “and we believe he will be exonerated.”

Court records show the victim said she had sexual contact with Hulings on numerous occasions over a period of more than a year beginning when she was 16.

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SANTIAGO (CHILE)
Reuters

June 19, 2018

By Aislinn Laing and Dave Sherwood

The Vatican envoy who was sent to Chile to gather evidence of sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church said it would be up to Pope Francis to decide on whether to release the report of their findings to the country’s civil authorities.

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DALLAS (TX)
Baptist Press

June 19, 2018

By Karen L. Willoughby

The pastor of an Austin, Texas, Southern Baptist church “finds I’m spending more time in preparation than ever before” for his Sunday morning sermons.
Matt Carter, pastor of preaching and vision at Austin Stone Community Church in Austin, Texas, said in a CP Stage panel discussion prior to the SBC annual meeting in Dallas that he weighs his words to make sure they do not send the wrong message to the potential 25 percent of the women in the church who have suffered abuse in their lifetime.

“I’m consistently filtering what I’m saying through the eyes of a woman who has been abused,” said Carter, who took the church’s entire staff through a week-long training earlier this year to be able to say to all women, “You are safe here.”

The 20-minute panel discussion on Sexual Abuse in the Church in the SBC exhibit hall covered a victim’s trauma; the churches’ response; and how to prepare children for potential situations without scaring them.

The SBC’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission President Russell Moore, teacher and author Beth Moore and moderators Jonathan Howe and Amy Whitfield filled out the panel.

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ERIE (PA)
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: David Dobrowolski was a priest of the Diocese of Erie, ordained in 1969. He was an assistant in an Erie parish until 1972, when he joined the staff of Kennedy Christian High School in Sharon. While there he may have resided briefly at a West Middlesex parish, moving in 1973 to St. Adalbert’s in Farrell. In 1978 Dobrowolski was assigned as chaplain to the Harborcreek School for Boys, which was a treatment facility for ‘troubled juveniles,’ ages 10-18. He remained there until his death in December 1985.

Dobrowolski’s name was included on the diocese’s list released April 6, 2018 of priests, lay employees and volunteers accused of sexually abusing minors. The allegations against Dobrowolski were noted to have been reported after his death.

Ordained: 1969
Died: December 28, 1985

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PROVIDENCE (RI)
Rhode Island Public Radio

June 19, 2018

By Lynn Arditi

The Roman Catholic Bishop of Providence and hospital operator Prospect Chartercare, LLC are among the defendants accused of conspiracy and fraud in two class-action lawsuits filed late Monday.

The suits filed in state and federal courts accuse Bishop Thomas Tobin and hospital operators of deliberately underfunding St. Joseph Health Services’s pension plan and then lying about the plan’s financial condition to beneficiaries.

The plan — which covers at least 2,700 current and former employees of Our Lady of Fatima Hospital — was left with no source of revenue when the Fatima hospital was sold in 2014 to Prospect Charter, the local arm of the California-based for profit Prospect Medical Holdings. The pension plan is currently in receivership, a form of bankrupty.

The pension was set up as a “church plan,” which meant it was not federally insured and did not have the same funding requirements as plans covered under the federal Employee Retirement Security Act, or ERISA. The federal lawsuit, however, says the plan did not qualify as a much plan at least since 2009, meaning the plan’s operators would have been required to meet specific funding thresholds.

The suit, which asks for unspecified damages, names more than a dozen defendants, including the for-profit Californian-based parent of CharterCare, prospect Medical Holdings, Inc; Roger Williams Medical Center, LLC, The Rhode Island Community Foundation and the Angell Pension Group, Inc.

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BUFFALO (NY)
Spectrum Local News

June 18, 2018

By Katie Gibas

Judith Burns-Quinn has been working with victims of priest sex abuse in Western New York for 22 years.

“It’s easily Boston West,” she said.

Mitchell Garabedian, the attorney for victims of the Boston Diocese, backed up that statement.

“Given the amount of secrecy within the Diocese of Buffalo and the amount of names of pedophile priests being released, I think is fairly accurate. The amount of abuse has been devastating,” he said.

The latest name to come out is Father Dennis Fronczak, who was at St. Stephen’s Church on Grand Island in the ‘90s, St. Joseph’s Church in Holland in the ‘00s and most recently at Lancaster’s Our Lady of Pompeii.

A spokesperson for the Diocese says Fronczak was removed from ministry in 2015, and “information regarding complaints, including some from his time at the parishes of St. Stephen and St. Joseph, was sent to the Vatican. The matter is now the subject of pending canon law proceedings.”

Victims’ advocates are rekindling their cry for the Diocese to release all documents related to credible abuse allegations and for the bishop to step down.

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EL PASO (TX)
KFOX14/CBS4

June 18, 2018

By Jamel Valencia

A victim who alleges abuse by a priest is suing the El Paso Diocese.

The lawsuit alleges the Rev. Joaquin Resma sexually abused an altar boy in 1978 at Our Lady of Health Parish in Las Cruces.

Documents state that at the time of the alleged incident, El Paso Diocese was in charge of the parishes in southern New Mexico, including Our Lady of Health Parish.

Attorneys for the victim claims the El Paso Diocese failed to protect their client.

Resma is accused of sexually abusing the victim on multiple occasions.

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NEWCASTLE (AUSTRALIA)
The Associated Press

June 19, 2018

A prosecutor told an Australian court on Tuesday that the most senior Roman Catholic cleric in the world to be convicted of covering up child sex abuse must be jailed to send a message that such institutional cover-ups will no longer be tolerated.

Newcastle Magistrate Robert Stone said he would sentence Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson on July 3.

Stone last month found Wilson guilty in the Newcastle Local Court of failing to report to police the repeated abuse of two altar boys by a pedophile priest in the Hunter Valley region north of Sydney during the 1970s. Wilson faces a potential maximum sentence of two years in prison.

The conviction is another step toward holding the church to account for a global abuse crisis that has also engulfed Pope Francis’ financial minister, Australian Cardinal George Pell. Some lawyers said they expect many more clerics to be charged in Australia as a result of Wilson’s test case.

Prosecutor Gareth Harrison told a hearing Tuesday to determine an appropriate sentence that there was a “breach of trust” between the vulnerable teen, who — along with another altar boy — came forward in 1976 with allegations against a priest who later died in prison.

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AUSTRALIA
Catholic Herald

June 18, 2018

By Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith

If the Australian state wants to make martyrs over the seal, it will find plenty of candidates

The saga about mandatory reporting of child abuse in Australia, where it seems that the law will now compel priests to break the seal of confession, carries on.

It must give the virtue-signalers amongst Australia’s legislators great pleasure to say that the Catholic Church is not above the law, but this legislation will hardly help the protection of children. It will simply mean that no one who has abused anyone, or been tempted to do so, will ever dare to discuss the matter with a priest, still less confess to the sin in the sacrament of reconciliation.

Moreover, one Australian priest has a very good point: “The only way they [the states] would be able to see whether the law was being observed or not is to try and entrap priests.”

Quite so. Will the agents of law enforcement in Australia now pose as penitents and enter confessionals with tape recorders in the hope that of finding a priest who does not report child abuse? Such things have been done before, though in a different context. It is by no means impossible that this might happen, as it is hard to see otherwise how any arrests could ever be made.

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CANBERRA (AUSTRALIA)
Catholic News Agency

June 18, 2018

As Australian states and territories pass and consider laws requiring priests to break the seal of confession to report cases of child sex abuse, Catholic priests are saying they would go to jail rather than violate the seal.

“The state will be requiring us as Catholic priests to commit as what we regard as the most serious crime and I’m not willing to do that,” said Father Michael Whelan, a parish priest at St. Patrick’s Church in Sydney, according to local news.

Whelan added that he, along with other priests, would be “willing to go to jail” rather than break the seal of confession. When asked if the Church was above the law, Whelan said “absolutely not” and remarked he would only be protecting religious freedom.

“…when the state tries to intervene on our religious freedom, undermine the essence of what it means to be a Catholic, we will resist,” he said.

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QUEENSLAND (AUSTRALIA)
The Catholic Leader

June 19, 2018

By Mark Bowling

THE Queensland Government is to set up a Truth, Healing and Reconciliation task force after accepting more than half of the recommendations of the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse.

The government has accepted or “accepted in principle” 244 of the 409 Royal Commission recommendations, and says a task force will be set up within months to carry them out.

The move builds on the state’s opt-in to the national redress scheme for survivors of child sexual abuse.

The taskforce will support government efforts to make “attitudinal and cultural change” recommended by the Royal Commission, and will administer a grants program for events and memorials to acknowledge past harms and to remind the community of the need to protect children.

“Queensland is fully committed to ensuring Queensland Government institutions are child safe, and to supporting and encouraging community and non-government institutions to actively become child safe,” a 121-page state government response to the Royal Commission said.

On 26 key recommendations to the Catholic Church the Queensland government describes as “noted” Royal Commission recommendations, but does not specifically endorse them.

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AUSTRALIA
SBS News

June 18, 2018

Legislation establishing the national redress scheme for child sexual abuse survivors has passed parliament.

The $3.8 billion national redress scheme for child sexual abuse survivors has passed federal parliament, despite concerns it doesn’t go far enough.

The scheme is set to be operational on July 1 after Labor, the Greens and crossbenchers agreed not to delay the passage of legislation through the Senate.

The bill passed the upper house on Tuesday afternoon, after senators debated the scheme late into Monday night.

Victorian independent Senator Derryn Hinch angrily accused the government of “double-crossing” the parliamentary committee into the scheme he chaired.

He expressed surprise the maximum payout was in line with the Catholic Church’s push for $150,000 rather than the $200,000 recommended by the child abuse royal commission.

“I’ve been unable to find out not only who suggested the 150K, but also who lobbied for it and who signed off on it,” Senator Hinch told parliament.

He demanded to know how the figure was arrived at.

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DALLAS (TX)
Religion News Service

June 15, 2018

By Adelle M. Banks

The sermons, the hymn singing and the floor debates of the Southern Baptists’ annual meeting have concluded, but a key question remains: How will the denomination address the issues of sexual and physical abuse that loomed over the proceedings?

At this week’s (June 12-13) meeting, there was a sense that the nation’s largest Protestant denomination has only started down a long road toward an answer after months of scandals. Days before the Southern Baptists arrived here, Paige Patterson, an architect of the faith group’s conservative turn in the 1980s, was ousted from the presidency of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary after reports arose of his mishandling rape allegations by students. Other former luminaries have been accused of abuse or left positions unexpectedly due to immoral behavior.

The alleged untoward behavior by Southern Baptist leaders forced many of the messengers, as delegates to this meeting are called, to grapple with how to rein in abuse while respecting the autonomy of the convention’s local churches. One step that the messengers took was to pass a nonbinding statement that suggested that “church and ministry leaders have an obligation to implement policies and practices that protect against and confront any form of abuse.”

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CARY (NC)
Baptist Press

June 18 2018

By Tom Strode

Russell Moore announced new initiatives on women and abuse during the report of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) Wednesday (June 13) at the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).

Moore, the ERLC’s president, said the entity will convene a women’s summit as a major part of its work in the year ahead. He also told messengers the ERLC is partnering with LifeWay Research in commissioning a full-scale study on the extent of abuse in churches.

The announcement of the initiatives followed months of what Moore described as “horrible, horrible revelations” of sexual abuse and assault. Those disclosures of abuse and misconduct by male leaders in churches and the secular world have rocked Southern Baptists, other evangelicals and the wider culture.

The ERLC will gather women from across the SBC and the evangelical world “to think through ways to enhance our ministries and invest in our churches,” Moore told messengers. “There should not be one inch of toleration for the abuse or mistreatment of women or others within our churches, and if we care about human dignity, we must be clear about that.

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