ABUSE TRACKER

GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio, heugenio@guampdn.com Aug. 18, 2017

A former Boy Scout accused former priest Louis Brouillard of sexually abusing him around 1977 or 1978 at Lonfit River, according to a lawsuit filed in the District Court of Guam.

The accuser, identified in court documents only by his initials V.Q., filed a $10 million lawsuit Friday afternoon against Brouillard, the Archdiocese of Agana, the Boy Scouts of America and its Aloha Council Chamorro District.

V.Q., represented by attorney David J. Lujan, is the 98th person to file a childhood sexual abuse lawsuit on Guam involving the Catholic Church.

As Scouts, V.Q. and other boys were required to meet several times a week at the Nuestra Senora De Las Aguas Catholic Church in Mongmong, the complaint says.

The lawsuit says Brouillard’s sexually predatory practices included weekly outings in which he would take V.Q. and other Scouts to the Lonfit River in Ordot Chalan Pago to compete for their swimming badges.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

Victims of institutional abuse have said they are angry that NI Secretary James Brokenshire will not to use his powers to make interim compensation payments.

The Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) Inquiry recommended a state apology and compensation for victims.

The collapse of Stormont in January meant the process was put on hold.

A spokesperson said Mr Brokenshire had made “no decisions” on the issue.

The government spokesperson added that it “remains a devolved issue” and that abuse compensation was “one of the many reasons (Mr Brokenshire) remains determined to get an NI Executive back up and running”.

“He continues to urge the parties to seek urgent resolution to restore the executive so that a response can be provided to Sir Anthony’s (HIA) report at the earliest opportunity.”

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

Lisa Martin
AAP

The royal commission into child sex abuse may need to have separate public and confidential volumes in order to avoid prejudicing Cardinal George Pell’s legal case.

The final report is expected to be in the order of 15,000 pages long and goes to the federal government on December 15.

AAP understands the commission and government are grappling with potential legal issues over the Pell case.

The royal commission has only examined Pell’s handling of abuse allegations against other clergy in the church while he was Melbourne Archbishop and a Ballarat priest and not claims against him personally.

Pell, Australia’s highest-ranking Catholic official and ranked number three in the Vatican, was charged in June with multiple historical sex offence charges involving multiple complainants.

There has been speculation in legal circles that the public release of the final report and Melbourne and Ballarat case studies may have to be delayed.

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AUSTRALIA
Wollondilly Advertiser

The region’s highest-ranking Catholic does not believe priests should be compelled to report child abuse admissions made during the sanctity of Confession.

Bishop Peter Ingham, head of the Catholic Diocese of Wollongong – which encompasses the entire Macarthur region – says Catholic faith dictates the Seal of Confession “cannot be broken” and it is equally important to “preserve the sanctity” of confession and “protect, defend and help children”.

He said it was not an “either or” situation, but rather a “both and”.

The Bishop has clarified his position in response to a recent recommendation out of the Royal Commission into child abuse within the Catholic church.

The recommendation suggested priests should be compelled by law to report to authorities any instances of child abuse admitted to them during Confession.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Editorial

It is understandable that the hierarchy of the Catholic Church in Australia is resistant to the recommendation by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that priests be legally compelled to report to police information received via the confessional. But the church’s hostility is not reasonable, and legislators should implement this and other recommendations in the commission’s Criminal Justice Report, one of the publications flowing from the four-year investigation.

Transgression of the centuries-old seal of the confessional (the duty of priests to never divulge what penitents have confessed) is penalised with automatic excommunication. The commission has heard evidence of the misuse of the confessional. Priests guilty of serial child rape have used it to seek absolution before repeating their crime. Predatory paedophile priests have used it to groom victims. The commission concludes: “The report recommends there be no exemption, excuse, protection or privilege from the offence granted to clergy for failing to report information disclosed in connection with a religious confession.”

That is a just and logical proposal. Notwithstanding the separation of church and state (which protects religious freedom, entrusts lawmaking to the polity and enshrines a secular society), priests, like everyone else, are not above the law. Mandatory reporting is seen as effective in other professions that work with children. Tradition per se is an insufficient argument against change. The priority is the protection of children. The seal of the confessional has protected paedophile priests.

The commission’s other recommendations include: allowing multiple victims to give evidence against a single alleged abuser; increased sentences for historical offences; criminalising an institution’s failure to protect a child or report abuse; and stronger anti-grooming laws. The rule of law – and the associated principles that we are all equal under the law and that justice is blind – is fundamental to our social, economic and political stability. In this case of a clash between canonical law (law stemming from papal edict) and statute, it is in the public interest that child protection trump all other considerations.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Claire Fox and Cillian Sherlock
August 17 2017

A Magdalene Laundries campaigner has called for the removal of a statue dedicated to the Sisters of Mercy outside a former laundry in Dublin.

Patricia McDonald, founder of Justice for Magdalene Laundries, told Joe Duffy on RTE Radio One’s Liveline that the statue of a nun welcoming a poor woman and baby outside the Sisters of Mercy convent does not reflect the suffering that women experienced at the laundry.

“It does not record the actual reality of suffering and distress experienced by generations of women. It’s inappropriate. I’m not decrying the piece. It’s a nice piece of art,” she said.

Ms McDonald grew up in the Baggot Street area of Dublin and recalled how she would see the women emerging from the back of laundry but didn’t understand the significance of what they were doing.

“I remembered as a child seeing huge wooden doors open occasionally and steam coming out and women in uniforms appearing out in the lane way. As a child I didn’t know the significance of that and that it was in fact a laundry,” she added.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Church Militant

by Stephen Wynne • ChurchMilitant.com • August 17, 2017

New investigation uncovers more evidence of Church in crisis

BOSTON (ChurchMilitant.com) – Fifteen years after its bombshell report on clerical sex abuse, the Boston Globe is again throwing light on a dark corner of the Church — this time exposing the plight of children fathered by unchaste priests.

In a two-part series published Wednesday and Thursday, the paper released findings from an investigation led by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael Rezendes, who in 2002 first unmasked the sexual abuse crisis in the Church.

Rezendes’ new report reveals that across the world, thousands of people are uncovering “strong evidence that they are the sons and daughters of Catholic priests.” The prevalence of the phenomenon is such that in 2014, Vincent Doyle, the son of an Irish priest, established Coping International, an organization devoted to providing support to offspring of Catholic priests and religious.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Nick O’Malley

Father Michael McArdle was reportedly so distressed by his acts of child sexual abuse in Queensland that he would often seek the succour of the confessional. Over a 25-year period, before he was convicted in 2002, he confessed to sexually assaulting children an estimated 1500 times to 30 different priests. In keeping with Catholic tradition in Australia, the priests did not report to his crimes to authorities, but moved him on to different parishes, to greener pastures.

McArdle’s case resonates this week because on Monday the royal commission into child sex abuse released 85 recommendations on improvements to the criminal justice system. Among them was the proposal that the seal of the religious confessional be broken and that clergy who fail to report child abuse revealed in confession face criminal prosecution, just as anyone else in Australia would. Since the Catholic Church is the only major religion in Australia that still insists its canon law be held above secular law in this regard, this was rightly seen as a challenge, and the Catholic Church, defensive of its significant privileges, responded.

On Tuesday Melbourne’s archbishop, Denis Hart, told the ABC: “I believe that this is an absolutely sacrosanct communication of a higher order which priests by nature respect, they don’t ever want to do anything that would hurt children,” he said.

Writing for Fairfax Media this week, Father Frank Brennan said he would go to jail before abiding by such a law and sought to explain his reasoning. “Common sense tells me that a sex abuser would be even less likely to present for confession if he knew that the confessional seal did not apply,” he wrote. “If the seal of the confessional were maintained, there is a chance, just a chance, that a child sex abuser might be convinced by the priest to turn himself in. Take away the seal, and that ever so slim chance will be snuffed out.”

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CONNECTICUT/NEW HAMPSHIRE
The Connecticut Law Tribune

ROBERT STORACE, The Connecticut Law Tribune
August 17, 2017

A 48-year-old California man allegedly raped as a teenager by an employee at the Connecticut-based Legion of Christ has filed a federal lawsuit seeking millions of dollars in damages.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut, claims the victim identified only as John Doe was first sexually assaulted at the now-defunct Immaculate Conception Apostolic School in New Hampshire when he was 13 years old. The teenager was allegedly raped every two to three weeks for about three and half years at the Roman Catholic boarding school for boys grades 7-12.

Cheshire-based Legion of Christ oversaw the school.

It’s alleged that a man known as Brother Fernando Cutanda abused John Doe and another boy at the school, and that officials did nothing to stop it, according to the lawsuit. John Doe claims he told Father Patrick O’Carroll about the alleged abuse during confession, he was told to pray “five rosaries for his sins, gave him penance and said ‘God will take care of things.'”

Jeffrey Herman, one of John Doe’s three attorneys, said his client “is strong, but deeply damaged. He thought it was time to come forward.”

Herman said Cutanda allegedly “groomed” the boy for sex. Herman said he does not know where Cutanda is today.

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ARGENTINA
Associated Press

BY ALMUDENA CALATRAVA
ASSOCIATED PRESS

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — The general director of an elite school founded by the Marist Brothers in Argentina has admitted he sexually abused a student 38 years ago, an official for the order said Thursday.

Gonzalo Santa Coloma, the order’s official for protecting children in Buenos Aires province, told The Associated Press that Brother Angel Duples acknowledged the abuse after the order began an investigation following a report by a former student who had talked with the victim.

At the time of the abuse, Duples was a lay brother working at a branch of the Champagnat school on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. He has been director of the school’s main branch in downtown Buenos Aires over the past decade.

“I asked him: Did this really happen or is it just another tale? And he told me that it had happened, that there was fondling,” Santa Coloma said in recounting a conversation he had with Duples.

“He realizes the seriousness of this issue and the evil that he might have done,” the official said, adding that Duples asked to be removed from his duties at the school.

Santa Coloma declined to let AP contact Duples, saying he is “depressed and medicated” and has been sent to a nursing home owned by the Marist Brothers where he has no contact with children.

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UNITED STATES
America

The Editors

In a scene reminiscent of many Hollywood movies, Archbishop Denis Hart of Melbourne has announced that he would rather go to prison than report an allegation of sexual abuse he heard during a sacramental confession. “It is a sacred trust,” Hart told a radio station in Melbourne on Aug. 15. Archbishop Hart’s defense of the confessional seal was prompted by a report released the day before by Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that included a recommendation to criminalize priests’ failures to report sexual abuse heard during confession. While the commissioners noted the Catholic mandate that the seal never be broken, “we heard evidence of a number of instances where disclosures of child sexual abuse were made in religious confession, by both victims and perpetrators,” the report added.

In 2012 in Ireland, horror at the extent of sexual abuse of minors (as well as a gimlet eye toward a church that had long operated with a heavy hand in Irish civic life) led legislators to propose a similar law. Here in the United States, legislative battles have been waged from Louisiana to Massachusetts to California over “confession carve-outs” in laws that allow for exemptions to mandated reporting for sacramental confessions.

Such stories always draw media attention, in part because of our cultural obsession (and not just among Catholics) with the mysteries and terrors of the confessional box. Nary a cop drama has existed in the history of television without a police officer hiding in a confessional to hear evidence of a crime. Alfred Hitchcock’s 1953 film “I Confess” has as its major plot point a priest who hears a murderer’s confession; the 1994 film “Priest”also features a cleric who is unable to act on a confession of sexual abuse because of the inviolability of the seal.

To the secular mind, the confessional seal is madness—a loophole in the law, a violation of state neutrality with regard to religion, a “medieval law” (to quote a member of the Australian Parliament), a tool for institutional corruption and coverup. And who, after all, wants to see abusers hide behind the sacraments?

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on a lawsuit brought against him and the Catholic League:

At every step of the way, a lawsuit filed by Rebecca Randles against me and the Catholic League was knocked down by the courts. I never libeled anyone, and she knows it. She lost in the U.S. District Court, and then lost again in the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. She wisely decided not to appeal her bogus lawsuit to the U.S. Supreme Court, though it would have been fun to watch her lose again.

Randles tried to silence me, and she failed. She should have known better.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Mary-Rose MacColl

Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart has said he’ll risk going to jail rather than report what’s said to him in the sacrament of confession, even if what’s confessed relates to child sexual abuse.

His latest comments, made on ABC radio, were responding to a recommendation from the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse to make reporting child sexual abuse allegations mandatory in institutions including when an allegation is made in religious confession. Failure to report would be a criminal offence.

The recommendation is one of a suite of proposed reforms to improve transparency and reporting of sexual abuse and improve the law’s effectiveness to apprehend sexual abusers and protect children.

Archbishop Hart wouldn’t report something said in confession by a child who’s been abused or by an abuser. Non-Catholics don’t understand confession, he said. Confession is sacrosanct, above the law, which is what makes it different from other forms of telling. It’s communication with God of a higher order.

Like many Catholics, I spent my childhood in fortnightly confession and frankly I don’t understand confession either. I recall the queasy light and the slightly creepy whispering of the priest in that little tardis of shame that sat on one side of the church. I got the same penance every fortnight by making up the same sins. I’d say I lied, I stole, because I couldn’t think of any actual sins. My penance was always a couple of Hail Marys.

The seal of confession, its secrecy, was important, we were told in religion class at school. A priest was hanged for a murder he didn’t commit because he wouldn’t reveal the murderer’s true identity, which he’d learned through confession. That’s how tight the seal was. It amazed us.

When I was 16, I went to confession for real. I’d been sexually abused by a Catholic high school teacher and her husband. I went to see a priest on the suggestion of one of my abusers, because I was so upset.

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MINNESOTA
Hutchinson Leader

BY JEREMY JONES jones@hutchinsonleader.com Aug 17, 2017

Glencoe Police Chief Jim Raiter confirmed Thursday morning that police are investigating an accusation of sexual abuse against the Rev. James Devorak.

Devorak was assigned to St. Pius X parish in Glencoe from 1985 to 1995, and at St. Anastasia parish in Hutchinson and St. Boniface parish of Stewart from 1995 to 2000.

According to the New Ulm Diocese, he has been accused of sexual abuse while serving in Glencoe. Raiter said he could provide no other details about the investigation.

“Police, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, and affected parishes are being notified of this allegation,” Bishop John M. LeVoir of the Diocese of New Ulm said in a statement. “Fr. Devorak is a retired priest of the Diocese of New Ulm. His last assignment in the Diocese of New Ulm ended in July 2015. From July 2015 to July 31, 2017, he was assigned within the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis as a parochial vicar.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Canary

AUGUST 17TH, 2017 Kerry-anne Mendoza

The Guardian has published a call that confidentiality rules should protect Catholics who admit to child sexual abuse in confession. While the author rightly calls on us to consider our own humanity, she neglects entirely the issue of widespread child abuse within the church. Abuse is about shame, and silence. And it’s time to break both.

The priest abuse scandal

First, we need to set the piece in the context of the priest abuse scandal. Representatives of the Roman Catholic church have engaged in child sexual abuse on an industrial scale.

The church abused children in the US, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Malta, Spain, Switzerland, Brazil, Ireland, the Dominican Republic and Australia. From local priests to cardinals, church leaders conspired to rape and sexually assault children; and protect each other (and the church) from justice. In 2012, experts advised the Vatican that there could be 100,000 victims of clerical child sexual abuse in the US alone.

Australia provided one of the most robust responses to the scandal. It launched a royal commission into both the abuse and the cover up, with extraordinary powers of subpoena. And it found that, between 1950 and 2015, 7% of Australian priests were accused of abusing children. In some orders, up to 40% of brothers had allegations of abuse against them. The commission later established a key reason that so few accusations ever made it to the police.

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

August 17, 2017 Joelle Casteix

Rita Milla had a horror story.

It was a story that no one could believe.

It was 1978. The California teenager said she was being sexually abused by seven priests from the Philippines. She was 16.

Who would believe a horrible story like that?

The abuse continued.

Then she got pregnant. One of the priests, Santiago Tamayo, urged her to have an abortion. When she wouldn’t, he and the father of the child, Father Valentine Tugade, convinced Rita’s mother to send the now-19-year-old to the Philippines, where she could have the child in secret. Rita’s mother didn’t know her daughter was pregnant.

Rita gave birth to a healthy and beautiful daughter. In 1983, Rita went public.

Milla and her family demanded answers from the Archdiocese. All hell broke loose.

Scattered priests

The priests scattered … All under the protection of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and bishops in the Philippines.

Why? Rita’s allegations had merit.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

CHRISSIE FOSTER
The Australian
August 18, 2017

This week saw the publication of the Criminal Justice report by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. It calls for sweeping change to the Catholic Church’s seal of confession.

The confessional seal can be hideous: it has been proven to be so in the case of former Catholic priest Michael McArdle and shows emphatically why change is needed.

This case is not from some far-away Third World country; it is from here in Australia, in Queensland. It is an expose of blatant criminal behaviour that can be hidden by the confessional seal — a noxious secret between a priest and a pedophile colleague that facilitates and enables heinous crimes to continue and be swept under the carpet at the expense of children, their lives and their wellbeing, all of which neither sinner nor holy forgiver give a damn about.

It is rare to obtain powerful insight into a pedophile’s private, secret confessions because the “good” priest will not tell and neither will the criminal priest … usually. That’s what makes the Mc­Ardle case gold; this one example we have needs careful examination because it exposes what happens behind the private and closed seal of the confessional for criminal child clergy rapists.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

By Michael Rezendes
Photos by Suzanne Kreiter, Globe Staff August 17, 2017

This is one story in a two-part Spotlight series. Click here to read part one.

HE CARRIED HIS DOUBTS and disappointment across miles and decades, from childhood to adulthood, and finally at the age of 48 to the kitchen table of a modest house outside of Buffalo. There, he would ask an elderly aunt and uncle to help him answer the question that had troubled him all his life: Why had his father always seemed to dislike him so much?

With his parents already dead, Jim Graham pleaded with his Aunt Kathryn and Uncle Otto to tell him the truth about his family. Finally, Kathryn unfolded a newsletter published by a Catholic religious order and slid it across the table. She jabbed a finger at a picture of a sad, balding figure wearing a priest’s clerical collar.

“Only the principals know for sure,” she said, “but this may be your father.”

Jim Graham studied the picture. Those were his eyes, his nose, his mouth. Then he skimmed the obituary of the priest, the Rev. Thomas Sullivan, a cleric who had graduated from Boston College and trained for the priesthood in Tewksbury.

If a life can have a crystallizing moment, for Jim Graham that 1993 meeting was it, discovering that his father might have been a Catholic priest, rather than John Graham, the distant man who raised him with scarcely a kind or comforting word.

Jim Graham couldn’t know in that moment that the stunning secret which had seemed his alone was not that unusual. By any reasonable measure, there are thousands of others who have strong evidence that they are the sons and daughters of Catholic priests, though most are unaware that they have so much company in their pain. In Ireland, Mexico, Poland, Paraguay, and other countries, in American cities big and small — indeed, virtually anywhere the church has a presence — the children of priests form an invisible legion of secrecy and neglect, a Spotlight Team review has found.

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MISSISSIPPI
Sun Herald

BY JEFF CLARK
jclark@sunherald.com

AUGUST 16, 2017

A former pastor at a Pearl River County church is facing jail time after pleading guilty to two sex crime charges in Hancock County.

The Sea Coast Echo reports that David Matthew Thorne, 35, of Picayune, on Monday pleaded guilty in Hancock County Circuit Court to one count of sexual battery and one count of touching a child for lustful purposes. He will be sentenced Sept. 25.

Thorne was arrested in March 2016 for molesting a 15-year-old girl in a church van while he was the youth pastor at Goodyear Baptist Church in Picayune.

He was also arrested on a charge of sexual battery, his third sex crime charge, in Pearl River County less than 24 hours after his arrest in Hancock County. The alleged crimes came under investigation after the child’s parents notified law enforcement officials.

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UNITED STATES
The Open Tabernacle: Here Comes Everybody

Posted on August 17, 2017 by Betty Clermont

The phrase Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam – For the Greater Glory of God – is the motto of the Jesuits and their founder, St. Ignatius of Loyola. The point of Jesuit Fr. Antonio Spadaro and Presbyterian pastor Marcelo Figueroa’s July 13 article in the Jesuit weekly, La Civiltà Cattolica, is the greater glory of Pope Francis. He is the “courageous” pontiff opposed to the “ecumenism of hate” formed by American “Evangelical fundamentalists and Catholic Integralists.”

Spadaro is an Italian theologian and editor of La Civiltà Cattolica, the content of which is approved by the Vatican Secretariat of State. Spadaro’s book, Cybertheology: Thinking Christianity in the Era of the Internet, was published in 2012. He built a website in the early ‘90s, then a blog, “was on Twitter in 2005 and Facebook pretty much as soon as it opened to the public,” he said in an interview.

Spadaro was contacted by Pope Francis shortly after his election. His first interview with the pope eventually took place soon after “Who am I to judge,” taken out of context, made headlines and went viral. The comment by the pope in Spadaro’s interview that “It is not necessary to talk about abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods all the time,” extracted from a very lengthy interview, also made headlines.

Spadaro did several more interviews with Pope Francis becoming his “mouthpiece” and one of his “trusted advisers.”

The Argentine Figueroa is a longtime friend of Pope Francis. The pope was not satisfied with the Spanish edition of the official Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, as directed by the Argentine Silvina Pérez, according to Vatican reporter, Sandro Magister. He wanted an edition just for Argentina to “promote direct access to [his] actions, gestures and texts,” wrote papal biographer, Austen Ivereigh.

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AUSTRALIA
The Courier-Mail

Terry Sweetman, The Courier-Mail

POLITICS is where good ideas go to die, to be crushed by raw numbers, suffocated by belief or prejudice, or left to perish in the face of expediency.

One such good idea is the recommendation by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse that priests be forced to accept the same legal responsibilities as the rest of us.

Among its wish list of 85 recommendations was that failing to report child sexual abuse be a criminal offence and there should be “no excuse, protection, nor privilege” for priests who fail to alert police because the information was received in confession.

The commission noted evidence of multiple cases in which priest penitents went unreported, unpunished, and protected.

Worse, it heard of cases where abuse disclosed by child victims was kept close to the confessional chest.

“We are satisfied that confession is a forum where Catholic children have disclosed their sexual abuse and where clergy have disclosed their abusive behaviour in order to deal with their own guilt,’’ it said.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

Joanne McCarthy
17 Aug 2017

IN October, 1995 a Hunter Catholic priest took down a short statement from a woman who had been sexually abused by a priest from when she was eight, once while he was hearing her confession.

The child sex offender priest was Denis McAlinden, an Irish cleric sent to Australia at the age of 26.

The woman told of repeated sexual abuse over three or four years.

I’ve spoken with her many times. I’ve spoken with two other McAlinden victims who were also sexually assaulted by him while in the confessional.

If you go to the Vatican website and find the Code of Canon Law it includes Canon 1387. It says that a priest who “under the pretext of confession solicits a penitent to sin against the sixth commandment” – thou shalt not commit adultery – “is to be punished . . . by suspension, prohibitions and privations”. In graver cases “he is to be dismissed from the clerical state”.

It’s accepted by some theologians that the sixth commandment covers the whole of human sexuality, and not just the strict interpretation of adultery. In other words, sexually abusing a child in the confessional could invoke Canon 1387.

Documents show retiring Maitland-Newcastle Bishop Leo Clarke, Father Brian Lucas, incoming bishop Michael Malone and the priest who took the statement had roles to play in an unsuccessful attempt to defrock McAlinden in 1995, with his “good name protected by the confidential nature of this process”.

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AUSTRALIA
Australian Jewish News

RABBI Meir Shlomo Kluwgant has resigned as principal and CEO of Melbourne’s Adass Israel School.

The AJN can reveal that Rabbi Kluwgant tendered his resignation because of concerns raised by child sexual abuse survivor Dassi Erlich, who met with the board last month.

Erlich was sexually abused by former Adass principal Malka Leifer, who was spirited out of the country by members of the Adass community in 2008 after allegations of her abuse became public.

Welcoming news of Rabbi Kluwgant’s resignation, Erlich told The AJN, “I feel heartened that I was able to speak out for the students past and present of the school and the school board heard my concerns and acted. It really gives me hope that the school is moving in the right direction and positive change is happening.”

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CANADA
Regina Leader-Post

Jennifer Ackerman, Regina Leader-Post

Conrad Weenie was diagnosed with diabetes in 1997. Now 53 years old, he has lost a leg due to complications and is close to losing another. Once that happens, he’ll go from getting around on crutches into a wheelchair.

He said the results of a recent study that show a link between hunger and malnutrition in residential schools and long-term health issues, such as obesity and diabetes, in Indigenous peoples doesn’t surprise him at all.

“My grandfather raised me … He went to he Delmas residential school and he told me stories about what they ate, the nuns and priests, they had all the good food and (the students) were just given porridge all the time,” said Weenie who attended the North Central Health Fair and BBQ on Wednesday.

“They only ate good once a year and that was Christmastime he told me. But most of the time it was just the church, the priests and the nuns, that ate all the good food and the Indians were … hungry all the time,” said Weenie.

He attended the health fair, which focused on diabetes risk awareness, after a home care worker told him about it. Hosted by Diabetes Canada at the Rainbow Youth Centre in the North Central neighbourhood, the fair provided an opportunity for residents to get a diabetes risk assessment done as well as get information about resources available to them in the community.

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CANADA
APTN National News

August 16, 2017

Shirley McLean
APTN National News

Emma Shorty still remembers her days at the Chooutla residential school and more specifically, the hunger that went along with it.

“There was hardly any food,” Shorty told APTN National News.

According to a study by the Canadian Medical Association Journal, the severe hunger and malnutrition students faced at residential schools are still causing health issues for Indigenous peoples today including diabetes, and obesity.

Co-author Ian Mosby said previous research on malnutrition in schools, along with testimony from survivors, was the basis for the report.

“What we found was what many survivors have talked about is this unending hunger,” said Mosby.

Read the CMAJ Report here: Hunger was never absent

Shorty was born on her family trap line in 1933.

At the age of four, she was taken from her family and placed in Chooutla in Carcross, Yukon.

“The food wasn’t good and they said it was because of world war two but we could have eaten better,” said Shorty.

According to the Shorty, students often had to fend for themselves to eat.

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CANADA
CBC News

By Murray Brewster, CBC News Posted: Aug 17, 2017

The Canadian military’s marching orders for chaplains who counsel perpetrators or victims of sexual misconduct is causing a crisis of conscience for some clergy, federal documents reveal.

A series of morale and welfare reports obtained by CBC News under Access to Information legislation show the issue of pastors being compelled to testify in court has become a matter of increasing unease among military clergy.

“There is concern by chaplains that they are potentially breaching the confidentiality of those receiving spiritual care,” said a March 2015 summary prepared by the military chaplain general’s office. Moreover, the report said, “the existing framework for legal assistance to chaplains does not provide legal advice for them.”

Pastors on bases along the West Coast seemed the most concerned about the ethical dilemma, and at one point they consulted with the regional prosecutor’s office to review legal issues related to chaplain confidentiality in courts martial.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philly.com

A former parochial-school teacher, whose conviction of sexually abusing a 10-year-old altar boy from Northeast Philadelphia years was thrown out amid questions about his accuser’s truthfulness, has pleaded no contest to a lesser crime, a decision that allowed him to be released from prison.

Rather than face a new trial, Bernard Shero, 54, a former teacher at St. Jerome school, pleaded no contest Monday to less serious child rape and assault charges and was sentenced to the roughly four years in prison he has already served.

In 2013, Shero was convicted in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court of rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, child endangerment, corruption of a minor, and indecent assault, and sentenced to eight to 16 years in prison. He was released Wednesday.

George Bochetto, one of Shero’s lawyers, said he was “deeply, deeply concerned with the way the prosecution took place in this matter.”

Prosecutors declined to comment on the ruling or the plea, citing ongoing litigation in related cases.

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AUSTRALIA
Bendigo Advertiser

Emma D’Agostino
@amassedmedia

17 Aug 2017

SANDHURST Bishop Les Tomlinson has defended the sanctity of confession, despite recommendations to prioritise children’s safety from sexual abuse.

The bishop’s comments were prompted by a report by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

One of its 85 recommendations was to enforce failure to report offences for information about child sexual abuse that was disclosed during, or in connection with, religious confession.

“There should be no excuse, protection nor privilege in relation to religious confessions for the failure to report offence,” the report states.

The writers said they understood the significance of confession. But they said they had heard evidence of confessions relating to child sexual abuse that were not reported to police, and resulted in re-offending.

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ROME
Christian Today

James Macintyre 17 August 2017

Pope Francis has branded the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests an ‘absolute monstrosity’ and pledged action against the perpetrators as well as bishops and cardinals who have protected them.

The Pope made the comments in the foreword of a new book entitled Father, I Forgive You: Abused But Not Broken, written by a Swiss man, Daniel Pittet, who was first raped by a priest when he was eight years old.

Pope Francis, whose repeated promises of zero tolerance have been criticised by victims who say the Vatican needs to do much more, called sexual abuse ‘an absolute monstrosity, a terrible sin that contradicts everything that the Church teaches’.

The Pope’s foreword was published on Wednesday by the German daily newspaper Bild.

Francis said that the fate of abused children, especially those who had taken their own lives, weighed on his soul.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Metro

Described by a Philadelphia grand jury in 2005 as one of the most notorious serial abusers in Philadelphia, Catholic priest Rev. James J. Brzyski was never charged. Now, a man who says he was one of his victims is speaking out.

John-Michael Delaney, 46, of Sevierville, Tennessee, grew up in the Fox Chase section of Northeast Philly and attended St. Cecilia’s Catholic school where he lived with his mother and stepfather, as well as his little sister, who is now a Philadelphia police detective.

“My earliest memory of church was my first confession. I became an altar boy. Father James J. Bryzski was the head of the altar boys. That’s when the abuse started,” said Delaney. “I was raped by the time I was 13. He befriended my family and was at our house a lot inviting us to the rectory all while he was molesting me and at least a dozen other boys in St. Cecilia’s.”

This shocking and detailed information is told in graphic detail in the 2005 Philadelphia grand jury report. Delaney was identified as “Sean” in the report.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Review

STEPHEN HUBA | Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2017

A group of Catholic lay people and clergy is calling on Greensburg Bishop Edward C. Malesic and other church hierarchs to acknowledge that the clergy sexual abuse scandal is feeding the opioid epidemic.

“He’s got to take some responsibility,” said Tom Venditti, founder of Faithful Catholics Against Pedophilia.

Venditti of Bolivar said he founded FCAP earlier this year to help victims of clergy sexual abuse and encourage them to stay in the Catholic Church.

The group held a news conference Wednesday prior to the last of seven Summer Diocesan Drug Education and Prayer Service Evenings led by Malesic. The final event was held at St. Thomas More University Parish in Indiana Borough.

Venditti said he wanted to address “Malesic’s failure to acknowledge clerical sexual abuse as a doorway to heroin abuse and death.”

“We’re here specifically because one of the things you’re not going to hear tonight … is that the majority of victims of clergy sexual abuse become addicts, whether it’s to alcohol or heroin or other hard drugs,” he said.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Aug 17, 2017
by Peter Feuerherd

Emboldened by Pope Francis, church reformers are endorsing a call by the Brazilian bishops for a Year of the Laity, expanded to include conferences and observances around the world from November of this year until November 2018.

The meetings will focus on why “the people of God need to be treated equally in the church” and “the people taking the Gospel out into the world,” Rene Reid, director of Catholic Church Reform International, told NCR.

Groups lining up in support of the Year of the Laity include Catholic Church Reform International as well as Call to Action, she said. Participants from those groups will be urging an increased role for the laity in the church. They will promote lay participation in the selection of bishops, an end to mandatory celibacy for clergy and openness to allowing the Eucharist for divorced and remarried Catholics as well as the LGBTQ community.

Reid said the impetus for the movement comes from Pope Francis. “He wants the people of God to step up and take a leadership role, and we are,” she said.

Catholic Church Reform International began in 2013, after Reid took a pilgrimage to Spain, walking the Camino de Santiago and reflecting upon Pope Francis’ call for change in the church. A writer, former religious and director of religious education, Reid, based in Reno, Nevada, was inspired to connect church reform groups around the world. Thanks to the internet, she has made extensive connections.

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MASSACHUSETTS
CBS Boston

BOSTON (CBS) – One of the Boston Globe reporters made famous in the movie “Spotlight” has a new bombshell story on the Catholic Church – thousands of people claim they were fathered by priests.

Globe Spotlight reporter Michael Rezendes appeared on CBS This Morning Wednesday to discuss the first part of his report, “Children of Catholic Priests Live with Secrets and Sorrow.”

“We know there are many more than people assume, probably in the thousands. Just recently, about two years ago, a son of a priest in Ireland set up a website called Coping International and he’s heard from scores of people from all over the world who are the sons and daughters of Catholic priests,” Rezendes said.

Rezenedes first heard from a man named Jim Graham, who’s profiled in the Globe story.

“Jim spent many years tracking down evidence that a priest was his father. I was impressed with what he suffered, the pain he endured, and I was impressed with his detective work, but still it was just one person and it wasn’t until Vincent Doyle called me and gave me the information he collected through his website that I realized this was a systemic situation and deserved my full attention,” Rezendes said.

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UNITED KINGDOM
International Business Times

By William Watkinson
August 16, 2017

A south London pastor who blindfolded children then hit them with belts and wires while shouting “Jesus” at them has been spared jail.

Croydon Crown Court heard how Rose Amadasun, from Beauchamp Road, South Norwood,
The investigating detective said that he came up against “resistance” from the congregation “as they closed ranks to protect their religious leader” before she was convicted.

An investigation was triggered after two members of the public said they had witnessed the 49-year-old hitting children with a belt while shouting “Jesus” aggressively at them.

It was then that detectives from the Metropolitan Police’s Child Abuse and Sexual Offences Command began their investigation.

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JAMAICA
Loop

A pastor and businessman from the Corporate Area has been charged with five sexual offences in relation to a minor.

The accused is 55-year-old Kenneth Blake of a Kingston address.

Officers from the Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse (CISOCA) charged the minister with rape, forcible abduction, sexual touching of a child, sexual intercourse with a person under age 16, and grievous sexual assault.

The allegations are that he had repeated sexual relations with an underage girl between 2015 and 2017.

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TEXAS
CBS DFW

NORTH RICHLAND HILLS (CBSDFW.COM) – Police have arrested a 52-year-old man for sexually abusing two women when they were children.

Jose Francisco Bernal was taken into custody at his home in the 7200 block of Deville Drive in North Richland Hills and charged with two counts of Continuous Sexual Abuse of a Child.

The charges were the result of a criminal investigation where two adult females made outcries of numerous sexual abuse incidents at the hands of Bernal.

The women were children living in the city of Hurst between the years of 2007 and 2013 when they met Bernal. He was their pastor at the Tabernaculo De Vida Pentecostal Church on W. Dickson Street in Fort Worth.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
San Francisco Chronicle

ANTHONY IZAGUIRRE, ASSOCIATED PRESS
August 16, 2017

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A former Catholic school teacher convicted of raping a child was released more than a decade early from prison on Wednesday after a judge threw out his conviction amid questions about his accuser’s truthfulness.

Rather than face a new trial, however, Bernard Shero, 54, pleaded no contest on Monday to less serious child rape and assault charges and was sentenced to the roughly four years in prison he’s already served. He originally was sentenced in 2013 to up to 16 years.

The accuser had helped to convict three other church officials, including a monsignor who became the first to be criminally charged for mishandling complaints about sexual abuse by priests.

Retired detective Joseph Walsh, who had worked on the case for the district attorney’s office, told prosecutors several times that he could not corroborate the accuser’s story. But the detective said they dismissed him, with one assistant district attorney going so far as to tell him “you’re killing my case,” according to a court filing.

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MASSACHUSETTS
CBS This Morning

[with video]

The Boston Globe’s Spotlight team is unveiling a report on what it calls a worldwide and “systemic problem” within the Catholic Church: priests fathering illegitimate children.

Reporter Michael Rezendes, who was depicted in the 2015 Oscar-winning movie “Spotlight,” writes thousands of people across the world – “in Ireland, Mexico, Poland, Paraguay, and other countries, in American cities big and small” – have “strong evidence that they are the sons and daughters of Catholic priests.” The children say they’re often neglected or shamed into silence.

Here’s an excerpt from Rezendes’ report:

He carried his doubts and disappointment across miles and decades, from childhood to adulthood, and finally at the age of 48 to the kitchen table of a modest house outside of Buffalo. There, he would ask an elderly aunt and uncle to help him answer the question that had troubled him all his life: Why had his father always seemed to dislike him so much?

With his parents already dead, Jim Graham pleaded with his Aunt Kathryn and Uncle Otto to tell him the truth about his family. Finally, Kathryn unfolded a newsletter published by a Catholic religious order and slid it across the table. She jabbed a finger at a picture of a sad, balding figure wearing a priest’s clerical collar.

“Only the principals know for sure,” she said, “but this may be your father.”

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

Read Cardinal O’Malley’s statement on children of priests

Children of Catholic priests live with secrets and sorrow

By Michael Rezendes, Globe Staff August 16, 2017

Their father was a priest who left their mother to die

James Perry was watching the news for snow cancellations on a December evening back in 2002, when a story unexpectedly caught his eye. The Boston Archdiocese had released records showing that a local priest had fathered two children and later abandoned their mother to die, after she overdosed on sleeping pills.

The woman had lived in Needham, just like Perry’s mother. And she died in 1973, the same year as Rita Perry. Perhaps most telling, the TV reporter said the woman had undergone a lobotomy — a procedure similar to one that Perry’s mother had undergone.

That’s how James and Emily Perry discovered their real father was not the man who raised them, but the Rev. James D. Foley, a deeply troubled priest who admitted in an interview with the Globe to his “ugly and tragic” involvement with Rita Perry. What’s more, church records show that Cardinal Bernard Law, Boston’s former archbishop, allowed him to remain in ministry for nine years after he admitted to fathering the children and playing a role in their mother’s death.

“The thing that stuck out to me when I read the documents is, what is the responsibility to the children? Anything?” said Emily Perry, who was 3 years old and sleeping in an upstairs bedroom the night of her mother’s death.

The only comfort for the siblings was the revelation that their mother had not deliberately taken her own life, abandoning her children.

“My mom didn’t commit suicide on purpose,” said Emily Perry. “This idiot was there and didn’t do anything about it.”

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IRELAND/ARGENTINA
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

Pope Francis has phoned a man in Argentina following reports the man was sexually abused by an Irish priest who was chaplain at an elite Christian Brothers’ school in Buenos Aires.

Allegations have also been made against an Irish Christian Brother who served there.

Twenty other former pupils have made similar abuse allegations against the priest and the brother at the school, while at least four former pupils have given media in Argentina accounts of witnessing or suffering abuse there.

Both alleged abusers are deceased but their names are known to The Irish Times.

Argentina’s president Mauricio Macri is a past pupil of the same school, the Colegio Cardenal Newman, opened by the Irish Christian Brothers in 1948.

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AUSTRALIA
The New Daily

Lucie Morris-Marr

It’s little wonder an alarming tantrum by the Archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart, has gone global this week.

The president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference said protections for confession should be respected – even if details of child abuse are raised.

The long-time supporter and friend of Cardinal George Pell said he would rather go to jail than break the holy “seal” of confession.

His comments came after the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse detailed 85 proposed sweeping changes to the law in a report – including the recommendation that clergy who failed to report information about child abuse would face criminal charges.

Instead of accepting or even considering this change, Archbishop Hart immediately retorted that confession was a “fundamental part of the freedom of religion”.

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MONTANA
Great Falls Tribune

Seaborn Larson, slarson@greatfallstribune.com

HAYS – For decades, even lifetimes, the Catholic Church refused to turn in priests with known pasts of sexually abusing children, women and men. The story is known in as many corners of the world as the Catholic Church exists, including Montana’s two dioceses.

In the Pacific Northwest, however, the Catholic Church and the Jesuit Order have been accused of using Indian Reservations as their “dumping grounds” for the worst recidivist priests accused of sexually abusing children throughout the 1900s. Here, church officials reportedly determined predatory priests could remain undetected. Here, the church that acted as an anchor for the communities, and the victims lived with the abuse in silence.

Attorney Vito de la Cruz said Montana reservations were no different: They were the church’s rural and remote sites for hiding predatory priests. Cruz’s Seattle law firm has represented victims from Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Idaho and Montana, and he said the systematic issue is told from church documents revealed in cases already settled, and the active one against the Great Falls-Billings Diocese.

“I think the evidence points to that,” Cruz told the Tribune. “Those who had problems in respect to abusing kids, it’s easy to hide in the reservations; people won’t complain much, it’s isolated there, and there are massively disproportionate balances of power.”

In the case against the Great Falls-Billings Diocese, a majority of those who have come forward with names and locations were allegedly abused on the remote Indian reservations. Off the reservations, victims who have come forward came largely from the former Catholic orphanage in Great Falls, two parishes in Billings and far flung communities in eastern Montana.

In many instances, the church has boosted conditions in reservation towns, but with the past practice of splitting Indian children from their parents to boarding schools often operated by the church, the history of Catholicism on the Montana reservations is complicated at best. Fort Belknap Tribal President Mark Azure previously knew about the abuse by priests, but was furious to learn of the church’s designs to continuously funnel bad priests to the reservation during the 1900s, a recently added layer to a complicated history.

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MONTANA
Great Falls Tribune

Seaborn Larson, slarson@greatfallstribune.com

HAYS – For decades, even lifetimes, the Catholic Church refused to turn in priests with known pasts of sexually abusing children, women and men. The story is known in as many corners of the world as the Catholic Church exists, including Montana’s two dioceses.

In the Pacific Northwest, however, the Catholic Church and the Jesuit Order have been accused of using Indian Reservations as their “dumping grounds” for the worst recidivist priests accused of sexually abusing children throughout the 1900s. Here, church officials reportedly determined predatory priests could remain undetected. Here, the church that acted as an anchor for the communities, and the victims lived with the abuse in silence.

Attorney Vito de la Cruz said Montana reservations were no different: They were the church’s rural and remote sites for hiding predatory priests. Cruz’s Seattle law firm has represented victims from Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Idaho and Montana, and he said the systematic issue is told from church documents revealed in cases already settled, and the active one against the Great Falls-Billings Diocese.

“I think the evidence points to that,” Cruz told the Tribune. “Those who had problems in respect to abusing kids, it’s easy to hide in the reservations; people won’t complain much, it’s isolated there, and there are massively disproportionate balances of power.”

In the case against the Great Falls-Billings Diocese, a majority of those who have come forward with names and locations were allegedly abused on the remote Indian reservations. Off the reservations, victims who have come forward came largely from the former Catholic orphanage in Great Falls, two parishes in Billings and far flung communities in eastern Montana.

In many instances, the church has boosted conditions in reservation towns, but with the past practice of splitting Indian children from their parents to boarding schools often operated by the church, the history of Catholicism on the Montana reservations is complicated at best. Fort Belknap Tribal President Mark Azure previously knew about the abuse by priests, but was furious to learn of the church’s designs to continuously funnel bad priests to the reservation during the 1900s, a recently added layer to a complicated history.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

Children of Catholic priests live with secrets and sorrow

AUGUST 16, 2017

Read the statement from Cardinal Sean O’Malley regarding the Boston Globe Spotlight story about children of Catholic priests.

“The gift of life must be protected and cared for in any and all circumstances. Every child is a precious gift from God, deserving the respect accorded to all people.

At their ordination, Catholic priests make a promise of celibacy, a commitment to the Church and the people they serve. If a priest fathers a child, he has a moral obligation to step aside from ministry and provide for the care and needs of the mother and the child. In such a moment, their welfare is the highest priority.

In 2016 ‘The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors’ received correspondence regarding the children or priests. After careful consideration of this important issue, it was judged to be beyond the Commission’s mandate. The Commission functions as an advisory body to the Holy Father, proposing norms and practices for protecting minors from sexual abuse. In particular, the Commission seeks to assist dioceses and religious orders throughout the world as they implement education and training programs for the prevention of sexual abuse. It is not within the charge of the Commission to become involved with individual cases.

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GERMANY
Premium Times

Pope Francis on Wednesday asked for forgiveness from the families of child sex abuse victims who had killed themselves as a result of their trauma.

He equally commended one survivor for telling his story.

In comments published in German tabloid Bild, the pope described Daniel Pittet’s memoir “Father, I Forgive You’’ as a testament to “how deeply embedded evil can be in the heart of a servant of the church.’’

Pittet was subjected to repeated rape and sexual abuse by a Capuchin friar as a child.
Today, he is a priest and campaigns against paedophilia in the Catholic Church.

The pontiff expressed his “love and pain’’ to families who had lost abused loved ones to suicide, asking them “with full humility for forgiveness.’’

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DEUTSCHLAND
Bild

[Pope begs abuse victims for forgiveness.Daniel Pittet was just eight years old when he was raped by a Capuchin monk.Over the hell of his childhood and his path of liberation and forgiveness, the 58-year-old has written a book that makes one speechless. The special thing: No less than Pope Francis (80) has encouraged him. Moreover, in a preface, the Holy Father begs forgiveness for the crimes of priests. BILD prints it exclusively.]

Daniel Pittet war gerade acht Jahre alt, als er von einem Kapuzinermönch vergewaltigt und zu Porno-Aufnahmen gezwungen wurde. Über die Hölle seiner Kindheit und seinen Weg der Befreiung und Vergebung hat der heute 58-Jährige ein Buch geschrieben, das sprachlos macht. Das Besondere: Kein Geringerer als Papst Franziskus (80) hat ihn dazu ermutigt. Mehr noch: In einem Vorwort bittet der Heilige Vater um Vergebung für die Verbrechen von Priestern. BILD druckt es exklusiv.

★★★

Es ist eine große Herausforderung für die Opfer pädophiler Gewalt, das Wort zu ergreifen und davon zu berichten, was sie aushalten mussten, zu beschreiben, wie die traumatischen Erlebnisse von einst noch Jahre später sie quälen.

Aus diesem Grund ist das Zeugnis von Daniel Pittet so notwendig, so kostbar und so mutig. Ich habe Daniel Pittet im Jahr 2015, im Jahr des geweihten Lebens, im Vatikan kennengelernt.

Daniel war damals mit großem Eifer dabei, ein Buch mit dem Titel „Lieben heißt alles geben“ zu verbreiten. Für das Buch wurden Zeugnisse von religiösen Männern und Frauen, Priestern und Ordensleuten zusammengetragen.

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GERMANY
US News

By Andrea Shalal

BERLIN (Reuters) – Pope Francis – in comments in the foreword of a new book – has branded sexual abuse of children by Roman Catholic priests a “monstrosity” and pledged action against perpetrators and bishops who protected them.

The book titled “Father, I Forgive You: Abused But Not Broken” was written by Swiss man Daniel Pittet, 58, who was first raped by a priest when he was eight years old.

Francis, whose repeated promises of zero tolerance have been criticized by victims who say the Vatican needs to do much more, called sexual abuse “an absolute monstrosity, a terrible sin that contradicts everything that the Church teaches”.

The foreword was published on Wednesday by the mass circulation German daily Bild.

Francis said the fate of abused children weighed on his soul, especially those who had taken their own lives.

“We will counter those priests who betrayed their calling with the most strenuous measures. This also applies to the bishops and cardinals who protected these priests – as happened repeatedly in the past,” the pope wrote.

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NEW YORK
News 12

[with video]

WEST NYACK –
A News 12 investigation has revealed a shocking legal loophole that could allow registered sex offenders to work as counselors at children’s camps.

The Turn to Tara investigation revealed that if a child attends a camp that is focused on a single recreational program like baseball, ballet or basketball, for example, they could be at risk due to an outdated New York state law.

Single-purpose camps are not regulated despite their growing popularity. This means that the camps are not legally required to check counselors against the sex offender registry the same way that traditional and sleepaway camps are. Regular camps are also subjected to frequent Health Department inspections, staffing ratios and minimum age requirements for counselors.

Sen. David Carlucci has introduced legislation that would legally hold single-purpose camps to the same standards as all the others, which would include background checks on all employees.

“We have a sex offender registry for good reason. We want to make sure they are not around our kids,” says Carlucci.

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UNITED KINGDOM
This is London

Riley Krause

A South Norwood pastor who would blindfold children before hitting them with belts and wires has avoided jail.

Rose Amadasun, 49, of Beauchamp Road, was sentenced to 16 months’ imprisonment, suspended for 18 months at Croydon Crown Court on August 9.

She had admitted five counts of child cruelty at a previous hearing.

On Saturday, August 2, 2015 police were called by the manager of South Norwood Leisure Centre stating that two members of the public had informed her they had witnessed the female leader of a church group hitting children with a belt.

Officers spoke to the members of the public who stated they had seen a group of children being assaulted by a woman with a belt and shouting “Jesus” as she did so.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

16 August, 2017

Two new research reports, released by the Royal Commission, suggest that a significant proportion of reports to police of child sexual abuse in institutional settings involved another child as the person of interest.

The research reports, Child sexual abuse in Australian institutional contexts 2008-13: Findings from administrative data and the follow-up study Child sexual abuse in institutional contexts: The reliability of police data, nature and allegations reported to police, and factors driving reporting rates were released today.

Prepared by researchers from the University of South Australia’s Australian Centre for Child Protection and the University of New South Wales’ Social Policy Research Centre, the reports explore the nature and extent of child sexual abuse in contemporary institutional settings.

The reports are based on administrative data from a range of sources including police and education departments.

The research found that police data was the most useful source of information to explore the nature and extent of child sexual abuse in institutional contexts across states and territories.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

August 16, 2017

JACK THE INSIDER
ColumnistCanberra
@JacktheInsider

Gerald Ridsdale, the former Ballarat priest has pleaded guilty to a further 20 offences against 11 victims and his conviction formally handed down.

On the basis of convictions, numbers of victims and number of offences, Ridsdale is the worst sex offender in this country’s history. While Ridsdale’s defence team laughably called for the prospect of parole, he must die in jail.

I read a copy of one man’s victim impact statement over the weekend. It made me weep. It was no surprise that, when he delivered it to the court yesterday, County Court Judge Irene Lawson also broke down in tears. The court adjourned briefly while the judge composed herself. In all ten of the 11 victims in this round of prosecutions provided statements, detailing lives in disarray, filled with emotional, lifelong pain, surviving rather than living.

Despite having their moments in court, the mystical, magical word ‘closure’ and all it connotes continues to elude them.

The obvious question is how did a pedophile priest, active for thirty years or more, with more than 60 victims having now come forward, escape justice for so long? Ridsdale had been offending against children from the moment he became a priest in 1962. He was first convicted of child sex offending in 1993.

The answer, in part, lies in the conduct of the Ballarat diocese under Bishop Mulkearns and his predecessor, Bishop James O’Collins. These senior figures within the Church, effectively the chief executive officers of the Ballarat diocese were aware of Ridsdale’s offending and merely shuffled him around the diocese to new parishes and new groups of children.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

The Irish Times View

Ireland received a “could do better” report from the United Nations Committee Against Torture, following detailed hearings in Geneva last July. Concern was expressed about the limited nature of an investigation into Magdalene laundries, in spite of recommendations made by the committee in 2011. And the authors worried that a similar approach was being taken in relation to the operation of mother and baby homes.

On a positive note, the committee welcomed Government efforts to support those who were abused in residential care and it regarded the Citizens’ Assembly as a creative initiative. On improving accountability and transparency, it identified the Protected Disclosures Act as important.

The glass was less than half-full, however, in relation to policing and prisons. In view of the internal problems besetting the Garda Síochána; funding difficulties and the intractable nature of prison reform, that does not surprise. But there was positive news there too. Efforts to end “slopping out” in prisons were praised and the report recognised “significant progress” was being made elsewhere. However, it recommended that solitary confinement should only be used as punishment in extreme cases and never for juveniles. It proposed that “appropriate facilities” should be provided for asylum seekers and called for a fundamental review of the prison healthcare system; an increase in staff numbers and greater funding and independence for the Inspector of Prisons.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Rhiannon Shine

A Tasmanian survivor of clergy abuse is demanding answers after his friend, a fellow victim, suicided before disciplinary action was taken against a senior Anglican Church figure.

Beyond Abuse spokesman and survivor Steve Fisher said his friend, a victim of convicted paedophile priest Louis Daniels, took his own life last week.

Mr Fisher said his friend’s death increased frustration over the slow progress of an internal review into findings involving retired Tasmanian bishop Philip Newell.

Earlier this year the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse released a report that referred to evidence Newell was made aware in 1987 that now-convicted paedophile Daniels had sexually abused three boys.

Bishop Newell allowed Daniels to stay in the church and subsequently promoted him to a high-ranking position on the basis he amended his life.

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ARGENTINIEN
euro news

[More than 20 former students of the Catholic private school Cardenal Newman in the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires have gone public with accusations of sexual abuse by the clergy.]

Mehr als 20 ehemalige Schüler der katholischen Privatschule Cardenal Newman in der argentinischen Hauptstadt Buenos Aires sind mit Vorwürfen des sexuellen Missbrauchs durch den Klerus an die Öffentlichkeit gegangen.

Einer der ersten, der offen darüber sprach, ist Rufino Varela. Er war zwölf, als er einem Priester von sexuellem Missbrauch zu Hause erzählten wollte.

Varela sagt: “Ich habe also angefangen, Pater Alfredo davon zu berichten, was mir ein Bekannter zu Hause antat. Doch der Pater sagte, ich sollte meine Hose und Unterhose ausziehen und mich auf sein Bett legen, mit dem Gesicht nach unten. Er legte ein Kissen über meinen Kopf, zuerst schlug er mich mit einem Gürtel auf den Hintern, dann begann er, mich anzufassen.” Danach habe Pater Alfredo ihm Süßigkeiten gegeben und gesagt, was geschehen sei, müsse ein Geheimnis bleiben.

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CHILE
Spiegel

[The boys were raped, the girls beaten, opponents of the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet were tortured and killed: The site of the German secret settlement Colonia Dignidad was a place of brutal crimes. In 2005 the founder of the sect, Paul Schäfer, had been arrested in Argentina. In 2010, he died in prison. Other leaders denounced Chilean judges as long-term imprisonment in recent years.]

Von Martin Knobbe

Die Jungen wurden vergewaltigt, die Mädchen geschlagen, Gegner des chilenischen Diktators Augusto Pinochet wurden gefoltert und getötet: Das Gelände der deutschen Sektensiedlung Colonia Dignidad war ein Ort brutaler Verbrechen. 2005 war der Gründer der Sekte, Paul Schäfer, in Argentinien festgenommen worden, 2010 starb er im Gefängnis. Andere Führungsmitglieder verurteilten chilenische Richter in den vergangenen Jahren zu langen Freiheitsstrafen.

Nun hat auch das Landgericht Krefeld den Weg für eine Bestrafung eines der Täter bereitet: Es entschied, dass eine in Chile verhängte Freiheitsstrafe gegen den langjährigen Sektenarzt Hartmut Hopp in Deutschland vollstreckt werden kann. Hopp war bereits im November 2004 in Chile wegen Beihilfe zu sexuellem Missbrauch und Vergewaltigung in mehreren Fällen zu fünf Jahren und einem Tag Gefängnis verurteilt worden. Im Januar 2013 hatte der Oberste Gerichtshof in Santiago de Chile das Urteil bestätigt. Da aber lebte Hopp mit seiner Frau Dorothea, einst Krankenschwester der Siedlung, schon längst unbehelligt in Krefeld. Er hatte sich dem Gefängnis 2011 durch eine schnelle Flucht entzogen.

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ARIZONA
Salt Lake Tribune

By Felicia Fonseca | The Associated Press

Flagstaff, Ariz. • The number of lawsuits alleging Mormon church leaders failed to protect children from sexual abuse has grown to include two more Navajos and a member of the Crow Tribe.

Thousands of American Indian children, most of whom were Navajo, participated in a now-defunct church-run foster program from the late 1940s until around 2000. The program was meant to give children educational opportunities that didn’t exist on the reservations.

The lawsuits contend certain foster families harmed children.

One of the latest Navajo plaintiffs, identified as A.H., said at a news conference Tuesday in Phoenix that she told her local lay bishop about the abuse by her foster father but was told to keep quiet and that it would be handled.

“Understand that you are not alone. It is not your fault,” she wrote in a statement. “The shame is not yours. Rather, the shame belongs to those who abused, as well as those who allowed the abuse to happen.”

The latest three lawsuits were filed in Navajo Nation court and Washington state. Five others have been filed since 2016 on behalf of Navajo tribal members, seeking monetary damages, written apologies and a guarantee that Mormon leaders will report suspected abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Andrew West for The Religion and Ethics Report

The senior Australian businesswoman appointed to supervise the Catholic Church’s response to the sexual abuse crisis says she is “pessimistic” about the Church’s willingness to reform.

Elizabeth Proust, the head of the Church’s own Truth, Justice and Healing Council, fears the institution will emerge from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse only “partially cleansed and unreconstructed”.

“I fear there’s a view that once the royal commission reports, and the publicity around what will be a fairly dire report all dies down, that life will go back to what it was,” Ms Proust told The Religion and Ethics Report.

“I hope I’m wrong. I’d like to think that the possibility for real transformation of the Church exists, but it’s an institution that’s been very slow to change on a whole range of issues.”

She wants the Church to establish permanent and independent protocols to deal with future cases of abuse.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

Read Cardinal O’Malley’s statement on children of priests

By Michael Rezendes
Photos by Suzanne Kreiter | Videos by Emily Zendt, Globe Staff August 16, 2017

This is the first of a two part Spotlight series.

HE CARRIED HIS DOUBTS and disappointment across miles and decades, from childhood to adulthood, and finally at the age of 48 to the kitchen table of a modest house outside of Buffalo. There, he would ask an elderly aunt and uncle to help him answer the question that had troubled him all his life: Why had his father always seemed to dislike him so much?

With his parents already dead, Jim Graham pleaded with his Aunt Kathryn and Uncle Otto to tell him the truth about his family. Finally, Kathryn unfolded a newsletter published by a Catholic religious order and slid it across the table. She jabbed a finger at a picture of a sad, balding figure wearing a priest’s clerical collar.

“Only the principals know for sure,” she said, “but this may be your father.”

Jim Graham studied the picture. Those were his eyes, his nose, his mouth. Then he skimmed the obituary of the priest, the Rev. Thomas Sullivan, a cleric who had graduated from Boston College and trained for the priesthood in Tewksbury.

If a life can have a crystallizing moment, for Jim Graham that 1993 meeting was it, discovering that his father might have been a Catholic priest, rather than John Graham, the distant man who raised him with scarcely a kind or comforting word.

Jim Graham couldn’t know in that moment that the stunning secret which had seemed his alone was not that unusual. By any reasonable measure, there are thousands of others who have strong evidence that they are the sons and daughters of Catholic priests, though most are unaware that they have so much company in their pain. In Ireland, Mexico, Poland, Paraguay, and other countries, in American cities big and small — indeed, virtually anywhere the church has a presence — the children of priests form an invisible legion of secrecy and neglect, a Spotlight Team review has found.

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AUSTRALIA
The Standard

Adam Cooper
16 Aug 2017

Notorious paedophile priest Gerard Ridsdale has served enough time in prison, his Legal Aid defence lawyer says.

The claim comes despite Ridsdale admitting this week that he sexually abused 12 more children while a priest in regional Victoria.

The 83-year-old has now pleaded guilty over the course of five court cases to abusing 64 children.

He has been in jail since 1994, serving an effective total sentence of 28 years.

On Tuesday he pleaded guilty to 23 charges, including rape and buggery, for sexual assaults against 11 boys and a girl between 1962 and 1988 while he was a priest in Ballarat, Mildura, Horsham, Edenhope and other locations.

County Court judge Irene Lawson must now decide whether to add to Ridsdale’s existing sentence, under which his earliest possible release would be April 2019, when he will be eligible for parole. If he served his current full term he would be due for release in 2022.

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MONTANA
Great Falls Tribune

Seaborn Larson, slarson@greatfallstribune.com Aug. 15, 2017

The Great Falls-Billings Diocese this month is working through the claim review and settlement process with victims alleging sexual abuse and their attorneys. Church officials believe the settlement won’t directly affect the parishes, although some are waiting to believe it until the final settlement amount is announced.

Since the deadline to file a claim in the case, 86 people have come forward to enter claims of sexual abuse by priests, nuns and brothers, according to Vito de la Cruz, a Seattle attorney representing 38 of them. The dates of abuse range from 1947 to 1994. Attorneys for the victims say the Great Falls-Billings Diocese is the 15th to file for bankruptcy en route to settling with sexual abuse victims.

Bishop Michael Warfel said before negotiations that the settlement will impose a loss of resources, and already has.

“I used to have a person staffed in the office of worship, I don’t anymore, and I’m not planning on hiring anyone right now for that position. That would be an example,” Warfel said. “There would be a curtailing of some [services], realistically, until we get back on our feet.”

The Great Falls-Billings Diocese covers approximately 94,158 square miles, almost 64 percent of the state. The region contains approximately 400,000 people, 35,000 of them members of Catholic parishes spread throughout the region.

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MEXICO
National Catholic Register

According to the archdiocese, Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera instructed his episcopal vicars ‘immediately to notify the appropriate authorities.’

CNA/EWTN News

MEXICO CITY — The Archdiocese of Mexico has countered claims made by two former priests that Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera covered up the actions of pedophile priests, calling the allegations an “orchestrated farce.”

The communications office of the Mexico City Archdiocese reported that Cardinal Rivera had spoken to a Public Ministry official July 26 in response to the June 2 complaint filed by Alberto Athié and José Barba.

Athié and Barba filed their complaint with the Attorney General of the Republic’s Office, accusing Cardinal Rivera of the alleged cover-up of 15 pedophile priests. In the 1990s, Athié had brought allegations against Father Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legion of Christ. Father Maciel was later removed from public ministry after it was verified he had committed sexual abuse and fathered several children.

The Archdiocese of Mexico indicated that Athié and Barba based their charges on a Dec. 19, 2016, news brief published in El Universal “in which a meeting was made known that the cardinal had with journalists where the archbishop mentioned that during his administration as head of the Primatial Archdiocese of Mexico he had sanctioned 15 priests — not all for the crime of pederasty, but with other illicit acts classified in canon law.”

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NORTH DAKOTA
News-Monitor

by Frank Stanko franks@wahpetondailynews.com Aug 9, 2017

The State’s Attorney’s Office of Richland County, North Dakota, will not be bringing criminal charges against the Rev. Thomas Feltman, pastor of two Richland County parishes. An investigation by the Richland County Sheriff’s Office was launched regarding concerns over Feltman’s interaction with youth following an incident reported in Wyndmere, North Dakota, in May 2017.

In a Friday, July 28 statement, State’s Attorney Ron McBeth said it was reported that as Feltman would go to hug young women, his hand would allegedly touch the women on the side of their breast or on their behind.

“Although this made the girls feel uncomfortable and this touching was socially inappropriate, there is no evidence the touch was done by Rev. Feltman for sexual reasons, which would be necessary in order to prove an element of a sex offense crime,” McBeth continued. “The State’s Attorney’s Office, by way of its prosecutorial discretion, has declined to charge Feltman with any crime based on that evidence.”

Prior to the investigation, Feltman was pastor at St. John the Baptist’s Catholic Church, Wyndmere and St. Arnold’s Catholic Church, Milnor. He was placed on paid administrative leave from both parishes by the Diocese of Fargo.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Somerset Live

BY DANIEL MUMBY
15 AUG 2017

A retired priest who was cleared of sexual assault has spoken out about his experience for the first time.

The Reverend Dr Roy Catchpole was arrested at his home in Sherborne in 2014 after being accused of sexually assaulting a female member of his congregation.

After two trials, he was “set free as an innocent, falsely accused person”. He was subsequently offered an apology by Dorset Police and awarded costs.

Now the retired reverend, 71, has spoken out about how the legal process has affected him and his family, and what should be done to protect people who are wrongfully accused of sex crimes.

Following his arrest in 2014, he spent two years going through the Dorset courts.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
The Irish News

ALLISON MORRIS
15 August, 2017

The funeral of west Belfast community stalwart John Leathem will take place today, leaving from his Divis flats home where he passed away after a battle with cancer on Saturday.

A former chairman of the Divis Tower Falls Residents’ Association, he had told friends that he did not want to spend his final days in the hospice but instead chose to die in his flat on the 19th floor of the tower block surrounded by family and friends.

The 59-year-old, who spent much of his childhood in Catholic Church run care homes gave evidence to the Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry about his time in Nazareth Lodge where he was subjected to horrific abuse.

He was also credited with being one of the first people to speak out about the stigma and lasting impact of church child abuse and the the depression and self harm that blighted his late teens and early 20s as a result.

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AUSTRALIA
Newsweek

BY SOFIA LOTTO PERSIO ON 8/15/17

An Australian court heard harrowing details of historic child abuse perpetrated by former priest Gerald Ridsdale, one of Australia’s most notorious pedophiles.

Eighty-three-year-old Ridsdale pleaded guilty to 23 charges Tuesday, including two counts of rape and one of buggery, for abusing 12 children, aged six to 13, between 1962 and 1988 in the Victoria state city of Ballarat and the surrounding area.

Ballarat is considered to be one of Australia’s worst affected areas for incidents of sexual abuse by Catholic priests. It is named in Vatican Cardinal George Pell’s charges of historic sexual abuse as he served in the diocese first as an assistant parish priest in 1972 and later, between 1973 and 1984, as an episcopal vicar. Pell pleased not guilty in a first hearing at a Melbourne magistrate’s court in July and will return to court in October.

One of Ridsdale’s victims was a girl whose father woke her up on two occasions to see the priest, who then sexually assaulted her, the court heard on Tuesday.

“[Her] father carried her to the confessional booth and took her clothes off her, then carried her to the altar and lay her down,” crown prosecutor Jeremy McWilliams said of the second occasion, in 1974, quoted in the Australian Associated Press.

According to the prosecutor, Ridsdale indencently assaulted her, then told her: “Jesus died for our sins so we could be forgiven and if I confess to this sin I might be forgiven,” before kissing her on the cheek.

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CANADA
Medical Xpress

The severe hunger and malnutrition that many Indigenous children suffered at Canadian residential schools have contributed to Indigenous peoples’ elevated risk of obesity and diabetes, according to University of Toronto public health and anthropology researchers.

“Hunger has always been central to survivors’ accounts of their residential school experiences, and we strongly believe that this testimony must be taken more seriously by researchers and medical practitioners,” said Ian Mosby, a food historian who is an adjunct lecturer at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health.

Mosby and Tracey Galloway, an assistant professor of anthropology, at U of T Mississauga, published their findings in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. They found that for most of the history of the residential school system, Indigenous children were fed poor quality, often rotting food.

Based on survivor testimony, they estimate that the typical diet described by survivors delivered, on average 1,000 to 1,450 calories a day, with moderately active children requiring between 1,400 and 3,200 calories a day.

“We can now be fairly certain that the elevated risk of obesity, early-onset insulin resistance and diabetes observed among Indigenous peoples in Canada arises, in part at least, from the prolonged malnutrition experience by many residential school survivors,” said Galloway.

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CALIFORNIA
The Worthy Adversary

August 15, 2017 Joelle Casteix

A former vocal coach for Orange County’s All-American Boys Chorus—and a member of the FBI’s Most Wanted List—can be sent back to California from the UK, a judge there ruled this week.

Roger Alan Giese, 42, according to KABC:

has been charged with five counts of lewd acts upon a child under the age of 14, 10 counts of lewd acts upon a child age 14 or 15, three counts of anal penetration by a foreign object and one count of oral copulation of a person under 18 years of age, and a sentencing enhancement allegation for substantial sexual conduct with a child.
He escaped to England in 2007.

Once there, Giese changed his name, started a public relations company, and claimed that he couldn’t be sent back to the U.S. because of our “civil commitment” laws.

According to the OC Register:

Under civil commitment, a convicted sex offender who has served his sentence can be committed to a state mental hospital indefinitely if medical experts believe that person is likely to reoffend. The law exists in 19 other states.

The British courts agreed. Until this week.

Chorus has a record of abuse

Giese is the second All-American Boys Chorus official to be accused of child sexual abuse.

The first, founder Fr. Richard T. Coughlin, has been accused by numerous former singers, removed for allegations of abuse, and put on the Diocese of Orange’s list of credibly accused clerics.

Call me a broken record, but just think about this: the same people who covered up for Coughlin and Giese still run The All-American Boys Chorus.

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ILLINOIS
eNews Park Forest

Measure Initiated by Madigan to Eliminate Criminal Statutes of Limitations for Felony Child Sexual Abuse and Assault Crimes Becomes Law

Chicago —(ENEWSPF)—August 13, 2017. Attorney General Lisa Madigan today announced Illinois has now eliminated the statutes of limitations for felony criminal sexual assault and sexual abuse crimes against children. Senate Bill 189, initiated by Madigan, was passed by the General Assembly unanimously and signed into law by the governor Friday.

Sponsored by Sen. Scott Bennett and Rep. Michelle Mussman, the legislation eliminates Illinois’ criminal statutes of limitations for all felony child sexual abuse and child sexual assault crimes that can allow predators to go unpunished. The law, effective immediately, applies to future felony child sex crime cases as well as current criminal cases in which the previous statute of limitations has not expired.

“Sex crimes against children are a horribly tragic violation of trust that can take a lifetime to recover from,” Madigan said. “This new law will ensure that survivors are provided with the time they need to heal and seek justice.”

Prior the new law, Illinois’ statutes required that the most egregious sexual offenses against children must be reported and prosecuted within 20 years of the survivor turning 18 years old. Two exceptions existed for cases in which the crimes were committed on or after Jan. 1, 2014 and either corroborating physical evidence exists or a mandated reporter failed to report the abuse. The then-law restricting a survivor’s ability to come forward prevented former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert from being prosecuted for allegations of abuse against minors while he was an Illinois high school coach decades ago. Scott Cross, a survivor of Hastert’s abuse, joined Attorney General Madigan in advocating for today’s change in the law, recounting his experience before lawmakers and urging them to pass Senate Bill 189.

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ILLINOIS
ABC 7

By Sarah Schulte
Monday, August 14, 2017

MOKENA, Ill. (WLS) — Illinois is making it easier to prosecute sex abuse crimes against children. Governor Bruce Rauner signed legislation that removes the statutes of limitation for those crimes.

Sex abuse victims are calling the new law a great step forward. They say pursuing justice criminally will help with the closure process.

Survivors of abuse say eliminating the statutes of limitations will give them the time they need to come forward and report a crime to police.

During his first confession at St. Mary’s Parish in Mokena, David Rudofski said he was sexually abused by Father James Burnett when Rudofski was just 8 years old. But, it wasn’t until he was in his mid-30’s when Rudofski reported the abuse.

“It takes years – sometimes decades – to have the courage to come up and talk about or even realize what happened,” Rudofski said.

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IRELAND
Longford Leader

Aisling Kiernan
14 Aug 2017

Last month, as part of Cruthú Arts Festival, Ambroise Donnelle launched his exhibition ‘Reborn’ at Longford Library.

The exhibition has been inspired by the artist’s mother Ann who was born at the mother and baby home in Castlepollard in 1950.

“It’s my mother who has always been the main influence in my life and still is,” said the 38-year-old Armagh native.

“We are alike in so many ways; she even likes to dabble in pastels and watercolours occasionally – so the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

And indeed it appears that his sentiments are true because Ann is a wonderful artist and a person who, it has to be said, has dealt with more challenges in her 67 years than most.

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MINNESOTA
KDUZ

(KWLM/New Ulm MN-) A priest who served at several area churches has been accused of sexual abuse.

In a letter sent to parishioners by Bishop John Levoir of the Catholic Diocese of New Ulm, Levoir says they have received notice of an allegation of sexual abuse against Father James Devorak when he was assigned at St. Pius X parish in Glencoe in the 1990s.

Devorak, who retired two years ago, was senior associate at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Willmar and assisted at Our Lady of the Lakes at Spicer, St. Thomas Moore in Lake Lillian and St. Patricks in Kandiyohi in 2013 and 2014.

During his 43-year career, Devorak also worked at churches in Clara City, Montevideo, Granite Falls, Hutchinson, Stewart and many more.

He was also an associate at St. Mary’s in Willmar in 1975 and 76.

Looking at Devorak’s resume provided by Bishop Levoir, it appears Devorak was moved to a different church in the New Ulm Diocese every two or three years.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
WYFF

Carla Field

ANDERSON COUNTY, S.C. —
Former megachurch pastor Perry Noble is not being given a second chance by the church he founded, so he is giving himself a second chance with a new church, despite church leaders saying he no longer meets Biblical standards to be a pastor.

Noble, the former pastor of NewSpring church, filed paperwork July 14 with the South Carolina Secretary of State to incorporate Second Chance Church. The filing shows the request as made by a nonprofit in good standing.

Noble founded NewSpring more than 20 years ago after holding services in a living room, according to the NewSpring website. The church grew to 17 campuses with more than 30,000 members.

In July 2016, Pastor Shane Duffey announced that the leaders of NewSpring had removed Noble from the pulpit because of his “personal behavior, which included alcohol, and marital issues.”

Duffey read a statement from church officials that said, “Perry has made some unfortunate decisions,” and that he “is no longer qualified” to continue as pastor.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
Christian Post

By Stoyan Zaimov , Christian Post Reporter | Aug 15, 2017

Former NewSpring Church senior pastor Perry Noble revealed in a Facebook video details about the sexual abuse he suffered as a child, which left him struggling with “soul destroying” shame.

“I am a victim of sexual abuse,” Noble said in the video, posted on Sunday.

“I remember like it was yesterday. It happened when I was about 5 years old. There was an older guy in the neighborhood” who coerced him, the former pastor revealed.

“The whole time it was going on, I knew it was wrong. It just felt wrong, but I felt helpless, and afterwards I felt hopeless. A few years later, it happened again, I was sexually abused by a different person,” he said, revealing that for “years and years I felt the chains of shame were wrapped around me.”

“I thought it was something I had caused, and because of that I held it inside and I didn’t tell anyone. As I look back now I see what was happening was that my soul was being destroyed through the chains of shame,” he said.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

The Catholic Church believes the seal of confession must remain intact despite the prospect of its priests facing criminal charges for failing to report child sexual abuse.

The child abuse royal commission wants a new crime of failure to report child sex abuse in institutions, including when the information came from religious confessions.

Australian Catholic Bishops Conference president, Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart, says confession is a fundamental part of the freedom of religion that must continue to be recognised by Australian law.

‘What goes on in the confessional is between God and the person and I am there for them to know that they are forgiven,’ he told Sky news.

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AUSTRALIA
BBC News

By Claudia Allen
BBC News

Priests who suspect child abuse after hearing confession should report it to the authorities – or face criminal charges. That is one of the conclusions reached by Australia’s four-year Royal Commission investigating child sex abuse.

The proposal applies to the suspicion of child abuse in an institutional context – for example within an organisation which provides services to children or cares for them, such as a church or a children’s home.

But the Roman Catholic Church in Australia is opposed to the proposal, despite saying that outside of the confession it is “absolutely committed” to reporting all offences against children to the authorities.

So what is different about confession?

Surely priests would have a moral duty – if not a legal one – to report any concerns, in order to protect children?

Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane appeared to recognise that it can be hard for non-Catholics to understand why this is not the case:

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ISRAEL
Jerusalem Post

BY BENJAMIN DUKAS AUGUST 15, 2017

Watchdog groups claim pedophiles who immigrate can live in communities with children nearby and even get jobs at schools.

A global Jewish children’s advocacy group has accused Israel of providing a safe haven for dozens of child sex offenders.

Shana Aaronson, director of the Jewish Community Watch (JCW) office in Israel has told The Jerusalem Post that the group found there are 42 suspected or convicted child sex offenders who moved to Israel from the Diaspora.

“Because Israel has the concept of the Law of Return, and Israel being a national homeland for the Jewish people, and the numerous legal rights that Jews have: to be here, to come here, to seek safe haven here, this is a particular issue with Israel, where you are going to come here and by and large you’re going to be granted automatic citizenship, and as the case may be, safe haven,” Aaronson said.

The Jewish Agency denied the allegations and said any candidates for aliya with either the Agency or the Nefesh B’Nefesh organization had to face extensive background checks before they could immigrate.

The JCW is a global group that seeks to expose offenders and warn communities about potentially dangerous people in their neighborhoods. In addition to 42 child sex offenders it says who have taken residence in Israel, the group has also identified several offenders who regularly travel in and out of Israel with ease.

Founded in 2006 by a child sex abuse survivor, the JCW is active in the US, Canada and Israel, and is dedicated to the prevention of child sexual abuse.

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CONNECTICUT
New Haven Register

By Randall Beach, rbeach@nhregister.com @rbeachNHR on Twitter

NEW HAVEN >> Rabbi Daniel Greer, accused of sexually assaulting a student of his at a religious school, made a brief appearance Monday in Superior Court and had his case transferred to the Part A courthouse on Church Street, where more serious charges are handled.

Greer was in front of Superior Court Judge Karen Nash Sequino for only about 30 seconds. He did not speak and did not enter pleas to the charges of second-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a child.

Greer’s not guilty pleas probably will be entered during his next court appearance Aug. 29.

Greer’s attorney, William Dow III, said after he left the courtroom with Greer: “We will try our case in court.” Greer, acting on Dow’s advice, made no comment.

Greer was dressed in a black suit, red tie and yarmulke.

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CONNECTICUT
News 12

[with video]

NEW HAVEN –
The New Haven rabbi accused of raping and molesting a teenage boy made bail Monday.

Rabbi Daniel Greer, 77, was arrested last month and charged with sexually assaulting the victim at a New Haven yeshiva school between 2001 and 2005. Greer was a founder and principal of the school, which opened in 1977.

A federal jury awarded $15 million in damages to the teen in a civil lawsuit in May.

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CONNECTICUT
ABC News

AP

A Connecticut rabbi accused of repeatedly raping and molesting a teenage boy who was awarded $15 million in a civil lawsuit appeared Monday before a judge for the first time since being arrested last month.

Rabbi Daniel Greer did not speak during the brief hearing in New Haven Superior Court. His next hearing is Aug. 29.

The 77-year-old Greer is accused of sexually assaulting a teenage boy who attended the Yeshiva of New Haven school from 2001 to 2005. Greer, of New Haven, was a founder and principal of the school, which was established in 1977.

Greer’s lawyer, William Dow III, has said Greer will plead not guilty to the felony charges of second-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor. Greer did not enter pleas Monday and remains free after posting $100,000 bail.

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BOTSWANA
The Monitor

Reverend Valentine Seane’s alleged insatiable sexual needs are behind his sudden and seemingly unceremonious resignation as Bishop of Gaborone. Seane has been at the helm of the local chapter of the church for eight years.

By TSAONE BASIMANEBOTLHE Fri 11 Aug 2017

This is according to letters written to the Holy See in Rome, Italy and Pretoria, South Africa this year. In a letter to Marc Cardinal Quellet in Rome written by Sisters of Calvary, Gaborone, they appealed that Eminence Archbishop Peter Wells had not acted on their grievances to date “while on the other hand, Bishop Seane continues to sexually abuse us”. Wells is the Vatican Apostolic Nunciature in Pretoria.

“Bishop Seane’s insatiable sexual needs are putting us at risk, more so that he does not use condoms, hence the urgent resolution of this matter (sic). The end result of his actions, we are in spiritual crisis of unending abortions,” the sisters wrote. They claimed that some of them are on the verge of resigning from sisterhood and are afraid that their congregation will die a natural death. Hence they appealed to Quellet to save them from this shameful misery.

“We submit that we are ready to testify before an enquiry against the abuse under reference. We are also determined to go public if the church is not willing to protect us!” Before they wrote to Rome, they appealed to Wells over Seane’s impropriety.

“We write to formally lodge a complaint against Bishop Seane’s verbal and sexual abuse on some of us… In every Diocesan event, our Bishop always publicly capitalises in belittling us (sic). He likes saying that we are lacking proper orientation in our formation.”

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BOTSWANA
The Monitor

Despite last week’s denials by the Vicar General, Father Andrew Makgetla that Bishop Valentine Seane was forced to resign, a statement he sent to different Roman Catholic branches, shows that the Bishop resigned to clear his name.

By TSAONE BASIMANEBOTLHE Mon 14 Aug 2017

Seane resigned last week following an investigation into accusations of sexual abuse.

In the press statement issued last Friday to the Catholics around the country, Makgetla explained that the Catholic Church of the Diocese of Gaborone “is extremely saddened by circumstances surrounding the recent resignation of its Bishop. Bishop Seane resigned his post to assuage the accusation and allegations against him. This painful event took the church by surprise. In the light of this, we want to assure Catholics that the leadership of the Church is looking into all aspects of the current situation.”

Father Makgetla said The Holy See, through the apostolic Nunciature to Botswana received unsigned letters from different groups including a group calling itself Catholic Community of Botswana, something that the Father denied last week in an interview with sister publication, Mmegi.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

SOLICITOR Vivian Waller summed up the case for legislation requiring clergy to report all child sex allegations to authorities – even allegations raised during confession.

“I think it’s about time the Catholic Church was dragged out of the dark ages,” she said on Monday after the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse released its Criminal Justice report.

It might have had 85 recommendations to address what commission chair Justice Peter McClellan identified as the almost “insurmountable barriers” currently facing child sex victims when they negotiate the criminal justice system.

But all focus was on just one recommendation that directly challenges the Catholic Church – the seal of the confessional.

Vivian Waller put the perspective of survivors and their advocates: “We can no longer think about sexual offending against children as some kind of forgivable sin.”

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MEXICO
National Catholic Reporter

Aug 14, 2017
by David Agren, Catholic News Service

MEXICO CITY — The Archdiocese of Mexico City said it reported six cases of priests accused of sexually abusing minors to prosecutors between 2010 and 2017, following a change in Mexico’s Religious Associations Law requiring such crimes to be brought to the authorities’ attention.

“Cardinal Norberto Rivera left it clear that, starting with the implementation of (the law in 2010) — which requires religious leaders and their representatives to inform the corresponding authority about the probable committing of crimes — he had knowledge of the probable commission of six acts, presumably criminal, after being told by his vicars,” the archdiocesan publication Desde la Fe said in an Aug. 10 article. “He instructed (the vicars) to report them immediately to the corresponding authorities.”

The article followed news that Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera was interviewed by an investigator from the federal attorney general’s office over criminal complaints of covering up 15 cases of abuse. Rivera’s lawyer, Armando Martinez Gomez, said the complaints were filed by a pair of former priests.

Fr. Hugo Valdemar Romero, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Mexico City, said the accusations were brought to “create a scandal of such a level that the pope would accept (the cardinal’s) resignation” more quickly. Rivera turned 75 June 6 and, in accordance with canon law, submitted his resignation to Pope Francis.

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GUAM
Pacific News Center

By Janela Carrera – August 15, 2017

Local attorney John Terlaje will remain counsel of record for the Archdiocese of Agana.

Guam – The stateside legal counsel for the Archdiocese of Agana has made a request to withdraw as attorneys of record for the church.

The request comes amid talks of moving forward with settlement negotiations between the scores of sex abuse victims and the archdiocese. Attorneys Mary McNamara and Britt Evangelist of the law firm Swanson & McNamara, LLP, and Paul Gaspari and Daniel Zamora, of the law firm Weintraub | Tobin, filed the request Tuesday as an unopposed motion.

No specific reason was provided but the motion did indicate that local attorney John Terlaje will continue to represent the archdiocese and that no trial date has been set on the matter.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

August 15, 2017

JOHN FERGUSON
Victorian EditorMelbourne
@fergusonjw

Australia’s best credentialed priest on legal matters will defy any new laws to convict Catholic clergy for breaking the seal of the confessional on child sex abuse but gravely doubts he will ever be confronted with this dilemma.

Father Frank Brennan, a Jesuit priest and professor of law at the Australian Catholic University, yesterday rejected recommendations by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that would force priests — under the threat of criminal sanctions — to break the confessional confidence of offenders.

Under the church’s canon law, priests must maintain sec­recy about sins that a person confesses in a manner sometimes compared with client-lawyer confidentiality but in a holy context it is considered an ­untouchable imperative. But the royal commission headlined its 85 recommendations in its long criminal justice report on a crackdown on one of the church’s central pillars.

Father Brennan said if the law were to be introduced in Australia his only options as a priest would be to stop hearing confessions or to defy any legislation that sought to break the seal of confidentiality.

Father Brennan’s position was backed yesterday by the ­nation’s most senior bishops but rejected by the church’s Truth, Justice and Healing Council, which had previously argued the seal should remain intact.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Susie O’Brien, Herald Sun
August 15, 2017

WHY is the Catholic Church continuing to protect and forgive paedophiles?

This is the only way to interpret the church’s desire to allow allegations of abuse made in the confessional to be exempt from mandatory reporting to police.

In an extraordinary admission, Catholic bishops have opposed any move to force priests to report details of child sexual abuse received during confession.

This is despite calls from the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse to make it illegal for them not to do so.

Recommendations released by the commission this week suggest clergy who fail to report such information would face criminal charges.

The report states confession has been a forum where both victims and perpetrators have disclosed sexual abuse in the past.

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CANADA
Sault Star

By Harold Carmichael, Postmedia
Monday, August 14, 2017

A trial date is expected to be set Sept. 6 in a $5-million lawsuit filed by an alleged victim of a now-dead Catholic priest at a Sudbury high school decades ago.

The victim, now 61, was 12 when he attended St. Charles College in the late 1960s, where William Hodgson Marshall was a teacher and sports coach.Marshall was later principal of St. Mary’s College in Sault Ste. Marie.

According to the man’s statement of claim, the sexual assaults lasted for more than a year. The alleged victim claims he was expelled from the school for reporting Marshall’s behaviour.

Individuals and parties listed in the lawsuit include Marshall, the Sudbury Catholic District School Board, the Basilian Fathers and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sault Ste. Marie.

None of the allegations contained in the lawsuit have been proven in court.

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AUSTRALIA
Goulburn Post

Louise Thrower
@ThrowerLouise

15 Aug 2017

If Matt Casey’s Catholic faith was ever tested over the past eight years, he remembered his late father’s wise words.

“He said it was important not to let the church, a human organisation, get in the way of your faith. It’s the best piece of advice I ever had,” he said.

“People have said to me that they don’t want anything to do with the church ever again, but it doesn’t mean God doesn’t love them.”

Mr Casey, a former Goulburn detective, retired from his role as director of the Institute for Professional Standards and Safeguarding on June 30. It was established by the Archbishop of Canberra/Goulburn, Christopher Prowse, in October, 2015 in response to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. However Mr Casey’s previous work with the Archdiocese since 2008 has covered child protection and safeguarding across not just schools and churches but its organisations. It was during his initial work as coordinator for parish support that he discovered several professional standards matters and raised them with the Archbishop.

“We then realised the extent of work that had to be done in ensuring people had appropriate working with children checks. When I later took on the role I picked up historic complaints of abuse, some of which dated back to 1946,” Mr Casey said.

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WALES
Daily Mail

By Press Association

Two women have promised to champion the cause of Welsh victims after being appointed to advise the public inquiry into child sexual abuse.

May Baxter-Thornton from Newport and Emma Lewis from Swansea, who have both experienced child sexual abuse, will sit on the victims and survivors panel of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA).

Their role will include advising the inquiry on how best to reach and listen to victims and survivors in Wales.

Inquiry chair, Professor Alexis Jay OBE said: “May and Emma have demonstrated a proven commitment to reaching and supporting victims and survivors of child sexual abuse in Wales.

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AUSTRALIA
New York Times

By JACQUELINE WILLIAMS
AUG. 15, 2017

It’s confidential and considered sacred — a conversation strictly between a confessor and priest, never to be divulged. The secrecy of the confessional, a centuries-old sacrament, is taken so seriously that some priests would die before disclosing what has been shared.

Archbishop Denis Hart of Melbourne, who as president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference represents all Roman Catholic clergy in the country, said Tuesday that he would rather go to jail than breach the seal of confession.

“The laws in our country and in many other countries recognize the special nature of confession as part of the freedom of religion, which has to be respected,” Archbishop Hart told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

His comments came a day after religious institutions across the country were forced to defend the secrecy of confession after Australia’s Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse recommended a sweep of legislative and policy changes, one of which would require priests who hear about sexual abuse in the confessional to report it to the authorities. The 85 recommendations were aimed at reforming Australia’s criminal justice system to provide a fairer response to sex-abuse victims, the commission said.

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MICHIGAN
WOOD

GRAND HAVEN, Mich. (WOOD) — A former youth pastor has admitted to sexually abusing a young boy in Jenison a decade ago.

Daniel Hoffman, 31, pleaded guilty last week to two counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct.

Authorities say Hoffman was being treated at a Zeeland hospital for a “psychotic break” last autumn when he told a nurse about the abuse. The victim, who used to be neighbors with Hoffman and is now an adult, confirmed to detectives that it happened between 2003 and 2008.

Since the period when the abused happened, Hoffman has worked at Jenison Public Schools and as a youth minister.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Adam Cooper

WARNING: This story contains content that may distress some readers.

A young girl was woken from her bed and driven by her own father to be left with paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale who then sexually abused her, a court has heard.

Ridsdale, arguably Australia’s most notorious paedophile priest with past convictions for assaults on more than 50 children, on Tuesday formally pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting another 12 children, including the girl, when he was a priest in Victoria.

He pleaded guilty to 23 charges, including two counts of rape and one of buggery.

Ridsdale told one altar boy the abuse was “part of God’s work”, the Victorian County Court heard.

A day after findings were handed down in the royal commission into child sexual abuse, Ridsdale, 83, used a walking frame to enter the County Court dock and kept his head bowed as more of his devastating offending was outlined.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Melissa Brown and Helen Vines

A father took his daughter to a notorious paedophile priest to be abused, including one time when she was assaulted on the altar of a Ballarat church, a Victorian court has heard.

Gerald Ridsdale is back in court after pleading guilty to more historical sex offences, including rape and indecent assault.

The 83-year-old has been in jail since 1994 for abusing numerous children, but has now admitted to raping and indecently assaulting 12 more victims between 1961 and 1988 in western Victoria.

The County Court heard his youngest victim was six years old, several victims endured excruciating pain during the abuse and many of the offences happened in Ridsdale’s car, including when he was driving.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Shannon Deery, Herald Sun

VICTORIA Legal Aid has urged a judge to give vile sex monster Gerald Ridsdale the chance at parole despite shocking new admissions he raped a girl in a church.

The horrific ordeal of the young girl whose father left her on a church altar to be raped by Ridsdale on Tuesday moved a courtroom to tears.

But his taxpayer funded lawyer Tim Marsh, VLA’s chief counsel, urged County Court judge Irene Lawson not to interfere with Ridsdale’s earliest release date which is currently April 8, 2019.

“Mr Ridsdale is clearly a repugnant figure to many, for reasons that are only too understandable,” he said.

“The task for this court is not to pass a sentence that addresses community sentiment, but to impose a sentence that’s just in all the circumstances and applies the fundamentals of sentencing law.”

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

A father undressed his daughter and laid her on a church altar where pedophile priest Gerald Francis Ridsdale indecently assaulted her, a court has heard.

Ridsdale, 83, has pleaded guilty to 23 charges, mainly indecent assaults but including rape, involving offences committed against 11 boys and one girl between 1962 and 1988.

Crown prosecutor Jeremy McWilliams said on one occasion in 1974 the 10-year-old girl was woken up by her father, while Ridsdale waited in the hallway, and driven with the priest to the church.

“(The girl’s) father carried her to the confessional booth and took her clothes off her then carried her to the altar and lay her down,” Mr McWilliams told the Victorian County Court.

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ARIZONA
Noaker Law

Contact Info:

Craig Vernon
Lee James
Cell: (208) 691-2768
cvernon@jvwlaw.net

James Vernon & Weeks
1626 Lincoln Way
Coeur d’Alene, ID 83814
Patrick Noaker
Cell: (612) 839-1080
Patrick@Noakerlaw.com

Noaker Law Firm LLC
333 Washington Ave N.
Minneapolis, MN 55401
Billy Keeler
Cell: (505) 979-0688
billkeeler@keelerandkeeler.com

Keeler & Keeler, LLP
108 East Aztec Avenue
Gallup, NM 87301

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PRESS CONFERENCE: Plaintiff AH, will discuss being removed from the Navajo Nation to be placed in a Mesa, Arizona home in the late 1970’s where she was sexually abused on multiple occasions by her Mormon foster father. AH’s attorneys will be available to answer any questions regarding the two other lawsuits filed yesterday; one by another Navajo survivor, sexually abused by her Mormon foster father in Utah, and another adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse who was taken off the Crow Reservation in Montana and placed in a Wenatchee, Washington home where she was sexually abused by her foster grandfather.

WHEN: Tuesday, August 15, 2017 at 11:00 am

WHERE: Kimpton Palomar Hotel, Mural Room,
2 East Jefferson Street, Phoenix, Arizona 85004

WHO: Plaintiff AH and her attorneys, Billy Keeler of Gallup, New Mexico and co-counsel, Craig Vernon

Click Here for File-stamped Copy of the AH Complaint

Click Here for the File-stamped Copy of the JC Complaint

Click Here for the File-stamped Copy of the Jane Doe 1 (Chelan County, Washington)

Please contact Craig Vernon on his cell phone (208 691 2768) for any requests or additional information

THE DETAILS:

(August 15, 2017 – Phoenix, AZ).

Three separate lawsuits have been filed (two, by enrolled members of the Navajo Nation and the third by a member of the Crow Reservation) against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, commonly known as the “Mormon” or “LDS” Church, and against LDS Family Services.

These three lawsuits follow five other lawsuits filed by adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse within the controversial Mormon “Lamanite (or Indian) Placement Program.”[1] “Not only were our clients sexually abused but the core tenants of this placement program subjected them to cultural and emotional abuse as well,” explains attorney Craig Vernon, a former member of the LDS Church and an attorney who has helped survivors of childhood sexual abuse across the nation in claims involving the LDS Church, the Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts of America, and other entities.

“Canonized Mormon scripture teaches that Native Americans are descendants of a group of people that fled from Israel in the year 600 B.C. and settled somewhere in the Americas. According to Mormon scripture, these people then split up into two groups: The Nephites, a righteous people; and the Lamanites who, after becoming wicked and hardening their hearts, were cursed by God with a ‘skin of blackness’. This ‘curse’ doctrine, which equates having a ‘skin of darkness’ as a curse from God because of wickedness, is damaging to our clients’ self-esteem and to their culture. Telling our clients and other Native Americans that they were ‘cursed’, that they needed Mormonism to break this ‘curse’, is troublesome, to say the least.” added Vernon.

Two of the lawsuits were filed in the Navajo Nation District Court. The third was filed in Chelan County, Washington.

In the Washington lawsuit, Plaintiff Jane Doe 1 was taken off the Crow Reservation and placed with a foster family in Wenatchee, Washington. There, she was sexually abused on four separate occasions by her foster grandfather over a three-year period starting in 1970.

The Navajo Nation lawsuits both involve sexual abuse by two Mormon foster fathers. Plaintiff AH was sexually molested and abused by her Mormon foster father on multiple occasions starting in 1979. As part of this sexual abuse inside the perpetrator’s Mesa, Arizona home, AH was also forced to watch the perpetrator masturbate. AH, who currently lives in Gallup, New Mexico, will speak at the press event.

Plaintiff JC was forcibly raped on multiple occasions, in a violent fashion, by her Mormon foster father at his Enterprise, Utah home in the late 1960’s.

“Unfortunately, childhood sexual abuse isn’t a plague unique to the Catholic Church” adds Billy Keeler, a Gallup, New Mexico lawyer who, along with Mr. Vernon, represent a total of eight adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse within this program who have filed lawsuits. “It is tragic that our other clients were sexually abused during this program. Religious organizations and programs such as this should be places where children are safe from harm, not places that protect sexual predators,” comments Mr. Keeler.

“What has happened in these lawsuits is exactly why professionally-trained law enforcement should investigate reports of childhood sexual abuse. There is no evidence that any of the perpetrators of abuse were ever disciplined by the Church or criminally charged. We hope that these civil lawsuits will ‘out’ the perpetrators and answer some questions as to why the Church failed to protect these kids back in the day,” comments Mr. Vernon

Keeler points out a disturbing trend within this program: “Many of our clients informed either Church leaders or LDS Family Service case workers about the sexual abuse, yet these cries for help fell on deaf ears. They didn’t remove these vulnerable kids from these horrific homes and the abuse continued.”

The rise and fall of this program appears linked to George P. Lee, who was a key figure during the program’s most robust years. As reported in the November 1975 edition of the Mormon Church magazine, the Ensign, “Lee, in the 1950s, was one of the first participants in the Church’s Indian Placement Program and later went on to receive a bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University, a master’s from Utah State University, and a doctorate from BYU. In 1975, he was called by President Spencer W. Kimball to be the first Native American general authority in the Church.” Lee’s primary focus was the Lamanite Placement Program. While the program grew during the George P. Lee years, such growth was accompanied by scandal.

George P. Lee served as a general authority until 1989, when he was excommunicated from the Mormon Church for what Mormon leaders called “conduct unbecoming a member of the church.” As reported by the Salt Lake Tribune on July 31, 2007, “George P. Lee pled guilty in 1994 to sexual abuse of a child. The victim of this abuse, a girl, age 17 at the time of the 1994 trial, said Lee exploited the religious respect she had for him to fondle her breasts, buttocks and genitals. She said the abuse began when she was nine years old (in approximately 1986) and lasted for three years.”

“We know of George P. Lee’s guilty plea and the sexual abuse of this nine-year-old girl; what we don’t know is how many other survivors of abuse are out there. When the General Authority that the Church assigned over this program was sexually abusing young girls, it is no wonder we see abuse within the foster families as well,” comments Vernon.

“Because of the nature of this program which took children from their homes and placed them in a strange environment, protection of children should have been paramount. It appears that was not the case,” adds Keeler.

As an adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse within this program, AH has chosen to speak out at this press event. While AH will tell her story at the press event, she wishes to send a message of hope for any other survivors of sexual abuse within this program. “Understand that you are not alone. It is not your fault. The shame is not yours, rather the shame belongs to those who abused, as well as those who allowed the abuse to happen.”

[1] The Book of Mormon reads: “And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people, the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.” (emphasis added) (2 Nephi 5:21, Book of Mormon).

Patrick Noaker | Noaker Law Firm LLC | (612) 349-2735 | patrick@noakerlaw.com

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UNITED KINGDOM
Bunbury Mail

Andrew Elstermann
@AElstermann

14 Aug 2017

Diocese of Bunbury bishop Gerald Holohan has written to parishioners to reiterate his apology to victims who suffered abuse at the hands of Father William Kevin Glover in the 1960s and 70s.

Last month, the Mail published documents tendered to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in February that revealed in 1959, Bunbury bishop John Goody agreed to hire a priest despite knowing he had previously sexually abused a number of boys.

Father Glover ministered in Esperance, which was part of the Diocese of Bunbury from 1959 and was shifted to Margaret River in 1979 where he remained until his retirement in 1992. He died six years later.

The commission has recorded five allegations of child sexual abuse filed in WA between 1997 and 2014 against Father Glover for offending in the Diocese of Bunbury between 1967 and 1986. One was also received in Victoria in 1998 for alleged offending in 1956.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial

MONDAY, AUGUST 14, 2017

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

Like the Pope used to be, prosecutors think they’re infallible.

And when they screw up, or get caught playing dirty, they don’t apologize.

But today in Common Pleas Court, the nearest thing to a correction just happened — Judge Ellen Ceisler signed off on a deal struck between the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office and Bernard Shero’s lawyers to let Shero out of jail nearly a dozen years early.

Shero, 54, is the former schoolteacher doing 8 to 16 years for his 2013 conviction by a jury on charges that included rape of a child, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a child, endangering the welfare of a child, corruption of a minor, and indecent assault. But Shero’s conviction comes with a big asterisk — the alleged victim in the case was Danny Gallagher, AKA “Billy Doe,” the former altar boy who has since been outed as a complete fraud.

Shero, 54, has already done 4 years, 6 months and two weeks in jail for crimes that never happened. He has another 11 1/2 years to go on his maximum sentence. But as soon as tomorrow, he’ll be walking out of State Correctional Institution in Houtzdale, thanks to a deal finalized today during a half-hour teleconference between the prison and Judge Ceisler’s courtroom at the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia.

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SCOTLAND
Police Professional

The second phase of the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry will continue with its investigation into children’s homes run by the Catholic order Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul.

The Lady Smith-led hearings are to reconvene on November 28 in Edinburgh to examine historical allegations of the abuse of children in care.

The public inquiry, which began in May, has already heard a series of religious organisations apologise for historical abuse in damning testimonies.

Legislation lifting the time-limit on damages for child abuse cases was passed by the Scottish Parliament earlier this year, removing the current three-year period for personal injury actions in cases of child abuse where the person was under 18 at the time.

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CHILE
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[Chile Over 1,300 children died in the hands of the state, private and Catholic children’s homes.As a cause of death, the investigation report identifies the systematic violation of the duty of supervision, neglect, life-threatening medication, the use of violence, the formation of prostitution and the rape of hundreds of minors. The former bishop of La Serena and Chillán, Francisco José Cox Huneeus, is among the sex offenders. In order to escape the judicial authorities, the Vatican and the Chilean Church withdrew the “dignitaries”and ordered him “penance and prayer work” in the Father’s house of the Schoenstatt movement, in the Palatinate Vallendar.]

Zur falschen Zeit, beim Auftakt des Präsidentschaftswahlkampfs, platzte vor wenigen Wochen in Chile die schwerste Anklage wegen Menschenrechtsverletzungen durch den chilenischen Staat seit Ende der Militärdiktatur im Jahr 1990. Eine Untersuchungskommission des Parlaments in Valparaíso warf dem Nationalen Dienst für Minderjährige (SENAME) und den chilenischen Regierungen seit 2005 vor, für den Tod von mindestens 1.300 Kindern und Jugendlichen im Verlauf der vergangenen 11 Jahre verantwortlich zu sein. Als Todesursachen benennt der Untersuchungsbericht die systematische Verletzung der Aufsichtspflicht, Verwahrlosung, lebensbedrohliche medikamentöse Behandlungen, Gewaltanwendung, Bildung von Prostitutionsringen und Vergewaltigungen hunderter Minderjähriger, auch durch Leiter beauftragter katholischer Kinderheime. Unter den schon vor Jahren schwer belasteten Sexual-Straftätern befindet sich der ehemalige Bischof von La Serena und Chillán, Francisco José Cox Huneeus. Um den Justizbehörden zu entkommen, zogen Vatikan und die chilenische Kirche den “Würdenträger” aus dem Verkehr und verordneten ihm „Buß- und Bet-Arbeit” im Vaterhaus der Schönstatt-Bewegung, im pfälzischen Vallendar. Von Frederico Füllgraf.

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