ABUSE TRACKER

NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

By Claire McNeilly
PUBLISHED
21/01/2017

Campaigners and victims of historic child abuse in Northern Ireland have welcomed the ‘long-overdue’ findings of systemic failure outlined in the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry report.

Margaret McGuckin, who has been the public face of the campaign for survivors of historical institutional child sex abuse, said it has taken a lifetime for victims to get justice.

“We have been vindicated by this inquiry and I am delighted – this is our day,” she said.

“It has taken a lot of victims their whole lives to get justice, but that is what we got today.

“It will never erase the terrible memories or diminish the sadness that has become an integral part of many of us because nothing can undo the damage. There are still too many secrets being carried.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service | Jan. 20, 2017

VATICAN CITY

Telling the bishops of Ireland that he wanted to hear their questions, concerns and even criticisms, Pope Francis spent almost two hours in conversation with them.
In the continuing evolution of the “ad limina” visits bishops are required to make to the Vatican, Pope Francis met Jan. 20 with 26 Irish bishops and set aside a practice that began with Pope Benedict XVI: writing a speech to the group, but handing the text to them instead of reading it.

Pope Francis did, however, maintain his practice of sitting with the bishops and asking them what was on their minds.

The ministry of a bishop, the clerical sexual abuse crisis, the role of women in the church, the need to find new ways to engage with young people, the changing status of the church in Irish society, the importance of Catholic schools and methods for handing on the faith were among the topics discussed, the bishops said. They also spoke about plans for the World Meeting of Families in Dublin in August 2018 and hopes that Pope Francis would attend.

Archbishop Eamon Martin of Armagh, Northern Ireland, president of the bishops’ conference, told reporters that Pope Francis led a serious reflection on “the importance of a ministry of presence, a ministry of the ear where we are listening to the joys and the hopes, the struggles and the fears of our people, that we are walking with them, that we are reaching out to them where they are at.” …

One of the factors pushing such a rapid loss of public status for the church in Ireland was the sexual abuse scandal, he said. And as he told Pope Francis, just as the bishops were meeting with the pope, in Belfast leaders of the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry in Northern Ireland were making public their report on the abuse of children in residential institutions, including some run by Catholic religious orders.

One of the first meetings the bishops had in Rome, he said, was with staff of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, sharing the steps the Catholic Church in Ireland has taken to prevent further abuse, to bring abusers to justice and to assist survivors “affected by the awful trauma of the sins and crimes of people in the church.”

Archbishop Martin told reporters there was a recognition that Ireland had gone “through a bad time —not for us, but particularly for children who were abused, and that anything that we did would inevitably be inadequate in responding to the suffering they experienced.”

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NORTHERN IRELAND
The Times

Aaron Rogan
January 21 2017
The Times

The crimes of Brendan Smyth, the paedophile priest, were ignored to protect the good name of the Catholic Church, a Northern Ireland inquiry into historical abuse has found.

The Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry detailed instances of sexual abuse by priests and lay people in a 2,300-page report published yesterday that identified widespread systemic failings and extended responsibility to the Northern Irish government and church authorities.

It said that Smyth attacked children “far and wide” at residential homes in Northern Ireland from the 1940s and was eventually convicted of more than 100 offences.

He was allowed a car to travel around the country when he fled to the Republic after he was charged by police in Northern Ireland in 1991, and over many years his Norbertine religious order and others within the church failed to ensure he did not harm more children, the inquiry found.

A deliberate decision was taken to withhold information about Smyth when he was sent to other church dioceses around the world and he was given medical treatment as a “cure” despite continuing to attack minors, it said.

“For the Norbertine order and for others outside the order in positions of responsibility in the church, their overriding priority throughout was to protect the good name of the church and at all times to prioritise Father Smyth’s interests, instead of doing what was best for the children abused by him,” it said.

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NORTHERN IRELAND/AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry – Report Chapters

Kincora Material

By Europe correspondent Steve Cannane

The Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry in Northern Ireland has recommended children who were transported to Australia in the 1940s and ’50s be given compensation for the trauma they suffered.

The inquiry found at least 138 children under 14 who were in state and church care in Northern Ireland were wrongly transported to Australia — often without their parents being told the truth about where they were being sent to.

Former child migrants who gave evidence at the inquiry said they were treated like baby convicts.

The chair of the inquiry, Sir Anthony Hart, said the Sisters of Nazareth were the worst offenders.

“They were wrong to send children to Australia who were so young,” he said.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

Some witnesses to the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) Inquiry said they were treated like child convicts.

Others claimed they were forced to eat their own vomit, preyed upon by serial sexual predators and one was told he was the product of an “evil and satanic relationship”.

The poverty-stricken youngsters were among the most vulnerable in society and their experiences dated from 1922 to 1995.

They had been left in homes run by religious orders because their parents could not care for them or because they were illegitimate.

In 2014 they finally had their say as public hearings began.

One early witness said telling the truth after 65 years had finally set him free.

He spent his life alone – never to marry – after being “brutalised” by the Sisters of Nazareth nuns in Londonderry.

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ILLINOIS
Minnesota Public Radio

Martin Moylan Jan 20, 2017

A former fundraiser for a nonprofit that’s long campaigned to expose clergy sex abuse of children charges the group received kickbacks from victims’ attorneys, including a prominent Minnesota lawyer.

Gretchen Hammond, who worked for the St. Louis-based Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, said SNAP referred abuse victims to lawyers and then got kickbacks from lawyers in the form of donations.

SNAP denies Hammond’s allegations.

The lawsuit refers to an unnamed Minnesota lawyer who apparently gave about $1 million to SNAP. Attorney Jeff Anderson said that’s an obvious — and unfair — reference to him.

He said he’s long supported organizations like SNAP.

“I am confident and absolutely certain we have never engaged in anything that is even close to anything that’s illegal, unethical or amounting to anything close to a kickback,” Anderson said.

Hammond is suing SNAP, claiming it wrongfully fired her.

Bruce Howard, Hammond’s attorney, said the lawyers making donations were not named at this time because the focus of the lawsuit is on her dismissal.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Saturday, January 21, 2017

David Young

Victims of historic child abuse in the North should receive State-backed compensation payments of up to £100,000 (€115,000), an inquiry has recommended.

Those abused in State-, Church-, and charity-run homes should also be offered an official apology from Government and the organisations that ran the residential facilities where it happened, the Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry found.

Inquiry chair Anthony Hart outlined his recommendations after he revealed shocking levels of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse from 1922 to 1995.

He said the minimum pay-out should be £7,500 (€8,660), with the maximum amount given to those who had experienced severe levels of abuse as well as being transported to Australia in a controversial migrant scheme.

He said the organisations that ran the abusing homes should make a financial contribution to the Stormont Executive-run scheme.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Times

Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry – Report Chapters

Kincora Material

Gerry Moriarty

“Unspeakable, unspeakable,” was a quote Sir Anthony Hart, chairman of the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry, chose from one of the witnesses who gave evidence to his inquiry.

It was as good a description as any to use to try to characterise the dark nature of his 10-volume, 2,300-page exploration of the abuse suffered by hundreds of children in care homes throughout the North after partition from 1922 to 1995.

It almost goes without saying that the quote refers to serial sex abuser Fr Brendan Smyth. It came from fellow Norbertine priest Fr William Fitzgerald who had the measure of Smyth’s paedophilia and made efforts to expose him, although he too failed to bring him to heel.

Fr Fitzgerald told the inquiry: “ . . . the youngest victim of Brendan Smyth that I know of is 28 years of age. She is going to be around for another 60 years maybe or longer, and every day of her life the horrible spectre of that man will be in her mind and what he did.

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CANADA
Toronto Star

By TANYA TALAGA
Staff Reporter
Fri., Jan. 20, 2017

The Anglican Church of Canada announced Friday that it will make a formal, national apology to all the victims of notorious pedophile Ralph Rowe.

It is estimated the former Anglican minister Ralph Rowe abused hundreds of victims. The Anglican Church has never issued a formal apology. One of the communities Rowe targeted was Wapekeka First Nation.

Wapekeka is struggling after two 12-year-old girls died by suicide earlier this month. The community has tried to manage youth mental health issues and suicide epidemics for decades.

“Yesterday, Jan. 19, the Grand Chief of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN), Alvin Fiddler, noted that the Anglican Church of Canada shares responsibility for the crisis in the communities he serves and especially for the tragic number of young people who have died by suicide,” said Michael Thompson, the church’s general secretary, in a statement.

Rowe, a clergyman who used to pilot a small plane into remote northern First Nations communities in the 1970s and ’80s, targeted young boys aged 8 to 14. Many indigenous parents trusted Rowe because of his position in the church and let their children travel on camping excursions with him. Rowe was also a Boy Scout leader.

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ILLINOIS
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

By Jesse Bogan St. Louis Post-Dispatch

OKAWVILLE, Ill. • The Rev. Steven F. Poole is a rank-and-file priest with his own demons, including a history of theft and a rocky relationship with church hierarchy.

Now the troubled priest has broken from tradition by calling out his boss and openly accusing a fellow priest of sexually abusing him as a 14-year-old boy.

Echoing the core complaints of sex abuse scandals that have shaken the church, Poole alleges that the leader of the Belleville Diocese has mishandled and disregarded his complaint, allowing the now retired priest to continue in good standing.

“This is difficult because I truly do believe in the sacred bond between a bishop and his priests as co-workers in the vineyard of the Lord,” Poole, 48, wrote in an email last year to Bishop Edward Braxton, who oversees all the Roman Catholic churches in Southern Illinois.

“I realize that my words will probably make no difference to you based upon prior experience. However, it is important for me to set this out to attempt to clear my conscience.”

The five-page letter, along with additional correspondence obtained by the Post-Dispatch, chronicles an effort by Poole over multiple years to trigger action by the diocese.

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INDIA
Outlook

In 2002, a spotlight fell on abuse by the clergy in Boston. Later, a film was made on it.

ANOO BHUYAN

“Church allowed abuse by priest for years.” That simple headline on November 6, 2002, kicked off nearly 600 news reports by the Boston Globe newspaper, exposing the scale of sexual abuse within the Boston Archdiocese. A total of 249 priests and brothers were accused of abuse, and the investigation estimated that these men had violated over 1,000 survivors in Boston alone.

In 2002, a four-member team of journalists at the Boston Globe newspaper in the US, showed that clergy in the Archdiocese of Boston had been abusing children for years, and that the church had been suppressing those stories. It exposed not just the scandal but also the cover-up. Some of these cases were old ones but typically, as has been the situation for many complainants within the Catholic church, these cases had received insufficient media attention, police scrutiny, and interest from the church. They won the Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for their work.
In 2015, the movie Spotlight was released, after over a decade since the original investigation. It served to introduce a new audience of people to the sordid side of the church. It recreated how the Spotlight team of journalists went about investigating the story for months.

Speaking to BBC News, Mike Rendez, one of the original reporters on the team, said, “We thought there would be protesters in front of the Globe.” But in fact, the team and the newspaper received wide support even from within the Catholic community.

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INDIA
Outlook

The pastors who committed sex crimes…

MINU ITTYIPE

Accused: Fr Edwin Figarez, 41

Victim: 14-year-old girl, unnamed

Crime: Rape

Place: Lourde Matha Church Presbytery, Puthenvelikkara
April 1, 2015

Legal status: Double life imprisonment awarded by the lower court

T.M. Varghese, former circle inspector of Vadakkekara who handled the case, narrates the sequence: “The mother registered a complaint with us on April 1, 2015. One day in March, the girl went to the church near their home. When she failed to return for a long time, the mother went over and found her in the presbytery. On being questioned, the girl revealed she had been sexually exploited by the priest for several months. We investigated his background, his reputation was not good. There are allegations that he was in trouble at the previous parish too.”

Figarez’s FB account has been deleted, but his Twitter account is an active commentary on himself. At the time he was preying on a minor, he was also exhorting people to pray. Figarez, who calls himself a dhyana guru, was producing music CDs. His tweets are littered with videos of him singing, saying the mass. His tagline states: “What I am is God’s gift. What I become is my gift to God.” Says Varghese, “He had a special ability to impress people. He left for the Gulf the day the complaint was filed. He returned after he got a special leave not to be arrested for a few days and soon went about spinning the story that the victim’s mother used to write love letters to him, which he rejected and so she had retaliated with this accusation.” Sandhya Rani, special prosecutor, POCSO, says Figarez had groomed the girl before raping her and cites the Ernakulam court’s remark on how Figarez had, unconscionably, gone to the extent of attributing bad character to the victim.

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INDIA
Outlook

The victims of sex crimes committed by pastors. In some instances, the case has yet to see light of the day

MINU ITTYIPE

Victim: Fathima Sofiya, 17

Accused: Fr H. Arockiaraj

Crime: Rape, murder

Place: St Stanislaus Church, Walayar, Palakkad

July 23, 2013

Legal status: Trial yet to begin. Criminal Miscellaneous petition filed by Shanthi Roselin in the Kerala HC for change of the investigating agency.

Shanthi Roselin, 42, was in a Coimbatore hospital that day, looking after a relative, when she received a phone call from Fr Arockiaraj, parish priest of Stanislaus Church in Walayar, right on the forested border between Kerala and Tamil Nadu. In a highly agitated voice, he told her that her 17-year-old daughter, Fathima Sofiya, was dead. “He called me 37 times in the next few hours. He kept repeating the word ‘killed’…and then that she had committed suicide. I couldn’t believe she was dead,” says Roselin. “Some 15 of us rushed to the hospital in Walayar but she’d alre­­ady been taken to the mortuary in Palakkad. By the time we reached there, it was past 5 pm and the mortuary was closed for the day. We had to go to the police station and sign the papers for the body to be released.” The Walayar police closed the case as suicide within two weeks. Almost 18 months later, Roselin found a note written by Sofiya about the relationship between her and the priest. That’s when she got suspicious and consulted lawyers and went back to Walayar to get the case reopened.

The family got to know Arockiaraj when he was the parish priest in St Michael’s church in Coimbatore in 2006. “My daughter was in Class 6 then; he was like a family member. We continued to be in touch with him after he was transferred to Valparai and Walayar. He would come and take Sof­iya for Sunday school from here to Walayar. I trusted him so much, never thought he would her hurt so brutally. That day she left college early and went to Walayar in a taxi. Within half-an-hour of meeting him, she died in the guest room.” The post-mortem indicates she was raped. The ecclesiastical court had found Arockiaraj guilty of sexual misconduct and dismissed him. The police reopened the case, but there was no evidence to prove it was not suicide. Helped by a TV reporter who acted as her nephew, Roselin recorded Arockiaraj’s confession that it was an ‘accident’, which was aired on June 15, 2015. The minutes of the ecclesiastical court, now with the police, reveal four priests and the Bishop of Coimbatore, L. Thomas Aquinas, knew about the sexual relationship between the priest and the victim and had not reported the matter to the police. On December 6, Arockiaraj was arrested and Bishop Aquinas and priests Mudalaimuthu, Kulandairaj and Melqur were charged with giving false information.

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INDIA
Outlook

Sex crimes come with a tinge of holy terror when clergymen prey on the laity. An institutional response can’t be different from a Christian one. Why then does India’s Catholic Church not walk its pious talk?

MINU ITTYIPE

We hear these children and their cries of pain; we also hear the cry of the Church our Mother, who weeps not only for the pain caused to her youngest sons and daughters, but also because she recognizes the sins of some of her members: the sufferings, the experiences and the pain of minors who were abused sexually by priests. It is a sin that shames us. Persons responsible for the protection of those children destroyed their dignity. We regret this deeply and we beg forgiveness. We join in the pain of the victims and weep for this sin. The sin of what happened, the sin of failing to help, the sin of covering up and denial, the sin of the abuse of power. The Church also weeps bitterly over this sin of her sons and she asks forgiveness. Today, as we commemorate the feast of the Holy Innocents, I would like us to renew our complete commitment to ensuring that these atrocities will no longer take place in our midst. Let us find the courage needed to take all necessary measures and to protect in every way the lives of our children, so that such crimes may never be repeated. In this area, let us adhere, clearly and faithfully, to “zero tolerance”.

Excerpts of the letter written by Pope Francis to Bishops all over the world, released on January 2, 2017, expressing regret and begging for forgiveness for crimes against children, asking them to show zero tolerance to such crimes.

***
He (Jesus) made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and the oxen, and spilled the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables and to those who sold doves he said, take these out of here, and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.”
– John 2:15-16, The Bible
***
Hardly 10 kilometres from Kodungallur, Kerala, where St Thomas the apostle is believed to have first set foot and brought the teachings of Jesus Christ to the Indian shores in 52 AD, lies the village of Puthenvelikkara. This is a world unto itself, a long way off from the Vatican, where the Pope wrote his remarkable Letter to Bishops on the Feast of the Holy Innocents on December 28, speaking of “the Herods of our time”. A bylane that leads to the Lourde Matha Church turns off from the Puthenvelikkara police station, and runs along the Periyar river, twisting through a thick canopy of trees. A meditative quietude cloaks the air. But it is deceptive—for, even today, anger and sadness overwhelm the laity of the Lourde Matha church. The sanctity of the church had been violen­tly desecrated by the vile deeds of its former vicar. From January to March, 2015, Fr Edwin Figarez, 41, the then vicar of the church, had raped a 14-year-old girl several times in the presbytery in the church precincts. Despicably enough, it is reported, he had used the confessional chamber to entice the girl to his room.

When the child’s parents discovered this horror, they asked the Latin Catholic Bishop of the Kotta­puram diocese, Joseph Karikkassery, to defrock Figarez, and not allow him to say mass. Figarez was immediately suspended by the bishop. But to everyone’s dismay, perhaps in an act of disobedie­nce, the priest celebrated the mass on March 29, Palm Sunday. This is a holy day for Christians, which celebrates the humble entry of Jesus on a donkey into Jerusalem, a symbolic act, days before the cru­cifixion. That he was allowed to say the holy mass was repugnant to many in the congregation. On April 1, 2015, with the backing of a few of the church members, the mother of the victim filed a complaint at the Puthenvelikkara police station. A year and half later, on December 8, 2016, a special court in Ernakulam found Figarez guilty and sentenced him to double imprisonment under various sections of the IPC and the POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) Act.

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INDIA
Outlook

ANOO BHUYAN INTERVIEWS BISHOP THEODORE MASCARENHAS

Why does the Catholic church appear to protect its clergy accused of murder and rape? For instance, in the case of Sister Abhaya’s murder, why does the Church go out of its way to defend, protect and rehabilitate the accused, ridiculing the due process of law? Palanivel Jeyapaul, who pleaded guilty of molestation in the US, was even reinstated and is back as a priest in India. Another priest, who is now convicted of rape in Kerala, was allowed to celebrate the mass on an auspicious day even after being accused of rape, dividing the parish down the middle. Are these attempts to put the laity down and turn them into second class citizens without any rights? Why does the church rehabilitate convicts like Fr Lazar of the Kollam diocese?
In a telephonic conversation with Anoo Bhuyan, Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas, secretary general of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI), declined to answer questions on specific cases, but talked about the church’s position on such matters. Excerpts:

What is the official position of the Catholic church in India on cases of sexual abuse by the clergy?

We are totally against any sexual ­offence. It is not according to Catholic teaching. We are against any form of ­disrespect to the dignity of women, not just harassment or rape. If we have failed in any way, we would apologise to the people we have hurt. That is the official position. This is why we are working on our own sexual harassment policy at work. CBCI is coming out with a document within a month.

In what you have just said, there is an acknowledgement of these crimes taking place. According to the Vishakha guidelines, every workplace is supposed to have a policy to deal with sexual harassment. What is the shape of CBCI’s policy on this?

The policy is zero tolerance for sexual harassment. We want it to be easy to implement. We will have monitoring cells and complaint cells at diocese or institution level. We want to respond to complaints speedily too. We are interested that all employees are educated about their role and the respect they should show to other humans. We have also started implementing POCSO at our institutions. We are moving from school to school to make the staff POCSO-­compliant. Besides punishment, I feel proper education has to take place in ­society. We have cases within the Catholic church just as outside in the society.

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PHILIPPINES
International Business Times

By Ananya Roy
January 21, 2017

Continuing his anti-Catholic Church rhetoric, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte questioned their “ascendancy” to criticise his drug war, a day after he challenged Catholic priests to try crystal meth to understand the problem of narcotic addiction.

In response to criticism by some churches in the country over the drug killings, the self-confessed foul-mouthed leader hurled abuses at them, citing cases of alleged sexual molestation and corruption involving priests.

“You expose me, fine. I expose you. Why? When you commit mistakes, it’s okay but when we do, no? B******t. That’s stupid,” the firebrand leader said during the oath taking of newly promoted police officials at his official residence – the Malacañang Palace – on Thursday (19 January).

The former Davao city mayor, who revealed in 2016 that he was physically molested by a priest when he was young, said: “If you cannot even give justice to the small boys that you have molested in the past, you do not have that moral ascendancy to lecture (me) on what to do. Sanctity of life? You’re enjoying your worth.

“When we were making confessions to you, we were being molested,” the president said. He then raised the issues of homosexual acts allegedly taking place inside seminaries and slammed the churches over their failure to take action.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Times

Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry – Report Chapters

Kincora Material

Amanda Ferguson

A Belfast woman representing survivors of child abuse in care homes in the North says they feel vindicated following the publication of the the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry report which found evidence of systematic failure by institutions and the state.

“We have waited a lifetime. Today we are vindicated. Our day has come,” said Margaret McGuckin.

The 2,300 page, 12-volume report published on Friday comes after an inquiry was set up to investigate physical, emotional and sexual abuse, and childhood neglect which occurred in residential institutions over a 73-year period up to 1995.

Ms McGuckin of Survivors and Victims of Institutional Abuse (SAVIA) – who suffered abuse from the age of three in Nazareth House in Belfast – hopes to meet Stormont politicians early next week to iron out details of the compensation scheme recommended by the inquiry team.

Patrick Corrigan, Amnesty International’s Northern Ireland programme director, said the report “laid bare the catastrophic failure by the state, and by religious bodies and others who ran children’s homes over a period of more than 70 years”.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
ITV

Survivors have told UTV they feel “vindicated” following the publication of the Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry’s findings.

The families said they are relieved, adding: “Our day has come.”

Campaigner Margaret McGukin described it as a special day, after years when “people disbelieved us and even bullied us for daring to complain”.

She added: “And now Sir Anthony Harte (inquiry chairman) has made it a special day for us where he has believed us and vindicated us.”

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Breaking News

The crimes of predatory priest Brendan Smyth were ignored to protect the good name of the Catholic church, a public inquiry found.

Smyth attacked children “far and wide” at residential homes in Northern Ireland from the 1940s and was convicted of more than 100 offences, the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry found.

He was allowed a car to roam the country even after he was eventually charged by police in 1991, and over many years his Norbertine religious order and others within the church failed to take determined and vigorous steps to ensure he did not harm more youngsters, the panel found.

A “deliberate decision” was taken to withhold information about Smyth when he was sent to other church dioceses around the world and he was given medical treatment as a “cure” despite continuing to attack minors.

Sir Anthony Hart’s report said: “For the Norbertine order and for others outside the order in positions of responsibility in the church, their overriding priority throughout was to protect the good name of the church and at all times to prioritise Fr Smyth’s interests, instead of doing what was best for the children abused by him.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Times

Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry – Report Chapters

Kincora Material

Gerry Moriarty

A 14-year-old boy who was abused by Norbertine priest Fr Brendan Smyth was “effectively silenced” as a result of a Catholic Church investigation in which the former Catholic primate Cardinal Seán Brady was involved, the HIA inquiry reported.

The Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry report refers to the case of Brendan Boland from Dundalk in Co Louth who in the mid 1970s was sexually abused by Smyth. The then Bishop of Kilmore Francis McKiernan instigated a canon law investigation of his claims.

One of three priests who interviewed Brendan Boland in 1975 was the then Fr John Brady (now Cardinal Brady), later to be appointed Archbishop of Armagh and Catholic primate of Ireland.
Sworn to secrecy

The report details how Mr Boland as a boy was not allowed to have his parents present in the interview with him and how he was sworn to secrecy about his allegations against Smyth.
Cardinal Brady told the inquiry that an oath of confidentiality was administered to bring “solemnity” and formality to proceedings and to “ensure the evidence was clear and strong”.

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ILLINOIS
Belleville News-Democrat

BY GEORGE PAWLACZYK AND BETH HUNDSDORFER

BELLEVILLE

The Rev. Albert E. “Gene” Kreher, a retired priest in the Belleville Catholic Diocese, admitted he regularly slept with but did not molest a 13-year-old boy three decades ago who sought help and later would become a priest himself.

Kreher said Bishop Edward Braxton told him in 2010 to write a letter of apology to the Rev. Stephen Poole, but kept Kreher on as the overseer of the local Boy Scouts council.

In the letter, Kreher described his behavior involving the teen at St. George Catholic Church in New Baden as “very inappropriate.”

“I am sorry that I didn’t offer my apology a long time ago, and regret the possibility that things I did a long time ago contribute to your present difficulties,” Kreher wrote. “I reach out to you praying that someday, somewhere, you will be able to find it in your power to forgive me.”

Kreher has denied he sexually abused Poole. He never faced any criminal charges and was not sued.

Read more here: http://www.bnd.com/news/local/article127701274.html#storylink=cpy

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

The Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA) was established to investigate child abuse that occurred in residential institutions in Northern Ireland over a 73-year period from 1922 to 1995.
The following is a complete list of homes and institutions investigated by it:

Local authority homes

Lissue Hospital, Lisburn
Kincora Boys’ Home, Belfast
Bawnmore Children’s Home, Newtownabbey
Fort James and Harberton House, Londonderry
Juvenile justice institutions
St Patrick’s Training School, Belfast
Lisnevin Training School, County Down
Rathgael Training School, Bangor
Hydebank Young Offenders’ Centre
Millisle Borstal

Secular voluntary homes

Barnardo’s Sharonmore Project, Newtownabbey
Barnardo’s Macedon, Newtownabbey

Roman Catholic voluntary homes

St Joseph’s Home, Termonbacca, Londonderry
Nazareth House Children’s Home, Londonderry
Nazareth House Children’s Home, Belfast
Nazareth Lodge Children’s Home, Belfast
De La Salle Boys’ Home, Rubane House, Kircubbin
St Joseph’s Training School for Girls, Middletown, County Armagh
Institutions run by the Good Shepherd Sisters in Derry, Belfast and Newry
Church of Ireland
Manor House, a children’s home near Lisburn

The inquiry also held public hearings into two other matters,

The practice of child migration, in the 1950s, where children were sent from Catholic, Protestant and local authority homes in Northern Ireland to homes in Australia.

Fr Brendan Smyth, a member of the Norbertine Order, who was convicted of offences relating to children in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and who was alleged to have abused children within a number of children’s homes within Northern Ireland.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Premier

Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry – Report Chapters

Kincora Material

Fri 20 Jan 2017
By Premier Journalist

Catholic bishops in Northern Ireland have welcomed the findings of an investigation into the decades of abuse in residential homes and apologised to all those who have suffered.

The statement comes after the publication of a report by Sir Anthony Hart of the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry.

The report concluded that victims of historic child abuse in state, church and charity run homes between 1922 to 1995 should receive state-backed compensation payments of up to £100,000.

Inquiry chair Sir Hart said the minimum pay-out should be £7,500 with the maximum amount given to those who had experienced severe levels of abuse.

Part of the investigation focused on the activities of paedophile priest Brendan Smyth.

During evidence sessions the inquiry heard lurid details about the activities of the serial child molester who frequented Catholic residential homes and was convicted of more than 100 child abuse charges.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC

By Tara Mills
BBC Newsline

Margaret McGuckin has been the public face of the campaign for victims of historical institutional child sex abuse.

But, privately there is a reason for her involvement – her brother Kevin.

The 62-year-old still lives in care. He has a learning difficulty, which Ms McGuckin believes is directly related to what he suffered as a child.

Their mother left home when they were children, leaving their father to look after them.

But a neighbour reported them to welfare and the four children were separated and taken into care.

“Emotionally that creates disaster in the rest of your life where you can’t even form bonds with anyone, never mind your family,” Margaret says.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Derry Journal

The Derry-born leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland has issued an unreserved apology to all those who suffered abuse in Church-run institutions.

Archbishop Eamon Martin was speaking following the publication of a report which revealed that kids’ homes run by church and charities in Northern Ireland were the scene of widespread abuse and mistreatment of young residents.

The Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA) studied allegations of abuse in 22 homes – a number of them in Derry – and other residential institutions between 1922 to 1995. The largest number of complaints received related to four Sisters of Nazareth homes – two of which were located in Derry at Termonbacca and Bishop Street.

It found nuns physically and emotionally abused children in their care.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
RTE News

The Catholic Primate of All Ireland, Archbishop Eamon Martin, has told Pope Francis that the publication of the report by the Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry serves as a reminder that much remains to be done if the church in Ireland is to continue along the path of penitence, reparation, healing and renewal.

Dr Martin, who is Archbishop of Armagh, said that the publication is a very significant moment.

Speaking on RTÉ’s News At One, he said it is yet another moment where “all of us” are confronted by what, he said, has been a dark and disturbing chapter in the life of the church and society.

“We always need to be alert with regards to this issue. What remains to be done is always being on the alert to assure that these despicable things don’t happen anymore in the future and that applies to everyone in the church and, indeed, in all of the society.”

He said there has been major changes to how life in the church in Ireland has changed over the last number of years and this was discussed at the meeting with Pope Francis in the Vatican this morning.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry – Report Chapters

Kincora Material

There was “no credible evidence” of a paedophile ring made up of members of the British Establishment using an east Belfast boys home to carry out abuse, Sir Anthony Hart has said while delivering his report on historical institutional abuse at a series of children’s homes run by church and charity in Northern Ireland.

Retired judge Sir Anthony Hart chaired an independent panel, the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry, helped by a team of lawyers and researchers.

On Friday he delivered his 2,300 page-long, 10 volume report saying he had the full co-operation from state, religious orders and government in its making.

Sir Anthony Hart said: “Our terms of reference, unlike other current inquiries, were not limited to sexual abuse, we examined allegations of physical and emotional abuse and other failings to provide proper terms of care.”

At the notorious Kincora boys home, where there were numerous allegation made of abuse, Sir Anthony said if an adequate RUC investigation had been carried out “those sexually abused after 1976 would have been spared their experience.”

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NORTHERN IRELAND
RTE News

Police investigations into the notorious Kincora boys’ home in East Belfast in the mid-1970s were “inept, inadequate and far from thorough”, the Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry has found.

Inquiry chairman Sir Anthony Hart said authorities and police in Belfast were guilty of a “catalogue of failures” and said if a proper investigation had been undertaken many victims might have been spared.

However, long-standing allegations that a paedophile ring containing British establishment figures abused boys in the home in Belfast are not supported by credible evidence, the inquiry found.

It also dismissed claims that intelligence agencies were aware of such a ring and covered it up in order to blackmail the high-profile abusers.

Three staff members at Kincora were found guilty of abusing residents in the 1970s but there had long been rumours that others, including civil servants and businessmen, were involved.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry – Report Chapters

Kincora Material

A report detailing widespread abuse of children in residential homes in Northern Ireland has led to apologies from several institutions involved.

The Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA) examined complaints about 22 homes run by the state, churches and charities between 1922 to 1995.

It found some children were physically and sexually abused by priests and lay people entrusted to look after them.

Church leaders, politicians and victims have been reacting to the findings.

Irish Norbertines

“The Irish Norbertines recognise the tragic harm and hurt caused to innocent children by Brendan Smyth, a deceased member of our community.

“We again unreservedly apologise most sincerely for the hurt and harm caused to so many young people, while also accepting that our management of the man concerned (Smyth) and the accusations presented to us was grossly inadequate.”
line break

De La Salle Brothers

“We accept and deeply regret that boys in our care were abused. We offer our sincere and unreserved apology to all those whom we failed to protect.

“That some Brothers abused boys in their care was in total contradiction of their vocations as De la Salle Brothers and of their mission as established by our founder – namely to look after the welfare and educational needs of deprived, vulnerable and abandoned children.”
line break

Sisters of Nazareth

“We again apologise to anyone who has suffered abuse whether psychological, physical, sexual or neglect on any occasion when the sisters’ standard of care fell below what was expected of them.

“It was always the desire of the order to provide a safe place for children and when we failed on any occasion, we want to express our deepest regret.

“This has been a traumatic time for those survivors and victims who have come forward however; we sincerely hope it has also been an opportunity to find some relief.”

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IRELAND
The Anglo-Celt

The Bishop of the Diocese of Kilmore, Leo O’Reilly has today welcomed the publication by Judge Anthony Hart of the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry Report.

“From the outset I wish to apologise to everyone who suffered abuse perpetrated by a priest or religious. To abuse a child is a most abhorrent act, is evil and to be condemned unreservedly,” Bishop O’Reilly stated.

Thinking in particular of the survivors of abuse, he acknowledged what he described as “the long and difficult journey that they have travelled in order to achieve justice and official recognition” of the pain and trauma visited upon them as children.

The inquiry chair Sir Anthony Hart outlined in his report a series of recommendations after he revealed shocking levels of sexual, physical and emotional abuse in the period 1922 to 1995.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

Hundreds of victims of historic child abuse in Northern Ireland should receive state-backed compensation payments of up to £100,000, an inquiry has recommended.

Those abused in state, church and charity run homes should also be offered an official apology from government and the organisations that ran the residential facilities where it happened, the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry found.

Inquiry chair Sir Anthony Hart outlined a series of recommendations after he revealed shocking levels of sexual, physical and emotional abuse in the period 1922 to 1995.

He said the minimum pay-out should be £7,500 with the maximum amount given to those who had experienced severe levels of abuse as well as being transported to Australia in a controversial migrant scheme.

He said the organisations that ran the abusing homes should make a financial contribution to the Stormont Executive-run scheme.

Sir Anthony said the four-year inquiry found “evidence of systemic failings” in the institutions and homes it investigated.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Daily Mail

Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry – Report Chapters

Kincora Material

By Martin Robinson, Uk Chief Reporter For Mailonline

A paedophile ring run by British Establishment figures did not abuse boys in the notorious Kincora boys’ home in Belfast – but there were hundreds of children who were attacked by sex offenders led by a paedophile priest, a major report said today.

Inquiry chairman Sir Anthony Hart said the VIP gang claims are not supported by credible evidence and insisted the abuse did not extend beyond the three guilty staff members.

Some victims alleged to have been abused by figures including the late Liberal MP Cyril Smith, Cabinet ministers, clergymen, pop stars, spies, judges and members of the royal household.

Sir Anthony denied this happened at Kincora but did say that there was widespread sexual abuse of children and police investigations in the mid-1970s were ‘inept, inadequate and far from thorough’.

He said authorities in Belfast were guilty of a ‘catalogue of failures’ and said if a proper investigation had been undertaken many victims might have been spared.

Hundreds of victims should be offered a tax-free lump sum compensation payment, Sir Anthony said, this would be at least £7,500 with the amount rising according to the severity of the abuse.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
The Journal

Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry – Report Chapters

Kincora Material

Updated 4.25pm

A REPORT INTO institutional abuse at children’s homes in Northern Ireland has found that there was ‘widespread abuse’ at such facilities between 1922 and 1995.

The Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry had looked into allegations of abuse at 22 such children’s homes across Northern Ireland.

The largest number of complaints stemmed from four different Catholic-run institutions.

At those four Sisters of Nazareth homes nuns were found to have been physically and emotionally abusive to children in their care, chairman of the inquiry Sir Anthony Hart said at a press conference to launch the report today.

At those institutions, he added it was not unheard of for children to have outdoor disinfectant Jeyes Fluid put in their baths, while “the handling of menstruation and sex education, and other practices such as the confiscation of children’s belongings, represented poor childcare and amounted to systemic abuse”.

Sexual abuse had also been carried out by priests and lay people, Hart said.

Some institutions “sought to protect their reputations and individuals against whom allegations were made, by failing to take any action at all, failing to report matters to or deliberately misleading the appropriate authorities and moving those against whom allegations were made to other locations”.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

Children’s homes run by church and charities in Northern Ireland were the scene of widespread abuse and mistreatment of young residents, a report has found.

The Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA) studied allegations of abuse in 22 homes and other residential institutions between 1922 to 1995.

The largest number of complaints related to four Catholic-run homes.

There was also sexual abuse carried out by priests and lay people.

* HIA report closes dark chapter in NI’s past
* NI victims recall the impact of abuse
* Live coverage of abuse inquiry findings
* Homes and institutions investigated by HIA

The chair of the inquiry, Sir Anthony Hart, recommended compensation, a memorial and a public apology to abuse survivors.

He said a tax-free lump sum payment should be made to all survivors, including in homes and institutions that were not covered by the inquiry.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Sky News

By David Blevins, Ireland Correspondent

An inquiry into historical abuse in Northern Ireland has found systematic failings in the care of children in institutions and recommended compensation.

The publication of its report brings to an end a four year examination of allegations of abuse and/or neglect at 22 different establishments between 1922 and 1995.

Inquiry chairman Sir Anthony Hart said: “We hope that in some measure the process of giving evidence… helped those who were not listened to in the past.”

During public hearings at a former courthouse in Banbridge, County Down, the inquiry heard from 527 witnesses.

Some 333 had applied to give evidence and while the majority did so in person, statements from 87 were read into the record.

The inquiry found evidence of “systematic failings to a greater or lesser degree” in the majority of the children’s homes it investigated.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Yahoo! News

By Amanda Ferguson
Reuters

January 20, 2017

BELFAST (Reuters) – Children in Northern Ireland suffered decades of cruel sexual, physical and emotional abuse in institutions run by the state, charities and the Catholic and Protestant churches, an official report said on Friday.

Instances of sexual abuse by priests and lay people were detailed in a 2,300 page, 12-volume report that identified widespread systemic failings and extended responsibility to the Northern Irish government and church authorities.

“Some institutions providing residential child care were responsible for a range of institutional practices which constituted systemic abuse,” Sir Anthony Hart, a retired High Court judge who chaired the four-year inquiry, told a news conference.

“There were individuals who provided excellent care and others who were cruel and abusive, physically and emotionally towards the children for whom they were responsible. This abuse has affected many people for the rest of their lives.”

Victims at the news conference applauded Hart as he concluded his more than two-hour findings.

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MASSACHUETTS
The Pilot

ON: 1/20/2017, BY ANTONIO M. ENRIQUE PILOT STAFF

BRAINTREE — Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley expressed his gratitude to Pope Francis for appointing him a member of the Congregation for The Doctrine of The Faith and said he hopes to serve as a bridge with the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors that he presides. The appointment was announced at the Vatican Jan. 14.

“I was very honored to be asked by the Holy Father to be a member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and I hope that I will be able to make a positive contribution” he told The Pilot Jan. 17.

“I hope that my participation on the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith will allow us to have closer communications between our Commission and the Doctrine of the Faith which has competence in cases of sexual abuse,” he said.

Pope Francis created the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors in March 2014 as an advisory body at the service of the Holy Father and tasked it to propose initiatives “for protecting minors and vulnerable adults, in order that we may do everything possible to ensure that crimes such as those which have occurred are no longer repeated in the Church,” according to the chirograph, a form of papal decree, that established the commission.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
The Guardian

Henry McDonald Ireland correspondent
Friday 20 January 2017

Police were guilty of a “catalogue of failures” over the abuse of boys at a Belfast care home run by a paedophile ring, a comprehensive report into child mistreatment across Northern Ireland has found.

The historical institutional abuse inquiry, established in 2014, found that a Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) investigation into sexual abuse at the Kincora care home in east Belfast was “inept, inadequate and far from thorough”.

The report, released on Friday, also accused the Catholic hierarchy in Ireland of ignoring repeated warnings about a serial paedophile, Fr Brendan Smyth, who sexually assaulted and raped dozens of young victims.

The implications of the Smyth scandal and other clerical abuse in the region were so serious that a senior Catholic cleric was due to discuss the findings with the pope later on Friday.

Kincora care home was run by a number of paedophiles whom it was alleged were agents of the state. They included the prominent Orange Order member William McGrath, who was accused of being an informer for MI5 and special branch in the 1970s, spying on fellow hardline loyalists.

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ITALY
WEST

by Roberta Lunghini – 2017.01.20

In Italy, a priest pedophile will receive no leniency even if he committed the crime outside of the church. Because in the eyes of the victim, he always represents a point of reference for the role that he plays. The Supreme Court rejected the appeal of a priest who had been condemned for having molested minors and for having forced them into having sexual relations with him. The Supreme Judges upheld the modern doctrine of the Catholic Church by explaining the basis of individual rights, which in sex crimes, takes into account the abuse of power by a minister of faith and his failure to uphold the evangelical duties. Not only in church, but also when he is participating in the community in a variety of capacities: facilitating recreation, providing assistance, or performing activities related to his mission, including psychological support to parishioners or anyone else who might be in need.

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VERMONT
My Champlain Valley

By Rachel Aragon | raragon@nexstar.tv
Published 01/19 2017

MONTPELIER, VT

An investigative report puts a spotlight on loopholes in Vermont’s sex abuse laws.

Now lawmakers are grappling with how to close them.

The Boston Globe’s Spotlight team recently published a report exposing loopholes in New England’s sex abuse laws.

“I’m very proud Vermont had fewer loopholes than many of the other New England states, but we do have some,” said Dick Sears, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

On Thursday, exactly one month after the Globe’s story was printed, lawmakers sat down to discuss those loopholes outlined in the report.

“There’s concern that there just isn’t, aren’t strong enough laws in place that can help prevent abuse,” said reporter Todd Wallack, member of the Boston Globe Spotlight Team.

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GUAM
KUAM

Jan 20, 2017

By Krystal Paco

The island’s faithful will once again have a leader. Coadjutor Archbishop Michael Byrnes is scheduled to arrive from Detroit on Monday, January 23. Archbishop Byrnes visited briefly late last year, shortly after he was appointed and given full authority of the Archdiocese of Agana.

Meanwhile, no updates are available on Archbishop Anthony Apuron who faces a canonical trial in Rome for allegations of child molestation.

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ILLINOIS
Church Militant

A callous disregard for victims. Financial kickbacks from Church-suing tort lawyers. Retaliation.

A stunning new civil lawsuit filed in Illinois by a former insider at SNAP confirms what many of us have known all along: SNAP is not an organization designed to help victims of clergy sex abuse but a gang hellbent on shaking down the Catholic Church through a seedy web of lawyer kickback schemes, lawsuits and bigotry.

Dennis Coday at the National Catholic Reporter was the first to report the news of this stunning lawsuit.

Gretchen Hammond was hired by SNAP in 2010 as director of development to oversee the group’s fundraising operations and to boost cash inflow to the group. Ms. Hammond did so with great success, but the more she learned about the inner workings of SNAP, the more she came to learn that SNAP was not simply an innocent “victim advocacy group.” Hammond began “collecting documents in preparation of exposing SNAP’s acceptance of kickbacks from attorneys.”

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ILLINOIS
WLS

Thursday, January 19, 2017

CHICAGO (WLS) — A lawsuit was filed by against SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, by a former employee of the sex abuse victims’ advocacy group.

The former employee claims she was fired after she learned the group’s officers conspired with attorneys for sex abuse survivors and that SNAP accepted financial kickbacks for referring abuse victims to attorneys.

SNAP president Barbara Blaine said in a statement: “The allegations are not true. This will be proven in court. SNAP leaders are now, and always have been, devoted to following the SNAP mission: To help victims heal and to prevent further sexual abuse.”

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ILLINOIS
Chicago Sun-Times

Andy Grimm
@agrimm34 | email

A Chicago-based advocacy group that has led a national crusade to expose sexual abuse by Catholic clergy is being sued by a former executive who claims the not-for-profit colluded with lawyers who sued the church in exchange for “kickbacks” on the multimillion-dollar settlements they won.

The onetime employee, Gretchen Hammond, worked as a staff fundraiser for the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. She claims the group referred clergy-abuse victims to lawyers, who, in turn, sued the church. SNAP collaborated with those attorneys, getting advance copies of lawsuits and hosting press conferences, leveraging the publicity for fundraising efforts, the lawsuit states.

Hammond was fired from SNAP after she probed the organization’s fundraising, the lawsuit alleges.

“In reality, SNAP is a commercial operation motivated by its directors’ and officers’ personal and ideological animus against the Catholic Church,” the lawsuit states. “SNAP’s commercial operation is premised on farming out abuse survivors as clients for attorneys, who then file lawsuits on behalf of the survivors and collect settlement checks from the Catholic Church.”

SNAP President Barbara Blaine issued a brief statement Wednesday denying the allegations in the lawsuit, filed this week in Cook County Circuit Court.

“The allegations are not true. This will be proven in court,” Blaine said. “SNAP leaders are now, and always have been, devoted to following the SNAP mission: To help victims heal and to prevent further sexual abuse.”

Hammond copied files from the group during her stint as head of fundraising for the group from 2011 to 2013.

In an interview Wednesday at the office of her lawyer, Bruce Howard, Hammond said that SNAP was aware that its connections to lawyers who had sued the church was a frequent line of attack from critics of the organization — and that she was barred from so much as using the word “lawyer” in office emails or fundraising records.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Gavin Coote

Australia’s oldest Catholic boys’ boarding school is set to apologise to students who were sexually abused by staff during their time there.

St Stanislaus College in Bathurst has been at the centre of child abuse investigations for almost a decade, and a number of priests, chaplains and teachers have been convicted.

Towering over the historic New South Wales city, ‘Stannies’ as it is commonly known, takes students from some of the most remote and far-flung parts of the state.

But retired journalist Terry Jones, who lives in Bathurst, said it was not such a grand past for dozens of students who went there.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Times

The Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry is publishing its report three years after it began taking evidence.

What is the HIA?

Men and women, who were vulnerable children in care in Northern Ireland between 1922 and 1995, have come before the public inquiry to give accounts of abuse in their childhood while in residential institutions run by the state and religious orders.

It was established by Northern Ireland’s powersharing government to make recommendations on redress for past harm.

Retired judge Sir Anthony Hart chaired a panel of three which heard evidence in open session alongside an acknowledgement forum for private story-telling.

What issues did it address?

It was established to inquire into allegations of sexual, physical and emotional harm inflicted on children while they were in care.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
RTE News

The Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry is publishing its report three years after it began taking evidence.

Men and women, who were vulnerable children in care in Northern Ireland between 1922 and 1995, have come before the public inquiry to give accounts of abuse in their childhood while in residential institutions run by the state and religious orders.

It was established by Northern Ireland’s powersharing government to make recommendations on redress for past harm.

Retired judge Anthony Hart chaired a panel of three which heard evidence in open session alongside an acknowledgement forum for private story-telling.

What issues did it address?

The inquiry was established to probe allegations of sexual, physical and emotional harm inflicted on children while they were in care.

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WASHINGTON
Daily World

DAN HAMMOCK

Thu Jan 19th, 2017

A bill eliminating the statutes of limitations for certain felony sex offenses was unanimously passed out of the House Public Safety Committee Thursday.

Rep. Dan Griffey, a Republican from Allyn, introduced House Bill 1155, which would allow prosecutors to bring charges at any time after the commission of some sex crimes, including rape and rape of a child, child molestation, sexual exploitation of a minor and voyeurism.

“Sexual abuse isn’t something victims get over and move on from. It’s something they deal with the rest of their lives,” said Griffey. “What message are we sending to sexual abusers and survivors? The people that commit these heinous crimes should never feel free from prosecution, and victims should always feel like they have a voice.”

Current criminal statutes of limitations laws in Washington differ depending on the age of the victim, the type of crime committed and other factors.

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ILLINOIS
Chicago Sun-Times

Sara Freund

Two men filed separate lawsuits Thursday alleging they were sexually abused by a Presbyterian pastor in the 1980s at a church in the West Side Ukrainian Village neighborhood.

The lawsuit names the Chicago Presbyterian Church, Presbytery of Chicago, San Marcos Church and Church Extension Board of the Presbytery of Chicago as defendants.

The men claim they were sexually abused in the 1980s by Pastor Douglas Mason, who ministered youth at the San Marcos Church at 2028 W. Augusta Blvd., according to the lawsuit filed in Cook County Circuit Court.

Pastor Mason died in early 2006, according to the Presbytery of Chicago.

In 2007, the Presbytery reached a settlement with four people who accused the pastor of sexual abuse, according to a statement from Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

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ILLINOIS
Headlines from the Catholic World

Chicago, Ill., Jan 19, 2017 / 05:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A former employee of the controversial Survivors’ Network of those Abused by Priests has filed a lawsuit claiming wrongful termination for challenging the organization’s misbehavior, including alleged kickbacks from attorneys who were suing the Church on behalf of sexual abuse victims.

In the lawsuit, Gretchen Rachel Hammond, a past development director of SNAP, claimed to have been fired after coming to learn “SNAP does not focus on protecting or helping survivors – it exploits them.”

Although the plaintiff “had explicitly stated to potential donors that SNAP did not engage in kickback schemes,” Hammond’s discoveries while employed there allegedly showed otherwise – and the reputed proof is on an external hard drive.

“SNAP routinely accepts financial kickbacks from attorneys in the form of ‘donations.’ In exchange for the kickbacks, SNAP refers survivors as potential clients to attorneys, who then file lawsuits on behalf of the survivors against the Catholic Church,” the lawsuit charges. “These cases often settle, to the financial benefit of the attorneys and, at times, to the financial benefit of SNAP, which has received direct payments from survivors’ settlements.” …

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ILLINOIS
The Kansas City Star

BY JUDY L. THOMAS
jthomas@kcstar.com

A former employee of a national victims’ advocacy group is suing the organization, saying she was fired after questioning what she said was evidence that it was accepting kickbacks for referring sex abuse victims to attorneys.

The civil lawsuit, filed Tuesday against the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, alleges that instead of protecting or helping survivors of sexual abuse, the organization neglects and exploits them.

The suit was filed by Gretchen Rachel Hammond in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Ill. Hammond worked for SNAP from July 2011 through early 2013, the lawsuit says.

“SNAP routinely accepts financial kickbacks from attorneys in the form of ‘donations,’ ” the lawsuit alleges. “In exchange for the kickbacks, SNAP refers survivors as potential clients to attorneys, who then file lawsuits on behalf of the survivors against the Catholic Church.”

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Emma Younger

Former Catholic priest Gerard Ridsdale has faced court via video link from prison charged with numerous historical sexual abuse offences against 11 alleged victims.

The 82-year-old is facing 36 charges including rape, buggery, indecent assault and assault.

Police allege he committed the crimes against girls and boys between 1961 and 1988 in numerous locations across western Victoria.

They include Ballarat, a location between Ocean Grove and Wendouree West, Merbein, Edenhope, Riverside, a location between Apsley and Edenhope, Mortlake and Quantong.

Ridsdale faced court from a correctional facility where he is serving a sentence for separate offending.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Times

Some witnesses to the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) Inquiry said they were treated like child convicts.

Others claimed they were forced to eat their own vomit, preyed upon by serial sexual predators and one was told he was the product of an “evil and satanic relationship”.

The poverty-stricken youngsters were among the most vulnerable in society and their experiences dated from 1922 to 1995.

They had been left in homes run by religious orders because their parents could not care for them or because they were illegitimate.

In 2014 they finally had their say as public hearings began.

One early witness said telling the truth after 65 years had finally set him free.

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OHIO
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Thomas A. Kuhn was a priest of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, ordained in 1967. For over twenty years he worked at Elder High School as a teacher, vice principal and then principal. During that time he was assigned to a series of area parishes as an assistant and, for several years, pastored one. Kuhn left Elder in July 1988. The following year he began a twelve-year stint as pastor of Incarnation in Centerville, OH which is near Dayton and in the northern reaches of the archdiocese. He was also involved with nearby Alter High School as a teacher and sports team chaplain.

In the early 1990s Incarnation parents began to complain to the school principal that Kuhn was showing undue attention to their young sons, sending them to class late after mass and taking them out of class to his home. The principal confronted Kuhn, but the behavior continued. A former Alter High student said in 2002 that in 1994 she informed the archdiocese that a former student told her Kuhn had touched him in ways that made him feel uncomfortable. Reportedly, the archdiocese did nothing. In 1997 Alter’s principal reported Kuhn to the archdiocese and Children’s Services after a male student told two teachers that Kuhn had stuck his hand down the boy’s pants. Kuhn was allowed to remain in ministry until May 2002, when he was under investigation by the Sheriff’s Department for possible “misuse” of church computers. He had been on leave for a few months earlier in the year for treatment of alcoholism. Bishop Pilarczyk stated publicly that Kuhn was “guiltless,” leading to the objections of former students, parents and fellow priest, Rev. Lawrence Breslin. Kuhn was known to lavish boys with money and expensive gifts, and to provide them with alcohol. During November 2001-January 2002, he hosted four boys and a girl in his home, gave them alcohol and masturbated in front of at least one of them.

In October 2002 Kuhn was charged with one count of public indecency, six counts of furnishing alcohol to minors and four counts of allowing minors to possess or consume alcohol on his premises. He pleaded no contest in June 2004 in October 2002 was sentenced to five years’ probation and fined $10,500. In 2005 he violated the terms of his probation and was jailed for thirty days.

Kuhn was laicized in October 2014.

Ordained: 1967
Laicized: 2014

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GUAM
Radio New Zealand

The time it is taking for the Vatican to investigate allegations against Guam’s Catholic Archbishop is being questioned.

The Vatican placed Archbishop Anthony Apuron on leave last June after former altar boys accused him of sexual abuse in the 1970s.

In November, his successor Archbishop Michael Byrnes, said a canonical trial had been initiated.

But the Concerned Catholics of Guam President David Sablan said they hadn’t heard anything about how it is going.

“We’re concerned about the time it’s taking because most of the facts are very clear. But I think there are others in the Vatican who are very supportive of Archbishop Apuron and if they are trying to cover up this whole mess that he has been involved in here in Guam then they would be complicit in basically what he has done to harm the church here.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Courier

Tammy Mills
20 Jan 2017

Notorious priest Gerald Ridsdale has fronted a packed Melbourne court on Friday morning on fresh child-sex charges.

The 82-year-old, was charged on December 28 with multiple offences against a number of alleged victims from across Victoria, appeared via videolink for a filing hearing in the Melbourne Magistrates Court.

The charges include rape, buggery and unlawful and indecent assault of children between the 1960s and 1980s, when he was a priest in the Ballarat diocese.

Mr Ridsdale said little in the short administration hearing except to confirm subsequent court dates with Magistrate Gwynn Carolene.

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JAMAICA
The Gleaner

The keynote speaker of the National Leadership Prayer Breakfast Reverend Burchell Taylor this morning appealed for Jamaicans to pursue justice.

Speaking to political and religious leaders at the annual event, Reverend Taylor said justice should be pursued as at the policy level with human dignity.

Reverend Taylor stressed that justice is the responsibility of every Jamaican adding that no one should be content with being a beneficiary of injustice.

Reverend Taylor’s appeal comes amid immense backlash aimed at the church amid the Moravian sex scandal involving a 64-year-old Moravian pastor who is charged with the sexual abuse of a 15-year-old girl.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By John Beauge | Special to PennLive
on January 19, 2017

SUNBURY – The pastor of a Northumberland County church charged with failing to report to authorities an alleged sexual abuse incident has been accepted into a special probation program that does not require admission of guilt.

Gregory L. Clendaniel, 54, of Paxinos, on Thursday in Northumberland County court was accepted into the accelerated rehabilitative disposition program.

If he successfully completes terms of his probation he could apply to have his record expunged.

District Attorney Tony Matulewicz said he normally would not approve ARD in cases in which the victim was a minor, but there were issues when Clendaniel learned of the incident.

Clendaniel, as the pastor of the Augustaville Wesleyan Church, is under the law required to report sexual abuse incidents.

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CANADA
The Ottawa Citizen

JOE LOFARO, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN

A disgraced Ottawa priest convicted of molesting altar boys in the 1960s and 1970s has been re-arrested after he allegedly visited a Lowertown swimming pool frequented by children – a breach of his release conditions – nearly 100 times.

Gatineau police arrested Jacques Faucher, 80, on Monday, nine days before he was scheduled to be sentenced on historical sex crimes involving three children. Faucher was free on bail while awaiting sentencing.

Police allege he attended the kids section of the Ottawa Lowertown Community Centre and Pool 96 times between Nov. 24, 2015 and Dec. 22, 2016, according to court documents. The documents claim he did not once visit the adult swimming pool in that one-year period. Neither the police, nor the court documents viewed by the Citizen detailed how authorities determined Faucher had visited the pool 96 times.

Ottawa police arrested the former priest in 2013 after five male complainants came forward with allegations he molested them when they were between the ages of nine and 13 at the former Notre-Dame-des-Anges parish near Tunney’s Pasture.

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ILLINOIS
Chicago Tribune

Manya Brachear Pashman
Chicago Tribune

A former employee of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests has sued the victims advocacy group, alleging that SNAP exploited victims of sexual abuse by clergy in return for financial kickbacks from attorneys.

According to a lawsuit filed this week in Cook County Circuit Court, Gretchen Rachel Hammond worked as a director of development from July 2011 until she said she was fired in February 2013, shortly after asking superiors whether SNAP was referring potential clients to attorneys in exchange for donations.

In addition to the organization, defendants named in the lawsuit are Barbara Blaine, its founder and president; David Clohessy, executive director; and Barbara Dorris, outreach director.

Blaine said in a statement that “the allegations are not true.

“This will be proven in court,” she said. “SNAP leaders are now, and always have been, devoted to following the SNAP mission: To help victims heal and to prevent further sexual abuse.”

Neither Clohessy nor Dorris could be reached for comment.

Though it did not name attorneys, the lawsuit said several high-profile litigators across the country had donated a large percentage of SNAP’s income.

Jeff Anderson, a prominent Minnesota attorney for victims of clergy sex abuse, confirmed that he makes regular donations to SNAP, as well as other nonprofit organizations that advocate for the safety of children. But he said he does not do it in exchange for referrals.

“I have supported SNAP and a lot of other organizations that help survivors throughout the country, unapologetically,” he said.

“The allegation is explosive because it’s unethical,” he added. “I’ve never done it nor would I ever do it.”

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GEORGIA
The Telegraph

BY AMY LEIGH WOMACK
awomack@macon.com

A man who attended Macon’s Mulberry United Methodist Church in the 1980s has filed suit against a former youth minister there, alleging that he was molested as a child.

The lawsuit, which names Perry Sandifer as the sole defendant, alleges that the man was 12 or 13 years old when Sandifer groped him and engaged in other “unwanted and non-consensual sexual contact.”

Darl Champion, the plaintiff’s lawyer, said his now 46-year-old client suppressed many of the memories from the alleged molestation, but they later resurfaced after he become an adult.

“It’s about accountability,” Champion said when asked why his client filed the suit.

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ILLINOIS
Crux

The country’s most visible advocacy group for survivors of clerical sexual abuse is denying claims made by an ex-employee, who charges in a lawsuit that the group “does not focus on protecting or helping survivors, it exploits them,” including taking kickbacks from lawyers suing the Church.

A lawsuit by an ex-employee charges that the Survivors Network Of Those Abused By Priests (SNAP), a highly visible advocacy group for survivors of clerical abuse, is actually “a commercial operation motivated by … personal and ideological animus against the Catholic Church,” and that it routinely engages in kickback schemes with lawyers suing the Church.

“SNAP does not focus on protecting or helping survivors – it exploits them,” says the lawsuit, filed Jan. 17 in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois.

“SNAP routinely accepts financial kickbacks from attorneys in the form of ‘donations.’ In exchange for the kickbacks, SNAP refers survivors as potential clients to attorneys, who then file lawsuits on behalf of the survivors against the Catholic Church,” the suit alleges.

“These cases often settle, to the financial benefit of the attorneys and, at times, to the financial benefit of SNAP, which has received direct payments from survivors’ settlements.”

News of the lawsuit was first reported on Wednesday by National Catholic Reporter editor Dennis Coday.

On Thursday, a SNAP official denied the claims in a brief written statement to Crux.

“The allegations are not true,” said Barbara Blaine, the group’s president.

“This will be proven in court. SNAP leaders are now, and always have been, devoted to following the SNAP mission: To help victims heal and to prevent further sexual abuse,” she said.

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TEXAS
Univision

NORTH RICHLAND HILLS, Texas.- Un exvoluntario de la iglesia católica San Juan el Apóstol en North Richland Hills, Texas, fue arrestado este miércoles y se le imputaron cargos por abusar sexualmente de menores de edad mientras laboraba en la guardería del recinto religioso.

Francisco Guevara, de 65 años de edad, enfrenta dos cargos por abuso sexual continuo a un menor y uno por cometer actos indecentes con un menor.

De acuerdo con las autoridades, los actos ocurrieron alrededor de 2009 y se estima que sus víctimas tenían entre cuatro y nueve años de edad. Asimismo, informaron que dos de los tres incidentes por los que es acusado ocurrieron en North Richland Hills, mientras que el otro sucedió en Colleyville.

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AUSTRALIA
SBS

Former Catholic priest Gerald Ridsdale will face court over dozens of fresh historical sexual abuse offences.

The 82-year-old has been charged with more than 36 offences including rape, buggery, indecent assault and assault.

It’s alleged the offences occurred at various locations in the western region of Victoria between the 1960s to the 1980s.

Ridsdale was charged by the Sano Taskforce, which was set up to investigate historical and new allegations of child sex abuse involving religious and non-government organisations.

He is due to appear at the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Friday via video link.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

Northern Ireland’s public inquiry into child abuse at residential homes run by churches and the state will be judged on the extent to which it delivers truth and justice, campaigners said.

The Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry is due to publish its report on Friday.

Evidence from hundreds of witnesses during 223 days of hearings outlined claims of brutality and sex abuse dating back to the 1920s at the homes. Some of those allegations have been challenged by the religious orders involved.

Retired judge Sir Anthony Hart chaired an independent panel which investigated, helped by a team of lawyers and researchers.

Sir Anthony has already indicated that compensating victims will be among his recommendations.

Stormont ministers will have to decide on what happens next amid a crisis engulfing powersharing.

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ITALY
America

Gerard O’Connell | Jan 19 2017

Emiliano Fittipaldi, one of the two Italian journalists charged in the Vatileaks 2 trial, has written a new book called Lust (Lussuria) in which he accuses several high-ranking prelates in the Vatican, Italy and elsewhere, some close to Pope Francis, of covering up or undermining investigations of priests under their jurisdiction who sexually abused minors over past decades.

In the 200-page book, published on Jan. 19, Mr. Fittipaldi recycles stories already published in the Italian or international media about the abuse of children and minors by clergy and recounts denials or cover-ups related to these crimes. Some cases date back 40 or more years; others are more recent. He also cites scandals of adult homosexual behavior involving clergy.

The Vatican has declined to comment on the book, but an authoritative source in Rome who wished to remain anonymous told America that he was struck by the “animus” against the church and the Vatican that comes through page after page of Mr. Fittipaldi’s book. He noted moreover that the author gave scant attention to the significant progress made on this problem over the past 16 years, starting under John Paul II and followed with greater impetus by Benedict XVI. Progress on ensuring a safe environment for children throughout the Catholic Church is moving forward under Francis, who is pursuing a “zero tolerance” policy on reports of abuse.

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UNITED STATES
Mennonite World Review

Jan 19, 2017 by Mennonite World Review staff

An external review of responses to reports of sexual abuse in a Virginia congregation has led Mennonite Church USA staff to conclude the lead pastor acted in ways that protected the alleged perpetrator, to the detriment of caring for the victim.

In their response to the report, the staff members recommend ways to prevent future problems, including “regular trainings on healthy boundaries” for all pastors in the denomination.

On Jan. 14, MC USA released a report by D. Stafford and Associates, along with a list of findings by MC USA Executive Board staff. The findings state that Pastor Duane Yoder of Lindale Mennonite Church near Harrisonburg did not disclose everything he knew about allegations of sexual abuse that have been deemed credible.

According to the findings, “on multiple occasions, the decisions, actions and inactions of Pastor Yoder resulted in protection of [former Eastern Mennonite University vice president of enrollment Luke] Hartman rather than support for [Lauren] Shifflett,” who approached Lindale staff.

The investigation was formally requested by Virginia Mennonite Conference in May. On March 20, Lindale pastors and elders acknowledged that an alleged “abusive relationship” involving Hartman was brought to staff attention in August 2014 when Shifflett approached associate pastor Dawn Monger.

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GEORGIA
Radar Online

By Melissa Parrelli
Posted on Jan 19, 2017

As police dig into their suicide investigation of Paula Deen’s alleged “pedophile” priest brother-in-law , Henry Groover III, neighbors told RadarOnline.com that they are completely “shocked” and “saddened” to hear that an accused “sexual predator” was so close to their children for all these years!

Henry — known as Hank by longtime neighbors who told Radar they consider themselves “like family” — is the brother of Deen’s husband Michael Groover and the man Deen called her “spiritual advisor.” In fact, he had been spending time on the Groover family compound in Savannah for the past two months, according to neighbors, after bouncing back-and-forth between New Orleans and Texas for his work as a priest.

A few neighbors, who choose to remain anonymous, told Radar that they grew up with brothers Hank, Mike and Nick in the same neighborhood where the Groover family has had property for decades. One said they “have nothing but good things to say about the whole family.”

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NIGERIA
Pulse

Inemesit Udodiong

Growing up in Nigeria, the only person that offers the type of peace, security that you should expect from parents is your priest in my case, pastors in other cases.

In fact, some children/young adults would often run to the church for refuge when the home fails to provide the safety they need.

Thus, the church becomes this sanctuary in a hostile world, while the Men of God become the closest thing to our Father in Heaven.

So, it is safe to say that any form of sexual abuse by these highly regarded people is something that can not even be imagined.

Unfortunately, the sad, painful reality is that these things happen. Sometimes, our beloved pastor becomes our very own worst nightmare.

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ITALIA
ANSA

[A priest is accused of having orgies and nine women were involved.]

E’ una storia boccaccesca che pare senza fine quella delle orge in canonica organizzate da un prete padovano, don Andrea Contin, con parrocchiane e altri amici sacerdoti. Emerge dall’inchiesta che sono almeno nove le donne che avrebbero avuto rapporti sessuali con il religioso e con almeno un altro sacerdote: è stato lui a confessarlo, confermando agli investigatori di aver avuto incontri hard ‘a tre’ – con l’amante del parroco, e quest’ultimo – in un’altra parrocchia della provincia di Padova.

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ITALIA
Il Fatto Quotidiano

Una rivelazione al giorno, una storia che sembra non aver fine. L’inchiesta su don Andrea Contin e la sua attività sessuale sfrenata riserva novità a getto continuo. Adesso trapela la notizia che a una delle sue amanti il parroco di San Lazzaro a Padova avrebbe rivelato di avere un figlio di 4 anni, non riconosciuto, ma che contribuisce a mantenere. E spunta il nome del secondo prete che avrebbe partecipato a orge in canonica, si tratta di don Roberto Cavazzana, parroco di Rovolon, il sacerdote che alcuni anni fa avrebbe dovuto celebrare le nozze di Belen Rodriguez. Ce n’è abbastanza da alimentare gossip e settimanali scandalistici. Non bastava un prete trasgressivo che si circondava di parrocchiane di mezza età e praticava scambi di coppia, adesso spunta il secondo religioso, un personaggio già noto alle cronache rosa.

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ILLINOIS
TheMediaReport

David Pierre

A callous disregard for victims. Financial kickbacks from Church-suing tort lawyers. Retaliation.

A stunning new civil lawsuit filed in Illinois by a former insider at SNAP confirms what many of us have known all along: SNAP is not an organization designed to help victims of clergy sex abuse but a gang hellbent on shaking down the Catholic Church through a seedy web of lawyer kickback schemes, lawsuits, and bigotry.

Dennis Coday at the National Catholic Reporter was the first to report the news of this stunning lawsuit.

Gretchen Hammond was hired by SNAP in 2010 as director of development to oversee the group’s fundraising operations and to boost cash inflow to the group. Ms. Hammond did so with great success, but the more she learned about the inner workings of SNAP, the more she came to learn that SNAP was not simply an innocent “victim advocacy group.” Hammond began “collecting documents in preparation of exposing SNAP’s acceptance of kickbacks from attorneys.”

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NORTHERN IRELAND
News Letter

Opposition parties in Northern Ireland have requested the Speaker allow the Assembly to discuss the recommendations of the report from the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) Inquiry next week.

The motion, signed by the Ulster Unionist Party, SDLP, Alliance Party, Green Party, People Before Profit and TUV, would see the Assembly have the opportunity to discuss the report by the inquiry before dissolution.

Ulster Unionist Party leader, Mike Nesbitt said there has been anger that the report now cannot be actioned due to the current political crisis at Stomont. He added: “Of all the people who will suffer because of this current political impasse, victims and survivors of historical institutional abuse are at the forefront.

To prolong the wait for redress for those who suffered would be unforgivable. “The publication of the report will have been a day survivors have waited decades for. Yet they find themselves plunged into further uncertainty without an Executive in place to action the recommendations.

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PHILIPPINES
Sun.Star

By RUTH ABBEY GITA

IN A series of tirades against the Catholic Church, President Rodrigo Duterte called out the priests anew to preach about the effects of the drug problem, instead of lambasting his administration’s war on drugs.

“You keep on yakking. I heard there was one church allegedly exhibiting extrajudicial [killings],” Duterte said Thursday at the oath-taking of the Philippine National Police at the Palace’s Rizal Hall. …

Despite the Church’s call, the President remained unfazed and merely taunted the priests, attacking their luxurious lifestyle.

“What did the Church do? The Catholic Church has collected millions [of pesos] every week, all throughout many churches. Where is the people’s money? We [in the government] can explain where the money went. How about you?

The priests, bishops have decent clothing, cars, and house,” Duterte said. “Even your chalice is gold while your followers have nothing to eat. If you want, I can melt the Malacañang’s chandelier to give you an additional gold,” he added.

Duterte also accused the church of asking former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to give them cars even though there was a principle of separation between the church and the state.

“Let’s be frank here. We don’t have to hide anything. You expose me, fine. I will expose you. Why is it okay [if you commit] mistake while it’s not okay for us? Bull**t. That’s absurd. Just help [if you want to address] extrajudicial killing,” Duterte said.

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PHILIPPINES
Reuters

Thursday, 19 January 2017

By Neil Jerome Morales

MANILA, Jan 19 (Reuters) – Undeterred by a blessing from Pope Francis, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte launched an angry rebuke on Thursday of priests and bishops critical of his drugs war, accusing them of homosexuality, corruption and of abusing children.

Duterte was furious over concerns by the Catholic Church of alleged extrajudicial killings during his crackdown and lambasted clergymen for denouncing him instead of using their influence to get people off drugs.

His no-holds-barred tirade came a day after one of Duterte’s top advisers met Pope Francis at the Vatican and said the Pontiff had told him he would bless the Philippines, and “also bless your president”.

In a speech to policemen, the firebrand leader of one of only two majority Catholic Asian countries challenged the church to a “showdown” and threatened to expose priests and bishops for a litany of abuses.

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AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

Jorge Branco

The royal commission into child sex abuse has broken its own non-publication order, revealing the identity of the victim of a notorious paedophile.

The former Brisbane Grammar School student was among many victims who gave statements or fronted the commission under a pseudonym to protect them.

But the royal commission failed to redact his name in a statement given to its investigation into the horrific abuse carried out by serial paedophiles Kevin Lynch and Gregory Robert Knight in two Brisbane private schools.

That statement, which was properly redacted after Fairfax Media brought it to the commission’s attention on Wednesday, had been published on its website, likely during hearings held across two weeks in November 2015.

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UNITED STATES
New York Magazine

By RACHEL MONROE
PHOTOGRAPH BY ALEXANDRA PAVLOVA
January 18, 2017

Ainlay Dixon, her husband, and three of their four children were in a town in central Ecuador, midway through a South American tour, when a guide approached and offered to take them on a four-day jungle excursion to see the “authentic” Amazon: an indigenous village led by a real shaman. To get there, the family took a 4×4 as far as they could down a rutted road, which soon dwindled to a trail; they made the rest of the way on foot. Eventually, they arrived at a small village where they were introduced to the village chief, a well-known shaman who’d had tourists flocking to his remote village ever since he’d been featured on a news show in Ecuador. That night, the shaman held a welcome ceremony for the new guests. They sat in a thatched roof hut while he blew pungent tobacco smoke on them, invoking a charm of protection. The novelty of the experience was tempered by the presence of another American — a strawberry-blonde Harvard Divinity School student named Lily Ross, who had been living in the village for the past few weeks, working for a grassroots nonprofit and researching shamanic practices.

Over the next few days, the Dixons’ children played soccer with the village kids. The family went on walks in the jungle with the shaman’s son, who rattled off the names and medicinal uses of the plants they came across. The day before the Dixons were set to depart, Ross asked Ainlay if they could speak privately. The two women found a space to sit in a guest hut, and Ross said that she and the shaman were in love. Something immediately struck Ainlay as off. “She would say that it was meant to be, and she would say that it was forever — but she was in a daze, talking almost in a monotone,” Ainlay said. Her concern piqued, Ainlay gently suggested that Ross was so isolated in this village, and so immersed in a culture that wasn’t her own, that perhaps she had lost her bearings a little bit. “That’s when she told me that they were bonded through this — I forget the name of the drink that they do. You know, the medicine. Through the medicine, they were bonded. And that he was really powerful.”

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TEXAS
Dallas Morning News

Matt Peterson, Breaking news editor

A one-time volunteer in the nursery at a North Richland Hills church was arrested Wednesday on charges of child sexual abuse, police said.

Francisco Guevara, 65, of Colleyville was booked on two charges of continuous sexual abuse of a child and one count of indecency with a child.

He remains in the North Richland Hills Jail on $125,000 bail.

The allegations date back seven years when Guevara was working at St. John the Apostle Catholic Church, police said.

At the time of the alleged abuse, the victims were between 4 and 7 years old. Two of the offenses occurred in the nursery, police said, and the third took place in Colleyville.

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TEXAS
CBS DFW

NORTH RICHLAND HILLS (CBSDFW.COM) – North Richland Hills police have arrested a former volunteer of St. John the Apostle Catholic Church for sexually related offenses.

Francisco Guevara, 65, of Colleyville, was arrested Wednesday on two charges for continuous sexual abuse of a child and one charge of indecency with a child.

His bond was set at a total of $125,000 for the charges.

Guevara is currently being held at the North Richland Hills Detention Facility.

Police said detectives and the church were made aware of multiple offenses after an “outcry statement” was made by one of the victims last July.

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RHODE ISLAND
Providence Journal

By Karen Lee Ziner
Journal Staff Writer

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Meg Yarbrough will join the Women’s March on Washington on Saturday as a personal statement against sexual abuse; and against a president whom she opposes.

The 48-year-old registered nurse is also shedding anonymity in her own allegations against former Episcopal priest Howard W. “Howdy” White Jr. Previously quoted anonymously in The Providence Journal, Yarbrough says she wants to use her name because “hiding implies I did something wrong, which I certainly did not.”

White, ex-assistant chaplain at St. George’s School in Middletown, was one of six named alleged perpetrators in a scandal involving widespread sexual abuse dating to the 1970s, that roiled the elite Episcopal school last year. He was charged last month with sexually assaulting a St. George’s student in Boston in 1973.

“I’m tired of being quiet,” Yarbrough said in a phone interview Wednesday from her suburban Washington home. While she cannot change the past, “what I can control is how my life is now. And this is my first step.”

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AUSTRALIA
Western Advocate

JACINTA CARROLL
19 Jan 2017

CALLS to have a public hearing into historic child sexual abuse which occurred at three Bathurst schools have gone unanswered.

Retired Bathurst journalist Terry Jones says “he can’t believe” the Royal Commission investigating Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will not hold an open public inquiry into any of the abuse which occurred at St Stanislaus’ College, The Scots School or All Saints’ College.

Prior to his 2012 retirement, Mr Jones covered court matters for the Western Advocate involving former staff from both St Stanislaus’ and All Saints’.

He said at the time, former St Stanislaus’ headmaster John Edwards opened his door “on every occasion” responding to media inquiries because “he wanted transparency”.

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JAMAICA
The Gleaner

January 19, 2017

The recent report that a married pastor has been charged with carnal abuse and rape of an underage child raises issues for Christians as to whether a paedophile is a sign of weakness, wickedness or sickness.

Glenn Tucker in the Letter of the Day (January 13) argued based on the work of James Cantor of the University of Toronto who theorises that paedophilia is caused by biological susceptibility. Tucker concludes that ‘nobody chooses to be a paedophile’. How he knows that not even one paedophile made a conscious decision? However, because one has a predisposition to certain action it does not mean he has no control over sexual urges. One does not have to act on one’s preferences and proclivities. If Tucker is correct, then we will no longer have just LGBT but we would have to add a ‘P’ for paedophile to make it LGBTP because some argue that nobody chooses to be LGBT. However, paedophiles make a conscious decision. It is not a sickness.

But is it a weakness? The Bible has different words for the English word ‘sin’. Weakness would be when one misses the mark and fall short of expectations. So when a man and a woman, who are not in love, become intimate out of lustful desires, then that could be considered weakness. However, there is wickedness which is rebelling against God’s will; engaging in lawlessness; deliberately and stubbornly engaging in iniquity. It is presumptuous sinning. It is flying in the face of God.

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GEORGIA
LaGrange News

by Melanie Ruberti
Melanie.ruberti@lagrangenews.com

LaGRANGE – The issue of child sexual abuse still remains a taboo topic of conversation in many churches around the nation – and in Georgia.

Sadly, the abuse is the number one reason congregations ended up in court between 2010 – 2014, according to Twin Cedars Youth and Family Services.

But the organization hopes to change that statistic and start conversations about sexual abuse in churches around Troup County.

Twin Cedars held a Church Safety Summit for members of the faith community and local law enforcement agencies on Tuesday at the Coleman Center off Lincoln Street. The group trained participants to recognize the signs a child may have been abused and how to prevent an incident from happening within their church.

“We hope these churches that are here today will take this information and talk to their congregation members about it,” explained Kim Adams, executive director of the Child Advocacy Center of Troup County. “We hope they’ll use the information to change or shape new policies regarding children within their church.”

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NEDERLAND
NRC

Jolanda van de Beld
17 januari 2017

Het ministerie van Volksgezondheid, Welzijn en Sport (VWS) gaat deze woensdag in gesprek met de stichting Koepel Landelijk Overleg Kerkelijk Kindermisbruik (KLOKK) na klachten van onder anderen een voormalig lid van de Raad van Toezicht. Deze Frans Verhallen, die in november uit onvrede opstapte als toezichthouder, vindt dat de overheidssubsidie voor de stichting moet worden stopgezet. Hij zegt zijn werkzaamheden als gevolg van „de halsstarrigheid van de directeur” te hebben gestaakt. De directeur, Guido Klabbers, „doet niet wat de Raad van Toezicht vraagt”, aldus Verhallen. „Ik word gebruikt als entourage.” Volgens betrokkenen zijn ook de andere twee leden van de Raad van Toezicht recentelijk opgestapt.

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GEORGIA
WTOC

Wednesday, January 18th 2017

SAVANNAH, GA (WTOC) –
The priest named in a recent lawsuit has committed suicide.

According to the Savannah-Chatham Metro Police Department, a suicide investigation was launched Tuesday into the death of Henry Groover III.

Groover was arrested in 2003 for exposing himself to a Metro officer.

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ILLINOIS
National Catholic Reporter

Dennis Coday | Jan. 18, 2017

A former employee of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests is suing the advocacy group, claiming she was fired after she learned that SNAP’s principal officers collude with attorneys representing sex abuse survivors and that SNAP accepts financial kickbacks for referring abuse victims to attorneys.

The charges by Gretchen Rachel Hammond were made in papers filed with the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, yesterday, Jan. 17. Hammond worked as a director of development, raising funds for SNAP from the summer 2011 until February 2013 when she was fired.

The filings say Hammond was fired after she “learned … [that] SNAP does not focus on protecting or helping survivors — it exploits them. SNAP routinely accepts financial kickbacks from attorneys in the form of ‘donations.’ In exchange for the kickbacks, SNAP refers survivors as potential clients to attorneys, who then file lawsuits on behalf of the survivors against the Catholic Church. These cases often settle, to the financial benefit of the attorneys and, at times, to the financial benefit of SNAP, which has received direct payments from survivors’ settlements.”

Defendants in the lawsuit are SNAP, Barbara Blaine, the founder and president of SNAP, David Clohessy, the executive director of SNAP, and Barbara Dorris, SNAP’s outreach director.

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TEXAS
Star-Telegram

BY RYAN OSBORNE
rosborne@star-telegram.com

A former volunteer at St. John the Apostle Catholic Church in North Richland Hills was arrested Wednesday, accused of sexually abusing children while working in the church nursery.

Francisco Guevara, 65, of Colleyville faces two charges of continuous sexual abuse of a child and one charge of indecency with a child, police said.

The allegations stem from incidents that happened up to seven years ago when the victims were between 4 and 7 years old, police said.

Two of the offenses happened in North Richland Hills and one in Colleyville, police said.

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/community/northeast-tarrant/article127288214.html#storylink=cpy

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ALABAMA
AL.com

By The Associated Press
on January 18, 2017

Three people have been convicted on child abuse charges linked to a private church school on the Alabama coast.

A statement sent by twitter from Mobile County prosecutors Wednesday says 55-year-old Pastor John Young was convicted on five counts of aggravated child abuse related to the Saving Youth Academy, which was also called Restoration Youth Academy.

“A lot of us didn’t make it to freedom.”

Forty-eight-year-old William Knott and 42-year-old Aleshia Moffett were convicted on three counts each. Sentencing for all three is scheduled for Feb. 22.

Authorities say they three were linked to a Christian, boot camp-style residential school for troubled young people.

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UNITED STATES
New York Times

When and Why We See Victims as Responsible: The Impact of Ideology on Attitudes Toward Victims

When and Why We See Victims as Responsible

By LAURA NIEMI and LIANE YOUNG
JUNE 24, 2016

IF you are mugged on a midnight stroll through the park, some people will feel compassion for you, while others will admonish you for being there in the first place. If you are raped by an acquaintance after getting drunk at a party, some will be moved by your misfortune, while others will ask why you put yourself in such a situation.

What determines whether someone feels sympathy or scorn for the victim of a crime? Is it a function of political affiliation? Of gender? Of the nature of the crime?

In a recent series of studies, we found that the critical factor lies in a particular set of moral values. Our findings, published on Thursday in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, show that the more strongly you privilege loyalty, obedience and purity — as opposed to values such as care and fairness — the more likely you are to blame the victim.

These two sets of values have been the object of much scholarly attention. Psychologists have found that when it comes to morality, some people privilege promoting the care of others and preventing unfair behaviors. These are “individualizing values,” as they can apply to any individual. Other people privilege loyalty, obedience and purity. These are “binding values,” as they promote the cohesion of your particular group or clan.

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NEW YORK
Catholic New York

By CHRISTIE L. CHICOINE

The archdiocese has been found in compliance with all audited articles within the U.S. Bishops’ Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People for the 2015-2016 audit period.

StoneBridge Business Partners of Rochester performed the on-site audit of the archdiocese Dec. 7-8, according to Edward Mechmann, director of the archdiocesan Safe Environment Program.

The conclusions are based upon inquiry, observation and review of specifically requested documentation to StoneBridge during the audit.

“It’s a real testament to how significant the charter has been to us,” and how committed both Cardinal Dolan and his predecessor, the late Cardinal Edward Egan, have been to it.

“It’s a very gratifying accomplishment,” Mechmann added. “It was a serious, good audit.”

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CANADA
Guelph Today

by: Rob O’Flanagan

From rage to compassion.

People living in close proximity to the Elora Road Christian Fellowship north of Guelph are trying to make sense of recent troubling news involving the church and school at 5696 Wellington Road 7.

Alleged sexual assault incidents involving children under the age of 16, and dating back to the 1980s, came to light this week.

Henry (Henk) Katerberg, founder and former pastor of the church, has been charged with sexual assault on a person under 16. Now an old man, Katerberg is said to still live in Guelph-Eramosa. He was pastor when the sexual assault is alleged to have taken place.

Arend “John” Dekorte, 66, of Fergus, faces a similar charge. He is the current principal of the Elora Road Christian School, and was a teacher between 1981-86, the time in question.

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GEORGIA
Radar Online

By MELISSA CRONIN & Dylan Howard
Posted on Jan 18, 2017

New details of the disturbing suicide of Paula Deen‘s “pedophile” priest brother-in-law are expected to emerge later this week, RadarOnline.com can reveal.

A rep for the Georgia Bureau of Investigations confirmed to Radar that the autopsy of Henry B. Groover, II – Deen’s brother-in-law and the man she called her “spiritual advisor” – will take place on January 19.

As Radar reported, Savannah police opened told Radar that a suicide investigation was opened on January 17.

Groover – the brother of Deen’s husband Michael Groover and a Dominican priest – committed suicide just days after he was served with an explosive new lawsuit that accused him of drugging and sexually assaulting a young man, Ancil Harvey Gordon III.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Focus

[The scandal surrounding the decade-long sexual abuse of many children and adolescents in institutions of the Catholic Church shattered throughout Germany. A review.]

Der Skandal um den jahrzehntelangen sexuellen Missbrauch vieler Kinder und Jugendlicher in Einrichtungen der katholischen Kirche erschütterte 2010 ganz Deutschland. Ein Rückblick:

Januar 2010: Am Berliner Canisius-Kolleg werden erste Verdachtsfälle bekannt. Ein Untersuchungsbericht enthüllt später, dass der Orden sexuelle und körperliche Gewalt gegen Kinder über Jahrzehnte vertuscht hat.

Februar 2010: Triers Bischof Stephan Ackermann wird zum Beauftragten der katholischen Kirche für Missbrauchsfälle ernannt.

März 2010: Der Skandal erreicht die Regensburger Domspatzen. Es wird bekannt, dass es auch bei dem weltberühmten Knabenchor Fälle von Missbrauch gegeben haben soll.

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ITALIA
Corriere del Veneto

[Other pastors were at orgies with Don Andrea. A priest confesses: “I too was attending.”]

PADOVA Adesso agli atti c’è pure una confessione. Succede tutto venerdì pomeriggio. Interrogato in procura come persona informata sui fatti, un cinquantenne sacerdote e parroco di una comunità nei colli Euganei cede e ammette di essere lui «l’altro prete» ad aver partecipato alle orge di don Andrea Contin, l’ex parroco di San Lazzaro indagato per violenza privata e favoreggiamento della prostituzione. A parlare di lui, che non è indagato ma ha ammesso di aver fatto sesso con don Contin e la sua amante, è la stessa parrocchiana di 49 anni che il 6 dicembre ha vuotato il sacco nella stazione dei carabinieri di Padova principale, dando la mossa decisiva per far partire l’inchiesta. In una riga la donna indica con precisione l’identità del sacerdote e la sua parrocchia. La stessa dove don Contin la portava per fare sesso. Incontri a tre o di coppia, a cui in alcune occasioni l’ex parroco di San Lazzaro preferiva partecipare soltanto nel ruolo di attento spettatore.

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ITALY
ANSA

New book by Fittipaldi, Holy See gets over 400 cases per year

(ANSA) – Rome, January 18 – Despite a crackdown announced by Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, some 518 reports of ‘graviora delicta’ were made in 2015, “the vast majority of which involving sexual abuse of minors”, according to a document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Catholic Church department that deals with priestly sex abuse. Sexual abuse within the Catholic Church, long covered up by ecclesiastical authorities, is the subject of Emiliano Fittipaldi’s new book ‘Lussuria’ (Lust), which will be in Italian bookshops from Thursday. The journalist, who went on trial and was acquitted for the ‘Vatileaks 2’ case and his previous book, ‘Avarizia’ (Avarice), has once again focused on the Vatican. ANSA has seen an advance copy of ‘Lussuria’, which recounts how the Vatican said that of the 587 cases opened in 2014 by its disciplinary office, over 500 involved the crimes of ‘the most dishonorable type’. In 2013, the first year of Pope Francis’s papacy, out of 522 complaints filed by dioceses and ecclesiastical institutes and bodies from “various parts of the world”, some 84.8% (443 cases) were ‘graviora delicta’, including “401 charges against priests with a child under 18 years old”, Monsignor Silvano Tomasi said in May 2014 at a Committee against Torture hearing that requested information on the issue.

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TEXAS
Houston Press

The Buried Abuse of the Galveston-Houston Archdiocese

BY CRAIG MALISOW

Since at least 1947, when a religious community called the Servants of the Paraclete opened one of the first treatment centers for priests grappling with pedophilia and substance abuse, dioceses have often warehoused problematic priests.

The “rehab” facility closest to Houston is Splendora’s Shalom Center, whose website states, “We genuinely seek to create a spirit of Gospel compassion, a nonjudgmental atmosphere and a safe environment where healing and growth can happen.”

The Shalom Center is included in a 1995 U.S. Conference of Bishops survey on treatment centers, in which it’s described as dealing mostly with priests suffering from “behaviors related to pornography, sexual exploitation, exhibitionism, voyeurism, and prostitution.” The survey, available on the Bishop Accountability website, notes that initial assessments and referrals are available for priests dealing with “pedophilia and ephebophilia [sexual attraction to adolescents].”

In the survey’s anonymous comments section, where diocesan officials can share their thoughts, one official wrote that Shalom is “sometimes too eager to ‘excuse’ priest offender[s]”

More severe cases, such as that of the Reverend Donald Leroy Stavinoha, are usually sent to facilities in New Mexico and Missouri.

On a May night in 1986, Stavinoha stopped by the home of a parishioner, a single mother whose young son he’d taken a special interest in, according to court records. For two years (beginning when the boy was seven), “Father Don” would stop by the home, which was within walking distance of Immaculate Heart of Mary in the East End, sometimes bringing San Juan candles. Once he performed a blessing of the house.

But on that night, Stavinoha told the nine-year-old boy’s mother that he was taking the boy “to play video games.”

Instead, Stavinoha went to 7-11, where he bought a Slurpee for the boy and a six-pack of beer for himself.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
Concord Monitor

By ALYSSA DANDREA
Monitor staff
Tuesday, January 17, 2017

No one witnessed the repeated sexual abuse of Angie Semertgakis at the hands of her stepfather, beginning when she was just 9 years old.

Semertgakis, now in her 30s, testified Tuesday before the House Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety that she lived in “hate, fear, and shame,” and for years was afraid to tell her story. The abuse took place when no one was home and under the darkness of night, she told lawmakers in her plea for them to shoot down a bill that would require more proof in certain sexual assault cases.

When prosecutors filed the sexual assault case against Semertgakis’ abuser decades ago, he had no criminal record. If the case had gone to trial, jurors would have decided the man’s fate based on the girl’s testimony alone. In the end, he took a plea deal.

Existing law in New Hampshire does not require corroboration of a sexual assault. A bill introduced by a Wolfeboro Republican is proposing to change that by requiring corroboration in cases where the defendant has no prior convictions. The bill, however, leaves the definition of corroboration open-ended.

Semertgakis and many other opponents called the bill “dangerous” for New Hampshire.

“This bill is an abolishment to the empowerment of a child who finally breaks free from their offender and finds their voice and courage to talk about their abuse,” she said.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
Union Leader

By DAVID SOLOMON
New Hampshire Union Leader

CONCORD — A proposal to change state law regarding evidence in sexual assault cases amounts to “nothing more than a pedophile protection act and rapist shield law,” according to Concord Police Detective Sean Ford.

But the sponsor of House Bill 106, Rep. William Marsh, R-Wolfeboro, says no one should be charged, let alone convicted, solely on the basis of an alleged victim’s testimony with no other corroboration.

The two men took turns at the witness table on Tuesday, as the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee heard nearly four hours of testimony on a bill that would require the allegations of victims to be corroborated by other evidence in sexual assault cases where the defendant has no prior conviction.

Marsh, a board certified ophthalmologist, said he was moved to sponsor the bill after Bow psychologist Foad Afshar was convicted last year of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old male patient in 2015 solely on the patient’s testimony.

The hearing room was packed with opponents of the bill, many mobilized by the N.H. Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, wearing pink stickers that read, “I believe victims. Oppose HB 106.”

– See more at: http://www.unionleader.com/state-government/Proposed-change-in-sexual-assault-statute-called-pedophile-protection-01182017#sthash.2AXUdJm1.dpuf

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JAMAICA
The Gleaner

The Rev Dr Paul Gardner, former president of the Moravian Church in Jamaica, has issued a statement indicating that he will be working assiduously to clear his name.

Gardner resigned last Thursday, two days after a woman wrote to the bishops of the Moravian church raising damning allegations against him. This follows the arrest and charge of their colleague pastor, Rupert Clarke, who was caught in a compromising position with a minor last year. Gardner’s deputy, Jermaine Gibson, against whom similar allegations were made, also resigned.

The former president described the allegations as “vile and unfounded” and noted that while he remains committed to the church, he has stepped aside to allow thorough investigations to take place.

“I have been committed to a life of service to my church and my country, which I always did with unquestioned integrity for more than 30 years,” he declared.

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JAMAICA
The Gleaner

The acting president of the Moravian Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands Reverend Phyllis Smith says the members of an independent committee have now been identified to probe complaints against two senior ministers.

The President Dr Paul Gardner and Vice-President Jermaine Gibson resigned last week after the complaints were made in a seven-page email containing damning allegations against them.

The independent committee is to be mutually agreed by the complainant and the bishops of the Moravian Church.

The acting church president Reverend Phyllis Smith Seymour says the invitations to the prospective committee members are now being dispatched and she is hoping they can complete their deliberations and make their recommendation by April 17.

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