ABUSE TRACKER

GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Updated: Nov 15, 2016

By Jason Salas

Prior to today’s press conference given by the Archdiocese of Agana, another one was held – by an unlikely individual who, by the nature of her work, has spent a majority of her life shielded from the public.

But the mother superior of the Carmelite nuns in Guam is speaking out sharing her story about the Redemptoris Mater Seminar property in Yona. Mother Superior Dawn Marie is the last Carmelite standing in Guam. “The move to go to California was a very difficult one,” she admitted to island media.

One month after celebrating their 50th anniversary locally, in June all the remaining Carmelite nuns that were living here in a large house in Tamuning left, except for their mother superior. She cited the ongoing controversies in the local church as some of the reasons for their departure, saying conditions were, as she said, “Pretty toxic environment for the nuns to live in.”

In a rare press conference, Mother Dawn talked to local media to share her side of the story relating to the RMS property in Yona. You see, after years of speculation about who was the mystery $2 million benefactor that allowed for the archdiocese’s acquisition of the RMS property.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio , heugenio@guampdn.com November 15, 2016

The Archdiocese of Agana regained full control of its seminary property in Yona after Coadjutor Archbishop Michael Jude Byrnes used his authority to cancel deeds signed several years ago by Archbishop Anthony Apuron, according to the church.

Byrnes on Nov. 9 signed a decree, canceling, repealing and rescinding a five-year-old declaration of deed restriction that allowed a seminary and theological institute controlled by the Neocatechumenal Way to use the Yona property indefinitely.

The seminary will continue to operate, church officials said.

The Concerned Catholics of Guam, a group that has been pushing for Apuron’s removal, was poised to file a lawsuit to ensure the archdiocese doesn’t lose ownership and control of the Yona property.

Byrnes, who was appointed by the Vatican as Apuron’s successor, also used his authority to sign documents to replace the Redemptoris Mater Seminary’s board of directors, abolish the RMS Corporation’s board of governors, take personal control of the seminary, and sign all rights to the property back to the archdiocese. These include amending the RMS Corporation’s by-laws.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

[with video]

Haidee V Eugenio, heugenio@guampdn.com November 15, 2016

Carmelite nuns donated the $2 million used by the Archdiocese of Agana to buy a former hotel in Yona, and they considered suing the church after finding out the property was not being used by the archdiocese, but for a seminary operated by the Neocatechumenal Way, said Mother Superior Dawn Marie, of the Carmelite Monastery on Guam.

She said Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron, the Rev. Pius Sammut and others in 2014 tried to get the Carmelites to lie, by saying the Carmelites had purposely earmarked their gift for the use of the Redemptoris Mater Seminary and for the Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores Catholic Theological Institute for Oceania.

The mother superior was the person who got the Carmelite nuns in the United States to donate $2 million to the archdiocese on Guam to buy the Yona property over a decade ago.

She said the identity of the donors at the time was supposed to be anonymous, but Apuron and others violated that agreement from the beginning, she said.

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GUAM
KUAM

Updated: Nov 15, 2016

By Nestor Licanto

The Archdiocese of Agana says it has taken back complete and unrestricted control of the Redemptoris Mater Seminary. Legal documents were filed with the Department of Land Management on behalf of newly-appointed Archbishop Michael Byrnes that repeal a controversial 2011 consent decree by former Archbishop Anthony Apuron that essentially gave control of the multimillion dollar property to a board controlled by the Neocatechumenal Way.

Archdiocese spokesman Father Jeff San Nicolas made the announcement, saying, “The legal filings abolished the RMS Board of Guarantors and replaced the current board of directors with Bishop Byrnes as the sole director, as well as designated him as the chairman, president and secretary of the RMS Corporation.”

The legal authority cited is that Byrnes is now the corporation sole of RMS by virtue of his new appointment as archbishop of Agana. Apuron had used that same power to transfer control to the Neocatechumenal Way-controlled board. And while the seminary is now back with the archdiocese, it has not yet decided what it will do with it.

“While the governance has changed the administration and the day-to-day operation has not changed,” said Father San Nicolas.

But while the church says for now RMS will continue as it has, critics of Apuron and the NCW say the seminary has been used for the formation of off-island priests, not local priests which they believe it was intended for. The seminary is also seen as one of the church’s most valuable assets, with estimates ranging from $40 million to $70 million.

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OREGON
Statesman Journal

Gordon Friedman , Statesman Journal November 14, 2016

Donald Mansell, a former Christian school teacher and athletics coach, will serve 30 days in jail after pleading guilty to two counts of third-degree sexual abuse and two counts of harassment. The misdemeanor convictions stem from incidents where Mansell, 37, fondled two teenage female students and asked them for sex between 2010 and 2013.

Mansell, who worked at Livingston Adventist Academy and who is also the son-in-law of Marion County Judge Vance Day, was sentenced to five years of probation to begin after his release from jail. He’ll also have to register as a sex offender.

The sentencing conditions allow Mansell to have his probation ended two years early if he fully complies with its terms, court documents show. He can also have the convictions erased from his record in time.

The attorneys representing the two victims were not happy with Mansell’s sentence.

Ron Sayer, an attorney representing Mansell’s victims, said the sentence is the “worse miscarriage of justice that occurs in our system.”

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CANADA
Canoe

JOE LOFARO, POSTMEDIA NETWORK
Nov 15, 2016

OTTAWA – More than a decade before the Archdiocese of Ottawa told Jacques Faucher he could no longer be a priest, it paid tens of thousands of dollars to a former altar boy who had accused the reverend of molesting him.

Faucher was convicted in March of historical sex offences against three other children, but newly obtained documents by the Ottawa Sun show the diocese wrote a $50,000 cheque to a former altar boy when he was an adult in 1998, more than a year after he told the church about the alleged sexual abuse.

The payment was made on the condition he keep details of the out-of-court settlement confidential.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

JOANNE MCCARTHY
14 Nov 2016

NEWCASTLE District Court Judge Ralph Coolahan slammed the charging of an Anglican priest with child sex offences as a “disgrace”, and described the priest’s alleged victims as “ridiculous”, in a controversial 2001 court case under renewed investigation by NSW Police and the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

A transcript of the court case under consideration by the royal commission shows the late Judge Coolahan questioned the laying of charges against the priest and told a 2001 Newcastle court hearing: “The fact that someone is brought to trial, 26 years after an alleged offence, is in itself a disgrace.”

Judge Coolahan questioned how old the two alleged victims were, noted that “when people turn 18 the law places upon them enormous responsibilities”, and criticised the 20-year delay between when they turned 18, and when they reported the alleged sexual abuse to police.

“So they’ve waited 20 years since they attained their majority? Well that’s just ridiculous. It is truly ridiculous,” Judge Coolahan told the court.

He criticised the handling of the case by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, describing aspects of it as a “disgrace”, a “complete disgrace”, and a “farce”.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Liam Heylin

An elderly priest on trial for the alleged sexual assault of a schoolboy during sex education in a school office was found not guilty yesterday.

Judge Gerard O’Brien thanked the jury at Cork Circuit Criminal Court and discharged them from further jury service for a period of two years ,stating that it had been a difficult case.

The priest said during the three-day trial in Cork: “I never touched him sexually, improperly — never.”

The complainant said he was in third year in school when he was called to the priest’s office for sex education. He said the priest masturbated him.

He said: “I can clearly remember one of the questions — when a man gets an erection what caused it?”

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Kerrin Thomas and Caitlin Furlong

Plans to set up a memorial for survivors and victims of child sexual abuse at a church in Armidale, in northern New South Wales, are being criticised by a support group.

The Catholic Diocese of Armidale is one of a number of organisations to have come before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, with the findings of a case study relating to a former priest yet to be handed down.

Bishop Michael Kennedy said the planned memorial on church grounds would replace a “temporary” memorial made up of ribbons tied to the cathedral’s fence and was an indication that the survivors and victims of child sexual abuse would not be forgotten.

“We do need something that will ensure there isn’t a continued silence on child abuse which unfortunately did occur for some years,” he said.

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UNITED STATES
Crux

Inés San Martín November 14, 2016
VATICAN CORRESPONDENT

Today the U.S. bishops gathered in Baltimore will elect new leaders, in a ballot likely to be taken as a referendum both on what they think of Pope Francis and also how they want to react to the presidency of Donald Trump. Here are sketches of the ten candidates.

For the second time in a month, Americans are going to the polls, although this time it’s only the few hundred bishops who compose the hierarchy of the Catholic Church in the U.S. who’ll be casting a vote.

As they do every three years, the American bishops will be electing their leadership, including their president and vice president.

Beyond electing new leaders, during their Nov. 14-16 fall general assembly, taking place in Baltimore, the American bishops also will discuss ways to promote peace in U.S. communities torn apart by violence, and will vote on an action plan to support the priorities they approved last year.

The list of ten nominees to replace Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, Kentucky and Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston in their respective roles as president and vice-president was released late October. The bishops will elect the president first from this set of ten names, and then will select a number two from whoever’s left.

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KANSAS
WIBW

TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) – A former priest in Osage County is accused of engaging in unprofessional conduct with an adult.

The Leaven, a Catholic-based newspaper, reported Rev. Anthony Kiplagat, a priest from the Dioceses of Eldoret in Kenya, was on assignment in the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas and the Saint Patrick Catholic Church of Osage City.

The woman who lodged the complaint was not a member of either parish.

Johnson County Court records show an order of protection from stalking was granted to a woman in February. The woman claimed Kiplagat sexually assaulted her and threatened to kill her and harm her family if she told the church what happened.

The Leaven reports the woman went to Overland Park Police in January, and the Archdiocese immediately launched an investigation.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

IT IS more than 15 years since the late Newcastle District Court Judge Ralph Coolahan had a heated exchange with a lawyer from the Director of Public Prosecutions in a case involving a Newcastle Anglican priest.

The charges were child sex allegations against the priest dating back 26 years. The alleged victims – two brothers aged 38 and 36 – were in the court.

Judge Coolahan lashed the DPP’s handling of aspects of the case as a “disgrace”, a “complete disgrace” and a “farce”, and said it was “just ridiculous” the brothers had “waited 20 years” after they turned 18 before reporting allegations to police.

His comments make disturbing reading given what we know after more than three years of evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual abuse. They are also disturbing given what judges should, and would, have known about disclosures by alleged victims even back in 2001, when the Newcastle Anglican priest case was heard by Judge Coolahan, and eventually dropped.

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BELGIEN
De Redactie

Hanne Decré, Sofie Demeyer

De paters Augustijnen worden verdacht van sociale fraude, mensenhandel en schriftvervalsing. Onder het mom van een priesteropleiding zouden de paters Augustijnen een twintigtal jongemannen uit Afrika en Vietnam naar België hebben gehaald, waar de mannen gratis moesten werken. Volgens hun advocaten worden de leidinggevenden echter veroordeeld voor praktijken die behoren tot de traditie van de kloosterorde.

Het Openbaar Ministerie wil vzw paters Augustijnen, drie leidinggevende kloosterlingen waaronder de abt, en vzw Thagaste Trefpunt Augustijnen voor de rechter brengen. Ze worden verdacht van sociale fraude, mensenhandel en valsheid in geschrifte.

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BELGIE
De Morgen

[The court in Belgium will prosecute the Augustinian Fathers of Ghent for trafficking and forgery. Investigation revealed that three senior monks provided false documents for at least 19 people. It is alleged they had African men working illegally with promise to obtain a residency visa. The men were not paid and were not allowed to freely leave the monastery, according to the investigators.]

Het gerecht wil de Paters Augustijnen van Gent vervolgen voor mensenhandel, zwartwerk en schrift­vervalsing. Onderzoek bracht aan het licht dat drie leidinggevende kloosterlingen voor minstens 19 personen valse documenten hebben opgesteld. Ze zetten vooral Afrikaanse mannen illegaal aan het werk met als doel een verblijfsvisum te bekomen. Dat meldt het Gentse arbeidsauditoraat.

De Paters Augustijnen zouden vooral jonge Afrikanen onder het mom van een opleiding in het klooster aan het werk hebben gezet, zonder hen te betalen. Ook mochten de mannen het klooster niet vrij verlaten.

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UNITED STATES
Forward

Sara Kabakov
November 14, 2016

Editor’s note: Earlier this month, the Forward published Marc Gafni’s own words defending himself against accusations that he sexually abused Sara Kabakov when she was 13 and he was 19. Here is Kabakov’s response.

I struggle with the impulse to respond to Marc Gafni’s letter regarding my January 2016 article about him sexually abusing me. Should a survivor even dignify her abuser with any response at all?

I wrote my account of sexual assault not as part of an “orchestrated smear campaign”, as he claims, but as a personal description of an experience that impacted my life in profound and immutable ways. I have no vendetta against Gafni and don’t spend time thinking about his career or reputation.

I do, however, care about girls and women and protecting them from sexual predators. I care about the way so many predators make excuses for sexually criminal behavior. I care about the way the term “youthful mistake,” is used to explain away deplorable actions that can turn a survivor’s life into a nightmare. I care about the New York State legal system, with its outdated statute of limitations for child sexual abuse, which protects alleged abusers and prolongs their access to more children. Indeed, if a sexual predator is stopped when a victim comes forward, whenever that may be, many souls could be saved from his subsequent actionable behaviors.

Gafni’s use of the words, “romance” and “dating”, when describing our association, leaves me speechless. Seriously? Is it romantic when someone creeps into a girl’s room at night, wakes her up, and sexually assaults her? Is it romantic when a man forces his hands and fingers on, and in, a girl’s body, against her will? Is it romance, when she says “No!” unheeded, while repeatedly pushing him away? Perhaps it is the selective memory, or fantasy of a predator that can spin this horrific scenario into a normal, consenting relationship.

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CANADA
CTV

Sheryl Ubelacker, The Canadian Press
Published Monday, November 14, 2016

Miykhaela reaches back in her memory to the summer day when it all began. Her older brother had taken her into the bush on their northern Ontario reserve to join a few of their cousins, young teenaged boys like her sibling who had all been attending residential school together for several years.

They gang-raped her.

She was five or six years old.

As a mother years later, Miykhaela had to confront the ugly reality of familial sex abuse once again — but this time it was her daughter, who one day confessed that her teenaged half-brother had raped her a couple of years earlier.

She was 10 or 11 years old.

Miykhaela and her daughter are just two of the faces of intergenerational sexual abuse, a dark legacy connected to almost 120 years of government-sanctioned, church-operated residential schools, where aboriginal leaders say many First Nations, Metis and Inuit children were physically and sexually molested by clergy and other staff, spawning a cycle of mimicked behaviour in generations to come.

Extensive interviews with social scientists, indigenous leaders and victims undertaken over the past few months by The Canadian Press suggest child sexual abuse is an open secret in many aboriginal communities — and its prevalence in some is shockingly high.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio , heugenio@guampdn.com November 14, 2016

Preparations are underway for a series of events to welcome Guam’s next archbishop on Nov. 28, including a Nov. 30 gathering in which all the island’s faithful will have the opportunity to see and hear him.

Upon his arrival, Coadjutor Archbishop Michael Jude Byrnes will be welcomed by Archbishop Savio Hon Tai Fai and other clergy members, the Archdiocese of Agana said.

As coadjutor archbishop, Byrnes, 58, has the right to succeed Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron if Apuron, 71, resigns, retires or is removed. Under church law, bishops are required to resign at 75.

Apuron, Guam’s highest Catholic leader for 30 years, is facing a canonical trial in Rome over multiple allegations of sex abuse of altar boys in the 1970s. Prior to Pope Francis’ decision to appoint him on Oct. 31, Byrnes was auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Detroit.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

14 November, 2016

The Royal Commission will hold a series of public hearings in Sydney to inquire into the current policies and procedures of the following institutions in relation to child protection and child-safe standards, including responding to allegations of child sexual abuse:

Case Study 47 YMCA New South Wales

Case Study 48 Scouts New South Wales

Case Study 49 The Salvation Army

Case Study 50 Catholic Church authorities in Australia

Case Study 51 Commonwealth and the State and Territory governments

Case Study 52 Anglican Church authorities in Australia

Case Study 53 Yeshivah Melbourne and Yeshiva Bondi

Case Study 54 Jehovah’s Witnesses and Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Australia Ltd

Case Study 55 Australian Christian Churches and affiliated Pentecostal churches

Case Study 56 Uniting Church in Australia.

The public hearing into YMCA New South Wales, Scouts New South Wales and The Salvation Army will commence on 5 December 2016 and is expected to end on 9 December 2016.

The public hearing into Catholic Church authorities in Australia will commence on 6 February 2017 and is expected to end on 24 February 2017.

The public hearing into Commonwealth, State and Territory governments will commence on 6 March 2017 and is expected to end on 10 March 2017.

The public hearing into Anglican Church authorities in Australia, Yeshivah Melbourne and Yeshiva Bondi, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Australia Ltd, Australian Christian Churches and affiliated Pentecostal churches, and the Uniting Church in Australia will commence on 20 March 2017 and is expected to end on 24 March 2017.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

TOM PETERKIN

Friday 11 November 2016

Abuse survivors have accused the Scottish Government of failing to do enough to investigate crimes against children carried out within the Catholic Church.

Those campaigning for justice for survivors believe the Scottish Government’s inquiry into historical abuse will not have a broad enough remit to uncover the full extent of the crimes committed against youngsters in the care of the Church.

The investigation is looking at the treatment of children who were in residential care, those who had long-term stays in hospital, boarding schools and those under foster care.

Incas (In Care Survivors) want to extend the scope of the inquiry so that it includes all those who had a duty of care towards children.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has been warned that unless he establishes a commission of inquiry into forced adoptions by the end of this month, the matter will be reported to the Garda.

In a letter to the Taoiseach last week, the former assistant national director of child and family services with the Health Service Executive, Phil Garland, said that in October 2012 he notified statutory authorities and the then inquiry into Magdalene laundries about “the high rate of infant death in mother-and-baby homes and the possibility of forced adoption of children from within the State”.

There was “undeniable evidence of cases of forced adoption within the mother-and-baby homes that had been uncovered as a result of the Magdalene inquiry” which published its report in February 2013, he said. Such evidence was also available in the 2009 Ryan report, which investigated the abuse of children in orphanages, industrial schools, and reformatories, he said.

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AUSTRALIA
J-Wire

November 14, 2016 by J-Wire Staff

The Royal Commission will hold a series of public hearings in Sydney to inquire into the current policies and procedures of the Jewish institutions in relation to child protection and child-safe standards, including responding to allegations of child sexual abuse.

Case Study 53 Yeshivah Melbourne and Yeshiva Bondi

The public hearing into Yeshivah Melbourne and Yeshiva Bondi, will commence on 20 March 2017 and is expected to end on 24 March 2017. Other institutions will appear during these hearing.

The scope and purpose of the public hearings is to consider:

1. The current policies and procedures of each named institution in relation to child protection and child-safe standards, including responding to allegations of child sexual abuse.
2. Factors that may have contributed to the occurrence of child sexual abuse in each named institution.
3. Factors that may have affected the institutional response of each named institution to child sexual abuse.
4. The responses of each named institution to relevant case study report(s) and other Royal Commission reports.
5. Data relating to the extent of claims of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Australia.
6. Data relating to the extent of claims of child sexual abuse in the Anglican Church in Australia.
7. Any related matters.

The purpose of these public hearings is not to inquire into individual sets of facts or particular events as has occurred in previous Royal Commission case studies.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Big Issue North

NOV 14 2016

The largest ever inquiry into the sexual abuse of children in England and Wales is battling claims it is unmanageably large and already failing in its remit, two years after Theresa May, then home secretary, set it up to examine the failures of institutions to recognise and address child sexual abuse going back decades.

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) was launched after the Jimmy Savile abuse scandal came to light in 2012 and revealed widespread exploitation by prominent media and political figures over a long period, as well as the inability of institutions and organisations to safeguard vulnerable children.

“There has not been anything of its kind in UK history, in terms of scope and size,” says IICSA panel member Ivor Frank, a human rights barrister with more than 30 years experience. A public inquiry, he admits, is usually about a single issue over a relatively contained period.

Frank says there are a lot of “vested interests in not allowing the inquiry to succeed”

“We’re an inquiry about multiple institutions over decades. That makes it different, but it doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”

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GUAM
Guam Daily Post

Neil Pang | Post News Staff

Despite the strides taken by the Catholic Church to address a concerned laity, the weekly protests outside the Dulce Nombre de Maria Cathedral-Basilica continued yesterday with the clockwork-like precision that all have come to expect from them.

According to Laity Forward Movement spokeswoman Lou Klitzkie, the protests will continue until their demands are met – namely, the removal of Archbishop Anthony Apuron as the Ordinary of the Archdiocese and the return of the Redemptoris Mater Seminary to church patrimony.

While Apuron’s exact status remains tenuous, pending a canonical trial in Rome that is supposed to be ongoing, the appointment of coadjutor archbishop Michael Jude Byrnes at least suggests that a clear line of succession is now in place in the eventuality that Apuron is removed.

According to Concerned Catholics of Guam president Dave Sablan, Apuron’s removal is a foregone conclusion – especially with the filing of the suits against him by child sex abuse survivors Roland Sondia, Walter Denton, Roy Quintanilla and Leo Tudela.

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NEW ZEALAND
NZ Catholic

November 14, 2016

by Michael Pender

Recently Bishop Patrick Dunn has made presentations around the Auckland diocese telling of some of the challenges he perceives our Church to be facing. One theme he developed was to do with the numbers of people in our congregations. He explained that if one looks at census returns then it seems that Catholic numbers are holding up rather than declining as is happening for some other denominations. However, it appears that we in the Auckland diocese are being misled simply because the number of Catholic immigrants gives the impression that our churches are just as full as they have ever been.

Bishop Dunn went on to explain that the phenomenon of people leaving the Church occurs right across the western world; he even used the phrase “collapse of Christendom”. In the United States the decline has been such that the largest denomination is now former Catholic! Pope Benedict spoke on many occasions about decline of belief in Europe. In 2001, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, when he was the Archbishop of the London diocese of Westminster, commented about the diminishing influence of Christian belief in Britain.

In recent issues of NZ Catholic, the bishop’s remarks have been well reported; they have also drawn responses from letter writers.

Why have people departed from the pews? There is probably no simple answer as many factors are likely to have contributed: marriage problems, the scandal of sexual abuse, the way in which a very large organisation can sometimes seem to be cold and unwelcoming, personality clashes, the seeming irrelevance of religious belief in a materialistic consumer society . . . . But are these issues sufficient cause?

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NEW YORK
Evening Tribune

By Stephen Borgna sborgna@the-leader.com

CORNING | A former Corning resident has reached a settlement for sexual abuse he says he received at St. Mary’s Church in Corning in the 1960s.

Thomas Mclaughlin, who lived on West 6th Street at the time and now lives near Wilmington, North Carolina, settled for an undisclosed sum with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester for abuse he allegedly received from former priest John Gormley.

Gormley is no longer affiliated with the church. He left the priesthood in 1971. The Diocese of Rochester confirmed that Gormley was with St. Mary’s Church in Corning from 1962-1965 as an assisting priest.

Mclaughlin said he was a 10-year-old altar boy at the time. He said the abuse took place for one summer.

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NEW JERSEY
New York Times

By JAMES BARRON
NOV. 13, 2016

NEWARK — Bishop Manuel A. Cruz opened with a head count. “Four,” he said, looking out at the four parishioners in a small chapel behind the soaring Gothic sanctuary of the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart here. “The perfect number, because it is the number we are here.”

Then Bishop Cruz said the evening Mass — the nightly service in English. Of the four worshipers, one was a lay reader, Edna Tan, who came to the United States from the Philippines 27 years ago. Also at the service was the cathedral’s head sacristan, Sister Ana Julia Frias, a nun from the Dominican Republic. The third worshiper was black, the fourth white.

Ninety minutes later in the same chapel, another Mass began, the weekly evening service in Spanish. The pews were full, about 50 people in all.

The difference in attendance illustrates one of the main challenges facing the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark as it prepares for the arrival of a new leader, Archbishop Joseph W. Tobin, currently the archbishop of Indianapolis. The cathedral is the seat of a troubled archdiocese stretching across four counties in northern New Jersey. It encompasses some of the state’s wealthiest communities, and some of its poorest.

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GUAM
KUAM

Updated: Nov 14, 2016

By Sabrina Salas Matanane

Even with a new bishop heading to Guam it’s not enough to quiet the protests every Sunday at the Hagatna Cathedral. Additionally just today new documents have been filed in the defamation lawsuit filed against the local Catholic Church and Archbishop Anthony Apuron.

On any given Sunday, you’ll find them in front of the cathedral. Concerned Catholics and members of the Laity Forward Movement have been protesting for several months and according to Gerry Taitano they’re not going to stop. “We don’t want to hear his name during the masses Thanksgiving prayer, God bless Apuron, Archbishop Apuron we just want him out,” he explained.

But Archbishop Apuron isn’t out officially despite allegations of sexual molestation and questions as to whether the Redemptoris Mater Seaminary property in Yona still belongs to the local archdiocese. Currently Archbishop Apuron along with the archdiocese are being sued for defamation and most recently a complaint for damages was filed by four victims of alleged clergy sexual abuse. Documents filed with the court even indicate accused pedophile priest Father Louis Brouillard confessed to abusing boys when he was a priest and a teacher of sex education on Guam in the 1940’s through the 1970’s.

Father. Brouillard also admitted on video that he told the church’s higher-ups who responded to pray about it. Weekly protestor CCOG’s Andrew Camacho said, “So that’s a scary thought that abusive priests were known about and nothing concrete was done about it, so that means young people were at risk for many, many years.”

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

The Archbishop of the Canberra-Goulburn region has responded to criticism over his absence at an abuse healing service at Marist College earlier this week.

Advocates for victims of child abuse hit out at Archbishop Christopher Prowse, labelling his decision not to attend “appalling”.

In a statement, Archbishop Prowse said “some victims of child abuse have been offended by my non-attendance at the recent Liturgy of Lament at Marist College, Canberra”.

“In hindsight, I believe they are correct,” he said.

The all-boys Catholic school in Canberra’s south held a liturgy for abuse survivors on Thursday, at which its headmaster and the Provincial of the Marist Brothers apologised for abuse that took place at the school, and subsequent failures to deal with it effectively.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Christopher Knaus

The Catholic archbishop for Canberra says he regrets his decision not to attend a healing ceremony for Marist abuse victims, asking “sincerely for forgiveness from those whom I have offended”.

Archbishop Christopher Prowse was invited to Marist’s healing ceremony on Thursday night, but declined to attend.

A spokeswoman said on Friday that the Catholic church’s leader in Canberra and Goulburn had viewed it as a “Marist-specific” event, and that he’d wanted to wait for the royal commission to end so the archdiocese could hold its own.

The decision angered abuse survivors, who viewed his absence as a continuing sign of a flawed attitude on the abuse crisis from the Catholic Church.

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ISRAEL
The Daily Beast

ADRIENNE SANDERS
11.13.16

One would think that a convicted sex offender might want to stay out of the courts in his new country of residence.

Not so with Yona Weinberg.

The Brooklyn sex offender who moved to Israel in 2014 the day after police knocked on his door over new charges, is suing a New York rabbi for defamation after the rabbi, Yakov Horowitz, tweeted Weinberg’s whereabouts in Jerusalem. Israel does not have a public sex offender registry so the rabbi, a child advocate, warned residents via Twitter that Weinberg was a dangerous presence in their midst.

Weinberg’s Brooklyn-based lawyer Samuel Karliner, who helped him manage sex-offender registry requirements while he was in the United States, said his client did not flee to Israel, as Horowitz’s tweets contended, and that he had been planning to move there with his family for some time.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

Ian Kirkwood
13 Nov 2016

CLERGY abuse survivors say a prominent Newcastle Anglican at the subject of this week’s Royal Commission hearings should be stripped of his Order of Australia Medal and his position as a Freeman of the City of Newcastle.

Graeme Lawrence, who was rector of Christ Church Cathedral and dean of Newcastle from 1984 to 2008, is one of the people at the heart of the Royal Commission’s investigations into “the experiences of child sexual abuse perpetrated by clergy and lay people involved in or associated with the Anglican Diocese of Newcastle”.

He is one of eight Anglicans named in the terms of reference for case study 42, which ran for 11 days in August and which reconvenes on Wednesday for a scheduled five further days.

The commission is looking at Mr Lawrence’s own sexual behaviour and at the way he is alleged to have used his office to help protect himself and others.

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NEW YORK
Church Militant

by Stefan Farrar • ChurchMilitant.com • November 12, 2016

Critics claim it’s the archdiocese’s attempt to circumvent Child Victims Act

NEW YORK (ChurchMilitant.com) – The New York archdiocese is implementing a program to compensate victims of sexual abuse, as long as they promise never to sue the archdiocese. The program is receiving backlash from all quarters.

The Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program will allow victims with credible allegations of abuse to apply for compensation, with payment handed out within 60 days of the claim. Victims must also sign a confidentiality agreement as well as a release freeing the archdiocese of any litigation over related claims in the future.

“I wish I would have done this quite a while ago,” said Cdl. Timothy Dolan in early October. “I just finally thought: ‘Darn it, let’s do it. I’m tired of putting it off.” Dolan claimed it was Pope Francis’ announcement of the Year of Mercy that inspired him to launch the compensation fund.

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WASHINGTON
Yakima Herald

By Jane Gargas
jgargas@yakimaherald.com

Bishop Joseph Tyson of the Yakima Catholic Diocese is one of two bishops nominated to head the Committee on the Protection of Children and Young People with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“Tyson is honored to be nominated,” said Monsignor Robert Siler, chancellor of the Yakima Diocese. “He does not view the other candidate as an opponent but a fellow bishop who is dedicated to the protection of children and youth, as is he.”

The other nominee is Bishop Timothy Doherty of Lafayette, Ind.

Not everyone is pleased with Tyson’s nomination, however.

The world’s largest group of clergy sex abuse victims, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, is calling for Tyson to withdraw.

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TEXAS
TXK Today

By Field Walsh – November 12, 2016

A Texarkana pastor accused of sexually abusing two girls has been formally charged with nine felonies and a misdemeanor by the Miller County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.

David Wayne Farren, 41, was arrested twice in August for allegedly abusing two girls who had participated in church youth groups where Farren worked as a member of the clergy. He is currently free on a total of $40,000 bond.

This week a criminal information was signed by Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Connie Mitchell charging Farren with nine felonies and one misdemeanor. Counts one through seven allege Farren had sex with a minor, “and was in a position of trust or authority over the victim and used the position of trust or authority to engage in sexual intercourse or deviate sexual activity,” with the girl. All seven counts of first-degree sexual assault allegedly occurred beginning in April 2013 and continuing through August 2013. Count eight alleges Farren engaged in sexual contact with the same girl beginning in April 2012 and continuing through August 2013.

Count nine accuses Farren of engaging in sexual contact with a second girl in 2007. The tenth count alleges Farren violated a law which requires him as a member of the clergy to report child abuse. Farren is accused of knowing a child had been abused in 2012 and failed to notify authorities.

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NEW MEXICO
Albuquerque Journal

By Olivier Uyttebrouck / Journal Staff Writer
Saturday, November 12th, 2016

A new lawsuit alleges that the Archdiocese of Santa Fe has transferred “virtually all” its parishes and real property into a trust since 2012 to shield the assets from possible creditors, including survivors of clerical sexual abuse.

The allegations are included in one of two lawsuits filed this week by two New Mexico men who allege they were abused as children by former priests in the archdiocese.

Albuquerque attorney Brad Hall is asking a 2nd Judicial District judge to rule that the properties transferred into trust remain available to help pay court judgments against the archdiocese.

Hall has filed more than 60 clerical abuse lawsuits against the archdiocese since 2012, most of which have since been settled for undisclosed amounts.

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NEW YORK
Hudson Valley News Network

Posted on: November 11, 2016.

Jay Behrke

MIDDLETOWN – In this extension of Thursday’s breaking story, Lex Filipowski – abused at the hands of his childhood priest at Holy Cross Church in South Centerville – goes into more detail on the issues troubling him since he was too young to fully comprehend them.

“I have been attempting to get justice for what happened to me from the Catholic Church for 25 years,” said Filipowski, 52, who says he was abused by Father George Boxelaar from 1971-1974. “And I’ve been dismissed for the last 25 years by some of the most arrogant and self-righteous people that have no care for what happened to me, or thousands and thousands of other children who were sexually abused by priests.”

Father Michael Kissane, Prior Provincial of the Carmelites in Middletown, acknowledged that there were several credible accusations of abuse against Boxelaar that were made public in the early 1980s; and that Boxelaar was “removed from ministry” at that time, moving back to his native country, the Netherlands, where he died in the early 1990s.

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WASHINGTON
National Catholic Reporter

Dan Morris-Young | Nov. 11, 2016

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests have asked Yakima Bishop Joseph Tyson in a Nov. 10 letter to remove himself from “his race for chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on the Protection of Children and Young People.”

SNAP charged that Tyson had “done virtually nothing to undo the damage” done by past clerical sex abusers in the Yakima diocese and those who shielded them. A diocesan official on Nov. 11 responded that “almost without exception, our people express gratitude for the increased awareness they have gained, information that most are not receiving anywhere else” on sex abuse.

In an email to NCR, Msgr. Robert Siler, Yakima chancellor and moderator of the curia, wrote: “We have beefed up our training program this past year, introducing live Virtus abuse prevention trainings in English and Spanish that take 2-1/2 to 3 hours. We have trained more than 1,000 employees and volunteers. I have personally conducted 80 percent of those trainings.”

In a news release, SNAP says that when Tyson was installed in 2011 it “publicly expressed hopes that he would ‘take immediate steps to warn Mexican families and officials about [Deacon] Aaron Ramirez and tell the full truth about allegations against Fr. [Darell] Mitchell.'”

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LOUISIANA
New Orleans Advocate

BY DELLA HASSELLE | DHASSELLE@THEADVOCATE.COM NOV 10, 2016

The pastor of Second Zion Baptist Church in Central City was arrested Wednesday after two young girls and two women accused him of sexually abusing them in the church, according to the New Orleans Police Department.

Police arrested 59-year-old Gary Lee Curtis and booked him on five counts of sexual battery after investigating a case that was first brought to the department on Sept. 21, according to arrest records.

The NOPD’s Special Victims Section began investigating after a woman reported a single incident of sexual abuse involving a 12-year-old girl, the police report said.

The report said NOPD Detective Bianca DeIrish then met with another person described in the report as a “concerned elder,” who told her that the pastor touched young girls “on their buttocks” while they were at the church at 2929 Second St.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Wayne Independent

By Kevin Kearneykkearney@wayneindependent.com

HAWLEY – A Roman Catholic priest has been extradited from New Jersey to face 40 felony counts of sexual abuse of children in Wayne County, District Attorney Janine Edwards said yesterday.

The Rev. Kevin Gugliotta, 54, of Mahwah, was arraigned before Magisterial District Judge Bonnie Carney in Hawley and placed in county jail on $1 million cash bail.

The defendant faces 20 counts of dissemination of child pornography and 20 counts of possessing the pornography related to illegal computer activity at his part-time residence in Gouldsboro.

Gugliotta is scheduled to appear in Central Court in Honesdale at 9 a.m. Wednesday.

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Saturday, November 12, 2016
IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Liam Heylin

An elderly priest on trial for the alleged sexual assault on a schoolboy during sex education instruction in a school office testified yesterday, “I never touched him sexually, improperly — never.”

The complaint said he was in third year in school, in the mid-1970s, when he was called to the priest’s office for sex education. He said the priest masturbated him.

The defendant, who is not named for legal reasons, told Judge Gerard O’Brien and the jury at Cork Circuit Criminal Court it did not happen.

Tom Creed, defending, said, “You have heard the allegations that you sexually molested him.” He replied, “I never molested Mr (name)”.

Mr Creed put it to the defendant about where the complainant said the office was located. The defendant said the room had another name and was for storage of mattresses and sports gear. “That room was never dignified with the name of office,” he said.

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SOUTH DAKOTA
Roman Catholic Diocese of Sioux Falls

November 10, 2016
Memorial of Saint Leo the Great

Regarding the Reinstatement of Reverend Joseph T. Forcelle to Public Ministry

On September 21, 2016, Reverend Joseph T. Forcelle was placed on leave after the Diocese of Sioux Falls received notice from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis that an allegation of child sexual abuse had been made against him. The alleged abuse took place while Father Forcelle was ministering in the Archdiocese. In accord with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young Persons, Father Forcelle’s leave was standard procedure and is threefold in its purpose: to ensure the safety of all children, to allow for an impartial investigation to be undertaken, and to protect the rights of Father Forcelle as defined in both civil and Church law.

Since his arrival to the Diocese in 1984, no prior accusations of child sexual abuse involving Father Forcelle had been received by the Diocese. In addition, there have been no allegations received since public announcement of his leave from public ministry was made.Subsequent to being notified of the accusation, law enforcement in Minnesota indicated that a criminal investigation would not be initiated. Therefore, a private investigator was appointed to conduct an investigation. In the Diocese’s effort to seek the truth, the investigator was charged to search for facts that would support the accusation.

After having been presented the findings of the investigation, the Diocesan Review Board concluded that the facts asserted do not substantiate this allegation. I accept the counsel of the Diocesan Review Board. Therefore, I have restored Father Joseph Forcelle’s faculties and reinstated him to public ministry with the fullest confidence in him as priest and minister of the Church. His pastoral ministry at Saint Leo the Great Parish, Tyndall and Saint Vincent de Paul Parish, Springfield will resume on November 15, 2016.

As bishop and on behalf of the Church, I renew my encouragement of all victims of child sexual abuse to come forward to local authorities or to the Diocese so that they might be offered assistance.

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SOUTH DAKOTA
Press & Dakotan

Posted: Friday, November 11, 2016

BY RANDY DOCKENDORF randy.dockendorf@yankton.net

A Catholic priest serving two Bon Homme County parishes has been exonerated from a decades-old child sexual abuse allegation in Minnesota and will resume his ministry next week.

Next Tuesday, the Rev. Joe Forcelle will return to his pastoral ministry at Saint Leo Church in Tyndall and Saint Vincent Church in Springfield.

Bishop Paul Swain of the Diocese of Sioux Falls announced Forcelle’s full reinstatement in a statement posted Thursday on the diocesan website.

Swain placed the priest on administrative leave Sept. 21 as standard procedure following an allegation that came forward through legal proceedings involving the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio , heugenio@guampdn.com November 11, 2016

Clergy with the Guam Catholic Church this week sent letters to Pope Francis to thank him for appointing during a “difficult time” a coadjutor archbishop — the Rev. Michael Jude Byrnes, who has rights to succeed the embattled Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron.

Apuron, 71, is facing a canonical trial at the Vatican over multiple allegations of sex abuse of altar boys in Agat during the 1970s.

The Archdiocese of Agana, in a statement Friday afternoon, said priests and deacons joined Archbishop Savio Hon Tai Fai in a gesture of appreciation and support to the pope and Byrnes. They wrote a letter after meeting last week.

“On behalf of the people of God on Guam, we would like to express to you our sincerest gratitude for sending to us Coadjutor Archbishop Michael Byrnes in a difficult time,” the clergy wrote to Pope Francis. “We are tracing in trials and tribulations the path Christ trod in His lifetime, where divisions and hurts were widespread.”

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NEW YORK
The Legislative Gazette

By TOM READ, Gazette staff writer on November 11, 2016

Sen. Brad Hoylman, prime sponsor of the Child Victims Act (S.7296), is responding with skepticism to a recent announcement that the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York will create a child sexual abuse compensation fund.

“I’m glad the Archdiocese of New York is taking responsibility for the untold number of crimes against New York City children committed by its clergy,” Hoylman said. “It should also be acknowledged that this is a canny legal strategy devised to reduce the Archdiocese’s liability for decades of crimes and cover-ups.”

The Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program was introduced by the Archdiocese of New York last month. The funds will go to individuals who were sexually abused as minors by clergy members working for the Archdiocese.

It will be headed by nationally recognized mediator Kenneth Feinberg and will have an oversight committee, whose members include former New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.

While other dioceses have instituted similar programs to compensate victims of abuse, Cardinal Timothy Dolan said, “It is unique in that we’re asking an outside, independent acclaimed source to do it.”

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GUAM
Guam Daily Post

Neil Pang | Post News Staff

At least one of the civil lawsuits filed in the Superior Court of Guam last week on Nov. 1 by abuse victims Roland Sondia, Roy Quintanilla, Walter Denton and Leo Tudela included written testimony from an abuser and former priest of Guam that states that archdiocesan officials knew about child sex abuse being committed by priests and did little to address it.

Of the four complainants, Sondia, Quintanilla and Denton have accused Archbishop Anthony Apuron of sexually abusing them as children when they served as altar boys at the Agat parish that Apuron ministered in the 1970s.

Tudela, 73, came forward in August of this year to give oral testimony in favor of Bill 323-33, which would remove the statute of limitations for civil litigation for cases involving child sex abuse, and disclosed details of abuse that he endured as a child while attending Catholic school on Guam in the 1950s. He named two individuals, Fr. Louis Brouillard and a “Brother Mariano” as church officials who ministered at parishes of the Archdiocese of Agana, as his abusers.

Bill 363-33 was signed into Public Law 33-187 on Sept. 24 by Gov. Eddie Calvo, opening the door for civil litigation against individuals, organizations and aiders and abettors who permitted the sexual abuse of children. Last week’s filing marks the first such suits to make use of the provisions of the new law.

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INDIA
National Catholic Reporter – Global Sisters Report

by Jose Kavi Nov. 10, 2016 in Equality

First-hand perspective from the meeting:

• The power of religion over women in India

Hyderabad, India

After efforts to persuade the Catholic church in India to deal with sexual abuse of women by clergy, and upset over the church’s slow progress, a group of Christian women, mostly Catholics, announced steps for addressing the issue on their own.

“We should move outside the church to seek answers to abuse cases. We should treat this problem as a crime and take recourse to the law,” said Astrid Lobo Gajiwala, a lay woman theologian.

Gajiwala, who heads the women’s collective Satyashodak (meaning “seekers of truth”), made these remarks at a recent national seminar that studied the impact of religion and culture on the empowerment of women from an Indian perspective.

About 50 people, including a few men, attended the Sept. 23-26 meeting in Hyderabad, the capital of the southern Indian state of Telangana. The meeting was organized by Streevani (“voice of women”), an NGO managed by the Holy Spirit nuns, along with Satyashodak and three other groups engaged in women’s empowerment.

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MISSOURI
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

By Joel Currier St. Louis Post-Dispatch

ST. LOUIS • Pat and Dan Harkins, who say their 21-year-old son killed himself in 2009 because of sexual abuse by a St. Louis priest years before, told reporters Thursday they hope his story inspires others to find help before it’s too late.

As for the Catholic church, the Harkins believe there’s little left to say.

“I still believe in God,” Pat Harkins said. “I don’t believe in the Catholic church. How could I?”

Outside Rosati-Kain High School in St. Louis, the Florissant couple were joined by officials from Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests to speak out about the settlement of their lawsuit against the St. Louis Archdiocese.

The amount of the settlement, reached in September, is confidential.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Advocates for victims of child abuse have hit out at the Archbishop of the Canberra-Goulburn region over his absence at a healing service at Marist College, labelling his decision “appalling”.

Last night, the all-boys Catholic school in Canberra’s south held a liturgy for abuse survivors, at which its headmaster and the Provincial of the Marist Brothers apologised for abuse that took place at the school, and subsequent failures to deal with it effectively.

Many instances of abuse committed by Marist staff in the 1970s and 1980s were examined during hearings at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse.

“The fact that the Archbishop had better things to do last night is appalling,” anti-child abuse advocate and former Marist student Damian De Marco said.

“He is in charge of the safety of every child in his archdiocese, he is responsible for the Institute of Safeguarding.”

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Wrongful death suit vs. archdiocese settles
Parents of young man who died by suicide to speak for 1st time
His death led to first “assisted suicide” trial in MO in 100 years
Abusive cleric was convicted of molesting another boy & did jail time
Now defrocked, he lives in St. Charles Co. and is reportedly married

WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, parents of a young St. Louis man who died by suicide will speak for the first time about

–his tragic death and
–their recent settlement of a wrongful death lawsuit against the St. Louis archdiocese that employed the priest who molested the boy.

They’ll be joined by a few clergy sex abuse victims and their supporters. The group will urge anyone who may have seen, suspected or suffered the priest’s crimes to get help and call police

WHEN
Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016 11:15 a.m.

WHERE
Outside Rosati-Kain High School, 4389 Lindell (corner of Newstead) in the Central West End, St. Louis

WHO
The parents, Dan and Pat Harkins of Florissant, and two-three child sex abuse victims who belong to a self-help group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org)

WHY
An unusual civil lawsuit has been settled. In it, a St. Louis couple charged that a now-convicted priest – who still lives and works in the St. Louis area – raped their 13 year old son and that archdiocesan officials are responsible for their son’s 2009 death by suicide.

In 2009, the boy, Alex Harkins (then 21), made a suicide pact with a friend, Jacob Runge (then 22) of St. Peters. In May of that year, Harkins shot himself at St. Stanislaus Park in Hazelwood. Runge, however, did not follow through. Days later, Runge led Harkins’ parents to Alex’s body, and in June 2009, Runge was charged with “assisted suicide,” the first such case in Missouri in 100 years. He was acquitted.

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ITALY
Chiesa

The followers of other religious confessions are on the rise in the country where the pope resides. But the most numerous are not the Muslims. They are the Orthodox and Protestants. And there are those who are turning Buddhist

by Sandro Magister

ROME, November 11, 2016 – In addition to being bishop of Rome, Jorge Mario Bergoglio is also primate of Italy. And in spite of the very small number of pastoral visits that he makes to Roman parishes and Italian dioceses, the Church that is in Italy and Italy itself have become his natural habitat.

Not only that. The social phenomenon that lies closest to Pope Francis’s heart is undoubtedly that of migration, to such an extent that he has reserved for himself – and for himself alone – the management of the office in the curia that deals with it, within the newly constituted dicastery “for integral human development.”

Well then, it is precisely migration that is notably changing the human and religious landscape in Italy.

In the religious field, the Catholic Church no longer has that uncontested monopoly which it had for centuries, until a few years ago.

Catholicism remains by far the dominant religion in Italy. But alongside it are growing other Christian confessions and other faiths. Not only on account of immigration, but also, to a lesser extent, through conversion.

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MINNESOTA
KARE

MINNEAPOLIS – The Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis is adding more money to its compensation plan for clergy abuse victims.

Our partners at Minnesota Public Radio News report the compensation fund will jump from the original $65 million dollars to more than $100 million.

MPR reports Archdiocese attorneys say settlements with insurers and creditors are making more money available for the fund, with settlements have been reached with all but two insurers.

Attorneys for the victims have long said the insurers and the church could afford to contribute more money to the fund.

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GHANA
Graphic

EMMANUEL EBO HAWKSON 11 NOVEMBER 2016

The Leader of the International God’s Way Church (IGWC), Bishop Daniel Obinim, and two of his pastors were yesterday granted bail by the Accra Circuit Court for allegedly abusing two teenagers during a church service.

Bishop Obinim, Pastor Kingsley Baah and Pastor Solomon Abraham were each granted bail in the sum of GH¢10,000, with one surety, by the court, presided over by Mrs Abena Oppong Adjin-Doku.

The case has been adjourned to November 24, 2016.

Bishop Obinim has been charged with physical abuse contrary to the Domestic Violence Act (732), while the two pastors have been charged with abetment of crime.

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CANADA
Peterborough Examiner

By Joelle Kovach
Friday, November 11, 2016

A Peterborough Catholic priest who is under police investigation for sexual misconduct has been suspended from his pastoral role at three local schools, said the director of education.

Rev. Bill Moloney is on administrative leave from his job as priest at Immaculate Conception Church on Rogers St. in Peterborough.

He’s under OPP investigation over allegations of sexual misconduct going back to the 1980s at Camp Northern Lights, where he was the long-time director.

Because Moloney is not currently the priest at Immaculate Conception Church, he’s not attending to pastoral duties at area schools, either.

Michael Nasello, the director of education at the Peterborough Victoria Northumberland and Clarington Catholic District School Board, said Moloney used to help with tasks such as leading in-school religious services at St. Peter Secondary School, Immaculate Conception School and Monsignor O’Donoghue School.

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OKLAHOMA
Fox 23

Hector Mejia
Updated: Nov 10, 2016

A jury has reached a verdict in the trial of a man accused of sexual abuse while working as a youth mentor through a local church.

They found Timothy Cato guilty of 11 counts of child sex abuse. They found him not guilty in one count of child sex abuse and one count of possession of child pornography.

The jury recommended 215 years in prison.

During closing arguments, Cato’s defense said the state demonized him by painting him as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing.” They said that he should be punished for only one count, but given the chance for redemption.

However, prosecutors said Cato built his reputation as a caretaker and church youth mentor to prey on children, who were either from a shelter or didn’t have a father figure. They claimed Cato groomed the five boys to believe it was okay for him to watch them shower and later cuddle with them during sleepovers.

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IRELAND
Herald

Sonya McLean and Fiona Ferguson – 11 November 2016

A former lay worker with the Church of Ireland has been jailed for 13 years for the rape and molestation of 14 young boys over the course of 40 years.

Patrick O’Brien (76) pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to 48 sample counts of indecent assault and three of sexual assault of the boys.

O’Brien, of Knocklyon Road, Templeogue, Dublin, received a one-year suspended sentence in 1989 for sexually assaulting a 10-year-old boy, leaving him free to continue a litany of horror crimes for another 24 years.

The offending took place between 1974 and 2013 at numerous locations, including Kildare, Westmeath, and at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, where he worked as a volunteer.

He would abuse his victims in various locations, including:

* Bringing boys to his yacht.
* Taking them for driving lessons or to the office where he worked.
* He abused one boy once a week in a car wash after they were hidden from view when the vehicle was covered in foam.
* He organised games of hide and seek to be alone with a victim.
* He abused a boy in a kitchen while the child’s parents and grandmother were in the sitting room.
* Another boy was abused in the electrical room of St Patrick’s Cathedral while people were in the body of the church.

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MISSOURI
KSDK

Christina Coleman, KSDK November 10, 2016

FLORISSANT, MO. – A Florissant couple who lost their son to suicide after alleged abuse by a priest reached a settlement with the St. Louis Archdiocese.

Dan and Pat Harkins said their son, Alex, was sexually abused at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary between the ages of 12 and 14.

Alex’s parents say he changed dramatically after church camp.

Initially, he was very spiritual and wanted to be come a priest. However, after the camp he was depressed and attempted suicide six times.

He didn’t tell his parents about the alleged sex abuse until he was 20-years-old. He took his life in May of 2009 when he was 21-years-old. His parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit in October of 2013.

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AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

Christopher Knaus

Canberra’s Catholic archbishop did not attend a healing ceremony for Marist child sexual abuse survivors because it was “Marist-specific”, and because he wanted to wait for the royal commission to conclude so the archdiocese could hold its own event.

Marist College Canberra apologised to former students who were abused by its staff on Thursday night, conducting a ceremony and unveiling a plaque that will stand as a permanent reminder of the school’s abuse crisis.

On Friday, it emerged that Archbishop for the Canberra-Goulburn region, Archdiocese Christopher Prowse, had been invited to the healing ceremony, but had not attended.

A spokeswoman said on Friday that the archbishop had wanted to wait for the royal commission to conclude.

She said the event was more “Marist-specific”, and that the Catholic church would hold its own healing ceremony at the conclusion of the commission.

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GUAM
Radio New Zealand

A retired priest in Guam says the island’s Catholic Church leadership has known for decades about sex abuses committed by clergy since the 1950s.

Louis Brouillard, who is a confessed abuser, made his comment in a statement released in connection with civil lawsuits filed by several former altar boys, who allege sexual abuse at the hands of Guam priests decades ago.

Pacific Daily News reports Mr Brouillard saying his only form of punishment for molesting at least 20 boys at the time was to say prayers – as instructed by the then Archbishop Apollinaris Baumgartner.

Mr Brouillard, who is now 95 and living in Minnesota, said his sexual contact with children was known to other priests, including the Archbishop Baumgartner, who led the church on Guam for 25 years from 1945.

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MISSOURI
KMOX

ST. LOUIS (KMOX) – A wrongful death lawsuit filed against the St. Louis Archdiocese is settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.

David Clohessy with the survivors group SNAP, says the suit was filed by the parents of a Florissant man who committed suicide years after he was allegedly abused by a Catholic priest.

“I think the very last thing in the world Archbishop Carlson wants or needs at this point, is to have a grieving couple in open court, explain how much was known about Father Kuchar and how little was done to protect kids from him,” Clohessey says.

Father Bryan Kuchar was found guilty in 2003 of sexually assaulting another boy in 1995 at Assumption Catholic Church in south St. Louis County.

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NEW YORK
NBC 4

By Chris Glorioso and Evan Stulberger

When Cardinal Timothy Dolan unveiled a plan to pay settlements to victims of priest sexual abuse, he touted the new victim compensation fund as a way to seek reconciliation with those who have been harmed by the church.

For at least one survivor of priest sexual abuse, the settlement fund has had the opposite effect.

“I felt victimized once again, extremely angry,” said Lex Filipowski, a former altar boy at Holy Cross Church in South Centerville, New York.

In his first interview using his real name, Filipowski says he called the New York Archdiocese to inquire about the victim compensation fund, only to learn he was ineligible because his abuser was a priest of a religious order – the Carmelites.

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FLORIDA
WFTV

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – A youth pastor was arrested Tuesday on charges of raping a girl under the age of 12, and the Orange County Sheriff’s Office is concerned that she might not be the only victim.

Arrest records said Samuel Pierre, 35, abused the child while he was supposed to be taking her to a youth group event.

Pierre faced a judge Wednesday on charges of sexual battery against a child and kidnapping.

An arrest report said Pierre picked up a young girl in August to take her to a youth group gathering for Tabernacle Prayer and Miracles International church.

The girl told investigators that he drove her to a home, where she fell asleep after drinking a glass of water that Pierre gave her.

“We’re dealing with children here. They’re the most vulnerable in our community,” said sheriff’s office Detective Michael Kleinfelt. “He assumed a role of responsibility or a role of somebody that a child would look up to, and he took advantage of that.”

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FLORIDA
Orlando Sentinel

Gal Tziperman Lotan
Orlando Sentinel

A youth pastor accused of kidnapping and raping a girl from his church had been arrested on charges of lewd or lascivious battery in 2009, records show.

Prosecutors ended up dropping the charges against Samuel Pierre in 2012.

The case was similar to the one brought against Pierre this week: Both involved girls of similar ages he knew through a church. In both cases, the girls thought that Pierre was taking them to meet other friends, but ended up alone with him, records show. Both girls said Pierre told them not to tell anyone.

The 2009 case was dropped because of witness statements, state attorney spokeswoman Angela Starke said. She did not immediately know what the statements were because the related files were in a warehouse.

Orange County deputies arrested Pierre, a youth pastor at the Prayer and Miracles International church on South Rio Grande Avenue, on Tuesday. They believe there could be other victims, Det. Michael Kleinfelt said during a press conference on Thursday.

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WASHINGTON
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016

For more information: David Clohessy 314 566 9790 cell, 314 645 5915 home, davidgclohessy@gmail.com, Barbara Dorris 314 503 0003 cell, bdorris@SNAPnetwork.ordg

Victims oppose Yakima bishop’s bid for national office
SNAP to prelate: “You shouldn’t even be on child sex abuse panel

The world’s largest group of clergy sex abuse victims wants Yakima’s top Catholic official to withdraw from his bid to head a national church abuse panel next week and instead focus on “protecting the vulnerable and healing the wounded” in Washington.

[Catholic New York]

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests is writing Bishop Joseph Tyson asking him to abandon his race for chair of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on the Protection of Children and Young People. The election is Nov. 14 in Baltimore.

“You have done virtually nothing to undo the damage that your predecessor did when he protected clergy who abused children. You have also done virtually nothing, above the legally required bare minimum, to safeguard kids.” said,” SNAP in a letter sent today to Tyson (bishop@yakimadiocese.org). It’s also signed by Robert Fontana, who founded the central Washington chapter of Voice of the Faithful.

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MISSOURI
WGEM

ST. LOUIS (AP) – The parents of a young man who killed himself years after sexual abuse by a priest are hopeful that settlement of a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of St. Louis will prompt other victims to come forward.

The suit filed by Dan and Pat Harkins of Florissant, Missouri, was settled in September, but it wasn’t announced until Thursday. Officials with the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests say it’s at least the third wrongful death suit settled by the archdiocese.

Messages left with the archdiocese were not returned.

Alex Harkins committed suicide at age 21 in 2009. His parents say Alex had struggled emotionally since abuse by the Rev. Bryan Kuchar about eight years earlier.

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AUSTRALIA
Australian Jewish News

THE Yeshivah Centre, Melbourne, and Yeshiva College in Sydney have been recalled to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse only one week before the nominations close for the new Yeshivah–Beth Rivkah (YBR) board.

The Royal Commission has announced it will hold a public hearing into the current policies and procedures in relation to child protection and child-safe standards, including how Yeshivah and Yeshiva respond to allegations of child sexual abuse, in February.

“This hearing is expected to include consideration of factors that may have contributed to the occurrence of child sexual abuse in religious institutions and factors that may have affected the institutional response of religious institutions to child sexual abuse,” the commission said in a statement last week.

“This hearing may also examine the responses of named institutions to relevant case study report(s).”

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OSTERREICH
der Standard

Innsbruck / Vienna – On 17 November, the Republic of Austria, together with the Roman Catholic Church, invites the victims of abuse in state as well as church institutions to anhistoric meeting at Parliament.]

STEFFEN ARORA, KATHARINA MITTELSTAEDT
8. November 2016

Republik und Kirche veranstalten kommende Woche einen Staatsakt im Parlament. Doch viele Opfer wollen Taten sehen

Innsbruck/Wien – Am 17. November lädt die Republik Österreich zusammen mit der römisch-katholischen Kirche die Opfer von Missbrauch in staatlichen sowie kirchlichen Einrichtungen zu einem Staatsakt in den historischen Sitzungssaal des Parlaments. Nationalratspräsidentin Doris Bures (SPÖ) initiierte die Veranstaltung unter dem Titel “Geste der Verantwortung” auf vielfachen und seit langem geäußerten “Wunsch der Betroffenen”, heißt es aus ihrem Büro. Doch nicht alle ehemaligen Opfer sind von der Idee angetan, und an der geplanten Umsetzung gibt es viel Kritik.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Zeit

[Between 1950 and 1970, children were not only abused and abused in German children’s homes but drug tests were also carried out on them.]

Von Silke Hoock

Das katholische Franz-Sales-Haus in Essen ist schon im Jahr 2010 für seine Grausamkeit bekannt geworden. Ordensschwestern hatten die jungen Heimbewohner mit und ohne Behinderungen bis in die 1970er Jahre brutal gequält. Nun kam heraus, dass es neben den folterartigen Züchtigungen mit Stromkabeln oder heißen Bügeleisen und neben sexuellem Missbrauch auch regelmäßig “Betonspritzen” oder “Kotzspritzen” gab, wie die Heimkinder sie nannten. Also Medikamente, mit denen sie künstlich ruhig gestellt wurden oder die einen permanenten Brechreiz auslösten.

Doch nicht nur in Essen, bundesweit sollen in Deutschland Tausende Heimkinder zwischen 1950 und 1970 Opfer von Medikamententests geworden sein. Impfstoffe, Psychopharmaka und Libido hemmende Präparate habe man ihnen verabreicht. Zu diesem Ergebnis kommt die Krefelder Pharmazeutin Sylvia Wagner in ihrer Doktorarbeit. Wagner hatte an der Universität Düsseldorf 50 Studien von Pharmaunternehmen sowie historisch, wissenschaftliche Fachzeitschriften ausgewertet. Die meisten Tests seien ohne Einwilligung der Eltern erfolgt, sagt die Forscherin.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

AAP on November 8, 2016

Former Federal Court judge Tony Whitlam has settled a defamation suit against the ABC over a Four Corners report about pedophile priest John Farrell.

Mr Whitlam, son of former prime minister Gough Whitlam, had accused the public broadcaster of portraying him as a “stooge” who took money from the Catholic Church to rig an inquiry and cover up Farrell’s crimes.

A Federal Court order on Tuesday confirmed the two parties had reached a settlement and that a previous referral to mediation would be dismissed.

Mr Whitlam, 72, lodged the defamation suit in response to the Four Corners report broadcast in May when Farrell was jailed for 29 years for 79 child sex offences.

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AUSTRALIA
The Canberra Times

Daniel Burdon

As the light faded from the Canberra sky, the families and friends of victims of past child sexual abuse at Marist College gathered for a long-awaited healing ceremony on Thursday night.

At once an acknowledgement and apology for the abuse suffered by college students during the late 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s, and the failures to act at the time, the ceremony also marked a College plea for forgiveness and a public pledge that such events would “never happen again”.

The ceremony also saw a plaque unveiled in remembrance of the students abused and committing the school to the “healing process”, with a reading from psalm 119:105: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path”.

It followed calls from survivors of abuse at the college for a permanent memorial, including one as early as 2012 by former student Nicholas Quaine, as well as the findings of the royal commission that the Marist Brothers Catholic order failed to intervene and remove offending brothers John Chute and Gregory Joseph Sutton.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

By Mark Abrams

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — The appointment of a new leader for the nearby Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey is causing some ripples in church politics as far south as Philadelphia.

Cardinal-designate Joseph Tobin is coming from Indianapolis and he’s the first cardinal to ever lead the Newark Archdiocese – just across the river from New York.

Tobin will be formally elevated to the college of cardinals at the end of November.

But missing from that latest class of cardinals is Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Times-Tribune

STAFF REPORT / PUBLISHED: NOVEMBER 10, 2016

HONESDALE — A New Jersey priest arrested there last month on numerous child pornography charges was extradited Wednesday to Wayne County.

According to an arrest affidavit, The Rev. Kevin A. Gugliotta, 54, Mahwah, New Jersey, uploaded 20 files depicting children engaged in sexual activity to internet chat rooms between July 9 and Aug. 29 from his apartment in Lehigh Township, Wayne County.

He faces 40 felony counts of possessing and disseminating child pornography.

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TEXAS
Amarillo Globe-News

[Statement from Bishop Patrick J. Zurek]

By LAUREN KOSKI
lauren.koski@amarillo.com

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Amarillo has launched an investigation into Father Frank Pavone, a priest belonging to the Diocese who is one of 34 Catholic leaders advising President-elect Donald J. Trump, in response to a Facebook Live video featuring a fetus posted Sunday morning to Pavone’s Facebook page.

“Father Frank Pavone has posted a video on his Facebook page of the body of an aborted fetus, which is against the dignity of human life and is a desecration of the altar,” said Amarillo Diocese Bishop Patrick J. Zurek.

“We believe that no one who is pro-life can exploit a human body for any reason, especially the body of a fetus. The Diocese of Amarillo deeply regrets the offense and outrage caused by the video for the faithful and the community at large. The action and presentation of Father Pavone in this video is not consistent with the beliefs of the Catholic Church.” …

According to Amarillo Globe-News files, Pavone entered into the authority of the Amarillo Diocese in 2005 when Bishop John W. Yanta, Bishop for the Diocese at the time, promised Pavone he could work full-time for the pro-life movement.

In 2011, Bishop Patrick J. Zurek suspended Pavone due to concerns over PFL’s use of financial donations.

The Vatican Congregation of the Clergy ruled against his suspension, but said that Pavone still needed permission from Zurek to participate in pro-life events.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Marist College in Canberra’s south has held a service apologising to past students who suffered sexual and physical abuse at the hands of staff at the Catholic school.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse heard that several Brothers at the all-boys school had abused students in the 1970s and 1980s.

Other abuse allegations date back decades further.

On Thursday evening the school held a liturgy attended by about 200 people, apologising to students and holding prayer in hope of healing the damage caused.

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TEXAS
Tyler Morning Telegraph

A 26-year-old Bullard man pleaded guilty to a series of sexual assault to a child charges on Wednesday after prosecutors said he used his position in a church and school to lure boys to his home.

Thomas Scroggins, age 26, of Bullard pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 35 years in prison.

The victims, whose names will be withheld, varied in ages but were all younger than 14 years old at the time of the offenses, according to the Cherokee County District Attorney’s Office.

Separate from his plea of guilty, Scroggins also agreed to surrender a vehicle used to transport some of his victims and some remote-controlled airplanes which the state alleged were used to lure his young male victims into vulnerable situations.

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GUAM
KUAM

Updated: Nov 10, 2016

By Sabrina Salas Matanane

Documents filed in the church sex abuse scandal on Guam reveal explosive details – and information about a video that Father Louis Brouillard recorded on October 3 at his home in Minnesota.

Brouillard is one of the defendants accused of sexual molestation when he was a priest in Guam several years ago. The victim is Leo Tudela. According to court documents Fr. Broullard he said that he made the video to reach out to the parishioners of the Archdiocese of Guam and anyone he may have harmed to ask forgiveness for his actions many years ago.

He confessed that sex education talks while at Santa Teresita he touched the penises of some of the boys and some of the boys did perform oral sex on him. Fr. Brouillard added that some of the incidents took place in Mangilao at the church’s rectory. He said that he didn’t’ remember the dates or name of the boys involved, but did say that there may have been 20 or more boys may have been involved. He also confessed that there were other locations where the sexual contact may have happened at the San Vicente and Father Duenas Memorial Schools.

“I did believe that the boys enjoyed the sexual contact and I also had self-gratification as well,” he said. He also acknowledged his abuse of Tudela and apologized on the video.

Additionally Fr. Brouillard said that his actions while on Guam were discussed and confessed to area priests as well as the Bishop Apolinaris Baumgartner at the time. He said the bishop talked to him and told him to try to do better and say prayers as penance. “I believe the Catholic Church should be honest and truthful regarding what happened on Guam during my time there,” he said.

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INDIA
National Catholic Reporter – Global Sisters Report

by Virginia Saldanha Nov. 10, 2016 in Equality

News about the meeting:

• Christian women in India take steps to address clerical abuse cases

Men have been dominant as recipients, interpreters and transmitters of divine messages, while women have largely remained passive receivers of teachings and ardent practitioners of religious rituals. Attitudes developed around patriarchal interpretations of religious belief have defined and shaped the social and cultural contexts of Indian women resulting in their disempowerment and second-class status.

In India, where politics uses religion as a tool to manipulate the masses, women bear the brunt of the consequences of cultural attitudes and the impact of religion and politics in their particular milieu. Recognizing the influence of religion and culture on Indian women’s lives, Streevani (which means “voice of women”) took the initiative to organize a national consultation on the theme “Impact of Religion and Culture on Women’s Empowerment – An Indian Perspective.” About 50 people — women and men religious, theologians, professionals and a diocesan priest — attended the September 23-26 meeting in Hyderabad, India.

Within the overarching framework of patriarchy in the religious and social sphere, the core issues that emerged were: one, violence against women and, two, sexuality and the politics of gender.

“Women have internalized patriarchal Christianity. They are comfortable with just a little space that is given to them,” said Presentation Sr. and theologian Shalini Mulackal. The language, symbols and culturally conditioned interpretation of religious scriptures have evolved a practice that alienates women and even influences exploitation and violence towards them.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

[with video]

Haidee V Eugenio , heugenio@guampdn.com November 10, 2016

Guam’s Catholic church leadership has known for decades about clergy sex abuses that happened as early as the 1950s, a retired priest said in a signed statement released Nov. 1. He said his only form of punishment for molesting at least 20 boys at the time was to say prayers.

Retired priest Louis Brouillard, now 95 and living in Minnesota, said his sexual contacts with children when he was on Guam were known to other priests, including Bishop Apollinaris Baumgartner, the highest Catholic leader on Guam from 1945 to 1970. Brouillard served as a priest on island from the late 1940s to 1981.

Brouillard said Baumgartner approached him to talk about the “situation.” Baumgartner, who died in 1970, is Guam’s first residential Catholic bishop.

“I was told to try to do better and say prayers as a penance,” Brouillard said. “I believe the Catholic Church should be honest and truthful regarding what happened on Guam during my time there.”

Brouillard made a video at his Pine City, Minnesota, residence and signed a written statement dated Oct. 3 in support of a former altar boy’s Nov. 1 lawsuit against him for allegedly sexually abusing him six decades ago.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

10 November, 2016

The Royal Commission will continue its public hearing into the Anglican Diocese of Newcastle (Case Study 42) in Sydney on 16 November 2016.

It will sit from Wednesday 16 November to Friday 18 November and from Wednesday 23 to Thursday 24 November. The hearing commenced in Newcastle in August 2016.

This hearing is inquiring into the experiences of survivors of child sexual abuse perpetrated by clergy and lay people involved in or associated with the Anglican Diocese of Newcastle.

Continuation of public hearing into Anglican Diocese of Newcastle:

* Dates: Wednesday 16 November – Friday 18 November 2016, Wednesday 23 November – Thursday 24 November 2016
* Hearing times: 10:00am – 4:00pm AEDT
* Location: Hearing Room 1, Level 17, Governor Macquarie Tower, 1 Farrer Place, Sydney
Hearing times may be subject to change.

The hearing will be streamed live via webcast on the Case Study 42 page.

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FLORIDA
Orlando Sentinel

Christal Hayes
Orlando Sentinel

A youth pastor was arrested Tuesday after Orange County sheriff’investigators said he raped and kidnapped a young girl.

Samuel Pierre, 35, works at Tabernacle of Prayer and Miracles International church on South Rio Grande Avenue.

The girl’s mother told police Samuel picked up her daughter, who is younger than 12, to go to the youth group in August. He was also supposed to pick up several other kids, an arrest report states.

Several months later, she confronted her daughter because “she had been acting different” ever since she went with Samuel, according to the report.

Deputies said the girl told her mother Samuel never picked up any other children and instead drove to a home where Samuel and his aunt live.

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FLORIDA
Click on Orlando

An Orlando youth pastor has been arrested on charges of sexual battery and kidnapping, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office said.

The mother of the child involved told police that her child had been acting different since after her first attendance at the Tabernacle Prayer and Miracles International youth group under youth pastor Samuel Pierre.

She confronted her child about the incident, and deputies came to speak with the child on Nov. 3.

The mother said Pierre told her that he would come to pick up her daughter along with other youth group kids to go to the church and that Pierre would bring back her daughter to her grandmother’s home after it was done.

The child told her mother about an incident on Aug. 8 where Pierre did not pick up any other children for youth group and the pair went to Pierre’s aunt’s home, the report said.

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KANSAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release, November 9, 2016

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 566 9790, 314 645 5915 home, davidgclohessy@gmail.com)

Catholic officials now admit that a Kansas priest engaged in sexual misconduct. But that’s not enough.

[Kansas City Star]

Catholic officials recruited, educated, ordained, hired, trained and brought Fr. Anthony Kiplagathere. The police are investigating him. So it’s not enough for Archbishop Joseph Naumann to say “Well, he flew back home,” act powerless and clam up.

Naumann must use church bulletins, parish websites and pulpit announcements to seek out anyone who may have seen, suspected or suffered crimes by Fr. Kiplagat or cover ups by his supervisors. He must remind his flock that women in Kenya, where Fr. Kiplagat reportedly is now, are even more vulnerable. And he must insist that anyone with knowledge or suspicions about his wrongdoing have a civic duty to help law enforcement investigate him.

If Naumann won’t do this, his staff and his priests should do this.

Fr. Kiplagat was in Kansas for years. Common sense says he likely has other victims. Common decency says they need help. Yet Naumann refuses to use his vast power and resources to find and help them. That’s shameful.

Months ago, Naumann admitted that two of his priests are accused of sexually exploited adults: Fr. Kiplagat and Fr. George Seuferling, who faces multiple allegations, was suspended more than four years ago, and now is reportedly being defrocked (a process that involves the Vatican and often takes years).

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Philly

By Rhina Guidos • Catholic News Service • Posted November 9, 2016

WASHINGTON (CNS) — The Diocese of Amarillo, Texas, said in a statement it is investigating the incident of a pro-life priest who placed “the body of an aborted fetus” on an altar and broadcast it on Facebook Live to get people to vote for Republican Donald J. Trump, causing “the desecration of the altar.”

“We believe that no one who is pro-life can exploit a human body for any reason, especially the body of a fetus,” said Amarillo Bishop Patrick J. Zurek in a Nov. 8 statement. Its use for political purposes by one of the diocese’s priests was “against the dignity of human life,” he added.

Pro-life supporters in the Catholic Church denounced activist Father Frank Pavone for what he said was an “emergency situation” on the eve of the U.S. presidential election.

“What did he do?” wrote Ed Mechmann, a public policy director whose areas of concern include pro-life issues, in a blog for the Archdiocese of New York. “He used a dead aborted baby, laying naked and bloody on an altar, as a prop for his video.”

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UNITED STATES
Irish Times

James Smith in Boston

Earlier this year, I wrote for The Irish Times about the passing of a Magdalene survivor who lived here in the United States. She suffered ill health in her final years. Friends had lobbied on her behalf for health care entitlements offered through the State’s Magdalene restorative justice scheme. Unfortunately, those benefits never materialised.

But, in her last months she appreciated the help received from a social worker affiliated with an Irish immigration centre in the mid-west. I had reached out to Boston’s Consul General, who in turn contacted her colleague in Chicago, who in turn reached out to that city’s Irish Immigrant Support group, who made the social worker available, despite the fact that the she lived out of state.

He helped the survivor to identify a supplementary health insurance policy. And, that insurance policy proved crucial in covering significant end-of-life medical expenses and protecting her modest nest-egg-the balance of the lump-sum redress payment she had received from the Irish State, and ear-marked to pay for the repatriation of her ashes for burial in her mother’s grave back home.

Not long after she passed, I was invited to speak about the Magdalen Laundries to the Coalition of Irish Immigration Centers’ (CIIC) social services subcommittee, comprised of social workers with vast experience serving Irish immigrant communities in Chicago, San Francisco, Boston and New York. Two facts stand out from that conversation.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

November 10, 2016

DAN BOX
Crime reporterSydney
@DanBox10

The Catholic Archbishop of ­Adelaide, Philip Wilson, has been ordered to give evidence in court about his knowledge of child abuse committed by one of the church’s worst pedophile priests.

Senior cleric Brian Lucas, who was recently ­described before a royal commission as one of “the architects of the church’s ­response” to child sex abuse, has also been issued with a similar subpoena by the NSW Supreme Court.

Both men have been ordered to attend a hearing this month and to provide documents relating to discussions with or about the late Denis McAlinden, a priest of the diocese of Maitland-Newcastle who abused dozens of children between the 1950s and 1980s.

Both have also been the subject of recent police inquiries ­relating to their knowledge of other pedophile priests.

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GUAM
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Agana

November 8, 2016

Congratulatory Message from Archbishop Savio Hon Tai Fai, SDB

At the vigil of All Saints’ Day, the Holy See made public that His Holiness, Pope Francis, appointed the Most Reverend Michael Jude Byrnes, Coadjutor Archbishop, with Special Faculties, of the Archdiocese of Agaña. The Catholic faithful are grateful to the Holy Father for this appointment and also to Archbishop Byrnes for his acceptance.

I have spoken by phone with Coadjutor Archbishop Byrnes and on behalf of all the Catholic faithful in Guam, the clergy, religious, and laity, I convey our heartfelt congratulations on his appointment as well as our warmest welcome, assuring that he will certainly be in our prayers.

As instructed, Archbishop Byrnes has all the Faculties, Rights, and Obligations of the Archbishop of Agaña, civilly and ecclesiastically, without any exception.

One is never a bishop on one’s own, but always and only in the College of Bishops. Moreover the latter cannot be enclosed in the time of a single generation. The interweaving of all generations, the living Church of every epoch, is part of collegiality. It is the mission of a bishop to preserve this Catholic communion. In this regard, the Lord made St Peter and his Successors responsible for being the visible foundation and center of this communion.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio , heugenio@guampdn.com November 9, 2016

Archbishop Savio Hon Tai Fai said newly appointed coadjutor archbishop for Guam’s Catholic church, the Rev. Michael Jude Byrnes, should never be considered an “outsider” as some people consider him to be.

“Archbishop Byrnes may not be given, in one instance, ‘infused’ knowledge of every detail of our island but he is generally informed about the current situation of the local Church and is ready, as expressed humbly by himself, to learn more from the people of God on Guam, whether they be clergy, religious, or lay,” Hon said in a Nov. 3 congratulatory message to Byrnes.

As coadjutor archbishop, Byrnes has rights to succeed Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron, who is facing a canonical trial at the Vatican over multiple allegations of sex abuse of altar boys in Agat in the 1970s.

Pope Francis appointed Byrnes on Oct. 31. Up until his appointment as coadjutor archbishop, Byrnes was auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Detroit.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Timna Jacks

Geelong Grammar valued its reputation over the welfare of students, according to a blistering submission to the Royal Commission.

“There was a culture at Geelong Grammar which valued the reputation of the school over the welfare of the students,” said David Lloyd, counsel assisting the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in findings published on Wednesday.

Stephen Meek, principal of Geelong Grammar since 2004, told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexua Abuse that he was contacted about a sexual assault allegation on his first day in the job.

“The system did not protect and promote the interests of the students.”

The prestigious school has been accused of allowing Philippe Trutmann to work as a live-in boarding house assistant from 1985 and 1996, even though school authorities were told about allegations of improper conduct in 1985.

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MEXICO
Prensa Libre Chiapas

[To kick off the campaign against child sexual abuse, activists and Patricia Cristina Sada Salinas Chandomí they presented the documentary “Silvestre” which is about the clerical pederast priest in Oaxaca.]

Para dar inicio a la campaña contra el abuso sexual infantil, las activistas Cristina Sada Salinas y Patricia Chandomí, presentaron el documental “Silvestre”, el sacerdote pederasta clerical en Oaxaca.

Documental que fue presentado ante estudiantes universitarios, en el centro cultural “Museo Café”, en donde recalcaron que es necesario prevenir este problema para evitar se sigan cometiendo más abusos contra niños y niñas.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

1233 ABC Newcastle

By Robert Virtue

Peter Russ

Peter Russ was abused as a child in the 1970s.

He said he originally intended to speak to the Royal Commission under a pseudonym, but later changed his mind.

“Usually I’m the sort of person that just sits in the corner and doesn’t say anything,” he said.

“But for some reason [there was a] bolt out of the blue and I thought that was the way I want to go, and I’m glad I did do that.

“I’d got over the whole ‘shame’ thing.

“When I walked up there, I certainly wasn’t at all afraid; it was really powerful … it was the best thing I ever did.”

Mr Russ has been a teacher in the Catholic school system for over 35 years, and has only recently returned to work.

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AUSTRALIA
Catholic Leader

TOOWOOMBA Bishop Robert McGuckin has returned from Monaco after representing Federation of Catholic Bishops’ Conferences of Oceania at an international conference.

Bishop McGuckin spoke at the Council of the Conferences of the European Bishops.

“Unlike our plenary assemblies, on the whole it was mainly the presidents of European bishops’ conferences that are involved in the plenaries,” Bishop McGuckin wrote in address to the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference. …

“The issue of sexual abuse by clergy and religious has been highlighted in Australia with the present Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse,” he wrote.

“This has not only done great damage to the lives of the many victims, but calls for positive steps to put our house in order. This is happening but great damage has been done.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

“Hi, I’m LawBot, a robot designed to help victims of crime in England.”

While volunteering at a school sexual consent class, Ludwig Bull, a law student at the University of Cambridge, was inspired to build a chatbot that offers free legal advice to students. He enlisted the help of four coursemates, and Lawbot was designed and built in just six weeks.

The program is still in beta, but Bull hopes it will help victims of crime, at Cambridge and beyond, to get justice. “A victim can talk to our artificially intelligent chatbot, receive a preliminary assessment of their situation, and then decide which available actions to pursue,” he says.

Sexual harassment at university: ‘I felt terrified to say anything’
Read more
Bull explains that he was motivated by the alarming figures on sexual assault in the UK, where it is estimated that two thirds of offences go unreported, according to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN). The problem is especially urgent at universities, with the scale of abuse recently likened to the cases of Jimmy Savile or the Catholic church.

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AUSTRALIA
Border Mail

Melissa Cunningham
@MeljCunningham

The Catholic Diocese of Ballarat has publicly declared its support for the federal government’s national redress scheme for clergy sexual abuse victims.

Ballarat Catholic diocese vicar-general Father Justin Driscoll said the diocese would fully participate in the scheme.

“We welcome the many components of the scheme, including the monetary redress payments, but also other areas of psychological and emotional and well-being trauma informed counselling,” he said.

However, unanswered questions remain on whether the Ballarat diocese would continue to provide ongoing care for victims, including reimbursement of medical and other critical living expenses, after survivors received redress.

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KANSAS
The Kansas City Star

BY JUDY L. THOMAS
jthomas@kcstar.com

A Kenyan priest on assignment in the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas has engaged in unprofessional conduct with an adult, the archdiocese has revealed.

In a statement issued in the Nov. 4 edition of The Leaven, its official newspaper, the archdiocese said it made the finding after completing an internal investigation of the Rev. Anthony Kiplagat, who left the country earlier this year.

The investigation found that Kiplagat “had engaged in unprofessional conduct and violated clerical continence,” the statement said.

Kiplagat, a priest of the Diocese of Eldoret in Kenya, since July 2012 had been assigned to St. Patrick Catholic Church in Osage City, Kan., and St. Patrick Catholic Church in Scranton, Kan. The woman who lodged the complaint was not a member of either parish, the archdiocese has said. Kiplagat’s previous assignments included St. Agnes in Roeland Park and Prince of Peace and St. Paul in Olathe.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

AAP on November 9, 2016

There was a culture at the prestigious Geelong Grammar School that valued its reputation over students’ welfare, the child abuse royal commission has been told.

Counsel assisting the royal commission said the school knew about an allegation of improper conduct by live-in Highton boarding house assistant Philippe Trutmann in 1985 and failed to take any action.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

9 November, 2016

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has published the written submissions for the public hearing into the experiences of former students of Geelong Grammar School, Victoria.

The public hearing inquired into the response of the Geelong Grammar School Council, Principals and other members of staff to concerns of inappropriate conduct and child sexual abuse related to the behaviour of teaching and non-teaching staff towards students.

The public hearing also examined the past and current practices, policies and procedures in place at Geelong Grammar School in relation to raising and responding to concerns and complaints about child sexual abuse.

The public hearing took place in September and October 2015 in Melbourne and Sydney.

The submissions can be found on the Case Study 32 page.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic Standard

By Richard Szczepanowski, Catholic Standard
Tuesday, November 08, 2016

The Archdiocese of Washington has further strengthened its child protection efforts by creating a new outreach for teachers, educators and others on how to identify and promptly report suspected child abuse.

“With this (new program), we are getting the message out that everyone in the Archdiocese of Washington has the ability to be informed on how to protect your children and your community,” said Courtney Chase, the archdiocesan director of Child and Youth Protection.

The new initiative is a discussion and question and answer presentation developed with a law enforcement officer that outlines the archdiocesan Child Protection Policy, educates participants on how to recognize child abuse, and outlines the process for reporting suspected abuse to civil authorities.

“We were asked by the cardinal to put together educational training for new priests and seminarians, and to strengthen the importance of this initiative, we brought in a law enforcement expert,” Chase said. “And, now we offer it to everybody.”

Tony Giovacchini, a retired detective who investigated child abuse and sex crimes for the Montgomery County Police, has joined with Chase in presenting the program.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Times

Sean O’Neill, Chief Reporter
November 8 2016
The Times

The former head of the public inquiry into child abuse has refused to appear before a Commons select committee in a move described as “astonishing” bythe chairwoman of the committee.

Dame Lowell Goddard, who resigned from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in August and has been accused of serious misconduct during her 18 months in charge, told the home affairs committee she would not give oral evidence in person or via videolink.

The New Zealand judge said she had been subjected to “malicious defamatory attacks” in the British media and did not want to appear before a hearing where some of those “false allegations” could be repeated under parliamentary privilege.

Dame Lowell said she was “disappointed that there has been no government defence of me in England”. She said she had provided detailed written evidence to the committee and she was “not aware of any matter which remains unanswered”.

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MICHIGAN
Catholic Philly

By Mike Stechschulte • Catholic News Service • Posted November 8, 2016

DETROIT (CNS) — Ever since Archbishop Michael J. Byrnes was a newly minted associate pastor at St. Joan of Arc Parish in St. Clair Shores, Deacon Tom Strasz knew he had the qualities of a natural leader: good listener, excellent teacher, calm under pressure.

But more than any of those traits, Deacon Strasz said one thing stands out when he thinks about his longtime friend and mentor.

“He has the heart of an evangelizer,” said Deacon Strasz, who is in ministry at St. Joan of Arc and who for the past five years has been Archbishop Byrnes’ secretary at his regional office at St. Francis of Assisi-St. Maximilian Kolbe Parish in Ray Township. “He wants you to have the Lord and he wants you to see the Lord and hold the Lord in your heart. Everything he does goes toward that.”

Even still, Deacon Strasz — nor anyone else, for that matter — could have guessed those qualities would take Archbishop Byrnes halfway around the world as he takes on his next assignment as coadjutor archbishop of Agana, Guam.

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NEW JERSEY
Jersey Journal

By Rev. Alexander Santora/For the Jersey Journal
on November 08, 2016

As cardinal-elect Joseph W. Tobin entered the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart for his press conference on Monday, you couldn’t help but notice that he is a hulk of a man akin to a fullback with a broad, strong face. And this physical trait might have served him well as the oldest of 13 children.

It might also have convinced his high school homeroom teacher back in Detroit not to recommend him for entrance into the Redemptorists because he believed he was a “hoodlum,” according to Tobin. And that’s more incredible knowing that he rose to become the General Superior of the worldwide community in Rome from 1997 to 2009 with over 6,000 priests and brothers serving in 77 countries.

Now he has become the sixth Archbishop of Newark and the first ever as a Cardinal, which is quite intriguing since usually New York and Philadelphia always overshadowed New Jersey. Until now. He is certainly cut from the same cloth as Pope Francis, and Tobin admitted they had become friends for over ten years when they both served on a Vatican Synod back in 2005.

Admitting that Francis did not talk with him before the appointment, he did say of Francis, “He is a bishop. He is my teacher.” And, one of the key reasons he may have come to New Jersey is because it is part of the media capital of the world. He can and will certainly articulate Francis’ policies and vision, especially to a U.S. hierarchy mostly reluctant to embrace Francis’ ecclesiology.

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ISRAEL
Jewish Journal

by Eliana Rudee
Posted on Nov. 7, 2016

As Rabbanit Malka Puterkovsky addresses members of the press, her smile lights up the room and one almost forgets the dark subject about which she speaks. Puterkovsky is the founder and director of Takana, a forum that provides alternative ways to report sexual assault within Israel’s religious community. While Israel’s mainstream victims of sexual assault report directly to the police, religious victims prefer more discretion in reporting sexual crimes so that their names and photographs are not attached. To many in small and close-knit communities, anonymity is more important than reprimanding the attacker, as being assaulted and raped is often stigmatized, sometimes even more for the victim than the attacker. While in the general public, an estimated 15 percent of sexual harassment cases are brought to the police, for the religious community, the figures are drastically lower. While Takana may succeed in supporting Modern Orthodox victims of sexual assault, some argue that they also protect the abusers by taking a “soft” approach.

Puterkovsky, with other Torah scholars, religious educators, jurists, and social workers, founded Takana in 2003 within the Orthodox feminist framework that is growing in Israel. “All of the deep stream changes happening in Israeli society have to do with Orthodox feminism,” says Member of Knesset Rachel Azaria, an Orthodox feminist herself. “This is a real revolution that is happening, and one of the first issues that started Orthodox feminism is realizing that there is sexual abuse in the schools and places nobody [previously] thought.” However, mainstream politicians are slow to follow suit. Azaria claims she is one of the only Israeli political leaders calling for the resignation of Etzion Bloc Mayor Davidi Perl, who was accused of sexual abuse over the past few years. Many followers of sexual abusers deny that their leader is capable of abusing children and students. Some associates of accused individuals have even gone so far as to threaten Takana members. In 2010, Takana Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein received death threats from an associate of Rabbi Mordechai Elon, saying he would “hurt him in any way he could.”

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