ABUSE TRACKER

MASSACHUSETTS
MassLive

By Lindsay Corcoran | lindsay.corcoran@masslive.com

WORCESTER — Charges have been dropped against one of two former Santeria priests suspected of involvement in the theft of eight skeletons from Hope Cemetery in Worcester last year.

Felix Delgado, 40, of 518 Hallett St., Bridgeport, will no longer face charges of disinterment of a body after authorities say the bones found in his apartment were determined not to match those missing from Worcester.

A joint investigation by Massachusetts and Connecticut authorities found the human remains discovered in Delgado’s Bridgeport apartment in February are not consistent with the remains stolen from Hope Cemetery in Worcester, according to Tim Connolly, spokesperson for the Worcester County district attorney’s office.

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NEW YORK
PIX 11

[with video]

BY JAMES FORD

WOODSIDE, Queens — He’s the pastor of a church with a major outreach to young people, but now Rev. James E. Love is charged with repeatedly sexually assaulting a 6-year-old girl.

Love posted bail Monday night and on Tuesday his friends, neighbors and congregation tried to cope with the accusations.

“I’m still in shock,” said family friend Regina Jennings.

She’d shown up Tuesday afternoon at the pastor’s apartment in the Woodside Houses public housing complex to offer support to Love and his wife.

Love’s wife regularly babysat the girl in the couple’s first floor apartment. According to the criminal complaint from the Queens district attorney’s office, between March and last week, Love exposed himself to the girl, made her touch his genitals and he touched her inappropriately, multiple times.

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LOUISIANA
Louisiana Record

Dawn Brotherton Jun. 9, 2016

BATON ROUGE—State Sen. J.P. Morrell (D-District 3) has requested a state inquiry into allegations of child abuse at a Shreveport Episcopal school for not following mandated reporting laws, but the head of one advocacy group says mandated reporting, while well-intentioned, doesn’t address the real needs of the children.

A mother is suing St. Mark’s Cathedral School (SMCS) because she believes her son, identified only as M.R. was wrongfully expelled from the school. According to the lawsuit, her 6th-grade son stayed in a cabin with four other male students at Pine Cove when they were on a weekend trip in 2014. After the trip, one of the other students who stayed in M.R.’s cabin accused him of inappropriate behavior, and the student’s mom filed a complaint with the school. According to news reports, the chaperones did not witness the behavior and reported that M.R.’s conduct was appropriate.

Two days after the field trip, SCMS Head of School Chris Carter expelled the young boy. The Withdrawal Certificate states that he was expelled for “inappropriate touching of other students when not in the presence of adults.”

In October 2015, the mother sued Carter and SCMS for disability discrimination, breach of contract, disparate treatment, defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and violation of the family educational rights and privacy act.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

KENNETH LOVETT
DAILY NEWS ALBANY BUREAU CHIEF
Thursday, June 9, 2016

ALBANY — Despite criticism from those on both sides of the issue, the state Assembly still intends to take up a bill dealing with child sex abuse victims.

“The plan is still to do the bill next week,” Assembly Democratic spokesman Michael Whyland said Thursday. “Nothing has changed.”

Introduced Tuesday night, the bill designed to make it easier for victims to bring lawsuits was assailed by survivors for not going far enough while the Catholic Church opposes a provision that would allow for old cases to be revived.

Whyland said he doesn’t expect any changes to the Assembly bill unless a deal on the issue is reached with Gov. Cuomo and the state Senate.

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UNITED STATES
Father Lasch

Rev. Kenneth Lasch

Monday June 6, 2016

Website Editor’s Note: As you will read below, this is the third in a series of four articles by Mary Gail Frawley-O’Dea, noted psychologist She has expressed sentiments that I have felt for a long time. As most of you know, I have been an‘active’ perhaps even an aggressive advocate for victim of clergy abuse. Having been engaged in that initiative for over thirty years, I have experienced the highs and lows – mostly the lows of that ‘ministry.’ At one point in anger I initiated a website ‘blog’ entitled, ‘The Harvey Interviews’ as a vehicle to expose the issue on a local level. That endeavor was costly on many counts. Though the content was factual, the blog did not have the desired effect – dialogue did not occur nor was the situation described therein remedied. The personal trauma that resulted from this effort was heavy and lasting.

I have been involved intermittently with SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) for several years. St. Joseph in Mendham that as you may recall, became the epicenter of sexual abuse in New Jersey. St Joseph hosted a weekly meeting of SNAP in the parish center. It was very helpful in enabling victims of clergy abuse to name what happened to them and to have their stories validated. In essence it was a significant step forward for many victims. However, there were no ‘next steps’ provided by the group. As a result, victims who already had their story validated were not offered an opportunity to move on to the next level of healing. I felt then and feel even more so now that once victims of abuse have told their story, they need professional help to begin the long painful journey toward healing and recovery. The memory of what took place during their childhood, teen or young adult years may never be permanently erased but they can learn to turn their trauma around and it can actually become a source of growth for many, perhaps for most. In essence they can learn to disallow their trauma to control their lives.

One of the difficulties with the Bishops’ Dallas Charter of 2002 is that it did not provide for the proper response to the clergy abuse of ‘vulnerable adults.’ This category pertains to anything from sexual harassment to sexual assault of an adult who may be permanently or temporarily impaired, e.g., a person with a disability or someone who was given alcohol or drugs with the intention of obtaining a sexual favor or worse, sexual assault, i.e., the imposition of unwanted sexual contact. An example of the later occurs when a victim 18 years of age or more is ‘groomed’ with favors, e.g., alcohol over a period of time and then sexually assaulted. We certainly have any number of examples in the press these days. Sexual intimidation, harassment or assault by clergy or religious is particularly damaging because it effects not only the emotional and psychological aspects of a victim’s life but also the spiritual.

The Pope’s Motu Proprio pertains not only to the cover-up of the sexual abuse of minors but also the cover-up of the abuse of “vulnerable adults.”

Accountability for such cover-ups has not been forthcoming and remains to be adjudicated by the Holy See. Many advocates are skeptical that the Vatican will indeed follow through on the procedures that are being established. However, we need to move from an adversarial posture to one in which the principles of ‘Restorative Justice’ can be applied evenhandedly. Unfortunately neither church officials nor victims’ advocates are willing to promote this viable path toward healing – healing not only of victims but also treatment for predators.

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NEW YORK
Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn

Posted on June 7, 2016

What follows is Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio’s response to Assemblywoman Margaret Markey’s accusations, published in The New York Daily News on June 7, 2016.

Download the Complete Letter

Read Bishop DiMarzio’s letter to the faithful.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Sarah MacDonald
PUBLISHED
10/06/2016

The head of the watchdog for clerical sex abuse has warned there is “no room for complacency” as it emerged 116 new allegations or concerns were reported last year.

Another 37 allegations of physical and emotional abuse were also reported to the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church (NBSCCCI), bringing the total complaints dealt with over that period to 153.

The figures represent a significant reduction in allegations, down by 112 compared to 2014 when 265 new allegations were reported.

The most recent incident of abuse reported to the National Board occurred in 2015.
The watchdog’s CEO Teresa Devlin warned: “They do, however, still demonstrate a significant number of new allegations during the period under review.

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TEXAS
OA Online

By Silvio Panta spanta@oaoa.com

A former Odessa youth minister was among the six suspects state and federal authorities arrested in a sting operation last weekend targeting suspected sexual predators who solicited minors online.

Matthew Holman, 35, who directed the youth ministry program at Westwood Baptist Church for the past six months, was arrested on a state charge of second-degree felony online solicitation of a minor younger than 15.

Holman’s name, along with the names of two other Odessa residents, was disclosed Thursday during a press conference by the Texas Department of Public Safety in Midland. Fabian Ray Galindo, 20, and Chad Alan Potts, 46, were also among the six suspects arrested on the online solicitation charge for which they were all booked in Midland County Jail.

Holman, Galindo and Potts were all being held Thursday at the Midland County Jail on $75,000 bond.

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TEXAS
Newswest 9

By Eric Onyechefule, Reporter

MIDLAND-ODESSA, TX (KWES) –
On Thursday, Dr. Weeks DuBose pastor, of the church where Matthew Holman was the youth minister described how hard the arrest has been on his church who has 60 congregants and over a dozen kids who attend.

“Matthew Holman who has been an employee of the church, a youth minister since mid-January, was dismissed from his position as of Sunday morning June 5th,” said DuBose.

DuBose said Holman was in charge of the youth programs that were being run at the church. He added they do their due diligence on potential employees including Matt who he’s known since he was a little kid.

“We do background checks on our employees. Matthew was known to us,” said DuBose.

Holman was one of the six men arrested after a two day sting where authorities said they tried solicit sex from minors.

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CANADA
CTV

Rachael D’Amore, CTV Toronto
Published Thursday, June 9, 2016

A Mississauga teacher has been charged with sexual assault in connection with an investigation into four GTA schools over the last four years, a spokesperson with the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board confirmed.

According to the spokesperson, the teacher was a long-term occasional teacher with the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board.

The teacher had been teaching a Grade two and three class at St. James Catholic Global Learning Centre for the last two school terms.

On Tuesday, the teacher was arrested and faces several charges, including sexual assault, sexual interference and making sexually explicit material available to a child.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Sarah Hawke

A Catholic brother found guilty of indecently assaulting 18 boys at a boarding school in southern New South Wales has been sentenced to more than nine years in prison.

William Peter Standen was sentenced on 18 charges in the District Court in Sydney over offences that occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

In March, he pleaded guilty to the offences, which happened when he was a year seven boarding-house master.

In sentencing the 67-year-old, Judge Anthony Blackmore described what the victims, who were mostly 12, had suffered.

The court heard Standen repeatedly asked the victims to go to his room after dark where he slapped and rubbed their naked buttocks, in another case he rubbed the genitals of a boy on a camping trip.

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SCOTLAND
Scottish Catholic Observer

Tina Campbell, head of safeguarding, reacts to Pope Francis’ latest Apostolic letter, issued motu proprio, and speaks of Scottish progress

POPE Francis has established new legal procedures to remove bishops who mishandle sex abuse cases, saying they can be removed from office if the Vatican finds they were negligent in doing their jobs.

In an Apostolic letter published last Saturday, the Holy Father answered a long-running demand by victims of abuse and their advocates to hold bishops accountable for failing to prevent clerical sex abuse. Victims have long accused bishops of covering up for abuse, moving rapists from parish to parish rather than reporting them to police.

In Scotland, the Church’s national safeguarding co-ordinator, Tina Campbell (above) said the motu proprio letter was another sign of ‘serious and ongoing commitment’ to tackling the scourge of clerical child abuse.

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GUAM
KUAM

By Krystal Paco

A mass for healing was held at the Father Duenas Boys Chapel in Mangilao earlier today. In Father Jeff San Nicolas’ homily, he agreed with the apostolic administrator Archbishop Savio Tai Fai Hon who on Thursday asked that we address the church’s ongoing issues in the right climate.

“He said we want to address the issues. There’s no doubt about it. He said it’s important for us to do it in the right climate. A climate of a church. A climate of peace. A climate of sincerity. A climate of serenity,” he detailed. “And it thought that was so wise. Because you and I know that when we have attitude in our hearts and we want to solve a problem, that attitude just oozes out. And we’re not coming with the right disposition.”

In attendance were Archbishop Anthony Apuron’s accusers – Walter Denton, Doris Concepcion, and John Toves. All are former Agat residents have returned on island to address allegations of molestation and rape made against Apuron.

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GUAM
KUAM

By Sabrina Salas Matanane

Former Guam resident John Toves is back on island. Toves was the first person to come forward making allegations of sex abuse against Archbishop Anthony Apuron. In 2014 he arrived on island accusing the Archbishop of abusing his cousin when he was a seminarian. His relative however never came forward and the allegation was never investigated.

Toves attended a mass held on Thursday by the Apostolic Administrator Archbishop Savio Tai Fai Hon. The Archbishop was appointed by the Pope sede plena to take temporary control of the Archdiocese of Agana.

During his homily the Archbishop outlined his task assigned by the Pope while here on Guam. He told those in attendance at St. Anthony Church in Tamuning that Archbishop Apuron keeps his title but he will not make any decisions about the diocese and should cooperate in total serene and fulfillment of the Apostolic Administrators mandate.

He also explained that when an Apostolic Administrator is appointed “sede plena” it means that the Holy Father and a particular diocesan bishop have decided together that for whatever reason is no longer available or fit for the function and will take leave. The diocesan bishop is then relieved of pastoral responsibility and all administrative authority of their Church. The Pope then takes over the church and appoints an Apostolic Administrator to act on his behalf.

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KANSAS
Kansas City Star

BY LAURA BAUER
lbauer@kcstar.com

A lawsuit filed this week alleges that a Lenexa church allowed a teen member to volunteer around children even though officials knew he had a history of sexual abuse.

Officials of Westside Family Church deny the allegation, a lawyer for the church said.

Kessler Lichtenegger pleaded guilty last year to attempted rape and attempted electronic solicitation involving two girls under age 14 who attended Westside. The lawsuit, filed Wednesday by lawyers Rebecca Randles and Antwaun Smith on behalf of the two victims, alleges the church knew of Lichtenegger’s extensive past sexual conduct and crimes involving children.

“But nevertheless (the church) allowed him to have unsupervised and dangerous access to all children in the congregation,” the lawsuit says. “Plaintiffs’ parents believed their children were safe while attending Westside and trusted (the church) to protect their children and not put them in harm’s way.”

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Friday, June 10, 2016

Joyce Fegan

A total of 116 new allegations of sexual abuse were reported to the Catholic Church’s National Board for Safeguarding Children from last April to March 2016.

There were 65 allegations made against diocesan priests and 51 were reported in relation to religious priests and Brothers and Sisters.

Separately, there were 37 allegations of emotional and physical abuse against one religious congregation.

The majority of the abuse reported in this period of April 2015 to March 2016, related to incidences that took place in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

There was also an incident of alleged abuse that took place in 2015.

“This one case [2015] deserves particular mention as it happened so recently, demonstrating that a risk to children still exists,” the report published said.

Overall, there was an increase in allegations made against diocesan priests from 58 in the last report to this year’s 65.

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GUAM
Daily Reporter

By GRACE GARCES BORDALLO Associated Press
First Posted: June 09, 2016

HAGATNA, Guam — Members of the Catholic church in Guam are reacting with devastation to the accusations that Archbishop Anthony Apuron sexually abused young boys decades ago, but they’re saying they’re still resilient in their faith.

“Everybody’s talking about it. It’s causing a lot of mistrust, anger, and pointing fingers. It’s devastating,” said Patricia Perry, 73.

“We’re neighbors. We grew up together. It’s very conflicting to believe anything,” Perry said. “I just can’t see the archbishop doing those things.”

Pope Francis on Monday named Archbishop Savio Hon Tai-Fai to take over the Hagatna archdiocese after abuse allegations against Apuron resurfaced in recent weeks. A church deacon publicly accused Apuron of keeping the archdiocese’s sex abuse policy weak to protect himself.

In a prayer meeting with clergy and faithful in a packed church on Thursday, Hon sought cooperation and said he was following the Holy Father’s instructions to restore unity, harmony and stability in the local church. Apuron will continue to hold his title, but any decisions are removed from him, Hon said.

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ROME
Crux

Inés San Martín
June 10, 2016
VATICAN CORRESPONDENT

ROME- A leading Catholic expert on the fight against child sexual abuse says Pope Francis has just fired a shot across the bow to Catholic bishops across the world, the substance of which is, “They have to follow the rules.”

The pontiff recently issued a legal document laying out a process for removing bishops who are negligent in responding to abuse allegations. German Jesuit Father Hans Zollner said that while it “doesn’t clarify everything,” it nonetheless “gives a clear signal to bishops: they have to follow the rules.”

Zollner, a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors created by Francis in 2014, is academic vice-rector of the Jesuit-run Gregorian University in Rome and head of its Institute of Psychology, home of the “Center for Child Protection,” which runs a one-of-a-kind seminar on preventing and responding to sexual abuse.

Next Tuesday, the first 19 students in the “Safeguarding of Minors” program will graduate, and the quota for next year’s course is already full.

Of the new graduates, 11 come from African countries, a continent where, according to Zollner, “sensitivity for the issue of safeguarding children’s rights is very underdeveloped,” and not only within the Church but in society at large. …

Speaking of his decades-old experience fighting clerical sexual abuse, he admitted to being “frustrated” at the fact that in some Eastern European countries, as well as parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America, there are still priests who see this as a “Western problem.”

“That’s frustrating, because this is an obvious denial of reality by people who should know better,” he said.

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UNITED STATES
Philly.com

JUNE 10, 2016

By Thomas G. Plante

The Boston Globe Spotlight team that reported on the clergy abuse crisis in the Catholic Church in 2002, and whose efforts were highlighted in an Academy Award-winning movie, recently uncovered widespread sexual abuse perpetrated by teachers and other employees against children under their charge at many of the nation’s elite private schools.

According to the Globe’s recent report, 67 private schools, including Phillips Exeter, Deerfield, Taft, Thayer, and, most famously, St. George’s School, had more than 200 sexual abuse victims and 90 family lawsuits over sexual victimization during the past 25 years. Their data is based on responses from more than 200 schools at a 10 percent rate, so we are left wondering what the other 90 percent might be hiding.

When these crimes came to light, the perpetrators often were protected and transferred to other schools, and efforts were made by administrators to silence and intimidate victims and to protect the image and reputation of these prestigious educational institutions. Sound familiar?

A quick review of the news last month:

In Western Pennsylvania, a grand jury found “systematic failures” to protect students from several teachers in the Plum School District. The teachers, news articles stated, engaged in both sexual abuse and witness intimidation. Sadly, only so much can be done to the perpetrators due to the statute of limitations.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Advertiser

Ken Grimson
June 10, 2016

BETH Heinrich’s fight for recognition of the immense damage done to her life by a senior Anglican Church cleric takes another step forward on Sunday when she receives an apology from the Bishop of Grafton.

The apology for the former Wagga and Temora woman will be delivered by Bishop Sarah Macneil in Christ Church Cathedral in front of her congregation.

Ms Heinrich is driving more than 1200 kilometres in a small car from her home in north-eastern Victoria to receive the apology more than 10 years in the making.

She went public in 2005 to reveal she had been sexually abused as a 14-year-old girl in a Forbes Anglican Church hostel in the 1950s by then assistant priest and hostel warden, Donald Shearman.

Shearman rose to become the Bishop of Grafton and the pair had an on-and-off adult relationship which Ms Heinrich puts down to the cleric having an emotional hold over her as a result of the earlier abuse.

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OKLAHOMA
The Duncan Banner

By Christian Betancourt The Duncan Banner

Jody Hilliard, a 71-year-old retired assistant pastor accused of molesting an out-of-town 10-year-old female relative while she visited Duncan, will see a special district judge at 1:30 p.m. Aug. 16 for a preliminary hearing.

The hearing will qualify the evidence of the case in order to proceed to a higher court. Court documents state the mother of the victim and the investigating detective will be called as witnesses.

Hilliard faces two counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child under 12, a felony.

If convicted, court document state he could face a minimum of 25 years imprisonment and would have to serve 85 percent of his sentence.

The charges stem from an incident that allegedly occurred while the minor visited and stayed with Hilliard.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Archivist comes forward with details about boys’ home records thought to be missing

By Giselle Wakatama

A retired police officer has alleged decades of documents have been destroyed or gone missing from a New South Wales Anglican boys’ home, which is expected to be the focus of an upcoming royal commission.

The St Albans boys’ home is expected to be part of a Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse case study looking at abuse allegations in Newcastle’s Anglican diocese.

The lack of documentation has raised alarm bells with retired 20-year police veteran Greg Harding.

Mr Harding pursued convicted paedophile and ex-St Albans board member James Michael Brown, who abused 20 boys.

Brown is currently serving a minimum 12-year jail sentence.

Speaking for publicly for the first time, Mr Harding told the ABC his investigations showed decades of documents were either missing or destroyed.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Shocktivist

June 9, 2016 by Fred Clark

So this waiting for parents, aunts and uncles, on every seat of a local Catholic-school, eighth-grade graduation ceremony this week:

That’s a postcard intended to be signed and sent to state legislators by every parent of every child at this school. “Oppose H.B. 1947” the postcard says, referring to a Pennsylvania bill that would eliminate the statute of limitations for sexual crimes against children.

So what we have here is a school — an elementary school — assuring every parent of every child there that school officials actively support shorter statutes of limitations for sexual crimes against children. “We want to make it harder for the state to prosecute those who prey on children sexually,” school officials are telling the parents of the children in their care. “And we’d like you to help us do it.”
This is, quite simply, reprehensible.

I understand why these school officials, along with the entire Catholic Diocese of Philadelphia, are doing this. To be clear, they’re not fighting to make it harder to prosecute criminals who prey on children because they like criminals who prey on children. They’re not fighting to create a context in which more children will be sexually assaulted and abused because they want that to happen. But they’re still working to make that happen. They’re still taking sides with sexual predators and taking sides against the protection of Pennsylvania’s children.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Philly.com

BY KRISTEN DE GROOT
Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA — Roman Catholic legislators say they have been publicly shamed during Mass, called out in church bulletins and disinvited to parish events as the Philadelphia Archdiocese campaigns against a bill that would give victims of child sexual abuse more time to sue the church.

Rep. Nick Miccarelli, a Delaware County Republican, said he was shocked to learn that the weekly bulletin at his church mentioned that he had voted for the bill.

“I’ve been to Iraq and back and there’s very little that makes my jaw drop, but seeing that in parish bulletin, my jaw hit the floor,” said Miccarelli, who served two tours in Iraq in the Army National Guard. “I was in disbelief.”

Under the headline “JUST SO YOU ARE AWARE” the announcement reads, “State Representative Miccarelli voted in favor of House Bill 1947, which states that private institutions can be sued as far as 40 years ago for millions of dollars, while public institutions may not be sued for any crimes.”

Last weekend, a letter by Archbishop Charles Chaput was given to all 219 archdiocese parishes urging parishioners to ask their senators to vote against it.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Giselle Wakatama

Records from a boys’ home that is set to be the focus of a case study at a royal commission into child sexual abuse are being held at the University of Newcastle, it has emerged, after it was believed the records had been destroyed or had gone missing.

The ABC earlier today reported on claims by a retired police detective, who said he had found no records, minutes or other documents from the St Albans Anglican boys’ home, despite a “relentless pursuit” for the records.

An archivist has come forward, saying records are being held in the university’s Archives of the Anglican Diocese of Newcastle.

The archivist has passed that information on to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The previous lack of documentation had raised alarm bells with retired 20-year police veteran Greg Harding, who had pursued convicted paedophile and ex-St Albans board member James Michael Brown, who abused 20 boys.

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FRANCE
Reuters

By Paul Taylor June 10, 2016

French police questioned the Roman Catholic cardinal-archbishop of Lyon on Wednesday for over 10 hours in an inquiry into the activities of a pedophile priest in the early 1990s and why they were not reported to the civil authorities, lawyers said.

Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, 65, who has denied covering up the activities of Father Bernard Preynat, was questioned as a witness by officers of the child and family protection brigade at a police station in the central city.

“He’s been dragged in the mud for numerous months and he wanted to respond,” Barbarin’s lawyer Jean-Felix Luciani told journalists after the cardinal emerged from questioning.

Several victims of alleged pedophile abuse have filed complaints against the prelate, who holds the honorific title of Primate of the Gauls, for failing to report the incidents to the justice authorities and leaving the accused priest in place.

Preynat was placed under judicial investigation in January for alleged sexual abuse of Catholic boy scouts in 1991 and released on bail. His lawyer said he had admitted the facts of “sexual abuse on minors under 15 years old by a person in a position of authority” to an investigating magistrate.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By John L. Micek | jmicek@pennlive.com

As they work their way through the thicket of complicated legislation that routinely comes before them, state lawmakers face constant pressure from the legion of clout-wielding lobbyists and impassioned advocates who prowl the halls of the state Capitol.

But what happens when one of those lobbyists also, theoretically, has the power of the Creator of the Universe on their side?

Roman Catholic lawmakers who supported a state House bill that eliminates the statute of limitations for criminal cases of child sex abuse and extends the window for civil lawsuits until the victim is 50 years old, are finding out firsthand.

Take, for example, Rep. Nick Miccarelli, a Delaware County Republican, who was called out by name in the parish bulletin for St. Rose of Lima church in Eddystone, Pa.

“JUST SO YOU AWARE,” the update tucked among the routine church notices read, “State Rep. Nick Miccarelli voted in favor of House Bill 1947 which states that private institutions can be sued as far as 40 years ago for millions of dollars, while public institutions may not be sued for any crimes committed in the past.”

Miccarelli, who’s been attending the church for years, said he was shocked by the very public scolding.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Philly.com

by Maria Panaritis, STAFF WRITER

Bruce L. Castor, Jr., the former Montgomery County prosecutor now serving as the highest-ranking lawyer in the state Attorney General’s Office, plans to testify next week in a key Senate hearing on a bill that has pitted child sexual abuse victims against the Catholic Church.

In an interview Thursday, Castor confirmed his appearance Monday before the Judiciary Committee to discuss the constitutionality of a measure to let victims sue attackers and the institutions that employed them decades after the abuse occurred.

Castor wouldn’t say if he will argue for or against the bill. “I’d just as soon people find out my opinion when I testify,” he said.

He said, however, it seemed less clear-cut that such a law would be allowed by the Pennsylvania constitution than by the U.S. Constitution.

“All of us who are in law enforcement want there to be opportunities to catch criminals whether civil or criminal,” said Castor. “But there are constraints that the constitution imposes upon executive officers in carrying out those duties.”

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MICHIGAN
Central Michigan Life

By Johnathan Hogan

A motion hearing to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a former Central Michigan University student against the former priest at St. Mary’s University Parish is scheduled for 9:45 a.m. June 10.

Megan Winans is suing Father Denis Heames for alleged abuse that occurred while the two had a sexual relationship between 2012 and 2014.

The lawsuit was filed January 14. A new lawsuit was submitted after Heames was removed as a defendant from the original lawsuit, said a courthouse official.

The lawsuit claims Heames committed battery, defamation, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The lawsuit names the Roman Catholic Dioceses of Saginaw as a defendant, alleging negligent supervision and retention. The diocese and St. Mary’s, are also being sued for vicarious liability. The lawsuit also names Trudy McCaffery.

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ISRAEL
Haaretz

Yair Ettinger Jun 09, 2016

A 15-page indictment filed last month against a well-known ultra-Orthodox rabbi included detailed descriptions of sex crimes he allegedly committed against female relatives over many years. The indictment, filed in the Jerusalem District Court, caused an earthquake in ultra-Orthodox society.

The affair has been covered with unprecedented intensity on news sites for the Haredi community, but most of the ultra-Orthodox media – newspapers and radio stations – haven’t even hinted that such an affair exists.

The indictment has been shared on Haredi Facebook pages and in internet forums. It has been sent out via email and WhatsApp, and has penetrated the layer that has thickened in the ultra-Orthodox community over decades, if not generations.

The dissemination of the indictment hasn’t just broken down conspiracies of silence, it has ended the automatic lack of trust against the complainants and the accuser – the Israeli government.

Everyone is talking about it on the street and in synagogues. Teachers and parents are talking about it at schools. No one can ignore it, and many people are terrified.

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NEW YORK
The Journal News

Steve Lieberman, slieberm@lohud.com

Two state legislators from Rockland are urging the state Education Department to strictly review new fire safety inspections reports done at dozens of private schools or order new, independent reviews of the buildings.

The county, at the state’s behest, had sought to inspect many of the schools itself only to have the schools secure required inspections and certifications elsewhere. Ramapo also did 23 re-inspections of schools after its then fire inspector was accused of filing false inspection reports.

Assemblyman Kenneth Zebrowski, D-New City, and state Sen. David Carlucci, D-Rockland, both wrote to Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia questioning the circumstances surrounding both sets of inspections – including whether it was right to have Ramapo re-inspect the work of its own tainted inspector.

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NEW YORK
National Catholic Reporter

Peter Feuerherd | Jun. 9, 2016

NEW YORK
As the New York state legislature plans to close up shop for its annual session by the end of this month, the Catholic bishops are hoping to run out the clock on a bill that would lift the statute of limitations on sex abuse crimes.

A bill passed by the state Assembly would lift the statute of limitations on future sex abuse crimes against minors, which now prohibits lawsuits five years after victims pass their 18th birthday. The bill would also provide a one-year window allowing for lawsuits in old cases.

Proponents say the measure would balance the scales of justice and provide child sex abuse victims with their day in court. Opponents argue that it would be impossible to fairly judge decades-old cases, that the legislation unfairly exempts public institutions, and that the legal costs would bankrupt the Catholic church in the state.

Similar measures enacted elsewhere eventually resulted in the Wilmington, Del., diocese filing for bankruptcy and for an increase in liabilities for dioceses in California and Minnesota.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporer – Global Sisters Report

by Joshua J. McElwee

The Vatican’s congregation for religious life has summoned to Rome the superior of one of the major orders of U.S. Catholic sisters, asking her to “report on some areas of concern” following the controversial six-year investigation of the country’s communities of women religious.

The head of the Sisters of Loretto, a Kentucky-based community founded in the early 19th century to educate pioneer children but now known for strong stands on social justice issues, has been asked to explain alleged “ambiguity” in the order’s adherence to church teaching and its way of living religious life.

While the summons from the Vatican’s Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life is directed specifically at the Sisters of Loretto, it may raise questions for other U.S. women religious communities of apostolic life, who were subject to an unprecedented Vatican inquiry, known as an apostolic visitation, starting in 2008.

Although the congregation formally closed that visitation in December 2014 with the release of a report on the state of religious life in the U.S., it has in at least this instance used material gathered in the investigation to inquire into the life of the order.

Loretto President Sr. Pearl McGivney announced her summoning to Rome in a short June 1 letter to her order’s members. In her letter, a copy of which was obtained by GSR, McGivney says she has been asked to visit the Vatican Oct. 18 to report on five so-called “areas of concern.” …

One of the order’s members has however drawn the Vatican’s interest several times in the past.

Sr. Jeannine Gramick — who was a member of the School Sisters of Notre Dame before joining the Loretto community in 2001 — was first criticized by the Vatican’s religious congregation in 1984 for cofounding New Ways Ministry, a Maryland-based group that advocates for LGBT Catholics.

In 1999, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a public notification about Gramick’s work.

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NEW YORK
The Island Now

It is hard to believe that in 2016 New York State law still prohibits victims of child sex abuse from bringing criminal charges or civil claims against abusers after their 23 birthday.

The trauma of a child sexually abused by an adult, usually one in a position of authority, can last for decades and coming forward to seek justice is often a gut-wrenching decision.

To then deny the victims — children assaulted by adults — the chance for justice is unimaginably cruel.
North Shore residents were recently reminded of this when the Catholic order that runs Chaminade High School suspended its former president from serving as a priest after finding allegations that he sexually abused a former student “were credible.”

The current Chaminade president, Brother Thomas Cleary, said the prestigious Mineola parochial school did not learn about the alleged abuse in 2011 until February 2015.

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GUAM
Guam Daily Post

Louella Losinio | Post News Staff

The Vatican’s newly appointed apostolic administrator of the Archdiocese of Agana, Archbishop Savio Hon Tai Fai, addressed the island’s Catholic community and clergy at St. Anthony Church in Tamuning for the first time yesterday, saying that “he will not work alone” in his duties, hinting that a team will help him accomplish his ministry on Guam.

Hon also called on those who were there to “contribute something for the unity of the island.”

Hon was named apostolic administrator sede plena for the Archdiocese of Agana by the Vatican on Monday following an announcement that Pope Francis had relieved Archbishop Anthony Apuron of his duties and appointed an interim administrator for the archdiocese.

During his address yesterday, Hon said “Apuron will still bear the title as the archbishop of Agana but from this appointment on, he will not take on any decision about the archdiocese.”

He added that Apuron should also cooperate in the fulfillment of the apostolic administrator’s mandate.

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GUAM
Guam Daily Post

Louella Losinio | Post News Staff

Walter Denton, who has accused Archbishop Anthony Apuron of sexual molestation, yesterday attended a prayer vigil in Agat, the site of his alleged rape, and disclosed that he has spoken to other victims of sex abuse by the archbishop.

“I’ve spoken with other victims but it is up to those victims to come out,” Denton said. “I am encouraging them to please come out.”

Denton and Doris Concepcion, accompanied by family and supporters, walked the path toward the building which used to be the rectory of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church in Agat – the same building where Denton said then-parish priest, now Archbishop Anthony Apuron raped him nearly four decades ago.

Denton and Concepcion, the mother of Joseph Quinata, comforted each other at the steps of the building, which is now an administration office of Mount Carmel School.

Conception has said that Quinata told her he was sexually abused by Apuron in the late 1970s shortly before his death in 2005.

“That is the door that I opened but couldn’t go anywhere. That is the door that I opened up. It was so dark outside. I couldn’t leave. I was so afraid. I closed that door and I just stayed in that living room,” Denton said.

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WALES
Wales Online

BY TYLER MEARS

A Roman Catholic priest arrested on suspicion of historical child sexual abuse died on the day he was due to report to police.

An inquest held at Aberdare Coroner’s Court on Wednesday heard how Father Ernest Sands, 67, was found hanged at his home in Hirnant, Oswestry, on April 11.

Father Sands was arrested last year on suspicion of sexually abusing five boys aged between 11 and 15. The allegations related to him serving as a Catholic priest in the late 1970s and 1980s.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Natonal Catholic Register

by CNA/EWTN NEWS 06/09/2016

PHILADELPHIA — A proposed Pennsylvania bill unfairly targets religious entities over public institutions — despite its claim to aid sex-abuse victims, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia said June 6.

“The problem with HB 1947 is its prejudicial content. It covers both public and religious institutions — but in drastically different and unjust ways. The bill fails to support all survivors of abuse equally, and it’s a clear attack on the Church, her parishes and her people,” the archbishop said in a letter to the parishioners of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

He charged that the bill poses “serious dangers” to Catholic parishes and ministries.

“In other states where similar legislation passed, local parishes have been sued, resulting in parish and school closures and charity work being crippled,” the archbishop wrote.

The bill passed the state House of Representatives by a vote of 180-15.

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KANSAS
KCTV

[with video]

By Kylie Callura, Digital Producer
kylie.callura2@kctv5.com
By Jeanene Kiesling, Reporter

LENEXA, KS (KCTV) –
A Lenexa church is facing a hefty lawsuit after a teenage member sexually abused children and one of the assaults happened at the church.

In October 2015, Kessler Lichtenegger was convicted on half a dozen charges including rape and sodomy after he was accused of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl in the parking lot of the Westside Family Church. He was also accused of using social media to make sexual advances toward an 11-year-old girl who was also a member of the church.

On Wednesday, the young girls’ families filed a lawsuit against the church insisting church leaders knew Lichtenegger had a previous conviction for sexual assault from 2012.

“We weren’t aware of events of 2012 where he was convicted of some kind of sexual offense,” said Brad Russell, who represents the church.

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UTAH
Herald & Review

BRADY McCOMBS Associated Press Writer

SALT LAKE CITY – A fourth Navajo is suing the Mormon church, alleging religious leaders didn’t do enough to protect him from sexual abuse he endured by his foster father in a now-defunct church program that placed thousands of American Indian children with Mormon families.

The man says in a complaint filed this week in Navajo Nation court that he reported the abuse that occurred in the late 1970s in northern Utah to workers in the Mormon program, but he was told to remain at the home.

The man, who is identified as L.K. in the lawsuit, said he felt relief to discover that he wasn’t alone when he read an article in March about two Navajo siblings who filed the first lawsuit making similar allegations. He has spent most his adult life trying to avoid facing the abuse, struggling with feelings of inferiority, he said after a news conference held by his attorney and sexual abuse prevention advocates.

“It’s horrible. You relive it. You see the person who did this. You see their silhouette,” he said about abuse that occurred when he was a seventh-grader. “It broke me. When a Native American is broken, he has to fix himself.”

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NEW YORK
Epic Times

May 19, 2016

Matthew Sandusky, the abused son of infamous child molester Jerry Sandusky, has revealed plans to join anti-abuse protesters at a Whole Foods Market demonstration in New York City at the end of May.

The upcoming protest is supported by the junior Sandusky’s organization, Peaceful Hearts Foundation, with additional support by Survivors Network of those Abused By Priests (SNAP), and the National Association of Adult Survivors of Child Abuse (NAASCA).

The protest targets Whole Foods co-CEO and co-founder John Mackey’s ties with so-called “spiritual leader” Marc Gafni, who has been repeatedly accused of sexually abusing children.

The New York Times described Gafni as a former rabbi with a “troubled past.”

Mackey has referred to Gafni as a “bold visionary,” and has yet to disavow the spiritual leader.

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CANADA
Catholic Register

BY CATHOLIC REGISTER EDITORIAL
June 9, 2016

Change comes slowly at the Vatican. On the issue of clerical sexual abuse of children, Rome’s methodical approach has caused Pope Francis to endure barbs for dallying on a pledge to get tough on abusers within the Church.

So it was good news on June 3 when Francis was able, at last, to issue an edict that puts bishops on the front line of accountability. By formalizing new rules that provide for the removal of bishops who fail to act, or who act insufficiently, when becoming aware of an abuser priest, the Pope has not only advanced the cause of justice for child victims and vulnerable adults, but has taken a small but important step on the long road towards repairing the Church’s wounded reputation.

The apostolic letter is appropriately titled “As a loving Mother.” That is how bishops are expected to act — like mothers nurturing their children. Of course, the vast majority of them already do. Many individual dioceses have been way ahead of the Vatican in implementing strict guidelines and accepting responsibility on this subject.

But there has also been numerous cases of bishops, confronted by a guilty priest, who have protected, transferred or covered up for an abuser. Almost as much as the crime itself, that response appalled the general public and particularly horrified Catholics. A see-no-evil response also left many dioceses exposed to multi-million-dollar lawsuits while undermining trust and tarnishing the Church’s moral authority.

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UNITED STATES
Boston.com

By Bryanna Cappadona

Though Spotlight, the movie about The Boston Globe’s uncovering of a sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, took home the biggest award of the night at the 2016 Academy Awards, humble guy Mark Ruffalo, who was nominated for his supporting role in the movie, didn’t think the movie would actually nab the trophy.

“That kind of blew my mind a little bit,” Ruffalo said on Wednesday’s The Tonight Show when host Jimmy Fallon mentioned Spotlight’s Oscar win.

“You guys didn’t think you were going to win?” Fallon asked.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Worcester Magazine

By Walter Bird Jr. -June 9, 2016022

He has been bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Worcester for 12 years and celebrated his 17th anniversary of being ordained as bishop in February. Late last month, he observed his 38th anniversary of being ordained as a priest. Bishop Robert McManus will turn 65 in July, and it is safe to say he has seen a lot transpire in and around the Catholic Church. The clergy sex abuse scandal would qualify as the lowest of lows during his time with the Church, and the closing of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Worcester earlier this year has generated more controversy for the Diocese – and McManus, in particular. We sat with McManus recently to talk about the state of Church, the drama surrounding Mount Carmel and more.

What is the overall health of the Catholic faith and the Catholic Church? I would say it is in a weakening position, only because as I said I was ordained as a priest 38 years ago. If you had told me the Church in New England would be in the state it is today, I would have found it very hard to believe. My first parish, there were four full-time priests. There were 120 people in what is called CYC here. There were 50-60 kids on our ski trip every winter. Every Mass was packed. There were a number of sisters of mercy teaching at school. That same parish today has one priest. The school is closed. Attendance at Mass is less than superlative. A perfect storm descended on the Church, in New England, especially. I was astounded that New England has now become one of the most un-churched areas, sections of the U.S.

Has it? When you say un-churched, you mean number of churches closed? No, the people claiming to be religious, whatever their religious denomination in terms of church practices. And I have not seen the statistic myself, but someone said to me in passing a couple weeks ago that there was a survey done of religiosity — a practice of any religion throughout the country, the 50 states — somebody told me that Massachusetts was 49th, 50th being the worst. It’s hard to believe, because New England especially, for example growing up in Rhode Island, we were 65 percent Roman Catholic. Same with Massachusetts, they used to call it Catholic Boston, it was so, so catholic.You say “perfect storm.” Talk about that. I would describe the perfect storm as radical secularism that has descended on our country, western civilization, but certainly on the United States. That scandal that happened broke out with terrible ferocity in 2002, and the effect that it had on people of the faith, those three things came together and it has weakened the position of the church in New England and here in Massachusetts and … the Catholic Diocese Worcester. However, what it has forced us to do is to commit ourselves to what Pope John Paul II, what Pope Benedict and Pope Francis now has coined: the new Evangelization. I believe that there is what is called a vestigial Catholicism. If people were trained and raised as Catholics in a real solid fashion, there is a basis there of the faith that I hope, with the grace of God, can be revitalized and brought to the floor.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Catholics4Change

JUNE 9, 2016 BY SUSAN MATTHEWS

FACT SHEET:
On the Constitutionality of HB 1947

Background: Currently in Pennsylvania, a survivor of child sex abuse has until age 50 to file criminal charges and age 30 to initiate a civil suit if the abuse occurred after 2002. Anyone abused before that year has much less time to report abuse.

HB 1947 seeks to eliminate time barriers to file criminal and civil cases for those abused after the bill becomes law. It would affect both private and public institutions, however much misinformation has been spread about this bill and its constitutionality.

Claim: HB 1947 is unconstitutional.

Fact: This charge has been leveled against attempts to reform the statute of limitations in numerous other states, including California, Delaware, Massachusetts and Connecticut. In all of these cases, the legislation was found to be constitutional.

Claim: HB 1947 does not apply to public institutions.

Fact: HB 1947 will apply equally to private and public institutions going forward. Due to the sovereign immunity protections afforded to state institutions by the Constitution
of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, it appears that this reform cannot apply retroactively to them.

Claim: HB 1947 specifically targets the Catholic Church.

Fact: Statute of limitations reform is not limited to any specific group or organization, religious or otherwise. In fact, there are countless institutions that have protected abusers, such as schools, hospitals, scout organizations, sports programs and juvenile facilities. Furthermore, over 90 percent of survivors were abused by family members or close acquaintances, which will also be covered by HB 1947.

From the Foundation to Abolish Child Sex Abuse – Protecting Children/Restoring Hope

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UNITED STATES
The New Yorker

By Rebecca Makkai , JUNE 8, 2016

Last week, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s office released a victim-impact statement written by the twenty-three-year-old woman raped on the Stanford campus. The statement, which has gone viral, is sharp, clear, stunningly open, occasionally funny. Its author is a very good writer in the purest way: she makes us feel some sliver of what she felt.

I was startled to learn that she’d read this statement out loud in court to her assailant—that she hadn’t just been able to slip it under the judge’s door in the middle of the night and leave it at that. I wrote my own victim-impact statement at sixteen, and, on Monday, as I read about the Stanford case, I tried to remember what the procedure had been; I thought I had handed mine in like a term paper, or sent it through the mail. And then, on Monday night, it came back to me, twenty-two years after the fact: I did read my own statement out loud, in court, to my abuser. I’d had a choice, and I chose to do it. I might have been braver then than I am now.

That I didn’t remember this before has less to do with my blocking it out than with the fact that the memory is overshadowed by bigger plot points. Because as soon as I delivered the statement, I was accused of plagiarism.

It was the summer of 1994, and I’d been listening to “Janie’s Got a Gun” on repeat since May. That summer, I read James Joyce for the first time; I also still had an American Girl doll in my closet. I was ten years past learning to ride a two-wheeler; I was ten years from publishing my first short story. From the age of seven to thirteen, I had been sexually molested by a family friend who occasionally lived in our house; in the summer of 1994, I was a few months from losing my virginity to someone I liked. I was closer to a healthy sense of sexuality, both chronologically and emotionally, than I was to the abuse.

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NEW YORK
Syracuse.com

By Special to syracuse.com
on June 09, 2016

The writer is an adjunct professor at Onondaga Community College, serves on the board of Vera House and speaks publicly about the issue of sexual abuse.

By Jennifer Nadler

I went back and forth about writing about the Child Victims Act that appears to be dead in the water. The state Senate recently voted it down 30 to 29. I can’t change the vote. Sen. DeFrancisco’s opinion is the statutes of limitations in child sexual abuse cases should not be eliminated. I probably won’t change his opinion. While there are many things I cannot change, I choose to focus on what I can. I stayed silent for so many years about the sexual abuse that was destroying my life. I can no longer stay silent. Today, I choose to use my voice.

I am a professor, a wife, a mother, and I am a sexual abuse survivor. I was repeatedly abused by a family member when I was 12 and 13 years old. It took 25 years to be able to say this without embarrassment or shame, without guilt or regret, without fear or self-loathing. It was 25 years too long.

I did not tell. I could not tell. I would not tell a soul. Frequently, children don’t tell. They believe it is their fault. I believed it was mine. I carried around a suitcase full of guilt and shame. With every passing year, that suitcase became heavier and heavier. In my mid-20s, my life unraveled until there was nothing left of me but that scared, ashamed, broken little 12-year-old girl.

Many people don’t understand why it takes so long for survivors to come forward. It is not a choice. It is a coping mechanism. Each survivor has his or her way of dealing with the trauma and emotional pain of sexual abuse. Drinking, doing drugs, binge eating, being a workaholic, gambling, acting out sexually are just some of the destructive behaviors that get survivors through their darkest of days. Eventually our coping mechanisms are no longer enough to keep our secrets and our pain at bay.

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IRELAND
KCLR

By MaryAnn Vaughan

A local hospital is being included in an investigation into Mother and Baby homes.

St Columba’s Hospital in Thomastown is one of just four county homes to be included in the investigation.

14 mother and baby homes are also being looked into.

The Commission of Investigation are appealing to any locals who may have been a resident in or worked in St Columba’s, or any of the other institutions, up to 1998 to contact them.

Their freephone number is 1800 80 66 88.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Westdeutche Zeitung

[Georg K. has been defrocked by the Vatican for sexually abusing minors.]

Willich/Kreis Viersen. Der aus Willich stammende Georg K. ist nicht länger Priester. Das teilt das Bistum Aachen in einer Presseerklärung mit. Zu Beginn 2015 war K. vor dem Landgericht Krefeld zu sechs Jahren Haft verurteilt worden, weil er sich an Minderjährigen vergangen hatte.

Aus der Presseerklärung geht auch indirekt hervor, warum dieser Schritt jetzt so schnell erfolgte. Zwar hatte die Glaubenskongregation in Rom die Akten geprüft, letztlich hatte aber wohl den Ausschlag gegeben, dass K. selbst seine Laisierung angestrebt hatte. Diesem Entlassungsgesuch war Papst Franziskus nachgekommen. Mit dem Verlust des Priesteramtes verbundes ist, dass Georg K. kein Amt mehr ausüben darf, das die Weihe voraussetzt. „Von Herzen wünsche ich den betroffenen Opfern, dass der Abschluss des Verfahrens und die Entlassung aus dem Priesteramt bei der Verarbeitung des erlittenen Leids hilft“, erklärt Andreas Frick, ständiger Vertreter des Diözesanadministrators. Und: „Wir werden weiterhin das uns Mögliche tun, hierbei zu helfen“, so Frick weiter.

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VATICAN CITY/SPAIN
Crux

Inés San Martín
June 9, 2016
VATICAN CORRESPONDENT

After Cardinal Antonio Cañizares of Valencia said “we have legislation contrary to the family, the action of political and social forces, with added movements and actions of the gay empire,” a coalition of pro-LGBT groups charged him with hate crimes under Spanish law.

ROME- Criminal proceedings under hate speech laws have been initiated against a Spanish cardinal for his commentary on theories styling gender as a personal preference, in which he termed them “the most insidious ideology in the history of humanity,” and for his warnings against a “gay empire.”

The Spanish Network of Help to Refugees has filed a complaint against Cardinal Antonio Cañizares of Valencia for his remarks, made on May 13. Under Spanish law, such a charge is required to be investigated.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis warned on Thursday against an excessive rigidity, saying those within the Church who tell us “it’s this or nothing” are heretics and not Catholics. His remarks came the morning Mass on Thursday celebrated at the Santa Marta residence.

In his homily the Pope reflected on the harm caused by Churchmen who do the opposite of what they preach and urged them to free themselves from a rigid idealism that prevents reconciliation between each other.

Taking his cue from Jesus’ warning to his disciples that unless their righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees they will not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, Pope Francis stressed the importance of Christian realism. Jesus, he said, asks us to go beyond the laws and love God and neighbour, stressing that whoever is angry with their brother will be liable to judgement.

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GUAM
KUAM

[with video]

By Sabrina Salas Matanane

The new temporary leader of the Archdiocese of Agana, Archbishop Savio Tai Fai Hon, met with local clergy, religious and dedicated lay faithful this afternoon as part of a mass at St. Anthony’s Church in Tamuning. Archbishop Hon was appointed by the Pope on Monday as the apostolic administrator of the Archdiocese of Agana amid sex abuse allegations against Archbishop Anthony Apuron.

Archbishop Hon delivered his homily with a message of love and unity. He explained what his responsibilities are as apostolic administrator. He said that although Archbishop Apuron is still archbishop, he will not make any decisions about the archdiocese and should cooperate in total fulfillment of the apostolic administration. He asked that as he fulfills his task and mission that each and everyone present during the mass and outside put their energy toward unity of the church.

Archbishop Hon has been tasked by the Pope to take stock of the present pastoral situation of the diocese, to identify the difficulties present among the clergy, religious and lay faithful and to take urgent measures, at the earliest, in order to promote and restore unity and harmony in the local church.

After carefully discerning the archdiocese needs he will take all necessary actions to assure that that goal is implemented.

Parishioners from Barrigada and Santa Rita reacted to the call for unity with hope.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

AAP

Abuse survivors have reacted angrily to a Salvation Army decision to top up less than a quarter of compensation claims for South Australian abuse victims.

The Salvation Army Southern Territory revisited payouts to hundreds of people who were brutally abused in Salvo homes in Adelaide between 1940 and 1990.

The review followed a child abuse royal commission hearing last October, which found the SAST’s approach to redress was legalistic and at times uncaring.

Floyd Tidd, the army’s territorial commander in South Australia committed to a review of the claims during the commission hearing.

He announced on Wednesday the review was completed and 73 of 422 claims had been identified as warranting a top-up payment because victims may not have been “treated fairly and consistently relative to the bulk of other settled claims”.

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KENTUCKY
Insider Louisville

By SARA HAVENS | June 8, 2016

Kentucky State Rep. Jim Wayne, D-Louisville, has been quite busy working on a passion he’s had for years. Somewhere in the midst of serving in public office (since 1991) and working as a psychotherapist, he went back to school and received his MFA in fiction from Spalding University in 2012. And now, he’s debuting his first novel, “The Unfinished Man,” a fictional story that examines sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

Wayne says the idea for the book had been brewing for years, and after he received his formal training from Spalding, he used his downtime to write.

“To tell you the truth, I most often relax when I write,” he tells Insider. “Most of my work in psychotherapy and the legislature taxes the side of my brain that is logical, sequential and focused on goals. In writing, some of those skills are used, but the writing muses play best in the other side of the brain. It all keeps me balanced.”

The story of “The Unfinished Man” tackles a subject that is important to Wayne: Throughout his time as a representative, he has worked closely with victims of Catholic clergy sexual abuse and sponsored legislation to tighten the reporting requirements and penalties for sexual abuse of minors.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

A former Archbishop of York is under investigation by police over allegations he covered up for a paedophile colleague.

Lord Hope is suspected of shielding the Very Reverend Robert Waddington, who died in 2007.

North Yorkshire police yesterday confirmed it was looking into the Church of England’s ‘handling of allegations of historic child abuse’. Officers said the inquiry is ‘at an early stage’.

Lord Hope, 76, quit his post as a bishop in the Diocese of Bradford shortly after a damning report was published into sex abuse within the Church in 2014.

Judge Sally Cahill’s findings claimed that while serving as Archbishop, he had put children in harm’s way by protecting Waddington from a series of allegations.

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GUAM
KUAM

[with video]

By Krystal Paco

It was an emotional homecoming for former Agat residents Walter Denton and Doris Concepcion. United by tragedy, but moving forward with one purpose – to ensure the removal of Archbishop Anthony Apuron – who they believe is hiding behind the cloth. Both live in separate cities in Arizona, but are here on Guam to share with everyone and anyone their story.

“That’s where it happened – right there. That’s the room. Right there where everything happened,” said Denton tearfully upon approaching what used to be the rectory for the Mount Carmel Catholic Church, now the used as the administration building for Mount Carmel School. He alleges he was 13 years old when he was raped by archbishop apuron. Denton was an altar boy at Mount Carmel Church in Agat and Apuron a priest. On Thursday, he looked back at the scene of the alleged crime.

“I always believed, when I left the island, I always knew there were others,” he shared. “Coming here brought back the pain. It brought back the pain and it hurts.”

Last week Concepcion came forward alleging her son Joseph “Sonny” Quinata was on his deathbed 11 years ago when he shared his secret – that he too was allegedly molested by Apuron when he was an altar boy in the southern village. Concepcion was compelled by Roy Quinatanillla – who just weeks prior – publicly accused Apuron of molesting him.

Since the allegations of sexual abuse, the archbishop denied them, and the archdiocese stood by him claimed he was the victim of a malicious smear campaign and conspiracy to take him down. Concepcion said, “He’s not a man of God, I’m sorry. He hides behind that cloth. That’s all he does. And we are not attacking the church or our religion.”

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ILLINOIS
Univision

[Break the silence victim of sexual abuse by the Father Wellems.]

El hombre de 50 años de edad, casado y con hijos, asegura que el padre Wellems abusó de él cuando era un niño.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Times

Anthony Heaton-Armstrong and David Wolchover
June 9 2016
The Times

New Zealand judge Lowell Goddard’s Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) was primarily tasked with scrutinising failures by officials to investigate abuse allegations. But with the revelation last month of the vast scale of the IICSA’s so-called “truth programme” it has become clear that the inquiry has taken on itself a pseudo-judicial function quite beyond its original remit, write Anthony Heaton-Armstrong and David Wolchover.

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NEW YORK
Times Newsweekly

BY ROBERT POZARYCKI
rpozarycki@ridgewoodtimes.com @robbpoz

Things are getting personal in the fight over legislation designed to help child sex abuse victims seek justice from their attackers and those who may have protected them.

Maspeth-based Assemblywoman Margaret Markey told the Daily News on Tuesday that Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, leader of the Diocese of Brooklyn, offered her a $5,000 payment nearly a decade ago in exchange for dropping her support of legislation known as the Child Victims Act that would expand the statute of limitations for lawsuits over child sex abuse allegations.

Markey has advocated for the bill’s passage for more than a decade and it is currently under consideration in the state legislature. The Daily News is currently running a series of articles about the bill and supports its passage.

But the Diocese of Brooklyn, which leads 1.5 million Roman Catholics in Brooklyn and Queens, opposes the act, claiming that the bill’s provisions would open the church up to a fresh round of lawsuits that would put its parishes in financial peril.

Markey claimed that DiMarzio made the offer at a December 2007 meeting at his chancery in the nowclosed Bishop Ford High School in Brooklyn. The meeting, which focused on the bill, also included Assemblyman Joseph Lentol of Brooklyn, the late Assemblyman Vito Lopez, Monsignor Kieran Harrington (now communications director for the diocese) and Sister Ellen Patricia Finn, a child sex abuse victim’s advocate and former employee of Catholic Charities.

Markey told the Daily News that she saw no reason to report the offer at the time: “Who could I report it to? He said, I said,” she was quoted as saying in the report. Although she originally stated the meeting took place in 2010, she later corrected the date.

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IRELAND
The Irish Catholic

by Greg Daly
June 9, 2016

The sole Irish member of the Vatican’s child protection commission has cautiously welcomed new rules to enable the removal from office of bishops whose actions endanger children.

The personal papal decree Comeuna madre amorevole (‘Like a loving mother’) facilitates disciplinary action against negligent bishops and their equivalents in canon law, including patriarchs of Eastern Catholic Churches and major superiors of religious orders.

Marie Collins, who has been a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors since its foundation two years ago, welcomed the decree, telling The Irish Catholic that “anything that can improve accountability is welcome in my book”.

“What’s important to me is that it emphasises the gravity of being negligent in the area of child protection,” she added, continuing, “It’s very important that that emphasis is there now, and it’s very clearly a reason for removing a bishop.”

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

Before we left for our recent vacation, I made a promise here, I seem to recall, to read and comment on the 22 May affidavit of Jennifer Haselberger, former Chancellor for Canonical Affairs of the Catholic archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis. The affidavit is Haselberger’s testimony in the bankruptcy case of the archdiocese now pending in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Minnesota (case no. 15-30125).

I believe it was Mary Q, a good reader of this blog, who pointed me to this document, which is uploaded to the website (pdf file) of Jeff Anderson, who is representing abuse survivors suing the archdiocese. At her blog, Haselberger wrote about the affidavit the day after she made it. As she explains in this posting, she testified in support of “substantive consolidation.” She explains:

Substantive consolidation is an equitable remedy available to bankruptcy courts whereby the assets of entities closely related to the debtor, in this case the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, are combined into the bankruptcy estate.

At the heart of a motion for substantive consolidation is the question of equity and fairness. American law does not allow a corporation like the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis to misuse the benefits of the separate corporate forms of, say, parishes or foundations, to unfairly deprive creditors like the victims of sexual abuse by clergy. In other words, the test for whether substantive consolidation is appropriate in a given case is determined by the degree of interrelatedness between the entities to be consolidated and the parent organization.

And then she provides four reasons for why she supports a motion for substantive consolidation in this case:

1. “The request to consolidate does not include Catholic Charities or Commonbond Communities.” And so these Catholic, but quasi-independent entities doing works of mercy, will not be pulled into a bankruptcy settlement requiring that the archdiocese itself bear responsibility for having covered up sexual abuse cases, and can continue doing their works of mercy without penalization.

2. “The request seeks to make more assets available to compensate the victims of sexual abuse of minors by clergy.” And why is this necessary? “I believe we cannot turn a blind eye to the harm and suffering experienced by those individuals, most of whom are or were members of our Catholic community, to preserve advantages for others.”

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY KENNETH LOVETT MICHAEL O’KEEFFE STEPHEN REX BROWN
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Updated: Thursday, June 9, 2016

The state Assembly may have inadvertently done the unthinkable — getting sexual abuse survivors and the Catholic Church to agree.

Advocates for reform and the church said Wednesday they opposed a bill to reform New York’s statute of limitations on claims of child sexual abuse — but for different reasons.

Advocates don’t believe the bill gives victims enough time to bring lawsuits.

“To me it’s just garbage,” said Gary Greenberg, an upstate investor who says he was sexually abused in 1966. “It’s not what we want. I think if that’s what they want to pass, don’t waste our time. We’ll just come back next year.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Canberra Times

June 9 2016

Christopher Knaus

Damian De Marco sat in the gallery of ACT parliament on Thursday, watching as new laws were introduced that could have stopped the Catholic brother who abused him so many years ago.

“In all probability, it would have saved lives,” Mr De Marco said.

It took the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and repeated revelations about cover-ups of child abuse within the Catholic Church and other institutions to get to this point.

But, on Thursday morning, Chief Minister Andrew Barr introduced his reportable conduct scheme to the Legislative Assembly, a law designed to force institutions to report abuse complaints to an independent authority.

“The royal commission has shown that there are still too many dark places within institutions to hide those who would harm children, and there are still those who draw the blinds rather than face the embarrassment or damage that illumination may bring,” Mr Barr told the Assembly.

The scheme is modelled on the NSW system, which has been described as the best of its kind in the world.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Verdict

9 JUN 2016 MARCI A. HAMILTON

Archbishop Chaput of Philadelphia is circulating a letter to parishioners and schools to enlist Catholics to join him in his scorched earth battle against the child sex abuse victims his institution created as well as the rest of them, including the incest victims. As someone who is familiar with Chaput’s tactics against victims and statute of limitations reform ten years ago in Denver, Colorado, I am performing the public service of providing the public a factual translation of his letter, which leaves out a few details.

Dear friends,

A bill is currently pending in our state senate, HB 1947, that poses serious dangers for all of our local parishes, schools, PREP programs, charities and other Church ministries.

Translation: Well, HB 1947 is actually a watered-down version of the robust statute of limitations (SOL) reform in Delaware, Hawaii, and Minnesota. It caps all civil claims at age 50, which is actually a pretty big win for us bishops, who know that there are many victims well over the age of 50 who have yet to tell their story publicly. Especially good news for us is that many of the survivors of serial Philly predator Stanley Gana will be blocked. Thank God for small miracles! Between us: we have insurance to cover claims, and the insurance guys don’t want to have to pay on those policies, so we do have some powerful friends on our side.

With this letter, I urge you to write or telephone your local state senator and members of the state Senate Judiciary Committee to vote against HB 1947, and especially to oppose any retroactivity provision in the civil statute of limitation covering sexual abuse.

Translation: The Grand Jury reports of the Philadelphia and Altoona-Johnstown dioceses have already revealed way too many facts about our callous disregard for Catholic children. If a retroactive bill is enacted, more truth will be spilled and we will look really, really bad. Look at the tens of thousands of pages released in California! Besides, we need to get this bottled up quickly so we can divert everyone’s attention to the glorious Fortnight for Freedom for us to impose our faith on others in as many arenas as possible, whether we are talking abortion, contraception, or same-sex “behavior.” It starts June 21. I can’t wait!

All of us are rightly angered by the crime of sexual abuse.

Translation: The crime itself is just, well, despicable. The cover up, was, well, you know, necessary.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Times Herald

By Nick Miccarelli, Times Guest Columnist
POSTED: 06/09/16

I was nothing short of shocked when a dear friend of mine sent me a picture of the St. Rose of Lima Church bulletin on Saturday. It read, “State Representative Nick Miccarelli voted in favor of House Bill 1947 which states that private institutions can be sued as far as 40 years ago for millions of dollars, while public institutions may not be sued for any crimes committed in the past.” This statement, printed in the church bulletin, is patently untrue. The simplicity of this statement leaves out much, but most glaringly it leaves out the true goal of the bill. I did vote in favor of HB1947 because as I reviewed the legislation, forefront in my mind was justice for the victims, not sympathy for the predators that committed heinous crimes against children or any public or private institution that allowed sexual abuse to continue unaddressed. HB1947 will allow those who have been molested as children to have their day in court.

There is no one, and I mean no one, with any understanding of the law who would claim “public institutions may not be sued for any crimes committed in the past.” Google “Jerry Sandusky Penn State Lawsuit” if you need to see evidence that public institutions can be sued. What this bill did was to expand the statute of limitations for claims of child molestation. Put simply, it allows those people who are raped as children more time to face those who raped them. I was one of 180 members of the House of Representatives who believe this bill will help victims. We also believe that this bill would let child predators across Pennsylvania know that they will not be free from punishment if they simply run out the clock.

At first, I was shocked that my own parish would print something so misleading without so much as a phone call to me. I myself sat in the pews of St. Rose two days before the bulletin was brought to my attention by my friend. Lastly, many of my constituents have my cell phone number, and my office number is a 10-second google search away. I would have gladly made myself available to discuss this legislation with Father Canavan, a man I have immense respect for, or anyone else from St. Rose or any other organization that had concerns regarding the intent of this legislation.

It wasn’t until today that I realized the lies about this bill are being preached at more places than St. Rose. When I arrived in Harrisburg, I saw Rep. Tom Murt of Montgomery County. Tom is a fellow Iraq War veteran and possibly the kindest and most mild-mannered person I’ve met since being elected. By the way, Tom goes to a Catholic Church every single day. For the first time in almost eight years, I saw Tom Murt visibly upset. He told me how his parish, sold the same falsehoods to their parishioners as did St. Rose with him sitting right in the pews.

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GUAM
KUAM

[with video]

Updated: Jun 08, 2016

By Sabrina Salas Matanane

During an interview Thursday morning on Isla63-AM, Walter Denton revealed that the Vatican has been investigating his allegations of rape since August 2015. On Tuesday, Denton appeared before island media and alleged that he was raped by Archbishop Anthony Apuron when he was 13 years old. He alleged that the sexual abuse happened when Apuron was a priest in Agat and Denton was an altar boy.

Denton in his interview with radio host Jess Lujan said he was on Guam in January 2015 when he had heard about his cousin who had allegedly been sexually abused by Apuron several years ago. Denton said his cousin was a seminarian at the time. Denton said he realized he needed to come forward and sought advice on how he should go about filing a complaint about what happened to him.

He realized that he could not report it to the local archdiocese because the Archbishop was the accused and controlled all investigations of sexual abuse. He says he was referred to Archbishop Martin Krebs, the Apostolic Delegate to the Pacific Islands. Although Archbishop Krebs was on Guam in January 2015, Denton said he was not aware of the visit. Denton says it wasn’t until August 2015 that he sent a notarized letter to Archbishop Krebs detailing what happened to him.

He said Archbishop Krebs then took his statement directly to the Vatican. From there he said it was around October or November of that same year he was contacted by Bishop Olmsted in Phoenix, Arizona for an interview. Denton said Bishop Olmsted told him that he had been appointed by the Vatican to gather information about the alleged abuse. Although he has not heard from the Vatican since, he did say Bishop Olmsted assured him that the Vatican is conducting an investigation.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Two people who’ve recently accused Archbishop Anthony Apuron of sexual abuse visited Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church in Agat today for a scheduled prayer vigil.

One of the accusers, Walter Denton, publicly alleged earlier this week that Apuron raped him in April 1977. The other accuser, Doris Concepcion, recently said her son, who passed away 11 years ago, told her Apuron molested him as a child. Both Denton and Concepcion are Arizona residents.

Apuron has not been charged with any crime. The Vatican, however, recently appointed another archbishop, Savio Tai Fai Hon, to temporarily govern the Archdiocese of Agana while the allegations against Apuron are investigated.

Three people have come forward in recent weeks with accusations of sexual abuse against Apuron.

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IRELAND
National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church

National Board staff will be facilitating a training session on conducting a preliminary investigation

On the 6th of July 2016
Between 10.00 and 15:30.
At the Glenroyal Hotel, Maynooth
Price is 60 euro per person
Given the imminent change over to a new website- online booking for this event is not available.

Should you wish to book places on this course please contact ann.doyle@safeguarding.ie or imeldaashe@safeguarding.ie.

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IRELAND
National Board for the Safeguarding of Children in the Catholic Church

The National Board for the Safeguarding of Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland (NBSCCCI) published its annual report today. It details the work done by the Board and its National Office during the year ending 31st March 2016. The Annual Report for 2015 and the accompanying press release can be downloaded by following the links below.

Press Statement

NBSCCCI Annual Report 20l5

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

A total of 116 new allegations, suspicions or concerns of sexual abuse were reported to the Catholic Church’s National Board for Safeguarding Children, in the year to the end of March last.

There were a further 37 allegations of physical and emotional abuse against one religious congregation.

In total, 153 allegations were made to the board in the year April 1st, 2015 to March 31st, 2016.

It represents a reduction of 112 on the 265 total (including those from one organisation as a batch) reported to the board in the 2014/15 year.

The figures were published on Thursday morning in the board’s annual report for the 2015/16 year.

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FRANCE
The Nation

AFP

LYON – One of France’s most powerful Catholic leaders, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, was questioned by police on Wednesday over allegations he covered up the sexual abuse of Scouts, a source close to the case said.

Barbarin, the archbishop of Lyon in central France since 2002, has been accused of failing to remove a priest from his diocese when he became aware the man had sexually abused young boys 25 years ago.

Barbarin was being questioned by the police’s family protection unit as part of a preliminary investigation, but has not been taken into custody, the source said.

State prosecutors will have to decide whether to pursue the case against Barbarin, which has shaken France’s Catholic Church.

The scandal has raised questions over how deep Church authorities should dig into abuse cases lurking in their past.

Barbarin’s interrogation comes four days after Pope Francis issued a decree that senior Catholic officials guilty of negligence in child abuse cases can now be dismissed from office.

It was not immediately clear whether the papal decree would affect the Barbarin case.

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GUAM
Radio New Zealand

[with audio]

The lawyer for several victims who claim they were abused by Guam’s archbishop is accusing him of a coverup, and says he expects more people to come forward with allegations against him and other priests.

Transcript

The lawyer for several victims who claim they were abused by Guam’s archbishop is accusing him of a coverup, and says he expects more people to come forward with allegations against him and other priests.

A claim of rape against Archbishop Anthony Apuron came shortly after Pope Francis appointed an administrator to manage the Catholic Church in Guam while an investigation is conducted into abuse claims.

Jo O’Brien reports:

Walter Denton is the third person to make an allegation of sexual abuse against the Archbishop. In an emotional account to the media reported on the Pacific News Center website, the 52 year-old says he was raped by Archbishop Apuron in 1977 when he was just 13 years old.

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FRANCE
Premier

Thu 09 Jun 2016
By Aaron James

French investigators have questioned a prominent cardinal about alleged failures to report on suspected paedophilia by a priest under his watch, in the highest-profile church abuse investigation in France to date.

Cardinal Philippe Barbarin was named in two investigations of accusations of sexual abuse of children by priests.

Mr Barbarin, one of the highest-ranking figures in the French Catholic Church, is among several church officials accused of failing to report paedophile priests to judicial authorities.

He has denied covering up abuse, but acknowledged some mistakes in handling and appointing priests.

His lawyer, Andre Soulier, said the cardinal is being questioned in Lyon as part of normal proceedings. “He is a witness, and is being questioned as a witness,” Mr Soulier said. “We’ll see how it goes.”

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FRANCE
The Local

One of France’s most powerful Catholic leaders, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, has been questioned by police over allegations he covered up the sexual abuse of Scouts.

Barbarin, the archbishop of Lyon in central France since 2002, has been accused of failing to remove a priest from his diocese when he became aware the man had sexually abused young boys 25 years ago.

Barbarin spent 10 hours at the police’s family protection unit on Wednesday where he was interrogated as part of a preliminary investigation, but has not been taken into custody, his lawyer said.

State prosecutors will now have to decide whether to pursue the case against Barbarin, which has shaken France’s Catholic Church.

The diocese of Lyon said in a statement after Wednesday’s quizzing that the cardinal would continue to cooperate with the inquiry and that he hoped his testimony would “contribute to the establishment of the truth”

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AUSTRALIA
Australian Jewish News

NEWS that former Adass Israel head teacher Malka Leifer will not be returning from Israel to face justice any time soon and will be freed from home detention has caused shock waves in Australia, prompting more than 3500 people so far to sign petitions protesting last week’s ruling by an Israeli court.

Child sex-abuse victims group Tzedek has launched an online petition calling on Israel’s Minister for Justice Ayelet Shaked to “stop this injustice” and extradite Leifer, stating, “It’s heartbreaking – this school teacher left vulnerable children traumatised. She can’t get away with it.”

Meanwhile, Canberra-based Tzedek supporter Fiona Sweet-Formiatti has also launched an online petition, expressing “profound shock” at the ruling and urging Israel’s Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit to place Leifer in a state hospital until she is fit to face ­proceedings.

The petition added, “We are concerned that Israel’s reputation is also suffering from being perceived as a haven for alleged paedophiles wishing to avoid justice.”

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WASHINGTON
Seattle PI

BY JOEL CONNELLY, SEATTLEPI.COM Wednesday, June 8, 2016

The Archdiocese of Seattle must release “all files” and settlements related to credible claims of abuse by clergy and religious who have ministered in the diocese, according to an on-line letter petition addressed by lay Catholics to Archbishop J. Peter Sartain.

“Full disclosure of secret files and the ongoing involvement of an independent Review Board are necessary to create a sustainable culture and structure of deterrence and accountability, thereby significantly reducing the possibility that this systematic evil will ever happen again,” said the letter, which has garnered 155 signatures.

The archdiocese, last January, released the names of 77 priests, members of religious orders and one nun where allegations had been admitted, established or able to be substantiated.
Forty one of the individuals on the list were deceased.

The Archdiocese has released names but not investigative reports. Two early signers of the petition are Seattle University law professor and former King County Superior Court Judge Terry Carroll, and ex-U.S. Attorney Mike McKay.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

BY ERIKA STANISH WEDNESDAY, JUNE 8TH 2016

HOLLIDAYSBURG – The Diocese of Harrisburg sent out a letter warning its parishioners of financial hardship to the church if the statute of limitations changes.

The new law would allow for a victim of child abuse not over 50 to seek criminal investigations in their case and allow them to file civil lawsuits.

The letter was sent to Harrisburg’s Catholic School Community, openly opposing some of the proposed law to eliminate the statute of limitations.

The letter goes on to say more lawsuits could flood their diocese and force the closing of parishes, schools and ministries.

Tony DeGol, secretary of communications for the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, told 6 News if the law passes, the Catholic Church would be in the position to address cases up to 50 years old.

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KANSAS
KMBZ

LENEXA, Kan. – A rally outside a Lenexa church had members of SNAP, members of those Sexually Abused by Priests, voicing their support for the families of two girls who were sexually assaulted by Kessler Lichtnegger. The families have filed a lawsuit against Westside Family Church, claiming they knew about Lichtnegger’s past crimes, but still allowed him to have access to children. Rebecca Randels is handling the case for the victims, and says that Lichtnegger was a “table leader for a small group, and also a volunteer at vacation Bible school, where he had direct contact with students, and at vacation Bible school is where the sexual abuses occurred.” The attorney for Westside Family Church says since the allegations came to light they’ve made some changes, including more background checks and requiring parents to sign off on minor volunteers.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio, Pacific Daily News June 9, 2016

Archbishop Hon to lead prayer meeting as vigil planned in Agat

The archbishop appointed by the Vatican to temporarily oversee the Catholic church in Guam now is on island and is expected to remain here while accusations of sexual abuse against Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron are being investigated, according to the church.

Pope Francis on Monday gave Archbishop Savio Tai Fai Hon temporary authority to govern the Archdiocese of Agana, but Apuron remains the island’s archbishop.

In a statement Wednesday, Hon said the priority of the apostolic administrator is to “take stock of the present pastoral situation of the diocese; to identify the difficulties present among the clergy, religious, and lay faithful and to take urgent measures, at the earliest, in order to promote and restore unity and harmony in the local church.”

“The Apostolic Administrator, after carefully discerning the needs of the Archdiocese will take all necessary decisions to assure that this goal is being implemented,” the statement adds. …

Hon is scheduled to lead a prayer meeting 4 p.m. Thursday at Saint Anthony and Saint Victor Church in Tamuning, church pastor Monsignor Brigido Arroyo said Wednesday.

“It is open to everyone — priests, deacons, religious leaders, lay people. It is a prayer meeting,” Arroyo said.

A prayer vigil also is scheduled for noon Thursday, at the old rectory of Agat Catholic church, where the alleged sexual abuses by Apuron happened in the 1970s.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call

Bill WhiteContact Reporter

Go to the Philadelphia Archdiocese website, and you’ll immediately be confronted by a pop-up:

“Click here to send a message to your legislator opposing HB 1947.”

We are in the midst of a broad Catholic Church lobbying campaign to squash House Bill 1947, which passed the House in April and would eliminate the statute of limitations for criminal cases of child sexual abuse and extend the statute for civil cases until the victim reaches age 50, retroactively, from the present age 30.

This latest effort to persuade Catholics to pressure legislators comes as the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares for a hearing Monday on the bill’s constitutionality and gets nearer to a promised vote.

Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput and others have been encouraging Catholic pastors to read or distribute lobbying materials at their church services. This spring, I criticized a similar effort by Allentown Bishop John Barres, whose letter opposing HB 1947 was inserted into church bulletins to the dismay of some local parishioners.

One of Chaput’s letters and other lobbying materials also are being distributed to parents of parochial school children, which prompted this email response from Gretchen Dahlkemper of South Philadelphia:

“I am horrified, disgusted, and sick to my stomach that the Archdiocese of Philadelphia instructed its principals to send the below information to the parents who have chosen to send our children to receive a Catholic education. I send my 7-year-old boy each day to the school expecting the principal and the teachers to protect him and guide him — not to shield the pedophiles that were for decades abusing boys, just like my 7-year-old, with the protection and systematic collusion of the Catholic Church.

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ISRAEL
Australian Jewish News

JERUSALEM – Former Adass Israel head teacher Malka Leifer has been enjoying a taste of freedom this week, as her alleged victims come to terms with the knowledge that she’s unlikely to face extradition proceedings any time soon.

Israeli state prosecutors made a last-ditch attempt on Tuesday to convince the courts to keep her under house arrest – appealing to Judge Ram Vinograd to factor Israel-Australia relations into his decision.

But the request fell on deaf ears and, in the second bombshell of the case in six days, the judge made it clear that there’s no room for appeal, and despite the fact that 74 charges of indecent acts committed against students wait for her in Victoria, she can live as a free woman in Israel with no immediate threat of extradition.

Last Thursday, Judge Amnon Cohen decided Leifer is too mentally unstable to face extradition proceedings, and shocked alleged victims and activists by deciding that, instead of going to hospital until she can face proceedings, she can live a normal life and just go for occasional therapy.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Christian Today

Mark Woods CHRISTIAN TODAY CONTRIBUTING EDITOR 08 June 2016

The Baptist Union of Great Britain has written to its ministers about an investigation into historic safeguarding issues.

British Baptists are carrying out a review of cases of “inappropriate behaviour or abuse” by ministers in an investigation that goes back as far as the 1940s.

The Baptist Union of Great Britain (BUGB) has reviewed 4,500 files covering everyone who has served as a Baptist minister, including those who have retired, died or been removed from the list of accredited ministers.

BUGB has written to ministers informing them that some files have been passed directly to the authorities and that others are now being scrutinised by an independent panel of safeguarding experts before further action is taken.

Its statement says: “Where, in the view of the panel, there is a clear case to consider removing a minister from the accredited list, these cases will be passed to our Ministerial Recognition Committee and handled using our normal ministerial disciplinary procedures.”

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FRANCE
Ouest France

[Cardinal Philippe Barbarin left police headquarters after 10 hours of questioning during an investigation into failure to report sexual abuse.]

Le cardinal Barbarin a quitté les enquêteurs après 10 heures d’audition. Il était interrogé dans le cadre d’une enquête sur la non-dénonciation de faits de pédophilie.

L’audition du cardinal Philippe Barbarin par la police lyonnaise dans le cadre d’une enquête pour non-dénonciation de faits de pédophilie reprochés à un prêtre de son diocèse a pris fin mercredi après dix heures d’interrogatoire, a annoncé un de ses avocats.

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MEXICO
Sipse

EFE
GUADALAJARA, Jalisco.- La casa Alberione, ubicada en el municipio mexicano de Tlaquepaque, fue un hogar de acogida para sacerdotes involucrados en casos de pederastia, confirmó hoy el cardenal emérito Juan Sandoval Íñiguez.

En una entrevista con Efe a propósito de la reciente publicación de su libro de memorias, “Con mi propia voz”, asegura que ese recinto fue un centro de rehabilitación de religiosos hasta que Juan Pablo II envió en 2001 una carta a los obispos para pedirles que no encubrieran estos casos.

“Desde que estaba yo en el cargo, antes sí, pero cuando en el 2001 el papa Juan Pablo II dijo que los pederastas tenían que salir del ministerio, entonces di la disposición a la casa Alberione que no admitieran ningún sacerdote pederasta”, afirma.

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MEXICO
Fox News Latino

The Alberione house, located in the western Mexican municipality of Tlaquepaque, was a refuge for priests involved in pedophilia cases, Cardinal Emeritus Juan Sandoval Iñiguez said on Wednesday.

In an interview with EFE after the recent publication of his memoirs entitled “Con mi propia voz” (In my own words), the cardinal said that the house was a rehabilitation center for clergy until Pope John Paul II in 2001 sent a letter to bishops asking them not to conceal those cases.

“Since I was in the post, and certainly before, but when in 2001 Pope John Paul II said that pedophiles had to leave the ministry, then I gave the order to the Alberione house not to admit any pedophile priest,” he said.

Since that time, a group of physicians, psychologists and psychiatrists were connected to the house – located several kilometers from where Sandoval lives – attending to priests suffering from alcoholism, depression or who had “problems with authority,” said the 83-year-old prelate.

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CANADA
The Packet

Barb Sweet
Published on June 08, 2016

Philadelphia, Pa., psychiatrist Dr. Robert Toborowsky was qualified as a expert in forensic psychiatry after a contentious morning at the Mount Cashel civil trial.

Toborowsky is a witness for the Episcopal Corp. of St. John’s, which says it should not be held liable for sexual abuse of boys by lay order Christian Brothers during the era 1940s to ’60s.

Contention — in questioning by former orphanage residents’ lawyer Will Hiscock — largely surrounded Toborowsky’s specific experience with patients who were sexually abused as children.

Noting his imminent career, Justice Alphonsus Faour accepted him as a forensic psychiatry expert in sexual abuse as a range of causes of symptoms.

Toborowsky met with the four John Does who are test case plaintiffs in this Newfoundland Supreme Court case in 2010. This afternoon will delve into his opinions on those men’s files.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Philly.com

by Maria Panaritis, STAFF WRITER

HARRISBURG – One lawmaker called it “electioneering.” Another grew emotional as she recounted being snubbed by a priest. A third penned a Facebook screed that became the buzz of the House of Representatives.

Legislators expressed outrage this week after they said they had been named by priests at Mass, in church bulletins or in some other way rebuked by the Catholic Church for supporting a bill that would let child sex-abuse victims sue individuals and private institutions decades after the abuse occurred.

Rep. Nick Miccarelli, a devout Catholic from Delaware County, said he was stunned on Sunday to see his name printed alongside what he called “lies,” and “distortions” in the weekly bulletin at his Eddystone parish. By his count, at least a dozen other House members reported having been singled out by the church or its advocates in recent days.

“A lot of the members would tell you responses have been nothing short of threats to claims of betraying their faith,” Miccarelli, a Republican first elected in 2008, said the day after his Facebook post about the campaign quickly made the rounds in Harrisburg.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

The Stormont Executive is committed to finding a way to ensure abuse allegations that fall outside the remit of Northern Ireland’s on-going judge-led inquiry are addressed, Martin McGuinness has said.

Clerical abuse victims and some former residents of Magdalene laundry-type institutions in the region have demanded to know why the crimes inflicted on them are not being examined by the Stormont commissioned investigation headed by retired judge Sir Anthony Hart.

The Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry, which is currently gathering victim testimony, is examining alleged child abuse perpetrated inside residential institutions from 1922 to 1995.

However, the probe’s remit does not cover abuse inflicted on victims who were over 18 when they were inside residential facilities, such as woman forced into Magdalene-style laundries, or clerical abuse committed outside of an institutional setting.

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ROME
Commonweal

Robert Mickens
June 8, 2016

Pope Francis has been both applauded and criticized for creating a new process for investigating and eventually removing bishops for negligence, especially in their oversight of sexual abuse cases. He lays it out carefully in a new motu proprio published last Saturday under the title Come una madre amorevole (Like a loving mother).

Some see this initiative as the start of a Copernican revolution in the Vatican’s approach to the (still very far from over) clergy sex abuse crisis, while others think it is actually much ado about nothing.

Most commentators have claimed that Canon Law (can. 192-195) already provides for the removal of bishops, and the new motu proprio merely spells out a process whereby one of four different Vatican congregations actually go about this. But, in fact, bishops are not specifically mentioned in those canons, which deal only generically with “removal of ecclesiastical office” at all levels.

In his new document, Pope Francis removes all doubt and says a congregation can investigate a bishop and issue a “decree of removal” if it deems the prelate has been negligent of his pastoral duties in a “very grave” way. Furthermore, it says such negligence need only be “grave” when concerning the abuse of minors or vulnerable adults.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Press

POLICE are considering an investigation into the former Archbishop of York.

Lord David Hope resigned from his position as an honorary assistant bishop in 2014 after a report into allegations of child abuse by a former cathedral dean found “systemic failures” by the Church of England.

The report said Lord Hope failed to follow policy and take advice after he was told of complaints against Robert Waddington relating to boys in Manchester and Australia, between 1984 and 1993.

A North Yorkshire Police spokeswoman said the investigation had been prompted by publication of a report into how the allegations were handled, which was commissioned by the current Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, and carried out by Judge Sally Cahill QC.

Judge Cahill QC said Lord Hope’s actions meant “opportunities were missed” to start an investigation which may have led to a prosecution before Waddington’s death in 2007.

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NEW YORK
Catholic League

Bill Donohue is calling for a formal investigation of New York State Assemblywoman Margaret Markey. Her defamation of Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio warrants a probe as to whether she has violated New York State’s ethics laws.

To read Donohue’s request, click here.

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NEW YORK
The Journal News

Steve Lieberman, slieberm@lohud.com June 8, 2016

More than 20 yeshivas targeted by the New York state Education Department for overdue fire-safety inspections turned to Ramapo and Kaser officials this week to get their paperwork done, sidestepping attempts by the county to send its own team into the facilities for review.

Education Department spokeswoman Jeanne Beattie said in an email that 22 schools have filed inspection reports done by either private inspections or Ramapo inspectors. The filings mean the schools won’t be required to be inspected by the county.

The Education Department had deputized Rockland to review between 49 and 53 schools, some of which had not filed fire safety certificates for several years.

Dennis Lynch, the lawyer for the recently-formed School Religious Freedom Coalition, said that come Wednesday, “There could be many yeshivas that Ed Day’s representatives will not have to step foot into” since they have complied with the law.

An irritated Rockland County Executive Ed Day said the Education Department accepted the new reviews even though it had recently criticized Ramapo for its poor record on fire and building code inspections.

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NEW YORK
Post-Bulletin

Let me begin by saying I detest all forms of abuse against another human being, especially a child.

Throughout the past several years we have heard plenty about the abuse scandals within the Catholic church, and I am terribly upset by what has happened. These priests will be held accountable by a higher judge than us, for Christ said in Matthew 26:24, “Woe to the man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would be better for that man if he had never been born.”

Did not these men betray their calling?

Why does the Catholic church get so much attention from lawyers and the media, when child abuse is just as prevalent in many other institutions? Because the Catholic Church is an easy target. What other institution is willing to settle cases from decades ago and is willing to work with investigators? The church wants to right its wrongs.

People say that the Catholic church didn’t handle things properly. The fact is that, like society in general during the 1960s and ’70s, the church followed the prevailing view at the time that sex offenders could be treated and rehabilitated.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Manchester Evening News

BY KIM PILLING

A Catholic priest who was accused of sexually abusing nine girls and one boy has been cleared by a jury.

Father Mortimer Stanley, 82, had denied a string of indecent assaults said to have been committed in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, between the late 1970s and 2002.

The Crown alleged the Limerick-born priest targeted most of the complainants, aged under 11, in his presbytery at St Vincent de Paul RC Church in Norden, when he would sit them on his knee.

Fr Stanley, from Ballybunion, County Kerry, said children would often climb on his knee of their own accord but nothing inappropriate ever happened.

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GERMANY
Leadership (Nigeria)

— Jun 8, 2016

A German diocese on Wednesday announced that the catholic priest convicted of child sexual abuse has been defrocked after an order by Pope Francis.

It said in a statement in Aachen (Germany), that the 58-year-old priest, who had worked in the western city of Aachen, was sentenced to six years in jail in 2015 for taken advantage of minors in his care.

It said the priest who abused his godchild and the child’s younger brother had not carried out priestly duties since 2010.

The priest in Aachen had also faced charges stemming from time he spent working in South Africa, but the charges were dropped.

“Nonetheless, a family there did receive compensation payments from the church.

The diocese, however, said the order from the pope meant that he was permanently barred from priesthood and would no longer receive pay from the church.

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GUAM
Guam Daily Post

Louella Losinio | Post News Staff

The Vatican’s newly appointed apostolic administrator of the Archdiocese of Agana, Archbishop Savio Hon Tai Fai has announced his priorities as he temporarily takes over administration of the Archdiocese of Agana.

In a news release issued by the archdiocese yesterday, Archbishop Savio Hon Tai Fai said his priority is to take stock of the present pastoral situation of the diocese and to identify the difficulties present among the clergy, religious and lay faithful.

Savio also said he will take “urgent” measures, at the earliest, in order to promote and restore unity and harmony in the local Catholic Church.

“The Apostolic administrator, after carefully discerning the needs of the archdiocese will take all necessary decisions to assure that this goal is being implemented,” he said.

He also confirmed his appointment stating that the pope, in his concern for the good of the whole church and with due consideration for the good of the faithful in Guam, has temporarily entrusted him with the administration of the Archdiocese of Agana.

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ISRAEL
Arutz Sheva

By Ari Yashar

The central witness against Rabbi Eliezer Berland, the fugitive head of the Shuvu Banim sect who was finally arrested in Johannesburg, South Africa two months ago, has spoken out on shocking details of the sexual abuse case against Berland.

Berland fled from Israel in 2012 after several women as well as a 15-year-old girl laid charges of sexual assault against him. He evaded capture in the US, Switzerland, Morocco and Zimbabwe and managed to avoid extradition from Holland, before being finally arrested in South Africa in April – now he faces extradition to Israel to stand trial.

Central witness Itay Nachman Shalom, formerly a member of Shuvu Banim, exposed his testimony against Berland to Walla on Wednesday, and spoke about the persecution he faces from the sect.

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DEUTSCHLAND
MissBiT

Papst Franziskus hat einem wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs verurteilten Priester des Bistums Aachen den Priesterstatus aberkannt. Der Papst bekräftige damit seine Null-Toleranz-Haltung in der katholischen Kirche bei erwiesenen Missbrauchsfällen, teilte das Bistum Aachen am Mittwoch mit.

Der 58-Jährige, der in Haft sitzt, darf demnach keine priesterlichen Handlungen mehr ausüben und bekommt auch keine Bezüge von der Kirche.

Der Priester war 2015 vom Landgericht Krefeld wegen schweren sexuellen Missbrauchs, Kindesmissbrauchs und Missbrauchs von Schutzbefohlenen zu sechs Jahren Haft verurteilt worden. Das Gericht sah 25 Taten als erwiesen an.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Jasmine Stole , jstole@guampdn.com June 8, 2016

Sexual assault allegations against an archbishop are supposed to be investigated by the Vatican, and not locally, according to an expert in the laws of the Roman Catholic Church.

Although Guam Archbishop Anthony Apuron has been accused of sexually assaulting children in the 1970s, the alleged crimes happened so long ago they could not be criminally prosecuted, according to the Office of the Attorney General.

Canon lawyer Jennifer Haselberger, an expert in church law, said Vatican policy dictates that only Rome can investigate bishops who are accused of sexual abuse.

The Archdiocese of Agana on May 17 announced it had launched a local investigation in the sex abuse allegations against Apuron, which church officials have called “lies.” An attorney representing alleged abuse victim Roy Quintanilla has questioned the fairness and validity of the local investigation.

While Catholic churches have their respective policies to respond to sexual abuse allegations, the Vatican also has guidelines, Haselberger said.

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IOWA
Roman Catholic Diocese of Sioux City – The Catholic Globe

[Alleged abuse victim speaks out against former Sioux City priest – KTIV]

The Diocese of Sioux City has received information that Father Peter B. Murphy committed sexually abusive acts against a minor in 1960 while a temporary assistant at Blessed Sacrament Parish in Sioux City.

Father Murphy was ordained in 1955 and died in 1980. In addition to Blessed Sacrament Church, he served at St. Mary Church, Danbury; Assumption Parish, Emmetsburg; Sacred Heart Parish, Fort Dodge; St. Michael Parish, Whittemore; St. Joseph Parish, Bode; St. Rose of Lima Parish, Denison and Sacred Heart Parish, Spencer.

If you have information concerning any sexual misconduct against minors by Father Murphy, or are yourself a victim, please call Mercy Child Advocacy Center at (866) 435-4397, or the diocese at (712) 279-5610.

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