ABUSE TRACKER

AUSTRALIA
ABC – Lateline

Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Broadcast: 30/05/2014
Reporter: Jason Om

An inquiry into child sexual abuse in NSW has found there’s enough evidence to charge a senior Catholic Church official with concealing the activities of a notorious peadophile.

Transcript

EMMA ALBERICI, PRESENTER: An inquiry into child sexual abuse in the Hunter region of NSW has found there is enough evidence to charge a senior Catholic Church official with concealing the activities of a notorious paedophile priest.

The Special Commission into abuse allegations and their alleged cover-up in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese has delivered its final report calling the failure of clergy to report decades of abuse to police as inexcusable.

But it has also slammed the credibility of the detective chief inspector who sparked the inquiry finding him to be an unsatisfactory and at times untruthful witness.

Inspector Peter Fox had accused senior police of hindering sex abuse investigations but the commission says NSW police acted appropriately.

Jason Om reports.

JASON OM, REPORTER: For the many victims of abuse in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese, there is a sense of vindication.

PETER GOGARTY, ABUSE VICTIM: This was not just the wrongdoing of individual priests that those priests were assisted in their crimes, if you like, by virtue of the fact that other people knew about it and did nothing.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Robert Blair Kaiser | May. 30, 2014

VIEWPOINT
We have a pope who has said he is trying “to light a fire in the heart of the world.” Now, to my surprise, the bishop of Innsbruck, Austria, seems to be throwing cold water on the entire project.

Bishop Manfred Scheuer has dug up an old piece of canon law to ask Rome to levy the penalty of excommunication on Martha and Gert Heizer for their occasional ritual remembrance of the Last Supper of Jesus, who bid his disciples to “do this in memory of me.” Even more surprising: The Holy Office complied with the bishop’s request without bothering to ask the pope, if we can believe a report from Austria’s Kathpress that Pope Francis had never been informed of the Holy Office’s decision.

We have historic backing for home liturgies without a priest. None of those disciples at the Last Supper were ordained, nor was ordination an issue for women like St. Paul’s Phoebe and Prisca and Priscilla, who presided in their home churches for the earliest Christians. Yet here we see an Austrian bishop mining medieval/Renaissance Canon 1378 for a warrant to condemn the Heizers for, as the canon says, “enacting the liturgical action of the Eucharistic Sacrifice” and thereby incurring “an automatic penalty of interdict.” Contemporary Catholics are consulting Mr. Google to find out what that means. In 1077, Pope Gregory VII slapped an interdict on the Holy Roman Empire to bring King Henry IV to his knees in the snow at Canossa. Not since then have too many prelates used the threat of interdict.

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KENTUCKY
WDRB

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — A Louisville priest convicted of sexually abusing two teenage boys in the 1970s has been sentenced to 15 years in prison.

A jury convicted the Rev. James Schook of three counts of sodomy and one count of indecent and immoral behavior with an individual in April and recommended the 15-year sentence, which the judge upheld.

Schook could have received a 25-year sentence. He has been free on home incarceration since the trial.

During his trial, witnesses provided graphic details of their sexual encounters with Schook, saying the abuse took place at various Louisville churches on a regular basis.

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KENTUCKY
WLKY

LOUISVILLE, Ky. —A former Louisville priest convicted of sexually abusing two boys was sentenced Friday morning.

A jury sentenced former priest James Schook to 15 years behind bars for sexually abusing two boys while he worked for the Louisville archdiocese in the 1970s.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse today released an issues paper on statutory victims of crime compensation schemes and their effectiveness for those who experience child sexual abuse while in the care of an institution.

Royal Commission CEO Janette Dines said this is the seventh issues paper of the Royal Commission and forms part of a series of projects in relation to the scope of justice for victims.

“All states and territories have schemes that allow victims of crime to apply for compensation, counselling and other services from a dedicated pool of funds.

“The schemes can differ greatly between states and territories, such as time frames for victims to apply for compensation, the payments and services that victims receive and the level of supportive evidence victims require to apply for compensation.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Southwest News-Herald

By JOE BOYLE • Thursday, May 29, 2014

A Cook County judge has denied bond for Daniel McCormack, the former West Lawn resident and defrocked priest who is facing new charges following his conviction of being a child molester.

McCormack, 45, who attended St. Mary Star of the Sea Elementary School while growing up in West Lawn, was denied bond on May 22 regarding a new charge of aggravated criminal sexual abuse in an incident dating back to 2005.

Appearing in court in a White Sox T-shirt, shorts and gym shoes, McCormack faced Cook County Judge James Brown at Leighton Criminal Court at 26th and California.

The Chicago Police Department issued a warrant for McCormack on May 16 in relation to a charge of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a child. McCormack was taken into custody at the Illinois Department of Human Services facility in Rushville, Ill., and was transported to Chicago by the arresting detectives without incident.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

FOR decades, the Catholic Church not only knew of serious multiple allegations against some of its Hunter clergy, it had admissions of inappropriate behaviour with children on its files.

What the Church knew might have resulted in criminal charges against clergy long before some of these were actually laid, had the Church seen fit to tell the police its information.

The Church’s failure to reveal potentially criminal behaviour allowed serial offender Denis McAlinden – who molested scores of children over a long disgraceful career as a priest – to continue his offences.

People suffer deep emotional scars today – scars that could have been avoided – because the Church put concern about its own public image ahead of its responsibility for the welfare of some of the youngest and most vulnerable members of its flock.

The Newcastle Herald has been saying as much for years, and the federal royal commission now under way – set up largely because of Joanne McCarthy’s award-winning reports in this newspaper – will illuminate the topic further.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By JASON GORDON May 30, 2014

IT’S volume four that Lou Pirona is most interested in.

Like the families of other victims of predatory Catholic priests, Mr Pirona is taking more comfort in the fact that charges are looming for at least one of the Church’s senior clergy who covered up for a priest’s paedophilia.

‘‘The fact of the matter is that senior Church officials were protected, and could have remained protected forever by the Church hierarchy,’’ said Mr Pirona, whose son John took his own life in 2012 after ‘‘too much pain’’ from being sexually abused as a child by Hunter priest John Denham.

John’s death was the catalyst for the Newcastle Herald’s Shine the Light campaign, which led to the federal royal commission into institutional child abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

[with video]

by JOANNE McCARTHY May 30, 2014

THERE are four volumes in the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry report released by Commissioner Margaret Cunneen, SC, yesterday.

But within those hundreds of pages is a single key line that validates, vindicates and justifies the efforts of so many.

There is ‘‘sufficient evidence warranting the prosecution of a senior Catholic Church official in connection with the concealment of child sexual abuse’’ relating to the late Hunter priest Jim Fletcher, the report found. And this is significant for so many reasons.

It is significant in world terms.

Although many Catholic priests in Australia and across the globe have been successfully prosecuted and jailed for sexually abusing children, the number of church men prosecuted for concealing those crimes or failing to report them can be counted on one hand.

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CALIFORNIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, May 30, 2014

Statement by Melanie Sakoda of Moraga, CA, East Bay Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 925-708-6175, melanie.sakoda@gmail.com )

A former Catholic school teacher was convicted yesterday of three felony counts for having sex with a 14-year-old student. We are grateful for this verdict and hope he will receive the maximum prison sentence of four years and four months. The longer he is kept in prison and away from kids, the safer they will be.

[Orange County Register]

[Orange County Weekly]

We are thankful that this little girl had the courage to testify against her abuser in court.

Hopefully, knowing that she has been heard and believed, will be an important step in her healing process.

Ricardo Aldana, who taught Spanish at JSerra High School and who was also South County girls’ volleyball coach, was found guilty after a jury trial. The 40 year old teacher was acquitted on four other counts and will be sentenced on July 11th. While Aldana had been free on bail since his arrest in 2011, he was handcuffed and taken into custody after the verdict.

Hopefully, this verdict will inspire others who may have been hurt by Aldana to step forward, expose wrongdoing and start healing. We also plead with those who may have witnessed or suspected abuse by the former teacher and coach to speak up. It’s never too late to share what you know or believe about child sexual abuse with police, prosecutors and the public.

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MEXICO
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, May 30, 2014

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 314-503-0003, SNAPdorris@gmail.com )

A Mexican priest, who has been found guilty of child sexual abuse, was defrocked by the Vatican. We are glad this predator has been defrocked and that a complaint has been filed with secular authorities. But, it’s irresponsible for church officials to stop here. They must aggressively reach out to others who saw, suspected or suffered this cleric’s crimes. And they must harshly punish any other church staff or members who ignored or concealed these crimes.

[Radio Vatikan]

[Oman Tribune]

Fr. Eduardo Cordova was found guilty by the Vatican of abusing a teenage boy. The Archdiocese of San Luis Potosi filed a criminal complaint last week with secular authorities, the first such action taken by Catholic officials in Mexico. They should have called police first.

We also want Mexican church officials to not wash their hands of this predator now that he is defrocked. Archbishop Jesús Carlos Cabrero Romero should visit every parish Cordova worked and beg anyone with information or suspicions about possible child sex crimes to come forward and report to secular officials and start healing.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Mary Gail Frawley-O’Dea | May. 30, 2014

VIEWPOINT
It was disheartening to read that officers of SNAP are discouraging victims from meeting with the pope, deciding before it happens that the event is a waste of time and nothing more than a publicity ploy.

Like Tom Doyle, canon lawyer and longtime critic of the church, I believe the Pope Francis is sufficiently different from his predecessors that it is worthwhile for victims to meet him, look him in the eyes, tell him their stories, and ask for something. It is an act of great courage and hope for which any victim/survivor should be richly supported. It is also an act that no victim should be forced into or guilted out of.

Victims are men and women whose subjectivities and recovery roads are unique and personal. For some, meeting with pope may indeed lead to a renewed sense of betrayal. For others, it may represent one grace-full rest stop on a very long journey. For some, it may result in a reconnection with the Divine that has been missing and missed for decades; for others, it may free them to forever renounce their Catholicism without regret. For some, it may be disappointing and infuriating; for others, it may add to the binding of wounds.

To tell any survivor that the meeting with the pope “will actually hurt efforts to force the Church to reform because it will be all window dressing,” as SNAP’s David Clohessy is quoted as saying, is as arrogant and guilt-inducing as many too many church-issued statements about sexual abuse have been and thus is potentially destructive to vulnerable men and women. Neither David nor anyone else can predict ahead of time with such certainty what the outcome of this meeting will be for anyone involved in it or for the wider church and it hubris to say otherwise.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail (UK)

By AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATED PRESS
PUBLISHED: 02:28 EST, 30 May 2014

Chief whistleblower Peter Fox has been found to be an unsatisfactory witness in a report into an alleged cover-up of child sexual abuse in the Catholic diocese of Maitland-Newcastle.

The four-volume report uncovered no evidence to show senior police officers tried to block child abuse investigations.

It also found Detective Inspector Peter Fox – who alleged the cover up – was not a credible witness, and it was appropriate for police to instruct him to stop his own investigations.

“Fox gave evidence that was untruthful,” the report said.

“The Commission formed the view that Fox had engaged in conduct that was inconsistent with the integrity required of a police officer.

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MEXIKO
Radio Vatikan

[Summary: A Mexican priest has been found guilty by the church of abusing a minor and the Vatican has defrocked him.]

Ein mexikanischer Priester, der des sexuellen Missbrauchs eines Minderjährigen für schuldig befunden wurde, ist vom Vatikan aus dem Klerikerstand in den Laienstand zurückversetzt worden. Das berichtet die Nachrichtenagentur aciprensa. Das zuständige Erzbistum San Luis Potosí habe außerdem bei der Justiz Strafanzeige gegen ihn gestellt. Die Lokalpresse spricht von mehreren Dutzend Missbrauchsopfern des früheren Geistlichen.

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CHICAGO (IL)
kathweb

Chicago, 30.05.2014 (KAP) Chicagos Kardinal Francis George ist zu Missbrauchsvorwürfen gegen einen ehemaligen Priester seiner Erzdiözese angehört worden. Der von einer Krebstherapie geschwächte Kardinal antwortete auf Fragen von Opferanwälten, wie die Zeitung “Chicago Tribune” (Onlineausgabe Donnerstagabend) meldete. Die Aussagen wurden auf Video aufgezeichnet und sollen bei einem späteren Verfahren verwendet werden.

Ein Anwalt der Erzdiözese sagte, die Videoaufzeichnung sei “eine Routine in Gerichtsverfahren, wenn der Zeuge betagt ist oder gesundheitliche Probleme hat”. Dem Bericht zufolge verlief die Befragung zu keiner Zeit feindselig oder kontrovers. Nur zwei der neun anwesenden Opferanwälte hätten Fragen gestellt. Die Juristin Lyndsay Markley sagte der Zeitung: “Wir versuchen, unsere Sache zu beweisen. Kardinal George spielt dabei eine zentrale Rolle.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

By Manya Brachear Pashman
Tribune reporter
9:48 p.m. CDT, May 29, 2014

Lawyers began recording the testimony of Cardinal Francis George on Thursday amid a widening scope of sex-abuse allegations against defrocked Roman Catholic priest Daniel McCormack, a precaution taken in the event that Chicago’s archbishop’s health prevents him from testifying in a future trial.

George announced in March that doctors discovered new cancer cells in his right kidney — his third cancer diagnosis in eight years — and underwent chemotherapy. Last week, a day after McCormack was arrested on new charges of sexual abuse, George disclosed that the search for his successor has begun and a new archbishop is expected to be named by late fall.

John O’Malley, a lawyer for the archdiocese present at Thursday’s filming, said recording an evidence deposition is “routine in court cases where the witness is elderly or has health issues.” Lawyers for the archdiocese as well as nine plaintiff’s lawyers will have a chance to question the cardinal during the process.

But unlike the rambling question-and-answer sessions conducted during the discovery phase of litigation, the deposition started Thursday was more formal and could be shared with a jury. If the cardinal is available at the time of trial, he will take the stand instead.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Radio Vatikan

[Summary: Cardinal Francis George has been deposed regarding a lawsuit naming priest Daniel McCormack as an abuser.]

Chicagos Kardinal Francis George ist zu Missbrauchsvorwürfen gegen einen ehemaligen Priester seines Erzbistums angehört worden. Der Kardinal antwortete auf Fragen von Opferanwälten, wie die Zeitung „Chicago Tribune“ in der Onlineausgabe meldet. Die Aussagen wurden auf Video aufgezeichnet und sollen bei einem späteren Verfahren verwendet werden. Dem Bericht zufolge verlief die Befragung zu keiner Zeit feindselig oder kontrovers. Nur zwei der neun anwesenden Opferanwälte hätten Fragen gestellt. Die Juristin Lyndsay Markley sagte der Zeitung: „Wir versuchen, unsere Sache zu beweisen. Kardinal George spielt dabei eine zentrale Rolle.“ Der beschuldigte Priester Daniel McCormack hatte sich bereits 2007 sexuellen Missbrauchs schuldig bekannt. Nach einer fünfjährigen Haftstrafe hält er sich in einer psychiatrischen Einrichtung auf. Vergangene Woche wurde er erneut in Untersuchungshaft genommen, nachdem weitere Vorwürfe gegen ihn bekannt geworden waren.

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DEUTSCHLAND
netzwerkB

WDR 5: Beim Katholikentag in Regensburg ist das Thema sexueller Missbrauch eines unter vielen. Am heutigen Veranstaltungstag ist es ein Hauptthema. Es war zuletzt der Papst selbst, der den Missbrausskandal in der katholischen Kirche neuerlich in den Mittelpunkt gerückt hat als er bei seiner Rückreise von seinem Besuch im Nahen Osten sagte, es gebe Null Toleranz für Geistliche die Kinder missbrauchten, das sei ein hässliches Verbrechen was einem Verrat an Gott gleichkomme. Der Papst kündigte außerdem für Anfang Juni ein erstes Treffen mit Opfern an. Zu diesen Opfern gehört Norbert Denef, er ist Vorsitzender der Selbsthilfeorganisation netzwerkB. Ich habe ihn vor der Sendung gefragt, ist das Solidarität die Franziskus da zeigt oder ist es, wie der Vorsitzende einer amerikanischen Opferorganisation sagt, eine Geste, ein PR-Coup, ein weiteres Stück Symbolismus?

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

[with video]

By JASON GORDON May 30, 2014

A Special Commission of Inquiry into the alleged cover-up of child sexual abuse in the Hunter Region has determined that several senior Catholic clergy deliberately mislead investigations and were unreliable, unsatisfactory and untruthful witnesses.

It has also determined that the police detective who instigated the commission had ‘‘exaggerated’’ evidence, had been ‘‘deliberately untruthful’’, illegally shared sensitive information with a journalist and had developed an ‘‘obsession about the Catholic church and alleged conspiracies involving senior police’’.

Commissioner Margaret Cunneen SC on Friday handed her long-awaited report to the NSW Governor. Three of four volumes have today been made public, with the fourth remaining confidential.

The Newcastle Herald understands that the confidential volume contains findings that may lead to criminal charges being laid against a senior Catholic church official.

Of the confidential file now in the hands of the government, Ms Cunneen reports: ‘‘Significant matters relating to (the crimes of Father James) Fletcher are dealt with in the confidential volume of this report in order to protect potential future criminal proceedings.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By JASON GORDON May 30, 2014

HE’S been battered by the very commission of inquiry which he instigated, but Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox says he would ‘‘not hesitate to walk the same path again’’.

Speaking exclusively to the Newcastle Herald, Mr Fox vigorously defended himself and his actions following yesterday’s final report handed down by Commissioner Margaret Cunneen SC.

The report found there was no evidence to support claims that a ‘‘Catholic mafia’’ existed within police ranks, nor Mr Fox’s claims that a strikeforce set up to investigate alleged cover-ups was a ‘‘sham’’ designed to fail.

Mr Fox, who has been on stress leave since the middle of 2012 and is close to finalising his employment with the NSW Police Force, said much of his evidence to the commission had been distorted.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Shaun Connolly, Political Correspondent

Survivors of the Magdalene Laundries are being made to feel they are being punished for a second time due to Government indifference, the Dáil has heard.

Independent TD Maureen O’Sullivan demanded Taoiseach Enda Kenny live up to the promises he made to the women and ensure they get the compensation and respect they deserve.

“The effect is that some ladies are being excluded from redress, while others are being offered less than that to which they might be entitled.

“There are those who feel so defeated by this extra burden they are being obliged to shoulder that it is like being back in the laundries for them.”

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CANADA
Kenora Daily Miner and News

By Alan S. Hale, Kenora Daily MIner and News
Thursday, May 29, 2014

With just over a year left before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission issues its long-awaited report, the commission’s head, Justice Murray Sinclair, came to Kenora to talk about some of the findings about Canada’s infamous Indian residential school system that he and his fellow commissioners have been working on gathering for the past five years.

Sinclair’s speech, which was held at Seven Generations’ Manidoo Baawaatig campus (formerly Lakewood School), was part of the Lake of the Woods Museum’s revival of its award-winning exhibit about Kenora’s residential schools, We Were Taught Differently, which has been reformatted to be taken on the road. Justice Sinclair used his time in front of a packed gymnasium to share some of the bone-chilling facts that the commission has uncovered since 2009.

“The survivors want people to know what happened to them while they were at school … and we have recorded over 7,500 of survivor’s stories during the course of our hearings,” said Sinclair.

“As a result of that, it is our view that the level of awareness among the Canadian public has probably doubled from a low in the 30 per cent range to over 60 per cent of Canadian society. They now at least have heard of residential schools and understand that what went on in those schools was not a good thing, that there is still ongoing damage from the schools and something needs to be done about it.”

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AUSTRALIA
Border Mail

A WOMAN who recently gave testimony of sexual and physical abuse at a long-closed Albury-Wodonga girls’ home yesterday slammed a $6.7 million funding cut to a related royal commission.

Five weeks ago Rhonda recounted the horrors of her time at St John’s Orphanage to a commissioner in Melbourne.

Rhonda (who did not wish to use her full name) now fears the funding transfer will prevent many others from telling the stories they have had to carry throughout their lives.

The Attorney-General’s Department has defended the redeployment last year of $4 million from the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse capital works budget — plus $2.7 million from a pool for witness legal costs — to the home insulation inquiry.

It said this would not affect the commission’s operations.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

Special Commission of Inquiry clears police, finds whistleblower Peter Fox ‘not credible’ over child abuse cover-up claims

BY TAHMINA ANSARI
May 30, 2014

A Special Commission of Inquiry into allegations of a cover-up of child sexual abuse claims in the Catholic diocese of Maitland-Newcastle has released findings that are damning of the man who claimed to blow the whistle.

The four-volume report, three volumes of which have been released by Commissioner Margaret Cunneen SC, uncovered no evidence to show that senior police ever tried to ensure child abuse offences were not properly investigated.

It found Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox was not a credible witness and that it was appropriate for senior police to instruct Chief Inspector Fox to cease his own investigations.

“The Commission finds no credible evidence to support the notion that there are senior police in Northern Region Command of the New South Wales Police Force, including Newcastle City Local Area Command, who were prepared to take steps to try to ensure that alleged child abuse offences involving Catholic church officials were not investigated or not properly investigated,” it found.

“The Commission considers that by at least 2010 Fox had lost the objectivity required of an investigating officer regarding such matters.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

May 30, 2014

Matt Carr

Three of four reports from the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry’s investigation into sexual abuse have been released on Friday, with a fourth remaining confidential “until any potential criminal proceedings have been determined”.

The special commission presented its report to NSW Governor Marie Bashir on Friday after extensive hearings in 2013.

The inquiry covered conduct by clergy, particularly in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese, over knowledge of child sexual abuse by priests Denis McAlinden and James Fletcher.

The special commission explored “the extent to which those officials facilitated, assisted or otherwise hindered or obstructed” police investigations.

It also explored senior police’s decision in December 2010 that Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox halt investigations into certain matters relating to the two priests.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

[with audio]

A special commission of inquiry into allegations that a Catholic mafia in New South Wales colluded with the Church to cover up child sexual abuse by clergy has today handed down its findings. But the main target of its criticism is the man who became a national champion for child abuse survivors when he blew the whistle on so-called ‘sham’ investigations that were ‘set up to fail’. Detective chief inspector Peter Fox has been labelled in the report as an obsessive and a zealot, whose evidence lacked any credibility. But the public report of the inquiry is also notable for what’s not in it. There are also adverse credibility findings about senior church officials, but they’re in a confidential volume of the report that won’t be released until potential criminal proceedings have been determined.

Transcript

MARK COLVIN: A special commission of inquiry into allegations that a Catholic mafia in New South Wales colluded with the Church to cover up child sexual abuse by clergy handed down its findings today.

But the main target of its criticism is the man who became a national champion for child abuse survivors when he blew the whistle on so-called “sham” investigations that were, as he put it, “set up to fail”.

Detective chief inspector Peter Fox has been labelled in the report as an obsessive and a zealot, whose evidence lacked any credibility.

But the public report of the inquiry is also notable for what’s not in it.

There are also adverse credibility findings about senior church officials, but they’re in a confidential volume of the report that won’t be released until potential criminal proceedings have been determined.

Our coverage tonight begins with this report from Nick Grimm.

NICK GRIMM: “Evil flourishes when good men do nothing:” It was that saying that galvanised Peter Fox to speak out about his experiences as a New South Wales detective, continually frustrated in his effort to investigate paedophile priests within the Catholic Church.

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NORTH CAROLINA
Gaston Gazette

By Lauren Baheri

Published: Thursday, May 29, 2014

Police have charged a Dallas pastor with raping a 13-year-old girl. Police accused the man of committing multiple sex crimes between 1994 and 1998.

Joseph “Joe” Robert Hall, 62, of 2402 Pamela St., Gastonia, was arrested Wednesday night on 14 different child sex charges:

First-degree rape of a child; first-degree sexual offense of a child; second-degree rape; second-degree sexual offense; four counts of indecent liberties with a child; three counts of statutory rape; three counts of statutory sexual offense.

The charges stem from alleged incidents in Brunswick County on the North Carolina coast.

The girl was 12 years old when the incidents began in July 1994, according to the Brunswick County Sheriff’s Office. Hall would have been 43 years old at the time.

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AUSTRALIA
New South Wales Government

On 9 November 2012, the Premier announced that the NSW government proposed to establish a Special Commission of Inquiry into matters raised by Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox in an ABC Lateline interview regarding the handling of certain child sexual abuse allegations.

Ms Margaret Cunneen SC has been appointed as Commissioner by Letters Patent issued by the Governor of New South Wales on 21 November 2012 under the Special Commissions of Inquiry Act 1983 (NSW).

The Commissioner was due to report on or before 31 May 2014.

On 25 January 2013, amendments were made to the terms of reference and the reporting date was extended to 30 September 2013. On 28 August 2013 the terms of reference were amended to extend the report date to 28 February 2014. On 12 February 2014 the terms of reference were amended to extend the report date to 31 May 2014.

On 30 May 2014, the four volume report of the Commission was delivered to the Governor. The three public volumes have been released by the NSW Government. The Commission has recommended that the fourth volume of the report remain confidential at this time.

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AUSTRALIA
New South Wales Government

[click here for the web site]

The NSW Government has released the public volumes of the Report of the Special Commission of Inquiry.

The four volume report was delivered to the Governor by the Commissioner, Margaret Cunneen SC, on 30 May 2014. The Government is releasing Volumes 1 to 3 of the Report.

The Commission has recommended that the fourth volume remain confidential at this stage.

Further information about the Special Commission of Inquiry is available on the DPC site.

Press release: Special Commission of Inquiry

Report:

Report – Volume 1
Report – Volume 2
Report – Volume 3

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

May 31, 2014

Rachel Browne, Jason Gordon

The ”hero cop” whose explosive claims about NSW Police handling of Catholic Church child abuse helped spark a royal commission, has been branded a liar in a report handed to the state government on Friday.

Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox claimed that a police investigation into child sexual abuse allegations in the Catholic diocese of Maitland-Newcastle was a ”sham” and asserted there was a ”Catholic mafia” in the NSW Police that covered up crimes.

He also claimed he was forced to ”stand down” from the investigation into allegations surrounding two paedophile priests who had abused children in the Hunter area for decades.

The Special Commission of Inquiry into whether the Catholic Church covered up or NSW Police failed to properly investigate paedophile priest activity found there was no evidence to support Chief Inspector Fox’s claims.

It also found the response by senior church officials into abuse claims made against Father Denis McAlinden and Father James Fletcher, both now dead, was ”inexcusable”.

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AUSTRALIA
Eureka Street

Frank Brennan | 01 June 2014

Unheard Story: Dublin Archdiocese and the Murphy Report, by Padraig McCarthy. Londubh Books, 2013.

The victims of child sexual abuse at the hands of church personnel have waited a long time to be heard, to be believed, and to be offered a modicum of compassion and justice. In the process, some church personnel, including conscientious priests of the utmost propriety, have been hurt and wronged by the broad-brush approach of some state sponsored inquiries and media responses.

In Unheard Story, Fr Padraig McCarthy rightly highlights shortcomings in legal-political-media processes like the Dublin Archdiocese Commission of Investigation. Analysing the report and the responses to it, he has ‘no wish, in anything that has been said, to deflect from the pain and suffering of victims and their families over the years or to excuse any professional mishandling of cases that has occurred’. But the future wellbeing of children demands that the spotlight be shone on all equally; and justice for all requires that state sponsored inquiries follow due process giving all those whose reputations are impugned the right to be heard.

McCarthy observes that it is a serious mistake to see the report emanating from such an inquiry as ‘the ultimate answer on the issue of the handling of sexual abuse of children’ and then to promote the processes of such a commission as providing ‘a template for how commissions of investigation should be conducted’. McCarthy is right to join issue with unsourced, uncorroborated, unsubstantiated, glib, headline-seeking assertions such as: ‘The volume of revelations of child sexual abuse by clergy over the past 35 years or so has been described by a Church source as a ‘tsunami’ of sexual abuse’ — ‘an earthquake deep beneath the surface hidden from view’.

But there is no getting away from the fact that in countries like Ireland and Australia, the reported instances of child sexual abuse has been greater in the Catholic Church than in other churches. In part, that is because the Catholic Church conducted far more institutions for vulnerable children than did other churches. That is not the whole explanation. That is why the Church has needed help from the State to shine a light on hidden places and to assist with designing protocols and procedures acceptable to the general community.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By PETER GOGARTY May 30, 2014

IN August 2012 I wrote to every state and federal politician in Australia.

I urged them to support the rising wave of community insistence that formal inquiries into child abuse be established.

I implored them to do as much research on the issue of childhood sexual assault by clergy as possible and asked them if they could be certain that our children are now safe.

I noted “History will record the courage of those who stand up on this issue and will condemn those who do not.”

I received six responses – two supporting me, three saying they would get back to me and one from premier Barry O’Farrell insisting there was no need for an inquiry.

I will allow history to judge my prediction.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX THE AUSTRALIAN MAY 30, 2014

A WHISTLEBLOWER detective who used a live ABC interview to criticise the NSW Police Force over its handling of child sex abuse is an unsatisfactory witness who gave untruthful evidence about both his employer and the Catholic Church, a state inquiry has found.

The 2012 Lateline interview with Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox is widely seen as helping trigger the national royal commission into child abuse, which was announced four days later by the then prime minister, Julia Gillard.

Following the broadcast, a NSW special commission of inquiry was also established to investigate the policeman’s claims that the church in NSW’s Hunter Valley covered up child abuse by priests, and that he was ordered to stand down from the investigation of a paedophile priest.

In its report, released this afternoon, the commission found “Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox was an unsatisfactory witness in a number of respects”.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

[with audio]

The Special Commission of Inquiry’s damning findings are not limited to detective chief inspector Peter Fox. Commissioner Margaret Cunneen says that for decades, senior officials within the Catholic Church knew about the sexual abuse allegations but failed to act. Support groups for victims worry that the findings against Peter Fox will ‘bury’ the cover-up.

Transcript

MARK COLVIN: The special commission of inquiry’s damning findings aren’t limited to detective chief inspector Peter Fox.

Commissioner Cunneen says that for decades, senior officials within the Catholic Church knew about the sexual abuse allegations but failed to act.

The commissioner has been highly critical of witnesses from the Church, saying they were misleading or simply reluctant to give evidence.

But support groups for victims worry that the findings against Peter Fox will bury the fact that the Church covered up the abuse for decades.

Thomas Oriti reports.

THOMAS ORITI: Catholic priests James Fletcher and Denis McAlinden are now dead, leaving behind a history of sexual abuse dating back decades.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

A lawyer has said an inquiry will have to consider possible failings by state agencies over two former residential homes run by nuns in Londonderry.

The Historical Abuse Inquiry is currently examining events at children’s homes at Bishop Street and Termonbacca.

Public hearings into the homes ended on Thursday.

Christine Smith, the senior counsel for the inquiry, made a final submission at Banbridge courthouse.

She said the abuse allegations against some nuns, older boys, and some priests had to be considered alongside questions about the state’s responsibility – for children it placed in the homes, and regularly checking standards at the homes.

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CALIFORNIA
Orange County Register

BY VIK JOLLY / STAFF WRITER
Published: May 14, 2014

SANTA ANA – A former San Juan Capistrano high school teacher had sex with a 14-year-old girl who he knew had a crush on him, a prosecutor told a jury Wednesday.

The defense lawyer for Ricardo Aldana, 40, countered that a teenager seeking attention made up the charges.

Prosecutors have charged Aldana with seven felony counts of lewd acts on a child.

Aldana taught Spanish and coached boys soccer at JSerra Catholic High School. The school fired him after learning about the circumstances of his arrest in December 2011.

Prosecutors say he befriended the girl at school, when she was 13.

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CALIFORNIA
Orange County Register

BY ERIC HARTLEY / STAFF WRITER

Published: May 29, 2014

A former Catholic school teacher was convicted Thursday of three felony counts for having sex with a 14-year-old former student.

The jury acquitted Ricardo Aldana, 40, of four other counts.

He’ll be sentenced July 11, and the prosecutor said he faces a maximum sentence of four years and four months in prison. Under the law, the judge could also choose to give him less time behind bars or probation with no jail time.

The jury considered seven counts of lewd acts upon a child. Before the verdicts were read in court, Aldana crossed himself. He put his head down on the table briefly when the first not-guilty verdict was read, then held his hands to his face without looking at the jury.

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CALIFORNIA
Orange County Weekly

By Gustavo Arellano Thu., May 29 2014

Gustavo here. Ricardo Aldana, a former Spanish teacher at JSerra High in San Juan Capistrano and South County girl’s volleyball coach arrested way back in 2011 on charges of having sex with a then-14-year-old student, was finally convicted today.

A jury got him on three counts of lewd acts but acquitted him of four other counts alleging the same thing. Potatoe, potato: pervert pendejo is GUILTY.

City News Service reported that Aldana “cried softly as the verdicts were read.” QUIERE LLORAR! QUIERE LLORAR! Moral of the story? DON’T HAVE SEX WITH 14-YEAR-OLD GIRLS.

I couldn’t cover the trial, but the prosecution brought up Aldana’s predilection for going after high school girls, an assertion that Aldana defense attorney Michael Molfetta excused by saying that he never had sex with the 16-year-old he was dating until she turned 18 and asked the girl’s family’s permission to court her, according to City News.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

A Hunter Valley man who was sexually abused by a Catholic priest says he is anxious to read the findings of the Special Commission of Inquiry.

The state government launched the inquiry in November 2012 after allegations made by detective inspector Peter Fox

Months of public and private hearings, involving dozens of witnesses were held into claims police and the Maitland-Newcastle Catholic Diocese covered up abuse by two Hunter region paedophile priests, James Fletcher and Denis McAlinden.

Commissioner Margaret Cunneen will hand her findings to the Governor Marie Bashir today after requesting three extensions when the witness list lengthened and extra hearings were scheduled.

Commissioner Cunneen looked at the circumstances in which detective inspector Fox was asked to cease investigating, and whether Catholic Church officials hindered the police investigation by alerting alleged offenders or destroying evidence.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Church Times

by Paul Wilkinson

Posted: 30 May 2014

A MARRIED priest who told his parishioners that marriage should be “promoted and honoured” has been suspended for five years after admitting having an affair with one of his congregation.

The Revd Martin Howard, who is married and has children, also resigned from his post as Team Rector of Hampreston, in Dorset.

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MAINE
Bangor Daily News

State supreme court rules statute of limitations bars woman’s abuse suit against ex-priest

By Judy Harrison, BDN Staff
Posted May 29, 2014

BANGOR, Maine — The Maine Supreme Judicial Court on Thursday unanimously upheld a lower court decision that concluded the statute of limitations bars a Portland woman from suing a former Catholic priest over alleged sexual abuse.

Christine S. Angell, 52, of Portland sued Renald C. Hallee, 69, of Billerica, Massachusetts, and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland in March 2010 in Cumberland County Superior Court. She alleged that between 1970 and 1973, when he was assigned to St. John Catholic Church in Bangor, Hallee abused her.

The claims against the diocese have been settled, according to court documents.

Hallee, who left the priesthood and Maine in 1977, has denied the allegations. He worked as a teacher in Lexington, Massachusetts, from 1978 until his retirement in January 2007, according to court documents. He married in 1983 and has lived in the same home since 1985.

Under Maine law in effect when the abuse allegedly took place, Angell had two years from the time she turned 18 in November 1981 to file the lawsuit, unless Hallee had moved out of state and was not available to be served with the complaint.

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MISSOURI
KBIA

By MADELINE DUFEK & HANNAH SAULIC

In 1998, Janice Sevre-Duszynska stood up in the middle of an ordination service and shocked her entire congregation when she demanded the Bishop to ordain her into priesthood.

Sevre-Duszynska said the Bishop sounded like Darth Vader at the time, commanding her to go back to her seat and stop disrupting the service. However Sevre-Duszynska said she did not view her actions as disruptive. Rather, she said she was acting as the voice for all women.

While Sevre-Duszynska did not fulfill her dream of entering the priesthood at that service, she became an ordained priest on August 9, 2008 in Lexington, Kentucky.

Sevre-Duszynska visited Columbia on Wednesday to say mass at St. Francis House and screen the documentary “Pink Smoke Over the Vatican,” which focuses on the controversial movement of women seeking priesthood within the Catholic Church. …

For female priests, breaking through the ‘stained-glass ceiling’ means excommunication from the Catholic Church. For Sevre-Duszynska, this exclusion of women illustrates an injustice in the church.

“Pedophile priests; they’ve had a little slap on the hand by the Vatican, but they’ve not been excommunicated. But we women have been excommunicated, an excommunication we do not accept,” Sevre-Duszynska said.

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MICHIGAN
WWMT

WEST MICHIGAN (NEWSCHANNEL 3) – A West Michigan Catholic bishop is informing parishioners they can be excommunicated if they take part in an ordination ceremony this weekend.

The reason for the harsh warning is the person being ordained is a woman.

Local Catholic leaders say this could cause great confusion with in the church.

In his weekly newsletter Bishop Paul Bradley reminded parishioners that if they take part they can be kicked out of the church.

He called it a “simulation” ceremony and said church members must confess if they were there before receiving sacraments of the church.

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UNITED STATES
City of Angels

Kay Ebeling

THURSDAY, MAY 29, 2014

2 trips to Vatican since 2002
Still no communication with Pope
So Birmingham victim makes documentary

In a memorable segment of the film, Basta, Bernie McDaid tries to deliver a letter to a Vatican office. Dozens of other people enter as the Guards nod them in, but Bernie is left gesturing and pointing to papers in his hands. The caption reads “for 45 minutes, while negotiating, Bernie watches as people simply walk in.” On screen the guards look like Punch and Judy dolls as they keep blocking Bernie from entering the building.

“Basta! No Pity, No Shame, No Silence” documents years of Vatican runaround experienced by two survivors of pedophile priest Joseph Birmingham of Boston trying to communicate with The Vatican about the extent of the pedophile priest crisis. The film covers two trips to Rome in their effort to talk to Pope.

“At the second screening a survivor in his fifties stood up, talked about his life briefly, then mentioned for the first time in public that he was a survivor,” said Gary Bergeron who put together the film. “I still meet Birmingham survivors who I knew personally who I didn’t know were Birmingham survivors, they had never come forward before.”

“And we’re just talking about one priest.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Republic

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
May 29, 2014

PHILADELPHIA — A suspended priest won’t be retried until next year on child sexual-assault charges because both the Philadelphia judge and his new defense lawyer are booked until then.

The Rev. Andrew McCormick faces a February retrial after a jury this spring deadlocked on charges he assaulted a 10-year-old boy in 1997.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that prosecutors pushed Thursday to have the case resolved this year.

However, Common Pleas Judge Gwendolyn Bright said the delay is unavoidable.

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NEW JERSEY
Road to Recovery

Media Release

May 29, 2014

John Mercado worked at Hoboken Catholic Academy and Elysian Charter School, Hoboken for many years

Road to Recovery will express support for families whose children were sexually abused by John Mercado in a charter school, Catholic school, and school and community athletic programs

What: A press conference and leafleting expressing support for families of children who were or may have been sexually abused by teacher, coach, and administrator John Mercado, recently arrested on multiple counts of sexual abuse of minors.

When: Friday, May 30, 2014 at 2:00 PM

Where: On the sidewalk outside Elysian Charter School, 301 Garden Street, Hoboken, NJ, 07030
201-876-0102

Who: Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D., president of Road to Recovery, a non-profit charity that assists victims of sexual abuse and their families; victims of sexual abuse; supporters, and friends.

Why: John Mercado was arrested May 23, 2014 on multiple counts of sexual abuse of children. John Mercado allegedly molested children at least at two schools, and as a coach and leader of youth sports programs in Hudson County, NJ. He has indicated on his website that he is an administrative assistant and athletic director at Elysian Charter School in Hoboken, NJ, and a track and basketball coach at the school. He also taught computer science, according to reports, at Hoboken Catholic Academy from 1998-2004. John Mercado allegedly and reportedly has also been connected as a coach with the following community youth programs: Pershing Field Babe Ruth League (Jersey City) and the Hudson County Catholic Youth Organization which sponsors programs in dozens of parishes throughout Hudson County, NJ.

Road to Recovery will call on the Elysian Charter School, Hoboken Catholic Academy, the Archdiocese of Newark, NJ (which administers the Hudson County CYO program and Hudson County Catholic schools) to release any and all information about John Mercado, past allegations against him, and any other pertinent information that will help ensure the safety of children.

Contacts: Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D. – Road to Recovery – 862-368-2800
Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, Boston, MA – 617-523-6250

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DEUTSCHLAND
Regensburg-Digital

„Gegen das Vergessen, Verschweigen, Verleugnen und Vertuschen.“ Bei der Eröffnung des Katholikentages gingen missbrauchte Domspatzen mit dieser Forderung auf die Straße.

„Was sollen wir jetzt mit denen machen?“ „So lange sie friedlich sind, dürfen die das.“ Auch wenn es etwas kühl ist, als der 99. Katholikentag auf dem Regensburger Domplatz eröffnet wird, laufen die Funkgeräte der Polizei am Mittwochabend für einen kurzen Moment fast heiß. Dabei ist die Stimmung trotz des nasskalten Wetters gut. Joachim Gauck ist da und Horst Seehofer. Die „Sechs lustigen Fünf“ und ein Domspatzen-Chor haben eben „Wer glaubt, ist nie allein“ gesungen.

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NEW YORK
The Journal News

Barbara Nackman, bnackman@lohud.com

Two buildings at the Thornwood Conference Center have been bought by EF Academy International Boarding Schools, which is expanding its international private high school from its main Westchester campus in Tarrytown. The seller was Legion of Christ, Inc. and the property is at 582 Columbus Ave., in the town of Mount Pleasant. The amount was not disclosed.

The sale is of two buildings on 97 acres, comprising a portion of the Thornwood Conference Center, a corporate conference center on roughly 264 acres that was formerly an IBM conference center. The Legionaires of Christ purchased the property in 1996 to use as its seminary.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

It’s probably not an anniversary he wanted to commemorate, but Rev. Andrew McCormick’s retrial on child sex-assault charges has been set for Feb. 23 – two days short of one year from the start of the ill-starred trial that ended March 12 with a hung jury.

McCormick, 58, was back in court Thursday before Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Gwendolyn N. Bright, accompanied by his new lawyer, Trevan Borum. Borum agreed to represent McCormick after his previous defense attorney, William J. Brennan Jr., withdrew after the jury deadlocked and Bright declared a mistrial.

Assistant District Attorney Kristen Kemp objected to McCormick hiring Borum because Borum’s trial schedule made it impossible for him to defend the priest at any trial before next year. Borum said he begins a six-week federal trial in Allentown on Oct. 6 and a capital murder trial in Philadelphia on Jan. 26.

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MAINE
Portland Press Herald

By Scott Dolan sdolan@pressherald.com
Staff Writer

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court on Thursday affirmed an earlier ruling that too much time had passed to allow a Portland woman’s lawsuit to go forward against a former Roman Catholic priest she accused of sexually assaulting her while a child more than 40 years ago.

Christine Angell, now 52, sued the former priest, Renald C. Hallee of Billerica, Massachusetts, and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland in March 2010 in Cumberland County Superior Court. She accused Hallee of sexually assaulting her between 1970 and 1973, when she was between 8 and 11 years old and he was assigned as assistant pastor to St. John Catholic Church in Bangor.

Angell’s claims against the diocese were settled, but her claim against Hallee was dismissed in a ruling by a Superior Court judge last year, who found that by state law the statute of limitations for Angell to make her claim against him expired two years after her 18th birthday.

Angell argued in an appeal before the Maine Supreme Judicial Court last month that the statute of limitations should have been put on hold because Hallee moved out of state in 1977 and that she did not learn where he was until the diocese told her in 2009, according to Thursday’s unanimous ruling.

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NEW JERSEY
The Jersey Journal

By Patrick McGovern/The Jersey Journal
on May 29, 2014

The Archdiocese of Newark is pledging to cooperate fully with the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office investigation of John Mercado, the longtime Jersey City youth sports coach and teacher charged with molesting seven boys over the past three decades.

School officials at Elysian Charter School have said that Mercado would be suspended from his administrative assistant and athletic director positions there. Mercado also formerly worked at the now-closed St. Anne’s School in the Jersey City Heights and Hoboken Catholic Academy.

“Teachers do go through background checks,” said archdiocese spokesman Jim Goodness. “We are checking right now to make sure Mr. Mercado went through those checks.”

“We are certainly aware of the case, and will corporate fully with the prosecutor’s office,” he noted.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Herald (UK)

By CINDY WOODEN on Thursday, 29 May 2014

Pope Francis told reporters on Tuesday that “three bishops are under investigation” for misdeeds related to the sexual abuse of minors and that “one has already been condemned and his penalty is being studied.”

The Pope’s statement during the news conference aboard his flight from Israel back to Italy came after he was asked what he would do if a bishop did not observe church norms regarding a moral, and often legal, obligation to report allegations of sexual abuse against a member of the clergy.

While condemning the abuse of children as “an ugly crime” and affirming a policy of “zero tolerance” for abusers, Pope Francis did not clarify whether the three bishops he mentioned were under investigation for their handling of abuse allegations or because they themselves were accused of abuse.

Previously, the Vatican had acknowledged formally investigations against two bishops:

– In April the Congregation for Bishops sent Auxiliary Bishop Charles Scicluna of Malta to Scotland to collect testimony in a case against Cardinal Keith O’Brien, the former archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh, who resigned in 2013 after admitting to sexual misconduct.

– In early May testimony before a U.N. committee, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi confirmed earlier Vatican statements that Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, the former nuncio to the Dominican Republic, is the subject of a canonical investigation by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith as well as a criminal investigation by the Vatican police and court. Archbishop Wesolowski was removed from his position last August after he was accused of paying for sex with boys in the Dominican Republic.

As for the third bishop, the bishops’ conference of Chile published a statement in early February saying that Bishop Cristian Contreras Molina of San Felipe had asked the Vatican to open an investigation into “serious allegations” made against him. Chilean media had reported that the doctrinal congregation sent investigators to the diocese to study allegations involving the sexual abuse of minors.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

By Manya Brachear Pashman
Tribune reporter
10:00 a.m. CDT, May 29, 2014

Cardinal Francis George will give a video deposition today tied to multiple lawsuits against the archdiocese, alleging sexual abuse by former Roman Catholic priest and convicted sex offender Daniel McCormack.

Contrary to depositions George has given in the past, today’s interview could be included as evidence in upcoming trials. Marc Pearlman, one of the attorneys conducting the deposition, said the video could be used in the future if the cardinal becomes too ill to take the stand or leaves the city or country after he retires.

While George has said his death is not imminent and his public schedule has not lagged, he announced in March that doctors had discovered new cancer cells in his right kidney and he underwent chemotherapy.

The deposition covers multiple lawsuits, including one filed in December by Darryl McArthur, the first person to identify himself in a sex abuse allegation against McCormack.

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AUSTRALIA
Maitland Mercury

By Emma Swain May 29, 2014

A report into the Special Commission of Inquiry into alleged child abuse in the Catholic diocese of Maitland-Newcastle will be delivered to the Governor today.

Commissioner Margaret Cunneen SC will deliver the report which will also include a recommendation regarding the publication of the document.

The report will contain a thorough examination of the two terms of reference into which the commissioner was mandated to inquire, including why Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox was ordered to stop his investigations into the allegations.

And whether Catholic Church officials facilitated, assisted or co-operated with police investigations of relevant matters.

The report will also mention whether investigations were hindered, if witnesses were discouraged or if evidence was destructed.

The NSW inquiry was launched in 2012 to investigate alleged abuse by senior church members, along with allegations the church helped cover up those offences.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Telemundo Chicago

La Arquidiócesis de Chicago dio a conocer que el Cardenal Francis George presentará una declaración jurada en video sobre un ex sacerdote que ha sido condenado por abusar de niños.

La vocera de la Arquidiócesis Colleen Dolan dijo que el Cardenal responderá las preguntas de un abogado con respecto a Daniel McCormack, en lo que llamó como “parte rutinaria del proceso de la corte”.

Dolan dijo que la declaración jurada se realiza en el caso de que George no sea físicamente capaz de hacerlo en el futuro. George recientemente recibió quimioterapia para tratar el cancer. McCormack se declaró culpable en el 2007.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – Lateline

Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Broadcast: 29/05/2014
Reporter: Tony Jones

A Special Commission Of Inquiry into sexual abuse and the alleged cover-up in the New South Wales Hunter region is due to hand down its findings tomorrow.

Transcript

TONY JONES, PRESENTER: A special commission of inquiry into sexual abuse and alleged cover-up in the New South Wales Hunter Region is due to hand down its findings tomorrow, but part of the final report will kept confidential.

The special commission investigated allegations against clergy and police in the Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle.

The inquiry was sparked by whistleblower Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox.

Commissioner Margaret Cunneen SC heard evidence about how the police and the Church responded to paedophilia within the Church, including the activities of the now-deceased priests, Denis McAlinden and James Fletcher.

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UNITED STATES
National Survivor Advocates Coalition

EDITORIAL

It’s a mighty rare occasion when in this space we take up for a bishop.

But we think that about 5,000 of them got quite an unfair swipe during Pope Francis’ airborne press conference on his way back from the Holy Land.

We are not shedding many tears about that but we do ask: Why aren’t the about 5,000 bishops in the world who aren’t under investigation asking who is at the top of their now under suspicion lungs?

Why should people have to guess about it?

Why is a cloudy picture left of whether these bishops abused or aided and abetted abusers – and/or or both?

How can Catholics or any men and women of goodwill in the world buy this as progress in the resolving of the sexual abuse crisis?

If any President, Speaker of the House, President Pro Tem of the Senate and/or Chief Justice of the United States or any Associate Justice dropped into a press conference that three members of the United States Congress, three United States Ambassadors, three Justices of the Supreme Court, three members of the White House senior staff were under investigation for crimes, didn’t name them but said one of them was found guilty but the decider of punishment did know what it should be — who would stand for this? Let alone think the sayer was swell?

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CANADA
Sylvia’s Site

The date for the verdict in the Eric Dejaeger omi sex abuse trial has been tentatively set for 12 September 2014:

28 May 2014: Nunavut judge reserves decision in Eric Dejaeger trial

Note that is a tentative date. Justice Robert Kilpatrick has said that of he finishes his judgement earlier the court date could be changed.

The news I suppose is bood news and bad news. Good news that the judge is going to spend time going through testimony and evidence, and good in that we know exactly where Dejaeger is for the next three-and-a-half months, and good in that Dejaeger will be more than capable of travelling to Edmonton while in custody for his preliminary hearing in Edmonton Alberta on 31 July 2014 – that means the hearing won’t be postponed, and that’s good for the complainants!

That’s bad news in that it will be a few months before the many complainant who have essentially been called liars hear the outcome.

I’m not sure of the process in Nunavut, but once the verdict is rendered there will probably be a sentencing hearing and opportunity for victims to give or have their Victim Impact Statements read into the record in court, and then sentencing.

Pray that justice is done here. Please pray that justice is done.

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IRELAND
The Tablet

29 May 2014 12:22 by Sarah Mac Donald

A new initiative to reach out to survivors of clerical sexual abuse has been set up by the Irish Church.

Towards Peace is seeking to help victims to re-engage with their faith and the first of four regional launches took place in St Joseph’s parish, Cork, last Sunday with a Mass of healing and reconciliation said by the Bishop of Cork and Ross, John Buckley, and the Bishop of Killaloe, Kieran O’Reilly.

The initiative came as Pope Francis announced that he is to meet abuse victims in the Vatican. The Tablet understands that he will meet survivors from the United Kingdom and Ireland.

The Irish initiative aims to provide a “spiritual companion” to accompany victims in a journey towards healing their faith. It has been set up after requests from survivors to the Irish bishops for a pastoral response, according to Una Allen, who chairs Towards Peace.

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MEXICO
El Financiero

Leonardo Kourchenko

El caso del cura expulsado por el Vaticano apenas esta semana, plantea las condiciones para que, por primera vez, la justicia mexicana aborde un caso de esta naturaleza con la gravedad y el peso total de la ley.

Eduardo Córdova Bautista ejerció como sacerdote en la Arquidiócesis de San Luis Potosí por más de tres décadas, acumulando denuncias y acusaciones por violación y abuso sexual a menores. Nadie hizo nada en todos estos años: prelados, obispos, funcionarios públicos, gobernadores. Todos fungieron como silentes encubridores al grado de otorgarle cargos y funciones muy por encima de su calidad moral.

Alberto Athié, un ejemplar exsacerdote que hoy dedica su energía y talento a proteger a víctimas de estos criminales pederastas incrustados en la estructura eclesiástica, ha señalado la posible existencia de más de 100 casos documentados de menores que fueron víctimas de este criminal.

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MEXICO
Pulso

[The church does not consider Cordova to be a fugitive.]

No se tiene conocimiento de denuncias presentadas ante la Procuraduría General de la República (PGR) en contra del sacerdote Eduardo Córdova Bautista por presuntos casos de pederastia clerical, aseguró el presidente del Colegio de Abogados Católicos de México, Armando Martínez Gómez.

Esto pese a que hace unos días, presuntas víctimas y la organización Iniciativa Ciudadana informaron ante medios de información que ya existía una denuncia ante la Fiscalía Especial para los Delitos de Violencia contra las Mujeres y la Trata de Personas (FEVIMTRA) de la PGR.

El abogado Armando Martínez dijo ayer que ellos como representantes de la Iglesia potosina, no han sido notificados al respecto por autoridades federales, en este caso por la PGR o la Dirección de Asuntos Religiosos y Culto Público de la Secretaría de Gobernación.

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MEXICO
Excelsior

[‘Drop your pants’, the pederast priest told the victims.]

28/05/2014 19:39 Karla Méndez/Corresponsal

SAN LUIS POTOSÍ, 28 de mayo.- Tras 30 años de gozar de impunidad, el ex sacerdote Eduardo Córdova Bautista, fue expulsado por el Vaticano y las investigaciones continúan para esclarecer las más de 100 denuncias en su contra por abuso sexual de menores.

Fue el pasado 20 de mayo, cuando la Procuraduría General de Justicia de San Luís Potosí anunció que atraería la investigación del ex sacerdote, luego de que se tuviera conocimiento de que el Vaticano ordenó una investigación al respecto.

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MEXICO
La Razon

[Córdova was in Rome and then in Spain and then they lost track.]

De acuerdo a una entrevista que publicó el portal SinEmbargo, Eduardo Córdova Bautista, el ex sacerdote de San Luis Potosí acusado desde hace 30 años de haber abusado sexualmente de menores de edad, viajó con una comitiva de obispos mexicanos a El Vaticano para asistir a la canonización de Juan Pablo II, y ya no regresó a México, denunció el activista Alberto Athié Gallo.

“Sabemos que se fue con los obispos mexicanos a la canonización de Juan Pablo II y se estuvo allá todo el proceso, después se fue a España y ahí se le perdió la pista”, dijo en entrevista con SinEmbargo.

En tanto, en una rueda de Prensa la Arquidiócesis mostró su rechazo a que se le denomine “prófugo” al padre Eduardo Córdova Bautista, señalado de pederasta y separado de sus funciones ministeriales de la Iglesia, porque ni siquiera las víctimas han ratificado la denuncia del Arzobispado y porque no hay ni ante la PGR, algo formal.

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MEXICO
La Jornada

[Is Eduardo Cordova a lone pederast?]

Carlos Martínez García

Hay plena constancia de que hace una década perpetró abusos sexuales contra adolescentes de la parroquia Nuestra Señora de la Anunciación. Madres de algunas de las víctimas denunciaron al párroco Eduardo Córdova Bautista ante quien fue entonces obispo de San Luis Potosí, Luis Morales Reyes. El alto funcionario eclesiástico solamente sacó a Córdova Bautista de la parroquia para enviarlo como capellán a un centro de religiosas.

Los datos anteriores, y muchos más, han sido certeramente documentados por Sanjuana Martínez y publicados en La Jornada. En su relación de los hechos, Sanjuana refiere cómo, en días pasados, cuando víctimas salieron a la luz pública para denunciar la conducta sexual depredadora de Córdova Bautista, el vocero de la arquidiócesis potosina (Jesús Priego Rivera) sostuvo que los cargos eran falsos. Recurrió a la muy usada maniobra eclesiástica romana, en casos parecidos y por todo el mundo, de señalar a los denunciantes de estar interesados en difamar a la institución religiosa.

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SPAIN
Gnomes

‘DOZENS’ of Catholic priests in Spain are married, but bishops turn a ‘blind eye’, according to the Church amid calls by women who have vicars as husbands to scrap the ‘celibacy rule’.

Although the Church will not revel the full figures, around 6,000 priests in Spain are married and, worldwide, some 100,000.

Bishops allegedly turn a blind eye to this in Spain provided the vicar in question does not appear in the media, does not attempt to ‘convert’ others to giving up celibacy and it does not compromise his faith.

The ‘celibacy law’ was passed in the year 1139, although it was rarely adhered to before the mid-16thcentury and even then amid great resistance, and was purely for financial reasons – unmarried priests with no children would leave all their worldly goods to the Church when they died.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Get Hampshire

May 29, 2014 By Stephen Lloyd

Retired vicar Brian Spence denies nine counts of indecent assault on four girls aged under 16 between 1995 and 1999

A retired vicar from Hook has told a court that children often sat on his lap in Sunday school and on other church occasions.

But 74-year-old Brian Spence, of Nursery Close, denies his actions amounted to nine counts of indecently assaulting four girls aged under 16.

All the offences are alleged to have taken place between 1995 and November 1999 when he was vicar of St John the Baptist Church in Crowthorne.

Spence, who was more recently priest-in-charge at St Mark’s Church in Englefield before he retired, entered the witness box at Reading Crown Court on Tuesday (May27).

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MEXICO
Pulso

Lo denunciaron una y otra vez. Dijeron que ese hombre vestido de sotana y con influencia política en San Luis Potosí, Eduardo Córdova Bautista, había convertido el confesionario en una trampa a la que guiaba a niños y jóvenes para abusar sexualmente de ellos.

Víctimas, sus madres y padres, lo comenzaron a advertir desde hace 30 años, pero apenas el pasado jueves 22 de mayo la Procuraduría General de Justicia (PGJE) de San Luis Potosí inició la averiguación previa contra el presbítero, quien fungía también como Consejero Ciudadano de Transparencia y Vigilancia para las Adquisiciones y Contratación de Obra Pública del Gobernador priista Fernando Toranzo Fernández.

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MEXICO
IOL

May 29 2014
By Lizbeth Diaz

Mexico City – The Roman Catholic Church in Mexico has for the first time filed a criminal complaint against a priest accused of child sex abuse, after the Vatican ordered his removal, the Church’s lawyer said on Wednesday.

The criminal complaint was made public after Pope Francis said on Monday he would show zero tolerance for anyone in the Church who abused children and compared sexual abuse of children by priests to a “satanic Mass”.

The complaint was made last week in the central state of San Luis Potosi against Eduardo Cordova, a priest accused of abusing a 16-year-old boy, said Armando Martinez, president of Mexico’s school of Catholic lawyers.

If tried and convicted, the priest could face jail in a major departure from the Church’s long-held practice of dealing with such cases in-house.

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MICHIGAN
WNEM

By Wesley Goheen, Web Managing Editor

GENESEE COUNTY, MI (WNEM) –

The case of a priest accused of inappropriately touching two students has been turned over to the Genesee County prosecutor’s office.

Grand Blanc Police completed their investigation involving 53-year-old Ken Coughlin, a priest at Holy Family Catholic School.

Father Coughlin was appointed pastor in June 2007. He heads a parish of more than 6,000 people which includes a pre-school through eight grade school of roughly 500 students.

The prosecutor will review the reports and determine whether to file charges.

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MINNESOTA
KSTP

[with video]

By: Beth McDonough

A newly released deposition shows the former top deputy at the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis suggested that Archbishop John Nienstedt consider the option of resigning in light of the clergy sex abuse scandal.

The Rev. Peter Laird resigned as the archdiocese’s vicar general last fall. Laird was the second in command, which means from 2009-2013 he was in charge of investigations, a whistleblower on the inside.

According to Laird’s court deposition made public Wednesday, he also suggested the resignation option to Nienstedt twice as the archdiocese struggled to respond to allegations that it mishandled clergy accused of abusing children.

“I think leaders have a responsibility to be accountable for decisions whenever they take place in an organization, and to signal trust. And the most important thing is that the archdiocese doesn’t have anything to hide, and let transparency work it’s course, “Laird said during the deposition.

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ILLINOIS
Christian Post

Willow Creek Volunteer Convicted of Sexually Abusing 2 Special Needs Children at Birthday Party, Inside Church

BY MORGAN LEE , CHRISTIAN POST REPORTER
May 28, 2014

A former youth volunteer at the Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois, has pleaded guilty to sexually abusing two more special needs children and was sentenced Tuesday to serve seven years in prison.

Robert Sobczak, 20, pleaded guilty to molesting a 15-year-old at a birthday party and an 8-year-old at WCC, respectively.

Sobczak has also been convicted of sexually abusing another special needs boy at WCC. The former volunteer was sentenced to two years of probation and forced to register as a sex offender after he pleaded guilty to that charge in December.

In February, two lawsuits were filed against Willow Creek Community Church, claiming the megachurch failed to prevent the two boys from being sexually abused by a volunteer.

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OKLAHOMA
KFOR

[with video]

MAY 28, 2014, BY PAIGE HILL

PERRY, Okla. – A business administrator at a local church is behind bars after being accused of sexually abusing a female relative for two years.

According to court documents, a family friend notified DHS after the 13-year-old’s mother told her that 36-year-old Scott Barber was touching her daughter inappropriately.

Barber works at Nichols Hills United Methodist Church.

He is from the small town of Perry where the news was shocking to not only their neighbors but even Police Chief Brian Thomas.

“We’re 5,500 population, I know a lot of people by face,” says Thomas. “When I saw the video I did recognize him as being a member of our community but I never would have thought anything like this was going on.”

During an interview with police, the 13-year-old told investigators the abuse started two years ago.

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MONTANA
Daily Reporter

By MATT VOLZ Associated Press
First Posted: May 28, 2014

HELENA, Montana — A federal bankruptcy judge on Wednesday rejected a request by an order of nuns to bring the Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena back into state court to share in any monetary judgment that goes against it in a pair of child sex-abuse lawsuits.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Terry Myers on Wednesday ruled against the Ursuline Sisters of the Western Province’s motion to lift a stay in legal proceedings granted to the diocese when it filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this year.

The diocese’s bankruptcy reorganization is part of a $15 million settlement with hundreds of people who said they were sexually abused as children across western Montana from the 1940s to the 1970s by clergy and employees of the diocese and the order of nuns.

The lawsuits filed in 2011 include a combined 362 plaintiffs.

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CHICAGO (IL)
csnchicago

Archdiocese of Chicago says Cardinal Francis George will give a video-recorded deposition about a former priest who has been convicted of abusing children.

Archdiocese spokeswoman Colleen Dolan says the cardinal will answer attorney questions Thursday regarding Daniel McCormack. She called it a “routine part of the court process.” Dolan says the deposition is being done in case George isn’t physically able in the future. George recently had chemotherapy for cancer near his right kidney.

McCormack pleaded guilty in 2007. George said after McCormack’s indictment he should have pushed harder for details about the allegations. The cardinal launched an investigation that found church procedures for removing priests were “far from perfect.”

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VIRGINIA
Charisma News

5/28/2014 JENNIFER LECLAIRE

Joe Donahue—the pastor hired to fill Geronimo Aguilar’s shoes and bring healing to the Virginia megachurch—has been released from his position. (youthevangelist.com)

After being arrested on sexual abuse charges, Geronimo Aguilar left Richmond Outreach Center (ROC) about a year ago. Now, Joe Donahue—the pastor hired to fill his shoes and bring healing to the Virginia megachurch—is also on his way out the door.

“This man is the man God has raised up as the leader of the Richmond Outreach Center, and he will lead this ministry into the future,” Jonathan Falwell, who has been acting as a consultant for ROC, told the congregation when they announced the former teaching pastor at First Redeemer Church in Cumming, Georgia, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

“I’m telling you tonight, God has heard the prayer of the Richmond Outreach Center … and God has said … ‘I will deliver you from the hands of every single person who mocked this church. And I will deliver you from the hands of every single person who laughed at this church.’ … There is a new day dawning for the Richmond Outreach Center, and that day begins right now,” Falwell said at the time.

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CHICAGO (IL)
nwi

Associated Press

CHICAGO | The Archdiocese of Chicago says Cardinal Francis George will give a video-recorded deposition about a former priest who has been convicted of abusing children.

Archdiocese spokeswoman Colleen Dolan says the cardinal will answer attorney questions Thursday regarding Daniel McCormack. She called it a “routine part of the court process.” Dolan says the deposition is being done in case George isn’t physically able in the future. George recently had chemotherapy for cancer near his right kidney.

McCormack pleaded guilty in 2007. George said after McCormack’s indictment he should have pushed harder for details about the allegations. The cardinal launched an investigation that found church procedures for removing priests were “far from perfect.”

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ARIZONA
The Arizona Republic

Michael Clancy, The Republic | azcentral.com May 28, 2014

A Phoenix priest has resigned as a pastor as the diocese investigates “several complaints” against him.

The complaints to the diocese came from parents and other adults at St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic parish and school. The pastor of the parish was the Rev. John Ehrich, who also serves as Bishop Thomas Olmsted’s chief adviser on medical ethics.

Ehrich became known during the dispute over the Catholic character of St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix, doing several interviews explaining the bishop’s decision that the hospital could no longer be considered Catholic. The hospital had done a pregnancy-ending procedure to save a woman’s life that the bishop said did not fit Catholic guidelines for terminating a pregnancy.

Ehrich was not available for comment, and the diocese declined to provide his contact information.

Ehrich took a voluntary leave as the investigation, which the diocese said is being done by an outside party, got under way. Parishioners at St. Thomas, at 24th Street and Campbell Avenue, were informed on May 2. Two weeks later, the diocese announced that Ehrich had resigned as pastor of the church “for his own well-being and for the good of the parish.”

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MINNESOTA
CBS Minnesota

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — Newly released records show the man who was second in charge to Archbishop John Nienstedt had urged him to step down during the investigation of sexual abuse in the church.

The sworn deposition of former Archdiocese Vicar General Peter Laird was released on Wednesday.
Laird said he suggested resignation to Nienstedt on at least two occasions. And Laird himself resigned abruptly last October.

“I think leaders have a responsibility to be accountable for decisions whenever they take place in an organization and to signal trust,” Laird said. “And if the most important thing is that the Archdiocese doesn’t have anything to hide, then let transparancy work its course.”

Victims groups say Laird should have made his recommendation for Nienstedt to resign public.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 05/28/2014

A former top deputy of the Twin Cities archdiocese said he suggested last fall that Archbishop John Nienstedt resign in the wake of allegations that leadership mishandled clergy sexual abuse cases.

The Rev. Peter Laird, former vicar general and moderator of the curia, said in a May 12 deposition that resignation was “among options” he suggested to Nienstedt in late September or early October.

Laird himself resigned Oct. 3. Ten days earlier, Minnesota Public Radio reported the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis possessed but did not give to police information regarding convicted St. Paul priest Curtis Wehmeyer’s sexual behavior.

The media report prompted his resignation, and his suggestion that Nienstedt do the same, Laird said.

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314-503-0003, SNAPdorris@gmail.com)

Twice Archbishop John Nienstedt’s former second-in-command suggested that the archbishop consider resigning, according to a just-released sworn deposition.

[Star Tribune]

We are grateful that Msgr. Peter Laird made this recommendation but what he should have done is call police and prosecutors, like whistleblower Jennifer Haselberger did. And he should have voluntarily disclosed that he asked or urged that Nienstedt step down, instead of keeping quiet and making this public when he was forced to do so under oath and tough questioning by attorneys for a brave abuse victim.

At the same time, no one should be fooled into thinking that a bishop’s resignation fundamentally changes anything. Msgr. Laird knows that in the Catholic hierarchy there’s a long-standing, widespread and deeply-rooted culture of self-preservation and secrecy, especially in clergy sex abuse and cover up cases. So one person leaving – whether by promotion or death or resignation – really changes little.

We don’t believe Nienstedt will resign. We don’t think he should be allowed to resign. We believe that Pope Francis should fire him, plain and simple. That might make a difference. That might make other Catholic officials think twice before endangering kids, protecting predators, deceiving parishioners, hiding evidence, mistreating whistleblowers and stonewalling police and prosecutors.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Statement by Barbara Blaine of Chicago, Founder and President of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 312-399-4747, SNAPblaine@gmail.com )

We are glad Cardinal Francis George will be deposed in the disturbing Fr. Daniel McCormack abuse and cover up case. But we are upset that some records about McCormack are still secret, even though George and other Catholic officials formally pledged 12 years ago to be “open and transparent” in these cases.

[WTTW]

We hope victims’ attorneys will get to question George about his deceptive and reckless actions in other cases too, including those of Fr. Kenneth Martin, Fr. Joseph Bennett, Fr. Norbert Maday, Fr. John Calicott, Fr. Michael Yakaitis, Fr. Elijah Martin and about other church staff who ignored or concealed abuse, like Fr. Leonard Dubi and Fr. Edward Grace.

To some, the McCormack case may seem like “old news.” But the devastating and preventable pain of McCormack’s victims is likely very much current. And there’s still much more about this horrific case that remains hidden, we believe. Chicago citizens and Catholics deserve to know the full truth about the terribly selfish and irresponsible actions by several church officials that enabled a serial predator to assault more children.

Finally, keep in mind that almost every cleric tied to the McCormack scandal was subsequently promoted.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

THE Abbott government insists the royal commission into child sex abuse has sufficient funds, despite some of its funding being funnelled into the home insulation inquiry.

The attorney-general’s department has revealed $4 million was redirected to the “pink batts’’ royal commission.

But the government says the amount came from ”savings’’ in the department’s capital budget and from money allocated but not used by the child abuse royal commission for witness legal costs.

“The royal commission will have sufficient funding to complete its inquiry,’’ a spokesman for Attorney-General George Brandis said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)

Daniel Hurst, political correspondent
theguardian.com, Wednesday 28 May 2014

A senior bureaucrat has moved to allay concerns about nearly $7m in savings gained from the royal commission into child sexual abuse, saying they were the result of lower-than-expected capital and legal costs.

The opposition questioned the redirection of $6.7m of previously earmarked funds into a separate royal commission – the Abbott government-ordered inquiry into Labor’s home insulation program – and accused the attorney general, George Brandis, of concealing the decision.

But the secretary of the Attorney General’s Department, Roger Wilkins, said the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse, initiated by the previous Labor government, was not being under-resourced.

Wilkins said capital spending on fit-out work had been $4m less than expected, and the other saving of $2.7m arose because the government had not incurred forecast expenditure for commonwealth witness legal costs.

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service

David Gibson | May 28, 2014

(RNS) Pope Francis’ announcement this week that he would meet with victims of sexual abuse by priests is dividing victim advocates, with some dismissing the move as “meaningless” and others endorsing it as a positive step, albeit taken belatedly and under pressure.

“A welcome and overdue change,” said Anne Barrett Doyle of BishopAccountability.org, a prominent activist pushing the Catholic Church to overhaul its policies and practices on clergy abuse.

“Good to hear Pope Francis speak out and meet survivors,” tweeted Marie Collins, an abuse victim whom Francis named to a Vatican commission to promote reforms, on hearing that the pope compared clergy abuse to a priest celebrating a black Mass.

But others said Francis’ first-ever encounter with victims — and his pledge for “zero tolerance” for abusive clerics of any rank — was simply stagecraft aimed at distracting the public from what they say are the pope’s larger failures to address the abuse crisis.

“His upcoming and self-serving meeting with victims is more of what we’ve seen for decades — more gestures, promises, symbolism and public relations,” Joelle Casteix of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, said in a statement shortly after Francis announced the meeting during an in-flight press conference Monday night (May 26) on his return from a visit to the Holy Land.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Madeleine Baran St. Paul, Minn. May 28, 2014

A former top official of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis contradicted Archbishop John Nienstedt’s account of how top officials responded to a sexual abuse claim against a Catholic priest, according to sworn testimony made public today.

The Rev. Peter Laird described the flurry of decisions made in June 2012 when the chancery learned that the Rev. Curtis Wehmeyer had been accused of sexually abusing a child. Laird said he kept Nienstedt informed of the situation as it unfolded, according to a transcript of his May 12, 2014 deposition released by victims’ attorney Jeff Anderson. Nienstedt has said under oath that he did not talk to Laird.

The testimony of Laird and other archdiocesan officials was provided as part of a lawsuit filed by a man who says he was sexually abused by the Rev. Thomas Adamson in the mid-1970s. The man alleges the archdiocese and the Diocese of Winona created a public nuisance by keeping information on accused priests secret. The man’s attorneys, Anderson and Mike Finnegan, argued that the deposition could provide evidence of a pattern of deception by the archdiocese.

Betrayed By Silence: An MPR News investigation
Explore the full investigation Clergy abuse, cover-up and crisis in the Twin Cities Catholic church

Laird’s explanation for the decisions on Wehmeyer also contradicts the testimony of two other officials.

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MINNESOTA
Houston Chronicle

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A newly released deposition shows the former top deputy at the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis suggested that Archbishop John Nienstedt consider resigning in light of the clergy sex abuse scandal.

The Rev. Peter Laird resigned as the archdiocese’s vicar general last fall. According to Laird’s court deposition made public Wednesday, he also suggested the resignation option to Nienstedt twice as the archdiocese struggled to respond to allegations that it mishandled clergy accused of abusing children.

The Star Tribune (http://strib.mn/1tnUBi5 ) reports Laird said Nienstedt did not respond to his suggestion.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

A Stormont minister believed two care homes run by nuns in Londonderry saved the state money, Northern Ireland’s Historical Abuse Inquiry has heard.

The inquiry has been examining 1960s letters between state bodies and the Sisters of Nazareth, who ran the homes at Bishop Street and Termonbacca.

It was shown a 1964 memo by Home Affairs Minister Bill Craig.

He said children would otherwise “have to be accommodated at much greater expense by welfare authorities”.

St Joseph’s Home, Termonbacca, and Nazareth House children’s home in Bishop Street in Derry are the first two of 13 state, church and voluntary institutions being examined by the inquiry during the period from 1922 to 1995.

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AUSTRALIA
The Dallas Morning News

By Reese Dunklin
rdunklin@dallasnews.com
11:58 am on May 28, 2014

One of the most notorious figures from our 2004-2005 investigation about global transfers of predatory Catholic priests has been sentenced to 10½ years in jail.

The judge choked up during a hearing Monday in Melbourne, Australia, while describing Frank Klep’s “vile” sex crimes and “devastating” impact on abuse victims. According to news reports, the judge left the courtroom to compose himself.

“You’ve ruined lives and the ripple effect has touched every aspect of these young boys, and their families as well,” Judge Frank Gucciardo was quoted as telling Klep.

“There is no doubt,” the judge added, “your conduct plummets the depth of evil hypocrisy.”

Klep pleaded guilty late last year to sex-abuse charges involving 15 victims. He struck a deal with prosecutors to reduce the number of charges by half.

During a pre-sentencing hearing last month, he apologized to victims, saying: “I abused your trust and betrayed you in the most appalling circumstances.” Some of the now-grown victims watching in the courtroom walked out.

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CANADA
CBC News

The Crown and defence wrapped up their closing arguments this morning in the Eric Dejaeger trial, and Justice Robert Kilpatrick has reserved his decision.

The former priest is charged with dozens of sex offences against children, dating back to his time working as a priest in Igloolik three decades ago.

Dejaeger, 67, has pleaded guilty to eight of the charges.

He admits he touched eight boys in a sexual and inappropriate manner, but says he is not guilty on all the other counts.

Kilpatrick says the law involved in this case is fairly complex and there’s a lot of evidence to go through.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
KMOX

Fred Bodimer
May 28, 2014

ST. LOUIS (KMOX) – A local clergy abuse survivor says the Pope needs to name names, now that he’s told reporters the Vatican is investigating three Bishops for their role in child abuse crimes or coverups.

On his return flight from the Middle East to the Vatican, Pope Francis said three bishops are under investigation, and that one of them has already been convicted.

The Religion News Service along with SNAP’s David Clohessy say the only bishop convicted of anything in connection with the coverup of clergy abuse is Kansas City St. Joseph Bishop Robert Finn, a St. Louis native.

“We’re not in favor of punishment for punishment’s sake,” Clohessy says. “We’re in favor of punishment because it’s a way to discourage bishops from doing what they’ve done for decades, which is continue to protect predators, endanger kids and hide evidence from police and prosecutors.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
WTTW

Paris Schutz | May 28, 2014

Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George is set to give a deposition on May 29, in a group of lawsuits involving the former priest and convicted sex offender Daniel McCormack. Because of George’s physical condition, the deposition is considered standard procedure and could possibly be used in lieu of trial testimony, according to one of the plaintiff’s lawyers.

The questioning could last all day and is likely to focus on what George knew about McCormack and when he knew about it. Plaintiff’s attorneys have criticized George for promoting McCormack and keeping him on at a West Side parish, even after he was arrested on suspicion of sexual abuse of minors and then later released. An archdiocese lay review board voted overwhelmingly in favor of removing McCormack from the priesthood in 2005, but George reportedly didn’t follow the board’s advice.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: JEAN HOPFENSPERGER , Star Tribune Updated: May 28, 2014

‘Leaders have a responsibility to be accountable,’ the Rev. Peter Laird said in deposition.

Archbishop John Nienstedt should consider resigning in light of the clergy sex abuse scandal , the former archdiocese vicar general suggested last fall.

The suggestion was one of several ideas that the Rev. Peter Laird said he laid out to the Twin Cities archbishop, according to a court deposition of Laird made public Wednesday.

Laird said he suggested the resignation option twice as the archdiocese struggled to respond to allegations that it mishandled clergy accused of abusing minors.

“I think leaders have a responsibility to be accountable for decisions whenever they take place in an organization and — and to signal trust … and that the archdiocese doesn’t have anything to hide,” said Laird in the May 12 deposition.

Laird himself resigned not long afterward.

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MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

News Release
May 28, 2014

[the deposition]

[deposition videos]

Deposition raises more questions surrounding truth and accountability in the Archdiocese of St. Paul & Minneapolis

(St. Paul, MN) – The sworn testimony of the Archdiocese’s former Vicar General Father Peter Laird has been publicly released by attorneys as a part of a civil lawsuit filed in 2013 in Ramsey County; Doe 1 vs. the Archdiocese of St. Paul & Minneapolis, Diocese of Winona and Father Thomas Adamson.

“Father Laird’s deposition raises serious questions about Archbishop Nienstedt’s testimony and whether or not Nienstedt was telling the truth,” said Mike Finnegan, one of Doe 1’s attorneys. “What Doe 1 and other survivors want is the truth, which they deserve.”

The entire deposition transcript and video clips are available at www.andersonadvocates.com and on YouTube (AndersonAdvocates). A DVD copy of the video deposition is also available at our office.

Contact: Mike Finnegan: Cell: 612.205.5531 Office: 651.927.7872
Sarah Odegaard: Cell: 612.616.4218 Office: 651.927.7872

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DEUTSCHLAND
Bistum Trier

[sexueller Missbrauch durch Angehörige in der katholischen Kirche: Bistum Trier will Ethik-Kodex erarbeiten – MissBiT]

[Summary: Representatives of the four pastoral professional groups in the Trier diocese, are to develop a code of ethics for professional chaplains and chaplains.]

Trier – Vertreterinnen und Vertreter der vier pastoralen Berufsgruppen im Bistum Trier – Gemeinde- und Pastoralreferentinnen und –referenten, Diakone und Priester – haben befürwortet, einen gemeinsamen Ethikkodex für professionelle Seelsorgerinnen und Seelsorger zu erarbeiten. Eine Arbeitsgruppe soll die Entwicklung konkret planen. Das ist das Ergebnis eines Studientags, zu dem Vertreterinnen und Vertreter aller vier Berufsgruppen Mitte Mai zusammengekommen waren.

Beispiel aus Österreich

Die Seelsorgerinnen und Seelsorger hatten den Moraltheologen Professor Dr. Martin Rosenberger von der Universität Linz zum Studientag eingeladen; er ist Mitherausgeber des Ethikkodex professioneller Seelsorger der österreichischen Diözesen. Er betonte: „Ethik soll entlasten, nicht belasten.“ Ethik soll helfen, leichter mit dem Leben zurechtzukommen. Die österreichischen Theologen hätten sich gefragt: „Wir lehren Medizin-Ethik, Bio-Ethik und Wirtschafts-Ethik – aber wo im Lehrplan des theologischen Studiums finden wir ‚Ethik für Seelsorger’?“ Zwar hatten sich die österreichischen Theologen schon vor dem Bekanntwerden der Missbrauchsfälle mit einem Ethikkodex beschäftigt, doch nach diesen Erfahrungen habe man „aus der Defensive herauskommen“ und die Herausforderungen einer berufsethischen Selbstverpflichtung annehmen wollen. „Der Ethikbedarf darf sich aber nicht auf die Frage des sexuellen Missbrauchs verengen“, warnte der Moraltheologe.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Fox 6

[with video]

by Brandon Cruz, updated on: 07:58pm, May 27, 2014

MILWAUKEE (WITI) — Pope Francis says he has “zero tolerance” for any clergy member who violates a child. On Monday, May 26th — it was announced that Pope Francis has agreed to meet with a group of clergy sexual abuse victims early next month. At least one group says the move by the pope isn’t enough.

Pope Francis is expected to meet with a group of victims of clergy sexual abuse at the Vatican.
Peter Isley — the Midwest Director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (or SNAP) says he’s skeptical.

“(The victims) are hand-selected by the Vatican. We don’t know who they are. Our organization has not been contacted. We weren’t invited. We weren’t asked,” Isley said.

SNAP is a group that consists of 18,000 clergy sex abuse victims from around the world.

Isley says their voices won’t be heard when the clergy sex abuse victims sit down with Pope Francis in June.

“To see this as a meeting, I think is a mistake. This is a negotiation and how this issue is after this negotiation is really what’s going to count,” Isley said.

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CALIFORNIA
SF Gate

Melody Gutierrez
Sunday, May 25, 2014

Sacramento — The state board that oversees California’s sex offender registration laws wants to thin out and overhaul the registry because they say it has grown too big and does not help law enforcement or the public differentiate between offenders who pose significant risks and those not likely to reoffend.

The California Sex Offender Management Board is recommending to the Legislature that only high-risk offenders, such as kidnappers and sexually violent predators, should be required to register for life. Others could be removed from the registry 10 to 20 years after the offense.

The list of almost 100,000 sex offenders is unwieldy, they said, because California requires all sex offenders, regardless of the type of offense, to register for life.

The result, according to a board report last month, is that the list includes many offenders “who do not necessarily pose a risk to the community,” including almost 900 whose last sex crime was more than 55 years ago.

Some law enforcement officials and lawmakers are supporting the recommendations acknowledging that public opinion is not on their side and risking the dreaded “soft on crime” label that has caused some politicians to avoid lending support.

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CALIFORNIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Statement by Melanie Jula Sakoda of Moraga, CA, East Bay Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 925-708-6175 cell, melanie.sakoda@gmail.com )

The California Sex Offender Management Board is recommending to the legislature that only high-risk offenders should be required to register for life. Others, characterized as “low risk,” could be removed from the registry 10 to 20 years after the offense. We are deeply concerned about this proposal.

[SF Gate]

We believe that if there is a problem with the sex offender registry being too confusing or too cumbersome, the appropriate remedy is to re-organize the list using categories like “least dangerous” and “most dangerous.” Totally removing identified sex offenders from the registry after a certain amount of time has passed with no new crimes DETECTED, puts children and vulnerable adults at risk. Allowing these criminals to return to obscurity should not be the solution.

The vast majority of sex offenses are never reported. Of those that are reported, an even smaller number result in convictions. Sex offender registries are not perfect. They certainly don’t identify those predators that have never been reported or convicted. But they do give us information that parents and other adults can use to decide for themselves whether or not they want to risk an association with a convicted offender.

Legislators who want to change the registry should move cautiously. The vulnerable and the wounded should be their priority, not those who have caused, and may still be causing, horrific pain and trauma.

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IRELAND
Rabble

In 1925, Galway County Council appealed to the Bon Secours sisters to open a nursing home for mothers and babies. Fifty years later two boys stumbled upon a mass grave.

Between 1925 and 1961 St.Mary’s Mother and Baby Home, Tuam, operated under the care of the congregation of Bon Secours. Reports now emerging about the ‘Home’ are what we have come to expect when dealing with institutions of the Catholic Church.

This institution provided space mainly for ‘illegitimate’ children and some mothers. Motherhood outside wedlock was regarded as shameful and the church preyed on the victims of this attitude, as we have discovered through the Magdalene Laundries revelations.

The children attending local schools the primary schools which were just up the street on Dublin Road in Tuam. One local man recalls:

‘I remember some of them in class in the Mercy Convent – they were treated marginally better than the traveller children. They were known locally as the ‘Home Babies’. For the most part the children were usually gone by school age – either adopted or dead.’

The women, or girls, sometimes found work with the nuns in the Grove Hospital.

Their children were fostered out – around the district or further. Some people believe their siblings or other relatives were fostered out and disappeared or died in the ‘Home’ without notice to the families.
An Irish Mail on Sunday front page article on 25th May 2014, recounted a local health board inspection report from April 16/17th 1944 which recorded 271 children and 61 single mothers for a total of 333. The ‘Home’ had capacity for 243.

The report continues listing children as ‘emaciated’, ‘pot-bellied’, ‘fragile’ with ‘flesh hanging loosely on limbs’. 31 children recorded in the ‘Sun room and balcony’ were ‘poor, emaciated and not thriving’. The oldest child to die, according to the MoS, was Sheila Tuohy, aged 9 in 1934. The youngest was Thomas Duffy, aged two days.

The two boys playing on a concrete slab near their homes in 1970, Barry Sweeney and Francis Hopkins, decided to crack the slab to see why it sounded hollow. To their distress they saw it was ‘full to the brim of skeletons’. The priest was called, Barry Sweeney remembers but he doesn’t know what happened after the spot was blessed.

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UNITED STATES
Religion Dispatch

By PHYLLIS ZAGANO

Ordination of Women to the Diaconate in the Eastern Churches: Essays by Cipriano Vagaggini
by Phyllis Zagano
Liturgical Press , 2013

What inspired you to produce Ordination of Women to the Diaconate in the Eastern Churches?

For many years, my academic research has centered on the restoration of women to the ordained diaconate in the Catholic Churches. One of the best-known scholarly essays regarding the historical reality of women ordained as deacons is by Cipriano Vagaggini, published in Orentialia Christiana Periodica.

Reportedly Pope Paul VI asked Vagaggini, in the early 1970s, about women deacons. The Catholic Church was restoring the diaconate as a permanent vocation for men, and the pope asked the logical question: could women be ordained to this sacred order as well? Vagaggini gave the long form—15,000 words—of the short answer: “yes.” But, he gave it in very difficult Italian. So while scholars knew about the essay, Vatican officialdom could basically ignore it.

I often mentioned it when I spoke, and a few years ago a woman wrote a diocesan bishop and included the essay in Italian. He wrote back to say that he read Italian and the essay did not support the ordination of women as deacons.

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MALTA
Times of Malta

Priest abuse victim Lawrence Grech welcomed Pope Francis’s zero tolerance stand against such “ugly crimes” and said he hoped the Vatican would not forget Malta in dealing with the matter.

“The Pope said he will be meeting about 70 victims of abuse from various countries next month and I hope Malta will not be forgotten,” Mr Grech told Times of Malta.

He said he did not expect the Pope to invite the Maltese victims. However, if the Holy Father decided to take action against bishops or members of the Church who closed an eye to child abuse by priests, this should also apply to Malta.

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