ABUSE TRACKER

NEW YORK (NY)
Epoch Times

Nov. 26, 2019

By Bowen Xiao

As a growing number of Roman Catholic dioceses across the United States investigate child sex-abuse claims against clergy and are releasing the names of priests accused of such crimes, another hidden problem has begun to surface—nuns who sexually abuse children.

At least 20 local, state, or federal investigations, either criminal or civil, into church clergy have begun since a Pennsylvania grand jury report released in 2018 detailed abuse by priests. But while those investigations could potentially lead to the release of even more names and accusations, victims’ advocates told The Epoch Times that religious orders should start listing the names of abusive nuns as well—a far less-reported problem, with fewer concrete statistics.

BishopAccountability.org, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit corporation that tracks cases of sexual abuse by clergy members, has identified over the years “a little over 100 known accused nuns,” Terry McKiernan, the founder of the website, told The Epoch Times. Its database, meanwhile, has tracked more than 6,000 accused priests across the United States.

“The numbers are fairly small, but that’s the number that is known,” McKiernan said, referring to the number of publicly accused abusive nuns. “Its a matter of some debate how big the problem actually is.”

Some of the names of the nuns are incomplete because the alleged victims couldn’t recall, according to a list of the names published in August. More names have since been added to the database that don’t appear on the list. The alleged victims are from across the country and come from a wide array of different religious orders.

McKiernan said most of the nuns his organization identified were accused of abuse “between the 1960s and the 1990s.” One group of accused nuns that stood out came from an orphanage in Louisville, Kentucky, where McKiernan said they saw the “highest concentration” of abusers in the database.

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ST. CLOUD (MN)
WJON Radiio

Nov. 27, 2019

By Lee Voss

A St. Cloud Priest has pleaded guilty to 3rd-degree criminal sexual conduct after having a sexual relationship with a woman he was counseling.

Fifty-three-year-old Father Anthony Oelrich was put on administrative leave and suspended of his priestly duties at Christ Church Newman Center after the claims surfaced in December 2017.

The St. Cloud Police Department began investigating after the woman came forward alleging a number of sexual encounters in late 2013 and early 2014.

The woman told investigators she began seeing Father Oelrich for spiritual guidance following a sexually abusive relationship. The abuse came to light during confession in December 2013.

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TALLAHASSEE (FL)
Tallahassee Democrat

Nov. 27, 2019

By Jeff Burlew

Eric Dudley, the founder of St. Peter’s Anglican Church in Tallahassee and an outspoken opponent of homosexuality, subjected aspiring priests and other young men to sexual misconduct and harassment and abused his power as long-time rector before he finally was forced to resign.

That’s according to a report by Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment (GRACE), an independent group that helps churches with abuse inquiries and investigated allegations against Dudley.

The report, released Tuesday, illustrates how he pursued attractive young men, showering them with attention and gifts and giving them jobs at the church, even as he publicly espoused anti-gay views.

Beyond the misconduct committed by Dudley, the organization found that the church did not take “substantive action” in response to complaints against him for a number of years.

The report said some members and leaders at St. Peter’s knew about misconduct complaints against Dudley since 2011 but that nothing was done until more allegations surfaced last year.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
The American Conservative

Nov. 26, 2019

By Rod Dreher

Finally some good news: an Argentine court does what the Argentine pope did not: hold sexually abusive priests accountable:

An Argentine court on Monday found two priests and a lay worker guilty of the sexual abuse of 10 former students of a Catholic school for the deaf, the first legal victory for a community of victims stretching from Italy to the Andes whose complaints about one of the clerics to church officials, including Pope Francis, went unheeded for years.

The verdict was another stain on the church’s handling of sex abuse cases in Francis’s native Argentina. Prosecutors last week requested an arrest warrant for Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta, a longtime associate of the pope accused of abusing two seminarians.

A Washington Post investigation this year found years of church inaction in the case of at least one of the priests convicted Monday in the abuse of male and female students at the Antonio Provolo Institute for Deaf and Hearing Impaired Children in the western Argentine city of Luján de Cuyo between 2004 and 2016.

The three-judge panel in the northwestern Argentine province of Mendoza ruled against the three defendants in 25 instances of abuse.

If you can stand it — these testimonies are strong stuff — here is a video report about the abuses of the deaf and mute children, both in Verona and in the sister school in Argentina. It features adults telling specifically what was done to them as children by their abusers (trigger warning). If you want to see the true face of evil, go to just before the 2:00 mark and watch the bedside hidden camera interview of a priest called Don Eligio Piccoli, identified by the abuse survivors as one of their attackers. He is bedridden and living in a church home — a church investigation found him guilty of the abuse, and sentenced him to prayer and penance — but apparently in his right mind. He admits that the stories of sodomy and sexual abuse are true, but he laughs about them and downplays them. Some life of prayer and penance that dirty old man is living! There is a second section continuing the interview later in the clip below:

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EAST HAMPTON (NY)
East Hampton Star

Nov. 27, 2019

By Mark Joseph Williams

We all face darkness along the human journey. I have. On the eve of another Advent, as Christmastime nears, I give thanks to him, Emmanuel, God, father, son, and the Holy Spirit for his grace alive in me, a survivor of clerical sexual abuse.

Sr. Joan Chittister, a Benedictine author, wrote, “Weeping is a very life-giving thing. It wisens the soul of the individual and it sounds alarms in society. The Book of Ecclesiastes may be nowhere more correct than here. There is definitely a time for weeping. If we do not weep on a personal level, we shall never understand other human beings.”

At the beginning of Lent in 2011, a few months before the landmark John Jay College of Criminal Justice report was released about the possible causes of clergy sexual abuse — a study commissioned by the American Roman Catholic bishops — news came out of Philadelphia: Thirty-seven priests credibly accused of sexual abuse or inappropriate behavior toward minors remained largely active in some ministerial capacity. Twenty-one have since been suspended. Back then, too, Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley of Boston led a delegation to Ireland to evaluate the life of the church there. He proclaimed in so many words that Catholicism would be virtually gone from the rhythm of Irish culture in 10 years.

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FARGO (ND)
Dickinson Press

Nov 26, 2019

By April Baumgarten

A priest in south-central North Dakota will not be criminally charged after a girl accused him of sexual misconduct while he was a clergyman in Fargo and Towner, but Catholic leaders will decide at a later date whether he can resume missionary work.

McHenry County State’s Attorney Joshua Frey announced Tuesday, Nov. 26, that he will not file charges against the Rev. Wenceslaus Katanga, who is on administrative leave pending an investigation by the Fargo Diocese. The announcement comes three months after the Cass County State’s Attorney’s Office declined criminal charges amid similar allegations in Fargo.

“I have concluded that there is insufficient evidence of criminal wrongdoing as well as questionable grounds for jurisdiction lying in McHenry County,” Frey said in his letter of declination. “Therefore, it is my opinion that I would be unable to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.”

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CINCINNATI (OH)
Crux

Nov. 27, 2019

By Nick Mayrand

New concerns about the handling of abuse accusations in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati and the neighboring Diocese of Covington surfaced last week in an investigative report that aired as a four-part local television series, “Culture of Silence.”

In the wake of the August indictment of a Cincinnati-area priest, Father Geoff Drew on nine charges of rape, the WCPO I-Team conducted a three-month investigation into the ways in which priests and religious brothers accused of abuse are tracked and monitored in the region.

The resulting report alleges that the I-Team “discovered a disturbing pattern in which local Catholic Church officials failed to track priests accused of abuse, didn’t disclose to the public all of the names of priests with credible allegations, and still refuse to answer questions about why more information isn’t available.”

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ONTARIO (CANADA)
Windsor Star

Nov. 26, 2019

By Trevor Wilhelm

A Windsor abuse survivor charged Tuesday that the London diocese’s reconciliation attempts, after decades of misconduct by predator priests, are insincere if it won’t publish the names of “credibly accused” clergy.

Brenda Brunelle said she emailed a letter to Bishop Ronald Fabbro early last week asking him to “do the right thing” and release the names of accused and convicted priests. She has not heard a response.

Four days after she sent her email, the Archdiocese of Vancouver, in a Canadian first, published the names of abuser priests in its ranks going back six decades.

“What’s very insulting is Ronald Fabbro is known publicly as the guy that has great empathy and strong desire to get a handle on this crisis,” said Brunelle, head of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) for Southwestern Ontario. “He speaks very polished words and certainly inspires hope to the faithful. But what’s actually happening is his actions are not marrying up with his words.”

Brunelle wants the diocese to publish a list of priests credibly accused of abuse including those charged or convicted, and anyone the church has paid out settlements for in civil cases.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post

Nov. 26, 2019

By Michelle Boorstein

West Virginia’s new bishop Tuesday called for his predecessor, Michael Bransfield, to pay the diocese $792,638, apologize to victims and to the diocese, and lose his place in the diocesan cemetery as part of a restitution package for alleged financial and sexual misconduct that some church experts say is a first for a bishop.

The announcement by Bishop Mark Brennan follows a statement in July by Pope Francis that Bransfield’s replacement should decide how the ousted leader “make personal amends.”

“I wish to make clear that it is not my intention to impoverish the former bishop,” wrote Brennan, saying the dollar figure isn’t exactly the amount of diocesan money Bransfield is accused of misspending or using for lavish personal expenses. “We regard the former bishop’s acceptance of this plan of amends as an act of restorative justice. It is also for his own spiritual good and his own healing as a man who professes to follow Christ. All proceeds from Bishop Bransfield’s repayment will be directed to a special fund to provide for the counseling, care and support of those who have suffered sexual abuse.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Weekend Australian Magazine

November 22, 2019

By Greg Bearup

A long-lost school friend calls out of the blue with a shocking revelation. Has nothing changed since the royal commission?

I’ve just come from a paintball combat zone with a dozen overhyped 13-year-olds when my phone rings. It’s Sunday, July 14, and on the line is a bloke called Mick McCudden, an old classmate who ­disappeared from school in 1985. “Greg, I need you to tell my story. I don’t want these bastards to get away with what they’ve done to me.”

I know the broad outline of Mick’s story. I’ve followed what happened to him, and others. Mick was sexually abused by a teacher at the boarding school in northern NSW we both attended and I know his life has been a mess ever since. The teacher pleaded guilty to crimes against Mick and a dozen other boys; the saga has been going on so long that this teacher has since died in jail. I know the order that ran the school, the Marist Fathers, has dragged its feet over compensating Mick for the damage he has suffered.

He has come to me because I am a journalist – but as I stand on the outskirts of the paintball field, I’m thinking: “I don’t even know if I can get his story into the paper. Will my editor even be interested? What’s new? What’s different? We’ve heard this all before.” I promise to get back to him during the week. What I don’t know is just how close to the edge Mick was when he made that call.

The next night my phone buzzes with this text message: “Gidday Greg mate. I’m over all this bullshit with the Marists/Catholic church. No one is prepared to take ownership of what’s happened to me… I plan to kill myself and join…” He mentions two of at least 10 boys who attended our school in the 1980s who killed themselves not long after leaving. “You probably won’t hear from me again, I’m sorry.”

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WHEELING (WV)
WTOV Channel 9

Nov. 26, 2019

In fulfilling the requirement of the Holy Father, Pope Francis, that former Bishop Michael J. Bransfield make amends for “some of the harm” he caused during his tenure and related to actions of sexual harassment of adults and misuse of Diocesan funds for personal benefit, Wheeling-Charleston Bishop Mark E. Brennan has outlined a detailed “plan of amends” that has been presented to the former bishop for his cooperation.

The plan calls for apologies to those adults whom he was found to have sexually harassed, as well as to the Catholic faithful of the Diocese for the harm he caused and the reputation damage to the Catholic Church in West Virginia. In addition, he is required also to apologize to members of the Chancery staff who were subjected to a culture of intimidation and fear of retribution in performing their responsibilities. The plan further defines significant financial restitution to the Diocese in the amount of $792,638.00 that is being required of former Bishop Bransfield, reflecting the amount determined to have been related purely to personal expenditures and unrelated to the performance of his official duties during his tenure.

The plan for amends has been detailed in a Letter to the Faithful by Bishop Brennan which can be accessed here: www.dwc.org

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WHEELING (WV)
The Intelligencer

Nov. 26, 2019

At 1 p.m. Tuesday, the Most Rev. Mark Brennan will make public the amends requirement of former bishop Michael Bransfield for his actions while leading the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston.

Bransfield retired last September. Since his departure, he has been the center of allegations of sexual harassment and financial mismanagement during his time as bishop. According to a report commissioned for the Vatican, Bransfield spent millions of dollars in diocesan funds on his personal travel, jewelry and his home.

He’s also accused of sexually harassing seminarians during his time leading the church in West Virginia.

Bransfield also allegedly diverted more than $20 million from Wheeling Hospital into the Bishops Fund — a fund he created to “establish his legacy.” The Bishops Fund board included the Rev. Kevin Quirk, the group’s secretary and then chairman of the boards of both Wheeling Hospital and Wheeling Jesuit University; Lawrence Bandi, the board’s treasurer and president of Central Catholic High School in Wheeling; Bryan Minor, the diocese’s human resources director and executive director of the West Virginia Catholic Foundation; and the Rev. Frederick Annie, one of Bransfield’s three monsignor deputies that also included Quirk.

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NEW YORK (NY)
CNN

Nov. 26, 2019

By Katie Polglase

Catholic order placed a pedophile priest on church property where a summer camp for children was taking place after a year-long CNN investigation revealed new allegations of child abuse against him.

Father Luk Delft was recalled to Belgium in June this year after CNN informed the order that two boys in the Central African Republic had accused Delft of abusing them.

The Salesians of Don Bosco, a religious order established specifically to protect children, housed the convicted abuser on the campus in Sint-Pieters-Woluwe in Belgium after the 50-year-old priest was removed from his role as country director of the Catholic charity Caritas in the CAR.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service

Nov. 26, 2019

By Matthew Gambino

Since the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church broke open in 2002 in the United States and intensified globally last year, responses to it have focused on legal matters and administrative reforms.

But theologians and other faithful thinkers are focusing now on a higher dimension, and the question of where God is calling his people at this moment.

Villanova University launched the first in a series of four conferences on the theological perspectives of the sexual abuse crisis Nov. 1. Some 20 Catholic scholars from around the world heard a dozen presentations on the topic in a daylong seminar, according to Villanova professor Massimo Faggioli, a lead organizer of the series.

In a keynote talk to cap the first conference, Father Richard Lennan said the long-term response of the Christian community to the crisis should be an inner conversion of heart and fearless self-criticism — and not only among bishops and clergy, but all members of the church.

A professor of theology at Boston College and a priest of the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle in Australia, he told 25 people, including scholars and visitors from the community, why conversion is critical at this time.

“A theological response to the abuse crisis recognizes that (it) is not simply an issue of governance, formation for ministry or pastoral practice. The sexual abuse crisis gnaws at the faith,” he said. “It casts a pall of suspicion over belief in a capacity of any human instrument, let alone the church, to mediate grace.”

Lennan found in the working document of the recent Synod of Bishops for the Amazon a three-point formula that he believes may serve as a road map for the church’s conversion. A process of unlearning, learning and relearning can facilitate a renewed openness to grace and conversion.

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NEW YORK (NY)
CNN

Nov. 26, 2019

In his first interview since he was sentenced to prison for sexual assault, comedian Bill Cosby said he doesn’t expect to express remorse when it comes time for his parole.

“I have eight years and nine months left,” Cosby said, according to an article by National Newspaper Publishers Association’s BlackPressUSA.com. “When I come up for parole, they’re not going to hear me say that I have remorse. I was there. I don’t care what group of people come along and talk about this when they weren’t there. They don’t know.”

Cosby, 82, gave the website the exclusive interview from SCI Phoenix, a state prison near Collegeville, Pennsylvania, where he is serving three to 10 years for drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand at his home in 2004.

In the article, Cosby referred to his jail cell as “my penthouse,” and said he was in good spirits in the prison.

Cosby filed an appeal in June arguing his criminal conviction was flawed because the testimony of five accusers was “strikingly dissimilar” to that of Constand.

Cosby said unless he is successful in his appeal, he expects to serve his full sentence, according to the article. Cosby said he wasn’t guilty, the article reported.

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PHOENIX (AZ)
New Times

Nov. 26, 2019

By Ali Swenson

A governor-appointed task force has finished studying Arizona’s laws on child sex abuse and issued 19 recommendations to improve them.

Among its suggestions are changes that would expand the criminal statute of limitations for child sex trafficking, broaden the definition of sex abuse perpetrators who are in a position of trust, and increase funding for police investigations, awareness campaigns, and reporting technology.

Notably missing, as first reported by the subscription-based political tipsheet Yellow Sheet Report, is an explanation of how the state might expand the civil statute of limitations for child sex abuse cases. The task force says the current age limit of 30 for filing lawsuits is “not sufficient” and suggests that a third party should conduct research on what might be an appropriate age, but the group doesn’t suggest a legal pathway to changing it.

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BERKS COUNTY (PA)
Berks Weekly

Nov. 26, 2019

Governor Tom Wolf, joined by Attorney General Josh Shapiro, bill sponsors Reps. Mark Rozzi, Todd Stephens, and Jim Gregory; legislators; advocates and survivors of childhood sexual abuse, signed three bills that mirror the Grand Jury’s recommendations after its investigation into child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy.

“After tireless and passionate work on the part of so many, especially countless brave victims, these bills will today become law, and victims of one of the most unimaginable forms of abuse will receive the support and rights they deserve,” Gov. Wolf said. “And while we celebrate the monumental victory of many survivors of childhood sexual abuse finally receiving their opportunity for justice, we must continue pushing forward until every survivor, of every age, has the chance to tell his or her story.”

“These reforms fundamentally change our justice system and will protect generations of children who experience abuse from this day on,” Attorney General Josh Shapiro said. “While we still must address justice for those survivors who made this day possible, seeing this progress gives me hope that bravery and activism will win over entrenched interests and powerful institutions.”

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The Film Stage blog

November 26, 2019

By Jordan Raup

Do the principles of God change with the shifting tides of culture? This theological question is at the heart of The Two Popes. As unanswerable as the question may be, it presents an engaging-if-scattered platform for the spiritual sparring that Jonathan Pryce and Anthony Hopkins devour. Directed by Fernando Meirelles with the kind of hyperactivity that worked so well in his kinetic breakthrough City of God, that trait is unfortunately not helped here with Anthony McCarten’s script, which attempts to pack a life’s worth of history in between a few conversations.

The life at the center of the story–which takes place over many decades, but mostly 2012–is that of Argentinian Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Pryce), who is not shy about his desire for the Catholic Church to change their stodgy, conservative ways. As the planet is being destroyed and the inequality gap continues to grow, the world built walls–figuratively and literally–and fought over hot-button issues rather than getting to the humanitarian heart at the center of Christianity. In order to attract a base of followers that continues to dwindle, Bergoglio believes the only path forward is through change. Pope Benedict XVI (Hopkins), the man of the highest cloth, diverges in this opinion with his traditional views, which leads to heated quarrels about dogma and the future of the Catholic Church when Bergoglio is invited to visit. As written in recent history, the Pope would eventually be the first one to resign in centuries, handing over the papacy to Bergoglio, who would become Pope Francis.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Christian Post

Nov. 26, 2019

By Brandon Showalter

A legal and financial review of Harvest Bible Chapel’s records has revealed that their founding and now former pastor James MacDonald was paid over $1 million annually, amid other instances of malfeasance.

Earlier this year, MacDonald was ousted from his leadership post at Harvest Bible Chapel, a church he founded over 30 years ago. His termination ultimately came about as a result of lewd comments he made on a hot mic that were aired on a local radio station amid controversy over allegations that he had presided over an abusive church culture and had mishandled church resources while living an opulent lifestyle.

The review looked at financial statements from January 2016 through mid-February of this year, according to The Daily Herald.

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{HILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

Nov. 26, 2019

By Maria Panaritis

Sometime after the 1980s one-hit wonders stopped playing, but before he put on a fire-engine-red Members Only jacket, Gerad Argeros stood completely naked in front of 100 of his best pals in the basement of the Rockledge Hook and Ladder Room on Saturday night in Montgomery County.

Only a microphone separated this 49-year-old performer from the smart-alecky crowd of grade school friends and relatives from Fox Chase. They’d all grown up just over the county line in Northeast Philadelphia. And until two years ago, when I helped make Gerad’s biggest lifelong secret become painfully public to the world at large, everyone here had known him as just good old Gerry.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

Nov. 25, 2019

Two priests who were accused of abusing multiple students while working at a school for the deaf and hearing impaired have been sentenced to more than 40 years in prison. We applaud this sentence and hope that it encourages other survivors in Argentina to come forward and get help.

Now that Fr. Nicola Corradi and Fr. Horacio Corbacho have been sentenced, we call on church officials in Argentina to take steps to publicize the information and urge others who were hurt by these men or suspected their crimes to come forward and make a report to police.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
Associated Press

Nov. 26, 2019

By Mark Scolforo

The state where a grand jury’s groundbreaking report set off a new wave of reckoning over sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church passed legislation Thursday giving victims more time to sue and police more time to file charges.

The Pennsylvania House sent the statute-of-limitations bill to Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf with a 182-5 vote, along with a measure that invalidates secrecy agreements in lawsuit settlements that prevent child sexual abuse victims from talking to investigators.

“This has been a long and trying process, and we are finally at the finish line,” the statute-of-limitations bill’s prime champion, Berks County Democratic Rep. Mark Rozzi, told fellow lawmakers. “Justice is coming.”

Wolf’s office said he intends to sign the bills and a third measure that increases and clarifies penalties for mandated reporters who do not report suspected child abuse.

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Spokesman J.J. Abbott said Wolf “thanks the brave victims that made these changes possible by sharing their stories and fighting for justice.”

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Patheos blog

Nov. 25, 2019

By Gabriel Blanchard

Financial corruption is another major element that runs throughout the Church’s scandals. It takes money to cover things up, spin them when they get out, fight lengthy court battles, and pay for victims’ compensation. It overlaps with some of the sexual scandals in themselves, too: in not a few cases of sexual predation on young people, the grooming of the victims involved expensive gifts and vacations. And then there’s the good old-fashioned brazen self-centeredness of men like the recently disgraced Bishop Bransfield of Wheeling-Charleston: nothing complicated, just the lifestyle of an opulent jetsetter in a diocese where some people don’t have little luxuries like running water.

II. Financial Reform

1. All bishops shall be required to make a vow of personal poverty. As successors of the Apostles and ministers of Christ, it is the responsibility of bishops to care for the poor; and nothing is so likely to keep someone conscious of the poor as being one of the poor. Magnificent churches are one thing—it is appropriate to give God our best and loveliest, not because he needs it (he made it after all) but as a gesture of thanks and praise; episcopal palaces and splendorous chanceries are something else entirely, and the money that such things both represent and require would be better spent on the poor: the parallel of Judas’ complaint about Jesus being anointed at Bethany applies to churches, not to mansions and seaside condominiums, still less to the unsavory behavior that such mansions and condos have been used to conceal.

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CASPER (WY)
Star Tribune

Nov 25, 2019

By Seth Klamann

Natrona County’s top prosecutor was handed the criminal investigation involving retired Wyoming bishop Joseph Hart three months ago and was tasked with handling any prosecutions related to the case, the district attorney in Cheyenne confirmed last week in response to a Star-Tribune public records request.

“I don’t have the current investigation, so the 2019 case,” Laramie County District Attorney Leigh Anne Manlove said in a voicemail left for a reporter last week. “I have nothing. Because my office is not handling that case. All of that investigation, everything, the affidavit of probable cause … everything went to the district attorney in Casper, Dan Itzen.”

Manlove was responding to a public records request sent by the Star-Tribune last week to a number of law enforcement agencies that may have been involved in an investigation into retired Bishop Joseph Hart, who has faced repeated allegations that he sexually abuse boys throughout his 45-year career as a priest and bishop. The requests were specifically for any public records mentioning Hart.

The response by Manlove is the first direct confirmation that the criminal investigation involves the man who was once the highest-ranking Catholic cleric in Wyoming.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Tribune-Review

Nov. 25, 2019

A grand jury report is not the kind of thing that is released every time it is issued.

We may not know every grand jury that is impaneled. We are not told when they hear a case. We do not know what witnesses appear before them. We may never hear about the charges that are not recommended.

But when we do, the reports mean something. Usually, the something is big.

In 2011, an investigating grand jury recommended child sex abuse charges against retired Penn State football defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky.

In 2018, another uncovered details of 70 years of child sex abuse in Catholic Church dioceses.

But a task force wants to prevent reports like those from being released.

A two-year review of the state grand jury system resulted in a 4-3 recommendation to abolish the public reports. That decision was noted, ironically enough, in a report released publicly.

The grand jury process is conducted largely under a veil of secrecy. That makes sense for the job that is being done — investigating issues of public corruption and organized crime.

But the report, especially a report like that on the church scandal that explored decades of wrongdoing across so many jurisdictions, occupies an area of public trust and truth that should absolutely be maintained.

It should be allowed because it does not just show where the defendants fell down. It shows where the state does, too.

Without the 2011 report that showed holes in the fences that protected children in the reporting process, would the public have demanded action? Would the state have made changes to the requirements for background checks and mandatory reporting?

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Patheos blog

Nov. 25, 2019

By Hemant Mehta

How bad is the abuse within the Southern Baptist Convention? An investigation earlier this year by the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News exposed the predatory behavior of so many Baptist leaders that the SBC itself vowed to make things right. They even identified ten SBC churches themselves that required additional scrutiny.

One of those was Bolivar Baptist Church in Sanger, Texas. Its pastor, Dale “Dickie” Amyx, admitted to raping and later impregnating a teen girl in the 1970s. While a civil case was settled out of court in 2008, he was still preaching sermons as if he had never committed a crime.

When faced with the prospect of further investigations by the SBC, Bolivar Baptist Church made a simple decision: Rather than face more scrutiny, they would leave the SBC altogether. Amyx insists that decision, made back in May, has nothing to do with his predatory behavior.

Amyx, reached Wednesday in the foyer of his church, told the Denton Record-Chronicle why the church left the convention. He said the reasoning was independent of the moves the SBC was making to hold the church accountable. He said the church left so it could be a more independent Baptist church.

He said the church hadn’t been sending money to the SBC or sharing the the convention’s literature or teachings with Bolivar Baptist churchgoers for many years…

“The past is the past,” Amyx said when asked directly about the accusations detailed by Vasquez and the investigation. “That’s where it should have stayed.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MONTREAL (CANADA)
The Canadian Press

Nov.. 25, 2019

By Sidhartha Banerjee

Montreal’s archdiocese enlisted a former Quebec Superior Court justice on Monday to investigate the case of a priest found guilty of sexually abusing two boys.

Pepita G. Capriolo will conduct the investigation into Rev. Brian Boucher, a Catholic priest who was sentenced in March to eight years behind bars.

The archbishop said the recently retired judge will examine how the church handled complaints and concerns about Boucher.

“One of the issues concerning Brian Boucher is there were people who came to talk about the problem … what’s the story about who knew what, when?” Archbishop Christian Lepine said in an interview.

Following a trial, Boucher was convicted in January 2019 of sexually assaulting one of the victims. In the second case, he pleaded guilty to sex-related charges as a trial was set to begin just under two weeks later.

Boucher worked in 10 Montreal-area churches between 1985 and 2015.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

CHICAGO (IL)
WLS TV

Nov. 25, 2019

The Rev. George Clements, a renowned Chicago priest who was accused of sexual abuse in a 1974 allegation, has died.

According to Father Michael Pfleger, Clements died in a hospital in Hammond, Indiana.

The Chicago Archdiocese also confirmed Clements’ passing.

Clements family said it will hold a news conference Monday afternoon.

In August of 2019, the Chicago Archdiocese asked Clements to step down from ministry after a sexual abuse allegation from 1974.

Blase Cardinal Cupich asked Clements to step aside from ministry pending the outcome of the investigation into the 1974 allegation. At the time, Clements was pastor of Holy Angels Parish in Chicago.

He was considered one of the most celebrated priests in Chicago history. It was the death of Martin Luther King Jr. that’s sparked his activism.

“That said to me, if they’re willing to go ahead and kill this saint, well, you don’t know how much time you have left,’” Clements said.

But when you ask Clements about his greatest achievement, he points to his four sons. He made history as the first American priest to adopt a child, a story that ended up on the big screen.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

WASHINGTON (DC)
NBC 4

Nov. 25, 2019

By Jodie Fleischer and Rick Yarborough

For the roughly two million Catholics who live in D.C., Maryland and Virginia, clergy sex abuse has caused heartache and distrust within an institution gripped by scandal for nearly two decades.

The News4 I-Team partnered with NBC-owned stations around the country to ask those who know the church best where they think it stands now. We sent a 26-question survey to more than 32,000 priests, deacons, nuns and other church workers around the country.

Nearly 3,000 responded — including more than 400 priests, more than 240 nuns, and nearly 1,900 lay employees — answering questions about everything from ordaining women and married men as priests to whether the Church should recognize gay marriage.

Two local survivors shared their reaction to responses about the handling of the clergy sex abuse scandal.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

PALM BEACH (FL)
The Ledger

Nov. 24, 2019

By John Pacenti

Law deemed many of Jeffrey Epstein’s teen victims were not sex-crime victims. Some state lawmakers want to change that.

Palm Beach police handed State Attorney Barry Krischer in 2006 the names of five victims and 17 witnesses to build a case of rape and serial sexual molestation against Palm Beacher Jeffrey Epstein.

The girls had been lured with the promise of $200 for an hour’s work giving Epstein a massage only to find themselves trapped with a modern-day Caligula.

Eight of the witnesses were 16- and 17-year-olds. All said Epstein had molested them.

But under Florida law, those eight were too old to be molested. And that remains the case today.
Any potential charges filed against Epstein for what he did to these girls would never have risen above misdemeanor battery.

Under state law, anyone over the age of 16 who is molested but not penetrated can at best hope their assailant spends a year behind bars — the penalty for a first-degree misdemeanor.

For victims, that means the potential punishment for their abuser is far less than a sex crime and the statute of limitations is far shorter.

Sexual battery, a felony charge, applies to instances of intercourse or digital penetration, not fondling. Lewd or lascivious offenses for fondling or indecent exposure also constitute a felony but only for victims under 16.

While much attention has been paid to how Krischer — and subsequently the U.S. Justice Department — fumbled the case against the multimillionaire, the renewed interest in everything Epstein gives advocates a chance to urge legislators to close this loophole.

“A misdemeanor battery is not a sex offense crime,” said Palm Beach Gardens attorney Michael Dolce, himself a sex abuse survivor.

“So when somebody feels they’ve been subjected to a sex offense, the expectation is that the law will respond by categorizing it as a sexual crime.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

GREENCASTLE (PA)
Echo Pilot

Nov. 25, 2019

By the Editorial Board

The 2018 release of state Attorney General Josh Shapiro’s grand jury report exposing decades of Roman Catholic clergy child sexual abuse offered state lawmakers the opportunity to level a gross imbalance of power and speed justice to damaged victims.

They failed to deliver in full.

Landmark legislation guaranteed to protect future victims is heading to Gov. Tom Wolf’s desk to be signed into law.

The state Senate on Wednesday advanced reforms recommended by the state grand jurors who uncovered, through church records and wrenching testimony, the sexual abuse of more than 1,000 victims by more than 300 clergy in six Pennsylvania Roman Catholic dioceses, including the Catholic Diocese of Erie.

The bills eliminate the statute of limitations for filing criminal child sex abuse charges and give future victims until the age of 55 to sue for damages. They clarify penalties for failures to report abuse and prohibit confidentiality agreements that bar victims from reporting crimes. That is monumental, as state Rep. Mark Rozzi, of Berks County, a priest abuse survivor and reform champion, noted.

But when it comes to the grand jury recommendation that victims be given a time window to sue the church retroactively, those victims who want to confront their abusers independently and transparently in a court of law again must wait.

With that recommendation staunchly opposed by Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati of Jefferson County and church and insurance lobbyists, lawmakers instead voted to seek a constitutional amendment that would allow victims time to sue retroactively.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

CHICAGO (IL)
Religion News Service

Nov. 22, 2019

By Emily McFarlan Miller

A “massive corporate governance failure apparently developed over several years” at Harvest Bible Chapel primarily because of its former senior pastor, James MacDonald, according to a report released Thursday evening (Nov. 21) by the Chicago-area megachurch.

The report by Chicago-based law firm Wagenmaker & Oberly pinned that failure on MacDonald’s “powerful and subversive leadership style,” his development of an inner circle of leaders through which he could control the church, his marginalization of the church’s elders and other leaders and other “aggressive tactics” by the former pastor.

And it’s “most glaring” when it comes to the church’s finances, according to the report.

The report comes at the request of the Harvest 2020 team of congregants, staff, elders and outside professionals formed this spring to review the church’s oversight, accountability and transparency.

That team asked Wagenmaker & Oberly to review the church’s finances and management practices to “determine what might’ve gone wrong and to put forth corrective policies and procedures to get us on the right course for the future,” according to Harvest treasurer Tim Stoner.

“It is our sincere desire to do the right thing even when it is hard, and in the process, to see the Lord repair what has been broken and to move us to a deeper and sweeter walk with Jesus. We want to follow the admonition in Micah chapter 6, verse 8, to do justly, to love kindness and to walk humbly with our God,” Stoner said.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

BUENOS AIRES (ARGENTINA)
Buenos Aires Times

Nov. 25, 2019

Two Catholic priests were each sentenced to more than 40 years in prison for sexually abusing deaf children, a court in the western city of Mendoza ruled Monday.

A three-judge panel in Mendoza sentenced Italian priest Reverend Nicola Corradi to 42 years in prison and the Argentine priest Reverend Horacio Corbacho to 45 years, for abusing children at the Antonio Próvolo Institute for Deaf and Hearing Impaired Children in Luján de Cuyo, a municipality in northwestern Argentina, between 2004 and 2016.

Corradi, an 83-year-old Italian, and Corbacho, a 59-year-old Argentine, were arrested in 2016. The institution’s gardener, Armando Gómez, was also jailed for 18 years for sexual abuse. The victims are 10 former students.

The court said the sentences took into account the aggravating circumstances that the priests were responsible for the children’s wellbeing, as well as the fact that the victims were minors.

The accused declined to make statements ahead of the judges’ ruling. They appeared somber as they arrived in the courtroom, with Corradi in a wheelchair, his gaze fixed on the ground.

utside the court a group of young people celebrated, after waiting for the ruling with banners supporting the victims.

Corbacho, 59, and 83-year-old Corradi had been held in preventive detention since their arrest three years ago on charges of child sex abuse at the school.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

DETROIT (MI)
Deadline Detroit

Nov. 24, 2019

By Michael Betzold

After militant homophobes in the Westboro Baptist Church began picketing funerals of gay people in the 1990s, Michigan was among many states to make it illegal to disrupt a funeral.

Now, in a case that has made headlines nationwide, a Toledo law firm representing a grieving mother hopes to persuade a Wayne County jury that a priest conducting a funeral can be liable for deliberately mishandling it.

Featured_detroit_archdiocese_34554
“It was an ambush,” says attorney Wesley Merillat – characterizing how Fr. Don LaCuesta sabotaged Maison Hullibarger’s funeral mass last December at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church in Temperance, Mich. LaCuesta had agreed earlier in a meeting with the parents to deliver a message of love and kindness to celebrate their son’s life, but the priest somehow found out the death was a suicide.

His homily revealing that fact amounted to a “heartless condemnation” of the young man, according to the lawsuit. The sermon about the eternal damnation of Maison’s soul continued even after the deceased’s father approached the pulpit and implored him to stop.

It’s a potentially groundbreaking case on the limits of the First Amendment and what might constitute “hate speech.” David Clohessy, a national leader of SNAP (the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests), knows of no prior lawsuit challenging what a priest can say in a sermon. After decades of scandal stemming from physical clerical abuse, a case raising the issue of verbal abuse in the guise of spiritual instruction is new territory for the church.

Does state law apply?

In response to the Westboro protests, a Michigan statute makes it a felony to “make any statement … that causes a breach of the peace” at a funeral. How that criminal statute might affect this civil case remains to be seen.

Also named as a defendant in the civil action is the Archdiocese of Detroit. For almost a year, Archbishop Allen Vigneron has refused to remove LaCuesta from his post at Mount Carmel – and won’t say why. Vigneron has unrestricted power to move priests to different parish assignments – and often exercises it. But he allegedly ended a meeting with Hullibarger’s parents shortly after the funeral last December, saying he wouldn’t discuss LaCuesta. He then announced the priest wouldn’t conduct any more funerals until he got more instruction on how to handle them.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MONTREAL (CANADA)
CTV News Montreal

Nov. 25, 2019

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Montreal has ordered an “independent, external” investigation into the case of Brian Boucher, a Montreal priest who sexually assaulted two boys.

In March, Boucher was sentenced to eight years in prison for raping the two minors, now adults. Boucher worked in 10 Montreal-area churches between 1985 and 2015. The abuse took place at two churches, between 1995 and 1999 in the case of one victim and between 2008 and 2011 in the other.

The investigation will be conducted by Pepita Capriolo, a retired Quebec Superior Court justice, the Archdiocese announced Monday.

“We want to get to the bottom of things to uncover the truth regarding how the concerns and complaints about Brian Boucher were received and handled, ” Montreal Archbishop Christian Lépine said. “Ms. Capriolo’s mandate is twofold: first, determining ‘who’ knew ‘what’ and ‘when’, and then making recommendations to ensure that our policies and procedures improve, thereby avoiding that such crimes would occur again.”

Lepine said the Archiodocese would provide Capriolo with “all the resources needed to conduct a thorough investigation” and will make the results of her completed investigation public.

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VANCOUVER (CANADA)
NEWS 1130

Nov. 24, 2019

Vancouver’s Catholic archbishop is apologizing for the trauma suffered by at least 26 children who have been betrayed by the church.

A letter written by Michael Miller is being read at churches within the Greater Vancouver area Sunday.

On Friday, a 12-page report from the Archdiocese of Vancouver named nine priests convicted or accused of abuse, dating back to 1950.

Five men convicted related to the report include, Paul J. Blancard, George Gordon, John McCann, Harold McIntee and Alfred Frank Louis Sasso, but not all five have spent time in prison.

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BUENOS AIRES (ARGENTINA)
Associated Press

Nov. 24, 2019

By Almudena Calatrava

Pope Francis’ homeland faces a complicated week of reckoning with the sex abuse scandal that has plagued the Roman Catholic church.

Judges were scheduled to rule Monday in the case of two priests who face up to 50 years in prison for alleged sexual abuse of deaf children at a Catholic-run school — a sister institution to a school that suffered a similar scandal in Italy.

Meanwhile, a bishop once close to the pope announced he would arrive back in the country Tuesday to respond to prosecutor’s allegations of sex abuse.

Both cases have raised questions about how quickly Pope Francis acted to deal with the complaints.

A three-judge panel in the northwestern province of Mendoza was set to rule on charges against the Rev. Nicola Corradi, an 83-year-old Italian, and the Rev. Horacio Corbacho, a 59-year-old Argentine, who worked at the Antonio Provolo Institute for Deaf and Hearing Impaired Children in the Mendoza municipality of Lujan de Cuyo. Both were arrested in 2016.

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Patheos blog

Nov. 25, 2019

By James A. Haught

Surprisingly, an important theologian and Catholic scholar says all religions do more harm than good.

Writing in the Harvard Divinity Bulletin (spring-summer 2019), Dr. Robert Orsi of Northwestern University delivers a blistering indictment titled “The Study of Religion on the Other Side of Disgust.”

He says that, “on balance, in the long perspective of human history, religions have done more harm than good.” He repeats that all scholars of faith should “pause to stare into the depths of the truth that religions have, over time, done more harm than good.”

Dr. Orsi describes how he grew up in a devout Italian-American Catholic family, went to mass several times weekly, and devoted his life to faith as chairman of Catholic studies in the Religion Department at Northwestern. He has written several religious books.

He focuses most of his disgust on the Catholic pedophile scandal and on bishops who tried to hide the sordid abuse of thousands of children. In fact, he says he’s writing a new book “about the role of Catholic sexuality and sexual abuse in the formation of boys at a Jesuit high school in New York City in 1967-71.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

ROME (ITALY)
Associated Press

Nov. 23, 2019

The Vatican’s Caritas Internationalis charity says it learned in 2017 of pedophilia concerns involving its Central African Republic director, but left it for his superiors to investigate and he remained in place and in ministry until this year.

CNN revealed the scandal over the Rev. Luk Delft this week, reporting that the Belgian Salesian priest was appointed to lead the Vatican’s main charity in the poverty-stricken country despite a 2012 criminal conviction in Belgium for child sexual abuse and possession of child pornography.

CNN identified two new alleged victims in Central African Republic since he was posted there.

Michel Roy, former secretary-general of Caritas Internationalis from 2011-2019, said in a statement Saturday that he didn’t know about the criminal conviction until this year.

But he said he had been informed in 2017 by a therapist that Delft shouldn’t be in contact with children.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

PITTSBURGH (PA)
Tribune Review

Nov. 23, 2019

By Megan Guza

Don’t ask Josh Shapiro what’s next. There’s work to do right now.

Shapiro, three years into his first term as Pennsylvania attorney general, has risen in profile since taking office. That’s due in no small part to the explosive 2018 grand jury report accusing a half-dozen Catholic dioceses across the state, including the ones in Pittsburgh and Greensburg, of covering up decades of child sexual abuse by priests.

In that regard, there is more to do. The abuse hotline set up in the aftermath of the report has gotten nearly 2,000 reports in just over a year. Those must be investigated.

He’s also in the process of hammering out a $50 billion settlement with Purdue Pharmaceuticals, the maker of OxyContin, following a two-year investigation by Shapiro and attorneys general from three other states.

In the meantime, thousands continue to die of drug overdoses across Pennsylvania. There is more to do, he said.

Seniors are still being scammed. Students have lost money to predatory for-profit colleges. There are still fraudsters and predators and drug dealers.

So don’t ask the attorney general what’s next – it visibly annoys him.

“Look. If you can’t tell, we’re pretty busy, and I really love this work,” Shapiro told the Tribune-Review.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MILWAUKEE (WI)
Wisconsin Watch

Nov. 24, 2019

In the past year, some dioceses and religious orders have for the first time listed their accused clergy. At others, the decades of silence continues.

When she was 7, Patty Gallagher was chosen to bring the priest who served her parish and school in Monona, Wisconsin, his daily milk. The Rev. Lawrence Trainor was practically a member of the family. He came over for dinner and visited the family cottage. Gallagher’s father and Trainor played cards and drank together. Trainor, a priest at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church, ingratiated himself with her parents.

And then, Gallagher said, he “raped me in every way possible.”

“I had to make my first confession with this man and say the words, ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,’ to the man who raped me in the most horrific ways,” said Gallagher, of Milwaukee, whose last name is now Gallagher Marchant. “There are no words to describe that.”

Gallagher Marchant, a psychotherapist, said she repressed these traumatic memories for decades. She was aware that she had been hurt, but she could not remember by whom. When Gallagher Marchant was 35 and her daughter turned 7 — the same age she was in 1965 at the time of her own abuse — the memories came flooding back. She knew she had to tell someone, so she reached out to the Catholic Diocese of Madison. The year was 1991.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
KYW Newsradio

Nov. 23, 2019

By Mark Abrams

A historic package of reform measures to Pennsylvania’s statute of limitations on child sex abuse is on its way to Gov. Tom Wolf’s desk, and the governor says he’ll sign them into law.

Under the new laws, future victims of child sex abuse will be allowed to sue their alleged perpetrators and the institutions which hired them. Also, any future victims will have an extended period of time, up to age 55, to file criminal charges against those who abused them.

Another provision is that confidentiality agreements signed by victims with institutions or organizations to prevent them from talking to police will be gone.

The reforms were recommended in an August 2018 state grand jury report on clergy sex abuse in the Catholic Church in Pennsylvania.

One class of victims, however, will have to wait for relief.

Adults who were victimized as children, many of whom suffered at the hands of clergy cited in the grand jury report, are NOT included in the latest reforms.

Instead, lawmakers decided those claims for relief should be folded into a proposed constitutional amendment which would be put before lawmakers one more time and then the voters.

“I continue to believe we do not need a constitutional amendment as part of that process,” said Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who championed the grand jury reforms. “It really just delays justice for victims.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

TOKYO (JAPAN)
Associated Press

November 23, 2019

By Nicole Winfield

The Vatican’s Caritas Internationalis charity says it learned in 2017 of pedophilia concerns involving its Central African Republic director, but left it for his superiors to investigate and he remained in place and in ministry until this year.

CNN revealed the scandal over the Rev. Luk Delft this week, reporting that the Belgian Salesian priest was appointed to lead the Vatican’s main charity in the poverty-stricken country despite a 2012 criminal conviction in Belgium for child sexual abuse and possession of child pornography.

CNN identified two new alleged victims in Central African Republic since he was posted there.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

BUCKS COUNTY (PA)
Bucks County Courier Times

November 19, 2019

By Christopher Dornblaser

Francis Trauger, 74, is accused of molesting two boys at a Tullytown parish between 1996 and 2000.

The former Catholic priest accused of sexually abusing two altar boys at a Tullytown parish now faces trial in county court.

Bucks County District Attorney’s office spokesman James O’Malley said Francis Trauger, 74, stipulated to the criminal complaint only for the purpose of his preliminary hearing Tuesday afternoon.

That means no testimony was necessary.

Trauger’s charges, which are misdemeanor offenses of indecent assault of someone younger than 16, indecent assault of someone younger than 13 and corruption of minors, were held for county court.

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PENNSYLVANIA
TheCenterSquare.com

November 24, 2019

By Kim Jarrett

Gov. Tom Wolf is expected to sign three bills addressing child sexual abuse passed by the Legislature. A fourth bill will require a constitutional amendment and another vote by lawmakers next year.

Rep. Mark Rozzi, D-Temple, sponsored House Bill 962, which eliminates the statute of limitations for prosecuting childhood sexual abuse.

House Bill 1051, sponsored by Rep. Todd Stephens, R-North Wales, clarifies who is required to report suspected child abuse and what the penalties are for not reporting.

Rep. Tarah Toohil, R-Hazleton, said she sponsored House Bill 1171 in honor of a woman who was molested by her priest and forced to have an abortion but felt she could not report the abuse because she signed a nondisclosure agreement. Victims will not be prohibited from talking to law enforcement because they signed a nondisclosure agreement.

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ROCHESTER (NY)
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

November 24, 2019

By Michael Kilian

“It’s time, Robby. They knew and they let it happen! To kids! This coulda been you, it coulda been me, it could have been any one of us.”

— Mark Ruffalo, playing Boston Globe reporter Mike Rezendes, in “Spotlight”

If you’ve never seen the Academy Award-winning film “Spotlight” from 2015, I highly recommend you watch/stream it at home this winter.

Featuring stellar performances from Rachel McAdam and Mark Ruffalo and from old pro Michael Keaton, this film is riveting in exploring how The Boston Globe unearthed an extensive cover-up by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Boston of sexual abuse of children by priests and other religious figures.

It wasn’t a story the substantially Irish-Catholic community of Boston necessarily wanted to hear in 2002. It certainly wasn’t a story the church wanted revealed, after decades of shifting abusing priests from parish to parish without repercussions.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Associated Press via News 10 (NBC-TV affiliate)

By Mark Scolforo

November 24, 2019

“We need to open the window and allow the light of truth to shine in this dark place. Anything less is justice denied”

The Pennsylvania House sent the statute-of-limitations bill to Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf with a 182-5 vote, along with a measure that invalidates secrecy agreements in lawsuit settlements that prevent child sexual abuse victims from talking to investigators.

“This has been a long and trying process, and we are finally at the finish line,” the statute-of-limitations bill’s prime champion, Berks County Democratic Rep. Mark Rozzi, told fellow lawmakers. “Justice is coming.”

Wolf’s office said he intends to sign the bills and a third measure that increases and clarifies penalties for mandated reporters who do not report suspected child abuse.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

BROOKLYN (NY)
New York Daily News

November 23, 2019

By Larry McShane

Pope Francis stunned long-time Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio by mentioning the sexual abuse allegations leveled against the New York priest when the pair met last week in the Vatican.

The 75-year-old DiMarzio recounted the unexpected encounter in a column for the Brooklyn Diocesan newspaper The Tablet, and once again asserted his innocence against the charge of abusing a Jersey City altar boy in 1974-75.

“I was amazed that the false accusation made against me was already known to him,” wrote DiMarzio. “(He) expressed his hope that the matter presented against me would be cleared up quickly for the good of the Diocese of Brooklyn.”

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BROOKLYN (NY)
Tablet (diocesan newspaper)

November 20, 2019

During the last two decades, we have learned more about sexual abuse than we ever expected or wished to know. The suffering that victims and their families endured has been twofold — the abuse itself and the trauma of being silenced or ignored.

Much has changed in the church since the adoption of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People (the Dallas Charter) in June 2002, but the pain continues.

Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio understood the gravity of the crisis early on and responded quickly. A statement last week from the Diocese of Camden, N.J., shows that even before the Dallas Charter, Bishop DiMarzio created protocols to protect children and help victims.

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BROOKLYN (NY)
New York Post

November 23, 2019

By Sara Dorn

This papal visit took an awkward turn.

Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio was with his boss, Pope Francis, when allegations surfaced last week that he abused a New Jersey altar boy in the 1970s.

DiMarzio divulged details of the uncomfortable meeting in a Wednesday op-ed in the Brooklyn Diocese’s Tablet newspaper.

“As we left the meeting, I was amazed that the false accusation made against me was already known to him,” DiMarzio wrote, referring to the pontiff.

DiMarzio, 75, faces claims that he and another priest abused then-11-year-old Mark Matzek at St. Nicholas Church in Jersey City between 1974 and 1975.

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LANCASTER (PA)
Lancaster Online

November 24, 2019

By the LNP Editorial Board

More than a year after a landmark grand jury report detailed a decadeslong cover-up of child sexual abuse in six Pennsylvania Roman Catholic dioceses, the Republican-led state General Assembly finally has passed statutes of limitations reform that offers relief to victims of such abuse. As The Associated Press reported last week, the state Senate passed House Bill 962 on Wednesday, and the House passed it Thursday, sending it to the desk of Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, who is expected to sign it early this week, his spokesman, J.J. Abbott, said.

This is not a complete victory for victims of child sexual abuse, but it is a significant one.

Under current law, victims have only until their 30th birthday to file civil claims against those who abused them and those who enabled their abuse.

That’s not nearly enough time, as we’ve argued repeatedly. It can take decades before a victim is able to understand what was done to him or her during childhood. Because of the terrible trauma involved, delayed reporting in such cases is normal.

Under this new law, victims will have until they turn 55 to file civil claims.

That will apply only, however, to victims of childhood sexual abuse for whom the civil statute of limitations has not yet expired.

And the existing criminal statute of limitations will be eliminated, but only for future cases. Nevertheless, this is an important change.

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GREENSBURG (PA)
TribLive.com

November 23, 2019

By Deb Erdley

Pennsylvania should consider abolishing the kind of grand jury report that detailed extensive allegations of child sexual abuse among Catholic clergy, a task force of lawyers, judges and legal scholars said.

In the report released last week, the result of a two-year review of the state grand jury system also recommended beefing up the secrecy surrounding state and county grand jury proceedings, including conducting sessions in buildings where witnesses could enter and leave without public scrutiny.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

GREENSBURG (PA)
TribLive.com

November 23, 2019

By Megan Guza

Don’t ask Josh Shapiro what’s next. There’s work to do right now.

Shapiro, three years into his first term as Pennsylvania attorney general, has risen in profile since taking office. That’s due in no small part to the explosive 2018 grand jury report accusing a half-dozen Catholic dioceses across the state, including the ones in Pittsburgh and Greensburg, of covering up decades of child sexual abuse by priests.

In that regard, there is more to do. The abuse hotline set up in the aftermath of the report has gotten nearly 2,000 reports in just over a year. Those must be investigated.

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PISCATAWAY (NJ)
Diocese of Metuchen

November 22, 2019

The former pastor of Our Lady of Mount Virgin Parish in Middlesex, Fr. Patrick J. Kuffner, identified on the list of names of clergy currently under investigation by civil authorities as released by the Diocese of Metuchen in Feb. of this year, was arrested Nov. 20 by the Ocean County Sheriff’s Department on three counts of sexual assault of a minor that date back more than three decades to when he was a layperson and while in Massachusetts.

“First and foremost, our prayers are with the person who came forward last year with these allegations, after many years of carrying this burden, and all those who are survivors of sexual abuse,” said Anthony P. Kearns III, Esq., spokesperson and chancellor of the Diocese of Metuchen. “While the alleged crimes date back to the early 1980’s, more than 35 years ago, and involve an incident from before Fr. Kuffner was a priest or even a seminarian, the charges are nevertheless shocking and are being taken seriously by the Diocese of Metuchen,” he said.

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MIDDLESEX (NJ)
News12.com

November 23, 2019

[VIDEO]

A former pastor in the Diocese of Metuchen was arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a minor.

Father Patrick Kuffner was on a list released earlier this year of clergy under investigation.

Kuffner served as a pastor at Our Lady of Mount Virgin parish in Middlesex.

He faces charges that date back to more than three decades, before he was a priest.

The Diocese said in a statement, “While the alleged crimes date back to the early 1980’s, more than 35 years ago, and involve an incident from before Father Kuffner was a priest or even a seminarian, the charges are nevertheless shocking and are being taken seriously by the Diocese.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

CASPER (WY)
Casper Star-Tribune

Nov. 23, 2019

By Seth Klamann

Cheyenne police say they have no plans to reexamine that year’s most high-profile sexual abuse investigation. In April 2002, recently retired Wyoming Bishop Joseph Hart was accused of sexually abusing a teenage boy in Cheyenne in the 1970s. The Cheyenne police investigation that followed lasted two months before the allegation was declared unfounded because of a lack of victim cooperation.

Nor is there interest by either of the two men who followed Hart as bishops of Wyoming to look backwards. David Ricken, now a bishop in Wisconsin, and Paul Etienne, now the archbishop in Seattle, both said they couldn’t investigate Hart during their respective reigns atop Wyoming’s Catholic church. The victim wouldn’t cooperate, they said. Neither answered when asked by email if they regretted how they handled the matter. Throughout both of the men’s tenures, Hart’s alleged victims were coming forward in Kansas City, all alleging abuse. The church settled lawsuits with 10 of them.

A spokesman for the Denver archdiocese, which oversees Wyoming, declined to comment when asked if the church would look into why nothing was done about Hart for so long.

Over the past two years, the investigation has been reignited. The unfounded claim has turned into the basis for a Vatican trial and a criminal case in Wyoming that now awaits a decision by prosecutors that could prove to be historic. The victim who wouldn’t cooperate has now spoken with civil and church authorities. His account has been deemed substantiated by the church.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Associated Press

Nov. 22, 2019

By Margaret Stafford

The bishop of the Kansas City-St. Joseph Roman Catholic diocese, who was recently appointed chairman-elect of the U.S. Catholic church’s national committee for protecting abuse victims, should lead an effort to change boards that review abuse allegations to make them more transparent, inclusive and willing to publicly identify predator priests, an advocacy group said Friday.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests sent a letter to Bishop James Johnston Jr., Friday criticizing the current methods of the review boards, which were mandated in dioceses across the country in 2002 after allegations of widespread sexual abuse by priests began to surface. Johnston was appointed last week as chairman-elect of the church’s Committee on Protection of Children and Young People, although he won’t become chairman for a year.

SNAP was reacting to an Associated Press report on Thursday that found the review boards repeatedly failed to support abuse victims and to oust abusive priests. Instead, review boards appointed by bishops and operating in secrecy often intimidate victims, reject sex abuse claims and help the church avoid payouts, the AP reported.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
Premier

Nov. 23, 2019

By Ruth Sax

The Vatican has been accused of harbouring a bishop wanted for alleged sex abuse offences, as Pope Francis railed against the evils of sexual exploitation on a visit to Thailand.

Prosecutors in Argentina have issued an international arrest warrant for Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta, who is accused of sexually abusing young trainee priests, known as seminarians. He denies the charges.

Bishop Zanchetta, 55, who is close to his fellow Argentine Pope Francis, lives in the Vatican.

He reportedly resides in Casa Santa Marta, an accommodation block in the shadow of St Peter’s Basilica where Francis has lived ever since his election six years ago.

Argentinian prosecutors have complained that the bishop has failed to respond to repeated emails and telephone calls about the abuse allegations, which were made last year by two young seminarians. The trainee priests also accused him of mismanagement of the diocese’s finances and abuse of power.

If convicted, the bishop would face up to 10 years in prison, but there is no extradition treaty between Argentina and the Vatican and for now he seems to be safely ensconced in Rome.

The stand-off emerged as Pope Francis made an impassioned speech in Bangkok on behalf of victims of sex trafficking, prompting accusations of a double standard in the Catholic Church’s stance on sex crimes.

“Despite being suspended from ministry, the Vatican has argued that Zanchetta’s ‘daily work’ requires him to be in Rome instead of facing trial in Argentina. This decision is at best questionable and at worst a Vatican-sponsored opportunity for Zanchetta to flee from justice,” said Zach Hiner, the executive director of victims’ pressure group SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

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BUENOS AIRES (ARGENTINA)
Buenos Aires Times

Nov. 22, 2019

By Carly Graf

Victims of alleged sexual and emotional abuse at the hands of priests and educators at the Instituto Antonio Próvolo in Mendoza may finally find justice Monday.

After nearly three months of gruelling closed-door testimony, plaintiff lawyers from the Mendoza-based human rights organisation Xumek asked Tuesday for the maximum sentence possible under Argentina’s current penal code for those in the dock.

If judges agree, that could see sentences of 50 years in jail for 61-year-old Argentine Horacio Corbacho, and up to 15 years for Nicola Corradi, an 83-year-old Italian priest who ran the institute, and the site’s former gardener Armando Gómez, 50.

Collectively, they are accused of rape, sexual abuse, the corruption of children and mistreatment at a Catholic school for deaf children.

In total, the priests face a total of 28 charges. Victims total around 20 minors.

A fourth person was charged, 57-year-old administrator Jorge Bordón. He agreed to a plea deal just over a year ago, trading an acknowledgment he’d participated in at least 11 acts of abuse for a shorter trial and a 10-year sentence.

Though trials started in August, the wait for victims and their families has been much longer. The first victims came forward in 2016, leading to the prompt arrest of Corradi, but according to Sergio Salinas, one of the plaintiff’s attorneys, the abuse dates back at least to the previous decade.

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ASBURY PARK (NJ)
Asbury Park Press

Nov. 22, 2019

By Joshua Chung

The sexual assault charges against a New Jersey priest arrested Wednesday in Ocean County involve incidents that happened more than 35 years ago before the man was a priest, according to the Diocese of Metuchen.

Patrick J. Kuffner, 72, is facing three counts of sexual assault of a minor between the ages of 13 and 16, according to court records. But in a statement, the Diocese of Metuchen said that Kuffner — the former pastor of Our Lady of Mount Virgin Parish in Middlesex — said the incidents took place in Massachusetts more than 35 years ago, and before Kuffner was a seminarian or ordained as a priest.

“First and foremost, our prayers are with the person who came forward last year with these allegations, after many years of carrying this burden, and all those who are survivors of sexual abuse,” said Anthony P. Kearns III, spokesperson and chancellor of the Diocese of Metuchen, noting that the incident took place in the 1980s.

“The charges are nevertheless shocking and are being taken seriously by the Diocese of Metuchen,” Kearns said.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
NBC Channel 4

Nov. 22, 2019

By Chris Glorioso and Evan Stulberger

A vast survey of the Roman Catholic Church workforce in America shows the people who know best how the church is run – the employees themselves – are deeply split on key issues facing parishes across nation. The survey reveals diocesan priests are far more likely to view clergy abuse as a problem of the past, while nuns and other religious employees often consider sex abuse and misconduct to be major problems even today. And just as Pope Francis considers expanding the role of married men and women in the church, the survey highlights vivid differences in how female and male employees view a host of religious reforms under the Vatican’s consideration.

NBC Owned Television stations around the nation distributed the survey to more than 32,000 employees listed in the Official Catholic Directory. 2,700 members of the church workforce responded (see methodology here), including nearly 500 priests and deacons, more than 280 religious sisters and brothers, along with nearly 1,900 lay employees – everyone from educators to administrative staff. Among the survey’s most striking findings are:

1 in 3 Catholic Employees Say Sex Abuse/Misconduct “Still a Major Problem”

While national headlines often involve clergy abuse dating back decades, about 39% of the church employees who responded to the survey said they believe abuse or misconduct “is still a major problem” in today’s parishes and Catholic organizations. That compares with just under 14% who said abuse or misconduct “is no longer a major problem.” About 46% percent of respondents said abuse or misconduct was never more of a problem in the Catholic Church than it is in other fields that involve the care of minors.

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ERIE (PA)
Diocese of Erie

November 21, 2019

[See also: News Release – Bishop Lawrence Persico Heading to Rome]

Summary: This Quinquennial Report tracks the period from January 1, 2011 – December 31, 2018. The key events in the Diocese of Erie during this time were the ordination of Bishop Lawrence Persico as the 10th bishop of the Diocese of Erie on October 1, 2012; the initiation in 2014 of the ongoing comprehensive Pastoral Planning process; and the diocese’s response to the sexual abuse crisis together with the release of the 2018 Pennsylvania Grand Jury report.

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BOSTON (MA)
Archdiocese of Boston

November 22, 2019

[Click here to see the report of the inquiry into St. John’s that was published today. The inquiry was commissioned by Boston archbishop Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley, OFM Cap.]

The Archdiocese of Boston today announced the completion of the independent inquiry into St. John’s Seminary following allegations published on social media last year by two former seminarians. The allegations included claims that the Seminary tolerated illicit sexual behavior and excessive alcohol consumption on the part of seminarians and faculty.

The inquiry began in October 2018 and was conducted by former U.S. Attorney Donald K. Stern, with the assistance of Attorney Doug Salvesen and others at the firm Yurko, Salvesen & Remz. The process was extensive, including more than 80 interviews of current or former seminarians, faculty members, staff and Trustees. The inquiry found no evidence of criminal behavior or any sexual activity between seminarians and faculty members. It did conclude that “the Seminary had inadequate (and sometimes absent) leadership and oversight. This contributed to a lack of robust financial controls, a low tolerance for dissenting views, and insufficient attention paid to the seminarians’ human formation.” In addition it discovered only isolated incidents of sexual conduct and alcohol use that are inappropriate in a seminary setting.

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VANCOUVER (CANADA)
The Globe and Mail

Nov. 22, 2019

By Wendy Cox and James Keller

A painstaking examination of 70 years worth of files by a task force formed by the Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver has uncovered instances of sex abuse by 36 priests, 25 of them involving children.

The document identifies only nine of the 36 priests whose names have been made public through court documents or lawsuits, but the archdiocese said it is working to find a way to release more, those “who have not been convicted, but of whose guilt we are morally certain.”

Ian Bailey reports that the archdiocese explains in its report that privacy rules prevent it, as the employer of the priests, from disclosing more.

But the spare details of the nine cases are chilling if familiar.

They include the case of Paul Blancard, who was accused of the sexual assault of a girl, aged six or seven, in St. Helen’s Parish in Burnaby in 1967 or 1968. No charges were laid, but he later pleaded guilty in 1992 to abusing six- and seven-year-old children while he was a priest in the Diocese of Victoria. He served a year in prison and has not been active in the priesthood since.

John McCann, who died last year, was charged and convicted in 1991 of six counts relating to sex abuse of girls under 16 in the 1970s. The abuse happened at two diocese churches and he was defrocked. But unbeknown to the Archdiocese, he was able to serve as a priest on Salt Spring Island in the Diocese of Victoria and in the Archdiocese of Ottawa.

Lawrence Cooper began a relationship with a 15-year-old girl when he was a 27-year-old seminarian and the relationship became sexual several years later. Similar complaints were made against him after he transferred to the Archdiocese of Portland. A civil lawsuit against him was settled out of court in 2012.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
FOX 5 DC

Nov. 22, 2019

A Catholic priest has been sentenced to 15 years in prison on Friday after he was found guilty of sexually abusing two young girls at his Northwest DC parish.

Father Urbano Vazquez’s supporters broke down in tears as the sentenced was handed down Friday afternoon. Vazquez also received 15 years of supervised release following his prison sentence and will be required to register for the rest of his life as a sex offender.

Vazquez was found guilty on all counts in a nine-day long trial back in August after two girls testified that 46-year-old priest groped them and kissed them on the mouth when one was 9 years old and the other 13.

One of the girls said Vazquez cornered her in an office and groped her breast. The assaults took place inside the Shrine of the Sacred Heart church complex – including near the church confessionals, in the church basement, and in the church sacristy – in Northwest D.C. in 2015 and 2016.

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ROME (ITALY)
The Telegraph

Nov. 22, 2019

By Nick Squires

The Vatican has been accused of harbouring a bishop wanted for alleged sex abuse offences, as Pope Francis railed against the evils of sexual exploitation on a visit to Thailand.

Prosecutors in Argentina have issued an international arrest warrant for Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta, who is accused of sexually abusing young trainee priests, known as seminarians. He denies the charges.

Bishop Zanchetta, 55, who is close to his fellow Argentine Pope Francis, lives in the Vatican.

Not only that, he reportedly resides in Casa Santa Marta, an accommodation block in the shadow of St Peter’s Basilica where Francis has lived ever since his election six years ago.

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NAGASAKI (JAPAN)
Japan News

November 22, 2019

A female Catholic in Nagasaki Prefecture has lodged a complaint that she was sexually harassed by a priest in the prefecture, Jiji Press learned Friday.

The Archdiocese of Nagasaki has suspended the priest but failed to disclose the scandal to other followers, informed sources said.

The archdiocese, the second-largest diocese in Japan in terms of the number of followers, cited medical treatment as the reason behind the absence of the priest.

A source expressed concern, saying, “If we don’t bring problematic behavior to light, we can’t prevent a reoccurrence.”

Sexual abuse by clerics is a problem seen around the world. Systematic cover-ups of such crimes by church authorities have been criticized.

Pope Francis, set to visit Japan from Saturday, issued in May an order obligating the clergy to report any sexual abuse by clerics to the Vatican.

In May 2018, the priest in his 40s allegedly told the woman to come to a church where he serves in Nagasaki and committed indecent acts, including hugging her and touching her body, according to informed sources.

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NEW YORK (NY)
CNN

Nov. 22, 2019

By Richard Roth, Samantha Tapfumaneyi and Sebastian Shukla

The United Nations has temporarily suspended its work with the Central African Republic branch of Caritas Internationalis after it emerged that the director of the Catholic charity there was a convicted pedophile.

The decision by the UN comes a day after CNN reported that Father Luk Delft was appointed to a key role in Caritas despite a prior conviction for abusing children in Europe. He was only removed from his post after CNN revealed the new accusations against him to his superiors in the Salesians of Don Bosco, a religious order established specifically to protect children.

Jens Laerke, the UN’s Humanitarian agency deputy spokesperson, told CNN on Friday that work with the aid organisation in the CAR was on hold while investigations into Delft continued.

“The Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) is aware of the serious allegations of abuse against minors by the former Caritas Director in CAR,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network

Nov. 22, 2019

A local Houston church has invited a Catholic deacon to speak about traditional Latin masses, but that deacon was at one time suspended from ministry, reportedly for “failure to comply with the vow of celibacy.”

Prince of Peace Church in Houston, TX, has invited Dom. Alcuin (Scott) Reid to speak on November 23. However, the cleric, who is described on the parish’s website as an “author and foremost expert in liturgical studies,” had his faculties as a deacon removed in 1991 by the Archdiocese of Melbourne. According to at least one source, the deacon “made repeated inappropriate and sometimes aggressive sexual advances while in the seminary.” The Australian Church apparently “strenuously and repeatedly urged Scott [Alcuin] Reid to seek laicization,” but he refused to do so. Dom Reid has countered that he asked for a leave of absence. A French bishop later reinstated him as a deacon.

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NEW YORK (NY)
New York Post

Nov. 22, 2019

By Emily Saul

Two cousins from Mississippi claim in a new lawsuit they were sexually assaulted by two Franciscan missionaries — and then pressured into taking a measly settlement designed to silence their allegations.

La Jarvis Love and Joshua Love allege in their Manhattan federal suit that they were repeatedly abused by Brother Paul West sometime in the mid-1990s in Mississippi, where they attended Catholic school, in New York in a Manhattan hotel and en route to Camp Alvernia in Centerport.

The court papers accuse West of “raping and sexually assaulting [the cousins], making them perform sex acts on him, and encouraging them to perform sex acts on each other.”

The Loves first reported their abuse to the Catholic Diocese of Jackson, Mississippi, according to the complaint, filed Thursday. The lawsuit does not specify when the alleged abuse occurred.

Joshua Love met with Franciscan Rev. James Gannon and Valerie McClellan, the victim assistance coordinator for the Jackson Diocese, last year and was pushed to settle his claim for $10,000, the suit says.

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BERGEN (NJ)
Bergen Record

Nov. 22, 2019

By Deena Yellin

Just a week before state law may unleash a torrent of new priest abuse lawsuits, Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin of the Newark Archdiocese said the church is working hard to rebuild trust with the more than 1.3 million Catholics under his watch.

The church’s credibility was “shot” after a series of scandals came to light last year, Tobin said in an interview Friday. But the archdiocese has taken steps to inject more transparency, he added, including pressing local pastors to address the abuse issue from the pulpit and making financial audits public.

Getting back trust “is not easy or instantaneous,” Tobin told NorthJersey.com and the USATODAY Network New Jersey. “We have to act like we’re trustworthy.”

Tobin, leader of the archdiocese covering Bergen, Union, Hudson and Essex counties, unveiled a six-point “Forward in Faith Together” initiative earlier this year focused on increasing protection for minors and seminarians, education of priests and support for parishioners, among other goals.

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BUENOS AIRES (Argentina)
Associated Press

Nov. 21, 2019

The spokesman for an Argentine bishop close to Pope Francis who has been accused of sex abuse criticized Argentine prosecutors for requesting an arrest order, saying the release of information in the case hurt his image and his presumption of innocence.

Spokesman Javier Belda denied that Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta was in “rebellion” for not responding to calls or messages, as Argentine prosecutor María Soledad Filtrín asserted this week. Belda said Zanchetta had cooperated with judicial authorities throughout the case.

Zanchetta has been formally accused of “aggravated continuous sexual abuse” of two seminarians, charges that carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. The alleged abuse began in 2016 in Oran, about 1,600 kilometers northwest of Buenos Aires. He has denied the charges.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

Nov. 22, 2019

A Franciscan brother who was the subject of a major AP News investigation for his abuse of three young boys in Mississippi has been served a federal lawsuit. The case against Br. Paul West was filed in the United States District Court in Southern New York.

As a survivor and an advocate I am encouraged by this case being filed federally because of the interstate transport of the victims when they were small children. These brave men were denied the opportunity to have a normal healthy childhood by Br. West. They were further harmed after coming forward as adults by the Church leadership.

I am hopeful they can receive justice and reach some closure to a lifetime of fear, doubt and shame. They deserve to be heard and understood as to the magnitude of injustice they have endured. As the local leader for SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests in Mississippi I will stand with them as they go forward.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
NPR Morning Edition

Nov. 22, 2019

By Laura Benshoff

Following the 2018 grand jury report in Pennsylvania, Catholic dioceses launched reparations programs. Hundreds of people have now received more than $50 million, but not all are satisfied.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholic Philly

Nov. 22, 2019

By Matthew Gambino

Since the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church broke open in 2002 in the United States and intensified globally last year, responses to it have focused on legal matters and administrative reforms.

But theologians and other faithful thinkers are focusing now on a higher dimension, and the question of where God is calling his people at this moment.

Villanova University launched the first in a series of four conferences on the theological perspectives of the sexual abuse crisis Nov. 1. Some 20 Catholic scholars from around the world heard a dozen presentations on the topic in a day-long seminar, according to Villanova professor Massimo Faggioli, a lead organizer of the series. (Read more about the series here.)

In a keynote talk to cap the first conference, Father Richard Lennan said the long-term response of the Christian community to the crisis should be an inner conversion of heart and fearless self-criticism — and not only among bishops and clergy, but all members of the church.

A professor of theology at Boston College and a priest of the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle in Australia, he told 25 people, including scholars and visitors from the community, why conversion is critical at this time.

“A theological response to the abuse crisis recognizes that (it) is not simply an issue of governance, formation for ministry or pastoral practice. The sexual abuse crisis gnaws at the faith,” he said. “It casts a pall of suspicion over belief in a capacity of any human instrument, let alone the church, to mediate grace.”

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BANGOR (ME)
WMTW TV

Nov. 22, 2019

By Renee Clark

A Catholic priest, the friend of a Hampden woman who was murdered in July of last year, took the stand Thursday in the trial of the man accused of killing her.

The prosecution has rested its case against Philip Clark, 56. He’s pleaded not guilty to the murder of Renee Clark.

Defense witnesses include Rev. Anthony Cipolle. Cipolle was living at the same home as Renee Clark during the months leading up to her murder, but says he was renting a separate space from her.

The defense questioned Cipolle about his relationship with Renee Clark. He said she was his best friend.

When questioned if it was a romantic relationship, he said no. The defense considers Cipolle one of the key witnesses in the trial.

Cipolle testified to a physical altercation between him and Philip Clark the night that Clark allegedly shot Renee 10 times.

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SYRACUSE (NY)
Post Standard

Nov. 22, 2019

Two impoverished Mississippi men who say they were sexually assaulted by Franciscan missionaries filed a federal lawsuit Thursday claiming that Catholic officials pressured them into signing settlements that paid them little money and required them to remain silent about the alleged abuse.

The lawsuit, filed in New York, claims the church officials drew up the agreements a year ago to prevent the men from telling their stories or going to court — a violation of a 2002 promise by American bishops to abandon the use of nondisclosure agreements, as part of an effort to end the cover-up of sexual abuse within the church.

“The confidentiality provisions contained in the disputed agreements were intended to silence” the two men “in direct contradiction” to the U.S. Catholic Church’s Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, the lawsuit says.

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DENVER (CO)
Crux

Nov. 22, 2019

By Charles Collins

A children’s rights group is warning that a “Third Wave” of clerical sex abuse scandals is hitting Latin America, with revelations showing how the Catholic Church has continued to try and hide the extent of the crisis.

The London-based Child Rights International Network (CRIN) released The Third Wave: Justice for survivors of child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church in Latin America on Nov. 20. It looks at the scale of abuse and cover-up by the Church in every Latin American country, as well as reviewing whether national laws on child sex crimes adequately protect children.

CRIN says the first wave of abuse scandals took place in Ireland and North America, with the second taking place in Oceania and continental Europe.

“There is a growing global wave of demands for accountability of the Catholic Church for the sexual abuse of children, especially now in more Catholic majority countries,” said Leo Ratledge, CRIN’s legal and policy director.

The report says the Catholic Church in Latin America has systematically tried to suppress abuse complaints and scandals in a number of ways that will seem familiar to many U.S. Catholics who lived through the clerical abuse crisis of the past 20 years.

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MEMPHIS (TV)
News Channel 3

Nov. 21, 2919

By Nina Harrelson

As the number of priests and clergymen accused in the Catholic church sex abuse scandal grows, one survivor is sharing his story and hoping it will encourage others to come forward.

More than 40 years have passed, but for Ger Prendergast, not even decades can heal the emotional scars left behind from the sexual abuse he endured as a young boy in Ireland.

“I can’t even remember how many times, to be honest,” he said. “‘In the church or in his house. It happened in the school a couple times.”

He said a priest enticed him with little packets of heart candies with messages on them — “which I’ve never eaten since, can’t stand them,” he said — a slice of marble cake and a red apple.

He recalls the moment his priest hand-picked him from the classroom, at just 9 years old, asking for a volunteer.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service

Nov. 21, 2019

By Carol Glatz

Caritas Internationalis, the Vatican-based confederation of 165 national Catholic charities, has expressed sadness and outrage over incidents of child abuse by a Belgian Salesian priest who had been the national director of Caritas in the Central African Republic.

Caritas Internationalis in Rome released a written statement Nov. 21, the same day CNN published an investigative report outlining new accusations against Father Luk Delft, including his 2012 conviction in Belgium of two counts of child abuse and of possession of child pornography.

“Caritas Internationalis is assisting the local Caritas in the Central African Republic as it investigates the allegations, strengthens its safeguarding mechanisms and offers care and support to any possible victims and their families,” the statement said.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
Catholic Herald

Nov. 20, 2019

By Jordan Bloom

Archbishop José Gómez of Los Angeles was elected president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) at the bishops’ general assembly in Baltimore last week. He received the votes of 176 other bishops, making him the overwhelming favourite. Archbishop Gómez, who was born in Monterrey, Mexico, becomes the first Latino bishop to hold the position.

“The election to @USCCB president is an honor – not only for me, but also for @lacatholics and for every Latino Catholic in the country,” the archbishop said in a tweet. “I promise to serve with dedication and love, and to always try to follow Jesus Christ and seek his will for his Church here in the US.”

Archbishop Gómez is an outspoken supporter of immigration reform – a fact the media took notice of following his election. “The choice, on the same day that the Supreme Court heard the Trump administration’s argument to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, reflects the increasing importance of immigration as a moral and political issue for the church,” the New York Times wrote. “It also is a sign of the Church’s future: nearly 40 per cent of American Catholics are Hispanic.”

In a statement prior to DACA’s Supreme Court hearing, the archbishop said: “In this great country, we should not have our young people living under the threat of deportation, their lives dependent on the outcome of a court case.”

Archbishop Gómez is the author of Immigration and the Next America: Renewing the Soul of Our Nation, which was favourably reviewed by Michael Sean Winters of the National Catholic Reporter and by a Catholic Worker publication, suggesting that his appeal extends beyond conservative circles in the US Church, which regard the Opus Dei archbishop as a reliable defender of doctrine.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
Patriot News

Nov. 21, 2019

By Ivey DeJesus

After years of fierce opposition and constitutional hurdles, Pennsylvania lawmakers on Thursday passed measures that will ease up restrictive child sex crime laws and give victims of sexual assault more time to file lawsuits against their abusers.

One measure – an amendment to the state Constitution – would give victims long barred from taking legal action against predators the opportunity to file civil lawsuits. Voters must ultimately approve the constitutional amendment.

Gov. Tom Wolf is expected to sign the measures, which could be on his desk as early as today pending sign-off from both chambers of the Legislature.

“Governor Wolf is eager for the grand jury recommendations to be implemented and looks forward to signing the three bills into law,” J.J. Abbott, a spokesman for Wolf, said in a statement. “He thanks the brave victims that made these changes possible by sharing their stories and fighting for justice.”

Rep. Mark Rozzi, who had for years shepherded measures to reform the laws but consistently met with defeat, stood to a standing ovation from House members. Rozzi is a victim of clergy sex abuse.

The House approved Rozzi’s bill (House Bill 962) to revise the statute of limitations by a 182-5 vote.

“Justice is coming,” Rozzi said. “On behalf of victims of sexual abuse across this Commonwealth, thank you.”

The provisions of House Bill 962 and House Bill 963 will open a pathway for adults who were sexually abused as children to seek legal recourse. The measures, which had been stalled in the Legislature for years, broadly reform the statute of limitations and address the recommendations made by the scathing 2018 grand jury report into clergy sex abuse in the Catholic Church statewide.

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NEW YORK (NY)
CNN

Nov. 21, 2019

By Nima Elbagir, Barbara Arvanitidis, Katie Polglase, Bryony Jones and Alex Platt

A pedophile priest was sent to work for an aid organization helping vulnerable families in an African country, even though his Catholic order knew he had been convicted of abusing children years earlier in Europe, a CNN investigation has found.

Father Luk Delft is accused of abusing at least two other boys in the Central African Republic (CAR) while in a key role at Caritas, a leading Catholic charity.

The 50-year-old priest, from Belgium, was only removed from the post after CNN revealed the new accusations against him to his superiors in the Salesians of Don Bosco, a religious order established specifically to protect children.

For years, the Salesians covered up Delft’s abuse, moving him from post to post, and sending him to work in some of the world’s most troubled places.

Despite the allegations he faced, and being convicted of abuse, he was allowed to maintain a high profile — even receiving the sacrament at a service presided over by Pope Francis at the Vatican this year.

Delft’s case also raises serious questions about the vetting process at one of the world’s largest Catholic non-governmental organization (NGO) networks, and comes as the church struggles to turn the page on decades of sexual abuse scandals involving members of the clergy.

Alban Alain, now 17, and his family told CNN that Delft repeatedly sexually abused the teenager when they met at a camp for internally displaced people (IDP) in Kaga-Bandoro, CAR, four years ago.

“It’s a horrible thing that he did to me,” Alban, who was 13 when the alleged abuse began, told CNN.

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BUENOS AIRES (ARGENTINA)
Reuters

Nov. 21, 2019

By Cassandra Garrison

An Argentine criminal prosecutor has requested the arrest of a Catholic bishop after officials said he ignored repeated calls and emails about an investigation of sex abuse allegations against him.

The prosecutor in charge of gender violence and sex crimes for Oran, in the northern province of Salta, called for the arrest of Gustavo Zanchetta. The official request would need to be made by an Argentine judge, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office said on Thursday.

Zanchetta, the former bishop of Oran, told Argentine officials that he lived in Vatican City, where he previously held a position in a top financial department, but could not be reached, according to a spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

Nov. 21, 2019

Both the St. Louis archdiocese and the Kansas City diocese come under fire in a lengthy and alarming new Associated Press investigation into secretive, internal church panels that supposedly ‘investigate’ abuse reports. We call on bishops in both places to immediately revamp their boards and be more honest about who’s on them and how they operate.

In St. Louis, members of Archbishop Robert Carlson’s ‘review board’ are not public identified. So it’s possible a fearful abuse victim could walk into a meeting and see their boss, neighbor or next door neighbor on that panel. This scares and discourages many victims from ever reporting the priest, nun, bishop, seminarian, brother or monk who sexually assaulted them. And that, in turn, keeps kids in harm’s way.

In Kansas City, members of Bishop James Johnston’s ‘review board’ “didn’t always tell the review board about complaints against priests or give members all the evidence, according to an outside report commissioned by the diocese in 2011,” the AP reports. “Such failures enabled one priest (Fr. Shawn Ratigan) to stay on duty for several months after church workers found child pornography on his computer. In the end, he was caught again with more pornography and arrested, and Bishop Robert Finn was convicted of a misdemeanor charge of failing to report child abuse to secular authorities.”

The KC board now includes a nun, a priest and two lawyers. We have little or no faith that meaningful reforms have been taken by Johnston or his hand-picked panel.

We believe the flaws identified in the AP report are not accidental, isolated ‘mistakes’ or ‘oversights.’ Bishops and their lawyers are smart. They intentionally set up these panels to help with public relations and legal defense. They deliberately give the panels little power or access to information. Their goal is to give the appearance of change, rather than making actual change.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

Nov. 20, 2019

A new investigation by the Associated Press has shared with the public a disappointing and depressing truth that survivors and advocates have been talking about for years: that internal church review boards too often put the reputation of the institution above care for survivors and the protection of children. Now that this report has been widely published, we hope the public will join our calls for dramatic change into how dioceses handle allegations of abuse.

Diocesan review boards ostensibly exist to be a tool for church officials to investigate and respond to allegations of clergy abuse. But the report by the AP contains numerous experiences of survivors who felt like the review board existed to do the opposite and instead investigate the survivor who brought the claims forward and not the accused priest. Some boards do not even bother to hear from the survivor directly before dismissing their claims as “not credible” or “unsubstantiated,” terms that vary wildly from diocese to diocese.

Making matters worse, review board members are often kept secret from the public, allowing church officials to stack the boards with people who are sympathetic to the church. In some cases, priests accused of abuse have themselves served on these boards. It is no wonder then why so many survivors leave the review board process feeling victimized instead of validated. Similarly, keeping the identities of review board members secret means far fewer victims will step forward. What victim will report abuse fearing they may see their boss or next door neighbor or biggest customer sitting on that church panel when they walk into the room?

As the new head of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee for The Protection of Children and Young People, Kansas City Bishop James Johnston must take steps to reform these boards immediately. He can start by demanding that all dioceses around the country make their review board rosters public. He can follow that demand up by creating clear evidentiary standards, uniform across every diocese, that emphasize a focus on the credibility of the person coming forward and making an allegation, not adhering to some arbitrary number of accusers in order for an allegation to be “substantiated.”

Review board have long been a problem and we are grateful for this report for drawing attention to the many problems that exist with boards today. We hope that this pressure from the public and the media will finally make church officials recognize these problems and take steps to fix them. And we urge anyone who is considering reporting their abuse to make sure and report to secular law enforcement officials first.

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Patheos blog

Nov. 29, 2019

By Gabriel Blanchard

Let’s start with some suggestions for reforming authority structures in the Church, shall we? The power to avoid, dissemble, conceal, and reassign responsibility turned what might have been a series of local tragedies into a nationwide epidemic. The authority structure that enabled that needs to be checked, if not dismantled completely.

Now, I am not a professional canonist any more than I am an expert theologian, so some of the details and terminology in the following proposals may be off. I hope that doesn’t obscure any genuine value they have.

I. Reforms of Authority

1. A permanent papal legate (legatus a latere) shall be established, with authority over every diocese in the country. This office is not to be confused with the nunciature, an essentially diplomatic function; his office is closer to that of the apostolic visitor, but permanent. His principal task will be overseeing the conduct of the clergy, authorizing the immediate laicization of offending priests without further recourse to the Vatican, and the deposition of offending bishops and heads of religious communities with the Vatican’s confirmation. The idea here is both to place a check on bishops and religious, who have thus far shielded themselves pretty effectively from enduring any consequences either for abuses they have committed or for protecting guilty priests, and to accelerate the laicization of offenders in order to help protect victims and potential victims.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Associated Press

Nov. 21, 2019

By Reese Dunklin, Matt Sedensky and Mitch Weiss

Facing thousands of cases of clergy sex abuse, U.S. Catholic leaders addressed their greatest crisis in the modern era with a promised reform: Mandatory review boards.

These independent panels with lay people in each diocese would review allegations fairly and kindly. And they would help bishops ensure that no abusive priests stayed in ministry.

But almost two decades later, an Associated Press investigation of review boards across the country shows they have broadly failed to uphold these commitments. Instead, review boards appointed by bishops and operating in secrecy have routinely undermined sex abuse claims from victims, shielded accused priests and helped the church avoid payouts.

The AP also found dozens of cases in which review boards rejected complaints from survivors, only to have them later validated by secular authorities. In a few instances, board members were themselves clergy accused of sexual misconduct. And many abuse survivors told the AP they faced hostility and humiliation from boards.

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NEW YORK (NY)
National Review

Nov. 21, 2019

By By Tobias Hoonhout

An Associated Press investigation of the U.S. Catholic Church’s independent review boards for clergy sexual abuse found that they “broadly failed” to uphold accountability and fairness– by undermining abuse claims, protecting accused priests, and helping the Church avoid payouts.

The investigation “checked all the roughly 180 dioceses in the U.S. for information, reviewed thousands of pages of church and court records, and interviewed more than 75 abuse survivors, board members and others to uncover a tainted process where the church hierarchy holds the reins of power at every stage.”

Of the roughly 80 review boards it inspected, the AP found at least 40 bishops who created potential conflicts of interest by appointing “high-ranking aides and attorneys who defended the church or its priests in sex-assault cases.”

The AP found “dozens” of cases reviewed by independent diocesan boards that were later affirmed by secular authorities. It also found three cases of clergy serving on boards despite being accused of sexual misconduct themselves.

While many bishops contacted by the AP did not respond to requests for comment, several bishops defended the review boards as proof of the Church’s ability to reform. Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore acknowledged potential improvements, but said his diocese’s board “inspires confidence in the process.”

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Post Gazette

Nov. 20, 2019

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Wednesday authorized the release of the name of a Catholic priest accused in a grand jury report of sexual abuse, but it kept a seal on references to his mental-health records.

The court voted 6-1 to grant the request of the petitioner, which it identified by initials as RML, to keep his mental-health history redacted, citing strict statutory restrictions on the release of mental-health medical records. The court prothonotary has 14 days to unseal the name of the priest and other details not pertaining to his treatment.

The ruling involved unfinished business from the mammoth 2018 grand jury report alleging sexual abuse by 300 Catholic priests from six dioceses across seven decades.

A small group of priests had petitioned successfully last year to the Supreme Court to keep their names redacted entirely, saying the accusations violated their right to reputation under the Pennsylvania Constitution.

RML, however, was not challenging the report for including his name, only for including information from his mental-health treatment. The court kept his name confidential while it considered that petition.

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NEW YORK (NY)
New York Post

Nov. 20, 2019

By Priscilla DeGregory

A Pennsylvania man claims that a gay Irish priest — who is celebrated for his work advocating for LGBT and AIDS causes — abused him 40 years ago at a Bronx Catholic high school, according to a new lawsuit.

The 57-year-old, who filed the court papers anonymously, says he was 16 when Campus Chaplain Bernard J. Lynch sexually abused him after Christian Club meetings at Mount St. Michael Academy in the Bronx in 1978 and 1979, a lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court Wednesday alleges.

The accuser brought the case against the archdiocese, the high school and several other religious orders for negligently failing to look into why Lynch had “frequent transfers between assignments,” the court papers say.

The suit claims the school should have warned the teens family about Lynch.

“Defendants further breached their duties by hiding a pedophile and engaging in a cover-up of abuse perpetrated by Fr. Bernard Lynch,” the court documents charge.

The alleged victim has filed the suit in the wake of the Child Victims Act that went into effect in August, which allows people who were abused as kids to bring claims that have already passed outside the statute of limitations.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

Nov. 20, 2019

The Pennsylvania Senate Judiciary Committee has advanced several reform bills aimed at increasing protections for children and supporting survivors of sexual violence. We are grateful for the continued attention to this critical issue and hope that Pennsylvanian stakeholders and victims can find a reform solution that works for all.

One of the bills, HB 962, would amend the state’s archaic statute of limitations law to allow victims until age 55 to file a lawsuit. Another bill, HB 963, would give survivors in Pennsylvania a two-year “window to justice,” allowing those victims whose claims were previously barred by statute of limitations an opportunity to bring their cases forward. However, the vehicle for this reform – using a constitutional referendum – is a controversial one. House Bill 1171 would clearly state that confidentiality agreements cannot prohibit someone from speaking to law enforcement. All three bills implement the recommendations made by last year’s grand jury, who uncovered horrific cases of clergy sexual abuse and cover-up in six Pennsylvania dioceses.

But while HB 963 addresses a critical need, it unfortunately does so in a way that most survivors and advocates do not favor. Since it is an attempt to reform the state constitution, HB 963 will lead to a protracted process, one that will involve years of work and could still potentially fail. While we are supportive of the goal of this reform, we believe that legislators in Pennsylvania should be acting to reform those laws today, not kicking the can down the road. Consequently, victims are divided as to whether or not they should support this bill. Ultimately, however, we simply want to see this much needed reform get across the finish line.

These are critically needed bills that would put Pennsylvania’s laws more in line with the realities of sexual violence – many survivors suffer in silence for years due to shame, self-guilt, or fear of being disbelieved. The average age of a victim coming forward is 52. Due to these factors, reforming these laws is the only way that many survivors can have their day in court. Additionally, these lawsuits would bring to light previously hidden information about abusers and their enablers. Getting this documentation into the hands of parishioners and parents can help to protect children and the vulnerable in the present time.

Statute of limitations reform has been a challenging fight in Pennsylvania, and Catholic officials in the state have spent much money and energy working against these new laws. We hope that Church leaders will use their funds in other ways and stop working to prevent survivors from having their day in court.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

Nov. 20, 2019

Six months after raiding diocesan offices, investigators with the Dallas Police Department have had their attempts to review files stymied by diocesan lawyers and legal technicalities.

Once again it feels like Catholic officials treat transparency as a buzzword to be trotted out for the media but not followed. It is disappointing to learn that the records seized by the DPD have yet to be seen by investigators, and frustrating to know that Church leaders in Dallas are still impeding the efforts of law enforcement.

Six months ago, when investigators first raided his diocese, Dallas’ Bishop Edward Burns defiantly told the press “and so we say, by all means, look.” If Catholic officials really believed in transparency and wanted the public to be informed, they would let the DPD do their job. But by quietly operating behind the scenes they show that they care more about their reputation than the truth.

Church leaders claim that files were taken at random and that the police took too many documents during the raid. Yet multiple secular investigations – from Pennsylvania to Oklahoma to Colorado – have shown that allegations of abuse can be scattered throughout various files and kept in odd places, so Dallas’ Catholic officials request to the judge that files “that do not involve allegations of abuse” be returned seems counter to the public statement of “by all means, look.” More to the point, how will investigators at the DPD even know which files are related to abuse and which are not unless they are able to review the files themselves?

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

Nov. 20, 2019

A formerly high-ranking Alaskan Catholic official – once accused of molesting and threatening to kill a ten year old – just dodged criminal charges. We call on every current and former Alaska church employee to take steps to help police and urge others who may have seen, suspected or suffered crimes by the cleric so he might be charged again, convicted and kept away from children and the vulnerable.

Last year, Fr. Timothy Crowley was arrested and charged with eight counts of child sexual abuse. Last month, however, citing the statute of limitations, a judge reluctantly said those charges had to be dropped.

Abusers commonly have more than one victim and we believe that there are likely others who were hurt by Fr. Crowley and could pursue new charges against him. Catholic church staff now have a moral duty to help find and support those other victims.

First, Juneau BishopAndrew Bellisario (Alaska’s highest ranking church official and the temporary head of the Anchorage archdiocese) should lead this effort and encourage his flock help. He can start by posting a list of credibly accused child molesting cleric on their diocesan website and including Fr. Crowley on that list. Many survivors suffer in silence but seeing the name of the person who abused them listed publicly as an abuser can encourage them to come forward, make a report, and seek help.

But other church workers can’t passively and irresponsibly sit back waiting – perhaps fruitlessly – for the church hierarchy to act responsibly. They must do all in their power to spread the word about the case against Fr. Crowley so that the full truth about his wrongdoing can be told. Action helps justice happen. Inaction helps predators escape justice.

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CHARLESTON (WV)
Legal Examiner

Nov. 20, 2019

A man who volunteered at a Charleston church’s Vacation Bible School has been accused of sexually abusing a child at the school. 50-year-old Rhett Aaron Bowen is charged with first-degree sexual abuse.

Police have accused Bowne of engaging in sexual contact with an underage boy while working as a volunteer for the Vacation Bible School. It is not clear when this alleged abuse is believed to have taken place.

According to the Charleston Police Department, more victims have contacted the department to report that they were also sexually abused by Bowen. According to a press release, Bowen is suspected of frequenting locations in Kanawha City where children often congregate.

Anyone with information related to this case has been asked to contact the Charleston Police Department Criminal Investigation Division at 304-348-6480.

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FRESNO (CA)
ABC 24 News

Nov. 15, 2019

The Merced County District Attorney’s Office has decided to not file criminal charges against Monsignor Craig Harrison.

Officials said in a news release on Friday, that its investigation into allegations of inappropriate touching by Monsignor Harrison was conducted by the Merced Police Department and was started after a confidential victim came forward in April. All of the incidents that witnesses detailed allegedly happened in Merced County in 1987 and 1988, officials said.

In July, The Bakersfield Police Department closed an investigation on Monsignor Craig Harrison involving allegations of misdemeanor sexual battery that happened in the early 1990s. The department claimed that the case does not meet established standards for a recommendation for filing of criminal charges.

According to the release from the Merced County District Attorney’s Office, officials determined, “that all available evidence and leads had been identified and exhausted” in October. The district attorney’s office added, “Based upon the factual circumstances of this case, the filing of charges is prohibited by the applicable statute of limitations; therefore, no charges will be issued.”

In September, Monsignor Harrison filed a second slander lawsuit over sexual misconduct accusations made against him by alleged victims.

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