ABUSE TRACKER

CALIFORNIA
The Press-Enterprise

As we reported on PE.com yesterday, the Rev. Alejandro “Alex” Castillo faces another civil lawsuit alleging sexual abuse.

Castillo is the Ontario priest who served eight months in jail for molesting a 12-year-old boy. The sentence could have been up to 22 years in prison but the parents of the victim agreed to a plea deal to spare the boy the pain of testifying.

One question that attorneys for the alleged victims have asked me is why Castillo continues to be a priest.

Anthony De Marco, the Pasadena attorney representing the man who filed the lawsuit on Monday, said the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Bernardino isn’t doing enough to strip Castillo of his priesthood. The diocese should urge the Vatican to laicize Castillo, he said.

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JOLIET (IL)
Southtown Star

September 20, 2012

Editorial

After a disturbing decision to return a priest accused of child sexual abuse to ministry, Joliet Diocese Bishop R. Daniel Conlon changed his mind this week and returned the priest to permanent leave.

It’s clearly the right move, but we’re left wondering why the Catholic Church made it necessary — the priest never should have been brought back.

Conlon last week assigned the Rev. F. Lee Ryan to a limited ministry for homebound parishioners in the Watseka area after the Vatican had ruled that Ryan did not violate church law, apparently because the alleged victim of abuse was not younger than 16 — the age of consent under church law.

Ryan was removed as an active priest in May 2010 by Conlon’s predecessor after a diocesan review panel found credible evidence that he had a sexual relationship in the 1970s with a student at Providence Catholic High School in New Lenox.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Mark O’ Regan and Patsy McArdle

Thursday September 20 2012

AN 84-year-old Irish priest extradited from the United States to face sexual assault charges against teenage boys has died while awaiting trial.

Fr Francis Markey was due to appear in court in Monaghan later this year for allegedly raping a 15-year-old boy in 1968 during a religious pilgrimage to Lough Derg. It was claimed the priest subsequently abused the same teenager after the funeral of the boy’s father in Co Galway the following November. In November 2005 the man told his wife and a councillor after reading a copy of the Ferns Report into allegations of sexual abuse in the Catholic Diocese of Ferns, Co Wexford, when it all came back to him.

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IRELAND
Galway News

September 20, 2012

It’s reported that an 84 year old priest charged with the alleged sexual assault of a boy in County Galway over 40 years ago has died while awaiting trial.

The priest was due to appear in court in Monaghan for allegedly raping a 15-year-old boy in 1968 during a religious pilgrimage to Lough Derg.

It’s also claimed he abused the same teenager after the funeral of the boy’s father in County Galway.

The former cleric was arrested by US marshals at his home at Miller Court in South Bend, Indiana in 2009 and was extradited to Ireland in July 2010.

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NEW YORK
New York Post

By ANDREW STRICKLER

Last Updated: 6:39 PM, September 19, 2012

An explicit video of an underage girl having sex with her boyfriend will remain locked in a safe at the Brooklyn district attorney’s office — for now.

The tape is a point of contention in the ongoing case against Nechemya Weberman, 53, a Hasidic spiritual counselor charged last year with sexually abusing the same girl.

His attorneys want the video and related investigative files made available to jurors in Weberman’s trial, scheduled to begin next month.

They argue that the tape, secretly recorded by the girl’s father with Weberman’s involvement, triggered her “extreme” anger at Weberman, and a vengeful accusation that he forced her to have sex with him.

Supreme Court Judge John Ingram today denied the request, citing the “very sensitive nature of that videotape.” He also noted that Weberman’s name only appeared once in the case file, and that investigators never interviewed Weberman about the video. The boyfriend was never charged.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

Sep. 18, 2012
By Dennis Coday

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A national advocacy group for survivors of childhood sexual abuse has called for the resignation of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., Bishop Robert Finn, who was convicted Sept. 6 of failing to report suspected child abuse.

About 15 people joined the leaders of the National Survivor Advocates Coalition on Sunday in a public square three blocks from the diocesan cathedral for a demonstration calling for Finn’s resignation.

“A criminally convicted bishop cannot lead. Bishop Finn should resign or be removed,” said Kristine Ward, chair of the coalition, on the steps of Barney Allis Plaza in downtown Kansas City.

Ward, who is from Dayton, Ohio, said the leaders of the coalition came to Kansas City to be in solidarity with local Catholics and urge them to action.

“The courts have acted and now must the church,” Ward said. “The moral issue of a criminally convicted bishop who sits as chief teacher in the diocese must be confronted head on.”

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CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles Times

December 14, 1989

JOHN H. LEE | TIMES STAFF WRITER

A former Roman Catholic priest sought by Los Angeles police on child pornography charges has been arrested by sheriff’s deputies in Spokane, Wash., authorities said Wednesday.

John Bauer, 53, who Los Angeles police said led a four-man ring that produced pornographic videos of boys in Hollywood and Mexico, was arrested late Tuesday night.

Authorities said Bauer is being held without bail on federal charges that he fled California to avoid prosecution. He probably will have an extradition hearing next week.

Spokane County sheriff’s deputies stopped Bauer and a friend on an interstate highway on the outskirts of the city, said Sheriff’s Detective Mark Henderson. A source had informed deputies that Bauer was in town for a day and was apparently headed to Seattle, Henderson said.

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MONTANA
Bozeman Daily Chronicle

Whitney Bermes, Chronicle Staff Writer
Posted: Wednesday, September 19, 2012

This headline jumped out at me when I was flipping through the archives today. Quite an interesting story. Enjoy.

“‘Porno priest’ John Bauer dies in California prison” – By Joan Haines, Oct. 29, 1992

John Bauer, the former Catholic priest who opened Bozeman’s only adult book store and became known as the “porno priest,” died Monday night in a medium-security federal prison i San Luis Obispo, Calif.

Bauer, 55, a Bozeman native, was serving an eight-year term in the California Men’s Colony after pleading guilty in 1990 to three counts of producing and distributing child pornography.

Prison authorities told Pete Ramsey of Santa Barbara, a friend of Bauer’s Monday evening that he died of a massive heart attack. Ramsey said Bauer had been ill, suffering from high blood pressure. Chief Deputy Coroner Don Hines said today Bauer died of coronary artery disease.

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SPRINGFIELD (IL)
BishopAccountability.org – Assignment Record

Summary of Case: Ordained a priest of the Joliet diocese in 1956, Ryan held a number of chancery positions before being appointed auxiliary bishop in 1981. In 1983 he was elevated to Bishop of Springfield, IL where he served until his abrupt retirement in 1999, at age 69. His retirement was announced the day after a civil lawsuit was filed which claimed Ryan knew one of his priest was sexually abusing a child, but did nothing. Ryan had long been the subject of rumors that he engaged in “sexual improprieties” with adult men, including prostitutes and priests. In 1986 Ryan announced he was an alcoholic and underwent three months of treatment. He stepped down from public ministry in 2002 after accusations surfaced that he had sexually abused a 15 year-old boy in 1984. He is last known to be living in an assisted living facility in Joliet.

Ordained: May 3, 1956
Consecrated: Auxiliary Bishop of Joliet IL, Sept. 30, 1981
Appointed: Bishop of Springfield IL, Nov. 22, 1983
Retired: Oct. 19, 1999

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
KCUR

By Stephen Steigman and Steve Kraske

The Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph is still reeling from Bishop Robert Finn’s conviction this month for failing to report child sexual abuse.

Members of a national Catholic organization — the National Survivor Advocates Coalition — on Sunday demanded that Finn resign. A spokeswoman for that group said simply, “A criminally convicted bishop cannot lead.”

The bishop is the highest-ranking U.S. Catholic cleric to be convicted in the church’s decades-long child sexual abuse scandal.

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CANADA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on September 19, 2012

Today is the last day for aboriginal Canadians, who suffered abuse while in the residential school system, to file a claim. After today the only way to file a claim will be through court action.

The Canadian Independent Assessment Process was created to handle compensation cases regarding sexual and, other kinds of abuse, of children in the residential school system.

While we applaud the Canadian government for creating the IAP and for extending the deadline last year, we believe putting time constraints on reporting sexual abuse to be insensitive and dangerous.

We hope that anyone who suffered abuse in the residential school system finds the courage and the strength to report their abuse before the deadline at 11:59 tonight. We also hope that since the number of abuse cases reported have “increased exponentially in the past three months”, that the Canadian government will extend the deadline.

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ILLINOIS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Yesterday I received a call from the Diocese and learned that the Bishop has changed his decision about returning Fr. Ryan to ministry. The spokesperson, Molly Fara, told me she wanted me to be the first to know so that I would not learn about the Bishop’s new stance from the press.

I told her that while I think the Bishop is finally exercising good judgment regarding Fr. Ryan, I was curious to know what Fr. Ryan has been doing and where he has been since he was removed in the first place. I asked her if Fr. Ryan was just an unemployed priest free to roam the streets with now more time on his hands.

She told me that he just returned from Europe where he was vacationing and that he just returned home recently. I told her that made no sense at all but she said he would be supervised.

Because of how the Joliet diocese has treated me, I’m not very confident that in fact he will be.

I also wanted her to be aware of a recent incident that happened to my mother this past Sunday while she attended Mass. I told her my mother frequently attended Mass and that she usually met and sat near a regular group of acquaintances. And at the end of Mass she and her friends would normally greet the priest with a handshake or a hug and they would express their gratitude for his message.

However, last Sunday was different in that the priest approached the group before mass started and said hello to everyone individually in the group except my mother. She extended her hand to the priest but he refused to acknowledge her, turned his back and walked away.

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ISRAEL
NBC News

By Paul Goldman , NBC News

TEL AVIV – The ultra-Orthodox community in Israel, known as Haredim, has a closed and secluded way of life. They look at the secular population with a degree of suspicion and try to manage their own affairs. To that end, rabbis try to deal with cases of violence and sexual misconduct internally – without alerting outside authorities.

That cultural mentality makes it even harder to tackle sensitive subjects like the sexual abuse of children.

Now, for the first time, a book published in Hebrew tackles the growing problem of sexual abuse among children in the ultra-religious community, trying to break the silence in the closed community.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
National Catholic Reporter

Sep. 19, 2012
By Michael Sean Winters

PLYMOUTH, N.H. — Plymouth is a small college town of just under 5,000 souls. It is located near the geographic center of the state, where the New England Uplands give way to the White Mountains. Main Street hosts some of the old buildings of Plymouth State University, a white clapboard church, and a variety of storefronts. On the August morning when I drove into town, it was anything but sleepy, filled with people buying coffee and reading their papers, 20-somethings loading a beer keg into the back of a pickup truck, hikers emerging from a sporting goods store with last-minute additions to their gear.

Fran Taylor was decidedly unhurried as she made her way into Cafe Monte Alto. A retired school teacher, Taylor is now the chair of the Democratic Town Committee in the neighboring town of Holderness. She greeted a woman who was sitting outside. “She’s a Democrat too!” Taylor told me. The woman excitedly told Taylor that when making phone calls on behalf of the Obama campaign, almost everyone she spoke with wanted tickets to an upcoming event with the president. …

Catholics make up about one-quarter of the state’s population, but the church is not a dominant force in politics. “It is the least churched state and even that is dwindling,” Taylor told me. She said that the religious liberty issue is “not really on the radar screen” as far as she can tell from conversations with neighbors. Last year, Bishop John McCormack of Manchester, the diocese that covers the entire state, attended a rally to protest budget cuts. “What he said was entirely legitimate,” Taylor said, but his intervention was not well-received because of his reputation as a one-time aide to Boston’s Cardinal Bernard Law. Indeed, the House Republican leader, D.J. Bettencourt, who led the fight to cut the budget, got nasty in denouncing McCormack. “Would the bishop like to discuss his history of protecting the ‘vulnerable’?” Bettencourt wrote on his Facebook page. “This man is a pedophile pimp who should have been led away from the State House in handcuffs with a raincoat over his head in disgrace. He has absolutely no moral credibility to lecture anyone.” Bettencourt later apologized for his comments. He has since resigned, after it was revealed he had falsified documents regarding a required legal internship as part of his obtaining a law degree.

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UNITED STATES
COGIC Abuse Watch

New ground has been broken in favor of COGIC clergy sexual abuse survivors. The three victims of Bishop Charles Brown are telling their story publicly for the first time. Brown, who currently sits as pastor of the Williams Temple COGIC in Houston escaped prison earlier this year on a legal technicality.

Four days after that ruling, the General Board immediately reinstated Blake’s longtime friend to office. The previous suspension was lifted “without further comment”. This left the impression that Brown was not guilty. But Brown was never exonerated of his sexual crimes against three young girls, thus he should have never been reinstated. Report COGIC Abuse also published an exclusive report exposing the General Board who secretly paid off the victims.

But now, they are speaking out in an exclusive interview with Dunamis Word blog which has helped to document the coverup and complicity by the Blake administration.

The time has come to hold Bishop Charles Blake, Sr. accountable for his role in these matters. According to one of the victims only one other person knew them as well as Brown knew them.

[…]one of the survivors states that until the interviews, which can be heard above, only ONE other person in the church has ever made contact with any of them. That was the Bishop Charles E. Blake, who spoke to one of the victims, as he knew them very well for a number of years. Unfortunately, that conversation was over some 15 years ago before Bishop Blake became Presiding Bishop.”

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MIAMI (FL)
WSVN

[with video]

MIAMI (WSVN) — Several parents protested after a Catholic school pastor who was allegedly named in a sexual lawsuit remains at the school.

Parents protested at St. Agatha Catholic School Tuesday night. One side wants Father Rolando Garcia removed from the Catholic School, while the other side supports Garcia. “Simply put, I don’t feel comfortable with him at the school, and I think it is appropriate for him to be moved,” said parent Erica Garcia.

The two sides are at odds because Father Garcia was named in another lawsuit alleging he abused a young boy at another church in the 1980s. “My position is we are judging a priest without having anything from a court,” said a supporter.

Archdiocese of Miami previously settled a lawsuit against Father Garcia in 2007.

Garcia, who is the pastor of the school’s Catholic church, regularly interacts with children and parents are concerned.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin
Inquirer Staff Writer

Philadelphia prosecutors scoffed Tuesday at a new claim by defense lawyers that they withheld evidence that might have helped Msgr. William J. Lynn at his landmark child-sex abuse and endangerment trial.

The District Attorney’s Office never received a formal statement or polygraph results suggesting that Lynn’s codefendant, former priest Edward Avery, lied when he admitted sexually assaulting an altar boy, according to Hugh Burns, chief of the appeals unit.

The accuser’s testimony about the 1999 attack became a cornerstone of Lynn’s trial.

“To say that we knew [Avery] was innocent was, I’m sorry, it’s insane,” Burns said. “What we know is that he formally pleaded guilty because he had evidence that made him guilty.”

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HAMMOND (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

BY Teresa Auch Schultz Sun-Times Media tauch@suntimes.com

The recently fired pastor of a Hammond megachurch will plead guilty to taking a minor across state lines for sexual activity, federal prosecutors in Indiana said Tuesday.

Jack Schaap, former pastor of First Baptist Church in Hammond, was fired in August because he allegedly had a relationship with a 17-year-old girl. The church initially said its deacon board fired Schaap because he committed a “sin.”

The church has said the 17-year-old girl and her family are members of First Baptist, which was one of the first megachurches in the country. The church has a congregation of more than 15,000.

Schaap, 54, of Dyer, is scheduled to have his initial appearance Wednesday afternoon before U.S. Judge Paul Cherry in federal court in Hammond.

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IRELAND
JOE

The Catholic Church isn’t exactly the most popular organisation in the country at the moment, neither are Fine Gael so it’s the perfect time for them to come together then…

By Brian Moss

Taoiseach Enda Kenny will be bumping into Pope Benedict the 16th at the weekend. Now we’ve all experienced that awkward moment when you meet someone you’d rather not. Remember that time at the bar in Coppers, when you realise you were next to the girl you scored the week before and yet, have a better chance of guessing Rumplestilskin’s name? Or there’s pretending to recognise a distant relative at a family wedding. Those moments can make you sweat a bit so spare a thought for the Taoiseach.

Enda received widespread praise over his damning speech on the Vatican in the Dáil last year when discussing the Cloyne report on child abuse in the church and no doubt the Pope got wind of it. The coalition also got The Vatican’s goat up when they closed the embassy in the papal city and there has been some strained relations with the Vatican’s representatives in Ireland.

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IRELAND
Irish Central

By
DARA KELLY,
IrishCentral Staff Writer

Published Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Irish leader Enda Kenny will meet Pope Benedict this Saturday at the papal retreat at Castle Gandolfo.

Kenny is in Rome to meet the Italian Prime Minister and will go on to meet the Pope along with other European Union leaders.

Soon after taking office, Kenny made a major statement strongly criticizing the Vatican’s handling of sex scandals involving their priests in Ireland.

The Vatican refuted his allegation that they had stalled inquiries into suspected pedophile and relations since have been at a low ebb.

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UNITED STATES
Pocono Record

Editorial

September 19, 2012

Cults are nothing new. Religious or secular, their leaders seek power and often employ the same techniques: isolation flacked as exclusivity, fear — and sex.

Amish splinter group leader Samuel Mullet Sr., of eastern Ohio, appears to be no different. A jury is now deliberating whether Mullet and some of his fellow believers are guilty of hate crime charges involving the beard- and hair-cutting of other Amish they allegedly don’t consider worthy. But even before the trial, former members of the group told federal officials that Mullet had locked them into chicken coops for punishment and instructed adult members to correct each other with heavy wooden paddles. Mullet also held himself out as a couples counselor, preferring to work with women. Part of the counseling, The New York Times reported, involved having them live with him — and have sex with him.

That’s just Mullet. Remember Charles Manson? He attracted a following of addled women and men in the late 1960s who specialized in random murders, including the brutal killings of actress Sharon Tate and Folgers coffee heiress Abigail Folger. Manson believed in an approaching race war he called “Helter Skelter,” and directed the murders to hasten the battle. Sex played a big role in the sway Manson, who’s still in jail, held over his female followers.

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CALIFORNIA
The Press-Enterprise

BY DAVID OLSON The Press Enterprise STAFF WRITER
dolson@pe.com
Published: 18 September 2012

An Ontario priest convicted last year of molesting one boy has been sued for allegedly sexually abusing another.

The Rev. Alejandro “Alex” Castillo was released from jail in April after serving eight months for sexually abusing a then-12-year-old parishioner at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic parish in Ontario in 2008.

The civil suit filed Monday, Sept. 18, in San Bernardino County Superior Court alleges that in 2003 and 2004, Castillo also repeatedly sexually abused a teenaged boy in the same parish.

The parish, the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Bernardino, and the Riverside-based Western Province of the Society of the Divine Word, an order of priests and brothers, are also named in the suit. They are accused of negligence for not doing enough to protect the boy.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

HARRY McGEE, Political Correspondent

TAOISEACH ENDA Kenny will be among a group of European political leaders who will meet Pope Benedict in Rome on Saturday.

Mr Kenny will visit the pope’s residence at Castel Gandolfo on Saturday afternoon with a small group of prime ministers and presidents drawn from other EU countries.

The visit will occur during the course of a two-day meeting of the Centrist Democrats International group hosted by Italian prime minister Mario Monti. The group is affiliated with the European People’s Party, of which Fine Gael is a member.

The visit will draw attention because it will represent the first meeting of the pope and the Taoiseach since Mr Kenny’s speech in the Dáil in July 2011 that severely castigated the Vatican for its inaction in dealing with the issue of child abuse in Ireland.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Catholic News Agency

Chicago, Ill., Sep 19, 2012 / 02:09 am (CNA).- A Massachusetts-based Catholic lay group, Voice of the Faithful, is making efforts to sway the selection of Chicago’s new archbishop by getting feedback from local church-goers.

Colleen Dolan, director of communications for the Chicago Archdiocese, says that it may be helpful for the group – which has no official affiliation with the archdiocese – to encourage participation, but that locals should “send their responses directly to the Apostolic Nuncio.”

Following Church procedure, Cardinal Francis George, who has served as Archbishop of Chicago since 1997 and is currently undergoing four months of chemotherapy, submitted his retirement Jan. 16, 2012 upon reaching his 75th birthday.

However, “Cardinal George understands that his retirement will not be accepted for two years,” Dolan told CNA Sept. 18.

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CANADA
Nunatsiaq News

Former residential students have only one more day to file for compensation under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, said Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada in a Sept. 18 news release.

The Common Experience Payment is paid to eligible former students who resided at a recognized residential school.

The deadline to apply for a CEP was Sept. 19, 2011, but “in cases of disability, undue hardship and exceptional circumstances,” applications can be accepted until Sept. 19, 2012, the news release said.

For Inuit, the CEP had processed 4,371 applications, and Nunavummiut received $41.2 million through the CEP as of June 30, 2012.

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CANADA
CBC News

Posted: Sep 19, 2012

Aboriginal Canadians who suffered physical or sexual abuse in residential schools have until the end of today to apply for federal compensation.

Applications for claims under the Independent Assessment Process must be sent electronically or postmarked no later than 11:59 p.m. PT on Wednesday.

Compensation under the Independent Assessment Process is different from the Common Experience Payments that many former students received in recent years.

The Common Experience Payment gave eligible former students $10,000 for the first year they had to attend residential schools and $3,000 for each successive year.

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TULSA (OK)
News On 6

TULSA, Oklahoma –
Victory Christian Center issued a statement Tuesday addressing the charges against two former employees accused of child sex abuse.

The Tulsa church says Israel Castillo, 23, and Chris Denman, 20, both passed a screening process that included a nationwide background check and personal references.

They found no history of any criminal activity.

Both men are accused of having sexual relationships with three underage girls who attended camp at Victory Christian.

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CONNECTICUT
New Canaan News

Martin B. Cassidy

A former long-time music director at Christ Church Greenwich, Robert F. Tate, 70, has been released from the federal prison term he was serving following a 2008 child pornography conviction and has moved to a New Canaan apartment.

At his sentencing hearing in 2008, Tate, admitted to a 40-year history of sexual abuse of minors overseas as well as viewing hundreds of sexually-explicit photos of children dating back to the 1960s. Tate was not charged criminally for those acts, but did acknowledge having sex with boys in Thailand, the Philippines and Costa Rica.

According to the state Sex Offender’s Registry, Tate is living at 279 Elm St., Apartment 2, following his release from federal prison last week.

Attempts to reach Tate for comment Tuesday were unsuccessful.

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TULSA (OK)
Tulsa World

By JARREL WADE World Staff Writer
Published: 9/19/2012

The investigation into alleged sexual abuse at Victory Christian Center has revealed more possible victims who are not cooperating with the ongoing investigation, police said Tuesday.

Two former employees are charged with child-sex offenses after police received reports involving underage girls nearly two weeks after the girls reported the allegations to Victory Christian officials, court records show.

Chris Denman, 20, is jailed on charges of raping a 13-year-old girl at the church, court records show. Israel Shalom Castillo, 23, is charged with making a lewd or indecent proposal to a child and using a computer to facilitate a sex crime.

Castillo had not been arrested by Tuesday night, jail records indicate.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
Catholic San Francisco

September 19th, 2012
By George Raine

A group of survivors of sexual abuse by clergy and the Archdiocese of San Francisco have jointly created a first-of-its-kind policy on how the archdiocese can better serve victims, one that aims to engage and empower them in the healing process.

The policy is the result of collaboration, not negotiation, and to the archdiocese’s knowledge it has not been replicated in any Catholic diocese in the nation, said Auxiliary Bishop Robert W. McElroy, who with Auxiliary Bishop William J. Justice joined six survivors of clergy abused to create the plan. It was approved by Archbishop George Niederauer.

In meetings over six months, the process was by design democratic, to the point there was no chairperson of the joint committee, everyone with an equal say. One product of the policy, already being implemented but only announced last week, is a wellness program that offers traditional therapeutic counseling along with alternative approaches some survivors said are very helpful, from acupuncture to nutrition to meditation to chiropractic. All are covered by the archdiocese. The policy offers mediation in lieu of a lawsuit as an option for addressing claims, and it also creates opportunities for the archdiocese to support survivor groups to further work on the healing process and expands outreach to parishioners about abuse that has occurred and what is being done to accommodating healing. Indeed, the policy is entitled “Healing the Wounds of Clergy Sexual Abuse.”

“It was an effort at empowerment for the survivors, in a way really bringing them into the policy formation process in a collaborative way,” said Bishop McElroy. “It makes the survivors part of our policy formation and the solution to this terrible problem in the church.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Main Line

Nine alleged victims of clergy abuse have filed eight lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, Cardinal Justin Rigali, the Rev. Msgr. William Lynn and seven individual priests and former priests, including two with ties to Delaware County.

Attorney Jeff Anderson and co-counsels Marci Hamilton and Dan Monahan announced the filings at a 1 p.m. press conference in Center City.

“Bringing these cases is important because until there is accountability it is difficult to begin a journey of healing,” said Anderson, who is also representing victims of former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. “With the filing of these cases today, these courageous survivors can start to heal.”

Priests named as defendants in the lawsuits include Edward Avery, a defrocked priest who ministered at St. Bernadette Church in the Drexel Hill section of Upper Darby from June 1970 to June 1972 and at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Chester from 1972 to 1976 and the Rev. John P. Schmeer, a former pastor at Sacred Heart Church in Haverford Township who also had ties to St. Anastasia School in Newtown Square.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The New York Times

By JON HURDLE

Published: September 18, 2012

PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia district attorney’s office on Tuesday challenged a claim by lawyers for a convicted Roman Catholic monsignor that prosecutors had persuaded another priest, now defrocked, to falsely admit to sexually abusing a 10-year-old boy in order to obtain the conviction.

Lawyers for Msgr. William J. Lynn, a former senior official in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia who was convicted in June of child endangerment, filed a motion Monday in Pennsylvania Superior Court claiming that Edward V. Avery, the former priest, had not in fact abused the boy but had been pressured by prosecutors into signing a plea deal saying he had done so, in return for a lighter prison sentence than he might otherwise have received.

Monsignor Lynn was found guilty of endangering children by failing to stop abuse by priests under his supervision. He is the most senior official of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States to be convicted of charges relating to sexual abuse of children by priests. The conviction was for lax oversight of Mr. Avery, who spent six months in a church psychiatric center in 1993 after an abuse episode. Doctors said he should be kept away from children. But Monsignor Lynn sent him to live in a rectory and did not warn parish officials.

Mr. Avery’s alleged abuse of the boy was central to the conviction of Monsignor Lynn, whose lawyers are asking the court to reconsider its previous denial of bail. The lawyers said in the motion that they received evidence in late August that Mr. Avery denied assaulting the boy, or even knowing him, and that he had passed a polygraph exam testing whether he was lying about the 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.

ONTARIO (CA)
San Bernardino Sun

Melissa Pinion-Whitt, Staff Writer dailybulletin.com

ONTARIO – The man behind black sunglasses occasionally tugged at the rosary around his neck as he spoke to a small group of reporters Tuesday in front of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church.

He only identified himself as being in his 30s and a Pomona resident, but the man claimed he also is one of the six known victims who was molested by former Ontario priest Alejandro Castillo just a few months after he turned 18 years old.

“You gotta talk to your kids,” he said. “Give them the benefit of the doubt.”

The man came to the church in support of another victim who filed a lawsuit Monday against the Diocese of San Bernardino and Castillo, claiming sexual abuse by the priest and a cover-up 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.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By Joseph A. Slobodzian
Inquirer Staff Writer

Breaking with anonymity – but not loosening the tenacious hold of childhood sexual abuse – two men announced Tuesday that they had sued the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, church officials, and three priests.

The emotional statements by Andrew Druding and Michael W. McDonnell highlighted a Center City news conference where their lawyers also announced six other lawsuits on behalf of seven victims purportedly abused as children by archdiocesan priests.

“What you did didn’t define me,” said Druding. “I may be damaged goods, but I’m not going to allow you to beat me.”

Druding, 51, of Holmesburg, struggled to control his voice as he said he had been sexually abused in the early 1970s by the Rev. Francis S. Feret, then choir director at St. Timothy parish in Mayfair.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
Daily Times

By TIMOTHY LOGUE
tlogue@delcotimes.com
@timothylogue

Nine alleged victims of clergy abuse have filed eight lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, Cardinal Justin Rigali, the Rev. Msgr. William Lynn and seven individual priests and former priests, including two with ties to Delaware County.

Attorney Jeff Anderson and co-counsels Marci Hamilton and Dan Monahan announced the filings at a 1 p.m. press conference in Center City.

“Bringing these cases is important because until there is accountability it is difficult to begin a journey of healing,” said Anderson, who is also representing victims of former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. “With the filing of these cases today, these courageous survivors can start to heal.”

Priests named as defendants in the lawsuits include Edward Avery, a defrocked priest who ministered at St. Bernadette Church in the Drexel Hill section of Upper Darby from June 1970 to June 1972 and at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Chester from 1972 to 1976 and the Rev. John P. Schmeer, a former pastor at Sacred Heart Church in Haverford Township who also had ties to St. Anastasia School in Newtown Square.

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HAMMOND (IL)
NWI Times

By Times Staff

HAMMOND | A local megachurch’s former leader signed a plea agreement in federal court Tuesday admitting he took a minor over state lines with the intent to engage in sexual activity.

Jack Schaap was charged with interstate transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.

Schaap, 54, of Dyer, was dismissed from his leadership role at First Baptist Church in Hammond in late July after telling church officials about an explicit relationship with a young girl.

The FBI began looking into the relationship between Schaap and the girl, who was 17 when the allegations surfaced.

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JOLIET (IL)
Patch

By Karen Sorensen

Joliet Bishop Daniel Conlon has reversed his decision to allow a priest accused of having a sexual misconduct with a teen in the 1970s to return to ministry, according to a published report.

Last week, Conlon had allowed the Rev. F. Lee Ryan to do limited religious work by ministering to homebound parishioners in Watseka and Crescent City, despite having been removed from the ministry in May 2010 in light of allegations that he had a relationship with a teenage boy 28 years earlier, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Conlon said his decision was based on the fact that the allegation did not meet the criteria of a crime under church law at that time. The ruling stirred a huge amount of controversy, especially in light of Conlon’s earlier statement that the church’s credibility was “shredded” because of how the chuch sex abuse scandal has been handled.

“Subsequent discussions that have occurred since that decision have highlighted that any action needs to fulfill the larger need of the Church to confront the scandal of child abuse in its midst and work to diligently restore trust,” Conlon said in a statement, which was cited in the Tribune story.

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)
Chicago Tribune

[link to court documents – Jeff Anderson & Associates]

Natalie Pompilio
Reuters

3:56 p.m. CDT, September 18, 2012

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – Eight men and a woman publicly accused Roman Catholic priests and the Archdiocese of Philadelphia on Tuesday of child sex abuse, saying they found courage to come forward after the conviction in June of a top church official in the wide-ranging pedophilia scandal.

The nine filed civil lawsuits accusing the Archdiocese and church officials of conspiring to conceal incidents of sex abuse, failing to address the problem and ignoring complaints about abusive clergy, according to attorneys who announced the cases at a news conference in Philadelphia.

Problems with abusive priests in the Philadelphia diocese had been flagged in a 2003 grand jury report that found church leaders failed to report abuse to authorities. These lawsuits cite alleged abuse dating back to 1970.

The alleged victims opted to come forward after the conviction of Monsignor William Lynn, a top official found guilty of covering up sex abuse allegations, often by transferring priests to unsuspecting parishes, said Marci Hamilton, an attorney in the case.

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UNITED STATES
What They Knew

With the Boy Scouts of America in the news recently it would seem that the barking and howling from Bill Donohue would be at a fevered pitch. The Los Angeles Times this week uncovered abuse in the Boy Scouts, HERE.

Leaving aside the anthropology and history of the Boy Scouts (and the Jesuits for that matter) as an imperialist / colonial institution… what happens when you combine a Jesuit with a Boy Scout?

The answer is a disaster of epic proportions, or otherwise known in the California Province as Fr. Jerold Lindner SJ. Besides being an epic abuser of children and still a Jesuit to this day, Lindner was active in the Boy Scouts for seemingly 50 years. One wonders where his boy Scout files are… any complaints there?

Jerold Lindner SJ application to the Society of Jesus was initially rejected by the order, according to members of his family. They said the Jesuits told him he needed to broaden his life. So he took a job as a courier for a title company and became leader of a Boy Scout troop in Phoenix. Good training for being a Jesuit one has to assume, and it worked.

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JOLIET (IL)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on September 18, 2012

Joliet Bishop Conlon has reversed himself, putting a suspended, credibly accused child molesting cleric back on the job last week and removing him again this week.

Last week, Conlon acted selfishly and deceptively, blaming the Vatican for his own decision to put the predator priest back in parish ministry. It’s clear that Conlon wanted the priest back to work but has changed his mind, citing some vague “subsequent discussions.”

While we’re grateful that, for now, Fr. Lee Ryan won’t be visiting parishioners in their homes. He belongs behind bars or in a remote, secure treatment facility. Instead of using his public relations staff to do “damage control” after his reckless move, Conlon should be using them to aggressively seek out others who’ve been hurt by this child molesting cleric.

We strongly suspect that another allegation against Ryan has come in and that Conlon is refusing to acknowledge it.

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OREGON
Fox 12

By FOX 12 Webstaff

WOODBURN, OR (KPTV) –
A judge has removed himself from the case of a Woodburn priest accused of sexually abusing a 12-year-old boy.

Judge Thomas Hart recused himself without reason from the case of Father Angel Perez on Monday, according to the judge’s office.

Marion County Circuit Court Judge Susan Tripp will now be assigned to the case.

The alleged victim called police early in the morning Aug. 13 to report inappropriate contact from Perez, the head priest at St. Luke’s Catholic Church in Woodburn.

According to court documents filed by Woodburn police, the alleged victim told detectives he was spending the night at the priest’s home in Woodburn and woke up to flashes, possibly from a cell phone camera.

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JOLIET (IL)
The Daily Journal

The Daily Journal staff reports

According to media reports, Bishop R. Daniel Conlon of the Joliet Diocese, has withdrawn the reinstatement of the Rev. F. Lee Ryan.

Conlon announced last week that Ryan could minister to homebound parishioners of St, Edmund Catholic Church in Watseka and St. Joseph Mission in Crescent City.

In a prepared statement Tuesday, Conlon said, “Subsequent discussions that have occurred since the decision have highlighted that any action needs to fulfill the larger need of the Church to confront the scandal of child abuse in the midst and work to diligently restore trust.

“For the sake of the greater good of the Church, I have decided to revoke my earlier permission and once again place Fr. Ryan on full administrative leave.”

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.

IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Analysis by Claire O’Sullivan

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

THE 145 pages of Justice for Magdalene’s submission to the inter-departmental committee investigating State involvement in the Magdalene Laundries makes you ashamed to be Irish.

Reading it, you can’t help but feel repulsed, sickened and deeply ashamed — disgusted that any human being, let alone religious organisation, could treat another human being in such a way and that the Irish State could stand idly by and let it happen.

JFM describes from testimony how the women suffered abuse of various kinds — their hair was forcibly cut, they were beaten with belts until they bled and once the door to the outside world was shut on them, they were referred to by number not by name.

Over the course of the submission, JFM hold religious orders and the State directly and indirectly responsible for systematically humiliating, imprisoning and enslaving thousands of young Irish girls.

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ROME
The New York Times

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Published: September 18, 2012

The faded papyrus fragment is smaller than a business card, with eight lines on one side, in black ink legible under a magnifying glass. Just below the line about Jesus having a wife, the papyrus includes a second provocative clause that purportedly says, “she will be able to be my disciple.”

The finding was made public in Rome on Tuesday at an international meeting of Coptic scholars by the historian Karen L. King, who has published several books about new Gospel discoveries and is the first woman to hold the nation’s oldest endowed chair, the Hollis professor of divinity.

The provenance of the papyrus fragment is a mystery, and its owner has asked to remain anonymous. Until Tuesday, Dr. King had shown the fragment to only a small circle of experts in papyrology and Coptic linguistics, who concluded that it is most likely not a forgery. But she and her collaborators say they are eager for more scholars to weigh in and perhaps upend their conclusions.

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)
Jeff Anderson & Associates

Statement of Philadelphia Clergy Abuse Survivor Michael W. McDonnell:

“I speak not only for myself but for the countless others who suffered adolescent horror — you are not alone. Today is not just about seeking justice, but also, as it was written by President John F. Kennedy, about “our most admirable human virtue- courage.” As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse by the clergy, I can tell you that there is no doubt that the conspiracy to cover-up the grave moral actions by the clergy started long before these tragedies ever became public. It was protocol. It is today that courage brings me here, it is today that more will be revealed.”

Statement of Philadelphia Clergy Abuse Survivor Andrew Druding (Addressed to Msgr. Francis Feret):

I have been impacted every day of my life because of the unspeakable things you did to me. You did this to me in a place that was sacred to my family, my grandparents were married in that church, so were my parents, my mom, her 3 siblings were all baptized in that church, I was baptized in that church. And it was in that church that you chose to victimize me in such an evil way. Even as I write this, I cringe and feel sick to my stomach recalling this & so many other instances of your sick behavior. And while these things do not define me, they have to some extent, left me as damaged goods.

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)
Jeff Anderson & Associates

Complaint McDonnell

Complaint JD 203

Complaint JD 196

Complaint JD 197

Complaint JD 198

Complaint Dale

Complaint Druding

Complaint JD 195 and Jane Doe 190

(Philadelphia, PA) At a news conference today in Philadelphia, attorney Jeff Anderson and co-counsels Marci Hamilton and Dan Monahan announced the filing of eight new lawsuits for nine survivors of clergy abuse against the Philadelphia Archdiocese, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, Cardinal Justin Rigali, Msgr. William Lynn and the seven individual priests accused of the sexual abuse. The filing of these lawsuits brings the total number filed against the Archdiocese by Jeff Anderson & Associates to 16 complaints on behalf of 17 survivors.

Speaking at the news conference, Michael W. McDonnell, whose complaint alleges abuse by two of the named priests, said in part: “As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse by the clergy, I can tell you that there is no doubt that the conspiracy to cover-up the grave moral actions by the clergy started long before these tragedies ever became public. It was protocol. It is today that courage brings me here, it is today that more will be revealed.”

Co-counsel Marci Hamilton said, “It is not easy for these survivors to come forward. But, after have been frustrated by the Archdiocese’s persistent failures to protect children and its ongoing failure to take responsibility for the horrendous abuse suffered by so many at the hands of its priests and employees, their courage is surely demonstrated today.”

Also attending the news conference was victim/survivor Andy Druding, who said he was sexually abused by Msgr. Francis Feret at St. Timothy in Northeast Philadelphia, “a place that was sacred to my family and grandparents, who were married in that church.”

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.

UNITED STATES/PHILIPPINES
The Dallas Morning News

By Brooks Egerton/Reporter
begerton@dallasnews.com
1:03 pm on September 18, 2012

National Geographic‘s new issue exposes the ivory business, which has been hiding in plain sight since a worldwide trade ban was enacted in 1989. And a major player in the magazine’s story is a priest in the Philippines whom I wrote about in 2005 when investigating another global-trafficking phenomenon — the Catholic Church’s movement of sexual abuse suspects across international borders to escape justice.

The priest, Monsignor Cristobal Garcia, is now quoted as explaining how to smuggle ivory into the United States: “Wrap it in old, stinky underwear and pour ketchup on it.” And if an icon won’t fit in a suitcase? Here’s how National Geographic‘s Bryan Christy summarizes Garcia’s advice: “I might get a certificate from the National Museum of the Philippines declaring my image to be antique, or I could get a carver to issue a paper declaring it to be imitation or alter the carving date to before the ivory ban.”

Garcia also made provocative comments when I interviewed him about why he fled the U.S. in 1985. He admitted having sex with altar boys and supplying them with drugs — but said he did it because they threatened to accuse him of abuse. One boy “not only seduced me, he also raped me,” Garcia told me.

My story was part of a Dallas Morning News series called “Runaway Priests: Hiding in Plain Sight.” Reese Dunklin, Brendan Case and I documented more than 200 cases in which Catholic clergymen had gone abroad and stayed in ministry.

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.

CALIFORNIA
The Union Democrat

Written by Alexander MacLean, The Union Democrat
September 18, 2012

A former Catholic priest has denied allegations that he molested an altar boy while ministering at a San Andreas parish from 2000 to 2002, and local supporters have rallied around him.

Michael Kelly, who left for his native Ireland earlier this year after being found liable of sexual abuse in a 2007 lawsuit, said Monday in an email sent to The Union Democrat that he couldn’t discuss many details of the case but fiercely denied any wrongdoing.

“Never, ever did I molest IN ANY WAY this person,” Kelly wrote in the email. “The allegations are completely false as are ANY allegations of my molesting anyone at any time. It never happened. Never.”

Meanwhile, a number of parishioners and friends have signed up with a group publicly defending the former Mother Lode priest, citing positive personal experiences and questionable evidence used by attorneys.

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.

JOLIET (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

BY BOB OKON bokon@stmedianetwork.com September 18, 2012

The Rev. F. Lee Ryan has been removed from public ministry again.

Ryan, who has faced an allegation of sexual relations with a minor more than four decades ago, was put back into limited ministry last week after a ruling from the Vatican based on church law.

But Joliet Bishop R. Daniel Conlon announced Tuesday that he has decided to put Ryan back on “full administrative leave.”

In a written statement, Conlon said, “Last week I announced that Father F. Lee Ryan would be permitted to exercise a very narrow priestly ministry. Subsequent discussions that have occurred since that decision have highlighted that any action needs to fulfill the larger need of the Church to confront the scandal of child abuse in its midst and diligently restore trust.

“For the sake of the greater good of the Church, I have decided to revoke my earlier permission and once again place Fr. Ryan on full administrative leave.”

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)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin
INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS

Philadelphia prosecutors scoffed Tuesday at a new claim by defense lawyers that they withheld evidence that might have helped Msgr. William J. Lynn at his landmark child-sex abuse and endangerment trial.

The District Attorney’s Office never received a formal statement or polygraph results suggesting that Lynn’s codefendant, former priest Edward Avery, had lied when he admitted sexually assaulting a former altar boy, according to Hugh Burns, chief of the appeals unit.

The accuser’s testimony about the 1999 attack became a cornerstone of Lynn’s trial.

“To say that we knew [Avery] was innocent was, I’m sorry, it’s insane,” Burns said. “What we know is that he formally pleaded guilty because he had evidence that made him guilty.”

Burns comments marked the office’s first response since defense lawyers on Monday cited Avery in their latest bid to win bail for Lynn, the former secretary for clergy for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

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)
CBS Philly

By Pat Loeb

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Nine more people, alleging sexual abuse by priests, have filed suit against the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. They join ten other alleged victims in charging that an archdiocesan conspiracy to protect priests allowed the abuse to occur.

Two of the plaintiffs appeared today with their attorneys at a center city news conference.

Andrew Druding (far right in photo) was visibly agitated, and his wife quietly wept, as he read a letter he wrote but never sent to his grade-school music teacher, Fr. Francis Feret.

” ‘You took advantage of a nine-year-old boy who loved to sing and was afraid to tell because you were a priest, God’s messenger on Earth, the most holy person in my life. I’ve never forgotten what you did to me, so graphic, so horrific…’ ”

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)
CBS News

Archdiocese of Philadelphia hit with eight new lawsuits over alleged cover-up of sexual abuse

(CBS/AP) PHILADELPHIA – Nine plaintiffs filed eight new civil lawsuits Tuesday alleging the Archdiocese of Philadelphia covered up child sex assault allegations made against seven Roman Catholic priests.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs said their clients decided to come forward when former archdiocesan official Monsignor William Lynn was found guilty of child endangerment and received a three- to six-year prison sentence. The 61-year-old is the first U.S. church official convicted of endangering children by keeping predatory priests in ministry. He served as secretary for clergy at the Philadelphia Archdiocese from 1992 to 2004.

According to CBS Philly, Lynn is seeking bail while he appeals his conviction.

Named in the latest lawsuits are Lynn, Archbishop Charles Chaput, his predecessor, Cardinal Justin Rigali, and the priests accused by the plaintiffs of sexual 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.

JOLIET (IL)
Chicago Tribune

By Manya Brachear
Tribune reporter

A Joliet-area priest reinstated last week after being removed from ministry over an allegation of sexual abuse has been withdrawn once again, Joliet Bishop R. Daniel Conlon confirmed today.

Last week, parishioners learned that the Rev. F. Lee Ryan could minister to homebound parishioners of St. Edmund Catholic Church in Watseka, south of Kankakee, and St. Joseph Mission in Crescent City. He had been removed from ministry in May 2010 because of an alleged relationship with a teenager in the 1970s.

But Conlon, who also serves as chairman of the Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People for U.S. Catholic bishops, returned him to limited ministry last week because the allegation did not meet the criteria of a crime under church law at that time.

“Subsequent discussions that have occurred since that decision have highlighted that any action needs to fulfill the larger need of the Church to confront the scandal of child abuse in its midst and work to diligently restore trust,” Conlon said in a statement. “For the sake of the greater good of the Church, I have decided to revoke my earlier permission and once again place Fr. Ryan on full administrative leave.”

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)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By Joseph A. Slobodzian
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Lawyers for nine purported survivors of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia today announced the filing of eight lawsuits against the church and seven individual priests.

The names of the seven priests are already publicly known because of their appearance in one or both Philadelphia County grand jury reports.

But today two victims insisted that their names be made public to encourage other victims to come forward and press their cases.

“I may be damaged goods, but I’m not going to allow you to beat me,” said Andrew Druding, of Northeast Philadelphia at the Center City news conference as his wife, Denise, wiped away tears as she sat in the front row.

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.

BOSTON (MA)
National Catholic Reporter

Sep. 18, 2012
By Jerry Filteau

BOSTON — At a two-day conference in Boston, Voice of the Faithful celebrated 10 years of battling sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy and working to change the church structures that permitted and at times facilitated it. But the 450 conference participants spent most of Friday and Saturday exploring how to continue and expand that struggle over the next decade and beyond.

When the organization was founded in 2002 at the peak of the U.S. scandal of clergy sexual abuse of minors, the organization spoke with “a prophetic voice. Never forget, your voice rose up from your faith, from your love for the church,” Fr. Donald Cozzens, writer in residence at John Carroll University in Cleveland, told the gathering Saturday morning.

“When others lost their nerve and their voice, you didn’t lose your nerve or your voice,” he said. “I salute your courage to come together 10 years ago, to speak your truth to power then, throughout the last decade, now, and into the future. Speaking the truth to power is never easy.”

Cozzens, the award-winning author of The Changing Face of the Priesthood and other widely acclaimed books on priesthood in the U.S. today, said that by faith, he meant not only “belief in Jesus Christ and his teaching and his church, but also … trust.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

Interview with Fr. Enzo Fortunato, spokesman for the Sacred Convent of Assisi and Director of “Rivista di San Francesco”, the convent’s monthly magazine

Giacomo Galeazzi
Vatican City

“The Church is not behind the times, it actually represents strong beliefs that have an effect. It is modernity that is facing a crisis,” Fr. Enzo Fortunato, a Franciscan theologian, spokesman for the Sacred Convent of Assisi and Director of Rivista di San Francesco, the convent’s monthly magazine.

Are movements and the Church as an institution at loggerheads with each other?

“I have never heard the Pope or competent dicasteries say anything against religious movements. I have only ever heard comments about their beauty and richness. I like to think of them as “communicating vessels” that enrich each other.”

Does the Church have difficulty in relating to modernity?

“I believe it is modernity that has difficulties in the relationship it has with itself. Modernity is basically characterised by weak short-lived thinking that does not help humans face the reality of their problems. The Church’s thinking is strong and gives impetus.”

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)
CBS Philly

PHILADELPHIA — Eight new civil lawsuits allege the Archdiocese of Philadelphia covered up child sex assault allegations made against seven Roman Catholic priests.

The lawsuits were being filed Tuesday by a total of nine plaintiffs. Their attorneys plan to release more details at an afternoon news conference.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs said their clients decided to come forward when former archdiocesan official Monsignor William Lynn was found guilty of child endangerment and received a three- to six-year prison sentence.

Named in the latest lawsuits are Lynn, Archbishop Charles Chaput, his predecessor, Cardinal Justin Rigali, and the priests accused by the plaintiffs of sexual abuse.

The 61-year-old Lynn is the first U.S. church official convicted of endangering children by keeping predator priests in ministry. He served as secretary for clergy at the Philadelphia Archdiocese from 1992 to 2004.

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)
NBC 10

By Jackie Gailey

Tuesday, Sep 18, 2012

Eight new civil lawsuits claiming the Archdiocese of Philadelphia covered up child sex abuse allegations have been filed in Philadelphia.

Attorneys with Jeff Anderson & Associates have scheduled a news conference for 1 p.m. on Tuesday in Center City to announce the filings by nine alleged survivors of clergy abuse.

Named in the lawsuits are the Archdiocese, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, Cardinal Justin Rigali, Msgr. William Lynn and the seven individual priests accused of sexual abuse.

Lynn, the former secretary for clergy at the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, was convicted in June of child endangerment for failing to oust then-priest Edward Avery after a 1992 sex abuse complaint. Lynn is serving three to six years in prison.

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)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on September 17, 2012

Archbishop Chaput has placed Fr. Michael Chapman on leave from ministry after receiving more allegations against the priest in May of 2012.

In the announcement today from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, a spokesman claimed that “Father Chapman had never actually returned to active public ministry, did not have access to children and was not residing in a parish at any time since the May 4th announcement.” Farrell said.

It’s disingenuous and misleading for Philly church officials to claim Fr. Chapman didn’t have access to kids. Unless they’d put him in a remote, secure treatment facility, he did in fact – and likely still does in fact – have access to kids. It’s just wrong for church officials to pretend they effectively monitor suspended and credibly accused child molesting clerics 24/7.

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.

UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

[Anne M. Burke to Voice of the Faithful: Envisaging a World-Wide Council of the Laity]

As a companion piece to Anne Burke’s Voice of the Faithful speech last week, which I posted yesterday, I’m now posting Joseph O’Callaghan’s comments to the VOTF gathering as he received the Saint Catherine of Siena award on 14 September. As with Anne Burke’s speech, Joe O’Callaghan’s commentary comes to us by way of Jerry Slevin–and I’m very grateful both to Jerry and to Joe for their generosity in seeing that this material is made available to Bilgrimage readers. Joseph O’Callaghan is a professor emeritus of history from Fordham University, author of Electing Our Bishops (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), and a leader of the active Bridgeport, Connecticut, VOTF group. His presentation as he received the Saint Catherine of Siena award follows:

——————

My very dear friends,

I am deeply honored to be a recipient of the St. Catherine of Siena Award. I want to share it, however, with my sisters and brothers of Voice of the Faithful in the Diocese of Bridgeport, many of whom are here this evening. The award is theirs as much as it is mine. Each one of them has unselfishly contributed his or her special gifts to the reform and renewal of the Church that we love.

It is fitting that this award should be named for St. Catherine of Siena, for she, like us, lived during an unsettled period in the life of the Church. For seventy years in the fourteenth century the popes abandoned the bishopric of Rome, their primary responsibility, and took up residence at Avignon in southern France. Recognizing how wrong that was, Catherine admonished Pope Gregory XI and eventually persuaded him to return to Rome.

Our Church today is buffeted by similar turbulence. The Church in which we grew up is collapsing. I believe that that is the work of the Holy Spirit who is deliberately pulling down the edifice built on clericalism and hierarchy, an edifice that Jesus would find incomprehensible.

Yet, amid the wreckage that now afflicts the institutional Church, Catholics everywhere, and most especially our brave and courageous nuns, continue to do the work of Jesus Christ, feeding the hungry, caring for the poor, the sick, and the elderly, and speaking out against war and militarism. The beauty of the Church, when viewed through the lens of the commitment of its followers to the transformation of our society, is still there for all to see.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Zeit

Die Diskussion über den Missbrauchsskandal hat es möglich gemacht: Drei Männer erinnern sich an Schrecken ihrer Kindheit in katholischen Heimen – und sprechen darüber.

Seine Eltern gaben ihm den Namen Elvis, als er im Winter 1962 geboren wurde. Seine Mutter war aus Lettland geflohen und in einem Ulmer Wohnheim gestrandet. Als sie krank wurde, kam der kleine Elvis auf Anordnung des Jugendamts ins katholische Säuglingsheim St. Josef, das in einem alten Schloss im baden-württembergischen Dorf Hürbel untergebracht war. Seinem Vater traute man die Betreuung eines Kindes nicht zu. Ein Kind im gottesfürchtigen Kleinkosmos Hürbel, das den Namen eines amerikanischen Sängers trug, vor dem die Bürgersleute ihre Kinder warnten, weil er sich obszön bewegte und lächerliche Glitzerkostüme trug. Seine Eltern durfte Elvis Stiurins nicht wiedersehen, auch als die Mutter wieder gesund war.

Wenn er heute über seine frühe Kindheit nachdenkt, erinnert sich Elvis Stiurins als Erstes an den scharfen Geruch. Er entströmte den Gummieinlagen unter den Kindermatratzen im Schlafsaal von Hürbel, auf denen sich nachts der Urin der Bettnässer staute. “Wir hatten nichts, kein Spielzeug, keine Privatsphäre. Zuneigung gab’s nicht, nur Schläge”, sagt der 49-Jährige. Mit zwei anderen Heiminsassen von damals, Paul Nägele und Wolfgang Ott Dos Santos, ist er nach Hürbel zurückgekehrt, wo das ehemalige Säuglingsheim heute fast verfallen ist.

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DEUTSCHLAND
taz

HAMBURG taz | Wurde Hamburgs evangelische Bischöfin Kirsten Fehrs wirklich von den Ermittlungen gegen vier frühere ranghohe kirchliche Mitarbeiter überrascht, wie sie bei einer Pressekonferenz sagte? Dorothee Schencking, eine der Anzeigensteller, bestreitet das: Auch der Kirchenleitung müsse „bereits im Januar des Jahres bekannt gewesen sein“, dass zwei Anzeigen wegen Strafvereitelung erstattet worden seien.

Spätestens im Juli müsste die Kirchenleitung aber von den Ermittlungen informiert worden sein, wie der Ahrensburger Pastor Helgo Matthias Haak berichtet. Er selbst sei am 19. Juli von der Kriminalpolizei vorgeladen worden. Propst Hartwig Liebich, den er um Aussagegenehmigung bat, habe das Schriftstück ans Kieler Landeskirchenamt weitergeleitet – die Erlaubnis auszusagen sei am 20. Juli erteilt worden, die Vernehmung habe am 30. Juli stattgefunden.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Frankfurter Rundschau

Limburg –
Es sind unruhige Zeiten für Franz Josef Kaspar, den 74-jährigen Generalvikar des katholischen Bistums Limburg. Erst fiel Kaspar auf, weil er gemeinsam mit Bischof Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst in der First Class flog – ausgerechnet zu Sozialprojekten nach Indien. Dann grummelte es mächtig, als der Leiter des Frankfurter Hauses der Begegnung sein Amt verlor und entsetzte Katholiken in Kaspar die treibende Kraft erblickten und von einem „totalitären System“ sprachen.

Nun macht ihm seine Vergangenheit als Stiftungsdirektor des Behindertenheims St. Vincenzstift in Rüdesheim-Aulhausen zu schaffen. Das Bistum trat am Wochenende Vorwürfen entgegen, „Dr. Kaspar habe sich an Vertuschungen von Missbrauchsfällen beteiligt“. Das könne schon deshalb nicht richtig sein, „weil bis zu seinem Ausscheiden 2006 keine entsprechenden Vorwürfe gegen seinen Vorgänger erhoben worden“ seien, hieß es in der Mitteilung. Vielmehr habe sich Kaspar Verdienste um das Ende der sogenannten „Schwarzen Pädagogik“ erworben.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Spiegel

Missbrauchsopfer werfen der katholischen Kirche im Bistum Limburg mangelnde Aufklärung im Fall des verstorbenen Leiters des St. Vincenzstiftes bei Rüdesheim, Rudolf Müller, vor. Ein dazu bereits seit 2010 vorliegender interner Ermittlungsbericht spricht von übereinstimmenden Aussagen über vollzogene oder versuchte Vergewaltigung sogar während der Beichtsituation; es gebe “keine Zweifel an den Missbrauchshandlungen durch Müller”. Erste Hinweise auf dessen mutmaßliches unsittliches Vorgehen einer jungen Frau gegenüber, die in der Zentralküche des Heims arbeitete, wurden bereits 1970 durch eine Unterschriftenaktion mit Vorwürfen gegen den Priester laut. In den Akten des Ordinariats existiert eine Notiz der Personalabteilung vom 4. September 1970 über diese Vorwürfe. Müller schrieb damals verzweifelte Briefe, in denen er Mädchen aufforderte, über das Geschehen zu schweigen. Möglicherweise aus Angst vor Enttarnung beging er wenige Tage später Selbstmord. Der heutige Limburger Generalvikar Franz Kaspar wurde kurz darauf sein Nachfolger, fiel aber nicht durch eine offensive Aufklärung des Falls auf.

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DEUTSCHLAND
News Echo

Trier – Aufgrund von Missbrauch an fünf minderjährigen Jungen hat das Bistum Trier einen 72 Jahre alten Priester entlassen.

Die Missbrauchsfälle sollen sich zwischen den Jahren 1966 und 1980 abgespielt haben, unter den Opfern soll auch der Neffe des Priesters gewesen sein. Dieser hatte das Bistum vor zwei Jahren über die Vorfälle informiert, wie die „Saarbrücker Zeitung“ („SZ“) berichtet.

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OSTERREICH
Der Standard

Hans Weiss hat in seinem neuen Buch Vorgänge in 135 Einrichtungen untersucht und liefert einen erschütternden Befund

Wien – Bis weit ins letzte Drittel des 20. Jahrhunderts hinein waren die Kinder- und Jugendheime in Österreich “Zentren der Gewalttätigkeit und des sexuellen Missbrauchs”. Zu diesem Befund kommt Hans Weiss in seinem Buch “Tatort Kinderheim”, das am Montagabend in der Wiener Hauptbücherei präsentiert wird. Bei einigen Heimen habe es sich um regelrechte “Kindergulags” gehandelt, hält Weiss fest.

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UNITED STATES
OpEd News

By
Rev. Dan Vojir

Another Institution Based On Trust Is Tarnished. Will The “New And Improved” Boy Scouts Weather The Scandal?

(Reuters) – The Boy Scouts of America could face a wave of bad publicity as decades of records of confirmed or alleged child molesters within the U.S. organization are expected to be released in coming weeks.

On Sunday, the Los Angeles Times reported the organization failed to report allegations of sex abuse of scouts by adult leaders and volunteers to police in hundreds of cases from 1970 to 1991. In some cases, the Boy Scouts helped the accused “cover their tracks,” the paper said.

Over Or Covert: What’s In A Cover-up?

Paul Mones, one of the attorneys in a landmark case of molestation* stated that “In the Catholic Church there were overt cover-ups, and I don’t think you see a lot of that here with the Boy Scouts.” But what would make the cover-ups more overt? Mones didn’t speculate. (Apparently, in the law, there are varying degrees of cover-up.) Matter of administration and hierarchy – or lack of them – were part of the problem from 1971 to 1991: vetting and regulations were not strictly enforced. The “Perversion Files” were kept since 1919, but kept out of the public eye … until now. Over 400 cases were not reported. Some of those cases involved offenders who went on to abuse as many as 20 more boys over the years.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Fox 6

MILWAUKEE — Milwaukee’s Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) says a prominent Milwaukee pediatrician who worked at Children’s Hospital for over 35 years has been identified as a child sex offender in secret files maintained by the Boy Scouts of America. These allegations came to light following the publishing of an article in Sunday’s Los Angeles Times newspaper.

The Los Angeles Times story detailed previously sealed files that it said showed Boy Scouts officials “failed to report hundreds of alleged child molesters to police and often hid the allegations from parents and the public.”

In the article, 1,600 “ineligible volunteer” files from 1970 to 1991 were reviewed by the paper after the paper obtained them through a 1992 lawsuit against the Boy Scouts. The “perversion files” were a blacklist of alleged sexual molesters, it said.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
TheMediaReport

Dave Pierre

Was the historic conviction in June of Philadelphia’s Msgr. William J. Lynn based on a crime that never even happened?!

Ralph Cipriano at the Philadelphia Priest Abuse Trial Blog has exclusively reported that a motion filed on Monday in Pennsylvania Superior Court “contains a bombshell disclosure – that Father (sic) Edward V. Avery passed a polygraph test indicating he had never touched the former 10-year-old altar boy he pleaded guilty to abusing.”

Before the start of the historic trial last spring, the former priest Avery entered his guilty plea to the abuse charges against him. And it was because of these alleged crimes that Msgr. Lynn was eventually convicted of endangering the welfare of a child. But according to Cipriano:

“[Avery] received a 2 1/2 to five year sentence, even though he told authorities he never even met the boy. The only reason Avery pleaded guilty, according to the motion, was that he was credibly accused by another victim, and that he was offered a good deal by the prosecution … Avery was facing a prison sentence of up to 20 years if convicted …”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Priest Abuse Trial Blog

Ralph Cipriano

A motion to reconsider bail filed in Pennsylvania Superior Court contains a bombshell disclosure — that Father Edward V. Avery passed a polygraph test indicating he had never touched the former 10-year-old altar boy he pleaded guilty to abusing.

Avery pleaded guilty on March 22 to involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with the boy, and received a 2 1/2 to five year sentence, even though he told authorities he never even met the boy. The only reason Avery pleaded guilty, according to the motion, was that he was credibly accused by another victim, and that he was offered a good deal by the prosecution. But the deal had one condition, that Avery plead guilty to a conspiracy involving Msgr. William J. Lynn, former Archdiocese of Philadelphia secretary for the clergy. Avery was facing a prison sentence of up to 20 years if convicted of molesting the boy, and instead he got a sentence of 2 1/2 to 5 years.

The motion was filed Monday by Thomas A. Bergstrom, Allison Khaskelis and Alan J. Tauber, defense lawyers for Msgr. Lynn, the first Catholic administrator in the nation to be convicted for transferring abusive priests from one parish to another. Lynn’s lawyers say they were only recently told about the polygraph test by Avery’s lawyer, so they cite the polygraph as evidence that Lynn should be released on bail. Lynn previously was denied bail by Judge. M. Teresa Sarmina, as well as Superior Court.

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ONTARIO (CA)
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on September 17, 2012

What: Holding signs and photos of themselves when they were abused, abuse victims and their supporters will disclose a new child sex abuse and cover-up lawsuit against the San Bernardo Catholic Diocese and a convicted predator priest. The suit charges that now-convicted priest Jose Alejandro “Alex” Castillo:
•sexually abused an Ontario teen in 2003,
•had a 20-year history of known and unreported predatory behavior, and
•was intentionally put in poor, Spanish speaking communities where children are less likely to report

Victims will also urge San Bernardino’s Bishop Gerald Barnes to:
•reach out to every person who encountered the child-molesting priest,
•turn over all evidence of abuse to law enforcement,
•beg the priest’s supporters to keep their kids away from him, and
•ask anyone who saw, suspected or suffered abuse to call police, not church officials.

Where: Outside of Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish, 710 S Sultana St. (corner of Mission), Ontario

When: Tuesday, September 18 at 11:45 am

Who: Two – three victims of sexual abuse and their supporters who are members of a self-help group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Katherine Donnelly

Tuesday September 18 2012

PARENTS will start voting within weeks on whether they want to hand over a Catholic primary school in their area to another patron body.

In a ground-breaking move, the Department of Education will seek the views of parents in five areas on the demand for a change in patronage, and their preference for who should run the schools.

The Irish Independent has learned that three of the five areas to be surveyed are Trim, Co Meath; Tramore, Co Waterford; and Arklow, Co Wicklow.

The fourth and fifth will be in Dublin and Co Mayo, although final decisions have yet to be made on the particular areas.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

The following is Anne M. Burke’s speech to Voice of the Faithful, 14 September 2012. This comes to us courtesy of a request by Jerry Slevin to Anne Burke to permit it to be posted here.* I appreciate Jerry for bringing this to us, and Anne Burke for her graciousness in allowing Bilgrimage to post her speech, which follows:

————

As Thomas Edison, the man who changed the world for millions with his application of electricity and inventions, lay dying in 1931, at his bedside was Henry Ford, the man who revolutionized how Americans moved. As Edison died, Ford captured his last breath in a bottle. He was certain that Edison’s genius would be part of what he seized. He sensed the energy of Edison’s reason even in his dying gasp.

Perhaps there really was something there to capture, but as we all know Edison’s genius was more expansive than his breath. Edison used to say, that genius was one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. Genius was hard work, but it did permeate every aspect of his colossal imagination and sense ofcreativity.

I am here today, to salute you and your sense of imagination and creativity – two critically important components of Christian discipleship. I sense the energy of reason in all you do. Your imagination and creativity are what give you your “voice.” And now, after ten years, we realize that without your voice, here in the United States, everyone’s freedom as a Catholic would be more threatened. Everyone’s liberty as a disciple would be more contained. We never needed you more. You do not need me to give you a list ofthe ways in which the liberty of disciples is being threatened. I think I gave up cataloguing things when they arrested the Pope’s butler for leaking information. The Vatican’s assault on American religious women also pushed me to the very edge. That’s why I need to hear your voice – the Voice of the Faithful.

What effect your voice has made. Just when we thought no one was listening, you opened your mouth and the faithful found a fresh opportunity to shatter the sinister machinations of leaders who do not listen. Just when it looked like no one would confront the poor leadership and tattered wagon circling of the bishops a decade ago – you spoke and a voice of faithfulness uttered words of love for the church, and challenge for its leadership. In the process, Boston received a new archbishop. The formation of the Voice o fthe Faithful established a new American vocabulary for the truth. What you have done reminds me of something St. Catherine of Siena said – Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.

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CANADA
The Telegram

Published on September 18, 2012

Barb Sweet

From the time he was three, Toby Obed desperately wanted to go home. But by the time he got there his parents were deceased and he had to relearn the Inuit culture and language.

“I will never, ever be able to take back my childhood. And I will never be able to say I lived a normal life. I will never be able to say I grew up in my hometown,” Obed said during a visit this past week to St. John’s where he was interviewed by lawyers for the Attorney General of Canada during the discovery process.

Obed is one of the representative plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit over alleged abuse at residential schools.

Five schools named

The class-action lawsuit involves Labrador Metis, Innu and Inuit students who attended five schools — Yale, Lockwood, Makkovik, Nain and St. Anthony. Two schools were run by Moravian Missionaries, while the remaining three were overseen by the International Grenfell Association.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Patch

By Brittany Tressler

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has placed the Rev. Michael Chapman, former priest of St. Agnes from 1986-1990, back on administrative leave following allegations of sexual abuse of minors.

According to the press release, Chapman was originally placed on leave in March 2011 for an alleged violation of The Standards of Ministerial Behavior and Boundaries.

In May of 2012, as Archbishop Charles Chaput and the Office for Child and Youth Protection was working with the parish for his return, the Archdiocese received allegations of sexual abuse of minors against Chapman.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
San Francisco Chronicle

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Attorneys for a jailed Philadelphia monsignor say their client’s one-time co-defendant lied when he pleaded guilty to abusing an altar boy.

Monsignor William Lynn is seeking bail while he appeals his conviction on child endangerment charges for failing to protect a boy from the priest he now claims lied when admitting the abuse.

In a Superior Court motion filed Monday, Lynn’s attorneys say former priest Edward Avery gave prosecutors a statement and took a polygraph test in which he denied even knowing the boy. The motion claims Avery didn’t actually abuse the boy but opted to plead guilty in order to receive a lesser jail term.

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WASHINGTON
Christian Newswire

Contact: K. Godfrey Easter, 206-793-7295 ; ACTSandBEYOND.org

SEATTLE, Sept. 17, 2012 /Christian Newswire/ — Kenny has barely entered his twenties now and his frustrated mother, Lishuan, insists, “He’s still struggling.” Since Kenny spoke out publicly about the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of a well-known Northwest minister, he’s been unable to find help where it ought to be found in abundance.

Minister Timothy Dampier (photo) (1), the gifted and locally popular Christian minister pled guilty last week to 22 counts of sexually abusing 10 Greater sexually area children over a ten year span. Dampier began preying on him when he was only ten and the abuse continued well into Kenny’s pubescent years.

During young Kenny’s formative years, Lishuan trusted Dampier enough to be her son’s mentor. Kenny played the drums for his predator, as Dampier skillfully played the organ, sang or preached. Kenny was one of the well regarded young preacher’s first victims. He used to refer to his attacker as “Minister Dampier,” “God Dad,” and “Uncle.” It continued until he returned home one day and told his mom only that he had had enough of hanging with Dampier.

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TEXAS
KDAF

Doug Magditch
doug.magditch@cw33.com, Follow Me @DougMagditch

7:20 p.m. CDT, September 17, 2012
IRVING— Hundreds of allegations of child sex abuse went unreported. Some were even covered up. That’s according to a report by the LA Times.

The accused? Irving-based Boy Scouts of America.

The LA Times uncovered these allegations in the Boy Scouts of America’s confidential “perversion files,” dated from 1970-1991.

Out of 1,600 files uncovered, 400 allegations went unreported, and 100 were covered up, according to the article.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, is calling for criminal action.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC Sydney

18/09/2012 , 11:55 AM by Kelly Fuller

A submission will be handed to the member for the Northern Tablelands Richard Torbay today calling for a free child sexual assault counselling service to be offered in Armidale.

Last May the state government closed the Armidale Child Sexual Assault Service due to funding changes.

Recent media attention about reports of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church have added renewed vigour to the campaign.

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UNITED STATES
The Record

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

THE SORDID, sickening account of widespread child molestation over a 20-year period by leaders affiliated with the Boy Scouts of America carries forth a disturbing societal trend grown all-too-familiar: Leaders of a respected institution meant to help build character look the other way when discovering that children in their care are being violated by adult supervisors.

We saw this misguided culture in the sexual abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church in recent years, and we saw it again last fall in the sexual abuse patterns involving former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. In those cases, and in the case of the Scouts — as reported in a major investigation by the Los Angeles Times — reports of sexual abuse and molestation were put on the back burner, matters to be handled “in-house,” in many instances without taking the initiative to notify police or parents.

The Times reviewed some 1,600 confidential files — so-called “perversion files” — dating from 1970 to 1991 and found that the Scouts, instead of reporting potential abuse or showing concern for victims, instead frequently urged the admitted adult offenders to quietly step aside, so as to preserve the name and reputation of the institution.

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FORT WORTH (TX)
The Christian Post

By Katherine Weber, Christian Post Reporter

September 17, 2012|5:10 pm

The Rev. Darrell Wayne Blair of New Breed Christian Center in Fort Worth, Texas is facing charges of sexual assault after a woman told police in late August that the pastor had sexually assaulted her several times as a teenager.

Blair, along with being the minister of the Fort Worth church, has close connections to famed Gospel singer Kirk Franklin and his gospel group, “Kirk Franklin and the Family,” according to his biography on New Breed Christian Center’s website.

The Rev. Blair turned himself in to Crowley authorities on Monday, Sept. 10 and was released on $25,000 bail after an unidentified female told police on Aug. 21 that Blair had allegedly sexually assaulted her from ages 14-18, ending in 2000.

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TULSA (OK)
News On 6

Tami Beyersdoerfer, NewsOn6.com
Ashlei King, News On 6

TULSA, Oklahoma –
Charges were filed Monday against five employees of Victory Christian Center, who police say failed to report the sexual abuse of a child on the Victory campus.

Police said a 13-year-old girl reported to the employees that she was raped by a man who also worked at Victory. They said those employees waited two weeks before notifying the girl’s parents or police.

Just a few years ago, Oklahoma changed its law to say anyone who suspects child abuse must report it in a timely manner.

Charica Dene Daugherty, 27, John Samuel Daugherty, 28, Anna George, 24, Harold F. Sullivan, 73, and Paul Wilemstein, 33, were all charged with misdemeanor failure to report child abuse.

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MONTANA
Beartooth NBC

By Kristin Price

Lawyers representing both sides in a lawsuit alleging sexual abuse involving the Diocese of Montana and Ursuline Sisters of The Western Province met briefly in Judge Jeffery Sherlock’s chambers today to update the status of the lawsuit.

The judge has heard several status reports on the matter after legal representation agreed earlier this year to hold mediation to resolve the lawsuit.

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UNITED STATES
U.S. Catholic

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Scott Appleby

Principle:

“In the church all are one in Christ; there is no Greek or Roman, no Jew or Gentile, no male or female”—and no hierarchy of privilege or status or honor conferred by ministerial office or rank alone. All baptized believers immersed in the sacramental life and apostolic works of the Catholic community are to be respected as equal inheritors of the ancient traditions and full participants in the work of redemption, a work accomplished by and through Christ alone. The church, catholic and apostolic, is a graced community of sinners and pilgrims, and those who receive holy orders must never set themselves apart from or above the faithful; to the contrary, the clergy must be subject, like the laity, to the correction and exhortations of all the faithful.

The sexual abuse of children and young adults by a tiny minority of Catholic priests is itself a terrible stain on the institutional church—but the repeated failure of the bishops and other priests to report and remove the perpetrators has magnified and deepened, beyond immediate repair, the erosion of trust and the crisis of faith within the Catholic community.

This moral blindness and outrageous complacency in the face of evil is all the more damning and damaging in that it arises from within a body of Catholic leaders, some of whose most prominent members have been harsh in their judgments of the moral failings of the laity.

Quick to perceive challenges to their authority in the exercise of theological exploration and spiritual creativity, especially among women, they have placed their own “class” of Catholics—the ordained—above recrimination while seldom hesitating to “prune” the church of “dissenters” to their increasingly authoritarian rule. Jealous of their prerogatives as “elites,” they have identified their own often narrow interests with the will of Christ and the good of the church.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin
Inquirer Staff Writer

In March, Edward Avery made a bombshell decision: He took a plea deal.

Avery, a former priest, admitted he had sexually assaulted a 10-year-old altar boy in 1999. He was sentenced to 21/2 to five years in prison.

Weeks later, the victim described the attack for jurors at the landmark clergy sex-abuse trial of Avery’s codefendant, Msgr. William J. Lynn. After hearing the testimony, the jury convicted Lynn of endangerment because he had let Avery live at the boy’s parish.

On Monday, Lynn’s lawyers dropped their own bombshell in their latest bid to free him on bail. They said that Avery lied about abusing the altar boy in order to win a lighter term, and that “zealous and single-minded prosecutors” hid the information from them because they were determined to convict Lynn, the first church official charged with enabling abuse.

In a motion in Superior Court, Lynn’s lawyers say they learned last month that Avery gave prosecutors a statement, and took a polygraph test, in which he denied even knowing the victim, much less assaulting him twice after Masses at St. Jerome Church in Northeast Philadelphia.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin and Aubrey Whelan
Inquirer Staff Writers

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia said Monday that it had suspended a former Northeast Philadelphia pastor over a claim that he sexually abused a minor, four months after church officials publicly cleared him of another misconduct accusation.

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput in May declared the Rev. Michael Chapman suitable to return to active ministry. The 56-year-old cleric was preparing to resume working as a priest when the archdiocese received a new accusation that Chapman had sexually abused a minor approximately 30 years ago, the archdiocese said Monday.

Church officials passed the accusation to law enforcement and halted Chapman’s reinstatement, according to Donna Farrell, a spokeswoman for the archbishop.

“Father Chapman had never actually returned to active public ministry, did not have access to children, and was not residing in a parish at any time since the May 4 announcement,” Farrell said.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Daily News

BY PHILLIP LUCAS
Philadelphia Daily News

Daily News Staff Writer

A 56-YEAR-OLD PRIEST who was preparing to return to ministry after being cleared in a child-sex-abuse investigation has been placed on administrative leave for a second time as the Archdiocese of Philadelphia investigates new allegations against him.

Michael Chapman, who has served for 11 years at Ascension of Our Lord, on Westmoreland Street near G, in Kensington, spent about a year on administrative leave before being cleared to return to ministry in May.

However, the Archdiocese received a second child-sex-abuse complaint against him the same month, reported the allegation to police and delayed his return to ministry, according to Donna Farrell, a spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Officials did not elaborate on the nature of the allegations against Chapman.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Newsworks

September 18, 2012
By Associated Press

Eight new civil lawsuits allege the Archdiocese of Philadelphia covered up child sex assault allegations made against seven Roman Catholic priests.

The lawsuits are being filed today by a total of nine plaintiffs. Their attorneys plan to release more details this afternoon.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs say their clients decided to come forward when former archdiocesan official Msgr. William Lynn was convicted of child endangerment and received a three- to six-year prison sentence.

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RHODE ISLAND
Turn to 10

[with video]

By: Katie Davis | NBC 10
Published: September 17, 2012

PROVIDENCE —
A Rhode Island man said Monday he was abused decades ago at a boarding school operated by a religious order based in Burrillville.

The Brothers of the Sacred Heart has faced similar allegations in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

Holding photos of child sex abuse victims from across the country, a small group from BishopAccountability.org gathered outside the office of Rhode Island’s attorney general, demanding an investigation.

“If this attorney general can’t take action, then I believe children of Rhode Island will continue to be at risk by this order,” said Anne Barrett Doyle of BishopAccountability.org.

The sex abuse survivors group said the small religious order has been hit by at least 10 sex abuse lawsuits in recent years.

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OREGON
The Oregonian

By Helen Jung, The Oregonian

A plea hearing scheduled for Monday in the sex-abuse case for Woodburn priest Angel Armando Perez has been postponed.

Marion County Circuit Judge Thomas Hart, who was assigned to hear the case, recused himself from the case Monday morning. He declined through his clerk to comment on his reasons.

Prosecutors and attorneys for the 46-year-old priest are scheduled to meet for a status conference with the new judge assigned to the case, Marion County Circuit Judge Susan Tripp, on Monday, Sept. 24.

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BOSTON (MA)
The Republic

JAY LINDSAY Associated Press
September 17, 2012

BOSTON — A plan to revive the Boston Archdiocese by organizing its 288 parishes into 135 clusters that share staffing and resources has reached Cardinal Sean O’Malley for final approval.

The Boston Archdiocese devised the plan over nearly two years as it faces potentially crippling problems, including a priest shortage, and worsening financial and attendance numbers. The proposal aims to keep parishes intact while a push to draw back lapsed Catholics reinvigorates the archdiocese and fills up churches again.

Two key archdiocesan groups, the Presbyteral Council and Cardinal’s Cabinet, approved the proposal earlier this month. O’Malley will make his decision by November.

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ARGENTINA
Nuevo Diario

Buscan evitar que el cura Justo José Ilarraz quede detenido. El abogado Jorge Muñoz, apoderado legal del sacerdote, anunció que hoy presentará un recurso de hábeas corpus preventivo. “Esta presentación judicial es a fin de resguardar la persona del sacerdote, evitando la situación de condición de peligrosidad procesal”, explicó el letrado a LA GACETA.

“Estoy convencido absolutamente -agregó Muñoz-, que las actuaciones derivadas de oficio en la provincia de Entre ríos, (que corresponden en virtud de la probable competencia judicial) devienen nulas al no existir denuncias por parte de los presuntos ofendidos del delito. Ello, en virtud de que esta clase de tipos penales requieren de la promoción de las denuncias de las victimas para poder activar al órgano jurisdiccional. Se trata de delitos de acción pública dependientes de instancia privada”, insistió.

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OREGON
KOIN

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — The plea hearing for a Woodburn priest accused of sexually abusing a 12-year-old boy has been postponed.

The Oregonian reports that Judge Thomas Hart recused himself from the case Monday. The judge declined to say why.

The priest, Angel Armando Perez, has been charged sexual abuse, use of a child in display of sexually explicit conduct, furnishing liquor to a minor and tampering with physical evidence.

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ARGENTINA
Online-911

Asi lo informó el abogado Jorge Muñoz, apoderado legal de Justo José Ilarraz. El sacerdote es acusado de abusar sexualmente de al menos 50 chicos que asistían al Seminario Menor de la capital de Entre Ríos entre 1984 y 1992.

18:07 : Un recurso de hábeas corpus preventivo en resguardo de “la libertad ambulatoria” fue presentado hoy por el abogado defensor del cura Justo José Ilarraz, acusado de abusar sexualmente de al menos 50 chicos que asistían al Seminario Menor, en Paraná.

“Esta presentación judicial es sólo al fin de resguardar la persona del sacerdote y evitar la condición de peligrosidad procesal”, explicó a Télam el abogado Jorge Muñoz, apoderado legal de Ilarraz.

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ARGENTINA
La Gaceta

El abogado Jorge Muñoz, apoderado legal del sacerdote Justo José Ilarraz, acusado de abusar sexualmente de al menos 50 chicos que asistían al Seminario Menor, en Paraná, anunció que hoy presentará un recurso de hábeas corpus preventivo. “La presentación judicial tiene el fin de resguardar la persona del sacerdote, evitando la situación de condición de peligrosidad procesal”, explicó el letrado a LA GACETA.

“Estoy convencido -agregó Muñoz-, de que las actuaciones derivadas de oficio en la provincia de Entre ríos, (que corresponden en virtud de la probable competencia judicial) devienen nulas, al no existir denuncias por parte de los presuntos ofendidos del delito. Ello, en virtud de que esta clase de tipos penales requieren de la promoción de las denuncias de las victimas para poder activar al órgano jurisdiccional. Se trata de delitos de acción pública dependientes de instancia privada”, insistió.

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ARGENTINA
Catholic News Agency

Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sep 17, 2012 / 04:07 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Archdiocese of Parana, Argentina voiced sorrow over the actions of Father Justo Jose Ilarraz, who is accused of sexually abusing at least 50 children over the span of eight years.

“The latest news reports cause us great shame and immense sorrow over the most serious crimes committed by someone who ought to serve the moral life of the people by his example and teaching,” the archdiocese said in a Sept. 13 statement.

According to the archdiocese, Fr. Ilarraz abused children between the ages of 12 and 14 at the Seminary of Parana from 1984 to 1992.

It also announced that the Archbishop of Parana and the Bishop of Concepcion de Tucuman have taken steps to remove the accused priest from ministry “until the Holy See resolves his situation.”

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

[with video]

By Jean Edwards

Two former Catholic school teachers have broken their silence about sex abuse in the Doveton parish in Melbourne’s south-east.

They say the church hierarchy covered up or ignored their repeated pleas for something to be done about a predatory priest.

Graeme Sleeman, a former school principal and teacher, resigned from his job in the mid-1980s in a desperate bid to force the church to stop Father Peter Searson from sexually abusing children at the Holy Family School.

“I was contemplating suicide because I did not see a way out of the problem that the church had created,” he said.

“I’d stood up for the rights of children. I’d stood up for the right of the church and I’d been cast aside.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
NBC 10

A Roman Catholic priest in Philadelphia who was previously cleared of inappropriate conduct has been suspended due to new allegations of sexual abuse, church officials said Monday.

Reverend Michael Chapman, 56, was placed on administrative leave due to allegations of sexual abuse of minors.

The accusations, which involve minors and date back about 30 years, first surfaced last spring, according to the archdiocese.

Chapman was first placed on leave in March 2011 for allegedly violating standards of ministerial behavior and boundaries, church officials said. A subsequent investigation found him suitable for ministry.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on September 17, 2012

Here’s the next step in the Boy Scouts child sex abuse and cover up scandal – every Scout official who knew of or suspected or concealed these heinous crimes should be ousted and, if possible, prosecuted for failure to report possible child sex crimes to law enforcement.

It’s not enough to say “we’re doing better these days.” Scout officials deceived parents, police and the public about child molesters in the past. How can we believe them when they claim now that they’ve stopped?

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UNITED STATES
CNN

(CNN) — A sex abuse support group called on the Boy Scouts of America to oust any official still with the organization who was involved in covering up child sex crimes.

The demand by the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests was in reaction to a Los Angeles Times story detailing previously sealed files that it said showed scouting officials “failed to report hundreds of alleged child molesters to police and often hid the allegations from parents and the public.”

The 1,600 “ineligible volunteer” files from 1970 to 1991 reviewed by the Times were obtained through a 1992 lawsuit against the Boy Scouts, the newspaper reported Sunday. The “perversion files” were a blacklist of alleged sexual molesters, it said.

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