ABUSE TRACKER

NEWARK (NJ)
Star Ledger

February 20, 2019

By Kelly Heyboer

The old name of School No. 25 in Elizabeth has been ripped off the front of the building, but you can still make out the shadow of the letters on the red bricks.

Around the back of the building, the name of the school has been hastily covered with duct tape on its dedication plaque. But the letters are still visible beneath the silver tape.

District officials said they tried to erase the name of the school — Charles J. Hudson School No. 25 in Elizabeth — after learning the elementary school was named after one of the 188 priests “credibly accused” of child sexual abuse on a list released by New Jersey’s Catholic dioceses last week.

Hudson, who died 22 year ago, worked in St. Elizabeth Hospital in Elizabeth and was the founder of the Center for Hope Hospice in Union County, according to the list released by the Archdiocese of Newark. He was credibly accused of the sexual abuse by one minor, though no details were released by church officials.

Elizabeth School District officials said they had no idea Hudson’s name would be on the list.

The newly released records date back to 1940, church officials said.

“The Elizabeth School District began the process of renaming School No. 25 immediately upon learning the individual for whom it was named had been identified by the Newark Archdiocese as someone ‘credibly accused of sexual abuse of minors,’” said Pat Politano, a spokesman for the school district.

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EL PASO (TX)
El Paso Times

February 19, 2019

By Aaron Martinez and Trish Long

A man who claims he was repeatedly sexually abused by an El Paso priest in the early 1970s is suing the El Paso Catholic Diocese for more than $1 million in damages.

The suit, filed Feb. 12, claims the Rev. Jaime Madrid abused the then 12-year-old boy at at a local school, at the seminary, at a motel and in the priest’s car.

The victim, who is only identified in court records as John Doe, is represented by prominent Texas lawyers Lori Watson and Hal Browne.

“Obviously we are trying to get compensation for our client for all the trauma he suffered, …” Browne said. “We have been in several of these cases in El Paso … It has become clear to us that the Diocese had longtime institutional knowledge of the fact that there were abusive priests in the Diocese.”

El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz, who was named in the lawsuit but said he had not personally seen it, declined to comment on the suit, saying only that diocese’s lawyers had received it Friday and were still going through it.

Madrid, who died in 2007, was among the 30 priests named by the El Paso diocese as credibly accused of sexual abuse in a list released Jan. 31. The El Paso diocese list was part of a coordinated investigation by the dioceses in Texas in response to a nationwide scandal.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
National Public Radio

February 20, 2019

By Tom Gjelten

Never in the history of the Roman Catholic Church has a pope ordered bishops from around the world to come together and consider how many priests abuse children sexually and how many church officials cover for the abusers. The scandal of clergy sex abuse has deep roots in church history, but church leaders have been notoriously reluctant to acknowledge it and deal with the consequences.

Not surprisingly, when Pope Francis summoned more than 100 bishops to a meeting in Rome to address the “Protection of Minors in the Church,” the announcement raised expectations that it could mark a turning point in the Church’s lagging response to the ongoing clergy abuse crisis. The three-day meeting begins Thursday.

In the weeks that followed the Pope’s announcement, however, U.S. Catholics in particular have become disappointed over his characterization of the summit as a gathering that will merely feature “prayer and discernment,” hardly an ambitious vision for what could have been a momentous event.

“That offers little solace to American Catholics who feel their own church is in need of reform,” says Kathleen Sprows Cummings, director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism at the University of Notre Dame. “I think the bold moves that a lot of people are going to want to see are very unlikely to happen.”

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ROME (ITALY)
Associated Press

February 20, 2019

The Latest on the Vatican summit on dealing with sex abuse of minors (all times local):
5:05 p.m.

A Roman Catholic diocese in northwest Spain has become the country’s first to establish a panel to protect and support local victims of clergy sex abuse.

Bishop of Astorga Juan Antonio Menendez said the panel will include a priest, a psychologist, a lawyer and an abuse survivor.

Menendez said during a Wednesday news conference broadcast on YouTube the move is designed to increase confidence in church institutions.

Menendez also is leading efforts by the Spanish bishops’ conference to improve its procedures for handling sexual abuse cases.

Other Spanish dioceses have taken steps such as stipulating that church officials must inform public prosecutors when they get molestation allegations against priests.

The Spanish bishops’ conference current rules, adopted in 2010, merely require ecclesiastical authorities to recommend that victims take their allegations to the police themselves.

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FALMOUTH (MA)
Wicked Local Falmouth

February 19, 2019

By Sarah Murphy

This story is the first in a three-part series for The Bulletin.

Dan Sherwood was nine-years-old when he became an altar boy at St. Anthony’s Church. The experience would prove to be life-changing.

The West Falmouth resident, along with a co-plaintiff, settled a lawsuit last October alleging nearly a decade of sexual abuse by the late Monsignor Maurice Souza. According to the suit, the abuse began in the late 1970s, when they were nine and ten, and continued until Souza’s retirement in 1986, when they were 17.

Daniel Cronin, former bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fall River, was named the defendant for failing to oversee Souza during his tenure. Cronin appointed Souza to St. Anthony’s in 1977.

Cronin, 91, would go on to become Archbishop of Hartford following a 1991 appointment by Pope John Paul II. He retired in 2003.

According to the suit, Cronin “knew or should have known about the abuse,” and as part of the settlement, Cronin neither admitted nor denied the allegations of abuse.

The plaintiffs each received a $200,000 settlement, but Dan believes Souza not only stole his childhood, but he also jeopardized his future.

Dan met Souza shortly after he moved to Falmouth in 1977 with his mother and two older sisters. He started fourth grade at Teaticket Elementary School and proudly became an altar boy at St. Anthony’s. He and Souza shared a love of sports, particularly baseball, and Dan soon found himself invited to professional sporting events as Souza’s guest. Many times, he was Souza’s sole companion.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
BBC News

February 20, 2019

By Martin Bashir

In an effort to deal with the sex scandals rocking the Roman Catholic Church, the Pope has convened an extraordinary summit of bishops in Rome.

This follows his recent, unprompted, admission that priests had exploited nuns as “sex slaves” at a convent in France.

Pope Francis decided to call this global conference after discussions with the so-called C9. This is the group of nine cardinal advisers who were appointed soon after Francis was elected.

The Pope is under serious pressure to provide leadership and generate workable solutions to what is the most pressing crisis facing the modern Church.

Stories of abuse have emerged in every corner of the world. And the Church has been accused of covering up crimes committed by priests, leaving its moral authority in tatters.

Pope Francis must also confront the assumptions, attitudes and practices that have allowed a culture of abuse to flourish. The extent of this challenge may prove overwhelming.

Journalist Jason Berry was one of the first people to expose the extent of abuse in the Church
The summit, to be attended by the heads of all national bishops’ conferences from more than 130 countries, is only the beginning of an attempt to address a sickness that has been poisoning the Church since at least the 1980s.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

February 20, 2019

Reasons immediate and remote have merged to force a first meeting of its kind — the gathering in Rome in February of the heads of bishops’ conferences around the world to discuss the global clergy sex abuse scandal.

John Carr, who directs the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University and who has spent most of his life working for bishops, had an apt characterization of the Feb. 21-24 event: It should have happened a long time ago, and it’s a miracle it’s happening.

Indeed, the scandal has been around a long time and, in hindsight, perhaps a progression can be detected as hierarchy and people moved through stages of denial to realization and accountability.

It has become clear during the past half-year that two occurrences caused the scandal to take hold of people’s imagination in an entirely new way. The first was the revelation that the highly regarded former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick had acted inappropriately with seminarians and was credibly accused of sexually abusing a child. The second was graphic accounts of abuse in the Pennsylvania grand jury report, including details of episcopal cover-up.

These were old incidents newly revealed, but they served to finally raise awareness that this was not a problem isolated in a dark corner of the church or the problem of “a few bad apples,” or even the result of misunderstanding and mistakes.

It was instead, and remains, a systemic malady with its roots deep in a clerical culture that valued secrecy, privilege and power over the welfare of child victims and their families.

Something has definitely changed since last summer. Theologian and lawyer Cathleen Kaveny of Boston College, during a panel discussion last November, said, “I think that this iteration of the crisis has marked a turning point in how Catholics, especially American Catholics, are perceiving the church. … Many people now are not seeing the sex abuse crisis as an aberration within the system, but they’re seeing it as something that runs throughout the system. That it is enabled by the system.”

The disturbing question that follows, she said, is: “What would have to be true of the church and its culture for sex abuse like this not to be an aberration but to be something that’s running through it?”

She went even deeper, saying we need “theological language” in discussing the scandal and a way “of reimagining our common life.”

Such steps are for farther down the road. For the moment, it will be enough that the global church square up with the truth.

No four-day meeting in Rome could deal adequately with decades of crime and cover-up, much yet to be revealed in parts of the globe.

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OKLAHOMA CITY (OK)
The Oklahoman

February 20, 2019

By Carla Hinton

Southern Baptist Convention President J.D. Greear outlined 10 “calls to action” for Southern Baptists. He recommended that they:

1. Enter a season of sorrow and repentance.

2. Embrace a new free video-based curriculum, “Becoming a Church that Cares Well on Abuse,” for holistic care in the early stages of learning of abuse.

3. Affirm three separate “Statement of Principles” documents signaling a collective commitment to address abuse at every organizational level of the Southern Baptist Convention.

4. Take immediate action on abuse prevention and care, strengthening policies and practices on abuse.

5. Consider requiring background checks, at a minimum, for all Southern Baptist Convention standing committees and trustee appointments.

6. Re-examine the ordination process, specifically evaluate how to strengthen screening and background efforts in the ordination process.

7. Update the Annual Church Profile so that Southern Baptist Convention churches are asked questions related to updated abuse policies and occurrences of abuse so that this information is included in the profile report.

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MANILA (PHILIPPINES)
LaCroix International

February 20, 2019

By Inday Espina-Varona

The arrest of an American priest who allegedly abused minors gives Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte a weapon against members of the clergy who criticize his bloody war against narcotics.

Police served five more arrest warrants on Father Kenneth Hendricks, who was nabbed in December by a joint team of Philippine and American law enforcers in the central Philippines.

A magistrate judge in Ohio district issued the first warrant against Hendricks for allegedly engaging in illicit sex with a minor in a foreign country, a crime punishable by up to 30 years in prison.

At the time of his arrest, the American priest was serving in the rural town of Naval on the island province of Biliran.

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PARIS (FRANCE)
LaCroix International

February 20, 2019

The North American Church is a scene of striking contrasts.

Pope Francis issued a warning to U.S. bishops, who have been grappling with an endless list of revelations for months while their Canadian counterparts were congratulated by Father Federico Lombardi SJ, coordinator of the forthcoming Rome summit on sexual abuse, for the measures they adopted in 2018.

The powerful US Catholic Church has turned into a sad showcase for the global sexual abuse scourge. The laicization of former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, an unprecedented move at this level of the Church, is merely the most recent illustration of this.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
CTV London

February 19, 2019

The sentencing hearing for David Norton, a former Anglican priest convicted on numerous sex-related charges, has been put off again.

Victim impact submissions were expected to begin Tuesday, but the hearing had to be delayed as Justice Lynda Templeton was ill.

The statements are now scheduled to be delivered March 18, with sentencing expected on March 22.

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NEW YORK (NY)
America Magazine

February 19, 2019

By Gerard O’Connell

“So much is at stake this week…I hope something important comes from it,” Anne Barrett Doyle, the co-director of BishopAccountability.org, told reporters at the Foreign Press Association in Rome on Feb. 19, two days before the Vatican summit on the protection of minors in the church is scheduled to begin on Feb. 21. But if nothing substantial comes of the meeting, Ms. Barrett Doyle said it is her hope “the energy of change” can be assumed by secular forces “so that changes will come from the outside, through attorneys general, grand jury investigations and so on.”

“The Catholics of the world are grieving, disillusioned,” she said, because of “the sexual abuse of thousands of minors by clergy in past decades and bishops who covered up.”

“We all know,” she added, “that canon law has to be changed so that it stops protecting the priesthood of ordained men over the lives of children.

“I believe the church is no way close to enacting the reforms to end this epidemic,” she said, “which consists of two aspects: the sexual assault on minors by priests and the cover-up by bishops.”

BishopAccountability.org is one of the many advocacy groups for survivors of abuse by clergy that have descended on Rome this week from all over the world to highlight the problem ahead of the summit.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

February 20, 2019

By Jason Berry

Editor’s note: Jason Berry was the first to report on clergy sex abuse in any substantial way, beginning with a landmark 1985 report about the Louisiana case involving a priest named Gilbert Gauthe. In 1992, he published Lead Us Not into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children, a nationwide investigation after seven years of reporting in various outlets. In the foreword, Fr. Andrew Greeley referred to “what may be the greatest scandal in the history of religion in America and perhaps the greatest problem Catholicism has faced since the Reformation.”

Berry followed the crisis in articles, documentaries, and two other books, Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II (2004) and Render unto Rome: The Secret Life of Money in the Catholic Church (2011), which won the Investigative Reporters and Editors Best Book Award. Given the current moment and its possibilities and the fact that Berry is singular in his experience covering the scandal from multiple angles, NCR asked if he would write a reflection on the matter as the church’s bishops are about to gather in Rome to consider the issue. Below is the second of three parts. Read Part 1 here.

Everything in this spreading crisis revolves around structural mendacity, institutionalized lying. For years, bishops proclaimed the sanctity of life in the womb while playing musical chairs with child molesters. High-dollar lawyers facilitated church officials’ stiff-arm response to survivors scarred by traumatic childhood memories.

The media narrative of survivors seeking justice has cut a jagged trail through the mind of the church. The concealment strategies, unearthed in depositions and church documents, show how bishops and religious order superiors, sometimes paying “hush money” settlements to avoid scandal, controlled the fate of the priest and kept the closed system operating. “Convinced that they know the truth — whether in religion or in politics — enthusiasts may regard lies for the sake of this truth as justifiable,” writes Sissela Bok in Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life. “They see nothing wrong with telling untruths for what they regard as a much ‘higher’ truth.”

Clashing with that rationale are insiders who couldn’t swallow the lies and leaked information. The man who did more to shape my reporting of the Diocese of Lafayette, Louisiana, in 1985 was such a specimen; though even now I am not entirely sure what fueled him.

In June 1984, attorneys for six families with nine boys — victims of Fr. Gilbert Gauthe, a pastor in rural Cajun country — negotiated a $4.2 million settlement with the diocese. Gauthe meanwhile was indicted on 33 criminal counts, including aggravated rape of a minor, which carried a life sentence. In early 1985, as I read civil depositions of Bishop Gerard Frey and other diocesan officials, Gauthe sat in a mental hospital. Ray Mouton, his attorney, negotiated with the tough-minded prosecutor, Nathan Stansbury, seeking a plea bargain.

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PARIS (FRANCE)
Agence France Presse

February 20, 2019

Denise Buchanan was 17 when she was raped by a seminarian who continued to abuse her when he became a priest in her native Jamaica.

The Catholic Church, she says, has offered her nothing but their “prayers”.

“I got pregnant and he arranged a clandestine abortion,” Buchanan, still shaking and close to tears 40 years after the ordeal, told AFP.

Today aged 57, the academic is a leading member of a new international organisation, Ending Clerical Abuse (ECA), which is bringing together victims in Rome this week to pressure Pope Francis to take a tougher line on child abuse by clerics.

She has struggled in vain for years for the Church to officially recognise her as a victim — even writing to the pope himself — while the priest who abused her has escaped justice.

Buchanan’s struggle underscores the sense of isolation felt by many victims who see the institution as still in denial, particularly in poorer countries where the Church remains politically and socially influential.

She was living in Kingston when her sister introduced her and her family to the future priest, then known as Brother Paul, a theology student and a member of the Congregation of the Passion of Jesus Christ.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
BBC News

February 20, 2019

A Roman Catholic priest has been found guilty of abusing six children during the 1970s.

Father Francis McDermott, 75, abused his victims in London, Norwich and High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, Aylesbury Crown Court heard.

One of his victims kept a diary marking each sexual encounter while another said McDermott regularly stayed at his family’s home and sexually abused him.

He was convicted of 18 sex offences, including 15 indecent assaults.

McDermott, who is due to be sentenced on 14 March, was also found guilty of two indecent assaults on a male and one charge of indecency with a child.

He was found not guilty of two counts of indecent assault on a male, three counts of indecent assault on a female, one count of gross indecency on a boy under 14, rape and buggery.

McDermott, from Atlantic Way, Bideford, Devon, was a priest in a number of different parishes between 1971 and 1979.

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EVANSVILLE (IN)
Evansville Courier & Press

February 20, 2019

By Jon Webb

A sexual abuse allegation against a deceased Evansville priest last week was news to a diocese spokesman.

But according to the wife of the accuser, other diocese officials have known for months.

While speaking in front of the Indiana Senate Judiciary Committee on Feb. 13, Christopher Compton, 42, said the Rev. Raymond Kuper sexually abused him multiple times when Compton was 9. The reported abuse took place while Kuper was a priest at Christ the King.

Kuper died in 2012.

Diocese spokesman Tim Lilley said a call from the Courier & Press was the first he’d heard of the allegation. But he was speaking only for himself. Because Aimee Compton said family members reported the allegation to the diocese back in August.

She said they spoke with the victim assistance coordinator and eventually met with Bishop Joseph Siegel.

Lilley said allegations against priests aren’t something he’s “routinely made aware of.”

It’s uncertain whether the accusation against Kuper would have become public without Compton’s testimony. It has a lot to do with how accusations are reported to the church.

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ROME (ITALY)
Irish Post

February 20, 2019

By Aidan Lonergan

Speaking on the eve of a landmark Vatican summit on the prevention of clerical sex abuse, the pontiff told a congregation of 2,500 pilgrims in Saint Peter’s Basilica that those who “live their whole life accusing the Church” are “friends, cousins and relatives of the devil”.

He said the Church’s “defects” must be denounced in order to correct them, but that it had now become “fashionable” for people to “destroy with the tongue” – behaviour akin to that of the “great accuser”.

Francis said: “One cannot live their whole life accusing, accusing, accusing the Church. Whose profession is it to accuse? Who is the ‘great accuser’ quoted in the Bible?

“Those who spend their lives accusing, accusing, accusing are – I won’t say the devil’s children, because he doesn’t have any – but they are friends, cousins, relatives of the devil.

“This is not right. Defects must be identified so that they can be corrected. When defects are pointed out and denounced, the Church is loved. Without love – that is from the devil.”

After concluding his speech, Francis spent a few minutes personally greeting worshippers before setting off ahead of this week’s summit.

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ST. JODARD (FRANCE)
CNN

February 20, 2019

By Melissa Bell, Saskya Vandoorne and Laura Smith-Spark

Lucie was just 16 when she became involved with a Catholic religious community after attending a holiday camp in Switzerland. At the time, she told CNN, she was “very, very, very alone” and looking for friends and affection.

What she found at first was “really like a family,” she said. But two years later — by which time she was preparing to become an “oblate,” a lay person affiliated with a religious order — she says a pattern of sexual abuse by a charismatic priest who she considered her spiritual father began.

It took 15 years for Lucie — a pseudonym used at her request to protect her family — to realize that what she says she experienced over several months in the 1990s was abuse. At the time, just 18 years old, she felt “disgusted” by the physical intimacy she says the priest forced on her but also wracked by guilt and powerless to stop him.

“It was like automatic you know. He wanted to go to the end — to ejaculation — and I was just like an object for him and I had a feeling he did this a lot of times,” she said.

Her story is not unique.

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ROME (ITALY)
CBS News

February 19, 2019

Shaun Dougherty never imagined his very personal crusade against Catholic clergy sexual abuse would lead him to the Vatican. He traveled about 4,000 miles from Pennsylvania for an unprecedented meeting between bishops and survivors of alleged clergy sexual abuse in Vatican City.

He and 11 other survivors from around the world are urging the Catholic Church to have a zero-tolerance policy for abuse. CBS News’ Nikki Battiste spoke to Dougherty just before he walked into the meeting. He told her he’s feeling relaxed and focused and plans to give a strong but respectful message.

He said he’s waited years for this moment and that he wants to give the Catholic Church one last chance but looking up at St. Peter’s Basilica, Dougherty said “that’s just a dome to me.”

“I was abused at 10 years old. I never had the opportunity to fully believe in God,” he said.

He’s there for only one reason: to get the abuse of children to stop.

Since Battiste first met Dougherty last August, he’s fought for statute of limitations reform across Pennsylvania and confronted the former priest he says molested him. Wednesday’s meeting is the pinnacle in his fight for justice.

Asked if he feels like he’s carrying the weight of thousands of survivors, he said “I know I am.”

“They’re carrying me … so many people did so much more than me … I’m thrilled to be a part of this now,” Dougherty said.

Survivor Peter Isely – who alleges he was sexually abused by a priest in Wisconsin at age 13 – said their group’s message to Pope Francis is clear.

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ROME (ITALY)
CTV News Channel

February 19, 2019

By Daniele Hamamdjian

As a dozen sexual abuse survivors meet with organizers of a Catholic Church summit at the Vatican this week, women will largely be absent from the discussion.

This doesn’t mean that women have been immune to the abuse, however.

Barbara Dorris is one of the women to be abused at the hands of Church officials. As a child, she was repeatedly raped by a priest who told her she was so evil that she was forcing him to sin.

Dorris is the former executive director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. She spoke Tuesday at a press conference for female survivors of Catholic Church sex abuse and discussed the difference between how male sex abuse victims are portrayed compared to females.

“The abuse of women and girls has not been the focus of the coverage and when it has, unfortunately words like affair and relationship have been used,” she told reporters on Tuesday.

Among the other speakers was Doris Wagner, who was abused as a nun.

“When I was raped in 2008 by a priest, I thought that I was the only nun to whom that had ever happened,” she said.

Then there’s Mary Dispenza, who at age seven was told to sit on a priest’s lap. She said he then then “put his hands under my panties and into my vagina.”

Dispenza says there was another incident involving a nun when she herself was one.

Earlier this month, Pope Francis acknowledged for the first time that some nuns have been sexually abused by members of the Catholic Church, and that it could still be happening.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
San Francisco Chronicle

February 19, 2019

By Celia Viggo Wexler

Pope Francis signaled last week that even high-ranking prelates can face punishment for sexual abuse. The Vatican threw former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick out of the priesthood, because of his sexual abuse of minors and other crimes.

But that gesture does not address the other part of the problem: the church’s long-standing cover-up of credible abuse allegations. Indeed, some critics are skeptical that a four-day sexual abuse summit of bishops in Rome beginning Thursday will produce concrete reforms. Others worry that the event could be used to declare war on gay priests.

On his flight back to Rome from Panama last month, the Pope told reporters that expectations for the Rome meeting were “somewhat inflated,” adding that “the problem of abuse will continue” because it is “a human problem.” The pope, who requested prayers for the meeting’s success, may face resistance to reform from some of his own prelates.

But he could take one positive step on his own: He could ask the church to consider whether abuse survivor and activist Barbara Blaine merits recognition as a saint.

I got to know Blaine when I interviewed her for my book, “Catholic Women Confront Their Church.” She was tall and slender, dressed in a suit whose neutral tones complimented her fair skin and light brown hair. Her warmth and generosity were evident, despite the trauma she had suffered.

Blaine, who died in 2017, was sexually assaulted by her parish priest for four years, starting when she was 13. She was 29 when she read Jason Berry’s reports of priestly abuse in Louisiana, and finally realized that she was not the guilty party; her assistant pastor was.

Alone and unsupported, she began the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) in 1988, both to help victims and reform the church.

Blaine initially trusted bishops to fix the problem. They betrayed her.

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ROME (ITALY)
Crux

February 20, 2019

By John L. Allen Jr.

Yesterday I described this as “Super Bowl week” in the Vatican, in the sense that the pope’s keenly-anticipated summit on the clerical sexual abuse scandals opening Thursday has drawn media, activists and onlookers from all over the world to the Eternal City, creating energy and anticipation leading up to the big event.

Here’s a rundown of some of the sights and sounds of this week in Rome on Tuesday, which capture only a random sampling of everything that’s on offer this week.

Counter-altar at the Foreign Press Club
Veteran Italian journalist Maria Antonietta Calabrò dispatched a tweet Tuesday morning saying on that day, Rome’s Foreign Press Club became a “counter-altar” to the Vatican Press Office and its spin operation around the pope’s summit.

Two different events took place at the Foreign Press Club, both featuring dissident voices: A morning news conference staged by Bishop Accountability, a watchdog group on the clerical abuse scandals, and an afternoon event by Voices of the Faith, another activist group promoting the empowerment of women within the Catholic Church.

At the Bishop Accountability event, Ann Barrett Doyle, the group’s director, appeared with Phil Saviano, an abuse survivor who worked with the Boston Globe’s “Spotlight” team.

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ROME (ITALY)
Los Angeles Times

By Tom Kington

February 19, 2019

Pope Francis’ special summit on protecting children from sexual abuse by clergy may be a turning point for the Vatican, but many critics still wonder what took so long.

The four-day summit, which begins Thursday, is expected to explore ways for the Roman Catholic Church to protect children from abuse by examining bishops’ legal responsibilities. It is also supposed to address accountability by church leaders and transparency in confronting cases of abuse.

Francis called more than 100 bishops from around the world and dozens of others, including superiors of men’s and women’s religious orders, to the Vatican amid ongoing scandals about decades-long clergy abuse.

The church last week announced the defrocking of former U.S. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was found guilty by the Vatican of sexually abusing a child. The church and the pope during the past year have also faced an abuse scandal in Chile and a Pennsylvania grand jury report showing decades of cover-ups of abuse by priests.

“There is going to be every effort to close whatever loopholes there are and to make sure bishops understand what their responsibilities are,” Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich, who helped organize the summit, said at a Vatican briefing this week. “My hope is people see this as a turning point.”

Cupich was joined at the briefing Monday by Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s top abuse investigator, who said, “Silence is a no-go. Whether you call it omerta or a state of denial.”

Scicluna said an initial response may be to deny problems, but that is not sufficient.

“It’s a primitive mechanism we need to move away from,” he said.

Francis called the summit after his dramatic U-turn last year on abuse cases in Chile, where he first denounced victims for slandering priests, then admitted widespread abuse and prompted a number of bishops to resign.

“The pope said, ‘I got that wrong, we are not to do it again and we are going to get it right, and that gives us great hope,” said Scicluna, who led Francis’ investigation in Chile.

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

February 19, 2019

Though former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick has been defrocked, we hope – for the safety of children and vulnerable adults – that Catholic officials in Kansas will keep him at the friary where he has been living.

The disgraced prelate has not been there very long. He has likely not yet been able to win the trust of nearby families. Moreover, it is a small town so it is likely nearly everyone knows who he is and why he is there. Under those circumstances, the former Cardinal would no doubt have a tough time ingratiating himself into local families and potentially damaging more young lives.

However, if Cardinal McCarrick were to move back to New Jersey or Washington DC there are, sadly, sure to be more than a handful of families who believe he is innocent or “has been punished enough” or is no longer a threat to young lives. Church official should keep him where he is.

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LUJAN DE CUYO (ARGENTINA)
Washington Post

February 19, 2019

When investigators swept in and raided the religious Antonio Provolo Institute for the Deaf, they uncovered one of the worst cases yet among the global abuse scandals plaguing the Catholic Church: a place of silent torment where prosecutors say pedophiles preyed on the most isolated and submissive children.

The scope of the alleged abuse was vast. Charges are pending against 13 suspects; a 14th person pleaded guilty to sexual abuse, including rape, and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The case of the accused ringleader – an octogenarian Italian priest named Nicola Corradi – is set to go before a judge next month.

Corradi was spiritual director of the school and had a decades-long career spanning two continents. And so his arrest in late 2016 raised an immediate question: Did the Catholic Church have any sense that he could be a danger to children?

The answer, according to a Washington Post investigation that included a review of court and church documents, private letters, and dozens of interviews in Argentina and Italy, is that church officials up to and including Pope Francis were warned repeatedly and directly about a group of alleged predators that included Corradi.

Yet they took no apparent action against him.

“I want Pope Francis to come here, I want him to explain how this happened, how they knew this and did nothing,” a 24-year-old alumna of the Provolo Institute said, using sign language as her hands shook in rage. She and her 22-year-old brother, who requested anonymity to share their experiences as minors, are among at least 14 former students who say they were victims of abuse at the now-shuttered boarding school in the shadow of the Andes.

‘They were the perfect victims’
Vulnerable to the extreme, the deaf students tended to come from poor families that fervently believed in the sanctity of the church. Prosecutors say the children were fondled, raped, sometimes tied up and, in one instance, forced to wear a diaper to hide the bleeding. All the while, their limited ability to communicate complicated their ability to tell others what was happening to them. Students at the school were smacked if they used sign language. One of the few hand gestures used by the priests, victims say, was an index figure to lips – a demand for silence.

“They were the perfect victims,” said Gustavo Stroppiana, the chief prosecutor in the case.

And yet they may not have been the first. Corradi, now 83 and under house arrest, is also under investigation for sexual crimes at a sister school in Argentina where he worked from 1970 to 1994. And alumni of a related school in Italy, where Corradi served earlier, identified him as being among a number of priests who carried out systematic abuse over five decades. The schools were all founded and staffed by priests from the Company of Mary for the Education of the Deaf, a small Catholic congregation that answers to the Vatican.

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Patheos blog

February 19, 2019

By Sofia Carozza

On Thursday, the Vatican is hosting a summit on preventing clergy sexual abuse. Presidents of bishops’ conferences from around the globe will meet for four days, to listen to survivors and discuss the Church’s response. The main themes of the meeting are responsibility, accountability and transparency.

It is absolutely essential that women’s voices are represented at this meeting. Horrific atrocities perpetrated by Catholic priests have torn apart the wellbeing of families, of religious orders, of schools, and of parish communities. Women are not only members but leaders of these spaces. We have authoritative insight into the causes and effects of clerical sex abuse, as well as possible solutions. The Vatican must listen and respond to these insights if the Church is to begin the process of healing and restoration.

CWF Submissions to the Summit
Toward this end, the Catholic Women’s Forum (CWF) has submitted a set of documents to the summit. CWF strives to amplify the voices of Catholic women within the Church and the culture, in support of the Catholic faith.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
Daily Telegraph

February 18, 2019

By Nick Squires

The Catholic Church is “nowhere close” to enacting the reforms needed to stop the “epidemic” of sex abuse by predatory priests and bishops against children, campaigners warned on Tuesday.

Pope Francis is “in retreat” from any meaningful effort to bring abusers to justice, said Bishop Accountability, a leading pressure group.

The scathing criticism comes as the Vatican admits it has secret guidelines on how to deal with priests who break their celibacy vows and sire children.

Nearly 200 archbishops, bishops and other senior officials are to join the Pope at the Vatican for an unprecedented, four-day conference on combating the sexual abuse of minors by clergy.

Like his predecessors, the Pope has fostered “a culture of plausible deniability” in which allegations against priests are lost, not scrutinised properly, or buried in bureaucracy, campaigners said.

The Catholic Church persists in regarding the sexual abuse of children as a sin, to be dealt with internally, rather than as a serious crime that requires the intervention of the police, said Phil Saviano, a high-profile survivor of sex abuse.

Molested by a priest in Massachusetts when he was 12 years old, his ordeal was told in the Oscar-winning film Spotlight, based on a Boston Globe investigation into widespread sex abuse by clergy.

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

February 19, 2019

We’re both encouraged and worried to learn that “Four (accused abusers) are being monitored by the Newark Archdiocese under unclear circumstances.” Children are safest when predators are jailed. If that’s not possible, then predators should be publicly exposed and closely monitored, ideally in remote, secure, independently-run facilities under the supervision of secular professionals.

That is not what is happening in Newark. Catholic officials are housing some predators in a setting where they are presumably somewhat watched. That is a step forward. However, while this is better then letting them live alone completely unsupervised among unsuspecting neighbors, it is far from ideal.

For the safety of children in the immediate vicinity, Newark Archbishop Joseph Tobin should reveal the “undisclosed retirement home” where these ex-clerics live now.

We also agree with the former Bergen County prosecutor John Molinelli, who once seized oversight of one such cleric from the Archdiocese, when he said “it’s often a question of will, not ability.”

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ERIE (PA)
Erie News Now

February 19, 2019

By Paul Wagner

For the past year, we have continued to cover the clergy sex abuse scandal as it unfolded here in Pennsylvania.

But now the focus is on Rome, for the first ever papal conference on sexual abuse.

And two men who say they were abused years ago by Erie Catholic Diocese priests are there.
Jim VanSickle and James Faluszczak spoke with us today by Facetime and Skype.

They hope Pope Francis and 115 key bishops from around the world take concrete action to stop abuse and cover ups.

But they also want to be a voice for victims.

VanSickle said, “I think that they need to be aware that we are here. I think we’re going to voice ourselves loudly.”

Faluszczak said, “Whatever I am doing in this regard I am trying to give my voice to people who like myself even just a year ago was afraid to speak out.”

The four day conference that starts tomorrow.

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MUHLENBERG TWP (PA)
69 News

February 19, 2019

From the halls of Harrisburg to the headquarters of the Catholic church, a state lawmaker from Berks County is taking his fight for clergy sex abuse survivors to the pope’s doorstep.

Pennsylvania Rep. Mark Rozzi will be at the Vatican as Pope Francis convenes a summit Thursday with church leaders from around the world. Their focus will be on preventing clergy sex abuse.

“The Catholic church,” Rozzi said, “has an opportunity here to lead and be an example for the world and other institutions to follow, that maybe we can really take a bite out of child sexual abuse and start protecting our children.”

Rozzi, a survivor himself of clergy sex abuse, said his mission of traveling to the Vatican is two-fold.

First, he said he wants the church to stop blocking legislation such as his that would reform the statute of limitations and allow child sex abuse victims to sue the perpetrators and the institutions that may have covered up their crimes.

“We just want victims to have the opportunity to be able to find truth and justice and start the healing process,” Rozzi told 69 News on Tuesday.

The other reason for his visit, he said, is to seek zero-tolerance by the church when it comes to abuse.

“We want to make sure that the policies they put in place this weekend protect children, but at the same time, we want to hold bishops accountable,” Rozzi said.

While he’s still unsure whether he’ll be granted an audience with the pope, Rozzi said he wants to make sure his voice and that of other survivors is heard by those in a position of power.

“We’re going to be going to the doorstep of the Vatican and we’re going to be banging on it and say, ‘You better hear us now,’ and we want the world to hear us,” Rozzi said.

Ahead of the summit, one of the first items on Rozzi’s schedule after he arrives in Rome will be a meeting with members of the Italian parliament and representatives of various groups from around the world, including the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), End Clergy Abuse (ECA), and Bishop Accountability.

“For the first time, we’re able to coordinate this meeting, bring all these groups together and find out what is important for survivors and victims and how we’re going to protect these children moving forward,” Rozzi said.

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ROME (ITALY)
Crux

February 19, 2019

By Elise Harris and John L. Allen Jr.

One of the most outspoken survivors of clerical abuse says that he wants to see accountability for both the crime and cover-up of clerical abuse, and that if an upcoming summit fails to yield these results, Pope Francis will have failed victims.

“He has to deliver. In my opinion as a survivor, he’s gotta deliver during the summit. If he doesn’t do that, he has really betrayed what he said he has learned from hearing our stories,” Peter Isely, a survivor of child sexual abuse by a Wisconsin priest, told Crux in an interview.

While he and other survivors are hopeful Francis will come through, “we can’t base this thing on hope. Hope is not going to get us there,” he said, explaining that for those who have long endured the devastating impact of abuse, “we base it on justice.”

A longtime outspoken activist and advocate for abuse survivors, Isely was a founding member of the U.S. branch of the Ending Clergy Abuse (ECA) activist group and he was also a founding member and Midwest Director for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

He is in Rome for a Feb. 21-24 summit on the protection of minors in the Church, which was called by Pope Francis to address the global clerical abuse crisis, and which will be attended by the presidents of all bishops’ conferences around the world, heads of religious orders, representatives of Eastern Catholic Churches and abuse victims, among others.

Pegged by many as perhaps Pope Francis’s highest-stakes endeavor to date on the abuse scandals, the summit has been made up to be a sort-of make-or-break deal for Francis on the abuse issue following a tumultuous year in 2018, including a major PR flop in Chile and questions about his own actions in the case of Theodore McCarrick, the former cardinal who was recently defrocked after being found guilty of sexual abuse and manipulation.

In Isely’s view, survivors have typically encountered two different personas in Francis, one being the sympathetic pastor who has a deep sense of the horrifying impact of abuse, and another who can be cryptic, insensitive and who appears to fail to take action against known abusers.

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LONDON (CANADA)
London Free Press

February 19, 2019

By Jane Sims

The sentencing hearing for a former Anglican priest convicted of sexually abusing Indigenous boys almost four decades ago has been delayed.

Victim impact statements had been scheduled for Tuesday morning in the Superior Court of Justice in the case of David Norton, 72, who was convicted of three counts of indecent assault between Jan. 1, 1977 and Jan. 3, 1983 and one count of sexual assault between Jan. 4, 1983 and Dec. 31, 1984 after a trial in November.

The four victims were all altar boys at St. Andrew’s Anglican church at Chippewas of the Thames, where Norton had been a popular rector. They all came from disadvantaged families on the reserve.

The men testified that they and their families saw Norton as a beloved friend and spiritual guide. Norton took the boys on weekends and had them sleep over at his London apartment and his Belmont property. He took them to movies, bowling, parks and, for some of them, trips to the Bahamas, where he had served before returning to Canada.

The boys, now men, testified at trial that they were often given chocolate milk or Pop Shoppe pop before bed time. Norton would sleep with them. They believe they were drugged.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
USA TODAY

February 19, 2019

By John Bacon

A crucial summit on clergy sexual abuse opening Thursday at the Vatican is drawing church leaders from around the world in an effort to break a “code of silence” that allowed the misconduct to take place over decades.

Presidents of more than 100 bishop conferences will be joined by high-ranking Vatican officials – and Pope Francis himself. The summit will focus on making bishops aware of their responsibilities, accountability and transparency, the Vatican said.

Archbishop Charles Scicluna, a member of the summit organizing committee, described the summit as a major step in the pope’s efforts to end the code of silence. The Rev. James Bretzke, a theology professor at Marquette University, said the pope is demanding a change in “clerical culture.”

“The pope is saying this isn’t just a problem for the United States, or Europe or elsewhere,” Bretzke told USA TODAY. “The problem is the clerical culture that looks to protect the institution even at the expense of individuals who have been harmed.”

On Wednesday, a dozen victims of clergy sexual abuse will meet with summit organizers. Chilean abuse victim Juan Carlos Cruz, who is coordinating a meeting, said his group will further urge bishops to stop pleading ignorance about abuse.

“Raping a child or a vulnerable person and abusing them has been wrong since the 1st century, the Middle Ages, and now,” he said.

John Thavis, a former Catholic News Service reporter and author of “The Vatican Diaries,” said the meeting with abuse victims was added after the Vatican program.

“The bishops will no doubt hear some very direct criticism of their past failures,” Thavis said.

Thavis said the true effectiveness of the summit will be determined by follow-up actions over the next year or so “if and when the Vatican sends teams of auditors around the world to make sure that the summit’s conclusions are being implemented.”

On Tuesday, two groups representing the leadership of Catholic religious orders apologized for their failure to quickly act to halt sexual abuse of children by priests.

“We bow our heads in shame at the realization that such abuse has taken place in our congregations and orders, and in our church,” the statement from the Union of Superiors General and its female counterpart the International Union of Superiors General said.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Slate

February 19, 2019

By Molly Olmstead

A Washington Post investigation published Tuesday alleges that those at the highest ranks of the Vatican, including Pope Francis, were made aware of horrific abuse allegations in three Catholic schools for deaf children but did little to punish the accused or stop the abuse from continuing.

The allegations, the first set of which emerged in 2006, led to the 2016 arrest of an 83-year-old Italian priest named Nicola Corradi, who was thought to be the “ringleader” of the abuse, according to the Post. Charges are pending against 12 other suspects, and a 14th has already been sentenced to 10 years in prison for rape and sexual abuse.

The abuse reportedly began in the 1950s and lasted through the 1980s at the Antonio Provolo Institute for the Deaf in Verona, Italy, and began in the 1980s in Argentina at Provolo schools in Lujan de Cuyo and in La Plata. Corradi taught for decades in each country.

The allegations are difficult to read, and they involve countless cases of abuse of children at least as young as 7. According to the Post:

Vulnerable to the extreme, the deaf students tended to come from poor families that fervently believed in the sanctity of the church. Prosecutors say the children were fondled, raped, sometimes tied up and, in one instance, forced to wear a diaper to hide the bleeding. All the while, their limited ability to communicate complicated their ability to tell others what was happening to them. Students at the school were smacked if they used sign language. One of the few hand gestures used by the priests, victims say, was an index [finger] to lips—a demand for silence.

But the church failed to punish the accused priests. The 2006 accusation by a man named Dario Laiti led more than a dozen other former students to come forward. The victims wrote to a local bishop in 2008 (it was at that point too late to press charges). In public statements, they named 24 priests and other faculty at the school as abusers. According to the group, dozens of others had been abused but were not willing to come forward. The bishop accused the victims of lying, and the victims sued for defamation, alerting the Vatican to the allegations.

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Get Religion blog

February 19, 2019

By Terry Mattingly

Is it just me, or does anyone else suspect that this is a great time for journalists to ask Vatican officials hard questions about the sins of priests who want to have sex with females?

I am not joking about this, although I will confess that there is a rather cynical twist to my question.

Let me also stress that we are talking about serious stories, with victims who deserve attention and justice. We are also talking about stories that mesh with my conviction that secrecy is the key issue, the most powerful force in Rome’s scandals tied to sexual abuse by clergy (something I noted just yesterday).

Still, the timing is interesting — with Vatican officials doing everything they can to focus news coverage on the abuse of “children,” as opposed to male teens, and a few young adults, as opposed to — potentially — lots and lots of seminarians. I am talking about this week’s Vatican summit on sexual abuse.

So first we had a small wave of coverage of this totally valid story, as seen in this headline at The New York Times: “Sexual Abuse of Nuns: Longstanding Church Scandal Emerges From Shadows.”

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

February 19, 2019

Another U.S. Catholic bishop has been accused of child sexual abuse, this time on Long Island. Today, two women have come forward to accuse Bishop John McGann, formerly of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, of sexually abusing them as children.

Often, the more powerful and prominent a predator is, the harder it is to come forward and report sexual assaults by him. This is even true when the accused is deceased, because victims assume fewer people will believe the accuser.

Yet still, it is critical for these stories and experiences to be shared. When the first victim speaks out, it usually gives strength and encouragement to other victims who may be suffering in silence. We hope the announcement of these allegations today will be helpful to other victims, whether of Bishop McGann or any other religious figure.

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NASHVILLE (TN)
Nashville Tennessean

February 19, 2019

Duane W. Gang and Holly Meyer

Southern Baptists across the country are grappling with a sex abuse crisis in the wake of a startling investigative report detailing more than 380 cases where church leaders and volunteers have been accused of sexual misconduct.

In total, the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News found more than 700 victims.

Here’s what you need to know about the story and how Southern Baptist Convention leaders are responding.

Why did the news organizations investigate the church?
Victims of sexual abuse had long criticized church leaders for not doing enough to combat the problem, including tracking how many church leaders are accused of sexual misconduct. So the news organizations set out build their own database.

What was the reaction to the news?
Calls for reform and change came quickly. Southern Baptist leaders vowed to address the problem.

Southern Baptist Convention President J.D. Greear, a pastor in North Carolina, called sexual abuse by church leaders and volunteers “pure evil,” and apologized to victims.

“We are profoundly sorry,” Greear, along with fellow Pastor Brad Hambrick, wrote in a article posted on Greear’s website the day after the news broke. “It is an unjust tragedy that you experienced abuse in the past. And it is unjust and tragic that you feel fear in the present.

“We, the church, have failed you.”

What is the church doing about the problem?

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

February 19, 2019

A bill has been introduced into the California State Senate that would remove exemptions in mandatory reporting laws that allow clergy to avoid punishment for refusing to report allegations of child abuse or neglect.

We are supportive of any effort that protects children. This law will help ensure that adults who are trusted to care for children will also report any worrying signs or behavior they may witness. It is incumbent on adults to care for children and shield them from abuse, and this can only be accomplished when adults know and understand their reporting responsibility.

In the past, clerical exemptions to mandatory reporting laws have allowed clergy not to report when they heard allegations of child abuse during confession or witnessed a child being abused by another cleric or church staffer. Any law that can help remove this secrecy and promote the protection of children and prevention of abuse is one that we support, and we hope that the California Senate will take up Senator Hill’s bill immediately.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
Patch

February 15, 2019

By Deb Belt

A new wave of lists naming Catholic priests credibly accused of sexual abuse against children has been released in the past two months, including the Baltimore archdiocese. In late December the church posted a revised list of 99 priests and religious brothers facing accusations over the years. The posting includes an initial list of 57 men posted in 2002, along with additions of those later accused, and priests named in a grand jury report released by the Pennsylvania Attorney General in August 2018, who either had an assignment in Maryland or were accused of engaging in sexual abuse of minors in Maryland.

“Many Catholics here in our own archdiocese, as well as many across the country, are rightly dismayed by what they perceive as a lack of decisive action to strengthen protocols of accountability for bishops accused of sexual abuse or misconduct,” Archbishop William E. Lori said in November after U.S. bishops met in Baltimore. “Understandably, there is a sense that this was a missed opportunity – and one unnecessarily so. … We must be held fully accountable – as are priests, deacons, lay employees and volunteers of the Church – in matters of moral and professional conduct.”

The Baltimore list was released about a month after the Washington, D.C., archdiocese — which includes Montgomery and Prince George’s counties in Maryland — released similarly accused priests. A total of 32 priests were named by the DC diocese, but its list does not specify which parishes or schools they served in. See that list of names at the bottom of the story or online.

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QUEENS (NY)
The Queens Courier

February 19, 2019

By Mark Hallum

The Brooklyn Diocese has released a list of priests spanning the 20th century who they say have credible claims of sexual abuse against them from victims, either before or after their death.

The report also shows that while many of the alleged sexual predators are long dead, many not only served in Queens, but about 40 percent are still alive, though none of them still serve as clergymen, either by their own volition or by removal from the ministry.

Up to 95 of those listed served at locations in Forest Hills, Ridgewood and Flushing with one of the most notorious offenders being Father Adam Prochaski, who served at Holy Cross School in Maspeth from 1969 to 1994 and has been accused of abusing more than 20 female victims, according to Lawyers Helping Survivors of Child Sex Abuse.

What differs between the earlier report released by the legal organization and the report released by the diocese is that it does not list the number of accusations against various priests and only indicates whether reports emerged before or after the individuals death and how they eventually left the diocese. The diocese report does not list clergy members currently serving with accusations against them.

“As we know, sexual abuse is a shameful and destructive problem that is found in all aspects of society, yet it is especially egregious when it occurs within the church and such abuse cannot be tolerated,” Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio said in a letter. “It is my hope that publishing this list will provide some assistance to some of those who are continuing the difficult process of healing, as well as encouraging other victims to come forward.”

There are more than 100 priests on the list and the diocese said it is aware of about 14 percent of cases prior to a 2017 effort to pay remediations to victims.

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MEMPHIS (TN)
WMCActionNews5.com

February 18, 2019

Carroll Dozier, the first Catholic bishop of Memphis, has been named on a list of priests accused of child sex abuse.

The Richmond, Virginia Diocese, where Bishop Dozier was ordained as a priest, released the list.

Bishop Dozier led the Memphis Diocese from 1971 until 1983. He helped the poor, fought racism and opposed the Vietnam War.

The oldest priest in Memphis, a man hired by Bishop Dozier, is stunned by the sex abuse revelation.

At age 87, Father David Knight knows the Memphis Diocese and its first Bishop well.

“Dozier was the best bishop we’ve ever had,” Father Knight said.

Father Knight despises the Catholic church’s history of sex abuse.

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DENVER (CO)
Colorado Sun

February 19, 2019

By Jesse Paul

The three Catholic dioceses of Colorado will open their records to an independent investigator in an effort to provide a full accounting of sexual abuse of children by priests through the decades, part of a national reckoning for the church after an explosive grand jury report last year in Pennsylvania.

The investigator will compile a list of priests with substantiated allegations of abuse, including where the clergy were assigned and the years when the offenses were alleged to have occurred, under the initiative announced Tuesday by the church and the Colorado Attorney General’s Office. That list will then be made public. The initiative also will include a full review of the church’s policies and procedures in responding to and preventing abuse.

“My colleagues around the country have responded to the Pennsylvania grand jury report in a variety of ways,” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, a Democrat, said in a written statement. “Today, we are announcing a Colorado solution that is collaborative, enhances transparency and provides victims access to support services and compensation. I want to thank the bishops for working with my office to achieve these positive steps.”

Colorado’s former U.S. attorney, Bob Troyer, will lead the independent investigation. Half of his fees will be paid by private anonymous donors known to state officials; the other half will come from the dioceses in Denver, Pueblo and Colorado Springs.

The review will go from 1950 onward and is aimed, in part, at making sure that there are no known abusers still in the church, Weiser’s office said at a news conference Tuesday. No state funds will be used.

“It’s important to note this is not a criminal investigation. This is an independent inquiry will the full cooperation of the Catholic church,” Weiser said.

Victims will not be named.

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ROME (ITALY)
Catholic News Service

February 19, 2019

By Carol Glatz

People must stop using homosexuals as scapegoats for the sexual abuse of children, two male survivors of abuse by priests told reporters.

“To make this link between homosexuality and pedophilia is absolutely immoral, it is unconscionable and has to stop,” said Peter Isely, a survivor and founding member of the survivor’s group SNAP.

Speaking to reporters outside the Vatican press office Feb. 18, he said: “No matter what your sexual orientation is, if you’ve committed a criminal act against a child, you’re a criminal. That’s the designation that counts. Period.”

Isely and other survivors were in Rome to speak with the press ahead of a Vatican summit Feb. 21-24 on child protection in the Catholic Church.

Phil Saviano, who founded SNAP’s New England chapter and is a board member of BishopsAccountability.org, told reporters Feb. 19 that he felt “there has been a lot of scapegoating of homosexual men as being child predators.”

To lay the blame for the abuse of children on homosexuality “tells me that they really don’t understand” the problem and have made a claim “that is not based on any source of reality.”

“I will admit that if a priest is abusing a 16-, 17- or 18-year-old boy, that part of the element that is going on there is homosexuality, but that is not the root of the problem” of abuse by clergy, he said at an event at the Foreign Press Association in Rome.

Saviano was a prepubescent boy when he was abused by Father David A. Holley of Worcester, Massachusetts, and he said, very often, a perpetrator is no longer “interested” in his victim when the child goes through puberty.

Saviano, whose story of abuse triggered the Boston Globe investigation and was featured in the film Spotlight, said he hears from victims from all over the world “and many of them are women who were abused as children.”

“Trying to lump it all together under homosexually,” he said, is “a dodge” and will not “lead to a proper solution.”

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El Paso Times
February 19, 2019

By Aaron Martinez and Trish Long

A man who claims he was repeatedly sexually abused by an El Paso priest in the early 1970s is suing the El Paso Catholic Diocese for more than $1 million in damages.

The suit, filed Feb. 12, claims the Rev. Jaime Madrid abused the then 12-year-old boy at at a local school, at the seminary, at a motel and in the priest’s car.

The victim, who is only identified in court records as John Doe, is represented by prominent Texas lawyers Lori Watson and Hal Browne.

“Obviously we are trying to get compensation for our client for all the trauma he suffered, …” Browne said. “We have been in several of these cases in El Paso … It has become clear to us that the Diocese had longtime institutional knowledge of the fact that there were abusive priests in the Diocese.”

El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz, who was named in the lawsuit but said he had not personally seen it, declined to comment on the suit, saying only that diocese’s lawyers had received it Friday and were still going through it.

Madrid, who died in 2007, was among the 30 priests named by the El Paso diocese as credibly accused of sexual abuse in a list released Jan. 31. The El Paso diocese list was part of a coordinated investigation by the dioceses in Texas in response to a nationwide scandal.

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ROME
CRUX

February 18, 2019

By Christopher White and Inés San Martín

A leading U.S. organization dedicated to documenting the clergy sex abuse crisis believes there are “many more McCarricks” and has publicly named five bishops they believe should face the same fate as the disgraced former cardinal archbishop of Washington, D.C.

At a press conference outside of St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, Bishop Accountability made their case for the laicization of Archbishop John Nienstedt of St. Paul-Minneapolis, Minnesota; Archbishop Anthony Sablan Apuron of Agaña, Guam; Bishop Aldo di Cillo Pagotto of Paraiba, Brazil; Bishop Roger Joseph Vangheluwe of Bruges, Belgium; and Bishop Joseph Hart of Cheyenne, Wyoming.

These men, according to Bishop Accountability’s co-president Anne Barrett Doyle, have been removed from their former posts and also should be removed from the clerical state.

“It is an insult to the Catholics of the world to hold forth McCarrick’s laicization as accountability,” she said. “We are past the stage of confusing a fired bishop as accountability. We haven’t even begun yet.”

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NEW JERSEY
Star-Ledger

February 17, 2019

By Star-Ledger Editorial Board

The Roman Catholic Church in New Jersey believes it has found a path to redemption by releasing a list of 188 predatory priests – 108 of them deceased – which it hopes is a step toward “healing for the victims” and the “restoration of trust in church leadership.”

That, to coin a term, is a Hail Mary. There is no catechism to comfort raped children. There is no psalm of purification for this occasion. The disclosure of these credibly accused clerics is important, but sexual assault victims are not likely to be healed by this perfunctory gesture sanctified by Cardinal Joseph Tobin.

To the contrary, many remain haunted by decades of silence, and wonder why names were hidden for so long. They seek the identities of the bishops who engineered the coverup. They will say this confession was triggered only by the creation of a daunting task force, convened to investigate clergy abuse throughout our state by a determined Attorney General.

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NEW JERSEY
Patch National

February 15, 2019

By Tom Davis

As many as 23 names are missing, and at least one NJ archdiocese acknowledged that the report may be incomplete. Here are 10 omitted.

New Jersey’s five Catholic archdioceses said they were trying to accountable by releasing the list of nearly 200 names of priests credibly accused of child sex abuse. But now they’re ackowledging that the list probably wasn’t complete – and we have the names of 10 who were omitted.

As many as 23 names or priests and religious leaders are missing, and victims and critics are calling on the archdioceses to be more forthcoming in their revelations.

Indeed, the Trenton archdiocese promised to release more information on its list of 30 priests who were accused – such as church affiliations. But, thus far, the archdiocese has been silent since the public release of names on Wednesday.

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NEW JERSEY
Star-Ledger

February 14, 2019

By Mark Crawford

For decades, advocates and organizations like SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, have called on our New Jersey bishops to release the names and files of clergy known to have abused children. Such pleas fell on deaf ears.

While any release of information from our church officials, from an institution well known for its secrecy, is a step in the right direction, the list lacks important details. The list could hardly be considered a sincere attempt at contrition or full transparency. In fact, this limited release is more about damage control than it is about healing.

One can only conclude that the real reason any information has been released at all is due to continued pressure from the state Attorney General’s and his office’s ongoing investigation of the five Catholic dioceses, as well as nationwide efforts to reform the statute of limitation laws and similar reform bills pending before New Jersey lawmakers. These are laws that will finally instill accountability, create consequences for institutional cover-ups and allow sexual abuse victims access to our courts.

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LONG ISLAND (NY)
Newday

February 19, 2019

By Chau Lam and Craig Schneider

A lawyer representing two women who allege they were sexually abused as girls by the late Bishop John R. McGann and others in the Rockville Centre diocese is expected to make their stories public Tuesday.

The news conference is scheduled for Tuesday morning in Rockville Centre, according to a news release issued by a nonprofit group that aids victims of clergy sexual abuse. The women are not scheduled to appear, according to the co-founder of the New Jersey-based group, Road to Recovery.

A spokesman for the diocese did not have an immediate comment on Tuesday morning.

One woman claims to have been sexually abused by McGann, then monsignor and auxiliary bishop, Msgr. Edward L. Melton and the Rev. Robert L. Brown while they were assigned to St. Agnes parish in Rockville Centre, according to the news release. All the men are deceased.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

February 19, 2019

The #MeToo movement brought sexual abuse and harassment out of the shadows by encouraging survivors to speak up. It has held individuals small and mighty accountable for vile behavior.

While those who commit wrongdoing are responsible for their actions, the cultural and legal awakening also puts the onus to do more on large institutions. Many of the sexual misdeeds revealed by #MeToo have taken place in business, church and school settings. At the organizational level, efforts to prevent and punish abuse still aren’t happening quickly enough.

Starting Thursday, the Vatican will host a landmark four-day summit on the sex abuse crisis within the Roman Catholic church. While advocates press for changes in canon law and new ways to hold bishops and other church officials accountable for cover-ups, Pope Francis and others caution against expecting much from the event. This will be the first time a pope has brought church leadership together to discuss a scandal that’s been making headlines for 15 years.

No surprise. Institutions often struggle to confront their failings. When faced with a humiliating or legally vulnerable situation, the instinct for stonewalling and secrecy emerges. It’s true for corporations and bureaucracies as well as churches. Catholic communities long denied, deflected and moved offenders to new populations where they preyed again. “We showed no care for the little ones,” Pope Francis has said of pedophilia in the church. Earlier this month, he acknowledged that Catholic bishops and priests had abused nuns in India, Africa, Europe and South America. One encouraging sign: the disclosure Saturday that the pope has expelled from the priesthood Theodore McCarrick, the former cardinal of Washington, D.C., for sexually abusing minors and seminarians.

The Southern Baptist church faces scrutiny for an alleged history of sex abuse and secrecy. The Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News reported this month that offenders, including pastors and deacons, left a trail of 700 victims of sexual misconduct and crime. The church resisted policy change, while some abusers simply were waved along to offend again.

Schools, entrusted with providing a safe space for children, also have not done enough to protect them. The Chicago Tribune’s searing “Betrayed” investigation showed that Chicago Public Schools neglected to adequately check employees’ backgrounds, to report sex abuse when it happened and to deal appropriately and sensitively with young victims. There were failures in hiring, training, discipline and investigations.

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PROVIDENCE (RI)
Providence Journal

February 17, 2019

By Katherine Gregg

“I want to explain and paint for you a picture of my family and how this injustice rocked us to the very core.”

So begins Rhode Island lawmaker Carol Hagan McEntee’s account of what the repeated sexual molestation of her older sister, Ann, by their parish priest in West Warwick over a period of time that began in 1957, when Ann was 5 years old, did to their deeply Catholic family.

McEntee stayed up most of the night, one recent night, writing it out, so she’d know what she wanted to say at the public hearing the House Judiciary Committee is holding on Tuesday, Feb. 26 on her bill to give the victims of childhood sex abuse more time than current law allows them to file civil suits against their abusers.

Her now 66-year-old sister, Ann Hagan Webb, a psychologist, was one of several victims of priests and other trusted elders, including staff members at the elite St. George’s School in Middletown, who told their stories to the state’s lawmakers last year. Ann has told The Journal she plans to tell her story again next week.

This is a shortened version of what Carol McEntee, a three-term member of the R.I. House of Representatives, wrote:

“When I filed this bill last session I knew that there were many victims in RI who were suffering, some silently. Never did I imagine that the world would explode as it did this past summer and which continues to shock us daily with story after story in state after state of the systematic abuse of children that has occurred within the Catholic Church.

“The mere fact that those in charge knew that the abuse of children was happening under their supervision and did nothing to prevent it and in many cases covered it up should shock and enrage all of us.”

“This is my personal story from a sister’s perspective.”

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

February 19, 2019

By Jason Berry

Editor’s note: Jason Berry was the first to report on clergy sex abuse in any substantial way, beginning with a landmark 1985 report about the Louisiana case involving a priest named Gilbert Gauthe. In 1992, he published Lead Us Not into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children, a nationwide investigation after seven years of reporting in various outlets. In the foreword, Fr. Andrew Greeley referred to “what may be the greatest scandal in the history of religion in America and perhaps the greatest problem Catholicism has faced since the Reformation.”

Berry followed the crisis in articles, documentaries, and two other books, Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II (2004) and Render unto Rome: The Secret Life of Money in the Catholic Church (2011), which won the Investigative Reporters and Editors Best Book Award. Given the current moment and its possibilities and the fact that Berry is singular in his experience covering the scandal from multiple angles, NCR asked if he would write a reflection on the matter as the church’s bishops are about to gather in Rome to consider the issue. Below is the first of three parts.

As the heir to disastrous mistakes of John Paul II and Benedict XVI in their handling of the clergy sex abuse crisis, Francis is an existential pope, trying to chart a way out of the long, aching scandal by forging standards where few exist.

The upcoming meeting of the heads of bishops’ conferences from around the world is the latest evidence that what was once considered the scandal of “a few bad apples,” or the result of Western permissiveness, or hostile, anti-Catholic media is, in fact, a pathological sickness eating through the church’s clerical and episcopal culture. The scandal has gone global. Prosecutors in several countries have church officials under scrutiny for helping predators evade criminal prosecution.

The “cases” are often old. But as we saw in the Pennsylvania grand jury report, church officials showed Olympian insensitivity to victims, while abetting a criminal sexual underground. Survivors, like the chorus of a Greek tragedy, warn of a moral order being broken.

How did the crisis reach this stage? What feasible reforms can the pope engineer?

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

February 19, 2019

By Michael Sean Winters

The Holy See’s decision to laicize Theodore McCarrick, the former cardinal, only partially closes a sad and ugly chapter in the history of the Catholic Church in the United States. The victims of McCarrick’s depraved behavior may find a modicum of healing in this execution of justice, but there is no way to give them back their childhood, nor the years of suffering that followed. To them, our hearts go out.

Similarly, to those whose faith has been shaken, for whom the realization that someone they esteemed was capable of such crimes, may they find comfort in the words of St. Paul that we all heard at Mass on Sunday: “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all.” Our faith is not rooted in anything but the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. When he abandons the church, let us follow him out the door — and he has promised to never abandon her. The Lord keeps his promises.

It is impossible to square concern for victims with the efforts of some to weaponize the McCarrick tragedy for unrelated and incongruous objectives. Leave it to EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo, whose execrable television show never ceases to miss the essence of Christianity, to use the McCarrick case to try and slime someone he does not like. Last week, he spoke with Robert Royal, and the two questioned Pope Francis’ decision to appoint Cardinal Kevin Farrell as the camerlengo. Farrell was auxiliary bishop to McCarrick, and the two lived in the same house. “Roommates,” Arroyo sneered, as if it was not the case that bishops often live with other priests. The two ignored the fact there were no accusations of McCarrick’s misconduct during his time in Washington. This was merely an attempt to slime Farrell. It was despicable.

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ORD (NE)
The Associated Press

February 19, 2019

A May trial has been scheduled for a Roman Catholic priest accused of sexually assaulting a woman in central Nebraska.

Valley County District Court records say the Rev. John Kakkuzhiyil entered a written plea of not guilty Monday to a charge of forcible sexual assault. His trial is set to begin May 6.

The woman who accused him has obtained a protection order against the cleric. She says he assaulted her in November when she went to his Ord home on business. She says she blacked out after having a couple of drinks with him.

The Grand Island Diocese says Bishop Joseph Hanefeldt placed Kakkuzhiyil on leave Dec. 15 upon learning that the Nebraska State Patrol was investigating the allegations.

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DENVER (CO)
National Catholic Register

February 18, 2019

By Kevin Burke

This week, the bishops of the world will gather in Rome for an international summit to address the clergy abuse scandals in the Catholic Church.

The Catholic News Agency reported the comments of Pope Francis on a Jan. 28 papal flight from Panama concerning the summit that “the bishops receive a ‘catechesis’ on the suffering of abuse survivors…” The Pope emphasized the importance of survivor testimonies to understand the lasting effects of sexual abuse.

In the spirit of the Pope’s desire to highlight the experience of victims I felt inspired to share my experience as a social worker and songwriter to create a song and video that tells the story of a young man abused by a priest. The process of creating this musical story also inspired me to share my own deeply painful experiences, in my youth, and later as a father of 5 children, with clergy abusers.

Music provides an effective vehicle to help the listener enter the life of an abuse victim and intimately share in their emotional experience. The perpetrator priest in the song “Uncle Ted” is partially based on the notorious Theodore McCarrick. McCarrick instructed his minor and young adult victims to call him “Uncle Ted.” Like the young man in this song, more than 80 percent of clergy abuse victims were adolescent males.

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ROME (ITALY)
New York Times

February 18, 2019

By Jason Horowitz and Elisabetta Povoledo

Vincent Doyle, a psychotherapist in Ireland, was 28 when he learned from his mother that the Roman Catholic priest he had always known as his godfather was in truth his biological father.

The discovery led him to create a global support group to help other children of priests, like him, suffering from the internalized shame that comes with being born from church scandal. When he pressed bishops to acknowledge these children, some church leaders told him that he was the product of the rarest of transgressions.

But one archbishop finally showed him what he was looking for: a document of Vatican guidelines for how to deal with priests who father children, proof that he was hardly alone.

“Oh my God. This is the answer,” Mr. Doyle recalled having said as he held the document. He asked if he could have a copy, but the archbishop said no — it was secret.

Now, the Vatican has confirmed, apparently for the first time, that its department overseeing the world’s priests has general guidelines for what to do when clerics break celibacy vows and father children.

“I can confirm that these guidelines exist,” the Vatican spokesman Alessandro Gisotti wrote in response to a query from The New York Times. “It is an internal document.”

The issue is becoming harder to ignore. “It’s the next scandal,” Mr. Doyle said. “There are kids everywhere.”

As the Vatican prepares for an unprecedented meeting with the world’s bishops this week on the devastating child sexual abuse crisis, many people who feel they have been wronged by the church’s culture of secrecy and aversion to scandal will descend on Rome to press their cause.

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Patheos blog

February 19, 2019

By Kristy Burmeister

When we discuss sexual abuse within the church, we usually assume we’re talking about young boys who were sexually abused by priests. There are several other types of victims that don’t get as much attention but have also suffered within our churches.

Last year, when #churchtoo started trending on Twitter, I wondered if I was the “right” kind of victim. I’d certainly been victimized within my church, but not in the way people would immediately assume. I was never sexually assaulted by anyone in church leadership.

There are more kinds of abuse going on within our churches than child sexual abuse.

I see a lot of focus on the abuse of boys within Catholicism, but girls have been sexually abused as well. Nuns have been sexually abused.

Adult men and women have been sexually abused. Priests and other church leaders sometimes use their authority to manipulate adults into sexual relationships. The uneven power dynamic makes these relationships sexually exploitative and abusive.

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BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

February 19, 2019

By Jay Tokasz

The Buffalo Diocese has offered to pay Thomas W. Travers because he was a victim of clergy sexual abuse as a boy.

But the diocese refuses to add Monsignor Sylvester J. Holbel — the man Travers says raped him — to its list of 80 priests who have been credibly accused of sexually abusing children.

Travers said Holbel, a former superintendent of Catholic schools, groomed him from the age of 9 and then had molested him multiple times by age 11.

Also missing from the diocese’s list is Monsignor Joseph J. Vogel, the founding pastor of Queen of Heaven Church in West Seneca, even though the diocese offered a woman $75,000 through its compensation program to settle a claim that Vogel molested her decades ago when she was 12.

Diocese spokeswoman Kathy Spangler said those names are not on the diocese’s list because the priests are deceased and had just a single abuse complaint against them.

Bishop Richard J. Malone won’t publicly identify as abusers 48 deceased priests who each had a single allegation against them. Diocese officials said they wrestled over how to balance providing more transparency in their response to child sex abuse while also ensuring that a dead priest’s legacy isn’t tarnished when that priest had no opportunity to defend himself against a claim. Malone decided that if a deceased priest had at least two credible allegations against him, his name would go on the list.

The Vatican does not have a universal church standard for publicly identifying abusive priests, so bishops are free to determine their own criteria.

“If there’s only one allegation on the priest, we’ll note it, we’ll record it and keep it in the file, and if a subsequent allegation comes in, that priest will be moved on to the list,” said Lawlor F. Quinlan III, a lawyer for the diocese.

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ROME (ITALY)
Associated Press

February 19, 2019

By Nicole Winfield

Pope Francis is hosting a four-day summit on preventing clergy sexual abuse, a high-stakes meeting designed to impress on Catholic bishops around the world that the problem is global and that there are consequences if they cover it up.

The meeting opening Thursday comes at a critical time for the church and Francis’ papacy, following the explosion of the scandal in Chile last year and renewed outrage in the United States over decades of cover-up that were exposed by the Pennsylvania grand jury report.

Here is a look at what’s in store for the summit.

WHAT’S ON THE AGENDA?

The meeting is divided into three thematic days, with the final day — Sunday — devoted to Mass and a concluding address from the pope.

Day 1 explores bishops’ responsibilities to their flocks, including their legal responsibility to investigate and prevent abuse.

Day 2 is dedicated to accountability and is focused on church leaders working together, along with rank-and-file Catholics, to protect children.

Day 3 focuses on transparency, and features remarks from a Nigerian religious sister, a German cardinal and a Mexican journalist.

Testimony from survivors is interspersed throughout during moments of prayer, but there are no sessions dedicated to hearing their stories. Participants were told to meet with victims before coming to Rome to learn first-hand of their pain — and to drive home the idea that clergy sex abuse isn’t confined to certain parts of the world.

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ROME (ITALY)
Associated Press

February 19, 2019

Catholic religious orders from around the world are apologizing for having failed to respond when their priests raped children, acknowledging that their family-like communities blinded them to sexual abuse and led to misplaced loyalties, denial and cover-up.

The two umbrella organizations representing the world’s male and female religious orders issued a joint statement Tuesday on the eve of Pope Francis’ sex abuse prevention summit. They vowed to implement accountability measures to ensure cover-up by superiors ends and that children are safe.

With a few exceptions, religious orders have largely flown under the radar in the decades-long abuse scandal, since the focus has been on how diocesan bishops protected their priests. Yet congregations such as the Jesuits, Salesians and Christian Brothers have some of the worst records.

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SAGINAW (MI)
MLive.com

February 19, 2019

By Cole Waterman

When a beloved priest known as “Father Bob” was charged with sex crimes a year ago, the Catholic Diocese of Saginaw vowed to help investigators.

Bishop Joseph Cistone said he had a “sincere desire for justice” and the diocese “would cooperate fully with law enforcement.”

Prosecutors say it didn’t happen that way.

In the year that followed, the diocese delayed a police investigation by failing to turn over documents. It enlisted a retired Michigan appeals court judge to act as its point person in dealing with prosecutors and the public. It waited to release information it had about the scope of the sex-abuse scandal, which so far has involved 19 priests and one deacon in the diocese.

“We’d ask for specific things and for a specific person to talk to us. We would get a person we did not ask for and they would basically read from a script,” said Mark J. Gaertner, chief assistant prosecutor for Saginaw County. Gaertner is preparing the state’s case against the Rev. Robert J. DeLand Jr., the 71-year-old Freeland priest accused of sexually assaulting a teenager and two men.

DeLand goes to trial in March on six felony charges.

The Saginaw Diocese is among several dioceses facing criticism for its handling of a sex-abuse scandal now sweeping the Catholic Church.

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OAKLAND (CA)
Bay Area News Group

February 18, 2019

By Robert Salonga

A prominent victim advocate group contends that the weekend disclosure of 45 names of Oakland diocese clergy credibly accused of sexually abusing children is a low-ball figure that strategically parses out publicly known abusers, and called for significantly more information to be released.

“We believe that there are many more men who have been publicly identified and have an association with the Diocese of Oakland who have not been included on the list,” reads a statement from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

The list includes 20 diocesan priests accused of abusing 174 children. It also includes three priests from other dioceses and 22 priests, deacons or brothers affiliated with religious orders such as the Salesians and Franciscans who had worked within the Oakland diocese.

SNAP took particular issue with a statement in the disclosure letter by Bishop Michael Barber asserting there “has been no credible incident of abuse” involving a child by a deacon or priest in the diocese since 1988, and there are no active priests or deacons in the diocese who have been credibly accused of abusing children.

“It has been demonstrated in Illinois and even here in this state that church officials can not always be trusted to disclose all the names or to determine which allegations are ‘credible,’ ” SNAP said in its Monday statement.

That includes the Rev. Alex Castillo, whom the diocese announced Jan. 31 was put on administrative leave and removed from priestly duties after an accusation of “inappropriate conduct with a minor” that is being investigated by Oakland police. The diocese has said he was not included in the Monday disclosure because his allegation remains under investigation, and Barber said the “living list” of names “will be updated as needed.”

Diocesan spokeswoman Helen Osman has said others may be using different criteria for determining credible accusations, but that anyone with information about priests not on the diocese’s list “should report to law enforcement and, if they are willing, contact the diocese.”

The Oakland diocese, which spans Alameda and Contra Costa counties, is the second in the Bay Area to take the extraordinary step, following a similar move by the Diocese of San Jose in October. Unlike the San Jose diocese, Oakland did not describe the allegations against the named clergy.

Also in its critique Monday, SNAP called for vastly more transparency surrounding the disclosures, given the church’s history of selectively addressing widespread sexual abuse by clergy.

“The diocese also needs to expand its list of diocesan priests to include work histories, information about current whereabouts and, most critically, when the diocese first learned of the allegations and when they finally took action. They should also provide additional information about extern and order priests, as well as the religious brothers included on the list,” the SNAP statement concludes

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MEMPHIS (TN)
Commercial Appeal

February 18, 2019

By Katherine Burgess

Memphis’ first Catholic bishop has been named on a list of clergy who “have a credible and substantiated allegation of sexual abuse involving a minor.”

The list was released last Wednesday by the Catholic Diocese of Richmond, Virginia, where the Most Rev. Carroll T. Dozier was assigned to three parishes before being appointed the first bishop of the Diocese of Memphis in 1970.

The allegation of abuse was made against Dozier after his death in 1985, according to the list. The list did not give additional details about the allegation.

According to a cached page from the Diocese of Memphis’ website, Dozier’s time leading the diocese was marked “by reconciliation of the races, by ecumenism, by efforts to recognize and begin to fill the needs of the poor and downtrodden, to protect the life of the unborn and to crusade for peace and disarmament.”

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OAKLAND (CA)
KRON TV

February 18, 2019

By Alexa Mae Asperin

The Catholic Diocese of Oakland has released the names of 45 clergy members they say are “credibly accused” of sexually abusing minors.

The list includes priests, deacons, and religious brothers who lived in the diocese since it was founded in 1962.

Both Alameda and Contra Costa counties are included.

Of the 45 names on the list, 14 of the 20 priests in the Oakland Diocese are dead.

Full list:

Priests of the Oakland Diocese credibly accused of sexual abuse of a minor
Jeffrey N. Acebo
Ordained for Diocese of Oakland May 24, 1986
Abuse Occurred: 1986 – 1988
Removed from Ministry: April 2002
Status: Prayer and Penance
Assignments

Thomas Duong Binh-Minh
Ordained for Diocese of Oakland August 24, 1990
Abuse Occurred: 1987
Removed from Ministry: April 2002
Status: Last known location Concord CA
Assignments

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NEW YORK (NY)
Astoria Post

Feb. 18, 2019

By Christian Murray

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn released the names on Friday of more than 100 priests credibly accused of child sex abuse.

The diocese, which covers Catholic churches in Queens and Brooklyn, named 108 priests, many of whom have served at local parishes in recent decades.

The priests spent time serving at churches such as Most Precious Blood in Astoria; Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Astoria; St. Joseph in Astoria; Immaculate Conception in Astoria; Corpus Christi in Woodside; St. Francis of Assisi in East Elmhurst; St. Bartholomew in Elmhurst; Blessed Sacrament in Jackson Heights; and St. Joan of Arc in Jackson Heights.

The list, according to commentators, indicates how pervasive the sex abuse crisis has been for the church and the steps taken to put an ugly chapter to rest. Just last week, five bishops in New Jersey released the names of nearly 200 priests who had been credibly accused of sexually abusing children.

The list released by the Brooklyn diocese Friday does not state what parish each priest was serving when the abuse allegedly took place. It just lists, without dates, the various parishes each priest served during his career.

The diocese notes that the bulk of the 108 cases involved priests who were ordained between 1930 and 1979. The abuses that took place peaked in the 1960s and 1970s, although most were reported after 2002. About two-thirds of the named priests are deceased, with the remainder defrocked.

The names were released in a letter by Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, who said it was part of the diocese’s commitment to great transparency.

“It is my hope that the publishing of this list will provide some assistance to those who are continuing the difficult process of healing, as well as encourage other victims to come forward,” DiMarzio wrote in a letter that was accompanied by the names.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
BBC News

February 18. 2019

A film telling the story of children allegedly abused at the hands of a Catholic priest has been cleared for release in France on Wednesday.

The lawyers of Bernard Preynat, 73, said the film, called By the Grace of God, could prejudice his trial.

But director Francois Ozon said the allegations had already been reported in French press and he hoped the film would provoke debate.

Its release comes in the midst of a sex abuse scandal in the Catholic church.

The film details the experiences of three alleged victims including Francois Devaux who, in 2015, alleged that Father Preynat had abused him when he was a boy scout 25 years earlier.

Along with fellow alleged victims Bertrand Virieux and Alexandre Dussot, Mr Devaux founded an association of 85 men who were all allegedly abused by Father Preynat. The priest was suspended by the Church.

It emerged later that Cardinal Phillipe Barbarin, now Archbishop of Lyon, had confronted Father Preynat in 2010 about rumours regarding sexual assault.

Four years later, Cardinal Barbarin informed the Vatican about the allegations, but not police.

The title of the film comes from the cardinal’s response when he believed the abuse was covered by the statute of limitations, a law which sets a maximum time limit after an event when legal proceedings can begin.

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DUBLIN (IRELAND)
Irish Mirror

February 18, 2019

By Paddy Clancy

After the way the Catholic Church handled scandals and cover-ups of them, I should be beyond bewilderment by any of its plans.

But one of the latest developments has me totally gobsmacked.

At a time when the Church is supposedly attempting to improve its image it’s still capable of inflicting enormous harm on itself by some decisions.

I am not referring to Pope Francis’s defrocking last week of US former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick for sex abuse and soliciting sex in the confessional.

That’s one of the Vatican’s best decisions although, as usual with the Catholic Church, it followed a long period of cover-ups.

A different matter was the Pope’s announcement that Dublin-born Cardinal Kevin Farrell will be the new camerlengo, the prelate who runs the Vatican between the death or resignation of a pontiff and the election of a new one!

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WARSAW (POLAND)
Reuters

February 18, 2019

Representatives of a Polish NGO helping victims of child abuse committed by Catholic priests left Warsaw early on Monday hoping to deliver a report to Pope Francis in the Vatican about Polish bishops neglecting paedophilia cases.

Their trip comes just days before an unprecedented Vatican conference on sex abuse gathering senior bishops from around the world to discuss how best the 1.3 billion-member Church can tackle a problem that has decimated the Church’s credibility.

The four-day meeting, starting on Thursday with the theme of “prevention of abuse of minors and vulnerable adults”, is intended to help faltering attempts to coordinate a global response to a crisis that is now more than two decades old.

The “Have No Fear” organisation, led by a former victim Marek Lisinski, hopes that the report, which accuses some bishops in devoutly Catholic Poland of failing to report crimes, will trigger resignations from top positions in the Church.

Such a development happened in Chile in 2018, where the Pope accepted resignations of several bishops after abuse scandals.

“Our report contains the neglect of bishops over the past years. … We hope that the Pope, after reading this report, will react in the same way as in Chile,” Lisinski told Reuters at Warsaw airport as he was just about to get onto the plane.

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ROME (ITALY)
Commonweal

February 18, 2019

By Massimo Faggioli

2018 was the year that many Catholics finally accepted that the church’s sex-abuse crisis is truly a global problem. Hence the Vatican’s decision to bring the presidents of all the bishops’ conferences together in Rome to discuss the issue between February 21 and 24.

The abuse crisis forces us to look at the interconnectedness of the church, and to resist the spirit of our time, which not only closes borders and builds walls, but also blinds us to how what’s happening in one part of the world relates to what’s happening in another. Of course, we Catholics have all been taught that the church is the Body of Christ, and that if one member of that body suffers, the entire body suffers. We know this, but we also forget it. In recent years, each member has seemed preoccupied with its own suffering. The sex-abuse scandal in America or Chile or Australia reverberates in other parts of the world. And the abuses that have not yet come to light in other countries—because of cultural and political differences, as well as different levels of media scrutiny—will likewise affect Catholics in the United States once they are finally revealed. This is one reason the meeting in the Vatican is likely to focus more on those countries where the abuse crisis has not yet erupted and those churches that have yet to develop their own reforms for preventing, detecting, and responding to abuse.

Last year was a watershed. The revelations in Chile and the United States especially called into question the role of the Vatican and the pope in the global crisis. They also weakened the credibility of the bishops in dealing with the crisis. Various groups of lay Catholics, with various agendas, have stepped forward offering to take a leadership role in addressing the crisis.

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PARIS (FRANCE)
LaCroix International

February 18, 2019

By Christa Pongratz-Lippitt

Doris Wagner, a former German nun who reported a former official at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) for making unwanted sexual advances towards her, has published a new book chronicling “spiritual abuse” in Catholic religious orders.

Wagner, who’s denunciations led Father Hermann Geissler to resign his CDF post in January, gives a detailed account of the various forms of sexual and spiritual abuse she experienced during her eight years as a member of the spiritual family “The Work,” the same mixed religious community to which Father Geissler belongs.

In her latest book “Spiritueller Mißbrauch in der katholische Kirche” (Spiritual Abuse in the Catholic Church) she goes into the different facets of the phenomenon of spiritual abuse.

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ROME (ITALY)
Daily Mail

February 18, 2019

By the Associated Press and Sara Malm

Victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy have descended on Rome to protest the Church’s response to the crisis ahead of Pope Francis’ summit on the issue this week.

The organizers of Pope Francis’ summit will meet this week with a dozen abuse victims later this week, officials said Monday.

Revelations in many countries about priests raping and committing other kinds of sexual abuse against children and a pattern of bishops hiding the crimes have shaken the faith of many Catholics.

Abuse survivors will not be addressing the summit of church leaders directly, but will meet with the four-member organizing committee to convey their complaints.

The larger summit of some 190 presidents of bishops’ conferences from around the world, plus key Vatican officials, begins Thursday.

Peter Isely, from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, addressed reports that Pope Francis is ‘facing resistance’ from top Vatican officials ahead of the meeting.

‘Let me tell you what it was like to try and have to resist that priest when I was a boy who was sexually assaulting me,’ Isely, a founding member of the advocacy group Ending Clergy Abuse, said.

‘So whatever difficulty for him or discomfort this is for anybody in the papal palace, it is nothing compared to what survivors have had to undergo.’

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Queerty

February 18, 2019

By Daniel Villarreal

While a recently published book claimed that 80% of Vatican priests are secretly gay, The New York Times just published an in-depth feature interviewing 24 closeted Catholic priests from 13 different states, and it’s pretty pathetic.

Early on, the story says “thousands of the church’s priests are gay, adding, “Fewer than about 10 priests in the United States have dared to come out publicly,” and “gay men probably make up at least 30 to 40 percent of the American Catholic clergy, according to dozens of estimates from gay priests themselves and researchers.”

These men feel compelled to stay in the closet, lest they lose their employment benefits or be scapegoated for the church’s rampant, ongoing child sex abuse scandals. But the priests claim that the church’s largely homosexual clergy is an open secret. And yet “a conspiracy of silence” requires that no one expose themselves by speaking openly about it.

One unnamed priest blamed the church for discouraging any close relationships whatsoever, citing its informal seminarian rule, Numquam duo, semper tres (“Never two, always three”)—a way to keep priests from sliding into “particular friendships” with other men or women. Thus, a priest’s life is solitary and without any deep, personal attachments.

Some priests enter the seminary at age 18 before they’ve properly understood their own sexual identities. Some don’t realize they’re gay until 30 or 40 years of age. And if these men ever do have sex with another man, they risk being outed, tainting their formative experiences with dread.

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ROME (ITALY)
Catholic News Service

February 18, 2019

By Cindy Wooden

When presented with an accusation that a priest has sexually abused a child, “whether it’s criminal or malicious complicity and a code of silence or whether it is denial” on a very human level, such reactions are no longer tolerable, said the Vatican’s top investigator of abuse cases.

Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta, who handles abuse cases as adjunct secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was part of a panel of speakers at a news conference Feb. 18 to outline the Vatican’s plans and hopes for the summit meeting on the protection of minors in the church.

The meeting Feb. 21-24 was to bring together almost 190 church leaders: the presidents of national bishops’ conferences, the heads of the Eastern Catholic churches, superiors of religious orders of men and women, Roman Curia officials and invited experts and guest speakers.

After reciting the Angelus Feb. 17, Pope Francis publicly asked Catholics around the world to pray for the summit, and he repeated the request Feb. 18 in a tweet, saying he wanted the meeting to be “a powerful gesture of pastoral responsibility in the face of an urgent challenge.”

At the news conference Cardinal Blase J. Cupich of Chicago told reporters, “The Holy Father wants to make very clear to the bishops around the world, not only those participating, that each one of them has to claim responsibility and ownership for this problem and that there is going to be every effort to close whatever loopholes there are.”

Bishops “are going to be held accountable,” the cardinal said.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service

February 18, 2019

Vatican’s removal from the priesthood of Theodore McCarrick “is a clear signal that abuse will not be tolerated,” said the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Feb. 16.

“No bishop, no matter how influential, is above the law of the church,” said Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston. “For all those McCarrick abused, I pray this judgment will be one small step, among many, toward healing.”

“For us bishops, it strengthens our resolve to hold ourselves accountable to the Gospel of Jesus Christ,” the cardinal said. “I am grateful to Pope Francis for the determined way he has led the church’s response.”

DiNardo’s statement followed the Vatican’s early morning announcement that Pope Francis has confirmed the removal from the priesthood of McCarrick, the 88-year-old former cardinal and archbishop of Washington.

The Vatican said he was found guilty of “solicitation in the sacrament of confession and sins against the Sixth Commandment with minors and with adults, with the aggravating factor of the abuse of power.”

A panel of the Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith found him guilty Jan. 11, the Vatican said. McCarrick appealed the decision, but the appeal was rejected Feb. 13 by the congregation itself. McCarrick was informed of the decision Feb. 15 and Francis “recognized the definitive nature of this decision made in accord with law,” making a further appeal impossible.

By ordering McCarrick’s “dismissal from the clerical state,” the decision means that McCarrick loses all rights and duties associated with being a priest, cannot present himself as a priest and is forbidden to celebrate the sacraments, except to grant absolution for sins to a person in imminent danger of death.

The Vatican decision comes after months of mounting accusations that he abused children and seminarians decades ago. The accusations surrounding the former cardinal have prompted many to ask USCCB leaders and the heads of the archdioceses and dioceses he has served how he could have risen up the ranks of the church to become a cardinal.

Ordained a priest of the New York Archdiocese, he was the founding bishop of the Diocese of Metuchen, New Jersey, then served as archbishop of Newark, New Jersey. His last assignment was as archbishop of Washington. During his tenure there, he was named a cardinal.

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SAGINAW (MI)
MLive.com

February 18, 2019

By Isis Simpson-Mersha

The Catholic Diocese of Saginaw on Monday issued a strongly-worded statement supporting a move by the Vatican to defrock Theodore McCarrick, a former cardinal and archbishop of Washington, D.C., who is accused of sex crimes.

It’s the first time a U.S. cardinal or bishop has been removed from the priesthood in connection with sexual abuse, according to a Monday, Feb. 13, press release from the Saginaw Diocese.

“I join today with all who refuse to tolerate the sexual abuse of minors, or any individual, in support of the decision announced by Pope Francis to remove Theodore McCarrick from ministry, finding him guilty of sexually abusing minors and others,” said The Most Rev. Walter Hurley, apostolic administrator for the Diocese of Saginaw.

“This action is confirmation that the church will not tolerate the abuse of minors nor will it cover for those who have credible accusations against them.

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Patheos blog

February 18, 2019

By Pat McNamara

This past Friday, my home diocese of Brooklyn released the names of 108 men accused of sexual abuse through the years. Two were stationed in my home parish, at the same time, when I was young. One was eventually sent to Canada, for health reasons, we were told. The other was just reassigned. Both have been laicized, and one has passed away. Personally, I’ve been struggling with my feelings on this. I have a great love both for my diocese and the Brooklyn presbyterate, but you can’t defend the indefensible.

Let me make it clear– this is not a problem confined to Brooklyn, but applies to every diocese in the country. Nor is it a problem confined to one faith tradition. It’s also true of schools and secular institutions dedicated to the care of the young. It’s not just a Catholic problem– it’s a human problem. But as Catholics, the sex abuse crisis has affected us deeply, and we need to talk about that.

Victims live with shame. I wasn’t subject to clerical abuse, but at thirteen I was molested by a neighbor I trusted. It only happened once, but once was enough to generate shame, self-doubt, anger, fear, and resentment. In 1981, you still couldn’t talk openly about this. You just carried it around inside and make sure nobody found out. So I do have some idea of what victims of priestly abuse have experienced. Thank God I talked to a high school counselor who helped me see it wasn’t my fault, and that nothing was “wrong” with me.

From the 1930’s through the early 1960’s, many large dioceses ordained 30-35 men a year on average. The overwhelming majority turned out to be good, loving men, on call 24/7 for the people they served. But the fact is some men should never have been ordained. Some acted out their sexuality in a way harmful to others, especially the young. They relied on the fact that nobody would believe a priest could do something so vile.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Spectator

February 18, 2019

By Michael Warren Davis

Mr Theodore McCarrick will spend his last days within the limestone walls of St Fidelis Friary in Victoria, Kansas. He’ll be able to see the stunning St Fidelis Church, ‘the Basilica of the Plains’, from his window. His quarters in the monastery will be simple, clean, and pleasant. He’ll have all the time in the world to pray, read, write, think, or just putter, as old men like to do. His meals, laundry, heating, and other necessities will be taken care of for him. There will always be a tender Franciscan nearby if he needs to talk, or cry, or play checkers. He’ll die surrounded by holy men praying for the repose of his soul.

The ‘life of prayer and penance’ might not be everyone’s cup of tea; but, before he was laicized this week, Mr McCarrick was a member of the clergy of the Catholic Church. Six decades ago he was ordained in the Archdiocese of New York and went on to become Archbishop of Washington. He was a member of the College of Cardinals, the most honored and trusted men in the Church, from 2001 until July of last year. If his clerical career was anything other than a complete sham – if there’s any love or fear of God in his heart – the life of prayer and penance isn’t a punishment: it’s a tremendous grace. It’s a chance to make peace with his Creator before he dies, away from the anxieties and temptations of the world.

No other Catholic layman, however devout or virtuous, would be afforded such a happy retirement. If (God forbid) my wife dies before I turned 88, I would love to move into a quiet friary where the priests would feed and clothe me, pray with me and keep me company. But that would never happen. For the most notorious living predator in the Church, it’s what passes for justice.

Mr McCarrick will never stand trial. He’ll never be forced to face his victims or their families. He’ll never be forced to witness the wreckage he brought upon the Church he vowed to serve, or the hundreds (perhaps thousands) of men and women in his care who have abandoned the Faith out of disgust for his crimes.

This should come as no surprise to anyone who understands the inner workings of the Catholic Church today. Cardinal Bernard Law, the late Archbishop of Boston, was complicit in the largest cover-up of predatory priests in the history of the American Church. He spent his last years in Rome where, according to Vatican-watcher Robert Mickens, ‘he did not lose his influence. He was a member of more congregations than any other bishop. There are nine or 10 and he was a member of six of them.’

But even if McCarrick is no longer Pope Francis’s éminence grise, his influence is still being felt throughout the Church.

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DENVER (CO)
Crux

February 17, 2019

Father Jeffrey F. Kirby

Later this week, the Church will celebrate the annual feast of the Chair of Saint Peter. The holy day is a time to solemnly honor the authority and call to service that was entrusted to Saint Peter (and his successors) by Jesus Christ.

From Peter of Galilee to Francis of Buenos Aires, there have been 266 holders of the office of chief apostle and leader of the universal Church.

The feast day is a time to foster greater devotion to the papal office and the man who has been called to exercise it. Ironically, the holy day this year will fall in the middle of an international gathering of the pope with the presidents of bishops’ conferences from throughout the world. The meeting is not a happy one. It is not a celebration of accomplishments or an impetus to a deeper living out of the Great Commission.

Truth be told, the meeting is a belated and embarrassing clean-up job of sexual abuse of vulnerable people by predator priests and bishops, of the abuse of power, of a disgraceful intimidation or neglect of victims, and of massive cover-ups of such abuse by leadership.

Or, at least, that’s the hope of believers. Will this meeting produce real results or is it the usual bella figura of the Roman bureaucracy? Will the pope act decisively and consistently or will the Church have to suffer through more lip service?

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ROME (ITALY)
Reuters

February 17, 2019

By Philip Pullella

The Vatican will gather senior bishops from around the world later this week for a conference on sex abuse designed to guide them on how best to tackle a problem that has decimated the Church’s credibility, but critics say it is too little, too late.

The unprecedented four-day meeting, starting on Thursday, brings together presidents of national Roman Catholic bishops conferences, Vatican officials, experts and heads of male and female religious orders.

“I am absolutely convinced that our credibility in this area is at stake,” said Father Federico Lombardi, who Pope Francis has chosen to moderate the meeting.

“We have to get to the root of this problem and show our ability to undergo a cure as a Church that proposes to be a teacher or it would be better for us to get into another line of work,” he told reporters.

The meeting, whose theme is “prevention of abuse of minors and vulnerable adults,” comes as the 1.3 billion-member Church still struggles to enact a concerted, coordinated and global effort to tackle a crisis that is now more than two decades old.

Lombardi, 71, said bishops from countries including the United States, which have developed protocols for preventing abuse and investigating accusations against individual members of the clergy, would share experiences and knowledge with those from developing countries, including those whose cultures make it harder to discuss abuse.

The Church has repeatedly come under fire for its handling of the sexual abuse crisis, which exposed how predator priests were moved from parish to parish instead of being defrocked or turned over to civilian authorities around the world.

Most of the crimes took place decades ago.

The Pope called the meeting in September at the suggestion of his closest advisers, and last month he told reporters it was necessary because some bishops still did not know fully the procedures to put in place to protect the young and how to administer cases of abuse.

Francis said it would be a “catechesis,” or a teaching session, a pronouncement that stunned victims of abuse and their advocates.

Some experts have questioned why it has taken so long to get to this point.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Tribune Review

February 17, 2019

By Richard Serbin

Finally, decades into a still-unresolved crisis, some Pennsylvania bishops are now agreeing to compensate victims of predator priests. But it seems that one responsible party is getting off scot-free: the Vatican.

For four days later this month, bishops from around the world will meet to discuss the child sex abuse crisis facing the church. At that meeting, I’m certain that few, if any, will ask how much money Rome will be giving to help the victims.

If you wonder why the Vatican should compensate abuse victims, I give you three unassailable reasons rooted in the church’s own past:

• More than a half-century ago, in 1952, a Catholic religious order known as the Servants of the Paraclete was the church entity dealing with “troubled priests.” Its mission was to attempt to treat priests who had sexually abused children and return them to their parish assignment. The founder wrote a stern warning to then-Pope Pius VI that leaving predator priests “on duty or wandering from diocese to diocese is contributing to scandal,” and that “real conversions” among them are “extremely rare.” He made the audacious suggestion that the church buy a Caribbean island and move child-molesting clerics there.

• In 1985, a priest who was also a psychologist and a civil attorney sent every U.S. bishop a lengthy, confidential report warning that the church “is facing extremely serious financial consequences and significant injury to its image” because of mounting abuse cases and civil lawsuits. Vatican officials also saw the report.

• In 2001, Pope John Paul II ordered that all reports of child-molesting clerics be sent to the Vatican, formalizing an already common practice and ensuring that top church staff were “kept in the loop” regarding nearly all abuse cases.

Clearly, the Catholic Church was aware that priests were molesting children. Clearly, the Vatican was in no hurry to stop it.

Vatican officials, at the apex of the church hierarchy, not only had a duty to warn others about this crisis, but more importantly, to do everything in their power to protect children from predators. They had more information about the global problem of pedophile priests than anyone, and because the church is a rigid hierarchy — in which bishops pledge to obey the pope and priests pledge to obey their bishops — the Vatican certainly could have severely curtailed these crimes. It is unfathomable why it did not.

So, since Vatican officials were “on notice,” as lawyers say, and were complicit in ongoing abuse, as ample evidence shows, they have a legal responsibility to provide compensation for abuse victims.

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NEWBURYPORT (MA)
Daily News

February 18, 2019

By William Shuttleworth

This is a very difficult essay to write and is sure to cause anger and denial. For generations, Catholic priests have sexually abused children throughout the entire world.

The number of reported and documented cases is prolific in almost every state and hundreds of priests are being investigated and charged for sexual abuse of minors. Reporting by The Boston Globe revealed the extent of abuse in this state 15 years ago in its “Spotlight” series.

In virtually every diocese, the Catholic Church engages in constant attempts to refute, distort and minimize the fact priests are responsible for the wanton sexual abuse of hundreds of thousands, probably millions, of children worldwide.

Put this in perspective of what a national health hazard this really is. A few years ago, three cases of the Ebola virus were diagnosed in the United States and we appointed a cabinet-level czar to oversee this matter.

Yet, our national government has been silent on the issue of sexual abuse by Catholic priests. It is incomprehensible that the guardians of our nation’s health have not launched a full investigation into the willful, calculated and intentional destruction of children’s lives at the hands of thousands of sexual predators using the protection of the church. A child who has been sexually abused is forever damaged, a shattered soul seeking healing forever more.

There has been some lip service, some papal councils, committees well-orchestrated and public apologies by Catholic officials. Many priests have been transferred (which is a tragic way of continuance of abuse), and a few priests have been arrested, imprisoned and/or excommunicated.

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OAKLAND (CA)
San Francisco Chronicle

February 18, 2019

By Megan Cassidy

The Catholic Diocese of Oakland has released the names of 45 clergymen and religious brothers they say are “credibly accused” of sexually abusing minors, the latest in a cascade of dioceses across the country to take such a step amid a scandal involving pedophile priests and decades of church coverups.

Oakland’s list includes priests, deacons and religious brothers who lived in the diocese as far back as 1962 — when the Oakland Diocese was founded — and encompasses Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

“I hope this will help bring healing to those who have suffered,” Oakland Bishop Michael Barber said in a letter to parishioners and friends of Oakland Diocese. “I pray the public acknowledgment of the sinful actions on the part of some priests will help many of us to find healing and hope, to restore our trust in the Church, and to repair the damage caused to the reputation of so many good priests.”

None of the men remains in the ministry. Most of the listed abuse date back to the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, with the latest reported incident coming in 1988. Diocese of Oakland officials say there have been no credible accusations of abuse since 1988, but acknowledge that the list may grow in the coming months.

“This is a milestone for us,” Diocese of Oakland Chancellor Stephen Wilcox said in an interview Sunday in anticipation of publishing the list Monday. “But we consider it — and the bishop (Barber) has said that in his statement here today — that this is a living list. This isn’t, ‘Oh, thank God we’ve got the list out. We’re done.’ This is now part of our process. And we know we have more work to do.”

A second, independent investigation is slated for completion this spring.

The diocese said it would publish its full list Monday at www.oakdiocese.org.

Of the 45 men named, 20 were priests in the Oakland Diocese, 14 of them deceased. Seventeen men on the list were religious priests and deacons or priests from other dioceses. Eight were religious brothers who lived in the Oakland Diocese.

Most have been previously identified through court filings or news articles. But five names have not been in the public domain until now, Wilcox said.

The Diocese of Oakland identified those men as:

• Thomas Duong Binh-Minh: Ordained for Diocese of Oakland on Aug. 24, 1990; alleged abuse occurred in 1987; removed from the ministry April 2002; last known location is Concord.

• Hilary Cooper: Incardinated for Diocese of Oakland on Oct. 1, 1976; alleged abuse occurred in 1978; removed from the ministry in 1995; status is listed as “prayer and penance.”

• Patrick Finnegan: Ordained for Diocese of San Francisco on Feb. 9, 1952; alleged abuse occurred in the 1960s and 1973; removed from the ministry Feb. 6, 1972; died Sept. 28, 1980.

• Daniel McLeod: Incardinated in Diocese of Oakland on April 16, 1970; alleged abuse occurred in 1969; retired Jan. 18, 1987; died Dec. 17, 2001.

• Virendra Coutts: A religious priest or deacon, or a priest from another diocese, who has lived in the Oakland Diocese.

Wilcox said he has turned over the list of names and information to the Alameda County district attorney to determine if prosecutions are warranted. Aside from the fact that many of the accused have died, Wilcox said statutes of limitations may be an issue.

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VATICAN CITY
Associated Press via Sacramento Bee

February 18, 2019

By Nicole Winfield

The organizers of Pope Francis’ summit on preventing clergy sex abuse will meet this week with a dozen abuse victims who have descended on Rome to protest the Catholic Church’s response to the crisis and demand an end to decades of cover-up by church leaders, officials said Monday.

These abuse survivors will not be addressing the summit of church leaders itself. Rather, they will meet Wednesday with the four-member organizing committee to convey their complaints.

The larger summit of some 190 presidents of bishops’ conferences from around the world, plus key Vatican officials, begins Thursday.

At a press conference Monday, organizers called the summit a “turning point” in the church’s approach to clergy sex abuse. The Catholic Church has long been criticized for its failure to hold bishops accountable when they covered up for priests who raped and molested children.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Tablet

February 18, 2019

By Rose Gamble

A Catholic priest in India has been found guilty of raping a minor and sentenced to 20 years in jail.

On 16 February, a court in Thalassery in Kerala, southern India, convicted Father Robin Vadakkumchery of Mananthavady Diocese of rape of a minor under the provisions of the Indian Penal Code and with violating sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act. He will serve a 20-year sentence.

The court also fined the priest 300,000 rupees (£3,250) and ruled that half would be used as compensation for the victim.

A spokesperson for the Mananthavady Diocese said they welcomed the ruling.

Fr Vadakkumchery was serving as a parish priest near Kannur and was the manager of the Church-backed-school, where the victim, a 16 year-old girl, was studying.

A Childline agency that works with school children registered the complaint against the priest.

Fr Vadakkumchery was arrested on 28 February last year near Kochi International airport weeks after the girl gave birth to his child. The priest is said to have been attempting to flee the country.

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THALASSERY (INDIA)
Times of India

February 17, 2019

By P. Sudhakaran

Father Robin Vadakkancheril, former vicar of St Sebastian Church at Neendunoki in Kerala, was sentenced to 20 years’ rigorous imprisonment after a Pocso (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) court found him guilty of raping and impregnating a minor girl.

In the course of the trial, the rape survivor and all main prosecution witnesses, including her parents, turned hostile but a determined prosecution secured a conviction by managing to produce the girl’s original birth certificate that proved she was a minor when she was
sexually abused by the priest.

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[The portfolio that Bishop Ramos brings to the Pope’s abuse meeting]

CHILE
La Tercera

February 17, 2019

By M. J. Navarrete

La instancia se desarrollará en Roma entre este 21 y 24 de febrero. El representante de Chile discutirá con sus pares los documentos que desde 2015 ha elaborado la Iglesia criolla

A las 8.15 horas de este 21 de febrero, primer día del encuentro convocado en Roma por el Papa Francisco sobre “La protección de los menores en la Iglesia”, sus participantes deberán estar afuera del Aula Nueva del Sínodo, lugar en que se desarrollarán las sesiones de la cumbre vaticana. En ese momento, los asistentes saludarán al Pontífice y recogerán la carpeta con el cronograma de actividades que deberán realizar.

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BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

February 18, 2019

By Jay Tokasz

The parish hall at St. Mary Church in Pavilion is named in honor of the late Rev. Robert P. Conlin, a longtime pastor of the parish.

Wayne Bortle last March alleged that Conlin molested him when he was a teenager. The Buffalo Diocese subsequently acknowledged that Conlin was credibly accused of sexually abusing minors and has offered Bortle a cash award for his abuse claim.

But the parish has kept a large portrait of Conlin hanging prominently on a wall inside its hall, named the “Conlin Parish Center.”

Bortle, who urged the Buffalo Diocese to remove Conlin’s name from the building, wants to know why the parish and the diocese continue to celebrate a man who harmed children.

“What he did, he changed my life. It wasn’t for a week. It wasn’t for a year. It’s forever,” said Bortle, who takes medication daily for a social anxiety disorder.

Mitchell Garabedian, Bortle’s attorney, said the Catholic Church often hesitates to remove the names of clergy from buildings.

“When a priest’s name is public, such as on statues or halls, the Catholic Church tries to downplay the abuse,” said Garabedian.

Garabedian said he encountered the problem in the Archdiocese of Boston, where he represented many clients abused by popular priests. Removing a priest’s name also can be highly divisive in a parish community where some church members refuse to acknowledge that the priest was an abuser, said Garabedian.

“They had all of these people that were loyal followers of Father Conlin. They would be at risk of losing all of those followers,” said Garabedian.

Bortle said he reached out to the current pastor of St. Mary, the Rev. Innocent Diala, after the diocese in November included Conlin on its revised list of priests who had been credibly accused of child sex abuse. That list now stands at 80 priests.

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LANSING (MI)
Fox 47 News

February 18, 2019

By Maureen Halliday

A local priest who resigned last year after being accused of sexual harassment has been banned from the catholic church.

It’s an update to a story FOX 47 News has been tracking for months.

Father Inglot submitted his resignation as pastor of Saint Thomas Aquinas Parish in East Lansing and the Saint John Church and Student Center last October.

He was suspended by the Catholic Diocese of Lansing a month earlier after a credible claim of sexual harassment was made by an adult coworker.

At the time, the Diocese said it immediately opened an investigation and ordered Father Inglot to undergo counseling.

Over the weekend, the Catholic Diocese of Lansing said Father Inglot had been given senior priest status, which is the Catholic church’s equivalent of retirement.

Usually, senior priests are those who reach an age where they are no longer assigned to a parish, but can help with a parish when it is necessary.

He has not been charged with any crime, but Father Inglot is now banned from having any assignments within any Catholic church.

Last fall, the State Attorney General’s Office started investigating abuse of any kind by Catholic priests in Michigan dating back to 1950.

New Attorney General Dana Nessel took over that investigation and has promised an update into that investigation as well as the AG’s investigation into the MSU’s handling of Larry Nassar and the Flint water crisis all on Thursday.

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NEWARK (NJ)
Star Ledger

February 17, 2019

By Ted Sherman

The statement from the Vatican was short on details, but spoke volumes.

Solicitation of sex during confession. Abuse of power. And sins with minors and with adults against the Sixth Commandment.

It was an indictment against a once-powerful cardinal. With the dramatic defrocking on Saturday of Theodore McCarrick — the one-time archbishop of the Archdiocese of Newark and the highest-ranking American official to be cast out of the priesthood — Pope Francis put his church, its hierarchy and the faithful on notice.

“I think it sends a huge message,” said Jo Renee Formicola, a Seton Hall University political science professor who has written extensively about sex abuse in the church. “This is a different day. This is a different time.”

She said defrocking someone with the credentials of McCarrick represented a major moment for the church.

“There is no harsher punishment,” she noted. “Defrocking a priest means they cannot carry out their ministry any longer. They cannot participate in the life in the church anymore.”

Defrocking, or dismissed from the clerical state, strips McCarrick of the rights of the priesthood. It means he can no longer celebrate Mass or other sacraments, wear clerical vestments or be addressed by any religious title. He is now known not as Cardinal or Father, but as “Mr. McCarrick.” Yet it’s not the only punishment McCarrick may face.

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PHOENIX (AZ)
The Catholic Sun

February 17, 2019

By Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted

For centuries, the Church has been referred to as the “Barque of St. Peter” passing over the waters toward her heavenly destiny. It was in Peter’s boat that Jesus sat as He taught the crowds (Cf. Lk 5). The barque, or boat, was a place of danger in several instances when Jesus and His Apostles sailed on the Sea of Galilee. Sailors always need to be aware of storms at sea, especially of what would be called a perfect storm.

In my last column, I began to address the current scandals the Church has suffered due to the egregious behavior of certain priests over the past decades. For us as disciples of Jesus, it is important to face it squarely while remaining faithful to the Lord. Jesus knew full well that the Church would suffer the sins of her members throughout history, beginning with those of Judas and the other Apostles. When He established His Church, He promised that it would withstand the gates of hell. History has shown that the Church has endured other grave scandals over the centuries. In union with her Lord, we are most protected from storms of this world.

Today, let us consider some factors that contributed to the “perfect storm” in the culture and the Church over the past decades and that allowed for a setting where such evils could take place and not be dealt with in a swift and effective manner.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Guardian

February 18, 2019

By Harriet Sherwood

More than 100 senior Roman Catholic bishops from around the world will gather in Rome this week for a summit Pope Francis has called to address clerical sexual abuse – the most serious crisis in the church since the Reformation, according to a Catholic historian.

The Vatican has sought to downplay expectations surrounding the four-day meeting, which begins on Thursday. But survivors and advocacy groups say it must deliver clear outcomes if it is to begin to restore the church’s damaged credibility on the issue and avoid being seen as a talking shop.

The removal from the priesthood of the former archbishop and cardinal Theodore McCarrick, one of the church’s most prominent figures, at the weekend sent a strong signal from the Vatican that sexual abuse will no longer be swept under the carpet. Francis on Sunday asked for prayers for the summit, calling abuse “an urgent challenge of our time”.

Although Francis, who will be present throughout the summit and will give a closing speech, has previously warned that expectations must be “deflated”, the senior Vatican figure moderating the conference said last week that the church’s credibility was “strongly at stake”.

Father Federico Lombardi said in Rome: “We must deal with this theme with depth and without fear.”

Conceding there had been “resistance” by some bishops, he added: “If we don’t commit ourselves to fight against these crimes, in society and in the church, then we are not fulfilling our duty.”

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ISTANBUL (TURKEY)
TRT News

February 18, 2019

As church sex abuse scandals continue to make headlines in the United States, Ireland or Australia, few complaints were made public in Spain. The man investigating the allegations believe the victims might have faced discouragement.

Santa Maria de Montserrat, a Benedictine abbey, is one churches where priests have been accused of sex abuse. The abbey is located on the mountain of Montserrat, in Monistrol de Montserrat, in Catalonia, Spain.

A trickle of accusations of sexual abuse against priests in schools and seminaries is starting to erode the wall of silence in Catholic Spain, whose Church representatives are set to attend a major Vatican meeting on child protection.

“This is only the tip of the iceberg,” warned Miguel Hurtado, who recently made his case public.

“They’re not ready for the tsunami that is coming,” the 36-year-old said defiantly.

For 20 years, Hurtado stayed quiet, trying to come to terms with the abuse he suffered when he joined a boy scout troop at the Santa Maria de Montserrat Abbey, which sits high up in jagged mountains northwest of Barcelona.

“I was too scared”

His alleged abuser, whom Hurtado accuses of fondling him for a year, was a charismatic monk who founded the group and died in 2008.

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PARIS (FRANCE)
LaCroix International

February 18, 2019

By Marie Malzac

This is the fourth in a five-part series on steps taken by Catholic bishops on the various continents.

Latin America has experienced a series of striking abuses cases in recent decades.In Mexico, the charismatic founder of the Legion of Christ, Marcial Maciel (1920-2008), led a double life for more than 60 years.

With close ties to the Vatican, Maciel, a serious cocaine user, committed multiple instances of abuse on young seminarians, had children with several women and presided over a fortune valued at several million US dollars.

In Chile, as parish priest of a trendy neighborhood in Santiago, Fernando Karadima used his authority over the young men who frequented his group to abuse them sexually during the period 1980-2000.

In many respects, these two examples have become emblematic of the situation prevailing in the whole of Latin America.

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HOUSTON (TX)
KPRC TV

February 18, 2019

By Cathy Hernandez

Leaders of the Catholic Church spoke Monday morning ahead of a summit happening this week to discuss revelations of sexual abuse in the church.

According to a news conference, the summit will focus on responsibility, accountability and transparency.

“We believe is it important for all of us as we come here to carry in our hearts the suffering that those who have been abused have each and every day of their lives,” said Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, archbishop of Chicago.

Monsignor Charles J. Scicluna, archbishop of Malta said, “We can’t do this on our own. We need all the help we can get. The flock is not our own. It is the flock of Jesus Christ.”

Pope Francis called for prayers Sunday and said the goal for the four-day summit is to outline clear protocols for bishops on how to prevent abuse and help victims.

On Saturday, former American Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was expelled from the priesthood.

McCarrick, once a leading figure in the U.S. Catholic Church, was found guilty of sexual crimes against minors and adults.

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HOUSTON (TX)
Houston Chronicle

February 16, 2019

By John Tedesco and Robert Downen

Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention vowed last week not to tolerate sexual abuse and to enact reforms after an investigation by the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News revealed that more than 700 people had been molested by Southern Baptist pastors, church employees and volunteers over a span of two decades.

But the question remains: What will leaders of the largest coalition of Baptist churches in the United States actually do about the problem?

SBC President J.D. Greear, a North Carolina pastor, said he was “broken” by what he read in the newspapers. He hasn’t offered specific solutions, but he ordered a study of sexual abuse in Southern Baptist churches last summer and is expected to unveil proposals when SBC leaders meet in Nashville, Tenn., this coming week.

Other prominent SBC officials are calling for changes that include creating a registry of church employees and volunteers credibly accused of sexual misconduct and aggressively removing from the convention churches that knowingly hire predators.

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ATLANTIC CITY (NJ)
The Press of Atlantic City

February 17, 2019

By Avalon Zoppo

Halfway through the Sunday service at St. James Church, prayers paused momentarily.

Rows of attendees turned their attention to a prerecorded message broadcast on two small TVs addressing the sex abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church for decades, and that has now reached South Jersey.

The Diocese of Camden last Wednesday released the names of 56 priests and one deacon who had a history of sexually abusing minors. Of them, 47 were from Atlantic, Cape May and Cumberland counties. St. James Church had among the most reported abusers, with seven clergy members identified.

“These men are a disgrace. … Their despicable acts have wounded their victims, our church and the priesthood,” Bishop Dennis J. Sullivan said in a nine-minute video that played inside churches across South Jersey.

Other clergy members named had ties to Blessed Sacrament in Margate, Holy Spirit High School in Absecon, St. Vincent de Paul in Mays Landing, St. Joseph High School in Hammonton and Our Lady Star of the Sea in Atlantic City. A majority of them are dead and 12 have been removed from ministry. The status of two are unknown.

The bishop told parishioners that the diocese published the list for transparency, but said he hopes the credible allegations do not lessen anyone’s religious faith.

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NEWARK (NJ)
Star-Ledger

February 17, 2019

The Roman Catholic Church in New Jersey believes it has found a path to redemption by releasing a list of 188 predatory priests – 108 of them deceased – which it hopes is a step toward “healing for the victims” and the “restoration of trust in church leadership.”

That, to coin a term, is a Hail Mary. There is no catechism to comfort raped children. There is no psalm of purification for this occasion. The disclosure of these credibly accused clerics is important, but sexual assault victims are not likely to be healed by this perfunctory gesture sanctified by Cardinal Joseph Tobin.

To the contrary, many remain haunted by decades of silence, and wonder why names were hidden for so long. They seek the identities of the bishops who engineered the coverup. They will say this confession was triggered only by the creation of a daunting task force, convened to investigate clergy abuse throughout our state by a determined Attorney General.

And they will still seek real transparency and true justice, which can only be found in a court of law.

That time is approaching, with the announcement from Sen. Joe Vitale that his bill to expand the statute of limitations for civil cases brought by childhood victims of sexual assault will finally get a debate and a floor vote next month.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

February 14, 2019

By Michael Rezendes

IT’S DIFFICULT TO EXAGGERATE the crisis that has engulfed the Catholic Church due to unending revelations about priests who have sexually abused children, young adults — even nuns — and the bishops who have covered up for them.

Each week, it seems, the scandal detonates yet again with fresh news of priests who have had their way with children, and the bishops who have allowed them to continue working as trusted clergymen. Nearly two decades after the scandal erupted in Boston and began its relentless march around the world, it’s become a crisis without end.

Later this week, in what is merely the latest attempt to arrest the scandal, top bishops from around the world will gather at the Vatican to meet with Pope Francis and assure the Catholic faithful that leaders of the global religion, with an estimated 1.2 billion followers, are finally ready to face the crisis.

But Vatican officials, including Pope Francis, are already working to manage expectations. They are particularly concerned about those followers who think it’s high time that the Holy See adopt a set of clear, global guidelines for preventing abuse, as well as a mechanism for disciplining the bishops who try cover it up.

While returning to Rome from a recent trip to Panama, the pope told reporters he was seeking to “deflate” those hopes, describing the gathering as a “catechesis” — an educational opportunity to help bishops understand the effects of clerical abuse and proper ways to respond.

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LANCASTER (PA)
Lancaster On Line

February 17, 2019

By Rev. Allan Wolfe

Everyone with a heart recoils at the tremendous damage caused by the sexual abuse of children.

Most recognize that the wounds are deepened when the abuse is perpetrated by a person of trust — a parent, another relative, a teacher or a coach.

And we are outraged when this terrible crime, this grave sin, is perpetrated by a member of the clergy or someone else affiliated with the church. Religious faith is meant to bring people greater peace and wholeness. Yet it has been entangled with these profound violations, these acts of violence, these betrayals against the core aspects of the human person.

Having heard firsthand from victims and survivors of child sexual abuse, I am so sorry and grieve the suffering, pain and isolation they endure on so many levels.

Recognizing the evil of child sexual abuse is simple. Understanding the complexities of the factors and contexts contributing to these crimes and sins — and thus determining the best way to address this plague in society and protect all children — is much more complicated.

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HUDSON COUNTY (NJ)
Jersey Journal

February 17, 2019

By Rev. Alexander Santora

After a 2018 summer of stunning revelations of sexual abuse by then-Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, followed by the explosive release of the Pennsylvania grand jury report, Pope Francis took action last September. Short of convening a Vatican council, which would have summoned all the Catholic bishops from around the world, Francis called for a meeting of all the presidents of the national conferences – 110 in all. For example, Daniel Cardinal DiNardo from Texas represents the U.S. bishops. And likewise, the Mexican and Canadian counterparts will send their presidents.

They are in Rome Thursday through next Sunday. Along with them are members of the Roman Curia, the pope’s cabinet, representatives of the international unions of major religious superiors (both men and women) and a number of survivors of abuse.

“The goal is that all of the bishops clearly understand what they need to do to prevent and combat the worldwide problem of the sexual abuse of minors,” Alessandro Gisotti, the interim director of the Holy See press office, told journalists earlier this year. The pope, he said, wants the bishops to return to their countries and “understand the laws to be applied and … take the necessary steps to prevent abuse, to care for the victims and to make sure that no case is covered up or buried.”

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