ABUSE TRACKER

CHICAGO (IL)
The Christian Century

November 14, 2018

Elizabeth Palmer interviews Anna Groff

“Churches are places of high trust—and high risk.”

Anna Groff is the executive director of Dove’s Nest, an organization that equips faith communities to build safe environments for children and survivors. It trains teachers in the Circle of Grace curriculum, a tool for helping young people maintain physical boundaries and recognize inappropriate situations.

For those who don’t know the Circle of Grace curriculum, what’s the one point it makes that is most important to teach children?

Many children already receive sexuality and boundary education in school. Circle of Grace is distinct in communicating that people in the church care about all the parts of life, including our physical bodies and body safety. We want children to know that God cares and the church cares that they are safe and that their bodies are respected. Circle of Grace enables Christian educators to teach that no topic is off limits in church.

For example, a few days before Circle of Grace was being taught at a church in Grand Rapids, a first-grade student at a local Christian school texted a photo of his penis to another student. Since several of the church’s children attended that school, the text message came up in conversation during a Circle of Grace lesson. The teacher alerted the director of children’s ministries, who brought the parents into the discussion at dismissal time. “We can have those kind of conversations—about sexting, safety, our bodies—at church,” the director told me. “It is fair game.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Associated Press

November 14, 2018

Victims of child sexual abuse by clergy in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia can begin filing claims as part of a victim compensation fund.

Claims administrators said Tuesday they sent 342 packets to survivors who had previously reported credible allegations.

They say the archdiocese has committed to pay accepted claims, there is no appeal process and there is no cap on the fund or the amount individual victims can receive. Victims have to waive their rights to sue the archdiocese in the future to accept offers.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
Catholic News Service

November 13, 2018

The U.S. bishops gave a standing ovation Nov. 13 to Francesco Cesareo, chairman of the National Review Board, for his report on the widening abuse crisis in the church and his calls for more action from them to address the abuse.

Cesareo, board chairman since 2013, called for broadening the scope of the “Charter on the Protection of Children and Young People” to include bishops. He also urged publishing complete lists of credibly accused clergy in all dioceses; improving the audit process; and enhancing accountability for bishops regarding cases of abuse.

He urged the bishops to take action and continue to move solutions to abuse forward. “Don’t stagnate it, or slow it down,” said Cesareo during a question-and-answer period following his report. “If that does not happen, I fear for the future of our church.”

Cesareo’s report came at the beginning of the second day of the annual fall assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore. The day’s agenda included discussion of proposals for addressing the abuse crisis but items that a day earlier the Vatican asked they delay voting on.

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DENVER (CO)
The Denver Post

November 12, 2018

By Elise Schmelzer

Former seminarian says he feels betrayed by the church, lied to by those he knows in its leadership
A Catholic priest in Denver accused of having sexually abused a young seminarian over the course of four years in the early 2000s was placed in a local church with a school after the Archdiocese of Denver learned of the allegations.

The clergyman, Kent Drotar, lost permission to work as a priest less than two months later and was removed from his post at Notre Dame Catholic Church in southwest Denver after a disciplinary team found the allegations against him credible, as first reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer on Monday and confirmed by The Denver Post.

Stephen Szutenbach, now 37, studied at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver from 2001 to 2004, and said Drotar — then the vice rector at the seminary — repeatedly made unwanted sexual contact with him. The abuse began in the summer of 2000 when Szutenbach was 18 and worked as a groundskeeper at the seminary after graduating from Conifer High School, Szutenbach told the Post in an interview Monday.

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UNITED STATES
Hollywood Reporter

November 13, 2018

By Katie Kilkenny

In a special preceding ‘Scientology and the Aftermath’s’ third season, Remini gathered ex-members to discuss their experiences with the church on issues including blood transfusions, justice and women’s rights.

Leah Remini kicked off the third season of her A&E series Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath on Tuesday night with a deep-dive, two-hour special on the Christian denomination Jehovah’s Witnesses.

On Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath: The Jehovah’s Witnesses, Remini led a panel of ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses as they explained some of the church’s most controversial positions and practices: its belief in Armageddon, disavowal of blood transfusions, disfellowships and subjugation of women.

As Remini explained at the beginning, the special stemmed from letters and social-media messages the production received, asking it to look into the denomination. “I thought Jehovah’s Witnesses were just nice people knocking on doors,” Remini said. But “We have received many letters, [saying], ‘Please look into the Jehovah’s Witnesses'” and making the connection between Scientology and Jehovah’s Witnesses, she noted.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
National Catholic Reporter

November 14, 2018

By Heidi Schlumpf

Some bishops have been more concerned about the reputation of the church than about victims of sexual abuse, indicating “clear corruption” and “a blind spot” that must be addressed, said Archbishop Paul Etienne of Anchorage, Alaska.

Etienne suggested a study — similar to the 2011 John Jay College “causes and context” study of priests who abused minors — to help understand “the episcopal attitude that was able to handle the abuse situation in such an inept way over the decades.”

He also criticized bishops “who have gotten too accustomed to listening to lawyers over victims” and said that he and his brother bishops must remain vigilant against “the three Ps” — pride and the desire for privilege and power.

“That’s a corruption of our life as shepherds that has to be called out and say ‘No more. It’s not tolerable,’ ” Etienne told NCR in an interview after the Nov. 13 morning session of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops meeting in Baltimore.

Later that day, Bishop Shawn McKnight of Jefferson City, Missouri, took to the floor and suggested a similar study of “the root causes of abuse of power” in the crisis.

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ROME
Crux

November 14, 2018

By Claire Giangravè

An Italian priest on the front lines of the fight against sexual abuse, and a member of a commission that shortly will be producing the Italian bishops’ new guidelines for safeguarding children, said he’s optimistic about the handling of abuse cases on the peninsula.

The guidelines “will address formation, information and prevention, as well as everything necessary to ensure that the Church becomes a safe haven of care capable of handling these issues,” said Father Fortunato Di Noto, an internationally renowned figure respected for his work in the fight against pedophilia, in a phone interview with Crux.

The Italian bishops’ conference gathered Nov. 12-14 for an extraordinary assembly that is tackling, among other things, sexual abuse. Pope Francis requested that the bishops provide new guidelines, to be added to those already published in 2014, and to focus primarily on prevention.

After a year and a half of work, the commission will present the new guidelines to the assembly and the bishops will take them back to their dioceses for reflection until they are called to express their vote.

The date in which the guidelines will be voted upon and released has not been set.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
WJZ

November 13, 2018

By Kimberly Eiten

Welcomed to Baltimore by protestors Tuesday on the waterfront, 300 of the nation’s bishops met inside the Marriott Hotel for the second day under the spotlight of the church’s sex abuse scandal.

Monday, the Pope asked that the bishops delay a formal vote on measures aimed at dealing with the church’s sex abuse crisis.

But Catholic leaders said even without a vote, the issue is still at the forefront this week.

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LAS CRUCES (NM)
Las Cruces Sun-News

November 13, 2018

Sun-News Editorial Board

After years of rumors and allegations, we finally learned the full scope of sexual abuse that has taken place in the Catholic Diocese of Las Cruces in the past 35 years.

Or, as close to the full scope as we can get at this point.

Last week the diocese released the names of 28 members of the clergy who served in the diocese and were “credibly accused” of sexual misconduct with a minor. It is still possible the list of alleged abusers could grow as more people who were victimized long ago find the ability to step forward.

The exact number of victims will never be known. The diocese has put out a public request for anyone with knowledge of sexual abuse of a minor committed by a member of the clergy to contact the local police or sheriff’s department.

Church officials said they hope that releasing the list of alleged abusers will lead more victims to come forward. And, they have also established a victim’s assistance coordinator, Margarita Martinez, who can be contacted at 575-523-7577.

Many of the 28 alleged abusers are now dead. We are told by the diocese than none are still active in the ministry.

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UNITED KINGDOM
ITV News

November 13, 2018

By Charlotte Cross

Harrowing details of violent and sexual abuse at the hands of Roman Catholic priests in the Midlands have been revealed today.

An inquiry panel has heard how for years, claims by victims and survivors were ignored, minimised and brushed under the carpet by senior figures in the Archdiocese of Birmingham – with suggestions the police may have been aware of what was going on.

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse is spending this week looking into the way the Archdiocese – the biggest such province in England and Wales – handled reports of abuse.

On the second day of hearings, the panel heard from a survivor known as A31, who was targeted by former priest James Robinson; as well as a man who says he was abused by Father John Tolkien, the son of Lord of the Rings author JRR Tolkien.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
CNA Daily News

November 13, 2018

James Grein, the man who came forward this summer alleging he was abused for 18 years by Archbishop Theodore McCarrick, appeared in public Tuesday for the first time and revealed his full name. Previously, the New York Times had identified him only as “James.”

Grein appeared at the Nov. 13 “Silence Stops Now” counter-rally organized by several groups critical of the bishops’ approach to addressing the sexual abuse crisis. The rally was held near the location of the USCCB’s Fall General Assembly in Baltimore.

Grein was visibly nervous taking the stage, where he delivered a short speech about his experience coming forward with his story, and received an extended standing ovation when he finished.

In July Grein came forward with his story to the New York Times. He said McCarrick began abusing him when he was 11 years old. At that time, McCarrick was 39 years old, and a priest of the Archdiocese of New York.

This abuse continued for the next 18 years, he said, during which McCarrick was consecrated a bishop and served in the local Churches of New York, Metuchen, and Newark. In November 2000, he was appointed Archbishop of Washington, where he served the remainder of his career until his 2006 retirement. In 2001, McCarrick was elevated to the College of Cardinals. About a week after Grein’s allegation was published, McCarrick resigned from the College of Cardinals.

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ROME
The Daily Beast

November 12, 2018

By Barbie Latza Nadeau

At a moment when optics matter most, Francis pulled the plug on U.S. bishops as they met to do something measurable on clerical sex abuse—and precisely as new allegations emerged.

There has perhaps never been a more critical moment in the history of the American Catholic Church to appear to be doing the right thing on clerical child sex abuse than this week as their leadership meets in Baltimore.

But in the hours before the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, or USCCB, representing some 196 dioceses, gathered Monday morning, word came down from Rome that Pope Francis didn’t want the Americans to vote on two important items on their agenda—essentially ordering them to halt their vital work on reforms.

Instead, he wants any vote by individual national churches to take place after a Feb. 21-24, 2019, summit in Rome, where the global leaders of the church will be focused on its worldwide response to abuse.

But it means that this U.S. meeting, which was supposed to herald a change of course, is now just another meeting in which nothing concrete is accomplished.

Anne Barrett Doyle, the co-director of Bishops Accountability, a website that lists all cases of misconduct and coverups by clergy, called the Vatican’s move “truly incredible.”

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VATICAN CITY
The Independent

November 12, 2018

By Sarah Harvard

The Vatican has instructed US Catholic bishops to postpone plans to vote on proposed new steps to address the clergy sex abuse crisis embroiling the church.

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) was planning to vote on a referendum that would hold bishops responsible for failing to protect children from sexual abuse in the church.

In an announcement to his fellow Catholic clergymen, USCCB President Cardinal Daniel DiNardo said the Holy See requested the conference to hold off their vote until February when the Vatican will hold their global meeting on sexual abuse.

“We are not, ourselves, happy about this,” Mr DiNardo said – with much chagrin – at a press conference in Baltimore on Monday morning. “We have been working hard to get to the action stage, and we’ll do it, but we have to get past this bump in the road.”

Mr DiNardo said he was made aware of the decision on Sunday.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
The Atlantic

November 14, 2018

By Olivia Paschal

In an unprecedented move, the Vatican intervened this week to scuttle a vote on proposed changes to bishop oversight.

This week’s fall assembly of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops was supposed to be the first high-profile occasion for the Church’s top leaders to take steps toward rebuilding public trust after a series of revelations this summer in the ongoing sex-abuse crisis. The assembly was slated to vote this week on a series of reforms to address the crisis, but its plans were quickly upended by the Vatican, throwing the reforms’ future into doubt.

Had they passed, the proposed measures would have created a code of conduct for bishops and a special commission, including six lay members, tasked with working with the apostolic nuncio, the Pope’s diplomatic representative to the United States Church, to investigate allegations of bishop misconduct. These would have been small, but significant, moves toward making bishops more accountable when they fail to report abusive priests, or when they are accused of abuse themselves. But even these limited actions were delayed.

On Monday morning, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, the conference’s president, announced that the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops had asked the bishops to delay a vote on the reforms. They would wait until a February meeting between Pope Francis and the heads of bishops’ conferences around the world. The Holy See’s request came as an unwelcome shock to many of the bishops, and may further strain the already tense relationship between American bishops and the papacy.

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VATICAN CITY
Yahoo News Video

November 14, 2018

By Kayla Jardine

The Vatican halted a plan by U.S. bishops to address the age-old sexual abuse issues plaguing the Roman Catholic Church.

“At the insistence of the Holy See, we will not be voting on the two action items in our documentation regarding the abuse crisis,” said Cardinal Daniel DiNardo.

America’s Catholic leaders hoped to vote on the first code of conduct for bishops. This would make it easier to investigate misconduct and abuse in the Catholic Church.

The announcement was made at an annual meeting, and many were left disappointed and frustrated by the news from Rome.

“We can bring a lot in terms of what we’ve managed to accomplish over 16 years, in terms of cleaning up our act, making sure our churches are safe for children, our schools are safe for children,” said Bishop Christopher Coyne.

Leaders planned to hold bishops more responsible for reported cases of misconduct and abuse.

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LEICESTER (UNITED KINGDOM)
Crux

November 13, 2018

By Charles Collins

Allegations of abuse lodged against Father John Tolkien, son of Lord of the Rings creator J.R.R. Tolkien, were discussed on Monday and Tuesday by a British government inquiry into abuse into the Archdiocese of Birmingham.

The priest, who died in 2003, was accused of making a group of boys strip naked during a camping trip in the 1950s, as well as abusing a child seeking help with his reading skills.

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse is this week examining the Archdiocese of Birmingham’s response to historic allegations made against several priests, including Tolkien.

The inquiry was established by the British Home Office – which oversees similar areas as the U.S. Departments of Justice and Homeland Security – but is independent and does not answer to the government.

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JOHNSTOWN (PA)
The Tribune-Democrat

November 14, 2018

By Dave Sutor

A Westmont resident is one of six named plaintiffs in a federal class action civil suit filed Tuesday against the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Holy See.

Shaun Dougherty, an alleged victim of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of a priest within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, has joined the lawsuit that is about the alleged “endemic, systemic, rampant, and pervasive rape and sexual abuse of Plaintiffs and Class Members” perpetrated by cardinals, bishops, monsignors, priests, sisters, lay leaders and members of church orders, according to the document, obtained late Tuesday by The Tribune-Democrat.

Plaintiffs also argue that the alleged abuse and coverup constitutes a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act case, because multiple alleged violations involved the federal mail and wire fraud.

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PITTSFIELD (MA)
The Berkshire Eagle

November 13, 2018

For the Roman Catholic Church in America, this week was to have been a time of self-realization, confrontation and admission of past sins, and the development of concrete action to resurrect an institution in crisis. As the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops opened its meeting in Baltimore on Monday, attendees were determined to address the 16-year-old abuse scandal that had been re-energized over the summer by a Pennsylvania grand jury’s allegations that at least 1,000 children had been abused by 301 priests over the past 70 years. The underlying sentiment was that only a thorough process wherein even bishops would be held accountable for sexual misconduct and/or covering up such acts within their dioceses would return disillusioned former faithful to the church’s flock.

As the bishops learned to their shock and dismay at the conclave’s opening, orders had arrived from Pope Francis to stand down until a worldwide meeting of senior clergy had an opportunity to meet next February. While the American church has a tradition of following its own procedural path within certain guidelines, the assembled bishops, whether they liked it or not, acknowledged that they owed their fealty first and foremost to the Pope, regardless of how expectant and hopeful victims and laity might greet the news.

In a speech in Estonia in September, Pope Francis acknowledged that the clergy abuse scandal was eroding the faith of Catholics and chasing many from the church. The speech, in which the Pope said the church must change, coincided with a stinging report on clergy abuse of children in Germany. Unfortunately, the Pope’s request of the American bishops feeds cynicism that the church does not intend to go beyond words to action.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
The Associated Press

November 14, 2018

Several Roman Catholic bishops on Tuesday urged colleagues at their national meeting to take some sort of action on the clergy sex abuse crisis despite a Vatican order to delay voting on key proposals.

Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, suggested a nonbinding vote to convey a sense of the bishops’ aspirations regarding anti-abuse efforts.
“We are not branch managers of the Vatican,” he said. “Our people are crying out for some action.”

Bishop George Murry of Youngstown, Ohio, echoed Paprocki’s call, saying parishioners and priests in his diocese are “very, very angry.”

The three-day assembly opened Monday with a surprise announcement by Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The Vatican, he said, was ordering the bishops to delay votes on two anti-abuse proposals until after a Vatican-convened global meeting on sex abuse in February.

DiNardo indicated there were two principal reasons for the Vatican order: to ensure that steps taken by the U.S. bishops would be in harmony with steps decided at the February meeting, and to provide more time for vetting aspects of the U.S. proposals that might conflict with church law.

Even without the option of a formal vote this week, the U.S. bishops proceeded with discussion of the two key proposals. One would establish a new code of conduct of individual bishops; the other would create a nine-member special commission, including six lay experts and three members of the clergy, to review complaints against the bishops.

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GAYLORD (MI)
9and10 News

November 14, 2018

By David Lyden

The investigation into clergy sex abuse in the Catholic Church is now reaching into Northern Michigan.

The Diocese of Gaylord has published the names of all priests accused of misconduct dating back to 1971.

That list includes 10 names and has been made public on the diocese’s website.

Some of the priests have passed away, but others are simply listed as removed from public ministry.

The list does not include what they were accused of or their assignment history.

We should also note the diocese did not make any formal announcement that the list had been published.

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UNITED STATES
La Croix International (with Catholic News Service)

November 12, 2018

They will also include some other agenda items, such as a statement on racism and election of chairmen for several committees

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) will gather for the 2018 Fall General Assembly in Baltimore today when top of the agenda will be the sex abuse crisis and accountability for bishops.

The Nov. 12-14 meeting will also include some other agenda items, such as a statement on racism and election of chairmen for several committees.

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VIENNA TWP. (OH)
WFMJ

November 12, 2018

By Cristen Manion and J. Breen Mitchell

A Vienna pastor placed on administrative leave pending an allegation into inappropriate behavior with a minor has faced a similar allegation in the past.

According to the Youngstown Catholic Diocese, Reverend Denis G. Bouchard, F.S.S.P., is on administrative leave following allegations of “inappropriate behavior with a minor,” which came to light in September.

The victim was between the ages of 9 and 11 at the time of the alleged abuse.

Bouchard is currently the pastor of Queen of the Holy Rosary Parish, Vienna, Ohio.

21 News has learned this is not the first time there has been an allegation of misconduct against Bouchard. Casey told 21 News a previous allegation had been made against him, but the alleged victim, in that case, was not cooperative with investigators at the time, so the allegation was never deemed to be credible. Casey said she has also reached out to that alleged victim but has also encountered the same reluctance to cooperate. Bouchard was not on a list of priests deemed to have been credibly accused of sexual abuse released last month by the Diocese.

The diocese says the Diocesan Review Board met and recommended to Bishop George V. Murry, S.J., further investigation to determine its credibility and substantiation.

The Diocese of Youngstown says their policy dictates that Father Bouchard be placed on administrative leave while a thorough investigation proceeds.

The Victim Assistance Coordinator for the Diocese, retired police Sergeant Delphine Baldwin-Casey, says the allegation is within the statute of limitations and they are conferring with the Trumbull County Prosecutor’s Office about potential charges, but said it will likely be up to the victim whether they want to pursue charges, since they are of legal age now.

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LOURDES (FRANCE)
La Croix International

November 12, 2018

By Bruno Bouvet

Religious appear to agree on the importance of a balanced community life to prevent abuse, including the correct use of speech and authority

French religious communities, whose leaders are meeting in Lourdes until Nov.13, have not been immune from the problems and abuses highlighted by Pope Francis in his Letter to the People of God. Many now view these difficulties as an opportunity for renewal, particularly in Church governance.

What did Father Jean-Pierre Longeat, a monk from Ligugé and former president of the Conference of Men and Women Religious in France (CORREF), mean when he spoke of “beneficial situations that are forcing us to take a stand”?

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CHINA
La Croix International

November 12, 2018

By Michael Sainsbury

Their fate was not included in the recent deal with Beijing and remains under discussion

On the face of it, one of the more curious issues about the recent “temporary” deal between the Vatican and Beijing on the appointment of bishops, as described in the official state-run Chinese media, was the lack of any resolution of the status of bishops appointed by the Vatican but not recognized by Communist Party-run Catholic groups.

It would seem to have been a logical quid pro quo — something granted or expected in return for something given — for the Vatican’s forgiveness and recognition of seven bishops (including one recently deceased bishop) appointed by the Chinese Communist Party’s twinset of Catholic apparatus. These are the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association and the Bishops’ Conference of the Chinese Catholic Church (BCCCC). This meant their de facto excommunications were also revoked.

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[Episcopal Conference leader Gil Tamayo admits Church’s “complicit silence” but extends it to the whole society]

MADRID (SPAIN)
El País

November 14, 2018

El secretario general de la Conferencia Episcopal Española pide al resto de la sociedad que no se calle y que asuma “su cuota de responsabilidad”

El secretario general y portavoz de la Conferencia Episcopal Española, José María Gil Tamayo, ha admitido que durante años la Iglesia ha guardado un “silencio cómplice” ante los casos de pederastia en el seno de esta institución, que ha enmarcado en un contexto de “inacción de toda la sociedad española” ante estos delitos.

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LOURDES (FRANCE)
La Croix International

November 13, 2018

By Bruno Bouvet

Work groups and dedicated study days being organized to help inform decisions; open new avenues of investigation and action

Following directly from measures outlined by the French bishops in the conclusion of their autumn plenary assembly in Lourdes, representatives of men and women religious have confirmed their engagement in the fight against sexual abuse.

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[Church of Santiago: how money received in 2017 was used]

CHILE
La Tercera

November 13, 2018

By M. Navarrete and S. Rodríguez

Arzobispado publicó el balance de su última gestión, con ingresos por $ 11 mil millones. El trabajo pastoral y social de sus vicarías se lleva más de la mitad de los recursos.

En estos días en que se desarrolla en Santiago la Asamblea Plenaria de la Conferencia Episcopal, donde, entre otros temas, se abordarán los casos de abusos por parte del clero, la Arquidiócesis de Santiago transparentó este martes sus ingresos y gastos de 2017, año en que se anunció la visita del Papa Francisco a Chile y que antecedió a la actual crisis eclesial.

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[Juan Barros after testifying in cover-up case: “I hope everything will be clarified for good”]

CHILE
La Tercera

November 14, 2018

By Claudia Soto

El obispo emérito de Osorno declaró como imputado ante el fiscal Sergio Moya, en el marco de las indagatorias por los presuntos delitos sexuales cometidos por el ex capellán de la Fach Pedro Quiroz.

Hasta la fiscalía de O’Higgins llegó esta mañana el obispo emérito de Osorno, Juan Barros, para declarar en calidad de imputado por el eventual encubrimiento de los presuntos delitos sexuales cometidos por el ex capellán de la Fach, Pedro Quiroz.

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[Cardinal Errázuriz says goodbye to the Pope and ends his C9 participation]

CHILE
La Tercera

November 14, 2018

By Sergio Rodríguez and María José Navarrete

El encuentro con el Pontífice ocurrió el fin de semana reciente. “Fui a Roma a despedirme del Santo Padre y a agradecerle el fecundo trabajo que nos confió para reformar la Curia Romana”, ratificó el prelado chileno.

“No es un renuncia. Me despedí al término del período para el cual fui nombrado”, aclaró ayer a La Tercera PM el cardenal Francisco Javier Errázuriz, en relación al viaje que efectuó el fin de semana último al Vaticano, para cerrar su trabajo en el Consejo de Cardenales, también conocido como C9.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
The Washington Post

November 14, 2018

AN EDITORIAL FROM THE WASHINGTON POST

The Catholic Church proves incapable of exorcising clergy sex abuse — again

It is evident that the Catholic Church is incapable on its own of exorcising the scourge of clergy sex abuse. The scandal raged unchecked for decades and, even after it was exposed in 2002 by the Boston Globe, has been met by the church hierarchy with denial, temporizing, stonewalling and half-measures.

Even as the bishops of America’s 196 Catholic dioceses and archdioceses gathered in Baltimore on Monday to grapple with the latest major revelations — a Pennsylvania grand jury’s report from August detailing decades of abuse involving more than 1,000 victims and at least 300 clergy members — they were stopped in their tracks by an abrupt message from the Vatican, which asked them to hold off. That intercession arrived along with a warning from Pope Francis’ ambassador in the United States, Archbishop Christophe Pierre, who seemed to scoff at the proposal, which the bishops had been set to vote on, to establish a lay commission that would assess bishops’ misconduct — “as if we were no longer capable of reforming or trusting ourselves,” as he put it.

That remark crystallized the arrogance that has often characterized the church’s stance even as countless exposes have laid bare the culpability of its leaders. From high and low, the church has broadcast its conviction that its own transgressions are no worse than that of other institutions; that state statutes of limitations that shield dioceses from lawsuits should be preserved; and that no foothold may be allowed for mechanisms to discipline bishops who have enabled abuse by transferring pedophile priests from parish to parish.

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SEATTLE (WA)
The Seattle Times

November 13, 2018

By Lewis Kamb

Jim Hauer and the five other men each claim they were victimized as children decades ago by priests assigned to churches and schools throughout Western Washington. In addition to receiving settlements, several expressed a demand that the church reveal its infamous “secret files” that for years protected and enabled abusers.

He’d just finished the eighth grade and was pursuing a plan to devote his life to God when Jim Hauer met the priest who he says introduced him to evil.

Back then, in 1976, Hauer said he “didn’t understand” how Father Theodore Marmo — a supervisor of the Seattle Archdiocese’s seminary studies program at John F. Kennedy High School in Burien — allegedly groomed him for abuse.

“I was innocent of thought,” Hauer recalled this week.

But now, some four decades later, Hauer can plainly recognize the tactics his alleged rapist employed: How Marmo separated him from the other boys his age; how the priest took him skiing and to movies; how he hired Hauer for jobs that kept the boy at St. Edwards Hall, the live-in seminary, over weekends and otherwise “enabled him to take advantage of me.”

Decades later, memories of what Marmo did to him mostly remained buried deep in Hauer’s mind until two years ago. That’s when the then-53-year-old San Francisco-based technology sales executive and married father of two sons received an unexpected call. A legal investigator in Seattle was on the line, checking into another man’s abuse claims about the priest.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
Catholic News Agency

November 13, 2018

Seven of the eight Roman Catholic dioceses of Pennsylvania will create compensation funds for victims of clergy sex abuse.

Seven of the eight Roman Catholic dioceses of Pennsylvania will create compensation funds for victims of clergy sex abuse, following a grand jury inquiry into abuse of minors by Catholic priests in the state.

“The damage done to innocent young people and their families by sexual abuse in the past is profound. It can’t be erased by apologies, no matter how sincere. And money can’t buy back a wounded person’s wholeness,” Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia said in a Nov. 8 column for CatholicPhilly.com.

“But what compensation can do is acknowledge the evil done and meaningfully assist survivors as they work to find greater peace in their lives,” he said.

The archdiocese-funded reparations effort will pay “the amounts that independent claims administrators deem appropriate,” he said.

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
The New Orleans Advocate

November 13, 2018

By Ramon Antonio Vargas

Four more men have come forward with detailed claims of being abused both sexually and physically while living at two troubled Catholic-run youth homes in Marrero in the 1970s and ’80s, according to a new lawsuit filed Tuesday.

The 24-page suit appears to be the first aimed at the Archdiocese of New Orleans since, earlier this month, it revealed the names of 57 clergy members considered to have been credibly accused of sexually abusing children within the last 50 years.

That list included eight clergymen who worked at the two homes, Hope Haven and Madonna Manor, which have been the focus of earlier lawsuits settled by the archdiocese. The homes are largely vacant these days.

By design, the list of fallen priests and deacons released Nov. 2 did not include the names of any lay staff or religious brothers and nuns working at archdiocese facilities. Those omissions, the lawsuit claims, run counter to the archdiocese’s stated aim of being completely transparent in the wake of the child sex abuse crisis that has dogged the Catholic Church for decades.

The lawsuit says that along with priests of the Salesian order, lay staffers and a religious brother were among the victims’ tormentors. The victims don’t provide their names in the suit, which describes numerous acts of molestation.

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ALLENTOWN (PA)
The Morning Call

November 13, 2018

By Tim Darragh and Peter Hall

A 29-year-old man is suing Allentown Diocese Bishop Alfred Schlert, former Bishop Edward Cullen, a former diocesan priest and a treatment center for priests in a complaint alleging he was sexually molested between the ages of 10 and 12.

The lawsuit, filed Monday in Lehigh County Court, alleges that former priest Bruno Tucci groped the man, identified in the lawsuit as “John Doe,” when he was an altar boy at Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Nesquehoning between 1999-2001.

Attorneys Gerald J. Williams of Philadelphia, Michelle Simpson Tuegel of Dallas and Muhammad S. Aziz of Houston, who represent John Doe, said during a news conference in Philadelphia the suit is the first seeking monetary damages that is based on information contained in the Pennsylvania grand jury report on clergy abuse released this summer.

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
WVUE

November 13, 2018

By Kimberly Curth

There are disturbing allegations in a new lawsuit against the Catholic Church in New Orleans. Four men have come forward claiming they endured sexual and physical abuse at the orphanage and youth home, Madonna Manor and Hope Haven, when they were boys in the late 1970s and 80s.

The men are only identified as John Roes. They’re suing the Archdiocese of New Orleans, Catholic Charities and the Salesian Society.

One alleged victim says when he was 9, he was selected to be an altar boy for Masses that were performed at the Madonna Manor Chapel. And, “during numerous different occasions at these masses, the priests took John Roe I to the chapel sacristy where he would be raped by certain visiting priests.”

He also says he was sexually assaulted on a field trip to St. Joseph’s Abbey in Covington by an unknown cleric.

The lawsuit says the sexual and physical abuse continued until he was admitted to a mental institution where he stayed for more than two years because of a severe emotional collapse.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Jurist

November 13, 2018

By Professor SpearIt; Edited by Jessica Lasky

JURIST Guest Columnist Professor SpearIt of the Jesuit-affiliated Gonzaga University School of Law discusses critical questions and possible implications of the DOJ investigation into the Catholic Church…

The Department of Justice (DOJ) recently launched an investigation into the Catholic Church in Pennsylvania. The central focus of the inquiry seeks to determine whether there have been violations of federal child sex-crimes and related crimes among Church leaders. This investigation raises a number of critical issues, including the potential impacts on American law and society. For the Church, there are no certainties about what the investigation portends for clergy or congregation. In the best-case scenario for church leadership, the investigation could be concluded quickly and painlessly, with little or no legal consequence; more menacingly, the investigation could lead to indictments and trigger investigations far and wide.

The catalyst for the federal investigation was a report released by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in August 2018, detailing its own investigation into the Church. The twenty-three grand jurors who helped compile the report included practicing Catholics who based their reporting on internal documents surrendered by six Dioceses and on testimony from victims. The findings indicated that more than 300 priests in Pennsylvania had sexually abused children over seven decades, and the priests were protected by a hierarchy of church leadership. The findings stated:

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WASHINGTON (DC)
The Washington Post

November 14, 2018

It is evident that the Catholic Church is incapable on its own of exorcising the scourge of clergy sex abuse. The scandal raged unchecked for decades and, even after it was exposed in 2002 by the Boston Globe, has been met by the church hierarchy with denial, temporizing, stonewalling and half-measures.

Even as the bishops of America’s 196 Catholic dioceses and archdioceses gathered in Baltimore Monday to grapple with the latest major revelations – a Pennsylvania grand jury’s report from August detailing decades of abuse involving more than 1,000 victims and at least 300 priests – they were stopped in their tracks by an abrupt message from the Vatican, which asked them to hold off. That intercession arrived along with a warning from Pope Francis’ ambassador in the United States, Archbishop Christophe Pierre, who seemed to scoff at the proposal, which the bishops had been set to vote on, to establish a lay commission that would assess bishops’ misconduct – “as if we were no longer capable of reforming or trusting ourselves,” as he put it.

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CHICAGO (IL)
FOX 32

November 13, 2018

In a FOX 32 special report: losing the faith.

After decades of clergy abuse allegations in the catholic church, new revelations are coming to life. But what keeps parishioners coming back week after week?

For John Prezzia, the Catholic church is where he was raised. It’s part of his identity and where he continues to find solace.

“There’s nowhere else to go for true joy, true peace, and true love,” Prezzia said.

“I grew up on the south side of Chicago. A cradle Catholic, very religious family,” said Therese Albrecht-Key.

But while some found true joy, others found pure hell. Therese Albrecht-Key says her priest began abusing her — in the church — when she was only 8 years old.

“The touching started, and then it escalated to rape and sodomy over a desk in the classroom,” Albrecht-Key said.

She said it lasted for years and when she finally got the courage to speak up, she was dismissed.

“What he did to me, killed my spirit, murdered my soul. I’m hanging on, by the skin of my teeth,” Albrecht-Key said.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
KYW Newsradio

November 13, 2018

By Steve Tawa

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s independent compensation program for victims of clergy abuse has begun to provide support for survivors.

Members on the panel for the Independent Reconciliation and Reparations Program (IRRP) will begin to hear claims, regardless of when victims were harmed.

The panel disclosed for the first time that its initial mailing of packets went to 342 known survivors within the Archdiocese of Philadelphia who submitted credible allegations. The work will be monitored by an Independent Oversight Committee, chaired by former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell.

“Sexual abuse of minors by members of the Catholic Church clergy is a tragedy,” Mitchell said. “It seriously and adversely affected many innocent victims that mars the church’s considerable contribution to the fabric of American life. Also of great concern, are the failures of many archdioceses to prevent these unspeakable acts from occurring.”

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune

November 13, 2018

By Drew Broach

Pedophile priests accused of molesting children at the former Hope Haven and Madonna Manor orphanages are targets of a new lawsuit filed Tuesday (Nov. 13) against the Archdiocese of New Orleans and the Salesian order to which the priests belonged. Two lawyers filed the suit in Orleans Parish Civil District Court on behalf of four unnamed adults who as children lived at the Marrero orphanages in the 1970s and 1980s.

The suit comes 11 days after the archdiocese disclosed the names of 55 priests and two deacons whom it said had been “credibly accused” of sexually abusing children in its jurisdiction since 1917. Eight of those priests, six of them now dead, worked at Hope Haven.

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OGDENSBURG (NY)
Watertown Daily Times

November 14, 2018

By Larry Robinson

The Diocese of Ogdensburg has released a statement and a list of priests implicated in the church’s sexual abuse scandal on the diocesan website.

The posting comes following a Sunday statement from Bishop Terry R. LaValley promising to make the names public.

“Diocesan Priests removed from ministry and those who were deceased or left ministry prior to a finding of reasonable grounds by the Diocesan Review Board and/or the Diocesan Bishop due to sexual misconduct with a minor or vulnerable adult,” the statement reads.

Eight of the 28 priests on the list, John Fallon, Theodore Gillette, John Hunt, Liam O’Doherty, Robert Shurtleff, Clark White, David Wisniewski and Paul Worczak were named by a Minnesota-based law firm representing victims of child abuse in March.

“The Diocese of Ogdensburg can be viewed as a microcosm of the national problem of priests sexually assaulting minors because the diocese fails to fully disclose its knowledge of sexually abusive priests,” the law firm’s report stated.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
WKBW

November 14, 2018

Survivors of alleged sexual abuse at the hands of priests nationwide are set to announce a federal class-action lawsuit aimed at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

In the lawsuit, the group and their attorneys say the Conference “knowingly concealed” the identities and actions of known abusers. So they’re calling for the bishops to release the names and files of every known accused priest in the country.

They’re due to make the announcement at 1:00 Wednesday afternoon in Baltimore, where those bishops are for the final day of their annual meeting.

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HAMDEN (CT)
The Quinnipiac Chronicle

November 13, 2018

By Garret Reich

Waterbury priest sued for sexual abuse

“If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one,” Mitchell Garabedian said in the 2015 movie “Spotlight.”

I watched this movie last week for the third time. Even then, I did not realize how relevant the issue of sexual abuse in the Catholic church still is today.

Nor did I think that it would hit so close to home.

Last Wednesday, it was revealed that a former Connecticut priest is being accused of sexual abuse toward Kevin Distasio, an altar boy at the Waterbury Blessed Sacrament Church in 1980.

The Waterbury Church is only half an hour away from Quinnipiac.

Now, 38 years later, 46-year-old Distasio is suing.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
The Washington Times

November 13, 2018

By Stephen Dinan

Six men filed a class action and racketeering lawsuit Tuesday against the Vatican and America’s Catholic bishops, arguing they were aware of but ignored evidence of rape and sexual abuse within the clergy.

The 80-page complaint, filed in federal district court in Washington, D.C., asks a judge to order a personal apology from the church hierarchy to abuse victims, to demand a full public accounting of all cases dating back to 1940, and to compensate victims and create a medical monitoring fund to help in recovery.

The plaintiffs all say they were abused when they were children attending churches from Mississippi to Iowa, and California to Pennsylvania.

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[Expert: “The Spanish Episcopal Conference must give justice to the victims”]

SPAIN
El País

November 13, 2018

By Daniel Verdú

Hans Zollner, miembro de la comisión para la prevención de abusos a menores del Vaticano y experto en la materia, cree que España puede hacer mucho más en esta cuestión

El jesuita Hans Zollner es uno de los principales expertos en prevención y tratamiento de casos de abusos a menores por parte del clero. Hombre de la máxima confianza del Papa en este asunto, psicólogo, presidente del Child Protection Center en la Universidad Gregoriana y miembro de la comisión que Francisco creó a su llegada para tratar una cuestión que se ha convertido en un asunto principal de este pontificado. Prueba de ello es la histórica reunión convocada en febrero en el Vaticano con todos los presidentes de las conferencias episcopales del mundo. Zollner, que recientemente ha liderado el proyecto de creación de un máster para la prevención de abusos, no pone paños calientes: algunos países han avanzado mucho y otros, como España, pueden hacer “mucho más”.

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[Osorno laity highlight Scicluna’s new position and call for changes in canon law]

CHILE
BioBioChile

November 13, 2018

By Manuel Stuardo and Pedro Abarzúa

La Organización de Laicos de Osorno destacó el nombramiento de Charles Scicluna, como nuevo secretario adjunto de la Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe, pero aseguraron que hay que cambiar las leyes canónicas.

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[Court of Appeals dismisses possibility of reversing Precht’s expulsion from the priesthood]

CHILE
BioBioChile

November 12, 2018

By Valentina González and Erik López

La Corte de Apelaciones de Santiago desechó la posibilidad de revertir la expulsión del sacerdocio del ex Vicario de la Solidaridad, Cristián Precht, investigado por presuntos abusos sexuales.

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[Archbishop who investigated the Chilean Church assumes key Vatican position]

CHILE
La Tercera

November 14, 2018

By Juan Paulo Iglesias

El Papa nombró a Charles Scicluna, actual titular de la arquidiócesis de Malta, secretario adjunto de la Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe.

La primera señal fue a fines de enero pasado. Tras la polémica desatada por sus dichos sobre el obispo Juan Barros al concluir su viaje a Chile, el Papa designó al arzobispo Charles Scicluna enviado especial para recabar antecedentes sobre la situación del entonces obispo de Osorno. El llamado “007 del Vaticano”, como lo califican algunos medios italianos, volvía así a la primera línea de la lucha contra los abusos en la Iglesia. Sin embargo, hoy el regreso fue completo. El Papa lo nombró “secretario adjunto de la Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe”, es decir número tres del organismo encargado de velar por la doctrina y llevar a cabo las investigaciones ante las denuncias de abusos contra religiosos.

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[Appeals court rejects Precht’s appeal against the Archbishop of Santiago]

CHILE
La Tercera

November 12, 2018

By Claudia Soto

El tribunal de alzada descartó un actuar arbitrario de parte de la institución religiosa al aplicar cautelares al exsacerdote en proceso de investigación previa, según la ley canónica.

En un fallo unánime, la Séptima Sala de la Corte de Apelaciones de Santiago rechazó el recurso de protección que el ex sacerdote Cristián Precht interpuso contra el Arzobispado de Santiago, tras descartar un actuar arbitrario de parte de la institución religiosa al aplicar cautelares al exsacerdote en proceso de investigación previa, según la ley canónica.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
The Associated Press

November 12, 2018

By David McFadden and David Crary

At the Vatican’s insistence, U.S. Catholic bishops abruptly postponed plans Monday to vote on proposed new steps to address the clergy sex abuse crisis roiling the church.

Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said he was told on the eve of the bishop’s national meeting to delay action until after a Vatican-convened global meeting on sex abuse in February.

“We are not ourselves happy about this,” DiNardo told reporters in an unusual public display of frustration at a Vatican pronouncement.

“We are working very hard to move to action — and we’ll do it,” he said. “I think people in the church have a right to be skeptical. I think they also have a right to be hopeful.”

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DETROIT (MI)
Click on Detroit

November 11, 2018

By Dane Sager Kelly

An allegation that a priest who died in 1994 sexually abused a child has been found to be credible, the Archdiocese of Detroit said.

The archdiocese said in a news release Sunday that the complaint against Monsignor Thaddeus Ozog was brought to a review board and shared with prosecutors.

Ozog served as pastor or associate pastor at parishes in Detroit, Birmingham, Wayne, Waterford, Flat Rock and Hamtramck.

It is unknown if the allegation against Ozog was found in documents turned over by Roman Catholic dioceses across Michigan in a state investigation of sexual abuse by priests.

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VATICAN CITY
Whispers in the Loggia

November 13, 2018

By Rocco Palmo

Especially as yesterday’s Vatican move to nix the US bishops’ votes on several crisis-spurred reforms had the effect of detonating an ecclesial bomb of confusion and outrage, this Tuesday’s latest salvo from Rome is all the more significant: six years since “The Most Dangerous Man in the Vatican” was quietly slipped out of town, Archbishop Charles Scicluna is coming home to the “Holy Office.”

At Roman Noon, the Pope named the 59 year-old Maltese (above right) as adjunct secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – a second #3 official, joining the Bronx-born Archbishop Gus DiNoia OP, another Ratzinger favorite alongside whom Scicluna worked closely during his first CDF tour. In a unique arrangement not seen for the Curia in a half-century, however, the announcement added that Scicluna “will remain archbishop of Malta,” where he was recently given an auxiliary to help balance his already increased Roman workload.

(Correcting an earlier part of this piece, while DiNoia reached the retirement age of 75 in July – and has already voiced a hope to return to the US upon its acceptance – earlier this year, Francis asked the Yale-trained theologian to remain in post for the time being. Considering CDF’s vastly expanded role as the global church’s clearinghouse of abuse cases – now including accusations against bishops – on top of its traditional role as guardian of doctrine, the provision of two additional top officers tracks with the rapid growth of the caseload and related issues.)

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
NBC 10

November 13, 2018

By Dan Stamm

The creation of an independent commission to review church policies will be led by former U.S. Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell.

A week after the Archdiocese of Philadelphia said that it would pay financial reparations to victims of clergy sex abuse, even from years ago, the Church is revealing how it will carry out the compensation program.

The Independent Reconciliation and Reparations effort will be funded by the archdiocese, which said it was not sure how much money would be required but that the financial commitment was “significant.”

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BALTIMORE (MD)
ABC News

November 13, 2018

By Meghan Keneally and Pete Madden

Protests are slated to take place in Baltimore this week as church leaders gather at the annual General Assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to discuss the ongoing sexual abuse crisis.

Several prominent groups advocating for the rights of survivors of sexual abuse by clergy have planned demonstrations outside the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront as U.S. bishops contemplate their response to the widening scandal, described by one observer as “The Catholic Church’s biggest crisis since the Reformation.”

An event that was expected to culminate in steps toward increased transparency and accountability took a sudden turn on Monday morning when Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, announced in his opening remarks that a pair of votes on proposed policy changes to address the abuse crisis would be delayed “at the insistence” of the Vatican.

DiNardo, who told the assembled church leaders he was informed of the order late Sunday, said he was “disappointed” but remained “hopeful” progress could be made.

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YORK (PA)
York Daily Record

November 13, 2018

By Mike Argento

THE CHURCH ISOLATES ITS MEMBERS, SHAMES AND SHUNS VICTIMS WHO COME FORTH AND INSTRUCTS ELDERS TO KEEP REPORTS SECRET. AND CHILDREN ARE BEING ABUSED.

Sarah Brooks was 17, riding in her dad’s pickup, when she told him.

She had always been a daddy’s girl, she said. She was a tomboy growing up, playing with the boys, and later, when she could wield a wrench, working on cars with her dad. After some detours in life, she would work as a welder. She liked working with her hands, and she and her dad were close.

It was hard to tell her dad. She knew what had been happening to her was wrong. She knew that it needed to stop. She felt deep shame and deep guilt. She was the victim, but still, she felt that what had happened to her was her fault, that she was a horrible, dirty person. She knew there would be consequences. The people who did those things to her had warned her not to tell, they said that if she did, she would be ruining lives and that nobody would believe her and that she would be the one to suffer in the end.

Still, she needed to tell. It was wrong. Something had to be done. So, she told.

Sarah told her dad that Joshua and Jennifer had sexually abused her over a period of months, starting when she was 15. Joshua was Joshua Caldwell, a friend from church. Jennifer was Jennifer McVey, married to Sarah’s brother and having an affair with Caldwell. Caldwell was 12 years older than Sarah; McVey, six. Sarah had been working for the couple cleaning out houses that were in foreclosure.

She had met them through their church, the Yorkana Kingdom Hall of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and thought that working for them would be safe and good, the church being a close and cloistered community.

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BATON ROUGE (LA)
NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune

November 12, 2018

By Kim Chatelain

The diocese of Baton Rouge hopes to release the names of Roman Catholic clergy members under its auspices who have been “credibly accused” of abusing minors before the end of January, Bishop Michael G. Duca said.

In a letter Duca asked priests to read at weekend Masses, the bishop said last week researchers began an independent review of personnel files of priests and deacons who have served the diocese since it was carved out of the Archdiocese of New Orleans in 1961.

The Baton Rouge law firm Hebert, Spencer & Fry has been hired to perform the review. The lawyers have employed the accounting and consulting firm Postlethwaite & Netterville to assist. It will take a minimum of four to six weeks to complete the review, after which a comprehensive report will be turned over to the diocese, the letter said.

“Neither I nor any of my staff is involved in this review, and the auditors will have full access to clergy personnel files while they are on site,” Duca said in the letter. “From this information, I will compile a list of credibly and substantially accused clergy to be publish hopefully before the end of January.”

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LANSING (MI)
Religion News Service

November 12, 2018

“No More Victims,” a group of laypeople located in the diocese of Lansing, MI, has prepared a sweeping collection of accounts drawn from national and local headlines concerning the clergy sexual misconduct with respect to adults. The reader, titled “What We the Laity are Reading that has Shaken us to the Core,” is 32 pages long; it includes excerpts from some of the most shattering articles published on the subject in recent months and information about additional resources. The full reader is available here, and will be available online at nomorevictimsMI.org.

Copies of the reader have been sent to all U.S. Bishops in advance of their Fall Meeting, which begins today, Monday, Nov. 12. No More Victims hopes the bishops will regard the document as a vital resource and a tool in confronting the full problem of clergy sexual abuse in all its complexity and scope. It is not just Archbishop McCarrick who is the problem or clergy who abuse minors, but also clergy who engage in sexual misconduct with adults.

In the letter they wrote to the Bishops that accompanied the reader, No More Victims member Al Kresta writes, “As you deal with the scandal of McCarrick and abuse committed by bishops, we urge you to include in your concerns efforts to rid seminaries, dioceses and all Church institutions and structures of those who are involved in sexual misconduct with adults. We believe clergy sexual misconduct with adults is at the core of so many of the problems of the Church in the last many decades.”

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YORK (PA)
York Daily Record

November 12, 2018

By Jasmine Vaughn-Hall

In a news conference on Monday, a man named Allentown Diocese Bishop Alfred Schlert and former Bishop Edward Cullen in a lawsuit suing a former priest and a treatment center for priests, according to The Morning Call.

The man, now 29, alleges he was sexually molested by former priest Bruno Tucci between the ages of 10 and 12.

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MOBILE (AL)
The Associated Press

November 12, 2018

Roman Catholic church offices in Alabama and Mississippi will publicly release the names of clergy members accused of sexually abusing minors over decades, church leaders said.

A statement from Archbishop Thomas J. Rodi of Mobile said each of the four Catholic dioceses in the two states will report the names of people who were removed from ministry after being accused of abuse.

Diocese offices are in Birmingham, Alabama, plus Jackson and Biloxi in Mississippi, and the archdiocese is in Mobile.

The Mobile office will release names involved in accusations dating back to 1950, Rodi said. He did not say when the list would be made public.

“It is a time-consuming effort to examine each clergy personnel file from the last almost seven decades. This effort is under way and will be completed as quickly as possible,” Rodi said in the statement released Thursday.

The Biloxi diocese said it would forward any of its names to the office in Jackson should cases predate its 1977 founding.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
Catholic News Service

November 12, 2018

By Rhina Guidos

Luis A. Torres Jr. stood before a group of U.S. bishops during one of the most publicly watched of their fall annual meetings Nov. 12 in Baltimore and in doing so revealed to the world the reality that he has lived with since childhood: that he was abused by a priest.

“I’m not private anymore. Everyone knows,” said Torres, a lawyer and member of the Lay Review Board of the Diocese of Brooklyn, New York, which examines policies for removing priests who have abused.

It was unclear but it seemed that the moment marked the first time he revealed the truth publicly. He also spoke of what he witnessed toward those who have come forward in the Catholic Church when they revealed what had happened to them at the hands of clergy.

“I witnessed a church that didn’t understand or didn’t seem to care, or worse, a church that was actively hostile to the children who had trusted and suffered under its care,” he said. “A church that professed faith but acted shrewdly, a church that seemed to listen less to Christ’s teachings and more to the advice of lawyers, a church that seemed less interested in those it had harmed.”

He spoke of a church more concerned with the protection of assets than its people.

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PENNSYLVANIA
NBC News

November 12, 2018

By Corky Siemaszko

The Allentown Diocese did not tell parishioners there was an admitted molesting priest in their flock

A former altar boy claimed in a lawsuit Monday that he was molested repeatedly by a Pennsylvania priest who had admitted sexually abusing another boy a decade earlier — and who had been cleared to work with kids by a New Mexico clinic for troubled clergy that was derided in Catholic circles as “Camp Ped.”

Bruno Tucci, now 76, allegedly abused the altar boy — who is identified in court papers only as a 29-year-old “John Doe” — between 1999 and 2001 at the Our Lady of Mount Carmel parish in Nesquehoning, a small town 30 miles north of Allentown, Pennsylvania.

On one occasion, Tucci allegedly told the then pre-teen boy to “put his arms out like Jesus on the cross” while he fondled his exposed genitals, the lawsuit states.

“He is a broken young man,” the accuser’s chief lawyer, Gerald Williams, said during a press conference in Philadelphia. “He veers from anger to despair to depression.”

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BATON ROUGE (LA)
WBRZ

November 11, 2018

By Trey Couvillion

In a letter read in all Baton Rouge Catholic parish masses today, Bishop Michael Duca said the church has hired a legal firm to fully investigate all personnel files that could shed more light on diocesan abuses in recent decades.

“This week an independent review was begun of all the personnel files of the priests and deacons who have served in our diocese since we were created out of the Archdiocese of New Orleans over a half century ago. The outside law firm of Hebert, Spencer & Fry, L.L.P. has been engaged to do the work, and it has hired the highly-respected accounting and consulting firm of Postlethwaite & Netterville, APLC to assist in performing this independent review,” the letter said in part.

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LAS CRUCES (NM)
KVIA

November 8, 2018

By Kate Bieri

On Thursday, the Diocese of Las Cruces released the names of 28 priests and religious “credibly accused” of sexual misconduct with minors.

Of the 28 priests on the list, 12 of them have died, according to the Diocese. Four of the priests have been “laicized,” meaning they have been dismissed from their clerical state.

Some of the accusations were before the Diocese of Las Cruces was established in 1982, however, “the individuals are included because they served in the Diocese of Las Cruces at some point,” according to the Diocese.

“By publishing this list, the Diocese of Las Cruces is seeking to be transparent and accountable,” Bishop Gerald Kicanas wrote in a news release. “We invite anyone who may have been abused by church personnel to come forward and report that abuse to the proper authorities.”

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CHARLOTTE (NC)
WSOC TV

November 12, 2018

By Allison Latos

The Vatican is ordering bishops in the U.S. to delay guidance on how to address sexual abuse allegations, which means it could be even longer before we learn which local priests have been accused.

Eyewitness News anchor Allison Latos has been investigating allegations in local churches for years and has questioned the Charlotte Diocese about when parishioners and the public will get answers.

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WILKES-BARRE (PA)
Times Leader

November 12, 2018

We found it welcome news when it was recently revealed that most of the Roman Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania — including Scranton — are now setting up victim compensation funds.

Those who suffered heinous crimes at the hands of priests deserve compensation for the trauma that not only destroyed the innocence of childhood but will be with them for the rest of their lives.

But we remain somewhat concerned the Catholic hierarchy is still intent on making a last-ditch effort to protect its own, a habit well-documented in this summer’s shocking grand jury report.

Some have suggested the funds could just be another device employed by church leaders to make problems go away without having to go through the pain of full transparency.

“The biggest drawback in a fund like this is that it does not force the institution to come clean with all the information that it has regarding the abuse,” lawyer Ben Andreozzi, who represents dozens of Pennsylvanians who claim abuse by priests, told the Associated Press.

It’s obvious what’s going on here.

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BUFFALO (NY)
UBNow

November 8, 2018

By Charles Anzalone

When UB law professor Christine Pedigo Bartholomew studied “clergy privilege” — the legal rule shielding confidential communications of priests and clergy — she found priests often recast communications to make them fall outside this testimonial protection.

Clerics often wanted to divulge information concerning such sensitive encounters as people confessing to crimes, says Bartholomew. The clergy wanted to do the right thing, she says, and help the courts’ search for justice.

But something happened when it came to accusations of sexual abuse, according to Bartholomew’s extensive, comprehensive review of cases from the early 1800s to 2016 — the first time a legal scholar has reviewed and recorded every opinion on clergy privilege during that time.

Where otherwise forthcoming priests tried to find ways to divulge what they knew to law enforcement officials, they did the opposite — they “pushed for their clergy privilege” — when their fellow priests were targets of sexual abuse accusations, according to research Bartholomew published in October 2017 in the Virginia Law Review.

“It is as if clergy are saying, ‘We want to divulge and to help, except when clergy are accused of sexual misconduct,’” says Bartholomew, associate professor and director of law review. “When it comes to sexual accusations, clergy act to protect themselves.”

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OGDENSBURG (NY)
WWNYTV

November 11, 2018

“It’s a step in the right direction.”

As the Catholic Diocese of Ogdensburg plans to release the names of the remaining clergy members accused of being involved in its sex abuse scandal, it’s something Jim Cummings, a survivor of clergy abuse, has been waiting for.

“I’ve talked to quite a few of the survivors and that’s what they wanted also,” said Cummings. “It was very clear.”

Eight clergy members from the Diocese of Ogdensburg have already been named over the years. There are still at least 15 more who have yet to be revealed.

In a letter read at masses over the weekend, Bishop Terry LaValley writes that ‘recent controversies in the Church make it necessary to release the rest of the names.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Trib Live

November 8, 2018

By Deb Erdley

In an apparent move to counter calls for new legislation to permit victims of clergy child sexual abuse to sue the Catholic church outside statute of limitations, diocesan officials across Pennsylvania announced they will create accounts to pay victims.

One by one, church leaders from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia on Thursday said each would establish its own victims’ compensation fund to be underwritten by resources of that diocese or archdiocese.

The announcements come in the wake of a bitter fight in the Pennsylvania General Assembly over legislation that would create a two-year window for adults who were sexually abused as children and can no longer seek recourse in the courts to file suit against their abusers and those involved in covering up such acts. The law is among four recommendations from a statewide grand jurythat found rampant clergy sexual abuse and cover-ups by church officials in dioceses across Pennsylvania over the last seven decades.

This fall, the state House approved the bill by a wide margin. But it stalled in the state Senate, where President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson County, proposed victims compensation funds as an alternative plan. The alternative, supported by the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference and the insurance industry, would operate outside of the courts.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
NBC 10

November 12, 2018

By Dan Stamm

A 29-year-old man is suing a former priest and the Diocese of Allentown, alleging the priest abused him as a child, according to a Philadelphia law firm that filed the lawsuit.

The alleged victim, who is not named, claims Bruno Tucci, a former priest, sexually assaulted him when he was an altar boy at Mount Carmel Church in Nesquehoning in the late 1990s and early 2000s, according to the lawsuit, a copy of which was provided to NBC10.

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VIENNA
Tribune Chronicle

November 13, 2018

By Bob Coupland

Diocese investigates new allegation of inappropriate behavior with a minor

A priest who serves a parish in Vienna has been placed on administrative leave while an investigation takes place on an allegation of inappropriate behavior with a minor.

The Rev. John Jerek, vicar for clergy with the Catholic Diocese of Youngstown, said in a news release Monday the Diocese received an allegation against the Rev. Denis G. Bouchard, pastor of Queen of the Holy Rosary Parish.

Jerek said the Diocesan Review Board recommended to Youngstown Bishop George V. Murry that further investigation be done to determine its credibility and substantiation. The board includes a psychologist, representatives of the Trumbull and Mahoning County Children Services Board, attorneys, medical doctors, the dean of the college of health and human services at Youngstown State University, a Lutheran pastor, a Catholic priest and a parent.

Jerek said it is diocesan policy to place Bouchard on leave while the investigation takes place. The Rev. Carlos Casavantes has been appointed administrator of Queen of the Holy Rosary Parish.

Queen of the Holy Rosary Parish is staffed by the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, which celebrates the liturgy in the “Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite used before the reforms of the Second Vatican Council,” according to its website. The Vienna location also has a school, St. Joseph the Protector Learning Center.

Jerek said because this is an ongoing investigation, additional comments cannot be made at this time.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
WTOP

November 10, 2018

By Liz Anderson

A D.C. priest who was arrested and charged with sexually abusing a teenage girl in May of 2015 is also being accused of inappropriately touching two other girls during the same month and year, court documents say.

Urbano Vasquez, 46, was arrested on Wednesday on charges of second degree child sexual abuse.

According to court documents, a girl who is now 17 accused Vasquez of inappropriately touching her chest area after she and her family helped sell food and snow cones at a cookout at the Shrine of the Sacred Heart Catholic Church. She was 13 at the time.

The second victim, who was 16 at the time of the alleged abuse, said Vasquez kissed her on the mouth while they were in the rectory dining area. The girl’s mother had left the room to prepare food, but walked back into the dining room as it happened. The mom confronted him, and Vasquez apologized, saying he didn’t know what came over him.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

November 13, 2018

By David Clohessy

Speculation can be fun. But it’s not helpful, at least not in the short run. And few would dispute that the U.S. church can’t afford the luxury of “taking the long view” when it come to the safety of kids right about now.

So let’s stop guessing why Vatican officials nixed the nearly meaningless measures U.S. bishops had planned to discuss this week in Baltimore.

Instead, let’s get practical and ask: What should U.S. bishops do now to protect kids, expose wrongdoers and heal the wounded?

The answer is actually fairly straightforward. Bishops must use their already vast powers to help stop more abuse and cover-up.

Let’s start with two steps that are already being done across many U.S. dioceses sporadically but should be expanded, steps that do not require Vatican approval or new U.S. church policies:

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BALTIMORE (MD)
USCCB

November 12, 2018

Baltimore—Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops addressed the body of bishops at the opening sessions today in Baltimore for the General Assembly taking place in Baltimore.

Cardinal DiNardo’s full address follows:

“Saint Augustine wrote, ‘In order that weakness might become strong, strength became weak.’ My dear brothers, in light of this morning’s news, the nature of my address changes. We remain committed to the specific program of greater episcopal accountability that we will discuss these days. Consultations will take place. Votes will not this week. But we will prepare ourselves to move forward.

Allow me to now address the survivors of abuse directly.

Where I have not been watchful or alert to your needs, wherever I have failed, I am deeply sorry. The command of our Lord and Savior was clear. ‘What I say to you, I say to all: watch!’ In our weakness, we fell asleep. Now, we must humbly beg God’s strength for the vigil ahead.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Register

November 12, 2018

By Jennifer Roback Morse

COMMENTARY: Church leadership won’t solve this current crisis unless it confronts homosexual practice among the clergy and especially the networks of homosexually oriented clergy operating to protect each other.

I hesitate to wade into areas in which I have no direct information. But I feel compelled to point out the illogic of continuing to claim that the current clergy sex abuse and cover-up scandal is unrelated to homosexual activity among Catholic priests.

At this late date, too much circumstantial evidence has emerged to ignore: This crisis would not exist, but for homosexual practice among the clergy and especially the networks of homosexually oriented clergy operating to protect each other.

The most recent denial of the obvious comes to us from longtime Vaticanista and editor of La Stampa, Andrea Tornielli. In an underreported article from Sept. 14, he asks: “Is the root, the origin of the problem of abuse really to be found in the homosexuality of priests?” He replies:

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SHREVEPORT (LA)
The Shreveport Times

November 9, 2018

The top administrator for the Catholic Diocese of Shreveport announced late Friday that the diocese had received no reports of clerical abuse of children since at least 1986.

The Rev. Peter B. Mangum, diocesan administrator, made the announcement in a prepared statement just before 5 p.m.

Mangum said the announcement was based on a review of the files of all priests, living and dead, who served the diocese since its creation in 1986. Before then, the diocese was constituted differently as the Diocese of Alexandria-Shreveport.

Mangum said the review included priests in the diocese and those in religious orders, whether native or foreign born. The review included priests, bishops and deacons, he said.

Mangum was named diocesan administrator in August following the departure of Bishop Michael Duca for the Diocese of Baton Rouge. A new bishop has not been appointed.

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SYRACUSE (NY)
syracuse.com

November 12, 2018

By Julie McMahon

A Syracuse priest has been named by the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo as a clergyman with substantiated allegations of child sex abuse against him.

The Rev. James Smyka, 74, was in residence at Assumption of Blessed Virgin Mary Church on Syracuse’s North Side until recently.

He was listed on the Diocese of Syracuse website as a member of the clergy until today. He was also listed as a chaplain at St. Joseph’s Hospital. A spokesman for St. Joe’s said Smyka had not worked at the hospital since Oct. 8.

The Buffalo diocese identified Smyka one week ago as a priest with “substantiated claims of sexual abuse of a minor.”

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BUFFALO (NY)
WIVB

November 8, 2018

By Marissa Perlman

We shared with you Evelyn Safe’s story in May.

She claimed Buffalo Priest, Father Robert D. Moss sexually abused her more than 25 years ago

She was an adult at the time, and never expected to see his name on that clergy sex abuse list, because the Buffalo Diocese was only revealing cases involving minors.

But all that changed on Monday. “Seeing him smoking outside the Church, he would kiss everybody on the lips.”

Evelyn Safe says something seemed off about Father Robert Moss, or “Father Bob.”

She first met him at age 12 at Queen of Heaven Church in West Seneca. He became friends with her family.

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ALBANY (NY)
CNHI

November 8, 2018

By Joe Mahoney

ALBANY: Measure would compel clergy members to report child abuse.

With New York’s Catholic bishops grappling with a clergy sexual abuse crisis, an influential GOP state senator from Western New York is calling on fellow lawmakers to repeal the statute of limitations for offenses involving the sexual attack of children and offer whisteblower protections to those who report molestations.

“This legislation will ensure that those in positions of authority are held accountable and will give victims the ability to seek prosecution of their abuser,” Sen. Patrick Gallivan, R-Elma, said in a statement.

Gallivan said his bill would extend the statute of limitation under the civil practice law to recover damages for physical and psychological injuries caused by child molesters.

The bill, filed while lawmakers are scheduled to remain on recess until January, would also add clergy members to the list of those who are mandated to report suspected child abuse to law enforcement.

But Gallivan’s legislation is expected to face a hurdle, erected by the outcome of this week’s elections that concluded with Democrats winning enough Senate seats to take control of Albany’s upper chamber in less than eight weeks.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
LifeSiteNews

November 12, 2018

By Lisa Bourne

The Catholic Church’s sex abuse crisis is about the culture of homosexuality in the priesthood, Mgsr. Charles Pope told EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo on the World Over program Thursday night (Nov. 8).

It’s also about the bishops’ failure to impart the Church’s moral teaching, he said, and is not rooted in clericalism.

“We have to be clear, I think, that this is about homosexuality,” Pope stated, adding that that is “a big culture of that in the priesthood.”

“It’s also about not preaching and teaching moral teachings of the Church, not insisting upon them, allowing for dissent to go unchecked,” Pope said. “I think again it comes back to teaching, governing and sanctifying.”

The blogger and priest of the Archdiocese of Washington had broached these three duties conferred upon bishops and priests in his recent National Catholic Register column in which he implored the bishops of the U.S. to restore order in the Church. Arroyo brought Pope on to the program to discuss the content of the column and to discuss the abuse crisis as the U.S. Bishops’ meeting approaches November 12-14.

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DENVER (CO)
Crux

November 13, 2018

By Inés San Martín

Amidst a growing global concern over the Church’s handling of abuse cases and cover-up, Pope Francis has appointed the Vatican’s former top prosecutor on cases of clerical sexual abuse, Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna, back in his former office, though the prelate will continue heading the Church in Malta.

The decision to name Scicluna adjunct secretary, meaning the third most important official, of the Vatican’s Congregation of the Faith (CDF) was announced on Tuesday, and it follows a year in which the prelate was tapped by Francis to lead a thorough investigation of the situation of the Church in Chile.

Among other things, the CDF handles accusations of abuse against clergy, and Scicluna also serves as president of a board of review for abuse cases in the office. He had been a full-time member of the CDF until 2014, when Pope Benedict XVI appointed him to Malta.

At the CDF Scicluna worked under then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, and the two are credited with the sentencing of thousands of abuser priests, including the late Mexican Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legionaries of Christ, in 2006.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
The Associated Press

November 12, 2018

At the Vatican’s insistence, U.S. Catholic bishops abruptly postponed plans Monday to vote on proposed new steps to address the clergy sex abuse crisis roiling the church.

Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said he was told on the eve of the bishop’s national meeting to delay action until after a Vatican-convened global meeting on sex abuse in February.

“We are not ourselves happy about this,” DiNardo told reporters in an unusual public display of frustration at a Vatican pronouncement.

“We are working very hard to move to action — and we’ll do it,” he said. “I think people in the church have a right to be skeptical. I think they also have a right to be hopeful.”

The bishops are meeting through Wednesday in Baltimore and had been expected to consider several steps to combat abuse, including a new code of conduct for themselves and the creation of a special commission, including lay experts, to review complaints against the bishops.

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
WDSU

November 10, 2018

WDSU President and General Manager Joel Vilmenay issues an editorial after the release of the Archdiocese of New Orleans clergy sex abuse list.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Trib Live

November 12, 2018

By Chuck Biedka

Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh announced Monday that another priest accused of sex abuse was placed on administrative leave in September.

Bishop David Zubik said the Rev. Richard M. Lelonis, 73, was placed on leave pending further investigation into two allegations of sexual abuse of minors.

Diocesan officials said they “spoke with two individuals in early September. One alleged abuse by Father Lelonis in the early 1970’s. The second individual alleged that Father Lelonis attempted abuse around 1980,” according to a statement from diocese spokesman the Rev. Ronald Lengwin.

Following that meeting, the diocese immediately reported the allegations to the District Attorney of Allegheny County.

At the same time, Lelonis was removed from his assignment in the diocesan tribunal, where he had served full-time since 1995. According to the statement, Lelonis denied both allegations.

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VATICAN CITY
The Associated Press

November 13, 2018

By Nicole Winfield

Pope Francis is giving a prominent new role to the Vatican’s most trusted sex crimes investigator as he seeks to improve the Holy See’s response to abuse at a time when the church and papacy are facing a credibility crisis.

Francis on Tuesday named Archbishop Charles Scicluna as a deputy, or adjunct secretary, at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican office that processes sex abuse cases globally.

Scicluna had been the congregation’s chief prosecutor for a decade and was credited with pushing through measures making it easier to defrock pedophiles. But Pope Benedict XVI sent him to his native Malta in 2012 as bishop after Scicluna’s tough line ruffled too many feathers in the Vatican.

Scicluna’s new appointment is symbolically significant and will also give him greater say in the day-to-day running of the congregation, even though he technically retains his post in Malta.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

November 12, 2018

By Peter Smith

A much-anticipated gathering of Roman Catholic bishops began with a sudden, anticlimactic announcement that they would not be voting on proposals responding to the crisis of sexual abuse in the church.

Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said Monday morning that the Vatican Congregation for Bishops insisted the bishops wait until after Pope Francis convenes a February Vatican summit of top bishops on the worldwide crisis before adopting any policies. Cardinal DiNardo said he did not know what role Pope Francis had personally in the directive.

“At the insistence of the Holy See, we will not be voting on the two action items in our docket regarding the abuse crisis,” said Cardinal DiNardo, archbishop of Galveston-Houston. One was a set of “standards of accountability for bishops,” the other the establishment of a special commission for handling complaints against bishops.

“The Holy See has asked that we delay voting on these so that our deliberations can inform and be informed by the global meeting,” said Cardinal DiNardo.

Cardinal DiNardo apologized for the late announcement, saying the Vatican conveyed its message only late Sunday.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
The Buffalo News

November 12, 2018

By Jay Tokasz

U.S. bishops meeting here this week were directed by the Vatican not to vote on two measures aimed at disciplining themselves in sexual misconduct cases.

Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston said Monday that he received word from the Vatican telling the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to delay their votes until the measures could be considered by all bishops worldwide at a special council planned for February.

“Consultations will take place; votes will not take place this week,” said DiNardo, president of the USCCB, in his opening address to more than 250 colleague bishops.

DiNardo said at a news conference later that the bishops were disappointed about the Vatican directive. But he called it a bump in the road to reforms, as the bishops seek to address a sex abuse scandal that has rocked the Buffalo Diocese and many others across the country.

“We have not lessened any of our resolve for actions,” he said.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
The Washington Post

November 13, 2018

By Michelle Boorstein

For nearly two decades, to be an advocate for survivors of Catholic clergy sex abuse was often to be a lonely protester, frequently ignored or sometimes even maligned as disrespectful by some Catholics and clergy.

That has changed dramatically since June, when clergy abuse scandals surfaced again in the American church. Enormous energy has been pumped into the movement, with parishes around the country holding crowded listening sessions on the topic, bishops making abuse the focus of their annual fall meeting this week and legislators finding new support for measures to expand statutes of limitation for child sexual abuse.

But the victims’ advocacy movement is also being transformed by bitter ideological divides among Catholics. That chasm is on display at the meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore.

Monday’s two public events were dominated by the older groups — research site BishopAccountability and SNAP — whose leaders focus on oversight and justice and participate less in the controversial debates over the perceived roles of celibacy and homosexuality in the crisis. Tuesday promised the first mainstream prominent appearance of Church Militant, a right-wing advocacy group and news site that routinely blames the scandals on homosexual priests and, since the crisis blew up this summer, has hammered Pope Francis and more liberal bishops, accusing them of being part of an elaborate coverup to shield gay clergy.

“I feel like they’re using victims for a political agenda and I’m concerned about that. They’re using this to kind of get to where they want to be,” SNAP’s regional director, Becky Ianni, said of Church Militant. “And I hate when someone uses victims. Victims aren’t conservative or liberal. We’re victims. And that’s what people need to focus on.”

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ERIE (PA)
GoErie.com

November 13, 2018

By Ed Palattella

Bishop is at national meeting of U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which planned to vote on new measures until the Vatican said to wait.

Erie Catholic Bishop Lawrence Persico said he was ready to act on the clergy abuse crisis when he met with his colleagues at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ national meeting in Baltimore this week.

On Monday, those efforts slowed — the result of action from the Vatican rather than from Persico and his American counterparts.

“I was disappointed when we were told this morning that we are not to vote on several items we had on our agenda,” Persico said in a statement that the Catholic Diocese of Erie released.

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

November 12 2018

Today, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops met to discuss, among other things, their response to the clergy sex abuse crisis. Instead, the Vatican kicked the can down the road.

The measures that Cardinal Daniel DiNardo had put on the agenda for the American bishops to discuss and vote on were, at best, half-measures. Yet they still were steps forward and were especially symbolic in representing that the USCCB was taking seriously the issue of bishop accountability. Given the waves of recent reports of bishops hiding files, protecting serially abusive priests, and releasing incomplete lists, how could they not?

We are disappointed that the Vatican has forced the USCCB to delay their vote. We hope that this means that, at the meeting between the pope and presidents of bishops’ conferences in February, concrete steps will be taken to ensure accountability for bishops who cover-up abuse. It is clear that a real response is needed in order to prevent future abuse, deter more cover-ups, and ensure accountability for bishops who fail to protect children and vulnerable adults. Today’s action by the Vatican makes us wary that such a real response will be taken.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Think Progress

November 12, 2018

By Joshua Eaton

The Vatican has delayed a vote by U.S. Catholic bishops this week that would have held church leaders accountable for clergy sex abuse.

At a meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, on Monday, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told the heads of all 196 U.S. dioceses and archdioceses that Pope Francis wanted them to hold off on a vote until after a meeting of worldwide church leaders in Rome in February.

The bishops had planned to vote Wednesday on a code of conduct for bishops and a lay commission to investigate violations.

“At the insistence of the Holy See, we will not be voting on the two action items,” DiNardo, who is archbishop of Galveston-Houston, in Texas, told his fellow bishops, according to The Washington Post.

Advocates for survivors of clergy sexual abuse, who have long accused the church of being unwilling to hold senior leaders accountable, were quick to criticize the move.

“We’re dealing with the crisis, right here, right now,” Becky Ianni, D.C. regional head of the victims’ group SNAP, told The Washington Post. “Yes, it’s a global problem, and they need to discuss it there [in Rome], but the U.S. needs to come up with something right now.”

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BALTIMORE (MD)
Buffalo News

November 13, 2018

By Jay Tokasz

Buffalo Bishop Richard J. Malone is among several Catholic bishops gathered here this week who are under fire in their home dioceses or former dioceses over how they handled sexual misconduct complaints.

That list even includes Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo, the current president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Archbishop William E. Lori, the head of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, which is hosting the USCCB’s fall assembly.

“The evidence is abundant. Some of the men at this meeting this week, themselves, while speaking about transparency have failed to be transparent, have failed to rescue victims,” said Anne Barrett Doyle, co-founder of BishopAccountability.org, an advocacy group that since 2002 has chronicled cases of clergy sex abuse around the world.

Doyle specifically named Malone, who has resisted calls to resign by prominent Western New York Catholics.

The Buffalo Diocese has been roiling since late February with revelations of alleged sex abuse and cover-up that escalated in August with the leak of internal diocesan documents to a television station and again in October, when “60 Minutes” aired an episode that was highly critical of Malone’s handling of abuse claims.

But Doyle also said Malone has plenty of company among his brother bishops, and it’s one of the reasons bishops are reticent to criticize each other on their records of handling abuse cases.

She mentioned current Syracuse Bishop Robert J. Cunningham, who served as chancellor and vicar general in the Buffalo Diocese prior to being appointed as a bishop in Ogdensburg.

“In Buffalo, he controlled the management of accused clergy for many, many years. He was the point man for former Bishop Henry Mansell, and he did nothing to take those abusers out of ministry, as we now know,” said Doyle.

Cunningham continues to refuse to identify the names of accused Syracuse Diocese priests, she said.

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GET RELIGION

November 12, 2018

By Terry Mattingly

Back in my Denver days in the late 1980s, I started work on a large project that, at first, was viewed with great favor by my editors at The Rocky Mountain News (RIP).

The starting point: The city included several growing Protestant churches, evangelical and Pentecostal, that were attracting many, many Hispanic believers. As you would expect, it didn’t take long to realize that most of them were former Roman Catholics or were the children of former Roman Catholics.

The goal was to report (a) why this was happening and (b) how this affected life inside large, extended families of Hispanics who now worshipped in radically different sanctuaries.

After a week or two of work, we dropped that first goal — because one of the most common answers was raising lots of questions that made editors uncomfortable.

Yes, many people were leaving the Catholic church for predictable reasons, from their point of view. They thought the preaching in evangelical/Pentecostal churches was stronger and “more biblical.” They liked the thriving Sunday schools for their children and youth programs for teens. They liked the contemporary church music, blending folk, pop and Latino themes.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Patheos

November 13, 2018

By Mark Shea

So when the Right Wing Noise Machine (Catholic edition) has been so wrong about so much so many times for so long that only a fool would continue to unquestioningly trust their judgment, it is prudent to consider the possibility that the people who saw and reported accurately on the problem of priestly abuse nearly 30 year ago might, despite the denunciations of the Lie Machine, have something to say worth listening to. The National Catholic Reporter is exactly such a paper and, despite the reflexive booing and hissing from the Francis-hating, Trump adoring Cult of Wrong about Everything, I believe in prudence. Here is their recent, devastating, and spot on editorial to the bishops:

Dear brothers in Christ, shepherds, fellow pilgrims,

We address you as you approach this year’s national meeting in Baltimore because we know there is nowhere left to hide.

It’s over.

All the manipulations and contortions of the past 33 years, all the attempts to deflect and equivocate — all of it has brought the church, but especially you, to this moment.

It’s over.

Even the feds are now on the trail. They’ve ordered that you not destroy any documents. The Department of Justice is conducting a national criminal investigation of how you’ve handled the clergy sex abuse scandal. It is a point in our history without precedent. We want you to know that you aren’t alone in this moment, you’ve not been abandoned. But this time it must be different. This time it won’t be easy.

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CHARLOTTE (NC)
WCNC TV

November 12, 2018

The Diocese of Charlotte is now expected to wait several more months before deciding whether to release the names of priests accused of past sex abuse.

The delay comes as Pope Francis intervened during a meeting of the most powerful Catholics in the country.

The nation’s Catholic bishops started a week-long conference today in Baltimore with plans of voting on two sex abuse response proposals, but at the urging of the pope, the bishops postponed those votes.

Diocese of Charlotte Communications Director David Hains said the impact will be felt here as the diocese considers whether to publish the names of accused priests.

“We’re waiting for input from the bishops as to the best way to go about this,” Hains said. “It’s a little disappointing. We had hoped to get that input this week and get to work making that decision.”

Pope Francis’ requested last-minute delay means the nation’s bishops will hold off on any decisions until he and the world’s bishops hold a special meeting to discuss clergy abuse in February.

“The American bishops will probably meet in March to act on whatever is decided at the February meeting,” Hains said. “We will be using input from the March meeting on our decision on posting the list…So, it looks like it is going to take a bit longer but I have no doubt that the end result will be a policy that complements the steps we have already put in place to protect children.”

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BOSTON (MA)
WBUR Radio

November 12, 2018

The Archdiocese of Boston said in a statement today that Cardinal Sean O’Malley will keep advocating for new steps to hold bishops accountable, and greater transparency when it comes to clerical sex abuse.

That reaction came after the Pope requested today that U.S. Bishops delay any votes on policy changes in the church until a global meeting of church leaders in February. Bishops including O’Malley are meeting this week in Maryland and had planned to consider a series of measures including a new code of conduct for bishops.

The Archdiocese says the delay was “unexpected.”

“Cardinal O’Malley will continue to vigorously advocate for revising the Dallas Charter to hold bishops accountable, greater transparency including the release of names of clergy accused of abuse and increased lay involvement and leadership,” it said in the statement.

But advocates for sexual abuse victims say the delay by the Pope shows a lack of concern on behalf of the Catholic Church, including Boston-based attorney for clergy sex abuse victims Mitchell Garabedian.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

November 12, 2018

By John L. Allen Jr.

Heading into this week’s fall meeting of the Catholic bishops of the United States in Baltimore, the forecast was for dramatic action on the clerical sexual abuse scandals that have rocked the Church for the last six months, during what some dubbed its “summer of shame.”

All that changed on Monday, when the president of the conference, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, announced that late Sunday the bishops were asked to stand down by the Vatican, awaiting a three-day summit in February in Rome convened by Pope Francis for the presidents of all the bishops’ conferences in the world to discuss the abuse crisis.

Some bishops are still pressing for non-binding votes on some of the action items, such as a new code of conduct subjecting themselves to the same “zero tolerance” policy as everyone else, as a way of sending a signal to Rome ahead of that February gathering. For right now, it remains to be seen what may result.

So, what gives? Could the Vatican actually be this tone-deaf, or is there some other explanation for the request for a delay?

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WASHINGTON (DC)
]Washington Post

November 12, 2018

By Editorial Board

IT IS EVIDENT that the Catholic Church is incapable on its own of exorcising the scourge of clergy sex abuse. The scandal raged unchecked for decades and, even after it was exposed in 2002 by the Boston Globe , has been met by the church hierarchy with denial, temporizing, stone walling and half-measures.

Even as the bishops of America’s 196 Catholic dioceses and archdioceses gathered in Baltimore Monday to grapple with the latest major revelations — a Pennsylvania grand jury’s report from August detailing decades of abuse involving more than 1,000 victims and at least 300 priests — they were stopped in their tracks by an abrupt message from the Vatican, which asked them to hold off. That intercession arrived along with a warning from Pope Francis’s ambassador in the United States, Archbishop Christophe Pierre, who seemed to scoff at the proposal, which the bishops had been set to vote on, to establish a lay commission that would assess bishops’ misconduct — “as if we were no longer capable of reforming or trusting ourselves,” as he put it.

That remark crystallized the arrogance that has often characterized the church’s stance even as countless exposés have laid bare the culpability of its leaders. From high and low, the church has broadcast its conviction that its own transgressions are no worse than that of other institutions; that state statutes of limitations that shield dioceses from lawsuits should be preserved; that no foothold may be allowed for mechanisms to discipline bishops who have enabled abuse by transferring pedophile priests from parish to parish.

Voices of moral clarity have been heard from within the church, urging genuine change. “Brother bishops, to exempt ourselves from this high standard of accountability is unacceptable and cannot stand,” Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in a speech to the gathered bishops Monday following that of Mr. Pierre. “Whether we will be regarded as guardians of the abused or the abuser will be determined by our actions.”

Yet, more often than not, those voices have been ignored.

The pontiff has summoned bishops from around the world to the Vatican for a meeting to address the scandal in February; this summit, we are urged to believe, will once and for all set the church on a path toward surmounting the blight of abuse. The fact of that pending event was the proffered pretext for the church’s request that the U.S. bishops put off two items on their agenda this week in Baltimore: establishing the lay commission to review complaints against bishops, and adopting a code of conduct for themselves — the first such codified ethical guidelines.

The agenda was modest, and Rome’s intervention is telling. Again and again, the Vatican pays lip service to the suffering of victims. Again and again, it undercuts its own assertions of contrition.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Tribune Review

November 12, 2018

By Stephen Huba

Catholics who were hoping for a substantive response from the U.S. bishops this week to the clergy sexual abuse crisis will have to wait a little longer.

The bishops, meeting in the 2018 General Assembly in Baltimore, learned Monday the Vatican had asked them to postpone a vote on a series of proposals addressing their part in the crisis. Pope Francis first wants to hold a summit on the scandal in February.

The two measures that were on the agenda were a code of conduct for bishops and the creation of a lay commission to review violations of the code.

Advocacy groups reacted angrily to the Vatican’s delay of the vote.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
The Tablet

November 12, 2018

By Christopher White

Following Monday’s shock announcement that the Vatican has requested the U.S. Catholic Bishops to delay voting on new standards for bishop accountability, survivors of sexual abuse and bishop accountability activists decried the move as a “totally unacceptable.”

Terence McKiernan, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, called the move a “preemptive strike” by the Vatican against U.S. bishops as they seek to respond to the current crisis of sexual abuse and its cover-up “in a modest way.”

Peter Isley, a survivor of clerical sexual abuse who now works with the organization Ending Clergy Abuse, said the decision from the Vatican effectively means, “We care more about our organization and our princely titles and positions” than enacting measures of accountability.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is gathered in Baltimore this week for its General Assembly, in which they were expected to enact new standards of conduct and accountability for bishops engaged in sexual abuse or its cover-up. At the start on Monday’s meeting, however, USCCB president, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, announced that he had received a request on Sunday afternoon to postpone the vote until after a global summit on the crisis at the Vatican in February.

According to DiNardo, the request came from Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops.

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YOUNGSTOWN (OH)
The Vindicator

November 12, 2018

By Justin Dennis

A month before the Catholic Diocese of Youngstown named 34 clergymen associated with the diocese who have been credibly accused of sexually abusing a minor, it received one new allegation that is now under investigation.

The diocese last week also amended that list of accused to include one more name: One of the former friar’s accusers, who traveled with him as an altar boy in the mid-1980s, said the man forced himself on him when he was a pre-teen in St. Aloysius Parish in East Liverpool.

Simultaneously, a former Youngstown diocese priest, John F. Warner of Louisville, said he has worked to clear his name after the diocese’s Oct. 30 release, which exposed another disgraced priest with the exact same name.

The diocese announced Monday it placed the Rev. Denis G. Bouchard, pastor of Queen of the Holy Rosary Parish in Vienna, on administrative leave while it investigates a sex-abuse allegation made against the priest.

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