ABUSE TRACKER

PIEDMONT (SD)
KOTA TV

November 9, 2018

By Stewart Huntington

Some Piedmont parents are questioning why Catholic authorities want to house an accused priest at a church residence across the street from a middle school.

Father John Praveen was arrested on Oct. 22 following a joint Rapid City Police and Pennington County Sheriff’s Office investigation. He is accused of having sexual contact with a 13-year-old girl on two occasions. He is being held in the Pennington County Jail pending trial. His bail has been set at $100,000 cash only.

On Tuesday a lawyer for Praveen asked a judge to release Praveen from jail before trial. Attorney John Murphy said the Diocese of Rapid City would put Praveen under its supervision at Casa Maria, a church property in Piedmont for retired priests. “Father John will be monitored,” Murphy said adding that no children are present at Casa Maria.

KOTA Territory News received calls from concerned parents almost immediately.

Casa Maria sits along Sturgis Road in Piedmont and is directly across the street from the Stagebarn Middle School — and two day care centers.

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STORM LAKE (IA)
Storm Lake Times

November 9, 2018

By Randy Evans

David prevailed over Goliath in the famous tale from long ago using an unconventional weapon, his sling and a few stones.

These days, river rocks aren’t a potent weapon. Now, it might just be the spotlight.

And the spotlight was shining brightly last week in Iowa when an Associated Press reporter cracked open 32 years of cover-up by the Roman Catholic Church’s Sioux City Diocese.

The AP report motivated church leaders in Sioux City to do something they had resisted for decades. They admitted that one of their priests was a sexual deviant, although they did not choose that blunt word. Nor did they use the term “criminal,” although he certainly is that.

Until the disclosures by the AP’s Ryan Foley made headlines across the nation, the diocese had successfully concealed from its 100,000 unsuspecting members, from law enforcement officers and from the unsuspecting public the despicable conduct by one of its priests.

Father Jerome Coyle, now 85, admitted to church leaders in 1986 that he was sexually attracted to and had “victimized” about 50 boys over the span of about 20 years. During that time, Coyle had served in 10 Iowa communities.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post

November 9, 2018

By Julie Zauzmer

After months of outcry from American Catholics this year, demanding that bishops be held accountable for decades of child abuse by priests, the bishops will meet in person for the first time for a dayslong reckoning about how to address the crisis.

In a highly unusual move, the bishops will put aside almost everything else on their agenda for the annual meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops next week in order to focus solely on rectifying their policies on abuse. The leaders of all 196 U.S. archdioceses and dioceses are invited to attend the Baltimore event.

Many bishops and lay leaders hope that they will emerge from the meeting with sweeping new procedures in place, including a lay commission empowered to investigate abuse by bishops, a new code of conduct and a plan for bishops removed from office due to their handling of abuse.

“When we come out of the meeting and are able to communicate what will be different moving forward, it’s my hope that all those who’ve been asking for such concrete steps will recognize: The bishops heard us,” said Bishop Michael Burbidge, who leads Virginia’s Diocese of Arlington. “We hear what you said, and we share those concerns. And we’re doing something about it.”

That’s a lot to get done in one meeting. But before the work begins, they will devote almost an entire day of the three-day session in Baltimore purely to prayer.

“All prayer. No agenda items. It’s just a day of prayer from morning until night. I think that shows the importance, that we recognize that we need some divine assistance here,” Burbidge said.

The bishops have been a primary focus of Catholics’ anger this summer and fall, starting with the release of a major grand jury report in Pennsylvania in August. That report, which probed seven decades of church history and found more than 300 priests had abused more than 1,000 children, drew attention to the conduct of bishops in the state’s Catholic dioceses, who sometimes moved an abusive priest to another parish or let him return to his ministry rather than removing him or reporting him to police.

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NASHVILLE (TN)
Fox 13 TV

November 9, 2018

By Siobhan Riley

Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests or SNAP is putting pressure on the Catholic diocese to tell the truth about former priests from across the state accused of sexually abusing minors.

FOX13 traveled to Nashville where that group suggested the TBI and other outlets investigate.

SNAP leaders met outside the courthouse in downtown Nashville.

Brown who has Memphis ties showed FOX13 a picture when from his childhood which he said brings back painful memories from 1961.

That’s the year he says he was sexually abused by a priest in Nashville.

“In rural area out there, he would pick me up, take me off in his car, which is out highway 100, quite a ways away and that’s where he raped me,” he explained.

Brown along with other leaders of Survivors Network of those abused by Priests told FOX13 the Diocese of Nashville isn’t capable of handling the investigation

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POLAND
Bloomberg

November 9, 2018

By Dorota Bartyzel

A Polish movie about pedophilia among the clergy has triggered a spike in negative attitude toward the church in one of Europe’s most Catholic nations.

Titled “Kler,” the Polish word for “clergy,” the film has broken box-office records in the country of 38 million people, attracting more than a tenth of the population to watch it in theaters. It explores child abuse, romantic liaisons, corruption, greed and alcoholism among clerics and has drawn condemnation from the nationalist ruling party, which has vowed to “re-Christianize” the European Union.

Since the movie’s debut, the number of Poles who disapprove of the church has jumped to 29 percent, from a consistent 20 percent in the past, according to an October survey by the CBOS pollster.

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MOBILE (AL)
AL.com

November 9, 2018

By Christopher Harress

The Archdiocese of Mobile announced Friday that it will publish a list of clergy removed from the ministry due to accusations of child sex abuse dating back to the 1950s.

The dioceses of Birmingham, Biloxi, and Jackson (MS) will also produce lists of clergy accused of similar abuses, according to the press release.

“It is a time-consuming effort to examine each clergy personnel file from the last almost 7 decades,” said the Archbishop of Mobile Thomas J. Rodi. “This effort is underway and will be completed as quickly as possible.”

The announcement comes a week after the Archdiocese of New Orleans released the names of 57 priests and other clergy that faced “credible” accusations of child sex abuse. All of those accused have since died or been removed from the clergy, according to the Archbishop of New Orleans Gregory Aymond.

Of the total, 20 priests named by Aymond were also responsible for investigating the child sex abuse accusations.

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ST. BONAVENTURE (NY)
Olean Times Herald

November 9, 2018

By Tom Dinki

Alleged abuse occurred in 1948

A longtime and now-deceased St. Bonaventure University friar had a child sexual abuse allegation against him stemming out of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

The Rev. Maurice Scheier, who worked at St. Bonaventure for nearly 60 years prior to his death in 1991, was among the 36 additional priests identified Monday by the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo as being credibly accused of child sex abuse.

While Buffalo Diocese did not specify the allegations, a claim against Scheier was detailed in a 2004 Los Angeles Archdiocese report on clergy sex abuse.

The Los Angeles Archdiocese has since removed the names of accused priests from the online version of this report, citing the list as “outdated.” But both Jeff Anderson & Associates, a Minnesota law firm that represents clergy sex abuse victims, and BishopAccountability.org, which tracks clergy sex abuse, report on their websites that the 2004 report previously stated one person accused Scheier of abuse and the alleged abuse occurred in 1948.

A St. Bonaventure official told the Olean Times Herald Thursday the claim against Scheier was not made until 2004 — 13 years after Scheier’s death. The official said the university was still gathering information, but planned to release a full statement today on Scheier’s inclusion in the Los Angeles report.

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GUAM
Kuam News

November 8, 2018

By Krystal Paco

While the Archdiocese of Agana prepares to file bankruptcy, yet another victim of clergy sexual abuse files suit against the Church. Only identified by his initials to protect his identity, former 54-year-old Asan resident M.C.A. alleges he was sexually molested and abused by Monsignor Jose Ada Leon Guerrero and Father Raymond Techaira.

According to the complaint filed in the Superior Court of Guam, M.C.A was an altar boy at the Asan Parish. He was only 8-years-old when he alleges Guerrero raped him and performed sexual acts on him on parish grounds.

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BUFFALO (NY)
WBFO

November 8, 2018

By Michael Mroziak

With a pending change in political leadership in the New York State Senate, hopes are renewed for passage of a proposal which would ease statutes of limitation for adults seeking criminal or civil justice in childhood sexual abuse cases. On Thursday, a Republican State Senator introduced his own version of such legislation, while advocates for victims of alleged abuse by clergy suggest the church may seek to limit liability if such a bill is passed next year.

Senator Patrick Gallivan announced his version of a child victim bill, known as the Child Victims Protection and Accountability Act. It would eliminate any statute of limitation for criminal child sex abuse cases. For adults seeking civil action for offenses against them as a child, the age limit to pursue litigation would be extended to age 50. Current state law gives them up to the age of 23 to sue but critics argue many adults do not fully comprehend or process the trauma of their childhood ordeal until well into their adulthood.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

November 8, 2018

By Haidee V. Eugenio

Only about eight of the nearly 200 clergy sex abuse cases filed on Guam were settled during September’s mediation, and parties in the lawsuits on Thursday asked the courts to give them until mid-January to continue negotiations.

Lawyers for plaintiffs and defendants gave U.S. District Court Chief Judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood and Superior Court Judge Michael Bordallo an update about the ongoing mediation.

The Archdiocese of Agana’s counsel also informed the courts of the church’s planned filing of reorganization bankruptcy by mid-December to mid-January, to help settle the clergy abuse cases by using a combination of non-essential asset sale and insurance money.

The judges said they want another update about the negotiations by 8:30 a.m. on Jan. 18, 2019.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service

November 8, 2018

By Dennis Sadowski

Leaders and fundraisers at Catholic organizations are cautiously monitoring the level of donations and gifts as the end-of-the-year giving season approaches, hoping that the clergy sexual abuse scandal won’t negatively affect their bottom line.

While most of the professionals contacted by Catholic News Service said it is too early yet to see what effect, if any, the abuse crisis may have on giving, some are taking steps to reassure donors that money contributed to vital ministries is not going for settlements to abuse victims or payments to attorneys.

The crisis is just one factor that concerns the leaders. There’s also the 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act. It’s effect on giving remains a question mark. “People remain confused about it,” said Franciscan Sister Georgette Lehmuth, president and CEO of the National Catholic Development Conference.

“The main thing is no one knows. It’s way too early,” Patrick Markey, executive director of the Diocesan Fiscal Management Conference, told CNS.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
The Associated Press

November 8, 2018

Pennsylvania’s Roman Catholic dioceses are starting to announce details about victim compensation funds they’re setting up, nearly three months after a sweeping grand jury report documented decades of child sexual abuse by priests in the state.

The archdiocese of Philadelphia and the dioceses of Harrisburg, Scranton and Allentown on Thursday disclosed some information. The Erie Diocese says it’s setting up a fund, but isn’t ready to disclose details.

The announcements don’t mention a total dollar amount or maximum individual payout.

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GUAM
NPR

November 7, 2018

By Colin Dwyer

The Catholic Church in Guam has announced plans to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy, in an attempt to cope with the scores of sexual abuse claims against clergy in the U.S. territory. Archbishop Michael Byrnes said the Archdiocese of Agana settled on the move as the most expedient way to support the alleged victims.

“Over the last two years, we’ve done our best. We’ve strengthened our policies for a safe environment. We’ve educated over 2,000 people in the practices of safe environment protection of minors. We’ve made a lot of great strides,” Byrnes said at a news conference Wednesday.

“But our biggest issue is the almost 200 victim survivors of sexual abuse.”

Byrnes took over as archbishop on the West Pacific island in 2016, shortly after his predecessor, Anthony Apuron, was suspended under a cloud of suspicion. Apuron has been accused of sexually abusing minors — including his own nephew — and helping to cover up similar abuses by priests and other Catholic authority figures in Guam. The allegations date back decades.

Earlier this year the Vatican convicted Apuron of unspecified charges, removed him from office and forbade him from returning to the territory, according to the Catholic News Agency. Apuron has flatly denied the allegations; the news service notes that Pope Francis is personally considering his appeal.

Meanwhile, back in Guam, the Catholic Church has been buried under a mound of lawsuits connected to the accusations. Keith Talbot, an attorney for the Church, said the decision to file bankruptcy grew out of information gleaned from mediation sessions beginning in September.

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ALLEGHENY (PA)
Trib Live

November 7, 2018

By Madasyn Czebiniak

Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh parishioners are invited to attend four sessions to express their thoughts and concerns in the wake of child sexual abuse accusations against priests.

Bishop David Zubik will host the sessions, the Diocese said.

Survivors of child sexual abuse by clergy and their family members, as well as parishioners, are invited to share their feelings and struggles.

Once all four listening sessions have been held, Zubik will prepare a pastoral response with the help of the facilitators, the release said.

“Over the course of the last weeks I have received many e-mails, text messages and letters from folks,” Zubik said in a statement. “I look forward to these opportunities to hear directly from people about what they expect of the Church so that I can best respond to their needs. Survivors of abuse and their families need not be silent about what they suffer and the faithful need an opportunity to express their feelings, concerns and questions.”

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IRONDALE (AL)
National Catholic Register

November 6, 2018

By Kevin Jones

Father Paul Sullins says links between abuse involve disproportionate number of homosexual clergy, ‘homosexual subculture’ in seminaries.

After years in decline, Catholic clergy sex abuse could be on the rise again, warns a professor-priest’s analysis of relevant data.

The professor’s report sees a rising trend in abuse and argues that the evidence strongly suggests links between sexual abuse of minors and two factors: a disproportionate number of homosexual clergy and the manifestation of a “homosexual subculture” in seminaries.

“The thing we’ve been told about the sex abuse — that it is somehow very rare and declined to almost nothing today — is really not true,” Father D. Paul Sullins, a Catholic priest and retired Catholic University of America sociology professor, told a Nov. 2 news conference.

“I found that clergy sex abuse did drop to almost nothing after 2002, but then it started to creep up,” he continued. “It’s been increasing. And there are signs that the bishops or the dioceses have gotten complacent about that.”

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SPAIN
El Pais

November 5, 2018

By Joaquin Gil

The Salesian religious order has stood by Father López Luna, who is under investigation for abusing a 13-year-old. The following testimony is one of several making up an EL PAÍS series exposing decades of offenses by the clergy

The Salesian religious order still has a priest within its ranks who is under investigation for abusing a 13-year-old child in 2013. As confirmed by EL PAÍS, Father Francisco Javier López Luna maintains an office at the National Center for Youth Pastoral Care on Calle Alcalá, in Madrid.

“López Luna this year took charge of the Salesian community, and he is a member of the Youth Pastoral Care, a body that brings together the various groups within the order,” says one of its members.

The prosecution is seeking more than four years behind bars for López Luna, who is accused of a crime against the sexual integrity of a minor as well as degrading treatment.

During the school year 2012-2013, Manolo – a pseudonym – was studying his second year of high school at the Salesian School in Cádiz. He was then 13 and going three times a week to the principal’s office. The principal at the time was Francisco Javier López Luna. “When he touched me, he would bite his lip; he enjoyed it,” Manolo says, speaking out for the first time after two years in therapy.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
The Washington Post

November 7, 2018

By Clarence Williams and Julie Zauzmer

District of Columbia police arrested a priest from a Washington Catholic Church on Wednesday on charges that he sexually abused a teenager at the parish in 2015, officials said.

Urbano Vazquez, 46, of Washington was charged with second-degree child sexual abuse in connection with an incident at the Shrine of the Sacred Heart in May of that year.

According to a District police report, a 13-year-old girl told police that Vasquez put his hand down her shirt on two occasions on her bare skin. Vazquez was identified as a “pastor of that church that abuse occurred at,” the police report said.

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YORK (PA)
York Daily Record

November 8, 2018

By Candy Woodall

This could be a big help for people who can’t wait for a lengthy court case or cannot emotionally endure that. But it restricts access to information that could help prevent more abuse.

People who were sexually abused by priests as children have a new avenue for justice in settlement funds being set up by Roman Catholic Dioceses in Pennsylvania, but taking the money now means they can never sue the church in court.

The Survivors’ Compensation Program will begin providing financial resources and other assistance to abuse survivors in January, according to Harrisburg diocese spokesman Mike Barley.

It’s unclear how much money will be in the fund or how many people will be helped.

Information for how to apply for funds will be shared by the lawyers overseeing the fund, Kenneth Feinberg and Camille Biros. Feinberg previously administered a victims’ fund for the Archdiocese of New York, the 9/11 Victim Compensation fund and others.

The Archdiocese of New York paid about $40 million to 189 victims of clergy sex abuse victims, according to an Associated Press report in December 2017.

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SAVANNAH (GA)
Diocese of Savannah

November 9, 2018

The Diocese of Savannah is committed to the protection of minors, as well as to compliance with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People. In a spirit of transparency and the hope of continued healing for the survivors of abuse, I have decided to release the list of the priests credibly accused of sexual abuse of a minor. The list below was compiled from the best information available to us at this time and covers the period from 1950 until now.

The list is divided into three parts:

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BUFFALO (NY)
Spectrum Local News

November 8, 2018

By Andy Young

In the midst of the clergy sex abuse scandal that’s rocked the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo, State Senator Patrick Gallivan is proposing a new law to help protect children from those crimes in the future.

“When you see the names that the diocese has released, many of my constituents, me personally, I know a number of these priests and I’m very troubled,” he said.

Gallivan has introduced the Child Victims and Protection and Accountability Act. It would require priests and other church officials report suspicions of abuse against a minor to law enforcement, just as many others are legally obligated to do.

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UNITED STATES
BRIT + CO

November 8, 2018

By Elizabeth King

Dr. Christine Blasey Ford made international waves for her bravery earlier this fall when she testified against Brett Kavanaugh during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Before Trump even selected Kavanaugh as the nominee to fill Antonin Scalia’s seat on the SCOTUS bench, Ford reached out to her political representatives to tell them she was concerned about Kavanaugh’s fitness for the role given her allegation that he had sexually assaulted her when both were in high school. Ford, now a professor of psychology, eventually gave a moving testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee that detailed the allegation and the effect of the memory.

Unfortunately, for carrying out what she described as her civic duty, Dr. Ford has been relentlessly attacked for months without reprieve.

According to a new NPR report, Ford’s lawyers say that she and her family have had to move homes four different times since Ford first came forward publicly with her accusations against Kavanaugh; the relocations, the lawyer says, are due to credible threats on her life. Kavanaugh, meanwhile, has since started his work as a Supreme Court justice.

Kavanaugh supporters attacked Ford’s motivations for testifying during the judge’s confirmation hearings, frequently suggesting that she was a paid liberal operative, or was merely seeking fame and fortune by testifying. Funds were in fact given to Ford, not for book deals or TV appearances as malicious opponents predicted (Ford’s lawyers say she has no interest in profiting from this experience), but for security detail.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
AFP

November 8, 2018

By Glenn Chapman

Google on Thursday outlined changes to its handling of sexual misconduct complaints, hoping to calm outrage that triggered a worldwide walkout of workers last week.

“We recognize that we have not always gotten everything right in the past and we are sincerely sorry for that,” chief executive Sundar Pichai said in a message to employees, a copy of which was shared with AFP.

“It’s clear we need to make some changes.”

Arbitration of harassment claims will be optional instead of obligatory, according to Pichai, a move that could end anonymous settlements that fail to identify those accused of harassment.

“Google has never required confidentiality in the arbitration process and it still may be the best path for a number of reasons (e.g. personal privacy, predictability of process), but, we recognize that the choice should be up to you,” he said in the memo.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
The Associated Press

November 8, 2018

By Michael Liedtke

Google is promising to be more forceful and open about its handling of sexual misconduct cases, a week after thousands of high-paid engineers and others walked out in protest over its male-dominated culture.

Google bowed to one of the protesters’ main demands by dropping mandatory arbitration of all sexual misconduct cases. That will now be optional, so workers can choose to sue in court and present their case in front of a jury. It mirrors a change made by ride-hailing service Uber after complaints from its female employees prompted an internal investigation. The probe concluded that its rank had been poisoned by rampant sexual harassment.

“Google’s leaders and I have heard your feedback and have been moved by the stories you’ve shared,” CEO Sundar Pichai said in an email to Google employees. “We recognize that we have not always gotten everything right in the past and we are sincerely sorry for that. It’s clear we need to make some changes.” Thursday’s email was obtained by The Associated Press.

Last week, the tech giant’s workers left their cubicles in dozens of offices around the world to protest what they consider management’s lax treatment of top executives and other male workers accused of sexual harassment and other misconduct. The protest’s organizers estimated that about 20,000 workers participated.

The reforms are the latest fallout from a broader societal backlash against men’s exploitation of their female subordinates in business, entertainment and politics — a movement that has spawned the “MeToo” hashtag as a sign of unity and a call for change.

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GUAM
KUAM News

November 8, 2018

By Krystal Paco

The Church prepares the faithful for bankruptcy.

Archbishop Michael Byrnes, in a letter to the faithful this week writes “I encourage each and every Catholic to look at this newest chapter in the history of our young archidiocese in that light… the Light of Christ. This is an opportunity to reorganize ourselves, to become a better Church – the best we can be.”

As reported, it was earlier this week the Archdiocese of Agana announced its intent to file Chapter 11 reorganization in light of the nearly 200 clergy sexual abuse lawsuits.

Guam would be one of over two dozen other dioceses and religious orders in the U.S. mainland to do this in the last 15 years.

Though parties attempted to mediate back in September, settlement was not reached.

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SIOUX CITY (IA)
Sioux City Journal

November 8, 2018

By Mason Dockter

A group of Catholic church sexual abuse survivors has called on Cardinal Daniel DiNardo to resign as head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, citing his alleged role in a three-decades-old cover up of a former Sioux City diocese priest who sexually abused more than 50.

The diocese on Tuesday publicly apologized for mishandling the case of the Rev. Jerome Coyle, who was stripped of his parish duties in 1986 after acknowledging to church authorities his sexual attraction to and contact with boys while serving several Northwest Iowa parishes over a 20-year period.

The case was brought to light on Oct. 31 by an Associated Press investigation that revealed the diocese, without explanation, announced that Coyle was taking a six-month medical leave of absence. Church officials transferred him to a treatment center in New Mexico where other accused priests nationwide were once commonly sent. The diocese pointed out that was the protocol at the time.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
ALM Media

November 8, 2018

Google Inc. CEO Sundar Pichai announced Thursday an “action plan” aimed at addressing sexual harassment and inequality at the tech giant, tweaking arbitration policies, training requirements and reporting processes in response to criticism that the company protected top executives and enabled misconduct to persist.

Pichai’s memo to employees comes after thousands of employees at Google staged a walkout last week at the company’s California headquarters and offices around the country. The protest followed a New York Times report that noted instances where the company allegedly suppressed accusations of sexual misconduct among top executives.

Google joins an ever-growing list of companies that have been forced to reckon with accusations of workplace power imbalances between male and female colleagues. In the aftermath of the #MeToo movement, many large companies have updated internal policies and sought to curtail the use of nondisclosure agreements that can silence victims of abuse.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
The Huffington Post

November 8, 2018

By Alanna Vagianos

The White House outright lied about the CNN reporter “placing his hands on a young woman” and barred him from future press conferences.

CNN reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials were revoked by the White House on Wednesday because, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, he put his hands on a female White House intern when she attempted to take away his microphone during a news conference.

“President Trump believes in a free press and expects and welcomes tough questions of him and his administration,” Sanders wrote in a series of tweets after the incident. “We will, however, never tolerate a reporter placing his hands on a young woman just trying to do her job as a White House intern. This conduct is absolutely unacceptable.” (The controversy only heated up when Sanders shared a doctored video of the episode to defend the administration’s decision.)

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway piled onto the false allegation on Thursday in an interview on Fox News.

“Obviously, I don’t think anybody should have, any young woman, particularly, should have swiping away at them, grabbing the microphone back,” she said. “That’s very unfortunate. I have talked to that young woman. She is very brave and just doing her job.”

In reality, footage shows that the exchange between Acosta and the intern was mild and, despite the administration’s insinuation, he was not violent in any way. The intern attempted to take the microphone from him three times as President Donald Trump repeatedly cut the reporter off. During the intern’s final attempt, Acosta’s hand briefly brushed her arm, and he said, “Pardon me, ma’am.”

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UNITED STATES
La Croix International

November 9, 2018

Another priest implicated in cover-up; both men now banned from preaching at state churches

A Catholic priest in Washington D.C. has been arrested for allegedly putting his hands down the shirt of a young female parishioner on multiple occasions in May 2015.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
CNBC

November 8, 2018

By Jillian D’Onfro

– Google has revamped its sexual harassment policies in the wake of employee protests.
– Last Thursday, 20,000 Google employees walked out of their offices around the world in response to a bombshell New York Times report that detailed how the company shielded executives accused of sexual misconduct.
– The company has responded to many of the protest organizers’ demands, though it will not add an employee representative to Alphabet’s board.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai sent a memo to employees Thursday detailing changes to its sexual harassment and misconduct policies in the wake of massive protests last week.

More than 20,000 Google employees walked out of their offices Thursday following a bombshell New York Times report that detailed how the company has shielded executives accused of sexual misconduct, with organizers demanding concrete changes like a new system for reporting abuse and an employee representative on the company’s board.

“This is an area where we need to continually make progress and are committed to doing so,” Pichai wrote in his memo.

Google leadership also held a town-hall style meeting with employees following the publication of Pichai’s memo on Thursday.

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FRANCE
La Croix International

November 9, 2018

By Isabelle de Gaulmyn

The victims are at the core of a declaration which marks without a doubt a new style in the bishops’ approach against pedophilia, says an editor at La Croix

I have not always been tender with the institution of the Church in matters of pedophilia.

My own story, namely my past as a Lyon scout in the troop of Father Bernard Preynat,* led me to become personally, and sometimes painfully, involved in this “combat.”

No-one can ever accuse me of complacency with the bishops on this issue.

However, being a journalist is also recognizing things that are done, highlighting the positive.

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FRANCE
La Croix International

November 9, 2018

By Anne-Bénédicte Hoffner

On the day before the closing of their plenary assembly, bishops decide ‘by a massive majority’ to establish independent commission

A “profound moment of encounter, in humility and listening.” This is how the president of the French Bishops’ Conference Archbishop Georges Pontier of Marseille described the meeting with victims of sexual abuse.

By meeting victims for the first time at their plenary assembly in Lourdes, the bishops acknowledged “the long-lasting and profound damage” caused by the acts of abuse themselves and also by “the inadequate taking into account of these acts by ecclesial authorities, and the feeling of not being heard at all.”

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LOUISVILLE (KY)
Courier-Journal

November 7, 2018

By Caitlin McGlade

Two senior Catholic officials who remained silent decades ago when priests were accused of sexually abusing Louisville children have been kept in power — and even promoted — on Archbishop Joseph Kurtz’s watch.

That’s not what many Louisville Catholics expected when Kurtz arrived in 2007 to take over the archdiocese, which was rocked by a major child sex abuse scandal a few years earlier.

Previous church leaders in Kentucky’s largest Catholic community had allowed abusive priests to remain in ministry while silencing their victims, a practice laid bare when hundreds sued the church, winning a $25.7 million settlement in 2003.

Kurtz came in as a warm and inviting man with a remarkable ability to remember everyone’s name. It was hoped he would help heal wounds in the archdiocese. Abuse survivor Cal Pfeiffer recalls thinking the new archbishop was either incredibly nice or just a great politician.

A decade later, some abuse survivors say they know which it is.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
The Guardian

November 8, 2018

By Sam Levin

Company faced historic staff backlash following revelation it paid out $90m to an executive accused of sexual misconduct

The CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai, said the company would overhaul its sexual harassment policies, meeting some of the demands of employees who organized historic walkouts across the globe.

In an email to staff on Thursday, Pichai said Google would end forced arbitration for sexual misconduct claims, revamp its investigations process, share data on harassment claims and outcomes, and provide new support systems for people who come forward. The announcement is a notable achievement for employees who organized roughly 20,000 workers to walk out of the corporation’s offices across 50 cities last week.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
The New York Times

November 8, 2018

By Kate Conger and Daisuke Wakabayashi

Google said on Thursday that it would end its practice of forced arbitration for claims of sexual harassment or assault after more than 20,000 employees staged a walkout last week to protest how the internet company handles cases of sexual misconduct.

Workers at Google had called for an end to arbitration, among other changes, as part of the walkout. The protest was prompted by a New York Times article last month that revealed the company had given a senior executive, Andy Rubin, a $90 million exit package even after it found he had been credibly accused of sexual harassment.

[Read about how Google protected Mr. Rubin, the “father of Android,” after he was accused of harassment.]

The shift was announced at a delicate time for Google. Apart from the scrutiny over its workplace culture, employees have pushed back this year over issues like an artificial intelligence contract with the Pentagon and the company’s exploration of a plan to relaunch its search platform in China. The employee protests over harassment, which followed the #MeToo movement, have been Google’s largest and most public.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Philadelphia Inquirer

November 8, 2018

By Angela Couloumbis and Jeremy Roebuck

Amid a renewed furor over the Catholic church’s handling of clergy sex abuse, several of Pennsylvania’s Catholic dioceses, including Pittsburgh, announced plans Thursday to launch programs to financially compensate victims whose claims are too old to be taken to court.

Church officials in Philadelphia, Allentown, Harrisburg, Greensburg and Scranton unveiled similar funds Thursday. A spokesperson for the Diocese of Erie said Bishop Lawrence Persico planned to open a compensation program there, too, though the details were not yet ready for public disclosure. (The Altoona-Johnstown diocese did not announce any plans for such a fund and instead issued a news release touting money they had already spent on things like therapy for sex abuse victims over the last two decades.)

Though many details on the so-called “reconciliation and reparation funds” remained hazy — including just how much money is up for grabs statewide and where it would come from — victims and their advocates warily welcomed the idea.

Some whose claims have been long been barred from courtrooms by civil statutes of limitations found hope in the prospect of finally receiving compensation for abuse they endured decades ago.

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ALBUQUERQUE (NM)
Albuquerque Journal

November 8, 2018

By Colleen Heild

Five new childhood sexual abuse lawsuits have been filed against the Archdiocese of Santa Fe – two involving alleged Catholic priest assaults on girls, and one alleged victim coming forward more than 60 years after the abuse occurred.

Defendants include parishes in Albuquerque and in the northern New Mexico communities of Ranchos de Taos and Abiquiú and the Servants of the Paraclete, which ran a treatment center for pedophile priests in Jemez Springs.

The lawsuits, filed by the Albuquerque law firm of Brad Hall this week in state District Court in Albuquerque, contend the archdiocese caused childhood sexual abuse by priests and failed to prevent the misconduct, causing decades of harm to victims who suppressed what occurred to them as children.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Archdiocese of Washington

November 7, 2018

The Archdiocese of Washington is steadfastly committed to the protection of youth and the healing of those harmed by abuse and adheres to a zero-tolerance policy for credible claims of abuse made against archdiocesan clergy, religious orders operating in the archdiocese, staff and volunteers.

On Friday, October 26, the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin (OFM Cap.), which for many years has overseen the pastoral ministry and governance of Shrine of the Sacred Heart parish in Washington, informed the archdiocese that it had received an allegation of sexual abuse against Father Urbano Vazquez, OFM, Cap. The allegation was also reported to the D.C. Metropolitan Police. Father Vazquez has served as parochial vicar at Sacred Heart since 2014.

This was the first report to the Archdiocese of this allegation of sexual abuse and immediately upon learning of this serious allegation, the Archdiocese immediately removed Father Vazquez from ministry and suspended his priestly faculties. Since the initial claim to police, additional allegations against Father Vazquez were reported.

The Archdiocese of Washington takes seriously its responsibility to protect the children entrusted to its care. The Child Protection Policy of the Archdiocese of Washington mandates criminal background checks, applications and education for all employees and volunteers who work with young people. In this case, Father Vazquez cleared the background check and accompanying requirements.

In reviewing this troubling matter, the Archdiocese subsequently determined that Father Moises Villalta, OFM Cap., pastor of Sacred Heart, failed to follow appropriate protocols related to reporting allegations of abuse to civil authorities and the Archdiocese of Washington. Father Villalta has been removed as pastor. For similar reasons, the parish’s child protection coordinator has been placed on administrative leave.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Penn Live

November 8, 2018

By Ivey DeJesus

Earlier this year, when Attorney General Josh Shapiro released the findings of a grand jury investigation into clergy sex abuse in Pennsylvania, he underscored one key recommendation issued by investigators.

Victims who had long ago been sexually abused by priests should be given a retroactive reprieve during which they could file lawsuits against predators, the grand jury said.

That recommendation seems destined for the dustbin for now. Pennsylvania lawmakers haven’t been able to agree on changes to state law that would allow victims to go to court.

And the decision by virtually every diocese investigated by the grand jury to establish victims compensation funds is drawing the ire of the state’s top law enforcement official and clergy sex abuse victims.

“It’s now clear that the Dioceses acknowledge the Grand Jury accurately unearthed horrific and extensive abuse and cover up and, as a result, victims deserve compensation no matter when their abuse happened,” Shapiro said Thursday. “However, the Grand Jury recommended that victims deserve their day in court – not that the church should be the arbiter of its own punishment.”

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LAS CRUCES (NM)
Albuquerque Journal

November 9, 2018

By Angela Kocherga

The Catholic Diocese of Las Cruces released the names of 28 priests who have been “credibly accused” of sexually abusing minors.

“These stories are shocking and demand that we find ways to work together and address the issues honestly and openly,” said Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas, the Apostolic administrator. Kicanas is serving in that role until a new bishop is named to replace Bishop Oscar Cantu, who left Las Cruces for the Diocese of San Jose.

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

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DES MOINES (IA)
Des Moines Register

November 9, 2018

By Daniel P. Finney

It’s been revealed that hundreds of priests in Pennsylvania were part of child sex abuse cover up.
Iowans may never know the extent of child sexual abuse by priests and subsequent cover-ups by dioceses in the state at the level of detail now known about Pennsylvania.

Even after the revelation from Iowa Associated Press reporter Ryan Foley about abuse by the Rev. Jerome Coyle, who admitted in 1986 to abusing at least 50 boys over 20 years, a massive statewide investigation such as the one in Pennsylvania is unlikely in Iowa, because of the way the state’s laws are written.

The power to conduct investigations is generally left to local jurisdictions rather than the state. Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller’s deputies can assist or lead an investigation at the request of a local county attorney, but can rarely launch a formal investigation, said Lynn Hicks, spokesman for Miller.

“Pennsylvania used a statewide grand jury statute, which is a power Iowa law doesn’t specifically give the state attorney general,” Hicks said.

OK, fine. Let the local jurisdictions take it up. There are three dioceses in Iowa — Davenport, Des Moines and Sioux City — and the archdiocese in Dubuque.

Why don’t the county attorneys in Scott, Polk, Woodbury and Dubuque talk up the investigation?

“We operate on complaints,” said Ralph Potter, Dubuque county attorney. “If we had a report of abuse by clergy in our district, that would justify us looking into it, but we can’t just start an investigation without having cause.”

Iowa law enforcement is also hampered by the state’s statute of limitations for sex crimes. Currently, state law allows for prosecution of sex abuse crimes committed against minors to be brought up to 10 years after the minor turns 18.

Coyle reported his abuse to the now-retired Bishop Lawrence Soens, who later was found to have abused students when he was a priest and parochial school principal.

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BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

November 8, 2018

By News Editorial Board

Bishop Richard J. Malone embarked on a media tour recently, doing interviews with print and broadcast media and last Monday holding a news conference in Cheektowaga to discuss the clergy sex abuse scandal.

Malone vowed to do a better job of being open about the diocese’s handling of the issue, saying that transparency begins with him. The prelate’s steps toward openness are welcome, but aren’t likely to relieve the pressure on him to step down or to change the way the diocese conducts business. Both of those outcomes need to happen.

Malone told the news conference the diocese has been overwhelmed by “a tsunami” of new claims of child sex abuse. The diocese added 36 priests’ names to a list of clergymen credibly accused of abuse, bringing the total to 78.

Apart from Malone’s displays of resolve and contrition, there has also been a misbegotten media counteroffensive from the diocese and its communications team, including a press release questioning the credibility of Siobhan O’Connor, the former assistant who leaked confidential diocesan documents about clergy abuse to a TV station and discussed her actions on the CBS news magazine “60 Minutes.” The diocese press release attempted to smear her for what it said were “embarrassingly contradictory” comments by O’Connor but which, in fact, were a reflection of a believer torn by genuine affection for Malone and revulsion at his actions.

That’s the kind of messaging we expect from political candidates. The fact that it came from a chancery shows how the unfolding scandal has rattled the diocese.

The 72-year-old bishop is in a tough spot, being in some cases forced to answer for crimes of abuse committed decades before he arrived in Buffalo. However, some of his statements about the diocese’s handling of priests accused of abuse still don’t ring true.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

November 9, 2018

by NCR Editorial Staff

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.

From fable to sacred text, we know how this goes. The point is reached where all realize the king wears no clothes, the righteous accusers read the writing in the sand and fade away, the religious authorities receive the Master’s most stinging rebukes. As a class of religious rulers, the loudest among you have become quite good at applying the law and claiming divine authority in marginalizing those who transgress the statutes. The prolonged abuse scandal would suggest, however, that you’ve not done very well taking stock of yourselves.

We have no special insight into why this moment — the Pennsylvania grand jury report, the downfall of Theodore McCarrick — has so captured the public imagination and pushed the church to this outer limit of exposure and vulnerability. There are theories, not least of which is that the opportunists among us are attempting to use this moment to bring down the only pope who has actually dethroned bishops and a cardinal for their crimes and indiscretions.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
Baltimore Sun

November 9, 2018

By William E. Lori

As is customary this time of year, Baltimore is again hosting the nation’s Catholic bishops, who are convening here in America’s first Roman Catholic diocese for extensive discussions about the relevance and impact of Catholic faith in American society. This year in particular, because of the severe crisis confronting the church, the agenda, deliberations and outcomes of our meeting are rightly under intense scrutiny.

The widely reported instances of child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy, the sexual harassment of adults and subsequent cover-up by far too many bishops are nothing short of horrific. These were crimes committed by men who presented themselves as God’s representatives. Instead, they betrayed the trust of the innocent and their calling. The systematic concealment by church authorities and attempts to silence victims in the effort to spare the church liability and scandal was not only misguided but fundamentally and morally wrong. The cumulative fallout has led to a profound crisis of faith and identity among Catholics around the world.

The path to restoring trust and the credibility of church leaders is still uncertain but will unquestionably be long and difficult. The extensive listening sessions that I conducted with parishioners across the archdiocese made this abundantly clear. Essential to the process of healing is complete transparency, while also making clear the steps that have and will be taken to prevent such things from happening again.

Since 2002, when the issue of child sex abuse by Catholic clergy initially came to the forefront, the Archdiocese of Baltimore became one of the first dioceses in the world to publicly disclose the names of all credibly accused priests, dating back to the 1940s. In the 16 years since, the archdiocese has publicly disclosed the names of credibly accused priests whenever new allegations have become known. Moreover, it is the policy of the Archdiocese of Baltimore that any allegation of abuse be promptly reported to civil authorities, including Maryland’s attorney general. Recently, it was announced that the Office of the Attorney General for the state of Maryland is conducting an investigation into the past and current practices of the archdiocese in dealing with instances of abuse. We have committed our full cooperation to this review.

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EMMITSBURG (IA)
Emmitsburg News

November 9, 2018

We are well aware of and understand the public, our parishioners’ and victims’ dismay at the information released in the Associated Press (AP) article dated October 31, 2018 regarding Jerry Coyle. We know that the AP reporter is now investigating all of our past and present actions at the Diocese of Sioux City, in order to create his next story. We are researching old records with the Review Board, an advisory board made up of lay people in the Diocese, including licensed therapists, a judge, nurses, police officers, and a psychiatrist, who advise the Bishop in his assessment of allegations of sexual abuse of minors and in his determination of suitability for ministry; offer advice on all aspects of these cases; and make recommendations they deem appropriate to reduce the risk to children.

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GUAM
Guam Daily Post

November 9, 2018

By Mindy Aguon

A former Catholic school teacher has been accused of sexually abusing a student in late 2012 to 2013, according to a civil lawsuit filed against the Archdiocese of Agana and the Sisters of Mercy on Friday in the Superior Court of Guam.

Attorney David Lujan represents E.F.G., who alleges she was sexually molested and abused by a female teacher at Saint Anthony Catholic School in Tamuning. The teacher is identified only through her initials, H.J., in court documents.

Students at the school were taught to honor and respect not only the priests and nuns, but all the teachers and staff at the school, and students were told they had to do whatever they were instructed to do, the complaint states.

The plaintiff was 13 when the alleged abuse began, and it continued until she was 14. E.F.G was repeatedly sexually molested and penetrated by H.J. during the student’s eighth-grade year, according to the complaint.

E.F.G. and her family looked up to H.J. as a trusted mentor and friend, based principally on the woman’s elevated status in the community and school, court documents state. When the alleged abuse began, H.J. had been teaching at Saint Anthony for several years.

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ROME (ITALY)
Crux

November 8, 2018

By Claire Giangravè

After months of discussions and reflections, the French Bishops’ Conference decided to create an independent and external commission to address sexual abuse within the Church, its cover-up and the conference’s handling of the issue since the 2000s.

“The bishops of France decided to set up an independent commission to throw light on the sexual abuse of minors in the Catholic Church since 1950 to understand the reasons that favored the way in which these cases were handled and to make recommendations,” said Archbishop Georges Pontier of Marseille, President of the Conference of Bishops of France (CEF) on Nov. 7.

Pontier’s statement came at the conclusion of the bishop’s plenary assembly in Lourdes, which approved on Nov. 7 the creation of the commission and admitted to awarding a financial gesture to the victims. During the summit, the French bishops met with clerical sex abuse victims.

“This meeting between the victims and the bishops has confirmed for us all, victims and bishops, the need to work together better in this fight,” Pontier said.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Crux

November 9, 2018

By Christopher White

Addressing the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) at the closely watched meeting in June 2002, as the first wave of clergy sexual abuse crisis in the U.S. reached its zenith, then-president Bishop Wilton Gregory promoted new measures of reform and accountability “in a way that ensures it will not happen again.”

Now, beginning on Monday, the U.S. bishops once again will meet to confront the painful reality that while its policies and procedures may have broken new ground, its Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People has failed to hold bishops accountable for abuse and its cover-up.

Following this summer’s wave of sexual abuse revelations – from a Pennsylvania grand jury report that chronicled seven decades of abuse of more than 1,000 victims at the hands of 300 predator priests, which has sparked over a dozen other states to launch similar reviews, to the downfall of former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick who sexually abused seminarians for decades – many Church leaders have conceded that the current crisis is the greatest test the American Catholic Church has faced in its history.

As leaders from the country’s 195 Catholic dioceses meet in Baltimore next week, there are high-stakes expectations that the U.S. bishops will enact new measures to hold bishops accountable and take new steps to restore the trust of the nation’s nearly 75 million Catholics.

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JEFFERSON CITY (MO)
KOMU TV

November 8, 2018

By: Savannah Rudicel & Monica Harkins & Greta Serrin

The Diocese of Jefferson City released a full list of all religious members credibly accused of sexual misconduct or abuse of a minor.

There are 33 names on the list. Only one religious brother has been criminally convicted.

Bishop W. Shawn McKnight said the diocese is committed to transparency and reducing harm.

“I am ashamed and appalled at how some of my brother bishops and priests have harmed so many,” he said.

The list was derived based on procedures set by the U.S. Bishops’ Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.

The latest case of physical sexual abuse was in 1997, according to McKnight. There have been two more cases since then. One being the inappropriate use of social media and the other, internet pornography depicting minors.

“Their actions, and the incomplete transparency we have lived under by not making all their names public, has affected the relationship of every priest, every bishop with the faithful,” McKnight said.

This is, “an update to the public on work to bring greater transparency and healing for the Diocese of Jefferson City,” according to a news release.

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ROME (ITALY)
Crux

By Inés San Martín

November 9, 2018

To say the least, Father John Jenkins, President of the University of Notre Dame, doesn’t seem in denial about the gravity of the clerical sexual abuse scandals that have rocked the Church in recent months.

After the Pennsylvania grand jury report was released in August, Jenkins said the revelations “are particularly searing to me and the other priests with me today, whose commitment can seem so tarnished, so soaked in filth, by those who so badly abused it.” He pledged the university “will do all we can to create a safe, nurturing environment everywhere.”

Yet befitting an Oxford-educated philosopher, Jenkins also sees complexity in the abuse crisis, including something few people want to say out loud right now: “There’s a tendency, and I don’t think it’s a helpful tendency in this kind of situation, to turn the perpetrators into monsters.”

Jenkins was speaking specifically about ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was forced to resign from the College of Cardinals in June following credible accusations of abuse.

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ROME (ITALY)
Crux

November 9, 2018

By Claire Giangravè

Adding another layer of intrigue to the already complicated civil trial involving a Catholic lay group in Sicily, whose lay leader stands accused of sexually abusing at least ten underage girls, two of the witnesses have retracted their original statements and now say they were never raped or molested.

During a pretrial hearing, one of the witnesses said requests by the lay leader of the group to undress before him “didn’t mean anything physical,” adding that in her previous statements – when she claimed to have been sexually abused – she lied because she was frightened and her words were misunderstood.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
WBHM Radio

November 8, 2018

By Aaron Schrank

The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels is the seat of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Abuse victims in California want authorities to open a a state-wide investigation into abuse and cover-up.

Catholic Church leaders in Los Angeles for years shuffled predator priests into non-English-speaking immigrant communities. That pattern was revealed in personnel documents released in a decades-old legal settlement between victims of child sex abuse by Catholic priests and the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

Now clergy sex abuse victims throughout California are calling on the state’s attorney general to investigate clergy abuse and force church officials to release more information about their role covering it up. The goal is to discover how wide-spread the practice of hiding abusers in immigrant communities really was.

Manuel Barragan was one of those victims.

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KIRKSVILLE (MO)
Kirksville Daily Express

November 9, 2018

By Jessica Karins

Two priests who served in Kirksville are among those “credibly accused” of sexual abuse of children in a list released Thursday by the Diocese of Jefferson City.

John Whiteley was accused of sexually abusing David Clohessy, now the national leader of the Survivor’s Network of those Abuse by Priests, in the 1960s and 1970s. Whiteley later worked at Mary Immaculate Church in Kirksville. Clohessy sued the diocese in 1991, but the suit was dismissed due to the statute of limitations.

One of the other accused priests is David Clohessy’s brother, Kevin Clohessy. In 1989, Kevin Clohessy became the director of the student Catholic center, Newman Center, at what is now Truman State University. Kevin Clohessy has been accused of abusing both an 18-year-old student in Kirksville and a younger boy in Jefferson City, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Clohessy was director here until 1993.

Both Whiteley and Clohessy have retired from the active priesthood; both are listed on the diocese’s list as having been “removed from ministry,” meaning they do not participate in the duties of a priest but have not been formally defrocked.

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[Church: Public Ministry investigates 105 priests and 8 bishops]

CHILE
La Tercera

November 7, 2018

By H. Basoalto and L. Zapata

Nuevo catastro de la fiscalía, tras dos meses de indagatorias, dice que las víctimas aumentaron de 178 a 222.

Aunque en las últimas semanas las cosas han estado tranquilas en la Iglesia Católica chilena, a cinco días de una nueva asamblea plenaria de la Conferencia Episcopal, hoy se volvieron a agitar las aguas.

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PHILADELPHA (PA)
NBC 10 TV

November 8, 2018

By Dan Stamm

Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput announced a reparations fund for those sexually assaulted by Catholic clergy in Philadelphia.

The archdiocese is planning to sell off properties to fund the compensation. The total amount dedicated to payments wasn’t made public.

“Money can’t buy back a wounded person’s wholeness. But what compensation can do is acknowledge the evil done,” Chaput said.

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia said Thursday that it would pay financial reparations to victims of clergy sex abuse, even from years ago.

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.”

The archdiocese also announced the creation of an independent commission to review church policies, led by former U.S. Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell.

Archbishop Charles Chaput made the announcement in his weekly column Thursday. The dioceses of Harrisburg, Scranton and Allentown also announced similar programs Thursday; the Erie Diocese said it would set up a fund, but it didn’t disclose any details.

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DAYTON (OH)
Dayton Daily News

November 8, 2018

By Josh Sweigart

A former Chaminade Julienne Catholic High School math teacher surrendered her teaching license last year after she was accused of having an improper sexual relationship with a CJ student in the 1980s, a Dayton Daily News investigation found.

Ann E. Meyers had her license suspended as part of a settlement agreement with the Ohio Department of Education in July 2017. Under the settlement, Meyers agreed never to apply for another license from ODE.

The suspension came 10 months after the former student reported her allegations to Dayton police.

Meyers, a famed University of Dayton basketball star, did not return messages seeking comment left on her phone and at her home.

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GREENSBORO (NC)
The Carolinian

November 8, 2018

Luciano Gonzalez

The Catholic Church in the United States is facing an unprecedented scandal in the months since the Pennsylvania grand jury announced the names of hundreds of priests who have abused thousands of children. Currently, at least 15 states and the District of Columbia have publicly launched or are publicly declaring that they’re preparing to launch investigations to determine the full scale of the abuse Catholic clergy subjected victims to.

Organizations such as the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) have reported that these investigations, both the types of investigations and the scales of the investigations, are unprecedented. Each of the investigations will differ because of varying local laws that have to be taken into account, as well as the fact that each state’s Attorney General has different levels of power and access to different resources.

One of the consequences of the original Pennsylvania report that is responsible for this national conversation about abuse in the Catholic Church is that reports of sexual abuse are up all over the country. In the days following the release of the original report, more than 400 phone calls were made to the Pennsylvania hotline dedicated to reporting Catholic priest abuse of children. Other groups have acted to reveal the scope of the abuse scandal, such as a law firm that released a report naming more than 200 priests in California who were accused of sexual misconduct.

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
The Times-Picayune

November 8, 2018

By Julia O’Donoghue

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry is turning complaints he receives about Catholic clergy sexual misconduct over to local sheriffs, documents received through a public records request show, even as attorneys general in 13 states and the District of Columbia are actively pursuing investigations.

Landry says he doesn’t have the authority or resources to investigate the matter himself.

“If you are a victim or a legally mandated reporter, we urge you to contact your local law enforcement agency. If our office may assist anyone in connecting them to the proper agency, please call the Louisiana Bureau of Investigation at 800-256-4506,” Ruth Wisher, the attorney general’s spokeswoman, wrote in a statement Friday (Nov. 2) accompanying the release of the public records.

From Aug. 28 to Sept. 25, six individuals reached out to Landry about alleged Catholic clergy sexual abuse of minors or its coverup. Four were bringing specific cases of abuse to his office’s attention, asking for assistance or an investigation. Two others, identifying as victims, asked Landry to looking into clergy sexual abuse more broadly and volunteered to testify in court proceedings, according to the records.

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LOUISVILLE (KY)
WLKY TV

November 8, 2018

By Kevin Trager

The Archbishop of Louisville is promising transparency as local Catholics call for the archdiocese to release names of clergy who have faced credible accusations of child sex abuse.

Earlier this week, the archdioceses of Atlanta and Buffalo released the names of more than 50 clergy who have faced credible accusations of child sex abuse. Church officials released the names to promote transparency in the wake of a recent Pennsylvania attorney general investigation detailing decades of child sex abuse by priests in that state.

On Thursday, a local group of supporters of clergy sex abuse victims held a prayer event in front of the Cathedral of the Assumption. “The problem is so enormous prayer is probably the best thing we can do,” said Cal Pfeiffer, who joined the support group following the Boston Globe report of widespread clergy sex abuse in 2002. “It was only three months later it broke here in Louisville and if it wasn’t for the people in Boston it would still probably be covered up here.”

Archbishop of Louisville Joseph Kurtz released the following statement to WLKY:

“Catholics are angry, confused, and in pain, and I hurt with them. My heart especially goes out to victim survivors. I have received letters from those who have been abused many years ago by a priest or representative of the church. Their wounds are deep, and recent events have opened these wounds once again.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Noaker Law Firm, LLC

October 30, 2018

Courageous survivor BLASTS Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s exclusion of victims of abuse by religious order priests and brothers from compensation or assistance from the Archdiocese of New York. Contains excerpts 10-30-2018 of press conference by survivor Lexington Filipowski and Attorney Patrick Noaker.

Noaker Law Firm represents survivors of sexual abuse in civil cases across the U.S. If you need help, call (612) 349-2735 or go to Noakerlaw.com

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ERIE (PA)
Erie Times

November 8, 2018

By Ed Palattella

Catholic Diocese of Erie says “it is finalizing the parameters of its fund” and that the recently disclosed federal probe has created an “added financial burden.”

The Catholic Diocese of Erie has announced that it remains committed to setting up a compensation fund for victims of child sexual abuse, but said details of the plan will be forthcoming.

It also said it is dealing with the creation of the fund at the same time it is working through the “added financial burden” associated with the recently disclosed federal probe of the state’s eight Roman Catholic dioceses.

The diocese issued its announcement on the fund on Thursday, as other dioceses throughout the state released details about how their compensation funds will operate.

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FRANCE
CNN

November 8, 2018

By Euan McKirdy

French bishops have announced plans to establish an “independent” commission to look into the sexual abuse of minors within the Catholic Church dating back as far as 1950.

The appointed panel would “seek to understand the reasons which led to the way these cases were handled” by the Church, the Conference of French Bishops said in a statement on Wednesday.

The conference pledged to publish a report outlining the commission’s findings within two years. Details, including the name of the person spearheading the investigation, will be announced in the coming days, it added.

The statement came as French bishops held their plenary assembly in the holy French city of Lourdes, where they received a support from Pope Francis, according to Vatican News.

In the message, signed by the Cardinal Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin, the Pope encouraged the bishops to “continue to implement a ‘zero tolerance’ stance against sexual abuse committed by members of the Church.”

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YOUNGSTOWN (OH)
Jambar

November 7, 2018

By Alyssa Weston and John Stran

Bishop George Murry of the Youngstown Catholic Diocese released the names of 31 Youngstown priests; two religious clergy members and one non-clergy member from a religious order who were removed from the clergy over credible sexual misconduct allegations on Oct. 30.

According to Murry, these priests were put on the credible accusations list after a thorough investigation and review of available information, from the diocesan review board, proved the sexual abuse claims to be more true than not.

Murry said the review board includes a psychologist, the chair of the Mahoning County Board of Children Services, two attorneys, a medical doctor, the Dean of Youngstown State University’s Health and Human Services Department, a Trumbull County children services member and director, two pastors and a parent.

“We take a look at the allegations and work with a private investigation firm made up of former FBI agents,” Murry said. “We investigate every claim that comes to us and [the FBI agents] make a recommendation to us about whether or not the allegation is credible.”

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WASHINGTON (DC)
WTOP

November 7, 2018

By Abigail Constantino

D.C. police have arrested a Catholic priest on charges of child sexual abuse.

Urbano Vazquez, 46, of Northeast D.C., was arrested Wednesday following allegations of sexual abuse. Vazquez has been the parochial vicar at the Shrine of the Sacred Heart Parish in Columbia Heights since 2014.

Police said in a news release that Vazquez had sexual contact with a child without permission in May 2015.

The victim was 13 years old at the time of the alleged abuse, and the suspect was 42 years old. She said in a statement to police that Vazquez placed his hand down the front of her shirt and onto her bare breast on two occasions.

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COLUMBUS (OH)
The Huffington Post

November 7, 2018

By Andy Campbell

Jordan is accused of ignoring sexual abuse allegations against the OSU team doctor.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), an ultraconservative whose re-election campaign was dogged by accusations that he ignored sexual abuse while he was an assistant coach at Ohio State University, on Wednesday announced his bid for House minority leader.

Hours after his midterm election victory for a seventh term representing Ohio’s 4th Congressional District ― and after Democrats won control of the House ― Jordan told The Hill that he’ll challenge Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for the leadership spot.

“I plan to run for minority leader,” said Jordan. “In 2016, the American people elected Republicans to come here and change this town. I think the president is doing just that, but I don’t think they see the same intensity from folks in Congress, folks in the House of Representatives. … Have we replaced Obamacare yet? Have we secured the border yet? Have we reformed welfare yet? No.”

Jordan was publicly accused in July of inaction at Ohio State while the team doctor sexually abused dozens of athletes in the late 1980s and early ’90s. At least 145 people have accused Dr. Richard Strauss, who died by suicide in 2005, of sexual assault.

Jordan has repeatedly denied he knew about Strauss’s actions, but a former OSU athlete, Dunyasha Yetts, told NBC News in July that he personally told Jordan that Strauss attempted to pull down his shorts during what was supposed to be an examination of his thumb.

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UNITED STATES
Sports Illustrated

November 7, 2018

By Lauren Green

The calls to decertify USA Gymnastics began in earnest as the Larry Nassar case unfolded and only got louder as victims came forward, new information about those involved came to light, and the organization continued to stumble.

With Monday’s call from the USOC starting the decertification process, questions are arising about what this new national governing body for gymnastics should look like. What kind of leadership should this new organization have? Should this person come from a gymnastics background or be completely outside of the community? What are the programs or policies that need to be in place?

Both survivors and former athletes were adamant that the person or a member of the group in charge needs to be someone who knows gymnastics and understands the sport and its history. They pointed to the fact that both Steve Penny and Kerry Perry came from marketing backgrounds—and look how that turned out.

“It’s going to be important that it’s someone who understands the world of elite gymnastics,” Rachael Denhollander said in a telephone interview. “They can identify abusive coaching structures, they can know how cleverly [the structures] can be masked, they can know what’s normal and what’s not normal.”

The bigger question might come with what type of leadership should be put into place. In the past, there was a CEO/president and a board of directors. But perhaps now, a better solution might be to appoint more than one person, to limit the amount of power given to one individual.

“I think a committee would be best because when you have more than one person, I think you have some checks and balances,” Sister survivor Emily Meinke said. “If you appoint one person then, as we’ve seen, they have free reign to do whatever they want. Even if there is someone bringing something to their attention, they have the authority to just shut it down.”

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UNITED STATES
Reuters

November 7, 2018

By Frank Pingue and Jonathan Allen

Like a world-class gymnast, the United States Olympic Committee(USOC) needs to nail a perfect landing to put a damaging sexual abuse scandal behind it ahead of the 2020 Games in Tokyo, sports sponsorship experts said.

The USOC’s announcement this week that it would seek to revoke the status of USA Gymnastics as the national governing body for the sport reflects pressure from fans, athletes and sponsors for a lasting solution for the scandal-plagued organization.

“If the USOC didn’t take this step now, then they would have had somewhat of a revolt on their hands from athletes and fans,” said Jim Andrews, an independent sponsorship consultant.

USA Gymnastics has been in turmoil since dozens of female gymnasts, including Olympic champions such as Simone Biles, came forward to accuse former team doctor Larry Nassar of sexual abuse. Nassar was sentenced in February to up to 125 years in prison after some 200 women testified about decades of abuse at his hands.

The U.S. gymnastics team performed well at the world championships in Doha, Qatar, that ended on Sunday, with Biles becoming the first female gymnast in 30 years to claim a medal in all six events at a major competition.

The team’s success meant a solution was not required immediately, Andrews said, but was vital to bring back lost sponsors and fans.

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JEFFERSON CITY (MO)
Associated Press

November 8, 2018

By Summer Ballentine

Thirty-three priests or religious brothers in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Jefferson City, Missouri, have been “credibly accused” and/or removed from the ministry over sexual abuse of minors, the bishop of the central Missouri diocese said Thursday.

Bishop W. Shawn McKnight released a complete list of the names that followed an internal investigation begun in February. The list includes 25 priests from the diocese, three priests from other areas who previously served in the Jefferson City diocese, and five members of a religious order.

Fourteen of the 33 men named are dead. Many of them are elderly. The diocese said the most recent case of physical sexual abuse found in the investigation occurred in 1997.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Channel 3

November 8, 2018

Pennsylvania’s Roman Catholic dioceses are starting to announce details about victim compensation funds they’re setting up, nearly three months after a sweeping grand jury report documented decades of child sexual abuse by priests in the state.

The archdiocese of Philadelphia and the dioceses of Harrisburg, Scranton and Allentown on Thursday disclosed some information. The Erie Diocese says it’s setting up a fund, but isn’t ready to disclose details.

The announcements don’t mention a total dollar amount or maximum individual payout.

In statements, the dioceses describe sources for the money, including borrowing, property sales, investments and insurers.

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BUFFALO (NY)
University at Buffalo News

By Charles Anzalone

November 8, 2018

When University at Buffalo 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.

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SCRANTON (PA)
WBRE/WYOU-TV

November 8, 2018

By Jayne Ann Bugda

The Diocese of Scranton announces a “Compensation Program” for Survivors of Sexual Abuse.

Officials announced Thursday the creation of an “Independent Survivors Compensation Program.”

It’s aimed at those who suffered sexual abuse by clergy.. religious.. or lay employees.

The diocese says it will be administered by two leading experts in mediation and alternative dispute resolution.

An independent oversight committee will oversee the program. The diocese will have no authority over the committee.

It comes after a grand jury report identifying 300 predator priests state wide, who reportedly abused children over seven decades.

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LONDON (UK)
The Economist

November 9, 2018

As an FBI agent for 29 years, Philip Scala led the operation that jailed John Gotti of Cosa Nostra and raided an al-Qaeda bomb factory. Mr Scala, now a private investigator, took on Hells Angels, rioting prisoners and Russian mobsters. Next on his list? The cardinals of the Roman Catholic church.

A new lay group, Better Church Governance (bcg), has hired Mr Scala to probe the lives of the 224 men who advise Pope Francis (including their sex lives, if any). His particular focus will be the 124 who, were the pontiff to die tomorrow, would elect his successor. Mr Scala’s team of up to ten investigators will publish their findings on a website, alongside carefully screened information from the public. Philip Nielsen, bcg’s executive director, hopes the website, dubbed the Red Hat Report after the scarlet zucchetti (skullcaps) worn by cardinals, will be online within a month.

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SAN JOSE (CA)
Bay Area News Group

November 8, 2018

By Matthias Gafni

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced Wednesday that his office will begin collecting reports from California residents about clergy sex abuse, a likely first step in the state opening an investigation of Catholic priest abuse similar to a scathing grand jury probe in Pennsylvania earlier this year.

Becerra’s office created a website page devoted to clergy abuse, asking anyone who has been a victim of sexual abuse or has information regarding sexual misconduct by clergy members to fill out an online complaint form or email ClergyAbuse@doj.ca.gov.

“In light of the news surrounding the sexual abuse of children by members of clergy or religious organizations across the country, the Department of Justice is gathering information from the public regarding complaints of this nature in California,” according to the website.

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DAUPHIN COUNTY (PA)
Fox 43 News

November 8, 2018

By Cale Ahearn

The Diocese of Harrisburg has announced a victim’s compensation fund from the clergy abuse scandal.

Below is the statement from Bishop Gainer:
“As we announced in September, my Brother Bishops and I are working together to honor the commitment to provide compensation to those who have been abused by clergy. Each Diocese is working through its own process to help the survivors of clergy sexual abuse.

“To that end, I am announcing that the Diocese of Harrisburg is moving forward with developing a Survivors’ Compensation Program. The program will be operational early next year and will be led by attorney Kenneth Feinberg, along with his colleague Camille Biros. Mr. Feinberg has specialized in administering similar types of victims programs, including the successful Independent Reconciliation and Compensation fund for the Archdiocese of New York, and the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund, among many other notable compensation funds across the nation. It is my sincere hope that this program will help to enhance and increase our already ongoing efforts to assist the survivors of child sexual abuse. As more details regarding our plan become finalized, we will be releasing them to the public.

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NEW DELHI (INDIA)
GCCurrentAffairs

November 8, 2018

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) – a globally recognised organisation championing the fight against sexual abuse by priests – in a tweet today shared its views on Arihan Pictures film project ‘Hail Mary’.

In tweet @SNAPnetwork stated, “Upcoming film that may be of interest to the survivor community”.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), which was featured heavily in Spotlight, 2016’s Academy Award winner for Best Picture is a global organisation working on its mission statement, “Our most powerful tool is the light of truth. Through our actions, we bring healing, prevention and justice”

The makers of Hail Mary plan on distributing printable fact sheets that will promote the film, while educating the public about the issue. Additionally, Team Hail Mary will ask its online followers to show support by putting their movie stubs in church collection baskets to send a loud message, without making much noise.

Goa-based Savio Rodrigues owned Arihan Pictures in collaboration with South Indian filmmaker R. Joseph Kennedy have started pre-production work on their ambitious project ‘Hail Mary’.

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

November 8, 2018

California’s attorney general announced today that he is soliciting complaints and information regarding incidents of sexual misconduct by clergy members. SNAP applauds this important development.

We are grateful that Attorney General Xavier Becerra has followed in the footsteps of twenty of his colleagues across the nation and taken the first step towards an investigation of clergy sexual abuse in California. We hope that Mr. Becerra’s office will also open a confidential hotline, in addition to the complaint form and email address provided.

SNAP is also delighted that, like the investigation already underway in Florida, Mr. Becerra is not limiting his information gathering to one specific faith community. While our organization may have its roots in the abuse that took place, and is still taking place, in the Catholic Church, years of experience working with survivors has shown us that no religious group is free from this scourge.

As of this writing, 19 other states and Washington D.C. have begun investigations. We hope that this action in California will encourage attorneys general who have yet to open their own investigation to consider doing so. SNAP believes that independent investigations by law enforcement are the best way to help survivors heal, promote justice, and begin developing prevention strategies for the future.

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ATHENS (OH)
Athens Post

November 7, 2018

Authorities are concerned whether or not a Catholic priest charged last week with eight counts of sexual battery was appropriately punished last November by the Diocese of Steubenville after he took a now-pregnant 17-year-old to a wedding, according to The Associated Press.

Henry Christopher Foxhoven, 45, of Glouster, was suspended from the ministry on Oct. 27, Bishop Jeffrey Monforton said in a Diocese of Steubenville news release. Foxhoven was charged on Oct. 30.

The Athens County Prosecutor’s Office received a call from an out-of-town wedding guest at the reception last year who said she witnessed Foxhoven inappropriately touching the girl, Athens County Prosecutor Keller Blackburn said in an interview with the Associated Press.

“The case remains under investigation,” Blackburn said. “It’s possible additional charges could be presented to a grand jury.”

The Diocese of Steubenville sent a letter to Blackburn’s office this past week that said when it learned in November 2017 about the wedding incident, it suspended Foxhoven for a week and ordered the priest to receive counseling for boundary issues.

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KOREA
Korea Times

November 8, 2018

By Lee Suh-yoon

Recent allegations that a 35-year-old pastor sexually abused at least 26 teenage girls in his youth ministry group have refueled the debate over the manipulative tactics of sex offenders in the clergy.

On Tuesday, four of the alleged victims — masked and covered in black — spoke out against a pastor at their church in Incheon, claiming he “groomed” them into accommodating his sexual demands for years in their teens.

“Every time I said no, he told me he loved me, saying it was the first time he felt this way about someone,” one of the victims said at a press conference held at a Christian meeting hall in Yeonji-dong, Seoul. “I trusted the pastor, so I never thought he could lie in God’s name.”

The pastor, surnamed Kim, approached young female students in the youth ministry of his church, buying them treats and gently counseling them on family issues. As the girls started to trust him more, Kim started making sexual comments or touching them. He convinced the girls they were in loving relationships that would eventually end in marriage. Gradually, he got them to have sex with him regularly, telling them he wanted to “purify” bad memories of being raped by his uncle.

“It was hard for the victims to even register their situation as sexual abuse while they were stuck in the continuous cycle of psychological brainwashing and rape,” Chae Su-ji, head of the Christian Counseling Center for Violence Against Women, told The Korea Times, Wednesday.

“As the relationship deepens and the young person is forced to keep secrets, she is increasingly isolated from others, making it easier for the pastor to psychologically control her.”

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SALT LAKE CITY (UT)
Channel 13 News

November 7, 2018

By Amanda Gerry

Utah legislators woke up from election night Wednesday morning to a release calling on a change in laws involving the sanctity of the communication between a clergy member and those who may seek forgiveness.

“We want all religions to be more transparent, in terms of their finances, in terms of their corporate policies and procedures, and in terms of their internal statistics on sex abuse,” said Ryan McKnight, executive director of the Truth and Transparency Foundation.

The Truth and Transparency Foundation, a non-profit organization that operates the websites MormonLeaks and FaithLeaks, sent a release to Utah legislators this morning calling on a change in state laws that exempt clergy from being forced to report instances of child abuse.

“While it may not prevent all wrong doing,” McKnight said, “it helps in trying to achieve as little wrong doing as possible.”

In the release, the organization states they have published documents that “show that clergy typically and intentionally avoid reporting abuse to law enforcement except in states where they are required to do so.”

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ATLANTA (GA)
Atlanta Journal-Constitution

November 7, 2018

By Shelia M. Poole

The Archdiocese of Atlanta has released the names of 15 priests, seminarians, and those under direct authority of a religious order “credibly” accused of sexual abuse of a minor.
The list, which was released Tuesday, is available on the archdiocese’s website (archatl.com/offices/child-and-youth-protection/list/).

Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory said in the document that he released the names “in the spirit of transparency and the hope of continued healing for the survivors of abuse.”

The Roman Catholic Church has been reeling from a damning Pennsylvania grand jury report released this summer that outlined decades of sexual abuse by priests and cover-ups by church authorities.

Since then, Catholics have demanded accountability, transparency and, in some cases, resignations or criminal charges. Experts say other dioceses or archdioceses across the nation have also been releasing more information about priests accused of sexual abuse.

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SAN DIEGO (CA)
San Diego Union-Tribune

November 7, 2018

By Alene Tchekmedyian

State authorities are asking people who believe they have been sexually abused by clergy members in California to come forward with information.

The plea comes after several Roman Catholic dioceses across the state released the names, in some cases for the first time, of priests accused of sexual misconduct.

“In light of the news surrounding the sexual abuse of children by members of clergy or religious organizations across the country, the Department of Justice is gathering information from the public regarding complaints of this nature in California,” state Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra’s office said in a statement.

Last month, the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Jose released the names of 15 priests who worked in Santa Clara County and were accused of sexually abusing children. Of them, nine are dead and the rest have been banned from the ministry. Four of the men had been convicted of sex crimes.

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DENVER (CO)
Crux

November 8, 2018

By Inés San Martín

Near the end of a troubling year in Pope Francis’s home country, the bishops of Argentina have expressed their support for the pontiff, claiming the Church and its leader have never been under attack, both at home and abroad as they are right now.

Bishop Oscar Ojea, president of the Argentine bishops’ conference, said these attacks even come from inside the institution. Speaking about the country’s general situation, he warned that the “social and economic crisis hitting the entire Argentine people is beginning to erode trust in political leadership, increasing a social bad mood, the anger and intolerance which makes coexistence very tough.”

“We’re closing an extremely difficult year,” Ojea said. “Many events that we’ve lived in recent months have provoked perplexity, and at the same time present us with great pastoral challenges that need to be illuminated by the light of the Gospel.”

“They’re complex and conflictual situations, that hide a message we still have to discover,” he said, before ticking off developments such as a national debate for the legalization of abortion, where even Catholic schools and communities had people supporting an abortion legalization bill that, in the end, didn’t get a greenlight in Congress.

Following that, there was an organized, en masse apostacy, with thousands of Argentinians officially renouncing their Catholic faith; allegations of clerical sexual abuse that “increase the pain at the deepest part of the Church’s heart; attacks against the person of the pope, from inside and outside the Church, which leads to a scarce transmission of his message.”

[Though Ojea didn’t specify it, he was likely referring to sensational accusations from a former papal ambassador in the U.S. that Pope Francis knew about sexual misconduct concerns regarding ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick in 2013 and covered them up.]

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YOUNGSTOWN (OH)
Youngstown Tribune

November 8, 2018

It is clear to us that although knowledge of “credible” accusations of sexual abuse within the Youngstown Catholic Diocese existed for decades, church leaders decided among themselves that it would be preferable to handle these issues in-house rather than calling for outside criminal investigations. They chose to settle many of the cases quietly, some with the exchange of cash. In fact, since 1943, there have been settlements totalling $500,000 paid to victims of sexual abuse.

Youngstown Diocese Bishop George Murry released the list in recent weeks of 31 clergy whom he said have been credibly accused of sexual abuse of minors. About 12 of those men now are deceased.

This practice of settling claims without criminal prosecution apparently was common not just in our diocese, but in other Catholic dioceses nationwide.

Now the diocese is making an attempt to come clean by releasing the names of the accused clergy who have been named in credible accusations since this diocese was created in 1943. In some cases where the alleged abusers are not deceased, the statute of limitations has expired, meaning these men probably never will face judgment in a court of law.

Murry said he is not aware of any pending criminal charges relating to the sexual abuse. He attempted to justify the church’s decision not to seek prosecution by saying the victims did not want to be made public.

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NEW YORK (NY)
National Catholic Reporter

November 8, 2018

by Peter Feuerherd

What now?

Toward the end of a year marked by revelations about worldwide sex abuse, from Chile, Australia, Germany, Guam, as well as Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the question of how the church should emerge from crisis was the topic in two seminars at East Coast Jesuit universities within a week of each other.

At Fordham University here, as well as Georgetown University in Washington, experts in church life and psychology offered possible pathways out, after describing the depths of the issues which confront the church.

“We have lost trust,” Justice Anne Burke of the Illinois Supreme Court and former chair of the U.S. Bishops’ Review Board, told the Georgetown gathering Oct. 24. “There is no accountability,” she said about the bishops, noting that the 2002 Dallas Charter, which created a zero-tolerance policy for priest sex abusers, never applied to them.

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GAINESVILLE (GA)
The Gainesville Times

November 7, 2018.

A priest who worked at St. Michael’s Catholic Church in Gainesville for roughly six years is on a list released by the Archdiocese of Atlanta regarding members of the clergy “credibly accused of sexual abuse of a minor.”

The archdiocese released the list Tuesday, Nov. 6, and included 15 names of “priests, deacons, seminarians” and others affiliated with the Atlanta diocese since its establishment in 1956.

On the list is Jorge Cristancho, who was ordained in May 1978. Under his places of service, St. Michael’s appears from 1996-2001. In 2001, he served at St. George Catholic Church in Newnan.

Cristancho was permanently removed from the ministry in 2003.

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JALANDHAR (INDIA)
Catholic News Agency

November 8, 2018

The Diocese of Jalandhar will not pay for the criminal defense of its bishop, who is accused of serially raping a religious sister.

Bishop Agnelo Gracias, who was appointed Sept. 20 by Pope Francis as interim leader of the Indian diocese, told reporters Nov. 6 that Bishop Franco Mulakkal’s brother has been paying for the bishop’s legal expenses.

“His family back home is quite well off. So, no request has come to us from his side,” Gracias said Nov. 6, adding that the diocese would consider providing financial support to Mulakkal’s accuser if she requested it.

Mulakkal, who remains head of the Diocese of Jalandhar but was sidelined by the appointment of Gracias, was arrested Sept. 21. He is suspected of having raped a member of the Missionaries of Jesus more than a dozen times during a two year period that began May 5, 2014.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post

November 7, 2018

By Clarence Williams and Julie Zauzmer

D.C. police arrested a priest from a Northwest Washington Catholic Church on Wednesday on charges that he sexually abused a teenager at the parish in 2015, officials said.

Urbano Vazquez, 46, of Northeast Washington was charged with second-degree child sexual abuse in connection with an incident at the Shrine of the Sacred Heart in May of that year.

According to a D.C. police report, a 13-year-old girl told police that Vasquez put his hand down her shirt on two occasions on her bare skin. Vazquez was identified as a “pastor of that church that abuse occurred at,” the police report said.

The Shrine of the Sacred Heart is located at 3211 Sacred Heart Way NW. Vasquez is identified on the church website as Fr. Urbano Vazquez, a parochial vicar.

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NEW YORK (NY)
WNYT TV

November 7, 2018

A “blue wave” has come to the state Capitol. Democratic victories could clear the way for more liberal priorities like election reform and universal health care.

Another issue that’s been stalled in the Senate for years — giving molestation victims more time to sue their abusers.

To say that child sex abuse survivors are pleased with the outcome of Tuesday’s election is a gross understatement. Quite frankly, they are euphoric.

Abuse victims and their advocates have been crusading for more than a decade to extend the statute of limitations to report child sex abuse. Currently in New York state, they only have until they’re 23 years old. However, for many reasons they are unable to meet the deadline.

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OREGON
Spiritual Sounding Board

November 1, 2018

Being hurt at church is tough, and sometimes it’s a lonely journey. You may have experienced something that other congregants have not experienced. Some people may have good intentions, but say things that are not helpful, and in fact, may be hurtful. This can lead to more isolation as you don’t know who is safe to talk to. This can lead hurt people to stay away from church entirely.

One of the most confusing things about spiritual abuse is that not everyone is able to identify spiritual abuse. I remember dropping hints to people seeing if they would acknowledge my experiences or even add to them. Thankfully, many did, and I didn’t feel alone.

I posted an old article by Jonathan Hollingsworth, What Not to Say to Someone Who’s Been Hurt by the Church, on Twitter and the SSB Facebook page which seems to have resonated with a lot of people. I thought it might be a good idea to discuss these unhelpful statements one by one here, and give people the opportunity to share their experiences.

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
The Times-Picayune

November 8, 2018

By Drew Broach

As the rain ceased and the skies cleared on the afternoon of Sept. 12, 1987, the world leader of Roman Catholicism stepped to the altar of a canopied pavilion at the University of New Orleans and, before 130,000 sweltering faithful, raised the body of Christ during communion. Standing just behind and to the right of Pope John Paul II was the concelebrant of the outdoor Mass, Archbishop Philip Hannan, who would later recall the pontiff’s three-day visit to his city as the apogee of his 24-year episcopate.

Hannan died in 2011, a tough, colorful prelate who not only scored the coup of a papal visit but more broadly was revered as the architect of a sprawling network of new social services for poor people, elderly people and immigrants in southeast Louisiana.

Now, however, Hannan’s legacy – and that of one of his predecessors, Joseph Rummel, the longest-serving archbishop in New Orleans history — is coming under new scrutiny, the result of changing societal values and of a belated effort by the Catholic Church, especially in the United States, to come clean about its history of pedophile priests and its institutional coverup of their misbehavior.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
NBC News 4 TV

November 7, 2018

By Gina Cook

A Catholic priest has been accused of abusing a child inside a church in Northwest D.C. and the archdiocese says it has removed another priest from the church for not taking proper actions in reporting the alleged abuse.

Urbano Vazquez, 46, was arrested Wednesday and charged with second-degree child sexual abuse. Vazquez has worked at Shrine of the Sacred Heart in D.C.’s Columbia Heights neighborhood since 2014, according to the Archdiocese of Washington.

A victim told police that Vazquez put his hand down her shirt and touched her breast two different times at Sacred Heart. She said the abuse happened in 2015, when she was 13.

“Since the initial claim to police, additional allegations against Father Vazquez were reported,” the Archdiocese of Washington said in a lengthy statement Wednesday night.

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BROWNWOOD (TX)
KTXS TV

November 5, 2018

by Nicholas Teresky

A pastor from Brownwood was indicted by a Brown County grand jury last month for the continuous sexual abuse of children.

Fernando Hernandez, 50, of Brownwood, was indicted on October 25 on a charge of continuous sexual abuse of children.

Hernandez, the pastor at the It’s A Challenge Church of Brownwood, is accused of sexually abusing four children between August of 2010 and July of 2018.

Hernandez was arrested twice in a span of less than a week for child sex offenses in late July and early August.

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WATERBURY (CT)
WFSB TV

November 7, 2018

A Connecticut priest is being accused of sexual abuse.

A New Haven attorney sent out a letter saying a complaint has been filed against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford and the Corporation of the Church of the Blessed Sacrament and Blessed Sacrament Church in Waterbury.

The paperwork names Father Walter Vichas and alleges that Kevin DiStasio and his family were parishioners of Blessed Sacrament Church.

Between 1979 and 1980, DiStasio served as an altar boy.

The suit alleges, prior to the early morning mass, while the plaintiff was putting on his altar boy vestments in the sacristy, Vichas sexually assaulted, sexually abused and sexually exploited the plaintiff.

The lawsuit claims compensation for psychological damages.

A news conference will be held on Friday at 10 a.m. about the claims.

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RAPID CITY (SD)
KFGO TV

November 7, 2018

A defense attorney for a Rapid City priest accused of sexual abuse has asked a judge to release the defendant to the supervision of Catholic diocese at Casa Maria.

But, prosecutors Tuesday objected to the release and asked the judge to continue John Praveen’s $100,000 bond. Defense attorney John Murphy says Praveen would be monitored at the diocese property near Piedmont for retired priests.

The 38-year-old priest is accused of sexually abusing a 13-year-old child. KOTA-TV reports Deputy State’s Attorney Kelsey Weber says Praveen presents a flight risk because he has few ties to the community. Seventh Circuit Judge Robert Mandel did not immediately rule on the defense request.

Praveen most recently worked at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Rapid City.

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ATLANTA (GA)
WSB TV

November 7, 2018

By Tom Regan

The Catholic archbishop of Atlanta has released bombshell documents naming over a dozen priests and deacons in the Atlanta metro area accused of sexually abusing minors.

Channel 2’s Tom Regan went to the Cathedral of Christ the King, where two of the priests on the list once served.

Regan spoke to a victim, who said he was abused by one of those priests as a teenager.

The victim, who didn’t want to be identified, said the church never took his complaint seriously.

We’re hearing from a victim and getting reaction from the Catholic community in Atlanta, for Channel 2 Action News at 6 p.m.

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PARIS (FRANCE)
AlJazeera

November 7, 2018

French bishops have announced setting up an “independent” commission to “shed light on the sexual abuse of minors in the Catholic church since 1950”.

In a statement released on Wednesday, the Bishops’ Conference of France (CEF) said the panel would seek “to understand the reasons which led to the way these affairs were handled” and make recommendations.

This commission also aims to evaluate the measures taken by the Conference of Bishops of France since the 2000s, and it would draw up a report within two years.

The Vatican has been shaken by a string of paedophile scandals committed by clergy in Australia, Europe, North and South America.

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CHEEKTOWAGA (NY)
Catholic News Service

November 7, 2018

Buffalo Bishop Richard J. Malone told reporters at a news conference he held Nov. 5 outside Infant of Prague Church in Cheektowaga that at a meeting earlier in the day with the diocese’s priests, two of them had asked him to resign.

The bishop acknowledged ongoing criticism over his handling of some clergy abuse complaints but said he has no plans to resign.

“I know that there may not be a high level of trust right now, but I do believe that working with others who continue to believe in me, we can steer through this storm into a calm sea,” said Bishop Malone, who has headed the Buffalo Diocese since August 2012.

The day of the news conference the diocese added 36 names to a public list of priests with substantiated claims of sexual abuse of a child, bringing the number to 78.

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GUAM
The Associated Press

November 7, 2018

By Caleb Jones and Grace Garces Bordallo

Guam’s Catholic church will file for bankruptcy — a move that will allow the archdiocese to avoid trial in dozens of lawsuits alleging child sexual abuse by priests and move toward settlements.

Archbishop Michael Byrnes announced Wednesday that mediation efforts that began in September led the church to bankruptcy.

“This path will bring the greatest measure of justice to the greatest number of victims,” Byrnes said. “That’s the heart of what we’re doing.”

Byrnes said the bankruptcy will provide “finality for victim survivors that they’ve been heard and understood.”

Attorney Leander James, who is working with alleged victims in Guam, said in a statement the move will help resolve current lawsuits from more than 180 claims of abuse through settlements.

“We welcome the announcement,” James said in a statement. “Bankruptcy provides the only realistic path to settlement of pending and future claims.”

James says the bankruptcy will create a deadline for victims to file claims.

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WATERBURY (CT)
WFSB

November 7, 2018

A Connecticut priest is being accused of sexual abuse.

A New Haven attorney sent out a letter saying a complaint has been filed against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford and the Corporation of the Church of the Blessed Sacrament and Blessed Sacrament Church in Waterbury.

The paperwork names Father Walter Vichas and alleges that Kevin DiStasio and his family were parishioners of Blessed Sacrament Church.

Between 1979 and 1980, DiStasio served as an altar boy.

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

LOUISVILLE (KY)
Courier Journal

November 7, 2018

By Caitlin McGlade

Two senior Catholic officials who remained silent decades ago when priests were accused of sexually abusing Louisville children have been kept in power — and even promoted — on Archbishop Joseph Kurtz’s watch.

That’s not what many Louisville Catholics expected when Kurtz arrived in 2007 to take over the archdiocese, which was rocked by a major child sex abuse scandal a few years earlier.

Previous church leaders in Kentucky’s largest Catholic community had allowed abusive priests to remain in ministry while silencing their victims, a practice laid bare when hundreds sued the church, winning a $25.7 million settlement in 2003.

Kurtz came in as a warm and inviting man with a remarkable ability to remember everyone’s name. It was hoped he would help heal wounds in the archdiocese. Abuse survivor Cal Pfeiffer recalls thinking the new archbishop was either incredibly nice or just a great politician.

A decade later, some abuse survivors say they know which it is.

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LOUISVILLE (KY)
Louisville Courier Journal

November 7, 2018

This report was prepared using legal depositions and other documents from multiple lawsuits, as well as criminal records and news archives. Reporter Caitlin McGlade also interviewed Catholic church leaders in Louisville and Owensboro, as well as abuse survivors, activists, attorneys and lifelong Catholics.

Caitlin McGlade is a member of the Courier Journal’s investigative team. The Dayton, Ohio, native is a 2011 graduate of Ohio University.

Before joining the Courier Journal in 2017, McGlade covered one of the nation’s largest school districts for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and investigated school bus safety, water quality problems and public health issues for the Arizona Republic. Her work has been recognized by the Arizona Press Club and the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists.

Her previous work in Louisville includes an in-depth investigation of danger related to 15-passenger vans commonly used by churches.

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