ABUSE TRACKER

VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

October 4, 2018

By Junno Arocho Esteves

At a court hearing to answer to allegations of covering up sexual abuse by members of the clergy, Chilean Cardinal Riccardo Ezzati invoked his right against self-incrimination.

In a statement released by the Archdiocese of Santiago Oct. 3, Ezzati said that at the suggestion of his lawyers, “I will use, for the time being, my right to remain silent” until authorities “issue a ruling on the request for a definitive dismissal” of the charges against him.

The Chilean prosecutor’s office in Rancagua, led by Emiliano Arias, issued a subpoena July 24 after conducting several raids of diocesan offices in Rancagua and Santiago.

Arias confirmed his office was investigating an alleged sex-abuse ring in Rancagua as well as possible cover-ups of abuse cases by senior members of the clergy, including Ezzati and his predecessor, Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz.

The subpoena is believed to be related to the case of Fr. Oscar Munoz Toledo, the former chancellor of the Archdiocese of Santiago, who was arrested July 12 following allegations that he abused seven minors in Santiago and Rancagua since 2002.

Although Cardinal Ezzati had said that he would cooperate with authorities in their investigation, his decision to remain silent caused outrage among survivors of clergy sexual abuse in the country.

Juan Carlos Cruz, who along with James Hamilton and Jose Andres Murillo met with Pope Francis in May to discuss their suffering, said the cardinal’s use of his right against self-incrimination “was a lack of respect” for survivors.

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ROME
Crux

October 4, 2018

By Elise Harris

[Editor’s note: Crux is publishing an occasional series of brief profiles in the ongoing drama surrounding clerical sexual abuse, ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, and accusations of cover-up against various Church officials including Pope Francis.]

As a Synod of Bishops on young people begins this week despite calls for the gathering to be either postponed or overhauled due to recent clerical abuse scandals, several key players in the drama are beginning to come into clearer focus.

One such figure is Argentinian Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, who reportedly knew about misconduct allegations against ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick as early as 2000.

Currently prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Oriental Churches, Sandri came in for mention in a letter penned last month by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the Vatican’s former ambassador to the United States, who charged that several Holy See officials, including Pope Francis, knew about McCarrick’s alleged sexual misconduct with seminarians yet did nothing.

McCarrick had been a celebrated figure in American Catholicism, but he was removed from the College of Cardinals in July following accusations that he had abused minors some 40 years ago. As the U.S. bishops prepare to launch investigations in four dioceses where the McCarrick drama is centered, more questions have been raised than answered.

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YORK (PA)
Penn Live

October 3, 2018

By Ivey DeJesus

Kristen Pfautz Woolley was 10 years old when a friend of the family began to sexually molest her.

Afraid and confused, Woolley told no one. Her predator continued to molest her for two years.

By the time Woolley entered young adulthood and realized what had happened to her, the statute of limitations had expired for her. Woolley’s life was ravaged by anxiety, panic attacks and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Years of therapy have allowed Woolley to heal and move on.

Now 48, she devotes herself to helping victims of child sexual abuse heal and regain control of their lives. Woolley is founder and clinical director of Turning Point Women’s Counseling and Advocacy Center in York.

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UNITED STATES
Get Religion

October 3, 2018

By Terry Mattingly

For weeks now, your GetReligionistas have carefully followed news coverage of the spectacular fall of ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick, a key player for decades in countless trends and media storms in American Catholic life. His media-friendly career began in the New York City area and he ended up as a cardinal in Washington, D.C.

Most of the coverage of the “Uncle Ted” scandals this summer focused on his links to the latest developments in decades of horror stories about priests abusing young boys and teens. Also, efforts to promote and protect him was a major plot point in the blunt late-August document released by the Vatican’s former U.S. ambassador, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano.

But those two themes tended to mask, in lots of stories (click here for background), two other crucial parts of the McCarrick drama. For example, most of his abuse focused on young men, seminarians to be specific. Also, the former D.C. cardinal has emerged as the iconic symbol of a larger problem — bishops and cardinals hiding the sins of their colleagues.

These latter elements of the McCarrick story seemed, for weeks, to have slipped onto a back burner in many crucial newsrooms. However, it was hard to know what has happening — behind the scenes — since even elite newsrooms are not as well staffed as they used to be and, well, there simply aren’t enough religion-beat pros out there (since many editors just don’t “get” the importance of this topic).

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ROME (ITALY)
Associated Press

October 4, 2018

By Nicole Winfield

Pope Francis urged Catholic bishops to dream of a future free of the mistakes of the past as he opened a global church leadership meeting Wednesday amid renewed outrage over the priestly sex abuse and cover-up scandal.

Yet down the block from the Vatican’s synod hall, about two dozen abuse survivors staged a sit-in, demanding their cause be taken up at the meeting and voicing outrage that some of the delegates had covered up for abusive priests.

“Make ‘Zero Tolerance’ Real,” read one protest sign.

Francis welcomed more than 250 priests, bishops and cardinals — as well as 34 young Catholics — to a monthlong meeting on ministering to future generations, urging young and old to listen to one another without prejudice.

He prayed for God’s help to ensure the church “does not allow itself, from one generation to the next, to be extinguished or crushed by the prophets of doom and misfortune, by our own shortcomings, mistakes and sins.”

The Oct. 3-28 synod comes amid new revelations about decades of sexual misconduct by priests and cover-ups in the U.S., Chile, Germany and elsewhere. That has sent confidence in Francis’ leadership to all-time lows among the American faithful.

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HYDERABAD (INDIA)
The Siaset Daily

October 4, 2018

A similar disgusting incident of a 5-year-old minor’s gang-rape by two temple priest in temple premises is reported from Datia district on Tuesday, HT reports.

The Police has arrested both the priests identified as Raju Pandit (55) and Batoli Prajapati (45) late this Tuesday night.

The accused have now been booked under Section 376 (rape) of Indian Penal Code and Protection of Children from Sexual Offence (POCSO).

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

October 3, 2018

By Luke Wilusz

A former English teacher at Loyola Academy high school in north suburban Wilmette is under investigation for “alleged internet crimes against children.”

In an email sent to Loyola Academy alumni, school administrators said they were notified Sept. 19 about a Glenview Police Department investigation into the man, who taught English at the school from 2011 to 2014.

Glenview police said the department was “investigating an adult male for possible charges related to internet crimes against children” but did not provide further information about the investigation. No arrests had been made as of Wednesday afternoon.

School officials noted that no charges had been filed, but said they were notifying alumni as a precaution and cooperating with law enforcement.

Anyone with information that could be relevant to the investigation was asked to call Det. Jamie Medina at (847) 901-6145.

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SPRINGFIELD (MA)
Springfield News Republic

October 3, 2018

By Jane Eastwood

I’ve just finished reading “Death of an Alter Boy: The Unsolved Murder of Danny Croteau and the Culture of Abuse in the Catholic Church” by E.J. Fleming. This is a heart wrenching story for anyone to read, but extremely painful for me because Richard Lavigne was a priest in my parish, St. Mary’s. I knew him well. I was subjected to one of his rages as an acolyte at Ursuline Academy in 1968. It was terrifying to hear him scream at me while raising his fists in uncontrollable anger. I never forgot that encounter. Reading the book brought back that memory in full force as the abused boys recounted their experiences with Richard Lavigne’s rages and physical abuse.

What was most disheartening was how the diocese of Springfield knew from Lavigne’s first posting that he was sexually abusing children, mostly boys. I knew the priests who did nothing to stop him. Those who caught Lavigne in acts of sexual abuse and walked away from the child being abused. These men heard my confession, gave me Holy Communion at Mass and sermonized on morality.

As a Catholic I am appalled and yet broken-hearted by what I read. Curiosity was the impulse that got me to order and read the book. I had no idea how truly horrible and pervasive the abuse was in the Springfield Diocese. The Springfield Republican has done an outstanding job of reporting on this story. But reading it all at once drives home the ugly truth of a systematic culture of abuse throughout the Catholic Church. The Vatican has done nothing to change this culture. The Vatican will do nothing because change would require tearing down the patriarchal hierarchy, destroying the old boys network that rewards abusers and allow lay men and women more power within the Church.

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MALTA
Reuters via Times of Malta

Tuesday, October 2, 2018

The Polish court of appeal upheld on Tuesday a landmark ruling granting a million zloty (€230,000) in compensation to a victim of sexual abuse by a Catholic priest, accepting that the Church in Poland was responsible for its priest’s crimes.

The Catholic Church worldwide is reeling from crises involving sexual abuse of minors, deeply damaging confidence in the Church in Chile, the United States, Australia and Ireland among other countries.

In January, a court ordered the Catholic Church to pay compensation to a woman who had been sexually abused by a priest as a child.

“The verdict of the Court of Appeal legally decides to award one million zloty compensation … and an annuity of 800 zloty (€187) a month,” the court statement said.

State news agency PAP reported last year that a priest had abused a 13-year-old girl during his tenure in northwestern Poland.

The man, who imprisoned and raped the girl for more than 10 months, was arrested in 2008 and sentenced in 2010 to four years in prison, Gazeta Wyborcza daily reported.

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YORK (PA)
York Daily Record

October 4, 2018

By Sam Ruland

Kevin Hoover doesn’t exactly remember the day he was told Brian was dead.

The minute details of where he was and what he was doing don’t seem to come to mind. But, the one thing he does remember is that he knew how Brian died before anyone told him.

“I knew he had killed himself,” Hoover said, recalling the death of his former classmate Brian Gergely. Both boys were exposed to the abuse of Father Francis McCaa while attending Holy Name Elementary School in Ebensburg, Pennsylvania, during the 1980s.

“I just thought,” Hoover paused, taking a breath before speaking his next words. “McCaa claims another one.” It sounded like defeat as it rolled off his tongue.

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ROME (ITALY)
Daily Beast

October 4, 2018

By Barbie Latza Nadeau

At a time when systematic child sex abuse at the hands of Catholic priests has scandalized the global church, it may seem like warning priests not to get naked with children would go without saying. But that’s clearly not the case in Chile, where there are more than 120 active investigations into clerical sex abuse and where all of the country’s bishops offered their resignations en masse to Pope Francis.

Because of such demonstrable problems, but obviously with little thought for appearances, Santiago Archbishop Ricardo Ezzati released detailed guidelines this week for local priests that suggests more than a few recurrent issues. Among them, priests should not “give hugs that are too tight, slap the buttocks, touch the area of the genitals or the breast, or recline or sleep with children or adolescents.”

The document also urges priests not to take pictures of children who are nude or in the shower, and not to “fight or play games that involve touching yourself in an inappropriate way.” The authors add that clergy should not to “give massages, hug from behind, kiss the mouth of children, adolescents, or vulnerable people” and to avoid all behaviors that can be “misinterpreted.”

The nine-page Instrumentum Laboris, or working document, which was released in Spanish on the archdiocese website and called “Guidelines Promoting Good Treatment and Healthy Pastoral Coexistence,” was immediately criticized by support groups for those who were abused by priests as tone-deaf and indicative of an utter lack of understanding when it comes to the root causes of clerical sex abuse and its widespread cover-up.

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NOTTINGHAM (UK)
Nottinghamshire Post

October 4, 2018

By David Whitfield

The fourth day of hearings in the inquiry looking into historic child sexual abuse in Nottinghamshire takes place today, Wednesday – and the first witness who is giving evidence about foster care will be heard.

Three weeks of hearings are taking place at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), with the first week being held at Trent Bridge.

The first day gave the background to the inquiry, including some of the concerns about abuse of children which were raised.

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JEFFERSON CITY (MO)
Jefferson City News Tribune

October 4, 2018

Gov. Mike Parson should add teeth to Attorney General Josh Hawley’s investigation into the Catholic Church by authorizing Hawley to use subpoena powers in his probe.

The request was made recently by SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, which has crusaded for the last three decades to support victims and hold offenders in the church accountable.

Hawley announced Aug. 23 he was starting an independent investigation into allegations of sexual abuse by members of the clergy in the Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis. As we recently reported, Hawley asked that other dioceses in the state voluntarily allow his office to examine them.

Credit Bishop W. Shawn McKnight of the Jefferson City Diocese: Hours after Hawley’s announcement, McKnight invited the AG’s office to review the local diocese.

McKnight seems to want to confront the problem head-on, and we appreciate his openness and his willingness to cooperate. Not all past church officials throughout the U.S. have been as transparent.

The Missouri probe comes in the wake of a Pennsylvania grand jury report showing bishops and other Catholic leaders in that state covered up child sexual abuse by more than 300 priests over a period of 70 years.

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[Church: the four cases that cornered ex-Bishop Francisco Cox]

CHILE
La Tercera

October 3, 2018

By S. Rodríguez, J. Castellón, and H. Basoalto

Dos denuncias están en la justicia civil, ambas de eventuales víctimas chilenas, por abusos sexuales. Nuevo caso que analiza el Vaticano ocurrió hace más de una década en Alemania y habría sido denunciado en EE.UU.

“Sería ideal que empezara un proceso y Cox enfrentara, por fin, a la justicia. A lo mejor no va a ir a la cárcel, pero al menos me deja tranquilo que esto se sepa, que me hayan tomado declaración y se lo conozca como una persona depravada”. Así se manifestó Hernán Godoy (46) respecto de los presuntos abusos sexuales cometidos en su contra por Francisco José Cox, exarzobispo de La Serena y quien actualmente reside en Vallendar, Alemania.

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[Karadima’s victims criticize Ezzati’s silence in court: “Where is the ‘I will collaborate with justice?'”]

CHILE
La Tercera

October 3, 2018

By Claudia Soto

El Arzobispo de Santiago se acogió a su derecho de guardar silencio y no declaró ante el fiscal Emiliano Arias.

Hasta la Fiscalía de Rancagua llegó esta mañana el arzobispo de Santiago Ricardo Ezzati, tras ser citado a declarar como imputado por el presunto encubrimiento al ex canciller de la Iglesia Óscar Muñoz, quien está siendo investigado por los delitos de violación, abuso sexual y estupro.

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[Ezzati’s lawyer insists on his innocence: “An accused person can be a victim”]

CHILE
La Tercera

October 3, 2018

By Angélica Baeza

El arzobispo de Santiago no declaró ante el fiscal Emiliano Arias, acogiéndose a su derecho a guardar silencio. Esto porque la defensa insiste en la realización de una audiencia de sobreseimiento.

Hugo Rivera, abogado del arzobispo de Santiago Ricardo Ezzati, aclaró los motivos por los cuales el prelado se acogió a su derecho a guardar silencio y no declarar frente al fiscal de O’Higgins Emiliano Arias.

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[Victim of sexual abuse: “Bernardino Piñera is the accessory to Bishop Cox”]

CHILE
El Mostrador

October 3, 2018

By Alejandra Carmona and José Olavarría

Abel Soto es una de las víctimas de abuso sexual por parte del obispo emérito Francisco José Cox, en Chillán como en La Serena. El religioso cuenta con un historial de larga data de abusos y se encuentra en Alemania desde 2002, dedicado a una “vida de silencio, la oración y la penitencia”, según la información oficial de la iglesia chilena. En ese país fue presentada una demanda en su contra, que se suma a otras dos judicializadas en Chile. Una de ellas es la que presentó Soto ante el fiscal Arias.

En conversación con El Mostrador, Abel Soto, de 49 años, cuenta el detalle de lo que fueron los abusos a los que fue sometido por parte del obispo emérito de La Serena, Francisco José Cox, y apunta a Bernardino Piñera, arzobispo de La Serena entre 1983 y 1990, como el principal encubridor.

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[The first priest to denounce Karadima, Hans Kast, is the one that now implicates Ezzati]

SANTIAGO, CHILE
Emol

October 3, 2018

By Consuelo Ferrer

Hermano mayor de José Antonio Kast, el párroco escribió correos al arzobispo de Santiago en 2010 y 2011 dando cuenta de testimonios de abuso contra otro presbítero. Sugirió abrir investigaciones previas y “medidas pastorales o cautelares”, pero no se hicieron efectivas.

“La verdad es la que nos hará libres”. Fue la escueta respuesta que entregó en septiembre el arzobispo de Santiago, Ricardo Ezzati, al referirse a la investigación que busca esclarecer si encubrió abusos sexuales. La frase, que es en realidad un pasaje del evangelio de Juan, ya había sido citada por otro sacerdote siete años atrás: Hans Kast, que la emitió un día de mayo de 2011, cuando ratificó ante fiscalía su testimonio en contra de Fernando Karadima.

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[Another headache for the Church: Sexual abuse case of the former Chancellor of the Archdiocese will be transferred to Santiago]

CHILE
El Mostrador

October 2, 2018

La investigación contra Óscar Muñoz Toledo salpica al arzobispo de Santiago, Ricardo Ezzati, quien debe presentarse a declarar mañana ante el fiscal Emiliano Arias. El cardenal se encuentra imputado por encubrimiento en esta causa. Otro flanco que lo complica son las nuevas revelaciones sobre el caso del sacerdote Jorge Laplagne Aguirre, donde también se le acusa de no tomar en cuenta las denuncias.

Luego que el Tribunal de Garantía de Rancagua se declarara incompetente en la causa del ex canciller del Arzobispado de Santiago Óscar Muñoz Toledo, el caso será trasladado a Santiago. El Ministerio Público tomó la determinación de no perseverar en el “hecho uno”, el primero de los 5 imputados a Muñoz, quien fue detenido en julio pasado por el Fiscal Regional de Rancagua, Emiliano Arias por diversos casos de abuso sexual.

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[Ezzati did not speak to prosecutor Arias despite assurances he would cooperate]

CHILE
Publimetro

October 3, 2018

By Consuelo Rehbein

El arzobispo de Santiago había sido citado a declarar esta mañana, como imputado por encubrimiento de eventuales delitos sexuales por parte del ex canciller de la Iglesia de Santiago, Óscar Muñoz. Sin embargo, la autoridad eclesiástica no habló y estuvo menos de media hora en el lugar.

En horas de esta mañana no se tenía claridad sobre la asistencia de Monseñor Ezzati a declarar. Había sido citado como imputado por encubrimiento de supuestos delitos sexuales cometidos por el ex canciller de la iglesia de Santiago, Óscar Muñoz.

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MACOMB (MI)
Macomb Daily

October 3, 2018

By Jeff Payne

Roman Catholic dioceses across Michigan have turned over documents in a state investigation of sexual abuse by priests.

Investigators with search warrants collected records Wednesday, about two weeks after Attorney General Bill Schuette said his office was leading a probe. The new emphasis comes after a Pennsylvania grand jury said more than 1,000 children have been molested there since the 1940s.

The Detroit Archdiocese says it “cooperated fully.” The Saginaw Diocese says investigators were at headquarters throughout the day. Schuette spokeswoman Andrea Bitely declined to comment.

A priest in the Saginaw area, the Rev. Robert DeLand, recently withdrew his no-contest plea to criminal sexual conduct after the judge disagreed with a one-year jail sentence. He’ll now go to trial.

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DETROIT (MI)
Detroit News

October 3, 2018

By Beth LeBlanc

Police seized clergy misconduct records from all of Michigan’s Catholic dioceses after serving several search warrants across the state within an hour of each other Wednesday morning.

Diocesan officials in Lansing, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Saginaw, Marquette, Kalamazoo and Gaylord confirmed the searches took place Wednesday as part of the Attorney General’s Office investigation into the dioceses’ handling of clergy sexual abuse of minors. The dioceses said they cooperated fully with authorities.

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SYRACUSE (NY)
Catholic News Service

October 3, 2018

By Katherine Long

In the coming weeks and months, spiritual and physical support will be offered to those in need thanks to a man who as a child was abused by a priest of the Diocese of Syracuse.

The man is a participant in the diocese’s Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program for those abused by clergy. Rather than keep his $5,000 settlement, he has used the money to have special Masses offered in every parish of the diocese and to stock two Catholic Charities food pantries in Binghamton and Endicott.

“Before I even was offered anything, I saw this as a possible opportunity to cooperate with God in trying to bring good from a situation that was not good for a number of people, both victims and priests alike,” the man told The Catholic Sun, Syracuse’s diocesan newspaper.

“I saw this as a chance to try to bring peace and comfort and good news from decades of strife and anger and sadness,” he said.

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BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

October 3, 2018

By Jay Tokasz

Bishop Richard J. Malone on Tuesday suspended another retired priest accused of sexual abuse from serving in parishes, bringing to 15 the number of Buffalo Diocese priests who have been put on administrative leave since March.

The diocese announced late Tuesday afternoon on its website that the Rev. Louis S. Dolinic has been placed on administrative leave as the complaint is investigated.

Dolinic, 77, lives in a Depew residence for retired priests. He spent most of his priesthood in North Tonawanda and was pastor of Our Lady of Czestochowa Church when he retired in 2010.

The diocese provided no details about when the abuse was alleged to have happened or where Dolinic was assigned at the time.

Dolinic was ordained in 1966 and served as an assistant pastor at St. Barbara Church in Lackawanna and at St. Andrew Church in Sloan in his early priesthood.

He was then assigned as an assistant pastor of St. Joseph Church in North Tonawanda in the 1970s. He served at St. John Kanty Church in Buffalo in the 1980s, before being assigned to North Tonawanda again in the late 1980s, this time as pastor of Our Lady of Czestochowa.

In 1995, he was appointed pastor of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament in Depew.

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RAPID CITY (SD)
Raid City Journal

October 3, 2018

By Arielle Zionts

The priest accused of sexually abusing a 13 year old had his bond set Wednesday at $100,000 cash only at his initial court appearance.

John Praveen, also known as John Praveen Kumar Itukulapat, 38, appeared before Magistrate Judge Scott Bogue from the Pennington County Jail via a video and audio stream.

Bogue said the high bond was set due the seriousness of the charges and Praveen’s flight risk given he has few ties to the community.

Praveen, who most recently worked at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, a church in Rapid City, is charged with two counts of sexual contact with a child under 16. The class 3 felonies, which allegedly occurred on Sept. 3 and 28, carry a punishment of up to 15 years in prison and/or a maximum fine of $30,000, court records say.

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CHILE
Reuters

October 2, 2018

By Aislinn Laing and Natalia A. Ramos Miranda

Chilean President Sebastian Pinera will meet Pope Francis in Rome later this month during a tour of Europe, as the Roman Catholic Church in Chile faces a crisis over claims of sexual abuse and cover-ups.

A spokesman for Pinera said he will meet the pontiff at the Vatican during a tour of France, Spain, Germany and Belgium that begins on Friday. A Vatican spokesman confirmed the meeting would take place on Saturday morning.

The spokesman for Pinera declined to discuss who had requested the meeting or what would be discussed but said the president would visit Italy only for the purpose of seeing the pope.

Pinera, a Catholic who presides over a right-wing party with traditionally close ties to the Church, has remained largely silent on Chile’s abuse crisis. His uncle is Bernardino Pinera, 102, a retired cleric who is the oldest living Catholic bishop.

So far the pope has accepted the resignations of seven of Chile’s 34 bishops and Chilean civil justice has investigated 119 allegations of sexual abuse or cover-ups involving 167 church workers including Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati, the archbishop of Santiago.

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CLEVELAND (OH)
The Associated Press

October 3, 2018

By John Seewer

Ohio’s largest Roman Catholic diocese will join three other dioceses in the state and release a list of priests who have been removed from their posts because of sexual abuse and misconduct allegations.

The Diocese of Cleveland’s list will include the names of abusive priests, even if they are now dead, church officials said Tuesday.

The diocese since 2002 has been announcing the names of clerics removed from ministry because of sex abuse allegations, said diocesan spokesman Jim Armstrong. Its website includes 29 names, with some of the allegations going back decades.

“It would be wrong to suggest that the Diocese of Cleveland has not committed to release the names of clerics accused of sexually abusing a minor or that it desires to keep secret the names of such clerics,” Armstrong said.

The new names to be added will go back as far as the diocese’s records permit, Cleveland.com reported. The diocese hopes to release an updated list very soon, Armstrong said.

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CLEVELAND (OH)
cleveland.com

October 2, 2018

By Cory Shaffer

Sixteen years before the public release of a groundbreaking grand jury report that detailed decades of sexual abuse at the hands of Pennsylvania’s priests, Cleveland’s top prosecutor launched his own inquest that uncovered allegations against more than 140 priests in the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland spanning decades.

Unlike residents in Pennsylvania, Ohioans never got to see the vast majority of the allegations or learn the names of priests named as abusers and still had access to children.

A Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court judge ruled in 2004 that the state’s laws that cloak the work of grand juries in secrecy outweigh the public’s interest in learning the body’s findings, after then-Cuyahoga County Prosecutor William Mason reversed his earlier stance that he would support a full release of the report.

In the wake of the release of Pennsylvania’s case, Cuyahoga County’s current prosecutor, Michael O’Malley, said his hands remain tied by the ruling and does not see a way to secure the report’s release.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Kansas City Star

October 2, 2018

Why are Missouri Republican politicians playing hot potato with the inquiry into alleged sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests? (Sept. 29, 4A, “Missouri AG’s power in abuse inquiry debated”)

Attorney General Josh Hawley claims he can’t investigate more thoroughly unless asked to do so by Gov. Mike Parson. But Parson claims he can’t act unless asked to do so by a local prosecutor.

There are 115 local prosecutors across the state, many of whom presumably are Republicans. Yet they are staying silent during this process.

GOP politicians like to talk tough about crime. Now they have a chance to back up their words with actions, but they seem to be passing the buck instead of protecting our kids.

Robert Bates

Kansas City

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FARGO (ND)
In Forum

October 1, 2018
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A former Catholic priest was sentenced Monday, Oct. 1, in Cass County District Court on charges that he sexually abused two boys in the 1990s while assigned to churches in Fargo and West Fargo.

Fernando Sayasaya will serve 20 years in prison for his conviction on two charges of gross sexual imposition. He pleaded guilty in May to those charges, after originally entering not guilty pleas in February.

Sayasaya will be required to register as a sex offender. He was given credit for 360 days spent in jail.

Sayasaya served as associate pastor at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Fargo and Blessed Sacrament in West Fargo. He was removed from his duties in the Fargo Diocese in August 1998 after two brothers accused him of sexually abusing them.

The criminal charges said Sayasaya sexually touched two boys under the age of 15 on more than one occasion.

Victims told police Sayasaya would touch or attempt to touch their penises and other private parts when they visited his apartment, and one of the boys told police that the man showed pornographic movies and served him alcohol.

Sayasaya was charged in Cass County District Court in 2002. A federal indictment was returned in 2003 after he failed to return to the United States following a 1998 visit to the Philippines.

He was brought back to Fargo in December 2017.

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YORK (PA)
York Daily Record

October 2, 2018

By Brandie Kessler

For 76 of her 77 years, Sally Sneeringer has lived in the same house, in view of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Conewago Chapel in Adams County.

That is where she attended Mass every week, until last year.

“I had back surgery in ‘72 which left me with a brace on both legs,” Sneeringer said. “At one time, I did not need any other assistance, just the braces.”

As her mobility deteriorated, Sneeringer used a cane and eventually, a walker. These days she doesn’t get out much. Now, she said, her minister comes to her home to give her communion.

To help her tackle all the other tasks and errands in her life, Sneeringer has her lifelong family friend, Herbert Shank, to help.

Shank is among 301 priests accused of sexual abuse of children in a grand jury report released by the Pennsylvania Attorney General last month. He has lived with Sneeringer for more than 20 years.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post

October 3, 2018

By Chico Harlan
·
By age 9 or 10, she had her first doubts about the faith, and not long after, she felt confident telling her parents: The Catholic Church, Agata Leoniddi said, seemed “outdated and backwards.”

The language at Mass was archaic. The teaching was rigid and unwelcoming. And some of the issues most important to her — including gender equality — were not discussed in church, where the leaders were entirely male. Leoniddi had spent her childhood within the church, but more and more, she was reaching the conclusion of so many young people in the developed world who’ve abandoned organized religion and, in particular, the scandal-riddled Catholic faith.

“I don’t think the church understands my generation,” said Leoniddi, now 12, who lives in a village among rolling hills 50 miles outside of Rome. “We are not like our grandfathers.”

The failure to attract and retain young people has become a central focus this month as the Vatican holds a major summit on the topic of youths within the faith. Among the pressing questions is whether an institution often criticized as out of touch can regain relevance for a younger generation — and whether the church’s power brokers are willing to listen to what those people have to say.

At a particularly divided moment within the church, the discussion doubles as an ideological debate over the church’s future, particularly on the extent to which Catholicism should modernize its teachings on sexuality and gender under a pope who has been pushing to adopt a more inclusive tone.

The other key issue is whether the carefully stage-managed event — more than a year and a half in the making — will address clerical sexual abuse within the church. Some outsiders say the discussion can be meaningful only if bishops take on the topic,

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SPRINGFIELD (MA)
Springfield News Republican

October 3, 2018

By Anne-Gerard Flynn

A representative from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops will talk with Springfield diocese clergy on the church’s sexual abuse crisis in the wake of several high profile recent investigations.

Francesco Cesareo, who chairs the National Review Board that advises the USCCB on preventing such abuse, will meet with clergy Tuesday, Oct. 9 at 6 p.m. at Pope Francis Preparatory School, 99 Wendover Road.

A recently released Pennsylvania grand jury report found that more than 1,000 children were victimized by some 300 Catholic priests over seven decades and that their sexual abuse was covered up by church hierarchy.

Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, former archbishop of Washington, was suspended from ministry in June after the New York archdiocese deemed credible an accusation that he had molested a 16-year-old boy there 50 years ago.

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HARTFORD (CT)
Hartford Courant

October 3, 2018
By Dave Altimari

The Diocese of Bridgeport announced Wednesday that it has hired former Judge Robert L. Holzberg to do a comprehensive review of all the priest sexual-abuse claims made against or settled by the diocese over the last 55 years.

Bishop Frank J. Caggiano said in a press release that Holzberg “will have complete and unrestricted access to all Diocesan files, records and archives dating from 1953.” All clergy still under the diocese’s controal and all church administrators will be made available for Holzberg to interview.

Documents Reveal Former Connecticut Bishop Allowed Priests Facing Sex Abuse Allegations To Continue Working »

The Bridgeport announcement comes weeks after a Pennsylvania grand jury report was released that detailed horrific claims of priest sexual abuse cases in that diocese.

In Pennsylvania the attorney general’s office did an 18-month investigation that covered six of the state’s dioceses — Allentown, Erie, Greensburg, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Scranton. The grand jury reviewed more than 2 million documents, including from the “secret archives” — files that church leaders held from the public for decades.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

October 3, 2018

By Philip Pullella

Pope Francis opened a gathering of bishops on Wednesday with the Catholic Church in a swirling state of crisis over sex abuse, urging its leaders not to let the next generation’s faith be snuffed out “by our own shortcomings, mistakes and sins”.

In signs of the extraordinary pressure the Church has come under from the worldwide abuse scandal, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia had called for the “youth synod” to be canceled so the Vatican could concentrate on preparing another bishops’ meeting on preventing sex abuse.

Cardinal Joseph Tobin, the archbishop of Newark, New Jersey stayed home to deal with the scandal’s fallout, and a Dutch bishop, Robert Mutsaerts of Den Bosch, boycotted, saying the synod lacked credibility.

More than 250 other bishops from around the world will attend the month-long meeting with about 40 young people invited to take part as observers.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
The Associated Press

October 3, 2018

By Christopher Weber

A man who says he was sexually abused decades ago by his parish priest said Tuesday he is suing all Catholic bishops in California and the Archdiocese of Chicago, seeking to compel church officials to release records on clergy abuse.

The filing Tuesday in Los Angeles by Thomas Emens claims a civil conspiracy among church officials to cover up clergy sexual assault and move offending priests to other parishes.

Emens said at a news conference that he was abused for two years starting in 1978 when he was 10 years old by Monsignor Thomas Joseph Mohan. The priest, who is deceased, arrived at St. Anthony Claret Catholic Church in Anaheim in the early 1970s from Chicago, according to the lawsuit.

“This lawsuit is to find justice – to get the clerics at the top to come clean and tell the truth,” Emens said.

Attorney Jeff Anderson said the goal of the so-called nuisance lawsuit is to force the church to reveal the names of all priests accused of child molestation. He said church documents would reveal a playbook among bishops and other officials to protect offending clergy by keeping files under wraps and moving the priests across the country and, in some cases, out of the United States.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
The Associated Press

October 2, 2018

A man who claims he was sexually abused decades ago by his parish priest said Tuesday he is suing all Catholic bishops in California and the Archdiocese of Chicago, seeking to compel church officials to release records on clergy abuse.

The filing Monday in Los Angeles by Thomas Emens claims a civil conspiracy among church officials to cover up clergy sexual assault and move offending priests to other parishes.

Emens said at a news conference that he was abused for two years starting in 1978 when he was 10 years old by Monsignor Thomas Joseph Mohan. The priest, who is deceased, arrived at St. Anthony Claret Catholic Church in Anaheim in the early 1970s from Chicago, according to the lawsuit.

Attorney Jeff Anderson said the goal of the so-called “nuisance” lawsuit is to force the church to reveal the names of all priests accused of child molestation. He said church documents would reveal a “playbook” among bishops and other officials to protect offending clergy by keeping files under wraps and moving the priests across the country and, in some cases, out of the U.S.

The lawsuit asks a judge “to abate the continuing nuisance” of abuse by ordering each diocese to name all accused priests, detail their history of alleged assault and identify their last known addresses.

A call seeking comment from officials at the California Catholic Conference of Bishops, which oversees the state’s 12 dioceses, was not immediately returned. A call to the Archdiocese of Chicago was also not returned Tuesday.

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LAFAYETTE (LA)
Lafayette Daily Advertiser

October 1, 2018

Bishop J. Douglas Deshotel of the Diocese of Lafayette issued a statement Monday in response to a vow from an anonymous group of Acadiana Catholics to expose “corruption” in the church.

“The Diocese of Lafayette remains firmly committed to its Safe Environment Program for the protection of minors and vulnerable adults. Protocols have been in place since 2002 to make every Church entity in the Diocese a safe place for minors and vulnerable adults. These are openly posted on the Diocesan website,” Deshotel said in an emailed statement.

“The Diocese will not respond to deadlines, bullying and ultimatums issued by any non-Diocesan, anonymous group. I also remind such groups that slander, detraction and defamation of character are mortally sinful. Those who commit them must receive sacramental absolution in Confession and in justice restore the good name of those offended or risk losing everlasting life at the final judgment.”

The group, The Society of Peter Damien, made the letter public Friday on Twitter, after, they said, the bishop hadn’t responded within a week.

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OWENSBORO (KY)
The Owensboro Times

October 1, 2018

By Katie Pickens

Gerald Baker, a priest of the Diocese of Owensboro, was accused of sexual abuse in 2016 by three minors. Law enforcement and the Diocesan Review Board began investigations regarding the allegations in 2016.

While investigating, the Diocesan Review Board found the minors’ allegations to be substantiated. Because of the results, Bishop William F. Medley has permanently suspended Baker from public ministry.

At the time of the allegations Baker was pastor at St. Mary of the Woods in Whitesville and St. John the Baptist in Fordsville, although location and details of the abuse have not been released.

The Kentucky State Police (KSP) investigated the allegations in 2016, but Trooper Corey King, Public Affairs Officer for KSP said the case was closed after a former detective determined there was no criminal act that required the investigation of KSP.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service

October 1, 2018

California Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a measure Sept. 30 that would have extended the state’s statute of limitations for decades for childhood sexual abuse survivors.

The proposed measure would have allowed victims to file abuse claims until they are 40 years old. It also would have allowed those who have repressed memories of abuse to sue within five years of realizing the cause of their trauma.

In his Sept. 30 letter to the members of the California State Assembly, Brown said he vetoed a similar bill in 2013 and said his views on this have not changed.

He said the current measure is even broader than the one he opposed five years ago and “does not fully address the inequity between the state defendants and others and provides a longer revival period for otherwise barred claims.”

David Clohessy, until 2016 the longtime director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP, and now a volunteer with the group, was disappointed by Brown’s veto.

“The civil window would have enabled thousands of suffering survivors to expose hundreds of wrongdoers who committed and concealed child sex crimes,” Clohessy said in a statement. “Instead, horrors will remain hidden and kids will remain at risk of more harm.”

“Governor Jerry Brown has again sided with the powerful against the powerless, with the guilty against the innocent, and with the oppressors over the oppressed,” Clohessy said.

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ITALY
Daily Mail Online

October 1, 2018

By Miranda Aldersley

– ‘Giuseppe’ was abused as a child by priests at the Antonio Provolo Institute
– He described how he was unable to communicate what was happening to others, even via sign-language, because the signs were invented by priests
– 67 boys are named in documents Verona prosecutors say they will bring to trial

A deaf and mute victim of the historic sex abuse inside the Catholic church has revealed how he and his friends were taught secret signs for oral sex and sodomy at a learning institute inItaly.

The victim, identified only as ‘Giuseppe’, told The Daily Beast how the priests and monks at the Antonio Provolo Institute in Verona had started teaching him a string of sickening signs for things such as masturbation, fellatio, penis, and anus, when he was just 11 years old.

The signs were designed to be incomprehensible to others, even those who could understand sign language, making it impossible for the children to accurately explain what was happening to them to their parents or the authorities.

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VATICAN
Evangelical Focus

October 2, 2018

By Leonardo De Chirico

The sexual abuse crisis has been on the table in a dramatically growing way since the years of Benedict XVI. The problem is systemic and pervasive.

The public image of the Roman Catholic Church emerging out of the sexual abuse scandals is that of a disrupted institution going through a season of internal turmoil.

Having several top leaders (cardinals, bishops, priests) and institutions (seminaries, schools, the Vatican curia itself) incriminated for either abusing children or covering up abuse undermines the moral, spiritual, and institutional credibility of Rome.

Over the last ten years, horrible things have come out: first in Ireland, then Australia, then Chile, and more recently in the USA (where a Pennsylvania Grand Jury report exposed systemic abuses committed by priests) and Germany (with a recent report saying that 3,677 children have been abused by Catholic priests since the 1940s). These are just five regions where exposure of the traumatic evidence meant that the scandals could no longer be covered up. The impression is that we have not yet reached the peak. The vast echo of these scandals reached the Vatican headquarters when former nuncio Carlo Maria Viganò accused vast sectors of the Roman Curia of covering them up and called for Francis’ resignation due to his inability to properly deal with the abuses.

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ST. LOUIS (MI)
St. Louis Public Radio

October 1, 2018

By Rachel Lippmann

Updated Oct. 1 at 4:30 p.m. with comments from the St. Louis Police Department — Police in Missouri do not know the whereabouts of nearly 1,200 sex offenders who are required by law to register with law enforcement — or nearly 8 percent of the total population who are supposed to be tracked.

An audit released Monday by state Auditor Nicole Galloway found that nearly 800 of those individuals have committed the most serious crimes, such as rape or child molestation in the first degree.

“I find this disturbing and alarming,” Galloway said during an appearance in St. Louis. “Because local law enforcement officials don’t know where these offenders are, that means citizens don’t know where they are either.”

The 7.9 percent noncompliance rate was higher than the 7.1 percent rate found during the last audit in 2010, Galloway said, and more than half of the nonregistered offenders had exceeded their scheduled dates to register by more than a year.

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LOS ANGELES
Los Angeles Times

October 3, 2018

By Laura Newberry

Over the last two decades, Roman Catholic dioceses across California have paid out massive settlements to parishioners who say they were molested by priests; acknowledged institutional breakdowns that facilitated abuse; and wrestled with followers who said they had lost faith in church leaders.

Now, after a Pennsylvania grand jury detailed rampant sexual abuse committed by Catholic clergy there, some dioceses have moved toward even greater transparency by releasing the names — in some cases for the first time — of priests accused of such crimes.

San Diego’s diocese updated its public list in mid-September. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the Diocese of Orange are reviewing their lists of credibly accused priests — which were last updated in 2008 and 2016, respectively — to see whether any names should be added. And bishops of the San Bernardino and San Jose dioceses say they plan to publish names in the coming weeks.

The decision to disclose has been made across the U.S. — by bishops in places like Youngstown, Ohio; Fort Wayne, Ind.; and Little Rock, Ark. — following the Pennsylvania report that revealed a decades-long cover-up of child sex abuse involving more than 1,000 victims and hundreds of priests.

Attorneys general in at least eight states also have launched investigations into alleged clerical sexual misconduct, requesting or subpoenaing diocese records. California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra’s office declined to say whether it had an examination underway.

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ERIE (PA)
The Gannon Knight

October 3, 2018

Gannon University’s Board of Trustees has voted to rescind all awards and honors given to Bishop Emeritus Donald W. Trautman in the wake of his role in a sexual abuse scandal that dates back decades.

University President Keith Taylor, Ph. D., announced the decision Friday in a brief statement.

Taylor was not available for further comment.

“Each of us in our own way continues to reflect on the report of the grand jury investigation of decades of sexual abuse by clergy in the Diocese of Erie as well as attending to the surrounding events and discussions in the community and beyond,” Taylor said in his statement.

“Gannon’s Board of Trustees met last week in thoughtful dialogue to consider a University response and necessary actions to be taken.”

Taylor then said that the board voted to rescind all awards and honors bestowed upon Trautman, including the naming of the Catholic House and lecture series created in his honor.

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SANTIAGO (CHILE)
Associated Press

October 2, 2018

By Luis Andres Henao and Patricia Luna

Chile’s Roman Catholic Church has apologized for a set of conduct guidelines for priests dealing with children that has caused outrage just as the South American country is being rocked by a widespread clerical sex abuse scandal.

The recommendations include asking priests not to “touch the area of the genitals or the chest” of minors, kiss them on the mouth, spank them on the buttocks or “lie down to sleep next to boys, girls or teenagers.” Priests are told to “avoid some behaviors,” including taking photographs of a child, teen or vulnerable person when they’re naked because it could be “misinterpreted.”

The document published on the site of the archbishopric of Santiago was signed by Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati. He is under investigation by prosecutors for allegedly covering up years of abuse, and is expected to be questioned on Wednesday.

The guidelines were expected to come into effect in April 2019. But after a flurry of criticism, the Chilean church removed the document shortly after it was published Friday.

“We’ve made a mistake and we’re going to fix it,” Auxiliary Santiago Bishop Cristian Roncagliolo said. “A crime is a crime.”

The so-called “Guidelines fomenting the good treatment and healthy pastoral coexistence” do not mention sex abuse. They refer to “painful acts” or “equivocal signs.”

Jaime Coiro, the spokesman for the Chilean bishops’ conference, issued a statement asking Chileans to refer to guidelines for the prevention of abuse against minors published in 2015 that he said were distributed nationwide.

But some victims and activists say they’re still shocked by the lack of sensitivity in a country where Pope Francis has acknowledged that he had underestimated the pervasiveness of pedophile priests and other church abuse.

“This is a bizarre and frightening document. It reveals the dangerous mindset of the Chilean bishops,” said Anne Barrett Doyle of the online abuse database BishopAccountability.org.

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BRIDGEPORT (CT)
Patheos

October 2, 2018

By Fr. Matthew Schneider

Bishop Frank Caggiano of Bridgeport, CT is a delegate at the youth synod. He recently spoke about what we need to do in order to reach young people. As the National Catholic Reporter stated:

As the Synod of Bishops on youth and young adults prepares to open, one of the American delegate bishops said that for any efforts to minister to young people today to bear fruit, the church must first reclaim credibility by addressing the clergy sexual abuse scandal head on.

“I am going to advocate that the synod needs to make that a major topic now, without a doubt,” said Bishop Frank Caggiano of Bridgeport, Connecticut, who spoke to NCR in an interview Sept. 27. “If you’re going to speak relevantly to young people, you cannot but do that.”

He added that he hopes the synod will produce “not just words but some significant initiatives in that regard.”

The 59-year-old bishop said such a move is “essential,” a word he repeated several times, for the Catholic Church to be seen as credible in its outreach to young people. He described the present abuse scandal now in a second phase “all about authenticity. It’s about leadership being accountable. It’s about transparency. I think the greatest scandal is when, you know, things are not accounted for, or hidden or not transparent. That shakes people’s faith.”

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Slate

October 1, 2018

By Ruth Graham

The culture war brewing within the American Catholic Church is about to get uglier.

A group of wealthy American Roman Catholics have banded together to fund what they describe as a public investigation into every member of the church’s College of Cardinals. As the Catholic news site Crux reported on Monday, the group has assembled almost 100 academics, investigators, journalists, and former FBI agents to produce what it’s calling the “Red Hat Report.” The watchdog group plans to spend more than $1 million in its first year, with the goal of naming “those credibly accused in scandal, abuse, or cover-ups” and influencing the selection of the next pope.

The group is responding to an obvious crisis: The Catholic Church is in the throes of multiple overlapping clerical abuse scandals, including the resignation in disgrace of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick this summer. Meanwhile, a Pennsylvania grand jury found that more than 300 priests in the state had abused more than 1,000 children over the course of decades. By mid-September, eight other states had announced similar investigations. (That’s to say nothing of recent church scandals in other countries, including Chile and Germany.) And the Vatican, including the institution under Pope Francis, has been accused of ignoring or even covering up the rot.

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VATICAN CITY
Associated Press (via USA Today)

October 2, 2018

By Nicole Winfield

Pope Francis opens a monthlong meeting of bishops Wednesday on engaging young Catholics as his church is again under fire for the way it covered up for priests who raped and molested young people.

One American bishop suggested postponing or cancelling the synod, given the poor optics of assembling the church hierarchy to discuss a demographic harmed by the culture of concealment the same hierarchy has been accused of fostering.

A Dutch bishop, outraged that the Vatican hasn’t responded to claims that Francis himself rehabilitated a predator American cardinal, announced he was boycotting the meeting altogether. Another American bishop asked Francis to let him stay home to cope with the scandal’s fallout in his diocese.

Despite the dark cloud hanging over the synod, organizers said they thought the rebirth of the scandal could still give the Vatican an opportunity to show that the Catholic Church isn’t just about sex abuse and cover-ups.

“The church isn’t represented by those who make mistakes. The church is more important and fundamental than that,” said Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, who is organizing the Oct. 3-28 meeting.

The synod is bringing together 266 bishops from five continents for talks on helping young people find their vocations in life – be it lay or religious – at a time when church marriages and religious vocations are plummeting in much of the West.

It’s a follow-on synod to the meetings Francis organized in 2014 and 2015 on family life that inspired his controversial opening to letting divorced and civilly remarried Catholics receive Communion.

No single pressing issue is facing bishops this time around, although the way they address homosexuality will be the most closely watched topic. The Vatican’s preparatory document made what is believed to be the first-ever reference in an official Vatican text to “LGBT.”

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MONTEREY (CA)
KSBW

October 2, 2018

By Amy Larson

A former Monterey Catholic bishop is among several bishops named in a newly-filed lawsuit alleging that a sex abuse cover up was carried out in California to keep “predator priests” unrevealed.

The lawsuit filed by Thomas Emens names former Monterey Bishop Richard Garcia, who died three months ago, as well as every other bishop in California.

Emens says he was abused by a priest for two years when he was 10 and 11 years old in the 1970s.

The suit states that bishops and archbishops allowed more than 35 sex abuse perpetrators to flee the jurisdiction after reports of abuse arose. It demands that “all California bishops immediately release the names and documented histories on all clerical offenders in each diocese secretly kept in their possession.”

On Tuesday attorney Jeff Anderson called for all California bishops to “come clean with the secrets they know” about “predator priests.”

“The Catholic bishops have engaged in dangerous practices. There is, and has been, a grave peril to children in communities across the state,” Anderson said. “The problem is everywhere.”

The nuisance lawsuit names the archdioceses of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Orange, San Bernardino, San Diego, Fresno, Sacramento, Oakland, San Jose, Monterey, and Santa Rosa.

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CLEVELAND (OH)
WOIO

October 2, 2018

By John Deike

Trapped in the midst of a global public relations nightmare, the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland is drastically expanding its effort to publicly identify clerics who were removed from their positions because of credible sexual assault allegations.

The diocese has already released the names of accused clergy from 2002 to the present, but now, local religious officials will compile a list that dates back through the 1900s.

The diocese plans to publish the list in the near term, according to Deacon Jim Armstrong.

A handful of other Ohio dioceses, including Columbus, Youngstown and Steubenville, have taken similar steps, after a Pennsylvania grand jury revealed in August that 300 priests were named in a sexual assault probe dating back to the 1940s.

It’s not yet clear how many names the Cleveland diocese will release.

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NEW YORK (NY)
CBS NEWS

October 3, 2018

A month-long meeting of Catholic bishops from around the world gets underway Wednesday at the Vatican. Pope Francis opened the meeting Wednesday morning, which is designed to attract the young back to the church. Even before it began, the meeting faced criticism from some church leaders because clerical sex abuse is not officially on the docket — though it certainly looms large over the gathering.

Pope Francis told bishops Wednesday morning, youth should have a future free of the mistakes and sins of the past. The synod, or meeting, brings together nearly 300 church leaders from almost 125 countries. The Vatican has recognized young people’s “lack of harmony” with the church. So these — mostly old — people have surveyed Catholic youth and will discuss topics that sound like a teenagers’ Google history: video games, migration, LGBT issues, war, friendship, porn and corruption.

Survivors of sex abuse are taking advantage of this unusual concentration of bishops to speak up. Four hearing-impaired survivors of clerical sexual abuse pointed out the priests who’d abused them at the Antonio Provolo Institute for the Deaf in Verona, Italy. They plan to protest at the Vatican Wednesday.

“I was naked and confused,” Gianni Bisoli told CBS News correspondent Seth Doane. His abuse started at age nine.

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SOUTH AFRICA
Sunday Times

October 3, 2018

By Dave Chambers

Six months after sex abuse claims rocked the Anglican Church of Southern Africa‚ it has adopted new measures to deal with the issue.

With immediate effect‚ anyone wanting to be ordained to the Anglican clergy will have to provide a police clearance certificate‚ Archbishop Thabo Makgoba said on Wednesday.

From January‚ the same rule would be progressively introduced for lay ministers‚ especially those involved in youth ministry and Sunday school teaching.

The church has also set up an e-mail address to make it easier to report allegations of abuse.

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BURLINGTON (VT)
WCAX

October 2, 2018

By Darren Perron

A task force looking into allegations of decades-old abuse — and possible murder — at a Burlington orphanage continues its investigation. It may be decades-old, but that and other new allegations of sex abuse against priests in other states are triggering memories for Vermont victims who suffer ongoing emotional torment. And one of those victims is speaking exclusively with Channel 3 News in his first television interview.

“My parents were proud of me for being an altar boy,” said Mike Gay.

He says he was excited as his family waited in the congregation at Christ the King Church in Burlington to witness his first day as an altar boy. The then 11-year-old rushed down a set of stairs to find Father Edward Paquette just before Sunday service. That’s when it all began. “There he was, fully exposed, with his pants around his ankles,” Gay said.

Paquette pretended it was a mistake and that Gay arrived too soon. The little boy was embarrassed at what he saw and never said a word. “Everyday I had to serve I was sick,” Gay said.

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

UNITED STATES
Patheos

October 2, 2018

By Melissa Hill

I certainly have my own tales of #metoo. But I don’t feel the need to share my stories today. My guess is that your Facebook feed has already been filled with people referencing #metoo and the Kavanaugh hearing. The pagan community has had scandals like Kenny Klein and Issac Bonewits. We all know local scandals too. Those are smaller and less publicized, but no less horrible in scope for those involved. I’ve had to help people get away from abusers. I’ve done magic to keep them safe. I’ve confronted people and told them to get out of my community. I’ve accepted that we cannot count on our justice system to help us when it comes to sexual abuse and assault. We need to watch out for our own.

We cannot afford to ignore these issues and we need to take action within our own local communities. My own local pagan community and international community of druids have struggled with these issues in a very real way. Last year much of the ADF leadership and priesthood took the Pagan Consent Course from the Cherry Hill Seminary, and since then I’ve been giving consent workshops and continuing to deepen my own knowledge.

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.

MONTEREY (CA)
KSBW.com

October 2, 2018

By Amy Larson

A former Monterey Catholic bishop is among several bishops named in a newly-filed lawsuit alleging that a sex abuse cover up was carried out in several California Archdioceses.

The lawsuit filed by Jeff Anderson & Associates names former Monterey Bishop Richard Garcia, who died three months ago.

The suit states that bishops and archbishops allowed more than 35 sex abuse perpetrators to flee the jurisdiction after reports of abuse arose. It demands that “all California bishops immediately release the names and documented histories on all clerical offenders in each diocese secretly kept in their possession.”

On Tuesday attorney Jeff Anderson called for all California bishops to “come clean with the secrets they know” about “predator priests.”

“The Catholic bishops have engaged in dangerous practices. There is, and has been, a grave peril to children in communities across the state,” Anderson said. “The problem is everywhere.”

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OTTAWA (ONTARIO)
Catholic News Service (via Crux)

By Deborah Gyapong

October 2, 2018

OTTAWA, Ontario – New sexual abuse policies that Canada’s bishops have vowed to implement will focus on prevention but will not include a mechanism to censure a bishop who commits or covers up an offense.

More than 80 bishops and eparchs from across Canada pledged unanimously to implement the sexual abuse document that has been six years in the making and is now set to be released. Previous documents established guidelines but required no commitment from bishops to implement them. Now bishops across the country have pledged to enforce these new national standards.

“What we want is for the Catholic Church to be the safest place for young people,” said Bishop Lionel Gendron, president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, speaking Sept. 28 after the close of the bishops’ annual plenary in Cornwall, Ontario.

Titled “Protecting Minors from Sexual Abuse: A Call to the Catholic Faithful in Canada for Healing, Reconciliation, and Transformation,” the document has been under construction since 2011. It builds on the 1992 document “From Pain to Hope,” which was updated in 2007, Gendron said.

Work on the document was essentially finished before the Church was rocked by recent sex-abuse scandals and cover-ups in the United States and other countries. In June, retired Washington Archbishop Theodore E. McCarrick resigned as a cardinal amid allegations of sexual misconduct. In August, a Pennsylvania grand jury report exposed decades of alleged abuse involving more than 300 priests and other church workers.

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WARSAW (POLAND)
Voice of America

October 2, 2018

An appeals court in Poland ruled Tuesday that a Roman Catholic order should pay damages to a woman who was abducted and sexually abused by one of its priests when she was 13.

The court in the western city of Poznan said the Society of Christ Fathers must pay damages of 1 million zlotys ($270,000) and a monthly compensation of 800 zlotys ($190) to the woman, identified by her lawyer only as Katarzyna.

The priest, identified only as 42-year-old Roman B., was arrested in 2008 and convicted of pedophilia. He has served four years in prison, and was removed from the religious order last year.

Lawyers for the Catholic order indicated they will appeal the verdict to Poland’s Supreme Court, and lawyers acting for the woman also want to seek a higher compensation amount. If they do, it will be a major test for the court, which recently had some of its judges replaced under a reform carried out by the conservative ruling party, which supports the church.

Poland’s Catholic Church is working on a report on the scale of abuse of minors. Archbishop Wojciech Polak, the primate of Poland, has said the church needs to be more sensitive and open in discussing the problem.

“There must be zero tolerance for the sins and crimes of pedophilia,” Poland said on private TVN24. “We are facing a long-term struggle.”

Poland’s bishops are working on a document to be published this year that will assess the scale of pedophilia among priests and will have guidance for preventing it.

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HOUSTON (TX)
SNAP Network

October 2, 2018

For immediate release, October 2 2018

A Houston-area priest was recently arrested for sexual abusing a child. Reports from the AP and other news outlets show that the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston had been specifically warned about Fr. Manuel LaRosa-Lopez. Unfortunately, those warnings went unheeded.

According to reports, when they were first contacted about Fr. LaRosa-Lopez by one of LaRosa’s victims, the church told her that he would be removed from active ministry. Instead, they moved him to another parish, 70 miles away. Despite knowing about credible allegations of abuse against him, no parishioners, staff, or others were warned.

Ten months ago, the church was contacted again about Fr. LaRosa-Lopez, this time by a different victim. Archbishop DiNardo met with the victim personally but only removed Fr. LaRosa-Lopez a week before his arrest. When he finally was removed from ministry, rather than be upfront about the reasons, parishioners were told that their priest was away on a retreat. Today, prosecutors are publicly saying that there may be more victims and they are in the process of researching new information.

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[Archdiocese of Santiago considers plausible allegations against Laplagne and sends them to the Vatican]

CHILE
BioBioChile

September 28, 2018

By María José Villarroel and Nicole Martínez

El Arzobispado de Santiago remitió las denuncias en contra del sacerdote Jorge Laplagne al Vaticano, luego de que se diera verosimilitud a estas acusaciones. En julio de este año, la Iglesia indicó que el 27 de junio de 2018 se presentó una denuncia en contra del religioso por parte de una persona que aseguró haber sido menor de edad cuando la agresión tuvo lugar, hace 13 años.

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[José Andrés Murillo talks about the catharsis of Karadima’s expulsion]

CHILE
La Tercera

October 2, 2018

By Tamy Palma

“Errázuriz y Ezzati fueron cómplices y por eso amerita que les den la sanción más enérgica”, dice el director de la Fundación para la Confianza.

Cuando José Andrés Murillo (43) supo que el Papa Francisco decidió expulsar del sacerdocio al ex párroco titular de la parroquia El Bosque, Fernando Karadima, estaba en Providencia, en la casa que aloja la Fundación para la Confianza, la misma que fundó junto a Juan Carlos Cruz y James Hamilton en 2010, y que nació, precisamente, a raíz de la denuncia que oficializaron en 2004 ante las autoridades eclesiásticas contra Karadima.

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[Secret letters implicate Ezzati, contain warnings about Laplagne’s abuse]

CHILE
La Tercera

October 2, 2018

By Ivonne Toro

El 30 de marzo de 2011, el entonces canciller Hans Kast le escribió a Ezzati un correo en que le adjuntó un testimonio contra Laplagne y le pidió iniciar una investigación previa y tomar alguna medida pastoral y/o cautelar contra el religioso. El cardenal no tomó en consideración las sugerencias y cuatro años después permitió que se cerrara la indagatoria desformalizada.

Está previsto que mañana el cardenal Ricardo Ezzati declare en calidad de imputado por encubrimiento en la causa por abusos sexuales en contra del ex canciller del Arzobispado de Santiago, Óscar Muñoz. El rol que se le imputa a Ezzati en este caso es no haber efectuado, al tomar conocimiento de los hechos que involucraron a menores de edad, las denuncias respectivas al Ministerio Público. Sin embargo, a través de esta hebra, el fiscal que investiga la causa, Emiliano Arias, ha logrado acceder a una serie de documentos que muestran eventuales omisiones del cardenal Ezzati, y de su antecesor en la arquidiócesis de Santiago, Francisco Javier Errázuriz, en otro caso: el del sacerdote Jorge Laplagne, quien estaba a cargo de las parroquias San Crescente de Providencia y Nuestra Señora de Luján de Ñuñoa, y que además prestaba servicios en el Instituto Alonso de Ercilla, de los Hermanos Maristas.

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LONG ISLAND (NY)
LongIsland.com

October 2, 2018

By Chris Boyle

Two Long Island-based Catholic priests recently agreed to step down from their posts and away from the ministry after both were revealed to be under investigation for alleged sex abuse incidents, according to reports.

Reverend Monsignor William Breslawski, a former pastor at Church of Saint Anthony of Padua in Rocky Point, received complaints issued to both the Nassau and Suffolk County District Attorney Offices in June that he had allegedly sexually abused a middle school child in 1980, in addition to having “inappropriate interactions” with two adults in 1984.

In addition, the complaint was also later presented to Diocese of Rockville Centre, which has launched an investigation of their own into the allegations against Breslawski and released a statement, in which they expressed a desire to get to the bottom of what happened.

“We are saddened by these allegations,” the Diocese said. “We will do everything we can to ensure that a fair and just determination is made.”

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NEW MEXICO
The Associated Press

October 2, 2018

By Russell Contreras

A lawyer for a former New Mexico priest who fled the U.S. decades ago amid allegations of child sex abuse is seeking his release from federal prison.

Defense attorney Samuel Winder filed an appeal late last week asking a federal judge to reverse a decision to detain Arthur Perrault until his trial on sexual abuse.

A federal magistrate ordered the 80-year-old Perrault held pending trial after deeming him a flight risk.

Court documents say Perrault vanished in 1992, just days before an attorney filed two lawsuits against the archdiocese alleging Perrault had sexually assaulted seven children at his parish. He was located last year in Morocco.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
KYW AM

October 1, 2018

The Philadelphia Archdiocese is fighting legislation now before the state Senate that would open a window allowing adult victims of clergy sexual abuse, which occurred when they were children, to sue….KYW Newsradio’s Mark Abrams reports.

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BUFFALO (NY)
Spectrum News

October 1, 2018

By Mark Goshgarian

The Catholic Diocese of Buffalo opened its Office of Professional Responsibility Monday, lead by former long-time FBI agent Steven Halter.

The Diocese says Halter will, in-part, investigate clergy abuse complaints, as protesters Sunday were not satisfied with the creation of the new post.

He’ll also serve as a resource for pastors, pastoral administrators, principals and other church leaders throughout the diocese. Halter was a bureau agent for almost 30 years and will also investigate any financial mismanagement within the diocese.

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THOMPSON FALLS (MT)
KPVI

September 30, 2018

By Seaborn Larson

Perhaps the largest jury award ever to a single person claiming the Jehovah’s Witnesses church failed to protect her from a sexual predator came Wednesday in Thompson Falls, a 1,300-person town peeking out from the pines along Highway 200 in northwest Montana.

The jury’s award, $35 million in punitive and compensatory damages to one woman, is more than financial relief, the woman’s attorneys say. It’s a message to the church: If leadership won’t amend their policies in handling child sex abuse, they’re going to pay for it.

In 2012, a California jury awarded one woman $28 million for her own claims against the Witnesses. Her attorney said it was the largest jury verdict for a single victim in a religious abuse case in the entire country at that time. The payout is a direct reflection of the church’s enormous and — most importantly — centralized wealth at the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, located in Pennsylvania and New York.

The Montana case is the most recent in a global reckoning for the Jehovah’s Witnesses, not unlike the ones seen with the Catholic Church and Boy Scouts of America. The number of cases filed against the church has accelerated in local and federal courts across the United States, alleging that church leadership stifled child sexual abuse allegations and returned known predators to congregations without warning other Witnesses.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
Verdict

October 1, 2018

By Marci A. Hamilton

With Pennsylvania’s legislative session days running out, there is reason to fear that the furious forward momentum for statute of limitations reform for child sex abuse victims (and in particular a 2-year window) could be derailed. The ball is now in the senate’s court and it has only seven days left: October 1, 2, 3, 15, 16, 17, and November 14.

The assembly passed a great SOL bill as compared to Pennsylvania’s current SOLs: it eliminates the criminal SOL, extends the civil SOL to age 50, includes the Rozzi Amendment, which has a two-year window, and eliminates sovereign immunity in public school cases (prior to now, a victim in a public school could not sue for child sex abuse at all). That is the bill the senate has on its plate now. Pennsylvania will not displace Delaware as the leading state on SOL reform, but the current bill would be strong progress.

It is natural for the public to be enraged in response to systemic child sex abuse, and there has been reason for Pennsylvanians to be appalled as nine grand jury reports have detailed abuse in every diocese, Penn State, the Solebury School, and public schools. Citizens naturally assume that their outrage will be translated into proper action, but history tells us there is no straight line from public disgust to good policy. At each moment so far in the state, lawmakers have caved to the bishops and insurance lobbyists, which translates into nine grand jury reports over horrific sex abuse and callous coverups and the only change so far is the 2007 extension of the criminal SOL from age 30 to age 50.

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LAFAYETTE (LA)
Lafayette Journal & Courier

October 1, 2018

By Ron Wilkins

Twelve priests in the Diocese of Lafayette’s 74-year history likely sexually abused minors, according to a special edition of “The Catholic Moment” published online on Friday.

The publication of the priests’ names, date of ordination, action taken and current status comes eight days after a man using the pseudonym John Doe filed a civil lawsuit, claiming that Father James Grear sexually abused him in 1982 at a Catholic youth rally at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in Carmel, Indiana.

Grear is one of the 12 named in the list, which Bishop Timothy L. Doherty, in the Sept. 16 edition of “The Catholic Moment,” said was committed to releasing.

Grear was ordained on May 30, 1970. He was removed from public ministry and his priestly faculties removed in October 2001, according to Friday’s publication. However, lawsuits filed last month and in 2011 accused Grear of sexual misconduct in 1982 and 1975, respectively.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

September 28, 2018

By Peter Smith

More than two decades ago, Pittsburgh Bishop Donald Wuerl made a fateful trip to Rome where he challenged the highest court in the Catholic Church over its poorly informed order to lift a suspension on a sexually abusive priest. The trip helped seal his reputation as an early, bold proponent of zero-tolerance toward sexual abusers.

With that reputation now under siege, now-Cardinal Wuerl is making an equally momentous trip to Rome. A photo from the Vatican showed Cardinal Wuerl with the pope on Friday. Cardinal Wuerl previously said he would go to Rome to ask Pope Francis to immediately accept his resignation as archbishop of Washington, D.C.

Cardinal Wuerl says he is stepping down for the good of the church after a Pennsylvania grand jury assailed his record. It cited cases in which known abusers stayed in ministry under his watch and accused the cardinal of presiding over administrative actions that “showed no concern for public safety or the victims of child sexual abuse.”

Now those who worked with Cardinal Wuerl in Pittsburgh when he was bishop here from 1988 to 2006 are processing the shock of the imminent halt to his clerical career.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
National Catholic Register

October 1, 2018

By Joan Desmond

In 2005, three New Jersey dioceses approved an $80,000 settlement resulting from allegations of sexual misconduct brought by a former priest against three men: a Pittsburgh priest, a New Jersey high school teacher and then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.

This weekend, the Washington Post reported that both the settlement document and the accuser, Robert Ciolek, point to an important, previously undisclosed fact: then-Bishop Donald Wuerl of Pittsburgh was also named in the document.

Bishop Wuerl did not sign the settlement papers, and his diocese did not contribute to it. Further, McCarrick’s name does not appear in the document.

Nevertheless, the involvement of a Pittsburgh area priest in this 2005 settlement increases the likelihood that Wuerl was informed about sexual misconduct allegations against McCarrick more than a decade ago, a direct contradiction of Wuerl’s public stance.

Ciolek said for the first time publicly that the settlement included allegations against a third person, a Pittsburgh priest Ciolek says made unwanted sexual contact with him in seminary, where the priest was a professor,” the Washington Post reported, Sept. 29.

The first page of settlement agreement lists the Diocese of Pittsburgh and Wuerl, who supervised the priest as bishop of Pittsburgh at the time, among the numerous parties to the settlement…

Is it possible that Wuerl was informed about the settlement involving one of his priests, but was not told that McCarrick was also accused by Ciolek?

Ciolek’s remarks and the settlement document underscore the vital importance of launching a formal investigation of the four dioceses where McCarrick served as a priest, bishop or archbishop, and the Church leaders who knew of his misconduct with seminarians and priests but remained silent and imposed confidentiality requirements on accusers.

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NEW YORK (NY)
New York Times

October 2, 2018

By David Gonzalez

A child’s sleeping bag. A pair of swim goggles. A bland landscape. These unremarkable items and scenes, barely noticed by most people, can instill dread — or worse — among some people. To survivors of clerical sexual abuse, they can be daily triggers, reminding them in an instant of the moment when their trust was betrayed, and their faith left in tatters.

Tomaso Clavarino, a documentary photographer in Turin, Italy, had been following the Roman Catholic Church’s clergy sex abuse crisis for a few years and was struck by how so many of the stories he saw used stock images of churches or priests. To him, it was as if the victims had been relegated to invisibility, in some cases shunned by their neighbors or disbelieved by their family. A little more than two years ago, he set out to document survivors, as well as the places and things that still linger in their minds.

“I moved around and went to churches, woods, in the mountains, trying to visualize those places,” Mr. Clavarino said. “Those places are the places where me, you, my friends grew up. They are part of ordinary life. Of course, they are not amazing photos, but the quietness of these places is, for me, very frightening. We pass by them, but they have meaning.”

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

October 2, 2018

by Thomas Reese

The future of the Catholic Church is with the young, which is why Pope Francis has called bishops from all over the world to meet in Rome Oct. 3-28 for a synod on young people. If the church cannot attract and keep young people, it has no future.

This is the 15th general synod since Pope Paul VI called the first one in 1967 as a way to get advice from bishops. Earlier synods have dealt with topics like the family, priesthood, the laity, evangelization, the Eucharist, religious life, and justice and peace. The process involves speeches and small group discussions and usually concludes with nonbinding recommendations.

The church’s future, especially in the developed world, does not look bright. In the United States, great numbers of people are leaving the church and other religious institutions in their teens. Young people are turned off by scandals in the church, the patriarchal and homophobic attitudes of many in the clergy and the involvement of church leaders in conservative politics. They also find the church irrelevant to their lives and frankly boring.

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PROVIDENCE (RI)
GoLocalProv

October 2, 2018

More than a dozen state Attorney Generals across the United States have begun investigations into sexual abuse covered up by Catholic Diocese in their states.

Many states have launched investigations as an outcome of the Pennsylvania grand jury report that unveiled the abuse, torture, and rape of 1,000 children at the hands of more than 300 priests. Of those, 99 priests in the Diocese of Pittsburgh are named in the report, and for three years the Thomas Tobin served as the Auxiliary Bishop of Pittsburgh — today, he is the Bishop of the Diocese of Providence.

But while other states are moving forward seeking to unveil the abuse and identify the abusers, in Rhode Island the office of sitting Attorney General Peter Kilmartin has shown no interest and Democratic candidate Peter Neronha is not committing to such an investigation.

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CINCINNATI (OH)
Cincinnati Enquirer

October 1, 2018

By Dan Horn

Two Catholic bishops accused of failing to protect children from abusive priests are being edited out of church training videos about preventing child abuse.

The videos, titled “A Time to Protect God’s Children” and “A Plan to Protect God’s Children,” are widely used by Catholic dioceses across the country in mandatory training programs for volunteers, coaches, teachers and others who work for the church.

Officials at the Archdiocese of Cincinnati said the decision to revise the videos came after some leaders of the training program complained about the involvement of Buffalo Bishop Richard Malone and New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond.

Abuse survivors have said the two bishops failed to respond appropriately to accusations of child abuse involving clergy.

“We’ll be replacing the DVDs as soon as we have it edited,” said Mike Schafer, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. “We were concerned about that.”

He said the archdiocese shared its concerns with Virtus, the company that produced the video, and was told the company already was in the process of removing the bishops from the training videos.

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[Ezzati expected to testify tomorrow, after defense request for postponement is rejected]

SANTIAGO, CHILE
La Tercera

October 2, 2018

El fiscal regional de O’Higgins, Emiliano Arias, no accedió a postergar nuevamente la diligencia porque, estimó, no habría causa legal para ello.

La Fiscalía Regional de O’Higgins comenzará a partir de esta semana a tomar una serie de declaraciones, en calidad de imputado, a altas autoridades de la Iglesia luego de incautar 461 expedientes canónicos. El arzobispo de Santiago, Ricardo Ezzati, está citado para mañana en la indagación por eventuales encubrimientos de delitos de abuso sexual cometidos por miembros de la Iglesia Católica. Su defensa pidió a la fiscalía revisar la citación, ya que prefieren no declarar hasta que se resuelva este viernes la petición que hicieron de sobreseimiento definitivo. Sin embargo, el fiscal regional de O’Higgins, Emiliano Arias, no accedió a postergar nuevamente la diligencia porque -estimó- no habría causa legal para ello.

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[What’s at play in Ezzati’s testimony tomorrow]

CHILE
La Tercera

October 2, 2018

By L. Zapata and S. Rodríguez

Defensa del prelado ha dicho que lo lógico es discutir primero un eventual sobreseimiento. Fiscalía analiza posible inasistencia con orden de arresto.

Esta será una semana compleja para la Iglesia Católica criolla respecto de las investigaciones por eventuales abusos que lleva la Fiscalía de Rancagua, y que tienen al arzobispo de Santiago, cardenal Ricardo Ezzati, bajo indagatoria.

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[Episcopal Conference responds to controversial Church document]

CHILE
La Tercera

October 2, 2018

By Sergio Rodríguez

Arzobispado publicó un texto que buscaba establecer directrices sobre cómo debe ser la relación del clero con niños, adolescentes y personas con algún tipo de discapacidad. Sin embargo, al día siguiente, este escrito fue eliminado del sitio, diciéndose que se perfeccionaría.

“El único documento oficial de la Iglesia Católica en Chile sobre el tratamiento de los graves delitos de abuso sexual contra menores de edad, y la prevención de los mismos, es el texto Líneas Guías Cuidado y Esperanza, del año 2015, que fue promulgado como decreto en todas las diócesis del país”, explicó el diácono Jaime Coiro, vocero de la Conferencia Episcopal de Chile (Cech).

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NASHUA (NH)
Nashua Telegraph

September 30, 2018

By Rev. Dr.Stephanie Rutt

Your Holiness, Pope Francis,

I write today to humbly offer an idea for action I pray you may consider as you respond to the growing sexual abuse allegations arising in Catholic communities around the world today. Please know that while I do write, in particular, for all those still silent ones, the once helpless, innocent children who wake every morning remembering, I also write for the Priests who would run but cannot escape the hell burning within, and for the Bishops and Cardinals who daily face the relentless knowledge that they knew but turned away. You, kind soul, as Pope, are in the position to answer the silent cries, to shine a beacon of light, far and wide, into the darkest shadows of suffering where only the healing balm of the Holy Spirit can penetrate. Is this not what Jesus would do?

You might wonder who am I to be writing to you? While I am not Catholic, I am an interfaith minister who has a deep and abiding love for Jesus and Mother Mary. In my church in Milford, New Hampshire, USA, there is a tapestry of Mother (Saint) Teresa and one of my most treasured items is a rosary with her picture I received from the Chimayo Chapel in New Mexico, USA, many years ago. Through prayer with the rosary, I have been graced to have experienced healing incidences beyond my understanding. Finally, I worked for many years as a mental health counselor so I know firsthand the long-term effects of abuse.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Celebrity Insider

October 1, 2018

By Suzy Kerr

Former 19 Kids & Counting stars Josh and Anna Duggar recently celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary, and the family celebrated the occasion on Facebook with a thoughtful message. Fans watched the couple get married in 2008, and since then they have welcomed five children.

“Happy anniversary Josh and Anna! Today we are thankful to see you celebrating 10 years of marriage! We are so thankful for God’s love, kindness, and redemptive restoration. We love you both so much and of course adore those sweet little ones! Here’s to many more beautiful years for you two!” the family wrote on their official Facebook page, along with posting sweet pics of the couple.

Josh — who is the oldest child in the Duggar family — was the first one in the family to court and marry.

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[Cardinal Raúl Silva Henríquez also falls from his pedestal]

CHILE
El Mostrador

September 25, 2018

By Alejandra Carmona López

La primera vez que alguien denunció a Karadima fue en los años 80, cuando el rector del seminario le advirtió al emblemático fundador de la Vicaría de la Solidaridad sobre los abusos que cometía el entonces párroco estrella de El Bosque. No solo eso, quienes conformaron su círculo de hierro, su núcleo duro –Cristián Precht, Miguel Ortega y Raúl Hasbún–, ahora quedan expuestos ante el ojo público como parte de los protagonistas de los abusos sexuales cometidos por décadas en el seno de la Iglesia católica.

“Si hay alguien que permitió que esta Iglesia creciera, ese es Raúl Silva Henríquez”, dice un sacerdote que pide no revelar su nombre, porque mencionar al cardenal es como una herejía. Sin embargo, con dolor, no son pocos los religiosos que advierten que esa Iglesia católica de los abusos no surgió hace un par de años, sino que se fue consumando al alero de quienes, pese a que enfrentaron la bestialidad de la dictadura, hicieron la vista gorda ante conductas hoy enquistadas como una enfermedad terminal en dicha institución religiosa.

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[The sinister priest Raúl Hasbún]

CHILE
El Mostrador

October 1, 2018

By Alejandra Carmona López

El sacerdote ha estado tras las investigaciones canónicas como abogado de las causas que mantienen en vilo a la Iglesia católica. De carácter controvertido, fue la cara de la Iglesia para la dictadura y también secretario personal de Raul Silva Henríquez. Ahora, pesan sobre él las críticas de los denunciantes que dicen que no solo dilata causas, sino que también muchas veces ni siquiera los llama para testimoniar cuando es designado investigador.

El viernes 28 de septiembre, Javier Molina Huerta recibió un llamado telefónico que reafirmó lo que venía diciendo hace años: el Arzobispado de Santiago le informó que su denuncia contra el sacerdote Jorge Laplagne había sido calificada como verosímil y remitió esos antecedentes al Vaticano.

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[Precht, claiming innocence, says he has not lost hope of reversing his expulsion from the priesthood]

CHILE
BioBioChile

September 30, 2018

By Felipe Delgado and Nicole Martínez

El exsacerdote Cristián Precht, expulsado del sacerdocio por el papa Francisco a mediados de septiembre, rompió el silencio y aseguró que no pierde la esperanza de revertir la decisión vaticana. Mediante una declaración difundida por Imaginacción, empresa ligada al lobbista Enrique Correa, Precht declaró que su expulsión “trastoca duramente el sentido de mi vida que se ha expresado en mas de cinco décadas en actividades propias del ministerio sacerdotal”.

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
The Times-Picayune

October 1, 2018

By Kim Chatelain

In 1955, a Gallup poll asked U.S. Catholics if they had attended Mass within the last seven days and 75 percent said they had done so. In 2017, a similar poll showed that the number had dropped to 39 percent.

Now, in the wake of recent revelations of clergy abuse in the church and efforts by the Catholic hierarchy to cover it up, questions abound as to whether the scandal will hasten the decline in Mass attendance, in men entering the seminary and in donations to one of the world’s most generous and influential religious institutions. Bishops and priests around the county have acknowledged that the clergy sex scandals outlined in an explosive Pennsylvania report released in August exasperated Catholics and prompted many to contemplate their involvement with the church.

What Catholic leaders do in response to the scandal could play a major role in how many people hold onto their faith. As secretary and an executive committee member of the influential U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond could have a major role in determining the course of action.

“It is a crisis,” Aymond said of the clergy abuse scandal in a recent interview. “It is something that gives a variety of emotions for all of us – anger, disappointment, outrage, heartbreak. It is important that we acknowledge those feelings” and bring about a renewal.

While hard numbers are difficult to come by, local church leaders say there is anecdotal evidence to suggest that many avid Catholics will continue to practice their faith but will demand that priests and bishops do a better job of policing themselves. If they can’t, some Catholics say the church must establish an outside investigative entity to hold religious leaders accountable.

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[Ezzati prayer: “Mother, teach us to stand by the cross of our brothers who have been abused”]

CHILE
La Tercera

September 30, 2018

By Catalina Batarce

En medio de la procesión de la Virgen del Carmen, el cardenal imploró para que se les conceda “corazones abiertos al perdón, que piden perdón y perdonan”.

En medio de la crisis que enfrenta por estos días la Iglesia Católica chilena por los abusos cometidos en contra de menores, el cardenal Ricardo Ezzati, antes de comenzar la procesión de la Virgen del Carmen, entregó un mensaje cargado de simbolismos a los feligreses. “Imploremos a la madre de la Iglesia que nos conceda a todos nosotros corazones como el de su hijo, corazones abiertos al perdón, que piden perdón y perdonan“, dijo el arzobispo de Santiago.

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[Prosecutor prepares for Ezzati’s testimony as an accused party in the case of the Archdiocese’s former chancellor]

CHILE
La Tercera

September 30, 2018

By Carla Pía Ruiz

La instancia estaba programada para el 21 de agosto, pero había sido aplazada. Ahora, de no mediar un cambio de última hora, el cardenal deberá prestar su testimonio al fiscal Emiliano Arias este miércoles 3 de octubre.

Estaba inicialmente programada para el 21 de agosto pasado, pero la fecha se pospuso y no había recalendarización. Sin embargo, y de no mediar inconvenientes de última hora, el cardenal Ricardo Ezzati deberá dar esta semana su declaración en calidad de imputado en la causa por abusos sexuales en contra del ex canciller del Arzobispado de Santiago, Óscar Muñoz.

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NEW YORK (NY)
The Media Project

September 2018

By Clemente Lisi

“Proclaim the truth and do not be silent through fear.” Those words by Saint Catherine of Siena appear most fitting this summer as the Catholic Church in the United States grapples with allegations of widespread sex abuse by priests going back several decades.

In July, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick after it was revealed that the 88-year-old former head of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., had allegedly abused a teenage boy for years starting in 1969. It was also made public that McCarrick had been accused in three other sexual assault cases involving seminarians.

Unlike in 2002 – when an investigation by The Boston Globe unearthed decades of abuse by prelates never reported to civil authorities – accusations of wrongdoing within the Catholic Church these days are mixed with politics.
Last month, a Pennsylvania grand jury released a shocking report filled with decades of allegations regarding sexual abuses by clerics with children and teenagers – and cover-ups by bishops – that reopened a wound within the church regarding pedophilia and homosexuality among the clergy. It also sparked debate for reform regarding whether priests should be allowed to marry like clergy in other Christian denominations.

The incidents came on the heels of sex-abuse scandals that rocked the church in Chile and Australia. If that wasn’t enough, a whistleblower named Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano released an 11-page letter on August 25 describing a series of events in which the Vatican – and specifically Pope Francis – had been made aware of McCarrick’s immoral behavior years ago. Vigano claimed Pope Benedict XVI had placed restrictions on McCarrick, including not allowing him to say Mass in public. Vigano alleges Pope Francis reversed those sanctions. In the letter, Vigano, a former papal ambassador to the United States, said Francis “knew from at least June 23, 2013 that McCarrick was a serial predator. He knew that he was a corrupt man, he covered for him to the bitter end.”

Unlike in 2002 – when an investigation by The Boston Globe unearthed decades of abuse by prelates never reported to civil authorities – accusations of wrongdoing within the Catholic Church these days are mixed with politics. When it was revealed that two Catholic journalists had helped Vigano edit and distribute the letter, those actions shed a light on the increasingly polarized Catholic Church and the growth and influence of conservative news and opinion websites that oppose Pope Francis and what they believe is the pontiff’s assault on orthodoxy.

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NEW YORK (NY)
The Media Project

September 2018

By Clemente Lisi

This is the time of year when Hollywood loves to release horror movies. The weeks before and after Halloween have included past forgettable motion picture schlock like “Jeepers Creepers” in 1991 and “Gingerdead Man” in 2005. This year, “The Nun” has been foisted upon movie-goers featuring a demon named Valak who, disguised as a Catholic sister, terrorizes a convent.

In real life, the Catholic Church’s boogeymen aren’t women, but men like Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and the hundreds of Pennsylvania priests accused of molesting children and teens over the last few decades. The bad guys here are all men. Those who were victimized were children, teens and young people – all in large part males.

“Women really are the lifeblood of the [Catholic] Church, just as we are the heart of the family. It is impossible for us to stay silent in the face of this failure to act.”
— Mary Rice Hasson, Director of Catholic Women’s Forum

In “The Nun,” there’s enough evidence near the end of the film to know Valak is alive and a potential sequel in the works. But how will the real-life saga of “Uncle Ted” and predator priests end? That’s a question best left to the Catholic laity. The solution to the Catholic Church’s ills won’t come from the clergy – certainly not if Pope Francis and others protect the likes of McCarrick – but from the flock. And it will be women who will lead the way.

“Women really are the lifeblood of the [Catholic] Church, just as we are the heart of the family. It is impossible for us to stay silent in the face of this failure to act,” said Mary Rice Hasson, who directs the Catholic Women’s Forum, a network of Catholic professional women and scholars. “I continue to hear daily from women who are shocked and angry about the betrayals – past and present – that continue to come out in the news. Women want answers – and we want the church hierarchy to act.”

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DAVIESS CO (KY)
WFIE

October 1, 2018

By Sean Edmondson

A priest with the Diocese of Owensboro has been permanently suspended from public ministry.

Father Gerald H. Baker was suspended in 2016 from public ministry after allegations of inappropriate conduct with a minor that were of a sexual nature.

[This letter was sent to parishioners to let them know about the allegations against Father Baker.]

Monday, the Diocese of Owensboro released this statement:

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DAVIESS COUNTY (KY)
The Kentucky New Era

October 1, 2018

By Alexia Walters

A Western Kentucky priest has been suspended permanently from public ministry.

The paper reports the Diocese of Owensboro made that decision about Father Gerald Baker.

In 2016, Baker was accused of sex abuse by three minors.

According to the paper, the diocesan review board found the accusations against baker to be substantiated.

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KERALA (INDIA)
Gulf News

October 1, 2018

By Akhel Mathew

Another priest allegedly visited convent to pressure nuns into diluting their case against Mulakkal

Thiruvananthapuram: Three bishops in Kerala on Monday visited the bishop of Jalandhar, Franco Mulakkal, who is being held in a sub-jail in Pala, Kottayam district, over rape charges.
The three who paid him a visit were bishop Mathew Arackal of Kanjirapally Syro-Malabar diocese, Jose Pulickal, the auxiliary bishop of the same diocese, and Samuel Mar Iranios, an auxiliary bishop of the Malankara Church.

Mulakkal has been accused of raping a nun attached to the Kuravilangad convent in Kottayam district 13 times between 2014 and 2016. The bishop has denied the allegation.
The visit by the three bishops comes a day after the prominent Changanacherry diocese published an encyclical to churches under its control on Sunday, offering indirect support for the jailed bishop.

The encyclical also suggested that some within the Catholic Church were working against the church’s interests.

On social media, the visit of the three bishops was criticised, with one commentator saying that it was a tragedy that bishops now had to visit a colleague in jail, and another stating that bishops would not take such efforts to visit a poor man in jail.

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ROCKVILLE CENTRE (NY)
CBS New York

October 1, 2018

A Long Island Catholic priest has stepped away from his duties as the Diocese of Rockville Centre investigates sexual abuse allegations.

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SAGINAW (MI)
MLive

October 1, 2018

By Bob Johnson

A Catholic priest accused of sex crimes will head to trial after withdrawing his no contest plea.

The Rev. Robert “Father Bob” DeLand withdrew his plea on Friday, Sept. 28, according to Saginaw County Assistant Prosecutor Mark Gaertner.

Gaertner said Monday that DeLand did not want to accept the potential sentence he faces and decided to withdraw his plea.

The Saginaw Catholic Diocesan priest pleaded no contest on Sept. 4 to seven criminal charges involving three victims.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

October 1, 2018

By Laura Newberry

Gov. Jerry Brown has rejected a bill that would have given survivors of childhood sexual assault in California more time to file suits against those who could have stopped their abuse.

The bill, written by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher (D-San Diego), would have allowed victims to file abuse claims until they are 40 years old. It also would have permitted those who have repressed memories of abuse to sue within five years of unearthing the cause of their trauma.

On Monday, victims advocates said they felt defeated by Brown’s decision.

“I’m exceptionally disappointed that even after the #MeToo movement, after the [Brett] Kavanaugh hearings, that the governor isn’t doing what he can to reduce harm caused by sexual abuse,” said Tim Lennon, president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

Under current law, victims can sue a third party that may have ignored or covered up abuse — such as a private school or a church — until they are 26 years old or three years after coming to terms with repressed memories, whichever occurs later.

Advocates say the proposed law would have given survivors more time to process their abuse — memories of which can be repressed for decades — and to seek damages for their trauma when they finally feel comfortable coming forward.

The bill also would have expanded a victim’s ability to sue public institutions, including schools, that might have been aware of the abuse. Current law requires such a claim to be filed within six months of the alleged incident if it occurred before 2009. The proposal would have lifted that requirement entirely.

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ROME
Crux

October 1, 2018

By Elise Harris

With clerical abuse scandals rocking the Catholic Church in all corners of the globe, Scottish Archbishop Leo Cushley said that as someone who has given his life to the institution, he’s ashamed but also convinced that the Church, especially in Scotland, is in a “dramatically different” place today.

Referring to scandals that have erupted in Chile, Peru and the United States, among others, Cushley said each one is a cause of concern, “because this is an institution that I love and that I’ve given my life to, and I’m very dismayed when I see these things.”

In a sit-down interview with Crux, Cushley, Archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh, said he can only speak authoritatively about the Church in Scotland, where he and his fellow prelates look at the abuse crisis “with great shame and great regret and that we wish it could be otherwise, but we do absolutely everything we can to get this right.”

What happened in the past, while tragic, is “dramatically different” than the current context, he said, voicing belief that at least on the home front, “we are doing very, very well indeed by any independent judgement or set of statistics.”

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NEW YORK (NY)
Commonweal Magazine

October 1, 2018

By Massimo Faggioli

How the Laity Can Help Reform the Church

Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said that God granted American Christianity no Reformation. It’s also true that God granted America no Counter-Reformation. But with the latest phase of the abuse crisis in this country, that might be changing. The depth and magnitude of this crisis—as well as its distinctive combination of clerical corruption and theological division— make it worse than any crisis since the one that rocked the church five centuries ago. The current crisis may not lead to a formal division of the Church the way the Reformation did, but it could well lead to a long period of undeclared schism.

As in the sixteenth century, the question is not whether the Catholic Church will survive this age of scandal, but what form the church will survive in. The abuse crisis is clearly no longer just a scandal, or even a series of scandals. It is, at least in the United States, a revolution in the church that could lead either to reform, or to the moral and cultural marginalization of Catholicism. The question, then, is how best to reform the church, especially in the United States, which is the epicenter of this crisis. Some interpretations of the crisis, such as the idea that the whole hierarchy is corrupt to the root and must be totally replaced by the laity, have given force to ideas of the church that seem hardly compatible with Catholicism.

But those who have the power to stop the bleeding and initiate a process of true reform seem to be incapacitated. It is part of the ecclesiological culture of those who were promoted in the church under John Paul II and Benedict XVI to welcome spiritual renewal but not institutional reform. Right now, the hierarchical leadership of the church—both individual bishops and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops—is in panic mode: almost every day new allegations weaken their authority. It is not clear what path forward they have in mind.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

October 1, 2018

Signaling his belief that the Catholic Church is facing a serious crisis, Pope Francis asked every Catholic in the world to pray for the protection of the church from attacks by the devil, but also that the church would be more aware of its sins and stronger in its efforts to combat abuse.

Pope Francis asked Catholics to pray the rosary each day in October, seeking Mary’s intercession in protecting the church, and “at the same time making her (the church) more aware of her sins, errors and the abuses committed in the present and the past, and committed to fighting without hesitation so that evil would not prevail,” the Vatican said in a statement released Sept. 29, the feast of the Archangels.

United “in communion and penitence as the people of God,” the statement said, Catholics should plead for protection against “the devil, who always seeks to divide us from God and from one another.”

Pope Francis met earlier in September with Jesuit Father Federic Fornos, international director of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, formerly known as the Apostleship of Prayer, to ask that the recitation of the rosary in October conclude with “the ancient invocation ‘Sub Tuum Praesidium’ (‘Under your protection’) and with the prayer to St. Michael the Archangel, who protects us in the battle against evil.”

The first prayer, to Mary, has a variety of translations. One reads: “We turn to you for protection, Holy Mother of God. Listen to our prayers and help us in our needs. Save us from every danger, glorious and blessed Virgin.”

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ROCKY POINT (NY)
CBS NewYork

October 1, 2018

A Long Island priest has “agreed to step away from the ministry” while the Diocese of Rockville Centre investigates allegations of sexual abuse.

In a statement, the diocese said it received a complaint in 2002 from a person who claimed Rev. Monsignor William Breslawski sexually abused his or her friend when the alleged victim was in seventh or eighth grade in 1980.

The complaint was passed along to Nassau and Suffolk district attorney’s offices this June, and the diocese launched its own investigation.

On September 25, the diocese received a letter from a relative of the alleged victim describing the same allegation.

The diocese said it also received a complaint from two other people in 2002 who claimed Msgr. Breslawski made inappropriate physical contact with them when they were adults in 1984.

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ROCKVILLE CENTRE (NY)
Newsday

September 29, 2018

By Bart Jones

Msgr. William G. Breslawski agreed to step away while the Diocese of Rockville Centre investigates allegations he sexually abused a middle schooler nearly 40 years ago, a church spokesman said Saturday.

A Roman Catholic priest has stepped aside from his ministry while church officials investigate allegations that he sexually abused a middle schooler nearly 40 years ago and had “an inappropriate interaction” with two adults in the 1980s, the Diocese of Rockville Centre said.

Msgr. William G. Breslawski agreed to step away while the diocese investigates those allegations, Sean Dolan, a spokesman for the diocese, said Saturday.

Breslawski, who was ordained a priest in 1979, most recently served as the pastor of the Church of Saint Anthony of Padua in Rocky Point. He could not be reached for comment.

“We are saddened by these allegations, and we will do everything we can to ensure that a fair and just determination is made,” Dolan said.

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VICTORIA (KS)
The Associated Press

September 29, 2018

The friary in remote western Kansas that is now home to a disgraced former U.S. cardinal removed from ministry by Pope Francis over allegations of sexual abuse is just one block from an elementary school.

The Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., confirmed in a statement Friday that ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick is living at St. Fidelis Friary in Victoria, a rural town of about 1,200 that lies more than 400 kilometres west of Kansas City. The Friary is within a block of Victoria Elementary School.

News of McCarrick’s living arrangement took school officials by surprise, the Kansas City Star reported .

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