ABUSE TRACKER

NEW YORK (NY)
New York Daily News

August 15, 2018

By Megan Cerullo

Jim VanSickle will keep telling his harrowing tale of survival as long as it keeps the spotlight on sexual abuse within the Catholic Church.

He is committed to creating a community where other survivors can come forward and share their stories too.

VanSickle, who attended the Bradford Central Christian High School in Bradford, Penn., was a “lost” 16-year-old when he met his English teacher, a priest named David Poulson in 1979, the Washington Post reported.

His grandmother had died and his father was too sick to work, according to the report.

And so he turned to Poulson, 10 years his senior, for guidance.

The pair formed a powerful bond that VanSickle credits with helping him graduate from high school and college.

“He turned my life around,” VanSickle told the Washington Post. “He was my spiritual leader. He was my friend.”

But VanSickle, now 55, also accuses Poulson of abusing him, both physically and emotionally.

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AUSTRALIA
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

August 16, 2018

By David Weber

A Perth man who has been awarded a record $1 million compensation payout for abuse suffered at the hands of Christian Brothers says he would have been happy simply with an apology.

Paul Bradshaw took legal action over sexual abuse he suffered in the 1950s and 60s.

Under the terms of the settlement he will be awarded $1 million and will also have his costs paid by the trustees of the Christian Brothers.

It is believed to be the highest single payment awarded in Australia as a result of legal action against the Christian Brothers.

Outside the court Mr Bradshaw, who only has six months to live, said money was not what had motivated his fight.

“I wasn’t going for the money. I was just going for justice,” he said.

“It’s all I wanted was justice, nothing else.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
Esquire

August 15, 2018

By Charles P. Pierce

Nothing will define his papacy like how he responds to the systemic sexual abuse of children.

oly mother of god.

There is no longer any doubt that the institutional Roman Catholic Church in the United States existed in part—and likely still exists—as a vast conspiracy to obstruct justice in the crime of sexual assault by members of its clergy. If you ever wondered why the Church fought so hard to keep the civil criminal justice system at bay in regards to the criminals and deviants in its ranks, the report of the grand jury in Pennsylvania ought to clear that up for you.

If we’d had something like this in Boston, the late Bernard Cardinal Law would have ended his days at the MCI-Somewhere, instead of the Basilica of Our Lady of the Clean Getaway in Rome. From The New York Times:

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BOSTON (MA)
Fox News

August 15, 2018

Rezendes: the story now goes to the Vatican.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael Rezendes said that he wasn’t surprised by the bombshell sexual abuse scandal around the Catholic Church in Pennsylvania.

It was announced Tuesday that hundreds of priests in the state sexually abused more than 1,000 children over a 70-year period, according to a grand jury report.

Rezendes, a member of the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team that exposed the church’s sexual abuse cover-up in the city, said that Tuesday’s announcement was nearly identical to the one he investigated.

“This is a systemic problem within the Catholic Church,” he said on “The Daily Briefing.”

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NAPLES (FL)
WINK News

August 15, 2018

By Olivia Mancino

Members of St. Ann’s Catholic Church in Naples are reacting to information about a priest who once pastored there.

That priest is among the hundreds accused of disturbing acts against children in Pennsylvania.

According to grand jury documents released in Pennsylvania Tuesday, Father Robert Brague was appointed parochial vicar at Saint Ann’s back in 1990, but this came after initial allegations were made in Pennsylvania.

Letters sent to a bishop said that the then 46-year-old Brague impregnated a 17-year-old girl.

The bishop responded to the letter written by the victim’s sister saying: “Father Brague and your sister have a long, difficult road ahead. What has happened is their responsibility and certainly, father Brague will take care of his obligations.”

According to the report, he was moved there in the early 90’s by the church. Father Brague died in 1997.

We talked to members of Saint Ann’s parish Wednesday who say they hope this new
attention will move the healing process forward.

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BUFFALO (NY)
The Buffalo News

August 15, 2018

By Dan Herbeck

A Pennsylvania grand jury report on sexual abuse involving more than 300 priests in that state criticized Buffalo’s Catholic Diocese for its handling of allegations against the Rev. Michael R. Freeman, a former Buffalo priest.

Freeman was moved from Buffalo churches to parishes in Pennsylvania even after the Buffalo Diocese learned in 1981 that he had been involved in “criminal behavior” and “admitted inappropriate sexual behavior” with young men and children during five assignments in the Buffalo area, according to the report issued by Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania’s attorney general.

Shapiro said investigators found no records that church leaders in Buffalo or Pennsylvania ever alerted law enforcement to Freeman’s admissions of “sexually violating children.”

“The Buffalo Diocese continued to permit Freeman to serve in active ministry until March 1989 and continued to provide financial aid to Freeman until July 31, 1999,” the Pennsylvania report stated. “The Grand Jury found no documentation in Freeman’s file that indicated that the Dioceses of Buffalo or Erie ever notified law enforcement officials, despite the fact that Freeman admitted to sexually violating children in at least five of his six ministry assignments.”

In March, the Buffalo Diocese included Freeman’s name on a list of 42 priests that it said it had received “credible accusations” of abuse against, but it provided no details about the allegations. According to the Pennsylvania report, he was removed from the priesthood in 1989, while serving in Pennsylvania. The Buffalo Diocese in March said Freeman died in 2010.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
The Associated Press

August 15, 2018

A former Pennsylvania prosecutor has been fired from his job as an attorney for a county youth services office after a report showed that as a prosecutor, he stopped an investigation into alleged child abuse by a priest to gain political favor from the Pittsburgh Diocese.

Former Beaver County District Attorney Robert Masters told a grand jury investigating clergy abuse that he wrote a letter to the then-bishop of Pittsburgh in 1964 saying he was halting an investigation to “prevent unfavorable publicity.”

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BALTIMORE (MD)
The Associated Press

August 15, 2018

A new Catholic school in Baltimore will no longer feature the name of a late cardinal accused of failing to act in the case of priests who abused children in Pennsylvania.

Cardinal William H. Keeler had a reputation for transparency as archbishop of Baltimore, releasing in 2002 the names of 57 priests accused of sexual abuse. But a grand jury report released Tuesday details widespread sexual abuse in six of Pennsylvania’s Roman Catholic dioceses. It accuses Keeler of covering up sexual abuse allegations while serving as bishop of Harrisburg. Keeler also allegedly allowed an accused priest to minister in the Baltimore archdiocese.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
The Associated Press

August 15, 2018

A priest and religion expert says the scathing report released this week accusing hundreds of Roman Catholic priests in Pennsylvania of molesting more than 1,000 children since the 1940s is a “wake up call to other dioceses in the country.” (Aug. 15)

[Length: 1:17]

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Trib Live

August 15, 2018

By Wes Venteicher

A group of people who say they were sexually abused by Catholic priests called on Bishop David Zubik to resign Wednesday, taking issue with his claim that the Pittsburgh Diocese didn’t cover up decades of clergy sexual abuse detailed in a grand jury report.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP, cited Attorney General Josh Shapiro’s claim that “it is clear that the cover-up occurred in the Pittsburgh Diocese along with every other diocese in Pennsylvania. The abuse occurred and it was enabled by this cover-up.”

Zubik said Tuesday there was no cover-up in a news conference he held shortly after Shapiro’s comment. Zubik apologized to victims.

“If Zubik can’t even admit wrongdoing, he very likely won’t stop wrongdoing,” SNAP Midwest Associate Leader Judy Jones said in a news release.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

August 15, 2018

In the 24 hours since the release of a state grand jury report detailing widespread sexual abuse of children in six Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania, more than 150 people have called or emailed a hotline set up for survivors, Attorney General Josh Shapiro said in a tweet Wednesday.

“Lots of survivors … are now surfacing to tell their stories and seek justice,” Mr. Shapiro said in the tweet.

The grand jury already identified more than 1,000 child victims from more than 300 abusive priests across 54 of the state’s 67 counties.

The Clergy Abuse Hotline was set up for those seeking to report information or leads regarding child sexual abuse in Pennsylvania Catholic dioceses to the attorney general’s office at 888-538-8541.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
Washington Examiner

August 15, 2018

By Robert King

Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., said the Senate should examine laws regarding the statute of limitations in the wake of a major report that found the Catholic Church covered up decades of abuse in Pennsylvania.

A grand jury report found that more than 300 priests in Pennsylvania abused more than 1,000 children for the past 70 years.

“We believe that the real number — of children whose records were lost, or who were afraid ever to come forward — is in the thousands,” the grand jury report said.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

August 16, 2018

By Kelly Heyboer and Ted Sherman

The release this week of a Pennsylvania grand jury report graphically detailing Catholic clergy abuse that was allowed to go on for decades has raised new questions about the willingness of the church to let go of its secrets.

The grand jury report named some 300 Catholic priests who allegedly molested more than 1,000 children over a 70 year time span.

“But all of them were brushed aside, in every part of the state, by church leaders who preferred to protect the abusers and their institution above all,” wrote the grand jury.

Despite the growing outrage over the report, however, there has been little move to expand the scope of disclosure elsewhere about how pervasive such abuse may be elsewhere, including New Jersey.

“Where is our state?” asked Mark Crawford, an abuse survivor and New Jersey director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, a national advocacy and support group. “Why are they dragging their feet in creating accountability and consequences to allowing a predator have access to children?”

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HARRISBURG (PA)
NBC News

August 15, 2018

By Anthea Butler

The Catholic church hierarchy systematically covered up the abuse of at least 1,000 kids by 300 priests over 70 years.

It is time to face the horrible truth: The Catholic church is a pedophile ring.

According to the grand jury report of six dioceses in Pennsylvania, over a period of 70 years, 300 priests abused over 1,000 children in Pennsylvania and Church officials repeatedly covered it up. The release of the report is a searing indictment of the filth that has existed in the Catholic church.

Sexual abuse has been institutionalized, routinized and tolerated by the church hierarchy for decades. If you think this statement is hyperbole, consider that the grand jury report includes, but is by no means limited to, the case of a ring of pedophile priests in the Pittsburgh, who raped their male victims, took pornographic pictures of them and marked them by giving them gold crosses to wear so that they could be easily recognized by other abusers.

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HARRISBURGH (PA)
Fox News

August 15, 2018

By Jeremiah Poff

A stunning grand jury report issued Tuesday that said over 300 Catholic priests in Pennsylvania sexually abused more than 1,000 children over seven decades – and accused church leaders of covering up the wrongdoing – shows a massive and indefensible moral failure of the Catholic Church in the U.S.

The Catholic priests and bishops of Pennsylvania and the rest of the United States have failed the church. They have failed American Catholics. They have failed to uphold the dignity of the priesthood. They have failed God.

In the next few days much will be made of the damning 800+ page report issued by the Pennsylvania grand jury that named priests in six of the state’s seven dioceses as sexual predators who targeted vulnerable children – the most innocent of all the faithful. While the report identified 1,000 children it said were victims, it said there were probably thousands more child victims whose identities are not known.

The grand jury report states: “Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all. For decades.”

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
The Huffington Post

August 15, 2018

By Carol Kuruvilla

A Pennsylvania grand jury identified more than 300 alleged “predator priests.” Here are just some of the stories.

For decades, stories about clerical sexual abuse committed by Pennsylvania Catholic priests were reportedly locked away in the church’s secret archives.

These old secrets exploded into the light Tuesday with the publication of a grand jury report into six of Pennsylvania’s eight Roman Catholic dioceses.

The jurors’ 884-page report allowed Pennsylvania Catholics to finally grasp the extent of the abuse ― and cover-up ― in six dioceses: Allentown, Erie, Greensburg, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Scranton. Over the course of two years, jurors identified 301 “predator priests” and more than 1,000 victims.

Jurors heard stories of boys and girls being groped. They heard about cases of kids becoming victims of child pornography, being made to masturbate with assailants, and being raped orally, vaginally and anally.

Underpinning the horrific alleged crimes in the report are hundreds of pages of documents from the church’s secret archives that the jurors claim show that senior church officials knew the abuse was happening and failed to act properly. Catholic leaders, including former bishops, actively worked to protect abusers and the church’s public reputation, while brushing aside victims’ reports, the jurors claim.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
CNN

August 16, 2018

By Holly Yan

It’s been 70 years since Robert says he was sexually abused by a priest. And in the decades since, his wife and family suffered every day.

“I couldn’t show any affection with my wife,” said Robert, now 83. “My children, I couldn’t hold or hug.”

This is the kind of lifelong trauma endured by hundreds of victims at the hands of Pennsylvania priests.

Robert has been waiting seven decades for priests to be held accountable.

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UNITED STATES
Salon

August 16, 2018

By Amanda Marcotte

Both sexual predation and anti-choice politics are rooted in patriarchal ideology and a culture of sexual shame

The Catholic Church sex abuse scandals are often talked about as if they are in the past, but this summer has been a reminder that this horror show continues to unspool, 16 years after the Boston Globe’s famous “Spotlight” series exposing the cover-up first ran. This week, a grand jury in Pennsylvania released a report accusing more than 300 priests of abusing more than 1,000 children over seven decades. The details are almost incomprehensibly awful, including accusations of repeated rape, child pornography and priests who marked their victims with jewelry to alert other predators that these children had been “groomed” to accept abuse.

“The cover-up was sophisticated. And all the while, shockingly, church leadership kept records of the abuse and the cover-up,” Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said in a press conference, in which he shared some of the worst details of the allegations. “These documents, from the dioceses’ own ‘Secret Archives,’ formed the backbone of this investigation.”

As political science professor Scott Lemieux said in a post at the blog Lawyers, Guns, and Money, these revelations are especially important right now, when Donald Trump is trying to remake the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. Lemieux notes that “the Catholic Church in Pennsylvania was a driving force behind bad legislation restricting abortion rights” during the same period the church was actively covering up for systematic child rape. Furthermore, that legislation “was the basis for a lawsuit from the state’s governor that severely damaged Roe v. Wade and very nearly resulted in it being overruled altogether.”

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

August 15, 2018

By Andrew Goldstein

The world’s largest support group for victims of sexual abuse in institutional settings Wednesday called for Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik to step down a day after the state Supreme Court released a grand jury report on sexual abuse by priests at six Pennsylvania dioceses.

The group, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), said Bishop Zubik is denying that the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh covered up sexual abuse of children by priests despite “overwhelming evidence to the contrary.”

At a news conference Tuesday at diocese offices Downtown, Bishop Zubik denied any cover-up under his watch or that of his predecessor, Cardinal Donald Wuerl.

“Virtually every other governmental inquiry into Catholic scandals across the world has reached almost the exact conclusions,” SNAP said in a news release. “Most other U.S. bishops have admitted, at some level, in vague terms, that cover ups have happened. (We’re firmly convinced that cover ups are going on now.) In this sense, Zubik is a callous and dangerous outlier.”

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NEW YORK (NY)
National Review

August 15, 2018

By Michael Brendan Dougherty

If the Church cannot govern itself from within, it will be governed from without.

‘We are deeply saddened.” So begin the many perfunctory statements of many Catholic bishops today in response to the Pennsylvania grand-jury report detailing how priests in that state abused children and how bishops shuffled these priests around. What deeply saddens these men? The rape of children, the systematic cover-up, or the little schemes to run out the clock on the statute of limitations? Are they saddened by the people who were so psychologically wounded by their abuse at the hands of priests that they killed themselves? What exactly are they sorry about? Soon the bishops are telling us about a chance for “renewal” after the promised implementation of new policies. They tell us about “overcoming challenges” in the Church. Or they use the phrase “a few bad apples.”

I find it impossible not to notice that these expressions of sorrow never arrive before the courts, the state attorneys general, or the local press arrive on the scene. That fact gives you another idea about what causes the bishops’ sorrow.

Fifteen years ago Frank Keating, the former governor of Oklahoma, resigned from a panel called the National Review Board, set up by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to monitor compliance with the Church’s new anti-abuse politics. He was under intense pressure to resign because he had offended bishops when he said some of them were acting like “La Cosa Nostra,” a reference to the Sicilian Mafia.

Cardinal Roger Mahoney of Los Angeles and other prelates made a great show of detesting Keating’s remarks. Keating refused to apologize. “My remarks, which some bishops found offensive, were deadly accurate. I make no apology,” he said. “To resist grand-jury subpoenas, to suppress the names of offending clerics, to deny, to obfuscate, to explain away; that is the model of a criminal organization, not my church,” Keating said in his resignation statement.

Keating was dismissed as a crank. Hadn’t every consultant and auditor given the the Church’s anti-abuse policies hearty endorsements? Wasn’t it routinely described as a model of safety?

Of course, Keating was right. Mahoney was later exposed as having engaged in an energetic attempt to cover up the truth about his own diocese. He shielded predators from law enforcement and even argued that the personnel files of the archdiocese were protected by the seal of the confessional.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
KDKA

August 15, 2018

He gained a national reputation for rooting out sex abuse in the church, even defying the Vatican by refusing to transfer pedophile priest Anthony Cipolla back in 1993.

But now Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro accuses Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the former bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh, of protecting child predators.

“Child rape is rape, whether it occurred in the 1980s, ‘90s, or 2018,” said Shapiro. “It is never acceptable, and it is never okay to cover it up as Bishop [David] Zubik did and as Cardinal Wuerl did.”

Part of Shapiro’s claim involves Richard Zula, one of the priests convicted under Cardinal Wuerl’s watch. He says Cardinal Wuerl allegedly offered Zula $180,000 after Zula threatened to name other priests.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
WPXI

August 15, 2018

The former Beaver County district attorney named in the 900-page grand jury report into priest sex abuse in Pennsylvania is being investigated for allegations that he blocked inquiries into priests suspected of child abuse.

Current District Attorney David Lozier announced the investigation Wednesday into the official conduct of Robert Masters, 87. Masters has also been fired from his longtime position as solicitor for Children & Youth Services.

Masters was the solicitor for the social service agency for 38 years before being fired Wednesday. The agency’s mission is to protect children from abuse and neglect, preserve families and ensure every child under its care or supervision has a safe, permanent home.

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SEATTLE (WA)
Komo News

August 16, 2018

By Jennifer Sullivan

The Seattle Archdiocese said a former Catholic schools superintendent is accused of abuse nearly 60 years ago.

Monsignor Phillip Duffy, who died in 1987, is accused of abuse that occurred in 1959 or 1960. There was one victim involved and it’s unknown how long the abuse spanned, Seattle Archdiocese spokesman Greg Magnoni told KOMO in a statement.

Duffy, according to the Archdiocese, served as the church schools superintendent from 1947 until 1968.

The Seattle Archdiocese issued a press release Tuesday announcing Duffy’s name, saying they spoke with a “independent consultant” after the alleged victim contacted them. The Archdiocese said the victim contacted them in early 2016.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
The Associated Press

August 15, 2018

By Marc Levy and Mark Scolforo

A priest raped a 7-year-old girl while visiting her in the hospital after she had her tonsils removed. Another priest forced a 9-year-old boy into having oral sex, then rinsed out the youngster’s mouth with holy water. One boy was forced to say confession to the priest who sexually abused him.

An estimated 300 Roman Catholic priests in Pennsylvania molested more than 1,000 children — and possibly many more — since the 1940s, according to a scathing Pennsylvania grand jury report released Tuesday that accused senior church officials, including the man who is now archbishop of Washington, D.C., of systematically covering up complaints.

The “real number” of victimized children and abusive priests might be higher since some secret church records were lost and some victims never came forward, the grand jury said.

U.S. bishops adopted widespread reforms in 2002 when clergy abuse became a national crisis for the church, including stricter requirements for reporting accusations to law enforcement and a streamlined process for removing clerics. But the grand jury said more changes are needed.

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BOSTON (MA)
WBUR

August 15, 2018

By Tom Gjelten

A two-year grand jury investigation in Pennsylvania resulted in what the state’s attorney general, Josh Shapiro, called “the largest, most comprehensive report into child sex abuse in the Catholic Church ever produced in the United States.”

But the report, released Tuesday, was not the first. In 2002, The Boston Globe revealed that Catholic authorities in the Boston Archdiocese had engaged in a massive cover-up of sex crimes committed by area priests, and investigations in other parts of the country have since uncovered similar patterns of sexual abuse by members of the Catholic clergy. The ongoing scandals amount to a deepening church crisis.

“Each new report of clerical abuse at any level creates doubt in the minds of many that we are effectively addressing this catastrophe in the Church,” Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston, warned last month.

His statement came in the aftermath of what the Washington Archdiocese called a “credible and substantiated” allegation leveled against Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington. O’Malley cautioned that a failure to take action in such cases “will threaten and endanger the already weakened moral authority of the Church.”

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DALLAS (TX)
The Associated Press

August 15, 2018

The Catholic Diocese of Dallas says that the Most Rev. Charles Grahmann, whose 17-year tenure as bishop of the diocese was marred by one of the first church sex abuse scandals to explode into public view, has died. He was 87.

The diocese says in a statement that Grahmann died Tuesday in San Antonio following a long illness. He was the sixth bishop of the Dallas diocese and served from 1990 to 2007.

Grahmann was appointed the first bishop of the Diocese of Victoria in 1982 before being named bishop in Dallas, where he was known for his ministry to the poor and marginalized.

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DETROIT (MI)
Detroit Free Press

August 14, 2018

By Ann Zaniewski

On the eve of Tuesday’s release of a scathing grand jury report about church leaders protecting more than 300 “predator priests” in Pennsylvania, Archbishop of Detroit Allen Vigneron said priests who have impure relations with others need to repent or give up the priesthood.

He stressed that all clergy — including bishops like himself — need to be held accountable for their behavior.

Vigneron’s remarks came in two similar letters Monday — one geared toward clergy, the other to the faithful at large — issued ahead of the release of the report which accused leaders in six Pennsylvania dioceses for decades of being more interested in safeguarding the church and the abusers than the well-being of more than 1,000 victims.

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BOSTON (MA)
NBC Boston

August 15, 2018

By Jeff Saperstone and Karla Rendon-Alvarez

A newly-released grand jury report details disturbing allegations of sexual abuse on more than 1000 children at the hands of roughly 300 priests in Pennsylvania

Shocking reports coming out of Pennsylvania detailing decades of sexual abuse by hundreds of Roman Catholic Church priests have hit close to home.

The Archdiocese of Boston, who faced its own share of sexual abuse cover-ups, refused to comment on the scathing grand jury report that was released Tuesday. The disturbing report, which details allegations against roughly 300 priests, comes after two years of investigation by the jury.

“Unfortunately, this is just the tip of the iceberg,” attorney Mitchell Garabedian said, “There are many, many more victims out there.”

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HARRISBURG (PA)
The Huffington Post

August 14, 2018

By Carol Kuruvilla

The grand jury identified more than 1,000 sexual abuse victims over seven decades — and suspects there may be many more.

Pennsylvania’s attorney general released on Tuesday the long-awaited results of a damning grand jury investigation into how six Roman Catholic dioceses in the state covered up sexual abuse by 301 “predator priests” over 70 years.

The 884-page report is the largest, most comprehensive investigation on the church’s sex abuse scandal by a U.S. state, according to Attorney General Josh Shapiro. The grand jury identified over 1,000 victims in the six dioceses examined in the report: Allentown, Erie, Greensburg, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Scranton. But the jurors suspected the real number of victims could be much higher.

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UNITED STATES
IndieWire

August 13, 2018

By Michael Nordine

The statement emphasizes Nerdist’s “ongoing support of women and victims.”

Chris Hardwick’s name was recently restored the Nerdist website following an investigation into claims of abuse by his ex-girlfriend, Chloe Dykstra, and the change hasn’t gone unnoticed. Writer Donna Dickens announced that she would no longer be contributing to the website, and now Nerdist has addressed Hardwick’s restoration in a tweet emphasizing that he hasn’t been actively involved with the company since last year.

“Last week, our parent company completed its investigation into the allegations against Chris Hardwick and issued a statement on our site that reinstated a mention of Hardwick as the founder of Nerdist, which is factually true,” the new statement begins. “This statement is not intended to imply any change in our ongoing support of women and victims, nor does it change our business relationship with Hardwick, which concluded in 2017.”

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WASHINGTON (DC)
The Associated Press

August 13, 2018

By Juliet Linderman

A fund dedicated to aiding victims of sexual harassment and assault is giving $750,000 in grants to local organizations across the country.

The Times Up Legal Defense Fund on Tuesday announced its first round of grants to 18 groups helping support low-wage and domestic workers.

Among the grantees are organizations working toward increased education and outreach, as well as groups that offer targeted resources and services to specific demographics. Together, the grantees cover all regions of the United States.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
The Week

August 15, 2018

By Kathryn Krawczyk

The #MeToo movement brought what’s been widely called a “reckoning” against men accused of sexual misconduct. But some of Hollywood’s most powerful still aren’t facing any consequences.

Much of the entertainment elite slammed with allegations — Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Charlie Rose — can’t find work, and some have even faced legal consequences. Yet for the likes of James Franco, Casey Affleck, and some other men ensnared in #MeToo allegations, not much has changed, The Hollywood Reporter says.

Franco faced five accusations of sexually exploitative behavior in a Jan. 11 Los Angeles Times story. Six months later, it was leaked that he was in talks to direct a Focus Features film about ESPN. And he’s still onboard to star in a second season of HBO’s The Deuce because “the fact of the matter is that James is in the show,” HBO president Casey Bloys told The Hollywood Reporter. “It’s business as usual. There is no effort to hide the fact that [Franco] is in the show,” Bloys continued.

That’s not sufficient for activist website Care2. It successfully petitioned director Matthew Newton, accused of domestic violence, off of the upcoming film Eve, and is hoping to do the same with Franco. “Crisis PR,” like what HBO has said to justify Franco’s continued employment, is growing even more common, Care2 senior director Rebecca Gerber tells The Hollywood Reporter. “In Hollywood, they make business calls about whether people can make a comeback.”

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HARRISBURG (PA)
Reuters

August 14, 2018

By David DeKok

Roman Catholic priests in Pennsylvania sexually abused thousands of children over a 70-year period and silenced victims through “the weaponization of faith” and a systematic cover-up campaign by their bishops, the state attorney general said on Tuesday.

An 884-page report made public by Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro after a two-year investigation contained graphic examples of children being groomed and sexually abused by clergymen. It was largely based on documents from secret archives kept by the dioceses, including handwritten confessions by priests, he said.

“It was child sexual abuse, including rape, committed by grown men – priests – against children,” Shapiro told a press conference.

Representatives of the six Pennsylvania dioceses included in the report could not be reached for comment.

The attorney general said it was the most comprehensive report on Catholic clergy sex abuse in American history, nearly two decades after an expose of widespread abuse and cover-up in Boston that rocked the Roman Catholic church.

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BOSTON (MA)
Yahoo View

August 15, 2018

Boston Globe investigative reporter Michael Rezendes and NBC’s Anne Thompson join TODAY to discuss the bombshell Pennsylvania grand jury report claiming the Catholic Church protected more than 300 priests accused of sexual abuse.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
ABC News Videos

August 15, 2018

A Pennsylvania grand jury released a bombshell report on 300 alleged predator priests, more than 1,000 victims and 70 years of alleged cover-ups in the state’s Catholic Church.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
NPR

August 14, 2018

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

We begin this hour with a report of widespread clergy sex abuse in Catholic churches throughout Pennsylvania. A grand jury investigation released today gives details on 301 priests who allegedly abused more than 1,000 children. Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro says the abuse and the cover-up went all the way up to the Vatican.

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GREAT FALLS (MT)
MTN News

August 14, 2018

A federal bankruptcy judge in Montana approved a $20 million settlement between the Diocese of Great Falls/ Billings and survivors of sexual abuse.

The settlement ended a seven-year lawsuit involving 86 plaintiffs who had they had been sexually abused by Catholic nuns and priests from the 1950s through the 1990s, according to a news release from Tamaki Law Offices, which represents 38 of the victims.

The diocese’s insurer, Catholic Mutual, will pay $8 million of the settlement. The remaining $12 million will be divided as follows: $5 million from the Diocese, $4 million from individual parishes, $2 million from the Catholic Foundation of Eastern Montana and $1 million from St. Labre Indian School.

The Diocese filed for bankruptcy protection in March 2017, just months before multiple jury trials were scheduled to start.

During trial, the victims’ attorneys said they were planning to allege that the Diocese knew that Father Joseph Heretick was a danger to children and ignored complaints from parents. Heretick was sent to a treatment center for pedophile priest in the 1980s, which recommended he remain out of the ministry.

Attorneys said they would also argue another alleged perpetrator, Father William Cawley, left the Great Falls Diocese to teach at York Catholic High School in Harrisburg, Pa. Cawley left that position in 2012, shortly after the lawsuit was filed.

This suit marks the 15th filed by a Catholic Diocese in the United States related to alleged abuse by the clergy. The Diocese of Helena, which covers western Montana, filed suit in 2012.

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NEW YORK (NY)
The New York Post

August 15, 2018

By Tamar Lapin

A Pennsylvania priest tortured an altar boy for over a year, sexually abusing him and beating him with a metal cross, then left the church for a gig at Walt Disney World — with a reference from the diocese, a grand jury report found.

The Rev. Edward George Ganster is one of hundreds of priests named in the statewide grand jury investigation, which found that 1,000 children were abused in Pennsylvania for decades, as church leaders shielded their tormentors.

Years after being abused, a married 37-year-old man came forward in 2002 to say that Ganster had fondled and groped him for over a year and a half, beginning when he was 14 and an altar boy at St. Joseph in Frackville.

In one instance, Ganster allegedly dragged the boy across the living room, pulling him by his underwear. He also beat the boy multiple times — including once with a metal cross, the report states.

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GREAT FALLS (MT)
MTN News

August 14, 2018

A federal bankruptcy judge in Montana approved a $20 million settlement between the Diocese of Great Falls-Billings and survivors of sexual abuse.

The settlement ended a seven-year lawsuit involving 86 plaintiffs who said they had been sexually abused by Catholic nuns and priests from the 1950s through the 1990s, according to a news release from Tamaki Law Offices, which represents 38 of the victims.

The diocese’s insurer, Catholic Mutual, will pay $8 million of the settlement. The remaining $12 million will be divided as follows: $5 million from the Diocese, $4 million from individual parishes, $2 million from the Catholic Foundation of Eastern Montana, and $1 million from St. Labre Indian School.

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CHERRY HILL (NJ)
NBC10

August 14, 2018

By David Chang and Cydney Long

Officials with the Jewish Federation of Southern New Jersey sent a letter to parents Monday informing them of the allegations against a male assistant counselor at the JCC in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

A counselor at a South Jersey Jewish Community Center camp is under investigation for alleged child sex abuse.

Officials with the Jewish Federation of Southern New Jersey sent a letter to parents Monday informing them of the allegations against a male assistant counselor at the JCC in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

Officials told parents a child at the camp was injured about two weeks ago after an interaction with the counselor. The counselor was transferred to the kitchen but officials with a state agency determined the incident was accidental.

A week later, a parent accused the same counselor of inappropriately touching a child at the camp. The counselor was suspended. On Friday, more child sexual assault allegations surfaced against him.

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MADISON (WI)
The Catholic World Report

August 15, 2018

By Joseph M. Hanneman

Some friends believed Fr. Kunz’s work as an exorcist or his investigations of sexual corruption in the priesthood may have been factors in his 1998 murder.

PART TWO [Read PART ONE]

Father Malachi Martin was an exorcist, bestselling author, former aide to Pope St. John XXIII, and onetime professor at the Vatican’s Pontifical Biblical Institute. He was also a friend of Father Alfred J. Kunz, and he believed the Wisconsin priest’s 1998 murder bore the marks of satanic evil.

“He was found at 7 o’clock in the morning with his throat cut from ear to ear,” Martin said on a national radio program in May 1998. “In his own blood, face down into it and with various acts of desecration of his body which are normally associated with satanist-inflicted death.”

The author of Hostage to the Devil, The Keys of This Blood, Windswept House, and more than a dozen other books said Kunz consulted with him on exorcisms. The country priest was “picked off” by someone who wanted to permanently silence him, Martin said. He referred to the murder as the “assassination of Christ’s hero.”

Father Kunz’s efforts to battle evil became a significant part of his still-unsolved, 20-year-old murder case. Some friends and associates were convinced that his work as an exorcist and his investigation of sexual corruption in the priesthood must have been factors in his March 3, 1998 killing at St. Michael School in the village of Dane, Wisconsin. Police have now turned their focus to more common motives for the killing, such as burglary or robbery. But the contentions of Kunz’s associates still hang heavy over the case, showing just how complicated the priest’s life could be.

There is one major problem with the Father Martin’s theory: one of its base premises was false. Kunz’s body did not have injuries that would lead investigators to suspect a ritual or satanic killing, according to Dane County Sheriff David J. Mahoney. Kunz’s throat was not cut “ear to ear,” as many stories claimed. The throat slash was more to one side, and it severed the carotid artery. There were no other stab wounds and no desecration or mutilation of the body, according to Mahoney.

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MADISON (WI)
The Catholic World Report

August 8, 2018

By Joseph M. Hanneman

Twenty years ago, a priest was found with his throat slit at a parish school in rural Wisconsin. Today, investigators are urging the public to come forward with any clues that might break the case.

PART ONE
Sheriff’s investigators are exploring the possibility that the man who brutally murdered Father Alfred J. Kunz in March 1998 is dead, and they are urging the public to come forward with tips and clues needed to break the case and solve one of the most vexing killings in Wisconsin history.

After a 20-year investigation involving more than 50 detectives and thousands of interviews, the Dane County Sheriff’s Office has “multiple” persons of interest in the murder of the traditionalist Catholic priest. Dane County Sheriff David J. Mahoney said investigators believe it’s possible the killer himself is dead. This has added urgency to law enforcement appeals for the public to come forward with more information.

“We have to look at the possibility that the person responsible, or others who might have been aware, are dead,” Mahoney said in an interview with Catholic World Report. “If that’s the case, we’ll never solve it unless somebody comes forth with evidence.”

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BEIJING (CHINA)
The Associated Press

August 15, 2018

Controversy around Buddhist abbot Shi Xuecheng seen as sign of #MeToo’s rise in China

One of China’s most high-profile Buddhist monks has resigned from a national post after reports of sexual misconduct, a religious association has said.

The Buddhist Association of China said on Wednesday its president, Shi Xuecheng, had passed his duties to a deputy.

The case, which has been covered widely in the Chinese press and discussed on social media, is seen as a sign of the #MeToo movement’s growing momentum in China. A small but increasing number of academics, civil society activists and one of China’s best known television hosts have been called out for alleged inappropriate behaviour, although the movement has yet to percolate into government circles.

The announcement of Xuecheng’s resignation was included in a report about the Buddhist association’s regular meeting and did not mention the controversy surrounding him. Fellow monks accused Xuecheng earlier this year of harassing and demanding sexual favours from nuns at his Beijing monastery as well as embezzling funds, allegations that Xuecheng has denied on social media.

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LANSING (MI)
Detroit Free Press

August 15, 2018

By David Jesse

It was supposed to jump off the page at you. A black-and-white shot of a woman, the only color on the page, her teal lipstick and the teal nameplate of the magazine.

Inside would be page after page of stories and essays describing how Michigan State University handled the Larry Nassar case and what it now meant to be a Spartan.

Teal is a color sexual assault survivors use to show support for each other.

But no one ever saw that version of the MSU alumni magazine. Interim President John Engler ordered it all to be scrapped.

Earlier this month, MSU alumni began receiving the replacement issue — this one with a completely different message.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
PBS News Hour

August 14, 2018

A scathing new grand jury report in Pennsylvania describes decades of sexual abuse by Catholic priests. At least 1,000 children were molested by more than 300 clergy, the panel found, which also claims a conspiracy of silence extended all the way to the Vatican. Judy Woodruff sits down with Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro and Fr. Thomas Reese of Religion News Service.

Read the Full Transcript

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HARRISBURG (PA)
The Associated Press

August 14, 2018

By Mark Scolforo and Marc Levy

More than 1,000 children — and possibly many more — were molested by hundreds of Roman Catholic priests in six Pennsylvania dioceses, while senior church officials took steps to cover it up, according to a landmark grand jury report released Tuesday.

The grand jury said it believes the “real number” of abused children might be “in the thousands” since some records were lost and victims were afraid to come forward. The report said more than 300 clergy committed the abuse over a period decades, beginning in the mid-1950s.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said the two-year probe found a systematic cover-up by senior church officials in Pennsylvania and at the Vatican.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
Business Insider

August 15, 2018

By Ellen Cranley

– A grand jury in Pennsylvania released a 1,300-word report Tuesday detailing allegations about the Roman Catholic Church’s decades-long cover-up of sexual abuse of nearly 1,000 children by 300 “predator priests.”

– The report details what investigators described in the report as a “a playbook for concealing the truth” that was used by officials to cover up 70 years of abuse of children by 300 Roman Catholic priests.

– Across files from six dioceses, special agents identified several patterns using special language and illegitimate investigations to downplay accusations and protect the priests.
A grand jury in Pennsylvania released a 1,300-word report Tuesday detailing allegations that the Roman Catholic Church spent decades covering up sexual abuse claims against 300 “predator priests” who are said to have targeted nearly 1,000 children.

The report covers 70 years of alleged abuse and the lengths that church officials went to cover up the accusations, using what investigators described in the report as a “a playbook for concealing the truth.”

Special agents identified several common practices across the files from the six dioceses they investigated that kept the accusations within the church, and avoided recording any criminal identifications in the documents.

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CHINA
AFP

August 15, 2018

By Elizabeth Law

The head of China’s government-run Buddhist association quit his post on Wednesday amid an investigation into allegations that he coerced several nuns into having sex with him.

Xuecheng, a Communist Party member and abbot of the Beijing Longquan Monastery, is one of the most prominent figures to face accusations in China’s growing #MeToo movement.

In a 95-page report that circulated online late last month, two monks accused Xuecheng of sending explicit text messages to at least six women, threatening or cajoling them to have sex with him, claiming it was a part of their Buddhist studies.

The same report also claimed the Beijing Longquan Monastery is in financial trouble.

China’s top religious authority launched an investigation shortly after the allegations were made public.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
The Associated Press

August 14, 2018

By Mark Scolforo and Marc Levy

Hundreds of Roman Catholic priests in Pennsylvania molested more than 1,000 children — and possibly many more — since the 1940s, and senior church officials, including a man who is now the archbishop of Washington, D.C., systematically covered up the abuse, according to a grand jury report released Tuesday.

The “real number” of abused children might be in the thousands since some secret church records were lost, and victims were afraid to come forward, the grand jury said.

“Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing. They hid it all,” Attorney General Josh Shapiro said at a news conference in Harrisburg.

The report put the number of abusive clergy at more than 300. In nearly all of the cases, the statute of limitations has run out, meaning that criminal charges cannot be filed. More than 100 of the priests are dead, and many others are retired or have been dismissed from the priesthood or put on leave.

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ERIE (PA)
Erie News Now

August 14, 2018

By John Last

Bishop Emeritus Trautman says he will stand on his record of addressing clergy abuse and helping victims.

Bishop Emeritus Donald Trautman has released a lengthy written statement in response to the Pennsylvania grand jury report on clergy sex abuse. In the statement, Trautman said he stands on his record of addressing such abuse.

Earlier this month. The Office of Attorney General and Trautman reached an agreement in which Trautman would allow the grand jury investigation of the Erie Catholic Diocese to be released without redaction. The attorney general would stipulate that specific questionable actions taken by some bishops across Pennsylvania were not employed by Trautman. The agreement apparently did not cover some allegations against Trautman that Attorney General Josh Shapiro mentioned during his news conference today.

In the case of former priest Chester Gawronski, Shapiro outlined incidents where Gawronski reportedly gave children what Gawronski called “cancer checks.” Those incidents occurred in the 1980s and earlier. Shapiro said Gawronski remained in the priesthood under various assignments.

Trautman,in his statement, said Gawronski was serving an assignment given to him by Trautman’s predecessor, Bishop Michael Murphy when Trautman became bishop in 1990. The assignment was at a nursing home and included no contact with children. His later assignments were also at nursing homes. Trautman says he kept Gawronski at the nursing homes in deference to Bishop Murphy, but in hindsight, probably would have acted differently.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
NPR

August 14, 2018

Updated at 4:33 p.m. ET

A long-awaited grand jury investigation into clergy sexual abuse in Pennsylvania was released Tuesday in an interim redacted form. The report detailed decades of alleged misconduct and cover-ups in six of the state’s eight Roman Catholic dioceses.

The roughly 900-page report, not including exhibits, is thought to be the most comprehensive of its kind and paints a horrid portrait of activity that occurred in the dioceses of Scranton, Allentown, Harrisburg, Greensburg, Erie and Pittsburgh, implicating 300 “predator priests” statewide who committed “criminal and/or morally reprehensible conduct.”

One priest in the Diocese of Harrisburg abused five sisters in a single family. Another, in the Diocese of Greensburg, impregnated a 17-year-old girl, married her, then divorced her months later.

A priest in the Diocese of Erie admitted to assaulting at least a dozen boys, yet was later thanked by the bishop for “all that you have done for God’s people.”

The grand jury said it reviewed a half-million pages of internal church documents and “secret archives” that were readily available to bishops. It found credible allegations by more than 1,000 victims, but it added, “We believe that the real number … is in the thousands.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
The New York Times

August 14, 2018

By Laurie Goodstein

Bishops and other leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in Pennsylvania covered up child sexual abuse by hundreds of priests over a period of 70 years, persuading victims not to report the abuse and police officers not to investigate it, according to a report issued by a grand jury on Tuesday.

The report, which says there were more than 1,000 identifiable victims and covered six of the state’s eight Catholic dioceses, is the broadest examination yet by a government agency in the United States of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. There have been ten previous reports by grand juries and attorneys general in the United States, according to the research and advocacy group BishopAccountability.org, but those examined single dioceses or counties.

The report catalogs horrific instances of abuse, including a priest who raped a young girl in the hospital after she had her tonsils out, and another priest who was allowed to stay in ministry after impregnating a 17-year-old girl, forging a signature on a marriage certificate and then divorcing the girl.

“Despite some institutional reform, individual leaders of the church have largely escaped public accountability,” the grand jury wrote. “Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all. For decades.”

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NEW YORK (NY)
The Wall Street Journal

August 14, 2018

By Scott Calvert and Kris Maher

Grand-jury report says Catholic Church officials in the state failed to intervene and covered up crimes

A grand-jury report released Tuesday alleges more than 300 Catholic priests in Pennsylvania sexually abused children over the past 70 years, and says Catholic Church officials in the state failed to intervene and covered up crimes.

The scathing, 884-page report details widespread abuse of boys and girls dating to the 1940s that the grand jury said shows a systemic, chronic failure by six of the eight Pennsylvania dioceses to protect young victims.

Prior grand-jury reports found evidence of widespread priest abuse in the state’s two other dioceses in Philadelphia and the Altoona-Johnstown area.

The grand-jury investigation, launched in 2016 by the state Attorney General’s Office, has led to criminal charges against two former priests. One pleaded guilty last month to sexually assaulting a 10-year-old boy. The other is charged with molesting two boys over years. He waived a preliminary hearing and the case is headed for trial, according to the attorney general’s office.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
CNN

August 14, 2018

By Daniel Burke and Susannah Cullinane

A new grand jury report says that internal documents from six Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania show that more than 300 “predator priests” have been credibly accused of sexually abusing more than 1,000 child victims.

“We believe that the real number of children whose records were lost or who were afraid ever to come forward is in the thousands,” the grand jury report says.

“Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all. For decades. Monsignors, auxiliary bishops, bishops, archbishops, cardinals have mostly been protected; many, including some named in this report, have been promoted. Until that changes, we think it is too early to close the book on the Catholic Church sex scandal.”

The lengthy report, released Tuesday afternoon, investigates clergy sexual abuse in six dioceses dating back to 1947. Pennsylvania’s two other dioceses, Philadelphia and Altoona-Johnstown, were the subjects of earlier grand jury reports, which found similarly damaging information about clergy and bishops in those dioceses.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
The Associated Press

August 14, 2018

Nicole Winfield in Vatican City and Claudia Lauer and Michael Rubinkam in Pennsylvania contributed to this report.

The landmark grand jury report also accused Catholic Church leaders of covering up the abuse.

More than 1,000 children — and possibly many more — were molested by hundreds of Roman Catholic priests in six Pennsylvania dioceses, while senior church officials took steps to cover it up, according to a landmark grand jury report released Tuesday.

The grand jury said it believes the “real number” of abused children might be “in the thousands” since some records were lost and victims were afraid to come forward. The report said more than 300 clergy committed the abuse over a period decades, beginning in the mid-1950s.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said the two-year probe found a systematic cover-up by senior church officials in Pennsylvania and at the Vatican.

“The cover-up was sophisticated. And all the while, shockingly, church leadership kept records of the abuse and the cover-up. These documents, from the dioceses’ own ‘Secret Archives,’ formed the backbone of this investigation,” he said at a news conference in Harrisburg.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
KDKA

August 14, 2018

By Andy Sheehan

The long-awaited state grand jury report into sexual abuse in six Pennsylvania dioceses, including Pittsburgh and Greensburg, has finally been released.

The 884-page document, two years in the making, shines a light into the dark corners of these dioceses going back seven decades, exposing the predators and the efforts of their bishops to protect them.

“Today, the most comprehensive report on child sexual abuse within the church ever produced in our country was released,” Attorney General Josh Shapiro said. “Pennsylvanians can finally learn the extent of sexual abuse in these dioceses. For the first time, we can all begin to understand the systematic cover up by church leaders that followed. The abuse scarred every diocese. The cover up was sophisticated. The church protected the institution at all costs.”

The report begins with the following statement:

“We, the members of this grand jury, need you to hear this. We know some of you have head some of it before. There have been other reports about child sex abuse within the Catholic Church. But never on this scale. For many of us, those earlier stories happened someplace else, someplace away. Now we know the truth: it happened everywhere.”

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
TRIB Live

August 14, 2018

By Debra Erdley

A Pennsylvania judge on Tuesday released a highly anticipated but heavily redacted grand jury report that purports to lift a veil of secrecy that protected more than 300 “predator priests” across six Pennsylvania dioceses for nearly 70 years.

The nearly 900-page report was edited to black out the names of 13 clergy members who filed legal objections, details decades of graphic allegations of sexual abuse and cover-ups in the Greensburg, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Erie, Allentown and Scranton dioceses.

The report names 301 “predator priests,” Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said. It includes 20 priests who worked in the Greensburg diocese and 99 from the Pittsburgh diocese, he said.

The grand jury received files on more than 400 priests but didn’t name names if the information was “too scanty” to make a reasonable determination, Shapiro said.

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ALLENTOWN (PA)
The Morning Call

August 14, 2018

By Emily Opilo and Tim Darragh

A scathing grand jury report released Tuesday reveals accusations of sexual abuse against 301 priests, whose actions went unchecked for decades in dioceses across Pennsylvania, including Allentown.

Instead of reporting pedophiles, dioceses routinely shuffled them from parish to parish, enabling them to prey upon new victims, the document shows. The statewide grand jury spent two years on what may be the most exhaustive investigation of the church taken on by a state. It covered allegations in the Allentown, Erie, Greensburg, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Scranton dioceses, which collectively minister to more than 1.7 million Catholics.

The 23 members of the grand jury took testimony from dozens of witnesses. But it was in the church’s own files — more than half a million pages of internal diocesan documents in “secret archives” — that the grand jury found the names of more than a thousand children who were victimized.

“We believe that the real number — of children whose records were lost, or who were afraid ever to come forward — is in the thousands,” the report noted.

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ERIE (PA)
GoErie

August 14, 2018

By Ed Palattella and Madeleine O’Neill

The report also covers 5 other Roman Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania.

The latest on the release of the grand jury report on sex abuse in the Catholic Diocese of Erie and five other Roman Catholic dioceses statewide:

2:15 p.m.: Grand jury report is released shortly after 2 p.m. The report summarizes the grand jury’s findings on the Catholic Diocese of Erie, and lists 41 offenders. They are as follows, with two names redacted because those individuals are challenging the contents of the report:

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Tribune-Review

August 14, 2018

Pennsylvania’s Attorney General Josh Shapiro talks about the grand jury report on child sexual abuse in six Catholic dioceses in the state.

A Pennsylvania judge on Tuesday released a highly anticipated but heavily redacted grand jury report that purports to lift a veil of secrecy that protected more than 300 “predator priests” across six Pennsylvania dioceses for nearly 70 years.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
Penn Live

August 14, 2018

By Megan Lavey-Heaton

The long-awaited grand jury report into clergy sex abuse in Pennsylvania is being released today.

The office of state Attorney General Josh Shapiro empaneled the grand jury in 2016 to investigate allegations of child sex crimes across six of the state’s eight Catholic dioceses: Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Scranton, Erie and Greensburg.

The grand jury, which completed its investigation in April, produced a 900-plus page report that names more than 300 members of the clergy by name in connection to sex crimes against children.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
CBS News

August 14, 2018

Catholic leaders are bracing for the release of a grand jury report on child sexual abuse. The investigation covers the dioceses of Pittsburgh, Greensburg and four others in Pennsylvania. Watch live in the player above as Attorney General Josh Shapiro briefs the press on the findings of the grand jury report.

While the 900-page report will contain names and details which have never been released before, not everything will be released. The report names 300 alleged “predator priests,” but about a dozen names will be redacted. Some clergy and former clergy are legally challenging the report, which includes their names.

Victims of child sexual abuse within the church are expected to be in attendance.

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SANTIAGO (CHILE)
The Associated Press

August 14, 2018

By Eva Vergara

Chilean authorities raided the headquarters of the Catholic Church’s Episcopal Conference on Tuesday as part of a widespread investigation into sex abuse committed by members of the Marist Brothers order in the South American country, prosecutors said.

The raids by investigating prosecutors and Chile’s equivalent of the FBI took place at one of the most important buildings of the Chilean church in the capital of Santiago. Investigating prosecutor Raul Guzman, who confirmed the raid, is probing more than 35 accusations of abuse committed against former students at schools run by the Marists, who are religious brothers, not priests.

Guzman told local news media that investigators were collecting information to help identify victims.

After leaving the Episcopal Office headquarters, the investigators went to the offices of the Marist order and also collected information there, according to Alejandro Pena, an attorney for the order. He said he hoped the action would help resolve the case.

In a statement sent to The Associated Press, seven of the complainants said, “We feel profound satisfaction at seeing the advance of investigations needed to do justice.”

They noted that there had been suspicions of attempts to destroy or hide documents — an allusion to a previous raid on a diocese where investigators found church workers trying to destroy documents.

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ALLENTOWN (PA)
The Morning Call

August 14, 2018

By Tim Darragh

Victims of sexual abuse by priests in dioceses throughout Pennsylvania have been waiting years, if not decades, for the day when they could believe their stories were told and heard.

That day is now.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court set 2 p.m. as the deadline for a special master to release a grand jury report detailing decades of priests’ sexual misconduct with minors in six of Pennsylvania’s eight dioceses, including Allentown.

More than 300 “predator” priests are expected to be identified in the report, which would make it one of the largest single collections of church sex abuse worldwide.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
CNN

August 14, 2018

By Susannah Cullinane

A grand jury’s report on sexual abuse by hundreds of Catholic priests in Pennsylvania is expected to be released later Tuesday.

The report is “an honest and comprehensive accounting of widespread sexual abuse by more than 300 priests in six Pennsylvania dioceses,” according to the attorney general’s office. The Church has said that the grand jury’s inquiry dates to 1947.

Court action has delayed the report’s publication. A number of individuals named in the report claimed that its findings were false or misleading, that they were denied due process of law and that its release would impair their reputations.

On July 27, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ordered the grand jury report to be released by 2 p.m. August 14 with redactions in sections where litigation was ongoing.

State Attorney General Josh Shapiro had written to the head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis, on July 25, requesting that the Pontiff direct church leaders to stop “efforts to silence the survivors.”

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HARRISBURG (PA)
The Associated Press

August 14, 2018

The Latest on a grand jury report on clergy abuse in six Pennsylvania Roman Catholic dioceses (all times local):

9:30 a.m.

Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the archbishop of Washington, is defending himself ahead of a forthcoming grand jury report investigating child sexual abuse in six of Pennsylvania’s Roman Catholic dioceses.

He says the report will be critical of some of his actions as Pittsburgh’s bishop.

Wuerl wrote to priests late Monday, ahead of Tuesday’s release of the report. He says he acted diligently to protect children while bishop of Pittsburgh for 18 years through 2006.

Court records say the report identifies more than 300 “predator priests” and that grand jurors accuse church leaders of brushing aside victims to protect abusers and church institutions.

Wuerl is already dealing with allegations that a predecessor, disgraced ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, allegedly sexually abused boys and adult seminarians. He said last month that archdiocesan records showed no complaints about McCarrick.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
KDKATV

August 14, 2018

Catholic leaders are bracing for the release of a grand jury report on child sexual abuse.

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BEGA (NSW, AUSTRALIA)
Bega District News

August 13, 2018

By Cameron Houston

An alleged victim of clerical abuse will plead guilty to breaking into more than 20 Catholic churches during a three-month burglary spree that terrorised priests and parishioners.

Motivated by a deep-seated hatred of the Catholic Church, Stephen Peters, 49, admitted to police that he wanted to create fear among the clergy, often cutting off power as priests slept.

A prosecutor told the County Court of Victoria that Mr Peters had vowed “to continue to offend until he received an apology from the church”.

Between February and April 2018, Mr Peters broke into Catholic churches from Swan Hill to Morwell and in more than a dozen Melbourne parishes, where he stole money donated to collection plates, wallets and more than three cars owned by priests.

Mr Peters found more than $14,000 in cash in a filing cabinet during an aggravated burglary at St John the Baptist Church in Clifton Hill on April 9.

Less than a week later, he broke into the presbytery of Our Lady of Victory in Camberwell, where he stole $1500 from a safe.

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ENGLAND
The Telegraph

August 13, 2018

By Victoria Ward and Helena Horton

One of the victims of a Christian evangelist, who was brutally abused as a teenager, has called for an independent inquiry, and accused the Church of England of “marking its own exams”.

Andrew Morse, who twice tried to take his own life after years of savage beatings at the hands of John Smyth QC, said he does not trust the Church to do its own investigation, accusing it of not doing enough to stop the abuse and help the victims.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
The Associated Press

August 14, 2018

By Mark Scolforo and Marc Levy

Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the archbishop of Washington, says he expects a grand jury report being released Tuesday on the sexual abuse of children by clergy in six Pennsylvania Roman Catholic dioceses to be critical of his actions as the former longtime bishop of Pittsburgh.

Wuerl wrote to priests late Monday, defending himself ahead of the release of a roughly 900-page report that victim advocates call the largest and most exhaustive such review by any U.S. state.

Wuerl contended that he acted diligently to protect children while bishop of Pittsburgh for 18 years through 2006.

Despite the criticism of his actions in the report, Wuerl said he hopes “a just assessment of my actions, past and present, and my continuing commitment to the protection of children will dispel any notions otherwise made by this report.”

Court records in a largely secret, months-long legal fight over the report indicate it identifies more than 300 “predator priests” and that grand jurors accuse church leaders of brushing aside victims to protect abusers and church institutions.

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DETROIT (MI)
The Detroit News

August 14, 2018

By Kim Kozlowski

Ingham County Judge Rosemarie Aquilina was not biased against serial pedophile Larry Nassar, and should stay on his case as he appeals the sentence, a judge ruled Tuesday.

Chief Judge Richard Garcia wrote in his ruling that Nassar pled guilty to criminal sexual conduct against seven young girls, using his medical credentials to assault them and admitted that his procedures served no medical purpose and were for his own sexual gratification. Garcia also noted that Nassar agreed to allow more than the seven named survivors to provide impact statements at sentencing, resulting in more than 150 women and girls to come forward.

Citing case law, Garcia wrote that consideration of victim impact statements by those who testified at sentencing does not amount to “a prejudice or bias that give rise to disqualification.”

“In fact, the language of punishment need not be nice,” Garcia wrote. “Judge Aquilina clearly understood the importance of righteous indignation. She also understood the role of the court to have this emotion controlled by the judge rather than allow it to run wild in the community. She explained that as she expressed her indignation, there was a palpable decrease in the tension in the gallery. This was a controlled burn.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

August 12, 2018

By Melissa Davey

Terry Hamilton writes to tax office and charities watchdog about failures royal commission found in Catholic and other churches

It is unacceptable for churches that failed to protect children from sexual abuse to still have charity status nine months after the royal commission delivered its final report, a former assistant taxation commissioner has said.

Terry Hamilton wrote to the prime minister’s office, the Australian Taxation Office and the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) expressing concern at the number of unchallenged breaches of taxation law by Australia’s religious institutions.

The high court of Australia states for church bodies to qualify as religious institutions the church body must: be instituted for promotion of a religious object; its activities must reflect that character; and its practices and conduct must not offend against the laws of Australia.

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NEWCASTLE (AUSTRALIA)
The Associated Press

August 14, 2018

The most senior Catholic cleric convicted of covering up child sex abuse was ordered by an Australian court Tuesday to serve his 1-year sentence in home detention rather than jail.

Newcastle Magistrate Robert Stone on Tuesday ordered former Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson to be detained at his sister’s house for at least 6 months before he is eligible for parole. He will be under strict supervision including having to wear a tracking device that would alert authorities if he left the house.

Wilson, 67, has denied the accusations and had refused to resign pending an appeal. But Pope Francis accepted Wilson’s resignation last month after mounting pressure including from the Australian prime minister for him to be fired.

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LANSING (MI)
MLive

August 14, 2018

By Amy Biolchini

A judge has struck down ex-Michigan State University doctor Larry Nassar’s attempt to disqualify the judge that sentenced him to decades in prison for sexually assaulting hundreds of girls and women under the guise of medical treatment.

Nassar’s lawyers alleged Ingham County Circuit Judge Judge Rosemarie Aquilina was biased against him by allowing 169 people to give victim impact statements during his sentencing and cheering them along. Nassar is asking to be re-sentenced, and was attempting to seek a different judge to do so.

Tuesday, Ingham County Circuit Court Chief Judge Richard J. Garcia denied Nassar’s motion to disqualify Aquilina.

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LANSING (MI)
Lansing State Journal

August 14, 2018

By Matt Mencarini,

Judge Rosemarie Aquilina will remain on the Larry Nassar case, despite an effort by his attorneys to remove her.

Ingham County Circuit Court Chief Judge Richard Garcia issued that ruling today, strongly defending Aquilina while criticizing Nassar and the attempt to remove her from hearing his motion requesting a new sentence.

“The die was cast in the courtroom and Defendant’s sentence was forged by his own words and deeds,” Garcia wrote in his seven-page opinion. “Consideration of whether he should be resentenced can be fairly reviewed by the judge uniquely situated to provide justice in this case.

“The judge who heard these survivors is the only one who should properly render any re-sentence.”

The matter went to Garcia after Aquilina refused to remove herself from the case on Aug. 3, and Nassar’s court-appointed appellate attorneys appealed to him.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
The Washington Post

August 14, 2018

By Michelle Boorstein

Catholics on Tuesday were awaiting the release of one of the most sweeping investigations ever on U.S. clerical sex abuse of minors — an 800-page-plus grand jury report detailing 70 years of misconduct and church response across Pennsylvania.

The release is the culmination of an 18-month probe, led by state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, on six of the state’s eight dioceses — Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Scranton, Erie and Greensburg — and follows other state grand jury reports that revealed abuse and coverups in two other dioceses.

Legal challenges by some of the approximately 300 clergy named in the report have delayed it, after some said it is a violation of their constitutional rights. Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court ruled last month that the report must be released but with some redaction. That ruling came after at least 10 news organizations, including The Washington Post, urged its release.

The report has helped renew a crisis many in the church thought and hoped had ended nearly 20 years ago after the scandal erupted in Boston. But recent abuse-related scandals, from Chile to Australia, have reopened wounding questions about accountability and whether church officials are still covering up crimes at the highest levels.

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ORANGE COUNTY (CA)
KTLA5

August 13, 2018

By Tracy Bloom, Chip Yost, and Mary Beth McDade

An Orange County man who authorities say fled the country more than a decade ago after being charged with sexually assaulting a choir boy over a four-year period has been extradited back to the U.S., authorities said Monday.

The announcement came the same day that the accused child molester, 43-year-old Roger Alan Giese, made his first court appearance in Santa Ana since returning to California.

He was scheduled to be arraigned on the bench warrant for his arrest, but the arraignment was continued until later this month.

Giese is being held on $60 million bail, jail records showed.

“The return of Mr. Giese to the United States after more than a decade is an example of the FBI’s commitment to returning fugitives accused of state crimes to local jurisdictions where they face prosecution regardless of how much time has passed,” Paul Delacourt, the assistant director of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office, said in a news release.

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SALT LAKE CITY (UT)
KUTV

August 13, 2018

By McKenzie Stauffer

UPDATE: The LDS Church released the following statement about the judge’s decision to dismiss a lawsuit against a former LDS mission president.

Judge Kimball has dismissed three of the four claims involving the Church. He allowed one claim to remain so the parties can investigate its merits. We remain confident in the legal system to evaluate these claims and determine the truth. As the Church has repeatedly stated, there can be no tolerance for abuse.

A federal judge has formally dismissed a lawsuit against a former LDS mission president Joseph L. Bishop.

The lawsuit against the LDS Church for fraud, however, has been upheld.

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AUSTRALIA
BBC News

August 14, 2018

A former Catholic archbishop will serve a maximum 12-month sentence in home detention for concealing child sexual abuse, an Australian court has ruled.

The decision means Philip Wilson, who resigned as archbishop of Adelaide after his conviction, will avoid jail.

Wilson, 67, is the world’s most senior Catholic cleric to be convicted of covering up sexual abuse.

His lawyers said they would lodge an appeal on Tuesday.

A magistrate said Wilson would commence his sentence immediately at a relative’s home, where he would be monitored by a tracking device. He will be eligible for parole after six months.

As he left court on Tuesday, Wilson did not respond to an abuse survivor who confronted him to demand an apology.

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CHILE
La Croix

August 13, 2018

By Anne-Bénédicte Hoffner

The appointment of Ana Maria Celis Brunet, a lawyer specializing in church law, illustrates Pope Francis’ commitment to ending clericalism

Chile’s Catholic bishops have appointed Ana Maria Celis Brunet, an experienced lawyer and theologian, to lead the fight against clerical sexual abuse in her new role as president of the National Council of the Chilean Church for the Prevention of Sexual Abuse and Accompaniment of Victims.

Pope Francis received Brunet, a specialist in canon law and the law of religions, in an audience at St. Martha House in the Vatican on Aug. 10, just a few days after her appointment.“

The objective of the meeting was to inform and exchange opinions on the measures taken in Chile to deal with cases of abuse and to stop them from re-occurring,” a Holy See Press Office statement read.

“A significant part of the conversation dealt with the suffering of victims and their need for comfort and compensation,” the statement said.

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[Breaking news: PDI raids offices of the Episcopal Conference]

SANTIAGO (CHILE)
La Tercera

August 14, 2018

By Carlos Reyes and Leyla Zapata

[This in the framework of the investigation that the South Prosecutor’s Office carries out in the case of abuses in the Marist Congregation. The regional prosecutor Raúl Guzmán leads the diligence.]

Esto en el marco de la indagatoria que la Fiscalía Sur lleva adelante por el caso de abusos en la Congregación Marista. El fiscal regional Raúl Guzmán lidera la diligencia.

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[Chancellery handed the Vatican information requests for cases of abuse in the Church]

SANTIAGO (CHILE)
La Tercera

August 14, 2018

By C. Reyes

[The purpose of the petition is to be able to access the Scicluna report and canonical files of those investigated in cases of alleged sexual abuse against minors.]

El objetivo de la petición es poder acceder al informe Scicluna y a expedientes canónicos de investigados en casos de presunto abuso sexual contra menores.

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[Prosecutor and PDI raid the Episcopal Conference in Santiago in regards to Marist case]

SANTIAGO (CHILE)
Biobio.cl

August 14, 2018

La mañana de este martes personal de la Brigada de Delitos Sexuales de la PDI llegó hasta la sede de la Conferencia Episcopal en el centro de Santiago.

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[Breaking news: Prosecutor’s office raids headquarters of the Episcopal Conference for Marist cases]

SANTIAGO (CHILE)
Cooperativa.cl

August 14, 2018

Diligencia es encabezada por el fiscal Raúl Guzmán.

La Fiscalía Metropolitana Sur llegó la mañana de este martes hasta la sede de la Conferencia Episcopal de Chile para allanar sus instalaciones por orden del fiscal regional Raúl Guzmán, en el marco del caso maristas.

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DETROIT (MI)
Detroit Free Press

August 14, 2018

By Ann Zaniewski

Archbishop of Detroit Allen H. Vigneron on Monday stressed that all clergy — including bishops like himself — need to be held accountable for their behavior, and said priests who have impure relations with others need to repent or give up the priesthood.

His remarks came in two similar letters — one geared toward clergy, the other to the faithful at large — issued ahead of the expected release of a report detailing widespread sexual abuse allegations against clergy in Pennsylvania.

Vigneron told the faithful he shares their pain in facing the news of abuse allegations in the Church. He also said he prays for the victims.

“Even with our renewed prayers and support for our dedicated priests and deacons, I note a temptation to despair among some over whether things can change,” he wrote. “However, we know that reform can only happen when hope lives.”We must move forward with the conviction that God will not abandon his Church. He wants her purified, cleansed of these sins and brought to new life.”

A damning report into allegations of decades of child sexual abuse by clergy members and efforts to cover it up in six of Pennsylvania’s Roman Catholic dioceses is expected to be released in the coming days, the result of an almost two-year grand jury investigation.

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AUSTRALIA
AFP

August 13, 2018

A former Australian archbishop convicted of concealing abuse by a notorious paedophile priest in the 1970s was confronted by enraged victims outside a courthouse Tuesday after a judge spared him jail and ordered he serve his sentence at home.

Philip Wilson became one of the highest-ranked church officials convicted of covering up child sex abuse when he was found guilty in May of concealing crimes by priest Jim Fletcher in the Hunter region of New South Wales state.

The Newcastle Local Court sentenced the 67-year-old to 12 months’ imprisonment, with a non-parole period of six months, but also ordered that he be assessed to serve it in home detention.

Wilson had since been on bail and on Tuesday magistrate Robert Stone decided he will not need to spend time behind bars, with his age and prior good record taken into account.

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AUSTRALIA
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

August 14, 2018

By Nancy Notzon

An abuse survivor has been called “rubbish” by a member of Adelaide’s former Catholic archbishop Philip Wilson’s entourage, in an exchange played out in front of a media scrum.

Wilson had just been told by a Newcastle magistrate he could serve his sentence for concealing historical child sex abuse in home detention as opposed to prison.

As he left the court, Peter Gogarty — who was a victim of paedophile priest Jim Fletcher — asked Wilson to apologise but the clergyman stayed silent.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
The Associated Press

August 14, 2018

By Mark Scolforo and Marc Levy

Time is ticking down to a court-ordered deadline Tuesday afternoon to decide what information to black out in a forthcoming grand jury report investigating child sexual abuse in six of Pennsylvania’s Roman Catholic dioceses.

A state Supreme Court order issued last month set a timetable to publicly release a redacted version of the grand jury’s roughly 900-page report, and justices appointed a county judge to help state prosecutors and lawyers for clergy members named in it to decide what portions to release.

Court records in a monthslong legal fight over the report say it identifies more than 300 “predator priests” and that grand jurors accuse church leaders of brushing aside victims to protect abusers and church institutions.

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SALT LAKE CITY (UT)
The Associated Press

August 13, 2018

By Lindsay Whitehurst

A judge is refusing to dismiss a lawsuit by a woman claiming she was raped by a Mormon church leader who was allowed oversee young missionaries despite a history of sexual misconduct.

A woman’s lawsuit claiming she was raped by a Mormon church leader who was allowed to oversee young missionaries despite a history of sexual misconduct will go forward, a judge decided Monday.

The decision will allow McKenna Denson’s lawyers to investigate whether there are others who claim to be victims of Joseph L. Bishop, who oversaw hundreds of young people as president of the Missionary Training Center in the 1980s, or others in leadership positions, attorney Craig Vernon said.

“The church represented to McKenna and everybody else that he was good guy, he was safe and he was trustworthy, he was not a sexual predator, he was not a sexual addict,” Vernon said. “We believe there is evidence the church in fact knew that was not true.”

The Associated Press doesn’t usually name people who say they are victims of sexual assault, but Denson has said she wants her story to be public.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
CBS News Videos

August 14, 2018

A highly anticipated grand jury report detailing alleged abuses by hundreds of Catholic priests across Pennsylvania is set to be released today. The first statewide report will reveal accusations against more than 300 so-called “predator priests” and reported efforts by church leaders to cover them up.The former bishop of Pittsburgh, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, is expected to come under intense scrutiny for how he handled more than two dozen abuse cases. Nikki Battiste reports.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

August 13, 2018

The eyes of the gymnastics world are turning to Boston, where the US championships begin Thursday at TD Garden. And while those eyes will be delighted by the sights of high-flying bar routines, elegant balance beam moves, daring vaults, and gravity-defying tumbling passes, the backdrop of the event writes a more difficult story for the competition’s overseer, USA Gymnastics. Enveloped by scandal, its sport is under fire. When years of systemic oversight problems culminated in the criminal sentencing of former national team doctor Larry Nassar as a serial sexual abuser, a long, heartbreaking shadow was cast over the sport, fomenting concern about the safety and well-being of the athletes involved.

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BOSTON (MA)
Religion News Service

August 13, 2018

By Eric Berger

Cardinal Sean O’Malley, archbishop of Boston, has placed the rector of St. John’s Seminary in Boston on leave and launched an investigation of the seminary’s culture following allegations of sexual misconduct at the school.

O’Malley said Friday (Aug. 10) he was responding to recent social media posts by former seminarians, adding that he could neither verify nor disprove the allegations.

According to what was claimed in the posts, “they witnessed and experienced activities which are directly contrary to the moral standards and requirements of formation for the Catholic priesthood,” O’Malley’s statement said. He also said he is “committed to immediate action to address these serious matters.”

The allegations, which were not specified in the archbishop’s statement, come two weeks after Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington, resigned from the College of Cardinals following allegations that he had sexually abused minors and adult seminarians for decades.

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CANBERRA (AUSTRALIA)
The Canberra Times

August 13, 2018

By Michael Inman

A former Anglican priest who raped a young girl on the pew of a Canberra church had a long-history of molesting children.

Justice Michael Elkaim on Monday sentenced John Philip Aitchison, 67, to nine years jail on five charges of sexual intercourse with a young person and seven counts of acts of indecency on a young person.

The ACT Supreme Court heard he had been convicted of offences against children in the United Kingdom, NSW, Victoria, and the ACT.

However, he had only served two years behind bars.

Justice Elkaim said the offender had been “dealt with leniently” in the past, on one occasion a NSW court found he had pyschological issues.

“[This] was incorrect. He is unquestionably a paedophile,” Justice Elkaim said.

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AUSTRALIA
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

August 13, 2018

By Bianca Gurra

A woman who was raped by a former Anglican priest 30 years ago has detailed the extensive and long-lasting impact of the abuse in court.

John Philip Aitchison was today sentenced to nine years behind bars for the historical rape.

Earlier this year, a Supreme Court jury found Aitchison guilty of seven acts of indecency and five counts of rape against the woman, then a 13-year-old Canberra girl, which took place over two years in the 1980s.

Aitchison pleaded not guilty to all charges.

He has previously been convicted of other offences involving children in the ACT, Victoria, New South Wales and the United Kingdom, and he served roughly two years at the Junee Correctional Centre in the late 1990s.

The first assault on the Canberra teenager took place at the All Saints’ Anglican Church in Ainslie, after the she finished violin practice.

During the trial, the woman told the court Aitchison had told her to look into the corner while he abused her, and pray that she might see her pet dog that had died.

At the same time, Aitchison — then a deacon — prayed to God for forgiveness.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
Penn Live

August 13, 2018

By Ivey DeJesus

The long-awaited grand jury report into clergy sex abuse in Pennsylvania is poised to be released on Tuesday . PennLive will provide complete coverage of its release.

By order from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, the Commonwealth has until 2 p.m. tomorrow to release the report.

The report is widely expected to be one of the most scathing and comprehensive investigations into the worldwide scandal embroiling the 1.2-billion strong church.

Here is a quick primer on what we know so far about the report:

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CHILE
Bloomberg

August 10, 2018

By Eduardo Thomson

– Latin American nation approved abortion in some cases in 2017
– Catholic Church reeling from series of sexual abuse scandals

Chile is fast ditching its reputation as South America’s most conservative and Catholic country, with lawmakers now discussing whether to make it the second nation in the region to legalize euthanasia.

Less than a year after allowing abortion in some cases, a commission of the Chamber of Deputies approved a bill that would permit euthanasia for the terminally ill or in cases of extreme suffering, enabling doctors to prescribe lethal medication.

“In the past, this subject was a big taboo,” Vlado Mirosevic, a lawmaker from the Liberal Party who originally presented the bill to Congress, said in an interview Thursday. “This discussion about euthanasia is putting Chile at the forefront in civil liberties.”

Chile has come a long way since emerging from the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in 1990. Back then, divorce was illegal, illegitimate children had less rights than legitimate children and abortion was illegal, even if the mother was likely to die because of the pregnancy. That has now all changed. Divorce was legalized in 2004 and an abortion bill passed in 2017.

The euthanasia bill will now be analyzed article by article and probably will be voted on by the lower house next month, where it already has the votes required for approval, according to Mirosevic. It will then move on to the Senate.

“That will be the test of fire,” Mirosevic said.

Catholic Church

The Catholic Church, which railed against the euthanasia bill when it was first presented in 2014, may take a lower profile this year. Chile has been rocked for more than a year by a series of sexual abuse scandals in the Church that have slashed its once untouchable social status.

“It’s one of the factors,” said Anne Barrett-Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, a research center that tracks clergy sexual abuse cases globally and has built a database of more than 100 cases of abuse in Chile. The disillusion with the church “plays into the willingness of people to think independently and not follow doctrine.”

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.

[Brother of accused priest Cristián Precht: “There is a machine of appetites for compensation”]

CHILE
El Mostrador

August 12, 2018

“Junto con víctimas que pueden ser reales, hay víctimas que pueden ser supuestas, que pueden magnificar lo ocurrido o sencillamente que ingresan a la cola del negocio
por venir”, agregó, asegurando que las verdaderas intenciones de los denunciantes es obtener
algún tipo de indemnización.

Héctor Precht, hermano del sacerdote Cristián Precht, quien es acusado de abuso sexual a menores, salió a defender a su hermano, asegurando que las verdaderas intenciones de los afectados son en materia económica.

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

BOSTON (MA)
Boston Herald

August 11, 2018

By Jordan Frias

Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley has ordered the ouster of the Archdiocese of Boston St. John’s Seminary rector for the fall semester and is demanding an investigation into alleged abuse following social media posts by two former seminarians.

Msgr. James P. Moroney has been placed on sabbatical leave and the Rev. Stephen E. Salocks, a professor of sacred scripture, will serve as interim rector while a team appointed by O’Malley investigates any wrongdoing at the seminary.

The team appointed is being led by Assumption College president Dr. Francisco Cesareo, Auxiliary Bishop Most Rev. Mark O’Connell and Athena Legal Strategies Group CEO Kimberly Jones.

“I have directed this group to proceed with due seriousness of their assignment,” O’Malley said, “and as soon as possible to submit to me the findings of the inquiry and a set of recommendations to assure appropriate standards of professional behavior in compliance with church teaching at all levels of seminary life.”

O’Malley said he learned of the allegations of wrongdoing through social media sites, including posts made to the Archdiocese’s Facebook page.

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.

URBANA (IL)
The Associated Press

August 12, 2018

A University of Illinois report is recommending new efforts to support students in the first weeks of school when sexual assaults are most common, especially among freshman.

The university’s second systematic survey of sexual misconduct on campus recommends targeting resources at specific groups who have a higher risk of sexual assault, including the Greek system, LGBTQ community and those with disabilities, The News-Gazette reported.

The survey is also recommending doubling down on efforts to reduce alcohol abuse.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
The Associated Press

August 12, 2018

By Mark Scolforo

A damning report into allegations of decades of child sexual abuse at the hands of clergy members and efforts to cover it up in six of Pennsylvania’s Roman Catholic dioceses is expected to be released in the coming days.

The public disclosure of the findings, the result of an almost two-year grand jury investigation, has been delayed while some of the people named in the report have launched legal challenges, arguing the report is inaccurate and releasing it in its current form would violate their constitutional rights to their reputations and to due process of law.

The state Supreme Court has agreed to consider those claims and scheduled the matter for oral argument in September. In the meantime, the court has ordered identifying information regarding those challenges to be redacted and the nearly 900-page report to be released.

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.