ABUSE TRACKER

MONTANA
Great Falls Tribune

Seaborn Larson, slarson@greatfallstribune.com

HAYS – For decades, even lifetimes, the Catholic Church refused to turn in priests with known pasts of sexually abusing children, women and men. The story is known in as many corners of the world as the Catholic Church exists, including Montana’s two dioceses.

In the Pacific Northwest, however, the Catholic Church and the Jesuit Order have been accused of using Indian Reservations as their “dumping grounds” for the worst recidivist priests accused of sexually abusing children throughout the 1900s. Here, church officials reportedly determined predatory priests could remain undetected. Here, the church that acted as an anchor for the communities, and the victims lived with the abuse in silence.

Attorney Vito de la Cruz said Montana reservations were no different: They were the church’s rural and remote sites for hiding predatory priests. Cruz’s Seattle law firm has represented victims from Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Idaho and Montana, and he said the systematic issue is told from church documents revealed in cases already settled, and the active one against the Great Falls-Billings Diocese.

“I think the evidence points to that,” Cruz told the Tribune. “Those who had problems in respect to abusing kids, it’s easy to hide in the reservations; people won’t complain much, it’s isolated there, and there are massively disproportionate balances of power.”

In the case against the Great Falls-Billings Diocese, a majority of those who have come forward with names and locations were allegedly abused on the remote Indian reservations. Off the reservations, victims who have come forward came largely from the former Catholic orphanage in Great Falls, two parishes in Billings and far flung communities in eastern Montana.

In many instances, the church has boosted conditions in reservation towns, but with the past practice of splitting Indian children from their parents to boarding schools often operated by the church, the history of Catholicism on the Montana reservations is complicated at best. Fort Belknap Tribal President Mark Azure previously knew about the abuse by priests, but was furious to learn of the church’s designs to continuously funnel bad priests to the reservation during the 1900s, a recently added layer to a complicated history.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

Children of Catholic priests live with secrets and sorrow

AUGUST 16, 2017

Read the statement from Cardinal Sean O’Malley regarding the Boston Globe Spotlight story about children of Catholic priests.

“The gift of life must be protected and cared for in any and all circumstances. Every child is a precious gift from God, deserving the respect accorded to all people.

At their ordination, Catholic priests make a promise of celibacy, a commitment to the Church and the people they serve. If a priest fathers a child, he has a moral obligation to step aside from ministry and provide for the care and needs of the mother and the child. In such a moment, their welfare is the highest priority.

In 2016 ‘The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors’ received correspondence regarding the children or priests. After careful consideration of this important issue, it was judged to be beyond the Commission’s mandate. The Commission functions as an advisory body to the Holy Father, proposing norms and practices for protecting minors from sexual abuse. In particular, the Commission seeks to assist dioceses and religious orders throughout the world as they implement education and training programs for the prevention of sexual abuse. It is not within the charge of the Commission to become involved with individual cases.

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GERMANY
Premium Times

Pope Francis on Wednesday asked for forgiveness from the families of child sex abuse victims who had killed themselves as a result of their trauma.

He equally commended one survivor for telling his story.

In comments published in German tabloid Bild, the pope described Daniel Pittet’s memoir “Father, I Forgive You’’ as a testament to “how deeply embedded evil can be in the heart of a servant of the church.’’

Pittet was subjected to repeated rape and sexual abuse by a Capuchin friar as a child.
Today, he is a priest and campaigns against paedophilia in the Catholic Church.

The pontiff expressed his “love and pain’’ to families who had lost abused loved ones to suicide, asking them “with full humility for forgiveness.’’

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DEUTSCHLAND
Bild

[Pope begs abuse victims for forgiveness.Daniel Pittet was just eight years old when he was raped by a Capuchin monk.Over the hell of his childhood and his path of liberation and forgiveness, the 58-year-old has written a book that makes one speechless. The special thing: No less than Pope Francis (80) has encouraged him. Moreover, in a preface, the Holy Father begs forgiveness for the crimes of priests. BILD prints it exclusively.]

Daniel Pittet war gerade acht Jahre alt, als er von einem Kapuzinermönch vergewaltigt und zu Porno-Aufnahmen gezwungen wurde. Über die Hölle seiner Kindheit und seinen Weg der Befreiung und Vergebung hat der heute 58-Jährige ein Buch geschrieben, das sprachlos macht. Das Besondere: Kein Geringerer als Papst Franziskus (80) hat ihn dazu ermutigt. Mehr noch: In einem Vorwort bittet der Heilige Vater um Vergebung für die Verbrechen von Priestern. BILD druckt es exklusiv.

★★★

Es ist eine große Herausforderung für die Opfer pädophiler Gewalt, das Wort zu ergreifen und davon zu berichten, was sie aushalten mussten, zu beschreiben, wie die traumatischen Erlebnisse von einst noch Jahre später sie quälen.

Aus diesem Grund ist das Zeugnis von Daniel Pittet so notwendig, so kostbar und so mutig. Ich habe Daniel Pittet im Jahr 2015, im Jahr des geweihten Lebens, im Vatikan kennengelernt.

Daniel war damals mit großem Eifer dabei, ein Buch mit dem Titel „Lieben heißt alles geben“ zu verbreiten. Für das Buch wurden Zeugnisse von religiösen Männern und Frauen, Priestern und Ordensleuten zusammengetragen.

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GERMANY
US News

By Andrea Shalal

BERLIN (Reuters) – Pope Francis – in comments in the foreword of a new book – has branded sexual abuse of children by Roman Catholic priests a “monstrosity” and pledged action against perpetrators and bishops who protected them.

The book titled “Father, I Forgive You: Abused But Not Broken” was written by Swiss man Daniel Pittet, 58, who was first raped by a priest when he was eight years old.

Francis, whose repeated promises of zero tolerance have been criticized by victims who say the Vatican needs to do much more, called sexual abuse “an absolute monstrosity, a terrible sin that contradicts everything that the Church teaches”.

The foreword was published on Wednesday by the mass circulation German daily Bild.

Francis said the fate of abused children weighed on his soul, especially those who had taken their own lives.

“We will counter those priests who betrayed their calling with the most strenuous measures. This also applies to the bishops and cardinals who protected these priests – as happened repeatedly in the past,” the pope wrote.

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NEW YORK
News 12

[with video]

WEST NYACK –
A News 12 investigation has revealed a shocking legal loophole that could allow registered sex offenders to work as counselors at children’s camps.

The Turn to Tara investigation revealed that if a child attends a camp that is focused on a single recreational program like baseball, ballet or basketball, for example, they could be at risk due to an outdated New York state law.

Single-purpose camps are not regulated despite their growing popularity. This means that the camps are not legally required to check counselors against the sex offender registry the same way that traditional and sleepaway camps are. Regular camps are also subjected to frequent Health Department inspections, staffing ratios and minimum age requirements for counselors.

Sen. David Carlucci has introduced legislation that would legally hold single-purpose camps to the same standards as all the others, which would include background checks on all employees.

“We have a sex offender registry for good reason. We want to make sure they are not around our kids,” says Carlucci.

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UNITED KINGDOM
This is London

Riley Krause

A South Norwood pastor who would blindfold children before hitting them with belts and wires has avoided jail.

Rose Amadasun, 49, of Beauchamp Road, was sentenced to 16 months’ imprisonment, suspended for 18 months at Croydon Crown Court on August 9.

She had admitted five counts of child cruelty at a previous hearing.

On Saturday, August 2, 2015 police were called by the manager of South Norwood Leisure Centre stating that two members of the public had informed her they had witnessed the female leader of a church group hitting children with a belt.

Officers spoke to the members of the public who stated they had seen a group of children being assaulted by a woman with a belt and shouting “Jesus” as she did so.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

16 August, 2017

Two new research reports, released by the Royal Commission, suggest that a significant proportion of reports to police of child sexual abuse in institutional settings involved another child as the person of interest.

The research reports, Child sexual abuse in Australian institutional contexts 2008-13: Findings from administrative data and the follow-up study Child sexual abuse in institutional contexts: The reliability of police data, nature and allegations reported to police, and factors driving reporting rates were released today.

Prepared by researchers from the University of South Australia’s Australian Centre for Child Protection and the University of New South Wales’ Social Policy Research Centre, the reports explore the nature and extent of child sexual abuse in contemporary institutional settings.

The reports are based on administrative data from a range of sources including police and education departments.

The research found that police data was the most useful source of information to explore the nature and extent of child sexual abuse in institutional contexts across states and territories.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

August 16, 2017

JACK THE INSIDER
ColumnistCanberra
@JacktheInsider

Gerald Ridsdale, the former Ballarat priest has pleaded guilty to a further 20 offences against 11 victims and his conviction formally handed down.

On the basis of convictions, numbers of victims and number of offences, Ridsdale is the worst sex offender in this country’s history. While Ridsdale’s defence team laughably called for the prospect of parole, he must die in jail.

I read a copy of one man’s victim impact statement over the weekend. It made me weep. It was no surprise that, when he delivered it to the court yesterday, County Court Judge Irene Lawson also broke down in tears. The court adjourned briefly while the judge composed herself. In all ten of the 11 victims in this round of prosecutions provided statements, detailing lives in disarray, filled with emotional, lifelong pain, surviving rather than living.

Despite having their moments in court, the mystical, magical word ‘closure’ and all it connotes continues to elude them.

The obvious question is how did a pedophile priest, active for thirty years or more, with more than 60 victims having now come forward, escape justice for so long? Ridsdale had been offending against children from the moment he became a priest in 1962. He was first convicted of child sex offending in 1993.

The answer, in part, lies in the conduct of the Ballarat diocese under Bishop Mulkearns and his predecessor, Bishop James O’Collins. These senior figures within the Church, effectively the chief executive officers of the Ballarat diocese were aware of Ridsdale’s offending and merely shuffled him around the diocese to new parishes and new groups of children.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

The Irish Times View

Ireland received a “could do better” report from the United Nations Committee Against Torture, following detailed hearings in Geneva last July. Concern was expressed about the limited nature of an investigation into Magdalene laundries, in spite of recommendations made by the committee in 2011. And the authors worried that a similar approach was being taken in relation to the operation of mother and baby homes.

On a positive note, the committee welcomed Government efforts to support those who were abused in residential care and it regarded the Citizens’ Assembly as a creative initiative. On improving accountability and transparency, it identified the Protected Disclosures Act as important.

The glass was less than half-full, however, in relation to policing and prisons. In view of the internal problems besetting the Garda Síochána; funding difficulties and the intractable nature of prison reform, that does not surprise. But there was positive news there too. Efforts to end “slopping out” in prisons were praised and the report recognised “significant progress” was being made elsewhere. However, it recommended that solitary confinement should only be used as punishment in extreme cases and never for juveniles. It proposed that “appropriate facilities” should be provided for asylum seekers and called for a fundamental review of the prison healthcare system; an increase in staff numbers and greater funding and independence for the Inspector of Prisons.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Rhiannon Shine

A Tasmanian survivor of clergy abuse is demanding answers after his friend, a fellow victim, suicided before disciplinary action was taken against a senior Anglican Church figure.

Beyond Abuse spokesman and survivor Steve Fisher said his friend, a victim of convicted paedophile priest Louis Daniels, took his own life last week.

Mr Fisher said his friend’s death increased frustration over the slow progress of an internal review into findings involving retired Tasmanian bishop Philip Newell.

Earlier this year the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse released a report that referred to evidence Newell was made aware in 1987 that now-convicted paedophile Daniels had sexually abused three boys.

Bishop Newell allowed Daniels to stay in the church and subsequently promoted him to a high-ranking position on the basis he amended his life.

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ARGENTINIEN
euro news

[More than 20 former students of the Catholic private school Cardenal Newman in the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires have gone public with accusations of sexual abuse by the clergy.]

Mehr als 20 ehemalige Schüler der katholischen Privatschule Cardenal Newman in der argentinischen Hauptstadt Buenos Aires sind mit Vorwürfen des sexuellen Missbrauchs durch den Klerus an die Öffentlichkeit gegangen.

Einer der ersten, der offen darüber sprach, ist Rufino Varela. Er war zwölf, als er einem Priester von sexuellem Missbrauch zu Hause erzählten wollte.

Varela sagt: “Ich habe also angefangen, Pater Alfredo davon zu berichten, was mir ein Bekannter zu Hause antat. Doch der Pater sagte, ich sollte meine Hose und Unterhose ausziehen und mich auf sein Bett legen, mit dem Gesicht nach unten. Er legte ein Kissen über meinen Kopf, zuerst schlug er mich mit einem Gürtel auf den Hintern, dann begann er, mich anzufassen.” Danach habe Pater Alfredo ihm Süßigkeiten gegeben und gesagt, was geschehen sei, müsse ein Geheimnis bleiben.

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CHILE
Spiegel

[The boys were raped, the girls beaten, opponents of the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet were tortured and killed: The site of the German secret settlement Colonia Dignidad was a place of brutal crimes. In 2005 the founder of the sect, Paul Schäfer, had been arrested in Argentina. In 2010, he died in prison. Other leaders denounced Chilean judges as long-term imprisonment in recent years.]

Von Martin Knobbe

Die Jungen wurden vergewaltigt, die Mädchen geschlagen, Gegner des chilenischen Diktators Augusto Pinochet wurden gefoltert und getötet: Das Gelände der deutschen Sektensiedlung Colonia Dignidad war ein Ort brutaler Verbrechen. 2005 war der Gründer der Sekte, Paul Schäfer, in Argentinien festgenommen worden, 2010 starb er im Gefängnis. Andere Führungsmitglieder verurteilten chilenische Richter in den vergangenen Jahren zu langen Freiheitsstrafen.

Nun hat auch das Landgericht Krefeld den Weg für eine Bestrafung eines der Täter bereitet: Es entschied, dass eine in Chile verhängte Freiheitsstrafe gegen den langjährigen Sektenarzt Hartmut Hopp in Deutschland vollstreckt werden kann. Hopp war bereits im November 2004 in Chile wegen Beihilfe zu sexuellem Missbrauch und Vergewaltigung in mehreren Fällen zu fünf Jahren und einem Tag Gefängnis verurteilt worden. Im Januar 2013 hatte der Oberste Gerichtshof in Santiago de Chile das Urteil bestätigt. Da aber lebte Hopp mit seiner Frau Dorothea, einst Krankenschwester der Siedlung, schon längst unbehelligt in Krefeld. Er hatte sich dem Gefängnis 2011 durch eine schnelle Flucht entzogen.

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ARIZONA
Salt Lake Tribune

By Felicia Fonseca | The Associated Press

Flagstaff, Ariz. • The number of lawsuits alleging Mormon church leaders failed to protect children from sexual abuse has grown to include two more Navajos and a member of the Crow Tribe.

Thousands of American Indian children, most of whom were Navajo, participated in a now-defunct church-run foster program from the late 1940s until around 2000. The program was meant to give children educational opportunities that didn’t exist on the reservations.

The lawsuits contend certain foster families harmed children.

One of the latest Navajo plaintiffs, identified as A.H., said at a news conference Tuesday in Phoenix that she told her local lay bishop about the abuse by her foster father but was told to keep quiet and that it would be handled.

“Understand that you are not alone. It is not your fault,” she wrote in a statement. “The shame is not yours. Rather, the shame belongs to those who abused, as well as those who allowed the abuse to happen.”

The latest three lawsuits were filed in Navajo Nation court and Washington state. Five others have been filed since 2016 on behalf of Navajo tribal members, seeking monetary damages, written apologies and a guarantee that Mormon leaders will report suspected abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Andrew West for The Religion and Ethics Report

The senior Australian businesswoman appointed to supervise the Catholic Church’s response to the sexual abuse crisis says she is “pessimistic” about the Church’s willingness to reform.

Elizabeth Proust, the head of the Church’s own Truth, Justice and Healing Council, fears the institution will emerge from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse only “partially cleansed and unreconstructed”.

“I fear there’s a view that once the royal commission reports, and the publicity around what will be a fairly dire report all dies down, that life will go back to what it was,” Ms Proust told The Religion and Ethics Report.

“I hope I’m wrong. I’d like to think that the possibility for real transformation of the Church exists, but it’s an institution that’s been very slow to change on a whole range of issues.”

She wants the Church to establish permanent and independent protocols to deal with future cases of abuse.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

Read Cardinal O’Malley’s statement on children of priests

By Michael Rezendes
Photos by Suzanne Kreiter | Videos by Emily Zendt, Globe Staff August 16, 2017

This is the first of a two part Spotlight series.

HE CARRIED HIS DOUBTS and disappointment across miles and decades, from childhood to adulthood, and finally at the age of 48 to the kitchen table of a modest house outside of Buffalo. There, he would ask an elderly aunt and uncle to help him answer the question that had troubled him all his life: Why had his father always seemed to dislike him so much?

With his parents already dead, Jim Graham pleaded with his Aunt Kathryn and Uncle Otto to tell him the truth about his family. Finally, Kathryn unfolded a newsletter published by a Catholic religious order and slid it across the table. She jabbed a finger at a picture of a sad, balding figure wearing a priest’s clerical collar.

“Only the principals know for sure,” she said, “but this may be your father.”

Jim Graham studied the picture. Those were his eyes, his nose, his mouth. Then he skimmed the obituary of the priest, the Rev. Thomas Sullivan, a cleric who had graduated from Boston College and trained for the priesthood in Tewksbury.

If a life can have a crystallizing moment, for Jim Graham that 1993 meeting was it, discovering that his father might have been a Catholic priest, rather than John Graham, the distant man who raised him with scarcely a kind or comforting word.

Jim Graham couldn’t know in that moment that the stunning secret which had seemed his alone was not that unusual. By any reasonable measure, there are thousands of others who have strong evidence that they are the sons and daughters of Catholic priests, though most are unaware that they have so much company in their pain. In Ireland, Mexico, Poland, Paraguay, and other countries, in American cities big and small — indeed, virtually anywhere the church has a presence — the children of priests form an invisible legion of secrecy and neglect, a Spotlight Team review has found.

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AUSTRALIA
The Standard

Adam Cooper
16 Aug 2017

Notorious paedophile priest Gerard Ridsdale has served enough time in prison, his Legal Aid defence lawyer says.

The claim comes despite Ridsdale admitting this week that he sexually abused 12 more children while a priest in regional Victoria.

The 83-year-old has now pleaded guilty over the course of five court cases to abusing 64 children.

He has been in jail since 1994, serving an effective total sentence of 28 years.

On Tuesday he pleaded guilty to 23 charges, including rape and buggery, for sexual assaults against 11 boys and a girl between 1962 and 1988 while he was a priest in Ballarat, Mildura, Horsham, Edenhope and other locations.

County Court judge Irene Lawson must now decide whether to add to Ridsdale’s existing sentence, under which his earliest possible release would be April 2019, when he will be eligible for parole. If he served his current full term he would be due for release in 2022.

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MONTANA
Great Falls Tribune

Seaborn Larson, slarson@greatfallstribune.com Aug. 15, 2017

The Great Falls-Billings Diocese this month is working through the claim review and settlement process with victims alleging sexual abuse and their attorneys. Church officials believe the settlement won’t directly affect the parishes, although some are waiting to believe it until the final settlement amount is announced.

Since the deadline to file a claim in the case, 86 people have come forward to enter claims of sexual abuse by priests, nuns and brothers, according to Vito de la Cruz, a Seattle attorney representing 38 of them. The dates of abuse range from 1947 to 1994. Attorneys for the victims say the Great Falls-Billings Diocese is the 15th to file for bankruptcy en route to settling with sexual abuse victims.

Bishop Michael Warfel said before negotiations that the settlement will impose a loss of resources, and already has.

“I used to have a person staffed in the office of worship, I don’t anymore, and I’m not planning on hiring anyone right now for that position. That would be an example,” Warfel said. “There would be a curtailing of some [services], realistically, until we get back on our feet.”

The Great Falls-Billings Diocese covers approximately 94,158 square miles, almost 64 percent of the state. The region contains approximately 400,000 people, 35,000 of them members of Catholic parishes spread throughout the region.

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MEXICO
National Catholic Register

According to the archdiocese, Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera instructed his episcopal vicars ‘immediately to notify the appropriate authorities.’

CNA/EWTN News

MEXICO CITY — The Archdiocese of Mexico has countered claims made by two former priests that Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera covered up the actions of pedophile priests, calling the allegations an “orchestrated farce.”

The communications office of the Mexico City Archdiocese reported that Cardinal Rivera had spoken to a Public Ministry official July 26 in response to the June 2 complaint filed by Alberto Athié and José Barba.

Athié and Barba filed their complaint with the Attorney General of the Republic’s Office, accusing Cardinal Rivera of the alleged cover-up of 15 pedophile priests. In the 1990s, Athié had brought allegations against Father Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legion of Christ. Father Maciel was later removed from public ministry after it was verified he had committed sexual abuse and fathered several children.

The Archdiocese of Mexico indicated that Athié and Barba based their charges on a Dec. 19, 2016, news brief published in El Universal “in which a meeting was made known that the cardinal had with journalists where the archbishop mentioned that during his administration as head of the Primatial Archdiocese of Mexico he had sanctioned 15 priests — not all for the crime of pederasty, but with other illicit acts classified in canon law.”

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NORTH DAKOTA
News-Monitor

by Frank Stanko franks@wahpetondailynews.com Aug 9, 2017

The State’s Attorney’s Office of Richland County, North Dakota, will not be bringing criminal charges against the Rev. Thomas Feltman, pastor of two Richland County parishes. An investigation by the Richland County Sheriff’s Office was launched regarding concerns over Feltman’s interaction with youth following an incident reported in Wyndmere, North Dakota, in May 2017.

In a Friday, July 28 statement, State’s Attorney Ron McBeth said it was reported that as Feltman would go to hug young women, his hand would allegedly touch the women on the side of their breast or on their behind.

“Although this made the girls feel uncomfortable and this touching was socially inappropriate, there is no evidence the touch was done by Rev. Feltman for sexual reasons, which would be necessary in order to prove an element of a sex offense crime,” McBeth continued. “The State’s Attorney’s Office, by way of its prosecutorial discretion, has declined to charge Feltman with any crime based on that evidence.”

Prior to the investigation, Feltman was pastor at St. John the Baptist’s Catholic Church, Wyndmere and St. Arnold’s Catholic Church, Milnor. He was placed on paid administrative leave from both parishes by the Diocese of Fargo.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Somerset Live

BY DANIEL MUMBY
15 AUG 2017

A retired priest who was cleared of sexual assault has spoken out about his experience for the first time.

The Reverend Dr Roy Catchpole was arrested at his home in Sherborne in 2014 after being accused of sexually assaulting a female member of his congregation.

After two trials, he was “set free as an innocent, falsely accused person”. He was subsequently offered an apology by Dorset Police and awarded costs.

Now the retired reverend, 71, has spoken out about how the legal process has affected him and his family, and what should be done to protect people who are wrongfully accused of sex crimes.

Following his arrest in 2014, he spent two years going through the Dorset courts.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
The Irish News

ALLISON MORRIS
15 August, 2017

The funeral of west Belfast community stalwart John Leathem will take place today, leaving from his Divis flats home where he passed away after a battle with cancer on Saturday.

A former chairman of the Divis Tower Falls Residents’ Association, he had told friends that he did not want to spend his final days in the hospice but instead chose to die in his flat on the 19th floor of the tower block surrounded by family and friends.

The 59-year-old, who spent much of his childhood in Catholic Church run care homes gave evidence to the Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry about his time in Nazareth Lodge where he was subjected to horrific abuse.

He was also credited with being one of the first people to speak out about the stigma and lasting impact of church child abuse and the the depression and self harm that blighted his late teens and early 20s as a result.

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AUSTRALIA
Newsweek

BY SOFIA LOTTO PERSIO ON 8/15/17

An Australian court heard harrowing details of historic child abuse perpetrated by former priest Gerald Ridsdale, one of Australia’s most notorious pedophiles.

Eighty-three-year-old Ridsdale pleaded guilty to 23 charges Tuesday, including two counts of rape and one of buggery, for abusing 12 children, aged six to 13, between 1962 and 1988 in the Victoria state city of Ballarat and the surrounding area.

Ballarat is considered to be one of Australia’s worst affected areas for incidents of sexual abuse by Catholic priests. It is named in Vatican Cardinal George Pell’s charges of historic sexual abuse as he served in the diocese first as an assistant parish priest in 1972 and later, between 1973 and 1984, as an episcopal vicar. Pell pleased not guilty in a first hearing at a Melbourne magistrate’s court in July and will return to court in October.

One of Ridsdale’s victims was a girl whose father woke her up on two occasions to see the priest, who then sexually assaulted her, the court heard on Tuesday.

“[Her] father carried her to the confessional booth and took her clothes off her, then carried her to the altar and lay her down,” crown prosecutor Jeremy McWilliams said of the second occasion, in 1974, quoted in the Australian Associated Press.

According to the prosecutor, Ridsdale indencently assaulted her, then told her: “Jesus died for our sins so we could be forgiven and if I confess to this sin I might be forgiven,” before kissing her on the cheek.

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CANADA
Medical Xpress

The severe hunger and malnutrition that many Indigenous children suffered at Canadian residential schools have contributed to Indigenous peoples’ elevated risk of obesity and diabetes, according to University of Toronto public health and anthropology researchers.

“Hunger has always been central to survivors’ accounts of their residential school experiences, and we strongly believe that this testimony must be taken more seriously by researchers and medical practitioners,” said Ian Mosby, a food historian who is an adjunct lecturer at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health.

Mosby and Tracey Galloway, an assistant professor of anthropology, at U of T Mississauga, published their findings in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. They found that for most of the history of the residential school system, Indigenous children were fed poor quality, often rotting food.

Based on survivor testimony, they estimate that the typical diet described by survivors delivered, on average 1,000 to 1,450 calories a day, with moderately active children requiring between 1,400 and 3,200 calories a day.

“We can now be fairly certain that the elevated risk of obesity, early-onset insulin resistance and diabetes observed among Indigenous peoples in Canada arises, in part at least, from the prolonged malnutrition experience by many residential school survivors,” said Galloway.

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CALIFORNIA
The Worthy Adversary

August 15, 2017 Joelle Casteix

A former vocal coach for Orange County’s All-American Boys Chorus—and a member of the FBI’s Most Wanted List—can be sent back to California from the UK, a judge there ruled this week.

Roger Alan Giese, 42, according to KABC:

has been charged with five counts of lewd acts upon a child under the age of 14, 10 counts of lewd acts upon a child age 14 or 15, three counts of anal penetration by a foreign object and one count of oral copulation of a person under 18 years of age, and a sentencing enhancement allegation for substantial sexual conduct with a child.
He escaped to England in 2007.

Once there, Giese changed his name, started a public relations company, and claimed that he couldn’t be sent back to the U.S. because of our “civil commitment” laws.

According to the OC Register:

Under civil commitment, a convicted sex offender who has served his sentence can be committed to a state mental hospital indefinitely if medical experts believe that person is likely to reoffend. The law exists in 19 other states.

The British courts agreed. Until this week.

Chorus has a record of abuse

Giese is the second All-American Boys Chorus official to be accused of child sexual abuse.

The first, founder Fr. Richard T. Coughlin, has been accused by numerous former singers, removed for allegations of abuse, and put on the Diocese of Orange’s list of credibly accused clerics.

Call me a broken record, but just think about this: the same people who covered up for Coughlin and Giese still run The All-American Boys Chorus.

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ILLINOIS
eNews Park Forest

Measure Initiated by Madigan to Eliminate Criminal Statutes of Limitations for Felony Child Sexual Abuse and Assault Crimes Becomes Law

Chicago —(ENEWSPF)—August 13, 2017. Attorney General Lisa Madigan today announced Illinois has now eliminated the statutes of limitations for felony criminal sexual assault and sexual abuse crimes against children. Senate Bill 189, initiated by Madigan, was passed by the General Assembly unanimously and signed into law by the governor Friday.

Sponsored by Sen. Scott Bennett and Rep. Michelle Mussman, the legislation eliminates Illinois’ criminal statutes of limitations for all felony child sexual abuse and child sexual assault crimes that can allow predators to go unpunished. The law, effective immediately, applies to future felony child sex crime cases as well as current criminal cases in which the previous statute of limitations has not expired.

“Sex crimes against children are a horribly tragic violation of trust that can take a lifetime to recover from,” Madigan said. “This new law will ensure that survivors are provided with the time they need to heal and seek justice.”

Prior the new law, Illinois’ statutes required that the most egregious sexual offenses against children must be reported and prosecuted within 20 years of the survivor turning 18 years old. Two exceptions existed for cases in which the crimes were committed on or after Jan. 1, 2014 and either corroborating physical evidence exists or a mandated reporter failed to report the abuse. The then-law restricting a survivor’s ability to come forward prevented former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert from being prosecuted for allegations of abuse against minors while he was an Illinois high school coach decades ago. Scott Cross, a survivor of Hastert’s abuse, joined Attorney General Madigan in advocating for today’s change in the law, recounting his experience before lawmakers and urging them to pass Senate Bill 189.

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ILLINOIS
ABC 7

By Sarah Schulte
Monday, August 14, 2017

MOKENA, Ill. (WLS) — Illinois is making it easier to prosecute sex abuse crimes against children. Governor Bruce Rauner signed legislation that removes the statutes of limitation for those crimes.

Sex abuse victims are calling the new law a great step forward. They say pursuing justice criminally will help with the closure process.

Survivors of abuse say eliminating the statutes of limitations will give them the time they need to come forward and report a crime to police.

During his first confession at St. Mary’s Parish in Mokena, David Rudofski said he was sexually abused by Father James Burnett when Rudofski was just 8 years old. But, it wasn’t until he was in his mid-30’s when Rudofski reported the abuse.

“It takes years – sometimes decades – to have the courage to come up and talk about or even realize what happened,” Rudofski said.

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IRELAND
Longford Leader

Aisling Kiernan
14 Aug 2017

Last month, as part of Cruthú Arts Festival, Ambroise Donnelle launched his exhibition ‘Reborn’ at Longford Library.

The exhibition has been inspired by the artist’s mother Ann who was born at the mother and baby home in Castlepollard in 1950.

“It’s my mother who has always been the main influence in my life and still is,” said the 38-year-old Armagh native.

“We are alike in so many ways; she even likes to dabble in pastels and watercolours occasionally – so the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

And indeed it appears that his sentiments are true because Ann is a wonderful artist and a person who, it has to be said, has dealt with more challenges in her 67 years than most.

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MINNESOTA
KDUZ

(KWLM/New Ulm MN-) A priest who served at several area churches has been accused of sexual abuse.

In a letter sent to parishioners by Bishop John Levoir of the Catholic Diocese of New Ulm, Levoir says they have received notice of an allegation of sexual abuse against Father James Devorak when he was assigned at St. Pius X parish in Glencoe in the 1990s.

Devorak, who retired two years ago, was senior associate at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Willmar and assisted at Our Lady of the Lakes at Spicer, St. Thomas Moore in Lake Lillian and St. Patricks in Kandiyohi in 2013 and 2014.

During his 43-year career, Devorak also worked at churches in Clara City, Montevideo, Granite Falls, Hutchinson, Stewart and many more.

He was also an associate at St. Mary’s in Willmar in 1975 and 76.

Looking at Devorak’s resume provided by Bishop Levoir, it appears Devorak was moved to a different church in the New Ulm Diocese every two or three years.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
WYFF

Carla Field

ANDERSON COUNTY, S.C. —
Former megachurch pastor Perry Noble is not being given a second chance by the church he founded, so he is giving himself a second chance with a new church, despite church leaders saying he no longer meets Biblical standards to be a pastor.

Noble, the former pastor of NewSpring church, filed paperwork July 14 with the South Carolina Secretary of State to incorporate Second Chance Church. The filing shows the request as made by a nonprofit in good standing.

Noble founded NewSpring more than 20 years ago after holding services in a living room, according to the NewSpring website. The church grew to 17 campuses with more than 30,000 members.

In July 2016, Pastor Shane Duffey announced that the leaders of NewSpring had removed Noble from the pulpit because of his “personal behavior, which included alcohol, and marital issues.”

Duffey read a statement from church officials that said, “Perry has made some unfortunate decisions,” and that he “is no longer qualified” to continue as pastor.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
Christian Post

By Stoyan Zaimov , Christian Post Reporter | Aug 15, 2017

Former NewSpring Church senior pastor Perry Noble revealed in a Facebook video details about the sexual abuse he suffered as a child, which left him struggling with “soul destroying” shame.

“I am a victim of sexual abuse,” Noble said in the video, posted on Sunday.

“I remember like it was yesterday. It happened when I was about 5 years old. There was an older guy in the neighborhood” who coerced him, the former pastor revealed.

“The whole time it was going on, I knew it was wrong. It just felt wrong, but I felt helpless, and afterwards I felt hopeless. A few years later, it happened again, I was sexually abused by a different person,” he said, revealing that for “years and years I felt the chains of shame were wrapped around me.”

“I thought it was something I had caused, and because of that I held it inside and I didn’t tell anyone. As I look back now I see what was happening was that my soul was being destroyed through the chains of shame,” he said.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

The Catholic Church believes the seal of confession must remain intact despite the prospect of its priests facing criminal charges for failing to report child sexual abuse.

The child abuse royal commission wants a new crime of failure to report child sex abuse in institutions, including when the information came from religious confessions.

Australian Catholic Bishops Conference president, Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart, says confession is a fundamental part of the freedom of religion that must continue to be recognised by Australian law.

‘What goes on in the confessional is between God and the person and I am there for them to know that they are forgiven,’ he told Sky news.

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AUSTRALIA
BBC News

By Claudia Allen
BBC News

Priests who suspect child abuse after hearing confession should report it to the authorities – or face criminal charges. That is one of the conclusions reached by Australia’s four-year Royal Commission investigating child sex abuse.

The proposal applies to the suspicion of child abuse in an institutional context – for example within an organisation which provides services to children or cares for them, such as a church or a children’s home.

But the Roman Catholic Church in Australia is opposed to the proposal, despite saying that outside of the confession it is “absolutely committed” to reporting all offences against children to the authorities.

So what is different about confession?

Surely priests would have a moral duty – if not a legal one – to report any concerns, in order to protect children?

Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane appeared to recognise that it can be hard for non-Catholics to understand why this is not the case:

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ISRAEL
Jerusalem Post

BY BENJAMIN DUKAS AUGUST 15, 2017

Watchdog groups claim pedophiles who immigrate can live in communities with children nearby and even get jobs at schools.

A global Jewish children’s advocacy group has accused Israel of providing a safe haven for dozens of child sex offenders.

Shana Aaronson, director of the Jewish Community Watch (JCW) office in Israel has told The Jerusalem Post that the group found there are 42 suspected or convicted child sex offenders who moved to Israel from the Diaspora.

“Because Israel has the concept of the Law of Return, and Israel being a national homeland for the Jewish people, and the numerous legal rights that Jews have: to be here, to come here, to seek safe haven here, this is a particular issue with Israel, where you are going to come here and by and large you’re going to be granted automatic citizenship, and as the case may be, safe haven,” Aaronson said.

The Jewish Agency denied the allegations and said any candidates for aliya with either the Agency or the Nefesh B’Nefesh organization had to face extensive background checks before they could immigrate.

The JCW is a global group that seeks to expose offenders and warn communities about potentially dangerous people in their neighborhoods. In addition to 42 child sex offenders it says who have taken residence in Israel, the group has also identified several offenders who regularly travel in and out of Israel with ease.

Founded in 2006 by a child sex abuse survivor, the JCW is active in the US, Canada and Israel, and is dedicated to the prevention of child sexual abuse.

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CONNECTICUT
New Haven Register

By Randall Beach, rbeach@nhregister.com @rbeachNHR on Twitter

NEW HAVEN >> Rabbi Daniel Greer, accused of sexually assaulting a student of his at a religious school, made a brief appearance Monday in Superior Court and had his case transferred to the Part A courthouse on Church Street, where more serious charges are handled.

Greer was in front of Superior Court Judge Karen Nash Sequino for only about 30 seconds. He did not speak and did not enter pleas to the charges of second-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a child.

Greer’s not guilty pleas probably will be entered during his next court appearance Aug. 29.

Greer’s attorney, William Dow III, said after he left the courtroom with Greer: “We will try our case in court.” Greer, acting on Dow’s advice, made no comment.

Greer was dressed in a black suit, red tie and yarmulke.

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CONNECTICUT
News 12

[with video]

NEW HAVEN –
The New Haven rabbi accused of raping and molesting a teenage boy made bail Monday.

Rabbi Daniel Greer, 77, was arrested last month and charged with sexually assaulting the victim at a New Haven yeshiva school between 2001 and 2005. Greer was a founder and principal of the school, which opened in 1977.

A federal jury awarded $15 million in damages to the teen in a civil lawsuit in May.

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CONNECTICUT
ABC News

AP

A Connecticut rabbi accused of repeatedly raping and molesting a teenage boy who was awarded $15 million in a civil lawsuit appeared Monday before a judge for the first time since being arrested last month.

Rabbi Daniel Greer did not speak during the brief hearing in New Haven Superior Court. His next hearing is Aug. 29.

The 77-year-old Greer is accused of sexually assaulting a teenage boy who attended the Yeshiva of New Haven school from 2001 to 2005. Greer, of New Haven, was a founder and principal of the school, which was established in 1977.

Greer’s lawyer, William Dow III, has said Greer will plead not guilty to the felony charges of second-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor. Greer did not enter pleas Monday and remains free after posting $100,000 bail.

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BOTSWANA
The Monitor

Reverend Valentine Seane’s alleged insatiable sexual needs are behind his sudden and seemingly unceremonious resignation as Bishop of Gaborone. Seane has been at the helm of the local chapter of the church for eight years.

By TSAONE BASIMANEBOTLHE Fri 11 Aug 2017

This is according to letters written to the Holy See in Rome, Italy and Pretoria, South Africa this year. In a letter to Marc Cardinal Quellet in Rome written by Sisters of Calvary, Gaborone, they appealed that Eminence Archbishop Peter Wells had not acted on their grievances to date “while on the other hand, Bishop Seane continues to sexually abuse us”. Wells is the Vatican Apostolic Nunciature in Pretoria.

“Bishop Seane’s insatiable sexual needs are putting us at risk, more so that he does not use condoms, hence the urgent resolution of this matter (sic). The end result of his actions, we are in spiritual crisis of unending abortions,” the sisters wrote. They claimed that some of them are on the verge of resigning from sisterhood and are afraid that their congregation will die a natural death. Hence they appealed to Quellet to save them from this shameful misery.

“We submit that we are ready to testify before an enquiry against the abuse under reference. We are also determined to go public if the church is not willing to protect us!” Before they wrote to Rome, they appealed to Wells over Seane’s impropriety.

“We write to formally lodge a complaint against Bishop Seane’s verbal and sexual abuse on some of us… In every Diocesan event, our Bishop always publicly capitalises in belittling us (sic). He likes saying that we are lacking proper orientation in our formation.”

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BOTSWANA
The Monitor

Despite last week’s denials by the Vicar General, Father Andrew Makgetla that Bishop Valentine Seane was forced to resign, a statement he sent to different Roman Catholic branches, shows that the Bishop resigned to clear his name.

By TSAONE BASIMANEBOTLHE Mon 14 Aug 2017

Seane resigned last week following an investigation into accusations of sexual abuse.

In the press statement issued last Friday to the Catholics around the country, Makgetla explained that the Catholic Church of the Diocese of Gaborone “is extremely saddened by circumstances surrounding the recent resignation of its Bishop. Bishop Seane resigned his post to assuage the accusation and allegations against him. This painful event took the church by surprise. In the light of this, we want to assure Catholics that the leadership of the Church is looking into all aspects of the current situation.”

Father Makgetla said The Holy See, through the apostolic Nunciature to Botswana received unsigned letters from different groups including a group calling itself Catholic Community of Botswana, something that the Father denied last week in an interview with sister publication, Mmegi.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

SOLICITOR Vivian Waller summed up the case for legislation requiring clergy to report all child sex allegations to authorities – even allegations raised during confession.

“I think it’s about time the Catholic Church was dragged out of the dark ages,” she said on Monday after the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse released its Criminal Justice report.

It might have had 85 recommendations to address what commission chair Justice Peter McClellan identified as the almost “insurmountable barriers” currently facing child sex victims when they negotiate the criminal justice system.

But all focus was on just one recommendation that directly challenges the Catholic Church – the seal of the confessional.

Vivian Waller put the perspective of survivors and their advocates: “We can no longer think about sexual offending against children as some kind of forgivable sin.”

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MEXICO
National Catholic Reporter

Aug 14, 2017
by David Agren, Catholic News Service

MEXICO CITY — The Archdiocese of Mexico City said it reported six cases of priests accused of sexually abusing minors to prosecutors between 2010 and 2017, following a change in Mexico’s Religious Associations Law requiring such crimes to be brought to the authorities’ attention.

“Cardinal Norberto Rivera left it clear that, starting with the implementation of (the law in 2010) — which requires religious leaders and their representatives to inform the corresponding authority about the probable committing of crimes — he had knowledge of the probable commission of six acts, presumably criminal, after being told by his vicars,” the archdiocesan publication Desde la Fe said in an Aug. 10 article. “He instructed (the vicars) to report them immediately to the corresponding authorities.”

The article followed news that Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera was interviewed by an investigator from the federal attorney general’s office over criminal complaints of covering up 15 cases of abuse. Rivera’s lawyer, Armando Martinez Gomez, said the complaints were filed by a pair of former priests.

Fr. Hugo Valdemar Romero, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Mexico City, said the accusations were brought to “create a scandal of such a level that the pope would accept (the cardinal’s) resignation” more quickly. Rivera turned 75 June 6 and, in accordance with canon law, submitted his resignation to Pope Francis.

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GUAM
Pacific News Center

By Janela Carrera – August 15, 2017

Local attorney John Terlaje will remain counsel of record for the Archdiocese of Agana.

Guam – The stateside legal counsel for the Archdiocese of Agana has made a request to withdraw as attorneys of record for the church.

The request comes amid talks of moving forward with settlement negotiations between the scores of sex abuse victims and the archdiocese. Attorneys Mary McNamara and Britt Evangelist of the law firm Swanson & McNamara, LLP, and Paul Gaspari and Daniel Zamora, of the law firm Weintraub | Tobin, filed the request Tuesday as an unopposed motion.

No specific reason was provided but the motion did indicate that local attorney John Terlaje will continue to represent the archdiocese and that no trial date has been set on the matter.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

August 15, 2017

JOHN FERGUSON
Victorian EditorMelbourne
@fergusonjw

Australia’s best credentialed priest on legal matters will defy any new laws to convict Catholic clergy for breaking the seal of the confessional on child sex abuse but gravely doubts he will ever be confronted with this dilemma.

Father Frank Brennan, a Jesuit priest and professor of law at the Australian Catholic University, yesterday rejected recommendations by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that would force priests — under the threat of criminal sanctions — to break the confessional confidence of offenders.

Under the church’s canon law, priests must maintain sec­recy about sins that a person confesses in a manner sometimes compared with client-lawyer confidentiality but in a holy context it is considered an ­untouchable imperative. But the royal commission headlined its 85 recommendations in its long criminal justice report on a crackdown on one of the church’s central pillars.

Father Brennan said if the law were to be introduced in Australia his only options as a priest would be to stop hearing confessions or to defy any legislation that sought to break the seal of confidentiality.

Father Brennan’s position was backed yesterday by the ­nation’s most senior bishops but rejected by the church’s Truth, Justice and Healing Council, which had previously argued the seal should remain intact.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Susie O’Brien, Herald Sun
August 15, 2017

WHY is the Catholic Church continuing to protect and forgive paedophiles?

This is the only way to interpret the church’s desire to allow allegations of abuse made in the confessional to be exempt from mandatory reporting to police.

In an extraordinary admission, Catholic bishops have opposed any move to force priests to report details of child sexual abuse received during confession.

This is despite calls from the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse to make it illegal for them not to do so.

Recommendations released by the commission this week suggest clergy who fail to report such information would face criminal charges.

The report states confession has been a forum where both victims and perpetrators have disclosed sexual abuse in the past.

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CANADA
Sault Star

By Harold Carmichael, Postmedia
Monday, August 14, 2017

A trial date is expected to be set Sept. 6 in a $5-million lawsuit filed by an alleged victim of a now-dead Catholic priest at a Sudbury high school decades ago.

The victim, now 61, was 12 when he attended St. Charles College in the late 1960s, where William Hodgson Marshall was a teacher and sports coach.Marshall was later principal of St. Mary’s College in Sault Ste. Marie.

According to the man’s statement of claim, the sexual assaults lasted for more than a year. The alleged victim claims he was expelled from the school for reporting Marshall’s behaviour.

Individuals and parties listed in the lawsuit include Marshall, the Sudbury Catholic District School Board, the Basilian Fathers and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sault Ste. Marie.

None of the allegations contained in the lawsuit have been proven in court.

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AUSTRALIA
Goulburn Post

Louise Thrower
@ThrowerLouise

15 Aug 2017

If Matt Casey’s Catholic faith was ever tested over the past eight years, he remembered his late father’s wise words.

“He said it was important not to let the church, a human organisation, get in the way of your faith. It’s the best piece of advice I ever had,” he said.

“People have said to me that they don’t want anything to do with the church ever again, but it doesn’t mean God doesn’t love them.”

Mr Casey, a former Goulburn detective, retired from his role as director of the Institute for Professional Standards and Safeguarding on June 30. It was established by the Archbishop of Canberra/Goulburn, Christopher Prowse, in October, 2015 in response to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. However Mr Casey’s previous work with the Archdiocese since 2008 has covered child protection and safeguarding across not just schools and churches but its organisations. It was during his initial work as coordinator for parish support that he discovered several professional standards matters and raised them with the Archbishop.

“We then realised the extent of work that had to be done in ensuring people had appropriate working with children checks. When I later took on the role I picked up historic complaints of abuse, some of which dated back to 1946,” Mr Casey said.

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WALES
Daily Mail

By Press Association

Two women have promised to champion the cause of Welsh victims after being appointed to advise the public inquiry into child sexual abuse.

May Baxter-Thornton from Newport and Emma Lewis from Swansea, who have both experienced child sexual abuse, will sit on the victims and survivors panel of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA).

Their role will include advising the inquiry on how best to reach and listen to victims and survivors in Wales.

Inquiry chair, Professor Alexis Jay OBE said: “May and Emma have demonstrated a proven commitment to reaching and supporting victims and survivors of child sexual abuse in Wales.

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AUSTRALIA
New York Times

By JACQUELINE WILLIAMS
AUG. 15, 2017

It’s confidential and considered sacred — a conversation strictly between a confessor and priest, never to be divulged. The secrecy of the confessional, a centuries-old sacrament, is taken so seriously that some priests would die before disclosing what has been shared.

Archbishop Denis Hart of Melbourne, who as president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference represents all Roman Catholic clergy in the country, said Tuesday that he would rather go to jail than breach the seal of confession.

“The laws in our country and in many other countries recognize the special nature of confession as part of the freedom of religion, which has to be respected,” Archbishop Hart told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

His comments came a day after religious institutions across the country were forced to defend the secrecy of confession after Australia’s Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse recommended a sweep of legislative and policy changes, one of which would require priests who hear about sexual abuse in the confessional to report it to the authorities. The 85 recommendations were aimed at reforming Australia’s criminal justice system to provide a fairer response to sex-abuse victims, the commission said.

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MICHIGAN
WOOD

GRAND HAVEN, Mich. (WOOD) — A former youth pastor has admitted to sexually abusing a young boy in Jenison a decade ago.

Daniel Hoffman, 31, pleaded guilty last week to two counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct.

Authorities say Hoffman was being treated at a Zeeland hospital for a “psychotic break” last autumn when he told a nurse about the abuse. The victim, who used to be neighbors with Hoffman and is now an adult, confirmed to detectives that it happened between 2003 and 2008.

Since the period when the abused happened, Hoffman has worked at Jenison Public Schools and as a youth minister.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Adam Cooper

WARNING: This story contains content that may distress some readers.

A young girl was woken from her bed and driven by her own father to be left with paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale who then sexually abused her, a court has heard.

Ridsdale, arguably Australia’s most notorious paedophile priest with past convictions for assaults on more than 50 children, on Tuesday formally pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting another 12 children, including the girl, when he was a priest in Victoria.

He pleaded guilty to 23 charges, including two counts of rape and one of buggery.

Ridsdale told one altar boy the abuse was “part of God’s work”, the Victorian County Court heard.

A day after findings were handed down in the royal commission into child sexual abuse, Ridsdale, 83, used a walking frame to enter the County Court dock and kept his head bowed as more of his devastating offending was outlined.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Melissa Brown and Helen Vines

A father took his daughter to a notorious paedophile priest to be abused, including one time when she was assaulted on the altar of a Ballarat church, a Victorian court has heard.

Gerald Ridsdale is back in court after pleading guilty to more historical sex offences, including rape and indecent assault.

The 83-year-old has been in jail since 1994 for abusing numerous children, but has now admitted to raping and indecently assaulting 12 more victims between 1961 and 1988 in western Victoria.

The County Court heard his youngest victim was six years old, several victims endured excruciating pain during the abuse and many of the offences happened in Ridsdale’s car, including when he was driving.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Shannon Deery, Herald Sun

VICTORIA Legal Aid has urged a judge to give vile sex monster Gerald Ridsdale the chance at parole despite shocking new admissions he raped a girl in a church.

The horrific ordeal of the young girl whose father left her on a church altar to be raped by Ridsdale on Tuesday moved a courtroom to tears.

But his taxpayer funded lawyer Tim Marsh, VLA’s chief counsel, urged County Court judge Irene Lawson not to interfere with Ridsdale’s earliest release date which is currently April 8, 2019.

“Mr Ridsdale is clearly a repugnant figure to many, for reasons that are only too understandable,” he said.

“The task for this court is not to pass a sentence that addresses community sentiment, but to impose a sentence that’s just in all the circumstances and applies the fundamentals of sentencing law.”

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

A father undressed his daughter and laid her on a church altar where pedophile priest Gerald Francis Ridsdale indecently assaulted her, a court has heard.

Ridsdale, 83, has pleaded guilty to 23 charges, mainly indecent assaults but including rape, involving offences committed against 11 boys and one girl between 1962 and 1988.

Crown prosecutor Jeremy McWilliams said on one occasion in 1974 the 10-year-old girl was woken up by her father, while Ridsdale waited in the hallway, and driven with the priest to the church.

“(The girl’s) father carried her to the confessional booth and took her clothes off her then carried her to the altar and lay her down,” Mr McWilliams told the Victorian County Court.

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ARIZONA
Noaker Law

Contact Info:

Craig Vernon
Lee James
Cell: (208) 691-2768
cvernon@jvwlaw.net

James Vernon & Weeks
1626 Lincoln Way
Coeur d’Alene, ID 83814
Patrick Noaker
Cell: (612) 839-1080
Patrick@Noakerlaw.com

Noaker Law Firm LLC
333 Washington Ave N.
Minneapolis, MN 55401
Billy Keeler
Cell: (505) 979-0688
billkeeler@keelerandkeeler.com

Keeler & Keeler, LLP
108 East Aztec Avenue
Gallup, NM 87301

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PRESS CONFERENCE: Plaintiff AH, will discuss being removed from the Navajo Nation to be placed in a Mesa, Arizona home in the late 1970’s where she was sexually abused on multiple occasions by her Mormon foster father. AH’s attorneys will be available to answer any questions regarding the two other lawsuits filed yesterday; one by another Navajo survivor, sexually abused by her Mormon foster father in Utah, and another adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse who was taken off the Crow Reservation in Montana and placed in a Wenatchee, Washington home where she was sexually abused by her foster grandfather.

WHEN: Tuesday, August 15, 2017 at 11:00 am

WHERE: Kimpton Palomar Hotel, Mural Room,
2 East Jefferson Street, Phoenix, Arizona 85004

WHO: Plaintiff AH and her attorneys, Billy Keeler of Gallup, New Mexico and co-counsel, Craig Vernon

Click Here for File-stamped Copy of the AH Complaint

Click Here for the File-stamped Copy of the JC Complaint

Click Here for the File-stamped Copy of the Jane Doe 1 (Chelan County, Washington)

Please contact Craig Vernon on his cell phone (208 691 2768) for any requests or additional information

THE DETAILS:

(August 15, 2017 – Phoenix, AZ).

Three separate lawsuits have been filed (two, by enrolled members of the Navajo Nation and the third by a member of the Crow Reservation) against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, commonly known as the “Mormon” or “LDS” Church, and against LDS Family Services.

These three lawsuits follow five other lawsuits filed by adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse within the controversial Mormon “Lamanite (or Indian) Placement Program.”[1] “Not only were our clients sexually abused but the core tenants of this placement program subjected them to cultural and emotional abuse as well,” explains attorney Craig Vernon, a former member of the LDS Church and an attorney who has helped survivors of childhood sexual abuse across the nation in claims involving the LDS Church, the Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts of America, and other entities.

“Canonized Mormon scripture teaches that Native Americans are descendants of a group of people that fled from Israel in the year 600 B.C. and settled somewhere in the Americas. According to Mormon scripture, these people then split up into two groups: The Nephites, a righteous people; and the Lamanites who, after becoming wicked and hardening their hearts, were cursed by God with a ‘skin of blackness’. This ‘curse’ doctrine, which equates having a ‘skin of darkness’ as a curse from God because of wickedness, is damaging to our clients’ self-esteem and to their culture. Telling our clients and other Native Americans that they were ‘cursed’, that they needed Mormonism to break this ‘curse’, is troublesome, to say the least.” added Vernon.

Two of the lawsuits were filed in the Navajo Nation District Court. The third was filed in Chelan County, Washington.

In the Washington lawsuit, Plaintiff Jane Doe 1 was taken off the Crow Reservation and placed with a foster family in Wenatchee, Washington. There, she was sexually abused on four separate occasions by her foster grandfather over a three-year period starting in 1970.

The Navajo Nation lawsuits both involve sexual abuse by two Mormon foster fathers. Plaintiff AH was sexually molested and abused by her Mormon foster father on multiple occasions starting in 1979. As part of this sexual abuse inside the perpetrator’s Mesa, Arizona home, AH was also forced to watch the perpetrator masturbate. AH, who currently lives in Gallup, New Mexico, will speak at the press event.

Plaintiff JC was forcibly raped on multiple occasions, in a violent fashion, by her Mormon foster father at his Enterprise, Utah home in the late 1960’s.

“Unfortunately, childhood sexual abuse isn’t a plague unique to the Catholic Church” adds Billy Keeler, a Gallup, New Mexico lawyer who, along with Mr. Vernon, represent a total of eight adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse within this program who have filed lawsuits. “It is tragic that our other clients were sexually abused during this program. Religious organizations and programs such as this should be places where children are safe from harm, not places that protect sexual predators,” comments Mr. Keeler.

“What has happened in these lawsuits is exactly why professionally-trained law enforcement should investigate reports of childhood sexual abuse. There is no evidence that any of the perpetrators of abuse were ever disciplined by the Church or criminally charged. We hope that these civil lawsuits will ‘out’ the perpetrators and answer some questions as to why the Church failed to protect these kids back in the day,” comments Mr. Vernon

Keeler points out a disturbing trend within this program: “Many of our clients informed either Church leaders or LDS Family Service case workers about the sexual abuse, yet these cries for help fell on deaf ears. They didn’t remove these vulnerable kids from these horrific homes and the abuse continued.”

The rise and fall of this program appears linked to George P. Lee, who was a key figure during the program’s most robust years. As reported in the November 1975 edition of the Mormon Church magazine, the Ensign, “Lee, in the 1950s, was one of the first participants in the Church’s Indian Placement Program and later went on to receive a bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University, a master’s from Utah State University, and a doctorate from BYU. In 1975, he was called by President Spencer W. Kimball to be the first Native American general authority in the Church.” Lee’s primary focus was the Lamanite Placement Program. While the program grew during the George P. Lee years, such growth was accompanied by scandal.

George P. Lee served as a general authority until 1989, when he was excommunicated from the Mormon Church for what Mormon leaders called “conduct unbecoming a member of the church.” As reported by the Salt Lake Tribune on July 31, 2007, “George P. Lee pled guilty in 1994 to sexual abuse of a child. The victim of this abuse, a girl, age 17 at the time of the 1994 trial, said Lee exploited the religious respect she had for him to fondle her breasts, buttocks and genitals. She said the abuse began when she was nine years old (in approximately 1986) and lasted for three years.”

“We know of George P. Lee’s guilty plea and the sexual abuse of this nine-year-old girl; what we don’t know is how many other survivors of abuse are out there. When the General Authority that the Church assigned over this program was sexually abusing young girls, it is no wonder we see abuse within the foster families as well,” comments Vernon.

“Because of the nature of this program which took children from their homes and placed them in a strange environment, protection of children should have been paramount. It appears that was not the case,” adds Keeler.

As an adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse within this program, AH has chosen to speak out at this press event. While AH will tell her story at the press event, she wishes to send a message of hope for any other survivors of sexual abuse within this program. “Understand that you are not alone. It is not your fault. The shame is not yours, rather the shame belongs to those who abused, as well as those who allowed the abuse to happen.”

[1] The Book of Mormon reads: “And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people, the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.” (emphasis added) (2 Nephi 5:21, Book of Mormon).

Patrick Noaker | Noaker Law Firm LLC | (612) 349-2735 | patrick@noakerlaw.com

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UNITED KINGDOM
Bunbury Mail

Andrew Elstermann
@AElstermann

14 Aug 2017

Diocese of Bunbury bishop Gerald Holohan has written to parishioners to reiterate his apology to victims who suffered abuse at the hands of Father William Kevin Glover in the 1960s and 70s.

Last month, the Mail published documents tendered to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in February that revealed in 1959, Bunbury bishop John Goody agreed to hire a priest despite knowing he had previously sexually abused a number of boys.

Father Glover ministered in Esperance, which was part of the Diocese of Bunbury from 1959 and was shifted to Margaret River in 1979 where he remained until his retirement in 1992. He died six years later.

The commission has recorded five allegations of child sexual abuse filed in WA between 1997 and 2014 against Father Glover for offending in the Diocese of Bunbury between 1967 and 1986. One was also received in Victoria in 1998 for alleged offending in 1956.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial

MONDAY, AUGUST 14, 2017

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

Like the Pope used to be, prosecutors think they’re infallible.

And when they screw up, or get caught playing dirty, they don’t apologize.

But today in Common Pleas Court, the nearest thing to a correction just happened — Judge Ellen Ceisler signed off on a deal struck between the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office and Bernard Shero’s lawyers to let Shero out of jail nearly a dozen years early.

Shero, 54, is the former schoolteacher doing 8 to 16 years for his 2013 conviction by a jury on charges that included rape of a child, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a child, endangering the welfare of a child, corruption of a minor, and indecent assault. But Shero’s conviction comes with a big asterisk — the alleged victim in the case was Danny Gallagher, AKA “Billy Doe,” the former altar boy who has since been outed as a complete fraud.

Shero, 54, has already done 4 years, 6 months and two weeks in jail for crimes that never happened. He has another 11 1/2 years to go on his maximum sentence. But as soon as tomorrow, he’ll be walking out of State Correctional Institution in Houtzdale, thanks to a deal finalized today during a half-hour teleconference between the prison and Judge Ceisler’s courtroom at the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia.

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SCOTLAND
Police Professional

The second phase of the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry will continue with its investigation into children’s homes run by the Catholic order Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul.

The Lady Smith-led hearings are to reconvene on November 28 in Edinburgh to examine historical allegations of the abuse of children in care.

The public inquiry, which began in May, has already heard a series of religious organisations apologise for historical abuse in damning testimonies.

Legislation lifting the time-limit on damages for child abuse cases was passed by the Scottish Parliament earlier this year, removing the current three-year period for personal injury actions in cases of child abuse where the person was under 18 at the time.

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CHILE
Nach Den Seiten

[Chile Over 1,300 children died in the hands of the state, private and Catholic children’s homes.As a cause of death, the investigation report identifies the systematic violation of the duty of supervision, neglect, life-threatening medication, the use of violence, the formation of prostitution and the rape of hundreds of minors. The former bishop of La Serena and Chillán, Francisco José Cox Huneeus, is among the sex offenders. In order to escape the judicial authorities, the Vatican and the Chilean Church withdrew the “dignitaries”and ordered him “penance and prayer work” in the Father’s house of the Schoenstatt movement, in the Palatinate Vallendar.]

Zur falschen Zeit, beim Auftakt des Präsidentschaftswahlkampfs, platzte vor wenigen Wochen in Chile die schwerste Anklage wegen Menschenrechtsverletzungen durch den chilenischen Staat seit Ende der Militärdiktatur im Jahr 1990. Eine Untersuchungskommission des Parlaments in Valparaíso warf dem Nationalen Dienst für Minderjährige (SENAME) und den chilenischen Regierungen seit 2005 vor, für den Tod von mindestens 1.300 Kindern und Jugendlichen im Verlauf der vergangenen 11 Jahre verantwortlich zu sein. Als Todesursachen benennt der Untersuchungsbericht die systematische Verletzung der Aufsichtspflicht, Verwahrlosung, lebensbedrohliche medikamentöse Behandlungen, Gewaltanwendung, Bildung von Prostitutionsringen und Vergewaltigungen hunderter Minderjähriger, auch durch Leiter beauftragter katholischer Kinderheime. Unter den schon vor Jahren schwer belasteten Sexual-Straftätern befindet sich der ehemalige Bischof von La Serena und Chillán, Francisco José Cox Huneeus. Um den Justizbehörden zu entkommen, zogen Vatikan und die chilenische Kirche den “Würdenträger” aus dem Verkehr und verordneten ihm „Buß- und Bet-Arbeit” im Vaterhaus der Schönstatt-Bewegung, im pfälzischen Vallendar. Von Frederico Füllgraf.

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AUSTRALIA
Manny Waks

Child sexual abuse survivor and victims advocate Dassi Erlich posted publicly regarding her recent meeting with the Adass Israel School (Melbourne) board:

​On the 28th of July, Ted Baillieu accompanied me to a meeting with the Adass School board. With the board’s permission I recorded the meeting. I have attached some excerpts below. Overall, I felt the meeting was a positive step forward. I look forward to seeing their sincere apology followed up with sincere actions – public statements of support.

Transcription of Recording:

Abe Weiszberger: Now going to Rabbi Kluwgant, since your letter came along he is not working, only as a consultant in the school.

Dassi Erlich: Have you told the board, the parents that this is what his position is?

Abe Weiszberger: The parents have never been told that he is going to be that he is principal. The letter came out to the staff and I have been to the staff and explained to the staff exactly what is his position is.

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AUSTRALIA
Manny Waks

On behalf of several victims of child sexual abuse and other members of the community, I welcome the news that the Addas Israel School Board and (Rabbi) Meir Shlomo Kluwgant are parting ways.

Both Adass and Kluwgant have horrific histories when it comes to mishandling matters relating to child sexual abuse. Kluwgant’s appointment was a slap in the face to the Yeshivah victims who worked so hard to expose his true character and to the Adass victims who continue to suffer terribly as a result of the lack of education and poor decision-making of the Adass School Board. The appointment also needlessly brought the entire Adass community into disrepute and the community is entitled to question whether this Board can be trusted with ensuring the safety of their children and whether it is appropriate for them to continue in their current roles.

There were many parties who worked behind the scenes to ensure the right outcome was achieved and it was particularly heartening for many to see Rabbi Beck (long-standing head Rabbi of Adass), members of the Adass staff, members of the Adass community and the broader community standing up for victims on this occasion, something for which we have been crying out for too long.

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ISRAEL/UNITED STATES
YNet News

Ynet and Yedioth Ahronoth investigate allegations against Haim Aharon Yosefi, a well-known figure in the Haredi world, for taking young, pregnant Haredi woman from Israel to the US to give birth before giving the child away in an ‘adoption’ arrangement for a fee; ‘If I tell you who I’m connected to, it’ll blow your mind,’ he tells undercover journalist.

Ariella Sternbach and Yehuda Shohat|Published: 13.08.17

Haim Aharon Yosefi—a well-known businessman and figure in the ultra-Orthodox world—trades in babies. He is a central figure in a network that allegedly takes young, pregnant Haredi women from Israel to the United States to give birth before giving the child away in an “adoption” arrangement for a fee.

In a series of meetings with undercover reporters from Ynet and Yedioth Ahronoth, Yosefi unwittingly provided a rare glimpse behind the curtain, openly divulging how he and his accomplices operate. He also revealed a string of other related activities including the distribution of pills to suppress sexual desire, forging identification documents and more.

Over the last few weeks, Ynet and Yedioth Ahronoth sent “Devorah Leah,” a young Haredi woman with a cover story, to Yosefi. “I got pregnant by a married man, and I’m in trouble,” Devorah told Yosefi.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio, heugenio@guampdn.com Aug. 14, 2017

Until the Guam Department of Education’s legal counsel is done researching personnel policies and rules, a science teacher who is named in the latest clergy sexual abuse lawsuit will continue his job at Simon Sanchez High School, an education official said.

Vernon T. Kamiaz has been accused of sexually abusing a minor, identified in local court documents only as E.M., who was taking confirmation classes between 1989 and 1990.

Kamiaz is a science teacher Sanchez High. Thursday is the opening of classes for public schools.

Kamiaz could not be reached for comment and did not respond to a message last week to his Facebook account, asking for comment.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Rachel Browne

Priests would no longer be able to use the secrecy of the confessional to avoid reporting allegations of child sexual abuse, a royal commission recommends in its latest report.

In the wide-ranging report into the criminal justice system, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has made 85 recommendations aimed at better protecting children.

One key recommendation is that failing to report information about child sexual abuse disclosed in confession should be made a criminal offence.

“The report recommends there be no exemption, excuse, protection or privilege from the offence granted to clergy for failing to report information disclosed in connection with a religious confession,” it read.

Australia’s Catholic archbishops were divided on the issue of the Seal of the Confessional when quizzed about it at a public hearing this year which was told that it had been used as an excuse not to report crimes.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun
August 14, 2017

The royal commission into child sexual abuse today said priests should be punished if someone taking confession admits to child abuse and the priest doesn’t tell police. Catholic Archbishop Denis Hart says no priest can break confidentiality – and doing so will hurt children by making abusers less likely to admit anything even to their priest.

From The Bolt Report – Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart says confession is a fundamental part of the freedom of religion, and must remain so in Australia:

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Danny Tran

Fairness and reform – that’s what the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse says are its goals in releasing dozens of recommendations on the criminal justice system.

The royal commission has made a total of 85 recommendations, including major legal and policy changes which it hopes will be adopted across the nation to stamp out child abuse and prosecute more offenders.

But what are the most important changes being proposed, and how will they change the way Australia responds to child sex abuse?

1. You could be charged for failing to report child abuse

Most child abuse laws in Australia are aimed at perpetrators but this particular law will be aimed at other people, including the owners and managers of places that have children in their care.

The royal commission is recommending that state and territory governments make it a crime not to go to the police about child abuse.

But it goes further, arguing that reasonable people who “suspect, or should have suspected” that a child is being molested would be committing a crime if they did not go to the police.

The commission said the law was necessary, “particularly in light of the evidence we have heard from a number of senior representatives of institutions effectively denying that they had any knowledge or had formed any belief or suspicion of abuse being committed in circumstances”.

“Their denials are very difficult to accept,” it said.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

ANALYSIS
By Noel Debien

Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has just made recommendations that could electrically charge the relationship between church and state.

It has advised that legislators in Australian states and territories should enact laws to specifically overrule the confessional seal. The recommendation would require mandatory reporting to police from priests who hear confessions concerning child abuse.

The recommendations, if enacted, would place the church and the state in direct legal conflict and would require fundamental change within the international Catholic Church.

While priests in other Christians denominations do hear confessions, for many of Australia’s five and a half million Catholics the “seal of confession” is a sacred and secret matter, even when it comes to the heinous crime of child abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – Drive

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has recommended 85 changes to the law in a new report.

One of the most controversial recommendations is that clergy who fail to report information about child sexual abuse heard during confession, would face criminal charges.

The proposed change has already been met with opposition from some members of the Catholic Church because of the ‘seal of confession’.

Talkback caller Martin from Heidelberg, a Melbourne priest for 34 years, told Ali Moore on Drive, “We can’t reveal what someone says to us in confession…There’s a higher law and that is – I can’t reveal.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

August 14, 2017

JOHN FERGUSON
Victorian EditorMelbourne
@fergusonjw

Secrets of the confessional would no longer be an excuse for failing to report child sexual abuse under royal commission recommendations.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse today released 85 new recommendations to reform the nation’s criminal justice systems.

The report recommends making the failure to report child sex abuse in institutions a criminal offence, extending to religious confessions.

It specifically states that clergy should not be able to refuse to report a sex abuse crime detailed in the confessional.

The recommendation will spark an uproar, particularly in the Catholic Church, which treats as strictly confidential matters discussed in the confessional.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Melissa Davey and agencies
Sunday 13 August 2017

Clergy who refuse to report child sexual abuse because the information was received during a religious confession could face charges if recommendations for new institutional criminal offences are accepted.

The child abuse royal commission wants failure to report child sex abuse in institutions to be a criminal offence, extending to information given in religious confessions.

People in institutions who know, suspect or should have suspected a child is being sexually abused and fail to act should face criminal charges, it says in its criminal justice report released on Monday.

Stephen Woods – who was abused by the notorious pedophile priest Gerald Francis Ridsdale and the convicted pedophile brother Robert Charles Best while a student at St Alipius primary school in Ballarat– praised the commission for the recommendation but said it was overdue.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

Megan Neil
Australian Associated Press

Clergy who refuse to break the seal of confession to report child sex abusers to police may end up facing criminal charges.

The child abuse royal commission wants a new crime of failing to report child sexual abuse in institutions, including for those people who should have suspected the abuse.

The commission says the importance of protecting children from sexual abuse means there should be no exemption for clergy over information received during a religious confession, despite the Catholic Church believing the confessional seal must not be violated.

Australian Catholic Bishops Conference president, Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart, says confession is a fundamental part of the freedom of religion that must continue to be recognised by Australian law.

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CONNECTICUT
NBC Connecticut

A Connecticut rabbi accused of repeatedly raping and molesting a teenage boy is set to make his first court appearance since being arrested last month.

Rabbi Daniel Greer is scheduled to be arraigned Monday in New Haven Superior Court on felony charges of second-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor. His lawyer says he will plead not guilty, but it’s not clear if he will enter pleas Monday.

The 77-year-old Greer is accused of sexually assaulting a teenage boy who attended the Yeshiva of New Haven school from 2001 to 2005. Greer was a founder and principal of the school, which was established in 1977.

A federal jury in May awarded $15 million in damages to the now-former student in his lawsuit against Greer and the school.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Maeve Sheehan
August 13 2017

An international authority on excavating human remains has advised the expert group investigating the infant remains buried beneath the former mother and baby home in Tuam.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, which has worked to recover and identify bodies from mass graves in conflicts across the globe, has been consulted by the expert group, as it nears the end of its technical examination of the site.

The charity is a leading expert on searching for, recovering, analysing, identifying, and managing large numbers of unidentified remains in varying states of preservation. Extraction and analysis of DNA are among the key issues the group is considering.

An update, published on the Department of Children’s website last week, said that the group had also liaised with An Garda Siochana and the coroner for North Galway, who has a role in investigating sudden, suspicious or unnatural deaths. It has also liaised with the National Monuments Services and Forensic Science Ireland.

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ARGENTINA
US News

AP

By PAUL BYRNE, LUIS ANDRES HENAO and ALMUDENA CALATRAVA, Associated Press

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Rufino Varela was a distraught, confused 12-year-old when he went looking for help from the school chaplain to tell him he’d been sexually abused by a mason at his family’s home.

Instead of aiding, Varela says, the Rev. Finnlugh Mac Conastair took off the boy’s pants, flogged him and fondled him in a room below the chapel at one of Argentina’s most prestigious schools. Then, the Irish priest known by many as “Father Alfredo,” offered him candy and told him that they should keep it as a secret with God.

“I had come looking for help, but I felt that it was a punishment from God,” Varela said. “I came back to the classroom, holding back tears, went home and never spoke about it.”

The secret was kept for nearly four decades. But in recent months, Varela’s decision to break his silence has led several other former students to denounce clerical abuse at a school that has educated President Mauricio Macri and many other members of Argentina’s elite.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Times

Sean O’Neill, Chief Reporter
August 14 2017
The Times

A man who was thanked personally by Theresa May for his “invaluable assistance” in setting up the child abuse public inquiry has been excluded from its investigations.

Andi Lavery campaigned for the inquiry and met Mrs May when she was home secretary to describe the abuse he had suffered as a schoolboy from Benedictine monks. Mr Lavery said last night that he was “extremely distressed” and had been treated for self-harm since Alexis Jay, chairwoman of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), ruled that she would not investigate Fort Augustus Abbey, the school where he was assaulted.

Mrs May wrote to Mr Lavery in 2015 thanking him for his “openness and honesty” and expressing the hope that he would “continue to work with the independent inquiry as your experiences and your knowledge will be invaluable”.

Professor Jay has ruled that because Fort Augustus is in Scotland it falls outside the remit of her inquiry, which is considering abuse at institutions in England and Wales.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

14 August, 2017

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has released 85 recommendations aimed at reforming the Australian criminal justice system in order to provide a fairer response to victims of institutional child sexual abuse.

The report Criminal Justice, which was released today, recommends a sweep of legislative and policy changes. It includes reform to police and prosecution responses, evidence of complainants, sentences and appeals, and grooming offences. It also recommends new offences, including ‘failure to report’ and ‘failure to protect’.

Royal Commission CEO Philip Reed said the criminal justice system is often seen as not being effective in responding to child sexual abuse cases and conviction rates are lower compared to other crimes.

“Child sexual abuse cases are often ‘word against word’ cases with no eyewitnesses or medical or scientific evidence. Complainants often take years or decades to disclose their abuse,” Mr Reed said.

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AUSTRALIA
BBC News

Catholic clerics should face criminal charges if they do not report sexual abuse disclosed to them during confession, an Australian inquiry has recommended.

It is among 85 proposals to emerge from a landmark inquiry into institutional abuse in the nation.

The inquiry had heard harrowing tales of abuse, which were never passed on to the relevant authorities.

The Church has indicated it will oppose altering the rules around confession.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which began in 2013, was contacted by thousands of victims from both religious and non-religious organisations.

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AUSTRALIA
Catholic Leader

By Mark Bowling

PROTECTING the sacred dialogue between God and sinner in the confessional needs to be paramount if Australian lawmakers are to follow new recommendations proposed by the Royal Commission, Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge has said.

Archbishop Coleridge was responding to the recommendations made by Royal Commission into child sexual abuse that would require members of clergy to report information even if it is revealed in the confessional.

The recommendation was one of 85 contained in a report released by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse today.

The report, titled Criminal Justice, includes reform to police and prosecution responses, evidence of complainants, sentences and appeals, and grooming offences.

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AUSTRALIA
Hindustan Times

AP

Australia’s most powerful investigative authority has recommended that priests who fail to tell police about suspected child sexual abuse should face criminal charges, even when they learn of abuse through confession.

Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse recommended in a report on Monday that all states and territories in Australia introduce legislation that would make it a criminal offense for people to fail to report child sexual abuse in an institutional setting. Clergy who find out about sexual abuse during a confidential religious confession would not be exempt from the law.

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AUSTRALIA
Crux

Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse says the right to practice one’s religious beliefs “must accommodate civil society’s obligation to provide for the safety of all and, in particular, children’s safety from sexual abuse.” Archbishop Denis Hart of Melbourne, the president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, said in a statement the inviolability of the seal of confession is a “fundamental part of the freedom of religion.”

A government commission in Australia on Monday said Catholic priests must violate the seal of confession if they hear about the sexual abuse of children.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was established in 2013 to investigate how institutions like schools, churches, sports clubs and government organizations have responded to allegations and instances of child sexual abuse.

On Monday, it issued its report on criminal justice, including 85 recommendations for new legal standards.

Recommendation number 35 said laws on reporting sexual abuse of children “should exclude any existing excuse, protection or privilege in relation to religious confessions.”

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FRANCE
Sud Ouest

[Cardinal Barbarin and six other personalities of the church will appear before the courts in the case of priest Bernard Preynat. The case of Father Bernard Preynat, charged with “sexual assault on minors, will have a new episode in September at the Lyon Criminal Court before which Cardinal Philippe Barbarin and six others were summoned to appear by the victims. But this will be only a first step. As the Le Monde newspaper says, “the trial on the merits could open in early 2018”.]

Le cardinal Barbarin et six autres personnalités de l’église comparaîtront devant la justice dans le cadre de l’affaire Bernard Preynat

L’affaire du père Bernard Preynat, mis en examen pour “agressions sexuelles sur mineurs”, connaîtra un nouvel épisode en septembre au tribunal correctionnel de Lyon devant lequel le cardinal Philippe Barbarin et six autres personnalités de l’église ont été cités à comparaître par les victimes du prélat pour non dénonciation de faits.

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ILLINOIS
KWQC

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) – Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner has signed legislation that will remove the statutes of limitation for sexual abuse crimes.

Rauner signed the measure Friday. Sponsor state Sen. Michael Hastings of Frankfort says the legislation puts in place “best practices for dealing with sexual assault cases statewide and puts a system in place that will encourage survivors to come forward and receive justice when they are ready.”

Statutes of limitation restrict the time when authorities can charge someone after a crime occurs. The legislation Rauner signed removes those limitations for felony criminal sexual abuse and sex crimes against children. That will allow for the prosecution of those crimes at any time.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Catherine Pepinster
Saturday 12 August 2017

He has been an abbot, an author, a TV star and a radio breakfast show regular and has been described as the country’s most influential Benedictine monk since Cardinal Basil Hume. Now Christopher Jamison is to attempt his most important role: saviour of the reputation of his monastic order.

At the start of August the monks of the English Benedictine Congregation – an association of 13 Roman Catholic communities of monks and nuns – elected Jamison as their leader. His installation as abbot president came just days after Professor Alexis Jay confirmed that the public inquiry she is chairing into child sexual abuse in England and Wales would focus its hearings during October and November on scandals at Benedictine schools and monasteries. The choice of Jamison was almost certainly no coincidence.

The Benedictines have been mired in controversy for 20 years following a series of revelations about sex abuse scandals at their prestigious private schools, Ampleforth, Downside, Worth and St Benedict’s, Ealing, west London. And with both the independent inquiry into child sex abuse, led by Jay, and a separate crown court trial of a Benedictine abbot on child sex abuse charges taking place this autumn, the order and its educational establishments will be under severe scrutiny.

Listeners to Chris Evans’s Radio 2 breakfast show, used to Jamison’s spiritual musings in its Pause for Thought slot, may be surprised to learn that he is taking on the difficult task of leading the order. Jamison is most at ease in front of a microphone and a camera. He has a knack of making Catholicism clear to a secular audience.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Breaking Newe

12/08/2017

Victims of institutional abuse in the North have urged the Secretary of State to intervene immediately to enable them to access stalled compensation payments.

Campaign group Survivors & Victims of Institutional Abuse (Savia) urged James Brokenshire to act after holding a meeting with the head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, David Sterling.

Mr Sterling met with the Panel of Experts on Redress – a body made up of individual survivors, survivor groups, human rights organisations, academics and lawyers – on Friday afternoon.

In January, a Stormont-commissioned inquiry into abuse committed in church and state run homes in the North recommended compensation payments for victims of up to £100,000 each.

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FRANCE
Le Monde

[In an interview with Le Monde, the prelate of Lyon denies having covered-up abuse by a priest.]

Le 24 juillet, il était à Karakoch pour célébrer une messe dans la grande ville chrétienne du nord de l’Irak, après l’éviction de l’Etat islamique de Mossoul. En septembre, il répondra à une citation à comparaître de victimes du père Bernard Preynat, un prêtre de son diocèse accusé d’avoir sexuellement agressé des enfants dont il avait la charge jusqu’en 1991.

Le cardinal Philippe Barbarin, 66 ans, qui fêtera en septembre le quinzième anniversaire de sa nomination à la tête de l’archevêché de Lyon, demeure l’une des principales voix de l’Eglise catholique en France. Prélat atypique, cet électron libre allie un conservatisme doctrinal et sociétal à une ouverture aux problèmes sociaux, un catholicisme d’affirmation et une proximité avec le pape François. Le primat des Gaules revient sur les leçons de l’affaire Preynat, les premiers pas du gouvernement et le pape François.

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FRANCE
Le Monde

[Cardinal Barbarin should be tried in early 2018 for non-denunciation of sexual assaults.The date is not yet fixed, but Cardinal Barbarin and six personalities of the church, including two bishops and one of the most senior Vatican officials, will have to answer in a few months for non-denunciation of sexual assaults on minors who have accused them of covering-up abuse by Father Bernard Preynat.]

Par Emeline Cazi

La date n’est pas encore fixée mais le cardinal Barbarin et six personnalités de l’Eglise, dont deux évêques et l’un des plus hauts responsables du Vatican, devront dans quelques mois répondre des faits de non-dénonciation d’agressions sexuelles sur mineurs dont les accusent depuis deux ans des victimes du père Bernard Preynat, réunies au sein de l’association La Parole libérée.

Le père Preynat, ancien aumônier scout de l’ouest lyonnais, mis en examen pour « agressions sexuelles sur mineurs », est suspecté d’avoir fait des dizaines de victimes au sein de la troupe Saint-Luc dont il a eu la charge pendant vingt ans. Les sept personnes citées à comparaître en auraient eu connaissance mais n’ont jamais alerté la justice. Une première audience évoquera l’affaire le 19 septembre. Le procès sur le fond pourrait s’ouvrir début 2018.

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FRANCE
Reuters

PARIS (Reuters) – The Roman Catholic archbishop of Lyon acknowledged shortcomings in his response to a pedophilia scandal in his archdiocese and said more rigorous checks were in place to prevent past errors in the appointment of priests being repeated.

In an interview with Le Monde, published ahead of the Aug. 15 Feast of the Assumption celebration, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin reiterated that he had never concealed acts of sexual abuse by Father Bernard Preynat, a priest under his authority.

Preynat is accused of sexually abusing Catholic boy scouts during the 1980s and early 1990s. He is due to appear before a court next month. Preynat’s lawyer has said the priest admits the abuse but that the cases have passed the legal statute of limitations when they were reported.

Prosecutors in 2016 extensively questioned Barbarin, one of France’s top Catholic clerics, over why Preynat’s activities had not been reported to civil authorities earlier before dropping their investigation into allegations of a cover-up.

Barbarin told Le Monde he became aware of Preynat’s activities in 2007. When he “knocked on doors” for advice nobody gave him a satisfactory answer, he said.

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MALTA
Times of Malta

Saturday, August 12, 2017by Matthew Xuereb

The police and the Attorney General’s Office are likely to appeal the sentence handed down to Fr Charles Fenech, who was found guilty of the violent indecent assault of a vulnerable woman.

Sources have said the police were not happy with the punishment meted out to the former director of the Kerygma Movement, who was given a three-month jail term, suspended for a year.

Times of Malta is informed that the victim, who at the time had mental health problems, is also disappointed with the punishment.

According to the law, the police have eight working days – until Wednesday – to file a note in the acts of the case, through which they can express their intention to appeal.

The Attorney General will then be notified and, in turn, will have another eight days to file his appeal.

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RUSSIA
Latin American Herald Tribune

MOSCOW – A priest of the Russian Orthodox Church has been formally charged with recruiting women in Belarus and trafficking them to work as prostitutes in Russia, the Belarusian Investigative Committee announced on Friday.

The clergyman, identified as Nikolay Kireev, 39, was arrested on Aug. 3 in the northern Belarusian city of Vitebsk when he was about to board a bus to St. Petersburg accompanied by two women, aged 20 and 30.

According to a statement by the IC, police found that Kireev had allegedly persuaded the women, both of whom were Vitebsk residents, to move to St. Petersburg and work in the sex trade there.

The cleric, who served at the Peter and Pavel Cathedral in Imeni Morozova – a settlement on the banks of Lake Ladoga, near the Finnish border –, was put in pre-trial detention.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Evolve Politics

In an extraordinary interview recorded yesterday, a child abuse survivor who served on the Government’s independent inquiry into historic child sexual abuse has claimed she was silenced by Theresa May’s advisors to ensure that Ms May became Prime Minister.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of Ms Evans’ startling claims about her time serving on the inquiry.

Speaking to talkRADIO, Sharon Evans, a former journalist and the founder of Dot Com Children’s Foundation, said that the panel were “promised the child abuse inquiry would be open”, but after a short while she saw that it was ‘so obvious that everything was about the control and suppression of information” and that the supposedly independent inquiry had absolutely “no independence’.

Ms Evans claimed that the contracts panel members were made to sign by the Home Office were used to stop them from speaking openly about “very serious allegations about very public figures” – allegations which she says were taken back to the inquiry leaders, but ‘nothing was being done about” them.

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UNITED STATES
Crux

Claire Giangravè
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

Through the years the Vatican has developed strong rules and regulations to fight sex abuse in the clergy, but two recent sex abuse scandals in Catholic lay associations show that in these cases the Church is still very slow to respond and that often local bishops fail to exercise the necessary monitoring.

ROME – In an effort to respond to cases and allegations of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church over the years, Pope Francis has affirmed a “zero tolerance” policy and stressed that the Vatican must be committed to enforcing accountability.

Yet two recent scandals suggest that while the Church may have developed strong controls over clergy, in cases that involve lay organizations, it sometimes struggles to impose effective oversight.
“Let’s put it this way: The process in the Church for dealing with lay people has got no teeth,” Father Francis Morrissey, a Canadian expert on canon law, told Crux.

One case is rooted in Peru, where the leader of a lay Catholic movement called the Sodalitium of Christian Life was accused of sexually and physically abusing members.

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IRELAND
The Times (UK)

Ellen Coyne Senior Ireland Reporter
August 12 2017
The Times

Members of the Catholic Church must be prosecuted and punished for their role in the Magdalene laundries, the United Nations has said.

The UN committee against torture has unequivocally dismissed the state’s investigation into the institutions and claims damning documents showing church and state collusion against women have been ignored.

The international human rights body has said that the government must ensure that religious orders responsible for perpetrating abuse against women and children for decades must be forced to hand over evidence.

In 2011 the committee called for an independent investigation into the laundries, which helped lead to the McAleese commission and Enda Kenny’s apology in 2013 to the women who had been affected. Despite the apology, the state has maintained that it was not liable for how women and girls were treated in the institutions.

Finishing its second examination of Ireland’s compliance with torture laws yesterday, the committee criticised the McAleese commission, saying there had been no independent, thorough and effective investigation into the treatment of women.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Cormac O’Keeffe
Irish Examiner Reporter

The UN has criticised Ireland for failures in investigating allegations of ill-treatment of women at Magdalene laundries and for not prosecuting perpetrators.

The United Nations Committee Against Torture (UNCAT) asked the Government to undertake a “thorough, impartial investigation” in this area and ensure that all victims obtain redress.

UNCAT said it was “seriously concerned” at the failure of the State’s delegation to it to provide further information regarding their claim that there have been a sizeable number of investigations into abuse at reformatory and industrial schools, as documented in the Ryan Report.

The committee, which monitors adherence to the UN Convention Against Torture, issued its concluding observations, after taking submissions from Irish NGOs and holding hearings with the Government.

In its observations, UNCAT called on the Government to:

* Bring in a specific offence of domestic violence, and ensure all such allegations are recorded by gardaí and investigated;
* Hold immigration detainees separate from people charged or convicted of criminal offences;
* Ensure solitary confinement is “never applied to juveniles” and to “urgently” undertake an independent review of the prison health-care system;
* Establish a national mechanism, which would have access to all places of deprivation of liberty.

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CANADA
Calgary Herald

Meghan Potkins, Calgary Herald

When Brian was a teenager, he attended the funeral of a man he says sexually abused him for months.

He sat in St. Mary’s Cathedral in January of 1983, for the special funeral mass presided over by the bishop: a solemn occasion befitting the untimely death of a much-loved priest.

“It was huge. Everyone in full regalia, and I was just one little person in this whole church,” recalls Brian.

“They saw him as a saint.”

On Wednesday, a lawsuit was filed in Calgary court against a religious order of the Catholic church, alleging decades-old sexual abuse at the hands of a Calgary priest and teacher at Bishop Grandin High School that left a former Calgary resident permanently scarred.

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SCOTLAND
Evening Times

Hannah Rodger @hannahwritesHT
Senior Reporter

AN INQUIRY into historic child sex abuse will examine practices at two west of Scotland orphanages during its next stage.

Phase two of the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry will hear evidence about two care homes in Lanark and Rutherglen run by the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul.

The inquiry has called for applications to give evidence about practices at Smyllum Park in Lanark and Rutherglen’s Bellevue House.

It has previously been reported that children who lived at the Smyllum Park orphanage endured years of harrowing treatment and abuse.

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IRELAND
Galway Bay FM

Galway Bay fm newsroom – There’s a call for further redress to survivors of Magdalene laundries and Mother and Baby Homes, such as those in Galway

The UN Committee Against Torture says its previous recommendations on historical abuse have either been only partially implemented, or not at all.

Following a review of Ireland’s compliance with the UN Convention on Torture and Other Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Ireland is complimented for its progress on ending the incarceration of children in adult prisons, and the Citizens Assembly, but it’s sharply critical of other issues.

The UN Committee against Torture or UNCAT says Ireland should undertake a thorough impartial investigation into Magdalene Laundries that has the power to compel witnesses and ensure punishment of those responsible.

The UNCAT also wants redress for survivors of Mother and baby homes, and is concerned that some survivors of institutional abuse have been left outside the now-closed redress scheme.

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IRELAND
Newstalk

[The Ryan Report – BishopAccountability.org]

The UN Committee against Torture has voiced “serious concern” over the lack of information provided by Irish State regarding investigations into historical abuse outlined in the Ryan Report.

The committee has published its final report on the Irish Government’s performance on issues including historic institutional abuse, detention and healthcare.

It has warned that its call for the State to investigate all allegations of ill-treatment of women at the Magdalene Laundries have not been implemented.

It said the state has also failed to prosecute those responsible and ensure that victims get redress for their suffering.

It has urged the Government to collect data on all criminal investigations undertaken by the gardaí into allegations of abuse at religious run institutions.

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IRELAND
RTE News

A United Nations committee has criticised the Government for failing to implement its recommendations to investigate allegations of ill treatment of women in Magdalene Laundries.

It has also called for urgent measures to improve the staffing of the Republic’s prisons and to convene an independent review of the entire prison health care system.

The report underlines many achievements in the six years since the UN Committee Against Torture’s previous review.

These include the creation of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission and the provision of community service as an alternative to imprisonment.

It also notes the 2013 McAleese Report on the State’s involvement with the Magdalene Laundries and the ex gratia scheme to help women who worked in the Laundries.

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IRELAND
The Journal

A UNITED NATIONS committee has criticised the government for its failure to undertake an independent investigation into allegations of ill-treatment at Magdalene Laundries.

It said that it “deeply regrets” that the Irish State has failed to prosecute and punish perpetrators, which was a recommendation it had made previously.

Last month, Minister David Stanton told the UN Committee Against Torture that Ireland had a “strong human rights record” and hailed positive developments that have been made since the last report on the matter submitted to the UN in November 2015.

On the issue of investigations, accountability and redress in the context of Magdalene Laundries, the UN committee said that it had noted the creation of an “ex-gratia scheme that has provided over €25.5 million to 677 former Magdalene women to date”.

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IRELAND
K FM

A UN Committee says its seriously concerned at the lack of information provided by the Irish State into investigations into historical abuse outlined in the Ryan Report.

The UN Committee against Torture has published its final report on the Irish Government’s performance on issues including historic institutional abuse, detention and healthcare.

It’s urged the Government to collect data on all criminal investigations undertaken by the Gardai into allegations of abuse at religious run institutions.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Marie O’Halloran

The UN Committee against Torture has called on the Government to carry out an independent investigation into allegations of ill-treatment at all mother and baby homes, not just some of them.

The committee said the inquiry should include claims of forced adoption and prosecution of perpetrators.

It criticised the Government’s failure to fully investigate allegations of ill-treatment in Magdalene laundries as the committee recommended six years ago.

The UN committee calls for a fundamental review of the prison system’s health care system, highlights the urgent need for increased staffing in prisons and warns the State that it must end solitary confinement in prisons as a punishment.

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