ABUSE TRACKER

GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio, Pacific Daily News August 10, 2016

The Archdiocese of Agana has retained the law offices of Cunliffe & Cook to represent it in a $2 million libel and slander lawsuit filed by former altar boys who said the church defamed them after they publicly accused Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron of sexually assaulting them in the 1970s.

Cunliffe & Cook, however, does not represent Apuron. It has been retained as counsel for the Archdiocese of Agana, as administered by Archbishop Savio Hon Tai Fai. Cunliffe & Cook asked for, and was granted, an extension to file a response to the amended libel and slander complaint, from Aug. 11 to Sept. 11.

Apuron, who has been temporarily stripped by the Vatican of his administrative authority over the local church, is being represented in the lawsuit by the Law Office of Jacqueline T. Terlaje, officials with the law firm stated Wednesday.

The Vatican sent Hon to Guam in early June to temporarily administer the local Catholic church while allegations of sex abuse against Apuron are investigated.

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AUSTRALIA
The Canberra Times

David Ellery

Hundreds of individual child sex abuse victims with claims totalling tens of millions of dollars may be free to sue the Catholic Church thanks to the abolition of statute of limitations provisions in the ACT, NSW and Victoria a Canberra lawyer has said.

Jason Parkinson of Porters lawyers said even though most of the 1700 victims who had been paid about $43 million [2013 figures] under the Catholic Church’s “Towards Healing” program had signed deeds of release waiving their right to sue in the future these were now open to challenge.

The Canberra-based lawyer, who has represented dozens of victims over the past two decades, said in some cases individuals with claims potentially worth hundreds of thousands of dollars had been “brushed off” with as little as $4000.

He said the church had overreached by offering such paltry sums and deeds of release signed as a part of such settlements would likely be dismissed by “a reasonable judge”.

Francis Sullivan, the chief executive of the Catholic Truth, Justice and Healing Council, conceded some of the payments made under Towards Healing in the 1990s had been “meagre and low” but believes the best hope for justice for many victims and survivors would be through the yet to be established independent national redress scheme.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

10 AUGUST 2016

A judge has made a personal apology to a victim of a former children’s home worker and Catholic priest who sexually abused 12 children dating back to the 1970s, and slipped through the justice system before admitting his crimes.

Philip Temple, 67, sexually assaulted a number of boys and a girl in his care between 1971 and 1977 when he worked for Lambeth and Wandsworth borough councils.

He then changed career to become a priest in 1988 and served at Christ the King Monastery, Vita Et Pax in Cockfosters, where he abused two children including an altar boy.

Temple was tried in the late 1990s but the jury could not decide on a verdict, sparking a retrial which ended in an acquittal, Woolwich Crown Court heard on Wednesday.

The former priest was described by one of his victims as an “extremely skilled liar and manipulator with sociopathic qualities”, and the court heard the effect on his victims’ lives had proved “incalculable”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A former social worker and Catholic priest has been jailed for 12 years after admitting historical child sex abuse charges dating back to the 1970s.

Philip Temple, 66, admitted abusing 12 boys and one girl while working in south London care homes and a north London church.

He also admitted lying on oath in the 1990s when he was cleared of child sex abuse charges against a teenage boy.

Judge Christopher Hehir apologised to the victim at Woolwich Crown Court.

He said: “I am sorry justice was not done when you came to court in 1998 and 1999.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Harriet Sherwood Religion correspondent
@harrietsherwood
Wednesday 10 August 2016

A Catholic priest and former children’s home worker has been jailed for 12 years after admitting the sexual abuse of 13 children dating back to the 1970s.

Philip Temple, 66, was sentenced at Woolwich crown court after pleading guilty to 20 charges of sexual assault in April and a further seven charges this week.

Temple twice stood trial in the late 1990s. In the first case the jury was unable to reach a verdict and Temple was acquitted in a retrial.

Before passing sentence on Wednesday, the judge, Christopher Hehir, apologised to one of Temple’s victims that “justice was not done when you came to court in 1998 and 1999”.

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PENNSYLVANIA
York Daily Record

Editorial

A list of accused priests reported by YDR might represent just the steeple of a massive cathedral of child exploitation.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane was on trial this week, defending herself against charges she says were trumped up by the old boys’ network in our state’s judicial system. So she might have been too distracted to read YDR’s story about priests accused of sexual abuse in the Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg, which includes York County.

But someone in her office must look into questions YDR’s report raises about how forthcoming and proactive the diocese (a different sort of old boys’ network) has been with priest abuse cases in our region.

Someone with subpoena power.

Reporter Brandie Kessler identified 15 priests with ties to the Harrisburg diocese who’d been accused of sexually abusing children – including a priest who served in Dallastown.

In response to the reporting, the diocese grudgingly acknowledged those cases, even issuing a statement to parishioners (printed in at least one local church bulletin) warning them that the YDR story would include previously reported abuse cases but also some that “had a lower profile.”

A lower profile.

In other words, cases that had been essentially buried in the church’s massive bureaucracy – publicly unacknowledged, unaccounted for, possibly unatoned for.

If we’ve learned anything from priest abuse scandals in other regions, not to mention the Jerry Sandusky case, it’s that where there is smoke there is fire. And burying that fire doesn’t douse the flame. It eventually becomes a raging inferno.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Tim Lamacraft

All Catholic, independent and government schools in Victoria have until the end of September to confirm they are compliant with a new code of conduct that is designed to prevent child abuse.

To prove their compliance, school principals and school council presidents must sign a statutory declaration, something that a group of principals have told the ABC they were opposed to.

“I suppose why principals are objecting is because it’s the first time ever we’ve been asked to sign a legal document attesting to our compliance, or at least our intent to be compliant,” Anne Gawith, principal of Dimboola Memorial Secondary College, told PM.

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BRAZIL
Catholic Philly

By Lise Alves • Catholic News Service • Posted August 9, 2016

RIO DE JANEIRO (CNS) — A Brazilian priest, Father Bonifacio Buzzi, accused of molesting children in Minas Gerais state, committed suicide Aug. 7 in his cell, said Brazilian authorities.

Local authorities said Father Buzzi hanged himself with bed sheets in his cell a day after being arrested.

In 1995, he was found guilty of abusing several youngsters in a mental hospital and sentenced to four years of house arrest. In 2004, he was found guilty of molesting an 11-year-old boy but fled before authorities could detain him. He was arrested in 2007 and imprisoned until 2015.

Father Buzzi, 57, was arrested again in early August in the southern state of Santa Catarina and was taken back to Minas Gerais, where he had been charged with molesting another youth.

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AUSTRALIA
Australian Jewish News

YESHIVAH leaders have sparked fury by vehemently defending a rabbi who came under fire in an email exchange but not victims of child sexual abuse.

On Friday, a member of the Yeshivah community, Moshe Elkman, was highly critical of Yeshivah’s Rabbi Chaim Tzvi Groner in a message sent to more than 50 people regarding a planned meeting concerning proposed changes to the Yeshivah Centre management structure. Claiming the rabbi had failed to inform him when the meeting would be, Elkman expressed his disappointment in harsh terms and threatened to go to the media if Rabbi Groner wasn’t forthcoming.

Within hours Yeshivah’s director of adult education Rabbi Yonason Johnson said he was in “shock and dismay” because the “slander of Rabbi Groner is unacceptable both halachically and morally”.

He went on to say that “this would be true if said about anyone, let alone a Rov (Rabbi) and the Rebbe’s Head Shaliach in Melbourne”.

Rabbi Johnson urged everyone on the email chain to “maintain civility and respect at all times”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Breaking News

A judge in England has made a personal apology to a victim of a former children’s home worker and Catholic priest who sexually abused 12 children dating back to the 1970s, and slipped through the British justice system before admitting his crimes.

Philip Temple, 67, sexually assaulted a number of boys and a girl in his care between 1971 and 1977 when he worked for Lambeth and Wandsworth borough councils.

He then changed career to become a priest in 1988 and served at Christ the King Monastery, Vita Et Pax in Cockfosters, where he abused two children including an altar boy.

Temple was tried in the late 1990s but the jury could not decide on a verdict, sparking a retrial which ended in an acquittal, Woolwich Crown Court heard on Wednesday.

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UNITED STATES
Frum Follies

Sex offenders, like smugglers, take advantage of borders to avoid paying for their crimes. Sometimes they hop borders one step ahead of the cops. Israel, unfortunately is a popular destination for our miscreants.

But there is also a reverse flow where Israel’s flotsam washes up on America’s shores. Local communities are often clueless. This is true, even if there was a conviction in Israel because Israel does not have a public sex offender registry.

Let’s say Shlomo Shimon Ben-David gets convicted for molesting a neighbor’s child in Israel. He serves his time and then heads off to the United States. For good measure he starts using his middle name, Shimon, or perhaps, Simon, and becomes an accepted member of his new community and volunteers with a youth group. No one is the wiser about his past history.

Don’t start saying there ought to be a law to deal with the problem. There is a law: the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA). If offenders move, start work, or start school in a new state they have to register within three days or can be sentenced to a year. SORNA’s regulations also apply to foreign convictions (IV-B).

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UNITED KINGDOM
This is Local London

A former care home worker and Catholic priest who sexually assaulted vulnerable children in his care made “malicious and false” allegations about his victims to cover up his own horrific abuse, a court heard.

Philip Temple, 67, sexually abused 12 young people over a 25-year period beginning in 1971 while he was employed at children’s homes in Croydon and Wandsworth, and later as a priest in north London.

Between 1971 and 1977 Temple, of no fixed address, worked first at Woking Close children’s home in Barnes, then at nearby Hartfield House, before moving to Shirley Oaks Children’s Home, where he worked as a senior housefather at Rowan House.

Over those six years he “used his position of authority for his own pleasure” to abuse nine boys and one girl, Woolwich Crown Court heard today.

After carrying out his horrific assaults, which made one victim want to “cry out in pain”, the “extremely skilled liar” sometimes even entered false allegations of sexual activity between children in social services records to cover up his own crimes, prosecutor Jonathon Polnay said.

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NEW JERSEY
Road to Recovery

Lawsuit filed by childhood clergy sexual abuse victim in Essex County, NJ Superior Court against Fr. Michael “Mitch” Walters; the Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey; its former Archbishop, Cardinal Theodore Mc Carrick; and St. John Nepomucene Parish, Guttenberg, NJ

Fr. Michael “Mitch” Walters is a priest of the Archdiocese of Newark who is accused of sexual abuse of “John Doe” when he was a child at St. John Nepomucene Parish, Guttenberg, NJ, (Hudson County) from approximately 1994-1995

“John Doe,” a childhood sexual abuse victim/survivor of Fr. Michael “Mitch” Walters at St. John Nepomucene Parish in Guttenberg, NJ, seeks justice through the civil courts of New Jersey. He is one of six known childhood sexual abuse victim/survivors of Fr. Michael “Mitch” Walters

What
A press conference announcing the filing of a civil lawsuit in Essex County, NJ, Superior Court by “John Doe,” a childhood sexual abuse victim, against Fr. Michael “Mitch” Walters, a priest of the Archdiocese of Newark, who sexually abused “John Doe” at St. John Nepomucene Parish in Guttenberg, NJ, from approximately 1994-1995.

When
Wednesday, August 10, 2016 at 12:30 PM

Where
On the public sidewalk across the street from the headquarters of the Archdiocese of Newark, 171 Clifton Avenue, Newark, NJ 07104

Who
Members of Road to Recovery, Inc., a non-profit charity based in New Jersey that assists victims of sexual abuse and their families, including its co-founder and President, Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D.

Why
On Father’s Day weekend, 2015, David Ohlmuller, a brave victim/survivor of sexual abuse by Fr. Michael “Mitch Walters at St. Cassian’s Parish, Upper Montclair, NJ, in the 1980s, came forward to report that he had been sexually abused by Fr. Michael “Mitch” Walters. Subsequently, a woman, Danielle Polemeni, reported that she had been sexually abused by Fr. Michael “Mitch” Walters at St. Cassian’s Parish, Upper Montclair, NJ and at other locations from approximately 1982-1983. Four other sexual abuse victim/survivors of Fr. Michael “Mitch” Walters have also come forward, and one of those victim/survivors, “John Doe,” from St. John Nepomucene Parish in Guttenberg, NJ, has filed a lawsuit against Fr. Michael “Mitch” Walters, the Archdiocese of Newark, NJ, and then Archbishop, now Cardinal Theodore Mc Carrick. From approximately 1994-1995, Fr. Michael “Mitch” Walters sexually abused John Doe on numerous occasions when he was a parishioner of St. John Nepomucene Parish in Guttenberg, NJ, and Fr. Michael “Mitch” Walters was assigned to that parish. Demonstrators will announce their support of “John Doe” and demand that the Archdiocese of Newark help “John Doe” heal by validating his claim with a fair and just settlement.

Contacts
Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D., Road to Recovery, Inc. – roberthoatson@gmail.com – 862-368-2800
Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, Boston, MA – 617-523-6250

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CHILE
religion@orf

[The Irish priest John O’Reilly, who was convicted in Chile for abusing a 7-year-old girl, now faces a Vatican canonical trial.]

Der irische Priester John O’Reilly, der in Chile wegen jahrelangen Missbrauchs eines damals siebenjährigen Mädchens zu vier Jahren Schutzaufsicht verurteilt worden war, muss sich nun auch im Vatikan einem Verfahren stellen.

Das teilte der ultrakonservative katholische Orden Legionäre Christi am Montag mit. Wann der Prozess vor der Vatikan-Justiz beginnen soll und welche Höchststrafe droht, war zunächst unklar. O’Reilly vom Orden Legionäre Christi war im November 2014 schuldig gesprochen worden, ein Mädchen von 2010 bis 2012 missbraucht zu haben.

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BRASILIEN
Katholisch

[A priest who was accused of abuse killed himself in a Brazilian prison.]

Ein wegen sexueller Belästigung angeklagter Priester hat sich am Sonntag in einem brasilianischen Gefängnis erhängt. Laut dem Londoner Portal “Christian Today” ist dieser seit Freitag wiederholt in Haft. Der Geistliche war bereits von 2007 bis 2015 wegen Belästigung eines 10-Jährigen und von 1995 bis 1999 wegen Missbrauchs von mehren Jugendlichen inhaftiert.

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DEUTSCHLAND
BR

[A 46-year-old former religion teacher and prefect at the Kloster Ettal boarding school has been sentenced to seven years in prison. He was accused of sexual abuse of children.]

By: Elmar Voltz and Joseph Röhmel

Im Prozess gegen einen 46-jährigen, ehemaligen Religionslehrer und Präfekten am Klosterinternat Ettal hat das Gericht am Nachmittag das Urteil gesprochen. Der Angeklagte muss unter anderem wegen des schweren sexuellen Missbrauchs von Kindern und des sexuellen Missbrauchs von Schutzbefohlenen sieben Jahre ins Gefängnis.

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SCHWIEZ
cath.ch

[A former Catholic priest was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years in a prison in the cantonal court of Lugan0, Switzerland, after being found guilty of abusing a 13-year-old girl and of abusing students. The Lugano diocese expressed deep regret over the incidents.]

Lugano, 9.8.16 (kath.ch) Ein ehemaliger katholischer Priester ist am Montag vom kantonalen Strafgericht in Lugano wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs zu einer Gefängnisstrafe von achteinhalb Jahren verurteilt worden. Dies berichteten Tessiner Medien am Montagabend, 8. August. Der 65-Jährige hatte ein Mädchen 13 Jahre lang missbraucht und sexuelle Handlungen an Schülern begangen. Die Diözese Lugano äusserte in einem Communiqué ihr tiefes Bedauern über die Vorkommnisse.

Der Prozess gegen den heute 65-jährigen ehemaligen Priester begann am 27. Juli. Dem Mann wurden wiederholte sexuelle Nötigung, Vergewaltigung und sexuelle Handlungen mit Kindern vorgeworfen. Vor Gericht gab er die Taten zu. Opfer waren ein Mädchen, das der Mann zwischen 2001 und 2014 immer wieder missbrauchte, sowie vier Schüler, die bei dem Priester den Religionsunterricht besuchten. Das Mädchen war zu Beginn der Übergriffe zwölf Jahre alt.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Daily Times

By Phil Heron, Delaware County Daily Times

POSTED: 08/10/16

I get asked all the time to explain the problems facing the newspaper industry.

It struck me again as I sat near tears in a movie theater watching the Oscar-winning move “Spotlight,” which detailed the investigative team from the Boston Glove and their work in uncovering the massive problem with predator priests abusing children in the Boston Archdiocese.

The sadness for me was two-fold: First, as a Catholic, the move could not possibly have painted the church in a worse light, one by the way I believe was richly deserved. Much like what took place here in Philadelphia, the church’s reaction and policies concerning child sexual abuse by priests was abhorrent.

But I felt another sadness as well, one that stems from more than four decades in the newspaper business.

The move clearly showed what we are in danger of losing in this racket, our mission of being a watchdog on what is going on in our towns and schools.

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GEORGIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

GA–Victim of pedophile priest speaks for first time
Last month, man reached $4.5 million settlement
The convicted child molester now lives in Maryland
But he spent years in Georgia working in five towns
Group wants Savannah bishop to “do aggressive outreach”
“With some effort, pedophile might be locked up again,” SNAP says

WHAT

Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, a Georgia man who was repeatedly molested as a boy by the state’s most notorious pedophile priest will speak publicly for the first time about his experiences and his sizeable settlement last month with Savannah Catholic officials. He’ll be joined by his attorney.

And clergy sex abuse victims and their supporters will

–blast Catholic officials in four states for their handling of the priest,

–urge them to “do aggressive outreach” so he might be prosecuted again, and

–beg anyone who “saw, suspected or suffered his crimes” to call police or prosecutors immediately.

WHEN

Wednesday, August 10 at 11:00 a.m. in Savannah GA

WHERE

On the sidewalk outside Savannah Catholic diocesan headquarters, 2170 East Victory Drive in Savannah

WHO

Three-four individuals who belong to a support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org), including

–the victim in the recent settlement,

–another victim of that predator priest,

–a Georgia attorney, and

–a Missouri woman who is the organization’s long time outreach director

WHY

For the first time, a Georgia man, Chris Templeton, who was molested by an infamous, still-living predator priest will speak publicly about his pain and the $4.5 million settlement he reached last month with Savannah Catholic officials. http://wsav.com/2016/07/06/catholic-diocese-settles-sex-abuse-lawsuit-for-4-5-million/

He will prod others with information or suspicions about the pedophile priest to call law enforcement. Since South Carolina has no criminal statute of limitations on child sex crimes, and since the priest spent time in several states, Templeton and SNAP believe he might face criminal prosecution again.

Fr. Wayland Yoder Brown is one of the most notorious child molesting clerics in the US, SNAP says. Even while he was a seminarian, then-Bishop Raymond Lessard was warned about Brown (yet ordained him anyway). In his very first assignment, in 1969, Fr. Brown’s bosses heard reports of his abuse. Yet for decades, they continued to hide his crimes and quietly transfer him to unsuspecting parishes where he kept on assaulting kids, SNAP charges.

In the 1980s, he was secretly sent for treatment at St. Luke’s, a church-run center in Maryland. In 2002, he pled guilty to abusing two boys in 1974 in Washington DC. Fr. Brown was sentenced to ten years in prison in Maryland and was released in 2008.

In a July, SNAP blasted Savannah Bishop Gregory Hartmayer for a news release in which he made no mention of the possibility that there are others who were molested by Fr. Brown are still suffering in shame, silence and self-blame. Shame on Bishop Hartmayer. “He’s acting more like a cold-hearted CEO than a caring shepherd,” the group maintains.

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CONNECTICUT
Connecticut Law Tribune

MEGAN SPICER, The Connecticut Law Tribune
August 5, 2016

The Hartford Archdiocese was issued a victory when a federal judge ordered its insurance company to reimburse the church for the money paid as part of sex abuse settlements.

U.S. District Judge Janet Arterton found July 28 that Interstate Fire and Casualty Co., the church’s insurer, breached its contract. She ordered the insurer to pay $945,000, which includes damages as well as interest.

The church paid out more than $2 million across four settlements between 2010 and 2012. The victims had claimed they were abused by Fathers Robert Ladamus, Stephen Crowley and Ivan Ferguson between 1977 and 1984 or 1985.

The archdiocese sued Interstate in 2012, saying it had reached out numerous times on the claims and heard little back in terms of reimbursement. The insurance company had previously reimbursed the archdiocese for other settlements similar in nature, the suit alleged.

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GUAM
Guam Daily Post

Neil Pang | Post News Staff

The Concerned Catholics of Guam elected new officers at a recent meeting. David Sablan, who previously held the position of vice president, was elected to the post of president. He replaces the previous president, Greg Perez, who had held the office since CCOG’s establishment in December 2014. Andrew Camacho was elected vice president to fill the vacancy created by Sablan’s move. Evangeline Lujan and Gerald Taitano continued as secretary and treasurer respectively.

“We, as Christian faithful, using our knowledge and our influence, have the right and duty to express our opinions on matters pertaining to the affairs of our archdiocese for the good of our church,” Sablan stated in a press release. “This is the legal provision of church law that drives our membership to demand changes from the hierarchy of the Archdiocese of Agana for the good of the church on Guam.”

CCOG is one of the groups responsible for the weekly protests outside the Dulce Nombre de Maria Cathedral Basilica in Hagåtña on Sundays that call for, among other things, the defrocking of Archbishop Anthony Apuron. The group numbers in the thousands, according to the release.

In the press release, Sablan lamented the current state of the Catholic Church of Guam. “Our local church has been damaged by poor leadership for decades emanating from the chancery of the Archdiocese of Agana.”

Widespread concerns

According to the release, CCOG was founded to address widespread concerns among the Catholic laity. Specifically, CCOG was organized to help the archdiocese with its financial affairs; work to clear the names and restore Monsignor James Benevente and Rev. Paul Gofigan to their respective parishes; and help send young men of Guam to seminaries on the U.S. mainland to be formed for the priesthood and return to Guam.

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GUAM
KUAM

Updated: Aug 10, 2016

By Krystal Paco

Allegations of molestation made against Archbishop Anthony Apuron may have been only the tip of the iceberg. Last week, 73-year-old Leo Tudela testified before lawmakers alleging he was a victim of child sex abuse by three members of the church, one of whom was Father Louis Brouillard. In a phone interview with KUAM News last Friday, Father Brouillard admitted he had molested young boys while on Guam.

Although he couldn’t recall the number of boys, he did say why he did it. “Hard to say…I guess mostly it pleased the boys. I thought they were happy,” he stated last week.

KUAM News spoke with Attorney David Lujan today, who alleges there are more victims, and more priests who stand to be accused. Lujan represents other alleged victims who shared their stories earlier this year: Roy Quintanilla, Walter Denton, Roland Sondia, and Doris Concepcion on behalf of her late son, Joseph “Sonny” Quinata.

In Tudela’s case, he had moved to Guam from Saipan to attend Catholic school. While an altar boy at Santa Teresita Church, he alleges Father Brouillard touched him in his sleep. He shared his story last week in an effort to compel lawmakers to pass Bill 326 – legislation that would lift the statute of limitations on child sex crimes.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Chris Tuck

Hearing the news of the resignation of Justice Lowell Goddard as chair of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse must be upsetting and worrying for many victims and survivors who know about or have engaged with the inquiry to date. As a victim of abuse and campaigner on this issue, I am personally sad that Goddard has resigned, but feel confident that the inquiry will move forward and do the job that it has set out to do. It is important to remember that the inquiry is not just about Goddard; there are many other people involved and a new chair will be appointed in due course.

The inquiry was established in 2014 to investigate whether public bodies and other non-state institutions have taken seriously their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse in England and Wales. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity for victims and survivors to have their voices heard and for whistleblowers to share their knowledge and experiences of what went on – and in some cases continues to happen – within institutions that have failed children. The inquiry has statutory powers to compel witnesses to come forward, and now the infrastructure is in place it is progressing with its investigation. It wants to hear from victims and survivors if they were sexually abused while in an institution; or if they were failed by an institution, such as the police, social services or their school, after reporting the incident or incidences only for the appropriate action not to be taken.

I joined the victims and survivors’ consultative panel in July 2015. Since then, we have been working with all the different teams within the inquiry to put systems and processes in place, recruit and train staff, and set up offices to undertake “truth project” sessions. In these sessions, victims and survivors are able to share their experiences of child sexual abuse with a facilitator, who will record what they are told. Alternatively, they can make written submissions to the inquiry.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY KENNETH LOVETT

DAILY NEWS ALBANY BUREAU CHIEF Wednesday, August 10, 2016, 4:00 AM
COHOES, N.Y. — This one was personal.

The founder of a political action committee pushing for a law to help child sex abuse victims Tuesday returned to the city where he himself was attacked as a kid to endorse a Republican state Senate candidate who supports the bill.

The candidate, Christopher Davis, called it unconscionable that his party in the Senate blocked a Democratic effort to bring a bill to the floor for a vote during the legislative session that concluded in June.

“This is a moral issue,” Davis said. “This is something that should not be partisan. It should not go down party lines. You murder the souls of these kids who are attacked and change the course of their lives.”

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Olivia Kelleher

The Catholic church needs to open itself up to the possibility of having gay priests, according to the leader of the Seanad, Senator Jerry Buttimer.

Mr Buttimer trained for five years in the Maynooth seminary before deciding against the clerical life.

He was also the first openly gay Fine Gael TD and campaigned for the passing of the marriage referendum last year.

He said the recent controversy surrounding gay seminarians at Maynooth brought to the fore the need for the Irish church hierarchy to embrace LGBT people of faith and make them part of the church.

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IRELAND
Mayo News

Fr Kevin Hegarty

IMAGINE if the director of the Bank of Ireland declared that he had no confidence in the financial procedures of the company. There would be a mass withdrawal of funds. It might even lead to the closure of the bank.

As a less dramatic level, something like that happened in the Catholic Church in Ireland last week.

The Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, is the second ranking cleric in the Irish Catholic establishment and a trustee of St Patrick’s College in Maynooth. He announced that he was unhappy with seminary formation in the college and was sending Dublin student priests to the Irish College in Rome. Has he sounded the death knell for an institution that was once the biggest Catholic seminary in the world and the place where the vast majority of Irish priests have been trained since 1795. What is happening at Maynooth?

So far the complaints have been general and vague. Dr Martin stated that he is somewhat unhappy about an atmosphere which was growing in Maynooth. You’d learn about it through anonymous accusations made through anonymous letters and blogs, accusing people of misconduct or accusing the faculty of Maynooth of not treating allegations correctly.”

He went on to cite that “one of the allegations is that there is a homosexual, a gay culture and that students have been using an app called Grinder which is a gay dating app which would be inappropriate for seminarians.” The college authorities responded by saying that they shared the archbishop’s concern about the poisonous atmosphere created by anonymous allegations. They deny that a gay subculture exists in the seminary. They assert that students “with specific concerns are encouraged to report them appropriately.” Several bishops including the Archbishop of Armagh, Dr Eamon Martin, have rallied to the defence of Maynooth. In the happy event of having student priests, they will continue to send them to the college. So far no bishop has come out in support of Dr Diarmuid Martin, contributing to the impression that he is a kind of lone ranger amongst his colleagues.

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IRELAND
Church Militant

by Aaron Maxwell • ChurchMilitant.com • August 9, 2016

MAYNOOTH, Ireland (ChurchMilitant.com) – The Primate of All Ireland is announcing a meeting of the trustees of scandal-ridden St Patrick’s College in Maynooth, Ireland to discuss its future.

Archbishop Eamon Martin made the announcement Monday on Ireland’s RTE, saying trustees are to meet within the next five weeks to discuss the solution to the current controversy at Ireland’s national seminary, allegedly run by a homosexual network. The announcement came hours after Dublin’s archbishop Diarmuid Martin — who last week pulled his three seminarians from St. Patrick’s — commented that he was surprised a trustees’ meeting had not yet been called to resolve the current crisis.

He and Abp. Eamon Martin have since spoken, and along with Maynooth president Msgr. Hugh Connolly have agreed that a meeting is needed before the academic year.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

Two former seminarians have said they were told to sign a confidentiality agreement binding them to secrecy about Maynooth in their first weeks in the seminary.

The first former seminarian, who contacted The Irish Times, was 21 when he entered St Patrick’s College in September 2005. He was “not streetwise, and this was my first time moving out from home”, he said.

Students at Maynooth are normally invited to sign the college register on their first day. “This happens in front of the student’s class and some, if not all, of the seminary council,” he said.

Following this, however, the seminarians were presented with another document pledging not to “sue the seminary trustees for anything that happened within” Maynooth.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Paddy Agnew in Rome

A week has passed since the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin went public over his concerns about the national seminary in Maynooth.

He told this newspaper on Monday of last week that he “wasn’t happy with Maynooth” because of the “atmosphere of strange goings-on”. He has since repeated his concerns about allegations of a homosexual subculture and of sexual activity in the college, inappropriate for an institution preparing men for a celibate priesthood.

So how is this playing out in Rome? First of all, there no official Holy See position. Informally, the Vatican line is that an issue like this is one for the local church, the Irish Bishops’ Conference and the Maynooth trustees to handle.

When it suits, the Holy See can closely follow the “subsidiarity” principle, namely that issues – controversial or otherwise – are best handled by the smallest, least centralised competent authority.

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NEW YORK
CBS 6

BY ANNE MCCLOY TUESDAY, AUGUST 9TH 2016

COHOES–Gary Greenberg says he was sexually abused by a hospital worker in Cohoes when he was just 7-years-old.

“My life changed in one second because I faced a brutal scumbag who took so much from me,” Greenberg said.

Greenberg is the co-owner of Vernon Downs Casino and Founder of the Fighting for Children PAC. He’s in support of New York’s Child Victim’s Act, which if passed, would allow people who are sexually abused as children, to get justice against their attackers as adults, years after the abuse took place, by extending the statute of limitations for child sex abuse. He’s says he’s putting up 100,000 dollars to defeat state senators who’ve voted against the legislation in the past.

Judy Russo drove from New Jersey, to help support the proposed New York legislation. Russo says she was sexually abused as a child. Years later she says, her own child was abused too.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

Mel Buttigieg – Yahoo7 News on August 10, 2016

An 84-year-old former Hunter Valley Sunday school church teacher described as a “predator” has been sentenced to 21 years jail for a string of historical sexual offences dating back to the 1940s.

Donald Victor Greenaway, a former volunteer scripture teacher at the Newcastle Baptist Church, was charged with sexually assaulting 21 boys, most of whom he met at the former Woodlands Boys’ Home.

The Newcastle court on Wednesday heard the retired accountant preyed on children as young as five when he worked at the home before its 1981 closure, the Daily Telegraph reported.

Greenaway also lured children who met through junior sport, to his homes in Newcastle and Lake Macquarie to show them hardcore pornography and videos depicting bestiality. He then sexually abused them.

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IRELAND
inTallaght

Dublin South West TD Seán Crowe says he is glad to hear that Bethany Homes survivor Derek Leister’s case to the European Court of Human Rights has been accepted.

The Irish Government’s failure and refusal to include the Protestant Church run Bethany Children’s Homes in its redress scheme has led the chairman of the survivors group to take the case.

Crowe said that the Government’s decision not to include the homes at that time was based purely on a monetary one and had absolutely nothing to do with justice or about what was the right thing for the State to do.

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MALAWI
Malawi 24

Lindiwe Sambalikagwa

An American pastor, Gerald Campbell who raped orphaned boys was sentenced on Tuesday in federal court to 25 years in prison for sexually abusing children in his care at an orphanage in Malawi.

Campbell, 66, raped eight orphans, including one who infected with HIV, at the Victory Christian Children’s Home in Malawi between 1997 and 2009.

A Reuters report states that Campbell pleaded guilty in May, could have faced up to life in prison, according to papers filed in federal court in Texas.

Campbell reached a plea agreement and admitted to engaging in sexual acts with eight minors, all of whom were orphans living at the Victory Christian Children’s Home in Malawi between 1997 and 2009, U.S. prosecutors said.

“Campbell admitted that he knew that what he was doing was wrong and that he thought nobody would believe the minors if they reported the abuse,” they said in a statement.

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NEW ZEALAND
Stuff

SHANE COWLISHAW
August 10 2016

By his own admission, Father Hans Zollner’s job is “dark, bleak and heavy”.

Often described as the Pope’s expert in the fight against child abuse, he has heard countless tales from those who have suffered at the hands of priests.

Zollner, a German, is president of the Centre for Child Protection at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University.

He is also a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, set up by Pope Francis in 2014 with the single purpose of developing initiatives that could prevent future abuse within the church.

Since the late 1980s, when the first allegations of improper behaviour within the church began to surface, thousands of people have come forward claiming they were abused by priests and nuns.

Zollner has travelled all over the world in his role, arriving in New Zealand for the first time last week.

During that time he held a full-day safeguarding training day in Wellington for 85 people from all areas of the church, including Cardinal John Dew, the papal envoy and bishops.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WGAL

News 8 has learned that 15 priests with ties to the Diocese of Harrisburg have been accused of sexual abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Bruce MacKenzie

A jury in Lismore has retired to consider its verdict in the trial of a Catholic priest accused of child sexual abuse offences.

John Patrick Casey had been a police chaplain for two decades before he was arrested in July last year and charged with 27 counts relating to 18 allegations of child sexual abuse.

The 68-year-old is accused of molesting three boys on four separate occasions when each was staying with him at the Mallanganee Presbytery, west of Casino in northern New South Wales, in the mid 1980s.

He has pleaded not guilty to all charges in the Lismore District Court.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

IAN KIRKWOOD
10 Aug 2016

A FORMER employee of Farragher’s removalist’s firm has told of finding a pornographic video with a boy of about 12 on the cover when packing up possessions of disgraced Anglican priest Peter Rushton in 1998.

Rushton’s pornographic hoard at the Maitland rectory was discussed in evidence in the first week of the Anglican hearings of the Royal Commission in Newcastle.

On Wednesday morning, the removalist, Gary Askie, told how he was made to sign a statement promising not to say anything to anyone about the incident.

“The church knew he [Rushton] was gay and I wasn’t allowed to say anything to anyone about it,” Mr Askie told the royal commission.

He said he was about 28 years old at the time and was shocked and horrified at what he saw. Most of the videos he saw had naked adult males on the covers but one definitely had a boy, who he said was naked and aged about 12.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Dan Cox

A former removalist has told the child sexual abuse royal commission he felt sick when he found child pornography while packing the belongings of a Hunter Valley priest.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is examining the ways the Anglican Diocese of Newcastle responded to allegations by clergy and lay members of the church.

Gary Askie worked for Farragher Removalists in 1998 when he was asked to move the possessions of Anglican priest Peter Rushton.

The commission has heard Rushton worked across the Newcastle diocese from 1963, but allegations of sexual abuse involving him only came to light after his death in 2007.

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AUSTRALIA
Christian Today

Carey Lodge CHRISTIAN TODAY JOURNALIST 10 August 2016

An Australian bishop was reduced to tears over having to defrock a priest accused of sexual abuse because he was worried about the “effect it would have on the parishioners”, a royal commission has heard.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is currently hearing evidence from an abuse survivor identified only as CKH. He described his abuse as “a gross abuse of trust, selfish and thoughtless.”

He told the committee hearing that after a church body investigated his allegations against a number of clergy, including the former Dean of Newcastle Graeme Lawrence, it was recommended that Lawrence and two others, church deacon Andrew Duncan and priests Bruce Hoare, be defrocked.

However, CKH said then Bishop Brian Farran visited him in 2012 and cried over the situation.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Press Association
Tuesday 9 August 2016

A former children’s home worker and Catholic priest has pleaded guilty to sexual assaults against children in the 1970s. Philip Temple, 66, admitted 27 counts of non-recent sexual assault committed against children in his care and two counts of perjury, according to the Metropolitan police.

The force said Temple, of no fixed address, appeared at Woolwich crown court in south-east London on Tuesday where he pleaded guilty to seven counts of non-recent sexual assault. He also appeared at Croydon crown court on Wednesday 6 April, where he pleaded guilty to 20 counts of non-recent sexual assault and two counts of perjury.

Police added that he pleaded not guilty to five counts of indecent assault. He is due to be sentenced on Wednesday at Woolwich.

Scotland Yard said Temple was employed by Wandsworth borough council where he worked at Woking Close and Hertfield House between 1972 and 1974. He was also employed by Lambeth borough council between 1974 and 1977 where he worked at Rowan House in Shirley Oaks, Croydon.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Catholic News Agency

Philadelphia, Pa., Aug 9, 2016 / 04:45 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- There will be drama in Philadelphia.

A landmark case involving Catholic officials’ response to sex abuse is planned for retrial May 1 of next year. The accused is a monsignor who was the first Catholic official convicted for his supervisory actions regarding a priest accused of abusing children.

But claims of new exonerating evidence and a court’s decision to throw out the monsignor’s previous sentence make the situation more complex.

Monsignor William J. Lynn, 65, was released from Pennsylvania state prison Aug. 2 on $250,000 bail. He had served 33 months in prison on a conviction that was overturned in late 2015.

The monsignor was sentenced to three to six years in prison after a 2012 trial.

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NEW YORK
Slate

By Nora Caplan-Bricker

Fordham Preparatory School, a prestigious Jesuit boys’ school in the Bronx, has deemed a former student’s allegations that a teacher sexually abused him in 1984 “credible,” the New York Times reported Monday.

The assault took place shortly after graduation according to the former student, Michael Meenan, who says that he decided to spend the night at a house where he’d been celebrating with peers and awoke to find religious studies teacher Fernand Beck performing oral sex on him while he slept. Meenan says he reported the assault not long after it occurred with no apparent effect.

He was inspired to do so again, at least in part, by some of the real-life people behind the Academy Award-winning movie Spotlight—and by the conversation about sexual abuse that the movie, about the Boston Globe’s early 2000s exposé of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests, has helped create. One of Meenan’s former Fordham classmates, the actor Neal Huff, played victim’s advocate Phil Saviano in the film. Huff put Meenan in touch with the actual Mitchell Garabedian, the take-no-prisoners victims’ attorney portrayed in the movie by Stanley Tucci, and Garabedian contacted Fordham in March on Meenan’s behalf, according to the Times. Now, Fordham says Beck is no longer on its faculty, though it won’t specify whether he was fired or resigned.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
Providence Journal

By Karen Lee Ziner
Journal Staff Writer

Posted Aug. 9, 2016

CONCORD, N.H. — An alumnus of St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire, has accused the Rev. Howard W. “Howdy” White Jr. of sexually abusing him during White’s time there between 1967 through 1971, the school confirmed Tuesday. White served as a chaplain and teacher at the prestigious Episcopal boarding institution.

White, who subsequently became assistant chaplain at St. George’s School in Middletown, is one of a half-dozen former staff members who figured in a sex-abuse scandal at St. George’s. A Rhode Island State Police investigation, concluded in June, found no prosecutable criminal misconduct against any of the alleged perpetrators, or the school, in part due to statutes of limitations.

St. George’s announced a confidential settlement last week between the elite Episcopal prep school and up to 30 alumni whose abuse claims reach back to the 1970s. Those sex-abuse claims include allegations against White, whom the school fired in 1974 for admitted sexual misconduct but never reported to authorities.

In Concord, St. Paul’s rector Michael G. Hirschfeld wrote to alumni Aug. 5 of the recent allegation against White. Hirschfeld said the school had hired former Massachusetts attorney general Scott Harshbarger “to lead our investigative efforts and pursue any complaints” following the St. George’s allegations.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg

AUGUST 9, 2016

The scandal of sexual abuse in the Church has been painful. What we know now is that sexual abuse impacts every aspect of society and every profession. Some of you may have been impacted personally by this crime; we pray that the light of Christ will aid in your healing.

If anyone in this Parish has been or is being hurt by the sexual misconduct of any priest, deacon, religious brother or sister, seminarian, employee or volunteer of the Catholic Church, the Diocese of Harrisburg would like to know about such abuse, so that we can help the victim in his or her healing process and, if necessary, remove the offender from all public ministry.

To make such a report, the person should call the toll-free Pennsylvania Childline at 1-800-932-0313. To contact the Diocese for assistance in healing, the person should also call the Diocesan toll-free Hotline at 1-800-626-1608 or email ReportAbuse@hbgdiocese.org .

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By Ivey DeJesus | idejesus@pennlive.com

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg on Tuesday was in the news amid a report regarding child sex abuse within its ranks.

A report by The York Daily Record indicated that the diocese named 15 priests who have been accused of sexually abusing children and who had worked in the 15-county diocese.

The YDR report specifically names the Rev. Raymond Prybis, who once served at St. Joseph’s in Dallastown. Prybis was accused of abuse during his time at a Boston-area parish before he was transferred to York County. The report cites a personnel file released by the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis in January 2015. Prybis did not have a credible allegation of abuse against him while at St. Joseph’s, the YDR reported.

Many of the clergy members’ names cited in the YDR report have appeared in reports by PennLive and The Patriot-News, both of which have over the years published reports regarding allegations of sexual abuse against priests from the diocese – as well as the respective response from the diocese to those allegations.

Those reports include accounts involving:

* Guy Marsico, a former priest assigned to St. Leo the Great Catholic Church in Rohrerstown, Lancaster County. (No criminal charges were ever leveled against Marsico).

* The 2004 report from the diocese confirming it had received credible reports of sexual abuse of 64 minors by 22 priests since 1950 and had spent $1.9 million in settlements, legal fees and counseling. None of the 22 priests were in active ministry at the time.

* In April 2002 the diocese received a “credible allegation” of sexual misconduct with a minor against John Allen, senior pastor at St. Margaret Mary Alacoque Church in Penbrook. The allegation stemmed from an incident more than 20 years earlier. Allen resigned from the priesthood within 12 hours. Prosecution was not possible because the statute of limitations had expired.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2016

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 566 9790, 314 645 5915 home, davidgclohessy@gmail.com)

Harrisburg Bishop Ronald Gainer and his staff are putting kids in harm’s way by continuing to hide the names and whereabouts of predator priests. Shame on them.

After decades of pledges by Catholic officials to be “open” about clergy sex abuse and cover up cases, they still being secretive. As a result, who knows how many unsuspecting families live near or individuals work with predator priests?

About 30 US dioceses post names of proven, admitted and credibly accused predator priests on their websites. Gainer, however, refuses to take this simple, inexpensive, practical step to protect the vulnerable, heal the wounded and expose the truth. Shame on his employees who are complicit in this reckless secrecy: Joseph Aponick, Msgr. William King and other current and former church staff.

We urge Harrisburg Catholics to donate elsewhere until their church officials stop hiding child molesting clerics.

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NEW YORK
The Paper

Fordham Offers “No Comment” To Allegations of 1960’s Clergy Abuse

by Peter Mullin
Co-Sports Editor
with Bill Donahue
Co-Editor-in-Chief

In April of 1994 an 18-year-old freshman walked into the office of the Dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill, a place that, according to the University’s mission statement, concerns itself with fostering an “environment that celebrates and protects the dignity of the human person.” Inside the confines of that office the young woman started the process of protecting that dignity. She told the Dean a story of how, after a night of drinking in the city, her philosophy professor took advantage of her in his office. By the end of the semester, her professor had resigned.

Ten years later that scene would come to national attention in an article by Joseph Feuerherd published in the National Catholic Reporter. The story detailed the alleged 1994 sexual misconduct of Deal W. Hudson, a top advisor to George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign, while he was a tenured professor of philosophy at Fordham.

That July, Fordham spokeswoman Elizabeth Schmalz issued a statement to NCR saying, “Sexual Harassment is not tolerated at Fordham University.” It continued, “Fordham followed its policy rigorously in this case and initiated an investigation into the matter upon receipt of the student’s complaint.”

The Dean in the NCR article, described as “sympathetic” and giving “every indication that he believed [the girl’s] story,” was Father Joseph M. McShane, S.J., Fordham University’s current president. In 1994, it appears that he listened intently to the aggrieved student and quickly iniated actions to remove Mr. Hudson from his position. And in 2004, Father McShane presided over the University when it publicly and explicitly denounced sexual harassment after the allegations against Mr. Hudson surfaced in the media.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A former children’s home worker and Catholic priest has pleaded guilty to a string of historical child sex abuse charges.

Philip Temple, 66, admitted seven charges committed in the 1970s when he appeared at Woolwich Crown Court.

He pleaded to 20 similar charges and two of perjury at Croydon Crown Court in April.

In all, he admitted abusing 12 boys and one girl while working in south London care homes and a north London church.

He also admitted lying on oath in the 1990s when he was cleared of child sex abuse charges following accusations by a teenage boy from his church.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
Diocese of Harrisburg

By Very Rev. Robert M. Gillelan, Jr.
Secretary for Clergy and Consecrated Life

[This letter from a diocesan official was posted on the website of St. Joseph’s parish in York PA. It refers to articles by reporter Brandie Kessler that appeared in the York Daily Record:
– 15 priests accused of abuse had ties to Harrisburg diocese
– List: Accused priests with ties to Harrisburg diocese

See also our overview of diocesan and religious order lists of accused.]

I am writing to alert you to a newspaper article that we expect will be published in the York Daily Record soon. It will address several specific cases of sexual abuse by clergy in the Diocese of Harrisburg. Some cases were well publicized previously, so they may be familiar to you already; others had a lower profile. We made the decision to confirm the cases presented by the reporter in the interest of accuracy and transparency.

There are many viewpoints concerning the disclosure of information about instances of abuse, particularly of deceased clergy who cannot now defend themselves. This is one of the reasons it has been the longstanding policy of the Diocese not to publish names. However, the names to appear in the article were obtained independently and are to be published with or without our cooperation. Therefore the Diocese decided to provide accurate information in the interest of transparency and healing.

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UNITED KINGDOM
This is Local London

A former children’s home worker and Catholic priest has admitted 27 counts of historical sexual assault committed against children in his care and two counts of perjury.

Philip Temple, 66, of no fixed address, appeared at Woolwich Crown Court today, August 9, where he pleaded guilty to seven counts of non-recent sexual assault.

He previously admitted 20 other counts of sexual assault and perjury at Croydon Crown Court on August 6.

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AUSTRALIA
Anglican Communion News Service

[ACNS, by Gavin Drake] The deans of Australia’s cathedrals have expressed grief at hurt and trauma caused by clergy and church workers after hearing reports about the country’s Royal Commission on Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and the newly established Royal Commission into the Child Protection and Youth Detention Systems of the Northern Territory.

The deans had gathered at St James’ Cathedral in Townsville, North Queensland, for their annual conference. In a statement, issued at the end of their gathering, the deans strongly condemned any form of abuse. The statement said that the deans – the senior clergy person in charge of a cathedral – had “reported on safeguarding measures in their own cathedrals, affirmed the importance of public acknowledgement and repentance for past wrongs, and the need for transparency and openness of conversation to enable a process of healing and the prevention of future abuse.

“Our national Church needs to do more and move quickly on issues of redress for victims, recognising that we are one Body of Christ and therefore together are responsible,” the Dean of Darwin, the Very Revd Keith Joseph, said. “We give thanks for the work of the national Royal Commission and commend the newly appointed Royal Commission looking into issues in the Northern Territory.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX
Crime reporterSydney
@DanBox10

Roger Herft, now Anglican Archbishop of Perth, regularly met church officials to discuss “brown envelopes” containing details of priests’ child abuse allegations, yet the group often decided to do nothing, a royal commission has heard.

At the time Archbishop Herft was bishop of Newcastle, in NSW, one of those in the meetings was the dean of the city’s cath­edral, Graeme Lawrence — later defrocked for having group sex with a teenage boy — the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard.

A former trustee of the diocese, Keith Allen, told the commission yesterday he also took part in twice-yearly meetings, before Archbishop Herft moved to Perth in 2005.

About 27 “brown envelopes” detailed claims of child abuse, Mr Allen told the commission: “My memory is either (former diocese registrar) Mr Mitchell brought them in or maybe Bishop Herft brought them in.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
York Daily Record

Mark Totaro, victim assistance coordinator for the Diocese of Harrisburg, says the Catholic Church will do its best to take care of clergy abuse victims, though “they might never have closure.” Chris Dunn, York Daily Record

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

IAN KIRKWOOD
9 Aug 2016

A MAN whose complaints against the former dean of Newcastle Graeme Lawrence and three other priests led to their expulsion or suspension from the clergy told his story to the Royal Commission on Tuesday afternoon.

Given the psuedonym CKH, the 51-year old recounted a tale of grooming by priests that began in 1980 when a priest, Andrew Duncan, performed oral sex on him at the age of 14.

As well as Duncan and Lawrence, he would go on to have sex with Lawrence’s partner, teacher Greg Goyette, and two other priests, Bruce Hoare and Graeme Sturt.

The commission heard of his encounters with these men until 1985, when he began to reassess the situation and made him believe he had been “duped” and that experiences he had originally believed he was in control of were “in the nature of abuse”.

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AUSTRALIA
Manny Waks

-​​Since its appearance before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse one and a half years ago, the Yeshivah leadership has tried to manufacture an image that things have changed. The reality is that very little seems to have changed. Some of the same leaders whose conduct was exposed at the Royal Commission, remain in positions of authority at Yeshivah. Despite the representations made by Yeshivah to the Royal Commission, attacks on Yeshivah’s victims and advocates continue unabated and with the implicit support of the Yeshivah leadership. Unsurprisingly, some of the attacks have come from the family members of paedophiles and those who helped protect them.

Last Friday (5 August), an e-mail from a frustrated member of the Yeshivah community was sent to around 100 other community members, complaining of the behaviour of Rabbi Chaim Tzvi Groner, the son of the late Rabbi Yitzchok Dovid Groner (the founder and director of the Yeshivah Centre during much of the period of the abuse and cover-ups there). Rabbi Groner was one of the trustees of Yeshivah who essentially led it to the Royal Commission. Despite the promise that all trustees would resign their leadership of Yeshivah following the Royal Commission, Rabbi Groner was recently appointed by the Trustees (i.e. including himself) to the Board of Yeshivah for life as part of the ‘new’ Yeshivah governance structure.

The email in question referred to stonewalling by Rabbi Groner and communications which the author had with various media outlets. Now, I know from personal experience, that people rarely involve the media without first trying to resolve things internally. Before I went public with my story of abuse through The Age, I repeatedly tried to engage with the Yeshivah leadership (Rabbi Groner senior) but they refused, leaving me with no alternative. Even after the initial media coverage, I repeatedly tried to engage with the Yeshivah leadership, but again they refused. Had I not gone to the media, the huge strides forward in child protection that have occurred in recent years in the Jewish community – in Australia and beyond – would not have happened. It goes without saying that the only people that really fear media exposure are those with something to hide.

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AUSTRALIA
The Canberra Times

Megan Gorrey

Two former Marist College Canberra teachers have been committed to stand trial in the ACT Supreme Court for allegedly sexually abusing boys at the school in the 1980s.

Ex-Marist brothers John William Chute, 84, and Gregory Joseph Sutton, 65, were among four men police charged with fresh offences as part of an ongoing investigation into historical child sexual abuse in ACT schools.

Chute, also known as Brother Kostka, is facing six charges of indecent assault and two acts of indecency for offences allegedly committed against two students over several years from 1980.

He taught at numerous Marist Brothers high schools and colleges before he moved to the Pearce college in 1976, according to a police statement of facts tendered in court.

The documents said the abuse against one of the alleged victims began when Chute touched the boy’s genitals from behind as the child patted the teacher’s labrador at school one day in 1980.

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NEW YORK (NY)
New York Times

By Colin Moynihan
August 8, 2016

[Note: See the letter discussed in this article. Fr. Eugene J. O’Brien, S.J., Mr. Beck’s superior for many years at Fordham Prep, has also been accused of sexual abuse, as has another Jesuit, Fr. Roy A. Drake, S.J., who taught at the Prep during Beck and O’Brien’s tenure.]

The gathering, in June 1984, was like many others involving recent graduates of Fordham Preparatory School, a Jesuit all-boys secondary school in the Bronx. It took place at a home in Westchester County, where many of Fordham’s students lived. Most of those at the party drank and several ended up spending the night, according to a former Fordham Prep student, Michael Meenan.

That night, Mr. Meenan said, a Fordham Prep teacher who had driven him to the party performed oral sex on him while he slept in a room along with others. When he woke up and pulled away, sliding beneath a coffee table, Mr. Meenan said, the teacher grabbed his leg and tried to drag him back.

Mr. Meenan said that he had told the school’s headmaster about the episode not long after it happened, but that it appeared no action was taken. The teacher remained on the faculty.

Now, 32 years after the episode, Fordham Prep has acknowledged Mr. Meenan’s account of abuse as credible and said the teacher he accused would not return to the school.

“We received an allegation from a Fordham Prep alumnus of the class of 1984 that religious studies teacher, Mr. Fernand Beck, sexually molested him shortly after he graduated,” the school’s president, the Rev. Christopher J. Devron. wrote in a letter dated Aug. 5. “While Mr. Beck has denied this allegation, an investigation led by an independent counsel retained by Fordham Prep determined that the allegation is credible.”

Mr. Beck could not be reached for comment on Monday. Although Father Devron did not identify the person who had lodged the complaint, Mr. Meenan said that it was him and that he had also recently reported the 1984 episode to the Westchester County district attorney’s office. (This reporter also attended Fordham Prep during the same period but did not then know Mr. Meenan or have classes with Mr. Beck.)

“What Beck did was criminal,” Mr. Meenan said during a recent telephone interview. “The school should have fired him long ago and he should have gone to prison.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

By Clive Coleman
Legal correspondent, BBC News

Wanted: highly respected chairman or chairwoman, available for up to 10 years, robust in the face of press scrutiny, and with no ties to the British establishment – it is becoming the most toxic job description in public life. Finding the right person to chair this vast, complex and crucial public inquiry is proving all but impossible.

The departure of Dame Lowell Goddard has plunged the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) into crisis.

And what makes that so bitterly ironic is that she was precisely the person appointed to be the steadying hand on an inquiry that many felt had lost its way before it had even started.

The first chairwoman, Baroness Butler-Sloss, a hugely experienced retired judge, stood down after a week because of concerns relating to the fact she was the sister of the late Lord Havers. He was attorney general at the time of some of the abuse that was to be examined.

Why that had not been considered, or thought to be important, before her appointment remains a mystery.

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CHILE
Publimetro

[The Vatican orders canonical trial against John O’Reilly for sexual abuse.]

El sacerdote fue condenado a cuatros años y un día de libertad vigilada por abuso sexual contra una menor.

La Congregación de los Legionarios de Cristo de Chile informó que el Vaticano, específicamente la Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe, instruyó un juicio canónico en contra del padre John O`Reilly.

Este juicio, según detalla un comunicado publicado por al congregación, se da a partir de “acusaciones presentadas en sede eclesiástica” contra el religioso. El juicio tendrá competencia y determinación exclusiva del Tribunal Eclesiástico en Roma.

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NEW YORK (NY)
New York Post

By Michael Gartland
August 8, 2016

A popular religious studies teacher at a private all-boys school in The Bronx won’t be returning next semester after an investigation found accusations of sexual molestation three decades ago “credible,” officials said Monday.

Fernand Beck, who taught at the Fordham Prep for 47 years, is departing just months after a former student leveled the accusation near the end of the 2015-16 school year.

“We received an allegation from a Fordham Prep alumnus of the class of 1984 that religious studies teacher Mr. Fernand Beck sexually molested him shortly after he graduated,” said a letter that the school sent to parents and alumni last Friday.

“While Mr. Beck has denied this allegation, an investigation led by an independent counsel retained by Fordham Prep determined that the allegation is credible.”

The letter — signed by school president Christopher Devron and principal Joseph Petriello — said the school immediately reported the allegations to law enforcement, the archdiocese and the school’s board.

Devron acknowledged Monday that the allegations aren’t being investigating by law enforcement “since the statute of limitations had long expired.”

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GUAM
KUAM

Updated: Aug 09, 2016

By Krystal Paco

They were established two years ago amid the growing division in the local Catholic Church. The Concerned Catholics of Guam organization recently elected new officers and announced their work plan moving forward.

Under the leadership of their president-elect David Sablan and vice president Andrew Camacho, the group will prioritize the removal of Archbishop Anthony Apuron, the restoration of Monsignor James Benavente and Father Paul Gofigan back to their parishes by a chancery decree, prioritize assistance for alleged victims of sexual abuse by church clergy, support and assist fellow church groups, promote financial transparency, and return the Redemptoris Mater Seminary in Yona back to the Archdiocese of Agana by legal means.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Fr Seán McDonagh
PUBLISHED
09/08/2016

In recent times, I have been writing about climate change and how Ireland is not living up to its obligations. The situation is very serious. Scientists are telling us that 2015 was the hottest year on record and that 2016 is expected to be even warmer.

The issue will lead to the death and displacement of millions of people, but unfortunately our media and politicians have been slow to grapple with it in an effective and competent way. It is only very recently that the leadership of the Catholic Church has begun to take the environmental degradation of the planet seriously.

In June 2015, Pope Francis published an extraordinary encyclical on the care of creation, entitled ‘Laudato Si: On Care For Our Common Home’.

So could it be that Ireland and the Catholic Church might finally be discussing this document in August 2016? Alas, no.

But in the social and economic sphere, we also face other serious challenges today. Research by Oxfam Ireland has pointed out that the share of income going to workers has fallen as the size of the global economy more than doubled over the past three decades.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Anna Nolan
PUBLISHED
09/08/2016

Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin is not happy with how the Maynooth seminary is being run, so he has decided to send his trainee priests to the Irish College in Rome. Other bishops don’t seem too

By the sound of things, there seems to be a few shenanigans going on in Maynooth. Not only is there alleged use of dating sites, you naughty boys, but they’re all ratting on each other through anonymous letters and blogs.

“Dear Vocations Director, I was doing my weekly wash in the laundry room when out of the corner of my I saw Brother Whatsisname swipe right. No, he wasn’t swatting a fly, he was on dating site Grindr.

“I would like to bring this to your attention because, if Bro-ther Whatsisname is on Grindr, why can’t the rest of us? Yours sincerely, Brother Anonymous.”

OK, I’ll be serious for a moment. From the age of 19 to 22 I trained with the Loreto sisters. In my first year as a postulant, I trained in Mount Argus with about 12 other trainee nuns and priests. We had people from Mercy, Daughters of Charity, Franciscan orders. Young men and women. All there to learn the ropes. We were a sweet, young, innocent group who were filled with enthusiasm and vocation.

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NEW YORK
Forward

Josefin Dolsten
August 8, 2016

A rabbi who made headlines for taking young male congregants on sauna trips has found a new job as a spiritual advisor in a health center in Westchester, New York.

Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt is providing spiritual and psychological counseling at Scarsdale Integrative Medicine, a medical center that combines traditional Western medicine with alternative treatment according to its website.

The health center lists Rosenblatt as a counselor and makes no mention of his controversial past, but states he has a wide range of counseling experience.

“Rabbi Rosenblatt has deep experience across a broad spectrum of challenges: coping with serious illness and bereavement, stressful family relationships, parenting challenges, life transitions, loss of a sense of meaning and direction, workplace conflicts,” reads Rosenblatt’s biography on the Scarsdale Integrative Medicine.

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PENNSYLVANIA
York Daily Record

List: Accused priests with ties to Harrisburg diocese

Watch: Clergy abuse victim wants priests publicly named

Watch: Clergy abuse and the Harrisburg diocese

FOR THE FIRST TIME, DETAILS EMERGE ABOUT 15 PRIESTS WITH TIES TO THE HARRISBURG DIOCESE WHO HAVE BEEN ACCUSED OF SEXUALLY ABUSING CHILDREN.

Brandie Kessler, bkessler@ydr.com

The Diocese of Harrisburg has acknowledged by name 15 priests who have been accused of sexually abusing children and who at one time worked in the diocese — including one who served in Dallastown in 1989-90.

The Rev. Raymond Prybis was accused of abuse during his time at a Boston-area parish before he was transferred to York County, according to a personnel file released by the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis in January 2015. The Harrisburg diocese said he did not have a credible allegation of abuse while at St. Joseph’s.

A list of 15 priests, compiled by the York Daily Record, was provided to the diocese on June 14. On July 21, after multiple requests by the Daily Record, the diocese responded to each name on the list. It is believed to be the first time the Harrisburg diocese has confirmed a list of accused priests, including details on where and when they served, and how the diocese responded when the allegations were made.

In 2007, the diocese said publicly that it had received allegations against 24 priests since 1950, but it did not name them. As of Aug. 8, it had not responded to a request for information on all accused priests with ties to the Harrisburg diocese.

The Daily Record’s investigation was spurred by grand jury findings in the neighboring Altoona-Johnstown diocese. That report revealed more than 50 accused priests and hundreds of victims. The YDR’s effort to account for the scope of clergy abuse in the Harrisburg diocese has resulted in findings that include:

* Fifteen priests identified as having been accused of abusing children, including eight never named publicly through the diocese or media.

* In some cases, the Harrisburg diocese’s response to the list of 15 did not say whether an accusation was credible, even if it said action was taken against a priest. The diocese did not provide details in response to follow-up questions from the York Daily Record.

* The diocese continues to hear from – and offer help to – survivors of priest abuse. The effort includes an office within the diocese that has a limitless budget earmarked for survivors.

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MICHIGAN
WOOD

Ken Kolker and 24 Hour News 8 web staff
Published: August 8, 2016

WYOMING, Mich. (WOOD) — Kim James said she was a 12-year-old missionary kid — an MK, as they were called — when the sexual abuse started at a Baptist mission camp in Bangladesh.

“I am out to tell the world after all these years,” James told Target 8, speaking publicly about the allegations for the first time. “The truth must be known.”

Her alleged molester, Dr. Donn Ketcham, came from a church in the city of Wyoming. Then 58, he was a surgeon, family doctor and religious leader at the mission compound in a Bangladesh jungle.

He has admitted to “perverted sin” with her.

James was the first woman to come forward with allegations of sexual assault against the missionary doctor in 1989. Twenty-two more women would follow her example. Many of them call James a hero.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Dan Cox

A man has told a royal commission’s public hearings he was 15 years old when he was first sexually abused by the defrocked former Dean of Newcastle, Graeme Lawrence.

The man, who can only be identified as CKH, has given evidence at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

It is examining the ways the Anglican Diocese of Newcastle responded to child sexual abuse allegations by clergy and lay members of the church.

The man said he became a member of St Alban’s Anglican Church at Griffith around 1979, and was 14 years old when church deacon Andrew Duncan had sex with him during a family holiday on a houseboat in 1980.

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GUAM
RT

When the Catholic Church learned that a priest working at the US island territory of Guam abused some 20 children, the only suitable response it found was to advise him to pray, the cleric, now based in Minnesota, has revealed in an interview.

Reverend Louis Brouillard, 95, admitted to repeatedly molesting boys while serving and teaching at Guam from the 1940s to the 1970s. Guam is an island in the Pacific known for housing a US Naval base.

After confessing his crimes to a local priest, Brouillard was not specifically told to stop, he told the AP. In fact, Brouillard was simply advised by other Church members to “do better” and repeat Hail Mary prayers.

When Brouillard was pressed on about how many boys he abused, he replied: “I have no idea. Maybe 20.”

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KOSOVO
Christian Today

James Macintyre 09 August 2016

A British former Catholic priest wanted on historic child sex abuse charges should not be extradited to the UK because the crimes were committed too long ago, a court in Kosovo ruled on Monday.

Laurence Soper was detained in the western town of Peja – where he had lived for abour five years under the name Andrew Charles Kingston – in May on an international arrest warrant. He is accused of sex offences while he was a teacher in Britain. Soper allegedly committed the offences at St Benedict’s School in Ealing, where he was a teacher in the 1970s and 1980s.

The former abbot, now in his 70s, reportedly jumped bail in 2011 and a European arrest warrant was issued in 2012.

“British citizen Andrew Charles Kingston Soper should not be extradited because offences he has been charged with exceeded the statute of limitations,” a spokeswoman at the Basic Court, the first instance court in Peja, said.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

AUGUST 9, 2016

By Annette Blackwell
AAP

An Anglican bishop baulked at having to defrock an influential senior cleric for sexual misconduct even though a church hearing had recommended he do so, a royal commission has been told.

The commission has been hearing complex and startling evidence on how the Anglican Diocese of Newcastle allegedly took a “do nothing” approach for decades to allegations of widespread child sex abuse by its clergy.

On Tuesday, abuse survivor CKH told how Bishop Brian Farran met him in 2012 and cried over the difficult decision he faced – whether to defrock the former dean of Newcastle Cathedral, Graeme Lawrence.

Bishop Farran was in charge of the dioceses from 2005 to 2012 and will give evidence at this hearing.

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PENNSYLVANIA
York Daily Record

Watch: Clergy abuse victim wants priests publicly named – video

Brandie Kessler, bkessler@ydr.com August 9, 2016

A five-month investigation by the York Daily Record found evidence of allegations of sexual abuse against 15 priests with ties to the Harrisburg diocese.

Their names were provided through news reports, court documents, information from the Harrisburg diocese, interviews with attorneys and others, or from www.BishopAccountability.org, a website that tracks reporting and public documents about accused clergy.

The Harrisburg diocese said survivors of clergy abuse should report the abuse to law enforcement, the state ChildLine number at 1-800-932-0313, and to the diocese at 1-800-626-1608.

Here are details about each of the priests identified by the York Daily Record’s investigation:

* In April 2002, John G. Allen was “confronted by the Diocese with a credible accusation” from an incident 23 years earlier, the diocese said. Allen was pastor at St. Margaret Mary Parish in Harrisburg at the time of the accusation, and he resigned. He was removed from all active ministry, the diocese said, and is now laicized, a term that means he made a request to be removed from the priesthood. According to “The Official Catholic Directory,” Allen was the director of Catholic Youth Activities for the Harrisburg diocese from 1976 to 1977 and from 1979 to 1980.

* Alleged abuse by John Bostwick III took place during 1980 to 1982 and was reported to the diocese in 1996, the diocese said. By then, it said, Bostwick had been reassigned to the Diocese of Richmond, which was notified, and Bostwick was removed from ministry. The Harrisburg diocese said Bostwick had been assigned to Mount St. Mary’s College by the Richmond diocese and helped on weekends with Masses at St. Catherine Laboure Parish in Harrisburg. The Rev. John R. Bostwick III is listed as a contact for Coventry at Horseshoe Mountain in Roseland, Virginia, on the Nelson County, Virginia website. Bostwick could not be reached for comment.

* Gerald Bugge was assigned to St. Anthony of Padua in Lancaster from Aug. 19, 1986, until April 19, 1988, according to the Harrisburg diocese. Bugge was named on a list of priests issued by the Archdiocese of Baltimore in September 2002. The list included priests who had served in the archdiocese and who had been accused, in their lifetimes, of child sexual abuse. The archdiocese posted on its website that, “In 1985, Father Gerald Bugge admitted to engaging in inappropriate sexual activities with a minor in 1985. These allegations were reported to the Redemptorists, and Father Bugge’s faculties were removed.” The Harrisburg diocese said there is no record of a credible allegation against Bugge while he was assigned to the diocese. Bugge is dead.

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BRAZIL
The Tablet

09 August 2016 | by Catholic News Service

A Brazilian priest mentioned in the credits of the Oscar-winning film Spotlight about historic sex abuse in the US committed suicide in a prison cell after being arrested again for suspected child sex abuse, authorities in Minas Gerais state, just north of Rio, said today.

Local authorities said that Father Bonifacio Buzzi hanged himself with bed sheets in his prison cell on Sunday a day after he was re-arrested.

In 1995 he was found guilty of abusing several youngsters in a psychiatric hospital and sentenced to four years of house arrest. In 2004, he was found guilty of molesting an 11-year-old boy but fled before authorities could detain him. He was arrested in 2007 and imprisoned until 2015.

Buzzi, 57, was arrested again in early August in the southern state of Santa Catarina and was taken back to Minas Gerais, where he had been charged with molesting another youth.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio, Pacific Daily News August 9, 2016

A former priest who admitted to sexually abusing altar boys in Guam decades ago took photographs of about 50 boys and their private parts in the 1950s, according to a lawyer representing alleged victims of clergy abuse.

The Rev. Louis Brouillard, now 95, said he’s seeking forgiveness from former altar boys he sexually abused in Guam, where he was a priest from the late 1940s to 1981.

Other alleged victims of Brouillard, now in their 70s, have come forward to talk about the photographs, said attorney David Lujan, who represents several people who have accused local clergy, including Archbishop Anthony Apuron, of sexual abuse and rape.

Brouillard, who now lives in Minnesota, said he does not remember the names of the boys, including Leo Tudela, who publicly accused Brouillard as one of three church members who abused him as an altar boy in Guam, starting in 1956.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

John Weafer

Thousands of Irishmen have entered through the gates of Maynooth College with the intention of becoming diocesan priests, and while most of them subsequently decided against priesthood or left following ordination, most of them entered the seminary as idealistic young men, believing they were responding to God’s call. By the time they left the seminary, many had become disillusioned and critical of the seminary system.

For example, priests who were students before Vatican II criticise the seminary because of its regimented nature and ‘pernickety’ rules, which reflected the strictly hierarchical Church and cultic priesthood that prevailed in Irish society at the time.

While the seminary became less restrictive following Vatican II, and the servant-leader model of priesthood had effectively replaced the cultic model, nevertheless, many priests ordained following Vatican II believe that the seminary did not prepare them for the priesthood or life as an adult. Ironically, in recent years, the seminary has been criticised by younger students who perceive that it has become too liberal and that it lacks an ‘authentic faith base’.

Seminary life can be difficult at the best of times, and especially if you are a young man, struggling with your sexuality, be it heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual, and you feel that you are part of a ‘soap opera/reality show’, where people get to comment on your life and judge you without knowing you or understanding your life.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

The trustees of St Patrick’s College Maynooth are to meet before the end of August to address the crisis at the seminary.

It is understood the Catholic primate Archbishop Eamon Martin, who is away, has been in contact with Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin and St Patrick’s College president Msgr Hugh Connolly.

The college has been at the centre of controversy for more than a week since it emerged Archbishop Martin was no longer going to send Dublin seminarians to it because of the “poisonous” atmosphere.

He said students were accessing gay dating apps and anonymous letters were being circulated accusing seminarians of misconduct.

The college trustees are the four Catholic Archbishops in Ireland and 13 diocesan bishops.

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ISRAEL
Frum Follies

Israel’s Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi, David Lau issued a public statement about child abuse. As far as I know it is his first to date.

Below is a translation of its flowery language gracefully executed by *Danny Wool. An image of the original in Hebrew is at the end of the article.

It is addressed to religious educators. I suspect it was written in response the arrests of yeshiva teachers last week. See, 6 Alleged Offenders, 22 Children (Ages 2-10), Over 11 Years in Tel Aviv Belz School.

It is interesting that he managed not to make public statements about other sex abuse scandals involving prestigious religious teachers such as Motti Elon, Ezra Sheinberg, Naftali Maklev, Meir Pogrow, Elimelech Meisels, Eliezer Berland, Ben Tzion Sobel, and Matis Weinberg. Lau doubtlessly knows of many others who escaped public exposure, criminal prosecution, or any sort of consequences.

But he has finally spoken, so let’s read it and then evaluate it.

Tammuz 29, 5776

August 4, 2016

To All Who Work Educating the Children of Israel in Good Faith

Greetings,

Re: Awareness of Injuries Caused to Students

Much to my regret, terrible incidents occurring in our courtyards and domains have recently been made public. Cases in which boys and girls alike have been hurt in their homes or educational institutions have taken place recently, shocking anyone with a heart. How painful it is to hear that those very places, which should be a support, a stronghold, and a source of succor for our children and youth have turned into a nightmare and source of terror for them.

At this time, it is incumbent on parents, educators both male and female, family members, and anyone else involved in the sacred work of education to open their eyes and assist anyone who needs help insofar as possible. Turning away is not an answer to these difficult and painful issues, and everyone must know that they bear responsibility, even if the matter does not affect them directly.

I do not want to go into detail about matters for which modesty is preferable, and I am disgusted by the very fact that we must refer to them at all. Nevertheless, it has become a necessity for which there is no shame. All of you in particular for whom pure education is your greatest priority, and that is where you have turned, have been laden with the great burden of opening your eyes and paying maximum attention so that you can identify phenomena that might harm the delicate souls of our young.

Under no circumstances should these matters be swept under the rug, nor should people avoid dealing with these harsh phenomena, which, if not stopped, could lead many more people to be hurt. Heaven forbid that we stand by in silence. Instead we must increase awareness and continue teaching in the way of modesty, in the way of the Torah, toward values deeply rooted in the ways of Israel’s ancestors.

May you be strengthened in your teaching out of love,

David Lau
Chief Rabbi of Israel

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VIRGINIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

The process of choosing an appropriate firm was “flawed” they say
Mennonite committee apologizes to victim for excluding her
Survivors applaud this “rare public stand” by church leaders

Statement by SNAP Leader Barbra Graber, 540-214-8874, mennonite@snapnetwork.org, August 8, 2016

Today, a church panel ended their involvement in an investigation into a former Mennonite university vice president accused of sexual abuse, stalking and making violent threats. We applaud their compassionate move. We hope that officials will still take the Panel’s original recommendation of GRACE as the chosen investigating group or go back to the drawing board and this time be genuinely inclusive.

In August of 2014, Lauren Shifflett reported the crimes she suffered by church member Luke Hartman, to Lindale Mennonite Church officials. Instead of reporting it, church officials and possibly other Mennonite agencies covered it up.

In January of 2016, Hartman was arrested for solicitation of prostitution.

Through out this time, since 2011, he was vice president of enrollment at Eastern Mennonite University.

Under pressure, Mennonite officials agreed to launch an outside investigation into the church’s response to these and other reports of misconduct in the Mennonite community of Harrisonburg, VA that soon went beyond Hartman’s misdeeds against Lauren Shifflett.

After research and deliberation, the church-appointed Panel for Sexual Abuse Prevention recommended Boz Tchividjian’s GRACE (Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment) as their top choice for the job. Mennonite survivor groups OurStoriesUntold and the Anabaptist Mennonite Chapter of SNAP agreed. So did Lauren Shifflett.

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ISRAEL
JTA

August 8, 2016

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli chief rabbi David Lau published an open letter calling on educators to deal seriously with every report of child abuse of any kind.

The rabbi released the letter Sunday evening at a conference of haredi Orthodox rabbis. It was first reported on the haredi Orthodox Kipa news website.

“To my great pain we’ve recently witnessed horrific cases of abuse in our midst; cases in which children were hurt in their houses and their schools. How painful it is to hear that the very places which are supposed to provide a security and strength for our children, have become places of fear,” the letter read.

“At this time, parents, teachers, relatives and all those engaged in the holy work of education must keep their eyes open and assist those who need it in any way possible. Burying our heads in the sand is not the answer to these difficult and painful issues, and everyone must take responsibility, even if these things do not affect him directly,” Lau wrote.

The letter comes amid several new investigations and indictments of child sex abuse in the haredi Orthodox community.

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ISRAEL
Jerusalem Post

His letter comes in the wake of several indictments in recent months against members of the haredi community for sexual assault against children.

Chief Rabbi David Lau has issued a letter to educators in the haredi sector calling on them to report suspicions of child abuse to the authorities and not to sweep such claims under the carpet.

His letter comes in the wake of several indictments in recent months against members of the haredi community for sexual assault against children.

Last week, an indictment was issued against six teachers in a hassidic elementary school in Tel Aviv, while another indictment was issued in May against a well-known haredi rabbi for raping three of his nieces hundreds of times over several years.

In July, an indictment was issued against a leading Breslov rabbi, Rabbi Eliezer Berland, for sexual assault involving a minor.

In Lau’s letter, written last week and made public on Monday, the chief rabbi noted that “of late, terrible phenomena have become known in our court and our sector,” in incidents in which “children have been harmed at home or in educational institutions.” Such cases had been incredibly painful to hear of, he wrote.

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GEORGIA
WTOC

By Don Logana, Anchor

SAVANNAH, GA (WTOC) –
An effort is underway to reach out to victims of clergy abuse in Savannah.

We caught up with Michael Corbett, the local director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), to learn more about the newly formed group’s mission.

Last month, Catholic Diocese of Savannah paid out a record $4.5 million for a priest abuse case involving a child. Not all victims can afford lawsuits. Victims and advocates we spoke to say many victims of clergy abuse suffer in silence alone, and even money doesn’t heal the wounds.

“Money can help provide some necessities, relieve some anxieties, but it can’t bring back your childhood or all the years we lost in the meantime,” said Corbett.

Corbett lives and works in Savannah, but he was a 17-year-old teenager in Boston when he was sexually assaulted by a Catholic Priest, Father Robert Gale. His story – along with many others – was told in the Academy Award-winning movie, Spotlight, which is based on the award-winning expose on child sex abuse in the Boston Archdiocese.

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ARIZONA
Arizona Republic

A minister at Grace Fellowship Church in Buckeye was held on suspicion of voyeurism and unlawful recording after a mother demanded the cellphone from a man bending down in front of her daughter’s changing room at a local store, according to court documents.

The mother said she observed a man holding a cellphone under the door of a changing room her daughter was using at a store near Watson and Yuma roads. She confronted the man, asking him to give her his phone. The woman saw video footage of the girl on the phone, according to court documents.

A Buckeye police officer took possession of the phone after he was called to the store about 10:45 a.m. Saturday, documents said.

Christopher David Santos, 31, admitted to officers that he activated the recording feature and put his cellphone under the changing room door and planned to view the footage for his sexual stimulation, according to court documents.

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ARIZONA
ABC 15

[with video]

BUCKEYE, AZ – Police say an employee from a Buckeye church has been arrested after being caught tape recording a young girl in a dressing room at a department store.

Christopher Santos, currently employed at Grace Fellowship Church, was taken into custody on Saturday after he was caught taking video on his phone of a 14-year-old female changing in a dressing room.

Officers were called to the scene near Watson and Yuma Roads on a report of a male subject who had been caught videotaping persons inside the store’s dressing rooms.

The victim’s mother caught him in the act and demanded his cell phone, the device the suspect was using to record. She then called police and handed his cell phone over to upon arrival. They found the video of the victim on the phone and it has been impounded for evidence.

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ARIZONA
12 News

BUCKEYE, Ariz. – A youth pastor was arrested Saturday after he was caught recording video of a teenage girl in the Bealls Outlet’s changing room.

According to police, 31-year-old Christopher Santos was seen holding his cell phone under the store’s changing room door while a 15-year-old girl was in there.

The girl told police she wasn’t aware she was being recorded and was only wearing her underwear at the time.

The teen’s mom saw Santos bending over with his phone underneath the changing room door. She confronted him and her daughter took his phone.

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GREECE
Tornos News

A 52-year old Orthodox priest is facing investigations after making sexual advances to a 15-year old girl from Larissa, Greece. The priest, who according to reports serves in a parish outside Greece, met the minor through Facebook, and what started out as an innocent friendship in April with comments on various issues, gradually turned into a sexual attraction on his part for the 15-year old student.

The priest, who used his real name on his Facebook profile, started messaging the young girl indecent images and making clear sexual advances and suggestions to the minor. His obsession with the girl resulted in him traveling to Larissa in an effort to persuade the her to abandon her home and follow him abroad.

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GEORGIA
Savannah Now

Aug. 9. The confidential support group – for both religious sex abuse victims and for their families – will be at 7 p.m. Aug. 9. The location is not being made public in order to protect the privacy of the participants. SNAP (Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests) has no affiliation with any church organization and is open to victims hurt in any denomination. Those interested in attending should contact Savannah SNAP Director Michael Corbett at 508-207-7418, Savannah@SNAPnetwork.org or SNAP National Outreach Director Barbara Dorris at 314-503-0003, bdorris@SNAPnetwork.org for meeting location.

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UNITED STATES
The Mennonite

The Mennonite Church USA Panel on Sexual Abuse Prevention has terminated its participation in the investigation into the handling of reports of sexual abuse at Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, Va., Virginia Mennonite Conference and Lindale Mennonite Church, Linville, Va. On Aug. 2, EMU announced that it had contracted with D. Stafford & Associates (DSA) and Mennonite Church USA, VMC and Lindale were in contract negotiations with the group.

On Aug. 3, in a statement to The Mennonite (and published on the MC USA website Aug. 8), the panel wrote, “We cannot affirm the process that resulted in the selection of D. Stafford for EMU, or any process that does not involve Lauren Shifflett…We are sorry for the ways in which we have been complicit in this, and view it as a missed opportunity. Now we are choosing to support Lauren, victims and survivors over this flawed process.” Read the full statement.

On April 12, Shifflett posted an online account of her experience of abuse by Luke Hartman, former vice president of enrollment at EMU, followed by an April 21 blog written by her sister, Marissa Buck, listing her concerns about the handling of these reports by Lindale and EMU.

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LOUISIANA
Louisiana Law Review

Oct. 22, 2014

By Julie Love Taylor, Senior Associate

By now, most Americans are familiar with the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse scandal, in which the Church has been criticized for its handling—or rather, mishandling—of priests who sexually abused minors.[1] Recently, Catholics in Louisiana were reminded of this scandal but with a slightly different twist. In April 2014, the Louisiana Supreme Court issued a decision involving alleged sexual abuse—not by a priest, but by a church parishioner—and a priest’s failure to report that abuse.[2] The Supreme Court’s holding potentially opened the door to a sticky situation: Can a court compel a priest to break the seal of confession when the penitent is a minor alleging sexual abuse.

I. The Supreme Court Case: Parents of Minor Child v. Charlet

In 2008, 14-year-old Rebecca Mayeux reached out to Fr. Jeff Bayhi, a priest in the Diocese of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, through the Sacrament of Confession. According to the petition, Mayeux revealed to him that George J. Charlet, Jr., a 64-year-old fellow parishioner, sexually abused her.[3] Charlet, a well-known and active parishioner of Our Lady of Assumption in the Diocese of Baton Rouge, allegedly sent Rebecca emails “laced with seductive nuances” and ultimately kissed and fondled her.[4]

Rebecca met with Fr. Bayhi on three separate occasions, confiding in him that Charlet “inappropriately touched her, kissed her, and told her that ‘he wanted to make love to her.’”[5] Fr. Bayhi allegedly told Rebecca that the situation was “her problem” and to “[s]weep it under the floor and get rid of it.”[6] Subsequent to Fr. Bayhi’s dismissal of Rebecca’s pleas, the abuse allegedly continued.[7]

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BRASIL
El Nuevo Herald

EFE

BRASILIA
El sacerdote brasileño Bonifacio Buzzi, quien el pasado viernes había sido detenido por segunda vez por un supuesto abuso sexual de menores, fue hallado sin vida en su celda, al parecer víctima de un suicidio, informaron hoy fuentes oficiales.

Buzzi, de 57 años, había ido a prisión en 2007, condenado a veinte años por pederastia, pero obtuvo la libertad condicional siete años después por buena conducta.

Sin embargo, la semana pasada fue acusado de abusar sexualmente de dos niños en la localidad de Tres Coraçoes, en el estado de Minas Gerais, y un juez ordenó que regresara a prisión.

Según las autoridades de Minas Gerais, Buzzi fue detenido el pasado viernes y este domingo fue encontrado sin vida en una celda que sólo él ocupaba.

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BRAZIL
Reuters

A Brazilian priest mentioned in the Catholic clergy sex abuse film “Spotlight” was found dead in a prison cell after he was arrested again for suspected pedophilia, authorities said on Monday.

Father Bonifacio Buzzi, 57, hanged himself with a sheet in a jail in the state of Minas Gerais where he was taken after his arrest on Friday, the state government said in a statement.

A decade ago Buzzi was convicted of abusing a 10-year-old boy in Mariana, Minas Gerais and jailed from 2007 to 2015. He was arrested last week following criminal complaints that he had molested two boys aged 9 and 13.

Buzzi was cited among the pedophilia cases listed at the end of “Spotlight,” the Oscar-winning 2015 film based on the Boston Globe newspaper’s investigation of sexual abuses by Catholic priests and efforts by the Boston Archdiocese to cover them up.

Allegations against Buzzi first emerged in the 1990s in his home state of Santa Catarina. In 1995 he was convicted of molesting two boys in his parish near Mariana after their parents accused him of performing oral sex on their children.

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LOUISIANA
The Times-Picayune

By Emily Lane, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune

Former First Baptist Church of New Orleans youth minister Jonathan Bailey was sentenced Monday (Aug. 8) to serve 10 years in prison after admitting to sexual misconduct involving a member of the church who was 13 when the abuse began.

Prosecutor Bonycle Thornton read a statement in court from the young woman who Bailey victimized, describing how while serving then as her youth minister Bailey “worked hard to get me to trust him instead of my family.”

The victim’s father testified that the family agreed to the plea deal despite the notion that no sentence seemed long enough, in order to prevent further abuse and protect his daughter.

Bailey pleaded guilty to six counts of molestation, five counts of indecent behavior with a juvenile and one count of obstruction of justice. Though he was sentenced to 27 years total, the plea agreement allows him to serve the sentences at the same time, meaning he will serve a total of 10 years in prison. He must also register as a sex offender, Orleans Criminal District Court Judge Robin Pittman noted.

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NEW ZEALAND
Otago Daily Times

Editorial

What a shambles. The supposedly august and sweeping Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in England and Wales appears increasingly tenuous after the departure of its third chairwoman in two years.

British Home Secretary Amber Rudd announced last week that New Zealand judge Dame Lowell Goddard had resigned from the inquiry, which was established in 2014 in the wake of the Jimmy Savile sex abuse scandal and tasked with investigating how state and other institutions handled their duty of care to protect children.

Dame Lowell had been in the job for 18 months. The announcement appeared to have come out of the blue and no explanation was given. Dame Lowell later made a public statement in which she commented about the inquiry’s “legacy of failure” which had been “hard to shake off”. It appeared very much as if she was simultaneously admitting defeat and laying blame.

That “legacy” is certainly hard to ignore. The two previous chairwomen (retired English judge Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss and lawyer and former Lord Mayor of London Fiona Woolf) had been forced to resign (after only a week and two months in the job respectively) after revelations they had close links with establishment figures.

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SCOTLAND
The Courier

by Aileen Robertson
August 8 2016

A survivor of sex abuse has held a vigil outside St Andrews Cathedral in Glasgow.

Dave Sharp, 57, organised the event, during which candles were lit and a piper played a lament to remember victims.

Before the event, he told The Courier he intended to invite church leaders to pray with him for those who had lost their lives to abuse.

Mr Sharp, who has been campaigning for justice for abuse victims, raised banners claiming victims like himself had been “abandoned” by the Catholic Church.

He said: “We need the Scottish public to help us to get the Scottish Government and the church leaders to stop turning their backs on us and to come out and talk to us about what they are doing about helping all those people who continue to suffer in isolation and addiction.”

Mr Sharp gave evidence to police as part of a recent investigation into historic abuse at St Ninian’s School in Falkland.

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IRELAND
Irish Mirror

8 AUG 2016
BY CORMAC O’SHEA

The former pupil said smashing the skull of a Christian Brother gave him ‘satisfaction’ after abuse he suffered

A former pupil at a Christian Brothers school has described how he took revenge for classroom abuse by digging up a Brother’s grave and smashing their skull.

The man said he had been beaten with a leather strap in front of his classmates when he was a pupil at the school in Ireland.

Giving his name only as ‘Dave’, he told Niall Boylan on Classic Hits 4fm, how he later gained revenge for the treatment he received.

He said: “When I was about 15 or 16 a few of the lads went up to an orchard, and in the orchard there used to be a graveyard and you could see half of the coffins.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

Reading reports in the Herald about the royal commission’s probe into child sexual abuse in the Newcastle Anglican diocese has made Topics feel sick to the stomach.

The reports about top brass in the clergy knowing nothing and not recalling crucial events were shocking to say the least.

“I Can’t Recall,” the Herald’s headline said last Friday, preceded by “I Knew Nothing” the day prior.

This is serious stuff, no doubt. But this amnesia has an almost absurd comic aspect to it.

This is why the headlines made Topics immediately think of Sergeant Schultz. Anyone who watched the TV show Hogan’s Heroes would remember Schultz – the portly prisoner-of-war camp guard at Stalag 13.

John Banner played the big-hearted Schultz in the show, which ran from 1965 to 1971.

Afraid of being entangled in trouble, Schultz often turned a blind eye to the prisoner’s tricky transgressions.

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AUSTRALIA
Australian

DAN BOX
Crime reporterSydney
@DanBox10

The Anglican Archbishop of Perth warned two youth leaders they would face legal action if they continued to complain about ­alleged child abuse committed by a senior priest, a royal commission has heard.

Archbishop Roger Herft “was more interested in standing up for (the alleged abuser) than listening to the issue,” one of the youth leaders said in a witness statement tendered to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Robert Wall told the commission he met Archbishop Herft in about 1994-95, when he was the bishop of Newcastle, in NSW, to report the allegations against Graeme Lawrence, the dean of the city’s cathedral.

Mr Lawrence, who was ­defrocked in 2012 after having group sex with a teenager, has been identified in evidence to the commission as part of a “Gang of Three” church officials who protected serial paedophile priest Peter Rushton.

The commission yesterday heard a note of a 2015 meeting with former diocesan trustee Keith Allen records him saying “the biggest concern in the Newcastle diocese was Bishop Roger Herft”. The file note records Mr Allen “indicated that Herft will be in trouble”, counsel assisting the commission Naomi Sharp said.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Huffington Post

Will Black
Writer with a background in anthropology and mental health care

A day in the life of a child can be very long, intense and memorable. Hopefully most readers can remember some wonder-filled days from their childhood. Special days out with family or adventures with friends, these hours become indelibly imprinted on our minds. They become part of us.

Unfortunately, it is the same with bad experiences. Experiences of child abuse, for example, can remain with the individual for life, casting a shadow over the world. These experiences can also have a detrimental impact on relationships – with relatives, oneself and with society itself – including social institutions that are meant to be trusted.

Therefore, when survivors of abuse have courageously disclosed their experiences (often to then be dismissed), campaigned relentlessly and repeatedly returned to horrific events in a quest for justice, being let down by a public inquiry is a betrayal. But this is exactly what has happened, again and again and again.

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), was finally established as a statutory inquiry in early 2015, after decades of allegations about children abused within institutions. After the death of BBC presenter and prolific paedophile Jimmy Savile, in 2011, there was a flood of reports of his crimes and those of other abusers in positions of influence. As well as allegations about individuals, a broad range of institutions were accused of failing to protect children and covering up abuse. Politicians were among those accused of abusing children and aiding cover-ups.

When it emerged that more than 100 files pertaining to abuse by ‘VIPs’ had gone missing from the Home Office, then prime minister David Cameron made the outrageous suggestion that those alleging abuse and a cover-up are ‘conspiracy theorists’, Theresa May, home secretary at the time, was less dismissive, stating: “There might have been a cover-up. I cannot stand here and say the Home Office was not involved in a cover-up in the 1980s, and that is why I am determined to get to the truth.”

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ISRAEL
Haaretz

Yair Ettinger Aug 08, 2016

The multiplicity of investigations and indictments against sex offenders in recent weeks, primarily involving the ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) community, has spurred Israel’s chief Ashkenazi rabbi, David Lau, to take the unusual step of speaking out on the issue.

Lau issued a call to Haredi parents and educators to take seriously any stories of sexual assaults of children and to increase awareness of and vocal opposition to any such incidents.

“It is absolutely forbidden to sweep these things under the rug and to evade dealing with these difficult phenomena which, if they are not stopped, could cause numerous other souls to be hurt,” Lau wrote, in a letter to a conference of Haredi teachers.

The letter was written during an especially turbulent time, during which every few days a new horrifying story has emerged or an indictment filed on suspicion of sex crimes against women or minors in family frameworks and educational institutions alike.

Among other developments, charges have been filed against six teachers in a Talmud Torah school in central Tel Aviv; a man from a famous rabbinical family has been indicted for allegedly abusing his daughters; and charges have been filed as well against a senior rabbi at a Jerusalem yeshiva, who is accused of serious sexual assaults, including rape, over a period of years, of members of his family since they were young girls – a case that may mark a turning point in the Haredi public’s approach to sex crimes.

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LOUISIANA
Think Progress

Jack Jenkins

It was 2008, and Rebecca Mayeux was living a nightmare.

Just 14 years old at the time, she was being sexually harassed and abused by a member of her church, 64-year-old George Charlet Jr. According to Mayeux*, Charlet bombarded her with emails “laced with seductive nuances” over the course of a summer, slowly escalating his inappropriate advances before ultimately kissing and fondling her.

As if the abuse wasn’t enough, Mayeux had to sit in the same pews as Charlet every Sunday at Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Church, a tiny country parish about 35 miles north of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Shaken and afraid, Mayeux, like so many children who endure sexual abuse, felt too ashamed to tell her parents about her ordeal, fearing they would judge her.

Instead, she fled to the person she thought she could trust the most: Father Jeff Bayhi, her parish priest.

Mayeux says she visited Bayhi on three occasions to reveal intimate details about her abuse, always meeting under the context of Catholic confession. She says she told him about her unsettling experience, which included an avalanche of suggestive emails, “obsessive” phone calls, and Charlet saying he “wanted to make love to her” before inappropriately touching her.

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KOSOVA
Today

PRISTINA – A former priest wanted on child sex abuse charges from the 1970s and 1980s should not be extradited to Britain because the crimes were committed too long ago, a court in Kosovo ruled on Monday.

Lawrence Soper was detained in the western town of Peja, where he had lived for 4-5 years under the name Andrew Charles Kingston, in May on an international arrest warrant. He is accused of sex offences while he was a teacher in Britain.

British media said the former abbot from Ealing, west London, now in his 70s, had jumped bail in 2011 and a European arrest warrant was issued.

“British citizen Andrew Charles Kingston Soper should not be extradited because offences he has been charged with exceeded the statute of limitations,” a spokeswoman at the Basic Court, the first instance court in Peja, said.

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GUAM
KUAM

Updated: Aug 08, 2016

By Krystal Paco

It’s become a Sunday ritual. Dozens of Catholics picket in front of the Hagatna Cathedral before Sunday morning mass. Their signs demand for to have Archbishop Anthony Apuron defrocked as well as question the actions made by Guam’s interim archbishop Savio Hon Tai Fai. Archbishop Hon was appointed to Guam from the Vatican amid allegations of molestation made against Apuron.

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