ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A church deacon who admitted encouraging a boy to expose himself on a webcam has been jailed.
Peter Keeley-Pannett, 71, from Brighton, used a webcam to meet boys as young as 13 in chatrooms.

He had pleaded guilty at Guildford Crown Court to making indecent images of children over a two-year period.

Judge Robert Fraser sentenced Keeley-Pannett to 32 months in prison and ordered him to remain on the sex offenders register for life.

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CALIFORNIA
Patch

By PAIGE AUSTIN (Patch Staff)
November 19, 2015

Another woman has come forward alleging a Lake Forest church youth pastor sexually assaulted her.

The woman came forward last week after the Orange County Sheriff’s Department announced the arrest of Sean Patrick Aday, a 38-year-old pastor at Grace Community Church in Lake Forest.

Aday was arrested Nov. 7 on suspicion of rape, sodomy, penetration with a foreign object and sexual assault. He allegedly assaulted several women, ranging in age from their late teens to early 20s, at the church.

Authorities believe there may be more victims who haven’t come forward yet.

Sometimes victims think they are the only ones, and they don’t come forward until they find out that others have been assaulted, said Orange County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Lt. Jeff Hallock.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

Abuse survivors who have been under-compensated by the Anglican Church in Queensland could have payments topped up, a royal commission has heard.

The Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane, Phillip Aspinall, who was continuing his evidence to a child sex abuse commission hearing into private school St Paul’s, said on Friday an independent umpire examine settlements already made by the diocese.

Dr Aspinall said he was satisfied recent payments met the benchmarks set by the royal commission, but there would be a review of all settlements made “without the benefit of those benchmarks”.

The diocese “will be very open to making some adjustments”, he said.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

There has been shock and disbelief in the wake of an ABC investigation that has revealed alleged Anglican clergy abuse had links to powerful sectors of the Hunter’s community.

Abuse allegations have gripped the diocese for almost a decade, culminating in the defrocking of several priests.

The ABC has revealed politicians, doctors, lawyers, teachers and business leaders are under investigation.

There is evidence alleged child sexual abuse within the Newcastle Anglican diocese stretched to the upper echelons of the church.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Australian Associated Press
Thursday 19 November 2015

The Anglican Church in Brisbane is still refusing to refund fees to former students who suffered abuse, despite the church’s clear policy to do so, a royal commission has been told.

A resumed inquiry into how the diocese handles child sex abuse complaints was told on Friday an abuse survivor’s request for school fees to be refunded was rejected this week.

The church’s director of professional standards in southern Queensland, Gregory Milles, told the abuse survivor it “wouldn’t be policy” for the church to refund fees, the inquiry heard.

The archbishop of Brisbane, Phillip Aspinall, said the refund policy was implemented “some weeks ago”.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Leonie Mellor

Brisbane’s Anglican Archbishop Phillip Aspinall has admitted to the child sexual abuse royal commission that protocols to deal with complaints have not always been followed.

Dr Aspinall resumed giving evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney today, which has been looking at how two prestigious Brisbane boys schools handled sexual abuse complaints.

Last week, the Anglican Church said it would reimburse tuition fees for all students who suffered sexual abuse at their schools within the Diocese of Brisbane, which covers much of southern Queensland.

One of those schools, St Paul’s School at Bald Hills on Brisbane’s north side, employed two men who molested students, former school counsellor Kevin John Lynch and music teacher and convicted paedophile Gregory Robert Knight.

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AUSTRALIA
The Standard Times

Only days after Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane Phillip Aspinall made a public promise to refund the tuition fees of school sex crime victims, an abuse survivor who made the request was rebuffed, an inquiry has heard.

A public hearing into the abuse of dozens of boys at two Queensland private schools heard that redress policies for victims in the Anglican system were ignored.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was told that an Anglican school abuse survivor who sought help on Monday was offered an apology rather than a refund of his school fees and told his counselling sessions would be rationed due to the expense.

Kevin Kelso, a lawyer representing a number of sex abuse victims, cross-examined Dr Aspinall on whether the Anglican Church Southern Queensland was genuine in its offer to assist victims.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Argus

Press Association

A former church deacon who used Skype to make contact with vulnerable young boys has been jailed for 32 months for a string of sex offences.

Peter Keeley-Pannett, 71, stood quietly in the dock at Guildford Crown Court, Surrey, as Judge Robert Fraser told him that he “remains a high risk of serious harm to children”.

Pannett, of Brighton, was a non-stipendiary deacon in the Diocese of Chichester in West Sussex until his arrest last November.

Keeley-Pannett used a webcam to meet boys as young as 13 years old in chatrooms. His offences spanned around two years from 2010, the court heard.

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MINNESOTA
Duluth News Tribune

By Tom Olsen on Nov 19, 2015

A prosecutor has fired back against a Hibbing priest who is seeking to have his child sexual abuse charges dismissed, alleging that evidence shows the Rev. Brian Michael Lederer demonstrated a pattern of targeting young girls.

Assistant St. Louis County Attorney Jeff Vlatkovich said in a 13-page letter to 6th Judicial District Judge David Ackerson that allegations of inappropriate touching made by four girls, along along with suspected child pornography recovered from Lederer’s computer, point to “an aggressive and/or sexual intent.”

“The defendant’s conduct for a 28-year-old man can only be viewed as designed to obtain some sort of sexual gratification,” Vlatkovich wrote.

Lederer, who worked at Blessed Sacrament Parish and Assumption Catholic School in Hibbing, faces seven felony charges related to the alleged inappropriate touching of the girls and possession of child pornography.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Nick McLaren

A Catholic priest and former teacher has given evidence in court he has no recollections of the person he allegedly indecently assaulted 27 years ago.

On the second and final day of the hearing at Albion Park Local Court, Father Patrick Kervin said he taught commerce to the alleged victim in the 1980s, and recognised his own signature on the student’s report.

But apart from that, he said he had no recollection of what the student looked like, and rejected allegations he used the school public address system to call the student to his office.

Fr Kervin also denied indecently assaulting the then 15-year old.

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UNITED STATES
Lincoln Journal Star

by L. Kent Wolgamott | Lincoln Journal Star

The Reel Story: This accurate, involving drama that tells the story of the Boston Globe’s investigation of the Catholic Church sexual abuse cover-up is one of best journalism movies ever and one of the top films of 2015.

In 2001, a new editor arrived at the Boston Globe from the Miami Herald. A newcomer, Marty Baron notices a column about a local priest accused of having sexually abused dozens of young parishioners over three decades.

Ignoring resistance from veteran staffers and those outside the newsroom who said taking on the Catholic Church in overwhelmingly Catholic Boston would be dangerous and destructive, Baron instructs the paper’s Spotlight team to follow up on the column — and not just to seek out individual cases of abuse but to unearth the system that allowed the abuse to continue.

Two years later, the Spotlight team won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism for its reporting of the Church’s cover-up of pedophilia perpetrated by more than 70 priests.

“Spotlight” tells the story of the reporting team and its investigation with accuracy, great detail and an understanding of the journalists and their world. The drama is a compelling detective story, even though the final outcome of the investigation is known.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

MEDIA FOOL OF THE WEEK
STEP FORWARD MIKE (‘I’M A SNEERING SECULARIST’) SECCOMBE

While on the topic of George Pell, let’s consider Australia’s most boring newspaper. Morry Schwartz’s The Saturday Paper — edited by Erik Jensen — goes to print on Thursdays and can be found in Melbourne and Sydney inner-city coffee shops on Saturdays. Being read by leftist sandal-wearers, weather and occupational health and safety concerns permitting. Per courtesy of such up-market advertisers (last week) as Aesop signature stores, the taxpayer subsidised Wheeler Centre, Mercedes-Benz, 166 Gertrude apartments (Fitzroy, of course), Laithwaite’s Wine People and — you’ve guessed it — Rolex.

Since there is rarely any news in The [Boring] Saturday Paper, Nancy’s (male) co-owner reads the Schultz/Jensen offering on Mondays. After lunch, of course. Last Monday the weekly-tabloid-for-Rolex-wearers arrived wrapped in its very own hoarding. Unravelled it read: “The Many Trials Of George Pell”. See below.

This was one of The Saturday Paper’s “Look mum no news” occasions. Mike Seccombe’s Page One lead, which spilled to cover the whole of Page Four, was also titled “The many trials of George Pell”. The header read as follows:

As Cardinal Pell prepares for another child sex abuse hearing, his “company man” style has made him enemies within the Vatican. Mike Seccombe reports.

Mike “Smirk” Seccombe was not born into the Catholic Church — nor has he converted to Catholicism. Moreover, Mr Seccombe has not demonstrated any expertise in theology or religious history. Seccombe’s piece was yet another Saturday Paper rant at Cardinal George Pell, who holds the position of Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy — the third highest ranking official in the Holy See.

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UNITED STATES
MLive

By John Serba | jserba@mlive.com

on November 20, 2015

“Spotlight” is destined to be one of the great film procedurals. A true-story chronicle of The Boston Globe’s towering expose of the Catholic Church’s sexual-abuse scandal, its driving force is due diligence in the service of a moral imperative. In the spirit of its subjects – investigative newspaper reporters – it’s a workmanlike film, focused tightly on details. It’s not flashy, just committed.

Tom McCarthy directs with so much propulsive purpose, he renders the process of four journalists sifting needles from dozens of haystacks engrossing and suspenseful. He assembles a research montage, all quick cuts between libraries and cubicles, data entry and spreadsheets. A reporter makes a cross-town dash to a courthouse to request paperwork. One of the highest-drama moments is a slow zoom out from a speaker phone, the picture literally getting bigger as the source on the other end of the line tells four reporters some key information.

The probability of such moments being suspenseful and thrilling is low, but here we are, eyes on the screen, enraptured. “Spotlight” compels us to pay attention. And you’ll want to. Minutiae is drama when the stakes are high.

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NEW YORK
27east

By Erin McKinley

A Hampton Bays family is suing the Diocese of Rockville Centre and the Mission of St. Vincenet De Paul, saying they failed to protect an 8-year-old girl from being sexually assaulted by a now fugitive former priest.

Filed on November 13 in State Supreme Court, the suit stems from charges against Augusto Cortez for inappropriately touching a girl who was 6 years old at the time of the assault and, ultimately, giving her a sexually transmitted disease.

According to the suit, both the Mission of St. Vincent De Paul and the Diocese failed to protect the little girl by failing to remove him from the order of St. Vincent De Paul, and for lying about circumstances surrounding a previous case involving a 12-year-old girl in Brooklyn in 2008.

The Diocese of Rockville Centre is a district under the direction of the Roman Vatican that comprises of Nassau and Suffolk Counties, while the Congregation of the Mission of St. Vincent De Paul is a Roman Catholic order based in Pennsylvania.

The family first met Mr. Cortez when he was serving as a priest in the Vincentian Congregation based out of St. Rosalie’s Church in Hampton Bays, where he served until moving to St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Church in Brooklyn in 2005. Although no longer on the East End, Mr. Cortez kept close contact with the family, often conducting religious ceremonies in the family home. Then in 2008, Mr. Cortez was arrested and charged with fondling the breasts of a 12-year-old student at the St. John the Baptist Catholic Parish School while the two were alone in a computer room.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

One Melbourne parish. Four pedophile priests. One after another.

For three decades, the chief spiritual leaders for Doveton’s Holy Family Parish were its child parishioners’ worst nightmares.

‘It’s like having a terrifying regime in there for a long period of time,’ victims’ advocate Helen Last said.

‘To have them being very sick, very dysfunctional, pathological and some of them very violent, that keeps the parish quiet, keeps them frightened, highly anxious, confused, paranoid, and so they don’t seek help.’

From the 1970s to the late 1990s, a string of priests abused children in the outer eastern Melbourne suburb of Doveton.

– See more at: http://www.skynews.com.au/news/local/melbourne/2015/11/20/doveton-parish-abuse-horrors-disclosed.html#sthash.OR6HqJqX.dpuf

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MINNESOTA
Grand Forks Herald

By Sarah Volpenhein

CROOKSTON — Catholic diocese records previously under seal show a priest with a history of sexually abusing young girls served in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Crookston likely in the 1950s.

The Rev. Francis Schenk, former bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Duluth, wrote several letters in 1960 and 1961 saying the Rev. Charles Gormly, now deceased, had a history of molesting girls. The Duluth diocese admitted last December the allegations against Gormly are credible.

In a 1961 letter, Schenk wrote Gormly had a sexual disorder which “prompts him to molest small girls” and the “same pattern showed up” in the Catholic Diocese of Crookston, where Gormly served “for some time.”

The letters do not say when Gormly was a priest in the Crookston diocese, nor which parishes he served in. But Mike Finnegan, an attorney with Jeff Anderson and Associates, a law firm renowned for litigating cases involving clergy sex abuse, said he believes Gormly served in the Crookston diocese in the late 1950s.

Gormly was ordained a Catholic priest in 1935 in the Diocese of Cheyenne, Wyo., but left Wyoming in the mid 1940s, according to Jeff Anderson and Associates’ website.

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UNITED STATES
Boise Weekly

By George Prentice

Among the things lost in the decay of some of our nation’s best daily newspapers is long-form investigative journalism and, as a result, the public’s hunger for the truth. There, dear moviegoer, lies the underlying moral of Spotlight, one of the finest American films about journalism and certainly one of the best movies of 2015. While critics and audiences continue to cheer Spotlight and its clarion warning of a culture without a robust fifth estate, our nation’s media outlets–and particularly owners of daily newspaper chains–continue to push out fewer and shorter local news stories interspersed with advertiser-sponsored content. Some days, it’s tough to tell one from the other and, as good journalism should, Spotlight’s reminder of how things ought to be might piss off a discerning news consumer.

“The last 10 years have been pretty difficult on newspapers. The information they get isn’t fact-checked or investigated,” Spotlight co-screenwriter Josh Singer (The West Wing) told Boise Weekly on the red carpet of the North American premiere of at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival. “And when readers get just some kind of random information coming at them, that’s really not telling us what us need to know.”

In 2001, there was plenty the citizens of Boston needed to know, “need” being the operative word. There were many people—including a few staffers at The Boston Globe—who felt the newspaper’s team of investigative reporters, dubbed Spotlight, would impose to harsh a reality on their community if and when they exposed a systemic scandal of child sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic priests. Some argued Boston’s storied link to the Catholic Church was too strong and too important to compromise. The reporting team from the Globe felt otherwise but instead of looking for a hero, they turned to each other for strength and direction. As a result, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Spotlight team’s investigation had intense focus and clarity. Boston was knocked back on its heels by the series of articles, but the Globe reporters knew there were two forms of abuse to uncover: the sexual abuse committed by dozens of priests and the spiritual abuse perpetrated by a church-wide cover-up.

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UNITED STATES
dotCommonweal

Dominic Preziosi
November 19, 2015

The movie Spotlight depicts how the Boston Globe in 2002 broke the story that the Boston archdiocese was covering up the abuse of children by scores of priests. Coincidently, one of the abusers portrayed in the film, former priest Ronald Paquin, was just last month released from state custody after serving a criminal sentence for repeatedly raping an altar boy over a three-year-period beginning when the victim was twelve. (Paquin also admitted to molesting fourteen other boys.) Medical specialists determined Paquin no longer met the legal criteria for “sexual dangerousness,” and so the district attorney’s office had to withdraw its bid to keep him in custody.

“The church thinks in centuries,” one character remarks in Spotlight, and in watching it I thought of all the people—if you aren’t one you probably know one—who’ve decided to take the very long view themselves. Mark Ruffalo plays Globe reporter Michael Rezendes; in one scene, after learning of the archdiocese’s systematic cover-up, he says he used to like going to Mass as a child, and that he’d always expected to go back someday. “But now…” he says, leaving the obvious unspoken: Never.

Ruffalo’s is the best performance in a movie that for better and worse plays as a newsroom procedural. Director Tom McCarthy (who also did the screenplay) keeps things compelling and taut. Churches impose themselves into scenes of reporters seeking out victims, or loom in the background. Journalists attest to the movie’s accurate depiction of the trade, the sartorial haplessness of its practitioners, the office “decor.” Even Vatican Radio gives it a thumbs-up.

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UNITED STATES
Belleville News-Democrat

BY LYNN VENHAUS
For the News-Democrat

The best movie of the year to date, “Spotlight” is a game-changer.

It may boost the profile of methodical newspaper journalism and draw further attention to sexual misconduct cases, as it depicts issues that reverberate to this day. But it will indeed start a conversation.

In 2012, two American experts told a Vatican summit that in the United States there had likely been 100,000 victims of clerical sexual abuse and the church had spent $2.2 billion in settling litigation. This contemporary crisis has been the focus of news accounts for at least 25 years, and because of those revelations, concerned efforts to “Protect God’s Children” have been ongoing since the early 2000s.

The clarion call to action points to sweeping reforms across the globe after the Boston Archdiocese scandal was uncovered by the Boston Globe in 2002. And now, “Spotlight,” the first comprehensive film on the subject, provides meticulous details.

This unvarnished, true account of the Globe’s startling investigation chronicles how they gathered evidence on 90 priests who had been accused of molesting youths and the subsequent cover-up by church officials.

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UNITED STATES
The Salt Lake Tribune

By SEAN P. MEANS | The Salt Lake Tribune

If “Spotlight” simply delivered a heroic depiction of working journalists, fighting the good fight against long odds, it would be a great movie.

It also would be a great movie if all it did was detail the levels of official deceit and cover-up that allowed hundreds of Catholic priests in the Boston archdiocese to sexually abuse children over decades. Or if it merely showed how the chumminess of various Boston institutions — the courts, the church, even the newspaper that ultimately exposed the abuse — downplayed the severity of the problem.

The fact that director Tom McCarthy and his co-writer, Josh Singer, do all these things at once, while still telling a rattling good yarn — the sort of war story old-school newspaperpeople tell cub reporters over scotch after deadline — makes it one of the year’s best movies.

“Spotlight” gets its title from The Boston Globe’s team of investigative reporters, called Spotlight. In the summer of 2001, the Spotlight team, led by editor Walter “Robby” Robinson (Michael Keaton), had just finished a major project and was looking around for the next one. At the same time, the Globe had a new editor, Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber), relocated from the Miami Herald and tasked with examining the paper’s shrinking bottom line.

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UNITED STATES
The Times-Picayune

By Mike Scott, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
on November 19, 2015

Since the moment it arrived in theaters in 1976, Alan J. Pakula’s “All the President’s Men” has been held up, and deservingly, as the gold standard of journalism dramas. Chronicling the real-life efforts of two Washington Post scribes to unravel the many unanswered questions surrounding the Watergate break-in, it not only inspired a generation of noble-minded young reporters, but it was a cracking good bit of storytelling.

In fact, while the four intervening decades have brought no shortage of other films fueled by the built-in drama of the Fourth Estate, Pakula’s film has remained more or less in a class by itself.

Until now.

“Spotlight” arrives in theaters Friday (Nov. 20), and while one could make an argument that “All the President’s Men” is still the reigning champion of modern journo dramas, director Tom McCarthy’s gripping behind-the-scenes tale of shoe-leather journalism — which plays out with the pacing and momentum of a thriller — at long last makes the debate an interesting one.

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CONNECTICUT
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

for immediate release: Thursday, Nov. 19, 2015

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those abused by Priests (314 566 9790, davidgclohessy@gmail.com)

Ten pages of previously-secret records about a serial predator priest who worked and abused in Connecticut have been made public. They paint an unflattering view of the Catholic church hierarchy.

He’s Fr. Bernard W. Bissonette (a.k.a. Bissonnette). At least nine men have accused him of child sex crimes. One of them, Thomas Deary, committed suicide. Members of the Deary family travelled to New Mexico to confront Fr. Bissonette.

[BishopAccountability.org]

In the 1960s, Fr. Bissonette worked in the Norwich diocese at parishes in Moosup, Putnam and Pawcatuck.

[BishopAccountability.org]

After he was transferred out of Connecticut, over the next 30 years, he went on to abuse children at nine parishes in New Mexico, Michigan, and Minnesota, according to

[BishopAccountability.org]

The records show Fr. Bissonette’s colleagues were concerned early in his career about his “peculiar behavior” and show that he “had trouble with boys” and was “sent out of the Norwich diocese because a (victim’s) father was threatening arrest.”

We hope that every single person who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes or cover ups in Connecticut will summon the strength to speak up. Kids are safer only when victims, witnesses and whistleblowers are courageous enough to act. Silence is tempting but it only helps wrongdoers.

It’s important that people with suspicions or knowledge of these crimes and cover ups call the independent professionals in law enforcement, not the biased amateurs in church positions.

Even if those who committed the abuse may be deceased or elderly, those who concealed the abuse may still face prosecution for failure to report abuse, endangering kids, destroying evidence and other offenses.

We call on Norwich Bishop Michael Cote to personally visit the parishes where Fr. Bissonette worked, begging victims, witnesses and whistleblowers to come forward. Cote should also use parish bulletins, church websites and pulpit announcements across the entire diocese to seek out others who may have been assaulted and are still suffering. And he should permanently post on his diocesan website the names, photos and whereabouts of every child molesting Norwich cleric, whether alive or dead, diocesan or religious order, or admitted, proven or credibly accused. (About 30 US bishops have done this. It’s the bare minimum a bishop should do to protect the vulnerable and heal the wounded.)

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WYOMING
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Nov. 19, 2015

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those abused by Priests (314 566 9790, davidgclohessy@gmail.com)

Several pages of previously-secret records about a serial predator priest who worked and abused in Wyoming have been made public. They paint an unflattering view of the Catholic church hierarchy.

He’s Fr. Charles J. Gormly and he worked at churches in Rock Springs, Pine Bluffs, Lander and Laramie. Last December, “the Diocese of Duluth included Father Gormly on its official list of clergy members who have been credibly accused of child sexual abuse,” according to a Minnesota newspaper.

[BishopAccountability.org]

[Jeff Anderson & Associates]

The newly released records show a bishop admitting that Fr. Gormly “has a sexual problem that prompts him to molest small girls” and that Fr. Gormly was sent for “treatment” to at least two facilities.

We hope that every single person who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes or cover ups in Wyoming will summon the strength to speak up. Kids are safer only when victims, witnesses and whistleblowers are courageous enough to act. Silence is tempting but it only helps wrongdoers.

And victims heal best when the truth about those who committed and concealed heinous crimes are exposed. We urge every victim in Wyoming to find the courage to seek help from independent professionals, not church officials.

We call on Wyoming Bishop Paul D. Etienne to personally visit the parishes where Fr. Gormly worked, begging victims, witnesses and whistleblowers to come forward. He should also use parish bulletins, church websites and pulpit announcements across the entire diocese to seek out others who may have been assaulted and are still suffering. And he should permanently post on his diocesan website the names, photos and whereabouts of every child molesting Wyoming cleric, whether alive or dead, diocesan or religious order, or admitted, proven or credibly accused. (About 30 US bishops have done this. It’s the bare minimum a bishop should do to protect the vulnerable and heal the wounded.)

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NEW YORK
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Nov. 19, 2015

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those abused by Priests (314 566 9790, davidgclohessy@gmail.com)

Earlier this year, Pope Francis said “Everything possible must be done to rid the church of the scourge of the sexual abuse of minors and to open pathways of reconciliation and healing for those who were abused.”

[Jerusalem Post]

Today, Rockville Centre Bishop William Murphy basically said “I disagree.”

Through one of his public relations staff, Murphy claims that he has “no responsibility” for a predator priest who worked in his diocese.

[Newsday]

The accused priest, Fr. Augusto Cortez, is believed to have fled the US and returned to Central America.

The courts will decide if Murphy has a legal responsibility for Fr. Cortez’ crimes. But common sense and decency tell us that Murphy has a moral responsibility to help law enforcement catch and convict Fr. Cortez. But instead of lending a hand, Murphy is making up excuses.

He’s hair-splitting and ducking and dodging behind the claim that Fr. Cortez belongs to a religious order and isn’t on the diocesan payroll. But it’s a Catholic bishop’s duty to protect and help his flock from any child molesting cleric, no matter who signs the predator’s paycheck. Again, listen to Pope Francis: “Earlier this year, Pope Francis said “Everything possible must be done to rid the church of the scourge of the sexual abuse of minors and to open pathways of reconciliation and healing for those who were abused.”

Instead of using his PR staff to brag about weak, meaningless church abuse policies, Murphy should be using them to aggressively seek out victims, witnesses and whistleblowers who might be able to help police and prosecutors pursue this predator priest. Today, Murphy is showing the same reckless, callous and deceitful behavior that characterized his track record in Boston of ignoring, minimizing, denying and enabling child sex crimes and cover ups.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Giselle Wakatama

Newcastle Anglican Bishop Greg Thompson has expressed shock that allegations of abuse gripping his diocese have alleged links to high profile sectors within the Hunter community.

Yesterday the ABC revealed allegations gripping the diocese have potential links to politicians, doctors, members of the legal fraternity, schools, children’s homes and community and business leaders.

Several paedophile rings allegedly operated across the region.

The web of abuse has shocked Bishop Greg Thompson, who is himself an abuse survivor.

“And I suppose people just didn’t want to know because there was a shame in even mentioning these matters,” he said.

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ILLINOIS
Daily Herald

Justin Kmitch

A former member of Lombard’s St. Pius X Catholic Church is suing the Diocese of Joliet and two former priests claiming he was sexually abused as an 11-year-old in 1976.

According to the suit, filed Nov. 6 in Will County, Rev. Henry Slade caught the boy “skipping Mass and ordered him to go into the rectory at St. Pius X, and specifically to Slade’s bedroom.”

When the boy refused to perform a sex act, the suit states Slade “physically attacked the plaintiff.”

The suit also claims Rev. Phillip Dedera heard and ignored the boy’s screams for help but later offered him marijuana after the attack to “help him forget” it.

Both priests are named in the Diocese’s published list of priests facing credible allegations of sexual abuse of minors.

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UNITED STATES
Kansas City Star

BY JON NICCUM
movies@kcstar.com

“You sure you want to hear this (expletive)?” a survivor of sexual abuse asks a reporter.

That’s a question you’ll probably ask yourself when debating whether to watch “Spotlight,” a “based on actual events” drama about the Boston Globe staffers who uncovered an epidemic of pedophile priests and cover-ups orchestrated by the Catholic Church.

The subject already provokes rage and/or revulsion without having to endure a step-by-step procedural. But this stark and effective prestige picture makes the experience palatable by approaching the material with journalistic tenacity.

Taking a page from “All the President’s Men,” “Spotlight” introduces a mismatched handful of reporters and editors working at the Globe in 2001. Looking to streamline the publication, solemn new editor Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) focuses on the paper’s Spotlight team. This investigative branch is led by the dogged Walter “Robby” Robinson (Michael Keaton), dedicated to spending months on a single story.

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UNITED STATES
Columbia Daily Tribune

By ASHER GELZER-GOVATOS
Thursday, November 19, 2015

Movies about journalists face an uphill battle in engaging their audience. While the end result of a journalistic investigation might be fascinating, the process of getting there requires frequent repetition of activities that don’t exactly crackle with excitement: fact-gathering, source-checking, data collation.

“Spotlight,” about the Boston Globe investigative team that blew the lid off of the pedophile priest scandal in the Catholic Church, puts these mundane activities front and center but still manages to sizzle with energy.

Propelled along by Howard Shore’s rhythmic score, director Tom McCarthy (“The Visitor,” “Win Win”) methodically ratchets up the tension as the journalists — played by Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams and Brian d’Arcy James — slowly peel back the layers of a cover-up that runs deep into the heart of a Boston institution.

The movie never sensationalizes their labor, instead highlighting many scenes of leg work and file digging that congeal into a love letter to the old-fashioned work of hard journalism.

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UNITED STATES
Charlotte Observer

BY LAWRENCE TOPPMAN
ltoppman@charlotteobserver.com

Philosopher John Stuart Mill said, “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends than that good men should look on and do nothing.” The truth of that can be found in “Spotlight.”

Director Tom McCarthy, who wrote the script with Josh Singer, has made a film without heroes. This dramatization of the Boston Globe’s exposure of pedophile priests in 2002 – and the complicity of church officials as high as Cardinal Bernard Law – exposes a chain of failures that let depravity go on for decades.

Police refused to take abuse cases seriously. Prosecutors chose not to arraign culprits. Lawyers made a cottage industry of hushing up crimes, arranging settlements for victims in exchange for silence. The cardinal and his employees ignored parishioners’ complaints or moved priests to churches where no one knew them, so abuse continued. And the Globe, alerted more than once, failed to grasp the scope of the story or commit resources to uncovering it.

“Spotlight” depicts Boston at the turn of the 21st century as a huge and mostly homogenous village, where more than half the citizens are Catholic. The church has vast influence, which it often uses to do benevolent things. Only with the arrival of an outsider, Jewish editor Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber), does the Globe begin to push for the truth.

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NEW YORK
Newsday

Updated November 19, 2015
By BART JONES bart.jones@newsday.com

The Diocese of Rockville Centre on Thursday said it was not responsible for a priest accused of sexually abusing a girl in Hampton Bays, and its child protection measures are “admirable models” for all those entrusted with youths’ care.

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UNITED STATES
Capuchin Franciscans, Province of St. Mary

Monday, 19 January 2015

We offer our prayers for the repose of the soul of our brother Francis Mary Sparacino, O.F.M. Cap., [SJP] who died today at the age of 84.

Date of birth January 25, 1934
Investiture March 18, 1951
First Profession March 19, 1952
Perpetual Profession March 19, 1955

Brother Francis served the province of St. Joseph as provincial tailor for most of his religious life.

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CONNECTICUT
Journal Inquirer

By Alex Wood
Journal Inquirer

The former pastor of East Windsor’s two Roman Catholic churches who was accused of sexually assaulting a teenage parishioner was convicted Wednesday of a sharply reduced charge in a plea bargain and received a sentence without immediate prison time, court records show.

The Rev. Paul A. Gotta — who had been administrator of St. Philip Church on South Main Street and St. Catherine Church on Windsorville Road — was convicted in the Hartford Superior Court plea deal of a single misdemeanor count of second-degree breach of peace. The conviction was under a subsection of the breach-of-peace statute that deals with assaulting or striking another person.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

NOVEMBER 20, 2015

Tessa Akerman
Reporter
Melbourne

A split has emerged at the highest levels of the Catholic Church over how to deal with child sex abuse victims who testify before the royal commission.

The church’s Truth, Justice and Healing Council has been represented in the commission by law firm Gilbert and Tobin and has not cross-examined any of the survivor witnesses.

Cardinal George Pell will ­appear before the commission next month and has engaged a separate legal team to represent him and cross-examine witnesses who have given evidence.

TJHC chief executive Francis Sullivan reaffirmed the policy yesterday of not cross-examining abuse survivors. “We don’t cross-examine survivor witnesses,” he said. “It’s always been our policy. We don’t wish to run the risk of retraumatising them.”

A statement from Cardinal Pell’s office said he was not a party to the first part of the Ballarat case study when serious claims were made about him personally. “The TJHC and its lawyers represent church institutions and not individuals and given the claims that have been made, it was agreed that Cardinal Pell should have his own lawyers to assist him in responding to these claims,” it said.

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Richard Powers was ordained for the Owensboro diocese in 1959 and went on to assist in and pastor parishes throughout the diocese. He left Kentucky in 1982 to serve as a military chaplain in Alaska, Virginia, New York, Washington DC, and Florida. He returned to Owensboro and parish work in 1989. Powers also served in the diocese as a Consultor and member of the Priests’ Council and Priests’ Personnel Committee. In 1995 a woman reported to the diocese that she had been sexually abused as a girl between 1962-1970 by Powers and two other priests. Powers denied the allegations; Bishop McRaith arranged payment for three psychiatric hospitalizations for the woman. In 1999 she received a confidential settlement from the diocese. She died by suicide in May 2003. The woman’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the diocese and returned the settlement in November 2003. As of July 2006 the lawsuit was ongoing; a diocesan attorney stated that an investigation determined that the allegations were “frivolous.” Powers retired in 2007. In November 2015 he remains active in the diocese.

Born: October 6, 1932
Ordained: 1959

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UNITED KINGDOM
Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

19 November

On Friday 27 November the Chair of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, Hon. Lowell Goddard DNZM, will make a formal update statement on the work of the Inquiry. The Chair will announce the investigations which will form the first phase of the Inquiry’s substantive work.

The full text of the statement will be published on our website on the day.

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CONNECTICUT
Record-Journal

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Prosecutors have dropped the most serious charges against a former East Windsor priest accused of sexually assaulting a teenager.

Paul Gotta was facing charges of second-degree sexual assault and fourth-degree sexual assault. Authorities say Gotta sexually assaulted the 16-year-old boy between January 2012 and February 2013.

The Hartford Courant reports (http://cour.at/1O4MtkY ) prosecutors offered Gotta a deal to plead guilty to second-degree breach of peace. He pleaded Wednesday under the Alford doctrine. That means he didn’t agree with the state’s evidence but wanted to plead to a lesser charge instead of risking a trial and a greater sentence.

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NEW MEXICO
KOAT

[with video]

Sandra Ramirez

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. —Two more men have come forward to say they were abused by New Mexico priests.

They decided to tell their stories after hearing about the new movie “Spotlight,” which premieres Friday. It tells the story of how a group of journalists uncovered the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church.

The two men who say they were abused in New Mexico say they feel there’s still a bit too much secrecy at play.

“I won’t be anonymous anymore,” says Brian Gutierrez.

The movie is based on a true story of how the Boston Globe exposed what became a massive scandal of abuse involving Catholic priests.

Gutierrez and Ken Wolter say they lived that story.

“When I was a teenager I was abused by a priest named Sabine Griego,” Gutierrez says.

Gutierrez was a freshman at the University of New Mexico when he felt a calling to become a priest. But he says the priest who began as his mentor turned into his abuser.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Kirchen Zeitung

[The reactions to the abuse allegations against former bishop of Hildesheim Heinrich Maria Janssen outweigh the skepticism.]

Bei den Reaktionen auf die Missbrauchsvorwürfe gegen den ehemaligen Hildesheimer Bischof Heinrich Maria Janssen überwiegt die Skepsis.

Das „Beben im Bistum“ ist weitgehend ausgeblieben. Nachdem bekannt geworden war, dass Janssen Ende der 1950er bis Anfang der 1960er Jahre einen Messdiener missbraucht haben soll, konzentrieren sich die Reaktionen vor allem auf eins: Kaum jemand hält das für vorstellbar.

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LUXEMBURG
kath.ch

[More than 15 years after the discovery of the first abuse scandals in the Catholic Church have been adopted at least five national episcopal conferences have no guidelines on this subject, according to Father Hans Zollner who was speaking in Luxemburg. Zollner told the Catholic news agency (KNA), the defaulting Episcopal Conferences are located exclusively in West Africa and in East Asia. (KNA)]

Luxemburg, 18.11.15 (kath.ch) Mehr als 15 Jahre nach dem Bekanntwerden der ersten Missbrauchsskandale in der katholischen Kirche haben mindestens fünf nationale Bischofskonferenzen noch keine Richtlinien zu diesem Thema erlassen. Das beklagte der römische Missbrauchsexperte Hans Zollner am Mittwoch, 18. November, in Luxemburg. Er äusserte sich am Rande einer europaweiten Expertenkonferenz.

Die römische Glaubenskongregation hatte nach den Skandalen um sexuellen Missbrauch durch Kirchenmitarbeiter in Deutschland den Bischofskonferenzen in aller Welt eine Frist bis 2012 gesetzt, um Richtlinien zum Umgang mit diesen Verbrechen vorzulegen. Zollner sagte der Katholischen Nachrichten-Agentur (KNA), die säumigen Bischofskonferenzen seien ausschliesslich in Westafrika und in Ostasien angesiedelt. (kna)

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UNITED STATES
Citizen-Times

Bruce C Steele, bsteele@citizen-times.com November 19, 2015

The real stars of the fact-based movie “Spotlight” are the no-name actors who portray the survivors of childhood sexual abuse by Catholic priests. The familiar faces playing the Boston Globe investigative team — Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams — do great work, yet you can’t entirely forget they’re actors.

But the journalists’ brief interviews with the damaged adults finally able to tell their stories — especially Michael Cyril Creighton as a gay man named Joe — put human, vulnerable faces on the atrocities covered up by the church across the world for decades. In those moments it’s not just a story. It’s a open wound at last given a chance to heal.

“Spotlight” may be the best movie about newspaper reporters since “The Killing Fields” or even “All the President’s Men,” a movie with which it has a lot in common, including a real-life editor named Ben Bradlee (John Slattery), here the son of the Washington Post editor. Mike (Rufallo) and Sacha (McAdams) are the Woodward and Bernstein, assisted by fellow reporter Matt (Brian d’Arcy James) and by Robby (Keaton), the leader of their investigative team, called Spotlight.

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NEW MEXICO
KRQE

SANTA FE (KRQE) – They no longer want to be called “John Doe.” Two New Mexico survivors of priest sex abuse are revealing their identities.

This comes just days before the new movie “Spotlight” hits theaters. It details the Boston Globe’s 2002 investigation into the Catholic Church’s cover-up of sex abuse cases.

On Wednesday, Brian Gutierrez and Ken Wolter say they will no longer keep silent.

They are suing the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. They say when the allegations were made, the archdiocese did nothing.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Laura Gartry

A former West Australian Anglican priest has pleaded not guilty to indecently assaulting a teenage boy 30 years ago.

Raymond Sydney Cheek, 83, is facing four charges including committing indecent practices between males, and indecent dealings with a child under 14.

Police allege the abuse took place while he was a priest in a town in WA’s South West in the 1980s.

It is alleged the offences were committed against a boy between January and October 1985.

Mr Cheek had his bail renewed when he appeared in Perth Magistrates Court on Thursday morning.

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UNITED STATES
PRN

Uncovering the systemic child-abuse in the Catholic Church. An interview with David Clohessy, Executive Director of SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.)

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VATICAN CITY
The Times (UK)

Tom Kington Rome

November 19 2015

Vatican investigators are close to arresting another suspected whistleblower after they interrogated the author of a book exposing corruption by priests.

The papal police suspect that an unnamed adviser at the Vatican’s investment arm may be leaking embarrassing documents, Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper reported.

A Spanish priest is already being held for allegedly leaking information about murky finances that he helped to collect while working for a clean-up committee appointed by Pope Francis.

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CALIFORNIA
Forward

Diana Crandall
November 18, 2015

A former executive of the Kabbalah Centre, a spiritual group rooted in Jewish mysticism and known for its celebrity devotees, went on trial on Tuesday in a lawsuit brought by a follower who says he plied her with alcohol and drugs, then groped her.

Yehuda Berg, 43, son of the late rabbi who founded the organization, testified that he struggled with substance abuse that led to his resignation as its co-director in 2014 but denied any sexual wrongdoing.

Berg, who is married, acknowledged offering a drink and the narcotic painkiller Vicodin to the plaintiff, Jena Scaccetti, and touching her leg to see if “anything intimate” might happen.
However, he insisted that he backed off when she rebuffed his advances, and walked her outside and put her in a cab when she was ready to leave.

“The reason I gave her Vicodin is because she had kidney stones. The reason I have her a drink is because she was coming over for a drink,” he testified, adding he “could not recall” forcibly restraining or intimidating his guest.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

Cardinal George Pell’s decision to bring in the “big guns” to question victims of pedophile priests could pave the way for stronger grilling of senior church officials.

Cardinal Pell’s own legal team at the child abuse royal commission’s Melbourne hearing will cross-examine victims, in direct opposition to the Catholic Church’s stance that it will not question abuse survivors.

That was actually a good move as it meant Cardinal Pell would be cross-examined as well, victims’ group Broken Rites spokesman Wayne Chamley said.

Church officials were not cross-examined during the first public hearing into Ballarat abuse in May due to the church decision not to question victim witnesses, he said.

“Because there was that stand-off it meant no one was cross-examined including senior people, but this time round they’ll be cross-examined,” Dr Chamley said.

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ILLINOIS
Chicago Tribune

Duaa Eldeib and Jim NewtonContact Reporters
Tribune Newspapers

Church pastor accused of sexually abusing girl between 13 and 17 years old
A pastor at an evangelical church in Deerfield was charged with the sexual abuse of a minor after he approached police and confessed to the inappropriate relationship, authorities said.

The pastor, Samuel Kee, “just walked into the police station and said he had to confess to a crime,” Deerfield Deputy police Chief Tom Keane said. “We had to kind of work backward and locate the victim and talk to the victim and build the case.”

Kee, 39, who has since resigned from the North Suburban Evangelical Free Church, appeared Wednesday in Lake County court, where he pleaded not guilty to aggravated criminal sexual abuse.

Authorities said the allegations involve a 16-year-old girl who was a member of the church. Kee was charged Oct. 15, a day after police said he first contacted them.

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ALABAMA
AL.com

By Jeremy Gray | jgray@al.com
on November 18, 2015

An Alabama pastor might have escaped punishment for years of sexually abusing children if not for surprise testimony at a custody hearing two years ago.

Mack Charles Andrews Jr., 55, on Monday pleaded guilty to multiple charges of rape, sodomy, sexual abuse and attempted rape in exchange for 15 years in prison. Andrews will get credit for the two years – 783 days, to be exact – that he spent in the Clarke County Jail prior to sentencing.

Standing before Circuit Judge C. Robert Montgomery, Andrews was asked if he was entering the plea because he was guilty.

“I’m pleading in the best interest,” Andrews said as he stood there shackled with his back to his victims, family and the former church members who still support him.

Andrews might never have found himself in that Grove Hill courtroom if not for Donna ‘Shay’ Smith.

It was her testimony in an unsuccessful attempt to regain custody of her daughter that exposed how the pastor raped and abused young girls at First United Pentecostal Church and its school, Faith Christian Academy, in the 1980s and ’90s, authorities said.

Smith is angry Andrews may one day walk out of prison a free man.

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LOUISIANA
The New Orleans Advocate

BY JOHN SIMERMAN| JSIMERMAN@THEADVOCATE.COM
Nov. 18, 2015

Convicting the Rev. Kevin Boyd Sr. of repeatedly molesting a young member of his New Orleans flock during several years was never really an option in the jury room, said one member of the Criminal District Court panel that deadlocked Tuesday.

At the end of a weeklong trial and three hours of deliberation, the vote was 4-2 for Boyd’s acquittal, said juror Edwin Curry, who counted himself among the majority.

“We found the state didn’t do its job,” he said. “We didn’t find the guy innocent.”

One female juror held firm from the start that Boyd was guilty. The other guilty vote came near the end of deliberations, Curry said, after Judge Camille Buras ordered the split jurors to keep talking.

Because it was a six-member jury, not 12, the verdict needed to be unanimous.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Giselle Wakatama and staff

A web of child sexual abuse in the Newcastle Anglican diocese has alleged links to politicians, business people, doctors and members of the city’s legal fraternity, the ABC understands.

Inquiries into abuse incidents in the diocese are underway by a police strike force and the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse.

Several alleged paedophile rings with links to local schools and children’s homes are also being investigated.

Newcastle’s Anglican Bishop Greg Thompson said there were also allegations of Anglican and Catholic clergy protecting each other.

“If your ministry team exists in a small town, they know each other,” he said.

“Then clearly there are questions to be asked about those relationships and how they operated and how they were protecting each other.”

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AUSTRALIA
Stuff

One Melbourne parish. Four pedophile priests. One after another.

For three decades, the chief spiritual leaders for Doveton’s Holy Family Parish were its child parishioners’ worst nightmares.

“It’s like having a terrifying regime in there for a long period of time,” the victims’ advocate Helen Last said.

“To have them being very sick, very dysfunctional, pathological and some of them very violent, that keeps the parish quiet, keeps them frightened, highly anxious, confused, paranoid, and so they don’t seek help.”

From the 1970s to the late 1990s, a string of priests abused children in the Australian outer eastern Melbourne suburb of Doveton.

Father Thomas O’Keeffe was a violent offender who tortured some of his altar boys in his time in charge of the Holy Family Parish in the 1970s, Ms Last said.

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NEW MEXICO
KOAT

By Doug Fernandez

JEMEZ SPRINGS, N.M. —For years, many priests suspected of sexual abuse and those who admitted to it were sent to the Servants of the Paraclete in Jemez Springs.

That wasn’t the original purpose of the facility, but over the years it’s become best known for that disturbing legacy.

In the late 1940s, the servants were founded in northern New Mexico and opened a center near Jemez Springs. Its original purpose was to help priests with alcohol or emotional problems.

Over the years the focus expanded.

In 1963, the Rev. Eugene Fitzgerald wrote a letter to the Vatican to address to the pope. In the pages was a summary of reverend Fitzgerald’s thoughts on problem priests, specifically pedophiles, wanting them removed from the active ministry.

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NEW MEXICO
The New Mexican

By Anne Constable
The New Mexican

Brian Gutierrez began serving as an altar boy at age 7, and for many years, he said, “I really did believe I had the faith and the calling to be a priest.”

That was before he was raped in 1986 by Sabine Griego, who was a pastor at Queen of Heaven Parish in Albuquerque, he said.

“I wanted to find out how to become a priest, and I was looking for him to help me with the vocation,” Gutierrez said.

He was 17 years old then. Now a 46-year-old engineer, he has brought a civil lawsuit against the Catholic Archdiocese of Santa Fe. Gutierrez says the archdiocese had known of sexual abuse by Griego going back decades.

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NEW MEXICO
Albuquerque Journal

By Olivier Uyttebrouck / Journal Staff Writer
Thursday, November 19th

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Two men suing the Archdiocese of Santa Fe alleging that as children they were sexually abused by priests gave up their anonymity Wednesday, saying they wanted to prod the church “to release secrets and truths” and encourage others to come forward.

“In order to heal this community, you must remember that there are a lot of victims out here,” said Brian Gutierrez, 46, of Albuquerque who had been identified only as “John Doe C” in a lawsuit he filed in May 2014. “We ask the archdiocese, and Archbishop (John C.) Wester in particular, to begin a new era of forgiveness.”

Joining Gutierrez at a media conference outside an Albuquerque church was Ken Wolter, 34, of Detroit, Mich., who sued the archdiocese in August 2014, identified as “John Doe D,” alleging that as a pre-teen he was repeatedly raped in the early 1990s by Arthur Perrault, then pastor at St. Bernadette Parish in Albuquerque.

During the event, Wolter held a framed photograph of himself at age 11 or 12 with Perrault standing beside him outside a church.

Perrault fled Albuquerque in 1992 after allegations of his sexual misconduct surfaced, and his whereabouts remain unknown, according to news reports.

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CONNECTICUT
The Hartford Courant

David Owens

HARTFORD — A prosecutor on Wednesday dropped the most serious charges against a Catholic priest who had been accused of sexually assaulting a teenager, resulting in a six-month suspended sentence on a lesser charge.

A series of pretrial rulings on excluding evidence by Hartford Superior Court Judge Juliett L. Crawford eviscerated the state’s case against the Rev. Paul Gotta, prompting prosecutor Debra Collins to offer Gotta the opportunity to resolve the case by pleading guilty to a charge of second-degree breach of peace.

Judge Carl E. Taylor accepted the plea and sentenced Gotta to a six-month suspended sentence and two years of conditional discharge.

Gotta entered the guilty plea under the Alford doctrine, meaning he did not agree with the state’s evidence, but wanted to plead guilty to the reduced charge rather than risk a trial and a greater sentence.

Gotta still faces a trial on federal firearm charges in February.

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WISCONSIN
WSAU

MILWAUKEE (WTAQ) – The Archdiocese of Milwaukee has reinstated a Cedarburg priest.

Archbishop Jerome Listecki says an investigation into allegations against Father Tom Eichenberger has been completed, and the complaint was found to be unsubstantiated.

Father Eichenberger expressed his appreciation to parishioners for their belief in him and support for him in a statement, saying he was falsely accused of sexual abuse in an incident dating back to 1977.

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CANADA
CBC News

A class-action lawsuit launched by former students of a church-run institute for the deaf in Montreal has been tentatively settled out of court for $20 million.

The former students had alleged that they were sexually abused by members of the Clerics of St-Viateur who worked at the school, formerly known as the Montreal Institute for the Deaf.

Students who attended the all-boys institute between 1940 and 1982 claimed that violent sexual assaults were commonplace.

Quebec’s Superior Court authorized a class-action lawsuit against members of the Clerics of St-Viateur in March 2012.

Allegations by the suit’s 64 claimants focused on 28 religious staff and six lay workers, only a handful of whom were still alive at the time it was launched.

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CANADA
CTV

A sorry chapter of Quebec’s history is coming to a close with a settlement in cases of serial abuse at a school for the deaf.

The Clerics of St. Viateur ran L’Institut des Sourdes de Montreal on St. Laurent Blvd. for decades, but under their watch hundreds of students were physically and sexually abused.

Victims have explained how those as young as five years old were sexually abused and beaten by priests between 1940 and 1982. In all, 38 abusers were identified, including 28 clerics.

“The parents confided their children to the care and custody of the school and it’s our position that the school is therefore responsible for what happened to the children,” said Robert Kugler, lawyer for the victims.

Five years ago, those who were abused applied for a class-action lawsuit against the priests and the school, asking for $200,000 per surviving student.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Altrincham Today

By David Prior 18th November 2015

A groundbreaking film about the sex abuse trial of a former Altrincham schoolteacher has won a Royal Television Society award.

The report was broadcast on Granada Reports on the day Alan Morris, a former chemistry teacher at St Ambrose College in Hale Barns, was jailed for nine years for decades of abuse.

And now the team behind it has been recognised with the prize for Best Regional Story at the Royal Television Society North West awards, held in Manchester on Saturday.

The idea for the story had originated from David Nolan, a former St Ambrose pupil and Morris victim who waived his right to give evidence at the trial in order to produce the behind-the-scenes film, which included unprecedented access to the police and victims involved in the trial – and even saw Nolan confront Morris outside Manchester Minshull Street Court.

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ITALY
Reporters With Borders

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) fully supports Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi, who has cited his free speech rights as grounds for refusing to be interrogated by the Vatican judicial system as part of an investigation into the leaking of confidential documents.

Suspected of complicity in the leak, Nuzzi is one of two Italian journalists placed under investigation by the Vatican in connection with their books exposing Vatican mismanagement.

Nuzzi announced his refusal to appear for questioning in his blog yesterday. “In the Vatican, there is no impunity provision for those who exercise a right, as there is in Italy,” he wrote. “The possibility of freely expressing one’s thoughts is not recognized (…) The person who reveals information is liable to be punished.”

“By writing ‘Avarizia’ and ‘Via Crucis,’ Italian journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi just exercised their right to provide information in the public interest and should not be treated as criminals in a country that supposedly respects media freedom,” said Alexandra Geneste, the head of the Reporters Without Borders EU-Balkans bureau in Brussels.

The two journalists are being investigated under a Vatican law adopted in July 2013, after the first “VatiLeaks.” It says: “Whoever illicitly obtains or reveals information or documents whose publication is forbidden is punishable by a sentence of six months to two years in prison or a fine of 1,000 to 5,000 euros.”

The other journalist, Emiliano Fittipaldi, did respond to the summons to appear before a Vatican prosecutor but said he did not answer the questions put to him “on the grounds of professional confidentiality, which is protected by the law, in Italy at least.”

According to the Vatican’s criminal code, the crime of which the two journalists are suspected is punishable both inside and outside the Vatican City and whether or not the perpetrator is a citizen of the small city-state ruled by the pope.

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UNITED STATES
Poynter

by Kristen Hare
Published Nov. 18, 2015

Reporters Without Borders | The New York Times | Associated Press

Italian journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi are being investigated by the Vatican for work that uncovered mismanagement, Reporters Without Borders reported Wednesday. The press freedom organization expressed support for Nuzzi, “who has cited his free speech rights as grounds for refusing to be interrogated by the Vatican judicial system as part of an investigation into the leaking of confidential documents.”

“By writing ‘Avarizia’ and ‘Via Crucis,’ Italian journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi just exercised their right to provide information in the public interest and should not be treated as criminals in a country that supposedly respects media freedom,” said Alexandra Geneste, the head of the Reporters Without Borders EU-Balkans bureau in Brussels.

The two journalists are being investigated under a Vatican law adopted in July 2013, after the first “VatiLeaks.” It says: “Whoever illicitly obtains or reveals information or documents whose publication is forbidden is punishable by a sentence of six months to two years in prison or a fine of 1,000 to 5,000 euros.”

Unlike Nuzzi, Fittipaldi submitted to questioning but refused to talk, The Associated Press reported Wednesday, “citing the protections journalists enjoy in Italy to shield their sources — protections which don’t exist in the Vatican legal code.”

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NEW JERSEY
United States Attorney’s Office – District of New Jersey

TRENTON, N.J. – A Brooklyn, New York, man was sentenced today to 48 months in prison for crossing state lines as part of a plan to violently coerce a recalcitrant husband to grant his wife a religious divorce, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.

Moshe Goldstein, 32, previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Freda L. Wolfson to an information charging him with traveling in interstate commerce to commit extortion. Judge Wolfson imposed the sentence today in Trenton federal court.

According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:

On Oct. 9, 2013, Moshe Goldstein and a group of conspirators – including his brother Avrohom Goldstein, 36, his father, Jay Goldstein, 61, David Hellman, 33, Simcha Bulmash, 32, Binyamin Stimler, 40, Sholom Shuchat, 31, all of Brooklyn, and Ariel Potash, 42, of Monsey, New York – traveled from New York to a warehouse in Edison, New Jersey, with the intent of forcing a Jewish husband to give his wife a “get,” a document which, according to Jewish Law, must be presented by a husband to his wife to effect their divorce.

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UNITED STATES
San Antonio Current

By Kiko Martinez

It might not have all the complexity of journalists tracking down a serial killer, like in the 2007 crime thriller Zodiac, or the melodrama needed to spur scribes into breaking open a story on the suspicious death of a congressman’s mistress, like in the 2009 political thriller State of Play, but the relevancy of a newspaper reporter’s job is made evident in the sincere, insightful, fair and extremely well-paced Spotlight.

In a news industry where Buzzfeed headlines and Kardashian selfies are constantly trending for the mainstream masses, it’s refreshing (and equally discouraging) to know a majority of wordsmiths just a decade ago cared more about reporting the truth than creating click-bait content. Not only is Spotlight great cinema, it also has the power to remind audiences that a hard-hitting exposé should always be a crucial element of the ever-changing media landscape. Without professionals doing this kind of work (and not just recording grainy cell phone footage), how can anyone be held accountable?

Directed and co-written by Oscar nominee Tom McCarthy, whose track record has been so impressive (The Station Agent, The Visitor and Win Win) since breaking out in 2003 that we might one day forgive him for whatever the hell last year’s Adam Sandler vehicle The Cobbler was supposed to be. Spotlight brings the filmmaker back to true form. Set in the early ’00s, the drama tells the story of the Boston Globe’s investigative “Spotlight Team” of reporters who uncovered a global sex abuse scandal and cover-up rooted deep inside the Catholic Church that ultimately spawned criminal accusations against 250 Roman Catholic priests. For their work, the team was honored with the Pulitzer Prize for public service.

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UNITED STATES
The Pilot

FATHER ROGER J. LANDRY

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Last week I was asked by a 25-year-old co-worker whether I was intending to see Spotlight, the movie detailing The Boston Globe’s investigative team’s month’s long Pulitzer-prize winning examination of the clergy sexual abuse of minors in the Archdiocese of Boston. She wanted to see the movie’s portrayal of the Church but worried whether doing so might be subsidizing anti-Catholicism.

I was planning to go to see the movie, I told her, both so that I might be able to respond to the various questions I was being asked by those who had already seen it as well as out of a sense of witness and reparation. When she asked me to elaborate about the latter, I said that I thought it would be important for movie-goers to see a priest to convey that the Church isn’t in denial about the evils committed and also to give them an opportunity to focus their anger if they should choose.

“You’re going to go dressed as a priest?,” she exclaimed, evidently worried about my safety. I replied that for a priest, clerical garb is like a wedding ring for married people, an external sign of sacramental identity, and that I had no desire to go undercover. Since 2002, I told her, I had gotten used to the occasional opprobrium, unprovoked insults, and, on a few occasions, spittle that have come to priests as a result of the abominations of some of our brothers, but that it’s important for priests to be able to take that suffering as co-redeemers with Christ, offering whatever comes up for victims and for the Church.

“Well, can I at least come with you?,” she protectively asked. I told her that that last thing that people needed was to see a priest accompanied by an attractive young woman to a movie on Saturday night!

So alone I went to see Spotlight, plopping down $15, the going rate for movies in Manhattan. I was surprised to see the rather large theater half-full for a 6 pm showing and, although no one should be startled to see young people at a movie on a Saturday night, I was somewhat shocked that so many older teens and young adults had chosen to come to a movie about journalists covering clergy sex abuse when there were 15 other theaters simultaneously showing more traditional Hollywood fare.

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CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles Daily News

By BILL HETHERMAN, City News Service

POSTED: 11/17/15

LOS ANGELES — The former co-director of Kabbalah Centre International plied a student with Vicodin and alcohol, then inappropriately touched her and tried to have sex with her, an attorney told a jury today.

Addressing a Los Angeles Superior Court jury hearing opening statements in trial of Jena Scaccetti’s lawsuit, lawyer Alain Bonavida said Rabbi Yehuda Berg’s intentions were clear.

“She’s alleging in this case he attempted to rape her,” he said.

But Berg’s attorney, John Cline, said his client mistakenly believed Scaccetti wanted to have sex.

“He made an awkward, inappropriate advance and she said no,” Cline said. “He stopped and she sued him 14 months later.”

Berg had been drinking that evening and was intoxicated when the incident occurred, Cline said.

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AUSTRALIA
Manny Waks

18/11/2015

It took some time but it’s finally worked out. I’m delighted that the Melbourne Yeshivah Centre is undertaking this ground-breaking and positive initiative. It’s precisely what I’ve wanted all along – to engage.

Only months ago no one thought this would have been possible. Not only me returning back to where it all started – but with Rabbi Glick by my side! Clearly the hard work is paying off.

I would like to encourage everyone to attend this event. Not only the Yeshivah Centre community, but all those who have questions to ask, comments to make, to vent – or simply to listen. As I told the organisers, from my perspective, anything and everything is on the table. There’s only one rule, let’s keep it respectful and civil.

Why did I go to the media – and why to the “antisemitic” The Age? Why did I pursue the Royal Commission option? Am I really anti-Orthodox/Chabad/Yeshivah? When will I cease criticising Yeshivah? Etc.

Absolutely any question is on the table. In fact, I’m happy to listen to comments as well.

From my perspective, the point of this evening is to engage and discuss. We may not walk away agreeing about everything but let’s at least put it all out there and be honest with each other. By the end of the evening, hopefully the level of animosity and disharmony will have been significantly reduced. And this can only happen through honest and open dialogue.

I urge the community – especially the Yeshivah community – to embrace this opportunity and to help break down the remaining barriers. And a profound thank you to the organisers for taking this bold step.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Haaretz

A Chicago rabbi was found guilty on Monday of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy in 2006.

Rabbi Aryeh “Larry” Dudovitz assaulted the boy when he was supposed to be counseling the teenager for questioning his Orthodox Jewish faith, Cook County Judge Evelyn Clay ruled Monday in the bench trial, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Judge Clay found Dudovitz guilty “after roughly two hours of testimony,” DNAinfo reported, and “ordered electronic monitoring for Dudovitz pending sentencing.” She also said Dudovitz is required to surrender his passport. Post-trial motions, which could include sentencing, are slated for mid-December.

The boy, now 22, had seen Dudovitz as a father figure, he said in 2013. He was initially reluctant to come forward due to, he says, his Orthodox community.

He told that court “I grew up with no sexual education at all — none whatsoever,” he testified of his insular Orthodox community, which did not urge him to come forward with allegations of abuse. “… It wasn’t spoken of and, unfortunately, it still isn’t,” the Chicago Tribune reported.

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FLORIDA
CBS Miami

[with video]

MIAMI (CBSMiami) – CBS4 has obtained the audio recording of a controlled call made under police supervision between a rabbi accused of molestation and the mother of the child. During the call, the rabbi maintains his innocence.

“There was never any touch. No sexual. Not any type,” Rabbi Steve Karro tells the mother.

The mother of a child he allegedly fondled doesn’t believe him.

“Rabbi Karro, she’s an 11-year-old girl. She’s very smart. She’s very intelligent. She knows herself when she’s uncomfortable. She mentioned to me something happened. She was very scared to tell me. We’re devastated Rabbi Karro. We’re devastated for what she’s going through right now,” she tells him.

In the 10 minute call, the mother claims the Rabbi attempted to kiss her daughter and touch her legs inappropriately.

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MINNESOTA
Canonical Consultation

11/17/2015

Jennifer Haselberger

There has been much speculation in recent weeks regarding the visit to the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis by Msgr. Michael Morgan, a member of the staff of the Apostolic Nunciature to the United States. If the Catholic Spirit is to be believed (and I find that it rarely is) Msgr. Morgan’s visit was intended to allow him to observe some of the ‘listening sessions’ held throughout the Archdiocese which are supposedly intended to give the faithful a role in the selection of the new Archbishop.

Interestingly, according to the Spirit, Catholics who attended the listening sessions were asked to comment on the ‘strengths and challenges’ of the Archdiocese, as well as the ‘characteristics desired’ in the new Archbishop.

As someone who was frequently involved in the selection process of bishops (despite much inaccurate commentary on how lay people have not been involved prior to these sessions), it is hard for me to see how such vague questions, or answers for that matter, will inform a process that is typically distinguished by a fairly exhaustive and detailed collection of information on prospective candidates and the circumstances of the diocese. Given that the Holy See regularly solicits information on everything from the political bent of the local media to the number of children conceived through in vitro fertilization, asking the lay faithful to enumerate the qualities they seek in a new bishop appears more akin to the scene in Mary Poppins when Jane and Michael Banks are invited to list the qualities of the perfect nanny (‘Rosy cheeks, no warts!’, ‘You must be kind, you must be witty!’) than actual consultation, even in the Church.

The fact that the listening sessions have been so well received seems, to me at least, a natural consequence of the fact that those attending have so little information about the way bishops are actually selected. And, this ignorance seems to be something that those who are selling this endeavor wish to exploit. Hence the Monsignor’s statement that the listening sessions are the closest the Church comes to direct democracy. That is, simply, bollocks. As the Monsignor knows, there are many examples of direct democracy in the Church. Members of religious institutes, for instance, not only vote directly for their superiors (representative democracy) but every member is invited to participate in the local and general chapters of the institute, which is where policy initiatives are considered and accepted or rejected. And, in this Archdiocese, we had at least one school that was incorporated not under the governance of a board of directors, but following a congregational model.

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ROME
Catholic Herald (UK)

Associated Press

Emiliano Fittipaldi criticised the Vatican’s ‘medieval rules’ and told investigators he would not reveal his sources

An Italian journalist who is under criminal investigation by the Vatican for publishing a book about scandals at the Holy See said Tuesday he refused to answer the Vatican prosecutor’s questions during an interrogation this week, citing his right under Italian law to protect his sources.

Emiliano Fittipaldi, author of the new book Avarice, based on leaked Vatican documents, said he agreed to go to the Vatican on Monday after being formally summoned because he wanted to understand exactly what he was accused of.

But he told reporters Tuesday that he refused to answer the prosecutors’ questions, citing the protections journalists enjoy in Italy to shield their sources — protections which don’t exist in the Vatican legal code.

“I’d rather go to jail than reveal one of Avarice’s sources,” he said.

“(The Vatican) wants to create an internal precedent, as a way to stop other leaks in the future. They don’t care at all about what we think of these medieval rules.”

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UNITED STATES
skipshea

Posted on November 17, 2015 by skipshea

I was privileged to have seen a sneak peek at Thomas McCarthy’s movie “Spotlight” which chronicles the Boston Globe Spotlight team uncovering the massive cover up of the sexual abuse crisis within the Boston archdiocese. One of the perks for being in the club.

It was a tough and surreal watch for me. Because I knew some of the people up on the screen. Not like Mark Ruffalo, although I was in Shutter Island. Not exactly with him. Or anyone else for that matter. But I was in it.

Because typecasting works. Thank you Worcester Diocese for helping me do a convincing crazy.

But I digress..

I know Phil Saviano whose character is in the movie. I know Mitchell Garabedian. I’ve communicated with some of the reporters. So it was strange to see.

What struck me the most was this moment in the film.

Mike Rezendes outburst and frustration happened because he felt something needed to be done. Immediately.

And some things were done. Cardinal Law resigned and went home to Rome. The Globe won a Pulitzer and other countries starting looking into the crisis within their borders.

The governments of the countries of Ireland and Australia took a huge and firm stance agains the church. Two UN panels on torture held the church responsible for these crimes against humanity.

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MASSACHUSETTS
TheMediaReport

David Pierre

Just last week, Boston television network WCVB unleashed a startling revelation on its evening news:

“[WCVB] found in recent years, on average, the licenses of 15 Massachusetts educators are suspended or revoked each year for sexual misconduct. But there aren’t always charges.”

15 teachers. Each and every year in Massachusetts schools. Suspended for sexual misconduct. And almost all of these cases never see the inside of a courtroom.

Compare this with the Archdiocese of Boston, where the last time a priest was publicly accused of contemporaneous abuse of a minor was in January 2002, thirteen years ago. So according to the findings of WCVB’s investigation, there has been nearly 200 public school educators found to have abused students in Massachusetts since the last time a priest was publicly accused.

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NEW YORK
Times Herald-Record

By Andrew Beam
Times Herald-Record

Posted Nov. 17, 2015

MONTICELLO – A teen’s claim that he was sexually abused by a South Fallsburg rabbinical student is “impossible,” the wife of the rabbinical student testified on Tuesday.

The boy – now 15 – said during testimony on Monday that Haim Boukris, 29, picked him up in a “small, four-door car” at the grocery store and then took him to a nearby abandoned bungalow colony to sexually molest him.

But Rebecca Boukris – Haim Boukris’ wife – testified before Sullivan County Court Judge Frank LaBuda that it couldn’t have happened.

A visibly pregnant Boukris told Kenneth Gribetz – Haim Boukris’ New City attorney – her husband never did the shopping because he was at work in the Village of Ellenville during the day. She said she did all of the shopping for the household.

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MONTANA
Washington Times

By – Associated Press – Wednesday, November 18, 2015

HELENA, Mont. (AP) – The Diocese of Helena is looking to develop nearly 450,000 square feet of retail, commercial and hotel space.

The Independent Record reports (http://bit.ly/1OewI9n ) that the diocese has contracted with Trinity Restoration LLC for the retail sites in the future Trinity Center near the Interstate 15 and Custer Street interchange.

The site is being developed as part of the Helena Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization. A federal bankruptcy judge approved the diocese’s plan in March to compensate more than 360 alleged sexual abuse victims.

The property is owned by the Resurrection Cemetery Association. Proceeds will also support the maintenance of cemeteries in Butte, Helena and Missoula.

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MONTANA
Independent Record

VIDEO: Take a virtual walk through Helena’s next shopping development

TOM KUGLIN Independent Record

Righteous dollar bills: The 18 creditors that lost the most in the Diocese of Helena’s bankruptcy
The Diocese of Helena has contracted with a development firm to build nearly 450,000 square feet of retail, commercial and hotel space near the Interstate 15 and Custer Street interchange.

Trinity Restoration LLC is offering retail sites in the future Trinity Center, located at the end of Sanders Street on property owned by the Resurrection Cemetery Association. Project plans include space for a hotel, restaurants, a movie theater, retail stores, landscaped parking, water features, a dog park and walking trails, according to the website www.trinitycenter.com.

The Trinity Center is being developed through the Diocese of Helena Deposit and Loan Restoration Trust as part of the Helena Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization. A federal bankruptcy judge approved the diocese’s plan in early March to compensate more than 360 alleged sexual abuse victims.

The diocese, which oversees more than 60 parishes and 35 missions across western Montana, was one of nearly a dozen dioceses to file for Chapter 11 over the last decade.

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PENNSYLVANIA
ABC 27

By Mark Hall
Published: November 17, 2015

HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) – A private advance screening of the film “Spotlight” took place on Tuesday evening at the Midtown Cinema.

The film is a true story of how the Boston Globe uncovered the scandal of the child sexual abuse cover-up within the Boston Archdiocese.

State representatives Mark Rozzi, D-Berks, and Tom Murt, R-Montgogomery, hosted the event. Both support legislation that would modify the Pennsylvania statute of limitations to allow victims to pursue civil action against abusers and the institutions that shield them.

Rozzi has spoken openly about being a victim of abuse as a child. and he says we all have to keep the spotlight on the problem.

“I realize that I had to stand up,” said Rozzi, “I have to be the voice for the powerless and voiceless and for the children who were abused.”

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NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

By Rev. Alexander Santora/For the Jersey Journal
on November 17, 2015

It was a dreary, rainy, cold Tuesday evening last week when I trudged over to Union Square, Manhattan, to see, “Spotlight.” The film depicts The Boston Globe’s investigative unit uncovering the enormous sexual scandal in the Boston Archdiocese back in 2002.

Entering the theater just before endless trailers began, I was amazed to find not only a few seats left, but also that most of the audience was made up of young adults. The movie was only playing in one other uptown theater. After two hours and eight minutes, I was tempted to run up to the front of the theater and ask the people to stay seated so we could talk.

They could not leave the theater after the film ends with the publication of the front-page story on the Feast of Epiphany. The reporters from this unit come into work on that January Sunday, and the phones are ringing off the hook as perhaps scores of abuse victims are calling in their stories after reading the article. This Pulitzer Prize winning investigative unit of the newspaper, called Spotlight, uncovered not only that as many as 90 priests in the Boston area abused children and teens, but also that Cardinal Bernard Law, the Archbishop of Boston, knew for years about some of these priests and shuffled them from parish to parish where they abused again and again.

This audience, I thought, cannot leave thinking that this is the Catholic Church today. Or that nothing was ever done. Or that this was typical of every diocese, of all priests, and that Law was representative. But that was the power of this film. It wasn’t a propaganda film against the church. It touches on matters of celibacy and sealed settlements and clerical life, but it wasn’t taking a stand.

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UNITED STATES
dotCommonweal

Paul Moses
November 17, 2015

One of the many interesting things about the new movie Spotlight is that it shows how slow the Boston Globe was to chase the story that it ultimately published in 2002 about the systematic coverup of clergy sexual abuse in the Boston archdiocese. The newspaper had gotten similar information five years earlier, it turned out, but editors who either felt a connection to the Catholic Church or were otherwise reluctant to offend a mostly Catholic readership had edged it aside.

Under the leadership of a new editor, the paper sought and reported the truth.

This comes to mind as the Vatican pursues the disastrous course of criminally investigating two Italian journalists who wrote books based on documents leaked from the Vatican. What is this but an effort to intimidate journalists from reporting the truth?

Respect for a free press — a media free to report the truth — requires that news reporters not be coerced into giving up their confidential sources. Most states in the United States have shield laws that offer reporters some measure of protection. There is a great need for a federal version of that law, but even without it, procedures the Justice Department has in place make it unusual for reporters to be subpoenaed — much less placed under criminal investigation themselves for reporting the news. Italy also has protections for reporters. Vatican City does not.

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LOUISIANA
The Times-Picayune

By Ken Daley, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
on November 17, 2015

An Orleans Parish jury deadlocked Tuesday (Nov. 17) on whether the pastor of an eastern New Orleans church molested a young boy who was a member of his congregation more than a decade ago.

Kevin Boyd Sr., the 46-year-old “presiding bishop” of The Church At New Orleans, faced a prison sentence of five to 10 years if convicted as charged of molestation of a juvenile. Boyd is accused of sexually assaulting the child over a span of at least five years, starting in 1999 when the boy was about 12.

The jury of three women and three men announced it was deadlocked after four hours of deliberations. The jury had the option to convict or acquit Boyd with responsive verdicts of lesser charges, including attempted molestation. But the six-member panel was unable to concur on any verdict.

“The jurors listened to the evidence. Each and every one of them is entitled to their individual decision,” said Boyd’s defense attorney Kerry Cuccia. “These jurors had given a tremendous amount of thought and effort into the case, and they simply disagreed on what the proper result should be. And rather than it resorting to something it should not be, they respected each other’s positions and said they could not reach a unanimous verdict.”

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WISCONSIN
CBS 58

An accusation of child sexual abuse dating back to 1977 came up in September against a pastor at St. Francis Borgia Catholic Church in Cedarburg, and the Archdiocese of Milwaukee said they had no choice but to suspend the pastor.

“It was agony because priesthood is my life and my parish is my family. I was relieved of my job, my family, my home in the rectory at a moment’s notice. So it was pretty crushing,” said Father Tom Eichenberger.

St. Francis Borgia Associate Pastor, Father Justin Lopina, said the parish didn’t know what would happen to Father Tom or what it meant for the Parish.

In a letter from Archbishop Jerome Listecki, sent the second weekend in November, he said in part the report against Father Eichenberger had not been substantiated.

The man who said he always wanted to be a priest and nothing but a priest, said he was vindicated.

But, he said he will spend the rest of his life trying to rebuild his reputation.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

VICTIMS of child sexual abuse look set to be grilled by lawyers for Cardinal George Pell in a bid to quash explosive allegations he was complicit in a widespread cover-up.

The Herald Sun can reveal lawyers for the Cardinal will recall at least two witnesses when the royal commission continues its probe into the Ballarat diocese.

The move comes despite a former commitment by the Catholic Church not to subject victims of child sexual abuse to gruelling cross-examination.

In May, a spokesman for Catholic Church’s Truth Justice and Healing Council said: “we have determined … that it is not in the best interests of witnesses or anyone else that (victims) be cross-examined”.

“This is in line with the long held position (of all church parties) not to cross examine witnesses and that was always our intention.”

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2015

Statement by Verne Wagner of Duluth, SNAP director Northern Minnesota (218-340-1277, lwagsmn@yahoo.com)

Shame on Duluth Bishop Paul Sirba and his public relations staff. Yesterday, they made one of the least compassionate and helpful statements we’ve ever seen from Catholic officials.

[Duluth News Tribune]

Challenged on why Sirba still keeps the identities of predator priests hidden, Sirba’s lawyer said “It’s in the context of those litigation matters that issues of what will and will not be publicly released at any given time need to be addressed.”

Then adding insult to injury, she claims that newly released secret church documents “don’t tell a story of negligence by the Diocese of Duluth.”

Ironically, her comments were included in a newspaper story headlined “Duluth bishops were warned about sex abuse, documents show.” One of those documents is a letter from a Duluth bishop who admits “From time to time I have given (accused predator priests) a chance to rehabilitate themselves in the Diocese of Duluth. Unfortunately, all of these. . .turned out quite miserably.”)

Look at Sirba’s biography. He’s clearly a smart, well-educated man. But he’s timid. He won’t speak for himself. He hides behind his highly-paid defense lawyer, who just does what defense lawyers do: obscuring the truth and saying whatever her client wants her to say, albeit in cold and vague terms.

Duluth Catholics and citizens better. So do Duluth victims deserve. All of us deserve to know the truth about which clerics committed and concealed heinous crimes against kids in this diocese.

Instead, we’re being given more reckless secrecy, more carefully-crafted public relations spin and more bureaucratic, lawyer-like excuses.

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NEW JERSEY
Suburban

By JENNIFER AMATO
Staff Writer

SOUTH AMBOY — A priest who was accused of sexual abuse of a minor while serving as associate pastor at St. Mary’s in the 1970s has been cleared of all charges.

Msgr. Raymond L. Cole, who most recently served at St. Joseph Parish in Millstone within the Diocese of Metuchen, was found not guilty by an ecclesiastical tribunal comprised of three priests from outside the Diocese of Metuchen, according to a statement released by Bishop Paul G. Bootkoski on Nov. 12.

“I am satisfied that they conducted the trial in an impartial and professional manner,” Bootkoski said.

“While there can be neither victory nor victor in a situation such as this, the outcome of the trial means that Msgr. Cole is again a priest in good standing in the Diocese, and I hope this decision will be the first step to fully restore his reputation.

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ILLINOIS
Chicago Tribune

Alicia Fabbre
Chicago Tribune

Lawsuit alleges one priest sexually abused boy, then another priest gave him pot to forget it
A former parishioner of St. Pius X Catholic Church in Lombard is suing the Diocese of Joliet and two former priests claiming he was sexually abused nearly 40 years ago by one priest and offered drugs by another.

The alleged victim, identified only as John Doe, alleges Fr. Henry Slade attacked him when he was 11 years old. The lawsuit also claims Fr. Philip Dedera heard the boy’s screams but did nothing and then later offered him marijuana when he came out of Slade’s bedroom. Both priests appear on the Diocese’s published list of priests facing credible allegations of sexual abuse of minors.

Slade, 76, said Monday that he is innocent and has not been served with the lawsuit yet.

“That’s not me,” said Slade, who now resides in Colorado and said he is not involved in any type of ministry. “That’s nothing that happened. I’m totally innocent of this.”

“I never had anything to do with 11-year-old kids,” Slade said.

A spokesman for the Diocese of Joliet on Monday declined comment, noting the pending lawsuit. Burr Ridge based attorney Jerome Vinkler, who represents the plaintiff, could not be reached for comment.

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LOUISIANA
The Times-Picayune

By Ken Daley, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
on November 17, 2015

An Orleans Parish jury began deliberations Tuesday in the trial of an eastern New Orleans pastor accused of molesting a member of his congregation over at least a five-year span, starting in 1999 when the boy was about 12.

Kevin Boyd Sr., the 46-year-old presiding pastor of The Church At New Orleans, faces a prison sentence of five to 10 years if convicted as charged by the jury of three women and three men. The jury’s decision must be unanimous.

Jurors received the case at 1:25 p.m., after hearing instructions from criminal court Judge Camille Buras.

Assistant district attorney Andrew DeCoste described Boyd as a manipulative predator in his closing rebuttal argument.

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ROME
Religion News Service

Rosie Scammell | November 17, 2015

ROME (RNS) An Italian investigative journalist on Tuesday (Nov. 17) spoke out against what he called a “medieval” Vatican law that might result in a jail sentence of up to eight years for publishing confidential Holy See documents.

Emiliano Fittipaldi, whose new book “Avarice” reveals the struggle for financial reform at the Vatican, is under investigation for publishing secret documents leaked from the Holy See. A fellow Italian journalist, Gianluigi Nuzzi, is also being investigated for revelations made in his book, “Merchants in the Temple.”

While describing the investigation as “a terrible moment,” Fittipaldi remained defiant:

“From my point of view they are crazy charges, in the sense that in no democratic state, in no Western democracy, are there such restrictive laws on press freedom and expression.”

Fittipaldi said he went to meet with investigators on Monday to learn the details of the accusations against him. He and Nuzzi are accused of crimes against the Vatican City State and its security, part of a 2013 decree by Pope Francis intended to prevent documents from being leaked. It applies only within the Vatican City State and carries a jail sentence of up to eight years.

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VATICAN CITY
GlobalPost

One of the two Italian investigative journalists facing criminal proceedings for revealing Vatican secrets said Tuesday he had been quizzed by Holy See prosecutors.

Emiliano Fittipaldi said he had responded to a Vatican summons to face questioning “because I wanted to understand” the motivations for his prosecution over the contents of his recently published book “Avarice.”

The book is largely based on classified documents which were leaked in breach of an anti-whistle-blowing law enacted by the Vatican in 2013 with the blessing of Pope Francis.

“The accusations are crazy,” Fittpaldi said. “Such restrictive laws do not exist in any democratic state.”

Fittipaldi said he had come away from his interrogation convinced the landmark case would end in a trial of a Spanish priest currently in detention on suspicion of leaking the documents.

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VATICAN CITY
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor November 17, 2015

Next month Pope Francis will celebrate his 79th birthday, and by all accounts he remains remarkably vigorous. A brief mini-drama in October about an alleged brain tumor turned out to be fantasy, and both in Rome and on the road he keeps up a pace that would devastate most ordinary mortals.

There’s no reason to believe his papacy is nearing an end, and every reason to think it’s full steam ahead.

On the other hand, Francis has dropped hints that his might be a relatively brief run, and he’s also spoken approvingly about the example set by Pope Benedict XVI in resigning. Given his capacity for surprise, it’s entirely possible he’ll blindside the world with a decision to step aside just when it’s least expected.

No matter how things play out, it’s never too early to have an eye on what might come next – in part because it speaks to the future of the Church, and, in part because, let’s face it, such speculation is just fun.

Over the weekend, we got an intriguing X-ray of where things might stand should a transition in the papacy suddenly beckon. It came in a Vatican statement confirming the 12 prelates elected at the recent Synod of Bishops on the family to the “Ordinary Council,” meaning the body that will oversee synod operations until the next general assembly.

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WISCONSIN
National Catholic Reporter

Marie Rohde | Nov. 17, 2015

Fr. Tom Eichenberger, a Milwaukee priest cleared of an allegation that he abused a boy 38 years ago, told NCR that he feels no joy, just relief, that he has been found innocent and returned to his parish on Monday.

“I have forgiven him because I know he is a troubled person, a convicted felon who spent time in prison,” said Eichenberger. “I have forgiven him from my heart but it’s been a nightmare. I’ve given 40 years to the church and one guy can ruin all of that.”

Eichenberger was only the third priest removed from ministry and publicly named as an accused inmate as a result of allegations made in the bankruptcy that ended last week. Like Eichenberger, the other two were also acquitted of charges and returned to their ministry.

Archbishop Jerome Listecki announced the resolution of the investigation on Monday.

“I thank Father Eichenberger for his patient cooperation with this process,” Listecki wrote in a prepared statement. “The investigation that is conducted is thorough and professional because I do not want any doubt remaining when a conclusion is reached.”

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DEUTSCHLAND
Katholisch

[A German Carmelite has been punished by the Vatican for abusing a teenager.]

Bamberg – 16.11.2015

Ein deutscher Karmelitenpater ist wegen Missbrauchs Jugendlicher vom Vatikan bestraft worden. Wie die Provinzleitung am Montag in Bamberg mitteilte, hat die Glaubenskongregation am 12. November ein Dekret übermittelt. Der Geistliche darf demnach seine priesterlichen Tätigkeiten auf Dauer nicht mehr öffentlich, sondern nur noch ordensintern ausüben.

Außerdem muss er sich aus Hilfsprojekten zurückziehen. Seine Reisen und sein Wahlrecht im Orden werden erheblich eingeschränkt. Bei Nichteinhaltung der Strafen wird er aus dem Orden ausgeschlossen.

Der Pater hat der Mitteilung zufolge gestanden, sich in den späten 1980er und frühen 1990er Jahren an Jugendlichen vergangen zu haben. Weil die Opfer nicht aussagen wollten, sei Ende der 1990er Jahre ein strafrechtliches Verfahren vor einem weltlichen Gericht eingestellt worden. 2003 habe sich ein Opfer an die Kirche gewandt. Daraufhin habe der Arbeitsstab des Erzbistums Bamberg den Fall untersucht. Anschließend sei der Beschuldigte in eine andere Ordensniederlassung versetzt worden. Dort habe er als Priester nur im Innenbereich des Klosters und der Seniorenpastoral wirken dürfen. In den vergangenen Jahren habe er sich mehrmals psychotherapeutisch behandeln lassen.

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WISCONSIN
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Breann Schossow of the Journal Sentinel Nov. 17, 2015

A Cedarburg priest will return for services next weekend after being cleared by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee in its investigation of an allegation that he sexually abused a minor decades ago.

In a letter sent to parishioners Sunday, Archbishop Jerome Listecki said the allegation against the Rev. Tom Eichenberger of St. Francis Borgia Parish was not substantiated.

Eichenberger was put on leave in September. The allegation came from a claim filed in the church’s bankruptcy case, which accused Eichenberger of molesting a minor during his first assignment at a parish in West Allis after his 1976 ordination.

The report was reviewed by the district attorney’s office, which did not file any charges as the incident was beyond the statute of limitations. It was then turned over to an independent investigator, who reported to the Diocesan Review Board. After review, the board recommended that Eichenberger be restored to the ministry.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

KATHERINE TOWERS, TESSA AKERMAN
THE AUSTRALIAN
NOVEMBER 18, 2015

The Victorian Supreme Court is refusing to release files detailing a string of legal claims against former bishop of Ballarat Ronald Mulkearns over his alleged role in covering up the extensive sexual abuse of children by pedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale.

Sixteen of Ridsdale’s victims have launched Supreme Court action against Bishop Mulkearns, who was told of Ridsdale’s sexual abuse of children while in charge of the western Victorian diocese and who oversaw the movement of the priest from parish to parish, including interstate.

The Victorian Supreme Court yesterday ordered the files against Bishop Mulkearns be closed to the public after The Australian applied to view several of them. Senior deputy prothonotary Domenic Conidi issued the order, saying the court took the view that the material in the files was “sensitive” and should not be released to the public.

Vivienne Waller, the lawyer for the 16 victims, said the files did not detail allegations against Bishop Mulkearns and instead contained just a “short paragraph” indicating the existence of the claim.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 17 November 2015 (VIS) – The Holy Father has appointed:

– Msgr. Jorge Carlo Patron Wong, archbishop-bishop emeritus of Papantla, Mexico, as secretary for seminaries of the Congregation for the Clergy.

– Cardinal Edwin Frederick O’Brien, Grand Master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, as member of the Congregation for Causes of Saints.

– Professor Stefania Nanni, associate lecturer in modern history at the “La Sapienza” University of Rome, as consultor of the Congregation for Causes of Saints.

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WALTHAM (MA) and GALLUP (NM)
BishopAccountability.org and the Gallup Independent

[Note: Readers of Abuse Tracker are familiar with the work of Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola in the Gallup Independent and National Catholic Reporter. We have collected her journalism on a dedicated page, so that more readers can have the benefit of her reporting. – Terence McKiernan]

In her reporting for the Gallup Independent and the National Catholic Reporter, Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola has brought crucial aspects of the Catholic clergy abuse crisis in the Diocese of Gallup to national and international attention. Since 2002, Hardin-Burrola has chronicled the legacy of sexual abuse in the Gallup diocese, which has severely affected the lives of many Hispanic and Native American families in rural Arizona and New Mexico. Hardin-Burrola has provided deeply researched coverage of the complex Gallup diocese, in the years leading up to the filing of the Chapter 11 petition, and as that bankruptcy process continues to run its course. Below we provide an anthology of her journalism.

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ALABAMA
Shelby County Reporter

By MOLLY DAVIDSON / Staff Writer

Shelby County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrested a local daycare employee on four counts of felony child abuse after concerned coworkers reported her actions to the authorities.

Brittney Nicole Wayland, 20, of Hoover, was arrested on Nov. 2 after she allegedly abused four children at a Shelby County church-run daycare facility located in the 4700 block of Valleydale Road.

Coworkers at the daycare facility reported the alleged abuse to the SCSO on May 29.
According to court documents, the alleged incidents of abuse occurred between June 2014 and June 2015.

After an investigation and interviews with the witnesses and four child victims, Wayland was charged with three counts of misdemeanor harassment and one count of misdemeanor assault SCSO deputy Debbie Sumrall said.

The charges were elevated to felonies after the case was brought in front of a grand jury on Oct. 9. The grand jury indicted Wayland on four counts of felony child abuse.

“This case was forwarded to the grand jury, and because of the number of victims, they decided to charge Brittney with four counts of willful abuse of a child,” Sumrall said.

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MEXICO
SDP Noticias

[Two priests in Mexico have been suspended by the archbishop after allegations of sexual abuse were made.]

El implicado es acusado de 45 abusos en contra de menores indígenas en comunidades oaxaqueñas.

México.- La denuncia pública en contra de otro sacerdote, a quien se acusa de haber abusado de 45 menores indígenas, le costó el sacerdocio a dos párracos: Apolonio Merino Hernández de Cristo Rey, así como Ángel Noguera Nieto de Santiago Camotlán.

El acusado Gerardo Silvestre Hernández fue detenido el 29 de noviembre de 2013, sin embargo, el arzobispo de Antequera-Oaxaca, José Luis Chávez Botello, suspendió a ambos párrocos y a Merino pretendió callarlo con amenazas, afirmando que había violado el celibato para fundar una familia, así como la prefabricación de un delito por el presunto abuso sexual de una mujer.

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ILLINOIS
Chicago Tribune

Steve SchmadekeContact Reporter
Chicago Tribune

When her 15-year-old son began to question the Orthodox Jewish faith he was raised in, his mother turned to a trusted rabbi from their West Rogers Park community for help.

But Aryeh “Larry” Dudovitz instead betrayed the family’s trust by sexually assaulting the boy during a Jewish holiday nine years ago, a Cook County judge found Monday.

His bench trial Monday at the Leighton Criminal Court Building offered a glimpse into the sometimes-insular Orthodox community. Several prominent rabbis testified that they responded to a report of the abuse by convening a special session of a religious court.

The assault took place in October 2006, but it wasn’t until May 2013 that criminal charges were brought against Dudovitz. The victim’s family said that part of the reason for the delay was because relatives wanted the victim to first receive counseling to be better prepared for the emotional strain of a trial.

During the two-hour trial, Dudovitz, now 48, sat slumped in his seat at the defense table in a long black coat and a black yarmulke. He showed little reaction when the judge ruled. The married father of nine had rejected a plea deal that called for five years in prison and now faces up to 15 years in prison at sentencing.

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MALTA
Malta Today

Jurgen Balzan 17 November 2015

Maltese economist Joe FX Zahra inadvertently found himself in the eye of a storm which has engulfed the Vatican and seen a Spanish priest associated with Opus Dei and a PR expert arrested after being accused of leaking sensitive information.

Two new books have embarrassed the Vatican with reports of mismanagement and greed, such as sainthood causes that can cost €500,000 and one monsignor allegedly breaking down the wall of his next-door neighbor – a sick, elderly priest – to expand his already palatial apartment.

Pope Francis has made a top priority the reform of the Vatican bureaucracy known as the Curia and one of his most trusted aides is Zahra, one of five members on the International Audit Committee of the Holy See. Francis appointed Zahra as president of a new Pontifical Commission for the Reference on the Economy and Administrative Structure of the Holy See (COSEA).

In March 2014, Francis asked Zahra to serve as one of the seven lay members, joining eight cardinals from around the world who serve on the newly-established Council for Economic Affairs, which oversees the work of the new Secretariat for the Economy, an agency which has financial regulatory authority over all the departments of the curia.

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MINNESOTA
WDIO

[with video]

By: Baihly Warfield
bwarfield@wdio.com

DULUTH, Minn. – Newly released documents indicate the Diocese of Duluth had knowledge of priests’ history of sexual abuse before bringing them to work in the Northland. Twin Cities law firm Jeff Anderson & Associates, which is active in clergy abuse lawsuits, released those documents Monday.

The four priests accused of child sex abuse mentioned in the documents were the Revs. Gregory Manning, Charles Gormly, Bernard Bissonnette and Alfred Longley. They were all accused of abuse while working in the Diocese of Duluth, according to the law firm. The documents show three of the four, all except Longley, spent time at a vocational and psychological assistance facility called Servants of the Paraclete in Jemez Springs, New Mexico for problems with child sex abuse.

The head of Servants of the Paraclete, the Rev. Gerald Fitzgerald, wrote to then-Duluth bishop Thomas Welch in 1958, “We are fully convinced from our wide experience that this type of aberration is not curable.” That statement was in regard to Manning’s “unfortunate ailment” that he was sent to Servants of the Paraclete for.

In a 1966 letter addressed to “any Catholic bishop who may be interested in accepting the service of the Rev. Bernard Bissonnette” from then-bishop Francis Shenk, he writes, “I have given guest priests … a chance to rehabilitate themselves in the Diocese of Duluth. Unfortunately, all of these former ventures turned out quite miserably.”

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GUAM
Pacific News Center

Written by Janela Carrera

Attorney Jacque Terlaje says it doesn’t take a trained lawyer to understand that the deed the Archbishop filed does not translate to him “giving it away.”

Guam – The Archdiocese of Agana has responded to the threats of a possible lawsuit, firing back with their own allegations of ulterior motives by those accusing the Archbishop of illegal trading.

Attorney Jacque Terlaje, in a press release, reiterated the Archdiocese’s previous statements regarding the controversial ownership of the Redemptoris Mater Seminary.

Although a trained lawyer, Terlaje said it doesn’t take a law degree to decipher documents that show who the legal owner of the RMS really is—Archbishop Anthony Apuron.

Terlaje’s press release comes a day after the Concerned Catholics of Guam announced that they would be seeking legal action if the Archbishop fails to return the RMS property back to Archdiocese control.

Terlaje explains, however, that the very same documents the CCOG is using to make the allegations against the Archbishop prove he maintains control over the multimillion dollar property.

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