ABUSE TRACKER

AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

March 31, 2015

Michael Inman
Courts reporter for The Canberra Times.

A former Catholic priest accused of molesting a friend’s daughter told police the girl was always looking for love.

Father Edward Evans admitted to the police he had touched the girls bottom, but said it had been an affectionate gesture and not sexual.

Father Evans, 85, is on trial in the ACT Supreme Court on charges of committing acts of indecency and sexual assault on the girl in the 1990s.

He has pleaded not guilty.

The girl was aged between 10 and 13 years, and Father Evans in his 60s at the time of the alleged offences.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Tom Halden, a long-time fixture at KMSP, will leave the station to become director of communications for the Archdiocese of St. Paul. The announcement was made Monday in the newsroom.

Halden has been with the station since 2003. HIs most recent duties included co-anchoring the early morning news on weekdays and co-hosting Fox 9 Buzz. Halden is a native of North St. Paul.

No replacement has been named.

Halden takes the place of Anne Steffens, another former anchor, who had only served in the position for a little over a year. She is reportedly leaving to spend more time with family. It was a rocky period when the archdiocese faced an unprecedented wave of clergy abuse lawsuits.

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MINNESOTA
The Catholic Spirit

Maria Wiering | March 30, 2015

Tom Halden, a weekday morning news anchor on FOX 9, has been named director of communications for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. He plans to begin May 6.

A member of Mary, Mother of the Church in Burnsville, Halden has worked for Twin Cities’ FOX affiliate KMSP-TV since 2003. He anchors the station’s morning news from 4:30-6 a.m. and co-hosts FOX 9 Buzz, which airs at 9 a.m. weekdays.

Prior to FOX 9, Halden was an anchor for WSBT-TV in South Bend, Indiana, from 1997 to 2003, and KAAL-TV in Austin from 1996 to 1997. From 1995 to 1996 he was a reporter in Alexandria.

While at FOX 9, he initiated and produced the weekend segment “Faith Talking,” which aired from 2006 to 2009.

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MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

Date: Monday, March 30, 2015

From Father Charles V. Lachowitzer, Vicar General and Moderator of the Curia

We are pleased to announce that Tom Halden has been named as the new Director of Communications for the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, effective May 6. Tom will oversee The Catholic Spirit, as well as our web and social media efforts and media relations.

Tom brings with him 20 years of media experience and a lifelong devotion to the Catholic faith. His roots are in North St. Paul, and he and his family are members of Mary, Mother of the Church in Burnsville. We were blessed to have many strong candidates for the position. I am thankful Tom has chosen to share his many gifts with the Church.

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MINNESITA
Bring Me the News

FOX 9 morning anchor Tom Halden has been named the new communications director for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. His first day will be May 6.

Vicar General Charles Lachowitzer announced the appointment Monday in a statement, noting that Halden has 20 years of media experience as well as a “lifelong devotion to the Catholic faith.”

Halden and his family are parishioners of Mary, Mother of the Church in Burnsville, and he is active in several ministries there, Lachowitzer said. Halden and his wife have four children.

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CANADA
CBC News

Sexual assault allegations against John Furlong, former head of the Vancouver Olympics organizing committee, were dismissed by a B.C. Supreme Court judge today after the complainant Daniel Morice failed to appear in court.

The former VANOC CEO has vigorously denied any wrongdoing since he was accused of abusing former students while he was a teacher in British Columbia during the late 1960s.

The dismissal of Morice’s complaint is the third time allegations against Furlong have been set aside.

In December, a woman who claimed she was abused by Furlong while he was a teacher in Burns Lake, B.C., dropped her lawsuit against Furlong.

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CANADA
The Globe and Mail

MARK HUME
VANCOUVER — The Globe and Mail
Published Monday, Mar. 30 2015

During the nearly two years he has been facing sexual abuse allegations, John Furlong, the former CEO of the Vancouver Olympics, says he has battled depression, watched his family suffer humiliation and seen his once lucrative public speaking career ended.

But in a ruling on Monday, the Supreme Court of British Columbia tried to give him back some of his dignity when it threw out the last of several abuse claims made against him in a civil suit brought by three former students of aboriginal schools in northern B.C.

Justice Elliott Myers dismissed the claim of Daniel Morice after he failed to show up for what was supposed to be the start of a lengthy trial and the court heard abusive, obscenity-filled phone calls Mr. Morice made to defence counsel.

“Mr. Morice did not even attempt to prove his claim,” said Justice Myers, who awarded special costs to Mr. Furlong because of the “egregious, reprehensible conduct” of Mr. Morice.

“Obviously, I’m very pleased that today’s over,” Mr. Furlong said briefly outside court. “It was a very emotional day.”

He said he was going immediately to meet with his family and promised a detailed statement on Tuesday.

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CANADA
The Province

BY KEITH FRASER, THE PROVINCE MARCH 27, 2015

A man who has accused former Vanoc CEO John Furlong of sexually assaulting him nearly 40 years ago abruptly hung up the phone in the middle of a telephone conference with a Vancouver judge on Friday.

The display of rudeness prompted B.C. Supreme Court Miriam Gropper to dismiss Daniel Morice’s application that he be allowed to make an application by telephone to adjourn his trial on Monday.

The judge said that Morice, a resident of Prince Rupert, will have to make an appearance in court if he wants to seek an adjournment of his trial, which is scheduled to get under way Monday.

The decision came after lawyers for Furlong appeared in person in court Friday, applying to dismiss Morice’s application for a telephone conference Monday on several grounds, including that it might be necessary to cross-examine him on his claim that he is employed and unable to attend court for that reason.

Morice gave the judge the name of a person he said was a supervisor with the ministry of highways as evidence of his employment and said he had no way of getting to Vancouver on Monday.

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CANADA
Winnipeg Free Press

VANCOUVER – A B.C. Supreme Court judge has dismissed a third sexual abuse lawsuit against former Olympics CEO John Furlong.

The decision ends a series of civil actions brought against Furlong related to his time as a teacher at a Roman Catholic school in northern B.C.

Judge Elliott Myers also awarded special costs to Furlong, calling the behaviour of the plaintiff egregious, reprehensible and deserving of a rebuke.

The man, who had planned to represent himself, failed to appear as the trial began on Monday after hanging up on a judge during a pre-conference on Friday.

Last month, another judge threw out a separate sexual abuse claim by B.C. resident Grace West, while Beverly Abraham dropped her lawsuit in December.

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CANADA
Global News

VANCOUVER – A lawyer for former Olympics CEO John Furlong has asked a B.C. Supreme Court judge to dismiss a sexual abuse lawsuit against his client and award special costs.

Bill Smart, who says the claimant made up a series of lies in filing the suit, outlined counter allegations on the first day of the trial, which began without the man appearing in court.

Furlong has vehemently denied the claims related to when he was a teacher at a Roman Catholic school in northern B.C., starting in the late 1960s.

On Friday, a judge ruled against allowing the Prince Rupert, B.C., resident from participating in the trial by telephone after he hung up during a pre-trial conference.

Last month, a judge threw out a separate sexual abuse claim against Furlong by Grace West after Beverly Abraham dropped her lawsuit in December.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
District Chronicles

D.C. City Council member David Grosso (I-At Large) has introduced the Childhood Protection Against Sexual Abuse Amendment Act of 2015 that would eliminate the statute of limitations for the recovery of damages arising out of sexual abuse that occurred when a victim was a minor.

The bill creates a two-year window for individuals whose claims were previously time-barred.

“There are few actions more depraved than sexual violence or abuse against children,” said Grosso.

“Because most victims of childhood sexual abuse do not come forward until much later in their adult lives, we need to ensure that the statute of limitations is not a barrier to justice. A person who victimizes a child should never be able to hide behind time.”

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OHIO
WXYZ

Jonathan Carlson

(WXYZ) Toledo, Ohio – The Rev. James Roth was beloved in the parishes he served. But he held a dark secret, no one knew about. Except, maybe, the young victim he later admitted to abusing.

“I’ve cried…I’ve been so angry at him at times.”

Rev. Ken McKenna knew Roth for decades.

“We were classmates.”

The Provincial in Toledo, he says the victim recently came forward, detailing abuse when he was 9 or 10. It would have been nearly 15 years ago.

“I have said to him, ‘you have done the right thing’,” said McKenna.

Roth was a teacher and administrator at St. Francis in Toledo, but also led mass at St. Mary’s of the Immaculate Conception in Monroe.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Berger’s Beat

March 30, 2015 11:04 am | Author: berger

There’s a new judge and a new prosecutor in the criminal child sex case against Fr. Joseph Jiang. Judge Dennis Schaumann has replaced Judge Jack Garvey, who recused himself. Prosecutor Molly Wayne has replaced Anne Kratky. Fr. Jiang, meanwhile, is still repped by Paul D’Agrosa, who’s come under fire for being part of the “old boys’ club,” a cozy group of lawyers who profit from “fixing tickets” and multiple overlapping roles as judges, prosecutors and defense lawyers in municipal courts. (D’Agrosa is a judge in Olivette and U. City and prosecutor in Arnold.)

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

By Annette Blackwell
March 31, 2015

The legal system in Australia needs to learn from psychologists or risk inflicting grave injustices on child sex assault victims, the chair of the child sexual abuse royal commission says.

In a keynote address in Auckland to the 14th Australasian Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect on Tuesday, Justice Peter McClellan will say judges are working off what they thought they knew about how “genuine complainants” behaved and how memory works.

“Assumptions that turned out, with the benefit of empirical research, to be erroneous,” he says.

He will trace the historical legal approach to sex assault cases and cite relatively recent warnings by judges about delayed reporting affecting credibility and the fallible nature of human recollection making evidence about childhood events particularly susceptible to error.

Justice McClellan says these legal propositions were put without a scientific source, yet they became embedded in the fabric of the common law and proved difficult even for parliament to dislodge.

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UNITED STATES
Stop Baptist Predators

It’s time to register for the 2015 SNAP Conference.

Give yourself the gift of being surrounded by people who understand.

Who: Survivors of clergy sex abuse
What: SNAP Conference 2015
When: July 31 – August 2, 2015
Where: Washington D.C.

SNAP, the Survivors’ Network of those Abused by Priests, is the largest international support group for women and men who were sexually abused by religious authority figures — i.e., by priests, preachers, ministers, deacons, and others. It is a nonprofit organization that is independent of any religious group and that carries no connection to any church or denominational entity.

Trauma psychologist Peter Levine wrote that “trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside us in the absence of an empathetic witness.” I often think that one of the most powerful healing graces of SNAP is that it provides a forum through which clergy abuse survivors can do for one another what faith communities – and often even our own families – could not bring themselves to do. It provides a forum through which we ourselves can bear witness to one another’s trauma. So, whether or not you can make it to the conference, I hope you’ll consider connecting with a SNAP group in your area.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Breitbart

by NICK HALLETT
30 Mar 2015

Enoch Powell’s official biographer has hit out at the Church of England after it alleged that the former MP was involved in “satanic sex abuse”.

Powell was on a list of several high-profile former MPs that was handed to police by Paul Butler, Bishop of Durham. Another name on the list was Labour’s Leo Abse who piloted the decriminalisation of homosexuality through parliament in the 1960s.

The Daily Mail reports that Butler was given the politicians’ names by Dominic Walker, former Bishop of Monmouth, who heard the allegations while counselling in the 1980s.

However, Simon Heffer, Powell’s official biographer, has written a strongly-worded condemnation of the allegations, describing the Church of England’s actions as “disgraceful” and “remarkably un-Christian”.

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GERMANY
Deutsche Welle

The film “The Culpable” by Gerd Schneider is about three priests whose friendship and careers are shattered by accusations of child abuse. The German film director has an insider’s view on Church hierarchy.

The film “The Culpable” (orginal title: “Verfehlung”) tells the story of three priests, Jakob, Dominik, and Oliver, who are good friends. Then all of a sudden everything changes: Dominik is suspected of child abuse. How do the three priests deal with the accusations?

Gerd Schneider’s debut film, released in Germany last week, has already received several awards at film festivals. DW met the director, who studied to become a priest in 1998 before turning to film studies.

DW: What inspired you to do “The Culpable”? Why did you choose this topic?

Gerd Schneider: That happened a while back. At the beginning of this century, child abuse by members of the Catholic Church wasn’t a very hot topic in Germany yet. In the United States, there had been different scandals and the outrage was intensified by attempts to cover up the cases. At that point, the German bishops were still laughing. They were sure this couldn’t happen here. Not that they wanted to hide something; they genuinely thought there had not been the same extent of abuse here. But in 2006 the stories started trickling out.

At that time, I was a Second Unit Director on a film production. That’s when I suddenly got this idea: I had the image of a prison chaplain accompanying a colleague, a friend, who would have landed in prison. How should he deal with the situation? How do you deal with uncomfortable truths? That got me started. For my first film, I wanted to tell a story with substance. It’s always a major challenge for a filmmaker.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Jane Lee

Sexual assault victims’ testimony has been called into question by judges ignorant of relevant psychological research, the chairman of the royal commission into child sexual abuse says.

In a rare and frank appraisal of Australian judges to be presented on Tuesday at an international conference in New Zealand, Justice Peter McClellan said, “Judicial assumptions about human behaviour are still, in relatively contemporary times, informing the content of the law.”

While some of these assumptions “may be sound”, he says it is difficult to know whether they are correct, given the law largely prevents judges from consulting “authoritative professional material” on “ordinary human behaviour”.

Judges had historically said things in sexual assault trials that revealed their ignorance of relevant psychological research, including that allegations of sexual abuse should be doubted if victims’ reports were delayed, and that children’s memories of abuse were unreliable, Justice McClellan said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Canberra Times

March 30, 2015

Michael Inman
Courts reporter for The Canberra Times.

A former Catholic priest accused of molesting a young girl admitted to diocese officials that he had touched her bottom, a court has been told.

But Father Edward Evans, 85, told them it was not sexual and he did not know it was a crime.

Father Evans allegedly told the officials he knew it had been wrong but thought, after 20 years, all had been forgiven and forgotten.

Evans has pleaded not guilty in the ACT Supreme Court to allegations that he abused the girl at his home on five occasions and at Cooleman Court on another occasion in the 1990s.

The Crown alleges the priest put his hands down the girl’s pants and grabbed her bottom three times, and digitally penetrated her twice in his kitchen.

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INDIA
Matters India

Kochi: An Italy-based Catholic religious congregation for women has set a new trend in the Indian Church by monetarily helping a former member settle down in life.

“The Agatha Sisters were generous enough to give her 12 Lakhs (1.2 million) rupees,” Father Paul Thelakat, spokesperson of the Syro-Malabar Church who mediated between the former nun and the congregation, told Matters India on Monday.

The decision to pay the former nun, who uses the one name of Anitha, was taken at a conciliation meeting on Sunday held at St Joseph’s Church, Snehapuram Church Road, Aluva, in Kerala.

Anitha’s immediate relatives and Jose Maveli, chairperson of Janaseva Sisubhavan, an orphanage where the former nun had taken refuge, also attended the meeting.

As per the terms of the settlement, Anitha has to return her religious dress and claims to be a member of the congregation. she had refused to give up her religious life after she was expelled from the congregation.

She had earlier threatened to hold a sit-in outside her convent – the Sisters of St. Agatha convent in Aluva near Kochi – which had refused to take her back on her return from Italy on February 20.

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INDIA
UCAN

Kochi:
A Catholic nun who was expelled from her congregation after she reportedly resisted sexual abuse by a priest and registered complaint against him is planning to intensify her agitation.

The woman, who was known as Sr. Anita in the convent of Sisters of St Agata in Ernakulum district, is now housed in the Janseva Sisubhavan, an orphanage in Aluva.

She is all set to launch an indefinite hunger strike in front of the Sisters of St Agata Convent at Thottakkattukara, the Indian Express said on Tuesday.

Anita, a native of Kannur district, became a nun in 2007 and took up a teacher’s job at the Providence Convent High School in Pachore, Madhya Pradesh. According to her, the congregation authorities turned hostile towards her after she complained about an alleged attempt of sexual harassment by a priest in 2011.

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UNITED KINGDOM
ITV

A meeting will be held today to investigate the way the catholic church dealt with concerns about a former priest in Norfolk who’s been jailed for child abuse.

Father Anthony McSweeney was sentenced on Friday for abusing a boy at a care home in London.

The church will meet police and other local authorities to look into why McSweeney was moved from a parish in Essex to one in Norwich in 1999 after his cleaner found indecent videos of teenage boys at his home.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

A Catholic Church official has alleged a Canberra priest told him he knew touching a young girl in the 1990s was wrong, the ACT Supreme Court has heard.

The alleged victim was aged between 10 and 13 when the now 85-year-old Edward Evans was alleged to have molested her in the 1990s.

Evans is accused of six offences against the girl.

Most of the allegations relate to incidents in his house, often when other people were nearby.

The woman’s parents have told the court they had a close relationship with Evans lasting many years but cut contact with the priest when the allegations surfaced.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

Some people are devastated a historic Melbourne church has been gutted by fire, but others are happy to see it burn.

Arson chemists are yet to determine the cause of the suspicious blaze which destroyed St James Church in Brighton early on Monday morning.

The Catholic church, one of Melbourne’s oldest, was attended by notorious priest Ronald Pickering.

Pickering, now dead, was accused of child sex abuse against a number of boys in the 1970s and 1980s but was never convicted.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Birmingham Mail

30 March 2015 By Josh Layton

The Conservative MP, notorious for his ‘rivers of blood’ speech in Birmingham, is at the centre of allegations passed to Scotland Yard by a senior Anglican bishop

The late firebrand MP Enoch Powell today became the latest political figure accused of involvement in the alleged Westminster paedophile network.

The Tory, notorious for his ‘rivers of blood’ speech in Birmingham, is at the centre of allegations passed to Scotland Yard by a senior Anglican bishop.

A clergyman is said to have come forward with claims of satanic abuse made by a young adult he counselled in the 1980s.

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VIRGINIA
Loudoun Times-Mirror

by Crystal Owens

Former congregants and members of the community on Sunday protested across the street from Sterling’s Calvary Temple church in an effort to raise awareness to practices they say have gone on for decades behind its closed doors.

The protest, which close to 100 people attended, was sparked after a March 25 Loudoun Times-Mirror article in which two women said they were physically and sexually abused for years by members of the church’s leadership and teachers.

The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office has launched an investigation into at least one woman’s claims of sexual abuse. Last week, detectives asked the public to come forward if they had any information about the case.

Since the article published, at least two more people have come forward to the Loudoun Times, alleging they were physically and sexually abused while attending Calvary.

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VIRGINIA
WTOP

By Kathy Stewart | @KStewartWTOP
March 29, 2015

LOUDOUN COUNTY, Va. — On Palm Sunday, protesters gathered outside a local church that’s been previously criticized for its finances, among other things.

About 70 to 80 former church members and supporters held signs across from Calvary Temple in Sterling. Former members have made claims of sexual, physical and verbal abuse in connection with the church.

The Northern Virginia Pentecostal church has been investigated in the past, and is under investigation again. “We can confirm that one particular case was re-activated as additional information arose. Additional information is being looked into right now,” Liz Mills, spokeswoman for the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office, told the Loudoun Times.

The sheriff’s office released a statement on March 26 confirming the ongoing investigation of alleged sex abuse at the church. Meanwhile, detectives are asking anyone with information regarding the investigation to call 703-777-0475.

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VIRGINIA
Leesburg Today

Jonathan Hunley

Almost 100 people protested Sunday across the street from a Sterling church that they claim is really the home of a cult that has allowed misdeeds including sexual abuse.

Members of the group held signs and were encouraged by the honking of horns from passing cars. They said that Senior Pastor Star R. Scott operates a controlling ministry at Calvary Temple that doesn’t allow criticism and attempts to besmirch the character of anyone who speaks up.

When asked if the church wanted to respond, a representative of the congregation said that Calvary Temple would issue a statement soon.

The church has faced scrutiny before—there are websites and at least one Facebook page that denounce it—but the controversy surrounding it has increased in recent days, and the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office last week announced that it was investigating and wanted to speak with anyone who might have information.

“We understand the concerns of the public, and we want to ensure everyone that we take all allegations of abuse seriously and these crimes will be investigated to their fullest extent,” Loudoun Sheriff Mike Chapman said in a prepared statement Thursday that noted that the agency’s Juvenile Sex Crimes Unit was looking into the matter.

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VIRGINIA
WUSA

[with video]

Surae Chinn, WUSA March 30, 2015

STERLING, Va. (WUSA9) — Nearly 100 demonstrators peacefully protested outside of a Pentecostal church in Sterling claiming sexual abuse and brainwashing.

The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office confirms they have recently reopened the case of alleged sexual abuse at Calvary Temple Ministries, a decade after they closed a case involving similar accusations.

Former church members and residents nearby are using the hashtag: #ExposeCalvaryTemple to spread their message and standing outside of the church to protest.

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INDIA
The New Indian Express

KOCHI:Probably for the first time in the history of the Church in Kerala, a nun who was allegedly expelled from her congregation after she raised complaints of sexual harassment against a priest would be provided with compensation of Rs 12 lakh.

The move is being considered as a victory for Sr Anita, who sought refuge in an orphanage in Aluva and was waging a battle against the Church and the Sisters of Agata, the congregation to which she belonged. The decision to award the compensation was taken at a conciliation meeting held at St Joseph Church, Snehapuram Church Road, Thottakkattukara, Aluva on Sunday. The meet was attended by Syro Malabar Church spokesperson Fr Paul Thelakkattu, Sr Anita’s immediate relatives, and Jose Maveli, chairman of Janaseva Sisubhavan, where the expelled nun sought refuge.

As per the terms of the settlement the nun has been asked to give up her robes. Though she was expelled from the congregation Sr Anita had refused to give up her religious life. The tussle between Sr Anita and the congregation began in 2011 after she complained against a priest who attempted to sexually abuse her. The alleged incident happened while she was serving as a teacher in Panchore in Madhya Pradesh.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Loretta Florance

The destruction of St James Church in Brighton would be a relief to many former parishioners because of its history of sexual abuse, actress and former parishioner Rachel Griffiths has told 774 ABC Melbourne.

The heritage-listed church was destroyed in an early morning blaze that took hours for fire crews to bring under control.

Ms Griffiths said when she heard the news of the fire, she went to visit a friend who lives a couple of doors down from the church.

“I was quite elated, like many of my generation, when I heard the news this morning,” she said.

“It’s always been a difficult building for us to drive past because there’s been so much tragedy and complicated feelings, I guess.

“We’ve all attended many funerals of boys that we now know were abused by [Father Ronald] Pickering … and other perpetrators in the parish – at the actual church that it occurred in.”

The Metropolitan Fire Brigade said the cause of the fire could not yet be established.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Times

David Brown

The Church of England has told Scotland Yard that William Whitelaw, the former home secretary, and Enoch Powell were accused of being members of a political satanic abuse ring.

The allegations of the politicians’ involvement in child abuse emerged during counselling by a vicar of a youth in the 1980s. Leo Abse, a long-serving Labour MP, was also named.

Although there was no evidence to support the claims, the church authorities felt compelled to send the information to Scotland Yard’s investigation into alleged establishment involvement in child abuse.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Martin Luther, five hundred years ago, quietly began at a German cathedral his revolt over Vatican scandals. Now outraged parents have reignited his revolt at a Chilean cathedral amid chaotic scenes of thousands of protesters. Many shoved their way into the cathedral, as Juan Barros, personally known to and appointed by Pope Francis, was installed as Bishop of Osorno, not far from Francis’ Argentina. Fr. Alex Vigueras, Chilean provincial of a major religious order, warned that a “small fire” like this appointment could become “a catastrophe with irreparable losses.” Almost half of Chile’s parliament and an ex-president reportedly even tried to get Francis to reverse his decision on Barros. Will this be a precedent for US protests of the pope or pleas on behalf of defenseless children from President Obama or political leaders like John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi and Jeb Bush, when Francis visits the USA in a few months?

It seems that the Vatican papal monarchy has learned little since Luther’s time. Barros is accused by a top US communications executive, Juan Carlos Cruz, and several other credible victims, of having been present during their abuse by, and of shielding, Fr. Fernando Karadima, a charismatic, high-profile Santiago priest — and serial abuser of youths— from investigation.

Five years ago, Angelo Sodano, likely the most influential cardinal since popes became “infallible” in 1870, arrogantly dismissed at a televised Easter Mass, in front of approving ex-pope Benedict, the priest abuse scandal as so much “petty gossip”. Please see Sodano’s infamous “petty gossip” video here,

[Today]

Sodano at times was “de facto” pope during John Paul II’s incapacity. He is still Dean of Cardinals and oversaw the election of Pope Francis. His longtime protégée, Pietro Parolin, is now No. 2 as Secretary of State, and will likely be the next pope. Sodano’s former secretary now heads up Francis’ aimless and futile Family Synods, that are are a poor substitute for the general ecumenical council that Francis should convene if he were serious about permanent reforms. After over 1,500 years of rule by general councils, in 1870 popes succumbed to the “infallible pope curse”. One pope rules and makes decisions often out of fear — of sex, women, secularism or just plain accountability. The next pope then fears to change his predecessors’ mistaken policies, while he “infallibly” makes more mistakes. And many brainwashed Catholics still buy this “papal bull”!

Just before Francis’ election, Jason Berry, a “non-brainwashed” Jesuit educated award winning investigative reporter, in the NY Times urged Pope Benedict XVI to right some of the wrongs of the recent past by forcing out Cardinal Sodano, in Berry’s words, as “… the man who, more than any other, embodies the misuse of power that has corrupted the church hierarchy. …”. Please see, here,

[New York Times]

Barros had as a seminarian been secretary to the late Chilean Cardinal Fresno, a position in which, says Cruz reportedly, “he knew everything going on in Chilean church. The triumvirate of power in the 1980s was Karadima, Cardinal Fresno and Archbishop Angelo Sodano” — the Italian papal ambassador, who was openly supportive of the military dictator Pinochet’s regime. Sodano’s Chilean service overlapped in part with Pope Francis’ Jesuit leadership during the nearby Argentinian military dictatorship.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By SIMON HEFFER FOR THE DAILY MAIL
29 March 2015

Four years before he died in 1998, Enoch Powell did me the honour of asking me to write his biography. I spoke to almost everyone alive who knew him. When he died, I had unique access to a vast collection of private papers, including numerous intimate letters. If there is anyone alive other than Enoch’s widow and daughters who knows more about him than I do, I’d like to meet him.

I never detected the slightest whiff of scandal about Powell. His probity in personal and financial matters was rock solid. When on Saturday evening a fellow journalist told me of the allegations made by the Church of England, my first instinct was to laugh: but that soon changed into utter outrage when I realised he was serious.

The Church has publicly accused Enoch of being involved in ritual satanic abuse on hearsay, without the slightest evidence. They might as well accuse him of having been a war criminal or an armed robber, for there would be as much truth in either allegation.

The appalling slurs are just like those made against 91-year-old Lord Bramall, a D-Day veteran and former chief of defence staff, whose homes in London and North Yorkshire were gratuitously raided by police recently on the back of an unspecified allegation of a sexual nature dating back to the 1970s.

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UNITED KINGDOM
International Business Times

By Priya Joshi
March 29, 2015

British parliamentarian Enoch Powell has been named in a probe into an alleged paedophile network.

The late Tory MP, who is regarded as one of the most divisive politicians of the 20th Century, was named to Scotland Yard by the Bishop of Durham amidst claims of ‘ritual satanic abuse’.

The Bishop of Durham, Paul Butler, contacted police after Powell’s name was passed to him by a former Bishop of Monmouth, Dominic Walker, who first heard the allegation when he was a vicar counselling young adults in the 1980s.

Mr Walker is believed to have warned the Right Rev Butler that at the time he was told of the claims against Powell, unsubstantiated allegations that an unknown number of MPs had been involved in satanic cult-type abuse involving children, were widespread.

The claim is being examined by Operation Fenbridge, one of a number of police probes into ‘Establishment paedophile rings’.

A Church of England spokesman confirmed the reports stating: “The name of Enoch Powell was passed to Operation Fenbridge by one of our safeguarding team on the instruction of Bishop Paul Butler.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Metro

Carri Taylor for Metro.co.uk
Sunday 29 Mar 2015

Former MP Enoch Powell has been accused of ‘ritualistic satanic abuse’.

A probe into an alleged paedophile network at the heart of the British Establishment was handed the late Tory MP’s name by the Bishop of Durham, the Mail on Sunday reports.

In a further development Scotland Yard investigators are to be given access to secret files held on MPs in the House of Commons archives as they hunt for evidence on suspected abusers, including former Liberal MP Cyril Smith.

The Bishop of Durham, Paul Butler, contacted police after Powell’s name was passed to him by a former Bishop of Monmouth, Dominic Walker.

He first heard the allegation when he was a vicar counselling young adults in the 1980s.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By ARTHUR MARTIN FOR THE DAILY MAIL
29 March 2015

Detectives investigating claims of a VIP paedophile sex ring have been passed lurid allegations relating to Enoch Powell.

The late Tory MP, who was one of the most prominent and divisive politicians of the 20th century, was named in a Church of England review into historic sex abuse.

The claims relate to allegations of satanic rituals, often involving the abuse of children.

Powell is one of several high-profile names passed to Scotland Yard by Bishop of Durham Paul Butler, who is leading the review.

The Bishop has also handed detectives the name of Leo Abse, the flamboyant Welsh MP who died in 2008 aged 91.

Last night the Church of England confirmed that both names had been passed on to detectives from Operation Fernbridge, a Metropolitan Police inquiry into an alleged Westminster VIP paedophile network.

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BRASIL
Portal AZ

Os moradores da pequena cidade de Miracema, no Noroeste Fluminense, foram surpeendidos nesta semana, quando fotos do antigo padre da cidade vazaram através do WhatsApp, aplicativo de troca de mensagens pela internet. O que chocou a população foi o fato do sacerdote, de cerca de 40 anos, estar posando nu nas “selfies”.

De acordo com o Bispado da Diocese de Campos dos Goytacazes, as fotos teriam sido divulgadas por uma mulher que se relacionava com o padre pelas redes sociais.

O Bispado informou, na tarde deste sábado (28), o afastamento do padre. Ainda de acordo com o Bispado, o padre disse que chegou a manter relação com uma mulher e declarou que o contato aconteceu de três a cinco vezes, apenas, através de redes sociais. Segundo o depoimento do padre aos seus superiores, o vazamento da foto teria sido uma armadilha para manchar sua imagem.

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BRASIL
Correio

Um padre foi afastado pelo Bispado da Diocese de Campos dos Goytacazes depois que fotos dele nu vazaram na cidade de Miracema, no Rio de Janeiro. As imagens foram divulgadas pelo WhatsApp e mostram o religioso, que tem cerca de 40 anos, posando para selfies totalmente nu.

Segundo a Diocese, as fotos teriam sido divulgadas por uma mulher que se relacionava com o padre pelas redes sociais. Ele foi afastado no sábado (28). O padre disse aos superiores que chegou a manter relação com uma mulher e declarou que o contato entre os dois aconteceu no máximo cinco vezes, através das redes sociais. O vazamento da foto teria sido uma “armadilha” da mulher para “manchar” a imagem do padre, segundo ele.

A Diocese ainda está apurando mais detalhes sobre o caso. “Estamos investigando a gravidade do assunto, mas apenas o ato dele ter tirado a foto já é matéria contra o mandamento da Igreja Católica, constitui crime e exige punição”, diz pronunciamento do Bispado ao G1

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BRAZIL
Fox News Latino

EFE

A 40-year-old priest was suspended by the Catholic Church for appearing nude in photographs posted on social networks, Brazilian media reported Sunday.

The unidentified priest was assigned to a church in Miracema, a small city in the northern state of Rio de Janeiro, and told the Diocese of Campos dos Goytacazes that he was the victim of blackmail.

Selfies of the naked priest were posted on the Internet and church officials became aware of the images, deciding to suspend the man on Saturday, the Globo network reported.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Ibdependent

CAHAL MILMO Sunday 29 March 2015

Enoch Powell, the Conservative anti-immigrant firebrand, is being investigated as an alleged member of a claimed Westminster paedophile network after his name was supplied to police by a senior Anglican bishop.

The name of the late MP, one of the most divisive politicians of the late 20th century, was provided to Scotland Yard after a clergyman came forward with claims from the 1980s relating to ritual satanic abuse.

Mr Powell, a maverick politician who achieved notoriety with his so-called Rivers of Blood speech decrying migration to Britain, is the latest senior Parliamentarian to be made the subject of police inquiries into an alleged Establishment sex rings.

The Metropolitan Police has several ongoing investigations relating to claims against suspected abusers, including the former Liberal MP Cyril Smith. Detectives are also investigating allegations against former Home Secretary Leon Brittan.

The Independent understands that the claims against Mr Powell were passed to police by the Right Reverend Paul Butler, the Bishop of Durham, more than a year ago, but that they have only now been made public.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Domradio

[Sexueller Missbrauch und körperliche Gewalt am Collegium Josephinum, Bad Münstereifel]

[The Archdiocese of Cologne has launched a project for studying ways of helping those abused at the Collegium Josephinum.]

Das Erzbistum Köln hat ein wissenschaftliches Projekt zur Aufarbeitung von sexuellem Missbrauch am Collegium Josephinum Bad Münstereifel offiziell gestartet.

Am Samstag trafen sich 80 ehemalige Schüler des 1997 aufgegebenen Gymnasiums in Köln zur Auftaktveranstaltung. Ziel des Projekts ist es, mit und für Ehemalige des Konvikts Angebote zu entwickeln, die Betroffene entlasten und bei der Verarbeitung der Erlebnisse helfen. Für das Unternehmen seien die persönlichen Erfahrungen wichtig, erklärte die Leiterin des Projektes, Claudia Bundschuh vom Fachbereich Sozialwesen der Hochschule Niederrhein in Mönchengladbach.

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BELGIE
HLN

[The priest who is accused to sexual abuse denied the accusation before the cameras of Focus WTV.]

De priester uit Desselgem tegen wie donderdag een klacht werd ingediend voor seksueel misbruik, ontkent vandaag voor de camera’s van Focus-WTV de beschuldigingen ten stelligste.

De man gaf in de jaren 70 les op het Heilig Hartcollege in Waregem. Na een eerdere klacht tegen een ander oud-priester-leraar uit Heuvelland, werd donderdag ook tegen de priester uit Desselgem klacht ingediend. Hij wordt beschuldigd van seksueel misbruik door een toenmalige leerling van het college.

De priester ontkent nadrukkelijk dat hij ooit zedenfeiten zou gepleegd hebben. Hij wordt ook beschuldigd van foltering. De man zegt dat het mogelijk is dat hij weleens een oorveeg heeft uitgedeeld, maar dat hij nooit een grens heeft overschreden. Noch op seksueel, noch op fysiek vlak, beweert hij voor de camera.

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SCOTLAND
Headlines from the Catholic World

Edinburgh, Scotland, Mar 29, 2015 / 02:35 am (CNA).- Scottish Archbishop Leo Cushley of St Andrews & Edinburgh is launching a new promo film across social media as he unveils his plans for the future of the Catholic Church in his part of Scotland.

“It’s a wee movie with a big message – bringing the joy of the Gospel to a contemporary Scottish society in desperate need of the healing love of Jesus Christ,” Archbishop Cushley said March 29.

The plans are set out in a Pastoral Letter entitled We Have Found the Messiah, which is being launched in all churches in the archdiocese on Palm Sunday.
“My big message is that the renewal and, yes, growth of the Catholic Church in our part of Scotland is very possible, but only if we create vibrant Christian communities gathered closely around Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist – that’s where Christ is most truly and powerfully present in our contemporary world,” the archbishop explained.

The Archdiocese of St Andrews was rocked by scandal in 2013 when Cardinal Keith P. O’Brien resigned after admitting to making homosexual approaches to other priests in the 1980s. Following his resignation, Pope Francis personally selected Leo Cushley – then a senior Vatican diplomat – to take over as archbishop.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

Aristocrats ‘feel entitled to abuse people’ says son of the 10th Earl of Sandwich who was raped by his father as a child

By CHRIS PLEASANCE FOR MAILONLINE
28 March 2015

Those from noteworthy families often feel entitled to abuse young people according to Robert Montagu, the son of the 10th Earl of Sandwich who was abused by his own father as a boy.

He made the comments at the Oxford Literary Festival while discussing his book, A Humour Of Love, in which he reveals years of abuse, including a single rape, carried out by father Victor.

Mr Montagu said that, during his years at Eton, rape was common, adding that people with ‘entitled backgrounds’ were given ‘more opportunities’ to be abusive towards children.

In a report for The Times, he said: ‘People from noteworthy families do feel a sense of entitlement.
‘It is true that people from an entitled background have more opportunities, maybe circumstances have made it more likely that they will abuse.

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CHILE
GlobalPost

Simeon Tegel
Mar 28, 2015

LIMA, Peru — Perhaps none of Pope Francis’ vaunted reforms of the Catholic establishment has been as urgent or necessary as his unveiling of a “zero tolerance” policy towards pedophile priests.

For decades, child sex abuse scandals, from Poland to the pontiff’s homeland of Argentina, have dogged the church. Victims have gone public and priests have been defrocked and jailed, yet still new allegations of this vile crime continue to surface.

Since being named pope in March 2013, Francis has made all the right noises, describing pedophilia as satanic and unveiling a new high level commission reporting directly to him in a bid to draw lessons and prevent future abuses.

Yet those fine words and gestures have all been called into question by the pope’s controversial appointment of a Chilean bishop accused of covering up the activities of one of the Catholic Church’s most notorious child abusers.

Earlier this month, amid chaotic scenes as hundreds of protesters shoved their way into the cathedral, Juan Barros took up his post as Bishop of Osorno, a sleepy provincial capital 600 miles south of Santiago.

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MINNESOTA
Canonical Consultation

03/28/2015

Jennifer Haselberger

As I wrote yesterday, on Thursday the Chrism Mass of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis was held at the Cathedral of Saint Paul. However, it has not been easy for me to find a priest who was there, or at least is willing to admit he was. Reports from others in attendance suggest that the presbyteral turnout was noticeably low, although an exact number is not available. The rarely reliable Catholic Spirit claims that ‘scores of priests’ renewed the promises made at their ordination (alas, dear Spirit editors, diocesan priests do not take vows, they make promises). This is itself interesting, considering that the total presbyterate at any given moment should be around 400, and a ‘score’ is only twenty.

The Catholic Spirit goes on to report that Archbishop John Nienstedt made a point of addressing the ongoing sexual abuse crisis and consequent bankruptcy in his homily, stating

‘I fear a certain fragmentation and fracturing has been created between Catholic institutions and even parishes and the office of the archbishop. This division can be summed up in the saying, ‘I’ll support my parish but I will not support the archdiocese’.

Actually, I am pretty sure it can be summed up by saying, ‘I’ll support my parish, but I will not support this Archbishop’, but I appreciate that at least the Archbishop is finally acknowledging that things aren’t all rosy. This is a contrast to his statements last July, for instance, in which he claimed to ‘want to be that bridge between people and God, and I don’t want to have anything interfere with that,’ and ‘I think the people that know me well know I’ve got their best interests at heart’.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Independent

PAUL GALLAGHER Sunday 29 March 2015

Teachers, social workers and other front-line staff should be trained how to spot faith-based child abuse, according to experts concerned at the rising number of children being abused by parents with skewed religious views.

Two leading female academics in the field have joined forces with the Victoria Climbié Foundation – named after the eight-year-old Ivorian girl tortured and murdered by her guardians in 2000 – in calling for a national framework to help reduce the incidence of such cases, which are on the rise and harder to detect than other forms of abuse.

According to the Education Select Committee, an increasing number of children in the UK are being harmed in the belief that it “will get the devil out of them”.

Dr Lisa Oakley and Dr Kathryn Kinmond, from Manchester Metropolitan University, were approached by a government working group that is devising a national action plan to tackle child abuse linked to faith and belief. The pair also met with the Churches’ Child Protection Advisory Service and safeguarding specialists Chanon Consulting as they began what will be a two-year project to identify the principal characteristics of faith-based abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

[with video]

A pedophile priest who changed his name to avoid publicity after being jailed for sex crimes will be sentenced for more than 50 new child sex offences.

Edward ‘Ted’ Bales, 65, is due to face the Victorian County Court after pleading guilty to the sexual abuse of boys in his care during the 1970s and 1980s.

Bales, a defrocked layman living in Thomastown, was formerly known as Edward Vernon Dowlan.

He spent five years in prison in the 1990s after being convicted of other historical sex offences.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

7News Melbourne March 27, 2015

Victims of a pedophile Christian brother have slammed his three year prison sentence. Emily Angwin reports.

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AUSTRALIA
WA Today

March 29, 2015

Judy Courtin

I just received a text message from a man, now in his early 50s, who was anally raped by a “Christian” brother when he was 12 years old. He said: “I can’t go on any more. That’s me done”.

This very brave survivor, who has been facing his demons all these years, has also been fighting tirelessly for justice for all survivors of child sex crimes, especially for adequate financial support and redress. Like thousands of others, he has, at great personal risk, opened his heart and soul and told his story to the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into the responses by non-government organsiations into child sexual abuse and the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Last week, on the first day of a three-day public hearing at the Royal Commission into redress schemes for victims of child sex crimes, many of this man’s hopes were dashed and he felt his years of dedicated work had come to nought.

In January, the Royal Commission published a consultation paper on possible types of redress schemes for child sexual assault victims. According to the commission and many other organisations, state and territory governments and victims and their families, the most effective and fair approach would be delivered by a national redress scheme that would be run by the federal government, but, on the whole, paid for by all government and non-government institutions where the crimes occurred. The Royal Commission also proposed that the federal government be a “funder of last resort” for those victims who would be sidelined and ignored because their school or institution doesn’t exist any more.

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ALABAMA
WSFA

By Kati Weis, FOX10 News Reporter

MOBILE, AL (WALA) –
On Friday a Mobile County judge ruled Father Johnny Savoie, a priest at St. Pius X Catholic School, must appear for a deposition regarding past sexual misconduct allegations. Furthermore, according to the order, the Baldwin County District Attorney’s Office will be required to turn over any statements the Archdiocese sent to its office in reference to those past sex allegations, which allegedly happened in 2005.

This, after attorneys representing four parents in a bullying case against St. Pius X found a statement made by Savoie to his parish last year, admitting that he was being accused of the sexual misconduct with a 16-year-old boy in 2005. He denied the allegations in that statement, according to court documents.

Judge Sarah Stewart ruled in Friday’s court order that those past sex allegations are relevant to the bullying case, where four parents are suing the school, saying school administrators, including Savoie, did not stop their children from being bullied.

“The allegations before the Court are that Father Savoie, a party, either engaged in, or tolerated, the abuse of a child while acting as a principal of the school, also a party,” wrote Judge Stewart. “Therefore, the Court finds the 2005 allegation relevant for the purposes of limited discovery.”

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FLORIDA
TBO

By Elaine Silvestrini | Tribune Staf

TAMPA — With plans moving forward to open a new Catholic high school in the place where he says he was abused decades ago by a priest, Barry Roche is ambivalent.

“I wish them the best,” the 71-year-old retired police officer says. “But in the back of my mind, it still says, ‘Be careful.’ ”

Roche is angry he received a fundraising solicitation for the new school, to be opened in the former Mary Help of Christians School in East Tampa as part of the national Cristo Rey network of college prep schools for “underrepresented urban youth.”

The fundraising letter, he said, “just hit me in the wrong place.” Church officials know about his abuse, he said, and should have removed his name from any fundraising lists.

Jim Madden, feasibility coordinator for the school, didn’t write or sign the letter to Roche. But he said planners are “trying to do something good.”

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UNITED STATES
PopeCrimes& Vatican Evils.

Paris Arrow

Pope Francis has recently appointed Bishop Juan Barros as a new bishop in Chile and at his ordination in Osorno Cathedral, about 3,000 demonstrators inside and outside the cathedral – including politicians and members of Congress – held signs and called for Bishop Barros to resign. Hundreds of black-clad demonstrators interrupted the ceremony by marching into a cathedral and shouting at Bishop Barros to leave the diocese, saying he protected a priest accused of sexual abuse. “You have to distinguish between showing a disagreement in a good way and this, because interrupting a Mass is a big shame,” Bishop Juan Barros said.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Mail On Sunday

Enoch Powell is named by bishop in sex abuse probe: Scotland Yard to investigate satanic abuse claim – and demands to see filed held on serving MPs

By Giles Owen and Brendan Carlin for The Mail on Sunday

The probe into an alleged paedophile network at the heart of the British Establishment took an explosive turn last night with the revelation that Enoch Powell’s name has been passed to police.

The Mail on Sunday can reveal that the late Tory MP, one of the most prominent and divisive politicians of the 20th Century, has been named to Scotland Yard by the Bishop of Durham. The claims relate to ‘ritual satanic abuse’.

And in a further development to the sex-ring investigations, police are to be given access to secret files held on MPs in the House of Commons archives as they hunt for evidence on suspected abusers, including former Liberal MP Cyril Smith.

The Bishop of Durham, Paul Butler, contacted police after Powell’s name was passed to him by a former Bishop of Monmouth, Dominic Walker, who first heard the allegation when he was a vicar counselling young adults in the 1980s.

The claim is being examined by Operation Fenbridge, one of a number of police probes into ‘Establishment paedophile rings’ – including an investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission into claims that officers dropped their inquiries under pressure from powerful individuals.

Mr Walker is believed to have warned the Right Rev Butler that at the time he was told of the claims against Powell, unsubstantiated allegations of satanic rituals – often involving the abuse of children – were widespread.

In 1994, an investigation by the London School of Economics into 84 alleged cases of ‘satanic abuse’ in the UK between 1987 and 1992, including notorious cases in Rochdale and the Orkneys that involved social workers and police forcibly removing children from their homes in dawn raids, found no convincing corroborative evidence.

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ITALIA
Today

[Abuses in the convent of Padre Pio by a friar. The Capuchin friars deny the accusation.]

FOGGIA – La trasmissione di Italia Uno “Le Iene”, andata in onda ieri sera, ha raccolto la denuncia di una donna, Anna Verde, che ha parlato di abusi sessuali subìti tra le mura del convento di San Giovanni Rotondo (Foggia), dove ha vissuto San Pio da Pietrelcina.

Negli anni scorsi, mentre Anna lavorava in uno dei luoghi di culto più importanti al mondo, avrebbe subito attenzioni sessuali e forme di mobbing da parte di un frate cappuccino e di un altro dipendente laico della struttura religiosa. Un’infanzia difficile e tredici anni di sofferenza, di presunti abusi che un prete avrebbe compiuto su di lei durante le ore di lavoro. Il primo episodio – racconta la presunta vittima – si sarebbe consumato in cucina: “… Lui si avvicina, mi tocca da dietro, si alza il saio e si masturba…”. E poi ancora: “Mi toccava con la forza che voleva togliermi il camice”, dice la donna. A uno degli atti osceni avrebbe assistito anche Don Peppino, che all’inviato del programma di Italia Uno Matteo Viviani rivela: “Io vivo qua, la mia situazione è drammatica, delicatissima”. Il prete ha paura di affermare quello che ha visto, ma nel corso dell’intervista Viviani riesce a strappargli ugualmente più di una conferma.

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ITALIA
UNF Ultime Notizie Flash

[LE IENE: ANNA, ABUSI NEL SANTUARIO DI PADRE PIO – PUNTATA 26 MARZO 2015, VIDEO E RESOCONTO – L’Angolo dell’Amiczia]

[Abuses in the shrine of Padre Pio: The story of Anna (VIDEO) A woman named Anna recalls the abuse she suffered when she took a job at the shrine.]

Nella puntata de Le Iene andata in onda il 26 marzo 2015 Matteo Viviani confeziona un servizio dedicato alla storia di Anna: abusi nel santuario di Padre Pio, è questo il tiolo della sua inchiesta. Anna, dopo anni di abusi, ha deciso di raccontare la sua storia per diversi motivi, il più importante riguarda il suo futuro, sta infatti per perdere il lavoro. E poi vorrebbe che qualcuno parlasse a Papa Francesco della sua storia. Ma andiamo con ordine e partiamo dall’inizio. Anna è una persona bisognosa. Accetta un lavoro presso il santuario di Padre Pio: lo stipendio è basso, il lavoro è in nero ma i frati che la ospitano possono darle anche alloggio. Anna che ha grande bisogno di un lavoro e di una casa accetta.

Ma appena inizia a lavorare accade quello che mai avrebbe immaginato. I frasi perdono la testa, almeno secondo quello che è il suo racconto e in particolare uno di loro, quando sono soli le si avvicina con fare provocatorio, e la tocca. Il frate la tocca da dietro e si masturba e le dice che non deve preoccuparsi perchè questa è la normalità. Anna inizia ad avere dei problemi e parla con lo psicologo dell’istituto. Viene quindi spostata dalla cucina alla segreteria con la speranza che questo frate non si avvicini più a lei.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

The continuing clerical sex abuse scandals have already helped lead to one pope’s failure and ultimate resignation. Alarmed cardinals then elected an interim pope/media star, Francis, to try to limit potential harm to bishops from the scandals’ continuing and massive waves.

Francis has apparently followed for two years a dual strategy of (a) trying to underplay and string out the scandal with a near farcical abuse commission under disgraced Cardinal Law’s former canon lawyer, and (b) changing the subject with media distractions, like needless foreign trips and endless photo ops, contrived canonizations and aimless synods, papal “double speak” and mixed messaging, pontifications on stopping global warming and militarily opposing ISIS threats and other public relations gimmicks, like pizza deliveries in St. Peter’s Square. This strategy has failed. Children’s safety is too important to Catholic parents to be buried for long in distractions.

The pope now faces escalating risks from governmental pressure and/or investigations and even prosecutions in the UK, Australia, Chile, the USA, Germany and many other countries. The pope also faces a serious revolt among at least several non-clerical members of his papal advisory abuse commission, as well as among everyday Catholics, as the unprecedented protests in Chile just showed.

John Allen, the Vatican friendly journalist who seems close to Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley, head of the pope’s abuse commission and member of his elite cardinals’ group, in an untypically critical column (3/27/15) noted: “It’s not clear if Francis fully grasped this at the time, but when he named survivors to that group {the abuse commission}, he was handing them significant control over his reputation. If {Marie} Collins and {Peter} Saunders were ever to walk out, saying they’d lost confidence or feeling that they’d been exploited for a PR exercise, it would have a vast media echo. (emphasis mine)

Allen may be understating the impact of potential commission resignations (potentially by more than just the survivor members, it appears). It also appears that he may have been unaware of investigative reporter, Jason Berry’s important column, earlier in the day, that reported that Peter Saunders, a UK priest abuse survivor and member since last month of the pope’s abuse commission, had already indicated in an e-mail interview that: “Pope Francis has to withdraw this appointment {of Chilean Bishop Juan Barros} or I and others may find it impossible to stay on the commission, …”. Saunders, after less than two months on the commission, reportedly added to this implied threat of resignation: “I am beginning to get a sense of the misguided way in which many church officials operate, … {and} I also sense that they {many church officials} feel extremely uncomfortable, probably threatened by the real prospect that their power — the ‘church’s’ power — will diminish” through the oversight of bishops. (emphasis mine} .

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

BY ALAN ERWIN – 28 MARCH 2015

An historical abuse inquiry chairman has won his appeal against a ruling that he unfairly denied legal representation to an alleged victim.

Sir Anthony Hart was challenging a High Court verdict that a bar had effectively been erected against the woman who claims she was molested by a “very high-profile figure”.

Senior judges in Belfast backed his case on the basis that she is not expected to be subjected to critical comments in the tribunal’s ultimate findings.

Lord Justice Girvan said: “Against the background of a conclusion that the applicant did not face a likelihood of criticism, the dictates of fairness did not call for legal representation or representation at public expense.”

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VATICAN CITY
Yahoo! News

Vatican City (AFP) – Pope Francis’s decision to appoint a Chilean bishop suspected of protecting a paedophile priest has alarmed the Vatican’s own child protection watchdog, its members told AFP.

Several members of the new commission set up by the pope to stamp out child abuse in the Catholic Church expressed their shock at the decision, with pressure building up for the decision to be overturned.

Juan Barros, who took up his post as Bishop of Osorno last Saturday, has denied that he knew about the abuse committed by Fernando Karadima, once an influential figure within the Chilean church.

Commission member French child psychiatrist Catherine Bonnet told AFP Friday that speaking personally she was “worried” by the appointment.

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OHIO
Toledo Blade

BY NOLAN ROSENKRANS
BLADE STAFF WRITER

A man abused as a boy 14 years ago by a Toledo Catholic priest was not told the priest had admitted to the allegation before he died, the man’s attorney said Friday.

Khary Hanible is representing a man who reported in January to the Toledo-Detroit Province of the Oblates of Saint Francis de Sales that the Rev. James H. Roth had sexually abused him when he was nine or 10 years old. Father Roth died in February, and though his death has not been confirmed as a suicide, he left a note admitting to the abuse, said the Rev. Ken McKenna, the Oblates’ provincial.

Father McKenna acknowledged the note Thursday in an interview with The Blade; Mr. Hanible said his client and his family learned of the note from The Blade.

“He’s not happy about it,” Mr. Hanible said. “The family is not happy about it.”

Father McKenna said the survivor was told in late February that his allegation was confirmed, but the note’s existence wasn’t revealed because neither the survivor nor his attorney inquired.

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

MINNESOTA
Sentry Review

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has asked a federal bankruptcy court to extend its deadline for filing a reorganization strategy to Nov. 30.

U.S. bankruptcy code offers the archdiocese exclusive rights to propose a reorganization program inside 120 days of petitioning for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which it did on Jan. 16. The court can extend that &ldquoexclusivity period&rdquo for very good cause.

The archdiocese argued that it needed far more time to perform with insurance coverage carriers to figure out liability. It entered into mediation with the carriers, abuse victim creditors and other creditors shortly right after filing for Chapter 11. The bankruptcy came in response to an unprecedented wave of clergy abuse lawsuits filed given that 2013.

&ldquoThere are a number of complicated concerns to be resolved prior to completion of the mediation method,&rdquo according to the notice filed this week. &ldquoIn specific, it is imperative that the Archdiocese and the Committee have enough time to negotiate with the liability insurance coverage carriers for contribution toward a complete and international settlement and consensual plan of reorganization.

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

SCOTLAND
Edinburgh Evening News

CHRIS MARSHALL
Saturday 28 March 2015

DISGRACED Cardinal Keith O’Brien was a “predator” who was involved in dozens of cases of sexual misconduct dating back to the 1980s, it has been claimed.

In an interview with Catholic newspaper the Tablet, an unnamed priest alleges there were multiple incidents of sexual misconduct by O’Brien against seminarians and young clergy dating back to 1985, the year the cardinal became archbishop.

The man, one of five to have previously made allegations against the cardinal, said he believed at least 40 cases took place between 1985 and 2010.

Last week O’Brien again apologised for his “sexual conduct” after formally resigning from his role at a meeting with Pope Francis.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

A FORMER Christian Brother was told to “rot in hell” as he was removed from court today to start a fresh sentence for appallingly brazen sex attacks on students.

Ted Bales — who changed his name from Edward Dowlan to hide his true identity — was ordered to serve at least three years for assaulting more than 20 students, some of whom were as young as eight.
As he was led from court, one victim shouted: “Dog”, while another said: “Rot in hell.”

Several victims also stared at Bales throughout the sentencing as the 65-year-old sat slumped in the dock.

County Court judge Richard Smith described Bales’ offending as “brazen” and a gross breach of trust.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Jamaica Plain Gazette

By Peter Shanley

The Jamaica Plain-based Italian Home for Children is facing an allegation that its former chief financial officer—George P. Forte Jr.—sexually abused a boy there during the early 1980s.

The claim was made last month by lawyer Mitchell Garabedian, a famed advocate of Catholic Church sexual abuse survivors, on behalf of the unnamed alleged victim via a letter seeking a financial settlement.

The Italian Home, in a written statement to the Gazette, said it conducted an investigation into the claim and found “no evidence” to support it.

The Italian Home also described Forte as a “former employee.” It is unclear when and why he left his job there, but it was a recent move. The Italian Home’s most recent annual report, filed with the Secretary of State’s Office seven months ago, lists Forte as the organization’s CFO and was signed by him.

A profile for Forte on the business-networking website LinkedIn lists him as having worked at the Italian Home since 1982, and also as being a Scout leader in North Attleboro. The Gazette left a phone message for a George Forte listed in that town, but did not receive a response.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

A quick footnote to the update I published earlier today about the protest of Pope Francis’s decision to make Juan Barros the new bishop of Osorno, Chile: at his Facebook page, Wisconsin SNAP leader Peter Isely has posted commentary today about the controversy. Peter writes,

Pope Francis may want things to be different with the clergy sex abuse symptom but he also doesn’t want things to change. If that seems an impossible position, it is. If it seems like this only keeps the symptom going, it does. It’s a common enough bind. I don’t know a single patient who has walked in to my consulting room for psychotherapy that isn’t asking (sometimes demanding, sometimes pleading) one way or another for the same impossible thing. Of course, they’re not the Pope.

And I think he’s absolutely correct about that. As he also notes, Jason Berry has published his own commentary at Huffington Post, noting that, “By any objective gauge, Francis’s decision to install Bishop Barros in Osorno was a preventable disaster,” and that this decision by Francis threatens to undo all his reform plans.

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CANADA
Rabble

BY DENNIS GRUENDING | MARCH 27, 2015

On June 2, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) will release its report on the legacy of residential schools. The TRC was appointed by the federal government to examine the legacy of the schools back in 2008. It’s documented what happened there and held events at which survivors came forward to tell their stories. Also in 2008, Prime Minister Harper and churches, which operated the schools on the government’s behalf, apologized to former residential school students, who have since received financial compensation.

Indigenous people overlooked

We may think that we know our history but unfortunately most of us do not. Perhaps my own life experience may serve to illustrate. I grew up in rural Saskatchewan, where Treaty Six — between the Crown and nations of the Plains Cree — was negotiated and signed in 1876. About 20 years later, my grandparents and others arrived as agricultural settlers. Our village was about 80 kilometres from Batoche, where the Metis made their last stand against the soldiers and militia of the Canadian government.

Amazingly, I grew up knowing nothing about the treaties or Batoche until I took a Grade 12 Canadian history course. In prairie communities, it was as though the First Nations people who preceded the Europeans never existed. History, it seemed, had begun only when the settlers arrived, and, invariably, comments about indigenous people in our community were negative.

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MARYLAND
SoMDNews

By John Wharton Staff Writer

A former youth leader at a church avoided trial on a charge of sexually abusing a preteen girl in 2008, by acknowledging Wednesday in a St. Mary’s courtroom that prosecutors had evidence to support a misdemeanor assault charge.

Michael John Havrilla, 46, left the courtroom with a suspended 18-month jail sentence, and a judge’s warning that any further criminal misconduct during three years of supervised probation would put him behind bars.

The plea agreement spared the girl from testifying in the case, the judge and a prosecutor repeatedly said during the proceeding.

“The state’s attorney was in an awful position,” St. Mary’s Circuit Judge Michael J. Stamm said as he carried out the plea deal, which did not require the girl to take the witness stand. “I think it would be devastating for her,” the judge said, “and that’s why I agreed to do it.”

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Mary Divine
mdivine@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 03/27/2015

Jeff Anderson, the St. Paul attorney who is nationally recognized for representing victims of priest sexual abuse, will be the featured speaker at the “Serving Beyond Bars” fundraising dinner Saturday.

Proceeds from the steak and walleye dinner will enable offenders at Minnesota prisons to pack more than 500,000 meals this year to benefit local food shelves through Meals from the Heart.

The event will be from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Lake Elmo Inn Event Center. There will be a cash bar, games and a silent auction.

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MARYLAND
The Baltimore Sun

By Erin Cox
The Baltimore Sun

Del. C.T. Wilson stepped to the podium of a state Senate committee during a routine hearing, about to confess a secret.

He took a deep breath. “I don’t really, really want to be here,” he said.

He had weighed what might come of revealing his darkest truth to fellow lawmakers. At 43, he’d spent a lifetime building barriers of protection – 231 pounds of hulking muscle, hardly any close friends, training as a combat soldier, earning a law degree while working nights as a bouncer.

Wearing a gray suit, years removed from his daily nightmare, Wilson told the senators that as a child, his adoptive father repeatedly beat and then raped him.

“I can’t describe to you the pain of being beaten, sodomized and molested for years,” he said. Between ages 9 and 15, “I went from a difficult life to a downright hell.”

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IRELAND
Sunday World

A former Christian Brother jailed for sexually abusing three young boys at a school for the deaf has had his prison sentence reduced by the Court of Appeal because the Circuit Court operated on the basis of an incorrect maximum sentence.

John McCabe (55), of Kilshane Cross, North Road, Finglas, had pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to six counts of indecently assaulting three young deaf boys on dates between 1981 and 1984.

He was sentenced to 12 years in prison with three suspended by Judge Martin Nolan on May 9 2012.

Relying on a recent Court of Appeal decision which found that the maximum sentence for indecently assaulting males in the 1980s was two years in prison and not 10, McCabe established there was an error in his sentence without the need for a hearing.

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MINNESOTA
Canonical Consultation

03/27/2015

Jennifer Haselberger

Victims’ advocates are unhappy with the consortium of parishes in the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis that are seeking to form a creditors committee, according to Joseph Checkler of the Wall Street Journal. Writing for the ‘Bankruptcy Beat’, Checkler notes that opponents of the move by approximately 113 of the parishes within the Archdiocese fear that by forming an additional committee the Archdiocese (meaning the Central Corporation led by the Archbishop) will in essence have seats at both sides of the bargaining table.

‘Thursday in Minnesota, about 113 parishes of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis will argue they deserve their own voice as creditors in the archdiocese’s bankruptcy case.Victims of alleged clergy sexual abuse and their advocates have called the parishes’ request to form an official committee “troubling,” saying another creditors’ committee would effectively give the archdiocese a place on both sides of the bargaining table.

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WISCONSIN
Huffington Post

Michael D’Antonio
Author, Mortal Sin — Sex, Crime, and the Era of Catholic Scandal

In Rome, Vatican watchers like to say that the institutional Catholic Church measures time not with a clock, but with a calendar, and that its memory is as durable as the records in its archives, where Galileo’s signature, preserved in the documents from his famous trial, looks like it was penned yesterday. In America the one institution that might match the Vatican when it comes to memory and deliberative care is our system of justice where, according to the reliable cliché, the wheels grind slowly. But grind they do and they are gradually revealing the character behind the façade of New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s hearty smile and twinkling eyes.

In the most recent turn in the struggle for justice by victims of clergy sexual abuse, a federal judge found that the Archdiocese of Milwaukee cannot stash $55 million in a trust devoted to cemeteries and deny litigants access to the money as they sue for compensation. Victims of predator priests have used the courts to seek both the documented truth and financial compensation for more than a decade.

The architect of the trust fund idea was then Archbishop of Milwaukee Dolan, who was subsequently made cardinal of New York by Pope Benedict XVI.

Before he shocked the Church by resigning, Benedict stood as the symbol of the Vatican’s immoral and schizophrenic response to abuse as he spoke empathetically but acted to shield both clergy and the Catholic treasury. Dolan practiced the same duality, posing as a Christ-like figure of compassion in meetings with victims but acting as if he never heard the admonition to the greedy contained in the gospel of Luke. Indeed, after establishing the trust he then sought the protection of the bankruptcy court for the rest of the assets of the archdiocese. This strategy was replicated elsewhere in the country as bishops, who understood that victims had won billions of dollars in compensation, recognized in Dolan’s example a way to evade claims.

Created just as the state of Wisconsin was moving to permit victim lawsuits against the official church, Dolan’s enormous trust fund was described by the archdiocese as a vehicle for the care of eight burying grounds. For the care of clergy victims Milwaukee church officials proposed $4 million, less than 10 percent of the sum earmarked for the dead, to be split by 128 claimants. An additional 450 people who came forward to accuse priests of sexual abuse would have been given nothing because they failed to meet certain legal, not moral, criteria.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

DISGRACED Cardinal Keith O’Brien was a “predator” who was involved in dozens of cases of sexual misconduct dating back to the 1980s, it has been claimed.

In an interview with the Catholic newspaper the Tablet, an unnamed priest alleges there were multiple incidents of ­sexual misconduct by O’Brien against seminarians and young clergy dating back to 1985, the year O’Brien became archbishop.

The man, who is one of five to have previously made allegations against the cardinal, said he believed that at least 40 cases took place between 1985 and 2010.

Last week O’Brien again apologised for his “sexual conduct” after formally resigning from his role at a meeting with Pope Francis.

The 77-year-old stepped down from the archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh in February 2013 after allegations of inappropriate behaviour were made against him.

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SCOTLAND
Express

By DAVID SCOTT
PUBLISHED: 00:01, Sat, Mar 28, 2015

One priest allegedly abused by the former leader of Scotland’s Roman Catholics claimed he would groom young clerics while hearing their confessions.

The allegations come days after O’Brien was stripped of high office and banished from public life by the Pope after a damning report.
Pope Francis last week agreed to O’Brien’s request to withdraw his “rights and duties” as a cardinal.

The highly unusual step, last taken in 1927, followed “private and prayerful discussion” between the two men.

O’Brien now leads a “strictly private life” as a cardinal in name only.
His career was ended by accusations of inappropriate behaviour against five priests in the 1980s.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: JEAN HOPFENSPERGER , Star Tribune Updated: March 27, 2015

The archdiocese, which has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, seeks a Nov. 30 deadline to submit a reorganization plan.

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has asked a federal bankruptcy court to extend its deadline for filing a reorganization plan to Nov. 30.

U.S. bankruptcy code gives the archdiocese exclusive rights to propose a reorganization plan within 120 days of petitioning for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which it did on Jan. 16. The court can extend that “exclusivity period” for good cause.

The archdiocese argued that it needed more time to work with insurance carriers to determine liability. It entered into mediation with the carriers, abuse victim creditors and other creditors shortly after filing for Chapter 11. The bankruptcy came in response to an unprecedented wave of clergy abuse lawsuits filed since 2013.

“There are a number of difficult issues to be resolved before completion of the mediation process,” according to the notice filed this week. “In particular, it is imperative that the Archdiocese and the Committee have sufficient time to negotiate with the liability insurance carriers for contribution toward a comprehensive and global settlement and consensual plan of reorganization.

“It is highly unlikely that the negotiation of these issues will be completed in time to permit the Archdiocese to file its plan within 120 days of the petition date.”

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CHILE
Catholic News Agency

Concepcion, Chile, Mar 27, 2015 / 05:32 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Both the Archbishop of Concepcion and the apostolic nuncio to Chile have maintained that Pope Francis understood all the facts in the case when he made a bishop appointment in the country earlier this year which has met with protests.

The Chilean Archbishop Fernando Chomali Garib of Concepcion said Thursday that Pope Francis “told me he had analyzed all the past records and that there was no objective reason at all” that Bishop Juan de la Cruz Barros Madrid “should not be installed as the diocesan bishop.”

In an interview with the Chilean newspaper El Sur published March 26, the Archbishop of Concepcion disclosed the details of a meeting he had with Pope Francis March 6, shortly before Bishop Barros was to be installed as head of the Diocese of Osorno.

Bishop Barros’ installation was marred by a group of protesters who are accusing him of having covered up sexual abuses committed by Father Fernando Karadima, a charge the prelate denied numerous times. Bishop Barros’ vocation was fostered by Fr. Karadima, and he was among his closest circle of friends decades ago.

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AUSTRALIA
The Canberra Times

March 27, 2015

Christopher Knaus
Reporter for The Canberra Times.

A Canberra woman has conceded her memory of hearing a Catholic priest open a sliding door before molesting her in the kitchen is false.

The ACT Supreme Court trial of Father Edward Evans, 85, entered its third day on Friday, with the priest’s barrister continuing to cross-examine his accuser.

The woman alleges was touched inappropriately by “Father Eddie” during morning teas at his Braddon home following church on Sundays.

She alleges he put his hands down her pants and touched her bottom three times, digitally penetrated her twice in his kitchen, and abused her while they sat alone in a car outside Cooleman Court.

The girl was aged between 10 and 13, while Father Evans was in his 60s.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

Is Pope Francis doing enough on sex abuse? Vatican abuse commission members question case of Chilean bishop.

By Sarah Pulliam Bailey March 27

Several members of Pope Francis’s sex abuse advisory board have expressed concern over his decision to appoint a Chilean bishop despite allegations that he covered up abuse. The appointment set off dramatic protests that longtime survivor advocates say were unprecedented.

Bishop Juan Barros Madrid was installed Saturday as head of a southern Chilean diocese, which set off remarkable protests in the cathedral during his ordination ceremony. The pope naming him to bishop drew a boycott by most of the diocese’s priests and deacons. Five of the 17 members of the Vatican’s commission spoke to the Associated Press about their concerns.

The Catholic Church in the U.S. has made significant changes to prevent clergy sex abuse, but survivor advocacy groups say many countries around the world do not have the same safeguards. Sex abuse scandals began to erupt in several European countries about 2010, including Ireland and Germany.

Survivor advocates are working to develop protections in the developing world where prevention measures are not as extensive.

Barros’s appointment drew outcry by those who allege that he covered up sex abuse committed by his superior, the Rev. Fernando Karadima, in the 1980s and 1990s. A Vatican investigation found Karadima guilty in 2011 and sentenced the now-84-year-old priest to a cloistered life of “penitence and prayer.”

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UNITED STATES
Catholic 365

BY DAVE ARMSTRONG
3/27/2015

The terrible revelations of sexual misbehavior and cover-ups, exposed in 2002-2003 remain a huge and unspeakably evil scandal. I’ve never seen any conscientious, serious Catholic try to excuse or justify what happened. It’s a black mark that has caused untold damage in many ways.

Yet Catholics are sinners like anyone else, and we should not be utterly shocked when we see instances that prove this: even in cases of heinous sins. King David murdered and committed adultery, yet God still entered into an eternal covenant with him. Indeed, God knew (since He knows everything) when David was a boy that he would eventually commit these terrible sins.

That said, it is also true that media coverage of the outrages and the general issues involved, has been severely distorted. Statistics clearly show that the problem of sexual abuse is a societal-wide one, with occurrences farmore prevalent in other circles. Yet the focus and spotlight continues to be basically only on the Catholic Church. It’s classic selective, cynical, agenda-driven reporting, with the result being false and distorted perceptions.

An independent study conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, commissioned by the USCCB, from May 2011, found that sexual abuse from priests occurs at a much lower rate than in the rest of society, and that most abuse takes place in families. The rate among priests was determined to be five per every 100,000 young people, whereas the larger societal rate was 134, or almost a 27 times greater likelihood.

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ALASKA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, March 27, 2015

Statement by Melanie Jula Sakoda of Moraga CA, Orthodox Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 925-708-6175, melanie.sakoda@gmail.com )

Leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, are seething over the content of a letter to the editor of the Kodiak Daily News, which calls into question the testimony of students abused at Saint Innocent’s Academy (SIA).

[Kodiak Daily Mirror]

(The complete text of the letter is pasted below.)

The victims’ group believe it is the type of victim-shaming that occurs when charismatic leaders are accused of abuse in tight-knit communities.

The Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox Diocese of the USA, Canada and Australia (BOD) announced on its website on Saturday, March 21, 2015, that Archpriest Paisius DeLucia, the founder and head of the academy, would be defrocked.

[Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox Diocese]

[Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox Diocese]

The Kodiak Daily News ran an article that same day that quoted Samuel Dank, a former student at the academy and one of the publishers of a website where 18 former students posted their testimony against DeLucia.

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OHIO
Daily Reporter

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First Posted: March 27, 2015

TOLEDO, Ohio — Roman Catholic leaders are looking for potential abuse victims of a deceased priest who once served at a Toledo high school and who the leaders confirm abused a minor more than a dozen years ago.

The Toledo-Detroit Province of the Oblates of Saint Francis de Sales as well as the Toledo and Detroit Catholic dioceses announced the accusations earlier this week through their websites.

The Blade reported Friday (http://bit.ly/1NliCjN ) that the Rev. James Roth died in February after taking a high dose of insulin while on a drug study for diabetes.

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CANADA
CBC News

By Jean Laroche, CBC News

An amendment to fix what the minister of justice calls an error in a law designed to give sex crime victims the right to sue their abuser has been passed by the Nova Scotia legislature.

The original bill, introduced in the fall, removed a statute of limitation in cases of sexual abuse, but only applied going forward, not retroactively.

At the time, Justice Minister Lena Diab said repeatedly no other similar law in Canada allowed for retroactivity.​ But that was incorrect and on Friday she apologized for that error.​

​”A mistake happened,” Diab said. “People are humans. What I can tell you is this bill had been worked on for years and years and years. The issue itself was never brought forward in those years, as a you know. And it was missed.”

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CHILE
ACI Prensa

[The archbishop of Concepcion in Children, Fernando Chomali, who until a few days ago was apostolic adminsitrator of the Osorno diocese in southern Chile, said Pope France told him he had looked at all the background information and found no reason why Monsignor Juan Barros could not be bishop of the diocese.]

SANTIAGO, 27 Mar. 15 / 10:40 am (ACI/EWTN Noticias).- El Arzobispo de Concepción (Chile) y hasta hace unos días Administrador Apostólico de la diócesis de Osorno en el sur del país, Mons. Fernando Chomali, señaló que el Papa Francisco “me dijo que había analizado todos los antecedentes y que no había motivo objetivo alguno” para que Mons. Juan Barros Madrid “no asumiera la diócesis”.

En entrevista concedida al diario chileno El Sur, el también Arzobispo de Concepción y miembro de la Pontificia Academia para la Vida desde el año 2001, dio a conocer los detalles de la reunión que sostuvo con el Santo Padre el pasado 6 de marzo, antes de que Mons. Barros asumiera como nuevo Obispo de la diócesis de Osorno.

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DEUTSCHLAND
kath.net

[Clerics in Germany have lost the trust of the people, according to a new study.]

Seelsorger liegen jetzt unter 24 Berufsgruppen auf dem 15. Rang, direkt vor Journalisten (26 Prozent)
Stuttgart (kath.net/idea) Geistliche haben in Deutschland deutlich an Vertrauen verloren. Das geht aus Studien des Verlages Reader´s Digest (Stuttgart) hervor. Laut der Untersuchung „Trusted Brands 2015“ vertrauen 39 Prozent der Bürger Pfarrern. Vor fünf Jahren war es noch die Hälfte der Befragten (51 Prozent). Damit liegen die Seelsorger jetzt unter 24 Berufsgruppen auf dem 15. Rang – direkt vor Journalisten (26 Prozent) und hinter Offizieren (42 Prozent). Die Daten für die Studie wurden in sieben Ländern erhoben. Mehr Vertrauen als in Deutschland genießen Geistliche demnach in Finnland (69 Prozent), Russland (56 Prozent), der Schweiz (47 Prozent), Österreich und Rumänien (jeweils 46 Prozent) sowie Portugal (44 Prozent). Am vertrauenswürdigsten sind für Bundesbürger Feuerwehrleute (92 Prozent), Krankenschwestern (88 Prozent), Apotheker und Piloten (jeweils 82 Prozent) sowie Ärzte (81 Prozent).

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BELGIE
HLN

[There is a new complaint of sexual abuse in the Sacred Heart College in Waregem. That complaint was also directed against a priest from Desselgem who is still active.]

Er zou een nieuwe klacht zijn in het dossier van seksueel misbruik in het Heilig Hartcollege in Waregem. Die klacht zou ook gericht zijn tegen een priester uit Desselgem, die nu nog actief is. Dat meldt de regionale zender Focus-WTV vandaag.

Een nieuw slachtoffer zou een officiële klacht ingediend hebben. Het gaat om een klacht tegen de ontslagen priester uit Heuvelland die eerder al in opspraak kwam, maar ook tegen het bisdom, de toenmalige directie en een tweede priester die toen lesgaf op het college. De advocaat van het slachtoffer zou vanochtend de vier klachten hebben ingediend bij de onderzoeksrechter in Kortrijk. De priester zelf ontkent de feiten.

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CURACAO
Dit is de Dag

[The Curacao diocese is investigating two cases of alleged sexual abuse.]

Het Bisdom Curaçao laat de misbruikcommissie Koeijers opnieuw onderzoek doen naar twee gevallen van seksueel misbruik op de Antillen. Dat zei bisschop Luis Secco op een persconferentie die georganiseerd werd naar aanleiding van een reportage van Dit is de Dag Onderzoek. In de reportage erkende de misbruikcommissie dat zij gefaald heeft, omdat geen enkele zaak was uitgezocht.

Bisschop Luis Secco las tijdens de persconferentie een verklaring voor waarin hij reageerde op de uitzending. Hij zei ‘veel vertrouwen’ te hebben in de misbruikcommissie. De commissie Koeijers krijgt volgens hem de volledige medewerking van het bisdom om de twee zaken uit te zoeken van misbruik die in de uitzending werden getoond. In de reportage kwamen twee slachtoffers aan het woord die vertelden over misbruik door een Nederlandse missionaris in de jaren ’50.

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OSTERREICH
IPP

Vorwort

Wir legen hiermit das Ergebnis eines zweijährigen Forschungsprozesses vor. Uns ist bewusst, dass dieLektüre dieser Studie für viele eine Belastung sein wird. Das gilt vor allem für diejenigen, die erneut mit dem Leid der Misshandlungen und des Missbrauchs konfrontiert werden, das ihnen in ihrer Internatszeit in Kremsmünster zugefügt wurde. Wir bitten diese Leser, sich es gut zu überlegen, ob sie sich das zumuten wollen. Nicht einfach wird der Bericht auch für diejenigen, für die die Zeit im Stift Kremsmünster überwiegend positiven Erinnerungen verbunden ist. Sie werden mit den leidvollen Erfahrungen und düsteren Erinnerungen von Mitschülern konfrontiert, die sie lange nicht gesehen haben. Auch die Angehörigen des Stifts werden einer teils selbst erlebten und teils erahnten Geschichte ihrer Institution begegnen, die trotz aller eindrucksvollen Bilder und Inszenierungen der letzten sechs Jahrzehnte im Kern auch eine traumatisierte Institution ist, die sich nur durch eine glaubwürdige Auseinandersetzung mit den inneren Bedingungen von massenhaften Grenzüberschreitungen auf einen Weg der Erneuerung begeben kann.

Auch für uns als Sozialwissenschaftler war es kein einfacher Weg. Die Begegnung mit erwachsenen Männern, die uns ihre teils unverarbeiteten Erlebnisse anvertraut haben, war immer wieder bewegend und auch erschütternd. Auch einige der oft schon hochbetagten Patres, die in ihrer Zeit als Präfekten und Lehrer auch Täter waren, waren keine einfachen Interviewpartner. Das galt vor allem dann, wenn sie keinen einsichtigen Zugang zu ihren eigenen Handlungsweisen entwickeln konnten.

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OSTERREICH
Kurier

[Sexualisierte, psychische und physische Gewalt in Konvikt und Gymnasium des Benediktinerstifts Kremsmünster]

[“It would have been prevented”. Researchers see institutional deficiencies as a cause of years of abuse at Kremsmunster monastery.].

“Auf fahrlässige Weise hat es das Stift über Jahrzehnte nicht geschafft, die ihm anvertrauten Schüler ausreichend vor pädosexuellen und gewaltaffinen Tätern zu schützen”, fasste Sozialforscher Florian Straus am Freitag den Abschlussbericht zur Causa Kremsmünster zusammen. Gemeinsam mit Kollegen des Münchner Instituts für Praxisforschung und Projektberatung (IPP) präsentierte er im Wintersaal des Stifts eine wissenschaftliche Studie zu den Missbrauchs- und Misshandlungsfällen nach 1945. Sein Fazit: “Mit einer besseren Kommunikationsstruktur hätten sie verhindert werden können.”

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OSTERREICH
der Standard

[Sexualisierte, psychische und physische Gewalt in Konvikt und Gymnasium des Benediktinerstifts Kremsmünster]

[Study on abuse in Kremsmuenster.]

27. März 2015

Stift habe “über Jahrzehnte hinweg fahrlässig die ihm anvertrauten Schüler nicht ausreichend vor pädosexuellen und gewaltaffinen Tätern geschützt”

Kremsmünster/München – Zwei Jahre blickte das Münchner Institut für Praxisforschung und Projektberatung (IPP) hinter die Klostermauern des altehrwürdigen Benediktinerstiftes Kremsmünster. Mit einem Ziel: Licht auf die dunkle Klosterseite – geprägt von Macht, Gewalt und Missbrauch – zu werfen.

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ARGENTINA
Pagina 12

Por Mariana Carbajal

Julieta Añazco es empleada municipal y vive en La Plata. Durante más de 30 años anuló en su memoria episodios dolorosos de su infancia. Hasta que un día, un año y medio atrás, al pasar frente a la iglesia Sagrado Corazón de Jesús, de la localidad bonaerense de City Bell, algo se activó en sus recuerdos y sacó del olvido los abusos sexuales que había sufrido de parte del cura Héctor Ricardo Giménez, en campamentos de verano. Desde entonces, Julieta emprendió una lucha comprometida para que el religioso, a quien encontró dando misa en la capilla de un hospital público, fuera juzgado. Del caso informó a fin de año al papa Francisco, en el Vaticano, y al mismo tiempo reclamó al Arzobispado de La Plata explicaciones sobre la protección que le brindaron al sacerdote, después de que otras víctimas, niñas y niños, también lo denunciaran por hechos similares, entre dos y tres décadas atrás. Se trata de otro caso paradigmático de abuso eclesiástico en la Argentina, que esta mujer, que ahora tiene 42 años, espera que no quede impune.

“Esta lucha comenzó por mí, tal vez, tratando de encontrar una reparación personal, una manera de intentar sanar esta herida tan grande que siento dentro de mí, pero después me fui contactando con otros sobrevivientes de abuso eclesiástico, y ellos me han dado más fuerza para seguir luchando no sólo por mí sino también por ellos”, dice Julieta a Página/12. Haber podido hacer la denuncia es parte de su sanación, subraya. “Es un camino que empecé y quiero terminar. Tengo la esperanza de que mi testimonio les allane el camino a otras víctimas, niños y niñas que como yo podrían haber sido víctimas del sacerdote”, agrega. Tiene un hijo de 22 años y un nieto de dos años.

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VATICAN CITY
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor March 27, 2015

Staffers in the Vatican paid to think about such things sometimes sit around trying to identify possible tipping points in the public romance with Pope Francis, meaning a calamity that might put a serious dent in his high approval ratings.

One no-brainer on the list would be a perception that he’s backtracking on “zero tolerance” when it comes to sexual abuse in the Church, and two recent story lines suggest it’s not an abstract worry.

First, Nicole Winfield of the Associated Press reported on Thursday that five members of the pope’s own anti-abuse commission have expressed “concern and incredulity” that Bishop Juan Barros has been given command of the Diocese of Osorno in Chile, despite his public record of defending the country’s most notorious abuser priest.

Those objections came on top of protests that forced Barros’ installation Mass to be cut short, as well as ongoing efforts by clergy and laity to ask Francis to rethink the appointment.

Second, an Argentine woman named Julieta Añazco, who alleges abuse by a priest in the La Plata archdiocese more than 30 years ago, recently said that she sent a letter to Francis asking for his help, but has not received a response.

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MISSOURI
Fox 2

FEBRUARY 11, 2014, BY ANDY BANKER

ST. LOUIS, MO (KTVI) – A California man cannot escape allegations he molested boys in St. Louis County nearly seven years ago; boys he met while he was an intern the First Christian Church of Florissant on Patterson Road.

Brandon Milburn, is locked up in the St. Louis County Jail.

He’s charged with 6 counts of statutory sodomy.

His bail is set at $100,000 cash only.

Milburn is accused of repeatedly molesting the boys at their homes beginning in 2007.

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KENTUCKY
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, March 27

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, 314 566 9790, SNAPclohessy@aol.com

A Louisville native and former church employee will be sentenced soon for molesting boys in Missouri. We urge his former colleagues in his Louisville congregation to aggressively seek out others who he may have assaulted.

[Fox2]

In January, Brandon Milburn pleaded guilty to seven counts of sodomy with two kids under the age of 12 in a St. Louis County courthouse. From October of 2008 to April of 2009, he worked at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville.

It’s crucial that law enforcement officials know as much as possible about Milburn’s crimes so he can be appropriately sentenced. It’s also crucial that every person he hurts be found and helped. And it’s crucial that any of Milburn’s church supervisors or colleagues who may have concealed his crimes also be prosecuted.

So we beg anyone who has seen, suspected or suffered Milburn’s crimes – or cover ups by church staff – to call police and prosecutors in Missouri immediately.

He could be sentenced to life in prison.

Milburn returned to Louisville in December 2007 after graduating from college in December of 2007 and was hired by Southeast Christian Church as an Atmosphere and Media Tech.

(In Missouri, he worked at First Christian Church in Florissant, in north St. Louis county. The pastor there is Rev. Tyler Brown. Milburn also worked at Gateway Christian Church in west St. Louis county.)

(In Feb. 2014, he was arrested in Valencia, CA, about 35 miles north of Los Angeles, where he worked at the Real Life Church. In 2010, he was an intern at Discovery Church in Simi Valley, California.)

Doing and saying nothing keeps churches unhealthy and keeps kids in danger. Please, search your conscience, find some courage and call us or law enforcement if you have any information or suspicions about Milburn.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

A woman who wants to testify at the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA) is not entitled to legal representation at public expense, the Court of Appeal has ruled.

The decision overturned an earlier ruling by the High Court.

The inquiry had said witnesses did not need legal representation, nor should it be met by public funding.

In January, the High Court said that decision was wrong, but on Friday the Court of Appeal overturned the ruling.

The inquiry is examining allegations of child abuse in children’s homes and other residential institutions in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 1995.

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CHILE
La Tercera

[Apostolic Nuncio: “There was hiding anything to the Holy See”.]

por Sergio Rodríguez – 27/03/2015

“Estoy tranquilo, cumpliendo mi deber”, dijo ayer el nuncio apostólico, Ivo Scapolo, tras la ceremonia de inauguración del año judicial eclesiástico 2015, de la diócesis de Santiago, efectuada en un salón junto a la Catedral Metropolitana (ver recuadro).

A este acto, encabezado por el cardenal Ricardo Ezzati, Scapolo asistió en su calidad de delegado del Papa Francisco. Y, por primera vez, se refirió a la designación de Juan Barros como obispo de Osorno, quien fue acusado por los denunciantes del sacerdote Karadima de ser “encubridor” del ex párroco de El Bosque.

“Lo que yo he podido constatar, estando allí, es que la gran mayoría de los que estaban en la iglesia tenían globos blancos. Era gente que ama a su obispo, que es un enviado del Santo Padre. Y había una minoría que, con mucho ruido, le faltaba el respeto a la mayoría, a la eucaristía, a los obispos y al lugar”, manifestó, en referencia a los incidentes del sábado pasado, en la Catedral de Osorno, en la toma de posesión canónica de Barros.

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CHILE
El Mostrador

[Vatican representative in Chile denies hidden background on Juan Barros for appointment. The nuncio said he was at the cathedral and said most of the people there support the new bishop.]

por EL MOSTRADORENVIAR RECTIFICAR IMPRIMIR

El nuncio apostólico Ivo Scapolo, representante del Vaticano en Chile abordó la controversia generada a partir del nombramiento del obispo Juan Barros a cargo de la diócesis de Osorno. Barros ha generado fuerte resistencia incluso desde sectores de la Iglesia a partir de que las víctimas del ex párroco de El Bosque, Fernando Karadima, lo apuntan como encubridor y cómplice de los abusos sexuales que cometió durante años.

Aunque Barros ha dicho que no conocía los abusos y que nunca tuvo cercanía con Karadima, durante la ceremonia en que asumió su cargo se registró una importante manifestación en la catedral de Osorno, en la que un grupo de personas expresó su rechazo al nombramiento.

Sobre la protesta Scapolo dijo a La Tercera que “lo que yo he podido constatar, estando allí, es que la gran mayoría de los que estaban en la iglesia tenían globos blancos. Era gente que ama a su obispo, que es un enviado del Santo Padre. Y había una minoría que, con mucho ruido, le faltaba el respeto a la mayoría, a la eucaristía, a los obispos y al lugar”, aseguró.

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CHILE
Huffington Post

By Jason Berry

A thunderous protest engulfed the arrival of a controversial Chilean bishop to San Mateo cathedral on Saturday. To many, the appointment casts a shadow on Pope Francis’s reform agenda for the clergy abuse crisis.

The scene of screaming protestors pushing and shoving as Bishop Juan Barros, 58, enters the cathedral in the southern Chilean city of Osorno can be seen on a YouTube clip.

Pope Francis’s decision to send Barros, a bishop for 11 years who served as a military chaplain, to Osorno has ignited new media coverage on Rev. Fernando Karadima, 84, a notorious pedophile in Chile who was ousted by the Vatican four years ago, and who Barros used to share a close connection with.

Karadima was for many years the pastor of a parish in El Bosque, one of Santiago’s upscale neighborhoods near a wooded park. Karadima had a cult-like following among youths he guided into seminary and had deep ties with politicians, the military and Vatican officials.

Barros and three other Karadima protégés grew up to become bishops.

“Pope Francis has to withdraw this appointment or I and others may find it impossible to stay on the commission,” Peter Saunders, a clergy abuse survivor in London and member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors told GroundTruth in a lengthy email interview.

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MINNESOTA
Wall Street Journal

By JOSEPH CHECKLER

Thursday in Minnesota, about 113 parishes of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis will argue they deserve their own voice as creditors in the archdiocese’s bankruptcy case.

Victims of alleged clergy sexual abuse and their advocates have called the parishes’ request to form an official committee “troubling,” saying another creditors’ committee would effectively give the archdiocese a place on both sides of the bargaining table.

More than 150 sexual-abuse victims have brought claims against the archdiocese since it filed for bankruptcy in January, in addition to more than 80 claims brought against individual parishes, court papers show.

Catholic dioceses have used the breathing room offered by chapter 11 to negotiate settlements with alleged victims of sexual abuse by clergy members and others, deals that can total many millions of dollars and include nonmonetary forms of compensation such as the release of long-shielded church documents detailing the alleged abuse and subsequent coverup.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Friday 27 March 2015

GERRY BRAIDEN
SENIOR REPORTER

Disgraced Cardinal Keith O’Brien is facing fresh accusations of sexual misconduct, with one priest accusers claiming the fallen cleric was involved in dozens of incidents in the past.

Exactly a week after the Vatican announced it had found Cardinal O’Brien guilty of allegations of sexual impropriety, new claims have emerged that he preyed on seminarians and young clergy.

One priest involved in the first public allegations which led to the spectacular fall from grace told the Cardinal encouraged young clerics to attend the sacrament of confession, which he would take, in order to groom them for sexual contact

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