ABUSE TRACKER

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.

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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.

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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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UNITED KINGDOM
Mirror

A Catholic priest was today jailed after abusing a young boy at a children’s home where he helped out more than 30 years ago.

Father Anthony McSweeney, 68, visited the children’s home as a helper and abused the vulnerable boy over two years.

The sex attacker denied the crimes but was jailed for three years after he was convicted by a jury.

McSweeney was introduced to boys at the home by John Stingemore, who was running it at the time.

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MINNESOTA
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Thomas Andert is a priest of the Order of St. Benedict (Benedictines), ordained in 1975. A monk of St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville MN, Andert has spent his career as an educator, academic administrator, and as a parish priest. Andert was investigated by Abbey officials in 1994 for an improper sexual relationship with a minor boy who was a St. John’s Preparatory School student. Andert was the school’s headmaster at the time. The matter was dropped when the boy is said to have told the Abbot that there was no sexual misconduct. In June 2007 Andert was appointed prior of St. John’s Abbey and member of the Abbey’s External Review Board. The appointment drew public criticism. In response, an Abbey spokesperson said the 1994 investigation yielded “no credible charges of sexual abuse.” However, the chair of the Interfaith Sexual Trauma Institute at St. John’s in 1994 provided a detailed account in 2007, stating that the investigation was inadequate, and that an inappropriate sexual relationship did occur.

Ordained: 1975

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SCOTLAND
Daily Record

27 March 2015 By Charlie Gall

A PRIEST, who has not been named, told the Catholic Church’s own newspaper The Tablet he believed at least 40 cases took place from 1985, the year O’Brien became archbishop, until 2010.

CARDINAL Keith O’Brien was “a predator” whose sexual abuse covered 25 years his entire reign as archbishop, it’s been claimed.

A priest, who has not been named, told the Catholic Church’s own newspaper The Tablet he believed at least 40 cases took place from 1985, the year O’Brien became archbishop, until 2010.

The Tablet spoke to the priest who insisted there were multiple incidents of sexual misconduct by O’Brien against seminarians and young clergy.

Shamed O’Brien – Britain’s most senior Roman Catholic cleric at the time – stepped down from the archdiocese of St Andrews & Edinburgh in February 2013 after three priests and a former priest made allegations of inappropriate behaviour against him.

Last week it emerged the Pope has allowed O’Brien to keep his cardinal title but it carries no “rights or privileges”.

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NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

By Brent Johnson | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on March 19, 2015

TRENTON — The criminal case against two former employees at a Bergen County high school accused of having sex with students on a school trip to Germany is likely dead now that the state Supreme Court ruled that the men cannot be tried in New Jersey, the prosecutor in the case said today.

New Jersey’s highest court voted 6-0 Wednesday that the state does not have jurisdiction in the case against former Paramus Catholic High School employees Artur Sopel and Michael Sumulikoski and dismissed a series of sexual assault and child endangerment charges against the men.

But Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli said while his office notified German authorities of the allegations, he does not expect the men to now face charges there instead. The age of consent in the European country is 14.

“Although I can’t speak for them, I always believed it would be highly unlikely something would be brought by German authorities,” Molinelli said.

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NEW JERSEY
New Jersey Law Journal

Michael Booth, New Jersey Law Journal
March 18, 2015

New Jersey authorities cannot prosecute two high-school chaperones accused of having sex with three high-school students on a school trip to Germany, the state Supreme Court ruled March 18.

In a unanimous, but unsigned, ruling, the court said New Jersey prosecutors have no authority to prosecute sex crimes that occurred outside of the state’s borders.

“There must be territorial jurisdiction in New Jersey for the state to prosecute a crime here,” the court said. “The state has the power to prosecute crimes that occur within its borders but may not bring charges for offenses committed entirely in another state or country.”

Defendants Michael Sumulikoski and Artur Sopel both worked for Paramus Catholic High School in Paramus. Sumulikoski was a permanent substitute and an athletic coach. Sopel was vice president of operations. Both were chaperones for 17 students on a school-sponsored German Club trip in February 2011, according to the opinion.

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NEW JERSEY
The Record

NO ONE should be surprised that the state Supreme Court this week ruled that individuals cannot be prosecuted for crimes allegedly committed in a foreign country. The unanimous court ruling broke no new ground; it simply reinforced longstanding principles about the sovereignty of individual nations in terms of prosecuting crimes.

Yet the ruling was still unsettling, as the court itself acknowledged, because it related to very serious charges: The alleged sexual abuse of three high school students by two of their chaperones during a 2011 school trip to Germany.

John Molinelli, the Bergen County Prosecutor whose office sought to prosecute the case in New Jersey, called on lawmakers to change the state’s criminal code to remedy the court opinion. And state Sen. Paul Sarlo, D-Wood-Ridge, says he plans to do just that. Nonetheless, it’s hard to see exactly how state legislators can amend a code to allow New Jersey to criminally prosecute sexual offenses allegedly committed in a foreign land.

What the ruling should do is prompt parents and school officials to be more cognizant of the chaperones who accompany students on overseas trips and of the laws governing sexual activity in the nation being visited.

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NEW JERSEY
Forbes

Maureen SullivanMaureen Sullivan Contributor

Parents sending their children on class trips overseas: beware. Chaperones may not be prosecuted for sexual assault against the students they are overseeing if the alleged crimes take place in a foreign country.

In a 6-0 decision last week, the New Jersey Supreme Court overturned earlier rulings and said the state did not have “territorial jurisdiction” because the alleged sexual acts by two male chaperones against three 17-year-old female students at a Catholic high school took place in Germany.

The court, however, did recognize what some may consider the “unsettling” nature of its decision and suggested that the legislature may want to rewrite the law. “It is troubling to think that a teacher responsible for the care of young adults can sexually assault them on a school trip abroad and not be subject to prosecution in our state,” the justices said in their decision.

The case began back in February 2011 when Michael Sumulikoski and Artur Sopel supervised a group of students from Paramus Catholic High School on a trip to Germany. A week after the group returned to New Jersey, stories started spreading that something sexual had occurred between the men, who worked at the school, and three of the female students on the trip. A teacher reported the men to state authorities and a Bergen County grand jury indicted Sumulikoski and Sopel on multiple counts of sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child.

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NEW JERSEY
CBS New York

TRENTON, N.J. (CBSNewYork/AP) — The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the state cannot prosecute two high school employees for sexual assaults on students alleged to have occurred during a class trip to Germany.

Artur Sopel and Michael Sumulikoski were charged with a total of 25 counts, including sexual assault and child endangerment. The 2011 trip involved students from Paramus Catholic High School. Sopel was vice president of operations at the school and Sumulikoski was a substitute teacher and assistant football coach.

As CBS2’s Tony Aiello reported, the case has been a cloud over Paramus Catholic for almost four years.

The men sought to dismiss the sexual assault and endangerment charges, arguing New Jersey didn’t have jurisdiction since the alleged acts occurred in Germany. A judge denied the motion, and an appeals court upheld that ruling. Both held that New Jersey retained jurisdiction because the men had assumed supervisory and disciplinary control over the students while in New Jersey.

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NEW JERSEY
The Record

MARCH 18, 2015

BY KIBRET MARKOS AND MARY DIDUCH
STAFF WRITERS | THE RECORD

A state Supreme Court ruling that dismissed charges Wednesday against two former Paramus Catholic High School chaperones accused of having sex with students during an overseas trip will leave parents worried about sending their children on trips, Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said. He called on lawmakers to amend the state’s criminal code to remedy the court decision.

Defense attorneys and some legal experts, meanwhile, defended the ruling as one that was based on a long-established principle that crimes should be prosecuted where they were committed.

“I am hopeful that school districts throughout New Jersey recognize the significance of this ruling, at least until it is corrected by statute,” Molinelli said in a statement Wednesday. “Any school-sponsored class event outside of the state of New Jersey and where a similar incident is alleged to have occurred might meet with the same result, much to the surprise of parents and guardians that might believe otherwise when they authorize their child to attend such events.”

The state’s highest court ruled unanimously that Artur Sopel and Michael Sumulikoski, two former ­employees of the school, cannot be charged in New Jersey for alleged acts |in Germany.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Sandra Laville
Friday 27 March 2015

A Catholic priest has been jailed for three years for abusing a boy at a children’s home, in the first case to emerge from allegations of a VIP paedophile ring at a guesthouse in south London.

Father Tony McSweeney, 68, was arrested in February 2013 at his parish in St George’s, Norwich, where he was a respected member of the establishment. He was a member of the governing body of a Catholic school and at one time had served as part-time chaplain for Norwich football club.

When he was arrested officers found indecent images of boys on his computer, and evidence presented to his trial revealed that he had been offending as far back as the 1970s when he began training for the priesthood.

His trial heard how for four decades he was an active paedophile, and that the church and the authorities, including the Catholic church, ignored at least two clear warning signs of his sexual interest in children.

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VATICAN CITY
The Tablet

27 March 2015 by Abigail Frymann Rouch, Isabel de Bertodano

Members of Pope Francis’ safeguarding board have expressed concern over his appointment of a Chilean bishop to a diocese despite accusations that he covered up child abuse by a priest.

Marie Collins, an abuse survivor, said she could not understand how Bishop Juan Barros could have been appointed given the concerns about his handling of allegations regarding Fr Fernando Karadima.

“It goes completely against what he [Francis] has said in the past about those who protect abusers,” Collins told the Associated Press. “The voice of the survivors is being ignored, the concerns of the people and many clergy in Chile are being ignored and the safety of children in this diocese is being left in the hands of a bishop about whom there are grave concerns for his commitment to child protection.”

Ms Collins is a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, which was set up in 2014 under the leadership of Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley.

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NEW MEXICO
National Catholic Reporter

Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola | Mar. 27, 2015

GALLUP, N.M. The year 2015 was meant to be a joyous one for the Gallup diocese. It marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of the diocese, and normally that would be a cause of celebration in parishes and schools across New Mexico and Arizona.

However, celebrations have proven to be few and subdued as the diocese continues to be mired in bankruptcy court, and the legacy of clergy sex abuse continues to cast a long shadow across the diocese.

Although Bishop James Wall designated Dec. 12, the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, as the kickoff date for the yearlong anniversary celebration, the event was marked with just a low-key Friday morning Mass at Gallup’s Sacred Heart Cathedral.

In contrast, three days later, the bishop made national news when he publicly released an updated list of credibly accused sex abusers from the diocese. The list, which included the names of 30 diocesan and religious order priests and one lay religious education teacher, was also posted on the diocesan website for the first time.

“The publication of these additional names does not mean that our vigilance and continued investigation ends here,” Wall said in his statement. “The investigations remain ongoing.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A Catholic priest has been given three years in jail for sexually assaulting a teenage boy at a children’s home in west London between 1979 and 1981.

Anthony McSweeney, 68, abused the 15-year-old between 1979 and 1981 while working at Grafton Close Children’s Home in Hounslow.

The priest was investigated as part of a police probe into allegations of a paedophile ring at the home.
As part of his defence, he had said he was too fat to fit a teenager on him.

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UNITED KINGDOM
ITV

A former Norfolk Roman Catholic priest has been jailed for three years for sexually abusing a teenage boy at a care home.

Father Anthony McSweeney has also been put on the Sex Offenders Register for 10 years and has been given a Sexual Harm Prevention order which means he has no access to boys between the ages of 12 and 17 without supervision.

He will also only have controlled use of the internet and computers.

Father Anthony McSweeney was found guilty of abuse at a children’s home in Hounslow, west London, between 1979 and 1981.

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UNITED KINGDOM
EDP 24

Former Norfolk Catholic priest Anthony McSweeney has been sentenced to three years in jail for assaulting a teenage boy at a children’s home in west London between 1979 and 1981.

McSweeney, 68, abused the 15-year-old between 1979 and 1981 while working at Grafton Close Children’s Home in west London.

A sexual harm prevention order was also made against him.

The once part-time chaplain at Norwich City FC was leading the congregation at St George’s Church in north Norwich when the claims against him emerged.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Local Guardian

by Laura Proto, Chief reporter – Richmond and Twickenham

A Catholic priest faces prison today after being found guilty of indecently assaulting a boy at a Richmond Council-run children’s home in the 1970s and 80s.

Father Tony McSweeney, 68, was found guilty last month of one charge of indecent assault against a boy under 16 at Grafton Close Children’s Home in Hanworth.

He was also found guilty of three counts of possessing indecent images of children.

McSweeney was acquitted on three other charges of indecent assault on boys under the age of 16 and one count of taking an indecent photograph of a child.

The priest was charged alongside John Stingemore, the former manager of the children’s home, under Operation Fernbridge.

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UNITED KINGDOM
West Sussex County Times

A Roman Catholic priest from Pease Pottage faces jail today (Friday March 27) after he was found guilty of sexually abusing a teenage boy at a children’s home.

Father Anthony McSweeney, 68, of Old Brighton Road, Pease Pottage, was also found guilty of three counts of making indecent images of children at Southwark Crown Court last month.

He faces sentencing today (Friday March 27).

McSweeney was cleared of three indecent assaults on two other boys at the London care home and taking a pornographic photo of one of the boys.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (article updated 27 March 2015)

This Broken Rites article is the most comprehensive account available about how the Christian Brothers organisation concealed the crimes of Brother Edward Dowlan (now known as Ted Bales). From the start, the Christian Brothers knew that Dowlan was committing criminal sexual assaults against Australian schoolchildren but, instead of dismissing him, the Christian Brothers kept transferring him to more schools, thus giving him access to more victims. After 20 years, when some victims finally reported him to the police, the Christian Brothers supported Dowlan and tried to defeat the victims. The victims eventually won (by getting him jailed in 1996 and again in 2015), but their lives have been damaged by the Christian Brothers — and several of Brother Dowlan’s victims ended up in suicide. Dowlan’s 2015 jailing (under the name Ted Bales) is reported towards the end of this article.

Twenty years after his first crime, Broken Rites arranged for one of Dowlan’s victims to have a private chat with detectives from the Victoria Police child-abuse investigation unit, who then interviewed some more of Dowlan’s victims. This resulted in Dowlan being jailed in 1996. After being released from jail in 2001, Dowlan changed his surname to “Bales” to avoid media scrutiny and, with help from the Christian Brothers organisation, he moved into a private residence of his own as Mister Ted Bales. In 2014, after more of his earlier victims finally contacted the police, Edward “Bales” pleaded guilty to some more of his crimes and was remanded in custody to await his next sentencing, on 27 March 2015, when he was given a further jail sentence.

It was Broken Rites that first documented the Christian Brothers policy of continuing to support any criminal member in their ranks, even after a court conviction. A senior Christian Brothers official explained this policy in the Melbourne County Court in July 1996, when Brother Edward Vernon Dowlan faced charges for indecently assaulting boys in Victorian Catholic schools. A Broken Rites researcher was present in court, day after day, taking notes during the 1996 proceedings. The following article is based on those notes, together with further notes made in court in 2014 and 2015.

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NROTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

BY SUZANNE BREEN – 27 MARCH 2015

A woman whose only crime was to fall for the wrong man is heartbroken and humiliated. The man she loved has had the most intimate details of his life plastered all over the Press, his reputation now in ruins. The parishioners who adored him are left abandoned and confused. Behold the trail of human wreckage from the Catholic Church’s cruel and callous code of compulsory priestly celibacy.

Fr Ciaran Dallat isn’t the first – and won’t be the last – priest to have lived a lie. The former Bishop of Galway, Eamon Casey, had a fling with an American divorcee and fathered a son.

Singing priest Fr Michael Cleary had two kids with his Dublin “housekeeper” Phyllis. Septuagenarian curate Fr Mossie Dillon fathered a child with his 31-year-old girlfriend, Madonna. Irish priests could win awards for preaching celibacy while not practising it.

Bishop Pat Buckley, the rebel cleric excommunicated by the Church after his Episcopal ordination outside its regulations, isn’t shy in pointing out this hot-blooded history. “Just look at Irish surnames: McEntaggart, the son of the priest; MacAnespie, the son of the bishop; McNabb, the son of the abbot. Priests having sex is no new phenomenon.”

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ALASKA
Alaska Dispatch News

Jerzy Shedlock
March 26, 2015

Abuse allegations against the now-former headmaster of a small religious academy in Kodiak have resulted in the removal of his professional status within an Eastern Orthodox diocese.

What will happen to St. Innocent’s Academy — an alternative school for “at-risk” youths on Kodiak Island in the Gulf of Alaska — and its staff and students remains unclear.

The allegations center on Paisius DeLucia, who’s accused of physical, verbal and psychological abuse of students at St. Innocent’s.

Complaints from former students of the academy sparked an investigation by Alaska State Troopers as well as an internal investigation by the Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox Diocese of the U.S., Canada and Australia, which oversees the academy.

The students posted victims’ statements detailing allegations to the website Academy Abuse, which went live in early January. Students claimed there that DeLucia once slammed a young man’s head against a wall and openly shared private confessions to embarrass a student, among other allegations.

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NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

By MaryAnn Spoto | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on March 26, 2015

TRENTON —The son of a Lakewood rabbi accused of arranging the beatings of men who wouldn’t give their wives religious divorces was in a meeting in Ohio when one of the attacks occurred, a business associate told jurors in an ongoing federal kidnapping and conspiracy trial.

The testimony of Greg Emmer, vice president and chief marketing officer for Kaeser & Blair Inc., was offered Thursday as an alibi for David “Ari” Epstein, who is accused of participating in the Aug. 22, 2011, attack on a Brooklyn man who would not give his wife a religious divorce.

That man, Usher Chaimowitz, eventually agreed to the divorce after hours of beatings. Chaimowitz’s roommate, Menachem Teitelbaum, who was also beaten in the attack, testified earlier in the trial that he heard one of the assailants yell, “Epstein, call your father.”

Federal prosecutors contend the reference was to David Epstein and his father, Mendel Epstein, a prominent Lakewood rabbi who specializes in divorce proceedings. The father and son, along with rabbis Binyamin Stimler and Jay Goldstein, are on trial on kidnapping and conspiracy charges that grew out of a federal sting.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

PADRAIC MURPHY, SHANNON DEERY HERALD SUN MARCH 27, 2015

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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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Peta Carlyon

A Christian Brother and convicted paedophile who changed his name to avoid adverse publicity has been jailed for six years for abusing young boys in the 1970s and ’80s.

Ted Bales, 65, formerly known as Edward Dowlan, pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting boys, aged between eight and 14, when he was a teacher and headmaster at number of Christian Brothers colleges across Victoria.

The Victorian County Court heard Bales physically punished his victims to make them vulnerable.

He was previously jailed in the 1990s for abusing other boys, some of them the classmates of the victims in the latest case against him.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

He professed to be a man of God, but outside a Victorian court where he was jailed for child sex abuse, former Christian Brother Edward “Ted” Bales was called evil and satanic.

The 65-year-old has been ordered to serve at least three years of a six-year prison sentence for indecently assaulting 20 boys under his care at Victorian schools in the 1970s and 1980s.

Bales, formerly known as Edward Vernon Dowlan, changed his name to avoid the publicity of being associated with convicted pedophiles Brother Robert Best and Brother Stephen Farrell, whom he taught alongside at St Alipius school in Ballarat.

Fr Gerald Ridsdale, who was chaplain of the school, is Australia’s worst pedophile priest.

Victorian County Court Judge Richard Smith said Bales was a renowned disciplinarian in the school yard.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Katholisch

[The Thin Red Line of honesty]

Funf Jahre nachdem die katholische Kirche in Deutschland, ausgehend vom Berliner Canisius-Kolleg, ihrer schwersten Demuts- und Wahrhaftigkeitsprobe unterzogen wurde, ist offensichtlich: Der Skandal des sexuellen Missbrauchs an Schutzbefohlenen wird uns noch lange beschäftigen. Die jüngst in der ARD gezeigte NDR-Dokumentation “Das Schweigen der Männer” und der Kinofilm “Verfehlung” machen dies gerade in den Tagen der vorösterlichen Bußzeit klar.

Zwei Reflexe erschwerten von Beginn an eine angemessene Aufarbeitung. Auf der einen Seite der apologetische: Er lässt sich vom Leid der Opfer nicht wirklich tief berühren und stellt diese nicht ins Zentrum aller Überlegungen. Der typische Apologet fällt nach dem pflichtschuldigen Abscheu-Lippenbekenntnis rasch in den Modus der Schadensbegrenzung für das Ansehen der Kirche. In der guten Absicht, ihre moralische Autorität als Hort der Wahrheit und der Liebe nicht zu sehr beschädigen zu lassen, schreiben manche das “Ja” zur Schande klein und das “Aber” groß.

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ILLINOIS
The Daily Beast

Zainab Khan

Mohammed Abdullah Saleem, who faces new criminal charges of sexual assault, tried to ban Zainab Khan from burying her father. Now, she tells her courageous story of standing up to one of Chicago’s most powerful imams.

The decision by courageous women in Kabul, Afghanistan, to defy the orders of mullahs and carry the coffin of a young woman, Farkhunda—slain for the false accusation of burning the Quran— took me to a dramatic moment last spring when I faced off against an imam, not in some faraway city in our Muslim world, but in our own backyard, right here in the United States, in the Chicago suburb of Elgin, Ill.

Today, that imam, Mohammed Abdullah Saleem, faced new criminal charges for alleged sexual assault.

My confrontation with the imam was about something much more ordinary, but also deeply personal, and my experience reveals the challenges women face in standing up to Muslim clerical leaders—as women do in most faiths, but particularly in ours, stuck as it is religious hierarchies that are the exclusive domain of men.

On May 29, 2014, my beloved father, Jehan Zeb Khan, passed away from prolonged sickness. I was heartbroken. Born in Afghanistan, my father came to the U.S. in the 1950s, knowing that he wouldn’t have the same chances for success had he remained in Afghanistan. He wanted his family to have the life and dignity which he foresaw that he would be stripped of, had he chosen to live there.

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UNITED STATES
Why I Am Catholic

March 26, 2015 by Frank Weathers

It’s looking like it, if you asked me. But nobody asked me, nor would they ever. One thing is for sure, and that is that lots of local folks were unhappy with the appointment, and the installation, of Bishop Juan Barros.

Kevin O’Brien has a lot of the background on how this came about over at his blog, Waiting For Godot To Leave. It seems like lots of folks in Chile are waiting for Bishop Barros to clear out, even though he just took the chair.

The thing that really gets me is that it seems that there was absolutely zero oversight regarding the Fr. Barros appointment. Folks who sit on Pope Francis’ sex abuse advisory board are starting to wonder why they even bother, and frankly, so am I. Here’s what they told reporters from the Associated Press,

The five commission members spoke to the AP in their personal and professional capacity and stressed that they knew about the case only from news reports and were not speaking on behalf of the 17-member commission, which Francis formed in late 2013 and named Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley to head.

“I am very worried,” said commission member Dr. Catherine Bonnet, a French child psychiatrist and author on child sex abuse. “Although the commission members cannot intervene with individual cases, I would like to meet with Cardinal O’Malley and other members of the commission to discuss a way to pass over our concerns to Pope Francis.”

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GEORGIA/FLORIDA
First Coast News

[with video]

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — On a mission to get Georgia’s Hidden Predator Act signed into law, a local man who says he was sexually abused as a child is speaking out. He and the bill’s sponsor, Republican State Representative Jason Spencer of Woodbine, say the bill is getting a lot of push back from some powerful special interest groups.

“Imagine summoning the courage to come forward. Most survivors come forward to protect other children, and they often come forward when they are at an age when they have their own children and want to identify the perpetrator, and being told there is nothing you can do,” said Justin Conway.

That is what Conway, 37, who is from Kingsland, Georgia says happened to him. It wasn’t until about 18 months ago that he says he broke his silence and went to authorities sharing a dark secret he says he had kept for decades.

“I’m a survivor of childhood sexual abuse,” said Conway. “Unfortunately the laws sets up now are set up to hide predators and the Hidden Predator Act is aimed at changing that.”

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

The Salvation Army and Scouts Australia are among those who will give evidence on Friday to a royal commission examining a national compensation scheme for the victims of child abuse.

The hearing in Sydney is considering responses to a consultation paper published in January in which a $4.3 billion scheme funded by governments and non-government institutions was suggested.

The federal government has said running such a scheme would be too complex and cost too much.

During two days of hearings so far, that response has been criticised by support and advocacy groups representing survivors as well as by the commission and the Catholic Church.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Jayne Margetts

A group representing children who were held in out-of-home care has told an inquiry they should be entitled to a separate compensation scheme.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is hearing submissions from nearly 40 government and non-government organisations about a national redress scheme for survivors.

Leonie Sheedy from the Care Leavers Australia Network said all forms of abuse should be recognised, not just sexual abuse.

“It is our view that the care leavers’ experience is so unique that it requires its own redress scheme,” she said.

“The time has come for the perpetrators and enablers of this abuse to pay for their crimes.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Australian Associated Press
Thursday 26 March 2015

The Law Council of Australia has backed a national redress scheme for abuse survivors and says the commonwealth has the mechanisms to establish one.

Duncan McConnel, the president of the society which represents 60,000 Australian lawyers, says it is possible for the states and territories to refer power to the commonwealth.

In its response to the child sexual abuse royal commission, the federal government has said running a national scheme would be too complex and it does not have the power to set one up.

McConnel said the commonwealth had demonstrated the ability to develop and support a redress scheme through the establishment of the defence abuse response team. The defence force model provided a holistic approach incorporating reparation payments and restorative justice, he said.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

STATE governments and churches that ran children’s homes should not be allowed administer a redress scheme for child sexual abuse survivors, a royal commission has been told.

LEONIE Sheedy the chief executive of Care Leavers Australia Network (CLAN) said a national independent redress scheme needed to recognise all forms of abuse and neglect suffered by children in care.

“Past providers and governments that operated orphanages, children’s homes and other institutions should contribute to this national scheme but should have no say in how the redress in managed,” she said on Friday.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is hearing from governments and non-government organisations about a compensation scheme for tens of thousands of abuse survivors.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Southend Standard

Town halls have called for new powers to help them intervene to prevent children being groomed for sex.

The Local Government Association (LGA) said court-backed orders were necessary because officials were “powerless” to act if they suspected grooming but did not have enough evidence to prosecute.

Sanctions already in place were “too limited”, the association said, with Sexual Risk Orders available only to police for suspects posing a risk of sexual harm.

The call, backed by children’s charity Barnardo’s, comes in the wake of multiple child sex abuse scandals in towns including Rochdale, Rotherham and Oxford – for which police and councils have apologised over their failure to act.

Councillor David Simmonds, chairman of the LGA’s Children and Young People Board, said: “At present sanctions to prevent the grooming of vulnerable children are too limited and we need to make it easier to intervene earlier before harm is done.

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SCOTLAND
The Tablet

26 March 2015

The stripping by Pope Francis of Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s rights and privileges of his office, coupled with an admission by his successor Archbishop Leo Cushley that his behaviour had made the Catholic Church in Scotland “less credible”, might not be enough, sadly, to bury this sorry affair and let healing begin. There were major allegations against O’Brien when he was Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh. The first was that he was a hypocrite when he outspokenly attacked the proposal for gay marriage. His exposure as a gay man who had made multiple unwanted sexual advances fatally undermined the Church’s message in what was already a tense debate. The reputational damage has been done; he has apologised and paid the penalty.

It is not so easy to lay to rest the allegation that he made some appointments in his archdiocese based on favouritism. That means the essential problem – abuse of power under the protection of the Church’s hierarchical structure – may still be present. But it is not confined to Scotland. There are several cases, most notoriously that of Cardinal Hans Hermann Groër of Vienna, where clergy knew of sexual irregularities in the past or present lives of senior church dignitaries, and did not know where to turn, or were not listened to. On a lesser scale, those who felt aggrieved by the behaviour of Bishop Kieran Conry, then of Arundel and Brighton, felt they had no obvious remedies except, eventually, to go to a national newspaper.

The victims of O’Brien’s sexual misconduct, mainly fellow clergy, suffered greatly. They felt trapped and powerless because of his seniority. It is still not clear how many there were – around 40 has been suggested – and though the new archbishop will need time to address all the issues, there is nothing in place so far that looks likely to give the victims justice. It is suggested that many of the 40 have not made formal allegations, though they are known to fellow victims. That indicates a lack of confidence in the Church’s procedures for dealing with such complaints.

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CANADA
CTV

Almost a year after he was arrested, a former Grey County church leader known as ‘the prophet’ will stand trial for alleged crimes dating back to 1978.

Fred King was the leader of the now defunct Church of Jesus Christ Restored near Chatsworth, Ont.
Following complaints of assault from a former ‘church wife,’ he was arrest in April 2014.

A preliminary hearing wrapped up in Owen Sound on Wednesday, with Fred committed to stand trial.
He faces 24 charges including sexual exploitation, sexual interference, sexual assault and uttering death threats.

The incidents allegedly happenet at the Chatsworth-area church compound from 1978 to 2008.

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MINNESOTA
WJON

By Dan DeBaun March 26, 2015

WAITE PARK – An investigation by the Minnesota Department of Human Services says a former staffer with WACOSA in Waite Park allegedly sexually abused a vulnerable adult.

WACOSA provides training and employment support for those with disabilities.

The investigation report says the abuse happened on several occasions before December 29th, 2014. Both the vulnerable adult and alleged staff person involved in the abuse were not identified in the report.

In the report it says the staff person touched the vulnerable adult’s breast and genital area underneath clothing on two occasions while working at a church. During the investigation, another incident of the staff person touching the vulnerable adult’s breast was seen by another staff person.

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VIRGINIA
WUSA

STERLING, Va.(WUSA9) — Officials are investigating an alleged sexual abuse that happened at the Calvary Temple Church in Sterling, Va., according to Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office.

“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,” said Loudoun County Sheriff Mike Chapman.

The is an ongoing investigation, officials said.

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VIRGINIA
Patch

By CHRIS GAUDET (Patch Staff)

The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office on Thursday confirmed that an investigation is taking place of alleged sexual abuse at the Calvary Temple Church in Sterling.

“Due to the fact this is an ongoing investigation, no further details can be released at this time,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.

“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 the statement.

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VIRGINIA
Fox DC

[with video]

By Marina Marraco, FOX 5 Reporter

STERLING, Va. –
A Loudoun County church is under investigation following allegations of years of sexual abuse.

Two accusers spoke exclusively with FOX 5 in hopes that others will come forward and abandon a church they say operates as a cult, brainwashes and has sexually abused minors.

26-year-old Chassidi Thompson says for more than a year she was sexually abused by her uncle, a man who also happens to be a deacon at Calvary Temple in Sterling.

“I thought that everything that I was experiencing was in my head. There was no proof of anything, there was no evidence. I would lay there at night: this is just a dream-this is just a dream, this is not happening to me,” said Thompson.

Thompson was only 12 when she says the abuse started. She says at 14 years old she was dumped with only the clothes on her back at a gas station, shunned and ostracized by the church.

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OHIO
Toledo Blade

BY NOLAN ROSENKRANS
BLADE STAFF WRITER

Catholic church leaders are looking for other potential victims of a deceased priest who once served at St. Francis de Sales High School, and who, they confirmed, abused a minor 14 years ago.

The Rev. James H. Roth, 61, died Feb. 11 at Hospice of Northwest Ohio after taking a high dose of insulin. Though his death has not been confirmed as a suicide, he left a note admitting to the allegation, said the Rev. Ken McKenna, provincial of the Toledo-Detroit Province of the Oblates of Saint Francis de Sales.

The survivor, who was not a St. Francis student and is now an adult, reported the abuse to the Oblates in January. Father Roth, who at the time was working for a Catholic school board in Toronto, was immediately removed from his position, police were alerted, and an internal investigation begun, Father McKenna said.

Father Roth was in a drug study for diabetes, and the side effects of the drug included depression and suicidal thoughts, according to the Oblates. While co-workers had noticed mood changes, Father McKenna said it’s unclear whether the drugs impaired his judgment or if the revelation led to his death.

Father McKenna acknowledged that the note would give the impression that Father Roth killed himself because of the charge, but he said he was waiting for the coroner’s office to rule officially on the manner of death.

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CANADA
Montreal Gazette

JOHN MEAGHER, MONTREAL GAZETTE

A former student at Collège St-Hilaire has filed a motion in Quebec Superior Court to authorize a class-action suit on behalf of individuals allegedly sexually abused by clergyman Jean-Paul Thibault, a former teacher and principal at the school.

Thibault, a Catholic brother with the Frères de Notre-Dame de la Miséricorde, was arrested March 17 for sexually assaulting the former student at the college in the 1980s.

Thibault, 72, is accused of indecent assault, sexual assault and incitement to sexual touching while in a position of authority.

The abuse began when the victim was 12 years old, said lawyer Robert Kugler of the law firm Kugler Kandestin, which filed a class-action suit to include the possibility there are other victims of Brother Thibault, who was released on $1,000 bail following his arrest.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

March 27, 2015

Mark Russell

A former Christian Brother who was part of a notorious paedophile ring involving the clergy in Ballarat has been jailed for a minimum of three years for abusing 20 young boys.

County Court judge Richard Smith said on Friday that Ted Dowlan, who changed his name by deed poll to Bales in 2011, had preyed on vulnerable boys as young as eight years old over a 14-year period at six different schools from the first year he became a Christian Brother in 1971.

Judge Smith said Dowlan had been in a position of authority and trust and believed he had “some right of entitlement” to abuse the boys in appalling circumstances because he had power over them and they were unable to resist him.

The judge described Dowlan’s offending as brazen and said he did not believe he was remorseful.

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OHIO
NBC 24

by Christopher Burns

TOLEDO, Ohio – The Oblates of St. Francis De Sales received an allegation of sexual misconduct of a minor nearly 14-years after it occurred.

Fr. James Roth, who died in February of 2015 from a high dose of insulin which caused low glucose levels and brain damage, is being investigated by Catholic Church leaders. The leaders say the allegations of sexual misconduct from 14-years ago were confirmed true.

According to a statement on the Oblates of St. Francis De Sales website, Roth admitted to the allegations in a note written before his death.

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UNITED KINGDOM
ITV

A Catholic priest dubbed the “fat vicar” is facing jail today after he was found guilty of sexually abusing a teenage boy at a children’s home between 1979 and 1981.

Father Anthony McSweeney preyed on the vulnerable youngster while working at Grafton Close Children’s Home in Hounslow, west London.

McSweeney, 68, was also found guilty of making indecent images of children.

He preyed on the boy with his close friend John Stingemore, 72, who managed the care home and was found dead in January – weeks before his trial.

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AUSTRALIA
SBS

Source: AAP
27 MAR 2015

A pedophile priest who sexually abused 20 boys under his care at schools in the 1970s and 1980s has been jailed in Victoria for six years.

Edward “Ted” Bales, 65, pleaded guilty to 34 child sex abuse charges that he committed while a teacher, often disguising his crimes as disciplinary action.

Bales, who was jailed in the 1990s for child sex crimes when he was known as Edward Vernon Dowlan, changed his name to avoid publicity.

In the Victorian County Court on Friday, Judge Richard Smith said some of Bales’ victims were also abused by other offenders teaching at the schools with Bales.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
NBC 10

A state appellate court has rejected the appeal of a Roman Catholic priest who died in prison while serving time in a Philadelphia abuse case.

The Rev. Charles Engelhardt insisted he was wrongly convicted at his 2013 trial.

The 67-year-old priest was serving a 6- to 12-year sentence. He died in November, weeks after his appeal was argued.

He died after a brief hospital stay that followed heart-related problems.

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ESPANA
El Pais

[The bishops lose one-year extension to register property.]

CARMEN MORÁN Madrid 26 MAR 2015

La reforma de la ley hipotecaria planteada por el PP en abril del año pasado eliminaba los privilegios de los obispos para poner a su nombre propiedades que no tenían dueño conocido. Pero les daba un año desde que esta modificación entrara en vigor para seguir haciéndolo. Ese año de prórroga fue eliminado el miércoles mediante una enmienda de los populares: la reforma de la ley en la comisión de Justicia del Congreso impedirá, nada más publicarse en el BOE, que la Iglesia siga con esta práctica que tanto rédito le ha dado. Se desconoce el número de propiedades —pisos, ermitas, catedrales, fincas, frontones, fuentes, plazas públicas— que los obispos han registrado a su nombre, sobre todo desde 1998, cuando el Gobierno de Aznar amplió esos privilegios, pero se sabe que son miles por toda España.

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ESPANA
El Pais

[The judge expects Vatican documentation in the ‘case Romanones’]

El Juzgado de Instrucción 4 de Granada, que investiga el caso sobre supuestos abusos sexuales cometidos presuntamente por varios sacerdotes del llamado grupo de Los Romanones, ha recibido ya la documentación que requirió a la Conferencia Episcopal, pero aún no tiene noticias de la que solicitó al Arzobispado de Granada y al Vaticano. Según fuentes del caso, la procedente de la Santa Sede tardará, puesto que debe mediar en ello el Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores.

Concretamente, y después de que así lo instara la acusación particular —que representa al primer denunciante, un joven de 24 años que trasladó su caso hasta el Papa Francisco—, el titular del juzgado, Antonio Moreno, reclamó información al Vaticano sobre las actuaciones canónicas y de todo lo actuado en la jurisdicción eclesiástica en relación a los hechos denunciados y sobre las quejas, denuncias o reclamaciones de cualquier tipo que se hubiesen podido recibir respecto de los 10 sacerdotes presuntamente implicados, desde que fueron ordenados.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, March 26

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 314-503-0003, SNAPdorris@gmail.com )

We applaud the two victims on the pope’s abuse panel who are speaking out against the promotion of a corrupt prelate. We call on Francis to reverse himself and out the Chilean bishop he just appointed.

Marie Collins and Pete Saunders are expressing concern over the elevation of Bishop Juan Barros who faces credible allegations of witnessing and concealing child sex crimes by Fr. Fernando Karadima.

[ABC News]

Rewarding wrongdoers encourages wrongdoing. In some ways, this pope differs from his predecessors. But with clergy sex abuse and cover up cases, he differs little. Francis is way more adept at saying the right things about predator priests and complicit bishops. But he steadfastly refuses to do the right things about them.

Actions matter, not words. And kids are endangered when those who ignore or hide child sex crimes are promoted. Barros’ elevation essentially signals to victims that their pain doesn’t matter to the church hierarchy and to bishops that protecting predators is still valued by the church hierarchy.

Pope Francis has made several unprecedented moves, like carrying his own luggage, cold-calling individuals, and washing the feet of Muslims. He should make a similarly but more significant and unprecedented move and oust this complicit bishop he just appointed.

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NEW JERSEY
Courhouse News Service

By CHRIS FRY

MORRISTOWN, N.J. (CN) – The Delbarton School faces five lawsuits from alumni of the preparatory school who say they were sexually abused 30 years ago.

The plaintiffs do not use their full names, with three of them using initials and two others simply going by John Does. Each filing involves allegations of abuse from between 1972 and 1984.

Delbarton, a Morristown preparatory school for grades seven through 12, opened in 1939.

While the complaints against the school do not any individuals as defendants, they do identify the priests who allegedly abused the plaintiff students as the Rev. Timothy Brennan, the Rev. Benedict Michael Worry, Father Donal Fox, the Rev. Justin Caputo and the Rev. Luke Travers.

The lawsuits each claim that each of these aforementioned men individually was a “pederast, frotteurist, pedophile and/or ephebophile or other sexual offender, with a habit of making sexual advances and/or engaging in unnatural sexual acts with children.”

Though each complaint tips the scales at 30 pages each, none cites specific instances of abuse or goes into detail about any misconduct. They all simply state that the plaintiffs were all “sexually assaulted and/or sexually abused” by the officials at the school while they were matriculating there.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

MATT GELB, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
LAST UPDATED: Thursday, March 26, 2015,

A state Superior Court panel upheld this week the prison sentences of a Catholic priest and former parochial-school teacher convicted of sexually abusing a 10-year-old altar boy from Northeast Philadelphia.

The Rev. Charles Engelhardt and Bernard Shero, a former St. Jerome teacher, were sentenced by a Common Pleas Court judge in June 2013 for abuse that occurred in the late 1990s.

Their lawyers appealed, contending prosecutorial misconduct and citing new evidence.

Engelhardt died Nov. 16, 2014, just weeks after his appeal was heard. He was sentenced to six to 12 years in prison for child endangerment, corruption of a minor, and indecent assault. Prosecutors said Engelhardt offered Communion wine to the boy, forced him to disrobe, and assaulted him at the church’s sacristy.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
National Catholic Reporter

Dan Morris-Young | Mar. 26, 2015

During what one participant described as an “explosive” meeting, the San Francisco archdiocese’s Council of Priests in mid-February addressed Star of the Sea pastor Fr. Joseph Illo’s decision to phase out altar girls as well as the designation of the parish as an oratory-in-formation.

Retired Sulpician Fr. J. Michael Strange, who lives at St. Stephen Parish in San Francisco, “proposed this agenda item and raised the issue for discussion because many of his constituents and parishioners at St. Stephens and elsewhere have contacted him regarding Fr. Illo’s recently announced policy of admitting only altar boys at Star of the Sea Parish,” according to a draft of the Feb. 12 meeting’s minutes.

NCR obtained a copy of the minutes from an anonymous priest.

Strange told council members that “he found other aspects of Fr. Illo’s parish bulletin explanation [in regard to] this new policy troublesome, as was the fact that Fr. Illo did not consult his deanery to see if this was a wise and prudent move prior to implementing this policy, noting consultation is one of the purposes of a deanery.”

According to the minutes, Strange said he and other priests have had “to spend much time on the issue with parishioners.”

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OHIO
Roman Catholic Diocese of Toledo

The Diocese of Toledo has received a report from the Toledo-Detroit Province of the Oblates of Saint Francis de Sales (OSFS) which has deemed credible an allegation of sexual misconduct with a minor by one of the religious order’s priests, the late Father James Roth (1953-2015). From 1976 to 1987 as a religious brother and 1995 to 2004 as a priest, Father Roth served at Saint Francis de Sales High School in Toledo Ohio as a faculty member/administrator, and from 1995 to 2004 assisted with weekend Masses and sacramental ministry at Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception Church in Monroe, Michigan. Other assignments included educational ministry in Utah and Ontario, Canada. Father Roth died February 11, 2015.

All inquiries concerning this case should be directed to the provincial for the Toledo-Detroit Province, Father Kenneth McKenna, OSFS (419-724-9851). If you have something to report regarding this matter, please contact the Oblates’ victim assistance coordinator, Adrienne Rowland (888-308-6252). For more information: www.tdprovince.org.

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OHIO
Toledo-Detroit Province, Oblates of St. Francis de Sales

In January the Toledo-Detroit Province received an allegation of sexual misconduct of a minor by Fr. James Roth (1953–2015). The abuse occurred 14-years ago.

The Province responds to allegations according to standards developed by Praesidium. Within hours of receiving the report, Fr. Roth was removed from ministry and law enforcement was informed. We convened the Praesidium-mandated Review Board and hired an investigator to investigate the accusation.

The Review Board, consisting of two social workers with extensive experience dealing with sexual misconduct, an educator, a psychologist and a Toledo-area judge, confirmed the allegation. They are now helping us learn of any other victims so we may offer a compassionate response.

If you or someone you know has been sexually abused by an Oblate, please click here to report sexual misconduct or call me at 419-724-9851.

On behalf of the Oblates, I want to apologize to anyone who has ever been injured, physically or emotionally, by any member of our congregation. We wish to help those in pain and we reaffirm our desire to play a role in the healing process.

Sincerely Yours,

Fr. Ken McKenna, OSFS
Provincial

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OHIO
East Niagara Post

Rev. James H. Roth, O.S.F.S. passed away on February 11, 2015 at Hospice of NW Ohio, due to complications of diabetes.

Fr. Jim was born to Robert J. and Therese (Desjardins) Roth in Lockport, New York on March 10, 1953. In 1971 he graduated from DeSales High School, Lockport, NY. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Spanish from Niagara University in 1976, a Masters in Religious Education degree from St. Michael’s University in 1984, a Masters in Education from the University of Toledo in 1985 and a Masters of Divinity from the Toronto School of Theology in 1995. Fr. Jim made his first profession as an Oblate of St. Francis de Sales in 1978 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1995.

After profession Fr. Jim taught at St. Francis de Sales High School in Toledo, Ohio for 11 years followed by 5 years at Judge Memorial High School in Salt Lake City, Utah. He returned to St. Francis High School in 1995 as teacher and guidance counselor. In 2004, he became director of the Oblate House of Studies as well as campus minister at Ryerson University in Toronto, Ontario. From 2008 to his time of passing, he was the priest-in-residence for the Dufferin-Peel Catholic School Board in Mississauga, Ontario.

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