ABUSE TRACKER

OSTERREICH
Wien@ORF

[The Klasnic commission appointed by Cardinal Christoph Schonborn received reports of abuse from 138 victims last night and so far 20 million euros have been paid to victims.]

Nach den Missbrauchsfällen der katholischen Kirche melden sich noch immer Betroffene bei der von Kardinal Christoph Schönborn eingesetzten Klasnic-Kommission – 138 Opfer alleine im Vorjahr. Bisher wurden 20 Millionen Euro an Opfer gezahlt.

Im Jahr vor dem Aufbrechen des Missbrauchsskandals hatten sich weniger als 20 Opfer bei den Ombudsstellen der katholischen Diözesen gemeldet. Fünf Jahre danach waren es immer noch 138. Fälle von Gewalt und Missbrauch aus vergangenen Jahrzehnten – aber nicht mehr die allerschlimmsten, sagt Waltraud Klasnic: „Ich glaube, dass die schwersten Fälle in den ersten Jahren auf dem Tisch gewesen sind und dass es Menschen gibt, die sich nie melden werden, weil sie es nicht können oder weil sie vielleicht nicht mehr melden.“

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DEUTSCHLAND
Katholisch

[More attention to victims of abuse is needed on the part of the church, according to Jesuit Father Klaus Mertes. “The silence of the church is not neutral, but a form of violence,” the director of the College of St. Blaise said Tuesday night in Stuttgart.]

04.03.2015 – Stuttgart

Mehr Aufmerksamkeit für Missbrauchsopfer hat der Jesuitenpater Klaus Mertes von Seiten der Kirche gefordert. “Das Schweigen der Kirche ist nicht neutral, sondern eine Form von Gewalt”, kritisierte der Direktor des Kollegs St. Blasien am Dienstagabend in Stuttgart. Er beobachte eine Tendenz in der Kirche, die Opfer verloren zu geben. Dabei hätten viele von ihnen zwar mit den Tätern, nicht aber mit der Institution Kirche abgeschlossen.

Mertes forderte bei einer Diskussion zum Kinofilm “Verfehlung”, Missbrauchstäter dürften nicht wieder als Seelsorger arbeiten. Glaubwürdigkeit könne die Kirche nur dann wieder herstellen, wenn es ihr um mehr gehe als um ihre eigene Glaubwürdigkeit. Der Regisseur des Films, Gerd Schneider, sagte, in der Kirche mache man sich einerseits viele Gedanken, warum wiederheirateten Geschiedenen die Kommunion vorenthalten werde, während andererseits Täter eine zweite Chance bekämen. “Das beschädigt die Botschaft”, so der ehemalige Priesteramtskandidat.

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MONTANA
Wall Street Journal

By TOM CORRIGAN
March 4, 2015

A judge on Wednesday approved a $21 million plan to compensate about 380 people who allege they were sexually abused by the clergy of Montana’s Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena.

U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Terry Myers had been widely expected to sign off on the plan, which drew no objections and was approved by more than 98% of the alleged victims when put to a vote earlier this year.

The plan will settle about 380 sexual-abuse claims brought against the Helena diocese, 235 of which were filed jointly against both the diocese and the Ursuline Sisters of the Western Province, a religious order of nuns. The settlement also resolves the claims against the Ursuline Sisters.

The judge’s signature also clears the way for the diocese to exit Chapter 11 protection later this year.

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NEW JERSEY
Jewish Link

Teaneck—On Sunday, March 15, Project S.A.R.A.H. (Stop Abusive Relationships At Home) will hold its 9th annual community breakfast in recognition of its 18 years of serving victims and survivors of domestic violence and sexual abuse throughout the State of New Jersey.

The breakfast will begin at 9:30 am at Congregation Keter Torah on Roemer Avenue in Teaneck. The keynote speaker will be Jill Starishevsky, author of My Body Belongs to Me, and an assistant district attorney in New York City, where she has prosecuted thousands of sex offenders and dedicated her career to seeking justice for victims of child sexual abuse and sex crimes.

The Rabbinical Supporter Award will be presented to Rabbi Shmuel Goldin, senior rabbi of Congregation Ahavath Torah in Englewood, for his longstanding support of Project S.A.R.A.H.’s community-based work. He has participated in our rabbinic trainings, seeks our guidance when a crisis arises, refers congregants to our agency and has been a vocal supporter to members of his community.

The Aleinu Hero Award will be presented to Rabbi Jonathan Knapp, Head of School of Yavneh Academy in Paramus. Rabbi Knapp has invited Project S.A.R.A.H. into his school to train his entire faculty, students, and their parents on child safety through our Aleinu Safety Kid program. His consistent commitment to this training places Yavneh in a leadership role among all Jewish day schools.

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IRELAND
Newstalk

Lawyers for a detective charged with forging a document in relation to her investigation into a clerical child abuse allegation have described the investigation as one “nobody seemed to know anything about”.

Wicklow Detective Garda Catherine McGowan (48), who is based at Bray Garda Station, has pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to one count of forgery on January 15, 2009 at Bray Garda Station and two counts of using a false instrument at Bray Garda Station and at Harcourt Street Garda Station between June 21 and 22, 2011.

The instrument is alleged to have been a letter from the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), dated January 14, 2009.

The investigation of Gda McGowan’s handling of the case was prompted by the publication of the Murphy Report which investigated clerical sexual abuse in the Dublin area. The priest in Gda McGowan’s case was one of the clerics mentioned in the report.

The letter read: “Dear Sir, I (illegible) to yours. In (illegible) the statement of the complainant…could not possibly form the basis of a prosecution given that the complainant’s allegation of rape is only conjecture.”

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MONTANA
KULR

By The Associated Press

COEUR D’ALENE, IDAHO –
A federal judge has confirmed a bankruptcy reorganization plan for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena that calls for almost $20 million in payments to hundreds of victims of clergy sex abuse.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Terry Myers approved the plan during a Wednesday court hearing in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.

Abuse claims from more than 360 victims will now go through an adjudication process to determine final payment amounts.

Each will receive a minimum of $2,500, and a trust will be established for victims who come forward in the future.

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TEXAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, March 4

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

A startling new clergy sex abuse and cover up lawsuit charges that Ft. Worth Catholic Bishop Michael F. Olsen:

— illegally tape recorded a child sex abuse victim’s mom without her knowledge,
— also tape recorded a “trusting” and deeply wounded victim too,
— “betrayed,” “re-victimized” and “tried to silence” him until his statute of limitations expired,
— conducted a “virtual interrogation” of him “for fraudulent purposes: to limit or deny” any potential civil case (he) would have and to “elicit support for the diocese’s legal defenses” if he did sue,
— intended to “trick and betray” the mom “into testifying against her own abused and damaged son” with the “sole purpose of (using) her statements to defeat any potential civil claims he might justly have.”
— promised to contact the victim again “in a few weeks” but never did,
— led the victim “to believe he would go to Mass with him and pray with him but never did,
— said “how happy he was that (the victim) had not hired a lawyer to sue the diocese.”

The bottom line is that “As a trusting child, Doe was betrayed and victimized by a chaplain and as a trusting adult he was betrayed and then re-victimized by his bishop,” the suit asserts.

The perpetrator of the child sex crimes was Fr. Hugh John Sutton.

Under the guise of punishment, Fr. Sutton repeatedly inflicted “sadistic abuse” on the boy,” the suit charges, beginning in in 1990, when the boy was in the 7th grade at Notre Dame Middle-High School at Our Lady Queen of Peace Parish in Wichita Falls, Texas. During lunch hour in the school chapel, Fr. Sutton “disciplined” the boy by sexually assaulting him.

Fr. Sutton claimed, the suit says that “these excruciating, humiliating abuses were testimonies to God of his repentance for having plagiarized, and pleased Him” while also warning the boy to “not to tell anyone because no one would believe him,” and threatening “I have the power to ruin your life.”

A New York native, Fr. Sutton was ordained in Pueblo Colorado and worked as a teacher, chaplain or priest in Arkansas, California, Mississippi, North Dakota, Ohio, Guam and the US Navy. His only church assignment in the Ft. Worth diocese was apparently at Notre Dame (which he left in 1992). His last known location was at the Commons of Providence, a Catholic-affiliated assisted living facility in Sandusky, Ohio. He died in 2004.

The victim now lives out of state. He is represented by Dallas attorney Tahira Khan Merritt (214 503 7300). The suit, filed yesterday in Tarrant County court, seeks actual and punitive damages of more than one million dollars. It also says that in 2013, the victim “had a nervous breakdown, began to suffer debilitating panic attacks (which) flooded his sleeping and waking hours and wreaked havoc in his life” “as he recalled, for the first time, disturbing images of the serial rapes and sadistic abuses by Sutton.”

We applaud this brave man for his courage in exposing the Fr. Sutton’s horrific crimes and Bishop Olsen’s diabolical cover up of and manipulative response to those crimes.

We urge anyone who may have seen, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes or cover ups in the Ft. Worth diocese – by this cleric or any church employee – to find the strength and courage to step forward, seek help, call police, expose wrongdoers, protect kids and start healing.

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MAINE
Bates College

The Bates lecture series Unusual Positions: Controversial Approaches to the Study of Religion and Sexuality continues with Refusing Redemption: Making Catholic Sex Abuse ‘Our’ Story, a talk by Kent Brintnall of the University of North Carolina Charlotte, at noon Wednesday, March 4, in Room 221-222, Commons, 136 Central Ave.

Presented by the religious studies department, the women and gender studies program and the humanities division at Bates, the lectures are open to the public at no cost. Attendees are welcome to bring a lunch to the noontime events. For more information, please call 207-786-8204 or visit bit.ly/unusual-positions.

In the third event of the series, Janet Bennion of Lyndon State College discusses changing attitudes toward polygamy in Progressive Polygamy in North America: Is Plural Marriage the New Civil Rights Frontier? at noon Friday, March 20, in Room 226, Commons.

Concluding the series is Christine Hoff Kraemer of Cherry Hill Seminary with the lecture Eros and Touch from a Pagan Perspective: Loving Touch as Divine Birthright at noon Wednesday, April 8, in Room 221-222, Commons.

“The relationship between religion and sexuality is complex, seemingly contradictory, often tense, yet full of possibility,” says series organizer Megan Goodwin, lecturer in religious studies and Mellon postdoctoral fellow in the humanities at Bates. “Our speakers address religious traditions and sexual practices on the margins of conventional scholarship.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, March 4

Statement by Karen Polesir, Philly SNAP leader, 267 992 9463, karenpolesir@yahoo.com

Under no circumstances, we believe, should Father Mark Haynes be set free, no matter what restrictions the court may impose. Like most predator priests, he is well educated, well spoken, charming, and cunning. He should be given no more chances to intimidate victims, threaten whistleblowers, discredit witnesses, fabricate alibis, destroy evidence or even flee the country.

Archbishop Charles Chaput should personally visit each place this priest worked, begging victims, witnesses whistleblowers to call law enforcement immediately. For the safety of others, we in SNAP implore everyone who may have information or suspicions about any Philly cleric to call police or prosecutors now.

[The Morning Call]

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TEXAS
Times Record

Lynn Walker
Mar 4, 2015

A man who claims he suffered sexual abuse at the hands of a priest at Notre Dame Middle School in Wichita Falls has sued the Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth and its bishop, Michael F. Olson.

The plaintiff, who is identified in court papers only as John Doe 117, alleges he was abused by Father John Sutton, his history teacher and the school chaplain between 1989 and 1991.

The suit alleges that Sutton, who died in 2004, used the excuse that the boy had copied an assignment from an encyclopedia to require the boy to pay penance by accompanying the priest to a small chapel in the school building where the priest sexually assaulted him.

The suit claims Sutton kept “menacing ‘sex toys’” in a black bag he used to assault and torture the boy. It also claims the priest stuffed a towel into the boy’s mouth so his screams would not be heard.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Daily Mail (UK)

Priest, 55, already facing child porn and molestation charges ‘forced a teenage girl to perform oral sex on him while in the confessional’ over two decades ago

Three women have come forward to say that a Catholic priest already facing child sexual abuse accusations molested them in the 1990s and he allegedly forced one to perform oral sex while in the confessional.

Two of the three cases occurred when Rev. Mark Haynes was assigned to St. Ann’s parish in Phoenixville and all women were minors at the time, say police.

One of those three women said that Haynes attacked her when she confessed that she performed oral sex on a teenage boy. He then made her repeat the sex act on him.

Philly.com reports that Haynes, formerly assigned to SS. Simon and Jude Parish in Westtown hasn’t yet been charged with sexual abuse and has denied all allegations.

Spokesman Ken Gavin of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia is asking anyone with more information about Hayes to come forward.

Recent search terms on Haynes’ computer are ‘nude teen girls’ and ‘8th grade girls tumblr.’

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CALIFORNIA
The Telegraph

BY JULIE WATSON
Associated Press
March 3, 2015

SAN DIEGO — A history scholar selected by Pope Francis to be the new Roman Catholic bishop of San Diego said Tuesday that he will be a “friend” to the Latino community and called for comprehensive immigration reform.

Monsignor Robert McElroy made the comments during a news conference in San Diego hours after the Vatican announced his appointment. He called immigration “the vitality of our nation.”

“The border is a reminder to us of what we are called to do in our greatness as Americans and that we sometimes fall short of in how we deal with immigrants and how we must really confront the issues of immigration and resolve them with justice and have a comprehensive immigration reform that will do that,” he said.

The 61-year-old native Californian has been serving as an auxiliary bishop in San Francisco since 2010. He will be formally installed as the sixth bishop of San Diego during a Mass at St. Therese of Carmel Parish on April 15. San Diego’s Bishop Cirilo Flores died of cancer last year. …

Joelle Casteix, the western regional director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, said McElroy has not done enough to speak out against priests accused of abuse.

McElroy said the church has come a long way in improving the way abuse cases are handled. But “we need to constantly reform our environments so that they maximize safety and security for children,” he said.

“We can never think we’ve done enough or that we have put it in the past,” McElroy said, adding later that “a constant notion of vigilance going forward needs to be in place.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
Patch

By Kara Seymour (Patch Staff)
March 4, 2015

A former Doylestown Catholic priest who is facing federal child pornography charges is now accused of sexual assault, after three parishioners said he molested them in the 1990s, according to reports.

One victim said Mark Haynes, 55, who previously served at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, forced her to perform oral sex on him in a Phoenixville church confessional booth, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

Haynes already faces multiple felonies involving child pornography after being charged by Chester County authorities in October; he was arrested this week by the FBI on similar charges.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that three parishioners recently came forward with the allegations against Haynes, who is also accused of posting nude photos of children to Instagram as well as exchanging lewd emails with a 14-year-old girl, according to authorities.

Haynes served at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel from 1989-1991, according to the Archdiocese.

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CHICAGO (IL)
The Tablet (UK)

04 March 2015 11:49 by CNS

US Cardinal Francis George, archbishop emeritus of Chicago, was admitted to Loyola University Medical Centre this week to undergo several days of tests.

A statement from the Chicago Archdiocese said the tests were being conducted to evaluate his condition since he stopped treatment for cancer in late January.

“The cardinal continues to count on the prayers of so many who have written to wish him God’s blessings,” it said.

Until January Cardinal George was taking part in a clinical drug trial to treat his cancer. He was dropped from the trial being conducted by University of Chicago Medicine after scans showed the experimental treatment was not working for him.

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LOUISIANA
Bayou Buzz

Sheriff’s deputies Monday arrested a Baton Rouge therapist accused of inappropriately touching an 11-year-old client during a counseling session in early February.

The boy told investigators that the therapist, William Nicholas Abraham, 60, groped him on Feb. 3 during a counseling session at Abraham’s office on United Plaza Drive, according to a Sheriff’s Office report.

In an interview with deputies, Abraham denied touching the child inappropriately, saying the only physical contact he had with his client was when he put his arm around the boy after the session, the report says.

Jarrett P. Ambeau, Abraham’s attorney, described his client as being “absolutely innocent.” …

Abraham, a well-known local therapist, is a former Catholic priest who has written and performed contemporary Christian rock music in the Baton Rouge area.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY BEN KOCHMAN NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Published: Monday, March 2, 2015

He’s in limbo.

The disgraced former principal of a Bronx Catholic school who fessed to dipping into the academy’s alumni fund — before resigning amid charges of sexual misconduct — has one last chance to pay back $8,200 and avoid being tossed in jail.

Christopher Keogan, 58, has just two weeks to come up with $8,251 to pay back Cardinal Hayes High School, according to a deal hashed out Monday in Bronx Supreme Court.

The former Christian Brother resigned after being accused of having an affair with a male subordinate and having explicit images on his computer.

He was never formally charged, but was indicted in 2010 for allegedly stealing $50,000 from the south Bronx school’s alumni fund.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

At 8.05am on 4 March 2015, police arrested and charged a Christian Brother in Sydney regarding sexual and indecent assaults upon children. Police allege that the offences were committed three decades ago at Goulburn, in south-western New South Wales.

The detectives arrested the 63-year-old man at an address in Victoria Road, Ryde, a Sydney suburb. Until a few days before the arrest, he was working at a Catholic school in Chatswood (in suburban Sydney).

The offences allegedly occurred upon one boy aged between 13 and 17, while the man was a Christian Brother at a Catholic school in Goulburn between 1984 and 1987.

He was taken to Ryde Police Station, where he was charged with:

two counts of indecent assault;
two counts of sexual assault;
three counts of homosexual intercourse with a pupil; and
one count of committing an act of indecency.

He is the fourth Christian Brother to be arrested by a special unit of NSW Police detectives (called Strike Force Charish), which was formed in February 2014, to investigate allegations of child-sex offences said to have occurred between 1978 and 1989 at a Catholic college in Goulburn involving numerous victims. This unit it located at the Goulburn Detectives Office.

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VATICAN CITY
Los Angeles Times

By TOM KINGTON

Pope Francis has taken action that appears to confirm his faith in the controversial head of a task force he created to clean up the Vatican’s finances.

On the pope’s orders, new legal statutes were published Tuesday cementing most of the powers that were given to the Secretariat for the Economy, which Francis set up a year ago and is headed by the outspoken Australian Cardinal George Pell. The statutes went into effect Sunday.

The Vatican’s hitherto murky finances will be overseen by the Council for the Economy, made up of eight prelates and seven lay people. The council will formulate policy, and the Secretariat for the Economy will carry it out. An independent auditor will be given free rein to check the accounts of Vatican departments.

Pell, who has said he discovered millions of euros that did not show up on the Vatican’s books and has suggested that Italian accounting is slipshod, has ruffled feathers and faced accusations of centralizing power at the new secretariat, designed to bring transparency to the Vatican.

Proof that he was making enemies within the Vatican’s bureaucracy came Friday when an Italian magazine published leaked documents suggesting Pell had spent more than half a million dollars in six months on his new department, flying business class and paying assistants large salaries, while spending $2,800 on robes at a Rome tailor and more than $50,000 on furniture.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Frankfurter Allgemeine

[The Evangelical Luther Church of Bavaria will pay compensation to victims of sexual abuse.]

Munchen (dpa) – Die evangelische Landeskirche in Bayern entschädigt Opfer sexueller Gewalt. Die Kirche und die Diakonie im Freistaat übernähmen Verantwortung für das Leid, das den Opfern in ihren Kirchengemeinden oder diakonischen Einrichtungen zugefügt worden sei, teilte ein Sprecher in München mit.

Finanzielle Leistungen können Menschen bekommen, «die glaubhaft machen, dass sie sexuelle Übergriffe durch kirchliche oder diakonische Mitarbeitende erlitten haben und deren Ansprüche gegenüber den Tätern und den Institutionen inzwischen verjährt sind», heißt es. Über die Höhe der Zahlungen entscheidet eine unabhängige Kommission.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Oxfordshire County Council

Oxfordshire County Council accepts the findings of the serious case review into child sexual exploitation and apologises that the multi-agency child protection system failed to prevent horrific abuse of six girls.

The independent Serious Case Review into Child Sexual Exploitation in Oxfordshire was published today (Tuesday 3 March 2015) by the Oxfordshire Safeguarding Children Board. The serious case review followed a trial in 2013 in which seven men were imprisoned for a total of 95 years for their crimes which took place from 2005-2011.

Jim Leivers, Oxfordshire County Council’s Director for Children, Education and Families, said:
“Like the whole community we are horrified at what happened in Oxford. We fully accept that we made many mistakes and missed opportunities to stop the abuse.

“Like the whole community we are horrified at what happened in Oxford. We fully accept that we made many mistakes and missed opportunities to stop the abuse.

“After the trial, the council apologised to the girls for not stopping their abuse sooner, and I do so unreservedly again today. They suffered dreadfully at the hands of these violent men, and despite many attempts we failed to keep them safe while they were in our care.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

Was it a hate crime? Fears gangs of Asian paedophiles who preyed on hundreds of vulnerable white girls were racially motivated as PM brands it ‘abuse on an industrial scale’

By Martin Robinson and Matt Chorley, MailOnline Political Editor and Keiligh Baker

A total of 373 girls suffered sexual abuse in Oxfordshire, a report into ‘indescribably awful’ child sexual exploitation has found – and now fears have been raised that the abuse may have been racially motivated.

Over 15 years hundreds of victims as young as 11 were groomed, raped and forced into prostitution by gangs of men ‘predominantly of Pakistani heritage’, a serious case review has found.

The damning 114-page report said victims were in a ‘living hell from which they couldn’t extricate themselves’ after ‘hostile’ officials wrote some off as ‘difficult girls making bad choices’ when they begged for help.

The vulnerable girls were initially showered with gifts before being plied with alcohol and drugs including crack cocaine and heroin, making them dependent on the men who sexually abused them.

Today Thames Valley’s Police and Crime Commissioner, Anthony Stansfeld, said the abuse may have been a ‘hate crime’.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Knox Grammar Royal Commission: Former headmaster Ian Paterson admits to hindering police investigation into paedophile ring

JANET FIFE YEOMANS AND AAP THE DAILY TELEGRAPH MARCH 04, 2015

THE man who ran Knox Grammar School for 30 years has admitted multiple failures which put vulnerable boys at the elite NSW school at risk.

Asked about these failures, by counsel for the child abuse royal commission, former headmaster Ian Paterson answered “correct”, with the qualifications “in looking back” or “in retrospect”.

Dr Paterson agreed he hadn’t delivered training for staff on mandatory reporting obligations; had no written policies on child protection; had no systems in place for interviewing or conducting reference or criminal checks for people applying to be housemasters and had never reported to police when students made allegations against teachers.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

THE former headmaster of Knox Grammar denies he groped a teenage girl at a school musical production in 1989.

LUCY Perry, the CEO of a global women’s health charity has told a child sex abuse inquiry Ian Paterson cupped her bottom and put his hand near her genitals during rehearsals for a joint school production of Guys and Dolls.

Dr Paterson said on Wednesday it was “absolutely not” true that he had inappropriately touched the then 15-year-old girl.

He was asked about Ms Perry’s evidence that boys roared with approval when he groped her.
“Absolutely not. They were roaring approval for her performance.”

Ms Perry has told the commission she felt humiliated when students cheered and said Dr Paterson had a “creepy look of satisfaction” on his face.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Nicole Chettle

A former headmaster at the prestigious Sydney boys’ school, Knox Grammar, has told a royal commission he deliberately withheld information from police conducting an investigation into child sexual abuse.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard Dr Ian Paterson was approached by a policewoman from the Child Protection Enforcement Agency in December 1996.

Inspector Beth Cullen had received anonymous information alleging child sexual abuse by six people who had been employed by the school.

Dr Paterson told the royal commission’s counsel assisting David Lloyd he deliberately attempted to mislead Inspector Cullen.

David Lloyd: “You were deliberately attempting to mislead Inspector Cullen about matters that were centrally important to her investigation”.
Dr Ian Paterson: “I accept that”.
Lloyd: “And you did so with intention of protecting those teachers about whom she was making the inquiries”.
Paterson: “That’s the way it appears”.

Under questioning, Dr Paterson confirmed he did not share what he knew with police.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

March 4, 2015

Alan Dearn

Comment

We were sitting on the grass at the side of Knox Grammar School’s main oval in 1987; it must have been in my final few weeks of school. The memory of an awkward moment saying uncomplimentary things about Mr Fotis the religion teacher, while he was sitting behind me popped back into my mind when I saw his name deeply implicated in evidence before the royal commission into sexual abuse.

One of the things people who weren’t at Knox in my era find surprising was that the culture did not value learning or academic curiosity. After all, this was a school that closed its classics department and opened a business centre instead. What was valued was image. I vividly remember the headmaster, Ian Paterson, speaking in assemblies on topics like why Knox boys didn’t swear, because only members of the less privileged classes did that. Everything was appearance.

And sadly, I think that was what seduced my parents about the place. My father never finished school, spending a chunk of his adolescence in a Japanese internment camp instead. For him, Knox offered security, a network of old boys he thought would support his sons in later life, who would recognise the old school tie and help us on our way into our careers in the business world.

I nearly escaped in Year 11. The first couple of years were a bit of a blur of being miserable, sporadically bullied, and feeling constantly lonely. That never changed, although the bullying did. By Year 11, I was big enough and odd enough that people basically left me alone. I mainly lived in the library, to which fact I owe my encyclopaedic knowledge of World War II German military hardware. I did my work, so wasn’t generally bullied by the teachers either, and fortunately was neither a boarder, good looking or sporty. Nevertheless, Year 11 was a low ebb. I truanted, embraced depressing music and wrote awful poetry.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

MARCH 04, 2015

Ean Higgins

Reporter
Sydney

THE former headmaster of Knox Grammar has denied a sensational allegation that he indecently assaulted a schoolgirl 25 years ago.

Lucy Perry this week told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that in 2009 she reported to police that when she was rehearsing for a musical directed by the headmaster 20 years earlier, he had indecently assaulted her.

Ms Perry told the inquiry that while rehearsing for a strip club scene in Guys and Dolls when she was a 16 year old schoolgirl, Ian Paterson, in a deliberate act of misogyny to humiliate her, had put his hand on her bottom and touched her genitals, to a roar of delight of the Knox boys in the cast.

Dr Paterson said he remembered Ms Perry performing in the class, but categorically denied the groping incident took place.

As to the allegations that the boys roared at the time, Dr Paterson said: “They were roaring with approval for her performance as the sultry dancer.”

The inquiry also heard from Dr Paterson that when a former student threatened to sue the school for allegedly having been sexually molested by Stewart, and to publicly expose widespread homosexuality at Knox, he kept file notes that he made the decision not to tell the school council about it.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Royal Commission into child sex abuse: Knox Grammar headmaster Ian Paterson admits he could have stopped abuse

March 4, 2015

Rachel Browne and Melanie Kembrey

Former Knox Grammar School headmaster Ian Paterson told a royal commission that he could have stopped the child sexual abuse which pervaded the school over a 30-year period.

Dr Paterson agreed he had thousands of boys under his care during his time as headmaster between 1969 and 1998 but never attempted to find out about the impact of child sexual abuse despite multiple allegations coming to his attention as early as 1975.

Under questioning from counsel assisting the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, David Lloyd, Dr Paterson said he could have prevented boys from being abused.

“If you had done more to . . . make investigations into allegations of child sexual abuse that it is quite likely that a number of boys under your care would not have been abused,” Mr Lloyd said.

“Correct,” Dr Paterson replied.

In earlier evidence Dr Paterson admitted misleading a police officer from the child protection enforcement agency who quizzed him about child sex abuse claims at the school after receiving anonymous information in 1996.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

The man who ran Knox Grammar School for 30 years has admitted multiple failures which put vulnerable boys at the elite NSW school at risk.

Asked about these failures, by counsel for the child abuse royal commission, former headmaster Ian Paterson answered ‘correct’, with the qualifications ‘in looking back’ or ‘in retrospect’.

Dr Paterson agreed he hadn’t delivered training for staff on mandatory reporting obligations; had no written policies on child protection; had no systems in place for interviewing or conducting reference or criminal checks for people applying to be housemasters and had never reported to police when students made allegations against teachers.

Dr Paterson was insistent he did deal fairly with a boy who complained he had been propositioned by teacher Damien Vance.

He sent to the 15-year-old to the library to think about what he had alleged, before accepting his story.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

March 4, 2015

Rachel Browne and Melanie Kembrey

Knox Grammar School was Ian Paterson’s “life and empire” and the former headmaster told the royal commission he would go to great lengths to protect its reputation.

On Wednesday he admitted he tried to cover up potential litigation against the school, misled a police officer investigating child abuse allegations and hindered her inquiry into claims against six teachers.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard Inspector Beth Cullen spoke to Dr Paterson about the six teachers in 1996. At the time three of the teachers under suspicion were still working at the Wahroonga school.

Dr Paterson admitted to the commission he did not provide the officer with any information about sexual molestation claims but referred her to their staff files, in full knowledge they did not contain records of abuse.

Under questioning by counsel assisting, David Lloyd, Dr Paterson agreed that he deliberately misled Inspector Cullen and hindered the investigation but said he could not remember why.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

Former Knox Grammar headmaster Ian Paterson has admitted he deliberately hindered a police investigation into claims of sexual abuse at the school.

During his appearance in the witness box today, Dr Paterson made a number of admissions, including that a number of boys under his care would not have been abused, had he taken action based on allegations of abuse that he was aware of.

In 1996 Inspector Beth Cullen, a police officer from the child protection enforcement agency, attended the school to investigate anonymous complaints of sexual abuse against five teachers.

Dr Paterson said he was aware of some allegations but said nothing at the time.

He suggested the detective should have questioned him more.

“I’m wondering why Inspector Cullen … didn’t question me more closely,” he said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Australian Associated Press
Wednesday 4 March 2015

A former supreme court judge says he told the headmaster of Knox Grammar to report an allegation to police that a teacher had been sleeping with a boy at the elite Sydney school for two years.

Morris “Dusty” Ireland, who was chairman of the Knox school council in the 1990s, has told the child abuse royal commission headmaster Ian Paterson told him in 1992 a student was threatening to sue the school and expose it “as a hotbed of homosexuality”.

The student, known as ATJ, also alleged teacher Bob James had been having sex with a senior student, known as ATP, for two years.

Ireland said he could not now remember full details, but recalled advising Paterson not to approach the student and told him the James affair should be reported to police because it “might involve criminal conduct” depending on the student’s age.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail

‘Sad, angry, disappointed’: Hugh Jackman watched every minute of inquiry into shocking abuse at exclusive Knox Grammar – where he was once school captain

By DANIEL PIOTROWSKI FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA

Hugh Jackman and his former classmates are ‘sad, angry and disappointed’ at the testimony of their former headmaster at the prestigious Sydney high school Knox Grammar at an inquiry into child sex abuse at the school.

Dr Ian Paterson, the school’s headmaster from 1969 to 1998, gave evidence at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse on Tuesday and Wednesday, today admitting to impeding a police investigation into allegations of paedophilia from teachers.

Jackman was among many who live-streamed Dr Paterson’s testimony in New York on Tuesday morning Australian time, exchanging emails with around eight of his former classmates at the exclusive school, according to best friend Grill Team radio presenter Gus Worland.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

BY ALAN ERWIN – 04 MARCH 2015

Judgment has been reserved in an historical abuse inquiry chairman’s bid to overturn a ruling that he unfairly denied legal representation to an alleged victim.

Sir Anthony Hart is appealing 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 hearing the challenge have been told alleged victims are now increasingly refusing to sign witness statements unless they secure legal funding.

The woman at the centre of the case is due to give evidence at the Historical Institutional Abuse hearings in Banbridge, Co Down, which are investigating child abuse in Northern Ireland residential institutions between 1922 and 1995.

The inquiry has so far heard from more than 100 victims and survivors of abuse, most of whom were in the care of the Catholic Church at homes in Derry and Kircubbin in Co Down.

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NEW ZEALAND
3 News

A former pastor and counsellor jailed for more than 12 years, has done incalculable harm to two girls and their family, a judge says.

Justice Mark Woolford was sentencing James Leyland Watkins, 65, in the High Court at Rotorua on 16 charges of sexual violation, one each of indecently assaulting girls of six and seven, three of inducing a child under 12 to do an indecent act on him and six of sexual violation by rape.

He ordered Watkins to spend at least five-and-a-half years behind bars before he’s to be considered for parole.

The court heard Watkins, a former pastor and counsellor in Rotorua and Tokoroa, had been extradited from Colorado in the United States to face the charges, which spanned a period between 2000 and 2006.

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ZIMBABWE
Nehanda Radio

By Tarisai Machakaire

HARARE – Most people have rooted their faith in “men of God” with the belief that they possess supernatural powers and are closer to God.

Some believe they possess the ability to solve all of their problems.

Women flock to churches in larger numbers than men. And consequently, they have often fallen prey to philandering “pastors”.

The local media has described such unscrupulous men of God as “rape pastors.”

Several such cases have been brought into the limelight.

And apparently, the offenders do not just abuse women and girls, they have also desecrated the places of worship by engaging in sexual activities on Holy ground.

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NEW ZEALAND
New Zealand Herald

Email Stephanie

A former Rotorua pastor who was extradited from the United States to face child sex abuse charges has been jailed for more than 12 years.

James Leland Watkins, 65 was sentenced in the High Court at Rotorua yesterday to 12 years and three months’ imprisonment after previously admitting 27 charges of sexual abuse against two victims, including six counts of rape.

The offending happened in Rotorua between 2000 and 2006, and the majority of the charges were representative, meaning the offending happened more than once.

His sentence carries a minimum non-parole period of five years and six months.

Watkins was extradited from the United States to face the charges. An American-born New Zealand citizen, he had returned to live in his country of birth in 2006.

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SOUTH AFRICA
IOL

March 4 2015

By Shain Germaner

Johannesburg – Four people, including a church pastor, accused of conducting a satanic ritual during which a 9-year-old boy was allegedly raped have been released on bail. This was after the State’s case was deemed too weak.

Meanwhile, leaders at the church where the incident allegedly took place have broken their silence over the incident.

The child’s grandmother, grandfather, uncle and the 54-year-old pastor were arrested last month after an investigation by the SAPS Occult Related Crimes Unit.

Police suspect the pastor and relatives of the child brought the then 7-year-old to the Full Gospel Church of God in Witfield, Boksburg, sometime in 2013.

The pastor, grandparents and uncle, clad in red robes and chanting, then allegedly forced the boy to fondle their genitals before the uncle raped the child, the State claimed.

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MONTANA
Fox Montana

By Ashley Sanchez

MISSOULA –
A bankruptcy court in Idaho gets the final say in two multi-million dollar settlements involving hundreds of sexual abuse victims and the Catholic Diocese of Helena.

On Tuesday a bankruptcy judge in Coeur d’Alene will be asked to approve two separate sexual abuse settlements, totaling more than $19 million.

Decades after they came forward with their stories hundreds of sexual assault victims are ready to be compensated for the physical and emotional pain they endured so many years ago.

“All parties want is to have this adjudicated quickly. We hope the court approve plan so all the victims are compensated as soon as possible,” said Vito de la Cruz with Tamaki Law.

On behalf of the victims, on Wednesday Tamaki Law will ask a judge to approve two settlements.

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MONTANA
KFBB

[with video]

Updated: Mar 03, 2015

By Amanda Roley, Reporter

HELENA –
Tomorrow the Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena will ask a bankruptcy judge for permission to proceed with a $15-million plan, which will be used to pay over 300 victims of alleged sexual abuse committed by its clergy.

The hearing comes just four years after lawsuits were filed against the Diocese for the alleged abuse that happened between 1940 and 1960.

One of the two lawsuits filed in 2011 claims that 362 children were sexually abused by clergy members at the Diocese of Helena, many of those children are now between the ages of 30 and 60.

The $15 million settlement to compensate the victims was reached last year, after the Diocese filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy. So, the settlement must be approved tomorrow in bankruptcy court in Coure d’Alene, Idaho.

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SOUTH AFRICA
Times LIVE

The grandparents of a nine-year-old boy, his uncle, and a pastor were granted bail after a suspected satanic ritual that led to the boy’s alleged rape and molestation, according to a media report.

The two grandparents, the 29-year-old uncle, and the 54-year-old pastor were granted bail of R4000 each in the Germiston Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday.

Magistrate Sharlotte Sithole said the medical report from 2013, when the boy was seven years-old, had no indications of sexual abuse or penetration.

On Monday, investigating officer Lt-Col Hendrik de Jager described the boy’s ordeal and said interviews revealed that over a period, possibly several years, the child was allegedly raped and molested multiple times by the group.

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WISCONSIN
NBC 15

[with video]

Those who lived in the area at the time will remember it well. Father Alfred Kunz was a well-known priest and his death shocked many. Now all these years later, investigators are still not giving up.

Seventeen years ago Tuesday, Father Alfred Kunz recorded his final radio broadcast. The next morning, March 4, 1998, Father Kunz was found dead, brutally murdered, inside St. Michael Catholic Church. The murder remains unsolved.

Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney tells us, “It’s still a priority for this organization to resolve that homicide.”

Mahoney says a number of detectives keep up to speed on the case and follow new leads that still occasionally come in. Matt Abbott, a Chicago-based writer specializing in Catholic issues, has written extensively on the case for more than 14 years. He spoke to us over the phone.

Abbott explains, “There have been various conspiracy theories that have been put forth.”

Ranging from the involvement of a satanic cult, to the involvement of fellow clergy. Abbott believes the most plausible theory: “Souring, I guess, of a relationship between Father Kunz and one of his teachers.”

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

by Sonya McLean

The supervisor of a garda accused of forging a letter from the Director of Public Prosecutions has denied telling the garda that if she “admitted wrongdoing” she would be “looked after”.

Wicklow Detective Garda Catherine McGowan, aged 48, has pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to one count of forgery on January 15, 2009, at Bray Garda Station and two counts of using a false instrument at Bray Garda Station and at Harcourt Street Garda Station between June 21 and June 22, 2011.

The instrument is alleged to have been a letter from the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), dated January 14, 2009.

The investigation of Gda McGowan’s handling of the case — which involved a priest accused of sexually abusing a teenage girl — was prompted by the publication of the Murphy Report which investigated clerical sexual abuse in the Dublin area. The priest in Gda McGowan’s case was mentioned in the report.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
News Letter

Judgment was reserved on Tuesday in an historical abuse inquiry chairman’s bid to overturn a ruling that he unfairly denied legal representation to an alleged victim.

Sir Anthony Hart is appealing 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 hearing the challenge have been told alleged victims are now increasingly refusing to sign witness statements unless they secure legal funding.

The woman at the centre of the case is due to give evidence at the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) hearings in Banbridge, Co Down which are investigating child abuse in Northern Ireland residential institutions between 1922 and 1995.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

It’s a real dog of a case but the district attorney seems intent on retrying it.

On June 22, 2012, in the case of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Father James J. Brennan, a jury deadlocked 11-1 on whether to convict Father Brennan of attempted rape.

The same jury convicted Msgr. William J. Lynn on one count of endangering the welfare of a child.

The historic conviction of the monsignor became the show pony for D.A. Seth Williams, as Lynn became the first Catholic administrator in the country to go to jail for the sexual sins of the clergy. Meanwhile, the dog in the D.A.’s dog and pony show — the Father Brennan case — had to disappear for a few years.

Yesterday in Courtroom 1102 of Common Pleas Court, Judge Gwendolyn N. Bright brought back the Father Brennan case by setting a retrial date of Jan. 4, 2016. None of the lawyers involved in the case are talking publicly in the event that the judge may elect to restore an former gag order. But with all the delays and credibility problems with the D.A.’s star witness in the Father Brennan case, you have to wonder whether the retrial will ever really happen.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholics4Change

MARCH 3, 2015 BY SUSAN MATTHEWS

The Federal authorities have announced new evidence of more crimes committed by Father Mark Haynes. The new evidence includes destroying a laptop (which was evidence) and, far worse, the sexual abuse of at least three children. The abuse accusations fall outside the statute of limitations (SOL). Therefore, charges can not be pressed. This is another example of why PA needs to catch up with all the other states who have abolished the SOL for child sex abuse and have enacted a retroactive window for past victims to come forward. Reform legislation is pending but being blocked by Judiciary chairman, Rep. Ron Marsico. Visit the Protect PA Kids Facebook page to find out more and how you can contact him.

Click here to read: “New Accusations Surface Against Chester County Priest Charged With Explicit Exchanges With Minors,” Tony Hanson, CBS Philly, March 3, 2015

It turns out the Archdiocese had a very good reason to remove Father Kolenkiewicz – child porn. Perhaps he accidentally downloaded a dozen of those images while in a feeding frenzy of adult porn (over 12,000 images in 2005 alone and more in 2011). Who knows? What we do know is that maybe the priesthood isn’t for him.

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UTAH
Herald

By Jackson Hadley Capital West News

SALT LAKE CITY – The Utah House of Representatives has moved a pair of bills forward in an effort to better protect children from child sexual abuse.

HB277, sponsored by Rep. Ken Ivory, R-West Jordan, would eliminate the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse cases. HB345, sponsored by Rep. Daniel McCay, R-Riverton, would ban anyone convicted of a felony involving child abuse from receiving or renewing a license to teach children in school.

Both bills passed unanimously Monday and will now go to the Senate for consideration.

Emotions ran high as legislators addressed the bills, as victims of abuse looked on from the gallery and representatives shared how abuse has affected them personally.

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WISCONSIN
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel March 3, 2015

The judge in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee bankruptcy could decide as early as Wednesday whether to throw out 10 claims of men and women who allege they were sexually assaulted by priests or others representing the church.

The archdiocese has not disputed that the 10 were abused. However, it argues it is not required by law to compensate them for a number of legal reasons, including the lapse in the statute of limitations.

Attorneys for the survivors reject those arguments.

“This is just the latest attempt by the archdiocese to hide behind the passage of time instead of treating survivors fairly,” said Michael Finnegan, whose firm represents six of the victims whose claims will be heard Wednesday, and most of the bankruptcy’s 570-plus sex-abuse claimants.

Archdiocese spokesman Jerry Topczewski said the church has been clear from the beginning that it would not pay claims ineligible under the law.

“It’s not fair to the people who should be compensated to include those who shouldn’t,” he said.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

A couple of former altar boys duked it out in court today.

Testifying for the prosecution in the Father Andy sex abuse case was Adam Visconto, 28.

He’s a special education administrative assistant who says that 15 years ago Father Andy creeped him out by attempting to lure Visconto and another altar boy down to the church basement for a secret rendezvous.

Visconto claimed that he and another altar boy, Steve Dozier, were so afraid that they ran to the parish school at St. John Cantius for safety. Visconto said that after he and Dozier told Visconto’s mother and a teacher what happened, the women advised the two altar boys to run home to Adam’s house and lock the door.

But the defense put their first witness on the stand today — Steve Dozier. He’s a former altar boy who’s now a Pennsylvania State Trooper. And Trooper Dozier told the jury today that Visconto’s story about running away to hide from Father Andy never happened.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Daily Local News

By Michael P. Rellahan, mrellahan@dailylocal.com, @ChescoCourtNews on Twitter
POSTED: 03/03/15

PHILADELPHIA >> The U.S. Attorney’s Office has asked a federal judge to hold a former Ss. Simon and Jude parish priest without bail pending his trial on child pornography charges, saying it had uncovered additional information about him that suggested a previously unknown danger.

In a motion filed Tuesday for the pre-trial detention of Mark Haynes, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle Rotella wrote that investigators had interviewed three people who came forward to say that Haynes had sexually abused them when he was their parish priest and they were minors.

Haynes, 55, now of Egg Harbor, N.J., is alleged to have molested the children, whose identities or the places they lived were not provided, “with acts of sexual touching, masturbation, and forced oral sex,” according to Rotella’s motion. In one instance, Haynes is alleged to have taken confession from one young girl, who told him that she had engaged in oral sex with a teenage boy. Haynes then had the girl perform that same act on him, the motion states.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Bridie Jabour and agencies
@bkjabour
Tuesday 3 March 2015

The former headmaster of Knox Grammar school has admitted deliberately impeding a police investigation into paedophile teachers working at the school.

Ian Paterson was approached by Inspector Elizabeth Cullen from the child protection enforcement agency about complaints of child sex abuse at the school in 1996. Paterson told Cullen he was not aware of any complaints, which he has admitted was a lie.

He made the admission in his second day of evidence at the royal commission into institutional responses to child abuse.

He also directed Cullen to files he knew would contain no information. It was not until 2009 that teachers from Knox were charged with child sex abuse offences which dated back to the 1980s.

In reply to counsel advising the royal commission, David Lloyd, Paterson agreed he knew this would impede the investigation.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Philadelphia Inquirer

CHRIS PALMER, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
LAST UPDATED: Tuesday, March 3, 2015

A Bucks County priest was placed on administrative leave last month after it was discovered that a trove of pornographic images he had downloaded in 2005 included up to a dozen photos of minors, the Archdiocese said in a statement Tuesday.

The Rev. Louis J. Kolenkiewicz, 47, most recently of St. Bede the Venerable Parish, in Holland, had been disciplined in both 2005 and 2011 for downloading pornography, said Archdiocese spokesman Ken Gavin.

But recently, Gavin said, after learning that Kolenkiewicz had returned to active ministry, the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office – which had investigated the previous cases but declined to press charges – told the Archdiocese that among the 12,000 images Kolenkiewicz downloaded in 2005, up to 12 may have depicted juveniles.

The Archdiocese had announced in February that Kolenkiewicz had been placed on leave but did not specify why.

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PENNSYLVANIA
CBS Philly

By Tony Hanson

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Federal authorities say there is new evidence of additional crimes by a Chester County priest, already charged with engaging in sexually explicit communications with minors. Those crimes include trying to destroy evidence in that case and, more troubling, sexually abusing at least three children during his 30 years in the priesthood.

But a federal judge has ruled that Father Mark Haynes is not a danger to the community and has ordered him released on bail. Prosecutors are appealing that order.

Federal prosecutor Michelle Rotella says Haynes, most recently assigned to Ss. Simon and Jude parish, in West Chester, posed as a teenage girl and engaged in sexually explicit communications with more than two dozen minor girls.

In addition, Rotella has told the court, there is new evidence that Haynes lied and tried to destroy a laptop computer, which is now missing. More disturbing, since news of his arrest, she says, “There were people that came forward to say they had been sexually abused by him many, many years ago, for a period of years.”

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MONTANA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, March 3

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

These more than 500 brave victims and their dedicated attorneys have done the very best with an awful situation brought on by the Catholic hierarchy’s immense clout, expensive lawyering and obsessive secrecy. We hope the new settlement brings them sorely-needed healing.

[KTVQ]

The real bankruptcy of Montana Catholic officials is moral, not legal or financial. Every last priest, nun, seminarian and parish employee in the Helena diocese should be ashamed that their bishop exploited and hid behind legal technicalities so the horrific cover ups of horrific crimes remain covered up and so that parents, parishioners, police, prosecutors and the public learn as little as possible about clerics who committed and concealed heinous crimes against children.

Catholic diocesan bankruptcies are always selfish, shrewd and secretive schemes designed to protect the reputations and careers of church bureaucrats.

Bishops claim they seek bankruptcy protect so that they can purportedly “treat every victim fairly.” That’s baloney. If Catholic officials wanted to do that, they long ago would have set up a national or international fund so that kids assaulted in any state or nation would get help, regardless of that jurisdiction’s statute of limitations or that diocese’s insurance coverage.

Bishops pretend to be “on their own” when it works for them and part of the global church when that works for them. Legally and morally, they try to have their cake and eat it too. And that’s incredibly disingenuous and hurtful.

Not a single one of the dozens or hundreds of complicit Catholic officials, who ignored or hid these thousands of crimes, will ever be exposed or face justice. That’s a tragedy. And that’s why the cover ups of clergy sex crimes continue to this day, because those who cover up escape consequences, win promotions and thus have no incentive to act more responsibly when they learn of or suspect a predator priest is hurting a child.

No amount of money can restore the shattered faith, violated trust and stolen childhoods of these 500+ survivors.

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VATICAN CITY
The Tablet (UK)

03 March 2015 by James Roberts

Pope Francis on Tuesday issued a motu proprio that formally accords Australian Cardinal George Pell oversight of the Vatican’s financial activities, and sets up a new and powerful office of auditor-general.

Today’s decree consolidates the financial reforms Francis initiated a year ago when he established the Secretariat for the Economy under Cardinal Pell and the Council for the Economy under German Cardinal Reinhard Marx.

As head of the Secretariat for the Economy, Cardinal Pell has the power to issue executive decrees to all Vatican departments regarding their procedures, ensuring that their operations are carried out “efficiently” and “in compliance with the approved budgets”, the decree states.

The norms of the motu proprio state that Pell will oversee the creation of a centralised budget for the whole of the Vatican, showing income and expenditure for each curial office.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

The supervisor of a garda accused of forging a letter from the Director of Public Prosecutions has denied he told her if she “admitted wrongdoing” she would be “looked after”.

Wicklow Det Garda Catherine McGowan (48), based at Bray Garda station, has pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to one count of forgery on January 15th, 2009, at Bray Garda station, and two counts of using a false instrument at Bray Garda station and at Harcourt Street Garda station between June 21st and 22nd, 2011.

The instrument is alleged to have been a letter from the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), dated January 14th, 2009.

Insp Michael Moore was was asked to determine if the letter genuineDPP letter a bad-quality photocopy, forensic expert tells court

The investigation of Garda McGowan’s handling of the case was prompted by publication of the Murphy report, which investigated clerical sexual abuse in the Dublin area. The priest in Garda McGowan’s case was one of the clerics mentioned in the report.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Philly

BY CAROL GLATZ
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — New rules governing the guidance, oversight and control of Vatican financial and administrative activities include the power to levy sanctions and take “civil or criminal action” in cases of “damage to assets,” as well as providing protection for whistleblowers raising red flags about “anomalous activity.”

The provisions were detailed in separate statutes for the Council for the Economy, the Secretariat for the Economy and a “general auditor’s office,” which will be staffed by three lay experts.

The Vatican published the new statutes in Italian on its web site March 3; they went into effect March 1. Pope Francis approved the statutes “ad experimentum” (on a trial basis) for an unspecified period of time.

The establishment of the council and secretariat were announced in February 2014. Officials said it took a full year to develop the statutes because they had to be reviewed by the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts. A key issue reportedly was to ensure adequate checks and balances.

The statutes officially define the nature, role, responsibilities and organizational structure of each of the three bodies; outline channels of command and accountability; designate English and Italian as the new offices’ working languages; and emphasize the need to keep data and documents confidential.

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NEW JERSEY
The Jersey Journal

For immediate release: Tuesday, March 3

Statement by Mark Crawford, SNAP Director for New Jersey ( 732-632-7687, mecrawf@comcast.net )

We’re grateful that an already-convicted North Bergen pastor/exorcist now faces new charges.

[The Jersey Journal]

Most child molesters are never charged. When they are, they’re usually charged with a fraction of their crimes. Because the horror they inflict is so severe, and so likely to be repeated, it’s crucial that predators are charged with as much wrongdoing as possible, even if they’re already convicted or imprisoned. The safest way to protect kids is to do everything legally possible to keep predators and kids apart for as long as possible.

We hope that every single person who saw, suspected or suffered crimes by Gregorio Martinez – of cover ups by his church colleagues or superiors – will come forward, get help, protect others, call police and expose those who commit and conceal these heinous crimes against children.

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VATICAN CITY
Bloomberg

by Alessandro Speciale
March 3, 2015

(Bloomberg) — Pope Francis consolidated his overhaul of the Vatican’s financial system by publishing the statutes of three new economic bodies created to help increase transparency and modernize the centuries-old institution.

The statues of the Council for the Economy, the Secretariat for the Economy, and an independent Auditor General, all created in the past few years, were published on the Vatican website. Jointly, the bodies promote modern management principles and oversee Vatican offices that have operated independently in the past.

A more transparent and accountable handling of the Church’s affairs has been a key priority for the pope since his election in 2013. The first non-European pontiff in almost 1,300 years, who vowed to make the church “poor, and for the poor,” Francis is trying to restore the image of the Church’s finances following several scandals.

The Council for the Economy “follows international best practices in public administration, with the aim of an ethical and efficient financial and administrative management,” according to one of the three legal texts published on the Vatican website.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

BY PHILIP PULLELLA
VATICAN CITY Tue Mar 3, 2015

(Reuters) – Pope Francis approved detailed new plans to reform Vatican finances on Tuesday, giving the Australian cardinal leading the changes sweeping powers to monitor Vatican departments and ensure budgets conform to international accounting standards.

The statutes had been keenly awaited for signs of how much power would fall to Cardinal George Pell – an outsider Francis brought in to oversee often muddled finances and who, according to Italian media, is viewed skeptically by detractors in the Vatican bureaucracy who feel he has amassed too much power.

The changes were one of the clearest indications to date that Francis is committed to the mandate given him by cardinals who elected him in 2013 to clean up after a series of financial scandals.

The most important of three new norms is one that governs the Secretariat for the Economy, which Pell has headed since it was set up last year. The norms give Pell wide powers, including the monitoring of other Vatican departments, ensuring their budgets conform to international accounting standards and are reviewed by external auditors.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

March 4, 2015

Peter FitzSimons
Columnist

Over his time as headmaster of Knox, Dr Ian Paterson’s authority was as unimpeachable as his seeming integrity, a man whose piercing eyes were so powerful, so pervasive, he was known as “Snake”. A glare from him could turn an errant boy, including this one, into a pillar of salt at a distance of 100 metres on a dark day.

Yesterday, when he appeared before the Royal Commission into Institutional Response to Child Sexual Abuse to give evidence as to his role in systemic abuse and its coverups at the school, all was different.

This time the piercing eyes belonged to former Knox students in the public gallery, victims of pedophilia, wanting an answer to how he, of all people, could have presided over it. And instead of glaring back upon us, this time his eyes looked stunned, bewildered, that it really could have come to this.

At least he started well, saying, “I am deeply and profoundly sorry.”

But then when counsel assisting, David Lloyd, took him through the lowlights of his actions, we were all shown that a “sorry” was never going to be enough.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Washingtonian

By Benjamin Freed

Barry Freundel, the former rabbi at Georgetown’s Kesher Israel synagogue who pleaded guilty last month to secretly taping nude women who were preparing to enter a ritual Jewish bath, is finally vacating the congregation-owned house he was supposed to leave months ago, but not before committing one more shonda: his moving van is double-parking his neighbors and blocking traffic.

The house, on O Street, Northwest, is owned by a family trust connected to Kesher Israel, which fired Freundel last year following his arrest on multiple voyeurism charges. His wife left the residence last fall, while Kesher gave Freundel until January 1 to get out. The rabbi stayed over the synagogue’s orders, and only after his February 17 hearing, when he admitted to 52 misdemeanor counts, did his lawyers say he would finally move out.

According to a neighbor who happened to be walking by, Freundel had reserved a parking spot for his movers last Friday, but wound up delaying his exit. And it appears Freundel did not even bother to clear his steps and sidewalk following Sunday’s ice storm. The movers arrived Tuesday morning to nearly an inch of ice. “They were like, ‘WTF?’” the neighbor says. Eventually, one of the movers grabbed a metal pole from the truck and started thwacking the ice away to clear a path.

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VATICAN CITY
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor March 3, 2015

By now, one thing ought to be abundantly clear about Pope Francis: Faced with attempts to hobble his reform efforts through character assassination of his reformers, this pope just doesn’t blink.

The latest case in point is Australian Cardinal George Pell, put in charge of leading an historic clean-up of Vatican finances one year ago. The hard-charging former Australian Rules Football brawler has more than his fair share of critics, but on Tuesday Pope Francis issued a set of statutes for his operation which, to some extent at least, amount to a vindication.

(The statutes were released Tuesday, but were signed by the pope on Feb. 22 and actually took effect March 1.)

Early reaction to the decision has been mixed, with some Italian commentators seeing it as a defeat for Pell’s ambition to create a “super-dicastery,” meaning a Vatican department with virtually unlimited powers over both administration and vigilance of all Vatican assets.

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NEW JERSEY
The Jersey Journal

By Michaelangelo Conte | The Jersey Journal
on March 03, 2015 a

New sex crime charges have been filed against the North Bergen pastor/exorcist convicted last week of molesting a 13-year-old boy in 2012.

Gregorio Martinez, 47, was convicted of aggravated criminal sexual contact, child abuse and endangering the welfare of the child for kissing the boy on the lips and groping his genitals.

Last week Hudson County Deputy First Assistant Prosecutor Debbie Simon said the new complaint against Martinez was signed Feb. 13 and charges him with one count of criminal sexual contact and two counts of attempted sexual assault in connection with two separate incidents.

The new charges involve an adult male victim, with the first alleged attempted sexual assault occurring in October 2013, said Simon, who heads the prosecutor’s office’s Special Victims Unit. She said Martinez remains free on a $250,000 cash or bond bail.

Attempted sexual assault is a second degree crime carrying a possible sentence of five to 10 years in prison. Criminal sexual contact is a third degree crime carrying a possible three to five years sentence upon conviction.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Pope Francis has a golden opportunity. Pope Francis made a huge mistake in betting on Cardinal Pell — a failed moral leader in Australia, seemingly with an insatiable ego and an incurable inability to be a team player. He has demonstrated his incompetence both in financial and moral matters.

Francis needs to replace him promptly — with a top female financial executive. This would show that Francis will do more than “trash talk” about his ineffective Vatican bureaucracy — he will act decisively as well. It will also show he is serious about women’s roles at least in the Catholic Church’s upper management. It is not necessary to be “ontologically changed” to read a financial statement correctly — something Pell seems unable to do, intellectually or ontologically!

For more on Pell’s “mortal sins”, please see below and also “Can the Pope trust Cardinal Pell?” here,

[Global Pulse]

and “Rules Are for Schmucks: How to Succeed in Rome” here,

[The Humanist]

If Francis is not up to taking this bold step, he should at least replace Pell with Australian Bishop William Morris, who moved resolutely against a Catholic schoolteacher that serially abused students and against the school administrators that failed to discipline him. Bishop Morris put the interests of students and their parents first. He sacked the incompetent staff and he set about putting in place procedures to put right the errors that had been made.

Result: Ex-Pope Benedict XVI , with help likely from Cardinal Bertone and surely from from his ambitious henchman, Philly’s culture warrior, Archbishop Chaput, removed Morris as a bishop in May 2011, allegedly because of doctrinal and governance problems in the diocese.

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VATICAN CITY
Gazetta del Sud

Rome, March 3 – The statutes of the Council and Secretariat for the Economy, two bodies established by Pope Francis in February 2014 to oversee Vatican finances, came into force on March 1, the Holy See said Tuesday. The two documents are published on the Vatican website, along with the statute of the Office of the Auditor General, which also entered into force on the same day. The 15-member Council for the Economy is mandated to offer “guidance on economic management and [supervise] the structures and the administrative and financial activities of the Dicasteries of the Roman Curia, of the Institutions connected to the Holy See, and of Vatican City State” according to the motu proprio document that established it.

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VATICAN CITY
Crux

By Inés San Martín
Vatican correspondent March 3, 2015

ROME — Pope Francis decided the future of his financial reform on Tuesday, issuing a new legal framework for three key oversight bodies that largely confirm the authority of the man he put in charge of his clean-up operation, controversial Australian Cardinal George Pell.

The decision came in the form of a new legal framework approved by the pontiff for the Vatican’s three financial oversight bodies that he created in 2014: The Council for the Economy, the Secretariat for the Economy, and an independent auditor general.

Despite mounting calls from some quarters of the Vatican to rein in Pell, such measures are largely missing from the new statutes, which were signed by Pope Francis on Feb. 22 and became effective March 1.

The only major concession is that while the Secretariat for the Economy has been confirmed as responsible for procurement and personnel, it will not administer Vatican real estate. That function, which had been assigned to Pell’s department last year, will be returned to another Vatican department.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Spectator

Damian Thompson

Phew! I was worried that the smear campaign against Cardinal George Pell mounted by the pigs at the Vatican trough would persuade Pope Francis to water down Pell’s plan to impose proper accounting procedures on the Curia. But today Francis published the legal framework for the reform and – well, I can’t improve on the reporting of the Vatican correspondent of Crux website, Inés San Martín:

Pope Francis decided the future of his financial reform on Tuesday, issuing a new legal framework for three key oversight bodies that largely confirm the authority of the man he put in charge of his clean-up operation, controversial Australian Cardinal George Pell.

The decision came in the form of a new legal framework approved by the pontiff for the Vatican’s three financial oversight bodies that he created in 2014: The Council for the Economy, the Secretariat for the Economy, and an independent auditor general.

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VATICAN CITY
Global Pulse

Robert Mickens, Rome
February 27, 2015

Vatican City

The first stems from when he was Archbishop of Sydney where, as an Australian commission recently concluded, he bullied victims of clergy sex abuse. It was part of an unambiguous strategy to deter them and others from suing the Church.

The second is connected to his current Vatican position as prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy where directors of the pension fund for papal employees “corrected” him for making erroneous claims about the solvency of their operation. It was a part of his increasingly blatant efforts to tighten his control over all financial matters at the Vatican.

For many people in Australia and in Rome these incidents have re-surfaced lingering questions about Cardinal Pell’s commitment to genuine transparency, accountability and credibility, foundational values that are becoming ever more scrutinized in the unfolding pontificate of Pope Francis.

The two controversies have also sounded new alarm bells in the ears of the Pope’s closest allies who are already well aware that, except in the area of financial management, the Australian cardinal is not an enthusiastic supporter of the change of tone and direction that Francis has tried to bring to the Vatican and the worldwide Church.

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MICHIGAN
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, March 3

Statement by Bill McAlary of Grand Rapids, Michigan Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 616-514-0654, bllmack1@gmail.com )

A new bill has been introduced into the Michigan legislature that will protect more kids from child molesters by reforming the state’s archaic, arbitrary and predator-friendly statute of limitations. We wholeheartedly endorse this long-overdue measure that will make families safer from predators.

We applaud Rep. Holly Hughes in Muskegon for her concern for kids, victims and crime prevention. We hope every Michigan lawmaker backs House Bill 4231 so that more adults who commit or conceal heinous crimes against kids will be exposed, punished and stopped.

The vast majority of child sex offenders go undetected. That’s one reason why one in four girls and one in eight boys are molested.

One reason for such widespread trauma is because short, rigid statutes of limitations prevent victims from using the courts to publicly expose those who commit child sex crimes and deter those who conceal child sex crimes. These legal deadlines reward wrongdoers who successfully intimidate victims, threaten witnesses, discredit whistleblowers, destroy evidence, fabricate alibis and sometimes even flee overseas.

When lawmakers extend or eliminate these deadlines, criminals know they can no longer just “run out the clock” and evade justice.

Adults can either make it harder or easier to catch child molesters. This law would make it easier. We beg Michigan lawmakers to vote for kids and against predators by passing this legislation.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Alan Travis, home affairs editor
Tuesday 3 March 2015

A new single national point of contact for whistleblowers trying to expose child abuse, and to spot patterns of failure across the country, is to be set up in the wake of the Rotherham scandal, the home secretary has announced.

The measure, along with a specialist national taskforce to help local authorities struggling to tackle this issue, is part of the package to be announced at the Downing Street summit on child sexual abuse.

Theresa May said it was clear that the huge scale of child sexual exploitation in Rotherham was only the tip of the iceberg and that a national response was required to the series of failures exposed by the inquiries conducted by both Prof Alexis Jay and Louise Casey.

“We need to address the culture of inaction and denial that led to victims being dismissed and ignored,” said the home secretary, as she published the official report responding to the Rotherham scandal.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 3 March 2015 (VIS) – The Holy Father has approved the statutes of the new economic entities of the Holy See: the Council for the Economy, the Secretariat for the Economy and the General Auditor’s Office. The three statutes, signed 22 February 2015, feast of the Chair of St. Peter, were approved “ad experimentum” and entered into force on 1 March 2015, prior to their publication in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis.

The statutes may be consulted on the Vatican website: www.vatican.va

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Mar. 3, 2015

VATICAN CITY Pope Francis on Tuesday appointed an auxiliary bishop known for his focus on addressing poverty and stressing the role of mercy in church teaching as the new bishop of San Diego.

Robert McElroy, a San Francisco native who had served as a prelate in his hometown since 2010, is expected to be installed in his new role soon. He succeeds late San Diego Bishop Cirilo Flores, who died last year from cancer after less than a year as head of the diocese.

A prelate who has garnered attention both for his writings and his pastoral approach, McElroy in January said Francis is moving the church away from an ecclesiastical vision of “smaller but purer” to a church that embraces the wounded and frail.

Speaking in a presentation to Dominican women religious in San Rafael, Calif., the new bishop said the church has in the past focused too much on telling people how to live rightly instead of welcoming them and supporting them in their struggles.

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VATICAN CITY
Headlines from the Catholic World

Rome, Italy, Mar 3, 2015 / 05:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican announced Tuesday that Pope Francis has appointed San Francisco’s native auxiliary bishop, Robert W. McElroy, as the new head of the archdiocese of San Diego.

McElroy will succeed Bishop Cirilo Flores, who passed away from cancer in September just one year after assuming the position.

Born in San Francisco in 1954, Bishop McElroy, 61, grew up in San Mateo County and resided with his family in Our Lady of Mercy Parish in Daly City and Our Lady of Angels Parish in Burlingame.

After receiving a master’s of divinity degree from St. Patrick’s Seminary and University in 1979, he was ordained to the priesthood by Archbishop John R. Quinn in St. Mary’s Cathedral April 12, 1980.

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CITTA’ DEL VATICANO
Bolletino

Il Santo Padre Francesco ha nominato Vescovo di San Diego (U.S.A.) S.E. Mons. Robert W. McElroy, finora Vescovo titolare di Gemelle di Bizacena ed Ausiliare di San Francisco.

S.E. Mons. Robert Walter McElroy

S.E. Mons. Robert Walter McElroy è nato a San Francisco, California, nell’arcidiocesi omonima, il 5 febbraio 1954. Dopo aver frequentato il Saint Joseph Minor Seminary, ha ottenuto il Baccalaureato in Storia presso la Harvard University a Cambridge, Massachusetts (1975) e il Masters in Storia presso la Stanford University a Palo Alto, California (1976).

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DEUTSCHLAND
Kirchen Site

[The Munster diocese commissioned a study to find out why people are leaving the church.]

Bistum. Deutlicher konnten die Worte von Bischof Felix Genn kaum sein: “Die Entwicklungen schmerzen mich, und sie müssen uns alle alarmieren.” Oder: “Wenn mich diese Entwicklungen kalt ließen, würde ich meine Aufgabe als Bischof nicht verantwortlich genug wahrnehmen.” Oder: “Wir befinden uns in einer Abwärtsbewegung.”

Nach einem explosionsartigen Anstieg der Kirchenaustrittszahlen 2013 – um 78 Prozent im Vergleich zum Vorjahr auf 10.112 – hatte das Bistum Münster im Juli 2014 eine Studie in Auftrag gegeben, um verlässlichere Informationen über die Ursachen zu erhalten. Die Marketing-Experten Professor Dr. Heribert Meffert aus Münster und Professor Dr. Peter Kenning befragten mit ihren Teams dazu 1.000 Katholikinnen und Katholiken im Bistum Münster repräsentativ.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Saarbruecker Zeitung

[A former priest of the Trier diocese has joined the monastic community at Admont and is under investigation for sexual abuse.]

Von Dietmar Klostermann, 03.03.2015

Gegen einen ehemaligen Priester aus dem Bistum Trier, der 2009 ins Benediktinerkloster Admont/Österreich gewechselt ist, laufen Ermittlungen wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs an zwei Jungen. Wie der Sprecher der Staatsanwaltschaft Leoben/Steiermark Walter Plöbst der SZ sagte, werden die beiden jungen Männer, die zum mutmaßlichen Tatzeitpunkt mindestens 16 Jahre alt gewesen seien, derzeit vernommen. Dem Pater würden „geschlechtliche Handlungen mit über 16-Jährigen“ zur Last gelegt, sagte Plöbst. So wie es aussehe, liege kein Missbrauch eines Autoritätsverhältnisses vor. Der Pater sei ein Freund der betroffenen Familie gewesen. „In dieser Situation ist es passiert“, erklärte der Staatsanwalt. Der Benediktiner habe dabei weder als Seelsorger noch als Autoritätsperson gehandelt. Plöbst rechnet mit einem Abschluss der Ermittlungen in den nächsten vier bis sechs Wochen. Die Mutter der Jungen hatte den Mönch angezeigt.

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VEREINIGTE STAATEN
Gloria TV

USA. Die Bischöfe der USA und ihre Rechtsschutz-Versicherungen lassen Priester, die des sexuellen Missbrauchs beschuldigt werden, völlig alleine, auch wenn sie nachweislich unschuldig sind. Das schreiben David Shaneyfelt und Joseph Maher in der “Homiletic and Pastoral Review”.

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DEUTSCHLAND
News Locker

Katholisch

[The trauma in the house is still noticeable, says Father Tobias Zimmermann. The rector of Berlin’s Canisius College knows that the renowned Jesuit High School has the stigma of the past sexual abuse. But the school has prepared a comprehensive approach to prevention, to prevent such cases.]

Das Trauma ist im Haus noch spürbar”, sagt Pater Tobias Zimmermann. Der Rektor des Berliner Canisius-Kollegs weiß, dass das renommierte Jesuitengymnasium auch mit dem Stigma “Missbrauch” leben muss. Es hat ein umfassendes Präventionskonzept erarbeitet, um solche Fälle zu verhindern.

Zimmermanns Vorgänger Klaus Mertes hatte die sexuellen Übergriffe mehrerer Patres, die bis in die 80er Jahre geschahen, vor fünf Jahren öffentlich eingeräumt. Damit löste er eine Welle weiterer Enthüllungen in kirchlichen Einrichtungen, aber auch an der reformorientierten “Odenwaldschule” und anderen Einrichtungen aus. Sexueller Missbrauch ist seither ein Dauerthema in Politik und Gesellschaft.

Im Alltag der rund 800 Kinder und Jugendlichen am Canisius-Kolleg ist das allerdings nicht so. “Da war doch so ein Medien-Hype”, erinnert sich eine 16-jährige Schülerin eher belustigt. Fünf Jahre sind lange her für einen Teenager, der sich mit Notenstress und Beziehungsknatsch herumschlägt. Für die Canisius-Pädagogen hat die Zeit dagegen nicht gereicht, um einen Verhaltenskodex für haupt- und ehrenamtliche Mitarbeiter zu beschließen.

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UTAH
KSL

Marjorie Cortex

SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah House of Representatives unanimously passed HB277 Monday, which would eliminate the statute of limitations for lawsuits against perpetrators of child sexual abuse.

The bill, as amended by the House, applies only to perpetrators of child sex abuse as individuals.

Deondra Brown, co-founder of the nonprofit Foundation for Survivors of Abuse, was among a handful of supporters who sat with lawmakers as members of the House debated and voted on the bill. Other backers filled part of the House gallery.

The bill passed 74-0.

“It was so exciting for any of us who are victims to be able to see such support,” Brown said. “Today’s passage is another victory for victims across the state of Utah, so it’s an exciting day.”

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MONTANA
KTVQ

By Dennis Bragg – MTN News

COEUR D’ALENE –
A federal bankruptcy judge could resolve a pair of multimillion dollar cases this week that would settle legal claims over decades old sex abuse cases involving church-run schools in Montana.

The settlement agreements are aimed at resolving the suits filed on behalf of victims against the Catholic Diocese of Helena and the Ursuline Nuns of the Western Province, based out of California.

The suit filed against the Diocese involves 362 victims, with another 232 victims named in the suit against the nuns. The victims claim the abuse happened while they were attending Catholic-operated schools in St. Ignatius and other Western Montana communities.

The Diocese settlement is valued at $15 million, while the settlement total with the Uruline Nuns amounts to $4.45 million.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (article updated 3 March 2015)

When Broken Rites launched its national telephone hotline in September 1993, our first callers included former inmates of a Catholic orphanage (St Joseph’s Home, at Neerkol, near Rockhampton, Queensland). Some of these callers said they were sexually assaulted by Father Reg Durham, who was the “chaplain” at this orphanage from 1965 to 1997. We referred these callers to an appropriate unit of the Queensland Police, and this resulted in Father Reg Durham being jailed in 1999 for child sex crimes. In 2015, Australia’s national child-abuse Royal Commission is holding a public hearing in Rockhampton into child-abuse at this orphanage.

Meanwhile, as well as referring these victims to the police, Broken Rites also advised the victims about other ways of obtaining justice. As a result, the matter was raised in the Queensland Parliament in September 1996. Parliament was told about the physical and emotional abuse committed by nuns and sexual abuse committed by priests at the Neerkol orphanage from the 1940s to the 1970s. Rockhampton’s Bishop Brian Heenan immediately circulated a letter in his parishes, refuting the allegations of abuse as “scurrilous” and “scandalous”.

The allegations against Durham were investigated by Rockhampton detectives. In February 1997, Father Reginald Basil Durham was charged with counts of rape and 41 of indecent dealing, involving two girls and a boy, between 1960 and 1967. When Durham’s first committal hearing began in June 1997, some unpleasant secrets surfaced about sexual and physical abuse at Neerkol. One man, who was aged 59 in 1997, said that children who ran away from the orphanage were captured, stripped naked and flogged in front of the entire assembly.

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VATICAN CITY
Sydney Morning Herald

March 3, 2015

Paola Totaro

London: When Pope Francis gives the stamp of approval for his much anticipated reforms of the Vatican’s finances, it will also dramatically reshape the roll call of power behind the tiny city’s ancient walls.

Expected any day, the Pope’s decree will change the way the Vatican does business – and cement or unhinge the ascendant star of his “czar finanziario”, former Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell.

The restructure of the Holy See’s financial activities began last April when the Pope anointed 73-year-old Pell to head a powerful new ministry known as the Secretariat for Economy and charged him with improving financial transparency and accountability in the historically shadowy Roman Curia.

During the past fortnight however, mounting internal tensions over the shape of his proposed reforms have erupted into the public domain with the publication of two devastating exposes in Italian current affairs magazine L’Espresso.

The first, titled “Peccati Cardinali” (“Cardinal Sins”) outlined in forensic detail his attempt to seize and centralise control of Vatican investments and the multimillion-dollar asset and property portfolio, including hospitals, into his bailiwick.

Fellow cardinals were reported to have mounted a “counter-attack to the Australian’s blitz”, seeking an audience with Pope Francis who blocked the transfer of property to Pell’s secretariat.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Agency

By Andrea Gagliarducci

Vatican City, Mar 2, 2015 / 09:51 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Statutes of the Vatican Council for Economy, Secretariat for the Economy, and General Auditor went into effect March 1, having been signed Feb. 22 by Msgr. Bryan Wells, assessor of the Secretariat of State.

The text of the statutes have not been released by the Holy See Press Office, but can be seen in the Vatican’s Courtyard of San Damaso, where they are displayed.

The statutes of the Secretariat for the Economy stressed over which Vatican bodies the Secretariat exercises its functions of financial control and oversight, and clarified its relations with the Council of the Economy.

The statutes of the Council for the Economy clarify functions and competences of the Council. Cardinal Wilfrid Napier of Durban, one of the members of the Council for the Economy, told CNA Feb. 13, “the Council for the Economy will be mostly entrusted with providing financial policies that the Secretariat for Economy will then foster.”

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

Former Knox Grammar headmaster Ian Paterson gave a glowing reference to a religious teacher with prior child-sex convictions who resigned after being seen masturbating outside another school.

Dr Paterson, headmaster at the prestigious Sydney boys school from 1969 to 1998, has told a royal commission hearing that the reference he gave religious teacher Chris Fotis was ‘grossly inappropriate’.

Fotis, a Knox old boy, had been hired without any reference check.

He left the school in 1989 and at that stage Dr Paterson was aware of a string of complaints against him.

One was that he was suspected of donning a balaclava, hiding under a dormitory bed and groping a 14-year-old boy.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

Former Knox Grammar headmaster Ian Paterson has been grilled over his handling of a former teacher who watched hard-core pornography with male students.

Dr Paterson appeared at a hearing of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse today, telling the commission he should have known about the abuse of boys in his care over a 30 year period between the 1970s and 1990s.

The commission heard evidence that former teacher Craig Treloar exposed students to images of bestiality and pedophilia, and was accused of asking boys to perform sexual acts of him, Fairfax Media reports.

Dr Paterson said he made a “silly mistake” when he failed to ask Treloar what type of material he showed, how many boys were involved, whether he had propositioned the boys or if it had happened before.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Nicole Chettle

A former headmaster of Sydney’s Knox Grammar School, Ian Paterson, “didn’t think” to alert police when a man wearing a balaclava allegedly indecently assaulted a student in his bed in 1988, an inquiry has heard.

At Sydney hearings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse, Dr Paterson rejected counsel assisting David Lloyd’s description of the incident as “very grave” and said he would reserve that term for rape.

Dr Paterson said he suspected former teacher Christopher Fotis was behind the attack on the sleeping student but had no proof.

An arrest warrant is outstanding for Mr Fotis for failing to appear at the commission.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

March 3, 2015

Rachel Browne and Melanie Kembrey

The former headmaster of Knox Grammar School Dr Ian Paterson dismissed a claim that former teacher Craig Treloar watched pornography with a student as just a “silly mistake”, a royal commission has heard.

He also told one boy who reported abuse at the hands of teacher Damien Vance to “go away and think about what he’d said.”

Another former student who was threatening the school with legal action over claims he had been molested by music teacher Barrie Stewart was ignored, the commission heard.

The long-serving former headmaster took the stand for the first time at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and spent most of the day giving evidence, following a heart felt apology to victims.

In evidence, he said he did not realise that it was a crime for a teacher to grope and sexually proposition a student nor was he aware of his legal obligation to report abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

After an abject apology to Knox Grammar sexual abuse victims, the former headmaster of the elite Sydney boys school has defended his decision not to report the assaults to authorities.

Ian Paterson, head of the Wahroonga based school from 1969 to 1998 faced intense questioning on Tuesday at a royal commission hearing into the school, where five former teachers have been convicted of indecent assault on boys and three others stand accused.

The crimes all happened during Dr Paterson’s tenure and they were never reported to police.

‘I am deeply and profoundly sorry,’ Dr Paterson told the child abuse inquiry in Sydney.

‘I should have known and I should have stopped the events that led to the abuse and its tragic consequences for these boys in my care and their families.’

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail

‘His nickname at school was the Snake’: Former students of Knox Grammar reveal what they thought of headmaster Ian Paterson… who famous old boy Peter FitzSimons said acted like ‘the King’

By DANIEL PIOTROWSKI FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA

He ruled the prestigious Sydney school Knox Grammar with an iron fist and students nicknamed him The Snake because of it.

But a former Knox pupil told Daily Mail Australia one-time headmaster Dr Ian Paterson lived up to that reputation by ‘slithering away’ while providing evidence at the Royal Commission into Child Sex Abuse on Tuesday.

Dr Paterson, the school’s headmaster from 1969 to 1998, began the proceedings by reading out a statement apologising to students for what had occurred, accepting responsibility for ‘all that occurs during my headmastership’.

Further remarks provoked a loud groan from former students, relatives and support personnel watching on when he described an alleged sexual assault victim as a ‘drama boy who liked to exaggerate stories’ .

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

[with video]

Royal commission: former Knox headmaster Ian Paterson’s testimony raises more questions than answers

After six days of damning claims that Dr Ian Paterson actively covered up evidence of child sexual abuse during his time as headmaster of Knox Grammar School, the time had come for him to explain the inexplicable.

Why did he fail to inform the police when he learned that teachers at his school were, at best, behaving inappropriately with students? Why did he allow one teacher, Craig Treloar, to continue working at the school after being caught watching hard core pornography with students? Why did he allow suspect teachers to “resign” with glowing references which allowed them to go on to work at other schools?

These are questions the 81-year-old former headmaster grappled with in the stand before a hearing room packed with old boys, their families and supporters at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

As is the case with many who give evidence at this royal commission, Dr Paterson issued a sincere apology before undergoing questioning by counsel assisting David Lloyd.

“As headmaster I am responsible for all that occurs during my headmastership,” he began.

“There were matters that I knew about and other matters that I did not. However, without doubt I should have known and I should have stopped the events which led to the abuse and its tragic consequences for those boys in my care and their families.”

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AUSTRALIA
Telegraph (UK)

Sydney school head apologises for ‘abject failure’ over decades of sexual abuse

By Jonathan Pearlman, Sydney 03 Mar 2015

A headmaster of one of Australia’s most exclusive boys’ schools has admitted he should have known about decades of sexual abuse that occurred under his watch, describing his failure to report an accused paedophile teacher as a “silly mistake”.

Following a week of graphic testimony about a culture of paedophilia and cover-ups involving at least eight teachers at Knox Grammar in Sydney, Dr Ian Paterson, the headmaster from 1969 to the 1998, finally took the stand at a royal commission into sexual abuse of children.

He proceeded to shock the public gallery when he said he did not immediately take a student’s claims of sexual abuse seriously because the fifteen-year-old was a “drama boy… who could build up situations”.

Asked about the student’s claim that he was molested, Mr Paterson said: “I was not aware that it was a crime.”

The shocking revelations about Knox have dominated headlines for days and prompted parents of current students to tie ribbons to the school’s wrought iron gates this week as a tribute to the numerous victims.

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SOUTH AFRICA
IOL

March 3 2015

By Shain Germaner

Johannesburg – A suspected satanic ritual at a Boksburg church is at the centre of a case in which a 9-year-old boy was allegedly raped and molested by his grandparents, uncle and pastor.

The case was originally not pursued in 2013, when the boy was younger.

However, the SAPS’s Occult-Related Crime Unit was later brought in to investigate, culminating in the arrest of all four alleged abusers last month.

On Monday, the two grandparents, a 29-year-old uncle and a 54-year-old pastor appeared in the Germiston Magistrate’s Court for a formal bail application.

During proceedings, the investigating officer described the boy’s terrifying ordeal.

Lieutenant-Colonel Hendrik de Jager said interviews with the child had revealed that over a period – possibly of several years – the group had allegedly raped and molested the boy multiple times.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: JENNIFER BROOKS , Star Tribune Updated: March 2, 2015

Barnard to return to Minnesota on sex-crime charges. Woman was arrested, released.

A Minnesota cult leader accused of raping girls and young women was found hiding out in Brazil with a woman who had been a member of his congregation since she was in her teens.

Victor Arden Barnard, one of the most-wanted fugitives in the country, was arrested over the weekend, along with a woman whom Brazilian media identified as 33-year-old Maria Cristina Cajazeiras Liberato, a Brazilian-born member of his River Road Fellowship.

U.S. and Brazilian law enforcement agencies are working to return Barnard to Minnesota, where he faces 59 counts of sexual assault on young women in the secretive religious community he founded in Pine County. He stands accused of separating young girls from their families and sexually exploiting them for years on end, while assuring them that the abuse was God’s will.

Barnard was arrested Friday in the beach resort community of Pipa. According to local news reports, Liberato had spent months or years shuttling Barnard between hideouts in the northeastern state of Rio Grande do Norte.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Fox Philly

Offered-up to a cult leader by her own parents when she was just a child a local woman who escaped that nightmare is talking to FOX 29. The Camden County woman is also ready to talk in court against the very man who she says raped her and many others.

As FOX 29’s Jeff Cole reports that self-proclaimed pastor was on the U.S. Marshals Most Wanted List and they tracked him to a beach in Brazil just days ago. Victor Barnard sits in a jail in Brazil awaiting his return to the United States. When he hits U.S. soil, he’ll face dozen of counts of child molestation.

“I started to cry immediately. I felt like I was going to faint,” Lindsay Tornambe said.

The news nearly floored 28-year-old Lindsay Tornambe. Living in Harleysville, Pa. as a young girl, she moved to Minnesota with her parents to become followers of Barnard’s church–River Road Fellowship. She says the 53-year-old cult leader convinced her parents and others to give their first-born females to the church.

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SOUTH AFRICA
Destiny

The arrest of four people, including a pastor, for rape and molestation of a nine-year-old boy in an apparent satanic ritual has rocked a Boksburg community

The grandparents of a nine-year-old boy, his uncle, and a pastor are expected to again appear in court on Tuesday for a suspected satanic ritual that led to the boy’s alleged rape and molestation, The Star reported on Tuesday.

The two grandparents, the 29-year-old uncle, and the 54-year-old pastor appeared in the Germiston Magistrate’s Court on Monday for a formal bail application.

During the proceedings Investigating Officer Hendrik de Jager described the boy’s ordeal and said interviews revealed that over a period, possibly several years, the child was allegedly raped and molested multiple times by the group.

On one occasion the uncle and grandparents allegedly took the child to their place of worship, the Full Gospel Church of God in Witfield, Boksburg, where the pastor was based.

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SOUTH AFRICA
iAfrica

Article By: Megan Ellis
Tue, 03 Mar 2015

A Boksburg pastor appeared in the Germiston Magistrate’s Court on Monday for allegedly taking part in the rape and molestation of a nine-year-old boy during a satanic ritual.

The pastor is accused of taking part in the rape along with the boy’s grandparents and uncle.

The case was initially not pursued in 2013, but the SAPS Occult-Related Crime Unit was brought in to investigate and the four were arrested last month.

The rape and molestation of the boy had allegedly taken place multiple times, possibly over a number of years.

A satanic ritual allegedly took place at the Gospel Church of God in Witfield, where they four adults are said to have dressed in masks and red robes, praying in strange tongues while standing in a circle, The Star reported.

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CANADA
Cape Breton Post

SYDNEY — A former Glace Bay pastor will learn his sentence later this month after a Supreme Court justice reserved decision on Monday.

Harrington gets redemption on 17, and 1st PGA Tour win in 6 years at Honda

After hearing sentencing arguments from prosecutor Christa MacKinnon and defence lawyer Nash Brogan, Justice Robin Gogan adjourned sentencing until March 12.

Robert Stewart Lawther, 62, of Reserve Street, was convicted in December on a single count of sexual interference involving a girl under the age of 15. A Supreme Court jury returned a not guilty verdict on two other similar counts involving two other female complainants.

MacKinnon has recommended a two-year jail sentence followed by a one-year period of probation. She is also seeking a DNA order, an order to register as a sex offender for 20 years and an order to prohibit Lawther from visiting places where children are likely to gather, including pools, parks and playgrounds.

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NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

By Warren Reporter
on March 02, 2015

Talking with children about personal safety and prevention of abuse is not always easy, but it is absolutely necessary.

Professionals in the field of Child Abuse Prevention agree that children, who have discussed with adults what they could do in potentially dangerous situations, are safer than children who have never been given any prevention strategies.

“For most parents and many teachers, talking with a child about potentially abusive situations is a difficult proposition,” said Carole Ciurczak, coordinator of the Warren County Child Assault Prevention project at Catholic Charities, Diocese of Metuchen.

“Unfortunately, the increased violence in schools, on the internet, and in society in general also increases the need for children to learn how to deal with a variety of situations about which a generation prior may not have had to worry. The good news is that there are ways to talk to children that will not increase their fear but actually will help them feel safer and more confident. CAP’s motto is, “All children deserve to be safe, strong and free” and parents can teach this to their children.”

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INDIA
New Indian Express

KOCHI:The nun who was expelled from her congregation after she reportedly resisted sexual abuse by a priest and registered complaint against him is planning to intensify her agitation. Sr Anita, who has found shelter in the Janseva Sisubhavan, Aluva, is all set to launch an indefinite hunger strike in front of the Sisters of St Agata Convent at Thottakkattukara.

Sr Anita, a native of Kannur district, became a nun at the Sisters of St Agata on January 15, 2007. She was entrusted with the job of teacher at the Providence Convent HS, Pachore, Madhya Pradesh. According to her, the congregation authorities turned hostile towards her after she complained about an alleged attempt of sexual harassment by a priest in 2011.

She was transferred to the Mother House, Italy, in May 2012. She allegedly faced physical and mental harassment in Italy also.

“There were days when they refused to give me food. After a series of torture, I was thrown out of the convent on February 19. When I sought shelter in another convent, with the help of another nun, the congregation authorities bought air ticket to Kochi and asked me to leave Italy. When I reached the convent at Thottakkattukara, I was denied entry. My luggage was thrown out and I was asked to leave the convent . “It was the local people who took me to the Janaseva Sisubhavan,’’ Sr Anita said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Amanda Meade
Monday 2 March 2015

The Australian Jewish News has denied sacking a senior journalist who helped the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse by supplying a damaging text message from a senior rabbi.

Adam Kamien was made redundant after nine years on the paper – including a stint as acting editor – after a text message he passed on to the commission resulted in the resignation of Rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant.

Kluwgant, the president of the Organisation of Rabbis of Australasia, stepped down last month after the commission heard that he had called the father of three sons who were sexually abused a “lunatic” in a text message.

The text message, sent to the editor of the Australian Jewish News, Zeddy Lawrence, read: “Zephaniah is killing us. He is a lunatic on the fringe, guilty of neglect of his own children. Where was he when all this was happening?” …

Last week the paper told staff Kamien had been made redundant after a restructure.

Contacted by Guardian Australia, Kamien declined to comment as he had signed a confidentiality agreement.

But Zephaniah’s son Manny, the only Jewish victim of child abuse to be named at the commission, believes Kamien was sacked for leaking the text message.

“I am very disappointed with the AJN’s decision,” Waks told Guardian Australia from Paris where he is living. “I understand their dilemma as a media outlet in terms of protecting their sources but in the context of the royal commission, it was a moral imperative for them to do the right thing.

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