ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

A Greek finance official reportedly said on Monday (2/9/15) that he did not believe German Chancellor Angela Merkel would let Greece go bankrupt. “I think what counts is what Greece will put on the table,” Merkel said at a news conference in Washington where she is meeting with US President Obama on the Greek debt and other crises.

Part of the solution for the Greek debt crisis may be for Merkel and Obama to show some fortitude and shift some of the excessive subsidies that both their countries pay to support obscene “bling bishops” in Germany and the USA. German government direct subsidies to Catholic bishops exceed $6 billion a year and US indirect subsides (contribution tax deductions, tax exemptions, etc.) are likely even much higher.

In addition, both countries face escalating governmental social welfare expenditures related to tens of thousands of survivors of priest sexual abuse that the Catholic Church has virtually abandoned. German and USA national leaders have been far behind others, like Australian, Irish and recently the UK leaders in seeking to hold unaccountable Catholic bishops’ feet to the fire. Please see “Peter Saunders & Marie Collins Should Quit Pope’s Abuse Commission, No?“, here, [Christian Catholicism]

Interestingly, Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, the so-called most famous “Bishop of Bling”, who was removed from his German diocese because of his lavish spending on his bishop’s palace, has reportedly now been appointed to an important new position at the Vatican. How does that fit into Pope Francis’ much hyped Christmas scolding of his Vatican staff?

Bishop Tebartz-van Elst made world headlines two years ago when details of a €30 million renovation project for his bishop’s palace were uncovered. Among the items of lavish expenditure it revealed were works of art, chapel windows, built-in cupboards and also a two-seater bathtub costing approximately €20,000. It is unclear who the second seat is for. Of course, this pales compared to the almost $ 200 million each reportedly spent by NY’s Cardinal Dolan and LA’s Cardinal Mahony to satisfy their excessive “edifice complexes”.

In addition to the German allegations against Tebartz van Elst, there are the reports that Cardinal Reinhard Marx’s Munich archdiocese has spent $150 million on a new diocesan service center. Marx, who is president of the German bishops’ conference, has also reportedly had his residence renovated at a cost of $9 million, paid for by the state of Bavaria.

Francis, who preaches a lot about helping the poor and smelling like the sheep, should publicly chastise Marx, who is meeting with him this week as a member of the “C-9″ group of elite Cardinals.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, Feb. 9

Statement by Joelle Casteix of Newport Beach CA, western regional director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (949 322 7434, jcasteix@gmail.com )

A controversial German bishop who was quickly ousted by Pope Francis because of his ostentatious spending now has a new church job.

[National Catholic Register]

This is why corruption in the church hierarchy continues. And it’s why the supposed “new policies” to deal with irresponsible bishops wont’ work. Because virtually no wrongdoer is ever harshly disciplined. And even when a prelate’s misdeeds are so egregious that the Vatican must act, the “discipline” is temporary.

(Cardinal Bernard Law and Cardinal Roger Mahony are two examples of church officials who acted so terribly that they were sidelined, but only temporarily.)

Monarchs rarely discipline other monarchs. So monarchs act irresponsibility. And Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz van Elst lands on his feet.

The pope’s abuse panel uses the word “accountability” four times in its latest short news release. But talking about accountability is easy. Enforcing it is hard. And in the highest echelons of Catholicism, it’s exceedingly rare.

So instead of wondering why bishops continue to conceal sexual violence, we should really be asking “Why wouldn’t a bishop conceal crimes? He won’t be punished by his church supervisors or peers if he does.”

(Ironically, the National Catholic Register complains that other German bishops also spend wildly but suffer no consequences, citing “the archdiocese of Munich and Freising which has just spent $150m on a new diocesan service center” and “Cardinal Reinhard Marx, who heads the archdiocese and is president of the German bishops’ conference” and “has just had his residence renovated at a cost of $9m, paid for by the state of Bavaria. But unlike Tebartz van Elst, the media has paid little attention to the high spending.”)

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Statement by David Clohessy Executive Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests,

Phone: (314) 566-9790, E-mail: davidgclohessy@gmail.com

I hate to see hopes raised and then dashed. So at the risk of being the skunk at the garden party, let me make two points about the possibility of “new” church “processes” that allegedly will “ensure accountability” by complicit bishops.

[National Catholic Reporter]

First, over the past 2.5 years, not a single one of the 4,000 bishops in the world has found the courage to even publicly say “Bishop Robert Finn did wrong.”

(Yes, it’s now been two and a half years since a Kansas City judge found Finn guilty of refusing to give police thousands of images of child pornography from Fr. Shawn Ratigan’s computer.)

So if Catholic officials can’t bring themselves to denounce a bad bishop, is there any real chance they’ll be able to discipline one?

(In fact, some church officials still defend Finn, notably Bishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas.)

Second, did Pope Francis need some “new process” to oust “The Bishop of Bling?” Nope. Has any pope tried to fire a bishop and but given up because he couldn’t find an appropriate “process” to use? Not that I know of.

So why do we need one?

We WILL get one, though. The pope’s abuse panel will recommended one. It will be adopted. Millions will feel some hope and relief.

And then, as the years drag on, and as cover ups continue, the protocol will be forgotten and ignored.

And those for many, those raised hopes will become dashed hopes.

(Post script: Maybe three or four of the 38,000 US priests have publicly managed to say “Bishop Finn did wrong.” Kudos to Fr. Thomas Reese, Fr. Jim Connell and the other few.)

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Hunter region survivors of childhood sexual abuse will give evidence to the Royal Commission during four days of private hearings in Newcastle later this month.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is investigating how organisations, such as churches, have dealt with allegations of abuse.

32 people will have the opportunity to tell a commissioner of their experiences, with the hearings to be held from February 24 to 27.

The commission CEO Philip Reed says it is critical the evidence is given in private, as it allows commissioners to hear first-hand “the tactics perpetrators used and how institutions responded, or failed to respond”.

Mr Reed says the Newcastle sessions will be held in a confidential and safe environment, with commission staff ready to provide counselling.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

A VICTIM of sexual abuse at a Melbourne Jewish school is likely to continue giving evidence to a royal commission on Tuesday.

SOME of Australia’s top rabbis are also expected to give evidence during the second week of public hearings in Melbourne.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is investigating the response of Yeshivah Melbourne and Yeshiva Bondi to abuse by David Cyprys, David Kramer and Daniel Hayman in the 1980s and ’90s.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic World Report

Vatican City, Feb 9, 2015 / 02:46 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The reform of the Roman Curia must be an example for the spiritual renewal of the entire Church, the prefect of Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith wrote in an essay published Saturday in the Vatican’s newspaper.

“A true reform of the Roman Curia and of the Church has the objective of rendering the mission of the Pope and of the Church in the world of today and of tomorrow more radiant” Cardinal Gerhard Mueller wrote Feb. 7 in L’Osservatore Romano.

In the article, “Purifying the Temple,” Cardinal Mueller identified the final goal of Church reform as enlightening the mission of the Church; stressed the differences among the Roman Curia, the College of Cardinals, the Synod of Bishops, and the administration of Vatican City; and warned against the temptation of over-spiritualizing the Church, thereby relegating it to an environment of ideals divorced from reality.

Cardinal Mueller’s article was published on the eve of a meeting of the Council of Cardinals, and a subsequent consistory convoked by Pope Francis to discuss curial reform.

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CANADA
Comox Valley Record

Erin Haluschak
Record Staff

St. Michael’s Residential School in Alert Bay, B.C. — one of five remaining residential schools in the province — is slated for demolition later this year. This is the first of a three-part February series looking further into the stories of the students, challenges faced by local First Nations in the Comox Valley today, and a special mid-month ceremony at the school to acknowledge the past and ignite hope for the future.

Evelyn Voyageur remembers her mother coming home in tears.

She was nine years old, living on Gilford Island when she was told she had to leave to Alert Bay to attend St. Michael’s Residential School.

“You have to go to the school or you’ll be taken away from us forever, or we’ll go to jail,” she recalls her mother saying.

The next day, she was placed on a water taxi.

Voyageur, who now lives in the Comox Valley, has gone on a healing journey, but says she has absolutely no recollection of the approximately 30-kilometre trip from her home to the school.

“I try to bring it up in my memory, but it must have been so traumatic,” she says. “Ten of us were on that taxi.”

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, the former Bishop of Limburg who triggered a scandal over the cost of his lavish bishop’s residence, has been given a new assignent in Rome: he will hold a catechesis-related post in the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelisation

ANDREA TORNIELLI
VATICAN CITY

The Secretariat of State informed him of his new post last 5 December. The 55-year-old former Bishop of Limburg, Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, has been given a new appointment following the scandal surrounding his excessive spending on a restructuring project for his residence and the local curia. The situation the scandal created and the enormous media attention the case attracted worldwide meant it was difficult for the prelate to be placed in another German diocese. The solution was therefore to create a brand new position within the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelisation led by Archbishop Rino Fisichella.

Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst will be a “delegate for the catechesis”, which basically means he will be studying the catechesis and its link to the new evangelisation. He is expected to arrive in the Vatican next month.

The Limburg affair came to an end just under a year ago, on 26 March 2014, when Pope Francis “accepted” the bishop’s resignation following months of controversy and an enquiry carried out by the German Episcopal Conference, whose findings were submitted to the Vatican Congregation for Bishops.

A statement read out by Vatican spokesman, Fr. Federico Lombardi, reads: “With regards to the administration of the diocese of Limburg in Germany, the Congregation for Bishops has carefully examined the report of the commission set up by the Bishop and the Limburg cathedral chapter to look into who was responsible for the construction of the St. Nicholas Diocesan Centre. Given that the situation verified in the diocese of Limburg is such as to prevent His Eminence Mgr. Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst from a fruitful continuation of his ministry, the Holy See has accepted the prelate’s resignation, presented on 20 October 2013, and has nominated His Eminence Mgr. Manfred Grothe as Apostolic Administrator of the vacant see. The outgoing bishop, His Eminence Mgr. Tebartz-van Elst, will be assigned a different position at an opportune time. The Holy Father asks the clergy and faithful of the diocese of Limburg to obediently accept the Holy See’s decisions and to make an effort to revive a spirit of charity and reconciliation.”

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

Among the issues addressed by the Commission’s work group were: pastoral care for victims, guidelines in best practice and norms governing allegations of abuse

IACOPO SCARAMUZZI
VATICAN CITY

The Vatican Commission for the Protection of Minors which held its first meeting with all members present from Friday to Sunday in the Vatican, “is keenly aware that the issue of accountability is of major importance.” This was communicated in a statement dated February 8th and issued today by the Holy See newsroom. It comes after members of the body – created by Pope Francis in December 2013 and led by Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley – expressed the need for suitable punishments for bishops who neglect or cover up accusations made against priests who commit sex abuse in their dioceses. They did so during a briefing held Saturday. In its Assembly, members agreed on an initial proposal to submit to Pope Francis for consideration.

The Assembly, which was held in recent days, “was the first opportunity for all 17 members of the recently expanded Commission to come together and share their progress in the task entrusted them by the Holy Father, namely to advise Pope Francis in the safeguarding and protection of minors in the Church.” Aside from President Cardinal Seán O’Malley and the new secretary Mgr. Robert Oliver all other members of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors – both those that were appointed right at the beginning and those who were added last December in order to have representatives from all continents and of all sensibilities – were also present: Rev. Luis Manuel Ali Herrera (Colombia); Catherine Bonnet (France); Marie Collins (Ireland); Gabriel Dy-Liacco (Philippines); Sheila Hollins (England); Bill Kilgallon (New Zealand); Sr. Kayula Lesa, MSC (Zambia); Sr. Hermenegild Makoro, CPS (Zimbabwe); Kathleen McCormack (Australia); Claudio Papale (Italy); Peter Saunders (England); Hanna Suchocka (Poland); Krysten Winter-Green (United States); Rev. Humberto Miguel YÁÑEZ, SJ (Argentina) and Rev. Hans Zolliner, SJ (Germany).

The statement reads: “During the meetings, members presented reports from their Working Groups of experts, developed over the past year. The Commission then completed their recommendations regarding the formal structure of the Commission and agreed upon several proposals to submit to the Holy Father for consideration. The Working Groups are an integral part of the Commission’s working structure. Between Plenary Sessions, these groups bring forward research and projects in areas that are central to the mission of making the Church ‘a safe home’ for children, adolescents, and vulnerable adults. These include: pastoral care for survivors and their families, education, guidelines in best practice, formation to the priesthood and religious life, ecclesial and civil norms governing allegations of abuse, and the accountability of people in positions of responsibility within the Church when dealing with allegations of abuse. The Commission, the statement reads, “is keenly aware that the issue of accountability is of major importance.” In its Assembly, members agreed on an initial proposal to submit to Pope Francis for consideration. Moreover, the Commission is developing processes to ensure accountability for everyone in the Church – clergy, religious, and laity – who work with minors.”

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

In their first meeting, the Council of Cardinals will be presenting their dicastery merger plans to cardinals from all over the world

ANDREA TORNIELLI
VATICAN CITY

Pope Francis has invited cardinals from all over the world to attend the upcoming Consistory (Thursday to Friday) that will precede the new cardinal creations and will be dedicated to Curia reform. The cardinals were sent a preparatory document several days ago. The document was not the draft for a new Apostolic Constitution but a summary of the work carried out by the C9 – the Council that assists the Pope in the government of the universal Church – last year and the criteria it followed. The nine cardinals who met the Pope this morning, talked about how they would present the results of their work to their confreres during the Consistory.

The proposals are already known. The details of these have already been presented to heads of Roman Curia dicasteries, who mostly approved them, despite the resistance understandably shown by those who it seems will definitely be affected by the mergers. The second step in Curia reform – after the structural reform already carried out, which involved the creation of the Secretariat for the Economy – is to reduce the number of Pontifical Councils by means of mergers, creating two big dicasteries: one will be dedicated to the laity and will be in charge of family and life related issues. The other will be dedicated to charity and justice and will merge together the Pontifical Councils for Justice and Peace, Cor Unum, Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People and Assistance to Healthcare Workers. Each of these big new bodies will be subdivided into secretariats and duties will remain the same though there will be fewer heads of dicasteries. It is possible therefore that the number of Curia cardinals will drop. In the future, the two new bodies will give more space to lay people and families, who will be able to hold positions of responsibility.

It is still not clear whether the two new dicasteries will become congregations or remain Pontifical Councils. The current Apostolic Constitution regarding the Roman Curia, John Paul II’s “Pastor Bonus”, distinguishes between Congregations and Pontifical Councils because the former have the jurisdictional power to act on the Pope’s behalf, while the latter do not. Nevertheless, the Constitution establishes that they have “equal dignity”. According to a number of canon law experts, on the basis of the jurisdiction criterion there would be no problem in turning the body for the laity into a Congregation, while matters addressed by the charity, justice and peace dicastery will deal with specific initiatives. Nevertheless, the latter dicastery looks to be quite large and will deal with important issues that are particularly pertinent today: justice, peace and migration.

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VATICAN CITY
Irish Times

Paddy Agnew

Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, the so-called “Bishop of Bling” who was removed from the diocese of Limburg in Germany because of his lavish spending on the bishop’s palace, is to be appointed to a new position in the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelisation, according to Rome-based website Vatican Insider.

Bishop Tebartz-van Elst (55) made world headlines two years ago when details of a €30 million renovation project for the bishop’s palace were revealed by a German church-commissioned report. Among the items of lavish expenditure it revealed were works of art, chapel windows, built-in cupboards and also a two-seater bathtub costing approximately €20,000.

The bishop had excused himself by saying he was much more a theologian than an architect, adding that he had been keen to see that the restoration of the period palace be done properly. At the time of his “resignation” from the diocese in March of last year, a Vatican statement had said that, in time, another job would be found for him.

Pope Francis: had been speaking at a general audience when he said it was okay to smack children to discipline them. Filippo Monteforte/AFP/Getty ImagesPope not encouraging smacking of children, says Vatican

Given that it would have proven difficult to appoint the bishop to another German diocese, it seems that a low-key role has been found for him at New Evangelisation, headed by Archbishop Rino Fisichella. In theory, his new job title will be “delegate for catechism teaching”, or the study of the relevance of church teaching to the New Evangelisation.

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NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

By Mark Mueller | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on February 09, 2015

The alleged abuse spanned four decades, one teenage boy after another.

The Rev. Terence McAlinden, the alleged victims said, used alcohol, threats and the name of God to coerce them into sexual situations. Years later, in a videotaped deposition, the former youth leader admitted sleeping nude with boys and bathing with them naked in a hot tub.

Today, those boys — now grown men in their 40s, 50s and 60s — said a painful chapter of their lives had closed after learning that McAlinden, 74, was dead.

Suspended from ministry by the Diocese of Trenton since 2007, McAlinden died Friday at a hospital, his sister said. The priest’s accusers said they were told he had suffered a heart attack.

The sister, Pat Brzusek of Bellevue, Wash., said she did not know the cause of death but learned recently her brother, a resident of Little Egg Harbor, was undergoing treatment for lung cancer.

“If there is truly a judgment day, my brother has faced his,” said Brzusek, who has been estranged from McAlinden for many years. “It’s a very sad situation.”

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Register

by Edward Pentin 02/09/2015

Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz van Elst, the former bishop of Limburg near Frankfurt, Germany, is to begin a new appointment in March as a delegate on catechesis at the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization, the Register has learned.

An official at the Pontifical Council confirmed today that Bishop Tebartz van Elst was appointed in December on behalf of Pope Francis through the Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin. It follows reports in the German press that the bishop had been appointed to the Council, but that the appointment had been subsequently withdrawn by Pope Francis, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

The Vatican press office refused to comment on the appointment when asked by the Register last week, neither confirming nor denying it had taken place, although Archbishop Georg Gänswein unofficially confirmed the news to Vatican Magazin on Feb. 7.

Bishop Tebartz van Elst was at the center of allegations that he had approved a $40m remodeling and building project in his diocese that included the bishop’s residence. The expensive project had actually been ordered by his predecessor, Bishop Franz Kamphaus, who retired in 2007.

Many believe Tebartz van Elst was the victim of a smear campaign and forced out because of his orthodoxy. In 2008, he drew the ire of some of the German hierarchy when he dismissed a local priest for blessing a same-sex union. Some local priests also criticized his homilies and statements, and drew up a petition. Bishop Kamphaus, on the other hand, sparked controversy in the early 2000s by refusing to comply with several request from Pope John Paul II to stop issuing certificates that opened the way for women to have abortions.

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GERMANY
Straits Times

BERLIN (AFP) – An explosive film by acclaimed Chilean director Pablo Larrain about paedophile priests given refuge from justice by the Roman Catholic Church sent a jolt through the Berlin film festival Monday.

A drama with tinges of black comedy, The Club tells the story of five former clerics and a nun living together in a seaside town in a kind of purgatory for their sins.

When Father Lazcano moves in, a drunk and dishevelled man comes to the gate of the home and shouts in graphic detail about how the clergyman repeatedly raped him as a child.

One of the other priests hands Father Lazcano a gun “to fire in the air and scare him off”. Thus begins a scandal that threatens to expose the small colony of exiles from the Church, before a Vatican emissary is dispatched to deal with the affair.

A brutal cover-up ensues but a remarkable twist at the end reveals the hurdles to escaping worldly justice.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

* Pope Francis’ advisory sex abuse commission is orchestrated by disgraced Boston Cardinal Law’s former canon lawyer, Fr. Robert Oliver. It met for the first time at the Vatican with all 17 of its members this weekend. It has touted its predictable empty promises of action on unaccountable bishops in a press statement released Monday (2/9/15). The pope’s illusory, even farcical commission is now, in effect, being exposed as little more than another of the Vatican’s Machiavellian political ploys — a classic stall tactic in the form of an extremely unfocused, open ended, conflicted, slow and understaffed “study commission”.

* The pope’s “main accomplishment”, after stalling on the abuse scandal for two years, apparently has been to get two brave, but inexperienced, abuse survivors, Marie Collins and Peter Saunders, to publicly state, after seeing up close the planned procrastination, that they will cooperate with the farce for a further two years, a major mistake. Please see “Peter Saunders & Marie Collins Should Quit Pope’s Abuse Commission, No?“, here,

* [Christian Catholicism]

* Marie Collins and Peter Saunders, very brave and active survivors, appear to be trying their best, but from my professional perspective, they both are being exploited. They would have more impact, it appears to me, if they resigned now. I certainly hope they do. They are giving this farcical commission by their presence a legitimacy that the commission has not earned on its merits, and likely as currently structured never will earn. This likely could have serious negative repercussions for other abuse survivors worldwide, including quite desperate ones in bankrupt USA dioceses, especially Milwaukee and Minneapolis. A lot is at stake for all of them, as well as for millions of defenseless children worldwide, with this commission.

* Most importantly, Pope Francis has inexcusably to date failed to appoint to the commission respected canon lawyer, Tom Doyle, a Dominican priest in good standing and the world’s top expert on curtailing priest child abuse. Fr. Doyle and the pope both worked, at different times within a few years of each other, under the same Cardinal, Pio Laghi. Why is Tom Doyle being overlooked? What is the pope afraid of ? Why have Marie Collins and Peter Saunders failed during their many press briefings to demand that Tom Doyle be added to the commission?

* It is clear that Marie Collins and Peter Saunders are outmatched by Francis, Oliver and their many high priced advisers, et al. These two survivors have already done damage by naively announcing publicly they will give their survivors’ seal of approval to Francis for another two years — clearly a major tactical error on their part.

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MISSOURI
Berger’s Beat

February 9, 2015 12:45 pm | Author: berger

Later this month, Fr. Gary Wolken will walk free having served most of his 15-year sentence for molesting a five year-old here. (Years earlier, he’d been sent to church therapy for abusing another child.) When he was arrested, Wolken shared a rectory with another since ousted predator priest, Fr. Michael Campbell, and a once ”rising star,” then-Bishop Timothy Dolan (who at the first opportunity unsuccessfully pleaded for Wolken’s early release from prison). One of Wolken’s victim’s received what’s believed to be the highest settlement ever paid by this archdiocese: $1.675 million.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Times

Gerry Moriarty

Mon, Feb 9, 2015

The Sisters of Nazareth have denied claims by a 65-year-old woman that while under their care as a child she suffered serious abuse.

The woman, now living in England, has told the North’s Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry that while in care as a child she was raped by two priests, sexually abused by two nuns and also forced to eat her own vomit.

The woman said when she was 10 or 11 and in care in Nazareth House in Belfast, she was sexually assaulted while attending confession.

A priest dragged her into the sacristy and raped her, she said. After the alleged assault, the priest told her she “was not worthy” and made her “beg for forgiveness”, the witness told the 92nd day of the inquiry on Monday.

She said the priest told her she “had the devil’s eyes”.

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VATICAN CITY
Religion News Service

David Gibson | February 9, 2015

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Francis on Monday (Feb. 9) began what could be a key week for his reformist papacy, starting with meetings with his hand-picked kitchen cabinet of nine senior cardinals, who are developing plans to overhaul the Roman Curia, the papal civil service that has been plagued with crisis and dysfunction.

The three-day gathering was preceded by intense talks among his economic advisers, who are trying to revamp the scandal-plagued Vatican bank as well as instituting other reforms aimed at cleaning up the Vatican’s tangled finances.

At the same time, the commission Francis set up to tackle the clergy sex abuse crisis held its first full meeting over the weekend, with its 17 members vowing to find ways to finally hold bishops accountable if they look the other way on abuse.

The week will conclude with two days of closed-door meetings with the entire College of Cardinals — more than 150 scarlet-clad princes of the church — before Francis formally adds 20 members to their ranks at a service in St. Peter’s Basilica on Saturday.

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UNITED STATES
Canonical Consultation

02/09/2015

Jennifer Haselberger

Earlier today, the Holy See’s Press Office issued a news release about the work of the Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, which held its first meetings this past weekend. According to the statement, the Commission approved an initial proposal regarding accountability for bishops who fail to uphold their obligations to create a safe environment.

‘The Commission is keenly aware that the issue of accountability is of major importance. In its Assembly, members agreed on an initial proposal to submit to Pope Francis for consideration. Moreover, the Commission is developing processes to ensure accountability for everyone in the Church – clergy, religious, and laity – who work with minors.

Part of ensuring accountability is raising awareness and understanding at all levels of the Church regarding the seriousness and urgency in implementing correct safeguarding procedures. To this end, the Commission also agreed to develop seminars to educate Church leadership in the area of the protection of minors.’

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UNITED STATES
CT Mirror

By: CHRISTOPHER M. ANDERSON | February 9, 2015

Adverse childhood experiences are a public health crisis affecting more Americans than diabetes and heart disease combined.

Many people instinctively understand that compassionate support is important for people who have lived through abuse and trauma, but instinct can make for a poor teacher. Our initial response to a survivor’s disclosure can have a profound impact on his chances for recovery.

Compassionate listening is a skill that can be taught and could potentially have just as powerful an impact on our society’s health as the promotion of CPR has had.

It is significantly more likely than not that a given person has experienced at least one form of childhood trauma or abuse. For many survivors, disclosures of a painful past are often met with doubt, anger, or apathy. These negative reactions can reinforce feelings of shame and fear that make it harder for survivors to engage in the work of healing — which almost always requires survivors to acknowledge and talk about what they have experienced and how it has impacted their lives.

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VATICAN CITY
Crux

By Inés San Martín
Vatican correspondent February 9, 2015

ROME — Following a meeting of Pope Francis’ new anti-sex abuse commission at which members demanded that bishops be held accountable for how they handle allegations, the Vatican has vowed that it’s “keenly aware that the issue of accountability is of major importance.”

A statement released Monday said the Vatican’s Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, which met in Rome Feb. 6-8, is focusing on accountability “for everyone in the Church — clergy, religious, and laity — who work with minors.”

“Part of ensuring accountability is raising awareness and understanding at all levels of the Church regarding the seriousness and urgency in implementing correct safeguarding procedures,” the statement said.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 9 February 2015 (VIS) – The eighth meeting of the Council of Cardinals began this morning. To be attended by the Holy Father, the meeting will continue until 11 February. On the following days, Thursday 12 and Friday 13 February, the Consistory of the College of Cardinals is to be held in the Synod Hall.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Patch

By Les Masterson (Patch Staff)

Father Thomas M. Gillespie, pastor of St. Theresa’s Parish, has been placed on administrative leave after the Archdiocese of Boston received an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor, announced the archdiocese on Sunday.

The alleged abuse dates back to the late-1970s.

When given the information, church officials alerted law enforcement and started a preliminary investigation, said the archdiocese.

In a statement, the Archdiocese of Boston said, “The decision to place Fr. Gillespie on administrative leave represents the Archdiocese’s commitment to the welfare of all parties and does not represent a determination of Fr. Gillespie’s guilt or innocence as it pertains to this allegation.

“The Archdiocese will work to resolve this case as expeditiously as possible and in a manner that is fair to all parties.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) Members of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors gathered in Rome for their Plenary Assembly February 6-8. A statement issued by the Vatican said the members who took part in the Assembly were: Cardinal Seán O’Malley OFM Cap. (United States), President; Mons. Robert Oliver (United States), Secretary; Rev. Luis Manuel Ali Herrera (Colombia); Catherine Bonnet (France); Marie Collins (Ireland); Gabriel Dy-Liacco (Philippines); Sheila Hollins (England); Bill Kilgallon (New Zealand); Sr. Kayula Lesa, MSC (Zambia); Sr. Hermenegild Makoro, CPS (Zimbabwe); Kathleen McCormack (Australia); Claudio Papale (Italy); Peter Saunders (England); Hanna Suchocka (Poland); Krysten Winter-Green (United States); Rev. Humberto Miguel YÁÑEZ, SJ (Argentina) and Rev. Hans Zolliner, SJ (Germany).

The statement went on to say that this year’s meeting was the first opportunity for all 17 members of the recently expanded Commission to come together and share their progress in the task entrusted them by the Holy Father, namely to advise Pope Francis in the safeguarding and protection of minors in the Church.

During the meetings, members presented reports from their Working Groups of experts, developed over the past year. The Commission then completed their recommendations regarding the formal structure of the Commission and agreed upon several proposals to submit to the Holy Father for consideration.

The Working Groups are an integral part of the Commission’s working structure. Between Plenary Sessions, these groups bring forward research and projects in areas that are central to the mission of making the Church ‘a safe home’ for children, adolescents, and vulnerable adults. These include: pastoral care for survivors and their families, education, guidelines in best practice, formation to the priesthood and religious life, ecclesial and civil norms governing allegations of abuse, and the accountability of people in positions of responsibility within the Church when dealing with allegations of abuse.

The Commission, the statement reads, “is keenly aware that the issue of accountability is of major importance.” In its Assembly, members agreed on an initial proposal to submit to Pope Francis for consideration. Moreover, the Commission is developing processes to ensure accountability for everyone in the Church – clergy, religious, and laity – who work with minors.

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VATICAN CITY
NPR

[with audio]

FEBRUARY 09, 2015

SYLVIA POGGIOLI

A commission advising Pope Francis on how to tackle clerical sex abuse of minors has completed its first full meeting at the Vatican. The commission, which has been criticized for its slow start, says it’s
Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, head of the commission, told reporters it’s drafting practical recommendations on making bishops accountable for cover-ups and failure to prevent abuse.

“Obviously,” he said, “there has to be consequences and there needs to be procedures that will allow these cases to be dealt with in an expeditious way.”

No details were revealed, but the cardinal said the recommendations are almost ready and will “then be presented to the Holy Father and hopefully implemented.”

The commission comprises 17 lay and clerical members from around the world, including two people who were abused as children by priests.

Its key tasks include drawing up guidelines to be followed by Bishops Conferences across the world, as well as educational programs and means to audit compliance to ensure that religious institutions are safe for children.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Feb. 9, 2015 NCR Today

VATICAN CITY
Somewhat cryptically hinting at possible new procedures for handling Catholic bishops who mishandle clergy sexual abuse, the Vatican commission advising Pope Francis on the issue says it is “developing processes to ensure accountability for everyone in the Church.”

The commission, which met for the first time at the Vatican with all 17 of its members this weekend, makes the claim of such new processes in a press statement released Monday afternoon.

Mentioning the word “accountability” four times in the statement, the commission says it is “keenly aware that the issue of accountability is of major importance.”

The commission says one of its working groups is specifically tackling the issue of “accountability of people in positions of responsibility within the Church when dealing with allegations of abuse.”

In their weekend meeting, the commission says, “members agreed on an initial proposal to submit to Pope Francis for consideration.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Monday 9 February 2015

Chris Tuck

I am a survivor of mental, emotional, physical and sexual abuse within the home, and sexual abuse by a third party outside of the home. While writing a book in which I share my story, I came across the National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac). Through meeting and working with Napac I now know that most abuse occurs within the home, and I wanted to try to raise awareness of this, and show how devastating abuse is to victims and survivors – often for the rest of their lives.

I became involved with the government’s child sex abuse inquiry when Theresa May requested to meet survivors. I, like many others, could not believe the shambles we saw with the appointment of the first two chairs. I am not a political person, but I felt that as a survivor and campaigner my input could be of value. It was important to step forward so that my voice, alongside many others, could help shape an inquiry that would be fit for purpose.

After meeting with May again this week, I truly believe she wants to get to the truth and gain justice for victims and survivors of institutional and organised abuse. She was the first person to acknowledge that the inquiry started off on the wrong foot, perhaps because she didn’t fully understand what she was dealing with, or know how to deal with it in the right way.

At the very first meeting, all the individuals in the room introduced themselves by name, stated what had happened to them and explained how they had suffered as a result of abuse. I truly felt that this was the first time May had realised how devastating abuse can be on the individual, and how important it was to get the inquiry right. I think she heard from enough of us to work out that she needed to listen to victims and survivors if the inquiry is to be successful.

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VATICAN CITY
Bolletino

Press Statement of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors

The members of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors gathered in Plenary Assembly February 6-8, in Rome.

The members who took part in the Assembly are: Cardinal Seán O’MALLEY, OFM Cap. (United States), President; Mons. Robert OLIVER (United States), Secretary; Rev. Luis Manuel ALI HERRERA (Colombia); Catherine BONNET (France); Marie COLLINS (Ireland); Gabriel DY-LIACCO (Philippines); Sheila HOLLINS (England); Bill KILGALLON (New Zealand); Sr. Kayula LESA, MSC (Zambia); Sr. Hermenegild MAKORO, CPS (Zimbabwe); Kathleen MCCORMACK (Australia); Claudio PAPALE (Italy); Peter SAUNDERS (England); Hanna SUCHOCKA (Poland); Krysten WINTER-GREEN (United States); Rev. Humberto Miguel YÁÑEZ, SJ (Argentina) and Rev. Hans ZOLLNER, SJ (Germany).

This year’s meeting was the first opportunity for all 17 members of the recently expanded Commission to come together and share their progress in the task entrusted them by the Holy Father, namely to advise Pope Francis in the safeguarding and protection of minors in the Church.

During the meetings, members presented reports from their Working Groups of experts, developed over the past year. The Commission then completed their recommendations regarding the formal structure of the Commission and agreed upon several proposals to submit to the Holy Father for consideration.

The Working Groups are an integral part of the Commission’s working structure. Between Plenary Sessions, these groups bring forward research and projects in areas that are central to the mission of making the Church ‘a safe home’ for children, adolescents, and vulnerable adults. These include: pastoral care for survivors and their families, education, guidelines in best practice, formation to the priesthood and religious life, ecclesial and civil norms governing allegations of abuse, and the accountability of people in positions of responsibility within the Church when dealing with allegations of abuse.

The Commission is keenly aware that the issue of accountability is of major importance. In its Assembly, members agreed on an initial proposal to submit to Pope Francis for consideration. Moreover, the Commission is developing processes to ensure accountability for everyone in the Church – clergy, religious, and laity – who work with minors.

Part of ensuring accountability is raising awareness and understanding at all levels of the Church regarding the seriousness and urgency in implementing correct safeguarding procedures. To this end, the Commission also agreed to develop seminars to educate Church leadership in the area of the protection of minors.

Following on from the Holy Father’s Letter to Presidents of the Episcopal Conferences and to Superiors of Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, dated February 2, the Commission looks forward to collaborating with churches on a local level in making its expertise available to ensure best practices in guidelines for the protection of minors.

The Commission is also preparing materials for a Day of Prayer for all those who have been harmed by sexual abuse. This will underscore our responsibility to work for spiritual healing and also help raise awareness among the Catholic community about the scourge of the abuse of minors.

Pope Francis writes in his letter to Church leaders “families need to know that the Church is making every effort to protect their children”. Conscious of the gravity of our task to advise the Holy Father in this effort, we ask you to support our work with prayer.

Rome February 8th, 2015

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Times

Gerry Moriarty

A man has alleged at the Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry in Banbridge, Co Down, that as a boy in care he was struck on the hands more than 60 times by a nun wielding the handle of a hurley stick.

The man, who was in the care of the Sisters of Nazareth at Nazareth Lodge in Belfast from 1945 to 1953 when he was aged between 7 and 15 told the 92nd day of the inquiry on Monday about several incidents when he was allegedly hit by nuns.

He described what he said was his worst experience and recounted how he fought a psychological battle with one nun by refusing to show pain even though he was allegedly hit at least 66 times on the two hands.

The witness said he was struck after he was wrongly accused of damaging a jotter by biting into its cover. He said the nun “beat me in front of the entire class; she said he would beat me until I told the truth”.

He said he lost count after he was struck for the 66th time. He said he was counting the strikes because “I was fighting a battle in my head” with the nun.

Describing what he was thinking and feeling at the time he said, “I can’t say (to the nun) I done this because I had not done it. Actually I did not feel the physical pain because I felt, ‘I am going to win this, I am going to win this’”.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

A middle-aged man has defended nuns who cared for him as an orphan at the Nazareth Lodge care home in Belfast.

Giving evidence at the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA), the witness said he “never witnessed any violence or abuse by nuns”.

However, he said he was beaten by two domestic workers who deny the claims.

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

Paying tribute to the Sisters of Nazareth, the witness said he was “grateful for their care and support” during the first 10 to 11 years of his life and said he thought “very fondly” of the nuns.

Another witness claimed he was beaten by one nun against whom other allegations of cruelty have been made.

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AUSTRALIA
J-Wire

February 9, 2015 by Roz Tarszisz

Rabbi Yossef Feldman completes his evidence…and another victim reads his statement.

The Yeshiva Centre rabbi who made public his support of a resolution that encouraged child sexual abuse victims to come foward to civil authorities was not happy with the identity of a perpetrator of child sex abuse being made public.

He also had difficulty with the idea of a perpetrator going to prison 25 years after the offences took place.

Rabbi Yosef Feldman made a public statement in July 2011 via The Australian Jewish News in which he clarified his personal views. He stated unequivocally that there were no longer any grey areas on the issue of mesira (non reporting to authorities). This meant that victims of child sexual abuse should definitely go to civil authorities without fear of retribution from within the Jewish community.

After lengthy questioning by Counsel assisting the Commission, Maria Gerace, Feldman said that he would prefer that publicity was not given to child sexual abuse cases as he feared it could encourage non-genuine , or “fake” victims to come forward.

Feldman appeared to have been fixated on whether public statements by the Rabbinical Council of Victoria and both the Sydney and Melbourne Beth Dins were the catalyst that propelled child abuse victims to come forward. He appears convinced that encouraging people to come forward is not a good thing and might “encourage people to give false accusations.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

FEBRUARY 10, 2015

Pia Akerman
Reporter

JEWISH leaders should not publicly encourage victims to go to police as it feeds media “hype” that causes “fake victims” to make allegations, says an outspoken ultra-Orthodox rabbi.

In explosive evidence at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse yesterday, Rabbi Yosef Feldman said he was ­“annoyed” a friend who had given hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Yeshiva organisation faced the prospect of jail for child sex abuse, describing the victim as an informer and emailing him directly to ask whether he would be “healed” by seeing his abuser jailed.

The commission heard Rabbi Feldman — a senior rabbi at Bondi’s Yeshiva centre — had expressed concern when he learnt in 2011 that Beth Dins (rabbinical courts) in Sydney and Melbourne were planning to make public statements encouraging abuse victims to come ­forward.

“Too much hype causes miscarriages of justice,” he told the commission. “I didn’t think it was the time and place for the rabbis to come out in the media with public statements.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (article updated 9 February 2015)

A retired senior Catholic priest from western Sydney, Father Richard Cattell, is scheduled to appear before Judge H. Syme in Sydney’s Penrith District Court on 20 February 2015 for sentencing on child-sex charges.

Father Cattell retired from parish work in the mid-1990s. He later lived privately at Port Macquarie on the New South Wales mid-north coast and, recently, on the Gold Coast in Queensland. On 28 February 2014, New South Wales detectives travelled to Tweed Heads, on the New South Wales side of the Queensland border, and interviewed Richard Cattell at Tweed Heads police station about one former altar boy who has alleged that he was sexually abused while Cattell was based at parishes in western Sydney in the 1980s.

Cattell was summoned to Tweed Heads Local Court on 24 March 2014, to enable the matter to be officially filed in New South Wales.

Richard St John Cattell, aged 73, was charged with indecent acts against this boy.

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MALTA
Malta Today

Miriam Dalli 9 February 2015

Three months down the line following the resignation of Paul Cremona as Archbishop of Malta, a new successor to lead the Maltese Church has not yet been named.

But informed sources close to the Vatican told MaltaToday that Archbishop Joseph Spiteri’s name has become the “most touted name inside Vatican corridors” since last month.

Spiteri, appointed Titular Archbishop of Serta in 2009, is 55 – just five days younger than Apostolic Administrator Charles Scicluna, and is currently serving in a Holy See diplomatic mission in Ivory Coast.

Apostolic Nuncio Aldo Cavalli, the Holy See’s envoy in Malta, has finalised a three-month process during which he met Maltese bishops, diocesan priests, religious people and laymen to discuss the role of the archbishop. The Apostolic Nuncio left Malta with the ‘terna’ of names who could be Malta’s next archbishop.

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MASSACHUSETTS
The Patriot Ledger

By Jessica Trufant
The Patriot Ledger
Posted Feb. 9, 2015

SCITUATE – The Archdiocese of Boston has ordered parishioners to end their decade-long occupation of the closed St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Church by March 9 or face legal recourse.

Terrence Donilon, a spokesman for the archdiocese, on Sunday said the archdiocese has informed parishioners in writing that they must vacate the Hood Road building by March 9.

St. Frances was among dozens of Boston-area churches pegged for closure in 2004 as part of a reconfiguration plan designed to shrink the archdiocese’s growing debt.

But some parishioners refused to leave their churches, including the Friends of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Church, who in October celebrated 10 years of holding a continuous vigil.

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GERMANY
Reuters

BY MICHAEL RODDY
BERLIN Mon Feb 9, 2015

Feb 9 (Reuters) – A Chilean film showing defrocked priests protected by the Catholic Church and a Guatemalan film about the hard lives of Mayan coffee farmers are making waves at the Berlin film festival.

Chilean director Pablo Larrain made “The Club” after he realised some paedophile priests had collaborated with the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet or were ordinary criminals, and had never paid for their misdeeds.

“The Catholic Church for decades really has been spiriting away those priests, hiding them, shielding them from the public sphere,” he told a news conference on Monday to loud applause.

“That’s how we came up with this ‘club’, the idea of a club of lost priests.”

The film focuses on four priests living in a fishing village whose cosy lifestyle is shattered by the arrival of a priest trailed by a tramp who proclaims from the street that the cleric had forced him to have sex with him.

The accused priest commits suicide with a gun another house resident gives him to scare away the intruder. This leads to a visit from Father Garcia, a Jesuit interrogator, who wants to know what happened and threatens to close down the retreat.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

February 9, 2015

Mark Russell
Court Reporter for The Age

A former Christian Brother who was part of a notorious paedophile ring involving the clergy should be returned to jail for a “significant” period of time, a court has heard.

Ted Dowlan found himself in a Melbourne courtroom this month, nearly 20 years since his first appearance in a dock, after more of his victims came forward during the state’s parliamentary inquiry into child sex abuse last year.

Dowlan, who changed his name by deed poll to Bales in 2011, has pleaded guilty to 33 counts of indecently assaulting boys under the age of 16 and one count of gross indecency between 1971 and 1986 involving 20 victims.

Crown prosecutor Brett Sonnet told the County Court on Monday that Dowlan’s offending had involved him gratifying his own lust at the expense of his students’ welfare and he deserved a “significant” jail sentence.

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VATICAN CITY
Chiesa

They are proposed by an Australian theologian and economist, in an open letter to Pope Francis. A simple and concrete contribution to the reform of the curia that is in the works

by Sandro Magister

ROME, February 9, 2015 – For three days, beginning today, the nine cardinals of the council that assists the pope in the governance of the universal Church will draw an assessment of the work done so far in the reform of the curia.

And on February 12 and 13, they will submit their proposals for the examination of the whole college of cardinals, gathered in consistory.

The consistory will be secret, but in any case it will not produce any conclusion. Pope Francis himself is taking his time and has pushed back all practical decisions until at least 2016.

The proposals that have been leaked to this point appear, in fact, to be very far from constituting an organic project. They include, for example, the consolidation of a certain number of curial officials in two new congregations, one for justice and peace and another for the family and laity, each of them subdivided into five departments, but there is no agreement on how they could actually function.

And the same uncertainty also applies to a few key existing dicasteries, like the secretariat of state, the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, and the congregation for bishops.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian Jewish News

A VICTIM has told the Royal Commission that he lost his Yeshivah scholarship and was effectively kicked out of the school when he told Rabbi Avrohom Glick (pictured) that he was sexually abused by David Cyprys.

The victim, who is not from Melbourne and is known as AVR to protect his identity, was raped by Cyprys five times in the early 1990s.

He said that he didn’t reveal his abuse to his mother because she had leukaemia at the time he was very unwell.

“I was embarrassed.

“My mum was sick and alone and interstate.

“I was worried about her.”

But when he was struggling to cope one day a friend found him crying in the playground.

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AUSTRALIA
J-Wire

February 9, 2015 by J-Wire News Service

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry had distanced the community from Rabbi Yosef Feldman, the spiritual head of the Southern Sydney Synagogue who has completed giving evidence at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse hearing in Melbourne.

In a statement released by the ECAJ, President Robert Goot and executive director Peter Wertheim say: “Rabbi Yossi Feldman’s reported statements to the Royal Commission have shocked and appalled his fellow rabbis, the Australian Jewish community and the wider community. Amongst his other objectionable comments, it is unacceptable for any religious leader to confess ignorance of basic law relating to the crime of child sexual abuse or to suggest that there are circumstances in which instances of such abuse should not be reported to the authorities. Nobody should take the law into their own hands, or be encouraged to do so.

Yossi Feldman’s statements are repugnant to Jewish values and to Judaism, which is centred on the sanctity and dignity of individual life, especially the life of a child.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

FEBRUARY 09, 2015

Pia Akerman
Reporter
Melbourne

AN orthodox rabbi has argued media “hype” causes “fake victims” to make allegations of child sexual abuse, while admitting he feared people were making false allegations against his friend, David Cyprys, who was later convicted of serious child sex offences.

Rabbi Yosef Feldman, rabbinical administrator of Bondi’s Chabad Yeshiva centre, today told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse he had expressed concern when he learnt in 2011 that Beth Dins in Sydney and Melbourne were planning to make public statements encouraging abuse victims to come forward.

“Too much hype causes miscarriages of justice,” he said. “I didn’t think it was the time and place for the rabbis to come out in the media with public statements.

“I think it’s bad for the Jews.”

Rabbi Feldman wrote a series of emails to other rabbis in 2011 — when abuse allegations involving Yeshivah College in Melbourne became public amid a police investigation — arguing Jews with information about child sex abuse allegations should see a rabbi rather than police.

He said today that he would “highly encourage” Australia to change its laws to allow rabbis to assess the veracity of child sex abuse complaints before encouraging victims to alert police.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

SHANNON DEERY HERALD SUN FEBRUARY 09, 2015

A RABBI has defended paedophiles, saying some should be left alone if they haven’t offended for decades.

In a stunning outburst to the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse, Rabbi Yosef Feldman said he didn’t agree that paedophiles who had repented and not reoffended risked jail time if they were prosecuted.

“Someone who’s done teshuva (repented), ending up in jail for many years, I didn’t think is a good thing,” he said.

“Obviously we’re terribly concerned about the victims.

“Is it just a situation where we punish someone for what they did 40 years ago even though they’ve changed totally?

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Melissa Davey
@MelissaLDavey
Sunday 8 February 2015

A senior leader within Victoria’s Jewish community – who is also principal of one of the state’s top schools – has called for head rabbis within the orthodox Yeshivah community to resign.

Rabbi James Kennard made the comments as two of the most senior figures within the current Yeshivah administration, Don Wolf and Rabbi Avrohom Glick, prepare to face the royal commission into institutional responses into child sex abuse this week.

The hearings before Melbourne’s county court are placing the Orthodox Jewish Yeshivah centres and colleges in Sydney and Melbourne under scrutiny for the first time since the commission began its work in 2013.

Kennard, who is principal of Mount Scopus Memorial College, said child sex abuse had been covered up and ignored by senior Yeshivah leaders for too long, and that coming out to condemn the abuse and urge victims to go to police was no longer enough.

“While anyone who held a position of leadership in the Yeshivah community in the period when these terrible mistakes were made remains in such a position today, the community is not able to say that it has learnt and it has changed,” Kennard said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Melissa Davey
@MelissaLDavey
Monday 9 February 2015

A victim of child sex abuse should not necessarily go to police if the perpetrator has not offended for decades and the abuser has repented to God, a senior Jewish leader has told a royal commission.

Rabbi Yosef Feldman also said rabbinical organisations issuing statements to the media in support of abuse victims might prompt “fake victims” to go to police, and proven victims to exaggerate their stories.

The royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse, before Melbourne’s county court, is investigating abuse within the Orthodox Yeshivah organisations and their communities in Sydney and Melbourne for the first time.

“There should be a lot more leniency on people who have shown that they haven’t offended in the last 20 years or decades, and they’ve had psychological analyses … and if they have done repentance,” Feldman said on Monday.

“Even for victims, knowing repentance is a big thing, they would understand how repentance is the main point. They should respect that specifically – if they [the perpetrators] have repented and if they have [paedophilic] tendencies, and don’t act on that.”

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By court reporter Peta Carlyon and wires

Paedophiles who are no longer abusing children should not have to spend their lives feeling like the “scum of the Earth”, a senior rabbi has told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Rabbi Yosef Feldman, a leader within the Sydney Yeshivah community, told the inquiry he was friends with convicted child abuser Daniel Hayman when he was arrested and charged in 2011.

He said he did not think it was fair that a member of the community should go to jail for an historical case of child abuse if they had already repented and received treatment.

“I would be asking for more leniency on people who have shown that they haven’t offended in the last 20 years or decades ago, and have psychological analyses that this is the case,” Rabbi Feldman said.

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AUSTRALA
The Guardian

Melissa Davey
@MelissaLDavey
Monday 9 February 2015

A child sex abuse victim who was repeatedly raped by a staff member of an Orthodox Jewish school said he was stripped of his scholarship when he told the principal what happened.

The victim, identified only as AVR, said a security guard at the Yeshivah centre and college in Melbourne, David Cyprys, raped him multiple times.

Cyprys was convicted of those offences in 2013, and is in jail.

AVR told the royal commission into institutional responses to child sex abuse that he had been living in Queensland when his mother fell ill with leukaemia, and in 1990 he was sent to school at the Yeshiva college in Melbourne.

It was there that Cyprys began abusing him.

“I did not know much about sexual matters,” AVR said, adding that he had no father and that Cyprys was the only father figure he knew.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

A senior rabbi believes the justice system should be more lenient towards paedophiles who have stopped offending so that those who repent don’t feel like ‘scum’ forever.

Paedophiles who are no longer abusing children should not have to spend their lives feeling like the ‘scum of the earth’, Rabbi Yosef Feldman told the royal commission into child sex abuse on Monday.

‘I would be asking for more leniency on people who have shown that they haven’t offended in the last 20 years or decades ago, and have psychological analyses that this is the case,’ Rabbi Feldman said.

‘Once someone is not a pedophile any more or is showing (he) is not acting wrongly any more, that should be considered in a very strong way.’

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Sunday Times

Joseph Toal Published: 8 February 2015

LAST September, Pope Francis named Monsignor Robert Oliver as the new secretary of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. The commission — whose members include survivors of clerical sexual abuse; mental health professionals; and experts in civil and church law — is tasked with devising a pastoral approach to helping victims and preventing abuse.

The Pope established the commission to advise him directly and to propose initiatives to encourage local responsibility within the church, highlighting best practice from around the world and developing programmes of training for the whole church in this important area.

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INDIA
New indian Express

THRISSUR:The 35-year-old pastor who was arrested on Saturday night on charges of sexually abusing two minor girls on their house premises in Peechi, was remanded in judicial custody on Sunday. The priest, Sanal K James, a native of Kottayam, was booked under relevant sections of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and Section 376 of IPC (Punishment for rape).

According to police, Sanal had been sexually abusing the two minors studying in the 7th standard, for quite sometime. The sexual abuse came to light after one of the girls confided in her teacher during a student counselling programme at school. The headmaster then informed the police, who later arrested Sanal from his quarters while he was trying to flee from the spot.

The police said he used to visit the Peechi-Payakandam migrant colony and conduct religious programmes for around 12 families in the colony. Since he was a respected person in the area, people had given him the liberty to visit the houses anytime he wanted even in the absence of elders. Taking advantage of this freedom, he betrayed the trust and misused his position of a pastor by sexually abusing two girls and then threatening them with dire consequences if the matter was revealed to anyone.

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INDIANA
WBIW

Updated February 9, 2015

(WASHINGTON) – A Washington man was arrested after he allegedly abused a boy for six years.
55-year-old Armando Bruno-Morales on three felony counts of child molesting.

According to a probable cause affidavit, police began investigating the allegations after the victim contacted police. Police say there is only one victim.

The victim says the abuse began in 1008 when he was 8-years-old. The victim told police Bruno was a pastor at the Hispanic Church on West Main Street where the family attended. Bruno also had lived with the family briefly and later stayed overnight as a guest. It was during that time the alleged sexual assaults happened.

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SOUTH AFRICA
Jacaranda FM

09 February 2015 at 09:44 by Sapa – A German court has sentenced paedophile and former Randburg priest Georg Kerkhoff to six years in jail for more than 20 cases of sexual abuse of children, The New Age reported on Monday.

Kerkhoff, 56, was sentenced by the Krefeld district court on Friday.

He was found guilty of eight cases of sexual abuse of children under his protection, 13 cases of sexual abuse of children and four cases of severe sexual abuse of children, the newspaper reported.

The 56-year-old reportedly committed the crimes in Krefeld and Nettetal, Germany, from 2001 to 2006.

The Saturday Star reported in January that Kerkhoff used alcohol, drugs, sex toys and a parish sauna while molesting boys in Germany. When the allegations surfaced, the Catholic diocese in Germany sent him to South Africa, where he was later accused of abusing five children at a First Communion camp in Brits, in 2008.

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SOUTH AFRICA
The New Age

Itumeleng Mafisa

The South African families of the victims of paedophile priest Georg Kerkhoff, 56, are preparing to seek compensation from the church after he was sentenced to six years imprisonment for sexual offences against children by a German court.

The Krefeld district court sentenced the former Randburg priest on Friday to six years in prison for eight cases of sexual abuse of children under his protection, 13 cases of sexual abuse of children and four cases of severe sexual abuse of children.

His conviction and sentencing came after he was extradited from South Africa where he faced similar charges, to face more than 20 charges in Germany his home country.

The father of a Johannesburg teenager, who claims he was abused by Kerkhoff during a church camp in 2008, said a German children’s rights group was representing some of the victims, including his son, to get compensation from the Catholic Church.

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MALTA
Malta Today

Tim Diacono 9 February 2015

Fr Charles Fenech, the Dominican friar charged with sexually assaulting a mentally unstable patient, is soliciting people for adverts in the February issue of a religious magazine.

The magazine in question, Xandar il-Kelma, is published by the Maltese Dominican Province. An e-mail written by Fenech and seen by MaltaToday reads: “I am forwarding to you this attachment for advertising in a special edition of XK Magazine, Malta’s No 1 religious magazine distributed in households. Can you please help us by confirming an advert. Thanks, Fr. Charles Fenech OP.”

The attachment is a poster of Pope Francis, with the words Xandar il-Kelma: The No. 1 Religious Magazine in Malta: 70,000 copies’ superimposed over it.

The poster includes the advertising rates and a message from Fenech, editor-in-chief of the magazine.

“Outside Western Europe, a lot of people still believe in God,” Fenech’s message reads. “Here, we tend to regard religion as passé – something they did centuries ago, when unenlightened Europeans took the advice of burning bushes. But out beyond the EU, millions of people stubbornly continue to put their faith in the Almighty. The West may enjoy comparative power and wealth, but our attachment to secular liberalism is a minority opinion”.

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CALIFORNIA
ABC News

SAN FRANCISCO — Feb 6, 2015

By LISA LEFF Associated Press

About 100 people attended a vigil outside the Roman Catholic cathedral in San Francisco on Friday to protest the local archbishop’s move to require teachers at four Catholic high schools to lead their public lives inside the classroom and out in accordance with church teachings on homosexuality, birth control and other hot-button issues.

The protest, which also included songs and prayers, came as Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone was holding mass for teachers from parochial schools throughout the three-county Archdiocese of San Francisco and then meeting with high school teachers to answer questions about changes he wants to make to their faculty handbook and employment contract.

“I chose to send my children to Catholic schools because I wanted their education to be grounded in love, compassion, and a strong sense of social justice,” said Peggy O’Grady, a parent at Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory in San Francisco. “This effort by the archbishop will do the opposite, and would run counter to all I believe and value in a Catholic education.”

Cordileone this week presented teachers at the four high schools owned by the archdiocese with a detailed statement of faith affirming that Catholic school employees “are expected to arrange and conduct their lives so as not to visibly contradict, undermine or deny” church doctrine on matters related to sexuality, marriage and human reproduction.

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UNITED STATES
Waiting for Godot to Leave

Kevin O’Brien

It was one of the worst Masses I’ve ever attended. It was almost sacrilegious.

To begin with, the tabernacle was off to the side, and in front of it were the backs of several chairs; for the focus on this church is not Jesus, but the priest. The priest, who looked resplendent in his green gown, was clearly on stage, clearly performing. He would joke with the deacon and the altar boys. While preparing for the Eucharist, for example (during the “hymn for preparation”), he was ribbing an altar boy, who was carrying a paten, making the kid smile broadly and laugh, and making me sick to my stomach.

When I got there, before the Mass began, I knelt on the floor to pray (for the pews had no kneelers). The church was packed with middle-aged to elderly people who were all talking very loudly to one another, all at once. A giddy carnival atmosphere prevailed. It was a party without the little cocktail wieners – right there, in a Catholic church, in front of the hidden (but present) Blessed Sacrament. People were laughing and talking at the top of their lungs and I was tempted to stand up and shout in my loudest voice, CAN’T YOU PEOPLE SHUT UP?

Then the band started. The band consisted of a woman singing very loudly in a stylistic cross between Broadway show tunes and full-fledged opera, with a very cultivated (and ridiculous) vibrato that she apparently thought made her sound sincere. The instrument that dominated was a cheesy 1970’s electric organ played in a very schmaltzy and annoying manner, with the volume turned up to 11. The band was right beside the altar, very much a part of the show. …

Meanwhile, a blogger on the internet is busy analyzing a case of sexual abuse and institutional failure in the Episcopalian community.

Joelle Casteix at the Worth Adversary writes (my emphasis) …

In 2003, Headmaster Nick Stoneman had a choice.

His drama teacher had been found with child pornography on a school computer. This same teacher—Lynn Seibel—had admitted to being complicit in “Naked Dance Parties” with male students in school bathrooms. Seibel was also rumored to have conducted a special AP (Advanced Placement) class in penis enlargement. What is the headmaster of one of the nation’s most elite boarding / day schools to do?

Shattuck-St. Mary’s (SSM) in Faribault, Minnesota is considered a “feeder school” for the National Hockey league. Their alumni list is a “who’s who” of the professional sport. Tuition is $29,000 a year for the day students and $43,000 for students who live at the school. There’s a lot at stake. Plus, Stoneman had no idea how many students had been “peeked at,” groomed, or molested by Seibel. He also had no idea if Seibel had created pornographic images of any of SSM’s students. …

What’s the connection between these two stories, the annoying Mass I went to on Saturday and the scandal at the Minnesota prep school?

I think there are several connections.

* When an institution does not do what it is supposed to do, it can easily get hijacked by scoundrels who use it for their own selfish purposes, whether those purposes include molesting young people, creating a personality cult, making money, etc.

* Lay Catholics have become, for the most part, “sheep without a shepherd”. While our popes have been preaching with courage and vigor, our bishops have in effect abdicated, and many of our pastors are feeding upon the flock instead of guarding it. In this way we are similar to adolescents. Teen aged boys at a boarding school can either be trained, and their energies channeled, so that they learn and are well formed and begin to mature, or they can be seduced into “naked dance parties” in the bathroom with their drama teacher. In the same way, adult parishioners can either be taught to be respectful and to be in awe of a God that they should take seriously, partaking of a Faith they should mature in, or they can be allowed to become chatty and petty and self-centered and shallow, growing queer over a man in glowing green vestments that, if he were not a priest, they shouldn’t even consider buying a used car from. Human nature cuts both ways, and people are shaped into the molds their shapers mold for them in. Allow naked dance parties in the bathroom at your boarding school, and you will get them. Allow the Mass to become a contrived and frivolous show, and you’ll get it.

* But these things don’t arise merely if they’re simply allowed or tolerated. Naked dance parties with your teachers don’t spring up on their own, and suburban parishes do not automatically slide toward the kind of garish and gaudy circle-jerk sessions that I saw on Saturday. Yes, these things will happen if you allow them to happen, and if you don’t take pains to prevent them or correct them – but they typically happen after a long process of grooming. Things get this bad deliberately, when bad people in positions of authority seduce and lead astray. I would suspect it took the drama teacher at Shattuck-St. Mary’s a long time to get his victims to a point where they would get naked for him in the bathroom. He must have put a lot of effort and manipulative skill into that. Grooming is not easy! And the kind of show the priest I saw on Saturday presided over, a show centered on him and his need for attention and adoration – this is something these parishioners likewise had to be groomed for, over the long haul. And so, while there’s always a tendency for these abuses to happen, there’s always some sort of abuser taking an active role to make them happen.

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FRANCE
Society of Saint Pius X

[VIDEO. Vatican : ce cardinal qui entend “résister” face au pape François.

Pour la première fois, le cardinal américain ultraconservateur Raymond Burke s’exprime devant une caméra. À la tête d’une fronde contre le pape François, ce fidèle de Benoît XVI résistera si l’évêque de Rome persistait dans sa voie d’ouverture. Une exclusivité de “13h15 le dimanche”. – France TV Info]

Some frank answers from Cardinal Burke during a French TV interview that will be broadcasted on Sunday, February 8th.

We present here some extracts of Cardinal Raymond Burke’s comments given during an interview conducted by Lionel Feuerstein, Karine Comazzi, Patrice Brugeres, Nicolas Berthelos and Claire Aubinais for the “13H15 le dimanche” episode of French Television channel, France2.

The complete interview will be broadcasted on Sunday, February 8 on FranceTV.info.

Cardinal Burke: I cannot accept that Communion can be given to a person in an irregular union because it is adultery. On the question of people of the same sex, this has nothing to do with marriage. This is an affliction suffered by some people whereby they are attracted against nature sexually to people of the same sex.

Question: If perchance the pope will persist in this direction, what will you do?
Cardinal Burke: I shall resist, I can do nothing else. There is no doubt that it is a difficult time; this is clear, this is clear.

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CANADA
Journal de Montreal

JOSÉE HAMELIN
Dimanche, 8 février 2015
MISE à JOUR Dimanche, 8 février 2015

SAINT-HYACINTHE | Un ancien frère mariste accusé d’attentat à la pudeur sur cinq garçons clame son innocence dans une entrevue exclusive accordée en attendant son procès.

Réjean Trudel, 71 ans, était le directeur adjoint du Patro Lokal, un centre d’hébergement dirigé par la communauté religieuse, qui accueillait des garçons de 12 à 17 ans ayant des problèmes familiaux.

Les présumées agressions se seraient produites de 1976 à 1982. Il a été arrêté en novembre après que cinq anciens pensionnaires eurent porté plainte contre lui pour des crimes sexuels.

Selon la requête visant à déposer un recours collectif contre les Frères maristes, il y aurait eu des caresses intimes, de la masturbation et de la fellation.

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CANADA
Toronto Sun

JOSEE HAMELIN, QMI AGENCY

FIRST POSTED: SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 08, 2015

SAINT-HYACINTHE, Que. – A former priest accused of forcibly fondling and engaging in oral sex with several boys between 1976 and 1982 says he did nothing wrong.

Rejean Trudel, 71, was a deputy director of Patro Lokal, a shelter for 12- to 17-year-old boys with family problems in Saint-Hyacinthe, a Quebec town about 60 km east of Montreal.

The shelter was run by the Marist Brothers, an offshoot of the Catholic Church dedicated to education. He was arrested in November after five former residents of the shelter filed complaints.

Now, he’s come forward to deny any wrongdoing.

“The young people in our care were like our own children,” he said.

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CALIFORNIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Statement by Joelle Casteix of Newport Beach, SNAP Western Regional Director, jcasteix@gmail.com, (949) 322-7434 cell

We were saddened to hear of the harm caused by Los Angeles priest, Fr. Nicholas Assi, who has been accused of “inappropriate conduct” by an adult woman at American Martyrs Parish in Manhattan Beach. We applaud this brave woman for reporting to law enforcement, because we understand how difficult it is to report abuse to the police.

We believe that the Archdiocese of Los Angeles is minimizing what happened by calling the alleged incident “inappropriate conduct.” We also hope that the Archdiocese will vigorously search for anyone who may have seen or suspected abuse by any cleric, including Fr. Assi.

————————————————-

From the parish bulletin of American Martyrs Church

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has given us the following statement to place in our bulletin:
Father Nicholas Assi served as an Associate Pastor from 2008 to 2014 at American Martyrs Catholic Church in Manhattan Beach. An accusation involving an adult was brought against him in 2014 and an investigation was initiated. Father Assi was placed on administrative leave pending the investigation of this matter. The investigation has been concluded and Father will be returning to ministry with an assignment at St. Basil’s parish as a priest in good standing. We are sorry for the painful experience of this matter and we ask you to keep all impacted in prayer.

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UNITED STATES
PopeCrimes& Vatican Evils.

Paris Arrow

The Migrante International is one of the largest Philippine groups that keep protesting American Imperialism and its power over the Philippine’s President BS Aquino and its corrupt government and they wrote an open letter to Pope Francis asking him, “Pope of the Poor, Fight for Us”. Below is its open letter proving how stupid and idiotic Filipinos are to believe in Pope Francis who is the very same Pope – who colludes with American imperialists – therefore he is the Pope of the Rich who oppresses the Filipino people. Migrante International should have used the visit of Pope Francis to protest US Imperialism and Vatican Imperialism – after all the Philippines (was under Spaniard and the Vatican Catholic Church oppression for over 400 years) and today the Philippines continue to be controlled by the Vatican Catholic Church and the Vatican Swiss Banks continue to hoard American and European Imperialists’ loot,the late President Marcos’ loot and President Aquino’s loot from the Philippine treasury, read our related article, Hidden Heist in the Holy See.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Sunday, Feb. 8

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 )

In suspending yet another credibly accused predator priest, Boston’s Cardinal O’Malley refuses to take two key steps. We’re appalled by his unwillingness to act responsibly about the child sex allegations against Fr. Thomas P. Gillespie.

[Boston archdiocese]

First, O’Malley refuses to urge anyone with information or suspicions about Fr. Gillespie to call police immediately. Instead, in his statement today, O’Malley does what hundreds of bishops have done for decades: he asks victims to call church officials, not law enforcement officials. He’s dead wrong. This is extraordinarily irresponsible. This is precisely the approach that has enabled more than 6,300 US priests to become proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesters and hurt more than 100,000 boys and girls.

Second, O’Malley refuses to say how long he and his staff have taken to suspend Fr. Gillespie. All O’Malley will say is that the abuse report was made “recently.” That could mean nine months, nine weeks or nine days ago. This is crucial information. O’Malley has repeatedly promised “openness and transparency” in pedophile priest cases, and citizens and Catholics deserve to know whether he acts quickly or slowly when kids are at risk.

More than any prelate on the planet, O’Malley claims he’s a ‘reformer’ on abuse. He’s the pope’s top advisor on the crisis. And he’s had tons of experience with the scandal. So if any Catholic official anywhere ought to get it right, it’s him. But his refusal to take these two simple steps shows just how recalcitrant the Catholic hierarchy’s most veteran abuse “fixer” is. And it shows that even now, one of the most powerful Catholic official on earth still tries to handle child sex abuse reports “in house” instead of getting those reports promptly into the hands of the independent professionals in law enforcement.

O’Malley should visit every parish where Fr. Gillispie ever worked, imploring anyone with information or suspicions about the predator priest to call law enforcement.

O’Malley can and should use pulpit announcements, church bulletins and parish websites to beg anyone who may have seen, suspected or suffered Fr. Gillespie’s crimes to call police. He should send mailings to former church members and staff who may have spent time around Fr. Gillespie, urging them to do the same. He should get out from behind his desk, shove his public relations staff aside, and personally hold a news conference pleading with parishioners and the public to step forward if they might, in any way, be able to help police and prosecutors file charges against this cleric.

In short, O’Malley should stop acting like a cold-hearted CEO and start acting more like a compassionate shepherd.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Zeit Online

Zurück nach Limburg darf er nicht mehr, jetzt arbeitet Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst in Rom. Der 55-Jährige hat ein Amt als Sekretär im Vatikan übernommen – neun Monate, nachdem er als Limburger Bischof abberufen wurde. Laut Medienberichten wurde Tebartz bereits im Dezember zum Delegaten im Päpstlichen Rat für die Neuevangelisierung ernannt.

Nach einem Skandal um die extrem hohen Kosten seines neuen Amtssitzes im Limburg hatte Tebartz im März vergangenen Jahres sein Amt verloren. Eine bischöfliche Prüfungskommission kam zu dem Ergebnis, dass er kirchliche Vorschriften umgangen und die Baukosten in die Höhe getrieben hatte. Die Staatsanwaltschaft in Limburg ermittelte nicht gegen den ehemaligen Bischof wegen Untreue.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

[A Catholic news agency learned on Saturday from a reliable source that Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz van Elst, also known as the “Bling Bishop”, has been appointed a delegate to the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization at the Vatican. The appointment letter was signed by Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin and was transmitted by Archbishop Nicola Eterovic, the pope’s ambassador to Germany.]

Der frühere Limburger Bischof Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst hat eine neue Aufgabe in Rom erhalten. Wie die Katholische Nachrichten-Agentur am Samstag aus sicherer Quelle im Vatikan erfuhr, wurde Tebartz-van Elst im Dezember 2014 zum Delegaten im Päpstlichen Rat für die Neuevangelisierung ernannt. Das Ernennungsschreiben wurde von Kardinalstaatssekretär Pietro Parolin unterzeichnet und vom Papstbotschafter in Deutschland, Erzbischof Nicola Eterovic, übermittelt.

Tebartz-van Elst ist im Päpstlichen Rat für die Katechese zuständig und hat in dieser Funktion Ende Januar ein Referat gehalten. Ernennungen im Rang eines Delegaten werden im Vatikan traditionell nicht einzeln mitgeteilt. In der in wenigen Wochen erscheinenden Neuauflage des Päpstlichen Jahrbuchs wird der Name Tebartz-van Elst in seiner neuen Funktion aufgeführt sein.

Seit längerem wurde innerkirchlich und in Medien über eine Anschlussverwendung des Kirchenmanns spekuliert. Der Pastoraltheologe war nach dem Skandal um das Bauprojekt auf dem Limburger Domberg von seinem Amt als Diözesanbischof zurückgetreten und im September in eine Privatwohnung nach Regensburg gezogen.

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KANSAS
KCTV

[with video]

By Chris Oberholtz, Multimedia Producer
By Brix Fowler, Multimedia Journalist

OVERLAND PARK, KS (KCTV/AP) –

To spank or not to spank.

It is an issue parents have dealt with for years. But now those in favor of it have a powerful supporter after Pope Francis made his stance clear being in favor of spanking.

“Spanking is a very simple form of punishment,” said Laticia Vargas.

Vargas knows about abuse. She says her biological father used to beat her, but she believes what Pope Francis is talking about is not abuse.

“I have been hit in the face by my previous male influence, and it does a lot damage. It is humiliating and it causes a lot of problems with my self-esteem,” she said.

That is why her new father figure, Larry Reyes, refuses to spank her, but he has spanked two of his other children and says it’s effective.

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MASSACHUSETTS
WWLP

By Associated Press
Published: February 8, 2015

BOSTON (AP) — The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston has placed a Massachusetts priest on administrative leave after receiving an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor.

Rev. Thomas Gillespie is pastor of St. Theresa of Lisieux Parish in North Reading. The archdiocese said Sunday that the allegation concerns the priest’s conduct in the late 1970’s and was recently reported to the Archdiocese.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Fox Boston

BOSTON (MyFoxBoston.com) – The Archdiocese of Boston announced Sunday that it has placed a North Reading priest on administrative leave after receiving an allegation of sexual abuse.

The allegation concerns Rev. Thomas M. Gillespie, who is the pastor of St. Theresa of the Lisieux Parish.

The Archdiocese said in a press release issued Sunday that the alleged misconduct involves a minor and reportedly happened decades ago. It reportedly happened in the late 1970’s, but was just recently reported to the church.

The Archdiocese said it immediately notified law enforcement of the allegation and also has initiated its own investigation into the complaint.

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MASSACHUSETTS
CBS Boston

NORTH READING (CBS) — The Archdiocese of Boston announced Sunday that it had put a North Reading pastor on leave after receiving an allegation of sex abuse.

Rev. Thomas M. Gillespie, a pastor at St. Theresa of Lisieux Parish, is now on an administrative leave of absence after the Archdiocese said it received an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor.

The alleged abuse occurred in the late 1970s, but was only recently reported, according to the Archdiocese.

The Archdiocese said it notified law enforcement immediately and has started its own investigation into the allegation.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston

(Braintree, Mass.) February 8, 2015 – The Archdiocese of Boston today announced that it has placed Rev. Thomas M. Gillespie on administrative leave of absence as a result of receiving an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor. The allegation concerns conduct alleged to have occurred in the late 1970’s and was recently reported to the Archdiocese Fr. Gillespie is pastor of St. Theresa of Lisieux Parish in North Reading.

The Archdiocese immediately notified law enforcement of the allegation and has initiated a preliminary investigation into the complaint. Fr. Gillespie will remain on administrative leave without any public ministry pending the outcome of the preliminary investigation. The decision to place Fr. Gillespie on administrative leave represents the Archdiocese’s commitment to the welfare of all parties and does not represent a determination of Fr. Gillespie’s guilt or innocence as it pertains to this allegation. The Archdiocese will work to resolve this case as expeditiously as possible and in a manner that is fair to all parties.

Through its Office of Pastoral Support and Outreach, the Archdiocese continues to make counseling and other services available to survivors, their families and parishes impacted by clergy sexual abuse and by allegations of abuse by members of the clergy. Cardinal Seán encourages any person in need of pastoral assistance or support to contact the Archdiocese’s Office of Pastoral Support and Outreach by calling 617-746-5985.

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MASSACHUSETTS
WCVB

NORTH READING, Mass. —A North Reading pastor has been put on administrative leave following accusations of sexual abuse of a minor.

Rev. Thomas M. Gillespie, pastor of St. Theresa of Lisieux Parish, was placed on leave after the Archdiocese of Boston was recently made aware of an allegation against Gillespie of sexual abuse of a minor in the late 1970s, according to a statement from the Archdiocese of Boston.

The Archdiocese notified law enforcement of the allegation and has initiated a preliminary investigation into the complaint, according to the statement.

Gillespie will remain on administrative leave pending the outcome of the preliminary investigation, according to the Archdiocese of Boston.

“The decision to place Fr. Gillespie on administrative leave represents the Archdiocese’s commitment to the welfare of all parties and does not represent a determination of Fr. Gillespie’s guilt or innocence as it pertains to this allegation,” the Archdiocese of Boston said in the statement.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

North Reading pastor placed on administrative leave following allegation of abusing a minor

By Jacqueline Tempera
GLOBE CORRESPONDENT FEBRUARY 08, 2015

A North Reading priest was placed on administrative leave after allegations surfaced that he sexually abused a minor in the late 1970s, the Archdiocese of Boston disclosed Sunday.

The Rev. Thomas M. Gillespie, pastor of St. Theresa of Lisieux Parish in North Reading, was placed on leave until further notice, spokesman Terrence Donilon said in a statement.

When the Archdiocese received a complaint about Gillespie, church officials immediately notified police who launched an investigation, Donilon said.

Gillespie will remain on leave without public ministry, meaning he can not perform public masses, pending the outcome of that investigation.

“The decision to place Fr. Gillespie on administrative leave represents the Archdiocese’s commitment to the welfare of all parties, and does not represent a determination of Fr. Gillespie’s guilt or innocence as it pertains to this allegation,” Donilon wrote in the statement.

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MINNESOTA
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on February 8, 2015

In 2003, Headmaster Nick Stoneman had a choice.

His drama teacher had been found with child pornography on a school computer. This same teacher—Lynn Seibel—had admitted to being complicit in “Naked Dace Parties” with male students in school bathrooms.

Seibel was also rumored to have conducted a special AP (Advanced Placement) class in penis enlargement. What is the headmaster of one of the nation’s most elite boarding/day schools to do? Shattuck-St. Mary’s (SSM) in Faribault, Minnesota is considered a “feeder school” for the National Hockey league.

Their alumni list is a “who’s who” of the professional sport. Tuition is $29,000 a year for the day students and $43,000 for students who live at the school. There’s a lot at stake. Plus, Stoneman had no idea how many students had been “peeked at,” groomed, or molested by Seibel. He also had no idea if Seibel had created pornographic images of any of SSM’s students.

It gets worse.

There were other teachers at the school who had molested students. While we don’t know how much Stoneman knew in 2003, but by 2012, Seibel and another teacher, Joseph Machlitt, would be criminally charged for molesting SSM students. In 2008, a third, Leonard Jones, would kill himself after one of his victims confronted Jones about the sexual abuse.

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PHILIPPINES
Manila Standard Today

By Robert A. Evora | Feb. 09, 2015

SAN JOSE, Occidental Mindoro—Two Catholic priests belonging to the Apostolic Vicariate of San Jose were ordered arrested after failing to account allegedly for P670 million in church funds.

Detained since Friday are Father Ruben Villanueva, former director of Social Services Commission, and Fr. Rodrigo Salazar Jr., past director of the Vicarial Indigenous People’s Affairs Office (Vipaco).

Fr. Carlito Dimaano, the vicar-general of the San Jose diocese, filed the estafa case against them for the missing P674,800 cash.

Villanueva and Salazar yielded to authorities after Branch 46 Judge Jose Jacinto Jr. of the Regional Trial court issued an arrest warrant for estafa. Jacky LG Gaytano, vicariate finance staff, joined them in the charge sheet.

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MARYLAND
Baltimore Jewish Times

FEBRUARY 5, 2015 – טז שבט תשעה
BY HEATHER NORRIS

New details have emerged in the case of the Ohio rabbi accused of sexually abusing a Baltimore County girl.

Reached at the seminary from which Rabbi Frederick “Ephraim” Karp, who is being held at the Baltimore County Detention Center in Towson, graduated in 1998, Rabbi Yaakov Spivak, dean of the Ayshel Avraham Rabbinical Seminary in Spring Valley, N.Y., said that Karp “was a very fine young man.”

“He was very dedicated to rabbinical work,” said Spivak, adding that Karp had a close group of friends at the school and took his studies seriously.

Though Spivak is a graduate of Loyola College and Ner Yisrael Yeshiva in Baltimore, the rabbi said he was unsure of what connection Karp had to the Jewish community in the area. Karp’s wife is a graduate of the University of Maryland and he has an aunt in Gaithersburg.

Karp made his first appearance in Baltimore County court last Thursday for a hearing at which a judge reduced his bail from $5 million to $500,000 and forbid him from any contact with his accusers, witnesses or children under the age of 18.

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MARYLAND
The Jewish Daily Forward

New details have reportedly emerged in the case of an Ohio rabbi accused of sexually abusing a Jewish Baltimore girl.

Although his seminary rabbi called Rabbi Frederick Karp a “very fine young man,” the Baltimore Jewish Times reports he is accused of molesting a girl who is now 12 for five years — and her sisters as well.

Karp, 50, who lives in suburban Cleveland resident and is a chaplain at the Menorah Park Center for Senior Living in Beachwood, Ohio, was extradited to Maryland on Jan. 28 from New York City, where he was arrested Jan. 15 as he awaited a flight to Israel.

Karp remains behind bars on $500,000 bail.

State prosecutor Lisa Dever, who heads the Baltimore County State’s Attorney’s sex offense and child abuse division, said the alleged victim came into contact with Karp through a close relationship between the rabbi and her family, the paper reported.

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SOUTH AFRICA/GERMANY
IOL

February 8 2015
By Staff Reporter

AFP

Dussledorf – German Catholic priest Georg Kerkhoff, who is alleged to have been inolved in paedophilia in South Africa, has been sentenced in Germany to six years in jail on 25 counts of sexually abusing boys.

Judge Herbert Luczak, sitting in the Krefeld district court near Dusseldorf, gave Kerkhoff, 56, a harsher sentence than the five and a half years that the prosecutor had sought.

Kerkhoff’s victims in his parishes in the Lower Rhine included his godson, whom he sexually molested for five years from 2001, when the boy was 11.

The charges included aggravated sexual abuse, child abuse and abuse of wards.

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VATIKAN
kath.net

Fast alle Bischofskonferenzen weltweit haben Richtlinien zum Umgang mit Missbrauchsfällen erarbeitet – Britisches Missbrauchsopfer Saunders: Kirche muss im Umgang mit pflichtvergessenen Bischöfen “einen besseren Job machen” – Kein Platz fü

Vatikanstadt (kath.net/KAP) Die päpstliche Kinderschutzkommission drängt auf schärfere Konsequenzen für Bischöfe, die sexuellen Missbrauch in ihren Diözesen nicht hart genug ahnden. “Das muss Folgen haben”, sagte der Leiter des Gremiums, der Bostoner Kardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley, am Samstag im Vatikan. Die Kommission könne zwar keine konkreten Vorschläge machen, doch die Frage nach dem Umgang mit Bischöfen, die ihrer Pflicht nicht nachkämen, sei ein wichtiger Punkt. Das von Papst Franziskus eingerichtete Gremium aus Laien und Geistlichen tagt seit Freitag bis Sonntag im Vatikan. Es soll Vorschläge und Initiativen für einen wirksameren Kampf gegen sexuellen Missbrauch von Minderjährigen im kirchlichen Raum entwickeln.

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VATIKAN
Katholisch

Die päpstliche Kinderschutzkommission drängt auf schärfere Konsequenzen für Bischöfe, die sexuellen Missbrauch in ihren Diözesen nicht hart genug ahnden. “Das muss Folgen haben”, sagte der Leiter des Gremiums, der Bostoner Kardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley, am Samstag im Vatikan. Die Kommission könne zwar keine konkreten Vorschläge machen, doch die Frage nach dem Umgang mit Bischöfen, die ihrer Pflicht nicht nachkämen, sei ein wichtiger Punkt.

Das von Papst Franziskus eingerichtete Gremium aus Laien und Geistlichen tagt seit Freitag bis Sonntag im Vatikan. Es soll Vorschläge und Initiativen für einen wirksameren Kampf gegen sexuellen Missbrauch von Minderjährigen im kirchlichen Raum entwickeln.

Das britische Missbrauchsopfer und Kommissionsmitglied Peter Saunders erklärte, die Kirche müsse im Umgang mit pflichtvergessenen Bischöfen “einen besseren Job machen”. Er wünsche sich auch eine intensivere Debatte über die Motive von Missbrauchstätern. Das Etikett “pädophil” reiche zur Erklärung nicht aus. Seines Erachtens spielen der Zölibat und die Einsamkeit von Priestern eine Rolle. Saunders war als Jugendlicher von einem Priester seiner Schule missbraucht worden.

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VATICAN CITY
Newstalk (Ireland)

Richard Chambers

The Vatican has moved to clarify remarks from the Pope about smacking, saying the Pontiff was not encouraging parents to hit their children.

Last week, Pope Francis praised a father he met who said he hit his children if they behaved badly – but never in the face so as not to humiliate them.

A spokesperson for the Holy See says the Pope was speaking about “correcting without humiliating” with love and respect for dignity.

Fr Federico Lombardi said: “I wish to only point out that the Pope was speaking about the responsibility of parents to “correct without humiliating”, or rather, to assume the responsibility of keeping their children on the right track and to help them grow up well”.

“Finding the right way to “correct without humiliating” is part of the responsibility of good parents in a variety of situations”.

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MALTA
Malta Independent

Rachel Attard
Sunday, 8 February 2015

An archpriest has been accused of slightly injuring a woman after he punched her in church.

The archpriest has also been charged with breaching the peace.

The vice-archpriest of the same community, who witnessed the incident, has also been charged with breaching the peace and insulting the woman with the utterance: “itilqu lill-Arċipriet, m’hawnx qassis li ma tisfrattaħx u ma tistax tara qassis…” (Leave the archpriest alone, you cannot set eyes on a single priest without leading him astray).

The woman has, in turn, been charged with harassing the archpriest himself.

She first got to know him a few months before the incident, which took place on 8 November, the woman’s birthday. She had turned to him for spiritual guidance following a bad break-up and started attending mass daily at the parish church.

The woman was eventually asked by the archpriest to start giving catechism lessons to children at the parish.

But later, the two had a falling out and when the woman sought an explanation for his distinct change in attitude toward her, the archpriest became angry and allegedly punched her. The incident was witnessed by the vice-archpriest who, according to the criminal complaint filed, had also insulted the woman.

The victim immediately filed a police report at the locality’s police station and was examined at a polyclinic, where she was certified to have suffered slight injuries to one of her shoulders and her neck.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

* Pope Francis, a reportedly very hands on manager, apparently selected the members of his advisory sex abuse commission to deal, slowly it seems, with his biggest challenge, the scandal of sexual predatory priests and their unaccountable bishop accomplices.

* The pope has been facing for some time building governmental pressure in Australia. He now faces it in the UK as well (as reported here, [Mirror] and here, [BBC News]), and will probably face it in the USA soon enough. Francis selected two well respected priest abuse survivors, Ireland’s Marie Collins and the UK’s Peter Saunders, as commission members. After their initial commission meeting recently, these two survivors both reportedly stated that, in their view, the Vatican has a year or two at most to implement child protection policies with teeth, otherwise they will leave, that is, they would resign from the commission.

* Why wait, Marie Collins and Peter Saunders? They should consider seriously resigning now. Their empty public resignation threats after two years clearly suggest they have seen enough already. They must have serious reservations about the commission, which has done so little now after two years into Pope Francis’ papacy. Francis and his commission staff have generally stalled for two years until now, intentionally, it seems. They now will have two more years to “study” — likely then a full four years to change nothing of substance. Meanwhile, Pope Francis continues to honor disgraced Cardinals, including Law, Rigali and Danneels, who have poor records on dealing with priest sexual abuse. Have Marie Collins and Peter Saunders failed to notice this?

* Marie Collins had already waited a year, after her initial commission appointment more than a year ago, for the first full commission meeting. Peter Saunders has acknowledged the advocacy leadership of the international abuse survivor group, SNAP, and knows that SNAP’s leader had serious reservations about the pope’s commission even befor the poor commission start. Both Marie Collins and Peter Saunders must know well what a really independent commission looks like, having seen several in Ireland and watched close up the recent struggle to establish the new independent UK commission. They both must also be well aware by now that the Vatican’s commission is far from independent, which is essential for an effective commission.

* Pope Francis will probably retire in two years at 80 years old, having by then the all important 2016 US presidential elections behind him. His biggest fear, as best I can tell, has to be if either President Obama or, after 2016, another Democratic US President, Hillary Clinton, were to set up an Australian type institutional child sex abuse commission in the USA. Please see “Catholic Right Still Tied to Big-Money Republicans“, here, [Church and State]. Pope Francis’ new “go slow study commission” now gives him considerable ‘cover’ until after these very important US elections, with his likely hoped for new “allies”, Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz.

* The pope’s commission staff, presumably under disgraced Boston Cardinal Law’s former canon lawyer, Fr. Robert Oliver, has reportedly split up the sex abuse commission’s subject matter assignments, which permits the staff to “cherrypick” assignments and assign “study group members”, etc. Incidentally, it is unlikely that Marie Collins, then a commission member, had any real say on Fr. Oliver’s appointment. The commission reportedly will now meet as a group only four times in the next two years, it appears. That is clearly inadequate to get real results, sooner rather than later, in my view in light of my extensive professional experience.

* I am confident that both Marie Collins and Peter Saunders, very brave survivors, are trying their best, but from my professional perspective, they both seem to be being exploited. They would have more impact, it appears to me, if they resigned now. They are giving the commission by their presence a legitimacy the commission has not earned on its merits, and likely as currently structured never will earn. This can have serious negative repercussions for other abuse survivors worldwide, including quite desperate ones in bankrupt USA dioceses, especially Milwaukee and Minneapolis. Hopefully, other survivors are giving Marie Collins and Peter Saunders their input directly. A lot is at stake for all of them with this commission.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: JEAN HOPFENSPERGER , Star Tribune Updated: February 7, 2015

Insurance companies have paid up to 85 percent of abuse settlements nationally. They’re the invisible, powerful players.

The $45 million listed as assets by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis does not count a critical but invisible “asset” still being determined — the value of its insurance.

Dusty policies stored in church archives and basements have played a huge role in clergy abuse settlements nationally. Insurance covered two-thirds of the $75 million archdiocese bankruptcy settlement in Portland, Ore., for example, and $19 million of the $37 million bankruptcy settlement in Davenport, Iowa.

With the stakes so high, coverage also is fiercely contested, as evidenced by the archdiocese’s lawsuit against 20-some insurers to try to force them to cover their liabilities for clergy abuse claims.

As the archdiocese and its creditors enter their third week of bankruptcy court mediation, attorneys for the insurance companies are the biggest group entering the doors of the federal courthouse in Minneapolis.

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CALIFORNIA
Fox 40

[with video]

FEBRUARY 7, 2015, BY RINA NAKANO

SACRAMENTO-
A family representative of an alleged child sex abuse victim spoke exclusively to FOX40, after the alleged abuser appeared in Sacramento County Court earlier this week.

Kareem Abdul Mitchell, 42, is the minister of music for the New Testament Baptist Church Choir in North Highlands. He is accused of sodomy, oral copulation, and other sex acts on a then 16-year-old boy between 2005 and 2008.

A woman who said she is representing the victim’s family told us Mitchell allegedly has a “type.”

“They are usually good looking African American children, males, and usually there is not a father present in the home, and those were the type of kids he targeted,” the woman said.

She said the victim’s father had passed away at an early age, and he sought after a father figure.

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AUSTRALIA
J-Wire

February 8, 2015 by J-Wire Staff

Rabbi James Kennard, principal of Mount Scopus Memorial College in Melbourne has issued a statement on the current hearing at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse….declaring “sentiments without action are not enough”.

Rabbi Kennard has called for resignations and change…”already long overdue”.

His full statement:

“In October 2013 I resigned from the Executive of the Rabbinical Council of Victoria (RCV) and subsequently from the Council itself. At the time I made no comment on my action, since any publicity would have served no purpose.

But that is no longer the case.

As the orthodox community is being engulfed in the terrible chilul Hashem (desecration of G-d’s name) that is revealed each day at the Royal Commission; as the media coverage has made “rabbi” a mark of shame and “orthodox Jew” a byword for the cover-up of child abuse, it is time to speak out.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

February 8, 2015

Steve Lillebuen

The head of Victoria’s largest Jewish school has criticised ultra-Orthodox leaders who remained silent over child sex abuse allegations, saying only their resignations and a new watchdog for rabbis can restore faith in the community.

Rabbi James Kennard, principal of Mount Scopus Memorial College, said the royal commission on child sex abuse had revealed painful and horrific details about Yeshivah Melbourne and the organisation’s Sydney chapter.

Those who were in charge when historical abuse claims were made must be removed from leadership positions, or the community would never be able to move on, he said.

“The resignations that are required need not be an acceptance of personal responsibility, but an acknowledgement that if abuse, or a failure to deal properly with abusers, took place on an individual’s ‘watch’ then it is honourable and right for such an individual to step down,” he said on Sunday.

The royal commission has been examining Yeshivah Melbourne and Yeshiva Bondi’s response to abuse allegations against former employees Daniel Hayman, David Kramer and David Cyprys, who was convicted of sexually abusing children.

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VATICAN CITY
euronews

A member of Pope Francis’ newly-established sex abuse commission has sharply rebuked a remark made by the pontiff, which seemed to encourage smacking children, as long as their dignity is respected.

Commission member Peter Saunders was sexually abused by a priest as a teen. He said:
“He’s (Pope Francis) never had to raise children and he doesn’t know much about that. And again I think it’s a perfect illustration of why he’s asked the commission, which is a mixed bag of people – some of us parents, some of us not – to advice him on these matters.”

“I think that we need to talk to the pope about this issue, because there are millions of children around the world who are physically beaten on a daily basis. And, you know, it might start off as a light tap, (but) actually the whole idea of hitting children is about inflicting pain. That’s what it is about, and there is no place in this day and age for having physical punishment, inflicting pain in terms of how you discipline your children.”

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VATICAN CITY
Crux

By Inés San Martín
Vatican correspondent February 7, 2015

ROME — Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston, in his capacity as president of a papal commission on sexual abuse, has called on bishops around the world to meet with victims of clerical abuse and also has asked every bishops’ conference to designate a contact person to coordinate anti-abuse efforts.

Speaking in a Vatican briefing on Saturday, O’Malley said that meeting with victims was a life-changing experience for him and also an eye-opener on how little the Church had done on the issue by 1993, when he first encountered it.

O’Malley said “there have to be consequences” for bishops who don’t respond appropriately to reports of abuse, including procedures that allow these cases to be handled efficiently and not in an “open-ended way.”

Commission members also criticized Pope Francis’ remarks that it’s okay for parents to spank their children, saying there is no place for physical discipline. The panel plans to make recommendations to him about protecting kids from corporal punishment.

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VATICAN CITY
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

February 8, 2015

By Philip Pullella / Reuters

VATICAN CITY — A commission advising Pope Francis on how to root out sexual abuse of children by clergy in the Roman Catholic Church is studying sanctions for bishops suspected of cover-ups or of failing to prevent abuse, members said Saturday.

“There have to be consequences,” Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, the head of the commission, told a news conference.

Victims groups have been urging the Vatican for years to make bishops more accountable for abuse in their dioceses even if they were not directly responsible for it. …

However, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, which has long campaigned for bishops to be held accountable, called Cardinal O’Malley’s comments “insulting and deceptive” to victims and demanded immediate action.

“O’Malley knows that the church has plenty of ways, right now, to respond when bishops are complicit in clergy sex crimes and cover ups. The pope can oust them,” the U.S.-based group said in a statement.

Mr. Saunders also criticized Pope Francis on Saturday for appearing to endorse parents who spanked their children.

“Children don’t need to be hit. We need to talk about positive parenting … physical violence has no part in modern-day child upbringing,” Mr. Saunders said.

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VATICAN CITY
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor February 7, 2015

A new Vatican commission created to lead the charge for reform on the Catholic Church’s child sexual abuse scandals met this weekend in Rome, with a couple of members making headlines by protesting recent comments by Pope Francis on spanking.

In truth, however, it was a different gauntlet commission members threw down in front of the pontiff that’s likely to prove far more consequential.

The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors was created by Pope Francis in March 2014, and features Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston as president. It has 17 members from around the world, including two abuse survivors, and its mandate is to advise the pope and Church leaders around the world on best practices in anti-abuse efforts.

Two days before the group assembled in Rome, Pope Francis stirred controversy by casually opining during a Wednesday General Audience that it’s okay for parents to use corporal punishment as long as the “dignity” of their children is maintained.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

February 7, 2015 7:17 PM

By Torsten Ove / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The federal trial of a Johnstown-area priest accused of traveling to Honduras for sex with young boys has been pushed back from next month to September and is expected to last four weeks or longer.

U.S. District Judge Kim Gibson on Friday ordered the trial of Rev. Joseph Maurizio, 69, delayed until the fall trial term in Johnstown.

The trial had been scheduled for March 9 but both sides said they needed more time to prepare.

The judge said the trial is expected to last three or four weeks, and possibly take a fifth week, because many of the witnesses don’t speak English and will need an interpreter.

Rev. Maurizio remains jailed pending trial as a danger to the community and a risk to flee, especially considering his apparent wealth. Although he told a pre-trial services officer that his net worth was $107,000, the IRS Criminal Investigation Division found that it was really about $1 million.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian Jewish News

Rabbi James Kennard, principal of the largest Jewish school in Melbourne and former executive member of the Rabbinical Council of Victoria (RCV), has called on Rabbi Avrohom Glick to stand down from his senior position at the Yeshivah Centre.

Rabbi Glick was principal of Yeshivah in Melbourne when allegations of child sexual abuse were brought to the attention of rabbis, but not reported to police, in the 1980s.

He remains in a senior position at the Yeshivah Centre and has refused to step down but after a horrific week at the Royal Commission into the Institution Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Rabbi Kennard has had enough and is demanding action.

“While anyone who held a position of leadership in the Yeshivah community in the period when these terrible mistakes were made remains in such a position today, the community is not able to say that it has learnt and it has changed,” Rabbi Kennard said.

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UNITED STATES
Bridget Mary’s Blog

1. Hire women in leadership positions in the Vatican, dioceses and parishes. Set up fair labor practices and protection from firing for disagreeing with hierarchy. Make the goal 50% and give women decision-making power and job protection.

2. Hire top notch theologians, especially feminist theologians, who are critical of centuries of sexism in the church and invite all Catholic Universities to do so immediately.

3. Drop the excommunications against Roman Catholic Women Priests and our supporters and begin a dialogue on a renewed priestly ministry as a blessing to the church.

4. Return decision making power to local churches throughout the world, mandate 50% of parish councils, diocesan councils be women in all pastoral positions.

5. Recognize that women are fully capable as moral agents to make decisions about their bodies and relationships in light of their consciences. Drop the ban on artificial birth control.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Agency

By Elise Harris

Vatican City, Feb 7, 2015 / 12:47 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- One survivor of priestly sexual abuse says that despite a common perception that clerical celibacy can lead to sex abuse of minors, most perpetrators likely had issues before entering the seminary.

“People don’t enter the priesthood and become child abusers, I don’t think that’s the case. I think that they had serious issues before entering Holy Orders,” Peter Saunders told journalists in a Feb. 7 press briefing.

Although there are “far too many” clerics who have committed sexual abuse of minors, “the vast majority of priests and religious will never hurt a child. I think it’s important to acknowledge that.”

Saunders said that the term “pedophile” is overused, and that the priests who abused him, rather than having any illness, “were very lonely.”

One of the 17 members of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, Saunders spoke alongside the commission’s head, Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, giving journalists an update on the work they’re doing during their Feb. 6-8 meeting in Rome.

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VATICAN CITY
Los Angeles Times

By TOM KINGTON

A group of child abuse experts summoned by Pope Francis to help tackle priestly abuse in the Roman Catholic Church has criticized remarks made by the pope himself in which he suggested that it was permissible for parents to spank their wayward children.

Two members of the 17-strong commission, holding its first full meeting at the Vatican, said Saturday they objected to Francis’ comments, made last Wednesday, in which he backed corporal punishment.

Leading British anti-abuse campaigner Peter Saunders, abused by two Catholic priests as a child, said the committee would ask the pope to reconsider his remarks.

“It might start off as a light tap, but actually the whole idea about hitting children is about inflicting pain,” Saunders said at a news conference at the Vatican.

“That’s what it’s about and there is no place in this day and age for having physical punishment, for inflicting pain, in terms of how you discipline your children,” he said.

Fellow commission member Dr. Krysten Winter-Green, a New Zealand native who works in the U.S. with young abuse victims, said any physical punishment of children was unacceptable. “There has to be positive parenting, in a different way,” she was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.

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IOWA
Des Moines Register

William Petroski, bpetrosk@dmreg.com February 7, 2015

Victims in decades-old cases of alleged sexual abuse could bring new lawsuits under proposed legislation that church and school officials say could leave their organizations vulnerable to huge legal liabilities.

The bill would undoubtedly have its biggest effect on clergy abuse lawsuits involving the Catholic Church, which has paid out more than $2.5 billion in damages nationwide because of past incidents involving more than 16,500 victims allegedly abused by religious members.

The Iowa proposal, Senate File 107, is strongly supported by victim advocates, including the Iowa Coalition Against Sexual Assault, which says the crimes are often psychologically repressed for decades.

“This really becomes kind of a no-brainer when you look at it. It is putting first the children of Iowa and the children who have been victimized,” said an adult man only identified as “John,” who spoke before the Senate panel about his experience as a victim of child sexual abuse.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Bishops who do not comply with the child protection norms adopted by their bishops’ conferences and approved by the Vatican must face real consequences, said Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston, president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

The commission, he said, “is very, very concerned about this whole area of (bishops’) accountability” and has a working group drawing up recommendations for Pope Francis.

The proposed new norms, the cardinal told reporters at the Vatican Feb. 7, “would allow the church to respond in an expeditious way when a bishop has not fulfilled his obligations.”

“We think we have come up with some very practical recommendations that would help to remedy the situation that is such a source of anxiety to everybody” on the pontifical commission, he said. The recommendations will be presented to Pope Francis.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

The Pontifical Commission for Child Protection is holding its first meeting in the Vatican with all members present. Two former victims of sexual abuse by priests said that if pastors are not held accountable we’re leaving. A day of prayer and guidelines for Bishops’ Conferences are currently being considered

IACOPO SCARAMUZZI
VATICAN CITY

The Vatican Commission for Child Protection created by Pope Francis is holding its first meeting in the Vatican, with all members present. The Commission expressed its deep concern about the accountability of bishops, about whether they will admit responsibility before faithful, whether they will react with negligence in the face of paedophilia charges made against a priest in their diocese. The Commission’s members expressed this concern at a briefing in the Vatican, announcing that they are “working on policy recommendations for the Holy Father’s approval.” The two members of the Commission that were sexually abused by priests as children have stated that if things do not change over the next couple of years they will hand in their resignation.

The Child Protection Commission is “very, very concerned” about accountability of bishops and working on policy recommendations for the Holy Father’s approval, said the Commission’s president, the Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, one of the Pope’s nine cardinal advisors. The body has and will continue discussing procedures that can be introduced in cases where a bishop does not take accusations relating to the sexual abuse of children by a priest seriously: “There needs to be procedures that will allow these cases to be dealt with in an expeditious way, rather than just having things open-ended,” the cardinal said, “all members of the Commission are well aware of this”. Sister Kayula Gertrude Lesa from Zambia and Peter Saunders from England also gave statements during the briefing. Saunders, who was abused by a paedophile priest as a child, was received by the Pope last summer, but almost all members of the Commission were present in the newsroom. “If in a year or two there isn’t some firm action on those matters, then I don’t think I’ll be sitting here talking to you,” Saunders said. “I think it’s not disputed that there have been far too many cover ups, there have been far too many clergy protected, moved from place to place,” Saunders added, stressing the need for Church leaders to report those who are guilty to civil justice.

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CIUDAD DEL VATICANO
ABC

Dos días después de que el Papa indicase a los obispos de todo el mundo que estén atentos a las directrices de la nueva Comisión Pontificia de Protección de Menores, su presidente, el cardenal de Boston Sean O’Malley, anunció que la Comisión propondrá al Papa medidas de castigo a los obispos negligentes y tendrá un enlace en cada conferencia episcopal.

Los 17 miembros de la Comisión, formada por mujeres y hombres expertos en la materia, acudieron este sábado a una conferencia de prensa en el Vaticano para confirmar el empeño en convertirse en punto de referencia mundial en la prevención del abuso sexual de menores.

Junto al cardenal O’Malley, tomó la palabra Peter Saunders, de 57 años, víctima de abusos sexuales por sacerdotes en su colegio de Wimbledon y fundador de la NAPAC, que ayuda a superar los traumas. Les acompañaba la irlandesa Marie Collins, víctima de abusos del capellán del hospital en que estaba ingresada en Dublín.

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SCOTLAND
The Times

Michael Glackin
Published February 7 2015

A sharp fall in donations to the Catholic Church since the Cardinal O’Brien sex scandal broke has plunged its finances into crisis and will force it to close a number of parishes across Scotland.

The Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh, which encompasses an area from Perthshire to The Borders, has announced plans to reduce the number of its parishes by more than two thirds — from 109 to 30 – in an effort to tackle the collapse of funds.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Register

by Edward Pentin 02/07/2015

Pope Francis, in his approach to reforming the Roman Curia and the Church, is pursuing a “spiritual cleansing of the temple, at the same time both painful and liberating, so the glory of God can shine in the Church, the light of all mankind,” the Vatican’s doctrinal chief has said.

In an article in tomorrow’s L’Osservatore Romano, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, addresses the theological criteria for a reform of the Church and the Roman Curia, laying out what he believes should be the basis of the changes.

The publication of the piece is timed to coincide with a meeting from Monday to Wednesday next week of the C9 Council of Cardinals who are to evaluate progress on the reforms. Their conclusions are to be presented at a consistory of the College of Cardinals, scheduled for 12 and 13 February.

Cardinal Müller makes a point in the article of warning against worldliness in the Church. He argues that the Church receives “her true meaning not from social consensus” or through “political power” but through preaching salvation, especially “to the poor and those on the peripheries of life.”

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VATICAN CITY
RTE News

Marie Collins, the Irish victim of sexual abuse who advises Pope Francis on child protection, has joined a chorus of dissent following the pontiff’s endorsement of what he called “dignified” corporal punishment in the home.

However, the Vatican spokesman has issued a statement denying that the Pope encourages parents to hit their children.

Ms Collins has sharply criticised the Catholic Church here over its cover-up of her abuse by a priest while she was a patient in Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital in Crumlin.

She is in the Vatican for a meeting of the Commission for the Protection of Minors, to which Pope Francis appointed her shortly after his election in 2013.

Speaking at a news conference she disagreed with the Pope’s remarks at a public audience on Wednesday, praising a father he had met for respecting his children’s dignity by spanking them without striking them in the face.

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