ABUSE TRACKER

IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Liam Heylin

A 71-year-old priest who continued to say Mass within his religious community after serving three years for sexually abusing schoolboys was sentenced to another three years yesterday for more abuse that dates back more than 30 years.

Judge Donagh McDonagh imposed a total sentence of five years imprisonment on Tadgh Ó Dálaigh of Woodview, Mount Merrion Avenue, Blackrock, Dublin. The last two years of the sentence was suspended.

Judge McDonagh noted from reports prepared for the sentencing hearing at Cork Circuit Criminal court that Ó Dálaigh’s ministry as a priest was confined to celebrating Mass within the community house of his religious order, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, in Dublin.

The judge also acknowledged that Ó Dálaigh had taken active responsibility in managing his risk and adhering to a management plan in this regard which effectively monitored his every moment.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

REPORT OF CASE STUDY NO. 11: Congregation of Christian Brothers in Western Australia response to child sexual abuse at Castledare Junior Orphanage, St Vincent’s Orphanage Clontarf, St Mary’s Agricultural School Tardun and Bindoon Farm School

Executive summary

The Christian Brothers is a Catholic religious organisation.

The organisation is divided into areas known as provinces. Until 1953 there was one Australia wide province of the Christian Brothers. This was divided into two in 1953. In 1957 there was a further ivision into four provinces.

Each province was supervised by a Provincial Council. This supervision took the form of annual visits to communities by a member of the Provincial Council. A visitor would stay with the community for a number of days and would speak to and observe the Brothers in the community as well as others who were in contact with the community. The visiting member would then write a ‘visitation report’.

One of the four provinces that existed in Australia in 1957 was the Holy Spirit Province, based in Perth, which covered Western Australia and South Australia. The Holy Spirit Province was responsible for the four children’s homes in Western Australia:

 Castledare Junior Orphanage
 St Vincent’s Orphanage Clontarf
 St Mary’s Agricultural School Tardun
 Bindoon Farm School.

The four children’s homes operated from the late 1920s and closed down between the 1960s and 1980s.

The conditions at each home were basic. The food was often of a poor quality. The boys were given clothing but no shoes or underwear. The boys were involved in building work – for example, constructing a railway – and they also did landscaping and farm work.

 Finding 1: In taking children into care, the Christian Brothers were obligated to provide for them and educate them. This was not done properly in all cases. Many of the children did not have any real education and instead were put to physical labour.

 Finding 2: The visitation reports focused on the community of the Brothers and the finances and religious observance of each Brother, not on the welfare of the children. We agree with Brother Anthony Shanahan, a former Provincial of the Holy Spirit Province, that, although the Western Australian Child Welfare Department conducted inspections, the department had significantly less responsibility for the children than those within the institutions who were caring for the children on a daily basis.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

[the report]

Royal Commission releases findings on the responses of the Christian Brothers in Western Australia and the Catholic Diocese of Wollongong to child sexual abuse

19 December, 2014

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has published two reports; ‘Report of Case Study 11: Congregation of Christian Brothers in Western Australia response to child sexual abuse at Castledare Junior Orphanage, St Vincent’s Orphanage Clontarf, St Mary’s Agricultural School Tardun and Bindoon Farm School’ and ‘Report of Case Study 14: The response of the Catholic Diocese of Wollongong to allegations of child sexual abuse, and related criminal proceedings, against John Gerard Nestor, a priest of the Diocese’.

Report of Case Study 11

This report examines the responses of the Congregation of Christian Brothers in Western Australia to child sexual abuse at Castledare Junior Orphanage, St Vincent’s Orphanage Clontarf, St Mary’s Agricultural School Tardun and Bindoon Farm School.

The four institutions operated from the late 1920s and closed down between the 1960s and 1980s.

During the hearing in Perth earlier this year, eleven men gave evidence and made allegations of sexual abuse against 16 named Brothers. The sexual abuse occurred in dormitories, in Brothers’ rooms, during movie screenings and in the grounds. It also involved Brothers watching boys naked in the showers. Most of the boys did not report the abuse; one of those who did was physically beaten.

The report found that from 1919 to the 1960s, the relevant Christian Brothers’ Provincial Council knew of allegations of sexual abuse against some Brothers in institutions run by the Christian Brothers around Australia.

The report also found that from 1947 to 1968, leaders of the Christian Brothers failed to manage each of the four institutions so as to prevent the sexual abuse of children living there.

The case study also inquired into the conduct and settlement of the class against brought against the Christian Brothers.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

REPORT OF CASE STUDY NO. 14: The response of the Catholic Diocese of Wollongong to allegations of child sexual abuse, and related criminal proceedings, against John Gerard Nestor, a priest of the Diocese.

Executive summary

This case study explored the ways that canon law procedures are used to prevent priests from exercising their priestly ministry and ultimately have them dismissed from the priesthood. It highlighted the complexity of those procedures.

It also illustrated significant changes in the response of the Holy See in Rome to child sexual abuse claims. During the period covered by the facts of this case study – 1996 to 2009 – there was confusion in both the Holy See and the wider Catholic Church about who has jurisdiction over allegations of child sexual abuse by clergy in the Curia of the Holy See.

In the early 1990s rumours started to spread and complaints were made about Nestor’s conduct with boys. We heard evidence that in 1993 Bishop William Murray (deceased) asked Father Brian Lucas to interview Nestor. Father Lucas conducted this interview in his capacity as a member of the Catholic Church’s NSW Special Issues Resource Group. Father Lucas told us that, in keeping with his usual practice, he did not take notes during or after this interview.

 Finding 1: When Father Brian Lucas interviewed a cleric or religious about allegations of child sexual abuse before a formal Church process had commenced against that person, Father Lucas should have made a contemporaneous record of the details of what was said in the interview.

 Finding 2: Failing to make and keep such a record had the consequence that:

1. the interviewer and the cleric or religious may be unable to recall what was said in the interview and what conclusions were arrived at if they were subsequently called upon to do so

2. written records that might otherwise have been available for use in a subsequent investigation, prosecution or other penal process are not available.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

[the report]

A senior Catholic cleric failed to note a key conversation with a paedophile priest which ensured a criminal admission was not recorded, a child abuse inquiry has found.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse today released its findings into allegations that the priest, John Gerard Nestor assaulted, children in Wollongong in the 1990s.

The commission found that the senior cleric at the Catholic Diocese of Wollongong, Father Brian Lucas, ensured there was no written record of admissions of criminal conduct and that this was done in order to protect the priest and the church.

There were rumours of Nestor’s attacks on children from the 1990s and the Vatican authorities put children at risk by taking more than five years to finally agree on Nestor’s removal from ministry in 2008, according to the commission report.

An outcome of Father Lucas’ practice was to ensure that there was no written record of any admissions of criminal conduct in order to protect the priest and the Church.
Royal commission report

The report stated: “During the 1990s, rumours spread about camps that he (Nestor) ran where boys were swimming naked, showering in the open and where Nestor had conversations with boys about the size of their genitalia.”

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

1. Pope Francis is evidently a “hands on” Jesuit pope. He appears to expect obedience and loyalty from all, as Cardinal Burke seems to have recently learned painfully. But Francis, now in his 79th year, is only one man and an old one at that. He needs assistance from “independent doers”, not just “loyal followers”. Very disappointingly, he has now bypassed Fr. Thomas Doyle, O.P., as described more below, the world’s top expert on the Catholic priest child abuse scandal. Fr. Doyle has been omitted from Francis’ endlessly evolving but rarely meeting “cherry picked” anti-abuse commission panel. This is despite Doyle’s public request for inclusion and their shared and significant history with Cardinal Pio Laghi decades ago.

2. This, in my view, will likely turn out to be a huge papal mistake. Pope Francis should have known by now that, in order to clean up the continuing child abuse mess and to regain worldwide Catholics’ rapidly diminishing trust, he urgently needs commission members who have clearly proven to be BOTH professionally experienced AND independently courageous, like Tom Doyle has. He is a rare combination in my view after decades practicing as an international lawyer.

3. Francis’ overlooking of Doyle sends a very bad signal about Pope Francis’ real intentions with the long delayed commission. The commission is now scheduled to meet together for an “all hands” organizational meeting in February, likely to be orchestrated by Fr. Robert Oliver, the commission’s chief of staff and the Vatican’s former top prosecutor. Oliver reportedly initially learned the ropes on the priest child abuse scandal under Boston’s infamous Cardinal Law, hardly a positive reference. Law, like Oliver, is in Rome, while the purported commission head, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, is in Boston and likes to communicate with the Vatican by fax!

4. In 2006, the Boston Globe reported that O’Malley indicated that administrative management is not his forte. Bishop Accountability has reported well on O’Malley’s and Oliver’s earlier shortcomings on addressing some suspected Boston priest abusers. This slow moving commission certainly made O’Malley’s limited management skills quite evident. Oliver and O’Malley will be assisted in the US by the sole US member, a former New Zealander who has worked for O’Malley in three dioceses. She also stood up for O’Malley in the same 2006 Boston Globe article about O’Malley’s poor handling of the termination of an alleged sexual harassing hospital executive.

5. So there you appear to have it. Pope Francis’ key team to clean up the scandal, at least in Boston, in the place where it first exploded a dozen years ago, is a old Boston team, perhaps with even occasional whispered advice from Cardinal Law in Rome. Amazing, just amazing! Is Pope Francis really serious?

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CALIFORNIA
Jewish Journal

by Jared Sichel

A federal judge ruled last week that Chabad of California intentionally misused $272,495 in Department of Homeland Security (DHS) grants it received in 2009 and must pay $844,985 in penalties, a portion of which will go to whistleblowers who brought the suit against Chabad.

Chabad of California’s head, Rabbi Boruch Shlomo Cunin, applied for the funds in 2008 as part of a national program to boost surveillance systems at religious institutions. He convinced two other local Chabad institutions — Chabad of Marina Del Rey and the Yeshiva Ohr Elchonon high school — to also apply for the grants and allow Chabad of California to carry out the logistics of managing the funds and contracting with a security firm.

But according to a ruling by Judge Morrison England, Cunin never established procedures for the money, and he also did not create a separate bank account to segregate and track the federal funds. The judge also ruled that Chabad did not use the funds for their intended purposes, and instead used the money for “regular operating expenses, including employee payroll, building repairs, mortgages, and utility expenses.”

Chabad of California’s attorney, Mark Hathaway, said that his clients were “very surprised” that England granted the Justice Department’s motion for summary judgment — the court ruled that the case didn’t warrant a trial because the facts against Chabad of California weren’t in question.

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KENTUCKY
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Dec. 18

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 314 503 0003, bdorris@SNAPnetwork.org )

We are grateful that a Louisville predator priest won’t get shock probation. Keeping him behind bars is the best way to protect kids.

[WDRB]

Time and time again, we’ve seen people claim they’ll oversee child molesters if they’re freed. But these predators are shrewd, manipulative and relentless. Why take chances with the safety of children?

Fr. James Schook needs to stay locked up. We appreciate that Judge Mitch Perry understands this. We hope that others who were assaulted by Fr. Schook find some comfort in this just ruling.

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KENTUCKY
WDRB

[with video]

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — A Louisville priest convicted of sexually abusing a teenage boy will not be granted shock probation.

Rev. James Schook asked for shock probation in November — only six months into his 15-year sentence. A hearing had been set for Dec. 19 to hear Schook’s request, but Judge Mitch Perry denied the request one day before the hearing.

In April, a jury convicted Schook of three counts of sodomy and one count of indecent and immoral behavior with an individual and recommended the 15-year sentence, which the judge upheld.

In requesting shock probation, David Lambertus, Schook’s attorney, told Judge Perry that Schook has the support of family members and friends who have offered to care for him and “make sure he abides by the rules of shock probation.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Berger’s Beat

December 18, 2014 | Author: berger

Three priests have written to Pope Francis seeking an investigation into the Milwaukee archdiocesan bankruptcy. One of their concerns, a controversial move by then-Archbishop Tim Dolan to put $57 million into a cemetery trust fund he admitted “was to provide improved protection of these funds from “any legal claim and liability.” The intent of the bankruptcy proceeding for church officials “to exhaust silence and slander victims as well as to serve as a warning to others,” the letter asserts

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WASHINGTON (DC)
The Republic

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
December 18, 2014

WASHINGTON — Two women have joined a lawsuit saying they were sexually exploited by a rabbi accused of secretly videotaping women in a Jewish ritual bath.

The civil lawsuit was filed in early December in D.C. Superior Court and seeks class action status. On Thursday, two women joined the lawsuit, which was originally filed on behalf of a Georgetown University law student.

The rabbi the women say they were exploited by, Barry Freundel, was arrested in October and is charged with voyeurism for allegedly placing a hidden camera in the shower area of a ritual bath, called a mikvah.

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UNITED STATES
WJLA

By Joce Sterman December 18, 2014

WASHINGTON (WJLA) – A class-action lawsuit related to voyeurism against Georgetown rabbi Barry Freundel has named the Rabbinical Council of America as a defendant and named two specific victims as plaintiffs.

Freundel is accused of secretly videotaping women in a changing area near a ceremonial bath, called a mikvah, at Kesher Israel synagogue in Washington.

One of the newly named victims claims Freundel made her do a “practice dunk” in the Mikvah, a Jewish ceremonial bath used in conversion ceremonies, ahead of her own conversion. The new complaint also indicated that Freundel encouraged students from Towson University, where he was an associate professor, to make “field trips” to Kesher Israel.

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UNITED STATES
Failed Messiah

Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com

The lawsuit against alleged mikvah voyeur Rabbi Barry Freundel has been expanded, ABC 7’s Joce Sterman reported.

At a press conference today, a new amended complaint was released that says students from Towson University were encouraged by Freundel to “go on field trips” to use the mikvah in which Freundel allegedly had a hidden camera set up to video record.

Two new plaintiffs were added to the suit, one of whom claims that Freundel made her do “practice dunks” as part of her conversion process. The other new plaintiff was one of Freundel’s students at Towson.

And, along with Freundel’s former synagogue Kesher Israel and the Capital Mikvah he controlled, the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA), which previously investigated Freundel for other alleged misbehavior with female conversion candidates but took no action against him and did not warn the public, has been added to the lawsuit as a defendant.

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WASHINGTON
Yakima Herald-Republic

AP

SPOKANE, Wash. — The Catholic Diocese of Spokane can take its legal malpractice claim to trial against a law firm that handled its 2007 bankruptcy over priest sex abuse claims, a federal bankruptcy judge ruled.

The decision on Wednesday means former Spokane bishop Blase Cupich, who now serves as archbishop of Chicago, will likely have to testify in February about his decision to seek $3.6 million in legal fees from the Paine Hamblen law firm.

“I have every reasonable expectation that he will testify,” said Robert Gould, who is representing the diocese in the bankruptcy proceedings, The Spokesman-Review reported.

Cupich contends that Paine Hamblen lawyers underestimated how many victims would come forward with sex abuse claims after the bankruptcy was first resolved.

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ARIZONA
ascentral

EJ Montini, columnist | azcentral.com

There’s a very good pope in the Vatican these days and that has helped us to forget about the very bad priests that have operated in some Roman Catholic churches.

Including here.

This week the Catholic Diocese of Gallup, N.M., released what it called an updated list of priests who it claims were “credibly accused” of sexually abusing minors. At least 17 of them worked in Arizona.

This was a big story once. We’ve moved on. The same can’t be said for the victims.

And while the release of this information is a good thing, and may help other victims who choose to come forward, how could it have possibly taken so long? And how many other dioceses within the church are still holding out?

Back in April of 2002, over 12 years ago, I wrote a column that began:

“I called the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix to ask if the Bishop Thomas J. O’Brien had given police a list of all clergy members, past and present, who have been accused of sexual misconduct. I expected the answer to be yes.

“After all, last Sunday The Arizona Republic printed an article by Bishop O’Brien in which he discussed at length the problem of sexual abuse by priests. Among other things, the bishop said, ‘Make no mistake: Such misconduct with minors is deplorable. We cannot condone it; we must condemn it. Such misconduct with minors is a betrayal of trust of the highest order.’

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Wall Street Journal

By TOM CORRIGAN
Dec. 18, 2014

After years of negotiations, a settlement has been reached with insurance carriers that would furnish the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee, which is at the center of the longest running and most contentious diocesan bankruptcy to date, with $10.3 million to settle allegations of sexual abuse.

The settlement, if approved by a bankruptcy judge, could provide hundreds of individuals who claim they were sexually abused by the archdiocese’s clergy with substantially more compensation than is currently being offered by the archdiocese.

According to court papers, the archdiocese’s insurance carriers initially refused to cover liabilities stemming from sexual abuse. But, four years of negotiations and four mediations sessions have finally brokered a deal.

“It’s another step forward in bring this case to resolution,” said Jerry Topczewski, a spokesman for the archdiocese.

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Jan. 4, 2011, has offered $4 million to compensate about 125 of the more than 500 people who have sought compensation. The plan also provides another $500,000 to provide lifetime therapy, but abuse victims and their lawyers say that is not enough.

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UNITED STATES
America Magazine

Mary Ann Walsh | Dec 18 2014

Maybe Mother Clare Millea benefited from the low expectations that come with an impossible task. Whatever the case, the nun who heads the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus pulled off the apostolic visitation of all active nuns in the United States with a sense of aplomb and fairness. Kudos came from many places, including media that stood ready to pounce if anything seemed unfair.

So why did Mother Clare succeed despite predictions she would flame out?

Could it be that her success came because she is first of all a woman? I don’t wish to sound stereotypical but I think the answer lies in the fact that, as the final report said, she opted for a “sister-to-sister” dialogue. She didn’t go into the discussion with her mind made up. She sought information, not victory. This was no power trip to prove who was in charge.

She consulted many people, both women and men, and people likely to agree with her philosophically and those expected to disagree. It came as no surprise that orders being investigated were not open to paying for it. Thus she took on the arduous task of finding funders and did so, though many people, including church officials, were not throwing money at her. As a woman, she figured out how to do the study on the cheap. No need to have meetings at top-of-the-line hotels when a religious house might be found. The point was to meet, not to party. Word soon spread that the investigation seemed fair.

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ARIZONA/NEW MEXICO
KTAR

BY HOLLIDAY MOORE, | December 18, 2014

PHOENIX — A survivor of sexual abuse is calling leaders at the Catholic diocese in Gallup, New Mexico, cowards.

The ire comes one day after the diocese released more than 30 new names of suspected predators within the church. More than half on the list worked in Arizona between 1951 and 2013.

In a public letter, Bishop James Wall of the Gallup Diocese wrote, “In my ongoing commitment to protection of children and to further my goal of transparency within this Diocese, we have determined that there are additional priests against whom there have been credible allegations of child abuse.”

Despite the apparent openness, Joelle Casteix with Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests said, “This smells bad!”

Having advocated for more than a decade against priest abuse, Casteix, who lives in Southern California, said the open letter is more a calculated attempt to avoid further civil suits before the diocese bankruptcy case closed.

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IRELAND
RTE News

A 71-year-old priest who continued to say mass within his religious community after serving three years for sexually assaulting schoolboys, was sentenced to another three years for abuse dating back over 30 years.

Tadgh O’Dalaigh of Woodview, Mount Merrion Avenue, Blackrock, Dublin, received a five year sentenced at Cork Circuit Criminal Court today, with the final two years suspended.

A jury last July found him guilty of indecently assaulting a schoolboy in March or April 1979 in the sick bay of Coláiste an Chroí Naofa, Carraig na bhFear, in Co Cork.

O’Dalaigh had pleaded not guilty to this charge.

Earlier, he had pleaded guilty to five charges of indecently or sexually assaulting another schoolboy.

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REPUBLICA DOMINICANA
El Diario

Por: Jorge Viera
PUBLICADO: DEC, 14, 2014

“Me quiero suicidar, nadie en el pueblo me habla” , me dijo Juan, víctima de abuso sexual en la República Dominicana.

Juan (que no es su nombre real) vive en un pueblo llamado Juncalito, provincia de Santiago. Tan rural que para llegar ahí hay que hacerlo manejando por horas por una carretera de piedras y barro.
En ese alejado pueblo se estableció Wojciech Waldemar Gil, conocido en el país como el padre Alberto Gil. Este polaco decía que era como el elegido de Dios ante sus fieles. Juan y su familia entre ellos.

Tenía ocho años cuando el Padre Gil lo invitó a ser parte de la iglesia como monaguillo.

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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Dominican Today

New York.- “He abused and raped me for six years, forced me to wear women’s undergarments and threatened to kill me,” revealed in dramatic and revealing confessions to a local TV station, one of the many abused boys, sodomized and violated by Polish former priest Wojciech Waldermar Gil (Padre Alberto) in the town of Juncalito, in Dominican Republic’s highlands.

The boy identified only as “Juan” in the interview on Univision, said he tried to take his own life several times, after the abuse, which many believe senior Dominican Catholic prelates sought to cover up.

The defrocked priest being held in his native Poland on similar charges is also accused of abusing at least seven boys who belonged to the parish at Juncalito, many of whom were altar boys just like “Juan.”

The victim said many of the abused have refused to speak about their alleged ordeal. “I do not know how many times, but he abused me for six years.”

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VATIKAN
Katholisch

Vatikan | 17.12.2014 – Vatikanstadt

Papst Franziskus hat neun weitere Mitglieder für die vatikanische Kinderschutzkommission ernannt. Er berief unter anderem ein weiteres Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs in das Gremium, wie aus der Vatikanmitteilung vom Mittwoch hervorgeht. Der Brite Peter Saunders ist Gründer einer Vereinigung von Betroffenen. Er gehörte zu jenen Missbrauchsopfern, die der Papst im Juli im Vatikan traf. Saunders ist neben der Irin Marie Collins das zweite Missbrauchsopfer in der Kommission.

Franziskus berief zudem Fachleute aus Südafrika, Sambia und den Philippinen in das im März gegründete Gremium. Die Erweiterung auf jetzt 17 Mitglieder diene dazu, die Kontinente mit ihren unterschiedlichen Kulturen und Situationen abzubilden, so der Vatikan.

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VATIKAN
Katholische-Informiert

Peter Saunders ist Gründer einer Vereinigung von Betroffenen und gehörte zu den Missbrauchsopfern, die der Papst im Juli im Vatikan getroffen hatte.

Vatikanstadt, kath.net/KAP, 17. Dezember 2014

Papst Franziskus hat neun weitere Mitglieder für die vatikanische Kinderschutzkommission ernannt. Er berief unter anderem ein weiteres Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs in das Gremium, wie aus der vatikanischen Mitteilung vom Mittwoch hervorgeht. Der Brite Peter Saunders ist Gründer einer Vereinigung von Betroffenen. Er gehörte zu den Missbrauchsopfern, die der Papst im Juli im Vatikan getroffen hatte. Saunders ist neben der Irin Marie Collins das zweite Missbrauchsopfer in der Kommission.

Franziskus berief zudem Fachleute aus Südafrika, Sambia und den Philippinen in das im März gegründete Gremium. Die Erweiterung auf jetzt 17 Mitglieder diene dazu, die Kontinente mit ihren unterschiedlichen Kulturen und Situationen abzubilden, so der Vatikan.

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service – Spiritual Politics

Mark Silk | Dec 18, 2014

Today’s lesson concerns charging reporters with smuggling opinions into news stories. Exhibit A comes by way of the redoubtable Mollie Z. Hemingway, formerly of GetReligion and now senior editor at The Federalist. Still on the lookout for distortions by the liberal MSM, she took umbrage at the following paragraph from the AP story on the Vatican report on nuns a couple of days ago:

The [Vatican] probes also prompted an outpouring of support from rank-and-file American Catholics who viewed the investigations as a crackdown by a misogynistic, all-male Vatican hierarchy against the underpaid, underappreciated women who do the lion’s share of work running Catholic hospitals, schools and services for the poor.

Mollie tweeted; The American Conservative’s Rod Dreher replied (and it went on from there).

[screen shot]

For the record, it’s worth noting that there was indeed an outpouring of support for the nuns, as indicated by the May, 2012 RNS story that began, “Catholics around the U.S. are coming together for prayer vigils as a show of support for America’s nuns, whom the Vatican accuses of having ‘serious doctrinal problems.’” And it was Rome’s chief doctrine guy, Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, who invoked the M-word against critics of his investigation when he told Osservatore Romano in September, “Above all we have to clarify that we are not misogynists, we don’t want to gobble up a woman a day!” And the Vatican report itself makes mention of the nuns’ work in education, health care, and social services.

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AUSTRALIA/NEW ZEALAND
The Australian

DECEMBER 19, 2014

TWO Tasmanian detectives have arrived in New Zealand to interview an alleged pedophile teacher, who authorities had long believed was dead.

The officers are seeking to question Ronald Thomas over ­allegations — made in evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse — that he abused two boys at Hobart’s elite Hutchins School. The allegations — relating to the 1960s when, the school now admits, a number of staff were pedophiles — have been publicly denied by the 77-year-old former English and music teacher.

Mr Thomas was named by the royal commission because it — and his alleged victims — believed him to be dead. Earlier this month, The Australian found Mr Thomas alive and enjoying his retirement in dairy country on New Zealand’s north island, after more than 40 years teaching across the Tasman.

Tasmania Police Assistant Commissioner Donna Adams yesterday announced a formal investigation into the allegations against Mr Thomas had been launched. “Police have spoken to the two former students who gave evidence to the royal commission (and) the men have indicated they would like the matters looked into by police,” Ms Adams said. “As a result, Tasmania Police have sent two detectives to interview Mr Thomas in New Zealand. Once the police investigation is concluded, a report will be provided to the DPP for review.”

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OHIO
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Dec. 18

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 )

Seven clerics with a Cincinnati-based Catholic group are accused of sexually abusing children in New Mexico, according to new court documents and the Gallup Independent newspaper. (Full article is below.) We call on the head of the group, Fr. Page Polk (pagepolk@franciscan.org, frankjasper@franciscan.org), to fully disclose their long-secret records about clergy sex crimes and cover ups.

The religious order, called the Franciscans, is located at 1615 Vine St. and 5000 Colerain (513-542-1082, 513-542-7999) in Cincinnati. For four decades, it has sent priests to the small Gallup diocese.

Five of the accused clerics are believed to be publicly named as alleged perpetrators for the first time: Ephrem Beltramea (listed as Ephraim Beltremea), Eugene Botello, Crispin Butz, Finnian Connolly and Clementin (listed as Clemetine) Wottle.

Besides making public their records about predators, we also urge the Franciscans to

—reveal every church facility where these seven accused clerics worked –in every state – and
—aggressively seek out anyone who may have seen, suspected or suffered crimes by them.

Fr. Mark Soehner handles abuse cases for the Franciscans. He is at 513-721-4700, extension 3214.

We also urge anyone with information or suspicions about Franciscsan clerics who may have committed or concealed child sex crimes to call police and prosecutors right away.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Louise Roseingrave

Thu, Dec 18, 2014

A retired priest has been jailed for three years for sexually and indecently assaulting two teenage boys while teaching at a Cork boarding school.

Fr Tadhg O’Dalaigh received a five year sentence with two years suspended for the sexual and indecent assault of two boys aged 14 and 16 in the 1970’s and early 1980’s.

Last month, Fr O’Dalaigh, a member of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart was convicted of sexually assaulting a pupil at Coláiste An Chroí Naofa, Carrignavar, Co Cork, on an unknown date between March 1st and April 30th, 1979. The State alleged the incident took place in the school’s sick bay.

He was found unanimously guilty by a jury of 10 men and two women.

Fr O’Dalaigh (71) had previously pleaded guilty to five counts of indecent assault of another boy at the school between September 1st, 1982, and April 1st, 1983.

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MINNESOTA
The Catholic Spirit

This spring, an external agency will conduct an onsite audit of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ safe environment policies and procedures to determine compliance with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.

In November, StoneBridge Business Partners of Rochester, N.Y., confirmed that the archdiocese met the data collection requirements for the 2013-2014 audit period.

The spring audit will include interviewing archdiocesan leaders responsible for each article of the Charter, checking source documentation for safe environment activities, and potentially conducting parish and school audits, according to Tim O’Malley, the archdiocese’s director of ministerial standards and safe environment.

The USCCB’s audit is conducted annually, with an onsite audit done every third year. For the 2013-2014 audit, the archdiocese submitted to StoneBridge for review data regarding alleged victims, accused clerics, adult and child safe environment training, background checks and information on how the data is collected and compiled.

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NEW ZEALAND
New Zealand Herald

Kurt Bayer

A decision by the New Zealand Government to extradite a former Catholic brother to Australia to face child-sex abuse charges has been backed by a High Court judge.

In a decision out today, Justice Cameron Mander has concluded that former Justice Minister Judith Collins made no error in deciding to extradite Bernard Kevin McGrath, 66, to stand trial on 250 charges of sexual offending.

An application to review the decision has been declined.

After several hearings at district and high court jurisdictions, it was left up to Ms Collins earlier this year to make a final decision on whether McGrath be extradited to Australia.

In August, after “careful consideration”, Ms Collins issued an order for his surrender across the Tasman.

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AUSTRALIA
The West Australian

AAP

A former Catholic brother has another round in his fight against an extradition from New Zealand to Australia to face 250 historical child sex charges.

Bernard Kevin McGrath, 66, was in court earlier this month seeking a judicial review of former NZ justice minister Judith Collins’ decision to extradite him.

But on Wednesday, Justice Cameron Mander in the High Court at Christchurch found Ms Collins hadn’t made any reviewable mistakes in her decision that McGrath be surrendered to Australia and declined the review.

McGrath had argued there had been breaches of suppression orders by Whale Oil blogger Cameron Slater that could have lead to bias given the friendly relationship between Mr Slater and Ms Collins.

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NEW ZEALAND
Record

A High Court judge today backed a decision by the New Zealand Government to extradite a former Catholic brother to Australia to face 250 charges of child-sex abuse charges.

Australia requested the extradition of Bernard Kevin McGrath, 66, in November 2012 alleging that he raped, molested and abused dozens of young boys at one of Australia’s most prominent Catholic religious orders – the St John of God Brothers between 1977 and 1986. According to court evidence the institution which specialized in accommodating boys, many of whom had intellectual disabilities, had an entrenched culture of sexual abuse.

Originally from New Zealand, McGrath joined the St John of God Brothers (SJOG) in the 1960s at the age of 18. He trained at the order’s headquarters in Sydney and spent most of his working life SJOG institutions both in Australia and New Zealand. In 1991 in New Zealand two social workers contacted the police after reports from boys that he had sexually molested them and he was tried and sentenced to three years jail. In 1995, after McGrath completed his New Zealand jail term, police took him back to Sydney, where he pleaded guilty and was sentenced in 1997 to nine months jail for offenses against another boy.

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SPAIN
The Local

The parents of ‘nuns’ with a Spanish sect hit whose leader has been hit with sexual abuse charges have called on the Pope to help convince the young women to leave the order.

The women are followers of The Voice of the Serviam, whose leader, Feliciano Miguel Rosendo da Silva and his right-hand woman, self-proclaimed ‘nun’ Marta Paz Alonso, were detained on December 11th on charges that included sexual abuse, money laundering and crimes against moral integrity.

The sect was previously called the Mandate and Order of Saint Michael Archangel, with Roseado da Silva changing its name when he was expelled from the Roman Catholic diocese of Tui in Galicia for “inappropriate behaviour”.

The sect had around 400 members at its peak, its choir singing for Pope Beneict XVI when he visited Madrid in 2011, but most of them left the group when Roseado Da Silva was expelled from Tui and moved to Madrid.

Roseado Da Silva’s arrest came a day after former members of the sect spoke out about the alleged sexual, physical and psychological abuse by the two leaders.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

A few short takes on yesterday’s report on American nuns by the Vatican Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life:

1. The report itself: I’ve read it, so you won’t have to (you’re welcome). As various media statements are saying, it’s generally positive, though the praise is interlarded with some critical statements that reflect the well-seeded rumors of wealthy, powerful U.S. Catholics who got the ball rolling on Vatican investigtion of American nuns, when the nuns dared to claim influence in the U.S. public square equal to that of the bishops, as the latter did everything but stand on their heads in the past several election cycles to convince Catholics that voting Democratic would be sinful.

As you assess the positive aspects of the report, keep in mind that the investigation of the Leadership Conference of Religious Women by the congregation on consecrated life is only half of a two-pronged investigation. The other is being carried out by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed by the arch-conservative Cardinal Müller, a crony of the emeritus pope Benedict. That investigation report is expected to be far less positive than the one released yesterday was.

On the carping side, here’s a statement that stood out for me as I read the report yesterday:

A review of the Constitutions and other directives of apostolic religious institutes generally revealed that institutes have written guidelines for the reception of the sacraments and sound spiritual practices. This Congregation asks the members of each institute to evaluate their actual practice of liturgical and common prayer. We ask them to discern what measures need to be taken to further foster the sisters’ intimate relationship with Christ and a healthy communal spirituality based on the Church’s sacramental life and sacred Scripture.

This statement stood out for a variety of reasons. In the first place, the report begins by acknowledging that religious women led the way after Vatican II in reflecting on the charisms of their various religious institutes, and in seeking to return to their founding charisms and live those charisms effectively in the church of the late 20th century. What the report didn’t say but might well have said is that religious women set a standard in this regard that male religious communities and male clerics might have done well to emulate — but which male communities and clerics often actively refused to emulate. Because they have imagined women have nothing to teach them, and that Catholic truth resides exclusively among them as Catholic men of God. . . .

2. David Gibson thinks, however, that at least one effect of this report is that it demonstrates the following:

The church’s conservative echo chamber is broken.

I hope he’s correct about that. But I have my doubts. Wealthy right-wing U.S. Catholics have had disproportionate influence in the Vatican for quite some time now. They’re the ones driving the investigation of American nuns, since they want to silence nuns’s voices as the U.S. bishops anoint the Republican party as God’s chosen party for Catholics. And I’m not entirely sure their influence is waning, though it does appear that Pope Francis is willing to listen to more voices than these voices — and if that’s the case, then it bodes well for the future of the church, it seems to me. If he chooses to act on some of what he hears from people outside the right-wing echo chamber, that is . . . .

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NEW YORK
Road to Recovery

MEDIA RELEASE
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2014

SISTERS OF ST. URSULA REFUSE TO HELP FORMER MEMBER WHO WAS SEXUALLY ABUSED BY NOTRE DAME NUN PRINCIPAL

What
A demonstration and leafleting outside a Catholic girls’ high school Christmas concert and celebration

Where
On the public sidewalk outside Notre Dame School at 327 West 13th Street, NY, NY 10014

When
Thursday, December 18, 2014 from 5:00 until 6:30 PM

Who
Cecilia Springer, an 84 year-old alumna of Notre Dame School, Class of 1948, who was approximately 14 years of age and a sophomore at Notre Dame School when the Principal of the school sexually abused her; Dr. Robert M. Hoatson, co-founder and President of Road to Recovery, Inc., a non-profit charity that assists sexual abuse victims and their families; and other supporters.

Why
Cecilia Springer became a Sister of Saint Ursula following graduation from college even after she was sexually abused by a nun (Sr. Mary Andrew) at Notre Dame School. She left the Sisters of Saint Ursula many years later after it became unbearable for her to remain in a religious order of women which tolerated her sexual abuse of children at her alma mater, Notre Dame School. Cecilia Springer’s religious name was Sister Mary Grace. After being interviewed by representatives of the school and religious order, the Sisters of Saint Ursula and Notre Dame School refused to offer her any assistance that will allow her to live a decent life as a senior citizen. Cecilia Springer and her supporters will call on Notre Dame School and the Sisters of Saint Ursula to do the right thing by acknowledging that Cecilia Springer is, indeed, a sexual abuse victim of Sister Mary Andrew, apologizing for what happened to her, and assisting her to live a life that is more free of worry and directed toward healing.

Contacts
Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D., Road to Recovery, Inc. – 862-368-2800
Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, Boston, MA – 617-523-6250

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CANADA
CNW

AFN Welcomes Court Decision to Extend Deadline for Indian Residential Schools Personal Credits for Education Program

OTTAWA, December 17, 2014 /CNW/ – Assembly of First Nations (AFN) National Chief Perry Bellegarde is pleased with today’s court decision to extend the deadlines for the Indian residential schools personal credits for education program, and wants to see existing administrative concerns addressed quickly so that residential schools survivors can more easily access the program.

“I’m pleased that all parties to the Settlement Agreement have agreed to extend the deadlines and that residential schools survivors will now have additional time to apply to the personal credits program,” said AFN National Chief Perry Bellegarde. “The Assembly of First Nations has pressed for this extension in response to the serious administrative concerns expressed by survivors and family members across the country. The extension does not solve all the challenges of the program, but it will allow us more time to continue to offer support to survivors interested in using the credits for education programs and services.”

New deadline dates will be determined once the court order is signed by all parties, but today’s court ruling will allow for a two month extension from the date of the court order to submit the personal credits acknowledgement form and a five month extension from the date of court order to submit the personal credits redemption forms. All education programs and services must be concluded by August 31, 2015.

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CANADA
CNW

OTTAWA, Dec 17, 2014 /CNW/ – Bernard Valcourt, Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, today welcomed the decision of the Supreme Court of British Columbia to grant Canada’s request for an extension to the deadlines to apply for, redeem, and use Personal Credits. Parties to the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement requested the deadline extension in order to give Common Experience Payment recipients and their family members the best opportunity to access Personal Credits to support education opportunities.

The Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement provides that Common Experience Payment (CEP) recipients may apply for Personal Credits. Personal Credits have no cash value and can be shared with up to two family members. They are redeemable for either personal or group educational services provided by approved educational entities and groups. Personal Credits have a maximum individual redemption value of $3,000.

New deadline dates will be determined once the court order is signed by all parties, but today’s court decision allows for a two month extension from the date of the court order to submit an application for Personal Credits. It will also allow for a five month extension from the date of the court order for Education Entities and Groups to submit redemption forms for payment. August 31, 2015, is the new deadline for CEP recipients, or their family members, to complete courses or programs for which Personal Credits are used.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Times

Susan McKay

Thu, Dec 18, 2014

One night in late 2011, after the announcement by the Northern Executive that the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIAI) was to be set up, Jon McCourt walked onto Derry’s Peace Bridge and struggled with the urge to throw himself into the river Foyle.

It wasn’t that he was opposed to the inquiry. Having spent 10 years of his childhood in one of the institutions to be investigated, McCourt is one of those who had campaigned for years for this. He had been in Stormont for the announcement, and had felt elation and pride as he stood with other survivors on the grand steps in front of the television cameras and welcomed it. But on the journey back across the Glenshane Pass to Derry the ghosts had come. “In my head I began to see all the people I knew who had taken their own lives,” he told me. “Out of about 40, more than a dozen had died. One hung himself. Another drank a bottle of anti-freeze. One threw himself off a bridge in Donegal. Someone walked out into the traffic in London.

Lives of addiction

A few died young after lives of addiction to alcohol and anti-depressants. My own sister died in her 50s from cancer – there was a proliferation of cancers.”

McCourt did not see these people as adults. “I saw them as the children I knew when we were all five or six-years-old.” He has no doubt about the reason for their difficult lives and tragic early deaths: “It was the inability to deal with the trauma.”

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KENTUCKY
WHAS

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WHAS11) – Father Ronald Domhoff is back on the job at St. Peter the Apostle Parish.

His return comes after spending almost three months on administrative leave.

Father Domhoff was accused of sexual abuse by a then teenager, dating back to the 1980’s.

Louisville Metro Police said Wednesday they were not able to proceed with the case because of the Kentucky Statute of Limitations.

The Commonwealth Attorney’s office reviewed the case and said the applicable charges would have been a misdemeanor.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Register

NEWS ANALYSIS: Archbishop Stephan Burger of Freiburg im Breisgau said the changes will be made in the interest of maintaining the Church’s ‘credibility’ in the eyes of the general public.

by EDWARD PENTIN 12/15/2014

VATICAN CITY — Despite a postponed vote last month, a German prelate has said he is confident the country’s bishops will change Church rules to allow employment of remarried divorcees and men and women living in same-sex relationships, despite growing opposition to the move.

Archbishop Stephan Burger of Freiburg im Breisgau said the German bishops’ conference “will revise” the ecclesiastical labor laws (Kirchliches Arbeitsrecht), according to a Dec. 9 interview with the German news website Morgenweb. He said the changes will be made in the interests of maintaining the Church’s “credibility” in the eyes of the general public.

According to Church sources in Germany who ask to remain anonymous, the bishops were to vote unanimously in favor of change on Nov. 24, but they decided to postpone the decision until April, after a federal court ruling supported the Church’s current laws that forbid employing staff whose lifestyles run contrary to Church teaching.

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PHILIPPINES
Rappler

MANILA, Philippines – A Filipino psychotherapist has been appointed to the Vatican’s child protection body, joining several others chosen from various parts of the world, including a British victim of pedophile priests.

The Philippines’ Dr Gabriel Dy-Liacco joins 7 new members of the Commission for the Protection of Minors who were chosen from 5 continents “to allow a broad representation of different situations and cultures,” the Vatican said on Wednesday, December 17.

The Holy See described Dy-Liacco as an “adult and adolescent psychotherapist and pastoral counsellor for various mental health concerns including of individuals, couples, families and groups, including victims and perpetrators of abuse.”

The commission of experts is tasked with advising Pope Francis on how to deal with a sex abuse scandal which rocked the Catholic Church in the 2000s.

Led by American cardinal Sean O’Malley, the body – set up a year ago – is now made up of 7 women and 9 men, from both the clerical and lay worlds, with new members hailing from Australia, Britain, Colombia, New Zealand, Philippines, South Africa, United States and Zambia.

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OREGON
The Spokesman-Review

Kip Hill
The Spokesman-Review

A federal judge gave the go-ahead Wednesday for the Catholic Diocese of Spokane to take its legal malpractice claim to trial against the law firm that handled its 2007 bankruptcy.

The ruling opens the door for former Spokane Bishop and now Archbishop of Chicago Blase Cupich to return in February, when he’ll testify about his choice to pursue $3.6 million in legal fees from Paine Hamblen.

“I have every reasonable expectation that he will testify in February,” said Robert Gould, who is representing the diocese in the bankruptcy proceedings.

Cupich accuses Paine Hamblen lawyers of underestimating how many more victims would continue to come forward with sex abuse claims after the bankruptcy was first resolved.

A $1 million fund to pay these people filing “future claims” was set aside based on Paine Hamblen’s estimates of how much it would cost the diocese to settle the claims. But more victims came forward and the fund quickly was depleted, raising the specter of foreclosures on some Catholic parishes that had been put up as collateral.

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OKLAHOMA
Fox 25

By: Phil Cross, Investigative Reporter

ALTUS –
We’re learning more about an Oklahoma pastor accused of sexually abusing a young girl. Police arrested Tommy Bailey Tuesday afternoon at his home in Altus. Bailey had been the pastor of the Elm & Hudson Church of Christ until his abrupt resignation two weeks ago.

Sources tell Fox 25, the victim in this case was put in state custody in 2007, and according to court documents the abuse began shortly after the Department of Human Services removed her from her home. The girl told police she was sexually touched and abused from the age of 14 until just about two month ago.

Court documents reveal Bailey was a foster parent, and sources tell Fox 25 he had a number of foster children in his care over the years. One of his former foster children told Altus police that Bailey called all his former foster children to apologize to them about his sexual relationship with a young girl.

A leader at Elm and Hudson Church of Christ told Fox 25 the church was unaware anything was wrong prior to Bailey’s resignation. The church said he simply told them he was not able to fulfill his duties as pastor. After his resignation the church began to hear details of his alleged sexual relationship with a teenager.

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OKLAHOMA
KSWO

[with video]

By Ivanna Williams, Reporter

ALTUS, Okla._A church in Altus is reeling following the news that their former pastor has been charged with sexually abusing a young girl over a period of seven years.

Tommy Lynn Bailey was arrested Tuesday at his home, and is already free on bond. Bailey was the pastor of the “Elm and Hudson Church of Christ’ for 14 years. He resigned two weeks ago, but didn’t give a reason. Now, the congregation is trying to come to grips with the accusations.

Daniel Ingram, interim minister, said he got a call before the Sunday morning service on November 30 that Bailey had stepped down and he would need to step in and preach. The rumors began to fly shortly after, but it wasn’t until the news broke Tuesday that they began to understand the seriousness of the situation.

“When it went on the news, we weren’t exactly expecting that. But we’re coping with the loss of a minister,” said Ingram.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – PM

DAVID MARK: The Vatican has appointed an Australian social welfare worker with expertise in family and disability services and child protection to the Vatican’s Commission for the Protection of Minors.

The appointment comes one year after Pope Francis set up the special panel to examine the Catholic Church’s child protection policies and improve its response to victims of child sexual abuse.

Kathleen McCormack, from Wollongong, is the former director of Catholic Care and among eight new members of the 17-person panel.

She’s speaking here to PM’s Emily Bourke about the panel and how she hopes to influence its work.

KATHLEEN MCCORMACK: It’s really about particularly ensuring best practice and education, formation and training programs to respond to the prevention of abuse of minors.

EMILY BOURKE: It’s been 12 months since this commission was established, how do you think it’s been working so far and how do you think the church has changed, if at all, the way it’s handling the issue of child protection?

KATHLEEN MCCORMACK: What’s been encouraging to me is the Holy Father wants to reach out to all areas of the globe and to have, because some countries have got better practices than others, and he wants to make sure there’s a mutual sharing and that people are really about no longer a culture of silence, it’s about the protection of children.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Emily Laurence

A leading New South Wales welfare worker will advise Pope Francis on safeguarding children from sexual abuse.

The founding director of CatholicCare in the city of Wollongong, Kathleen McCormack, has been appointed to the Vatican’s child protection commission.

Ms McCormack provides support to victims of child sexual abuse in the Wollongong Diocese and helps shape child protection protocols in Australia.

She said she hoped to impress upon the commission the importance that victims of sexual abuse should be believed.

“When you work with a survivor of abuse the first thing you do is when they have the courage to speak out, you believe them, and I think that’s where we have to start,” Ms McCormack said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

TASMANIA Police is investigating allegations of pedophilia against a former teacher who was believed to be dead until found alive in New Zealand by The Australian.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse this morning advised that it would put the case of alleged pedophile teacher Ronald Thomas “to one side” in light of the police investigation.

“Tasmania Police intend to investigate the allegations against Mr Thomas and in order to avoid any risk of prejudicing that investigation this public hearing will not inquire any further into the allegations,” counsel assisting the commission, Angus Steward SC, said.

Earlier this month, The Australian revealed Thomas, accused of abusing two students at Hobart’s Hutchins School, was living in rural NZ, and was not dead, as previously believed by the Royal Commission and his alleged victims.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

AAP

A Hobart schoolboy twice raped by a teacher was too scared to speak up about the abuse out of fear he would be labelled a homosexual and arrested.

Timothy Rowland, 68, said he was aged 15 or 16 when he was a student at the exclusive Hutchins school and abused by French teacher Lyndon Alfred Hickman.

He told a royal commission hearing in Sydney on Thursday about the fear which has kept him quiet for more than 50 years.

When Mr Rowland’s mother saw blood in his underwear at the time, he said he had been caned at school.

“I felt appalled and afraid. I thought that (if) anyone found out, people would think I was gay and I would be arrested,” Mr Rowland told the hearing.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Minnesota Public Radio has won a a prestigious national award for its series of investigative stories into how the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis attempted to cover up abuse of children by priests. It is the first time MPR has received the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award, which is considered to be on par with a Pulitzer Prize.

“We are honored and grateful to receive the duPont Award,” said Chris Worthington, MPR News’ managing editor. “While the stories can be difficult to hear, it’s important they be told. They were well-documented and carefully reported. We are proud of our journalism and community service.”

Judges called the pieces “a heartbreaking, exhaustive investigation,” one that “overcame the challenges rife in reporting this type of story.”

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MINNESOTA
Canonical Consultation

2/17/2014

Jennifer Haselberger

Congratulations to MPR for winning an 2015 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for its investigative reporting on the child sexual abuse crisis in the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis.

When I contacted the radio station in the early summer of 2013 I did so because I believed MPR would cover the story in an intelligent, sensitive, and responsible way. By and large, I was not disappointed.

To see a summer’s worth of interviews and additional reporting condensed into three and a half minutes, follow this link.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

[with video]

Minnesota Public Radio News was named a recipient of an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for the investigative series Betrayed by Silence. The award is one of the highest honors in broadcast, documentary and digital journalism. Here are excerpts from the Betrayed by Silence series:

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MICHIGAN
MLive

By John Tunison | jtunison@mlive.com
on December 17, 2014

GRAND RAPIDS, MI — Ronald Moser, the man who set up sexual encounters with a 12-year-old boy for former Christian radio host John Balyo, has been sentenced to a minimum 35 years in prison.

“This is about as low as it can get” U.S. District Court Judge Robert Holmes Bell told Moser Wednesday, Dec. 17 before meting out the sentence.

Moser on three occasions earlier this year brought a 12-year-old boy to hotels in the Battle Creek and Kalamazoo areas for Balyo. Balyo paid for the rooms and paid Moser for the encounter, Bell said.

Investigators say Balyo, sentenced last week to 40 years in prison, restrained the boy in bed then sexually assaulted him. The boy’s family considered Moser a trusted friend.

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MICHIGAN
WZZM

John Hogan, WZZM December 17, 2014

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WZZM) – The Battle Creek man who provided a young boy for ex-Christian radio host John Balyo to molest was sentenced Wednesday to 35 years in prison.

Today’s sentencing in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids closes a chapter on one of West Michigan’s most visible and egregious child sexual abuse cases that involved a bondage kit, hotel rooms and hundreds of images of child pornography shared freely on the Internet.

Balyo, the disgraced morning host on WCSG radio in Grand Rapids, was sentenced last week to 40 years in prison stemming from the same investigation that snared Ronald Moser.

Moser in August pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography and sexual exploitation of children. He received 10 years on the first count and 25 years for the second count. The terms are to run consecutive.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

A royal commission will reconvene to hear more evidence of sexual abuse by teachers at an exclusive Hobart boys school.

Former Hutchins student Timothy Rowland is named on the witness list for Thursday when the hearing resumes in Sydney.

In November, four former students told the commission that in the 1960s they were abused by a group of male teachers, including then headmaster David Ralph Lawrence.

One man waited more than 20 years for the school to acknowledge his abuse and apologise.

Hutchins has now apologised for the hurt and distress caused to victims.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is investigating how Hutchins and the Anglican Diocese of Tasmania dealt with reports of abuse at the school.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

by TOM PETERKIN
Published on the 17 December 2014

A PUBLIC inquiry is to be held to investigate historical abuse of children in care in Scotland, the Education Secretary Angela Constance has announced.

The Scottish Government has promised to meet demands made by abuse survivors for an investigation into crimes committed against children in the past.

Allegations of historical abuse have been made by former pupils at the Roman Catholic Fort Augustus School on the banks of Loch Ness. Other claims have been made by those who used to attend Nazareth House in Aberdeen and Larchgrove boys’ home in Glasgow.

In a statement to parliament, the newly appointed Education Secretary said the investigation would take the form of a statutory public inquiry and it would be given the power to compel witnesses to appear and give evidence.

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SCOTLAND
Holyrood

Written by Tom Freeman on 17 December 2014

A statutory public inquiry is to be held to examine historical cases of abuse of children in care in Scotland, Education Secretary Angela Constance has announced.

Appointments to the inquiry, including its chair, and further details of its remit will be made by April, the Cabinet Secretary told parliament.

“We must have the truth,” Constance said, “and as a society we have an opportunity to confront the mistakes of our past and to learn from them. It will not be easy but only by shining a light on the darkest recesses of our recent history will we fully understand the failures of the past, enabling us to prevent them happening again.”

Campaigners have been calling for an inquiry for some time, including the Scottish Human Rights Commission. The inquiry will be given the power to compel witnesses to appear and give evidence.

Scottish Labour’s new shadow education spokesman Iain Gray welcomed the announcement but said it had taken too long. “It is ten years since Jack McConnell apologised, on behalf of the Scottish people to the survivors of institutional child abuse,” he said.

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SCOTLAND
STV

[with video]

A full judge-led inquiry into historic sex abuse in Scotland has been announced.

The national public inquiry will be held to examine historical cases of abuse of children in care in Scotland, the Scottish Government announced.

The secretary for education Angela Constance revealed the inquiry in a statement to the Scottish Parliament on Wednesday.

She said the full remit and appointments for the inquiry would be confirmed by the end of April, following consultation with survivors of abuse.

Arrangements for meetings with survivors will begin in January.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Education Secretary Angela Constance said the probe was necessary to help fully understand what happened and in turn “ensure a brighter future for every child”.

The inquiry will have the power to compel witnesses to attend and give evidence, she confirmed.

Ms Constance also pledged that where crimes are uncovered, the “full force of the law” would be used to bring those responsible to justice.

The Scottish Government had been considering if a national inquiry into historic abuse cases was the correct way to help survivors.

Announcing its decision, Ms Constance said: “This Parliament must always be on the side of the victims of abuse. We must have the truth of what happened to them and how those organisations and individuals into whose care the children were entrusted failed them so catastrophically.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

The chairman of the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA) has paid tribute to almost 100 former child residents of care homes.

The inquiry has now completed its first year of public hearings into institutional abuse.

During that time, it has heard from 98 victims and survivors of abuse.

Most of them were in the care of the Catholic Church at homes in Londonderry and Kircubbin in County Down.

The homes were: St Joseph’s Home, Termonbacca, Derry; Nazareth House Children’s Home, Derry and De La Salle Boys’ Home, Rubane House, Kircubbin.

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MICHIGAN
MLive

By Barton Deiters | bdeiters@mlive.com
on December 16, 2014

GRAND RAPIDS, MI – The Catholic schools tutor facing a decade or more in state prison for criminal sexual conduct with a 15-year-old boy could have taken a plea deal that would have resulted in her spending less than a year in the county jail.

Abigail Simon, 35, awaits sentencing next month.

In April, Simon, then a 33-year-old tutor with the Grand Rapids Catholic high schools, was arrested in Flint for having sex with a 15-year-old Catholic Central High School student.

Between April 2013 and the beginning of a probable cause hearing for Simon in Grand Rapids District Court in August, the Kent County Prosecutor’s Office offered Simon an agreement that would end the case and save her and the student from the spectacle of a lengthy hearing.

Chief Assistant Kent County Prosecutor Christopher Becker was handling the case at the time and he offered Simon the chance to plead guilty to second-degree criminal sexual conduct, a charge without penetration as an element. It carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.

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MICHIGAN
Daily Mail (UK)

Catholic tutor facing decade or more in prison for having sex with her 15-year-old student REJECTED plea deal that would have given her just a few months behind bars

A former Michigan high school tutor convicted of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old male student is expected to be sentenced to at least a decade in prison after refusing to accept a plea deal and insisting her case go to trial.

Abigail Simon, 35, was last month found guilty on four of the five charges against her – three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and one count of accosting a minor for immoral purposes – and will be sentenced in January, with a maximum penalty of life in prison.

However, according to MLive, Simon turned down numerous opportunities to receive a lighter sentence in order to try and fight to clear her name, and could have gotten off with a few months behind bars.

Between April 2013 and the beginning of a probable cause hearing for Simon in Grand Rapids District Court in August, the Kent County Prosecutor’s Office gave Simon the chance to plead guilty to second-degree criminal sexual conduct, which would have ended her expensive, lengthy and at-times humiliating trial. …

Simon was fired from her position as a tutor and study hall supervisor at Catholic Central and West Catholic high schools after the boy’s mother found pictures of Simon in a garter belt on her son’s phone.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis expanded his papal commission on child protection to include a second survivor of abuse and more experts from around the world.

The Commission for the Protection of Minors, which Pope Francis established one year ago, adds four more women and four men from five continents to the now-17-member body.

The Vatican announced the new members Dec. 17.

One of the new members is Peter Saunders, the chief executive officer of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood (NAPAC), which he founded nearly two decades ago in the United Kingdom to help other survivors find support. He was one of six abuse survivors who spoke with Pope Francis in a private meeting at the Vatican July 7.

Also joining the commission are:

— Krysten Winter-Green, an expert in theology, human development, social work and pastoral psychology, who has served in a number of dioceses in the United States. Born in New Zealand, Winter-Green served as Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley’s chancellor when he was bishop of St. Thomas in the American Virgin Islands, and she also worked for him in Fall River and Boston. According to biographical information provided by the Vatican, her work in the field of child abuse includes “forensics, assessment and treatment of priest and clergy offenders.”

— Bill Kilgallon, national director of the Office for Professional Standards of the Catholic Church in New Zealand, which oversees the church’s response to accusations of abuse against clergy or religious. Before that, Kilgallon was a member of a review team into the protection of children and vulnerable adults in the Catholic Church in England and Wales, and in 2008, he was appointed as the first chair of the National Catholic Safeguarding Commission of England and Wales, which was responsible for setting policies and procedures for the Catholic Church and monitoring compliance by dioceses and religious congregations.

— Precious Blood Sister Hermenegild Makoro, the secretary-general of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference. She has served as provincial superior of the Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood and had been associate secretary-general secretary of the Pretoria-based bishops’ conference.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Thomas C. Fox | Dec. 17, 2014

COMMENTARY

The apostolic visitation, which sowed much division and cast a dark shadow over the lives and work of U.S. women religious for nearly six years, is finally drawing to an end. Beleaguered as we are, for this we should express gratitude.

To quote from T.S. Eliot: “Not with a bang but a whimper.”

The head of the Vatican’s religious congregation, Cardinal João Bráz de Aviz, whose heart has never been in this investigation, an investigation he inherited, deserves praise for attempting as best he can to stop the bleeding.

More will be required if the deep wounds caused by this abuse of episcopal authority are to be attended to.

From all corners, we hear that this report — indeed, the entire six-year effort — has made a positive contribution to religious life. What we are witnessing here is a form of institutional cover-up.

We need to step back. Lacking an examination into the causes that led to this assault on women religious (yes, it has been an assault), the wounds will persist. Without substantive attitudinal and structural changes among not the women investigated but those who initiated the investigation, this grand mistake and others like it will be repeated. …

The apostolic visitation report itself is missing a couple of key elements that still must be addressed if full healing is to be achieved: The reports submitted to Rome as part of this process remain sealed, and there is no accounting for the origins of this investigation.

From the start of the apostolic visitation, women were not informed of how they came to be the objects of the investigation. Nor were they consulted on the process by which the investigation would be carried out. Nor were they allowed to be, in any meaningful way, agents in the formation of the content of the investigative reports.

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TEXAS
Daily Journal

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First Posted: December 17, 2014

WACO, Texas — A former Waco Baptist Academy teacher has been sentenced to 80 years in prison after being convicted of molesting two students during piano lessons.

Sergio David Bezerra received the maximum penalty Tuesday a day after being convicted of four counts of indecency with a child by contact.

Prosecutors in Waco say Bezerra improperly touched two 9-year-old girls while giving them piano lessons in 2007.

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NEW ZEALAND
NZ City

A New Zealander living in the United States and a Briton living in New Zealand are among the new faces appointed to the Vatican body advising Pope Francis on how to deal with the Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal.

Boston-based Krysten Winter-Green and Auckland-based Bill Kilgallon have been named on the 17-member Commission for the Protection of Minors, which comprises members from both the clerical and lay world.

It is led by American cardinal Sean O’Malley and other new members come from Australia, Britain, Colombia, Philippines, South Africa and Zambia.

Dr Winter-Green has a post-graduate degrees in theology, human development, social work, religion and pastoral psychology.

She has served in dioceses around the world with homeless people and those living with AIDS. She has expertise in child abuse, including forensics, assessment and treatment of priest/clergy offenders.

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OKLAHOMA
Weatherford Democrat

A former pastor in Oklahoma who has been accused of sexually abusing a young girl for years is now behind bars.

Tommy Lynn Bailey, 56, was arrested at his Altus, Okla. home Tuesday afternoon on a felony warrant issued by the Jackson County District Court.

According to the Altus Times, Police Chief Tim Murphy said his department received a referral from The Oklahoma Department of Human Services in early December concerning Bailey. An investigation was conducted by the police, which resulted in Bailey’s arrest.

Bailey’s accuser told investigators the sexual abuse occurred while she lived with Bailey and his wife as a foster child. The abuse, she says, began in September 2007, when she was 14 years old, and continued through February 2014, according to Murphy.

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UNITED STATES
Commonweal

Grant Gallicho December 17, 2014

This is the fifth in a series of posts on the Urrutigoity case. Read the first part here, the second here, the third here, and the fourth here.

John Doe had had enough. Enough see-sawing between career paths. Enough retail work. Enough physical labor. Enough aches from such work. Enough pain pills. Enough drinking. Enough wanting to die. Enough denial. He had had enough. So he went through detox, received therapy following his suicide attempts. And now that his head was clear, he was ready to talk.

The first person John told he had been sexually assaulted by priests was his girlfriend, according to his sworn testimony. The second person he told was a friend. Following his suicide attempts, John disclosed the allegations to his counselors. And in late 2001, a few months after he left recovery—before he talked to his parents—John told another person he’d been molested by clerics: Jeffrey Bond. He may have been shocked by John’s claims, but it’s unlikely that he was surprised.

In April 2000, Bond had been hired by Fr. Carlos Urrutigoity to establish the College of St. Justin Martyr. Three years earlier, Urrutigoity—originally from Argentina—approached Bishop James Timlin of Scranton, Pennsylvania, to see about setting up a community of clerics devoted to restoring liturgical traditionalism to the Catholic Church. In addition to the college, Urrutigoity told Timlin, now retired, that he hoped to build a seminary and an entire town for traditionalist Catholics. Urrutigoity and his associates, who would call themselves the Society of St. John, had come calling because they had just been ousted from the schismatic Society of St. Pius X—which rejects the reforms of Vatican II. Leaders of the SSPX were not happy about Urrutigoity’s plan to organize a new, more spiritually rigorous group within SSPX. Bishop Bernard Fellay, head of the SSPX, was also concerned about Urrutigoity’s “strange, abnormal” influence over seminarians and other priests, according to a letter he later sent Timlin.

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VATICAN CITY
Washington Post

By Josephine Mckenna | Religion News Service December 17

VATICAN CITY — A British survivor of clerical sexual abuse and a longtime aide to Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley are among nine new members appointed by Pope Francis to the Vatican’s sex abuse commission.

The Vatican on Wednesday (Dec. 17) announced the additions to the commission, which is led by O’Malley. The panel, which now has a total of 17 members, is expected to hold its first full meeting in Rome in early February.

Among the new members is Peter Saunders, who founded the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, a London-based support group.

Saunders was abused by family members and the clergy. He was one of six people who met Francis at the Vatican in July in the pontiff’s first formal encounter with victims.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

[with audio]

Tom (last name withheld) reached a legal settlement several years ago after being abused by his priest, Fr. Cosmas Dahlheimer, as a child.

Now in his 50s, he still deals with lasting trauma.

Tom joins The Daily Circuit to tell his story. Dr. David Arredondo, a clinical psychiatrist specializing in child and adult trauma, also joins the discussion.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Dec. 17, 2014

ROME
Pope Francis has added members to the new Vatican commission advising him on safeguarding children from sexual abuse, appointing an additional eight people to the commission from diverse global backgrounds and professional experience.

Among the new appointments, which the Vatican announced Wednesday: an English survivor of clergy sexual abuse, a woman religious who serves as the secretary general of an pan-African episcopal conference, and several psychologists and psychotherapists from different parts of the world.

The new appointments raise the total number of members of the commission to 17; eight are women. They also diversify the global spread of the group: seven members come from Europe, two from Latin America, three from Asia and Oceania, two from Africa, and three from the U.S.

The Vatican announced the commission, officially the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, in December 2013 in an effort to show the importance Francis is placing on stopping abuse and working pastorally with abuse survivors.

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VATICAN CITY
Telegraph (UK)

Pope Francis appoints British survivor of priestly sex abuse to church commission

By Nick Squires, Rome 17 Dec 2014

A British victim of sex abuse by Catholic priests was appointed by Pope Francis on Wednesday to a special commission set up to advise the church on child protection policies.

Peter Saunders, who as a child was abused by Jesuit priests at a school in Wimbledon, London, warned that the Vatican would face “big trouble” if it failed to “get its act together” by taking concrete measures to bring to justice priests accused of molesting and raping children.

He was among nine people appointed on Wednesday to the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, which was established by the Pope last year to address the scourge of sex abuse within the Catholic Church.

Mr Saunders said the Church had been “intimately involved in cover-ups and denials in the past” but now believes that Pope Francis is genuine in wanting to crack down on abusive priests.

Victims’ groups, in particular the US-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), have criticised the formation of the commission, which now totals 17 members, as a meaningless gesture, likening it to “offering a Band Aid to a cancer patient.”

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

2015 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award Winner
Honoring Excellence in Broadcast and Digital News

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/catholic-church/

MPR News’ yearlong investigation exposed how leaders of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis continued to cover up abuse of children by priests, despite decades of assurances that the Catholic Church was safe. Reporters found that bishops provided secret payments to pedophiles, hid the names of abusers, failed to notify police of alleged sex crimes and didn’t warn parishioners of priests’ sexual misconduct. The report included everything from interactive databases of allegations against priests and where they served, and a display of internal church documents, to police records, court records, and victim settlement documents all showing extensive cover ups. MPR’s reporting has led to numerous actions to protect the public such as the opening of a criminal investigation of the archdiocese itself, resignations, forced retirements, leaves of absences, firings, and the release of names of abusive priests. The investigative team overcame the challenges rife in reporting this type of story: understanding the church’s complex structure and legal system; verifying old events and claims; the lack of documents available digitally; and the insular, private world of the priesthood.

Madeleine Baran, lead reporter; Sasha Aslanian, Mike Cronin, Tom Scheck, and Laura Yuen, reporters/producers; Jennifer Simonson, Amanda Snyder, Jeff Thompson, photographers; Eric Ringham, copy editor; Meg Martin, web editor; Will Lager, web producer; Mike Edgerly, Jon Gordon, Regina McCombs, and Bill Wareham, editors; Chris Worthington, project editor.

Visit the website. Follow on Twitter: @mprnews.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Sandra Laville
Wednesday 17 December 2014

A British survivor of child sexual abuse who set up a charity to help other victims has been appointed by Pope Francis to his new commission to protect children and help people who have been abused.

Peter Saunders, 57, was telephoned by Cardinal Seán O’Malley and asked if he would consider joining the commission, which will report directly to Pope Francis. Saunders – who was abused as a child for more than five years by two priests, a teacher and a member of his family – said he agreed immediately. The invitation came six months after Saunders had a private meeting with the pope, which he said involved a no-limits discussion.

“I have been a thorn in the side of the Catholic church for some years. When I was called to see if I

“When I met him in July and started conversing with him, I told him the church needed to get its act together, that it needed to support survivors and to do more to protect children. I said to the pope I would be coming back to see him, but I never dreamed I would be invited back to join his commission.”

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on what an innocent priest had to endure:

Fr. Ronald Domhoff is not known outside the Archdiocese of Louisville, but he should be known by every Catholic, and non-Catholic, in the nation. He is the latest priest to have his good name dragged through the mud by vicious accusers and their rapacious lawyers. That the latter proved to be rogues should matter to everyone.

In September, Fr. Domhoff was placed on administrative leave after he was accused of sexually molesting a minor. He was cleared of all charges yesterday and returned to active ministry today as pastor at St. Peter the Apostle in Louisville. What happened in the interim is the real story.

The accuser said he was molested between 1985 and 1989 at a local Catholic high school. The priest was investigated and subsequently cleared by the Louisville Metro Police Department Crimes Against Children unit. The archdiocese conducted two investigations: one by the Sexual Abuse Review Board and one by a private investigator. Both exonerated the priest.

Here is what the Valencia, California law firm of Owen, Patterson and Owen said when Fr. Domhoff was charged: “Our client is willing to share details of his abuse with the press in order to encourage other victims to come forward.” Attorney Gregory Owen added, “These monsters must be found and punished.” The law firm asked other alleged victims to contact them, not the police.

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OREGON
Willamette Week

December 17th, 2014 BETH SLOVIC

When it comes to football, Central Catholic High School has a lot to cheer about.

The Rams—with a long tradition of winning—finished the season with 12 wins and just one loss while outscoring opponents by a 3-to-1 ratio. And on Dec. 6, Central Catholic crushed Tigard High School in the 6A championship 49-0—giving the Rams their second state title in a row.

Off the field, however,there’s plenty about the football team that Central Catholic doesn’t want to celebrate.

On Nov. 24, Central Catholic President John Harrington announced that the program’s freshman coach, Jay Wallace, would not return next year. Harrington made the announcement after WW reported Wallace had been fired from David Douglas High School in 1997 following allegations of sexual misconduct with a 17-year-old female student (“Off-Field Pursuits,” WW, Nov. 19, 2014). Harrington had been the David Douglas principal who investigated Wallace—but at Central Catholic kept Wallace in his coaching job.

WW has now learned that a second Central Catholic football coach faced allegations of sexual misconduct with a student at a local public school.

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NEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, N.M., Dec. 16, 2014

Gallup Diocese posts names on website

By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Independent correspondent
religion@gallupindependent.com

GALLUP — Bishop James S. Wall released an updated list of abusers and published it on the Diocese of Gallup’s website Monday.

The list includes the names of 30 Catholic priests, both diocesan and religious order, and one lay religious education teacher. Thirteen of the men have never been publicly identified before. However, the list does not include the names of some Gallup clergy who have been named in clergy abuse lawsuits or named by confidential claimants in the Gallup Diocese’s bankruptcy case.

“The publication of these additional names does not mean that our vigilance and continued investigation ends here,” Wall said in a statement released along with the list. “The investigations remain ongoing. The survivors who have come forward should be commended for their bravery and courage, and I express my deepest apologies for the actions of those who violated the trust of the survivors and the parishioners within the Diocese by committing these terrible acts.”

The following 31 men are included on the diocese’s newly released list:

■ Rev. William Allison: Previously named by diocese
■ Rev. Michael Aten: Previously named by diocese
■ Rev. Michael Baca, O.F.M: Never publicly named before
■ Rev. George Baz: Never publicly named before
■ Rev. John Boland: Previously named by diocese
■ Rev. James Burns: Previously named by diocese
■ Brett Candelaria: Lay CCD teacher, never publicly named before
■ Rev. Santino Casimano: Previously named in clergy abuse lawsuits
■ Rev. Charles Cichanowicz, O.F.M: Previously named in clergy abuse lawsuits
■ Rev. David Clark, C.M.F: Previously named in clergy abuse lawsuits
■ Rev. Timothy Conlon, O.S.C: Previously named by his religious order
■ Rev. Joseph Coutu: Never publicly named before
■ Rev. John Degnan: Never publicly named before
■ Rev. Clement Hageman: Previously named by diocese
■ Rev. Julian Hartig, O.F.M: Previously named by diocese
■ Rev. Robert J. Kirsch: Previously named in clergy abuse lawsuit
■ Rev. Bruce MacArthur: Previously named in multiple national cases
■ Rev. Douglas McNeill: Previously named in clergy abuse lawsuit
■ Rev. Rene Messier: Never publicly named before
■ Rev. Lucien Meurnier: Never publicly named before
■ Rev. Francis “Frank” Murphy: Previously named by diocese
■ Rev. John Newton, C.P.P.S: Never publicly named before
■ Rev. Jose Rodriguez: Previously named by diocese
■ Rev. William Roper, C.M.F: Never publicly named before
■ Rev. Conran Runnebaum, O.F.M: Never publicly named before
■ Rev. Raul Sanchez: Previously named in clergy abuse lawsuit
■ Rev. Lawrence Schreiber, O.F.M: Never publicly named before
■ Rev. John Sullivan: Previously named in multiple national cases
■ Rev. Carl Todaro: Never publicly named before
■ Rev. David Enrique Viramontes: Never publicly named before
■ Rev. Samuel Wilson: Previously named in clergy abuse lawsuit

The Gallup bishop concluded his statement by encouraging anyone else “harmed by the sexual misconduct of an employee or clergy” to contact law enforcement or the diocese’s victim assistance coordinator.

Information:www.dioceseofgallup. org

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Tablet

17 December 2014 by Christopher Lamb

A leading campaigner against sexual abuse in England and Wales has been appointed to the Vatican commission for the protection of children.

Peter Saunders, Chief Executive of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac), is himself a victim of abuse.

Earlier this year he met Pope Francis in the Vatican where he urged him to provide practical steps to help abuse survivors.

The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors was set up in March and includes Baroness (Sheila) Hollins, and Marie Collins, an Irish abuse survivor and campaigner.

On 17 December the Vatican announced new members of the commission which, along with Mr Saunders, included Bill Kilgallon, former Chairman of the National Catholic Safeguarding Commission of England and Wales. Mr Kilgallon, who now lives in New Zealand, was among those safeguarding advisors who met with Pope Benedict XVI during his visit to Britain in 2010.

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PHILIPPINES
GMA

Pope Francis has named a Filipino as one of the new members of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, the Vatican said Wednesday.

Vatican Radio said Dr. Gabriel Dy-Liacco is one of the new members chosen from different parts of the world, to have a full representation of diverse cultures.

The pontifical commission seeks to safeguard the welfare of minors, including improving sex abuse prevention and better care for victims.

Its next plenary session is scheduled in the Vatican from Feb. 6 to 8, 2015.

Vatican Radio, citing information from the Holy See Press Office, described Dy-Liacco as an adolescent psychotherapist and pastoral counselor for various mental health concerns “including of individuals, couples, families and groups, including victims and perpetrators of abuse.”

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AUSTRALIA
J-Wire

December 17, 2014 by J-Wire Staff

A public hearing will be held in Melbourne on February 2 to examine the response of Yeshivah Melbourne and Yeshiva Bondi to allegations of child sexual abuse.

The hearing will be before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse .
On their website the Commission states:

The scope and purpose of the public hearing is to inquire into:

The response of the Yeshivah Centre and the Yeshivah College in Melbourne to allegations of child sexual abuse made against David Cyprys, David Kramer and Aaron Kestecher.

The response of the Yeshiva Centre and the Yeshiva College Bondi to allegations of child sexual abuse made against Daniel Hayman.

The systems, policies, practices and procedures for the reporting of and responding to allegations of child sexual abuse of:
a. Yeshivah Centre,
b. Yeshivah-Beth Rivkah Colleges,
c. The Yeshiva Centre – Chabad NSW, and
d. Yeshiva College Bondi.

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AUSTRALIA
Jewish Daily Forward

An Australian Royal Commission will investigate how rabbis and senior leaders of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement in Sydney and Melbourne handled the child sex abuse scandal.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse confirmed this week that Chabad in Sydney and Melbourne will be the focus of a public hearing, starting Feb. 2 in Melbourne. Some of Australia’s most senior Orthodox rabbis have already been subpoenaed to supply documents ahead of the hearing.

Streamed live online from the County Court of Victoria, the hearing will examine how rabbis and other senior officials dealt with allegations of sexual abuse against three former employees in Melbourne and one in Sydney.

David Cyprys, a former security guard at the Yeshivah Center in Melbourne, was sentenced to eight years in prison last year for multiple sex attacks – including one count of rape – on more than a dozen children.

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SCOTLAND
Daily Record

Dec 17, 2014 By Paul O’Hare

FORMER agony uncle Andy Monaghan, 72, has been banned from his Midlothian parish while the historic claims – which date back more than 36 years – are investigated.

A PRIEST who once worked as a radio agony uncle is under investigation after two women accused him of lewd behaviour.

Father Andy Monaghan, 72, was banned from his Midlothian parish by the Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh while the historic claims – which date back more than 36 years – are investigated.

Police were alerted after the women complained that the former radio presenter behaved inappropriately towards them when they were young adults.

Prosecutors are now considering whether he should face charges.

A Crown Office spokesman said: “The procurator fiscal received a report relating to incidents involving a 72-year-old man said to have occurred in Edinburgh and Falkirk between October 1978 and December 1983.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) As anticipated, the Holy Father Pope Francis has named new members of the Commission for the Protection of Minors. The new members have been chosen from different parts of the world in order to have a full representation of diverse situations and cultures.

The next plenary session of the Commission will take place in the Vatican from 6-8 February 2015.

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LOUISIANA
The Times-Picayune

By Michelle Hunter, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
on December 16, 2014

A Terrytown pastor convicted and later pardoned of sexually abusing a teenage boy 17 years ago has been arrested, again, on similar charges. The Rev. Terry Reed, 54, of 503 Marlin Court, was booked Saturday (Dec. 13) with indecent behavior with a juvenile and sexual battery, according to a Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office arrest report.

Reed is accused of abusing a 15-year-old boy whom he had taken in, according to the report. Reed slept naked with the teen and had inappropriate contact with him. The teen told investigators he was also forced to shower with Reed and wash the pastor, the report said.

Sheriff’s Office detectives took Reed into custody Saturday at home and questioned him about the teen’s allegations. Reed admitted sleeping naked with the victim on several occasions and undressing the boy in his bed, the arrest report said.

Reed is listed as the director and registered agent of Vessels of Christ Ministry, a non-profit religious corporation that operates out of his residence and is in good standing with the Louisiana Secretary of State.

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SCOTLAND
Evening Times

Claims of sexual, physical, verbal or emotional abuse were made against seven members of the clergy and six others people working in the church community.

Six of the allegations related to historical abuse in the 1980s or earlier, the Church said.

No prosecutions have followed the 2013 allegations, although three people have been removed from ministry and one is no longer a volunteer.

Two cases are being reviewed by the procurator fiscal.

The allegations were contained in the Catholic Church’s annual Diocesan Safeguarding Audit, published today, which covers each of Scotland’s eight dioceses.

According to the audit, PVG (Protecting Vulnerable Groups) checks were carried out on 488 Clergy and 4,225 volunteers.

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SCOTLAND
Independent Catholic News

In accordance with best practice and in line with a commitment given in 2013, Scotland’s Catholic Bishops have today, 16 December 2014 published the Diocesan Safeguarding Audit for 2013.

The results of this Audit give a statistical breakdown of reported safeguarding allegations during that year. The statistics show how many allegations were reported in 2013, the category of the incident, the category of the reported perpetrator and the outcome of any investigation.

These statistics have been compiled by the Safeguarding Offices in each of Scotland’s eight dioceses, signed off by each Diocesan Bishop and collated by the Scottish Catholic Safeguarding Service. The Safeguarding Service has also collated
and published an annual statistical return on behalf of all religious congregations and orders working in Scotland.

A spokesman for the Church said: “The Catholic Church in Scotland seeks to safeguard the welfare of people of all ages who are involved in whatever capacity with the Church and its organisations. The publication of this audit is an example of the commitment to transparency and openness made previously by Scotland’s Catholic Bishops.”

“The external “Review of Safeguarding Protocols and Procedures” being conducted by Dr Andrew McLellan will report in 2015 and the Statistical Review of all Historic Cases of Abuse from 1947-2005 will be published at that time also.” The spokesman added: “The Catholic Church would support an evidence based inquiry into abuse in care in Scotland.”

Summary of 2013 Audit:

PVG Checks (previously Disclosures) have been carried out on 488 Clergy and 4,225 volunteers.

Training: There are currently over 6,000 volunteers trained in Safeguarding and 170 Clergy

There were 15 allegations made in 2013 (of which six were historical – 1980’s or earlier)

The allegations were made against seven members of the clergy and six members of the laity (this represents 13 individuals as some had more than one allegation against them)

10 of the allegations made were of sexual abuse in some form, three also involved physical abuse. Two were of physical abuse and one of emotional abuse, and two were allegations of verbal abuse.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

by CHRIS MARSHALL
Published on the 16 December 2014

IF, AS expected, the Scottish Government announces an inquiry into historical sex abuse today, it will mark the culmination of a decades-long fight for justice for survivors.

But while it is an undeniably significant step, the setting up of an inquiry is nothing more than that – a step in the right direction.

The difficulties faced by Home Secretary Theresa May in getting a similar inquiry off the ground to look at, among other things, the existence of a paedophile ring at Westminster have been well documented.

That inquiry has already seen the resignation of two chairs – Lady Butler-Sloss and Fiona Woolf – and the Scottish Government would do well to learn the lesson of properly listening to victims from the outset.

At the time of writing, it is unclear what powers a Scottish inquiry will have and what it will look at.

There is an expectation it will investigate allegations of historical abuse such as those made by former pupils at the Roman Catholic Fort Augustus School on the banks of Loch Ness and those who spent time in Nazareth House, a children’s home in Aberdeen.

Tied to scandals like these is the issue of record-keeping and whether those in positions of authority were complicit – unwittingly or otherwise – in the abuse.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service – Bolletino

Testo in lingua italiana

As anticipated, the Holy Father has nominated new members of the Commission for the Protection of Minors, chosen from various parts of the world, so as to allow a broad representation of different situations and cultures.

The complete composition of the Commission is therefore as follows:

Cardinal Seán O’MALLEY, OFM Cap., president
Mons. Robert OLIVER (United States), secretary
Rev. Luis Manuel ALI HERRERA (Colombia)
Dr. Catherine BONNET (France)
Marie COLLINS (Ireland)
Dr. Gabriel DY-LIACCO (Philippines)
Prof. Sheila the Baroness HOLLINS (England)
Bill KILGALLON (New Zealand)
Sr. Kayula Gertrude LESA, RSC (Zambia)
Sr. Hermenegild MAKORO, CPS (South Africa)
Kathleen McCORMACK AM (Australia)
Dr. Claudio PAPALE (Italy)
Peter SAUNDERS (England)
Hon. Hanna SUCHOCKA (Poland)
Dr. Krysten WINTER-GREEN (United States)
Rev. Dr. Humberto Miguel YÁÑEZ, SJ (Argentina)
Rev. Dr. Hans ZOLLNER, SJ (Germany)
The next plenary session of the Commission will take place, as previously stated, in the Vatican on from 6-8 February 2015.

Brief information on members of the Commission is given below.

Cardinal Seán O’MALLEY, OFM Cap. (United States) is the Archbishop of Boston and serves as the President of the Commission and a member of the Council of Cardinals which advises His Holiness, Pope Francis.

Mons. Robert OLIVER (United States) serves as the Secretary of the Commission, following many years in child protection work for the Archdiocese of Boston, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith as the Promoter of Justice.

Rev. Luis Manuel ALI HERRERA (Colombia) is the Director of the Department of Phychology, professor of pastoral psychology in the Conciliar Seminary of the Archdiocese of Bogotá, and as a parish priest.

Dr. Catherine BONNET (France) is a child psychiatrist, psychotherapist, researcher, and author on child sexual abuse and perinatal violence and neglect.

Marie COLLINS (Ireland) is a survivor of child sexual abuse. A founder Trustee of the Marie Collins Foundation she served on the committee which drafted the Catholic Church’s all-Ireland child protection policy, “Our Children Our Church.”

Dr. Gabriel DY-LIACCO (Philippines) is an adult and adolescent psychotherapist and pastoral counselor for various mental health concerns including of individuals, couples, families and groups, including victims and perpetrators of abuse.

Prof. Sheila the Baroness HOLLINS (England) has worked as a psychiatrist and psychotherapist with children and adults with intellectual disabilities including those who have been sexually abused, and is a life peer in the House of Lords.

Bill KILGALLON (New Zealand) is Director of the National Office for Professional Standards of the Catholic Church in New Zealand where he has lived for the last four years. Prior to that he had a long career in social work and health services in the UK.

Sr. Kayula Gertrude LESA, RSC (Zambia) is a Development Professional, trainer and author on child protection, human trafficking, refugee rights and the right to information. She served as a member of the African Forum for Church Social Teaching (AFCAST).

Sr. Hermenegild MAKORO, CPS (South Africa) is a member of the Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood in the Diocese of Mathatha in South Africa. She works as a high school teacher and for several years in the diocese as a trainer in pastoral work. After serving as an Associate Secretary General of the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference for six years, Sr. Hermenegild was appointed as the Secretary General of the SACBC in 2012.

Kathleen McCORMACK AM (Australia) is a social welfare worker who served as Director of Welfare of CatholicCare in the Diocese of Wollongong for 29 years and held leadership roles in Family Services, Child Protection, Out Of Home Care and Ageing and Disability Services.

Dr. Claudio PAPALE (Italy) is a canon lawyer and a civil lawyer, professor of canon law at the Pontifical Urban University, and an official of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Peter SAUNDERS (England) was abused throughout his childhood in Wimbledon, South West London. Later in life, after earning a Business Studies degree, Peter discovered that he was one of millions who had suffered such abuse and who could not find any appropriate support. So he set up NAPAC, the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, for supporting all survivors and for developing greater resources for responding to child abuse.

Hon. Hanna SUCHOCKA (Poland) is a professor of constitutional law and specialist in human rights at the University of Poznan, and was formerly Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland and Ambassador of Poland to the Holy See.

Dr. Krysten WINTER-GREEN (United States) is a New Zealander with post-graduate degrees in Theology, Human Development, Social Work, Religion and Pastoral Psychology. She has served in dioceses around the world with homeless persons and those living with AIDS. Krysten’s concentration in the areas of child abuse include forensics, assessment and treatment of priest/clergy offenders.

Rev. Dr. Humberto Miguel YÁÑEZ, SJ (Argentina) is Director of the Department of Moral Theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University, professor of moral theology at the Gregorian and the Pontifical Urban University, and former Director of the Center of Research and Social Action in Argentina.

Rev. Dr. Hans ZOLLNER, SJ (Germany) is President of the Centre for Child Protection of the Pontifical Gregorian University and Director and Professor of the Institute of Psychology. He was Chair of the organizing committee for the Symposium “Towards Healing and Renewal” on sexual abuse of minors (February 2012).

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VATICAN CITY
ABC News

VATICAN CITY — Dec 17, 2014

Associated Press

A second survivor of sexual abuse has been appointed to Pope Francis’ sex abuse commission.

The Vatican on Wednesday released the names of the final nine members of the commission, which is expected to hold its first full meeting at the Vatican in February.

Among the new appointees is Peter Saunders, who founded the Britain-based National Association for People Abused in Childhood, or NAPAC, which is run by survivors of all kinds of childhood abuse to help other survivors.

Saunders was abused throughout his childhood by both family members and members of the clergy, and was one of the six people who met Francis last summer at the Vatican to tell their stories.

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OKLAHOMA
KFOR

ALTUS, Okla. – A former Oklahoma pastor was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly sexually abusing a foster child.

The Altus Police Department arrested 56-year-old Tommy Lynn Bailey on Tuesday for a complaint of child sexual abuse.

The victim allegedly told authorities the sexual abuse started when she was just 14-years-old and in the custody of the state.

She told officers that she was living with Bailey at the time of the abuse.

The police department began an investigation and revealed that the alleged abuse started around September 2007 and continued through February 2014.

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OKLAHOMA
Altus Times

A former Altus pastor was arrested on a felony warrant Tuesday afternoon, Dec. 16, on a complaint of Child Sexual Abuse.

According to Police Chief Tim Murphy, after a referral from The Oklahoma Department of Human Services in early December, an investigation was conducted by Altus Police which resulted in the arrest of Tommy Lynn Bailey, 56, of Altus.

Murphy said that the warrant was issued from the Jackson County District Court on a complaint of Child Sexual Abuse after the female victim told investigators the sexual abuse began while she 14 years old and living in the Bailey home.

“The investigation has revealed that the sexual abuse started on or around September 2007 and continued through February 2014 when the victim was in the custody of the State of Oklahoma as a foster child,” said Murphy.

Until recently, Bailey served nearly 15 years as the pastor of the Elm and Hudson Church of Christ in Altus. Bailey was also a former employee at Open Arms behavioral center in Lawton.

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ARIZONA
Eastern Arizona Courier

SAFFORD — After calling him a “great danger to society,” Graham County Superior Court Judge R. Douglas Holt sentenced pastor Dennis Wayne McGinnis, 67, to the maximum allowable penalty of 24 years in prison.

McGinnis previously pleaded no contest to molestation of a child — a class-2 felony — and attempted sexual conduct with a minor — a class-3 felony. On Monday, Judge Holt accepted the plea agreement and found McGinnis guilty of both charges.

“There is a significant need to deter you from future conduct like this, so I need to have you in prison for as long as I can,” Holt said as he sentenced McGinnis.

Allegations first arose against McGinnis in February 2012, when he was employed by the Mt. Graham Hospice as its chaplain. He also previously served as the visitation chaplain for the Victory Fellowship Church from November 2007 to March 2011, according to his resumé.

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NEW MEXICO
San Antonio Express-News

BY RUSSELL CONTRERAS, ASSOCIATED PRESS : DECEMBER 16, 2014

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The Roman Catholic Diocese of Gallup has released a list of clergy members it considers to have been credibly accused of sexually abusing children in cases that stretch back decades in New Mexico and Arizona.

The list made public Monday includes 30 priests and one lay teacher assigned to parishes from the 1950s to last year.

In a statement, Bishop James Wall said he released the names of accused clergy online to be transparent and protect children. “The survivors who have come forward should be commended for their bravery and courage,” Wall said.

He said he sent letters to each parish, mission and school within the diocese territory — which stretches from northwest New Mexico to northeast Arizona and encompasses a large portion of the Navajo Nation — where church officials have determined there was a legitimate accusation of sex abuse against a minor. …

Previously, the diocese released the names of 11 priests linked to such cases. The new list adds 20 other names, but does not include other details.

The Associated Press has not published the names because the allegations have not been independently verified, and it’s not clear whether any of those accused have been charged.

In his statement, Wall said victims should contact police if they recognized their abusers on the list. He also said the diocese’s investigation into molestation claims wasn’t finished.

Diocese spokeswoman Suzanne Hammons said no one on the list is working in the Gallup territory. “If they were transferred somewhere else, it’s because no one knew of the allegations, and we are looking into that,” Hammons said.

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NEW MEXICO
Albuquerque Journal

By Olivier Uyttebrouck / Journal Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: Wednesday, December 17, 2014

The Diocese of Gallup this week published a list of 30 priests and one lay teacher accused of “credible allegations” of child sexual abuse while assigned to parishes in New Mexico and Arizona, Gallup Bishop James Wall said in a written statement.

The new list marks the first time since 2005 that the diocese has named additional priests to those previously identified as “credibly accused clergy.” The 2005 list identified 11 priests.

“The publication of these additional names does not mean that our vigilance and continued investigation ends here,” Wall wrote in a statement published with the list.

Wall apologized for “the actions of those who violated the trust of the survivors and the parishioners with the Diocese by committing these terrible acts.” He also commended the “bravery and courage” of victims who have come forward.

At least seven of the priests identified in the list were assigned to New Mexico parishes for at least a portion of their careers with the diocese. They include the Rev. John Boland, who served at a total of 13 parishes in the diocese, including eight in New Mexico, from 1975 to 2009.

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NEW MEXICO
The Daily Times

By Hannah Grove The Daily Times

FARMINGTON — The Diocese of Gallup has released more information about sexual abuse allegations against some of its clergy.

On Monday, the diocese published on its website the names of 30 priests and one lay teacher it determined have had “credible allegations of sexual abuse of a minor” against them since the 1950s. The affected congregations were notified during Mass on Sunday.

Five priests on the list — John Boland, Charles “Chuck” Cichanowicz, Joseph Coutu, Conran Runnebaum and Lawrence “Larry” Schreiber — served in San Juan County, as did the only lay person, Brett Candelaria.

“It always surprises me that there would be credible allegations against a priest,” said Father Tim Farrell, the pastor at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Farmington. “It not only surprises me, it disturbs me.”

Farrell was among dozens of priests in the diocese who stood in front of their parishes Sunday to read a letter from Bishop James S. Wall naming the priests accused of sexual abuse and stating the diocese’s commitment to transparency and creating a safe environment for families. Runnebaum and Schreiber served at Sacred Heart, and Boland was chaplain of the church’s school, according to the diocese’s list.

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NIGERIA
Daily Post

By Omotola Filani on December 17, 2014

Wife of Psquare’s Peter Okoye, Lola Omotayo has revealed how she was molested and sexually abused as a teenager.

While addressing a group of young ladies at a Kinabuti event, which held recently in Lagos, the mum of two and career woman said she was molested when she was in high school – by a priest – and for the longest time she blamed herself and kept quiet about it because she did not think anybody will believe her.

“When I was a young girl in my early teens in high school, I was molested by a catholic priest, I blamed myself, I didn’t tell anyone because I was ashamed, couldn’t tell anyone because everyone would blame me, so I carried on the guilt and bitterness with me for years. I was filled with hate and I became an angry person, I was rebellious, I didn’t want to listen to anybody…and because I wanted to be expelled from school to avoid seeing this person, I would do so many terrible things, everything around me was just so negative, I felt I wasn’t good enough”.

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KENTUCKY
WLKY

LOUISVILLE, Ky. —This week, Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz is writing to parishioners of St. Peter the Apostle Parish to inform them that the Reverend Ronald Domhoff will return to ministry as its pastor, effective Dec. 17.

Domhoff had been placed on administrative leave as pastor by Archbishop Kurtz on Sept. 25, after the Archdiocese received information from the police that an individual had made an accusation of sexual abuse by Fr. Domhoff dating from the 1980s.

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ARIZONA
AZCentral

Stephen Root, 12 News | azcentral.com

The Catholic Diocese of Gallup New Mexico, the area of which reaches into parts of northern Arizona, has released 22 new names on a list of priests it says have been “credibly accused” of sexually abusing minors.

The additions bring the total number to 31 on a list of cases dating back to 1950. Some of the accused are already deceased, but at least one was working as a priest in Arizona as recently as last year.

“It brings back bad memories,” said abuse survivor Joseph Baca on a 2013 trip to his boyhood church in Winslow, a place where he’s believed to be one of at least 15 boys sexually abused by then-priest Father Clement Hageman.

“My abuse started when I was about 9 years old,” Baca said. “I told my mom and she said no, I’m lying.”

Tuesday’s announcement was another small victory for victims like Baca. Seventeen of those named worked in churches across northern Arizona, in communities such as Flagstaff, Prescott, Holbrook and Show Low.

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NEW MEXICO
KRQE

[with video]

By Aaron Drawhorn
Published: December 16, 2014

GALLUP, N.M. (KRQE) – The Diocese of Gallup has taken a major step and released a new list of 30 Catholic priests who are linked to sex abuse cases in New Mexico and Arizona.

The diocese released the list of “credibly accused clergy.” Last year the Diocese of Gallup filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in large part due to lawsuits over pedophile priests.

The list released Monday includes 30 priests and one lay teacher assigned to parishes from the 1950s to last year.

“The list is rather large, and a lot of people think wow, 30 priests is quite a large number, and unfortunately, that’s the case,” said Suzanne Hammons, media coordinator for the diocese.

Hammons said the most recent priest to serve the diocese on the list was Timothy Conlon who was removed this year as sexual abuse accusations from decades ago recently surfaced.

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NEW MEXICO
Albuquerque Journal

[with list of the accused priests]

By Olivier Uyttebrouck / Journal Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: Tuesday, December 16, 2014

The Diocese of Gallup has published a list of 30 priests and one lay teacher accused of “credible allegations of sexual abuse of a minor” assigned to parishes in New Mexico and Arizona, according to a statement written by Bishop James Wall.

The new list marks the first time since 2005 that the diocese has identified additional priests among those accused of sexual abuse. The 2005 list identified 11 priests as “credibly accused clergy.”

The diocese filed chapter 11 reorganization bankruptcy in 2012 in response to 13 lawsuits filed against the diocese by alleged victims of sexual abuse by priests who worked within the diocese from the 1950 until as recently as 2013. The bankruptcy case remains unresolved.

“The publication of these additional names does not mean that our vigilance and continued investigation ends here,” Wall wrote in a statement published with the list.

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MICHIGAN
WOOD

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — The man who arranged meetings for sex between former Christian radio host John Balyo and a boy around the age of 12 is scheduled to be sentenced in a federal courtroom in Grand Rapids on Wednesday.

Ronald Moser, 43, pleaded guilty in August to possession of child pornography and sexual exploitation of a child. Moser admitted that he and Balyo took graphic photos of the boy at Moser’s Battle Creek home and that he then put those photos on the Internet.

The prosecution’s pre-sentencing memorandum has been sealed, but Moser’s defense attorney’s has not. In the memo, defense attorney Paul Mitchell says that claims by an unnamed source that Moser took one of his 4-year-old children on extended semi-truck trips are “incredible” and untrue. Mitchell also said statements claiming Moser made $100,000 in two weeks from selling child porn is “equally incredible.”

Mitchell goes on to say Moser is “a largely unsophisticated defendant. At 43 years of age he can hardly be described as having been a success in life; indeed the opposite is true, as evidenced by his appearance in this court.”

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

1. President Obama, like all national US Democratic Party leaders since the early 1980’s, appears to calculate carefully his dealings with the Vatican. Given the Vatican’s influence over some US voters, this makes political sense. Nevertheless, his conflicts with the Vatican are likely to increase sharply sooner, rather than later.

2. Since at least 1984, the Vatican and its subordinate US bishops have worked closely politically with right wing US Republican leaders and their “low tax” wealthy donors. This political strategy appears to involve a “trade” of Vatican political support for protection by, and subsidies from, the US government, as well as substantial Church donations from high income Republican donors. This evident political alliance between conservative Catholic and fundamentalist Christian voters has been an essential part of the right wing’s electoral strategy since at least 1984. And it surely has contributed to the obscene and growing income disparity in the USA since 1984. The poor sheep seem easily fleeced, especially when episcopal shepherds work opportunistically with the ravenous high income wolves.

3. Consequently, Obama will take on the Vatican, it appears, only when larger segments of his voting base, especially women, gay folks and liberal Catholics would likely approve, as he did in 2012. He then successfully pushed his Obamacare contraception mandate and his public support for the “Nuns on the Bus” in their struggle with the Vatican. He had their leader, Sr. Simone Campbell, give a prime time speech at the 2012 Democratic national convention, which certainly had to have upset the Vatican.

4. So far, however, President Obama has been able mostly to avoid the “elephant in the room”, the priest child abuse scandal that has challenged other national leaders, for example in Australia, the UK and Ireland. Current events, including in Minneapolis relating to Obama’s Chief of Staff’s brother, Fr. Kevin McDonough, and the upcoming 2016 US presidential campaign, may compel Obama, however, finally to take a public stand soon on the greatest church scandal in US history. He recently in a well publicized meeting with the UK’s Prince William spoke up on the need to protect rhinoceros. Will Obama now speak up for children at high risk of being abused by clerics?

5. Pope Benedict had launched a disastrous Vatican investigation of American nuns. It had prompted protests from outraged US Catholics. It ended in Rome on Tuesday (12/16/14) with the release of generally appreciative Vatican findings; the report on the investigation stressed the achievements and efforts of the US nuns. A related Vatican investigation is still ongoing, though.

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