ABUSE TRACKER

KENTUCKY
WHAS

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WHAS11) — A Louisville priest placed on administrative leave of absence after an accusation of sexual abuse is cleared of all allegations Tuesday night.

Father Ron Domhoff was placed on leave in September.

The Louisville Achdiocese confirms that Father Domhoff will return to ministry. A statement by the Archdiocese says the LMPD Crimes Against Children unit has ended its investigation.

Furthermore an Archdiocese Review Board said there was no report or evidence that any abuse had ever occurred.

In a letter to his parishioners, Father Domhoff wrote the following: “The last few months have been the most terrifying experience of my 42 years as a priest. It has been a sheer emotional rollercoaster with deep lows and affirming highs…Constantly, I received texts and letters and hugs on the street and convinced me that I was never alone.”

A former Louisville man, John David Gregory, made the claims against Domhoff. He said the abuse took place in the 1980s.

Gregory’s attorney told WHAS11 news, on Tuesday, they had no comment regarding Domhoff being cleared of all the accusations.

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KENTUCKY
WAVE

LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) – A priest who was removed from his parish after being accused of sexual abuse will be returning in time for Christmas services.

Fr. Ronald Domhoff was serving as pastor of St. Peter The Apostle on Johnsontown Road when the accusation against him was made. Archbishop Joseph Kurtz placed Domhoff on administrative leave on Sept. 25 after being informed by Louisville Metro police of the allegation. The person making the accusation said the abuse occurred in the 1980s.

According to a statement released to WAVE 3 News by the Archdiocese, the decision to return Domhoff to his parish came after the claim against him could not be substantiated and the investigation was ended by the LMPD Crimes Against Children Unit.

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PARAGUAY
ABC

[The prosecutor is investigating an allegation of abuse of children by a priest in the Divine Spirit parish in Asuncion. The incident occurred a year ago when the children were attending catechism classes. The complaint was made by the children’s parents.]

En poder del Ministerio Público obra una denuncia contra un sacerdote de la parroquia Divino Espíritu, debido a que supuestamente abusó de dos menores.

La fiscala Viviana Patricia Riveros es quien investiga una denuncia realizada por los padres de los menores que supuestamente fueron víctimas de abuso. El presunto agresor es Estanislao Arévalos Pedrozo.

Según se relata en el documento que obra en la Fiscalía, el hecho ocurrió hace un año, cuando los menores concurrían al catecismo. Las clases se desarrollaban en la parroquia ubicada sobre la calle Teniente Rojas casi Teniente Raúl Buzarquis Real, de Asunción.

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IRELAND
Sunday World

An ex-priest who abused 18 boys over an 18 year period has lost an appeal against his 10 year prison sentence

Peter Kennedy (75), with a former address at Ballinahown, Co Westmeath pleaded guilty to 27 counts of indecent assault in various areas of the country between 1968 and 1986.

He was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment on one count with all other counts taken into consideration by Judge Martin Nolan at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on July 8 2013.

Dismissing Kennedy’s appeal against sentence today Mr Justice George Birmingham said there was criticism of the judge’s approach to sentencing on one count while taking all other counts into consideration.

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LAGOS
360nobs

Lola Omotayo let out a part of her past at the recently held Kinabuti Dare2Dream Project in Lagos where she was invited to address young girls.

She explained what she went through at the hands of a priest. How she met another man in life, and the story repeated itself before finally meeting Peter of P-Square and …..

“You shouldn’t let your past determine what your destiny will be, we all have our past whether good or bad or makes us unhappy, we all had a life that we lived that we are not happy about, you shouldn’t let it bother you from succeeding.

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 cos i felt everyone would blame me, so i carried on the guilt and bitterness with me for years. I was filled with hate and i became a 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….

Anyway i moved on to the university, met the love of my life and i’m like, okay this guy is cool, he loves me…and then he started to abuse me….i was beaten black and blue all the time, in front of friends, in public and at a point i felt, you know what I am not worthy enough, there is nothing about me that is nice, nobody loves me but i hid this from my family….i felt like a loser..so it was hard for me to focus..so one day i woke up and said i am going to change my story and i dumped that person, focus on my education and decided to be serious and be something….i decided to get a job and go to school full time in America…

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Philly

BY DENNIS SADOWSKI
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) — U.S. women religious welcomed the conciliatory tone of a Vatican report on religious life and appreciated acknowledgement of the important ministry that they practice day in and day out in the life of the church.

They also said the report, released Dec. 16, opens a new beginning for women religious, who have continued their work despite the questions about the status of religious life in the U.S. that were raised by the apostolic visitation process that ran from 2009 to 2012.

“The positive tone and the clear affirmation found in the document gives us new energy to move on in our critical role for the sake of the mission of the church in the United States,” said Sister Mary Johnson, a member of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur who is professor of sociology and religious studies at Trinity Washington University.

“I see great good coming out of this in that through the media, the laity and clergy and bishops will now have heightened understanding of our way of life in the church and hopefully will help us respond to the yearnings of women who are interested in religious life,” she told Catholic News Service.

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WISCONSIN
Stevens Point Journal

Alison Dirr, Daily Herald Media
December 16, 2014

WAUSAU – A priest of the Diocese of La Crosse is being removed from public ministry after an incident in which he is accused of asking for sex favors at a Wausau massage parlor.

McGarty, 89, was given a municipal citation in Wausau on Thursday after a massage therapist told police that McGarty had demanded that she rub oil on his genitals, according to the disorderly conduct citation. The municipal code recommends a fine of $250 for that offense, but it was unclear from the citation whether McGarty had paid a fine as of Monday.

The therapist was working on McGarty’s leg during a massage when he lifted a blanket around his groin area and told her to rub oil on his genitals. The therapist told police that she refused and ran out of the room. As she was leaving, he yelled a derogatory term after her, according to the citation.

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WISCONSIN
WSAW

The Director of Communications and Public Relations for the Diocese of La Crosse issued a statement Monday saying, “We are saddened to learn of a recent situation involving Msgr. Bernard McGarty, a priest of the Diocese of La Crosse. According to diocesan policy as stated in the pastoral letter On Sexual Misconduct for the Diocese of La Crosse, Msgr. McGarty, from this moment forward, is not to have any public ministry while this current situation is investigated.”

Viterbo College also issued a statment regarding the investigation, stating, “Effective immediately, Msgr. Bernard McGarty will not be serving as Viterbo’s Visiting Scholar in Ecumenical Studies or presenting occasional guest lectures.” The statement was send to media outlets by Pat Kerrigan, Vice President of Communications and Marketing.

As NewsChannel 7 first reported Friday, Monsignor Bernard McGarty was cited with disorderly conduct after he reportedly asked a massage therapist to touch his genitals.

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SCOTLAND
The Courier

The Catholic Church in Scotland received 15 allegations of abuse last year.

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.

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SCOTLAND
STV

By Matt Coyle
16 December 2014

The Catholic Church in Scotland faced 15 allegations of sexual and physical abuse in 2013, it can be revealed.

The allegations were made against seven priests, three volunteers, two parishioners and one other person.

Some of those had more than one allegation made against them, a new audit report has found.

Six of the 15 allegations made against the church were historical, dating back to the 1980s or earlier.

Ten of the claims made related to sexual abuse in some form, three involved physical abuse, two were of physical abuse and one of emotional abuse with two further allegations of verbal abuse.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

by CHRIS MARSHALL
Published on the 16 December 2014

THREE members of the Catholic Church have been removed from their posts amid allegations of abuse, it has emerged.

The Church said 15 allegations had been made against clergy and lay members last year, ten of which related to sexual abuse.

Three of the individuals have been removed from the ministry, and two cases are with the procurator fiscal.

The details emerged as the Scottish Government prepares to announce an inquiry into historical sexual abuse, a move the Church said it supported.

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SCOTLAND
Scottish Catholic Observer

The Church has said it would support a Scottish Government inquiry into abuse in care homes in Scotland, as it published details of safeguarding breaches within it own diocese in 2013.

The Scottish Government is expected to announce a wide-ranging inquiry into abuse of children in care later this week and a Church spokesman said they would support ‘an evidence-based inquiry into abuse in care in Scotland.’

The Church today published details of their the Diocesan Safeguarding Audit for 2013.

The results of this audit show that 15 allegations were made of which seven were against members of the clergy. Six dated to the 1980s or earlier and ten of the allegations were of sexual abuse, of which three also involved physical abuse.

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.

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ARIZONA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

At least 17 predator priests worked in AZ; SNAP responds

For immediate release: Tuesday, Dec. 16

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 )

According to disclosures today by a Catholic bishop, at least 17 credibly accused predator priests worked and lived in at least 26 Arizona towns (Chinle, Winslow, Holbrook, Page, Prescott, St. Johns, Concho, Kingman, Clarksdale, Ash Fork, Flagstaff, Seligman, Yarnell, Springerville, Lukachukai, Ft. Defiance, Tuba City, St. Michaels, Cottonwood, Camp Verde, Humboldt, Mayer, Leupp, Show Low, Cibecue and McNary).

[KVOA]

Bishop James S. Wall of the Gallup Catholic Diocese revealed a list of 31 alleged child molesting clerics this morning. About half of them also spent time Arizona. Their names and Arizona assignments are below.

Now, we call on Arizona’s __ bishops to do more to protect the vulnerable, heal the wounded and expose the truth.

By disclosing names of 31 credibly accused predator priests, Wall has done the bare minimum. He and his Arizona colleagues must now:

— reveal the predator priests’ photos, current whereabouts and detailed work histories
— put all this information in every parish bulletin, along with an emphatic plea for anyone who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes or cover ups in Arizona or New Mexico to call police.
— personally visit the parishes where these priests worked (starting with the predator who faces the most recent allegations) and beg victims, witnesses and whistleblowers to contact law enforcement.
— write – and publicly disclose – letters to their brother bishops in whose dioceses some of these potentially dangerous men now live or work.
— post their own lists of proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting clerics on their own diocesan websites.

Many of these 31 child molesting clerics now live or work around unsuspecting neighbors. Having been suspended from active parish ministry does not “cure” them of their frightening sexual attraction to children.

If an Arizona manufacturer knew of dozens of potentially dangerous sites where its toxic waste was hidden, but kept most of this information concealed for decades, there would justifiably be a huge public outcry. And if, belatedly and grudgingly, the CEO had finally disclosed those sites, there would justifiably be pressure for him or her to do more.

So we beg Tucson Bishop Gerald Kicanas and Phoenix Bishop Thomas Olmstead to take these simple, proven, and inexpensive steps to warn parents, parishioners and the public about predator priests.

NOTE – According to BishopAccountability.org, there are 34 publicly accused predator priests in the Tucson diocese and 27 in the Phoenix diocese.

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ESPANA
El Periodico

JULIA CAMACHO / SEVILLA
VIERNES, 12 DE DICIEMBRE DEL 2014

El juzgado de Cádiz que investiga los presuntos abusos sexuales cometidos por el director del colegio Salesianos, Francisco Javier López Luna, a 27 menores ha dado por concluida la investigación y, tras sostener que existen indicios de delito por parte del sacerdote, pide a las partes que se pronuncie sobre la apertura de juicio oral o el sobreseimiento de la causa.

El instructor mantiene la imputación por dos delitos continuados de abusos sexuales a menores de 13 años, siete delitos continuados de abusos sexuales a mayores de 13 años, tres delitos de abusos sexuales a mayores de 13 años, 23 faltas continuadas de lesiones y cuatro faltas de lesiones. Así, ordena que se sigan las actuaciones contra el ya exdirector del centro por trámite de procedimiento abreviado, aunque declara prescritas las faltas de lesiones y acuerda del sobreseimiento libre. El auto ordena además sobreseer las actuaciones contra J.S.A, un trabajador del centro que fue inicialmente imputado por un supuesto delito de encubrimiento.

El sacerdorte F.J.L.L. fue detenido en julio del 2013 por supuestos delitos contra la integridad moral e indemnidad sexual de varios alumnos de entre 12 y 14 años, cuyos padres denunciaron los hechos. Según explicaron los alumnos, todos varones, los citaba habitualmente en su despacho, incluso en fin de semana, y allí, como si fuera un juego les invitaba a pegarse entre ellos o él mismo les golpeaba, realizando además tocamientos en zonas con connotaciones sexuales. Todo ello a cambio de subir las notas, jugar en el ordenador del religioso o saltarse algunas clases. Lo sucedido fue descubierto por unos progenitores cuyo hijo les mostró las conversaciones privadas que mantenían por mensajes de telefonía.

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NIGERIA
Pulse

[with video]

Lola Omotayo-Okoye has made a shocking revelation that she was once a victim of child molestation in the hands of a Catholic Priest.

Lola made this revelation while she was addressing young ladies at the Kinabuti Dare2Dream event. The mother of two told the girls that while she was in high school, she was molested by a Catholic priest, but couldn’t tell anyone because she thought no one was going to believe her.

“When I was a young girl in high school I was molested by a catholic priest and blamed myself. I was a child, I didn’t know any better, I didn’t know what to think, I didn’t know what to believe, I didn’t know how to feel. I blamed myself, I didn’t tell anyone, I was embarrassed, I was ashamed. I didn’t know if anyone was going to believe me and I didn’t even know if anybody was going to believe me. I felt like I did something wrong. For many years, that incident stuck with me, I became rebellious, I was filled with hate, I didn’t want to listen to anyone and it turned me into a very angry person,” Lola Omotayo-Okoye said during a speech which was themed around not letting your past define you.

She further revealed that she was also in an abusive relationship while she was in the university in America before breaking out to start a new life of her own.

She also told the girls that she was questioned and mocked when she started dating a then up and coming musician in the person of her husband and music star, Peter Okoye of the PSquare fame.

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VATICAN CITY
Yahoo! News

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – A keenly-awaited Vatican report on Roman Catholic nuns in the United States struck a conciliatory tone on Tuesday, praising them for their social and educational work but urging them to stick to Church teachings.

The report is the result of an investigation launched in 2008 after some Vatican officials and U.S. bishops voiced concern that some American nuns had adopted a secular mentality and been infiltrated by what one official at the time called “radical feminism”.

The inquiry, begun during the papacy of former Pope Benedict, involved 341 religious orders and about 50,000 nuns.

Sister Sharon Holland, a leading U.S. nun, told a news conference presenting the 12-page report that while many sisters at the time reacted with “apprehension and suspicion”, the final report had “an encouraging and realistic tone”.

The Vatican officials at the time of the investigation said some nuns did not sufficiently espouse Church teachings against abortion and homosexuality and that some had become too involved in political issues.

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NEW MEXICO
NewsWest 9

By RUSSELL CONTRERAS
Associated Press

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) – The Diocese of Gallup has released a list of “credibly accused clergy” linked to decades-old sex abuse cases in New Mexico and Arizona.

The list released Monday includes 31 priests and one lay teacher assigned to parishes from the 1950s to last year.

Gallup Diocese Bishop James Wall says he was making the new list public to protect children and in the spirit of transparency.

In a statement, Wall apologized for the actions of those who committed “these terrible acts.”

Wall says that if victims recognize the names of the priests on the diocese’s website they should contact law enforcement.

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NEW MEXICO
Roman Catholic Diocese of Gallup

To the Laity, Religious and Clergy of the Diocese of Gallup

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ Jesus:

When I became the Bishop of the Diocese of Gallup, I committed to ensuring that the children in this Diocese and in the Parishes, Missions or Schools that operate within the Diocese were protected. The Diocese published names of those working within the Diocese against whom there were credible allegations of sexual abuse of a minor. 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 who worked in various places within the Diocese. I have sent letters to each Parish, Mission or School within the territory of the Diocese of Gallup where each of the priests or others served advising them that there was a priest who was ministering in that Parish, Mission or School against whom we have determined there were credible allegations of sexual abuse of a minor.

As part of my ongoing commitment, we are now putting all the names, places and dates of service of credibly accused priests here on the Diocese’s website. This list will include the priests previously named as well as those who are being named now.

The publication of these additional names does not mean that our vigilance and continued investigation ends here. 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. I reaffirm my commitment to protect our children and my commitment to continue to assist those who have been harmed.

If you or a loved one were harmed by the sexual misconduct of an employee or clergy within the Diocese of Gallup, we strongly encourage you to contact law enforcement. We also welcome you to contact the victim assistance coordinator at the Diocese, at 505-906-7357.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Bishop James S. Wall

The following is a list of clergy identified by the Diocese of Gallup as having credible allegations of sexual misconduct made against them.

(Spanish translation coming soon)

Fr. William Allison
Assignments:
Previously Published – Assignments to be Updated

Fr. Michael Aten
Assignments:
Previously Published – Assignments to be Updated

Fr. Michael Baca, OFM (Deceased)
Assignments:
Immaculate Conception Parish, Cuba NM (1953)
St. Joseph the Worker Parish, San Fidel NM (1961)
Our Lady of Fatima Parish, Chinle AZ (1978)

Fr. George Baz
Assignment:
St. Joseph Parish, Winslow AZ (07/1968-09/1968)

Fr. John Boland
Assignments:
Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish, Holbrook AZ (1975)
St. Philip Parish, Church Rock NM (1977)
Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish, Page AZ (1978)
Madre de Dios Parish, Winslow AZ (1980-1983)
St. Jerome Parish, Gallup NM
St. Mary Parish, Bloomfield NM (1987)
Sacred Heart School Chaplain, Farmington NM (1994)
Our Lady of Sorrows Parish, Cebolleta NM (1995)
Our Lady of Light Mission, Cubero NM (1995)
St. Joseph the Worker School Chaplain, San Fidel NM (1995)
St. Paul Parish, Crownpoint NM (1999)
Risen Savior Mission, Bluewater NM (1999)
Immaculate Conception Parish, Cuba NM (2002)

Fr. James Burns
Assignments:
Previously Published – Assignments to be Updated

Brett Candelaria (Lay CCD Teacher)
Assignment:
Holy Trinity Parish, Flora Vista, NM (1991-1992)

Fr. Santino Casimano
Assignments:
Previously Published – Assignments to be Updated

Fr. Charles Cichanowicz, OFM
Assignments:
St. Michaels Parish, St. Michaels AZ (1980)
Christ the King Parish, Shiprock NM (1983)

Fr. David Clark, CMF
Assignment:
Sacred Heart, Prescott AZ (06/1960 – 07/1960)

Fr. Timothy Conlon
Assignments:
St. John the Baptist Parish, St. Johns AZ (11/2011 – 12/2013)
San Rafael Parish, Concho AZ (11/2011 – 12/2013)

Fr. Joseph Coutu
Assignments:
St. Mary Parish, Farmington NM (05/1981 – 12/1981)
Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish, Holbrook AZ (12/1981 – 1983)
Sacred Heart Cathedral, Gallup NM (1983 – 06/1984)

Fr. John Degnan (Deceased)
Assignments:
St. Mary, Kingman AZ (1951)
St. Cecilia, Clarksdale AZ (1952 – 1961)
St. Ann, Ash Fork AZ (1952 – 1961)
Madre de Dios Parish, Winslow AZ (06/1961 – 09/1961)

Fr. Clement Hageman
Assignments:
Previously Published – Assignments to be Updated

Fr. Julian Hartig
Assignments:
Previously Published – Assignments to be Updated

Fr. Robert J. Kirsch (Deseased)
Assignments:
Our Lady of Guadalupe, Flagstaff AZ (1957)
Santo Nino de Atocha Parish, Aragon NM (1958 – 1959)
St. Francis, Seligman AZ (1959 – 1962)
Madre de Dios Parish, Winslow AZ (1963 – 1964)

Fr. Bruce MacArthur
Assignmenst:
Previously Published – Assignments to be Updated

Fr. Douglas McNeill
Assignments:
Previously Published – Assignments to be Updated

Fr. Rene Messier
Assignments:
St. Mary Mediatrix of all Graces, Yarnell AZ (1961-1963)
St. Anne, Ashfork AZ (1963)

Fr. Lucien Meurnier (Deceased)
Assignment:
St. Joseph Parish, Winslow AZ (08/1972 – 06/1973)

Fr. Francis Murphy
Assignments:
Previously Published – Assignments to be Updated

Fr. John Newton, CPPS
Assignments:
St. Joseph Parish, Winslow AZ (10/1955 – 1957)
St. Peter Parish, Springerville AZ (05/1957 – 1959)

Fr. Jose Rodriguez
Assignments:
Previously Published – Assignments to be Updated

Fr. William Roper, CMF
Assignment:
Sacred Heart, Prescott AZ (1964-1965)

Fr. Conran Runnebaum, OFM (Deceased)
Assignments:
St. Teresa of Avila Parish, Grants NM (06/29/55 – 07/1958)
Sacred Heart Parish, Farmington NM (07/1958 – 07/1964)
St. Joseph the Worker Parish, San Fidel NM (07/1964 – 1973)
Sacred Heart Parish, Farmington NM (07/1975 – 1978)

Fr. Raul Sanchez
Assignments:
Madre de Dios Parish, Winslow AZ (07/1975 – 10/1976)
Chancellor, Gallup Diocese (1979 – 11/1986)

Fr. Lawrence Schreiber, OFM
Assignments:
St. Isabel Parish, Lukachukai AZ (1961 – 1962)
St. Michaels Parish, St. Michaels AZ (1962 – 1963)
Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament Parish, Ft. Defiance AZ (1963 – 1968)
Christ the King Parish, Shiprock NM (1968 – 1969)
St. Jude Parish, Tuba City AZ (1969 – 1976)
Christ the King Parish, Shiprock NM (1977 – 1981)
St. Isabel Parish, Lukachukai AZ (1981 – 1983)
St. Michaels Parish, St. Michaels AZ (1983 – 1986)
Sacred Heart Parish, Farmington NM (1986 – 1990)
Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament Parish, Ft. Defiance AZ (1990 – 1991)

Fr. John Sullivan
Assignments:
Previously Published – Assignments to be Updated

Fr. Carl Todaro
Assignment:
Mount St. Mary’s of the West Seminary (1951 – 1952)

Fr. David Enrique Viramontes (Deceased)
Assignments:
Santo Niño de Atocha Parish, Aragon NM (06/1957 – 06/1958)
Our Lady of Guadalupe, Flagstaff AZ (06/1958 – 07/1959)
St. Joseph Parish, Winslow AZ (07/1959 – 07/1960)
Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish, Holbrook AZ (07/1960 – 01/1961)
St. Pius X, Flagstaff AZ (01/1961)

Fr. Samuel Wilson (Deceased)
Assignments:
Church of the Nativity, Flagstaff AZ (1952)
Santo Niño de Atocha Parish, Aragon NM (08/1952 – 1957)
Church of the Nativity, Flagstaff AZ (1958)
St. John the Baptist Parish, St. Johns AZ (10/1958 – 1960)
Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish, Holbrook AZ (1961)
St. Cecelia Parish, Clarkdale AZ (07/1961 – 1962)
Immaculate Conception, Cottonwood AZ (07/1961 – 1962)
St. Francis Cabrini, Camp Verde AZ (1962 – 1964)
St. Lawrence, Humboldt AZ (1963 – 1964)
St. Joseph, Mayer AZ (1963 – 1964)
Madre de Dios Parish, Winslow AZ (08/1964 – 12/1965)
Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish, Flagstaff AZ (09/1968 – 1969)
Tolani Lake Indian, Leupp AZ (1970 – 1971)
San Rafael Parish, San Rafael NM (1972)
Our Lady of Sorrows Mission, Cebolleta NM (1973)
St. Rita Parish, Show Low AZ (1974 – 1975)
St. Catherine Parish, Cibecue AZ (1976 – 1979)
St. Anthony Parish, McNary AZ (1980)
RMCH and GIMC Hospitals; McKinley Manor, Gallup NM (1985-1986)

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NEW MEXICO
KVOA

The Diocese of Gallup has released a list of “credibly accused clergy” linked to decades-old sex abuse cases in New Mexico and Arizona.

The list released Monday includes 31 priests and one lay teacher assigned to parishes from the 1950s to last year.

Gallup Diocese Bishop James Wall says he was making the new list public to protect children and in the spirit of transparency.

In a statement, Wall apologized for the actions of those who committed “these terrible acts.”

Wall says that if victims recognize the names of the priests on the diocese’s website they should contact law enforcement.

Previously, the diocese released the name of 10 priests linked to such cases. The new list adds 22 new names.

Click here for the list.

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SCOTLAND
Daily Record

THE Catholic Church in Scotland received 15 allegations of abuse last year.

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.

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SCOTLAND
Scottish Catholic Safeguarding Service

Introduction

Each year the Scottish Catholic Safeguarding Service through the office of the National Coordinator presents a report to the Bishops of Scotland at their November meeting which details an Audit of the eight dioceses in Scotland in relation to the work of safeguarding in the previous calendar year.

The Audit contains details of how safe environments are created with a rigorous recruitment which includes an Application Form, references and PVG Scheme membership (previously Disclosures) for those involved with children and vulnerable adults in a Church setting.

As well as PVG, Training plays an important role in creating safe environments. The current national safeguarding training programme developed by professionals within the Catholic Church is called “Awareness and Safety in Our Catholic Communities”. The training programme includes a Welcome Guide for all volunteers in the parishes with clear guidance about appropriate safeguarding procedures and good practice. This training is mandatory and delivered by experienced and trained Diocesan safeguarding Trainers. The Audit contains details about the training undertaken annually. Training has been further enhanced during 2013-14 to include important issues such as managing sex offenders in our parish communities, information on the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009 and the impact of Child Sex Exploitation.

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SCOTLAND
BBC News

The Catholic Church in Scotland has revealed details of abuse allegations made in 2013, of which seven were made against members of the clergy.

In total, 15 allegations were made, of which six were historical (from the 1980s or before).

Ten of the allegations were of sexual abuse, of which three also involved physical abuse.

The Catholic Church said it was publishing the audit to show that it was being transparent and open.

The Diocesan Safeguarding Audit for 2013 showed that the remainder of the allegations involved physical abuse alone, emotional abuse and verbal abuse.

Ten of the allegations were reported to the police.

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VATICAN CITY
The New York Times

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
DEC. 16, 2014

A Vatican investigation of American nuns started under the previous pope, which prompted protests from outraged Catholics, ended in Rome on Tuesday with the release of a generally appreciative report that acknowledged the achievements and the challenges the nuns face given their dwindling ranks.

The relatively warm tone in the report, and at the Vatican news conference that released it, was a far cry from six years ago when the investigation was announced, creating fear, anger and mistrust among women in religious communities and convents across the United States.

“Sorry, folks, this is not a controversial document,” Mother M. Clare Millea, an American nun who directed the investigation, said at the news conference. Instead, she said, it was “a challenge for all of us.”

Pope Francis celebrated Mass on Tuesday with some of the women and men in religious orders who were involved with the long investigative process. Mother Millea said that Francis told them he knew that it was an “arduous experience,” and said of the nuns in the United States, “Please give them all my blessing.”

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VATICAN CITY
The Pilot

12/16/2014, BY CINDY WOODEN

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — A massive, detailed Vatican-ordered investigation of U.S. communities of women religious ended with a call to the women themselves to continue discerning how best to live the Gospel in fidelity to their orders’ founding ideals while facing steeply declining numbers and a rapidly aging membership.

Although initially seen by many religious and lay Catholics as a punitive measure, the apostolic visitation concluded with the publication Dec. 16 of a 5,000-word final report summarizing the problems and challenges the women themselves see in their communities and thanking them for their service to the church and to society, especially the poor.

The visitation process, carried out between 2009 and 2012 with detailed questionnaires and on-site visits, mainly by other women religious, “sought to convey the caring support of the church in respectful, sister-to-sister dialogue,” says the final report by the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.

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SPAIN
The Olive Press

THE former director of a Salesian college in Cadiz is to stand trial for abusing 12 children.

Francisco Javier Lopez, a Roman catholic priest of the Salesian order of Don Bosco, was held by police for a month in 2013 following sexual abuse complaints from up to 30 children from Cadiz’s Salesian San Ignacio College.

Judge Miguel Angel Lopez Marchena charged the priest with sexual abuse of 12 children between the ages of 12 and 14 and 15 counts of assault.

Up to 30 students testified against the former director. The judge, however, has estimated that only 12 cases amount to abuse.

The abuses allegedly occurred in Lopez’s office when he summoned students from class or made them go to school at evenings and weekends.

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VATICAN CITY
ABC News

VATICAN CITY — Dec 16, 2014, 6:46 AM ET
By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press

The Vatican went out of its way Tuesday to mend fences with American religious sisters, thanking them for their selfless work caring for the poor and promising to value their “feminine genius” more while gently suggesting ways to survive amid a decline in numbers.

The report, the long-awaited results of the Vatican’s controversial three-year investigation into U.S. women’s religious orders, was most remarkable for what it didn’t say. After years of tension and distrust, there was no criticism of American nuns, no demands that they shift their focus from social justice issues to emphasize Catholic teaching on abortion, no condemnation that a feminist, secular mentality had taken hold in their ranks.

Rather, while offering a sobering report on the difficult state of American congregations, the report gave a positive view of the sisters’ contributions to the church and reflected a merciful and encouraging tone that is characteristic of Pope Francis, the first Jesuit pope.

The report, as a result, offered a radically different message, in both tone and content, to the 50,000 sisters living and working in the U.S. than that of another Vatican office investigating an umbrella group of their leaders.

That investigation, conducted by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, resulted in a Vatican takeover of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious in 2012. The doctrine office determined that the LCWR, which represents the leaders of 80 percent of U.S. sisters, took positions that undermined church teaching and promoted “radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.”

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter – Global Sisters Report

by Joshua J. McElwee

The final report of a controversial and unprecedented six-year Vatican investigation of tens of thousands of U.S. Catholic sisters takes a roundly positive, even laudatory, tone towards their life and work but also includes several couched but barbed criticisms of them.

Using some form of the word “gratitude” eight times over its 12 pages, the report also acknowledges the suspicion many sisters had over the launching of the investigation and says the Vatican is seeking “respectful and fruitful dialogue” with those who refused to collaborate in the process.

The Vatican’s congregation for religious life, which wrote the report, states at one point: “We express the hope that together we may welcome this present moment as an opportunity to transform uncertainty and hesitancy into collaborative trust, so that the Lord may lead us forward in the mission he has entrusted to us on behalf of the people we serve.”

The Vatican investigation, known formally as an apostolic visitation, was launched by the religious congregation in 2008 with the approval of Pope Benedict XVI. Likely the largest such investigation in church history, it involved inquiry into some 341 female religious institutes in the U.S. that include some 50,000 women.

Both U.S. women religious and lay people have been keenly awaiting release of the final visitation report after several years with little information about the state of the investigation, one of two separate inquiries of U.S. women religious launched by different Vatican offices in recent years.

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MINNESOTA
Canonical Consultation

12/15/2014

Jennifer Haselberger

I am hearing rumors that another investigation is underway in the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, with people being contacted for questioning by William McNab of Winthrop & Weinstine. However, in this case it does not appear as though the topic is the conduct or misconduct of Archbishop Nienstedt. Rather, what I am hearing is that the questions asked relate to Father Kevin McDonough.

McDonough has, of course, been under fire before. The docsociety (founded in the aftermath of the 2002 murder of Dan O’Connell and James Ellison by Reverend Ryan Erickson), began calling for his resignation from Archdiocesan duties as early as 2006 (see the organization’s ‘Founding Document’).

And, those who have been ordained in recent years or who have taken prominent positions within the Chancery will recall that the publication of those events in The Catholic Spirit would almost always result in the receipt of an anonymous letter, purportedly from members of an SA group, alleging misconduct by Father McDonough and several other priests and bishops. These letters arrived with such predictability that I could guess what had occurred even before responding to the frantic emails and calls from the stunned recipients, who were, as would be expected, horrified by what the letters contained. I think at one point the Chancellor for Civil Affairs, Andy Eisenzimmer, made some sort of effort to have the letters traced, but other than that I don’t recall any action being taken about them or any investigation taking place as to what was alleged.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service – Bolletino

Press Conference for the presentation of the Final Report on the Apostolic Visitation of Institutes of Women Religious in the United States of America, 16.12.2014

Press Conference for the presentation of the Final Report on the Apostolic Visitation of Institutes of Women Religious in the United States of America

Opening remarks of Fr. Thomas Rosica, C.S.B.

Statement of Cardinal João Braz de Aviz

Italian translation (Statement of Statement of Cardinal João Braz de Aviz)

Statement of Archbishop José Rodríguez Carballo, O.F.M.

Italian translation (Statement of Archbishop José Rodríguez Carballo, O.F.M.)

Statement of Sr. M. Clare Millea, A.S.C.J.

Statement of Sr. Sharon Holland, I.H.M.

Statement of Sr. Agnes Mary Donovan, S.V.

Closing remarks of Fr. Thomas Rosica, C.S.B.

At 11.30 this morning in the Aula Giovanni Paolo II of the Holy See Press Office a press conference will take place to present the Final Report of the Apostolic Visitation of Institutes of Women Religious in the United States of America.

The speakers in the press conference are: His Eminence Cardinal João Braz de Aviz, prefect of the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and the Societies of Apostolic Life; Archbishop José Rodríguez Carballo, O.F.M., secretary of the same Congregation; Sr. M. Clare Millea, A.S.C.J., director of the Apostolic Visitation in the United States; Sr. Sharon Holland, I.H.M., president of the “Leadership Conference of Women Religious” (LCWR); Sr. Agnes Mary Donovan, S.V., coordinator of the “Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious” (CMSWR); Fr. Thomas Rosica, C.S.B., assistant to the Visitation Committee.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service – Bolletino

Final Report on the Apostolic Visitation of Institutes of Women Religious in the United States of America

Introduction

At the conclusion of the Apostolic Visitation of Institutes of Women Religious in the United States of America, conducted “to look into the quality of the life of religious women in the United States”, this Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CICLSAL) presents this report to the women religious themselves as well as to the Church’s Pastors and faithful. In addition to this general report, it is foreseen that individual reports will be sent to those Institutes which hosted an onsite visitation and to those Institutes whose individual reports indicated areas of concern. Letters of thanks will also be sent to those Institutes which participated in the first two phases of the Visitation.

The Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life is sincerely grateful for the presence of women religious in the United States and for all that they contribute to the Church’s evangelizing mission. Since the early days of the Catholic Church in their country, women religious have courageously been in the forefront of her evangelizing mission, selflessly tending to the spiritual, moral, educational, physical and social needs of countless individuals, especially the poor and marginalized. Throughout the nation’s history, the educational apostolate of women religious in Catholic schools has fostered the personal development and nourished the faith of countless young people and helped the church community in the USA to flourish. In addition, a great majority of the Catholic healthcare systems in the United States, which serve millions of people each year, were established by congregations of women religious.

In response to the appeal of Perfectae Caritatis to return to the Gospel, “the ultimate norm of religious life” and to “their founder’s spirit and special aim” (PC, 2 a & b) women religious sought to adapt their life style and mission in ways that might enable them to more effectively respond to contemporary needs. In a spirit of creative fidelity to their charisms, they branched out in new ministries to those most on the margins of the Church and society. Women religious in the United States also notably pursued ongoing theological and professional formation seeking to further their ability to serve the Church’s evangelizing mission and to prepare others to collaborate in it as well. Women religious typically engage in volunteer ministry well beyond the normal retirement age and even in their later years sustain the life and ministry of their sisters through their prayerful support.

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MALTA
Times of Malta

A magistrate this morning started hearing evidence in the case of Dominican friar Charles Fenech who is facing sex abuse charges.

The first to take the witness stand was the woman who is making the allegations against Fr Fenech. She testified behind closed doors before Magistrate Tonio Micallef Trigona.

The woman is claiming Fr Fenech sexually abused her during the course of a relationship spanning a number of years.

She alleges that the abuse started while she was being treated at Mount Carmel Hospital.

Two women later also testified behind closed doors. Sources said they were asked to confirm the testimony of the main witness.

It is not yet clear whether the remaining witnesses will be heard in open court when the case resumes on February 23.

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UNITED STATES
Leadership Conference of Women Religious

The report of the apostolic visitation of US women religious will be posted here on the morning of December 16, 2014. We anticipate receiving this and posting it by 7 AM EST.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

By Abby Ohlheiser December 16

The Vatican will release a much-anticipated report on Tuesday examining the lives of American nuns.
The report, known officially as an Apostolic Visitation, angered many American Catholics when it was announced in 2008 — many viewed it as an attack on the mission of American women religious – the proper Catholic term for nuns – who often work with marginalized communities, and in education and hospitals. But, according to some leading U.S. nuns, attitudes changed during the investigation and, on the eve of the report’s release, many sisters were feeling less defensive.

“We still feel pretty hurt, bewildered, angry and betrayed,” said Sister Simone Campbell, who is executive director of the group Network and is best known for leading “Nuns on the Bus” road trips. “But what happened as a result of it is Catholic sisters came together and we’re more connected. Out of the pain and hurt comes a greater sense of solidarity.”

At this point, it’s not clear what the report will say or what recommendations — if any — it will make. But the number of nuns has plummeted in recent decades: Georgetown’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate estimates that there are now 49,883 women religious in the United States, compared with about 180,000 in the mid-’60s. The potential topics addressed, however, are broad: For instance, one Vatican leader has said the report would potentially look at American nuns’ “secularist mentality.” The report could touch on topics from religiosity to recruiting.

Although Sister Simone said late Monday that she was “holding her breath” until the report emerged, she noted that many were “hopeful” about its content in part because of the way in which the Vatican has chosen to announce the results: during a news conference at the Vatican, with the full report released online shortly after. The Rev. Thomas Rosica, who serves as an English-language spokesman for the Vatican and who participated in the review as a site visitor, told the Detroit Free Press that the report “will hopefully be a very positive message for women religious in the United States.”

The investigation involved questionnaires and site visits to organizations representing about half of the 50,000 women religious in the United States. Although in 2008, Cardinal Franc Rodé, the leader of the Vatican’s committee on religious life – which includes nuns and priests — initially said that the report was simply designed to “look into the quality of the life of religious women in the United States,” he later said that the report was also concerned with what he termed a “secularist mentality” among nuns. The visitation had the backing of then-Pope Benedict XVI.

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AUSTRALIA
SBS

An 88-year-old Catholic priest who sexually abused an alter boy in Melbourne in the 1970s will walk free from jail within weeks, after successfully appealing the length of his sentence.

The now-retired priest, James Henry Scannell, had served 138 days of his two year sentence when the Victorian Court of Appeal reduced his jail time to 15 months, with 10 months of this suspended.

Scannell was found guilty of a single charge of buggery by a Victorian County Court jury in July, and he continues to deny committing the assault.

The joint ruling by Justices Mark Weinberg, Phillip Priest, Lex Lasry on Tuesday rejected Scannell’s bid to have his conviction overturned but did allow a reduction in his prison term.

Scannell’s was originally required him to serve at least 12 months before being eligible for parole.

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WASHINGTON
The Spokesman-Review

Kip Hill
The Spokesman-Review

Spokane’s former Bishop Blase Cupich disputes the testimony of a now-resigned top lieutenant, saying he never directed attorneys to sling mud at the law firm that guided the Spokane Diocese through bankruptcy.

In a declaration filed earlier this month with the federal Bankruptcy Court in Eastern Washington, Cupich said he directed diocese attorneys to “put pressure” on Spokane law firm Paine Hamblen by naming two of its top attorneys and their spouses in a legal malpractice lawsuit. But he didn’t advise them to throw mud at the firm “to see if any mud sticks,” as Steve Dublinksi, Cupich’s vicar general until his resignation last summer, testified in October.

“At no time did I say that we were filing the case as a way to throw mud at this law firm or besmirch their reputation,” Cupich wrote in a declaration, filed by the diocese’s legal counsel Dec. 3. “It was always a matter of trying to let them know we were serious and hoping that some aspect of our case would get their attention and stick with someone in the firm who could provide some common sense.”

The diocese, with the assistance of Paine Hamblen, filed for bankruptcy 10 years ago. It reached an agreement in 2007 to pay people who claimed abuse at the hands of priests dating back decades.

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UNITED STATES
International Business Times

By Zoe Mintz

Melissa Tanis knows the “abstinence speech” very well. She heard it at home, in church and in high school. And it didn’t stop when she reached college.

“Ladies, you’re princesses, and when you give pieces of your heart away to boys, you only have half a heart left. And what kind of prince wants half of a heart? No, you need to keep yourself pure. You need to keep yourself whole. Because you can’t get those pieces of your heart back. So think twice before you kiss a boy,” Tanis, 25, said, remembering the sermon she heard as a student at Ozark Christian College in Joplin, Missouri.

On conservative Christian campuses across the U.S., the refusal to admit that their students have sex is hurting victims of sexual abuse.

According to a recently released report by an independent watchdog group, Bob Jones University, a leading conservative Christian university in South Carolina, discouraged victims from filing police reports, rarely punished the abusers and blamed victims for their “involvement” in the crime. “Deal with your own sin” and do “not be selfish” were some of the comments students said they heard from school counselors when denouncing sexual assault.

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ZIMBABWE
ZimEye

Josephine Mbunekwe
Published: December 16, 2014

A POPULAR MARRIED UNGUZA PASTOR has admitted having a series of intimate sessions with his own teenage niece for a period of over twelve months.

Pastor Lemison Moyo, 33, had sex with his 17 year old niece with his hypnotised wife’s permission for the lengthy period as he bought the victim gifts such as underwear, soap and lotion.

These issues were revealed as Pastor Moyo was yesterday acquitted of rape.

Pastor Moyo, was over the moon when regional Magistrate Chrispen Mberewere said it was clear that he had consensual sex with his 17-year-old Form Three niece on several occasions and that at law he could not be charged.

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MALTA
Malta Today

Matthew Agius 16 December 2014

Fr. Charles Fenech, 54, from Rabat, appeared in the dock before Magistrate Tonio Micallef Trigona this morning, accused of sexually abusing a woman in her 40s.

Fenech’s lawyer, Michael Scriha, requested the case be heard behind closed doors, “as this was the practice in such cases”, however the magistrate was clearly not going to be influenced by this argument, saying that he, “does not care what happened in similar cases, there is no established practice”.

The magistrate said he would ask the public to leave the courtroom for the testimony of the victim and psychiatrist David Cassar. It is unclear whether the other witnesses will be heard in open court, however.
Inspector Louise Calleja, leading the prosecution, said the they would like the victim to testify behind closed doors and the court agreed to this.

The Dominican priest had missed his previous three sittings over the abuse charges, citing poor health.
Fenech is facing charges of violent sexual abuse against a mentally unstable patient, holding the woman against her will and committing indecent acts in public.

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MALTA
Malta Independent

Updated: Court starts hearing Fr Charles Fenech case, victim’s testimony given behind closed doors

A court this morning started hearing evidence in the case against Dominican priest Fr Charles Fenech, 54, who faces sexual abuse charges.

At the start of today’s sitting, defence lawyer Michael Schriha asked the court to hear the case behind closed doors and said the courts usually did so in similar cases. Magistrate Tonio Micallef Trigona, however, said he was not interested in what usually happened and said he needed a good reason to bar the media from covering the proceedings.

The prosecution, led by Inspector Louise Calleja, said she was asking the court to hear the first witness behind closed doors but said she had no objections to the rest of the case being heard in public. There are around ten witnesses scheduled to give evidence today.

The court decided that the first witness, a victim, should testify behind closed doors. It is not yet clear if the rest of the witnesses will also be heard behind closed doors.

Fr Fenech was stopped from administering his responsibilities as a priest after The Malta Independent published a story naming him as the priest who is charged with alleged sexual abuse. He has also been removed from the post of director of the Kerygma Movement.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Conall Ó Fátharta and Niall Murray

The terms of reference for the mother-and-baby home inquiry will be published following the first Cabinet meeting in the new year.

A spokesperson for Children’s Minister Dr James Reilly said to allow the “requisite space for debate” on the issue, the terms of reference, which had been promised before the Christmas recess, would now be brought to Cabinet for agreement on January 8. A Dáil debate on the inquiry would take place the following week.

Dr Reilly has been meeting with advocacy groups in recent weeks and says he is “confident” the inquiry will be as “inclusive as possible” and have the support of “those most centrally involved”.

A number of the groups have warned that the inquiry needs to be as wide as possible to achieve any degree of support and must look at issues like forced and illegal adoptions, the Magdalene Laundries and the vaccine trials.

Earlier this year, the Adoption Authority admitted for the first time that potentially thousands of people had been illegally adopted here. The claim directly contradicted former children’s minister and now Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald’s statement in the Dáil last year that every adoption carried out by the State was legal.

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MONTANA
Independent Record

ALEXANDER DEEDY Independent Record

The Diocese of Helena filed information on Friday detailing its financial situation and a reorganization plan to resolve its Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The diocese filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Jan. 31, 2014 as part of a $15 million settlement to victims who said some diocese clergy had sexually abused them decades ago.

The plan was submitted in collaboration with the Unsecured Creditors Committee, which represents the hundreds of people who have filed those claims of abuse.

Dan Bartleson, spokesman for the diocese, said it’s good for the diocese to have these steps and the submission of a disclosure statement is a positive move.

The disclosure statement detailing the diocese’s financial situation is intended to give creditors enough information so they can be informed when deciding if the reorganization plan will be sufficient or not.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Monday 15 December 2014

Gerry Braiden
Senior reporter

PLANS to hold public inquiry into historical child abuse in Scotland are expected to be announced this week, it has been reported.

Ministers are expected to confirm a high-profile investigation into allegations of abuse carried out in care homes and educational institutions, amid reports this will included claims against religious orders and high-profile members of the Scottish establishment.

The Scottish Government said former Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning Mike Russell has given a update Parliament in any decision on an inquiry before Christmas, with his successor Angela Constance due to make a statement on Wednesday.

The announcement is expected to confirm a timetable, although the precise terms of reference have yet to be drawn up.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: “A month ago Mr Russell updated Parliament on the Government’s response to the Scottish Human Rights Commission InterAction process for survivors of historic cases of abuse in care.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Alan Travis, home affairs editor
Monday 15 December 2014

The home secretary is prepared to give significant new powers to the official inquiry into child sex abuse, including compelling witnesses to give evidence, she has told MPs.

“The overwhelming message I’m getting from those that I have been meeting, survivors and survivors’ representatives that I’ve been meeting, is that it’s important to make sure that we do get this right. I’m very clear that the inquiry should have the powers of a statutory inquiry,” Theresa May said on Monday. “This should be an inquiry that has the power of compulsion.”

The home secretary also indicated that she is reconsidering the inquiry’s terms of reference to enable a current 1970 cut-off date to be revised to allow allegations dating to the 1950s to be examined.

But May admitted that she was not yet on the verge of appointing a new chair to the controversial inquiry, with the Home Office considering more than 100 possible names for the job.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

An inquiry into historical child abuse should be able to compel witnesses to give evidence, Home Secretary Theresa May has said.

Mrs May told MPs she was “very clear” the investigation “should have the powers of a statutory inquiry”.

The panel, which has started work, still has nobody to chair it after the first two nominations stood down.

Mrs May had previously said the inquiry could become statutory if that was requested by the person leading it.

But with nobody in that role, the home secretary appeared to go further in an appearance before the Home Affairs Select Committee.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Times

Richard Ford Home Correspondent

Published at 12:01AM, December 16 2014

Theresa May is to give the historic child sex abuse inquiry tougher powers after survivor groups complained it could not force witnesses to provide evidence.

The Home Secretary said she is now clear that the inquiry, which has been hit by setbacks over the choice of chairman, should have the powers of a statutory investigation.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

1. The double standard continues among the Catholic hierarchy on financial accountability. Cardinal Dolan reportedly “buried” millions in a Milwaukee cemetery trust, seemingly to avoid paying priest abuse survivors. He now is closing many schools and churches in NYC, as he reportedly plans to spend nearly $200 million to renovate his elite Cathedral and residence, all with minimal oversight and accountability.

2. Pope Francis, after almost two years as pope, reportedly has failed so far even to select an independent outside auditor for the Vatican’s financial assets and operations. Meanwhile, his “financial czar”, Cardinal Pell apparently stumbles over hundreds of millions of “newly found” Vatican assets, conveniently a few days before the announcement of the latest Vatican Bank embezzlement scandal.

3. Yet an anti-abortion priest advocate is being faulted by +Dolan and the Vatican for lack of financial accountability, that is by hierarchs who themselves appear generally quite thin on accountability.

4. Cardinal Dolan, who has reportedly stated that he had been asked by the Vatican to help anti- abortion activist , Fr. Frank Pavone, “restructure” his big fundraiser, Priests for Life, has now reportedly said that he has informed Rome that “I am unable to fulfill their mandate, and want nothing further to do with the organization.” The Cardinal indicated he had “no idea” what the Vatican intends to do now.

5. What +Dolan’s action does make clear, however, is that the Vatican is micro-managing US cultural warriors like Pavone. This appears to be part of Pope Francis’ ramping up of his US election push to help elect in 2016 a “US bishops’ friendly” right wing US president and Congress, and thereby preserve a “Vatican friendly” US Supreme Court majority as priest child abuse related litigation and prosecution risks continue to proliferate.

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CANADA
CBC News

Some Catholic churches in the Moncton area could be forced to close due to financial challenges, says the archbishop.

Valéry Vienneau told parishioners over the weekend the future of all 54 churches in the Archdiocese will be reviewed in light of diminishing attendance and a shortage of priests.

“We can’t let a parish go into a deficit for a number of three or four years,” he said.

​”We would ask them to look at their finances and present us with a plan and see if they can correct it. Because if a parish goes into deficit and has to close, the diocese has to pick up the tab, and we don’t have the means right now to do that.”

​The Moncton Archdiocese has already been struggling financially, as it looks for millions of dollars to pay compensation to victims of sexual abuse.

The diocesan centre was closed last year, after at least 90 victims came forward in a confidential compensation process headed by retired Supreme Court Justice Michel Bastarache, and about 10 lawsuits were filed against the church and two former priests.

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WISCONSIN
LaCrosse Tribune

The Diocese of La Crosse has barred Monsignor Bernard McGarty from public ministry while it investigates his being fined for disorderly conduct at a massage salon in Wausau, Wis., Thursday.

McGarty, an 89-year-old retired priest, was not arrested but was issued a $250 ticket after he was accused of lifting the covering off of his groin during a massage and asked the masseuse to rub his genitals.

The massage therapist refused and left the room, she told Wausau police. McGarty also called her a derogatory name, she told police.

On Monday, the diocese issued a statement saying, in part, “We are saddened to learn of a recent situation involving Msgr. Bernard McGarty. … According to diocesan policy as stated in the pastoral letter On Sexual Misconduct for the Diocese of La Crosse, Msgr. McGarty, from this moment forward, is not to have any public ministry while this current situation is investigated.”

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UNITED STATES
New York Times

By JAMES MARTIN

The most controversial incident in Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s tenure as Jesuit provincial (that is, regional superior) of Argentina came in 1976. Father Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, was a prayerful man, a charismatic leader and a priest deeply committed to the poor. As Jesuit provincial, he was also charged with the care of Jesuit priests and brothers throughout Argentina. A few years after taking office at the alarmingly young age of 36, he was faced with the thorny problem of how best to support two priests, Orlando Yorio and Franz Jalics, who had moved into a slum in Buenos Aires and were advocates for the poor in the face of brutal government opposition during Argentina’s so-called Dirty War.

Father Bergoglio supported the work of those referred to as slum priests, but warned the two of the dangers inherent in their ministries. Around the same time, Father Yorio sought approval for his final vows as a Jesuit. Because of suspicions about his work, the evaluations Father Bergoglio received from other Jesuits were largely negative. Some Jesuits in Rome, according to Austen Ivereigh, author of “The Great Reformer,” a fine new biography of Pope Francis, also believed rumors that the two were linked with guerrillas, and so their community in the slums was ordered disbanded.

As a compromise, Father Bergoglio suggested they continue their work with the poor, but live in a nearby Jesuit community. Rather than abide by his request — which they were obliged to do under their vow of obedience — the two decided to leave the Jesuits. Shortly afterward, they were captured and tortured by military forces, who held them captive for several months. Father Bergoglio worked furiously behind the scenes, going to what Mr. Ivereigh calls “extraordinary lengths” to secure their release.

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AUSTRALIA
Naitonal Catholic Reporter

Catholic News Service | Dec. 15, 2014

SYDNEY
Archbishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney said there is no link between celibacy and child sexual abuse after the body charged with responding to a national inquiry on behalf of Australia’s bishops appeared to link the two.

The Truth Justice and Healing Council made the apparent link in its activity report, released Friday, detailing its actions in response to the Australian government’s Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which began Jan. 13, 2013.

In an opinion piece for The Australian newspaper Monday, Fisher wrote that while abuse in the church was “sickening” and “shameful,” the great majority of cases occurred in non-institutional settings, particularly in the family.

“We must avoid glib explanations or simplistic solutions,” Fisher wrote in the piece. “As I have said before, there must be no more excuses, no more cover-ups.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Magazine

BY ELIZABETH FENNER

Beyond the metal barricades and phalanx of cops blocking off State Street, inside the massive stone-walled Gothic cathedral, right near the polished wood confessionals, the TV cameramen checked their cables. And checked them again. For November 18 was no ordinary news day. In half an hour, every station in the city would interrupt its usual broadcast schedule to beam out live coverage of the two-hour Mass formally installing Blase Cupich as the ninth archbishop of Chicago. It would be the culmination of more than eight weeks of near-daily reporting on what this m­­ild-mannered 65-year-old was planning (he won’t live in the cardinal’s mansion!), doing (attending a bishops’ conference in Baltimore!), and saying (“People in Chicago are much like the people in Omaha, where I grew up. They work hard, they pray hard”).

Such wall-to-wall media coverage of one religion’s change in leadership is hard to imagine in any other big American city. You wouldn’t see it in New York or L.A., for example. But Chicago, as if you needed reminding, is different. It’s the city whose first European settler was a Catholic priest. Run for decades by Catholics. And continually flooded with Catholic immigrants, at first from Western Europe and these days mostly from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America. More Catholics live here than do members of any other single religion. Heck, even Rahm probably knows what parish he’s from.

If you tuned in to Cupich’s installation and saw the 1,000-plus priests, bishops, civic dignitaries, and other invitation-only guests streaming into Holy Name Cathedral on that freezing November day, you might believe Chicago is just as robustly Catholic as ever. But looks can be deceiving. In 1980, Catholics made up 43 percent of the total population of Cook and Lake Counties, the territory encompassed by the Archdiocese of Chicago. Today they constitute about 35 percent, or 2.07 million people, according to an exclusive poll conducted by Fako Research & Strategies for Chicago in November (see full poll results here). That figure correlates with the downward trend reported in other studies.

Meanwhile, 14 percent of the residents of those two counties—more than 800,000 people—used to be Catholic but have left the church. Put another way: For every 10 Catholics here, there are now four ex-Catholics. Among those born in the United States, the exodus has been greater still. Says Susan Ross, who chairs Loyola University’s theology department, “If it weren’t for Latino immigration, the church in Chicago would be losing many more people.”

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

Charles J. Reid, Jr.
Professor of Law, University of St. Thomas

There is a growing crisis haunting the Catholic Church. And it is a crisis larger than the events that have so greatly afflicted the American Catholic Church. The pedophilia scandals are a horrifying element of this crisis. So, too, are the bishops who covered up and excused these outrages. And so, also, the more general loss of confidence Catholics have in a hierarchy that seems oddly concerned with rank and privilege and with fighting yesterday’s culture wars. Yes, these are all elements of the crisis, but the crisis is larger than this.

And that something larger is both sad and profound: a loss of faith in the institutions of the Church. Pope Francis, in his remarkable interview with La nacion, published the weekend of December 6 and 7, made it clear that he recognized the gravity of the moment. He was asked why so many people were leaving the Church. As posed, the question addressed Latin America. By implication, it looked to the world.

Pope Francis could have directed his answer at factors external to the Church. Indeed, one can imagine his predecessors alternatively blaming culture, or relativism, or the forces of secularism. Pope Francis, however, is different. His was a more introspective answer. We must look within, he advised, to what Catholics are themselves doing wrong.

At the root of the crisis, he proposed, was the problem of clericalism. Clericalism is strangling true Christianity. Pope Francis has spoken often about clericalism during his brief pontificate. It was the reason, early in his tenure, that he ceased granting applications by priests to be raised to the rank of monsignor. Being called monsignor adds little to a priest’s life. But the quest for this title led, in Francis’s judgment, to careerism and a preoccupation with title and honor that had little to do with the Gospels.

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service

David Gibson | December 15, 2014

NEW YORK (RNS) In the latest clash between the Catholic hierarchy and one of the church’s leading anti-abortion crusaders, New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan accused the Rev. Frank Pavone of continuing to stonewall on financial reforms, and Dolan said he is cutting ties with his group, Priests for Life.

In a Nov. 20 letter to other U.S. bishops, Dolan said he did not know if the Vatican would now step in to take action against the New York-based priest, who for years has angered various bishops by rejecting oversight of the organization by church authorities and for refusing to sort out his group’s troubled finances.

“My requests of Father Pavone were clear and simple: one, that Priests for Life undergo a forensic audit; two, that a new, independent board be established to provide oversight and accountability,” Dolan wrote in the letter, which was first reported by Catholic World News.

“Although Father Pavone initially assured me of his support, he did not cooperate. Frequent requests that he do so went unheeded. I finally asked him to comply by October 1st. He did not,” Dolan wrote.

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MICHIGAN
Detroit Free Press

Patricia Montemurri, Detroit Free Press
December 15, 2014

The Rev. Timothy Kane, convicted of stealing money from the now-discontinued Angel Fund to help the poor of Detroit, was sentenced Monday to 12 months in jail served over 5 years during the months of June and December plus about 8 weekends.

Kane was also sentenced to pay $131,400 in restitution.

Kane begins serving his sentence Tuesday through December in the Wayne County Jail.

A Wayne County Circuit Court jury found Kane guilty in October of six counts related to theft from the charity fund for poor people, including embezzlement between $1,000 and $20,000.

Kane, 58, testified that he didn’t steal Angel Fund monies, even though he had signed a confession to police after his arrest in February. Kane said he signed the confession because of confusion related to his diabetes.

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MICHIGAN
The Detroit News

Holly Fournier, The Detroit News December 15, 2014

Detroit — A Metro Detroit Catholic priest was sentenced to 12 months in jail Monday afternoon after being convicted in October for stealing money from a charity for the poor.

The Rev. Timothy Kane was convicted on embezzlement, conspiracy and other related charges for stealing about $131,000 from a charity fund through a scam using “straw” applicants to apply for $1,500 grants for the needy and then receiving kickbacks on some of the money paid out.

Kane’s jail sentence is to be served over a five-year period in June and December each year with two extra months to be determined. Kane also must pay $131,400 in restitution. Kane was ordered to report to the court Tuesday to begin serving time in Wayne County Jail.

The 58-year-old priest has denied the charges and said he wrongly signed a confession to police. He again proclaimed his innocence before being sentenced Monday by Wayne County Circuit Judge Bruce Morrow.

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MICHIGAN
ABC News

AP

A Detroit-area Catholic priest will spend two months in jail each calendar year for the next five years for stealing money from a charity for the poor.

Wayne County Circuit Judge Bruce Morrow’s sentence calls for the Rev. Timothy Kane to be jailed during the months of December and June. Another eight weeks will be determined by probation officials.

Kane also was sentenced Monday to five years’ probation and restitution of $131,400. He was ordered to report Tuesday to the Wayne County Jail.

A jury found Kane guilty in October of crimes including embezzlement between $1,000 and $20,000 from the Angel Fund, an Archdiocese of Detroit charity created to help people in need. The 58-year-old denied the charges and said he wrongly signed a confession to police.

Assistant prosecutor Maria Miller says sentencing guidelines called for 36 months to 60 months.

“This is a most unusual sentence that is below the defendant’s guidelines,” Miller said. “It is especially troubling considering that he was convicted as charged of multiple counts of stealing money from the poor. We will be determining whether we will appeal the case in the next several days.”

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

BY AMANDA FERGUSON – 15 DECEMBER 2014

The Lord Mayor of Belfast will attend a special service this afternoon to remember the 11,000 people buried in mass graves in Belfast, including hundreds of babies and children.

During a ceremony at 3.30pm today Nichola Mallon, and deputy mayor, Maire Hendron, will lay flowers at unmarked mass graves at Milltown Cemetery to remember the city’s ‘forgotten babies’ and other poor and marginalised citizens buried there.

It is estimated around 11,000 people are buried in the mass graves at the point where the cemetery meets the Bog Meadows. …

Patrick Corrigan, Northern Ireland Programme Director of Amnesty International, said: “After the revelations about the mass grave of babies at Tuam, it is more important than ever that we discover of the truth of what happened at Mother and Baby Homes in Northern Ireland, including whether their short lives were, in any way, attributable to neglect or abuse while in care and whether those babies ended up in unmarked graves in the Bog Meadows.

“We have asked the First and Deputy First Minister to establish an inquiry into Mother and Baby homes here, as has been promised in the Republic.

“Unfortunately, eighteen months on from the original request to Ministers, families are still awaiting a response.”

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

BY MICHAEL MCHUGH – 15 DECEMBER 2014

Calls for an inquiry into “forgotten babies” from institutional homes in Northern Ireland who were buried in mass graves have still not been answered 18 months later, campaigners claimed.

At least 11,000 people are interred in west Belfast on land which used to form a nature reserve.

Hundreds of infants from homes for unmarried mothers and their offspring were routinely placed there without ceremony or marker during the last century, Amnesty International said.

Patrick Corrigan, director at Amnesty in Northern Ireland, said their short lives could be due to neglect or abuse while in care.

“We have asked the First and Deputy First Minister (at the Stormont Executive) to establish an inquiry into Mother and Baby homes here, as has been promised in the Republic.

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AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

December 15, 2014

Kristina Keneally

Last Friday the Australian Catholic Church’s Truth, Justice and Healing Council released a ground-breaking report on child sexual abuse. That morning, ABC’s Samantha Donovan interviewed the council’s chief executive Francis Sullivan and asked him if he had received any response yet from the Vatican.

Sullivan laughed and said, “No, not at all.”

“You’re laughing there?” said Donovan.

Sullivan replied, “Well, I think they’re all asleep at the moment … [awkward pause] … with it happening overnight.”

I know what Sullivan meant, but it is hard not to think that when it comes to child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, many in the Vatican are still asleep.

The Truth, Justice and Healing Council’s report publicly named two aspects of church practice as possible contributors to the sexual abuse of children by priests: obligatory celibacy and clericalism (that is, that only ordained men exercise power in the Church). Most Australians, Catholic or not, likely responded with the equivalent of “well, duh …. yeah”.

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MONTANA
Great Falls Tribune

The Catholic Diocese of Helena filed its Chapter 11 Disclosure Statement and Plan of Reorganization on Friday, Dec. 12, as part of a process being overseen by the Diocese and the Unsecured Creditors Committee. The committee represents the interests of those who have filed abuse claims against the church.

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VATICAN CITY
Bolletino

Accredited journalists are informed that on Tuesday 16 December at 11.30, in the Aula Giovanni Paolo II of the Holy See Press Office, a press conference will be held to present the Presentation of the Final Report of the Apostolic Visitation of Institutes of Apostolic Life of Women Religious in the United States of America.

Presenters:

– His Eminence João Braz Card. de Aviz, Prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life;

– Archbishop José Rodríguez Carballo, O.F.M., Secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life;

– Mother M. Clare Millea, A.S.C.J., Director of the Apostolic Visitation of Institutes of Apostolic Life of Women Religious in the United States of America;

– Sr. Sharon Holland, IHM, President of Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR);

– Mother Agnes Mary Donovan, SV, Coordinator of the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious (CMSWR):

– Fr. Thomas Rosica, CSB, Assistant to the Visitation Committee.

The Press Conference will be transmitted via live streaming.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Tablet

15 December 2014 11:03 by Christa Pongratz-Lippitt

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn has said that some participants’ responses at October’s Extraordinary Synod on the Family were characterised by fear.

In a four-page interview in the December issue of the German theological monthly Herder Korrespondenz, he said he had been most surprised to find that many of his fellow bishops were “afraid” of his suggestion that they recognise the good present in irregular relationships.

Some cardinals had even expressed a longing for authority and had held Russian President Vladimir Putin up as a model, for his defence of family values. This he found “very worrying indeed”.

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UNITED STATES
The Tablet (UK)

12 December 2014 by Abigail Frymann Rouch

Mother Mary Clare MilleaThe woman tasked with carrying out the Vatican’s three-year investigation into the health of Religious life in the US admitted she faced resistance and criticism from fellow sisters.

Writing in this week’s Tablet Mother Mary Clare Millea said the Vatican allowed her to select her own collaborators to carry out the apostolic investigation of the nearly 400 institutes of women Religious. She said she felt she had “the complete trust of the congregation in Rome” to formulate a strategy for carrying out the investigation.

The long-awaited report from the investigation is to be released on Tuesday. Mother Clare, who is superior general of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, said she completed her report in January 2012.

She said she had felt “overwhelmed” when asked to carry out the task by the then-prefect of the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life in 2008, Cardinal Franc Rodé.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Response to Child Sexual Abuse

The Royal Commission will hold a public hearing in Melbourne from Monday 2 February 2015. The hearing will examine the response of Yeshivah Melbourne and Yeshiva Bondi to allegations of child sexual abuse.

Live streaming times

The public hearing will be streamed live via this website between 10am and 4pm (AEDT), with the following break: 12:00pm – 12:30pm.

Join us on Twitter and Facebook for regular updates.

Please be aware that the content of the public hearings can be distressing for viewers. Visit support services to find services near you, or for immediate support call the Royal Commission on 1800 099 340 or Lifeline on 13 11 14.

Location

The hearing will be held at: County Court of Victoria, 250 William Street, Melbourne 3000.

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

1. 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.

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

3. 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.

4. Any other related matters.

Any person or institution who believes that they have a direct and substantial interest in the scope and purpose of the public hearing is invited to lodge a written application for leave to appear at the public hearing by 16 January 2015.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Tablet

15 December 2014 by Joanna Moorhead

A priest who left active ministry after admitting a relationship with a woman is being replaced by a married priest.

Parishioners at St Thomas More Catholic Church in Coventry were informed in October that their parish priest, Fr Philip Gay, had decided “after careful consideration and for personal reasons” to step down from his duties in order to consider his future.

A fortnight ago, his departure was confirmed in a statement from the Archdiocese of Birmingham that said: “It is with regret that we must now let you know of [Fr Gay’s] decision to leave the priesthood.”
According to parishioners, Fr Gay – who celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of his ordination earlier this year – left after falling in love with a female parishioner.

The archdiocese also announced that Fr Gay’s replacement would be Fr Stephen Day, a 53-year-old former Anglican priest who is set to arrive at the presbytery next week, from his current parish of St Anne’s in Nuneaton, with his wife and three children aged 10, 13 and 16.

“This really points out the contradictions in the Church’s current position on celibacy,” said Dr Michael Winter, chair of the Movement for Married Clergy. “The truth about any law is that it has to be consistent, and here we see an inconsistency.

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NEW YORK
The New York Times

By SHARON OTTERMAN
DEC. 14, 2014

The sweeping reorganization of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, set to take effect next year, is likely to involve the merger or the closing of significantly more parishes than was originally announced last month, archdiocese documents show.

Church officials said in November that 112 of the archdiocese’s 368 parishes would be consolidated to create 55 new parishes, the largest realignment of the parish structure in the history of the archdiocese, which stretches from Staten Island to the Catskills. In 31 of those new parishes, one or more of the original churches would no longer be used for regular services, effectively shuttering those churches by August.

But the documents show that Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan has now proposed that an additional 38 parishes merge, to create 16 new ones. Among the affected churches, 11 would effectively close, with no regular Masses to be celebrated there. The remaining 27 church buildings would remain open for the celebration of the sacraments after the parishes merge.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Bedfordshire on Sunday

Posted: December 14, 2014

By STEVE LOWE

BOYS as young as nine were shipped out from a former Catholic boys home to a life of abuse and 
torture in Australia.

Bedfordshire Police are currently investigating claims of physical and sexual abuse at St Francis Boys Home in Shefford.

The home was closed in 1973, in part due to concerns of abuse allegations.

During the investigation police heard that some boys were sent to Bindoon, a notorious town in Western Australia. The youngsters were sent over there in the late 1940s and early 1950s, where they endured a life of back-breaking work and both physical and sexual abuse that some have said amounted to torture.

The home in Bindoon was also run by the Catholic Church.

Police have confirmed that some youngsters were sent from St Francis Boys Home and it is not entirely clear whether parental 
consent was always obtained before they were shipped out.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

December 15, 2014

Rachel Browne
Social Affairs Reporter

One of Australia’s leading Jewish groups will be the subject of a child sex abuse inquiry early next year, following a series of horrific assaults on young people.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will hold a public hearing into Yeshivah Bondi and Yeshivah Melbourne.

The hearing, to begin in February, marks the first time a Jewish institution has been the subject of a royal commission inquiry.

It will look at how the Yeshivah Centre and the Yeshivah College in Bondi dealt with allegations of sexual abuse against Daniel Hayman, a former Yeshivah director.

Earlier this year Hayman pleaded guilty to one charge of indecent assault by a person in authority relating to an incident that involved a young boy on a Jewish camp in the 1980s. He was given a a 19-month suspended sentence at the Downing Centre Local Court in June.

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UNITED STATES
The Daily Beast

Jay Michaelson

A unique report on the ultra-conservative Bob Jones University points to the theological roots of sexual abuse and scandals

At this point, there are so many sex scandals among conservative religious organizations, we’re no longer surprised by any of them. The latest revelation—that for decades, the evangelical Bob Jones University blamed victims of sexual assault and discouraged the prosecution of predators—should be shocking, but probably isn’t.

Yet, the recent report on BJU’s misconduct is different. Unusually for such a document, it makes a theological case against sexual abuse—but in so doing, it points to the deep roots of rape culture that may not be so easily uprooted.

The fact pattern is by now familiar—though a little different in the BJU case, which covers counseling for all reported sexual abuse, not just abuse perpetrated by members of the Bob Jones community. Of the 166 respondents to the BJU survey who reported sexual abuse, about half of the abuse took place before they came to the university; this particular report is more about counseling victims than prosecuting perpetrators. This is not another cover-up.

The university’s responses, though, were depressingly familiar. Only 7.6 percent of victims were encouraged by BJU staff to report their abuse to the police. Forty-seven percent were actively told not to do so and 55 percent said the university’s attitude toward abuse reports was “blaming and disparaging.” Women were invited to confess what they had done to entice the abuser—the wearing of revealing clothing, for example. And if their bodies “responded favorably,” then they, too, had sinned.

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FLORIDA
Brainerd Dispatch

A priest, who served for a short time in the 1960s at St. Francis Catholic Church in Brainerd, has been recently accused of past sexual misconduct with a minor child while he served at the church, it was learned Sunday.

Father Tony Wroblewski shared the news Sunday with parishioners at Mass. St. Francis received a letter dated Thursday from the Rev. Paul D. Sirba, the Bishop of Duluth. Sirba wrote the Diocese of Duluth were notified that a “notice of claim” was recently filed against Father Charles Joseph Gormly on behalf of his alleged victim who accused him of past sexual misconduct.

Gormly, who died in 1968, was born in Ireland and ordained for the Diocese of Cheyenne, Wyo., but also briefly served in the Diocese of Duluth. Gormly worked in the Duluth Diocese as a priest from 1960-61 and served at St. Francis in Brainerd, St. Raphael, St. Lawrence and St. James in Duluth.

In Sirba’s letter, he wrote: “I deeply regret the long-lasting and devastating effects of sexual misconduct on the part of clergy and am completely committed to assisting its victims and preventing any recurrence of these crimes. I ask you to join me in prayer for all those who have been wounded by sexual misconduct on the part of the clergy.”

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NEW YORK
Arutz Sheva (Israel)

Yeshiva University (YU) is offering a new online course for rabbis to prepare them in dealing with a topic that many say does not receive enough attention in the religious world – child abuse.

The 12-week course on preventing child abuse is a joint offering by YU’s Center for the Jewish Future (CJF), YU-affiliated Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS) and Gundersen National Child Protection Training Center.

“Rabbis engage the issues relating to child abuse on multiple levels,” explained Rabbi Yaakov Glasser, Dean of the CJF. “They play a crucial role in educating the community regarding awareness and prevention, they contribute to setting policies in local institutions to prevent and address issues of child abuse and they are often on the front lines of guiding families through these extraordinarily difficult circumstances and counseling them through the complexities of the situation.”

Expanding on that point, Rabbi Naphtali Lavenda, director of online rabbinic programming at CJF, said “the rabbi is in a unique position. The rabbi has to be this Superman: he’s the first responder for all crises in the community and bears the weight of every person’s pain, suffering and troubles.”

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BOSTON (MA)
UPI

In 2002, Cardinal Bernard Law, under fire for allegedly protecting priests accused of abusing minors, resigned as Roman Catholic archbishop of Boston. (Pope John Paul II put Law in charge of a basilica in Rome in 2004.)

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DETUSCHLAND
rga

[The court has freed a religion teacher who was accused of sexual abuse. The 47-year-old pastor said after three-and-a-half years his life was difficult. He was acquitted by the Wuppertal criminal court.]

URTEIL Richter sprachen Religionslehrer frei, der wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs angeklagt war. Nach dreieinhalb Jahren endete gestern für einen 47-jährigen Pfarrer eine Geschichte, die sein Leben schwer belastet hat. Der Religionslehrer wurde von der zuständigen Strafkammer im Wuppertaler Landgericht in zweiter Instanz freigesprochen.

Es folgte damit nicht der Einschätzung des Amtsgerichts, das den Angeklagten wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs zweier Schülerinnen im Jahr 2011 zu elf Monaten Haft auf Bewährung und 10.000 Euro Geldstrafe verurteilt hatte. Für den Vorsitzenden Richter Thomas Bittner konnte nicht der Nachweis erbracht werden, dass sich die vier Taten tatsächlich ereignet hatten.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Nordbayern

[The pastor of Heideck/Reichertshofen has returned to his parish. After more than a year-long investigation by the Nuremberg-Furth prosecutor and a church investigation, the charges of abuse against the pastor were said to be unfounded.]

EICHSTÄTT/ HEIDECK/ REICHERTSHOFEN – Nach Abschluss eines mehr als einjährigen Ermittlungsverfahrens durch die Staatsanwaltschaft Nürnberg-Fürth und einer kirchenrechtlichen Voruntersuchung nimmt der Pfarrer von Heideck – der auch in Reichertshofen tätig war – wieder seinen Dienst auf: Die Untersuchungen haben ergeben, dass der Vorwurf des sexuellen Missbrauchs nicht begründet ist.

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UNITED STATES
Talk to Action

Frederick Clarkson
Sat Dec 13, 2014

One of the deep scandals of our time, and apparently times past, is that sex abuse, particularly of children, has been so tolerated and covered-up. What’s more, it is clear that the problem is not limited to the Catholic Church, where the problem is of such extraordinary depth and breadth. It is deeply ingrained in more of society than most of us who were not affected by these things can easily believe. In the past year, I have written a bit about the difficulties the Southern Baptist Convention has had contending with its problems. (Here, here, and here.)

Now comes an investigative report on the ongoing scandal at the fundamentalist Bob Jones University, in Greenville, South Carolina, where Republican candidates for president used to have to make a pilgrimage as part of their courtship of voters in the South Carolina primary.

The report focused on how the college treated sexually abused women like criminals.

Earlier this year, the University fired the outside agency it had hired to investigate the situation — just before it was set to publish its findings. Ultimately, the school was forced to rehire the well regarded “Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment” (GRACE), an evangelical organization led by Boz Tchividjian, a grandson of Billy Graham, former prosecutor of child sex abuse cases, and a law professor at Liberty University.

The resulting report (PDF) is devastating. It has been widely reported, notably by The New York Times, and by the always excellent Kathryn Joyce, writing in The American Prospect.

But all is quiet on the Christian Right.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

December 14, 2014

Adam Morton

Sex abuse victims would have access to a reparation scheme with the power to award cash support and direct that the abuser be removed from their job – while still leaving open the possibility of the victim taking legal action – under a new proposal by the Anglican Church.

As the Anglican proposal is examined by victims and religious groups, the new Victorian government has launched a review into whether its existing Victims of Crime Assistance Tribunal could be expanded to run a scheme for abuse victims.

Consideration of a state-based victims’ redress scheme comes as the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sex Abuse – which has heard the stories of 2724 abuse survivors, with at least another 1400 still to give evidence – works on a national model. A discussion paper is due next month and final recommendations mid-year.

The previous Coalition state government accepted in principal a recommendation by the Victorian parliamentary inquiry into sex abuse that the victims’ of crime tribunal run a scheme for sex abuse survivors, and former attorney-general Robert Clark quietly sought submissions on how a scheme would work before last month’s election.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Mail on Sunday

New blow for May’s sex abuse probe as Diana inquest QC agrees to lead rival investigation because of government’s ‘serious shortcomings’

By Simon Murphy and Martin Beckford for The Mail on Sunday

Theresa May’s troubled child abuse inquiry suffered a fresh setback last night as it emerged that a rival investigation is to be held by a top human rights lawyer.

Michael Mansfield QC, who represented Mohamed Al Fayed at the inquests into the deaths of Princess Diana and Al Fayed’s son Dodi, has been appointed as the judge of a new ‘people’s tribunal’ on historic abuse claims.

The Home Secretary’s official inquiry has barely started, even though it was launched several months ago.

First, ex-judge Baroness Butler-Sloss and then corporate lawyer Fiona Woolf had to resign from chairing it because of their links to figures alleged to have been involved in a cover-up of VIP paedophile rings.

But just like the Government’s inquiry, the new tribunal – set up by child abuse campaigners – has been beset by problems.

Only weeks after the steering committee was appointed, four members resigned, citing attacks on social media.

Among them was ex-social worker Liz Davies, a leading child protection expert.

Organisers insist it is not in conflict with the Government’s inquiry but will instead complement it.

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NEDERLAND
Trouw

Kardinaal Simonis wist al veel eerder van misbruik

[He is one of the highest ranked Dutch Catholic clergy who is known to have abused children. Between the 1950s and 1970s Former Auxiliary Bishop Jan Nienhaus of Utrecht is said to have molested four boys. There was a long silence until it became known in 2012. It now appears that Cardinal Adrianus Johannes Simonis knew of the accusations much earlier. He received a letter in 2000 from a man who claimed Nienhaus had been guilty of “erotic romps” with him. Simonis decided not to take action.]

Emiel Hakkenes − 13/12/14

Hij is een van de hoogstgeplaatste Nederlandse katholieke geestelijken van wie bekend is dat hij kinderen heeft misbruikt. Tussen de jaren vijftig en zeventig van de vorige eeuw vergreep voormalig hulpbisschop van Utrecht Jan Niënhaus zich aan vier jongens. Dat bleef lang stil, totdat dit voorjaar bleek dat de rk kerk in 2012 klachten tegen Niënhaus (1929-2000) gegrond had verklaard. Dat was niet bekendgemaakt omwille van ‘vertrouwelijkheid’.

Naar nu blijkt wist kardinaal Ad Simonis al veel eerder van beschuldigingen tegen Niënhaus. Simonis was van 1983 tot 2007 aartsbisschop van Utrecht en voorzitter van de Nederlandse bisschoppenconferentie. In oktober 2000 ontving hij een brief van een man die stelde dat Niënhaus zich had bezondigd aan ‘erotische stoeipartijen’ met hem. Simonis besloot geen actie te ondernemen naar aanleiding van die beschuldiging.

Deze gang van zaken wordt beschreven in Simonis’ biografie ‘Kerkleider in de branding’. Het boek, dat deze week verscheen, is geschreven door voormalig Trouw-journalist Ton Crijnen.

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UNITED STATES
Call to Action

WRITTEN BY RYAN HOFFMANN | DECEMBER 12, 2014

On Tuesday December 16 we invite you to join members of the Nun Justice Project in watching a live- stream press conference from the Vatican about the outcomes of the Congregation for Religious’ Apostolic Visitation of U.S. sisters conducted from 2009 to 2012.

The press conference is being held in Rome at 11:30 am Rome time, (5:30 am Eastern time in the U.S.). Here is the link:

https://www.youtube.com/user/ vatican

While early reports indicate the report will be positive, it is important to remember that the mandate against the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) still stands.

It is encouraging that the president of LCWR, Sr. Sharon Holland,will participate in the press conference. However, until the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) rescinds the mandate and apologizes to LCWR, the sisters remain under a Vatican cloud.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

Earlier today, I suggested that Pope Francis would do well to read some women theologians like Ivone Gebara as he continues to put both left feet into his mouth when he makes jaw-dropping strawberries-on-the-cake statements quips about women. I ended that posting saying, “One can dream, I suppose.”

Here’s Jerry Slevin dreaming today at his Christian Catholicism site:

As Pope Francis next week begins his 79th year, he needs to act boldly now. Women cardinals would surely be bold and constructive.
Pope John XXIII understood shrewdly the advantage of “surprises” to shake the Vatican bureaucrats up. He did this with his dramatic and unexpected call in 1958 for a new ecumenical council and in 1962 with his papal birth control commission that had active women participants who made a real difference. Some women commission members reportedly explained, among other things, to some of the celibate members that thermometers and “natural family planning” were usually not conducive to a happy marriage.

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IRELAND
Sunday World

Friday 12th December 2014

● FR. BRIAN D’ARCY

Thirty-Three Good Men is a book which analyses the lives and beliefs of 33 Irish Catholic diocesan priests and former priests.

It deals with the years 1960 to 2010. The author, Dr John Weafer, an experienced and highly regarded researcher, had personal interviews with each of the 33 priests.

They knew what he was researching and they were willing participants, though they retained their anonymity.

The interviews were limited to three basic areas of their lives.

1. How do Irish diocesan priests understand and experience celibacy in their day to day lives?

2. How do Irish diocesan priests negotiate their priesthood within a large and complex organisation?

3. How do Irish diocesan priests understand their priesthood, and how has this understanding changed over time, if at all?

The study is not easy reading though it is at all times interesting. The sample of 33 is small but the honesty of the participants adds greatly to its significance.

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MINNESOTA
Canonical Consultation

12/13/2014

Jennifer Haselberger

This week, the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis continued its efforts to get itself out of financial hot water by sending a message to all pastors with a suggested text for parish bulletins which offers the Archdiocese’s explanation of how contributions made to parishes are spent. The recommended text (for parishes without schools) is this:

[copy of the document]

As I explained in a previous post, I disagree with the Archdiocese’s claim that ‘less than half a cent of every dollar you give…goes to the Archdiocese to pay expenses related to clergy sexual abuse and other clergy misconduct’. I think that the costs of misconduct are spread fairly broadly throughout the various categories of the pie chart (General & Administrative, you will note, includes the Archbishop’s Office…).

But, I am also concerned about the ways in which the Archdiocese’s legal troubles (and history of bad decision making) are beginning to impact the 91% of contributions that remain with the parishes. I noticed that the description of ‘parish initiatives’ in the suggested bulletin text does not include paying the ‘initial retainer’ or subsequent (and as yet undetermined) legal fees that were discussed at this week’s meeting with Mary Jo Jensen-Carter, the attorney who would like to represent all the parishes in the ‘Archdiocese’s process of obtaining a global settlement of the clergy abuse claims’.

While I was initially hopeful that this would be a positive step forward for parishes, my opinion has since changed. Rather than an initiative of the parishes, it is becoming more and more clear that this effort is really coming from the Chancery. Like the appointment of Tim Healy as President of the Catholic Services Appeal Foundation, the choice of Jensen-Carter, a former paralegal for the law firm of the current Chancellor for Civil Affairs (Joe Kueppers), removes any plausible claim that this is an independent initiative.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

At least half a billion Catholics, women, know very well that a major reason for the unabated continuation of the priest child abuse scandal is men, in particular over a hundred celibate Cardinals. These men likely do not even know “how to change a nappy”, as Mrs. Mary McAleese, the former Irish President recently so well put it. As the latest “Cardinalmania” heats up, why are no women being proposed, as shown here:

[National Catholic Reporter]

[National Catholic Reporter]

All Catholics should weigh in now and propose some women as Cardinals in comments to these two National Catholic Reporter articles in the above links. Why not? It is your Church and your children, no? The comments are often read by some in the Catholic hierarchy. For more details on women as Cardinals, please see my further remarks at:

[Christian Catholicism]

As supreme Church lawmaker, Pope Francis could re-write the rules quickly before February. He could authorize women Cardinals, just like he created the Council of Cardinals almost instantly out thin air. He really needs to invite some women and mothers, like Ireland’s “straight talking” leader, Mrs. Mary McAleese, and brave Illinois Justice Anne Burke, to become Cardinals in February, and then to attend October’s Final Synod.

Indeed, Justice Burke, a devout Catholic and friend of the Obamas, even negotiated courageously, if somewhat futilely, with ex-Pope Benedict as then Cardinal, and with several US Cardinals, earlier on trying to put some teeth in the US bishops’ Child Protection Charter. Both these women could teach the Pope and Cardinals a few things about Catholic families, among other things, no?

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (article updated 12 December 2014)

A retired Australian Catholic bishop, Most Reverend Ronald Mulkearns, has been ordered by a court to give evidence in a case against a former priest, Robert Claffey. This order was made by the Geelong Magistrates Court in Victoria on 12 December 2014 when ex-priest Claffey (now aged 70), was charged with multiple incidents of indecent assault against seven children.

Bishop Mulkearns (born in 1930) was the head of the Catholic Church throughout the western half of the state of Victoria (with his cathedral in the city of Ballarat), from 1971 to 1997. Father Robert Claffey worked in west Victorian parishes under Bishop Mulkearns in the 1970s and 1980s.

The court was told that one of the alleged assaults involved Father Claffey going to a boy’s house and indecently assaulting him during the 1980s. Detective Sergeant Tim Kennedy, from the Sano Taskforce in the Victoria Police, told the court that the boy allegedly reported the assault to his father, who then allegedly reported it to Bishop Mulkearns. Claffey was then moved from his parish at Wendouree (in Ballarat) to another parish [in a different part of the diocese], Sergeant Kennedy said.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Mark Hilliard

Sat, Dec 13, 2014

Free medical care will be provided to survivors of the Magdalene laundries in new legislation ushering in the next phase of a Government support package as recommended in the Quirke Report.

Under the scheme the women will be entitled to GP care, prescription medicines, nursing and home-help.

The Redress for Women Resident in Certain Institutions Bill 2014 was published by Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald on Friday.

Other care provided by the HSE under the legislation will include dental, ophthalmic, aural, counselling, chiropody and physiotherapy services.

The HSE will also deal “on an administrative basis” with arrangements for equivalent health services for participants living abroad, the Department of Justice has said.

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GUAM
Kuam

by Jolene Toves

Guam – As the controversies continue within the local Catholic Church, Father Paul Gofigan continues to wait for his case to be heard in Rome. Over a year ago the riff between the priest and Archbishop Anthony Apuron first began which led to his removal as the head of Santa Barbara Church in Dededo.

“I don’t really see it as persecution,” he said. “I just see there are a few partialities going on in the archdiocese but I don’t let that bother me I didn’t sign up for that sort of stuff I signed up to be a priest a priest to serve the people and as long as he allows me to serve the people I’m happy I don’t have to be a pastor I don’t have to be anybody in the hierarchy I just want to be a priest and I’m actually satisfied with the life I’m living now.”

As we reported Archbishop Apuron alleged that Gofigan failed to follow a directive warranting his removal, and while Gofigan says he is content with the life he is living now in the recent months a close friend of his, John Toves has taken on Gofigan’s fight. “I didn’t ask him to do anything as I said he’s really good friend of monsignor and myself and this is something that he feels deep down in his heart that he has to do and he’s sort of acting on that making something sort of raise awareness of what’s going on especially in our island church,” he explained.

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ARIZONA
Fox 10

[with video]

MESA, Ariz. –
Mesa Police detectives arrested 5 suspects in an undercover child prostitution sting.

One of the suspects is a priest and police say they had to use a Taser to arrest him.

According to court documents detectives posed as a 16-year-old girl who the suspects solicited to have sex with.

Police say the suspects were between 26 to 49 years-old. All the suspects admitted to police that they knew they were coming to have sex with a 16-year-old female.

One of the men, 49-year-old Solomon Bandiho was a Catholic Priest at a Holy Cross Catholic Church in Mesa.

“We get people from all walks of life, almost anything you can think of from a stay at home mom or dad to executives of businesses, we certainly see all types in these operations,” said Detective Steve Berry.

According to police Bandiho asked the undercover detective for sex offering $60, he said he wanted extras and a long-term relationship.

When police tried to arrest him he resisted and they had to deploy a Taser to subdue him.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

The Catholic church is not considering abandoning its requirement for priests to be celibate despite a report which acknowledges the policy may contribute to child abuse.

A report from the church’s Truth Justice and Healing Council has, for the first time in Australia, drawn a link between priests’ vow of celibacy and the child abuse that has been revealed in disturbing detail before the current royal commission.

But the council’s chief executive, Francis Sullivan, said his report was not a first step to ending celibacy for priests.

“There would be a long way to go before that conversation would be had and it would be beyond our brief anyway,” Sullivan said.

The report touched only briefly on celibacy amid discussion of issues that had emerged before the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
The State

BY MICHAEL GORDON
The Charlotte Observer
December 13, 2014

A leader and four members of a controversial Rutherford County church have been indicted on charges that they kidnapped, beat and strangled a 21-year-old man to cleanse him of gay demons.

The allegations by Mathew Fenner mark the second time in the past three years that the members of Word of Faith Fellowship in Spindale have been accused of beating someone over the victim’s sexual orientation.

In a statement, church attorney Josh Farmer said the allegations against church members are untrue.

“We look forward to proving their innocence and to their complete vindication before a trial court,” said Farmer, who is listed on the Word of Faith website among the church’s pastors and ministers.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
Concord Monitor

By JEREMY BLACKMAN
Monitor staff
Saturday, December 13, 2014
(Published in print: Saturday, December 13, 2014)

Daniel Leaf, a former Concord man and convicted sex offender with ties to Trinity Baptist Church, was sentenced yesterday to a year in jail for having molested his stepdaughter decades ago.

Leaf, 55, of Tilton, was found guilty last month in Merrimack County Superior Court. A judge had delayed his conviction after a last-minute request by prosecutors to amend the charges from aggravated felonious sexual assault to felonious sexual assault. The defense had argued that the aggravated charges, a Class A felony, had been incorrectly applied given the timing of the crimes – 1990. The victim was 9 at that time.

Felonious sexual assault is a Class B felony worth a maximum prison sentence of seven years.

Judge Larry Smukler had allowed jurors to go forward with deliberations, but gave Leaf’s attorneys until Monday to respond in writing to prosecutor’s request. A hearing had been set for Jan. 12. They have agreed to drop their arguments and forgo future appeals in exchange for the sentence announced yesterday, which Smukler described as “on the lenient end.”

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ESPANA
El Economista

La Guardia Civil detiene en Madrid a Feliciano Miguel Rosendo da Silva, exlíder de una secta

Efectivos de la Guardia Civil han detenido este jueves en Collado Villalba (Madrid) al exlíder de Orden y Mandato de San Miguel Arcangel, Feliciano Miguel Rosendo, por asociación ilícita, según han confirmado fuentes del Tribunal Xuperior de Xusticia de Galicia.

La causa, declarada secreta, está en el Juzgado de Instrucción número 1 de Tui (Pontevedra).
Las mismas fuentes explican que no está aún determinado cuando pasará el detenido a disposición judicial, aunque descartan que sea a lo largo de este jueves. Fuentes de la investigación han añadido que se sabía que miembros de esta organización iban a tener una reunión en el municipio madrileño este jueves.

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ESPANA
La Voz de Galicia

Feliciano Miguel Rosendo da Silva, vigués de 55 años, creía que era un elegido de Dios, «la reencarnación de San Miguel Arcángel». Así lo definen personas que vivieron con él durante los años que lideró la asociación San Miguel Arcángel de Oia y otros que aún tienen familiares atrapados en el grupo que formó tras dejar de ser bendecido por la Iglesia. Para impresionar a sus fieles simulaba hablar en arameo. Formaba un círculo con sus seguidores y algunos parecían entrar en trance, llegando incluso a vomitar y desmayarse. Era un hombre con gran capacidad de atracción y convicción, por lo que llegó a tener centenares de seguidores bajo su mando. Ejercía un dominio omnímodo sobre el colectivo.

Construyó un mundo intramuros, tras las conocidas por sus seguidores como «las murallas de Jerusalén», que cercaban la casa con torreón almenado de su propiedad ubicada en el municipio pontevedrés de Oia y que fue creciendo a la par que sus fieles. Comenzó a ganarse simpatías en la trastienda de una herboristería del barrio vigués de O Calvario. Al calor de estos encuentros fue como nació el coro San Miguel, que posteriormente derivó en el grupo San Miguel Arcángel. El líder religioso, finalmente apartado por la Iglesia por su conducta presuntamente inmoral, ofrecía toda clase de rituales y pócimas a quienes se acercaban a su tienda.

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SPAIN
The Local

Police in Spain have detained two leaders of a sect accused of sexual abuse and taking money from up to 400 followers, a court said on Friday.

The sect’s leader, Feliciano Rosendo da Silva, and his right-hand woman, the self-described “nun” Marta Paz Alonso, were detained on Thursday in the town of Collado Villalba, around 50 kilometres (30 miles) northwest of Madrid.

An investigating judge will question the suspects “once several outstanding police procedures” are completed, the High Court of Justice of Galicia, in northwestern Spain, said in a statement.

The pair ran the sect, dubbed Mandate and Order of Saint Michael Archangel, in Galicia but moved to the Madrid region after Da Silva was expelled from the Roman Catholic diocese of Tui for “inapproriate moral behaviour”. They then renamed the sect “The Voice of the Serviam”.

Police accuse them of sexual abuse, money laundering, tax fraud, criminal association and crimes against moral integrity.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
The American Prospect

KATHRYN JOYCE DECEMBER 12, 2014

With multiple publications still gleefully dissecting the failures of a recent Rolling Stone exposé on campus rape, granting rape skeptics an unusually warm national spotlight, a new report from an unlikely corner of American culture confirms just how real the problems with reporting sex abuse in American higher education can be.

On Thursday, the Christian nonprofit ministry GRACE (an acronym for Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment) released its long-awaited report on the mishandling of sex abuse allegations at Bob Jones University, the South Carolina school that for most of a century has served as the flagship institution of fundamentalist Christianity in the United States. The report is at once a grim autopsy detailing just how badly college administrators botched the handling of sexual abuse and rape claims, and also an example of surprising transparency from one of the most cloistered and conservative schools in the country.

In the 301-page report, GRACE shows Bob Jones University responding to rape and abuse claims with woeful ignorance of state law, a near-complete lack of training in psychology and trauma counseling best practices, and an overarching campus culture that blames women and girls for any abuse they suffer, and which paints all sexuality—from rape to consensual sex—as equivalent misdeeds.

That a fundamentalist institution—one most famous for banning interracial dating up until 14 years ago—has also been cartoonishly terrible at handling rape claims is not much of a surprise. But that Bob Jones University commissioned and, albeit with some serious reluctance, allowed the publication of this damning report is a major new contribution to the current debate on campus rape.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
Greenville News

Lyn Riddle, lnriddle@greenvillenews.com December 12, 2014

Solicitor Walt Wilkins said today he will begin an investigation into the way Bob Jones University handled sexual abuse reports from students to see if state law was broken or obstruction of justice occurred.

In addition, he hopes anyone who wants to prosecute abuse will contact his office.

His investigation stems from a report issued Thursday by GRACE, a Lynchburg, Va., group that works with churches and other Christian organization on the proper ways to prevent abuse and how to work with victims.

GRACE found that the teachings of the university as well as counseling served to re-victimize students. There were also reports from victims that they were discouraged and in some instances told not to contact law enforcement about what had happened to them.

“If they were convincing individuals not to report crimes that could be considered obstruction of justice,” Wilkins said. “We need to see if it rises to that level.”

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COLORADO
CBS Denver

WESTMINSTER, Colo. (CBS4)- A pastor pleaded guilty on Friday to sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust.

Prosecutors say Gerald Clark’s victims include three children and two women.

The offenses date back as far as 2005 and as recently as April 2012.

Clark originally faced 10 counts, but those were dropped in exchange for a guilty plea to one count that covers all three felony counts of victims under the age of 18.

The first young woman to come forward told police that Clark was a father figure and mentor to her. She said the sexual abuse occurred approximately 30 to 50 times between 2009 and 2012 when she was 13 to 16 years old.

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AUSTRALIA/ROME
Telegraph (UK)

By Jonathan Pearlman, Sydney, and Nick Squires in Rome

Priests’ vows of celibacy may have led to paedophilia, the Roman Catholic Church in Australia has said, in what is believed to be the first such admission by Catholic officials worldwide.

A group advising the Australian Church on how to deal with thousands of cases of child sex abuse said celibacy may be psychologically damaging for some priests.

“Obligatory celibacy may also have contributed to abuse in some circumstances,” said a 44-page report from the group, called the Truth, Justice and Healing Council. The group, which is supervised by some of Australia’s senior archbishops, does not necessarily reflect the views of all the clergy.

Its conclusions were quickly dismissed by the Vatican. “We certainly don’t take the issue lightly, but are these claims [by the Healing Council] based on a serious, long-term psychological study?” a senior Vatican source said. “We know that most sexual abuse of children takes place within the family, and family members are by their nature not celibate — they could be fathers or uncles,” he argued.

The Healing Council report criticised the “closed environments” of some religious orders and dioceses.

“Church institutions and their leaders, over many decades, seemed to turn a blind eye, either instinctively or deliberately, to the abuse happening within their diocese or religious order, protecting the institution rather than caring for the child,” it said.

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AUSTRALIA
VICE News

By Sally Hayden

December 12, 2014

The Australian Truth, Justice and Healing Council has published a report stating that celibacy among Catholic priests may have been contributing factor in child abuse.

The church advisory group made the statements in its December 2014 activity report. The council is comprised of 12 people with expertise across specialized fields including child abuse, trauma, mental illness, and psychosexual disorders. These include the archbishop of Brisbane, Mark Coleridge, and bishop of Maitland-Newcastle, Bill Wright.

Since February 2013 it has heard more than 2,600 victims tell stories of abuse, and have held 21 public hearings.

In a section called “Culture and clericalism,” the report said that along with issues around parents being reluctant to believe their children when they report abuse, and church institutions protecting themselves rather than young people, “obligatory celibacy may also have contributed to abuse in some circumstances.” The report goes on to suggest that there may be flaws in “the way in which candidates for the priesthood or religious life were accepted for entry.” …

While this report has garnered mixed reactions, David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, told VICE News that he agrees with its assessment of the celibacy requirement.

“We feel the celibacy requirement contributes to the crisis in two ways. First, when all priests are forbidden from having any sex, many priests end up with sexual secrecy. So priests who masturbate, watch pornography, exploit adult parishioners, or pick up sex partners in bars are very reluctant to speak up when they see a colleague take a child to his bedroom.

“Second, we believe that some devout young Catholic men and teenagers feel disturbing sexual urges towards kids. Since church teaching says the celibacy is a gift from God, some of these troubled men are attracted to the priesthood, thinking if they pledge to serve God and his church, he will in turn help them overcome these urges. Sadly, that doesn’t seem to happen often.”

“So,” Clohessy concluded, “celibacy both fosters a climate of sexual secrecy while also attracting to the priesthood a higher percentage of men with sexual difficulties.”

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

SPAIN
The Olive Press

By Jacqueline Fanchini and Tom Powell

“THE truth is the truth, and we must not hide it,” the Pope ruled, just days before a judge in Granada filed preliminary charges against three priests and a religious teacher for the sexual abuse of a former altar boy.

With up to a dozen more under investigation – and new victims coming out by the week – it has been dubbed the ‘gravest sexual abuse scandal’ in the history of the Catholic church in Spain.

The gravity of the situation certainly became apparent, with Pope Francis himself feeling the need to step into the scandal, after a victim contacted him personally.

Since the court launched its investigation a fortnight ago, at least one more victim has gone public with a similar litany of abuses. There are believed to be many more victims.

Either way, the scandal has now led to the most extraordinarily unprecedented display of humility from religious men, who normally like to pontificate from on high.

In a bizarre picture opportunity, the Archbishop of Granada and other clerics prostrated themselves at the city’s cathedral during Mass, ‘asking forgiveness for the sins of the Church, for all of the scandals that have, or might have, occurred among us’.

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

MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Richard Chin
rchin@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 12/12/2014

Steven Joseph Schulz, a Golden Valley man convicted of felony online solicitation of a minor for sex, was sentenced Friday in St. Paul to 30 days in jail and probation for five years.

Schulz, 56, corresponded online with someone he thought was a 15-year-old boy. The boy actually was an undercover St. Paul police sergeant who responded to a Craigslist ad that Schulz had posted.

The police set up a sting and Schulz was arrested when he arrived with Red Bull and vodka at what he thought would be a rendezvous with the boy at an address on St. Paul’s East Side in April 2013.

At his trial in Ramsey County District Court, Schulz testified that he himself was molested as a child at the hands of a priest, and that he wanted to meet the boy he corresponded with to warn him away from the fate he suffered.

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