ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED STATES
Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary

Mary E. Klassen

December 5, 2014

The Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary board of directors along with the president and administrative cabinet are taking steps to acknowledge institutional responsibility for the harm inflicted by John Howard Yoder’s sexual exploitation of women while employed at the seminary in the 1970s and 1980s, and for seminary leaders’ prolonged failure to intervene effectively.

An extensive historical account of Mennonite Church institutional responses to Yoder’s abuses will be published in the January 2015 issue of Mennonite Quarterly Review. With a desire to contribute to the larger church discernment process and to own the specific responsibility of the seminary, the AMBS board in their October 23–25 meeting approved a statement acknowledging the pain suffered by women who were victimized by Yoder:

As an AMBS Board, we lament the terrible abuse many women suffered from John Howard Yoder. We also lament that there has not been transparency about how the seminary’s leadership responded at that time or any institutional public acknowledgement of regret for what went so horribly wrong. We commit to an ongoing, transparent process of institutional accountability which the president along with the board chair initiated, including work with the historian who will provide a scholarly analysis of what transpired. We will respond more fully once the historical account is published. We also support the planning of an AMBS-based service of lament, acknowledgement and hope in March 2015.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Mirror

Dec 06, 2014 By Ben Glaze

Theresa May snubbed sex abuse survivors yesterday and went to Brussels.

The Home Secretary skipped the emotional meeting where victims were demanding that the troubled historical abuse inquiry starts as soon as possible.

Campaigner Peter Saunders said top officials told them it may get a third chairman within weeks. Two have quit over their links to the Establishment.

Five more people have added names to a letter from 24 victims and professionals saying they have lost confidence in the inquiry.

They added their names to a devastating letter warning the Tory Minister the probe was “not fit for purpose”.

Abuse survivors met Mrs May’s officials and are understood to have said the inquiry must start hearing evidence as soon as possible if it is to have any chance of unearthing the truth and having any credibility.

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Eugene E. Pierre was a Jesuit priest, born in 1914. His place of birth and ordination date are unclear. From 1961 on he was assigned to Port Townsend WA, Spokane and Seattle WA, Kabwe Zambia, and to Indian missions in Omak WA and Missoula MT. He died in 1979. Pierre’s name was included in 2011 on the Oregon Province’s list of its members who have been identified as perpetrators of sexual abuse.

Born: Nov. 21, 1914
Died: Aug. 17, 1979

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GUAM
Pacific News Center

Written by Janela Carrera

Guam – John Toves is on his second day of demanding to see Archbishop Anthony Apuron.

After being denied a meeting yesterday, Toves returned to the Chancery Office today to confront the Archbishop on allegations that he sexually molested his relative. But he was met once again by Chancellor Father Adrian Cristobal. It was clearly a tense confrontation for both as Toves demanded answers.

“Adrian Cristobal says that the attorney will call me to get in through an open door policy to get an appointment set to see the archbishop,” Toves told PNC inside the Chancery Office. “Oould you like to add to that?” Toves motioned Cristobal.

“I think our meeting is pretty much done,” Cristobal directed at Toves.

The exchange continued as Toves demanded to find out why the Archbishop’s attorney must contact him when a lawsuit has yet to be filed against him and Toves is a member of the general public. Cristobal did not respond to the question and simply told Toves that the Archbishop’s attorney would be in contact with him.

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CALIFORNIA
Mercury News

By Eric Kurhiekurhi@mercurynews.com
POSTED: 12/05/2014

MOUNTAIN VIEW — Victim advocates Friday called for the ouster of a psychiatrist and former priest who has practiced at El Camino Hospital for decades, citing accusations that he had molested two teenage girls years ago.

In 1988 Dr. Thomas Havel, now 77, was accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl whom he had counseled before coming to El Camino, beginning when she was 13 years old. That lawsuit was dismissed on the grounds that too much time had elapsed — the woman was 34 when she came forward.

And according to personnel files of priests and nuns suspected of sexually abusing children while working for the Los Angeles Archdiocese, Havel was accused in 2002 of molesting a girl between 1968 and 1973 while he was at a Pasadena parish. The files — which the Archdiocese released as part of a 2007 settlement that paid $660 million to more than 500 alleged victims — state that the Marianist Order settled that 2002 case and Havel petitioned to leave the priesthood in the late 1990s.

On Friday, Tim Lennon and Melanie Sakoda of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests went to the hospital to urge administrators to terminate Havel, file a complaint with the state medical board, and reach out to patients to let them know about the allegations.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Agency

Vatican City, Dec 5, 2014 (CNA/EWTN News).- In a recent article for the Catholic Herald, Cardinal George Pell, prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, shed light on the progress made in the reform of Vatican finances, which he is spearheading.

Cardinal Pell wrote in the Dec. 4 article that “three basic principles lay at the heart” of their work of reforming, and that these principles “are not original, and not exactly rocket science.”

First, the Vatican “should adopt contemporary international financial standards, much as the rest of the world does”. Second, “Vatican and procedures should be transparent, with financial reporting broadly similar to that of other countries, and the consolidated annual financial statement would be reviewed by one of the Big Four audit firms.” And third, “within the Vatican, there should be something akin to a separation of powers and that within the financial sector there would be multiple sources of authority.”

These principles have led to the drafting of a handbook of financial management, which rationalizes the accounting procedure of all the Vatican offices.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

[with audio]

(Vatican Radio) The Director of the Press Office of the Holy See, Fr. Federico Lombardi SJ, offered a clarification on Friday in response to journalists’ questions regarding statements made by the Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, Cardinal George Pell, in connection with the ongoing financial review and reform efforts in the Vatican. In an exclusive piece for the new Catholic Herald Magazine (a preview of which appeared on December 3rd in the Herald’s online pages), Cardinal Pell wrote, “[S]ome hundreds of millions of euros were tucked away in particular sectional accounts and did not appear on the balance sheet.”

Responding to journalists asking follow-up questions, Fr. Lombardi specified, “It should be noted that Cardinal Pell did not speak of illegal or mismanaged funds, but of funds that were not in the official accounts of the Holy See and Vatican City State, and of the existence of which the Secretariat for the Economy learned in the course of the ongoing process of study and review of the Vatican administrations, in order to achieve a more adequate [and] comprehensive understanding of [matters] with a view to the streamlining of operations.”

“This,” his statement continued, “is precisely the sign and fruit of constructive cooperation among the different institutions of the Vatican.”

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — In ongoing efforts to strengthen the oversight of the Vatican’s finances, an auditor general will be appointed who will have the power to audit any Vatican agency and be a lay expert who is answerable only to the pope, said Cardinal George Pell.

The massive overhaul of the Vatican’s current accounting and budgeting procedures has also revealed that the Vatican’s economic situation is “much healthier than it seemed,” the cardinal said in an exclusive article for the London-based Catholic Herald magazine Dec. 4.

The brighter financial picture emerged after the secretariat discovered “some hundreds of millions of euros were tucked away in particular sectional accounts and did not appear on the balance sheet,” he wrote.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, told reporters Dec. 5 that the money did not represent “illegal, illicit or badly managed funds,” but was money that was never included in the Vatican’s old system of budgeting and reporting.

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FLORIDA
Sun Sentinel

By Paula McMahon,
Sun Sentinel

Federal authorities are taking over the prosecution of a former Broward church and school official accused of sexually abusing more than a dozen boys in his care.

Jeffery London, 51, who was a youth mentor at Bible Church of God in Fort Lauderdale and dean of students at Eagle Charter Academy in Lauderdale Lakes, now faces a federal charge of using a cellphone to lure an underage boy into sexual activity with him. If convicted, he faces 10 years to life in federal prison.

The alleged victim in the federal case, filed this week, is one of the seven boys London was acquitted of sexually abusing after a two-week jury trial in Broward Circuit Court in April.

Legal experts said the new charge is not considered “double jeopardy” because it involves a different alleged crime and was filed in federal, not state, court.

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CALIFORNIA
CBS Los Angeles

SANTA ANA (CBSLA.com) — A Huntington Beach man was sentenced Friday to 36 years to life in state prison for sexually assaulting a disabled boy he was related to and producing child pornography.

Jeffrey Adam Tracy, 38, was found guilty on Oct. 16 of two felony counts of oral copulation of a child 10 years old or younger, four felony counts of lewd acts upon a child under 14 and a felony count of using a minor for sex acts, U.S. Immigrations and Customs spokeswoman Virginia Kice said.

A joint task force investigation of a suspect uploading child pornography videos on the Internet using various file sharing programs resulted in Tracy’s arrest on Sept. 27, 2013.

Tracy was described by federal officials as a church worship leader in Huntington Beach. Authorities declined to name the church Tracy attended.

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VATICAN CITY
The Daily Beast

Barbie Latza Nadeau

Francis fired the uncompromising commander of his Swiss Guard. With more threats than ever on the Vatican, is the pontiff making a dangerous mistake?

VATICAN CITY — By now, news that Pope Francis has fired yet another Vatican big shot is hardly shocking. This is a pope who has been rolling heads since he came to power in March 2013. But the latest casualty in the reforming pontiff’s line of fire might prove risky for more than him.

According to a brief announcement in the Vatican’s daily newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, Col. Daniel Anrig, the 40-year-old father of four who heads the elite Swiss Guard army is being relieved of his post effective Jan. 31, 2015. The Vatican has not issued an official word on just why the pope dismissed his army commander, but Vatican experts quickly pointed to the fact that Anrig was a heavy-handed leader who demanded that his forces stay in fighting shape despite the pope’s pleas to lighten up. There are secondary reports that an expensive renovation of his penthouse apartment above the spartan Swiss Guard barracks was the tipping point.

Considering the ample threats against Pope Francis by the likes of ISIS and others, discipline in one’s army would seem a strength, not a weakness. Anrig was a leading criminal investigator for the Swiss state police until he was recruited to the Vatican in 1992. He quickly moved up the ranks and was appointed in 2008 as commander by Pope Benedict XVI, who at the time said he “felt safe” knowing Anrig was in charge. But Francis has never shown much concern for his personal safety, once famously telling his bodyguards that the armored car was for them, not him.

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CALIFORNIA
Huntington Beach Independent

December 5, 2014

A Huntington Beach church leader was sentenced to 36 years to life in prison Friday for sexually assaulting a young male relative and creating child pornography.

A jury in October found Jeffrey Adam Tracy, 38, guilty of two counts of oral copulation of a child 10 or younger, four counts of lewd acts on a child under 14 and one count of using a minor for sex acts, according to the Orange County district attorney’s office.

The federal Homeland Security Investigations unit and members of the Orange County Child Exploitation Task Force began investigating Tracy in April 2013 after he uploaded child pornography videos on the Internet, officials said.

Tracy was arrested Sept. 27, 2013, at his Huntington Beach home. The district attorney’s office did not disclose the church where Tracy worked or when he had last worked there.

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OREGON
Mail Tribune

By Thomas Moriarty
Mail Tribune
Posted Dec. 5, 2014

A Talent man who worked as a church camp staff member is accused of molesting two teenage girls, though police said the abuse wasn’t related to his role at the camp and that neither victim was a camper.

Jeremiah Meadors, 20, is charged with three counts of first-degree sexual abuse, three counts of second-degree unlawful sexual penetration, both Measure 11 crimes, and two counts of third-degree sexual abuse. The Measure 11 crimes carry minimum sentences of 75 months in prison without parole.

According to a probable cause affidavit written by Medford police Detective Diane Sandler, a 14-year-old girl told investigators in November that Meadors had molested her. A 12-year-old girl made similar allegations a day later. During interviews with police, Meadors allegedly admitted to some but not all of the crimes, telling investigators that he “needs to face his demons,” the affidavit said.

Meadors worked as support staff at Camp Latgawa near Lake of the Woods during the summer 2014 season. The camp, affiliated with the United Methodist Church, hosts a number of different retreats for children and families throughout the year. According to a letter sent by directors James and Lisa Marie Ryder to the families of campers Nov. 22, the camp’s internal reviews “found no information indicating that any camper was involved, and no incident happened at the camp.”

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CANADA
Metro

A Supreme Court jury returned a verdict of guilty Friday on one of three counts of sexual interference against a Glace Bay pastor.

The panel of six men and six women spent nearly five hours deliberating before returning with the verdict shortly after 7 p.m.

Pastor Robert Stewart Lawther, 62, of Reserve Street, was charged with three counts of sexual interference involving three girls under the age of 16. The offences were alleged to have occurred between 2006 and 2011, when two of the complainants were between the ages of six and 11 — they are now 14 — while the third was between the ages of two and seven, and is now 10.

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CANADA
Cape Breton Post

SYDNEY — A Supreme Court jury returned a verdict of guilty Friday on one of three counts of sexual interference against a Glace Bay pastor.

The panel of six men and six women spent nearly five hours deliberating before returning with the verdict shortly after 7 p.m.

Pastor Robert Stewart Lawther, 62, of Reserve Street, was charged with three counts of sexual interference involving three girls under the age of 16. The offences were alleged to have occurred between 2006 and 2011, when two of the complainants were between the ages of six and 11 — they are now 14 — while the third was between the ages of two and seven, and is now 10.

The jury found Lawther guilty on the count involving one of the 14-year-olds. She testified the man known in the community as Pastor Bob touched her on numerous occasions while in a swimming pool.

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CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles Times

By JOEL RUBIN, RICHARD WINTON, KATE MATHER

A detective for the Los Angeles Police Department who once investigated sexual assault cases killed himself Thanksgiving morning after two relatives accused him of sexually abusing them, authorities said Friday.

The body of Dennis Derr, 52, a 17-year LAPD veteran, was found in his car in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Palmdale, law enforcement officials said. Derr died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to Los Angeles County coroner’s Assistant Chief Ed Winter.

Brian Hudson, a sergeant in the L.A. County Sheriff’s Special Victims Bureau, confirmed two adults made sexual abuse allegations against Derr shortly before he committed suicide. Hudson declined to provide any other details about the investigation into Derr, but other sheriff’s and LAPD sources with knowledge of the case said the two accusers were relatives of Derr.

Although he said the investigation was in its early stages, Hudson said that at this time there have been no other molestation allegations made against Derr.

Philip Derr, the detective’s son, said in an interview that two adult men related to Derr recently confided in each other that Derr had molested them when they were teenagers. …

Over the last decade, Derr also served as a pastor or bible study teacher at two churches, his son said.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

Smoking gun? Pope Francis’ critics cite new book in questioning his papacy

By David Gibson | Religion News Service December 5

NEW YORK — Was there a secret plot to elect Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio at the papal conclave last year?

Did Bergoglio — who became Pope Francis at that conclave — give the go-ahead to such a plan?

And does that campaign call his election, and his papacy, into question?

Such questions might sound like plot twists to a new Vatican thriller by Dan Brown, but they are actually the latest talking points promoted by some Catholic conservatives upset with the direction that Francis is leading the church.

The furor stems from a behind-the-scenes account of the March 2013 conclave, presented in a new book about Francis titled “The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope.”

In the last chapter of the biography, which focuses on Bergoglio’s early life in Argentina and career as a Jesuit, author Austen Ivereigh delivers an insider account of how a group of cardinals who wanted a reformer pope quietly sought to rally support for Bergoglio in the days leading up to the conclave.

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VATICAN CITY
U-T San Diego

By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press
DEC. 5, 2014

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis’ economic czar is symbolically asserting his control over Vatican money by moving into the enormous office of the president of the Vatican bank.

Cardinal George Pell’s secretary, the Rev. Mark Withoos, confirmed the move Friday to The Associated Press. He said the space is vacant and the cardinal wants to use “Vatican space wisely.”

Pell was named in February to head the Secretariat of the Economy, a new finance ministry created to improve efficiency, accountability and transparency in the Holy See’s administration. It is tasked with overseeing all economic, administrative, personnel and procurement functions.

Pell’s authority over the Vatican bank, however, hasn’t been clear since the bank is governed by a separate commission of cardinals.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: JEAN HOPFENSPERGER , Star Tribune Updated: December 4, 2014

An independent agency staffed by health professionals was hired to field the sensitive calls.

A new clergy abuse hot line staffed by mental health professionals from a Twin Cities nonprofit was announced Thursday by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

The archdiocese partnered with Canvas Health to staff the 24-hour line, assess callers and refer them to appropriate services. It’s the first time an independent agency has been hired to handle these sensitive calls.

Until now, archdiocese staffers would field such calls and make the first contacts with victims, a process victims’ advocates say often resulted in abuse reports being discounted or stifled.

“We’re not sure how many people have not called because there wasn’t an independent option,” Tim O’Malley, the archdiocese’s director of ministerial standards and safe environment, said Thursday. “And we haven’t had the expertise that Canvas brings.”

The archdiocese has had a victims’ assistance program since 1992. However, it hasn’t been able to identify how many new victims have called the program in recent years, in part because call statistics may include duplicate calls by the same person, church officials said.

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VATICAN CITY
Fitsnews

By FITSNEWS || “The God I believe in isn’t short of cash,” U2 lead singer Bono once crooned. Neither is the Catholic Church, apparently.

Cardinal George Pell – selected recently by Pope Francis as the Vatican’s “Secretariat for the Economy” – announced this week that the church’s financial situation was “much healthier than it seemed.”

How so?

“Some hundreds of millions of euros were tucked away in particular accounts and did not appear on the balance sheet,” he said.

Wait … what?

That’s right. Hundreds of millions of euros were “tucked away.”

“Those in the Curia were following long-established patterns,” Pell said. “Just as kings had allowed their regional rules, princes or governors an almost free hand, provided they balanced the books, so too did the popes with the curial cardinals.”

Awesome … so what we have here is the Middle Ages meeting the modern mafia.

We wonder … does Johann Tetzel still have an account open? Possibly one bearing interest? After all, those indulgences really were selling like hot cakes back in the day.

“As soon as a coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.”

That was the expression, right?

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

By David Barrett, Home Affairs Correspondent 05 Dec 2014

Thousands of paedophiles who view child sex images online should be treated as patients rather than criminals, Britain’s most senior child protection police chief has said.

At least half of people viewing indecent images of children – up to 25,000 people according to police estimates – do not pose a physical risk to children, said Simon Bailey, the child protection and abuse lead for the Association of Chief Police Officers’ (Acpo).

Mr Bailey, the chief constable of Norfolk Police, told the Guardian his approach was based on “realism”, but admitted it could be “a very unpalatable response from a senior police officer”.

Paedophiles classed as “non-contact abusers” who view images but are unlikely ever to harm a child in the real world should face an “alternative solution” involving medical treatment rather than prosecution, he suggested.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Channel 4

Theresa May’s inquiry into historical allegations of child sex abuse is plunged into crisis after a number of alleged victims threatened to withdraw unless major changes were made.

In an open letter to the home secretary, the 23 signatories said the inquiry was not “fit for purpose.” The letter was sent ahead of a meeting today with groups representing victims of child sex abuse.

The inquiry is expected to examine how public bodies handled allegations and claims of child sex abuse in the past 40 years, up to the present day.

‘Toothless tiger’

Peter Saunders, chief executive of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac), said there would be “no point” if Mrs May did not give additional powers to the inquiry.

Speaking to Channel 4 News, Mr Saunders said: “If it doesn’t turn into a statutory inquiry then there is no point. It becomes a toothless tiger.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Written by
Gaynor Dumat-ol Daleno
Pacific Daily News

The Archdiocese of Agana’s second-highest official yesterday warned Archbishop Anthony Apuron’s public accuser that any further attempt to approach the archbishop “will be responded to appropriately and in accordance with law.”

John Toves has made numerous public allegations in recent weeks that a relative of his, a former high school co-seminarian of Toves on Guam, was allegedly sexually molested by Apuron when they were both altar boys three decades ago. Toves further alleged Apuron was a priest at the time.

The 50-year-old Toves went to the archdiocese’s Chancery office yesterday, the second time he did so in two days, in an attempt to confront the archbishop and urge Apuron to step down.

Monsignor David Quitugua, who, as vicar general, is the archdiocese’s second-highest official, wrote to Toves yesterday that Toves’ request to meet with the archbishop has been denied.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

December 5, 2014

Rachel Browne
Social Affairs Reporter

A former senior member of a yoga centre where children were allegedly sexually and physically assaulted described “violent discipline” as an acceptable part of ashram culture, a royal commission has heard.

A number of former child residents of the Satyananda Yoga Ashram at Mangrove Mountain left the hearing room as a former senior member, known as Shishy, gave evidence.

The commission has previously heard evidence from former child residents that Shishy allegedly subjected them to fierce beatings and summoned teenage girls for sex with the ashram’s leader, Swami Akhandananda Saraswati.

Repeatedly breaking down in the stand, Shishy apologised for the pain and suffering she had caused, including the slapping of children, but said she could not recall some of the more vicious assaults described in evidence.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail (UK)

‘It is the most shameful thing in my life’: Woman was forced by abusive leader to have sex with boy, 14, at yoga ashram

The partner of an abusive yoga master broke down in tears while admitting she had sex with a 14-year-old boy after her guru forced her to, an inquiry has heard.

The woman, known as Shishy, was the sexual partner and second-in-charge of Swami Akhandananda at the Satyananda Yoga Ashram on NSW’s Central Coast during the 1970s and 1980s.

Shishy, now in her mid 50s, told the child abuse royal commission on Friday that starting her sexual relationship with the young boy, known as APQ, was ‘the most shameful thing in my life’.

The former handmaiden was 25 at the time when she was instructed by Akhandananda to start initiating the boy the same way he had been having sex with underage girls on the ashram.
‘It’s one of the things I really resent Akhandananda for,’ Shishy said.

However, the commission heard Shishy continued the sexual relationship with the boy after she left the ashram in 1985.

The pair later had a child together and the boy lived in her house.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DECEMBER 06, 2014

Amanda Hodge
South Asia Correspondent
New Delhi

THE son of an elderly Sydney couple who run the NSW yoga school at the centre of child sexual abuse claims says he was aware there was a “bad apple” in the organisation “who hurt a lot of people”.

Brian and Mary Thompson (known as Vivekananda and Hridayananda) have refused to comment publicly on witness testimony this week on abuses at the Satyananda yoga school in the 1970s and 80s to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

But their son Charles Thompson, 53, told The Weekend Australian his parents were forced to return from India to “clean up the mess” after criminal allegations against the school’s yoga master, Swami Akhandananda.

“I met him. He was a bad apple,” Mr Thompson said by phone from Pune, 150km southeast of Mumbai. “From what I can understand, (Akhandananda) hurt a lot of people.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Sky News

Anushka Asthana
Political Correspondent

Will the refusal of 28 survivors and campaigners to co-operate kill the Home Office inquiry into historical child abuse?

From what I am hearing, officials are determined to push ahead.

They believe they have tried hard to include victim groups in their thinking since Fiona Woolf became the inquiry’s second chair to step down.

While this news will come as a blow, they will focus on the fact that not all survivor groups have signed up.

Others also have similar misgivings but they want the inquiry to get going.

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CANADA
National Post

[with video]

Joseph Brean | December 5, 2014

Cornwall, Ontario — It is raining outside under heavy grey skies as a dozen elderly francophone Catholics gather for mass at dawn in the little parish of Ste.-Thérèse-de-Lisieux.

They pray aloud together as they wait for Father Claude Thibault, who lives in an adjoining house partly built by his late father, to put on his vestments.

Fr. Thibault, a genial and chatty man with a sly sense of humour, has attended this church all his life. He was baptized here. As a child, his family took up an entire pew. As a teenager, he read scripture. In July, he became its priest.

Part of his manipulation was protecting himself, by not only working at appealing to us, but also pushing others away, creating mistrust of others, sometimes in very subtle ways
Given what he has endured, though, it is a wonder he is here at all.

This was once the stalking grounds of a sexual predator, a priest at the right hand of the local bishop who abused the youth of this parish and the local high school, and kept them silent through what a judge described as the “spiritual manipulation of consciences.”

Fr. Thibault, now 54, was one of the victims. He was repeatedly molested by this priest, who was a false friend and mentor who encouraged his vocation to the priesthood, even formally vouched for his worthiness at his ordination as deacon, a ceremony spoiled by suppressed rage. When he tried to speak up, the cloistered Catholic hierarchy leapt to denial, and shuffled the abuser to other parishes, where the abuse complaints continued.

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MISSOURI
Berger’s Beat

December 5, 2014 1:11 pm | Author: berger

Boston’s premiere clergy sex abuse attorney Michael Garabedian (who will be played by Stanley Tucci in “Spotlight”, an upcoming film about the Catholic pedophile priest scandal, has released a list of 13 child molesting clerics. One of them is Fr. Irving “Jack” Klister who spent time at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Normandy in the 1960s.

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CANADA
National Post

[with video]

Cornwall, Ontario — It is raining outside under heavy grey skies as a dozen elderly francophone Catholics gather for mass at dawn in the little parish of Ste.-Thérèse-de-Lisieux.

They pray aloud together as they wait for Father Claude Thibault, who lives in an adjoining house partly built by his late father, to put on his vestments.

Fr. Thibault, a genial and chatty man with a sly sense of humour, has attended this church all his life. He was baptized here. As a child, his family took up an entire pew. As a teenager, he read scripture. In September, he became its priest.

Part of his manipulation was protecting himself, by not only working at appealing to us, but also pushing others away, creating mistrust of others, sometimes in very subtle ways
Given what he has endured, though, it is a wonder he is here at all.

This was once the stalking grounds of a sexual predator, a priest at the right hand of the local bishop who abused the youth of this parish and the local high school, and kept them silent through what a judge described as the “spiritual manipulation of consciences.”

Fr. Thibault, now 54, was one of the victims. He was repeatedly molested by this priest, who was a false friend and mentor who encouraged his vocation to the priesthood, even formally vouched for his worthiness at his ordination as deacon, a ceremony spoiled by suppressed rage. When he tried to speak up, the cloistered Catholic hierarchy leapt to denial, and shuffled the abuser to other parishes, where the abuse complaints continued.

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: William T. Nash was a Jesuit priest of the Chicago Province, ordained in 1915. He was a high school and college teacher mostly in Chicago, with shorter stints in Omaha NE, Toledo OH and Detroit MI. He also served as a parish priest. Nash’s whereabouts after 1958 are unknown. Although not reflected in the Official Catholic Directory, Nash apparently spent some time in the Oregon Province; his name was included in 2011 on the Oregon Province’s list of its members who have been identified as perpetrators of sexual abuse.

Ordained: 1915

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

Christmas miracles have come early this year, it seems. As Gaia Planigiani reports for New York Times yesterday, Pope Francis’s Vatican finance watchdog Cardinal Pell announced Wednesday that he has found hundreds of millions of euros “tucked away” in accounts that the Vatican had no notion it owned.

Isn’t that a lovely find? Hundreds of millions just “tucked away,” to be happened on by accident as one dithers with one’s bank books . . . . If I had a penny for every time this has happened to me, I’d be a much richer man, indeed.

A lovely find, especially as yet another U.S. archdiocese, the archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis, announces it may have to declare bankruptcy as it faces claims from victims of clerical sexual abuse .

. . . Surely the Vatican will be inclined to share some of those lovely serendipitous millions, one would hope, with Catholics dealing with the horrendous consequences of childhood sexual abuse by Catholic authority figures, whose archdioceses keep sadly shaking their heads and claiming that they just cannot assist, due to lack of money.

As Colleen Baker says in response to Pell’s finding (Colleen posted this in a discussion thread responding to a National Catholic Reporter article by Michael Sean Winters about fixing the Vatican),

Do you honestly believe Pell? Do you honestly think hundreds of millions of Euros just magically appear? That no one knew anything about any of it prior to this discovery? I am much less naive. I want the names of the hierarchical types that go with all those suddenly appearing hundreds of millions of Euros.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 5 December 2014 (VIS) – The Director of the Holy See Press Office, Fr. Federico Lombardi, S.J., today issued the following declaration in response to requests for clarification regarding an article by Cardinal George Pell published in the Catholic Herald.

“It should be observed that Cardinal Pell has not referred to illegal, illicit or poorly administered funds, but rather funds that do not appear on the official balance sheets of the Holy See or of Vatican City State, and which have become known to the Secretariat for the Economy during the current process of examination and revision of Vatican administration, to acquire a more comprehensive knowledge of the latter in view of the planned rationalisation. It is indeed a sign and result of constructive cooperation between the various Vatican institutions.

“Moreover, it was known and had been previously explained, also publicly by the Prefecture of Economic Affairs, that the consolidated balance sheets of the Holy See and Vatican City State, presented every year to the College of Cardinals, do not in any way encompass the totality of the numerous administrations under Vatican auspices, but only the main institutions of the Roman Curia and the State”.

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CALIFORNIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Psychiatrist accused of sexual abuse
At least three women say he violated them
One settled a lawsuit with his former employer
He’s a defrocked priest; abuse cases against him have settled
Hospital should not let him practice or see patients, group urges
And state medical board should review allegations soon, SNAP says

WHAT:
Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, child sex abuse victims and their supporters will hand-deliver a letter to the head of a local mental health center that employs a psychiatrist who has been accused of sexually abusing at least three girls. They will:

– Tell how the priest’s supervisors settled a sex abuse lawsuit with at least one victim, and
– Hand out copies of the former priest’s personnel file that outlined the abuse and settlement.

They will also:
– Demand that the psychiatrist be removed from his position at a local psychiatric facility,

– Beg hospital administrators to reach out to his current and former patients telling them about the allegations, and
– Urge the hospital to file a complaint against him with the California State Medical Board.

WHEN
Friday, Dec. 5 at 11:30 am

WHERE:
Outside of El Camino Hospital Behavioral Health Services, 2500 Grant Road (at North Drive), in Mountain View CA

WHO:
Two-three people who are members of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org), the nation’s largest support group for adults who were sexually abused as kids.

WHY:
Members of SNAP recently learned that Dr. Thomas E. Havel, a Mountain View psychiatrist and an ex-Los Angeles priest – has been accused of sexually abusing at least three women and girls and that the doctor’s former employer settled a lawsuit with at least one victim.

[El Camino Hospital]

Havel works at El Camino Hospital, where he has been a psychiatrist since the late 1980s. Previous to this, Havel was ordained Catholic priest in Los Angeles and worked there for several years. Then he joined a St. Louis-based Catholic religious order called the Marianists.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

* Two of Pope Francis’ key cardinals, George Pell, new Vatican financial czar, and Sean O’Malley, new Vatican anti-abuse czar, have now shown us why Francis’ reform efforts will falter fast. Pell has shown this by his “admissions”; O’Malley has shown it by his “omissions”. The fundamental procedural weakness, in effect, highlighted by both these Cardinals’ inadequate approaches, is the continuing unaccountable control over both these scandal prone areas by a “supreme and infallible pontiff”, a pope, and his secretively selected Cardinals and other cronies, it appears.

* Pope Francis may be doing the best he can, given his strong opponents. He seems to be; but it does not appear that this will be enough to save the Vatican, as discussed in detail below. And his successor will not likely be any more successful. It is now or never for the Vatican, from most indications. Recent reports indicate Francis was picked by one faction of Cardinals, but that may not have been enough to empower him to succeed over competing factions. Please see:

* [Catholic News Agency]

* First, Pell’s admissions, which are contained in a article Pell wrote (12/4) seemingly to try to “sell as the solution” the Vatican’s new financial management structure. Unwittingly, it appears that Pell’s sales pitch has instead shown why the financial “reforms” cannot succeed in effectively ending Vatican financial mismanagement and corruption. Please see Pell’s revealing article at:

* [Catholic Herald]

* Concerning why the Vatican has had so many notorious major financial scandals, Pell indicated: “Those in the Curia were following long-established patterns. Just as kings had allowed their regional rulers, princes or governors an almost free hand, provided they balanced their books, so too did the popes with the curial cardinals (as they still do with diocesan bishops).” So, it appears, the key problem is the papal monarchical structure. …

* It seems quite clear that Pope Francis is intentionally pursuing effective child protection reform measures very slowly, at best, and almost secretly with this new advisory committee (A) headed by Cardinal Law’s successor, Cardinal O’Malley, who is well experienced with “handling” abuse investigations secretively and slowly, and (B) aided now, as top staffer, by Fr. Robert Oliver, who has been successively Cardinals Law’s, O’Malley’s and Mueller’s predictable and seemingly pliable longtime canon lawyer. Fr. Geisenger now is serving now as the Vatican’s “top cop”, succeeding Fr. Oliver in that position. Priests presumably will like this “priest friendly” lineup more than innocent children and their parents will, I suspect.

* Twelve years after the Boston Globe Catholic priest child abuse revelations and almost 30 years after Father Thomas Doyle’s abuse report to Cardinals Law, Levada, Bevilacqua, Laghi, et al. and Pope John Paul II, for O’Malley to say on CBS we are looking into “protocols” is evidently a farce. And O’Malley seems to have gotten away with it with many in the media so far!

* I have to wonder, as an international lawyer, if O’Malley, Oliver and Geisinger, all presumably US citizens, were picked to work on the latest papal public relations ploys to “do little or nothing” to really curtail clerical abuse also because the US has not ratified the International Criminal Court (ICC) Treaty.

* Since the ex-pope had already been a subject of a complaint filed with the ICC, it must have occurred to the Vatican and its lawyers that whomever handles these matters can expect to face a further complaint at the ICC, a very serious matter. It might be more difficult to prosecute them under the ICC Treaty as US citizens if they had returned to the USA when the ICC prosecutor finally pursues the Vatican again, as I am confident as an international lawyer she will.

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NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

By Katie Lannan | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on December 04, 2014

RAHWAY — The former accountant for the Agape Family Worship Center has been indicted for embezzling more than $4 million from the church over a period of seven years, church officials said today.

Donald Gridiron, Jr., a certified public accountant licensed in California, was arrested in Los Angeles Tuesday, according to a statement from the church.

The thefts were hidden in 900 separate transactions in which Gridiron would write checks to himself or arrange wire transfers, said Matthew Davis, a Texas-based attorney representing the church.

“Professionally, our former CPA violated the trust of the ministry,” said Lawrence Powell, Agape’s senior pastor. “And personally, I feel betrayed because this man used to be my friend. It hurts, but we serve a God who will get us through this.”

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VATIKAN
Die Welt

Schwarze Kassen? Das bedeutet meistens, dass Geld in dunkle Kanäle verschwindet. Nicht so im Vatikan. Dort sind versteckte Millionen wieder aufgetaucht. Die unverhoffte Finanzspritze ist ein Segen für den Heiligen Stuhl, der jeden Euro gut gebrauchen kann.

Es handele sich um eine Summe von “Hunderten Millionen Euro”, schrieb der Vorsitzende der Finanzbehörde des Vatikans, George Pell, in der englischsprachigen katholischen Wochenzeitung “Catholic Herald”. Sie seien auf bestimmten Konten versteckt gewesen und seien nicht in der Bilanz aufgetaucht. “Es ist wichtig zu betonen, dass der Vatikan nicht pleite ist. Vielmehr haben wir entdeckt, dass die Situation viel besser ist, als es schien”, schrieb Pell.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Register

by CNA/EWTN NEWS 12/04/2014

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican’s press officer provided an update on the trial of laicized former nuncio Jozef Wesolowski, saying that the case is moving forward, and the first stages of investigation and questioning have begun.

“Regarding the situation of Msgr. Wesolowski, I can say that the judiciary of the state of Vatican City, continuing investigations, made a first interrogation of the accused, of which others will follow,” Father Federico Lombardi said in a Dec. 2 statement.

Wesolowski, 66, was laicized earlier this year, after being accused of having paid for sex with minors while nuncio to the Dominican Republic. In September, he was placed under house arrest, rather than being jailed in Vatican City’s prison, due to poor health.

In his statement, Father Lombardi explained that because the deadline for the former nuncio’s preventive custody has passed, and due to his poor health, Wesolowski is authorized to have “a certain freedom of movement,” but must remain within the Vatican city state and have limited external communication.

The Vatican spokesman also revealed that professor Gian Piero Milano, promoter of justice for the Vatican City State Tribunal, met with Francisco Dominguez Brito, the Dominican Republic’s attorney general.

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GUAM
KUAM

[letter from the archdiocese to Mr. Toves]

by Jolene Toves

Guam – John Toves continues to demand an appointment with Archbishop Anthony Apuron. Today he once again went to the chancery in hopes of scheduling a meeting but instead met with Father Adrian Cristobal who told him that a lawyer would be contacting him to make an appointment.

Toves is accusing the archbishop of sexually abusing his relative over thirty years ago. Despite these allegations however Toves admits that he had never spoken personally to his relative about the alleged abuse. According to Toves he obtained the information through fellow seminarians when he was in the seminary. At this point no victim has stepped forward.

The archbishop has said the allegations are untrue.

Late this afternoon the Archdiocese of Agana announced that the Review Board on the Policy of Sexual Misconduct convened to consider the complaint of sexual misconduct brought by Toves against the archbishop and determined that an investigation cannot be conducted based on the third party complaint received.

The Archdiocese sent Toves a letter stating: Based on the allegations you have lodged with the Archdiocese of Agaña, and the new allegations that you have disclosed to the media on today’s date, please be advised that your requests for a meeting with the Archbishop are hereby denied.

Archbishop Anthony Sablan Apuron, OFM Cap., D.D., has publicly addressed the issues you have raised, and the Archdiocese has determined how it will address this matter pursuant to its established internal policies.

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TEXAS
Caller-Times

Beatriz Alvarado
Dec 4, 2014

CORPUS CHRISTI – A former pastor risks losing status as member of the Catholic clergy after two allegations surfaced this year of inappropriate conduct, a Corpus Christi Diocese statement said.

No criminal investigations were pursued after the complaints were submitted in June to Nueces and San Patricio County district attorney offices, said Marty Wind, the diocese’s Director of Communications.

“That’s not going to stop the church from investigating,” he said earlier this year.

Monsignor Michael Heras, former pastor of St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles Church, remains the subject of an internal church investigation prompted by a complaint submitted to the diocese in June, Wind said. He was placed on leave and later resigned.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Newbury Today

Reporter: John Garvey Chief Reporter
Email: john.garvey@newburynews.co.uk
Contact: 01635 886628

A FORMER Thatcham vicar facing sex charges involving children was due back on the witness stand this morning (Friday).

The Rev Peter Jarvis, now of Clares Green Road, Spencers Wood, has been giving evidence in the third week of his trial at Reading Crown Court.

Previously the jury heard one boy claim that “Pete” had turned up unexpectedly at a party attended by teenagers and wanted to know if he had spent the night with a specific girl, asking: “Was she good then?” before making an explicit, sordid reference to a sexual act.

The boy denied making things up, adding: “I’ve taken the oath and my statement says what happened.”

But, recalling the incident yesterday, Mr Jarvis denied making sexual remarks and explained he had asked if the girl was “all right” – meaning, he said, “was she safe?”

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NORTHERN IRELAND
UTV

Published Friday, 05 December 2014

A priest who admitted stealing almost £1,800 over a three year period from diocesan and parish funds after he got into financial difficulties, has been sentenced for the offences at Londonderry Magistrate’s Court.

Fr. John Irwin, 73, whose address was given as Garvagh Road in Dungiven, pleaded guilty to the offences six months ago. His sentencing was deferred until Friday to enable him to repay the monies he had stolen.

The defendant was given a conditional discharge for two years on both of his charges.

Fr. Irwin admitted two charges – that between May 1, 2011`and October 30, 2012, he stole £1,440 of collection money from St. Patrick’s parochial house in the Pennyburn area of the city. He also pleaded guilty to stealing £300 from the Derry Diocesan Society fund on dates between December 1, 2009 and May 30, 2011.

A defence solicitor handed in to District Judge Barney McElholm two letters which he said confirmed that Irwin had not only repaid the amount in full, but also additional compensation as an indication of the remorse he felt as a result of his offending.

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Gabriel L. Menager was a Jesuit priest of the Oregon Province, ordained sometime before 1927. Much of his career seems to have been spent in remote Indian villages in Alaska and Montana, followed by more than a decade at Loyola University and Loyola High School in Los Angeles CA. He lived at the Jesuit Novitiate in Los Gatos CA from 1963 until his death in July 1966. Menager’s name was included in 2011 on the Oregon Province’s list of its members who have been identified as perpetrators of sexual abuse.

Died: July 28, 1966

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Patrick J. O’Reilly was a priest of the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus, ordained in 1906. A native of Ireland, he had emigrated to the United States in 1890, at the age of 18. Most of O’Reilly’s ministry was spent traveling around the U.S. and abroad as a missionary preacher. He also served as a parish pastor and as a college and hospital chaplain. After his tertianship year in Poughkeepsie NY, O’Reilly was based at various times in what are now the dioceses of Spokane and Portland OR, Fairbanks AK, Boston MA, Helena MT and Seattle WA. He died May 26, 1958 in Sheridan OR. O’Reilly’s name was included in 2011 on the Oregon Province’s list of its members who have been identified as perpetrators of sexual abuse.

Ordained: May 31, 1906
Died: May 26, 1958

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Agency

Vatican City, Dec 4, 2014 / 07:07 pm (CNA).- The 2013 papal conclave that elected Pope Francis is news again now that four cardinals have denied a new book’s claim that they campaigned for Pope Francis to be elected – though the book’s author has clarified the Pope himself was not a part of their supposed campaign.

The London-based Catholic journalist Austen Ivereigh, in his new book “The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope,” contends that a group of cardinals on what he bills as “Team Bergoglio” worked during the last conclave to promote the election of Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires as Pope.

According to Ivereigh, Cardinals Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, Walter Kasper, Gottfried Daneels and Karl Lehmann orchestrated a behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign which led to the election of Pope Francis.

Ivereigh wrote that the members of “Team Bergoglio” toured private dinners and other gatherings of cardinals the day before the conclave.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Belfast Telegraph

Westminster ‘paedophile ring’ inquiry in crisis as alleged sex abuse victims threaten to withdraw

BY ROB HASTINGS – 05 DECEMBER 2014

Alleged victims of child sexual abuse have warned Theresa May they will withdraw from the Government’s controversial official inquiry unless major changes are made.

In an open letter to Home Secretary released today, 24 signatories claimed the inquiry as it stands is “not fit for purpose” because of what it is being asked to examine and the proposed chairs.

The inquiry has been bedevilled with problems since it was announced in July. It is yet to find a chair, following the embarrassing resignations of Baroness Butler-Sloss and Fiona Woolf. The problems intensified with yesterday’s written warning from “survivors and associated professionals”.

“We were very much hoping to take up the invitations to engage with your ministerial officers to discuss the child sex abuse inquiry but we regret to say we have to decline,” they said. “We, alongside many survivors, have made numerous representations to you regarding our view that the inquiry as it stands is not fit for purpose.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Claire Aird

A young girl was raped by the head of a global yoga movement, Satyananda Sawaswati, on his visit to a New South Wales ashram, an inquiry has heard.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse hearing into the Satyananda Yoga Ashram at Mangrove Mountain on the state’s central coast was also told a group of swamis abused the girl in a ritual setting.

The girl, known as APR in the hearing, moved to the ashram with her mother, father and sister in the late 1970s.

The abuse started when she was three years old.

“The ashram was the kind of place that if you scream, no-one comes,” she said.

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VATICAN CITY
Deutsche Welle

The Vatican’s secretariat for the economy says millions of euros have been found which had been missing from balance sheets. Ongoing reforms aim to make the Catholic church’s finances more transparent.

Hundreds of millions of euros were found “tucked away” in accounts of various Holy See departments without having appeared in the city-state’s balance sheets, the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy has said.

In an article published in the UK’s Catholic Herald Magazine on Friday, Cardinal George Pell said the discovery meant that the Vatican’s financial situation was “much healthier than it seemed.”
“It is important to point out that the Vatican is not broke … the Holy See is paying its way, while possessing substantial assets and investments,” Pell said.

‘Bad old days’

Despite the missing figures, Pell did not suggest any wrongdoing. For a long time Vatican departments had had “an almost free hand” with their finances and followed “long-established patterns” in managing their affairs, he said, adding that reforms were “well under way and already past the point where the Vatican could return to the ‘bad old days’.”

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VATICAN CITY
news.com.au

THE Vatican has found hundreds of millions of euros during an overhaul of the system aimed at transforming the once-murky institution into a paradigm of transparency.

“WE have discovered that the (Vatican’s financial) situation is much healthier than it seemed,” the pope’s economy czar, Australian cardinal George Pell, told Britain’s Catholic Herald.

“Some hundreds of millions of euros were tucked away in particular sectional accounts and did not appear on the balance sheet,” he said in an essay published on Thursday which set out to explain how the papal bank, dogged by accusations of corruption, is cleaning up its act.

Pell, picked by Pope Francis to head up the Secretariat for the Economy and oversee the reforms, spoke frankly about the Vatican’s former practice of secrecy and allegations of money laundering which dogged the bank for decades.

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VATICAN CITY
Tribune-Review

By The Associated Press
Thursday, Dec. 4, 2014

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican’s economy czar claims the Holy See’s finances are in better shape than thought, and that reforms are forging ahead to make the Vatican “boringly successful.”

“Hundreds of millions of euros were tucked away in particular sectional accounts and did not appear on the balance sheet,” Cardinal George Pell wrote in a frank essay published Friday in Britain’s The Catholic Herald.

“It is important to point out that the Vatican is not broke … the Holy See is paying its way, while possessing substantial assets and investments,” Pell said, according to an advance text made available Thursday. “It was impossible for anyone to know accurately what was going on overall.”

Pell did not suggest any wrongdoing but said Vatican departments had long had “an almost free hand” with their finances and followed “long-established patterns” in managing their affairs.

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TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
Trinidad Express

By Anna Ramdass anna.ramdass@trinidadexpress.com
Story Created: Dec 5, 2014

Where is the report into St Michael’s Home for Boys? Will Brandon Hargreaves ever get justice?
On Wednesday, Independent Senator Helen Drayton asked why there has not yet been any report, as promised, into the Home and whether any value would be place on Hargreaves life.

Hargreaves, 14, was sent to the institution in 2012 after he was found locked in a dog kennel with a dangerous dog. Reports said he died while play-fighting with another boy at the institution last April.
In July, Attorney General Anand Ramlogan said he asked Acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams and Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Roger Gaspard to investigate St Michael’s following allegations of sexual abuse, theft of boys’ property by staff, and neglect, including staff ignoring fights between boys.

These allegations were unearthed in the probe of Hargreaves’ death.

Ramlogan had said there were startling reports of what happened at the Home—that a female member of staff was allowed to take one of the boys to her home, despite allegations of sexual abuse against the said staff member.

The AG had said the same staff member subsequently became pregnant and questions were asked as to the paternity of the child and whether it could be one of the inmates of the Home.

Drayton raised the issue in her contribution to a motion to approve the Foster Care Regulations, 2014 at Wednesday’s Senate sitting at the International Waterfront Centre, Port of Spain.

She also reiterated her call for Government to bring the relevant amendments to change legislation to raise the mandatory school age up to 16 years.

Drayton said the marriage laws must also be amended to raise the age a girl can be married from 11 to 16.

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CANADA
CHCH

[with video\

Hamilton based filmmaker Terrance Odette’s latest film Fall tell the story of a Catholic priest wrestling with his past after being confronted with allegations of sexual abuse. It’s not an easy role to play, but Canadian actor Michael Murphy was more than up to the task. The pair sat down with us to discuss the film and it’s intentional ambiguity.

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CHICAGO (IL)
NBC Chicago

[with video]

By Phil Rogers

Even as he attempts to get his arms around the affairs of the Chicago Archdiocese, Archbishop Blaise Cupich continues to be entangled in the bitter lawsuit he filed against his own law firm in Spokane.

In two weeks, Cupich is expected to return to his former Diocese, to provide a second sworn deposition in the case.

At issue, is Cupich’s allegation that the law firm, Paine Hamblen, was guilty of malpractice, failing to provide adequate legal counsel in a thorny bankruptcy, stemming from millions of dollars in sexual abuse claims. He further contended that the firm had an inherent conflict of interest, never revealed to the bankruptcy court, because it had represented the previous Bishop, William Skylstad, who was accused of failing to adequately protect parishoners from another priest.

Ironically, in his own deposition, Skylstad defended Paine Hamblen. And the Spokane Diocese’s previous Vicar General, Steven Dublinski, said he resigned because he so opposed the actions Cupich had taken.

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UNITED KINGDOM
London Evening Standard

STANDARD REPORTER

Published: 04 December 2014

A number of alleged victims of historical sexual abuse said they will withdraw from an inquiry into the issue.

In an open letter addressed to Home Secretary Theresa May they said the inquiry is “not fit for purpose”.

The letter said: “As survivors and associated professionals, we were very much hoping to take up the invitations to engage with your ministerial officers to discuss the child sex abuse inquiry but we regret to say we have to decline.

“We, alongside many survivors, have made numerous representations to you regarding our view that the inquiry as it stands is not fit for purpose.

“Its terms of reference are inadequate for delivering the original declared intentions of the inquiry, namely to investigate government and establishment cover-ups of paedophiles in their ranks and aiding bringing the perpetrators to justice.”

The letter also said the inquiry was failing because of problems surrounding finding an appropriate chairman.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Straits Times

PUBLISHED ON DEC 5, 2014

LONDON (REUTERS) – A major inquiry into Britain’s failure to stop child sex abuse and whether powerful political figures covered it up was “hanging by a thread” on Thursday after several participants said they had lost faith in the process.

The government ordered the inquiry, expected to last years, in July in response to claims from victims of abuse that the establishment had not only failed to act over organised child abuse allegations in the 1970s and 1980s, but in some cases had been complicit in keeping the accusations secret.

Before it could even start, two chairmen selected by Home Secretary Theresa May were forced to step down because of their links to figures connected to the allegations, and there has been criticism from victims about other members of the inquiry panel and its terms of reference.

On Thursday, more than 20 individuals, abuse victims and child care professionals, wrote to May saying they would end their engagement with the inquiry unless its scope was extended and its format changed.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Mirror

Dec 04, 2014 23:16 By Jack Blanchard

In a scathing letter, a group of 24 victims and professionals attacked the Home Secretary’s choice of panel members and a decision not to ­investigate cases before 1970

Child abuse victims launched a devastating attack on Theresa May and withdrew all support for her stalled probe into sex exploitation.

In a scathing letter, a group of 24 victims and professionals attacked the Home Secretary’s choice of panel members and a decision not to ­investigate cases before 1970.

They branded the investigation “not fit for purpose” and wrote: “The Home Office seems to be running the inquiry to meet others’ needs rather than those of survivors and the public.”

The probe, beset by disaster since it was announced in July, appears on the brink of collapse.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Times

Richard Ford Home Correspondent
December 5 2014

Theresa May’s historical child sex abuse inquiry was plunged into crisis last night as victims told her they were abandoning their support for it.

Twenty-three individuals, including some who have suffered alleged abuse, wrote a letter to the home secretary saying that the inquiry was “not fit for purpose”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

Victims snub Westminster child sex probe: 23 individuals send letters to Theresa May claiming inquiry is ‘not fit for purpose’

By IAN DRURY FOR THE DAILY MAIL

Victims of alleged historical child abuse have told Theresa May they are withdrawing support from the Government’s paedophile inquiry.

A total of 23 individuals sent the Home Secretary a letter claiming the inquiry was ‘not fit for purpose’.
It came ahead of a crunch meeting today between Mrs May and some of the largest groups for child sex abuse victims which could lead to the inquiry being undermined.

Peter Saunders, chief executive of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, said his organisation had not signed the letter – but insisted it echoed the views of the other abuse survivors.

He said Mrs May must pledge to give the beleaguered inquiry extra powers, including granting it statutory powers to compel witnesses to give evidence and to properly consult victims’ groups.

‘At the end of the meeting, if we feel the Home Secretary is not serious about getting the inquiry right, then we will probably walk away, but until then it is too early to say. I believe she is committed to it; now she must show that commitment.’

‘I am not hopeful that we will get what we want.’

The letter to Mrs May said the 23 signatories would not take up an offer to attend the meeting.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

The Royal Commission has made new videos available on its website and YouTube channel to help people who are deaf or hard of hearing learn about its work. The videos are presented in Auslan and are captioned.

“The Royal Commission is dedicated to ensuring our information and processes are readily available to all audiences,” said CEO Philip Reed.

“These videos will enable people who are deaf or hard of hearing to access information about the Royal Commission including its purpose, the work it has been doing and how people can be part of it,” he said.

The videos include portions of Commissioner Robert Fitzgerald’s speech at the Information Session in August 2014. This session was held to enable deaf, deaf blind and hard of hearing people, their families and organisations across Australia, to participate and learn about the Royal Commission and its work.

The videos are available to watch on our website and YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/CARoyalComm.

People who are deaf, hard of hearing or have a speech impairment can use the National Relay Service to contact the Royal Commission. It is available to everyone at no additional charge, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Calls can be made by TTY on 133 677 or Speak & Listen 1300 555 727. Find out more about this service at http://relayservice.gov.au/

For more information, please visit http://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/resource-centre/people-with-disability or contact the Royal Commission:

Phone: 1800 099 340
Email: contact@childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au
Write: GPO Box 5283 Sydney NSW 2001
Facebook: www.facebook.com/CARoyalComm
Twitter: www.twitter.com/CARoyalComm

For specific stakeholder enquiries please contact stakeholders@childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au

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UNITED STATES
New York Daily News

BY DEBORAH HASTINGS NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Thursday, December 4, 2014

Hundreds of millions have been found “tucked away” in various Vatican departments, without being listed on balance sheets, says the economy minister of the Holy See.

Australian Cardinal George Pell writes in the upcoming issue of Britain’s Catholic Herald magazine that Vatican finances are much healthier than officials thought.

“It is important to point out that the Vatican is not broke,” Pell says in an advance copy issued Thursday. “The Holy See is paying its way, while possessing substantial assets and investments,” he said.

He did not say any wrongdoing had taken place, but rather described autonomous departments that operated with “an almost free hand” without oversight.

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VATICAN CITY
BBC News

The man responsible for the Vatican’s finances says he has found millions of Euros “tucked away” off balance sheets.

Cardinal George Pell, who heads the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy, said it meant the Holy See’s finances were better than expected.

He made the comments in the Catholic Herald, in an essay outlining his vision for the Vatican.

Pope Francis appointed Cardinal Pell as part of his efforts to reform the Church and make it more transparent.

“It is important to point out that the Vatican is not broke,” Cardinal Pell wrote. “Apart from the pension fund (…) the Holy See is paying its way, while possessing substantial assets and investments.

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VATICAN CITY
New York Times

By GAIA PIANIGIANIDEC. 4, 2014

ROME — It turns out that the Vatican, one of the world’s more secretive institutions, has even been keeping some secrets from itself.

Cardinal George Pell, who took over as the Vatican’s chief financial official in February, said Thursday that his staff had turned up hundreds of millions of euros that the Vatican did not know it had. The funds were “tucked away” in various accounts, he said, and had not been tallied on the Vatican’s main balance sheets.

The cardinal presented the found money as a happy surprise. “We have discovered that the situation is much healthier than it seemed,” he wrote in an article for the magazine Catholic Herald, which is scheduled to be published Friday. “It is important to point out that the Vatican is not broke.”

Between the lines, though, there was less to be happy about. Cardinal Pell did not say that there had been any malpractice, but he hinted that it might explain why his own branch of the Curia, as the Vatican’s central administration is known, had been in the dark about the money. “Problems were kept ‘in house,’ ” Cardinal Pell said of the various arms of the Curia. “Very few were tempted to tell the outside world what was happening, except when they needed extra help.”

The cardinal did not say exactly where the cash had been kept, or by whom, but he did note that individual departments and congregations of the complex Vatican bureaucracy had long had “an almost free hand” with their finances and had historically preserved a high degree of independence, especially the Secretariat of State.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Cardinal Newman Society

Georgetown Law School Named in Suit over Professor’s Alleged Voyeurism

December 4, 2014 | By Kimberly Scharfenberger

Georgetown University Law School is facing a lawsuit filed by a third-year law student alleging that the law school “turned a blind eye” to the actions of an instructor charged with six counts of voyeurism, according to The Washington Post.

The instructor in question, Rabbi Barry Freundel, is a tenured professor at Towson University in Baltimore, Md., and taught a seminar in Jewish studies last spring at Georgetown. He was arrested in October and is scheduled for a hearing in D.C. Superior Court on Jan. 16.

Police found evidence that Freundel had been using hidden cameras to record women using a mikvah, a ritual bath used primarily by observant Jewish women for purification.

The student accused Freundel “of luring her to the bath as part of her studies at the school,” The Washington Post reported. Freundel encouraged the student “to write her research paper on the mikvah ritual and told her to research it by participating in the immersion,” according to NBC Washington.

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MINNESOTA
KAAL

Victims harmed by clergy abuse will have another way to receive assistance.

The Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis announced Thursday it was partnering with Canvas Health, a Stillwater-based organization that provides counseling, crisis services, psychiatry and health services.

Tim O’Malley, director of ministerial standards and safe environment for the archdiocese, said in a statement that he consulted with survivors of clergy abuse and lawyers for plaintiffs and other experts about enhancing the victims’ assistance program.

The archdiocese has had a victims assistance program since 1992.

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MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

Date: Thursday, December 4, 2014

Source: Rita Beatty, Communications Manager

From Tim O’Malley, Director of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment, Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis

Today, the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis announced a partnership with Twin Cities-based Canvas Health to provide victim assistance services for those harmed by clergy sexual abuse or other misconduct in Church ministry. This innovative partnership marks an important step in fulfilling the recommendation of the Safe Environment and Ministerial Standards Task Force to establish an independent 24/7 hotline where concerns regarding misconduct can be reported. Canvas Health has trained representatives who are always available at (651) 291-4497.

The archdiocese has offered victim assistance since 1992. This assistance includes referrals and financial support for counseling, individual or group therapy and spiritual advising or direction.

The announcement of this partnership follows an evaluation of the archdiocese’s victim assistance program by a nationally-recognized expert on providing assistance to sexual abuse victims/survivors. Jane Braun, who is the former Project Director of the Midwest Regional Children’s Advocacy Center, recommended taking specific steps to enhance the archdiocese’s victim assistance program.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: JEAN HOPFENSPERGER , Star Tribune Updated: December 4, 2014

Archdiocese creates partnership with a Twin Cities mental health nonprofit to provide services.

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis announced Thursday it has created a partnership with Twin Cities-based Canvas Health to provide services to victims of clergy abuse.

The partnership creates a 24-hour abuse hot line that will be staffed by a professional trained to respond to victims of sexual abuse. Canvas Health also will provide counseling and other services.

“Canvas Health is the perfect match,” said Tim O’Malley, the archdiocese’s Director of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment. “They are experts in this field who know how to balance action with compassion.”

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GUAM
Marianas Variety

By Jasmine Stole – jasmine@mvguam.com – Variety News Staff

HAGÅTÑA — Deacon Larry Claros, the recently appointed sexual abuse response coordinator for the Agana Archdiocese, said he believes that Archbishop Anthony Apuron is innocent.

Recently, former Guam resident and ex-seminarian John Toves revealed publicly that he had knowledge that the archbishop molested his male relative some 30 years ago. Claros and Toves met briefly yesterday morning at the Chancery office here in Hagåtña.

Toves said he wanted to meet with Archbishop Apuron personally while he is on Guam but Apuron’s spokesman, Rev. Adrian Cristobal said the archbishop was “fully booked” yesterday when Toves arrived at the Chancery office. Instead, Toves met with Claros.

After the short meeting, Claros said the meeting with Toves went well. The deacon said a review board met and decided not to investigate the claims made in Toves’ letter.

“There is no investigation. These are just allegations brought forth by Mr. Toves and the review board met to look at these allegations and see if there was anything we need to investigate and there was not,” Claros said.

The victim should make the accusations of molestation, Claros said, not another person.

“I think if anyone is to go ahead and give allegations, that the responsible person needs to surface and make those accusations (him) or herself versus a third party,” the deacon said.

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CANADA
Metro

By Joe Lofaro

Ottawa police charged an Ottawa priest with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy at a west end church in 2008.

Father Stephen Amesse, 56, faces two counts of sexual assault and two counts of sexual interference.

The priest is scheduled to appear in court Thursday afternoon.

Police say they started investigating the priest after they received a complaint in February alleging a historical sexual assault.

Father Amesse was a pastor at the St. Patrick church on Fallowfield Road near Barrhaven.

In a statement, the Archdiocese of Ottawa said Amesse was suspended today “from all ministry” immediately following the charges.

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CANADA
Ottawa Citizen

MEGHAN HURLEY

An Ottawa priest who counselled students after the fatal explosion at Mother Teresa High School has been charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy.

Police have charged a 56-year-old Ottawa pastor with two counts each of sexual assault and sexual interference on a boy under the age of 16 in connection with a 2008 incident.

The incident was reported in February of this year. The boy victim was 14 at the time of the offence.

Stephen Amesse, described only as a reverend “at a church of the Archdiocese of Ottawa located in the west end of Ottawa,” was charged Thursday.

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TEXAS
KZTV

CORPUS CHRISTI- A local priest accused of inappropriate behavior has been stripped off his duties.

Monsignor Michael Heras resigned back in July after several men came forward, claiming he acted inappropriately towards them back in the mid 1980’s.

A spokesman for the Diocese of Corpus Christi says that Heras has been banned from presenting himself as a priest anywhere.

In addition, The Vatican is still investigating the case and Heras could face what is known as “laicization”.

That process is considered the harshest punishment for priests in the Catholic Church.

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SCHWEIZ
Radio Vatikan

[The numbers of Catholics in Switzerland who left the church increased slightly in most cantons during 2013.]

Die Zahl der Kirchenaustritte ist 2013 in den meisten Kantonen wieder leicht angestiegen. Das zeigt sich beim Blick auf neue Daten des Schweizerischen Pastoralsoziologischen Instituts (SPI). Es könne also nicht von einem „Franziskus-Effekt“ gesprochen werden, vielmehr belegten die neuesten Zahlen das Gegenteil, schreibt das Institut in einer Medienmitteilung. Sowohl die Kircheneintritte als auch die Kirchenaustritte weisen laut SPI „keine ‘positive’ Tendenz“ im Sinne eines starken Rückgangs bei den Austritten und einer starken Zunahme bei den Eintritten auf. Im Gegenteil sei etwa seit den letzten fünf Jahren eine Zunahme der Austritte feststellbar. Betroffen von einer stetig wachsenden Zahl von Mitgliederaustritten sind sowohl die römisch-katholische als auch die evangelisch-reformierte Kirche.

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POLSKA/POLAND
Ocaleni

OCALENI EDUKUJĄ STUDENTÓW. WSPÓLNA PREZENTACJA NA ETYKĘ “PEDOFILIA KLERYKALNA, PROBLEM WINY I KARY” / OCALENI I POLISH SURVIVORS EDUCATE OUR STUDENTS. TOGETHER, WE CREATED A PRESENTATION ENTITLED “CLERICAL PEDOPHILIA. GUILT AND PENALTY PROBLEM”

Prezentacja została wygłoszone w ramach panelu dyskusyjnego na wykładach z etyki ogólnej dla studentów V roku Wydziału Farmaceutycznego kierunku Farmacja. Prelekcja miała miejsce na wykładzie w dniu 3 listopada 20014 roku. Wsparliśmy prezentację od strony merytorycznej jako jej współautorzy.

/ The material was presented in discussion panel of ethics class by students of the 5th year at the Faculty of Pharmacy on November 3rd, 2014. As co-authors, we took care of substantive side of the presentation.

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VATIKAN
Domradio

Papst Franziskus will den Missbrauchsskandal um den früheren Vatikanbotschafter in der Dominikanischen Republik aufklären. Ohne Rücksicht auf das Amt solle die Justiz vorgehen, sagte er vor einem Staatsanwalt.

Papst Franziskus hat mit Generalstaatsanwalt Francisco Rodriguez Brito von der Dominikanischen Republik über das Missbrauchsverfahren gegen den früheren Vatikanbotschafter Jozef Wesolowski gesprochen. Beide Staaten müssten die Ermittlungen “mit voller Freiheit und innerhalb der gesetzlichen Vorschriften” führen dürfen, betonte Franziskus bei dem Treffen am Mittwoch laut Vatikansprecher Federico Lombardi.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Michael Sean Winters | Dec. 4, 2014 Distinctly Catholic

Two news items this week pointed to the arduousness of Pope Francis’ efforts to reform the central administrative organs of the Holy See. Pope Francis and other Vatican officials met with officials from the Dominican Republic to discuss the ongoing investigation of Joseph Wesolowski, the former archbishop and nuncio to the Dominican Republic who was defrocked earlier this year on charges of sex abuse of minors. The other item was Cardinal George Pell’s statement that his work reforming the finances of the Holy See had unearthed millions of unaccounted-for euros in the Vatican bank.
Whatever the other achievements of the last two pontificates, it is becoming painfully obvious that the degree of corruption within the highest ranks of the hierarchy is almost unimaginable. The cover-up of sex crimes and the financial shenanigans have no basic connection except that as the investigations continue, many, many more prelates are likely to be exposed for one of the two crimes, or both.

The news that the Vatican is working with authorities in the Dominican Republic is not earth-shattering, but it is meme-shattering. The New York Times did a masterful job exposing just how despicable Wesolowski’s sex crimes were, but its reporting overplayed the idea that the Vatican was circling the wagons in the face of Dominican claims to jurisdiction in the case. I am sure there were some prosecutors champing at the bit to try Wesolowski in the Dominican Republic. I am also sure there were plenty of high-level government officials who knew there existed plenty of pictures of them mugging with the nuncio. In an overwhelmingly Catholic country like the Dominican Republic, the nuncio is a key player in the diplomatic world. Some Dominican authorities, no doubt, wanted Wesolowski tried where the crimes were committed, in the Dominican Republic, but others were only too happy to have the Vatican take a complicated and difficult case off their hands.

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OREGON
The Raw Story

SCOTT KAUFMAN
04 DEC 2014

An Oregon man and a woman are suing Jehovah’s Witnesses for allegedly concealing the existence of sexual abuse among members of its congregations, The Oregonian reports.

According to Irwin Zalkin, the lawyer for Velicia Alston and an unnamed victim, John Roe, the Jehovah’s Witness organization is “more concerned about protecting its reputation than it is about protecting its children,” as evidenced by the fact that when sexual predators are discovered in their midst, they do not report them to the police.

Members of the clergy are considered to be mandatory reporters of child abuse by Oregon law, but according to Zalkin, the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Governing Body deems allegations of child abuse to be privileged religious communications. Moreover, they have a policy in place requiring that the accused abuser confess and two eyewitnesses to the abuse testify before they will take any action.

In the lawsuit, Alston claims that Daniel Castellanos, a leader in the North Hillsboro Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses, molested them in 1986 and 1987. He allegedly fondled her under her clothes during piano lessons he taught at his house. She told her mother, who then spoke to the congregation’s leaders — but they told her to remain quiet, and not to go to the police.

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CANADA
Wire Service

The Ottawa Police Service Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Section has charged an Ottawa Reverend following an investigation into allegations of a historical sexual assault that occurred in 2008 at a church of the Archdiocese of Ottawa located in the west end of Ottawa.

WireService.ca Media Release (12/04/2014) Ottawa, ON – In late February 2014, investigators received a complaint and commenced an investigation into allegations of sexual assault involving a Reverend and a young boy who was 14 years old at the time of the offence.

Today, Stephen AMESSE, 56 years old, of Ottawa was charged with two counts of Sexual assault and two counts of Sexual interference with a person under 16 years of age.

He is scheduled to appear in court today.

SACA investigators are concerned that there could be other victims.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Ottawa Police Service Sexual Assault/Child Abuse Unit at 613-236-1222, ext. 5944. Anonymous tips can be submitted by calling Crime Stoppers at 613-233-8477 (TIPS), toll-free at 1-800-222-8477 or downloading the Ottawa Police iOS app.

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CANADA
Ottawa Sun

BY DOUG HEMPSTEAD, OTTAWA SUN

Cops have charged an Ottawa priest with sexual assault and sexual interference with a 14-year-old boy in 2008.

Police have been investigating allegations about Father Stephen Amesse, 56, since February.

Sex Assault and Child Abuse section detectives are worried there may be more victims.

Amesse was connected to the Catholic school community for many years, notably at Stittsville’s Sacred Heart High School.

A farewell for “Father Steve” happened in June 2009 at Holy Spirit Catholic Church, before more than 600 people and — according to a write-up at the time — punctuated by a prolonged standing ovation, gifts and “a pledge of everlasting remembrance.”

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CANADA
CBC News

An Ottawa priest has been charged with sexually assaulting a teenage boy inside a west-end Catholic church in 2008.

Investigators received a complaint in February 2014. The boy was 14 at the time of the alleged assault, police said.

Stephen Amesse, 56, has been charged with two counts of sexual assault and two counts of sexual interference involving a child under 16. He is expected to appear in court today.

He was suspended from his position as pastor at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Fallowfield after he was charged on Thursday.

“These are painful moments in the life of a faith community. May the parishioners know the spiritual support of our entire Catholic community,” the Archdiocese of Ottawa said in a statement.

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CANADA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Ottawa

The Archdiocese of Ottawa, on learning that Father Stephen Amesse, a priest of the Archdiocese of Ottawa, had been charged by the Ottawa Police Service, made the following statement through its Communication Officer, Sarah Du Broy:

“When Fr. Stephen Amesse was criminally charged today, following diocesan protocols in such matters, he was suspended immediately from all ministry.

Archbishop Prendergast extends to the parishioners of St. Patrick’s Fallowfield, where Fr. Amesse is pastor, the assurance of his prayers and pastoral care. These are painful moments in the life of a faith community. May the parishioners know the spiritual support of our entire Catholic community.”

No other comment will be provided at this time.

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CANADA
CTV

Published Thursday, December 4, 2014

Ottawa police have charged a Catholic priest with sexual assault and sexual interference.

56 year old Reverend Stephen Amesse is charged with sexually assaulting a 14 year old boy at his west Ottawa church in 2008. Police say they’ve been investigating since February, 2014.

The Archdiocese of Ottawa suspended Amesse from the church after he was charged. In a statement the church extended “prayors and pastoral care” to the parishioners of St. Patrick’s Fallowfield, where Amesse is pastor.

“These are painful moments in the life of a faith community.”

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VATICAN CITY
Daily Mail (UK)

The Vatican’s secret millions: Pope Francis’s finance minister admits Holy See squirrelled away hundreds of millions off the books

By HANNAH ROBERTS FOR MAILONLINE

The Vatican squirrelled away hundreds of millions of pounds in secret accounts, Pope Francis’ minister for finance has revealed.

Australian Cardinal George Pell said that millions of euros had been found ‘tucked away’ off official balance sheets in governing departments’ accounts, following a clean up of the Vatican’s shadowy finances.

The bombshell statement follows the long overdue introduction of Vatican guidelines for modern accounting earlier this month.

The Cardinal was appointed by Pope Francis to clean up the Vatican’s murky finances after a series of scandals involving the Vatican Bank which was suspected of money laundering.

The unexpected windfall meant that the Vatican finances were healthier than previously thought, Pell wrote in an article for the Catholic Herald.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Herald (UK)

By Cardinal George Pell posted Thursday, 4 Dec 2014

In this exclusive article Cardinal George Pell, the cardinal charged with sorting out the Vatican’s finances explains his mission

Recently a young Spanish lad asked me to explain the nature of my work in the Vatican as prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, as well as the past and present economic situation of the Holy See.

Why? Because as a member of Opus Dei and a first-year university student, he wanted to be able to answer the questions of his fellow students and defend the Church.

A member of a British parliamentary delegation put it in a somewhat different way: why did the authorities allow the situation to lurch along, disregarding modern accounting standards, for so many decades?

In reply, I began by remarking that his question was one of the first that would come to our minds as English-speakers (lumped together by the rest of the world as “Anglos”), but one that might be much lower on the list for people in another culture, such as the Italians.

Those in the Curia were following long-established patterns. Just as kings had allowed their regional rulers, princes or governors an almost free hand, provided they balanced their books, so too did the popes with the curial cardinals (as they still do with diocesan bishops).

Because of the size of the Catholic community, with about 3,000 dioceses spread through every continent, the principle of subsidiarity – that is, local management of diocesan and religious order finances – is the only option.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

(Reuters) – The Vatican’s economy minister has said hundreds of millions of euros were found “tucked away” in accounts of various Holy See departments without having appeared in the city-state’s balance sheets.

In an article for Britain’s Catholic Herald Magazine to be published on Friday, Australian Cardinal George Pell wrote that the discovery meant overall Vatican finances were in better shape than previously believed.

“In fact, we have discovered that the situation is much healthier than it seemed, because some hundreds of millions of euros were tucked away in particular sectional accounts and did not appear on the balance sheet,” he wrote.

“It is important to point out that the Vatican is not broke … the Holy See is paying its way, while possessing substantial assets and investments,” Pell said, according to an advance text made available on Thursday.

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CALIFORNIA
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on December 4, 2014

If I were Bill Cosby, I wouldn’t tweet thank yous to Jill Scott and Whoopi Goldberg. I’d be visiting Sacramento and planting a great big kiss on the lips of California Governor Jerry Brown.

Why? Because Jerry Brown vetoed a bill that would have given civil rights to Cosby’s alleged victims who were under the age of 18 at the time of the abuse. Had Brown not vetoed the legislation, these women would have been able to use the civil courts to expose Cosby, depose witnesses under oath, gather evidence, and seek justice.

But the good news is that despite Brown’s 2013 veto, there is a lawsuit. A very brave woman named Judy Huth filed her case in Los Angeles County Superior Court, saying that Cosby drugged and raped her at the Playboy mansion when Hutt was only 15 years old. The alleged abuse took place in the 1970s.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Written by
Gaynor Dumat-ol Daleno
Pacific Daily News

A victim in the sexual molestation allegation against Archbishop Anthony Apuron hasn’t surfaced, so there’s nothing to investigate, a church official said yesterday.

Deacon Larry Claros, the archdiocese’s newly appointed sexual abuse response coordinator, made the statement yesterday morning outside the archdiocese’s Chancery office after a brief meeting with the archbishop’s accuser, John Toves.

Toves, 50, said when he was a 16-year-old altar boy, Toves’ relative and co-seminarian at a high school seminary on Guam was allegedly sexually abused by Apuron, who was a priest at the time.

Apuron issued a statement on Nov. 29 that the allegation “is a horrible calumny and I am obliged to defend not my person, but the Church.”

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TEXAS
CBS 7

ODESSA – Two Odessa pastors are arrested for not reporting a suspected child abuse case at their church to police.

Court documents show the pair conducted their own investigation rather than handing it over to police.

Police say Life Church pastors Donald and Gina Haislett knew about a sexual assault of a child case for three weeks before police were notified by someone else.

The Haisletts have bonded out of jail, but an empty parking lot and locked doors is what you’ll find at their church. Our phone calls have also not been returned.

In black and white, court documents spell out the internal investigation conducted by the Haisletts.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The final report of a five-year, Vatican-ordered study of communities of women religious in the United States will be released by the Vatican Dec. 16.

The top two officials of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life and three leaders of women’s congregations were to take part in the presentation, according to Basilian Father Thomas Rosica, head of Canada’s Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation and assistant to the Vatican spokesman.

Although it was too early for the Vatican press office to announce the event, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, told Catholic News Service that a news conference was “foreseen” on that date.

The final report of the findings of the apostolic visitation also was expected to be made available online, Father Rosica told the Detroit Free Press Dec. 2 during a visit to Detroit.

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DOMINICA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Dec. 4, 2014

Statement by Judy Jones of St. Louis, Midwest Associate Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 636 433 2511, SNAPjudy@gmail.com )

A recently defrocked abusive Dominica predator priest faces credible allegations from at least two adults who say he molested them as children. Bishop Gabriel Malzaire should apologize for and explain why he’s been keeping this fact secret for months, and disclose how many individuals have reported being sexually assaulted by Reginald LaFleur. His victims are feeling extremely dismissed and very disappointed with the bishop’s response to his removal from the priesthood. They are feeling re-abused again by the church officials.

Through his secrecy, he has basically helped LaFleur gain access to more vulnerable kids. Adults are far more apt to believe child sex abuse allegations when there are multiple accusers. Bishop Malzaire, by his silence, has helped deceive parents, police, prosecutors, parishioners and the public that only one person was accusing LaFleur when he’s known, for months, that at least two are accusing LaFleur.

We call on the bishop to “come clean” about LaFleur and about how many other clerics current and former, living and deceased, diocesan and religious order are proven, admitted and credibly accused sex offenders. That’s the very least he should do. That’s the first step toward preventing more crimes and cover ups in the future.

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MINNESOTA
Canonical Consultation

12/03/2014

Jennifer Haselberger

I suppose I should apologize in advance for returning to a subject that I have already discussed (namely, Thomas Reese’s post on the ‘firing’ of bishops and the need for due process of law in the Catholic Church), but this topic is one that has irked me for years. As someone who prosecuted penal cases in the years following the adoption of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People and the Essential Norms, I am used to hearing complaints about a lack of due process. Most of these complaints, in my experience, have been ill informed and without any basis in fact or law. The fact that a particular individual is unhappy with a verdict is not proof that his rights were violated.

I probably would have been more likely to let this topic go had I not been reading Robert Harris’s ‘An Officer and a Spy’ at the time that Father Reese’s article appeared. Harris’s novel is a fictionalization of the story of Georges Picquart, a colonel in the French Army who turned whistleblower over what has come to be known as ‘the Dreyfus Affair’. The trial, degradation, imprisonment, and eventual reinstatement of the Jewish Army Officer Alfred Dreyfus was one of the seminal events of the fin de siècle, and as someone who wrote her doctoral thesis on the evolution of law and legal procedure during this time, you can understand that this matter has always held my interest. However, I find Harris’s novel compelling for another reason. His description of Picquart’s moral dilemma when faced with overwhelming evidence of Dreyfus’s innocence as well as the refusal of the Army to revisit the case, and the consequences of Picquart’s decision to pursue justice regardless is so similar to what I experienced in the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis that sometimes I have found myself wondering if he was writing of my experience instead. I recommend Harris’s book, just as I recommend the Dreyfus case as an example of a true violation of due process and consequent miscarriage of justice. When one considers the fate of Dreyfus, wrongly imprisoned for four years and held in solitary confinement on Devil’s Island, one can truly grasp the importance of due process protections.

Due process is a concept in English common law that originated with the Magna Carta and spread throughout the British Empire. It prohibits the government (or King) from applying a punishment without the accused being informed of the accusation and of the evidence against him. This principle was enshrined in the US Constitution in the 5th and the 14th amendments. The Due Process Clause of the 5th amendment states that no person shall “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

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UNITED STATES
Independent Catholic News (UK)

In less than two weeks, the long-awaited final report on women’s religious orders in the United States will be released, Kathy Schiffer reports for Aleteia news service.

According to Vatican spokesperson Father Thomas Rosica, a press conference will be held at the Vatican on 16 December. At that press conference, three American nuns will join Vatican officials to publicly reveal the final report of a five-year investigation of congregations of Catholic sisters in the US. The inquiry was initiated in 2009 under now-retired Cardinal Franc Rodé, following concerns by many that some congregations of women religious had become too liberal and had abandoned traditional religious lifestyles.

Speaking at the press conference will be the prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Institute of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, Cardinal João Braz de Aviz, and the Congregation’s secretary, Archbishop José Rodríguez Carballo.

Also participating will be three American women religious: Sister Sharon Holland, head of the Monroe-based Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM) congregation and current president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR); Mother Agnes Mary Donovan of the Sisters of Life, who leads the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious; and Mother Mary Clare Millea, who led the Apostolic Visitation inquiry for the Vatican.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Observer-Reporter

AP

PITTSBURGH – A former Western Pennsylvania youth pastor faces up to 20 years in prison now that federal authorities have taken over the case, charging him with possessing hundreds of images and videos of child pornography, some with adults performing sex acts with infants.

Andrew Patterson, 45, of Monroeville, was arrested in October after Allegheny County prosecutors said they traced child pornography being shared on the Internet to his computer.

Officials with the Living Waters Family Worship Center in Irwin said Patterson resigned his volunteer youth counselor position hours before his arrest.

Patterson, his wife and daughter began attending the small nondenominational church about 25 miles east of Pittsburgh in the summer. By September, Patterson had persuaded the husband-wife pastors of the church to let him start a youth ministry, which met weekly about five times before his arrest, according to Sylvia Tryon, one of the pastors.

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ESPANA
El Pais

[As a teenager Mr. Hurtado Calvo was abused by a priest in his Catholic youth group. With intention of keeping others from being abused he reported what happened to one of his companions. The answer froze his blood. The solution was to report to his superior who would tell the priest not to re-offend in the future. At no time was it considered to call the police.]

MIGUEL HURTADO CALVO 4 DIC 2014

Cuando era un adolescente, el sacerdote responsable del grupo de jóvenes católicos al que acudía abusó sexualmente de mí. Poco después, con la intención de evitar futuras víctimas, expliqué lo sucedido a uno de sus compañeros. Su respuesta me heló la sangre. La solución era informar a su superior, quien “daría un toque” a mi abusador para que no volviera a delinquir en el futuro. En ningún momento se consideró la posibilidad, no ya de avisar a la policía, sino de retirarlo de su puesto. Cuando aún perplejo le pregunté si en su opinión debía contárselo a mis padres, me contestó que la mejor opción era no decirles nada, porque “lo único que conseguiría sería hacerles sufrir”. Poco después decidí abandonar la Iglesia para no volver. Mi abusador continuó en contacto con menores durante unos cuantos años más.

Al cabo del tiempo conté lo sucedido a mis padres. Como buenos católicos, en vez de denunciar a mi abusador en comisaría decidieron ponerse en contacto con su supervisor. La respuesta de la Iglesia fue trasladar discretamente a mi abusador de su puesto a un “lugar aislado”, donde según nos aseguraron no volvería a tener contacto con menores. Mis padres fueron felicitados por “hacer lo correcto” y no denunciar, porque así la Iglesia podría gestionar el asunto “internamente” en vez de tener que contratar a un abogado defensor para mi abusador.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) The Press Office of the Holy See released a communiqué today, relaying the statement that the Director of the Press Office, Fr Federico Lombardi SJ, gave to journalists, in response to their questions regarding the case of the former Apostolic Nuncio to the Dominican Republic, Józef Wesolowoski, who stands accused of sexually abusing children while in his Dominican posting.

The release of the statement came in connection with the meeting on Wednesday, following the weekly General Audience, between Pope Francis and Attorney General Domínguez. A statement from the Attorney General says that he and the Holy Father expressed the importance of the truth prevailing, and that the judicial institutions of both states should act with full freedom and within the framework of their respective legal structures.

Vatican Radio’s translation of the statement from Fr Lombardi SJ follows, below:

[Tuesday] morning, the Promoter of Justice [chief prosecutor] of the Court of the Vatican City State, prof. Gian Piero Milano, met with the Attorney General of the Dominican Republic, Francisco Domínguez Brito, at the request of the latter, during his trip to Europe for meetings in Poland and in the Vatican.

The encounter is situated within the context of international cooperation at the level of investigative organs for the proceedings against Abp. Józef Wesołowski and regards the investigations in course, and it was useful for both parties given the complexity of the inquest and the possibility of international letters rogatory by the Vatican to acquire further information.

Meanwhile, as regards the situation of Mons. Wesołowski, I can say that the Judiciary of the Vatican City State, continuing the investigations, has conducted an initial interrogation of the accused, to which more will follow. As the deadline for his remand into custody has expired, and in view of his health, Abp. Wesołowski was given authorization for some freedom of movement, albeit with the obligation of remaining within the confines of the [Vatican City] State and subject to appropriate restrictions on his communications with the outside

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Claire Aird
Thu 4 Dec 2014

Child sexual abuse was not considered a crime at a New South Wales yoga retreat where young residents were frequently targeted, a royal commission has heard.

Bhakti Manning is one of 11 former child residents and visitors to the Satyananda Yoga Ashram, at Mangrove Mountain on the state’s central coast, giving evidence for the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The commission heard evidence of the child residents’ abuse at the hands of the retreat’s director and spiritual leader, Swami Akhandananda Saraswati, during the 1970s and 1980s.

Ms Manning said she was also abused by a visiting swami in Australia, Gorakhnath, and later in India at age 16 by the head of the international movement, Satyananda Saraswati.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

December 4, 2014

Rachel Browne
Social Affairs Reporter

Outwardly he preached “abstinence, chastity and austerity” but behind closed doors the international yoga master Swami Satyananda Saraswati groomed and violated a young follower, a royal commission has heard.

The founder of the globally renowned Satyananda yoga movement forced one of his followers into degrading sex acts while she was living at his ashram in India in the 1970s and ’80s, the commission heard.

Bhakti Manning told the the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse she was first abused by Satyananda’s disciple, Akhandananda, and another swami in Australia when she was 15.

She moved to Satyananda’s ashram in India, as a 16-year-old where she said he made her have sex with him while others were watching.

Ms Manning told the commission that when the guru became angry he would force her into “violent, aggressive sex”. He infected her with a sexually transmitted disease but she did not get pregnant, suspecting the leader was “firing blanks”.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Claire Aird
Thu 4 Dec 2014, 3:07am

A young girl was raped by the head of a global yoga movement, Satyananda Sawaswati, on his visit to a New South Wales ashram, an inquiry has heard.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse hearing into the Satyananda Yoga Ashram at Mangrove Mountain on the state’s central coast was also told a group of swamis abused the girl in a ritual setting.

The girl, known as APR in the hearing, moved to the ashram with her mother, father and sister in the late 1970s.

The abuse started when she was three years old.

“The ashram was the kind of place that if you scream, no-one comes,” she said.

At the ashram, family relationships were broken down and parents separated from their children, who were routinely beaten, sexually abused and deprived of adequate medical treatment and food.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail (UK)

Brutal initiation ceremony at Satyananda yoga movement ‘saw seven-year-old girl sexually assaulted after leader licked her blood’

by Australian Associated Press and Amy Ziniak for Daily Mail Australia

A seven-year-old girl was stripped naked and held down while the skin between her breasts was cut by a swami who licked the blood and had intercourse with her during an initiation ceremony at a NSW yoga ashram, an inquiry has heard.

A woman has told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney she moved into the ashram in the foothills of Mangrove Mountain on the NSW Central Coast with her mother and sister in the 1970s.

At a public hearing on Thursday, she recalled the initiation in a hut across the river from the ashram.

The woman, given the pseudonym APR, said five or six male swamis were there. The man who raped her was the spiritual leader and founder of the Mangrove Satyananda ashram, Swami Akhandananda.

Akhandananda was jailed in 1989 for indecent dealings with four girls, but was released when the High Court overturned the conviction in 1991. He died six years later.

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OREGON
KOIN

OREGON CITY, Ore. (KOIN 6) — A 61-year-old registered sex offender was arrested in Oregon City in November for the alleged sexual abuse of a 6-year-old girl was arrested in November.

Jon Patrick Wheat allegedly met the girl while attending a church in Oregon City, authorities said Wednesday. He was taken into custody November 24 at the 76 Gas Station in Damascus, where he worked.

Investigators are looking into the possibility there may be more victims. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Oregon City Tip Line at 503.496.1616.

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OREGON
Portland Tribune

Created on Wednesday, 03 December 2014

The Oregon City Police Department announced Wednesday it is looking for possible additional victims in an Oregon City sex-abuse case.

On Nov. 12, OCPD began an investigation of 61-year-old Jon Patrick Wheat of Estacada on suspicion of sexual abuse to a 6-year-old Oregon City girl. Wheat is a registered sex offender who had been attending a church in Oregon City. Police say Wheat met the victim through family members who attended the church.

Wheat was arrested Nov. 24 at the 76 Gas Station in Damascus, where he is a gas attendant. He was charged with one count of first-degree sexual abuse, and his bail has been set at $300,000.

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GUAM
Pacific News Center

Written by Janela Carrera

Guam – Staying true to his word, John Toves, the man accusing the Archbishop of sexually molesting a relative, went to the Chancery Office today to confront Archbishop Anthony Apuron, but he met instead with the Archdiocese’s Sexual Abuse Response Coordinator Deacon Larry Claros, who defended the Archbishop.

“I have no financial gains to make. I welcome him to sue me and take my house,” Toves proclaimed.

John Toves has opened a can of worms by publicly accusing Archbishop Anthony Apuron of sexual abuse. But some have questioned his motives. For one, Toves says he’s not the victim, it’s his relative. Toves believes the silence has to do with the Chamorro culture.

“Unfortunately our culture is not permitting them to come forward without retribution from some other party or their relatives or the Church,” he says.

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