ABUSE TRACKER

CHICAGO (IL)
CBS News

Bishop Blase Cupich of Spokane, Washington, will be named the next archbishop of Chicago, The Associated Press has learned.

Cupich will succeed Cardinal Francis George, according to a person with knowledge of the selection, who spoke Friday on the condition of anonymity because the person wasn’t authorized to speak publicly. George, 77, has been battling cancer and has said he believes the disease will end his life.

The Archdiocese of Chicago has scheduled a news conference for Saturday morning. A spokeswoman for the archdiocese would not comment.

Pope Francis’ choice for Chicago has been closely watched as his first major appointment in the U.S., and the clearest indication yet of the direction he will steer American church leaders. Cupich is a moderate, and is not among U.S. Roman Catholic bishops who have taken a harder line on hot-button topics. Francis has called the church’s focus on abortion, marriage and contraception narrow and said it was driving people away.

An official from the Diocese of Spokane said he could not comment.

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CHICAGO (IL)
USA Today

David Gibson, Religion News Service

Pope Francis on Saturday will name Bishop Blase Cupich of Spokane, Wash., a prelate closely identified with the Catholic Church’s progressive wing, to be the next archbishop of Chicago, according to news reports.

Cupich will succeed Cardinal Francis George, according to a person with knowledge of the selection, who spoke to the Associated Press Friday on the condition of anonymity because the person wasn’t authorized to speak publicly. George, 77, has been battling cancer and has said he believes the disease will end his life.

It is the pontiff’s most important U.S. appointment to date and one that could upend decades of conservative dominance of the American hierarchy.

George is a doctrinal and cultural conservative who has headed one of the American church’s pre-eminent dioceses since 1997. In that time he became a vocal leader among the bishops and earned a reputation as a feisty culture warrior in line with the Vatican of the late St. John Paul II and retired Pope Benedict XVI.

That track record won him fans on the Catholic right, but George was seen as out of step with Francis’ desire for more pastoral bishops who are less focused on picking fights over sex and more involved in promoting the church’s social justice teachings and sticking close to the poor.

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UNITED STATES
ABC News

Sep 20, 2014, 5:04 AM ET
By RACHEL ZOLL AP Religion Writer

Bishop Blase Cupich, a moderate who has called for civility in the culture wars and has embraced Pope Francis’ focus on fighting poverty, will be named the next archbishop of Chicago, The Associated Press has learned.

Cupich of Spokane, Washington will succeed Cardinal Francis George, according to a person with knowledge of the selection, who spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity because the person wasn’t authorized to speak publicly.

The Archdiocese of Chicago has scheduled a news conference for Saturday morning. A spokeswoman for the archdiocese would not comment. George, 77, has been battling cancer and has said he believes the disease will end his life.

The pope’s choice for Chicago has been closely watched as his first major appointment in the U.S., and the clearest indication yet of the direction he will steer American church leaders. Cupich is a moderate and is not among U.S. Roman Catholic bishops who have taken a harder line on hot-button issues. Francis has called for a greater focus on mercy and compassion instead of divisive social issues.

The Archdiocese of Chicago serves 2.2 million parishioners and is the third-largest diocese in the country. Chicago archbishops are usually elevated to cardinal and are therefore eligible to vote for the next pope.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Daily Times

By Alex Rose, Delaware County Daily Times
POSTED: 09/19/14

MEDIA COURTHOUSE — A former Parkside Sunday school teacher and youth basketball coach who pleaded guilty in June to possessing child pornography and criminal use of a communication facility was sentenced to serve 6-23 months at the county prison in Concord Friday.

Steven Daniel Almond, 55, of the first block of West Forestview Road, will serve three months at the prison followed by three months of electronic home monitoring, under the sentence handed down by Judge Gregory Mallon. He will report to the prison Oct. 3 at 6 p.m.

Almond, who served as a deacon at the Middletown Presbyterian Church, turned himself over to authorities in June 2013 on two counts of disseminating photos or films of child sex acts, 25 counts of sexual abuse of children for possession of child pornography and 27 counts of criminal use of a communication facility.

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COLORADO
Steamboat Today

By Matt Stensland

Steamboat Springs — A former Christian school teacher and pastor convicted of repeatedly molesting a boy was sentenced Friday at the Routt County Justice Center to 20 years to life.

Near the end of the sentencing hearing, Judge Shelley Hill told John Brothers Jr., 45, there were only two ways he could ever be released from prison.

“You need to find it in yourself to decide what you are going to do with the rest of your life,” Hill said.

She said Brothers could seek to win an appeal and have his conviction overturned at a new trial, or he could admit what he had done, get treatment and convince a parole board he should be released.

“I know that you continue to deny that these events happened,” Hill said. “I understand that, and I understand that you will be seeking relief in the appellate courts.”

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MISSISSIPPI
WREG

[with video]

SEPTEMBER 19, 2014, BY MIKE SURIANI

ALCORN COUNTY, Miss. — The Grand Jury in Alcorn County, Missi., has indicted former pastor Timothy Nall for a second time on allegations stemming from a sexual battery case involving a young girl.

Nall, who is no longer the pastor of Farmington Baptist Church near Corinth, is accused of sexually abusing the young girl when the child was 6 and 7 years old.

The alleged abuse happened while Nall was still pastor at Farmington Baptist.

Nall’s trial in August ended in a mistrial after jurors couldn’t agree on a verdict.

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COLORADO
Courier & Press

Beth Smith
5:20 PM, Sep 19, 2014

A Colorado court on Friday sentenced a former Henderson youth minister to 20 years to life on sexual abuse charges.

John H. Brothers Jr., who also faces sexual abuse charges in Henderson, was convicted in Routt County, Colorado, in June on 16 counts of sexual assault on a child.

Routt County District Attorney Brett Barkey told The Gleaner Friday that prosecutors were disappointed in the sentence.

“Chief Deputy District Attorney Matt Karzen argued for a total sentence of 80 years to life in prison,” Barkey said. “He noted that the evidence at trial demonstrated that Mr. Brothers was a serial child predator who relentlessly manipulated children to satisfy his sexual desires.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
WLS

CHICAGO (WLS) — Bishop Blase Cupich of Spokane, Washington, will be the next archbishop of Chicago. The Vatican officially announced Saturday Cupich will succeed Cardinal George.

Chosen by Pope Francis, Cupich is now archbishop-elect in Chicago. He will be installed as archbishop during a special Mass on November 18. Until then, George remains cardinal, though without administrative power.

The Chicago Archdiocese scheduled a rare weekend announcement for Saturday morning. ABC7 will carry the announcement LIVE Saturday at 9:30 a.m.

This will be the first time in the history of the Chicago Archdiocese that a new leader is appointed while the former is still alive. All those before George died while serving.

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CONNECTICUT
The Connecticut Law Tribune

Christian Nolan, The Connecticut Law Tribune
September 19, 2014

After what seemed like a never-ending series of child sexual abuse scandals involving the Roman Catholic Church, lawmakers both nationally and in Connecticut sought ways to protect victims’ rights.

Initially in Connecticut, people claiming they were sexually abused as children or teens by anyone had to file lawsuits within two years of turning 18. In 1991, state lawmakers extended the statute of limitations to allow alleged victims to bring civil sexual abuse claims until they were 35. Then in 2002, after a rash of claims were made against clergy in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport, lawmakers again extended the age limit, giving potential plaintiffs until age 48 to file claims.

Since then, Connecticut plaintiffs lawyers have brought countless claims against priests and church officials, and have netted tens of millions of dollars in settlements and jury verdicts, damages that would not have been available if not for the extension of the statute of limitations. Now, in a case before the state Supreme Court that has captured the attention of trial lawyers, the Archdiocese of Hartford is trying to change the legal landscape.

Specifically, the church is challenging the constitutionality of the retroactive application of the state’s civil sexual abuse statute. Both the 1991 and 2002 statutory changes gave alleged victims who were too old to file suit under the previous law the right to bring claims under the amended one.

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WASHINGTON
Fox Q13

SEATTLE — The Vatican will announce Saturday the appointment of Bishop Blase Cupich of Spokane as the new archbishop of Chicago, one of the top Roman Catholic posts in the United States, it was reported Friday.

The National Catholic Reporter said Cupich, 65, will succeed Cardinal Francis George, 77, who has been archbishop of Chicago since May 1997 and who is now battling cancer.

Cupich has been bishop of Spokane since September 2003. He served as bishop of Rapid City, S.D., from 1998 to 2003, and before that he was a priest with the Omaha, Neb., archdiocese.

Chicago is the third most populous Catholic diocese in the U.S. and is historically one of the most important, the National Catholic Reporter said.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Sept. 19

Statement by Kate Bochte, SNAP leader, 630-768-1860, keight@sbcglobal.net

Victims worry about new head of Chicago Archdiocese

We hope that Chicago’s next Catholic Archbishop will do more to prevent future clergy sex crimes and cover-ups. But we’re not optimistic. Pope Francis, like his predecessors, keeps promoting bishops who have concealed or are concealing heinous sexual violence against kids. Cupich is another prelate like this.

Earlier today, the Spokesman Review reported that more than 200 victims have come forward in Spokane.

[SNAP]

Cupich acted irresponsibly by exploiting bankruptcy law to avoid embarrassing disclosures about the complicity of the Spokane church hierarchy in dreadful crimes against kids.

In a 2010 interview with a Washington newspaper, Cupich made some startling comments about the church’s child sex abuse and cover up crisis. Cupich’s remarks endanger kids, hurt victims and mislead Catholics by mischaracterizing and minimizing the horrific scandal.

In the interview, Cupich makes three stunning and patently ridiculous claims.

1) “Sexual abuse of children is not happening in the church today.”
2) “The scandal is that, 30 years ago, the world of psychology, criminal law and the church didn’t handle the situation well. Society didn’t handle the situation well.”
3) “Various institutions that work with kids that don’t have in place codes of conduct and training that we have in place.”

Let’s look at all three of these claims.

First, on the very day Cupich’s interview appeared, Illinois newspapers were reporting on the new guilty plea by a Chicago area predator priest, Fr. Alejandro Flores. He was ordained in 2009. He molested a boy in 2010. Ancient history? Hardly!

Even worse, the local bishop’s top staff knew this predator had problems even before he was ordained. According to one newspaper: “Prosecutors say Catholic officials had some warning signs about Flores” because he “was caught with gay porn on his computer” and “some of the images appeared to be those of young boys.”

So what did the Illinois bishop do? He warned no parishioners about this incident and went ahead and ordained Flores anyway.

The day before Cupich’s interview appeared in print, Fr. Joseph Fiala was arrested in Kansas for child sex crimes he allegedly committed in 2007 and 2008.

(And I write this within hours of reading that a California priest has been suspended from active duty because of allegations that he molested two brothers “within the last two years.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Victims News Conference re New Chicago Archbishop

WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, clergy sex abuse victims and their supporters will
— respond to Pope Francis’ choice to head the Chicago archdiocese,
— make recommendations to him on what he should do first, and
– urge Chicago citizens and Catholics to remain vigilant and avoid complacency regarding the safety of kids.

WHEN
Saturday, Sept. 20 at 10:15 a.m.

WHERE
On the sidewalk outside the Chicago archdiocesan headquarters, 835 N. Rush Street (at E. Chestnut St.) in downtown Chicago

WHO
Two-four adults who belong to a self-help group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org). Some were molested as kids; others are concerned Catholics.

WHY
The group will offer perspective on Chicago’s new archbishop and recommend some “first steps” he should take as he assumes his new office.

FYI – Lawyers who have dealt with Spokane clergy sex abuse and cover up cases include John Allison of Spokane, Michael Pfau (206.462.4334, mike@pcvalaw.com), Tim Kosnoff (425-837-9690, tim@kosnoff.com),Lee James (208-667-0683, ljames@jvwlaw.net), Blaine Tamaki (509) 248-8338, Erin Olson 503-546-3150, Lee James of Idaho and bankruptcy attorney Jim Stang310.2,77.6910 jstang@pszjlaw.com).

CONTACT
David Clohessy 314 566 9790 cell, 314 645 5915 home, SNAPclohessy@aol.com, Barbara Dorris 314 503 0003 cell, SNAPdorris@gmail.com, Barbara Blaine 312 399 4747, SNAPblaine@gmail.com, Kate Bochte 630 768 1860 (cell), keight@sbcglobal.net

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UNITED STATES
Crux

By Michael O’Loughlin
National reporter September 19, 2014

When Archbishop Joseph Kurtz was elected president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2012, Spokane’s Bishop Blase Cupich said that the decision reflected the pope’s desire for pastoral leaders. “Pope Francis doesn’t want cultural warriors, he doesn’t want ideologues,” he said.

With reports that Cupich (pronounced “SOUP-itch”), 65, has been tapped as Chicago’s next archbishop, many believe he embodies the pope’s vision for a bishop. Widely viewed as a moderate voice among Catholic bishops, he often eschews cultural battles in favor of dialogue and engagement.

As Catholic bishops fought the Obama Administration’s mandate that employers, including Catholic hospitals, schools, and nonprofits, offer insurance for contraception, Cupich offered a conciliatory approach, supporting the cause but calling for dialogue and compromise.

He lamented policies that gave government the power to “decide what it means for any church to be church and what defines the permissible exercise of religion,” but chastised those church leaders who threatened to shutter social services rather than comply with the mandate.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

By Manya Brachear Pashman,
Tribune reporter

George led flock through tough times

Reports that Cardinal Francis George’s successor will be announced this weekend could set the stage for the retirement for Chicago’s longtime archbishop and would mean an unprecedented transition in the city’s Roman Catholic Church, where no leader has lived long enough to meet the man taking his place.

George’s planned news conference for Saturday, during which reports from The Associated Press and National Catholic Reporter say that he will confirm he is being replaced by Bishop Blase Cupich of Spokane, Wash., would cap George’s more than 17 years at the helm of the nation’s third-largest archdiocese. During that time, he has shepherded the church through a recession, political battles over gay marriage and immigration, as well as a clergy sex abuse scandal.

He also has emerged as the point man between the U.S. and Vatican on matters including the liturgy of the Mass, a zero-tolerance policy for clergy sexual abuse and the selection of two popes. In fact, throughout his tenure, he has fended off occasional rumors that he would be called away from Chicago to serve in Rome.

“I hope to die in Chicago,” he said in a 2001 Tribune interview. “Much to the chagrin of a few folks.”

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CITTA’ DEL VATICANO
Bolletino

Il Santo Padre Francesco ha accettato la rinuncia al governo pastorale dell’arcidiocesi metropolitana di Chicago (U.S.A.), presentata dall’Em.mo Card. Francis E. George, O.M.I., in conformità al can. 401 § 1 del Codice di Diritto Canonico.

Il Papa ha nominato Arcivescovo Metropolita di Chicago (U.S.A.) S.E. Mons. Blase J. Cupich, finora Vescovo di Spokane (U.S.A.).

S.E. Mons. Blase J. Cupich

S.E. Mons. Blase J. Cupich è nato a Omaha (Nebraska) il 19 marzo 1949. Dopo aver frequentato le consuete scuole primaria e secondaria, ha frequentato il “College of Saint Thomas” a Saint Paul (Minnesota), dove ha ottenuto il Baccalaureato in filosofia nel 1971. Dal 1971 al 1975 è stato alunno del Pontificio Collegio Americano del Nord a Roma ed ha studiato teologia presso la Pontificia Università Gregoriana. Più tardi ha ottenuto la Licenza (1979) e il Dottorato (1987) in Teologia Sacramentale presso l’Università Cattolica d’America a Washington, D.C. È stato ordinato sacerdote il 16 agosto 1975 per l’arcidiocesi di Omaha.

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WASHINGTON
The Spokesman-Review

Catholic Bishop of Spokane Blase Cupich is being appointed the Archbishop of Chicago, the Associated Press is reporting tonight.

It’s a major step for the 65-year-old Cupich, who came to Spokane four years ago to rebuild a diocese struggling in the aftermath of bankruptcy.

He has taken bold steps since his arrival, including filing a major malpractice lawsuit against the diocese’s own bankruptcy lawyers. That case is bound for trial in February.

Cupich is considered a thought leader in regards to the Catholic church’s response to sex abuse scandal, an early advocate for zero tolerance.

His appointment to Chicago is the first major appointment in the United States by Pope Francis.

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CHICAGO (IL)
East Oregonian

ATLANTA (AP) — Associated Press learns Bishop Blase Cupich of Spokane will be the next Chicago archbishop.

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CHICAGO (IL)
National Catholic Reporter

Patrick T. Reardon | Sep. 19, 2014

Dear Archbishop-elect Cupich:

Eat at Burger King. By yourself. In street clothes.

If you want to get to know Chicago and those of us who live here, go to the Burger King on Lawrence Avenue, just west of Western Avenue. And, as you’re eating your Whopper, watch the Mexican-American family that is likely to be eating there.

The father is just off work, and you can see the weariness drip off of him. He’s got some menial job — in a factory, or as a bus boy, or perhaps in the kitchen at another Burger King. Those are jobs without much dignity in our American culture, but, with his family, he holds his head high, and his kids chatter with him with great love and respect.

Listen to the two gray-haired, gray-bearded Serbian guys. Unless you’re a polyglot, you’re not going to be able to guess what they’re saying, but you can tell they’ve got strong opinions.

Look at the elderly man in a tie, white shirt and dark suit. He always sits alone at one of those small tables along a wall and does a crossword puzzle.

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CHICAGO (IL)
CBS Chicago

[with video]

(CBS) — The Associated Press has learned Bishop Blase Cupich of Spokane, Wash. will be the next Chicago archbishop, replacing Francis Cardinal George, the news agency reported Friday.

A person with knowledge of the selection spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person wasn’t authorized to speak publicly. The Archdiocese of Chicago has scheduled a news conference Saturday, but will not comment.

Pope Francis’ choice for Chicago has been closely watched. It is his first major U.S. appointment and the clearest sign yet of the direction he hopes to steer American church leaders.

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NEBRASKA
JRN

By Jennifer Griswold.

OMAHA, Neb. – Bishop Blase Cupich will be the next archbishop of Chicago according to the Associated Press.

He was installed as the Bishop of Spokane in 2010. According to the Spokane Diocese website, Cupich is from Omaha and was ordained here in 1975.

He will succeed Cardinal Francis George. The person giving the information spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person wasn’t authorized to speak publicly. The Archdiocese of Chicago has scheduled a news conference Saturday, but will not comment.

Pope Francis’ choice for Chicago has been closely watched. It is his first major U.S. appointment and the clearest sign yet of the direction he hopes to steer American church leaders.

Cupich is considered a moderate.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Whispers in the Loggia

After a sudden afternoon flurry of buzz, at 5pm Central the archdiocese of Chicago called a press conference for 9.30 tomorrow morning for an unspecified purpose.

Slated to be held at the Archbishop Quigley Center – the former high-school seminary turned headquarters of the 2.3 million-member local church – ops have begun to anticipate that the event will introduce the city’s ninth archbishop on the retirement of Cardinal Francis George, 77. Named to succeed Cardinal Joseph Bernardin on 8 April 1997, George – widely hailed as the American hierarchy’s leading intellect for nearly two decades – recently entered an experimental treatment program amid a third round of the bladder cancer he’s battled over recent years.

The appointment to the US’ third-largest diocese – for almost a century, the nation’s largest local church – is likely to be the most significant choice for the Stateside bench Pope Francis makes during his entire pontificate. Accordingly, over recent weeks the Pope has reportedly phoned the American cardinals and other senior prelates to consult on his options for the choice facing him, even to the point of floating names he heard elsewhere past others. Given the timetable, it is unclear if the appointment has been processed through the Congregation for Bishops, which points to the surreal possibility that Francis circumvented the traditional final step to reserve the deliberations to himself.

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WASHINGTON
Seattle PI

Posted on September 19, 2014 | By Joel Connelly

Spokane Bishop Blase Cupich has been tapped to succeed Cardinal Francis George as archbishop of Chicago in the most important ecclesiastical appointment facing Pope Francis, according to the Associated Press.

Cupich, 65, would succeed the cancer-stricken, 77-year-old George, a conservative disciplinarian in the U.S. Catholic hierarchy. A Saturday morning news conference is scheduled in Chicago.

Cupich will be heading his third diocese, having served as bishop of Rapid City, South Dakota — Lakota Indians gave him the nickname “White Thunder” — and since 2010 as bishop of the troubled Spokane diocese. In 2004, Spokane was one of the first American dioceses to file for bankruptcy due to lawsuits over sexual abuse by its clergy.

The authoritative website “Whispers in the Loggia” has described Cupich as “one of the most competent and effective (and, indeed tech savvy) members of the Stateside bench.” It described his role as “lead man” in dealing with fallout from the sex abuse scandal that hit America’s Catholic Church in the last decade.

But Cupich was a strong opponent of Washington’s marriage equality referendum in 2012. He will be going to Illinois, which recently legalized same-sex marriage.

In a 2012 letter to parishoners, called “Some Reflections on Referendum 74,” Cupich argued:

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CHICAGO (IL)
dotCommonweal

Grant Gallicho September 19, 2014

Atlanta — Bishop Blase Cupich of Spokane, Washington, will succeed Cardinal Francis George as archbishop of Chicago, according to an Associated Press report. Earlier this evening the Archdiocese of Chicago announced it would hold a press conference for tomorrow morning at 9:30 Central. A spokesperson for the archdiocese would not confirm the purpose of the event, and Cupich did not respond to a request for comment. The AP report cites one anonymous source, which confirms rumors that began circulating this evening among several journalists who have gathered here this weekend for the Religion Newswriters Association conference. It’s not clear whether these rumors stem from the same source.

The appointment of George’s successor was widely considered to be Pope Francis’s most significant decision for the church in the United States. If true, the decision to tap Cupich to lead Chicago–the third largest U.S. diocese–signals a major change for the American church.

In 1997, Pope John Paul II selected George to be the eighth archbishop of Chicago. He was the first Windy City native to serve as archbishop, and he followed Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, a leading liberal churchman beloved of his people. Before long, Chicago Catholics would learn just how different George was from his predecessor. Highly regarded for his intellect, George never shied away from taking sides in the culture wars, most recently as a vocal opponent of the Affordable Care Act over its abortion-funding mechanism and the contraception mandate.

By contrast, Cupich is widely considered a moderate who has not always been in step with his more conservative colleagues in the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. For example, he has expressed skepticism about the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops strategy of opposing Obamacare, and urged bishops to . And when the bishops were considering a draft of a statement on the economy, Cupich criticized it with vigor: “I don’t see that I would share this with anybody, or that it would make any difference.” He has expressed great enthusiasm for Pope Francis, praising the pontiff’s preferance for episcopal governance. He wrote:

Rather than limiting our consultation to those with financial and legal abilities, we also need to listen to those who work side by side with the poor each day, and who are on the frontlines in health care, education and other fields of ministry. We diminish our effectiveness when we do not call on these brothers and sisters to gain insight before making decisions in these areas. But, even more importantly, we pass up the chance to see how God is working through them and to more fully know God’s will.

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CHICAGO (IL)
ABC News

Sep 19, 2014
By RACHEL ZOLL AP Religion Writer

Bishop Blase Cupich of Spokane, Washington, will be named the next archbishop of Chicago, The Associated Press has learned.

Cupich will succeed Cardinal Francis George, according to a person with knowledge of the selection, who spoke Friday on the condition of anonymity because the person wasn’t authorized to speak publicly. George, 77, has been battling cancer and has said he believes the disease will end his life.

The Archdiocese of Chicago has scheduled a news conference for Saturday morning. A spokeswoman for the archdiocese would not comment.

Pope Francis’ choice for Chicago has been closely watched as his first major appointment in the U.S., and the clearest indication yet of the direction he will steer American church leaders. Cupich is a moderate, and is not among U.S. Roman Catholic bishops who have taken a harder line on hot-button topics. Francis has called the church’s focus on abortion, marriage and contraception narrow and said it was driving people away.

An official from the Diocese of Spokane said he could not comment.

The Archdiocese of Chicago serves 2.2 million parishioners and is the third-largest diocese in the country. Chicago archbishops are usually elevated to cardinal and are therefore eligible to vote for the next pope.

The Chicago church has long been considered a flagship of American Catholicism, sparking lay movements of national influence and producing archbishops who shape national debate. Before George, the head of the archdiocese was Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, a hero to Catholics who place equal importance on issues such as abortion and poverty.

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CHICAGO (IL)
ABC 7

Friday, September 19, 2014

CHICAGO (WLS) — The Associated Press has learned that Bishop Blase Cupich of Spokane, Washington, will be the next archbishop of Chicago.

A person with knowledge of the selection says Cupich will succeed Cardinal Francis George. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person wasn’t authorized to speak publicly. The Archdiocese of Chicago has scheduled a news conference Saturday, but will not comment.

Cupich is a moderate and is not among the U.S. Roman Catholic bishops who take a culture warrior approach on hot-button topics. Francis says the church should emphasize mercy over divisive social issues.

Pope Francis’ choice for Chicago has been closely watched. It is his first major U.S. appointment and the clearest sign yet of the direction he hopes to steer American church leaders.

The Chicago Archdiocese will hold a rare press conference over the weekend. No details have been released, but the search for Cardinal George’s successor began earlier this year and was expected to take through the fall.

ABC7 will carry that announcement LIVE Saturday at 9:30 a.m.

Cardinal George submitted a request for retirement quite some time ago, and the process to find a successor had begun in May 2014. At that time, the archdiocese said it could take until fall.

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CHICAGO (IL)
National Catholic Reporter

Dennis Coday | Sep. 19, 2014

The Vatican is to announced Saturday the appointment of Bishop Blase Cupich of Spokane as the new archbishop of Chicago, NCR has learned. He will succeed Cardinal Francis George, who has been archbishop of Chicago since May 1997.

Cupich, 65, has been bishop of Spokane, Wash., since September 2003. He served as Bishop of Rapid City, S.D., from 1998 to 2003, and before that he was a priest with the Omaha, Nebr., archdiocese.

At 77, George is two years past the usual retirement age of bishops. He has also been battling cancer. In May, the archdiocese announced that the Vatican’s representative to the U.S. had begun the vetting process to find a replacement and suggested the announcement would be made this fall.

Chicago is the third most populous Catholic diocese in the U.S. and is historically one of the most important. Since the election of Pope Francis in 2013, church watchers have been saying the replacement for George would be the popes most important U.S. appointment because it would be interpreted as sign of the direction Francis wants the American church to take.

Patrick T. Reardon, a life-long Chicago Catholic and a member of the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council in Chicago, told NCR in an interview that the greatest challenge facing the next archbishop of Chicago “is how to serve a modern American society that isn’t much interested and doesn’t want to listen to a religious and moral leader.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Tablet (UK)

19 September 2014 by Abigail Frymann Rouch

A successor to Cardinal George Pell, one of Pope Francis’ group of nine cardinal-advisers, has been announced to run the archdiocese of Sydney.

The Bishop of Parramatta, Anthony Fisher, 54, takes over the reins after Pope Francis appointed Cardinal Pell to lead the newly created Secretariat for the Economy in Rome.

A Sydney native, Archbishop-elect Anthony has degrees in history and law and after ordination completed a PhD in bioethics at Oxford University and is Professor of Moral Theology and Bioethics at the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and the Family in Melbourne. He has also lectured at the Australian Catholic University.

Speaking of next month’s Synod for the Family in Rome, he said: “I think one of the things the Synod can – and I really hope will – do for us is help restore some confidence in the beauty of marriage. In the way it reveals to all of us very important things about the human person and human condition such as self-sacrifice, commitment and reconciliation … I think the world needs desperately to learn how to love again.”

As Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse continues, the archbishop-elect immediately committed the Church to “doing better” in its response to victims of sexual abuse by clergy, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

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CALIFORNIA
Ventura County Star

Tom Kisken
2:51 PM, Sep 19, 2014

A lawsuit filed Thursday accuses a former Santa Paula priest of molestation and alleges the Archdiocese of Los Angeles used Our Lady Of Guadalupe Church in Santa Paula as a dumping ground for clergy accused of sexual acts involving children.

The lawsuit also alleges the archdiocese and the Franciscan Friars conspired to hide the Rev. Robert Peguero Hernandez in Mexico, where he is still in ministry.

Contacted at the Holy Trinidad Parish in Zapotlanejo, Mexico, Hernandez said he was unaware of the lawsuit and denied the allegations.

“Absolutely nothing happened,” he said.

The lawsuit alleges Hernandez — also referred to as Roberto Peguero — was a member of the Franciscan Friars of the Saint Barbara Province assigned to Our Lady of Guadalupe, where he lived from 1978 to 1992. The lawsuit is filed by two women — identified as Jane DM Doe and Jane LF Doe — who allege they were repeatedly molested by the priest as girls.

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ILLINOIS
The Doings LaGrange

Jane Michaels
jmichaels@pioneerlocal.com | @janemichaels22

Conquering an Ironman Triathlon would leave most challengers exhilarated, but ready for a rest.

But LaGrange Park’s Ken Kaczmarz isn’t putting his feet up just yet. After successfully completing the Ford Ironman Sept. 7 in Madison, Wis., he has his sights set on finishing two more marathons by Nov. 2.

Kaczmarz also is extending his efforts to raise funds for World Vision’s Child Protection programs to combat child trafficking. He set a goal of $10,000 in June and exceeded it before the triathlon. With the generosity of more than 150 donors, he has raised $17,800, including $2,500 from an event Aug. 3 at Brixie’s in Brookfield. …

“One of the reasons I became involved was because as a kid, I was molested by a priest,” he said. “I was extremely active in the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests from 2002 to 2006.”

As one of the leaders of the group in Chicago for years, Kaczmarz said he later decided to channel his efforts in another direction.

“I had to get out of it. It was absorbing my life,” he said. “I’ve helped hundreds of survivors, so I saw what sexual abuse does and how it destroys lives.”

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ILLINOIS
My Fox Chicago

JOLIET, Ill. (Sun-Times Media Wire) –
The Diocese of Joliet is facing another lawsuit claiming a now-deceased Catholic priest from a west suburban parish sexually abused three boys more than 30 years ago.

The three alleged victims were between 6 and 11 when they were abused by the Rev. Leonardo Mateo starting in about 1980, according to the suit filed Thursday in Cook County Circuit Court.

Mateo never faced criminal charges, and died in 2004, the Sun-Times previously reported. The Joliet Diocese deemed allegations of abuse against him credible, according to documents released in April.

The boys—two of whom are brothers—and their parents were parishioners at Immaculate Conception Parish at 134 Arthur St. in Elmhurst when Mateo started inviting the children out for ice cream and fast food, the suit said. He also would take the boys to swim at the YMCA in Elmhurst, where he allegedly molested them in the pool or locker room. …

SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, issued a statement about the lawsuit Friday morning.

“To local Catholics in every place Mateo worked, we plead: Ask your loved ones if they might have heard about or seen sexual misconduct by Mateo,” the statement read. “If so, urge them to call police right away. Even though Mateo is dead, it is possible his victims are still suffering in silence and self blame, and that church officials who concealed his crimes might still be prosecuted.”

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MASSACHUSETTS
CBS Boston

BOSTON (CBS) – A Merrimack College professor was arrested Friday for possession of child pornography. Gary S. Spring, 61, of Danvers, is the chairman of the college’s Civil Engineering Department.

According to the criminal complaint, Merrimack College, in North Andover, uncovered suspicious activity on one of the school’s loaner computers in June.

An internal investigation determined that the computer had been loaned out to Spring, and that Spring had been logged on when virus threat detection alerts were triggered. Further investigation determined that the computer was used to access child pornography.

Search warrants were executed at Spring’s office at Merrimack and his Danvers home. Spring was arrested after it was confirmed that he possessed child pornography.

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MASSACHUSETTS
WHDH

Reported by Anthony Miller

NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. (WHDH) –
A Merrimack College civil engineering professor was arrested on Friday for possession of child pornography.

Gary Spring, 61, of Danvers was the chairman of the college’s civil engineering department and was the administrator of the residential summer camp for middle and high school students.

According to the U.S. Attorney, Merrimack uncovered suspicious activity associated with one of the college’s loaner computers back in June. An investigation revealed that the computer, which triggered virus threat detection alerts, was used to access child pornography and that Spring had signed out the computer around that time.

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MASSACHUSETTS
WCVB

NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. —A college administrator has been arrested and charged with possession of child pornography.

Gary Spring, 61, of Danvers had his initial appearance in court Friday according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Spring is the administrator of Merrimack College’s residential summer camp for middle- and high school-aged students.

He also serves as the chairman of the civil engineering department.

According to the criminal complaint, college officials discovered suspicious activity associated with one of the college’s loaner computers that had been assigned to Spring.

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CALIFORNIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by priests

For immediate release: Friday, September 19, 2014

Statement by Joelle Casteix of Newport Beach, CA, SNAP Western Regional Director, ( jcasteix@gmail.com, 949.322.7434 cell )

It is shocking and upsetting to learn that credibly accused child predator Roberto Peguero Hernandez is still living and working as a priest in Mexico. Not only has he been named as an abuser by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, but he was allowed to escape the country when police in Santa Paula learned about the allegations.

And all along, Peguero Hernandez has been protected by the Franciscan Friars of Santa Barbara.

We fear that there may be hundreds of children in Jalisco who are in danger of abuse. We beg Guadalajara Archbishop Francisco Robles Ortega to immediately remove Peguero Hernandez from ministry and send him back to the United States.

We also urge law enforcement to vigorously investigate these cases in the hopes of putting Peguero Hernandez behind bars and finding more victims in need of help and justice.

Finally, we salute the bravery of the victims in this case, who were abused when they were young, vulnerable children. Their fight for justice will keep children in Mexico and California safer from abuse.

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NEW JERSEY
The Jewish Week

09/16/14
Gary Rosenblatt
Editor and Publisher

David Cheifetz, describing himself as the name and face of countless nameless and faceless victims of sexual abuse as a child, told a hushed audience of about 200 people on Sunday night that “we [the Orthodox community] need to change our culture” from denial and avoidance to recognition of the dangers of molestation and “show support for victims and their families.”

Cheifetz was instrumental in organizing the evening’s program at his Orthodox synagogue (and this reporter’s), Rinat Yisrael, in Teaneck, N.J. Sponsored by Rinat and three other local Orthodox synagogues, the event sought to raise communal and parental awareness of the scope and nature of child sexual abuse and offer practical advice on how to deal with it.

Experts in the field say such efforts by Orthodox congregations to publicly acknowledge and address the problem are all too rare.

Rabbi Yosef Adler, spiritual leader of Rinat Yisrael, noted that sexual abuse is prohibited in the Torah, and he praised his congregants for initiating the program.

Cheifetz first went public a year and a half ago with an Opinion essay in The Jewish Week, headlined “Sharing The Secret That’s Haunted My Soul.” He told the story of being sexually abused more than 30 years ago as a 13-year-old camper at the hands of a rabbi at Camp Dora Golding, an Orthodox sleep-away camp for boys. When camp officials learned of what transpired they sent Cheifetz home, with no explanation to him or his parents, and took no direct action against the young rabbi, who went on to teach in boys’ yeshivas for decades.

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NEW JERSEY
New Jersey Jewish Standard

Larry Yudelson • Local
Published: 19 September 2014

Does your synagogue have policies in place to protect children from sexual abuse? Do your children’s schools and camps?

Such policies, Dr. Shira Berkovits told a meeting in Teaneck on Sunday night, can make a difference to children’s safety.

Dr. Berkovits is a consultant for the Department of Synagogue Services at the Orthodox Union, and she is developing a guide to preventing child sexual abuse in synagogues. She was speaking at Teaneck’s Congregation Rinat Yisrael, as part of a panel on preventing child sexual abuse co-sponsored by three other Teaneck Orthodox congregations: Netivot Shalom, Keter Torah, and Lubavitch of Bergen County.

A written policy brought up in the hiring process “serves as a very good deterrent” to would-be molesters seeking to work for the organization, she said, because it would prod them to look for a less-aware organization. She said: “There’s an oft- cited belief molesters can’t control their urges. If that were the case they would molest when walking down the street, in the mall, on the bima. That doesn’t happen.” Instead, she said, they wait for the right opportunity, “when there are fewer chances of getting caught.”

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NEW YORK
Failed Messiah

Dozens Of Hasidic Kids Not Enrolled In School Because Rabbis Are Blocking Yeshiva Placements To Hurt Parents, Activist Alleges

There are allegedly at least 40 hasidic kids between the ages of six and 12 living in Williamsburg and Borough Park, Brooklyn who don’t have a yeshiva to go to because rabbis are using yeshiva placement as a club to punish the kids’ families – sometimes allegedly because a family complained about child sexual abuse or reported abuse to police.

There are allegedly at least 40 hasidic kids between the ages of six and 12 living in Williamsburg and Borough Park, Brooklyn who don’t have a yeshiva to go to because rabbis are using yeshiva placement as a club to punish the kids’ families.

Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg told me tonight that he personally knows of 40 such kids and that there are likely many more.

According to what I’ve heard, the city knows this. (It may not know the exact numbers, but it knows it is happening.) And likely the state knows, as well. But they allegedly aren’t willing to cross the large hasidic bloc vote, and these kids are simply not being educated.

A parent I was told about enrolled her child in a public school after the yeshiva the child had previously attended would not take him back. The public school was shocked to see that an 8-year-old didn’t even know the letters of the alphabet because he hadn’t really been taught them in yeshiva. The child had no mental illness, no learning disabilities and doesn’t have ADHD. When the yeshivas realized how dangerous this situation could be for them, the child suddenly got a yeshiva placement.

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NEW YORK
Arutz Sheva (Israel)

By Tova Dvorin
First Publish: 9/18/2014

One thousand Orthodox Jews crowded into a Crown Heights, Brooklyn, NY hall Monday evening for a noble purpose: to raise awareness of, and educate themselves about, child sexual abuse – an issue all too often avoided as taboo within some circles.

The highly charged event served as an opportunity to show support to victims of abuse, to educate the public about the dangers of abuse and to present the relaunch of Jewish Community Watch (JCW), a watchdog group monitoring abuse in the global Jewish community.

Survivors (JCW makes a point of rejecting the term “victim”), Rabbis, politicians, mental health professionals and others repeated a dual message: that the Orthodox Jewish community will no longer sweep abuse under the rug, and that survivors who step forward will be embraced. Campaigners lament that all too often victims of abuse are urged not to turn to the police but to allow rabbis to deal with the crimes “within the community” – but a growing number of leading rabbis and communal figures are publicly rejecting such an approach and calling on victims to report such crimes immediately to the relevant authorities. JCW’s work has certainly contributed towards that change in attitudes.

Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Tompson as well as Deputy District Attorney Benny Forer, founder of Lamplighters Yeshiva, Yocheved Sidoff, marriage and family therapist Chaim Drizin and abuse survivor Meira Bookman also addressed the crowd.

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CONNECTICUT
Hartford Courant

By Dave Altimari

The Archdiocese of Hartford is seeking to have the state Supreme Court overturn a $1 million verdict in a priest sex abuse case while at the same time reversing a state law that extended the amount of time accusers can file a lawsuit against it.

In Feb. 2012 a jury in Waterbury awarded a former altar boy $1 million following a trial in which the victim, identified as Jacob Doe in court papers, testified that he and another friend were repeatedly molested and sexually assaulted by the Rev. Ivan Ferguson and a friend of the priest.

The diocese is asking the Supreme Court to overturn that verdict based on a variety of claims – including that the trial judge erred by not allowing an expert witnesses to testify for the church and by allowing testimony from a deposition of Ferguson to be heard by the jury.

But the most controversial argument is the claim that a state law last updated in 2002 that bumped the statute of limitations when a victim of sexual abuse could file lawsuit to 30 years is unconstitutional and should be stricken.

The court will hear arguments on Monday, but it will likely be months before a ruling is issued.

In 2002, the state legislature voted to extend the statute of limitation for civil cases on sex assault claims to 30 years from when a complainant reaches 18. It had previously been 17 years. The law was retroactive.

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OREGON
Anthony Demarco and Kristian Roggendorf law offices

Pendleton, OR — A man in his mid-30s brought a lawsuit today in Federal District Court alleging sexual abuse by a Capuchin priest who had been accused of child abuse before being transferred to Hermiston, Oregon, and claiming an effort by church officials to silence the family, allowing the then-admitted pedophile cleric to escape the country to avoid criminal prosecution.

The complaint alleges that the victim was abused by Capuchin Franciscan priest Fr. Luis Jaramillo (har-a-ME-o), who was born and ordained in Colombia, South America. The abuse took place from 1988 to 1989 at Our Lady of Angels Parish in Hermiston, Oregon, located in the Diocese of Baker. At the time, the victim was between the ages of nine and ten. Before the Capuchins transferred him to Oregon, Fr. Jaramillo had been accused of abusing boys in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

According to personnel files obtained from the Los Angeles Archdiocese and the Capuchin Franciscan Order, Capuchin officials sent the priest to remote Hermiston in 1987. Consistent with the Diocese of Baker’s practice at the time, Jaramillo, then known to be an accused child molester, was accepted by the Diocese of Baker to work at Our Lady of Angels Parish. Within a few weeks or months of his arrival, the lawsuit says, Jaramillo began abusing the victim and threatened to kill him if he resisted.

The boy eventually told his mother, who reported the abuse to Capuchin officials in 1989. The complaint states that a Capuchin supervisor immediately interviewed Father Jaramillo, who admitted to the abuse. Despite the priest’s admission, the provincial—or “chief executive” of the Capuchin order—allegedly told the boy’s mother that if she attempted to have Father Jaramillo prosecuted, it would be her son’s word against the priest, and she would cause her family and son to be shamed and scorned. The complaint states that he also told her that she would have to
“answer to her Maker” for any souls lost to God if she reported the abuse.

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WASHINGTON
TribTown

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First Posted: September 19, 2014

SPOKANE, Washington — A lawsuit filed by the Catholic Diocese of Spokane against the lawyers who led it through a 2004 bankruptcy related to sex abuse lawsuits is set for a February trial.

Bishop Blase Cupich (SU-pitch) quit using the legal team at the Paine Hamblen law firm after he arrived in 2010.

He has since pursued a malpractice complaint that accuses the firm of failing to use a strategy that could have saved the diocese millions of dollars and prevented a new round of priest sex-abuse claims.

The Spokesman-Review (http://bit.ly/1v0haeV) reported Friday that those claims reached 230 in the past year. However, more than 150 of the 230 people who filed future claims had their cases rejected by a former federal judge tasked with reviewing the claims and awarding payouts.

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WASHINGTON
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Sept. 19, 2014

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

We are shocked to learn that more than 150 adults who say they were molested by Spokane diocese priests have “had their cases rejected by a former federal judge” over the past several months. And since the Spokane Diocese bankruptcy settled in 2004, a total of 230 people have filed such claims, according to a new story in the Spokesman-Review newspaper.

We applaud these brave men and women who are coming forward hoping to expose predators, protect kids, achieve justice and start healing.

And we again denounce selfish Spokane Catholic officials who exploited and are still exploiting secular bankruptcy laws to hide widespread clergy sex crimes and horrific cover ups of those crimes.

We reject the notion that somehow, more clergy sex abuse and cover up cases somehow “threaten Eastern Washington parishes.” Catholic officials desperately want to avoid embarrassing abuse and cover up trials at which their recent and often continuing complicity is publicly exposed. So they often make this claim that abuse victims coming forward may result in parish closures. That’s an obscene and unsupported claim that’s often intended to scare victims.

The Catholic hierarchy has massive wealth and many options to take loans if need be. Disgraced Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston borrowed $25 million from a Catholic men’s group to help settle clergy sex abuse and cover up cases. So no one should be fooled by claims that somehow any Catholic diocese may have to shutter churches because bishops have acted so recklessly, callously and deceitfully about the safety of kids. That claim is a self-serving ploy.

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on September 19, 2014

A very good friend of mine pointed me to a recent review of Eimear McBride’ novel A GIRL IS A HALF-FORMED THING. The author of the review, Paige Reynolds, includes this very intuitive and honest description of some of the reasons why the sexual abuse of teens can be so damaging:

The novel thus showcases the genuine complexity of sexual abuse as experienced by someone in her teens. It acknowledges the fact that sexual abuse can feel good physically … if not psychologically or socially appropriate, that it is a perceived exercise of power … that it appears to give immediate access to the coveted world of adulthood, that the secrecy demanded by abuse becomes something that belongs to the victim and sutures him or her to the adult abuser, even as it enables more harmful abuse. The novel depicts the convoluted nature of sexual abuse, even as its distressing conclusion confirms that this abuse is fundamentally harmful and can have deadly consequences.

What the reviewer does not discuss, however, is that the glimpse into the “coveted world of adulthood,” the “secrecy,” and the “convoluted world” are keynotes of grooming – the way that a predator flatters and manipulates a child or teen into becoming a “compliant” victim. The adult does this by gaining the child’s implicit trust and love, blurring sexual boundaries, sexualizing behavior, and convincing the child or teen that a positive physical response (even though the child or teen is hurt, confused, shamed, isolated, or disassociating) means that the child or teen wants and needs the abusive behavior.

If a predator can use grooming to create a world that confusing and convoluted for an adult book reviewer, how can a child or teen stand a chance?

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, September 19, 2014

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

The attorney for DC is calling on city council member to eliminate the statute of limitations for sex crimes. We applaud this effort.

Archaic statutes of limitations on child sex crimes only protect dangerous predators who more often than not will hurt more than one child. To help prevent future crimes removing the statute of limitations (SOL) is necessary.

Kids are safest when predators are jailed. The biggest obstacle to that is a restrictive, arbitrary and predator-friendly statute of limitations.

Furthermore, most child molesters are never prosecuted. So the next best approach is to use the courts to warn parents and the public about them, and get them exposed, suspended, or fired so they will have less access to kids. That’s why removing the civil statutes of limitations is also important.

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ILLINOIS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, September 19, 2014

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

The Catholic Diocese of Joliet is being sued for allegedly hiding the crimes of a now deceased predator priest. We applaud these brave victims for having the courage to hold church officials accountable.

According to the new lawsuit, Fr. Leonardo Mateo abused at least three boys while he was working at Immaculate Conception Parish in Elmhurst, IL. Mateo also faces allegations from when he was ordained in the Philippines and when he worked in Los Angeles.

We urge Catholic officials in Joliet, Los Angeles and the Philippines to immediately reach out to parishioners and beg anyone who saw, suspects or suffered Mateo’s crimes to come forward, expose wrongdoers and start healing.

To local Catholics in every place Mateo worked, we plead: Ask your loved ones if they might have heard about or seen sexual misconduct by Mateo. If so, urge them to call police right away. Even though Mateo is dead, it is possible his victims are still suffering in silence and self blame and that church officials who concealed his crimes might still be prosecuted.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By JOANNE McCARTHY Sept. 19, 2014

STRIKE Force Georgiana was launched in October 2007 from Lake Macquarie local area police command.

In seven years 480 charges have been laid against 14 alleged offenders, and more than 350 witness statements have been obtained.

Five alleged offenders – three Catholic priests and two brothers – are currently before the courts.

Convicted priests include John Denham, John Houston and the late Tom Brennan, who was the first Australian Catholic priest charged with concealing a serious crime.

Lake Macquarie Commander, Superintendent Brett Greentree, praised the bravery of people who reported historic child sexual abuse to police, and said Strike Force Georgiana was an intensive and extremely involved investigation.

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TEXAS
KXII

SHERMAN, Texas — An area church youth leader turned himself in to police after being accused of sexually assaulting a child.

Sherman police allege Robert Bradley Brooks, 28, was part of an ongoing investigation and is accused of having a sexual relationship with a female younger than 17.

Police say the girl reported it to the police back in December of last year and told them Brooks was her youth leader at church.

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MICHIGAN
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, September 19, 2014

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

A Michigan Catholic priest will take a leave of absence over a sexual encounter with an adult. If she is or was a parishioner, we are deeply concerned. In 17 states, such conduct is illegal.

Fr. Bill Langlois from St. Patrick’s/St. Anthony’s Parish in Grand Haven admits he became sexually involved with a woman.

A highly educated, allegedly celibate man who holds the revered title Catholic priest cannot ever have truly consensual sex with a congregant. Catholics have been raised since birth to believe priests are God’s representatives on earth, can forgive our sins, can turn wafers and wine into the body and blood of Christ. Priests always hold an exalted position, and when they have any sexual involvement with parishioners, it is always wrong and hurtful.

There is an inherent power imbalance between clergy and church members. It is much like a doctor-patient or therapist-client relationship, where any sexual contact is expressly forbidden. It’s the bishop’s duty to help congregants understand this.

We hope Bishop David Walkowiak will explain this to parishioners and take necessary precautions that no other people are hurt. We also hope he aggressively reaches out to the public and parishioners – not just in Grand Haven, but in other places where Fr. Langlois worked – and urge anyone who may have seen, suspected or suffered exploitation by the priest to get help and speak up so that others might be safer and be healed.

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service – Rhymes with Religion

Boz Tchividjian | Sep 19, 2014

As the heartbreaking news of a football player abusing his son and calling it discipline surfaced this past week, I reached out to an individual who is undoubtedly qualified to speak on this grave subject. Dr. Thema Bryant- Davis is a well respected expert on issues related to trauma with a focus on women and minorities. Dr. Bryant- Davis has also been working with GRACE to develop a seminary curriculum on child protection.

I am grateful for her contribution of this powerful guest post on a subject that can no longer be ignored by any church. – Boz
_____________________________________________________________________________

Matthew 18: 10a Take heed that you despise not one of these little ones…

From its inception, the Black Church has been a voice for the love of Jesus that stands in opposition to injustice, inequality, and degradation. We have stood against multiple forms of oppression as we uplift the gospel. In essence, we have seen the way we treat each other as central and reflective of our faith. One of the areas, however, that far too many of our sanctuaries have met with silence is child abuse.

Our children, like all of God’s children, are precious and sacred. Despite this fact, in the United States, between four and seven children die every day as a result of child abuse which leads to over one thousand preventable child deaths annually. Approximately 70% of children that die from abuse are under the age of 4. Child abuse occurs at every socioeconomic level, across ethnic and cultural lines, within all religions and at all levels of education. There are children in our pews that have been abused and there are members of our churches who are the abusers. While childhood physical abuse crosses all demographic categories, African American parents are more likely to endorse the use of severe physical punishment and African American children are disproportionately faced with the consequences of abuse including removal from the home.

The silence regarding the treatment of the “least of these” is disheartening, especially when Jesus taught that we should bring children to a deeper faith. On the contrary, child abuse not only dismantles children emotionally and physically, it can also scar them spiritually as they are left to wonder where is God and where is my faith community when I need them most.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Riverfront Times

By Danny Wicentowski Thu., Sep. 18 2014

The divisive rise to power of former St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke may soon end — not with a criminal conviction, as some have hoped, but with a demotion from Pope Francis.

A report from Vatican observer Sandro Magister appears to have broken open a rumor that’s been bouncing among Catholic insiders form awhile — namely, that Burke is about to go from Vatican power player to ceremonial figurehead. Magister describes Burke’s imminent demotion from his current spot on the church’s highest court to honorary head of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta as an “eminent decapitation.”

“He’s removed from all power,” says Frank Flinn, a retired adjunct professor of religious studies at Washington University, describing the difference between the two positions. Flinn argues that this move isn’t the result of a simple clash of personalities between Burke and Pope Francis.

“It’s much more than just a style thing that’s going on here,” Flynn says. “It’s the direction of the church.”

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

AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

Strike Force Georgiana: investigations and convictions

By JOANNE McCARTHY Sept. 19, 2014

HE’S the man whose statement to Hunter police about being sexually abused by a Catholic priest launched Strike Force Georgiana in 2007, and ultimately led to a royal commission.

His name is John Parmeter, pictured above, and he wants people to know who he is as Strike Force Georgiana enters its eighth year investigating historic child sexual abuse cases.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will hold its 17th public hearing next week, with more than 16,000 calls about child sexual abuse so far, and another three years to go.

The priest, Peter Brock, pictured below, died last week. Today, Mr Parmeter reveals the ugly truth – what he calls the ‘‘dirty secrets’’ – about the Catholic Church’s elevation of Father Brock to a national role in 2010, despite knowing of his ‘‘sexual misconduct’’ with Mr Parmeter and his twin brother from when they were nine years old.

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MINNESOTA
KARE

[with video]

John Croman, KARE
September 19, 2014

ST. PAUL, Minn. — A group of clergy abuse survivors Thursday filed a public nuisance lawsuit against St. John’s Abbey and the Diocese of St. Cloud, claiming those organizations aren’t doing enough to police priests who’ve been credibly accused of abuse.

Two of those plaintiffs, John and Al Vogel, became victims in the early 1970’s, and were part of a lawsuit that was settled in 2002. At the time their attorney, Jeff Anderson, and their father, Raymond, celebrated the settlement.

“It helps me a great deal, the factor, the safety for the children,” Raymond Vogel told KARE in 2002. Vogel, who has since died, worked at St. John’s Abbey for 40 years and knew the priests his son’s accused.

But 12 years later John and Al Vogel were once again standing before the camera in the St. Paul law offices of Attorney Jeff Anderson, saying St. John’s and the Diocese weren’t taking all the steps necessary to reign in credibly accused violators.

“The deceit continues. Promises continue to be broken,” John Vogel, who now lives in Texas, told reporters.”

Al said promises were made in the 2002 settlement weren’t being taken seriously the Abbey and the Diocese.

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CONNECTICUT
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Victims to leaflet mass-goers
They “out” a predator priest for the first time
He’s being sued but has never been publicly accused before
SNAP also warn parishioners about archbishop’s “recklessness”
Group hands out “fact sheet” about his “most egregious” cases

WHAT
As parishioners head into mass, clergy sex abuse victims and their supporters will

–publicly expose, for the first time, a Hartford/New Haven area predator priest who’s being sued, and

–hand out a fact sheet about Hartford’s relatively new Catholic archbishop & his “dreadful” role “concealing clergy sex crimes.”

WHEN

Friday, Sept. 19 at 11:45 a.m.

WHERE
Outside the Cathedral of St. Joseph, 140 Farmington Avenue (corner of Sigourney St.) in Hartford CT

WHO
Three-four men and women who are abuse victims and members of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org), including an Ohio woman who exposed clergy sex crimes and cover ups by Hartford’s relatively new archbishop when he headed the Toledo diocese for a decade (2003-2013).

WHY
An elderly, long time Hartford archdiocesan priest, who worked six towns in the New Haven/Hartford area, is being sued for reportedly molesting a child in the 1980s. He is Fr. Peter G. Mitchell, who sexually violated a boy in the priest’s car and priest’s home on Colony Road in New Haven. The civil suit has never been publicized before and Fr. Mitchell has never been publicly accused before. It is set to go to trial in November.

Fr. Mitchell is still alive, has apparently not been defrocked, and led a youth marching band called “The Emerald Cadets.”

He was ordained in 1951 and worked at parishes in Hartford, Derby, West Hartford, New Haven, Woodbridge, East Haven and (from 1998-2002) as a chaplain at St. Francis Hospital/Medical Center. The Official Catholic Directory lists him as “retired” in 2004.

Victims want Archbishop Leonard Blair, the archdiocese’s relatively new top official, to warn the public about Fr. Mitchell and use parish bulletins, church websites and pulpit announcements to prod others who may have seen, suspected or suffered crimes by him to “come forward, get help, expose wrongdoers and protect kids and start healing.”

Prior to being promoted to Hartford, Archbishop Blair spent ten years as head of the Toledo diocese, where SNAP charges that he had a “terrible” record on clergy sex abuse and cover up cases there. The group will hand parishioners a “fact sheet” outlining some of the “most egregious” cases Blair oversaw while he was in Ohio. And a long time Toledo abuse advocate will detail her experiences exposing wrongdoing by Blair and his top aides.

Finally, SNAP will again urge Blair to post on his archdiocesan website the names, photos, whereabouts and work histories of the 33 publicly accused child molesting clerics who are or have been in the Hartford Archdiocese. Roughly 30 US bishops (including Bridgeport’s) have done this. In SNAP’s view, this is “the bare minimum” Catholic officials should do.

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CANADA
The Catholic Register

BY MICHAEL SWAN, THE CATHOLIC REGISTER
September 19, 2014

With a guilty verdict on child-sex charges against former missionary priest Eric Dejaeger, Bishop Tony Krotki hopes the people of Igloolik in the diocese of Churchill-Hudson Bay will be able to continue healing with support from the Church and away from the media spotlight of a lurid, wrenching trial.

Dejaeger, a former Belgian Oblate, was a priest in Igoloolik from 1978 to 1982. He pled guilty last December to eight of 70 charges but, despite the passage of more than 30 years, there was suf-ficient evidence to find Dejaeger guilty on a total of 24 counts.

The slow and winding path of the criminal justice system left Dejaeger’s victims reliving the darkest days of their childhoods over and over, Krotki told The Catholic Register in an email.
“They had to go through it with lawyers, then with police, then in court more than once. And at the end the media reminded them time and time again,” Krotki said. “It was devastating and agonizing.”

Krotki himself served as pastor in Igloolik, years after Dejaeger’s time, and became close to some families who brought charges against Dejaeger.

“Their lives are always on my mind. Their families are always in my thoughts. They are so present in my heart,” Krotki said. “I am still waiting for the moment to let them know how dear they are to me.”

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

19 September, 2014

Indigenous communities in the Top End are encouraged to learn more about the Royal Commission and share their story of child sexual abuse in an institution.

New community announcements in Yolngu Matha and Modern Tiwi are being aired on Northern Territory radio stations in Darwin and more than 40 remote locations from today. The announcements will air ahead of the Royal Commission’s first public hearing in Darwin commencing Monday 22 September.

Royal Commission CEO Philip Reed said the announcements were part of the Royal Commission’s commitment to effective communication with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities around the country.

“The Royal Commission wants to ensure all survivors of child sexual abuse in an institution have the opportunity to share their story with the Royal Commission if they wish to,” Mr Reed said.

“These community announcements explain in Aboriginal languages that there is a public hearing in Darwin into the Retta Dixon Home starting next week. This is different to a private session where a survivor can come and tell their story to a Commissioner in private. Survivors of child sexual abuse in an institutional context who wish to share their story in a private session are invited to contact the Royal Commission.”

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WASHINGTON
The Spokesman-Review

John Stucke The Spokesman-Review

A multimillion-dollar lawsuit pitting the Catholic Diocese of Spokane against the lawyers entrusted to shepherd it through its 2004 bankruptcy is set for a February trial.

Bishop Blase Cupich quit using the legal team at the Paine Hamblen law firm after he arrived in 2010. He has since directed a malpractice complaint that accuses the firm – and specifically attorneys Shaun Cross and Greg Arpin – of failing to use a strategy that could have saved the diocese millions of dollars and prevented a new round of priest sex-abuse claims from continuing to threaten Eastern Washington parishes.

Those claims reached 230 in the past year, according to court documents, and bring urgency to the dispute.

That’s more than double the number of victims who came forward during the initial phase of the bankruptcy. More importantly, in terms of the malpractice suit, the number of so-called “future claims” vastly outstripped what the diocese’s lawyers made accommodations for in the original settlement.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Friday 19 September 2014

A PRIEST has claimed a crisis in the Catholic church provoked him to release a controversial book that included allegations of a gay mafia in the priesthood.

Father Matthew Despard said the resignation of Cardinal Keith O’Brien and a lack of leadership from senior church figures last year led to him publishing Priesthood In Crisis, a book he had written three years before.

Cardinal O’Brien resigned from the church in disgrace amid allegations of sexual misconduct from three priests and one former priest.

Father Despard, 49, was later ordered to leave his home at St John Ogilvie in High Blantyre, Lanarkshire, on the orders of the Bishop of Motherwell, Joseph Toal, but he refused.

The civil hearing before Sheriff Joyce Powrie at Hamilton Sheriff Court had earlier heard Father William Nolan deny he targeted Father Despard after being offended by his book. Father Nolan, 60, replaced Father Despard at St John Ogilvie Church following the dispute with Church authorities.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By Nick Malawskey | nmalawskey@pennlive.com
on September 18, 2014

A Harrisburg man – and former youth pastor – was arrested Thursday on 162 counts of possession of child pornography after law enforcement officials received a tip he was uploading child pornography to the Internet.

According to Dauphin County District Attorney Ed Marsico Jr., his office executed a search warrant Thursday morning at the home of Daniel Tipantiza, on Derry Street.

During the search Tipantiza admitted to officers he was uploading child pornography to the Internet, and was subsequently charged and placed in Dauphin County prison in lieu of $150,000 bail. Marsico’s office said several pieces of computer equipment were also seized from Tipantiza’s home and will be searched.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Fox 43

SEPTEMBER 18, 2014, BY HOWARD SHEPPARD

HARRISBURG, Pa.,-(WPMT) On July 22, the National Center For Missing & Exploited Children received a CyberTipline report from Yahoo, Inc. that someone using their system uploaded 61 images of child pornography. That report was forwarded to the Dauphin County District Attorney’s Criminal Investigation Division for an investigation.

This morning, Division detectives executed a search warrant this morning on the home of Daniel Tipantiza on Derry Street in Harrisburg.

Tipantiza was taken into custody at the scene. While being interviewed by detectives, he admitted to uploading the 61 images of child pornography to his Yahoo account. During their search detectives seized various computer items from the home. Additional searches of those computers will be made to see if he possessed additional images of child pornography.

Tapantiza is charged with 61 counts of Distribution of Child Pornography and 61 counts of Possession of Child Pornography.

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PENNSYLVANIA
ABC 27

By Myles Snyder

HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) –
A former youth pastor in Dauphin County has been arrested on 122 counts of child pornography.

Daniel Tipantiza, 40, of Harrisburg, was taken into custody Thursday after detectives from the Dauphin County District Attorney’s Office executed a search warrant at his Derry Street home.

Tipantiza later admitted to uploading 61 images of child pornography to his Yahoo account, District Attorney Ed Marsico said.

He was arraigned on 61 counts of child pornography distribution and 61 counts of child pornography possession and committed to the Dauphin County Prison on $150,000 bail.

His computers will be searched for additional images.
Authorities said Tipantiza was a youth pastor at Valley Baptist Church in Middletown until this summer.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

Droppings from the Catholic Birdcage: “All Friends Who Had Attended a Local Catholic High School Together”

David Badash at The New Civil Rights Movement site:

According to multiple reports, the two men, 26 and 28-years old [i.e., two gay men who had their faces bashed in on September 11 in Philadelphia], were asked by members of the group, all friends who had attended a local Catholic high school together, if they were a couple. Not in a nice way.

Yet, as Badash also reports, according to multiple sources, members of the gay-bashing group are now claiming that they acted in self-defense — though reports by several eyewitnesses who saw what happened say that the two gay men were minding their own business when they were accosted by the group, who began to shout anti-gay slurs at them. And then the gay-bashing followed.

All friends who had attended a local Catholic high school together.

In fact, one of the participants in the crime, Fran McGlinn, has just been fired by Archbishop Wood Catholic high school, where he was a basketball coach, after his role in the gay-bashing came out. McGlinn is a graduate of Archbishop Wood Catholic high school, and as Jean Ann Esselink reports for The New Civil Rights Movement (see the link I’ve just provided), several more of those involved in this brutal gay-bashing are also graduates of this Catholic high school.

Can we please talk again about what it means for Catholic institutions that the Catholic church in the U.S. is moving backwards regarding full inclusion of gay people, while all other religious institutions move forwards? Can we talk some more about exactly why people keep reporting in one poll after another that they see the Catholic community as the religious community more hostile to gay folks than any other religious community in the U.S.?

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

KARLIS SALNA AAP SEPTEMBER 19, 2014

SURVIVORS of abuse at the hands of Catholic priests say they have little hope the church will change under the newly-appointed archbishop of Sydney.

BISHOP of Parramatta Anthony Fisher, 54, was appointed to his new role by Pope Francis on Thursday night.

Bishop Fisher has vowed to repair the relationship between the church and survivors of abuse, insisting there will be no more cover-ups and that victims will come first.

But abuse survivors on Friday slammed the appointment, citing “callous” comments Bishop Fisher made at the World Youth Day in 2008 when he said the parents of an abuse victim who had committed suicide were “dwelling angrily on old wounds”.

“Many survivors believe the only place where we will be first under Bishop Fisher is in media statements, mentioned dismissively with an insincere apology, and then ignored,” Nicky Davis, from the survivors network SNAP, said on Friday.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

September 19, 2014

Rick Feneley

The new archbishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney, Anthony Fisher, has used his first news conference to express his shame and sorrow for child abuse by the clergy and the church’s abandonment of its victims.

To the survivors of abuse and to the church’s youth, Archbishop Fisher said: “To both of them I say, no excuses, no cover-ups. I am ashamed and I’m sorry for where we’ve failed you in the past. The church can do better and I’m determined to play my part as a leader in Sydney.”

Archbishop Fisher said he hoped the Catholic church would emerge as a “purified and humbler church”.

At the news conference in Parramatta, where he has led the Diocese since 2010, he said: “It’s been harrowing to listen to the stories of the survivors of abuse as I have done here as Bishop of Parramatta.”

On his first day in the job, Archbishop Fisher said he hoped to meet Muslim leaders on Friday afternoon to discuss the anti-terrorism raids in Sydney. He said faith leaders had to play a role in ensuring calm and harmony.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

The newly appointed Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, the Reverend Anthony Fisher, has promised “there will be no excuses and no cover-ups” in the wake of the child sex abuse inquiry.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has heard the Catholic Church was actively involved in covering up sex offences against children over several decades.

Archbishop-elect Fisher has been the Bishop of Parramatta for the past four years, and takes over the role from Cardinal George Pell who has been appointed to a senior role at the Vatican.

He has promised that the Catholic Church will be fully accountable in the wake of the royal commission.

“I think the Catholic Church is going through a period of well-deserved public scrutiny and humiliation and certainly self examination, but I hope we’ll emerge from that purified, more humble, more compassionate and be spiritually regenerated,” Bishop Fisher said.

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CALIFORNIA
The Fresno bee

BY NADIA PEARL
The Fresno Bee
September 18, 2014

A Visalia church volunteer was arraigned Monday in Tulare County Superior Court for alleged child molestation.

Two counts of lewd and lascivious acts upon a child under the age of 14 and the special allegation of substantial sexual conduct were filed against Daniel Sisk, 34, District Attorney Tim Ward said.

If found guilty, Sisk could be sentenced to a maximum of 10 years in state prison.

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AUSTRALIA
Christian Today

Bishop Anthony Fisher has been appointed as the new Archbishop of Sydney in an announcement by Pope Francis, Thursday.

The current Bishop of Parramatta will replace Cardinal George Pell, who was transferred to the Vatican Secretariat for the Economy earlier this year.

The Archbishop-elect committed to regaining the trust and confidence of the church and wider community amidst the ongoing investigation of sexual abuse of children within Australian institutions.

“The Catholic church in Australia is going through a period of public scrutiny and self-examination,” Bishop Fisher said.

“Victims of abuse and all young people must come first – no excuses, no cover-ups.”

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UNITED STATES
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor September 18, 2014

Back in February, I was sitting in a Rome restaurant with a member of the College of Cardinals the day after retired Cardinal Walter Kasper of Germany had delivered an impassioned appeal to fellow members of the church’s most exclusive club for relaxing the church’s ban on divorced and remarried Catholics receiving Communion.

Kasper had been tapped to speak to the cardinals by Pope Francis in advance of an Oct. 5-19 Synod of Bishops on the family. Francis certainly knew what Kasper was likely to say, since back in 1993 he had been one of three German bishops who tried to loosen the Communion ban, only to be slapped down by Pope John Paul II’s Vatican.

I asked the cardinal what he made of Kasper’s speech. He put a pained expressed on his face, paused as if to measure to his words, and then delivered the following verdict.

“That guy,” he said, “is off his rocker.”

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AUSTRALIA
Parramatta Sun

By Vanessa Watson Sept. 19, 2014

The Archbishop-elect of Sydney Anthony Fisher has used his first address to call for harmony in the wake of the counter-terrorism raids.

The outgoing Bishop of Parramatta Anthony Fisher said we live in “troubled times” and called on “people of faith” to show calm, restraint and wisdom.

“Right now in Sydney we face some big issues about harmony,” Fr Fisher said. “That’s an issue right around the world at the moment.

“As a religious leader though I think people of faith have something very important to do and to say at the moment. [These are] troubled times in our world and even in our own city. We need to bring some calm and some restraint and some wisdom at this time.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Telegraph

Bishop Anthony Fisher calls for harmony in first address as archbishop of Sydney

CATHY MORRIS PARRAMATTA ADVERTISER SEPTEMBER 19, 2014

THE newly appointed Catholic Archbishop of Sydney wants Australians to set an example to the rest of the world by showing how different nationalities can live together in peace following the anti-terror raids yesterday.

Bishop of Parramatta Anthony Fisher, who grew up in Lakemba, said Australians were “living in troubled times” and the Catholic Church had a role to play in getting the message out.

He was speaking at a press conference in Parramatta this morning to announce his new appointment as Archbishop of Sydney taking over from Cardinal George Pell who has taken up a senior role overseeing reform of the Vatican’s finances in Rome.

“Right now we face in Sydney some big questions about harmony as a city about coexistence and peace and friendship, that’s an issue right around the world,” Bishop Fisher said.

“I hope here in Sydney we’re going to be able to give the world a good example.”

Bishop Fisher said he has asked to meet with Muslim leaders to discuss current events.

“I’d like to hear from them what they’re feeling at the moment and in what ways we can do and say some things together that will move us forward and a more peaceful, more harmonious community.”

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UNITED STATES
The Aspen Times

Roger Marolt

Why should I defend the Catholic Church? It’s held its own for 2,000 years and will continue to do so. I don’t know nearly enough to do this justice, but I do love her. I guess that’s enough.

I’ll begin defending her with what I can’t defend. That is the sexual abuse of children, mostly boys, by a few rogue priests.

It is important to remember that it was men who used the church in order to carry out their heinous crimes. It happens in the Boy Scouts, in schools (even in Aspen), in youth sports, with babysitters, within the ranks of law enforcement, etc., etc. The church’s inexcusable part was its administration, again just people, turning a blind eye until the scandal was massively exposed. Look, I know the fear. I’ve felt the shame. It happened to a group of us kids in Aspen. Our story is in the archives. That’s where my anger rests. My joy is moving forward holding tight to The Rock.

Oh, and then there are all the wars she’s responsible for. You know, like the Crusades and the — uhm — OK, the Crusades. Again, a few bad people using her as an excuse.

I’ve had doubts about Catholic rules and regulations. But it’s not really fair to categorize them like that. Aside from his unbounded love for us, God’s greatest gift is our free will. In that context, everything within the church that resembles a rule is actually guidance away from things that will harm our relationship with him. How about this perspective: God has chosen all of us to be with him. It is we who turn our backs.

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IRELAND
Irish Central

Jane Walsh @irishcentral September 19,2014

The documentary “This World: Ireland’s Lost Babies” unearths further truths about the 40,000 to 60,000 babies who were involuntarily given up for adoption, many to the United States, from Catholic mother and baby homes in Ireland, during the 1950s and 60s.

Presented by Martin Sixsmith the documentary alternates between Ireland and the US to tell the tales of the parents and children who were separated by the Catholic Church. Sixsmith is the journalist behind the tale of Philomena, which was later made in to a movie by Steve Coogan. His latest hour-long documentary examines the appalling treatment of the Irish women who became pregnant outside marriage and also the adopted children, who were farmed out to parents who had little vetting.

These babies were handed over to these unknown families. The children often chosen from a primitive mail order catalog and the Catholic Church often receiving a sizeable donation. They were selling babies by mail order to the people in the US.

A striking personal account from the documentary comes from Mary Monaghan, who was born in a mother and baby home in Ireland and sent to America by the nuns, adopted by a predatory pedophile. Now, aged 64 and living in Massachusetts, Monaghan told Sixsmith how she suffered years of sexual abuse and post-traumatic stress disorder after being adopted by the family of William O’Brien, a violent pedophile. Eventually Monaghan was reunited with her mother Therese, who has since died.

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OHIO
Beacon Journal

By Phil Trexler
Beacon Journal staff writer

New allegations have surfaced against a former Catholic elementary schoolteacher in Akron who quietly was sent to prison this year for sex offenses against a 12-year-old student.

The accusations are contained in a lawsuit filed Wednesday against the Catholic Charities Diocese of Cleveland, St. Mary’s School in Akron and former music teacher Richard Rudman.
The family of the 12-year-old girl contend in their lawsuit that school officials turned a blind eye to Rudman’s actions in the classroom, including his taking the student and others out of class under the guise of “helping him” with special projects.

The suit also contends that Rudman “groomed, sexually abused, violated, molested and manipulated” the girl at school and away from the classroom. It also alleges he gave other girls gifts and money during school hours and also encouraged the children to contact him on Facebook.

There have been no allegations that Rudman molested other children.

The lawsuit, filed in Summit County Common Pleas Court, seeks more than $50,000 in damages.

A spokesman for the diocese issued a prepared statement Wednesday afternoon.

“The sexual abuse of a minor is a horrific act that no child should have to endure. That is why, for the Diocese of Cleveland and St. Mary Parish, the safety and welfare of the children in their care is a priority of the highest importance.

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ILLINOIS
Voices

By Mitch Armentrout
@mitchtrout | marmentrout@suntimes.com

The Diocese of Joliet is facing another lawsuit claiming a now-deceased Catholic priest from a west suburban parish sexually abused three boys more than 30 years ago.

The three alleged victims were between 6 and 11 years old when they were abused by the Rev. Leonardo Mateo starting in about 1980, according to the suit filed Thursday in Cook County Circuit Court.

Mateo never faced criminal charges, and he died in 2004. The Joliet Diocese deemed allegations of abuse against him credible, according to diocese documents released in April.
The boys — two of whom are brothers — and their parents were parishioners at Immaculate Conception Parish, 134 Arthur St. in Elmhurst, when Mateo started inviting the children out for ice cream and fast food, the suit said. He also would take the boys to swim at the YMCA in Elmhurst, where he allegedly molested them in the pool or locker room.

Toward the end of the summer in 1982, a sister of the brothers witnessed Mateo abusing the boys at the YMCA and told her mother about it, the suit claims. Their parents went to Elmhurst police but didn’t press charges, instead demanding that Mateo leave the parish, the suits said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Thursday 18 September 2014

The newly appointed Catholic archbishop of Sydney is “committed to playing a leading role in regaining the confidence of the community and of our own members” after the clerical sex abuse scandal.

Pope Francis on Thursday appointed bishop of Parramatta Anthony Fisher to succeed Cardinal George Pell, who left the position in February to become the Vatican’s finance chief in Rome.

Fisher, who is expected to follow Pell’s orthodox approach, said he was determined to do everything he could to make sure the abuse didn’t happen again.

“There can be no more excuses, no more cover-ups and the victims have to be put first,” he said.

“The Catholic church in Australia is going through a period of public scrutiny and self-examination.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Fox 5

[with video]

By Paul Wagner, FOX 5 Reporter

WASHINGTON –
The U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia is urging the D.C. city council to eliminate the 15-year statute of limitations on sex crimes.

U.S. Attorney Ron Machen says advances in DNA have erased the need for such a law. But a bill that would wipe the statute off the books has gone nowhere since being introduced early last year.

Since at least 2004, the U.S. Attorney’s Office has repeatedly asked the D.C. city council to eliminate the statute of limitations on sex crimes. The council members have listened. But other than increasing the statute from six to 15 years, they have refused to eliminate it.

Machen says the time is now and at least two city council members agree.

D.C’s top prosecutor says there are many reasons to eliminate the statute of limitations in the District of Columbia. But if he could cite one example, it would be the case of Kirk Odom. He is a man wrongfully convicted in a 1981 rape who served 20 years in prison.

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MICHIGAN
Grand Haven Tribune

BECKY VARGO
GRAND HAVEN

Father Bill Langlois, 68, is taking time away from the St. Patrick’s/St. Anthony’s Parish in Grand Haven for “prayer, reflection and counseling,” said Carl Apple, spokesman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Grand Rapids.

Apple declined to say where Langlois was headed, only that he would be gone for six months.

“He didn’t do anything illegal,” Apple said. “There’s no criminal activity of any kind.”

Apple said the reason the relationship is called inappropriate is because Langlois took a vow of celibacy when he entered the priesthood.

“Priests lead a chaste life,” he said.

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

CONNECTICUT
Fox CT

[with video]

SEPTEMBER 18, 2014, BY MIKE KRAFCIK

HARTFORD– An organization made up of people who were abused by priests spoke out in the capital city today.

They gathered because of unrest over recent actions of Hartford’s Catholic Archdiocese.

The Archdiocese of Hartford is asking the state Supreme Court to overturn a verdict for a man who claimed he was abused by Ivan Ferguson, a Roman Catholic priest, at a school in Derby in the early 1980s.

In 2012, a jury found Hartford Archdiocese officials negligent and reckless in handling abuse reports against Ferguson and awarded the victim a $1 million judgment.

archbishopAmong other claims in a recently filed motion, the archdiocese contends the law that extended the statute of limitations for such lawsuits is unconstitutional.

It’s a move that has set off a fire storm, especially with victims of clergy sex abuse.

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

MICHIGAN
MLive

By Brandon Champion | bchampio@mlive.com
on September 18, 2014

GRAND HAVEN, MI – A Catholic priest at a prominent Grand Haven church is taking a six-month leave of absence.

Fr. William Langlois, 68, has served as priest at the St. Patrick-St. Anthony Parish since 1996.

According to Carl Apple, director of communications for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Grand Rapids, Langlois requested for a leave of absence after he had an inappropriate relationship with a woman.

The woman was an adult and nothing illegal took place, Apple added.

“His request was granted by the Bishop,” Apple said. “He’s taking some time away for reflection, prayer and counseling.”

Langlois’ leave will take effect immediately. Parishioners at St. Patrick-St. Anthony were informed of his decision at four different masses earlier this week.

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

UNITED KINGDOM
The Spectator

Damian Thompson

Here is a picture of Cardinal Raymond Burke, whose grand title of Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura is matched only by the magnificence of his ecclesiastical dress. He is famous for his willingness to don the cappa magna, the astonishingly long silk cloak often worn by bishops before the Second Vatican Council but now confined to traditionalist ceremonies. The mere sight of this garment is like a scarlet rag to Catholic liberals, and they especially resent it being worn by Burke, who is (a) very conservative in matters of faith and morals and (b) the most powerful American cardinal in the Vatican.

It’s is true that, judging by the all those photographs of him looking as if he’s just stepped off the set of The Borgias, one would not infer that Burke is personally the most humble of cardinals. But he is. There are few more devout and obedient priests in the Vatican than Raymond Burke, which makes it all the more distressing that this week he is being ritually humiliated.

The legendary Italian Vatican blogger Sandro Magister reported yesterday that Cardinal Burke is about to be ‘decapitated’. He will lose his job as head of the Vatican’s ‘Supreme Court’, which has the power to overrule unjust decisions by other curial departments. According to Magister, he will instead become patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, an honorary position normally reserved for ancient retired cardinals. Burke, a former Archbishop of St Louis greatly admired by Benedict XVI, is only 66 – a mere teenager in Vatican years. The ultra-traditionalist blog Rorate Caeli says this would be ‘the greatest humiliation of a curial cardinal in living memory’, and for once it is not overstating its case.

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

MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

[with audio]

Madeleine Baran St. Paul, Minn. Sep 18, 2014

Seeking to force St. John’s Abbey and the Diocese of St. Cloud to disclose information on priests and brothers accused of sexually assaulting children, attorney Jeff Anderson today filed suit against the two institutions.

The lawsuits, filed in Stearns County District Court, rely on the same legal strategy Anderson used in a landmark lawsuit against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona. Anderson’s efforts in that case led a judge to order church officials to release a list of “credibly accused” priests and thousands of internal documents from clergy files.

Anderson’s latest suits accuse St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville and the Diocese of St. Cloud of creating a public nuisance by not releasing the names and files of all abusers. Anderson said their decision to withhold information continues to put children at risk.

In a statement, St. John’s Abbey officials dismissed Anderson’s claim as “absurd,” saying it “represents fear-mongering at its worst.”

However, those same officials are aggressively trying to keep some information secret. In another clergy sex abuse suit filed by Anderson against St. John’s Abbey, church lawyers on Wednesday notified the attorney that they plan to ask a judge to seal the files on individual monks so that they cannot be released to the public. ​
The Diocese of St. Cloud did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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

MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 09/18/2014

Years ago, he was a young Minnesota priest — and alleged rapist

St. John’s Abbey and two clerics — one who worked at the Church of St. Bernard in St. Paul — were sued Thursday by men claiming they suffered sexual abuse as children.

Attorney Jeff Anderson said at a news conference that the abbey in Collegeville, Minn., and the Diocese of St. Cloud made promises to two of those men 12 years ago: All abusive clergy would be taken out of ministry and closely restricted, and new policies would be put into place. But those promises were broken, Anderson said.

Current Bishop Donald Kettler and Abbot John Klassen of St. John’s Abbey told the St. Cloud Times editorial board in January that priests identified as abusers were being kept away from children.

“We have one priest (in St. Cloud) who has been removed from ministry completely,” Kettler told the newspaper, as seen in a video clip played by Anderson. “We are constantly taking care and observing that he … is not in any contact with any young people.”

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

VATICAN CITY
International Business Times

By Umberto Bacchi
September 18, 2014

Pope Francis is reportedly set to demote a prominent US cardinal who recently spoke out against the pontiff’s views on divorce and abortion.

The Pope is planning to exile Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke – who currently holds the powerful seat of head of the Apostolic Signatura, the Vatican’s top court – from the Holy See. He would then position him in the prestigious but mainly ceremonial role of head of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, Vatican analysts have suggested.

Burke, 66, would replace 80-year-old Paolo Sardi, L’Espresso magazine reported. If the decision is confirmed Burke will be removed from the Curia and left with little power just weeks before a key meeting of the Catholic Church.

A hard-line conservative, Burke is one of five cardinals who have come out against reforming attitudes to divorce and other family issues in the Catholic doctrine.

Headed by Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Muller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the former Roman Inquisition that oversees the adherence to doctrinal orthodoxy, the group is against the Pope’s vision of a more inclusive and compassionate church, as revealed in a book that is to be published in October.

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

VATICAN CITY
Crux

By Francis X. Rocca
Catholic News Service September 18, 2014

VATICAN CITY — The extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the family will not open until Oct. 5, but some of its most prominent members are already publicly debating what is bound to be one of its most controversial topics: the eligibility of divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive Communion.

In an interview published Thursday, a proponent of changing church practice to allow such Catholics to receive Communion answered criticism from some of his fellow cardinals, suggesting they are seeking a “doctrinal war” whose ultimate target is Pope Francis.

“They claim to know on their own what truth is, but Catholic doctrine is not a closed system, but a living tradition that develops,” German Cardinal Walter Kasper told the Italian daily Il Mattino. “They want to crystallize the truth in certain formulas … the formulas of tradition.”

“None of my brother cardinals has ever spoken with me,” the cardinal said. “I, on the other hand, have spoken twice with the Holy Father. I arranged everything with him. He was in agreement. What can a cardinal do but stand with the pope? I am not the target, the target is another.”

Asked if the target was Pope Francis, the cardinal replied: “Probably yes.”

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MICHIGAN
WZZM

GRAND HAVEN, Mich. (WZZM) — A Catholic priest serving a lakeshore parish is on leave for six months.

A spokesman for the Diocese of Grand Rapids says Fr. William Langlois is taking leave from his duties at St. Patrick-St. Anthony Parish for having an inappropriate, but not illegal, relationship with a woman. The spokesman said the leave is an opportunity to heal.

The diocese describes Fr. Langlois as a very popular priest, and leaders hope he returns to his duties after his leave.

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

UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversry

Posted by Joelle Casteix on September 18, 2014

Slut-shaming, fat-shaming, victim-shaming, political shaming … we are a society in love with shame. And our children pay the price.

Note: Guilt is the nasty and usually appropriate feeling people have when they have DONE something bad. Shame is the nasty and usually inappropriate feeling people have when they believe that they ARE bad. In cases of slut-, fat-, victim and political shaming, the “shamer” is telling the target that he or she IS a bad or inadequate person.

Social media only adds very public fuel to the fire—in places like Twitter, 20 people with the proper hashtags can suddenly sound like they number in the millions. On Facebook, it can get far more personal.

Sex abuse victims, especially those in the Catholic Church and other religious organizations, know shame and shaming firsthand. Many victims who reported to church officials were told that their accusations were sinful and brought shame upon themselves and their families (unfortunately, this is still very true and common in the Latino community). Even now, Catholic spokespeople try to shame advocacy groups into silence through name calling, minimizing abuse, and victim-shaming. In the Protestant community, victims have been met with physical threats and even child victims of convicted sex offender Greg Kelly are being openly shamed on Twitter.

And there is a reason that people LOVE to use shame: It works. Want to know the #1 reason child sex abuse victims don’t come forward? Shame. Want to know the #1 reason many victims become self-destructive, addicts, violent, depressed and/or suicidal? Shame.

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TEXAS
NBC 12

By Ray Daudani

TARRANT CO., TX (WWBT) –
A former Richmond pastor accused of sexually assaulting two young children is scheduled to go on trial in Texas in November.

The trial of Geronimo ‘Pastor G’ Aguilar is set to begin on November 10 and could last for a week or more, according to the Tarrant County, Texas prosecutors.

The 43-year-old former-pastor of the Richmond Outreach Cent

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CANADA/GUATEMALE
The JC

By Adam Feinstein, September 18, 2014

The 230 Jews who were forced to leave the remote Guatemalan village of San Juan la Laguna for the capital, Guatemala City, earlier this month were members of the Charedi sect Lev Tahor, which has allegedly engaged in human trafficking and harboured sex abusers, according to search warrants issued by authorities in Quebec.

The Canadian documents detail a criminal case built against the group by Interpol and Israeli police before its members fled to Guatemala in March with its leader, Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans.

The warrants, issued in January, include allegations by former Lev Tahor members – among them, Helbrans’ own brother, Nathan – of physical beatings, poor hygiene, forced ingestion of drugs, under-age marriage and sexual assault.

The group has vigorously denied all the allegations.

Helbrans founded Lev Tahor in Israel in the late 1980s and ran it both there and in Brooklyn, New York – where he was convicted of kidnapping – and then for a decade near Montreal.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

By Ben Brenkert September 17

I’ve come out as gay three times in my life. Most challenging was not telling my conservative family, at 14, but rather a group of men who promised to love and to labor alongside the materially and spiritually poor — my class of Jesuit novices, men who would someday become Jesuit priests or brothers.

Even as a teen, I felt called to join the priesthood. I attended mass daily and studied the stories of saints like St. Anthony, medieval missionaries like Matteo Ricci and mystics like Hildegard of Bingen. I wanted to be like them. And I was drawn to the opportunities to serve God by helping others. I worked as a religious education teacher with students with disabilities.

Over time, I prayed and reflected about working with LGBT youth who felt lost and rejected by those closest to them, alienated by a Church that made them foreigners. It was a feeling I knew too well.

In 2005, I joined the Jesuits, one of Catholicism’s most progressive religious orders. I was nervous, at first, that being gay would be a problem. After all, the church opposes gay marriage; many members of the church believe practicing homosexuality is a sin.

But I was open and transparent about my sexual orientation from the beginning. Before I committed, I talked to my vocation director. He was a gay Jesuit; he assured me I’d be welcomed into the Society of Jesus, that I wouldn’t have to go back into the closet. I met other gay Jesuits who told me the same. I hoped that I might be able to help nudge the church in a more accepting direction, pushing it to accept and support its gay and lesbian members.

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

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Daily News

[with video]

VINNY VELLA, DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER VELLAV@PHILLYNEWS.COM, 215-854-2513
LAST UPDATED: Thursday, September 18, 2014

AN ASSISTANT basketball coach at Archbishop Wood High School was fired last night because of alleged involvement in last Thursday’s savage attack on two gay men in Center City.

The coach, identified by a source close to the team as Fran McGlinn, had been “serving as a coach on a contract basis,” said Kenneth Gavin, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

McGlinn, 25, along with several other former Wood students, allegedly participated in the attack on a gay couple as the men were walking near Rittenhouse Square.

“He was terminated this evening and will not be permitted to coach in any archdiocesan school,” Gavin said. “We expect all those who work with students in our schools to model appropriate Christian behavior at all times.”

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

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Daily Mail (UK)

Catholic high school coach fired after ‘being identified as part of mob’ that brutally beat gay couple in Philadelphia

By CHARLENE ADAMS FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 11:42 EST, 18 September 2014

A Philadelphia Catholic high school basketball coach has been fired after he was allegedly identified as being part of the group that brutally attacked a gay couple.

Fran McGlinn, 25, is said to have been among about dozen men and women in their twenties who participated in the attack on a 28- and 26-year-old gay couple, according to Philadelphia Daily News.

One of the victims told CBS Philadelphia that three men started ‘pummeling’ him and knocked him to the ground.

The two men were walking near 16th and Chancellor streets in the Center City area of Philadelphia just before 11pm on September 11 when the group of men and women confronted them, the 28-year old told CBS Philadelphia.

His 26-year-old boyfriend said that the men in the group asked if the two were a couple and, when he confirmed, the men began to pummel them both.

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

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia

“A key part of a Catholic education is forming students to respect the dignity of every human person whether we agree with them or not. What students do with that formation when they enter the adult world determines their own maturity and dignity, or their lack of it. Violence against anyone, simply because of who they are, is inexcusable and alien to what it means to be a Christian. A recent beating incident in Center City allegedly involved, in some way, a part-time coach at Archbishop Wood High School. After inquiries by school leadership, the coach was contacted regarding the matter and he resigned. Archbishop Wood’s handling of the matter was appropriate, and I support their efforts to ensure that Catholic convictions guide the behavior of their whole school community, including their staff.”

# # #

Contact
Kenneth A. Gavin
Director of Communications
215-587-3747

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Yahoo! News

By MARYCLAIRE DALE

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — An assistant coach at a Roman Catholic high school has resigned over his role in a beating that left two gay men injured, church officials in Philadelphia said Thursday.

About a dozen young adults were linked to the Sept. 11 encounter after police released surveillance video Tuesday and social media users mined online posts, including a group photo taken at a restaurant, to try to match the faces with names.

“Violence against anyone, simply because of who they are, is inexcusable and alien to what it means to be a Christian,” Archbishop Charles Chaput said Thursday in a statement.

No arrests have been made, but some of the young men and women seen in the video have submitted to voluntary interviews with police, a spokesman said Thursday. …

The large group included former students at Archbishop Wood, located in the Philadelphia suburb of Warminster, the archdiocese said. The part-time coach had worked at the same school but now is banned from coaching anywhere in the archdiocese, the church said.

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

MINNESOTA
The Chronicle of Higher Education

September 18, 2014 by Nick DeSantis

A professor at the University of St. Thomas who was accused of sexually abusing a teenage girl more than a decade ago has resigned from the Minnesota university’s faculty, the Star Tribune reported.

The Rev. Michael J. Keating, an associate professor of Catholic studies, was accused of abusing the girl while he was studying to be a priest. He has denied any wrongdoing.

The university announced his resignation this week and posted his resignation letter on its website.

“After careful consideration of my current situation in light of my employment options and longstanding goals, I have decided to resign my faculty position with the University of St. Thomas, effective immediately,” his letter stated. “I have greatly enjoyed my time at the university and take with me fond memories of the St. Thomas community.”

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MINNESOTA
St. Cloud Times

By Dave Unzedunze@stcloudtimes.com September 18, 2014

ST. PAUL – A lawsuit filed Thursday in Stearns County District Court accuses St. John’s Abbey and the Diocese of St. Cloud of creating a public nuisance with their handling of clergy sex abuse allegations against their priests and monks.

The lawsuit, announced at a press conference by attorney Jeff Anderson, accuses the diocese of lying about how it supervises a priest who abused children and references statements that Bishop Donald Kettler made to the St. Cloud Times Editorial Board.

It also accuses Abbot John Klassen of failing to follow through on promises he made as part of the settlement of several claims in 2002 and in 2011. Among the promises that Anderson said the abbey failed to keep was making public the complete list of abbey monks or priests who have been credibly accused of inappropriate sexual conduct.

Anderson again is asking the abbey and diocese to provide complete lists of those credibly accused and to provide to him all files the religious orders have on those credibly accused.
.

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UNITED STATES
The Open Tabernacle: Here Comes Everybody

Posted on September 18, 2014 by Betty Clermont

Considering that leaders of the Catholic Church made the decisive difference in the reelection of Pres. George W. Bush; after coming close to denying Americans affordable health insurance, theirs is the power and money obstructing women’s health care; and, having failed to stop same-sex marriage in this country, are going global to persecute gays (NOM is Opus Dei); one would think more would be concerned about the absence of critical information about the institution and its leader. But like its secular counterpart, the Catholic media have yielded to idolatrous obsequiousness towards Pope Francis.

Because Catholic insiders are the most dependable source of accurate reports about the institution and its leaders, the loss of reliable and accurate data has been sorely missed in the 18 months since his election. Befuddled Catholics can only surmise that previously neutral publications such as Commonweal and National Catholic Reporter have bowed to restrictions imposed by their advertisers. Oh, it’s alright to report on problems in the Church, they just can’t be attributable to the absolute monarch who is maintaining the status quo. To be fair, since Francis’ election, NCR has published a handful of articles with some factually negative information, but 99% of papal coverage is adulation. Even the comments section is edited.

There is only one source which presents “news and analysts of every position and persuasion” – Abuse Tracker. It has no advertisers. Begun in March 2002 “to help reporters keep up with fast-breaking coverage of the [Catholic] sexual abuse crisis,” the website has expanded to include news about the sexual torture of children around the world and in other denominations and religions as well.

Here we find that priests are still raping and sodomizing children, bishops are still aiding and abetting these criminals, and the perpetrators are still escaping justice by fleeing to other countries; and that almost every U.S. prelate appointed and promoted by Pope Francis has a poor record in this area. A year before the New York Times reported on the alleged sexual abuse of poor boys in the Dominican Republic by papal ambassador Archbishop Joseph Wesolowski, Abuse Tracker had the first-hand reports from that country. The reactions of their own national press to Cardinal Pell’s testimony before a government commission, the horrendous fates of the girls and women, their babies and children, in Irish homes run by religious women, the Catholic institutional sexual and physical violence against children in a multitude of countries are made available.

Abuse Tracker has expanded further and fills in the reporting gaps about the Catholic Church with news and opinion (including mine) concerning the pope and his men from numerous sources in other areas such as finance as well as other ecclesial events and opinion from around the world.

The website is sponsored by BishopAccountability.com which keeps a “full ‘account’ of the bishops’ responsibility for the sexual abuse crisis, both individually and collectively,” on every American bishop and Pope Francis when he was an Argentine prelate. They are expanding their documentation globally.

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CONNECTICUT
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Sept. 18, 2014

Statement by Claudia Vercellotti of Toledo, Northern Ohio leader of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 419 345 9291, SNAPtoledo@aol.com )

For years, in Ohio, Leonard Blair succeeded in keeping child sex abuse victims from gaining the chance to expose predators in court. Now, in Connecticut, he is trying to revoke the chance that child sex abuse victims here have long had to expose predators in court. Like hundreds of others who care about vulnerable children and wounded adults, I sorely hope he doesn’t prevail. If he does, Connecticut may as well roll out the red carpet for those who would sexually assault youngsters.

I’m honored to be here today with men and women who are abuse victims and members of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org), including an Ohio woman who exposed clergy sex crimes and cover ups by Hartford’s archbishop when he headed the Toledo diocese for a decade (2003-2013).

Hartford’s Catholic archbishop wants the Connecticut Supreme Court to make it much harder for victims, witnesses and whistleblowers to protect children, inside and outside of the church. He wants the court to toss out a widely-praised 12 year old state law that gives victims more time to expose those who commit and conceal child sex crimes through civil litigation.

He also wants to have his cake and eat it too. He wants to claim he’s not coddling child molesters. But he wants to roll back Connecticut law so he can keep coddling child molesters. He wants to pretend he doesn’t protect predators any more. But he wants the law help him protect predators. He wants to say he cares about kids. But he wants courts to enable more pedophiles to hurt more kids.

Here’s who loses if Blair wins:

Innocent kids will lose, because more child molesters will hurt more kids.

Concerned parents will lose, because fewer of them will learn about adults who commit or conceal child sex crimes.

Wounded adults will lose, because fewer of them will get the healing and validation they need and deserve.

Catholics will lose, because their church will be more unsafe.

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

CONNECTICUT
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Sept. 18, 2014

Statement by Beth McCabe of SNAP ( 860 335 8187, thirdmccabe@comcast.net )

We as victims of childhood sexual trauma fought too long and hard to reform awful and outdated statutes of limitations to let one Catholic official roll back Connecticut law and help predators remain hidden. We desperately hope that our state’s Supreme Court will side with kids who are at risk and adults who are suffering, and against a powerful public figure who wants to avoid the inconvenience and humiliation that come with clergy sex abuse trials, depositions, and discovery.

If Hartford Catholic officials have really reformed and are no longer hiding the crimes of Catholic clergy and the complicity of church supervisors, why would they fear letting the courthouse doors remain open to child sex abuse victims?

If this horrific scandal has taught us anything, it is that nothing exposes predators and protects children better than our justice system. It’s not perfect, but it’s far more effective and fair than letting self-serving Catholic officials keep dealing with heinous crimes “in house.” So let’s not go backwards. Let’s keep safeguarding the vulnerable by using our time-tested, impartial, and open court system to bring child sex crimes out of the darkness and into the light.

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

VATICAN CITY
Breitbart

by THOMAS D. WILLIAMS, PH.D. 18 Sep 2014

The church reforms promised by Pope Francis continue their inexorable march forward, and now the Vatican will begin revamping its public relations operations.

In a briefing on September 17, Father Federico Lombardi, head of the Vatican Press office announced that the first meeting of the Commission on Vatican Media will be held from September 22-24, at the Sancta Martha residence, within Vatican City.

Lombardi said that the meeting will be devoted to bringing commission members—several of whom are unfamiliar with the Vatican communications operations—up to speed on the situation, planning the work to be done over the coming months, and adopting a common work method.

Lombardi also noted that the commission itself will have to establish its own communications strategy for keeping the public informed, and so interviews would not be given prior to the meeting.

This latest reorganization follows on the now well-advanced reform of the Vatican Bank, as well as the ongoing reform of the Vatican’s administrative departments, or curia.

Last December the Vatican hired the US-based global consulting firm McKinsey & Company to analyze and propose a re-organization of the Vatican’s fragmented communications departments, including its newspaper, television, press office, and radio station to make them “more functional, efficient and modern.”

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TEXAS
KSAT

By Courtney Friedman
VJ, Reporter

SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio police said the Rev. Alberto Torres Trevino, 63, is being held in the Bexar County Jail on indecent exposure charges.

Trevino was arrested just before 2 p.m. on Tuesday at Olmos Park.

Investigators said undercover officers with the San Antonio Parks Police noticed Trevino sitting on a park bench touching his genitals.

The undercover officer said he spoke with Trevino and Trevino began to pleasure himself.

Officers arrested him on the spot.

KSAT has confirmed Trevino is a priest at the local chapter of Missionaries of the Holy Family (MHF).

Higher priests from the MHF organization say Trevino is a Formation Director — the person who helps prepare anyone who want to become a priest or brother.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Sunderland Echo

THE Bishop of Durham has addressed an international conference on child protection within the church.

The Right Reverend Paul Butler spoke to delegates at The Churches’ Child Protection Advisory Service (CCPAS) event in London.

In his speech, Bishop Paul, chairman of the Church of England’s Safeguarding Board, said: “We are all very conscious of how much the world of safeguarding has changed over the past decades, and the rapid changes of recent years.

“The UK Church has come a long way in safeguarding over the past decades. There is much for which we can be thankful. We are in a better place than we were.”

But he admitted ‘there is much from our past that we have to face up to seriously’ and talked about the wider concerns of institutional abuse, including recent high-profile cases like that of serial paedophile Jimmy Savile and the Rotherham report.

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