ABUSE TRACKER

AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

Four Corners reporter uncovers a secret religious society accused of physical and mental abuse

TOTAL control over every aspect of life. Alleged physical and mental abuse. Bizarre and depraved sexual rituals. A man who claims he speaks directly to God.

This was the way of life for hundreds of members of a secret religious group that started in a beach town in northern New South Wales and spread across the world.

Tonight, ABC journalist Caro Meldrum-Hanna’s four-year investigation will expose the Assembly and its founder, Scott Williams.

Her Four Corners report hears from those who’ve escaped the group, plots the journey of Williams over nearly four decades and uncovers the vast fortune he has siphoned from loyal followers.

“I began looking at this story back in 2010 and have been following it since, but it wasn’t until this year that two key former members told me they were ready to go public,” Meldrum-Hanna said.

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IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

Fr Brian D’Arcy: My battle with cancer, the Catholic Church and how my faith survived trauma of being abused as a boy of 10

Fr Brian D’Arcy is one of Ireland’s best-known clerics – controversial and frank. He speaks to Adrian Rutherford about the future of the Catholic Church and how his faith survived the trauma of being abused as a boy of 10 in Omagh.

8 JULY 2014

Q. You are one of Ireland’s best-known priests, but was religion always a part of your life?

A. I was born in 1945 and, growing up in the 1950s and 60s, not many families weren’t religious. By modern standards, there were exceptionally religious families back then.

It was a culture. It didn’t matter what religion you were, you went to church on Sunday, you had respect for your parents, the law and your community.

We weren’t a family that was always in church or highly religious. We were a very normal family.

We were highly involved in GAA affairs – my father was a famous footballer – and that was almost as big a religion as Catholicism.

Did we believe in a God, did we pray, did we keep the Commandments? Yes, we did that as simply as you breathed because there was no other way of life. …

Q. You were abused as a child – did that shake your faith?

A. I was abused when I was 10 and at school in Omagh. I didn’t realise what was happening at the time, but I still knew it was wrong. It had a great effect on me. It made me very nervous and insecure, unsure of what religion was or wasn’t because it was a religious brother who abused me for almost a year.

As a teenager, after I entered the priesthood, a priest tried to involve me in abuse as well.

I had more sense at that age and was able to get out of the situation much quicker.

I hadn’t the wit to tell my superiors because he told me that if I ever told anyone I would never be ordained.

It was only 35 years or so afterwards that I was even able to think about it.

Abuse affects you to the day you die. It leaves you very insecure, very hurt. You never actually get over it. You have to live with it.

Q. You could never imagine it had been so widespread in the church?

A. I thought I was the only child in the country that it had happened to. I genuinely thought that, which is why I convinced myself I wouldn’t be believed.

It was such a uniquely awful experience. Being abused by an adult who you trusted, especially by someone in religion, destroys your relationship with people, it destroys your relationship with others and it threatens to absolutely destroy your relationship with God.

Q. Pope Francis recently said he believes one in 50 priests is involved in child abuse – do you think that’s accurate?

A. He is underestimating it. It is more than that. At the very minimum, I would say three to five per cent, and I would say nearer 5%. But that is only the reported cases – I would contend that less than 50% of cases are ever mentioned or reported. So what is the real figure? It’s probably nearer 8% – about one in 12 priests. Certainly one in 15 have either abused, assaulted or had dysfunctional sexual relationships.

Q. It has been very damaging for the Catholic Church.

A. It has, but I would rather have the church now, with its less arrogant, less perfectionist attitude than a church which said there is no room for sinners.

You always have to accept that you have to live with sin, not necessarily in sin, but with sin.

Q. Do you think it will ever recover its old image?

A. I hope not, because when its image was best, its sinfulness was greatest. Its image now is far more healthy because the good will survive and the hypocritical will perish.

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ZAMBIA
Zambia Daily Mail

THE calls by many sections of the Zambian society for the government to apply stricter controls on the proliferation of churches are justified.

It will help curb the sexual abuse of unsuspecting female members by immoral clergymen.

In the last two years the country has seen an increase in the number of pastors and ‘prophets’ involved in criminal and immoral activities.

The men of the cloak are using their influential and privileged positions to prey on desperate women and girls under the guise of the so-called deliverance.

The rate at which churches are emerging, especially in densely populated communities and rural areas, is alarming.

As members of these communities grapple with various personal and social challenges, they are seeking help from the men of God.

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
ABC News

[with video]

By Caro Meldrum-Hanna

A four-year investigation by the ABC has uncovered shocking claims of abuse and torment in relation to NSW-based registered charity and religious group Christian Assemblies International (CAI).

Tonight’s Four Corners reveals that self-styled religious guru Pastor Scott Williams was using his warped brand of evangelical Pentecostalism to run a clandestine homosexual sex ring while allegedly misusing vast amounts of member donations for personal use.

Courageous former members break their silence and tell of their torment living inside the group, which they say is not a Christian church but a horrendous cult run by one man.

The ex-members have remained in the shadows until now out of fear and shame. They detail shocking acts of abuse ranging from spiritual abuse, financial abuse, verbal and physical abuse, and the sexual abuse of adult men.

They say bizarre sexual rituals were carried out in secret by Williams, who described himself as “The Anointed One” with the Lord’s authorisation to sidestep biblical commands against homosexuality and sexually train his male members into submission and obedience.

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TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
Guardian

Monday, July 28, 2014

Anna Lisa Paul

Hours before he met with investigators probing the allegations of sexual and physical abuse at the St Michael’s School for Boys, Diego Martin, the abused teenager who confirmed the wrongdoing by staff members said he was now “in a better place” after having gone public with his story. The teenager, 19, who lives in Port-of-Spain, made the statement as he waited to meet with police last Friday. The teenager was met at the Guardian Media Ltd office by three officers from the Western Division.

He and his boss were later taken to an undisclosed in Port-of-Spain for the interview, which lasted close to three hours. In a phone interview yesterday, the teenager confirmed that he had given police a sworn statement and was ready and willing to meet with police again any time. Asked yesterday if he was having second thoughts about revealing the abuse he suffered during his year at the school, or about meeting with police, the teenager replied, “No, I’m good.”

Investigators were eager to meet with him, as he is the first person thus far to come forward and testify about the kind and level of abuse he suffered while at the school. The investigation was launched after Attorney General Anand Ramlogan revealed the findings of a committee appointed to probe the death of Brandon Hargreaves. Hargreaves, 14, of Cascade, died on April 8, after he suffered a head injury. Initial reports said he was injured while trying to drop-kick another child.

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.

GUAM
Pacific News Center

Click here for the story.

Guam – Los Angeles Archdiocese attorney Michael Hennigan says the LA Archdiocese told Guam church officials about the sexual abuse accusations against Father John Wadeson in 2011, according to a report on the ABC News website.

The ABC report also cites a 2004 Los Angeles archdiocese report which says “Wadeson was credibly accused in two cases between 1973 and 1977.” Between 1972 and 1985 Wadeson worked at Verbum Dei High School in Los Angeles. Verbum Dei is an all-male Catholic high school school.

The “Survivors Network Against those Abused by Priests” [SNAP] has previously reported that Father Wadeson was named in Los Angeles Archdiocese records from the early 1990’s, and in LA news reports, as having been accused on 2 occasions of being a predator priest. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has barred Father Wadeson from ministry in LA. The accusations against Father Wadeson were never brought to trial.

Father Wadeson was incardinated on Guam by Archbishop Apuron in 2000. Archbishop Apruon removed Father Wadeson from “active and public ministry” on Guam this past Tuesday, 4 days after SNAP issued a release calling attention to the decades old accusations against Father Wadeson.

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.

IRELAND
Irish Independent

Adrian Rutherford
Published 28/07/2014

One of Ireland’s best known priests has revealed he is fighting cancer.

Fr Brian D’Arcy said he was diagnosed with prostate cancer earlier this year.

The 69-year-old, who is also a prominent columnist and broadcaster, said he is overcoming the illness and is feeling “fine”.

“I was diagnosed earlier this year, but I don’t really like saying too much about it,” Fr D’Arcy told the Irish Independent.

“It’s prostate cancer, which any man can get at any stage.

“I haven’t said much about it because it’s putting yourself in the limelight, but thankfully I’m overcoming it.”

Some of the issues the Enniskillen-based priest discussed during the wide-ranging interview were:

* He disputes claims by Pope Francis that one in 50 priests are paedophiles, believing the true figure is actually closer to one in 12.
* The Pope would be wasting his time coming to Ireland.
* The priesthood must review its position on male celibacy if it is to survive for future generations.

Fr D’Arcy entered the priesthood when he was 17 and is rector of St Gabriel’s Retreat in the Graan, near Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh.

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MINNESOTA
National Catholic Reporter

Under the banner headline, “To heal church, Nienstedt must go,” the Editorial Board of the Minneapolis StarTribune Sunday called for the resignation of embattled Saint Paul and Minneapolis Archbishop John Nienstedt.

“Signs abound that the leadership crisis sparked by priest abuse of children in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has come to a breaking point, the editorial stated. Consider these developments just this month:

• A judge in St. Paul — a city whose history and culture are inseparable from the Roman Catholic Church — refused to set aside a lawsuit’s claim that the Twin Cities archdiocese and the Diocese of Winona had created a public nuisance with their handling of abusive priests. District Judge John Van de North said he is seeking more information on that charge as he allowed a suit to go forward on claims of negligence.

• An affidavit by former archdiocesan canon law chancellor Jennifer Haselberger reported a “cavalier attitude about the safety of other people’s children” at the archdiocese’s top levels, leading to lax investigations and continued priestly service by suspected abusers. Haselberger resigned from her post in 2013 because, she said, she could no longer work for an organization that was not fully cooperating with an investigation of illegal activity within it.

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
The Age

July 28, 2014

Chris Johnston
Senior Writer for The Age

Guilt can be a heavy burden – and this seems to be the case with the latest chapter in the disturbing story of a senior Victorian sect leader now in jail on child sex charges.

Ten days ago Chris Chandler, 56, drove to Melbourne from his property on French Island, in Western Port. Then he went to the Melbourne Magistrates Court to hand himself in.

Chandler was a leader of the secretive Bible sect known as Friends and Workers, or the Two by Twos, who have 2000 Victorian members. He had already admitted his guilt in eight charges in a Gippsland court including unlawful indecent assaults, indecent assaults and gross indecency on three young female victims.

But Chandler baulked at his sentence of a year’s jail with a non-parole period of three months, telling his lawyers that while he was guilty, he wasn’t guilty to that extent.

But then something changed. He decided he wanted to go to jail. When he turned up at Melbourne’s central magistrates court to surrender – not the Morwell court his hearings had been held in, and not the one closest to his home – he hadn’t told the policeman who made the charges stick what he was about to do.

Sergeant Darren Eldridge of Moe police was surprised to hear Chandler had given up his fight. He had been working on the case for two years. ”We were assisted in different ways by a number of congregation members,” he said.

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WASHINGTON
Catholic Sentinel

The trial date for a priest accused of luring a 14-year-old girl toward his car in Vancouver, Wash. has been moved to Oct. 6 in Clark County Superior Court.

Proceedings had been set for July in the case of Father Michael Patrick, who was removed from his post as pastor of St. Wenceslaus Parish in Scappoose soon after the March 10 incident came to light.

Father Patrick was released from jail in April and is under the supervision of authorities.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CA0
CBS SF Bay Area

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS/AP) — The San Francisco Archdiocese has removed a priest from ministering in the city after he was removed from his post in Guam over allegations that he molested two boys four decades ago while serving in the archdiocese of Los Angeles, church officials said Friday.

The Rev. John Howard Wadeson was stripped of his duties in the Archdiocese of Agana on Monday after concerns in the community there about his past and he has since left the U.S. territory, the Guam Pacific Daily News reported. Wadeson, whose current whereabouts are unknown, told the paper he was innocent and was leaving to protect his archbishop.

A 2004 report on clergy abuse issued by the Los Angeles archdiocese lists Wadeson as being credibly accused of molesting two people between 1973 and 1977, while he was working as a priest with the Divine Word Missionaries religious order. Wadeson was in the Los Angeles archdiocese between 1972 and 1985 and spent many of those years at Verbum Dei High School, an all-boys Catholic school.

Wadeson’s religious order would have been responsible for dealing with the allegations at the time, said Monica Valencia, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles archdiocese.

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GUAM
Pacific News Center

Guam – The Archdiocese of San Francisco has announced that it has withdrawn permission for Father John Wadeson to practice his ministry in San Francisco after learning that Guam Archbishop Anthony Apuron had removed Father Wadeson from ministry in Guam this past week, Monday, July 21st.

The statement was issued Friday, July 25th, by the San Francisco Archdiocese Victim’s Assistance Coordinator, Dr. Renee Duffey. [see the statement below]

Duffey writes that the San Francisco Archdiocese granted permission to Father Wadeson to practice his ministry “based upon assurances of good standing from his home diocese, in this case the Archdiocese of Agana in Guam.”

It is not clear from the statement when the San Francisco Archdiocese first granted Father Wadeson permission to practice his minitry. Nor is it clear when the Guam Archdiocese gave the San Francisco Archdiocese those “assurances of good standing” on behalf of Father Wadeson.

The Archdiocese of Guam announced that it had removed Father Wadeson from ministry on Monday “in response to concerns raised by the community.” Father Wadeseon left Guam for San Francisco the next day, on Tuesday, July 22ed. …

READ the statement from the Archdiocese of San Francisco below:

Statement Regarding Fr. John Wadeson:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(SAN FRANCISCO, JULY 25, 2014) As with all priests who hale from other dioceses, Fr. John Wadeson was granted permission to minister within the Archdiocese of San Francisco based upon assurances of good standing from his home diocese, in this case the Archdiocese of Agana in Guam.

On July 22, 2014, the Archdiocese of San Francisco became aware that the Archbishop of Agana, Archbishop Anthony Sablan Apuron, had removed Fr. Wadeson from ministry on July 21, 2014, “in response to concerns in the community.”

Therefore, on July 22, 2014, Archbishop Cordileone informed Archbishop Apuron that in response to this information, Fr. Wadeson would not be allowed to undertake any ministry in the Archdiocese of San Francisco, unless and until his home Archdiocese confirms that he is suitable for ministry.

The Archdiocese of San Francisco has informed Fr. Wadeson of that restriction as well, and Fr. Wadeson has willingly agreed to observe it.

We welcome and encourage anyone who may have any information concerning any possible wrongdoing by Fr. Wadeson to contact the Victim’s Assistance Office.

For more information contact:
Dr. Renee Duffey
Archdiocese of San Francisco
Victim’s Assistance Coordinator
(415) 614-5506
duffeyr@sfarchdiocese.org

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ZAMBIA
Zambia Daily Mail

By NOMSA NKANA

HOLY Fire Christian Ministries Church has been deregistered following allegations of indecent assault and sexual abuse scandals that rocked the church.

Registrar of Societies Kakoma Kanganja has shut down the church based in Bulangililo, Kitwe, to stop any further abuses and disturbances to the public.

He, however, told the Sunday Mail that the presiding bishop of the church, Dominic Nyundu, last week resurfaced after going into hiding in 2010

Mr Kanganja, who was in Kitwe, said bishop Nyundu was allegedly embroiled in the sex scams between 2010 and 2013 when he was reported to be abusing women by taking them for overnight prayer meetings where he would have sex with them in the name of exorcising demons.

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DELAWARE
The News Journal

Thomas S. Neuberger July 26, 2014

The passage of the Child Victims Act in July of 2007 is proof that even the often maligned “Delaware Way” can sometimes benefit the proverbial “little guys.”

In 2012 about 900 sexually abused pre-adolescent victims of jailed Delaware pediatrician Earl Bradley shared a Beebe Hospital fund of $123 million in Superior Court because of the CVA.

During a 2011 federal court bankruptcy reorganization, over $110 million also was distributed to 152 adult survivors who were sexually abused by Catholic priests of the Diocese of Wilmington, the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales, and the Capuchins. For what some call “soul murder,” tens of millions of dollars also were paid in confidential settlements with dozens of other childhood rape survivors which occurred in families, other churches, nonprofit organizations or in public, private or religious schools.

Vital knowledge also was given to parents to enable them to make informed decisions and protect their children. For example, the names of living predator priests from Salesianum and Archmere were revealed, warning parents of the dangers they present to their children. At Salesianum school alone, twelve living or deceased priests were exposed, and at the Diocese more than 20. Even more co-workers and supervisors were revealed to have turned a blind eye.

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
Star Tribune

Article by: EDITORIAL BOARD , Star Tribune Updated: July 26, 2014

Archbishop cannot be a force for reform in Twin Cities archdiocese.

Signs abound that the leadership crisis sparked by priest abuse of children in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has come to a breaking point. Consider these developments just this month:

• A judge in St. Paul — a city whose history and culture are inseparable from the Roman Catholic Church — refused to set aside a lawsuit’s claim that the Twin Cities archdiocese and the Diocese of Winona had created a public nuisance with their handling of abusive priests. District Judge John Van de North said he is seeking more information on that charge as he allowed a suit to go forward on claims of negligence.

• An affidavit by former archdiocesan canon law chancellor Jennifer Haselberger reported a “cavalier attitude about the safety of other people’s children” at the archdiocese’s top levels, leading to lax investigations and continued priestly service by suspected abusers. Haselberger resigned from her post in 2013 because, she said, she could no longer work for an organization that was not fully cooperating with an investigation of illegal activity within it.

• The archdiocese confirmed to the Star Tribune that Archbishop John Nienstedt is the subject of a monthslong investigation of sexual misconduct with seminarians, priests and other men.

• Minnesota Public Radio aired an hourlong documentary, “Betrayed by Silence,” detailing how three St. Paul/Minneapolis archbishops — Nienstedt and his predecessors John R. Roach and Harry Flynn — ignored or downplayed evidence and, until this year, concealed the names of priests credibly accused of molesting children.

• An editorial in the New York Times said that if Pope Francis is serious about holding bishops accountable for the abuse scandal that has rocked the church, a “good place to start” would be St. Paul and Minneapolis, with the removal of Nienstedt.

Today, with sadness, this newspaper joins that call. For the sake of one of this state’s most valued institutions and the Minnesotans whose lives it touches, Nienstedt’s service at the archdiocese should end now.

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AUSTRALIA
Queensland Times

ROBERT Toreaux knows what it’s liked to be tortured; to spend each day in fear of being attacked and humiliated without being able to escape.

He’s also knows how child abuse can lead to long-term, chronic health problems for survivors.

The 66-year-old spent a good portion of his childhood living and working at the Riverview Training Farm for Boys.

The Salvation Army-run facility has proved to have a long and grim history as a place of abuse, where children were routinely physically and sexually assaulted by staff.

Mr Toreaux arrived at the training farm in 1960 when he was 10-years-old and resided there for four years.

“My mother died in 1956,” he said. “She was killed in a car accident when her vehicle collided with a drunk driver.

“After that, my father took off and left my brothers and sisters to fend for ourselves.

“I was separated from my seven siblings and spent a number of years bounced around 27 orphanages.”

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ALABAMA
WAFF

By Marie Waxel

Updated: Jul 26, 2014

COLBERT COUNTY, AL (WAFF) –
The Colbert County District Attorney was asked Thursday if church leaders violated state law by not immediately reporting abuse allegations involving a children’s pastor.

Jeff Eddie will spend the next 30 years behind bars after pleading guilty to sex abuse charges. One of the victims filed a federal lawsuit against Eddie, Highland Park Baptist Church and a non-profit organization connected to the church.

The lawsuit (PDF) claims church leaders knew about the accusations for more than a week before notifying police.

According to state law, clergy members are required to report known or suspected abuse to authorities immediately. The new lawsuit claims church leaders knew about the accusations for 10 days, and even conducted their own investigation before going to police. If proven to be true, that is a direct violation of the law.

The original arrest warrant against Eddie also noted the church’s internal investigation prior to police notification.

District Attorney Bryce Graham said because he is not connected to the civil suit that has been filed, he cannot comment on its details. However, he did release a statement:

“We prosecuted the criminal case and to my knowledge, the church reported it to us when they found out,” Graham said. “Nothing has been brought to me of any discrepancies of any church officials as far as delayed reporting goes.”

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Ruben Rosario
rrosario@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 07/25/2014

Last week I wrote a piece calling for Archbishop John Nienstedt to step down or be removed from his position. I will not repeat here the arguments I made. You can look up the column, which coincidentally was posted online the same day a blogger for the National Catholic Reporter also called for his resignation and a New York Times editorial urged Pope Francis to reconsider Nienstedt’s fitness to serve. But essentially, the mishandling of recent clergy abuse cases in the Twin Cities archdiocese warrants his resignation.

My reasons have nothing to do with previous allegations that he inappropriately touched a minor during a confirmation ceremony.

My gut told me that was bogus, and cops later determined there was insufficient evidence to warrant charges.

There’s an internal church probe now into allegations that Nienstedt had inappropriate relationships with seminarians and others dating from the time he worked in Detroit. That also has little to do with my feelings since the investigation continues. Others within the church wanted him out after his somewhat obsessive and much-politicized crusade two years ago to support a state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. …

Not surprisingly, I got quite a few responses to last week’s column. Most sided with me, but there were also strenuous disagreements. The following are but a handful of emails I received:

“You are ignorant and (Jennifer) Haselberger (former chancellor for canonical affairs who revealed the mishandlings after she resigned in 2013) hates the church for some reason,” wrote one reader. “There are a lot of people who want the Archbishop to ‘go’ because of his conservatism, particularly his support for traditional marriage. Don’t be another hater.”

“It is you and people like you who should resign from the Church,” fumed one letter writer from Woodbury. “I feel sick every time you and one of your ilk refer to themselves as ‘Catholics.’ I feel sullied and fouled by associating yourselves with my most basic beliefs.”

A frequent letter writer to me and the Pioneer Press snapped: “I wonder if you would also have been on the top of the list asking Peter to resign as head of the church? I am also sure that your choice to replace our Archbishop would be infinitely better than Christ’s.”

To be fair, I replied and thanked him for being someone I could always count on to make “asinine” remarks. I meant that in a Christian way. Maybe I’ll get a few extra Hail Marys as contrition at the next confession.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Burlington County Times

By Peg Quann Staff writer

Will Pope Francis come to Philadelphia in September 2015?

It looks more and more likely, as Archbishop Charles Chaput reportedly told Native Americans in North Dakota on Thursday that “Pope Francis has told me that he is coming.”

The Catholic News Service reported the archbishop mentioned the pope’s pending visit during his homily at the Tekakwitha Conference in Fargo.

Chaput — whose ancestors included Native Americans — told the Fargo conference, “The pope will be with us the Friday, Saturday and Sunday of that week,” according to the CNS report of the event in the Diocese of Trenton online newspaper, The Monitor, Friday morning.

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia cautioned, however, on Friday it has not received an official confirmation from the Vatican that the pope will attend the World Meeting of Families in the city Sept. 22-27, 2015. The CNS updated its report to reflect that concern but the story was removed from the Monitor post on the Trenton diocesan website.

Archdiocesan spokesman Ken Gavin said he had a “very strange and hectic day” Friday as the archbishop’s comments became public.

“I was not in Fargo, so I can’t say he was misquoted. He has said things like that before. He’s said similar things, but every time, said we still were waiting for official confirmation from the Vatican … We’re extremely confident that he will be here.”

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MINNESOTA
Waiting for Godot to Leave

Kevin O’Brien

Refusing to address a single one of the facts whistle blower Jennifer Haselberger has revealed in her deposition, in her interviews, and in the abundant documentary evidence that supports Haseblberger’s claims about the scandal in St. Paul, Catholic Defense League’s Bill Donohue instead goes after Haselberger personally.

And why not? This is a tactic demagogues of all shapes and sizes have used throughout history. Avoid the evidence, don’t engage on the issues, instead use personal attacks to discredit your opponents. It may not be the most Catholic or Christian thing to do – but hey, it’s us vs. them, so anything goes, right?

Now if Donohue wanted to come after me or pretty much any other Catholic I know, and if he did his digging, he could find a ton of embarrassing and incriminating details that would make it hard for any of us to show our faces in public again. I have yet to meet a perfect Catholic, and I am far from one myself. Should my insignificant blog posts pop up on Bill Donohue’s radar, he could find enough dirt to destroy me in spades if he put his mind to it.

But what’s the best he can come up with to smear the character of this woman, a woman who so loved the Church and was so upset at the cavalier disregard for children and other innocent victims in St. Paul that she sacrificed her own career to speak up about it? What’s the best he can come up with?

The best he can come up with is this.

* As a young woman she quit going to church, but then when she got older she started going again.
* One of her instructors at a very liberal feminist Catholic college in St. Paul happened to be, herself, a liberal feminist.
* A fringe church group has used one of Haselberger’s quotes (from a paper she wrote) in their promotional material.

That’s it.

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GUAM
Jungle Watch

We know now, as per the Associated Press story today, that Archbishop Apuron was contacted by the Los Angeles Archdiocese about Fr. Wadeson in 2011:

In 2011, Wadeson asked the Los Angeles archdiocese for authorization to minister once more in Los Angeles because he was traveling in California. The archdiocese refused and contacted archdiocese officials in Guam after learning he was working there, said archdiocese attorney Michael Hennigan.

Unless the Los Angeles attorney is lying or the AP is making it up, we now have solid evidence that Archbishop Apuron was aware of Wadeson’s issues at least by 2011 (even though he should have been made aware of them by Wadeson himself when he requested incardination in 2000 and certainly in 2004 when the Los Angeles report was published.)

Amazingly, while Archbishop Apuron did nothing in 2011 about Fr. Wadeson, even vouching for him so that he could serve in another diocese, in the same year, 2011, Archbishop Apuron ordered Fr. Paul to fire an employee from Santa Barbara who Apuron said was a “danger to children.”

Let’s restate that:

* Archbishop Apuron is contacted in 2011 by the Los Angeles Archdiocese about one of his priests.
* The priest had been accused of molesting children and was listed on an official Los Angeles Archdiocesan report.
* Archbishop Apuron not only does nothing about this priest, he vouches for the alleged child molester to function as a priest in another bishop’s diocese.
* At the same time, he demands that Fr. Paul Gofigan fire an employee from his parish who Archbishop Apuron says is a “danger to children” even though the man’s crime was more than 30 years ago and had nothing to do with children.
* Two years later, the priest accused of molesting children is still functioning in both dioceses unhindered and unreported, and Fr. Paul is fired for showing kindness to the man whose employment he had terminated two years earlier at the Archbishop’s order.

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UNITED STATES
JWVictims

Tens of thousands of former and current Jehovah’s Witnesses have lost their lives or have sacrificed their family, their health, and their emotional well-being due to the harmful policies of this religion. Some have refused lifesaving medical treatment including blood transfusions and organ transplants, while others are completely shunned by their family for simply leaving the religion, including young ones.

Still others must endure horrific violence on a daily basis, as women are encouraged to stay with abusive men in the hopes of converting them, and child sex assault victims must produce a second witness to their attack before their accusations are heard. Rape victims may face severe shunning for “fornication,” and child abuse in the form of extreme discipline is often encouraged.

July 26, 2014, marks the inaugural Watchtower Victims Memorial Day. On this day, people from around the world are invited to leave a flower and card or another small memorial at a local Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is encouraged to take a picture or make a video of the memorial to post on the official Facebook page, and to be sure the card or memorial includes the Facebook page address so that others may learn its meaning.

For those who must remain anonymous or who do not wish to visit a Kingdom Hall, a memorial might be left in a public park. Participation should be in any way that is comfortable for each individual.

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IRELAND
Galway Advertiser

Ronnie O’Gorman

If there isn’t some dramatic change, and matters as they stand are allowed to drift, it is easy to see that the impact of the child abuse scandals within the Catholic church have had a very negative impact on the present and future generations in Ireland. Despite being one of the most generous generations ever when it comes to helping others, young people today are quite indifferent to the church. In fact many are openly hostile.

As for the institutional Church itself, Brenda O’Brien, The Irish Times journalist and a teacher of religion, writes that as an institution, it is bordering on clinical depression. Her son, 20 years old, has never known a time when it was held in high regard. She has taken her students to a mosque, where they met devout Muslims, and learned how they pray often, and try to remain in constant awareness of God. The Irish students were taken aback. They had not ever experienced that in their own everyday life. ‘We are still waiting for a model of Church where lay people are central,’ she says.*

Whatever structure is hammered out, and hopefully sooner rather than later, I cannot entirely blame the Catholic church for its present crisis. There was something in our psyche 50 or 60 years ago that allowed the horrors of the Magdalene laundry to continue all those years. It seems incredible now that some intelligent and influential citizens, who were aware of the Magdalene culture, or were at least conscious that unmarried mothers were cruelly marginalised by society, did not march in to the laundries, and demand that the ‘double-locked doors,’ be opened.

A kind of horror

Abbot Patrick Hederman OSB, in John Quinn’s honest and challenging book, puts the dilemma in an historical context. ‘ People,’ he writes, ‘ regard darkness as dangerous or different, but it represents half of our life. Problems arise when we try and pretend it’s all bright. One of the symbols of the newly independent Ireland was An Claidheamh Soluis, the Sword of Light, when Ireland was meant to be the brightest place on the planet.

‘That’s not enough. There are two sides to every story. Whereas other cultures like Russia over-emphasised the dark and the underside of the human condition, the whole project of de Valera and John Charles McQuade’s Ireland was to create a First Holy Communion dress for all of us, which would make us the envy of the planet.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
CBS Baltimore

Rick Ritter

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — A former school teacher admits to inappropriate relations with three students decades ago. Now the Catholic community is in shock.

Rick Ritter has the latest on the investigation and the next steps now that the church, school and police know what happened.

The alleged victim says she had sexual encounters with Murtha when she attended the high school. The Archdiocese says Murtha admitted to those allegations and then confessed to similar behavior with two other students.

Not one, not two, but at least three students. That’s how many the Archdiocese says 58-year-old Helene Murtha sexually abused in the 1980s.

“We have absolutely no place in our church for anyone who would harm a child,” said Sean Caine, Archdiocese of Baltimore.

The alleged abuse occurred while Murtha was a teacher at Archbishop Keough High School — an all-girls school in Baltimore that later became Seton Keough.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
Catholic Review – Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore

July 25, 2014

Official Statement from the Archdiocese of Baltimore

The Archdiocese of Baltimore has learned of an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor against Helene Murtha, 58, a teacher at The Seton Keough High School in Baltimore. The alleged abuse occurred in the 1980s while Murtha was a teacher at Archbishop Keough High School, an all-girls high school in Baltimore that merged with Seton High School in 1987 to become Seton Keough. Murtha taught at Archbishop Keough from 1977 to 1992.

The alleged victim informed the Archdiocese that she had a series of sexual encounters with Murtha during the years she attended the high school. The Archdiocese immediately reported the allegation to the appropriate civil authorities and will continue to cooperate fully with any investigation(s).

Murtha was informed of the allegations and admitted to them. She also advised the Archdiocese that she had previously engaged in similar behavior in the 1980s with two other students of Archbishop Keough High School. The Archdiocese immediately reported the additional information to the appropriate civil authorities.

The incidents reportedly occurred at Murtha’s home, at the high school, and at the Monsignor

O’Dwyer Retreat House in Sparks, where Murtha helped to supervise retreats and other activities for youths and young adults.

Murtha’s employment has been terminated and the investigation is ongoing. Counseling assistance has been and will be offered to those affected.

Following her employment at Archbishop Keough, Murtha served as Associate Dean of Student Life at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland (now Notre Dame of Maryland University) from 1992 to 2010. She began her employment at Seton Keough as a substitute teacher in 2010 and became a full-time religion teacher and a member of the school’s Campus Ministry Team in 2011. Murtha has periodically worked with the Archdiocese’s Division of Youth and Young Adult Ministry for over 30 years, serving in various roles related to youth retreats and other programs.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore is committed to protecting children and helping to heal victims of abuse. We urge anyone who has any knowledge of any child sexual abuse to come forward, and to report it immediately to civil authorities. If clergy or other Church personnel are suspected of committing the abuse, we ask that you also call the Archdiocesan Office of Child and Youth Protection Hotline at 1-866- 417-7469.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
WBAL

The Archdiocese of Baltimore is investigating allegations of sexual abuse of a minor against a teacher at Seton Keough High School in Baltimore.

The alleged abuse took place in the 1980’s.

The Archdiocese identifies the teacher as Helene Murtha, who has been informed of allegations and has admitted to them.

The alleged abuse took place while Murtha taught at what was then known as Archbishop Keough High School.

That school merged with Seton High School to become Seton Keough High School in 1987.

Murtha taught at the school from 1977-1992.

In a news release, the Archdiocese says the alleged victim said she had a series of sexual encounters at the high school, at Murtha’s home, and at the Monsignor O’Dwyer Retreat House in Sparks, where Murtha helped supervise retreats.

The statement goes on to say that Murtha also admitted to having sexual encounters with two other students while she taught at Archbishop Keough in the 1980’s.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
The Baltimore Sun

[with video]

By Jean Marbella, The Baltimore Sun
July 25, 2014

A religion teacher at Seton Keough High School has been fired after a former student alleged that she had been sexually abused by the teacher in the mid-1980s, the Archdiocese of Baltimore said Friday.

The archdiocese identified her as Helene Murtha, 58.

Attempts to reach Murtha were unsuccessful. She has not been charged in the incidents, according to online court records.

The allegations were forwarded to the Baltimore city and county police departments, archdiocesan spokesman Sean Caine said.

“We investigated it, and the suspect was not charged, based on the victim’s wishes,” said a Baltimore County police spokesman, Lt. Robert McCullough.

City police did not return calls for comment.

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NEW YORK
Post-Star

July 18, 2014

ROXBURY — The Rev. Robert H. Purcell, a former pastor of Sacred Heart Church in Margaretville, New York, who was responsible for fostering an interfaith initiative throughout the Catskill community, died Thursday, July 17, 2014.

Because of his ecumenical efforts, our region was blessed with good will and mutual respect among various religious factions. Friends enjoyed by the father were not exclusively Catholic parishioners, and his annual Passover celebrations were enormously popular.

He was 80 years old and resided in Villa Shalom in Roxbury, New York, where he had created an adoration chapel in honor of the blessed mother, to whom he held a special devotion his entire life.

Father Bob’s path to the priesthood was a circuitous one, unique from the typical calling heard by most young men.

Born April 13, 1934, to Francis J. Purcell and Aldea “Mim” Heroux, who were married July 30, 1933, in St. Joseph’s Church in Cohoes, New York, he attended and graduated from St. Joseph’s Academy in Cohoes, Christian Brothers Academy in Albany, St. Thomas Prep School in Bloomfield, Connecticut, St. Mary’s University in Baltimore, Maryland, Siena College in Loudonville, New York, Our Lady of Angels in Glenmont, New York, and St. Bonaventure University in Olean, New York.

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NEW YORK
Watershed Post

By Julia Reischel
7/24/14

In an unusual move, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany condemned an obituary and mass for a former priest who died last week as “highly insensitive” to the people he is accused of sexually abusing while he was a minister.

Former priest Robert H. Purcell, who died in the Delaware County village of Margaretville on Thursday, July 17, was permanently removed from the ministry in 2011 after an investigation by the Albany Diocese’s Sexual Misconduct Review Board into charges that he had sexually abused minors.

In its investigation, the Diocese “found reasonable grounds to believe” that Purcell sexually abused minors, including a victim in Margaretville from 1995 to 2001, according to Ken Goldfarb, the director of communications for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany, in a statement emailed to the Watershed Post today.

Purcell was removed from ministry in 2011, after the investigation. At the time, the Diocese said that it was because of an abuse allegation dating back to 1957, 17 years before he was ordained, according to the Albany Times-Union and the Oneonta Daily Star.

However, in a recent correspondence with the Watershed Post, Goldfarb confirmed that there was also a more recent charge of abuse.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

Members of Theology Faculty of St. Thomas University, St. Paul: We Need “New Leadership at the Archdiocesan Level, Leadership That Includes Individuals Who Are Neither Perpetrators Nor Enablers of Abuse”

Brian Roewe reports today that five members of the theology faculty of St. Thomas University in St. Paul, Minnesota — Cara Anthony, Corrine Carvalho, Sherry Jordon, Sue Myers and Kimberly Vrudny — have issued a call for “new leadership at the archdiocesan level, leadership that includes individuals who are neither perpetrators nor enablers of abuse.” The letter does not name specific persons in its call for new leadership, but obviously addresses the crisis of leadership in the archdiocese under its current archbishop, John Nienstedt.

Two points in the letter (as summarized by Roewe) that speak strongly to me:

We teach a tradition that proclaims a God of love who cares for the downtrodden, and we find it difficult when that biblical message is met with skepticism and resistance in our classrooms because of the behavior of clerics who abuse their positions in the church.

And:

We recognize the hypocrisy of the clergy when they judgmentally rebuke congregants for sexual behavior they deem deviant when some of them are pedophiles, and when some of them have abused their positions of power to protect child molesters.

What the five theologians tell the officials of the archdiocese in this letter brings to mind a letter I wrote to Bishop William Curlin of Charlotte on 22 October 1998. This was five years following the destruction of my career as a Catholic theologian by Belmont Abbey College, in the diocese of Charlotte. It was also following the college’s hounding of Steve out of a position, and then a purge that the monastic abbot mounted when he seized the reins of the presidency of the college, and fired a slew of gay and lesbian faculty and staff, providing specious reasons for the mass firing.

I wrote Bishop Curlin to say the following:

Many among us are appalled at the anomalies in our church today, its willingness to use insinuations about sexual orientation to destroy the careers of lay ministers while sheltering priests who molest little boys and while collecting millions of dollars from the laity to pay hush money to those who bring forth such charges. Many among us are appalled that bishops can appoint to their staff priests who are widely known to be gay, who will then willingly participate in the ugly political games their bishops play with the lives of gay persons, to advance their own ecclesiastical careers.
Such stories sicken the best among us, and cause them to withdraw from the church in anger and sadness.

This was, of course, a number of years before the story of the abuse crisis exploded in the media with the revelations that came out of the archdiocese of Boston in 2002, when legal actions opened some of the archdiocesan files about the abuse cover-up. But by the latter half of the 1990s, I had already begun to feel in my bones that something of great importance was coming down the pike vis-a-vis the cover-up of sexual abuse of minors by the Catholic hierarchy, though, as an outsider to the clerical club, I only had intimations that such abuse was occurring and was being covered-up.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
SFist

The Archdiocese of San Francisco issued a statement today using some cryptic language about a priest named John Wadeson no longer being allowed to “undertake any ministry,” due to “concerns in the community.” After a quick Google search and call to the local head of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), SFist learned that Wadeson is a twice-accused child molester who was kicked out of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in 2003.

It turns out, after two “credible” allegations of child abuse in L.A., Wadeson took off to the Archdiocese of Agana in Guam, where he worked until recently. The Guam archdiocese suspended Wadeson from ministry on July 21, 2014, at which time he was already in San Francisco.

In the statement, the Archdiocese of San Francisco claims Wadeson arrived with “assurances of good standing from his home diocese” in Guam. But according to SNAP’s Tim Lennon, Wadeson served as a guest priest under the auspices of the Archdiocese of San Francisco (see documentation here), and returned to the Bay Area to minister at least twice: In 2011, at Saint Charles Borromeo Parish (3250 18th Street), where he “danced with kids and teenagers”; and in 2008, in the city of San Carlos. Lennon says Wadeson has a home in the Excelsior District.

“Both Archdiocese in San Francisco and Guam knew he was kicked out of L.A., but they allowed him to minister,” Lennon says, adding: “The San Francisco Archdiocese has accepted at least eight other priests that have credible allegations of abuse over the last five years. That practice has to stop.”

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IRELAND
Sunday World

FR. BRIAN D’ARCY

I’VE lost count of the number of people who were shocked when Pope Francis said that one in fifty priests were child abusers.

I’ve done nothing to alleviate their shock by telling them that it’s much more than 2%.

Studies across the world repeatedly show that paedophiles in the priesthood make up between 3% and 5% of all priests. If you ask me, it’s even higher because not all abuse is reported.

When you add it all up I wouldn’t be surprised if the real number of paedophiles within the priesthood is nearer 8%.

Priest abusers are only part of the story.

The vast majority of abuse takes place within families or by neighbours. What I want to concentrate on today is the devastating and lasting effects sexual abuse has on a child.

Unless you’ve been abused yourself it is impossible to understand the devastation that happens in your life. Personally I am convinced that it’s almost impossible to live a normal life after you’ve been sexually abused.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Houston Chronicle

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Roman Catholic priest has been removed from his post in Guam over allegations that he molested two boys four decades ago while serving in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

Church officials said Friday that the Rev. John Howard Wadeson left his post in the Archdiocese of Agana on Monday after parishioners there raised concerns about his past.

A 2004 Los Angeles archdiocese report says Wadeson was credibly accused in two cases between 1973 and 1977. Wadeson was in Los Angeles between 1972 and 1985 and taught at Verbum Dei High School, an all-male Catholic school.

Wadeson has told the Guam Pacific Daily News (http://bit.ly/1xdcWAe ) that he is innocent.

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MINNESOTA
National Catholic Reporter

Brian Roewe | Jul. 25, 2014 NCR Today

Five female professors at the University of St. Thomas, in St. Paul, Minn., say it’s time for new leadership in the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese, the latest to repeat a refrain already echoed by priests, donors, news publications and Catholics in the pews.

“For genuine healing to occur, we believe it is necessary to have new leadership at the archdiocesan level, leadership that includes individuals who are neither perpetrators nor enablers of abuse,” they said in a letter shared with several media outlets, including NCR.

The tenured theology professors — Cara Anthony, Corrine Carvalho, Sherry Jordon, Sue Myers and Kimberly Vrudny — did not name specific persons, such as Archbishop John Nienstedt, in the letter, but said they see a need to restore trust in the archdiocese following the near year-long abuse scandal that has hovered over the region.

“Because we believe in a God of justice and of mercy, restoration of community requires that abusers acknowledge wrongdoing and undergo the long, hard, arduous task of reconciliation. This entails sincere contrition, public truth telling, and adequate restitution,” they said.

The group, speaking their own views, said they could not keep quiet after learning more of the abuse scandal from a recent Minnesota Public Radio documentary and from the affidavit of Jennifer Haselberger, the former chancellor for canonical affairs who has disclosed much of the documents that has fueled near-constant reports since September.

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UNITED STATES
Waiting for Godot to Leave

Kevin O’Brien

An anonymous commenter responded to my post here, with at least one question that I answered here. And yet he or she claims I’m dodging the points he or she has made.

So let me address them below:

1. Anonymous claimed that the sexual scandal in the Church is over. This was the point I responded to in my follow up post: It most emphatically is not. Bishops are still enabling sex abuse, and getting indignant when the press or the courts point this out.

2. Anonymous takes issue with the number of pedophile priests that are or have been active in the Church (reports range from 4 to 10%). But the number of abusers is not the point. The point is how the bishops continue to enable such abuse. Even if the number is half what Pope Francis suggests – i.e., only 1% – the point is not that number. The point is what should be done once a crime against a child is committed. This is what can easily be fixed, and this is what the bishops in their “knavish imbecility” continue to avoid fixing.

3. Anonymous is playing around with numbers from the John Jay Report. He or she seems to think that the only relevant number is the number of priests convicted of abuse in the court system. No one in the Church, not even the most untrustworthy bishop, would ever suggest that the number of priests who are criminally charged, much less convicted, is anything but the tiniest fraction of the number of priests who have actually abused children.

4. Anonymous seems to think I am claiming that the problem is more prevalent now than it was in the 1970’s. It’s certainly not as bad as it was then, and I don’t know how he or she got the idea I was claiming that it is.

5. Anonymous argues that SNAP is not a reliable source for information about the abuse crisis. SNAP certainly has a vested interest in this issue, but if Anonymous thinks they’re lying or fudging when it comes to the evidence, such as the documentary evidence released by dioceses, law firms and courts all over the country and readily available on the internet, he or she should compare the original source documents with what SNAP claims. Don’t believe SNAP? Don’t believe the New York Times or bishopaccountability.org? Fine. Check out the Graves Report in Kansas City, the source documents in St. Paul, the documents regarding the St. Louis cases, etc. Do a little Googling and you’ll find them. You don’t need a filter any more; you don’t need a middle man. This is the internet. Go straight to the source and find the truth. I have, and it’s very disturbing.

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UNITED STATES
Wall Street Journal

By LIAM MOLONEY and DEBORAH BALL CONNECT
July 25, 2014

ROME—Will he or won’t he?

The intense speculation over whether Pope Francis will visit the U.S. next year inched toward an answer Friday, after Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput said the pontiff will come to the city for the World Meeting of Families slated for September 2015.

“Pope Francis has told me that he is coming,” said the archbishop at a mass in North Dakota on Thursday. In March, Archbishop Chaput met with the pope at the Vatican, along with Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter and Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett.

The cleric’s comments, first reported by the Catholic News Service, ricocheted instantly Friday, underlining the fervor surrounding a possible visit by Pope Francis to the U.S.

The Vatican, which typically confirms papal visits about six months before they are due to take place, tried to contain the enthusiasm Friday. It issued a statement confirming that the pope has “indicated his willingness to participate” at the family meeting, but said that nothing had been formalized yet.

During his 16-month papacy, Pope Francis has seen no shortage of invitations to the U.S., which would be his first visit as pope. President Barack Obama invited the pope to the White House during their meeting at the Vatican in March. The pope replied, in Spanish, “certainly”—a response that instantly set the U.S. Catholic media abuzz

House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio), who is a Catholic, invited Pope Francis to address a joint session of Congress, while United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in May invited the pontiff during a Vatican meeting. New York City Bill de Blasio extended yet another invite when he met with Vatican officials during his vacation in Italy this week.

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PHILADLEPHIA (PA)
U.S. Catholic

By David Gibson
Religion News Service

(RNS) It’s been the worst-kept secret in Christendom, but this week Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput gave the strongest indication yet that Pope Francis will visit Philadelphia next year.

“Pope Francis has told me that he is coming,” Chaput said Thursday (July 25) before delivering a homily at a Mass in Fargo, N.D.

Chaput, a member of the Prairie Band Potawatomi tribe, was in Fargo for a conference on Native Americans and invited his fellow Native Americans to the Eighth World Meeting of Families, set to take place in Philadelphia from Sept. 22-27, 2015.

“The pope will be with us the Friday, Saturday and Sunday of that week,” Chaput said, according to Catholic News Service. That would be Sept. 25-27.

Only the Vatican can officially confirm a papal visit, and such an announcement is not expected until six months or so before the visit. …

Also, in 2012, the Knights of Columbus, a leading Catholic charitable organization, donated $1 million to the archdiocese as a down payment on the enormous costs of the visit.

The money is key: Philadelphia has been hit hard by legal fees and settlements from the clergy sex abuse scandal, and declines in churchgoing and contributions have forced Chaput to make painful cutbacks to programs and to close parishes. It was unrealistic to expect the cash-strapped archdiocese to foot the bill for the trip.

The real question now may be where else the pontiff will visit: New York? Washington? Maybe even the border with Mexico to make a statement on immigration?

All three venues are possible, even likely.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philly.com

EMILY BABAY, PHILLY.COM
LAST UPDATED: Friday, July 25, 2014

Archbishop Charles Chaput told a North Dakota audience Thursday that Pope Francis had assured him he will visit Philadelphia for three days next year, and the Vatican seemed to confirm it, but the Archdiocese of Philadelphia insisted Friday that Chaput’s remarks were off-the-cuff and unofficial.

“There has been no official confirmation by the Vatican or The Holy See of Pope Francis’ attendance at the 2015 World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia,” communications director Kennet Gavin said in a statement Friday Morning.

However, Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi on Friday said Francis had expressed “his willingness to participate” in the triennial World Meeting, which is scheduled for September 22-27 of next year.

The international gathering is expected to draw about 300,000 visitors a day for its conferences promoting traditional family values and Catholic teachings. But but a visit by the pope to say Mass — traditionally scheduled for the final day — would likely draw more than a million.

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ALABAMA
AL.com

[the lawsuit]

By Kelly Kazek | kkazek@al.com
on July 25, 2014

COLBERT COUNTY, Alabama – A man who says he was a victim of Jeffrey Dale Eddie, a pastor convicted of sex abuse in March, is suing the Colbert County Church that employed Eddie as a children’s minister.

According to the lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court, the unnamed victim named as defendants Eddie, Highland Park Baptist Church and Loving the Shoals United Appeal Fund, Inc., a non-profit group affiliated with the church. The suit claims church administrators waited 10 days after learning of the allegations of abuse before reporting them to authorities. The suit also claims the church is still paying salary and benefits to Eddie. No one was available at the church to answer questions this morning.

Eddie, 41, pleaded guilty in Colbert County Circuit Court to 36 counts of sex abuse and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Multiple victims came forward, authorities said.

The victim who filed the lawsuit, who is not named, says he was 11 years old when his abuse by Eddie began in 2001. The alleged victim says Eddie repeatedly touched him inappropriately until 2013. The incidents occurred at church events.

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UNITED STATES
Christian News Wire

Contact: Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, 212-371-3191, pr@catholicleague.org

NEW YORK, July 25, 2014 /Christian Newswire/ — Bill Donohue comments on Jennifer Haselberger, the prime source of accusations against St. Paul and Minneapolis Archbishop John Nienstedt:

The most viciously anti-Catholic group in the nation is the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP). On August 1, it will celebrate its 25th anniversary at a Chicago conference. Jennifer Haselberger will be one of its featured speakers. This gives her a chance to reunite with David Clohessy, the anti-Catholic head of SNAP; they were both speakers at a 2003 conference sponsored by Rent-A-Priest (priests who left to marry).

She grew up Catholic, but quickly turned against the Church. According to her father, “after Jennifer was confirmed…she declared that she’d had enough and was never going to church again.” But she did. Indeed, she went to St. Catherine University. That’s where she met her mentor, Anne Maloney, known as “an outspoken Catholic feminist.” That influence was evident in Haselberger’s 2002 article in The American Feminist where she bemoaned the income disparity between men and women. More recently, she claimed that the Archdiocese wasn’t paying her enough, even though she was paid more than all the male canon lawyers in the organization.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Ryle Dwyer

An arrogant Church hierarchy has a long history of scapegoating and trying to cover up serious scandals, says Ryle Dwyer

RECENT revelations about the mother-and-baby home at Tuam — where 796 children died between 1925 and 1961 — shocked people, but few seemed surprised, because there had already been so many shocking revelations about abuse in Church-run institutions. Indeed, comparisons are being made with Nazi Germany.

During the Second World War John Betjeman, the British press attaché in Dublin, depicted the Catholic hierarchy as the real power in Ireland. “We should bother less about relations, good or bad, with the Government and more with relations with the Catholic Church,” he wrote in March 1943.

The same month Roland Blenner-Hassett, one of three undercover agents stationed to Ireland by the Office of Strategic Services —the wartime forerunner of the American Central Intelligence Agency — depicted the hierarchy as essentially fascist in outlook. He thought this posed a threat because Irish censorship had been so rigid that Irish people had little understanding of the true nature of fascism.

“I am convinced that what the Irish Church hopes to see as the outcome of this war is the military defeat of the Axis, followed by peace between the Allies and semi-authoritarian regimes in Italy and Germany,” Blenner-Hassett wrote. He went on to suggest that the Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, could cause trouble over partition unless Irish neutrality was essentially discredited in the US.

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MISSOURI
The Raw Story

By Travis Gettys
Friday, July 25, 2014

A sex abuse victim has sued a Missouri church that hired a convicted sex offender and allowed him to supervise children.

The suit claims officials with First Presbyterian Church of Fulton knew that Jack Wayne Rogers had been previously convicted on child pornography charges when they hired him as a lay minister but still placed him “in direct authority over minor children.”

Kristopher Schondelmeyer, who is now 30, said Rogers sexually abused him in 2000 during a Connection 2000 Youth Conference in Maryland, while the former Boy Scout leader accompanied him and several other teens from Presbyterian churches.

The suit claims Schondelmeyer and his family were taught by the church to trust and obey Rogers in his role as lay minister and chaperone, reported the Fulton Sun.

The lawsuit also names as defendants several national and regional Presbyterian groups, as well as Rogers and Bruce Berry, who appointed the sex offender as lay minister at the Presbyterian Church of Bellflower, California.

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CHILE
Diocesis de Copiapo’

El Obispado de Copiapó siente el deber de comunicar a la comunidad eclesial y a la opinión pública que la Congregación para el Clero de la Santa Sede, después de estudiar atentamente todos los antecedentes respectivos a la situación del sacerdote Casiano Rojas Viera, ha determinado –según las facultades especiales recibidas del Santo Padre el Papa – imponer de manera definitiva e inapelable la pena de dimisión del ministerio sacerdotal de dicho presbítero.

Las investigaciones seguidas al ahora ex sacerdote, se iniciaron a comienzos de 2012 bajo las indicaciones de la Santa Sede, para verificar diversas denuncias realizadas de forma responsable ante la autoridad eclesiástica. Cabe señalar que en el transcurso de este proceso el inculpado optó por no colaborar con las investigaciones; y, luego, en septiembre de 2012, se le impuso la prohibición de ejercer el ministerio como medida cautelar. Además hay que dejar constancia de que el ex sacerdote Rojas Viera se negó a solicitar formalmente la dispensa pontificia.

En reciente respuesta, la Congregación para el Clero ha comunicado al Obispo de Copiapó la resolución emanada de ese Dicasterio, en el que establece la comprobación de conductas abusivas con mayores y con un menor de edad, además de otros delitos graves, cometidos por el P. Casiano en el ejercicio de su ministerio.

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CHILE
Terra

[Summary: Two Chilean priest have been expelled from the Catholic Church after being accused of sexual abuse of adults and a child, according to the Copiapo diocese. Casiano Rojas Viera and Daniel Aurelio Pauvif Rojas were expelled by the Vatican according to two separate announcements published Thursday night on the diocese web site.]

Dos sacerdotes chilenos fueron expulsados de la Iglesia acusados de perpetuar abusos sexuales contra mayores y un menor de edad, informó el obispado de la ciudad chilena de Copiapó (800 kilómetros norte de Santiago).

La institución anunció la decisión de expulsar a los sacerdotes Casiano Rojas Viera y Daniel Aurelio Pauvif Rojas en sendos comunicados publicados por separado en su página web el jueves por la noche.

Las investigaciones contra los sacerdotes se iniciaron en 2012 y a ambos se les impuso la prohibición de ejercer su oficio de manera cautelar.

En el caso de Daniel Pauvif Rojas, las actas de la investigación preliminar y las del procedimiento canónico posterior consideraron “suficientemente probados los cargos presentados” contra él, calificados como “gravemente contrarios a la santidad sacerdotal, cometidos con mayores de edad y que han lesionado gravemente a la comunión eclesial”.

Como consecuencia, “la Congregación para el Clero ha determinado, de manera definitiva e inapelable imponer al Pbro. Daniel Pauvif la pena de expulsión del estado clerical”, lo que implica que no puede ejercer ministerio sacerdotal y “pierde todo oficio eclesiástico”.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Lancaster Online

By BRETT HAMBRIGHT | Staff Writer

A former local pastor and junior-high basketball coach has admitted to repeated sexual abuse of a 13-year-old boy.

Jonathan Masteller, 24, pleaded guilty Thursday to numerous felonies regarding the abuse which happened in 2012 and 2013 at his home in Kinzers.

He faces a mandatory 10-year prison term at sentencing, but the judge has the option of running up to 11 other charges consecutive to that term.

Masteller, in prison on $250,000 bail, will be sentenced after a background check is completed in about two months.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Courier-Post

Jim Walsh, Cherry Hill July 25, 2014

Pope Francis is expected to visit Philadelphia during a Catholic gathering next year, the Diocese of Trenton said in a statement today.

The Pope’s will come to the South Jersey-Philadelphia area for the World Meeting of Families from Sept. 22-27, 2015, the diocese said in a statement.

Bishop David O’Connell, leader of the Trenton diocese, said he was “delighted to learn that Pope Francis has expressed his intention to attend the World Meeting of Families.”

O’Connell initially issued a statement saying the Pope had confirmed plans for a Philadelphia visit. He later clarified his language to say Francis “is expected to be present.”

The Philadelphia Archdiocese, while expressing “sincere hope” for a papal visit, said Friday it has not yet received “official confirmation” from the Vatican.

“We still expect that any official confirmation will come approximately six months prior to the event,” the statement said.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadlephia

July 25, 2014

There has been no official confirmation by the Vatican or The Holy See of Pope Francis’ attendance at the 2015 World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia. We still expect that any official confirmation will come approximately six months prior to the event.

Archbishop Chaput has frequently shared his confidence in Pope Francis’ attendance at the World Meeting and his personal conversations with the Holy Father are the foundation for that confidence. We are further heartened and excited by the comments of the Vatican Press Office regarding Pope Francis’ “willingness to participate in the World Meeting of Families.” While Archbishop Chaput’s comments do not serve as official confirmation, they do serve to bolster our sincere hope that Philadelphia will welcome Pope Francis next September.

# # #

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

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
NPR

by SCOTT NEUMAN
July 25, 2014

Pope Francis has accepted an invitation to visit Philadelphia in Sept. 2015, a trip that would mark his first to the U.S. as pontiff.

Catholic News Service quotes Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi as saying that the Pope has expressed “his willingness to participate in the World Meeting of Families” in Philadelphia and that he’s also received invitations to visit New York, the United Nations and Washington, D.C., which he’s considering.

Time magazine notes: “The Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family sponsors the World Meeting of Families every three years in a different city. The upcoming gathering is still more than a year away, and Pope Francis is likely to push for more activity on the issues of family and marriage before then — at least if his workrate continues at its current pace.”

In March, a CBS News poll showed that Francis, who at that point had been pope for just a year, was more popular among U.S. Catholics than either of his predecessors, Benedict XVI or John Paul II, at the same point in their papacies.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — According to a report, Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput has confirmed that Pope Francis will be coming to Philadelphia for the World Meeting of Families in 2015.
A Catholic News Services article says that Pope Francis has accepted Archbishop Chaput’s invitation to attend the event to be held in Philadelphia in September 2015.

Despite the Catholic News Services article, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia released the following statement:

“There has been no official confirmation by the Vatican or The Holy See of Pope Francis’ attendance at the 2015 World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia. We still expect that any official confirmation will come approximately six months prior to the event.

Archbishop Chaput has frequently shared his confidence in Pope Francis’ attendance at the World Meeting and his personal conversations with the Holy Father are the foundation for that confidence. We are further heartened and excited by the comments of the Vatican Press Office regarding Pope Francis’ “willingness to participate in the World Meeting of Families.” While Archbishop Chaput’s comments do not serve as official confirmation, they do serve to bolster our sincere hope that Philadelphia will welcome Pope Francis next September.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, July 25, 2014

Statement by Barbara Blaine of Chicago, Founder and President of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 312-399-4747, SNAPblaine@gmail.com )

It’s now confirmed: Pope Francis will visit Philadelphia – and maybe other North American cities – next year.

He’s done little or nothing substantial to protect kids and expose cover ups. So we hope that when he comes here, U.S. Catholics and citizens will grill him about the on-going, horrific child sex abuse and cover up crisis. We hope they will insist that he stop making apologies and start taking action, that he stop asking forgiveness and start firing enablers, that he stop shifting blame and start “outing” predators, that he stop making excuses and start making change.

In few countries on earth have so many wounded victims been stepping forward and have so many upset Catholics been pressing for reform for so long. If there’s anywhere on earth that Francis should face tough questions about his refusal to take tangible steps to prevent clergy sex crimes, it’s here.

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UNITED STATES
GlobalPost

Jason Berry

The complex story unveiled by MPR this week offers a clear look of Catholic clergy coverup of sex abuse

As Pope Francis’s confessional apology to clergy abuse survivors in Rome made global headlines in early July, Minnesota Public Radio was reporting on a scandal surrounding St. Paul Archbishop John Nienstedt.

The pope’s remark, “All bishops must carry out their pastoral ministry with the utmost care in order to help foster the protection of minors, and they will be held accountable,” soon receded from the 24/7 news cycle.

But Nienstedt’s reported behavior, and that of his predecessor, Harry Flynn, beg the lingering question of how Francis will hold bishops accountable.

Many dioceses have instituted safe-touch training for teachers and students. Bishops have removed scores of perpetrators who were never prosecuted. But the “zero tolerance” plank in the US bishops’ 2002 youth protection charter rests on voluntary compliance.

That flaw fueled the MPR investigation under lead reporter Madeleine Baran and producer Sasha Aslanian. The radio series explores how past mistakes become time bombs. Various reports were edited into in a one-hour documentary.

A lengthy web narrative, “Betrayed by Silence: A Story in Four Chapters,” based on the radio series, details the scope of coverage:

For decades, the archbishops who led the Catholic archdiocese in the Twin Cities maintained that they were doing everything they could to protect children from priests who wanted to rape them.

Reporters picked up those assurances and repeated them without question. Police and prosecutors took the assurances at face value. Parents believed the assurances and trusted priests with their children.

But the assurances were a lie, and the archbishops knew it. Three of them — John Roach, Harry Flynn and John Nienstedt — participated in a cover-up that pitted the finances and power of the church against the victims who dared to come forward and tell their stories.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

The government must find someone to lead its probe into historical child abuse allegations immediately, a children’s charity has said.

Barnardo’s urged ministers to act after fresh claims of an abuse “cover-up”.

Baroness Butler-Sloss stood down as head of an overarching inquiry nearly a fortnight ago amid concerns about her family links with the establishment.

Home Secretary Theresa May then said a new chairman and inquiry panel would be announced “as soon as possible”.

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ALABAMA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, July 25, 2014

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 314-566-9790 cell, SNAPclohessy@aol.com )

A victim of a former children’s minister from Alabama, who pleaded guilty to child sex crimes, is now suing his perpetrator and the church. We applaud this man’s bravery for working to hold not just the perpetrator, but also those who should have been supervising, responsible.

Jeffery Dale Eddie was the children’s minister at Highland Park Baptist Church, where he admitted to sexually abusing a child there. Church officials at Highland Park Baptist church hired Eddie and allowed him to work with children and presumably did nothing to protect children. They should be held accountable and we are grateful to the brave victim for doing so.

We are also grateful to the brave whistleblower that altered authorities. It is through the brave actions of whistleblowers and victims that keeps dangerous predators away from children. We hope this lawsuit will give courage to anyone who may have seen, suspects, or suffered sexual abuse to call authorities and will motivate other officials to be vigilant about child sex crimes.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, July 24, 2014

Statement by Tim Lennon of San Francisco, SNAP Leader, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (415-312-5820, sflennon@gmail.com)

The Los Angeles Archdiocese evidently believes that Fr. John Wadeson is a credibly accused child molester. A decade ago, they listed him as an “accused” priest. We see no evidence that they’ve changed their minds or are even reconsidering.

And the Guam archdiocese suspended Fr. Wadeson this week. The Archdiocese of Agana announced Tuesday that Apuron has removed Wadeson from “active and public ministry” in response to “concerns in the community.” “The Archdiocese of Agana has a policy regarding sexual misconduct and sexual harassment and takes these matters seriously,” the local archdiocese stated.

But Provincial Fr. Tom Ascheman says that “the allegation was never substantiated, no formal accusation was ever made, and no settlement was offered, or made.”

So we fear that Fr. Wadeson may soon be back on the job here in San Francisco among unsuspecting colleagues, neighbors and families.

The archdioceses of Los Angeles and Guam are acting responsibly. The Archdiocese of San Francisco is acting irresponsibly. Fr. Wadeson should not be allowed to work as a priest here. If he’s already doing so, we urge Archbishop Salvatore Joseph Cordileone to suspend him.

Reluctantly and belatedly, under tremendous pressure, Los Angles Catholic officials have publicly released the names of hundreds of proven, admitted and credibly accused predator priests. As best we can tell, they’ve never gone backwards and said “We were wrong about this guy. We should have never listed him as ‘accused.’”

In fact, we don’t know of a single Catholic official on the planet who has disclosed child sex abuse allegations against a priest who has later said “Oops, I made a mistake. I shouldn’t have done that.”

At least four church officials must step up here, tell the truth and warn others about Fr. Wadeson.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
National Catholic Reporter

Nancy Wiechec Catholic News Service | Jul. 25, 2014

FARGO, N.D. Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput said Pope Francis has accepted his invitation to attend the World Meeting of Families in the U.S. next year.

Chaput made the announcement Thursday before giving his homily during the opening Mass of the Tekakwitha Conference in Fargo.

“Pope Francis has told me that he is coming,” said the archbishop as he invited his fellow Native Americans to the 2015 celebration being held in Philadelphia Sept. 22-27.

“The pope will be with us the Friday, Saturday and Sunday of that week,” he said.

Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, said Friday that Pope Francis has expressed “his willingness to participate in the World Meeting of Families” in Philadelphia, and has received invitations to visit other cities as well, which he is considering. Those invitations include New York, the United Nations and Washington.

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AUSTRALIEN
Deutsche Welle

Die Vergehen, die Max Davis zur Last gelegt werden, liegen 45 Jahre zurück: Vor seiner Priesterweihe soll er als Lehrer ein Kind unter 14 Jahren mehrfach sexuell missbraucht haben. Der 68-Jährige weist die Anschuldigungen zurück. Im Zuge der Ermittlungen legte er aber sein Amt als Militärbischof nieder, zumindest solange der Fall vor Gericht anhängig ist.

Lange hüllte die katholische Kirche einen Deckmantel des Schweigens über sexuellen Missbrauch durch Geistliche. Erst Mitte der 1990er Jahre löste der Fall eines irischen Priesters, der 40 Jahre lang Kinder misshandelt und sexuell missbraucht hatte, eine weltweite Enthüllungswelle aus: In den USA brachte das Buch “A Gospel of Shame” zahlreiche Missbrauchsfälle in der katholischen Kirche ans Tageslicht. In Deutschland erregte vor allem der milde Umgang der Amtskirche mit verurteilten Priestern die Gemüter: Mehrere Geistliche waren nach ihrer Haftstrafe in andere Pfarreien versetzt worden. Im Jahr 1995 leitete die Staatsanwaltschaft Kassel Ermittlungsverfahren gegen zwei Bischöfe ein, die solche Versetzungen jahrelang unterschrieben hatten – die Verfahren wurden jedoch wegen geringer Schuld wieder eingestellt.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Sex abuse victims seek help from archbishop
“Don’t let pedophile priest work here,” they plead
Years ago, twice-accused cleric was ousted from LA
This week, group caught him working on Pacific island
SNAP: “Now, he’s reportedly returning to the Bay Area”
Group discloses 8 other predators who have been sent here

WHAT
Holding signs and photos of themselves at the age they were abused, a support group for clergy sex abuse victims will urge the Bay Area’s Catholic archbishop to:

— Forbid an abusive priest who has been ousted from two dioceses from working here,
— Reach out to all parishes where the priest worked to seek survivors, and
— Put the cleric in a secure treatment facility, where he can have no access to children.

The group will also make public a list of eight other proven, admitted or credibly accused child molesting clerics who have been sent to the San Francisco area from other states or regions.

WHERE
Outside of Archdiocese of San Francisco headautarters (“chancery”), One Peter Yorke Way in San Francisco

WHEN
Thursday, July 24 at 1:30 p.m.

WHO
Three-four men and women who are members of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPNetwork.org), the nation’s largest and oldest support group for men and women abused in religious and institutional settings.

WHY
On Tuesday, Guam’s archbishop removed Fr. John H. Wadeson from ministry when SNAP publicly exposed that he has been accused of abusing kids twice and has been banned from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. He reportedly molested two kids there in the 1970s.

According to news accounts from Guam, Fr. Wadeson is allegedly on his way to the Bay area, where he has worked in the past at the Neocatechumenal Center in San Francisco.

It is rumored that he may have “faculties,” which would enable him to keep working as a priest. A youtube video shows him in active ministry in 2011 with teens and children at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church (713 South Van Ness Ave. in San Francisco, 415-824-1700). (he is in the video at 2:50)

After Fr. Wadeson was suspended from his position in Guam, he publicly said that the allegations against him “false” and “viciousness.’ Victims worry that Fr. Wadeson’s comments show that he has no understanding of his past and is an even greater risk to children.

SNAP wants Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone to ensure that a twice accused predator priest is not allowed to present himself as a priest when he arrives in the archdiocese. They fear that people in San Francisco are unaware of the cleric’s past and that he may be a threat to local children. They want to ensure that Fr. Wadeson is not allowed to act as a priest in ANY diocese and that he has no access to kids.

The San Francisco Archdiocese’s provincial superior, Fr. Thomas Ascheman, has written that “the allegation was never substantiated, no formal accusation was ever made, and no settlement was offered, or made.” SNAP counters by noting that the LA archdiocese kicked Fr. Wadeson out a decade ago and posted his name as an “accused” priest on its website (where it remains today). Neither step is taken lightly by Catholic officials, SNAP maintains. Ignoring credibly child sex abuse reports and letting predator priests go elsewhere and work among unsuspecting parishes violates the US bishops’ national abuse policy, SNAP contends.

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IRELAND
The Tablet

Calls for Cardinal Brady’s resignation after victim’s book reveals role in cover-up of priest’s abuse

25 July 2014 by Sarah Mac Donald

Survivors of sexual abuse have called for the resignation of the Primate of All Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady after a new book revealed details of his role in the cover-up concerning a priest who inflicted horrific abuse on an altar server.

The evidence appears in a memoir, Sworn to Secrecy, published this week by Brendan Boland, who was abused by Fr Brendan Smyth for three years in the 1970s. The book reproduces for the first time the oath of secrecy which the 14-year-old was made to sign and which the then Fr John Brady countersigned. Fr Brady – who went on to become the Archbishop of Armagh and Ireland’s Primate – acted as notary for a secret canonical inquiry into Smith’s abuse of Brendan Boland.

Mr Boland acquired the transcripts through legal discovery procedures when he took a High Court action against the Archdiocese of Armagh and Cardinal Brady. They reveal the invasive questions the 14-year-old was asked during the inquiry, including whether he had participated in similar sexual activities with other boys or men.

Mr Boland told The Tablet that he would like Cardinal Brady to read his book. “He might go away and reflect on it and consider whether, in the light of his role in the events described, he should retire in the normal fashion, or resign,” he said.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (article updated 25 July 2014)

The Catholic Bishop of the Australian Defence Force appeared in court on 25 July 2014, charged by police with a child-sex offence dating back to 1969. Bishop Max Davis, now 68, is believed to be the most senior Catholic clergyman (and the first bishop) to be charged by Australian police with a child-sex offence.

In the Perth District Court, West Australian Police alleged that Max Leroy Davis indecently dealt with a 13-year-old boy while teaching at St Benedict’s College in New Norcia, north of Perth, W.A., in 1969.

Davis is charged with three counts of unlawfully and indecently dealing with a child aged under 14.

At the time of the alleged abuse, in 1969, Davis was preparing for the priesthood but had not yet reached the stage of being formally ordained.

In court, Davis’s lawyer indicated that his client will plead not guilty to the three charges. The lawyer indicated that the charges would ultimately need to be dealt with by a judge in a higher court, the West Australian District Court.

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IRELAND
The Journal

THE NEWS OF director Louis Lentin’s passing today was met with sadness in the arts world.

An important figure in television, film and theatre, the former Head of RTÉ Drama, is also remembered for the role he played in unveiling the cloak of secrecy around Ireland’s dark past.

His work opened a conversation on the residential institution abuse and broke the silence in which its victims suffered and had suffocated in for decades.

With his February 1996 documentary about the life of Christine Buckley, he revealed the extent of the atrocities that occurred at just one industrial school – Goldenbridge – but it moved the earth, creating an avalanche of information, testimonials and confessions.

Dear Daughter was the first television exposure of the horrific abuse of hundreds of children in Ireland’s industrial schools and it was Buckley’s courage to tell, retell and tell again her story that eventually pushed the truth onto the front pages and into television bulletins.

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GENEVA
Expatica

Ireland must launch a wide-ranging, independent probe into the past abuse of women and children in state and Catholic Church-run institutions, a UN rights watchdog said Thursday.

“Very important steps have been taken by the Irish government,” said Cees Flinterman, deputy chairman of the UN Human Rights Committee.

“But what is lacking is an independent, thorough investigation which would lead to bringing those who perpetrated those acts to justice,” he told reporters.

Ireland has been rocked by scandals over abuse in children’s homes and institutions for unmarried mothers that were mainly run by the Roman Catholic Church for the state.

Several inquiries have been undertaken or are in the pipeline, but the UN committee said it was time for an overarching effort to deal with past ills.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Evelyn Ring
Irish Examiner Reporter

Minister of State for Justice and Equality Aodhán Ríordán is to bring a damning United Nations’ report on Ireland’s human rights record to the “heart of the Oireachtas”.

He admitted that, while he agreed with many of the recommendations, he could not pretend to agree with all of them.

“This conversation belongs in the heart of the Oireachtas,” he said at a press conference in Dublin yesterday organised by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL).

“We have to start talking on a deeper and more profound level on the type of country we want to live in so there isn’t people who look and sound just like me who are always at the microphone and always making decisions,” he said.

The ICCL welcomed the call by the UN’s top human rights experts for constitutional reform on abortion, as well as prompt, independent and thorough investigations into the abuses perpetrated on survivors of the Magdalene laundries and of the barbaric surgical practice of symphysiotomy.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Claire O’Sullivan
Irish Examiner Reporter

Half of the women at one Magdalene laundry in the 1950s and 1960s never left the institution again but died years later behind the convent walls, according to research which strongly contradicts the Martin McAleese report.

A founding member of Justice for Magdalenes (JFM) and the Adoptions Rights Alliance, Claire McGettrick, is due to speak at the Mother Jones Festival in Cork next week where she will discuss her concerns about the narrative adopted in the McAleese study into state involvement in the laundries.

“JFM research has found that 50% of the women who were resident at the Donnybrook laundry between 1954 and 1964 remained there until their death, never seeing freedom,” said Ms McGettrick.

“Similar research at Hyde Park laundry has revealed that 30% of the women resident at the laundry between 1954 and 1964 also remained under the care of the nuns until they died.”

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AUSTRALIA
Perth Now

AAP

Max Davis, first Australian bishop charged with child sex offence, in court over charge dating back to 1969 in New Norcia

THE head of the Catholic Church’s military diocese has briefly appeared in court charged with child sex offences dating back to 1969.

West Australian Police allege Bishop Max Davis, 68, indecently assaulted a 13-year-old boy while he was teaching at St Benedict’s College in New Norcia, northeast of Perth.

It is understood he is the first Australian bishop and the most senior Australian church official to be charged with a child sex offence.

He has been charged with three counts of indecently dealing with children aged under 14. Davis, who now lives in the ACT, was not an ordained priest when the incident is alleged to have occurred, and he emphatically denies the charge.

On Friday in the Perth Magistrates Court, Davis’ lawyer requested that his client not be required to turn up in person at his next appearance on October 17 and any other date that his presence was not essential because he resided in Canberra.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

ABC

BY REBECCA TRIGGER
July 25, 2014

The Catholic Bishop of the Australian Defence Force is to plead not guilty to child sexual offences dating back 45 years, a Perth court has been told.

Bishop Max Leroy Davis is accused of abusing a student at St Benedict’s College at New Norcia, north-east of Perth, in 1969.

He was a teacher there at the time, and the offences allegedly occurred two years before he was ordained.

Davis is believed to be the most senior clergyman in the Catholic Church in Australia, and the first bishop to be charged with a child sexual offence.

He held the senior post of Bishop for the Australian Catholic Defence Diocese, but has since stood aside from the role.

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AUSTRALIA
The West Australian

AMANDA BANKS LEGAL AFFAIRS EDITOR The West Australian
July 25, 2014

A Catholic bishop will plead not guilty to charges alleging he sexually abused a child in New Norcia more than four decades ago.

Max Leroy Davis appeared in the Perth Magistrate’s Court this morning facing three counts of unlawfully and indecently dealing with a child aged under 14.

Defence lawyer Seamus Rafferty told the court that Bishop Davis would be entering pleas of not guilty and the charges would need to be dealt with in the District Court.

Magistrate Paul Heaney granted Mr Rafferty’s request for Bishop Davis to report to a police station in Canberra, where he lives, at his next court date and be excused from attending in person.

The 68-year-old, who is Bishop of the Australian Defence Force, is believed to be the most senior church official to be charged with a sex offence.

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MAINE
The Washington Times

[with video]

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) – Maine’s Catholic churches are selling off properties as the Diocese of Portland grapples with declining church attendance and a surplus of under-utilized buildings.

Parishes in the diocese have more than 20 churches, convents, rectories and schools on the market. Church leaders said a dozen properties in the diocese have sold for a total of more than $2.4 million since the beginning of 2013.

The sales come at a time when Catholic church attendance in the state is falling. The diocese counts 193,392 Catholics in Maine, a decline of nearly 30 percent from 30 years ago, but still the largest religious denomination in the state.

Some of the sold churches are nearly as old as the diocese itself, which began in 1853. Father James Lafontaine, pastor of Our Lady of Hope Parish in Portland, said the need to sell churches is hard for parishioners, who associate the buildings with generations of baptisms, weddings, and funerals.

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ALABAMA
WHNT

[with video]

JULY 24, 2014, BY JOHNY FERNANDEZ

COLBERT COUNTY, Ala. (WHNT) – The Colbert County church that employed Jeffrey Dale Eddie is facing a lawsuit. The defendants in the suit are Jeffrey Dale Eddie, Highland Park Baptist Church, and Loving the Shoals United Appeal Fund, Inc., a non-for profit organization connected to the church.

Eddie used to be the children’s pastor. He pleaded guilty to sex abuse and sodomy charges earlier this year.

The 13-page lawsuit was filed Tuesday afternoon in federal court. The lawsuit against Eddie and the church is from a person who says Eddie began sexually abusing him in 2001.

At the time, the plaintiff was 11 years old. The suit states the abuse continued through November 2013. It also states the church provided little oversight, monitoring or supervision to Eddie as children’s pastor.

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UNITED STATES
Harper’s

Is the new Vatican all talk?

By Mary Gordon

A year ago this month, Pope Francis gave a long interview to Antonio Spadaro, the editor in chief of an Italian Jesuit journal called La Civiltà Cattolica. Francis was just a few months into his papacy at the time, and the interview — published simultaneously by more than a dozen Jesuit outlets — was for many people around the world their introduction to the first Latin-American pontiff. The interview is long and complex, but a few words were quoted everywhere. “We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods,” Francis told Spadaro. “When we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the Church . . . is clear and I am a son of the Church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.”

This may not sound like much — it was, after all, a shift in emphasis, not in doctrine — but coupled with subsequent statements about the evil of inequality, the pope’s words suggested the possibility of a new era for the Church, one in which economic justice would take precedence over divisive social issues. Perhaps the most important change was tonal: the punitive, absolutist cadences of John Paul II and Benedict XVI had been replaced by gentle, openhearted language. Progressives both in the Church and outside it celebrated the development. Suddenly, the world had a new apostolic heartthrob: Francis was Time magazine’s Person of the Year and the cover boy for Rolling Stone.

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UNITED STATES
Commonweal

Mollie Wilson O’Reilly July 24, 2014

In my column last month, I asked, “Why hasn’t Pope Francis stepped in to get the Vatican off the nuns’ backs” and revoke the CDF’s mandate to reform the LCWR? “If Francis really wants a less authoritarian, more mission-focused church,” I wrote, “shouldn’t he have called this whole thing off already?”

Mary Gordon asks a similar question in the August issue of Harper’s, in an essay titled “Francis and the Nuns.” It’s a strong piece of writing and a very good summary of the tensions between U.S. sisters and the Vatican. Harper’s readers will be well caught up on where things stand and how they got that way. And the piece ends with an interview with Simone Campbell, SSS, that gives a personal dimension to the way she and her fellow sisters from LCWR congregations have responded to the scrutiny and censure directed their way from Rome.

But when it comes to the Francis angle, Gordon’s analysis is less solid. That’s because there simply isn’t much to go on. “Is the new Vatican all talk?” the essay’s subhed asks. But on this subject Francis has hardly talked at all, so that anyone who wants to build a case for or against him has to resort to reading tea leaves. And silence has many interpretations, after all.

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LOUISIANA
World Magazine

By DAVE SWAVELY
Issue: “Border gridlock,” Aug. 9, 2014
Posted July 25, 2014

In the New Testament, Jesus and Paul repeatedly warn that adding to the Scriptures would create more problems than it solves (e.g., Mark 7:6-13; 1 Corinthians 4:3-6). An unprecedented recent ruling by the Louisiana Supreme Court illustrates this danger.

The ruling revives a lawsuit that contends a priest should have reported allegations of sexual abuse disclosed to him during private confessions, and opens the door for a judge to call the priest to testify about what he was told. The lawsuit was filed by parents of a teen who says she told the priest about being kissed and fondled by an adult church parishioner.

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UNITED STATES
Spiritual Sounding Board

Sometimes things simmer just under my surface for a while until they erupt and I can’t ignore them anymore. I grew up in the Baptist church (SBC) even though I left that church about two decades ago. My parents are still Baptist, as are many of my friends. I still care about issues within the Baptist church, so when I hear a highly-respected leader within the SBC make a statement that is absolutely false and hurts victims who are still healing from past abuse within churches, my heart breaks, and then I realize that I’m very, very angry.

Dr. Albert Mohler is president of the flagship Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Recently, Dr. Mohler participated in a panel discussion at the 2014 Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting. He has been criticized for supporting the embattled former head of Sovereign Grace Ministries, C.J. Mahaney, under whose leadership at least one pastor admittedly failed to report sexual abuse committed by a fellow pastor. In the panel discussion, Dr. Mohler told pastors to call 911 at the first knowledge of any sexual abuse. Good advice, but he should have stopped while he was ahead.

You can watch Mohler’s comments on a video at this link. The comments on sexual abuse start at 55.50. Even though I find it inconceivable that anyone needs to instruct clergy to call 911 upon learning about child abuse of any kind, I was happy to hear Dr. Mohler make the point so strongly. But then, he kept talking, and I began to wonder what his real motivation was for making that strong statement:

“This [the requirement to call 911] is something that churches have had to learn,” Mohler continued. “You go back 30 years, 20 years, churches didn’t know what to do in this kind of situation. We’re in a different situation now. There’s no excuse right now for not knowing what you’re going to do before you have to do it. It is a gospel ministry stewardship imperative. Be ready to dial 911, and do so before you leave the room.” (Bold and italics are mine.)

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GUAM
KUAM

Updated: Jul 24, 2014

by Sabrina Salas Matanane

Guam – The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) continues its criticism of Archbishop Anthony Apuron, particularly his hiring of Father John Wadeson several years ago. Wadeson was twice accused of child molestation in California and was banned from the Los Angeles Archdiocese. After SNAP exposed the information, the archbishop via a press release announced he removed Father Wadeson from ministry in Guam. He did not say where or how long Wadeson was practicing locally. SNAP today in a press release states it believes Apuron’s behavior is dangerous.

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GUAM
Neocatechemunal Way – An Insider’s View

Tim Rohr is playing a different song and dance now that Father John is being followed by SNAP. Under my July 17th post “Follow What The Vatican Delegate Says,” I copied and pasted the following from Junglewatch on July 19, 2014 at 10:18 a.m. into my blog, which can be found here:

“And YOU Wadeson! And to think that just recently on this blog I stood up for you. To think that I have been filtering out comments on this blog for nearly a year about the mysterious circumstances surrounding your sudden incardination and about your name being on a certain list. And you are going to call us, and ME in particular, SATAN?”

As you can see, Tim Rohr knew about Father John’s circumstances for nearly a year. Now below is the weblink showing the database of Father John, which is now completed by SNAP. Junglewatch is on that database:

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GUAM
Pacific Islands Report

By Gaynor Dumat-ol Daleno

HAGÅTÑA, Guam (Pacific Daily News, July 24, 2014) – A day after he was stripped of authority as a Guam priest over child molestation allegations in Los Angeles, Father John Howard Wadeson has left the island.

Wadeson stated he’s been falsely accused, but decided to leave because he didn’t want the accusations against him to tarnish Archbishop Anthony Apuron.

“I was in such shock at the viciousness and lies of what was being said about me and our archbishop, whom I hold in great esteem, that I was lost for words,” Wadeson stated, in response to the Pacific Daily News’ request for comment.

“For the good of the church, I thought it best that I leave the country, albeit with a very heavy heart, so that these false accusations that are being leveled at me do not become weapons to use against our archbishop or the Church of Guam,” he stated.

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GUAM
Marianas Variety

BY JASMINE STOLE | VARIETY NEWS STAFF

Accusations of molestation aired

GROWING public concern over Rev. John Wadeson’s past prompted Archbishop Anthony Apuron to remove Wadeson from active and public ministry.

Apuron announced Wadeson’s removal in a short, two-sentence statement released yesterday.

“In response to concerns in the community regarding Father John Wadeson serving in the Archdiocese of Agana, the Archbishop has decided to remove Father Wadeson from active and public ministry at this time. The Archdiocese of Agana has a policy regarding sexual misconduct and sexual harassment and takes these matters very seriously,” the statement said.

Wadeson was accused of molesting two children in California between the years 1973 and 1977. The allegations were deemed credible by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and Wadeson was prohibited from ministering in the Los Angeles area.

Since 2000, however, Wadeson has been working in some capacity under the Archdiocese of Agana. A 2013 Archdiocese of Agana directory lists Wadeson as one of four “incardinated priests” away from the archdiocese.

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NEW YORK
Albany Times Union

Clifton Park
The case of a Roman Catholic priest charged with endangering the welfare of a minor has been adjourned until next month, Saratoga County District Attorney James Murphy III said.

He said the postponement, the second one in as many months in Clifton Park Town Court, was requested by the Rev. James Michael Taylor’s attorney, Daniel Stewart of Queensbury.

He is accused of engaging in physical contact and shared phone calls, text messages and pictures with a 15-year-old girl.

Taylor, an associate pastor at St. Kateri Tekakwitha Parish in Niskayuna whom parishioners call “Father Michael,” is on administrative leave. He allegedly met the teen when he served as a deacon and youth minister at Corpus Christi Church in Clifton Park.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Ruben Rosario
rrosario@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 07/24/2014

Last week I wrote a piece calling for Archbishop John Nienstedt to step down or be removed from his position. I will not repeat here the arguments I made. You can look up the column, which coincidentally was posted online the same day a blogger for the National Catholic Reporter also called for his resignation and a New York Times editorial urged Pope Francis to reconsider Nienstedt’s fitness to serve. But essentially, the mishandling of recent clergy abuse cases in the Twin Cities archdiocese warrants his resignation.

My reasons have nothing to do with previous allegations that he inappropriately touched a minor during a confirmation ceremony. My gut told me that was bogus, and cops later determined there was insufficient evidence to warrant charges.

There’s an internal church probe now into allegations that Nienstedt had inappropriate relationships with seminarians and others dating from the time he worked in Detroit. That also has little to do with my feelings since the investigation continues. Others within the church wanted him out after his somewhat obsessive and much-politicized crusade two years ago to support a state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

Using donated money, he signed off on an expensive campaign in 2010 to mail a DVD explaining his and the church’s views on homosexuality and same-sex marriage. The DVD was sent to 400,000 Catholic households in the state. I got one. I saw it. I don’t know where that DVD is now, but I think I tossed it. I thought Nienstedt and others of like mind in the church crossed the separation-of-church-and-state line into politicking from the pulpit.

But that wasn’t it either, though I predicted the crusade would backfire, as it did. The main reason is that the mishandlings put children and adults at risk, violated a 2002 churchwide policy on reporting abuse to authorities, and eventually led to the molestations of two St. Paul boys, reportedly one of whom went on to abuse a sister, by a parish priest already known for his sexual proclivities.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Berger’s Beat

July 23, 2014 3:15 pm | Author: berger
Just released Catholic church files show that years ago, St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson chose as his spiritual advisor a Minnesota priest who later admitted he was a sex addict. Carlson admits becoming the twice-accused child molesting cleric’s “close friend” and spiritual advisor too. The documents show that Carlson’s involvement in clergy sex cases go back to 1997. The records are available at AndersonAdvocates.com.

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NEW YORK
Times Square Chronicles

Michael Mack had a Catholic boy dream in the 1960s to become a priest when he grew up. As a young boy full of light and worship, there was nobody Mack admired more than the church pastor. But all of that changed when the man he had looked up to and trusted sexually abused him when he was 11 years old. What followed were countless years of haunting and devastating pain, until Mack finally resolved to track down his former pastor for a conversation. That is when his story takes a shocking new turn. Now, decades later, Michael Mack shares his experiences and journey on stage in his one-man act:Conversation with My Molester: A Journey of Faith.

Traveling through this play will send you on an emotional journey that stretched over the course Mack’s lifetime. You will feel the wonder and passion for faith that he felt as a boy. You will experience his fear and anxiety that consumes his later years. You will be taken through anger, resentment, and shock… but also compassion, forgiveness and resolve. The intimate space of the Jewel Box Theatre allows Mack to connect with every member of the audience in a truly extraordinary way.

There is one word that accurately describes this play: profound. Mack recounts his memories as if he were giving a sermon, his delivery soulful yet captivating. He has the audience traveling with him through his past and reliving his memories with him. I could feel the fear and anxiety pulse through my veins as Mack recounted how his pastor invited him up to the rectory of the church, shutting the door with a jolt behind him. My stomach churned as Mack revealed how the single word “suck,” haunted him in the years following. And I sat at the edge of my seat stunned as the revelations Mack made in the later decades of his life brought the play to its striking climax.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Claire O’Sullivan
Irish Examiner Reporter

While some people may warn against judging the past with the knowledge of the present, the Government’s initial probe into mother-and-baby homes shows stark questions were being asked about death rates at the homes 75 years ago.

Concerns were raised in and outside of the State in 1939 — with the quality of care even being raised by senior officials at the Department of Local Government and Public Health. Children born to unmarried mothers between 1923 and 1950 were four times more likely to die than those born to a married couple, according to studies of the Registrar General annual reports.

The interdepartmental report published earlier this week shows that in 1939, the inspector for boarded out children in the Department of Local Government and Public Health, Alice Litster asked why illegitimate children living in impoverishment seemed to be faring better than those in the care of religious orders.

“The chance of survival of an illegitimate infant born in the slums and placed with a foster-mother in the slums a few days after birth is greater than that of an infant born in one of our special homes for unmarried mothers… except the Manor House, Castlepollard, in which the infantile death rate is comparatively low,” Ms Litster said.

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CHICAGO (IL)
The Tablet

24 July 2014 by Michael Sean Winters

One of the most important sees in the United States, Chicago, has to be filled, after Cardinal Francis George declared his wish to resign on the grounds of age and ill-health
Chicago’s cardinaL Francis George announced this spring that the process to select his successor has begun. He submitted his resignation two years ago, when he turned 75, as required by canon law. As well, George announced in May that his cancer had returned and he is re-entering treatment.

The appointment of a new Archbishop of Chicago will likely be the most important appointment that Pope Francis makes in the American Church. George is the sixth archbishop of the Windy City to be made a cardinal, and his successor is likely to be the only cardinal in America’s Midwest region as St Louis and Detroit have declined in significance. This will also be the first major diocese filled since Pope Francis shuffled the membership of the Congregation for Bishops and stated, on several occasions and in different ways, that he wants shepherds who “have the smell of the sheep” upon them, men as interested in loving their flock as teaching it, let alone hectoring it.

The appointment also comes at a time when divisions within the American episcopate have become more evident. Two years ago, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops could not pass a statement on poverty, a sign of how divided they are: poverty is not usually a neuralgic issue for clergy who have read Matthew 25. Last year, the bishops reportedly had a heated discussion about how to respond to the Obama administration’s contraception mandate during their executive session. Many bishops feel that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) staff have not shown much evidence of getting on board the Pope Francis bandwagon.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

July 25, 2014

Rachel Browne
Social Affairs Reporter

The number of child abuse reports increased by 15 per cent over the past two years, but more than half of all reports were never investigated by authorities, according to new figures from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

Almost 273,000 reports were made about children at risk nationally in 2012-13, up from a low of 237,000 in 2010-11.

Child welfare experts attributed the increase to greater pressures on families and a heightened awareness of abuse.

The 272,980 abuse notifications involved 184,216 children, the majority living in NSW and Victoria.

Only 45 per cent of reports were investigated nationally, leading to 53,666 proven cases of abuse involving 40,571 children which marks a 29 per cent increase on 2010-11.

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INDIANA
TheIndyChannel

[with video]

TheIndyChannel.com Staff
6:39 AM, Jul 19, 2014

NDIANAPOLIS – A former pastor who admitted to hiding cameras inside a women’s restroom at his Lafayette church has been sentenced to four years in prison.

Robert Lyzenga, 57, pleaded guilty in May to recording five women and five girls at Sunrise Christian Reformed Church.

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INDIANA
The Raw Story

By Tom Boggioni
Saturday, July 19, 2014

A former pastor from Lafayette, Indiana, was sentenced to four years in prison followed by three years of probation for secretly videotaping female parishioners in the women’s restroom of his church, reports the IndyStar.

Robert Lyzenga, 58, pleaded guilty to secretly filming five women and five girls over the course of several months in 2011 and 2012 at the Sunrise Christian Reformed Church.

Lyzenga’s youngest victim was five years old.

According to authorities, Lyzenga hid two cameras disguised as air fresheners in the restroom which were discovered by one of the church’s parishioners. Investigators recovered video footage on the devices, located files on Lyzenga’s computers, and still images taken from the footage.

According to Tippecanoe County Prosecutor Pat Harrington, Lyzenga had edited some of the videos including video of a 16-year-old girl in “slow-motion replays showing her exposed pubic area.”

Authorities also noted that the cameras had been repositioned multiple times to film at different angles, with one mounted in the ceiling pointing down into a bathroom stall.

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INDIANA
All Christian News

BY MARIA IN CHRISTIAN NEWS · MAY 18, 2014

A 57-year-old Indiana pastor thought he could get away with viewing women going to the restroom by installing secret video cameras that captured footage he’d download later.

Robert Lyzenga (pictured) was eventually caught after getting away with his disgusting vοyeuristic habit for over two years. When it was revealed that the troubled pastor had been viewing young girls using the restroom, all he had to say for himself is that he didn’t intend to record children.

The pastor must’ve thought that it would have been perfectly okay for a trusted servant of God to abuse the position he had been given, if he had only recorded older women members of his congregation in their time of relief.

Judge Randy Williams apparently didn’t think much of his excuse and set a hearing for his sentencing on July 18, after the pastor had admitted to all 10 counts against him.

Lyzenga will now face a concurrent prison sentence ranging from 2-10 years for the five counts of Class C felonies for child explοitation and five counts Class D felony vοyeurism leveled against him for recording 10 juvenile victims.

Possibly one of the reasons that the judge did not have much sympathy for the pastor of Sunrise Christian Reformed Church in Lafayette, IN is because he had kept recording video of young girls age 5-16, even after he had realized that his cameras were capturing children.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Echo

A FORMER vicar described by police as a “sexual predator” has been jailed after abusing a 13-year-old boy.

Maxwell Hallahan was sentenced to 21 months in prison for a string of offences against the youngster in the 1970s.

They took place while he was vicar at St Faith’s Church in Cowes on the Isle of Wight, and followed a previous conviction for a similar offence in 2011.

The retired priest will also be subject to a ten-year notification on the Sex Offender Register and a Safeguarding Order.

Senior Crown Prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service in Wessex Rape and Serious Sexual Offences Unit (RASSO), Richard Powell, said: “Maxwell Hallahan abused his position of authority as vicar in his parish.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Times

Eamonn McCann

Thu, Jul 24, 2014

The former British intelligence officer Colin Wallace told Radio Ulster last weekend that any inquiry into Kincora Boys’ Home will not be able to get to the truth if it doesn’t have access to evidence about the role of MI5. If that’s so, the chances of the truth coming out are near to nil. Wallace has been trying for 40 years to expose child sex abuse at the east Belfast home. He has been ridiculed, ignored, lied to and lied about, and, as Paul Foot demonstrated in “Who Framed Colin Wallace?” in 1989, fitted up for manslaughter. Peter Robinson has suggested the Belfast home be added to the remit of the UK Child Abuse Inquiry. Others want a dedicated Northern Ireland inquiry. It matters little. MI5’s interests will take precedence over the rights of raped children. In the early 1970s, Wallace was based in Lisburn, a member of an undercover “psychological warfare” unit which worked closely with MI5. He was involved in “Operation Clockwork Orange”, a MI5 plot to smear Labour prime minister Harold Wilson and “wets” in the Tory opposition.

Clockwork Orange

In October 1974, Wallace told his superiors that he wanted out of Clockwork Orange. He then wrote a memo explaining in detail that destitute boys were being systematically sodomised by members of Kincora staff and were being supplied for abuse to prominent figures in unionist politics. The abusers – among them MPs, councillors, leading Orangemen and other influential individuals – became potentially important intelligence assets.

MI5 had come across Kincora through its interest in paedophile “housemaster” William McGrath, also leader of an eccentric loyalist organisation, Tara. The agency didn’t report the scandal, but allowed it to continue while monitoring the abusers. It wasn’t until an Irish Independent expose in 1980 that official notice was taken. An RUC investigation led to the imprisonment of McGrath and two other Kincora staff. Two inquiries were then established in succession by secretary of state James Prior.

The first, under complaints commissioner Stephen McGonagle, collapsed on its first day when three of five panel members resigned upon being told they couldn’t delve into any matter which might be the subject of police investigation. The collapse of an inquiry after one half-day session may be a unique occurrence.

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OKLAHOMA
New York Daily News

Published: Tuesday, July 22, 2014

BY NINA GOLGOWSK

A 19-year-old Oklahoma missionary has been charged with traveling to Kenya to engage in sex acts with disadvantaged children as young as 4 years old.

Matthew Lane Durham, of Edmond, faces life behind bars after allegedly admitting to the sickening abuse while volunteering at Upendo Children’s Home in Nairobi this spring.

It was during Durham’s fourth visit to the home between April and June that he sexually abused both boys and girls between ages 4 and 10. One of the kids is HIV positive, according to a FBI criminal complaint unsealed Friday.

The teen was confronted by the home’s founder after a caretaker grew suspicious of Durham’s behavior around the children, the Edmond Sun reported.

When the children were pulled aside, they allegedly described him as inappropriately touching them.

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, July 24, 2014

Statement by Mike Hunter of Kansas City, KC Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 913 634 6490, mhunter535@gmail.com )

We are glad that a former Catholic priest has lost his bid to have his sentence overturned.

For the sake of his victims, we hope that Shawn Ratigan refrains from more far-fetched legal maneuvers. We also hope that Kansas City Catholic officials are not paying for his lawyers.

Now, it’s clearer than ever that Ratigan will remain locked up for a long, long time. We hope this assurance helps enable others who saw, suspected or suffered his heinous crimes to come forward and get help. Struggling in silence is unhealthy. Sharing one’s burden is the first step towards recovery.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Church law has procedures and penalties for effectively dealing with allegations of clerical sexual abuse, but the Vatican is working to revise a section of the Code of Canon Law to make those norms and procedures clearer and, therefore, more effective, said the president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts.

“We want to make this delicate material more accessible, more understandable and easier for bishops to apply,” Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, council president, told the Vatican newspaper.

In the interview published July 24 in L’Osservatore Romano, the cardinal said his office has been working since 2008 to revise “Book VI: Sanctions in the Church,” a section of the Code of Canon Law.

The penalties and punishments offered by church law should be applied, he said.

“In the face of a negative action, which harms the good of a person and therefore the good of the church, penal law expects a reaction, that is the pastor inflicting a canonical penalty,” the cardinal said.

If a bishop does not react by imposing a punishment on a priest guilty of the crime of sexual abuse, he said, “in some way that would be, or would seem to be, consenting to the evil committed. A negative act necessarily must be condemned; it requires a reaction.”

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Kansas City Star

A federal appeals court on Thursday upheld the 50-year prison sentence of Catholic priest and convicted child pornographer Shawn Ratigan.

Ratigan, who was sentenced last September after pleading guilty to federal charges of producing and attempting to produce child pornography, argued on appeal that the sentence was unreasonable.

But the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that U.S. District Judge Gary Fenner did not commit procedural error or abuse his discretion in imposing the sentence requested by prosecutors.

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MINNESOTA
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on an editorial in today’s St. Cloud Times urging Catholics in Minnesota to press for the ouster of St. Paul and Minneapolis Archbishop John Nienstedt:

This editorial is based heavily on the uncontested testimony of a “church lawyer.” Because Jennifer Haselberger’s testimony was never challenged by a lawyer for the archdiocese, we have no way of knowing whether her version of events is correct. We do know, having gone through her affidavit, that even she admits to at least 17 occasions when her version was not shared by others with whom she worked.

The editorial accuses the archdiocese of a pattern of “deception, intimidation and silence.” This is similar to Haselberger’s position, stated at the beginning of her testimony, that she endured “months of harassment, threats, and intimidation—examples of which I will provide later in this affidavit.” Except she doesn’t: She provides not a single example of being threatened by anyone. Did the editorial board members even bother to read her account?

What about being harassed? Here’s an example of what she means. On p. 53, she says a priest “constantly harassed us to conclude the investigation [into alleged wrongdoing].” Did her co-workers also feel harassed? Is it harassment when an employee is told to “get moving”? Apparently, Haselberger does have a problem with getting things done on time. After all, she was suspended precisely because of her inability to complete an assignment. It gets better.

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
Waiting for Godot to Leave

Kevin O’Brien

One of the things revealed in the documents that have been released concerning the Fr. Kolar case in St. Paul is that after Kolar was sent away for treatment and it became obvious that he was both initiating sexual contact with adult women he was counseling, and also abusing a minors – and after

the psychiatrists who evaluated him indicated the he had a serious personality disorder, the archbishop and his cronies decided that their options were either …

1. Make Fr. Kolar DIRECTOR OF GUIDANCE at the seminary (where he could guide and form young men who were becoming priests)

2. Put him to work AT A PARISH (where he would be free to counsel more young women. Note that the archdiocese made a point of not informing any laity of Fr. Kolar’s abusive behavior, so women approaching Fr. Kolar for counseling at a parish would not know the risk they were taking.)

And in neither case would any of the bishops around the country be informed of Kolar’s previous work in NET Ministries nationwide, where he had access to plenty of teenage girls over the years. This despite the bishop of St. Cloud, who had caught wind of this, suggesting that they do so.

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.

MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, July 24, 2014

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

In a heart-breaking new lawsuit, a Presbyterian minister is suing the Presbyterian church because of child sex crimes by another Presbyterian minister and cover ups by Presbyterian officials.

While all child molesters must be considered dangerous, this one is especially dangerous. He admitted in a Boone County court that he severed a man’s genitals in an illegal gender reassignment surgery. He also admitted possessing child porn. And now he is being sued for allegedly sexually assaulting a boy from Sedalia.

He is the now-imprisoned Jack Wayne Rogers, formerly of Fulton, Missouri. Rogers has also been publicly named as a suspect in the disappearance of a northwest Missouri boy who went missing months after Rogers allegedly assaulted Rev. Kris Schondelmeyer.

Rev. Schondelmeyer has filed a civil lawsuit charging that Rogers sexually violated him at a nationally sponsored youth conference in Maryland in 2000. At the time, Rogers was a Presbyterian lay pastor for the Jefferson City-based Missouri Union Presbytery serving at Bellflower Presbyterian Church.

This is heartbreaking on so many levels. First, Schondelmeyer’s pain is heartbreaking, especially because it could have been prevented. Second, the other crimes by Rogers are heartbreaking. Third, it’s heartbreaking that Schondelmeyer feels compelled to file a lawsuit because Presbyterian officials refuse to reach out to others Rogers may have hurt. And fourth, it’s heartbreaking to think about others who were likely assaulted by Rogers and who are still struggling today, mired in shame, confusion, and self-blame.

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.

KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

Brian Roewe | Jul. 24, 2014 NCR Today

KANSAS CITY, MO. A group seeking to deliver a petition to Kansas City-St. Joseph Bishop Robert Finn on behalf of a fired gay foot pantry coordinator met resistance Wednesday afternoon as they attempted to enter the downtown chancery offices.

A group of about 30 people carried a copy of an online petition with more than 32,000 signatures asking that Finn apologize to Colleen Simon — a woman dismissed from her parish position after her same-sex marriage was inadvertently made public by a local newspaper — and to give her job back.

The group made their way into the first set of doors at the chancery before two security guards for the building blocked them from entering farther.

According to Georgia Walker, organizer of the Faithful America petition, the group prayed and sang in the lobby as they waited for a representative from the diocese to receive the petition. After calling several offices, she said a summer intern came to collect the petition. Walker said in an email to NCR that as she left police arrived, reportedly at the diocese’s request, to break up an “unauthorized protest.”

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.

GUAM
Jungle Watch

[Pacific Daily News]

PDN: “Wadeson stated he’s been falsely accused, but decided to leave because he didn’t want the accusations against him to tarnish Archbishop Anthony Apuron.”

JW: So how does running away save Apuron? In fact it “tarnishes” him even more, doesn’t it. If you were falsely accused, then simply say so and challenge the accusations.

PDN: “I was in such shock at the viciousness and lies of what was being said about me and our archbishop, whom I hold in great esteem, that I was lost for words,” Wadeson stated…

JW: What “viciousness and lies” would those be, Wadeson? All that was reported was your record as published by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. If that report is a “lie” then your issue is with Cardinal Mahoney, who published your record, NOT the people of Guam. Don’t you think? And of course, have you no remorse for the “shock” you caused the people of this archdiocese? No. Only you are shocked. Apparently we have no right to be.

PDN: “For the good of the church, I thought it best that I leave the country, albeit with a very heavy heart, so that these false accusations that are being leveled at me do not become weapons to use against our archbishop or the Church of Guam,” he stated.

JW; Hmmm. “Leave the country”. Never heard it put that way before. Usually when people are leaving Guam, they say the are leaving “Guam”, not “the country”. Good chance Wadeson is either hightailing it to his native Australia or to a Kiko-refuge in Europe or Israel. In fact, look for him to have a new job at the Domus Galilee. By the way, who paid for your airfare? Us?

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

UNITED STATES
Hamilton and Griffin on Rights

“What’s the latest in the Catholic abuse crisis?”

If you ask people who follow the news closely they’d likely cite two high visibility happenings: The meeting between Pope Francis and six clergy sex abuse victims and the latest stunning revelations of cover ups in a Minnesota archdiocese.

But a month ago, another development – virtually unprecedented – took place with little public fanfare. Most people, we suspect, took a glance at the headlines about it and quickly moved on, assuming it was yet another settlement in a civil abuse lawsuit involving multiple victims.

That, however, is not the case.

In fact, it wasn’t a child sex abuse case at all. It was a “breach of contract” suit. We believe it’s one of just two in the US and the only successful one so far. We predict – and hope – there will be more like it.

An arbitrator has ordered Kansas City Bishop Robert Finn to pay $1.1 million to 42 victims of clergy sex crimes because he broke his pledges to improve how he deals with abuse cases.

As best we can tell, there’s never been a case like this in which victims have successfully held a bishop responsible in court for breaking the promises he made during a settlement. And the amount of this award is significant because it may well deter more Catholic officials from breaking the promises they make to victims.

Here, in a nutshell, is what transpired:

1. In 2008, 47 victims settled child sex abuse and cover up lawsuits against Finn and his diocese. As part of that deal, they insisted that Finn commit to 19 non-economic child safety measures.
2 . In 2011, 44 of those victims formally charged that Finn broke many of those child safety measures, in part by keeping two credibly accused predator priests in ministry (Fr. James Tierney and Fr. Shawn Ratigan) and by hiding suspicions and knowledge of child sex crimes from law enforcement.
3. In March 2014, an arbitrator – harshly criticizing Finn and his KC church colleagues – awarded $1.1 million to the victims. (Finn is trying to have the award nullified.)

The attorney for these brave and persistent victims, Rebecca Randles, has described the award as “ground-breaking.” She’s right.

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.

KANSAS CITY (MO)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Statement by Mike Hunter of Kansas City, KC Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 913 634 6490, mhunter535@gmail.com )

Embattled Kansas City Bishop Robert Finn wants out of a contract he signed six years ago with more than 40 local clergy sex abuse victims. Shame on him.

In a KC courtroom today, one of Finn’s lawyers (David Frye) asked “But are we going to be in endless litigation on these non-monetary commitments forever?”

Frye and Finn should know that when they signed a contract with no expiration date, and then broke it, they would be held responsible. That’s what contracts are for: to ensure that people act the way they should.

There’s a simple way for Finn to prevent “endless litigation.” He should honor his word. He should do what he promised to do in the contract: call police quickly when abuse is suspected and train all his employees on abuse prevention. It’s as simple as that.

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
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, July 24, 2014

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

A second victim of a Jehovah’s Witness elder, who earlier this month was found guilty of sexually assaulting two young girls and raping another woman, has spoken up. We are grateful to this brave victim for having the courage to speak up.

Mark Sewell was convicted of having “groomed” at least one of his victims, and using his position of power within the Jehovah’s Witness to prey on these girls. We are glad that another victim has found the courage to speak up.

Because of the brave victims who worked courageously to get Sewell behind bars, other children will be safer. We hope this gives courage to other victims of Sewell and others to speak up and start healing.

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.