ABUSE TRACKER

LOUISIANA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, April 3

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

We urge Louisiana law enforcement officials to move very quickly to investigate and charge Mack Ford for the horrific crimes reported by Jennifer Halter and others at the New Bethany Home for Girls in Arcadia. We are deeply moved by the suffering and the courage of these brave women. Their concern for others and their own deep pain should prompt speedy and thorough action by police and prosecutors.

[The Times-Picayune]

Quick movement by authorities would likely encourage other sex crime victims to step forward. That, in turn, would almost certainly prevent more sex crimes.

In recent years, police and prosecutors have become more aggressive, creative and successful at pursuing even very old crimes. We beg state authorities to use whatever resources are needed to make justice happen here.

But too often, police and prosecutors let elderly child molesters off easy. We hope that doesn’t happen here. We believe it’s very likely that Ford is still molesting kids. Age often doesn’t slow a child predator. If anything, it makes them more dangerous, for at least two reasons. First, because they become more shrewd at picking victims who can’t or won’t tell or be believed and who come from families that are less apt or willing to report to police. And second, because they also seem more trustworthy as they age, with stooped shoulders, slow gaits, thick glasses and thinning hair.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Raw Story

By David Edwards
Thursday, April 3, 2014

Police in Pennsylvania say a church worker who was arrested on Wednesday for raping a woman in the church “for hours” had also been sought for sexually assaulting a young girl over a period of about three years.

According to Upper Darby Police, 48-year-old Troy Posey had invited a 19-year-old girl into Bethel Community Baptist Church after she missed the last train or bus home.

“Turns out it was hell. It wasn’t a safe haven. It was hell,” Upper Darby Superintendent Michael Chitwood told WTXF. “She says she falls asleep on the couch, a short [time later] she feels her pants being tugged, and the next thing you know the guy’s on top of her.”

After the woman reported that she was raped last week, police determined that the suspect was Posey, and that he had also been wanted for sexually assaulting an 8-year-old girl until she was 12 years old. She was the daughter of Posey’s girlfriend at the time.

He had been sought since 2012 in that case, but had managed to evade capture.

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MALTA
Times of Malta

The Curia has clarified comments reportedly made by Minister Helena Dalli when speaking in Parliament yesterday.

In a statement, the Curia observed that the minister was quoted as saying that paedophile priests should be made to answer for their actions before the Civil Courts like all other men who committed such crimes.

The Curia said this was already being done and the media had given great publicity to the recent case where two priests were taken to court and subsequently jailed.

Furthermore, it was not correct, the Curia said, that “there was an anomaly in that if a priest and a man abused of children, the former was removed from the priesthood or sent to another diocese, while the other man was taken to court and sent to prison if convicted.”

The fact was that a priest was judged by the Church Tribunal which could strip him of the priesthood but he could still be taken before the civil courts. Thus, a priest was judged twice, before the Tribunal and the Courts, the Curia said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian Jewish News

THE CEO of Jewish child sexual abuse victim advocacy group Tzedek Manny Waks (pictured) has been forced to issue an apology to Rabbi Avrohom Glick as part of a defamation settlement.

Earlier this year Rabbi Glick was accused of child sexual abuse, but an investigation by police concluded he had no case to answer.

In the apology posted on his Facebook page and on the Tzedek website Waks wrote: “During December 2013, I posted certain statements on Tzedek’s website and on my personal Facebook page and permitted a third party to post a statement on Tzedek’s website, which referred to allegations made against Rabbi Abraham Glick.

“In particular, I posted certain statements that suggested to some that Rabbi Glick was guilty and permitted a third party to post a statement stating that Rabbi Glick had admitted to the allegations made. I accept that those statements about Rabbi Glick were false and inaccurate, and accept and believe that Rabbi Glick was at all times completely innocent of the allegations made. I unreservedly apologise to Rabbi Glick and his family and retract those statements.”

But within hours of the apology being issued, a statement from Glick’s accuser, which Waks helped draft, was sent to The AJN accompanying a letter from police explaining the reason the investigation into Glick was abandoned.

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MINNESOTA
The New Civil Rights Movement

Judge Forces Archdiocese to Release Material Pertaining to Nienstedt’s Role in Abuse Scandal

by CASEY MICHEL on APRIL 2, 2014

Over the last half-dozen years, Archbishop John Nienstedt has been one of the most outspoken opponents of granting any LGBT rights, either in his home state of Minnesota or across the nation. He has found a series of supporters, but he’s also managed to turn himself into one of the most reviled characters both the Catholic Church and the anti-gay marriage movement has managed to produce.

Fortunately, Nienstedt’s rancid views seem to finally be catching up with him.

In the midst of an ongoing investigation into decades of sex abuse cover-ups within the Minneapolis archdiocese, a judge ruled last week against the archdiocese’s request to delay the release of abuse documentation. While the church will not be releasing the entirety of its documentation next week, Ramsey County District Judge John Van de North ruled that the archdiocese must release those documents most relevant to Nienstedt, who was deposed today.

As the judge noted, it was important to keep the archdiocese’s “feet to the fire.” Moreover, if the church does not release all relevant documentation by Wednesday, the possibility remains for a follow-up deposition for the embattled archbishop.

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VATICAN CITY
The Week

Just over a year into his reign as the Vicar of Christ, Pope Francis has gained a reputation as a generous soul. But Vatican officials increasingly fear the budget cuts and austerity measures he is imposing on day-to-day operations. Last month, the Vatican’s Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin informed all department heads of an immediate freeze on new hires, wage increases, and overtime. Expensive management consultants have been hired to advise the restructuring.

Not all the officials are happy with the austerity measures. From the U.K.’s Catholic Herald:

But many can see how the situation could be handled better. “Everything is cuts, cuts, cuts,” said one official. “Not once have they talked about how we could raise revenue.” A senior official in the secretary of state told me they’re so understaffed and overworked that “the work simply never gets done.” “The problem is they’re so socialistic here,” the first official said. “You say the word revenue and they respond with: ‘Oh filthy lucre!’ They’re all secretly jealous [of enterprising initiatives].” Some have proposed a fundraising office for the Holy See, but it’s apparently ruled out because it would appear crass. [Catholic Herald]

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

“Vatican Insider” interviews Italian historian Andrea Riccardi: “The famous honeymoon period has not ended, a sign that the relationship between Francis and faithful is more than just a passing attraction. But there is defiance from bishops and the clergy”

ANDREA TORNIELLI
VATICAN CITY

“Never before in the 20th century has a Pope faced so much resistance as Francis has” and “the fact that there is so much resistance shows that the Pope really is changing the Church.” These strong and in some ways surprising words came from Professor of Church history, Andrea Riccardi, in his latest commentary published in Italian weekly magazine Famiglia Cristiana. Vatican Insider asked him some questions about his above remarks.

You wrote that no Pope in the last century has faced so much resistance as Francis. Don’t you think that’s a bit of an exaggeration?

“I made these observations as a historian. Francis is facing internal opposition from within ecclesiastical bodies, the episcopates and the clergy. But his alliance with the people is clearly strong.”

What about the opposition to Paul VI and the recent and famous opposition faced by Benedict XVI?

“The only Pope who faced strong opposition was Paul VI, that’s true. But the Church and also society at the time were going through a period of general protest. In the case of Benedict XVI, which you rightly mentioned, the opposition came form the outside, from the international public, than it did from the inside. As I said, the resistance Francis is facing is stronger and it’s coming from within the Church.”

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Pat Perriello | Apr. 3, 2014 NCR Today

If you have not yet seen the interview with Italian historian Andrea Riccardi, it is definitely worth a look.
The indication is that there is and probably will continue to be a growing tug-of-war between the faithful and parts of the hierarchy when it comes to the papacy of Francis. There appears to be enduring strength in the favorable relationship that exists between Pope Francis and the people. At the same time, there is evidence of both a public and silent rift with members of the hierarchy who do not want to be challenged in the way they conduct their business.

There is a second article of interest that highlights concerns about the austerity Francis is bringing to the Vatican. He has implemented a freeze on new hires, wage increases, and overtime. There is no effort to seek increased revenues. Many, even some who support this pope, feel the situation could have been handled better.

Pope Francis has undoubtedly made mistakes, and he will continue to make mistakes. After all, he is only infallible when he speaks ex cathedra. His strengths lie in his commitment to collegiality and his connection to the faithful. Also, his emphasis on the poor prevents him from being seen as just some liberal pope. It is difficult to disagree with his focus on those in great need and the compassion he expects from all of us. In his interview, Riccardi says that when Francis’ message gets through, “there is a really positive reaction and people’s faith is revived.” His message clearly resonates at the core of the universal message of Christianity.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Post

BY LEONARDO BLAIR , CP REPORTER

April 3, 2014Sexual abuse scandals have cost the U.S. Catholic Church nearly $3 billion dollars over an eight year period; and according to a report released by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops last month, the scourge has not gone away.

The report, titled ‘Report on the Implementation of the Charter for Protection of Children and Young People,’ said in 2013 alone sexual misconduct by clergy cost the American dioceses $108,954,109. Of that amount, just over $61 million went toward settlements while another $6.1 million went toward therapy for abuse victims. Some $28.9 million went toward attorneys’ fees, while $10.4 million went toward the support of the errant priests.

The report pegged the full cost of the sexual abuse scandals on American dioceses and religious institutes between 2004 and 2012 at $2,744,881,843: $2,351,903,157 for dioceses and eparchies. Scandals cost religious institutes $392,978,686.

Dioceses, eparchies and religious orders also spent an additional $41,721,675 on child protection initiatives in 2013, according to a review by Catholic Online.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Die Tagespost

Die Annahme, dass die katholische Kirche bei deutschen Journalisten besonders schlecht wegkommt und vielfach unfair behandelt wird, trifft zu – Schuld daran sind nicht immer nur die Medien. Von Klaus Kelle

Warum wird eigentlich über die katholische Kirche meistens negativ berichtet, während die Frohe Botschaft Jesu keinen Raum findet? Die Frage ist so simpel wie auch die Antwort: Weil das Mediengeschäft nun einmal so läuft. Medien sind kommerzielle Unternehmen, sie haben keinen Bildungs- und schon gar keinen Missionsauftrag. Jede Zeitung braucht Käufer und jeder Sender – auch der öffentlich-rechtliche Staatsfunk – schielt auf gute Quoten. Das ist die Ausgangslage, oder salopp gesagt: sie geben ihren Kunden, was sie wollen, und verdienen damit Geld. Jeder Redaktionsvolontär lernt bereits in der ersten Ausbildungswoche den Grundsatz „Bad News are good News“. Übersetzt bedeutet das: Schlechte Nachrichten bringen Aufmerksamkeit, sie bringen ein Prickeln in das Leben der Medien-Konsumenten, und sie sind Erfolgsgaranten.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Frankfurter Neue Presse

[Summary: The number of Catholic priests has declined dramatically. Sascha Jung, a pastor, discussed issues about lack of priests, celibacy and the church’s future.]

Von Elisabeth Hofmann-Mathes

Die Zahl der katholischen Priester ist dramatisch zurückgegangen – Auch Gemeindereferenten fehlen
Wie können Menschen für pastorale Berufe begeistert werden? In einer Diskussionsrunde stellte sich der Flörsheimer Pfarrer Sascha Jung den Fragen rund um Priestermangel, Zölibat und die Zukunft der Kirche.

Liederbach.
Dass nicht nur die Zahl der Gläubigen, sondern auch die Anzahl der Priester seit vielen Jahren kontinuierlich abnimmt, ist lange bekannt. Der Flörsheimer Pfarrer Sascha Jung kann dies mit Zahlen untermauern. Drei Jahre hatte der ehemalige Domkaplan das Limburger Referat „Berufe der Kirche“ geleitet und selbst hautnah die Schwierigkeiten erlebt, Menschen für pastorale Berufe gewinnen zu können. Zu harte Zulassungsbedingungen, geburtenschwache Jahrgänge, Skandale und ein allgemein rückläufiger Bezug der Gesellschaft zu Kirche und Religion macht Jung für den Abwärtstrend verantwortlich. Aber wie kann die Kirche diesen Abwärtstrend stoppen? In einer kleinen Diskussionsrunde im Pfarrsaal der Gemeinde Sankt Marien hatte sich der Pfarrer kritisch mit der aktuellen Situation auseinander gesetzt und erfahren: „Der Mangel macht sich bei uns deutlich bemerkbar“, stellten Zuhörer heraus.

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ITALIA
Rete L’Abuso

Prete abusa di un minore per tre anni: la qualità rivestita dall’imputato ha facilitato la commissione del reato e, pertanto, la pena va commisurata alla gravità.
la qualità rivestita dall’imputato ha facilitato la commissione del reato.

Corte di Cassazione, sez. IV Penale, sentenza 6 – 27 marzo 2014, n. 14545
Presidente Brusco – Relatore Iannello

Ritenuto in fatto

Con sentenza del 27/01/2012 la Corte d’Appello di Milano confermava la decisione in data 21/12/2010, emessa dal G.U.P. del Tribunale di Milano a seguito di giudizio abbreviato, con la quale P.D. era stato riconosciuto colpevole del reato di cui agli artt. 81 cpv., 609-bis, comma 2 n. 1, 609-ter n. 1, 61 nn. 5, 9 e 11 cod. pen., per aver indotto in più occasioni, nel periodo compreso tra il 2/9/2006 e l’ottobre 2009, un minore (nato nel 1992) a subire e praticare rapporti sessuali, abusando delle condizioni di inferiorità fisica e psichica derivanti dalla differenza di età (quarantacinque anni) e dal divario culturale, economico e sociale nonché della fragilità personologica della persona offesa, commettendo i fatti anche quando il minore non aveva ancora compiuto i quattordici anni, con le ulteriori aggravanti della minorata difesa, della violazione dei doveri inerenti alla sua qualità di ministro del culto cattolico e dell’abuso di ospitalità.

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ITALIA
Rete L’Abuso

«Fui molestato in seminario lascio parrocchia e sacerdozio» L’annuncio di don Alessandro Raccagni al termine della messa. Un caso seguito dalla Rete L’ABUSO

[Summary: Father Alessandro Raccagni completed his Mass and then told parishioners of something that had weighed on his heart for 30 years. He said that he had been sexually harassed in the seminary and he was at last breaking his silence.]
di Fabio Paravisi Donatella Tiraboschi

La Messa sembrava finita, invece no. Mancava ancora un ultimo gesto, poche parole da leggere su un foglio. Un macigno che pesava sul cuore del sacerdote da 30 anni. Don Alessandro Raccagni ha allontanato i chierichetti e poi ha letto quel foglio, e ogni parola era come una fucilata al cuore di chi stava ascoltando. Parole che parlavano di molestie subite in seminario, di una ferita che sanguina da una vita e, ancora, di un silenzio che doveva essere spezzato. Don Alessandro ha lasciato la sua parrocchia di Endenna e anche il sacerdozio, lasciando dietro di sé molti dispiaceri, tanti dubbi e una comunità «orfana» che chiede verità. Don Alessandro, 44 anni, parroco di Endenna dal 4 ottobre 2011, aveva finora tenuto dentro di sé il dramma e l’angoscia. Lo straziante ricordo delle molestie che dice di avere subito nel Seminario di Città Alta a metà degli anni Ottanta, un periodo in cui il giovane Alessandro era ancora minorenne (a quell’epoca il rettore del seminario era monsignor Roberto Amadei). Da allora ha trovato il coraggio di raccontarlo a uno psicologo che lo segue da otto anni e al padre Guido, che gli è stato vicino negli ultimi difficili mesi. Il prete indicato come responsabile degli abusi si sarebbe ritirato in pensione in un quartiere alla periferia di Bergamo, senza che nessuno gli abbia mai chiesto conto di ciò che avrebbe fatto.

È stato lo stesso don Alessandro, nei mesi scorsi, a decidere di scendere a Bergamo più volte e a parlare del problema con i vertici della Curia, manifestando anche la sua intenzione di lasciare l’abito sacerdotale se non avesse avuto le risposte che voleva. Risposte che evidentemente non sono arrivate, visto che alle 18 di sabato 15 marzo don Alessandro è salito all’altare per celebrare la Messa con quel foglietto in tasca. In uno dei banchi sedeva il padre, venuto da Cividino per dargli sostegno nel momento più difficile della sua vita. La grande chiesa parrocchiale dedicata a Santa Maria Assunta, che ospita anche una teca con il cranio di San Barnaba, era piena. Al termine della funzione il parroco ha chiesto ai chierichetti di andare in sacrestia a cambiarsi, poi ha estratto il foglio e ha cominciato a leggere.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Zeit

[Summary: As vicar general and confidant of Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz van Elst, Franz Kasper, as leader at a nursing home, prevented disclosure of an abuse case.]

VON CHRISTIANE FLORIN UND CHRISTIANE GREFE

Als Alexander Markus Homes sieben Jahre alt ist, bescheinigen ihm Experten “Schwachsinn leichten Grades”. Fünf Jahre hat der Junge da schon in Kinderheimen verbracht. Nach der Diagnose kommt er im April 1966 in das katholische Pflege- und Bildungsheim St. Vincenzstift in Aulhausen am Rhein.

Fast zehn Jahre lang durchleidet er mit anderen als geistig behindert eingestuften Kindern und Erwachsenen das Regime der Dernbacher Schwestern. Ein Orden als schlagende Verbindung: Homes wird geprügelt und erniedrigt, der Heimarzt missbraucht ihn sexuell. Andere Behinderte werden in dieser Zeit vom damaligen Direktor des Heimes, Rudolf Müller, sexuell missbraucht. “Es waren Gottes Worte, Gottes aggressive Blicke, Gottes Hände, die uns beschimpften, demütigten, bestraften, prügelten”, schrieb Alexander Markus Homes vor mehr als dreißig Jahren. Sein Buch Prügel vom lieben Gott erschien 1981.

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AUSTRALIA
Australian Teacher Magazine

MELBOURNE, April 3 – Victims of a pedophile priest have walked out of a Melbourne court as he stood to deliver an apology.

Frank Gerard Klep, 70, has pleaded guilty to sexually abusing 15 boys while a teacher and principal at Salesian College Rupertswood from 1973 to 1984.

As Klep stood to read a prepared apology, many of his victims left the courtroom.

“I abused your trust and betrayed you in the most appalling circumstances, for that I am truly sorry,” Klep said.

It is the third time Klep has either pleaded guilty to or been convicted of abusing schoolboys.

Many of the boys were sexually assaulted or raped while in beds at the school’s sick bay, which was operated by Klep.

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MASSACHUSETTS
The Salem News

BY JULIE MANGANIS
STAFF WRITER

IPSWICH — As his trial on child molestation charges nears, the former head of a religious order in Ipswich yesterday made another attempt to have the case against him dismissed.

The Rev. Richard McCormick, 73, who once ran the Salesian Brothers of Don Bosco retreat in Ipswich, is accused of raping two boys attending summer camp there back in the 1980s.

McCormick has already lost earlier bids to have the charges dismissed.

Last year, he and attorney Stephen Neyman argued that under the First Amendment’s right to freedom of religion, a law that allows the calculation of time for the statute of limitations to stop during periods when McCormick was out of state is unconstitutional. McCormick, as a member of a religious order, has no say when he is ordered to move to another state, they argued.

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MINNESOTA
KDUZ

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis is defending the statements made by Archbishop John Nienstedt during a four-hour deposition on Wednesday.

MNN reports the four hour session ended abruptly according to the attorney of one of the men suing the Catholic Church for alleged sexual abuse by priests. Attorney Jeff Anderson said the archbishop walked out after being pressed to turn over more files related to accusations against priests to police.

The Archdiocese says Nienstedt accepted responsibility for mistakes made since he became archbishop in 2008 and expressed regret for how the sexual abuse allegations were handled in the past.

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CANADA
Winnipeg Sun

BY KRISTIN ANNABLE, WINNIPEG SUN
FIRST POSTED: WEDNESDAY, APRIL 02, 2014

A disgraced archbishop recently found guilty of sexually assaulting a Winnipeg boy in the 1980s will not be defrocked by the Archdiocese of Canada.

Instead, Archbishop Seraphim Storheim was retired quietly by the church.

The decision has outraged critics who say the decision to spare Storheim of the defrocking goes directly against the church’s sexual misconduct policy.

“I think they are being very cautious, there is a lot of sentiment of support for him in Canada,” said Melanie Sakoda, the Orthodox director of SNAP, also known as the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

“The thing that bothered me is their policy seems to be very clear: If he is found to have abused a child, he is to be defrocked.”

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY DANIEL BEEKMAN
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Thursday, April 3, 2014

The judge who tossed a $680 million sexual-abuse suit brought by former students against Yeshiva University erred by acting like a lawyer for the school, the plaintiffs claim.

Manhattan Federal Judge John Koeltl showed bias when he “assumed the role” of defense attorney by “concocting” an argument Yeshiva never made, the plaintiffs say in an appeals brief.

Koeltl dismissed the case as time-barred, saying plaintiffs would’ve known to sue decades ago if they’d sought legal advice after the alleged abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)

Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Thursday 3 April 2014

A man brutalised in a boys’ home says he was told by the global head of the Salvation Army that abuse only happened in Australia.

Jim Luthy, president of Care Leavers Australia Network (CLAN), told a royal commission hearing he wrote in 2010 to Shaw Clifton, then general of the army based in London, suggesting he issue a worldwide apology to abuse victims.

Luthy did so because the pope was apologising for abuse by Catholic clergy at the time and he thought the Salvationists should as well.

“I think it was pretty crook when you have got to ask for your own apology,” said Luthy.

He said Clifton responded with “abuse only happened in Australia, nowhere else”.

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MINNESOTA
MinnPost

By Brian Lambert

Well, that went well… Chao Xiong of the Strib writes, “Wednesday’s four-hour deposition of Archbishop John Nienstedt ended ‘abruptly’ and ‘heatedly’ when the church was pressed to turn over more of its files of credibly accused priests to police, said an attorney representing a man suing the church for sex abuse. Nienstedt and church attorneys failed to deliver all the files that a judge ordered them to produce for a suit in Ramsey County District Court, and then ended the deposition when they were pressured to turn over documents to police.”

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UNITED STATES
The New York Times

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
APRIL 3, 2014

Any Roman Catholic prelate who missed the message from Pope Francis that he wanted “a church which is poor and for the poor” certainly had to pay attention last month when the Vatican forced the resignation of the bishop of Limburg, Germany, because of his taste for opulent housing worthy of the Holy Roman Empire.

Scandal arose when Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst was discovered spending at least 31 million euros, or nearly $43 million, to renovate his princely home, right down to a new €15,000 bathtub. The Vatican found that the bishop had tried to hide the true costs from his flock, and he was unceremoniously forced to resign for some humbler station.

Though the verdict is still out on Francis’ impact on the hidebound Vatican bureaucracy, which he hopes to reform, he is obviously galvanizing the church laity to complain about the double standards and hypocrisy in the lush lifestyles of their shepherds. In the United States, Wilton Gregory, the archbishop of Atlanta, apologetically announced this week that he would not be moving in to a new $2.2 million, 6,000-square-foot mansion he had custom built. Archbishop Gregory conceded that he had second thoughts after being rebuked by lay Catholics “struggling to pay their mortgages” even as they faithfully heeded his pleas for church donations.

Leaders of a half-dozen other American dioceses have moved to plainer surroundings as Francis keeps up the pressure, urging simple runabouts, not limousines, as preferable transportation for priests and nuns.

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FLORIDA
Sun Sentinel

[with video]

By Rafael Olmeda, Sun Sentinel
7:14 p.m. EDT, April 2, 2014

The former wife of a youth mentor accused of repeatedly molesting teenage boys in his care took the stand on Wednesday, telling a Broward jury that she once walked in on her husband and one of his accusers.

Aretha Wimberly, a Fort Lauderdale code enforcement officer, was married to Jeffery London from 2000 until 2003, but she testified that she was always uncomfortable with the fact that her husband kept taking charge of teenage boys who lived with them for months at a time.

Wimberly said she married London in 2000 and moved into his home in Coral Springs, not knowing at the time that the home was purchased by another person who intended for London to use it to house teenage boys with no place else to go. The boys testified that they looked to London as a father figure.

London, who later moved to Lauderdale Lakes, is charged with sexual battery and molestation of four victims. Three others testified he did the same thing to them, but they are not included in the formal charges. London, 50, faces life in prison if convicted.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Ham & High

Paul Wright
Thursday, April 3, 2014

A senior figure in Catholic education who was found in possession of more than 5,000 images of child abuse has been spared prison and could even return to working in the church.

The judge described Friar Timothy Gardner’s actions as “depraved” but suspended his eight-month sentence for two years.

Gardner, 42, who was based at St Dominic’s Priory, Southampton Road, Gospel Oak, appeared at Southwark Crown Court on Monday.

The court heard that he taught religious education (RE) at Maria Fidelis Catholic School, Phoenix Road, Somers Town, for six years from 2006 to 2012, and even lobbied the government as adviser to the Catholic Education Service.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Daily Herald

By Daily Herald report

A former West Chicago youth ministry leader has been charged with sexually abusing two underage girls, county officials said.

Osman Bahadarakhann, 23, of the 1200 block of Kings Circle, West Chicago, was charged with three counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse relating to the attacks that occurred in the fall of 2013 while he was a youth ministry leader at the Community Fellowship Church in West Chicago, the DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert Berlin’s office said in a statement.

Bahadarakhann invited the girls back to his apartment in separate incidents, and officials said they learned about it when the girls’ parents contacted the DuPage County Sheriff’s Office.

“As a youth ministry leader, Mr. Bahadarakhann held a position of trust and authority over these two young girls,” Berlin said in a statement. “If these allegations are proven true, Mr. Bahadarakhann violated the trust placed in him by his two victims as well as the Community Fellowship Church just to satisfy his own despicable desires. I would like to thank officials at Community Fellowship Church for their complete cooperation throughout this investigation and the DuPage County Sheriff’s Office for their outstanding work on this case.”

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COLORADO
TheDenverChannel

3 additional young women come forward as possible victims of pastor charged with child sex assault

Phil Tenser
1:06 PM, Apr 2, 2014

WESTMINSTER, Colo. – Following the arrest of a Westminster pastor on allegations he sexually assaulted a teenager, three other possible victims have come forward.

Gerald Leroy Clark, 51, is now charged with two counts of sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust and involving a pattern of abuse. The arrest affidavit reveals that the victim was an aspiring member of the church’s ministry team who was helping out the pastor and his wife at their home.

“In one of the charges he’s alleged to have committed this offense against a child who was under 15 and the second offense covers the time when the teenager was older than 15 but under 18,” explained Pam Russell, spokeswoman for the District Attorney’s Office.

Clark is pastor of Jericho Ministries International, which initially met at the West View Recreation Center in Westminster, but now holds services at the Greenway Club House in Broomfield, court records state.

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COLORADO
The Denver Post

WESTMINSTER — Following the arrest of a Westminster pastor on allegations he sexually assaulted a teenager, three other possible victims have come forward.

Gerald Leroy Clark, 51, is now charged with two counts of sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust and involving a pattern of abuse. The arrest affidavit reveals that the victim was an aspiring member of the church’s ministry team who was helping out the pastor and his wife at their home.

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LOUISIANA
The Times-Picayune

By Rebecca Catalanello, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
on April 02, 2014

The story of Jennifer Halter’s journey to file a police report alleging child sexual abuse is derived from a combination of firsthand observations, interviews, court documents, and archived news reports.

Reporter Rebecca Catalanello and photojournalist Kathleen Flynn, both of NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune, spent Dec. 4 to 7, 2013, in Shreveport with Halter and several other women as they set out for the Bienville Parish Sheriff’s Office and New Bethany Home for Girls.

The opening scene in which Halter boards the plane is based on interviews with Halter and her travel companion, Jeneen Miller of Las Vegas. The details about Halter’s arrival at New Bethany as a 14-year-old girl are based on interviews with Halter. Halter’s mother did not respond to requests to be interviewed about her memory of the event.

Descriptions of the shared memories of New Bethany were based on extensive interviews with — and observations of conversations among — Halter, Joanna Wright, Tara Cummings, Teresa Frye and Simone Jones. Many of these details are also described in court documents, past news accounts, and written accounts by former New Bethany residents.

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LOUISIANA
The Times-Picayune

By Rebecca Catalanello, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
on April 02, 2014

She hobbled down the jetway carrying a suitcase, a pillow, a teddy bear for good luck.

At the plane’s entrance she stopped, paralyzed by dread and memories: blood, Pine Sol, broken glass, shame, God – and those barbed wire fences. God, those fences. She hugged the stuffed animal.

What if they say it was my fault? Will they call me a whore? What if I die?

Someone in the line behind her asked, “Is she OK?”

For 25 years, Jennifer Halter, 39, had been living with memories of what happened to her at a religious girls’ home in Arcadia, La. In her mind, the fences towered 15 feet high and stretched for miles, every chain link pinning her in with the man she says sexually abused her, destroyed her faith and led her to try to kill herself.

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COLORADO
CBS Denver

[with video]

GOLDEN, Colo. (CBS4)- Investigators believe there could be more victims in the sexual assault case against a church pastor.

Gerald Clark has been accused of sexually assaulting a teenager over several years.

“The sexual contact was ongoing. She did approach him and ask him to stop and apparently at that time the behavior did stop but his behavior with her also changed,” said Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Pam Russell.

Clark met the alleged victim and her family at Victory Church. They then followed Clark to Jericho Ministries International which Clark runs out of his Westminster home.

When the alleged victim’s family moved out of state the Clarks allowed the teen to live with them over the summers and around Christmas.

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FLORIDA
NBC Miami

[with video]

By Ari Odzer | Wednesday, Apr 2, 2014

After hearing powerful testimony from Jeffery London’s alleged victims on Tuesday, the jury received another glimpse into his life Wednesday afternoon, this time from the perspective of his ex-wife.

“Essentially, the only rule of the house was, don’t piss Jeff off,” Aretha Wimberly said on the witness stand.

Wimberly was married to London for just three years, but it was long enough to paint a creepy picture of the man accused of sexually abusing teenage boys who were living in his house.

“I can’t say I ever saw him touch anyone sexually,” Wimberly admitted.

But she told a chilling story of once coming home when her husband expected her to be out, and finding their bedroom door locked.

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VIRGINIA
Richmond Times-Dispatch

BY LOUIS LLOVIO Richmond Times-Dispatch

A national organization for victims of childhood sexual abuse blasted a Richmond church Wednesday for allowing Geronimo Aguilar, charged in Texas with sexually assaulting two young girls, to speak at a Good Friday service later this month.

“Fundamentally it comes down to this: We as adults can make it easier or harder to catch child molesters. These folks are making it harder,” said David Clohessy, executive director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

Clohessy was speaking about the decision by Cedar Street Baptist Church of God to allow Aguilar, who could face up to life in prison if convicted, to speak at a Good Friday program called Rush Hour to Calvary.

The event features seven local pastors who will speak for seven minutes each.

Clohessy said the main problem with giving Aguilar a platform to speak, even if he has not been tried yet, is that it makes it more difficult for victims of sexual abuse, who are already terrified, to come forward.

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AUSTRALIA
J-Wire

April 3, 2014 by J-Wire Staff

Ezzy Kestecher, scheduled to appear in court in June on sexual abuse charges, was found deceased in his Melboure apartment last week. Rabbi Meir Kluwgant attended the funeral…

From Rabbi Meir Kluwgant:

This past Sunday I attended the funeral of Aaron “Ezzy” Kestecher Z”L, a young man of 28 years who was found deceased in his apartment.

His coffin (in Hebrew Aron) was situated at the front of a room that was filled to capacity with men and woman of all ages who had come to pay their last respects.

There was an eery silence, almost white noise, as the background to the cries and sobs from both sides of the mechitza (partition separating the men from the women).

The prayers were short, the eulogy direct but eloquently delivered, and as I looked around the room I noticed a hotchpotch of faces and expressions. Present were those who kept their doors and homes open to Ezzy throughout his short but tumultuous life; along side them and dispersed throughout the room were those who had rejected him outright, and locked him out from the community and its facilities; and there was a large contingency of his friends, his contemporaries, people he mingled and hanged with, friends who had been with him almost to the very bitter end.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Tribune-Review

By Michael Hasch

Published: Wednesday, April 2, 2014

A member of a Catholic religious order who is awaiting trial on charges of sexually abusing two boys and two girls about 30 years ago in Australia now faces an allegation of abuse from his days at the former North Catholic High School, a spokesman for the Diocese of Pittsburgh said on Wednesday.

Marianist (Society of Mary) Brother Bernard Joseph Hartman is accused of sexually assaulting them while at St. Paul’s College in Melbourne, according to a report by the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

Hartman is a former biology teacher at North Catholic in Troy Hill, now known as Cardinal Wuerl North Catholic High School.

As a result of media coverage of the Australian case, one person has contacted local church officials, the Rev. Ronald Lengwin said.

“We believe (the allegation) is credible and we have turned it over to the appropriate legal authorities,” said Lengwin, declining to say anything more specific about the complaint.

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AUSTRALIA
The Conversation

Vivien Holmes
Senior Lecturer at Australian National University

When counsel assisting the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse put it to Cardinal George Pell last week that his lawyers weren’t his moral advisors, she was implying that he shouldn’t blame his lawyers for his pursuit of a morally bankrupt legal strategy. Pell was the client. He gave the instructions.

But lawyers can and should play an important role in helping a client step back and reflect. Lawyers owe clients a duty to act in the client’s best interests. This may necessarily involve helping the client ascertain what their best interests are.

It is the lawyer’s role (especially in litigation, where costs – psychological, financial and, in this case, “spiritual”, can be so high) to put options to the client and ask whether a “no holds barred” approach is in fact in the client’s best interests.

The Ellis case

John Ellis was a victim of sexual abuse by a Catholic priest. Michael Eccleston, the church’s investigator, thoroughly examined Ellis’ allegations of abuse. Eccleston accepted, and reported to the church, that serious abuse had occurred.

Despite this, in defending the claim Ellis made against the church, Pell adopted an “attack dog” strategy against Ellis. It appears from evidence given to the Royal Commission that Pell’s lawyers, Corrs Chambers Westgarth, advised this strategy and then prosecuted it with gusto.

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AUSTRALIA
The Courier

By FIONA HENDERSON April 3, 2014

AFTER Professor Caroline Taylor spoke at a sexual abuse forum in Ballarat on Wednesday, a woman from the 75-strong audience approached her.

“Every parish and every priest in Australia should hear this,” the woman said.

Another attendee – the mother of two clergy sexual abuse victims – also said she left the forum “feeling so much better”.

“I can’t thank you enough. I just wish my two sons were here too,” the woman said.

Professor Taylor, a world renowned sexual abuse expert, said it was this emotion she hoped would propel Ballarat to support victims and their families into the future.

“You could feel a sense of energy in the room,” she said.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Sasha Aslanian St. Paul, Minn. Apr 2, 2014

Archbishop John Nienstedt today abruptly ended a session in which he testified under oath about his handling of clergy sexual abuse allegations in St. Paul and Minneapolis, an attorney suing the church said.

The four-hour deposition of Nienstedt ended heatedly after attorney Jeff Anderson, who represents a man who says he was sexually abused by the Rev. Thomas Adamson in the 1970s, asked the archbishop to turn over files of offending priests to law enforcement.

“The archbishop balked, and refused and as we urged him to consider doing that because it’s the only safe thing for the community to do, to turn it over to police, the deposition was terminated by the other side and they walked out,” Anderson said.

It was the first time Nienstedt has had to answer questions under oath regarding the sexual abuse of children by priests in the archdiocese since he became archbishop six years ago. Church lawyers tried for months to block the deposition on the grounds it is not relevant to the case. But Ramsey County Judge John Van de North and the Minnesota Court of Appeals disagreed.

Van de North also ordered the archdiocese to turn over thousands of documents about accused priests to lawyers representing the man who filed suit against the church.

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MINNESOTA
SF Gate

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Twin Cities Archbishop John Nienstedt abruptly ended a court deposition about his handling of clergy sexual abuse allegations in St. Paul and Minneapolis, an attorney suing the church said.

Attorney Jeff Anderson said the four-hour hearing ended Wednesday after Anderson asked the archbishop to turn over files of offending priests to law enforcement, according to Minnesota Public Radio News (http://bit.ly/1mANVeE ).

Anderson represents a man who says he was sexually abused by the Rev. Thomas Adamson in the 1970s.

“The archbishop balked and refused, and as we urged him to consider doing that because it’s the only safe thing for the community to do — to turn it over to police — the deposition was terminated by the other side and they walked out,” Anderson said.

It was the first time since Nienstedt became archbishop six years ago that he has had to answer questions under oath regarding the sexual abuse of children by priests.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Richard Chin
rchin@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 04/02/2014

A four-hour deposition of Archbishop John Nienstedt as part of a priest abuse lawsuit ended “abruptly” and “heatedly” Wednesday after lawyers representing an alleged victim urged the Roman Catholic archdiocese to turn over files of accused priests to law enforcement, the plaintiff’s lawyer said.

Jeff Anderson, lawyer for a plaintiff identified as Doe 1, also said the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has not turned over all information it was required to disclose in the case. But Anderson said he would be turning over the information he has gathered and information from Nienstedt’s deposition Wednesday to law enforcement.

Anderson also urged St. Paul police to execute search warrants to seize files on credibly accused priests that he said is being hidden or destroyed by the archdiocese.

“Seize them. Seize those files. Why haven’t they, begs the question. And why won’t they, begs the more serious question,” Anderson said. “Why are they being treated so gingerly? Why are they being treated so differently?

“Get those files before evidence is destroyed,” he said.

The archdiocese issued a statement Wednesday saying that in his deposition, Nienstedt “expressed regret for mistakes that were made in the past,” and said he would “adopt upcoming recommendations, including those of an outside expert firm that is reviewing existing procedures and clergy files.”

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MINNESOTA
Bring Me The News

April 2, 2014 By Melanie Sommer

Archbishop John Nienstedt testified under oath Wednesday about his handling of clergy sexual abuse allegations in the St. Paul and Minneapolis archdiocese, in a deposition conducted by an attorney for a sex abuse victim.

The lawsuit was filed by a man who claims he was sexually abused by a priest, the Rev. Thomas Adamson, in the 1970s when he was assigned to St. Thomas Aquinas Church in St. Paul Park.

Neinstedt and the archdiocese made several attempts to postpone or cancel the deposition, but they were rebuffed by Ramsey County Judge John Van de North.

The plaintiff’s attorney, Jeff Anderson, spoke to reporters after the deposition and claimed Nienstedt was not as forthcoming as he should have been, FOX 9 reports.

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MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

Date:Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Source: Jim Accurso

In his deposition, Archbishop John Nienstedt repeatedly stated that the safety of children is the archdiocese’s highest priority. He responded to questions about the tragedy of sexual abuse by clergy, and how the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis handled this issue during his tenure. He expressed regret for mistakes that were made in the past with how the archdiocese responded to allegations of sexual abuse against clergy. He assumed responsibility for mistakes that have been made since he became archbishop of the archdiocese in 2008. The archbishop was not asked any questions about the plaintiff, Doe 1, or Thomas Adamson, the offending former priest.

The archbishop noted recent changes that have been made by the archdiocese to address how any new reports of sexual abuse will be handled. He repeated his commitment to adopt upcoming recommendations, including those of an outside expert firm that is reviewing existing procedures and clergy files.

In particular, the archbishop highlighted safeguards implemented since 2002, when the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops adopted the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, including safe environment training and criminal background checks for clergy, employees and those volunteering with children in the Church. He also discussed changes that have been put in place recently.

He observed that in the past 10 years, there have been substantiated allegations made against two men formerly in ministry as priests in this archdiocese: Curtis Wehmeyer and Francisco Montero. The archdiocese cooperated with investigators in both cases. Both men were removed from public ministry after the archdiocese became aware of the sexual abuse allegations against them. Montero’s bishop in Ecuador was informed about the allegations in 2007. The Archbishop committed today to contacting the bishop in Ecuador to express again grave concern if Montero should presently be in ministry in Ecuador.

The archbishop continues to express great concern for all victims of sexual abuse of minors, their family and loved ones.

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MINNESOTA
CBS Minnesota

[with video]

Esme Murphy

ST. PAUL (WCCO) – Archbishop John Nienstedt spent most of the day answering questions under oath about clergy sex abuse.

After the deposition, Nienstedt waved to photographers while being driven away from his attorney’s downtown St. Paul office.

Attorney for many of the victims, Jeff Anderson, requested the deposition in the case of a lawsuit filed by a victim, who the courts call John Doe 1. The man says he was sexually abused by Father Thomas Adamson in 1976 and 1977.

Anderson did not hold back after the deposition, accusing Nienstedt of holding back information and not answering key questions.

“It started the day with them failing to turn over the files that they were supposed to by court order, so we didn’t have all the files and the files that we did have were improperly deleted,” Anderson said.

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MINNESOTA
Fox 9

video report by Tom Lyden

ST. PAUL, Minn. (KMSP) –
Archbishop John Nienstedt testified Wednesday about his knowledge of clergy sexual abuse, but the deposition came to an abrupt end, according to the victim’s attorney.

“It ended quite abruptly and quite heatedly,” Anderson recalled.

St. Paul attorney Jeff Anderson told Fox 9 News that Nienstedt ended the four-hour deposition abruptly by walking out when asked to turn over the archdiocese’s files of credibly accused priests.

“He tried to explain he’s been doing an internal review, and I said, ‘You’ve been doing an internal review for 20 years,'” Anderson said.

A spokesperson for the Archdiocese contends that Nienstedt did not “walk out of the deposition,” as attorney Anderson claims. Instead, the spokesperson says the deposition had run past its allotted time.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: CHAO XIONG , Star Tribune Updated: April 2, 2014 – 11:05 PM

Attorney Jeff Anderson said the deposition ended “abruptly.” He will return to court seeking another deposition of John Nienstedt.

Wednesday’s four-hour deposition of Archbishop John Nienstedt ended “abruptly” and “heatedly” when the church was pressed to turn over more of its files of credibly accused priests to police, said an attorney suing the church for sex abuse.

Nienstedt and church attorneys failed to deliver all the files that a judge ordered them to produce for a suit in Ramsey County District Court, and then ended the deposition when they were pressured to turn over documents to police, said attorney Jeff Anderson.

Anderson and Mike Finnegan are representing a man identified as John Doe 1 in a suit against the archdiocese, the Diocese of Winona and former priest Tom Adamson, who allegedly abused Doe 1 in the 1970s.

“The archbishop balked and refused … and they walked out,” Anderson said. “They said the time was up. We persisted that it wasn’t.”

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MINNESOTA
KSTP

By: Cassie Hart

Per court order, the leader of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis was forced to explain Wednesday what he knew about allegations of sexual abuse by priests.

This is the first time Archbishop John Nienstedt had to legally respond to the claims.

The deposition is part of a lawsuit in Ramsey County District Court. A victim has sued the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, the Diocese of Winona, and former priest Tom Adamson, who allegedly abused the victim in the 1970s.

A judge ordered the archdiocese to turn over tens of thousands of pages of documents on about 40 priests who have been credibly accused of abusing children from 1970 to today.

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MINNESOTA
KARE

[with video]

Jay Olstad, KARE 11:51 p.m. EDT April 2, 2014

ST. PAUL, Minn. – As Twin Cities Archbishop John Nienstedt finished a day of answering questions under oath about priest abuse Wednesday, the speculation over whether the archdiocese he leads will file for bankruptcy continued.

“I expect them to file bankruptcy,” said Barbara May, a Twin Cities bankruptcy attorney.

May is surprised the church has not filed already and expects officials will soon.

According to BishopAccountability.org, there have been 11 U.S. Catholic dioceses to file bankruptcy in the last 10 years.

“Every time they file for bankruptcy they save a fortune,” she said of dioceses. “It’s good business for them.”

The closest to Minnesota to file was the Archdiocese of Milwaukee in 2011, who reportedly offered around $6,000 dollars per victim two months ago. That’s a fraction of what church officials likely would have had to pay outside of bankruptcy court.

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FRANCE
La Croix

Un prêtre de Lourdes, âgé de 78 ans, a été condamné mardi à Tarbes à une peine de deux ans de prison avec sursis pour des agressions sexuelles commises sur un de ses enfants de choeur.

Le tribunal correctionnel a également prononcé à son encontre une interdiction définitive de toute activité au contact des enfants. Il est allé au-delà des réquisitions du parquet qui réclamait la même interdiction mais une année de prison avec sursis seulement.

Le prêtre officiait dans la paroisse de Lourdes mais dans une église située à l’extérieur des Sanctuaires.

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FRANCE
La Depeche

[Summary: A Lourdes priest, age 78, yesterday appeared in court on a charge of sexually abusing a 13-year-old altar boy several times in 2010.]

Hier, un prêtre de Lourdes de 78 ans comparaissait au tribunal correctionnel pour avoir commis une agression sexuelle sur l’un de ses enfants de chœur, un garçon de 13 ans au moment des faits, en 2010.

Le jeune homme a déclaré qu’à plusieurs reprises, il lui aurait fait baisser son pantalon, lui aurait mis la main dans son slip et l’aurait masturbé jusqu’à érection. Les faits se seraient déroulés sur une durée de cinq mois, entre le 1er janvier 2009 et le 22 février 2010, au presbytère de l’église paroissiale de Lourdes et dans la maison du prêtre, près des Sanctuaires. La famille, catholique pratiquante, était impliquée dans la vie de la paroisse. Comme la victime, les deux autres frères étaient enfants de chœur. Qui plus est, précise la présidente du tribunal, la victime est «un garçon fragile» qui, après la séparation de ses parents, a subi des violences de la part de son père qui en avait la garde et a finalement été confié à sa mère. «Son petit frère a également été victime d’agressions sexuelles de la part de son oncle paternel.» La victime est suivie par les services de sauvegarde de l’enfance et fait l’objet d’une mesure de protection du juge des enfants.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: CHAO XIONG , Star Tribune Updated: April 2, 2014

Twin Cities Archbishop John Nienstedt appeared Wednesday afternoon at the Ramsey County Courthouse to give his deposition on allegations of priest abuse.

Nienstedt was questioned by attorneys representing John Doe 1 in a civil suit in Ramsey County District Court that alleges abuse by a former priest.

Nienstedt was expected to face questions about decades’ worth of allegations and the shuffling around of priests accused of abuse.

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

Dan Arel

Pope Francis has been praised for all the very positive things he has been saying since taking over the papacy last year. He welcomes non-believers into Heaven as long as they are “good people,” he told the Church to back off on fighting against marriage equality, and he derided capitalism as dehumanizing, saying “we … have to say ‘Thou shalt not’ to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills.” Critics of the new pope point out this is nothing more than propaganda and remind us that out of all the great things the pope has said, no changes to Church doctrines have been put forth.

Pope Francis has spoken a few times about the Church’s sex abuse scandals, but as his critics have pointed out, he had done little to stop sex abuse or change the Church’s actions, until now. This week, the pope appointed a commission to solve the “sex abuse problem,” Earning him praise for taking what many see as a serious step towards resolving these issues.

But is this really a step? Can a Vatican-appointed commission bring about real change and be trusted to give a non-biased and honest report about the scale and severity of the abuse and offer real solutions that will be accepted by the Church?

Not everyone seems to agree that this is a great step forward. Former Maine State senator and president of SecularityUSA took to his Twitter account to say:

“Pervert Priest victims want Papal ACTION protecting kids: “expose predators, discipline enablers & uncover cover-ups.” A Commission? Please.”

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VRGINIA
WTVR

by Alix Bryan

RICHMOND, Va. (WTVR) — Geronimo Aguilar, also known as Pastor G, resigned June 2013 from the 12-year-old Richmond Outreach Center megachurch in South Richmond that he founded, but a flyer shows he will soon be preaching again.

He was one of the four out of five pastors that resigned for various reasons from the ROC last year, following a Board of Directors meeting and (for Aguilar) after news of the specific sexual assault allegations against him.

Aguilar is out on bond, facing at least seven felony charges in Tarrant County, Texas, based on allegations that he sexually abused two young girls in the mid-90s.

A flyer shows that Pastor G is scheduled to preach at the Cedar Street Baptist Church of God, on Good Friday, April 18. Six other preachers will take the stage that night, each getting seven minutes to preach.

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NEW JERSEY
The Record

APRIL 2, 2014

BY JEFF GREEN
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD

In a controversy that may resonate with Catholics in North Jersey, Atlanta Archbishop Wilton Gregory seems to have gotten the pope’s message about modest living.

Archbishop Wilton Gregory’s home in Atlanta.
Days after Pope Francis permanently removed a German bishop for his lavish spending on a new residence, the Atlanta cleric apologized for building a $2.2 million mansion as his residence. He bowed to criticism from local parishioners and said he would consider selling the new home in Buckhead, Atlanta’s toniest neighborhood.

In letters, emails and a meeting, local Catholics told Gregory that the price tag was outlandish, especially in light of Pope Francis’ frugality. The Tudor-style mansion, stretching nearly 6,400 square feet, includes two dining rooms and a safe room. The archbishop said the new pope has “set the bar” for church leaders and others, and Gregory said he hadn’t looked at the project’s cost in terms of his own “integrity and pastoral credibility.”

Archbishop Wilton Gregory’s home in Atlanta.
Meanwhile, Archbishop John J. Myers of Newark, who at church expense is expanding his retirement home in upscale Hunterdon County, appears determined not sell the house or halt construction, his spokesman said, even as many parishioners protest the extravagance.

Located on 8 acres in rural Franklin Township, Myers’ home will be about 1,000 square feet larger than Gregory’s Atlanta mansion.

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VIRGINIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: April, 2, 2014

Statement by Becky Ianni, Virginia SNAP Director, SNAPVirginia@cox.net, 703-801-6044

The former pastor of Richmond Outreach Center, who has been indicted by the grand jury for sexually assaulting kids, is scheduled to speak on Good Friday at a local Baptist church.

We are outraged that this man, Geronimo Aguilar, who has been charged with sexually abusing two children, will soon give a talk at Cedar Street Baptist Church as part of a special Easter event. His participation in this panel of pastors will rub salt into the wounds of those victims and their families who have already suffered so much.

A horrific message is being sent to other victims: “If you come forward and your perpetrator is arrested, the church will still honor him and disregard your pain.” And a disturbing message is being sent to other child molesting clerics: “You can take the innocence of a child but still be retain your title of pastor and be able to preach at special events.”

We urge Cedar Baptist Church to reconsider letting “Pastor G” to preach at the Rush Hour to Calvary on Good Friday. We hope that the other pastors scheduled to preach will refuse to do so unless Aguilar is removed from the lineup. We encourage anyone who may have been harmed by or who has any information about harm done by Aguilar to contact the police. Only when victims and witnesses speak out are children safer.

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ISRAEL
Times of Israel

BY MARISSA NEWMAN April 2, 2014

Following a comprehensive investigation, the Israel Police submitted a recommendation Wednesday that Archbishop Emeritus Dr. Elias Chacour, 74, former head of the Melkite Greek Catholic church in Israel, be prosecuted for sexual harassment and indecent assault of an employee.

“An evidential basis was formed that the suspect committed an offense of indecent assault and sexual harassment against the complainant,” a statement from the Lahav 433 crime unit read.

The findings will be transferred to the state attorney to determine whether to bring Chacour to trial.

The probe was launched after a complaint was filed by a senior worker in the church’s educational system, charging the then-archbishop with the above crimes, and claiming that Chacour had fired her following the offenses in 2008.

Chacour served as the archbishop from 2006 until 2014, the first Palestinian to hold the position. He submitted his resignation to Pope Francis earlier this year, in light of his declining health and, some claim, the harassment allegations against him.

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NEW YORK
The Jewish Week

Wed, 04/02/2014

The new Brooklyn district attorney, Ken Thompson, ended Sam Kellner’s three-year legal ordeal last month, dismissing his criminal case after a six-week investigation concluded that the witnesses against him “lacked credibility to such a degree” that the case could not be prosecuted. Kellner is the whistleblower from a chasidic community who pressed charges against Baruch Lebovits for alleged sexual abuse against Kellner’s young son. That brave act turned into a nightmare when Kellner himself was later charged with perjury and extortion.

According to Kellner’s attorneys, in a conference in chambers before the dismissal of those charges, the prosecutor handling the case told the judge that Kellner had been indicted on what was, in effect, manufactured and perjured testimony.

This was a conclusion The Jewish Week, through the meticulous reporting of special correspondent Hella Winston, reached over a year ago, based on an analysis of district attorney and court records, as well as her own extensive, independent investigation. All indications were that the case against Kellner was cooked up by powerful and well-connected supporters of Lebovits — a convicted chasidic child molester — to get him out of jail. That these supporters found such a willing ally in former district attorney Charles Hynes, under whose nose they had also successfully intimidated and then turned an alleged victim of Lebovits against Kellner, is perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this sordid affair.

During his run for office, Thompson made the issue of prosecutorial conduct a centerpiece of his campaign. He has begun putting together a special unit in his office to review possible wrongful convictions, and the New York Law Journal recently reported that he is seeking a half-million dollars to staff it, telling members of the City Council, “We need to give people confidence in the convictions that come out of the Brooklyn office.”

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UNITED STATES
NPR

[with audio]

by JOHN BURNETT
April 01, 2014

Flip on Daystar television at any hour of the day and you’ll likely see the elements of modern televangelism: a stylish set, an emotional spiritual message and a phone number on the screen soliciting donations.

Based in a studio complex between Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas, and broadcasting to a potential audience of 2 billion people around the globe, Daystar calls itself the fastest growing Christian television network in the world.

The Internal Revenue Service considers Daystar something else: a church.

Televangelists have a choice when they deal with the IRS. Some, like Pat Robertson and Billy Graham, register as religious organizations. They’re exempt from most taxes but still must file disclosure reports showing how they make and spend their money.

Daystar and dozens of others call themselves churches, which enjoy the greatest protection and privacy of all nonprofit organizations in America.

Churches avoid not only taxes, but any requirement to disclose their finances. And, as NPR has learned, for the last five years churches have avoided virtually any scrutiny whatsoever from the federal government’s tax authority.

Today, television evangelists are larger, more numerous, more complex, richer, with bigger audiences than ever before and yet they are the least transparent of all nonprofits.

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MINNESOTA
Fox 9

posted by Mike Durkin

ST. PAUL, Minn. (KMSP) –
Archbishop John Nienstedt will testify Wednesday about his knowledge to clergy sexual abuse.

Nienstedt’s deposition is a response to a lawsuit filed by an alleged victim who claims he was sexually abused by former priest Tom Adamson between 1976 and 1977 when he was assigned to a church in St. Paul Park.

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona are also named in the lawsuit.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

The following article appeared in the April 2014 edition of The Limbaugh Letter.
Reprinted with permission from The Limbaugh Letter, ©2014 Premiere Networks, Inc.
For additional information, or to subscribe to The Limbaugh Letter please visit www.thelimbaughletter.com

My Conversation with Bill Donohue

by Rush Limbaugh

A privilege to speak with this religious freedom warrior, president of the Catholic League, a bold presence on television, the author of many books, including Secular Sabotage: How Liberals Are Destroying Religion and Culture in America and Why Catholicism Matters: How Catholic Virtues Can Reshape Society in the 21st Century:

Rush: Dr. Donohue, this is great. I have wanted to talk to you for the longest time, and I’m really appreciative that you’ve been able to make the time here.

Donohue: Wait, what? For you? What, are you kidding me? You’re number one, buddy. [Laughs]
Rush: You intrigue me. I’ve been watching you for years on tv. Since I’ve got you here, could you tell me a little bit about the Catholic League? How old is it? What is its purpose?

Donohue: It was founded in 1973 by a man I never got a chance to meet; he died a couple of years before I took over in 1993. Back in 1973 Father Virgil Blum, a Jesuit priest, professor of political science at Marquette University, founded the Catholic League. Even though that was the year of Roe v. Wade, that wasn’t his top issue. His top issue was anti-Catholicism. He wanted this organization to be somewhat analogous to the ADL [Anti-Defamation League] in the Jewish community. His driving issue more than anything else back in ’73 was actually school vouchers. Then abortion, then other things. But that was it, to defend individual Catholics and the institutional church.

Though he was a priest, he felt the need for a lay organization. I can tell you from my conversations with a lot of bishops and cardinals over the years, they very much feel there is a need for a lay organization because, quite frankly, I can say some things that they may want to say, but they’re constrained by the collar. There’s a need for Catholics to enter into a more robust debate. …

Rush: You don’t worry that the College of Cardinals can somehow be corrupted ten, 20, 30 years from now? What about the priesthood? Some say that the abuse of children thing is the result of infiltration, to create the exact image of the Church that has happened.

Donohue: The sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church was an absolute, utter disgrace. John Jay College of Criminal Justice, not an arm of the Catholic Church, put the timeline as overwhelmingly from the mid-60s to the mid-80s. Mid-60s, the beginning of the sexual revolution. Mid-80s, because I would argue AIDS was discovered in ’81 and that put the brakes on people.

Why did it affect the Catholic Church? When the winds of culture change dramatically, it gets through the military, it gets through the churches, everybody. That’s not an excuse. You had two principle actors: the molesting priest and the enabling bishop. Most of the molesting priests, according to John Jay, were men who had sex with men. Now they don’t use the word I’m going to use: homosexuality. John Jay said less than five percent were pedophiles. In other words, it was guys hitting on adolescent guys.

Now, I can say this to you because you’ll give me a chance to say it. I’ve said it a million times, but nobody wants to quote me on this. Most gay priests are not molesters, but most of the molesting priests have been gay. Now, I’m Irish. My people have a problem with alcoholism. It doesn’t mean if you’re born Irish you’re going to become an alcoholic. It means that maybe you ought to take a look at certain communities. That’s all I’m saying.

Now, the enabling bishop. What drove him? Clericalism. That’s the term that’s used in Catholic circles. Those who are not Catholic would probably understand it more in terms of elitism, arrogance, pomposity. “The bishop knows best.” “Don’t worry about that, I’m taking care of things.” Yes, you took care of things real well, some of you.

This should never have happened. They were teaching in some of the seminaries in the 1970s that all kinds of sexual expression was okay. As in the 1977 book Human Sexuality, by a former priest, Anthony Kosnik. It’s stunning. Everything goes. I’m saying the Catholic Church became corrupt, morally speaking, on matters sexual in the 1970s when the lid blew. Not all seminaries, obviously, but too many of them. So there was this enabling factor, “Send the guy to therapy and he’ll be just fine.” Well, some people are intractable. I’m not saying you throw them in the street or lock them up, although some of them certainly should be, but what you can’t do is put them back into ministry.

“Give the poor devil therapy” was the zeitgeist. That was the spirit of the times in the 60s and 70s. You could rehabilitate anybody. Therapy was for everybody. People were bragging about their analysts, and too many bishops got advice from the psychiatrists and they accepted it. It was a sad chapter. In the last six years, we have seven credible accusations made against 40,000 priests. There’s a serious problem of child rape going on in other demographic communities about which you will hear nothing. Almost every case you hear today is an old case which is being resurrected. There’s no bigger devil in this than the Catholic left and those who claim to be Catholic and have one foot out the door or who have long left and who are angry. Particularly watch out for the ex-priest, the ex-seminarian, and the ex-nun.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)

Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Wednesday 2 April 2014

The Salvation Army moved and promoted an officer who confessed to abusing an eight-year-old girl, an inquiry has been told.

News of his promotion and the officer’s continued contact with her family contributed to the child’s mother having a nervous breakdown, the royal commission into child sexual abuse heard on Wednesday.

The mother, JH, said via videolink her daughter was always a “gentle soul” but became more quiet and withdrawn after she was abused by then Captain Colin Haggar in 1989.

JH ran the local op shop for the Salvation Army in a central-western NSW town. She said that in 1989 she and her husband had been visited by Haggar, who confessed to sexually abusing their daughter, who was eight or nine at the time.

We “just sat there in disbelief” when Haggar told us “it wasn’t that serious, I only fingered her”, she said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

MARK SCHLIEBS THE AUSTRALIAN APRIL 02, 2014

THE Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide wrote to police in 2002 about decade-old child sexual abuse because allegations that Peter Hollingworth mishandled a separate case were made a couple of months earlier, corruption investigators believed.

In a 2002 report into why a pedophile investigation was shut down that was tendered to a royal commission, investigators from South Australia Police’s Anti-Corruption Branch included thoughts on why Archbishop Philip Wilson wrote to police about the abuse of intellectually disabled children by a school-bus driver.

They linked Archbishop Wilson’s February 2002 letter to the allegation that Dr Hollingworth — who was governor-general at that time — did not take appropriate action as the Anglican archbishop of Brisbane against a pedophile priest.

Archbishop Wilson’s letter to then commissioner Mal Hyde raised concerns the bus driver, Brian Perkins, had not been brought from Queensland to face justice despite parents being informed of the case at the St Ann’s Special School in 1991.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX THE AUSTRALIAN APRIL 03, 2014

A SALVATION Army officer told the parents of an eight- or nine-year-old girl that he had sexually abused their daughter, before saying he was glad to have spoken to them and could now “go out and save more souls”.

Captain Colin Haggar was subsequently dismissed by the church in 1990, before being reinstated and promoted, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse has heard.

As recently as last July, Mr Haggar was working as the director of a Salvation Army centre offering accommodation for vulnerable women and children, despite the organisation receiving other abuse complaints against him.

Giving evidence yesterday to the commission, the young girl’s mother said Mr Haggar had asked to meet her and her husband at their home in regional NSW, before leading them in “a prayer about forgiveness and acceptance of God’s love”.

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VIRGINIA
WRIC

Posted: Apr 01, 2014

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) –
Geronimo “Pastor G” Aguilar, the former head pastor of the Richmond Outreach Center who has been indicted on multiple counts, including aggravated sexual assault of a child under 14, is one of seven religious leaders scheduled to speak at Cedar Street Baptist Church of God on Good Friday.

Dr. Anthony M. Chandler Sr., the pastor of Cedar Street Baptist Church of God, is hosting “Rush Hour to Calvary” on Friday, April 18. According to the event flyer, Aguilar and six other ministers will preach about seven sayings for seven minutes each.

Pastor G seems an unlikely member of the panel. In April 2013, ABC 8News Anchor/Investigative Reporter Kerri O’Brien broke the story that while he was leading the ROC, Aguilar was under investigation in California and Texas for sexual misconduct.

In May 2013, Aguilar, 43, was arrested and charged with sexually assaulting an 11-year-old girl and her 13-year-old sister while he was their youth pastor in Fort Worth, Texas in 1996 and 1997. In September 2013, a grand jury indicted him on two counts of aggravated sexual assault in the case

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Madeleine Baran St. Paul, Minn. Apr 2, 2014

Archbishop John Nienstedt will testify under oath today about his handling of clergy sexual abuse allegations in St. Paul and Minneapolis, marking the first time that the leader of the Twin Cities archdiocese has been forced to answer questions about his role in the scandal.

The deposition is part of a lawsuit brought by a man who says he was sexually abused by the Rev. Thomas Adamson in the mid-1970s. The lawsuit claims the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona created a public nuisance by refusing for decades to release information on abusive priests. It says that the actions of top church officials continue to put children at risk.

Church lawyers have tried to block the deposition for months, arguing that it isn’t relevant to the case and could be used by the man’s attorneys as “a means of harassment, oppression and embarrassment to these witnesses, as well as for the purpose of self-promotion and negative publicity against The Archdiocese.” Those arguments failed to convince Ramsey County Judge John Van de North and the Minnesota Court of Appeals.

Van de North also declined to seal the deposition and ordered the archdiocese to turn over thousands of documents about accused priests to lawyers representing the alleged victim. The judge had previously ordered the archdiocese to publicly disclose the names of priests it considered to have been “credibly accused” of child sexual abuse. He also ordered the deposition of former vicar general Kevin McDonough, scheduled for April 16.

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IRELAND
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, April 2, 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 )

Irish minister Alan Shatter is seeking clarification from the Vatican for their misleading statements before a United Nations panel about the Magdalene laundries. We are disappointed, but not surprised by both the Vatican’s deception and the nuns’ unchanged refusal to help victims.

[Irish Times]

We doubt there’s any “miscommunication” here. Catholic officials often say whatever they want in order to get out of a jam or fix, and when caught being misleading, they claim there was some kind of mix up.

We hope the UN panel will denounce Vatican officials for being misleading. And we hope this negatively publicity will prompt the Vatican to be truthful and transparent.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Statement by Phil Saviano ( 617-983 5075 ) of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

In a derisive put-down, Boston’s top Catholic official is criticizing the motives of thousands of members of our self-help group.

In an interview published late yesterday by the Washington Post, Cardinal Sean O’Malley dismissed our well-founded skepticism about the latest Catholic abuse panel by claiming that our organization is “very hurt and very angry.”

For a quarter century, we’ve helped expose the complicity of hundreds of Catholic officials in thousands of heinous child sex crimes. So it’s tempting and convenient for most of them to portray us as “angry.” The truth is, however, that most of us are passionate . . . about the safety of children. That’s what drives us. And we’re deeply – and justifiably – disappointed that after nearly 30 years of widely-reported and extensively-documented callous cover ups by seemingly countless Catholic clerics, Pope Francis is setting up yet-another church panel to study abuse.

It’s been said that the best defense is a good offense. So we’re not surprised that O’Malley tries to discredit and dismiss us. In so doing, he joins a long list of his church colleagues who know they can’t defend the indefensible so instead they attack the messengers.

———————————————-

[From the Washington Post article:

The cardinal from Boston is also one of the eight people recently named to a Vatican commission on protecting children from sex abuse. The pope made a rare media misstep recently when he responded defensively on the subject of abuse, and some survivors of rape by priests have protested that the last thing the Vatican needs is another commission.

O’Malley said his hope for the commission is “to bring together a group of experts and try and help the bishops conferences of the world to develop policies that will be effective for child protection, beginning with the Vatican City. We’d like to see Vatican City model what child protection should be like.’’ Existing policies all over the world, he said, “need to be studied and evaluated and in many cases improved.”

Of the argument that bishops who perpetuated abuse in the past should still be held accountable, he said, “That’s something the commission I’m sure will make recommendations on – and that’s what we will do, make recommendations – and it will be challenging,’’ he added, in part because members of that or any commission include people from very different cultures. “But we are anxious to have input from people who have experience either in their own lives or in working with victims and survivors.’

Asked if he was surprised by the negative response to the commission from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, he said no: “They are very hurt and they are angry and upset with the church and I understand their anger, but I don’t know that their evaluation is always the most accurate.”]

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MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

[court document]

Judge Allows Unprecedented Legal Claims to Move Forward in Lawsuit Involving Father Curtis Wehmeyer

Claims include nuisance and spoliation of evidence

St. Paul, MN) – Today, Ramsey County Judge John Van de North issued an Order allowing Doe 31, who was sexually abused by Father Curtis Wehmeyer, to move forward with legal claims for nuisance and spoliation and offered Doe 31 a chance to amend the complaint filed on January 30, 2014 to include additional details in support of false advertising and deceptive trade practices claims to demonstrate the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis misrepresented its programs to be safe for children.

“We are eager to put all of the information before the Court that will show the misrepresentations of a safe environment for children,” said Doe 31’s attorney Jeff Anderson.

The legal claims are consumer protection laws that have never before been used in a clergy child sexual abuse lawsuit in civil court.

Notes: The Order issued today by the Court is attached and posted to our website at www.andersonadvocates.com along with the complaint and other documents.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

April 2, 2014

Elizabeth Farrelly
Sydney Morning Herald columnist, author, architecture critic and essayist

George Pell wants to insure priests against being sued for child sexual abuse. My head is still rotating on its axis. Our man in purple, our alpha priest, moral paragon. Our Vatican princeling, just days from taking up his dauphindom in Rome: he said that? He dropped this fissile solipsism on our public debate and left, smacking the dust from his hands like, we’re done now, right?

For this was no dinner party throw-away. The cardinal – fully frocked, schooled and premeditated – breathed his proposition into the stone tablets of a royal commission. He wanted it recorded and kept. Forever.

But insurance? Does he think child sex is some unavoidable occupational hazard? Something a priest will sooner or later fall to? An accident? If you wanted to maximise the damage already done to countless children, you’d be hard put to find a surer way, or crueller.

It was already accepted that the church had systematically preyed on its charges, breaking their still-soft hearts by telling them not just to take it and be quiet, but that this – this! – is how God loves them.

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WISCONSIN
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Alex Gibney’s documentary about the priest sex-abuse scandal at St. John’s School for the Deaf in St. Francis was among the winners of the 2013 Peabody Awards announced Wednesday morning.

“Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God” — which examines the actions of Father Lawrence Murphy, who abused more than 200 deaf students at the school from the 1950s to the 1970s, and the Catholic Church’s efforts to keep the scandal quiet — was called “harrowing and infuriating” by the Peabody committee.

The film, which had its U.S. premiere at the 2012 Milwaukee Film Festival, aired on HBO in 2013. Much of the story is told in compelling fashion by some of Murphy’s victims — including a home movie of the now-grown victims confronting the priest.

“It was such a powerful piece of footage, we had to find a place in the narrative to make room for it,” Gibney told Journal Sentinel film critic Duane Dudek before the 2012 Milwaukee Film Festival.

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MINNESOTA
KSTP

[with video]

Created: 04/02/2014

By: Jennie Olson

The leader of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis is facing tough questions on Wednesday.

Archbishop John Nienstedt will have to explain what he knew about allegations of sexual abuse by his priests. Nienstedt’s deposition will not be sealed, much to the disappointment of the archdiocese. We could soon learn what Nienstedt has to say under oath during the four-hour deposition.

The deposition is part of a lawsuit in Ramsey County District Court. A victim has sued the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, the Diocese of Winona, and former priest Tom Adamson, who allegedly abused the victim in the 1970s.

A judge ordered the archdiocese to turn over tens of thousands of pages of documents on about 40 priests who have been credibly accused of abusing children from 1970 to today. All 60,000 documents have to be turned in to the Ramsey County judge by Nienstedt’s deposition Wednesday. The documents are sealed, but the victim’s attorney plans to ask the judge to reveal as much as he can through the deposition process.

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CHILE
Puranoticia

[Summary: The prosecution today asked that priest John O’Reilly be imprisoned for 20 years for alleged abuse of female children ages 7 and 11.]

La Fiscalía Oriente presentará hoy ante el 4° Juzgado de Garantía de Santiago la acusación por presuntos abusos sexuales en contra del sacerdote John O’Reilly.

Según publicó hoy El Mercurio, fuentes vinculadas al caso informaron que el Ministerio Público solicitaría ante la justicia que el religioso sea condenado a dos penas de 10 años y un día de presidio efectivo.

Luego de siete meses de investigación, y el análisis de toda la prueba recopilada, la Unidad de Delitos Sexuales -junto a las fiscales Lorena Parra y Carmen Gloria Guevara- decidieron llevar a juicio a O’Reilly como presunto autor del delito de abuso sexual impropio reiterado en contra de dos hermanas de 7 y 11 años.

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ILLINOIS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, April 2, 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 )

Another person who was sexually assaulted by Belleville’s Fr. Robert J. Vonnahmen has filed a civil child sex abuse and cover up lawsuit against Catholic officials.

[Madison-St. Clair Record]

Vonnahmen is one of Illinois’ worst child molesting clerics. And like so many of his abusive associates, he walks free today with no supervision thanks to dozens of current and former Belleville Catholic church staff and members who, for decades, ignored or hid his crimes.

We applaud this brave victim and hope his legal action brings him some degree of healing. We know it will help ease the burdens of others who were violated by Belleville priests. We hope it will inspire even one church employee – past or present – to show courage and become a whistleblower. And we hope it will deter one employer, secular or religious, from concealing heinous crimes against kids.

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GEORGIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, April 2, 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 )

Gregory’s “apology” about his extravagant spending rings hollow.

The test of whether an apology is sincere is simple: Are the remorseful words followed by different deeds? In this case, at best, it’s too early to tell, because Gregory refuses to reverse himself.

If you apologize for something, you express regret for having done something and you stop doing it. But Gregory wants to have his cake and eat it too. He wants to say “I’m sorry” without having to say “I’ll change.”

Most of who Gregory will allegedly “consult” will be clerics who have pledged to obey him. So how meaningful and authentic will their feedback be?

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DEUTSCHLAND
Die Welt

[Summary: Former Limburg Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst can look forward to a good pension.]

Der ehemalige Limburger Bischof Tebartz-van Elst darf sich auf eine üppige Pension und womöglich eine angenehme Aufgabe freuen. Auch wenn in Rom der Einfluss seiner Unterstützer schwindet. Von Christian Eckl

Eigentlich kann man die katholische Kirche ganz gut mit einem weltweit agierenden Konzern vergleichen. Strauchelt ein kleiner Mitarbeiter, so wird er eben entlassen. Strauchelt einer aus der mittleren Führungsebene, so weiß er oft zu viel. Nur so ist es zu erklären, dass Bischöfe, die zum Rücktritt gezwungen werden, zumindest in Deutschland weich fallen.

Einfachen Priestern droht bei Verfehlungen oft die Laisierung. Im Falle von Priestern, die Kinder missbrauchen, ist das durchaus verständlich – doch auch wenn ein Priester zu einem von ihm gezeugten Kind öffentlich steht, droht ihm Liebesentzug durch seine Kirche.

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UNITED STATES
TheMediaReport

In a newly released annual audit of abuse by independent experts, it was reported that there were only ten contemporaneous abuse allegations made against priests even deemed “credible” in all of 2013 (out of some 40,000 active priests) and that the “fewest allegations and victims” ever were tabulated since annual reports were first compiled in 2004.

This is obviously good news. But predictably, the mainstream media is notably silent about this very positive report, even though in years past when the numbers were less encouraging, the media fell over themselves to breathlessly report any unflattering statistics which they could dig up.

A search of news coverage about the Church’s new annual report found that not a single secular news outlet (e.g., the New York Times, Boston Globe, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune etc.) reported on the study.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Claire O’Sullivan
Irish Examiner Reporter

As a monument is unveiled today to the 222 children who died at a Protestant children’s home and were buried in unmarked graves, survivors of the home have pledged to continue their fight for justice.

The Department of Justice offered the Bethany Survivor’s Group up to €25,000 towards their memorial, but has refused to include them in the redress scheme that was offered to the survivors of Magdalene laundries.

“To help fund the memorial was the right step on the behalf of the Department, but we want them to know it is only the first step. The State had a duty of care to us, yet we suffered enormous abuse and that must be acknowledged,” said Derek Leinster, chairman of the Bethany Survivor’s Group.

A Church of Ireland service at Mount Jerome Chapel will precede the unveiling of the six foot sculpture at the adjoining cemetery at Harold’s Cross, Dublin, today.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Paddy Agnew, Patsy McGarry

Wed, Apr 2, 2014

Claims made by the Vatican in a submission to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) last December were so inaccurate, it prompted Minister for Justice Alan Shatter to write to Rome seeking clarification, The Irish Times has learned.

The Vatican asserted to the UNCRC that the four religious congregations that ran Magdalene laundries in Ireland were willing to pay part of a compensation scheme developed by the State for women who had been in the laundries.

However, two of the religious congregations concerned have since repeated their unwillingness to contribute to any compensation scheme for the women.

Criticism
When the UNCRC issued its final report on the Vatican’s child protection record last February, Rome came in for unprecedented worldwide criticism.

In its response, the Vatican said it was “heartened by the openness of the religious sisters to engage in discussions about issues of compensation and their willingness to pay a part of a compensation package developed by state authorities”.

But the four congregations involved have all publicly declined to contribute to the proposed compensation scheme.

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AUSTRALIA
Eureka Street

Andrew Hamilton | 02 April 2014

Cardinal Pell was often described as the leader of the Australian Church. What he said and did was taken to represent the Australian Catholic Church. That sometimes annoyed Catholics from other states who saw their church as superior to the Sydney variety, and certainly did not recognise the Cardinal as their leader.

It does explain why his appearance at the Royal Commission was awaited with such interest and received such publicity. But in the event the hearings on the treatment of John Ellis were of far deeper significance than for what they revealed of the Cardinal’s own role. It exposed a set of priorities and strategies until recently adopted by many Australian bishops, church bodies and leaders of religious congregations. They reflected an unwitting subscription to neoliberal ideology at the expense of the Christian Gospel.

In the Catholic Church, bishops and, in a more limited sphere, other religious leaders have three interlocking responsibilities. They are teachers of their people, encouraging them to appropriate the Gospel deeply and faithfully, and helping them reflect on its significance today. They are pastors of their people, providing for their spiritual needs and reaching out to the needy and the lost. They also administer the patrimony of the Church, ensuring that its personal and financial resources serve its mission.

These responsibilities are complex and rich in their scope, but can readily be reduced to something more manageable. Teaching can be reduced to enforcing doctrinal orthodoxy; pastoring, to maintaining order; administering the patrimony, to protecting and extending financial reserves. And the rich relationships involved in these responsibilities can be reduced to control, that unlovely amalgam of fear and power.

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FLORIDA
Sun Sentinel

By Rafael Olmeda, Sun Sentinel
8:17 p.m. EDT, April 1, 2014

Through sobs, a 21-year-old man told a Broward jury Tuesday how he really feels about the man accused of raping him repeatedly as a teenager.

“I still love him.”

The accuser, whose name is being withheld because of the nature of the accusations, had just finished telling the jury that he was initiated into years of sexual abuse by former youth mentor Jeffery London, 50, who is being tried for 27 counts of lewd and lascivious molestation and sexual battery on a minor.

London, who lived in Lauderdale Lakes when he was arrested, faces life in prison if convicted. The charges involve four separate accusers, one of whom took the stand Tuesday. London, who served as a mentor at the Bible Church of God in Fort Lauderdale and as dean of students at Eagle Charter Academy in Lauderdale Lakes from 2003-09, was arrested in 2012 when abuse allegations came to light.

Since then, at least 10 men have accused him of molestation, all while the men were as young as pre-teens through their teenage years.

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AUSTRALIA
Eureka Street

Neil Ormerod | 02 April 2014

sMost of us who have worked in or near church institutions get used to a certain level of dysfunctionality: poor lines of communication, under-developed personal skills, the arbitrary use of power, the no-talk rule about controversial issues, lack of accountability and transparency, people rising above the level of their competence, and so on. In general we learn to tolerate it and work around it as best we can. At times, however, it comes together as a ‘perfect storm’ of dysfunctionality leading to incredibly damaging consequences for all concerned.

After listening to several hours of the Royal Commission into sexual abuse on the John Ellis case I would see this as one such occasion.

There was enormous damage done to John Ellis (pictured) in his attempts to get the Church to respond as the presence of Christ in the world. Despite repeated failures by Church authorities to deal adequately with his plight he continued to seek pastoral care, spiritual direction and finally legal mediation. It seems he wasn’t recognised as a victim but as an adversary whom the Church needed to crush, a well-to-do lawyer after a pot of money. His was to be the corpse hanging outside the city gates as a warning to all who would attempt similar actions.

Damage was done to the reputations of various bit-players: John Davoran and Monsignor Brian Rayner who clearly did not have Cardinal Pell’s confidence; the Cardinal’s secretary Dr Michael Casey who was forced by the Commission to admit that the Church’s actions were unjust; the solicitors from the Cardinal’s legal team Coors who would have heard clearly the warning of Justice McClellan that saying they were following their client’s instructions would be no defence. Many who faced the Commission’s scrutiny emerged diminished persons.

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IRELAND
The Journal

THE GREAT THING about whistleblowers now is they have more access to information than ever, according to the editor of The Observer John Mulholland.

The Dublin-born editor believes the role of the whistleblower within Irish society has been vital in uncovering the “misbehavior” of institutions such as the Catholic church.

“Look at the Catholic church: should whistleblowers over the last 20, 30 years not have come forward and given their story of sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic priests?

“Well of course there were people in Ireland who wish they hadn’t, who had a loyalty to the Catholic church, but there is no rational reason for you to believe that they shouldn’t have came forward and told their stories.

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CANADA
Lethbridge Herald

BY LETHBRIDGE HERALD OPINON ON APRIL 2, 2014.

Four years of public hearings have come to an end.

Sunday in Edmonton, the commission tasked with exploring the history of Canada’s residential schools system, and its impact on the county’s aboriginal population, wrapped up its work.

In all, thousands of victims shared their experiences, as stories of the cruelty and abuse were captured on video. It created a video history of what will go down as one of Canada’s biggest blunders, a dark chapter in our history.

For some, including many here in southern Alberta, the opportunity to have their story heard was only one part of the process. Many have commented over the years how it was all part of the healing process while for others, it simply brought back memories they likely wished to keep buried.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission made visits to over 300 communities, and started in Winnipeg back in June of 2010. Since then, about 6,500 statements were collected, as survivors spoke about what they went through during their time in residential schools.

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MINNESOTA
Mille Lacs Messenger

Posted: Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Special to the Messenger

An updated list of Crosier priests and brothers with one or more credible claims of sexual abuse of minors has been released by the community from its province headquarters in Phoenix. The list includes Crosiers previously disclosed in 2002 following a third-party investigation as well as current, former and deceased Crosiers who have credible allegations against them, according to a news release from the order.

In the St. Cloud Diocese, those accused were assigned at one or more of the following ministries: Crosier Seminary and Priory, Onamia; St. Peter Parish, St. Cloud; St. Mary’s Cathedral, St. Cloud; St. Therese Parish, Vineland; Cathedral High School, St. Cloud; Central Minnesota TEC.

The province website lists all assignments of the accused: www.crosier.org.

Crosier Prior Provincial Thomas Enneking said in the statement, “It is our hope that this will bring healing, peace and comfort to the victims and their families. Even though the last occurrence of abuse took place more than 20 years ago, the stigma remains for all of us. We pray for forgiveness and the opportunity to strengthen our ministry and service to everyone in need.”

The statement added the Crosiers “are saddened and ashamed to acknowledge this part of our history. We apologize to all victims, families and communalities who have been hurt by the actions of Crosiers who were supposed to be instruments of Christ’s love and healing mercy. … We are very concerned for the well-being of those who have been hurt because of sexual abuse by a Crosier.”

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FLORIDA
Local 10

[with video]

Author: Victor Oquendo, Reporter, voquendo@Local10.com
John Turchin, Crime Specialist, jturchin@local10.com

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. –
It was a difficult day in court Tuesday as four of Jeffery London’s alleged victims testified, taking everyone through the abuse and describing what it’s been like since they lived with London.

“He’s the gentleman right there,” said one alleged victim. When asked how old he was when the abuse allegedly began, he said, “I was 14.”

Years after the young men said London sexually abused and beat them, the wounds are still fresh.

“I thought, ‘Why would God allow this?’ But at the same time I thought it was right because he was blessed,” another alleged victim said.

On the surface, London was a pillar of the community — a pastor, a counselor at the Boys & Girls Club, dean of students at a local charter school and he would even take homeless and troubled boys into his home.

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FLORIDA
NBC Miami

[with video]

By Gilma Avalos | Wednesday, Apr 2, 2014

Now 25-years-old, a witness took the stand Tuesday against the man who allegedly sexually abused him for almost a decade when he was a child.

The victim didn’t want to look at Jeffery London, 50, a former youth pastor. London, who was a mentor at the Bible Church of God and dean of students at Eagle Charter Academy, is being tried for 27 counts of lewd and lascivious molestation and sexual battery on a minor, according to the Sun Sentinel.

“I don’t want to look at him,” the victim said on the stand.

“Let me ask the question. Do you see the person in the courtroom here today who sexually abused you from the age of 11 to 18?” prosecutors asked.

“Yes,” he responded.

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AUSTRALIA
Eureka Street

Tim Wallace | 02 April 2014

In late 2004, two years into the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney’s botched handling of a sexual abuse complaint against priest Aidan Duggan, the executive director of the Catholic Church’s National Committee for Professional Standards, Julian McDonald, did something extraordinary. He inquired into whether Duggan, prior to joining the Sydney Archdiocese in 1974, had form.

This would not have been within McDonald’s usual ambit, but Duggan’s accuser, John Ellis, had requested the NCPS review the archdiocese’s handling of his case — a process stymied early on the basis the archdiocese had no record of other allegations against Duggan, deemed too senile to answer the allegations.

In October 2004, McDonald emailed the Child Protection Office of the Catholic Church in Ireland. A month later he emailed John Mone, the recently retired bishop of Paisley in Scotland. Then, in mid-January 2005, he emailed the director of St Margaret’s Children and Family Care Society, a voluntary adoption agency in Glasgow.

He asked that records be checked for any allegations against Duggan, ‘who was born in Scotland and became a Cistercian monk, ministering in Scotland for some years before leaving the Cistercians and coming to Australia where he was incardinated into the Archdiocese of Sydney’.

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UNITED STATES
The New York Times

By MICHAEL PAULSON

APRIL 1, 2014

The archbishop of Atlanta had a plan to resolve the space crunch at his cathedral: He would move out of his residence so priests could move in, and then he would build himself a new house with donated money and land.

It was not just any house. It was a $2.2 million, 6,000-square-foot mansion, with plenty of room to host and entertain, on land bequeathed by Joseph Mitchell, a wealthy nephew of the author of “Gone With the Wind,” Margaret Mitchell.

But as Pope Francis seeks “a church which is poor and for the poor,” expectations for Catholic leaders are changing rapidly. So on Monday night, Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory apologized, saying that laypeople had told him they were unhappy with his new house, and promising to seek guidance from priests and laypeople and to follow their advice about whether to sell it.

“What we didn’t stop to consider, and that oversight rests with me and me alone, was that the world and the church have changed,” he wrote in the archdiocesan newspaper, The Georgia Bulletin. He added, “The example of the Holy Father, and the way people of every sector of our society have responded to his message of gentle joy and compassion without pretense, has set the bar for every Catholic and even for many who don’t share our communion.”

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

Posted on April 1, 2014

Proceedings continued yesterday on the Case Study 10 hearings by the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse into the Salvation Army (Eastern Territory), with a focus mainly on how the Salvation Army responded to abuse allegations, to put things rather simply.

As has been covered in the media, it was another day of shocking abuse claims against the Salvation Army, including a heartbreaking account of his experiences by the witness known as ‘FE’.

Rather than repeat what has already been quite adequately covered in the Australian press, the author shall merely provide a series of links to relevant articles (see ‘Read more here’ below) and a brief mention of a few of the things that were reported as having been said by witnesses in yesterday’s hearings.

The reader will forgive the author for omission of some of the more explicit accounts of abuse, the author being unable yesterday to have done more than bear witness to the telling of some of them, still finding herself unable right now to dwell too much of these matters, they being still a little too ‘close to home’.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Oxford Mail

A priest and former private school governor has received a suspended jail sentence after admitting making hundreds of indecent images of children.

Father Timothy Gardner, 42, pictured, was given an eight-month prison sentence suspended for two years at Southwark Crown Court yesterday.

He also received a five-year sexual offences prevention order and will be on the sex offender register for ten years. He is a former governor of Rye St Antony, the Catholic independent school for girls, in Pullen’s Lane, Oxford.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

Alleged abuse victims who give evidence at an inquiry into children’s homes in NI have no legal right to copies of their statements, a judge has ruled.

The High Court judge said the records were the property of the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry.

His verdict came in a legal challenge by a woman who claims she was subjected to physical and psychological abuse.

The abuse was alleged to have taken place at Nazareth House care home in Belfast between 1971-1976.

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ILLINOIS
Madison-St. Clair Record

March 31, 2014
By RECORD NEWS

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Belleville finds itself at the center of another lawsuit as one of its priests is being accused of fondling a boy in the 1970s.

J. Christ filed a lawsuit March 17 in the St. Clair County Circuit Court against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Belleville.

In his complaint, Christ alleges he was attending a summer camp at Camp Ondessonk in Ozark, during the summers of 1970 and 1971 when the alleged incidents occurred. Christ says one of the priests at the camp, Father Robert J. Vonnahmen, inappropriately touched him while he was attending the camp.

This conduct included but was not limited to urging the plaintiff and other children to go skinny-dipping, then coming up behind the plaintiff with his own pants off and rubbing on the plaintiff’s behind, fondling the plaintiff, rubbing his genitalia on the plaintiff, causing the plaintiff to put the plaintiff’s hand on his penis, penetrating the plaintiff’s anus with his penis during a sleepover in Father Vonnahmen’s room, coaxing the plaintiff to bend over to reach into a trunk for an arrow-head patch, then taking his pants down and rubbing on plaintiff’s behind and coming to a private golf-course pool in the plaintiff’s home town, watching the plaintiff and leaving pornographic material depicting grown men with young boys on the plaintiff’s path home for plaintiff to find, the suit states.

Christ claims he was too afraid to talk to anyone about the incidents. Instead, he repressed the memories, causing him severe psychological harm, the complaint says. It was not until December 2013 that Christ remembered what had happened and could connect them with the emotional and mental issues he had endured, he claims.

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ILLINOIS
Belleville News-Democrat

BY DANIEL KELLEY
News-Democrat
April 1, 2014

A Breese man has filed a lawsuit against the Belleville Catholic diocese alleging a priest sexually abused him when he was a boy attending church camp in the early 1970s.

The man, referred to as J. Christ in court documents, alleges former priest Robert J. Vonnahmen abused him at Camp Ondessonk in Ozark, Ill., in the summers of 1970 and 1971. The name appeared as J. Christ in court documents to provide anonymity.

Vonnahmen and representatives of the Belleville diocese could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

The abuse allegedly happened while Vonnahmen was a priest and supervisor of the camp. The Catholic youth camp was co-founded by Vonnahmen in 1959.

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UNITED STATES
Spiritual Politics

Mark Silk | Apr 1, 2014

In Italy, the bishops don’t think so. Or at least, they’re happy to claim the discretion provided by Italian law to withhold information on abuse in order to protect victims’ sensibilities.

As Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco of Genoa said over the weekend in explaining his conference’s position, “We priests have to be very careful to respect the privacy, discretion and sense of reserve [of victims], we’ve got to be sensitive to the trauma of victims who do not want to be thrust into the public eye.”

Meanwhile, in Australia, where a full-blown abuse scandal has resulted in a slew of newly proposed legislation, the church is supporting mandatory reporting, but with a comparable reservation.

”[The church told the child abuse] inquiry that we wanted to be in a position to report all complaints we received but that we wanted to be able to protect the privacy of victims who did not want to be identified in that process,” church spokesman Father Shane McKinlay said.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on the data published by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops that were collected by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA):

The annual report by CARA on sexual abuse allegations confirms what we have known for a long time: the Church is largely free of this problem.

A total of ten credible accusations were made against priests or deacons involving minors in 2013.

As usual, 8 in 10 involved male-on-male sex. As usual, the most common time period for allegations reported in 2013—including all years, past or present—was the first half of the 1970s.

Homosexuality was implicated once again, though political correctness inhibits an honest discussion.

To be explicit, most of the male-on-male sex involved postpubescent boys. Regarding the timeline, it is hardly surprising that the 1970s proved (once again) to be the most common period when the alleged abuse occurred. Though the ideological roots of the sexual revolution are traceable to the 1960s, its rotten fruit was not reaped until the 1970s.

It was not the Catholic Church’s teachings on sexuality, which stresses the virtue of restraint, that brought about the sexual revolution; rather, it was the frontal assault on that virtue that gave birth to this mess. Yet those responsible, many of whom are intellectuals, continue to dodge responsibility for their destructive contribution to American culture.

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VATICAN CITY
U.S. Catholic

After ‘Bishop Bling’ scandal, Vatican silent on Atlanta archbishop’s $2.2 million mansion

By Josephine McKenna
NEWS VATICAN
Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Days after Pope Francis summoned a controversial German bishop for talks on his luxurious lifestyle, the Vatican is facing an embarrassing new scandal about the lavish spending of Atlanta Archbishop Wilton Gregory.

Gregory on Monday (March 31) apologized for a lapse in judgment after he built a plush $2.2 million mansion for himself in the heart of Atlanta’s upscale Buckhead district.

His extravagant investment has provoked an outcry from some local Catholics, forcing the 66-year-old archbishop to “apologize sincerely and from my heart” in a statement published in The Georgia Bulletin, a Catholic newspaper.

“I personally failed to project the cost in terms of my own integrity and pastoral credibility with the people of God of north and central Georgia,” the archbishop said.

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service

David Gibson | Apr 1, 2014

(RNS) Bye-bye, “Bishop Bling.” So long, “Pastor Perks.” The so-called “Francis Effect” may be real, at least when it comes to clerical housing, and could be coming to a church near you.

Pope Francis famously eschewed the trappings of the papal office, including deluxe digs in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, and the pressure of his example seems to be making itself felt.

Last week, the pontiff accepted the resignation of the most ostentatious offender, Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst of Limburg in Germany, a.k.a. “Bishop Bling” who spent a cool $43 million on a swank new residence and office complex while cutting staff.

Now Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Atlanta is the latest to feel the peer pressure. On Monday (March 31), Gregory responded to anger over his decision to move into a new $2.2 million home by repeatedly apologizing in a letter to his flock and saying he would explore the possibility of selling the mansion and moving into simpler digs.

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UNITED STATES
catholic church abuse: criminal nuns and priests

Under all the “bread and circuses” and smiling face of Pope Francis is his true nature: he doesn’t care if the child rapists in the church keep raping and never get punished.

The Italian Bishops’ Conference, with the Pope’s blessing has once again embraced the policy that states they are not obliged to inform police officers if they suspect a child has been molested. If I, you, or anyone with humanity knew of a child rapist running loose we would report them to the police and they would be locked up. Are priests above the law? For the past 2,000 years they have been above the law or they were the law – isn’t it time to stop them?

David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests said, “With the blessing of the Vatican, Italy’s bishops have formally declared they have no duty to call police if they suspect that a child is being sodomized or raped. The stunning, depressing and irresponsible contradiction between what Vatican officials say about abuse and do about abuse continues. And the tragic consequences for kids continue too. This policy – which codifies the long-standing and heartless practice of most Catholic bishops on the plan – will mean that more innocent children will be sexually assaulted.”

The Italian Bishops’ Conference said the policy reflected suggestions from the Vatican’s office that handles sex abuse investigations. Any “suggestion” coming out of the Vatican has the Pope’s stamp of approval. So less than a week after Pope Francis appointed a new commission to help the Catholic Church put an end to clerical sexual abuse and a few weeks after the United Nation’s report blasted what it called the Vatican’s code of silence” around abusive priests – the church is right back to its old criminal tricks.

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CALIFORNIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, April 1, 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 )

Long secret records about a San Diego predator priest have been released in Minnesota where he molested before he moved to California.

[10 News]

Catholic Church officials were told about allegations against Fr. Paul Palmitessa in the 1990s. One of Palmitessa’s victims later murdered his wife and committed suicide.

The Archdiocese of St. Paul claims that they informed the Diocese of San Diego as soon as they learned of the allegations. Why then did it take more than a decade for Palmitessa’s name to appear on any public lists of child molesting clerics? Why was Palmitessa allowed to continue to work all the way up until 2012?

[Star Tribune]

These kinds of dangerous and self serving practices are unfortunately nothing new. We hope Catholic officials in San Diego and the Twin Cities will do the responsible thing now, and aggressively reach out to anyone who many have seen, suspected or suffered abuse by Palmitessa, using church bulletins, parish websites and pulpit announcements

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UNITED STATES
The Presbyterian Outlook

November 4, 2013 by Leslie Scanlon, Outlook national reporter

Caution to readers: This story contains details of sexual abuse allegations taken from an administrative commission’s report.

194-24-4Five men’s accusations against a former Presbyterian pastor have prompted the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta to seek tighter rules from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) regarding ministers and sexual abuse.

Four men who formerly attended churches where Jeffrey D. Peterson-Davis had worked in California and in Atlanta had filed complaints in the church system accusing him of sexual abuse. A fifth accuser was identified in the settlement of a civil suit filed against Peterson-Davis in California.

All the complainants were minors at the time of the alleged abusive incidents – one was only 8. Their complaints against Peterson-Davis describe incidents over an 11-year span, beginning in 1984.

In October 2012, facing judicial proceedings in a church court in the Presbytery of Western Reserve in Ohio, where he was then working as a minister, Peterson-Davis renounced the jurisdiction of the PC(USA) rather than stand trial. Not wanting the inquiry to end there, Greater Atlanta Presbytery created an administrative commission in February 2013 to determine whether there was truth to the charges brought against him.

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FLORIDA
CBS Miami

[with video]

FT LAUDERDALE (CBSMiami) – Emotions ran high during testimony Tuesday morning in the trial of a former youth pastor who is accused of molesting children.

The first to take the stand in the trial of Jeffrey London was one of his alleged victims.

The man said he first met London at a Boys and Girls Club when he was seven years old. He testified that London sexually abused him from the time he was 11-years old until he turned 18. He said his grandmother trusted London and allowed him to move in with the pastor because she thought he would be safe with him.

The 25-year old man said the abuse started about a month after he moved in with London.

The man sobbed as he described the abuse he endured and said he felt powerless to make it stop.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Apr. 1, 2014

WASHINGTON The yearly audit of U.S. Catholic dioceses’ compliance with national measures to report and prevent clergy sexual abuse found a decline in the number of reported cases of abuse from July 2012 to June 2013 but also cited concerns about the limited scope of the auditors’ abilities.

Of particular concern are four dioceses that would not allow any audits to take place and the fact that “most” dioceses do not allow or conduct audits of parishes or schools, where most reporting of abuse is thought to occur, the auditors write.

During the finding period — July 1, 2012, through June 30, 2013 — 857 survivors of clergy sexual abuse reported 936 allegations of abuse in 191 dioceses, the audit reports, a decline from the 921 survivors who reported abuse in the previous audit period.

In the recent report, 472 allegations were deemed by the audit “unable to be proven”; 223 had an investigation ongoing; 136 were deemed “substantiated”; 78 “unsubstantiated”; and 27 had not yet been investigated. Abuse allegations were dated from the 1920s to the present.

The yearly audit for abuse reporting was released Friday by the U.S. bishops’ conference. It includes reports on the matter from the national firm conducting the audits, the bishops’ Secretariat for Child and Youth Protection, and the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), an institute at Georgetown University that conducts annual surveys of the dioceses separate from the audit.

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