ABUSE TRACKER

MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, Feb. 4

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 314 862 7688 home, 314 503 0003 cell, SNAPdorris@gmail.com )

A Minnesota judge blocked the release of a deposition and transcript of an accused predator priest named Fr. Gilbert Allen Tarlton (a.k.a Allen Tarlton or Allen Berry).

[KSTP]

We are disappointed by this action. Catholic officials pledge “openness” but continue to practice secrecy. Transparency, not secrecy, protects kids.

For decades, Catholic officials have kept clergy sex abuse and cover up cases hidden. We’ve seen and felt the devastating results of this self-serving pattern. If kids are to be protected, this secrecy must end.

[Pioneer Press]

Our hearts go out to the victims of sexual abuse in Minnesota. We know how difficult and brave it is to come forward and report abuse. We hope no other victims or witnesses will be deterred by this action. And we hope that those courageous individuals who were assaulted by St. Cloud area clerics and are taking legal action will not be discouraged.

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MARYLAND
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2014

Ex head of MD center pleads guilty
Catholic priest stole from three sources
He headed facility for sexually troubled clerics
And he himself is accused of “inappropriate relationship”

A Catholic priest who headed the US’ largest facility for child molesting clergy has plead guilty to felony theft and is likely headed to prison.

[New Hampshire Public Radio]

He is Msgr. Edward Arsenault, who has also been a high ranking church official in the Manchester NH diocese. Until May, he had earned $170,000 as head of the St. Luke’s Institute in Suitland, Maryland.

A support group for clergy sex abuse victims questions whether Msgr. Arsenault may have also stolen from St. Luke’s and it notes that Msgr. Arsenault is also accused of an “inappropriate relationship,” according to New Hampshire church officials. In roughly 17 states, any sexual contact between a cleric and a congregant is a crime.

Leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, are urging bishops in New Hampshire and Maryland to “aggressively seek out others who may have seen, suspected or suffered crimes or misdeeds by Msgr. Arsenault.” They believe that he might still be prosecuted for other crimes “but only if a sincere outreach effort is made, instead of the typical response by Catholic officials, which is doing little or virtually nothing.”

“We hope Catholic officials will be honest about Msgr. Arsenault’s alleged sexual misconduct,” said David Clohessy of St. Louis, SNAP’s director. “No matter how old the victim may be, it’s always very hurtful – and often illegal- when a powerful and allegedly celibate priest abuses his position and sexually exploits a parishioner.”

“This is yet another reminder that no institution can police itself and treat its own predators,” said Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, SNAP’s outreach director. “It’s inherently problematic and self-serving for Catholic officials to send Catholic offenders to a facility run by Catholic officials.”

Arsenault has not been defrocked, SNAP notes, stressing that he should still be referred to as “Msgr. Arsenault.”

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UNITED STATES
The Nation

Jessica Valenti

I’ve never watched a Woody Allen movie. My parents refused to rent them after he began a “relationship” with Soon-Yi Previn and their explanation stuck with me through adulthood. I was around 13 years old at the time, and always looking to pick a fight—I asked why it mattered since Previn wasn’t his “real” daughter. My parents sat me down and talked about the responsibility adults have to children, and certain boundaries that parents and parental figures must respect.

As I grew older—as I had teachers come on to me as a teen, as I experienced the way grown men get away with sexualizing girls—I understood the significance of what my parents told me. Today, as an adult, I know that when we make excuses for particular, powerful men who hurt women, we make the world more comfortable for all abusers. And that this cultural cognitive dissonance around sexual assault and abuse is building a safety net for perpetrators that we should all be ashamed of.

We know one in five girl children are sexually assaulted. Yet when victims speak out, we ask them why they waited so long to talk. We question why don’t they remember the details better. We suspect that they misunderstood what happened.

We know that abusers are manipulative, often charismatic, and that they hide their crimes well. We know that they target women and children who society will be less likely to believe—low-income women, children of color, the disabled, women who can be discredited as “crazy.” Yet when the caretakers of children who have been abused come forward, we call them “vengeful,” as Allen’s lawyer called Mia Farrow. We accuse them of trying to “alienate” their children from the abusing parent. Or, as one of Allen’s friends did in a shameful article for The Daily Beast—we simply insinuate that the protective parent is just a slut, so how can you believe anything she says anyway? …

I believe, as Roxane Gay does, that people are skeptical of abuse victims because “the truth and pervasiveness of sexual violence around the world is overwhelming. Why would anyone want to face such truth?” I also believe that deep down people know that once we start to believe victims en masse—once we take their pain and experience seriously—that everything will have to change. Recognizing the truth about sexual assault and abuse will mean giving up too many sports and movies and songs and artists. It will mean rethinking institutions and families and power dynamics and the way we interact with each other every day. It will be a lot.

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CANADA
CBC

Over the course of 25 years, Maria Grazia Fillipucci was in an unusual, on-again, off-again, relationship. And despite the depth of her feelings, she was forced to keep the liaison a secret. But now she is speaking out about what she and dozens of other women in Rome have in common: love affairs with priests.

“If you want to be a priest and want to continue a relationship with me you must be honest. I have to decide if I want to continue to be the lover of the priest.”
Maria Grazia Fillipucci

This month, Pope Francis got his picture on the cover of the Rollling Stone. It’s an unusual choice for a magazine that normally features rock stars, people rarely associated with self-control, discretion… or celibacy.

The title of the cover story is called The Times They Are A-Changing. Perhaps not fast enough for some of the women who meet regularly in Rome to discuss their secret affairs, affairs with men unlikely to appear in Rolling Stone.

Our documentary, Unfaithful was produced by freelance journalist Megan Williams.

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INDIA
Business Standard

Press Trust of India

The chief priest Keshavan Namboodiri of the famous Badrinath shrine was arrested for allegedly confining and molesting a woman in a city hotel here and sent today to 14 days of judicial custody by a Delhi court.

According to police, the incident took place yesterday at around 4:30 PM when a 28-year-old woman had gone to meet him at the hotel where he allegedly tried to outrage her modesty.

Besides Namboodiri, one of his associates Vishnu Prasad was arrested from the spot yesterday and were produced before Metropolitan Magistrate Shreya Arora Mehta who remanded them to judicial custody till February 18 after the police did not seek their custodial interrogation.

The police also told the court that the two were drunk at the time of arrest.

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PUERTO RICO
El Nuevo Dia

[Summary: Arecibo – Three justice department prosecutors are working at full steam to search for victims of sexual abuse by pedophile priests expelled from the Catholic Church. The district attorney said yesterday he is concerned that these perpetrators are near and could cause more harm. District Attorney Wilson Gonzalez Antongiorgi sat down yesterday with El Nuevo Dia and stressed that justice will investigate each reported case of pedophile priests and will criminally prosecute religious leaders. He added that he needs for victims to come forward in confidence and report what happened or what they witnessed. The district attorney emphasized that the Catholic Church handles these cases amid ecclesiastical processes and determines guilty secretly.]

Por Limarys Suárez Torres / lsuarez1@elnuevodia.com

Arecibo – Tres fiscales del Departamento de Justicia trabajan a todo vapor en la búsqueda de víctimas de abuso sexual de sacerdotes pederastas expulsados de la Iglesia Católica y ayer el fiscal de este distrito expresó que le preocupa que estos victimarios estén cerca de menores y consigan a nuevos perjudicados.

Wilson González Antongiorgi, fiscal de distrito de Arecibo, se sentó ayer con El Nuevo Día y subrayó que Justicia investigará cada uno de los casos de sacerdotes pederastas denunciados en este rotativo con la meta de procesar criminalmente a los líderes religiosos. Reiteró que investigarán todos los casos hasta las últimas consecuencias y la clave para Justicia será dar con las víctimas cuyos casos no hayan prescrito.

“Es importante que los ciudadanos sepan que el Departamento de Justicia tiene sumo interés en estos casos, que necesitamos que las víctimas se acerquen a nosotros en confianza y denuncien lo que vivieron. Es importante que las víctimas entiendan que si su caso no ha prescrito buscaremos el procesamiento de estos sacerdotes”, indicó.

González Antongiorgi destacó que como la Iglesia Católica maneja estos casos en medio de procesos eclesiásticos y determina culpabilidad secretamente, actualmente esos sacerdotes pederastas expulsados continúan con un récord criminal limpio y técnicamente pueden estar cerca de menores.

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AUSTRALIA
Ipswich Advertiser

Jessica Grewal 4th Feb 2014 6:00 AM

A MISSING boy, who ran away from a Salvation Army children’s home, fell into the hands of a pedophile ring and likely ended up “at the bottom of Sydney Harbour” the royal commission heard.

In some of the most chilling evidence before the inquiry into abuse at four of the army’s boys homes, Salvation Army Major Cliff Randall recalled a time in the ’70s when a regular runaway from the Indooroopilly home went missing and never returned.

The commission heard he and his wife Marina had been outraged by the treatment of children at the Indooroopilly home and were trying to get management to step in when a boy returned from a long stint away and confided in him.

He said the boy told him that he and a victim who can only be referred to as “HT” had been picked up by unknown men outside the home, taken to a millionaire hardware store owner in Brisbane, given chocolates and drinks and flown to Sydney where they were to have sex with a “top chef” at Paddington.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC Brisbane

[with audio]

04 February 2014
by Gabrielle Burke

Some hair-raising evidence has been given at the Royal Commission hearing in Sydney looking at Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

ABC reporter Tom Oriti spoke to Steve Austin about what survivors have reported took place at the Alkira Salvation Army home in Indooroopilly in the 1960’s and 1970’s.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

A retired Salvation Army major has claimed boys living at a Queensland foster home run by the charity were enticed into a pedophile ring run by a wealthy businessman.

Retired Salvation Army Major Clifford Randall detailed the horrific allegations to a royal commission into the alleged sexual against young boys living in a foster home run by the charity in the 1975.

Mr Randall, who did not name the businessman, said the boys were then sexually abused, before being flown to the home of a top Sydney chef who assaulted them again.

One of the boys allegedly never came back, with one of his friends reportedly claiming he ended up “at the bottom of Sydney Harbour”, according to the Brisbane Times.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

[with video]

Lewis Blayse championed the case of people abused at Salvation Army homes but has now passed away. Before his death, he gave 7.30 an interview in which he spoke of his hopes for the Royal Commission in to institutional abuse and for the children of the future.

Transcript

LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: The name of the Salvation Army has long been associated with the ideals of charity and compassion. So many Australians have been appalled by revelations of sexual depravity and extreme cruelty at Salvation Army homes aired at the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse in the past week.

One of survivors of that ordeal was Queensland man Lewis Blayse. He campaigned for decades to have the accused abusers brought to justice and he helped set up the Royal Commission.

Last Friday, Lewis Blayse told the story of his experience in the Salvos’ horrifying homes to 7.30. A few hours later on Friday evening, he died of a heart attack.

His family wanted his last interview to be aired. Conor Duffy reports.

CONOR DUFFY, REPORTER: Like thousands of other abuse victims, Lewis Blayse needed to be alone. Haunted by his childhood, he retreated to an overgrown, isolated house in rural Queensland, but the trauma of his past came with him.

LEWIS BLAYSE: Yeah, I went through a depression for a while, I guess. My wife got sick of it and left eventually. A lot of the best psychiatrists in the country have tried to – if I’m near people for too long, I start getting nauseous because of the tension. Never get rid of it, apparently.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Thomas Oriti

An inquiry into Salvation Army boys homes has been told officers were quickly moved to other states if they were accused of child sexual abuse.

The Alkira Salvation Army Home for Boys at Indooroopilly in Queensland is one of four homes being examined by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Marina Randall and her husband Cliff worked as “house parents” in the home between 1973 and 1975.

Major Randall has recalled arriving at her accommodation in 1973.

“It just looked as if it had been left in a hurry. Things weren’t the way you might normally expect if it had been a relaxed leaving,” she said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)

Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Monday 3 February 2014

The Queensland government stopped sending children to a Salvation Army home after a whistleblower told a welfare officer a boy had been brutally beaten by the manager, a child abuse inquiry has been told.

Retired Salvation Army major Clifford Randall said he saw Captain John McIver, the then manager of Alkira, the home for boys at Indooroopilly, dislocate a boy’s shoulder when the boy resisted being hit with a strap between his legs and was thrown against a brick wall.

Randall resumed his evidence at a royal commission into child sexual abuse hearing in Sydney on Tuesday.

He said he reported the incident to a Jan Doyle, a senior social worker with the Department of Children’s Services.

Randall and his wife, Marina, who is also a major in the Salvation Army, were at the Alkira home as houseparents from 1973 to 1975.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

AAP FEBRUARY 04, 2014

THE Salvation Army reacted with disbelief and suspected people were money-grabbing when they began receiving complaints about abuse in their homes for children.

Major Marina Randall, who with her husband Major Clifford Randall blew the whistle on extreme abuse by two Salvation Army managers at a Queensland home for boys, said there was a naivety in 1999 about the handling of abuse allegations.

She was giving evidence at a royal commission hearing into how the Salvation Army Eastern Territory responded to allegations of child abuse at two homes in Queensland and two in NSW.

Mrs Randall and her husband were house parents at Alkira Home for Boys in Indooroopilly in Queensland from 1973 to 1975.

The then young couple were shocked at what they witnessed – a regime under Captain Lawrence Wilson and then Captain John McIver in which children were brutalised.

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: A priest of the Wisconsin Province of the Society of Jesus ordained in 1959, Gill spent most of his career at St. Francis Mission on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. In 2003 Gill was one of a number of priests, brothers and nuns accused of abusing children at the mission. His accuser said Gill would fondle and beat boys. Gill was transferred from the mission to a Jesuit community in Wauwatosa, WI in 2003. He died Dec. 9, 2012.

Ordained: 1959
Died: Dec. 9, 2012

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CALIFORNIA
Treadway & Wigger

August 14, 1941 – January 31, 2014
Resided in Napa, CA

Monsignor Joseph Francis Alzugaray, beloved pastor emeritus of St. Apollinaris Catholic Church, died peacefully at his home on Friday, January 31, 2014.

Msgr. Joe was born on August 14, 1941 in Whittier California. He attended St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo, CA and was ordained a priest April 29, 1967 for the Diocese of Los Angeles. His first assignments were as associate pastor of Immaculate Conception in Monrovia and then at St. Finbar’s in Burbank. He served as the Director of the Archdiocesan Mission Office for the Propagation of the Faith, Lay Mission-Helpers Assn from 1975-1990.

During this time he travelled extensively to missions around the world. Following that assignment he was the pastor of All Souls parish in Alhambra. His next move was to Northern California and to the Diocese of Santa Rosa. In 1995 he was made the associate pastor of St. James in Petaluma as well as Chaplain to St. Vincent High School. In September of 2001 he was appointed as pastor of St. Apollinaris parish in Napa, continuing in this position until his retirement in October of 2011. Until his recent illness, Msgr. was of service, officiating at most parishes in the Napa vicinity, filling in for weddings, masses, wherever needed.

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MINNESOTA
KSTP

[with video]

Created: 02/03/2014

By: Leslie Dyste

A last minute judge’s decision blocked the release of a deposition video and transcript from a priest Monday.

Attorney Jeff Anderson and the victims of clergy sex abuse were set to release details of that deposition in St. Cloud. They accuse several priests in the Diocese of abuse.

The Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis is expected to release another list of accused priests at some point this week.

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VATICAN CITY
Chiesa

VATICAN CITY, February 4, 2014 – The president and secretary general of the Italian episcopal conference may continue to be appointed by the pope. This is what the bishops of Italy themselves want, after Pope Francis asked them last May, in the name of greater collegiality, to review the statutes of the CEI and rethink the ways of appointing the president and secretary.

An extensive consultation of the Italian episcopate was carried out in recent months on this point. And the results were made public at the end of the winter session of the permanent council, the mini-parliament of the CEI made up of roughly thirty members, which was held at the end of January in Rome.

Contrary to what takes place in almost all the episcopal conferences of the world, in Italy the presidency is not elective, but of pontifical appointment. And not without reason. The pope is in fact the bishop of Rome and primate of Italy. And as bishop of Rome – a title that Jorge Mario Bergoglio prefers – he is a member of the CEI, even if he does not actually participate in its activities. And so if he did not have a say in appointing the leaders he would find himself in the paradoxical situation of one who, in spite of having authority superior to that of all the episcopal conferences, as far as his own diocese is concerned would have to submit to decisions and stances taken without his direct participation.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
Nashua Telegraph

By JOSEPH G. COTE
Staff Writer

A former high-ranking official for the Roman Catholic Bishop of Manchester will plead guilty to stealing from his employer and a Manchester hospital, according to state law enforcement officials.

Monsignor Edward Arsenault III is scheduled to plead guilty to three counts of theft at hearing in April, according to a release issued Monday by Attorney General Joseph Foster and U.S. Attorney John Kacavas.

Arsenault, who held several senior positions in New Hampshire from 1999-2009, will admit to stealing from the Roman Catholic Bishop in Manchester between Jan. 1, 2005, and March 15, 2013; from Catholic Medical Center in Manchester from Feb. 1, 2009, to June 30, 2010; and from the estate of Monsignor John Molan between June 13, 2010, and Feb. 8, 2012. Each of the counts accuse Arsenault of taking more than $1,500, according to officials.

Arsenault left the diocese in 2009 to become the president and CEO of Saint Luke Institute in Maryland. He resigned from that post in May when New Hampshire officials said they were investigating allegations involving an inappropriate adult relationship and misuse of church funds.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
Concord Monitor

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

EDWARD J. ARSENAULT

February 3, 2013

Dear friends,

On June 2, 1991, I was entrusted with representing the Lord Jesus as a priest of the Diocese of Manchester. Although I have sought to do so faithfully and well, I not only failed to do what is right, I also committed crimes in the exercise of my responsibilities as a priest and a collaborator in the work of the Catholic Church in New Hampshire.

I am truly and sincerely sorry for what I did and I apologize to the many who have been harmed by my actions.

First, I have sought forgiveness from God. Thanks to the gifts of grace and the pastoral care of priests, family and friends, I have experienced this forgiveness in a profound and gracious way.

Second, I apologize to the prior and current Bishops of Manchester and to my colleagues in diocesan ministries over many years. Many of these persons have already supported me despite my failings and crimes – true experiences of Christ for me. I was always in their debt for our work together, and now, more so, for their mercy.

Third, I apologize to the priests of New Hampshire. I have failed the bond of our fraternity and I ask your forgiveness. Many priests and religious sisters — from New Hampshire and elsewhere — have reached out in love and support these last several months. This has sustained me in ways that words cannot express.

Fourth, I seek forgiveness from my family and many friends. Their unconditional love and support, and their frequent reminders to me of who I am and of the good that I have done, has helped me to keep perspective during the last year.

Finally, I apologize to the people of New Hampshire, especially the Catholic community, for the harm this has caused them. I broke the law and violated the trust of others. I am prepared to accept the consequences for having done so, to make restitution and to face the penalty for having committed these crimes.

My decision to write to you now is because I have been constrained by the process that has unfolded these last several months. Today certain aspects of what transpired in the past will be made public. I wanted to write to you to express my remorse and sorrow, to ask your forgiveness and to express my resolve to face the consequences of my wrongs with the strength of my convictions.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
Concord Monitor

By ANNMARIE TIMMINS and JEREMY BLACKMAN
Monitor staff
Monday, February 3, 2014

Monsignor Edward Arsenault, the former public face of the Diocese of Manchester, will plead guilty to charges he stole thousands of dollars from the church, a hospital and a colleague as the church struggled to rebound from a pervasive clergy abuse scandal.

As part of a bargain with the state, Arsenault has agreed to plead guilty this spring to three counts of theft in exchange for a minimum four-year state prison sentence, according to a court document made public yesterday.

The indictments in the case, filed in Rockingham County and Hillsborough County North superior courts, do not indicate how much Arsenault stole – or the manner in which he did so – but do establish that the amount was at least $1,500 for each count, the minimum required for a felony-level offense.

The thefts occurred between Jan. 1, 2005, and March 15, 2013, according to the indictments.

Arsenault is set to plead guilty to all three counts at an April 23 hearing in Manchester. In addition to the prison sentence, he will be ordered to pay full restitution to the victims: the Roman Catholic Bishop of Manchester, Catholic Medical Center in Manchester and the Estate of Reverend Monsignor John Molan, who died in 2010.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

European Court of Human Rights Finds Irish Government Responsible for Abuse of Children in State Schools Run by Catholic Church

William D. Lindsey

In many cultures in which the sexual abuse of children is only now coming to the fore as an issue for public discussion, authority figures repeatedly engage in a game I think of as the Judas game: when Jesus speaks to his disciples of his betrayal at the Last Supper, Judas responds with feigned, insincere shock as he asks, “Is it I, Lord?” Is it I who will betray you?

Authority figures who have had every reason to know that children were being abused, and who did little or nothing to protect children, routinely claim–long after the fact and when their inaction has been exposed–that they just didn’t know anything much at all. Not back then. Not in the old days when we weren’t aware that children could be abused . . . .

We weren’t responsible. It was somebody else’s fault. If we’d only known then what we know now, we might have behaved more admirably . . . .

As the New York Times notes in an editorial on Ireland and child abuse several days ago, the European Court of Human Rights has just rejected the longstanding argument of the Irish government that the government cannot be held responsible for the abuse of children in state schools run by the Catholic church. The court finds the Irish government “responsible for failing to act against inhuman and degrading treatment of citizens that is specifically barred under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.” Though the church runs state schools in Ireland, the government itself is responsible for the well-being of the children in those schools every bit as much as the church is.

The editorial states,

It is particularly telling that the human rights court found the government, based on “a significant rate” of child-abuse prosecutions prior to the 1970s, was familiar with the problem and “had to have been aware of” the need to protect children even as it denied responsibility. Effective state mechanisms for parents to raise alarms should have been enacted well before the Dunderrow school scandal, the court noted. In contrast, the Irish Supreme Court dismissed liability claims in the last decade by saying the primary school system had to be viewed in its “specific context” of Irish history and the Catholic Church’s privileged position in Irish society.

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OHIO
Christian Post

Ohio Pastor Tom Randall Released From Jail in Philippines; Sex Trafficking and Molestation Charges Dropped

By Katherine Weber, Christian Post Reporter
February 3, 2014

Announcements made via social media on Monday indicate Ohio pastor Tom Randall has been released from jail in the Philippines, and his charges of negligence toward sex abuse and human trafficking at his orphanage have reportedly been dropped.

An update on the “Free Tom Randall” Facebook page posted Monday indicates the pastor has been released from jail in the Asian country. “All charges dropped. Tom Randall is free,” reads the text on an image uploaded to the Facebook page.

A later update on the page reads: “Now that he is free, Tom’s next prayer and concern is for the kids from the orphanage who were taken. Many of the boys have been found. However, they don’t know where the girls are. He [and others] are working to find them all, and to make sure they are safe, secure, and cared for. Also, still waiting for word on Toto and Jake. Hopefully they will be cleared soon.”

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UNITED STATES
Voice from the Desert

Frank Douglas

Yesterday, before the Super Bowl, Lorraine and I watched Basta (Enough in Italian), a documentary by clergy abuse survivor Gary Bergeron. The film chronicles the Don Quixote quest of three clergy sexual abuse survivors—Gary, fellow survivor Bernie McDade, and Gary’s father Eddie Bergeron—to meet John Paul II face to face in search of help in arresting the cancer of clergy sexual abuse of children. Gary, Bernie, and Eddie get the Vatican version of three-card Monte, but never get to see the pope.

However, the three men from New England meet people more important than the pope: fellow survivors of clergy sexual abuse from all over the world. Instead of a meeting with the pope, Gary discovers that success isn’t always defined by achieving a goal. Sometimes it’s defined by the attempt itself. And sometimes, in that attempt, you also find out who you are.

Gary Bergeron brings his marvelous communication skills and marketing talent to Basta.
I give Basta four stars.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
New Hampshire Public Radio

[with audio]

By JOSH ROGERS

Things started to go bad for Monsignor Edward Arsenault in May, when he stepped down as President of the St. Luke Institute, a priest treatment center in Maryland.

Arsenault quit the job – and its $170,000 salary — when prosecutors announced an investigation into misuse of church finds and an improper adult relationship.

Prosecutors say between 2005 and March of last year, Edward Arsenault stole thousands of dollars from the Manchester diocese, the Catholic Medical Center and the estate of another priest.

From 1999-2009 Arsenault was Chancellor at the Manchester Diocese, and its public face during the diocese’s clergy sexual abuse settlement with the state.

In the agreement announced by Attorney General Joseph Foster and US Attorney John Kacavas, Arsenault will admit to 3 class A felonies.

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MINNESOTA
St. Cloud Times

[with video]

Written by
Mark Sommerhauser

Leaders of the Diocese of St. Cloud and St. John’s Abbey haven’t done enough to protect children or other potential victims from clergy who are credibly accused of sex abuse and living in the community, alleged abuse victims and their attorneys said Monday.

Attorneys Jeff Anderson and Michael Bryant, their clients and advocates spoke at a news conference at the Bradshaw & Bryant law offices in Waite Park.

They disputed recent claims by St. Cloud diocesan and St. John’s Abbey officials that they have disclosed all known names of clergy members with credible accusations of abuse.

They also emphasized what they described as the threat posed by such clergy living at St. John’s Abbey and elsewhere in Central Minnesota. Fourteen credibly accused offenders now live at the abbey, Anderson said.

“As long as there’s a monk who is a sex offender that’s on campus at St. John’s, those kids are not going to be safe,” said Patrick Wall, a former St. John’s monk who now works for Anderson.

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MONTANA
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel Feb. 3, 2014

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena, Mont., has agreed to pay $15 million to victims of clergy sexual abuse, and becomes the 11th U.S. diocese to file for bankruptcy protection to deal with its numerous abuse claims and lawsuits.

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee was the eighth Catholic diocese to seek Chapter 11 protection when it filed in January 2011.

Helena appears unusual, if not unique, among the bankrupt dioceses in that it hammered out its settlement agreement with victim-survivors before filing on Friday.

According to the diocese, it will pay $15 million to 362 victims and an place an unspecified amount into a future-claims fund. The bulk of that will be funded by insurance. The diocese itself would contribute $2.5 million toward claims, legal fees and other costs.

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ARIZONA
My Fox Phoenix

MESA, Ariz. –
Mesa Police have arrested a 53 year-old Mormon Bishop for allegedly trying to lure a 16 year-old boy on Facebook.

Authorities arrested Michael Wayne Coleman on January 6th when a representative from Educatius International contacted Mesa Police about the concern.

Coleman allegedly made comments about getting a hug and kiss from the student on the social media website.

Educatius International suspended Coleman and seized his computer and cell phone as evidence for the police. Detectives obtained a warrant and found explicit conversations with a 17 year-old male on the internet.

Detectives say that Coleman acknowledge the conversations but did not admit to the sexual conduct, he then requested an attorney.

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ARIZONA
USA Today

[with video]

MESA, Ariz. — Technology made it possible for a man to abuse teenage victims thousands of miles away, but it also left a digital trail that eventually resulted in his arrest, police said.

Michael Wayne Coleman, 53, was arrested Jan. 16 and accused of luring a minor for sexual exploitation after a forensic examination of a laptop computer and cellphone uncovered sexually graphic conversations and an exchange of nude photographs with a 17-year-old student in Brazil, said Detective Steve Berry, a Mesa police spokesman.

Police praised Educatius International, a company that primarily arranges for foreign-exchange students to study in the United States, for seizing a company-issued laptop and cellphone from Coleman immediately after it received a complaint from a 16-year-old student.

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ARIZONA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, Feb. 3

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

An ex-Mormon bishop faces child sex abuse charges.

[KPHO]

We are grateful that this company apparently acted responsibly, that law enforcement is involved and that this victim is apparently cooperating with them.

Now, it’s crucial that the church and the firm use their resources to help police by aggressively seeking out anyone who saw, suspected or suffered this clergyman’s crimes. All too often, suspected or known child predators are merely suspended. That’s inadequate. That’s the bare minimum. That’s a smart public relations and legal defense move by employers.

But employers have a civic and moral duty to do more. They shouldn’t passively sit back and wait for subpoenas. They must turn over every shred of paperwork about possible predators. And they must actively reach out to others with information or suspicions about possible wrongdoing.

We hope Mormon officials will disclose every place where this alleged predator worked and will act like caring shepherds, not cold-hearted CEOs, and seek out others who may have been hurt and may be suffering in silence, shame and self-blame.

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GERMANY
Chicago Tribune

* Survey shows wide rejection of rules on sexual morality
* Catholics want looser stance on remarriage after divorce
* Report boost pressure for reform at Vatican synod

By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor

PARIS, Feb 3 (Reuters) – Germany’s Catholic bishops, responding to a worldwide Vatican survey, said on Monday that many Church teachings on sexual morality were either unknown to the faithful there or rejected as unrealistic and heartless.

They said the survey, drawn up for a synod on possible reforms in October, showed most German Catholics disputed Church bans on birth control and premarital or gay sex and criticised rules barring the divorced from remarriage in church.

The results will not be news to many Catholics, especially in affluent Western countries, but the blunt official admission of this wide gap between policy and practice is uncommon and bound to raise pressure on Pope Francis to introduce reforms.

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Rev. John J. Gallen was a Jesuit priest of the New York Province, ordained in 1963. Gallen went on to become an internationally known scholar and author who led seminars around the world on Catholic liturgy and worship. In 1993 a man reported to his then-home diocese of Milwaukee that, when he was a 16-year-old altar boy in 1980 at a Toledo OH parish, Gallen sexually abused him. Gallen was at the parish in March 1980 to lead a week-long retreat. His accuser said Gallen touched him inappropriately and kissed him. The man said that Gallen later got his parents to allow him to help the priest with a move from Phoenix to Sacramento and that, during the trip, Gallen forced him into oral sex. Gallen’s accuser said he reported the abuse to two of his parish priests shortly thereafter, but that the priests did not believe him. Gallen sent his accuser letters of apology for his behavior in 1993 and 1994. Gallen could not be prosecuted because the statute of limitations had expired. He died April 17, 2011.

Ordained: 1963
Died: April 17, 2011

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, Feb. 3

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

The long-time second-in-command of the New Hampshire Catholic diocese, Msgr. Edward Arsenault (he has not been defrocked), is pleading guilty to theft.

[New Hampshire Union Leader]

We are not surprised. But our hearts ache for New Hampshire clergy sex abuse victims and Catholics who have been betrayed and misled, time and time again, by Msgr. Arsenault and his colleagues and supervisors in clergy sex abuse and cover up cases.

Msgr. Arsenault has attacked victims, deceived parishioners and defended the indefensible.

He has repeatedly blamed media and others for the on-going abuse and cover up crisis. It was his wrongdoing that led New Hampshire’s attorney general to investigate the diocese and insist on overseeing its handling of abuse cases for five years.

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UNITED STATES
The Inquiry

By AARON BADY

This is a basic principle: until it is proven otherwise, beyond a reasonable doubt, it’s important to extend the presumption of innocence to Dylan Farrow, and presume that she is not guilty of the crime of lying about what Woody Allen did to her.

If you are saying things like “We can’t really know what happened” and extra-specially pleading on behalf of the extra-special Woody AllenHi, The Daily Beast!, then you are saying that his innocence is more presumptive than hers. You are saying that he is on trial, not her: he deserves judicial safeguards in the court of public opinion, but she does not.

The damnably difficult thing about all of this, of course, is that you can’t presume that both are innocent at the same time. One of them must be saying something that is not true. But “he said, she said” doesn’t resolve to “let’s start by assume she’s lying,” except in a rape culture, and if you are presuming his innocence by presuming her mendacity, you are rape cultured.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic World Report

February 03, 2014

Revealing her own history of abuse in a new book, former rock journalist Dawn Eden reflects on how the Church can improve its pastoral care of victims.
John Burger

The author of the 2006 best-seller The Thrill of the Chaste has revealed, in a new book, something of her past as a victim of childhood sexual abuse.

Dawn Eden, a Catholic convert who grew up Jewish, has woven her story with those of saints who suffered abuse of various kinds. In My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints, Eden offers advice on how victims of abuse can heal through learning some of those stories, through prayer, and through forgiveness.

In an interview with Catholic World Report, Eden offers suggestions on how the Church can reach out more effectively to victims of abuse, whether that abuse took place in the Church or in the victim’s very own home.

CWR: What led you to write this book?

Dawn Eden: I myself am a victim of childhood sexual abuse. For me, when I received the grace of faith in Christ at the age of 31, I was instantly healed of the depression and temptations to suicide that had dogged me since my teens and which I later learned were the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by the abuse. But what I discovered during my first years as a Christian, during which I was a Protestant, was that although I had experienced this dramatic healing from the worst aftereffects of the abuse, I still had other effects to contend with, including anxiety, flashbacks, and hyper-sensitivity. And my thought as a new Christian was that the fact that I had not yet received healing from these effects meant that I wasn’t fully surrendered, that I didn’t have enough faith. So I blamed myself for my own seeming failure to be living completely within the light of the risen Christ.

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ARIZONA
KPHO

Updated: Jan 31, 2014
By Phil Benson
By Breann Bierman

MESA, AZ (CBS5) –
A former bishop with the LDS Church was arrested by Mesa police last week on suspicion of luring a 16-year-old boy for sex, officers said.

The Jan. 16 arrest of Michael Wayne Coleman, 53, stemmed from an investigation that began on Nov. 2.

A representative from Educatius International, a foreign exchange student business, notified police about a complaint the student had filed. The boy alleged Coleman made comments during a Facebook chat about getting a hug and kiss from him, police said.

The company immediately suspended Coleman. The company computer and cell phone he had were turned over to detectives.

Authorities obtained a search warrant and detectives began to examine the information.

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UTAH
Courthouse News Service

By LORRAINE BAILEY

(CN) – A Mormon bishop who failed to consult a church-sponsored helpline for a sexually abused teen cannot be held liable, the Utah Supreme Court ruled.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints established a 1-800 number in 1995 exclusively for clergy members to call and get legal and counseling advice if they become aware of possible abuse.

Between the ages of 12 and 15, Kareena MacGregor was regularly sexually touched by a neighbor four years her senior, Matthew.

MacGregor also became sexually involved with Matthew’s brother, Gregory, who was two years older than she was. At age 15, she gave birth to Gregory’s baby at home. The baby died after she put him in a window well.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
New Hampshire Union Leader

By MARK HAYWARD
New Hampshire Union Leader

A priest who had held one of the highest positions in the Diocese of Manchester in the past decade has signaled he will plead guilty to charges of stealing money from the Catholic diocese, Catholic Medical Center and the estate of a fellow priest, state and federal prosecutors said today.

Edward J. Arsenault III has agreed to spend at least four years in New Hampshire State Prison, under terms of a plea bargain that prosecutors disclosed today. A statement by New Hampshire Attorney General Joseph Foster and U.S. Attorney John Kacavas notes Arseanault’s extensive cooperation in the investigation.

During most of the 2000s, Arseanault was the chancellor of the Diocese, an administrative post that made him the right-hand man to former Bishop John McCormack. He was also a board member of CMC.

The job frequently put him in front of cameras during the priest-sex abuse scandals of that decade. In 2009, he left that position to take a $170,000-a-year job at St. Luke Institute, a Maryland-based institution that delivers psychological and spiritual care to priests.

The statement said Arseanault had waived indictments in both Hillsborough County Superior Court-North and Rockingham County Superior Court.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
Patch

Posted by Marc Fortier (Editor) , February 03, 2014

A former senior official in the Roman Catholic Church in New Hampshire has agreed to plead guilty to charges that he stole from the Archdiocese.

Attorney General Joseph Foster and U.S. Attorney John Kacavas announced in a press release that three waivers of indictment charging Edward J. Arsenault III with theft by unauthorized taking were filed Monday in the Hillsborough and Rockingham county superior courts.

The waivers state that between Jan. 1, 2005 and March 15, 2013, Arsenault committed the crime of theft by unauthorized taking by knowingly exercising unauthorized control over the property of the Bishop of Manchester. The aggregated amount of the theft exceeded $1,500.

Between Feb. 1, 2009 and June 30, 2010, Arsenault is also alleged to have committed the crime of theft by unauthorized taking by knowingly exercising unauthorized control over the property of the Catholic Medical Center. Again, the aggregated amount of the theft exceeded $1,500.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
WBNS

By HOLLY RAMER
Monday February 3, 2014

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — The former leader of one of the nation’s top clergy treatment centers plans to plead guilty to stealing money from the Roman Catholic Bishop in New Hampshire, where he previously worked.

Msgr. Edward Arsenault (AHR’-suh-noh) held several senior positions in New Hampshire from 1999 to 2009 before becoming president and CEO of Saint Luke Institute in Maryland. He resigned from that job in May when New Hampshire authorities said they were investigating allegations involving an inappropriate adult relationship and misuse of church funds.

The attorney general’s office said Monday that Arsenault had waived indictment and will plead guilty to theft from the bishop, the estate of a priest and a hospital where he had done consulting work. Each theft exceeded $1,500.

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MARYLAND
Christian Post

BY MORGAN LEE , CHRISTIAN POST REPORTER
February 3, 2014

After a former youth pastor pleaded guilty on Wednesday to having sex with a minor at the Calvary Assembly in Walkersville, Md., the church’s lead pastor John Kenney said the congregation is working hard to rebuild trust with the roughly 80 teenagers who participate in the youth group.

Shaun Michael Ross, 33, pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a girl who attended his youth group from April 2008 through April 2010, and sought to win her over through texts, phone calls and gifts.

According to State Attorney Lindell K. Angel, Ross justified his actions to the victim by saying that, as her youth pastor, he was the “safest person to learn about sex from,” reported The Frederick News-Post.

“This was a manipulation that went on and occurred at a time when he was her counselor. This is a very serious offense,” said Angel.

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IRELAND
RH Reality Check

by Kathryn Joyce
February 3, 2014

“We all knew what it meant when a big car arrived,” says Philomena Lee, the namesake character of the Oscar-nominated film Philomena (starring Judi Dench), which tells the tale of an Irish Catholic mother separated from her son by one of Ireland’s infamous 20th century Magdalene Laundries. The laundries were convents-cum-reformatories where unwed pregnant women (or girls caught having sex, or girls who were raped, or girls just thought to be promiscuous), were sent to atone for their sins—usually through hard labor, washing laundry sent in from neighboring villages. They were also de facto adoption agencies, as Catholics from Ireland, but more often the United States, came to adopt the children delivered by pregnant Magdalenes.

What the big car meant, in Philomena’s case, was that an American doctor and his wife had come to adopt her son, Anthony. Like other children born in the convent, Anthony was labeled an orphan, abandoned by his mother, who, though she lived in close proximity to him in the convent, was only allowed to see him an hour a day. Like most other mothers in the laundry, Philomena had to watch as her son was delivered into strangers’ hands, while she remained to work in the convent to pay off her debt for being taken in: four years of labor in lieu of a £100 fee she couldn’t afford. Fifty years later, a modern generation of nuns, wearing friendly cardigans and pouring tea, offered Philomena sympathy, but no information on Anthony’s whereabouts, while residents of the local town whispered that the nuns burned documents to obscure how they’d “sold all those babies to America.”

This is the set-up that sends Philomena, along with world-weary journalist Martin Sixsmith, to America, to search out traces of her son. After they realize early on that he has died—a casualty of the AIDS crisis—the movie’s drama deals with how Philomena faces her grief, her worries that her son had forgotten or resented her, and her pained loyalty to the Catholic Church that oversaw their separation. Philomena, who in the movie and in real life remains a devout Catholic, ceaselessly defended the nuns who imprisoned her and the system they upheld, couching each tentative request for information with assurances that she doesn’t blame the church, and refusing that she was coerced. “I could have never given him a life like this,” she says, reflecting on the comparative opulence of her son’s upper-middle-class life in the United States.

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

Angela Bonavoglia

Dear Pope Francis:

As this new year unfolds, I’ve decided that, with all due respect, it is time for me to share with you my suggested “To-Do list on Women.” I’ve been deeply moved by your passionate defense of the poor; your willingness to call unbridled capitalism what it is, a spirit-killing machine for those to whom its bounty fails to trickle down; your symbolically and not so symbolically throwing the money changers — in the form of remote, rich, recriminating hierarchs — out of the Church temple. But I have been far less moved by what you have been saying about women. So,without further ado:

1. Please stop talking about the role of women in the church. That conceptualization implicitly allocates the place of a subgroup of human beings to designated corners of the institution. We never talk about expanding the role of men in the church because they are expected to be players in the whole church. The subject is justice, and equality.

2. Recognize women’s God-given moral authority. You’ve argued that the confessional should be a place of mercy not a “torture chamber,” and talked about a woman who had a failed marriage, remarried, had five children, but whose abortion “weighs heavily on her conscience and she sincerely regrets it.” The moral of your story was that the confessor’s job was to show her mercy. But what if she didn’t regret that abortion? What if she said it was the right thing for her to do? What if she knew in her bones that she could not be a mother then? Would you apply to her those heartfelt words that you applied to homosexuals, those words heard round the world: “Who am I to judge?” Abortion can be a difficult decision, we agree, but God obviously trusted women to make that decision: look where She put the embryo. …

8. Hold your brethren accountable. There is no question that the Church is the world’s oldest and largest surviving boys club and that, if women are ever to be equal in this church, you must hold the men accountable. The most urgent area for accountability regards your brother bishops’ complicity in decades of child sexual abuse. You were roundly applauded for suspending a German Bishop for extravagant spending on his opulent residence, including installing a $20,500 bathtub. What about castigating the bishops who were complicit in the rape and sodomizing of children instead of keeping them safe and secure in the arms of holy mother church? And, I must ask: Do you really think that the bishops would have such an easy time turning away the mothers who came asking for justice for the brutal crimes against their offspring if women had been equal players in the church?

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Mercury

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams is still outraged that Monsignor William Lynn is walking free, even if restricted to electronic home monitoring.

Williams still believes the Archdiocese of Philadelphia acted shamefully in its handling of a long, sordid history of sexual abuse of children by predatory priests. It was that policy of shifting problem priests from parish to parish — without alerting parishioners and families to the dangers being placed in their midst — that landed Lynn in prison, convicted of endangering the welfare of children in his duties as secretary of the clergy.

The D.A. is still adamant about protecting victims of sexual abuse and remaining vigilant to the issues that linger in the archdiocese.

He still believes a state appeals court was wrong when it tossed out Lynn’s conviction, backing a claim made from the day Lynn was charged, that he could not have committed under the law because at the time the statute did not apply to him in his role as a supervisor with the archdiocese.

Williams’ zeal in protecting the innocent, and his ardor in seeking justice for victims of child sexual abuse, are admirable.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Una Mullaly

Mon, Feb 3, 2014

I was working late the other night, accompanied by a friend, waiting around to grab some quotes from people, when he asked, “do you ever just make things up?” No, I said, never. Making up what would seem like an unimportant anonymous quote would be the same as making up something a minister told you, which would be the same as giving a false opinion in a film review, or pretending you had a source for something when it was just rumour. It’s all the same. It’s the principle. You just don’t want to go there.

While we were talking about this, I recalled one of the first lecturers the journalist Eddie Holt gave my class in DCU. He was talking about truth. If you lie or are dishonest in journalism, he said, that lie or that remark that wasn’t fully right, or that opinion you feigned, will run away from you, it’ll take on a life of its own and go all sorts of places and possibly turn into something unrecognisable. Inevitably it will come back to bite you in the ass.

Decision time

The truth, on the other hand, is steadfast. You can control it. When you put it out into the world, it comes to heel. Aged 18, and listening to Holt, it was decision time. Are you going to be the kind of journalist who is led by the truth, or the “kinda” truth? If you want to live with yourself, there’s no contest.

Every journalist knows the feeling of waking up in the middle of the night thinking, “I did get their name right, Didn’t I?” or “it was a hundred grand and not a million, wasn’t it?” You’re dealing with quotes and truths and figures and facts and feelings so much that getting everything right can create a low level of anxiety. Honest mistakes can happen, naturally, but it’s a whole different scenario if you’re purposefully misrepresenting something.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX THE AUSTRALIAN FEBRUARY 04, 2014

BOYS living in a Salvation Army-run children’s home in Brisbane were flown to Sydney by a millionaire hardware store owner to be sexually abused, with at least one victim who never returned possibly being murdered. Senior officers at the Indooroopilly boys’ home also moved an alleged child-rapist to NSW, “otherwise he would have ended up in jail”, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has heard.

Giving evidence yesterday, retired Salvation Army Major Cliff Randall said he was working at the home in 1975 when boys started disappearing for days at a time and returned noticeably subdued.

Speaking to one such child, “word that we received was that the boys were going to a millionaire who owned a hardware store in Brisbane,” he told the commission. “They were met outside and taken to this place.

“They were given drink and chocolates and everything . . . they were used that day in Brisbane then the next day they were sent down to Sydney.”

Once there, the boys were taken to the upmarket inner-city suburb of Paddington and abused by a “top chef” who owned a restaurant, Mr Randall said, although he did not know the names of any of the men allegedly involved.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

February 4, 2014

Paul Bibby
Court Reporter

Boys living at a Queensland Salvation Army home in the 1970s were allegedly enticed into a paedophile ring run by a wealthy businessman who sexually abused them, and then flew them to the Sydney home of a ”top chef” who assaulted them again, the royal commission has heard.

One of the boys allegedly never came back. One of his friends reportedly said he had ended up ”at the bottom of Sydney Harbour”.

The revelations came from a now-retired Salvation Army officer who blew the whistle on the physical and sexual abuse inflicted on boys at the Indooroopilly boys home in Brisbane where he worked as a ”house parent” from 1972 to 1975.

The school is one of four in Queensland and NSW being examined as part of the commission’s investigations into abuse within the Salvation Army and its response.

The whistleblower, Major Clifford Randall, told the hearing boys would abscond from the home for days at a time and return with stories of participating in a child abuse racket in Brisbane and in Paddington in Sydney.

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AUSTRALIA
The Tablet (UK)

03 February 2014

Seven Catholic priests have been honoured among 683 recipients of Order of Australia awards late last month – including a Victorian priest, Fr Kevin Dillon, who has criticised the Church’s response to the sexual abuse crisis.

Fr Dillon, the parish priest of Victoria’s second-biggest city, Geelong, was honoured on Australia Day, 26 January, for his service to the Catholic Church in Australia, to health and social welfare support services, and to veterans.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 3 February 2014 (VIS) – The Holy Father has: …

On Saturday, 1 February the Holy Father:

– accepted the resignation from the office of auxiliary of the archdiocese of New York, U.S.A., presented by Bishop Josu Iriondo, upon having reached the age limit.

– appointed Rev. Alex Joseph Vadakumthala as bishop of Kannur (area 4,988, population 2,772,000, Catholics 50,768, priests 122, religious 692), India. The bishop-elect was born in Maradu-Panangad, India in 1959 and was ordained a priest in 1984. He holds a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical Urbaniana University, Rome. He has served in a number of pastoral and administrative roles, including parish assistant in the cathedral of Verapoly, priest of St. Philomenas’ Church, Koonammavu; official at the Pontifical Council for Healthcare Workers (for Health Pastoral Care); secretary general of the Health Commission of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI); lecturer at St. Joseph’s Pontifical seminary, Alwaye, India, director of the Cochin Arts Communications of Verapoly, director of the Society of Medical Education in North India project, Ranchi; and president of the Canon Law Society of India. He is currently vicar general of the archdiocese of Verapoly.

– appointed Msgr. Luis Fernando Ramos Perez as auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of Santiago de Chile (area 9,132, population 5,958,000, Catholics 4,135,000, priests 969, permanent deacons 318, religious 3037), Chile. The bishop-elect was born in Santiago, Chile in 1959 and was ordained a priest in 1990. He studied engineering at the University of Chile. He studied philosophy and theology at the major seminary of Santiago and holds a doctorate in theology, specialising in sacred Scriptures, from the Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome. He has served in a number of pastoral roles, including prefect of philosophy in the major seminary of Santiago, vicar of the parishes of “Cristo Emaus” and “Santo Toribo de Mogrovejo”, official of the Congregation for Bishops, and archdiocesan episcopal vicar for education. He is currently rector of the major seminary of Santiago and episcopal vicar for the clergy.

– appointed Rev. Galo Fernandez Villasecca as auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of Santiago de Chile, Chile. He was born in Santiago, Chile in 1961 and ordained a priest in 1987. He has served in the following pastoral roles: vicar of the parish of “Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes” in Santiago; priest of the parish of “Cristo Redentor” in Penalolen, priest of the parish of “Santa Clara”, and episcopal vicar of “Vicaria de la Esperanza Joven”, He is currently episcopal vicar of the western zone of the archdiocese.

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PUERTO RICO
El Nuevo Dia

[Summary: One of the victims of sexual abuse by a priest expelled from the Diocese of Arecibo yesterday thundered against Bishop Daniel Fernández Torres saying that he maintains a double standard and never provided psychological or psychiatric help. He accused the bishop of manipulating information in news media. The victims said he met the bishop, asked for help and did not get it.. The young man said he was a minor when he was abused by priest Thomas Pagan Ramos who was later expelled. Last Thursday, the bishop said in a news release that the Arecibo diocese gives assistance to victims of abuse by pedophile priests. The bishops said he wanted to make it clear that help is offered to the victim if requested to cover expenses related to psychological services that were incurred as part of the trauma caused by the abuse.]

Por Limarys Suárez Torres lsuarez1@elnuevodia.com

Una de las víctimas de abuso sexual por parte de uno de los sacerdotes expulsados de la Diócesis de Arecibo tronó ayer contra el obispo Daniel Fernández Torres al asegurar que el líder religioso mantiene un doble discurso de apoyo a los abusados y en su caso nunca le brindó ayuda psicológica ni psiquiátrica.

“El obispo de Arecibo está manipulando la información en los medios noticiosos, dice medias verdades y sus actuaciones carecen de transparencia justa, moral y ética. Daniel Fernández sabe bien que me reuní con él, le hice un pedido de ayuda y de manera desgarradora nunca me prestó”, expresó la víctima a El Nuevo Día.

El joven, que aseguró que cuando era menor de edad fue abusado por el expulsado sacerdote de la Diócesis de Arecibo Tomás Pagán Ramos y quien hizo denuncias de su caso ante la Policía y el Vaticano, explicó ayer a este diario que no podía permanecer callado ante los comentarios públicos recientes del obispo de Arecibo.

El pasado jueves Fernández Torres aseguró en un comunicado de prensa que la Diócesis de Arecibo les brinda ayuda a las víctimas de abuso por parte de sacerdotes pederastas, siempre y cuando los afectados lo soliciten.

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MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

Survivors and Attorneys Respond to Abbott Klassen and Bishop Kettler’s Meeting with St. Cloud Times Editorial Board

St. Cloud Open Discussion Monday, February 3, 2014

Deposition video and transcript to be released of Father Allen Tarlton

What: At an open discussion on Monday, February 3, 2014 in St. Cloud, attorneys Jeff Anderson and Mike Bryant, former monk Patrick Wall, two survivors and a sexual abuse expert will:

• Discuss the practices of the Diocese of St. Cloud and St. John’s Abbey in response to the open discussion that was held by the St. Cloud Times Editorial Board on Monday, January 27, 2014.
• Release the deposition transcript and video of Father Allen Tarlton that was taken on October 10, 2013 in a civil lawsuit filed on behalf of a sexual abuse survivor.
• Address the best practices for safety of children which need to be implemented and maintained by both the Diocese of St. Cloud and St. John’s.
• Invite Bishop Kettler and Abbott Klassen to openly discuss the practices of both the Diocese of St. Cloud and St. John’s.

WHEN: Monday, February 3, 2014 at 1:00 PM CST

WHERE: Bradshaw & Bryant, PLLC
1505 Division Street
Waite Park, MN 56387

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MONTANA
KAJ18

[with video]

Posted: Feb 2, 2014

by Mike Powers- KPAX News

MISSOULA – Two days after the Catholic Diocese of Helena announced it was entering into Federal bankruptcy protection as part of a settlement with clergy abuse victims, Bishop George Leo Thomas released more details to parishioners.

In a letter that was read during Sunday mass throughout the Diocese, Bishop Thomas expressed his “sincere sorrow” for the clergy abuse that went on for decades, and he apologized to the victims. The Bishop said the bankruptcy and the $15 million set aside for victims is a major step toward reconciliation.

He said while insurance will pay for most of the settlement, the Diocese will be responsible for about $2.5 million. He says the Diocese will be seriously impacted financially, but he expects funds will be rebuilt over time.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

SARAH MCDONALD – 03 FEBRUARY 2014

The Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Charles Brown, told the Irish Independent that the restructuring of the Irish hierarchy would continue this year with new appointments in the pipeline for a number of dioceses.

Speaking after the Rubicon Justice conference in Dublin, organised by the Church of Ireland, the Pope’s representative said that while the number of appointments would not be as many as the six appointments made last year, “a significant number of bishops will be appointed”.

He said the obvious dioceses that were currently awaiting new bishops were Elphin, Derry and Waterford.

“We’re working as hard and as fast as we can, giving the necessary attention and prudence, to finding good and holy shepherds for these dioceses,” he said.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

SARAH MACDONALD – 03 FEBRUARY 2014

THE bishop who was sent in to pick up the pieces in the Diocese of Ferns following the sensational resignation of Bishop Brendan Comiskey says the disgraced cleric “has a big heart”.

Bishop Eamon Walsh acted as caretaker of Ferns between 2002 and 2006 following Bishop Comiskey’s resignation in the wake of the BBC documentary ‘Suing the Pope’, which lifted the lid on Fr Sean Fortune’s abuse of Colm O’Gorman and others.

He described the former Bishop of Ferns, whose alcoholism and flamboyant lifestyle are believed to have left him incapable of confronting Sean Fortune and other abusive priests, as a man with “a big heart”.

“We always have to look beyond the failings that we all have and look at the bigger picture,” said Bishop Walsh. He was speaking out after Bishop Comiskey broke his decade-long silence in the Irish Independent at the weekend.

Bishop Comiskey practically vanished in recent years but has insisted that he was not in hiding. “I am not hiding. I am living like an ordinary Irish citizen. I am retired,” he said.

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UNITED STATES
Examiner

February 3, 2014

Vicki Polin

After famed actor Woody Allen was awarded the “Life Acheivement Award” by the Golden Globe, his adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow responded.

This past Saturday the New York Times published Dylan Farrow’s heartfelt letter regarding Woody Allen sexually assaulting her over twenty years ago. Woody Allen allegedly committed incest, when he allegedly sexually Dylan Farrow.

Back in 1993, the Connecticut prosecutors who investigated the case never filed charges against Woody Allen. The now retired, Litchfield County states attorney– Frank Maco, stated in an Associated Press interview, that “he suspected the abuse occur, yet the case lacked evidence to prosecute –– so no arrest was made.”

Upon review of Connecticut’s statute of limitations on sex crimes, there seems to be some discrepancy with the information provided by Frank Maco and the states statute.

According to the Connecticut statute § 53a-70, there is NO statute of limitations on felony sexual assault, it appears that if the states attorney’s office would be willing to press charges against Allen, he could still be arrested.

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ISRAEL
Haaretz

Silencing sex abuse accusers for fear they are lying sends a message to all victims that they too should keep quiet.

By Rabbi Eliyahu Fink

An open letter written by Woody Allen’s adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, in the New York Times has reopened a very public discussion about sexual abuse, its abusers, its victims, and our reactions.

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AUSTRALIA
Telegraph

Royal Commission witnesses claim they were sexually and physically abused by Salvos captains – and beaten by the police if they fled

NSW police beat boys who ran away from a Salvation Army home where they were being abused, a hearing in Sydney has been told.

Mark Stiles told the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse that he was 12 when he was sexually abused at the Gill Memorial Home in Goulburn, NSW, by Captain Russell Walker.

Mr Stiles said he would be woken up at 3am and be taken to the bathroom by Mr Walker.

He said the abuse happened four times a week over the 14-month period he was at Gill, in 1971 and 1972.

He was too scared to tell anyone, the commission heard.

He ran away twice. The first time he and another boy were picked up by a police car not far from the home.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian (UK)

Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Monday 3 February 2014

New South Wales police beat boys who ran away from a Salvation Army home where they were being abused, a hearing in Sydney has been told.

Mark Stiles told the royal commission into child sexual abuse he was 12 when he was sexually abused at the Gill Memorial Home in Goulburn, NSW, by Captain Russell Walker, who would create circumstances to be alone with him.

Stiles said he would be woken up at 3am and taken to the bathroom by Walker. He said the abuse happened four times a week over the 14-month period he was at Gill, in 1971 and 1972.

He was too scared to tell anyone, the commission heard. He ran away twice. The first time he and another boy were picked up by a police car not far from the home.

Stiles said he had told police he had been physically abused by Captain Lawrence Wilson, who was managing the home, and sexually abused by Walker.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

BOYS at a Sydney home run by the Salvation Army would be taken to private homes after church and sexually abused, an inquiry has been told.

Kevin Marshall, who was a resident at the Bexley Boys Home for eight years from 1966, has told the royal commission into child sexual abuse that “private soldiers” would provide a meal after services in their homes and sometimes molest the boys.

Mr Marshall said he was caned and sexually assaulted at Bexley. Sexual assaults were carried out by older boys and by officers, he said, describing a “bear pit” mentality in the boys’ dormitories.

He was six when he was placed in the home by his mother. She died a year later and he was told of her death by two officers who told him to stop crying “and get on with it”. There was no emotional support.

He said there were also non-Salvation Army officers who also lived at Bexley institution.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)

Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Monday 3 February 2014

A Salvation Army worker who blew the whistle on a manager meting out extreme punishment to boys in a Queensland home was fired, an inquiry has been told.

Retired Salvation Army Major Clifford Randall told the royal commission into child sexual abuse that in 1975, while a house parent at Alkira, a boys’ home at Indooroopilly in Queensland, he saw one boy’s shoulder become dislocated during a beating.

The manager of the home, Captain John McIver, was whipping a 12-year-old boy with a strap, when the boy put his hand back and McIver broke a cufflink, Randall said.

“He went ballistic, McIver grabbed the boy and threw him up against the wall, bruising his face and dislocating his shoulder,” Randall said on Monday.

“I lost it and threw him [Mr McIver] into his chair.”

McIver forced the boy’s arm back into its socket, the commission heard.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

[with video]

By Thomas Oriti and Emily Bourke

Two Salvation Army whistleblowers were dismissed from their positions at a home in Queensland after they reported an alleged instance of abuse, a royal commission has heard.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is examining Salvation Army boys homes in New South Wales and Queensland, with a primary focus on cases in the 1960s and 1970s.

Whistleblower Cliff Randall expressed concern about violence towards boys in the Alkira Salvation Army home at Indooroopilly in 1975.

The retired Major worked at the home as a “house parent” with his wife Marina between August 1973 and May 1975.

The commission was told Maor Randall and his wife Marina were suddenly dismissed from their positions when they complained about an incident involving Major John McIver.

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

Posted on February 3, 2014

Dear all,

The 7:30 Report tonight on ABC television will include an interview with Dad that he conducted the day before he died.

Thank you to Elise Worthington and Conor Duffy and their team for giving Dad a chance to speak, and to Conor Duffy for arranging for me to speak today as well.

Thank you to Quentin McDermott for instigating it.

Thank you to Peter McCutcheon for interviewing me today for tonight’s program. I cannot thank you enough for giving me the opportunity to say something of what Dad would be hoping for for the future.

If I have forgotten to mention anyone associated with tonight’s program, my apologies, and thank you to you too.

Kind regards,

Aletha

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

[with video]

By Conor Duffy

Lewis Blayse had been campaigning to bring the Salvation Army to account for decades after he was abused at a home run by the organisation, but on Friday he gave his final interview to 7.30.

He died of a heart attack that night.

Mr Blayse was abused as a boy in the Alkira home at Indooroopilly in Queensland between 1958 and 1960, and helped to raise awareness of the issue.

The home is currently the focus of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

His daughter, Aletha Blayse, helped him run his blog, which he used to connect victims and provide analysis on the commission.

Today Ms Blayse told 7.30 her father was the happiest she had ever seen him after his interview on Friday and a week of extensive coverage of the allegations against the Salvation Army.

“He was on top of the world, I’ve never seen him look so happy,” she said.

“He said now that the media was paying attention that the word would be getting out.”

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UNITED STATES
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

February 2, 2014

A United Nations investigation of the Catholic Church’s clergy sex-abuse scandal should prompt the Vatican to be more transparent and Pope Francis to crack down harder on the abusers’ enablers.

An international human rights panel grilled Vatican representatives last month in Geneva about the church’s lukewarm response to the child sex-abuse scandal.

The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests and other groups argue that the Vatican is not honoring its agreement to abide by the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. The U.N. committee demanded that the Vatican open its files on sex abuse cases — which it has not done — and improve the transparency of how it handles such cases.

The U.N. panel and other independent, secular bodies must investigate, publicize and prosecute not only the abusers but also those who shielded them. The Vatican should routinely release its files on abuse cases, and Pope Francis, who has been commended for his open style and symbolic gestures, must pay more attention to the scandal.

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AUSTRALIA
Ipswich Advertiser

Jessica Grewal 1st Feb 2014

DRIVEN by a desire to protect church money, the Anglican Diocese of Grafton “comprehensively failed” victims of child sex abuse and in some cases, damaged them further, the royal commission has heard.

Sweeping reforms to the structure of the Anglican Church are likely after the senior barrister tasked with bringing evidence before last year’s North Coast Children’s Home inquiry released a damning assessment of its ability to deal with child abuse survivors and discipline the perpetrators.

The landmark inquiry uncovered haunting accounts from former residents of the Lismore home and raised serious questions about the Grafton Diocese response to a group compensation claim and its treatment of the victims involved.

Counsel Assisting the Commission Simeon Beckett found that despite having “sufficient assets to meet the claims of the abused former residents”, the Diocese chose to protect its finance rather than provide victims with “appropriate redress”.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX THE AUSTRALIAN FEBRUARY 03, 2014

BOYS living in a Salvation Army-run children’s home in Sydney’s south would be used by staff to procure younger boys for sex in return for lollies, the royal commission has heard.

A former resident of the Bexley home, Kevin Marshall, told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that boys were also abused by army members at their homes after church.

Senior Salvation Army officers “ruled by fear”, Mr Marshall said, describing how he was both physically and sexually abused during the 1960s and 1970s.

Other employees used the home’s older boys to “take the younger boys into the rooms for them in exchange for lollies and special affection from these employees.”

“These boys would either become – I won’t say willing partners but they’d become partners,” Mr Marshall said.

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UNITED STATES
Baxter Bulletin

It’s a scourge as old as the ages, yet sexual violence against women and children is fresh in the headlines as President Obama launches an initiative to address sexual assaults on college campuses, while the military tries to fix its own problem and newly released documents shed galling light on the Catholic Church’s pattern of abuse and coverup in the Chicago diocese.

As the priests’ crimes remind us, religious institutions, at their worst, have often proved complicit and sometimes out-and-out guilty when it comes to sexual advances against vulnerable people. As real as that problem is, however, there’s a counterstory emerging that could redeem religion’s role in this ugly dynamic:

Faith organizations are beginning to address sexual abuse with a new energy and earnestness — a welcome step toward the fulfillment of their enormous potential to do good on this front.

Silent complicity

Given the morality and virtue idealists associate with faith, one would expect that congregants would be safe from abuse. If only that were so. Statistics show that people in religious communities are just as likely to experience sexual violence as those who are not — which is to say, very likely. Nearly one in five women in this country have been raped, according to a 2010 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than half by an intimate partner.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Thomas Oriti

The Salvation Army has expressed its sadness after the death of a victim of child sexual abuse at a home run by the organisation.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is examining Salvation Army boys homes in New South Wales and Queensland.

Cases in the 1960s and 1970s are the primary focus of the inquiry.

The Chair of the Commission, Justice Peter McClellan, opened today’s hearing by expressing his condolences to the family of Lewis Blayse.

Mr Blayse was abused as a boy in the Alkira home at Indooroopilly in Queensland and helped to raise awareness of the issue.

He died of a heart attack on Friday night.

“His experience led him to become a strong voice for the victims of child sexual abuse, and he contributed significantly to the community concerns which led to the creation of this Royal Commission,” Justice McClellan told the hearing.

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AUSTRALIA
SBS

AAP

The royal commission into child sexual abuse has heard there was no emotional support for children at a Salvation Army home in Sydney.

Boys at a Sydney home run by the Salvation Army would be taken to private homes after church and sexually abused, an inquiry has been told.

Kevin Marshall, who was a resident at the Bexley Boys Home for eight years from 1966, has told the royal commission into child sexual abuse that “private soldiers” would provide a meal after services in their homes and sometimes molest the boys.

Mr Marshall said he was caned and sexually assaulted at Bexley. Sexual assaults were carried out by older boys and by officers, he said describing a “bear pit” mentality in the boys’ dormitories.

He was six when he was placed in the home by his mother. She died a year later and he was told of her death by two officers who told him to stop crying “and get on with it”. There was no emotional support.

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SCOTLAND
The Times

Kat Lay

A Roman Catholic priest who was dismissed from his parish in September after claiming for years that he had been sexually abused by another priest, is to appeal to the highest court in Rome over his removal.

Father Patrick Lawson is also pursuing an unfair dismissal claim in an employment tribunal, after being dismissed from St Sophia’s parish church in Galston, Ayrshire, by the Bishop of Galloway, John Cunningham.

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MONTANA
Montana Public Radio

[with audio]

By DAN BOYCE

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena is filing for bankruptcy protection as part of a settlement in lawsuits over child sex abuse. It’s the 11th diocese in the nation to seek bankruptcy after similar claims.

Allegations against The Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena stem from a period between the late 1930s and the 1970s. Hundreds of victims say clergy members sexually abused them at that time while the church covered it up. Most of the clergy implicated in the suit have since died. None remain in active ministry.

The $15 million settlement will be paid mostly by the church’s insurance. Diocese spokesman Dan Bartleson said the bankruptcy is necessary for the church to survive moving forward while still attempting to make amends for what happened in the past.

“We’re in a situation where we are cutting back personnel, were stopping building projects, we’re cutting back programs,” he said.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

The new bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Newcastle says he will be working hard to ensure children feel safe in the Hunter’s churches and the wider community.

Former Upper Hunter man Greg Thompson has been installed as the 13th bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Newcastle.

He officially took on the top job during a service yesterday at Christ Church Cathedral, replacing retired bishop Brian Farran.

Bishop Thompson grew up in Muswellbrook and became a priest nearly 30 years ago.

He says he is ready for the challenges ahead.

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MINNESOTA
Legal Examiner

Posted by Mike Bryant
February 2, 2014

Along with the St Cloud list that was released Bishop of St Cloud, Rev. Donald J. Kettler released a statement. The words were interesting in a number of areas:

For immediate release……………
When I became Bishop of the Diocese of Saint Cloud, in November 2013, I immediately began connecting with people, familiarizing myself with policies, and reviewing important documents that I am responsible for as Bishop. Part of that process has involved reviewing files regarding claims of sexual abuse of minors by clergy who served in parishes within the Diocese of Saint Cloud. I am struck by the courage and strength of the victims of abuse who have come forward. And I am impressed with the pastoral responses of my predecessors. So in mid-December, I decided to release the names of those clergy. Therefore, I asked my senior staff to make certain I had a complete list of all the clergy who had likely abused minors. It is my intent to continue to provide a pastoral response to such abuse. In that spirit, I am now disclosing a list of all clergy identified, to date, who were likely involved in the sexual abuse of minors. I am also disclosing the parishes where each of those clergy served within the Diocese of Saint Cloud. The list includes Diocesan priests as well as clergy who are members of religious communities who served in parishes in the Diocese. Additionally on this list are the names of several men of a religious community from outside the Diocese who served in schools within our Diocese.
It is my hope that the release of these names will provide validation to those victims who have been sexually abused and have already come forward. I pray it will also give strength to those who have remained silent and allow them to come forward.
The following statement is a part the Sexual Misconduct policy for the
Diocese of Saint Cloud:
If someone has sexually abused you or exploited you, and you feel that the time is right to come forward, there are professionals you can talk to about your experience. They can assist you in getting the help you need. You do not have to face or name your abuser. You don’t have to give any information you are not comfortable disclosing. It does not matter how long ago the abuse was. Assistance is available to you.

Let’s look at a couple of the items:

“Part of that process has involved reviewing files regarding claims of sexual abuse of minors by clergy who served in parishes within the Diocese of Saint Cloud.”

What files did he look at? What is in the files? What choices were made as the files were reviewed?

” I am struck by the courage and strength of the victims of abuse who have come forward.”

A very true statement, but what about those who hurt the survivors?

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ISRAEL
Failed Messiah

Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com

Rabbi Mordechai “Moti” Elon has decided not to appeal his recent conviction on two counts of performing indecent sexual acts on a minor, Ynet reported.

Elon was sentenced to 6 months of community service with no prison time, sparking outrage.

Elon himself shrugged off the sentence.

“I’ve been doing community service for 40 years, and I would love to do until I’m 120,” Elon reportedly said then.

He was also sentenced to 15 months probation and was ordered to pay NIS 10,000 ($2,844) in compensation.

Prosecutors had asked for an 8– to 18-month prison sentence.

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ISRAEL
Jerusalem Post

By JEREMY SHARON
02/02/2014

Elon was formerly one of the most popular and influential leaders of the national-religious movement.

Rabbi Moti Elon who was last year convicted of sexual assault on a minor and sentenced to perform six months community service will not be appealing the the court decision it was announced on Sunday.

Elon was formerly one of the most popular and influential leaders of the national-religious movement but was charged and convicted on two counts of indecent assault by force against a minor in August 2013.

He was given a six month commuted sentence to be served in community service, as well as placed on three years probation and ordered to pay the complainant NIS 10,000.

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ISRAEL
YNet News

Aviel Magnezi
Published: 02.02.14

Rabbi Moti Elon has decided not to appeal a Jerusalem Magistrate Court ruling according to which he is guilty of performing at least two indecent sexual acts on a minor.

According to the rabbi, he reached the decision not to appeal the conviction and six month community service sentence after conferring with his family which recommended he move forward and put the incident behind him.

Ynet contacted his lawyer Asher Ohayon who claimed that the rabbi’s decision was solely personal, and that at a legal level the rabbi stood a very good chance at winning his appeal.

“The long legal process has exacted a heavy toll on the family and in line with their wishes it was decided to put the incident behind them and return to normal live. Rabbis who were called in on the matter accepted the family’s wishes.”

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INDIA
Don Bosco India

By Fr. Maria Charles

New Delhi, Feb. 1. On the Feast day of the great Priest-Educator, Founder and Saint, Don Bosco, Salesian India took a meaningful step forward in its commitment towards children and young people below the age of 18 by enacting two important policies for all the Salesian Institutions, Centres and Presences for study, reflection and implementation: DON BOSCO CHILD POLICY and DON BOSCO CHILD PROTECTION POLICY FOR INDIA.

In a colourful function held at Don Bosco School, Alaknanda, New Delhi during the feast of Don Bosco, His Grace, Most Rev. Dr. Anil Couto, Archbishop of New Delhi, released the two policies. The first copies of these policies were received by Rev. Fr. Michael Peedikayil, Salesian Provincial of New Delhi and Rev. Fr. Noel Maddichetty, Secretary of Salesian Provincial Conference of South Asia (SPCSA). These policies were introduced by Fr. Maria Charles, Delegate for Youth Ministry, South Asia, and Editor of these policies.

The making of the present Don Bosco Child Policy, along the lines of our own tradition, began more than a decade ago in order to bring it up to date in keeping with modern needs. The 25th Salesian General Chapter had given directives to lay down norms of behaviour to which all Salesians and their collaborators must conform in dealing with children. The present Policy is an important step forward in this process . It is in consonance with the International treaties, conventions on child rights, polices and laws of the Indian Government and the guidelines of the Church.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

February 3, 2014

Richard Willinghamm and Judith Ireland

Thousands of Victorian early childhood teachers will have to report suspicions of child abuse and neglect under new state laws that respond to the Protecting Victoria’s Vulnerable Children Inquiry.

The Napthine government will use the first week of the parliamentary year to introduce laws requiring Victorian early childhood teachers to be registered – like their primary and secondary teaching colleagues – with the Victorian Institute of Teaching.

Minister Responsible for the Teaching Profession Peter Hall said the legislation would recognise the 3800 early childhood teachers in Victoria as professional educators in childcare centres and kindergartens.

”Importantly this legislation will mean that early childhood teachers will be required to mandatorily report any concerns of child abuse and neglect,” Mr Hall said.

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on February 2, 2014

Every once in a while, I catch myself wondering why the child sex abuse awareness movement (especially in the Catholic Church) has never elicited support from Hollywood A-listers.

Yesterday, Dylan Farrow gave us a painful and personal reminder.

Her immensely brave open letter in the New York Times is raw. She openly accuses Woody Allen and gives details of the abuse. But she goes a step further, naming the Hollywood A-Listers who continue to support Allen.

(Although Allen has not been found guilty in a court of law, he has been accused of abuse by one of his children, and went on to marry his step-daughter.)

The sense of betrayal that Farrow expresses is a universal theme for victims of child sexual abuse.

The crime of abuse is horrific enough for a child, but when adults whom the child loves and respects side with the abuser, it is devastating. It drives the victim into a world of shame and silence. I know that feeling first hand.

I also know another feeling that Farrow describes—the sheer disgust as she watches Hollywood elites fawn over Allen, his movies and his continued award nominations. No one in Hollywood will publicly stand up for Farrow, just like no one in Hollywood stood up for the victim of Roman Polanski. Just like no one at Adrian College will stand up for me and the other victims of Thomas Hodgman.

So, now do we do?

We have a call to action—We need to change how we deal with victims of sexual abuse.

1) If you know victims of abuse (and you do), tell them that you love and support them. Tell them you believe them.

2) If you can help a victim report to the police, do it.

3) Open up communication with your children and family members about abuse. Don’t shroud discussions of sex or abuse with shame.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Joanne McCarthy

The Catholic Church was ”patriarchal”, regarded women as useful for ”cooking the Sunday lunch roast” but not much else and even today left women feeling ”fairly well overlooked”, a senior nun has told the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry.

A former congregation leader of the Sisters of St Joseph in Lochinvar, in the Hunter Valley, Sister Lauretta Baker, said she was not a feminist because the word was divisive, but she laid bare how a nun felt about the church and its global child sex abuse crisis.

”I think it’s true to say the Catholic Church is as good as it is today because of its religious women, not because of its religious men,” she told the inquiry in evidence made public on Friday. ”We have endured much, put up with much.”

In the 1980s, when child sex allegations emerged in the US, the church had ”little regard for women in general, whom they saw as doing the flowers in the church, washing the altar linen, etc, etc”, she said. …

Asked by Mr Hunt if she had any views about systemic obstacles in the past facing nuns or their superiors who had knowledge or suspicions about clerics ”misbehaving with children”, she replied: ”Yes, I do. Have you got all day?

”The major superiors that I knew in the 1980s would have to have been extremely courageous women to have approached the bishop. Nobody believed that a priest in such a position of trust would act like that, act in a way that we’ve seen some of them did.

”They [bishops] wouldn’t have believed it, to start with. My conjecture is that they [nuns] would have been patted on the head and ignored.”

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IRELAND
Irish Central

Brendan Comiskey, the disgraced former Bishop of Ferns, has broken his silence for the first time in 12 years on the clerical sex abuse scandal that ended his career.

In an exclusive video for the Irish Independent, the 79-year-old answers questions about the scandal and why he has kept silent since 2002.

“I did my best and it wasn’t good enough and that’s it,” says Comiskey, who retreated into hiding after the BBC TV documentary ‘Suing the Pope’ revealed how he failed to protect children from pedophile priest Sean Fortune in his Wexford diocese.

Fortune killed himself in 1999 while awaiting trial on 66 charges of sexual abuse against 29 boys, the Irish Independent reports.

Three years after Comiskey’s resignation, the government inquiry on clerical abuse in the Diocese of Ferns found the bishop’s investigation into the rape of children by his clergy was “an inappropriate and inadequate response.” It concluded that he had “failed to recognize the paramount need to protect children, as a matter of urgency, from potential abusers.”

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UNITED STATES
City of Angels

THURSDAY, JANUARY 16, 2014

Key Ebeling

(I’m posting this fast transcript I produced fast while the UN hearing today was taking place. Unfortunately, I missed the Vatican’s opening statement as links sent out did not work for me. A friend in Australia sent a link that worked. So between a freelance job I was doing, City of Angels Winging It Transcripts provides these fast notes on the UN Hearing on the Rights of the Child that took place today. M is Moderator. Apologies for typos, no time to fix them)

Moral authority. Responsibility

Article 4 of convention of rights of child establishes legal responsibility of parties to adopt all measures to ensure rights respected.
Committee has tried to shed light on number five re implementation.
Need to review domestic legislation.

Ought to be a revision
Question of terminology used
Legitimate and illegitimate children and how viewed in canon law.
Information and training to what extent provided in Catholic schools?
(Shoot, they are not talking about pedophile priests at all.)
Child as a rights holder
Has been said by Holy See rights of child to be seen within context of family. “Obviously in order to be a child you don’t just have a family.”
Children have rights over and beyond this, they are rights holders independently over the family.”
According to Holy See sexual abuse is a parental obligation re their children. I would like to emphasize the Holy See defining specific criteria to evaluate and put in place the best interest of the child.
How do you intend to regulate this question of the best interest of the child.
Mr. Cardona above quote.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

February 2014

Mon 3 – Fri 7 Public hearing: Case Study 5 Salvation Army (Eastern Territory)
Sydney

Mon 3 – Fri 28 Private sessions in capital cities

Wed 12 – Fri 14 Private sessions in regional areas

Mon 17 – Fri 28 Public hearing: Case Study 6
Queensland

Mon 24 – Fri 28 Public hearing: Case Study 7
Sydney

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry

The Inquiry will not sit week commencing 3rd February 2014
The next hearing will be on Monday 10th February 2014.
NOTE – The timetable will normally be published a week in advance of hearings taking place.

Transcripts and evidence called

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – PM

MARK COLVIN: As if the harrowing accounts of routine sexual and extreme physical abuse at the Salvation Army boys homes weren’t bad enough, the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse today heard that boys at the Bexley home in Sydney’s south were ‘rented out’ to strangers who sexually abused them.

Today, the public hearing heard serious allegations that a ‘network of paedophiles’, including women, were able to get to boys in their dormitory and take boys to their private homes in the 1970s.

The inquiry has also heard that police investigations in the 1990s came to nothing – and that one alleged offender, who was a Salvation Army captain, is still alive.

Emily Bourke has the story – and a warning that some of the material in this report is distressing.

EMILY BOURKE: The Salvation Army’s home for boys at Bexley in Sydney’s south operated from 1915 to 1979. It took in boys who were abandoned or relinquished by their families, but care and comfort were rare.

Today, the Royal Commission was told that the perpetrators of child sexual abuse were inside and outside the home at Bexley.

The manager of the Bexley home in the early 70s was captain Lawrence Wilson. He’s been described as the Salvation Army’s ‘most serious offender’.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (article updated 2 February 2014)

Broken Rites is researching Brother “George” Taylor, who was a child-molester in the Catholic order of De La Salle Brothers in Australia. Brother George was finally brought to justice at the age of 79 when a former pupil, aged nearly 40, managed to persuade the New South Wales police to investigate Brother George regarding incidents that had occurred three decades earlier when the boy was eleven. Since then, other victims of Brother George have contacted Broken Rites, the latest being in February 2014..

Broken Rites has ascertained that Albert Matthew Taylor (alias Brother “George”) was born in Melbourne on 1 July 1916 in a family of five children.

By the time he reached the age of 14 (in 1930), the world had been hit by the Great Depression, creating massive unemployment in Australia. Albert Matthew Taylor solved this problem by becoming a trainee in the De La Salle religious order. After some “religious” training and some on-the-job teacher training, he emerged by the age of 18 as a fully-fledged De La Salle Brother, working as a teacher in De La Salle schools. He donned the Brothers’ black smock and clerical collar, which signified to the Catholic community that he was supposedly committed to a life-time of celibacy, chastity and holiness, supposedly making him a safe person to mind Catholic children.

In line with the De La Salle custom, he adopted a new forename, becoming known to generations of Australian Catholic schoolboys as “Brother George”. In those years, schoolboys did not know the surnames of De La Salle Brothers — and in those years even a Brother’s first name was an alias. This eventually would make it difficult for victims of “Brother George” to tell the police the real name of their offender.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (article posted 2 February 2014)

A convicted pedophile priest (Father David Edwin Rapson, who belonged to one of Australia’s most prominent Catholic religious orders) has “blown the whistle” on his colleagues in this religious order, claiming that they too were committing sexual offences on schoolboys. Broken Rites has discovered Rapson’s claim in some court documents.

Broken Rites has just obtained a transcript of proceedings at the Melbourne County Court (on 17 October 2013), when Judge Liz Gaynor sentenced Rapson to jail for crimes committed against eight boys at a Melbourne Catholic boys’ school. This school was operated by priests and religious Brothers who belonged to an Australia-wide religious order (that is, they did not belong to a specific geographic entity such as the Melbourne archdiocese).

Before sentencing Rapson (for multiple rapes and indecent assaults), Judge Gaynor acknowledged that Rapson’s lawyer wanted the judge to take some other things into account on behalf of Rapson. For example:

* According to the defence lawyer (quoted in Paragraph 28 of Judge Gaynor’s sentencing remarks), “it was clear [that] old and more experienced priests were engaging in sexual abuse of the students” [at this school].”

* Judge Gaynor noted [in Paragraph 31] that Rapson began his teaching career at this boarding school, “which, I accept, harboured priests and brothers engaged in sexual abuse of their students.”

* Judge Gaynor told Rapson [in Paragraph 33]: “…These were dreadful crimes against powerless and vulnerable victims who were entirely in your power as residents of the school and by virtue of the enormous authority and stature granted to Catholic priests by Catholic congregations and by parents who unwittingly placed their sons in your entirely predatory hands.”

* Judge Gaynor told Rapson that, at this (his first) school, “you very soon became an enthusiastic member of the sexually deviant group of religious [people] operating at the school at the time.”

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SCOTLAND
Daily Record

By Lynn McPherson

2 Feb 2014

THE Catholic Church were yesterday accused by a priest of forcing him out his home – by changing his locks while he was on holiday.

Father Matthew Despard, 48, said he was “sickened” by the move, which came after he had previously changed the locks of the church-owned property when he was suspended in November.

He had refused to leave the home at St John Ogilvie, High Blantyre, Lanarkshire, despite being told to by interim bishop of Motherwell Joseph Toal.

It prompted the church to launch a legal bid against him to repossess the house in the name of his stand-in, Father William Nolan.

But Despard, who was alerted by his lawyer to the locks being changed while he was on holiday, says he had pledged to hand over the keys on his return from the break tomorrow

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PENNSYLVANIA
Standard Speaker

BY REBEKAH BROWN (STAFF WRITER)
Published: February 2, 2014

SCRANTON – A suspended priest accused of performing sex acts on a 15-year-old boy pleaded guilty to felony corruption of minors.

The Rev. William Jeffrey Paulish of Blakely, who served at a parish in Hazleton in the 1990s, entered the plea Jan. 22 before Lackawanna County Judge Michael Barrasse.

The priest was arrested in September after police found him and the teen in his car in the parking lot at Penn State Worthington Scranton campus.

The teenager, who wasn’t wearing pants when police arrived, later told officials at the Children’s Advocacy Center of Northeast Pennsylvania he performed oral sex on the priest.

The felony charge carries a maximum sentence of seven years in prison, according to the Rev. Paulish’s attorney, Bernard Brown, who said his client is remorseful for his actions.

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SCOTLAND
Scottish Express

By: Ben Borland
Published: Sun, February 2, 2014

A DISABLED mother-of-two has claimed she was raped by a priest and sexually abused by a female care worker when she was a young child in a Scottish orphanage.

Joanne Peacher said the appalling attacks took place in the late 1970s in a Nazareth House children’s home, which have been at the centre of several previous abuse scandals.

The Sisters of Nazareth, the Roman Catholic order of nuns which operated dozens of orphanages across Britain, recently apologised to children who suffered in their institutions in Northern Ireland.

That apology came at the start of a public inquiry in the Province, the largest of its kind in UK history, yet the Scottish Government has consistently ignored demands to set up a similar judge-led investigation here.

Last night, Mrs Peacher and her husband Andrew said they hoped that by coming forward with their story they could help put pressure on Holyrood ministers to start taking the issue seriously.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Sunday 2 February 2014

Exclusive by Catherine Deveney

Sunday night in late January, a coal-black sky and brutal chill in Ayrshire, as the faithful gather.

Not in church but in the welcoming glow of a house in Darvel, where Father Patrick Lawson, who has been removed from his parish by the Bishop of Galloway, John Cunningham, will celebrate a private mass. Father Lawson is recovering from serious illness and inside the house, as candlelight flickers up from the altar and illuminates his face, there is concern among his supporters.

He has been up sick the night before and the stress is showing. “Father doesn’t look well,” one says. “I saw him pulling up his trousers,” says another, referring to the weight he has lost. Father Lawson smiles wryly. “I hope nobody misinterprets that.”

But that is the interesting thing about Patrick Lawson’s case. There is no scandal or priestly sexual impropriety – at least not on his part. The abuser in this tale walks free.

Last week, just days after supporters rallied to the house mass, he heard his appeal to Rome against his bishop’s decision had been rejected. He will now appeal to the Signatura, the highest court in Rome, and is also taking an industrial tribunal case for unfair dismissal.

Last night, a group of his supporters returned to the principal parish church at St Sophia’s, Galston, for the first time since his removal in September last year, to protest when a letter informing parishioners of Rome’s decision was read out.

Not that the bishop explained anything. He would remain silent, the letter insisted, until all ­proceedings were concluded, “to protect the integrity of this process and the reputation of Father Lawson”. As if there is some dark secret about Lawson, yet to be declared. What could it be?

There have been many abuser priests secretly moved and protected in the Catholic Church. Which of them has been publicly evicted? Yet in the last six months, two Scottish priests – Pat Lawson and Matthew Despard – have been removed from parishes. The two cases are very different but have one thing in common: both priests have spoken out against the church hierarchy. Pat Lawson has fought for the entire 18 years of his priesthood to have church authorities deal appropriately with a serious case of sexual abuse. Despard has spoken out on a separate matter: the secret culture of homosexuality within the priesthood. So what is really going on in the Scottish Catholic church?

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CHICAGO (IL)
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

I received Father Thomas Doyle’s outstanding rebuttal to the claims of Chicago Cardinal Francis George about his dioceses’s handling of the abuse crisis by email from the National Survivor Advocates Coalition several days ago. I’ve been waiting to mention this document in a posting here until after I had seen it online at the NSAC website. Meanwhile, I see that Robert McClory has published Tom Doyle’s text at National Catholic Reporter.

I highly recommend the entire document. To pique your interest, here are some important passages:

The claim voiced by the Cardinal and his auxiliary, Francis Kane, that “had they known then what they know now they would have handled the allegations differently,” has become a mantra for bishops when they are confronted with their disastrous actions. It’s also so worn out that one would think the conference spin-doctors would come up with a fresh excuse.

If Cardinal George read any of the numerous documents sent by the conference and if he was awake for even part of the lectures given at their annual meetings he would certainly have known the serious nature of clergy sexual abuse. So what is it they did not know “then” that they know now? It’s fairly obvious.

They did not know that their duplicitous defenses and paper-thin excuses would gain them no traction. They did not know that the deference and unquestioned credibility they had taken for granted had eroded. They didn’t know that the victims and their attorneys would not be intimidated or put off by the endless legal delaying tactics. In short, they didn’t know they’d be caught! That’s what they didn’t know then that they surely know now.

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MONTANA
Handels Zeitung

Die katholische Diözese Helena im US-Bundesstaat Montana ist pleite. Es ist die elfte Diözese, die in den USA nach teuren Gerichtsverfahren in finanzielle Schieflage geraten ist. Helena reichte ihren Insolvenzantrag bei Gericht ein, wie der TV-Sender NBC berichtet. Der Schritt erfolgt im Zusammenhang mit einer Entschädigungszahlung über 15 Millionen Dollar.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Deutschland Radio

Zu vielem, was der Vatikan fordert, haben Katholiken offenbar eine ganz andere Meinung. Alois Glück, Präsident des Zentralkomitees der deutschen Katholiken, erklärt die Widersprüche. Er hofft zukünftig auf einen offeneren Umgang mit der Wirklichkeit.

Philipp Gessler: Hat der neue Papst Franziskus eigentlich geahnt, was er da anstellt? Vor ein paar Monaten hat der Vatikan an alle Bistümer der Welt einen Katalog von Fragen geschickt. Das Kirchenvolk sollte schildern, was es etwa von delikaten Dingen wie vorehelichem Sex oder der Eucharistie für wiederverheiratete Geschiedene hält. Beides Streitfragen, bei denen der Vatikan eine ziemlich harte Linie fährt – genauer: Beides ist nach Ansicht Roms nicht möglich.

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MEXICO
Vanguardia

[Summary: Joaquin Aguilar, president of the Survivors Network of Those Sexually Abused by Priests in Mexico, asked Bishop Raul Vera to lead by example in bringing pedophile priests to justice and asked the authorities in Coahuila to act against the prelate if he is committing the crime of complicity. Aguilar is an alleged victim of sexual abuse by priest Nicolas Auilar Rivera, who is accused of 60 violations of other children in Puebla and 26 more in the United States when Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera allegedly protected the priest to avoid jail. The priest continues to go unpunished.]

POR: JESÚS CASTRO domingo, 02 de febrero del 2014

El presidente de la Red de Sobrevivientes de Abusos Sexuales de Sacerdotes en México, Joaquín Aguilar, pidió al obispo Raúl Vera que predique con el ejemplo entregando a los curas pederastas a la justicia, y solicitó a las autoridades de Coahuila que actúen contra el prelado si está cometiendo el delito de complicidad.

Joaquín es víctima de abuso sexual por parte del sacerdote Nicolás Aguilar Rivera, a quien se le acusa de otras 60 violaciones a niños en Puebla y 26 más en Estados Unidos, desde los años 80 hasta los 90, cuando el cardenal Norberto Rivera Carrera presuntamente lo protegió para que no pisara la cárcel y es fecha que continúa sin recibir castigo.

El mismo Joaquín tiene demandado a Rivera Carrera, arzobispo primado de la Ciudad México, por el delito de encubrimiento ante una Corte de California, E.U. a donde el Cardenal envió al padre Nicolás para ocultarlo de la justicia mexicana.

Por eso, durante entrevista con VANGUARDIA Joaquín Aguilar dice que no le sorprende el actuar de la Iglesia al tratar de encubrir a dos presuntos sacerdotes pederastas en Coahuila; lo que si le llama la atención es el encubrimiento del Obispo de Saltillo.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: GAIL ROSENBLUM , Star Tribune Updated: February 1, 2014

More allegations of clergy sex abuse arose this week and I know I’m not the only person suffering from a queasy sense of hopelessness about it.

Will. It. Ever. End?

The Ramsey County attorney’s office and St. Paul police are reviewing documents suggesting that the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis failed to notify authorities of a child sex-abuse accusation against a St. Paul priest within 24 hours, as required by law.

Another potential coverup. More grief forced upon victims.

It’s tempting to run away as fast as we can, to hope that someone else will stop it, fix it, assure that no child is ever again harmed. But talking with sex-abuse experts who step into this world daily reminded me that we need to stay invested.

They believe that we return to this place of unease, again and again, because sex abuse is an incredibly complex issue, with no singular solution. And research on sex abuse remains relatively new.

To make real change requires digging deeper with our questions and keeping our minds open to answers that might surprise or upset us. It also means consistent, unambiguous accountability by those in power.

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SCOTLAND
Nehanda Radio

By Lance Guma

GLASGOW – Archbishop Dr Walter Masocha who leads the “Agape for All Nations Ministries International” Church was on Thursday arrested by police in Scotland and charged with various sexual offences among other charges he is facing.

Masocha who was handcuffed and read his rights, is being detained at Falkirk Police Station and will appear at the Sterling Sheriff Court on Monday.

We understand several victims filed reports against him and because of this, the exact number and nature of the charges, will be clearer at the first hearing.

In October last year Nehanda Radio exclusively reported how he allegedly abused a 31-year old mother, Jean Gasho.

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MONTANA
Independent Record

Helena Bishop, George Leo Thomas, speaks at a press conference Friday afternoon in regards to settlement in the abuse claims

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MINNESOTA
San Francisco Chronicle

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has asked a judge to prevent attorneys for an alleged sexual abuse victim from taking depositions from top church officials.

A plaintiff identified as John Doe 1 filed suit last May against the archdiocese, the Diocese of Winona and former priest Thomas Adamson, alleging sexual abuse by Adamson between 1976 and 1977 when he was assigned to St. Thomas Aquinas church in St. Paul Park.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys Jeff Anderson and Michael Finnegan want to take depositions from Archbishop John Nienstedt and the Rev. Kevin McDonough.

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UNITED STATES
Renegade Catholic

Does anyone need proof that Pope Francis is truly no reformer? That his real agenda is to restore the Catholic Church to its ancient power and authority under a nice shiny guise of seeming concern and acceptance of everyone?

Look no further. The Vatican has announced that he’s thinking of putting the Church’s child protection office that he’s established, under the tender care of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the CDF. In other words, the secret agency that managed the cover-up for five hundred years will have full jurisdiction of it once again. Here’s what Frankie told them at their annual bash:

“On this occasion, I would also like to thank you for your efforts in dealing with sensitive issues regarding the most serious crimes, in particular, the cases of the sexual abuse of minors by clerics. Think of the welfare of children and the young, who in the Christian community must always be protected and supported in their human and spiritual growth. In this sense, the possibility is being looked into of connecting the specific Commission for the Protection of Minors, which I have established, to your dicastery [department]. I hope it will be an example for all those who wish to promote the welfare of children.” [Emphasis added]

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Courier

By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Temptation is a normal part of life’s struggle, and anyone who claims to be immune from it is either a little angel visiting from heaven or “a bit of an idiot,” Pope Francis said.

The biggest problem in the world, in fact, isn’t temptation or sin, rather it is people deluding themselves that they’re not sinners and losing any sense of sin, he said Jan. 31 during his early morning Mass in the Domus Sanctae Marthae, where he lives.

“All of us are sinners and all of us are tempted; temptation is our daily bread,” he said, according to Vatican Radio.

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