ABUSE TRACKER

MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: TONY KENNEDY and JEAN HOPFENSPERGER , Star Tribune staff writers
Updated: January 29, 2014

Ramsey, Washington county attorneys declined to prosecute archdiocese leaders accused of failing to report sex abuse, porn.

Two Twin Cities prosecutors on Wednesday declined to file criminal charges against local Catholic officials in the two most prominent investigations in the clergy sexual misconduct cases that have rocked the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

In St. Paul, Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said his office can’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt that church officials violated the law requiring them to immediately report allegations against the Rev. Curtis Wehmeyer, a former St. Paul priest now in prison for sexually abusing two boys.

And in Washington County, prosecutor Pete Orput said his office is closing its investigation into sexually explicit images found on a discarded computer that had belonged to the Rev. Jonathan Shelley, who served in Mahtomedi. A parishioner who discovered the downloaded images gave the hard drive to the archdiocese in 2004. Church officials didn’t report the situation to police, but Orput said he’s closing the case because none of the images appears to fit the statutory definition of “pornographic work involving a minor.”

Disappointed advocates for the victims of clergy sexual abuse said the archdiocese was “let off the hook,” and St. Paul attorney Jeff Anderson blasted the authorities for “defective analysis.”

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

MINNESOTA
National Survivor Advocates Coalition

Kristine Ward

First, the news out of Minneapolis hurts survivors. We want them to know their pain is known and acknowledged.

The Archbishop of Minneapolis-St. Paul and Archdiocesan officials have been let off the hook and will not be charged with any responsibility for not stopping a priest now convicted and serving a prison sentence on sexual abuse charges.

The Archdiocese is “grateful” to be “cleared.”

The Archdiocese’s records show that the Archdiocese had knowledge going back to 2008 regarding the sexual addiction and solicitation activities of this priest — and the Archdiocese gave him 28 hours of potential running and destruction of evidence time in a coming arrest alert regarding the charges for which he is now serving time.

Still, the police said they do not have the evidence to charge anyone in the Archdiocese of obstruction of justice or any complicity in the crimes.

Here are news stories with the details that there will not be charges along with the official statement of the Archdiocese:

[Star Tribune]

[CBS Minnesota]

[KSTP]

The police are “troubled” about the Archdiocesan officials and their actions or inaction.

So are we, but we don’t have subpoena power, calling grand jury power or issuing search warrant power like the police and county attorney and courts do.

Is there no law in Minnesota under which people who know that a person has and likely will continue to abuse children and minors can be held responsible for aiding this person — by the advance notice on an arrest? By promoting the person to pastor in 2009 and giving him a position of authority and respect
when the records show that trouble existed and was known in 2008?

Really?

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

CANADA
The Chronicle-Herald

BY FRANK CAMPBELL
Published January 11, 2013

Sister Nuala Kenny is the heal deal.

Involved in the healing business for more than 40 years, Kenny’s biggest therapeutic challenge has come in her quest over the past two decades to help diagnose and treat the clergy sexual abuse crisis in her beloved Catholic Church.

“I’ve dealt with dying children my whole life,” says the pediatrician and ethicist.

“I’ve dealt with cancer-care children my whole life. Nothing takes the stuffing out of me like doing this stuff, because it’s the church.”

Kenny has had to replenish much of that stuffing during an extensive quarter-century of clerical abuse work that has taken her from an archdiocesan inquiry in St. John’s, N.L., in the late 1980s to numerous public lectures, including a conference at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax last month, and a recently published book, Healing the Church.

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

ALASKA
Alaska Native News

On Sunday, Anchorage Police arrested and charged a Mountain View man for Sexual Abuse of a Minor at a Mountain View church.

When police responded to the scene, members of the church had the man, identified as 29-year-old David Chiklak, detained in the church parking lot.

According to the Anchorage police report, it was during church that an 18-year-old woman and a six-year-old girl had gone into the church’s restroom. While in the restroom, the woman heard Chiklak call out to the little girl, who then left the resthroom in response to him calling her.

After the woman exited the resthroom herself, according to the report, she heard the little girl crying in the men’s restroom. When she entered the men’s restroom to investigate the young girl’s cries, she found Chiklak standing over the young girl with his belt unbuckled.

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

CALIFORNIA
The Pasadena Star-News

[with video]

By Rebecca Kimitch, The Pasadena Star-News
POSTED: 01/29/14

TEMPLE CITY >> A young man has filed a lawsuit against the Catholic Church alleging he was a victim of sexual abuse for more than seven years at the hands of a St. Luke the Evangelist Catholic Church volunteer, who now works in the Baldwin Park Unified School District.

Robert Reynolds, 23, alleges Timothy Kovacs began molesting him in 2003, when he was 13 years old, and continued abusing him three to eight times a month until he was 20.

“The abuse was horrendous. It included multiple acts of sodomy,” Reynolds’ attorney Michael Kinslow said. “And the perpetrator attempted to convince the child it was a love relationship.”

Kovacs did not respond to phone calls requesting comment.

Kovacs was a volunteer confirmation coordinator at St. Luke’s from 2002 until 2005. He was removed from the post after a complaint was made to the parish alleging “inappropriate conduct with two young adults over the age of 18,” according to a statement from the Archdiocese, which said it was not informed of the 2005 complaint.

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ALASKA
Reporter

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First Posted: January 29, 2014

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A 29-year-old man has charged with sexually abusing a girl at an Anchorage church.

David Chiklak was arrested Sunday outside a church in the Mountain View neighborhood on the city’s northeast side.

A woman told Anchorage police she was in a bathroom with a girl at the church and heard someone call the child out of the room. The woman a short time later heard the girl crying in the men’s bathroom.

Police say she entered the men’s bathroom and saw a man with his belt unbuckled standing over the girl.

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

ALASKA
Your Alaska Link News

[with video]

By Your Alaska Link News Team
Story Created: Jan 29, 2014

ANCHORAGE- Anchorage police are looking for victims of a man charged with sex abuse.

Police say 29-year-old David Chiklak assaulted a minor at a church in Mountain View.

They say an adult female heard a young girl crying from the men’s bathroom, went in, and found a man standing over the young girl.

As a result, Chiklak was charged.

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

ILLINOIS
State Journal-Register

By Dave Bakke
Staff Writer
Posted Jan. 23, 2014

Both of Chicago’s major daily newspapers and some of its TV stations led their coverage of Tuesday’s press conference on sexual abuse of minors in the archdiocese with Joe Iacono.

Joe, who lives in Springfield, was front and center for one grueling, emotional day as the Chicago archdiocese released records that showed decades spent mishandling and covering up for priests who had abused kids, including Joe. Joe was sexually victimized by the late Rev. Thomas Kelly when Joe was a teen in Northlake, attending St. John Vianney, the family parish.

Joe said it was gut-wrenching to put himself out there on Tuesday, basically becoming the face of the victims. He is just a regular guy; known before now only for his job as a financial adviser and his years with Springfield’s Roman Cultural Society, the presidency of which he will relinquish in a few weeks.
Before returning to what I am sure will be welcome anonymity, Joe agreed to tell me how he came to be facing the media at the podium on Tuesday.

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

ILLINOIS
State Journal-Register

Posted Jan. 30, 2014

Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki

It is horrible to read about the tragic experience of Joe Iacono of Springfield, who was a victim of sexual abuse by a Catholic priest when Iacono was a child living in the Chicago area more than 40 years ago.

However, in his Jan. 24 article, “Face of abuse victims shows great courage,” David Bakke does not accurately or fully represent my views. I do not claim, as he asserts, that “the church has handled the sexual abuse scandal as responsibly as any organization in the world.”

In my interview with the Washington Times last fall, I was speaking in the present tense when I said “that of any institution in the country — perhaps in the world — I don’t think anyone is dealing with it as responsibly as the Catholic Church.” But I also acknowledged that “we have had our unfortunate share of scandals and sin and the church is dealing with that.”

I do not deny that the church has made some terrible mistakes in handling sexual abuse cases. In addition to apologizing and providing assistance to victims, the church has learned from these past mistakes and has implemented far-reaching reforms.

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

MARYLAND
Your 4 State

FREDERICK COUNTY, Md. – A former youth pastor will spend 18 months in jail after pleading guilty to having sex with a minor.

Officials say Shaun Michael Ross worked as a youth pastor at Calvary Assembly Church in Walkersville. He was facing two charges of sexual abuse of a minor following an indictment in July.

The inappropriate relationship between the 33-year-old and the female minor went on for years between April 2008 and April 2010.

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

MARYLAND
News-Post

By Danielle E. Gaines News-Post Staff

A former youth pastor pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 18 months in jail Wednesday for sexual assault of a minor.

Shaun Michael Ross, 33, of Grantsville, was facing two charges of sexual abuse of a minor following an indictment in July.

Ross worked as youth minister at Calvary Assembly church in Walkersville until he was confronted by the church about the long-term inappropriate relationship with a teenage girl.

According to the indictment, Ross had a relationship with the girl between April 2008 and April 2010, when he was trusted in a position of authority.

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

NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Times

Dan Keenan

A priest told a former resident of a Derry residential home run by nuns that he must never repeat allegations of sex and other abuse.

A witness told the Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry, which is investigating allegations of ill treatment of children at 13 care homes in Northern Ireland before 1995, the priest told him to stay silent about his claims concerning the home at Termonbacca in Derry, run by the Poor Sisters of Nazareth.

The witness, who cannot be identified, said he approached a priest later in life and told him of physical and sexual abuse he suffered.

He said the priest replied: “You must never speak about this. You and the other orphans are bastards, you are the product of an evil and satanic relationship.”

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

MINNESOTA
KVRR

Officials in the St. Paul and Minneapolis Archdiocese will not be charged over their handling of a St. Paul priest who sexually abused two boys.

Prosecutors say they can’t prove church leaders failed to properly report abuse by the Rev. Curtis Wehmeyer.

Church leaders removed him in 2012 after learning of the allegations involving two brothers.

Internal church documents showed archdiocese leaders knew well before then that Wehmeyer had issues with sexual misconduct.

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

MINNESOTA
Tribune-Chronicle

January 29, 2014
The Associated Press , Tribune Chronicle | TribToday.com

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Minnesota prosecutors said today they would not charge members of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis over the way they handled allegations of sexual abuse by a priest, saying there was not enough evidence to prove anyone – including another priest who learned during a confession of the molestation – violated the law.

Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said his office can’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt that anyone failed to immediately report allegations of abuse by the Rev. Curtis Wehmeyer, who is serving a five-year prison sentence for molesting two brothers.

But, Choi said, the overall investigation into allegations of clergy sexual misconduct, and the archdiocese’s response, is far from over.

“We will only allow facts to lead the way, and we will pursue justice without fear or favor while doing our best to leave no stone unturned,” Choi said, later adding: “I continue to be troubled by some of the church’s reporting practices.”

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

NEW MEXICO/NORTH DAKOTA
In-Forum

By: Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola, Gallup (N.M.) Independent, INFORUM

GALLUP, N.M. – A Catholic priest in rural Arizona has been removed from ministry because of two recently reported and credible accusations of sexual abuse of minors that allegedly took place in North Dakota decades ago.

The alleged abuse by the Rev. Timothy Conlon, a member of the Crosier Fathers and Brothers religious order, was reported by the Diocese of Fargo. The Diocese of Gallup removed Conlon from his two Arizona parishes over the weekend.

“The alleged abuse took place approximately 40 years ago in North Dakota before Fr. Conlon was ordained a priest, but has just been reported to Church authorities and the Crosiers,” media official Lisa Cassidy stated in a news release issued by the Crosier Province of Phoenix Monday. “The Crosiers have not been aware of any other claims of sexual misconduct against a minor by Fr. Conlon previous to this report.”

According to a letter Gallup Bishop James S. Wall sent to his priests Monday, reports of the two credible accusations of sexual abuse came from the Diocese of Fargo.

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NEW MEXICO
ABQ Journal

By Olivier Uyttebrouck / Journal Staff Writer

The Diocese of Gallup removed the Rev. Timothy Conlon from ministry at two Arizona parishes this week after his religious order learned that the priest had been “credibly accused” decades ago of sexual abuse with two children.

Bishop James Wall notified law enforcement in Arizona and removed Conlon as parish administrator at St. John the Baptist Parish in St. Johns, and San Raphael Parish in Concho, the diocese said Wednesday in a written statement.

Suzanne Hammons, spokeswoman for the diocese, said church officials are not aware of any allegations of sexual abuse against Conlon in the diocese.

Conlon, 64, could not be reached for comment Wednesday. Messages left with the diocese and a parish office in St. Johns were not returned.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Law 360

By Juan Carlos Rodriguez

Law360, New York (January 29, 2014, 6:46 PM ET) — The Eighth Circuit on Wednesday said Chicago Insurance Co. had no duty to cover a settlement that the Archdiocese of St. Louis reached with a man claiming his son had committed suicide because he was sexually abused by a priest.

After paying the settlement, the archdiocese submitted a claim to Chicago Insurance, which denied the claim and sued for a declaratory judgment that it didn’t owe coverage. The district court found that because the wrongful death claim in the underlying complaint alleged a form of negligence…

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

The hearings of the Australian royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse has entered its second day, covering the Salvation Army Boys’ Homes of Bexley, Gill, Riverview, and Alkira. Some “Not Directions Not to Publish” orders have been announced so that this report will be incomplete.

This blog had previously called for Wally McLeod to be heard. Wally had appeared in the 2003 Australian Broadcasting Commission’s investigative television program, ‘Four Corners’, entitled ‘The Homies’. Today, he was heard by the commission, under his own name. He was Boy 36 at Riverview and Boy 13 at Alkira.

He told the commission that he had been sent to the notorious Salvation Army Riverview Training Farm in Queensland in the 1960s after his mother died in a car accident and his father was murdered.

“I was told I was going to the home for psychiatric care … I don’t remember needing any and I certainly didn’t receive any. I went there with a small bag of clothes and a money box … Both were taken from me and I never saw them again. I was told I wasn’t allowed any personal possessions.”

Though he did not witness the sexual abuse that the commission has heard was rife at Riverview, Wally said he both saw and experienced multiple physical assaults in which Salvation Army officers used stock whips, saddle straps, split canes and belts on their victims.

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AUSTRALIA
CNN

By Jethro Mullen and Jessica King, CNN
updated 9:59 AM EST, Wed January 29, 2014

(CNN) — An Australian commission is hearing allegations of the physical and sexual abuse of boys in the care of the Salvation Army over several decades.

The shocking treatment at some of the organization’s boys homes included rape, beatings, locking boys in cages and, in one case, forcing a boy to eat his own vomit, the commission was told Tuesday.

The public hearings, taking place in Sydney, are part of a wide-ranging investigation into how Australian institutions responded to cases of child sexual abuse.

The current phase is focusing on the Salvation Army’s response to abuse that took place in four of its boys homes in the states of Queensland and New South Wales in the 1960s and ’70s.

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

AUSTRALIA
Telegraph

NATHAN KLEIN THE DAILY TELEGRAPH JANUARY 30, 2014

* Boys ‘were assaulted in showers and were too afraid to complain’
* Victim recalls how elder boys would rape younger residents
* One ‘violent officer’ would punch boys as young as four years old

SALVATION Army officers fondled boys’ penises while they were in the shower, frequently assaulted them and did nothing when told one of the boys in their care was raped, the royal commission into child sex abuse heard yesterday.

Speaking at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, one man – identified only as Mr F P – said he was regularly subjected to sexual abuse and sadistic punishment by officers who were supposed to be caring for him.

He told the inquest one of the ­officers, Lieutenant Spratt, ­approached him and other boys staying at the charity’s homes while they were naked in the showers.

“He touched my backside and I moved away because of what other boys told me about him,” he said.

“I saw him touch other boys too. I saw him touch a boy’s penis in the shower for about a minute or two. It wasn’t a brush, he was fondling him.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX THE AUSTRALIAN JANUARY 30, 2014

A QUEENSLAND man raped and locked in a cage for weeks at a time by a Salvation Army officer was subsequently told to sign documents waiving his right to sue, despite the organisation knowing he could not read.

The man, who cannot be named, yesterday told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that he was about 14 years old when he was abused at the Salvation Army-run Riverview boys home, near Brisbane.

Decades later, in 2011, the organisation offered him $70,000, saying “It’s a gift from us to you”, the commission heard.

He later received a deed of release by post and was told to sign and return the papers, despite having previously told the Salvation Army he could not read.

This document, produced during yesterday’s hearing, now includes the signature of a witness, Narelle Matthews, despite the abuse victim saying, “I was alone when I signed that document . . . I do not know anyone called that.

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

MINNESOTA
KSTP

By: Leslie Dyste

Prosecutors in Minnesota declined Wednesday to charge leaders of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis over their handling of an abusive priest, but said the archdiocese needs to do better in its reporting of abuse claims.

Ramsey County prosecutor John Choi said there was insufficient evidence to show church leaders failed to properly report suspicions of abuse by the Rev. Curtis Wehmeyer, a St. Paul priest accused in 2012 of molesting two brothers.

In a separate case, Washington County prosecutors said they would not charge another archdiocese priest, the Rev. Jon Shelley, who had been accused of possessing child pornography. Read the full story here.

The Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis released the following statement:

“The Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis is grateful to the Saint Paul Police Department and the Ramsey and Washington County Attorneys’ offices for their thorough investigation and clearing of the archdiocese in cases involving Curtis Wehmeyer and Fr. Jonathan Shelley.

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

MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

Date:Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Source: Jim Accurso

The Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis is grateful to the Saint Paul Police Department and the Ramsey and Washington County Attorneys’ offices for their thorough investigation and clearing of the archdiocese in cases involving Curtis Wehmeyer and Fr. Jonathan Shelley.

We have a shared interest with all civil authorities and our communities for the protection of children, and we remain in complete solidarity with both Ramsey County Attorney John Choi and Saint Paul Police Department Chief Tom Smith in calling for all victims of any form of abuse to immediately come forward to civil authorities.

In addition, we join Mr. Choi in reminding all mandatory reporters to immediately bring every accusation of child sexual abuse forward to civil authorities. The archdiocese makes every possible effort to adhere to this law strictly and directs everyone in local Church ministry to do the same. The tens of thousands of clergy, parish and school staff, and volunteers who have attended archdiocesan safe environment training sessions since 2005, or anyone who has visited our web site, have received a consistent message: if you suspect child sexual abuse, immediately contact the county social service agency or police; it is not your role to investigate. Our web site also has made contacting authorities easy by providing phone numbers for these civil authorities. We agree that reporting must always err on the side of protecting the victim and preventing harm.

The archdiocese continues to cooperate with all civil authorities related to any investigation of allegations of sexual abuse. We reiterate what we have stated for many years: we urge anyone who suspects abuse of a minor within Church ministry to first call civil authorities. If you or someone you know has been the victim of sexual misconduct in Church ministry, you are also encouraged to call the archdiocesan Director of Advocacy and Victim Assistance at 651-291-4497.

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

MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Mara H. Gottfried and Emily Gurnon
Pioneer Press

St. Paul police have seven investigations into allegations of sexual abuse or inappropriate sexual behavior involving priests, the city’s police chief said Wednesday.

In two other cases, prosecutors said Wednesday they will not be filing charges. Police Chief Thomas Smith said his department has not yet forwarded additional cases for prosecutors to review for charges. Two investigators currently are working on the cases full time, Smith said.

In October, St. Paul police urged victims of sexual abuse by priests to come forward. The seven reports currently under investigation were made after that date. They include allegations that date from 1960, 1972, 1977, 1981 and 1984, according to police reports.

Another case under investigation is an allegation made against Archbishop John Nienstedt; he was recently accused of “inappropriate touching” of a boy on the buttocks in 2009. Nienstedt has strongly denied the allegation and has stepped aside from his public ministry during the police investigation.

In a short interview with the Pioneer Press on Wednesday, Smith discussed his department’s work, but not specifics because of the active investigations. The questions and Smith’s answers are edited for space and clarity.

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

MARYLAND
Frederick News-Post

Danielle E. Gaines Staff writer

A 33-year-old former youth pastor pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 18 months in jail today for sex assault of a minor.

Shaun Michael Ross, of Grantsville, Md., was facing two charges of sexual abuse of a minor following an indictment in July.

Ross worked as youth minister at Calvary Assembly church in Walkersville until he was confronted by the church about an inappropriate relationship with a teenage girl.

According to the indictment, Ross had an inappropriate relationship with the teenage girl between April 2008 and April 2010, when he was trusted in a position of authority.

“This was a manipulation that went on and occurred at a time when he was her counselor,” Assistant State’s Attorney Lindell K. Angel said. “This is a very serious offense.”

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

For immediate release Wednesday, January 29 2014

Statement by Barbara Dorris, SNAP Outreach Director, 314-862-7688 SNAPdorris@gmail.com

We are saddened by the fact that at this time the Washington County Attorney has decided not to pursue charges against Fr. Jonathan Shelley. We hope someday he will and that in the meantime other police and prosecutors will continue investigating Fr. Shelley.

[Pioneer Press]

We suspect that evidence was withheld or destroyed.

Now more than ever it is important for anyone with knowledge of Fr. Shelley’s crimes or misdeeds to contact law enforcement. Violent child sexual images – or as it is commonly called, child porn – cause great harm to the kids involved.

We hope that Archbishop John Nienstedt will do now what he should have done long ago – visit all the parishes where Fr. Shelley worked and beg anyone who was harmed by him to come forward, call police, and begin to heal.

We stand by what we said last October:

“There is no record of anyone contacting police. (Archbishop Harry) Flynn allowed (Fr. Jonathan) Shelley to return to ministry.” Those two damning sentences are from the latest disturbing Minnesota Public Radio report outlining the secretive, irresponsible and likely illegal way Twin Cities Catholic officials hid thousands of pornographic pictures on Fr. Jonathan Shelley’s computer.

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

NEW YORK
News 12

[with video]

NEW SQUARE – The case of a rabbi accused of molesting a young man in New Square over five years has been adjourned for two months.

Activists showed up at the first public court appearance last night of Rabbi Moshe Taubenfeld. A young New Square man claims the highly regarded rabbi and mentor sexually abused him for five years after he went to him for solace after Sept. 11. The allegations reignited claims that other sexual abuse cases have been covered up.

“It’s clear that many victims of child molestation in New Square are getting angry at the corruption that allows child molestation to continue,” says Rabbi Noson-Leiter, of Monsey. Noson-Leiter attended the hearing with other activists who say they want to make sure justice gets served for the alleged victim.

Also at the hearing was Yossi, who shared his story with News 12 last year. Yossi became the first sex abuse victim from New Square to ever seek justice through the courts. Taubenfeld’s younger brother, Hershel, was convicted of molesting Yossi, but managed to avoid prison time.

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

MINNESOTA
CBS Minnesota

ST. PAUL, Minn. (WCCO/AP) — Ramsey County authorities will not be charging the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis for its handling of the case of a priest who was later convicted of sexually abusing two children.

Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said they do not have sufficient evidence to file charges, based off new information.

Choi made clear Wednesday at a press conference that they would only be discussing the case of the Rev. Curtis Wehmeyer and how and when it came to their attention.

That said, Choi said he continues to be troubled by some of the church’s reporting practices in this case and others but wouldn’t say more than that.

The Wehmeyer case is among several that have come to light in recent months that have raised questions about the archdiocese’s handling of problem priests over the years. Choi said in more recent cases, there’s been more cooperation from the Archdiocese regarding police investigation.

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

NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

A priest told a former resident of a children’s home in Northern Ireland he was the product of an evil and satanic relationship, an inquiry has heard.

The witness lived at St Joseph’s in Termonbacca, Londonderry, in the 1950s.

He said he became a zombie, introverted and fearing the next beating.

The Historical Abuse Inquiry is investigating abuse claims against children’s residential institutions from 1922 to 1995.

Termonbacca and another Derry home, Nazareth House, were run by the Sisters of Nazareth.

The former Termonbacca resident said he lay soaked in urine at night in an attempt to dissuade any sexual abusers.

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

NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Independent

MICHAEL MCHUGH – 29 JANUARY 2014

A priest told a former resident of a church-run children’s home in Northern Ireland that he was the product of an evil and satanic relationship, an inquiry has heard.

The son of an unmarried mother became a zombie, introverted and fearing the next beating, lying soaked in urine at night in an attempt to dissuade sexual abusers from “dropping the hand”, he told the hearing.

He lived at St Joseph’s in Termonbacca, Londonderry, run by the Sisters of Nazareth order of Catholic nuns, in the 1950s after being born in abject poverty and abandoned by his parents.

The child was later placed in a dormitory full of youngsters crying for their mothers.

“It would break your heart, you would have to have a heart of steel and cement, I used to join in crying. I had not a clue what mammy meant,” he recalled.

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

NORTHERN IRELAND
The Guardian

Henry McDonald, Ireland correspondent
theguardian.com, Wednesday 29 January 2014

A former resident of a children’s care home in Derry, Northern Ireland, was told he was evil and had been born of a satanic relationship, the largest UK inquiry into institutional child abuse has heard.

The witness said a priest labelled him the product of such a union because his mother was unmarried.

He told the historical institutional abuse inquiry on Wednesday that he became “zombie like” during and after he left the Termonbacca home run by the Sisters of Nazareth.

The man, now 65, confronted the priest in the 1950s about maltreatment after leaving the home and was told “you and the other orphans are bastards. You are the product of an evil and satanic relationship. You never had a chance.”

On hearing this, the witness said: “That was the day I left the Catholic church.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Our Windsor

Waterloo Region Record

By Catherine Thompson

A retired Anglican priest from Cambridge faces at least four years in federal prison for sex offences dating back almost 30 years.

Rev. George Ferris, 66, is to be sentenced today for two charges of sexual assault against two separate complainants. He was convicted in November of those offences.

On Tuesday, Ferris was sentenced to four years in prison for two counts of sexual assault and one count of sexual exploitation in connection with offences that took place in Brant County between 1983 and 1989, when he served at St. James’ Anglican Church in Paris, Ont.

At Ferris’ trial in October on those charges, Chris Morrison, 42, of Paris, Ont., testified he was molested by Ferris, who was his priest, as a teenager over several years, in a situation that escalated from embraces to oral sex and two instances of actual and attempted anal sex, the Brantford Expositor reports. The court was also told the witness asked Ferris for “hush” money in 2006 and received $5,000 deposited in his bank account.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Times

Dan Keenan

A priest allegedly told a former resident of a Derry orphanage run by nuns that he must never repeat allegations of sexual and other abuse.

A witness told the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry, which is investigating allegations of ill-treatment of children at a list of care home across Northern Ireland before 1995, he should remain silent. This was because his parents were not married and that was why he was placed in the home at Termonbacca in Derry, run by the Poor Sisters of Nazareth.

The witness, who cannot be identified, said he approached a priest later in life and told him of physical and sexual abuse he suffered and witnessed at the home.

He said the priest replied: “You must never speak about this.”

He said the priest explained: “You and the other orphans are bastards, you are the product of an evil and satanic relationship.”

The witness said: “When a priest tells you that, that sums up the perception – how orphan was perceived. What chance did I have?”

The third day of oral hearings from those former residents of the Termonbacca home who wished to testify.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Times

Mary Carolan

A Stg £25,000 payment made to a man who sued in the Northern Ireland courts over being sexually abused as a child over years by paedophile priest Fr Brendan Smyth was a “full and final settlement” and the man cannot bring a fresh case here against a Catholic Bishop, the High Court has been told.

The Bishop of Kilmore, Dr Leo O’Reilly, has asked the court to stop the man suing him, in his representative capacity as Bishop of Kilmore, over alleged failures by the diocese and Catholic Church to stop Smyth’s abusive behaviour.

The man insists he is entitled to sue on grounds including that a previous Bishop of Kilmore, Dr Francis McKiernan, was allegedly made aware in 1975 that Brendan Smyth was abusing children but failed to report that to the gardaí or the man’s parents.

It is alleged that a young boy had, at meetings in 1975 with priests of the Catholic Church, told the then Fr Sean Brady – now Cardinal Sean Brady — that Smyth was abusing children.

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MINNESOTA
KARE

ST. PAUL, Minn. – No criminal charges will be filed against members of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis involving an alleged coverup in the case of a priest convicted of sexual abuse of a child.

Ramsey County Attorney John Choi made the announcement Wednesday morning after what he described as an extensive investigation into how the Archdiocese handled the case of former Priest Curtis Wehmeyer, who is now serving a 5-year sentence for his crimes.

Choi told reporters that prosecutors can’t prove church leaders failed to properly report abuse by Wehmeyer during the time he served at the Blessed Sacrament Parish in St. Paul.

Church leaders removed Wehmeyer from his post in June 2012 after learning of the allegations involving two brothers.

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MINNESOTA
The Public Opinion

Associated Press

A prosecutor has declined to charge a priest accused of possessing potential child pornography.

Washington County Attorney Pete Orput said Wednesday that investigators found no evidence of a crime when they examined computer files that once belonged to the Rev. Jonathan Shelley. His decision was first reported by Minnesota Public Radio.

St. Paul police had reopened the case after receiving a backup copy of the images from a man who acquired Shelley’s old computer a decade ago.

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2014

Statement by Frank Meuers of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 952-334-5180, frankameuers@gmail.com )

We’re not lawyers. But we refuse to believe that Twin Cities secular officials are helpless in the face of so much recklessness, callousness and deceit by dozens of complicit Catholic officials year after year after year.

Al Capone was nabbed on income tax evasion. Other criminals are nabbed on various and sometimes lesser charges, whether perjury, witness tampering, endangering children, obstructing justice, destroying evidence, and intimidating victims. We believe that usually, “where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

Dozens of predator priests have assaulted hundreds of kids and hundreds of adults have been deceived by dozens of Catholic officials. Yet only a handful of the molesters – and none of the enablers – has ever seen the inside of a courtroom. That’s not just a tragedy. It’s an on-going public safety crisis.

Police and prosecutors must work harder, dig deeper, and be more aggressive and creative.

It’s meaningless for law enforcement officials to say they’re troubled by” or “unhappy about” the corrupt practices of Catholic officials. The verbal displeasure of police and prosecutors, in response to media questions, doesn’t stop or deter crimes. The actions of police and prosecutors stop and deter crimes.

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NEW MEXICO/NORTH DAKOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Jan. 29 2014

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

A priest has been suspended from ministry in New Mexico because of credible allegations of child sex crimes.

He is Fr. Timothy Conlon.

We hope every single person who may have seen, suspected or suffered crimes by Conlon – or cover ups by his church colleagues or supervisors – will call police, expose wrongdoing, and protect kids.

We hope every single current or former Catholic employee – in New Mexico or North Dakota – will do everything they can to seek out and help anyone who was hurt by Fr. Conlon. We hope every single Catholic parishioner does likewise.

It’s irresponsible to do nothing just because the crimes may have happened elsewhere or long ago. Child molesters rarely stop. And police and prosecutors are getting more creative and aggressive about pursuing even older child sex crimes.

So it’s our job to share what we know and suspect with law enforcement. It’s their job to determine whether charges can be filed.

The bottom line – staying silent helps predators and hurts kids.

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PENNSYLVANIA/TEXAS
The Dallas Morning News

By Robert Wilonsky
rwilonsky@dallasnews.com
10:27 am on January 29, 2014

James Brzyski, a defrocked priest from Philadelphia who’s almost always described as “one of the Archdiocese’s most brutal abusers,” has been hiding in plain sight in Dallas while pretending to be “a jovial former Xerox employee who’d lost millions after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.” And a support group for men and women abused by priest is calling on the Catholic Diocese of Dallas to do something about it.

The Philadelphia Daily News found the 62-year-old at the Crescent View Apartments near Cedar Springs and the Dallas North Tollway. Residents who once welcomed him warmly quickly discovered there was something wrong with their new neighbor, who played with visiting young boys in the complex’s pool and “bragged about going online to find males who appeared to be underage.” They soon discovered his past as a man accused of sexually assaulting as many as 100 boys, according to a grand jury report, during his years in Philadelphia during the 1970s and ’80s.

Brzyski, who left the church in 1985 but wasn’t kicked out of the priesthood for another two decades, said nothing about his past until he was confronted about it. Because he didn’t have to.

“Brzyski is able to move from one community to another in relative anonymity — at least until his behavior gives him away — because the Archdiocese won’t disclose his whereabouts, or the whereabouts of 23 other Philadelphia priests who have been defrocked for abusing minors,” writes William Bender. A public records search shows Brzyski doesn’t appear to have a Texas driver’s license, and that since leaving Philadelphia he’s lived in Virginia; the West Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles; and Kenosha, Wisconsin. And he doesn’t have to register as a sex offender, Bender notes, because “the Archdiocese kept his case under wraps in the 1980s, when allegations that he was sexually abusing children were first reported to church leaders.”

Bender later adds that “Brzyski’s choice of Dallas is ironic, because the man who blew the whistle on him in the 1980s lives only a half-hour away. The Rev. James Gigliotti, pastor of St. Maria Goretti in Arlington, Texas, said he was unaware that Brzyski was living nearby and was disturbed to hear neighbors’ reports about his behavior around kids.”

Following the story’s publication Wednesday morning, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests issued a lengthy statement calling on the Catholic Diocese of Dallas to “act now to warn parents about him and help police catch him.” The diocese says it has no further information beyond what was published this morning. Bishop Kevin Joseph Farrell is out of town at the installation of the new bishop of San Angelo. Its director of communications, Annette Gonzales Taylor, says the diocese may release a statement later today.

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PENNSYLVANIA/TEXAS
D Magazine

01/29/2014 | BY JASON HEID

Philadelphia Daily News has a story today about James Brzyski, a priest who was defrocked due to his sexual abuse of 17 boys in Philadelphia in the 1970s and 1980s. Until last month he was living in an apartment complex in Oak Lawn.

At first his neighbors accepted his backstory of being a friendly retired Xerox employee when he moved there in October 2012, but they became suspicious after they saw him playing with young boys in the pool. He also bragged to them about going online to find males who looked underage, and that he liked “fat boys.”

When they looked into his history, they discovered the horrifying truth, and they’re upset that he could move into their community without their being notified of his past or his having to register as a sex offender. When they confronted Brzyski, he didn’t demonstrate remorse, commenting only that he had himself been abused by priests when he was younger, so that he thought it was OK.

David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said Brzyski is among a diaspora of unregistered sex offenders unleashed by the Roman Catholic Church since 2002. Few safeguards prevent the former priests from abusing again.

“The reason these guys are walking free is because church officials shielded them. Were it not for the actions of the church hierarchy, many of these guys would be in jail,” Clohessy said. “I think that increases the moral and civic duty of bishops to say more than, ‘Well, he’s not in the diocese anymore.’ “

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Mara H. Gottfried
mgottfried@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 01/29/2014

Washington County Attorney Pete Orput said Wednesday that his office has declined to file charges against former priest Jonathan Shelley. Investigators concluded that images found on Shelley’s hard drive were not child pornography, Orput said.

“I concluded there is no criminal evidence,” he said Wednesday.

An investigation began last year into allegations that Shelley, who served in Mahtomedi, possessed child pornography on a computer he owned in 2004.

Shelley denied the allegation, and the case was closed Sept. 29 after discs turned over to police by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis were found to contain only adult porn.

Police reopened the case a few days later when a Hugo parishioner turned over files to police, which he said he had copied from Shelley’s hard drive.

St. Paul police department analysts examined the computer discs and sent the files to the Minnesota Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, which found no child porn, Orput said. The task force sent the discs to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which came to the same conclusion, Orput said.

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MINNESOTA
KAAL

By: Scott Theisen

A prosecutor has declined to charge a priest accused of possessing potential child pornography.

Washington County Attorney Pete Orput said Wednesday that investigators found no evidence of a crime when they examined computer files that once belonged to the Rev. Jonathan Shelley. His decision was first reported by Minnesota Public Radio.

St. Paul police had reopened the case after receiving a backup copy of the images from a man who acquired Shelley’s old computer a decade ago.

Orput tells The Associated Press investigators from the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, St. Paul police and his own child abuse specialist all looked at the files and agreed they’re not child pornography.

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MINNESOTA
Bring Me The News

January 29, 2014 By Ben Grove

St. Paul police investigators did not find sufficient evidence that the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis failed to report in a timely way the conduct of former St. Paul priest Curtis Wehmeyer, now serving a five-year prison sentence for molesting two boys, Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said.

At issue is whether church officials reported abuse within 24 hours of learning about it. Critics have suggested that the archdiocese attempted to cover up the case, but police after a “thorough” investigation could not find enough evidence that the archdiocese violated the mandatory reporting law, Choi said at a Wednesday morning news conference.

That said, Choi went to some length to stress that an investigation of archdiocese officials on a “whole host of issues” is “active and ongoing.”

Choi said he was “troubled” by the church’s reporting practices. He added, “There will be more decisions to come as this investigation unfolds.” He stressed that he could not comment further yet. “Elaboration is for another day.”

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MINNESOTA
St. Cloud Times

Written by
Associated Press

ST. PAUL — Authorities say they won’t charge officials in the St. Paul and Minneapolis Archdiocese over their handling of a St. Paul priest who sexually abused two boys.

Prosecutors say they can’t prove church leaders failed to properly report abuse by the Rev. Curtis Wehmeyer.

Church leaders removed Wehmeyer from his post in June 2012 after learning of the allegations involving two brothers.

Internal church documents showed archdiocese leaders knew well before then that Wehmeyer had issues with sexual misconduct. Archdiocese leaders have said they didn’t suspect Wehmeyer would abuse children, but they have apologized for not handling the matter more aggressively.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: NICOLE NORFLEET Updated: January 29, 2014

The archdiocese reported the case within 24 hours of receiving information, county attorneys office says.

The Ramsey County attorneys office announced Wednesday that “we cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt” that anyone in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis violated the law in the church’s handling of allegations against a fired St. Paul clergy member who is now in prison for sexually abusing two boys.

Wednesday’s announcement by Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said the archdiocese reported the abuse by the Rev. Curtis Wehmeyer within 24 hours of learning of the abuse. Therefore, the church officials complied with the law requiring them to notify law enforcement.

However, Choi expressed concern about the archdiocese’s handling of clergy sex abuse.

“I continue to be troubled” by the church’s reporting practices, he said. He refused to elaborate because of the continuing police investigation.

Choi said today is “only the beginning” and that authorities will “pursue justice.” He said this review was limited to mandatory reporting law.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By JOANNE McCARTHY Jan. 29, 2014

GRAHAM Rundle was seven when he was first raped at a Salvation Army boys’ home in South Australia and placed in a “lock-up”, 18 when he first tried to commit suicide, 48 when he turned to the Salvos for justice, and 58 when he comprehensively beat them.

He is now 61 and ready to give evidence at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse after angrily rejecting the Salvation Army’s apology this week for horrific abuse at its NSW and Queensland homes.

“They’re bastards,” he said.

“I was repeatedly raped as a child in the 1960s but they abused me again in a different way when I reported it as an adult, and they didn’t have to do that.

“I want to give evidence in public. I want to be named. I want people to know what the bastards were like then, and what they’re like now. They did everything in their power to get rid of me.”

Mr Rundle, of Bucketty, was known by a number at Eden Park boys’ home.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

The royal commission into child abuse has heard more horrifying details of abuse suffered by those in the care of the Salvation Army. Several former residents gave evidence of brutal assaults at a Queensland home.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Jan. 29 2014

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

Shame on officials at Pennridge High School and Faith Christian Academy. Neither acted responsibly in the troubling case of proven predator Eric Romig. We hope both will be prosecuted.

[Philadelphia Inquirer]

We know Pennsylvania’s archaic, predator-friendly statute of limitations makes it tough to pursue those who commit and conceal heinous child sex crimes. Still, we believe an aggressive outreach and investigative effort might well produce successful prosecutions of those who knew of or suspected Romig’s crimes but ignored or hid them.

The alternative is to let complicit school officials to walk free. That will only encourage others employers to act with similar recklessness, callousness and deceit in the future. And that will of course mean that more innocent kids’ lives will be shattered by child molesters.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on how so-called victims’ advocates are participating in the war on religion:
Freedom From Religion Foundation is an atheist organization. BishopAccountability.org and the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests monitor clergy sexual abuse. On the surface, the former has nothing in common with the latter two, but what joins the three of them at the hip—indeed what really motivates all of their work—is their hatred of Christianity.

Hobby Lobby is a Christian-owned private business that is contesting the constitutionality of the Health and Human Services mandate in a brief before the U.S. Supreme Court. Its lawsuit has absolutely nothing to do with either atheism or priestly sexual abuse, so why are the aforementioned entities challenging Hobby Lobby? It can’t be because the owners of Hobby Lobby don’t want to pay for abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization in their insurance plan. What do these matters have to do with atheism and clergy sexual abuse?

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NEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, N.M., Jan. 28, 2014

By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Independent correspondent
religion@gallupindependent.com

GALLUP — A priest working in the Diocese of Gallup has been removed from ministry because of a recently reported credible accusation of abuse that allegedly took place decades ago.

The Rev. Timothy Conlon, O.S.C., a member of the Crosier Fathers and Brothers religious order, was removed from his two Diocese of Gallup rural Arizona parishes over the weekend.

“The alleged abuse took place approximately 40 years ago in North Dakota before Fr. Conlon was ordained a priest, but has just been reported to Church authorities and the Crosiers,” media official Lisa Cassidy stated in a news release issued by the Crosier Province of Phoenix Monday. “The Crosiers have not been aware of any other claims of sexual misconduct against a minor by Fr. Conlon previous to this report.”

According to a letter Gallup Bishop James S. Wall sent to his priests Monday, reports of the two credible accusations of sexual abuse came from the Diocese of Fargo, N.D.

Crosier Prior Provincial Thomas Enneking, O.S.C., and Wall removed Conlon from ministry. The Crosier news release stated law enforcement has been informed of the allegation, but it did not name the specific law enforcement agency.

Conlon has been working in the Gallup Diocese since November 2011, according to Wall’s letter. Conlon has served as the parish administrator at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in St. Johns and San Rafael Parish in Concho. The Crosier news release said Conlon was in the process of becoming an official Diocese of Gallup priest through incardination into the diocese.

Conlon was a crime victim himself April 15, 2010, while he served as the pastor of the Sacred Heart Parish in South Phoenix for the Phoenix Diocese. When one of Conlon’s parish employees was stabbed multiple times by an assailant off the street, Conlon came to her assistance and was also stabbed repeatedly. Both Conlon and his parish employee were hospitalized for their injuries. Their assailant, Carlos Miguel Manriquez, was convicted of two counts of aggravated assault.

According to Catholic media reports at the time of the attack, Conlon joined the Crosiers about 40 years ago and was ordained a priest in 1979. He has worked in ministries in Nebraska, New York and Arizona. Conlon was the vicar for Hispanic ministry for the Phoenix Diocese and was the national director of the fundraising Crosier Campaign.

Crosier Province officials have requested anyone aware of sexual misconduct by a Crosier priest or religious brother to contact the province at 602-443-7100.

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PENNSYLVANIA/TEXAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Jan. 29 2014

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 notorious and frightening now-defrocked Philly predator priest has recently moved to – and apparently from – a Dallas apartment complex where he repeatedly expressed sexual interest in kids.

[Philadalphia Daily News]

Philly Catholic officials recruited, educated, ordained, hired, supervised, trained and repeatedly protected Fr. James Brzyski for more than three decades, giving him access to vulnerable kids and unsuspecting parents time and time again.

Then, when the heat got too intense, they cut him loose. Now, this dangerous man moves around the country continuing to act in scary ways around kids.

So what’s Archbishop Charles Chaput – and the hundreds of Philly area church employees – going to do?

They could split hairs, dodge responsibility and feign powerlessness.

Or they could show real courage, compassion and leadership.

That’s the choice: do nothing or step up.

We hope they step up.

Specifically, we hope Philly bishops, priests, and lay employees:

– turn over every shred of information about Brzyski to police in each town where Brzyski has lived or worked (Philadelphia, Dallas, West Hollywood, and Virginia Beach),

–post all this information on the diocesan websites in those three states, and

– beg each bishops in each state where Brzyski has lived to use pulpit announcements, church bulletins and diocesan websites to seek out anyone who saw, suspected or suffered his crimes or misdeeds.

They should not wait for subpoenas. Church officials and members should be proactive and take the initiative now. (Bishops always claim they “cooperate” with police and prosecutors. In reality, that means they respond when subpoenaed. Rarely, if ever, do they take the initiative and promptly and voluntarily give ALL information they have about proven, admitted or credibly accused child molesting clerics to secular authorities.)

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TEXAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2014

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

Michael F. Olson formally takes over today as the bishop of the Ft. Worth Catholic diocese.

Since he was selected months ago, several Catholic officials and institutions have posted on their websites the names of child molesting clerics. The first thing tomorrow, Olson should scour the files and disclose the names, photos, whereabouts and work histories of every proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting cleric who lives/lived or works/worked in the diocese (whether living or deceased, religious order or diocesan). And we hope he will update the list regularly and publicly. (The current list hasn’t been updated in more than six months.)

The list should be easily accessible on the diocese’s homepage and include photos of the priests

There are 12 publicly accused Ft. Worth child molesting clerics (according to BishopAccountability.org). We suspect the real number us three or four or five times higher.

Finally, we hope he will aggressively seek out others who saw, suspected or suffered child sex crimes by Father William Paiz. Last year, Fr. Paiz was accused of assaulting a child at All Saints Catholic Church, St. George Catholic Church and other locations. He worked at Nolan High School.

Tahira Khan Merritt, the attorney for Fr. Paiz’ victim, said she believes that Fr. Paiz may still be working as a priest elsewhere. Bishop Olson should find this out and warn Fr. Paiz’ unsuspecting neighbors of his current whereabouts and his troubled past.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Joseph Lindberg
jlindberg@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 01/29/2014

The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office and St. Paul Police Department will hold a joint press conference Wednesday morning to announce a prosecution decision in the Rev. Curtis Wehmeyer case.

The press conference will be held at the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office Library in downtown St. Paul at 10 a.m., according to a release from the office of Ramsey County Attorney John J. Choi.

Formerly assigned to Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in St. Paul, Wehmeyer is serving a five-year prison term for possessing child pornography and sexually abusing two children.

A September 2013 report by Minnesota Public Radio said top archdiocese officials knew of Wehmeyer’s sexual compulsions for nearly a decade, but still kept him in the ministry.

Choi said in a statement last year that he was “troubled” by details in the report on how the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis handled allegations against Wehmeyer — but said his office could not open a grand jury investigation as requested by a victims’ support group.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: Associated Press Updated: January 29, 2014

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Ramsey County authorities are set to announce whether charges will be filed over how the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis handled the case of an abusive priest.

The county attorney’s office and St. Paul police will detail their investigation Wednesday.

The Rev. Curtis Wehmeyer was accused in 2012 of sexually abusing children, and is now serving a five-year prison term after being convicted of doing so.

Internal church documents show archdiocese leaders knew before then that Wehmeyer had solicited young men for sex in a bookstore and cruised a park for anonymous sex. A former canon lawyer in the archdiocese says Wehmeyer was promoted even after she urged the archbishop to review his file.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: NICOLE NORFLEET , Star Tribune Updated: January 29, 2014

A decision will be announced Wednesday by authorities on whether to pursue charges in connection with how information was handled within the archdiocese concerning allegations against a fired St. Paul clergy member who is now in prison for sexual abuse.

A decision will be announced Wednesday by authorities in St. Paul on whether to pursue charges in connection with how information was handled within the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis concerning allegations against a fired St. Paul clergy member who is now in prison for sexually abusing two boys.

The Ramsey County attorney’s office and police have scheduled a news conference for 10 a.m. in St. Paul to make the announcement.

As recently as 2012, police were troubled by how Roman Catholic Church leaders handled a child’s explicit sexual abuse allegation against the Rev. Curtis Wehmeyer, who had been promoted by Archbishop John Nienstedt despite earlier reports of sexual misconduct.

Wehmeyer, 49, was fired as pastor of a St. Paul church in a way that allowed him to hide evidence in the sex case, police Cmdr. Mary Nash complained last fall. Wehmeyer now is in St. Cloud prison for sexually abusing two boys while he was pastor of Blessed Sacrament in St. Paul and for possession of child pornography.

Authorities also said in a statement that they will “provide public information about the police investigation involving the circumstances of how and when information came to be known” in connection with Wehmeyer.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

John L. Allen Jr. | Jan. 29, 2014

VATICAN CITY

In ways both substantive and symbolic, the “Francis revolution” rolled on in January with personnel shuffles, policy signals and gestures intended to reinforce the pope’s vision of a more merciful church devoted to the world’s peripheries.

One eyebrow-raising move came Jan. 15, when Francis announced an overhaul of the council of cardinals responsible for supervising the Institute for the Works of Religion, better known as the Vatican bank.

The bank has long been a magnet for scandal. Francis removed all but one of the five cardinals appointed to govern the bank by Pope Benedict XVI shortly after his resignation announcement in February 2013.

Most notably, Francis ousted Italian Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the former secretary of state, whose perceived inability to manage the inner workings of the Vatican helped fuel an anti-establishment mood in last March’s papal election.

French Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Commission for Inter-religious Dialogue, is to remain on the panel, while the new members are Italian Cardinal-designate Pietro Parolin, who replaced Bertone as secretary of state; Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna; Cardinal Thomas Collins of Toronto; and Spanish Cardinal Santos Abril y Castilló, archpriest of the Basilica of St. Mary Major. All five are perceived to have Francis’ trust, and both Schönborn and Collins have a record of calling for reform in bank operations.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Independent

29 JANUARY 2014

A Stg £25,000 payment made to a man who sued in the Northern Ireland courts over being sexually abused as a child over years by paedophile priest Fr Brendan Smyth was a “full and final settlement” and he cannot bring a fresh case here against a Catholic Bishop, the High Court has been told.

The Bishop of Kilmore, Dr Leo O’Reilly, has asked the court to stop Mario Cafolla suing him, in his representative capacity as Bishop of Kilmore, over alleged failures by the diocese and Catholic Church to stop Smyth’s abusive behaviour.

Mr Cafolla insists he is entitled to sue on grounds including that a previous Bishop of Kilmore, Dr Francis McKiernan, was allegedly made aware in 1975 that Brendan Smyth was abusing children, including Mr Cafolla, but failed to report that to the Gardai or Mr Cafolla’s parents.

It is alleged that a young boy had, at meetings in 1975 with priests of the Catholic Church, told the then Fr Sean Brady – now Cardinal Sean Brady – that Smyth was abusing children.

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse began its fifth “case study” today, into four Salvation Army Boys’ Homes – Riverview, Bexley, Gill, and Alkira. The witness list was only released minutes before the hearing was due to begin, contrary to previous practice.

The hearing is subject to several “Not to be Published” orders, and the web-cast is being shut down at times for what are described as “privacy reasons”. The author is not on the witness list (see previous postings).

The focus will be on five Salvation Army officers who abused the boys. These are Lawrence Wilson, Russell Walker, Victor Bennett, John McIver, and Donald Shultz. Wilson, who worked at all four Homes, is regarded, according to the commission, as the worst offender. The abuses were described as “being at the extreme end of the scale”. He died in 2008.

[First person comment: The author was abused by both Wilson and Bennett.]

Of the 13 victim witnesses listed to appear, all but two will be referred to by pseudonyms. One who is named is Wally McLeod which encourages the author (see previous posting: “Why Wally Should Be Heard”). Of these 13 men, only one who was in the author’s old Home, “Alkira”, otherwise known as the Indooroopilly Salvation Army Home for Boys, is listed to appear.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

An Anglican vicar was caught with more than 8,000 images of child sexual abuse, including 800 of the “worst kind”, Liverpool Crown Court heard.

Ian Hughes, 46, was a successful priest by day but by night was downloading thousands of indecent internet images of children, the court was told.

Hughes admitted 17 offences and was jailed for a year.

The Bishop of Chester said he was “deeply shocked” at Hughes’ “unacceptable” actions.

‘Like an addiction’

Hughes has resigned from the priesthood.

Expressing his “profound regret”, the Rt Rev Dr Peter Forster apologised to Hughes’ former parishioners in Poulton and Seacombe in Wallasey.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

By Shane Harrison
BBC NI Dublin correspondent

A court is hearing an application by a Catholic bishop to dismiss an attempt by Belfast siblings to sue him and Cardinal Sean Brady over sex abuse.

Brother and sister Mario and Maria Cafolla, from west Belfast, were abused by paedophile Fr Brendan Smyth.

Lawyers for Dr Leo O’Reilly, the Bishop of Kilmore, said the case should not go ahead due to a previous full and final settlement for all claims in the case.

They are suing Dr O’Reilly over the alleged failures of his predecessor.

They allege that the previous bishop, Francis McKiernan, was negligent for failing to take any adequate steps to ensure Smyth did not continue to perpetrate sexual assaults on them in the 1970s and 1980s.

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AUSTRALIA
International Business Times

By Reissa Su | January 29, 2014

The victims of child abuse in Salvation Army homes spoke about their experiences in the first public hearing in Sydney before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse for 2014. On Jan 28, the commission began its fifth inquiry into the case.

Abuse victims claimed young boys were kept in a cage for days and raped in Salvation Army homes during the 1950s, 60s and 70s. According to revelations in the public hearing, Salvation Army leaders failed to impose discipline or remove those who committed abuses permanently. Perpetrators were simply transferred to other homes where abuses continue.

Mr Beckett said the focus of the hearing would be the response of the Salvation Army and government agencies to charges of child sex abuse inside the homes for boys located in Indooroopilly, Riverview Training Farm in Queensland, Bexley Boys home in North Bexley and the Gill Memorial Home in Golbourn.

The Royal Commission will focus on the alleged abuse on young boys aged 6 to 17 years old by Salvation Army officers Russell Walker, Laurence Wilson, Victor Bennett, Donald Schultz and John McIver.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX THE AUSTRALIAN JANUARY 29, 2014

ORPHANED and abandoned children were subjected to public “punishment parades” and made to fight each other by Salvation Army officers who appeared to enjoy the spectacle, an inquiry has heard.

Giving evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, one former resident of the Riverview boys’ home near Brisbane described being publicly caned until “I felt blood running down the back of my legs”.

Such beatings were frequent and held in full sight of other boys and Salvation Army staff, the commission heard, with the boys told to strip from the waist down and bend over before being flogged.

The man, who cannot be named, also told the commission he was repeatedly forced to fight other boys bare-fisted “for their enjoyment … these officers they didn’t have much to do, they thought we’ll get the boys out and get them to beat the crap out of each other.”

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AUSTRALIA
Whitsunday Times

Jessica Grewal 29th Jan 2014

A TORMENTED retiree, who was subjected to unimaginable childhood abuse at a Riverview boy’s home, has unloaded decades of grief at a public hearing in Sydney.

Giving evidence before the royal commission into Institutional Responses into to Child Sex Abuse, Raymond Carlile wept as he recalled children being raped and beaten until they bled under the watch of the Salvation Army.

The 67-year-old, who in 2010 received a $100,000 in compensation from the Salvation Army, told the commission he was eight when he was sent to the home which later became known as the Endeavour Training Farm.

For three hours, Mr Carlile struggled through his accounts of the persistent sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of a man known as Lieutenant Lawrence Wilson.

He told the commission Lt Wilson had said “I want you, you dirty little thing”, the night he “grabbed” him from his bed, told him to get undressed and raped him.

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AUSTRALIA
Telegraph

NATHAN KLEIN THE DAILY TELEGRAPH JANUARY 29, 2014

* Boys ‘were assaulted in showers and were too afraid to complain’
* Victim recalls how elder boys would rape younger residents
* One ‘violent officer’ would punch boys as young as four years old

SALVATION Army officers fondled boys’ penises while they were in the shower, assaulted them frequently and did nothing when told one of the boys in their care was raped, an inquest heard today.

Speaking at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, one man – identified to the public inquest only as Mr F P – said he was regularly subjected to sexual abuse and sadistic punishment by officers who were supposed to be caring for him.

He told the inquiry one of the officers, Lieutenant Spratt, approached him and other boys staying at the Salvation Army homes while they were naked in the showers.

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AUSTRALIA
Geelong Advertiser

BY ANNETTE BLACKWELL AAP JANUARY 29, 2014

A BOY who told a Salvation Army officer he had been sexually abused by another boy was later raped by the officer, an inquiry has been told.

A man, identified as ES, said he ran away several times from a Salvation Army Training Farm at Riverview in Queensland when he was a teenager but was always brought back, either by the farm manager, Captain Victor Bennett or police.

Mr Bennett who has since died, is one of five officers against whom the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has heard numerous allegations.

The commission is holding a public hearing in Sydney into what happened at four homes run by the Salvos in NSW and Queensland in the 60s and 70s.

ES said on Wednesday he was locked in a cage on the veranda at Riverview – some times for weeks.

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AUSTRALIA
Coolum News

Jessica Grewal 29th Jan 2014

BOYS living at a Riverview farm were locked in a prison-like cell for days at a time as one of many sadistic punishments dealt out by a rapist Salvation Army captain, the royal commission has heard.

During day two of the hearing into the Salvation Army’s treatment of child abuse victims at the home near Ipswich, five former Riverview residents told of the torment they were subjected to while the late Major Victor Bennett was in command in the late 60s and 70s.

One victim, who can only be referred to as ES, told the commission Major Bennett had once performed an enema like procedure on him with a garden hose to teach him a lesson.

He said he had tried to run away and catch a nearby ferry when Major Bennett and some of the older boys caught up with him.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – PM

Emily Bourke reported this story on Wednesday, January 29, 2014

MARK COLVIN: The Child Abuse Royal Commission has heard evidence about how a vicious bullying culture at Salvation Army boys’ homes was passed from adults to children: so younger children were assaulted by older boys as well as those in charge.

Several former residents have told how they were sexually assaulted but were too ashamed or too afraid to speak out because they weren’t believed – or worse, they were physically and sexually abused by Salvation Army officers.

The inquiry also heard that one boy was tethered to a brick, thrown into a pool and was then forced under the water by a Salvation Army captain. Another boy was caged in a cell on a veranda for weeks at a time.

And a warning: some of the detail and language contained in this story may be distressing.

Emily Bourke reports.

EMILY BOURKE: At the Salvation Army boys’ homes in Indooroopilly and Riverview, children were referred to by number, not name.

WALLY MCLEOD: My number was 14 at Indooroopilly, and 36 at Riverview.

EMILY BOURKE: Wally McLeod was among the boys whose clothes, shoes, and personal things were confiscated.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

January 30, 2014

Paul Bibby
Court Reporter

Some boys knew it as ”the cage”, others ”the lock-up” – a small cell with iron bars built into the door. And for youngsters at the Salvation Army’s Riverview Training Farm in Queensland it was a place of dread.

Some of those who broke the rules at the institution were placed in the dark space by the Salvation Army officers charged with their care and kept there for days and even weeks, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard on Wednesday.

”One day me and two other guys did something wrong – I forget what it was – and we were put in the holding cell,” one former resident, known as ES, told the commission. ”It was a room like – it looked like it had a door and iron bars on the front, just like your normal cell.”

The man, now in his 60s, said boys were forced to sleep on the floor of the tiny room without a pillow or even a blanket. ”We went to the toilet in a bucket.”

It was a chilling tale from a day when painful recollections overflowed. As the commission dug deeper into the abuse of boys who attended homes run by the Salvation Army in NSW and Queensland, four former residents from Riverview gave evidence of extreme sexual and physical abuse, and the alleged failures of police and welfare agencies to intervene.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By AAP Jan. 29, 2014

BOYS as young as four were punched and others were subjected to public floggings at two Salvation Army homes in Queensland, an inquiry has been told.

Wally McLeod, a resident at Indooroopilly Boys Home and Riverview Training Farm from 1960 to 1966, told the national royal commission into child sexual abuse he saw Captain Victor Bennett grab children as young as four and punch them.

This happened at the Indooroopilly home, later named Alkira, when Mr McLeod was sent there, aged 12, he said yesterday, the second day of a public hearing in Sydney.

The commission is examining the responses of the Eastern Territory of the Salvation Army and relevant government agencies to child abuse at four homes – the two in Queensland and two in NSW.

Mr McLeod said the children ‘‘cried and screamed’’ when he grabbed them by their shirts and struck them on the head and shoulders.

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AUSTRALIA
Australian Times (UK)

THERE “was fear all the time” around Salvation Army officers, a witness has told a royal commission.

“A lot of you people don’t seem to understand, you did not open your mouth around Salvation Army officers because you did not know what you were going to get.”

That was the response of a witness identified as FP when pressed at an inquiry into child sexual abuse about whether he had complained of ill treatment to state welfare officers who regularly visited the Salvation Army Training Farm at Riverview in Queensland in the 1960s.

FP’s evidence on Wednesday follows that of other witnesses who have told of frequent floggings and sexual abuse both by Salvo officers and older boys at the home.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Liverpool Echo

A gay vicar who led a “desperate double life” and collected thousands of child porn pictures after struggling with his homosexuality for years was jailed for 12 months.

The Rev Ian Hughes, parish priest of Poulton and Seacombe, in Wirral was arrested after police traced a file of 291 child porn images he had made available for sharing over the internet.

When they raided the vicarage on Brougham Road, Wallasey, in July last year he told them: “It’s a relief in a way. It’s like an addiction.”

Jailing Liverpool Crown Court judge David Aubrey said the 46-year-old had led a double life but his “dark secret was now out”.

Jayne Morris, prosecuting, told Liverpool Crown Court on Tuesday that 8,227 images and movies were recovered with more than 800 of the top two categories of seriousness along with two images of bestiality.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

Psychotic nuns ran children’s home like Nazi concentration camp, abuse inquiry is told

BY MICHAEL MCHUGH – 29 JANUARY 2014

Nuns who ran a hellhole children’s home in Northern Ireland were virtually psychotic, a former resident said.

The Sisters of Nazareth property in Londonderry was like a Nazi concentration camp, with youngsters’ screams of despair still haunting survivors, the UK’s largest ever inquiry into institutional child abuse was told.

Inmates formed chain gangs to polish floors until they sparkled – with arms linked and rags under both feet – and were beaten with bamboo canes and straps.

One witness reported how the nuns used to wash the children with Jeyes fluid – a strong disinfectant normally used for outdoor cleaning jobs.

Another revealed how he tried to report sexual abuse by older boys to a nun.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

Child abuse inquiry: Priest told boy he was ‘product of evil and satanic relationship’

29 JANUARY 2014

A priest told a former resident of a church-run children’s home in Northern Ireland that he was the product of an evil and satanic relationship, an inquiry has heard.

The son of an unmarried mother said he became a zombie, introverted and fearing the next beating, lying soaked in urine at night in an attempt to dissuade any sexual abusers from “dropping the hand”.

He was a resident at St Joseph’s in Termonbacca, Londonderry, run by the Sisters of Nazareth order of nuns, in the 1950s and complained about his treatment to a priest after leaving the home.

The response was: “You must never speak about this, you must understand… you and the other orphans are bastards. You are the product of an evil and satanic relationship. You never had a chance.”

The witness said: “That was the day I left the Catholic Church.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Daily News

WILLIAM BENDER, DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER BENDERW@PHILLYNEWS.COM, 215-854-5255

POSTED: Wednesday, January 29, 2014

WHEN BILL Johnson moved into a Dallas apartment complex in October 2012, a neighbor named James rolled out the welcome wagon. Sort of.

“Oh, great, another old queen moving in,” James said as Johnson and his friends unloaded his belongings at Crescent View Apartments in the Texas city’s Oak Lawn section.

Johnson, 54, an unemployed financial adviser, figured that James was just being nice, one gay man to another in the “gayborhood.”

“I think he was trying to be friendly and joking,” Johnson said. “He doesn’t have a muffler on his mouth, as my mama used to say.”

Johnson had no way to know it at the time, but the neighbor was James Brzyski, a defrocked priest described in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office’s 2005 grand-jury report as one of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s “most brutal abusers.”

The 6-foot-5 Brzyski allegedly preyed on at least 17 altar boys in the 1970s and ’80s, subjecting them to “unrelenting abuse, including fondling, oral sex and rape,” according to the report.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Newsworks

Philadelphia prosecutors have asked Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court to restore a Roman Catholic church official’s child endangerment conviction.

Monsignor William Lynn is currently on house arrest after an appeals court threw out his case earlier this month.

Lynn, the former secretary for clergy in Philadelphia, had been convicted of endangering children by transferring an abusive priest in the 1990s, reports the Associated Press.

According to court documents, prosecutors in the District Attorney’s office continue to allege Lynn engaged in a pattern of concealment and facilitation of child sexual molestation by priests.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Suzanne Lynch, Barry Roche

Irish woman Louise O’Keeffe, who today won a landmark case against the Irish State, said the ruling meant the Department of Education “must protect children in schools”.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled this morning that the State had failed to meet its obligation to protect Ms O’Keeffe from the sexual abuse she suffered while a pupil in an Irish national school.

Ms O’ Keeffe had brought her case to the European Court after the Irish Supreme court ruled in 2009 that the State was not legally liable for the abuse suffered by Ms O’Keeffe by her school principal while a nine-year old girl at Dunderrow National School.

Speaking from Cork after the ruling Ms O’Keeffe said: “The message I have today for the Department of Education on foot of this ruling is that ‘you must protect children in the schools, it’s a right that the children have and it’s now been recognised in Europe and it must be done.”

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Ruadhan Mac Cormaic

For Louise O’Keeffe, the veteran of a long, drawn-out campaign that began more than 15 years ago, this was a resounding vindication.

O’Keeffe, then aged nine, was abused by Leo Hickey, the former principal of Dunderrow National School in Co Cork in the early 1970s. At issue here was whether the State was partly to blame for that abuse because of its failure to prevent and detect it. By 11 votes to six, the Grand Chamber concluded that it was. Ireland, it found, was in breach of two articles, 3 and 13, of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibit inhuman and degrading treatment and set down the right to an effective remedy.

“The Court found that it was an inherent obligation of a Government to protect children from ill-treatment, especially in a primary education context. That obligation had not been met when the Irish State, which had to have been aware of the sexual abuse of children by adults prior to the 1970s . . . nevertheless continued to entrust the management of the primary education of the vast majority of young Irish children to National Schools.”

Effective control

Crucially, in the court’s view, the State did this without putting in place any mechanisms of effective State control against the risks of such abuse occurring. On the contrary, potential complainants had been directed away from the State authorities and towards the managers (generally the local priest) of the national schools. Any system of detection and reporting of abuse which allowed over 400 incidents of abuse to occur in O’Keeffe’s school for such a long time, the judges remarked, had to be considered ineffective.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

LISE HAND – 28 JANUARY 2014

The Taoiseach said the landmark judgment handed down today by the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Irishwoman Louise O’Keeffe “will clearly require detailed consideration by the government.”

Louise O’Keeffe won her 30-year legal battle when the Strasbourg-based Court delivered a majority ruling in her favour that the Irish State had been negligent in failing to protect her from abuse in national school.

The court ruled that her human rights had been breached under Section 3 and 13 of European law – with the Irish State now liable to compensate the mother for what she suffered. The judgement is also expected to open the floodgates to over 200 compensation claims by Irish victims abused by State employees.

Speaking in the Dáil, he said: “Louise O’Keeffe should never have been subjected to this abuse. This is another example of the horrific regime and sort of environment that children and young people lived in, and her case today clearly indicates the scale of that historic abuse and the failure and the inaction to protect children.”

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Marie O’Halloran, Michael O’Regan

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has told the Dáil that Louise O’Keeffe should never have been subject to the sexual abuse she suffered.

“This was another example of the horrific regime and sort of environment that children and young people lived in,” he said.

But the Taoiseach declined to respond to a call from Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams to apologise to Ms O’Keeffe.

The European Court of Human Rights overturned a Supreme Court judgment and ruled that the State failed to meet its obligation to protect Ms O’Keeffe from the sexual abuse she suffered while a pupil in an Irish national school. Ms O’ Keeffe took her case to the European Court after the 2009 Supreme Court ruling that the State was not legally liable for the abuse suffered by her when she was a nine-year old girl at Dunderrow National School.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

RALPH RIEGEL AND DEARBHAIL MCDONALD – 28 JANUARY 2014

AN IRISH woman’s courageous 30 year battle for justice ended in triumph today when the European Court of Human Rights ruled in her favour.

Louise O’Keeffe (46) wept as the 17 judge Strasbourg-based Court delivered a majority ruling in her favour that the Irish State had been negligent in failing to protect her from abuse in national school.

The court ruled that her human rights had been breached under Section 3 and 13 of European law – with the Irish State now liable to compensate the mother for what she suffered.

The judgement is also expected to open the floodgates to over 200 compensation claims by Irish victims abused by State employees.

Louise’s first reaction today was to cry with joy.

“This is a great day for the children of Ireland,” she said.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

[with video]

Michael O’Regan

Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn should make “an appropriate and abject apology’’ to Louise O’Keeffe, Fianna Fáil Senator Denis O’Donovan told the Seanad.

He believed the State had failed her. “She was frustrated in her attempts to get justice and the High Court and the Supreme Court let her down,” he added. “She eventually found solace elsewhere in Europe. ”

Mr O’Donovan said that as politicians, they should feel a great shame at what happened to Ms O’Keeffe. He added that she had approached him when he was a TD some years ago and he felt frustrated because, first, his representations fell on deaf ears, and second, he was told the matter was sub judice and that it was a matter for the courts. “I admire her tenacity and courage in pursuing this case over nearly four decades.”

Mr O’Donovan said he was troubled about the situation developing in the State where there was “a David and Goliath battle” whenever a citizen took on the power of the State.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

IN a room of about 30sq ft, surrounded by paintings of court scenes and old maps, Louise O’Keeffe held her breath for the result she’d wanted to hear for over 15 years.

The events were unravelling in the office of her solicitor Ernest Cantillon more than 40 years since the sexual abuse she went through in a small Co Cork school many miles west of this city centre office.

Further away still, Ernest’s colleague Mary Scriven was in a Strasbourg courtroom waiting to text the decision of the 17 judges in Louise’s case. As he sat beside her, eyes fixed on the smartphone in front of him, she smiled nervously through the silence as reporters and cameramen waited with them for the outcome.

About four minutes after word that the hearing was starting, Ernest’s phone beeped and, knowing the pre-determined code from his colleague in the Strasbourg courtroom, he said quietly. “We’ve just got one word. Win.”

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Peter Murtagh

Tim O’Rourke was sexually abused by a teacher and is one of several dozen, perhaps several hundred, similar abuse victims for whom yesterday’s victory by Louise O’Keeffe at the European Court of Human Rights brings renewed hope of vindication by the State.

Mr O’Rourke was abused by a teacher, Donal Dunne, while attending Walsh Island National School in Co Offaly. Dunne, identified in the Ryan report into child abuse as John Brander, is now dead but was prosecuted three times, was convicted and sent to jail.

Dunne was a Christian Brother who abused children repeatedly as he was moved from Christian Brothers school to Christian Brothers school, and also while a teacher at national schools in Dublin, Longford, Laois and Offaly.

Mr O’Rourke was abused by Dunne in the mid-1960s. “I reported this, along with many others,” he says, but nothing was done.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call

January 27, 2014|By Laurie Mason Schroeder, Calkins Media

A former Pennridge softball coach who prosecutors say targeted underage girls as early as 2008 pleaded guilty Monday to sex charges stemming from his October arrest, when a girl’s parents became suspicious about his relationship with their child and alerted police.

Eric Romig, 36, of Richland Township admitted guilt in Bucks County Court to numerous felony charges, including sexual contact with a student, corruption of minors and possession of child pornography.

Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Schorn said Romig propositioned two 16-year-old female players when he was the girls basketball coach at Faith Christian Academy in Sellersville during the 2008-09 school year. He sent one girl lewd text messages while she sat near him on an away game bus ride, Schorn said.

After a second teen came forward with similar allegations, Romig was “forced to resign,” Schorn added.

But Faith Christian officials never called police, the prosecutor told a judge Monday, and Romig was never charged with any crime involving students at the school. Instead, he got a job as a softball coach at Pennridge High School, where he met and began a sexual relationship with another 16-year-old student.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Montgomery News

By Bob Keeler and Erin Weaver
bkeeler@montgomerynews.com; erweaver@montgomerynews.com

Former Pennridge High School and Pennridge Belles softball coach and former Faith Christian Academy in Sellersville girls basketball coach Eric Romig pleaded guilty Monday, Jan. 27, to charges of having had a sexual relationship last year with one of the members of the softball teams, the Intelligencer reported.

Romig, 36, was arrested in October and charged with crimes including institutional sexual assault, corruption of minors and unlawful contact with a minor.

A 16-year-old player on the two softball teams told investigators she and Romig began to “date” in May or June of 2013, after which Romig picked her up at her Perkasie home and took her to Earl B. Druckenmiller Park in Sellersville and to his home in Richland Township, according to information in the affidavit of probable cause.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Philadelphia Inquirer

By Ben Finley, Inquirer Staff Writer
POSTED: January 28, 2014

DOYLESTOWN A former softball coach at a Bucks County high school pleaded guilty Monday to having sex with one of his players last year, five years after he had been allowed to quietly resign from another school where he made sexual advances toward girls.

Eric Romig, 36, is expected to face up to 20 months in prison after pleading guilty to institutional sexual assault and possession of child pornography, for having sex and trading explicit videos and photos with a 16-year-old girl at Pennridge High School.

In a turn that made Romig’s case stand out from the wave of recent cases against sexually predatory coaches in the region, the prosecutor said Monday that another area school may have concealed warning signs about the coach.

Jennifer Schorn, chief of the Bucks County District Attorney Office’s major crimes division, said Romig made advances to two basketball players he coached at Faith Christian Academy in Sellersville in 2008 and 2009. One was a girl who got a text message from the coach, as she sat next to him on a bus, saying he wanted to have sex with her, Schorn said.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Phildadelphia Daily News

RONNIE POLANECZKY, DAILY NEWS COLUMNIST
POSTED: Wednesday, January 29, 2014

THE GOOD FOLKS at Faith Christian Academy in Sellersville didn’t return my call yesterday. So I didn’t get to ask what they made of the allegation by the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office that the academy never reported a staff perv to police.

Instead, the academy allowed him to quietly slither away.

That perv would be one Eric Romig, 36, who was a coach at Faith Christian when he resigned “for health reasons” following accusations that he made sexual advances toward two female students in 2008 and 2009.

Romig got a new coaching gig at Pennridge High School, where he went trawling again. On Monday, he pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a female student there. He had sex with her and traded explicit texts, videos and photos.

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CALIFORNIA
NBC Los Angeles

[with video]

The Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles faced new legal action Tuesday after a lawsuit was filed alleging sexual abuse by a former volunteer.

Alleged victim Robert Reynolds, 23, claims he suffered repeated acts of childhood sexual abuse, including multiple acts of sodomy at the hands of Timothy Lawrence Kovacs, a licensed family and marriage therapist who volunteered with St. Luke’s Catholic Church in Temple City, said Reynolds’ attorney, Michael Kinslow, at a press conference Tuesday.

Cardinal Roger Mahony and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles are among those named in the lawsuit.

“It’s just horrendous. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to endure repeated acts of oral copulation and sodomy,” Kinslow said.

Reynolds spoke for the first time about the alleged abuse, which he said began when he was 13 years old.

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CALIFORNIA
The San Gabriel Valley Tribune

By Rebecca Kimitch, The San Gabriel Valley Tribune
POSTED: 01/28/14

TEMPLE CITY >> A young man has filed a lawsuit against the Catholic Church alleging he was a victim of sexual abuse for more than seven years at the hands of a St. Luke the Evangelist Catholic Church volunteer, who now works in the Baldwin Park Unified School District.

Robert Reynolds, 23, alleges Timothy Kovacs began molesting him in 2003, when he was 13 years old, and continued abusing him three to eight times a month until he was 20.

“The abuse was horrendous. It included multiple acts of sodomy,” Reynolds’ attorney Michael Kinslow said. “And the perpetrator attempted to convince the child it was a love relationship.”

Kovacs did not respond to phone calls requesting comment.

Kovacs was a volunteer confirmation coordinator at St. Luke’s from 2002 until 2005. He was removed from the post after a complaint was made to the parish alleging “inappropriate conduct with two young adults over the age of 18,” according to a statement from the Archdiocese, which said it was not informed of the 2005 complaint.

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ALASKA
Anchorage Daily News

BY DEVIN KELLY
dkelly@adn.com
January 28, 2014

A 29-year-old man has been charged with sexually assaulting a 6-year-old girl in a Mountain View church restroom, authorities said.

David Chiklak was arrested Sunday on a felony count of first-degree sexual abuse of a minor. The incident was reported just before noon on Sunday, police spokeswoman Jennifer Castro said.

According to the charges, a woman and the 6-year-old were both in the women’s restroom at the unidentified church when the woman heard a man asking the girl to leave with him.

The woman left the restroom and heard the girl crying. When she entered the men’s restroom and looked through a crack in a stall door, she saw the man standing over the child with his belt unbuckled, the charges said.

Chiklak was detained by churchgoers in the building’s parking lot.

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ALASKA
Westport News

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A 29-year-old man has charged with sexually abusing a girl at an Anchorage church.

David Chiklak was arrested Sunday outside a church in the Mountain View neighborhood on the city’s northeast side.

A woman told Anchorage police she was in a bathroom with a girl at the church and heard someone call the child out of the room. The woman a short time later heard the girl crying in the men’s bathroom.

Police say she entered the men’s bathroom and saw a man with his belt unbuckled standing over the girl.

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AUSTRALIA
The Raw Story

By Agence France-Presse
Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Children were sodomised with a garden hose, locked in outdoor cages and savagely beaten by Salvation Army majors in graphic cases of abuse detailed Tuesday to an Australian inquiry.

A Royal Commission into child sexual abuse in Australia began hearing evidence into allegations of abuse at four Salvation Army homes for children between 1966 and 1977, which counsel assisting the inquiry Simeon Beckett warned would be “shocking to many”.

“The abuse that is to be detailed before the Royal Commission in the course of this case study is likely to be disturbing and at the severe end of sexual abuse,” he said in his opening address.

The investigative commission was established by former prime minister Julia Gillard in response to a series of child sex abuse scandals involving paedophile priests, though she insisted the probe would be much broader than the Catholic Church.

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AUSTRALIA
My Daily News

Jessica Grewal 29th Jan 2014

A TORMENTED retiree, who was subjected to unimaginable childhood abuse at a Riverview boy’s home, has unloaded decades of grief at a public hearing in Sydney.

Giving evidence before the royal commission into Institutional Responses into to Child Sex Abuse, Raymond Carlile wept as he recalled children being raped and beaten until they bled under the watch of the Salvation Army.

The 67-year-old, who in 2010 received a $100,000 in compensation from the Salvation Army, told the commission he was eight when he was sent to the home which later became known as the Endeavour Training Farm.

For three hours, Mr Carlile struggled through his accounts of the persistent sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of a man known as Lieutenant Lawrence Wilson.

He told the commission Lt Wilson had said “I want you, you dirty little thing”, the night he “grabbed” him from his bed, told him to get undressed and raped him.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Thomas Oriti

The royal commission into child sexual abuse has heard a Salvation Army officer working at a children’s home punched boys as young as four in the face.

Wally McLeod has told the commission about his time at the Alkira Salvation Army Home for Boys at Indooroopilly in Queensland.

The facility is one of four operated by the Salvation Army that is being examined by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Over the next two weeks, the commission will also focus on cases at the Riverview Training Farm in Queensland, the Bexley Boys Home in Sydney and the Gill Memorial Home at Goulburn in southern New South Wales.

Mr McLeod was 12 when he was taken to the Indooroopilly home in 1960.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 01/28/2014

A Ramsey County judge found probable cause Tuesday for the case against Maplewood priest Mark Andrew Huberty to proceed to trial.

Huberty, 43, has been charged with one count of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a woman in his parish, Church of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Senior Judge Kathleen Gearin entered a not-guilty plea on his behalf.

She scheduled a pretrial hearing for Feb. 20 and a trial date of March 24, though trials are frequently delayed.

Prosecutors allege that, while providing spiritual guidance, Huberty fondled a female parishioner repeatedly and asked her to touch him sexually.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Republic

By MARYCLAIRE DALE Associated Press
January 28, 2014

PHILADELPHIA — Philadelphia prosecutors have urged Pennsylvania’s highest court to restore the conviction of a Roman Catholic church official in a high-profile child endangerment case.

Monsignor William Lynn, 63, the former secretary for clergy in Philadelphia, had been convicted of endangering children by transferring an abusive priest in the 1990s to a new parish, where he abused an altar boy.

Lynn was the first U.S. church supervisor charged for his handling of sex abuse complaints against clergy. Prosecutors warned that people across the country are watching to see if the case holds up.

But an appeals court threw out his case last month, saying Lynn should never have been charged because the law only applied to those directly responsible for the child victim. Lynn was freed after 18 months in prison and remains on house arrest at a rectory.

However, prosecutors appealed that Superior Court ruling Monday to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

[with video]

By Emily Bourke and Thomas Oriti

The royal commission into child sexual abuse has heard harrowing details of small boys being dragged from their beds and raped within children’s homes operated by the Salvation Army.

On Tuesday the commission began its fifth inquiry, this time examining cases of abuse at four boys’ homes operated by the prominent charity.

Some of the evidence presented today shocked even some survivors and their advocates, including the caging of children, punishment parades, and appalling Dickensian conditions.

The hearing is investigating incidents at the Alkira Salvation Army Home for Boys at Indooroopilly in Queensland, the Riverview Training Farm at Riverview in Queensland, the Bexley Boys’ Home in Sydney, and the Gill Memorial Home at Goulburn in southern New South Wales.

The actions of at least five Salvation Army officers are set to be scrutinised by the commission, with 13 former residents of the homes expected to give evidence.

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AUSTRALIA
News Mail

Shelley Strachan 29th Jan 2014

THE royal commission into the institutional responses to shocking child sexual abuse at Salvation Army homes in the 1960s and ’70s heard evidence on its first day yesterday from the Gympie court house.

A key witness who now lives in retirement in Kilkivan was one of the young boys who suffered unspeakable, prolonged abuse.

Incredibly – and it’s a testament to the human spirit – his courage and resilience were not utterly destroyed at the hands of, in particular, one depraved monster left in charge of the young boys.

It is not easy to stay calm and rational when you are confronted with the brutal reality of what some humans are capable of.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
News Letter

Nuns who ran a hell hole children’s home in Northern Ireland were nearly psychotic, a former resident said.

The Sisters of Nazareth property in Londonderry was like Auschwitz, youngsters’ screams of despair still haunting survivors, the UK’s largest ever inquiry into institutional child abuse was told.

Inmates formed chain gangs to polish floors until they sparkled – with arms linked and rags under both feet – and were beaten with bamboo canes and straps.

One witness reported sexual abuse by older boys to a nun.

The sister allegedly said: “You are a bad boy, you are going to hell, nothing like that ever happened.”

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IRELAND
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, Jan. 28 2014

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

We applaud the European Court of Human Rights for siding with an Irish woman who was sexually abused as a youngster by her school principal. The Irish state, the court ruled, failed to protect her.

[Breaking News]

Being involved in the struggle for children’s safety for 25 years, we have learned two things. First, every individual and institution that endangered kids and protected predators must be exposed and punished, if ever child sex crimes and cover ups are to be stopped. And second, when one or two or three avenues for justice are closed to victims, we must be more persistent and creative about seeking help elsewhere, even if it means going to international bodies like the European Court of Human Rights.

When secular authorities, like religious figures, ignore or hide crimes against kids, they must be held responsible, no matter where or when the wrongdoing occurred. Long after World War II, law enforcement agencies track down and prosecute war crimes, because as civilized people, we want to send a strong signal that those who would torture others will be pursued forever.

The same persistence must be shown against those who would hurt kids and help others hurt kids.

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