ABUSE TRACKER

NEW YORK
The Jewish Daily Forward

By Paul Berger
Published November 22, 2013, issue of November 29, 2013.

Anxiety is building at Modern Orthodoxy’s flagship institution, Yeshiva University, as rumors swirl of looming cuts to address a financial crisis.

Y.U.’s official student newspaper, the Commentator, reported November 20 that the school’s president, Richard Joel, “may announce mandatory furloughs to Y.U. employees” pending an emergency meeting of the University’s board of directors.

School officials have declined to confirm or deny the report.

The Commentator story followed hard on the heels of a memo Joel sent out to faculty and staff a day earlier, warning of dire financial challenges ahead. The email was first reported by the JTA.

Several sources close to Y.U. have told the Forward that the school’s board will hold its emergency meeting early next week.

Y.U. board members did not respond to calls or emails for comment November 19 and 20. Michael Scagnoli, a Y.U. spokesman, declined to comment on whether the meeting is taking place. …

Moody’s said the university’s problems are compounded by uncertainty related to a $380 million lawsuit brought by former students of Yeshiva University’s High School for Boys, in Manhattan. Thirty-four former students are suing Y.U. over claims that the university covered up decades of sexual abuse allegedly committed by former staff members, Rabbi George Finkelstein and Rabbi Macy Gordon. Both men have denied the charges.

A federal judge in New York is expected to rule shortly on whether the case can proceed.

Y.U. staff and students had hoped that 2013 would turn out to be better than the past few years. In 2008, Y.U. was struck by the twin blows of the national financial crisis and the multibillion dollar investment fraud committed by Bernard Madoff, with whom the school had invested substantial sums.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Channel Online

[with video]

The Bishop of Winchester has organised a pastoral visit to the Channel Islands to gain a ‘fresh perspective on safeguarding’.

It follows the suspension of Jersey’s Dean earlier this year, for failing to properly handle an allegation of abuse.

No disciplinary action will now be taken against the Very Reverend Bob Key.

Now next month both the Bishop of Dover and Bishop of Lambeth will be coming to the islands to get a better understanding of complaint procedures.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

Kathy Mellott
kmellott@tribdem.com

EBENSBURG — A criminal investigation into who may have been aware of the alleged sexual abuse of students at Bishop McCort High School by Brother Stephen Baker and failed to alert authorities moved a step forward this week.

Cambria County District Attorney Kelly Callihan told The Tribune-Democrat that she met with members of the staff of Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane.

The focus of the meeting was to determine what information the attorney general’s office will need if it agrees to accept the investigation into who knew what and when, she said.

“We want to make sure we provide the information they need to move forward,” Callihan said.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

This morning, I’d like to share an essay by Rev. Emmet Coyne, a retired priest of the diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire, and author of The Theology of Fear. Emmett has kindly offered to let the essay be published here. It’s a proposal to rehabilitate the ancient Catholic practice of interdict, but to turn it upside down, so that lay Catholics begin to use it to call their pastoral leaders to accountability. Here’s Emmett’s essay:

In 1909 in Adria, Italy, “Several thousand fanatical Catholics nearly stoned their bishop to death.” What triggered this? The pope (Pius X) instructed the bishop to move the seat of the diocese to the more important city of Rovigio. One might assume the Catholic citizens of Adria felt they were losing their prominence. So, for the pelting of their prelate, the pope pronounced an interdict on Adria and the surrounding area.

The interdict is an arrow in the Vatican’s quiver for subduing unruly members. It’s a papal ploy to deny the sacraments to individuals and dioceses. It has been employed intermittently to threaten Catholics and was successful. The interdict remains a measure of last resort. To deny the sacraments, particularly the Eucharist, effectively cuts members off from God. The interdict conveyed this threat.

Real power in the Roman Church resides exclusively in male celibates. Since Vatican II, lay persons were allowed in to participate in parish councils, but these were simply advisory. There is nothing in the pipeline currently which will allow lay members to exercise authentic power. John Paul II anticipated the emerging laity might seek to ascend to a position of power. He then legislated that no cleric could be under the authority of a lay person. Canon Law through the centuries was the exclusive domain of male clerics to write the rules. The laity are subservient in all of the canons, being accorded with few rights and mostly responsibilities.

The current structure of the Roman Church is an absolute monarchy. Laity are left to beg, cajole, and petition for any participation in advocating structural change and power sharing. Collegiality, even for bishops, is not a constant. They are dependent on the whim of the current pontiff. The result is that committed lay persons are left to their own creative devices until the Pentecost event becomes an accepted truth and is institutionalized. At the first Pentecost, the Spirit was poured out upon the whole People of God, not simply community leaders. This was a unique episode in the consciousness of the new community struggling for self-identity in the wake of the Jesus event. All persons would share equally in the life of the community. This was the radical nature that drew slaves and women especially. So the community surged until the time of Constantine when the imperial model was imposed. This has endured till Vatican II when the hope of lay persons was to become equal participants, no longer relegated to ‘pray, pay, and obey.’

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MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

Date:Thursday, November 21, 2013

Source:Most Reverend John C. Nienstedt

Watch the Archbishop’s video column by clicking here, or at the bottom of this column.

In just another week, we will join with millions of families around the country to celebrate Thanksgiving, a time that has traditionally been set aside to reflect humbly on our many blessings, all of which we prayerfully acknowledge come from our loving and generous God.

I have been reflecting quite a bit lately on God’s blessings to me and the things for which I am personally grateful. I have thought and prayed about this because, particularly now, in the midst of all of the painful strife within our local Church these past many weeks, I am reminded of the great hope we have in Christ, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

I am reminded that, as our patron St. Paul said in his letter to the Philippians, “I have the strength for everything through him who empowers me.” This empowerment and strength must always be directed only for the pursuit and telling of the truth in service to God and our neighbor. This strength, which we find in the source and summit of the Holy Eucharist, reminds us that God gives us all that we need to live in his love and in his truth. It is only for us to recognize and accept his gifts. And, it is these gifts from God, those of strength and truth, of faith, hope and love, and grace and light, and so much more, for which we give thanks.

Like you, I am also thankful for the gifts of my family and friends. And, I am grateful for all of you, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus. There is much sadness and frustration among us still. I feel that, too.

And, yet, I also feel so powerfully your prayers as well as your hope for a path forward. I give thanks for these, too. They have been in my prayers as well. The strength of your prayers has been felt by my entire leadership team, which is working tirelessly to do the right thing in the midst of this crisis. Together, we have learned and grown much these past many weeks. And, we have made decisions to take actions that we sincerely believe set us on that path forward, a path that embraces the truth, for the sake of justice.

These actions, as I shared with you in my column two weeks ago, are anchored by a set of goals that I have set for myself and for all leadership within the Church as we address the very serious concerns before us.

Our first goal, and of greatest importance, is keeping our focus on creating and maintaining safe environments and protecting the young and the vulnerable. The Gospel of Matthew tells us that Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, and do not prevent them; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” Our protection of children and young people must be our top priority, and it must be what animates our every action and decision.

Our second goal is to care for those who have been harmed by members of the Church. Our hearts ache for the victims of sexual abuse, and they deserve our care and support as, together, we work toward a process of hope and healing. It is among the most important things we can and should do, for the sake of the dignity of each person who now struggles to move forward with his or her life. We are called to love, with great compassion, those who are hurting most among us. This is doubly important when a victim’s pain has been caused by a member of our clergy.

Our third goal is to facilitate the beginning of a healing process for our local Church. We must restore trust with the Catholic faithful, who I know are counting on the clergy and leadership of the Church, most especially me as archbishop, to make virtuous decisions for the good of the body of Christ. I take this responsibility very seriously. I also know I cannot do this alone. My entire staff and I are united in our commitment to work together in pursuit of the truth and restoration of trust.

Finally, our fourth goal is to restore trust with our many clergy who do live out their vocations nobly and with great dedication to their sacred trust. These good men deserve our confidence and respect. We must avoid impugning them as we seek justice for the few who have violated this trust and hurt others.

These four goals — protecting the young and the vulnerable, caring for victims, and restoring trust with both the laity and the clergy — are anchoring me and my leadership team in all we do.

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MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

Date:Friday, November 22, 2013

Source:Jim Accurso

As part of the previously stated plan to ensure a comprehensive approach to address the issue of clergy sexual misconduct, the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis today announced that it is prepared to disclose its initial list of clergy who have substantiated claims of abuse of a minor against them.

In his November 11 Open Letter, which is available on our website at archspm.org, Archbishop Nienstedt announced that the first phase of disclosure would be made by the end of November, pending approval by the appropriate court. There has been a protective order in place in Ramsey County District Court since 2009 related to the disclosure.

We have just learned that a meeting with a Ramsey County judge has now been scheduled for Monday, December 2. The need for approval by the court will delay our schedule for disclosure. The Archdiocese is prepared to release information once the judge concurs with our plan.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

by Jon Collins, Minnesota Public Radio,
Madeleine Baran, Minnesota Public Radio
November 22, 2013

ST. PAUL, Minn. — The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis said in a statement late Friday that it’s postponing until at least next month the release of names of priests who sexually abused children.

Earlier this month, Archbishop John Nienstedt announced his decision to release the names of priests living in the archdiocese whom the church believes sexually abused children. Nienstedt’s announcement came after MPR News reporting showed church leaders protected an admitted

Church leaders have fought efforts for years by victims and their attorneys to make the names of abusive priests public. They’ve argued that some priests have been falsely accused and releasing their names would damage their reputations.

The archdiocese said it needs to wait until after a Dec. 2 hearing in Ramsey County District Court because it does not believe it can release the names without a judge’s order.

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WEST VIRGINIA
WVWA

By Paul Hess, Multi-media Journalist

Bluefield, W.Va.–Westminister Pastor Jonathan Rockness released the following statement after allegations of sexual misconduct surfaced involving an un-named youth volunteer:

“From the moment the church leadership first suspected any misconduct, we have aggressively pursued the truth and we have continually reported all findings to the State Police. We continue to cooperate with their investigation, as we are committed to the truth coming to light and justice being served. We are devastated for any individuals and families who may be potential victims, and we pray that the investigative process will help bring them healing,” says Pastor Jonathan Rockness.

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WEST VIRGINIA
WVNS

By Dan Thorn

BLUEFIELD, W.Va. –
UPDATE: 59News reached out to Pastor Jonathan Rockness with Westminster Presbyterian Church he released the following statement.

“We have been fully cooperative with the authorities and will continue to be, as we are committed to uncovering the truth and seeing justice met. We also hope and pray for healing and wholeness for any potential victims in this situation. We are devastated for them and their families.”

West Virginia State Police are investigating sexual abuse accusations against a youth mentor at a church in Bluefield, West Virginia.

Sgt. Melissa Clemons says a number of individuals have come forward accusing a man who is actively involved in the youth group at Westminster Presbyterian Church of sexual abuse.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
KGO

[with video]

Vic Lee

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — A woman is telling a story of cruelty, harassment and abuse — all, she says, at the hands of people who consider themselves men of god.

A female worker says she was fired from St. Francis of Assisi Church because she would no longer submit to sexual harassment that included spanking. The woman filed a wrongful termination claim with the state Department of Fair Employment and Housing. The church contends she was fired for other reasons.

Jhona Mathews is a single mother in her early 30s with a 2-year-old child. She worked as an assistant to the church rector Father Harold Sinider. She says the president of the church board of trustees Bill McLaughlin knew she was vulnerable as a young single mother with no particular skills.

Mathews says in her complaint, that he exploited her to satisfy his sexual fantasies.

“Paddling with the wooden paddle, getting spanked in the sacristy of the shrine of St. Francis, which Catholics know, it’s just appalling to hear as a catholic and having sexual intercourse in the shrine of St. Francis,” Mathews’ attorney Sandra Ribera said.

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WEST VIRGINIA
Bluefield Daily Telegraph

By SAMANTHA PERRY
Bluefield Daily Telegraph

BLUEFIELD — West Virginia State Police officials are investigating a former church youth teacher and mentor for at-risk youth as a result of sexual abuse and sexual assault allegations.

Sgt. M.D. Clemons, with the Crimes Against Children Unit of the West Virginia State Police, said the individual under investigation was a youth teacher at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Bluefield for many years, and that her investigation has found allegations of abuse that date back to 1986.

“He helped with the youth program,” she said. “He also led mission trips.”

Clemons said she has currently interviewed 12 individuals who have reported misconduct that includes sexual abuse and sexual assault. The victims were preteen and teenage boys.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Oxford Times

A DISGRACED magistrate, Church of England minister and music teacher has been jailed for sexually abusing a young girl 10 years ago.

Christopher Tadman-Robins, 66, of Upper End, Shipton-Under-Wychwood, has begun a two-and-a-half year jail sentence.

He was ordained in 1989 but in the last 20 years has only conducted occasional services in West Oxfordshire.

He also sat as a magistrate at the former court in Witney, taught music and was a former musical director of the Northern Ballet.

But Judge Philip Bartle QC said his good character and contribution to society did not spare him from an immediate custodial sentence.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
St. Louis Review

SUBMITTED ON NOVEMBER 22, 2013

The Pike County Circuit Court has dismissed criminal charges against Father Xiu Hui “Joseph” Jiang, a former associate pastor at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis Parish.

Father Jiang was charged June 28, 2012, in Lincoln County with a felony count of endangering the welfare of a child, a first-degree offense involving sexual conduct. He also was charged with witness tampering.

The Archdiocese of St. Louis had placed Father Jiang on administrative leave following a report involving alleged inappropriate contact with a high school-aged minor. The Archdiocesan Office of Child and Youth Protection notified the Missouri Division of Family Services immediately upon learning of the allegations.

According to a statement at that time from Msgr. Richard Hanneke, the archdiocese’s vicar for priests, the archdiocese was fully cooperating with the investigation.

None of the conduct was alleged to have occurred at the cathedral or on any archdiocesan property, Msgr. Hanneke noted in the statement.

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NEBRASKA
ABC 9

news@kcautv.com

The Archdiocese of Omaha has found a former Catholic priest from Norfolk guilty of sexually abusing minors.

Archbishop George Lucas says there is enough evidence against Franklin Dvorak. Dvorak is accused of abusing a female student from 1970 to 1972 when he was stationed at Sacred Heart Parish. That’s now called Norfolk Catholic.

Dvorak was not formally charged because of the statute of limitations.

The church is now prohibiting him from publicly exercising priestly ministry in the church, but he can retain his clerical status.

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NEBRASKA
Pilot-Tribune & Enterprise

Staff reports

The Archdiocese of Omaha has dismissed Father Al Salanitro from the clerical state after an administrative penal process, according to a news release. He is prohibited from all priestly functions and ministries and can never again serve as a priest anywhere in the Church.

Salanitro served St. Francis Borgia Catholic Church in Blair for five years in the early 2000s.

In December 2011, a Carter Lake, Iowa man reported he was sexually abused by Salanitro from 1991 to 1994, beginning when he was 11 years old. Salanitro was associate pastor of Holy Cross Parish during that time.

The archdiocese notified law enforcement officials of the allegation. Archbishop George Lucas placed Salanitro on administrative leave from his assignment as pastor of St. Bernadette Parish in Bellevue pending the outcome of a preliminary investigation. Salanitro denied the allegations.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Fox 2

[with video]

November 22, 2013, by Betsey Bruce

(KTVI)– A Pike County judge has thrown out a charge of child endangerment against a Catholic priest who worked at the New Cathedral.

Father Joseph Jiang had been charged with molesting an underage girl in Lincoln County and with attempting to tamper with a witness.

The prosecutor dropped the tampering charge after the judge said there was no evidence the priest and the girl were ever alone together.

The girl and her parents are suing the archdiocese.

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WISCONSIN
Fox 6

KENOSHA (WITI) — A priest at St. Peter Church in Kenosha that had been investigated by police and placed on administrative leave has been cleared of any criminal or illegal behavior. The case is now closed.

Kenosha police say the department had been investigating the priest because of his use of Facebook. The priest belongs to the Marians of the Immaculate Conception — a religious order out of [Stockbridge} Stonebridge, Massachusetts.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

The Royal Commission will hold a public hearing in Sydney commencing Monday 9 December 2013. The public hearing will look into the Towards Healing process adopted by the Catholic Church in responding to allegations of child sexual abuse.

Royal Commission CEO Janette Dines explained that this hearing will be the first of a number of public hearings that will examine the application of Towards Healing in responding to victims and allegations of child sexual abuse against personnel of the Catholic Church.

“This first public hearing into Towards Healing will focus on the experiences of four people who participated in the process,” she said.

“These people are Queensland residents whose claim of child sexual abuse was dealt with through the Towards Healing process. The accused at the time of the abuse were priests and brothers of the Archdiocese of Brisbane, Diocese of Lismore and the Marist Brothers.

“As the Commission continues, we will hold more public hearings into peoples’ experience with Towards Healing and its application in different parts of Australia,” Ms Dines said.

To speak with the Royal Commission, call 1800 099 340 or email registerinterest@childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au

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CANADA
Cambridge Times

A retired Anglican priest with ties to Paris was found guilty Tuesday of sexual offenses dating back 30 years.

Rev. George Ferris, 66, of Cambridge appeared at the Ontario Court of Justice in Brantford on Nov. 19 and was found guilty of two counts of sexual assault and one count of sexual exploitation for offences that took place in Paris between 1983 and 1989.

During that time, Ferris was serving as minister of St. James Anglican Church in Paris.

Ferris is scheduled to appear for sentencing on Jan. 28.

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NEBRASKA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Nov. 22, 2013

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

Two Nebraska predator priests have been disciplined by the Vatican.

[WOWT]

We strongly urge Archbishop George Lucas to submit the evidence used in the church investigation to secular authorities so that Fr. Alfred Salanitro and Fr. Franklin Dvorak might be criminally charged, convicted and kept away from kids, instead of just being removed from ministry.

Archbishop Lucas and other Catholic officials have a duty to insure the kids’ safety of by making sure these predators are prosecuted and kept away from potential victims, not just ousted from their church positions.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

JARED OWENS THE AUSTRALIAN NOVEMBER 23, 2013

THE former administrator of a NSW Anglican diocese under investigation over systemic child abuse has admitted lying about its capacity to pay compensation to a victim who “derailed” church-led negotiations by seeking independent legal advice.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse has heard a “pedophile ring” of priests at Lismore’s North Coast Children’s Home raped, beat and sexually abused dozens of children between the 1940s and 80s.

The inquiry in Sydney was yesterday shown a 2006 letter written by then Grafton Diocese registrar Pat Comben in which he told an abuse survivor, Richard Campion, that it was “difficult” to find even $500 to cover his travel costs to attend counselling.

Mr Comben yesterday admitted he understood the diocese had assets of $2 million.

“No, it was not an honest thing to say to Mr Campion,” the former Queensland Labor minister told the inquiry.

“We were all scared and I was conscious that I would not have been viewed well as an employee had I just gone in there and said ‘The diocese has $2m’.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Channel Online

[with video]

The Bishop of Winchester has issued a statement confirming he is “unable” to release the report into the Dean of Jersey’s suspension.

Tim Dakin said, following legal advice, he has agreed to comply with a request from an “interested party” not to publish Dame Heather Steel’s report.

The report by the former High Court Judge has investigated whether any disciplinary action should be taken against any member of the clergy.

It comes after Jersey’s Dean, Bob Key, was suspended in March for failing to properly investigate the treatment of a 26 year old disabled woman.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

No disciplinary action is to be taken against any Jersey Anglican clergy member into the handling of an abuse complaint, a bishop says.

Inquiries were ordered by Bishop of Winchester, the Right Reverend Tim Dakin, after a woman claimed she was abused by a church warden.

The review examined how the Dean of Jersey, the Very Reverend Bob Key, dealt with the issue.

However, a report into the reviews is not to be released on legal advice.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)

Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Friday 22 November 2013

If the dozens of people who were abused at a Church of England (Anglican) home had sued successfully it would have been financial ruin for the New South Wales diocese of Grafton, a lawyer has told a national inquiry into child abuse.

Peter Roland, former lawyer for the diocese, is being grilled at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on why, in 2006 and 2007, traumatised survivors of the North Coast Children’s Home (NCCH) in Lismore were told the church had no liability.

The commission has heard at one stage a letter to 41 victims mentioned a modest ex-gratia payment for “their inconvenience in these matters”.

At the request of the commission chair, justice Peter McClellan, documents showing how much money was spent by the diocese on lawyers were produced, showing bills of $27,000 and $11,000. One bill gave an estimated figure of $62,000 if the case went to court.

The commission heard Roland’s firm had received a dossier of 450 documents detailing emotional, sexual and physical abuse of former residents at the home, but was instructed by the diocese that the church had never been vested with care, control and management of the home.

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CANADA
Sylvia’s Site

Some more information from the sex abuse trial of Oblate priest Father Eric Dejaeger. I warn in advance that some of this is quite graphic

(1) All victims who have testified to date were aged 4 to 12 when they were molested. (I say victims because my understanding is that most, if not all, who have testified to date, have received out-of-court settlements)

(2) Father Eric Dejaeger is perceived by some as being physically “extremely vigorous,” almost athletic. I am told that he seems almost unaffected by the testimony;

(3) The court room is packed, but it is small, perhaps holding 20 people max. There are about four support persons in the court at any given time,. There are two sheriffs present at any given time. Yesterday there was a group from the Ministry of Justice. The Deputy Minister was present for the day.

There are some lawyers who pop in and out for short spells;

(4) There is reference in media coverage to victims in the hallways howling in anguish after testifying. This is happening during testimony as well. Yesterday afternoon the man who testified broke down a number of times during testimony and was, I am told, literally howling in anguish.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
KSDK

ST. LOUIS (KSDK) – A judge has dismissed charges against a St. Louis priest in relation to child endangerment.

Circuit Judge Chris Kunza Mennemeyer dismissed charges against Fr. Joseph Jiang, who pleaded not guilty to the child endangerment charge.

A lawsuit filed by the family of a teenage girl remains active, and it claims that Archbishop Robert Carlson didn’t stop the molestation by a priest who lived in the St. Louis Cathedral Basilica. A motion was made earlier this month to dismiss the lawsuit, and it’s still under consideration.

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OMAHA (NE)
World-Herald

By Michael O’Connor / World-Herald staff writer

The archdiocese announced the decisions Friday morning regarding the Rev. Alfred J. Salanitro, 54, and the Rev. Franklin A. Dvorak, 69.

The archdiocese conducted investigations of both men and reported the allegations to law enforcement.

Salanitro has been dismissed from the clerical state, and Dvorak was sentenced to a life of prayer and penance, according to a news release from the archdiocese.

The action on Salanitro means he has been returned to the lay state and is prohibited from all priestly functions and ministries. He can never again serve as a priest anywhere in the Roman Catholic Church.

Dvorak’s prayer and penance penalty also prohibits him from publicly exercising priestly ministry in the church. He is not permitted to celebrate Mass publicly or to administer the Church’s sacraments, the release said.

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OMAHA (NE)
WOWT

Two Archdiocese of Omaha priests received their ecclesiastical penalties on Friday after having been found guilty of sexual abuse of minors.

The Rev. Alfred Salanitro (pictured right) has been dismissed from the clerical state, meaning he has been returned to the lay state or “laicized.” The 54-year-old is prohibited from all priestly functions and ministries and can never again serve as a priest anywhere in the church.

In December 2011, a Carter Lake man reported he was sexually abused by Salanitro from 1991-1994, beginning when he was 11 years old while Salanitro was associate pastor of Holy Cross Parish.

The archdiocese notified law enforcement of the allegation. Archbishop George Lucas placed Salanitro on administrative leave from his assignment as pastor of St. Bernadette Parish in Bellevue pending the outcome of a preliminary investigation.

Archbishop Lucas and the Archdiocesan Review Board, an 11-member volunteer board of child care experts, law enforcement officials, attorneys, clergy, and mental health professionals that advises Archbishop Lucas on the protection of young people, concluded after a thorough investigation that the evidence met the church’s minimum standard for a credible allegation. …

The archdiocese also announced the Rev. Franklin Dvorak was sentenced to a life of prayer and penance that prohibits him from publicly exercising priestly ministry in the church. He is not permitted to celebrate Mass publicly or to administer the church’s sacraments.

The 69-year-old Dvorak has been instructed not to wear clerical attire or to present himself publicly as a priest. Dvorak is expected to dedicate his life to praying for victims and repenting of his past offenses. Dvorak is able to retain his clerical status. He was ordained in 1970 and will reach the priest retirement age of 70 in February. His term as pastor of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in Omaha expired last summer.

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MINNESOTA
Crookston Times

By Jess Bengtson
Posted Nov. 22, 2013

Crookston, Minn.
At a news conference Thursday in the lobby of the Polk County Justice Center in Crookston, sexual abuse attorney Jeff Anderson announced the filing of a lawsuit on behalf of a man known as “Doe 19.”

Anderson, along with Lonna Hunter, an advocate for Native children, told the story of Doe 19, whom they said was sexually abused by Father James Vincent Fitzgerald at St. Anne’s Parish in Naytahwaush. The lawsuit names the Diocese of Crookston and the Oblates of Mary Immaculate alleging their negligence in placing Fitzgerald in parishes and communities where he had access to children even after learning that Fitzgerald was a child molester. This is the first time Fitzgerald’s name has been publicly released in Minnesota.

Fitzgerald, who is now deceased, was employed by the Diocese of Crookston from 1973 to 1978. During this time, he allegedly abused a minor male. The lawsuit claims the defendants knew or should have known about the abuse. The Diocese of Crookston placed Fitzgerald at St. Anne’s Parish on the White Earth Indian Reservation in Naytahwaush in the mid-1980s. Doe 19 claims the abuse happened in 1984 when he was between 8 and 9-years-old.

The current lawsuit, along with another involving “Jane Doe 4” of Bemidji and the late Father James Porter, requests the release of names of credibly accused and admitted child molesters from the Diocese of Crookston. The Diocese allegedly compiled a list of five priests who had credible accusations of abuse against them.

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MISSOURI
Greenwich Times

TROY, Mo. (AP) — Criminal charges against a St. Louis priest accused of molesting a teenage girl in northeast Missouri have been dropped.

The Rev. Xiu Hui “Joseph” Jiang was charged in June 2012 with child endangerment and witness tampering. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (bit.ly/1cIaTej) reports that Circuit Judge Chris Kunza Mennemeyer of Lincoln and Pike counties dismissed the child endangerment charge on Monday.

Prosecutor Leah Askey filed for dismissal on the witness tampering charge on the same day. Jiang had allegedly left a $20,000 check for the family as hush money.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Riverfront Times

By Lindsay Toler Fri., Nov. 22 2013

Criminal charges against a Cathedral Basilica priest accused of sexually abusing a teen in his parish were dropped earlier this month.

Father Xiu Hui “Joseph” Jiang, 30, was not alone with the victim, the court ruled, so child endangerment and witness tampering charges have been dropped, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Two circuit judges filed to dismiss the charges on November 18, and the case was officially dismissed from court record Thursday, according to the Post-Dispatch.

The family of the victim still has a civil lawsuit pending against the archdiocese and Archbishop Robert Carlson for knowingly allowing a sexual predator to interact unsupervised with children.

Nicole Gorovsky, one of the Chakes, Carlson & Halquist lawyers handling the civil suit, says she doesn’t think the news will affect the lawsuit.

“I think our case is a very strong one,” Gorovsky says. “I don’t think this means anything.”

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

By Jesse Bogan jbogan@post-dispatch.com 314-340-825512

ST. LOUIS • Criminal charges filed against a St. Louis priest over allegations that he molested a teenage girl have been dropped, officials said Friday.

The Rev. Xiu Hiu “Joseph” Jiang, 30, was charged in 2012 with child endangerment and witness tampering.

Circuit Judge Chris Kunza Mennemeyer, of Lincoln and Pike counties, put in an order to dismiss the child endangerment charge Nov. 18 based on an argument by the defense that Jiang was never alone with the alleged victim.

Prosecutor Leah Askey filed for dismissal on the witness tampering charge — Jiang had allegedly left a $20,000 check for the family for hush money — on the same day.

A trial date had been set in Pike County and then recently cancelled.

Pike County Clerk Jerri Harrelson said Friday that the case was officially dismissed from the court record Thursday.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Nov. 22, 2013

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 are very upset that judge has ended the criminal case against an accused predator priest who has close ties to Archbishop Robert Carlson. Our hearts ache for this courageous victim and her parents who have done their moral and civic duty by helping law enforcement pursue a manipulative child molester.

[St. Louis Post-Dispatch]

There’s something wrong in our justice system when a prosecutor has a prompt abuse report and solid evidence – emails, a $20,000 check, a phone message, a witness – yet a judge tosses out the charges.

It’s possible, of course, that the prosecutor will file other charges against Fr. Jiang. We hope she will.

Regardless, this ruling makes it even more crucial that every single person who saw, suspected or suffered Fr. Jiang’s crimes steps forward. He’s a smart, cunning and young priest. He’ll keep hurting kids unless he’s convicted and imprisoned.

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CALIFORNIA
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on November 22, 2013

The Los Angeles Archdiocese released more clergy sex abuse and cover-up documents today. Priests hail from Orange County, San Bernardino, and Phoenix.

Files include:

John Lenihan
Richard Coughlin
Richard Loomis
Jesse Dominguez
Henry Perez
John Santillian
And others ….

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GHANA
Ghana Web

A 39-year-old Anglican priest, Rev. Fr Emmanuel Quartey, has been remanded in police custody for allegedly raping a 20-year-old woman.

He will be arraigned before the Cape Coast Circuit Court Three on Monday November 25.

The facts are that on Sunday October 17, the victim, a resident of Siwido in Cape Coast, contacted the priest to help her break a blood covenant she had with her boyfriend.

The priest agreed to help the victim and asked her to meet him the following day at a hotel in Elmina.

She complied and met the priest in one of the rooms in the hotel where he forcibly had sex with her and warned her not to tell anyone or else she will die.

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SCOTLAND
The Tablet

22 November 2013 15:00 by Kathleen Nutt

A Scottish priest is fighting to be reinstated after his suspension led parishioners to walk out of church just before Mass.

Fr Matthew Despard was removed from his post at St John Ogilvie’s Church in High Blantyre, South Lanarkshire, last weekend after publishing a controversial memoir earlier this year claiming there was a culture of homosexual bullying in the Catholic Church in Scotland.

On Saturday, just before he was due to say Mass, a statement on the suspension was read to the congregation by Bishop Joseph Toal, the Bishop of Argyll and the Isles and apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Motherwell. It sparked a walkout by parishioners, some in tears, amid scenes described as a near riot. Many in the congregation also left the following day when Bishop Toal turned up to say Sunday morning Mass.

Hugh Neilson, Fr Despard’s lawyer, told The Tablet that the priest has written to Bishop Toal asking to be reinstated.

“Fr Matthew was overwhelmed by the affection that the parishioners have shown him. He is asking Bishop Toal to reconsider his decision. He has written to him already and I will be writing a fuller letter on his behalf,” said Mr Neilson, who was at the church both last Saturday and Sunday.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
KMOX

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (KMOX) – A Lincoln County family that sued St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson for allegedly failing to report child sexual abuse allegations against a priest he lived with has filed a new lawsuit.

The amended suit lays out more allegations against Carlson, claiming he knew that Father Joseph Jiang was saying Mass and hearing confessions in the alleged victim’s home.

“I think its a little bit of a troubling sign that this priest injected himself so deeply into this family and did so with the clear permission of his supervisors,” David Clohessy with Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) told KMOX.

With this week’s filing of an amended lawsuit, the Lincoln County court dismissed as “moot” a request by the Archdiocese to have the original case thrown out. The church now has twenty days to refile its motion to have the lawsuit dismissed.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Riverfront Times

By Lindsay Toler Fri., Nov. 22 2013

Even after a Cathedral Basilica priest asked the archdiocese to reassign him for personal reasons, the church allowed Joseph Jiang to have unsupervised contact with the minor he is accused of sexually assaulting in her home and on church property, according to a lawsuit.

The family of the victim — who remains anonymous because she was a minor at the time of the abuse — warned that 25-year-old Jiang was too affectionate and touchy with their 15-year-old daughter, leading Jiang to ask Archbishop Robert Carlson and the pastor of the Cathedral Basilica for a reassignment for personal reasons.

He was not reassigned. Soon after, he returned to the victim’s home crying, said he could not stay away from the family, pinned the girl against a wall and kissed her, according to the lawsuit.

Jiang faces criminal charges, but the family is also suing the archdiocese and Archbishop Carlson for knowingly allowing a sexual predator to serve as a priest and have unsupervised contact with their daughter.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Berger’s Beat

. . .A pedophile priest case in New Jersey has just settled out of court. The accused is Fr. John E. Shannon, who is accused of molesting kids in the Camden area but he spent the last 20 years at the Vianney Renewal Center, a church facility here. Shannon passed away several weeks ago. .

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on “Philomena,” a movie that opens today:

A half-century ago, an Irish woman gave birth to a son out-of-wedlock, and gave him up for adoption; he was born in an abbey, a venue that allowed the mother to avoid being stigmatized.

There is nothing particularly startling about this, other than the fact that film reviewers are now all aghast about the “horrors” these fallen women experienced; many are making reference to the Magdalene Laundries. As I detailed earlier this year, it’s bunk [click here]. Those who are neither scholars nor principled observers have swallowed this propaganda, so debased is their appetite for anti-Catholic fare.

There is one reviewer who is exceptionally fair, Kyle Smith of the New York Post. He is worth quoting at length:

“The film doesn’t mention that in 1952 Ireland, both mother and child’s life would have been utterly ruined by an out-of-wedlock birth and that the nuns are actually giving both a chance at a fresh start and that both, indeed, in real life, enjoyed. No, this is a diabolical-Catholic film, straight up.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
ITV

Former staff at St William’s school in North Yorkshire say they believe that some of the allegations of abuse are fictitious.

Almost 200 claims have been lodged against the Catholic Diocese of Middlesbrough and the De La Salle Catholic Order of brothers.

Abuse allegations first came out in the 1990’s after the conviction of former teacher Father Anthony McCallen. Jailed for two years for indecent assault and taking indecent pictures of young boys .

That trial prompted allegations against another brother James Carragher, the school principal. He was to be convicted in two separate trials for abusing boys in his care and jailed for a total of 21 years.

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CANADA
Sylvia’s Site

Some details of the afternoon’s testimony at the Iqaluit court house and the sex abuse trial of Father Eric Dejager:

(1) In the afternoon a male testified that when he was a boy Father Eric Dejager ‘raped’ his dog (buggered his dog?) and afterwards sodomized him,(the witness). The witness testified that Dejaeger put him on the table in the furnace room of the church. A nail pierced his chest. He still has the scar. The scar was shown in court.

He told the court that, after his friend was also sodomized by Dejager, his friend bled from the rectum. That friend committed suicide years later

The witness described in graphic detail how he was forced to give Dejaeger oral sex.

He testified that after Dejaeger left Igloolik his father shot Dejaeger’s dog. The dog had apparently been abandoned by Dejaeger;

The witness broke down in tears frequently throughout his testimony;

(4) Father Dejaeger’s lawyer ensured those testifying did not have to face Dejaeger as they testified;

(5) Dejaeger has apparently become quite animated and is passing notes to his lawyer. I am told he appears fit and well. He is very attentive. At times his face reddens.

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse third “case study” hearing has received witness statements from three more victims of the North Coast Children’s Home in New South Wales state. The Home was run by the Anglican Church, known elsewhere as the Episcopalian Church or the Church of England.

It has previously been revealed that the offences were horrendous, and that the local church officials attempted to avoid responsibility for the Home. The chief offenders in this regard were former bishop, Keith Slater, and former administrator, Pat Comben. It has also been revealed that the head of the Anglican Church in Australia, Phillip Aspinall, tried to avoid responsibility for the actions of the local officials by claiming he had no authority over them.

Victim “CD” told the enquiry that sexual, physical and psychological abuse began when he was six years old. He told of witnessing other children being abused, including the rape of a girl by older boys. “She was there, naked and crying, and I couldn’t do or say anything, for fear of being bashed up.” CD also told of being taken away for a weekend at the age of seven or eight by a staff member who sexually abused him

The girl who “CD” was referring to was “CN”, whose statement was read to the hearing. She described her reaction on being admitted to the Home at the age of seven, in the 1950s. “It smelt terrible, like faeces, and there was vomit on the ground. I could see about twenty-odd children, all dirty. It was horrific. I felt that I couldn’t protect myself or my sister … I was told, and I heard other children being told, that we were ‘dirty little heathens’”, her statement read.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Herald-Standard

State police have issued an arrest warrant for a pastor accused of indecent assault among other charges related to having an alleged improper relationship with an 11-year-old girl.

According to the criminal complaint, Ray Scott Teets, 66, of Uniontown has been charged with three felony counts of corruption of minors, concealment of the whereabouts of a child, three counts of luring a child into a motor vehicle or structure, three counts of indecent assault, unlawful restraint of a person, interference with custody of children, three counts of unlawful contact with a minor, three counts of stalking, three misdemeanor counts of corruption of minor, and three counts of criminal trespass.

The criminal complaint said Teets is pastor at Fallen Timbers Community Church on Morgantown Avenue in Springhill Township.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Review

By Liz Zemba

Published: Thursday, Nov. 21, 2013

The pastor of a Fayette County church is accused of indecent sexual contact with the 11-year-old daughter of one of his former congregants.

Ray Scott Teets, 66, of South Union is charged by state police at Uniontown with indecent assault, unlawful restraint, interference with custody of children, corruption of minors, unlawful contact with a minor, concealing the whereabouts of a child, child luring, stalking and criminal trespass.

The girl, her mother and her mother’s fiance were members of a church listed as Fallen Timbers Community Church on Fallen Timbers Road in Springhill in an affidavit of probable cause. Teets is the pastor at Fallen Timbers Community Chapel at that address.

As he was leaving the office of Masontown District Judge Randy Abraham, Teets said the charges were “outrageous.”

Abraham set bail at $250,000. Teets told the judge he has a 1986 conviction for child sexual abuse in Maryland.

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UNITED STATES
The Jewish Press

By: Harry Maryles Published: November 22nd, 2013

It seems we have an epidemic on hand. Sex abuse seems to be more prevalent today than at any time in history. Or is it…?

My guess is that it is as prevalent today as it was in the past. It has always been an epidemic. The difference today is that we know about it. The media is all over it and the internet spreads the word widely and quickly. Everyone knows about it instantly.

And thank God for that. I say ‘Thank God’ even though it makes the Torah world look bad by being no different than other communities that have these problems. But ‘knowledge is power’. Now that we know more we can do more to prevent it and to help survivors better deal with it.

Although we have a long way to go, things have been slowly changing for the better as some survivors have come forward to expose their abusers and testify against them in court. And major Orthodox religious organizations like the RCA and the OU have publicly supported reporting abuse to the police immediately. Even Agudah and Lakewood support it in theory as long as you consult with a rabbi first. (That this is woefully inadequate is beyond the scope of this post.) The only religious groups who outright forbid it are major Chasidic enclaves like Satmar, Ger, and Toldos Aharon.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By JOANNE McCARTHY Nov. 22, 2013

HISTORICAL Newcastle Anglican diocese files alleging ‘‘falsification of records’’, including those of child sex offender priest Allan Kitchingman, were found this year and referred to police, an explosive statement to the royal commission into child abuse has said.

Diocese professional standards director Michael Elliott has told the commission about an anonymous 2002 letter which said the ‘‘disappearance’’ of Kitchingman from a clergy list in 1968 and his subsequent move to the Grafton diocese ‘‘could today be construed as a type of cover-up’’.

‘‘This ‘disappearance’ was deliberate,’’ the letter said.

In 1968 Kitchingman was convicted of an indecent assault on a male, although the commission heard on Monday ‘‘such an act is no longer a criminal offence’’.

He became chaplain to the North Coast Children’s Home at Lismore where he sexually abused a boy, 13, in 1975. He was convicted and jailed in 2002. Despite the jail sentence his name remained on the Newcastle diocese clergy list from 2002 to 2007.

The anonymous 2002 letter accused the diocese of matters that were ‘‘reported to superiors, then dealt with quietly’’, including the case of Kitchingman.

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SOUTH DAKOTA/MINNESOTA
Argus Leader

Written by
John Hult

The movement by church officials of a deceased friar accused of molesting children in South Dakota and Minnesota has resulted in a lawsuit under a recently passed law that extends the statute of limitations in latent abuse cases.

The case against James Vincent Fitzgerald was made possible by the passage this year of the Minnesota Child Victims Act, according to Twin Cities lawyer Jeff Anderson.

Anderson represents a victim of Fitzgerald’s, who is identified as “Doe 19” in a lawsuit filed Thursday in Ramsey County against the Diocese of Crookston and the Oblates of Mary Immaculate.

“It opens up the courthouse for victims to bring actions against the ones who permitted the abuses,” Anderson said, adding the Doe case represents the first claim made under the new Minnesota law.

Fitzgerald abused two Native American children in the late 1960s when working at the Indian Mission in Sisseton under the scope of the Catholic Diocese of Sioux Falls, the complaint said, and was transferred to Squaw Lake, Minn., in the 1970s.

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FLORIDA
CBS Miami

MIAMI (CBSMiami) – An unnamed teacher at a Catholic run pre-school is under investigation for allegedly sexually abusing a 3-year old.

According to a Miami-Dade Police spokesman, authorities were called to the Holy Redeemer Head Start Program.

Thursday the Archdiocese of Miami issued the following statement:

“Today the Archdiocese of Miami’s administrators learned of an allegation of sexual abuse by a teacher at the Catholic Charities’ Head Start Early Childhood Development Center, located at Holy Redeemer Church.

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FLORIDA
NBC South Florida

[with video]

Police Investigating Sexual Abuse Allegation Against Head Start Teacher at Holy Redeemer Church, Archdiocese of Miami Says

Miami-Dade Police are investigating an allegation of sexual abuse against a Head Start teacher at Holy Redeemer Church in northwest Miami-Dade, the Archdiocese of Miami said Thursday.

Archdiocese administrators learned of the allegation involving a teacher at Catholic Charities’ Head Start Early Childhood Development Center, which is located at the church at 1301 Northwest 71st St., on Thursday.

When Catholic Charities’ administrators learned of the allegation, they reported it to the Department of Children and Families, Archdiocese of Miami spokeswoman Mary Ross Agosta said in a statement. Administrators are also fully cooperating with the police investigation, she said.

Police interviewed a teacher, who was cooperative, and she has since been released, Miami-Dade Police spokesman Det. Roy Rutland said.

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AUSTRALIA
SBS

[with audio]

By Ildi Amon
Source World News Australia Radio

The head of the Catholic church’s Truth, Justice and Healing Council says the days of the church investigating sexual abuse complaints against itself are over.

The internal process used by the Catholic Church to deal with sexual abuse claims will be the subject of public hearings in Sydney next month.

The Royal Commission will examine the application of the scheme known as Towards Healing.

Truth, Justice and Healing Council chief executive Francis Sullivan says Towards Healing was an improvement on the previous arrangements.

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LOUISIANA
KSLA

[with video]

By Carolyn Roy

SHREVEPORT, LA (KSLA) –
A Shreveport pastor has been arrested after he was reportedly indicted on federal sex crimes charges.

The FBI confirms that Pastor Andre Lewis is charged with three counts of transporting a child over state lines with intent to engage in sexual acts.

Lewis, pastor of Act on Faith Ministries on Hollywood Avenue, is expected to have a detention hearing in federal court on Monday.

Lewis was arrested early Wednesday morning at his home in the 6200 block of Snowden Drive in the Mooretown neighborhood.

Early Thursday the FBI confirmed that an arrest was made, but according to the clerk at the federal courthouse, the indictment was sealed.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Ashleigh Raper and Thomas Oriti

A lawyer for the Anglican Church has told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse the decision to compensate a group of abuse victims was not motivated by their suffering.

Peter Roland was employed by the Anglican Diocese of Grafton.

He was the Diocese’s legal representative when a group of former residents from the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore wanted compensation for allegedly being sexually and physically abused.

This latest phase of the Royal Commission is looking into the response from the Diocese to the allegations and how it handled the group claim.

During a tense exchange, Counsel Assisting the Commission, Simeon Beckett asked Mr Roland the motivation behind offering compensation.

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AUSTRALIA
The West Australian

By Annette Blackwell, AAP
Updated November 22, 2013

The former registrar of the Anglican diocese at the centre of a child abuse inquiry has admitted lying about church finances to Richard “Tommy” Campion, who had started a group claim against the church.

Pat Comben, a former Queensland education and environment minister, said when he became registrar at Grafton in 2004, he didn’t find the financial position as bad as he’d been led to believe.

During his time as registrar former residents of the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore began to come forward with horrific tales of abuse at the hands of clergy and workers at the orphanage.

Mr Comben, a former clergyman, on Friday told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse he found money “squirrelled away” at the diocese – $50,000 here, $100,000 there in different accounts.

About $2 million was available at the beginning of 2006, he said.

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AUSTRALIA
The West Australian

Annette Blackwell, AAP
November 22, 2013

This is a true story about money, power, sex and religion.

It is about a time when bishops reigned supreme in the Protestant church.

It tells of a hell-hole where decade after decade children were flogged with canes, pony whips and belts until they bled.

It is a horror story about how the very young were often raped by pastors and others and sometimes subjected to pseudo-religious sexual rituals.

For a while there was a grand entrance sign proclaiming the bleak place a Church of England home.

The story is set not in medieval Europe but in a sunny corner of NSW at a time when other Australians were listening to John Farnham singing Sadie (The Cleaning Lady) or INXS belting out Don’t Change.

Through a labyrinthine trail of documents and evidence from seemingly good-hearted professional people who work for the Anglican Church, those attending the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse are piecing the terrible tale together.

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MINNESOTA
Bemidji Pioneer

Stephen J. Lee
Forum News Service

CROOKSTON — A member of the White Earth Band of Chippewa sued the Roman Catholic Diocese of Crookston on Thursday, alleging a priest working under the diocese’s authority sexually abused him when he was 8 and 9 years old on the White Earth Indian Reservation.

Jeff Anderson, the St. Paul attorney who has won hundreds of millions of dollars suing Catholic dioceses in sex abuse cases over the past 20 years, held a news conference at the Polk County Courthouse in Crookston, where the lawsuit was filed Thursday.

He said he has information that the Rev. J. Vincent Fitzgerald, who died in 2009, sexually abused at least four young people from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s while serving as a priest on Indian reservations in South Dakota and Minnesota.

The four alleged victims include two within the Crookston diocese: a boy on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation near Bemidji in the 1970s and “John Doe 19” at White Earth in the mid-1980s. He also has information that Fitzgerald sexually abused two youths in the 1960s in South Dakota, Anderson said.

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UNITED STATES
Stop Baptist Predators

Tucked away in a Washington Post article last month was the news that Baylor University’s president Ken Starr wrote a letter of support on behalf of a child molesting school teacher.

Baylor is the largest Baptist university in the world, and Ken Starr is the man at the top. Formerly, Starr served as a federal judge, as the United States Solicitor General, and as a special prosecutor during the presidency of Bill Clinton.

The child molester who inspired Starr’s letter is Christopher Kloman. For nearly 30 years, Kloman taught at the elite Potomac School in Virginia, which Starr’s own daughter attended.

Faced with multiple accusations of having molested female students, Kloman pled guilty last summer to four counts of indecent liberties with a child younger than 14 and one count of abduction with intent to defile.

At Kloman’s sentencing hearing in October, five victims provided what was described as “harrowing”accounts of the sexual abuse they suffered as kids and of the long-lasting impact it had on their lives. One woman testified that school officials had been informed about Kloman’s conduct, but that they merely sent him for counseling.

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MINNESOTA
MinnPost

By Brian Lambert | 11/19/13
Today in pedophilia … Richard Meryhew and Tony Kennedy of the Strib write: “Lawyers filed suit Tuesday morning in St. Paul against a Catholic-run treatment facility that cared for an abusive priest who then was sent to a new parish where he allegedly targeted a 10-year-old boy for years of repeated abuse. Jeff Anderson, the St. Paul attorney who filed the suit on behalf of “Doe 27,” said it is the first lawsuit under Minnesota’s new Child Victims Act to name St. Luke Institute as a defendant. The facility in Silver Spring, Md., has been a destination for the treatment of Minnesota Catholic monks and priests who have been accused of sexual abuse of children, other sexual misconduct and addiction. The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville are also being sued in the case.”

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CANADA
Winnipeg Free Press

By: Bob Weber, The Canadian Press

IQALUIT, Nunavut – A witness at a child sex abuse trial in the Arctic wept as she described how her relationship with her parents and husband has been damaged by what she says happened to her.
The woman was testifying Thursday against Eric Dejaeger, who faces 69 charges going back to his time as a priest in Igloolik, Nunavut, more than 30 years ago.

BORDERLINE: GRAPHIC CONTENT MAY DISTURB SOME READERS

“My husband is a good man,” the woman told court. “But when it comes to sexual things, we argue and we fight.

“If he would touch me in a way Eric did, I start yelling and getting mad.”

The woman said Dejaeger would pluck her from among the children playing and colouring in the church in Igloolik. He would sit her on his lap, she said, and fondle her while moving his legs underneath her and massaging himself.

“He didn’t talk to me,” she said. “He’d just breathe hard and say, ‘Relax.'”

She said the assaults went on for at least three years, until she was eight years old.

“I was just a kid,” she said. “I didn’t know what he was doing.”

By the time she was 12, other family members realized she was acting strangely.

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
WDAZ

By: Victor Correa, WDAZ

The Diocese of Crookston is facing more allegations of child sexual abuse, this time on various reservations in Minnesota and South Dakota.

At a news conference Thursday attorney Jeff Anderson announced a lawsuit on behalf of a victim being identified only as Doe 19.

Father J. Vincent Fitzgerald is being accused of sexually abusing children on White Earth, Leech Lake, and Lake Travers reservations. Doe 19 claims father Fitzgerald sexually abused him when he was eight or nine years old in 1984 on the White Earth Indian reservation in Naytahwaush, MN. At that time Doe 19 was Fitzgerald’s 4th victim. While Fitzgerald is now deceased, Anderson is taking action against the Diocese of Crookston, claiming Fitzgeral’s abuse was known but rather than having him removed he was instead relocated.

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
Grand Forks Herald

By: Stephen J. Lee, Grand Forks Herald

CROOKSTON — A member of the White Earth Band of Chippewa sued the Roman Catholic Diocese of Crookston Thursday, alleging a priest working under the diocese’s authority sexually abused him when he was 8 and 9 years old on the White Earth Indian Reservation.

Jeff Anderson, the St. Paul attorney who has won hundreds of millions of dollars suing Catholic dioceses in sex abuse cases the past 20 years, held a news conference at the Polk County Courthouse in Crookston where the lawsuit was filed Thursday.

He said he has information that the Rev. J. Vincent Fitzgerald, who died in 2009, sexually abused at least four young people from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s while serving as a priest on Indian reservations in South Dakota and Minnesota.

The four victims include two within the Crookston diocese: a boy on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation near Bemidji in the 1970s and “John Doe 19” at White Earth in the mid-1980s. He also has information that Fitzgerald sexually abused two youths in the 1960s in South Dakota, Anderson said.

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RHODE ISLAND/CONNECTICUT
Patch

Posted by Elizabeth McNamara (Editor) , November 21, 2013

When victims of sexual abuse by priests gathered this week in Providence, at least two of them were there because of abuse they say they suffered while growing up in East Greenwich.

Helen McGonigle lived on Dale Hill Drive from 1967 to 1973 and was abused by Fr. Brendan Symth, who was serving at Our Lady of Mercy during those years. Jeffrey Thomas, who grew up nearby to McGonigle, was also sexually abused by Smyth.

Smyth, who was convicted of 141 cases of sexual assault in Ireland, died in an Irish prison in 1994. His story is well known in Ireland and the U.K. but remains much less so here in Rhode Island. The Catholic Diocese of Providence does not release information about Smyth.

McGonigle and Thomas were in Providence on Wednesday in support of victims of more recent abuse. In particular, they were protesting the Catholic Diocese of Providence’s failure to report more than 800 cases of sexual abuse to the R.I. State Police in the past 20 years.

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: Scott Theisen

A Minnesota man who claims he was abused by a priest on the White Earth Indian Reservation is suing the Diocese of Crookston and the priest’s religious order.

The man is identified in the lawsuit as Doe 19. He claims he was 8 or 9 years old when a priest at St. Anne’s in Naytahwaush sexually abused him in 1984. The priest wasn’t criminally charged. He died in 2009.

The lawsuit says the priest was accused of molesting three children before going to St. Anne’s. It says the Crookston Diocese and the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, United States Province religious order should’ve known he was dangerous.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

by Dan Gunderson, Minnesota Public Radio
November 21, 2013

MOORHEAD, Minn. — A lawsuit filed Thursday against the Catholic diocese of Crookston, Minn., and a Catholic missionary organization alleges sexual abuse of children by a priest.

The Rev. James Vincent Fitzgerald was transferred to the White Earth Reservation in 1984 and soon after abused an eight- or nine-year-old boy, according to the lawsuit. Fitzgerald died in 2009.

The defendants knew about a pattern of abuse and failed to stop it, attorney Jeff Anderson said. “We’re really seeking a public disclosure and revelation of secrets that have long been kept and hoping to get the Catholic bishops in all the dioceses in Minnesota to come clean and become both transparent and do outreach,” he said.

There are allegations of sexual abuse against Fitzgerald dating to the 1960s, Anderson added.

The lawsuit was filed against the Catholic Diocese of Crookston and the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a Catholic missionary organization. Its missionaries began working on Minnesota American Indian reservations in 1923 and continue today, according to the order’s website.

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MINNESOTA
KTTC

[Doe 19 Summons and Complaint
Fitzgerald Timeline
Doe 19 Statement
2010 S.D. Complaint
J. Vincent Fitzgerald Photo]

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – A Minnesota man who claims he was abused by a priest on the White Earth Indian Reservation is suing the Diocese of Crookston and the priest’s religious order.

The man is identified in the lawsuit as Doe 19. He claims he was 8 or 9 years old when a priest at St. Anne’s in Naytahwaush sexually abused him in 1984. The priest wasn’t criminally charged. He died in 2009.

The lawsuit says the priest was accused of molesting three children before going to St. Anne’s. It says the Crookston Diocese and the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, United States Province religious order should’ve known he was dangerous.

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MINNESOTA
Crookston Times

[Doe 19 Summons and Complaint
Fitzgerald Timeline
Doe 19 Statement
2010 S.D. Complaint
J. Vincent Fitzgerald Photo]

There will be a press conference Thursday in Crookston in regards to another civil suit to be filed under the Child Victims Act, this time involving sexual abuse on a reservation.

The announcement involves the White Earth Indian Reservation in Naytahwaush on behalf of a man who attended St. Ann’s Parish. This lawsuit, again, names the Diocese of Crookston, alleging negligence in placing the accused Father J. Vincent Fitzgerald in parishes and communities where he had access to children even after learning that he was a child molester.

This is the first time that Fitzgerald’s name has been publicly released in Minnesota.

He allegedly abused children on three reservations, including orphaned children on the Lake Traverse Reservation, as part of the Sisseton, South Dakota Indian Mission. Fitzgerald is deceased and held positions in the Diocese of Duluth, Diocese of Crookston, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, and others in Illinois, Oregon, Missouri, and South Dakota.

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IOWA
Ottumwa Courier

By MATT MILNER
Courier staff writer

PELLA — Iowa’s Court of Appeals has granted a former Pella pastor a new trial, saying the district court erred.

Patrick Edouard was pastor of Covenant Reformed Church in Pella. He was convicted of multiple counts of sexual exploitation by a counselor after four women from his congregation accused him of engaging in sexual acts. Edouard’s defense said he was not a “counselor or therapist,” providing mental health services, and thus could not be guilty of the exploitation charges. He admitted to engaging in sexual conduct with the women.

Iowa law defines a counselor or therapist as anyone “who provides or purports to provide mental health services.” That can include members of the clergy. But critical terms in the law are undefined, including “treatment,” “assessment” and “counseling.”

A previous ruling from the Iowa Supreme Court held that “strictly personal relationships involving the informal exchange of advice,” did not constitute the counseling role needed for the charge. The district court didn’t include the definition of counseling from that decision in jury instructions, though, and the appeals court says that was a mistake that abused the district court’s discretion.

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IOWA
Seattle PI

By RYAN J. FOLEY, Associated Press
Published 9:38 am, Wednesday, November 20, 2013

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — A former Iowa pastor accused of sexually preying on female members of his congregation was improperly convicted of sexual exploitation and must receive a new trial, an appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The Iowa Court of Appeals overturned a verdict that found Patrick Edouard, former pastor at Covenant Reform Church in Pella, guilty of four counts of sexual exploitation by a counselor and one count of having a pattern or scheme to sexually exploit. An improper jury instruction undermined Edouard’s defense in which he admitted to sexual conduct with the women but denied acting as their counselor, the court ruled.

Edouard, 44, has been free on bond while appealing his conviction, which was returned by a Dallas County jury last year. Under the sentence vacated Wednesday, he would have faced up to five years in prison and, upon release, a 10-year mandatory term of supervision as a sex offender.

The Iowa Attorney General’s Office, which has assisted Marion County in prosecuting the case, will ask the Iowa Supreme Court to review Wednesday’s decision to reinstate the conviction and sentence, spokesman Geoff Greenwood said. But justices do not have to review the 3-0 ruling.

If the ruling stands, prosecutors would need to decide whether to retry him. At any retrial, the appeals court said that an expert witness that would help Edouard’s defense must be allowed to testify after being unfairly excluded from the first.

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IOWA
Des Moines Register

Written by
Grant Rodgers

A former Pella pastor who admitted in court that he had sexual contact with four parishioners will get a new trial, the Iowa Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday.

After a 10-day trial, Patrick Edouard, 44, was convicted in August 2012 of four counts of sexual exploitation by a counselor or therapist and one count of pattern, practice or scheme to engage in sexual exploitation.

Edouard was charged after four parishioners of the Covenant Reformed Church in Pella reported that he had “repeatedly engaged in sex acts with them,” court papers said.

The court’s decision further erodes the sexual exploitation statute that was meant to protect potential victims, said Elizabeth Barnhill, executive director of the Iowa Coalition Against Sexual Assault. It could now be time for the Iowa lawmakers to review and strengthen the statute, she said.

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CANADA
Nunatsiaq Online

DAVID MURPHY

Sometimes it’s hard just to walk through the courtroom door, let alone describe in detail the traumas of childhood.

Muttering profanities outside the door and then hiding her face inside a hoodie as she passed Eric Dejaeger — the man accused by dozen of witnesses of child sexual assault in Igloolik from 1978 to 1982 — the next in a long line of witnesses for the prosecution took the stand at the Nunavut Court of Justice Nov. 20.

Avoiding all eye contact, the woman, 36, sat down and looked left, away from Dejaeger and his lawyer, Malcolm Kempt.

“I don’t want to say his name,” she said when Crown prosecutor Doug Curliss asked who she worked for at St. Stephen’s Catholic Church in Igloolik.

Dejaeger, a Belgian-born Oblate missionary who became a Canadian citizen in the 1970s, has already served a five-year prison sentence imposed in 1990 after he was found guilty of sex crimes which occurred in Baker Lake between 1982 and 1989.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

NCR Editorial Staff | Nov. 21, 2013

EDITORIAL Thirty-seven percent of male clergy of various faith traditions report Internet pornography as “being a current struggle,” and 57 percent of that group report compulsive Internet pornography use, according to a paper, “The Internet and Pornography,” delivered during a 2012 symposium on clergy sexual abuse sponsored by the Vatican at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. Representatives of 110 national bishops’ conferences and 30 religious orders attended that symposium.

“The most significant signs of this vulnerability are issues related to loneliness and isolation, the lack of self-care, higher expectations of themselves, entitlement, and lack of education about this aspect of the Internet,” the paper said.

The paper notes that research on clergy and pornography use is too scant to make wide generalizations, and that no research on Roman Catholic clergy could be found, but initial impressions from the research that is available support a need for more study and seem “to suggest that clergy in the Roman Catholic Church will need better training and education on this issue.”

In July 2011, the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, commonly called the Dallas Charter, was updated to include child pornography in its definition of sexual abuse against a minor, a change necessitated by a similar change in canon law. The latest annual audit of diocesan compliance with the Dallas Charter found in the audit period (July 2011 to June 2102) that five clerics were removed from ministry solely because of allegations of possession of child pornography. That was about 2 percent of all allegations, but pornography is involved in a much higher percentage of all cases of sexual abuse of a minor by clergy.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: RICHARD MERYHEW , Star Tribune Updated: November 20, 2013

Al Michaud gives a voice to outrage with Catholic Church.

Al Michaud couldn’t believe the reaction.

He had just told the Rev. Kevin McDonough, the vicar general of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, that he’d been molested as a teen by a local Catholic priest. McDonough pulled out the priest’s file, Michaud recalled, and began to cry.

The Rev. Jerome Kern had allegedly groped and fondled at least two boys nearly a decade before he had molested Michaud in a pool at the St. Paul Seminary, and the archdiocese had a file on it. As a visibly shaken McDonough apologized, he told Michaud to give him a few weeks to take action on Kern, who was still in the ministry. “I thought I had an ally,” Michaud said.

But when Michaud called two weeks later, he remembers a completely different tone. He said McDonough acted as though he didn’t remember the conversation and told Michaud to pursue the case through other channels.

Michaud was stunned then. He’s even angrier now.

Two decades after that meeting and nearly 37 years after Kern sexually assaulted him, Michaud wants justice — and a face-to-face explanation.

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Ciudad de México – La Procuraduría General de Justicia de Querétaro (PGJE) detuvo al sacerdote católico Arturo Méndez Camacho, quien es acusado de abuso de menores.

De acuerdo con reportes de la prensa local, el clérigo fue capturado ayer por la noche cuando salía de la iglesia de San Antoñito, ubicada en la capital del estado, tras oficiar una misa.

No está claro cuántas son las acusaciones en su contra. Se habla en plural, es decir: podría tratarse de más de un caso de abuso.

Según la prensa local, el cura detenido fue muy cercano al Papa Juan Pablo II. Él mismo, y sus cercanos, lo habrían referido así durante mucho tiempo; Méndez Camacho cumplió 30 años “de sacerdocio” y el evento fue ampliamente difundido por diarios locales.

El sacerdote estudió Derecho Canónico en Roma, Italia. Fue ordenado sacerdote en 1983 por el entonces obispo de Querétaro, Alfonso Toris Cobián, en la iglesia de San Francisco de Asís, en la comunidad de La Llave.

Ayer mismo, la Diócesis de Querétaro emitió un comunicado en el informa que Méndez Camacho será separado de sus funciones para que se investiguen los hechos.

Expresa su confianza en que se aplique la ley  “con justicia, y se llegue a la verdad”.

“Sus abogados darán mayor información sobre los hechos y  proceso legal que se sigue. En este momento el sacerdote no ejercerá su oficio”, dice el boletín.

“Creemos en el estado de derecho, y en la aplicación justa de las leyes. Pedimos a Dios se llegue a la verdad ante este hecho doloroso”, expresa la Diócesis.

México, con una de las mayores poblaciones de católicos, figura entre los países en donde más abusos sexuales han cometido los sacerdotes católicos.

En México, por ejemplo, el cura Marcial Maciel Degollado fundó la Legión de Cristo; no fue sino hasta hace algunos años que se dio a conocer que abusaba sexualmente de menores.

Durante años fue protegido tanto por autoridades religiosas como civiles.

En 2009 se supo que el cura era padre de una joven española. Los legionarios así lo informaron a través de un comunicado, en febrero de 2010.

Aunque Maciel Degollado fue considerado un depredador sexual –violó niños y tuvo relaciones prolongadas con varias mujeres–, pero jamás pisó la cárcel.

Murió en Estados Unidos, sin perder su estatus dentro de la iglesia católica.

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CANADA
Bay Today

IQALUIT, Nunavut – A witness at the trial of a former priest accused of sex abuse against children in the Arctic has testified that he used to pluck her out of a group of playing children and rape her.

She told an Iqaluit court that Eric Dejaeger (deh’-YAY’-guhr) would take her to a dark corner of a room in the church building where her friends were colouring pictures.

She said the one-time Oblate missionary used to fondle her and force her to do the same to him.

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MAINE
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

He allegedly shared porn with children
Wisconsin police are investigating the case
And Catholic officials say it could be a felony
Victims group calls for outreach to “victims, witnesses & whistleblowers”

For immediate release: Thursday Nov 21, 2013

For more information: David Clohessy of St. Louis, SNAP Director (314) 566-9790 cell, SNAPclohessy@aol.com

A priest who worked at a Portland Catholic church for a decade has been suspended from his job in Wisconsin and is being investigated by police for “questionable use of Facebook.”

Milwaukee archdiocesan officials say the allegations “would likely result in a felony charge.” A parishioner says the cleric is “accused of using his Facebook account to share pornography, primarily with adults, but occasionally with minors.”

[Kenosha News]

Fr. Ireneusz Chodakowski allegedly rebuffed a parish employee’s requests that he “make changes in the video content of his Facebook account,” apparently to prevent minors from seeing “pornographic images [Chodakowski] was distributing.”

From 1998-2009, Fr. Chodakowski headed St. Louis Catholic church in Portland. According to a church website, he was reportedly also assigned to work at a Catholic school in Thomson, Connecticut.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

And new allegations made in clergy sex case
Amended lawsuit includes alarming details
A second top archdiocesan staffer is named
Carlson intended to foil civil lawsuit, it says

WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, clergy sex abuse victims and their supporters will announce that a judge is letting a high profile clergy sex abuse case – charging recent child sex crimes and cover ups by Catholic officials – move ahead. They will also disclose that “disturbing” new details about the case are filed in a new court filing, including

–20 new paragraphs about the abuse and top church officials involvement in it,
–a new “count” or charge against St. Louis’ archbishop (“spoilation”), and
–the name of a new bishop – not linked to the case before – who sent the priest to the victim.

It also includes new allegations, not made before, including that Archbishop Robert Carlson

–called the accused priest “often while the priest was in the victim’s home,”
–gave the accused priest permission to perform mass at the victim’s home,
–received a complaint that the accused was babysitting the victim’s siblings,
–ordered a church investigation into the complaint,
–told the priest to stay away from the family “until the investigation cleared him,”
–intentionally tried to “disrupt or defeat” a potential lawsuit, and
–“chose to avoid controversy” and “the result was harm to the victim.”

WHEN:
TODAY, Thursday, November 21 at 2:30 pm

WHERE:
On the sidewalk in front of the “new” Cathedral at 4431 Lindell (at Newstead) in the CWE

WHO:
Four to five people who are concerned Catholics or members of a support group called SNAP (the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests)

WHY:
Earlier this month, Archbishop Robert Carlson tried to have one of the most shocking clergy sex abuse and cover ups lawsuits tossed out of court. But on Tuesday, in a two page order, Judge Chris Kunza Mennemeyer decided that the case will go forward. It involves repeated child sex crimes against a teenager (as recently as last year) by a cleric very close to Carlson, Fr. Joseph Jiang.

[BishopAccountability.org]

Now, that lawsuit has been amended to include new charges and some unusual details, including that Bishop Robert Herman instructed Fr. Jiang to go to plaintiff’s home to pray over the family. (Herman has never been named in connection to this suit before.)

The amended suit also accuses Carlson of intentionally trying to “disrupt or defeat” a potential lawsuit by trying to get the victim’s parents to give him a $20,000 check that Fr. Jiang had left them. (Carlson’s move indicates “fraud and a desire to suppress the truth,” the suit says.)

Other new information and/or charges include that Fr. Jiang

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MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

Crookston Press Conference Thursday
First civil suit to be filed under Child Victims Act involving sexual abuse on a reservation
Father J. Vincent Fitzgerald sexually abused children on White Earth, Leech Lake and Lake Traverse Reservations in Minnesota and South Dakota
Defendants include the Diocese of Crookston and Oblates of Mary Immaculate

What: At a news conference Thursday in the lobby of the Polk County Courthouse in Crookston, Lonna Hunter, a passionate advocate for Native children and sexual abuse attorney Jeff Anderson will:

• Announce the filing of a sexual abuse lawsuit on behalf a man, Doe 19, who was abused by Father J. Vincent Fitzgerald at St. Ann’s Parish in Naytawaush, Minnesota, on the White Earth Indian Reservation. The lawsuit names the Diocese of Crookston, and the Oblates of Mary Immaculate alleging they were negligent in placing Fitzgerald in parishes and communities where he had access to children even after learning that Fitzgerald was a child molester.
• Request the release of names of credibly accused and admitted child molesters from the Diocese of Crookston. This is the first time Fitzgerald’s name has been publicly released in Minnesota.
• Notify sexual abuse survivors who experienced abuse on any reservation in Minnesota that the Child Victims Act may be able to help them achieve healing and justice. Fitzgerald allegedly abused children on all three reservations, including orphaned children on the Lake Traverse Reservation as part of the Sisseton, South Dakota Indian Mission.

WHEN: Thursday November 21, 2013 at 1:00PM CST

WHERE: Inside the Crookston Courthouse
1200 Memorial Drive
Crookston, MN 56716

WHO: Lonna Hunter, an advocate for Native children who has worked tirelessly for policy and effective responses to institutional child sexual abuse. She previously worked with the Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition and is currently the program coordinator the federal Office of Victims of Crime project, the Minnesota Network Legal Services for Victims of Crime at the Council on Crime and Justice. Attorney Jeff Anderson, is a St. Paul, Minnesota based attorney who, through the civil justice system, advocates nationwide for sexual abuse survivors.

Notes:
• Copies of the documents and complaint will be available at www.andersonadvocates.com.
• Fitzgerald is deceased and held positions in the Diocese of Duluth, Diocese of Crookston, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Diocese of Springfield (IL), Diocese of Belleville (IL), Diocese of Sioux Falls, Archdiocese of Portland (OR) and the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau (MO).

Contact: Jeff Anderson: Cell: 612.817.8665 Office: 651.237.5143
Lonna Hunter: Cell: 651.442.3253

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IRELAND
Association of Catholic Priests

Take the Survey Now

In preparation for the Extraordinary Synod on the Family to be held 5th – 19th October 2014, the Vatican has asked national bishops’ conferences around the world to seek the opinions of Catholics on a number of church teachings including contraception, same-sex marriage and divorce.

Archbishop Lorenzo Baldisseri, secretary general of the Vatican’s Synod of Bishops, asked the bishops’ conferences to commence a survey “immediately as widely as possible to deaneries and parishes so that input from local sources can be received.”

We are aware that the Vatican document is difficult to complete, so we are presenting here a version that is as close as we can make it to the original, but is such that we believe will made this canvass of views more readily available to a greater number. We suggest that you fill it in either as individuals or as groups. The important thing is that it represents the livid experience of as many people, single, couples, families, in our Church.

We acknowledge the help of our friends in the reform movement in the United States in the preparation of this survey.

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NEW JERSEY
The Star-Ledger

By Tim Schmalz

Two months ago, news broke that a priest in the Diocese of Trenton had been exchanging sexually charged text messages with someone he thought was a 16-year-old boy.

I was that fictitious boy.

Matthew Riedlinger was an assistant pastor at St. Aloysius Church in Jackson. In 2011, I and another Catholic University of America student complained to Trenton Bishop David M. O’Connell that Riedlinger had sexually harassed us and other young men repeatedly for years. In the summer of 2012, we posed as a 16-year-old boy on Face­book and set up a sting.

Within two weeks of the first contact, Riedlinger talked about pornography, mutual masturbation and sexual encounters. And, he wanted to meet “me.”

In August 2012, we gave transcripts of the conversations to O’Connell, who removed Riedlinger from the parish, but the bishop did not tell parishioners of the allegations against Riedlinger for more than a year — until Sept. 21, after being told The Star-Ledger would be publishing a story on the scandal.

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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Hispanically Speaking

Dominican Republic prosecutors investigating former Archbishop and Papal Nuncio Jozef Wesolowski, on allegations of child sexual abuse, have concluded he sexually abused at least five boys under the age of 15.

Last fall, a local news program aired allegations that Wesolowski had paid to have sex with minor boys in the capital city of Santo Domingo. The investigative report also indicated Wesolowski was a regular vistor to the Zona Colonial area of Santo Domingo where he was seen drinking and paying for sex in open areas of the Zona.

Wesolowski, 65, had been representing Vatican interests in the predominantly Catholic country for the last six years, when these allegations surfaced. The Polish priest was ordained by then Bishop Karol Wojtyla who later became Pope John II and will soon become a saint.

The Catholic priest has been under investigation by Dominican authorities after the abuse allegations surfaced and officially removed from his duties by the Vatican in August.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

The suspension of a priest is the correct course of action to follow as inquiry gets under way, writes Michael Kelly

CONFUSION and misunderstanding, rather than righteous anger, are at the root of protests by his parishioners at the suspension of Fr Matthew Despard while a penal judicial process is undertaken into the way he made his allegations over homosexual bullying in the Catholic Church. Although he wrote his book, Priesthood in Crisis, in 2010 he did not self-publish it on Amazon until April this year. The memoir reflects his own experiences of being solicited by gay priests and the anger he genuinely felt at these abuses continuing in the Church.

However, a number of individuals named, including laity as well as clergy, took exception to the ways in which they had been portrayed and petitioned for the book to be removed from publication. It was, suggesting that at least some of the complainants had advanced compelling cases in law.

Clearly, such allegations as 
Fr Despard made deserve thorough and detailed examination by the Church and, if upheld, for action to be taken. An investigation is also necessary to satisfy those who feel wronged by the book. That process is just beginning. But first the Church wants to examine the way in which Fr Despard brought his claims to the attention of the public. It is suggested that he should have used the Church’s own procedures to have the matters investigated, as did the four priests who anonymously made complaints to the Holy See about Cardinal Keith O’Brien.

Possibly better versed in the legal process and procedures, they took their allegations directly to Rome and, as a result, action was taken against the former Archbishop of Edinburgh. The seismic factor that brought their complaints to light, rather than allowing the process to be completed in private, was that Benedict XVI announced his abdication, raising the possibility that O’Brien would be voting for the new Pope. The complainants, determined to stop that, allowed their private allegations to be made public. They, in fact, achieved all of their objectives in completely removing O’Brien from all his priestly duties.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

21 November 2013

CATHOLIC Truth has been approached by some concerned parishioners in the parish of St John Ogilvie in Blantyre, deeply upset at the suspension of their priest, Father Matthew Despard.

We have supported Fr Despard – although we have never met him or had any personal contact with him – and we are willing to speak on behalf of these concerned parishioners because we believe that he is being unjustly treated by the hierarchy. Priests who admit to being homosexual are on public record disowning Catholic sexual morality in this area, and even openly work within the “gay rights” movement, yet they are allowed to remain “priests in good standing” without any sanctions imposed upon them.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By JOANNE McCARTHY Nov. 21, 2013

NEWCASTLE Anglican bishop administrator Peter Stuart expressed his ‘‘deep regret’’ to the royal commission over the diocese’s lack of knowledge about two priests, in a letter he wrote earlier this month.

The diocese was unaware of ‘‘the facts, matters and circumstances’’ relating to convicted child sex offender priest Allan Kitchingman, and Canon Campbell Brown, until the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse, Bishop Stuart wrote in a letter on November 14 and tendered as evidence to the commission.

The two priests are the subject of the commission’s third session of public hearings in Sydney.

Reverend Kitchingman was jailed in 2002 for sexually assaulting a boy, 13, at North Coast Children’s Home at Lismore in the 1970s.

Evidence before the commission includes that in 2005 former children’s home resident Tommy Campion alleged Canon Brown sexually abused him at the home.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By JOANNE McCARTHY Nov. 21, 2013

FORMER Newcastle Anglican Dean Graeme Lawrence was ‘‘a very powerful man’’ who allegedly ‘‘protected’’ people including possibly a convicted child sex offender priest, the royal commission has been told.

The recently defrocked Mr Lawrence was ‘‘quite a powerful person who exercised influence over even bishops’’, former diocese professional standards director Philip Gerber said yesterday.

During his time as Dean, Newcastle Anglican Cathedral became ‘‘a place where people who had less than savoury pasts were congregating’’.

‘‘There was a lot of sort of low-level information that made me very uneasy about who and what was going on at the cathedral,’’ Mr Gerber said.

It was no surprise to Mr Gerber that sex offender priest Allan Kitchingman worshipped at the cathedral after he was released from jail in 2004 for crimes committed against a 13-year-old boy at North Coast Children’s Home at Lismore in 1975.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX THE AUSTRALIAN NOVEMBER 22, 2013

A PEDOPHILE priest, who was twice convicted of indecently assaulting teenage boys, was never disciplined by the church and continued to worship publicly at an Anglican cathedral until October this year.

Documents tendered to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse show the man, Allan Kitchingman, was one of three church officials able to remain priests despite the church receiving allegations they had sexually abused children.

Philip Gerber, the former professional standards director for the Anglican diocese of Newcastle, NSW, told the commission that Kitchingman continued to worship at the city’s cathedral after his most recent conviction in 2002.

“There were a number of people, including the dean of the cathedral . . . who had some sort of history of misconduct or abuse that were collecting around Newcastle cathedral,” Mr Gerber told the commission.

“Dean Graeme Lawrence was a very powerful man and he protected people who were in his cathedral . . . he was quite a powerful person who exercised influence over people, even bishops.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
ABC 23

[with video]

The non profit charity, Road To Recovery, says it has been helping dozens of people who accused Baker of abusing them in his roles as teacher, coach and athletic trainer. These pare positions Baker held at Bishop McCort Catholic High School in Johnstown in the nineties. Luke Bradescu was a freshman at a high school in Ohio. His mother says she learned of the allegations earlier this year and wants to know who made the call to transfer Baker to Pennsylvania. She also says she wants people who may have been abused to get the help they need….

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

David Hurst
dhurst@tribdem.com

JOHNSTOWN — Barbara Aponte said she understands all too well the consequences of silence.

The Ohio woman said her son, Luke, one of hundreds from several states alleged to have been abused by Brother Stephen Baker over a 20-year period, took his own life in 2003 after years of quietly struggling to cope with it.

It’s the reason she brought his story to Johnstown on Wednesday, hopeful those struggling in silence to deal with their own abuse will see they aren’t alone – and learn from it.

“Staying silent doesn’t help. If you don’t deal with it, it will eat at you,” said Aponte, whose son was a student at John F. Kennedy High School in Warren, Ohio, during Baker’s years there. “Whether it’s you or someone you know that was abused, it’s so important that you come forward so the healing process can begin.”

Aponte’s story was part of a press conference Wednesday held by New Jersey-based nonprofit Road to Recovery Inc., which contends there are perhaps hundreds across the country, including local men and women, who still have not come forward about abuse by Baker.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

David Hurst
dhurst@tribdem.com

JOHNSTOWN — An attorney representing 34 alleged victims of the late Brother Stephen Baker called on the local Roman Catholic diocese to “set the truth free” by releasing the former athletic trainer’s personnel files.

Boston-based attorney Mitchell Garabedian called on the Altoona-Johnstown Roman Catholic Diocese to release “secret files” on Baker, who served as a religion teacher, sports trainer and baseball coach at McCort from 1992 to 2000 – a period when it’s alleged Baker sexually assaulted as many as 80 students.

“It’s time for the diocese to come clean,” Garabedian added, saying years of silence at McCort has wrecked countless lives. “Let’s get the truth out, so we can know who knew about this. And these victims can heal.”

Garabedian and Robert Hoatson, a former priest and co-founder of the nonprofit Road to Recovery, a New Jersey charity formed to guide sex abuse victims on a path toward healing, made the statement at a press conference from inside a suite at the downtown Johnstown Holiday Inn on Wednesday.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Mittelbayerische

SENGENTHAL/NÜRNBERG. Seit 20. August war er in Untersuchungshaft gesessen, seit Freitag ist der des sexuellen Missbrauchs beschuldigte Ex-Pfarrer von Reichertshofen wieder auf freiem Fuß.

Der Anwalt des Seelsorgers hatte beim Landgericht Nürnberg-Fürth Beschwerde gegen die U-Haft seines Mandanten eingereicht, daraufhin wurde der Haftbefehl aufgehoben. Aktuell bestehe kein dringender Tatverdacht, zudem stehe Aussage gegen Aussage, so Anita Traud, Justizsprecherin der Staatsanwaltschaft Nürnberg-Fürth, auf MZ-Nachfrage.

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NEW JERSEY
Courier-Post

Written by
Jim Walsh
Courier-Post

The Diocese of Camden and a Ohio man have agreed in principle to settle a lawsuit over alleged incidents of clergy sex abuse.

Mark Bryson sued the diocese in January 2012, alleging he was molested as a child by a parish priest, the late Joseph Shannon, at St. Anthony of Padua Church in Camden’s Cramer Hill section.

The tentative settlement was announced as the two sides sparred in court over Bryson’s claim of repressed memory, a key element in setting a legal deadline for Bryson’s suit.

Bryson, born in 1961, said he was assaulted as a first-grader at St. Anthony of Padua’s parish school. He claimed to recall the abuse in February 2010 after seeing someone who reminded him of Shannon.

The diocese challenged the validity of repressed memory and argued it should not be required to defend itself over incidents that allegedly occurred decades before.

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CALIFORNIA
Monterey County Weekly

Mary Duan and Sara Rubin

A judge has issued a preliminary decision that the Monterey County Weekly can obtain documents in the case of Father Edward Fitz-Henry, a Catholic priest suspended amid allegations he molested a teenage parishioner at Madonna del Sasso Church in Salinas, and may have abused other young boys in the Monterey Diocese decades ago.

Monterey Superior Court Judge Tom Wills’ decision comes after the Weekly filed a motion to intervene in a suit brought by the most recent alleged victim. The man, now in his early 20s, claimed Fitz-Henry assaulted him multiple times while at Madonna del Sasso starting around 2005. The Weekly’s aim is to unseal documents filed in the case, as well as obtain other evidence like deposition transcripts.

Wills issued the preliminary ruling on Nov. 6, but it wasn’t given to reporters until Nov. 13. The Weekly broke the story online.

“We’re grateful the court’s preliminary ruling recognizes the public interest in disclosure of the information,” says Weekly attorney Roger Myers of the San Francisco firm Bryan Cave LLP. “It’s important this order be affirmed at the hearing so the public can know how the Diocese responded to the allegations against Father Fitz-Henry.”

In making his preliminary ruling, Wills ordered the deposition of Don Cline, a former Salinas cop hired by the Diocese to investigate the abuse allegations, to be redacted, meaning portions of the text will be removed or blacked out.

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IDAHO
KTVB

[with video]

by Jamie Grey
Follow: @KTVBJamieGrey
KTVB.COM
Posted on November 20, 2013

BOISE — A former Treasure Valley Boy Scout, a “John Doe,” who’s part of a lawsuit against the scouts and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is speaking exclusively to KTVB, explaining why he’s suing decades after he says he was sexually abused and why he still doesn’t want his identity known.

The lawsuit now includes at least a dozen men, and attorneys on the case say more are expected to join. All but one are listed as John Doe on the filing. Most say they were the victim of one man: Jim Schmidt, a former Caldwell scoutmaster who was convicted of abusing another scout in 1983.

“He seemed to love scouting. He seemed to care about the people that he led, the boys. The boys liked him. He gave us a lot of attention,” Doe, the plaintiff, said.

When this John Doe was 12 and 13 years old, he says his scoutmaster sexually abused him at scout meetings held at an LDS church, at the scoutmaster’s home, in the scoutmaster’s car, but mostly on camping trips.

“Some of us had fathers that were very busy. Some didn’t have fathers, or fathers that were absent, and Jim Schmidt filled a void in the lives of a lot of us boys,” Doe said.

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OREGON
The Oregonian

By David Leslie and Rev. Amy Gopp

On Nov. 24, churches, congregations and other faith communities around the country will be participating in Speak Out Sunday – an annual day set aside to raise awareness and speak out about sexual and gender based violence (SGBV). SGBV includes domestic violence, rape, sex trafficking, child sex abuse and related acts.

We are proud that the Portland area will be among the most active regions of the country on Speak Out Sunday.

Speak Out Sunday was created by WeWillSpeakOut.US, a coalition and movement led by IMA World Health designed to empower faith communities to speak out and take action to prevent and address SGBV. It is the faith community’s way of collectively amplifying the global efforts of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence held annually from Nov. 25 (the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women) to Dec. 10 (Human Rights Day).

Why do we need Speak Out Sunday?

Two years ago, Amy traveled to eastern Congo and held the hands of women who had been savagely raped. Left for dead, they made their way to IMA World Health, which works to provide medical care, counseling, legal support and economic opportunities for women – and occasionally men – brutalized by sexual violence.

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WEST VIRGINIA
WSAZ

MINGO COUNTY, W.Va. (WSAZ) — A former youth leader at a church in Mingo County is facing sexual abuse charges.

West Virginia State Police say the suspect, 52-year-old Gary Adkins, is accused of inappropriately touching a 7-year-old female relative.

Adkins was charged Tuesday.

According to the criminal complaint, the 7-year-old told investigators Adkins had sexually abused her.

The complaint says the alleged activity took place at Adkins’ home along Upper Sheppard Town Road in Delbarton during the summer of 2012.

The complaint says the girl’s mother told investigators she had alarming changes in behavior, including asking frequently “if she is nasty on the inside and out” and repeatedly “asking God to forgive her of all her sins.”

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

An inquiry has heard of an Anglican official’s regret at not taking disciplinary action against a convicted pedophile, which allowed him to continue representing himself as an ordained minister.

Reverend Allan Kitchingman was convicted in 2002 on five counts of indecently assaulting a 13-year-old boy in 1975 at the North Coast Children’s Home, where he was chaplain.

He presented himself as an ordained minister in the community once he finished his jail term for indecently assaulting a teenager.

The Royal Commission into Institutionalised Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is examining the Anglican Diocese of Grafton’s response to abuse at the Lismore home.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

[with audio]

The Royal Commission has heard from senior officials from the Anglican Church, who’ve criticised the way the Grafton diocese handled complaints from the former residents of the North Coast Children’s Home. The national inquiry into child sexual abuse has been told the Grafton diocese, which ran the orphanage in Lismore, was more concerned about church finances than helping abuse victims. A former head of professional standards admitted that he failed to take disciplinary action against a clergyman who was convicted and jailed for child sex offences.

Transcript

MARK COLVIN: Senior Anglican Church officials have criticised the way the Grafton Diocese in New South Wales handled abuse complaints from former residents of a Church-run children’s home.

The Royal Commission into child sexual abuse has been told that the diocese which ran the orphanage in Lismore was more concerned about its own finances than helping abuse victims.

The inquiry also heard that the leadership of the Grafton Diocese contributed to the mental distress of the victims who were seeking redress and compensation.

PM’s Emily Bourke reports.

EMILY BOURKE: Yet more Anglican Church officials are being quizzed by the Royal Commission about how the church dealt with dozens of abuse victims from the North Coast Children’s Home.

But today the inquiry also looked at how the Church handled offenders in its ranks.

Philip Gerber was a professional standards director in the dioceses of Sydney, Grafton and Newcastle. He told the commission that he regrets taking more than a year to inform police about a suspected paedophile.

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AUSTRALIA
Telegraph

Victim’s warnings about clergyman who assaulted him ignored because offender had common name, inquiry told.

MATTHEW BENNS THE TELEGRAPH NOVEMBER 21, 2013

CHILD sexual abuse victim Richard Campion’s warning about a clergyman who assaulted him was ignored by the Anglican Church’s standards watchdog because the offender had a common name, the royal commission into child sex abuse heard today.

Quizzed about his failure to act, Philip Gerber, former Professional Standards Director for the Dioceses of Sydney, Grafton and Newcastle, admitted: “I am very unhappy with myself.”

Mr Campion’s 2005 letter told how he had been sexually abused at the former North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore by a Reverend Brown.

“It’s not an uncommon name, it’s you know, Brown,” said Mr Gerber.

Counsel assisting the Royal Commission, Simeon Beckett, suggested he could have asked Mr Campion for more detail on his attacker, including his first name.

“It wouldn’t have been much of a stretch would it to have actually done some research to ascertain what his name was and whether he had been licensed to officiate in the Diocese of Grafton,” he said.

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AUSTRALIA
The West Australian

By Ava Benny-Morrison, AAP
Updated November 21, 2013

By not acting on a letter revealing horrific abuse at the hands of an Anglican Church clergyman, Philip Gerber admits he may have put other vulnerable children at risk.

Pressed before a royal commission on why he did not look up the offending cleric, the former professional standards director said the alleged perpetrator had a common surname – Brown.

It is in retrospect that Mr Gerber has admitted his oversight and expressed remorse at not referring the 2005 letter detailing physical and sexual abuse to police.

The letter was from Richard “Tommy” Campion, a survivor of abuse at the North Coast Children’s Home at Lismore in NSW.

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OHIO
Youngstown Vindicator

Staff report

WARREN

The Diocese of Youngstown has received a settlement request on behalf of 25 more purported molestation victims of Brother Stephen Baker, the Franciscan friar who worked at Warren John F. Kennedy High School from 1986 to 1991.

Atty. Mitchell Garabedian of Boston sent the diocese a letter dated Oct. 17, 2013, demanding $1 million for each claim. Baker’s order, The Third Order Regular Franciscans, received a similar letter with the same demand, the Diocese said in a news release.

“The Diocese of Youngstown will follow its standard pastoral practice in this matter, as it does in any allegation of child abuse,” the diocese said.

“First, at the recommendation of the predominately lay Diocesan Review Board, the diocese will investigate each claim. If any of the claims are found to be credible, the diocese will offer financial assistance for counseling.”

Additionally, Bishop George V. Murry will meet with any victim who wants to speak with him personally, the diocese said.

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PROVIDENCE (RI)
NECN

[documents via NBC 10]

November 21, 2013

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A group of men and women who claim sexual abuse by priests have accused the Catholic Diocese of Providence of failing to properly investigate more than 800 allegations over the past 20 years.

The Providence Journal reports ( ) that Jeffrey Thomas of Massachusetts and Helen McGonigle, a Connecticut lawyer, said Wednesday they were raped as children.

The Diocese of Providence says it reports clergy sex abuse of minors to law enforcement and is not aware of priests currently in ministry who have “credible allegations” of sexual abuse of minors.

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