ABUSE TRACKER

AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Anglican bishop of Grafton Sarah Macneil says timing of appointment is ‘messy’ as diocese appears before royal commission

November 18, 2013

Heath Gilmore
Reporter

The Anglican church’s first female bishop has described the announcement of her historical appointment as “messy” after it was brought forth at the same time a royal commission focused on her new diocese.

The Reverend Dr Sarah Macneil, 58, was elected unanimously as the 11th bishop of the Anglican diocese of Grafton.

Her appointment was announced at church services on Sunday, a day before the Anglican church and Grafton diocese appeared before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Her predecessor, Keith Slater, resigned in May this year for his failings in handling complaints about sexual abuse and brutal beatings at the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore, which operated under the Grafton diocese.

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AUSTRALIA
International Business Times

By Vittorio Hernandez | November 18, 2013

Defrocked Victorian Catholic paedophile priest Gerald Francis Ridsdale admitted on Monday morning to the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court through a videolink from his cell to 14 more sexual abuses of children.

With his new admission, the number of the young male and female victims of the 79-year-old former priest goes up to 45. He committed them between the 1961 and 1982.

His new admission would affect Mr Ridsdale’s eligibility for parole which is up in the coming weeks.

He has been in jail since 1994 for sexual offences against 21 victims – 20 boys and 1 girl. His victims rose to 31 when he was convicted of more charges in 2006 for sexual abuse of 10 more boys from 1970 to 1987.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

The Royal Commission into child sexual abuse will this week look at how the Anglican Dioceses of Newcastle and Grafton responded to allegations of abuse against a reverend of the church.

The third public hearing of the Royal Commission begins in Sydney today.

It will examine the response by the Anglican Diocese of Grafton to claims of child abuse at the North Coast Children’s home in Lismore.

The home was set up in the 1930s to look after orphans or abandoned children.

It is estimated that at least 200 children were sexually and physically abused there up until the 1980s.

One of the victims is Tommy Campion, who was sent to the home when he was just two years old.

His sister was four.

“My mother ran away, and so my father had us so he put us in the home,” he said.

The 65-year-old says the 14 years he spent at the home were hell, with children being sexually abused, humiliated and flogged by the matrons and clergymen in charge.

“Beaten with sticks, belts, electric cords. At times he would use a belt buckle until the kid was left there bleeding and crying.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

The Royal Commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse will be preparing to publicly examine the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore. David Hanger from the Professional Standards Committee says the people who handled the complaints at the time were concerned about the Church’s financial exposure. He says the diocese is currently handling several other cases from the orphanage and they’ve referred some matters to police.

Transcript

TONY EASTLEY: Two months ago, the Anglican Diocese of Grafton in northern New South Wales publicly apologised to victims who suffered abuse over decades at the children’s home in Lismore.

The apology came several months after the Anglican Bishop of Grafton, Keith Slater, resigned, admitting he failed to properly manage the allegations and had turned victims away.

The diocese says it’s currently handling more cases from the orphanage and they’ve referred some matters to police.

David Hanger is chair of the Professional Standards Committee for the Diocese of Grafton.

He’s speaking here to AM’s Emily Bourke.

DAVID HANGER: What we discovered in terms of our failures was a real wake up call for us as a diocese. The outcome of that has been a deep sense of shame, a deep sense of repentance, a deep sense of wanting to ensure that we respond appropriately to what’s happened in the past and in the future. And that’s an attitudinal change for us.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – AM

TONY EASTLEY: When victims began to make claims of abuse at an Anglican run children’s home in Lismore in New South Wales in 2005, the Anglican Church argued it didn’t have a duty of care to the orphans who were abused at the home.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will begin its third public inquiry today, and the focus is on the North Coast Children’s Home.

The public hearing will investigate how complaints of abuse were handled, how the group claim was settled and what happened when other former residents of the orphanage came forward.

AM’s Emily Bourke reports.

EMILY BOURKE: The Anglican Church ran the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore from the 1940s to the 1980s.

In 2005, former residents from the home started coming forward, alleging physical, psychological and sexual abuse, dating back decades.

How the Church responded to those complaints and what redress it offered will now be dissected by the Royal Commission.

TOMMY CAMPION: I was still fighting and fighting when Julia Gillard stood up an announced a Royal Commission, and I felt safe then.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

ABC

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has heard sexual and physical abuse was both severe and far reaching at a home run by the Anglican Church in northern New South Wales.

The commission this morning began its third round of public hearings, this time to examine the alleged sexual and physical abuse of up to 200 children at the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore.

Counsel assisting the commission Simeon Beckett told the opening in Sydney this morning that the hearing will consider what happened at the home and how the Anglican Diocese of Grafton responded to allegations of abuse.

“The conditions for the children in the home were harsh. In at least the 1950s and 60s food and clothing were limited,” he said.

“Former residents have provided accounts to the royal commission that the children were often hungry.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

A PRIEST who wrote a controversial book claiming there was a culture of homosexual bullying within the Catholic Church in Scotland has been suspended.

Parishioners at St John Ogilvie’s Church in High Blantyre, South Lanarkshire, reportedly reacted angrily and walked out after being told shortly before mass that their parish priest Father Matthew Despard had been removed from the ministry.

Father Despard alleged in his self-published memoir Crisis In The Priesthood that sexual misconduct had been rife for decades in seminaries where teenagers train for the priesthood.

Parishioners had been greeted by a weeping Father Despard outside the church as they arrived for the 4:30pm mass on Saturday. Bishop Joseph Toal, Acting Bishop of the Diocese of Motherwell, read out a statement informing them “a penal ­judicial process” had been instituted against Father Despard.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

November 18, 2013

Steve Butcher

One of Australia’s worst paedophile former priests has admitted to multiple new offences against 14 victims.

Gerald Ridsdale on Monday pleaded guilty in the Melbourne Magistrates Court to the crimes committed in the 1960s and 1970s.

He had been eligible for parole last June after serving a long prison sentence for offences against 40 children between 1961 and 1987.

Ridsdale, 79, pleaded guilty to 30 charges, mostly indecent assault, against 14 victims which included three offences against a female.

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CANADA
ABC News

IQALUIT, Nunavut November 17, 2013 (AP)

A former Roman Catholic priest goes on trial Monday on multiple sex-related charges involving Inuit children in a tiny arctic hamlet nearly 18 years after he fled to his homeland of Belgium to avoid prosecution.

Eric Dejaeger has pleaded not guilty to 76 sex-related charges and will be tried by a judge alone. The charges involve 41 complainants and 26 people from the hamlet of Igloolik on the Melville Peninsula are expected to testify.

Dejaeger was returned to Canada from Belgium in January 2011 for an immigration violation rather than on an extradition order. A Belgian journalist realized that Dejaeger had lost his Belgian citizenship in 1977 when he became a naturalized Canadian. He was kicked out because he had been living in Belgium since 1995 without a visa.

An Inuit woman who was among the alleged victims in Igloolik said she was relieved that the former priest is finally going to face trial..

“It’s almost a relief,” said the woman, who cannot be identified under a court order. “We were told that he was never going to be found. And when he came back to life and came to Canada, that was a shock to all of us.”

The charges against Dejaeger include allegations from February 1995 when he was originally charged with three counts of indecent assault and three counts of buggery, a charge no longer in the Criminal Code. They relate to his time as a priest in Igloolik between 1978 and 1982, where he was sent to serve the indigenous community by the Belgian Oblates, an order of Catholic priests.

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will resume hearings tomorrow. It will be the third “case study”, and will focus on Allan Kitchingman (see previous posting) against the background of events at the North Coast Children’s Home (see previous posting).

The commission officials need to heed the comments of victims and their supporters, following the release of the Victorian Parliamentary enquiry, which was released last week (see previous posting). While the officials admit to a steep learning curve in their own interactions with victims, the process of understanding, and appropriate responses for their future investigations, will be enhanced if they take serious note of those victim comments made last week.

Space does not permit a full listing of comments, but more will be covered in other postings where possible. Here are some of the comments on the Victorian report.

Anthony and Chrissie Foster’s daughters, Emma and Katie, were repeatedly raped by their parish priest, Father Kevin O’Donnell, at their primary school in Melbourne’s south-east, from 1987 until 1992.The Catholic Church had received numerous complaints about O’Donnell’s crimes dating back to the 1940s, but no action was ever taken. Emma Foster suicided and her sister Katie was seriously disabled when she was hit by a car, and now requires 24-hour care.

Mr. Foster commented that “There’s mixed feelings, of course, it brings back some sadness with our children. But we feel that this report has the basis for everything that we want. We need to make sure that the Church and other organisations can’t just draw a line today and say ‘we’re forgetting about everything behind and we’re on with the future and yes we’ll toe the line now’. There are some big organisations out there that are going to be trying to protect their wealth, because this has always been about the wealth and reputation of organisations like the Salvation Army, the Catholic Church.”

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

The Anglican church has appointed its first female bishop in Australia, who will take charge of a NSW diocese at the centre of a Royal Commission into child sex abuse.

The Reverend Dr Sarah Macneil has been elected unanimously as the 11th Bishop of the Anglican diocese of Grafton.

The Sunday night announcement comes a day before the Anglican church and the Grafton diocese in particular is due to appear before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which will open in Sydney on Monday.

Dr Macneil replaces Keith Slater.

He resigned in May this year, apologising for his failings in handling complaints about sexual abuse and brutal beatings that took place at the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore, which was run by the Grafton diocese of the Anglican church.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Lancashire Evening Post

THE Bishop of Lancaster has spoken of his “profound sorrow” after a senior catholic priest was convicted of historic sexual offences.

The Right Reverend Michael Campbell, has spoken out after Canon Stephen Shield, 53, the Dean at Lancaster Cathedral, was found guilty of abuse over a seven year period.

Canon Shield is facing jail after being convicted of sexually assaulting a man in the presbytery of English Martyrs church in Preston.

He committed the offences more than two decades ago against a man who hoped to join the priesthood.

He was convicted at Preston Crown Court on Friday and is due to be sentenced on December 13.

Bishop Campbell said: “I want to express my profound sorrow and deepest regret to the victim for the abusive behaviour perpetrated by Canon Shield.

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AUSTRALIA
The Canberra Times

November 18, 2013

Peter Jean
Chief Assembly reporter for The Canberra Times.

With a real sense that she is answering God’s call, Sarah Macneil will next year be installed as the 11th bishop of Grafton and the first woman to head an Anglican diocese in Australia.

The announcement of the Canberra priest’s appointment comes as the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse begins public hearings into the Grafton Diocese’s response to claims of child sexual abuse at a Lismore children’s home.

Dr Macneil is married, a grandmother and a former Australian diplomat.

She is a former dean of Adelaide and archdeacon in the diocese of Canberra-Goulburn.

Dr Macneil will give up her role as senior associate priest at Holy Covenant Church in Jamison, to lead a diocese with 28 parishes, taking in major centres such as Lismore, Ballina, Coffs Harbour and Port Macquarie.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

The Anglican church has appointed its first female bishop in Australia, who will take charge of a NSW diocese at the centre of a Royal Commission into child sex abuse.

The Reverend Dr Sarah Macneil has been elected unanimously as the 11th Bishop of the Anglican diocese of Grafton.

The Sunday night announcement comes a day before the Anglican church and the Grafton diocese in particular is due to appear before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which will open in Sydney on Monday.

Dr Macneil replaces Keith Slater.

He resigned in May this year, apologising for his failings in handling complaints about sexual abuse and brutal beatings that took place at the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore, which was run by the Grafton diocese of the Anglican church.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

by Laura Yuen, Minnesota Public Radio
November 15, 2013

The Maplewood Police Department recently closed an investigation into the Rev. Rodger Bauman, an Oakdale priest who accepted a $120,000 check from a 99-year-old former parishioner. Bauman has maintained all along that the money was a gift. He eventually returned it.

No charges were ever filed. But the circumstances surrounding the money raised concerns among the man’s caregivers, the woman serving as his power of attorney and a police detective, who investigated Bauman on suspicion of swindling a vulnerable adult.

The man who wrote the check, Lou Dziengel, lived in an assisted living home in Maplewood. He got around with a walker, wore two hearing aids and, by at least one account, was rough around the edges.

“Very stubborn. He wanted things his way,” said the woman who served as his power of attorney. Her name has been redacted from police reports, and MPR News has agreed not to identify her. “There was a certain way to do things, and a certain way you didn’t do things.”

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RHODE ISLAND
Turn to 10

A special I-Team report regarding the Providence diocese airs at 6 p.m. Monday.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Dan Box
From: The Australian
November 18, 2013

EMILY was eight days short of her third birthday when she was taken from her parents by a magistrate in Bowral, in the NSW Southern Highlands, and “committed to the care” of the state government, court records show.

Despite her parents’ desperate attempts to get her back, and her own struggles to tell government workers what was happening, Emily (not her real name) was placed with a foster father who raped her repeatedly for years.

At the time, she feels, nobody listened. “The pain never really goes away,” says the 54-year-old, who now lives in Innisfail, in far north Queensland. ” Recently I have been told that I have a meeting with the royal commission. I felt relief, sheer relief someone is going to take notice.”

GRAPHIC: Scale of the task

Today, the federal Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse begins the first of two major public hearings, not into Emily’s case itself, but into the thing she says later saved her life – the church.

Many within the two denominations facing investigation, Anglican and Catholic, expect the evidence to be an ordeal. Indeed, they say, it needs to be if these institutions are to find redemption after what has taken place.

Explicitly, no one organisation will be the focus of the royal commission’s work. At the time it was established, last November, the then prime minister Julia Gillard said: “This is a royal commission that would be looking across religious organisations, as well as state-based care and into the not-for-profit sector.”

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AUSTRALIA
NEWS.com.au

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

BRUTAL bashings and the sexual abuse of children under the care of the Anglican church in NSW will be examined at the next round of public hearings in a national inquiry.

The third case study by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will open in Sydney on Monday.

It will look at the response of the Anglican Diocese of Grafton to claims of child sexual abuse at the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore.

The diocese’s handling of a group compensation claim will also be examined.

The Bishop of Grafton, Keith Slater, resigned in May this year and apologised for his failings in handling complaints about the orphanage.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX THE AUSTRALIAN NOVEMBER 18, 2013

THE royal commission into institutional child sexual abuse has referred dozens of cases to police forces across the country as it works through a mountain of evidence, including hundreds of thousands of documents generated in its first few months of operation.

Since it began sitting in April, the federal Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has referred 44 cases to police for further investigation and served close

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VATIKAN
Neue Zurcher Zeitung

Der Papst hat der Vatikanbank eine Weissgeldstrategie verordnet. Durchsetzen soll sie ein Schweizer, der den Finanzplatz Liechtenstein reformierte. René Brühlhart nimmt im Interview Stellung zum neuen Risikoprofil für Kunden der Vatikanbank, dem Fall Scarano und zur Aufarbeitung der Altlasten

Interview: Zoé Baches, Simon Gemperli

Herr Brülhart, der Vatikan-Prälat Nunzio Scarano ist im Sommer unter Geldwäscherei-Verdacht verhaftet worden. Die Chefs der Vatikanbank traten zurück. Ist das eine Zäsur in der Geschichte dieser Bank?

Es sind sicher Fakten, die zeigen, dass die eingeleiteten Massnahmen zu greifen beginnen. Gestützt auf Verdachtsmeldungen wurden zum ersten Mal in der Geschichte des Vatikans Vermögenssperren vorgenommen. Ebenfalls zum ersten Mal wurde aktiv ein Rechtshilfegesuch an Italien gestellt.

Ist der Fall Scarano die Spitze des Eisbergs?

Ich kann nicht ausschliessen, dass es der letzte Fall dieser Art war. Wir analysieren zurzeit weitere Fälle. Entscheidend ist, dass wir heute die entsprechenden Instrumente für diese Aufarbeitung in der Hand haben. Zudem sind wir auch präventiv tätig.

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CANADA
Montreal Gazette

BY THE CANADIAN PRESS
NOVEMBER 17, 2013

IQALUIT, Nunavut – What some people are saying as former priest Eric Dejaeger faces a trial on 76 historical sex charges in Nunavut:

“It came back all of a sudden. I felt numb. And then I saw his picture after 30 years. I wasn’t even crying, yet the tears were coming down really hard. Some of us are getting more drunk. I’m trying to drink more. Some of us are being more abusive towards our common-law husband or wife. Some of us are getting into troubles here and there.” — One of Dejaeger’s alleged victims speaking from Igloolik in 2011 after hearing news that Dejaeger had been arrested in Belgium and was coming back to Canada
—

“It’s not so hard any more. I am moving on and I need to find a way to forgive him, and I’m trying, and I want to. Maybe that way it will be easier for me. I’m doing good. I’m not a drunk any more. What he did is bound to come back to him.” — The same person in 2013, days before Dejaeger’s trial was to begin
—

“When he was here, he acted as though he was a really decent man. We thought he was someone who was a friend.” — Former Igloolik mayor Lucasie Ivalu
—

“We all make mistakes” — Text of a badge worn by Eric Dejaeger when he pleaded guilty to nine counts of abuse in 1991
—

“I heard that Eric was told — off the record — to leave Canada by several organizations including the courts, his lawyers and some Oblates.” — Georges Vervust, Oblate provincial for Belgium, suggesting how Dejaeger may have been able to escape Canada after a second batch of charges were laid in 1995.

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CANADA
Montreal Gazette

BY THE CANADIAN PRESS
NOVEMBER 17, 2013

IQALUIT, Nunavut – A timeline of events in the case against former priest Eric Dejaeger, who faces a trial on 76 historical sex charges in Nunavut:

June 28, 1973: Dejaeger, 26, leaves Belgium for Canada to study for the Catholic priesthood with the Oblate order. He visits several Arctic missions and stays briefly in Pelly Bay, N.W.T. (now Kugaaruk, Nunavut).

May 1974: Leaves Pelly Bay for Edmonton.

1977: Takes out Canadian citizenship and is consecrated as a deacon in Repulse Bay, Nunavut.

1978: Ordained as a priest after studies at Edmonton’s Newman Theological College. Posted to Igloolik, Nunavut.

1982: Posted to Baker Lake, Nunavut.

April 1989: Asked by Oblates to leave Baker Lake.

Aug. 21, 1989: Arrested in Langley, B.C., where he is studying Inuktitut.

Dec. 19, 1989: Pleads guilty to eight counts of sexual assault and one charge of indecent assault in Baker Lake. Sentenced to five years.

June 14, 1991: Pleads guilty to two additional counts of sexual assault in Baker Lake after being charged with five. Sentences to be served concurrently.

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CANADA
Calgary Herald

BY BOB WEBER, THE CANADIAN PRESS NOVEMBER 17, 2013

IQALUIT, Nunavut – The worst is already over, says one of the dozens of alleged victims of a disgraced priest whose trial on 76 sex-related charges involving Inuit children is to begin Monday.

“It’s almost a relief,” the woman said recently from her home in Igloolik, Nunavut, the community where most of the charges against Eric Dejaeger from 18 years ago are based.

Dejaeger was supposed to be tried in 1995 for his activities as an Oblate priest in the tiny Arctic hamlet on the Melville Peninsula. Instead, he fled to his homeland of Belgium — some say with the tacit consent of Canadian justice officials.

It was as if he’d returned from the dead when he was brought back in January 2011 after Belgium kicked him out for immigration violations, the woman said.

“We were told that he was never going to be found. And when he came back to life and came to Canada, that was a shock to all of us.”

That shock rocked Igloolik’s 1,500 residents.

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CANADA
Edmonton Journal

BY BOB WEBER, THE CANADIAN PRESS NOVEMBER 17, 2013

IQALUIT, Nunavut – A former priest who this week is to face 76 sex charges involving Inuit children may have been tried years ago but for a quiet nod from Canada that allowed him to leave the country, says a church leader.

Georges Vervust is the top official with the Belgian Oblates, an order of Catholic priests that sent Eric Dejaeger to several communities in what is now Nunavut.

Vervust sheds light on questions that have troubled Dejaeger’s alleged victims for nearly a decade: How was a man facing child abuse charges allowed to leave the country days before his trial? And why did it take so long for him to be returned?

“What I have heard is that he got advice from people from the Justice Department, off the record, that he should leave,” Vervust said in a Belgian documentary. He confirmed his comments to The Canadian Press.

Dejaeger’s trial beginning Monday includes allegations from Feb. 19, 1995, when he was originally charged with three counts of indecent assault and three counts of buggery, a charge no longer in the Criminal Code. They relate to his time as a priest in the community of Igloolik between 1978 and 1982.

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CANADA
Sylvia’s Site

Posted on November 17, 2013 by Sylvia

The long-awaited sex abuse trial of Father Eric Dejaeger omi starts tomorrow morning (Monday, 18 November 2013) at 09:30 am in Iqaluit, Nunavut.

The trial is scheduled to last five weeks. That of course can change, both ways. It could be over earlier if the Crown and defence manage to move through the witnesses faster than anticipated, and, on the other hand, it could last longer if there are glitches with witnesses, or, for example, – and Heaven forbid! – if Dejaegwer decides to claim that his Charter right to speedy trial has been violated. If Dejaeger has not waived his right to make that claim then it is a possibility. I hope and pray he doesn’t stoop that low to try to get off on a technicality like that. Trying to go that route would not necessarily mean victory, but it could tie things up for a good spell.

As always, we shall see

Keep the complainants in your prayers. Many will be preparing to fly in to Iqaluit from Igloolik and other areas to testify. It’s taken a long long time for all of them waiting for this day to come. I pray that each and everyone of them has his or her day in court, and that all stay strong, and keep their heads and cool under cross-examination.

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UNITED STATES
Whispers in the Loggia

For everything that was different about this week’s Baltimore Plenary, there was a bit of deja vu in the air… well, besides Archbishop Allen Vigneron being denied the Divine Worship chair for the fourth straight time – now an apparent custom of the bench, going all the way back to 2005.

In one of this week’s great surprises, for the second time running, Archbishop Charles Chaput was the runner-up for a seat in the USCCB’s topmost leadership. The result made for a rather striking contrast to this meeting’s run-up as, going into the sessions, many felt this was his protege’s hour, with the votes accordingly to swing – beyond being head of the largest diocese these shores have ever known, Archbishop José Gomez had become the first Hispanic in recent memory to make the USCCB’s presidential slate, and the choice of the Mexican-born Angeleno ecclesially bred in Texas was advanced by his champions as an evocative, providential amplification of both the Latino ascendancy into Stateside Catholicism’s largest ethnic group, as well as the source of the first-ever American pontificate, albeit south of the border.

Yet when Decision Time came, Don José’s mentor – a veteran of the last five 10-man slates (more than any other contender) – edged again into the runoff by all of one vote.

Of course, the demographic and Roman fronts aren’t the only ways the world has changed since the 2010 Fall Classic. Keeping with Rome’s long-standing habit for the almost-vice-president of the US bishops, eight months after last time’s near-miss, Chaput was sent to the country’s next open cardinalatial see… yet even if he’s the lone US prelate to occupy the chair once held by a saint, to describe the modern-day archdiocese of Philadelphia as any sort of “consolation prize” would simply be perverse. …

From the outset – indeed, even before a months-long forensic audit revealed the grotesque picture in its full light – this was already perceived to be the most difficult situation an American bishop has faced in the last half-century. Now, having watched the most determined, unflappable figure on the US bench look as if he’s aged 20 years over the last 26 months – at points doubled over in anguish and grabbing his head over what he was made to inherit – it seems safe to say that taking on this inferno would’ve killed anyone else. But to know Chaput – the guy who, once upon a time, famously played a younger priest into a heart attack on the racquetball court – is to know that, where it matters most, the Capuchin always comes to win.

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

There are those who support and advocate for victims of child sexual abuse. There are also those who get them justice. Most of the Australian general public are familiar with the part played by Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox (see previous postings), revealed during the New South Wales State Government enquiry which finished recently.

The media has unearthed the role played by his counter-parts in the Victorian state system, and dubbed them the “paedophile catchers”.

[Most of the following comes from reports in the Warrnambool Standard newspaper and NewsCorp publications, and is provided for the record, in the light of the mixed assessment of Victorian Police, in the past, contained in the report.]

Detective Senior Sergeant, Chris O’Connor, recently retired after having been Victoria State Police’s child sex expert for decades. He has given his views on the report of the Victorian State Parliamentary enquiry into clerical child sexual abuse in that state, which was released this week (see previous postings).

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NETHERLANDS
NL Times

The Prosecutor’s Office may have dealt with a bias with cases between against Catholic priests who sexually abused children, prompting an apology from Safety and Justice Minister Ivo Opstelten (VVD).

“An excuse is in order,” Opstelten said on Thursday, during a Second Chamber debate that looked at how the Prosecutor’s Office handled these cases between 1945 and 1980.

“Let there be no misunderstanding; class justice is unacceptable now, but it was also unacceptable back then. I regret the way things were handled; it was different times then, but it is still unacceptable and apologies are in order,” said Opstelten. He said the individual victims would also be contacted directly.

Several members of the Second Chamber had called for an apology during the debate, placing blame on the Prosecutor’s Office and hinting that asking forgiveness would help in the healing process.

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MINNESOTA
Duluth News Tribune

By: Rev. Richard Partika, Duluth News Tribune

This is not intended to justify or excuse any of the scandal caused by some priests. My only purpose is to give some clarity and balance to the way these things are reported. I am not a scholar, and, unlike most of today’s priests, I do not have any academic degrees. I am just a bystander who cares about fairness and sanity.

Let us start with numbers. Considering all the priests, only a very few are abusers. And I readily agree that even one who’s abusive is far too many.

So let us try to learn how some get into the priesthood. Let us realize there are many seminaries in the country, some diocesan and others run by religious orders. Let us assume for lack of knowing the exact figures that the average class ordained each year is 30 men. On average, some of these men began their studies in the ninth grade and were in the minor and major seminaries for 12 or fewer years before ordination.

The role of a seminary is to help a candidate determine, under guidance, whether he has a vocation and, if so, to acquire the education needed to live that vocation along with the spiritual formation.

Each candidate has his own personality, background, motivation and degree of internal honesty in pursuing the priesthood. Some of this may show itself and often then the candidate may be advised either to leave or to shape up. Some may never seek out a spiritual director for help and advice along the way. What an individual keeps hidden within himself may be known only to God. And what the man hides may well be the source of future scandals he may cause.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Jewish Press

By: JTA Published: November 16th, 2013

A police investigation into sex abuse allegations against a prominent London rabbi has been dropped.

The Metropolitan Police said Friday that the Crown Prosecution Service would not bring charges against a 54-year-old man regarding allegations of sexual assault, The Jewish Chronicle of London reported on its website.

Several London rabbis have confirmed to JTA in the past that the 54-year-old man in question in Rabbi Chaim Halpern.

The report said that officers from the London borough of Barnet’s sexual offenses, exploitation and child abuse command, had fully investigated all the allegations.

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MEDERLAND
Dichtbij

ROERMOND – Bisschop Frans Wiertz draagt morgen in de Koepelkerk in Maastricht de heilige mis op. En dat is de organisatie van slachtoffers van misbruik binnen de kerk, Mea Culpa, in het verkeerde keelgat geschoten. Allereerst omdat de parochie het aanvankelijk deed voorkomen dat Wiertz kwam om de 75ste verjaardag van pastoor Schafraad te vieren. Een pastoor die door Mea Culpa bij herhaling beschuldigd is van het misbruik van kinderen in de tijd dat hij nog werkte bij jongensinternaat Bleijerheide in Kerkrade.

Schafraad heeft het misbruik altijd ontkend, maar anders dan de parochie suggereert is Schafraad nooit gerehabiliteerd door het bisdom Roermond of door bisschop Wiertz. Dat kan het bisdom alleen al daarom niet, omdat Schafraad onder het bisdom Haarlem valt.

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NEW YORK
Failed Messiah

There is a byzantine, serpentine world where black means white and white comes in all shades of gray, from charcoal to battleship, battered and torn, stained, dirty. A place where truth lies broken, torn, shattered, covered in mud, trampled on by hasidim who do not even recognize what it is their feet are stepping on.

It is a world with its own complete structure, its own terminology, its own dialect, its own unique morality. It is a place where conversations often start in the middle and end long before the participants stop talking. This is a place where outsiders are often lost without knowing it. Their eyes only see the surface, the shell, not the meat within. But the hasidim know the shell is only a husk, a covering, meant to be discarded. It’s the stuff inside that matters.

So when the Forward’s Paul Berger, an outsider who has no background with and no real knowledge of the hasidic community and little real knowledge or grasp of the Kellner case, writes what reads like an opinion piece (but is posted by the Forward as news) equating Sam Kellner with accused serial molester Rabbi Baruch Lebovits, one should take it with a large grain of salt – especially because both Berger and the Forward been unethical before this.

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UNITED KINGDOM
ITV

A leading public health expert has called for a renewed debate on the age of consent, arguing it should be lowered from 16 to 15.

Professor John Ashton, president of the Faculty of Public Health, said our society sends “confused” signals about when sex is permitted.

He said it means 15-year-olds who are in sexual relationships “don’t have clear routes to getting some support”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
ITV

A lawyer representing 72 of the victims of Jimmy Savile has warned that lowering the age of consent would “send the wrong message to predatory adults.”

I have real concerns about the prospect of the age of consent being lowered.

Predatory adults would be given legitimacy to focus their attentions on even younger teenagers and there is a real risk that society would be sending out the message that sex between 14-15-year-olds is also acceptable.

My work with victims of abuse results in me talking to many who felt pressurised into having sex at a young age but have gone on to live a lifetime of regret.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Joe Soucheray
POSTED: 11/16/2013

If I were the archbishop, and the chances of that are certainly off the board, I would call a news conference. In fact, I would call one every day if I had to just to keep pace with attorney Jeff Anderson and the St. Paul police, who have reopened an investigation of a child pornography case involving a former Hugo priest.

I was made privy to a letter that Archbishop John Nienstedt apparently sent to Catholic school principals assuring them that the archdiocese is on the job and taking full responsibility for its failure to act more thoroughly on past charges of abusive priests. It was … wooden. It was too written by committee without heartfelt personality. It was boilerplate, is what it was.

This is not the time for boilerplate. The vibe emanating from the chancery offices is off key. The church authorities are not out in front of this mess; they are entangled in it, as though they are peeking from behind the drapes wondering what is going to hit them next.

A thought of admonition, which is not at all to excuse abusive priests, who should have been thrown out of the church and not moved around. That is the significant downfall that compels the current misery, that church authorities for too many years did not properly address low-functioning or even criminally bent employees.

Oh, the admonition. As depleted as modern newsgathering institutions are, they will find the energy to go after the Roman Catholic Church. That is just the way it is. The church is seen as white, powerful and wealthy. And we live in a time when the discipline and ritual of theology is seen as folly, at least through the eyes of post-modernism.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Sunday 17 November 2013

The behaviour of the Catholic hierarchy in Scotland over the sexual bullying allegations made in the book Crisis In The Priesthood by Father Matthew Despard stands in stark contrast to the words and deeds of the man who sits at the head of the church:

Pope Francis.

In Blantyre yesterday afternoon, the hierarchy descended on the parish of St John Ogilvie’s and suspended Fr Despard over claims he made in his book in the wake of the Cardinal Keith O’Brien scandal. The sacking took place before parishioners – many of whom wept and reacted with shock and anger.

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AUSTRALIA
Sunday Telegraph

CARDINAL GEORGE PELL
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

ON Wednesday the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into Child Abuse brought down its 700 page report. I welcome the publication of the report. It should help the victims.

While the Inquiry hearings were sometimes unconventional and emotional affairs, the report itself seems fair and reasonable. Naturally it covers the awful abuse which occurred in Catholic communities, mainly between 1960 and 1985.

The report details some of the serious failures in the way the church dealt with these crimes and responded to victims, especially before the procedural reforms of the mid 1990s. Irreparable damage has been caused.

By the standards of common decency and by today’s standards, church authorities were not only slow to deal with the abuse, but sometimes did not deal with it in any appropriate way at all. This is indefensible.

The Report offers valuable recommendations to ensure that crimes are reported, children and vulnerable people are better protected, and those who have been hurt can more easily seek justice.

I strongly support the recommendations to ensure crimes are reported to the police and to establish a statutory body to monitor and audit compliance on child protection requirements; something like what we have in NSW already. These recommendations should apply to all professions and all non-government and government organisations. All victims need compassion and support.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Sunday 17 November 2013

A PARISH priest has been suspended from his ­Scottish post for writing a ­controversial memoir that claimed there is a culture of homosexual bullying in the Catholic Church.

Parishioners at St John ­Ogilvie’s Church in High Blantyre, Lanarkshire, reacted with fury and disbelief when they were told just before Mass last night that Father Matthew Despard had been removed from his ministry.

They were greeted by a weeping Father Despard outside the church shortly before the 4.30pm Mass began, and were ushered inside to hear a statement from Bishop Joseph Toal, Acting Bishop of the Diocese of Motherwell.

Angry scenes broke out among the congregation when Bishop Toal informed them “a penal ­judicial process” had been instituted against Father Despard as a result of the publication of his book Crisis In The Priesthood, with parishioners demanding answers over the priest’s suspension.

Father Despard, 48, embarked on a collision course with Church authorities when he published his book on Amazon in the wake of the resignation of Cardinal Keith O’Brien, who admitted to gay relationships and sexual activity spanning decades.

However, it was later reported the priest would escape sanction after Joseph Devine, the previous Bishop of Motherwell, issued a notice ­stating that no action would be taken against him.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A bishop has spoken of “profound sorrow” after the Dean of Lancaster Cathedral was convicted of sex abuse.

The Bishop of Lancaster, The Right Reverend Michael Campbell, commented after Canon Stephen Shield was found guilty of abuse over seven years.

Shield, 54, was convicted at Preston Crown Court, of indecently assaulting man from the age of 18, between 1985 and 1992.

Bishop Campbell said he hoped the victim in the case can now “heal”.

Bishop Campbell said: “It is my sincere hope that, as a result of this conviction, and with the help of God, [the victim] will now be able to begin the process of healing and the rebuilding of his life.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

[Click here for the questionnaire]

By David Madden

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Philadelphia Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput wants to hear from clergy and lay people alike, as he prepares a meeting of Bishops at the Vatican next year.

The Synod Meeting will address what’s termed “The Pastoral Challenges of the Family in the Context of Evangelization.” This is the first time the leader of the local Roman Catholic Church has reached out in such a fashion.

Father Dennis Gill directs the Office for Divine Worship, and he insists this is not a survey:

“It’s not so much a questionnaire to challenge church teaching, but certainly a questionnaire that is going to have an impact on church practice.”

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LOUISVILLE (KY)
Courier-Journal

[with video]

Editorial

Congratulations to Louisville Roman Catholic Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz on his election as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Archbishop Kurtz takes over during a time of great change in the church, brought about mainly by the election earlier this year of Pope Francis, who has called for the church to turn away from what he has said are “small-minded rules” and to be “ministers of mercy.”

We hope Archbishop Kurtz will take that to heart.

Since arriving in Louisville in 2007, Archbishop Kurtz has pushed the type of doctrinal issues that Pope Francis’ two most recent predecessors — Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI — stood for.

Archbishop Kurtz supported state legislation that would remove civil rights protections from some people, all in the name of “religious freedom,” and has spoken out against federal health care mandates that would provide insurance coverage for millions of people, all because they included a requirement that insurance plans pay for artificial contraception.

He sided with those in the Vatican who sought to crack down on nuns who dared suggest that women should take a greater role in the church and were involved in other forms of “dissent.”

He has taken money that could have gone to help the needy in the Louisville and given it instead to a campaign in Maine to overturn legislative approval of gay marriage.

While all those positions fit well into the world views of the dogmatic popes before him, they seem to be anathema to Pope Francis, who has spent the first months of his tenure urging the church to be more pastoral than judgmental.

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LOUISVILLE (KY)
The Record

By Rachel Zoll

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The new leader of U.S. Roman Catholic bishops says he will draw on his years as a pastor to guide American bishops as they attempt to shift focus under Pope Francis, who wants more emphasis on compassion than on divisive social issues such as gay marriage.

Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Kentucky was elected Tuesday as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, a role that makes him the U.S church’s spokesperson on national issues and a representative of American bishops to the Vatican and the pope.

Kurtz, a 67-year-old Pennsylvania native and a former bishop of Knoxville, Tenn., pledged after his election Tuesday to focus the bishops’ work on reaching out to the poor and underserved, a mission emphasized by the new pope. …

Some of those victims who remain outspoken on clergy abuse issues said Kurtz hasn’t done enough to heal the lingering wounds from the scandal.

“To me there’s no real outreach to survivors,” said Jeff Koenig, a member of the Louisville chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “We had to approach him, he has never reached out to us.”

Koenig said archdiocese officials have offered the survivors group a brief meeting with Kurtz, but they have sought a longer interaction.

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ALABAMA
Daily Mountain Eagle

by Rachel Davis

Walker County Circuit Judge Doug Farris declared a mistrial Friday in the case of a Carbon Hill man accused of sexual abuse of a child under the age of 12.

The motion for mistrial was made by defense lawyer Herbie Brewer and granted by Farris after hearing arguments from both sides.

Ricky Robinson, a former Carbon Hill pastor, had been on trial all week facing four charges of sex abuse of a child under the age of 12.

Assistant District Attorney Brian Warren said his understanding was that the case would be slated for retrial on the next trial docket in February.

Brewer said he had every expectation that the state would attempt to schedule it again but he would oppose a retrial.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

Kathy Mellott
kmellott@tribdem.com

JOHNSTOWN — More than 80 people, mostly males who attended Bishop McCort High School, have stepped forward with allegations that they were sexually molested by Brother Stephen Baker, The Tribune-Democrat has learned.

The figure is nearly double the number of victims named in civil lawsuits filed in Cambria and Blair counties, but all are part of the settlement talks between the Altoona-Johnstown Roman Catholic Diocese and a number of attorneys.

“The numbers are skewed if you look at the cases filed,” said Altoona attorney Richard Serbin.

“Everything is not in the public, in terms of the numbers.”

Another attorney said that he believes the diocese is trying to settle the cases outside of the public eye.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

The devastating long-term effects of child sexual abuse and how the Anglican Church paid off victims from a NSW orphanage where children were brutally beaten will be highlighted at a national inquiry.

Hearings in the third case study by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse open in Sydney on Monday and will focus on the response of the Anglican Diocese of Grafton to claims of child sexual abuse at the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore.

How the diocese handled a group claim for compensation will also be examined.

In 2007 the church offered a total of $825,000 to 41 former residents of the orphanage.

Some rejected the offer and described it as shamefully inadequate, and civil claims were launched.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Tablet

The Catholic Church is beginning a process to find out what Catholics think about matters surrounding the family – issues like divorce, cohabitation, same-sex relationships, ­contraception and the raising of children.

In September, The Tablet reported that a Synod of Bishops would be held to discuss matters regarding the family. There is now going to be another, Extraordinary Synod of Bishops “on pastoral challenges of the family in the context of evangelisation”. This extra­ordinary synod will take place in September 2014, to examine issues, then the main synod will be held in 2015 to produce guidelines.

The synod’s secretary general, Archbishop Lorenzo Baldisseri, has sent to episcopal conferences around the world a 38-item questionnaire on pastoral challenges for ­families and asked them to share it as widely as possible, in order to solicit responses that could be part of the working document for next year’s assembly.

By 20 December – in just a few weeks’ time – each diocese has to feed back to Rome responses to the complex questionnaire. The Bishops of England and Wales have taken the unusual step of posting the questionnaire on the conference’s website to gather responses from individual Catholics, while other countries’ bishops will use other ways to glean information.

Below are the questions. If you want to fill in the actual form, visit: www.surveymonkey.com/s/FamilySynod2014
The following series of questions allows the particular churches to participate actively in the preparation of the extraordinary synod, whose purpose is to proclaim the Gospel in the context of the pastoral challenges facing the family today.

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BELGIUM
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Nov. 8, 2013 NCR Today

Responding to a Vatican request asking the world’s bishops to distribute among Catholics a questionnaire on issues like contraception, same-sex marriage and divorce “as widely as possible,” Belgium’s bishops on Friday posted the document online and are asking Catholics to submit answers by mid-December.

The bishops, one news service is reporting, want “the widest possible consultation” on the survey and are accepting answers by email and postal mail.

The bishops have posted the questionnaire on the website of that service, KerkNet, have posted it at another online news service, and will publish it in two of the country’s weekly magazines. The answers, KerkNet is reporting, will be analyzed by the bishops with the help of experts in pastoral theology.

The European prelates are responding to an Oct. 18 request made by Archbishop Lorenzo Baldisseri, the secretary of the Vatican’s Synod of Bishops, in preparation for a global meeting of Catholic bishops next October.

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UNITED STATES
The New York Times

By JIM YARDLEY

ROME — Often, when the Vatican speaks, it can be a fairly one-sided conversation, issuing encyclicals and other formal documents stating the Roman Catholic Church’s official position on doctrine or other matters.

But Pope Francis, who has already shaken up the Vatican, is asking the world’s one billion Catholics for their opinions on a questionnaire covering social issues like same-sex marriage, cohabitation by unwed couples, contraception, and the place of divorced and remarried people in the church.

“It’s something that is totally new,” said Msgr. Alberto Pala, a parish priest at the Cathedral of Cagliari in Sardinia, Italy. “And we are very pleased.”

The questionnaire is being distributed to bishops worldwide in advance of their synod next fall. Family is the theme of that meeting, with bishops expected to grapple with how the church should address issues like divorce and same-sex marriage. In the past, the Vatican has determined the agenda for synods and sought opinions from bishops’ conferences around the world.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Brian Roewe | Nov. 16, 2013

While U.S. bishops consider how best and how broad to collect information ahead of a 2014 global bishops’ meeting on family issues, several lay Catholic groups took the task into their own hands.

In mid-November, a coalition of 15 church reform groups — primarily members of Catholic Organizations for Renewal — created an online survey for U.S. Catholics to offer their thoughts on the preparatory document to the 2014 Synod of Bishops, which will focus on the theme of “pastoral challenges to the family in the context of evangelization.”

Before the coalition announced the survey, Marianne Duddy-Burke told NCR that the idea emerged from a concern that the U.S. episcopacy would not consult with lay Catholics as they compiled their responses.

“This is a chance for people to have their voice heard,” said Duddy-Burke, executive director of DignityUSA, one of the sponsoring organizations.

Other sponsors include the American Catholic Council, Call to Action, FutureChurch, Voice of the Faithful, the Women’s Ordination Conference and Fortunate Families.

The survey, hosted online at www.surveymonkey.com/s/SynodOnFamilyUS, will remain open for response through Dec. 15. At that point, the coalition will compile and send the responses to four prelates: Archbishop Lorenzo Baldisseri, secretary general of the Synod of Bishops; Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, papal nuncio to the U.S.; Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the American representative on Pope Francis’ Council of Cardinals; and Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, Ky., the newly elected president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. …

Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good on Nov. 1 launched its version (papalsurvey.com) in English and Spanish, sending it to its 30,000 members and posting it online. As of Nov. 12, more than 3,000 people had completed the survey, with more than half of the respondents coming from outside the nonprofit’s network.

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MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

Date:Friday, November 15, 2013

Source:Jim Accurso

A recent article in the StarTribune called into question the archdiocese’s cooperation in the summer of 2012 with St. Paul Police in the Curtis Wehmeyer case. These allegations are both unfortunate and unfounded, as we fully cooperated with the police investigation that ultimately resulted in Wehmeyer’s current prison sentence.

On September 21, 2012, Ramsey County Attorney John Choi was quoted on MPR saying that the archdiocese “…did the right thing. As soon as they got the complaint from the boys’ mother, they immediately called the police. Then they took immediate action and removed him from his position at the parish. That was the right thing, and we appreciate that in law enforcement.”

On September 24, 2013, Howie Padilla of the St. Paul Police was quoted in the Pioneer Press saying, “ … the archdiocese was helpful in the initial case against Wehmeyer.”

These quotes reaffirm that the archdiocese was cooperative in this case.

We continue to encourage anyone who suspects abuse of a minor or vulnerable adult within Church ministry—or any setting including the home or school—to first contact law enforcement. Any act of abuse against a minor or vulnerable adult is reprehensible and morally repugnant and we will not tolerate it.

Our first priority is to create and maintain safe environments where the Gospel of Jesus Christ can flourish. This means creating an environment for and implementing productive steps to promote a healthy clergy.

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PHILADLEPHIA (PA)
Catholics4Change

NOVEMBER 16, 2013

by Susan Matthews

Kathy Kane noticed that Father John Paul’s name was removed from the official clergy list at some point this past week. Father Paul resigned as pastor of Our Lady of Calvary Parish in Philadelphia on Sunday, Nov. 10 for “physical and spiritual” health reasons stemming from two separate allegations of child sex abuse. A name removal from the clergy list is significant and usually doesn’t result from a resignation. For instance, Father John Wackerman of St. Elizabeth’s in Downingtown resigned the same day. His name is still on the list. To be clear, unlike Father Paul, Father Wackerman did not resign under the cloud of sex abuse allegations. However, the archdiocese seemed to defend their decision allow Father Paul to remain in ministry, despite accusations. So why remove his name from the list now? We are waiting for a response from the Archdiocesan Office for Communications.

A carefully-worded article on CatholicPhilly.com, the official news source of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, covered the details Father Paul’s resignation.

Note that children are referred to as minors. I’m a mother of two children – not two minors. Are you a parent? How many minors are you raising? Please don’t dehumanize. I especially enjoyed this line – “after review the Philadelphia district attorney declined to press charges.” Declined? There’s some spin. The current statue of limitations on child sex abuse makes it impossible for the DA to press charges. The decision may have had absolutely nothing to do with evidence, guilt or innocence. It could have everything to do with our current crappy state laws. There’s no statute of limitations on murder. There shouldn’t be one for child sex abuse either.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Herald

[Ex-pastor posts bond after arrest]

By Joe Wiercinski
Herald Staff Writer

MERCER — On Friday, after vigorously proclaiming his innocence, [Lee A.] Moore was sentenced to 9 to 25 years in prison by Mercer County Common Pleas Court President Judge Thomas R. Dobson.

He was convicted of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, unlawful contact with a minor, statutory sexual assault, corruption of a minor and indecent assault.

Dobson ruled after a Megan’s Law hearing that the former pastor of Mercer United Methodist Church on East Butler Street met the legal definition of a predator based on the recommendation and testimony of a clinical social worker contracted by the Pennsylvania Sexual Offenders Assessment Board to review the case and interview Moore.

Molly M. Wagner, who has a decade of professional experience working with both victims and offenders, said her conclusions were based on an assessment board investigator’s report into Moore’s past, her own September interview with Moore in the presence of his attorney, a court presentencing investigation, prosecutor’s report, trial transcript and other documents.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Fox 2

November 15, 2013, by Chris Regnier

ST. LOUIS, MO (KTVI) – “There have been real wrongs of clergy at the highest levels.” Those words today from St. Louis Circuit Judge Robert Dierker as he upheld his own order in a sex abuse suit involving a now defrocked Archdiocese of St. Louis priest.

The civil suit surrounds allegations that Father Joseph Ross abused a then five year old girl from 1997 to 2001 at a south city parish.

SNAP, or the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, demonstrated outside the Carnahan Courthouse before the hearing. They held pictures of members who say they were abused in other cases.

Judge Dierker ruled in May that the Archdiocese must produce 20 years worth of records for any of its employees who had complaints of sexual abuse against them.

Attorneys for the Archdiocese argued that was too long. On Friday, Dierker stood by 20 years for clergy but reduced the timeframe for non-clergy employees to five years.

SNAP members spoke out against the archdiocese.

“I think what it shows is church officials are still very committed to secrecy in these cases and to disclosing virtually nothing unless they`re ordered to,” said ‘SNAP’ director David Clohessy.

The Archdiocese released a statement reading in part, “The breadth of this order appears to include allegations against lay employees and clergy that were not found to be credible. The archdiocese will consult with its attorneys in this lawsuit regarding next steps based on the court`s ruling.”

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MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

Statement of Attorney Mike Finnegan

(St. Paul, Minnesota) – Today the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and Archbishop Nienstedt announced the hiring of Kinsale Management Consulting to conduct a review of clergy files. The firm’s founder, Kathleen McChesney, Ph.D., is the former head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Office for Child and Youth Protection.

We are concerned that Archbishop Nienstedt chose another church insider to review the files. McChesney will only be allowed to review information provided by the Archbishop and his attorneys and we suspect she will be required to keep any information she reviews, secret and confidential. This is another example of the Archdiocese and Archbishop’s continuing lack of transparency and accountability in the handling of clergy sexual abuse cases.

If Archbishop Nienstedt truly wants to protect children, and restore trust with the Catholic faithful and the community, then he should turn over all of the files to law enforcement and immediately alert the public about all known offenders.

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AUSTRALIA
Perth Now

Ben McClellan
From: The Daily Telegraph
November 15, 2013

TWO teachers and two priests from NSW are being prosecuted as part of a global operation targeting users of a Canadian child pornography website that has resulted in more than 340 people being charged – a fifth of them in Australia.

As Toronto police exposed the largest child exploitation ring in Canada, Australian Federal Police revealed 65 Australians were being prosecuted based on information from their Canadian counterparts for allegedly using the website.

International authorities have rescued 386 children, including five in Western Australia and one in the ACT, from harm and police said they could discover more Australian victims and expect to make more arrests.

More than half of the Australians charged are from Queensland (33) while nine people are before NSW courts – four are being prosecuted by the NSW Sex Crimes Squad’s child exploitation internet unit for possession of child pornography and using the internet to access child pornography, while the AFP is prosecuting the other five.

Retired Catholic priest Edward Sedevic, 72, of Lake Haven on the Central Coast, is one of the four men NSW Police have charged.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (updated 17 November 2013)

Father Edward Sedevic, a 72-year-old Sydney Catholic priest now living in retirement at Lake Haven (north of Sydney), is facing charges in court relating to child pornography.

Father Sedevic’s case was mentioned in court for a second time (in an administrative procedure) on 30 October 2013. The court re-scheduled the matter for a further mention later in 2013.

Father Sedevic, who has a family resource centre in Sydney named in his honour, originally appeared in Wyong Local Court (on the NSW central coast) on 4 September 2013. He faced three charges, including possessing child-abuse material and using a service to access child pornography.

This September 4 hearing was a preliminary procedure, in which documents were tabled in court for future attention. Detectives from the Child Exploitation Internet Unit (within the NSW Sex Crimes Squad) had gone to see Father Edward Sedevic at Lake Haven (near Wyong) on August 20. On August 27 the detectives charged him with having used a computer to access child pornography. This led to him appearing in court on September 4.

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AUSTRALIA
The Tablet

15 November 2013 by Mark Brolly

The Catholic Church’s institutions, schools and parishes gave perpetrators the opportunity to exploit vulnerable children in their care for decades and its early response to child abuse in its ranks “continued to conceal rather than expose criminal child abuse in the organisation”, a Victorian parliamentary report has found.

Betrayal of Trust, the report of the Inquiry into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and Other Non-Government Organisations by Parliament’s Family and Community Development Committee, said there had been “substantial criminal child abuse” in the Church over a long period of time, perpetrated by priests and other members of religious orders in Victoria.

“A culture existed in religious organisations that allowed for the occurrence of systemic criminal child abuse,” it said.

“The initial formal response to criminal child abuse that the Catholic Church in Victoria and in Australia more broadly adopted in the early 1990s was influenced by its previous approach. The response continued to conceal rather than expose criminal child abuse in the organisation.

“There has been a substantial body of credible evidence presented to the Inquiry and ultimately concessions made by senior representatives of religious bodies, including the Catholic Church, that they had taken steps with the direct objective of concealing wrongdoing.”

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

November 16, 2013

Chrissie Foster

It has been quite a journey, but this week we arrived.

The tabling in State Parliament on Wednesday of the inquiry into the handling of child abuse by religious and other organisations report, with its findings and recommendations, was an emotionally charged occasion.

Morning and afternoon saw both the upper and lower houses of Parliament silent and intent as each of the six Family and Community Development Committee members read their speeches. Every one of them passionate, resolute and united in their damning of the Catholic Church and the atrocities it bestowed on generation after generation of Victorian children.

Their collective disgust at evidence presented before them reverberated throughout the Parliament and every person who listened.

Tears were shed as the strength and clarity of their words damned an organisation that wore sheep’s clothing in public yet, in reality, tolerated, hid and protected criminal clergy who never tired of their lustful crimes and were left unchecked to continue molesting and raping boys and girls.

There were no stops put in place, no checks, and no punishment for these criminal clergy, just further access to the bodies of our defenceless children.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

November 16, 2013

Barney Zwartz
Religion editor, The Age.

The sex abuse inquiry chairwoman expects the Catholic Church in Victoria to consider increasing payments it has already made to victims as a litmus test of its good faith.

Breaking her self-imposed silence after the Victorian parliamentary committee tabled its report on Wednesday, Georgie Crozier said the suggestion had come from the church itself during testimony to the inquiry.

“The report quotes Francis Sullivan, chief of the Catholic Truth, Justice and Healing Council, who says often, ‘judge us by our actions now’,” Ms Crozier said.

Sydney’s Archbishop Cardinal George Pell “made reference to the miserable payments, and they said they are willing to go back and do that’,” she said. The 750-page report, which made 15 recommendations – including several aimed at making the Catholic Church legally accountable – strongly criticised the church.

In a sharp exchange with committee member Andrea Coote when he gave evidence in May, Cardinal Pell said if there were a good case he would revisit the amount of money paid in compensation, but he could speak only for Sydney.

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VATICAN CITY
Irish Times

Paddy Agnew

Sat, Nov 16, 2013

At first glance it sounds like a cliche any aspiring Dan Brown might concoct, that Pope Francis’s reforming zeal may have made him a target of the ’Ndrangheta, the Mafia in Calabria in southern Italy.

Senior Calabrian Mafia investigator Nicola Gratteri, whose investigative zeal has forced him to live with police protection since 1989, has said the pope’s plans to reform Vatican structures, including the Vatican bank, the IOR, could prove a problem for the ’Ndrangheta, Italy’s most powerful Mafia.

He said that while Pope John Paul II called on the “military” mafiosi to “repent” in 1993, Pope Francis has gone further, perhaps hitting the ’Ndrangheta where it hurts.

“He has named his G8 [council of cardinals] to overhaul the entire structure of the Vatican, including a review of the Vatican’s economic affairs and in particular, the IOR,” Gratteri says.

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VATICAN CITY
Daily Star

VATICAN CITY: The Vatican has downplayed a warning that Pope Francis could be targeted by the mafia because of his reforms to Holy See financial bodies.

“There is no reason for concern, and there is no need to feed alarmism,” Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said.

He added that the Vatican – and, by extension, the pope – was “extremely calm” regarding the alleged threat.

The warning was voiced by Nicola Gratteri, a respected state prosecutor in the southern Calabria region, who said the vicious local mafia, the ‘Ndrangheta, is “nervous” the pope is threatening its interests.

“Those who up to now have fed off the power and wealth coming directly from the church are nervous, upset,” he said in an interview published by the newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano this week. The pope, Gratteri added, “is dismantling the Vatican’s economic centers. If the mafia bosses can trip him up, they won’t hesitate.”

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NEW YORK
Failed Messiah

Thompson Asks Hynes To Freeze Case Against Accused Haredi Pedophile Rabbi Baruch Lebovits

Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com

Incoming Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson has asked outgoing District Attorney Charles J. Hynes to seek the adjournment of the case against accused haredi pedophile Rabbi Baruch Lebovits until Thompson takes office in January, Hella Winston exclusively reports in the Jewish Week.

The written request was reportedly delivered to Hynes earlier today. Copies were also delivered to the trial judge and Lebovits’ attorneys.

“…Based upon the very serious allegations in the case, I request that no disposition be offered to the Defendant, no guilty plea be allowed at the upcoming court conference on November 19, 2013, and that no procedural or substantive steps be taken in the case until I take office. I make this request because it is important that I have a full opportunity to review the Lebovits matter and participate in the decision to take the case to trial or dispose of it by way of a guilty plea. It is also my understanding that the Defendant has been released on bail and therefore would not suffer any substantive prejudice by this brief delay.

“Additionally, I would like to make arrangements to receive a copy of the entire case file and have an opportunity to speak with the assistants who are handling this matter as soon as possible…” Thompson wrote.

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NEW YORK
The Jewish Week

11/15/13
Hella Winston
Jewish Week Correspondent

Brooklyn District Attorney-elect Ken Thompson is asking outgoing District Attorney Charles Hynes to seek an adjournment in a high-profile sex abuse case until Thompson takes office in January, The Jewish Week has learned from a source close to Thompson’s transition team.

The request, which was delivered in writing (and copied to the judge and defense attorney on the case) to Hynes on Friday, asks that, “based upon the very serious allegations in the case,” no disposition be offered at the “upcoming court conference on November 19th” and that “no procedural steps be taken in the case until” Thompson takes office.

In the letter, Thompson notes that he is making this request because it is “important that I have a full opportunity to review the Lebovits matter and participate in the decision to take the case to trial or dispose of it by way of a guilty plea.” He also asks Hynes to make “arrangements [for Thompson] to receive a copy of the entire case file and have an opportunity to speak with the assistants who are handling this matter as soon as possible.”

This request from Thompson comes on the same day a group of advocates, abuse survivors, anti-abuse activists, rabbis and concerned citizens are to submit a letter to the judge in the case paralleling Thompson’s concerns, but focusing on a request not to allow a plea bargain until certain “irregularities” in the prosecution’s handling of the case are addressed.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

With the defeat of Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes after six terms in office, there appeared to be little reason to comment further on his misrule of the city’s largest prosecution office. No such luck.

His last years were shadowed by a long failure to effectively prosecute sex abuse in the insular ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, a powerful voting bloc; by accusations (taken seriously by two federal judges) that top lieutenant Michael Vecchione had railroaded a man named Jabbar Collins for a rabbi’s murder; and by evidence that now-retired Detective Louis Scarcella may have helped the DA’s office win convictions with hyped evidence.

Denying all wrongdoing, Hynes and Vecchione maintained a united, tough front. Now, though, transformed from roaring lions into quacking lame ducks, they are bequeathing a shambles to successor Kenneth Thompson.

Two veteran prosecutors were demoted and booted from a controversial case after, it is said, one nearly came to blows with Vecchione; a third assistant district attorney was fired after reportedly questioning whether the office was meeting its legal obligations in the Collins case, and a judge ordered Hynes’ office to turn over all documents related to the Scarcella allegations.
You almost need a scorecard to keep all of this straight.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY OREN YANIV / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2013

In his first communication with the lame duck Brooklyn District Attorney, incoming DA Kenneth Thompson asked that a high profile sex abuse case against a Jewish cantor be pushed back until he takes office.

In a letter delivered Friday to DA Charles Hynes, Thompson requested to put the prosecution of Baruch Lebovits on hold until the new administration takes the helm at the start of 2014.

“I request that no disposition be offered to the Defendant, no guilty plea be allowed at the upcoming court conference (Tuesday) and that no procedural or substantive steps be taken in the case until I take office,” Thompson wrote.

“We’re going to comply with that request,” DA spokesman Jerry Schmetterer said.

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NEW YORK
Wall Street Journal

By SEAN GARDINER
Nov. 15, 2013

Brooklyn District Attorney-elect Kenneth Thompson is seeking a delay until after he takes office in the prosecution of an Orthodox rabbi charged with sexual abuse, according to a letter reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

In the letter dated Friday, Mr. Thompson asked outgoing District Attorney Charles J. Hynes to direct his prosecutors to put off a court conference scheduled for Tuesday until January in the case of Rabbi Baruch Lebovits.

Jerry Schemetterer, a spokesman for Mr. Hynes, acknowledged receipt of the letter, saying the office planned to “comply with Mr. Thompson’s wishes.” He added, however, that there had been “no discussions” with Rabbi Lebovits’s attorneys about a possible plea deal—especially one involving no prison time—and they hadn’t expected the case to be resolved before Mr. Thompson took office in January.

“I don’t know why this is an issue,” Mr. Schmetterer said.

Mr. Thompson didn’t return calls seeking comment.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

November 16, 2013

Barney Zwartz
Religion editor, The Age.

Georgie Crozier thought she was mentally ready to investigate child sexual abuse in the churches. As a nurse and midwife, she had coped with cases of rape and incest, and heard heart-wrenching stories. But nothing could prepare her for the sheer horror or scale of what happened to thousands of young Victorians in orphanages, schools and church settings over decades.

As chairwoman of the Victorian inquiry into how the churches handled child sexual abuse, she hid her emotions behind a mask of formality through the long months of testimony from victims, advocates, experts and religious leaders. Just occasionally her irritation at some witnesses’ prevarication slipped out.

”It’s very difficult seeing people you know sitting across the table from you, men showing photos of themselves as boys,” she says. ”But I don’t think it was nearly as difficult as it was for them coming before us, and that kept me focused: this is so important for so many people – we just have to get this right.”

The inquiry’s 750-page report, tabled on Wednesday, made 15 recommendations across five areas: criminal law, making the church legally accountable, setting up an independent but church-funded tribunal to investigate claims and determine compensation, and better prevention and monitoring.

It particularly savaged the Catholic Church, but – as Andrea Coote noted in her speech to Parliament – this was because it was the focus of the vast majority of testimony. Also, as the report makes clear, the members were often unimpressed by the testimony of Catholic leaders.

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OREGON
Willamette Week

A new lawsuit says a Sunday School teacher molested one of his students in the 1980s and 1990s, and the church’s pastor did nothing to stop it despite knowing the teacher was attracted to children.

The suit says the teacher, James H. Michener, used his Sunday school class at the now-shuttered Evangel Baptist Church in Northeast Portland to befriend children. It alleges he then molested one boy who may have been as young as six at the time of the first incident.

The suit was filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court by attorney Erin Olson on behalf of the unnamed boy, who is now 30 years old. The suit also alleges Michener abused the boy at least twice. Once, it alleges, Michener touched the boy under “the pretext of assisting [him] in urinating.” Michener also allegedly persuaded the boy to spend the night at his house, then entering his bed at night to touch him. The suit says the incidents occurred as early as 1989 and as late as 1996.

The suit seeks $3.25 million in damages.

Evangel Baptist closed in 2008, but it is named as a defendant in the suit along with the Northwest Conservative Baptist Association, which the lawsuit said then owned, managed or administered more than 200 congregations across the Northwest, including 19 in Portland and more than 30 in the metro area.

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MINNESOTA
MinnPost

By Brian Lambert

What comes after “rock bottom” …? The Strib’s Tony Kennedy has the latest head-shaker/slapper out of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis: “Law enforcement documents would later show that by the time police got to Blessed Sacrament, [Rev. Curtis] Wehmeyer had removed his camper from church property, [vicar general Rev. Kevin] McDonough had taken Wehmeyer’s work computer to the chancery and church officials had interviewed the child who first came forward to allege abuse. The church’s handling of Wehmeyer’s case infuriated police, interfered with evidence and disrupted the early phase of the criminal investigation, according to law enforcement documents, a parish employee and St. Paul police Cmdr. Mary Nash. … When police searched Wehmeyer’s church residence after his arrest, they found an IBM ThinkPad computer in a closet. Police discovered that it belonged to Wehmeyer and was loaded with child porn.”

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FRANCE
Catholic Culture

The president of the French bishops’ conference has issued a public response to calls for recognition of the “human damage” caused by ecclesial movements that were guilty of abusive practices.

The statement by Bishop Georges Pontier on behalf of the French hierarchy addressed charges of “spiritual abuse” as well as sexual abuse. Critics of the several new ecclesiastical communities had complained of the “destruction of personalities” by cult-like practices. The complaints had centered on groups such as the Legion of Christ, the Beatitudes community, and the Community of St. John—all of which had seen formal charges of misconduct lodged against their founders.

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UNITED KINGDOM
London Evening Standard

ROBIN DE PEYER
Published: 15 November 2013

A school caretaker who preyed on two girls aged six and seven at holiday camps was today jailed for 12 years.

John Lyon, 40, admitted sexual assault by penetration on a seven-year-old victim, as well as another sexual assault of a six-year-old.

Lyon, of Stanstead Abbotts, Hertfordshire, targeted the seven-year-old during a summer camp in north London in July last year. Police were called after the traumatised victim told her mother how she was taken to a bathroom at the camp and assaulted.

Detectives investigating the case then identified a second victim, aged just six, who was assaulted in similar circumstances during the Easter holidays months earlier.

Lyon was arrested just days after the second assault. He was charged in January and pleaded guilty to the offences in September, after what police described as a “complicated and protracted enquiry”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
This is Local London

Enfield primary school caretaker John Lyon, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for sexually abusing two girls aged six and seven

By Charlie Peat

A school caretaker has been jailed for 12 years for sexually abusing two girls aged six and seven.

John Lyon, of Latymer Way, Edmonton, was a caretaker at St Andrew’s Church of England Primary School in Churchbury Lane when both incidents occurred.

The 40-year-old sexually assaulted a seven-year-old girl in a school bathroom when she was attending a summer camp in Churchbury Lane on July 30, 2012.

During the Easter holidays of 2012, a six-year-old girl told the police that she too had been sexually assaulted in similar circumstances by Lyon.

Mr Lyon was arrested on August 1, 2012 and charged on January 17, 2013.

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NEW MEXICO
Cibola Beacon

by Donald Jaramillo

CIBOLA COUNTY – Earlier this week, it was officially announced that the Diocese of Gallup was filing for Chapter 11 reorganization on Tuesday, Nov. 12, in the United States Bankruptcy Court in Albuquerque.

“As noted in our previous September letter [to church members], the filing will occur in order to mercifully and equitably deal with the sexual abuse claims faced by the Diocese, while also allowing the Diocese to continue to address the needs of our parishioners and charitable outreach missions,” said Suzanne Hammons, media liaison for the Diocese via email.

Information found on the Diocese’s website clearly stated that the bankruptcy filing does not include the parishes. And, the only school affected by the filing is Gallup Catholic School, which is part of the Diocese. The filing will not affect Grants’ St. Teresa Catholic School and San Fidel’s St. Joseph Mission School, both in Cibola County.

The Diocese of Gallup covers more than 55,000 square miles in northwestern New Mexico, including Cibola County.

Pope Pius XII established the Gallup Diocese in 1939 because he felt there was a need for Native Americans in the area to be adequately served for their spiritual needs. Under the direction of its fourth bishop, the Most Rev. James S. Wall, the Diocese ministers to a large and culturally diverse group of Catholics numbering around 58,000 including Native Americans from the Navajo, Zuni, Hopi, Apache, Laguna, and Acoma Tribes and pueblos. It’s been reported that the Gallup Diocese has been ranked as the poorest Diocese in the United States.

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

Archbishop asks judge to reverse himself
Church was ordered to turn over predators’ records
But Catholic officials are delaying & trying to limit info
At same time, Carlson wants a teenage victim’s emails

WHAT
With signs and childhood photos outside a “crucial” court hearing, clergy sex abuse victims and their supporters will hold a 30 minute vigil and blast St. Louis Catholic officials for

–seeking a teenage victim’s private emails, while
–trying to reverse a judge’s decision ordering them to turn over records about every accused archdiocesan sex offender

WHEN
Friday, Nov. 15 at 8:30 a.m.

WHERE
On the sidewalk outside Carnahan Court House at 1114 Market Street (corner of Tucker) in downtown St. Louis

WHO
Two-five members and supporters of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, (SNAPNetwork.org) the nation’s largest support network for men and women abused in religious and institutional settings

WHY
In May, St. Louis Catholic Archbishop Robert Carlson was ordered to turn over information about every archdiocesan employee (nun, bishop, brother, teacher and priest) who has been accused of sex crimes going back two decades. Six months later, Carlson has not complied.

Now, Carlson’s lawyers are trying to “gut” the judge’s order while also trying to get a teenaged child sex abuse victim’s private emails.

The case involves Fr. Joseph D. Ross, who allegedly molested a girl at an inner city parish in 2000. In 1988, Ross pled guilty to sexually assaulting an 11 year old boy during confession. Despite that conviction, Catholic officials quietly put Ross back on the job but told no one about his crimes.

In May, Judge Robert Dierker ordered Carlson to turn over records about 20 years of allegations of sexual abuse and misdeeds by current and former archdiocesan staff.

Carlson’s lawyers want Dierker to reconsider his order. They say they should be forced to provide records for a shorter period of time, only about alleged child sex crimes, only about accused priests (not bishops, seminarians, brothers, nuns, teachers and other employees), and only records that have already been made public through criminal or civil court filings. They also want to NOT produce correspondence between Ross and the now-retired Cardinal Justin Rigali, who headed the St. Louis archdiocese for years, and material sent by local Catholic officials to the Vatican in their effort to defrock Ross.

“Carlson wants to gut the judge’s order and keep his secrets secret,” said SNAP’s David Clohessy. “If he gets his way, Carlson will get a lot of information from a teenaged victim and, in turn, provide her with virtually nothing new.”

“It’s the worst of both worlds. Carlson wants tons of private emails to and from a deeply wounded teenager, the victim in this case,” said SNAP’s Barbara Dorris. “But he argues that he should have to turn over almost nothing of substance to her.”

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MICHIGAN
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release, Friday November 15, 2013

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

The Chicago Jesuit hierarchy is handling the new case of credible child sex abuse allegations against a priest who molested a Michigan boy.

[Upper Michigan Source]

The Marquette Michigan diocese says it has received and deemed credible an accusation that Father Bernard (“Fr. Ben”) Van der molested a boy in 1989 while substituting for a vacationing Marquette priest.

The Chicago Jesuits are at 2050 N. Clark St., Chicago IL 60614 (800) 922-5327

[Marquette diocese]

Michigan Catholic officials are urging victims to call church figures. That’s wrong. Anyone who sees, suspects or suffers child sex crimes should call secular officials not church officials

Father Van der Schueren is dead. He can’t be prosecuted. But some of his peers or supervisors might be, especially if they destroyed evidence, intimidated witnesses, hid crimes or refused to report suspicions of child sexual abuse to law enforcement. So it’s critical that anyone with knowledge or suspicions about wrongdoing here to call police and prosecutors

We applaud this brave victim for stepping forward. We hope his courage inspires others who are suffering in shame, silence and self-blame to do likewise. Staying silent hurts worse than stepping forward.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Lancashire Evening Post

One of Lancashire’ s most senior Catholic priests is facing jail after being convicted of sexually assaulting a man in the presbytery of English Martyrs church in Preston.

Canon Stephen Shield, 53, the Dean at Lancaster Cathedral, committed the offences more than two decades ago against a man who hoped to join the priesthood.

In a harrowing video interview played to the court the man spoke of how his faith has been rocked by the sexual abuse he suffered.

He said he felt like his soul had been “ripped out” and the room had been “filled with evil”.

He told the court he felt sickened that Shield celebrated mass within hours of abusing him and that years later he still felt a connection to his abuser through the Eucharist, wherever he was in the world.

He said he always feared he would not be believed if he complained about Shield, as the priest had trained at the prestigious seminary in Rome.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Fox 2

[with video]

ST. LOUIS, MO (KTVI) – The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests is picketing a hearing in downtown St. Louis for a priest accused of child sex crimes going back two decades. SNAP’s Director, David Clohessy, says the protest is focused on a pending civil suit against Father Joseph Ross.

In May, a judge ruled that the Archdiocese must turn over records about 20 years of alleged child sex abuse allegations involving Archdioese employees. Apparently, attorneys for the Archdiocese want the Judge to reconsider that order and limit what they have to turn over.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Virtual Lancaster

Stephen Shield, 53, of Balmoral Road, Lancaster, has been found guilty of three counts of indecent assault following a trial at Preston Crown Court.

The three historic allegations related to one male victim aged between 17-24 years, the committed between 1985 and 1992.

Sentence was adjourned until December 13th.

Detective Chief Inspector Jo Edwards, of Preston Police, said: “I am pleased that Mr Shields has been convicted of these offences.

“The victim in this case had lived with the knowledge of Mr Shield’s offending for a long period of time; this has had a significant impact upon him. It was a difficult decision for the victim to come forward and I am please that he felt confident enough in the Constabulary to help bring this man to justice.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

The Dean of Lancaster Cathedral has been convicted of three historical sexual offences at Preston Crown Court.

Canon Stephen Shield, 54, had denied indecently assaulting a man between 1985 and 1992, the first occasion when the victim was 18, in Keswick and Preston. He was found guilty by jury.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said he abused his position of trust “for his own sexual gratification”.

Shield, of St Peter’s Cathedral, is due to be sentenced on 13 December.

Joanne Cunliffe from the CPS said: “The defendant was in a position of trust within the Roman Catholic Church and in the community he served.

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FRANCE
Le Figaro

Par Jean-Marie Guénois
Mis à jour le 14/11/2013

[Summary: The present of the bishops conference has met with 40 victims of sexual and spiritual abuse that involved 14 communities. The Catholic Church, like any institution, does not like to publicly recognize internal scandal. However, Bishop Georges Pontier formally responded to a group of victims who were abused in movements and religious congregations.]

Le président de l’épiscopat Mgr Pontier, répond à une quarantaine de victimes d’abus sexuels et spirituels et met en cause quatorze «communautés nouvelles».

L’Église catholique, comme toute institution, n’aime pas reconnaître publiquement des scandales internes. C’est pourtant ce que vient de faire le président de la Conférence des évêques de France, Mgr Georges Pontier, en répondant officiellement à un groupe d’une quarantaine de «victimes de dérives sectaires au sein de différents mouvements d’Église et congrégations religieuses» qui avaient adressé aux évêques réunis en assemblée plénière la semaine dernière à Lourdes un «appel» pour dénoncer des «dégâts» humains dont ils ont été victimes dans le cadre des communautés dites «nouvelles» et dont les effets décrits peuvent aller de la «dépression», au «suicide» ou la «destruction de personnalités».

La nouveauté de cette affaire ne réside pas tant dans la dénonciation d’abus sexuels que quelques-uns des plaignants ont subis mais dans celle d’«abus spirituel», un concept encore peu usité. Le fondateur, ou le supérieur, utilise son aura et son pouvoir spirituel sur des personnalités souvent jeunes et fragiles, pour enfermer leur liberté dans une dépendance totale afin d’obtenir d’elles le silence absolu couvrant d’éventuels abus sexuels ou autres abus de pouvoir.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Lancaster Guardian

A Lancaster Cathedral canon has been found guilty of sexually abusing a young man more than two decades ago.

Father Stephen Shield’s victim, who had hopes of joining the priesthood, said he felt like his soul had been “ripped out” after the sex attacks by the Catholic priest.

Father Shield, who trained in Rome, had denied sexually assaulting the man in the presbytery at English Martyrs Church, Garstang Road, Preston, on two occasions after first meeting him at Castlerigg Manor in Cumbria – where he also abused him.

But today, a jury at Preston Crown Court found him guilty of three charges of indecent assault after a trial.

The offences were committed between 1985 and 1992 when the victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was aged 18 and 24.

Shield, 53, of Balmoral Road, Lancaster, became Canon at Lancaster Cathedral before he was arrested and charged with three counts of indecent assault.

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MINNESOTA
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on the St. Paul Police Department:

For reasons that remain unexplained, the St. Paul Police Department has decided to reopen a case involving a priest from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis who was accused in 2004 of having child porn on his computer. He was investigated for seven months, and when nothing was found, the case was dropped. Now it is being reopened.

The reopening of this case comes on the heels of a public plea by Commander Mary Nash asking anyone who was molested by a priest to come forward. She did not ask if someone had been abused by a rabbi, minister, school teacher, stepfather or police officer—only if it was a priest. Now she is back for a second time, making the same plea. This kind of religious profiling is legally suspect and morally unethical.

In a related matter, there is a curious news story in today’s Star Tribune that cites Commander Nash’s anger with the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis regarding a priest, Curtis Wehmeyer, who pleaded guilty to sexual offenses. The story is curious because it is not news—it is simply a rehashing of a story dating back to June 2012. It is hard not to conclude that this “story” is a spin job on the part of the newspaper to make the police look good and the archdiocese look bad. No matter, it has nothing to do with the concerns of the Catholic League in 2013.

Police Chief Tom Smith will not answer questions regarding this issue, so I am going public. His department reportedly has no funds to continue its “cold case” unit—there are several unresolved murders in St. Paul—yet it has the time and money to reopen a non-homicide case against a priest. Something is wrong, and we intend to find out what it is.

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CANADA
Metro

The bedroom resembled that of a teenager: Hockey posters on the wall. A computer.

The man it belonged to was in his late 40s.

Police had a serious reason for being in the Chatham, Ont., home where Ronald Inghelbrecht lived with his mother: officers in Toronto suspected he was a customer of a website that sold child pornography, and the Ontario Provincial Police were there to look for evidence.

“I would describe his room as being adolescent — like he decorated it when he was 12, or 14, and he never changed it,” said OPP Detective David Beckon.

Police seized three computers and thousands of images and movies — and just one video was what the officers in Toronto were looking for. It, they say, tied Inghelbrecht to a website they were investigating as part of Project Spade. He was charged with possession of child pornography and accessing child pornography, and the Chatham-Kent police put out a news release on Dec. 5, 2011.

Three days later, they followed with another release — and Inghelbrecht’s legal troubles worsened. …

Popular parish priest

By all accounts, he was a popular parish priest, a church youth leader and an active Scout organizer.

So when Daniel Moreau, 56, was arrested at his living quarters at a local church last March, there was shock and dismay in the town of Sorel-Tracy, about 100 kilometres northeast of Montreal.

Moreau was charged with seven counts of child pornography, part of a nationwide sweep resulting from Project Spade.

“We understand the distress that such an event can cause within the entire community,” diocese officials said in a statement, and announced Moreau had been relieved of his duties.

Most details of the case are under a publication ban, but defence lawyer Gilles B. Thibault told the Star his client was accused of possessing “an important quantity” of child pornography.

“It is not an isolated act, not a single photo or video — it is more than that,” he said.

Thibault confirmed his client was active in the Scouts in various places around Quebec for a “number of years.”

But, he said, “to date they have not found any victim in the Scout movement.”

Moreau’s case is before the courts.

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MICHIGAN
Roman Catholic Diocese of Marquette

(11/15/2013)

Officials of the Catholic Diocese of Marquette have deemed credible a recent allegation of sexual abuse of a minor against a deceased religious order priest from Belgium.

Fr. Bernard “Ben” Van der Schueren, S.J.The allegation was lodged against Father Bernard (“Fr. Ben”) Van der Schueren, S.J., a priest of the Society of Jesus, commonly called the Jesuits. The complaint deals with an incident involving a boy that happened during July of 1989 when Fr. Van der Schueren filled in for a diocesan priest at St. Michael Parish in Marquette. Fr. Van der Schueren died in 2009 at the age of 86.

As soon as the allegation was received, diocesan officials immediately began following the Diocese of Marquette’s Policy on Sexual Misconduct in Ministry. In keeping with that policy, the complaint was referred to Jesuit leadership, in this case, the Chicago-Detroit Province.

In addition, the Office of the Administrator of the Diocese of Marquette informed the Diocesan Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People of the complaint, and the diocesan attorney reported the allegation to the Marquette County Prosecutor’s Office.

After the complaint was lodged, the Jesuits of the Chicago-Detroit Province initiated their safeguarding procedures for sexual abuse of minors in pastoral ministries and contacted the Flemish Jesuits in Belgium. The Flemish provincial superior has committed himself to full cooperation with the investigation. The Chicago-Detroit Province Jesuits have taken charge of dealing with the accusations. They have contacted the victim/survivor of the abuse and have offered counseling and spiritual assistance.

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MICHIGAN
Upper Michigan Source

by Ty Czarnopis

MARQUETTE — Credible allegations of sexual abuse against a child have come forward against a priest that filled in at the St. Michael Parish in Marquette, according to Catholic Diocese officials.

The Catholic Diocese of Marquette says that allegations have arisen against Father Bernard Van de Schueren, S.J., a priest of the Society of Jesus. The allegations are in regards to an incident involving a boy that reportedly took place in July of 1989.

“Our first concern is always for the victims/survivors of abuse, and we pray that all of those affected by this situation and others like it will find healing and peace,” said Diocesan Director of Ministry Personnel, Kevin Branson.

According to officials with the church, Father Van der Schueren was filling in for a diocesan priest at St. Michael Parish in Marquette when the alleged abuse occurred. Fr. Van der Schueren passed away in 2009.

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MICHIGAN
ABC 10

Posted on November 15, 2013 by Mike Hoey

A child sexual abuse allegation has surfaced against a deceased Catholic priest who once served in the Diocese of Marquette.

Diocesan officials say they believe the allegation against the late Father Bernard Van der Schueren is credible.

The complaint deals with an incident involving a boy in July 1989, when Father Van der Schueren was filling in for another priest at St. Michael Parish in Marquette. He died in 2009 at the age of 86.

Diocesan officials say that as soon as they received the allegation, they referred it to the Jesuit Chicago-Detroit Province. Father Van der Schueren was a Jesuit priest.

The Office of the Administrator informed the Diocesan Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People of the complaint. The diocesan attorney also reported the allegation to the Marquette County Prosecutor’s Office.

The Jesuit Chicago-Detroit Province initiated their safeguarding procedures for sexual abuse of minors in pastoral ministries and contacted the Flemish Jesuits in Belgium. Father Van der Schueren was from Belgium. Diocesan officials say the Flemish provincial superior has agreed to cooperate fully with the investigation. The Jesuit Chicago-Detroit Province has contacted the victim, offering him counseling and spiritual assistance.

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MINNESOTA
Patch

Posted by Becky Glander (Editor) , November 15, 2013

A Catholic priest known for sexual misconduct who was assigned to Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM) in Minnetonka for 18 years was sued last week.

The Rev. Jerome C. Kern was accused in a lawsuit filed Nov. 7 of “sexual battery” of a boy in Edina between 1972 to 1976.

Kern was transferred to our Our Lady of Grace Church in Edina in 1969, after accusations of sexual abuse arose at his church in St. Paul, according to the Star Tribune.

The man from Edina is one of at least 10 people abused by Kern that Jeff Anderson & Associates knows about, and the firm is preparing three more suits against him, according to the newspaper.

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MINNESOTA
MinnPost

By Beth Hawkins

As part of a civil suit pending in Ramsey County District Court, a judge could order the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to release publicly the list of 33 priests “credibly accused” of child sex abuse as well as a list of 13 offenders maintained by the Diocese of Winona.

Absent a grand jury investigation or action by prosecutors, the release of the list offers the best hope of a full accounting of the extent of the sex-abuse cases in Minnesota and any cover up, according to several people who have followed the mushrooming sex-abuse scandal in the local Roman Catholic Church.

The court-ordered release of records pertaining to abusive priests has been pivotal in sex-abuse scandals in other dioceses. Absent the intervention of civil authorities or other strenuous outside pressure, the information disclosed by church leaders often has been woefully incomplete and outdated.

On Monday, Minnesota Public Radio reported that church officials left a confessed child molester, Father Clarence Vavra, in active ministry until his retirement — with an extra $650 a month as an inducement. Church leaders did not inform police or civil authorities of Vavra’s disclosures.

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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.

The public hearing will examine issues including:

The principles and procedures of Towards Healing adopted by the Catholic Church and their application in responding to:

victims of child sexual abuse; and
allegations of child sexual abuse against personnel of the Catholic Church.
The experience of people who have engaged in the Towards Healing process.

Royal Commission CEO Janette Dines said individuals and organisations, who believe that they have an interest in the Scope and Purpose of the public hearing, are invited to lodge an application for leave to appear.

“Applications for leave to appear can be made via the Royal Commission website and should outline why the applicant has a substantial and direct interest in appearing,” Ms Dines said.

The form and the submission should be lodged by 22 November 2013 with the Royal Commission via:

Email: solicitor@childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au; or
Mail: GPO Box 5283, Sydney NSW 2001

For more information on lodging your submission call 8282 3824 or email
solicitor@childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au

The public can attend the hearing, or watch it live on the Royal Commission’s website. For more information, visit www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au or phone 1800 099 340.

Media enquiries: Dani Redmond 0477 392 754 or media@childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au

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CYPRUS
Cyprus Mail

FOR A society claiming to protect its children, the lack of official reaction to the paltry 18-month jail sentence handed down to a 57-year-old priest for the indecent assault of his foster daughter is nothing short of hypocritical.

We heard nothing from the Church, our politicians, or even the Child Commissioner, who usually has something to say about any articles involving children, even if it’s just all talk.

The priest’s congregation from Ergates even showed up in court this week during sentencing to express their support and were outraged at the “unjust” sentence while the priest’s wife even expressed the wish for the victim to “burn”.

The sentence was close to the upper end of what was available to the court, because the crime took place between 1993 and 2000 when the maximum sentence for indecent assault was two years. But what about those seven years when welfare services were meant to be monitoring the foster family?

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

Quote for Day: Institution’s Politics “Too Unholy to Abide Much Longer” (with Commentary on USCCB Meeting)

Joan Chittister at National Catholic Reporter:

We are at a tipping point.

The struggle has been too long; the confusion, too deep; and the politics of every institution, too unholy to abide much longer.

I can really relate to this observation, especially as the annual meeting of the Catholic bishops of the U.S. winds down. Not a whit of hope, not a table scrap of new energy for the people of God, from this meeting. More of the same tired politics that have proven so dysfunctional for some years now, as the USCCB allies itself overtly with the religious and political right.

Cordileone’s predictable attack on gay folks: disgusting. The predictable election of Kurtz and DiNardo: no new wine or fresh wineskins there. Those seeking hope, please move on. The same-old, same-old politics designed to undermine the Obama administration by attacking a healthcare mandate designed to expand access to healthcare for millions of people on the margins: sinful in the extreme.

John Gallagher sums up the situation aptly for Queerty, with an eye to the U.S. Catholic bishops’ attitude towards those who are gay, in particular:

[T]here are plenty of reasons to believe that, no matter what the pope says, things won’t be changing all that much among the U.S. bishops for quite some time.

I especially like his observation that the Catholic media are very much a part of the problem and not part of the solution:

The bishops have their own echo chamber. Even though the majority of Catholics are more liberal than the hierarachy would have you believe, especially on marriage equality, the Catholic media apparatus is overwhelmingly conservative. (After all, no one is about to bite the hand that feeds you, let alone blesses you.) After years of beating the drum about the intrinsic evils of homosexuality, they aren’t about to switch gears. Add to that the fact that the bishops have cast their political lot with the religious liberty lobby, which thrives within the right-wing bubble, and you have a lot of voices drowning out the pope’s (emphasis in original).

Michael Sean Winters proves Gallagher’s point in spades with his puerile NCR column yesterday attacking “goofy” groups promoting “various leftie causes” at USCCB. His suggestion that the goofy lefties should simply request meetings with their bishops, who are, most of them, Michael assures us, “very nice men,” is beyond silly.

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ARGENTINA
Chiesa

Instead of challenging the powers head-on, the then-archbishop of Buenos Aires wrote a fiery letter to cloistered nuns. It was his way of “conducting politics.” The account of a direct witness of that battle

by Sandro Magister

ROME, November 15, 2013 – Pope Francis said so loud and clear in his agenda-setting interview with “La Civiltà Cattolica.” The public battles over questions like abortion or homosexual marriage are not priorities for him.

This does not change the fact that the upcoming synod will be dedicated precisely to the issue of the family. And therefore to questions that are today among the most fiercely combated on the political terrain as well.

But there is also uncertainty among the bishops. In Italy, in the United States, in Spain – the countries where in recent years the public efforts of the episcopates over questions of life and the family have been the most combative – there are those who are pushing for greater detachment from political exertion. Following the example – it is claimed – of the pope. …

Well then, what example did Bergoglio give, when as archbishop of Buenos Aires he found himself grappling with the approval of a law that permits persons of the same sex to contract marriage and adopt children?

It was 2010 when that law was approved in Argentina. Cardinal Bergoglio took a position against it in a form that he had studied thoroughly. Not with public declarations that would directly challenge the political powers, but with two internal letters to the Church: the first to the nuns of four Carmelite monasteries of Buenos Aires, and the second to a leader of the Argentine Catholic laity.

The twofold move by Cardinal Bergoglio naturally had a substantial impact on the political terrain as well. But the explanation that was given to it was that the cardinal intended with the two letters not to “conduct politics” but simply “to recall the teaching of the Church to all those who proclaim themselves to be Catholic, asking them to act accordingly.”

This justification of the activity of Cardinal Bergoglio was presented in the Argentine parliament by a Catholic senator very closely connected to him, Liliana Negre, a member of the Peronist party and the first president of the Global Action Network of Legislators and Governors for Life and the Family.

Liliana Negre has recounted chapter and verse how the approval of that law came about in Argentina, in a book about Pope Francis published in the United States, with the testimonies of twenty persons who knew him very closely, Jesuits and others.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The JC

By Simon Rocker, November 15, 2013

A police investigation into alleged sex abuse of women by prominent Golders Green rabbi, Chaim Halpern, has been dropped.

The Metropolitan Police said today that a file passed to the Crown Prosecution Service “regarding allegations of sexual assault has resulted in no charges being brought against a 54-year-old man”.

It said that officers from Barnet’s sexual offences, exploitation and child abuse command, who investigated the allegations, “confirm that all allegations have been fully investigated”.

Rabbi Halpern, who is the head of the Divrei Chaim synagogue, was arrested in February but had denied any wrongdoing.

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NEW ZEALAND
Otago Daily Times

Fri, 15 Nov 2013

A police hotline number set up to investigate former Northland school teacher James Parker was used by a church member in Kaitaia to dob in another church-goer for sexually abusing young boys.

The youth leader at Latter Day Saints (LDS) church in Kaitaia complained about Daniel Taylor, 34, who was yesterday jailed by the High Court in Whangarei on nine charges of sexually abusing young boys, including three brothers, over a five-year period.

He was sentenced to five years and seven months imprisonment and must serve two years and 10 months before becoming eligible for parole.

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MINNESOTA
Twin Cities Daily Planet

By Grace Kelly, Minnesota Progressive Project
November 13, 2013

The Head of Catholic Church, Pope Francis is leading in a new direction that moves from a preoccupation with sex and back to the principles that Jesus taught – like caring for the poor. However, the head of local Catholic Church, Archbishop John Nienstedt, is the ultimate in a preoccupation with sex. Not only has Archbishop Nienstedt been involved in condemning gays and condemning women, he lobbied against the Child Victims Act that removes the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse cases going forward. One of Nienstedt’s priests has been convicted of child molestation but went free because the statue of limitations ran out. Over a million church dollars has been spent since since the year 2000 in lobbying for laws that allow priests to get away with sexual crimes while trying to force sexual laws on everyone else. Not only did the Archbishop Nienstedt coverup and defend priests accused of sexual crimes, he rewarded them with extra funds. His actions put others at risk.

While many have left the Catholic church, an amazing grassroots group called Catholic Coalition for Church Reform (CCCR) is striving to reform the church from within. Even on a cold blustery day, many brave souls gathered to ask Archbishop Nienstedt to resign and to urge people to write to the Papal Nuncio about the choice for the new pope (address at bottom).

The CCCR wants Archbishop John Nienstedt to resign from the St. Paul-Minneapolis Archdiocese after the way the church handled accusations of sexual misconduct. The most profound statement is coming from Bob Beutel, “We need healing, but healing cannot begin with the knife still in the wound.” Indeed as victims speak out and church priests have not been brought to justice, the case for resignation grows. New allegations have added more concern. Basically, the Archbishop has tried to make priests untouchable by law, while the CCCR holds that “Religion is no defense for criminal actions.” What is even worse, is that no warning, no supervision and no controls were put on the priests in question. In fact, at least one priest was given immediate retirement with extra money and complete lack of supervision.

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NEW JERSEY
Digital Journal

Those with old histories of sexual abuse could be subject to a revised and indefinte statute of limitations, providing legislative proposals are enacted.

November 15, 2013 /24-7PressRelease/ — Over the past couple of decades, the Catholic Church has experienced an alarming record of sexual assault scandals within its doors. However, in legal terms, New Jersey’s statute of limitations actually protected former offenders. This is because the statute of limitations, which starts the clock on viable criminal suits, often expired before young victims could report criminal actions by church officials.

In such cases, had the victims reported the crimes within he specified statutory period, many of the offenders could have have faced time behind bars. Instead, they were given second chances.

However, in 1996, New Jersey’s laws transformed and eliminated the time limit for some criminal charges. So, can church officials now be held accountable for former acts, which date back to before 1996? Not exactly. Even within the new legal parameters, sex abuse victims have only two years to sue after linking abuse to other issues, including divorce or depression. This is spurring legal change.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

Nov. 15, 2013

A RETIRED Catholic priest living at Lake Haven was one of 65 people across Australia arrested as part of a global investigation targeting the users of a Canadian-based child exploitation website.

More than 300 suspects have been arrested worldwide during the investigation as 386 children were removed from harm, including six in Australia.

Police have announced that the three-year investigation by Canadian authorities have referred the details of numerous Australian-based users of the child exploitation website to policing jurisdictions in Australia.

Under what is known as Operation Thunderer, the Australian Federal Police and state and territory police have arrested 65 people who have been charged with 399 offences.

It includes the retired priest, 72, arrested at Lake Haven on August 20 and charged with possessing child abuse material and using a carriage service to access child pornography.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: TONY KENNEDY , Star Tribune Updated: November 14, 2013

Authorities questioned the visit by the former vicar general and a deacon before arrest in abuse case.

It was June 21, 2012, and the Rev. Curtis Wehmeyer was about to be confronted by officials of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. The pastor of Blessed Sacrament Parish in St. Paul had been under church supervision for sexual misconduct, and a mother had recently confronted him with suspicions that he was abusing her son. Now she had gone to officials at the chancery.

The doorbell rang, and in came the Rev. Kevin McDonough, the influential former vicar general, and Deacon John Vomastek, a former cop. A parish employee at the scene said they took Wehmeyer into a closed office. A short time later, according to the employee and police accounts, McDonough and Vomastek left the building, and Wehmeyer was left on his own to pack up and move out.

He was free for the next 28 hours, when police arrested him.

Law enforcement documents would later show that by the time police got to Blessed Sacrament, Wehmeyer had removed his camper from church property, McDonough had taken Wehmeyer’s work computer to the chancery and church officials had interviewed the child who first came forward to allege abuse.

The church’s handling of Wehmeyer’s case infuriated police, interfered with evidence and disrupted the early phase of the criminal investigation, according to law enforcement documents, a parish employee and St. Paul police Cmdr. Mary Nash.

“With them going and getting to Wehmeyer before us, it did complicate the case,” Nash said. “It gave him an opportunity to hide the scene of the crime [the camper] and to get out of the sight of police for the short term.”

Questions about McDonough’s and Vomastek’s actions were answered Thursday by archdiocese spokesman Jim Accurso, who said the timeline in the police documents is inaccurate and the archdiocese worked closely with police. “We did not put the police at a disadvantage because they were notified throughout the entire time,’’ he said.

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MINNESOTA
Faribault County Register

November 15, 2013
Associated Press

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis announced Thursday that it has named a consulting firm with experience in addressing issues of clergy sex abuse to conduct a review of priest files.

Kinsale Management Consulting, founded by former FBI executive Kathleen McChesney, will begin its review next month, starting with files of all clergy in active ministry, the archdiocese said. Kinsale will conduct an initial assessment before determining how long the review will take.

McChesney also served as head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Office for Child and Youth Protection, where she developed and oversaw a program to ensure dioceses complied with policies to prevent and report sexual abuse.

Critics say McChesney is another church insider. David Clohessy, director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, added that McChesney will be forced to rely on what church leaders choose to divulge.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Five West Australian children have been removed from harm by police, after an international child sexual abuse ring was smashed.

It comes as part of a joint crackdown on those using a Toronto-based child exploitation website.

For the past four months, police officers around the world have been executing search warrants and making arrests.

Globally 386 children have been removed from situations where they were used to create images of child sexual abuse.

Police raided homes in Perth and the Esperance-Goldfields district as part of the operation.

So far four people aged between 30 and 72 have been charged by WA Police.

They are facing a total of 107 offences including indecent dealing of a child under 13, indecent recording of a child under 13 and possession of child exploitation material.

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