ABUSE TRACKER

AUSTRALIA
The Star

By STEPHEN RYAN May 16, 2013

IT was either fiery and hostile or cordial and straight forward.

It was a meeting between some of Newcastle’s senior police and Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox at Waratah police station on December 2, 2010.

One of the officers who attended, former Senior Sergeant Justin Quinn, told a Special Commission of Inquiry on Thursday that the meeting was ‘‘cordial’’ with Detective Fox being asked to hand over documents he had relating to allegations of sexual abuse cover-ups within the Catholic Church.

Detective Fox has a different version.

His barrister, Mark Cohen, suggested to Mr Quinn, who has since left the force, that Detective Fox said the ‘‘only reason why we’re here’’ is because of Newcastle Herald journalist Joanne McCarthy.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By STEPHEN RYAN May 17, 2013

ONE of Australia’s most eminent criminal barristers has paid tribute to both the efforts of Newcastle detectives and those of Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox at a Special Commission of Inquiry this morning.

Ian Lloyd QC was asked to review the 3000-page brief of evidence that was prepared in relation to allegations of sexual abuse cover-ups within the Catholic Church.

Mr Lloyd, a former NSW Crown prosecutor who has practised in Hong Kong and the United Kingdom and is a former judge of appeal in Fiji, said the brief was ‘‘as good as I’ve ever seen in many countries’’.

He complimented the methodologies used by detectives and said the work of Detective Fox showed empathy and understanding of the trauma victims suffered.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX From: The Australian May 17, 2013

A NSW detective who claimed to be blowing the whistle on the investigation of sex abuse in the Catholic Church may himself have hindered any prosecution and endangered a pedophile victim, an inquiry has heard.

The NSW special commission of inquiry has heard the detective, Peter Fox, leaked to a Fairfax reporter, Joanne McCarthy, a copy of a confidential witness statement given by the victim.

Giving evidence to the inquiry in Newcastle yesterday, one of the state’s most experienced investigators, Paul Jacob, said this leak could have jeopardised an investigation into the alleged cover-up of church child abuse.

“If I was a defence barrister . . . that would be a huge feeding ground of opportunity for me to attack that victim’s credibility,” said Detective Inspector Jacob, the manager of the NSW Police Sex Crimes Squad.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

Police have compiled about 3000 pages of evidence for claims that the Catholic Church covered up allegations of child sex abuse by two NSW Hunter Valley priests, an inquiry has been told.

But a decision on whether charges should be laid against senior priests or church officials is not expected until later this year at the earliest.

The evidence was gathered in a police investigation codenamed Strike Force Lantle, set up in late 2010 to look at complaints made by four alleged victims about Father Denis McAlinden and Father James Fletcher between 1985 and 1999.

Ian Lloyd QC was engaged by government officials earlier this year to review the Lantle investigation for the special commission of inquiry that began in Newcastle 10 days ago.

The inquiry, sparked by police whistleblower Detective Peter Fox, is looking at the way police and the church have handled child sex allegations, particularly those involving McAlinden and Fletcher, who are both dead.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

KEVIN DOYLE – 17 MAY 2013

THE Justice for Magdalenes group has announced the end of its political campaign.

The advocacy body for survivors of the laundries said that it had achieved its main objectives.

Its members will continue to assist survivors but only in a personal capacity.

The body said today that its main aims where to bring about an official apology from the State for survivors and the establishment of a compensation scheme.

“The door will be open to every survivor and/or her family members and/or other groups representing Magdalene survivors to pursue their own claim for redress,” said a statement.

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SCOTLAND
STV

[with video]

The Vatican has confirmed the disgraced Cardinal Keith O’Brien will leave Scotland for several months following revelations about his sexual conduct.

Authorities in Rome said his departure had been decided “in agreement with the Holy Father,” but stopped short of saying whether Pope Francis had personally intervened.

But will this move draw a line under an affair that has added to a sense of crisis in the Catholic Church in Scotland? And what message does it send about how the Church deals with those who have abused their power?

Scotland Tonight hears from the journalist who broke the story on Cardinal O’Brien, Catherine Deveney, and the Scotsman writer Stephen McGinty, author of a biography of the late Cardinal Winning.

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SCOTLAND
STV

A number of windows have been smashed at the church where Cardinal Keith O’Brien was staying in East Lothian.

Vandals targeted Our Lady of the Waves Church in Dunbar sometime overnight between Wednesday and Thursday.

The Cardinal moved into a parish house attached to the church earlier this month after time away from Scotland.

He stood down as the Archbishop of St Andrews in Edinburgh after allegations of inappropriate behaviour in February.

On Wednesday, the Vatican said the Cardinal would be leaving Scotland for several months for “spiritual renewal, payer and penance”.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Jason Kennedy

One of the main advocacy groups for survivors of the Magdalene laundries is ending its political campaign following the State apology earlier this year.

The group, Justice for Magdalenes, said its main goals were to see a State apology to laundry survivors and to ensure a compensation scheme was established. A statement issued by the group said responsibility to ensure justice is delivered now rests with Irish society, including Church, State, families and local communities.

“As a voluntary group, and having worked at maximum capacity over the past four years, JFM believes it has achieved all that it can by way of political advocacy,” it said. “In withdrawing from the political advocacy arena, JFM takes this opportunity to thank everyone who has helped the group accomplish its goals. Our campaign was truly a collaborative effort.”

The group has been preparing to end its campaign over recent months and has released a series of questions and concerns relating to the Magdalen fund they say remain unanswered. They have also published a self-help guide for survivors and another for family members.

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IRELAND
The Journal

THE JUSTICE FOR Magdalenes (JFM) group has announced today it is to end its political campaign.

The group, which began its campaign in June 2009, said that it believes it has achieved all it can by way of political advocacy. Survivors from the Magdalene laundries in Ireland received an apology from the Irish State and news that a compensation scheme was established for them by the Irish government on 19 February.

JFM had been set up as a voluntary group to achieve such goals, and said today:

It is the collective responsibility of all citizens to ensure that the promise of An Taoiseach’s official State apology (19 February 2013) is delivered upon.

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AUSTRALIA
Truth, Justice and Healing Council

The Truth, Justice and Healing Council has been established by the Catholic Church to help the Church fully embrace the Australian Government’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The Council will help the Church deal with the tragic legacy of child sexual abuse and help victims and survivors to be heard and supported.

The Royal Commission is an opportunity for the Church to explain the way it has treated victims and survivors, to acknowledge past wrongs and failings and to find ways in which to work towards justice and healing for all.

Importantly, it is an opportunity for victims and survivors of sexual abuse to come forward and be heard in an environment of support and safety.

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AUSTRALIA
CathNews

TJH Council CEO visits Wollongong

TJH Council launches website

The Truth, Justice and Healing Council, has visited Wollongong to meet with Bishop Peter Ingham, clergy, religious, school principals, and employees from the Catholic Education Office, CatholicCare and the Office of the Bishop, the Council said in a media release.

Mr Sullivan walked through the process of the Royal Commission and gave an understanding of the public and private hearings. He commented, “This is our opportunity not to let down people who have been damaged by the Church.” All present were very positive in their response to Mr Sullivan’s presentation.

The ABC reports that the inquiry into child sexual abuse in the New South Wales Hunter Valley Catholic Church has heard an investigator did not want to examine allegations of abuse because he was waiting for more information.

Detective Inspector Paul Jacob, manager of the NSW Sex Crime Squad, said after a discussion with former Lake Macquarie commander Dave Waddell he believed there was no prospect of “criminal investigation outcomes” as key people were dead.

In an email, Detective Jacob said he was asking the commission’s senior executive team not to investigate, but was quick to tell the Newcastle Supreme Court today that should not be interpreted as the position taken by NSW Police.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Wollongong’s Catholic Bishop Peter Ingham has again offered his apology to victims of clergy abuse in the Illawarra and says he’s fully complying with requests from the royal commission.

A meeting of 120 clergy, school principals and catholic care staff was held in Wollongong this week to bring them up to date about the royal commission process.

Bishop Peter Ingham says he’s been asked to supply all documents about child sex abuse in the Illawarra from 1975 to now.

He says a large amount of material has been handed over which includes details of complaints against clergy and how the investigations were handled.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

An Anglican bishop on the New South Wales north coast has resigned over his handling of abuse claims at a children’s home.

The Anglican Diocese of Grafton received a number of claims in 2006 about acts of physical, sexual and psychological abuse at the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore.

The abuse took place between the 1940s and 1980s.

Thirty-nine of the claims were settled through negotiated payments, but two people did not accept the conditions, and seven others later came forward with similar claims.

The offer of financial compensation was later withdrawn.

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SCOTLAND
The Courier

By ALAN WILSON, 16 May 2013

A church warden who preyed on an eight-year-old girl over a near two-year period – sexually abusing her twice – has been jailed for 16 months.

Neil Morton attacked the girl in a bedroom at his home in Dundee.

The abuse only came to light after the girl told her parents.

She later told police that Morton was “doing things that were wrong”.

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AUSTRALIA
Maitland Mercury

By ELLE WATSON May 17, 2013

The state’s most senior sex crimes detective has dismissed police whistleblower Peter Fox’s claim that Strike Force Lantle was a sham – describing the comment as “offensive in the extreme” and “detrimental” to the morale of police who investigated allegations of a Catholic Church sexual abuse cover up.

Under cross-examination at the Commission of Inquiry, NSW Sex Crimes Squad manager Detective Inspector Paul Jacob, who provided consultancy to Lantle investigators, said they compiled an “amazing” brief of evidence.

“[It is] offensive and I feel sorry for the police who have invested huge swathes of their time to investigate the matter,” Inspector Jacob said.

He said Inspector Fox’s belief that the investigation should have been given to more senior detectives was unfounded.

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SCOTLAND
Evening Telegraph

By GAYLE RITCHIE, 16 May 2013

A 65-year-old church warden who sexually abused a child was jailed for 16 months on Thursday.

At Dundee Sheriff Court, Neil Morton, of Pitroddie Gardens, admitting sexually assaulting the child on two occasions.

The court heard Morton had worked as a storeman in the city for 40 years before taking on a part-time position as a warden at the Central Baptist Church on Ward Road.

His solicitor, Jack Brown, said his client had a strict religious upbringing and no previous convictions.

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AUSTRALIA
Maitland Mercury

By ELLE WATSON May 17, 2013

A QC who independently reviewed Strike Force Lantle said the brief produced by investigators is as good as he has ever seen.

Ian Lloyd QC, this morning told the Commission of Inquiry it took him more than three days to read the 3000 page brief that contained dozens of witness statements supporting claims of sexual abuse concealment by members of the Maitland-Newcastle Catholic diocese.

“In all my years of prosecuting crimes, and we’re approaching 37 years now, the report is as good as I’ve ever seen,” Mr Lloyd said.

He said one of the investigators leading the strike force, Detective Sergeant Jeff Little, appeared to have carried out a complex investigation over 16 months.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Dan Cox

Documents tendered to an inquiry into child sexual abuse in the NSW Hunter Valley reveal a senior member of Australia’s Catholic Church refused to be questioned over an alleged abuse cover-up.

Ian Lloyd, QC, who was asked by the special commission of inquiry to assess Strike Force Lantle’s brief of evidence, found “all but one of the still living” persons of interest was interviewed.

Mr Lloyd’s report into the strike force said a “serving member” of the Catholic clergy “exercised his legal right to refuse to be questioned by police”.

In a statement tendered to the inquiry at Newcastle Supreme Court earlier this week, NSW Sex Crimes Squad manager Detective Inspector Paul Jacob said Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson declined to be interviewed.

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AUSTRALIA
TVNZ

Catholic Church officials have been likened to the mafia, outlaw motorcycle gangs and drug cartels by a legal activist.

Lawyer and lobbyist Dr Bryan Keon-Cohen said the church, currently at the centre of an Australian Royal Commission into the handling of child sex abuse complaints, saw itself as above the law and resisted governmental responses to child sex abuse.

Keon-Cohen, the president of community lobby group COIN (Commission of Inquiry Now), said the church’s own mechanisms for investigating abuse, such as Towards Healing and the Melbourne Response, were insufficient and objectionable.

“They seek to replace due process of civil and criminal law, while not being open for public scrutiny and accountability,” he told a legal conference in Victoria.

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AUSTRALIA
Perth Now

BY PAUL MAGUIRE AAP MAY 17, 2013

THE senior policeman who told NSW detective Peter Fox to hand over all his documents relating to allegations of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests says the request was “cordial”.

Assistant police commissioner Max Mitchell was the acting Hunter region commander in 2010 when he told Detective Chief Inspector Fox that allegations in his documents would be investigated by a new police strike force based in Newcastle.

Mr Mitchell told a special NSW government commission of inquiry on Friday that his meeting with Det Insp Fox on December 2 that year was “very cordial”, with “no heated exchanges or annoyance and no outbursts by anyone”.

Mr Mitchell said that when Det Insp Fox arrived at the meeting and said he had mistakenly left the documents on his desk in the Port Stephens police station he simply asked him again to give them to officers involved in the new strike force.

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MARYLAND
WJLA

[with video]

By Greta Kreuz May 16, 2013

Renee Palmer Gamby was just a toddler when she says she was molested by a male babysitter from her church. Covenant Life in Gaithersburg was the flagship church of the Sovereign Grace Ministries denomination until this past December, when it pulled out.

Renee’s mother said that when she called their pastor about the abuse, he told her not to call police. Instead, Renee said she was required to meet with her alleged perpetrator and forgive him.

Renee and her mother said they thought they were the only victims. But years later, they found story after story on the “Sovereign Grace Ministries Survivors” blog. And now several are going public in what they hope will be a class-action civil lawsuit.

“We are alleging that a group of men, pastors, conspired together to cover up ongoing sexual abuse of children,” said Susan Burke, civil lawsuit attorney.

The suit alleges decades of brutal sexual and physical abuse of young children–boys and girls– from the 1980s on, at both Covenant Life Church, and Sovereign Grace Church of Fairfax.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Examiner

THE Right Reverend Keith Slater has resigned as Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Grafton.

Bishop Slater said he accepts full responsibility for the incorrect management of claims of abuse alleging acts of physical, psychological and sexual abuse at the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore.

The Bishop said the Diocese had adopted a Professional Standards Ordinance and Protocol in 2004 which outlines the obligations and processes for managing complaints of sexual abuse.

Initial findings from an audit in January indicated that the Professional Standards Protocols had not always been applied, specifically in matters associated with claims of abuse at the North Coast Children’s Home.

“I acknowledge that I was responsible for ensuring full compliance with the Protocol and that I failed in this duty,” Bishop Slater said in a media statement.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

AAP May 17, 2013

THE head of the Anglican Diocese in Grafton has resigned over the way allegations of abuse at a NSW north coast childrens home were handled.

Bishop Keith Slater today apologised for his past failings in managing the allegations of physical, psychological and sexual abuse at the North Coast Childrens Home in Lismore between 1940 and the 1980s.

“As a sign of my recognition of these matters and in the hope that it may contribute towards healing and wholeness for those who are abused I forthwith resign from being the Bishop of the Diocese of Grafton,” he said in a statement.

Bishop Slater said the diocese had received a number of allegations of abuse at the home between the 1940s and 1980s.

The alleged perpetrators included staff, visiting clergy, members of holiday host families and other residents.

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ILLINOIS
WLS

[with video]

May 16, 2013 (CHICAGO) (WLS) — Roman Catholic priests who are sex abusers are being paid to handle prayer requests from unsuspecting families.

For centuries, the Catholic faithful have arranged masses for sick relatives, deceased loved ones or in the memory of friends. They’re called “intentions” and usually Catholics offer a small donation. The I-Team has discovered some intentions are being farmed out to priests who are sex offenders; men banned from regular ministry- now paid to pray- and some of the faithful are not informed. The bells tolled on Father Donald O’Connor’s career in 2002, when he was terminated as Pastor of Assumption Parish here in Coal City.

These newly-obtained records from the Diocese of Joliet reveal church findings that O’Connor had sexually abused many boys in numerous parishes.

The priest was quoted once as saying “it’s better than shacking up with a woman.”

One of his victims committed suicide according to the diocese files.

But just one month after O’Connor was permanently removed from any public ministry, he was sent a letter from the diocese chancellor asking if he was “in need of mass stipends…just let us know the number you would need…and a check will be issued every three months.”

——————————

Statement of the Diocese of Joliet
Re: Compensation to priests removed from ministry
May 13, 2013

The Diocese of Joliet does not provide compensation for any priest who is permanently removed from public ministry because of a credible or substantiated allegation of sexual abuse of a minor. Any benefits these priests receive, such as a pension, are mandated by federal, state or canon law.

To assist with the spiritual needs of people, priests routinely offer Mass for specific intentions. Priests who are removed from public ministry because of sexual abuse of minors may not celebrate Mass in public, but they are not prohibited from doing so privately. Like all priests, they may offer a Mass for a specific person or cause, and they may receive the small stipend if one is offered, usually $10.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

AAP May 17, 2013

CATHOLIC Church officials have been likened to outlaw motorcycle gangs, drug cartels and people smugglers in an explosive speech delivered at a legal conference in Victoria.

Lawyer and lobbyist Bryan Keon-Cohen said the church, currently at the centre of a royal commission into the handling of child sex abuse complaints, saw itself as above the law and resisted governmental responses to child sex abuse.

Dr Keon-Cohen, the president of community lobby group COIN (Commission of Inquiry Now), said the church’s own mechanisms for investigating abuse, such as Towards Healing and the Melbourne Response, were insufficient and objectionable.

“They seek to replace due process of civil and criminal law, while not being open for public scrutiny and accountability,” he said.

Dr Keon-Cohen said the church’s refusal to recognise assault as a crime first and not merely a sin amounted to it putting Catholic doctrine before the law of the land.

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MISSOURI
The Kansas City Star

May 16
BY JUDY L. THOMAS
The Kansas City Star

Local Catholic officials received numerous reports alleging inappropriate behavior by a priest before a 14-year-old boy took his life in 1983, a motion filed this week by the boy’s parents says.

But the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese failed to act on the reports about Monsignor Thomas O’Brien, the motion alleges, and Brian Teeman committed suicide after suffering repeated sexual abuse by the priest.

The motion, filed in Jackson County Circuit Court, is packed with excerpts from depositions of dozens of witnesses — including priests and nuns — and an affidavit from a former school board president at Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary School, who said she complained about O’Brien to a former bishop, then resigned and pulled her son from the school in the 1980s because nothing was done about it.

Brian died of a gunshot wound to the head in November 1983 at the family’s home in Independence.

The motion is part of a wrongful-death lawsuit filed against the diocese and O’Brien by Don and Rosemary Teeman. The Teemans filed the suit in September 2011 after a man who had served as an altar boy with their son told them of the alleged abuse. The lawsuit says the diocese shares responsibility for Brian’s death because church officials knew that O’Brien was sexually abusing boys but covered it up.

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ALABAMA
WALA

MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) – A victims’ advocacy group is critical of Mobile Archbishop Thomas Rodi and his response to the announcement that Rev. James Havens, the pastor of St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church faces an accusation of sexual abuse of a minor. In response, the Archbishop said, “We have been faithful to the promises the Archdiocese of Mobile has made to take accusations seriously.”

In a news release , SNAP or Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said Archbishop Rodi “basically kept the accusation and suspension secret” until FOX10 News anchor Bob Grip posted a series of tweets about it. The only public intimation of a problem came when the Archbishop himself tweeted on Monday evening, May 13 that he was “About to begin a parish meeting dealing with a painful matter. Please say a prayer for all concerned.”

“Even now, there’s no notice on Rodi’s archdiocesan website about the suspension. Then, when Rodi finally ‘came clean’ about the accusation against Fr. James Havens, he tried to minimize the alleged horror by citing the year of the possible crime and the claim that it didn’t happen at a church (as if somehow, it’s less devastating for a child to be molested on one side or the other of an invisible property line),” continued SNAP.

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FLORIDA
Herald-Tribune

By Shannon McFarland
Published: Thursday, May 16, 2013

SARASOTA – A Catholic priest was sentenced to life in prison today for repeatedly having sex with a teenage boy.

William C. Wert, now 56, had recurring sexual interactions with a 14-year-old Nokomis boy after the man found him on a chat website for teenagers. The messages turned explicit, later becoming key pieces of evidence for the prosecution.

“I think the sentence is appropriate considering the predatory behavior,” said Assistant State Attorney Dawn Buff, who prosecuted the case before Circuit Court Judge Frederick Mercurio.

In March, a jury found him guilty on eight counts of sexual offenses against a child; two other counts were dropped and the jury found him not guilty on one count. Wert has been in jail without bail since his arrest in February 2011.

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IRELAND
The Journal

THE OLDEST KNOWN survivor of the Catholic-run Magdalene laundries has died at the age of 97.

Madge O’Connell, who was born in January 1916, was placed into the Good Shepherd Convent in Cork by a local priest when both of her parents died. She was 34 when she entered the laundry and she never left the care of the nuns for the rest of her life.

When the laundry closed its doors in 1993, Madge and other women being held in the laundry were moved to a new building but remained under the care of the Good Shepherd nuns.

Magdalene Survivors Together, one of the groups representing women who had been in the laundries, said that she had expressed an interest in being part of the redress scheme run by the Department of Justice following Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s official apology to the women in February.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

LUKE BYRNE – 16 MAY 2013

THE oldest survivor of the Magdalene Laundry institutions has died.

Madge O’Connell (97) was born in January 1916 in the small village of Dromina, in Co Cork. She passed away yesterday.

By the age of 34 both of Ms O’Connell’s parents had passed away and the local parish priest suggested that she sell her home and farm.

Despite being in her mid-30s Ms O’Connell was then placed into the Good Shepherd Convent in Sunday’s Well, where she would spend almost the rest of her life.

Ms O’Connell had this year begun the process of trying to claim redress for her time in the laundries.

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MISSOURI
Jeff Anderson & Associates

JANE DOE 173 AND FAMILY ACHIEVE HISTORIC SETTLEMENT WITH DIOCESE OF KANSAS CITY – ST. JOSEPH

GREGG MEYERS

On Tuesday, May 14, 2013, our clients, Jane Doe 173 and her parents, settled a historic lawsuit against the Diocese of Kansas City – St. Joseph and its Bishop, Robert Finn. Their case was significant for two reasons. First, through the lawsuit, Jane Doe 173, with the brave support of her family, sought justice for the damages caused by Bishop Finn’s actions in supporting Father Shawn Ratigan, a child pornographer, at the expense of numerous children from the Diocese, including Jane Doe. Second, Jane Doe 173 brought her claim under Masha’s Law, a federal statute which allows survivors of sexual exploitation and child pornography to file a civil claim in federal court. Jane Doe 173’s case is one of the first in the country to be brought against an institution for its involvement and association with child pornography. The successful resolution of Jane Doe 173’s claim under Masha’s law is an important touchstone for the protection of children from the growing menace of child pornography.

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), at least hundreds of thousands of websites with child pornography exist worldwide. In 2006, in recognition of this global problem, President George W. Bush signed the Adam Walsh Protection Act, which contained Masha’s Law (18 U.S.C. §2255). In addition to increasing penalties for downloading child pornography, the law provided that victims of sexual exploitation and child pornography could file a civil lawsuit against those persons, who received, possessed, and distributed child pornography. The statute provides that a victim may recover actual damages of no less than $150,000.00, along with attorney’s fees and costs of the suit. The law, therefore, explicitly recognizes the devastating repercussions that child pornography can have on its child subjects.

Corresponding with the adoption of Masha’s law, public awareness of the global proliferation of child pornography continues to grow. Emily Bazelon’s brilliant article in The New York Times Magazine, The Price of a Stolen Childhood, is a must read and presents the very real ramifications for survivors of such exploitation. Because the sexual exploitation of a child is reduced to a potentially permanent recording or an image, child pornography can haunt the victim for years after the original crime took place, tattooing the soul of its subject with hurt, shame, and fear. Each distribution of the image has the potential to create re-victimization. For some, the very uncertainty of distribution on the internet, will impact their life and career choices, as a survivor must confront the specter of the unknown. But we believe there is hope.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Tablet

Hans Küng – 11 May 2013

When Jorge Bergoglio took the name Francis as Pope, he did something no pontiff has done before: placed himself in the tradition of the Poverello. It is, says this leading theologian, a challenge to the Roman system, in terms of both spiritual and institutional reform

Who could have imagined what has happened in the last weeks? When I decided, some months ago, to resign all of my official duties on the occasion of my eighty-fifth birthday, I assumed that in my lifetime I would never see fulfilled my decades-long dream that – after all the setbacks following the Second Vatican Council – the Catholic Church would once again experience the kind of rejuvenation that it did under Pope John XXIII.

And now my theological companion of many decades, Joseph Ratzinger – both of us are now 85 – suddenly announced his resignation of his papal office effective from the end of February. And, on 19 March (his name day and my birthday), a new Pope with the surprising and programmatic name Francis assumed this office.

Has Jorge Mario Bergoglio considered why no Pope has dared to choose the name of Francis until now? At any rate, the Argentinian was aware that with the name Francis he was connecting himself with Francis of Assisi – the thirteenth-century downshifter who had been the fun-loving, worldly son of a rich textile merchant in Assisi until the age of 24, when he gave up his family, wealth and career, even giving his splendid clothes back to his father.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

Steve’s surgery seems to have gone well, and he has spent the day sleeping. Thank you, all who have asked about this and have told us you’ll be praying. We both appreciate it very much.

Since my nursing duties are lighter as my patient sleeps, I’m sneaking an unanticipated moment to share some articles I’ve run across lately, or have been sent by friends or have read on Facebook. These all have to do with reform of the Catholic church and with the role Pope Francis may or may not play in reforming the church:

In The Tablet, theologian Hans Küng sees the papacy of Pope Francis as a window of opportunity for continued reform of the Catholic church along the lines of Vatican II, after Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI sought to restore things to the pre-conciliar norms. If Francis fails to reform the church, Küng proposes that reform continue from the bottom of the church upwards, without the approval of the hierarchy and even in direct contradiction to hierarchical commands. Failure to move in the direction of reform will produce an ice age in the Catholic church, Küng believes, in which Catholicism “will run the risk of dwindling into a barely relevant large sect.”

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

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CatholicPhilly

BY MATTHEW GAMBINO

Donna Farrell, the former director of communications for the archdiocese and Richard V. McCarron, the former secretary for Catholic education, both received letters dated May 8 from Archbishop Charles Chaput conveying the good news and inviting them to a formal award ceremony during the 6:30 p.m. Mass on Sunday, June 2 at the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul.

Farrell will receive the Cross Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice (for the Church and the Pontiff), consisting of a gold medal inscribed with those words in Latin and an official scroll. Established in 1888, it is given to a Catholic who has shown distinguished service to the Church and to the papacy.

It is the first such honor given to a lay person in the Archdiocese since 2003.

The award “comes directly from the Holy See and is one of the highest honors the Holy Father can bestow on an individual,” Archbishop Chaput said in his letter. “As such, it’s an extraordinary blessing for the whole Catholic community in our region. This award is a testimony to your outstanding service to the Church in communicating her message of Christian hope under very demanding conditions.”

During Farrell’s tenure as the chief spokesperson and communications strategist for the archdiocese, the church was buffetted by numerous serious events, many unprecedented, to which the archbishop referred.

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UNITED STATES
TheMediaReport

The newly released annual audit of abuse in the Catholic Church reports that only six credible abuse allegations were made against priests by current minors in all of 2012 (out of some 40,000 active priests) and that the “fewest allegations and victims” ever were tabulated since annual reports began to be compiled in 2004.

This is obviously very good news. Yet in years past while syndicated news outlets like the Associated Press and Reuters have fallen over themselves to dig out unflattering statistics from these annual reports, the mainstream media is notably silent about this very positive report.

A search of news coverage about the Church’s new annual report found only three tiny secular newspapers reporting the news: the Press-Register (Alabama), the Rapid City Journal (South Dakota), and the Georgia Bulletin.

Not a single major secular newspaper (e.g., the New York Times, Boston Globe, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune etc.) reported on the study.

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

SCOTLAND
The Scottish Sun

[with timeline]

By GAIL CAMERON

SHAMED Cardinal Keith O’Brien has been forced into months of exile by Pope Francis over the gay sex scandal that cost him his job.

The disgraced 75-year-old cleric — who admitted “inappropriate conduct” over claims by four priests — was ordered by the Vatican to quit Scotland for “prayer and penance”.

In a statement yesterday, the Catholic Church confirmed his departure was “in agreement with the Holy Father”. It said: “His Eminence Cardinal Keith Patrick O’Brien… will be leaving Scotland for several months for the purpose of spiritual renewal, prayer and penance.”

It added: “Any decision regarding future arrangements for his eminence shall be agreed with the Holy See.”

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

UNITED STATES
Associated Baptist Press

A Baptist blogger says by continuing to support individuals and groups publicly accused of sexual abuse of children, SBC leaders are tarnishing the denomination’s name.

By Bob Allen

A resolution submitted for consideration at next month’s Southern Baptist Convention in Houston claims that failure by influential leaders to confront the sexual abuse of children by clergy is giving the denomination a bad name.

Peter Lumpkins, a blogger and minister in Carrollton, Ga., said May 16 he submitted his first-ever SBC resolution the day after reading through a second amended class-action lawsuit just filed in a Maryland court.

It claims C.J. Mahaney, former leader of Sovereign Grace Ministries and popular speaker with a strong following in the SBC, colluded to cover up sexual and physical abuse of numerous children in SGM churches from 1982 until the present.

Lumpkins’ resolution urges “denominational servants, entity leaders and our trustee boards to sever all ties, whether official or unofficial, with any evangelical organization, fellowship of ministers, and/or celebrity leader who, presently or in the past, is facing criminal and/or civil litigation for neglecting moral or legal obligations to protect the little children whom Jesus said suffer to follow Him.”

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

MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

POSTED BY BARBARA DORRIS ON MAY 16, 2013

Bishop Robert Finn allegedly asked his staff to “implement security measures” after the Kansas City police issued a search warrant.

However, Catholic officials have been dealing with clergy sex crimes for centuries and child porn for decades. It’s disappointing to see officials finally taking simple prevention steps only after harm has been done.

At a bare minimum, shouldn’t these measures have been adopted 2.5 years ago, after Fr. Shawn Ratigan was caught with child porn?

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

ESPANA
Notiexpress

16/05/2013 14:56 | Un monumental escándalo colapsó las redes sociales en España y el mundo. Miles de usuarios se volcaron para ver las imágenes –fotos y videos- del sacerdote de la región de Murcia en donde un ciclista lo filman practicándole sexo oral a otro hombre. Para frenar las críticas, la Diócesis lo destituyó de manera inmediata. La noticia la dio a conocer el diario El Mundo |VIDEO|

“En el día de hoy, 15 de mayo, el Sr. Obispo ha destituido al párroco de Nuestra Señora de la Encarnación, de Churra, y ha encargado la cura pastoral de la misma al Sr. Vicario Episcopal de la zona Pastoral Suburbana II, Ilmo. Sr. D. Antonio Ballester Serrano, encomendando la parroquia a la intercesión de la Santísima Virgen María, en su advocación de la Encarnación”, dice de manera categórica el comunicado de la Diócesis al anunciar la destitución del padre Francisco Javier Ruiz.

En las imágenes puede verse presuntamente al cura en el conocido como Coto Cuadros, un lugar habitual en la práctica del ‘cruising’ (encuentros entre hombres que quedan en la vía pública para tener sexo), según recoge el diario digital LaVerdad.es, practicando sexo oral y masturbándose con otro hombre.

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ESPANA
Panorama

Su voz suena triste y cansada al otro lado del teléfono. Francisco Javier Ruiz, el cura de Churra (Murcia) cuyas fotos haciendo sexo oral arrasan en las redes sociales, está “hundido” y asegura que es “víctima de un montaje”. Para defenderse, presentó, esta tarde una denuncia ante los juzgados. Y espera que la Justicia civil y la religiosa reparen su honor “mancillado”.

“Estoy tan hundido que hasta rezar me cuesta, aunque ése es el único consuelo que me queda”, explica el párroco, que, nada más estallar el escándalo y aconsejado por su propio obispo, monseñor Lorca Planes, se fue de la casa rectoral de Churra. Para “evitar la presión de los medios, que no dejan de llamar”. De hecho, su móvil suena sin cesar, con peticiones de entrevistas de todo el mundo, reseñó el diario El Mundo.

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SPAIN
New York Daily News

BY LEE MORAN / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

Spain’s Diocese of Cartagena has removed Father Francisco Javier Ruiz as pastor of a church in Murcia after he was seemingly caught on video participating acts of a sexual nature with another man

A Spanish priest has been removed from his job after apparently being busted on camera performing oral sex on another man.

Father Francisco Javier Ruiz was dismissed from his position in the Churra section of the city of Murcia by Bishop of Cartagena Jose Manuel Lorca Planes on Wednesday.

It came after footage emerged purportedly showing him in an erotic embrace with a pal.

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

IRELAND
Irish Independent

TOM TUITE – 16 MAY 2013

A FORMER priest, who was extradited from the UK to stand trial on 34 child sex abuse charges, was remanded in custody by a court in Dublin today.

The 62-year-old was brought back to Ireland yesterday (THUR) afternoon to face a hearing at Dublin District Court where an order was made banning the news media from naming him in connection with the historic allegations.

The ex-priest is accused of indecent assault of eight boys and two girls, mostly in Dublin, in the 1970s and in the eighties.

Detective Garda Anthony Maloney of the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation told Judge Hugh O’Donnell that the man was arrested on foot of 34 warrants at Dublin Airport yesterday (THUR) afternoon.

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IRELAND
RTE News

A former priest has this evening been charged with 34 counts of indecently assaulting children in the 1970s and 80s.

The man was extradited from the UK to stand trial for the offences in Ireland.

The man, who is in his 60s, appeared before Dublin District Court, where he was charged with 34 counts of indecent assault relating to eight boys and two girls.

The offences are alleged to have taken place in the 1970s and 1980s.

The court heard the man was arrested at Dublin Airport today and brought to Bridewell Garda Station before appearing before the court.

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

KENTUCKY
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

POSTED BY DAVID CLOHESSY ON MAY 16, 2013

Victims write bishop about accused priest
KY cleric is accused of molesting at least 4 kids
But years later, he is still not being supervised
And Catholic officials let him remain in ministry
SNAP to Lexington prelate “Oust him from your diocese”
Group wants church to warn parents about him and “do outreach”

A support group for clergy sex abuse victims is urging a Kentucky bishop to oust a four-time accused predator priest from his diocese and “aggressively seek out” anyone the cleric may have molested.

Leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPNetwork.org) are writing Lexington Bishop Ronald W. Gainer about Fr. Carroll Howlin who lives unmonitored and “ministers” in eastern Kentucky in apparent violation of a Vatican order and the church’s national abuse policy.

Late last month, the Chicago Tribune reported that Fr. Howlin, suspended for sexually abusing Illinois boys, still lives and works – unsupervised – in McCreary County. The cleric has reportedly also molested two Kentucky boys, one of whom committed suicide.

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

IRELAND
Galway Bay FM

The trial of a priest charged with the sexual abuse of two brothers in a Co.Galway school in the 1970’s collapsed today at Galway Circuit Criminal Court.

The priest had denied ten charges of sexual assault which were alleged to have occurred in 1970 and 1971 in the school.

Archbishop of Tuam, Dr. Michael Neary, a witness for the prosecution, gave evidence today on the third day of the trial.

The Archbishop confirmed he had made a statement to Gardai on January 19, 2006 in which he stated that at some time between August and September, 1995 he had been informed that one of the alleged victims had made an allegation of abuse against a priest, claiming he had been sexually abused by him between 1969 and 1974.

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UNITED STATES
Firedoglake

Last year I wrote a couple of posts about the Pedophile Enablers (aka the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts respectively.) Well there I was this morning, looking through the news sites as I do, when I saw this article at the Lexington Herald-Leader about a priest who had been removed because of sex abuse allegations yet was basically allowed to remain in place with no one actually monitoring him or his actions:

Five years after church officials ordered Carroll Howlin to stop functioning as a missionary priest in southeastern Kentucky, leaders of the Diocese of Joliet, Ill., received a letter from a suburban pastor that illuminated just how little the diocese had done to enforce its own protective measures amid a crippling sex abuse scandal.

Howlin, an avuncular-looking priest who moved here more than 30 years ago, had been suspended in 2002 after he was accused of molesting a teenage boy — the second of four such allegations he would face in his career. The Joliet diocese later substantiated claims involving two other victims, including one who committed suicide at 17.

Church officials removed Howlin from public ministry, but otherwise left him alone in Kentucky with a $1,100-a-month pension. He was allowed to continue living in this community where he once helped run the Good Shepherd Catholic Chapel, providing food, clothing and other social services.

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

CHICAGO (IL)
The Chicago Lampoon

I’ve always thought that as a supposed “social science,” sociology is to science what “performance art” is to art or what “health food” is to food.

Undergraduate sociology classes usually consist of little more than bull sessions on current events punctuated by some statistical mumbo-jumbo so that the professorial bull session leaders can justify their $190k annual salaries.

That is why on most campuses, sociology classes are what students scientifically refer to “easy A’s.”

Most sociology professors are little more than blithering idiots and left-wingers to boot, but that of course is oxymoronic.

So I was not at all surprised when the esteemed Northwestern sociology professor, Gary Alan Fine, came out last month and said that sexual molestation of students by teachers was an expected and quite forgivable way of life in the 60s and 70s.

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SCOTLAND
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

POSTED BY DAVID CLOHESSY ON MAY 16, 2013

Some claim that the Vatican is “punishing” disgraced Cardinal Keith O’Brien. That’s baloney. A news account today suggests the Vatican is just caving into O’Brien’s UK colleagues and helping them limit the public relations damage caused by O’Brien’s continued presence in the UK.

The Scotsman reports:

“After ten weeks in hiding, he returned to Scotland intent on retiring, as previously planned, to a Church property in Dunbar in East Lothian. However, the surprise move angered the Bishops’ Conference who are understood to have complained to the papal nuncio in London.”

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

MISSOURI
KMBC

KANSAS CITY, Mo. —The Kansas City Catholic diocese said that Independence police found no child pornography on computers seized from St. Ann Catholic Church following an investigation.

Police searched the parish office and rectory on March 26. Authorities said that child pornography was downloaded in early February by someone using an IP address assigned to the parish.

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

MISSOURI
The Kansas City Star

May 16
BY GLENN E. RICE
The Kansas City Star

None the computers seized from an Independence Catholic church in March by federal and state authorities contained photographs or videos of child pornography, according to a spokesman for the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph.

The computers were taken from the office of St. Ann Parish at 10113 E. Lexington Ave., on March 26 after detectives alerted parish officials that they had detected two downloads of child pornography from peer-to-peer websites by an Internet address associated with the parish office, said Jack Smith, diocesan spokesman.

Smith said Independence police alerted diocesan officials on Wednesday that the case was closed after federal computer forensic investigators did not find any pornographic material.

The parish office had an insecure Wi-Fi connection, which meant the downloads could have been made by a parish office computer or by someone nearby. The downloads occurred between 6:30 and 7:30 a.m. on Feb. 5, Smith said.

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

MISSOURI
Fox 4

Posted on: 11:03 am, May 16, 2013, by Michelle Pekarsky

INDEPENDENCE, Mo. — Computers and computer equipment will be returned to the rectory office of St. Ann’s Catholic Church in Independence, Mo., after forensic results show no child pornography inside them.

Federal investigators confiscated all the potential evidence in March after discovering that on February 5, between 6:30 and 7:30 in the morning, there were two downloads of child pornography from peer-to-peer file sharing sites to an IP address registered at St. Ann’s church rectory, where the priest, Father Bernard Branson lives.

The church had an open Wifi system, which allows for the possibility that someone outside the parish used the ‘free’ Internet service to make the downloads. To determine if this is what happened, investigators seized four desktop computers and towers from inside the church rectory.
Police said the staff at St. Ann and the diocesan personnel fully cooperated with the investigation.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Waiting for Godot to Leave

Kevin O’Brien

Let’s take a break from arguing about Lying for a minute and let something sink in.

Bishop Finn has agreed to pay $600,000 of diocesan funds to the parents of a girl abused by a priest under his care in the diocese of Kansas City. (I’ve written about this case at length).

What struck me from this article about the settlement is this quote …

The second count, which Fenner allowed to remain, accused the bishop and diocese of receiving, possessing or distributing pornographic images of the girl.

Fenner is the judge in the case, who dismissed one count in the lawsuit and let another stand – the count that the diocese was liable not only for a coverup but was IMPLICIT IN THE CRIME ITSELF.

Let that sink in.

The diocese of Kansas City was not only wrong in covering up what the abuser did, but was INVOLVED THE CRIME ITSELF – by “receiving and possessing” pornographic images of the two-year-old in question, by not turning the photos over to police, and eventually letting the evidence be destroyed so that the priest had a better chance of getting off.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

An ex-appeal judge will lead a church investigation into an abuse complaint against a church warden that led to the dean having his commission withdrawn.

The Very Reverend Bob Key lost his commission over his handling of the abuse allegation. He was reinstated on 28 April after he apologised.

Dame Heather Steel was a High Court Judge in England and Wales and retired from Jersey’s court of appeal in 2012.

She will now look into the complaint against the church warden.

The complaint dates back to 2008 and concerns the alleged abusive behaviour of a churchwarden.

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SCOTLAND
The Commentator

Tom Gallagher

GK Chesterton once remarked that the Catholic Church was ‘an institution run with such slavish imbecility that if it were not the work of God, it wouldn’t last a fortnight’.

Given the personal and institutional crisis rocking the Catholic Church in Scotland, Chesterton, if here now, might have concluded that God had given up on this northern outpost of faith.

For the past decade the Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, had busied himself with secular causes, often fashionable with Edinburgh’s left-leaning political elite, as a decline of faith has set in. His New Year’s Eve party for them had become a fixture on the Edinburgh social scene.

But to the surprise of not a few who knew the inner man, O’Brien claimed a starring role in the Scottish wing of the campaign opposing same-sex marriage. He inveighed against it using not theological arguments but lurid words that could have been borrowed from the front page of a tabloid.

His own world came crashing down when he quit as archbishop on February 26, after he had been reported to the Vatican for allegedly inappropriate acts with three priests and one ex-priest in his archdiocese. Legal action was briefly threatened. On March 3, he issued a statement admitting that ‘there had been times that his sexual conduct had fallen below what is expected of a priest, archbishop and cardinal’ .

Church leaders braced themselves for a wave of anti-clericalism or for an abandonment of the church by Catholics appalled by the hypocrisy of their spiritual pastor. But, instead, the very opposite problem arose. Waves of sympathy for O’Brien emanated from churchgoers who recalled an approachable and kindly pastor.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Catholics4Change

MAY 16, 2013 BY SUSAN MATTHEWS

Please send out this letter to your state representative. Locate their contact information by clicking here.

To: All Members of the General Assembly
From:
Date:
Re: Ask Majority Leader Turzai to Call Up House Bill 342

HB 342 proposed by Rep. Marguerite Quinn prevents the disclosure of the names of victims of child sexual abuse in the court system, regardless of their age. This legislation was one of the recommendations of the PA Task Force on Child Protection and deserves a vote by the General Assembly.

Rep. Michael McGeehan and Rep. Mark Rozzi have drafted amendments to this bill to provide a one-time two-year window of opportunity to suspend the statute of limitations for adult victims of child sexual abuse to pursue civil actions.

It is well known that for many reasons, it can take decades for victims of childhood sex abuse to come to terms with their abuse and to muster the courage to seek justice. Most survivors, for fear of public exposure, or because they simply can’t prove the abuse that has taken place in secrecy, can’t bring suit. But if they are ready, and there is evidence to substantiate claims, victims should be able to file suit, and if successful, expose the predators among us.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Eastbourne Herald

Published on 16/05/201

THE jury hearing the trial of retired Eastbourne priest, Gordon Rideout, will return to court this morning to consider their verdict.

The jury at Lewes Crown Court was sent home last night (Wednesday) to return this morning to begin their deliberations into the case surrounding the 74-year-old from Polegate.

Canon Gordon Rideout has pleaded not guilty to 35 indecent assaults and two attempted rapes. He is alleged to have committed 30 indecent assaults and two attempted rapes when he was assistant curate at St Mary’s Church, Southgate.

The complainants, ten woman and four men, were child residents of a Crawley children’s home at the time of the alleged assaults.

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BOSTON (MA)
IrishCentral

By Irish Voice Editorial,
Published Thursday, May 16, 2013

Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston has made a grave error condemning Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Enda Kenny on abortion and boycotting his commencement speech at Boston College next Monday.

After his Vatican stay when he was accused of having “Tiber Fever” — i.e. seeing himself as papabile — O’Malley has returned to the less opulent surroundings of Boston. But perhaps some of the Vatican rigidity has stuck.

O’Malley is deeply admired by many in Boston and beyond, and he did a decent job of patching his church back together after the criminal behavior of Vatican retiree Cardinal Bernard Law in covering up for pedophiles.

The type of cut and thrust involved in securing settlements for those abused and still standing by his church should have made O’Malley aware of the complexity of issues and the tragic consequences of making everything black and white.

However, by outright condemning Kenny as a pro-abortion foil, he has made a disastrous mistake.

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ILLINOIS
The Doings Weekly

By Janet Lundquist jlundquist@stmedianetwork.com

Updated: May 16, 2013

During the summer of 1984, Michael Gibbney, a priest at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Bolingbrook, took a group of 10 and 11-year-old altar boys on a “retreat.”

They went to Gibbney’s parents’ Lombard home, where Gibbney provided alcohol and slept with the boys in a camper parked outside the house, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Will County. That night, Gibbney kissed and fondled one of the boys – an act that set off a chain of confusing events that has led to a lifetime of misery for the victim, say his attorneys.

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SCOTLAND
East Lothian Courier

Mairi Gordon • Published 16 May 2013

THE parish priest for Dunbar and North Berwick says he is willing to take on the Vatican in a legal fight to ensure that Cardinal Keith O’Brien is able to retire in the county.

The cardinal was forced to leave his role as Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, the UK’s highest ranking Roman Catholic, in February after allegations of sexual misconduct were made against him – which he later admitted.

Recent reports have suggested that the Vatican had ordered Mr O’Brien not to follow through with his plan to retire to Dunbar, and instead leave Scotland and live elsewhere.

On Wednesday, the Vatican said in a statement that Mr O’Brien would be leaving Scotland for “several months” with his future to be decided by the Holy See.

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UNITED STATES
Pope Crimes & Vatican Evils…

Paris Arrow

Updated May 15, 2013

Pope Francis is proving himself as the perfect clone of his two gay Holy Fathers John Paul II and Benedict XVI-Ratzinger by getting gay adulterer Cardinal Keith O’Brien to go and lodge in the Vatican Titanic deep in the ocean of moral bankruptcy. Pope Francis recently excommunicated a relatively young Brazilian priest for SUPPORTING gay rights (see news updates below) but he is welcoming with open arms Cardinal O’Brien who was a PRACTISING ACTIVE GAY Cardinal who committed adultery with multiple priests to satisfy his gay bestial lust — he is worse than King Henry and The Borgias. Cardinal Bernard Law was also welcomed with open arms by John Paul II hence he is his Achilles Heel and can never be a (hypocritical) saint, read more here

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WISCONSIN
A Single Bluebird

For Immediate Release

Paths to Healing: Conference on Child Sex Abuse Survival
10:00 a.m., June 20, 2013
Sheraton Hotel, Madison, Wisconsin

Several Wisconsin organizations have partnered to put together a one-day conference on surviving childhood sex abuse that will be held at the Sheraton Hotel in Madison on Thursday, June 20.

Sponsored by Solidarity with Child Sex Abuse Victims/Survivors, Rape Crisis Center, Wisconsin Coalition Against Sexual Assault (WCASA), OutReach Inc., Family Sexual Abuse Treatment, Canopy Center, Proud Theater, and Friends of the State Street Family the day-long conference will focus on healing and survival, particularly among male victims, an often underserved population in the sexual assault advocacy community.

The conference will start with an introduction by Kelly Anderson, Executive Director of the Rape Crisis Center at 10:00 a. m. on June 20 and will culminate at 6:00 p.m. with “Dare to Dream”, a program of MaleSurvivor that includes the film “Boys and Men Healing”, followed by a panel discussion led by MaleSurvivor’s Executive Director Christopher Anderson. MaleSurvivor is a nationwide organization based in New York City that is committed to preventing, healing, and eliminating all forms of sexual victimization of boys and men.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Column: In the early years of the State, government leaders pronounced their devotion to the Catholic hierarchy

Vincent Browne

The preoccupations of the Irish Catholic hierarchy in the early years of the State were the twin and related evils of company-keeping and dancing and the subversion of the morality of the Irish people caused by the importation of indecent and obscene literature, notably English Sunday newspapers (company-keeping was the practice whereby unmarried couples would spend time with each other alone).

In 1926 the then archbishop of Tuam, Thomas Gilmartin, warned: “In recent years the dangerous locations of sin have been multiplied. The old Irish dances have been discarded for foreign importations which, according to all accounts, lend themselves not so much to rhythm as to low sensuality . . . Company-keeping under the stars of night has succeeded, in too many places, the good old Irish custom of visiting, chatting and storytelling from one house to another, with the rosary to bring all home in due time.” This prelate also advised fathers: “If your girls do not obey you, if they are not in at the hours appointed, lay the lash upon their backs.”

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Chicago Tribune

Kevin Murphy
Reuters

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) – A Catholic diocese in Missouri has agreed to a $600,000 settlement of a civil lawsuit tied to the arrest of one of its priests for taking lewd photos of a young girl in 2006, a church official and a lawyer for the girl said on Wednesday.

The lawsuit filed by the girl’s parents in 2011 in federal court accused the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph and Bishop Robert Finn, among other things, of improperly supervising Reverend Shawn Ratigan and helping conceal his criminal conduct.

A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit’s claim that the diocese and Finn aided and abetted Ratigan in possessing pornography.

Ratigan, who pled guilty last year to producing child pornography, also was named in the suit. Several other civil lawsuits are pending against him.

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UNITED STATES
Justia Verdict

Marci A. Hamilton

This is the era of children’s liberation from tyrannical treatment. Child-sex-abuse victims have been coming out of the woodwork, and demanding the justice that has been long delayed, but truly owed. First, the Roman Catholic Church was on center stage, but now it has had to make room for virtually every other religious organization, including the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Orthodox Jews, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. In each institution, pedophiles were harbored. Religious groups are not alone, of course, with more recent additions to this list of shame including the Boy Scouts; prep schools like Horace Mann, Poly Prep, the Landmark School, the Brooks School, and Deerfield Academy; and, of course, Penn State.

On the heels of these institutions’ scandals, which are finally in the spotlight, the vast swath of abuse that occurs in homes across the country is now beginning to emerge into public view. We have let our children down in every scenario, and, sadly, even the family courts too often hand children right back to the very person who abused them. We have much to do. Today, though, I will focus on abuse in sports.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By STEPHEN RYAN May 16, 2013

IT was either fiery and hostile or cordial and straight forward.

It was a meeting between some of Newcastle’s senior police and Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox at Waratah police station on December 2, 2010.

One of the officers who attended, former Senior Sergeant Justin Quinn, told a Special Commission of Inquiry on Thursday that the meeting was ‘‘cordial’’ with Detective Fox being asked to hand over documents he had relating to allegations of sexual abuse cover-ups within the Catholic Church.

Detective Fox has a different version.

His barrister, Mark Cohen, suggested to Mr Quinn, who has since left the force, that Detective Fox said the ‘‘only reason why we’re here’’ is because of Newcastle Herald journalist Joanne McCarthy.

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AUSTRALIA
Maitland Mercury

By ELLE WATSON May 16, 2013

A state sex crimes detective said the relationship between Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox and journalist Joanne McCarthy was a risk to the investigation into the alleged clergy child sexual abuse cover-up.

Detective Inspector Paul Jacob told the Commission of Inquiry he was advised of the relationship between the pair in December 2010, about the time Strike Force Lantle was established.

“It was a risk that needed to be managed in the investigation,” Inspector Jacob, who was consulting Newcastle police conducting the investigation, said.

The Inspector has spent the morning in the witness box where he said he saw not “one bit of reluctance” by Newcastle police to investigate the matter.

He said it was “disturbing” the inquiry had heard such “inaccurate” views of Hunter investigators.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By STEPHEN RYAN May 16, 2013

THE state’s most senior sex crimes detective told an inquiry this morning that the investigation into sexual abuse cover-ups within the Catholic Church was a shining example to other investigators.

Detective Inspector Paul Jacob said the brief of evidence prepared by Newcastle detectives in 2010 and 2011 was ‘‘amazing’’ and was an example to other investigators, a Special Commission of Inquiry has heard.

Detective Jacob echoed many of the sentiments of former Newcastle crime manager Brad Tayler, who finished testifying on Wednesday.

Mr Tayler described suggestions that the investigation was a sham and was set up to fail as ‘‘disgusting’’.

Detective Jacob described the claims this morning as ‘‘offensive in the extreme’’ and ‘‘detrimental to the morale’’ of Newcastle police.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX From: The Australian May 16, 2013

A DETECTIVE who claimed to be blowing the whistle on church child abuse has endangered the victims of crime by leaking a confidential witness statement to the press, an inquiry has heard.

Giving evidence to the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry this morning, one of the state’s most experienced investigators, Paul Jacob, said the decision, by Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox, could have jeopardised the police inquiry.

“It may affect the security of the investigation,”Detective Inspector Jacob said. “It may affect the security of the victims when they are giving evidence.

“If I was a defence barrister … that would be a huge feeding ground of opportunity for me to attack that victim’s credibility.

“In my view that endangers victims of crime when we should be doing everything we can to put usable material before the court.”

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Gerry Braiden
Senior reporter

Thursday 16 May 2013
THE Vatican has ordered Cardinal Keith O’Brien to leave Scotland in its first public move over the sex scandal surrounding him.

Britain’s most senior Catholic cleric stepped down from his post as Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh earlier this year after several priests made allegations against him. He later admitted inappropriate sexual conduct during his church career.

In a short statement – its first in the three months since the revelations broke – the Vatican said the cardinal “will be leaving Scotland for several months for the purpose of spiritual renewal, prayer and penance”. The Church hopes this will bring a degree of closure to the scandal, with accusers said to be content with the action taken.

Despite its brevity, the statement clearly states the role of Pope Francis, claiming that “any decision regarding future arrangements for His Eminence shall be agreed with the Holy See”.

However, questions remain over Cardinal O’Brien’s future and what further action, if any, the Vatican intends to take over his admissions of gay sexual encounters over decades and allegations of abuse by a number of serving priests and former seminarians.

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SCOTLAND
Telegraph

This is a guest post by Tom Gallagher, professor emeritus of politics at Bradford University and an expert on Scottish Catholicism. Like an earlier post by Prof Gallagher, it will make painful reading for Cardinal Keith O’Brien.

On 8 May Pope Francis took to task worldly figures in the Catholic Church who exploited the authority held by their offices for personal advantage. His words are worth pondering in light of the pit which the Catholic Church in Scotland has fallen into:

“We think of the harm inflicted on the People of God by men and women of the Church who are careerists, social climbers, who ‘use’ the people, the Church, brothers and sisters—those they should serve—as trampolines for their own personal interests and ambitions. But these do great harm to the Church.”

A week before, Keith O’Brien, for a decade a member of the college of cardinals, had shown up in Scotland as if life could continue for him as normal. He had quit as archbishop on 26 February after he had been reported to the Vatican for allegedly inappropriate acts with three priests and one ex-priest in his archdiocese. Legal action was briefly threatened by him and then dropped. Instead, on 3 March he issued a statement admitting that “there had been times that his sexual conduct had fallen below what is expected of a priest, archbishop and cardinal”.

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OSTERREICH
kath.net

Ein Sprecher der Johannesgemeinschaft hat gegenüber kath.net bestätigt, dass es gegenüber P. Philippe, dem Gründer der Johannesgemeinschaft, Vorwürfe gibt, dass sich dieser unkeusch gegenüber mehreren erwachsenen Frauen verhalten habe
Marchegg (kath.net)

Gegen P. Philippe (Foto), dem inzwischen verstorbenen Gründer der Gemeinschaft der Johannesbrüder, gibt es Vorwürfe von erwachsenen Frauen, dass sich dieser unkeusch gegenüber mehreren erwachsenen Frauen verhalten hat. Dies teilte ein Sprecher der Gemeinschaft am Dienstag gegenüber kath.net mit.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

By Philip Pullella
VATICAN CITY | Thu May 16, 2013

(Reuters) – The Vatican Bank, a center of scandals for decades, is to launch its own website and publish its annual report in an effort to increase transparency, its new president said.

Ernst von Freyberg told the bank’s employees of the changes, which should be in place by the end of the year, this week, according to Vatican Radio.

He also said the bank, formally known as the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR) and dubbed the world’s most secretive bank by Forbes magazine, had also hired an auditing firm to make sure it meets international standards against money laundering.

Vatican Radio did not name of the auditing firm.

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VATIKAN
kath.net

Der schottische Kardinal Keith Patrick O’Brien, der sexuelle Belästigung von Priesteramtskandidaten zugegeben hatte, zieht sich zu «geistlicher Erneuerung, Gebet und Buße» ins Ausland zurück

Vatikanstadt (kath.net/KNA/red) Der schottische Kardinal Keith Patrick O’Brien (75), der die sexuelle Belästigung von Priesteramtskandidaten zugegeben hatte, zieht sich für mehrere Monate zu «geistlicher Erneuerung, Gebet und Buße» ins Ausland zurück. Wie der Vatikan am Mittwoch mitteilte, wurde die Entscheidung mit dem Einverständnis von Papst Franziskus getroffen.

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MARYLAND/KENTUCKY
The Courier-Journal

Posted on May 15, 2013 by Peter Smith

Church workers committed repeated acts of sexual and physical abuse on young children, conspired with their superiors to cover up such crimes and recruited juveniles to join in the abuse, according to a newly expanded lawsuit filed in Maryland against the Louisville-based Sovereign Grace Ministries.

The recently resigned chairman of the denomination, Maryland pastor John Loftness, is among those newly accused. Two plaintiffs — identified by name in the lawsuit, even as some plaintiffs remain identified by pseudonyms — allege that Loftness repeatedly sexually and physically abused them as young girls in past decades. A third plaintiff alleges that when he reported to Loftness that he was molested as a boy by an adult male member, Loftness allegedly told the boy to re-enact the alleged molestation, then later required the boy to meet with and forgive the abuser.

Loftness denies all allegations.

The 46-page lawsuit is the second amended version of one originally filed last year, seeking class-action status and accusing the denomination of systematically covering up sexual abuse in its ranks right up to the present. The church and its leaders allegedly permitted “the abuse of children to occur in church buildings, [a] school building and during church retreats and other events,” the lawsuit says.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Independent

PAUL GALLAGHER SUNDAY 12 MAY 2013

The police investigation into allegations of historical sexual abuse at the Yehudi Menuhin School of music has widened, with another former pupil speaking out about how she suffered seven years of lewd and degrading behaviour at the hands of her teachers.

Sacha Barlow, who is now assistant principal violist at the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra in the US, studied at the Surrey-based institution until 1989. She says she “endured” her time there and it left emotional scars. Speaking from America, Ms Barlow said: “There was a lot of inappropriate behaviour that a number of teachers engaged in. A couple of them should not have been allowed anywhere near children.”

Last week, the cellist Michal Kaznowski revealed that his former cello tutor Maurice Gendron controlled students through sadistic teaching methods over a 10-year period to 1977.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Manchester Gazette

A man arrested by detectives investigating sex abuse at music schools in Manchester has been bailed.

A 58-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of indecent assault on Friday 10 May 2013.

He has been bailed until August pending further enquiries.

The offence relates to the indecent assault of a 21-year-old woman in 1994, while she was a pupil at the Royal Northern College of Music.

Anyone with information about abuse at either Chetham’s School of Music or the royal Northern College of Music is asked to call the incident room on 0161 856 6777.

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UNITED KINGDOM
London Evening Standard

Rashid Razaq

15 May 2013

Friends of a talented violinist who was driven to suicide after giving evidence against her abuser will perform a new piece of music written in her memory.

Frances Andrade, 48, a mother of four from Guildford, Surrey, took her own life on January 24, six days after she gave evidence at the trial of her former teacher Michael Brewer.

He was accused of a string of sex crimes against her when she was a pupil at the prestigious Chetham’s school of music in Manchester.

Brewer, 68, the former director of music at Chetham’s, was jailed for six years in March after he was convicted of indecently assaulting Mrs Andrade when she was 14 and 15.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Times

Sean O’Neill Crime Editor

Last updated at 12:01AM, May 16 2013

A senior Church of England cleric suspected of being a serial child abuser was a governor of the scandal-hit Chetham’s School of Music for nine years and preyed on its pupils.

New evidence from abuse victims suggests that the Very Rev Robert Waddington, a former Dean of Manchester Cathedral, was still pursuing young boys at the time the Church decided that he was too ill and frail to pose a threat to children.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Independent

Church of England sex abuse investigation into Manchester Cathedral Dean Robert Waddington expected to overlap with police inquiry at Chetham’s School of Music

PAUL GALLAGHER WEDNESDAY 15 MAY 2013

The Church of England inquiry into alleged child sex abuse by former Dean of Manchester Cathedral Robert Waddington is expected to crossover with the police inquiry into historical sexual abuse at Chetham’s School of Music after it has emerged that Waddington was a governor at the school between 1984 and 1993.

A former choirboy, Eli Ward, last week waved his anonymity to describe how he was groomed by Waddington from the age of 11 over a five year period in the 1980s. Mr Ward, now 40, said the abuse started when Waddington began the grooming process in 1984 – the year he became both a governor at Chetham’s and Dean of Manchester Cathedral – and ended after suspicions were raised in the Manchester diocese in 1989. Waddington was also chairman of the diocesan education committee at the time.

A Greater Manchester Police spokesman said there had been a complaint about Waddington. He added: “Robert Waddington is deceased so there is nothing further that can be done.”

British pianist Ian Pace, who is leading calls to open an independent inquiry into historical sexual abuse at elite music schools, said “the connections between Manchester Cathedral and Chetham’s music school are strong”.

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MARYLAND
Associated Baptist Press

A lawsuit alleging that leaders of Sovereign Grace Ministries conspired to conceal the sexual abuse of children has been amended a second time.

By Bob Allen

A Calvinist church-planting network with ties to Southern Baptist leaders faces new allegations of covering up sexual abuse of children in a 46-page amended lawsuit filed May 14 in Maryland.

The new court document includes graphic descriptions of molestation of boys and girls at churches affiliated with Sovereign Grace Ministries and accuses pastors of conspiring to cover up the alleged abuse.

One of the alleged perpetrators, former SGM board chairman John Loftness, denied ever abusing a child or shielding a known pedophile from arrest. The ministry website said an internal review of the allegations “has not produced any evidence of any cover-up or conspiracy.”

Sovereign Grace Ministries is best known in Baptist life for ties between founder C.J. Mahaney and leaders in a movement sometimes called “young, restless and Reformed,” a resurgent interest in Calvinism gaining ground at Southern Baptist Convention seminaries.

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AUSTRALIA
Maitland Mercury

By ELLE WATSON May 16, 2013

Plans to search Sydney Archbishop George Pell’s office were stalled because sex abuse strike force detectives could not get a crucial victim’s statement, a Commission of Inquiry heard yesterday.

Former Newcastle crime manager Detective Chief Inspector Brad Tayler said Strike Force Lantle – the investigation into the alleged Catholic Church sexual abuse cover-up – became “virtually stagnant” when a witness refused to give a statement to police.

The inquiry heard the woman made a formal complaint about one of Mr Tayler’s investigators who she said made her feel under pressure to give a statement.

“The whole problem with this was we wanted to investigate it but we couldn’t get it off the ground because we couldn’t get a statement off this witness,” Mr Tayler said.

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BELGIUM
Asia One

AFP
Thursday, May 16, 2013
BRUSSELS, Belgium – The Belgian Roman Catholic Church said Wednesday it had received more than 300 complaints of sexual abuse of minors in 2012.

Three quarters of the 307 dossiers opened were in northern Flanders, the staunchly Catholic Dutch-speaking and larger half of Belgium.

The great majority of complainants were mature adults, having waited before coming forward after the Church fell into scandal over recent years and with compensation now an issue.

Forty-six of the cases raised last year have gone forward for mediation, officials behind the abuse census said.

After similar scandals in the United States, Ireland and Germany, Belgium was rocked in April 2010 with revelations that the then bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, had abused a nephew for 13 years.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

By Suzie Smith and Dan Cox, ABC
Updated May 16, 2013

It has been revealed that police expressed concern about the terms of a compensation settlement between an abuse victim and the Catholic Church.

The documents, which were obtained by the Lateline program, show a victim was required to repay his compensation payment plus 10 per cent a year if he decided to take the matter to the police for criminal action.

A police intelligence report, which was tendered at the special commission of inquiry into sexual abuse in the Hunter region, says police objected to the arrangement between a victim of Father Guy Hartcher of Gresford Parish and the Catholic Church.

But the charges were withdrawn and the trial did not proceed.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

By Dan Cox, ABC
Updated May 16, 2013

An inquiry into child sexual abuse in the New South Wales Hunter Valley Catholic Church has heard an investigator did not want to examine allegations of abuse because he was waiting for more information.

Detective Inspector Paul Jacob, manager of the NSW Sex Crime Squad, said after a discussion with former Lake Macquarie commander Dave Waddell he believed there was no prospect of “criminal investigation outcomes” as key people were dead.

In an email, Detective Jacob said he was asking the Commissioner’s Executive Team (CET) “not to investigate”, but was quick to tell the Newcastle Supreme Court today that should “not be interpreted as the position taken by NSW Police”.

He said he had “no information at all” and had not yet seen a report that looked at the value of the investigation.

The inquiry is examining claims by abuse whistleblower Detective Inspector Peter Fox that NSW Police and the Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle tried to cover up allegations of child sexual abuse by two priests.

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GHANA
Ghana Web

The Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit of the police service has taken over investigations into an alleged sexual abuse case against the head pastor of the Abokobi branch of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, Reverend Kingsford Kusi-Kyere.

The church said yesterday it would investigate claims by seven male members of the church that they were sexually abused by the pastor.

Dr. Emmanuel Osei Acheampong, the Public Relations Manager of the Presbyterian Church, confirmed to Joy News that the issue has been reported to the authorities of the church.

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ILLINOIS
Suburban Life

By SUBURBAN LIFE MEDIA
Created: Wednesday, May 15, 2013 T

BOLINGBROOK – Two former Bolingbrook priests were named in a sexual abuse lawsuit brought by five men against the Diocese of Joliet Tuesday, according to a Chicago Tribune report.

The five men filed the case in a Will County circuit court Tuesday, suing the Diocese of Joliet and alleging that they were sexually abused by priests in the 1970s and 80’s, according to the report.

Michael Gibbney, formerly of St. Francis of Assisi Church in Bolingbrook, and James Nowak, formerly of St. Dominic Church in Bolingbrook, were two of the four priests named in the lawsuit, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Both were removed from ministry between 1992 and 2012, the report said.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Examiner

By Bill Draper
The Associated Press
Posted May 16, 2013

Kansas City, MO —
A lawsuit filed against the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph and Bishop Robert Finn by a girl who was 2 years old when Kansas City priest Shawn Ratigan took pornographic photos of her has tentatively been settled for $600,000, a Minnesota attorney representing the girl said Wednesday.

Gregg Meyers of the St. Paul, Minn., law firm Jeff Anderson and Associates told The Associated Press about the deal before it had been officially announced. He said it was reached after a full day of mediation between the parties Tuesday, soon after U.S. District Judge Gary Fenner in Kansas City dismissed one of two counts in the suit.

Fenner dismissed one count alleging the bishop and diocese aided and abetted Ratigan in his possession of child pornography. The judge said federal law stipulates that to be guilty of aiding and abetting, a party must have done so before or during the commission of a crime.

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ILLINOIS
EON

Five Lawsuits Filed against Diocese of Joliet, for Failing to Protect Kids from Predatory and Pedophile Priests and Teaching Staff

May 15, 2013

CHICAGO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–It was a ”formula for disaster, and disaster did occur” in the form of sexual abuse of minors by priests and a non-priest teacher in the Diocese of Joliet, in incidents detailed in five lawsuits filed today in Will County Circuit Court. The incidents took place in the 1970s and ‘80s, when the plaintiffs were aged 8 to 16. The cases were filed by the Chicago-based law firm of Hurley McKenna & Mertz, PC.

The “formula for disaster” was the Diocese of Joliet allowing known or suspected predators and pedophiles to meet with young boys at remote or private locations outside the presence of other adults.

The incidents in these complaints took place in private living quarters, at off-site “retreats” including a camper parked outside of a home owned by a priest’s parents, and in the back row of a school classroom. Several of them involve priests plying minors with alcohol and then taking advantage of them. One involved an elaborate ruse in which the plaintiff was persuaded to strip out of street clothes and don a loincloth so that the priest could “practice” administering funeral rites.

Three of the complaints expressly allege that the plaintiffs were sworn to strict secrecy by their abusers. States Chris Hurley, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs, “The truth was buried for a long, long time because first, kids are vulnerable and don’t really understand what is happening to them, second, they were being victimized by priests who had their complete trust and allegiance as a representative of God on earth, and third, several of our plaintiffs were actually sworn to secrecy by these priests. No wonder they didn’t talk. If their parents had had any inkling what the diocese knew when it knew it, they would have demanded immediate reporting and reform.”

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NEW JERSEY
The Record

THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013
BY MATTHEW MCGRATH AND ABBOTT KOLOFF
STAFF WRITERS

NEWARK — A man who says he was sexually abused by a priest as a teenager made a public plea Wednesday for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark to reconsider his case five years after it rejected his allegations.

Richard C. Gee said at a press conference that members of an archdiocesan review board determined that he was not a credible witness after he testified before them in 2008. He accused the late Rev. John Nickas, a former pastor of St. Rocco’s Church in Newark, of molesting him in the early 1980s when he was 16 years old and staying at a homeless shelter run by the parish.

The accusations were made as the archdiocese is embroiled in a controversy over the review board’s recommendation that the Rev. Michael Fugee be returned to ministry after his conviction on a charge of criminal sexual contact was overturned by an appellate court on a technicality. Fugee, 52, was an assistant pastor at St. Elizabeth of Hungary Church in Wyckoff when he allegedly groped a 13-year-old boy in 1999 and 2000.

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BELGIE
KerkNet

opgesteld door de Interdiocesane Commissie voor de Bescherming van Kinderen en Jongeren

Met de brochure Verborgen verdriet. Naar een globale aanpak van seksueel misbruik in de
Kerk (januari 2012) engageerden de bisschoppen en hogere oversten van België zich om op
een passende wijze tegemoet te komen aan de vraag van minderjarige slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik in een pastorale relatie. Twee wegen werden daarvoor geopend. Enerzijds de
weg van de arbitrage, uitgewerkt door de Parlementaire Commissie. Anderzijds de weg van
de opvangpunten, uitgewerkt door de bisdommen en de religieuze congregaties. Vele slachtoffers hebben hun vertrouwen gesteld in de arbitrageprocedure. Het Wetenschappelijke Comité van het Centrum voor Arbitrage stelde op 4 maart 2013 zijn jaarverslag 2012 voor. Andere slachtoffers hebben zich gewend tot de opvangpunten.

Met hun jaarverslag 2012 willen de bisschoppen en hogere oversten informatie geven over de
meldingen van seksueel misbruik die langs de opvangpunten zijn verlopen en hoe ermee is
omgegaan. Beide activiteitenverslagen, die van het Centrum voor Arbitrage en die van de
opvangpunten van de Kerk, vullen elkaar dus aan.

1. Inzicht en besef

Lange tijd heeft de maatschappij niet gezien of beseft dat seksueel misbruik van kinderen en
jongeren die zich in een afhankelijkheidsrelatie bevinden een vorm van machtsmisbruik is, en
dus een misdaad. Of leefde er toch een zeker besef, en was dit de reden dat het in het
verborgene gebeurde of dat het in de doofpot werd gestopt? Het minste dat men kan zeggen,
is dat uit alles blijkt dat men in alle geledingen van de samenleving de omvang en de ernst
van het probleem schromelijk heeft onderschat. Hierdoor werden slachtoffers ondersteuning
en begrip onthouden, daders ongemoeid gelaten en werd veel leed toegevoegd aan mensen die
door deze misdaden al zwaar werden geraakt.

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BELGIE
KerkNet

BRUSSEL (KerkNet) – “We hopen dat de lessen uit het verleden zo diep zijn doorgedrongen dat bij iedereen in de Kerk een verscherpte waakzaamheid is ontstaan tegenover de eerste tekenen van onheuse machtsuitoefening en seksueel grensoverschrijdend gedrag.” Op die manier besloot prof. dr. Manu Keirse, voorzitter van de ‘Interdiocesane Commissie voor Preventie van Seksueel Misbruik van Jongeren in Pastorale Relaties’ zijn samenvatting van het ‘Jaarrapport 2012 van de kerkelijke opvangpunten voor seksueel misbruik van minderjarigen in een pastorale relatie. Het rapport werd vanmiddag onder grote persbelangstelling voorgesteld in het Interdiocesaan Centrum in de Guimardstraat in Brussel. “Het verleden ongedaan maken is niet mogelijk. De bisschoppen en hogere oversten willen hun verantwoordelijkheid opnemen tegenover het onrecht dat in het verleden aan kinderen en jongeren werd aangedaan en in dialoog met de slachtoffers zoeken naar de beste manier om hen bij te staan.”

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SCOTLAND
The Times

Mike Wade

Cardinal Keith O’Brien faces months in exile after he was ordered by Pope Francis to pay penance in a monastery after his admission of sexual advances towards young priests.

Cardinal O’Brien would be leaving “for several months for the purpose of spiritual renewal, prayer and penance”, according to a Vatican statement that was written “in agreement with the Holy Father”.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX From: The Australian May 16, 2013

THE victim of an alleged pedophile priest was paid a financial settlement by the Catholic church after agreeing not to pursue criminal charges, or else repay the money at 10 per cent interest.

Police documents tendered to a NSW Special Commission of Inquiry state “the church compensated one victim (of the priest) . . . on signing a ‘deed of release’ not to take civil or criminal action”.

The police report, written by the detective at the centre of the inquiry, Peter Fox, said “the church compensated one (man) . . . on signing a ‘deed of release’ not to take civil or criminal action”.

A copy of this deed, seen by The Australian but not tendered to the inquiry, shows the agreement was reached between the trustees of the Vincentian Fathers holy order and the man, who cannot be named.

The holy order “agreed without any admission of liability to provide an amount of $43,000 . . . to settle all claims”, the documents state.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Kansas City Star

May 15
BY JUDY L. THOMAS
The Kansas City Star

The Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese has settled a civil lawsuit involving a priest convicted last year of possessing and producing child pornography.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court against the diocese, Bishop Robert Finn and the Rev. Shawn Ratigan by the parents of a young northern Missouri girl, was settled late Tuesday for $600,000, attorneys for the girl’s family said.

It is the diocese’s largest settlement in a single priest sex abuse case, they said.

“It was good for the family and I’m sure it was good for the diocese to get this resolved,” said Gregg Meyers, one of the family’s attorneys. “There are other cases and I don’t know we’re at the end of this yet. But we’re at the beginning of the end.”

Jack Smith, spokesman for the diocese, confirmed the amount of the settlement but said the structure of the agreement still needed to be approved by a judge. He said the settlement would be covered by insurance.

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ILLINOIS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

POSTED BY BARBARA DORRIS ON MAY 15, 2013

Today, Advocate Health Care said it is “investigating” a former Chicago archdiocesan priest accused of molesting at least four boys.

We welcome this news and urge Advocate to suspend Russell Romano while this investigation is happening. We also urge Advocate to seek out and listen to Romano’s victims as part of their investigation. Finally, we beg Advocate to begin, right now, reaching out to anyone who may have seen, suspected or suffered crimes or misdeeds by Romano while he has been on Advocate’s payroll or property.

The notion that his job doesn’t involve kids just doesn’t wash with us. Child predators are notoriously adept at using any title or position to gain access to vulnerable kids. Romano is a counselor. He works for a respected agency. He could easily use those two facts to begin ingratiating himself with a single mom who has an addicted teen.

There’s a reason we jail child molesters. It’s because anything short of jail doesn’t really protect kids. The precise job responsibilities of a child predator matter less. His access to kids matters more.

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

POSTED BY BARBARA DORRIS ON MAY 15, 2013

We hope this settlement comforts at least some of the many families who have suffered and are suffering because Bishop Robert Finn refused to call police, protect kids and monitor Fr. Shawn Ratigan.

At the same time, we hope that at least one of the victims of Ratigan’s crimes and Finn’s complicity will have their “day in court.” We believe a trial would reveal even more stunning deceit and recklessness by top Kansas City Catholic officials.

Masha’s Law is a largely unknown tool to use in stopping child porn. We hope more victims become aware of it and use it to deter future child sex crimes.

We hope every person who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes by Kansas City clerics comes forward. Staying silent helps no one. Speaking up helps expose and deter wrongdoing. It also protects kids and brings healing.

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MISSOURI
Berger’s Beat

May 15, 2013 10:27 am | Author: Jerry Berger
“Blaming ‘religion’ for terrorist bombings misunderstands the true nature of religion.” So says Springfield Bishop Thomas Paprocki, noted for once claiming that pedophile priest lawsuits are the work of Satan. Writing in his diocesan newspaper, Paprocki opines “The problem is not religion, but radical Islamist jihadism. It is highly unlikely that a ‘growing interest’ in Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity or any other major world religion would have resulted in the Boston Marathon bombings.”

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Huffington Post

May 15, 2013

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A settlement is reached in a lawsuit against the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph and Bishop Robert Finn over a priest’s child porn case, hours after a federal judge dismissed one of two civil counts.

The suit was filed by a victim who was 2 years old when the Rev. Shawn Ratigan took lewd pictures of her in May 2006. He pleaded guilty in August to a charge of taking pornographic pictures of the girl and awaits sentencing.

One of the girl’s attorneys, Gregg Meyers in St. Paul, Minn., told The Associated Press on Wednesday before it was officially announced that the remaining count was settled late Tuesday afternoon for $600,000. The deal still must be approved by a judge.

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VATICAN CITY
Today’s Catholic News

By Cindy Wooden

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis asked Catholics to pray for their bishops and priests, asking God to help them be real shepherds who are poor, humble and meek.

“Pray for us bishops and priests,” he said May 15 during an early morning Mass with employees of Vatican Radio. “We need to remain faithful, to be men who watch over our flocks and over ourselves.”

Celebrating the Mass in the chapel of his residence, the Domus Sanctae Marthae, the pope asked the employees to pray that God would defend bishops and priests from what St. Augustine defined as their principal temptations: money and pride.

“If we follow the path of riches, if we follow the path of pride, we will become wolves and not shepherds,” the pope said. “Pray for this.”

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POLAND
GlobalPost

A 40-year-old Roman Catholic priest was taken into custody in central Poland under suspicion of possessing and distributing child pornography, a justice official confirmed Wednesday.

“A preliminary investigation has been launched. The man has been provisionally detained for three months,” Inowroclaw public prosecutor Stanislaw Gluszek told Poland’s Polsat News commercial TV.

Police confiscated the suspect’s IT equipment.

Identified only as Marek M. for legal reasons, he was suspended from his duties as a Roman Catholic priest, which included teaching children catechism.

“He is still a priest, but he cannot administer any sacraments, nor can he preach,” said Father Zbigniew Przybylski, spokesman for the Gniezno diocese.

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