ABUSE TRACKER

AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

Phillip Aspinall, head of the Anglican Church in Australia, is very much smarter than his Catholic counterpart, George Pell. For a start, Aspinall has a string of degrees from computer science to theology to a Masters in Business Administration and a PhD. in education. More importantly, he is much cleverer in his handling of his church’s poor record in handling its abusers.

He does have the advantage of having fewer natural enemies than the Catholic Church, because of a more liberal approach to many social issues. He is married, to a medical practioner, and has children. He has ordained female clergy and does not oppose gays and lesbians. He adopts a pro-boat people position, etc. This gives him a lot of free air when it comes to his poor response to child sexual abuse by his clergy, and associated cover-ups. The left largely leaves him alone, while the right supports his establishment credentials.

His church has had its share of abusers and cover-ups, including allegations against Aspinall himself, but the “Teflon Primate” had has little adverse publicity (see previous postings). This is because, partly, that he is infinitely more aware of public relations principles than is George. While George rants and rails, Phil drools syrup.

The good Primate also does not skimp on legal advice. His principal church lawyer advising him is none other than the Chief Justice of Queensland’s Supreme Court.

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VATICAN CITY
Rome Reports

[with video]

September 2, 2013. (Romereports.com) On Friday, Pope Francis named 68-year-old Father Fernando Vérgez Alzaga as the secretary for the Vatican City-State Governorate, the second in command at the department that oversees the administration of the Vatican City-State.

Father Vérgez Alzaga was born in Salamanca, Spain, and up until this appointment, had served as the telecommunications director for Vatican City. As a member of the Legionaires of Christ, he studied philosophy and theology at the Gregorian University.

The Spanish priest began his career at the Vatican working for the Congregation for Consecrated Life and Council for the Laity, before moving on to telecommunications.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Derby Telegraph

A FORMER Derby priest has now been charged with 27 offences of sexual assault against children.

Francis Paul Cullen appeared at Southern Derbyshire Magistrates’ Court on Saturday and was charged with 16 counts of indecent assault on a boy under the age of 16.

The 85-year-old was also charged with 10 counts of gross indecency involving a boy under the age of 14 and one further sexual offence.

Cullen, who spent 18 years working at Christ the King Catholic Church, Mackworth estate, was extradited from Tenerife, where he had been living.

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VATICAN CITY
Chiesa

VATICAN CITY, September 2, 2013 – In commenting on the announcement of the appointment of Archbishop Pietro Parolin as the new Vatican secretary of state, almost no one has noted that this is a matter of the first Venetian to occupy the important position for more than three centuries.

And yet the analogy with the present is of a certain interest.

The first, and until now the last, churchman of the Italian northeast to become the closest collaborator of the bishop of Rome in the governance of the universal Church was in fact Giambattista (or Giovanni Battista) Rubini, born in Venice in 1642 and secretary of state from October of 1689 to the summer of 1691. Rubini was also bishop of Vicenza, Parolin’s diocese of origin, from 1684 to 1702.

But the analogy with the present seems to end here, limiting itself to the purely geographical aspect.

Rubini, in fact, was appointed secretary of state, and made a cardinal, by Alexander VIII – whose secular name was Pietro Ottoboni – who promoted him immediately after being elected pontiff on October 6, 1689, in conclave. Well then, Alexander VIII – a Venetian himself, born in Venice to Marco and Vittoria Tornielli – was the brother of Cristina Ottoboni, the grandmother (or mother according to other sources) of Rubini.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
KCUR

[with audio]

By ALEX SMITH

The local Roman Catholic diocese has attracted worldwide attention for its problems with child abuse, particularly for Bishop Robert Finn who is the first and only U.S. bishop to be convicted of failing to report suspected abuse.

Later this month, the Diocese’s Office of Child and Youth Protection will release its second annual public report on abuse in the parishes. The report is one of several big steps the Diocese has taken in recent years to address abuse, but some say these steps aren’t enough.

In the northern end of downtown Kansas City, Mo., employees of the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese and Catholic Charities come to work in a 19th century brick and brownstone high rise, and quietly carry out the administrative work for a diocese that serves more than 130,000. But even among these faithful employees, there’s anger at the Church. In a meeting room, Ombudsman for the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese, Jenifer Valenti, remembers the upset that she shared with millions when she learned about the sexual abuse scandals.

“I grew up Catholic and I watched the scandal unfold nationally and now it’s unfolding worldwide,” says Valenti. “There are many times I was disappointed about the way it was handled.”

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UNITED STATES
Pope Crimes & Vatican Evils…

Paris Arrow

One of the biggest Vatican Deceits that Pope Francis uttered was about women in this phrase (after his rock-star trip to Brazil): “Mary is more important than Bishops and priests, and therefore women are also more important than Bishops and priests”. Nothing could be further from the truth because the Vatican uses its ultimate powers at the United Nations to obstruct and suppress women’s rights throughout the world as explicated in several scholars’ articles below. Jesuitical Pope Francis wants to treat women like Mary’s lifeless and immobile (imbecile) man-made statues, obedient only to his papal dictatorial whims – and “’silent’ like Mary” – read more in our related article — Middle Ages Vatican condemns New Age American Nuns: The Celestine Prophecy come true! Sisters in Crisis book mocks LCWR Sisters in Christ

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on September 1, 2013

Here’s a simple question:

If you have a phone and know about evidence of child sex crimes, you call police, right?

Doesn’t sound hard does it? Well, unless you’re one of Missouri’s two most influential Catholic bishops …

Example one: “Just Say No to Reporting” Kansas City Bishop Robert Finn

In 2010, a Catholic school principal gave Finn’s second-in-command a single-spaced, three-page letter detailing all kinds of inappropriate behavior by Fr. Shawn Ratigan. You can read it here. Soon after, a church staffer found hundreds of photos of naked and partially naked girls—all taken by Fr. Ratigan.

But it was almost a year before anyone on Finn’s payroll managed to get that evidence to police.

The end result: in 2012, Finn became the first US bishop to ever be convicted for failing to report child sex abuse suspicions.

Example two: “Make sure they don’t cash the check” St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson

St. Louis priest Fr. Joseph Jiang has been charged with first degree child endangerment for repeatedly molested a girl as recently as last summer. Legal documents say Jiang admitted his crimes first to the girl’s parents and then to Archbishop Carlson. But in between, Jiang left a $20,000 check with the girl’s parents hoping, prosecutors say, to silence them.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Sueddeutsche

Franz-Peter von Tebartz-van Elst, Bischof im Bistum Limburg, hat Fehler eingestanden. Ein erster Schritt. Der zweite ist es, seine Ausgaben transparent zu machen. Doch der dritte Schritt ist der schwierigste.

Ein Kommentar von Matthias Drobinski

Franz-Peter Tebartz van Elst, der Limburger Bischof gibt Fehler zu, entschuldigt sich, wirbt bei seinen Kritikern um Vertrauen. Der Brief, in dem er das tut, kommt spät, und man wüsste gerne, wie viel Kardinal Marc Ouellet, der Chef der Bischofskongregation in Rom, dazu beigetragen hat – ihn hatte Tebartz in seiner Not vergangene Woche besucht. Wie auch immer: Das Schreiben ist ehrenhaft und ein erster Schritt, verlorenes Vertrauen wiederzugewinnen.

Der zweite Schritt dürfte verhältnismäßig einfach sein: Das Bistum muss Auskunft über die Kosten und die Finanzierung jenes Baus geben, in dem nun der Bischof wohnt. Das kann unangenehm werden, aber es mussten schon genug Bauherren erklären, warum ihre Projekte immer teurer wurden. Dann sollte Tebartz zugeben: Er hat die Wahrheit über den Luxusflug zu den Armen in Indien zumindest gebogen. Bitter für jemanden, der kraft Amtes hohe moralische Ansprüche an die Leute stellt, aber unumgänglich.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Die Welt

Der Limburger Bischof Tebartz-van Elst ist unter Beschuss. Ihm wird vorgeworfen, bei dem Neubau des Bischofssitzes die Kosten massiv in die Höhe getrieben zu haben. Jetzt tauchen neue Beweise auf.

Der umstrittene katholische Bischof von Limburg, Franz-Peter Tebartz-van-Elst, hat sich bei den Gläubigen seines Bistums wegen der ihm vorgeworfenen Verschwendung entschuldigt. “Rückblickend gibt es Dinge, die ich anders angehen würde”, heißt es in einem Brief des Bischofs, der am Sonntag in den Kirchen des Bistums verlesen wurde. Zugleich wurden allerdings neue Vorwürfe gegen Tebartz-van-Elst bekannt.

Bei den Vorwürfen gegen den Bischof geht es unter anderem um einen Erste-Klasse-Flug nach Indien, wo Tebartz-van-Elst die Slums von Bangalore besucht hatte, sowie um drastische Kostensteigerungen beim Ausbau seines Bischofssitzes. Der Bischof versprach dazu in seinem Brief weitere Aufklärung, bat aber auch um Geduld und Vertrauen.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Balaton Zeitung

Der umstrittene Limburger Bischof Franz-Peter Tebartz-van-Elst, 53, entschuldigt sich in einem Brief, der an diesem Wochenende in allen Messen des Bistums verlesen werden soll, direkt bei den Gläubigen. Nach den Verschwendungsvorwürfen, bei denen es unter anderem um einen First-Class-Flug in die Slums von Bangalore in Indien ging, sagt er in dem Bischofsbrief, der “Bild am Sonntag” vorliegt: “Rückblickend gibt es Dinge, die ich anders angehen würde.” Er verspricht weitere Aufklärung, bittet um Geduld, Vertrauen und das Gebet der Gläubigen.

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IOWA
WCF Courier

The clergy sex abuse issue had been pretty quiet in Northeast Iowa for several years.

Then attorneys and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dubuque announced a new out-of-court settlement with victims last week.

The archdiocese has paid $5.2 million to 26 victims of clergy sex abuse — the fourth such settlement in nine years, but the first since 2008.

It involves 10 priests in incidents alleged to have occurred from the late 1940s through the 1970s, but include several priests and incidents in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls area. None of the accused clergy currently work as priests and most are dead. Archdiocesan officials have said the number of new claims has tapered off significantly in recent years.

Waterloo attorney Chad Swanson of the Dutton law firm worked through the archdiocese over several years to settle the claims.

“We’ve been able to foster a lot of healing for a lot of folks,” Swanson said. “I think it’s been a long time coming, particularly with this latest group.”

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

01 SEPTEMBER 2013

A west Belfast priest who stood down from duties amid claims about his conduct has returned to ministry after being cleared by a church probe.

Father Hugh Kennedy had already been told that no criminal prosecution would be taken against him.

The cleric agreed to temporarily stop working in St Peter’s Cathedral in 2011 while church authorities passed details of the claims to the police and social services to investigate.

Specific allegations were not outlined, but at the time Fr Kennedy issued a statement insisting he was not a child molester.

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

Posted on August 31, 2013 by lewisblayse

When the Royal Commissioners were appointed, the government put out a short PR release on the backgrounds of the commissioners, which said very little in fact about the people other than about their current positions. At the time, this site posted a more detailed look at all the six commissioners and the principal staff, namely Senior Counsel Assisting, Gail Furness, and Junior Counsel Assisting, Melinda Richards.

This was done when the blog was first started and not many people had stumbled upon it. Most people appearing before the commissioners will tend to just accept whichever ones are allocated to them. However, perusal of their detailed backgrounds may have some influence on whether or not people are comfortable with who they’ve been allocated to.

So, for the benefit of people who have come across the site since these backgrounds were posted, the following internal links are given for the commissioners and senior staff. It should be noted that this author has called for removal of one of the commissioners, Robert Fitzgerald, on the basis that he was too closely associated with the Catholic Church to maintain an impartial approach.

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

The Catholic Church in Australia has established a “high powered” public relations unit to deal with the fall-out of the Royal Commission. It is grandiosely known as the Truth, Justice and Healing Commission. It serves much the same functions as the discredited Towards Healing and Melbourne Response committees.

It will be useful to some people to know the full background of the members of the PR unit, and their likely individual roles in particular spin campaigns. These background notes were printed in this blog very early in the year and may not have been seen by people new to the site, so the links to them are given below.

It can be readily seen that the church officials have learnt some things since the committees they set up in the 1990s. Each member has been carefully selected with two things in mind. Firstly, there is total control by the church of the committee to avoid the embarrassments of the earlier models, such as dissent from Professor Parkinson. All members are either church officials, or people very heavily dependent on the goodwill of the church.

Secondly, the lay members appear, on the surface, to have credible qualifications in the child care areas, but closer inspection reveals past positions in conflict with what most people would regard as good policy, e.g., on mandatory reporting. These are not mentioned in the church’s press releases.

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UNITED STATES
Truthout

BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

When it comes to being restored, re-ordained and returned to the pulpit after confessing to a four-year extramarital affair with a member of his congregation, Sam Hinn, the younger brother of well-known televangelist and faith healer Benny Hinn, may have set a new speed record for fallen evangelical leaders.

Older brother Benny is a big-time brand, squirrelling the spotlight for a good chunk of his professional life, and his ministry reels in extraordinary amounts of money. He’s traveled the globe, bought mansions, and has lived the good life. He’s also experienced a fair amount of controversy along the way; his prophesies have been way off the mark, including one made in 1989 that Fidel Castro wouldn’t outlast the 1990s; he was one of a group of televangelists whose financial shenanigans inspired an investigation by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa); and, two years ago, he was accused of being involved in a messy extramarital affair with Paula White — another well-known televangelist — an accusation that threatened his worldwide ministry. Hinn self-recovered and is back televangelizing.

Now, younger brother Sam, who compared to Benny is a minor figure in the world of evangelicals, is grabbing some kinky headlines of his own.

An affair made in heaven

“Chantel Wonder said [Sam] Hinn… initiated the affair with her mother by telling her they were ‘soul mates’ and that God approved of the relationship,” the Orlando Sentinel reported in January. It should be noted that one of Sam Hinn’s claims to fame is that he has a personal relationship with God, ergo Sam’s assurances to her that God had pre-approved the affair.

“He put her in a position that this is OK because it’s what God wants. He was using God to justify it.” Her mother is a hairstylist who eventually styled hair for Hinn’s wife and children.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

A Catholic priest in Belfast who had been at the centre of a police investigation is to return to ministry.

Father Hugh Kennedy, voluntarily stepped down as administrator of St Peter’s Cathedral in Belfast in 2011.

At the time the church said it had received information about him which it gave to the police and social services.

Bishop Noel Treanor told parishioners at St Peter’s, that all relevant agencies, including the authorities, were satisfied he should return.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
UTV

Published Sunday, 01 September 2013

A west Belfast priest who stood down from duties amid claims about his conduct has returned to ministry after being cleared by a church inquiry.

In a statement Bishop of Down and Connor Noel Treanor confirmed that Fr Hugh Kennedy had returned to his priestly duty in St Peter’s Cathedral.

In July 2011, the Diocese referred information on the priest to the PSNI in accordance with child safeguarding procedures.

Fr Kennedy then voluntarily stepped down, but in November last year, after completing an investigation police confirmed they would not be prosecuting him.

Fr Kennedy remained on leave from duties pending the outcome of a separate church inquiry.

“Following a PSNI investigation and a more recent internal Church review, all relevant agencies, including the statutory authorities, are satisfied that Fr Kennedy should return to ministry,” Bishop Treanor said in a statement.

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VATICAN CITY
Huffington Post

* Secretary of state known as “deputy pope”
* Parolin, like Francis, known for frugal lifestyle
* Ends Bertone era marked by ethical, financial scandals (Adds background on Parolin, scandals)

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY, Aug 31 (Reuters) – Pope Francis attempted to set a new tone for a Vatican beset by scandals on Saturday by naming a veteran diplomat as secretary of state, a role often called the “deputy pope”.

Archbishop Pietro Parolin’s appointment ends the era of Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who was widely blamed for failing to prevent ethical and financial scandals that marked the eight-year reign of former Pope Benedict, who resigned in February.

Parolin, a 58-year-old Italian who, like Francis, is known for his frugal lifestyle, is currently the Vatican’s nuncio (ambassador) in Venezuela.

The naming of a new secretary of state – who acts as the pope’s prime minister and chief aide – is the most significant appointment by Francis since his election in March.

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CHILE
La Tercera

A mediados de 2010, la madre de las supuestas víctimas del sacerdote se reunió con él y le pidió que se alejara de sus hijas. A mediados de 2012, la niña tuvo cambios de conducta y señaló al sacerdote como su atacante, pero ahora la justicia ha puestro en duda la “objetividad” de la investigación.

por Esteban González y Andrés Muñoz

YO IBA AL COLEGIO los miércoles y viernes, desde hace 20 años, aproximadamente. Y mi trabajo ahí consistía, con las niñas a partir de 3º básico a 4º medio, (en) confesiones y atender sus consultas. Con los niños de 3º básico especialmente yo hacía el trabajo de la catequesis para la Primera Comunión, las charlas, las preparaciones para ello, las confesiones y las misas. (…) El procedimiento era que la alumna pedía permiso a su profesora y le daba un papel y le daba permiso por escrito, o con las más grandes, de 3º o 4º medio era un poco más flexible, es decir, era sin papel, ya que las alumnas más grandes se supone que son más responsables”.

Con estas palabras, el sacerdote John O’Reilly (66), irlandés de nacimiento, pero nacionalizado chileno por gracia el 2008, explicó a la justicia -en enero- su labor en el Colegio Cumbres por más de una década, como parte de la congregación Legionarios de Cristo. Una labor que fue abruptamente suspendida hace 14 meses, el miércoles 25 de julio de 2012, luego de que él mismo presentara al Ministerio Público el relato de una menor de seis años que lo sindicaba como posible autor de ataques en su contra. Desde ese día, O’Reilly acordó con el colegio suspender todas sus actividades pastorales en el recinto.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

September 1, 2013

Royce Millar
Investigative reporter

If Tony Abbott is elected prime minister on Saturday he will abolish the watchdog established by Labor to keep an eye on the billions of dollars received and spent by Australian charities each year.

Why?

The answer, in part at least, may be the lobbying power of church conservatives, the Catholic Church in particular, and the office of Sydney Cardinal George Pell, more particularly still.

And their focus has not been the Coalition alone. Labor insiders acknowledge the impact of Cardinal Pell’s office as it reduced the scope of its new national regulator, the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission.

Charity leaders, church heads and political insiders have told The Sunday Age about the lobbying campaign over charities regulation by the Sydney archdiocese, notably Cardinal Pell’s business manager and chief political envoy, Danny Casey.

The pressure applied by the Sydney church through the charities debate has raised the question of the access and sway it may enjoy under Australia’s first Catholic Liberal prime minister and his Catholic-strong frontbench that includes Kevin Andrews, Barnaby Joyce, Joe Hockey, Malcolm Turnbull (a convert), Andrew Robb and Christopher Pyne.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY ALLISON YARROW / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2013

Last November, Nechemya Weberman, pillar of his community and unlicensed counselor of wayward children, swore to a standing-room-only Brooklyn courtroom that he had only been trying to save the life of the girl who’d once called him “Daddy,” who was now accusing him of raping her for years, beginning when she was 12 years old and in sixth grade.

Many observers thought he looked smug as he testified, and why wouldn’t he? With the vehement backing of most of the tightly knit, deeply insular Satmar Hasidic Jewish community in Williamsburg, the 54-year-old former driver for its spiritual leader, the Grand Rebbe Moses Teitelbaum, felt he could get away with anything.

After all, he always had.

Members of the Satmar collective, who consider themselves members of one of the world’s holiest communities, closed ranks to defend an accused child molester from the secular world — and cast out the girl who’d accused him.

She wasn’t their concern. She’d gone outside of the family.

Mirroring groups from the Catholic church to Penn staters, Satmars attacked the victim, more concerned with protecting itself from the outside world than with the evil within.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Sunday Mail

ALLEGATIONS of sex abuse by priests at another Catholic order are being probed by police, the Sunday Mail can reveal today.

Men from Scotland, England and Ireland claim to have been attacked between 1960 and 1980.

Police are investigating the alleged abuse at the Verona Fathers Junior Seminary in Mirfield, near Huddersfield, Yorkshire.

A civil court case is also being prepared by those who say they were abused by priests at the order.

Five men have made allegations against priests at Mirfield.

One of them, who asked not to be named, told the Sunday Mail: “This matter needs to be out in the open. This dates back 40 years and is very traumatic for all involved. People are moving from being victims to being survivors.

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IRELAND
The Guardian

Andrew Pulver
theguardian.com, Saturday 31 August 2013

After delighting British cinema audiences with the big-screen debut of Alan Partridge, Steve Coogan could be in line for international recognition at the Venice Film festival. Philomena Philomena has emerged as one of the frontrunners for the Golden Lion at the Venice film festival as it had its successful world premiere on the Lido. Critics gave it a rousing ovation as it finished and one observer said it was “the best reaction … since The Kings Speech”.

The film is the story of an Irish working-class woman called Philomena Lee as she searches for the son who was forcibly removed from her by the nuns running the convent where she had been placed after becoming pregnant. Lee worked in an abbey laundry in Roscrea, County Tipperary, in a not dissimilar situation to the girls in Peter Mullan’s film The Magdalene Sisters. Lee’s quest, crucially, was taken up by former BBC correspondent and former Downing Street spin doctor Martin Sixsmith, on whose book the film is based. Steve Coogan, whose company Baby Cow produced Philomena, stars as Sixsmith, while Judi Dench plays the title role. The film is directed by Stephen Frears, who last came to Venice with The Queen.

Philomena is the latest in a string of films attacking the Roman Catholic church, but Coogan was quick to deny Philomena was a “polemic”. “Although it criticises the way the church as an institution behaves, it dignifies people of faith, in the shape of Philomena. An attack would have been too simplistic, and in these modern times quite an easy thing to do.”

“In all the things that have happened inside the church, it’s the people of simple faith who have been often forgotten.”

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ITALY
AFP

By Ella Ide (AFP)

VENICE, Veneto — British director Stephen Frears said on Saturday Pope Francis should watch “Philomena”, his tragi-comic film which puts the spotlight on one of the Catholic Church’s dark secrets in Ireland.

The film, which has taken the Venice film festival by storm, tells the true tale of a mother’s search for her son in the context of Church-run institutions which stripped young unwed mothers of their children.

“I hope the pope will see it. He seems a rather good bloke the pope, very open,” Frears, director of the award-winning “The Queen”, said in the floating city.

The film, starring Judi Dench as mother Philomena Lee and comic actor Steve Coogan as the ex-BBC journalist who helps her, drew laughs, tears and rounds of spontaneous applause at its screening in Venice.

Based on the story in Martin Sixsmith’s 2009 book “The Lost Child of Philomena Lee”, the film tells the tale of a teenage girl who falls pregnant in Ireland in 1952 and is packed off to a convent.

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ITALY
Reuters

By Isla Binnie
VENICE | Sat Aug 31, 2013

(Reuters) – Judi Dench brought pathos and laughter to Venice on Saturday with her performance in the title role of “Philomena”, the true story of an Irish woman who searches for the son who was taken from her and sold by nuns.

Pope Francis, who has taken over a Catholic Church beset by scandal, should watch the film, director Stephen Frears said.

“I’m very keen that the Pope should see it,” he said.

“Philomena” debuted at the Venice film festival alongside James Franco’s “Child of God”, the chilling tale of a cave-dwelling necrophiliac, and “Night Moves” about three eco-warriors who plot to blow up a dam.

Asked why he had made a film about such a taboo subject, Franco said it had provided a way “for me to examine something that’s pushed out of civilized society”.

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IRELAND
Los Angeles Times

By Nicole Sperling
August 31, 2013

“Philomena” is hard-to-resist Oscar bait. And according to the early reviews out of the Venice Film Festival, where the BBC Films production starring Oscar winner Judi Dench and Steve Coogan debuted, the audience bit in a big way. (Watch the trailer. Note: adult language.)

Directed by “The Queen” helmer Stephen Frears from a script Coogan wrote with Jeff Pope, “Philomena” tells the story of a down-on-his-luck journalist who teams up with an older woman (Dench) who years ago saw her son taken away after she became pregnant as a teenager and was forced into a convent.

The Telegraph’s Robbie Collin called the brisk 94-minute movie a “crowd-delighter,” wooing audience members who were sobbing and clapping at the film’s conclusion.

The movie is based on a true story of Irish woman Philomena Lee’s 50-year struggle to find her son, who was sold for adoption in America, as told by Martin Sixsmith in his 2009 book “The Lost Child of Philomena Lee: A Mother, Her Son and a Fifty-Year Search.”

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IRELAND
Imperial Valley Press

Associated Press

Director Stephen Frears really wants Pope Francis to see his latest film, `’Philomena,” the true story of a shamed Irish woman forced by nuns to give her son up for adoption in the 1950s. He wants it so much, he said so three times during a news conference on Saturday.

`’I am very, very keen that the pope should see it, if you have any influence in those quarters,” Frears told reporters ahead of the film’s world premiere in competition at the Venice Film Festival.
Asked to explain, he said: `’He seems like a rather good bloke, the pope.”

`’Philomena” stars Judi Dench in the title role as a woman who sought to locate her son, and Steve Coogan, as Martin Sixsmith, the journalist who accompanied her on her journey and wrote a 2009 book, which itself has been a catalyst for thousands of `’shamed” Irish mothers who similarly lost their children to come forward.

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MAINE
Fenceviewer

Written by Dick Broom Friday, August 30, 2013

MOUNT DESERT — William “Mac” Bigelow, the long-time pastor of the United Church of Christ (UCC) of Northeast Harbor and Seal Harbor who in 2010 was suspended from the ministry for three years, has now been terminated.

“The termination of ministerial standing means that Rev. Bigelow no longer has the credentials necessary to serve in any ministerial position at any church that is affiliated with the United Church of Christ,” wrote Reverend Tim Hall, chairman pro tem of the Church and Ministry Committee of the Waldo-Hancock Association of the UCC in a July 29 letter to church members.

Bigelow said Wednesday that people are not getting the full story.

Bigelow was suspended in July 2010 after a church review panel found that he had sexually abused a teenage boy over an extended period about three decades ago and had continued to harass the victim. Following an investigation, the Church and Ministry Committee determined at the time that Bigelow “did sexually abuse a minor while serving…as an ordained minister.”

Bigelow did not deny that charge.

The committee further concluded that Bigelow “actively sought continued sexual contact with the original victim and other forms of unwanted contact with the victim and the victim’s family over the ensuing years.”

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DEUTSCHLAND
Rhein-Zeitung

Limburg – Der Limburger Bischof Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst ist offensichtlich intensiv um Schadensbegrenzung bemüht.

Nach seinem Kurztrip nach Rom am Mittwoch hat sich der Bischof am Freitag mit dem Präsidium der Diözesanversammlung des Bistums Limburg im Diözesanen Zentrum St. Nikolaus auf dem Limburger Domberg getroffen, um gemeinsam über die aktuelle Situation im Bistum zu beraten. Dabei hat Tebartz-van Elst Dialogbereitschaft signalisiert. In einem Interview mit dem Kölner Domradio kündigte der Limburger Oberhirte zudem an, die Kosten für den Bau des Bischofssitzes am Domberg offenzulegen.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Frankfurter Rundschau

LIMBURG/KÖLN –
Der wegen seiner Amtsführung umstrittene Limburger Bischof Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst hat Fehler eingeräumt. «Ich glaube schon, dass es noch wichtiger gewesen wäre, viel mehr zu kommunizieren. Wir haben es versucht», sagte er am Freitag dem Domradio, einem Sender des Erzbistums Köln.

Seit rund einer Woche ist ein offener Brief mit Kritik an Tebartz-van Elst im Umlauf. Bislang haben ihn mehrere Hundert Menschen unterzeichnet. Die Unterschriftenaktion war in Frankfurt gestartet worden.

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DEUTSCHLAND
RP

VON LOTHAR SCHRÖDER – zuletzt aktualisiert: 31.08.2013

Weil ein Bischof kein Politiker und ein Weiheamt etwas grundlegend anderes ist als ein Job, ist auch das Ermittlungsverfahren gegen den Limburger Bischof Tebartz-van Elst etwas Besonderes. Ganz gleich, ob sich der Hirte nun einer Falschaussage über einen Flug nach Indien schuldig gemacht hat – Business-Class oder Erster Klasse –, so ist allein der Vorgang eine Art Urteil: über die Glaubwürdigkeit eines Bischofs und sein Amtsverständnis. Zumal der Gegenstand richterlicher Ermittlungen kein Ausrutscher ist in der Amtszeit des im niederrheinischen Wallfahrtsort Kevelaer geborenen Bischofs.

Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst ist gerade erst 53 Jahre alt, ein Hoffnungsträger im deutschen Episkopat. Doch der Mann mit seinem fast jugendlichen Aussehen scheint sich in seiner Amtsführung an alten Zeiten zu orientieren. Selbstverliebt wird er genannt, höfische Elemente soll er zur Schau stellen. Und all das lässt sich auch an Zahlen belegen. Im Mittelpunkt steht der nicht zurückhaltende Neubau seines Bischofshauses. 5,5 Millionen Euro soll es kosten, hieß es; etwa die Hälfte kommt aus Kirchensteuer-Mitteln.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Tony’s Kansas City

Like it or not, Kansas City’s struggle to forget sex abuse charges and convictions against local Catholic priests has proven futile as the controversy continues.

To wit . . .

KICK-ASS TKC TIPSTERS TELL US OF MORE KANSAS CITY CATHOLIC SEX SCANDAL ON THE HORIZON!!!

Check it:

“Word is that on 9/12, Fr. Shawn Ratigan will be sentenced for more child sex crimes.”

While the Church does move slowly, even the most devout Catholic apologists might find it strange that the priest has yet to be excommunicated given the circumstances and the fact that his misdeeds led to the first conviction of a Catholic Bishop in U.S. History on the misdemeanor charge of failing to report suspected child abuse.

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VATICAN CITY
Whispers in the Loggia

Given this month’s traditional quiet on the beat, lest anyone forgot, August has meant these pages’ traditional hiatus… with a Pope rearing in the gate, however, indications are we’re off to an early launch for what’s looking to be a wild fall cycle.

According to multiple Italian reports this Friday, Pope Francis is tipped to name Archbishop Pietro Parolin – the 58 year-old nuncio to Venezuela, who served as the Vatican’s “deputy foreign minister” from 2002-09 – as his Secretary of State, the formal announcement expected in some quarters “as soon as tomorrow.”

Should the buzz pan out, Parolin would succeed Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone SDB – the formidable “Vice-Pope” of Benedict XVI – whose ascent to the post in 2006 without any experience in Vatican diplomacy caused apoplectic fits among the natives and created an enduring set of institutional grudges that arguably sabotaged Joseph Ratzinger’s pontificate.

While no shortage of speculation on the nod has made the rounds over these last several months – with Parolin in pole position throughout – an even more crucial question has largely gone ignored: namely, what the function of the Secretariat of State will be in a Roman Curia reshaped by a widely expected Franciscan shake-up, a project likely to be launched in earnest come early October following the Pope’s first formal summit with his “Super 8” group of cardinal-assistants hand-picked from around the globe.

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VATICAN CITY
John Thavis

As expected, Pope Francis today named Italian Archbishop Pietro Parolin as his new secretary of state. The move is important primarily because it brings diplomacy front and center to a position that for the last eight years was held by a non-diplomat.

Archbishop Parolin, 58, is known around the Vatican as super-skilled in foreign affairs, having served in Vatican embassies (called nunciatures) in Mexico, Nigeria and, most recently, in Venezuela as apostolic nuncio. He is a graduate of the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, the Vatican’s diplomatic school, where students are hand-picked.

From 2002 to 2009, Parolin worked at the Secretariat of State’s headquarters at the Vatican, serving as the undersecretary for relations with states, a kind of deputy foreign minister. Although not a high-profile job, it was one of the most important at the Vatican; among other things, he was assigned to help untie diplomatic knots in China, Vietnam and Israel.

When U.S. Embassy personnel needed to discuss important diplomatic affairs with the Vatican, more often than not they went to see Parolin. That included some less-than-agreeable meetings when the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, a move sharply criticized by the Vatican.

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VATICAN CITY
BBC News

By David Willey
BBC News, Rome

Archbishop Pietro Parolin, a 58-year-old Vatican diplomat, is to take over the key post of top foreign policy adviser and deputy to Pope Francis in October. He replaces Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone who has been a controversial and divisive figure in the Vatican corridors of power.

Archbishop Parolin’s appointment as Vatican Secretary of State marks the beginning of a major reshuffle among the men who run the Roman Curia.

When a Pope dies or steps down, as happened in the case of former Pope Benedict last February, all Vatican senior clerics automatically lose their jobs.

Pope Francis temporarily reinstated all former department heads, including Cardinal Bertone, while he was planning a radical restructuring of the central government of the Catholic Church.

Now, after nearly six months in office, Pope Francis has set in motion a timetable for Vatican administrative reform.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

John L. Allen Jr. | Aug. 31, 2013 NCR Today

The Italian web site Terre d’America, devoted to news from Latin America, today posted the transcript of an interview with Archbishop Pietro Parolin conducted by a Venezuelan journalist in late June, and published on August 4. In effect, it’s the last public interview given by Parolin, who at the time was still serving as the papal ambassador to Venezuela, before his Aug. 31 appointment by Pope Francis as the Vatican’s new Secretary of State.

The following is an NCR translation of the interview posted Aug. 31 by Terre d’America. It was originally published in the Venzuelan newspaper Ultimas Noticias, generally considered close to the governments of Hugo Chávez and now Nicolás Maduro.

For American readers, Parolin’s definition of church reform to include the fight against “pedophilia,” or child sexual abuse, may be significant, as well as his comments on social justice, “savage capitalism” and interreligious dialogue.

* * *
What’s happening in the church since March 13, when Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected as the new pope?

Parolin: I don’t believe anything new is happening in the church, in the sense that the new is also ordinary.

[The church] is always well-disposed to renewal?

Exactly so, always, because the principal protagonist in the church is the Holy Spirit

How do you interpret the ‘Francis phenomenon’?

What’s struck me, and I consider it a miracle of the election of Pope Francis, is the sudden change of climate that was felt immediately. Before, there was pessimism – unjustly, I would add, because Pope Benedict XVI did everything possible to reform the church, if we look, for instance, at his enormous commitment with regard to pedophilia.

Could it be said that the tension of facing pedophilia and corruption exhausted him?

Yes, I suppose so. We were focused on these problems, and it seemed that maybe the church didn’t have the capacity for renewal. All of a sudden, after the election and the first pronouncements of the pope, the situation changed completely and a new climate of hope took hold, of renewal, of a future that beforehand seemed irreparably blocked. I truly consider this a great miracle. The courage and the humility of Benedict XVI to take a step back moves in the same direction as the courage and humility of Francis to accept the papacy, and the new air that he’s brought.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

Pope Francis has officially appointed Pietro Parolin as Tarcisio Bertone’s successor and all the Secretariat of State’s top officials have been confirmed. Parolin, who will take up the post on 15 October, thanked Francis “for the unmerited trust he is showing me”

ANDREA TORNIELLI
VATICAN CITY

The Vatican’s new Secretary of State was officially appointed at midday today. Pope Francis accepted Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone’s resignation and nominated the current Nuncio to Venezuela, 58-year old Archbishop Pietro Parolin, as his replacement. Parolin will formally take up his new post on 15 October so until then Bertone will continue “with all the faculties inherent to that role.” The Holy See issued a statement saying that “on that occasion, His Holiness shall receive in audience Superiors and Officials of the Secretariat of State in order publically to thank Cardinal Bertone for his faithful and generous service to the Holy See, and to introduce them to the new Secretary of State.”

Pope Francis has also confirmed that the Vatican Secretariat of State’s other top officials will keep their posts: the substitute, Archbishop Giovanni Angelo Becciu; the Secretary for Relations with States, Dominique Mamberti; the Prefect of the Papal Household, Georg Gänswein; the assessor, Peter Wells and the Under-Secretary for Relations with States, Antoine Camilleri.

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VATICAN CITY
The Guardian (United Kingdom)

Reuters
theguardian.com, Saturday 31 August 2013

Pope Francis has attempted to set a new tone for a Vatican beset by scandals by naming a veteran diplomat as secretary of state, a role often called the “deputy pope”.

Archbishop Pietro Parolin’s appointment ends the era of Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who was widely blamed for failing to prevent the ethical and financial scandals that marked the eight-year reign of Pope Benedict, who resigned in February.

Parolin, a 58-year-old Italian who like Francis is known for his frugal lifestyle, is currently the Vatican’s nuncio in Venezuela.

The naming of a new secretary of state, who acts as the pope’s prime minister and chief aide, is the most significant appointment by Francis since his election in March.

Although he has no power to rule on doctrinal issues, he stands in when the pope is ill.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

John L. Allen Jr. | Aug. 31, 2013 NCR Today

In a small world such as the Vatican, personnel is always policy. Nothing says more about where a pope wants to go than the people he chooses to help get him there, and pride of place in that mix generally goes to the Secretary of State, by tradition a pope’s “Prime Minister.”

Today Francis filled that key slot, appointing 58-year-old Italian Archbishop Pietro Parolin to succeed 78-year-old Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who held the position under Pope Benedict XVI.

A veteran Vatican diplomat, Parolin has served for the past four years as the papal nuncio, or ambassador, to Venezuela, and has been on the front lines of shaping the Vatican’s response to virtually every geopolitical challenge of the past two decades. By naming a consummate insider, Francis appears to want to “reboot” the Vatican’s operating system back to a point when it was perceived to operate efficiently, rather than scrapping it entirely.

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VATICAN CITY
GlobalPost

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Francis on Saturday made the most significant appointment of his pontificate so far, naming a veteran diplomat as his secretary of state, Vatican prime minister and chief aide – a role often called the “deputy pope”.

Archbishop Pietro Parolin’s appointment ends the era of Cardinal Tarciscio Bertone, who was widely blamed for failing to prevent ethical and financial scandals that marked the eight-year reign of former Pope Benedict, who resigned in February.

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VATICAN CITY
The Tablet (United Kingdom)

Robert Mickens in Rome – 31 August 2013

Pope Francis has appointed Archbishop Pietro Parolin, apostolic nuncio to Venezuela for the last four years, as his new Secretary of State.

The 58-year-old northern Italian will officially begin his new duties on 15 October. He replaces Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone SDB, a controversial figure who had held the Vatican’s second-highest post since September 2006.

The appointment of Archbishop Parolin returns a career papal diplomat from the so-called “Casaroli School” to the helm of the Secretariat of State, the Holy See’s principal administrative bureau dealing with both internal Church affairs and international diplomacy. Cardinal Bertone, a Salesian canon lawyer, had no diplomatic or international experience and limited foreign language skills. A long-time aide of Benedict XVI, stemming from their days at the helm of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the now 78-year-old cardinal was depicted as the scapegoat in the VatiLeaks affair for his inefficiency in running the Roman Curia.

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VATICAN CITY
Religion News Service

Alessandro Speciale | Aug 31, 2013

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Making the first major appointment of his pontificate, Pope Francis on Saturday (Aug. 30) named Archbishop Pietro Parolin as the Vatican’s new Secretary of State, a role that is often described as the Vatican’s “prime minister.”

He will replace Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, a trusted aide of Pope emeritus Benedict XVI whose lack of diplomatic training had been blamed for the mismanagement and scandals that plagued the Vatican in recent years.

Parolin, a 58-year old Italian, is a veteran of the Vatican’s diplomatic corps and will take office on October 15.

He is currently the Holy See’s ambassador to Venezuela and served in the past as the Undersecretary for Relations with States, a role similar to deputy foreign minister.

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VATICAN CITY
BBC News

Pope Francis has named a new secretary of state, in what is seen as his most significant appointment since he became leader of the Catholic Church in March.

Archbishop Pietro Parolin, a 58-year-old Vatican diplomat, replaced Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, 79, who is retiring.

Cardinal Bertone, appointed by Francis’ predecessor Pope Benedict, had been widely criticised over last year’s so-called “Vatileaks” scandals.

Leaked documents revealed corruption and infighting at the Vatican.

The secretary of state heads the Roman Curia, the central administration of the Catholic Church, and is the Pope’s chief adviser.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Derby Telegraph

A FORMER Derby priest has been charged with 27 offences of sexual assualt against children.

Francis Paul Cullen appeared at Southern Derbyshire Magistrates’ Court this morning and was charged with 16 counts of indecent assualt on a boy under the age of 16.

The 85-year-old was also charged with 10 counts of gross indecency involving a boy under the age of 14 and one further sexual offence.

Cullen, who spent 18 years working at Christ the King Catholic Church, Mackworth estate, was extradited from Tenerife, where he had been living.

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CANADA
Victoria News

By Kyle Wells – Goldstream News Gazette
Published: August 30, 2013

Laurie McDonald is First Nations residential school survivor, having attended the Ermineskin residential school in Alberta as a child.

He witnessed abuse in the form of neglect, physical and sexual abuse of children and emotional abuse.

“All those things were part of it,” said McDonald, an instructor at the Caring for First Nations Children Society in Langford. “It’s not ancient history. And we’re certainly feeling the affects of it.”

Today the healing from this dark chapter in Canadian history continues with the Truth and Reconciliation process, which strives to help all Canadians to move forward through understanding and acceptance.

Tuesday, Sept. 3 brings a Truth and Reconciliation community event to the Caring for First Nations Children Society (664 Granderson Rd.). The society will host an open house and two elders from the Tsawout First Nation will speak on their experiences and the importance of the reconciliation process.

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NEW YORK
Jewish Daily Forward

Editorial

Here are the numbers you need to know regarding the Yeshiva University sex scandal. Nearly two dozen students first told the Forward that they were physicially and sexually abused by staff members at Y.U.’s high school for boys. Eventually, 34 of those students sued the school. The university spent a reported $2.5 million on an eight-month investigation by the respected law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, in which about 145 people were interviewed and 70,000 pertinent emails reviewed.

But in the end, the actual hard findings in the report released August 26, acknowledging abuse and cover-up in only vague terms, were contained in precisely 200 words.

Two hundred words are no match for the years of pain suffered by students at the hands of their rabbis. Two hundred words are no answer to the haunting question of why multiple people in authority at America’s flagship Orthodox educational institution repeatedly ignored pleas by the students they were entrusted to keep safe. Two hundred words hardly explains how these abusers were allowed to quietly leave the school and take jobs with other Jewish institutions in the United States and Israel without ever being held accountable.

The justification that Y.U. offers for its brief, public explanation of what went wrong for decades at various branches of the school is “pending litigation.” That is, the $380 million lawsuit brought by 34 former students who allege that university officials knowingly covered up the abuse, a suit that is now slowly winding its way through U.S. District Court.

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UNITED STATES
Pope Crimes & Vatican Evils…

Paris Arrow

Below we cite an excerpt from the book The Celestine Prophecy that describes what is going on before our eyes in the USA today – between the Medieval Vatican and its obsolete doctrines and irrelevant dogmas – and the New Age American nuns who have evolved with the American people. The Machiavellian strategy of all male despots and male autocrats including and specially the Vatican is to suppress, kill, mock, banish or silence their members who disobey or disagree with their totalitarian obsolete decrees because these members consequently and effectively expose their monarchical deceits and crimes. With its Dark Ages doctrines, the Middles Ages Vatican is fearful of the New Age American nuns who are more in numbers than the dying breed of Catholic priests because these nuns have first-hand influence on the populace while the Vatican and its princes of Bishops and Cardinals are far-flung in Rome or are living in the lap of luxury in their Episcopalian palaces out-of-touch with reality away from its people. So the way they control these nuns is by final condemnations, destructions of their reputations and excommunication or banishments – exactly as the Celestine Prophecy describes.

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REPUBLICA DOMINICANA
Noticias Sin

CONSTANZA, República Dominicana.- Las recientes publicaciones en diversos medios del país, que acusan y señalan al sacerdote Juan Manuel Mota de Jesús, alias Johnny, de abuso sexual a tres menores, han causado gran controversia en el municipio de Constanza.

Personas devotas de la iglesia católica y allegados al cura repudian las informaciones que circulan en los medios.

Otros destacan su labor social y descartan cualquier acusación.

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REPUBLICA DOMINICANA
Noticias Sin

[con video]

POR WELLINGTON CARPIO
30/08/20130

SANTO DOMINGO, República Dominicana.- El sacerdote católico, Juan Manuel Mota de Jesús, acusado de violar sexualmente a tres menores en Constanza, se quejó este viernes de que la sociedad lo haya condenado sin investigar las imputaciones en su contra.

Mientras que el Ministerio Público de La Vega inició las indagatorias sobre el caso. Al hablar por la vía telefónica para Noticias SIN, el procurador general de la Corte de la Vega, Víctor González, confirmó que fue apoderado del caso y desde ya trabaja en el.

De su lado el cura, mejor conocido como el padre Johnny, dijo que no está escondido ni huyendo y pidió a su feligresía y gente de bien de la Iglesia que oren por él y dijo estar sorprendido de las acusaciones en su contra publicadas en medios de comunicación locales

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UNITED KINGDOM/TENERIFE
Derby Telegraph

Saturday, August 31, 2013

By Zena Hawley

A FORMER Derby priest being extradited from Tenerife to face allegations of sexual abuse involving altar boys over three decades appears to have “lived like a ghost” on the Spanish island.

Francis Paul Cullen, 85, who spent 18 years working at Christ the King Catholic Church, Mackworth estate, has been detained on a European arrest warrant issued by Britain.

He travelled to the National Court in Madrid to face extradition proceedings but his neighbours back in Arona said they hardly knew him.

Miguel Gutierrez said: “We knew nothing of the priest until we saw the police activity. If this man has lived here for as long as they say then it is amazing – we have never noticed him here.”

German Beate Weber, 47, who also lives and works in Arona, said: “I spoke with the police because we had heard about an arrest. They said he had been keeping himself quiet – as if he was living like a ghost.

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GEORGIA
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

By Alexis Stevens
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A Cobb County pastor was arrested Wednesday for allegedly molesting a 6-year-old girl at church.

John Aubrey Pinkston, 76, of Dallas, was charged with child molestation and sexual battery for allegedly touching the child between July and August, according to an arrest warrant obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Pinkston is the founder and pastor of Congregation of God Seventh Day church on South Main Street in Kennesaw, according to the church’s website. An ordained minister for more than 30 years, Pinkston is also an author and the voice of “Watch America” radio and television programs, according to his online biography.

According to investigators, Pinkston allegedly reached inside a 6-year-old’s clothes and touched her.

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MINNESOTA
KTTC

ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC) — The Diocese of Winona is facing a lawsuit after a former altar boy has come forward accusing a priest of abuse.

St. Paul attorney Jeff Anderson is filing the lawsuit on behalf of 61-year-old Bill Beardmore.

Beardmore now lives in Iowa, but attended church at St. John’s Parish in Caledonia, and was 12-years-old when Father Thomas Adamson allegedly raped him.

The lawsuit is seeking the disclosure of 13 priests from the Diocese of Winona who have credible complaints of sexual abuse made against them.

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CITTA DEL VATICANO
Bolletino – Vatican Information Service

[Summary: The Holy Father Francis has accepted, according to Can. 354 of the Code of Canon Law, the resignation of His Eminence Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Secretary of State, asking him, however, to remain in office until 15 October 2013, with all the faculties belonging to that office.

At the same time, the Holy Father appointed Archbishop Pietro Parolin, Apostolic Nuncio to Venezuela, as the new Secretary of State. He will take possession of his office Oct. 15, 2013.]

Il Santo Padre Francesco ha accettato, secondo il Can. 354 del Codice di Diritto Canonico, le dimissioni di Sua Eminenza il Card. Tarcisio Bertone, Segretario di Stato, chiedendogli, però, di rimanere in carica fino al 15 ottobre 2013, con tutte le facoltà inerenti a tale ufficio.

Nel medesimo tempo il Santo Padre ha nominato S.E. Mons. Pietro Parolin, Nunzio Apostolico in Venezuela, come nuovo Segretario di Stato. Egli prenderà possesso del suo ufficio il 15 ottobre 2013.

In quell’occasione, Sua Santità riceverà in Udienza Superiori ed Officiali della Segreteria di Stato, per ringraziare pubblicamente il Card. Tarcisio Bertone per il suo fedele e generoso servizio alla Santa Sede e per presentare loro il nuovo Segretario di Stato.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

An 85-year-old Catholic priest has appeared before magistrates in Derby charged with sexually abusing boys in the East Midlands.

Francis Paul Cullen was extradited from Tenerife, where police said he had lived “for some time”.

He faces 27 charges relating to sexual offences against boys under the ages of 15, dating back nearly 50 years.

He has been remanded in custody and is due to appear at Derby Crown Court in September.

Derby Magistrates heard Mr Cullen was originally charged in 2000.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
KTVI

August 30, 2013, by Vera Culley

ST. LOUIS, MO (KTVI) – A St. Louis priest will spend the next three years in federal prison for possession of child pornography.

Father William Vatterott, 37, pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced to 37 months in jail by U.S. District Judge E. Richard Webber.

The allegations stemmed from an investigation by the Missouri Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force in which Vatterott was said to have possessed child porn between June 2010 and June 2011.

The St. Louis Archdiocese placed Vatterott on administrative leave from St. Cecilia after being informed about an incident involving underaged drinking. The Archdiocese says at that time, there was no mention of child pornography, but did cooperate with the investigation.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
ConnectMidMissouri

ST. LOUIS, MO (AP) — A St. Louis Roman Catholic priest has been sentenced to more than three years in prison for possessing child pornography.

The Rev. William F. Vatterott was sentenced Friday in U.S. District Court after pleading guilty to one count of possession of child pornography.

Vatterott was indicted in April after authorities alleged he possessed at least two images of an unidentified nude boy on his computer.

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HAWAII
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on August 30, 2013

What do you do when your umbrella organization files for bankruptcy (to avoid costly sex abuse civil trials); ten of your former teachers are exposed as perpetrators; and at least 15 former students come forward to say they were sexually abused by your teachers and brothers?

Swindle the state of Hawaii out of $1.5 million, of course.

Damien Memorial School, Honolulu’s hotbed of alleged child sex crimes, has just been granted $1.5 million in state (read: taxpayer) money for capital improvements. The problem? Damien fudged on the application, dramatically and untruthfully understating the legal mess they are facing because of child sex abuse and cover-up.

From page 11 of the application, dated January 2013:

Litigation
The applicant shall disclose any pending litigation to which they are a party, including the disclosure of any outstanding judgment. If applicable, please explain.

Three lawsuits are pending against Damien and the Roman Catholic Church in Hawaii for which Damien has denied all allegations and is represented by counsel for the Diocese. No judgments have been entered.

There is no mention of the 15 legal claims that were pending against the school at the time. (the $16.5 million settlement was not announced until May 2013). Nor is there any mention of the fact that victims still have the right sue the school and a civil window granting them the right to do so.

The school could be on the hook for millions in compensation for the kids who were sexually abused by priests and brothers while they were Damien students. But the Christian Brothers of Hawaii have no problem raiding public coffers – money much better used for the public schools in the state.

Damien officials KNEW that were knee-deep in legal trouble when they filled out the grant application. But did they disclose? No.

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FRANCE
JTA

August 30, 2013
(JTA) — French police have arrested two Jewish men from Paris on suspicion they pressured parents of allegedly molested minors not to press charges.

The two men, identified as Andre T. and Rabbi A., were arrested July 31, according to the RTL news network. The two men deny the allegations, the report said.

The actions attributed to the men are connected to sexual abuse allegations at the Chabad-Lubavitch Beth Hannah elementary school for boys. A supervisor at the school was indicted for sexual abuse of minors last year, the French news agency AFP reported, and a principal, Rabbi Benjamin M., was indicted in February for “non-reporting of sexual abuse of minors under 15 years” of age.

The men are both senior members of the Chabad movement in the Paris region, RTL reported.

In a perceived reaction to the Beth Hannah affair, the Rabbinical Centre of Europe — an organization where senior Chabad rabbis hold key positions — issued a strongly worded statement in April urging “educational institutions to stop covering up abuse of children and in general.”

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CALIFORNIA
Restorative Justice International

Since we have been vocal regarding sexual abuse of children and the need for restorative justice we believe that this legislation should be cited here at RJI. SB 131 authored by California Senator Jim Beall, and co-authored by Senator Ricardo Lara, gives a voice to victims of abuse that is needed. The legislation is currently in the California Assembly. A vote will be taken soon on the Assembly floor.

We continue to be believe that each offender should be held accountable for the crimes he has committed. This is one way to provide relief for victims of abuse when it seems the justice system closes the door on such relief. Should there be a statute of limitations in cases of child victims of abuse? We are not so sure.

RJI believes victims-driven restorative justice should be made available to every victim of crime, including cases of sexual abuse in the U.S. and globally. Restitution is not the only response to these crimes against children that is necessary, but in many cases it seems to be the only response. Ask victims of abuse what they would want and through our experience at RJI, and through our research, we have found that victims want far more than monetary compensation from their abusers, and those who have enabled the abuse. But this is an important step through this legislation in California. California is not alone in considering legislative change similar to SB 131. These battles are happening around the U.S. with strong opposition.

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CALIFORNIA
Pope Crimes & Vatican Evils…

Paris Arrow

Updated August 30, 2013

Children should not be treated as “less sacred, worth less or less important” than Popes, Bishops and priests and their “holy robes, sacred vessels and exclusive male-club basilicas and churches”. Children who are the most vulnerable and voiceless class in our American society should have first place in our State Senate legislature and Assembly and in every heart of all senators and representatives. It is the moral duty of the California State Senate and Assembly representatives to vote for SB 131 in order to expose ALL pedophiles (priests) – especially in court – with SB 131 and render the only justice which many of our suffering American children will ever know in their lifetime .

California State Senate and Assembly representatives, you must render the final and only justice to victims of pedophiles (priests) in California – History has revealed to us as the largest numbers of victims from the systemic cover-up by the Roman Catholic Church. There are more victims out there, and therefore, you must release them from their prisons – secretly coerced and established by pedophiles (priests and their complicit Bishops).

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Joan Chittister | Aug. 30, 2013 From Where I Stand

One of the major scientific discoveries of the 20th century revolves around the role played by communication in stressful situations — the notion that a person’s communication style can soften or harden conflict depending on how it is used; the idea that simply the amount of information supplied in crucial situations affect the tone, the efficacy and the outcome of negotiations. As a result of those findings, whole corporations have changed their processes of decision-making and dissemination of information.

So with that in mind, people waited for information about the progress of the Vatican visitation of the LCWR from this year’s gathering in Orlando, Fla. Given the fact that none was forthcoming, people drew their own conclusions.

I, on the other hand, went for the one piece of data the assembly managed to produce on the subject, the homily Sartain gave to the membership. And a clear piece of communication it was.

In this homily, Mary is “quiet,” “docile,” submits herself over and has no “desire or a need to figure things out … or resolve them to her own personal satisfaction.” There was, we’re told here, no “no” or “mine” in her. The Mary of this homily is a passive receptacle of what she understands to be the Word of God.

Well, maybe. But it might be good to think about all that a bit in the light of the other things we also know about Mary. …

For instance, Mary answers the angel’s declaration to her by questioning it. An angel! Someone of much higher rank, it would seem, than even apostolic delegates, and only then with a “Be-it-done-unto-me” response to a situation to which, apparently, “no” was a viable answer. Otherwise, why bother to have the conversation?

Even more important, perhaps, is the awareness that despite the seriousness — even the danger — of her situation, Mary did not go to any man — to the high priests of the temple, the local rabbi, her father or even Joseph — for directions about what to do next. She went to another woman for the wisdom she needed and followed that instead. No visitations here.

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

For immediate release: Friday, August 30, 2013

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

Archbishop Robert Carlson, through his public relations team, says today that his employees “pray for the safety and dignity of all children in our archdiocese and around the world.” That’s not enough.

More than two years ago, Carlson should have personally gone to Fr. Vatterott’s parish, urging victims and witnesses to call police. He should do that this weekend. Tangible action like this is what will better safeguard kids.

It’s disingenuous and self-serving for Fr. Vatterott to try to blame alcohol for his heinous child sex crimes.

Everyone knows that the vast majority of alcoholics never even ponder, much less commit, child sex crimes.

Fr. Vatterott is young. (He’s in his mid-30s.) He’ll be out of prison soon. And there’s little reason to think he’ll be “cured.”

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

A Legionary of Christ, he worked with the Argentinean cardinal Eduardo Pironio for many years and has been head of Vatican City telecommunications until now

ANDREA TORNIELLI
VATICAN CITY

Following Bishop Giuseppe Sciacca’s transferral to the Apostolic Signatura, the Governorate has a new Secretary General: Fernando Vérgez Alzaga, a member of the Legionaries of Christ who has up until today been head of Vatican City telecommunications.

Fr. Vérgez was born in Salamanca, Spain, in March 1945 and twenty years later he made his perpetual profession to the Congregation of the Legionaries of Christ. He was ordained priest in 1969.

In 1972, after obtaining a degree in Philosophy and Theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University and a diploma from the School of the Vatican Secret Archives, he began serving the Holy See through the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. Three years later, Argentinean archbishop Eduardo Pironio (created cardinal by Paul VI in 1976) took over the dicastery’s leadership. Fr. Vérgez started working with him as Secretary. In April 1984, Cardinal Pironio left the Congregation for Religious to take over as President of the Pontifical Council for the Laity and Fr. Vérgez followed him, as his Secretary, until the cardinal left the post.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Aug. 30

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

Pope Francis has made one new appointment and reportedly will soon make another. We’re disappointed with both.

The pontiff has promoted a Legion of Christ priest, Fr. Fernando Vergez Alzaga, to secretary-general of the office governing Vatican City.

The Legion is perhaps the most secretive and scandal-ridden religious order in the church. While we don’t know much about Fr. Vergez, his long tenure in the Legion is troublesome.

The pontiff is expected to soon name Archbishop Piero Parolin as his secretary of state.

Noted Vatican observer John Allen calls Parolin “the consummate insider.” To some, that might seem like a compliment. To us, it’s a distressing sign.

[National Catholic Reporter]

An outsider, not an insider, is what’s needed. If concealing child sex crimes in the church will ever stop, it will only happen when complicit church officials are replaced by independent-minded men who have shown, through their actions, real courage in challenging a corrupt clerical culture. We see no evidence that Parolin is such a person.

Allen reports that by selecting an Italian, “Francis does not intend to completely upend the Vatican’s traditional culture.” That’s a serious understatement. Francis has, in our view, done precious little to “upend” the most damaging aspect of Vatican culture – the on-going recklessness, callousness and secrecy surrounding those who commit and conceal heinous crimes against kids.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

Pope Francis could appoint the Nuncio of Venezuela as the new Vatican Secretary of State tomorrow

ANDREA TORNIELLI
VATICAN CITY

Tomorrow Pope Francis could accept the resignation presented not so long ago by the current Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. Rumour has it he has decided to replace him with the Apostolic Nuncio to Venezuela, Archbishop Pietro Parolin.

The new Vatican “prime minister” is 58 years old and hails from Schiavon, a town in the northern Italian province of Vicenza. A priest since 1980, he entered the Vatican diplomatic corps in 1986 and in 2002 was appointed under-secretary of the Secretariat of State’s section for Relations with States (the Vatican equivalent of a deputy foreign affairs minister). In the Secretariat of State, he worked first with Cardinal Sodano and then with Bertone. In September 2009, Benedict XVI, who had nominated Parolin Nuncio to Venezuela about a week earlier, co-ordained him bishop with Bertone and others.

The outgoing Secretary of State leaves his position just before his 79th birthday, as his predecessor Cardinal Angelo Sodano, currently Dean of the College of Cardinals, did. Tarcisio Bertone, a Salesian, had been Archbishop of Geneva up until then and was chosen by Benedict XVI as Secretary of State in 2006, a year after Ratzinger was elected Pope. Strangely, Bertone’s nomination was announced in June but he took up his post in September: the Vatican’s new “prime minister” found himself having to deal with a crisis sparked by the interpretation of Benedict XVI’s controversial speech in Regensburg.

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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Dominican Today

Santo Domingo.- Community members in Constanza are expressing shock and disbelief at the sexual abuse allegations against Father Juan Manuel Mota de Jesús (Johnny). The priest is being accused of seducing and raping 11 underage girls as well as women, after some of the victims filed accusations at the Santiago Prosecutor’s Office.

The the latest in a series of scandals affecting the religious authorities following a large number of pedophilia cases that have come to light in recent months.

A press conference was held at the offices of the Ministry for Women’s Affairs yesterday afternoon, where interim office coordinator Juana María Castillo confirmed that they had received three specific reports of rape of minors by the Catholic priest and chaplain who is originally from Cotuí and has served as the parish priest for the last 11 years.

The official said that they had spent seven months investigating these accusations and that the case had entered a new phase since the public disclosure.

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VATICAN CITY
New Straits Times

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis is preparing to replace the Vatican’s powerful Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone in a key reshuffle for his papacy, Italian media reported on Friday, citing anonymous Vatican sources.

Bertone has held the post, considered a deputy to the pope, since 2006 and has proved a divisive figure in the Roman Catholic Church’s central administration.

A series of leaks carried out by former pope Benedict XVI’s butler last year revealed infighting between factions supporting and opposing the now 78-year-old Bertone.

He has been criticised for alleged mistakes, poor choices in appointments and favouritism.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Rhein-Zeitung

Limburg/Rhein-Lahn – Nach dem Stadtverband der Frankfurter Katholiken hat sich nun auch der Bund der katholischen Jugend (BDKJ) im Bistum Limburg mit einem offenen Brief an Bischof Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst gewandt. Von einer Vertrauenskrise ist darin die Rede. Der BDKJ schließt sich mit dem Schreiben den Forderungen aus Frankfurt an.

Derweil hat die Staatsanwaltschaft Hamburg die Ermittlungen gegen den Bischof abgeschlossen. Zurzeit werde den Beteiligten Akteneinsicht gewährt, das Ergebnis vermutlich Ende September vorliegen. Das hat die Pressesprecherin der Behörde, Nana Frombach, mitgeteilt.

Drei Privatleute hatten Anzeigen gegen den Limburger Oberhirten wegen von ihm abgegebener eidesstattlicher Erklärungen erstattet. Sie werfen Tebartz-van Elst (53) vor, gegenüber dem Nachrichtenmagazin “Der Spiegel” eine falsche Aussage über ein Upgrade in die erste Klasse bei einem Flug nach Indien gemacht zu haben.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Rhein-Zeitung

Limburg – Die Staatsanwaltschaft Hamburg hat die Ermittlungen gegen den Limburger Bischof Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst abgeschlossen.

Derzeit werde den Beteiligten Akteneinsicht gewährt, das Ergebnis vermutlich Ende September vorliegen. Das hat die zuständige Pressesprecherin der Behörde, Oberstaatsanwältin Nana Frombach, am Donnerstag auf Anfrage mitgeteilt.

Drei Privatleute hatten Anzeigen gegen den Limburger Oberhirten wegen von ihm abgegebenen eidesstattlichen Erklärungen erstattet. Sie werfen Tebartz-van Elst (53) vor, gegenüber dem Nachrichtenmagazin „Der Spiegel” eine falsche Aussage über ein Upgrade in die erste Klasse bei einem Flug nach Indien gemacht zu haben.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Post-Dispatch

By Tim Townsend ttownsend@post-dispatch.com 314-340-82211

A Roman Catholic priest of the St. Louis Archdiocese admitted Friday that he had child pornography on his computer and cellphone, and sent explicit photos of male genitalia to a male minor. He was immediately sentenced to 37 months in federal prison.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Rob Livergood said in court that in 2010 Ballwin police confiscated a computer and cellphone belonging to the Rev. William Vatterott, 37, that had been used to store and send explicit photos of a male minor. Investigators found 20 images of child pornography and emails of male genitalia.

Vatterott, dressed in a dark suit and white shirt – not in a priest’s collar – did not dispute any of the facts Livergood’s narrative.

Vatterott was ordained in 2003. He was associate pastor at Holy Infant Church in Ballwin, then became pastor of St. Cecilia Parish, at 5418 Louisiana Avenue, in 2008. He was placed on administrative leave June 29, 2011, after a complaint was filed with the Ballwin police.

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

Anyone is entitled to present a submission to the Royal Commission. There is one aspect which has become apparent which needs some thought. That is, what if someone who is a victim does not want to talk about it, report it, or has not yet received help in dealing with the effects of the abuse, but friends and relatives want something done about the offending organisation?

It is both a sad and difficult question.

Whatever the motivations, no victim needs to talk before he or she is ready. This is taken for granted and needs no further discussion. Yet, something must be done to avoid the production of further victims. This is actually possible, fortunately. There is no requirement to give a victim’s name or the abuser’s name, and a person can still present a submission drawing attention to the offending organisation, even if it merely says that “organisation x should be investigated.”

There is a point to this in that the Royal Commission will tend to only investigate organisations which have been the subject of a significant number of complaints. Usually, there will be attention on organisations which have also had several of their members convicted in the courts. However, while it is almost impossible to get away with murder, it is fairly easy to get away with child sexual abuse for a host of reasons. So, the conviction rate may not reflect, accurately, the offending rate, for a particular organisation.

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ARGENTINA
La Plata YA

Organizaciones sociales, feministas, de derechos humanos se reunieron esta misma tarde en la zona de 25 y 70 para con el único fin escrachar y hacer público la situación de un cura párroco de 80 años acusado de más de 30 casos de abuso sexual contra menores de edad cometidos en un campo de Bavio entre los años 1980 y 1987 y condenado a 8 años de prisión por violación de un menor de 5 años en la localidad de Magdalena durante el año 1995.

Dos de las más de 30 victimas que fueron abusadas por el cura Gimenez, quienes más de 32 años después lograron poder recomponerse del daño que el clérigo les realizo decidieron llevar adelante un escrache con “justicia social” donde pudieran de algún modo descargar toda la bronca y angustia que tanto Julieta Añazco, como Carla Rosbech acumularon con años y años de injusticia.

El sacerdote que actualmente con 80 años y que vive en una casa particular de un barrio de Los Hornos ubicada en 68 n 2859, tiene una larga trayectoria en casos de abuso sexual y corrupción de menores. Su historia comienza allá por los años 1979 cuando el cura comenzó (según las propias victimas) a llevar adelante estas prácticas contra menores de 5, 7, 8 y 9 años que concurrían a diversos campamentos organizados por el mismo párroco en un campo alejado en la localidad platense de Bavio.

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ARGENTINA
Agencia Nova

“Ésta es la primera vez que lo vuelvo a ver después de lo que pasó. Pensé que estaba muerto que alguna justicia divina, si es que existe, había actuado. Nunca pensé que estaba vivo, menos ejerciendo como cura”, aseguró Carla Rosbech, en diálogo con NOVA. Ella, junto a Julieta Añazco denuncia haber sido abusada por el cura Ricardo Giménez cuando era menor de edad.

Este jueves organizaciones sociales, feministas y de Derechos Humanos realizaron un escrache y movilización en el Hospital San Juan de Dios donde se desempeña como sacerdote Giménez. Los manifestantes lograron ingresar a la capilla donde pudieron encontrarse cara a cara con el párroco, quien desmintió las acusaciones: “A mí me absolvió un juez, lo que dicen es una calumnia. Yo me arrepiento de todos mis pecados de mi vida pasada”.

Giménez estuvo detenido en 1997 acusado de abuso a ocho menores. En ese entonces el juez Caputo Tártara desestimó la solicitud de excarcelación y pasó a manos de juez César Melazo, quien hizo lugar a la presentación. De esta forma, el expediente llegó a la Cámara Penal de Apelaciones platense y con la firma de los doctores Raúl Delbés y Horacio Piombo se concedió el pedido bajo caución juratoria.

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SCOTLAND
Daily Record

PREDATOR Jimmy Savile was a frequent guest of monks at the Catholic boarding school at the centre of a sex abuse scandal.

The serial sex attacker regularly drove to Fort Augustus Abbey at a time when ex-pupils claim they were being terrorised by some of the monks.

A BBC TV investigation, Sins of the Fathers, this week alleged that nine monks at the Benedictine Order school repeatedly beat, sexually assaulted and, in one case, raped boys in their care over several decades.

Victims of the abuse complained but their testimony was ignored and covered up. Police are now investigating.

Savile, who is known to have attacked scores of young girls and boys during decades of abuse, would park his Rolls-Royce, registered JS 247, at the school gates before swanning around the grounds.

The former BBC presenter, known to have abused children at schools on other occasions, was invited to Fort Augustus on several occasions, according to pupils there.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — A Legionary priest who led a major overhaul of the Vatican’s telecommunications infrastructure and set up public email addresses for two popes has been named the new secretary-general of the office governing Vatican City.

Spanish-born Legionaries of Christ Father Fernando Vergez, 68, fills a vacancy recently left by Bishop Giuseppe Sciacca, whom the pope named Aug. 24 to the Vatican’s supreme tribunal as adjunct secretary under U.S. Cardinal Raymond L. Burke.

Father Vergez, who is director of the Vatican’s telecommunications department, will continue to hold his old post while serving in his new capacity at the governor’s office.

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SCOTLAND
The Tablet

30 August 2013

The Bishops of Scotland are expected to commission an outside body to examine their child abuse files when they meet next week.

It is understood that they will ask an independent academic expert to assess cases of clerical abuse in dioceses going back decades.

Last week, in a letter to The Tablet, the Archbishop Emeritus of Glasgow, Mario Conti, claimed that Cardinal Keith O’Brien had blocked a planned investigation into the files dating back 60 years when he was President of the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland.

According to a spokesman Archbishop Conti was referring to a meeting of the bishops’ conference in September 2012.

This week the Bishop Emeritus of Motherwell, Joseph Devine, said he believed that Cardinal O’Brien had blocked the review of his St Andrews and Edinburgh diocese’s files because it might have uncovered something that “could prove very damning” for the Church, given that the review went back many years.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

Pietro Parolin is tipped to become the new Vatican Secretary of State. His potential appointment should be indicative of the path Bergoglio’s pontificate is going to take

GIANNI VALENTE
ROME

Fifty eight year old Pietro Parolin left Rome four years ago, was ordained Archbishop by Benedict XVI and appointed Nuncio of Venezuela after spending seven years as the Vatican’s “deputy foreign affairs minister”. Rumours have just emerged that Pope Francis may have chosen him as the Vatican’s Secretary of State, making him Francis’ first appointed collaborator. Parolin would be the youngest figure “enrolled” to the position since Eugenio Pacelli.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

John L. Allen Jr. | Aug. 30, 2013

ANALYSIS
Multiple reports suggest Pope Francis intends to name 58-year-old Italian Archbishop Pietro Parolin to the key position of Secretary of State, traditionally the most important figure in the Vatican after the pope himself.

Although the pope is the head of state, the Secretary of State generally functions as the Vatican’s head of government, both for internal church affairs and for diplomatic relations, making him, effectively, the prime minister.

Currently the papal nuncio, or ambassador, in Venezuela, Parolin is a career Vatican diplomat who’s been involved in shaping Rome’s response to virtually every key geopolitical challenge during the last two decades.

Parolin is also widely seen as a talented and efficient administrator who served from 2002 to 2009 as the undersecretary for relations with states, the No. 3 position in the Secretariat of State. In that role, he often functioned informally as the Vatican’s primary interlocutor with the outside world.

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

For immediate release: Friday, August 30, 2013

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

A young St. Louis priest appears in court today on child porn charges. We beg others who may have seen, suspected or suffered his crimes to call prosecutors as soon as possible.

[KSDK]

Sadly, in this case, like so many others, Catholic officials deceive the public and the parishioners. When Fr. William Vatterott was suspended, Archbishop Robert Carlson said he was accused of “inappropriate electronic communication.” In fact, he has been criminally charged with child pornography.

He is, in fact, the ninth local priest to face child pornography allegations.

[SNAP]

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CALIFORNIA
Orange County Weekly

By Gustavo Arellano Fri., Aug. 30 2013

It’s been almost a year now since Kevin Vann became bishop of the Diocese of Orange, and what has he accomplished? There was a profile in one of the Orange County Register’s magazines that read like a press release. He approved the removal of memorial stones at the former Crystal Cathedral, memorial stones that the sheep of the Rev. Robert H. Schuller spent thousands to install under the idea they’d be up there for centuries. And now he’s joining his fellow bishops in trying to defeat a California State Senate bill that seeks justice for child-abuse victims.

SB 131 would open a one-year window lifting statutes of limitation so that victims of pedo-priests can file civil lawsuits against the Catholic Church regardless of when their abuse happened. A similar window occurred in 2002, exposing the Church as a pedophile factory. And that’s why Vann doesn’t want it to happen again.

Under his direction, the Orange County Catholic, the “newspaper” of the Diocese of Orange, has published five articles opposing SB 131 since June, including a commentary from retired OC Superior Court Judge Francisco Firmat calling it “bad legislation,” a column by Vann, and a whole other bunch of gobbledygook. The rag is pushing its stories on Twitter, and also retweets stories that support its view. This past week, Vann directed parish priests to send out emails to their congregation urging them to contact their state assemblymen to vote against SB 131.

Vann’s position? SB 131 discriminates against Catholics and does nothing to protect children. And why should you believe him? “Dioceses throughout California have worked to atone for past mistakes,” Vann writes, “and have implemented robust procedures to ensure children and young people are as safe as we can make them.”

In other words: yeah, we let pedo-priests rape children, then covered it up. But NOW you should really, really trust us!

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
KSDK

[with video]

ST. LOUIS (KSDK) – A St. Louis priest is due in court Friday on federal child pornography charges.

Investigators say Fr. William Vatterott was in possession of child porn between June 2010 and June 2011. He was pastor of St. Cecelia Parish in St. Louis when the allegations surfaced. Before that, he was an associate pastor at Holy Infant in Ballwin.

The Archdiocese of St. Louis cooperated with the investigation and placed Vatterott on administrative leave when the allegations surfaced.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota SNAP

News-Mirror

Outreach to those seeking civil justice and healing process still a long, hard journey

Back in the early seventies a young man from Buffalo Lake had finished high school — sort of — and set out to see the world on his thumb.

He saw and learned much more about this Country, its citizens and their history than any book could ever describe.

Entering his second decade the young man left his home and his family to live a life of solidarity.

He hadn’t gone farther than a few miles from his workplace. A farmer, which owned a vacant farm house that did not want it “squatted” by vagabonds, rented the house on a quarter mile driveway in the middle of a section of the farmer’s land.

It was a perfectly quiet setting. Remote enough to the kind of gardening “Hippies” did in the ‘60s. Yet, close enough, to the necessities — food, bread, and beer–to get you through a night and ready for the next day.

This “Child of the ‘60s” soon became host to several other “Children” – some for a weekend, others for months – for little more than the four seasons of a year.

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OHIO
WFMJ

[with video]

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Allegations of child sex abuse, is prompting a group that protects victims, to push for answers from the Youngstown Catholic Diocese.

A Youngstown man says he was repeatedly sexually molested as a child, by an “unnamed” Catholic school teacher at St. Christine’s, back in 1976.

The Diocese denies his claims. On Thursday, two activists stood outside Saint Edward Church holding signs and photos of victims.

The group sent another letter, demanding Bishop George Murry to make a statement, and make the name of the alleged predator public. “”Why hasn’t he explained to his parishoners why he doesn’t work there anymore. He’s not doing that. That’s not open and transparency.”, said Judy Jones, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Ordained in 1934, Coughlin was a Jesuit whose formation was in the California Province, and who went on to work in the Oregon Province dioceses of Spokane and Tacoma WA, the archdiocese of Seattle, and the Helena MT diocese. Coughlin was included on a list released by the Spokane diocese in 2007 of admitted, proven or credibly accused perpetrators of sexual abuse. He died in 1965.

Ordained: 1934
Died: September 27, 1965

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ILLINOIS
Renew America

By Matt C. Abbott

There could be a new sheriff in town – in an Illinois county, to be specific.

Former Catholic activist and current child advocate Stephen Brady has announced that he will be pursuing the Republican nomination for the office of Menard County Sheriff in the upcoming 2014 March general primary.

Brady, who was born in Decatur, Ill., attended Purdue and Indiana universities for a short time before being drafted into the Army, where he was trained as a military police officer. While in the Army, he received a “secret security” clearance from the FBI. He was then sent to northwestern Illinois on special assignment for just over a year.

After moving to Petersburg, Brady married Jo Ann Lyons. He and his wife have seven children and ten grandchildren. His family has owned a construction company, a flower shop and, at present, a pizza restaurant.

Brady spent 13 years as lead investigator for the not-for-profit organization Roman Catholic Faithful, which investigated child exploitation and other abuses of authority.

After receiving death threats and being interviewed by investigators regarding the March 1998 still-unsolved murder of Father Alfred Kunz, a priest of the Diocese of Madison, Wis., who had been assisting Brady with his investigations into clergy corruption, Brady has kept much of his work life private in order to protect his family.

He has given lectures across the U.S. regarding his investigations and has helped with certain cases outside the U.S., including South Africa, Australia and England.

In the late 1990s, Brady was instrumental in exposing the corruption in the Diocese of Springfield, Ill., which led to the resignation of Bishop Daniel Ryan in 1999. At the time, Brady was largely ignored and even treated with contempt by the powers that be, until he was ultimately vindicated in 2002 when the clergy abuse scandal made national headlines in the mainstream media. (It should be noted that he’s supportive of the current bishop of Springfield, Thomas Paprocki.)

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CHILE
Politico

Sacerdote irlandés que llegó al país en 1984. Durante años ha sido el rostro de la Congregación Legionarios de Cristo en Chile y responsable que su movimiento haya entrado en la elite empresarial y política criolla. Hombre influyente, O’Reilly fue acusado en julio de 2012 de presunto abuso sexual en contra de dos niñas del Colegio Cumbres de las Condes donde se desempeñó hasta 2012 como asesor espiritual. Éstas tenían, al momento de los supuestos hechos en 2007, seis y diez años de edad. El 27 de agosto de 2013 fue formalizado por uno de estos delitos, pero fue dejado el libertad, pues la jueza Alejandra Muñoz, estimó que las pruebas presentadas no eran suficientes para acreditar la existencia del delito. La magistrada rechazó la petición de la fiscalía, que solicitaba prisión preventiva, estableciendo que el sacerdote quedaba sólo con arraigo nacional.

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NEW YORK
Jewish Daily Forward

By Irwin Kula
Published August 29, 2013, issue of September 06, 2013.

On August 26, the law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, hired by Yeshiva University to look into allegations of past abuse at the university’s High School for Boys, finally concluded its eight-month investigation and released a report detailing its findings. As one of the high school students abused in the early 1970s and as one of the more than 145 people interviewed in the investigation — though not party to the impending multi-party lawsuit against Y.U., now $380 million — I am disappointed, though not surprised, by the report. Eight months, 6,300 hours of investigation, more than 145 interviews and the best that Y.U.’s administration and board could come up with was three paragraphs that said many people were abused at many Y.U. institutions but they could not give any details because of “pending litigation.” Of course some people are happy with this and some people are angry.

Kevin Mulhearn, a lawyer for the group of students that filed the lawsuit, called the report, as one would expect, “a gross disappointment,” while those abused students, willing to be quoted, were justifiably “shocked.” As someone who spent more than two hours being interviewed and rehashing what was so locked away that I never even mentioned it to my wife of 30 years, nor to my brother, who also attended the Y.U. high school and unbeknown to me was similarly abused — I can attest that it is shocking to have your traumatic experience summarized in a few legally cool paragraphs. Y.U. President Richard Joel expressed in an equally expected way the school’s “deepest and heartfelt remorse,” and his hope that this “recognition” brings “comfort and closure.” This was an appropriately lawyerly response, with a concluding flourish referring to Yom Kippur, the High Holy Days season and forgiveness — as if this process has been anything like Maimonides’s wrenching prescription for genuine teshuvah, repentance.

There we have it — a report that offers nothing we don’t already know. (Though I want to make clear that the lawyer who interviewed me was thorough, extremely professional, compassionate and honest.) The report confirms that a part of Y.U.’s high school (and university) culture was predatory and that until 2001, the school’s administration simply did not do what any decent and morally evolved authorities are supposed to do: protect and ensure the safety of its students. No surprises here, and actually quite sad.

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VATICAN CITY
Chiesa

Among the organizations with offices inside the Leonine Walls, only the Foundations escaped the controls of the Financial Information Authority and the Vatican magistracy. Not any more. Moneyval has requested it, and the Holy See has obeyed. Here they are, one by one

VATICAN CITY, August 30, 2013 – If from announcements one moves on to accomplishments, it must be said that the first steps taken by Pope Francis are firmly set in the path opened by his predecessor Benedict XVI.

The motu proprio of last August 8 for the prevention of and fight against money laundering, the financing of terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, in fact, does nothing other than comply with what was established by Benedict XVI on December 30, 2010, with a previous motu proprio that instituted, for the first time in the Vatican, a Financial Information Authority, AIF, a decisive step toward harmonizing the activities of the Holy See with the international norms against illegal activities in the financial and monetary field.

Among the normative developments of the new pontifical document there is one of particular interest, which very few have noted.

The motu proprio of Benedict XVI established that the new Vatican legislation for fighting money laundering and the financing of terrorism were binding not only for Vatican City-State, but also for the dicasteries of the Roman curia and for all the organisms and institutions belonging to the Holy See, including the controversial Institute for Works of Religion, IOR.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

August 30, 2013

Adam Cooper
Reporter for The Age

Former Catholic priest David Rapson has been found guilty of sexually abusing eight boys at Salesian College between the mid 1970s and 1990.

After a nine-day trial in the County Court, the jury of 12 on Friday morning found Rapson guilty of eight counts of indecent assault and five counts of rape.

He raped one of his victims on four separate occasions in 1990.

Rapson showed no emotion as the foreman said the former priest was guilty of all the charges against him after more than two days of deliberations.

Rapson had been in teaching positions at Salesian College’s Rupertswood and Lysterfield campuses, where the offences took place.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

August 27, 2013

Adam Cooper
Reporter for The Age

A jury has been urged to overlook attempts to discredit the evidence of eight men who allege they were sexually abused as boys by a Catholic priest while at a boarding school.

Prosecutor David Cordy, in his closing address in the trial of former Salesian priest David Edwin Rapson, told the County Court he wanted to ”debunk” some of the theories the accused’s barrister put forward during the trial.

Mr Cordy said it was the inference of defence counsel Shaun Ginsbourg that the complainants could not be reliable in their evidence because were teenage boys at the time of the alleged offences, nor could some of them be trusted on account of their own legal problems as adults.

Mr Rapson, 60, has pleaded not guilty to eight charges of indecent assault and five counts of rape related to alleged incidents involving eight boys between the mid-1970s and 1990.

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AUSTRALIA
NEWS.com.au

SHANNON DEERY
Herald Sun
August 30, 2013

A DISGRACED former priest who plied young boys with cigarettes and alcohol before assaulting and raping them has been jailed for a second time.

David Edwin Rapson’s crimes were so evil he was kicked out of the church by Pope John Paul II in 2004 after years of lobbying by his Melbourne superiors.

Rapson rose to become vice-principal of Sunbury’s notorious Salesian College Rupertswood despite a string of allegations being levelled at him in the 1980s.

It was there he committed many of his crimes during the 1970s and 1980s, telling a fellow priest that “God made us this way”.

The 60-year-old former priest was today remanded in custody after a County Court jury found him guilty on all charges, eight counts of indecent assault and five counts of rape.

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SCOTLAND
Scottish Catholic Observer

The new Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh is expected to open all the archdiocese’s files on allegations of clerical abuse to a national independent enquiry.

Mgr Leo Cushley, who will be installed as Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh next month, is expected to fully endorse plans by the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland dating back to 2011 to examine all Church records for instances of clerical abuse.

Helpline

Archbishop Emeritus Mario Conti of Glasgow said last week that the Scottish Bishops’ plan for an independent inquiry into these records was postponed when one member—reported to be Cardinal Keith O’Brien, before he retired—indicated that his diocese needed more time to be sufficiently prepared to participate.

“It was the intention of the conference to publish these audits but was delayed in doing so by the objection of a member of the conference; without full participation of all the dioceses the exercise would have been faulty,” Archbishop Conti said. “I understand that in the light of the criticisms, which the Church has been, in my opinion unjustly, facing, these audits will now be published. I think they will go some distance not only in confirming what Bishop [Emeritus] Devine [of Motherwell] said by way of the number of cases which we have had to address, but in demonstrating the seriousness and competence with which the Church in Scotland has been dealing with safeguarding in all its implications.”

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NEW MEXICO
ABQ Journal

By Clara Garcia/Valencia County News-Bulletin

LOS LUNAS – A former member of the Los Lunas Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses is suing the church, claiming she was molested by a former elder.

Monica Lynn Jaramillo, 35, through her attorneys, Terrence Revo and Irwin Zalkin, filed a complaint for damages Aug. 12 in the 13th Judicial District Court. Also named as defendants in the case is Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, which oversees the church, and a former elder, who has not been charged with a crime.

Attempts to reach the Jehovah’s Witnesses Kingdom Hall in Los Lunas for comment were unsuccessful before the News-Bulletin deadline.

According to the civil lawsuit, Jaramillo allegedly was sexually abused as a child by the elder, who had served as a ministerial servant and an elder, which are leadership positions in the congregation. Jaramillo said the abuse occurred in 1987 when she was 8 years old at his home.

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SOUTH AMERICA
Adventist News Network

Thousands of Seventh-day Adventists took to the streets as activists against abuse in scores of cities throughout South America last Saturday.

The church’s campaign “Breaking the Silence” brought marches and motorcades along avenues, hosted dramatic performances in plazas, and partnered with school districts and public safety agencies to offer educational talks about preventing domestic violence, sexual abuse and cyber bullying.

The initiative was part of the Adventist world church’s Abuse Prevention Emphasis Day, which is typically held the fourth Saturday of every August. The campaign was established by the denomination’s Executive Committee in 2001.

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OKLAHOMA
Tulsa World

By RANDY ELLIS NewsOK.com on Aug 27, 2013

LAWTON — A Lawton church pastor has been charged with child sexual abuse following an investigation that prompted DHS officials to close a local juvenile group home.

Bobby Glen Burrell, pastor of One More Soul Outreach Ministry, is accused of exposing himself and masturbating in front of a 16-year-old boy after taking the boy from the group home to the church.

Burrell is only charged with one felony count of child sexual abuse. But Lawton police reported Burrell took several group home children on unauthorized trips and that “six possible juvenile victims were interviewed.”

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OKLAHOMA
KFOR

[with video]

August 29, 2013, by Sara Celi

LAWTON, OK – 28-year-old Pastor Bobby Burrell faces several charges of sexual abuse of a child.

He’s pastor of the One More Soul Church in Lawton, and police say he used his position to gain the trust of kids at a group home called Sequoyah House. A whole new agency took it over in April, after DHS revoked Sequoyah House’s contract.

Police say the crimes started when Burrell built a relationship with the kids, and then used that to put them in compromising positions. Burrell had a second job at Sequoyah House as a staffer.

“We’ve got this person taking these kids to places they are not supposed to go, at times they are not supposed to go there, and so they have these kids trusting this person, and it’s a repertoire that builds up with the kids,” said Lawton Police Captain Craig Akard.

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OHIO
Tribune Chronicle

August 30, 2013

By VIRGINIA SHANK Tribune Chronicle (news@tribtoday.com)

YOUNGSTOWN – The advocacy group that challenged the Catholic Diocese of Youngstown this week to disclose information about a former parochial school teacher accused of abusing a student has now demanded that local church officials reveal information about a former local priest as well.

For the second day in a row, members of the Survivors Network for Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) protested in Youngstown.

The group is asking Bishop George Murry to provide information about where former priest John Warner, 69, is living and if he is still undergoing treatment.

In a written response, the diocese stated that in 2011, local church officials received an allegation against Warner of sexual misconduct with a minor more than 30 years ago.

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MINNESOTA
KIMT

[with video]

By Jeron Rennie

ROCHESTER, Minn. — An area man is coming forward with a lawsuit that claims abuse he says took place half a century ago.

Bill Beardmore and his lawyer made an announcement in Rochester Thursday that they are filing a lawsuit claiming sexual abuse.

“I would like to make it known that I was raped by a priest and that it happened on a number of occasions,” Beardmore said.

He now calls Boone, Iowa home, but he grew up in Caledonia, Minnesota where he says his childhood was spent as an altar boy at St. John’s Parish.

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MINNESOTA
Winona Daily News

[Statement from the diocese – via KAAL]
[the lawsuit]
[Adamson timeline]
[Minnesota map of Adamson’s assignments]
[Adamson photo]
[10-26-02 letter Hoeppner to Beardmore]
[11-6-02 letter Beardmore to Hoeppner]
[1-30-03 letter Hoeppner to Beardmore]
[Photo of client as a 7th grader]

By Nathan Hansen | nathan.hansen@winonadailynews.com

A former altar boy who attended Caledonia’s St. John’s Parish in the 1960s publicly spoke out for the first time Thursday about abuse he said he suffered at the hands of former Diocese of Winona priest Thomas Adamson.

Bill Beardmore’s decision to speak out comes as attorney Jeff Anderson filed a new lawsuit on his behalf against the Diocese this week in Winona County District Court. The suit seeks $50,000 in damages, and, like similar suits Anderson has filed elsewhere, requests that a judge order the public release of a list that contains the names and personal information of “credibly accused child molesting priests.”

Beardmore, a 61-year-old Iowa man, grew up in Caledonia and encountered Adamson as an altar boy at St. John’s during 1963-64. Beardmore, originally listed as John Doe 16 in his lawsuit against the Diocese, spoke Thursday about being sexually abused by Adamson as a young child.

According to Beardmore and court documents, Adamson repeatedly cornered him in private areas of the church and subjected him to oral and anal sex over a two-year period. Beardmore first came forward in 2002, but his claims were dismissed by the Diocese for a lack of corroborating evidence, he said.

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AUSTRALIA
WA Today

August 30, 2013

Patrick Caruana
AAP

For more than a decade, Catholic priest, teacher and vice principal David Edwin Rapson raped and sexually abused a number of Victorian schoolchildren.

Decades after committing the abuse, 60-year-old Rapson has been found guilty of indecently assaulting eight boys.

Rapson, who was defrocked by Pope John Paul II after his first sexual abuse conviction, abused the boys during his time at Salesian College’s Lysterfield and Rupertswood campuses between the 1970s and 1990.

He denied the allegations but a jury on Friday found him guilty of all five charges of rape and eight counts of indecent assault.

During his nine-day trial in the Victorian County Court, prosecutor David Cordy said Rapson had abused the boys, sometimes with witnesses around, and thought he could not be held accountable.

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