ABUSE TRACKER

NORTH DAKOTA
Williston Herald

January 4, 2021

https://www.willistonherald.com/news/public_safety/nd-attorney-general-announces-end-of-investigation-into-sexual-abuse-by-clergy/article_4224ead6-4eba-11eb-8cad-93476a8fe62c.html

Issues with the statute of limitations on allegations mean no criminal charges will come from the state’s investigation into decades-old allegation of sexual abuse by Catholic priests.

The investigation started about 18 months ago, when the Catholic Dioceses of Fargo and Bismarck released a list of 53 people who had been accused of sexual abuse in cases the diocese believed were substantiated.

Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem met with Bishops David Kagan and John Folda in June 2019, and asked to inspect all the records of the church relating to clergy abuse.

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NORTH DAKOTA
KXNet.com

January 4, 2021

By Keith Darnay

Stenehjem: Deaths, statute of limitations preclude any prosecution of sex abuse crimes committed by ND Catholic Dioceses clergy

North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem today released the results of an investigation by his office into allegations of child sexual abuse by members of the North Dakota Catholic Dioceses.

The bottom line: Of the 53 people named by the Dioceses, and an additional person identified by the state during its investigation, all but two have died.

And the allegations against the remaining two date back to the 1970s, meaning the statute of limitations in effect at the time had run out, precluding any current prosecutions.

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BISMARCK (ND)
KFYR

January 4, 2021

An investigation conducted by the Bureau of Criminal Investigations into the North Dakota Catholic Dioceses found two clergy members accused of child sex abuse cannot be charged because the statue of limitations has run out.

According to Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem, an 18-month investigation looked into 53 individuals with the North Dakota Catholic Dioceses accused of child sex abuse.

Of the 53 names, only two were alive at the time the investigation began, Norman Dukart of Dickinson and another clergy member who moved to Minnesota.

BCI agents say during the course of the investigation another clergy member, Odo Muggli of the Assumption Abbey in Richardton, was identified as another suspect.

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BISMARCK (ND)
KVRR

January 4, 2021

By Jim Monk

Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem says an 18-month investigation by his office into allegations of child sexual abuse by members of the North Dakota Catholic dioceses has concluded.

Stenehjem says the investigation began around the time when the Diocese of Fargo and the Diocese of Bismarck released a list of 53 people whom they believed that allegations of child sexual abuse had been substantiated.

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NORTH DAKOTA
AM 1100

January 4, 2021

By Chris Larson

Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem today announced that the investigation by his office into allegations of child sexual abuse by members of the North Dakota Catholic Dioceses has concluded.

The eighteen month long criminal investigation commenced around the time the two North Dakota Catholic Dioceses, headquartered in Fargo and Bismarck, compiled and released a list of 53 individuals for whom they felt allegations of child sexual abuse had been substantiated. Stenehjem met with Bishops David Kagan and John Folda in June of 2019, and requested access to inspect all the records of the church relating to clergy abuse, and the Bishops agreed.

Stenehjem assigned four seasoned agents from the Bureau of Criminal Investigation to the cases. The Dioceses cooperated with the Attorney General’s office in allowing the agents to review all complaints, records and files, including allegations for those not previously designated as “substantiated” by the Dioceses.

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FARGO (ND)
KEGO

January 4, 2021

By Paul Jurgens

Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said Monday that the investigation by his office into allegations of child sexual abuse by members of the two catholic dioceses in the state has concluded.

The 18-month criminal investigation began around the time the two North Dakota Catholic Dioceses, in Fargo and Bismarck, released a list of 53 people for whom they felt allegations of child sexual abuse had been substantiated. Stenehjem met with Bishops David Kagan and John Folda in June of 2019, and requested access to inspect all the records of the church relating to clergy abuse.

Stenehjem assigned four agents from the Bureau of Criminal Investigation to the cases. The Dioceses cooperated with the Attorney General’s office in allowing the agents to review all complaints, records and files, including allegations for those not previously designated as “substantiated” by the Dioceses.

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

AUSTRALIA
Quadrant Online

January 3, 2021

By David Ward

State institutions have good and bad pandemics like war correspondents have good and bad wars. The lockdown came at a convenient time for Victoria’s criminal courts, where jury trials quietly resumed last month. It allowed the unresolved questions about the state’s judicial leadership to be shuffled down the priority line, south of the interim settings and subject to operational requirements. The problem for the courts is that applying the law correctly is generally regarded as an operational requirement. It’s a problem because the courts are operating again and the questions are still unresolved.

You wouldn’t necessarily have known it from the analysis but George Pell’s High Court appeal was decided on the facts, law and “judicial method”. That’s extraordinary, and the divergence between the state and national court on all three was clear-cut and irreconcilable. There was no disputing which authority prevailed, nor where the corrections had to be made, and seen to be made. That was in April.

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AUSTRALIA
Quadrant Online

January 3, 2021

By David Ward

State institutions have good and bad pandemics like war correspondents have good and bad wars. The lockdown came at a convenient time for Victoria’s criminal courts, where jury trials quietly resumed last month. It allowed the unresolved questions about the state’s judicial leadership to be shuffled down the priority line, south of the interim settings and subject to operational requirements. The problem for the courts is that applying the law correctly is generally regarded as an operational requirement. It’s a problem because the courts are operating again and the questions are still unresolved.

You wouldn’t necessarily have known it from the analysis but George Pell’s High Court appeal was decided on the facts, law and “judicial method”. That’s extraordinary, and the divergence between the state and national court on all three was clear-cut and irreconcilable. There was no disputing which authority prevailed, nor where the corrections had to be made, and seen to be made. That was in April.

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

Open Tabernacle (blog)

January 4, 2021

By Betty Clermont

Plans for the election of the next pope are well under way. In the last quarter of 2020, there have been indications as to what the next pontiff will say and do. He will continue to make meaningless policies and procedures about child sex abuse. So thousands upon thousands of children around the world will remain at risk of being sexually tortured. All will be severely traumatized for life. Many will die.

The next pope will maintain his predecessors’ opposition to women’s and LGBTQ person’s human rights while appearing to be liberal on issues pleasing to the American mainstream media.

In contrast to the major portion of Pope Francis’ pontificate, leaders of the Catholic rightwing are uniting behind the pope and will continue in the future, doing whatever is necessary to bolster the prestige and importance of the head of the Church.

As has been true since the 1978 election of Pope John Paul II, the pontiff will reign, but Opus Dei* will govern.

Signs of the Time

A report on the former archbishop of Washington D.C., Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, was released on Nov. 10. It had been started more than two years earlier. Pope Francis had ordered this account be made only after the New York Archdiocese found that an allegation of sex abuse of a minor by Cardinal McCarrick was “credible and substantiated” in June 2018. After the announcement, two other accusations of sexual abuse of minors by McCarrick were revealed.

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OHIO
News-Herald

January 3, 2021

By Andrew Cass

https://www.news-herald.com/news/trial-of-former-st-helens-seminarian-now-scheduled-for-may/article_70baadfe-4dd4-11eb-8bb2-278c4bf471e5.html

The trial of a Strongsville priest with Geauga County ties is now scheduled for late May, federal court records show.

The priest, Robert McWilliams, 40, is facing charges of two counts of sex trafficking of a minor, three counts of sexual exploitation of children, one count of transportation of child pornography, one count of receipt and distribution of visual depictions of real minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct and one count of possession of child pornography.

McWilliams is a former seminarian at St. Helen’s Catholic Church in Newbury Township.

A trial in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio was previously scheduled for Feb. 18, but in December defense attorney Robert A. Dixon asked for the case to be continued, citing ongoing challenges stemming from the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Dixon’s motion was unopposed by federal prosecutors. Northern District of Ohio Judge Sara Lioi set a new jury trial date of May 24. The new deadline for a plea deal in the case is set for April 9, court records show.

McWilliams was arrested Dec. 5, 2019, at St. Joseph in Strongsville after the Ohio Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force raided his office and living space. He was facing criminal charges in Cuyahoga and Geauga counties, but prosecutors in both ultimately dropped their cases after a federal complaint was filed Feb. 21 in the The Northern District of Ohio U.S. Court.

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AUSTRALIA
The Courier

January 4, 2021

By Paul Osborne

Hundreds of applications by abuse survivors for redress will start to flow through in the wake of more institutions joining the support scheme.

But Families Minister Anne Ruston said she remained concerned three organisations had still not signed, meaning 77 applications from abuse survivors could not be progressed.

About 450 institutions have signed up to the national redress scheme covering more than 60,650 sites including churches, children’s homes, schools, swimming centres and sports clubs.

Having named and shamed a number of institutions in July, more than 100 bodies signed up before December 31.

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GERMANY
La Croix International

December 21, 2020

By Christa Pongratz-Lippitt

Top papal advisor criticizes fellow German cardinal, saying refusal to disclose independent findings on abuse will hurt everyone

Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich, who is one of Pope Francis’ closest advisors, has criticized fellow German Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki for refusing to publish an independent report on clerical abuse in the latter’s Archdiocese of Cologne.

“What the public now perceives is lawyers squabbling about quibbles on the backs of the (abuse) victims,” Marx told the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung in a long interview on December 15.

“That is disastrous for all of us,” said the 67-year-old Bavarian, a member of the pope’s Council of Cardinals and coordinator of the Holy See’s Council for the Economy.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Sun

January 1, 2021

By Will Stewart and Imogen Braddick

A Russian priest has reportedly been arrested after allegedly filming sick sex attacks on more than 50 children.

Yury Abramov, 39, a former activist in the pro-Putin political party United Russia, faces multiple charges of abuse from the last decade.

Known as Father Spiridon, the alleged paedophile is accused of molesting children aged 12 to 16, and making pornographic videos of his victims.

The now-suspended priest is also a computer sciences teacher at a school in Amurzet, eastern Russia.

A church bell ringer named Sergey Moos, 27, is suspected of acting as an accomplice.

A total of 53 children are suspected to be victims of Abramov, state media outlet RIA Novosti reported, citing a law enforcement source.

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FRANCE
La Croix International

December 21, 2020

By Mélinée Le Priol

Exclusive interview with Archbishop Olivier de Germay of Lyon, successor to Cardinal Philippe Barbarin

Archbishop Olivier de Germay has officially taken over as the head of the Archdiocese of Lyon, one of France’s oldest and most important local Churches.

The 60-year-old native of Tours, whom Pope Francis appointed last October to succeed the scandal-damaged Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, was formally installed last Sunday in Saint Jean Cathedral.

He served the last eight years as Bishop of Ajaccio on the island of Corsica. He now takes up the reins in Lyon, which, since 2016, has been seen as the epicenter for the clergy sex abuse crisis in France.

Archbishop de Germay spoke with La Croix’s Mélinée Le Priol about his desire to work for the unity of his new archdiocese.

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NORTH CAROLINA
Catholic News Herald

December 29, 2020

Former Capuchin Franciscan priest Robert Yurgel, who was dismissed from his religious order and removed from the priesthood in 2010, has been accused by a second man of child sexual abuse in the late 1990s while Yurgel served as a parochial vicar in the Diocese of Charlotte.

A California man, now 28, alleges in a civil lawsuit that Yurgel abused him at St. Matthew Church in Charlotte when the man was about 5 to 7 years old. Yurgel was assigned by his New Jersey-based religious order to work in the Charlotte diocese from 1997 to 1999.

The lawsuit was filed Dec. 14, 2020, in Mecklenburg County Superior Court against Yurgel, the Diocese of Charlotte, and Yurgel’s former religious order, the Capuchin Franciscans’ Province of the Sacred Stigmata of St. Francis in Union City, N.J.

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AUSTRALIA
Al Jazeera

December 15, 2020

By Ali MC

The landmark inquiry gave survivors a chance to talk, while legal changes have allowed them to seek redress.

Kym Krasa was just eight years old when she was first sexually abused by a member of the Catholic Church.

A so-called “part” Aboriginal child, she had been taken from her impoverished family and placed in an orphanage.

But instead of being cared for, she was abused, and the abuse would continue for the next decade at the hands of a priest and church parishioners, and as a teenager, by a man for whom she was forced to work as a domestic servant.

It was not until the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was established in 2012 that Krasa, now 67, could finally talk about her experiences. It is now three years since the commission completed its work.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

January 1, 2021

By Brian MacQuarrie

After nearly 40 years, a middle-age man with five children remains haunted by the memory of a Boy Scout camping trip to New Hampshire.

Kevin Hannon had been sleeping during a rainy night in 1981, sheltering in a tent near Adams Pond in Barnstead. He woke suddenly to a hand groping his genitals, he recalled recently. Shocked and confused, he did not say a word as the perpetrator withdrew and walked away.

The 14-year-old recognized the man who had touched him, someone Hannon had trusted, a respected member of the West Roxbury neighborhood where they both lived, and the scoutmaster of his troop.

“I was afraid to tell anybody, afraid to be ridiculed, and afraid of how people would think of me,” Hannon said in an interview at his kitchen table. “When I came home from camp, I felt a little lost. I contemplated hurting myself.”

This autumn, Hannon finally came forward with the allegation, becoming one of more than 95,000 people to file sexual abuse claims against the Boy Scouts of America before a Nov. 16 deadline set by US Bankruptcy Court. The 110-year-old organization had asked for bankruptcy protection in February as the rising cascade of allegations posed a potentially crippling blow to its finances.

The bankruptcy proceedings, which have paused previous lawsuits, are expected to cause a dramatic restructuring of the Boy Scouts, which has reported more than $1 billion in assets but is beset by dwindling membership and revenues.

Hannon is among 105 former Boy Scouts represented by Mitchell Garabedian, a Boston lawyer who filed suit against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston during the sexual abuse scandal that rocked the church.

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STATEN ISLAND (NY)
Staten Island Avance

January 2, 2021

By Kyle Lawson

Former priest Ralph LaBelle has again been accused of sexually abusing a young male parishioner on Staten Island.

According to a civil complaint filed last week in Richmond County state Supreme Court, St. George, the victim was “groomed” and sexually abused between the ages of 13 and 16-years-old.

At the time, LaBelle was assigned to St. Clare’s R.C. Church in Great Kills. He was there from 1979 to 1985.

The plaintiff, Donald O’Brien, is seeking damages from the Archdiocese of New York and St. Clare’s for “severe and permanent” injuries that have included “pain, suffering, emotional trauma and humiliation.”

LaBelle already was included on a list of clergy credibly accused of abuse unveiled in April 2019 by the Archdiocese of New York. He was laicized in 2005, after several victims had come forward.

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AUSTRALIA
Pearls and Irritations (blog)

January 3, 2021

By Michael Kelly

[For more about the impact of Bishop Robinson, see: Case Study 31: Retired Catholic Bishop Geoffrey Robinson, Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse; Australian bishop testifies on prevalence of child sex abuse in the church, by Kieran Tapsell, National Catholic Reporter, September 10, 2015; and ‘I was abused too’: The bishop who fought for sex abuse victims, by Anne Lim, Eternity News, December 15, 2017.]

Saying farewell to Bishop Geoff Robinson as we did when he died on December 29, 2020, is saying goodbye to one of the few Australian Catholic bishops with his integrity and reputation for honesty and championing the defence of the weak and the abused still intact.

He was outstandingly intelligent and compassionate. He lent his considerable knowledge of Church law to ease the burden of those who suffered the effects of failed marriages. He focused on what is essential in Christianity by his very accessible, popular commentaries on the Synoptic Gospels. His commentaries were well appreciated by preachers and believers of all denominational allegiance

While our paths overlapped from time to time, it is what he will be best remembered for most – caring for and promoting the rights of children abused by Catholic officials, including priests – that brought about a very significant intersection of our paths in 1997.

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AUSTRALIA
Catholic Weekly

December 30, 2020

Bishop Geoffrey Robinson, a former auxiliary bishop of Sydney, died on 29 December after a long battle with terminal illness. He was 83.

Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP paid tribute to the late Bishop, who recently marked 60 years of priesthood and had been a bishop for 36 years.

“I saw Bishop Robinson before his death and he was impressively peaceful, prayerful and looking forward to going to the Father,” Archbishop Fisher said in a statement issued after Bishop Robinson’s death.

“In this life he served in parishes, as a canon lawyer and law lecturer, and as an auxiliary bishop of Sydney. In the latter role he was very helpful to me when I was first appointed as an auxiliary bishop alongside him. He long contributed to the governance of Catholic education in NSW and, again, graciously helped with the ‘handover’ to me of the Catholic schools portfolio in Sydney and statewide.

An outspoken voice

“Bishop Robinson was an outspoken voice for the victims of child sexual abuse within the Church and the need for just redress and effective child protection going forward. He was undoubtedly one of the most influential figures in moving the Church forward on these matters,” the Archbishop said.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

January 3, 2021

By Isabella Simonetti

Mike McDonnell understands how victims can lose their way.

He was abused by two Catholic priests, one of whom was later convicted, a dark secret that traumatized him so much he became addicted to drugs and alcohol, two of his three marriages failed, and he stole about $100,000 from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia — a crime for which he served nearly a year in jail.

But through recovery, and maintaining his Catholic faith, McDonnell, 52, has rebuilt himself as a victims advocate as he tries to help others. He’s now a local leader for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

“He’ll take phone calls at all hours of the day and night,” said Shaun Dougherty, a board member of SNAP and a fellow advocate. “He’ll talk victims through any problem that they have. He’ll find resources for them if they need it. He’ll help guide them in any way that he can.”

Many of the victims McDonnell supports have suffered unemployment, divorce, the loss of a home, or addiction.

“I’m able to validate what they are sharing with me,” McDonnell said. “They’re getting an understanding that someone else has walked the same path.”

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UNITED STATES
The Dawn Patrol (blog)

December 31, 2020

By Dawn Eden Goldstein, S.Th.D.

EWTN’s firing of radio host Gloria Purvis this week further exposed what many observers have already known about the international Catholic media network: partisan politics plays an outsize role in determining which voices are heard there and which ones are silenced. In the words of Christopher Lamb, “it is Fox News under a Catholic cover.”

To better understand what has happened to EWTN and, by extension, to the mainstream of the pro-life Catholic nonprofit world—a world I was part of for many years as an employee of the Cardinal Newman Society and Americans United for Life, and as a frequent EWTN guest—I did a deep-dive into the finances of one of its major donors, Frank J. Hanna III. What I discovered should concern every Catholic and particularly those who, like myself, are appalled by how the Catholic pro-life movement—whose goal of ending abortion I fully support—has been hijacked by people who elevate Trump while deriding the Holy Father.

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SEATTLE (WA)
Seattle Times

January 2, 2021

By Lewis Kamb

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/seattle-archbishop-is-stonewalling-push-for-more-transparency-of-church-sex-abuse-cases-group-contends/

Their ranks include ex-federal prosecutors, a retired judge, a one-time assistant police chief, even a former priest. But a group of prominent Catholics say they still can’t get an audience with Seattle’s new archbishop in their push to address the fallout of a lingering scandal.

Members of Heal Our Church, a Seattle-based alliance of practicing Catholics who seek a public review of how the Roman Catholic Church’s worldwide sexual abuse scandal secretly festered within the parishes of Western Washington, contend they’re being stonewalled by Archbishop Paul Etienne.

Since requesting a meeting with Etienne in January, group members said the archbishop has refused to discuss their call for a citizen-led review of the Seattle Archdiocese’s private records on clergy abuse. Group members contend only full disclosure of the secret files — with a public airing about the archdiocese’s known pedophile clergy members and how the church dealt with them — can ultimately heal the church and rebuild trust within the broader community.

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ALBANY (NY)
Albany Times-Union

January 3, 2021

By Edward McKinley

“No matter what people say negatively, it’s painful, it’s hurtful, it’s discouraging, it’s angering and it can defame the Lord’s bride, the church, most of all,” Pastor Phil Smith, of Victorious Life Christian Church, said in an early August sermon. “The enemy seeks to defame our Lord and give Him a bad name.”

His message — only God is the source of ultimate judgment and forgiveness — was typical for a sermon. But the apparent inspiration for the message on that Sunday was atypical, and it was not the enemy harming the church’s reputation, but a young woman suing them for allegedly abetting and harboring a Sunday school teacher who she says sexually abused her as a girl.

Abigail Barker, 27, recently filed a lawsuit against Mark Rhodes, a member of the church who was her Sunday School teacher and deacon. The civil complaint alleges Rhodes took off the 5-year-old’s pants and underwear while he was babysitting her and put his face against her vagina, leaving her traumatized from the incident.

The defendants in the lawsuit are the church, Rhodes and Dominick Brignola, leader of the church. Brignola was a former close friend of Barker’s father, she said, and a contentious email exchange between them is included as an exhibit in the lawsuit.

The church, located on Fifth Avenue in the heart of downtown Troy, is like many churches: an interwoven community of tight-knit families. Barker’s family was active in the church, she said. The children in the church were friends. Their parents were also close, with relationships forged beginning when they were kids attending the church themselves. Officials with the church, including Rhodes, who is still an active member, declined to to be interviewed for this story, contending they are precluded from discussing a pending lawsuit.

Barker’s story of abuse is far from unique. The lawsuit was filed under New York’s Child Victims Act, signed into law in 2019, which opened a look-back window for people who say they were abused as children to file lawsuits outside the statute of limitations. Nearly 5,000 cases have been filed across the state, and the window is open until August. Thousands of claimants have identified religious organizations of all denominations as the settings of their trauma and church leaders as the perpetrators.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

January 3, 2021

By Richard Ferguson

Swimming Australia and Football NSW are among groups to have signed up to the federal redress scheme for victims of institutional child sexual abuse, giving hope to nearly 440 abuse survivors that their com­pensation claims may soon be addressed.

Tennis NSW, Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Presbyterian Church WA, ­Seventh-Day Adventists, Football NSW and Missionaries of God’s Love, Swimming Australia and Football NSW are among 135 institutions to sign up to the redress scheme before a December 31 deadline that Scott Morrison set if groups did not want to be punished.

The likes of Jehovah’s Witnesses have still failed to sign up to the scheme, created in the aftermath of the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sex Abuse, designed to support victims of child abusers in churches, schools, sporting codes and other institutions.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

January 3, 2021

By Dennis Shanahan

Catholic bishops are considering asking Australia’s international fin­ancial watchdog to reveal whether any of the $2.3bn sent from the Vatican City since 2014 went to Catholic organisations in Australia.

Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge, president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, told The Australian that asking Austrac if any of the recipients were designated as Catholic dioceses, charities or religious ­orders was an option.

The bishops are already working on a direct request to the Pope to investigate and explain how $2.3bn was transferred from the Vatican City to Australia over six years without their knowledge, amid a global financial scandal engulfing the Holy See.

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SPRINGFIELD (MA)
The Republican

January 3, 2021

By Anne-Gerard Flynn

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield will move forward in 2021 with a new bishop at the helm and building on reforms implemented under former Bishop Mitchell T. Rozanski to better address how it handles allegations of clergy sexual abuse.

A task force report is expected in the coming months to recommend restructuring the diocesan review board that hears allegations of abuse and expand its ranks to include non-Catholics.

Reforms initiated under Rozanski came after national attention was paid to a Pennsylvania grand jury report in fall 2018 that cited a church cover up that protected more than 300 “predator priests,” as well as a scandal closer to home. A subsequent survivor-driven investigation found credible sexual abuse allegations against deceased Springfield Bishop Christopher J. Weldon.

In May — two months before the results of the year-long Weldon investigation were released — the diocese created an Independent Task Force on the Response to Sexual Abuse to make recommendations on how it could improve that response.

The task force, headed by retired Superior Court Judge Daniel Ford, expects to issue its recommendations this spring with input from survivor focus groups and others.

“There are a number of stakeholders in this process and one of the most important ones, if not the most important, are the survivors of sex abuse — the victims who were victimized by priests or by other employees of the diocese,” Ford said.

In addition, the diocese has entered into an agreement with Western Massachusetts district attorneys. The diocese agreed to notify their offices of any allegations involving a minor or vulnerable person before conducting its own internal investigation.

“The Church and the diocese have a responsibility to ensure that we are reporting allegations of crime to law enforcement. Once we conduct the intake, we refer it to law enforcement and are hands off,” said Jeffrey J. Trant, director of the diocesan Office of Safe Environment and Victim Assistance. “The last thing we would ever want to do is unintentionally have an impact or interfere with a law enforcement investigation.”

Trant was hired in June 2019, around the time the allegations against Weldon became public. The claimant told the Berkshire Eagle he had appeared before the diocesan review board in June 2018 with those allegations, as well as similar claims against two other priests. Three months later, he received a letter from the board saying it found his testimony “compelling and credible” and that Rozanski would be advised.

However, the complainant questioned why Weldon’s name was never added to the diocesan website list of credibly accused clergy. The diocese responded by saying that it did not list clergy accused after their deaths, but also became immersed in controversy when it said that the claimant did not make allegations against Weldon to the board.

Allegations of a cover-up resulted in Rozanski meeting with the claimant, referring a report on the Weldon allegations to the Hampden District Attorney’s Office, and asking retired Superior Court Judge Peter A. Velis to investigate the allegations.

Velis issued the results of his year-long investigation in June. He concluded in part that “the allegations of the Complainant of sexual molestation committed upon him by Bishop Christopher J. Weldon, both as a principal, and as a ‘coventurer’ that included anal rape, indecent assault and battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress are unequivocally credible.”

He determined the complainant, who first met with diocesan officials in 2014, had been poorly served by lack of documentation, communication and commitment in addressing his allegations. The retired judge recommended a number of steps for better oversight, including the services of an Administrative Supervisor of Investigations to ensure procedure compliance.

Recently installed Springfield Bishop William D. Byrne said he appreciates “hearing from victim-survivors of clergy sexual abuse and their advocates.”

He met remotely with victim-survivors prior his Dec. 21 ordination, where he praised their courage and honesty — though some reportedly had hoped for more specifics on diocesan reforms.

Byrne called the process “ongoing,” adding he is looking “forward to receiving the report from the task force and hearing their recommendations.” He said he expects the “updated list of credibly accused clergy, including the names of all diocesan and religious order clerics even those who were accused after they were deceased” to be completed in the coming months.

Trant’s work over the last 19 months has won praise from the victim-survivor community with one member saying Trant is “out there, actively meeting with survivors and not just listening, he is hearing them because we have begun to see change happening for the that first time in three administrations.”

He added, the new bishop “will have our support if we can see through his actions that his motives are serious.’

A central focus of the Velis report was the diocese’s reliance on a single investigator, and the importance of an investigator’s confidentiality and objectivity. It recommended sanctions for violations of those mandates.

Trant was instrumental in the diocese’s hiring of three investigators for sexual abuse claims and the assigning of two to each claim.

“At the end of the diocesan process, we had failed an individual because of the significant amount of time when that person first came forward, how we responded, when we responded and how we conducted fact finding and ultimately the ambiguity and lack of specificity around ultimate response to that individual was unacceptable,” Trant said.

He added, “We have a responsibility to report to civil authorities any reports of abuse whether it happened yesterday, 10 years ago or 50 years ago.”

Trant briefs the bishop on abuse allegations, a departure from past practices.

“When I was hired, one of the changes made was that I report directly to the bishop,” Trant said. “In the past, my predecessor had reported to the vicar general.”

Once the diocese is notified by the district attorney’s office that it can begin its process, the investigation is presented to the diocesan review board, Trant said.

The current practice has been for the chair of the review board to write a letter to the bishop of its findings and recommendations. Trant said he delivers it by hand to the bishop for his review.

This most recently has been Bishop Robert McManus of Worcester who served as apostolic administrator between Rozanski’s Aug. 25 installation as archbishop of St. Louis and the Dec. 21 installation of Byrne as bishop here.

“With respect to Bishop McManus, he would receive the recommendation and, in every instance, he accepted it and then directed me to write a letter on his behalf to the survivor or to their legal counsel informing them of his acceptance of the review board’s recommendation and offering his sincere apologies,” Trant said.

“So, we have instituted a process to make sure at every step of the way it is documented and that it is timely and they we are helping to close the loop because we have a responsibility to provide survivors who come forward with an answer,” Trant said.

Judge Ford, who was involved with Trant in meetings with Western Massachusetts district attorneys, said the diocesan task force is also focused on input from victims of clergy sexual abuse. It has contracted with an area organization to organize focus groups.

“We have entered into a contract with an organization in Northampton called Stop It Now! They are a professional independent group and we have contracted with them to organize a series of focus groups with people who identify as survivors of clergy sexual abuse in the Springfield Diocese,” Ford said. “They tell us the work will take three months to identify and recruit people to participate, to formulate the type of questions they want to ask and then to review them and do a report.”

Ford said the meetings will take place in a “safe, trauma-informed setting” and the groups are viewed by the task force as “the best way to allow these people who have been victimized to have a voice in what we eventually recommend.”

The task force has also been “engaged in rewriting the bylaws of the diocesan review board,” he said.

“There is going to be a recommendation that the review board be reconstituted in some way,” Ford said. “One of the things bylaws will call for, if approved by the bishops, is that there will be nine members on the board and that there be non-Catholics on the board. This I think will go a long way to boosting public confidence in the review board.”

The task force has also reviewing 500 responses to an online survey that asked Catholics for their thoughts on how the diocese has handled allegations of clergy abuse.

“We wanted to get some input from the people in the pews,” Ford said. “The people are the backbone of the Church and we wanted to find out what they think.”

The task force is also considering outreach to clergy and religious. “The priests, deacons, nuns are important stakeholders and we want to get input from them as well,” Ford said.

He anticipates completing the report three or four months into the new year.

“It will be out sometime in late winter or early spring and I will hand deliver it to the bishop and give him as much time as he needs to go through it and reasons for the recommendations,” Ford said. “It will incorporate everything we have done and what we think ought to be done.”

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

VATICAN CITY
Reuters

January 1, 2021

By Philip Pullella

The Vatican and the Australian Catholic Church have both denied knowledge of transfers worth US$1.8 billion which Australia’s financial watchdog says have been sent from Rome to Australia in the past seven years.

“That amount of money and that number of transfers did not leave the Vatican City,” a senior Vatican official with knowledge of the city-state’s finances said on Wednesday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Vatican would be seeking details from Australian authorities on the specific origin and destination of the money.

“It’s not our money because we don’t have that kind of money,” he said. “I am absolutely stunned.”

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

DUBLIN (IRELAND)
Irish Times

January 2, 2021

Sir,- While I would like to wish Dermot Farrell well, as he takes up his challenging role as Archbishop of Dublin in 2011, it is important to acknowledge the 16 years of service that Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has given to his archdiocese.

The scandal of child abuse by a minority of those in ministry is one that will never be forgotten but today our parishes across the Dublin archdiocese have robust child protection polices and procedures in place, there is a zero-tolerance approach to child abuse and, as far as possible, the church is once again a safe place for children in Dublin.

Above all else, this is a legacy of which Archbishop Martin should be proud. – Yours, etc,

FRANK BROWNE,
Templeogue,
Dublin 16.

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

DUBLIN (IRELAND)
Irish Times

January 2, 2021

By Patsy McGarry

Dermot Farrell assures change will follow consultation with priests and parishioners

With half of Dublin’s priests over 70 and due to retire within the next five years and congregations ageing and declining, the Archbishop-elect Dermot Farrell of Dublin faces the job of managing decline.

These problems are now exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, not least financially, with income down by up to 80 per cent in Dublin during the first lockdown last spring and priests’ income cut by 25 per cent.

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

NEW JERSEY
NorthJersey.com

December 30, 2020

By Abbott Koloff and Deena Yellin

A series of investigations by The Record and NorthJersey.com this year exposed new information about former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s rise to power through the church hierarchy despite abuse allegations that surfaced as early as the 1980s.

The Record and NorthJersey.com also reported this year that church officials tried to curtail McCarrick’s use of a Jersey Shore beach house, where he allegedly abused seminarians, as far back as the 1980s.

His time as archbishop of Newark included the purchase of at least two beach homes, including one tied to a mysterious debt, and a pattern of ignoring abuse allegations against priests under his control — in one case when the claim was bolstered by a letter from the therapist of a deceased victim.

The investigations also found that a still-secret church inquiry uncovered new evidence related to allegations that a priest stole $1 million from two parishes in New York and used the money to pay for lavish vacations along with sex and bondage sessions at a Jersey Shore home he bought for cash.

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

NEW YORK
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

December 29, 2020

By Sean Lahman

https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2020/12/29/diocese-brooklyn-insurance-company-sues-priest-sex-abuse-cases-child-victims-act/4070827001/

An insurance company representing the Diocese of Brooklyn says it should not be responsible for paying settlements to victims who say they were sexually abused by the Diocese’s priests.

In a federal lawsuit filed Monday, Arrowood Indemnity Company asks the court to rule that it should not be obligated to defend or indemnify the Diocese because of “allegations of the Diocese’s long-standing specific knowledge of individual instances of abuse and its decades-long culture of coverup.”

Arrowood also alleges that the Diocese has failed to provide copies of internal documents that would shed light on what it knew about allegations of abuse and what steps it took in response.

“The information the Diocese has provided… is inappropriately redacted, contains large chronological gaps, and is missing numerous pages without explanation,” court papers said.

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UNITED STATES
The Media Report (blog)

December 28, 2020

Kudos to Msgr. Joseph P. Kelly of the Diocese of Scranton (Pennsylvania) for fighting back!

After the Diocese of Scranton created a “Survivors Fund” to dole out free cash to anyone who says they were abused by a priest, no matter how long ago, a group of imprisoned felons came forward to claim that Kelly abused them some 45 years ago. Back then, a court had appointed the accusers as troubled teens to attend a school for boys that Kelly once directed.

The diocese somehow determined that the accusations were “credible” (whatever that means). But Kelly has not only vehemently declared his innocence, he has also issued a scathing statement denouncing the entire process leading to his removal from ministry.

A recent issue (pdf) of The Catholic Light, the official newspaper of the Diocese of Scanton, featured Kelly’s broadside against a system in which easy loot is handed out to convicted criminals while an accused priest is not even afforded the opportunity to defend himself.

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

SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests)

December 30, 2020

A retired priest from the Diocese of St. Augustine in Florida has been accused of abuse. Now, parents and parishioners must demand answers from Catholic leaders on the history of this allegedly abusive cleric and demand steps be taken to protect children and prevent future cases of abuse.

The Diocese would not specify how many allegations Father David Terrence Morgan is facing or the nature of the accusations against him. However, we find it difficult to believe that the Church just learned of the charges against the priest given the 2018 announcement where Fr. Morgan announced he was going on “sabbatical” to work with a “spiritual advisor.” Vague announcements and postings are commonly used when a clergyman has been accused of abuse, and we suspect that these are the typical, sanitized explanations used to hide allegations.

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

JACKSONVILLE (FL)
First Coast News TV

December 30, 2020

Days after the Diocese of St. Augustine confirmed abuse allegations against one of its retired priests, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office says that it will not be pursuing criminal charges.

According to an incident report from JSO, criminal charges cannot be pursued against Father David Terrence Morgan due to statute of limitation restrictions.

First Coast News reached out to Morgan for comment, but have not yet heard back.

The 2020 report concerns an alleged incident happened in 1977. Morgan, now 71, was 27 years old.

On Sept. 24, 2020, an alleged victim told JSO that they had a sexual relationship with Morgan, who was a priest at the time, that lasted anywhere from two to three months.

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

ST. AUGUSTINE (FL)
Action News Jax/CBS 47, Fox 30

By Christy Turner

December 29, 2020

A retired priest with ties to a historic church in the heart of downtown St. Augustine is under investigation for allegations of sexual abuse of a minor.

The Diocese of St. Augustine confirmed the investigation into Father David Terrence Morgan, but wouldn’t share additional information to protect the integrity of the case.

Father Morgan was with the Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine as recently as 2018 before he retired.

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

ST. AUGUSTINE (FL)
First Coast News, WLTV

December 29, 2020

By Matthew Copeland and Haley Harrison

https://www.firstcoastnews.com/article/news/local/diocese-of-st-augustine-investigating-allegations-against-retired-priest/77-2bd60b9e-f09c-4643-9441-07e56663f1d9

The diocese said the Church reached out to law enforcement to also investigate the allegations against Father David Terrence Morgan.

The Diocese of St. Augustine is investigating abuse allegations against retired priest Father David Terrence Morgan, according to a bulletin by the diocese to parishioners.

The diocese said the Church reached out to law enforcement to investigate the allegations, in addition to conducting its own investigation, which the bulletin states found “the allegations have a semblance of truth based on an initial review, but guilt has not been determined.”

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

DULUTH (MN)
Duluth News Tribune

December 13, 2020

By David McGrath

“Too often the Catholic Church uses Native American communities to hide pedophile priests,” Phoenix attorney Robert Pastor said.

Environmental racism was a term coined to describe historical tendencies in the U.S. to store toxic waste on Native American reservations or build pollution-spewing incinerators in Latino or African-American neighborhoods.

An analogous term may now be required for the Catholic Church’s systematic dumping of sexually abusive priests into minority communities: Racist diocesan exile? Clergy abuse racism?

That’s because, as more information has been extracted through recent lawsuits against dioceses and investigations of abusive priests, it has become clear that the church often banished sex offenders to minority parishes as a way of burying them.

“It is amazing the number of priests whose assignment histories show them lasting a year or so at parish after parish until they get to an under-resourced, minority area, where, miraculously, they stay for a decade or more,” wrote Josh Peck, an attorney with Jeffrey Anderson & Associates, which has represented thousands of abuse victims.

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

JACKSONVILLE (FL)
News4Jax.com

December 30, 2020

By Kelly Wiley

A retired Jacksonville priest and former religion teacher is under investigation over allegations he was in a sexual relationship with a teenager in 1977, police reports show.

Father David Terrence Morgan, or Father Terry Morgan, was a 27-year-old religion teacher at Bishop Kenny High School at the time. The priest is accused of having a sexual relationship with the 17- or 18-year-old, lasting two to three months.

The victim, now in their 60s, told police they were never forced to have sex. The victim also told police they had no intention of pursuing criminal charges and knows the incident is past the statute of limitations.

The allegations were brought to the Jacksonville Sheriffs Office in September 2020. The person or entity that brought the charges to police was contacted by the victim in August. That person or entity was not named.

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

CHARLESTON (SC)
The Post and Courier

December 29, 2020

By Rickey Ciapha Dennis Jr.

https://www.postandcourier.com/news/scs-catholic-bishop-guglielmone-to-seek-resignation-wednesday-on-75th-birthday/article_b9985928-49ff-11eb-a135-2fbe530f86d7.html

Bishop Robert E. Guglielmone, who presides over the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston, will seek resignation from the position this week.

As required by the Vatican, Guglielmone will submit a letter of resignation to Pope Francis on Wednesday, which is Guglielmone’s 75th birthday, the diocese said on Monday. …

… His final year as South Carolina’s top Roman Catholic clergyman including fending off a legal challenge. A lawsuit filed last year in New York alleged Guglielmone sexually abused an 8-year-old boy while serving as a pastor in the late 1970s at St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church in Amityville.

Guglielmone denied those accusations and said earlier this month the Vatican cleared him of wrongdoing. He said the Roman Catholic Church headquarters had sent him a letter stating it had determined the sexual abuse allegation against Guglielmone “has no semblance of truth and is thus unfounded.”

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

MISSOURI
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

December 30, 2020

A Catholic clergyman from the Diocese of Kansas City – St. Joseph who faced multiple lawsuits for child sexual abuse has died. We hope that the news of his passing will bring comfort to the many people he irreparably harmed and will encourage other still-silent and suffering victims to come forward and get the help they need.

In addition to having been sued many times, Fr. Michael Tierney is also on the Diocesan list of clergy with “substantiated abuse allegations.” The entry for the priest on the list notes that a “canonical trial decreed guilt in multiple cases.”

Despite the fact that Catholic officials in Kansas City were notified of allegations against Fr. Tierney at least as early as 2008, the priest was only permanently removed from ministry in 2011. Sadly, this pattern of Diocesan delay and inaction is likely what allowed Fr. Tierney to hurt so many in the first place.

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

YORKSHIRE (ENGLAND)
Yorkshire Post

December 30, 2020

By Robyn Vinter

https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/education/catholic-eton-ampleforth-college-yorkshire-may-be-forced-close-if-ban-new-students-not-lifted-says-head-3080870

The head of a prestigious independent school in North Yorkshire has criticised a ban on accepting new students issued by the Government last month, warning that it may be forced to close.

Ampleforth College was told by the Department for Education in November that it could no longer accept new pupils due to “very serious” safeguarding failures uncovered during an inspection in September.

Robin Dyer, the head of the Catholic school, said the institution had come a long way in a short amount of time, but the restriction order, which came into place yesterday, made it more difficult to make improvements and could mean that the school closed.

Speaking on Times Radio yesterday, he said: “If you’re denied the fee income that independent schools rely on, you can’t survive.

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

ROME (ITALY)
Associated Press

December 29, 2020

Pope Francis on Tuesday accepted the resignation of Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, who worked to rebuild the Roman Catholic Church’s credibility in Ireland after it was shattered by decades of clergy sexual abuse and cover-up.

Martin turned 75 earlier this year, the mandatory retirement age for bishops. Francis named Bishop Dermot Farrell, 66, the head of the Ossory diocese in eastern Ireland, as Martin’s replacement.

Deeply Catholic Ireland has had one of the world’s worst records of clergy sex abuse, crimes that were revealed to its 4.8 million people over the past decade by a series of government-mandated inquiries. The reviews concluded that thousands of children were raped and molested by priests or physically abused in church-run schools while bishops worked to protect the predators and the Irish church’s reputation.

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

DUBLIN (IRELAND)
Catholic News Service via National Catholic Reporter

December 29, 2020

By Sarah Mac Donald

Pope Francis has chosen Bishop Dermot Farrell of Ossory as Archbishop Diarmuid Martin’s successor in Dublin.

The appointment is one of the most significant in the Irish church, involving oversight of the largest and most secular Irish diocese with up to 1 million Catholics.

Farrell, 66, a former president of the national seminary in Maynooth, has a range of experience in administration, pastoral ministry and seminary formation. He was elected finance secretary of the Irish bishops’ conference in March 2019.

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

VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Agency

December 29, 2020
.
By Hannah Brockhaus

Pope Francis Tuesday named theologian Bishop Dermot Farrell of Ossory, Ireland, as the next archbishop of Dublin.

Farrell, 66, takes over leadership of the metropolitan archdiocese from Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, whose resignation was accepted by the pope Dec. 29.

Martin, who turned 75 in April, led the large Irish archdiocese since 2003 as coadjutor archbishop, and since 2004 as archbishop.

He was archbishop during Ireland’s sexual abuse crisis, including the 2009 release of the Murphy Report, the result of a three-year investigation into the abuse scandal in the Dublin archdiocese, which implicated some of Martin’s predecessors in cover up of abuse by priests.

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

DUBLIN (IRELAND)
Irish Times

December 29, 2020

By Patsy McGarry

Current Bishop of Ossory will oversee archdiocese in which half of priests are over 70

The announcement that Bishop of Ossory Dermot Farrell (66) is to be the new Archbishop of Dublin will come as no great surprise to many priests in the archdiocese, as his name has always been among the front runners since Archbishop Diarmuid Martin made clear his intention to retire on reaching 75 last April. …

… Probably his most uncomfortable period was in 2002 when it emerged in this newspaper on May 8th 2002 that his predecessor as president at Maynooth Msgr Micheál Ledwith was then lecturing with a new age cult on the US west coast following his sudden resignation as president at Maynooth in 1994 in circumstances unexplained up to then by Catholic Church authorities and despite persistent media queries.

Then on May 31st 2002, responding to a series of questions from this newspaper, Msgr Farrell as president at Maynooth and the seminary’s 17 Bishop trustees issued a statement confirming that, prior to his resignation from office in 1994, child sexual abuse allegations had been made against Msgr Ledwith, which he denied.

It emerged later that Msgr Ledwith had agreed a confidential financial settlement with his accuser, without admission of liability.

As a priest of Ferns diocese, Msgr Ledwith was also investigated by the Ferns inquiry, which published its report in October 2005.

Due to the confidentiality clause it was unable to make specific findings in the alleged abuse case but it did repeat the various abuse allegations against the then still Msgr Lediwth, laicised by the Catholic Church in 2005.

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

NEW BEDFORD (MA)
Standard Times

December 29, 2020

By Kiernan Dunlop

An investigative report from the Bristol County District Attorney’s Office and Daniel Lacroix’s attorney have shed some light on sexual misconduct allegations against an area priest who was permanently removed from the ministry in November.

In a letter that was read during a Mass at Lacroix’s former parish, St. Mary’s Catholic Church on Illinois Street, Diocese of Fall River Bishop Edgar M. da Cunha said allegations against Lacroix were determined to be credible by a ministerial review board.

In a statement Thursday, the diocese said Lacroix was removed “because of conduct that is inconsistent with standards of ministerial behavior and in direct violation of the Code of Conduct for priests in the Fall River Diocese and the U.S. Bishops’ Charter for The Protection of Children and Young People.”

Da Cunha made the decision to remove Lacroix from ministry himself after his own review of the evidence revealed in an investigation of the allegations, according to the diocese.

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

UNITED STATES
Crux

December 30, 2020

By John Lavenburg

2020 in the United States, like the rest of the world, will always be synonymous with the coronavirus pandemic. It’s taken over 330,000 American lives to date, put millions out of work and single-handedly changed the way society lives and communicates.

That is, however, only one chapter in the story of the American Catholic Church in 2020.

Here’s a look at 2020 for the American Catholic Church through the pandemic, election of Joe Biden as the second Catholic president, and the unprecedented report from the Holy See on laicized ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s rise through the American episcopacy.

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

PHOENIX (AZ)
Arizona Republic

December 30, 2020

By Lauren Castle

Hundreds of civil lawsuits by people who allege they suffered abuse as children are being filed in Arizona’s courts as a year-end deadline looms for them to seek justice.

Many of those filing are listed in court documents simply as “John Doe” or “Jane Doe.”

They have filed civil complaints against priests, teachers, volunteers, the Roman Catholic Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Boy Scout councils, Big Brothers Big Sisters and other institutions.

The Arizona Child Victims Act allows survivors of sex abuse to sue their perpetrators and organizations that allowed the incident to happen. The act, passed by lawmakers in 2019, raised the statute of limitations for a civil claim to the age of 30 from the previous age of 20. Survivors who are 30 or older have until Dec. 31 to file a claim.

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

KANSAS CITY (MO)
Kansas City Star

December 30, 2020

By Judy L. Thomas

A former Kansas City-area priest whom the diocese named in 2019 on a list of clergy credibly accused of sexually abusing minors has died.

The Rev. Michael Tierney, 76, died on Dec. 15. A private memorial service was held Monday at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Lee’s Summit, according to his obituary.

Tierney had been the subject of multiple civil lawsuits alleging sexual abuse of minors. In 2011, the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph removed him from all pastoral assignments. He was never prosecuted, but the diocese’s list of more than two dozen credibly accused priests says that a canonical trial “decreed guilt in multiple cases.”

Born in 1944 and ordained in 1969, Tierney served in Kansas City and St. Joseph parishes. His last posting was at Christ the King in Kansas City, where he worked until diocesan officials removed him in June 2011.

Tierney repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

The first lawsuit, filed in 2010, alleged that Tierney abused a 13-year-old in the 1970s. The plaintiff alleged that Tierney had asked him to move furniture at the priest’s mother’s house and then fondled and groped him.

A lawsuit filed in late 2011 — the fifth to be filed against Tierney — accused him of sexually abusing an altar boy at St. Elizabeth Catholic Church. It also alleged that Tierney took the plaintiff and another boy to Lake Viking near Cameron, Mo.

The lawsuit said that Tierney and Monsignor Thomas J. O’Brien provided alcohol to a group of boys at the lake house and that some boys became “inebriated or high to the point of insensibility.” O’Brien, who died in 2013, had been named as a defendant in more than two dozen sexual abuse lawsuits.

Tierney was among 12 current or former priests named in a 47-plaintiff case that the diocese settled for $10 million in 2008.

He also was one of the priests covered in a $10 million settlement agreement the diocese made with plaintiffs in 2014. That settlement covered 32 lawsuits filed from September 2010 through February 2014. Those lawsuits involved 14 current and former priests in allegations of sexual abuse covering three decades.

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

GERMANY
The Insider (blog)

December 29, 2020

By Haven Orecchio-Egresitz

– German nuns aided in the abuse of children by priests in the 1960s and 1970s, according to recently released court documents.

– A victim testified that he was abused more than 1,000 times by clergy after nuns dragged him to the home of predators, Deutsche Welle reported.

– The victim alleged some of the nuns received money for acting like “pimps,” Der Spiegel reported.

German nuns in the city of Speyer received money for luring children to predatory priests who sexually abused them, local media reported from recently released court documents.

One victim, Karl Haucke, filed a court case seeking compensation from the Catholic church and alleging more than 1,000 instances of abuse over the 10 years he lived at a now-shuttered children’s home, Deutsche Welle reported.

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

BERLIN (GERMANY)
Catholic News Service via National Catholic Reporter

December 29, 2020

In a wide-ranging interview, the head of the German bishops’ conference called for far-reaching changes to the Catholic Church and criticized the Vatican’s treatment of the church in his country.

“I would describe myself as conservative because I love this church and enjoy devoting my life and my strength to it. But I want it to change,” Limburg Bishop Georg Bätzing told the magazine Herder Korrespondenz. His remarks were reported by the German Catholic news agency KNA.

Among other things, Bätzing suggested changing church teaching on LGBTQ rights. The Catholic Church says gay sex is “intrinsically disordered,” but LGBTQ people are to be treated with “respect, compassion and sensitivity” and without discrimination.

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

GetReligion (blog)

December 29, 2020

By Clemente Lisi

I am not a very good prognosticator. Yet this is the time of year that forces many journalists to do just that.

What will 2021 bring? That’s the big question following a 2020 that will forever remain a year where the world was held hostage by a pandemic. It was also a year where we had a combative presidential election and a reawakened social justice movement that brought our divided politics out into our streets. Could any of us have accurately predicted what 2020 would have been like? I don’t think so.

That hasn’t stopped many from trying to predict what next year will be like. The vaccine could bring with it prosperity and freedom again, but a new strain of the virus has forced much of Europe into lockdown once again. A lot of what 2021 will look like — in terms of religion and faith — will depend on the virus and how politicians choose to handle it.

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

AUSTRALIA
The Australian

December 30, 2020

By Dennis Shanahan

Australia’s Catholic bishops are working on a direct request to the Pope to investigate and explain how $2.3bn was transferred from the Vatican City to Australia over six years without their knowledge.

The Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference is considering the request after they were “astonished at the scale of the transfers” from the Holy See’s secretariat of state between 2014 and this year.

The Archbishop of Brisbane, Mark Coleridge, president of the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference, told The Australian on Tuesday that no Australian Catholic, diocese, charity, religious order or church entity had received any of the money.

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BONN (GERMANY)
Catholic News Service via National Catholic Reporter

December 29, 2020

Most people looking back at 2020 will mainly see the coronavirus pandemic, but the Catholic Church in Germany was rattled by a number of other issues as well, from the impact of the sexual abuse scandal to the debates surrounding the Synodal Path that reverberated beyond Germany’s borders and triggered interventions from Rome.

The German Catholic news agency KNA reported it has been a demanding year for the president of the German bishops’ conference, Limburg Bishop Georg Bätzing. Since his election in March, the coronavirus has severely curtailed church life, including an Easter without public religious services and accusations that the churches submitted too readily to the state-imposed lockdown — to the extent that even the dying were abandoned. During the second lockdown, church services were spared, subject to conditions.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Kansas City Star

December 27, 2020

By Laura Bauer and July L. Thomas

Aaron Rother was 16 when the leader of his boarding school announced they were packing up and moving again, to their third state in a little more than a year.

But this time, in the mid-1990s, Agape Boarding School was moving away from the “nonbelievers” in Washington and California and heading east. To a place with “good Christian people,” no government scrutiny and where leaders could feel free to run their school the way they saw fit.

“It was the feeling like we were going to the Promised Land,” said Rother, whose father dropped him off at Agape in Othello, Washington, when he was 15. “Kind of like, ‘This is where the Christians can go to not be messed with.’

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MASSACHUSETTS
Cape Cod Times

December 14, 2020

By Jessica Hill

A grand jury returned indictments against a former Cape pastor on Friday, with multiple counts of rape and assault and battery.

The Rev. Mark Hession was indicted out of Barnstable Superior Court on two counts of rape, one count of indecent assault and battery on a child less than 14 and one count of intimidation of a witness, a superior court official confirmed Monday.

Hession was previously pastor of Our Lady of Victory Parish in Centerville from 2000 to 2014 and also served at St. Joan of Arc Church in Orleans. In 2009, he delivered the homily at the funeral for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
WVUE-TV, Channel 8

December 28, 2020

By Kimberly Curth

In a recently filed motion, attorneys for an alleged church sex abuse victim say former priest Lawrence Hecker “is still very much alive, vibrant, lives alone, and is a danger to young boys until he draws his final breath.”

As part of the Archdiocese of New Orleans’ ongoing federal bankruptcy case, plaintiff’s attorneys are now asking the court to unseal Hecker’s deposition as well as related documents.

“In America, there is a presumption that things should be open in a courtroom, so, what is a compelling reason for this not to be released is a question the judge is going to have to answer. So, the church has to come up with a reason, which I’m struggling with, as to why this should not be released,” said Fox 8 legal analyst Joe Raspanti.

Hecker was on the church’s 2018 list of clergy credibly accused of child sex abuse. On March 3, 2020, we tracked him down.

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HuffPost.com

December 28, 2020

By Jessica Blank

Four former nuns shared their story of their time in the Sisters Minor of Mary Immaculate religious order.

Religious orders are supposed to provide spiritual guidance to those who join. But some of the women who entered Sisters Minor of Mary Immaculate (SMMI) say they faced physical and emotional abuse.

Patricia Budd, one of the former nuns of SMMI, first entered in 1995 in hopes of connecting with her Catholicism. It was at her first retreat where she met the order’s U.S. delegate, Sister Theresa Kovacs.

“It was a lot of hugs. There was a lot of encouragement,” Budd told HuffPost. “They would listen to you, and you felt really important, and you felt like you’re valued.” But soon after she joined, Budd and the other nuns realized things were not as they seemed.

“I witnessed other girls just being yelled at on a constant basis by Theresa Kovacs,” said Rose, who joined SMMI in 1995. (Three interviewees asked to only be identified by their first names.) According to Rose, a sister named Georgiana often got the brunt of Kovacs’ anger.

“It would be a torrent of the nastiest stuff you could ever say to a human being, she would say to me,” said Georgiana. “It was meant to keep people in line.”

Theresa Kovacs did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The nuns faced strict rules. They weren’t allowed to speak to each other. They weren’t allowed to go for walks outside the convent doors.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

December 29, 2020

By Lisa Fullam

The Vatican’s report on defrocked Cardinal Theodore McCarrick revealed sexual abuse of adults and minors by a Catholic cleric and its cover-up by church officials — more of the same pattern we’ve seen so often in the church, reaching to the highest levels.

How should church leadership respond? It’s easy to see this as a lack of effective rules to root out bad actors. I want to suggest that instead of a legal or juridical approach to this ongoing problem, we instead take a medical metaphor for our lead. What’s going on in the organism of the church?

Diagnosis starts with a thorough exam. Here our symptoms start with sexual abuse of boys and men, à la McCarrick.

But it’s not just sex: Bishop Michael Bransfield lived a lavish, jet-setting lifestyle while shepherding — fleecing — his Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, West Virginia. He also showered cash gifts on other church leaders, including thousands to adults he allegedly harassed. As Fr. Peter Daly commented, bishops are the “spiritual heirs of the Borgias and the Medici.”

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ROME (ITALY)
Crux

December 27, 2020

By John L. Allen Jr.

In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1892 Sherlock Holmes short story “Silver Blaze,” about the disappearance of a celebrated racehorse and the murder of its trainer, the following exchange occurs.

Scotland Yard detective: “Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”

Holmes: “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”

Gregory: “The dog did nothing in the night-time.”

Holmes: “That was the curious incident.”

Holmes’ point was that no witness at the stables had said anything about hearing the guard dog barking, suggesting whoever stole the horse was well known to the dog and wouldn’t cause him to get worked up – in other words, it had to be an inside job.

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PHOENIX (AZ)
Associated Press

December 28, 2020

By Terry Tang

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was hit with several lawsuits Monday for allegedly covering up decades of sexual abuse among Boy Scout troops in Arizona, marking the latest litigation before the state’s end-of-year deadline for adult victims to sue.

The church “must be held accountable in order to bring healing and closure to Mormon victims of childhood sexual abuse,” Hurley McKenna & Mertz, a law firm that focuses on church sex abuse, said in a statement.

In the seven lawsuits each representing seven different male victims, attorneys say church officials never notified authorities about abuse allegations. Public records show members of church-sponsored Boy Scout troops who were abused would tell church bishops about what they had experienced. The lawsuits allege bishops would then tell the victims to keep quiet so the church could conduct its own investigation. In the meantime, troop leaders and volunteers accused of sex abuse would be allowed to continue in their roles or be assigned to another troop, the suits said.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

December 28, 2020

By Stephanie Yeagle

The biggest news story of 2020 is undoubtedly the coronavirus pandemic. One small virus has changed the way we live, learn and connect with other people, most likely for the foreseeable future. And although the coronavirus has impacted the Catholic Church in a multitude of ways, non-virus-related news also had a major impact.

The top 10 most read news stories on NCR’s website for 2020 are dedicated to the topics of the coronavirus pandemic, the ever-present clerical sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, the entwining of the U.S. bishops with the Republican Party, and the evolving discussion of married priests, to name a few.

These are NCR’s most read — not necessarily the most important — news stories and are listed in order by the number of site visitors who read the story. You can see what NCR’s most read opinion and commentary pieces were for 2020 here.

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ST. JOHN’S (NEWFOUNDLAND)
CBC News

December 28, 2020

By Ryan Cooke

Mount Cashel victims hope the Supreme Court of Canada holds the Roman Catholic Church responsible for years of child abuse they suffered at the orphanage in St. John’s decades ago.

John Doe No. 26 places two weathered hands on his dining room table, smoothing out creases in a holiday tablecloth as he talks about the monsters of a Christmas past.

Dec. 25, 1955, was the day he put a stop to the abuse he suffered inside the hallowed walls of the Mount Cashel Orphanage in St. John’s.

For seven years, sadists in black robes and white collars desecrated so much that was innocent in the child. The abuse was physical, sexual and psychological.

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WARSAW (POLAND)
Agence France-Presse via France 24

December 28, 2020

Once all powerful in Poland, the Catholic Church has been under severe pressure this year — from a series of abuse scandals and a perceived association with the country’s right-wing government.

Negative media reports and documentaries have hurt its image, as has criticism from the Vatican itself.

Some Poles are even beginning to question the legacy of the late Polish pope John Paul II.

A poll published earlier this month found that only 41 percent of Poles have a positive view of the Church, a decline of 16 percentage points since March.

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ENGLAND
Daily Mail

December 28, 2020

By Steve Doughty

Ampleforth College issues statement of ‘profound regret and sorrow’ after series of scandals involving perverted staff

– Ampleforth, known as the ‘Catholic Eton’, apologised for failure to prevent abuse
– The Roman Catholic school has been hit by a series of sexual abuse scandals
– Last month Gavin Williamson prevented the school from recruiting new pupils

England’s most famous Roman Catholic school has apologised for its failure to prevent sexual abuse of pupils.

The statement of ‘profound regret and sorrow’ follows a ban on the admission of new children to Ampleforth College which has threatened the future of the 218 year-old school.

Ampleforth, known as the ‘Catholic Eton’, has been shadowed by a series of abuse scandals which culminated last month in a scathing Ofsted inspection report and an order by Education Secretary Gavin Williamson that prevented the school from recruiting new pupils.

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AUSTRALIA
Catholic Outlook (Diocese of Parramatta)

December 28, 2020

The presidents of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference and Catholic Religious Australia say their annual report to the National Office for Child Safety outlines comprehensive and sustained work across Church settings.

The provision of an annual report on progress in child protection and safeguarding was one of the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. The Bishops Conference and CRA adopted that recommendation. They published the Church’s third such report on Thursday 17 December.

“The annual report reflects that the Catholic community has been working hard for decades to ensure Church environments are safe, but we are constantly learning from experts within and beyond the Church how to improve our practices and protocols and, most importantly, to change the culture,” said Archbishop Mark Coleridge, president of the Bishops Conference.

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NEW ZEALAND
NZ Catholic

December 28, 2020

As the first phase of the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care’s hearing into the redress processes of faith-based institutions was about to begin on November 30 in Auckland, Catholic Church leaders made statements that they would take the opportunity to listen, learn and reflect on the experience of survivors.

The first week of the two-week public hearing saw 10 survivors of abuse in the Catholic Church in New Zealand or their family members speak at the royal commission. There was one closed session in the first week. The second week was scheduled to see 14 survivors of abuse in the Anglican Church or Salvation Army institutions give their testimony. Many of the testimonies were live-streamed.

The royal commission said these hearings “will investigate the adequacy of the redress processes of the Catholic Church, Anglican Church and the Salvation Army and what needs to be done to support people who have been abused or neglected in faith-based institutions”.

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INDIA
RFI.com

December 27, 2020

Bringing a dramatic end to a nearly three decade old case, a court in the southern Indian state of Kerala has convicted a Catholic priest and a nun of murdering a convent member. The ruling has contributed to a growing crisis in India’s Catholic Church.

A special court of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), a federal investigating agency, sentenced Father Thomas Kottoor and Sister Sephy to life in prison after finding them guilty of the murder of Sister Abhaya, who died 28 years ago in the town of Kottayam.

Special CBI Judge K Sanal Kumar gave a double life sentence to Father Kottoor, and imposed a fine of 7,200 euros (650,000 rupees) for destroying evidence.

Justice at last

Sister Abhaya, who was aged 19, was murdered after she discovered Father Kottoor and Sister Sephy engaged in sexual activity. Her body was then dumped in a well.

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[Opinion] The abusive wolves in our midst … sexual abuse in the church

UNITED STATES
Center for Parent/Youth Understanding (blog)

December 23, 2020

By Walt Mueller

There’s a curtain of silence which sits in both the church and the culture-at-large. It is a curtain that shields horrifying realities which I have not experienced personally, but which over time I have been invited into by a growing number of people I know who have and are experiencing the horror and its fallout firsthand.

Perhaps you are one who has been on the receiving end of the horror. Statistics tell us that there are more of you out there than we know or imagine. The curtain of silence can fool us into believing it’s nowhere near as widespread as it really is. Add to that the fact that perpetrators of the horrors of abuse are masterful at hiding it, and it can remain invisible to everyone but the victims. . . which of course sets those victims on a course into a lifetime of deep pain, hurt, and shame. And when the systems that should be coming to the aid of the victims are complicit in perpetration of abuse through silence, denial, or even blind-eyed-support of perpetrators. . . the horror only increases.

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ENGLAND
The Sunday Times of London

December 27, 2020

By Sian Griffiths

College has accepted serious failings over child abuse as it seeks to overturn a ban on new admissions

One of England’s most famous Catholic boarding schools, which has been surrounded by abuse
scandals for years, has accepted it has “very serious” safeguarding failings as it fights to stave off closure.

Ampleforth College, nicknamed “the Catholic Eton”, has submitted to ministers an action plan to tackle the serious weaknesses highlighted in an emergency inspection in September.

The 200-year-old school in North Yorkshire, which initially complained about the inspection report, says it now hopes to be reinspected early in the New Year. Local Conservative MPs have met ministers to intervene on its behalf.

When Ofsted inspectors visited Ampleforth this autumn, they found a range of failings including leaders not taking “reasonable, timely and appropriate action to safeguard pupils”, concerns raised by the police “not always given sufficient consideration”, and “serious weaknesses in the way leaders … manage allegations”.

The education secretary, Gavin Williamson, subsequently banned the school from admitting new pupils.

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EDMONTON (ALBERTA, CANADA)
Edmonton Journal

December 27, 2020

By Lauren Boothby

An Edmonton Catholic priest has been removed from public ministry in the region after an allegation of historic sexual abuse of a minor surfaced.

The Catholic Archdiocese of Edmonton said in a statement Christmas Eve it removed Rev. Sylvio Lacar after he was identified by the archdiocese of Los Angeles. It says Lacar was the subject of a credible accusation of sexual assault of a minor in the Los Angeles area during the 1980s.

He regularly served at St. Theresa’s Parish in Ma-Me-O Beach and occasionally at St. Theresa’s Parish in Mill Woods. He is retired priest from the diocese of Peterborough.

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ALBERTA (CANADA)
Global News

December 26, 2020

By Slav Kornik

The Catholic Archdiocese of Edmonton has removed a local priest from his duties after learning of a previous sexual assault accusation.

The Archdiocese said Rev. Sylvio Lacar was removed from his role after it learned the Archdiocese of Los Angeles identified Lacar as the person whom a “credible accusation of sexual abuse of a minor” was brought forward against in the 1980s.

In a news release, the Archdiocese’s communications lead Andrew Ehrkamp said Lacar has denied the allegation and there was no criminal prosecution against him, but Lacar was included in a group civil settlement.

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WASHINGTON D.C.
The Catholic Project / Catholic University of America

December 21, 2020

[AUDIO]

This podcast series keeps coming back to the question of bishops’ accountability. Are the reforms of Vos estis lux mundi being applied in the US Church? This episode features Cardinal Timothy Dolan of the Archdiocese of New York, reporters Harriet Ryan of the L.A. Times and Christopher Altieri of the UK Catholic Herlald [sic], and canon lawyer Tom Doyle.

Participants:

– Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York
– Harriet Ryan, The Los Angeles Times
– Christopher Altieri, The Catholic Herald, UK, author of Into the Storm: Chronicle of a Year in Crisis about 2018
– Tom Doyle, inactive priest and canon lawyer

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WASHINGTON D.C.
Commonweal

December 25, 2020

By Katie Daniels

On November 28, Archbishop of Washington Wilton Gregory became the first African-American cardinal in a socially distanced ceremony at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. His appointment by Pope Francis comes during a period of political discord and renewed attention to racial injustice in the United States. Gregory said that his appointment was “a sign to the African-American community that the Catholic Church has a great reverence, respect and esteem for the people, for my people of color.” …

… Gregory was elected president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2001, just as the sexual-abuse crisis began to make headlines in Boston and elsewhere. As president of the USCCB, he oversaw the groundbreaking document “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People,” which established procedures for handling sexual-abuse allegations and set a “zero-tolerance” policy for priests found guilty of abuse. When Pope Francis appointed Gregory the seventh archbishop of the Archdiocese of Washington in 2019, the area was still reeling from a new round of the sexual-abuse crisis. The previous cardinal, Donald Wuerl, had resigned amid the fallout from a Pennsylvania grand-jury report that accused him of mishandling clerical sex-abuse cases when he was the bishop of Pittsburgh. Wuerl’s predecessor, former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, was defrocked after Rome received credible reports that he had sexually abused minors for years. “It’s not about the structures of the Church, it’s about the mistakes, the awful bad judgments that the Church made in not focusing on the people that had been harmed,” Gregory said in an interview with CNN. “We were so intent on caring about the clerics, priests, or bishops, that we did not see that the biggest pain to be endured was endured by the people that were hurt.”

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SPRINGFIELD (MA)
WWLP-TV

December 25, 2020

By Hector Molina

The Christmas season is a busy time of year for all, especially in the catholic church. 22News spoke with newly elected Bishop William Byrne of the Springfield Diocese on how the catholic church is observing the holiday season.

The Christmas holiday usually means large attendance of worshipers at churches and celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ with many family and friends. However, due to the pandemic the holiday will be much different. Newly elected Bishop William Byrne of the Springfield Diocese said a year where everything has changed could mean a new hope.

A new perspective that he would like to bring in 2021 to the Springfield Diocese in his first full year as Bishop.

“We’ve been separated by the pandemic and have had reminders of abuse with the clergy in this diocese,” said Bishop Byrne.

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WASHINGTON D.C.
Government Accountability Project

December 22, 2020

New Act Models Recommendations of the U.S. Ombudsman Association to Keep Children Safe

Press Release: Government Accountability Project Praises D.C. City Council for Unanimous Passage of the Ombudsperson for Children Establishment Amendment Act of 2020

Today, Government Accountability Project praised the D.C. City Council for its December 15, 2020 unanimous passage of the Office of the Ombudsperson for Children Establishment Amendment Act of 2020. To establish protections against the abuse and neglect of foster children, the Act creates an independent Ombudsman for children, which aligns with recommendations in the model law of the U.S. Ombudsman Association. The new Office will report to and can only be removed by the City Council, and it is free from control by the D.C. Child and Family Services Agency (CFAS) – where it previously had been a subunit.

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DENVER (CO)
Colorado Politics

December 25, 2020

By Hannah Metzger

https://www.coloradopolitics.com/denver/denver-s-samaritan-house-looks-to-its-future-following-abuse-allegations-against-co-founder-father/article_d1108ddd-fbfc-543f-b116-774809506eba.html

As recent sexual abuse allegations have risen against Catholic Priest Rev. Charles Woodrich, one organization Woodrich helped found hopes to continue its work and separate itself from his disgraced legacy.

Denver’s Samaritan House, co-founded by Woodrich in 1986, was the first building in America designed specifically as a homeless shelter. Still operating today, the Samaritan House now serves thousands of men, women and children in the Denver metro community.

“The founding and the ongoing charitable work of Samaritan House is not the result of a single person,” said the Samaritan House regarding Woodrich, “but rather from the efforts of many visionaries, political leaders, co-founders and benefactors with a deep compassion and concern for the poor and those in need in our community.”

Woodrich, more commonly referred to as Father Woody, was known as a patron to the homeless when he helped found the Samaritan House in 1986 and up until his death in 1991.

However, authorities say that at the time of the shelter’s founding, Woodrich was in the middle of the years-long sexual abuse of his last known victim.

Earlier this month, the Colorado Attorney General’s Office released a report identifying nine Catholic priests accused of sexually abusing minors, including Woodrich.

Three victims were included in the report, describing sexual abuse from Woodrich in the 1970s and 1980s. Two of the victims were altar servers and the third was a parishioner. Of the nine newly identified priests, Woodrich is accused of committing the most known abuses.

The first victim was abused monthly for six years beginning in 1983 when Woodrich was serving at Denver’s Holy Ghost Parish. The second victim was abused in 1976 and the third victim in 1978.

“Our hearts go out to the victims of past abuse,” the Samaritan House said. “We hope for healing and that a measure of peace will be found through the Archdiocese of Denver and the Colorado Independent Reconciliation and Reparations Program.”

In response to the news about its co-founder, the organization said it will continue its work to try and help those in need in the Denver community.

“(Our) mission will carry on,” the Samaritan House said. “The spirit of charity is as strong as ever.”

Release of abuse allegations reshapes legacy of Denver’s Father Woody

During the last fiscal year, the Samaritan House provided 60,219 nights of shelter for men, women and children experiencing homelessness. It also gave nearly 400,000 meals to shelter participants and children at education centers. In 2019, the Samaritan House housed over 1,400 people.

According to the organization, the Samaritan House supplies nearly 25% of Denver’s shelter housing available to families.

The organization said its ultimate goal is to provide for those experiencing homelessness while helping to assure that they do not face homelessness again.

The Samaritan House provides services to its residents including job assistance, housing referrals, money management and case management. Residents can stay in the shelter for up to four months straight, receiving clothing and toiletries in addition to meals and beds.

Upon completing the Samaritan House program, 92% of single residents and families have income, 64% of single residents have housing and 62% of families have housing.

To prevent affiliation with any other dangerous individuals, the Samaritan House, as part of Catholic Charities of Denver, continues to follow the policies and procedures set by the Archdiocese of Denver.

The Archdiocese of Denver, which has promised to address sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, provided the Attorney General’s Office with full access to 70 years of files concerning the sexual abuse of minors by priests and access to interview victims, priests and witnesses for the report.

The Archdiocese of Denver said in a statement that it has removed the names of all accused priests — including Woodrich — “from any honorary designation including buildings, facilities, and programs.”

Haven of Hope, another Denver homeless shelter founded by Woodrich, has also cut ties, removing all mention of Woodrich from its website and legally changing its name from “Father Woody’s Haven of Hope” in June.

Last year, the Archdiocese of Denver started a reparations fund for victims of sexual assault within the church.

“The damage inflicted upon young people and their families by sexual abuse, especially when it’s committed by a trusted person like a priest, is profound,” said Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila. “And while money can’t heal wounds, it can acknowledge the evil that was done and help restore peace and dignity to the survivors.”

The fund is available online at promise.archden.org/reparations.

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EDMONTON (CANADA)
Grandin Media / Catholic Alberta

December 24, 2020

Archbishop Richard W. Smith has permanently removed the faculties of Rev. Sylvio Lacar and removed him from any public ministry within the Catholic Archdiocese of Edmonton.

The decision to remove Rev. Lacar’s faculties was made because the Catholic Archdiocese of Edmonton has learned that the Archdiocese of Los Angeles identified Rev. Lacar as a priest against whom a credible accusation of sexual abuse of a minor was brought in the 1980s when he was serving in their Archdiocese. Rev. Lacar has denied this allegation, there was no criminal prosecution, but he was included in a group civil settlement.

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Patheos (blog)

December 24, 2020

By Barry Duke

GERMANY’S Karl-Heinz Wiesemann, above, Bishop of Speyer, has revealed for the first time the details of an investigation of abuse carried out at a Catholic children’s home run by nuns who ‘earned money’ by procuring kids for paedophile priests, politicians and wealthy men.

The findings of the investigation, which had been kept under wraps since May, after they were allegedly suppressed, were addressed earlier this month by Wiesemann in an interview with Catholic magazine Der Pilger. He said that “several” abuse allegations had been filed, and revealed that the principle abuser was a now-dead vicar named Rudolf Motzenbäcker.

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PERTH (WESTERN AUSTRALIA)
The Australian

December 26, 2020

By Paige Taylor

A Perth court’s decision to throw out a child sex abuse claim arising from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse has raised questions about the viability of other pending cases.

The District Court of Western Australia has granted a permanent stay on the man’s claim against UnitingCare West and the WA government, meaning it will never be heard unless the man’s legal team can find grounds for appeal.

The accused abuser, a woman, died in 2012. The man came forward at the royal commission to give evidence he was abused repeatedly at a church-run children’s home in Perth in the late 1950s and early 60s. He was about to turn six when his “cottage mother” began abusing him at shower time.

“(The cottage mother) would soap us up and she would force slivers of soap up into our anus,” the accuser said.

“It felt sharp and it hurt. As time passed the size of the soap pieces (she) would push up our rectums became bigger, much bigger and more painful.”

The man’s claim reached the district court because in 2018, in direct response to the royal commission, the McGowan government passed laws allowing child sex abuse survivors to sue institutions in the name of their current office holders. The legislation included provisions to overcome difficulties survivors may face in identifying a proper defendant. Most significantly, the legislation wiped the six year statute of limitations on claims.

The man’s allegations included that the house mother introduced the boy to church men in regional WA and he stayed with them on numerous occasions. He said they gave him pink “medicine” and twice he woke up bleeding from the anus.

The court took into account the allegations were first made in September 2017, more than 50 years after the alleged abuse. The court found UnitingCare West was unable to make a meaningful defence.

“In circumstances where the allegation has never been made whilst (the house mother) was alive, neither (the house mother) nor the defendants had an opportunity to investigate,” the judgment states. “It is practically impossible for the first defendant to have any real opportunity to participate in the hearing, or contest the case or, if appropriate, admit liability.”

Justice Project director George Newhouse said the case was very disturbing “and the victim must be gutted by the decision”.

“No one would argue with the principle that court proceedings need to be fair but, where the allegations of child sexual abuse are serious, a survivor should be entitled to their day in court,” Mr Newhouse said.

“Perpetrators have been known to take their lives when their misconduct is exposed and many perpetrators die of natural causes in the period between the abuse and the commencement of court proceedings.

“I hope this decision doesn’t allow powerful organisations like governments and churches to escape accountability and responsibility for the harm done to children in their care, just because the perpetrator is dead.

“Court proceedings are re-traumatising for the survivors of sexual abuse and I hope that this decision doesn’t have a chilling effect on anyone brave enough to seek justice for being abused as a child.”

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

Church Militant (blog)

December 24, 2020

By Christine Niles

SAINT-MALO, France (ChurchMilitant.com) – A teacher at a Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) school in France stood trial for reportedly abusing 13 children, and victims’ attorneys are blasting the SSPX for enabling the abuse.

French media is reporting that on Nov. 12, “Guillaume A.” — a former soldier — stood trial for multiple counts of sexual assault that took place from 1996–2001 at Sainte-Marie Academy, in Saint-Père-Marc-en-Poulet, near Saint-Malo on the northwestern coast of France.

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

INDIA
TribuneIndia.com

December 25, 2020

Colonial Christianity had ushered in modernity by setting up some of the best schools, colleges, hospitals and charity institutions that India continues to cherish. An independent judiciary, the greatest contribution of the British, had enshrined a value system that had distinct elements of the Christian moral universe in it. Yet, the Church, particularly the Catholic Church, has been in the dock for its un-Christian conduct of standing with rapists and murderers in cassocks than those sinned against — the helpless, meek victims of power and lust. The Jalandhar bishop, Franco Mulakkal, is accused of raping a nun and is facing trial; but that has not stopped the Church from celebrating him in an official calendar issued by a diocese of the Syro-Malabar Church.

Worse, when a CBI court in Kerala this week concluded the trial in a 28-year-old case of murder of a nun and pronounced the verdict of guilty against a priest and a nun, the Church responded claiming that the charges against the priest and nun were “unbelievable”. One of its own was killed and the court, after several hurdles thrown at it by the accused, has delivered its much-delayed judgment, yet all that the Church has to say is that it is unbelievable. Also for the Church, the priest and the nun are still merely the “accused”, not convicts, despite the sentences of double life imprisonment in one case and life imprisonment in another. Instead of hailing the verdict as divine justice to a miserably poor 21-year-old bride of Christ, the Church reaffirms the right of the convicts to appeal against the trial court’s order.

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

OAKLAND (CA)
San Francisco Chronicle

December 24, 2020

By Megan Cassidy

A Catholic priest has been stripped of his position in Oakland following allegations of “boundary violations with an adult man,” according to officials with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Oakland.

The Rev. Jeffrey J. Finley, a member of the Missionaries of the Precious Blood in the Diocese of Oakland, will remain a Catholic priest but “cannot function as a priest in the Diocese of Oakland by celebrating the sacraments,” according to the Catholic Voice, the diocese’s official publication.

Church officials said the alleged violation occurred in 2000 and was reported to the Diocese in September.

The Catholic Diocese of Oakland in 2019 released the names of 45 clergymen and religious brothers they said were “credibly accused” of molesting minors, one of several dioceses to do so amid decades of scandals involving abusive priests and church cover-ups.

However the list still does not include some of the men accused more recently. One of those missing from the list is Father Alex Castillo, who was placed on administrative leave after allegations of sexual misconduct with a minor, and later fled the country.

Church officials said while Finley has not had an official appointment in the diocese in nearly a decade, he has assisted with duties at Our Lady of the Rosary in Union City.

Finley’s previous assignments included St. Edward Parish in Newark from 1990 to2004 and as chaplain at Washington Hospital in Fremont from 2004 to 2011. He had most recently been working as a civilian in the Palliative Care Unit of Washington Hospital, officials said.

The removal came after an internal investigation and at the direction of Bishop Michael Barber. The diocesan Review Board upheld Barber’s decision, officials said.

Finley is at least the fifth Oakland priest to be removed from his post in recent years, according to a review by the advocacy group SNAP, or Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

The group criticized the Diocese of Oakland for its vague description of the allegations and Finley’s work history and called on local or state law enforcement to independently investigate the claims.

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

INDIA
Catholic News Service via Crux

December 23, 2020

BHOPAL, India — More than 28 years after a 19-year-old nun was found dead in a convent well, a court in India’s Kerala state convicted a priest and a woman religious of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church of murdering her.

The special court of the Central Bureau of Investigation, a federal agency, convicted Father Thomas Kottoor and the nun, identified as Sister Sephy, Dec. 22, ucanews.com reported. Sentencing was tentatively scheduled for Dec. 23 pending the results of coronavirus tests of the defendants.

The court found the pair guilty of murdering St. Joseph Sister Abhaya, destroying evidence, and conspiracy, among other charges.

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

UNITED STATES
Patheos (blog)

December 23, 2020

By Captain Cassidy

Hi and welcome back! Recently, we checked out the response of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) to accusations of racism in their leadership ranks. And we discovered that one faction of the SBC’s top leaders have decided to pretend very hard that they want to reform the SBC. It’s a time-honored strategy with them. After all, they adopted the same strategy for dealing with their constant stream of sex-abuse allegations too! Don’t ever believe that any big-name evangelical leaders really want to fix anything. Today, I’ll show you a heartbreaking case in point that illustrates what the SBC really cares about the most.

A Sex-Abuse Narrative Begins to Form.

The SBC has certainly seen a lot of controversy over the past few years. I doubt that we’ve seen everything yet, though. In my opinion, their cultural clout has simply subsided enough to allow their various and numerous victims room — and safety enough — to speak openly about their experiences.

Every single thing I see SBC leaders doing in response to their scandals feels like nothing more than appeasement of their enemies. I strongly suspect these leaders are just doing what they think they must until the flocks calm down and forget about that situation. At that point, everyone just completely forgets what happened. Then, they cruise along until the next giant scandal erupts, at which point they just repeat their whole mind-numbing, thought-stopping charade.

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

UNITED STATES
adamhorowitzlaw.com (law firm blog)

December 21, 2020

This is the story of two US Catholic bishops and a simple word: “transparency.”

One is the just-installed head of the Springfield MA diocese, Bishop Bill Byrne. The other is a New York native who now heads the South Carolina diocese, Bishop Robert Guglielmone.

These two prelates apparently differ radically in their interpretation of the word ‘transparency.’ Both of course have pledged, as has every single Catholic bishop for the last 20 years, to be ‘transparent’ in abuse cases.

Let’s start with Bryne.

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

UNITED KINGDOM
The Tablet

December 17, 2020

By Carina Murphy

Vincent Doyle was 28 when he learned the Catholic priest he knew as a godfather was his biological father. Now, in a book described as “the first of its kind”, he hopes to help others in the same position, and save children like him from lives overshadowed by shame and scandal.

Published this month, Our Fathers, A Phenomenon of Children of Catholic Priests is both an examination of the children born to the ordained and a roadmap to solving the problems they face. It promises shocking stories of hushed up pregnancies, and offers possible solutions such as allowing more married clergy in the Catholic church. Doyle hopes it will “catalyse a conversation and encourage people to come forwards with their stories”.

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

BUFFALO (NY)
The Buffalo News

December 23, 2020

By Jay Tokasz

The Buffalo Diocese, which already is paying six law firms for work in bankruptcy proceedings, is looking to hire another firm to defend against a lawsuit filed by state Attorney General Letitia James in November.

The diocese wants to retain the Jones Day firm as “special counsel” for the lawsuit, which alleges that diocese leaders protected more than two dozen priests accused of child sexual abuse by not referring their cases to the Vatican for potential removal from the priesthood.

Jones Day partners make up to $1,250 per hour and associates make up to $900 per hour, according to court papers filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Western District.

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

INDIA
Deccan Herald

December 23 2020

By Arjun Raghunath, DHNS

The CBI special court in Thiruvananthapuram sentenced priest Thomas M Kottoor for life-term and sister Sephy for life-term in the 28-year old Sister Abhaya murder case of Kerala.

CBI special judge K Sanilkumar, who found the two guilty on Tuesday, pronounced the sentence on Wednesday.

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

CHARLOTTE (NC)
The Charlotte Observer

December 22, 2020

By Michael Gordon

The Charlotte Catholic Church’s sexual-abuse scandal among priests continued to widen Tuesday as another accuser surfaced to say he had been abused by Robert Yurgel, a now-defrocked priest who served almost eight years in prison for assaulting another child at St. Matthew.

According to the lawsuit filed in Mecklenburg County, a California man said Yurgel abused him multiple times at the Ballantyne church when the man was between 5 and 7 years old. The abuse began in July 1997 and lasted about two years, says the accuser’s attorney, Nate Foote of Harrisburg, Pa.

“What Yurgel would do is basically lie to our client and tell him they needed to engage in this behavior as part of confession. That’s how he got him alone,” Foote told the Observer on Tuesday.

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

AUSTRALIA
The Sydney Morning Herald

December 22, 2020

By Chris Vedelago

The Catholic Church’s private insurer spent more than $58 million paying out the victims of sexual abuse last year and the company is being forced to raise fresh capital and liquidate investments to cover a future compensation bill worth at least another $238 million.

Catholic Church Insurance (CCI) has posted nearly a $250 million loss as it struggles to meet a wave of new claims in the wake of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

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

RICHMOND (VA)
CBS19 NEWS

December 23, 2020

A person who accused a former priest of the Catholic Diocese of Richmond of sexual abuse has recanted that accusation.

According to a release from the diocese, the individual had accused retired Father William Dinga, Jr. of child sexual abuse earlier this year.

Now that the accusation has been recanted, Dinga is considered exonerated of wrongdoing.

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

LOS ANGELES (CA)
Yahoo

December 22, 2020

By Andrew Blankstein

Former congresswoman Katie Hill filed suit in Los Angeles Tuesday against her ex-husband and the owners of Redstate.com and the Daily Mail, saying they had distributed “nonconsensual porn” and arguing the media outlets did not have a “carte blanche right” under the First Amendment to “sexually degrade and expose public officials.”

The 41-page lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages for emotional distress and violation of state law for distribution of intimate personal material without Hill’s consent, lists as defendants Salem Media Group Inc., Mail Media, Inc., as well as writer Jennifer Van Laar, the deputy managing editor of Redstate.com whose work also has appeared in the Daily Mail, and Joseph Messina, the host of “The Real Side” Radio Show, as well as other unnamed individuals.

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

NEW ORLEANS (LA)
NOLA.com / The Advocate

December 23, 2020

We knew things had been bad with the Archdiocese of New Orleans’ handling of the case of George Brignac some time ago. But new reporting by Ramon Antonio Vargas of The Times-Picayune | The Advocate and David Hammer of WWL-TV shows that the diocese has — for more than a generation — been negligent at least and intentionally evasive at worst.

Brignac was a Christian Brothers priest in the 1950s and served with St. Paul’s in Covington, De La Salle and Christian Brothers in New Orleans, then Archbishop Rummel in Metairie before being expelled in 1960. A superior cited “obedience difficult,” and it seems that was a polite way of saying the man was not fulfilling his abstinence obligation and his dutiful adherence to support Catholicism’s key tenets.

Catholic priests have different roles, depending on their assignments. Overall, however, they are responsible for church sacraments such as baptisms, confirmations, holy communion, marriage and attending to the sick. That includes pastoral care, which clearly doesn’t involve sexual abuse or sex of any kind, especially not with youth. There were plenty of reasons to know that Brignac had been disloyal to his oath, the church and the faithful.

Still, Archbishop Philip Hannan, with limited or full knowledge, allowed Brignac to return to church service as a deacon. At a later point, when Brignac was being investigated for fondling a seven-year-old boy during a Christmas activity at Our Lady of the Rosary, the diocese seemed to intimidate the boy and his family. With 50 priests sitting behind Brignac during a court hearing, it’s clear that the diocese intended to intimidate the boy and his family. District Attorney Harry Connick dropped charges against Brignac, and Hannan thanked the diocese attorney for “the good news.”

There were child molestation arrests through decades, and it seemed that a fourth arrest in August 2018 might be the one that would put him in jail for his transgressions — based on one man’s recounting that Brignac engaged him with sex activity from the ages of 7 through 11, from 1978 to 1982. Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro was proceeding against Brignac because the first-degree rape charges had no statute of limitation. Then Brignac died in June.

The case died with Brignac.

What remains is the proof that the archdiocese failed the church and faithful Catholics. Children were failed most of all. Those failings have stretched across the tenures of four archbishops, from Hannan to Gregory Aymond.

The archdiocese should acknowledge what happened with Brignac, explain what was done and why and promise to never allow such things to happen again.

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

INDIA
Agence France-Presse via Inquirer.net

December 23, 2020

New Delhi, India — An Indian court on Tuesday convicted a priest and a nun for the ax murder of another convent sister 30 years ago because they feared their illicit relationship would be made public.

Highlighting the latest in a series of sex scandals to hit the Roman Catholic church in the southern state of Kerala, prosecutors said they would seek a tough sentence for Father Thomas Kottoor and Sister Sephy in a hearing on Wednesday.

The murder only came to light after federal investigators were called in because of doubts over local police claims that Sister Abhaya, a member of the Pious X Convent in Kottayam, had committed suicide.

The 18-year-old nun’s body was found in a well in the convent in 1992.

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