ABUSE TRACKER

AUSTRALIA
Australian Associated Press via the West Australian

April 5, 2020

By Karen Sweeney

Deep inside Melbourne’s imposing St Patrick’s Cathedral, two young boys dressed in their choir robes snuck off to swig sacramental wine in the priest’s sacristy.

It was a room forbidden to all but a few – certainly off limits to the likes of the two 13-year-olds who found their way inside after a Sunday Mass.

By some accounts that area is a hive of activity on Sunday mornings, but for six minutes one day in December 1996 the two boys found themselves in there alone with now-Cardinal George Pell.

“He planted himself in the doorway and said something like ‘what are you doing here’ or ‘you’re in trouble’,” one of the boys said of the then-archbishop.

Dressed in his ornamental robes Pell exposed himself and molested one of the boys. He then pleasured himself and raped the other.

Those events are a “product of fantasy” and “absolute rubbish”, Pell told police when confronted with the allegations in Rome four years ago.

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BOGOTA (COLOMBIA)
Agence France Presse via OutlookIndia.com

April 4, 2020

The Catholic Church in Colombia has suspended 15 priests accused of sexual abuse, the archdiocese of the city of Villavicencio said on Friday.

The suspension was “a precautionary measure … because there is an ongoing investigation,” priest Carlos Villabon told AFP.

On February 14 a man, whose name has been withheld, accused the priests of “actions against sexual morality,” according to the statement by the Villavicencio archdiocese.

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AUSTRALIA
The Catholic Weekly

April 4, 2020

By Peter Westmore

The High Court decision on Tuesday morning will be discussed in a livestreamed event at 7.30pm (details below)

Cardinal George Pell’s appeal to the High Court took place on March 11 and 12. The case was heard by a Full Bench of the High Court, which includes all seven justices currently on the court.

Cardinal Pell was not present – he is confined in Barwon Prison, a high-security facility in Victoria.

He was appealing against a 2:1 majority verdict of the Victorian Court of Appeal of last August. It has taken over six months for this matter to reach the High Court of Australia. He was not directly appealing against the original jury verdict, but against the majority verdict of the Court of Appeal.

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The Union Journal

Aril 4, 2020

By Carlos Christian

In May 2019, when Ana Lucía Salazar publicly denounced the Mexican priest Fernando Martínez for having abused her at a Legionaries of Christ school in Cancun, she still did not know that he had also been a victim of abuse. Two months earlier, when Italian justice sentenced former Mexican priest Vladimir Reséndiz for abusing two children, some of his former colleagues from the Legion learned that, before being a victimizer, he had been the victim of abuse. “It is part of the Legion’s methodology: prepare for abuse, abuse yourself and become an accomplice,” says Erick Escobar, a former legionary who left that movement to start a fight against cases of pedophilia.

In late December, the Legion of Christ, one of the most powerful congregations in the Catholic Church, surprised the world when it released a report admitting 175 cases of child abuse within the order founded by the Mexican priest Marcial Maciel in 1941, most of them committed by their own founder and from the very moment of the foundation. However, what was most revealing was not the verification of the vexations that had been denounced by different victims over the course of eight decades, but rather what the report hinted at: that pedophilia within the Legion was not the result of the perversion of some priests, but part of a foundational dynamic that reached all levels and guaranteed spaces of power for those willing to participate or remain silent.

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[The Catholic Church of Colombia suspends 19 priests for sexual abuse]

COLOMBIA
El País

April 3, 2020

By Catalina Oquendo

El arzobispo de Villavicencio asegura que se tratan de actos “deplorables” y de suma gravedad

[Note: The following is Google’s translation of the original Spanish.]

[The Archbishop of Villavicencio assures that these are “deplorable” and extremely serious acts

In 2019, the journalist Juan Pablo Barrientos published the book Let the children come to me, in which he revealed a series of cases of alleged sexual abuse by priests in various regions of Colombia. The book was not only one of the best sellers and suffered censorship attempts by some members of the Catholic Church, but it became the starting point for a news that shook the very religious Colombian society this Friday. A victim read it and took an impulse to denounce other priests. The official complaint reached the Prosecutor’s Office and upon hearing it, the archbishop of the Archdiocese of Villavicencio decided to suspend 19 religious from his clergy.]

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[Catholic Church suspends 19 priests for alleged acts of sexual abuse]

COLOMBIA
Caracol Radio

April 3, 2020

By Juan Pablo Barrientos

Quince de ellos en Villavicencio. El denunciante es ahora un testigo protegido de la Fiscalía.

[Note: The following is a Google Translation from the original Spanish]

[Fifteen of them in Villavicencio. The complainant is now a protected witness for the Prosecutor’s Office.

On March 16, the president of the Episcopal Conference and Archbishop of Villavicencio, Monsignor Óscar Urbina , in an unprecedented act in the Catholic Church of Colombia, suspended 15 priests who, according to a protected witness from the Prosecutor’s Office, formed along with 4 other priests, a network of sexual abusers that operated in Meta, Guaviare, Italy and the United States.

After learning about this publication from Caracol Radio, the Archdiocese of Villavicencio issued a statement in which they assure that “on February 14, 2020, a Colombian citizen, of legal age, brought to the attention of the competent body, facts against the sexual morality of some priests of this Archdiocese ”. The statement continues: “Aware that these acts are extremely serious, the Archdiocese of Villavicencio deplores and feels deep pain at this situation.”]

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HARRISBURG (PA)
CBS21 News

April 2, 2020

The bankruptcy case involving the Harrisburg Diocese continued Thursday.

Attorneys for the diocese and trustees called in for a hearing Thursday morning, where two motions were granted, basically extending the case.

The diocese was allowed to continue using its current cash management system, and a stay until June was approved.

The diocese filed for bankruptcy earlier this year following multiple lawsuits over the clergy sex abuse scandal.

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UNITED STATES
Pew Research Center

April 3, 2020

By Justin Nortey and Claire Gecewicz

Americans’ opinions of Pope Francis have rebounded slightly after hitting an all-time low almost two years ago in the wake of Catholic Church sex abuse scandals, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey.

Six-in-ten U.S. adults say they have a “very” or “mostly” favorable view of Pope Francis, up from roughly half who said this in September of 2018, when the question was last asked. At that time, a Pennsylvania grand jury had just published a report revealing decades of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests, and former cardinal Theodore McCarrick had recently resigned because of separate sex abuse allegations.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
US & WORLD

April 3, 2020

By Richard Szczepanowski

Calling the abuse of children a “spiritual felony,” Washington Archbishop Wilton Gregory offered prayers April 3 for victims of such abuse and prayed that God would “help us respect the dignity of all the young, vulnerable and those who need protection.”

Archbishop Gregory made the prayer during a Mass he celebrated for National Child Abuse Prevention Month in April. The Mass was offered in conjunction with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat for Child and Youth Protection.

While not opened to the public because of shelter-in-place measures to fight the spread of COVID-19, the Mass was streamed live via the Archdiocese of Washington’s Facebook page.

“With so much attention focused on the serious threats to our physical health … we might well acknowledge that the month of April is also dedicated to our commitment to the health, protection and safety of our young people and for the continued healing of the scars of abuse that too many people have suffered in their own childhood,” Archbishop Gregory said.

He said that National Child Abuse Prevention Month “calls our attention to the dangers of sexual, physical, and emotional abusive treatments that youngsters may face.”

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NEW YORK (NY)
Crux

April 3, 2020

By Christopher White

A new study reveals that while American Catholics still overwhelmingly view Pope Francis favorably, he enjoys more support from Catholic Democrats than he does Catholic Republicans.

The new data was released on Friday by the Pew Research Center and found that seven years after his election as pope, six out of ten U.S. adults (or 59 percent) view Francis favorably, with three-quarters of American Catholics (or 77 percent) sharing a positive opinion of the pope.

The latest findings from Pew show Francis faring slightly better than when they last conducted polling on him among Americans in September 2018 when his numbers dipped to an all-time low of 51 percent among U.S. adults and 72 percent among American Catholics.

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HOUSTON (TX)
The Texas Tribune and ProPublica

April 2, 2020

By Kiah Collier, Perla Trevizo and Vianna Davila

COVID-19 has spread rapidly in Texas, and many congregations closed their doors and moved religious services online. But there are some religious groups who say it’s their right to remain open because they believe they provide an essential service to their communities.

This article is co-published with ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for ProPublica’s Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox as soon as they are published.

At least 25 parishioners filed into a beige-brick church here Wednesday evening and were handed rubber gloves at the door. A handwritten sign directed them to designated areas with seats that had been spaced 6 feet apart. Another sign laid out five things people should do to keep from spreading the new strain of coronavirus, including staying away if they felt sick.

The founding pastor of City on a Hill, Juan Bustamante, was in a particularly good mood. A day earlier, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott joined 30-plus other governors around the country in issuing a statewide stay-at-home order — though he declined to refer to it as such — that also designated religious services as essential. Under the order, Texans must stay home unless they work in certain business sectors or are grocery shopping, running must-do errands or exercising outdoors. Or going to church.

Abbott’s order came the same day the country’s top health experts estimated the virus could kill between 100,000 to 240,000 Americans, and that’s assuming people across the country adhere to social distancing guidelines. Otherwise, the numbers could climb much higher, to more than 2 million dead.

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MALAYSIA
The Star

April 2, 2020

By Imran Hilmy

Twenty-four seminarians pleaded guilty at the Magistrate’s Court here to flouting the movement control order (MCO).

All the suspects made the plea when the charges were read separately before Magistrate Rosnee Mohd Radzuan.

They were accused of committing the offence at a field of College General around 5.30pm on March 31.

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UNITED STATES
AdamHorowitzLaw.com

March 30, 2020

During this pandemic, reports of possible child abuse are down and reports of domestic violence are up. Both trends are troubling. You can help make a difference here.

About 70% of all suspected child abuse reports come from teachers, counselors and doctors. As fewer kids see these professionals, fewer reports get made.

Is more child abuse happening now, as families are cooped up together? No one knows. But fewer reports are being called in to state child protection agencies.

That means that some children who would benefit from the intervention of child safety workers aren’t getting attention these days because of the Covid-19 crisis.

But it’s different with domestic violence, advocates say. Partner and spousal abuse IS happening more often now, they believe.

According to NBC News, “as lawmakers across the country order lockdowns to slow the spread of the virus, the lives of people stuck in physically or emotionally abusive relationships have — and will — become harder, which has already been seen in the pandemic hotspots of China and Italy.”

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VICTORIA (AUSTRALIA)
Catholic News Agency via National Catholic Register

April 2, 2020

Cardinal Pell has told friends he remains faithful to God’s providence and committed to living his time in prison in the spirit of a monastic retreat.

The High Court of Australia will hand down its decision in the case of Cardinal George Pell next week. The justices are considering Cardinal Pell’s petition for special leave to appeal his 2018 conviction for sexual abuse.

The court announced Thursday that a decision would be issued by the seven justices in the case Cardinal Pell v. The Crown on April 7 at 10 am. By the time the decision is handed down, the bench will have considered the cardinal’s case for just over three weeks, after hearing two days of arguments in the case last month.

Cardinal Pell is seeking to appeal the 2-1 split decision of the Court of Appeal in Victoria to sustain his 2018 conviction on five counts of child sexual abuse over two separate instances.

The High Court heard arguments from Cardinal Pell’s legal team and from state prosecutors March 11-12, after which the justices reserved judgment.

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Broadcasting+Cable

April 2, 2020

Film looks at lives of those who live and work inside Vatican City

PBS will premiere the documentary Inside the Vatican Tuesday, April 28 at 9 p.m. The film looks behind the scenes into the lives of those who live and work inside the Vatican City, the headquarters of the Roman Catholic church.

Pope Francis, who has lead the Catholic church since 2013, has challenged attitudes on divorce and homosexuality and is not afraid of confronting opponents, the press release stated. He appointed 14 new cardinals from parts of Iraq, Madagascar and Pakistan.

The film also looks at Pope Francis’s visit to Ireland back in August. Just before he was scheduled to depart, a sex scandal was reported alleging the Catholic Church’s cover up of Catholic priests abusing young children. The report accused more than 300 priests of abusing more than 1,000 children.

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LAWRENCE (MA)
Lawrence Eagle Tribune

April 2, 2020

By Paul Tennant

The Rev. William Waters, OSA, has been exonerated of an allegation of abuse, according to a statement from the leader of Augustinian priests in the eastern United States.

The Rev. Peter Gori, OSA, who is also a member of the Order of St. Augustine, was exonerated and returned to ministry earlier this week. Cardinal Sean O’Malley, archbishop of Boston, announced Gori has returned as pastor of St. Augustine Church in Andover.

Waters and Gori were placed on leave last April after a man now in his 40s accused both priests of sexually abusing him in the 1980s. Both the Archdiocese of Boston and the Order of St. Augustine said the accusation against Gori was thoroughly investigated and determined to be unsubstantiated.

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BRISBANE (AUSTRALIA)
Agence France-Presse

April 2, 2020

Australia’s High Court said Thursday it will rule on Cardinal George Pell’s appeal against child sex abuse convictions on April 7, giving the senior cleric another chance to clear his name and leave jail.
The 78-year-old former Vatican treasurer is trying to overturn a six-year sentence for sexually assaulting two 13-year-old choirboys in the 1990s.

Pell, who once helped elect popes, is the highest-ranking Catholic Church official ever convicted of child sex crimes. He maintains his innocence.

Legal experts have struggled to predict the progression of the high-profile case, as it threw up one surprise after another.

Judges could yet deny Pell’s appeal, order a retrial or quash his conviction altogether.

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AUSTRALIA
RNZ

April 2, 2020

The High Court of Australia has announced it will hand down its decision on Cardinal George Pell’s final bid for freedom in Brisbane next week.

Australia’s highest court will deliver its decision at 10:00am on Tuesday, 7 April.

Pell is serving a maximum of six years’ jail after a jury found him guilty of sexually abusing two choirboys in St Patrick’s Cathedral in 1996 when he was Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne.

He was convicted of one count of sexual penetration of a child under 16 and four counts of committing an indecent act with a child.

The former advisor to the Pope maintains he is innocent.

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ATLANTA (GA)
CNN

April 2, 2020

By Ivana Kottasová and Valentina Di Donato

On Sunday, a woman walked into a pharmacy in the French city of Nancy, one of the few public places still open after the government imposed a nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of a dangerous virus.

But the woman wasn’t there for medicine; she was there to tell the pharmacist that her partner had abused her. Soon after, the woman’s spouse was arrested by police.
As the coronavirus pandemic forces countries everywhere to take unprecedented steps to restrict the movement of their citizens, victims of domestic violence have suddenly found themselves trapped at home with their abusive partners. Some are unable — or too afraid — to call the police, experts say.

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SAINT LOUIS (MO)
SNAP Network

March 30, 2020

With 14 years of courageous reporting on Baptist clergy sex abuse and church cover-ups, journalist Bob Allen made a difference in the lives of countless survivors and helped to make church kids throughout the country safer. In response to the announcement of his retirement on March 31, SNAP can only say “thank you.”

Bob Allen was there on the scene in 2006 at the very first SNAP media event outside “the Baptist Vatican” – i.e., the Southern Baptist Convention headquarters in Nashville. From that point forward, day in and day out, his news articles continued to document the Baptist clergy sex abuse scandal and the early activist efforts in the movement for child safety and clergy accountability among Baptists.

He methodically reported the stories of numerous Baptist clergy abuse survivors long before the momentum of the #ChurchToo movement, and at a time when many still mistakenly viewed clergy sex abuse as being limited to a Catholic problem.

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AUSTRALIA
The Courier

April 2, 2020

Disgraced Cardinal George Pell will learn next week whether his final bid for freedom has been successful.

The High Court will hand down its judgment in his case on Tuesday.

His lawyers have argued Victoria’s Court of Appeal majority made an error in refusing the previous appeal bid last year, and that there was not enough evidence for a jury to convict him of the sexual abuse of two choirboys at Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral in 1996.

Pell was convicted by a jury in 2018 on the word of a single choirboy that he was sexually abused as a teenager by Australia’s highest-ranking Catholic.

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AUSTRALIA
AAP

April 1, 2020

By Karen Sweeney

Disgraced Cardinal George Pell will learn next week whether his final bid for freedom has been successful.

The High Court will hand down its judgment in his case in Brisbane on Tuesday morning.

Pell is one year into a six-year jail sentence handed down after a jury found him guilty in 2018 of sexually abusing two 13-year-old choirboys at Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral in 1996.

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NEW YORK (NY)
NY Daily News

April 2, 2020

By Teri Hatcher and Tom Andriola

The one-year look-back window will end this summer for victims of child sexual abuse to sue their abusers. Should New York extent the deadline?
Extended deadline would mean more justice

As children, we were both abused by family members, people close to us, people we trusted. We both eventually spoke out as part of our own healing process and, more importantly, to protect other people, but it took us decades to disclose our abuse even to those closest to us.

The science of trauma is clear: It takes time for survivors to come forward and by the time we’re ready, many of us have lost the chance to pursue justice in the courts. That’s why the one year look-back window of the Child Victims Act is so important. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic just hit pause for thousands of survivors who thought they still had time to file a civil lawsuit.

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TOKYO (JAPAN)
Kyodo News

April 2, 2020

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Japan has found 16 cases of sexual abuse against minors spanning from the 1950s to the 2010s in its internal probe of churches in the country, sources familiar with the matter said Thursday.

The Tokyo-based organization has been investigating all its 16 dioceses and other convents in Japan since last May, calling for people to come forward with reports of sexual abuse regardless of when it occurred.

The investigation found some elementary school students — both boys and girls — as well as a child under the age of 6 were among those who had been subjected to sexual abuse, which took place in a priest’s room, church buildings and other facilities run by convents including foster homes, according to the sources.

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AUSTRALIA
The Telegraph

April 2, 2020

By Giovanni Torre

George Pell said to have abused two children who had lived in the same orphanage in 1970s

New allegations of child abuse against George Pell have been made public for the first time, as the disgraced Australian Cardinal awaits the High Court decision on his appeal against convictions for rape and sexual assault.

Pell, once the most powerful Catholic in Australia, became the church’s most senior official to be convicted of child sexual abuse in 2018 when he was sentenced to six years imprisonment.

On Thursday it was announced the decision in Pell’s High Court appeal would come next week. Earlier that same day, allegations of sexual abuse were publicly levelled against Pell by two men who had lived in the same orphanage in Ballarat, Victoria, as children.

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CANBERRA (AUSTRALIA)
The Australian

April 2, 2020

By John Ferguson

The High Court will hand down its judgment on George Pell’s appeal next Tuesday in what will be his last chance of freedom before having to serve a minimum term of three years and eight months.

The court announced on Thursday the judgment would be delivered in Brisbane, with several scenarios possible including that he walks free from Victoria’s Barwon Prison soon after 10am.

The High Court tweeted its intention to deliver the judgment in arguably the most contentious criminal matter in Australia since Lindy Chamberlain was convicted in 1982 of killing her daughter, ­Azaria, at Uluru.

Pell, 78, has not spoken publicly since he was charged in 2017 with sexually assaulting two choirboys at Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral in 1996 and 1997.

The charges have been stridently contested by the cardinal’s Rolls-Royce legal team, which has included two of Australia’s most respected barristers — Bret Walker SC and Robert Richter QC.

There are several options that could flow from the judgment, including potential early release, or even being referred back to the Victorian Court of Appeal.

However, the court has not yet declared whether it has even accepted the appeal, argument for which was heard last month before the full bench.

Pell was convicted in 2019 of five sex abuse charges against the two 13-year-old choirboys, leading to a six-year jail term.

Pell has maintained his innocence, saying he did not abuse the children in St Patrick’s Cathedral, and is said to have been shocked that the matters progressed past the County Court trials in Melbourne.

Victorian Director of Public Prosecutions Kerri Judd QC had a torrid time in the High Court, shifting the time frame for when the offending could have occurred at the cathedral in 1996.

The original narrative was that it occurred in a window of five to six months, but there has been extensive evidence before the court suggesting this was both impossible and improbable.

The prosecution relied heavily in the County Court and Court of Appeal on the surviving choirboy’s evidence, arguing that he was compelling and a witness of truth. The second choirboy died of a drug overdose several years ago and had denied ever being sexually assaulted.

Pell did not give evidence at trial, instead relying on a video-­recorded police interview in Italy before he was charged.

The full bench was asked last month to acquit Pell, 78, of five charges of molestin­g the two 13-year-olds in 1996 and 1997 while archbishop of Melbourne. Experts have predicted a possible acquittal as Mr Walker effectively asked the full bench to free his client.

Pell is being kept in Barwon Prison, having been transferred from Melbourne’s assessment prison, where he was held in solitary confinement before being shifted amid security concerns.

Unless cleared by the High Court, he will serve a minimum of three years and eight months.

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CANBERRA (AUSTRALIA)
Associated Press

April 2, 2020

By Rod McGurk

Australia’s highest court will deliver its ruling next week on whether to overturn the convictions of Cardinal George Pell, the most senior Catholic convicted of child sex abuse.

The 78-year-old Pell is one year into a six-year sentence for molesting two 13-year-old choirboys in Melbourne’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral while he was the city’s archbishop in the late 1990s.

The High Court said Thursday a single judge will deliver the verdicts of all seven at 10 a.m. Tuesday in the east coast city of Brisbane. It had heard his appeal March 11-12 before the court’s hearings were canceled due to the coronavirus risk.

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ONTONAGON (MI)
Mining Gazette

April 1, 2020

By Garrett Neese

The preliminary hearing for a former Ontonagon County priest accused of molesting several children has been postponed indefinitely because of the reduced court calendar to combat COVID-19.

Gary Jacobs, 74, who now lives in New Mexico, faces 10 counts of criminal sexual conduct in Ontonagon County. All stem from alleged incidents between 1981 and 1984 in which he is said to have abused his position as a priest.

His preliminary hearing had been scheduled for Monday.

Jacobs was charged in January with seven criminal sexual conduct charges in three cases in Ontonagon County and one count of criminal sexual conduct in Dickinson County, all stemming from alleged incidents between 1981 and 1984.

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[The Supreme Court dismissed the complaints of the Christ Society. The precedent verdict on the victim of pedophile priest maintained]

POLAND
Gazeta.pl

March 31, 2020

[GOOGLE TRANSLATION FROM POLISH: The Supreme Court did not accept the appeal lodged by the Christ Society. It upheld the verdict under which the victim of the former priest Roman B. received a million zlotys compensation and a life annuity. B., who belonged to the Society of Christ, was previously sentenced to four years in prison.

Katarzyna, a victim of priest Roman B., who had already imprisoned and raped her as a 13-year-old girl, received the highest compensation in the history of Poland in the case of clerical harassment: PLN 1 million and PLN 800 annuity paid every month. This judgment was issued last year by the Poznań District Court and the Poznań Court of Appeal upheld it.]

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BERLIN (GERMANY)
The Irish Times

April 1, 2020

By Derek Scally

Supreme court ruling gives clear signal to survivors and religious for future cases

Poland’s Catholic Church is facing a tidal wave of compensation bills after the country’s highest court ruled it is liable for damages for people abused by its priests and religious.

The supreme court dismissed a challenge by a religious order, the Society of Christ Fathers, to a lower court ruling that it carried ultimate responsibility for compensating a woman abused by one of its priests.

In the lower court the woman, identified only as Kasia, was awarded one million zloty (€220,000) – which the order has already paid before launching a final legal challenge.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic Standard

April 1, 2020

By Richard Szczepanowski

Washington Archbishop Wilton Gregory will celebrate Mass April 3 at noon to mark April as National Child Abuse Prevention Month.

While not opened to the public, the Mass will be live streamed on the Archdiocese of Washington’s Facebook page. (https://www.facebook.com/adw.org/) The direct link to the video is: https://www.facebook.com/adw.org/posts/3245631122121772.

Offered in conjunction with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat for Child and Youth Protection, the Mass was originally scheduled to be offered in the chapel at the conference’s headquarters. But as Catholic agencies have closed their doors in an effort to contain the spread of COVID-19, Archbishop Gregory will offer the Mass from his private chapel.

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ARLINGTON (VA)
Ms. Magazine

April 1, 2020

By Ashley Garling

This month, communities across the country are gathering at local ‘Take Back the Night’ events in observance and support of those impacted by sexual violence. In the last year—as news broke about Baptist church leaders abusing children and the Pope acknowledged nuns were being abused by church leaders—sexual violence facing children proved to be an international crisis. Investigations of both found the majority of the crimes had been long standing and some even continued for decades, but little is said about support for the victims.

This silence is dangerous. Without access to healthcare, support from loved ones and support from the community, it can lead to serious mental health consequences.

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SPINDALE (NC)
WUNC

April 1, 2020

By Katy Barron & Anita Rao

In this March 2, 1995 file photo, Word of Faith Fellowship church leader Jane Whaley talks to members of the media as husband Sam listens during a news conference in Spindale, N.C. Whaley has persuaded a magistrate to issue trespassing charges against Democratic candidate David Wheeler, who brought supporters and a TV crew along to a scheduled meeting at the church. Wheeler says he was invited by Whaley to visit the church, which has been accused of beating congregants to expel demons.

When former schoolteacher Jane Whaley and her husband, Sam, founded Word of Faith Fellowship in Spindale, NC in 1979, no one could have imagined all that the institution would become: a religious movement with global impact; a community that provides housing and job opportunities to its congregation; and a cult dogged with allegations of physical, psychological and spiritual 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.

AUSTRALIA
ABC

April 1, 2020

By Sarah Ferguson

For decades, 53-year-old Bernie* kept the secrets of his childhood deeply buried.

As a boy growing up in a Ballarat orphanage in the 1970s, Bernie told the ABC’s Revelation program that he was abused on multiple occasions by George Pell, then a priest in the diocese of Ballarat.

For years Bernie was convinced that if he reported the abuse, he would not be believed.

“I would hear Pell’s become Bishop,” Bernie says.

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RESTON (VA)
CNSNews

April 1, 2020

By Bill Donohue

In 1987, Raymond Donovan, former Secretary of Labor under President Ronald Reagan, was acquitted of charges that he conspired with the mafia for a business transaction. When he walked out of court a free man, he was asked by the media how he felt. He famously quipped, “Which office do I go to to get my reputation back?”

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic Standard

April 1, 2020

(The following is the text of the annual report from the Archdiocese of Washington’s Child Protection Advisory Board for July 1, 2018 through June 30, 2019.)

The Archdiocese of Washington’s Child Protection & Safe Environment Office continues to expand its mission to create and implement effective programs and initiatives to educate and empower community members on the issues of child protection and safe environment. The office’s priority is to provide the most current information to ensure and promote the safety and well-being of all community members while in the presence of the Catholic faith. Some important aspects of the office:

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AUSTRALIA
Eternity News

April 1, 2020

By Chrissie Foster

The second episode of ABC’s Revelation series last night followed reporter Sarah Ferguson into the maximum security prison where Bernard McGrath, a prolific pedophile, is incarcerated. “In a tense exchange, McGrath moves between denial and revelation about the complicity of the Church in his crimes,” the program summary says.

Chrissie Foster, whose daughters Emma and Katie were raped by Melbourne priest Kevin O’Donnell while they were at primary school in the 1980s, has become a advocate for survivors of clergy sexual abuse.

This is her response to episode two of “Revelation.”

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HOT SPRINGS (AR)
BP

March 31, 2020

By Diana Chandler

The Arkansas Baptist State Convention (ABSC), Millcreek Baptist Church and other defendants have denied allegations and filed motions to dismiss a 2019 lawsuit accusing them of liability in alleged multiple sexual assaults of a minor.

The defendants responded to a lawsuit filed in December 2019 accusing former Millcreek pastor Teddy Hill Jr. of sexually assaulting Riley Fields over a period of years. Fields, now 19, alleges the sexual assaults began in 2014 and continued after Hill was appointed as Field’s guardian in 2016, according to court documents filed in the Ninth Circuit Court of Pulaski County, Ark. Fields originally identified himself as John Doe, but revealed his name in an amended complaint in January.

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.

ALLENTOWN (PA)
Morning Call

March 31, 2020

By Peter Hall

An Allentown Diocese priest raped a victim when he was an altar boy and continued assaulting him for decades after the priest became known to diocese officials as a pedophile, a lawsuit filed in New Jersey alleges.

The suit claims the Rev. Robert G. Cofenas began abusing the victim, who is identified by the pseudonym John Doe, when he was a 7-year-old altar boy at Holy Rosary Roman Catholic Church in Reading. The abuse continued until the victim was in his 30s.

The suit alleges Cofenas identified the victim to other priests as a source of sexual gratification and names two who also allegedly assaulted the victim, including an Allentown Diocese priest who has never been publicly accused.

Cofenas was first identified as an accused priest in the statewide grand jury report on abuse in the church, released in August 2018. The report, produced after a two-year grand jury investigation, identified more than 300 Pennsylvania clergy in six dioceses, including Allentown, as abusers.

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Ending Clergy Abuse (ECAGlobal.org)

March 2, 2020

His Holiness, Pope Francis,
Apostolic Palace,
00120 Vatican City.

Dear Pope Francis,

Our organization led the largest international gathering of clergy sexual abuse victims and activists in Rome in February 2019 and 2020. Our conduct was peaceful and our message clear: Zero Tolerance.

Last month, during the first anniversary of your global summit on abuse we returned to Rome to deliver a report on the developments over the past year from around the world. Our presence was not acknowledged and no one from the Vatican or Church leadership approached us. This was in sharp contrast to last year when we were invited to meet with your planning group before the Summit and Cardinals dropped in to visit with us during the Summit for informal exchanges.

We came this year with the expectation of engagement with you or your representatives and to give you our assessment of the past year. We were met with indifference and silence. We were promised in our meeting with the planning group of the summit last year that there would be follow-up and dialogue with us. To date, there has been none.

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BOSTON (MA)
Archdiocese of Boston

March 30, 2020

Reinstated as Pastor of St. Augustine Parish in Andover

The Archdiocese of Boston announced today that Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley, OFM Cap, has returned Rev. Peter Gori, OSA., to active ministry. In addition, he has reinstated Rev. Gori as Pastor of St. Augustine Parish in Andover, MA.

This follows the completion of a thorough and independent investigation of the facts and circumstances surrounding an allegation of abuse over 25 years ago. The investigation finding is that the allegation is unsubstantiated. Rev. Gori will return to the parish by Palm Sunday.

The Augustinian Order relied upon an independent investigator, Praesidium Inc., and their Independent Review Board in concluding the allegation could not be substantiated. During the investigation, the attorney for the alleged victim withdrew from the case. It was subsequently determined that the alleged dates of abuse did not coincide with Rev. Gori’s assignment history. The alleged victim could not recall details of the abuse and declined to participate any further in the investigation. In addition, the Essex County District Attorney affirmed that it was no longer pursuing an open investigation.

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UNITED STATES
AdamHorowitzLaw.com (law firm blog)

March 31, 2020

The momentum has shifted from the selfish wrongdoers to the selfless innocent, from the secret-keepers to the openness advocates, from those who ignore common sense and psychology to those who understand common sense and psychology and from those who want to protect institutions and companies to those who want to protect kids and vulnerable adults.

That’s why 2019 was a banner year for removing these out-of-date deadlines that stop victims from exposing those who commit and conceal sexual abuse in court.

And in response to this long-overdue trend toward justice, self-serving lobbyists who are pro-arbitrary deadline, pro-secrecy and anti-victim are becoming ever-more-creative in dreaming up outlandish ‘the sky will fall!’ claims.

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ANDOVER (MA)
Eagle Tribune

March 31, 2020

By Paul Tennant

Gori reinstated at St. Augustine

The Rev. Peter Gori has been reinstated as pastor of St. Augustine Church, the Archdiocese of Boston announced Monday.

He is expected to resume his duties by Sunday – which is Palm Sunday – according to Cardinal Sean O’Malley, archbishop of Boston.

Gori, a member of the Order of St. Augustine since 1973, was placed on administrative leave in April 2019 after a man, now in his 40s, claimed that he and another priest, the Rev. William Waters, sexually abused him more than 30 years ago.

“I assure you, as I assured the provincial, that the accusation is false,” Gori wrote in a letter to parishioners when the allegation surfaced. The provincial, the regional leader of Augustinian priests in the eastern U.S., had informed Gori of the accusation.

The Augustinian order relied on an independent investigator, Praesidium Inc., as well as the order’s independent review board in concluding the allegation could not be substantiated, according to a press release issued by the Archdiocese of Boston.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
CNA

March 31, 2020

By Matt Hadro

As dioceses across the country work to scale back payrolls, one lawyer who works with religious institutions says that new federal policies that could pay for employee leave and provide emergency loans to non-profits.

As Catholic dioceses and parishes begin to cut staff during the coronavirus pandemic, they could be eligible for unprecedented federal relief to keep their employees on their payrolls.

Bishops across the United States have suspended public liturgies and closed church buildings in response to state-issued public safety policies, and Catholic leaders have warned of an immediate revenue shortfall. Consequences of that shortfall include staff reductions, furloughs, and decreased hours.

The Diocese of Buffalo, which had already declared bankruptcy last year and announced plans for a reorganization, said on March 19 that it was “accelerating” the reorganization process for its Catholic Center. In all, 21 positions are being eliminated and three more positions moved from full-time to part-time staff.

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ANDOVER (MA)
The Associated Press

March 31, 2020

The pastor of a Roman Catholic church in Massachusetts who was accused of sexually abusing a minor over 30 years ago has been reinstated.

The pastor of a Roman Catholic church in Massachusetts who was accused of sexually abusing a minor over 30 years ago has been reinstated.

The Rev. Peter Gori is expected to resume his duties at St. Augustine’s Church in Andover by the end of the week, the Archdiocese of Boston announced Monday.

Gori was placed on administrative leave in April 2019 after a man, now in his 40s, claimed that he and another priest, the Rev. Williams Waters, sexually abused him.

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WINONA LAKE (IN)
WNDU

March 30, 2020

By Carli Luca

A reform school in Kosciusko County, facing allegations of neglect and abuse from former students, has closed.

The school has confirmed that they’ve closed permanently. This comes after a 16 news now investigation just over a month ago.

Hephzibah House sent a letter to their supporters saying they sent their last student away and that the closure came after their insurance carrier dropped them.

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IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

March 31 2020

By Rebecca Black, PA

Payments will be made to those who suffered harm when they were in homes run by the church and state.

The opening of applications for a compensation scheme for survivors of historical institutional abuse has been welcomed.

A planned public event for the launch was cancelled due to the Covid-19 crisis.

However the opening of the application process for the Historical Institutional Abuse Redress Board was announced by Northern Ireland’s First and Deputy First Ministers.

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CAROL STREAM (IL)
Christianity Today

March 30, 2020

By Megan Fowler and Kate Shellnutt

Besides budget approvals, most denominational business can be rescheduled.

Major conferences held by the two largest Protestant denominations in the country have joined the long list of events canceled by coronavirus.

Last week, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) called off its annual meeting scheduled for June 9-10, its first cancellation since World War II 75 years ago. The week before, the United Methodist Church (UMC) announced it would have to push back its quadrennial General Conference another year after its venue, the Minnesota Convention Center, canceled events through mid-May.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Gruntstuff

March 31, 2020

By Donna Miller

A globe-trotting Jesuit priest with ties to Mom Teresa sexually abused an American boy “greater than 1,000 times, in a number of states and international locations,” a lawsuit filed Monday in California state court docket in San Francisco alleges.

In the lawsuit and in interviews with The Related Press, Robert J. Goldberg, now 61, describes years of psychological management and sexual abuse he suffered from age 11 into maturity whereas working as a valet for the late Rev. Donald J. McGuire.

McGuire died in federal jail in 2017 whereas serving a 25-year sentence for molesting different boys who got here underneath his sway.

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UNITED STATES
AdamHorowitzLaw.com (law firm blog)

March 30, 2020

Many stories in the media about sexual abuse leave us sometimes shaking our heads. From time to time on this blog, we’ll mention some of those stories under the headline “How come?”

—A Texas man pleaded guilty to child sex crimes back in the 1990s when he worked for the Pioneer Drive Baptist Church in Abilene.

According to news accounts, Jeff Berry “has been sentenced to ten years probation, a $2,000 fine, 180 days in jail, and “has to turn himself in on or before September 20.”

https://sanangelolive.com/news/crime/2020-03-20/former-church-worker-pleads-guilty-lewd-acts-minor

Six months? That’s a long delay, especially for an admitted abuser. How come?

— A California megachurch recently put its pastor on leave after learning he let a volunteer who admitted an “unwanted thought pattern of attraction to minors” to keep working with kids for about a year and a half.

Rev. John Ortberg admits he “offered prayers and referrals for counseling” to the volunteer but didn’t consult anyone else at the church – about the situation.

But officials at Menlo Church re-instated Ortberg three months later.

https://www.almanacnews.com/news/2020/02/28/menlo-park-pastor-placed-on-leave-for-poor-judgment-to-return-to-the-pulpit

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HOUSTON (TX)
Houston Chronicle

March 30, 2020

By Robert Downen

Sexual abuse survivors this week called on Southern Baptist leaders to commit to sustained action on abuse reforms despite the faith group not meeting this year because of COVID-19.

They hope that leaders such as SBC President J.D. Greear, who will now have a third term as president because the faith group’s annual meeting was canceled, will push for more robust policies on abuse.

This year’s meeting would have been the second since the publication of Abuse of Faith, a Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News investigation that found hundreds of Southern Baptist pastors and church leaders had been convicted of sexual abuses in the last 20 years. They left behind more than 700 victims, nearly all of them children.
All the stories, all the time

Rachael Denhollander, who has been advising leaders on abuse policies, said she hopes Greear uses his platform to push back against those who’ve been complacent or, in some cases, hostile to reforms.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
Carmel Communications

March 24, 2020

Joan Sheen Cunningham writes about her unique relationship with her beloved uncle in new book

The whole world got to see Bishop Fulton Sheen on their televisions and hear him on their radios, but what was he like when he wasn’t in the public eye? His closest living relative and niece, Joan Sheen Cunningham, writes in her book, MY UNCLE FULTON SHEEN, a compelling story of how he became her second father and reveals both amusing and serious attributes about Sheen that only more deeply show his path to sainthood is well-deserved.

Sheen was to be beautified in Peoria, Illinois, on Dec. 21, 2019, but the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops postponed it on Dec. 2, per the request of Bishop Salvatore Matano of Rochester, due to concerns that Sheen could be cited in the New York attorney general’s ongoing investigation into whether any of the state’s eight Roman Catholic dioceses had covered up acts or allegations of clerical sexual abuse.

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Film Daily

March 30, 2020

When your Netflix queue runs dry, ‘The Keepers’ and other content may provide you just the true crime to bingewatch next.

We get it, truly. You’ve rewatched Making a Murderer and the Aaron Hernandez docuseries too many times. You’ve cleaned the house on all the Dateline episodes available. You even binged American Vandal because you were desperate for something that felt like a true crime docuseries.

But trust us, you probably still haven’t dug to the bottom of the barrel yet. Just when you think you’re out of content, Netflix comes by with its big sack of originals, dropping true crime shows out the wazoo. So when your Netflix queue has run dry, turn to these films and series to get your true crime fix. …

***

The Keepers

The beloved Sister Cathy Cesnik met her untimely end in 1969. But The Keepers says that Cesnik met the Angel of Death in a coverup against Priest A. Joseph Maskell and the sexual abuse charges against him. Releasing shortly after the award winning Spotlight, The Keepers takes a close look at just one case of sexual abuse in a large web of problems with the Catholic church.

With an investigation led by former students of Sister Cathy’s, The Keepers not only dives into the circumstances around the murder, but the long-standing claims of sexual abuse at the hands of Maskell. The truth of Sister Cathy’s murder is out there, and The Keepers gets one step closer.

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Internewscast.com

March 31, 2020

It’s no secret that true crime is having a moment RN. Seriously, it seems like there’s always a new true crime documentary, TV show, podcast, or book (remember those?) to get completely lost in. And by “completely lost,” I’m talking about going down hours-long rabbit holes into articles, Reddit threads, and any other details you can find wedged into the random corners of the internet. …

***
The Keepers

Who killed Sister Cathy? The case still isn’t all-the-way cracked, but the search for the nun’s murderer upturned years of shocking clergy abuse and a massive cover-up from both the church and local authorities. Hearing what harm was done to young girls in a supposed safe space will make your stomach turn. The doc centres on two women acting as amateur detectives, in an effort to keep Sister Cathy’s story and compassion alive.

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BAKERSFIELD (CA)
The Bakersfield Californian

March 30, 2020

By Stacey Shepard

In the midst of a virus pandemic that has shuttered schools and workplaces and is creating financial and job-related stress for families, some social workers have another concern on their mind: child abuse and neglect.

An average of 41 Kern County kids a day were referred to Child Protective Services in 2018, and most of those referrals come from teachers, doctors and counselors, mandated reporters and people whose jobs involve interacting with children on a daily basis, according to Tom Corson, the director of Kern County Network for Children. On average, eight of the calls were substantiated neglect, he said.

“My fear right now is nobody has eyes on these kids,” Corson said.

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NEW SOUTH WALES (AUSTRALIA)
AAP

March 30, 2020

By Heather McNab

A Christian minister has labelled the national redress scheme for survivors of institutional child sexual abuse as a “get-out-of-jail-free card” for churches.

Pastor Bob Cotton has called for churches to be stripped of their tax-free status if they are not willing to accommodate their abuse victims.

The senior pastor at Maitland Christian Church in NSW says the redress scheme’s compensation cap of $150,000 is far too low and “everything is weighted far too heavily in the favour of the church”.

“To me, the redress scheme is almost a ‘get-out-of-jail-free card’ for the church,” Pastor Cotton told a federal parliamentary committee via teleconference on Monday.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Northeast News

March 30, 2020

By Elizabeth Orosco

The Department of Social Services (DSS) has seen a 50 percent drop in Child Abuse and Neglect Hotline calls since March 11, 2020, roughly the same time schools began going on spring break and students have not returned due to COVID-19 shutdowns.

This drop, representatives believe, is due to the lack of reports from teachers as students are out of school.

Teachers, educators, child care providers, and other professions are mandated reporters and are required to report suspected child abuse. Educators and child care providers make the largest number of hotline calls during the year.

In a recent release, Jennifer Tidball, acting director for the Department of Social Services said they are “often our state’s best radar on a child’s well-being because children are in school or at child care each day.”

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WILKES-BARRE (PA)
Wilkes Barre Times Leader

March 29, 2020

By Kevin Carroll

The pastor of a Catholic church in Luzerne County has stepped down from his post amid sexual abuse allegations.

A statement released by the Diocese of Scranton outlined multiple accusations against the Rev. James J. Walsh, pastor at St. Maria Goretti Parish in Laflin.

Walsh, while denying the accusations leveled at him, resigned as pastor in lieu of being removed by Bishop Joseph Bambera.

“On Wednesday, March 6, 2019, the Diocese of Scranton received an allegation of sexual assault involving Father James J. Walsh, pastor of Saint Maria Goretti Parish, Laflin. Upon receipt of this allegation, the Diocese immediately notified the Lackawanna County District Attorney’s Office,” reads the statement.

The initial accusation against Walsh was made regarding an alleged incident that took place in 1979, while Walsh was serving as an assistant pastor at the Church of Saint Gregory in Clarks Green, Lackawanna County.

The accuser was an adult at the time of the alleged assault.

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AUSTRALIA
BigNewsNetwork.com

March 30, 2020

By Chris Friel

Cardinal George Pell’s accuser claimed to be familiar with the layout of a renovated sacristy and this fact means we have a crucial experiment for the truth of his claims. This important insight has not been apprehended even by those who have studied the affair most closely.

That’s an astonishing claim that I hope to make plausible by examining the rulings in the intermediate court. However, the point I want to make here is that only if we understand this point will we have a clue as to why the jury made its perverse judgement in finding Pell guilty of the crimes alleged against him. There are three claims here and I will take them in turn beginning with the idea of a crucial experiment.

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OKLAHOMA
The Oklahoman

March 28, 2020

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops recently established a third-party system for reporting and assessing allegations of misconduct and sexual abuse of minors made against current and retired bishops.

The new Catholic Bishop Abuse Reporting service, launched March 16, is operated by Convercent Inc., an independent, third-party entity that provides intake services to private institutions for reports of sensitive topics such as sexual harassment through a secure, confidential and professional platform, according to an Archdiocese of Oklahoma City news release.

Individuals may make a report by calling 800-276-1562 or by going to reportbishopabuse.org.

The Catholic Bishop Abuse Reporting service (CBAR) is for reporting allegations of sexual abuse involving bishops only. The archdiocese of Oklahoma City has an Abuse of Minors Pastoral Response hotline at 720-9878 to report sexual misconduct by anyone in diocesan ministry who is not a bishop — such as priests, deacons, religious brothers and sisters or lay persons working or volunteering for the Church.

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UNITED STATES
Bloomberg Law

March 30, 2020

By Michael L. Zigelman and Rita Y. Wang, attorneys with Kaufman Dolowich & Voluck

States retroactively enlarging the civil statute of limitations in child sexual abuse cases effectively increase insurers’ exposure beyond what they initially agreed to assume, Kaufman Dolowich & Voluck LLP attorneys say. The impact could be severe for insureds with substantial exposure to these claims, like the Boy Scouts, Catholic dioceses, daycare centers, and other facilities that oversaw operations involving minors.

Boy Scouts of America filed for voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy Feb. 28 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, citing an influx of childhood sexual abuse lawsuits—indeed hundreds have been filed to date in various federal and state courts, with well over a thousand more anticipated.

The direct factor contributing to the sudden increase of these lawsuits is legislation recently enacted by many states allowing previously time-barred child sexual abuse claims to go forward, i.e., revival statutes, usually entitled “Child Victims Act.”

In 2019, 14 jurisdictions alone amended their civil statute of limitations (SOL) for child sexual abuse claims. Among which, eight jurisdictions enacted revival statutes allowing previously time-barred claims: New York, the District of Columbia, Montana, New Jersey, Arizona, Vermont, Rhode Island, and North Carolina.

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MALTA
MaltaToday.com

March 29, 2020

By Matthew Agius

Court of Appeal confirms damages claim by victims of the St Joseph Home clerical sex abuse is time-barred

More disappointment for the victims of the St Joseph Home clerical sex abuse, as the Court of Appeal confirmed that their case was time-barred.

Chief Justice Joseph Azzopardi, Mr Justice Tonio Mallia and Madam Justice Miriam Hayman, in a decision handed down on Friday, upheld a judgment of the First Hall Civil Court, ruling the claim to be time-barred.

Lawrence Grech, together with ten others, had filed a case for damages against two priests, the St Paul’s Missionary Society, the Archdiocese of Malta, and the government in 2013.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

March 27, 2020

By Alexandra Kukulka

https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/ct-ptb-hyles-lawsuit-st-0329-20200327-qhcr4b7utbbatna2io7e2j7j5q-story.html

Sitting in her apartment in Highland, Joy Ryder looks back on two years of alleged sexual abuse at the hands of her youth pastor and said it made her reevaluate her relationship with God and religion.

“I never lost my faith in God,” Ryder said. “I’m not about religion, but more of a relationship with Christ.”

Ryder recently filed a lawsuit against the estate of Jack Hyles, his son David Hyles, Hyles-Anderson College and First Baptist Church of Hammond alleging that David Hyles raped, sexually assaulted and sexually abused her and that church leadership covered it up in the late 1970s.

“You aren’t special, he does that with everyone,” Ryder said Jack Hyles, the then-lead pastor of First Baptist Church of Hammond, told her.

Ryder, then 14, recalled that was Jack Hyles’ response when she approached him to tell him that a senior-ranking member of the church — his son — was abusing her.

“He is probably the most cruel, and cunning person I’ve ever known in my life, and I don’t say that easily,” Ryder, now 57, said of David Hyles. “He knew exactly what he was doing.”

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KEW EAST (VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA)
News Weekly – National Civic Council

March 28, 2020; publication date April 4, 2020

By Peter Westmore

The hope is that the High Court justices will set upright a distortion of justice.

Cardinal George Pell’s appeal to the High Court took place on March 11 and 12. The case was heard by a Full Bench of the High Court, which includes all seven justices currently on the court.

Cardinal Pell was not present – he is confined in Barwon Prison, a high-security facility in Victoria.

He was appealing against a 2:1 majority verdict of the Victorian Court of Appeal of last August. It has taken over six months for this matter to reach the High Court of Australia. He was not directly appealing against the original jury verdict, but against the majority verdict of the Court of Appeal.

His case rested on two propositions:

1. The majority in the Court of Appeal erred in their assertion that the complainant was so credible that Cardinal Pell had to establish that the offending was impossible. In other words, that Cardinal Pell was required to prove his innocence, rather than the prosecution proving his guilt.

2. The majority of the Court of Appeal erred in finding that the jury verdicts were not unreasonable, in light of all the evidence contradicting it.

One day was given to Cardinal Pell’s barrister, Bret Walker SC, to put Cardinal Pell’s case. The second day was given to the Director of Public Prosecutions in Victoria, represented by Crown prosecutor Kerri Judd SC, to support the decision of the Court of Appeal.

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.

BELFAST (NORTHERN IRELAND)
Belfast Telegraph

March 26, 2020

By Rebecca Black

Jon McCourt said a virtual launch can deliver progress on the much-delayed scheme without the need for people to attend.

A compensation scheme for survivors of historical abuse must be launched as scheduled next week despite the coronavirus lockdown, a campaigner has said.

Jon McCourt, of the group Survivors North West, said a virtual launch could deliver progress for victims without compromising safety with a public gathering.

Victims have already endured long delays in their campaign for recognition and compensation.

Paying compensation to those who suffered harm when they were in homes run by the church and state was among recommendations from the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) public inquiry in 2016.

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

March 26, 2020

In February, the Diocese of Richmond quietly announced a compensation program for survivors. Their program has an incredibly short registration window, barely lasting two months. Now, in light of coronavirus concerns that have paralyzed a nation, we are calling on Catholic officials in Richmond to extend the deadline for their compensation program and make efforts to ensure that survivors of clergy abuse are aware of the program’s existence.

Richmond’s compensation program is currently set to close on April 3, less than two months after it was announced on February 17. This already-short window for survivors to learn about the program and make a decision on participation is made all the worse now that Coronavirus is rewriting daily routines and lives. We believe that the right thing to do in this case is for church leaders in Richmond to extend the deadline for participation in the program for an six months.

If Catholic officials in Richmond truly care about the suffering that survivors have gone through, they would take steps to ensure that victims are adequately recognized and compensated. Instead, they have very quietly announced a program with a narrow participation window, a move that seems more about being able to say “see, we did something” than to actually help survivors heal. Jesus did not tell his followers “I will heal you, but only if you come to me for help by a certain time.”

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TAMPA (FL)
Legal Examiner – Law Firm Blog

March 27, 2020

Sexual assault is a serious crime than can have significant effects on a victim’s physical, mental, and psychological well-being. Understanding your rights as a sexual assault survivor and knowing what to do in the aftermath of assault can be a confusing and scary process.

It’s common for victims of sexual assault to have difficulty processing what’s happened, feel reluctant to identify the incident as assault, and be fearful of reporting the incident to authorities and reaching out for support.

An additional barrier sexual assault victims can face is the differences in how sexual assault is defined and handled on a state-by-state basis. Sexual assault laws in Michigan, for instance, differ from those in some other states. If you live in Michigan, it might be helpful to know how your state defines and charges various forms of sexual assault cases under state law.

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GREENSBURG (IN)
Daily News

March 25, 2020

By Lacey Watt

Indianapolis – Legislation that allows rape victims extra time to seek justice against their assailants represents progress, even if it falls short, says the state senator who pushed for the reforms in the 2020 session of the General Assembly.

“I’m pleased to have made some progress being made,” Sen. Michael Crider, R-Greenfield, said. “It’s another opportunity for victims to hopefully find justice, and while it’s not a complete elimination of the statute of limitations, it does give detectives a reason to speak with the accused, and see if they can get a confession or find evidence.”

Crider’s bill, Senate Enrolled Act 109, was among dozens of bills Gov. Eric Holcomb has signed into law since the end of the legislative session. Three of the bills, including SEA 109, affect the criminal justice system. The others SEA 146, which allows assault victims to get emotional support, and SEA 216, which protects the personal information of people working in the criminal justice system.

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QUINCY (MA)
Patriot Ledger

March 26, 2020

By Joe DiFazio

Boston – The state Supreme Judicial Court has reinstated four child rape indictments against former Milton Academy teacher Reynold Buono.

The state’s highest court on Thursday partially reversed a decision by Norfolk County Superior Court Judge Thomas Connors, who last year dismissed six rape charges against Buono, who is accused of sexually assaulting a student in the 1980s.

The dismissal hinged on questions of whether prosecutors had presented enough corroborating evidence to a grand jury, evidence required by law because the alleged child rape happened more than 27 years ago, and whether, because Buono had moved to Thailand, that 27-year requirement had paused when he left.

Buono’s alleged victim, 53-year-old Jamie Forbes, who now lives in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, said he was pleased by the decision.

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MINNEAPOLIS (MN)
Star Tribune

March 28, 2020

By Briana Bierschbach

Former Pine County Sheriff’s Office clerk is now the face behind a bill to mandate that the BCA investigate allegations of sexual assault by officers.

Elisabeth Samson Lee sat alone in her office one quiet afternoon stuffing envelopes when a co-worker came up behind her, reached into her lap and rubbed his fingers across her crotch before grabbing an envelope.

Horrified, she shot up and pushed her way past the man, who was blocking her cubicle. She then asked to file a police report.

Samson Lee was in the right place: She was a records clerk working for the Pine County sheriff, and the assailant was a sergeant. The same sergeant had grabbed her from behind three weeks earlier, an incident she also reported to her supervisors. Her superiors assured her he would be reprimanded. A report wouldn’t be necessary.

“It’s not like I was going to the newspaper or something,” Samson Lee said. “I was just telling the people around me, watch out for me, protect me, I don’t feel safe here.”

After a long battle with law enforcement agencies and the courts, Samson Lee, a 54-year-old single mother of two, is now the face behind a bill to mandate that allegations of sexual assault by police officers be investigated by the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the statewide law enforcement agency.

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DETROIT (MI)
Detroit News

March 28, 2020

By Kim Kozlowski

The University of Michigan says it will issue a “non-privileged report” from a new law firm it has engaged to investigate claims of sexual abuse regarding the late Dr. Robert E. Anderson — a move that produced pushback from advocates for the late doctor’s accusers.

The investigation will be conducted by WilmerHale under attorney-client privilege to protect the confidentiality of all sexual misconduct survivors and witnesses, the university said, but the findings will be released to the public and the university at the same time.

Regent Ron Weiser — the board chair who recently came forward with his story of abuse by Anderson — said during a phone interview that the attorneys working on the investigation are top-notch, trained investigators and will be reporting to the regents, who work for the public, not administrators who work for the school.

He emphasized that the report that will be prepared for the public will not include names of those who come forward, since not everyone wants to be public about a sexual abuse claim.

Weiser said the report will be released to the public at the same time as the regents get it, and that the board will not see it before the public.

“This is the most transparent report anybody is going to have,” he said. “No one is going to have any influence over what it says.”

But UM’s decision stunned many who are advocating for alleged victims of Anderson, who served as the head of University Health Service and the team physician for the Athletic Department from 1968-2003. He died in 2008.​​​​​​

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BIRKIRKARA (MALTA)
Times of Malta

March 29, 2020

Request for compensation was time-barred

We have been let down by the system, we have been betrayed somewhere along the way. – Victim

The victims of clerical sex abuse at St Joseph Home are considering their next legal steps after an appeals court confirmed that their bid for compensation is time-barred.

In a decision handed down on Friday, Chief Justice Joseph Azzopardi, Mr Justice Tonio Mallia and Madam Justice Miriam Hayman, upheld a previous judgment ruling the victims’ claim was time-barred.

Lawrence Grech and ten other victims had filed a case for damages against two priests, the St Paul’s Missionary Society, the Archdiocese of Malta, and the government back in 2013.

Contacted on Sunday morning, Grech told Times of Malta that this was not the end of the victims’ legal struggle.

“We are assessing our options and will decide whether to take this case to the Constitutional court or to the European courts. What is certain is that we have been let down by the system, we have been betrayed somewhere along the way,” he said.

In 2011, two priests of the missionary society, Carmelo Pulis, 69, and Godwin Scerri, 78, were convicted of sexually abusing 11 boys who had been in their care at St Joseph’s Home in Santa Venera in the 1980s.

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GLASGOW (SCOTLAND)
The Herald

March 27, 2020

The judge presiding over the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry has vowed that the coronavirus crisis will not stop her investigators from continuing their work.

Judge Lady Smith said yesterday on Thursday that people could still continue to contact the inquiry if they wish to do so.

It comes after public hearings were cancelled earlier this month.

However, the inquiry is still continuing to probe claims of historic abuse at 10 new care institutions.

On Thursday, Lady Smith said that staff at the inquiry would continue to work remotely.

She added: “I know some will be anxious about whether they can continue their ongoing contact with the inquiry or indeed about whether it is possible at the moment to contact us for the first time.

“The answer to both of these is ‘yes’.

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ABERDEEN (SCOTLAND)
Evening Express

March 26, 2020

The chairwoman of the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry has urged anyone who wants to give evidence to come forward, despite a pause in public hearings.

Judge Lady Smith announced last week that proceedings relating to child migration have been postponed until further notice due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

She has now released a video message hoping to reassure those who may wish to take part in the inquiry, saying that preparation and investigative work continues.

Lady Smith said: “I know some will be anxious about whether they can continue their ongoing contact with the inquiry or, indeed, about whether it is possible at the moment to contact us for the first time.

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MARKET HARBOROUGH (ENGLAND)
The Tablet

March 27, 2020

By Madoc Cairns

The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry has appealed for victims to continue to contact them despite the coronavirus outbreak halting public hearings for the time being.

In a video message, the chair of the Inquiry, senior judge Lady Smith, assured anyone who wished to contact the inquiry that they would remain able to do. Although face-to-face meetings have been ruled out due to ongoing coronavirus pandemic, witness support teams will continue to operate phone lines. This follows an announcement last week that planned hearings relating to child migration have been suspended indefinitely.

Staff members of the inquiry, which began in 2015, will work remotely to investigate claims and prepare for the next phase of the inquiry, focussed on boarding schools and originally scheduled to begin in July of this year. Ten new institutions from across Scotland were identified earlier this month as subject to investigation, including four young offenders institutions.

The analysis of previous case studies, relating to Catholic religious orders – the Christian Brothers, Benedictines and Marists – will continue, with the inquiries findings intended to be published as soon as possible.

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MARTINSVILLE (VA)
Martinsville Bulletin

March 27, 2020

By Father Mark White

Dearly Beloved of St. Joseph and St. Francis, I regret having to write you like this, when we all struggle with difficulties of a once-in-a-lifetime seriousness. I miss seeing you at Mass. Please remember that the church remains open for prayer, and I would love to see you, if you stop by the office.

Perhaps you read in last Sunday’s Bulletin a letter to you from Most Reverend Barry Knestout, Roman Catholic Bishop of Richmond. I want to make a couple points about the bishop’s letter (“My case against Father Mark White’s blog,” March 22).

First, I want you to know that I wrote Bishop Knestout six days before his letter to you. In my letter to him, I discussed the state of affairs with my weblog. He received my letter that day, Friday, March 13. He has yet to respond to my letter, or even acknowledge it.

Second, there is a significant factual inaccuracy in the bishop’s letter to you. He writes that he invited me “to meet with him privately,” yet each time I “refused or demurred.” This is not true.

In early September of 2018, the bishop ordered me to remove a post from my blog, and I complied. That led to a written dialogue, which you can read at https://frmarkdwhite.wordpress.com/bishop-knestout-letter-to-parishioners/.

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ROME (ITALY)
Catholic News Service via Crux

March 26, 2020

By Junno Arocho Esteves

The decrease in the number of religious brothers and of women in religious orders is “worrying,” according to the Vatican statistics office.

While the number of religious brothers in Africa and Asia continues to increase, the number of religious brothers worldwide experienced an 8 percent drop between 2013 and 2018, while the number of women religious fell 7.5 percent globally in the same period, the Vatican Central Office for Church Statistics reported.

However, the number of baptized Catholics increased by 6 percent between 2013 and 2018, reaching 1.33 billion or almost 18 percent of the global population, the statistics office reported March 25.

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SASKATOON (SASKATCHEWAN, CANADA)
Star Phoenix

March 27, 2020

By Matt Olson

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Saskatoon announced that two priests have been removed from service by the diocese after internal investigations into “serious misconduct.”

Ephraim Mensah and Michael Yaremko were both removed from priestly ministry and service after investigations into two separate cases of misconduct.

Two priests removed from ministry after investigations into ‘serious misconduct’

According to a notice from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Saskatoon, Mensah had recently retired from his position as pastor of the parish at Holy Family Cathedral and Yaremko was most recently an associate pastor in Humboldt.

Bishop Mark Hagemoen, the head of the Saskatoon diocese, assured the community that the allegations were not related, did not involve children or minors, and no criminal charges were expected. He said he could not go into further detail for the protection of the people who came forward with the allegations.

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HUMBOLDT (SASKATCHEWAN, CANADA)
Humboldt Journal

March 27, 2020

By Devan C. Tasa

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Saskatoon has removed two priests, who both served at Humboldt’s St. Augustine Church sometime during their careers, from ministry.

Fr. Ephraim Mensah, who was once a pastor at St. Augustine, and Fr. Michael Yaremko, who was an associate pastor, were removed after two separate investigations determined they engaged in serious misconduct. The incidents were unrelated.

Bishop Mark Hagemonen, the head of the diocese, said he couldn’t comment on the nature of the misconduct in both cases. He did say that there are no criminal charges and they did not involve children.

Mensah was serving as pastor of the Cathedral of the Holy Family of Saskatoon when he resigned. Yaremko has been on leave for almost two years since he left his first appointment as associate pastor of St. Augustine.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Angelus

March 23, 2020

By John L. Allen Jr.

Pope Francis suspended the activities of the Vatican City State’s tribunal Thursday, March 19, in keeping with similar measures adopted by the Italian government, as the latest step to combat the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19).

In effect, the decision means that unless a criminal trial or prosecution is judged to be incapable of delay, it’ll have to wait.

It was one of the many examples this month of how things in the Vatican essentially have been frozen in place, from the sweeping reform of the Roman Curia Pope Francis has pledged to the long-awaited report on sexual abuse and misconduct allegations against ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick.

Someday, however, the pandemic will ebb. When that happens, will the effect of the coronavirus be tantamount to a “pause” button, and we’ll just pick up the movie where we left off? Or, will the pandemic give the Vatican new priorities that would not have been the case without the shock of a global public health crisis, one which, to boot, is hitting his own backyard in Italy right now harder than anywhere else on the planet?

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NEW YORK (NY)
NBC News

March 27, 2020

By Sakshi Venkatraman

People trained to recognize abuse, like teachers and child care workers, are not seeing kids who may be confined to abusive households.

School closures and self-isolation have led to a drop in the number of child abuse cases reported to several state hotlines, worrying experts who say rules intended to halt the spread of coronavirus may be making conditions worse for victims of child abuse trapped at home with their parents.

Hotlines in Colorado, Texas and Illinois and California have received fewer reports of child abuse since stay-at-home orders have been put into place, say experts who attribute the decline to children no longer attending school or day care, where teachers and child care workers are mandated to report suspected abuse.

“We are concerned about this significant drop in calls, particularly because children and youth who may be experiencing abuse and neglect are now home all day and isolated,” said Minna Castillo Cohen, director of the Colorado Office of Children, Youth and Families, in a news release.

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ALBANY (NY)
Albany Times-Union

March 24, 2020

By Cayla Harris

As the COVID-19 pandemic has put all non-essential court filings on pause, lawmakers and activists are ramping up calls to extend the Child Victims Act’s “look-back” window that is set to expire this summer.

Last August, the Child Victims Act opened a one-year period for survivors of all ages to pursue previously time-barred claims against their alleged abusers – but, as some survivors have faced difficulty finding attorneys or coming to terms with their abuse, legislators have looked to extend the window another 12 months. Those calls are more pressing now, lawmakers and activists say, after the state court system on Sunday suspended most civil filings as the COVID-19 emergency has significantly reduced staff and operations.

Advocates hope to include an extension in the state’s annual budget package, due by April 1.

“This is an extraordinary time for New York state, and circumstances around the budget are unusual to say the least, but we cannot lose sight of the fact that adult survivors of child sexual abuse will be further harmed by our legal system if we don’t move to extend the window,” said state Sen. Brad Hoylman, D-Manhattan, a sponsor of both the Child Victims Act and the extension proposal.

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VANCOUVER (BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA)
The B.C. Catholic – Archdiocese of Vancouver

March 26, 2020

By James Borkowski

Photo Caption: If it hadn’t been for Bernadette Howell, an abuse survivor working with the Archdiocese of Vancouver, James Borkowski’s “Catholic bubble” might still be in place, he writes.

I have always loved being Catholic.

I was raised in a very Catholic home. Our family frequented the sacraments, prayed the Rosary daily, and promoted the faith in many ways.

As a seemingly natural consequence, I was taught to revere priests and assume they could do no wrong.

In Grade 6, I asked my teacher, “Can a priest sin?”

I don’t remember her being surprised. She thoughtfully stated that, “priests sin less than us but they can still sin.”

And so, my Catholic bubble was established.

That bubble might still be in place if it wasn’t for Bernadette, a victim of clergy abuse I met several years ago. Although she was abused in the UK and Ireland, she has become a leading advocate for victims/survivors in Vancouver. We have had many meetings and conversations. Not all have been pleasant.

I spent the first three years of our relationship often saying the wrong words or doing unintentionally hurtful things. Thankfully, Bernadette appreciates honesty and the willingness to take risks while trying to do the right thing and we have found a productive tension around this issue. Now, I consider her an ally and a friend. We disagree often but she has changed my life by teaching me how to understand and care for two groups of people – victims/survivors, and priests.

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NEW YORK (NY)
New York Times

March 26, 2020

By Linda Greenhouse

A case will determine the extent to which religious groups are shielded from employee lawsuits.

The Supreme Court, now even more invisible than usual, may seem beside the point these days, although we saw from the batch of opinions handed down on Monday that the justices are still at work. The 11 cases that were fully briefed and ready for argument this week and next will be heard eventually. I want to focus on one of those cases, a largely overlooked religion case that will have a great deal to tell us about the court’s receptivity to the increasingly audacious claims of religious supremacy now hurtling its way.

Ordinarily, at this point in a column about a Supreme Court case, I would write: “The question in the case is … ” But in fact, the two sides view this case as presenting fundamentally different questions. I can’t recall such a crucial divergence between the way petitioners and respondents — the terms the Supreme Court uses for the opposing parties — frame the issue to be decided. The justices’ choice of which question to address will very likely determine the answer they give.

The petitioners in Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru are two Catholic schools in Los Angeles County, each of which dismissed a lay fifth-grade teacher, giving reasons that may or may not have been the real reasons. Each of the teachers — the respondents — brought suit under federal law for employment discrimination, one for disability discrimination (St. James School refused to renew Kristen Biel’s contract after she told them she had breast cancer and needed time for treatment and recovery) and one for age discrimination.

Here is the question the schools present to the court:

“Whether the Religion Clauses prevent civil courts from adjudicating employment discrimination claims brought by an employee against her religious employer, where the employee carried out important religious functions.”

And here is the question the teachers are asking the court to decide:

“Whether the First Amendment’s Religion Clauses prohibit lay teachers at religious elementary schools from bringing employment discrimination claims.”

Note that the first question incorporates the assumption that the teachers, Agnes Morrissey-Berru and Ms. Biel, each of whom taught an ordinary fifth-grade curriculum along with a religion module they taught by following a workbook, were performing “important religious functions.” The second question refers only to “lay teachers.” It contains no suggestion that either teacher was serving in a religious capacity; in fact, neither school required members of its faculty to be practicing Catholics, and Ms. Morrissey-Berru was not. She had taught full time at Our Lady of Guadalupe School for 16 years and was in her 60s when the school’s principal asked her if she wanted to retire. When she said no, she was demoted to a part-time position and her contract was not renewed for the following year.

These facts along with the difference between the two questions are important because this dispute is playing out against the background of a 2012 decision in which the Supreme Court first recognized a “ministerial exception” that shields religious employers from discrimination claims by their employees. The unanimous opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts in that case, Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, relied on an amalgam of the First Amendment’s two Religious Clauses: the Establishment Clause, which the Supreme Court has long interpreted as barring government “entanglement” with the affairs of churches, and the Free Exercise Clause, which prohibits government obstruction of religious practice.

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WILMINGTON (DE)
The Dialog

March 26, 2020

By Virginia Durkin O’Shea

How many saints do you know of who have been excommunicated? Joan of Arc comes to mind, however, she met a tragic end. You may not have heard of St. Mary of the Cross, the Australian nun whose fate was much better than that of St. Joan.

Mary Helen MacKillop was born in Melbourne on Jan. 15, 1842 to Flora MacDonald and Alexander MacKillop, Scottish immigrants who met and married in Australia. Alexander was a former seminarian, and had a good heart, but was unsuccessful at most professions, so the family struggled.

The oldest of eight children, Mary began working as a clerk at age 14. She later took a job as a governess for her aunt and uncle, followed by more teaching positions and running a school in Penola. During her teaching career, she always made an effort to include poor children from the area in her lessons. She felt that educating people was serving God.

In 1866, she met a young priest, Fr. Julian Tenison Woods, who invited her and two of her sisters to open a Catholic school in Penola. They opened a school in a former barn; it was a “free” school, taking no funding from the government (which was the norm) and accepting only what parents could pay. Mary wished to dedicate her life to God by serving the poor, and began wearing all black.

*

By 1871, 130 nuns were working in more than 40 schools and charitable institutions across South Australia and Queensland. Then things took a strange turn for Sister Mary and the order. Accounts say that she and several other sisters reported a local priest for suspected abuse. The priest was sent back to his home country, but one of his peers launched a revenge campaign against Sister Mary that included accusations of alcoholism. Sister Mary refuted the claims, and argued with Bishop Sheil — who at the time also wished to take control of her order. As a result, Sister Mary was excommunicated by the bishop for insubordination in 1871. Many of the schools were closed and the nuns became homeless. The order survived, with the sisters living on charity from supporters. A year later, on his deathbed, Bishop Sheil admitted that he had been misled, and lifted the excommunication.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
NPR

March 26, 2020

By Tom Gjelten

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/03/26/822211994/diocese-suspends-abuse-victims-compensation-program-citing-economic-turmoil

Among the people affected by the downturn on Wall Street are some alleged victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests.

The Diocese of Erie in northwestern Pennsylvania, identified in 2018 by the state attorney general as one of the places where clergy abuse had been especially egregious, has announced that it is suspending the processing of victim claims in response to what it calls the “economic turmoil” brought about by the coronavirus.

In February 2019, diocesan authorities in Erie launched an Independent Survivors’ Reparation Program for the purpose of compensating people whose claims of abuse were substantiated. The diocese said funds for the compensation were to come from a line of credit secured by diocesan investments. Dozens of claims were subsequently filed, and by December 2019 the program was said to have cost the diocese nearly $12 million.

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ULTIMO (AUSTRALIA)
ABC via BlackBox

March 27, 2020

Watch the concluding 2 episodes of the ground-breaking documentary series on ABC TV and iview on Tuesday 31 March and Thursday 2 April at 8:30pm

Across two compelling nights of must-see television, an exclusive interview with one of the Church’s most prolific sex-offenders, Bernard McGrath. In a tense encounter filmed in a maximum-security prison, he identifies the religious leaders responsible for the cover-up of his crimes.

And in Revelation’s cinematic, feature-length finale, explosive new allegations of child sexual abuse by Cardinal George Pell are exposed.

The world-first exclusive reveals the gripping story of an individual from a small town in Australia, pitted against a former Prince of the Church. “I chose to remain silent, never to tell a soul, and I got through a good 40 years of that,” says the survivor of sexual abuse, who publicly reveals the story of his tormented boyhood for the first time. “I want to heal now. I’ve carried that burden for long enough.”

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ERIE (PA)
Erie Times-News

March 24, 2020

By Ed Palattella

Letter says decline of stock market related to the coronavirus prompted compensation fund’s 90-day pause.

The COVID-19 pandemic has gone far beyond keeping parishioners out of church and absent from Mass in the Catholic Diocese of Erie.

The diocese said the crisis has so affected its finances that the diocese has suspended payments from its special fund for victims of clergy sexual abuse.

The 13-county diocese, which on March 17 suspended public Masses due to the coronavirus, has halted operation of the compensation fund for at least 90 days because of the sharp decline in the stock market related the coronavirus outbreak, the fund’s administrators and the diocese said on Tuesday.

They both indicated that the downturn on Wall Street has significantly reduced the value of the diocese’s investments.

Neither the fund nor the diocese detailed the amount of the losses, but they put more pressure on financial resources that Erie Catholic Bishop Lawrence Persico said were under stress even before the pandemic.

The diocese’s expenses related to the clergy abuse scandal, including payments to the victims, had strained the diocese’s finances but they remained solvent, Persico said on Feb. 19, after the Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg filed for bankruptcy.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Catholic News Service via CatholicPhilly.com

March 25, 2020

By Michelle Martin

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused financial disruptions not only to households and businesses, but also to local parishes, who have suspended public Masses at which they can take up offertory collections.

To help Catholics support their local parishes, the Archdiocese of Chicago has created a website that donors can use to make a one-time or recurring gift to any parish they choose.

The site, along with a donation site for the archdiocese’s Coronavirus Emergency Fund, can be accessed at www.archchicago.org/support. Both funds accept credit card payments or electronic payments directly from a bank account.

“About 70% of our parishes have an online giving program,” said Brendan Keating, chief development officer in the Office of Stewardship and Development. “Of course, that means 30% don’t.”

All parishes still have bills to pay even if they are not holding public Masses, Keating said.

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NEW YORK (NY)
America Magazine

March 20, 2020

By Michael J. O’Loughlin

It started off as a trickle, with only the Archdiocese of Seattle—located in one of the hardest-hit regions in the nation in terms of the coronavirus—announcing on March 11 that it would suspend public Masses to help slow the spread of Covid-19. Then the announcements from other dioceses followed in a deluge: The Archdioceses of Washington, Newark, Chicago and Boston announced similar suspensions less than two days later. In less than a week, with more than 10,000 cases of Covid-19 reported in the United States, nearly all of the nation’s Catholic dioceses suspended public Masses—and several confirmed that the suspension would run through Holy Week and Easter.

Church leaders are responding to this new reality by live-streaming Masses, pointing to online spirituality resources and even adjusting how confession works to respond to the reality that many Catholics cannot leave their homes.

Part-time church workers have seen their income halted, major charities are worried about missed collections, and at least one diocese has temporarily laid-off employees.
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But when it comes to church finances, parishes and those who work in them are facing an uncertain future the longer the crisis drags on. Part-time church workers have seen their income halted, major charities are worried about missed collections, and at least one diocese has temporarily laid-off employees.

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MELFORT (SASKATCHEWAN, CANADA)
Melfort Journal

March 26, 2020

By Susan McNeill

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Saskatoon announced that two priests have been removed from service by the diocese after internal investigations into “serious misconduct.”

According to a notice from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Saskatoon, Mensah had recently retired from his position as pastor of the parish at Holy Family Cathedral and Yaremko was most recently an associate pastor in Humboldt.

Bishop Mark Hagemoen, the head of the Saskatoon diocese, assured the community that the allegations were not related, did not involve children or minors, and no criminal charges were expected. He said he could not go into further detail for the protection of the people who came forward with the allegations.

“What was announced is that both had been removed from ministry,” he said. “Father Mensah’s (removal) … was in early March, where Father Yaremko’s situation goes back two years.”

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NEW YORK (NY)
Commonweal

March 26, 2020

By Susan Bigelow Reynolds

Some people mark out eras in their lives by the places they’ve lived or the jobs they’ve held. I measure mine in parishes.

I grew up in a Catholic parish south of Denver that sat on a hill and faced the front range of the Rocky Mountains. The church was the apotheosis of post–Vatican II architecture, rounded and dark and a little odd. The walls were built of brown brick, the kind that clung to your clothes like Velcro if you leaned against them. Olive-green and burnt-orange carpet blanketed the floors, and ruddy tile gave the narthex a smoldery, numinous glow. The western-facing wall was made of plate-glass windows. As a kid, I spent most of Sunday Mass transfixed by rose-colored rays of sunlight shooting through the clouds onto the snowy face of Mt. Evans, a view that lent an organic logic to the sacraments: God, too, could be both grand and intimate, both transcendent and earthy.

Every summer, my parents shuttled my siblings and me off to visit our great-aunts in Streator, Illinois, a small, rural town ninety miles south of Chicago where my mother’s side of the family had lived for generations. Once there, we melded into life at their parish, St. Stephen’s. The church was the oldest Slovak parish in the United States, a distinction my Slovak-American family wore with pride. My siblings and I spent our summer breaks helping our aunts and the other ladies of the Altar and Rosary Society run the parish rummage sale, sell rozek, and lead the rosary at the local Catholic nursing home. At St. Stephen’s, the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council were still being received in the 1990s. Mass-goers still knelt at the extant altar rail to receive the Eucharist on the tongue, a practice as foreign as it was enchanting to a nine-year-old future Millennial. St. Stephen’s was like an immersion trip into the Catholic past, into a world of ethnic religious enclaves that otherwise only existed for me in old family photos.

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Shifting, too, are boundaries of belief, affiliation, and practice. An increasing number of U.S. Catholics locate themselves on the peripheries of the church. Disagreement with church teachings, dissatisfaction with the role of women and the treatment of LGBTQ persons, and disillusionment wrought by the sex-abuse crisis have caused many to reevaluate their relationship to the institutional church and, in turn, to their parishes. Such displacements are harder to quantify—statistics on Catholic disaffiliation tell only part of the story—but they are supremely evident to anyone who has spent time in Catholic communities recently. In a particular way, the relentless tide of abuse revelations has exposed the fragility of authority, the deceptiveness of charisma, the insufficiency of Catholics’ formation on issues of sexuality, and the dark consequences of patriarchy and secrecy. The crisis has forced lay people, many for the first time, to wrestle in a sustained way with the reality of the church’s sinfulness and the limits of their own power. Some have chosen to leave altogether. Together, these transformations are upending perceptions of the parish’s storied stability. Parishes today are spaces of ambiguity, uncertainty, and change—unstable communities of the faithful.

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NEW HAVEN (PA)
New Haven Register

March 24, 2020

By Daniel Tepfer

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford and officials of the Hopkins School in New Haven have agreed to settle a lawsuit that claimed a decades-long coverup of sexual abuse of young boys by a teacher.

Notice that a settlement had been reached in the two-year-old civil case was filed in Superior Court in New Haven.

Details of the settlement were not disclosed in the filing.

Last October, Cindy Robinson of the Bridgeport law firm Tremont, Sheldon, Robinson and Mahoney, which represented the plaintiff in the suit, offered to settle the case against the archdiocese and the school for $7.48 million.

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SHARON (PA)
The Herald

March 26, 2020

By Melissa Klaric

Erie – Citing economic impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Catholic Diocese of Erie has suspended payments from its fund for clergy abuse victims.

“As a result of the economic turmoil caused by the onset of COVID-19, the Diocese of Erie has temporarily suspended its work with the Independent Survivors’ Reparation Program effective March 20, 2020,” the diocese stated in a press release. “The suspension will last at least 90 days.”

The move will affect approximately 40 remaining claimants whose requests have yet to be determined, the diocese said.

All claimants who have accepted settlements have already been paid. The diocese also will pay victims with pending payments.

People with claims affected by the temporary suspension will be notified when the fund resumes processing claims.

An official from the diocese said it would not provide additional information about the suspension.

Adam Horowitz, of the Horowitz Law Firm in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said the Diocese of Erie and its bishop, The Most Rev. Lawrence T. Persico, should have taken steps to ensure that the fund would be preserved and claimants paid.

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ULTIMO (AUSTRALIA)
ABC

March 25, 2020

By Rebecca Turner

The former principal of a prestigious Perth Catholic school was “stunned” to hear allegations that one of his students had been sexually assaulted with a carrot by some teammates while on a rugby tour to Japan almost three years ago, a Perth court has been told.

Ivan Banks, who was principal of Trinity College for almost 11 years, was giving evidence on the second day of the trial of two former Trinity teachers who have been charged under mandatory reporting laws.

Ian Francis Hailes and Anthony Paul Webb have both pleaded not guilty to failing to report an incident of child sexual abuse.

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DAYTON (OH)
Dayton Daily News

March 26, 2020

A funeral Mass will be held Friday for a former Cincinnati archbishop who led Catholics there for more than a quarter century.

Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk had been in declining health for years before he died Sunday at the age of 85. His funeral Mass will be held at 11 a.m. at St. Peter in Chains Cathedral in Cincinnati.

An archdiocese spokeswoman said the Mass will be private, meaning the public will not be allowed to attend due to restrictions now in place due to the coronavirus. However, the service will be livestreamed on the archdiocese’s website.

A memorial Mass open to the public will be held at a later date.Pilarczyk led the archdiocese for 27 years and was the nation’s longest-serving bishop when he retired in 2009. His final years leading the region’s Catholic congregation included a public struggle with widespread allegations of clergy abuse.

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MINNEAPOLIS (MN)
Star Tribune

March 24, 2020

By Jean Hopfensperger

Clergy abuse ombudsman sees it as a test case of new Vatican rules to discipline bishops.

Tom Johnson, the clergy abuse ombudsman for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, submitted a formal request to the Vatican last July to investigate possible misconduct by former Archbishop John Nienstedt.

He’s still awaiting a response.

The Vatican announced new protocols in May for holding bishops, not just priests, accountable for clergy abuse. Johnson, a former Hennepin County attorney, said he still doesn’t know why the Vatican isn’t adhering to its own standard of responding within 30 days.

“It’s a huge problem when the church is trying to restore trust,” said Johnson, who called it a “test case” of the Vatican’s much-touted protocols.

The Vatican’s representative in Washington, D.C., did not respond to questions about the Nienstedt case.

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WILKES-BARRE (PA)
The Citizens Voice

March 25, 2020

By Frank Wilkes Lesnefsky

The Lackawanna County district attorney’s office is investigating a 40-year-old sexual assault allegation against a Diocese of Scranton priest.

The diocese announced Monday the Rev. James J. Walsh had resigned as pastor of St. Maria Goretti Parish in Laflin after diocesan officials launched an investigation into a sexual assault allegation.

The allegation did not involve minors, the diocese said.

The alleged incident took place in 1979 while Walsh was serving as assistant pastor at the Church of St. Gregory in Clarks Green. The diocese learned of the incident on March 6, 2019, and notified the district attorney’s office, according to the diocese.

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MARCH (CAMBRIDGESHIRE, ENGLAND)
Cambs Times

March 25, 2020

A Roman Catholic priest from March has voluntarily stepped down while he is investigated for historic child sex abuse claims relating to his former ministry in Peru.

A statement released by Bishop Alan Hopes and the Diocese of East Anglia on Friday (March 20) explains Father Ryan had recently been accused of the non-recent sexual abuse of children.

It says he voluntarily stepped down from his responsibilities while the investigation is ongoing and that the accusations have been reported to the relevant authorities, including police.

The statement, uploaded to the Catholic Church in March website, reads: “Whilst the investigation is ongoing, Father Ryan has voluntarily withdrawn from all public ministry.

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NEW YORK (NY)
The Revealer

March 2, 2020

By Kaya Oakes

What should survivors do when the Church asks them for forgiveness?

In March of 2019, the Catholic archbishop of Hartford, Connecticut, decided that a dramatic public statement needed to be made about the 48 priests in his diocese who had been accused of sexual abuse. Archbishop Blair held a special “Mass of Reparations,” during which he told the congregation that he was there to ask forgiveness “especially of all the victims of sexual abuse and their families. I ask it for all the Church leadership has done or failed to do,” and he prostrated himself in a gesture of repentance. It was a vivid moment that received national press attention. But for many victims and their allies, it was just that: a moment.

For decades, Catholic dioceses throughout the country have had to embark on what can only be described as apology tours, during which clergy have again and again asked abuse victims for forgiveness. Nick Ingala, from the lay activist group Voice of the Faithful, told the New York Times that Archbishop Blair’s Reparations Mass was not going to be enough for many victims. “Apologies,” Ingala said, “will only go so far. Where is the responsibility? The accountability? You can’t say ‘I’m sorry’ over and over and over again.” Among the reader comments on the New York Times article, one of the most upvoted was from “Janet,” who stated that “apologies are fine,” but that “nothing, absolutely nothing, ever compensates enough for the heart-heavy, dirty-soul feeling that remains with [victims] until we die.”

While clergy abuse is not my primary focus as a journalist who writes about the Catholic Church, it is one that my colleagues and I have been forced to return to many times as continued revelations of abuse surface. In fact, every person who writes about the Catholic Church is a de facto reporter on abuse. Journalists often become victim advocates simply because we are the first people victims think to contact, especially when distrust of diocesan offices and the Church hierarchy is at an all-time high.

But in spite of the many cases of abuse coming to light around the world, the clerical impulse to plead for forgiveness, and what that does to victims, has rarely been discussed. In 2018, I pitched a story on the role of forgiveness in clergy abuse to a Catholic magazine for which I occasionally write. My hunch was that, like many of the women who were being asked to forgive abusive men as #MeToo revelations unfolded, many victims of clergy abuse might be hesitant to grant forgiveness to those who had violated them because of the corrosive nature of trauma.

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