ABUSE TRACKER

WOODLAND PARK (NJ)
NorthJersey.com

February 10, 2020

By Deena Yellin

The Catholic Church in New Jersey has promised $11 million to victims of clergy abuse thus far through its compensation fund, but there are at least 460 more claims to process and administrators say it could take several months to make determinations on all of them.

More than 560 people applied for settlements from the New Jersey Independent Victim Compensation Program, which was established by the state’s five Catholic dioceses to compensate victims without their having to go to court.

The 8-month-old program is now closed to new requests, but victims who already started applications have until Feb. 15 to complete them.

New Jersey suspended its statute of limitations for sex abuse cases on Dec. 1, spawning a wave of lawsuits against the dioceses. Victims who accept the compensation fund’s cash settlements forfeit their right to sue, but they also avoid the potentially painful, drawn-out process of litigation, the church argues.

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.

PITTSBURGH (PA)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

February 6, 2020

By Peter Smith

Following an emotional hearing, a judge on Thursday sentenced a retired Catholic priest to a jail term of nine to nearly 24 months over his conviction last year for sexually assaulting an 11-year-old boy in 2001.

But the priest walked free for at least another month due to a last-minute legal plot twist, complicated by a sudden turnover in two of the key players in his November trial, his own defense lawyer and the judge.

The Rev. Hugh Lang, 89, a one-time school superintendent for the Diocese of Pittsburgh, sat stoically as the sentencing was read, leaning forward with his arms folded on the defense table.

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The victim said he flew thousands of miles from his current home in Southeast Asia here, requiring him to “rip open this wound all over again.” But he said it was important to bring “some justice to the 11-year-old boy I was.”

In words similar to his testimony in November, the victim recalled being at a summer program for altar servers when, in a shy boy’s awkward attempt to impress his peers with humor, he joked that Father Lang probably drank all the excess communion wine.

He said an enraged Father Lang later took him to an isolated basement room, forced him to undress, took a Polaroid photo of him, fondled him and forced the boy to use his hand on Lang’s penis to perform a sex act.

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.

DALLAS (TX)
NBC DFW

February 6, 2020

Richard Thomas Brown arrested in Missouri last month on a warrant out of Dallas

A former priest charged with child sex abuse is now in the Dallas County Jail.

Richard Thomas Brown, 78, was being booked into the county jail Thursday afternoon.

Brown is on the Dallas Diocese’s list of priests credibly accused of sexually assaulting children.

According to the arrest warrant affidavit obtained last month, Brown admitted to police that he was sexually attracted to young girls. The document details the allegations of just one victim, but also details interviews detectives had with Brown.

The affidavit said Brown, who served in at least four parishes beginning in the 1980s, admitted to sexually abusing multiple children in North Texas. Brown told detectives that the Diocese of Dallas “knew about sexual abuse allegations against him in 1987.”

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.

ROCHESTER (NY)
Democrat and Chronicle

February 10, 2020

By Steve Orr

https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2020/02/10/bishop-matthew-clark-not-able-to-testify-priest-abuse-in-rochester-ny-doctor-and-lawyer-say/4712280002/

Bishop Emeritus Matthew Clark’s Alzheimer’s disease has left him unable to provide useful sworn testimony about the history of child sexual abuse in the Rochester diocese, his physician and lawyer say.

Lawyers for abuse victims had filed a motion in the diocese’s bankruptcy case asking that Clark be directed to answer questions under oath about abuse by priests and other church ministers during his 33 years as the diocese’s leader.

The lawyers for accusers believe Clark knows a great deal about abuse and about actions taken by diocesan leaders to shield accused ministers from public scrutiny. They have said they’re aware of Clark’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis but believe they should be able to question him and make their own determination about his abilities.

“I think those abused under his tenure should have the right to test his competency in a deposition,” said Leander James, an Idaho lawyer who represents a number of people who say they were sexually abused by Catholic ministers in the Rochester diocese.

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

SALT LAKE CITY (UT)
Intermountain Catholic – Diocese of Salt Lake City

February 7, 2020

By Bishop Oscar A. Solis

To be read in all parishes on the weekends of Feb. 8-9 and 15-16. Parishioners are asked to sign the letter that will be presented at the parish, gather signed letters and send them to Bishop’s Office by Feb. 23.

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ:

There is a time when Catholics have to stand and speak for truth and our faith conviction. I am writing to you about a bill introduced in the Utah legislature, HB90 Child Abuse Reporting Amendments. I ask all parishioners to help defend our religious rights and speak out our opposition against this bill that would take away the full right to Confession from priests and other leaders of faith denominations, as well as break its sacred seal of confidentiality.

I do not question the good intentions of our legislators of wanting to prevent child sexual abuse and protect innocent and vulnerable children. However, there is no evidence that this legislation will help achieve that. Instead, it threatens a practice that is essential to our faith and religious identity. It is a government encroachment or intrusion into our religious practice.

The Sacrament of Penance or Reconciliation (what we call “Confession”), is an important practice of our Catholic faith. The Bible records its divine origin. It was the first gift that Jesus gave to the world after rising from the dead. On the first Easter night, he breathed his Holy Spirit into his apostles, his first priests, and he granted them the awesome power to forgive sins in his name (John 20:22-23). Jesus gave us this gift so that we could always personally come to him to confess our sins, and seek his forgiveness and the grace to continue on our Christian journey. The Sacrament of Confession is purely religious, and thus protected as one of our first freedoms under the Constitution.

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.

TOLEDO (OH)
Toledo Blade

February 4, 2020

By Nicki Gorny

The Diocese of Toledo quietly updated its list last year of clergy credibly accused of sexual abuse amid calls for transparency in a rekindled sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church.

The update included a new name: Paul Knapp, a religious order priest who served as the associate pastor of St. Gerard Parish in Lima, Ohio, between 1981 and 1983.

The majority of dioceses and religious orders in the country have released lists of clergy who have been found credibly accused of sexual abuse while under their jurisdiction. The lists are an effort toward transparency that have drawn particular attention since August, 2018, when a grand jury report detailing the extent of decades of abuse and coverup in Pennsylvania called renewed attention to a sexual abuse crisis in the Roman Catholic Church.

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

NEW ORLEANS (LA)
New Orleans Saints

February 10, 2020

By Gayle Benson

This past weekend, our organization received an interview request from The Associated Press. The email stated that an article was coming out Tuesday. It stated that we could expect questions that “would include things about the nature of Gayle’s relationship with Aymond and why, no matter how good a friend he is, would she feel compelled to have her pro sports organizations affiliated in any way with the clergy-molestation scandal? And maybe how she views the decision to do so in hindsight?”

I have decided to take this opportunity based on the request from The Associated Press to send out this statement in order to bring clarity to questions about my relationship with the Archdiocese. While I appreciate the opportunity and thank The Associated Press for kindly reaching out to me to appear in this article, we have had subpoenas served to get emails, and calls made for me to pay into a victim’s fund. I have decided to no longer stand idly by while stories are written about our role in this matter and speak to this in my own words. This is a profoundly sad time for the Church, but more so for the victims that live with the daily pain that was inflicted upon them.

Greg Bensel, our senior vice president of communications, was asked if he would help the Archdiocese prepare for the media relative to the release of clergy names involved in the abuse scandal. In the weeks leading up to the Nov. 2, 2018 release of clergy names, Greg met with the Archbishop and communications staff.

Greg informed me that his recommendations were consistent with the Archdiocese and included: be honest, complete and transparent; own the past wrongs and find a solution to correct them and then define those solutions that are in place now to protect victims; be a leader in the Church by being the first Archdiocese in the country to release the full list of names, release all of the names of clergy that have credible evidence against them, regardless of whether they are male/female, dead or alive; and make sure that all law enforcement are given these names prior to the Archdiocese releasing them so they can be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

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

NEW ORLEANS (LA)
Associated Press

February 11, 2020

By Jim Mustian

The owner of the New Orleans Saints said Monday that the NFL team played no role in determining which priests would be named in the list of “credibly accused” clergy published by the area’s Roman Catholic Church.

Gayle Benson, a devout Catholic who has donated millions of dollars to church causes, also said in a lengthy statement that she has never “contributed nor will ever make payments” to pay for legal settlements to the victims of clergy abuse.

“To suggest that I would offer money to the Catholic Church to pay for anything related to the clergy-molestation issue sickens me,” she added. It was not clear who had made that suggestion.

The statement marked Benson’s first remarks since The Associated Press reported last month about hundreds of confidential Saints emails that allegedly show team executives did behind-the-scenes public relations damage control amid the archdiocese’s clergy abuse crisis — communications the Saints have gone to court to keep from being made public. A hearing is scheduled in New Orleans next week to determine whether they may be released.

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.

MARTINSVILLE (VA)
Martinsville Bulletin

February 10, 2020

By Bill Wyatt

https://www.martinsvillebulletin.com/news/local/martinsville-priest-refuses-to-sign-order-to-silence-from-the/article_5dd9b4aa-876d-5e3a-bd9e-3af5a14da148.html

That truce reached last week in a dispute between a Martinsville priest and a Richmond bishop that preserved the priest’s job now appears to have been short-lived.

About 24 hours after that meeting last Wednesday, Father Mark White, priest of St. Joseph Catholic Church in Martinsville and St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Rocky Mount, was visited in Rocky Mount by officials of the Diocese of Richmond and again was threatened with the loss of his position.

But White refused to sign the order, presented to him orally, because he wasn’t given the directive in writing, and he said he questioned its legality in the first place.

Bishop Barry Knestout late last year had ordered White to silence and threatened to remove him from the priesthood because of a popular blog White populated with comments of frustration and disgust about how the church hierarchy had responded to the many sexual abuse scandals in the church and particularly the cases involving former Cardinal Theodore Edgar McCarrick, who had ordained White as a priest.

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.

SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
Catholic San Francisco – Archdiocese of San Francisco

February 10, 2020

By Nicholas Wolfram Smith

“He (Bishop Barron) really calls those who read it to take action, do something and be part of the solution. We need to be responsible, too.”
– Susan Arms, St. Gregory parishioner

A year-and-a-half after the Catholic Church in the U.S. suffered devastating and disheartening revelations of systematic abuse, have Catholics moved on?

Months after the coverage of sexual abuse has died down, a group of parishioners convened at St. Gregory Parish in San Mateo to discuss it again and how Catholics should respond.

Cindy Gherini, a parishioner at St. Gregory, said after now-laicized Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was accused of sexual abuse and a grand jury in Pennsylvania published a report on how state dioceses handled clergy abuse, her parish held a community discussion about what was going on. During that meeting, Gherini said, there was an outpouring of grief and anger.

“And then it died after that, so to speak. Nobody led us forward,” she said. “How much longer can we stay in those emotions and not move forward?”

What gave her direction was a short pamphlet written by Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishop Robert Barron and published by Word on Fire Catholic Ministries, “Letter to a Suffering Church: A Bishop Speaks on the Sexual Abuse Crisis.”

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

NEW YORK (NY)
National Review

February 6, 2020

By Daniel Mahoney

In the first year or two of Pope Francis’s pontificate, conservative-minded Catholics made heroic efforts to place the perplexing ways of the new pope in continuity with the thought and deeds of his immediate predecessors. It was said that he had been a forceful critic of liberation theology, at least in its Marxist expressions, that he was a man of traditional piety, that he spoke about the machinations of the Evil One with surprising regularity, and that his style — brash, critical of established ways, anxious for dialogue with the modern world — was a refreshing way of bringing Christian orthodoxy to bear on the modern world. But there were early signs that challenged this reassuring consensus. Francis seemed suspicious of the most faithful Catholics — they were, in his estimation, rigid, obsessed with the evils of abortion and sexual sins, closed to the need for a Church open to humanitarian activism and a de-emphasis on dogma and even truth.

If Pope John Paul II stood up to Communist savagery and mendacity with a courage and integrity that helped ignite the revolutions of 1989, and if the immensely learned Pope Benedict XVI gave soft nihilism a remarkably descriptive and accurate name, “the dictatorship of relativism,” Pope Francis stood for nothing less than accommodating the world in the name of “change” and deference to the alleged “signs of the times.” As Cardinal Zen of Hong Kong once noted, Francis could see Communists as merely the victims of Latin American military dictatorship and lovers of the poor and thus more Christian than Christians in decisive respects. The gulags, and massive religious persecution, did not fit into this vision of relatively benign Communists.

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While the Church remains largely silent about (in the words of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI) “crimes and sins that cry out to Heaven” — the terrible clerical and episcopal sexual abuse and the hideous cover-ups that followed — Francis puts much of his energies into promoting ecological activism (with an apocalyptic edge) and any number of simplistic progressive causes. One sometimes hears the voice of a politically charged functionary of the United Nations more than that of the Vicar of Christ on earth. The institutional Church, meaning its assorted bishops and their conferences, responds to this revolution in the Church with silence, passivity, and those time-serving bureaucratic and self-protective habits that led the Church into crisis in the first place. The crisis is just that deep.

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. Paul (MN)
Catholic News Service via Catholic Philly

February 10, 2020

By Dave Hrbacek

Michael Callaghan’s healing from clergy sexual abuse took a big step forward after he saw the movie “Spotlight” in 2015.

The Academy Award-winning fact-based drama detailing the clerical abuse scandal in Boston moved Callaghan deeply and continues to drive him to help the healing process in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

“I watch that movie every six months or so,” said Callaghan, 70. “Everyone should see that movie.”

Within weeks of seeing the film, he was making his way to leaders of the archdiocese to share his story and offer help.

Staff members of the archdiocesan Office of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment listened to and affirmed him, and invited him to convene with a group of priests and laypeople in early 2019 to discuss how the archdiocese can address clergy sexual abuse. The first two meetings took place in his south Minneapolis home.

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. Paul (MN)
Catholic News Service via Catholic Philly

February 10, 2020

By Joe Ruff

Father Dan Griffith has held the stone.

He has felt the emotional weight and lifting of that weight in a healing circle where people are invited to take turns holding a stone or other “talking piece” and tell their story as others respectfully listen.

“It’s humbling and you’re vulnerable,” Father Griffith said of sharing in a healing circle his story of secondary trauma from the church’s clergy sexual abuse crisis.

The priest is quick to point out that his secondary trauma cannot be compared with the deep and long-standing harm done to those directly traumatized by a priest.

It is vitally important to have the church acknowledge the harm done, foster accountability and offer roads to healing, he said.

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

HOUSTON (TX)
KPRC

February 7, 2020

By Tierra Smith

KPRC 2 Investigates found 1 priest living around the corner from a school

A year ago, there was hope: justice for the victims of clergy sexual abuse.

“We want to substantiate what those young people who have suffered, the victims, the survivors, that’s what today is all about,” said Daniel Cardinal DiNardo, Archbishop of Galveston-Houston on Jan. 31, 2019 in an interview with KPRC 2.

But one year later, what has come of these revelations that accused over 40 priests from the Archdiocese of an unthinkable act?

Where is the transparency?

“We at SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) are calling for true transparency, not the opaque transparency of a stained glass window from a church in denial,” said Eduardo Lopez de Casas, co-leader of SNAP Houston and clergy abuse victim.

Lopez de Casas grew up in church, rarely missing a Sunday Mass even in his darkest times.

“I was abused over 40 years ago, and I never left the church,” Lopez de Casas said.

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

NEW YORK (NY)
New York Times

February 10, 2020

By Richard Sandomir

He said mistreating and neglecting children amounted to “soul murder” — a deliberate attempt to crush or eradicate the personality of a vulnerable young person.

Dr. Leonard Shengold, an esteemed psychoanalyst who in two books vividly described the terrifying impact of long-term abuse and neglect of children as “soul murder,” died on Jan. 16 at his home in Stone Ridge, N.Y. He was 94.

His son David said the cause was complications of leukemia.

During 60 years of psychoanalytic practice, Dr. Shengold observed the damage childhood abuse had wreaked on numerous adult patients. (He also treated patients outside that category, including the renowned writer and neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks.)

He described “soul murder” as a crime committed by psychotic or psychopathic parents and other adults through sexual abuse, emotional deprivation and physical or mental torture. He equated this mistreatment with the “deliberate attempt to eradicate or compromise the separate identity of another person,” as he wrote in “Soul Murder: The Effects of Childhood Abuse and Deprivation” (1989).

Dr. Shengold had been treating adult victims of childhood abuse for about 25 years when he wrote “Soul Murder.” The term that gave the book its title was coined in the 19th century and later found its place in a noted case history of Freud’s based on the memoirs of a mentally ill judge.

Dr. Shengold drew on decades of clinical cases and the literary works of writers like Kipling, Chekhov and Dickens, all of whom, he wrote, suffered neglect or abuse in childhood. Helpless children, he believed, are easily victimized by their tormentors because of their physical and emotional dependence on them. And their reliance on them inevitably compels many to seek solace from the abusers themselves.

“The most destructive effect of child abuse is perhaps the need to hold on to the abusing parent or parent figure by identifying with the abuser,” he wrote. “This becomes part of a compulsion to repeat the experiences of abuse — as tormentor (enhancing sadism) and simultaneously as victim (enhancing masochism).”

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

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholic Philly – Archdiocese of Philadelphia

February 7, 2020

By Matthew Gambino

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has paid out almost $39 million to survivors of clergy sexual abuse in the past year through the Independent Reconciliation and Reparations Program (IRRP) set up for the archdiocese, administrators confirmed this week.

The program began in November 2018 as a process independent of the archdiocese to offer money to people abused by clergy in the past. Program administrators assess claims and offer compensation with no monetary cap, either individually or in total.

The archdiocese has pledged to pay all awards as indicated by the plan and agreed to by the survivors.

A total of $38.9 million has been paid as of this week to 181 survivors who accepted the amount determined by the program’s administrators, according to Lawrence Stengel, a retired federal district judge who serves on the Oversight Committee of the IRRP.

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.

FERNDALE (MI)
Church Militant

February 10, 2020

By Christine Niles

Fr. Dennis Riter goes to grave with secrets

A Buffalo priest accused of abusing multiple boys is dead.

Father Dennis Riter passed away Saturday after spending more than a week in the hospital from a heart attack.

In response to Church Militant’s query, the diocese confirmed Riter’s death “after a brief illness” but had no further details.

Riter was at the center of serious sex abuse allegations in 2018 involving at least three alleged victims.

One of them, Matthew Golden, was featured in an ABC Nightline exposé.

Matthew Golden: “I definitely was molested by Fr. Riter — 100%.”

Another was interviewed by Church Militant.

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.

GUAM
Pacific Daily News

February 6, 2020

By Haidee Eugenio Gilbert

Nearly 50 years ago, a Father Dueñas Memorial School teacher-priest allegedly raped a student repeatedly, while another teacher-priest at the school allegedly molested the same student at least three times, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court on Thursday.

The plaintiff, a student at Father Duenas between 1972 and 1974, was identified in court documents only with the initials O.O.O. to protect his privacy.

His $5 million lawsuit named Father George Maddock and Father Louis Brouillard as his abusers. Both priests are now deceased.

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ANAHEIM (CA)
Orange County Register

February 4, 2020

Irvine – A man who has alleged in a lawsuit against the Diocese of Orange that he was molested by a Roman Catholic priest when he was 6 years old in 1994 said Monday that Diocese officials have attempted to “intimidate” him.

Last week, a judge cleared the way for the public identification of the priest, Father Edward Poettgen, who was most recently assigned to St. Boniface Catholic Church in Anaheim. The man suing him held a news conference Monday from the offices of his attorneys to say the Diocese has treated him “like an enemy of the church.”

The man, whose name was not released, said he reported the priest in January of 2019 so he could find some sort of healing.

“Instead of treating me with compassion Bishop (Kevin) Vann has treated me as an enemy of the church,” he said. “They served subpoenas on my mother, my girlfriend and my employers, hoping to intimidate me but I will not be intimidated. I find strength in knowing that my actions will protect other children.”

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NEW YORK (NY)
NY Post

February 8, 2020

By Sara Dorn

The New York Archdiocese has hired former FBI Director Louis Freeh to probe sex abuse allegations against Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, according to a new report.

DiMarzio, 75, is accused of repeatedly molesting Mark Matzek when he was an altar boy and student at St. Nicholas Church and School in Jersey City in the 1970s, according to Matzek’s lawyer, Mitchell Garabedian.

Garabedian took Matzek’s claims public in November, and announced plans to file a lawsuit against DiMarzio.

“We look forward to the filing of the lawsuit so Bishop DiMarzio can have his day in court,” DiMarzio’s attorney Joseph Hayden told the Diocese-owned Brooklyn Tablet. “Bishop DiMarzio is ready, willing and able to defend this lawsuit . . . because the allegation is not true.”

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NEW YORK (NY)
America Magazine

February 7, 2020

By Gerard O’Connell

Vatican City – The Legionaries of Christ have elected the Rev. John Connor, 51, a graduate of Loyola University Chicago, as their new superior general. He is the first American to lead the order, which has today less than 1,000 priests. His election took place during the general chapter of the order and is meant to signal a change of direction.

Father O’Connor is the first non-Mexican to lead the order that was founded in 1941 by the Mexican priest, the Rev. Marcial Maciel. Benedict XVI removed Father Marcial from public ministry in 2006, after finding him guilty of sexually abusing minors, and ordered him to spend the rest of his life in prayer and penance. He died in 2008. It was subsequently revealed that he had sexual relations with more than one woman and had fathered children, and this news led Benedict to decide that the Vatican would take control of the order in 2010.

Pope Benedict appointed Cardinal Velasio De Paolis as his delegate to renew the order. The cardinal supervised the revision of its constitution and its process of renewal, but he failed to take action on specific cases of abuse and appears to have left unanswered many questions regarding the finances of the Legion and how they were misused by the founder.

Last December, before holding its general chapter, the Legion published a report in which it revealed that 33 of its priests had abused 175 minors over the years, revealing also that a third of those priests had been victims of abuse. The report also said its founder had abused 60 minors. But the report gave rise to demands for much greater information. At the same time, accusations of cover up of abuse allegations resurfaced in Mexico, raising many questions about how deep the reform of the order has been.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
BBC

February 10, 2020

Non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) should not be used to prevent someone from reporting sexual harassment in the workplace, according to new guidance.

Arbitration service Acas has published advice for firms and workers about NDAs, including how to avoid misuse.

Several high-profile scandals have exposed how NDAs are often used to silence mainly women alleging sexual harassment and misconduct.

Acas said misusing these agreements can be “very damaging” to an organisation.

NDAs are contracts or parts of contracts that typically prevent staff and ex-staff making information public.

They can apply to commercially sensitive details such as inventions and ideas, or anything likely to damage an organisation’s reputation, and are sometimes known as “gagging orders” or “hush agreements”.

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

VATICAN CITY
Associated Press

February 10, 2020

Pope Francis will visit the Mediterranean island nation of Malta on May 31, the Vatican said Monday, confirming the Pope’s first foreign trip for the year.

Other rumored trips for Francis include a visit to Indonesia and East Timor in the second half of 2020.

Malta’s top two church leaders are very close to the Pope, and have echoed his concerns about the plight of migrants, families experiencing difficulties and the need to combat sexual abuse.

Archbishop Charles Scicluna is the Vatican’s longtime sex crimes prosecutor who helped turn Francis around on the issue after the Argentine pope botched his handling of the abuse scandal in Chile. Scicluna is based in Valletta but also retains a senior position in the Vatican office that handles abuse cases.

Bishop Mario Grech heads the Catholic Church on the Maltese island of Gozo. He was named by Francis last year to take over the Vatican office that coordinates the synod of bishops, the meetings to debate matters of importance to the church.

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

NEW YORK (NY)
Daily News

February 2, 2020

By Larry McShane

For Brooklyn Poly Prep County Day School alum Richard Rubin, the typical 3 Rs of education came with a fourth: Rape.

Rubin, now a genteel 72-year-old Staten Island resident, alleges in a newly-filed Child Victims Act lawsuit that he was sexually abused on a weekly basis between 1960-65 by a cabal of five predatory teachers at the prestigious school. Rubin was even taken to the apartment of the most aggressive instructor for one-on-one assaults, according to court papers.

“It would be really nice to kick Poly in the teeth and let them take notice of what went on,” Rubin told the Daily News after the Brooklyn Supreme Court suit was filed. “If not for the money, Poly might not take any notice. The headmaster, the dean of boys, the athletics department— they basically all let this go on.

“It was a horrible time.”

His attorney David Oddo, after vetting the incredible tale of long-running abuse, said Poly operated more like a ’70s bathhouse than a college preparatory school.

The predatory quintet “anally raped and viciously sexually assaulted the plaintiff on a weekly basis … on school premises, including but not limited to the locker room, classrooms and under the stairwells,” the lawsuit alleged.

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STATEN ISLAND (NY)
SI Live

February 4, 2020

By Joseph Ostapiuk

A 72-year-old New Brighton man filed a Child Victims Act lawsuit against his alma mater, Poly Prep Country Day School in Brooklyn, for alleged abuse he suffered on a weekly basis on the grounds of the institution when he was between the ages of 13 and 18 years old.

The newly-filed lawsuit alleges that Richard Rubin endured “multiple rapes and vicious and brutal sexual assaults” by five separate teachers at the school, including being assaulted in classrooms, stairwells, a locker room and the apartment of one of the abusers.

Poly Prep “failed to take steps” to prevent the teachers from raping children in their care, instead leaving the accused individuals in charge of the children who attended the school, the court filing claims.

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ALBANY (NY)
Times-Union

February 8, 2020

By Rick Karlin

Daniel Maher, 81, served in a number of Capital Region parishes

Albany Roman Catholic Diocese Bishop Edward Scharfenberger said Saturday he has placed a priest who retired from active ministry in 2008 on administrative leave following allegations of sexual abuse of a minor in the 1960s and 70s.

The Rev. Daniel Maher, 81, served as pastor of Holy Cross (now All Saints), Albany, from 1994 to 2008; pastor of Sacred Heart (now Immaculate Heart of Mary), Watervliet, from 1973 to 1994; associate pastor of St. Francis de Sales, West Albany (now Christ Our Light, Loudonville), from 1966 to 1973; associate pastor of St. Mary’s, Clinton Heights, from 1965 to 1966, and associate pastor of St. Teresa of Avila (now Mater Christi), Albany, from 1962 to 1965.

Maher denies the allegations, according to the statement from the diocese.

Scharfenberger’s decision came after a preliminary investigation by the Diocesan Review Board, which recommended administrative leave pending the completion of the full investigation.

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DENVER (CO)
Catholic News Agency via National Catholic Register

February 7, 2020

According to Reuters, Chilean officials have investigated 120 allegations of sexual abuse or cover-ups involving 167 Church officials or church workers.

Santiago, Chile – Pope Francis on Wednesday appointed bishops to the dioceses of Osorno and San Bartolomé de Chillán, both of which had been left vacant in 2018 amid the sex abuse scandal of the Church in Chile.

On Feb. 5 Bishop Jorge Enrique Concha Cayuqueo was named Bishop of Osorno, and Father Sergio Hernán Pérez de Arce Arriagada, was named Bishop of San Bartolomé de Chillán. Both had been serving as apostolic administrators of their new respective sees.

The chanceries of both Bishop Osorno and Bishop Chillán had been raided in September 2018 amid an investigation into sexual crimes against minors committed by members of the Church.

The Diocese of Osorno had been vacant since the June 2018 resignation of Bishop Juan de la Cruz Barros Madrid, who had been accused of covering up abuses of Father Fernando Karadima.

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BUFFALO (NY)
WGRZ

February 8, 2020

Father Riter led St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Roman Catholic Church in Dunkirk. The Diocese of Buffalo said he died ‘after a brief illness.’

The Rev. Dennis Riter, who was accused of sexual abuse before being cleared and reinstated by the Diocese of Buffalo, has died.

The Diocese said through a statement on Saturday night that he died “after a brief illness.”

Father Riter led St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Roman Catholic Church in Dunkirk, which confirmed his death on its website.

“We sadly announce that Father Dennis Riter passed away Saturday afternoon, February 8, 2020. Please keep his family in your prayers during this most difficult time,” the message read.

Father Riter was placed on administrative leave in March of 2018 during the investigation before eventually being reinstated months later, in late June.

Riter was originally accused by at least two men who said the priest abused them in Buffalo while Riter was serving at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church.

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BUFFALO (NY)
WKBW

February 8, 2020

We are learning that Father Dennis Riter has died.

That’s according to a source close to the parish where he worked in Dunkirk.

Father Riter was the pastor at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church.

The church’s website says Father Riter suffered a serious medical emergency earlier in the week.

Father Riter was accused of child sexual abuse by multiple victims, yet was returned to ministry by Bishop Richard Malone.

He was the focus of a 7 Eyewitness News I-Team investigation.

The Bishop defended his decision saying there was no evidence to support the allegations.

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SAN DIEGO (CA)
Insurance Journal

February 4, 2020

By Will Graves

USA Gymnastics has filed a bankruptcy plan that includes an offer of $215 million for sexual abuse survivors to settle their claims against the embattled organization.

The $215 million total is the amount the insurance carriers for USA Gymnastics and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee are willing to provide in hopes of ending years of legal battles with athletes who were abused by former national team doctor Larry Nassar. Survivors have been in mediation with USA Gymnastics since the organization filed for bankruptcy in December 2018.

Nassar is serving decades in prison for sexual assault and possession of child pornography in Michigan. Hundreds of athletes have come forward over the last three years saying Nassar abused them under the guise of treatment, including reigning Olympic champion Simone Biles and six-time Olympic medalist Aly Raisman.

Bankruptcy law requires businesses to provide an exit plan within 18 months, and the exit plan is another step in a still lengthy process. USA Gymnastics President Li Li Leung told The Associated Press on Thursday that the organization wants to “work toward a true consensual settlement” with survivors.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
BBC

February 7, 2020

Children and vulnerable people are safe in the care of the Anglican church in Lincolnshire, a senior clergyman says.

A BBC investigation in 2019 found two former Bishops of Lincoln had failed to act when informed of alleged abuse.

The current Bishop, Christopher Lowson, was later suspended for a separate alleged failure to act in relation to a safeguarding children inquiry.

The Archdeacon of Lincoln said the diocese was “doing its best to get it right” and had “first class staff”.

The BBC investigation found clergy and staff from the diocese were referred to police in 2015 over allegations a “blind eye” had been turned to claims of historic child abuse.

Police and the Lincoln Diocese investigated 25 people over alleged abuse from a list of 53 names passed to officers, with three cases leading to convictions.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
KYW

February 9, 2020

By David Madden

Over $11 million has been paid out, or soon will be, by five Catholic dioceses in New Jersey to dozens of victims of sexual abuse at the hands of priests. And that effort is far from finished.

564 claims have been filed all told and 105 have been addressed according to Camille Biros, who along with fellow Washington-based attorney Ken Feinberg, is administering an independent fund. They have done the same for the Catholic Church in four other states including Pennsylvania after a similar effort on behalf of 9/11 victims.

Of the 105 claims addressed, all but seven are getting a settlement payment. The remaining 459 claims are still under review.

“We are no longer taking any information about new allegations,” Biros told KYW Newsradio. “We are taking the completed claim forms from individuals who we’ve determined already to be potentially eligible to participate in the program. So they have the information. They just need to complete that paperwork and get that to us by February 29th.”

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BINGHAMTON (NY)
Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin via PressConnects

February 7, 2020

By Anthony Borrelli

A Binghamton man has accused a former staff member at the Salvation Army’s Youth Center of sexually assaulting him when he was a homeless 16-year-old during the latter months of 1985.

The now-51-year-old man’s lawsuit, filed Monday in Supreme Court of Broome County under New York’s Child Victims Act, doesn’t name the suspected abuser but it refers to him as a “John Doe” — an agent, administrator and/or officer with the Salvation Army.

Alleged repeated acts of sexual abuse, including rape, harassment and violence, were committed between September and December of 1985, according to the lawsuit. Seven defendants are listed: the Salvation Army, its Open Door Youth Center now known as the Salvation Army of Binghamton, and five “John Does,” one of them described as the “principal abuser.”

The lawsuit accuses the abuser of grooming the 16-year-old victim while working as a counselor at the Youth Center, someone who became a guiding force in the victim’s life.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Magazine

February 8, 2020

By Victor Fiorillo

It wasn’t until a patient revealed her abuse at the hands of Larry Nassar that psychiatrist Liz Goldman decided to go public with her own sexual assault in the Lower Merion School District.

Hi, this is Dr. Liz Goldman. Please feel free to leave me a message, and I will return your call within 24 hours. I apologize, but I am not accepting new patients.

[Beep.]

Those are the words that Sarah Klein heard when she called Bryn Mawr-based psychiatrist Liz Goldman in November of 2015. Klein, 36 at the time, had recently moved from Florida to the Main Line and just had a baby, and she was looking for a therapist, in part because her doctors told her she might be suffering from postpartum depression.

Klein, an intense, stylish attorney with piercing eyes, delicately asked around for references, the way you do when you’re new to the area and in search of something a bit more personal than, say, a plumber or an auto mechanic. She’d get the number of a therapist and make the call, but she heard the same thing over and over again: no new patients.

Eventually, one therapist who couldn’t fit Klein in gave her Liz Goldman’s number. Klein made the call. In spite of what she heard on Goldman’s voicemail greeting, Klein left a message. Goldman retrieved Klein’s message just after a longtime patient canceled an appointment scheduled for the next afternoon. She immediately called Klein and offered her the spot.

“To this day, I have no idea why I did that,” says Goldman, a comparatively introspective woman who’s been in private practice since 2003, when she was chief resident of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. “I never do that. I hadn’t seen a new patient in maybe 10 years.”

Klein sat on the couch in Goldman’s ground-floor office in a sprawling brick apartment complex just off Lancaster Avenue and told the doctor about some of her struggles. What Klein had to say at that time was pretty garden-variety compared to some of the cases Goldman has handled, which have ranged from psychosis to full-blown personality disorders. But Klein clearly needed help, and she continued seeing Goldman regularly for the next two years. Then the regular visits stopped, and Klein vanished from Goldman’s world.

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PHOENIX (AZ)
12 News

February 7, 2020

By Bianca Buono

https://www.12news.com/article/news/local/valley/lawyer-says-former-valley-priest-accused-of-sexual-abuse-is-too-sick-to-go-to-court/75-793b4080-3bca-4036-8461-0cf157e64002

John “Jack” Spaulding was indicted in January. His lawyer says days before the indictment, Spaulding was diagnosed with a “mortal illness.”

A former Valley priest accused of molesting multiple children did not appear in court on Friday morning.

In January, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office announced that Father John “Jack” Spaulding was indicted and accused of sexually abusing at least two boys under the age of 15 between 2003 and 2007.

Spaulding was due in court Friday for his arraignment. He did not show up. But families of victims, clergy, and Bishop Thomas Olmsted did.

It was an emotional morning for those like Katy Soukup.

“It’s painful and it’s hurtful,” Soukup said.

According to a lawsuit, her brother, David, was sexually abused by Spaulding in the 1980s. After turning to drugs and crime to cope with his trauma, David’s father shot and killed him in self-defense in 2010.

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DENVER (CO)
Catholic News Agency

February 4, 2020

La Plata, Argentina – Pope Francis has dismissed from the clerical state Argentine priest Roberto Juan Yannuzzi, founder and superior of the Miles Christi (Soldier of Christ) Institute, who has been found guilty of abuse.

The order has locations in the U.S. dioceses of San Diego and Detroit, as well as Argentina, Mexico and Italy.

Archbishop Víctor Manuel Fernández of La Plata, Argentina, where the institute was founded, said in a Feb. 2 statement that Pope Francis made the decision because Yannuzzi “has been found guilty of crimes against the sixth commandment with adults, the absolution of the accomplice, and the abuse of authority.”

The abuse involved male religious who were members of the Miles Christi Institute, which Yannuzzi founded, the statement said.

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MARTINSVILLE (VA)
Martinsville Bulletin

February 4, 2020

The First Amendment, the mission statement of our democracy, holds self-evident two primary rights for each of us: to say freely what we think and to practice the religion we prefer without interference from the government. Oppression against those tenets is why a group fled England on boats and why their (and our) ancestors made those protections the first in our Constitution.

So it is with ultimate irony that a proceeding today in Richmond could determine if a free religion can limit free speech – even to the point of firing and keeping quiet an employee for doing the job he is supposed to be doing, which is comforting the afflicted.

Maybe what Father Mark White really has been doing is inflicting the comfortable of the Catholic Church, because we find the steps the church has taken to censor his comments and threaten his calling to be both repugnant and ridiculous.

*

But among those were the eyeballs of his superior – Barry Knestout, the bishop in Richmond — and quite possibly others from the Vatican. Because someone decided Father White needed to keep his fingers still and his mouth shut when it came to the church’s practices. We suspect those orders were handed down from above the bishop’s pay grade.

Now Father White did not hesitate in his writings to be frank about what he saw as his church’s failings. He was enflamed by the fact that one of the guilty was Cardinal Theodore Edgar McCarrick, the man who had ordained him as a minster. Father White told Bill Wyatt of the Bulletin that he began to recognize how McCarrick had conducted himself, that he now sees how McCarrick might have signaled his interest in the men who said he had abused them.

Fueled by righteous anger and his oath to protect the innocent from the abuse of anyone in any way, Father White challenged the way his church was protecting the perpetrating priests more aggressively than they were those injured innocents.

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DENVER (CO)
Catholic News Agency

February 3, 2020

By Jonah McKeown

Fort Worth TX – A Fort Worth diocesan priest who resigned his post and later attempted to rescind his resignation has dropped a lawsuit against Bishop Michael Olson and the Diocese of Fort Worth— a lawsuit which alleged that the bishop had defamed him by implying he is a threat to children.

In June 2018, Olson asked Father Richard Kirkham, former pastor of St. Martin de Porres parish in Prosper, Texas, to resign his pastorate, because the priest did not report to authorities what appeared to the bishop to be a case of a priest abusing a vulnerable adult.

Last week, Kirkham dropped the lawsuit he had filed in June 2019. In that lawsuit, Kirkham and his attorney had argued that the bishop had, in interviews with the Star-Telegram, implied that Kirkham’s removal was because he posed a danger to minors and the vulnerable.

According to Kirkham’s attorney, John Walsh, the lawsuit was dropped because Olson eventually clarified that Kirkham’s resignation did not result from any failure to report the sexual abuse of child, and there are not any allegations that Father Kirkham has sexually abused a child.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

February 3, 2020

By Amanda Milkovits Globe Staff,Updated February 3, 2020, 6:01 a.m.

Providence RI – A parishioner in East Providence has filed a federal class action lawsuit against the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, after media reports that as little as 10 percent of collections go to charity.

Every year, the Conference of Catholic Bishops solicits for donations from parishioners at Catholic churches around the country for the “Peter’s Pence Collection.” The fund is advertised as a collection to help victims of war, natural disasters and disease throughout the world.

David O’Connell says in his lawsuit that he donated to Peter’s Pence at Sacred Heart Church in 2018 because he thought the money was going to the needy.

Then, last month, the Wall Street Journal and other media in Italy reported that millions of dollars were actually going to “plug holes in the Vatican’s administrative budget” — along with investments in other unusual projects.

“Hundreds of millions of dollars over the last several years has been diverted into various suspicious investment funds, which in turn have funneled the money into such diverse ventures as luxury condominium developments and Hollywood movies, while paying fund managers hefty, multi-million dollar commissions,” Providence lawyer Peter N. Wasylyk and Marc R. Stanley of the Stanley Law Group in Dallas, Texas, wrote in the lawsuit filed Jan. 22 at U.S. District Court.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service via Crux

February 8, 2020

Los Angeles Archbishop Jose H. Gomez, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has appointed Suzanne Healy, the former victims assistance coordinator for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, as the new chair of the National Review Board, effective in June.

Healy, a retired marriage and family therapist, served as the victim assistance coordinator for the Los Angeles Archdiocese from 2007 to 2016 and for the past three years she has been a member of the National Review Board.

Prior to her work in the Los Angeles Archdiocese, she served as a high school counselor and before becoming a therapist, she served in strategic planning experience for AT&T Pacific Bell.

Healy will succeed Francesco Cesareo, who concludes his term as chair after the bishops’ June 2020 meeting. Cesareo, president of Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts, has served as the review board chairman since 2013.

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VATICAN CITY
Associated Press

February 7, 2020

By Nicole Winfield

Pope Francis will release his eagerly-awaited document on the Amazon next Wednesday, with attention focused on whether he will approve calls by the region’s bishops to ordain married men to address a priest shortage there.

Speculation about Francis’ decision has intensified in recent weeks after retired Pope Benedict XVI co-authored a book insisting on the “foundational” need for a celibate priesthood. The book, excerpts of which were published Jan. 12, appeared to be a direct attempt by the retired pope and his conservative allies to influence the thinking of the current one.

Vatican officials sought to defuse that idea Friday, saying Francis had turned over his document to the Holy See for translation on Dec. 27, before “From the Depths of Our Heart” came out. They said Francis’ text did not undergo any changes since then.

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BRONX (NY)
Fordham Ram

February 6, 2020

By Erica Scalise

Rev. Nicholas J. Langenfeld, former social welfare professor in the Graduate School of Social Services, prior recipient of the President’s Medal and the eponymous figure of the Rev. Dr. Nicholas J. Langenfeld Chair in Social Research at the university’s Graduate School of Social Sciences, has a credible allegation of sexual abuse of a minor against him listed by the Diocese of Green Bay.

The university revoked Langenfeld’s honors in 2019, posthumously, following its knowledge of the allegation. The Langenfeld Chair was renamed the Sister Thea Bowman Chair according to Bob Howe, director of communications for the university. The Fordham community was not notified of these changes.

According to Howe, there is no central list of revoked honors.

The university publicly rescinded Bill Cosby’s honorary degree in 2015 in light of sexual misconduct allegations against him and Charlie Rose’s honorary degree in 2017 following sexual assault allegations brought against him. In the case of Langenfeld, Howe said the university did not make a formal statement because he was long deceased when the university revoked the honors.

Langenfeld is not on Fordham News’ list of priests connected to the university with credible allegations of sexual abuse of a minor. Howe said the lack of update was an oversight.

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DENVER (CO)
Catholic News Agency

February 7, 2020

By JD Flynn

Women who made allegations against a priest in the Legionaries of Christ say the religious order’s newly elected superior general mishandled the situation, allowing the priest opportunities to cross boundaries with women even after complaints against him had been made.

But the Legionaries of Christ say that Fr. John Connor, who was this week elected worldwide leader of the group, has not been negligent in his oversight responsibilities in the religious order.

“He does, however, believe there is room for improvement when working toward a culture of zero abuse,” Gail Gore, a spokesperson for the Legion told CNA Feb. 7.

Connor became the North American territorial director for the Legionaries of Christ in 2014. Three years later he received two reports about boundary violations on the part of Fr. Michael Sullivan, a priest of the order.

In that year, one woman reported that Sullivan had treated her in a way that seemed to cross boundaries, while she was still an adolescent.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

February 7, 2020

https://www.ncronline.org/news/accountability/ncr-today/your-thoughts-catholic-confusion-continuing-abuse-crisis-and-more

It should not surprise anyone that the public disclosure of the crimes committed by sex predator priests has made being a priest more difficult and less pleasant for their non-predator colleagues.

Nevertheless, the “turmoil” caused by the public’s knowledge of these criminals and their crimes vanishes when contrasted with the lifelong damage that is inflicted on the innocent children who have been raped and otherwise used for the sexual gratification by men who are said to be the servants of God.

We should save our sympathy for the raped children and let the non-predator priests resolve their own “turmoil.” Perhaps the solution is for the priesthood to rid itself of the sex predators among its members and see to it that more predators are prevented from joining.

Please consider reporting how many of America’s 17,000-plus Catholic parishes were not “served” by a sexual predator priest between, say, 1951 and 2000. I picked the last five decades because of the very long time between (a) the average age of the victim at the first rape (11) and (b) the average age of the victim when such rapes are reported (44).

ROB BLIGH
San Antonio, Texas

***

These are the men (priests mentioned in article) who should be running our archdioceses. They know the real heartbeat of the parishes that make up the archdioceses are not the cardinals and bishops that parishioners rarely encounter.

I am tired of receiving “My dear brothers and sisters” letters from someone who doesn’t know who is part of their archdiocese and stays behind a partition of staff to fend off questions!

MARY WALLACE
Emerson, New Jersey

***

I empathize with U.S. priests who feel the pressure and turmoil. The situation in Ireland is not dissimilar.

A factor unnecessarily adding to the pressure is a failure to recognize how much has changed in the understanding of child sexual abuse in the past 40 years. The article refers to “This cover-up … a lot are angry at bishops and the institutional church for screwing up.”

We insist today on the highest standards of dealing with allegations of abuse. It is unjust, and anachronistic, to judge the actions of those dealing with allegations 40 or 50 years ago as if they had our knowledge. The wisdom and best-practice of those times are the folly and outrage of today. They did not have our knowledge of how widespread abuse is, nor of the effects on those abused, nor how to deal with abusers. This is true of priests and of legal, medical and social professionals.

PADRAIG McCARTHY
Dublin, Ireland

***

This excellent article described well how hard it must be to be a good priest in the midst of a severe shortage of ministers.

There is a simple solution: Ordain women. Give parishes to women who have already been ordained as Catholic priests. I have been to two of these ordinations. As I see these women, in vestments at the altar proclaiming the gospel, performing the Eucharist, my first thought is: what is the church afraid of?

A man says, “I have been called to the priesthood” and everyone rejoices. He then works to pass the requirements of the seminary and enhance his spiritual life. A young woman says, “I have been called to the priesthood” and the church says, “No, you haven’t.”

From the beginning, with the great women saints, until today when sisters are at the border and women are running schools and parishes, what more do we have to do prove that we are the equal of men in our love for the message of Jesus? The church would rather close parishes than share priestly power with women. One might say that the church has brought this burden of overworked priests on itself.

MARGUERITE DELACOMA
Evanston, Illinois

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ROME
Catholic News Service

February 7, 2020

By Cindy Wooden

During a general chapter meeting largely devoted to their order’s sexual abuse crisis, the Legionaries of Christ elected U.S. Father John Connor as superior general for the next six years.

Connor, who will celebrate his 52nd birthday Feb. 15, has been the territorial superior for North America since 2014. He was elected superior general Feb. 6 in Rome.

A native of Severna Park, Maryland, Connor is the first superior general of the Legionaries who was not born in Mexico, where the order was founded in 1941.

Ordained to the priesthood Jan. 2, 2001, Connor has ministered mainly in New York, Philadelphia and Atlanta. He holds a degree in finance from Loyola College in Baltimore and studied philosophy and theology in Rome.

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OKLAHOMA
McAlester News

February 6, 2020

By James Beaty

A two-night series on the Oxygen television network focuses partially on a case that went through the Pittsburg County court system in 2013 and 2014.

Details of the case and what preceded and followed it are included in a new investigative series called “The Witnesses,” set to air at 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 8 and 9, on Oxygen, a pay television network owned by NBCUniversal.

The program covers what the network calls a five-year investigation into policies of the Jehovah’s Witness organization by Trey Bundy, of the Center for Investigative Journalism. It tells the stories of four individuals who reported to police that they were sexually abused as children, including two women from McAlester.

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ST. PAUL (MN)
CNS

February 3, 2020

By Dave Hrbacek

Gina Barthel went to a priest while in New York to find healing from childhood sexual abuse.

She got the opposite.

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LONDON (UK)
Church Times

February 7, 2020

By Hattie Williams

A SURVIVOR of clerical abuse had his settlement reduced by more than one third by the Church’s insurer, Ecclesiastical, based on the evidence of a psychiatrist who had never met the claimant, his lawyer has confirmed.

The story was first reported in the Insurance Post on Tuesday. The survivor — referred to as Tony — alleges that he was abused by two individuals. He suffered from mental-health issues after he first disclosed the abuse — an experience that he described as a “reawakening” of the trauma.

In 2017, Tony rejected an offer of settlement from Ecclesiastical. He was in hospital, having attempted to take his own life, when a lower offer was made. A Part 36 offer is routinely made by either the claimant or the defendant as a tactical step to convince the other party to settle the claim early, without the matter having to go to court. It must be accepted within 21 days.

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BROOKINGS (SD)
The Brookings Register

February 7, 2020

By Terry Mattingly

The email was signed “Worried Wife,” and contained a blunt version of a question Bronwyn Lea has heard many times while working with women in and around churches.

The writer said her husband had become friends with another woman his own age. There were no signs of trouble, but they traded messages about all kinds of things. This was creating a “jealous-wife space” in her mind.

“Worried Wife” concluded: “I need a biblical perspective. What is a godly view of cross-gender friendships, and how should they be approached within the context of marriage?”

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MEMPHIS (TN)
FOX 13

February 4, 2020

By Leah Jordan

Memphis-based Church of God in Christ is named in a lawsuit which details decades-old allegations of sex crimes.

The suit also names two New York churches, and an assistant pastor.

Warren Curtis alleges he was sexually abused in a New York church when he was a child.

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DENVER (CO)
Associated Press

February 6, 2020

A Colorado reparations program for people abused by Catholic priests when they were children paid more than $1 million to nine of 78 people who submitted claims.

The filing deadline was Friday and 60 cases are under review, The Colorado Sun reports.

One of the independent administrators of the Independent Reconciliation and Reparations Program for the Archdiocese of Denver, the Diocese of Colorado Springs and the Diocese of Pueblo said another $500,000 in payments are due to four other victims.

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LONG BEACH
Long Beach Post

February 6, 2020

By Kelly Puente

Long Beach resident Manny Lemos joined the Boy Scouts of America in the early 1970s after his father died, hoping the organization would give him a sense of belonging.

Lemos said he was 11 when an assistant scoutmaster befriended him and then began sexually abusing him during camping trips to Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear. The abuse, which continued until he was 14, had a profound affect on his life, he said.

“I was too afraid to tell anyone because I didn’t think anyone would believe me,” said Lemos, now 61. “But now I’m ready. I want it to be known what this man did to me.”

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ST. GEORGE (UT)
St. George News

February 3, 2020

By Hollie Reina

In the 2019 fiscal year, the Utah Division of Child and Family Services received 42,428 reports of child abuse or neglect, according to their annual report. Of that number, 21,401 were accepted for formal assessment by Child Protective Services and 10,828 confirmed child victims were found.

All of those numbers were up from 2018, according to the same report.

Kristy Pike, director of the Washington County Children’s Justice Center, said that rising numbers are not necessarily a bad thing. In most instances, that means better reporting of child abuse and neglect, she said.

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JEFFERSON COUNTY (MO)
Leader Publications

February 4, 2020

The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office and state authorities are investigating abuse allegations against former employees at a day care program run by Victory Church, 1 Victory Drive, southwest of Pevely.

The Victory Children’s Center of Victory Church is under investigation, Sheriff’s Office Capt. Gary Higginbotham said Jan. 31.

On Jan. 15, the Children’s Division of the Missouri Department of Social Services notified the Sheriff’s Office that it was investigating alleged abuse that occurred this year, Higginbotham said.

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MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL
Star Tribune

February 05, 2020

By Erin Adler

Two young women made credible claims against a former Burnsville church pastor when they accused him of having inappropriate sexual relationships with them more than 15 years ago, an investigation by the church has concluded.

The Rev. Wes Feltner, a former lead pastor at Berean Baptist Church, was found by the investigation not to be “above reproach,” meaning that he behaved in a shameful way not “free from sinful habits” and deserving of “rebuke or censure” in the eyes of church elders, according to a recent statement from the church to congregants.

A meeting for the congregation was held Jan. 23 to explain the investigation’s results. Church leaders didn’t return phone calls, and a relative of Feltner’s said he didn’t want to comment.

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UNITED STATES
Fox News

By Stephanie Nolasco

Sarah Brooks was sitting next to her father in his pickup truck when she confessed to him she had suffered sexual abuse at the hands of two church members.

Brooks was just 17 at the time, but she claimed it all started when she was just 15.

“I deliberately chose that moment,” she told Fox News. “I didn’t want to look at him in the face. I knew something wasn’t right and I just didn’t know what to do about it. He said, ‘The best thing to do is tell the truth. That’s the only thing you can ever do.’ That’s when I proceeded to tell him what had happened to me, all the touching and kissing that occurred.”

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Christian Post

February 7, 2020

By Richard Land

Question: There have been disturbing reports about child sex abuse in churches, sometimes even the father being the perpetrator, and pastors and counselors saying that the perpetrator has repented and pushing reconciliation and forgiveness even though the victim believes the perpetrator is faking it and feels unsafe. Church leaders have even pushed for children to forgive and live with the father who sexually abused them and some have resulted in continual abuse. How do you balance repentance, forgiveness, born-again theology, and protecting the victim and preventing further abuse – both in a counseling setting and in a church setting? How do you deal with a convicted child sex abuser joining the church and setting up proper protection while also needing to recognize someone beyond their past sins?

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
Nola.com

February 6, 2020

By Ramon Antonio Vargas

Two men who filed lawsuits claiming they were raped as children by janitors at Jesuit High School’s Mid-City campus have moved to dismiss their cases after receiving financial settlements.

The plaintiffs’ attorney, Roger Stetter, said Thursday that both sides had agreed not to disclose the amounts and terms of the settlements, which were negotiated through a mediation process.

As is standard with such agreements, neither the school nor the religious order that runs it acknowledged any wrongdoing. But Stetter said his clients stood by their claims that they were sexually molested decades ago by Gary Sanchez and the late Peter Modica.

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

SCOTLAND
Scottish Catholic Observer

February 7, 2020

An audit of two Scottish dioceses reveals scale of healing abuse wounds but some progress is being made, reports Peter diamond

More work is needed in building trust, an independent audit of safeguarding practices in two Scottish dioceses has recommended.

Both the Archdiocese of St Andrews & Edinburgh and Galloway Diocese welcomed the report, which was published on Thursday, January 30, yet reviews of safeguarding processes within the two dioceses have noted ‘healing’ was still ongoing and called for more support for abuse survivors.

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.

FRANKFURT (GERMANY)
Catholic News Service

February 6, 2020

The first synodal assembly on the future the Catholic Church in Germany drew both praise and some criticism, with many of the 230 participants lauding what they called a special atmosphere in the debates on key reforms.

Cardinal Reinhard Marx, president of the German bishops’ conference, said the spirit of the talks had been “positive and encouraging” and referred to the synodal path process as a “spiritual experiment,” reported the German Catholic news agency KNA.

Thomas Sternberg, president of the Central Committee of German Catholics, which represents laypeople, said: “No one is disputing the other’s piety here.” A “new image of the church” had been seen in the Frankfurt talks, he said.

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SANTIAGO (CHILE)
CNA

February 6, 2020

Pope Francis on Wednesday appointed bishops to the dioceses of Osorno and San Bartolomé de Chillán, both of which had been left vacant in 2018 amid the sex abuse scandal of the Church in Chile.

On Feb. 5 Bishop Jorge Enrique Concha Cayuqueo, O.F.M., was named Bishop of Osorno, and Father Sergio Hernán Pérez de Arce Arriagada, SS.CC., was named Bishop of San Bartolomé de Chillán. Both had been serving as apostolic administrators of their new respective sees.

The chanceries of both Osorno and Chillán had been raided in September 2018 amid an investigation into sexual crimes against minors committed by members of the Church.

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SUMTER (SC)
The Sumter Item

February 7, 2020

By Brian J. Clites

Roman Catholic Bishop Richard Malone resigned in December 2019 after intense public criticism for his handling of the clergy sexual abuse crisis in the diocese of Buffalo, New York.

His departure came three months after the Vatican announced what’s called an “apostolic visitation” – a religious investigation that allows the pope to swiftly audit, punish or sanction virtually any wing of the Roman Catholic Church – into Malone’s diocese or region.

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PENNSYLVANIA
National Catholic Reporter

February 4, 2020

By Sarah Salvadore Accountability

At Villanova event, Hans Zollner calls out past systemic failure in reporting, stopping abuse

In a Jan. 29 talk at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, Jesuit Fr. Hans Zollner said that clericalism is the root cause of the damage done to the church and called out past systemic failure in reporting, punishing and stopping abuse.

“There is general mistrust and suspicion on cardinals and bishops. This is not just happening in U.S. and Australia — the level of trust on bishops is below zero. And this has devastated an institution that is built on trust and faith,” he said.

Zollner, a professor of psychology and president of the Center for Child Protection, at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, spoke as part of a series examining the sex abuse crisis. Zollner spoke on the situation of the church across the globe.

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LANSING (MI)
Associated Press via U.S. News and World Report

February 6, 2020

A former Roman Catholic priest in Michigan will be tried on sexual assault charges for allegedly abusing a 5-year-old boy after a 1987 family funeral, Attorney General Dana Nessel said Wednesday.

Vincent DeLorenzo was bound over for trial after a hearing before Grand Blanc District Court Judge Christopher Odette. The judge also increased DeLorenzo’s bond from $100,000 to $200,000. He remains in Genesee County Jail.

DeLorenzo, 81, is accused of abusing the boy from 1995 to 2000. The child was a student at Holy Redeemer Catholic Church school in Burton. The alleged victim testified he was raped by DeLorenzo in the second grade. Defense attorney Michael Manley has said his client “maintains his innocence.”

Although the alleged crime took place more than 10 years ago, Michigan’s statute of limitations is suspended when a defendant leaves the state for any reason. DeLorenzo admitted when he resigned from a Flint-area parish in 2002 that he had sexually abused a child. He wasn’t charged at the time.

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PROVIDENCE (RI)
Associated Press via National Catholic Reporter

February 6, 2020

By Jennifer McDermott

Rhode Island’s attorney general said Feb.6 he expects to release a public report later this year with findings from his review of allegations of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clerics in the state.

Democrat Peter Neronha continues to review the allegations to figure out what happened, what the response was and whether anyone can be held responsible in Rhode Island, one of the most heavily Catholic states.

Neronha, who met with reporters at his office Thursday, said he couldn’t yet say whether any criminal charges will be filed. The challenge with such cases nationwide is that many perpetrators are dead, he added.

At a minimum, Neronha said he anticipates writing a public report and releasing it later this year to describe the allegations, the response, whether he deems the response appropriate and whether sufficient safeguards are now in place.

The goal is to write it in the style of the 2018 landmark grand jury report on sexual abuse by Catholic clergy in Pennsylvania, he added.

Neronha gained access in July to nearly 70 years of records from the Diocese of Providence for his review, shortly after the diocese released a list of 50 clerics, religious order priests and deacons it deems to have been credibly accused of sexually abusing children, dating to 1950.

The diocese voluntarily agreed to a new memorandum of understanding to give the attorney general and the Rhode Island State Police access to all complaints since 1950, whether deemed credible by the diocese or not.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Agency via National Catholic Register

February 6, 2020
.
By Hannah Brockhaus

Pope Francis will make the final decision on when to publish a highly-anticipated report on former cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the Vatican’s Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said Thursday.

“I think that [the report] will come out soon, I cannot tell you exactly when,” Cardinal Parolin told a small group of journalists Feb. 6.

Speaking on the sidelines of a conference on holiness, the cardinal said “we are trying to speed up the time to arrive” at the publication of the report on the Vatican’s internal investigation into the disgraced former cardinal.

Cardinal Parolin did confirm that he expects the document to be released “in the near future.”

“However, the publication depends on the pope. The work that is done is done, but the pope must give the final word,” he added.

The Vatican announced that it would conduct an internal review of files on McCarrick’s career in October 2018. McCarrick was a cardinal and the archbishop of two major American sees before he was found guilty of serial sexual abuse and laicized in 2019, following a canonical process.

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PHOENIX (AZ)
News 12

February 7, 2020

By Bianca Blanco

https://www.12news.com/article/news/local/valley/lawyer-says-former-valley-priest-accused-of-sexual-abuse-is-too-sick-to-go-to-court/75-793b4080-3bca-4036-8461-0cf157e64002

Father John “Jack” Spaulding was indicted in January. His lawyer says days before the indictment, Spaulding was diagnosed with a “mortal illness.”

Father John “Jack” Spaulding was due in court for his arraignment.

But he did not show.

According to a motion filed by his lawyer, Greg Meell, the 74-year-old was diagnosed with a terminal illness just a few days before Spaulding’s indictment in January, so he was too sick to appear in court.

The document said Spaulding is weak and called attending Friday’s hearing a “threat” because of illnesses like the flu spreading around.

The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office announced in January that Spaulding was indicted and accused of sexually abusing at least two boys under the age of 15 between 2003 and 2007.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

February 6, 2020

By Philip Pullella

Work on a Vatican report into disgraced ex U.S. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick is complete and it may be released in the near future but Pope Francis will have the final word on timing, the Vatican’s number two said on Thursday.

McCarrick was expelled from the Roman Catholic priesthood a year ago after a Vatican investigation found him guilty of sexual crimes against minors and adults and abuse of power.

The 89-year-old, once a power-broker as Archbishop of Washington, D.C. from 2001 to 2006, is the highest profile Church figure to have been dismissed from the priesthood in modern times.

In 2018, Francis ordered a through study of all documents in Holy See offices concerning McCarrick. The four U.S. dioceses where he served – New York, Metuchen, Newark, and Washington, D.C. – carried out separate investigations to feed into the Vatican report.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
Catholic News Service via The Tablet

February 6, 2020

By Gia Myers

Up to 200 people gathered at the conference to broaden their understanding of the global sex abuse crisis.

The Church has been damaged by the sexual abuse crisis, but people have been damaged more, according to a leading Vatican safeguarding expert.

Fr Hans Zollner SJ, a member on the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, told a conference in the US: “Much damage has been done to the church” due to clergy sexual abuse, said Fr Zollner, “but more damage has been done to human beings.” In responding to this crisis, “many people are engaged in the same mission: a safer church and a safer world,” he said.

Almost 200 people filled the Driscoll Hall Auditorium at the Augustinian Catholic University of Villanova in Pennsylvania, looking to deepen their understanding about global perspectives on the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church.

The evening event was the third conference in the four-part series of discussions with Catholic theologians hosted by Villanova to examine the abuse crisis. It featured Fr Zollner, a licensed German psychologist and psychotherapist with a doctorate in theology and one of the church’s leading experts in the area of safeguarding minors.

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LA CROSSE (WI)
La Crosse Tribune

February 6, 2020

By Kyle Farris

The Diocese of La Crosse has released the names of seven more priests who have been credibly accused of sexually abusing children.

These additions, made Wednesday, include two priests who held assignments in La Crosse and four who worked at a now defunct Jesuit boarding school in Prairie du Chien.

They are:

– Benedict Adams (St. Anthony Retreat Center, Marathon)
– J. Michael Cannon (Campion High School, Prairie du Chien)
– Thomas R. Haller (Campion High School)
– J. Roger Lucey (Campion High School)
– Charles Meyer (St. Rose Convent, La Crosse)
– James V. O’Connor (Campion High School)
– Michael A. Spegele (St. Francis Hospital, La Crosse)

At least five of the priests have died, and the other two were long ago dismissed by the Society of Jesus. It is unclear whether Cannon (dismissed in 1997) and Haller (dismissed in 1982) are still alive, still working with children or still serving in religious roles.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Associated Press

February 6, 2020

By Claudia Lauer and Meghan Hoyer

In the wake of revelations that scores of Roman Catholic priests and religious workers credibly accused of child sexual abuse are living unsupervised in communities across the country, state officials face a quandary: Should they screen former clergy members who seek licenses for jobs that put them in contact with children? And, if so, how?

An Associated Press investigation last fall found nearly 200 accused clergy members had been granted teaching, mental health or social work licenses, with roughly six dozen still holding valid licenses to work in those fields in 2019.

Since then, at least 20 states have started using church-released lists of priests and employees who faced credible allegations to screen applicants or check for current state teaching, foster care and therapy licenses — and, in some cases, have revoked credentials.

As part of the church’s attempt to be more transparent about its ongoing sexual abuse crisis, more than 170 dioceses and religious orders have publicly released lists of clergy members they found to be credibly accused of abuses ranging from rape to child pornography.

Over 5,300 priests, clergy members and a handful of lay employees — more than 2,000 of them still living — are on the lists. But because most were never convicted of a crime, the allegations of child abuse never appeared in licensing background checks, the AP’s investigation revealed.

Church and law enforcement officials have said there is little they can do to monitor or restrict the nearly 1,700 mostly former clergy members the AP found living without supervision because many voluntarily left the church or were laicized, which means they are permanently restricted from the priesthood and return to private citizenship.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
WTAE

February 6, 2020

Munhall PA – An 89-year-old retired priest who was found guilty of sexually abusing a then-11-year-old-boy in 2001 was sentenced to nine to 23 months and 29 days on Thursday afternoon.

The Rev. Hugh Lang was found guilty on six of eight charges he sexually abused a boy in the basement of Saint Therese Church in Munhall.

The judge shaved one day off of the sentence so Lang would not go to state prison. The execution of the sentence does not start immediately because there are issues over a motion to dismiss because of statute of limitations.

Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Mark Tranquilli convicted Lang in a non-jury trial but Judge Anthony Mariani will be the new judge, because Tranquilli has been ordered not to hear any cases after he allegedly made a racially charged remark during a closed-door meeting involving an assistant district attorney and a defense attorney.

The victim returned from Southeast Asia last year to testify against Lang.

Lang was on the witness stand for nearly an hour during his trial, testifying in his own defense. He insisted he does not know the victim and never abused him.

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PHOENIX (AZ)
News 12

February 6, 2020

By Bianca Buono

https://www.12news.com/article/news/local/valley/lawyer-says-former-valley-priest-accused-of-sexual-abuse-is-too-sick-to-go-to-court/75-793b4080-3bca-4036-8461-0cf157e64002

Father John “Jack” Spaulding was indicted in January. His lawyer says days before the indictment, Spaulding was diagnosed with a “mortal illness.”

A former Valley priest accused of molesting multiple children is due in court Friday morning. The only problem? The priest likely won’t have to show up.

“When the innocence of a child is taken from them, it is an absolutely unspeakable act,” said Maricopa County Attorney Allister Adel shortly after the indictment.

In January, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office announced that Spaulding, 74, was indicted and accused of sexually abusing at least two boys under the age of 15 between 2003 and 2007.

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VATICAN CITY
Associated Press via U.S. News and World Report

February 7, 2020

By Nicole Winfield

The Legion of Christ religious order, discredited years ago by its pedophile founder, has elected an American priest as its new superior as it seeks to recover from new sex abuse and cover-up scandals that have renewed calls for it to be disbanded.

The Rev. John Connor, 51, is the first American to lead the Mexico-based order. His election Thursday was a sign that the Legion’s heavily Mexican hierarchy realized it needed to send a signal that it is changing course, 10 years after it first promised reform.

Among Legion priests, Connor is seen as a reformer. But he has also been accused of mishandling a case of a priest accused by several women of crossing physical and emotional boundaries in the U.S. The priest was only recently removed from ministry even though initial reports about his behavior were received in 2017.

Connor, who has been in charge of the Legion in North America since 2014, has apologized for those who were hurt. And he has acknowledged that the Legion overall has not handled abuse cases properly and must now “wade through the sins of our past” to try to regain the trust of the faithful.

The Vatican took the Legion over in 2010 after determining that its late founder, the Rev. Marcial Maciel, sexually abused at least 60 seminarians, fathered at least three children, and built a cult-like order to hide his crimes.

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VATICAN CITY
Associated Press via Southeast Missourian

February 5, 2020

By Nicole Winfield

Another founder of a Catholic religious movement has been defrocked for sexual misconduct and abusing his power, the latest in a string of purportedly orthodox, charismatic priests who turned out to be predators.

Pope Francis defrocked the Argentine priest, Roberto Juan Yannuzzi, after a four-year investigation determined he had sex with adults under his authority, absolved them of the sin during confession and otherwise abused his power.

The pope’s decision was made public this week in a statement by the archbishop of La Plata, Argentina, where Yannuzzi in 1994 founded the Miles Christi community. The name is Latin for “Soldier of Christ.”

The movement is a religious order of priests, religious brothers, consecrated women and laity with a presence in Argentina, Italy, Mexico and in the U.S. dioceses of Detroit and San Diego, according to its website.

In a statement, Miles Christi said its members had denounced Yannuzzi’s abuse and “irregularities” starting in 2016.

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FRESNO (CA)
Fresno Bee

January 31, 2020

By Yesenia Amaro

The Diocese of Fresno faces a second lawsuit in less than a month filed under the state’s New Child Victims Act.

The suit accuses Father Miguel Flores of sexual abuse claims of which he was acquitted after a criminal trial in 2002.

The lawsuit filed Tuesday in Fresno County Superior Court also names as defendants St. Paul, Tranquility Roman Catholic Church and Immaculate Heart of Mary Roman Catholic Church. The alleged victim, who is only identified in the lawsuit as Jane Doe was about 16 years old when the alleged abuse by Flores took place. She is now 34.

Flores was placed on administrative leave on Feb. 28, 2019, after a report from a third party came to light in connection with the 2002 case in which he was acquitted. He was serving at St. Joseph Church in Bakersfield when he was placed on leave.

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ST. PAUL (MN)
Catholic Spirit – Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

February 4, 2020

By Maria Wiering

The Congregation for Bishops in Rome has authorized Archbishop Bernard Hebda to further investigate claims that Bishop Michael Hoeppner of Crookston interfered with an investigation of clerical sexual misconduct, according to a Feb. 4 statement from the archdiocese.
Judge Tim O’Malley, director of the Office of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, will oversee the investigation, serving as the archbishop’s delegate.

The statement says that the investigation will continue to look into claims that the bishop, “had engaged in ‘acts or omissions intended to interfere with or avoid civil or canonical investigations of clerical sexual misconduct’ as prescribed by the motu proprio, ‘Vos estis lux mundi.’”

Pope Francis promulgated the “motu proprio,” meaning an edict personally issued by the pope, in May 2019 to set new worldwide norms for reporting sexual abuse and to hold bishops accountable for abuse and/or its cover-up. It states that if a bishop is accused of misconduct, the Holy See will mandate his metropolitan archbishop to investigate the claim. As archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Archbishop Hebda is metropolitan archbishop of the bishops in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota.

Bishop Hoeppner, 70, is reportedly the first sitting U.S. bishop to be investigated under the new norms. In September 2019, The Catholic Spirit reported that Archbishop Hebda had been mandated to conduct a preliminary investigation of Bishop Hoeppner’s actions. Archbishop Hebda noted at that time that he had engaged qualified laypeople, including staff from the archdiocese’s Office of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment and its Ministerial Review Board, to conduct the investigation.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

February 6, 2020

By Maria Panaritis

At first, the number seems huge: The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has paid out nearly $39 million to 181 sexual-abuse victims through the compensation fund it opened last year.

Wow, you might think to yourself. Finally, the institution whose leaders allowed generations of children to be destroyed by the sexual depravity of countless priests while bishops and monsignors helped cover it up, is paying up from the treasury it so immorally had fought to protect.

But don’t be fooled. This is a mammoth number only when you consider how difficult victims have found securing just compensation in one of the nation’s largest Catholic dioceses thanks to resistance by the church itself.

Accountability has arrived, yes. But at discount rates.

The $39 million tally, provided to me this week about the clergy-abuse compensation fund created after the 2018 grand jury report into Catholic clergy abuse in Pennsylvania, is well below what the five-county archdiocese would likely have paid in court — if it had not helped block a state law that would have allowed a flood of lawsuits.

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FLINT (MI)
ABC 12/WJRT

February 5, 2020

Bond doubled as Flint-area priest bound over to trial

A former Catholic priest is facing trial on sex charges dating back to his work at parishes in Burton and Flushing in the 1980s to 2000s.

Vincent DeLorenzo is facing three counts of first-degree and three counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct from 1995 to 2000 in one case and one count of first-degree criminal sexual conduct from 1987 in the second case.

DeLorenzo is accused of touching a boy inappropriately more than a hundred times from 1995 to 2000. The now-30-year-old testified he was in elementary school at Holy Redeemer Catholic School in Burton.

The man said the abuse ranged from groping to DeLorenzo digitally penetrating him.

“I thought it was tickling. I thought it was fun. And he turned it into somewhat of a game at first,” he testified.

The alleged abuse stopped when the boy left the school in 2000.

DeLorenzo also is accused of touching a 5-year-old boy inappropriately in 1987 after a relative’s funeral at Holy Redeemer.

“He said if you tell anyone your uncle will not become a priest,” the now-38-year-old testified.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Oxygen Media

February 5, 2020

By Jill Sederstrom

Last year, 23 states and the District of Columbia adopted some reform impacting statute of limitations laws, giving victims of sexual abuse more opportunities to have their voices heard.

Statute of limitations laws have long silenced the voices of sexual abuse victims—but new legislation in multiple states could give victims of abuse more power in legal battles.

Just last year New York passed the Child Victims Act, a legislative move that could finally give many victims of childhood sexual abuse their day in court.

But New York isn’t alone. In 2019, 23 states and the District of Columbia had reform go into effect that impacted the statutes of limitations, according to data from ChildUSA, a think tank for child protection.

Some states made changes to their criminal child sex abuse laws, other states made changes to civil child sex abuse laws and some of the states made changes to both types of laws, a spokesperson from the organization told Oxygen.com.

An increasing number of states are also eliminating the statutes of limitations for criminal cases to be filed for some crimes, which depending on the state, could include child molestation, rape or first-degree felonies.

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ALBUQUERQUE (NM)
KOB 4

February 4, 2020

A former Catholic priest, accused of raping a six-year-old boy, was found not guilty, according to a spokesperson with the attorney general’s office.

Prosecutors claimed Marvin Archuleta, 81, raped the boy in 1986 inside Holy Cross Catholic Church in Santa Cruz.

The former priest was arrested in 2019 at his northeast Albuquerque apartment. The arrest was the result of a two-year investigation conducted by the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office.

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ALBUQUERQUE (NM)
KOB 4

February 5, 2020

By Chris Ramirez

A former New Mexico Catholic priest who was acquitted of child rape is now walking free, but some victims feel that justice was not served.

Isaac Casados of Española was one of those people hanging on to hope that Marvin Archuleta would be found guilty. Casados said he suffered abuse at the hands of Archuleta in the early 1990s when he was an altar boy at Holy Cross Catholic Church in Santa Cruz.

“He would touch you on the chest, then on the leg, then he would brush his hands on your buttocks and it was though he was testing you—grooming you as to what comes next,” he said.

Casados said light touches evolved into full-on sexual assault.

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TULSA (OK)
Tulsa World

February 4, 2020

By Randy Krehbiel

https://www.tulsaworld.com/news/house-committee-advances-legislation-to-eliminate-statute-of-limitations-for/article_f303512b-2afc-5e4f-8251-14103f45dd01.html

A bill that would repeal the statute of limitations on sex crimes involving minors advanced from an Oklahoma House of Representatives committee over concerns about defendants’ right to a fair trial.

House Bill 3024, by Rep. Carol Bush, R-Tulsa, passed the House Judiciary Committee, 12-5 on Tuesday, with most of the opposition coming from attorneys.

“How does this impact the defendant’s right to a fair trial, when you seemingly endlessly extend the statute of limitations,” said Rep. Terry O’Donnell, R-Catoosa. “From my perspective as an attorney, a defendant is entitled to a trial while memories are fresh (and) witnesses are available. Extending the statute of limitations, doesn’t that impair the defendants’ access to that potential evidence?”

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CROOKSTON (MN)
Crookston Times

February 5, 2020

Congregation for Bishops in Rome says archbishop in St. Paul will instead be involved in cases of abuse

The Congregation for Bishops in Rome recently specified that during the investigation of Crookston Diocese Bishop Michael J. Hoeppner, the faculty to deal with cases of sexual abuse against clerics of the Diocese of Crookston has been transferred from Bishop Hoeppner to Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis.

In an official statement released by the Diocese of Crookston Tuesday, it was announced that the Archbishop was authorized by the Congregation to conduct further investigation related to claims that Bishop Hoeppner had engaged in “acts or omissions intended to interfere with or avoid civil or canonical investigations of clerical sexual misconduct” as prescribed by the motu proprio, Vos estis lux mundi.

Judge Timothy O’Malley, Director of the Archdiocesan Office of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment, will serve as the Archbishop’s Delegate for the investigation.

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MEMPHIS (TN)
WMC

February 3, 2020

By Janice Broach

COGIC being sued by man alleging sexual abuse

The Memphis-based Church of God in Christ is being sued by a man who says he was sexually abused in the 1970′s. The allegations involve two churches in New York State.

The sexual abuse claims in this lawsuit allegedly happened decades ago and that is why it was filed under the Child Victim’s Act, a law in New York that extends the statute of limitations involving sexual abuse.

The Memphis based Church of God in Christ is named in this lawsuit because the headquarters is in Memphis. The now 57-year-old man from South Carolina filed the lawsuit in Albany County Supreme Court in the state where he alleges the crimes happened.

The lawsuit names St. John’s Church of God in Christ in Albany, New York and the former assistant pastor Dirome Williamson from Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Also named St. Mathew’s Temple Church of God in Christ in Utica, New York.

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INDIANAPOLIS (IN)
Indiana Lawyer

February 5, 2020

By Katie Stancombe

A bill that would have done away with the statute of limitations for certain child sex abuse crimes is making headway in the 2020 Indiana General Assembly. But some advocates are disappointed in how the bill has panned out.

Indiana Senate Bill 109, proposed by Sen. Michael Crider, R-Greenfield, initially aimed to extend the amount of time survivors have to bring criminal charges against their abusers. Under current state law, Hoosiers who were sexually abused as children have until age 31 to criminally prosecute those who harmed them.

An amendment authored by Sen. Mike Young, R-Indianapolis, to SB 109 would ultimately keep the statute of limitations in place, but allow for three exceptions to the rule if one of three things occurs: DNA evidence sufficient to charge the offender is discovered, a recording of the crime is revealed, or a confession is made.

From that point forward, law enforcement would have five years to pursue a criminal prosecution, even if the age 31 statute of limitations has passed. Those exceptions are also offered for survivors of rape, introduced in a 2015 bill authored by Crider known as “Jenny’s Law.”

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

February 3, 2020

By Michael Sean Winters

Pope Francis poses with people during his general audience in Paul VI hall at the Vatican Jan. 29. (CNS/Paul Haring)
Next month, we will celebrate the seventh anniversary of the election of Pope Francis. In some ways, it is hard to remember what we were feeling before it became obvious that this first pontiff from the Americas would be a reforming pope. In other ways, it seems like yesterday that Pope Benedict XVI resigned from his office and flew off to Castel Gandolfo. And, so before we start the looks back and looks ahead for this anniversary’s occasion, it is good to ground ourselves. Fortunately, at hand is just the book to do it, Austen Ivereigh’s Wounded Shepherd: Pope Francis and His Struggle to Convert the Catholic Church.

Just as Ivereigh’s 2014 biography The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope helped many of us better understand what experiences had formed the new pope before his election, this new book provides a much needed, lucidly written, look at the past seven years. Remarkably, he does so in part by taking a swipe at his earlier biography! At a June 2018 meeting, the pope warned Ivereigh against the “great man” myth in writing his book:

I realize now that ‘The Great Reformer’ contributed to that myth, written in the dizzying first months of his pontificate, the parallels with his life — how he appeared at moments of crisis in the church — offered an irresistible narrative: cometh the hour; cometh the man. I cringe now that I even likened him to a gaucho riding out at first light.

Okay, okay: The gaucho reference was cringeworthy. But, Ivereigh’s biography, combined with Elisabetta Piqué’s Pope Francis: Life and Revolution were indispensable early volumes that helped the rest of us understand Jorge Maria Bergoglio’s life before March 13, 2013.

I suspect that Chapter 5 of the current volume will be the one that most engages an American audience, as it focuses on the pope’s real conversion on the clergy sex abuse issue. At first, the pope had received lousy information about the situation in Chile. After he was faced with ongoing and credible objections, he dispatched Archbishop Charles Scicluna to investigate, and Scicluna documented the depth of the problem and how wrong the pope had been. The pope took this very public self-correction to heart.

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WOODBURY (NY)
News 12

February 5, 2020

There are calls for the name of a priest accused of sexually abusing a child to be removed from a building in Glen Cove.

Attorney Mitchell Garabedian says his client was sexually abused by Father Eligio Della Rosa in 1964 at St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church.

“He asked my client to meet him in the pews of the church and my client did,” says Garabedian. “And that’s where my client was sexually abused by Father Della Rosa, by Father Della Rosa instructing my client to perform oral sex on Father Della Rosa at the age of 14.”

Garabedian, who has represented other abuse victims, says his client wants Della Rosa’s name removed from a building at the Church of Saint Rocco in Glen Cove.

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MELVILLE (NY)
Newsday

February 5, 2020

By Zachary R. Dowdy

The attorney for a former parishioner of a Rocky Point Roman Catholic Church — who claims a priest abused him in the pews there a half century ago — is demanding the clergyman’s name be removed from a Glen Cove church.

Mitchell Garabedian, a Boston-based attorney representing people who claim they were abused by priests, said he recently reached an out-of-court settlement with the Diocese of Rockville Centre against Father Eligio Della Rosa, who allegedly forced his client to perform oral sex on him in the pews of St. Anthony of Padua Church in Rocky Point in 1964.

The alleged victim was 14 at the time, Garabedian said, adding that he reached a settlement in the “low six figures” in September through the church’s voluntary Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program. The mechanism, which was established by the Diocese of Rockville Centre in 2017, operates outside of the court system.

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BROOKLYN (NY)
The Tablet – Diocese of Brooklyn

February 5, 2020

By Christopher White

Empty Suit? Still No Lawsuit Nearly Three Months After Attorney Mitchell Garabedian Made Sex Abuse Allegation Against Bishop DiMarzio

Despite claims that he intended to file a lawsuit with an allegation of child sex abuse against Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio in December, attorney Mitchell Garabedian says he is still preparing his case.

When asked by The Tablet on Jan. 30 about the delay, Garabedian replied that he’s “just preparing” the lawsuit.

Joseph Hayden, Bishop DiMarzio’s attorney, told The Tablet that the bishop is eager to clear his name, adding the allegation is from more than 45 years ago, which he believes raises credibility issues from the outset.

“We look forward to the filing of the lawsuit so Bishop DiMarzio can have his day in court,” said Hayden, an experienced trial attorney. “Bishop DiMarzio is ready, willing and able to defend this lawsuit as soon as the court will be able to hear the matter, because the allegation is not true.”

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OXFORD (MS)
Get Religion

February 4, 2020

By Julia Duin

A few weeks ago, a giant in the Catholic and charismatic Christian world died quietly in Florida at the age of 94. Francis MacNutt was a man who in his time was as radical as another Francis, the current pope, is today.

*
I also still have a copy of a terse statement from the National Service Committee of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal that ran in the April 1980 issue of New Covenant magazine, which was the voice of the renewal. The statement said in part:

“Francis’s decision to leave the priesthood without laicization and to marry saddens us greatly. We know that his action is objectively, seriously wrong and we believe that for him it is a tremendous personal mistake…We strongly believe in the principles of obedience in the) Catholic Church and we cannot support what Francis has done …

But MacNutt never looked back. His wife quickly gave birth to a daughter, then a son. They relocated from Clearwater to Jacksonville at the invitation of then-Diocese of Florida Bishop Frank Cerveny to operate an ecumenical healing center in conjunction with the diocese. When MacNutt spoke with Pugh, he was even more adamant that celibacy should not be a requirement for priests and that clergy who ask to leave in order to marry shouldn’t be punished by the church.

Years later, I did a piece for the Washington Times on men like MacNutt who left the priesthood and one of the most common questions from these ex-priests was why they were excommunicated — while sexually abusive priests were not. Even former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was defrocked following revelations of his sexual abuse of seminarians and under-age boys, was not excommunicated.

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VERMILLION (SD)
SDPB

February 4, 2020

By Lee Strubinger

South Dakota lawmakers will hear a bill that strips the statute of limitations for adults who bring lawsuits on sexual abuse they experienced as children.

Similar bills have failed in the past.

It’s been 10 years since state lawmakers placed a statute of limitations on child sex crimes. It says any over the age of forty can only recover damages from any person or entity that perpetrated the sexual abuse act.

Since then, one group of Native women have been trying to overturn that statute of limitations. They are trying again this year.

Louise Charbonneau alleges she and her nine sisters are the victims of sexual abuse perpetrated at the St. Paul Indian Mission in Marty in the 1950’s and 60’s.

They allege being deloused with the insecticide DDT, being shown Nazi propaganda and being told their parents will go to hell if they tell them about their abuse.

Charbonneau says the bill will protect South Dakota children by giving them a window for child sex abuse victims to come forward.

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SEATTLE (WA)
Seattle Times

February 5, 2020

By Asia Fields

Before Garry Boulden was a victim advocate with the Seattle Police Department — guiding victims and their families through the aftermath of tragedies — he was a Catholic priest in Spokane, where he was accused of molesting a child.

The accusation wasn’t public when Boulden was hired 31 years ago but the department knew of it by at least 2003, when Spokane police investigated a report of possible child sex abuse by Boulden in the 1970s and ’80s. That investigation didn’t go forward at the alleged victim’s request, and no charges were filed.

The accusation became public knowledge in 2004 when the woman sued the Spokane Diocese, which settled with her and more than 100 other people who filed unrelated lawsuits in bankruptcy. A search for Boulden’s name online now brings mixed results: those about his work with homicide victims’ families next to articles about the lawsuit and his name on the Spokane Diocese’s and Seattle Archdiocese’s lists of credibly accused priests.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

February 4, 2020

By Thomas Reese

The Vatican is getting ready to release a report on former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was found to have sexually abused minors and slept with seminarians. The report, mandated by Pope Francis, will need to be detailed and comprehensive if it is going to satisfy the public’s demand for more transparency in the church.

Few scandals have rocked the Catholic Church like the story of McCarrick’s sexual abuse of minors and seminarians.

His actions are shocking enough, but the fact that such a predator could rise to be a cardinal in the Catholic hierarchy is flabbergasting. Well-connected with the rich, McCarrick was a superb fundraiser. He was also respected by political and religious leaders around the world. He often played an unofficial diplomatic role for the Vatican. The scandal is especially devastating to progressive Catholics who saw McCarrick as a moderate on church issues and a strong supporter of Catholic social teaching.

The McCarrick report needs to respond to simple questions that may require complex answers: Who knew what, when and where about McCarrick’s activities? What do we know already?

No one appears to have known about McCarrick’s abuse of minors until the first victim came forward in 2017 to request assistance from the New York Archdiocesan Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program. The victim said the abuse had taken place in the early 1970s when McCarrick was a priest in New York. The archdiocese immediately reported it to Rome, and the pope told New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan to investigate. In the meantime, McCarrick was banned from public ministry. He was forced to resign from the College of Cardinals and was dismissed from the clerical state in February 2019.

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CHARLOTTE (NC)
WFAE

February 5, 2020

By Sarah Delia

It’s been more than a month since the Charlotte Diocese released its list of clergy credibly accused of sexual abuse involving minors. The diocese says the process to publish the list was a thorough one that included hiring an independent investigative firm to review its files. But the list has received criticism about being incomplete.

Since the Charlotte Diocese list was released in the waning days of December, Terrence McKiernan of the watchdog group Bishop Accountability.org has repeatedly said names are missing.

One of those names is Harold Johnson.

“Harold Johnson was a Boston priest, ordained in 1949 who worked for most of his career in Boston but spent three years working at St. Patrick’s in Charlotte,” McKiernan said.

Johnson was included on a 2011 list released by the Boston Archdiocese of credibly accused clergy. His assignment history — where he served and correlating years — are included. He died in 2009.

From February 1957 to October 1959, Johnson worked at St. Patrick in Charlotte. At that point the entire state was under the jurisdiction of the Raleigh Diocese. The Charlotte Diocese wasn’t formed until 1972.

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ANCHORAGE (AK)
Alaska Public Media

February 4, 2020

By Casey Grove

None of the Catholic priests reported to have been involved in sexual misconduct in a 50-year review of records released last month by the Anchorage Archdiocese was ever convicted of a crime. There is also no indication the report has prompted any new criminal investigations since its release.

The report, made public Jan. 16, is based on an independent commission’s review of the church’s records. It lists 14 employees of the Anchorage Archdiocese, 13 of whom it says engaged in sexual misconduct with minors or vulnerable adults and one who was caught viewing child pornography. The allegations span from 1956 to as recent as 2015.

Ten of the men are alleged to have engaged in misconduct while in Alaska. Four are accused of misconduct elsewhere, after serving in Alaska.

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BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

February 4, 2020

By Jay Tokasz

Christ the King Seminary, which for 163 years trained men to become Catholic priests, will be shut down in May at the end of the current academic year, as the Buffalo Diocese slashes costs amid a clergy sex abuse scandal that’s led to a dramatic downturn in giving.

The Rev. Kevin Creagh, seminary rector and president, announced the decision on campus this afternoon to faculty, staff and students, following votes of the board of trustees and members of the seminary corporation.

Creagh cited diocesan financial constraints and “uncertainties surrounding future vocations” in explaining the closure.

“This is very difficult for us. It’s a very sad and disappointing moment in our history. It’s the end of an era,” he said.

Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger, chairman of the seminary board of trustees, said the seminary has been operating for the past decade with average annual deficits of $500,000 and was no longer sustainable.

“The bottom line is the task of the seminary, which is primarily academic, is something that cannot be sustained given the resources that we have right now,” he said. “We can’t continue to operate at a deficit budget.”

The announcement followed a fiscal year 2019 in which the diocese suffered $5 million in operating losses, due primarily to a steep decline in donations from parishioners who have been stunned and angered by the diocese’s handling of clergy sex abuse allegations.

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SYRACUSE (NY)
Syracuse.com

February 4, 2020

By Patrick Lohmann

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse has reinstated a priest who was accused of sexually abusing a boy in the early 1980s.

Rev. Paul Angelicchio went on voluntary leave in November while a diocese review board investigated the person’s allegation of abuse.

The review ruled it could not substantiate the allegation, the diocese said in a news release this weekend:

“Based on the information available at this time and the refusal of the complainant to cooperate in an independent investigation, the Diocesan Review Board was unable to substantiate the allegation. Bishop (Douglas) Lucia has accepted the Board’s findings.”

Angelicchio was restored to his position as pastor of St. John the Baptist Church in Rome on Saturday, according to the diocese.

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WILLMAR (MN)
West Central Tribune

February 4, 2020

By Alex Derosier

https://www.wctrib.com/lifestyle/faith/4921749-Crookston-bishop-faces-further-investigation-loses-authority-to-handle-sex-abuse-allegations

Crookston MN – The Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis has been cleared by Catholic Church leadership to continue its probe into the Crookston bishop’s alleged cover-ups of clerical sexual abuse.

The Congregation for Bishops in Rome authorized Archbishop Bernard Hebda to proceed with further investigation into Bishop Michael Hoeppner, who has been under investigation since September, according to a Tuesday, Feb. 4, statement from the Catholic Diocese of Crookston.

In addition to the continued investigation into the Crookston bishop, the authority to handle priest sex abuse cases has been transferred to Hebda, the Crookston Diocese said.

Judge Timothy O’Malley, director of ministerial standards and safe environment for the archdiocese, will serve as Hebda’s delegate in the investigation, the diocese said.

The investigation by Twin Cities church authorities came after an allegation surfaced in 2017 that Hoeppner silenced a victim of abuse.

The bishop was named in a lawsuit brought by Ron Vasek that claimed he was sexually abused by Crookston Diocese priest Monsignor Roger Grundhaus about 40 years ago. According to the complaint, Hoeppner coerced Vasek to sign a letter denying his own allegations.

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