ABUSE TRACKER

SPOKANE (WA)
Gonzaga Bulletin

Oct. 11, 2019

By Anonymous sophomore male Gonzaga student

I don’t know how I feel about the time I was sexually assaulted.

There are feelings, remnants of memory and some general mental health problems.

I have thought about it daily since it happened all those years ago. It’s disjointed, unclear and foggy in my mind. One of the first unknowns that confronts me when I think about the assault is details. I might have a murky memory because of repression or the usual fading of memory, I’m not quite certain. The fact that I didn’t comprehend the assault at the time furthers the confusion.

Like so many others who have been assaulted, at the time sex wasn’t in my vocabulary, much less what abuse was. The memories became less distinct even as my ability to comprehend it sharpened.

Being honest with myself was hard. When I first accepted what happened was the first time I confided in my best friend. I couldn’t say the words, I typed it out on my phone and refused to look at them while they read it. It’s hard to think about of how I felt telling my friend then.

The feeling before revealing something so deeply personal is more physical than emotional. It feels like looking down over the edge of a cliff, gazing at the water I will jump into below. I know that when I land I’ll be alive, I’ll probably even be better off for the experience. The knowledge of what comes next doesn’t make what has to be said any better. You can’t take it

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

DUNEDIN (NEW ZEALAND)
Otago Daily Times

Oct. 10, 2019

“I could drink half a bottle of vodka right now and probably still have a lucid conversation with you,” he said.

Not now, now he’s dry.

He was a functioning alcoholic back then, but still, he couldn’t remember sending the email.

“The first line, and this was five years ago, was, ‘If there’s ever a Royal Commission in New Zealand, I will come back and give evidence’.

“And as I said, I didn’t remember writing it, and I got contacted three weeks later by the Church and it was a surprise.”

He has come back and has given evidence in Christchurch recently.

It is Marc’s second attempt to get some kind of justice for how he was robbed of his childhood in Dunedin in the 1980s by four Catholic leaders who sexually violated him for years.

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.

DENVER (CO)
Catholic News Agency

Oct. 11, 2019

The Catholic Benefits Association said last week that sexual abuse norms introduced by Pope Francis in May will likely require U.S. dioceses to amend their own internal policies regarding the definition and reporting of sexual abuse and misconduct.

In an Oct. 3 webinar, L. Martin Nussbaum, general counsel for the Catholic Benefits Association, told diocesan leaders and administrators that Vos estis lux mundi, the motu proprio on sexual abuse and misconduct issued by Pope Francis May 7, takes important steps to provide a safer environment in the Church, which require implementation by dioceses.

Vos estis, Nussbaum said, expands diocesan duties regarding vulnerable persons and abuse of authority, protects Church whistleblowers, increases the role of laity in receiving reports and in conducting investigations, improves transparency regarding discipline of bishops, heightens the ecclesial role of metropolitans, and expands offers of assistance to the families of abuse victims.

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

JACKSON (MS)
Clarion Ledger

Oct. 11, 2019

By Mark Belenchia

Former Diocese attorney Frank Vollor referred to me as having a vengeance. I take issue with that assessment.

I and many other survivors of sex abuse do have grievances.

I will continue working to expose the Catholic Church’s wrongdoing. Using phrases like “we’re sorry”, “please forgive us”, “we will pray for you” — without accountability — are hollow and calculated diversions. I will not debate Vollor on different legalese, he is the attorney. I won’t cloud the issues by referring to Mississippi Code or speculate as to how and why there is no police report on file. I will not discuss the legal expungement process. All of that is nothing more than ‘gaslighting’ and I stand behind my previous statements.

Let’s discuss the facts. The Jackson diocese fitness review board now in place has deemed the allegations against Brother Paul West credible. Father James Gannon, the Franciscan prelate, has deemed them credible as well. Raphael Love, a 9-year boy, reported West to officials in 1998. At that time, West left Greenwood and had psychological testing done in St. Louis.

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Get Religion blog

Oct. 11, 2019

By Bobby Ross

Last week, I got a news alert from The Oklahoman, my local newspaper and former employer, with a headline that certainly grabbed my attention: “Damning report rips Oklahoma City Archdiocese for poor responses to credible child sexual abuse allegations against priests.”

For anybody paying attention to the latest Catholic clergy sex abuse scandals, the basic storyline probably sounds familiar.

The Oklahoma City Archdiocese is just one of many dioceses nationwide that have produced such reports.

This is the blunt summary from The Oklahoman:

For more than a half-century, Oklahoma City’s Catholic Archdiocese responded to reports of child sexual abuse by its priests with bungled internal investigations that masked the problems and often enabled the abuse to continue for years, according to a damning report released Thursday.

“The Archdiocese of Oklahoma City failed to take prompt action despite credible evidence and warning signs of sexual abuse of minors,” the McAfee & Taft law firm said in a report commissioned by the Archdiocese that was made public Thursday.

The report identified and named 11 priests in the Archdiocese who had been “credibly accused” of child sexual abuse since 1960. McAfee & Taft made it clear that its investigation is not yet complete.

“There are additional files still under investigation and as those investigations conclude, additional names of priests with substantiated allegations of sexual abuse of minors will be released as warranted,” McAfee & Taft said.

In some respects, that sounds like the same old, same old — but then I got to a part of the story that made my jaw drop.

Mainly because I realized that the coverup alleged had occurred right under my nose — or at least my notepad — when I served as religion editor for The Oklahoman in 2002. You’ll remember that the Catholic clergy sex abuse scandal blew up that year amid Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage by the Boston Globe’s “Spotlight” team, later featured in an Oscar-winning movie.

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ROME (ITALY)
Crux

Oct. 11, 2019

By Elise Harris

When a top papal advisor earlier this week suggested that Catholic prelates “exit” the clerical abuse scandal, in order to lift the “cloud” hanging over the Church, there was an understandable uproar from victims.

In effect, the resulting controversy involving Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana, head of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, is a clear illustration of the pressures the abuse crisis has generated – both on victims, who want to be heard and not dismissed, as well as on Church officials, who feel the crippling effect of the crisis and want to see the Church get up off the mat.

In such a context, sensitivities are on high alert, something Turkson discovered the hard way on a recent trip to Ireland, home to one of the most damaging clerical abuse scandals anywhere in the world.

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.

SCRANTON (PA)
WNEP TV

Oct. 10, 2019

The Diocese of Scranton has named two more priests they say have been credibly accused of sexual abuse of a minor.

The priests are Albert Oldfield, a diocesan priest, and James Gormley, S.J.

Fr. Oldfield served at about a dozen parishes in the diocese.

Fr. Gormley served at Scranton Prep in the 1940s and 1950s.

The release of the names is part of a pledge to be open and transparent in the way that the Diocese of Scranton handles occurrences of child sexual abuse, according to a release issued Thursday.

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.

HARRISBURG (PA)
Patriot News

Oct. 10, 2019

By Ivey DeJesus

A newly filed lawsuit against the Diocese of Harrisburg underscores the debate over the argument that victims compensation funds barred scores of people who had been sexually abused as children by employees of Catholic dioceses.

In his lawsuit, Patrick J. Duggan of Harrisburg claims that starting when he was 13, his history teacher at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic School began to ply him with alcohol and drugs to then sexually molest and rape him.

Duggan, 58, claims that teacher Ronald Stewart, who lived next to the school playground and across the church, continued to abuse him until he was 17. Stewart died in 2010.

In addition to the diocese, the lawsuit names former bishop Kevin Rhoades and current Bishop Ronald Gainer.

Duggan was barred from making a claim with the victims compensation fund that the diocese established in the wake of the 2018 grand jury report that uncovered widespread and systemic sexual abuse of minors across seven decades across the Catholic dioceses of Pennsylvania. St. Francis of Assisi is within the Diocese of Harrisburg.

The diocese’s compensation fund – like the other programs established across the state – narrowly defined eligibility in the program to victims claiming they had been sexually abused as children by priests. Victims claiming that their predators were teachers, nuns or other employees were barred from making claims.

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

ALLENTOWN ( PA)
Morning Call

Oct. 10, 2019

By Paul Muschick

I hope Catholics didn’t buy the Allentown Diocese’s story this summer that it had to cut jobs so it could pay victims of priest sex abuse.

It was common knowledge that the diocese was flush with real estate — some in prime locations for development.

A Morning Call investigation published online this week revealed just how flush the diocese is. It controls more than $300 million worth of property on more than 1,200 acres in Lehigh and Northampton counties. And little of that property has been tapped to raise cash for its victims compensation fund.

That figure doesn’t include more real estate in Berks, Carbon and Schuylkill counties.

I argued in July when the diocese claimed “severe financial stress” that it could sell more of its assets instead of creating new victims, diocese employees. Twenty-three workers were let go, many through attrition and a voluntary retirement program, and pay was frozen for others.

The diocese said in a news release then that “cost reductions were necessary to enable charitable and pastoral programs to continue.”

I’ll argue that was preventable.

The release of a grand jury report in August 2018 should have expedited property sales. The report detailed sexual abuse accusations against 301 priests statewide. They had abused more than 1,000 children over several decades.

The report named 37 priests from the Allentown Diocese, and the diocese itself added another 19 names. The diocese had to know it was going to have to pay a price for its sins of the past. It could have sold real estate and stocked money away sooner. It didn’t have to wait for the grand jury to conclude its investigation, which took two years. All signs pointed to it being damning.

Morning Call investigative reporter Emily Opilo reported this week that in the past year, the diocese has sold four properties, for a total of about $1.65 million, across the five counties it covers. A fifth sale is pending. The diocese told her it intends to sell more to raise millions for the compensation fund.

I recognize it takes time to sell real estate. But other dioceses were more proactive.

The Philadelphia Archdiocese sold its 16-room, 23,350-square-foot bishop’s mansion to St. Joseph’s University for $10 million in 2012, following a grand jury investigation that prompted criminal charges against a church official and priests.

Allentown Bishop Alfred Schlert, as previous bishops did, lives in an 11-room, five-bathroom home on Chew Street in the city’s West End. The 5,000-square-foot brick Tudor Revival is assessed at $487,000, according to Lehigh County records, and valued at around $580,000.

Last spring, the diocese transferred that property for $1 to the Allentown Diocesan Priests Retirement Plan Trust. The trust leases the property back to the diocese, generating income for the plan.

That’s an example of the church taking care of its own. It should have been just as focused on taking care of others.

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VANCOUVER (CANADA)
Vancouver Sun

Oct. 10, 2019

By Keith Fraser

The Catholic diocese in Kamloops is admitting liability at the civil trial involving a priest accused of repeatedly sexually assaulting a school teacher more than 40 years ago.

On Wednesday, John Hogg, a lawyer for the Roman Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Kamloops, made the admission of vicarious liability by the defendant diocese for the conduct of Rev. Erlindo Molon, the priest in question.

Hogg had been pressed for his position on the case by a lawyer for Rosemary Anderson, who said that Molon sexually assaulted her between 70 and 100 times in 1976 and 1977, while she was employed as a teacher at the Our Lady of Perpetual Help school in Kamloops.

Hogg told B.C. Supreme Court Justice David Crossin that he had made a similar admission when the Vancouver trial opened on Monday and in a letter to the plaintiff’s lawyer in August.

The scope of the liability remains at issue. Hogg is expected to challenge Anderson in cross-examination on the time frame and number of attacks that she said occurred in the priest’s rectory and Anderson’s apartment.

Molon, now 88, suffers from dementia and lives in a care home in Kingston, Ont.

He was initially named as a defendant in the case with his litigation guardian, the Ontario Public Guardian and Trustee, filing court documents denying the allegations. But neither Molon nor any lawyers acting on his behalf have shown up at the trial.

Also at issue is the involvement of Adam Exner, the bishop Anderson claims was grossly negligent in his handling of the matter.

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.

LONDON (ENGLAND)
Australian Times

Oct. 5, 2019

By Tess Lawrence

Just hours before the Amazon Synod will start, in what amounts to a Declaration of War against Pope Francis, Cardinal Müller has released two films on YouTube based on his written Manifesto of Faith.

Cardinal George Pell’s malevolent crusade against Pope Francis remains as vigorous as his disdain and notorious self-professed disinterest for victims of child sex abuse.

In shocking and curious timing on 1 August, Cardinal George Pell’s supporters published a seemingly innocuous two-page letter the convicted paedophile had apparently penned and sent whilst in prison, on their Twitter account.

That letter was deleted and now the Twitter account “Cardinal George Pell Supporters” @PellCardinal has gone to god.

But the sentence below is what grabbed the media’s attention. It was vintage, self-aggrandising Pell, invoking the name of Jesus, hauling the Messiah into Pell’s messianic and squalid orbit.

As usual with Pell, it was all about him:

‘The knowledge that my small suffering can be used for good purposes through being joined to Jesus’ suffering gives me purpose and direction.’

Just how can Cardinal George Pell’s “small suffering” be used for “good purposes” is anyone’s guess. And in what way is Pell joined to Jesus’ suffering? Jesus was neither charged nor convicted of paedophilia.

I dare not cast the first stone for obvious reasons, but surely Pell might better compare his suffering with some of the millions of victims of global clergy sex abuse, including his own victims — perhaps even pray for the soul of his victim, who died as a result of a heroin overdose.

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.

LONDON (ENGLAND)
Australian Times

Oct. 2, 2019

By Tess Lawrence

Just hours before the Amazon Synod wasndue to start, in what amounts to a Declaration of War against Pope Francis, Cardinal Müller has released two films on YouTube based on his written Manifesto of Faith.

Cardinal George Pell’s malevolent crusade against Pope Francis remains as vigorous as his disdain and notorious self-professed disinterest for victims of child sex abuse.

In shocking and curious timing on 1 August, Cardinal George Pell’s supporters published a seemingly innocuous two-page letter the convicted paedophile had apparently penned and sent whilst in prison, on their Twitter account.

That letter was deleted and now the Twitter account “Cardinal George Pell Supporters” @PellCardinal has gone to god.

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.

KNOXVILLE (TN)
News Sentinel

Oct. 10, 2019

By Terry Mattingly

For decades, Southern Baptist leaders rolled their eyes whenever there were headlines about clergy sexual abuse cases. That was – wink, wink – a Catholic thing linked to celibate priests.

Then there were those mainline Protestants, and even some evangelicals, who modernized their teachings on marriage and sex. No wonder they were having problems.

This was a powerful, unbiblical myth that helped Southern Baptists ignore their own predators, said Southern Baptist Convention President J.D. Greear during a recent national conference. The event was hosted by the denomination’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and the new SBC Sexual Abuse Advisory Group.

“The danger of this myth is that it is naive: It relegates abuse to an ideological problem, when it should be most properly seen as a depravity problem. … It fails to recognize that wherever people exist in power without accountability, abuse will foster,” said Greear, pastor of the Summit Church near Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina.

“What part of society has not been affected? It happens on Wall Street, in Hollywood, on Capitol Hill, in academic institutions, sports programs, Catholic and Protestant churches, liberal and conservative,” he added. “I want to say something as an evangelical to evangelicals: We evangelicals should have known this. Didn’t Jesus say there would be wolves in sheep’s clothing that would come into the flock in order not to serve the flock, but to abuse the flock?”

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BUFFALO (NY)
WIBW TV

Oct. 10, 2019

By Charlie Specht

The Diocese of Buffalo’s insurance company is arguing in court that it is not liable for sex abuse judgments because the diocese concealed the abuse for decades.

In documents recently filed in state court, Continental Insurance Company — whose predecessor insured the diocese for much of the 1970s — says that its policy only covers “accidents” which are reported in a timely manner to the insurer.

“Continental has no obligation to provide insurance coverage to the Diocese with respect to any sexual abuse claim, to the extent that the Diocese knew prior to the abuse that the relevant priest had: (i) engaged in earlier sexual abuse; (ii) posed a danger to children; or (iii) a propensity to commit sexual abuse,” the company states.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Tablet

Oct. 9, 2019

By Michael Sean Winters

The Holy See has assigned Brooklyn, New York Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio to conduct an apostolic visitation of the diocese of Buffalo, New York. The Vatican nunciature in Washington made the announcement. Bishop Richard Malone has faced allegations from whistleblowers that he covered up cases of inappropriate sexual conduct.

In announcing the visitation, the nunciature noted that it was not being conducted under the terms of Vos Estis Lux Mundi, Pope Francis’ motu proprio outlining procedures for evaluating allegations of abuse and covering up abuse made against a bishop. The apostolic visitation, being conducted on behalf of the Congregation for Bishops, has a wider mandate, and can assess issues such as the morale of the clergy and laity and the financial situation of the diocese.

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

PITTSBURGH (PA)
Pitt News

Oct. 9, 2019

By Grace McGinness

Survivors of childhood sexual abuse may soon win the right to prosecute their cases in court no matter how long ago their trauma occurred. Pennsylvania’s Senate Judiciary Committee held a forum on Oct. 2 to debate whether or not to eliminate the state’s statute of limitations — a law set that restricts how long an alleged victim has to bring a case to court — for sexual abuse civil cases.

The hearing was not intended for a final decision to be made on Bill 540, which calls for the complete removal of the state’s statute. Rather, for several hours, the committee listened to testimonies from alleged victims, their advocates and those in opposition to the bill to help inform their decision. Despite the state’s hesitancy, it’s clear that statutes of limitations are an outdated caveat to our current judiciary system that do not properly serve the people of this country. Pennsylvania needs to eliminate these statutes by passing Bill 540 and finally rectifying the harmful effects of this law.

As it stands, the statute of limitations for felony sex crimes in Pennsylvania limits people to a window of 11 to 20 years to bring their case to court. The time frame varies depending on the specific crime, but any statute of limitations for sex crimes is an unnecessary restriction of the law that strips the judiciary system of its main purpose of protecting people.

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.

JAMESTOWN (PA)
Oct. 10, 2019

By John Whittaker

A Jamestown man is alleging he was sexually abused by a priest at Ss. Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Church in Jamestown.

According to documents filed Monday in state Supreme Court in Erie County, the Jamestown man is alleging that Father John Lewandowski sexually abused the boy during his time as a priest at Ss. Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Church.

The allegations are one of four contained in the lawsuit.

Lewandowski had previously been identified by the Diocese of Buffalo as a priest who had been accused of child sexual abuse. He died in 1982, according to Jeff Anderson and Associates.

The Jamestown man, represented by James R. Marsh of White Plains, states in the lawsuit that he was abused by Lewandowski when the man was 13 and 14 years of age when the youth and his parents were parishioners of Ss. Peter and Paul. The lawsuit alleges Lewandowski gained the youth’s trust before sexually molesting the youth several times, including incidents that allegedly took place in the church’s basement.

Marsh alleges in the lawsuit that diocese officials knew or should have known Lewandowski was a known child sex abuser and that diocese and church officials concealed the abuse.

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

NEWYORK (NY)
Associated Press

Oct. 10, 2019

Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of a New York City bishop after he was accused of sexually abusing a teenage boy in the 1980s.

Auxiliary Bishop John Jenik is the latest head to roll in the ongoing abuse scandal. The Vatican announced his resignation had been accepted Thursday.

For decades the Vatican turned a blind eye to bishops and cardinals who abused minors and adults or covered up the crimes.

Jenik had denied the allegation when it was first brought to the New York City archdiocese last year. Cardinal Timothy Dolan, however, said the archdiocese’s lay review board had found the allegation to be “credible and substantiated.”

It was Dolan’s archdiocese that received complaints against ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, cases that launched the new reckoning in the U.S. hierarchy.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Catholic New York

Oct. 10, 2019

Four priests of the archdiocese—three pastors and the director of Priest Personnel—have each been placed on administrative leave following an allegation of abuse with minors dating back several decades.

The three pastors, Msgr. Edward Barry of Holy Rosary parish in Hawthorne, Father William Luciano of Blessed Sacrament parish in New Rochelle and Msgr. James White of St. Vito-Most Holy Trinity parish in Mamaroneck, have had their ministries temporarily restricted. The fourth priest is Msgr. Edward Weber, director of the Priest Personnel Office in the archdiocese, whose ministry has also been temporarily restricted.

Letters were sent from Cardinal Dolan to parishioners of the three parishes Oct. 3. “As is our practice, we reported this to the District Attorney’s Office. The Archdiocese will now follow its policy and protocols, which include having outside independent investigators look into and assess the allegation, before presenting it to our independent Lay Review Board. At the conclusion of their deliberations, the board will determine whether the allegation has been substantiated, which will determine whether (the priest) is suitable to return to ministry.”

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HARRISBURG (PA)
Patriot News

Oct. 10, 2019

By John Baer

Recent news related to the Catholic Church child sex abuse scandal underscores an unending saga and a common irony: a high-purposed institution placing self-interest above the interests of those it exists to serve.

Sorta like our legislature, where self-protection is the prime directive.

Lately, that directive’s playing out in response to the child sex scandal, which continues to stun, and remains, legislatively, a mess.

For example.

A nine-month Associated Press probe found hundreds of Catholic clerics countrywide, credibly accused child abusers, never prosecuted or monitored, who ended up teaching kids, fostering kids and living next to day care centers, some committing sexual assault.

AP’s first example is former Pennsylvania priest Roger Sinclair, booted from the Greensburg Diocese in 2002 for alleged abuse of a teen boy, arrested in Oregon in 2017 for repeatedly abusing a developmentally disabled young man.

This is what happens when institutions choose coverup over responsibility.

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WESTWOOD (NJ)
National Catholic Reporter

Oct. 10, 2019

By Sarah Salvadore

During Mass at St. Andrew Church here, the traffic slows down. A few parishioners can be found standing on the sidewalk with signs in hand while drivers catch a glimpse.

A year after NCR reported on the divisions within St. Andrew over abuse allegations against its pastor, the church is without a full-time priest. Dismayed that the Newark Archdiocese has not sent them a new pastor, some parishioners have taken to protest.

Demonstrators are circulating a petition among churchgoers, urging the archdiocese to send them a pastor. Many parishioners say they are against the picketing, stating it brings negative attention to the church.” “But I’ll sign the petition because we need a pastor. What’s taking Newark so long?” asked one parishioner.

The cloud over St. Andrew emerged in January 2018, when Fr. James Weiner was named pastor. Just 48 hours later, some parishioners learned that he had been accused in a clerical abuse case.

The allegations date back to 1988. Fr. Desmond Rossi, a priest of the Diocese of Albany, New York, accused Weiner and another priest, now deceased, of sexual assault at St. Benedict Parish in Newark. Rossi, a seminarian at the time, said two transitional deacons assaulted him in the rectory after a night of drinking. While one of them threw him on the bed and began kissing him, the other tried to force oral sex on him. Rossi identified Weiner as one of the attackers. An archdiocesan review board found the charges credible but unproven, and Weiner was allowed to continue as a priest.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
WHYY Radio

October 10, 2019

By Laura Benshoff

Last year’s grand jury report detailing sexual assault allegations against 301 Catholic priests in Pennsylvania raised the question: how would the church respond?

In the months that followed, seven of the eight dioceses in Pennsylvania launched compensation funds, following the model set by dioceses in New York.

These programs, which started winding down at the end of September, offer a lump sum to victims in return for signing away the right to sue the church over their allegations.

Some victims have used the program to put their fight with the church behind them. Others scoffed at the price tag put on their trauma. This is the story of two men who came to different conclusions.

‘What if it didn’t happen this way? Where would I be?’
Growing up in Philadelphia, John Quinn bounced between his family’s home and a half dozen Catholic orphanages around the region.

“I ended up in St. John’s, St. Joe’s, St. Mary’s, St. Francis’, St. Michael’s and a foster home,” said the 67-year-old, rattling off his stops.

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MUMBAI (INDIA)
Crux

Oct. 10, 2019

By Nirmala Carvalho

Bangladesh’s bishops’ conference has decided to have each diocese appoint a designated priest to handle sex abuse accusations, and not establish a central office at the bishops’ conference for child protection.

Bangladesh has two archdioceses and six dioceses for the country’s fewer than 400,000 Catholics, approximately 0.5 percent of the predominantly Muslim population. Most of the Catholics come from the country’s most marginalized communities, and the Church is relatively poor.

“At our CBCB [Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Bangladesh] meeting, it was unanimously agreed, that since there has not been a single reported case of abuse of a minor by a clergyman, it was decided that to start an office was not a requirement,” Cardinal Patrick D’Rozario, Archbishop of Dhaka, told Crux.

“However, in every diocese, the bishop will appoint a designated priest who will immediately investigate any reported instance of abuse of minor by a clergy, when and if it arises,” the cardinal said.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
Daily Mail

Oct. 9, 2019

By Kylie Stevens

A former Catholic priest tried to import vile child pornography into the country, a court has heard.

Peter Andrew Hansen, 61, pleaded guilty to 23 child exploitation charges when he faced Central Local Court, in Sydney, on Wednesday.

Hansen, a Labor party branch president, from Cabramatta, has been behind bars since last October when he returned home from a four month teaching stint in Vietnam.

Hansen was initially charged with three offences after he was arrested at Sydney International Airport when Australian Border Force officers found child pornography on an external hard drive in his luggage.

He was later charged with an extra 22 charges, two of which have since been withdrawn.

On Wednesday, the court heard disturbing details of the child pornography material Australian Border Force officers found in Hansen’s luggage, including seven videos of boys engaged in sexual acts.

According to the police fact sheet, the videos showed boys who were ‘instructed to remove their clothing and perform sexual acts on themselves and other children’.

The fact sheet also stated a title page at the start of the video listed the names and ages of the minors aged 12-15.

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

Oct. 9, 2019

A Cincinnati judge has denied a request from priest accused of abuse to reduce his bail. We are grateful for this move as it will ensure that the survivors of this priest will have their day in court.

Fr. Geoff Drew is being held on a $5 million bail on nine charges related to allegations that he raped a young altar boy in the late 1980s. In denying his request for a lower bail, Judge Leslie Ghiz said that she considered Fr. Drew a flight risk and that she was “more concerned about him fleeing, than anything else.”

We believe Judge Ghiz made the right call. We have seen many cases of accused clergy fleeing from justice, with the most recent example coming earlier this year in California. There, Fr. Alexander Castillo was facing charges of sexual abuse and was able to flee from justice after police began an investigation. We are glad that the same will not be happening with Fr. Drew.

As this case moves closer to trial, we hope that victims, witnesses, and whistleblowers will feel encouraged to come forward, make a report, and start healing. And we hope that church officials in Cincinnati will pull out the stops as they reach out to other victims of Fr. Drew and encourage them to report to local law enforcement.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Tribune Review

Oct. 9, 2019

By Deb Erdley

A woman is suing the Catholic Diocese of Greensburg, claiming she was repeatedly raped by a priest in her Seward parish in 1972 after the priest was transferred there because of earlier abuse allegations.

The woman, identified only as Jane Doe, said she suffered horrific sexual abuse by the late Rev. George Pierce between 1973 or 1974, when she was about 11 years old, until 1978.

The lawsuit is the most recent allegation to surface against the late clergyman, who was singled out in the August 2018 grand jury report detailing abuse allegations against 301 Pennsylvania priests charged with abusing more than 1,000 children over several decades.

Doe’s attorney, Altoona lawyer Richard Serbin of Janet, Janet & Suggs, said Doe, who is now in her 50s, initially applied to the Greensburg diocese’s compensation fund. She opted to pursue a lawsuit instead after she was offered $88,100 and informed that was the maximum the church would be offering anyone.

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BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

Oct. 9, 2019

By Mike McAndrew

For nearly 30 consecutive years, Most Precious Blood Parish in Angola had priests accused of molesting boys assigned to work at the church and its elementary school.

But lawsuits filed Tuesday allege a former female teacher, Dianna Vacco, sexually abused two girls who were in her Most Precious Blood School class decades ago.

An Angola woman’s lawsuit accuses Vacco of having sexual contact with her on at least 50 occasions when she was 10 to 13 years old, from about 1976 to 1980.

An Ellicottville woman’s lawsuit accuses Vacco of having sexual contact with her on at least 200 occasions when she was 11 to 15 years old, from 1980 to 1985.

The cases allege Vacco had sex with the girls in New York State and Florida, spending time with them at Vacco’s home, Vacco’s parents’ home, in her car, and at Vacco’s home in Florida.

The lawsuits name as defendants Dianna Vacco, the Buffalo Diocese, Most Precious Blood Parish and Most Precious Blood School.

Vacco, who is also known as Dianna Mroz, did not respond to a message from The Buffalo News seeking her comment. Vacco resides in Florida and has a Florida teaching certificate valid through 2022, according to the state’s Department of Education website. Vacco has also been associated with several Florida businesses that promote professional and youth dancing.

Boston attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who is representing the women suing Vacco, declined to comment on the cases.

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MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
Reuters

Oct. 8, 2019

Prosecutors have urged Australia’s High Court to refuse to hear a final appeal by former Vatican treasurer George Pell against his convictions for sexually abusing two 13-year-old boys in the late 1990s.

In opposing arguments put by Pell’s lawyers to Australia’s highest court, prosecutors said there was no error in the approach taken by the Victorian state Court of Appeal.

The state appellate court upheld Pell’s convictions, in a 2-1 ruling in August, on five charges of abusing the two boys at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne when he was archbishop there.

“The appeal raises no question of law of public importance,” the prosecutors said in a filing to the High Court on Tuesday. The facts of the case were “carefully and thoroughly explored by the majority of the Court of Appeal”, they said.

Pell’s lawyers have seven days to respond, after which a panel of High Court judges will decide whether to hear the appeal, a High Court spokesman said. That decision can be made just on the submitted applications or following a hearing.

The earliest the case could be heard would be in 2020, should the court decide to take on the appeal.

Pell is the highest-ranking Catholic worldwide to be convicted of child sex offences. He was jailed in March for six years and will be eligible for parole in October 2022, when he will be 81.

Two of the three judges at the Victorian appeal court ruled that “it was open to the jury to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Cardinal Pell was guilty of the offences charged”.

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GASTON COUNTY (NC)
Legal Herald

Oct. 9, 2019

At least 4 people have accused a music and youth pastor at North Belmont Church of God of sexual abuse.

North Belmont Church of God music and youth pastor Nicholas Martin was arrested on Saturday, October 5 for allegedly sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl. Since that initial arrest, another three accusers have come forward with similar allegations of sexual abuse.

Martin has been charged with several sex crime charges, including four counts of indecent liberties with a child, four counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and one count of felonious indecent exposure to a minor.

Since his arrest, three other people have contacted the police and the district attorney’s office to report that Martin had also abused them.

Martin lived next to the North Belmont Church of God. In the first case, he is accused of giving the 14-year-old girl alcohol before abusing her multiple times. According to the authorities, the girl was abused several times between October 2018 and September 2019.

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WARSAW (POLAND)
Agence France-Presse

Oct. 9, 2019

Pedophile acts by a Catholic priest in the 1980s were like “torture”, a Polish court has said, as it lifted the statute of limitation and ordered compensation to the victim – an unprecedented decision in Poland.

The appeals court in the northern city of Gdansk ordered the accused priest, his former parish and diocese to pay 400,000 zlotys (92,500 euros) to Marek Mielewczyk, 50, the victim of sexual abuse from 1982-87.

“Sexually abusing minors unaware of the criminal nature of the acts perpetrated on them is to treat others in a humiliating and inhumane manner, which is the same as torture,” judge Dorota Gierczak said, according to the PAP news agency on Tuesday, October 8.

The judge said the statute of limitation did not apply because it involved “acts incompatible with the rules of society”.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Tablet

Oct. 9, 2019

By Tom Heneghan

‘Successive bishops knew that Bernard Preynat was a criminal pedophile and they chose to keep him in contact with children.’

Victims of sexual abuse by a Lyon priest have urged the Vatican to recognise the responsibility of his archdiocese in the affair, which could open the door to compensation payments by the Church.

About 15 of them sent their demand to the Vatican after the admitted abuser, Bernard Preynat, was removed from the clerical state in July. The archdiocesan court said at the time that he could now concentrate on considering the financial demands of his victims.

More than 20 of his alleged victims have filed for damages of over 10,000 euros each.

But Preynat is insolvent and the archdiocese had no answer to questions about how the victims could otherwise be compensated.

The victims argued in their messages to the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the Vatican’s top court, that the archdiocese was responsible for keeping him in ministry until 2015 and thus enabling his abuse.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

Oct. 9, 2019

By Peter Feuerherd

Her friends recall Marion Knott McIntyre as the type of woman who was quick to pick up the tab after Sunday post-Mass breakfast, and would spontaneously offer gifts, sometimes monetary, to people she felt had need. She rarely took no for an answer.

That legacy – Knott McIntryre died a childless widow in December 2017 at 86 years old – has long been in dispute. Was she simply naturally generous? Or was her generosity exploited?

Fr. Christopher Senk, pastor of St. Isabel Church here, was charged by his bishop with improperly influencing McIntyre, a St. Isabel’s parishioner, who gave him $25,000-30,000 in gifts over a six-year period, as well as naming the priest in her estate, to the objection of some members of her Maryland-based family.

“Please understand it is my obligation to exercise careful vigilance,” Bishop Frank Dewane of the Diocese of Venice, which includes St. Isabel’s, wrote to the parish after Senk was expelled from his rectory in October 2016. Senk, pastor at St. Isabel’s since 2003, was placed on administrative leave at that time.

The case has played out in an atmosphere both of distrust of the church hierarchy and, conversely, the response of bishops sensitive about criticism of failure to act against ethical lapses by clergy in the past.

A vocal group of parishioners who support Senk have long disputed Dewane’s vigilance. They say Dewane is guilty of railroading a popular pastor, known for opening his rectory on holidays to parishioners bereft of family, with the pastor cooking the meals.

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JACKSON (MS)
Clarion Ledger

Oct. 9, 2019

A civil lawsuit has been filed against the Biloxi diocese, a Mississippi church and the estate of the Rev. John Scanlon.

Scanlon’s name was not on lists of credibly accused priests with Mississippi ties.

Lawyer argues that statue of limitation has not run out, since man only remembering now.
When he was 12, Robert McGowen went to catechism class. His mother was Southern Baptist, but his father was Catholic, so he attended classes at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Hattiesburg.

It was the mid-1980s and his priest was the Rev. John Scanlon.

Some days, McGowen’s dad would be late picking him up from class. When that happened, McGowen said, Scanlon would take him into the rectory. For 35 years, McGowen said he repressed the memories of what happened to him.

Now he can’t forget.

His attorney, John Hawkins, believes McGowen’s repressed memories of sexual abuse have delayed the statute of limitations. Under that unique approach, a civil suit was filed last month against Scanlon’s estate, Church of Sacred Heart and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Biloxi, which the church falls under.

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

Oct. 8, 2019

A new sexual abuse and cover up case has been filed against a Mississippi diocese. We hope that this brave survivor’s decision to come forward will encourage others who may have seen, suspected or suffered crimes in the Diocese of Biloxi to make a report of their own.

According to the filing, Robert McGowen was abused in the rectory of Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Hattiesburg, MS by Fr. John Scanlon from 1984-1985. Mr. McGowen alleges that Fr. Scanlon verbally, sexually, and emotionally abused him when he was 12 to 13 years old and argues that “the Diocese of Biloxi wholly failed to conduct an adequate investigation” into Fr. Scanlon. Had they done so, he argues, Fr. Scanlon never would have been in a position of authority over children.

Fr. Scanlon is now deceased and Mr. McGowen now lives in Arkansas.

As part of his lawsuit, Mr. McGowen is demanding that the Diocese of Biloxi release a list of accused clergy, lay employees, and volunteers “accused of abuse or infliction of emotional distress on minors.”

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CINCINNATI (OH)
Cincinnati Enquirer

Oct. 9, 2019

By Kevin Grasha

A Hamilton County judge on Wednesday said bond for a priest accused of raping an altar boy 30 years ago will stay at $5 million.

Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Leslie Ghiz said her primary concern is that the Rev. Geoff Drew is a flight risk.

“Your client is charged with anally and orally raping a…child,” Ghiz told Drew’s attorney, Brandon Moermond. She added: “I’m more concerned about him fleeing, than anything else.”

Drew was not in the courtroom for the hearing. He is being held at the Hamilton County jail.

In August, Moermond filed a motion to modify Drew’s bond. Among his arguments was that Drew is a priest, has no criminal history, and has “extensive family in the area, including his ailing mother, his siblings and close family friends.”

Moermond also said Drew’s case has been handled differently than others because of media coverage. In his motion, Moermond said Ghiz had set Drew’s $5 million bond at a hearing “in front of no less than six television reporters and cameras.”

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DETROIT (MI)
Detroit News

Oct. 8, 2019

By Mark Hicks

A Michigan priest pleaded guilty Tuesday to aggravated assault in a case part of the Attorney General Office’s investigation of clergy sexual abuse, state officials announced.

The Rev. Patrick Casey, who was among several priests charged in May in connection with the probe, is the first convicted, Attorney General Dana Nessel said in a statement on Tuesday.

He had been accused of engaging in sexual acts during confession with a 24-year-old man who came to him for counseling in 2013.

When the man reported the incident to the Archdiocese of Detroit in 2015, Casey admitted the acts occurred and the archdiocese removed Casey from ministry, according to the attorney general’s complaint.

Casey, who was most recently assigned to St. Theodore of Canterbury in Westland, had been barred from representing himself as a priest or conducting any sort of church ministry, according to the archdiocese. His case was listed as under canonical review in Rome.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
WIFT TV

Oct. 9, 2019

By Kathleen Davis

The firm overseeing the Diocese of Pittsburgh’s fund for victims of clergy sexual abuse says it’s received 367 claims. The deadline to apply was September 30.

Camille Biros is with the D.C.-based Law Offices of Kenneth R. Feinberg. She says the next step is to verify the claims made by the applicants, using corroborating evidence.

“Things like medical notes from therapy sessions,” Biros said. “It could be correspondence or communications with law enforcement, or the Diocese, or relatives.”

Biros said the team has gone through about 50 of the claims so far, and most were verified.

“We don have a large number of claims that were received at or near the deadline,” Biros said. “So we’re months away from finishing our work for the Diocese.”

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STATEN ISLAND (NY)
Staten Island Advance

Oct. 9, 2019

By Maura Grunlund

A former principal and prominent monsignor on Staten Island is accused of sexually abusing a student decades ago at St. Joseph by-the-Sea High School in Huguenot.

The allegations against Monsignor Thomas Gaffney, who died in 2004, are detailed in a recent lawsuit filed against the Archdiocese of New York and the high school, which is located at 5150 Hylan Blvd. in Huguenot.

The priest is one of three monsignors accused of sexual misconduct who held prominent positions decades ago both at Sea and in the Island Roman Catholic church.

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Get Religion blog

Oct. 9, 2019

By Julia Duin

Back in the days when I was digging around after rumors about former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s rumored sexual predations, I’d run into priests and laity who told me about all of the dark secrets that they knew. But they didn’t want to go public because, for the priests, it was a career-ender to spill the church’s dirty secrets.

Most, like Robert Hoatson, a New Jersey priest, were simply pushed out. Only now is he being vindicated.

But some even told me they were afraid of being killed. One former employee for the Archdiocese of Washington said that if she told me everything she knew, she’d end up at the bottom of the Potomac attached to some concrete blocks.

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OKLAHOMA CITY (OK)
The Oklahoman

Oct. 9, 2019

Like their peers in so many parts of the country, Roman Catholics in Oklahoma are experiencing the heartbreak and anger that come with learning of priests who abused children and the Church’s mishandled of abuse allegations.

The Diocese of Tulsa and Eastern Oklahoma released a list last week of 11 priests and other individuals who had been credibly accused of sex abuse against a minor since the diocese’s inception in 1973. One day later, the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City said an investigation dating to 1960 revealed 11 current or former priests were credibly accused of sexually abusing minors.

In both dioceses, the reports were issued by outside, and highly regarded, law firms — GableGotwals in Tulsa, and McAfee & Taft in Oklahoma City. The firms had free rein to investigate every file — a commendable and wise move. Any hint of interference or control by the diocese and archdiocese would have clouded the findings.

Those findings are distressing. For example, McAfee & Taft cited a now-deceased priest who was accused of child sexual abuse in 1989. Damning videotapes were recovered from the priest’s home, but the law firm found no evidence the priest was reported to law enforcement or the Department of Human Services, and eventually he was assigned to two parishes in other states.

The report also found that the archdiocese in 2002 paid the legal fees for a priest to file a defamation lawsuit against a man who had accused him of sexual abuse — even though the priest had admitted his actions to former Archbishop Eusebius Beltran and former Vicar General Edward Weisenburger.

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SAMBURU (KENYA)
Associated Press

Oct. 9, 2019

When Sabina Losirkale went into labor, her sister Scolastica recalls, priests and religious sisters filled the delivery ward waiting to see the color of the baby’s skin — and if their worst fears had come to pass.

Scolastica and dozens of villagers peered in from behind the clinic fence, as well.

A nun screamed. The boy was white — “a mzungu child,” Scolastica said, using Kiswahili slang.

“How will we cover up this shame?” the sisters fretted, she recalled.

The shame that brought this baby into the world: An Italian missionary priest, her family alleges, impregnated this Kenyan girl when she was just 16. But the nuns need not have worried about the scandal spreading.

The priest — who to this day denies paternity — was transferred, and a Kenyan man was found for Sabina to marry. He would be listed as the father on the boy’s birth certificate.

The church’s efforts to conceal what is alleged to have happened here would stretch over three decades — a testament to the extraordinary ways in which church officials have dealt with accusations that priests in the developing world have had sex with girls and young women. Here, the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse crisis is just beginning to force a reckoning.

The boy who was born to Sabina Losirkale on that day in 1989 has been an outcast of sorts for all of his life. Tall and light-skinned, with wavy hair, Gerald Erebon, now 30, looks nothing like the dark-skinned Kenyan man who he was told was his father, or like his black mother and siblings.

“According to my birth certificate, it is like I am living a wrong life, a lie,” he said. “I just want to have my identity, my history.”

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JOHNSTOWN (PA)
Tribune Democrat

Oct. 9, 2019

By Dave Sutor

Shaun Dougherty first learned about the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests when he watched the 2015 movie “Spotlight” that told the story of work being done by journalists, SNAP and attorney Mitchell Garabedian to expose clergy sexual abuse in the Boston area.

Around the same time, the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General released a grand jury report that detailed decades of sexual abuse and coverup within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown in which Dougherty’s own alleged victimization was mentioned.

Dougherty, a Westmont resident, soon started attending SNAP support meetings and advocating for victims.

Those two paths recently converged with Dougherty being named to SNAP’s Board of Directors.

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FALL RIVER (MA)
Boston Globe

October 8, 2019
By Neil Swidey

In Fall River, a group of parishioners won the chance to run their crumbling church. If their experiment works here, it might just work anywhere.

I WAS SURE THE CATHOLIC CHURCH had lost the ability to wound me — or even to make me care.

Like so many others brought up in the church, I had drifted away in the face of its leaders’ princely arrogance, never mind outright criminality. There are only so many times you can hear about yet another bishop covering up for yet another predator in a collar, who had shredded the life of yet another vulnerable child. Or see a pastor call the cops to clear a church of its most loyal parishioners, as one did in Natick in 2004, leading to arrests on Christmas morning.

Many people made the difficult decision to stick with the Roman Catholic Church after the revelations in 2002 about widespread clergy sex abuse in the Boston Archdiocese, only to feel a new wave of violation a few years later. They were forced to watch their local church get shuttered as part of a diocesan real estate sell-off meant to confront dwindling attendance and mounting legal bills. Church closings tend to be the ultimate local issue, though. If yours is on the chopping block, you care passionately. Otherwise, it can seem like somebody else’s problem.

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LONG ISLAND (NY)
The New York Times

October 8, 2019

By Roni Caryn Rabin

State officials stripped Stuart Copperman of his medical license almost 20 years ago. Armed with a new law, his former patients hope to file civil lawsuits.

Stuart Copperman was, to all appearances, an old-fashioned pediatrician. For 35 years, he ran a bustling practice in Merrick, Long Island, where he was revered by parents as an authority on everything from colic to chickenpox. Well-dressed, affable and tan year-round, he was always available in an emergency, and even made house calls.

When he told mothers that their daughters were old enough to see him alone — without a parent in the room, so the girls could speak freely — they accepted it as sound medical practice. Girls who told their mothers that the pediatrician had rubbed their genitals or inserted his fingers into their vaginas were often met with disbelief.

“He was such a charming, affectionate, involved man — we all thought he was a god,” said Dina Ribaudo, 43, who lives in Arizona. “You just couldn’t imagine this bright, shining light ever hurting anyone.” Mr. Copperman started molesting her when she was 8, she said.

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RALEIGH (NC)
North State Journal

Oct. 9, 2019

By David Larson

After a series of high-profile sex abuse revelations in 2018 and 2019, church leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention met in Dallas, Texas, last week to confront the issue. The event, billed as the “Caring Well Conference,” took place over the Oct. 4-6 weekend and was organized by the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the public policy arm of the SBC.

Despite already approving legislation on abuse during their 2019 annual convention, the amendments cannot go into effect until they are affirmed again at 2020’s convention in Orlando, Florida. Rather than wait another year, SBC leaders decided to hold this conference in Dallas to begin the process of addressing abuse in the church.

J.D. Greear, the pastor of Summit Church in Durham and current SBC president, rose to his role in 2018 as the scandal was beginning to gain headlines. It has defined his time in leadership as he’s looked for ways to keep the country’s second-largest denomination together.

The major initiative that Greear and the SBC presented at the weekend conference is called the “Caring Well Challenge,” which the SBC hopes will give member churches some tools as they wait to vote on more concrete measures in 2020. The SBC also created a website and a video of Greear describing the program.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Tablet

Oct. 7, 2019

By Jorge I. Dominguez-Lopez

Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the papal nuncio to the United States, said that Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio was selected to lead an apostolic visitation to the troubled Diocese of Buffalo because of the “trust” the Vatican has in him.

“The Holy Father said, ‘We need to do a total investigation to go to the roots of the problem,’ and Bishop DiMarzio, because of who he is, was given this task […] Certainly, it is a sign of trust toward Bishop DiMarzio,” Archbishop Pierre said.

The Diocese of Buffalo has been under a cloud because of cases of sexual abuse and cover-up. On Oct. 3, Archbishop Pierre announced that Pope Francis had decided Bishop DiMarzio will make an apostolic visitation to the diocese to conduct a fact-finding mission.

On Oct. 6, Archbishop Pierre celebrated the French-language Mass as St. Agnes Roman Catholic Church, Carroll Gardens, where he spoke to The Tablet.

Archbishop Pierre explained that Bishop DiMarzio’s mission was to listen to the people in the Diocese of Buffalo, collect the facts and send the results of his investigation to the Vatican.

“It is not a judgment, it is an investigation,” Archbishop Pierre said. “It is a service that the Holy Father has asked [Bishop DiMarzio] to do, to examine what is really going on.”

Asked about the Pan-Amazonian Synod that was starting at the Vatican that day, Archbishop Pierre explained that ecology has been an important topic for Pope Francis from the beginning of his papacy. He said that the pope made clear in his encyclical, “Laudato si” that caring for our “common house” is an important issue for the church.

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

Oct. 8, 2019

As they have for decades, Belleville Catholic officials are trying to exploit a technicality to evade responsibility for the alleged crimes of a credibly accused child molesting priest. Shame on them. https://www.bnd.com/news/local/community/belleville/article233303452.html

Just once, we’d love to see a Catholic official say “Instead of fighting this abuse victim with legal loopholes, we’re choosing to fight on the merits.” But in 30 years, we’ve never seem that happen.

Nearly every time abuse and cover up reports surface, bishops work long and hard to convince us that they’ve changed. Yet in this most crucial way, none of them have: they continue to hide behind and exploit every technicality their shrewd lawyers can find to make sure their wrongdoing stays concealed and won’t be exposed in court.

We hope Bishop Edward Braxton’s latest legal maneuver fails. We hope this brave victim gets his day in court. And we hope others who saw, suspected or suffered crimes or misdeeds by Msgr. Joseph Schwagel will come forward and get help.

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ALBANY (NY)
Times Union

Oct. 8, 2019

By Cayla Harris

A third lawsuit accusing retired Bishop Howard J. Hubbard of sexual abuse was filed Thursday in state Supreme Court in Albany.

The latest complaint accuses the former longtime leader of the Albany Diocese and another priest of abusing a teenage boy at a Troy church between 1976 and 1978 but does not provide details of the alleged sexual abuse.

The second priest is identified in the court filing as Joseph Mato, though the Times Union could not determine if a priest by that name served at St. Michael’s in the late 1970s. Mary DeTurris Poust, a spokeswoman for the Albany Diocese, said she could not confirm that the diocese employed a man by that name, though a priest with a similar name did work at St. Michael’s during that period. That priest died in 2016.

“Because of his childhood abuse, plaintiff … is unable to fully describe all of the details of that abuse and the extent of the harm that he suffered as a result,” the lawsuit states. It adds that Hubbard and the other priest allegedly used their roles to “entice” and “take control of” the plaintiff and sexually assault him.

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WESTFIELD (NJ)
Patch

Oct. 8, 2019

By Russ Crespolini

He says he survived repeated sexual abuse, stalking and harassment by a Boy Scout leader who went on to become a Catholic priest.

What made it worse was that the accused was also a family friend.

But for so long, Westfield’s Michael Mautone kept his story anonymous.

Not anymore.

Mautone is now sharing his story of survival and recovery in the hopes that it will encourage others to face the truth as he did.

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

Oct. 8, 2019

A Michigan priest who was charged with sexual abuse has pled to a lesser charge. For the safety of the vulnerable, we hope the cleric is put behind bars for as long as possible.

Fr. Patrick Casey was accused of sexually coercing and abusing a man who came to him for counseling. This kind of abuse of power can be very damaging and we are hopeful that the victim in this case is getting the help he needs.

We are very grateful to the brave victim in this case and to the law enforcement professionals who pursued it. We hope that others who were abused in Michigan, whether by Fr. Casey or others, will come forward, make a report to police, and start healing.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
Premier

Oct 8, 2019

A new film about Popes Benedict and Francis originally contained much more material about the sex abuse scandal but was cut down for fear of it over-powering the film, its director Fernando Meirelles has said.

The Brazilian filmmaker, who is responsible for films such as City Of God and The Constant Gardener, said an earlier cut of The Two Popes originally contained more scenes about the topic.

Arriving at the movie’s premiere at the BFI London Film Festival, he told the PA news agency: “Of course we tackle these issues, because we couldn’t make a film on the church without tackling it, but we had more scenes on child abuse that we cut from the film because we had too much.

“That is what we felt when we first cut the film, if we talked too much about it, it becomes the film, because it’s such a topic.

“And that was not the film, this film was really about tolerance, tradition and a spiritual issue, a political issue, and we don’t want it to all become about sexual abuse.

“So we tackle it but we don’t go thick because it would steal the whole film, it would be a film about it.”

Meirelles added he had little interest in the Catholic Church before he made the film, which stars Sir Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce, saying: “I knew nothing about what was happening and I had no interest at all about the relationship but I like Pope Francis very much, that is what dragged me to the story.

“For the film I think the relationship between both of them is the most interesting part of the film because they don’t agree on anything, they really think in opposite ways but they have to find a common ground.

“So the story is about two persons who really don’t like each other and having to deal with each other, which is something that is happening in the world.

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

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

Oct. 8, 2019

In a win for transparency and the public good, an appeal that sought to give more leeway to church officials in how they handle allegations of abuse will not be heard by the Supreme Court. We are grateful for this decision and hope that it will lead to safer, more informed communities.

By choosing to reject the argument put forth by Jehovah’s Witnesses church officials that internal documents related to allegations of abuse are covered by clergy-penitent privilege, the Supreme Court has put common sense ahead of the institutional privilege often enjoyed by churches. It is clear to most folks that memos circulated among staff are not the same as a confession between a parishioner and pastor, and we are glad that this argument was rejected by the Court.

When church officials can quietly dismiss one of their own who has been accused of abuse, all this does is put other children at danger. A recent AP investigation has shown exactly how this situation has played out over the years when they revealed that 1,700 priests accused of abuse are living without oversight, and many of them have gone on to become school counselors, youth workers, or foster parents. If the argument put forth by the Jehovah’s Witnesses had been accepted, we can only imagine how many more pastors, rabbis, elders, and other religious leaders would be able to abuse children, have their crimes covered up internally, and then be quietly sent off to different communities where they could abuse again.

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

DETROIT (MI)
WXYZ TV

Oct. 8, 2019

Patrick Casey, a former priest who was charged with sex abuse, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge in court on Tuesday. This came after a jury was deadlocked during deliberations, which began Monday afternoon.

Casey, 55, was charged with one felony count of criminal sexual conduct. He is accused of performing sexual acts on a man he was counseling. If convicted, he could face up to 15 years in prison.

His attorney argued that he should be acquitted of the crime, saying the sexual acts were consensual, but a judge denied the request.

Casey is expected to be sentenced next month.

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ROCHLAND COUNTY (NY)
Rockland/Westchester Journal News

Oct. 8, 2019

By Matt Spillane

Two more pastors of Catholic churches in Westchester County have been placed on leave amid decades-old accusations of child abuse.

Monsignor Edward Barry of Holy Rosary in Hawthorne and Rev. William Luciano of Blessed Sacrament in New Rochelle have been temporarily restricted from ministry, Cardinal Timothy Dolan wrote in letters to parishioners of those two congregations on Oct. 3.

Barry and Luciano have each been accused of inappropriate conduct with a child decades ago, Dolan said. Luciano’s allegation stems from the 1980s, Dolan said. No other details were available on the nature of the accusations.

Dolan added that both priests are presumed innocent while the Archdiocese of New York investigates.

Rev. Sebastian Pandarathikudiyll will serve as temporary administrator of Holy Rosary, while Bishop Gerald Walsh will temporarily oversee Blessed Sacrament.

Dolan’s letters to Holy Rosary and Blessed Sacrament parishioners were sent a day after he sent a similar letter to parishioners of St. Vito-Most Holy Trinity Church in Mamaroneck.

Monsignor James White, the pastor of St. Vito-Most Holy Trinity, was placed on administrative leave after someone accused him of abuse dating back to the 1980s, when he was the dean of discipline at Cardinal Hayes High School, an all-boys school in the Bronx.

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.

TUCSON (AZ)
NBC News 4

October 7, 2019

A Christian nonprofit has stated that two managers knew for years that an employee had confessed to a history of sexual offenses against minors but still allowed him to serve their organization as a missionary to Haiti.

Jeriah Mast, 38, from Millersburg, Ohio was indicted in a Holmes County court on July 3 with seven felony charges of gross sexual imposition and seven misdemeanor charges of sexual imposition.

Those crimes, which according to court documents allegedly involved children under the ages of 16 and some under 13, took place in Ohio between 1998 and 2008, Holmes County Prosecutor Sean Warner said. Mast pleaded not guilty to all charges, his lawyer John Johnson Jr. told NBC News.

Mast also faces allegations of sexually abusing minors during his time serving Christian Aid Ministries in Haiti, according to the Berlin, Ohio-based nonprofit.

“It is already well known that our former employee, Jeriah Mast, has confessed to molesting boys while working for our organization in Haiti,” Christian Aid Ministries’ board of directors wrote in an open letter on June 17.

Christian Aid Ministries said in the same letter that two managers at the organization had known about Mast’s behavior since 2013, when he had admitted to Christian Aid Ministries staff to “sexual activity” with boys under the age of 18 “that had taken place several years prior in Haiti,” Robert Flores, an attorney representing Christian Aid Ministries, told NBC News.

The managers did not return repeated calls and messages seeking comment.

By 2013, Mast had already been working for the organization in Haiti for six years. He had several roles there, including post-hurricane aid, distributing medicine to clinics and a school aid program.

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.

Patheos blog

Oct. 8, 2019

By Hemant Mehta

Yesterday, the Supreme Court announced that it would not take up a wild case concerning the organization that oversees the Jehovah’s Witnesses. We can breathe a huge sigh of relief that the case won’t be overturned. (In that link, it’s case 19-40 on page 42.)

The case, which involved child molestation and religious secrecy, centered around an incident that took place on July 15, 2006.

J.W., a nine-year-old girl with Jehovah’s Witness parents, was invited to her first slumber party at the home of Gilbert Simental. He had a daughter her age, so that wasn’t too weird. Two other girls (sisters) were also at the party. These families all knew and trusted Simental because, while he was no longer a local Witness leader, he had spent more than a decade as an elder in the faith. He was a religious leader who stepped down, he said, to spend more time with his son. They believed him. They all respected him. It’s why they allowed their girls into his home.

During that party, everyone got into a pool in the backyard… including Simental. And he proceeded to molest J.W. and the sisters. He did it again later that night. The sisters eventually told their parents, who reported Simental to local Witness elders (which is what they’re taught to do in these situations).

Simental confessed to some of the allegations, and the elders basically gave him a faith-based slap on the wrist: a reprimand that had no meaning outside church circles.

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

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

Oct. 8, 2019

In a newly published investigation, a priest who was in the St. Louis archdiocese admitted on video molesting several young boys and a developmentally disabled young man.

For a year, from June 1983 to June of 1984, Fr. Roger A. Sinclair was on sick leave from the Greensburg PA diocese and was sent by for therapy at the now-closed House of Affirmation in Webster Groves Missouri, according to the Associated Press and a report by a grand jury report issued by the Pennsylvania attorney general.

In a letter dated May 23, 1984 to then-St. Louis Archbishop John May, then-Greensburg Bishop William Connare said Fr. Sinclair had been in Webster Groves “for emotional problems” and that the priest would leave the program soon. Connare assured May that Sinclair had his permission to work in such a setting if it were agreeable to May.

Later, Fr. Sinclair worked as an Air Force chaplain and in Kansas at the Topeka State Hospital where he “managed to gain access to a locked unit deceitfully” and tried to check out teenage boys from the hospital to go see a movie at least twice. However, the hospital refused to allow Fr. Sinclair to escort the minors out of the building. He was subsequently dismissed from the hospital.

Fr. Sinclair is now behind bars in Oregon.

This news reinforces what we in SNAP have long charged: that St. Louis Catholic officials have – and continue to – put kids in harm’s way by knowingly, secretively and deceitfully importing proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting clerics from across the US.

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HARTFORD (CT)
WVIT TV

Oct. 7, 2019

By Mike Massaro

The Diocese of Bridgeport recently settled a clergy sexual abuse claim against the late Monsignor William Genuario, in the amount of $725,000. Monday the survivor of that abuse, maintaining anonymity, spoke out for the first time.

“I was in such bad shape I was on the verge of death. I was about to die,” said the survivor, referencing the years of emotional torment he’s suffered through.

As an 11 year old in 1988, the man, now 42, says he was sexually abused multiple times by Genuario, at St. Catherine of Siena Church in Greenwich.

“From 1978 to 1987 he was vicar general and he’s a child molester and that should be added to his resume,” said the survivor’s attorney, Mitchell Garabedian.

In the years since his molestations, the survivor says his life has been “infested with horror.”

“I have been under a total, I guess you can say, a demonic kind of life that I’ve lived after the abuse took place,” he said.

A report released last week by the Bridgeport Diocese revealed 281 victims of sexual abuse by clergy over the past 65 years within the that diocese.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Australian Times

Oct. 8, 2019

By Tess Lawrence

Just hours before the Amazon Synod was due to start, in what amounts to a Declaration of War against Pope Francis, Cardinal Müller has released two films on YouTube based on his written Manifesto of Faith.

Cardinal George Pell’s malevolent crusade against Pope Francis remains as vigorous as his disdain and notorious self-professed disinterest for victims of child sex abuse.

In shocking and curious timing on 1 August, Cardinal George Pell’s supporters published a seemingly innocuous two-page letter the convicted paedophile had apparently penned and sent whilst in prison, on their Twitter account.

That letter was deleted and now the Twitter account “Cardinal George Pell Supporters” @PellCardinal has gone to god.

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BUFFALO (NY)
WBFO Radio

Oct. 8, 2019

By Mike Desmond

The University at Buffalo Law School on Monday hosted a look at the Child Victims Act, the new state law that has reopened New York’s history of sexual abuse for a one-year window. The law allows victims to go to court against abusers, even if the abuse occurred decades ago.

For months, the CVA has been an issue in the state’s legal system. Hundreds of lawsuits have been filed, mostly against the Catholic Church around the state, although more are now being filed against public schools.

A bankruptcy, for example, of a Catholic diocese, might mean there will be no chance for a victim to testify or internal church records on priests to become public. State Assemblymember Monica Wallace said she has legislation to make sure it never happens again.

“I have a piece of legislation that’s called the CARE Act, Child Abuse Reporting Expansion Act, which is intended to make clergy from all denominations mandatory reporters, because we need to recognize that they weren’t mandatory reporters is part of the reason that this abuse was allowed to proliferate for so many years,” Wallace said. “So what we want to do is make sure that we look prospectively and make sure that nothing like this happens again.”

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Tablet

Oct. 8, 2019

By Sarah Mac Donald

The Church needs to “find a way of exiting” the negativity of the abuse scandals “otherwise it will suffocate us”, according to a senior cleric who is based in Rome.

The Prefect of the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development, Cardinal Peter Turkson, also criticised Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin for apologising “too much”.

In his keynote address to the Autumn conference of the Association of Leaders of Missionaries and Religious of Ireland (AMRI) at the Emmaus Centre in Dublin, Cardinal Turkson recognised the abuse crisis as one of four “signs of the times”.

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ALLENTOWN (PA)
The Morning Call

Oct. 8 2019

By Emily Opilo

Five months ago, the Allentown Diocese opened a window for people who were abused by priests to apply for a payout from the church.

To the hundred or so people who already had reported abuse, the diocese sent information about applying for compensation. To those who had kept silent, they extended an invitation. On Sept. 30, the window closed, capping the amount of money the diocese will be offering victims.

Diocesan officials see the fund as a step toward righting some of the wrongs documented by an explosive grand jury report in 2018, which named dozens of Allentown Diocese priests among the 301 accused of abusing about a thousand children across Pennsylvania.

The payouts will also cause “severe financial stress,” the diocese cautioned in December, four months before it opened the fund to claims. It said then that it would tap available cash, borrow money and sell assets “to the extent possible” to cover the fund, noting no money would be taken from parishes.

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NEW YORK (NY)
News 12

Oct. 8, 2019

Parishioners at the Holy Rosary Church in Hawthorne have received a letter from Cardinal Timothy Dolan telling them about allegations against their pastor, Monsignor Edward Barry.

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.

HARRISBURG (PA)
Fox 43 TV

Oct. 7, 2019

By Rachel Yonkunas

Survivors of clergy sexual abuse are up against big money in politics as they push for criminal and justice reform. A recent report showed the Catholic Church spent $10.6 million lobbying in northeast states since 2011. FOX43 Reveals how much money the Church paid out to lobby lawmakers in Pennsylvania, fighting bills that would have helped child sexual abuse survivors like the Fortney sisters.

The five Fortney sisters have gone public with their story of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of a trusted priest after they were silenced for nearly three decades.

“We were made to believe it was just us,” said Lara Fortney-McKeever.

In August 2018, a blockbuster grand jury report changed the trajectory of their story. The Fortney sisters learned there were hundreds of other children sexually abused by Catholic priests. The sisters’ traumatic stories of abuse were also detailed in that report.

“To know how many people are living the torture that you’ve lived, it’s shocking,” Theresa Fortney-Miller said through tears. “But it kind of makes you feel like you’re not alone too.”

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VICTORIA (AUSTRALIA)
Associated Press

Oct. 7, 2019

By Marnie Bangers

A former priest who has been convicted of drugging and raping a 12-year-old boy has admitted assaulting another child.

Michael Aulsebrook, 63, pleaded guilty at the County Court of Victoria on Tuesday to indecently assaulting a boy aged 11 or 12 at a summer holiday camp he was managing when he was a Catholic brother in the mid-1980s.

The victim told police in 2016 about the assault, in which Aulsebrook touched his genitals and digitally penetrated him.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
Salon

Oct. 7, 2019

By Mary Elizabeth Williams

You know that moment in a once hugely popular, now hobbling along in its ninth season TV show when you watch a Nielsen grab in real time? Maybe it’s an abrupt time jump. Maybe it’s a surprise pregnancy. Maybe it’s the addition of a troubled yet cute boy that the family has to take in, for some reason. For the Roman Catholic Church, I think it’s this new “let’s bring in some husbands” development.

The biggest Christian religion in the world is facing a serious ratings slump. Thanks to increasing acceptance of secularism, and a seemingly bottomless array of sex abuse scandals and stonewalling about meaningful reform, the numbers of self-identified Catholics have been falling off sharply in almost all parts of the world. According to the Pew Research Center, 13% of all U.S. adults identify as former Catholics. And even among those who currently claim the affiliation, the percentage of Catholics who are members of a church has likewise fallen off in the last two decades. In once sturdy Catholic footholds, the drop-off is even more dramatic — in 1970, 92% of Latin America was Catholic. It’s predicted that in the next decade, Catholics will be the minority there.

Fewer Catholics, as well as continuing bad optics for the profession itself, have also led to a shortage of priests everywhere but on prestige TV shows. Back in March, the Vatican announced that the numbers of priests and candidates for the priesthood worldwide had dipped for the first time in a decade. Maybe it needs some fresh cast members!

On Sunday, Pope Francis formally opened up a three-week summit of his bishops that will focus on “faith, sustainability and development” in the Amazon region. It will feature open debate about one of the church’s longest held traditions, potentially paving the way for some married men to be eligible for ordination. In this remote area of the world, priests are already scarce and their numbers are only dwindling. Religion News reported back in August that Catholics in the region typically only attend mass once a year — a crisis for an institution that prizes the sacrament of communion as “the fount and apex of the whole Christian life.” One workaround the Vatican is considering is allowing a few married guys to wear the collar.

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.

VANCOUVER (CANADA)
Richmond News

Oct. 7, 2019

By Jeremy Hainsworth

A 42-year-old case of allegations of sexual assault by a Kamloops priest against a grieving woman and the diocese’s responsibility in the situation is not a case of determining damages but how much those damages will be, BC Supreme Court heard Oct. 7.

“This is a clear-cut, simple, civil, sexual assault case,” diocese lawyer John Hogg told the court.

Rosemary Anderson alleged in a Dec. 22, 2016, notice of civil claim the sexual abuse at the hands of Father Erlindo “Lindo” Molon, now 86, started when she was 26 when she sought solace after her father’s death. She names Molon and the Roman Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Kamloops, A Corporation Sole, in the claim.

Anderson was working as a diocese teacher at the time.

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MIDDLETOWN (NY)
Times Herald Record

Oct. 7, 2019

The scope of the child sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church, which was exposed early in this century, grew dramatically last year when U.S. dioceses began releasing names of clergy considered to be credibly accused. More than 5,000 names have now been disclosed. But that’s not the end of it.

As an exhaustive report by the Associated Press reveals, of the approximately 2,000 men still alive, nearly 1,700 are living with virtually no oversight from church or law enforcement agencies. Many are in positions of trust which afford access to children. And, AP reports, dozens have committed crimes, including sexual assault and possessing child pornography,

It’s the result of the decision by many dioceses to ignore recommendations made when the scandal became public to reveal names of priests credibly accused of sex abuse and to create programs to counsel and oversee the activities of the men. While the church grudgingly began reporting some abusers to police — which placed the offenders in the oversight of official authorities — most dioceses chose to simply defrock the priest and return them to private life.

As AP reports, this often meant working as teachers, counselors, nurses, volunteers in community groups and living near playgrounds and daycare centers.

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

Oct. 7, 2019

A new internal report released by church officials in Connecticut has serious implications for the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

Judge Robert Holzberg concluded that the Diocese of Bridgeport continually ignored laws regarding the reporting of abuse and failed in their duty to protect children under their care. One of the bishops specifically called out for this practice, the late Cardinal Lawrence J. Shehan, went on to become the Archbishop of Baltimore. We are concerned that Cardinal Shehan continued to cover up the sexual abuse of children in Maryland as well.

Another Baltimore Archbishop also came to Maryland from the Diocese of Bridgeport. Current Archbishop William E. Lori was the bishop of Bridgeport from 2001 to 2012, just prior to coming to Baltimore.

Judge Holzberg’s report says when at the helm in Bridgeport, Archbishop Lori acted quickly to remove abusive priests and implemented a new approach to handling allegations. However, he also engaged in a lengthy court fight to conceal documents on the Bridgeport scandal. The Bridgeport report acknowledges that the court battle “somewhat undercut” the diocese’s progress on transparency.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Sojourners

Oct. 7, 2019

By Sonja Livingston

It’s not an easy time to be Catholic. In fact, I hadn’t regularly attended Mass since the 1990s, but like many lapsed Catholics, I still kept tabs, feeling gutted with every new scandal and disclosure of abuse. Things began to look up with the arrival of Pope Francis in 2013. Even so-called cultural Catholics like me could feel hopeful. With Francis, the church played to its strength, which has always been love. “Who am I to judge?” Pope Francis famously said, and even my most cynical friends responded in kind. “Maybe, I’ll go back to Mass.” All such talk ended by 2018, when a Pennsylvania Grand Jury alleged that more than 300 priests had abused 1,000 children across the state, setting off a flurry of subsequent revelations and horrors.

For years, the church has refused to budge on issues the culture has largely accepted, especially related to issues of sexual morality and gender. How long could the voter who supported reproductive rights, the man in love with his boyfriend, or the divorced mother continue to warm the seats? Catholics began abandoning their pews decades before the first wave of scandals broke in 2009, though the sexual abuse crisis certainly ushered more out the door.

In an essay calling for the abolishment of the priesthood in The Atlantic this past June, author and former priest, James Carroll describes a church crippled by clericalism and misogyny, racked by predatory behavior and the much more insidious culture of looking the other way. The message of Carrol’s article was clear: If it’s to survive, the church’s clerical structure must be eliminated. “The very priesthood,” Carroll wrote, “is toxic.”

Meanwhile, my home diocese of Rochester, N.Y. filed for bankruptcy on Sept. 12, making it the first of New York State’s eight dioceses to do so. When the state’s Child Victims Act extended the statute of limitations for survivors of child sexual abuse this past August, a one-year window opened to file claims. More than 600 lawsuits were filed statewide in the first month alone, with the bulk naming Roman Catholic dioceses for past abuse by priests. Like many communities throughout the northeast, New York’s cities have been plagued by lagging attendance and church closings for the past few decades. In other words, Rochester’s bankruptcy was less of a shock than a sign of the times.

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SARASOTA (FL)
Herald Tribune

Oct. 7, 2019

By Earle Kimel

An Avon Park woman has filed a $15 million suit against the Diocese of Venice, alleging that the Rev. Nicholas McLoughlin, 77, formerly of Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church in Avon Park, attempted to grope and sexually assault her during confession in April 2018.

The Oct. 2 lawsuit filed in the 12th Judicial Circuit by Fort Lauderdale-based attorney Adam Horowitz on behalf of the woman — who was identified only as L.B. — alleges the Diocese and Bishop Frank. J. Dewane should have known that McLoughlin was “unfit, dangerous, and/or a threat to the health, safety, care, health and well-being of their parishioners such as L.B.”

McLoughlin was placed on administrative leave by the Diocese in November, while the Diocese of St. Petersburg reviews a complaint of “inappropriate physical contact with a minor” lodged against him.

That allegation occurred while McLoughlin served as pastor of Corpus Christi Parish in Temple Terrace from 1973 to 1982.

Last November, in a letter to parishioners, Dewane said that allegation had “a semblance of truth.”

Previously, McLoughlin was a co-defendant in two lawsuits involving his brother, Ed McLoughlin, a former priest who was accused of molesting teenage boys in the 1980s and 1990s.

A Diocese of Venice spokeswoman said via email Monday that the Diocese has not yet been served with the Avon Park lawsuit and McLoughlin is retired and no longer in the ministry.

The Avon Park complaint was looked into by Highlands County Sheriff’s Office Investigator Anthony P. McGann but based upon lack of evidence or other witnesses, Assistant State Attorney Steve Houchins told him that the case would not be prosecuted.

According to McGann’s report, L.B. moved to from Homestead to Highlands County in February, to be closer to her sister. After a web search, she determined Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church was the Catholic Church closest to where she lived.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Tribune Review

Oct. 7, 2019

By Tom Davidson

An Allegheny County judge will decide whether a trust that a Westmoreland County farmer and former state representative bequeathed to the Roman Catholic church to help needy boys can be used by the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh to help pay victims of clergy sexual abuse.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro’s office opposes using the 120-year-old Toner Trust — now valued at more than $8 million — for the diocese’s Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program.

“This distribution would be inconsistent with the charitable intent of James L. Toner,” Senior Deputy Attorney General Gene Herne wrote in a brief opposing use of the trust to settle sexual abuse claims.

Diocesan spokeswoman Ellen Mady declined comment. The diocese is awaiting a hearing to be set in the matter, she said.

Shapiro’s office didn’t return requests for further comment.

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DETROIT (MI)
Deadline Detroit

October 3, 2019

By Michael Betzold

In the first trial of a priest swept up in Attorney General Dana Nessel’s May dragnet, a 31-year-old man man gave dramatic graphic testimony Thursday, detailing how he had sought to confess his sins to Patrick Casey but instead the priest shocked him by initiating oral sex in January 2013.

The victim testified that he was so convinced he was headed for hell, because of homosexual urges, that he broke up with his boyfriend of six years and attempted suicide just before the encounter in Casey’s church office in Westland. The man was in his mid-20s at the time.

The case is one of seven charged to date based on more than a million documents seized by the attorney general last October from all seven of the state’s Catholic dioceses. In May, Nessel rounded up priests nationwide and charged them with sex crimes in various Michigan courts. The Casey case differs from the others because it does not involve a minor victim and is based on a relatively recent incident. (The others involve priests who left the state after allegedly abusing minors decades ago.)

The John Doe who testified in Wayne County Circuit Judge Wanda Evans’ courtroom was converting as an adult to Catholicism and spent six months seeking spiritual and personal counsel from Casey, who was transferred during that period from St. Thomas a’Becket in Canton to St. Theodore in Westland.

He knew the church condemned homosexuality and became troubled, he said on the witness stand, just by looking at the bodies of strangers on the street or sitting in certain positions. Because Casey was aware of the victim’s anxious state, Assistant Attorney General Danielle Hagaman-Clark told jurors in her opening statement: “This case hinges on one word — coercion.” She charges Casey abused his authority in the case.

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DENVER (CO)
Denver Post

Oct. 7, 2019

By Elise Schmelzer

At least 65 people who were abused as children by Catholic clergy in Colorado are eligible to apply for reparations from the state’s three dioceses, officials said Monday.

As part of a review of the dioceses’ handling of sex abuse reports, the dioceses hired a nationally-known firm to decide which victims should be compensated outside the court process and how much each victim should receive. Kenneth Feinberg, one of the compensation administrators, said Monday that his firm already sent paperwork to start the reparations process to 65 victims who previously reported abuse.

The number offers the first glimpse of the scope of abuse in the state as the independent review ordered by the Colorado Attorney General’s office nears completion.

“Sixty-five, relative to some other states, is not a huge number, thank goodness,” Feinberg said.

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

Oct. 7, 2019

He rejects SNAP’s Sunshine Act request
So victims ask AG & bishop for voluntarily release
SNAP: “If you’ve nothing to hide, disclose the deal”
Group says Schmitt’s abuse report is “the worst ever”
And it reveals 60 pages of never-seen-abuse records
Some are about ‘sex ring’ with three St. Louis seminarians

WHAT
After a sidewalk news conference, clergy sex abuse victims and their supporters will try to hand-deliver a letter to the Missouri attorney general’s St. Louis office calling on him to voluntarily release
-any formal agreement he signed with bishops limiting his probe, and
–the names of all non-victims he and his staff met with (like experts and church officials).
(He’s already rebuffed a Sunshine Act request. SNAP’s also asking bishops to release such 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.

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

Oct. 7, 2019

A catholic diocese in Pennsylvania has run afoul of the state attorney general for attempting to use funds earmarked for impoverished children to help pay for compensation for victims of clergy sexual violence.

This latest news out of the Diocese of Pittsburgh is a depressing look at how church officials act when their money is on the line. It is terrible that people were subjected to abuse in the first place. It is sad that those victims have no recourse criminally or civilly in Pennsylvania. And it is disappointing that church officials want to use funds earmarked for needy children to dodge the financial burden of these lawsuits.

Church officials have other options when it comes to raising money. Rather than pickpocket from poor children, they could borrow funds from the Knights of Columbus as Cardinal Bernard Law did in Boston. They could sell auxiliary church property and land in order to make up the shortfall. Or they could take up a collection explicitly for the purpose of making whole those victims and survivors who were hurt by priests, nuns, deacons, and other church staff.

We believe that when wrongdoers experience no real sacrifices for wrongdoing, they have no incentive to do right in the future. So we oppose any effort by church officials to rob a fund for needy kids to help victims of church officials’ criminal behavior. We hope that Attorney General Josh Shapiro is successful in his challenge and that the Diocese of Pittsburgh will have to look elsewhere to make up its monetary shortfall.

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

Oct. 7, 2019

It is irresponsible, hurtful and self-serving for Catholic officials – in Chicago and elsewhere – to arbitrarily declare “We don’t investigate abuse reports against dead priests.” This decision hurts nearly everyone involved and helps only church bureaucrats who care about their comfort and careers.

It hurts victims, obviously, because it rewards their courage in coming forward with more insensitivity.

It hurts Catholics because it is another violation of bishops’ repeated pledges to be ‘transparent’ about abuse and because it perpetuates the gradual, painful unearthing of the truth about predators which is demoralizing.

And it hurts children and vulnerable adults because every time a fellow victim is ignored or rebuffed, it discourages others who know of or suspect abuse from speaking up and protecting others.

It is true that dead priests can’t defend themselves. But it’s also true that secular and church officials have found, buried deep in secret church files, admissions of guilt by child molesting clergy. Or reports from dozens of other victims – and some witnesses and whistleblowers – which lend tremendous credibility to other abuse reports.

Think about this scenario: Imagine that in 2017, Fr. Bob admitted in writing that he molested Sally. In 2018, Fr. Bob dies. And in 2019, Sally reports her abuse. In this scenario, Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich would, according to his practice and policy, keep Fr. Bob’s name and the accusations against him secret.

And what if Fr. Bob admitted sexually assaulting three other girls too, but none of them have yet found the strength to come forward to church officials? Or none of them were deemed credible by church officials? (Remember: three of every four abuse reports to Illinois Catholic officials are determined ‘unsubtantiated,’ according to former attorney general Lisa Madigan).

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STAMFORD (CT)
Stamford Advocate

October 5, 2019

By John Breunig

Luke Robbins has only been director of counseling for the area’s sexual assault resource center for a few days, so it almost seems unfair to engage him in conversation about the new report that exposes the depth of the Diocese of Bridgeport’s decades of covering up incidents of priests sexually assaulting children.

He’s up to the task.

The Stamford-based agency was recently rechristened The Rowan Center after The Rowan Tree, a symbol of resilience.

Past banners signaled more clarity about the agency’s mission (such as the Center for Sexual Assault Crisis and Education). But I can respect that people, like Robbins, who do this for a living need to use metaphors, similes and euphemisms. I’ll take any euphemism over vile lies like the ones perpetuated in the diocese for a few generations.

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VATICAN CITY
BBC News

October 6, 2019

By Lebo Diseko

Catholic bishops from around the world are meeting at the Vatican to discuss the future of the Church in the Amazon.

Over the next three weeks, some 260 participants will talk about climate change, migration and evangelism.

Pope Francis opened the talks on Sunday by blaming destructive “interests” that led to recent fires in the Amazon.

“The fire of God is warmth that attracts and gathers into unity. It is fed by sharing, not by profits,” he said.

But one topic has dominated the headlines: whether married men will be allowed to become priests.

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UNITED STATES
The Associated Press

October 5, 2019

By Claudia Lauer and Meghan Hoyer

Nearly 1,700 priests and other clergy members that the Roman Catholic Church considers credibly accused of child sexual abuse are living under the radar with little to no oversight from religious authorities or law enforcement, decades after the first wave of the church abuse scandal roiled U.S. dioceses, an Associated Press investigation has found.

These priests, deacons, monks and lay people now teach middle-school math. They counsel survivors of sexual assault. They work as nurses and volunteer at nonprofits aimed at helping at-risk kids. They live next to playgrounds and day care centers. They foster and care for children.

And in their time since leaving the church, dozens have committed crimes, including sexual assault and possessing child pornography, the AP’s analysis found.

A recent push by Roman Catholic dioceses across the U.S. to publish the names of those it considers to be credibly accused has opened a window into the daunting problem of how to monitor and track priests who often were never criminally charged and, in many cases, were removed from or left the church to live as private citizens.

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UNITED STATES
Yahoo Celebrity

October 3, 2019

By Taryn Ryder

James Franco was named in a lawsuit Thursday by two former students, Toni Gaal and Sarah Tither-Kaplan, who claim they were sexually exploited at his acting school, Studio 4. Tither-Kaplan is one of the women who publicly accused the actor of inappropriate behavior in 2018. A lawyer for Franco is calling it a “publicity seeking lawsuit.”

According to documents obtained by the New York Times, Gaal and Tither-Kaplan allege Franco and his partners “engaged in widespread inappropriate and sexually charged behavior towards female students by sexualizing their power as a teacher and an employer by dangling the opportunity for roles in their projects.”

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NEW YORK
Rockland/Westchester Journal News

October 2, 2019

By Frank Esposito

Lawyers for those who have accused clergy of sexual abuse said any current abuse would not be reported until years later, casting doubt over a claim no recent credible claims since the early 2000s.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan sat on the edge of his seat while the findings of an independent investigation into the Archdiocese of New York’s handling of sex abuse claims was read at a press conference in New York City on Monday.

A former federal judge and prosecutor Barbara Jones and a team of attorneys had combed through archdiocese records, and found the archdiocese hadn’t had any credible claims against its priests since the early 2000s.

For the archdiocese, it’s a light at the end of the tunnel, the epidemic of child sex abuse in the 20th century seemingly has a end.

Attorneys for plaintiffs, like Mitchell Garabedian, a prominent Boston-based attorney who represents more than 250 clergy sexual abuse plaintiffs in New York, see it as the light of another train.

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PROVIDENCE (RI)
Providence Journal

October 2, 2019

By Brian Amaral

The attorney for a former altar boy suing the Diocese of Providence urged people to come forward with information that could shed light on what church leaders and others knew about the sexual abuse of children.

Timothy J. Conlon, attorney for now 53-year-old Philip Edwardo, said at a news conference Wednesday that the church and its leaders should be considered “perpetrators” of the abuse Edwardo suffered as a child, just as much as the abusive priest himself.

“The problem is the institution,” Conlon said at his office. “You don’t sue the cockroaches for being in a restaurant. You sue the restaurant for letting them breed.”

Edwardo, who now lives in Florida, said he was inappropriately touched, molested or otherwise abused from 100 to 300 times by the Rev. Philip Magaldi, then a parish priest at St. Anthony Church in North Providence. Magaldi died in 2008. In July, the diocese placed him on its list of “credibly accused” clergy.

Edwardo’s suit, filed Monday in state court, takes aim at the diocese’s role in the abuse crisis as part of an effort to overcome possible barriers to the litigation.

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The Teller Report

Oct. 6, 2019

The Swedish Catholic Church is now being pulled into the international pedophile scandal, with priests suspected of committing child abuse.

It is in new documents that came from two Catholic parishes in the United States that the two priests are named. They have also worked in Sweden during the 2000s, and have been accused of abuse here as well.

An increasing number of Catholic parishes in the United States have opened their archives and published lists of priests that the churches’ own investigations have shown have so-called “credible accusations” of sexual offenses against children.

One of the cases that Meredith Colias-Pete of the Post Tribune newspaper in Gary outside Chicago has examined concerns a priest who was later moved to Sweden. He was active in three different parishes in Gary during the 1980s. In the document the congregation published last year, the priest is listed as “credibly accused” of abuse against six children.

“The problem is that it is the church’s own investigation that has determined which have been” credibly accused “, and that they have not handed over the cases to the police,” says Meredith Colias-Pete.

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MAMARONECK (NY)
Rockland/Westchester Journal News

Oct. 7, 2019

By Matt Spillane

The pastor of a Catholic church in Mamaroneck has been accused of abusing a child decades ago.

Monsignor James White has been placed on administrative leave at St. Vito-Most Holy Trinity Church because of the accusation, which he denied in a letter to parishioners last week.

“I was profoundly shocked, disturbed and saddened by this news,” he wrote in a letter on Oct. 2.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan sent a letter to parishioners on Oct. 3 about White’s ministry being “temporarily restricted.”

White said in his letter that he was informed on Sept. 26 of “an allegation of inappropriate conduct with a minor.” He said it dates back to the 1980s, when he was the dean of discipline at Cardinal Hayes High School, an all-boys school in the Bronx.

“I can assure you that I have never been inappropriate with a minor at any time during my almost 37 years as a priest of the Archdiocese of New York,” he said, “and I ask you to believe in my innocence.”

White said he trusts that his name will be cleared.

Dolan said in his letter that the accusation is being investigated by prosecutors as well as the Archdiocese’s Lay Review Board, which helps determine whether an accused priest can return to ministry.

“This leave is not a punishment, and no judgment has been made about the accusation,” Dolan said. “Monsignor White continues to have the presumption of innocence.”

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

Oct. 7, 2019

We applaud these Catholic seminarians who are increasingly speaking out about clergy sexual abuse and cover ups. Thanks to them, more change will be made.

Over the years, our group has also heard from more current and former seminarians and seminary staff about clergy sexual abuse, misdeeds and cover ups. Sadly, many are in fear of losing their jobs, status or careers if they ‘blow the whistle.’ Still, we encourage everyone – inside and outside the church – to find the courage to come forward and share what they know.

If deeply wounded victims of clergy sexual violence can find their voices, so too can betrayed seminarians and other church staff. Collectively, we are making both the church and our society safer for all. But it takes continued courage.

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BRISBANE (AUSTRALIA)
Brisbane Times

Oct. 6, 2019

By Lydia Lynch and Warren Barnsley

A Catholic priest found guilty of indecently dealing with a schoolboy while he has a teacher at Brisbane’s Villanova College has been acquitted after the Court of Appeal found the law he broke did not exist at the time.

Michael Ambrose Endicott, 75, was convicted of three counts of indecently dealing with a child in the 1970s and 1980s after a five-day trial in Brisbane District Court in March this year.

At a hearing in April, the Court of Appeal ordered his convictions and 18-month jail sentence be set aside.

In their judgement published on Friday, Court of Appeal president Walter Sofronoff along with Justices Philip Morrison and Elizabeth Wilson explained why.

Mr Endicott’s trial was told he was in charge of pastoral care and religious education at Villanova College during the 1970s.

A jury found Mr Endicott indecently photographed his young victim three times, the first time being on a school hiking trip in 1975 when he asked the nine-year-old to accompany him to a creek area in dense bush.

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BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

Oct. 4, 2019

By Jay Tokasz

Michael F. Whalen Jr. wants to sit down with the Rev. Norbert F. Orsolits someday and forgive the priest he says molested him when he was an impressionable boy in need of a role model.

“You know, I’ve carried the pain that he caused me for 40 years. For the rest of his days, I want him to wonder why one survivor forgave him,” said Whalen, a former U.S. Army private who lives in South Buffalo.

“It’s because of my faith. Something he didn’t believe in. He used his as a weapon to hurt kids. Me, I want him to know that I forgive him. That’s what our religion, what our faith, what our church is supposed to be,” Whalen said.

It was Whalen’s public accusation against Orsolits that set off a Buffalo Diocese clergy sexual abuse scandal, which now includes the identification of more than 100 Buffalo area priests who were credibly accused of abuse, ongoing federal and state investigations into whether diocese officials tried to cover up abuses and more than 165 lawsuits against the diocese. On Thursday, the Vatican directed Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio to investigate the Buffalo Diocese through an “apostolic visitation.”

Within hours of Whalen’s new conference on Feb. 27, 2018, outside the diocese’s Main Street headquarters, Orsolits admitted to The Buffalo News that he had molested “probably dozens” of boys decades ago.

Whalen, 54, has come a long way from that news conference. He’s now at ease talking about a secret that had kept him in silent shame for decades. He’s developed a network of new friends who share a common bond as survivors of abuse, but who talk regularly on all manner of subjects. He said he’s grown closer to his family, including three grandchildren, with a fourth due in November.

Whalen also has developed a passion for the Child Advocacy Center, which provides a variety of services for children and families affected by child sexual abuse or severe physical abuse.

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

PITTSBURGH (PA)
Post Gazette

Oct. 7, 2019

By Peter Smith

The office of state Attorney General Josh Shapiro is pressing its opposition to a bid by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh to draw money from a $8 million-plus trust fund, dedicated to needy children, to pay compensation to adult victims of sexual abuse.

State law does not “allow a charitable trust to be terminated to pay the potential legal obligations of the trustee for its alleged criminal activity in direct contravention to the terms of the trust,” said a legal brief filed Tuesday in Allegheny County Orphans’ Court by Gene Herne, senior deputy attorney general.

But the diocese says aiding survivors of abuse would fit within the spirit of the century-old trust fund, which has aided needy children even into their young adult years, with a particular mission of educating them and providing vocational and living skills.

“These funds will provide for the care, education, training, maintenance and treatment of those who were abused as children to assist them to make an adjustment to life and work in accordance with their abilities,” attorney Robert Ridge, representing the diocese, said in a court filing Wednesday.

Earlier this year, the Diocese of Pittsburgh filed a petition in Orphans’ Court, seeking permission to use the fund as part of its Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program, for payments to victims of sexual abuse by its priests through an out-of-court process. After the attorney general’s office lodged its opposition to the move, Judge Lawrence O’Toole in August called for each side to argue its case in the legal briefs that have now been filed.

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HOUSTON (TX)
Houston Chronicle

Oct. 6, 2019

By John Tedesco

For years, victims’ advocates have called for sweeping changes in how the Southern Baptist Convention responds to sexual abuse in its churches.

Last week in Grapevine, Baptist leaders said it’s time to listen. But critics are skeptical that their rhetoric will result in meaningful change.

More than 1,600 Southern Baptists gathered in Texas for the SBC’s “Caring Well” conference, which aimed to help the largest coalition of Baptist churches in the United States do a better job preventing abuse and assisting victims.

The conference was organized in response to a February investigation by the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News that revealed hundreds of Southern Baptist church leaders and volunteers had been accused of sexual misconduct in the last two decades. They left behind more than 700 victims, a number that leaders agree is only a sliver of the problem. Speakers at the conference emphasized that sexual abuse in Southern Baptist churches existed long before the newspapers’ investigation — but many churches ignored the warnings.

“Southern Baptists won’t have a future unless we are willing to acknowledge our tendency to protect the system over survivors,” said Phillip Bethancourt, the vice president of the convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, which organized the conference. “If the system is more important than the survivors, then the system is not worth saving.”

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BELLEVILLE (IL)
News Democrat

Oct. 7, 2019

By Lexi Cortes

The recent civil lawsuit alleging a boy was sexually abused by a Belleville priest in the ’80s was filed 18 years too late to seek damages for the trauma he says he suffered, the Belleville Diocese’s attorneys are arguing in court.

The now 38-year-old man filed his complaint July 19 in St. Clair County Circuit Court, within today’s statute of limitations: 20 years after his 18th birthday or 20 years after realizing he was harmed by past abuse, if he repressed the memories, for example.

But the diocese says his complaint should instead be subject to the law as it was in 1999, when the man turned 18. At that time, the statute of limitations expired within two years.

The man, who filed under the pseudonym John Doe, alleged the Rev. Joseph Schwaegel sexually abused him when he was between 6 and 8 years old and a student at Cathedral Grade School in Belleville.

At the time, Schwaegel was the school’s superintendent and in charge of the diocese’s largest parish, Belleville’s St. Peter’s Cathedral. He would call Doe and other students out of class to be alone with him, and the lawsuit states that is when the priest abused Doe.

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DALLAS (TX)
Religion News Serevice

October 5, 2019

By Jack Jenkins

Southern Baptist leaders wrestled with questions of procedure and accountability during a gathering on sexual abuse this week, grappling with how best to address an issue some say the denomination took far too long to address.

After a first day focused on stories of abuse survivors, the Caring Well conference, organized by the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, devoted its second and third days to hearing from critics of the denomination’s response to abuse.

“The SBC has, over and over again, trampled on these precious (abuse) survivors, and that is why they are afraid to speak up — that fear is deserved,” said Rachael Denhollander at a question-and-answer session Saturday morning. Denhollander, an attorney, was the first person to publicly accuse former Michigan State physician Larry Nassar of sexual abuse. She said that the first time she was abused — before encountering Nassar — was in a church at age 7.

A series of breakout sessions also offered pastors and church leaders practical lessons for dealing with sexual abuse and covered a broad range of issues that fall under the broader category of abuse: how to screen for child sex abusers, prevent domestic violence and how to talk to abuse survivors.

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OKLAHOMA CITY (OK)
The Oklahoman

October 7, 2019

By Carla Hinton

[Related coverage:

– Read Archbishop Coakley’s letter

– Read McAfee & Taft’s report

– Read the Oklahoma City archdiocese’s list of priests with substantiated allegations, along with supporting materials]

A law firm’s report on the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City was praised Sunday not only for its listing of priests who preyed on minors but its detailed description of the ways the faith organization’s leaders dealt with the perpetrators.

Several parishioners attending services at St. Monica Catholic Church in Edmond said information included in Oklahoma City-based McAfee & Taft’s report was disturbing but they lauded Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul S. Coakley for having the firm conduct an independent report and for releasing those findings on Oct. 4.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

October 7, 2019

By Elyssa Cherney

The first time it happened, the priest offered Terry Neary a cookie.

Neary, then an eighth grade student, was working an after-school job in the rectory of St. Ethelreda in Chicago. He followed the Roman Catholic priest into the kitchen, where, Neary has alleged, the 75-year-old man sexually abused him that day and a few more times in 1971.

The Archdiocese of Chicago later determined the abuse was “possible,” according to its own records, but it has not added the priest’s name to a list on its website that identifies nearly 80 clergy members believed to have abused children.

That’s because of a controversial church policy that doesn’t require full investigations into allegations made against deceased priests. By the time Neary first reported his abuse to the archdiocese in 2001, the priest, the Rev. William R. Leyhane, had been dead for two decades.

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SALT LAKE CITY (UT)
Fox 13 TV

October 5, 2019

By Adam Herbets

Hundreds of people gathered at the Salt Lake City-County Building on Saturday to take part in the March for Children. The inaugural rally was organized by Protect Every Child, a foundation dedicated to ending child abuse.

Speakers at the rally discussed numerous topics and methods to keep children safe, criticizing some institutions for caring more about their image than the children they are supposed to protect.

Sam Young, the founder of Protect Every Child, was excommunicated from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for being so outspoken in his criticism of certain church policies. His attempt to rejoin the church by filing an appeal was denied last year.

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GREENSBURG (PA)
The Observer-Reporter

October 5, 2019

Allegations of child sexual abuse against a West Newton priest were found to be unsubstantiated during a canonical investigation, according to the Greensburg Diocese.

However, the Rev. Joseph Bonafed, of Monessen, will not return as pastor for Holy Family Parish in West Newton and St. Edward’s Parish in Herminie, diocese officials said.

During the course of a six-month investigation, conducted by an independent diocesan review board, officials said they discovered Bonafed had engaged in “inappropriate conduct in the workplace.”

“In the course of the investigation into child sexual abuse allegations, allegations relating to inappropriate conduct in the workplace, in violation of the Diocesan Pastoral Code of Conduct, were reported and investigated,” the diocese stated in a release.

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SALT LAKE (UT)
The Salt Lake Tribune

October 5, 2019

By Courtney Tanner
·
They marched for blocks across Salt Lake City, some solemnly humming church hymns and peaceful chants that started in the front but were just getting to the beginning verse by the time the notes carried to the back of the massive crowd.

“We’ll love one another and never dissemble, but cease to do evil and ever be one,” a few sang.

The nearly 800 people — mostly members or former members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — walked to the Utah Capitol on Saturday, on the first day of General Conference weekend, in protest. They passed by the faith’s iconic Salt Lake Temple on their way but didn’t stop. Their goal, they said, was more important.

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ARKANSAS
Arkansas Democrat Gazette

October 5, 2019

By Francisca Jones

A new support group for survivors of abuse will soon be available to people of any faith through the Catholic Diocese of Little Rock.

The Maria Goretti Network will hold the first meeting of its Arkansas chapter at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Conway in November.

Miguel Prats, a sexual abuse survivor, co-founded the Texas-based nonprofit with the Rev. Gavin Vavarek in 2004. Prats suggested they name the organization in honor of Maria Goretti, the patron saint of rape victims and abused children.

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)
Religion News Service

October 5, 2019

By Jack Jenkins

Southern Baptist leaders wrestled with questions of procedure and accountability during a gathering on sexual abuse this week, grappling with how best to address an issue some say the denomination took far too long to address.

After a first day focused on stories of abuse survivors, the Caring Well conference, organized by the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, devoted its second and third days to hearing from critics of the denomination’s response to abuse.

“The SBC has, over and over again, trampled on these precious (abuse) survivors, and that is why they are afraid to speak up — that fear is deserved,” said Rachael Denhollander at a question-and-answer session Saturday morning. Denhollander, an attorney, was the first person to publicly accuse former Michigan State physician Larry Nassar of sexual abuse. She said that the first time she was abused — before encountering Nassar — was in a church at age 7.

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.