ABUSE TRACKER

DELAWARE
Delmarvanow.com

July 25, 2019

A Pocomoke City pastor accused in March of sexual misconduct with a teenager in Delaware nearly 40 years ago has been removed from ministry.

A Thursday statement from the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington shows Reverend William J. Porter, 71, has been pastor at Holy Name of Jesus in Pocomoke City since 2003.

However, the diocese said he was accused March 1 of sexual misconduct 38 years ago at Our Lady of Fatima Parish in New Castle, Delaware.

Porter’s accuser was a teenager at the time the allegations occurred, according to the statement. After the diocese notified Delaware State Police and the Delaware Attorney General’s Office, police launched an investigation.

That state police investigation finished July 19 because the diocese said the conduct occurred outside the statute of limitations, but Porter remains under investigation by the Wilmington Police Department because of similar allegations.

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

UNITED STATES
Non-Profit Quarterly

July 29, 2019

By Ruth McCambridge

An article in USA Today says that the unwillingness of the Roman Catholic Church to address its sex abuse scandals head-on has led those charitable nonprofits affiliated with them to struggle with impatient, even disgusted donors.

For instance, Catholic Charities of Buffalo only made 85 percent of its $11 million goal. Parishioners withheld donations after Bishop Richard J. Malone let priests accused of inappropriate conduct remain active in the church. Even though donors had the option of directing the whole of their donations to the charity, instead of the usual 50/50 split with the parish, there was a shortfall. (More than half the donors chose this option.)

“People are confused,” says Dennis Walczyk, the president of Catholic Charities of Buffalo. “They’re upset with the Catholic church.” Walczyk says Catholic Charities will take any shortfalls as hits on its own budget, not reducing what it gives.

The national Catholic Charities has not provided any public update on recent overall donor support, although last year, its CEO, Donna Markham, did say to Catholic News Service, “Anybody who is working in Catholic organizations right now is being hit by the fallout from the abuse crisis. We have been faced with some of our significant donors saying, ‘No more money to Catholic Charities until the bishops straighten out this mess.’”

In June, Pew Research Center reported that as a result of the abuse crisis, a quarter of Catholics said they had both reduced donations and scaled back mass attendance. Similarly, a reader survey in Jesuit-run American Magazine in November said, “Fifty-seven percent of respondents said they had lowered the amount they gave to their bishop’s appeal, while 47 percent said they had reduced donations to their parishes.”

Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen has been one of a number of influential Catholics to call upon fellow Catholics to skip using the Catholic Church as an intermediary, giving instead directly to charities.—Ruth McCambridge

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Herald

July 29, 2019

By Mary Markos

Numerous lawyers argue that nondisclosure agreements do not belong in government, raising concerns about perpetuating inappropriate conduct and a lack of transparency.

“Nondisclosure agreements help sexual abuse to continue,” said Boston-based attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who has represented victims in clergy sexual abuse cases. “The abuser can continue to abuse, and the public is not made aware of an existing safety concern. It is shocking to think the government would favor secrecy over transparency in such situations.”

The agreements waive a victim’s right to file a lawsuit or speak out about their experiences, but some politicians, including Gov. Charlie Baker and Speaker Robert DeLeo, have kept the practice in state government “if the victim wants one.”

This type of rhetoric is “the ultimate insult,” Boston attorney Wendy Murphy argued, because it exploits the victim’s “legitimate” privacy concerns and anticipates the misconduct is going to continue.

“It’s turning it into a right to privacy around what is often criminal activity, and you don’t privatize criminal activity,” Murphy said. “NDAs are a manufactured excuse not to tell the public what it has a right to know.”

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WIGAN (ENGLAND)
Wigan Today

July 29, 2019

A priest is facing jail after he was found guilty of vile historical sex offences against boys at the Catholic seminary near Wigan where he taught.

Fr Michael Higginbottom, 76, had originally been convicted in 2017 of the indecent assault and buggery of one boy at St Joseph’s College in Up Holland, but faced a retrial after the convictions were quashed on appeal.

He was also accused of abusing a second student, at his retrial at Burnley Crown Court, and was charged with a total of five counts of buggery and seven counts of indecent assault.

A jury found him guilty of all charges on Monday, a spokesman for the court said.

Both complainants said they were abused by Higginbottom in his private living quarters at the boarding school for boys aged 12 to 18, the court heard.

The first complainant attended the college in the late 1970s because he had decided to become a priest.

He told police that St Joseph’s was a “cold, dark and forbidding place” and it was the venue for “mental, physical and sexual abuse” as teacher Higginbottom forced himself on him “again and again”.

Lawyers for Higginbottom suggested the complainant had made up the allegations so he could claim compensation.

Jurors were told he had been found guilty of a fraud in which he pocketed a four-figure sum.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
KSDK TV

July 27, 2019

By Jasmine Payoute

It’s a list that has shaken many St. Louisans of faith, or otherwise: a list of 64 priests publicly named for substantiated accusations of abusing children or possessing child pornography.

Some Catholics insist their church should not be synonymous with its sins.

“My faith is God, my faith is this parish, my faith is this body of people that are all striving for the same things,” said Donna Frayne.

But a newly published list by the archdioceses of St. Louis has some Catholics in a crisis of faith. It names 64 former priests with substantiated allegations of sexual abuse of a child or possession of child pornography.

“It’s terrible, it’s hurt our parishes so bad, it’s such a shame because we have so much to offer,” Frayne said. “But then when you have it tainted like that you have to face up to it.”

Frayne is an attorney and a loyal parishioner at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Florissant.

“The people that did these things, they’re not representative of us and they have their own problems obviously,” she said.

Some of the abuse allegations against the priests on the list go back 70 years.

Three are accused of possessing child pornography and 61 accused of abuse.

Three of the priests on the list had ties to Frayne’s church.

“Zero percent surprised by it,” Karen Condon said. “Wasn’t surprised one bit by it, glad it came out though.”

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DRYDEN (MI)
Associated Press

July 29, 2019

By Martha Mendoza, Juliet Linderman and Garance Burke

The visiting priests arrived discreetly, day and night.

Stripped of their collars and cassocks, they went unnoticed in this tiny Midwestern town as they were escorted into a dingy warehouse across from an elementary school playground. Neighbors had no idea some of the dressed-down clergymen dining at local restaurants might have been accused sexual predators.

They had been brought to town by a small, nonprofit group called Opus Bono Sacerdotii. For nearly two decades, the group has operated out of a series of unmarked buildings in rural Michigan, providing money, shelter, transport, legal help and other support to hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Catholic priests accused of sexual abuse across the country.

Again and again, Opus Bono has served as a rapid-response team for the accused.

When a serial pedophile was sent to jail for abusing dozens of minors, Opus Bono was there for him, with regular visits and commissary cash.

When a priest admitted sexually assaulting boys under 14, Opus Bono raised funds for his defense.

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BUFFALO (NY)
Associated Press

July 29, 2019

By David Crary

For U.S. charities affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church, the past year has tested the resilience of their fundraisers and the loyalty of their donors in unprecedented fashion. Even as many donors reacted in dismay to the church’s extensive sex-abuse scandals, the charities faced new challenges trying to address the immigration crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border.

For the agencies with the most donors, Catholic Charities and Catholic Relief Services , it’s too early to gauge the overall financial impact of sex-abuse developments last year. Those included abuse allegations that led to former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s ouster from the priesthood and a Pennsylvania grand jury report asserting that about 300 Roman Catholic priests had abused children at six of the state’s dioceses over seven decades.

However, several local Catholic Charities affiliates report a drop in donations linked at least in part to the scandals.

In Pittsburgh, the largest diocese targeted by the Pennsylvania grand jury, local Catholic Charities executive director Susan Rauscher said donations were down this year, though she had no figures yet. The Rev. Nicholas Vaskov, a spokesman for the diocese, estimated that giving directly to the diocese had declined about 10% — due to churchgoers’ unhappiness with a reorganization of parishes as well as dismay over sex abuse. Staff cuts have resulted.

Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik, like some bishops elsewhere, has told donors that none of their gifts would be diverted to a new compensation fund for abuse victims; he said the fund would be financed largely through sale of properties.

In western New York’s diocese of Buffalo, many angry parishioners have withheld donations as Bishop Richard J. Malone faced criticism for allowing priests accused of inappropriate conduct to remain in ministry.

Leaders of Buffalo’s Catholic Charities affiliate worried about impact on their programs serving more than 150,000 people. So they offered a deal: Unlike past years, when gifts to its annual appeal were split between the charity and the diocese, donors this year could choose to direct their entire donation to the charity. More than 50% of donors picked that option.

“People are confused. … They’re upset with the Catholic church,” said Dennis Walczyk, president of Catholic Charities of Buffalo. “But don’t take it out on the people that really need help.”

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BRIARCREST (TX)
The Eagle

July 27, 2019

By Shawn Manning Chapman

In the current wave of the abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, it has been hard to know what to do. I have taken it on faith that the church eventually would survive this crisis and make the necessary changes to protect children and adults from abuse, because I believe the church is true.

However, I have also shared in the agonized cry of so many devout Catholics who have chosen to stay with the church in the midst of this crisis, “Lord, to whom shall we go?” as the abysmal response of church leaders has left me feeling helpless and angry. I had begun to think I never would see a meaningful response in my lifetime to this dire situation.

Abuse of Trust; Healing the Church gave me real hope for the first time that there is a way, and all of us can be a part of it right now.

I am confident that reading it will help Catholics understand the experience of sexual abuse and its effects better and to see how each of us can be a part of healing the wounded and helping the church take a righteous and effective path to being a refuge for the broken, making amends, protecting the vulnerable, educating families and reclaiming the spiritual fatherhood of our leaders.

The arrangement of the book helps to draw the reader into the experience of survivors, their spouses, their parents, by letting them tell their stories — “sacred stories” as they are called in the book.

These stories contain no lurid details but are very honest. Their authors don’t varnish the truth of what happened and what people suffer from clergy sexual abuse and the resulting trauma. It interested me to see how each of them found a path to healing. I enjoyed hearing about the way their Catholic faith actually helped them find restoration and new life, helped the rise and help others.

“We all love the Church and desire to heal her of this great wound. We desire to help our fellow Catholics (the secondary victims) to receive healing and to help our priests and Bishops to better understand how to seek out and offer healing to all victims of sexual abuse; especially those harmed by a leader of the Church.”

Allen Hebert is a survivor of clergy sexual abuse and an active, faithful and devout Catholic. He speaks our language and can explain this to us from the inside. This is a good Catholic book from a good Catholic man.

I appreciated the sections of the book written by experts to help us understand abuse and trauma as well as a way not only realize the problem and recognize abuse and potential abuse, but how to respond to it.

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SALINA (KS)
Salina Post

July 26, 2019

A Kansas priest pleaded guilty in federal court Friday to possessing child pornography, according to U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister.

In his plea, Christopher Rossman, 46, who formerly served at the Annunciation Catholic Church in Baldwin City, Kan., admitted that investigators found child pornography on his Samsung Galaxy tablet. The crime occurred in September 2016 when monitoring software installed on Rossman’s computer devices reported he had visited adult pornography and child pornography websites. The archdiocese forwarded the report to law enforcement.

When investigators tried to find Rossman in Baldwin City, they learned that his sister had taken possession of the Galaxy tablet and tried to run over it a number of times. A forensics examination found files on the device depicting prepubescent females engaged in sexual activities.

Sentencing will scheduled at a later date. The crime carries a penalty of up to 10 years in federal prison and a fine up to $250,000.

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SALT LAKE CITY (UT)
Salt Lake Tribune

July 28, 2019

By Alison Berg ·

A coalition of advocates against child sex abuse in churches gathered Sunday to announce the nation’s “first march” — planned for this fall in Salt Lake City — dedicated to ending such abuse.

Sam Young — a former bishop in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who was excommunicated after his push to end one-on-one interviews with lay leaders in which children sometimes are asked sexually explicit questions — joined forces with the Zero Abuse Project, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, and Boise’s James, Vernon & Weeks law firm to announce the march and a series of mountain climbs to protest child sex abuse.

“Child abuse is the most prevalent health problem children face. Yet we’re not talking about it, not addressing it,” said Young, who founded Protect Every Child and planned the march. “I encourage everybody that is concerned about child sex abuse, anybody that wants to eliminate what’s happening to children, to come to the march.”

The march is set for Oct. 5, starting at Salt Lake City Hall and ending at the Utah Capitol.

Until Aug. 3, a news release stated, coalition members also will ascend Wasatch Front mountains to “emphasize the point that society should be shouting from the mountaintops the importance of protecting children from sexual predators in their religious communities.”

Young said the climbs are symbolic of the Latter-day Saint hymn “High on the Mountain Top,” which encourages members to stand proud in their faith.

“It’s very symbolic,” Young said in an interview. “This is the message: Protect our children from abuse. That is a message so important we want to shout it from the mountaintops.”

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BISMARK (ND)
Forum News Service

July 27, 2019

By Tess Williams

The Diocese of Crookston reached a $5 million settlement this month with victims of clergy sexual abuse, but one victim said the real victory is still to come.

“I was never concerned about monetary gain in this lawsuit. My pursuit was for truth. I wanted the people to find out how many priests the public did not have information on who were credibly accused,” said Ronald Vasek, who filed a lawsuit against the diocese and Bishop Michael Hoeppner in 2017. “And that list is going to greatly increase now, through the efforts of these lawsuits.”

Attorney Elin Lindstrom, who represents victims as part of the Jeff Anderson and Associates team, said the settlement will include publicly releasing depositions and private documents from the diocese that likely will reveal more allegations.

“I think this is a really important step for these survivors to just get some accountability and acknowledgement for what happened,” she said. “These non-economic settlement parameters were something they were striving for and I think it’s a good day for us and a good day for some more transparency in the diocese.”

Most of the lawsuits were filed in response to the Minnesota Child Victims Act, which opened a three-year period for victims to bring forward civil suits that otherwise would be barred by the statute of limitations in regard to child sexual abuse.

Vasek, whose lawsuit was part of the recent settlement, said he was abused as a boy by Monsignor Roger Grundhaus. Vasek said Hoeppner told him to keep the abuse secret and covered up the truth.

The lawsuits allege sexual abuse at the hands of Father James Bernauer, Father James Porter, Father Patrick Sullivan, Father Stanley Bourassa, Father James Vincent Fitzgerald and Grundhaus. All served in Crookston. The abuse reportedly spanned from 1969 until 2009.

Sullivan was placed on leave and then reinstated after allegations came to light. He has since been suspended in light of new accusations of “boundary issues,” according to the diocese. All five other accused priests are dead.

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NEW YORK (NY)
WCBS 880 Radio

July 27, 2019

An ongoing New York investigation that some think could hold a “bombshell” about abuse in the Catholic Church remains secret ­— and victims want to know what’s in it.

Last year, Pennsylvania’s attorney general released a report of “secret files” from the Catholic Church. The report showed how the archdiocese handled complaints, who witnessed the abuse and whether accused clergy members were simply removed or transferred.

The Pennsylvania attorney general found a thousand cases of abuse in that state.

The New York Attorney General’s Office announced it would do a similar investigation. That was almost a year ago, and now advocates for abuse victims in New York have written a letter requesting to see what they’ve discovered in the child abuse files from the church.

“We think that New Yorkers deserve the same transparency and openness that citizens in the state of Pennsylvania received from the attorney general report there. And our letter is an attempt to encourage Attorney General Letitia James to do the same thing,” said attorney James Marsh, whose firm is representing hundreds of people who say they were abused by priests.

AG James hasn’t commented on the letter. She didn’t start the investigation, her predecessor Barbara Underwood did.

“I think the issue with the Catholic Church is they started down this path of transparency. This is just one more aspect of giving a full accountability of the wrongs of the past so that they can move forward with a new day and a better outcome for children in the future,” Marsh said.

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PROVIDENCE (RI)
Providence Journal

July 27, 2019

A man whose name appeared on the Diocese of Providence’s list of priests “credibly accused” of child sexual abuse was fired this month from his job at Goodwill, his friends and family said.

Kevin R. Fisette, 64, was director of donated goods and volunteer coordinator for the nonprofit organization, according to Richard Borer, president of Goodwill of Southern New England.

Borer declined to discuss the circumstances of Fisette’s departure, which was effective July 16. Borer also would not confirm Fisette’s own account, posted on his Facebook page, that the organization had fired him because his name was on the diocese’s list.

Fisette’s friends and family have rallied to support him. His sister, in a letter to The Providence Journal before he lost his job at Goodwill, said that in 2017, “it was concluded that my brother did not commit the allegation made against him.” Margaret Fisette Wharton did not cite who had cleared him, or in what way.

“Don’t priests deserve basic justice, too?” she wrote.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
Fox 43 News

July 26, 2019

By Jossie Carbonare

The deadline to accept or decline offers from the Diocese of Harrisburg’s Survivor Compensation Program has arrived.

The program was set up in February as an attempt to make financial amends to victims after a Grand Jury report on child sex abuse within six Catholic Dioceses in Pennsylvania.

However, for one of those survivors, who anonymously told FOX43 his story of abuse by a former Diocese of Harrisburg priest, the settlement money simply isn’t enough.

He says “The payoff amount might be enough for some who were victims of the systematic abuse and cover-up by the church leaders and their subordinates, but for me it was a veiled attempt to rid themselves of any future liability or accountability.”

“They have the right to deny it and there is no one forcing them to participate in the program,” said Mike Barley, spokesperson for Diocese of Harrisburg.

Barley says while he believes the program is successful, he understands it’s not going to solve everything.

“Money is not going to erase what was done to them or the issues that have been created and quite frankly their lack of trust with the church but its a step, it’s trying to help them with their lives moving forward.” he added.

Some survivors refused the offer, while others say they feel they need to accept it to feel some sense of closure.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Religion News Service

July 27, 2019

By Julie Asher

As the Archdiocese of St. Louis released a list of names of archdiocesan clergy with substantiated allegations of sexual abuse of a minor July 26, Archbishop Robert J. Carlson acknowledged that seeing the names “will be painful” and publishing them “will not change the past.”

“Nothing will” change the past “but publishing their names is the right thing to do,” he said in a message to the faithful of the archdiocese, and it fulfills a promise he made last September to do so.

“It will be painful for all of us to see the names of clergy accused of behavior we can barely allow ourselves to imagine,” Carlson said.

“For years, victims have carried the burden of the crimes committed against them. In talking with many of them, I have witnessed the devastating impact on their lives and the lives of their loved ones,” he said, adding that the release of these names “is an important step in the long process of healing. And we are committed to that healing.”

The list is available online at www.archstl.org/list, along with the text of the archbishop’s message and a video message. The list itself is divided into four categories:

As the Archdiocese of St. Louis released a list of names of archdiocesan clergy with substantiated allegations of sexual abuse of a minor July 26, Archbishop Robert J. Carlson acknowledged that seeing the names “will be painful” and publishing them “will not change the past.”

“Nothing will” change the past “but publishing their names is the right thing to do,” he said in a message to the faithful of the archdiocese, and it fulfills a promise he made last September to do so.

“It will be painful for all of us to see the names of clergy accused of behavior we can barely allow ourselves to imagine,” Carlson said.

“For years, victims have carried the burden of the crimes committed against them. In talking with many of them, I have witnessed the devastating impact on their lives and the lives of their loved ones,” he said, adding that the release of these names “is an important step in the long process of healing. And we are committed to that healing.”

The list is available online at www.archstl.org/list, along with the text of the archbishop’s message and a video message. The list itself is divided into four categories.

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PROVIDENCE (RI)
Patch

July 24, 2019

By Rachel Nunes

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha’s office is investigating nearly seven decades of sexual abuse to children by Roman Catholic priests in the diocese of Providence. On Tuesday, the two offices signed a memorandum of understanding, giving Neronha’s office and Rhode Island State Police access to records of allegations dating back to 1950.

Together with State Police, Neronah will review the records to determine if any cases can be prosecuted and to ensure no credibly accused priests are still actively serving. The two agencies will then provide the diocese feedback on ways to improve reporting procedures and policies in the future, as well as to determine how to diocese responded to past allegations of child sexual abuse.

“While this voluntary, additional disclosure by the Diocese is an important step forward in our review, much additional work remains, Neronha said. “We will not hesitate to take any additional steps that may prove necessary to fully determine the scope of misconduct here and take appropriate action. It is my intention to be as transparent as possible regarding our findings, within the limits of current Rhode Island law. I am grateful to Colonel Manni for his commitment to partnering with the Office to undertake and complete this review.”

Neronha’s investigation has been ongoing since 2016, when a letter of understanding between the two offices provided access to past records. Tuesday’s memorandum provided Neronha further access to all reocrds of sexual abuse allegations since Jan. 1, 1950. The diocese will provide the records on a rolling basis.

The records include a recently released list of 50 credibly accused clergy, published by the diocese July 1.

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ST. MICHAEL (AK)
Anchorage Daily News/ProPublica

July 26, 2019

The two brothers sat a few houses apart, each tending to his own anger. Justice is slow in Alaska villages, they have learned. Sometimes it never arrives.

Chuck Lockwood, 69, grew up in this Yup’ik Eskimo village of 400 along the Norton Sound coast but left as a child for boarding school. His rage is fresh.

Two years ago this month, the body of his 19-year-old granddaughter, Chynelle “Pretty” Lockwood, was found on a local beach. Alaska State Troopers have refused to say how she died, citing an open investigation. It appeared she had been dumped there, said Chuck, who believes it was a homicide. “Brutally murdered. Beaten up.”

Near Chuck’s family home, his younger brother Lawrence Lockwood Jr. watches crime dramas alone in his living room. His rage is long simmering. Lawrence grew up here too, but unlike his brother he didn’t go away for school.

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YORK (PA)
YorkRegion.com

July 25, 2019

By Lisa Queen

It’s about trust. Our relationship with our readers is built on transparency, honesty and integrity. As such, we have launched a trust initiative to tell you who we are and how and why we do what we do. This column is part of that project.

Even amid child sexual abuse scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church globally, revelations in last summer’s Pennsylvania grand jury report commanded attention.

“We, the members of this grand jury, need you to hear this,” the report began.

“We know some of you have heard some of it before. There have been other reports about child sex abuse within the Catholic Church. But never on this scale. For many of us, those earlier stories happened someplace else, someplace away. Now we know the truth: it happened everywhere.”

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BAKERSFIELD (CA)
KBAK/KBFX Eyewitness News

July 25, 2019

The Bakersfield Police Department is closing the 1990’s sexual battery case against Monsignor Craig Harrison.

Police said after a thorough investigation, they were unable to “identified any allegations of criminal behavior with corroborative evidence.”

They said the case does not meet the standards for a recommendation for filing of criminal charges and they will not be forwarding it to the Kern County District Attorney’s Office.

The Fresno diocese is still investigating claims made against Monsignor Harrison and there are still cases open in Firebaugh and Merced.

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PARKERSBURG (WV)
WTAP TV

July 25, 2019

By Phyllis Smith

Now that a new bishop is named in West Virginia, WTAP talks to West Virginia’s Attorney General about what this means for the lawsuit he’s filed against the church

Attorney General Patrick Morrisey says he would like to talk with Mark Brennan and will be reaching out to his attorney. Reverend Brennan took over this week for former bishop Michael Bransfield.

Attorney General Morrisey says he hopes he will be more transparent than his predecessor. He wants him to comply with the subpoena and release the Bransfield report.

He says this is a Consumer Protection case because the church advertised its schools and camps as safe places for children. Morrisey’s suit alleges the church knowingly hired pedophiles.

“This is not a pleasant case. I’m a practicing Catholic and so, it’s not been fun, to be involved in it, but I believe I have a duty under the law and I recognize, imagine if we don’t do this. Well, the list of 40 credibly accused priests may never see the light of day,” said Morrisey.

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FORT WAYNE (IN)
WNDU TV

July 26, 2019

A man is suing Bishop Kevin Rhoades of the Catholic Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, claiming Rhoades concealed knowledge of pedophile priests.

WPTA in Fort Wayne reports 67-year-old Donald Asbee addressed reporters in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and claimed priests sexually abused him for many years.

As a child living in Milton, Pennsylvania, Asbee served as an altar boy at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church. Asbee said two priests repeatedly raped and assaulted him.

The two bishops named in the lawsuit did not lead the Diocese in Harrisburg when Asbee said the abuse took place.

Asbee said the two bishops, including Bishop Kevin Rhoades, knew about the alleged abuse.

The Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend released the following statement:
“Bishop Rhoades was saddened to learn of the horrific acts of child sexual abuse that Mr. Asbee alleges occurred within the Diocese of Harrisburg. Bishop Rhoades was himself less than 10 years old when these incidents purportedly occurred. He is confident the litigation process will show that he did nothing wrong. In all instances where he was aware of a credibly accused priest, Bishop Rhoades has promptly notified authorities and removed the individual from public ministry. He stands by his record as a Bishop – both in Pennsylvania and Indiana – of protecting victims of child sexual abuse.”

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

July 26, 2019

By Jenn Morson

An alumna of Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio has written an open letter saying she was sexually abused while a student there and that the school administration ignored her complaints.

Visit National Catholic Reporter’s Online Classifieds to learn about job opportunities, events, retreats and more.

In a letter published July 8 on Patheos, an online site, Karen, who chooses to not share her last name, states that she was sexually abused by a friar while attending Franciscan University from 1987 until she graduated in 1991. Karen’s story was told in an NCR piece last October. She wrote the open letter, she told NCR, because “it was important for me to use my voice, and to share that my story is not over.”

In her letter, Karen wrote that she was abused by Franciscan Fr. Sam Tiesi, who died in 2001.

“Fr. Sam taught me to trust, then he abused that trust for his own sinfulness. He used God and my innocent faith to keep his secret safe. He said he loved me like a daughter. But he was not a father. He was a monster,” she wrote.

She said that Tiesi groped her breasts and assaulted her with unwanted kissing. She said that she confided in another university Franciscan, Fr. Ron Mohnickey, who, she wrote, blamed her for the sexual contact.

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NASHVILLE (TN)
Baptist News Global

July 25, 2019

By Bob Allen

A denominational worker who functioned as the Southern Baptist Convention’s point man in the ouster of churches for affirming homosexuality and the denomination’s response to sexual abuse is retiring at the end of September.

August “Augie” Boto, 68, announced July 18 he is stepping down as executive vice president and general counsel of the SBC Executive Committee, according to Baptist Press.

While an attorney in Dallas in the early 1980s, Boto helped Paige Patterson organize laymen in the “conservative resurgence” movement to promote biblical inerrancy in the SBC. He was involved in the 1980 launch of the Southern Baptist Advocate, a fundamentalist propaganda tool.

Boto joined the Executive Committee as a member in 1995 and was hired in 1998 as vice president for convention policy and staff counsel under President and CEO Morris Chapman, a former pastor and past SBC president who led the organization from 1992 until his retirement in 2010.

Boto picked up the additional title of general counsel in 2004 and recently served 13 months as interim president after Frank Page stepped down due to sexual misconduct in 2018.

As staff liaison to the Executive Committee’s bylaws work group, Boto mediated the 2009 ouster of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas, from the SBC, saying the congregation’s views on homosexuality were too ambiguous to ensure its “friendly cooperation” with the national body.

In 2014 the Executive Committee took similar action against New Heart Community Church in La Mirada, California, ousting the church for failure to fire its pastor after he said from the pulpit he no longer believed that all same-sex relationships are sinful.

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NEW YORK (NY)
ABC News

July 26, 2019

By David Wright, Pete Madden, Cho Park, and Shannon K. Crawford

Others call it ‘a sham’

[With video.]

Bishop Richard Malone says his congregation’s darkest days are in the past.

The embattled spiritual leader has faced calls for his resignation over his handling of sexual abuse allegations against clergy members in the Diocese of Buffalo, where a public reckoning that started as a local scandal became a national headline.

A whistleblower, Malone’s own former secretary Siobhan O’Connor, leaked internal church documents to Charlie Specht, an investigative reporter for ABC’s Buffalo affiliate WKBW, sparking months of stories about whether there had been efforts to conceal the extent of the problem from the public.

Malone admits that he has made some mistakes, but stresses that he “inherited a decades old horrific problem,” one that extends far beyond the limits of his city, and is now “trying to be part of moving us beyond it” by, among other things, purging pedophiles from their midst.

The Diocese of Buffalo’s list of credibly accused priests has grown from 42 to 132 in a little more than a year, and Malone expects that more names will be added before their work is done.

“This is something that we continue to evaluate over and over again,” Malone told ABC News in a wide-ranging interview, his first on national television, airing Thursday on “Nightline.” “We’re not finished with the list at this point.”

But for anyone who doubts his progress, Malone offers a guarantee.

“There’s no priest with a substantiated, what you called credible, allegation of abuse of a minor in ministry in this diocese,” Malone said. “I can testify to that honestly and 100 percent.”

In the case of Fr. Dennis Riter, pastor of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in the Buffalo suburb of Dunkirk, however, Malone decided to allow a priest who had faced multiple allegations of sexual abuse of children to return to ministry, where he remains to this day. He did so, he said, after a lawyer hired by the church investigated the matter and submitted a report, a copy of which has been obtained by ABC News, concluding that the allegations against Fr. Riter had “no merit.”

But multiple people familiar with that investigation expressed serious concerns with the findings of what they view as a deeply flawed report, raising questions about the process by which the Diocese of Buffalo evaluates allegations against its clergy members.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Fox News

July 25, 2019

By Thomas McDaniels

With the numerous sex scandals within the Catholic Church, some are appealing for the church to take a more in-depth review and reconsider the qualification of celibacy and the priesthood.

This clearly validates the question: Is the epidemic of sexual failure in the Catholic church due to men being unable to marry?

The question is legitimate; however, Evangelicals and other denominations are likewise experiencing sexual failures among pastors and ministers that are married. “Focus On the Family” reported that 21 percent of Evangelical/Protestant pastors have also had improper sexual contact with members of their congregations. “Focus on the Family” also reported that 60 percent of married Evangelical pastors have an issue with some form of pornography.

This dilemma is not new and is undeniably not unique to the Catholic faith.

Over 100 years ago, the Catholic Encyclopedia published; “We do not abolish Christian marriage because so large a proportion of mankind are not faithful to the restraints which it imposes on human concupiscence. No one believes that civilized nations would be cleaner or purer if polygamy were substituted for monogamy.” Neither is there any reason to suppose that the scandals would be fewer and the clergy more respected if Catholic priests were permitted to marry.”

Some think if priests were married it would solve sexual abuse and moral decline within the church.

Years of data has proven that celibacy is not the problem, nor should anyone conclude that celibacy is a contributor to sexual abuse.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

July 25, 2019

By David Heinzmann

As Cardinal Francis George faced a growing financial crisis in 2013, he asked Chicago Catholics for hundreds of millions of dollars for parishes and education, with $150 million set aside for a scholarship trust to save struggling schools.

In its pitch to the faithful, the Archdiocese of Chicago said schools and parishes were “challenged on many fronts — shifting demographics, a struggling economy, rising costs, a secularized society and aging facilities, to name a few.”

Catholics heeded the call ― the “To Teach Who Christ Is” campaign became the largest in the church’s history. Church leadership set a goal of $350 million, and when the pledges were added up, surpassed it by $77 million.

“The main purpose of the capital campaign was to raise money for scholarships to help parishes and schools to make them stable over the long term,” said Betsy Bohlen, the archdiocese’s chief operating officer.

Six years later, however, stability has proven elusive for one of the nation’s largest archdioceses, where dozens of schools have been shuttered and parishes merged since the fundraising drive began.

The financial pressures are myriad: the tab for priest misconduct settlements remains mammoth and the cost of retired priest pensions is rising, even as school enrollments shrink and Sunday collection plates remain flat.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Tablet

July 25, 2019

By Christa Pongratz-Lippitt

The German Church is witnessing a massive exodus as a result of clerical sexual abuse.

According to the latest official statistics published by the German bishops’ conference on 19 July, 216,078 Catholics left the Church in 2018. That is 29 per cent more than in 2017 when 167,504 left and amounts to 0.9 per cent of all Catholics in Germany. There are now fewer than 23 million Catholics in Germany, down from 23,310,000 in 2017.

It is the second largest exodus since the Limburg scandal of 2013, caused by the so-called “bishop of bling”, Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, who spent vast sums of Church money on a luxurious renewal of his residence.

The statistics were “alarming”, the secretary of the bishops’ conference, Fr Hans Langendörfer SJ, said, presenting the report in Bonn. “We understand when, due to alienation processes or to a massive loss of trust, [our] credibility has been gambled away.” There was no whitewashing these figures, Bishop Felix Genn (pictured) of Münster said. “People vote with their feet on whether they consider us credible or trustworthy. There is no doubt that the publication of the [Church’s] 2018 study of clerical sexual abuse, which showed that at least 4.4 per cent of German priests had been guilty of abusing minors between 1946 and 2014, was the trigger for many Catholics to leave the Church.”

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LITTLE ROCK (AR)
Bilgrimage blog

July 24, 2019

The essay by Ruth Krall that follows below is the fifth in a series of essays entitled “Recapitulation: Affinity Sexual Violence in a Religious Voice.” The first essay in this series appeared in two installments, here and here. The second appeared in another two installments, here and here. The third essay is here, and the fourth essay, in two installments, is here and here. In this multi-part series of essays, in which Ruth generously offers us the fruits of her years of research about these matters, Ruth hypothesizes the endemic natural of religious and spiritual leader sexual abuse of followers. The current essay continues this theme by arguing that clergy sexual abuse is a global public health issue whose noxious presence can be found inside multiple language groups and national identities. In this essay, which is rich and lengthy and which I’ll offer to you in several installments, Ruth continues her investigation of these claims with an historical sounding. Ruth’s essay follows (first installment).

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

July 25, 2019

He’ll go back behind bars for the 2nd time
Victims seek support of Catholic parishioners
SNAP: “Write the judge, urge long prison term”
Group also ‘outs’ another abusive mid-MO cleric
“Come clean bishop! Tell us where predators were,” victims plead

WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, two clergy sex abuse victims will
–reveal that three more credibly accused predator priests spent time in Columbia.
–urge mid-Missouri Catholics to write a judge and seek the stiffest penalty for a twice-admitted serial predator priest who worked in Columbia and soon faces sentencing.

They will also prod Jeff City’s bishop to
–add another name of a priest – who worked in Rolla – to his ‘accused’ list, and
–also write to the judge about the soon-to-be-sentenced predator priest.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Episcopal News Service

July 25, 2019

By Egan Millard

A man who says he was sexually abused by a priest in the early 1970s is suing the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona and the Tucson parish where the abuse allegedly occurred, claiming his reports of repeated molestation were ignored at the time. It may be the first lawsuit to take advantage of a new Arizona law that extends the statute of limitations for cases of child sexual abuse. The diocese, though not disputing that the abuse took place, denies his accusations of a cover-up and says the matter was handled appropriately at the time.

According to the lawsuit, Charles Taylor was sexually abused for several years around age 12 by the Rev. Richard Babcock, a priest at Grace Church (now Grace St. Paul’s Church), in the church and in Babcock’s home. Taylor says he told the rector about the abuse at the time, but the rector failed to stop it, and Babcock continued to abuse him and other children. The lawsuit, filed on July 12, also claims that the diocese knew that Babcock was abusing children and covered it up by “reassigning him to other churches.” The complaint consists of two counts each – negligence and breach of fiduciary duty – against the diocese and Grace St. Paul’s. Babcock, now deceased, admitted to having abused children in a sworn affidavit before his death, according to the law firm representing Taylor.

Taylor had tried to sue Grace St. Paul’s and the diocese in 1991 but was unable to do so because the statute of limitations had expired, his law firm says. But in May, a new state law went into effect, allowing victims of child sexual abuse to file lawsuits up until their 30th birthday. It also allows anyone to file a suit until Dec. 31, 2020, no matter how long ago the alleged abuse occurred.

The Episcopal Church has extended its own internal statute of limitations for reporting clergy sexual misconduct against an adult in the wake of the #MeToo movement. Resolution D034, passed at the 2018 General Convention, suspends the time limit for reporting those cases, effective from Jan. 1, 2019, through Dec. 31, 2021. The church has no time limit for reporting a case of sexual abuse against a person under age 21.

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BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

July 24, 2019

By Alan Pergamont

The ABC “Nightline” program that will feature the award-winning coverage by Channel 7 investigative reporter Charlie Specht on the sexual abuse allegations in the Buffalo Diocese finally has a tentative air date.

WKBW-TV General Manager Michael Nurse said he was told by ABC this week that barring a last-minute change it is scheduled to be carried on Channel 7 at 12:30 a.m. Friday, following ABC’s late-night Thursday programming.

Specht’s work with photojournalist Jeff Wick will be highlighted as the national TV program takes a deep dive into the church scandal here.

In a previous phone interview, Specht said he called a “Nightline” staffer to suggest the program look into the controversy in the Catholic Church in Western New York and expected that to be the focus. But after the program did some interviews, including one with Bishop Richard J. Malone, it decided to also highlight the personal story of Specht, a Catholic who has a younger brother, Mike, studying to become a priest.

“I went from pointing them in the right direction with my reports to now becoming one of the subjects,” Specht, a former Buffalo News reporter, said. “They changed the focus. They were genuinely interested in the controversy in Buffalo.”

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TAOS (NM)
Taos News

July 25, 2019

When the June 17 deadline to file sexual abuse claims against the Archdiocese of Santa Fe passed, 340 people had submitted paperwork to be part of the bankruptcy settlement.

Now, the bankruptcy process is moving along and the claims are being reviewed.

The participants in the bankruptcy proceedings are “close” to identifying a mediator for settlement discussions, according to Jim Stang, a lawyer representing the creditors’ committee, a group of eight survivors or the parents of survivors.

A corporate arm of the archdiocese, which manages some of its endowment, should also be responding to requests for disclosure of documents, he said.

After decades of sexual abuse lawsuits and millions of dollars in payouts to survivors of alleged clergy abuse, the archdiocese filed for bankruptcy in December in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for New Mexico. The archdiocese has about $49 million in assets, according to the court documents.

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ROCHESTER (NY)
WHEC TV

July 25, 2019

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester could face dozens of lawsuits next month due to a change in state law.

Boston attorney Mitchell Garabedian told Ithaca.com dozens of victims claiming abuse by clergy members in the Diocese of Rochester have come to him over the last several months to inquire about filing lawsuits.

Of the 75 victims Garabedian represents, he says 70 are men and five are women, and their claims stem from alleged abuse that took place between the 1950s to 1993.

New York’s Child Victims Act allows victims who were sexually assaulted as minors to bring civil actions against their alleged perpetrators at any time before the victim turns 55 years old.

The one-year window to file claims alleging sex abuse under the new state law starts Aug. 14.

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NEWARK (NJ)
Star Ledger

July 25, 2019

By Kelly Heyboer

A new compensation fund backed by New Jersey’s five Catholic dioceses is paying its first financial settlements to people who say they were sexually abused by priests and other clergy members.

The fund — called the New Jersey Independent Victim Compensation Program — was unveiled earlier this year by the state’s Catholic dioceses as a way for victims to settle their cases with the church privately, without going to court.

The fund began accepting its first round of applicants June 15 and has already considered several cases and made settlement offers, said Camille Biros, co-administrator of the program.

“The program is up and running and going well with 44 claims received as of today,” Biros said Tuesday. “Three claim determinations have been made and three settlement offers have been sent to claimants.”

The cash settlements will be paid by the Archdiocese of Newark and the state’s other dioceses — Camden, Paterson, Metuchen and Trenton.

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BUFFALO (NY)
WIVB TV

July 25, 2019

By Evan Anstey

A group of Catholics, whose mission is to address the handling of clergy sex abuse cases, has released a 68-page report.

The Movement to Restore Trust says the document seeks “increased support and compassion as well as justice for survivors of sexual abuse and recommends the implementation of meaningful reforms, with a goal of restoring the faithful’s trust and confidence in the Church and its leadership.”

In summary, the group addressed the following points:
Transparency around the nature and scale of the abuse in the diocese and financial and spiritual reparations for victims/survivors
Transparency about all diocesan operations
Accountability for bishops
Selecting and monitoring bishops
Greater involvement by women and laity in the Church
Improvements in the formation of priests & priestly life

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Patheos blog

July 24, 2019

By Hemant Mehta

When Benjamin Alyk was in his early teens, he came across a website that trafficked in illicit photos of children. People on that website uploaded and traded pictures that were criminal in nature. When the website’s security ramped up, Alyk discovered he could only get access to pictures if he shared some of his own… so he secretly recorded two kids, ages 4 and 6, as they used the bathroom in his home. Later on, he used a remote camera to record kids at his mother’s in-home daycare changing in and out of their swimsuits.

Alyk says he stopped looking at (and trading) child pornography when he was 17. When he was 18, he embarked on a two-year Mormon mission trip in the Dominican Republic and, perhaps full of guilt, confessed everything to the man overseeing the mission.

Alyk was sent back home to Utah, where he confessed once again to a Mormon disciplinary council consisting of local church leaders — likely 15 men that included the Stake President, two counselors, and “12 members of the local High Council.”

Despite all those confessions, nothing happened. He wasn’t punished. Law enforcement didn’t come after him. More importantly, he was free to be around children without any consequences.

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JEFFERSON CITY (MO)
KRCG TV

July 24, 2019

By Kyreon Lee

A member of the group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests and a member from Voices of the Faithful gathered outside of the Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Columbia on Wednesday to rally.

Survivor and SNAP’s former long time executive director, David Clohessy, said he was abused by a Moberly priest in the 1960s, when he was 12 to 16 years old. Clohessy said he came forward when he was in his 30s because he couldn’t be silent anymore. He said they were rallying in response to a former Columbia priest that is set to be sentenced next month.

According to online court records, in May, ex-priest Fred Lenczycki pleaded guilty to two counts of sodomy. According to The Associated Press, Lenczycki pleaded guilty to crimes that occurred in the early 1990s when he was serving at a parish in north St. Louis County. Church and court files show that Lenczycki admitted abusing up to 30 boys in Illinois, Missouri and California over 25 years. Lenczycki was removed from the ministry in 2002, when he was charged with sexually abusing three boys in the 1980s at a church in Hinsdale, Illinois. The Illinois victims told authorities “Father Fred” repeatedly molested them, often using the pretense of swaddling them in “Baby Jesus” costumes for pageants that never took place. He pleaded guilty in 2004 and was sentenced to five years in prison. In 2008, a year before his release, he became the first U.S. priest to be labeled sexually violent when he was committed under Illinois’ Sexually Violent Persons Commitment Act.

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BOSTON (MA)
CatholicCulture.org

July 24, 2019

By Phil Lawler

I quit.

For more than 25 years now, I have been reporting and writing about scandal within the Catholic Church. Yesterday, as I wearily wrote one more article about episcopal corruption, I realized how much the topic has come to nauseate me. I can’t do it anymore.

Since the 1990s I have been digging in the muck, uncovering more and more of what Pope Benedict XVI aptly termed the “filth” in the Church—the filth that obscures the image of Christ. It hasn’t been pleasant work. It isn’t the work I would have chosen. It isn’t edifying. The daily dealing with appalling ugliness—week after week, month after month—has taken a heavy toll: on my health, on my family, on my spiritual life. In warfare, good commanders know that even the toughest troops need a break after weeks in battle. And believe me, this is—always has been—a spiritual battle.

I’m not going to walk away from that battle. Far from it. I’ve devoted my life to the cause of reform in the Catholic Church, and I fully intend to continue speaking and writing on that topic. But I need to step back, to take a new approach, to fight this war on a different front. I can’t continue plowing through the documents, chasing down the leads, dredging up the facts. Fortunately, in the past few years many other reporters have joined the hunt for the truth. I’ll comment on the facts they unearth; I’ll provide my perspective. But in order to have a healthy perspective, I have to escape the miasma, to raise my sights.

How long have I been on the front lines? In November 1993, nearly a decade before the Boston Globe arrived on the scene, as editor of Catholic World Report I ran a cover story on the sex-abuse scandal. (Seven years later I published an even more provocative cover story: “The Gay Priest Problem.”) I was slapped with a libel suit (later summarily dismissed) for publishing a story that questioned the work of clinics that “treated” predator priests and cleared them for return to ministry.

In 2002 I broke the story that Pope John Paul II had summoned the leadership of the US bishops’ conference to Rome to discuss the scandal. I was the first person in Boston to call for the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law, and when he finally did resign, I broke that story, too.

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
The Advocate

July 24, 2019

By Ben Myers

The Diocese of Lake Charles is defending the accuracy of its list of clergymen credibly accused of child sex abuse.

The Advocate reported last week that diocesan officials knew of allegations against two priests, Gerard Smit and Mark Broussard, years before the dates indicated on the list. During the intervening periods, the bishop at the time, the late Jude Speyrer, sent Smit and Broussard to a Catholic-run treatment center known for receiving accused priests and he subsequently helped them continue working as priests, records show.

The diocese said in a statement Tuesday, “we maintain that the list is both accurate and thorough,” without elaborating or disputing anything in the article.

Church officials said in an interview the list reflects the dates of the earliest written allegations on file. That standard was established by an independent review panel to ensure proper verification, they said. The panel, composed of “legal and judicial professionals,” according to the statement, investigated church records and compiled the list.

SNAP, a national advocacy organization for priest abuse victims, condemned the diocese’s rationale as “yet another loophole that church officials found and used to continue to hide the fact that they were aware of abuse allegations against Fr. Gerard Smit and Fr. Mark Broussard long before they were willing to admit.”

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PARIS (FRANCE)
FSSPX News

July 24, 2019

The sex-abuse scandal, which continues to engulf the Catholic Church, has brought down the ire of secular authorities throughout the United States. In an attempt to hold Catholic dioceses accountable, one State has turned to its consumer protection laws. Will this help alleviate the problem?

The West Virginia Example
Earlier this year, in March 2019, West Virginia, by and through its Attorney General, brought a two-count complaint against the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston and its former bishop, Michael J. Bransfield, alleging violations of the West Virginia Consumer Credit and Protection Act (WVCCPA). The Act, which is intentionally broad in scope, sanctions advertising services that are not delivered and failing to warn of dangerous services.

With respect to the local Catholic diocese, West Virginia claims that the diocese deceived Catholics (consumers) by advertising that its schools and other programs were safe despite having hired clergy who had credible accusations of sexual abuse in their past; failing to do background checks on lay hires; and knowingly employing priests and laity who had admitted to engaging in sexual abuse. This behavior, according to West Virginia, created an unsafe environment for minors which the diocese failed to warn people about.

The Complaint seeks a series of civil penalties against Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston and Bishop Bransfield, including disgorgement. That means, should West Virginia prevail in court, that the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston could be forced to surrender any revenue it generated through its schools and similar programs. The Diocese may also be forced to pay restitution to anyone who used these services.

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COLUMBIA (MO)
Daily Tribune

July 24, 2019

By Pat Pratt

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests is calling for the addition of a previously unreported name to the Diocese of Jefferson City’s list of credibly accused priests, and the group is also asking the locations where those on the list served be made public.

Longtime SNAP leader and former national director David Clohessy spoke with reporters Wednesday outside Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Columbia and called on Bishop William Shawn McKnight to add previously unreported priest James Gummersbach, who worked in Rolla.

“Where do people go, they oftentimes go back to places where they lived and hang around with people who they once lived with,” Clohessy said. “It is conceivable that Father Gummersbach, even though he is originally from St. Louis, it is conceivable that once a year he comes back to Rolla and vacations or meets a devout Catholic family at the lake.”

Helen Osman, director of diocesan communications, wrote in an email response that the diocese will investigate SNAP’s claims Gummersbach served in Rolla, but there is no indication at this time he did.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
Penn Capital Star

July 24, 2019

By Elizabeth Hardison

A Missouri man who says he was repeatedly raped by two Catholic priests in suburban Harrisburg sued his former diocese for fraud Tuesday, using a legal strategy that his attorneys hope could signal a sea change for clergy sex abuse victims across Pennsylvania.

Donald Asbee, 67 of Hartsburg, Mo., was repeatedly fondled and raped by priests Raymond Daugherty and Walter Sempko at St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church in Milton, Pa., the suit filed in Dauphin County Court alleges. Asbee said the assaults occurred in the 1960s, when he was between the ages of nine and 13.

Both of the priests who allegedly raped Asbee are dead. But the suit filed Tuesday morning doesn’t sue anyone for sexual abuse.

Instead, it seeks unspecified monetary damages from the Diocese of Harrisburg and its former and current bishops, Kevin Rhoades and Ronald Gainer, who Asbee’s lawyers say committed conspiracy, fraud, and constructive fraud by failing to remove predatory priests from the parish and by allowing priests to exploit the trust of children and families.

A grand jury report released in 2018 uncovered decades of child sexual abuse by 301 “predator priests” and a widespread coverup in six Catholic dioceses across Pennsylvania. Since then, state lawmakers have split on whether or not victims should be able to sue priests and dioceses for decades-old abuse.

Pennsylvania’s statute of limitation laws currently give survivors of child sexual abuse until the age of 30 to sue their abusers.

A bill currently stalled in the state Senate would eliminate the criminal statute of limitations on childhood sexual abuse and expand the civil window until a victim turns 55. Another would create a two-year retroactive window in which victims could file civil suits against their abusers, no matter when the abuse took place.

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ROME (ITALY)
Crux

July 24, 2019

By Inés San Martín

Pope Francis wants an “apostleship of prevention” when it comes to abuse, he said in a new video.

“Any person, a lay man or woman, a religious man or woman, a priest, a bishop, who prevents children from reaching Jesus must be stopped while we’re still in time, or punished if they’ve committed a crime,” Francis said in a video he sent last week to the 170 participants of a five-week program on abuse prevention at the Pontifical University of Mexico.

The course, ending July 27, was organized by the university’s Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Formation for the Protection of Minors (CEPROME), which works with the Center for Child Protection at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University.

“As a comparison though it’s not a nice one: Drugs,” Francis said, noting that though it takes much effort, a person who’s addicted to drugs can be cured, and it’s important to try to do so. “But the question is how do you prevent children from doing drugs? Here the question is, how do we prevent children being abused? The apostleship of prevention.”

When it comes to the Catholic Church, he said, children must be protected so that “no one – not a single person – abuses them, that no one might keep them from coming to Jesus.”

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Patheos blog

July 24, 2019

By David Gee

A Tennessee priest with a previously clean record has now been accused of repeatedly sexually abusing a young boy for years — and offering him up to other clergymen.

The alleged victim, Michael Boyd, is suing the Diocese of Knoxville, saying that longtime priest Xavier Mankel (above) took advantage of him as a child. Boyd’s lawsuit also says he was abused by Bishop Anthony O’Connell, who founded the diocese.

Making matters worse, Boyd claims Mankel offered him up to visiting priests for “inappropriate sexual conduct.”

While the diocese is the only named defendant, the 20-page lawsuit claims the former altar boy was repeatedly abused in the 1990s by longtime Knoxville priest Xavier Mankel and at least twice by Bishop Anthony O’Connell.

O’Connell, who died in 2012, is the best-known figure named in the suit. He became the first bishop of the Knoxville diocese when it was formed in 1988. Ten years later, he became bishop in Palm Beach, Florida. He resigned in 2002 after admitting inappropriate conduct with minors in Missouri decades earlier and before he was in Knoxville.

Naming O’Connell wasn’t as surprising as it could have been, then, but it’s worth noting that the most serious allegations are against someone with a previously clean record on child sex abuse issues.

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BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

July 23, 2019

By Jay Tokasz

An Episcopal priest in California who formerly served as a Catholic priest in the Buffalo Diocese was accused in a lawsuit of sexually abusing a woman in the Town of Tonawanda decades ago.

The abuse is alleged to have happened when the Rev. Paul J. Kowalewski was preparing to be a Catholic priest in Buffalo in the 1970s.

Kowalewski, 71, currently is listed as part of the assisting clergy in the Church of St. Paul in the Desert, a parish in Palm Springs in the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego. He has been an Episcopal priest since 1990.

Minnesota law firm Jeff Anderson & Associates filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles on Monday against the Protestant Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, alleging that the diocese allowed Kowalewski to stay in active ministry despite being aware of accusations against him.

“I want him out. I don’t want anybody else to stand here with nothing done about this,” said Patricia Harner, a Florida resident who is the plaintiff in the suit. “I brought this suit because I have been living with this for so many years, the pain, the heartache and I thought he was out of the priesthood and any kind of ministry at all.”

Attorney J. Michael Reck said the diocese needs to remove Kowalewski from ministry immediately.

“This lawsuit seeks not money, but safety,” he said.

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

SPRINGFIELD (MA)
The Republican

July 23, 2019

By Anne-Gerard Flynn

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield has its own history in the global Church’s clergy sex abuse crisis dating back decades. And that history continues with its recent announcement that retired Superior Court Judge Peter A. Velis will investigate allegations of sexual misconduct involving the late Bishop Christopher J. Weldon.

The concern of lawyers defending the Springfield Diocese over time, as one put it back in 2003, has been showing that “the diocese didn’t have knowledge of any abuse that may or may not have been committed.” While this defense has largely succeeded, the allegations against Weldon and appointment of Velis open the door once again to questions of what diocesan hierarchy knew about the abuse of minors as far back as the 1950s when Weldon became bishop.

Many of the subsequently reported allegations of sexual abuse of minors occurred during Weldon’s 27 years as bishop, and the murder of an altar boy in which a former priest remains the only publicly identified suspect also occurred during his tenure.

In 2003, it was Judge Velis who ordered the release of documents filed in the investigation of former priest Richard R. Lavigne in the brutal 1972 killing of 13-year-old Daniel Croteau of Chicopee. The state Appeals Court overturned Velis’ ruling only to have the Supreme Judicial Court uphold it in 2004.

Buishop Rozanski was directed to provide the Apostolic Nuncio’s offices in Washington D.C. all information regarding this matter.

There have been allegations in such publications as E.J. Fleming’s 2018 book, “Death of an Altar Boy: The Unsolved Murder of Danny Croteau and the Culture of Abuse in the Catholic Church,” that Weldon obstructed justice in the police investigation.

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.

PROVIDENCE (RI)
GoLocalPro

July 23, 2019

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha announced the State of Rhode Island has signed an agreement to gain access to the Diocese of Providence’s records dating back to the 1950s in an effort to find additional cases of sexual abuse by church priests and staff.

As part of an ongoing review of allegations of clergy child sexual abuse within the Diocese of Providence, the Attorney General has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence.

“While this voluntary, additional disclosure by the diocese is an important step forward in our review, much additional work remains. We will not hesitate to take any additional steps that may prove necessary to fully determine the scope of misconduct here and take appropriate action,” said Neronha.

About MOU

This MOU expands on and supplements a 2016 Letter of Understanding between the Office and the Diocese dated August 30, 2016, by providing fuller access to historical records.

In October of 2018, GoLocal reported that the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), a national non-profit, has called on Democratic candidate for Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha to commit to investigating the Diocese of Providence.

Alliance for Safe Communities, a Rhode Island-based organization advocating for the victims of diocesan sexual abuse, says it has reached out to former U.S. Attorney Neronha regarding his unwillingness to commit to an investigation of the Catholic Diocese sex abuse scandal.

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

July 24, 2019

Despite facing multiple accusations of sexual harassment and abuse, on Friday the Vatican declined to permanently remove a disgraced West Virginia bishop from the church, opting instead for a lesser punishment. This sends the message that cases of sexual abuse against adults are still not taken seriously by church officials.

Ex-Bishop Michael Bransfield has now been barred from participating in mass publicly or from living in the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston in West Virginia, his old home. Such a punishment is the bare minimum for a prelate who is alleged to not only have sexually assaulted seminarians during his time as Bishop, but who also gave away lavish gifts and cash to curry favor with other church officials. And such a punishment underscores how little church officials at the Vatican understand or care about cases of sexual abuse.

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

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

July 24, 2019

Several major news organizations in North Carolina are going to court in order to unseal records related to two local cases of alleged clergy sexual abuse. We applaud this effort and hope that their request is successful.

The Charlotte Observer, WBTV, WCNC, and WSOC have filed motions asking for the release of documents from two separate lawsuits, saying that the information is of significant public interest, and that the Diocese of Charlotte did not prove that the narrow range of circumstances existed in which such documents can be sealed.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

July 24, 2019

By Brian Roewe

Advocates for survivors of clergy sexual abuse have urged the local bishop to bar from church functions two prelates with ties to Kansas City, Missouri, who’ve been central figures in the Catholic Church’s clergy sexual abuse scandal.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) sent a letter July 5 to Kansas City-St. Joseph Bishop James Johnston requesting he use a new protocol created by U.S. bishops to block resigned Bishop Robert Finn and retired Bishop Joseph Hart from ministry and all church meetings and activities.

In a separate letter addressed to Pope Francis, SNAP urged he forgo a planned trial and immediately laicize Hart, 87, who from 1978 to 2001 led the Diocese of Cheyenne, Wyoming. Last year, the diocese found credible accusations he sexually abused three male minors. Additional abuse claims date back to Hart’s time as a priest in Kansas City (1956-1976). Hart has repeatedly denied the allegations.

In 2012 Finn, 66, was found guilty of a misdemeanor for failing to report suspected child abuse. He served a two-year suspended sentence, in addition to meeting monthly for five years with a county prosecutor to avoid another charge. Finn resigned in April 2015 following a Vatican investigation of the diocese.

At their June assembly, the U.S. bishops approved the “Protocol Regarding Available Non-Penal Restrictions on Bishops.” That new policy permits a diocesan bishop to take measures against a bishop emeritus whose “resignation or removal was due to the sexual abuse of a minor, sexual misconduct with an adult or grave negligence of office” regarding the sexual abuse of minors.

Among available restrictions are barring a retired bishop from public ministry — including preaching and celebrating sacraments, which can extend to hearing confessions — and limiting his benefits, such as for travel. The protocol stipulates public notice of any restrictions, as well as informing the Vatican. It can be implemented by a bishop emeritus’ successor, the bishop of the diocese where he resides or seeks to minister, or the episcopal conference.

The protocol was in part sparked by outrage a year ago to reports of credible accusations against now-former cardinal Theodore McCarrick, and whether fellow bishops knew of the allegations or any restrictions imposed on him. Before he was laicized, several bishops at their November meeting voiced that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops should censure and disinvite McCarrick from conference proceedings.

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.

DODGE CITY (KS)
Daily Globe

July 24, 2019

By Tim Carpenter

The Kansas Bureau of Investigation’s public appeal for people to step forward with allegations of sexual misconduct among members of the Catholic clergy prompted 74 investigations in 33 Kansas counties, officials said Tuesday.

Attorney General Derek Schmidt requested in November that the KBI initiate an investigation of victimization by members of the clergy, church employees and volunteers or any others in positions of authority within the four Catholic dioceses in Kansas.

Since the KBI went public in February, the agency received 119 reports from purported victims regarding sexual abuse by clergy members. More than half of those reports led to initiation of investigations by KBI agents assigned to a task force.

Chuck Weber, executive director of the Kansas Catholic Conference, said the organization encouraged the KBI to look into complaints of abuse. The dioceses in Kansas have an internal reporting system for alleged abuse, he said, but people uneasy about that system were directed to call law enforcement directly.

“The Catholic churches, all four dioceses, we welcome any and all investigations,” said Weber, a former state legislator. “We’ve been open to inquiries.”

Wichita resident Janet Patterson, who had a son who died by suicide in 1999 after abuse by a priest, said the KBI investigation was essential to sort out past crimes. She equated abuse at the hands of religious leaders to a “third-degree burn to the soul.”

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NEW YORK (NY)
New York Daily News

July 23, 2019

By Mikey Light and Larry McShane

Two Bronx sisters sexually abused by a trusted parish priest inside their home during the 1970s reached a settlement with the Archdiocese of New York over the childhood assaults.

“In bringing this into the light, the evil cannot hide and we can begin the healing process,” said Imelda Maldonado Davis, 54, at a Tuesday news conference outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral. “And we can protect all of our children.”

She was joined by her younger sister Mercedes, who was also targeted by the late Monsignor Charles McDonagh beginning back in 1972 and continuing for several years. McDonagh, then a Bronx parish priest, was later promoted to secretary to Terence Cardinal Cooke and his successor John Cardinal O’Connor.

The sisters, joined by Road to Recovery co-founder Robert Hoatson, declined to discuss the financial specifics of the settlement other than to say in was in the “five-figure range.”

Davis recalled how excited the family was initially when the priest came to visit their home. But their delight eventually turned to dread as the predatory priest would slip upstairs and into the girls’ bedroom.

“We would dread the sound of the stairs creaking,” recalled Imelda. “We knew what was coming. Father McDonagh would sit on our beds and proceed to talk quietly to us … then he would molest my sister and I.

“This has affected me in ways that are difficult and painful to articulate.”

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SANTA ROSA (CA)
San Francisco Chronicle

July 22, 2019

By Gwendolyn Wu

Bishop Robert F. Vasa knew something was amiss as the bags of cash started piling up.

First, it was the six security bags — used for collecting parish donations — found in a Santa Rosa priest’s car after the pastor was injured in an accident. Then it was the dozen sacks — both sealed and unsealed — in the same priest’s office, as well as a $10,000 stack of cash found in his desk drawer.

But a final trip to the Rev. Oscar Diaz’s home unveiled the extent of the money allegedly skimmed from five Northern California churches — at least $95,000 taken over the course of 15 years from well-intentioned parishioners, church officials said Monday.

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SIERRA VISTA (AZ)
Herald Review

July 18, 2019

By Lyda Longa

A former county jail chaplain accused of sexually assaulting female inmates will stand trial in Cochise County and will be prosecuted by the county attorney’s office, Superior Court Judge Laura Cardinal ruled Thursday.

Cardinal also said she would issue a ruling on whether to seal online information concerning the case against defendant Douglas Packer after his attorney Jacob Amaru stated that potential jurors could be influenced by the information.

“People can come to the hearings and listen to the case, they are open to the public, but seeing the information online could taint a potential juror,” Amaru said.

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LOUISVILLE (KY)
WDRB

July 15, 2019

St. X has released a list of brothers the school says were ‘credibly accused’ of abusing kids.

The list was created with the help of a retired FBI agent, who reviewed records going back decades.

Fourteen brothers once assigned to St. X were named, dating from the 1930s until the 80s. Of those, only the allegations against three happened during their time at the school.

The list is made up of dead or former brothers with a credible or established offense against children. That includes five whose cases couldn’t be fully investigated.

St. X says with the information becoming public, some of the brothers are confessing, repenting and asking forgiveness from the survivors of 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.

CHARLESTON (WV)
The Associated Press

July 23, 2019

West Virginia’s new Roman Catholic bishop vowed Tuesday to work toward restoring faith in the diocese after a scandal over the former bishop’s sexual harassment of adults and lavish spending of church money.

Pope Francis named Baltimore Auxiliary Bishop Mark Brennan to lead the state’s Catholics. The 72-year-old Brennan replaces Bishop Michael Bransfield, who resigned in September after a preliminary investigation into allegations of sexual and financial misconduct.

“I want you to know how acutely aware I am of the deep disappointment and pain that you have experienced as a result of your former bishop’s misdeeds,” Brennan said at a news conference in Wheeling. “I’m not a magician. I’m not a wonder worker. I’m your brother in Christ. And I’m willing to work hard with you to make this corner of the Lord’s vineyard a place of faith as steadfast as the mountains, of hope as invigorating as fast-flowing streams, and of love as welcoming as the sun.”

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CAPE COD (MA)
Cape Cod Today

July 23, 2019

Secretary to two New York Cardinals…

Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, best known for representing victims in the Boston Catholic priest sex abuse scandal, has issued a statement regarding two sisters who suffered abuse at the hands of a priest in Bronx, NY. The statement is reproduced verbatim below.

I represent two sisters who were repeatedly sexually abused for years by Fr. Charles G. McDonagh who was at the time assigned to Our Lady of Refuge Parish in the Bronx, NY. Fr. McDonagh later became Secretary to Cardinal Cooke and Secretary to Cardinal O’Connor.

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WHEELING (WV)
WTOV9

July 23, 2019

Pope Francis announced new leadership for the the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston on Tuesday morning.

The selection of Most Reverend Mark E. Brennan Mark E. Brennan was made official early Tuesday morning as the ninth bishop of the diocese.

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WHEELING (WV)
The Associated Press

July 23, 2019

The Latest on the leadership changes at West Virginia’s Roman Catholic diocese (all times local):

7News will be live streaming the official announcement of the new Bishop of Wheeling-Charleston at 9:00 a.m. on our Facebook page

8:03 a.m. The Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston has released a statement regarding the announcement of Bishop Mark Brennan the leader of the Diocese

Pope Francis has named the Most Reverend Mark E. Brennan, currently Auxiliary Bishop for the Archdiocese of Baltimore, as the ninth bishop of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston. Bishop Brennan, 72, was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington on May 15, 1976 by the then-Archbishop William W. Baum.

A Boston native, Bishop Brennan is the son of the late Edward Charles Brennan and Regina Claire Lonsway. He attended public schools in Massachusetts and Maryland before entering St. Anthony High School in Washington, D.C. Bishop Brennan graduated from Brown University in 1969 with a degree in history, and then entered Christ the King Seminary in Alleghany, New York for a year of philosophy before attending the Pontifical North American College in Rome for his theological studies.

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KNOXVILLE (TN)
Associated Press

July 23, 2019

A Tennessee man has sued the Diocese of Knoxville, claiming he was sexually abused by a priest and bishop while serving as an altar boy in the 1990s.

The Knoxville News Sentinel reports Michael Boyd filed the suit in Knox County on Thursday.

It claims Boyd was abused by Father Xavier Mankel and Bishop Anthony O’Connell. Both have since died. O’Connell later resigned after admitting inappropriate conduct with minors in other dioceses.

The suit also says music teacher William Lovelace tried to get Boyd to touch him inappropriately. The diocese has suspended Lovelace with “a presumption of innocence” until the allegations are investigated.

Boyd previously met with Bishop Richard Stika about the allegations against Mankle. In a letter issued to local Catholic leaders on Friday, Stika said diocese officials turned over materials given them by Boyd to an independent investigator.

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TUCSON (AZ)
KGUN 9

July 22, 2019

By Natalie Tarangioli

In May, a big change in Arizona law was made for reporting sexual assault. And less than two months later, a man filed a lawsuit against the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona and a Tucson church.

Charles Taylor filed the civil complaint in Pima County Superior Court on July 12.

The complaint states Grace St. Paul’s church staff ignored reports of sexual misconduct by an Episcopalian priest in the 1970’s.

Taylor says he filed a complaint in 1991, but it was tossed out, because it didn’t meet the statute of limitations.

At the end of May, a new law went into effect that expands the window for sexual abuse victims.

“I know that I deserve justice, and we are going to make sure that everyone in this state, under the new law will have justice and our day in court,” Taylor said at a press conference in downtown Tucson on Monday.

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

CHARLOTTE (NC)
WSOCtv

July 23, 2019

By Allison Latos

Court records surrounding sexual abuse lawsuits against the Diocese of Charlotte have been kept confidential for years, but Channel 9 is working to bring those documents to light.

Dioceses nationwide have begun revealing the names of church leaders accused of abuse, but the Diocese of Charlotte has not released a full list of all priests with credible allegations.

Channel 9 has joined with other media outlets in filing a lawsuit to have the records unsealed.

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DE PERE (WI)
Associated Press

July 22, 2019

St. Norbert Abbey in Wisconsin has released the names of 22 priests who faced “credible” allegations of sexually abusing minors.

The abbey says an independent review deemed more than 40 allegations credible. About half came from the 1960s, and 12 Norbertine priests faced multiple allegations. All but five are dead. Two of the living have left the abbey and ministry; three others are restricted from ministry.

Abbot Dane Radecki says the names were released Friday in the spirit of accountability, but gave few details of the allegations.

The abbey serves St. Norbert College and some schools and parishes around De Pere.

The report came six months after the Green Bay Diocese named 46 priests with credible claims of sexual abuse against them but did not include priests from independent orders.

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)
Local 21 News

July 22, 2019

By Amanda Hoskins

More lawsuits against Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania are surmounting.

This time, victims are seeking damage for the dioceses committing fraud and conspiracy.

A new lawsuit being filed against the Harrisburg Diocese could continue to open the flood gates.

It comes after the attorney of a man who claims he is a victim of sexual abuse made significant gains in a similar case against the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese.

While it lost in the court of common pleas, a June superior court decision reversed the ruling.

In the 2017 case, attorney Richard Serbin argued the church committed fraud, fraudulent concealment and civil conspiracy.

He argued the diocese had the obligation to tell the victim, his client, about the nature of the allegations and the cover-ups surrounding her perpetrator in the diocese. They argued she only learned about it through the grand jury report.

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NEW YORK (NY)
CNN

July 18, 2019

By Erica Orden

A federal judge on Thursday ordered Jeffrey Epstein, who is accused of sexually abusing dozens of underage girls, to remain in jail pending trial, rejecting the multimillionaire’s request to return to his Upper East Side mansion under supervision.

In a court hearing, US District Court Judge Richard Berman described Epstein’s proposed bail package — which would have allowed him to return home accompanied by armed guards and a live-in, court-appointed trustee — as “irretrievably inadequate.” He said Epstein was both a danger to the community and a flight risk.

“Mr. Epstein’s alleged excessive attraction to sexual conduct with or in the presence of minor girls — which is said to include his soliciting and receiving massages from young girls and young women perhaps as many as four times a day,” the judge wrote in a 33-page decision filed with the court, “appears likely to be uncontrollable.”

Among the most important influences in the judge’s decision to deny bail, he wrote, were the victims of Epstein’s alleged crimes, including two who “movingly” testified at one of the bail hearings, telling the court they feared his release would result in their harassment and abuse. “The court is also concerned for new victims,” the judge added.

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CHARLESTON (WV)
ChurchMilitant.com

July 22, 2019

By Stephen Wynne

Critics slam paltry penalties for corrupt former West Virginia bishop

Amid an ongoing inquiry into financial malfeasance and sex abuse cover-up in West Virginia, the Vatican is imposing sanctions on Bp. Michael Bransfield, former head of the diocese of Wheeling-Charleston.

In a July 19 communiqué, Wheeling-Charleston announced that based on the investigation’s findings, Pope Francis has decreed that Bp. Emeritus Bransfield is prohibited from residing in the diocese; is banned from presiding or participating in any public celebration of the Liturgy; and is obliged to “make personal amends for some of the harm he caused,” with “the nature and extent of the amends to be decided in consultation with the future Bishop of Wheeling-Charleston.”

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NEW YORK (NY)
NBC News

July 18, 2019

By Jonathan Dienst, Adam Reiss and David K. Li

A federal judge in New York sided with prosecutors who argued that the financier poses a flight risk.

A New York federal judge on Thursday ordered Jeffrey Epstein held without bail, siding with prosecutors who argued the wealthy financier and accused sex trafficker posed a flight risk.

U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman said prosecutors showed “clear and convincing evidence” that Epstein was a flight risk.

“The government application for continued remand is hereby granted,” Berman said just minutes after the pretrial proceeding began.

The defense had proposed a $77 million bail package, with Epstein’s private jet and Manhattan mansion as collateral.

“I doubt any bail package can overcome” any danger to the community, Berman said.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

July 23, 2019

By Haidee Eugenio Gilbert

Two Barrigada men’s separate lawsuits alleging Father Louis Brouillard’s abused them in the late 1970s have been added to Guam’s clergy sex abuse claims, now at more than 230.

The plaintiffs are identified in federal court documents only by the initials I.V. and V.M. to protect their privacy. They are represented by attorney Michael Berman.

I.V., in his $5 million lawsuit, said Brouillard told him “not to worry” about the sexual abuses” because he was now a good boy and God will forgive all of his past sins and God will make sure he lived a good life.”

The lawsuits say the priest sexually abused I.V. and V.M. on church grounds and during Boy Scouts of America outings.

I.V. was attending the Barrigada parish from around 1978 to 1980 when he was about 9 to 11 years old. The abuses also happened after I.V. helped clean the church with a broom and a mop, the lawsuit says.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
WGAL News 8

July 23, 2019

In a lawsuit being announced today, two now-deceased priests at St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church, north of Selinsgrove, are accused of raping an altar boy.

You can watch the plaintiff’s news conference about the lawsuit above.

The suit names the Harrisburg Diocese former Bishop Kevin Rhoades and current Bishop Ronald Gainer.

The suit will challenge Pennsylvania’s Statute of Limitations for sex crimes.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
ABC 27

July 23, 2019

By Christine McLarty

The first of its kind lawsuit is being announced at the PA State Capitol Tuesday morning. We’re expecting the announcement of a lawsuit on behalf of a Catholic Clergy child sexual abuse survivor.

At 10:30 Tuesday morning a man who said he’s a survivor of child sex abuse from 2 priests is speaking out. The Plaintiff lives in Missouri but is back to present his case. As a child he lived in Milton, PA an hour north of Harrisburg. While serving as an altar boy he says he was repeatedly raped by 2 Harrisburg Diocese Priests at St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church.

Up to this point, the statute of limitations prohibited many child sex abuse survivors from filing. But according to a new ruling, there’s a lawsuit loophole. On June 11th, the Pennsylvania Superior Court paved the way for child sexual abuse survivors to file lawsuits under certain conditions.

In that case Renee Rice vs. The Altoona-Johnstown Catholic Diocese, Rice sued over the cover-up of abuse, not the actual abuse. Local lawyers said this lawsuit loophole offers a glimpse of hope for others victims. “For those people who really want to get into discovery with the Diocese, ” said Sexual Abuse Attorney Nathaniel Foote, “Find out what documents the Diocese has on their abuser, or other abusers, this provides an avenue for that for them.”

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

July 24, 2019

By Brian Roewe

Advocates for survivors of clergy sexual abuse have urged the local bishop to bar from church functions two prelates with ties to Kansas City, Missouri, who’ve been central figures in the Catholic Church’s clergy sexual abuse scandal.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) sent a letter July 5 to Kansas City-St. Joseph Bishop James Johnston requesting he use a new protocol created by U.S. bishops to block resigned Bishop Robert Finn and retired Bishop Joseph Hart from ministry and all church meetings and activities.

In a separate letter addressed to Pope Francis, SNAP urged he forgo a planned trial and immediately laicize Hart, 87, who from 1978 to 2001 led the Diocese of Cheyenne, Wyoming. Last year, the diocese found credible accusations he sexually abused three male minors. Additional abuse claims date back to Hart’s time as a priest in Kansas City (1956-1976). Hart has repeatedly denied the allegations.

In 2012 Finn, 66, was found guilty of a misdemeanor for failing to report suspected child abuse. He served a two-year suspended sentence, in addition to meeting monthly for five years with a county prosecutor to avoid another charge. Finn resigned in April 2015 following a Vatican investigation of the diocese.

At their June assembly, the U.S. bishops approved the “Protocol Regarding Available Non-Penal Restrictions on Bishops.” That new policy permits a diocesan bishop to take measures against a bishop emeritus whose “resignation or removal was due to the sexual abuse of a minor, sexual misconduct with an adult or grave negligence of office” regarding the sexual abuse of minors.

Among available restrictions are barring a retired bishop from public ministry — including preaching and celebrating sacraments, which can extend to hearing confessions — and limiting his benefits, such as for travel. The protocol stipulates public notice of any restrictions, as well as informing the Vatican. It can be implemented by a bishop emeritus’ successor, the bishop of the diocese where he resides or seeks to minister, or the episcopal conference.

The protocol was in part sparked by outrage a year ago to reports of credible accusations against now-former cardinal Theodore McCarrick, and whether fellow bishops knew of the allegations or any restrictions imposed on him. Before he was laicized, several bishops at their November meeting voiced that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops should censure and disinvite McCarrick from conference proceedings.

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

CHARLOTTE (NC)
Charlotte Observer

July 22, 2019

By Bruce Henderson

News outlets including The Charlotte Observer have filed joint court motions that seek to unseal documents in two lawsuits that claimed sexual abuse by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charlotte.

Both lawsuits were resolved in favor of the 46-county diocese. The media group argues that documents the diocese had asked to be sealed, as part of motions for summary judgment in the cases, are of significant public interest.

Television stations WBTV, WCNC and WSOC are also part of the group.

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BERKSHIRE (MA)
Berkshire Eagle

July 22, 2019

By Larry Parnass

A retired judge will review a Chicopee man’s allegation that former Bishop Christopher J. Weldon subjected him to sexual abuse in the 1960s.

The Springfield diocese announced Monday that Peter A. Velis, a retired Superior Court judge, will begin work immediately to investigate reports from a former altar boy that Weldon not only assaulted him, but facilitated his abuse and that of other children by other local clergy.

Mark Dupont, spokesman for the diocese, said the decision to seek outside help in assessing the allegations against Weldon stemmed in part from disagreement internally about the Chicopee man’s credibility.

“Given the recent public disagreement between this victim and the Diocesan Review Board about the description of the allegations and findings of the board, Bishop Rozanski felt that, in this situation, turning this matter over to an independent and outside party was both warranted and the most prudent course of action,” Dupont said in a statement.

Dupont said the Most Rev. Mitchell T. Rozanski made the call to seek help from Velis.

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NEW YORK(NY)
Commonweal

July 22, 2019

By Paul Moses

One way Pope Francis could move ahead with his aim of curbing clergy sex abuse in the worldwide Catholic Church would be to insist that the Holy See comply with the international human-rights treaty it signed to protect the rights of the child. Since nearly every country in the world (other than the United States) has signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the 1989 treaty sets a clear international standard for Catholic bishops everywhere.

The treaty requires this: “In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.” Responding to complaints from survivors of sex abuse in the United States, Mexico, Australia, and Western Europe, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child determined that the Holy See had violated that standard. “The Committee is particularly concerned that in dealing with allegations of child sexual abuse, the Holy See has consistently placed the preservation of the reputation of the Church and the protection of the perpetrators above the child’s best interests, as observed by several national commissions of inquiry,” it said in a 2014 report.

Five years later, the passage of time shows how deeply flawed the Vatican’s response was. The Vatican asserted that it had “carefully delineated policies and procedures designed to help eliminate such abuses and to collaborate with respective State authorities to fight against this crime.” It’s clear those policies were porous and follow-through was sluggish. Today, Vatican officials are still looking for the elusive “turning point.” Hopes are now pinned on February’s Vatican summit with the presidents of bishops’ conferences, and on subsequent measures Pope Francis has announced.

In the meantime, the Papal Commission for the Protection of Minors made the Convention on the Rights of the Child the foundation of guidelines that, in 2016, it sought for adoption by bishops’ conferences and religious orders around the world. But Marie Collins, a former member of the papal commission, said in an email interview that Vatican authorities would not permit the guidelines to be sent directly to the bishops’ conferences. “The Commission was told [the guidelines] could be put on the website and recommended as a resource,” she said, adding that this fell short of what the commission intended: that bishops be required to use the guidelines as a template for their procedures to protect children from sexual abuse.

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KNOXVILLE (TN)
Knoxville Sentinel

July 22, 2019

By Amy McRary

An East Tennessee man alleges he was sexually abused as a child by a longtime Catholic priest, the first bishop of the Knoxville diocese and others.

Attorneys for Blount County resident Michael Boyd are suing the Diocese of Knoxville in a Knox County Circuit Court lawsuit filed July 18.

While the Diocese is the only named defendant, the 20-page lawsuit claims the former altar boy was repeatedly abused in the 1990s by longtime Knoxville priest Xavier Mankel and at least twice by Bishop Anthony O’Connell.

The suit also alleged Mankel allowed visiting priests to have “inappropriate sexual conduct” with the child in a church sacristy.

O’Connell, who died in 2012, is the best-known figure named in the suit. He became the first bishop of the Knoxville diocese when it was formed in 1988. Ten years later, he became bishop of Palm Beach, Florida. He resigned in 2002 after admitting inappropriate conduct with minors in Missouri decades earlier and before he was in Knoxville.

The suit alleged that Mankel, a priest for 56 years, was Boyd’s main predator. Naming Mankel as an abuser is likely to shock many Knoxville Catholics. He hasn’t been named on lists of priests accused by abuse that have been released by Catholic authorities or survivor support groups.

Mankel, who died in 2017 at age 81, was a Knoxville native and a Catholic institution for decades. His positions included being pastor of Sacred Heart Cathedral from 1987-1997.

He helped found the Knoxville diocese, serving as its first chancellor and vicar general. He was later given the title of monsignor.

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Julie Roys blog

July 21, 2019

The elders at suburban Chicago Willow Creek Community Church today released a “last statement” about the scandal involving church founder Bill Hybels, charging Hybels with “unchecked sin and intimidating behavior,” and addressing “specific harms” against Hybels’ accusers and their advocates.

In their statement, the elders said they had met with the women accusing Hybels of wrongdoing and their advocates over the past six months. And as a result, they had learned of how the church’s response had led to verbal and written attacks on the women. They said they also learned that a “narrative persists in identifying (the women) as liars and colluders,” despite apologies by the lead pastors and former Elders.

The elders stated that they “unequivocally support” the findings of an independent council, which concluded that the women’s claims of “sexually inappropriate” conduct by Hybels are credible. They added, “We ask anyone who participated in verbal and written attacks to prayerfully examine their actions, apologize for wrongdoing, and seek to mend the relationship.”

Similarly, the elders urged Hybels to “reflect on his years in ministry, repent where necessary,” and seek “reconciliation.” They said they had reached out to Hybels, but he had “chosen not to engage in dialogue at this time.”

In response, Vonda Dyer, one of the women who accused Hybels of sexual misconduct, today also released a statement, expressing gratitude “that the elders believe all of the women’s allegations.” She also praised the elders’ “posture of godly response to the magnitude and depth of Bill Hybels’ destructive behaviors toward me and toward other women spanning four decades.”

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HUDDERSFIELD (ENGLAND)
Examiner

July 22, 2019

By Nick Lavigueur

A former vicar who was sexually abused by a Bradford priest as a boy has said the church has never said sorry – despite the Archbishop of Canterbury claiming it has.

Matthew Ineson from Staincliffe, Dewsbury, has waived his right to anonymity to try and expose sexual abuse within the Anglican church.

Mr Ineson was raped by Bradford priest Trevor Devamanikkam in 1984 but he never saw justice after the accused killed himself rather than facing trial in 2017.

Last week Mr Ineson strongly criticised the archbishops of Canterbury and York while giving evidence at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in the Anglican Church.

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TOLEDO (OH)
Toledo Blade

July 21, 2019

By Anne Marie Abowd

Bishop Thomas Gumbleton has spoken in Toledo many times, at various venues in the past. Most notably during the U.S. attack on Iraq when he appealed for an end to the catastrophe responsible for the deaths of 1.5 million civilians and 5,000 Americans. It has been a war that has created turmoil that lingers in Iraq to this day and has inflamed ongoing chaos throughout the Middle East ever since.

I accompanied Bishop Gumbleton to Central Catholic High School School, where he spoke to students about immorality of that war.

Bishop Gumbleton has spoken several times at Corpus Christi University Parish pleading for an end to sanctions that were starving thousands of Iraqi children, many of whom he had witnessed on several trips to war-torn Iraq.

He has consistently advocated for social justice; for inclusiveness in the church, and for the protection of children, as Jesus preached.

For years he made regular trips to Haiti to help bring medical aid to the poor. In Detroit’s inner city, he instituted a free medical and dental clinic for the destitute. At St. Leo’s, his Detroit parish, he turned the rectory into classrooms where addicted mothers could be counseled with a day care for their children.

Ironically, he was black-listed by the Church as a punishment for his heroic opposition to the Statute of Limitations for pedophile priests.

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SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA)
Special Broadcast Service

July 22, 2019

By Avneet Arora

A 32-year-old Sikh priest was found guilty of six charges of sexual conduct with a child at an Auckland District Court last week.

Sajan Singh lured two children aged eight and twelve into quiet rooms inside a west Auckland gurdwara in 2017 and inappropriately touched their bottoms on separate occasions, the court heard.

He pleaded not guilty to all the charges, last month.

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SÃO PAULO (BRAZIL)
Crux

July 22, 2019

By Eduardo Campos Lima

Police in Brazil are investigating three Catholic priests accused of abusing several altar boys and seminarians. The former bishop of their diocese, who resigned in May, is also under investigation for having allegedly extorted money from them in exchange for his silence.

The lawyer of a group of victims said last week he intends to file lawsuits against the Catholic Church, seeking $530,000 in damages for each person.

The scandal in the Diocese of Limeira, in the State of São Paulo, was last week’s cover story in Revista Veja, a major weekly magazine, prompting the opening of new investigations. The Brazilian press has been covering the accusations against Father Pedro Leandro Ricardo, from the city of Americana, since January, when the police opened investigations against him for cases of sexual abuse and he was suspended from his parish.

In May, Bishop Vilson Dias de Oliveira of Limeira resigned after the police and press reports said the Vatican started investigating him for extortion, unjust enrichment and abuse cover-up. But Veja’s story, published on July 12, was the first to disclose details of Ricardo’s crimes and also revealed the alleged crimes of two other priests from the diocese of Limeira, Father Felipe Negro and Father Carlos Alberto da Rocha.

In the story, Ricardo was accused by six former altar boys and seminarians – all of them minors at the time of the alleged events – of having inappropriately touched them before or after Masses. The testimony includes graphic descriptions.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
Catholic Herald

July 22, 2019

By Christopher Altieri

Comparing the fight against abuse with the war on drugs, the Pope said Don Bosco’s ‘preventive system’ has much to teach us

Pope Francis has released a video message to participants in a training course designed to teach them how to prevent the abuse of minors.

Under the direction of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Formation for the Protection of Minors (CEPROME), Catholic leaders including those responsible for seminary formation, diocesan vicars-general, religious superiors, and mental health professionals are gathered for three weeks on the campus of the Pontifical University of Mexico in Mexico City to focus on abuse prevention.

Speaking without notes and apparently off the cuff, Pope Francis begins his message by greeting participants, and acknowledging the gravity of the issue. “The protection of minors is a serious problem,” he says. “It is a problem, the shame of which we all know, that it has brought to the Church, that our members have intervened, have acted in these crimes,” Pope Francis goes on to say.

Pope Francis proceeds to frame the issue in terms of scandal, “[T]hat no one should keep them from reaching Jesus.” Francis goes on to say, “Any person — male religious, female religious, lay, bishop — anyone who prevents a child from reaching Jesus, must be stopped in their attitudes, corrected if we are on time, or punished if there is a crime involved.”

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SACRAMENTO (CA)
Truthout

July 20, 2019

By Stephanie Guilloud

What if firemen decided not to hose down certain buildings or go to certain neighborhoods based on their personal beliefs? What if paramedics could legally choose not to give someone life support because they are trans or using drugs in a way that offends their moral code?

These scenarios are possible and protected under new bills that declare individual morality and personal convictions paramount to federal and state regulations, local governance decisions and basic human rights.

Legislation passed in Texas protects “religious liberty and moral convictions” of individuals and businesses. SB 1978, signed into law on June 10, prevents government entities from taking actions that could adversely affect individuals or businesses based on their commitment to a religious or moral conviction.

It has been dubbed the “Save Chick-fil-A bill” because the San Antonio City Council voted to block the restaurant from the city-owned airport in solidarity with members of the LGBTQ community because of the company’s anti-LGBTQ positions and its funding of anti-LGBTQ institutions. Under the new bill, Chick-fil-A could now get the Texas attorney general to file for damages, and the Federal Aviation Administration is already investigating Chick-fil-A’s exclusion at U.S. airports.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

July 22, 2019

By Fr. Peter Daly

In the 2015 movie “Spotlight,” the voice of Richard Sipe (played by Richard Jenkins) says over the speaker phone, “If you really want to understand the crisis, you need to start with the celibacy requirement.” He continues, “That was my first major finding. Only 50% of the [Catholic] clergy are celibate. Now, most of them are having sex with other adults. But the fact remains that this creates a culture of secrecy that tolerates and even protects pedophiles.”.

Sipe, the former priest and psychologist, who died in August 2018, devoted much of his life to the psychological treatment of priests. He wrote extensively on priestly celibacy. In 1990, he published A Secret World: Sexuality and the Search for Celibacy. He estimated then that at any given time only 50% of priests, monks and bishops are actually celibate. This contributes to a culture of mendacity (lying).

In a 2016 letter to San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy, Sipe wrote:

Sooner or later it will become broadly obvious that there is a systemic connection between the sexual activity by, among and between clerics in positions of authority and control, and the abuse of children. … When men in authority — cardinals, bishops, rectors, abbots, confessors, professors — are having or have had an unacknowledged-secret-active-sex life under the guise of celibacy, an atmosphere of tolerance of behaviors within the system is made operative.

In other words, priests and bishops are not going to expose others because they may be guilty themselves. The recent cases of former cardinal Theodore McCarrick and Bishop Michael Bransfield of West Virginia prove this point. How could they rise so high and allegedly endure so long in their double lives? Perhaps because people who knew were also compromised by sexual activity.

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SAN JOSE (CA)
Mercury News

July 21, 2019

By Larry Quilici

The July 12 article by Thomas G. Plante entitled “Effort to break sacred seal of confession misguided” (Opinion section) makes a strong case for the sacred seal of the confessional regarding confessions of child abuse.

The reality is that the Catholic Church has lost its credibility with the public on this issue.

The Church has not solved this problem in its 2,000-year history. Reference the authoritative book, “Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes: The Catholic Church’s 2,000 Year Paper Trail of Sexual Abuse” by Thomas P. Doyle and A.W. Richard Sipe.

The earliest mention of forbidden sexual behavior in the literature is from the Didache, a very early theological text which is usually dated around 70 A.D. Following 2,000 years of failure, are we to believe that the problem is now resolved for all time? How can we even believe that when our children go to confession the person on the other side of the screen is not a child abuser trolling for victims?

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Patheos blog

July 21, 2019

By Hemant Mehta

In 2012, Ohio preacher Jason Brothers stayed at the home of a family in Georgia when he was giving a guest sermon at North Mt. Zion Church of God in Hiawassee. When the family’s 14-year-old girl got up for a drink of water that night, Brothers, who was in a wheelchair due to his cerebral palsy, asked her for a hug… then raped her.

The girl only told her parents what happened after they caught her trying to end her own life.

This week, Jason Brothers was sentenced for his crime. The punishment involves no prison time, going back home to Ohio, and remaining on probation for another four years. In other words, nothing of any consequence even though he admitted to two counts of felony sexual battery on a minor.

The reason for that has everything to do with his attorney: Republican House Speaker David Ralston.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Ralston took advantage of a legal loophole that allowed him to delay the trial as many times as he wanted as long as he said he was on state business.

Ralston did that at least eight times, dragging the case on for more than six years.

By the time a jury finally heard the victim’s story, she was a 21-year-old woman trying to recount a traumatic incident that happened several years earlier. Her memory wasn’t perfect. Same could be said of the other witnesses. The testimony would’ve been far more powerful if she was, say 15 or 16.

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Patheos blog

July 21, 2019

By Guest Contributor

It is the apparently tenuous question so much of the debate with the sex abuse scandals surrounds – Do victims matter?

I was just informed by the host of a popular podcast for Catholic women that we in fact don’t; at least, we don’t when it’s uncomfortable and inconvenient for other Catholics. I have followed this podcast for at least a year and was a subscriber on its email list. Yesterday morning, an email in my inbox from the podcast described this week’s episode (concerning the Church’s teaching on birth control). I skimmed to the bottom to see if I recognized the interviewee’s name, since I have a few times in the past. What I found instead made my stomach clench.

My alma mater, Franciscan University of Steubenville, was this episode’s sponsor. When I pointed out (both in private message and publicly on the podcast’s Facebook page) that having a university with an abusive past (and present!) was hurtful to victims, the response was sickening.

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ARLINGTON (VA)
Arlington Diocese

July 19, 2019

Following his death in 1992, reports of sexual abuse of minors by Msgr. William Reinecke in the late-1960s and early-1970s were first brought forward and were fully documented by national and local media. In some instances, it was alleged that abuse occurred during overnight trips that Msgr. Reinecke had taken with minors.

The abuse committed by Fr. Reinecke was a grave sin and horrendous crime. No person should ever be victimized, and the Church should be a place of peace and joy for all people, especially children. The Catholic Church—like all institutions that work with minors—operates very differently today than it did 50 years ago, and interactions between priests and minors are more controlled and limited than in the past. In particular, such overnight trips – apart from fully-chaperoned youth events – are explicitly prohibited.

Additionally, the Diocese has a comprehensive and thorough system of policies and protocols that aid in prevention of sexual abuse of minors and reports all allegations to legal authorities. Our protocols include background checks for all clergy, staff and volunteers, as well as a training program that helps people identify grooming activity and other concerning behaviors, whether in a church setting or elsewhere.

In September 2018, the Diocese of Arlington hired two former FBI special agents to examine all clergy files and information going back to the founding of the Diocese in 1974. They performed this thorough review to assist the Diocese in its publication of a list of priests who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse of a minor. That list was published on February 13, 2019, and can be found at ArlingtonDiocese.org/ClergyAbuseList. The purpose of releasing the names of those credibly accused of sexual abuse of a minor was to assist victims and survivors in their healing.

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RICHMOND (VA)
Richmond Times-Dispatch

July 15, 2019

By Bridget Balch

The head of the Catholic Diocese of Richmond, Bishop Barry Knestout, on Friday suspended a Norfolk priest who was previously placed on a leave of absence due to violating the diocese’s code of conduct with minors, the diocese announced Saturday.

The priest, Joseph Metzger III, had been placed on temporary leave from his assignment as pastor of Blessed Sacrament parish in Norfolk in December due to previous violations of the code of conduct with minors. The Diocese of Richmond said the misconduct was not related to an accusation of sexual abuse.

On July 1, Metzger was given an assignment working in the diocese’s administrative offices and celebrating Mass at elderly housing facilities and communities for religious women in the Richmond area.

Four days later, on July 5, the diocese received an additional complaint against Metzger regarding a recent violation of the code of conduct with minors, according to a news release.

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RAPID CITY (SD)
Rapid City Journal

July 21, 2019

By Arielle Zionts

Bishop Robert Gruss sat in his office Thursday afternoon, focusing on his computer and surrounded by stacks of books, a few decorations and packed boxes.

The 64-year-old bishop was still hard at work responding to emails and hosting back-to-back meetings before leaving Saturday after eight years with the Rapid City Diocese, which oversees churches and Catholic life across western South Dakota.

Departing Rapid City to serve as the bishop of the Diocese of Saginaw in Michigan is a “bittersweet” moment, Gruss said.

“Leaving a place that you come to know and love, it’s hard leaving,” he said. “I’ve made a lot of great friendships and good relationships. I love the people here. I love the land. I’ve really enjoyed being with and working with the Native American population.

“There’s kind of a holy sorrow to it in the sense that it’s what the lord has called me to, and I desire to do the will of God. And I really do feel that I’ve been called there, missioned there, to serve the people of Saginaw. So there’s deep gratitude in my heart for these eight years that the lord has given me here and there’s anticipation, I think there’s some excitement for me moving to the Diocese of Saginaw and ministering to the people there.”

Gruss was born in Arkansas and grew up in Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Wisconsin, according to his biography on the diocese website. He worked as a pilot and flight instructor for nine years before he began studying religion and preparing for the priesthood. He was ordained in 1994 and served various roles in the United States and Vatican City before becoming Bishop of Rapid City in 2011.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Daily News

July 20, 2019

By Jami Ganz

The West Virginia attorney general is adamant that the Catholic church stop “covering up” allegations of sexual harassment brought against a former bishop.

Patrick Morrisey ordered the church Friday to “come clean” with information it has regarding sexual harassment allegations against former bishop Michael Bransfield of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, USA Today reports.

The declaration followed Pope Francis’ decision earlier that day to ban Bransfield from both the public ministry and living in a West Virginia diocese. The pope said Bransfield “has the obligation to make personal amends for some of the arm he caused.”

On Facebook, Morrisey said this was “only one step” in the right direction and went on to slam the diocese for “decades of covering up and concealing the behavior of priests as it relates to sexual abuse.”

“It is time for the Diocese to come clean with what it knows and release the Bransfield report and any other relevant materials,” he wrote. “The public shouldn’t have to wait any longer for transparency.”

In March, Morrisey filed a suit against both Bransfield and the diocese claiming it knew it was employing pedophiles and did not conduct proper background checks for employees working at schools and camps. In an amendment, he also alleged the diocese knew of child sex abuse by a teacher in 2006 and decided against publicly disclosing it.

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SAGINAW (MI)
WNEM TV

July 21, 2019

By Austen Burks

The Diocese of Saginaw has named multiple priests from two religious communities who were credibly accused of abuse of a minor.

The Capuchin Order provided names of the following clergy who were involved in ministry in the Diocese of Saginaw. The Capuchins noted that the allegations against the following clergy did not arise in the Diocese of Saginaw. One additional name, John S. Rabideau, OMV (Oblates of the Virgin Mary) was also added to the diocesan website. Rabideau was never assigned to ministry in the Diocese of Saginaw.

Benedict Adams, OFM Cap, deceased
Baldwin Beyer, OFM Cap, deceased
Art Cooney, OFM Cap
James LaRéau, OFM Cap, deceased
John Steven Rabideau, OMV (Oblates of the Virgin Mary)
Austin Schlaefer, OFM Cap, deceased
Ken Stewart, OFM Cap
Elmer Stoffel, OFM Cap, deceased

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DENVER (CO)
Westword

July 21, 2019

By Terry Kelly

For thirty years, the Catholic Church has been rocked by a steady roar of sexual abuse revelations. Some of its priests have been serially sexually abusing its children. Many of its bishops have been “covering up” these crimes. The massiveness of these crimes — they occurred in significant numbers in every corner of the Catholic world — has dulled our senses to the personal pain of each story. (To get over the numbness, watch the recent Polish documentary, Tell No One.) This is a universal story that continues in many forms. A few weeks ago, Colorado announced a new chapter.

Colorado’s Roman Catholic bishops, the Colorado Attorney General and a former Colorado U.S. Attorney recently informed us that they were going to cooperate in the preparation of a report concerning the sexual abuse of children by Colorado diocesan Catholic priests. This joint report promises to disclose the results of a review by former U.S Attorney Robert Troyer of records of alleged abuse of minors by clergy in the Roman Catholic Church in Colorado since 1950.

The “independent review” apparently will be made of file records maintained by the three dioceses. The report will identify “substantiated allegations of abuse [of minors]” set out in these church records, and also review “the Dioceses’ current policies and procedures for preventing abuse and responding to allegations of abuse.”

As publicly announced by Denver Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila, the review and report will be performed by Troyer. This is based upon an agreement between the three Colorado Catholic diocesan bishops (Aquila, Sheridan, Berg), Attorney General Phil Weiser, and Troyer. Troyer’s $300,000 “Special Master” services are being paid for by the three Catholic dioceses ($150,000) and anonymous donors solicited by former attorney general Cynthia Coffman ($150,000). These are “donors” who refuse to be identified.

When you look at all the facts, it is doubtful that the bishops, the attorney general and Mr. Troyer can produce a valid report.

First, the Catholic bishops and the Colorado attorney general have fundamental differences regarding the report’s purpose. Within the past few months, ex-Pope Benedict XVI published an article addressing the sex abuse “crisis” in the Catholic Church. Benedict’s supporters, including Archbishop Aquila, gave the article wide and enthusiastic distribution. Benedict sees the evil, the “bedrock” sin of the sexual abuse of children by clergy, as a sacrilege, a “befouling” of the perpetrator priests’ vows — a sin against the Catholic faith. Benedict’s personal theology, and that of his followers, primarily experience these horrors in the self-referential analysis of how the misconduct injures their Church.

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ROME (ITALY)
Daily Beast

July 20, 2019

By Barbie Latza Nadeau

The Vatican banned West Virginia bishop Michael J. Bransfield from public ministry over credible accusations of sexual and financial misconduct, but stopped short of defrocking him. The measure was outlined in a letter authorized by Pope Francis to the diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, which states that the disgraced prelate now has “the obligation to make personal amends for some of the harm he caused.”

Bransfield resigned in September after an underling exposed years of sexual and financial misconduct, including how the bishop bought influence by giving cash gifts to senior Catholic officials to keep his crimes quiet. The Washington Post reported that Bransfield spent more than $2.4 million on luxury hotels and private jets and racked up bills of $182,000 on fresh flowers. The bishop also employed a personal chef, chauffeur and carried out more than $1 million in renovations to his private residence. He is also accused of giving more than $350,000 in cash gifts to young seminarians and priests he allegedly sexually harassed.

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

July 19, 2019

The release from the Norbertines includes the names of 22 priests that church officials, including the current Abbot and several former Abbots of the religious order, knew had sexually assaulted children in the Green Bay diocese.

By Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests – Jul 19th, 2019 05:59 pm
Today, the Norbertine Religious Order have finally released a list of priests publicly accused of abuse. We believe that this release – and others by other church officials in Wisconsin – should be reviewed and investigated by the state attorney general.

The release from the Norbertines includes the names of 22 priests that church officials, including the current Abbot and several former Abbots of the religious order, knew had sexually assaulted children in the Green Bay diocese. This long-overdue move comes as twenty state attorney generals around the United States have opened investigations into the abuse of children and subsequent cover-up by church officials since last summer’s release of the explosive Grand Jury Report in Pennsylvania.

Other states that have issued preliminary findings of their investigations show the same pattern of abuse and cover up that was dramatically demonstrated in Pennsylvania. Specifically, where church officials have claimed to release full lists of credibly accused clerics those lists have been found to dramatically under-count the actual number of accused clerics and yet another attempt to mislead the public and law enforcement. In Illinois, for example the Attorney General recently found that over 500 credibly accused priests were not reported, fully two-thirds of all accused clerics.

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MIDLAND (TX)
Midland Daily News

July 20, 2019

By Richard Luczak

To the editor:
My Catholic Church is in a deep crisis over sexual abuse. To stabilize the Church and help to restore confidence and to protect adults and children, I propose the following: All deacons, priests and bishops should be required to submit to a psychological exam (MPPI or better), polygraph testing, drug testing and periodic police background checks in order to stay in active ministry.

The basis for this is last year’s police sting that caught 72-year-old the Rev. Robert DeLand, Diocese of Saginaw, in an illegal sexual assault, which has landed him in prison. As I recall, DeLand was in parish ministry and youth counseling at a local high school, and he was on the diocesan marriage tribunal. There you go — neither age nor stature nor years of service nor popularity, etc., is any barrier to a sexual predator. Hence, I urge the message get out to start demanding this universal testing of church clerics.

RICHARD LUCZAK
Bay City

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Patheos blog

July 19, 2019

By Msgr. Eric Barr

Becoming CEOs of the institution and ceding the Church to lawyers rather than to the Gospel was mistake number one. Severing the sacramental connection between priest and bishop was mistake number two. However, the most egregious mistake the bishops have made throughout the entire clergy sexual abuse crisis is the third. The bishops committed the capital sin of sloth. We think of sloth as laziness, but it is not. It is self-pity, a sorrow for oneself that embraces a guilt leading to apathy. The bishops chose to become powerless to fight against the evil of sexual abuse and the abuse of episcopal authority. Out of despair or indifference, they left the battlefield to lawyers, the press, and an outraged laity.

The McCarrick Affair Revealed The Powerlessness Of The Episcopacy
The McCarrick affair and the way the institutional Church handled it shows this clearly. Outsiders still marvel at how such a person as the former cardinal could live such an evil lifestyle in plain sight of his fellow churchmen. All bishops were at least aware of his predilection for seminarians. As the Vicar for Clergy for a midwestern diocese, I knew of the rumors since 2005.
I remember a Bill O’Reilly show on Fox News where the erstwhile commentator threatened to go public with a horrendous accusation against a highly placed Catholic official the next night. Surprisingly, he never revealed that name, but at the time, I knew that if I had to guess, it would be McCarrick. Rumors are not facts, but there were priests, like Fr. Boniface Ramsey who tried many times to inform the Vatican what he knew as fact: that the cardinal was a serial predator. But the Vatican took no notice. Nor did other bishops. All bishops were aware of the rumors, but there were many who knew the facts and did nothing. The explanation goes that the Church simply did not have the structures present for bishops to discipline each other. Everything rested on the pope’s intervention and three popes appear to have been kept in the dark of the actual facts though they too had heard the rumors.

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)
National Catholic Register

July 20, 2019

By Msgr. Andrew Baker and Father Carter Griffin

Many Catholics, understandably, have grown skeptical of seminary formation. After all, it is priests and bishops who have caused the scandal of clergy sexual abuse, and every one of them is a product of seminaries.

Sometimes it is presumed that little has changed in seminaries since the time, decades ago, when the vast majority of those abusive priests were formed. Professor Janet Smith recently published a commentary that rightly asks whether seminary reforms are authentic and lasting or simply “window dressing.”

As the rectors of two seminaries forming men for the priesthood today, we would like to offer our own perspective in order to throw some light on the present situation — because, in fact, a great deal has changed.

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.