ABUSE TRACKER

EL PASO (TX)
CBS 4 News

July 15, 2019

By Justin Kree

A jury has found former El Paso priest Miguel Luna guilty on all 12 counts of sexual assault of a minor.

Closing arguments took place and a third victim testified on Monday, saying Luna raped her.

In closing arguments, the state told jurors Luna used his position to sexually assault and that religion had nothing to do with the incident and told them that God was used to groom and rape the victim.

The defense told the jurors that the testimonies and timeliness don’t add up and asked the jurors to listen to the facts.

Another victim has taken the stand this morning saying that she was raped by former El Paso priest Miguel Luna after coming back from Juarez one summer night in 1990.

The third victim claims Luna raped her after a night of dinner and dancing in Juarez back in 1990. She said she was 30 years old when she was raped by Luna, unlike the other victims.

She testified that she met Luna when she worked as a secretary at St. Pius X. Church.

She said she would associate with Luna at parish functions and talked about their mutual love for dancing.

Luna asked the victim if she would go to dinner and dancing.

The defense argued the victim was divorced and dressed that night to impress Luna.

She knew Luna liked her and said he often told her, “I would leave the priesthood to be with you.”

The victim said she made it very clear to Luna that she looked at him like a brother and was not interested in him.

The victim claimed when Luna dropped her off that night, he pushed his way into her house, pushed her on the living room floor and raped her.

The victim said she ran into the bathroom to shower because she felt “dirty” and told Luna to leave her house.

She claimed she didn’t tell anyone that night but eventually told her mom and boyfriend — but never filed a police report.

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.

WASHINGTON (DC
WJLA TV

July 15, 2019

by Jay Korff

Kelley Arnold grew up in Old Town Alexandria. Arnold says a significant part of his childhood revolved around the church he and his family attended: St. Mary Catholic Church, now the Basilica of St. Mary.

Father William Reinecke began working at St. Mary when Arnold was a young teenager. Arnold says Father Reinecke was beloved and respected by parishioners. So, when Reinecke invited minor boys on overnight, out of town trips, Arnold insists no one, initially, suspected Reinecke was a serial pedophile.

Arnold, in chilly detail, now tells the never heard before stories of Father Reinecke’s grooming and eventual sexual assault of boys. Arnold’s heartfelt story of regret reveals the method of a deranged yet trusted religious leader. He hopes by coming forward others will get the help they need.

Thirteen-year-old Kelley Arnold was an altar boy at St. Mary Catholic Church in Alexandria, Virginia in the mid-to-late 1960s.

The newly ordained Father William Reinecke was his priest. Arnold says Father Reinecke quickly formed friendships with children.

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

SALEM (MA)
Salem News

July 16, 2019

By Ethan Forman

Twelve men who were at one time associated with St. John’s Preparatory School are on a list released Friday of current or former Xaverian Brothers members with “a credible allegation of sexual abuse of a minor against them.”

The Xaverian Brothers, a Baltimore-based Roman Catholic order that sponsors 13 schools including St. John’s Prep, released 34 names, dating back decades. The 12 associated with St. John’s Prep were in Danvers at some point between 1922 and 1978.

Among them is Thomas Morrissey, also known as Brother Gabriel, who worked at the school from 1965 to 1967. Morrissey is listed as a current Xaverian Brother “with a credible or established offense against a minor” and has been “placed on a safety plan with no contact with minors,” according to the order.

Safety plans are described as “restrictions on behavior, including the use of technology, travel, and access by visitors.”

The allegations of abuse and attempted abuse against Morrissey were first reported in 2002 and date back to his time at both St. John’s Prep and at the Xaverian Brothers High School in Westwood, where he worked from 1967 to 1979.

“We understand that the information we are releasing today cannot undo the damage caused by some of our brothers, but we hope this confession, our repentance and our apology will provide some peace for survivors of abuse and allow our community to begin to heal,” said General Superior Brother Edward Driscoll, in a letter provided by the Xaverian Brothers. “We humbly ask forgiveness for this unspeakable violation of trust.”

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 16, 2019

Dear Bishop Johnston:

To help victims and Catholics heal, to help protect kids and to help deter future wrongdoing, we’re respectfully asking you to use your new powers to restrict the public ministries of Bishop Robert Finn and Bishop Joseph Hart.

Finn has been deemed, in a civil court, guilty of refusing to report known or suspected child sex crimes.

Hart has been deemed, by his successor, a “credibly accused” child molester, with abuse reports in Wyoming and Missouri, by at least ten individuals.

Both have returned to Kansas City, sometimes appearing in public, which has prompted concern and consternation by still-suffering victims and still-betrayed Catholics.

We believe that long ago you could and should have used your bully pulpit, quiet influence and existing powers to dissuade or prevent Finn and Hart from appearing in your diocese. But now, with the powers recently given to you by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, you have no excuse for not protecting the safety and feelings of your flock, and deterring future crimes and cover-ups, by banning these two disgraced prelates from your jurisdiction.

We would ask you to consider one simple question: Why take the risk? Why chance making even one more person who was raped, sodomized or fondled as a child by a cleric feeling outraged or fearful or disgusted when he or she sees Hart or Finn presiding at a Catholic function in Kansas City? Why run the risk that even one more wounded Catholic, who is faith is on shaky ground, feeling betrayed and disappointed and hurt again when they see the activities of other disgraced prelates (Cardinal Roger Mahoney, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick) being restricted while the activities of Hart and Finn are not?

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

KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

July 16, 2019

By Heidi Schlumpf

On Memorial Day, viewers who tuned into EWTN’s News Nightly for “news from a Catholic perspective” were treated to two previously recorded one-on-one interviews by anchor Lauren Ashburn.

In the first, a 10-minute sit-down with Mike Pence during his March visit to Ave Maria University in Florida, the vice president bashed “media elites and Hollywood liberals,” called Democrats “the party of abortion on demand, even the party of infanticide” and described President Donald Trump as “the most pro-life president in American history.”

In the second interview, Ashburn served up softball questions for 11 minutes with former White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders. The EWTN anchor gushed about the latest unemployment numbers and asked why the mainstream media hasn’t given more coverage to this accomplishment, held up a devotional book she learned Sanders reads daily before asking about religious liberty, and ended with a query about her favorite ice cream. (It’s mint chocolate chip.)

As part of a question that cited a poll showing white Catholics were holding a 44 percent favorable approval rating for Trump, Ashburn pointed out: “And I would just say that 44 percent number could be a lot higher if he came on to News Nightly.”

“We’ll work on that,” Sanders responded with a laugh.

The segment was clear evidence of how a television outlet once devoted to expressions of Catholic piety and conservative catechesis and apologetics has grown into a truly influential media empire, well connected to Republican politicians and the Trump White House. EWTN, where the “Catholic perspective” is unabashedly partisan, has also become the media star in a web of connections including wealthy conservative Catholic donors and some of the most public anti-Pope Francis forces in the Catholic world. Those connections, traceable through a maze of non-profit organizations, helped fuel EWTN’s development. It is a complex tale involving the matchup of a peculiar brand of U.S. style conservative Catholicism with conservative political ideology and economic theory.

NCR made repeated requests over nearly a week for comment from EWTN, but the network said it was unable to produce anyone to answer questions before publication.

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.

WASHINGTON (DC)
Religion News Service

July 15, 2019

Those allegations include faculty physically and sexually abusing students mostly in the 1960s and 1970s, though a representative for a school alumni group said she is aware of cases as early as the late 1950s and as recent as the 1990s.

A written statement on the school’s website from Anda Foxwell, head of school, said the alleged abuse reportedly occurred “a quarter to a half century ago.”

But, Foxwell wrote, the Christian Academy in Japan admits that “as a school, CAJ did not provide the nurturing and caring environment for children that we should have provided.

“This is not the school CAJ is now. We renounce a culture of silence that suppressed the truth, which prohibited children from being heard in their suffering. We acknowledge that students were vulnerable to the way staff members used their power against them in ways that were hurtful and harmful, and we want to express our deep grief over learning about the pain some children endured,” the statement reads.

The investigation comes after former students began connecting and sharing stories about their experiences at the school on social media amid the attention given to sexual abuse by #MeToo and similar movements, Foxwell told Religion News Service.

Some of the stories she heard were secondhand, she said. But, she added, “I didn’t doubt the experiences.”

The head of school began responding to people individually after she was made aware of their social media posts about two years ago and later posted a letter of apology on the school website, she said. That letter, which caused a stir in the school’s alumni community, later was removed from the site over concern it could interfere in the investigation, she said.

Perhaps the letter was “naïve,” Foxwell admitted.

“But I was really hoping to address the concerns and express just sorrow over what people experienced,” she 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.

WASHINGTON (DC)
WJLA TV

July 15, 2019

If you ask Tom Doyle to describe himself he would say a former priest and Catholic Church attorney who now helps priest sex abuse survivors by testifying in court cases as an expert on the policies and practices of the Church. Doyle also consults for states and nations investigation child sex abuse.

In a sense, Doyle is a whistle blower for how the Catholic Church used to, and presently, operates.

He says leadership within the Catholic Church is doing much better in terms of preventing pedophile priests from abusing and helping abuse survivors get help. But he says the lies continue and for that reason shared his thoughts with ABC7 News for The 50 Year Secret.

Tom Doyle was an active priest from 1970 to 2004. He also served as a US Air Force Chaplain for nearly 20 years.

Doyle now testifies on behalf of abuse survivors and consults for states and nations investigated priest sex abuse. He’s certified expert on Canon Law.

“I have been involved in this, directly involved since the very beginning and no one else has. I was involved in the middle, in the inside of the Roman Catholic Church. I worked at the Vatican Embassy.”

Doyle was an attorney for the Catholic Church in the 1980s.

During that time, he looked at widespread allegations of priest sex abuse in a Louisiana diocese that erupted in scandal.

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.

NORFOLK (VA)
News Channel 3

July 15, 2019

By Julia Varnier

The former pastor of Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church has been suspended of ‘priestly faculties’ after complaints were made against him that went against the Diocese’s Code of Conduct with Minors.

In December 2018, Joseph H. Metzger III took a leave of absence amid non-sexual complaints against him, Richmond Diocese Bishop Barry Knestout wrote in a letter to members of the parish.

On July 5, another complaint was sent to the Diocesan Office of Safe Environment regarding a recent violation of the Diocese’s Code of Conduct with Minors.

While the complaint does not involve an accusation of sexual abuse, in accordance with diocesan policy and practice, the complaint was reported to law enforcement.

After an investigation conducted by the Office of Safe Environment and consultation with the Diocesan Review Board, Bishop Barry Knestout met with Metzger and suspended his priestly faculties.

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.

GAYLORD (MI)
Herald Times

July 15, 2019

By Arielle Breen

The Gaylord Grace Baptist Church founding pastor is eaving after 33 years in the region’s ministry.

An announcement on the church’s website shows Jon Jenkins resigned as pastor of Grace Baptist Church July 7 to take a position as pastor at a North Carolina Baptist church.

“As the founder and visionary of Grace, Pastor Jenkins’ leadership has guided our church family through storms, trials, challenges, deaths and hardships — but also through prosperity, new life, expansions and a level of growth rarely seen in such a rural area,” reads part of the church’s announcement.

This move comes after months of attention over accusations and criminal sexual conduct cases that have surfaced with ties to the church and its school dating back about 17 years.

In a previous Herald Times story, Jenkins commented on instances of abuse or alleged abuse involving former teachers. Jenkins said he had reported two of the school’s former teachers to police for sexual abuse of students years ago.

Jenkins said he reported former teacher Aaron Willand to Michigan State Police, and later, another former teacher to the Otsego County Sheriff’s Department.

Willand was convicted in Washington state of raping a child and child molestation in 2006. The survivor, now an adult, is also seeking charges in Otsego County for abuse she said also occurred in Michigan. Willand has not been charged in Michigan.

Jenkins said he also reported former teacher David Beckner to the Otsego County Sheriff’s Department in 2011. Eight criminal sexual conduct charges have been officially filed by Otsego County courts against Beckner. The case was bound over to Otsego County’s 46th Circuit Court Thursday.

The sheriff’s department showed no records of Grace Baptist reporting either former teacher to police.

Herald Times’ Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for Michigan State Police reports filed by Grace Baptist show no police reports filed by Grace Baptist with any references to Aaron Willand or David Beckner.

Clark Martin, a former congregation member and volunteer bus driver, was convicted of criminal sexual conduct against a former Grace Baptist student in 2002 and 2003. According to Otsego County court records from that case, Martin had also molested another youth, a 12-year-old boy, in St. Clair County in 1966.

Martin also pleaded guilty in May to criminal sexual conduct charges for allegedly molesting a teen boy in 1991 and 1992.

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

Verdict Justia blog

July 15, 2019

By Marci Hamilton

Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking scheme that entrapped dozens of teenage girls is disgusting. But let’s be honest: this is just another example of a poisoned culture that protects adults over child well-being. This isn’t news—it’s a call to action against a toxic culture for children.

One person alone could not have accomplished the full scope of Epstein’s scheme. You need help to successfully abuse dozens and hundreds of children, and everyone needs to pitch in to make it a success.

Epstein had it all.

First, he worked with people who looked the other way. When his career started, Epstein taught at the highly regarded Dalton School, where he left strong clues that there is something not quite right about the way he deals with girls. He later had employees cooperate by scheduling victims to be when and where he wanted them, according to the federal indictment recently unsealed in New York.

Second, he had willing pilots for a plane dubbed the “Lolita Express.” I guess they never read the book?

Third, he had powerful buddies to partake in his jetset, party lifestyle in Palm Beach, New York, a private Caribbean island, and his other homes. It is simply a fact that Presidents (Trump and Clinton), were in the mix along with Britain’s Prince Andrew, former Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, and many others. Even when people knew he was a registered sex offender, following his release from prison, he was welcomed back to high society with open arms, and that includes women as well as men, conservatives and liberals alike. Even journalists accepted his hospitality like Katie Couric and George Stephanopoulos, and universities eagerly welcomed his philanthropy. Yet, it appears that no one sought out his victims to unravel this story until Miami Herald investigative reporter Julie Brown doggedly pursued it.

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

NEW YORK (NY)
New York Post

July 15, 2019

By Allie Griffin and Natalie O’Neill

A lawyer representing childhood victims of alleged sex abuse on Monday demanded the Archdioceses of New York release “secret files” on “predator priests” — before a one-year statute of limitations rule expires.

“We’re launching a petition today to demand that the Church of New York, all the Catholic Dioceses, release their secret files that contain important information on predator priests,” said Jeff Herman, an attorney representing the victims in a class action lawsuit against the archdiocese.

In the yet-to-be released documents, more than 500 priests have been identified as child abusers, Herman said.

“That’s the tip of the iceberg,” he proclaimed. “There’s probably over a thousand priests there may be files on.”

It’s important that the archdioceses move swiftly in releasing the files due to the New York Child Victims Act, which recently created a one-year window allowing victims of sex abuse to file civil suits without dealing with state statute of limitations rules.

“It’s important so that they can evaluate and learn whether or not they can file claims and finally seek justice under this new law,” he said.

In April, the Archdiocese of New York released a list of 120 clergy who it said have been “credibly accused” of sexually abusing a minor.

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.

WHEELING (WV)
The Intelligencer.net

July 12, 2019

By Alan Olson

Following an open letter to Archbishop William Lori and the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, a group of Catholics have declared their intent to withhold funds to the diocese after failing to receive a measured response.

The letter can be found here: Catholic-Response

Last month, Lay Catholic Voices for Change, an organization comprised of Catholics from north-central West Virginia, sent an open letter to Lori addressing what they saw as numerous issues with the structure of the church, as well as their proposed solutions and a call for increased parishioner participation in clerical matters. The letter requested a response by June 28, which did not come.

The letter and its demands came following an investigation into former bishop Michael Bransfield that found excessive spending and credible claims of sexual harassment against adults.

“We set forth in our June 12 letter a variety of remedial actions you and the Diocese could take to repair the trust that has been breached. We wrote to you in good faith,” the organization stated in a follow-up letter dated Tuesday.

“You chose to ignore our letter – in much the same way you and other church leaders ignored or discounted the laity, clergy, and religious who, over the years, cried out for help in ridding ourselves of Michael Bransfield and in much the same way you and other church leaders ignored or discounted the repeated press reports of Michael Bransfield’s improper behavior. … You apparently have so little respect for lay people, you chose not to issue even a pro forma response to our letter. You simply ignored us.”

In response to the silence, LCVC has asked parishioners to participate in a campaign to boycott donations to the diocese, by withholding donations to collections at church; instead, the boycott calls for parishioners to place white envelopes, with their names and the statement “Not a Dime to the Diocese” in the collection basket.

“LCVC is not encouraging withholding of donations to local parishes,” a press release states. “However, parishioners who are concerned about the percentage of the general donation that goes to the Diocese may “earmark” donations toward specific uses in their parishes.”

The boycott is to take place during weekends between July 20 and Aug. 4, with the hope that the diocese commissions a complete, independent audit of the diocese’s finances, one of the goals outlined in LCVC’s open letter.

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.

HAGATNA (GUAM)
Pacific Daily News

July 15, 2019

By Haidee Eugenio Gilbert

A lawsuit filed on Monday alleges that Father Louis Brouillard, in or about 1974 to 1975, sexually abused and raped a Barrigada girl and told her she’s going to heaven for being a “good girl.”

The plaintiff, now 55 years old, is identified in federal court documents only by the initials E.A.B. to protect her privacy.

After raping the girl at the Barrigada church’s back room, the priest told her “she will never go to hell because she is a good girl and that the devil will never take (her) because she was with a priest and that he will keep the devil away,” the lawsuit says.

Brouillard went on to sexually abuse the girl for about two years, including during outings of the Boy Scouts of America at Lonfit River with other boys and girls, the lawsuit says.

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

LOS ANGELES ( CA)
Los Angeles Times

July 15, 2019

By Leila Miller

Growing up, Sandra Martinez’s world revolved around La Luz del Mundo church. She shoveled dirt as a teenager to help build a new church in Houston.

Years later, when the church asked congregants to help support their missionaries, Martinez said she and her husband donated the deed to their house and moved into an apartment.

After Martinez, now 37, left the church, she was able to preserve her relationship with her mother, a current member. But that changed in early June, when Naason Joaquin Garcia, the head of the church, known to followers as “the apostle” of Jesus Christ, was arrested and charged with multiple counts of sexual abuse.

Mother and daughter exchanged a heated, long string of texts. They haven’t spoken since. Her mother, who would usually visit Martinez and her children every month, has not come by.

As the church aggressively backs Garcia, former parishioners are quietly wrestling with the news of his arrest. The more than a dozen former members The Times spoke to cited a variety of reasons for leaving a church that had once been so central to their lives, including potential backlash for dating outside of their faith and feeling unaccepted because they were gay. Some said they simply no longer believed in the apostle.

Like Martinez, some former church members have found a sense of community in a Reddit group with more than 800 members, where individuals anonymously discuss developments in a criminal case that has repercussions ranging from Mexico — where La Luz del Mundo was founded — to dozens of countries around the world.

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

CHICAGO (IL)
Associated Press

July 14, 2019

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago has removed a priest from pastoral duties in the wake of allegations of sexual abuse that took place two decades ago.

In a Saturday letter to members of two South Side parishes, Cardinal Blase Cupich says the Rev. William McFarlane was asked to step aside from ministry after the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and the Cook County state’s attorney’s office revealed the allegation.

McFarlane formerly worked at the Nativity of Our Lord and St. Gabriel Parish. The archdiocese says Deacon Robert Boharic has been appointed as pastoral coordinator at the parishes.

The archdiocese said it wasn’t known if the person accusing McFarlane was a minor at the time of the alleged abuse in 1997.

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.

SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA)
Australian Broadcasting Company

July 15, 2019

By Alan Weedon

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, running from 2013 to 2017, found that 7 per cent of all Australian priests — or 1,880 alleged perpetrators — were accused of child sexual abuse between 1950 and 2010.

It determined that the Australian Church was responsible for “catastrophic failures of leadership” over decades, where civil authorities were actively kept away from numerous allegations of abuse in parishes around the country.

For survivors of child sexual abuse, reading the details of crimes can provoke a wide range of emotions. We spoke to experts about how to deal with triggering, traumatic news.

In March 2019, one of the Vatican’s highest-ranked officials, Cardinal George Pell, was prosecuted for the sexual abuse of two choirboys, which seemed to mark an apex in Australia’s civil reckoning of the clergy’s crimes.

However, for Frédéric Martel, a French journalist and author, the prosecution of Pell is just the tip of a global iceberg.

“When I was in Australia some people asked, ‘Is the world speaking about Pell?’, and I said no,” Martel told the ABC.

“Pell is one symptom among many others.”

Earlier this year, Martel released In the Closet of the Vatican: Power, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy, a book that maps the presence of homosexuality within the Catholic Church’s patriarchal hierarchy.

While it speculates that about 80 per cent of clergy are homosexual — who may or may not act on their desires — the process of writing the book put Martel up against some of the clergy’s most egregious crimes.

When he looked into the Latin American Church’s late-20th century history, a picture of regional fiefdoms quickly emerged, with Mexico’s Marcial Maciel telling one of the Church’s darkest stories.

Maciel was the founder of the Legionaries of Christ order in 1941 — a group praised by Pope John Paul II for bringing in a record number of seminarians and money into Church coffers.

But by the end of century, Maciel would be accused of numerous instances of sexual abuse against children and his seminarians that stretched over decades.

By 2010, the Legionaries acknowledged that he had fathered a child with a long-term partner.

In the weeks after the official disclosure, a Mexican attorney alleged that Maciel fathered up to six children, after being asked to litigate on behalf of three of them.

Theology professor and Church historian Massimo Faggioli, who has written extensively about the Church’s sexual abuse crisis, told the ABC that cases like Maciel’s were the product of a time when the protection and growth of the Catholic brand was paramount.

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.

EL PASO (TX)
KFOX14/CBS4

July 15, 2019

By Holly Bock

The Miguel Luna case dates back to the 1990s, while he was an active priest. He is accused of sexually assaulting young girls for several years.

During Friday’s testimony, Luna admitted to fathering a child with a prostitute in Juarez around the same time. Luna says he took money from a church in El Paso to buy groceries for that child and the mother.

One of his alleged victims testified Luna got her pregnant and that she had a miscarriage. She said it started when she was 11 and lasted until she was 17. A second woman claims Luna got her pregnant and that she had an abortion.

Another big moment of the trial so far was when Bishop Mark Seitz of the Catholic Diocese of El Paso was questioned about a phone conversation with Luna.

Seitz showed the courtroom a written statement that he wrote during their phone call in 2017.

The bishop wrote that Luna accused him of having no mercy and ruining his life.

Seitz said Luna insisted that if he were to make this sexual abuse public, it would bring out false accusers, saying there were no other victims.

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

Patheos blog

July 13, 2019

By Mary Paluzzo

I’ve had to walk by the former House of Prayer and Peace several times this summer. It’s on the way to the pool, and Rosie is learning to swim.

I try to walk on the opposite side of the street, because the abusive nun’s only recruit to her self-aggrandizing religious order still lives there. She is not allowed to wear the habit or go by her name in religion anymore, but somehow she got to keep the house.

I have seen her twice.

She wears trousers and has long hair now; she drives a car tiled all over with decals and bumper stickers. Half of these glorify handguns and the Second Amendment, and the other half are about how we should pray the Rosary to end abortion and stop all the killing. Once she was getting out of that car as Rosie and I were walking by, and she started to say hello– but then she realized who I was, and stopped awkwardly.

I pretended I didn’t see and kept walking. I shouldn’t have done that. It wasn’t kind. I ought to have said something. But what?

I have not been up to Franciscan University’s campus in several years, but this week I keep seeing photos of the Portiuncula chapel.

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.

BOSTON (MA)
Fox 25 TV

July 14, 2019

The Xaverian Brothers, a Catholic order, has named 34 men accused of sexually abusing children at their high schools dating back to the 1930s. The allegations listed span the course of 50 years, with the most recent ones coming in the 1980s.

The Catholic group operates 13 schools, including five in Massachusetts. Of the men accused at least a dozen are associated with St. John’s Preparatory school in Danvers and five with Xavierian Brothers High School in Westwood.

Others worked at Malden Catholic and St. John’s High School in Shrewsbury.

The Xaverian Brothers have also issued an apology and are asking for forgiveness for failing to protect the victims.

To view the written apology and see the list of credible allegations, click here.

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

AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

July 15, 2019

By Farrah Tomazin and Chris Vedelago

The viability of the Christian Brothers is in doubt as the religious order is forced to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to settle an avalanche of compensation claims stemming from decades of child abuse.

The Age can reveal the Christian Brothers’ Australian wing has already spent more than $213 million on victims’ payouts and legal expenses in the past six years, with the order expecting to outlay at least another $134 million in the future.

But as survivors continue to seek compensation under the National Redress Scheme, the Catholic order is relying on massive injections of cash from its regional headquarters to pay out people who were abused in its schools and orphanages.

Figures show that the Christian Brothers spent only $3.6 million on “legal and litigation expenses” in 2013, the year the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was established.

But this cost ballooned to $134 million in 2018 – nearly nine times what the group’s officials estimated it would be liable to pay for that year.

Despite the blowout, the order insists it will be able to meet its commitments to survivors through the continued “responsible management of our finances”.

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

RICHMOND (VA)
The Catholic Virginian

July 14, 2019

The Diocese of Richmond added six priests to its list of clergy with credible and substantiated claims of child sexual abuse, Thursday, June 27.

In a statement released simultaneously with the six names, Bishop Barry C. Knestout said, “As we continue to engage with survivors of abuse and learn more about the history of our diocese, we continue our commitment to transparency. It is my sincere hope that the additions of these individuals will help provide healing for anyone who suffered at their hands.”

These are the priests, their affiliation and status:

• Stanley F. Banaszek, Maryknoll, deceased

• Anthony M. Canu, Third Order Regular Franciscan, deceased

• Patrick J. Cassidy, diocesan, deceased

• Leonardo G. Mateo, extern, Archdiocese of Tagbilaran (Philippines), deceased

• Thomas D. Sykes, Franciscan Friar of Atonement, deceased

• Vincent The Quang Nguyen, extern, Archdiocese of Saigon, Vietnam, unknown

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

PHOENIX (AZ)
Channel 12 News

July 13, 2019

Kat Durnil allegedly vandalized Mesa Central Christian Church by adhering flyers demanding the church apologize for reportedly covering up sexual abuse allegations.

A woman was arrested last week for allegedly vandalizing a Mesa church by adhering flyers that demanded the church apologize for reportedly covering up sexual abuse allegations.

Kat Durnil was arrested on July 10 on one count of aggravated criminal damage at a place of worship after she allegedly vandalized Mesa Central Christian Church the morning prior.

According to court documents, Durnil and her husband allegedly placed red flyers on the poles in the church’s main courtyard, using a substance sprayed from a paint can to adhere them.

Durnil allegedly sprayed the substance and placed the flyers on the poles, the court documents alleged. She is accused of defacing six poles on the church’s campus.

Church officials attempted to remove the flyers when they arrived on campus around 6 a.m. that morning, but “due to the adhesive used…it was impossible for anyone to remove them by hand.”

The church reportedly had to hire a company to remove the flyers, which caused paint damage to the poles, so another company had to come and paint all of them.

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

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Associated Press

July 12, 2019

The Latest on child sexual abuse charges against a man who founded and ran a Kenyan orphanage (all times local):

4:30 p.m.

An American man accused of sexually abusing four girls who lived in the Kenyan orphanage that he founded will remain behind bars, at least for the next few days.

A federal judge in Philadelphia on Friday ordered 60-year-old Gregory Dow, of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, temporarily detained until a hearing Wednesday on his status.

Federal prosecutors say Dow is a flight risk, noting he left Kenya in 2017, just as police were investigating sex abuse allegations at the Dow Family Children’s Home in Boito.

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

NEW DELHI (INDIA)
Associated Press

July 12, 2019

The Indian government has toughened a law against child sexual abuse and child pornography.

The law amended this week has increased the maximum penalty for child sex abuse to capital punishment from 20 years in prison.

The government also defined child pornography for the first time and made the penalties more stringent, with a maximum punishment up to three years in prison.

The amendments prohibit administering hormones or chemical therapies to children to hasten their sexual maturity for the purpose of sexual intercourse. The updated law clarifies that children are protected from sex abuse even during natural disasters.

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.

CHICAGO (IL)
Associated Press via WGN-TV

July 14, 2019

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago has removed a priest from pastoral duties in the wake of allegations of sexual abuse that took place two decades ago.

In a Saturday letter to members of two South Side parishes, Cardinal Blase Cupich says the Rev. William McFarlane was asked to step aside from ministry after the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and the Cook County state’s attorney’s office revealed the allegation.

McFarlane formerly worked at the Nativity of Our Lord and St. Gabriel Parish. The archdiocese says Deacon Robert Boharic has been appointed as pastoral coordinator at the parishes.

The archdiocese said it wasn’t known if the person accusing McFarlane was a minor at the time of the alleged abuse in 1997.

Attempts Sunday to reach McFarlane by telephone for comment were unsuccessful.

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
Christian Post

July 14, 2019

By Randal Rauser

In his 2017 book Why We’re Catholic, Catholic apologist Trent Horn aims to provide a clear, concise, and winsome introduction to the Catholic faith. The book consists of twenty-five short and punchy chapters divided into five sections: truth and God, Jesus and the Bible, The Church and the Sacraments, Saints and Sinners, and Morality and Destiny.

I count Trent a friend and a joint laborer in the cause of Christian apologetics. And as I’ve said before, he is in the very top tier of young Christian apologists. At the same time, I am not a Catholic, so you can expect this review to identify some number of disagreements.

Let’s begin with the points of agreement. As I just said, Horn is a top tier apologist and that means he’s a top tier communicator, one who can dispense with errant arguments and misguided reasoning with a quick and memorable rejoinder. Consider, for example, the tired attempt to marginalize Christian belief with the statement “You’re only a Christian because you were born in a Christian country” (or whatever). Horn retorts,

“If I had been born in India, wouldn’t I be writing a book called Why We’re Hindu instead of Why We’re Catholic? Maybe, but if I had been born in ancient China I might have written a book called Why We Believe the Earth Is Flat.”

In other words, if social location marginalizes our beliefs about God, it also marginalizes our beliefs about nature … and everything else. In this way, Horn handily takes down the objector with a reductio ad absurdum.

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.

PORTLAND (ME)
Portland Press-Herald

July 14, 2019

By the Editorial Board

It’s not willful blindness that keeps sexual abuse victims from speaking up, and Judge Lance Walker should know better.

It’s been 16 years since The Boston Globe exposed widespread sexual abuse and a culture of coverup within the Roman Catholic Church. Since then, sex assault scandals involving the U.S. military, universities, Hollywood, Congress and a wide array of businesses have reinforced the same two points:

Sexual predators take advantage of people who are less powerful than they are. And they hide in organizations that want to protect their own reputations.

A victim’s relatively low social status, combined with a reasonable expectation of backlash from a threatened institution, makes it difficult for them to tell their story, especially if they are children or were children at the time of their abuse.

It’s not only easy to understand why many child sex abuse victims don’t come forward right away, it but should almost be expected that they won’t, which is why many states including Maine have eliminated the statute of limitations for criminal charges of sexual abuse of a child. By now everyone should know this, but unfortunately, that’s not the case.

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.

SANTIAGO (CHILE)
Catholic News Agency

July 13, 2019

Chile has removed the statute of limitation on sex crimes against children and adolescents, though the new law is not retroactive. The move comes in the wake of major controversies about abusive Catholic clergy and attempts at reform in the Catholic Church in Chile.

“Beginning today, the passing of time will never more be an accomplice to those who abuse our children, nor an ally of impunity,” said Chile’s President Sebastian Pinera, a center-right politician who signed the bill into law July 11.

The bill was first proposed in 2010, Reuters reports. Going forward, there will be no statute of limitations on rape, sexual abuse, production of pornographic materials and prostitution where children and adolescents are the victims.

Depending on the crime, previous limitations on prosecution ranged from five to 10 years after the alleged incident.

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.

ALBUQUERQUE (NM)
Albuquerque Journal

July 13, 2019

By Kent Walz

Brad Hall and his legal team doggedly pursued notorious child sex abuser Fr. Arthur Perrault.

Hall’s work helped spur the FBI to investigate decades-old allegations and bring Perrault back to the United States from Africa last fall to face federal criminal charges.

The 81-year-old former pastor of St. Bernadette Parish in Albuquerque was convicted in April of sexually assaulting a parish altar boy on federal property in New Mexico in the early 1990s. A federal court jury found the assaults occurred at the Santa Fe National Cemetery and Kirtland Air Force Base – where Perrault served as a military chaplain.

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.

ALBUQUERQUE (NM)
Albuquerque Journal

July 13, 2019

By Kent Walz

Editor’s note: Albuquerque attorney Brad Hall has represented more than 200 victims of priest sex abuse in New Mexico. As his years-long legal battle nears its conclusion in federal bankruptcy proceedings, Hall talked about the legal and emotional journey that began with an unlikely visit.

Brad Hall was thinking about hanging it up after more than two decades as a successful plaintiff’s lawyer specializing in civil rights cases. Maybe travel. Visit his kids living in exotic locations. Maybe do some writing.

That all changed in 2011 when a former basketball teammate from a county league team in the 1980s walked into his office.

“I hadn’t seen him in 20 years. But in the next three or four hours he told me how as an altar boy he had been sexually assaulted by Fr. George Weisenborn at Saint Francis Xavier in Albuquerque.”

Just telling the story was a gut-wrenching experience for his former teammate.

“Afterward, I watched him go out the door and head towards his car,” Hall said. “He fell to his hands and knees on the sidewalk and vomited.”

It turned out to be Hall’s first case of many representing victims of sexual assault by Roman Catholic priests and clergy in New Mexico. His thoughts of retirement and travel were pushed to the background.

The Archdiocese in Providence, Rhode Island, had sent Weisenborn to the Servants of the Paraclete treatment center in Jemez Springs in 1964.

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.

HUNTINGTON (WEST VIRGINIA)
Herald-Dispatch

July 14, 2019

One of the responsibilities of a columnist is to bell the cat (to borrow a phrase).

But belling some “cats” is unpopular and can get criticism.

One of those “cats” is the church. Even if you aren’t a church member, you shy away from criticizing churches, particular Christian churches in all its forms.

A Baptist church pastor in Alabama was arrested recently, just days after after he’d molested at least one young boy from his church.

John Martin, the pastor of Lighthouse Baptist Church, confessed to four counts of sexual abuse. He was arrested on felony sex abuse charges about a week ago, after members of his church reported him to authorities.

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

AUSTRALIA
ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

July 13, 2019

By Alan Weedon

Key points:
– Egregious crimes were perpetrated by some Catholic leaders in Latin America
– This happened during the Cold War, a period where the Church was fighting Communism
– Vatican factional fighting has stymied responses to the crimes of clergy

Over the past few years, Australians have been largely pre-occupied with revelations of decades of misconduct by the country’s Catholic Church.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, running from 2013 to 2017, found that 7 per cent of all Australian priests — or 1,880 alleged perpetrators — were accused of child sexual abuse between 1950 and 2010.

It determined that the Australian Church was responsible for “catastrophic failures of leadership” over decades, where civil authorities were actively kept away from numerous allegations of abuse in parishes around the country.

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.

BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

July 12, 2019

By Robert Weisman

It’s lunch hour at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and the cafe is full of patients and white-coated staffers. At a corner table, Dr. James Muller huddles with junior colleagues discussing a peril that has long preoccupied him: the threat of nuclear war.

“We haven’t yet got the message out to the public,” said Muller, 76, a prominent cardiologist. “It’s a mystery why the presidential candidates are largely silent on this.”

As a young doctor, Muller pressed heads of state to halt weapons-building and spelled out the danger of nuclear arms on Soviet television. He cofounded the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War at the height of the Cold War. Its work earned him and his colleagues — American and Russian heart specialists — the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize for fueling “an awareness of the catastrophic consequences of atomic warfare,” in the words of the Nobel panel. …

… When playing guitar and bantering with neighbors at the recent Newton Porchfest, the soft-spoken Muller seems like a man who would be content to spend his afternoons belting out Beatles songs on his porch with his wife, Kathleen, and their grown children. But he has long been drawn to social justice issues. He was founding president of Voice of the Faithful, the Catholic laity reform movement spawned by the clergy abuse crisis, after years of sounding the alarm on nuclear weapons. …

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.

BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

July 12, 2019

By Renée Graham

Serial sexual abuse takes more than a predilection for predation. It requires enablers, too — both explicit and implicit.

According to published reports, Jeffrey Epstein, a man of seemingly vast and certainly mysterious wealth, had associates who helped recruit teenage girls into his lair of trafficking and sexual assault. He also had friends who knew Epstein was a registered sex offender and accused pedophile, but treated the allegations as little more than a nasty habit best ignored.

In the toniest circles of Manhattan and Palm Beach, the rich and famous flocked to his lavish homes for parties, flew on his planes, and went scuba diving off the coast of his private Caribbean islands. Befriended by former and future presidents, Epstein made contributions to politicians, and burnished his reputation as a philanthropist with major donations to top-notch universities, including Harvard and MIT.

Everyone knew. And except for Julie K. Brown, the intrepid Miami Herald reporter who pursued the Epstein story for two years, few gave a damn.

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.

BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

July 13, 2019

By Danny McDonald and Alison Kuznitz

The Xaverian Brothers, a Roman Catholic religious order that operates five high schools in Massachusetts, has identified 34 men found to be credibly accused of sexually abusing minors dating back to the early 20th century.

At least a dozen of those named were associated with St. John’s Preparatory School in Danvers and at least five men worked at Xaverian Brothers High School in Westwood. Others taught at Malden Catholic High School and St. John’s High School in Shrewsbury, according to the list.

The Baltimore-based congregation, which operates 13 schools in five states, said the list released Friday was compiled by an independent investigator who reviewed personnel files for the brothers accused of sexual abuse since the early 1900s.

The names were published on its website, along with a letter from Superior General Brother Edward Driscoll apologizing for the actions of the brothers, many of whom are deceased.

“As religious, the Xaverian Brothers are deeply sorry for the pain caused by the crime of sexual abuse of minors committed by any Xaverian Brother,” Driscoll wrote. “We regret not being worthy of the trust of young people. We must confess and repent as we ask forgiveness for the actions of ‘shepherds’ who betrayed this sacred trust and inflicted great suffering.”

The headmasters of Malden Catholic, St. John’s Prep, St. John’s High School, and Xaverian Brothers High School also sent letters to students and alumni on Friday, identifying the brothers named who once taught at their institutions, and outlining steps taken to protect students now enrolled.

At St. John’s Prep, the brothers accused were associated with the school between 1922 and 1978. Ten of the 12 are dead. One, George Gardiner, has left the order and is still alive, and another, Thomas Morrissey, is currently a Xaverian Brother who is on a “safety plan,” according to a letter Headmaster Edward P. Hardiman sent to the school’s community.

Morrissey, known as Brother Gabriel, was associated with the school between 1965 and 1967, and the allegations of abuse are related to his time there, as well as his time working at Xaverian in Westwood, where he was from 1967 to 1979. He also had two different stints at St. John’s High School in Shrewsbury.

According to the letter to the St. John’s Prep community, “any living Brother with a credible allegation of sexual abuse of a minor has been removed from ministry and lives under a closely monitored safety plan.”

Allegations made against half of the 12 men who had ties to St. John’s Prep were connected to their stints at the school, which was founded by the order in 1907.

That group included William Burns, who was known as Brother Francis Jerome and worked at the Danvers school in the early 1930s, the early 1950s, and the early 1960s. Burns was also assigned to Malden Catholic during the 1930s and from 1968 to 1974, Xaverian Brothers High School in Westwood in 1966, and St. John’s High School in Shrewsbury the following year, according to the order.

Also in the group were John Sullivan, who was known as Brother John Augustine and was at St. John’s Prep from 1937 to 1938, Albert Kerressey, who was known as Brother Ricardo and served at the school in the mid-1940s and from 1956 to 1971, Thomas Harrison, who was known as Brother Bosco and served at the school for seven years starting in 1949, Thomas Holihan, who was known as Brother Rudolph and was at the school for more than 40 years starting in 1940; and Morrissey.

With the exception of Morrissey, all of those men are dead, according to the school. Harrison left the Xaverian Brothers before he died.

In Shrewsbury, at St. John’s High School, five of the six accused brothers are dead, with their assignments spanning from 1907 to 1998, according to a letter sent from Headmaster Alex Zequeira, and Christopher Creed, chairman of the school’s trustees.

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.

FARGO (NORTH DAKOTA)
Associated Press

July 11, 2019

By Dave Kolpack

[PHOTO: Kateri Marion, right, appears at a news conference in Fargo, N.D. on Thursday, July 11, 2019, to talk about a civil lawsuit that she plans to file against a former North Dakota Roman Catholic priest and other church officials over alleged sexual abuse. Marion says she came forward publicly to help other alleged victims and give them strength to talk about it. The 33-year-old Marion says the church “was my everything” and she was scared to come forward. One of her lawyers, Tim O’Keefee. is seated to her right. (AP Photo/Dave Kolpack)]

A woman who says she was sexually abused by a Roman Catholic priest in North Dakota said Thursday she is suing the priest for the alleged assault and the Fargo Diocese for failing to protect her.

Kateri Marion choked back tears at a news conference in Fargo Thursday describing the alleged abuse by the Rev. Michael Wight of St. Ann’s Catholic Church in Belcourt, located on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation in northeastern North Dakota. She said Wight tried to touch her sexually during confession, tried to massage her back by reaching his hands under her shirt, and gave her a hug when he was sexually aroused.

The Associated Press does not typically identify alleged victims of sexual abuse, but Marion said she hoped that making her case public will help “everyone who has ever been abused in the church and whoever will be abused in the church” and asked them to come forward.

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.

WASHINGTON D.C
Catholic News Service via National Catholic Reporter

July 12, 2019.

By Rhina Guidos

A recent newspaper report details claims that senior church leaders in the United States knew as far back as 2012 about complaints against a West Virginia bishop whose spending habits and recent accusations of sexual misconduct have dogged the body of U.S. bishops at a time when they’re seeking a path toward greater accountability for themselves.

A July 3 story in The Washington Post said U.S. and Vatican officials had for years received correspondence from parishioners and others concerned with excessive spending by Bishop Michael Bransfield, the former head of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston in West Virginia, one of the poorest states in the country.

In total, the newspaper story said, Bransfield spent more than $4.6 million on the bishop’s residence, $2.4 million on travel and $350,000 on financial gifts to other churchmen, including some who later investigated him.

The local paper, the Charleston Gazette-Mail, had written stories about the complaints of lavish spending, including one published six years ago on July 7, 2013.

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

PHOENIX (AZ)
Arizona Republic

July 13, 2019

By Claire Rafford

Monsignor Michael O’Grady, a longtime priest in the Diocese of Phoenix, died in his sleep Saturday at his home in Ireland, according to Rob DeFrancesco, a Diocese of Phoenix spokesman. O’Grady was 85.

The diocese said O’Grady was “a humble and generous priest who always had a heart for those in need.”

“His great humor, demeanor, and holiness will be greatly missed,” DeFrancesco said in a statement. …

… O’Grady, however, was accused of covering up for a fellow priest during the diocese’s sex-abuse scandal. He was accused by at least one victim and his family of failing to act when told that the Rev. Patrick Colleary, an associate at Holy Spirit, was suspected of molesting the child in the late 1970s. The diocese reached a settlement with the victim in 2005.

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

ROME (ITALY)
Crux

July 14, 2019

John L. Allen Jr.

Christianity, of course, is founded on the discovery of an empty tomb. Perhaps it’s only fitting, therefore, that Christ’s vicar on earth now has his own “empty tomb” ferment on his hands.

This one, however, almost certainly isn’t a prelude to resurrection, but rather to yet another of what the Italians call a giallo, meaning a mystery story that acts as a magnet for speculation and conspiracy theories.

This Thursday, technicians opened a tomb in a German cemetery on Vatican grounds known as the Campo Teutonico in an effort to locate the remains of Emanuela Orlandi, a 15-year-old girl and daughter of a Vatican employee when she disappeared in 1983, whose fate has been the most enduring giallo in Italian life over the last 35 years. The opening occurred in the presence of members of Orlandi’s family and legal team, the head of the Vatican Gendarmes, and descendants of the supposed occupants of the tombs.

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

LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Sunday Times

July 14, 2019

By Justine McCarthy

A Catholic priest has said he does not believe babies were buried in sewage chambers at a Tuam mother and baby home run by nuns, even though a state inquiry has ordered an excavation to verify the existence of a mass grave.

“From the word go, I didn’t believe the story,” said Gerry Young, a curate in Greystones, Co Wicklow.

“I happened to have done a bit of study on how the church buried people. As soon as I heard this story about all these little bodies wrapped up on shelves, I thought, ‘Catacombs.’ We’ve always kept the dead with us.”

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.

WASHINGTON (DC)
WJLA TV

July 12, 2019

By Jay Korff

Survivors and experts who work in the field of child sex abuse will tell you there are many reasons why it’s difficult for some to report priest sex abuse. Denial, fear and shame are just a few of the reasons. So, we asked survivors and experts on this subject why sex abuse is so often unreported or reported decades after occurring.

“I always blamed myself,” Becky Ianni says. “I was taught that he was sent by God so therefore God is punishing me. I must be a bad little girl. There must be something that I’ve done and I carried that through adulthood always thinking that I wasn’t a good person. That somehow, even though I did not remember my abuse until I was 48, that feeling of inadequacy was with me my entire life.”

Becky Ianni says Father William Reinecke sexually abused her for years when she went to St. Mary Catholic Church in Alexandria, Virginia.

“I knew that God could read my thoughts and I thought if he knows that this is happening then I’m going to hell so I just buried it until I came across this picture. I was looking through old pictures and I found this picture of myself with him and I started getting sick at my stomach, I started having anxiety attacks and a few days later I started having flashbacks to the abuse,” says Ianni.

The Diocese of Richmond and Arlington spent months deciding who would handle Ianni’s case since her abuser worked for both.

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)
Associated Press

July 13, 2019

By Jennifer McDermott

Rhode Island’s attorney general said Friday that it will be several more months before he is finished reviewing allegations of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clergy in the state.

Democrat Peter Neronha said he continues to review allegations of clergy sexual abuse to figure out what happened, what the response was and whether anyone can be held responsible.

Last week, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence released a list of 50 clerics, religious order priests and deacons it deems to have been credibly accused of sexually abusing children. The diocese reviewed files dating to 1950.

The list posted on the diocese website includes 19 priests and deacons who are still alive, ranging in age from 60 to 98, although nearly all have been removed from ministry. One priest resigned. The list also includes 25 dead priests and six others, including religious order priests.

Rhode Island is one of the most heavily Catholic states. Bishop Thomas Tobin, in a letter accompanying the list, called its release “a difficult but necessary moment” in the history of the church.

Neronha, who launched his review shortly after taking office this year, said the diocese’s list is a subset of the allegations. He’s looking at all allegations, not just those deemed credible by the church, and reviewing disclosures made by the diocese to law enforcement, criminal and civil cases and complaints to police.

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 13, 2019

The abuse of children is not a political topic. People from every party or political leaning can agree that children should be safe, protected, and allowed to live their lives free of abuse and the negative, lifelong effects that can come with it. This is an American value, not a Democratic or Republican one.

Yet the situation that many children now find themselves in at our southern border is not in keeping with our American values. Many media articles have exposed how migrant children have suffered degradation, deprivation, and abuse while living in camps set up by our government at the U.S. border. The conditions these children live in, including being separated from their parents, removes needed protections and creates situations where children can be abused.

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

DENVER (CO)
Catholic News Agency

July 12, 2019

By Ed Condon

More than one year after the announcement of allegations of sexual abuse against former cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the Archdiocese of Washington has continued to refuse questions about McCarrick’s use of a personal charitable fund.

McCarrick funnelled hundreds of thousands of dollars through what was known as the Archbishop’s Fund, and reportedly made gifts to senior Vatican officials, even while the fund remained under the charitable auspices of the archdiocese.

Senior sources close to the Archdiocese of Washington have confirmed that archdiocesan records include the names of individuals, including senior Vatican figures, to whom McCarrick made payments from the fund.

But the Archdiocese of Washington has declined to disclose sources, sums, and uses of money, though it has acknowledged that the fund exists.

The archdiocese has also declined to comment on whether Archbishop Wilton Gregory will address accusations of financial misconduct by McCarrick, or publish the names of bishops who personally received gifts from the disgraced former archbishop.

The former cardinal’s reputation for gift-giving and participation in so-called “envelope culture” has come under renewed scrutiny following recent revelations concerning former Wheeling-Charleston Bishop Michael Bransfield.

Like Bransfield, McCarrick has faced a string of allegations of sexual misconduct, dating back years, and his ability to offer large financial gifts to other bishops has come under scrutiny as a possible reason he was able to operate unchecked for so long.

Several sources, among them cardinals, officials of the Roman curia, and McCarrick’s former staff members, have told CNA about McCarrick’s habit of visiting Rome and distributing cash or personal checks to senior officials.

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.

CHATTANOOGA (TN)
Times Free Press

July 13, 2019

SNAP of Tennessee (the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) has launched a new initiative to raise awareness of clergy sexual abuse by having victims tell their stories at HopeChronicles.org. Anonymity is guaranteed unless the victim requests otherwise. The website RemembertheSurvivors.com also has information on the abuse crisis in Tennessee.

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.

EL PASO (TX)
KTSM TV

July 12, 2019

By Cesar Vazquez

On Friday, ex-priest Miguel Luna, 68, took the stand in his trial for 12 charges of sexual assault.

As KTSM previously reported, Luna is accused of sexually assaulting a young girl for “several years” throughout the 1990s.

During Friday’s testimony, Luna also admitted to fathering a prostitute’s child in that same time frame.

He was also asked if he knew about the allegations of him asking inappropriate questions to people when they were confessing to him.

Luna said that he was aware of the complaints, but said the questions were “in regards to the Ten Commandments.”

Luna admitted that he was no longer allowed to have teenagers confess to him in 2008.

Luna later said he was frustrated when he was assigned to maintain a library at a Maryland church. “I wasn’t doing what my vocation was,” 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.

GEELONG (AUSTRALIA)
Bay 93.9 FM

July 13, 2019

By Kristie Sullivan

A former Geelong man and repeat offender pedophile priest will be sentenced next week on more child sexual abuse charges.

Robert Claffey is already serving a minimum of 13 years and four months for sexually abusing 12 children as young as five, between 1969 and 1992 in Victoria’s south-west.

On Monday the 76-year-old old admitted he abused another two boys in Ballarat during the 1980s.

One of his victims told the County Court on Friday he had lost faith in the church.

The court is waiting to receive one more victim statement before Claffey is sentenced for his Ballarat crimes on Thursday.

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

LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Times

July 13, 2019

By Kaya Burgess

The Church of England should restore its powers to “defrock” rogue priests, a senior bishop has said, calling for the ability to strip criminal clerics of their holy orders.

The Bishop of Bath and Wells, the church’s lead bishop for safeguarding, was among a host of church leaders grilled by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) during its final week of hearings into the handling of abuse allegations by the church.

The inquiry published an initial report in May that found the church’s response to claims of sexual abuse had been “marked by secrecy, prevarication and avoidance of reporting alleged crimes”.

It heard from the Archbishop of Canterbury this week that he was “utterly horrified” by the church’s failures.

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

LOS ANGELES (CA)
Ms Magazine

July 9, 2019

by Greta Baxter

Jeffrey Epstein has been dominating the headlines this week after the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York arrested him on charges of child sex trafficking—but over a decade ago, the billionaire was accused, with overwhelming evidence, of similar crimes, and then-prosecutor Alexander Acosta pioneered a lenient plea deal that ended the case.

Acosta is now Secretary of Labor—and he’s facing calls from lawmakers and advocates to step down in the wake of the latest charges against Epstein.

Acosta’s original plea deal for Epstein was negotiated in 2008 without the knowledge of the survivors, illegally keeping them out of the prosecution process. Epstein ultimately served just 13 months in prison, in the private wing of the Palm Beach County jail, with access to amenities including the use of his private jet. In February, a federal judge ruled that prosecutors broke the law when arranging that plea deal.

Acosta, who was named Labor Secretary in 2017, is not the only member of the Trump administration with ties to Epstein. The president himself has praised the financier in the past, even noting that Epstein “likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

“Epstein plays by the same rule book as Donald Trump, Les Moonves, Harvey Weinstein, Eric Schneiderman and other powerful men who have been revealed as serial abusers of women,” NOW President Toni Van Pelt said in December. “Epstein’s scant 13-month stay in a county jail—where he was even allowed to spend twelve hours a day, six days a week, at his office, was made possible by a culture of powerful men, enabling each other, while dismissing, excusing or demeaning the women and children they brutalize with physical and sexual violence.”

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.

SOUTH YORKSHORE (ENGLAND)
South Yorkshire Times

July 11, 2019

By Lee Peace

The Rev Matthew Ineson, who was ordained in 2000 and practised as a vicar in Rotherham for more than 10 years, criticised the archbishops as he gave evidence to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse investigation into the Anglican Church.

He called for changes to the way the church investigates safeguarding issues and complaints about clerics, describing the current system as “totally unsuitable.”

The witness told the inquiry how he suffered abuse at the hands of priest Trevor Devamanikkam, who took his own life on the day he was due to appear in court accused of sexual offences against Mr Ineson.

He said he made his first disclosures between 2012 and 2013 to the Bishop of Doncaster Peter Burrows, the then bishop of Sheffield Steven Croft, and the then archdeacon of Rotherham Martyn Snow, but that nothing came of his reports.

Rev Ineson told the hearing no further action was taken by the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby when he made complaints.

He told the inquiry: “Bishops sit on thrones. They live in fine palaces and houses, they wear the finest robes and garments, they bully people. People literally kneel down and kiss the ring on their finger,” adding: “I don’t think those people are fit for office.”

Mr Ineson said he met the Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu at a meeting for survivors of clerical abuse at a General Synod in York and asked him for an apology for his failure to act on his disclosures but Dr Sentamu replied: “Apologies mean different things to different people.”

Mr Ineson went on to make two written disclosures to Mr Croft, now the Bishop of Oxford, and sent copies to the Bishop of Beverley and Dr Sentamu.

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

NEW YORK (NY)
New York Post

July 12, 2019

By Ebony Bowden

Riverside Church’s outgoing female pastor is set to receive an exit package worth at least half a million dollars — after leaving her job amid allegations she bought an employee an unwanted $200 vibrator while on a work trip, The Post has learned.

The Rev. Dr. Amy Butler — who made $250,000 a year as the first woman to lead the historic congregation — will leave with 12 months’ salary, a six-month housing allowance worth $48,000 and annual retirement contributions of $59,000 for three years, according to her contract.

An email sent by the chair of the church council and seen by The Post says Butler will also get a $100,000 “separation payment”– which would take her golden handshake to a total of $594,530, when including her unused vacation payout and the $10,000 tab for her lawyer’s fees.

According to the emails, the church council voted to approve the agreement — although one employee raised concerns about the large sum blowing out the house of worship’s operating budget, which covers payroll.

Riverside Church has until July 31 to pay Butler the money she is owed from the five-year contract, which expired on June 30.

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.

LOUISVILLE (KY)
Courier Journal

July 12, 2019

By Matthew Glowicki

St. Xavier High School released a list of former brothers who it says sexually abused minors while either at the Louisville high school or at some point during their years of service.

Nine brothers appear on the list with “credible or established” acts of sexual abuse against youth, two of whom were assigned to St. X at the time of the abuse. Years spent at the high school are noted below.

Only Carbin and McCormack are noted as having credible allegations stemming from their time at St. X.

Brother “Ricardo” Albert Kerressey (1938-1942)
Brother “Francis Jerome” William Burns (1939-1940)
Brother “Alois” Donald O’Toole (1940-1941)
Brother “Brennan” John Devoe (1953-1960)
Brother “Bosco” Thomas Harrison (1956-1963)
Brother “Kentigern” William Carbin (1958-1962)*
Brother “Barton” George Gardiner (1959-1964)
Brother “Damian” John McMahon (1965-1974)
Brother “Pierre” James McCormack (1973-1984)*

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.

EL PASO (TX)
KVIA ABC 7 News

July 12, 2019

By Jim Parker and Julio-Cesar Chavez

A former El Paso Catholic priest on trial for allegedly sexually abusing a girl from age ten through her teen years took the witness stand in his own defense on Friday and vehemently denied the accusations.

Miguel Luna, 68, is charged with multiple counts of aggravated assault of a child in a case that dates back to the 1990s while he was still an active priest; the alleged victim is now a 36-year old woman.

Luna’s accuser testified at the trial’s start that she was an altar server at Corpus Christi church when he first began sexually abusing her. She told jurors the sexual conduct continued until she moved away from the area when she turned 17.

Luna on Friday acknowledged first meeting the girl at age ten, but he repeatedly rebuffed her claims of abuse under questioning from his own defense attorney.

“No, never,” Luna replied several times when asked if he had ever sexually assaulted or touched her inappropriately as either a child or a teenager.

Prosecutors contend Luna was a “wolf in sheep’s clothing,” exploiting his role as a priest to engage in sex acts with the girl. But the defense contends the now-grown woman was motivated by money to report the alleged incidents.

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)
Channel 2 News

July 8, 2019

By Roche Madden

There are new developments in the Lynn Messer case, the woman went missing five years ago Monday. She disappeared in 2014 in Ste. Genevieve County, her remains were discovered in 2016.

A vigil was held Monday at the county courthouse for the 52-year-old woman, people don’t want her to ever be forgotten.

Debra Donze is Lynn Messer’s sister, “It’s really hard on the boys and the grandkids one day she was there and the next day she wasn’t,” said Donze.

Friends and family of Lynn Messer wanted to send a message to the county prosecutor and sheriff. Abram Messer is Lynn’s son, “We want them to know we are supporting them and are so thankful that law enforcement has refused not to let go of this they are pursuing this,” said Messer. Carolyn Deevers is an advocate for abused women. She said, “We would like to see charges filed soon but not at the expense of the case.”

Lynn Messer disappeared July 8, 2014, from her home near Bloomsdale. She left without any of her personal belongings and at the time she had health problems and a broken toe. She lived with her husband, Kerry Messer, a Missouri lobbyist. In November of 2016, Lynn’s skeletal remains were discovered on the edge of the family’s property. Authorities said the area had been well searched when she disappeared almost two and half years earlier.

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.

WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Times

July 11, 2019

By Christopher Vondracek

Liberal Catholics are criticizing the spokeswoman for the D.C.-based U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for the conservative politics she shares on her personal Twitter account.

Judy Keane, the director of public affairs at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, doesn’t have a large following on social media — roughly 300 followers — but in the past months she has frequently excoriated Democrats such as Sen. Kamala D. Harris of California and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, according to reporting that first appeared in Commonweal, a liberal magazine for American Catholics.

The Washington Post reported Thursday that Ms. Keane, who has been employed as director since 2016, produced a “series of tweets enthusiastically backing President Trump.”

Criticism of Ms. Keane’s tweets began with one posted May 29. She was responding to Newt Gingrich’s remarks about former special counsel Robert Mueller with a link to a pro-Trump website boasting that the president had taken the “shackles” off ICE.

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.

NASHVILLE (TN)
Baptist Gobal News

July 12, 2019

By Bob Allen

About 75 people gathered July 8 outside a Missouri courthouse demanding answers and justice on the five-year anniversary of the disappearance and death of a woman married to a Missouri Baptist lobbyist.

Lynn Messer, wife of Kerry Messer, a conservative lobbyist with past clients including the Missouri Baptist Convention, disappeared suddenly from her rural home near Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, on July 8, 2014. Her skeletal remains were found more than two years later near an edge of the 250-acre family farm.

Her death certificate filed in July 2017 lists the cause of death as “undetermined at this time” and the investigation as pending. Sources quoting police say the case is still open, and her husband, who since remarried, has not been ruled out as a person of interest.

“The first thing I want to do is thank law enforcement for refusing to stop, for refusing to let go,” son Abram Messer told friends, family members and advocates gathered outside the Ste. Genevieve County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office in a candlelight vigil convened to, in his words, “cry out for justice.

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 11, 2019

By John Grondelski

Over at Commonweal, Boston College theology and law professor Cathleen Kaveny tries to obfuscate the meaning of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s recent letter on the sexual abuse crisis… and perhaps score some points for the revisionist agenda of blaming that crisis on “clericalism” rather than the sexual immorality that—rightly—Benedict identifies as where the Church and modern culture began going off the rails in the late 1960s.

Kaveny claims that Benedict misidentifies the moral wrong behind the sexual abuse crisis: she thinks he is equating it with sacrilege (although she admits that “[h]e does not use the term”). She claims that this shift lets the Church off the hook, protecting the institution by identifying it as the victim rather than defending children victims. “Benedict’s letter seems to put clergy sex abuse in the category of sacrilege, not injustice.”

She wants to see the sacrilege versus justice question as an either/or proposition (not unusual for defenders of revisionist moral theology). It isn’t. It’s both.

I have always been very pleased by the fact that the 2011 retranslation of the Novus Ordo Missae restored the typical text, not ICEL’s “equivalent” translations. One of the important places where that translation recovered the real meaning of the text was in the introductory dialogue to the Preface. We used to say, “It is right to give Him thanks and praise.” We now respond, in keeping with the venerable ancient text, “It is right and just” (dignum et justum est).

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.

BATON ROUGE (LA)
The Advocate

July 12 2019

By Amanda Kerri

The other day, I had the movie Spotlight going on in the background. If you’ve never seen it, it’s about The Boston Globe uncovering the sexual abuse of children priests by the Catholic Church. One of the big dramatic moments in the movie is when they go to an attorney who had filed lawsuits against the church back in the early ’90s over allegations of abuse, and the reporters ask why he never came to them with the story. He says he sent them a list of 20 names, but they never ran the story. In reality it turns out that the Globe did run the article listing the names. On page B42 of the Metro section.

What’s more notable is that at the time, there was already a huge case about an abusive priest. The story, which hinted at a larger conspiracy and problem, was overlooked because there was already so much pushback, and no one followed up. The film kept that moment to reflect on the meaning behind it; in that the abuse, the scandal, was sitting right there and no one put it all together. It reflects our collective guilt at not wanting to dig deeper into dark things.

This moment immediately made me think of the scandal involving financier and well-connected pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein came to our collective attention when the Miami Herald wrote a story about the offensively lenient sentence he received for “solicitation” negotiated by President Trump’s recently-departed Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta. However, I recall reading about Epstein and his alleged ties to high-powered politicians and celebrities over a decade ago during his trial. In fact, if you go to Google and filter your search results to exclude everything after July 2015, you’ll find article after article talking about his ties to Trump, Bill Clinton, royalty, and celebrities of all types, and all the rumors about him. Now that Epstein is being prosecuted in a federal district court less friendly to him, all of the media is abuzz with talk of the ties between Epstein and Trump. Especially the winking nod to Epstein’s love of “young women” in a quote from the president letting us come to the horrifying realization that Epstein’s abuse was sort of an open secret or at least whispered about.

While many other folks are talking about what this means for Trump and turning all of this into a partisan political fight, it left me wondering, why did it take till now? Plenty of people are coming forward to talk about how they saw things, how they heard things (they called his private island “Pedophile Island”), and how some even counseled Epstein on how to spin it all, and all I can think is, And you motherfuckers did nothing?

Let’s be real here. There are way too many of us who not only enable all of this in the desire to be close to the seat of power and profit, but far too many of us just want all of this buried and to go away because we don’t want to talk about it. Maybe it’s because no one wanted to face the idea that someone we trusted, someone we liked, could be like that. I know that it’s a well-worn trope and a point of anger often that when someone is caught being awful, people talk about how nice they were, how quiet they were, how nothing seemed odd. Hell, it’s a source of pride for New Yorkers who regularly brag about, joke about, or ignore the obviously mentally ill homeless guy having an episode on the subway.

Yet as much loss of faith in humanity as that causes, it’s a fact this was out there for years. We knew about Epstein’s ties, about the sweetheart deal, about all of this, and there were people reporting on it for years, and nothing happened until now. Yes, new charges are being brought against Epstein, which makes it news, but why weren’t we this outraged in 2010? 2012? Why did it take ’til Trump was three years into office to really have these allegations explode like this? I have a sick feeling in my stomach in that we just didn’t care enough, or that we thought “we” might get hurt by maybe finding out Epstein helped people we like do something terrible. Oh, so many people are saying they would love to see people on “their side” taken down if it’s found out, but far, far too many times, we have seen where people will gladly turn a blind eye when it suits them.

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.

ALTOONA (PA)
Altoona Mirror

July 11, 2019

Trust that Roman Catholic Church officials will do the right thing about allegations of sexual misconduct by members of the clergy is in question in many countries, not just the United States. What Pope Francis and others in the Catholic hierarchy do about the matter is watched closely throughout the world.

An announcement by the Vatican that its ambassador to France no longer enjoys diplomatic immunity is welcome, then.

As a diplomat, Archbishop Luigi Ventura normally would have enjoyed immunity from investigation or prosecution involving many crimes. Several men have accused him of touching them inappropriately. Ventura denies the allegations.

But French authorities had said the archbishop’s diplomatic immunity had stalled their investigation into the men’s accusations.

That ended Monday, with the Vatican’s announcement. Now, Ventura can be investigated — and, if appropriate, charged — just like any other visitor to France. Let us hope the matter is cleared up, one way or the other, expeditiously.

Sexual predation by members of the clergy is bad enough. Adding to the outrage over Roman Catholic church handling of such crimes has been a pattern over decades of protecting predators. Instead of reporting them to law enforcement authorities, church officials often transferred guilty priests away from locales where they had abused both children and adults, and to new locations where they sometimes committed the same crimes.

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.

HATAGNA (GUAM)
Guam Daily Post

July 11, 2019

By Mindy Aguon

A former chancellor of the Archdiocese of Agaña who has been accused in multiple child sex abuse lawsuits still holds the title of a priest of the archdiocese but no longer receives a salary nor an honorarium.

Father Adrian Cristobal remains away from Guam with restrictions the archdiocese placed on him last year. He’s prohibited from performing the role of a priest in public, including the wearing of clerical garb.

Tony Diaz, the archdiocese’s director of communications, confirmed the archdiocese is proceeding with an administrative penal process – based on canon law – on the allegations of child sexual abuse against Cristobal.

Diaz said the archdiocese could not comment any further on the matter because it involves lawsuits.

Last year, Archbishop Michael Byrnes placed restrictions on Cristobal after having repeatedly called for the priest to return to Guam.

Cristobal had left Guam for an unspecified role in the Catholic diocese in Phoenix, Arizona, but has subsequently left the jurisdiction of that diocese, Post files state.

Cristobal has been accused in four lawsuits filed on Guam of sexually assaulting altar boys in the parishes he worked at while on Guam decades ago.

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

LONDON (ENGLAND)
Leading Britain’s Conversation

July 12, 2019

By James O’Brien

An independent inquiry into child sexual abuse found children could have been saved from abuse if the Church had focussed less on its own reputation rather than the impact of the abuse.

More than 130 allegations of abuse were made against 78 people associated with the Birmingham Catholic Church – the cardinal denied a cover-up, but allegations were found to have been “ignored”.

But James O’Brien focussed on why this story didn’t have the same level of coverage as the case of the Rotherham grooming gangs.

“The so-called Asian grooming gangs, they get coverage on a scale that is utterly huge compared to the coverage Catholic priests get,” James said.

“So this idea that the government or the establishment has colluded in keeping these stories quiet only works with people who are too thick to work out where the news channel is on their televisions.”

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.

INDIANAPOLIS (IN)
Indiana Business Journal

July 12, 2019

By Curt Smith

Hoosiers once venerated faith leaders in public life, but today we denigrate or even desecrate those taking a public stand for religion.

Consider Indianapolis Archbishop Charles Thompson. We have not met, but I respect his principled stand that Catholic schools under his purview in central Indiana must hire faculty whose lives are consistent with the human sexuality (among other) Roman Catholic Church teachings they are charged with imparting to students.

“One’s orientation is not sin, as I said in the beginning,” Thompson told WRTV-TV Channel 6. “It’s the public witness with the church’s teachings. … We do the same thing if someone is cohabiting.”

He needed to take a public stand because a Roncalli Catholic high school guidance counselor was dismissed last year, and in June, a Cathedral Catholic high school teacher was let go because both were in homosexual marriages.

In between, Brebeuf high school rebuffed the archbishop by refusing to dismiss an openly gay teacher. I intentionally dropped Catholic from Brebeuf’s description, because Thompson decided to no longer recognize Brebeuf as a Catholic institution.

The usual howling and condemnations ensued. We know them well, alas, and nothing new was offered. Social media bristled with out-of-state activist rants.

Maybe Thompson’s image was not tweeted around the world—complete with photoshopped horns—as happened to some during the Religious Freedom Restoration Act legislative debates in 2015. But, sadly, neither have our civic leaders stepped forward to support the archbishop’s courage to do what was right for the church he leads.

And why is that important? Because two foundational issues to the quality of “our democracy” rest on letting the church be the church.

The first essential issue: Who defines what it means to be Catholic? The short answer is Catholics—not the Legislature, the courts, the media, or elite progressive opinion. The long answer from a non-Catholic also in public ministry is, the Catholic Church has a formal, hierarchical structure beginning with the pope, then cardinals, archbishops and bishops. Their decisions bind church members.

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.

SYRACUSE (NY)
Post-Standard

Jully 11, 2019

By Julie McMahon

A former Syracuse priest, removed in 2002 over allegations of child sexual abuse, has died. He was 81.

Chester Misercola worked as a priest in Syracuse and Oswego, including as a teacher at Oswego Catholic High and Bishop Cunningham High School in Oswego from 1970 to 1992, according to his obituary.

He died Saturday.

Misercola was most recently living at a Loretto facility in Syracuse, the obituary said. He previously lived at a controversial retirement home for priests, shuttered by the Catholic Diocese of Syracuse in 2016.

He was one of 57 priests named to a list of clergy with credible allegations of child sexual abuse, announced by the diocese last year.

Most of the priests who were named were dead at the time the list was published. Misercola was one of 19 who were still alive at the time

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

NEW YORK (NY)
Forbes Magazine

July 11, 2019

By Natalie Sachmechi

Even in a progressive bastion like New York’s Riverside Church — which touts LGBTQ equity, supports immigrants and focuses on environmental justice — one high-ranking woman seems to have been ousted in the aftermath of sexual harassment allegations.

The church has been at the forefront of progressive Christian leadership since its inception in 1930. Statues of scientists like Darwin, Galileo and Einstein decorate the building where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous anti-Vietnam War speech in 1967. And in 2004, the church issued a statement in support of same-sex marriage and said it had been performing same-sex ceremonies as early as 1991.

In 2014, the church made headlines when it hired its first female senior minister, the Rev. Dr. Amy Butler. She was known as a progressive Christian leader to her followers and “wanted to be known as a pastor who happens to be a woman, not a woman pastor,” she wrote in a blog post.

Last week, her name was all over Christian media outlets when news broke that she was stepping down after five years at Riverside — and no one appeared to know exactly why. A statement issued by the church said that she would not be renewing her contract, and Butler called her time at Riverside “one of the greatest honors of my life.”

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

ST. PAUL (MN)
Pioneer Press

July 11, 2019

By Ruben Rosario

Things that made me nod, scratch or shake my head this week:

The Jeffrey Epstein caper: He’s Exhibit A why, in America, you can truly get the best justice money can buy. The accused billionaire human trafficker of underaged girls got the sweetheart deal of a lifetime more than a decade ago, courtesy of Alex Acosta, a former south Florida chief prosecutor now serving as the nation’s secretary of labor.

Instead of charging Epstein in a 53-page indictment that was drafted and later sealed from the public, Acosta entered into an agreement with Epstein’s well-heeled lawyers to have him plead guilty instead to a state charge. But wait, folks, that’s not all. Epstein was sentenced to 13 months in prison, yet was allowed to leave jail for 12 hours daily, six days a week. Acosta also reportedly broke federal law by not informing Epstein’s alleged victims of the plea agreement. Alleged co-conspirators received immunity from prosecution.

Federal prosecutors in New York this week did what Acosta’s office should have done. They arrested him and charged him with alleged crimes that took place in that city around the same time. Acosta defended his actions in a news conference this week and essentially blamed a former state prosecutor involved in the case.

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.

Lit Hub

July 10, 2019

By Rebecca Solnit

One of my favorite books when I was young was T. H. White’s The Once and Future King, and one of its central themes is the attempt of King Arthur to replace an ethos of “might is right” with something closer to justice. Justice means everyone is equal under the law—and equality means both that everyone has equal value under the law and that everyone is subject to the law. That’s been a foundational concept for the United States, but might is right has never ceased to be how things actually work at least some of the time. In White’s novel, might means in part the capacity for physical violence on the part of individual warriors, armies, tribes, and kingdoms, but the ability of individuals (and corporations and nations) to commit that violence with impunity is another kind of might that matters now.

The great work of investigative journalists in recent years has let us see might, naked and corrupt, doing its best to trample, silence, discredit the less powerful and their rights and with it the idea of right as an ethic independent of power. That these men actually run the media, the government, the financial system says everything about what kind of systems they are. Those systems have toiled to protect them, over and over. Indeed, power is not vested in them but in the individuals and institutions all around them. This makes it essential to look past individual perpetrators to the systems that allow them to commit crimes with impunity.

Maybe one of the reasons rape has so often been portrayed as “a stranger leaps out of the bushes” is so we’ll imagine rapists acting alone. But in so many cases rapists have help in the moment and forever after, and the help is often so powerful, broad, and deep—well, that’s why we call it rape culture, and that’s why changing it means changing the whole culture. Sometimes it’s the family, community, church, campus looking the other way; sometimes it’s the criminal justice system. If Jeffrey Epstein goes to jail for the new round of indictments—which only came about because one investigative journalist, Julie K. Brown of the Miami Herald, did an extraordinary job of digging up what had been buried in his case—a host of people who knew, laughed, looked the other way, allegedly helped him sexually abuse children for years will still be at large, and the circumstances that allow other Epsteins to attack other children will still exist.

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.

SANTIAGO (CHILE)
Reuters

July 11, 2019

By Natalia A. Ramos Miranda

Chilean President Sebastian Pinera signed into law on Thursday a bill to remove the statute of limitations on sex crimes involving children amid a sex abuse crisis that has rocked the country’s Catholic Church and claimed more than 200 victims.

The law, which first was proposed in 2010, ends impunity in cases that would have previously had a statute of limitations that varied between five and 10 years, depending on the nature of the crime. The new law is not retroactive.

“Beginning today, the passing of time will never more be an accomplice to those who abuse our children, nor an ally of impunity,” Pinera said.

The center-right Pinera revived the nearly decade-old bill last year, following a visit to the South American nation by the pope that brought to the surface a string of abuse allegations now being investigated by prosecutors.

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

LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Telegraph

July 11, 2019

By Gabriella Swerling

The Archbishop of Canterbury banned a “vulnerable” abuse victim from cathedral grounds after treating his case with “casual indifference”, an independent inquiry heard.

Details of the incident emerged for the first time today and occurred in 2011 when the Most Rev Justin Welby was Dean of Liverpool Cathedral.

The man had alleged he was sexually abused by an unidentified offender who was linked to the Cathedral.

However after alleging that Archbishop Welby had dismissed his claims of abuse, the man appeared outside the Cathedral “angry and upset” before he swore at staff and “threatened security with violence”. As a result, he was banned from the grounds.

Giving evidence to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), the Archbishop admitted “there were a number of things I got wrong on this” in relation to the encounter.

This came as he backed a “mandatory reporting” law for the first time and said that he was “utterly horrified” by historic failures to protect victims from abuse within the Church of England.

Mandatory reporting would require people who work with children, including priests, to face punishment if they fail to pass suspicions of child abuse on to statutory authorities.

Yesterday the IICSA was shown an email exchange dated July 6, 2011 between Archbishop Welby – while he was still a Dean – and the alleged unidentified victim.

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.

BALLARAT (AUSTRALIA)
The Courier

July 11, 2019

Robert Claffey, 76, is already serving more than a decade in prison for child sex crimes.

However on Monday he admitted abusing another two boys at Ballarat during the 1980s.

One of the victims was aged between 12 and 15 at the time, while the other was aged six to seven.

One of the boys, now a man, is expected to a read a statement in the County Court of Victoria on Friday about how Claffey’s crimes have affected his life.

It is then expected the former Our Lady Help of Christians Church in Wendouree parish priest will be sentenced.

But while prosecutors have argued Claffey should spend more time behind bars, the now lay priest’s legal team claims he’s already been vilified.

His lawyer argued Claffey’s prison release date should remain unchanged as he’s been “hunted” by the media and scorned by the community after being moved from parish to parish by the Catholic Church while he offended.

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.

WASHINGTON (DC)
WJLA News

July 11, 2019

By Jay Korff

Earlier this year, the Catholic Diocese of Arlington released its list of priests credibly accused of child sex abuse.

Father William Reinecke, one of the highest-ranking members of the clergy in our region in the last half century, was among those listed.

After speaking with one of Reinecke’s survivors, we realized that a much larger, never-before-told story of widespread, serial pedophilia involving Reinecke may exist. So, we decided to dig deeper.

After more than five months of investigating we unraveled Father Reinecke’s haunting past with the help of people close to him: a former priest, a survivor of Reinecke’s abuse and a witness to Reinecke’s grooming tactics and abuse. The latter, Kelley Arnold, is the keeper of The 50-Year Secret.

What we uncovered, revealed in a series of stories called The 50-Year Secret, we hope will help victims heal, hold the powerful accountable and illustrate the very real danger children still face today.

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.

FARGO (NORTH DAKOTA)
InForum

July 11, 2019

By April Baumgarten

A Belcourt, N.D., woman has filed a civil suit against the Catholic Diocese of Fargo and a priest who she says sexually assaulted her three years ago.

Kateri Marion, 33, held back tears Thursday, July 11, during a news conference in Fargo as her attorneys laid out allegations against the Rev. Michael Wight, a Texas priest who, according to Marion, groomed her before sexually abusing her in mid-2016. She told the Fargo Diocese about the abuse, but she claims church leaders ignored her and blamed her for what allegedly happened.

“I can’t tell you how scared I was when I came forward,” she said at the news conference held at the law offices of O’Keeffe O’Brien Lyson Foss. “When I came forward, they left me in despair to pick up the pieces myself.”

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

KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Catholic Key

July 11, 2019

By Marty Denzer

Bishop James Johnston, Jr., recently announced that the Diocese of Kansas City – St. Joseph has engaged Captain Joseph Crayon previously of the Kansas City Police Department as its new Independent Ombudsman. Crayon began his new duties July 1 following his retirement from a 32-year career with the police department.

The diocese created the position of Ombudsman in 2011 as part of its response to failures made in handling a case of the creation of child pornography by a diocesan priest. The Ombudsman serves as an independent contractor with a broad commission to receive and investigate all accusations of child sexual abuse and boundary violations with a minor against any cleric, employee or volunteer of the diocese, no matter how long ago the abuse occurred. The Ombudsman is further empowered to independently report cases of child sexual abuse to civil authorities and law enforcement without supervision or approval by diocesan officials.

Capt. Crayon replaces Jenifer Valenti, a former attorney and investigator with the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office, who in April accepted the leadership of the Office of Child and Youth Protection in the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas. At the time Valenti began her service with the Diocese of Kansas City – St. Joseph, she was the first Independent Ombudsman in any U.S. diocese.

Capt. Crayon, one of nine children, was born and raised in New York State. Growing up, he always wanted to be a police officer, as his father was. Capt. Crayon moved to the Midwest during his college years and graduated from the Kansas City Police Academy.

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

KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Catholic Key

July 11, 2019

By Marty Denzer

Bishop James Johnston, Jr., recently announced that the Diocese of Kansas City – St. Joseph has engaged Captain Joseph Crayon previously of the Kansas City Police Department as its new Independent Ombudsman. Crayon began his new duties July 1 following his retirement from a 32-year career with the police department.

The diocese created the position of Ombudsman in 2011 as part of its response to failures made in handling a case of the creation of child pornography by a diocesan priest. The Ombudsman serves as an independent contractor with a broad commission to receive and investigate all accusations of child sexual abuse and boundary violations with a minor against any cleric, employee or volunteer of the diocese, no matter how long ago the abuse occurred. The Ombudsman is further empowered to independently report cases of child sexual abuse to civil authorities and law enforcement without supervision or approval by diocesan officials.

Capt. Crayon replaces Jenifer Valenti, a former attorney and investigator with the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office, who in April accepted the leadership of the Office of Child and Youth Protection in the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas. At the time Valenti began her service with the Diocese of Kansas City – St. Joseph, she was the first Independent Ombudsman in any U.S. diocese.

Capt. Crayon, one of nine children, was born and raised in New York State. Growing up, he always wanted to be a police officer, as his father was. Capt. Crayon moved to the Midwest during his college years and graduated from the Kansas City Police Academy.

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)
WSOC TV

July 11, 2019

The Catholic church abuse scandal erupted years ago, but there are still demands for accountability.

Names of church leaders accused of abuse have been released city by city, but not in Charlotte.

A survivor told Channel 9 his calls for action have been ignored.

“I want them to know that I have not disappeared,” 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.

RICHMOND (VIRGINIA)
WCVE News

July 11, 2019

Faith leaders in Virginia are now required to report suspected child abuse. Legislation that went into effect July 1 adds ministers, priests, rabbis, and imams to the list of mandated reporters. But victim advocates say they want the law to go further.

Becky Ianni with the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests said she hopes the law will increase reporting of child abuse, but is concerned about what she identifies as a loophole.

Clergy are exempt from reporting abuse if the religious organization requires the conversation to be confidential, like during confession.

“I’m afraid that that loophole will keep some cases from being reported,” Clergy said.

Jeff Caruso, Executive Director of the Virginia Catholic Conference, defended the importance of this exemption.

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 10, 2019

The Diocese of Yakima has just released a list identifying priests and deacons with “substantiated allegations” of sexual abuse of a minor during their ministries. While this is a good first step from church officials in Yakima, more needs to be done.

The list put out by the Diocese of Yakima is a start, yet it lacks critical information, such as information regarding when the allegations were first received by the diocese and what steps were taken in response to those allegations. Such data is critical to understanding what went wrong in the past, who was involved in the wrongdoing, and what must be done to prevent cases of abuse in the future.

We hope that parishioners and the public in Yakima will push Bishop Joseph Tyson and other church officials to live up to their promise to be “open and transparent” in cases of clergy sex abuse, updating their list as more information becomes available. We also hope that church officials will ensure that this list is announced in every parish, and that Bishop Tyson will personally visit each parish where these men worked and beg victims, witnesses and whistle blowers to come forward and make a report.

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 11, 2019

Before SB 360 was withdrawn from consideration today, Catholic Church officials spoke out against it in no uncertain terms. Bishops in San Jose, Sacramento, Stockton, and Los Angeles all urged parishioners to oppose the measure. Oakland Bishop Michael Barber may have gone the furthest when he said that he would use his power as Bishop to order the priests employed by him to disobey that civil law. Even the Vatican weighed in, saying that “no human power” can compel priests to violate seal of confession.

This opposition to the reform of the mandatory reporting law is problematic for a couple of reasons.

First, this lack of respect for secular laws seems to us to be part of the reason why there is an abuse scandal in the Catholic church in America and worldwide. Cases of child sexual abuse by clergy were not only not reported to law enforcement, they were concealed from parishioners and the public. Priests were treated as if they were above the criminal law.

Second, the bishops are conflating the intent of this law – the explicit protection of children – with other church precepts. The law was modified to specify only information on ministerial abuse of children received in confession – no other penitent privileges were impacted. The free exercise of religion is not absolute, and the protection of the young and vulnerable from clerical abusers would not seem to be an unreasonable intrusion on practice.

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 11, 2019

–About 130 of the 170 bishops in the US have posted names of credibly accused predator priests on their websites. This is not hard, expensive or controversial. Bishops started doing this in 2002. It’s the quickest and easiest way a bishop can protect kids. There’s no reason to keep hiding the identities and whereabouts of potentially dangerous individuals. Barres refuses to take this simple step toward prevention, healing and transparency.

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/AtAGlance/diocesan_and_order_lists.htm

–In May, we in SNAP asked Barres to by tell his flock about six credibly accused predator priests who were on Long Island but who have attracted virtually no attention there: Fr. Joseph Towle, Fr. Edward D. Horgan, Fr. Joseph Fitzpatrick, Fr. John Garvey, Fr. Ernest E. Robinson, Fr. Augustine J. Seidenburg. Barres essentially ignored us.

http://www.snapnetwork.org/statement_by_janet_klinger_of_snap_new_york_may19

–And in February, we asked Barres to alert his flock to two other credibly accused predator priests who spent time on Long Island: Fr. Freddy Washington and Fr. Christopher Pliauplis. Barres essentially ignored us.

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.

MADRID (SPAIN)
Agence France-Presse

July 11, 2019

The first woman recognised by Spanish courts as one of the “stolen babies” of the Franco dictatorship has discovered her biological family thanks to a DNA database.

Scores of babies were taken from their mothers – who were told their children had died – and given to others to adopt during the 1939-1975 dictatorship, often with the help of the Catholic church.

Initially, babies were taken from leftwing opponents of the regime, with the practice later expanded to supposedly illegitimate children and those from poorer families.

The newborns were meant to be raised by affluent, conservative and devout Roman Catholic families.

Estimates range from hundreds to tens of thousands of victims.

On Thursday, Ines Madrigal, 50, who found out in 2010 that she was a “stolen baby”, said she had been able to find a cousin thanks to a DNA database.

The cousin then informed her that her biological siblings were also searching for her.

“For the first time, I have completed the puzzle that is my life,” she said. “I know who I am and where I am from.”

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.

MYSTIC (CT)
Patch

July 11, 2019

By Ellyn Santiago

John Timothy ‘Tim’ McGuire told The Day what hurts most is being accused by Catholic congregants of looking for a payday. The 60-year-old New London man who says he was sexually abused when he was an 8-year-old altar boy by a Noank priest has taken to the street to open a dialogue he told the paper, and that conversation begins with picket signs he holds outside of local Roman Catholic churches.

Wednesday, he picketed outside St Patrick’s Church in downtown Mystic. Some were supportive, others not.

McGuire told the paper that he was approached by a church-goer who accused him causing trouble and looking for a large settlement from the church: “What are you doing that for? All you want is money!” A similar accusation was made when he protested outside a New London church.

McGuire told reporter Joe Wojtas, “That’s what hurts the most. When someone from your own church accuses you of only wanting money. I’m the person who was abused by a priest.” The law prohibits McGuire from suing because he missed a filing cutoff date by less than a month.

McGuire says he was habitually sexually assaulted by Father James Curry at St. Joseph’s Church in Noank in the mid-1960s. McGuire has testified before state legislators, is involved with a global group of survivors of sexual abuse by the clergy and now, with signs of protest outside local churches.

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

SCRANTON (PA)
Wall Street Journal

July 11, 2019

By Ian Lovett

A potential flood of lawsuits has spurred the Catholic Church to offer mediation, only if accusers agree not to sue

Four decades ago, Jimmy Pliska says, he was sexually assaulted by his local parish priest on an overnight fishing trip. Now, he has an agonizing decision to make.

Amid a recent wave of sexual-abuse investigations and allegations against the Catholic Church, Mr. Pliska wants to sue the Diocese of Scranton, which employed the priest. But the case is too old to bring to court. Although state lawmakers have proposed lifting the statute of limitations on the sexual abuse of children, it is unclear when—or if—that will happen.

The diocese, meanwhile, has set up a program to financially compensate victims of clergy sexual abuse. In exchange for accepting money from the program, the diocese won’t have to release any documents that might show what church officials knew about the alleged abuse. Mr. Pliska also would be barred from suing the church.

Time is running short for Mr. Pliska, 55 years old, to decide. The church has set a July 31 deadline. “The church shouldn’t be the judge,” he said of the program. “They should be held accountable.”

The Catholic Church has a great deal riding on whether alleged victims take part in compensation programs like the one in Scranton.

Since a widely publicized report last year from the Pennsylvania attorney general, which documented the abuse of more than 1,000 children by Catholic clergy in the state over half a century, public officials around the U.S. have looked for their own ways to pursue allegations made against the church.

More than a dozen states are considering lifting the civil statute of limitations on child sexual abuse or already have done so. The legislation, if passed, would unleash a surge of new lawsuits against the church.

A new wave of sexual abuse litigation would present a serious threat to both the church’s finances and its reputation. Large jury awards and settlements could cost the church millions, while legal discovery could make public documents showing how dioceses dealt with abuse.

As lawmakers debate the measures, Catholic dioceses in at least six states have tried to stem the tide by offering victim compensation programs.

“While no financial compensation can change the past, it is my hope that this program will help survivors in their healing and recovery process,” Joseph C. Bambera, the Scranton bishop, said when the diocese launched its program last fall.

The programs, which are run by third-party administrators outside the church, offer swifter resolution than trials, and alleged victims are less likely to walk away empty-handed. They also shield the church against lawsuits that could cause greater damage.

Payouts pale compared with what victims have won in court. Those who accept settlements must agree not to sue the church in the future.

The programs could ultimately save Catholic institutions hundreds of millions of dollars, said Marci Hamilton, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who also has worked on clergy abuse cases as a lawyer.

“Settle as many cases as you possibly can, because statute of limitations reform is inevitably going to pass,” she said. “It lets them have the dual action of looking generous but protecting as many assets of the organization as possible.”

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

LONDON (ENGLAND)
Daily Telegraph

July 11, 2019

Jimmy Pliska, of Scranton, Pa., is one of those who is seeking compensation from the church for sexual abuse that happen…

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

SCRANTON (PA)
The Wall Street Journal

July 11, 2019

By Ian Lovett

A potential flood of lawsuits has spurred the Catholic Church to offer mediation, only if accusers agree not to sue

Four decades ago, Jimmy Pliska says, he was sexually assaulted by his local parish priest on an overnight fishing trip. Now, he has an agonizing decision to make.

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.

HAGATNA (GUAM)
Pacific Daily News

July 11, 2019

By Haidee Eugenio Gilbert

A lawsuit filed on Thursday afternoon says a Sinajana boy was sexually abused in the early 1970s by two now-deceased priests, including one who told the boy’s mother that the molestation and attempted rape were not true.

The plaintiff is identified in federal court documents only with the initials H.H.H. to protect his privacy,.

In his $5 million lawsuit, H.H.H. said Father Louis Brouillard sexually abused him a few times around 1972 or 1973, and Father Antonio Cruz sexually molested and attempted to rape him once around 1973.

H.H.H., represented by attorney David Lujan, said he was about 12 to 13 years old at the time of the priests’ abuses.

He said in his lawsuit that after at least four Boy Scouts of America swimming at Lonfit River, he became uncomfortable because Brouillard, a scoutmaster at the time, “encouraged, insisted, required and forced the boys to swim completely in the nude.”

The priest, according to the lawsuit, said these were for the purpose of teaching each boy to paddle with the hands and feet, while Brouillard touched and stroked each boy’s private parts.

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

LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Telegraph

July 11, 2019

By Gabriella Swerling

The Archbishop of York has blamed parishes for enabling child sexual abuse as they refuse to punish paedophiles whom they deem to be “lovely people” and “fantastic priests”.

Dr John Sentamu told a government inquiry yesterday that among some dioceses there was the misconception that safeguarding was merely an “optional extra”.

The Archbishop, who is due to retire next year, was responding to allegations that there were attitudes still prevalent within the Church of England that there could be no sex offending without corroborative evidence. He was also questioned about allegations from a surviving victim, the Rev Matthew Ineson.

Giving evidence to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) for the first time, Dr Sentamu said: “I have come across [examples] in my diocese where three clergy persons were convicted and the parishes where they had served, they all tell you it couldn’t be true, in spite of the fact that people have been convicted.”

Dr Sentamu, 70, denied that such attitudes regarding reporting abuse were inextricably linked to the Church.

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

TYNE AND WEAR (ENGLAND)
ITV Tyne Tees

July 11, 2019

A former senior clergyman has been sentenced to 10 months in prison after being found guilty of two counts of indecently assaulting a young man in the 1970s.

Granville Gibson, who is now 83, was previously Archdeacon of Auckland, a deputy to the Bishop of Durham.

Gibson was found to have deliberately touched a teenager in a sexual manner when he was a vicar in Newton Aycliffe around 40 years ago.

It happened inside the vicarage where Gibson lived, next to St Clare’s Church.

Steve Ebdon, who was 17 or 18 when Gibson assaulted him, has waved his right to anonymity.

He told ITV Tyne Tees he was “dissapoiinted” by the 10 month sentence, calling Gibson “an animal.”

In a statement, the Right Revd Paul Butler, Bishop of Durham said:

It is a matter of deep shame and regret that a former priest in the Church of England Granville Gibson has today been found guilty and received a custodial sentence of 10 months for two further counts of indecent assault against a male person. There are no excuses whatsoever for what took place; abuse is a terrible crime and a grievous breach of trust, which has lifelong effects.

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

NEW YORK (NY)
Daily News

July 9, 2019

By Stephen Rex Brown

Women who accuse Jeffrey Epstein of abusing them as minors can soon sue him under a new state law that will be used to compensate victims of sex abuse by priests.

Alleged Epstein victims are eligible under the Child Victims Act to bring civil claims against the perv financier for one year starting mid-August.

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.

LINCOLN (RI)
Valley Breeze News

July 9, 2019

By Arlene Violet

Despite being prepared for the release of the list of clergy members who had been “credibly accused “of sexually abusing children I still felt sick reading about it. After all, as attorney general in 1985-86 I prosecuted four of those priests and indicted another who ultimately made the Hall of Shame list on perjury charges. Rhode Island was only the second jurisdiction in the United States to prosecute child sex abuse cases where the perpetrator was a priest.

It is difficult to remember that time of innocence when people were actually shocked by such a revelation. Now it is commonplace. Good priests have been victimized by their confreres. Virtually everyone today in a Roman collar is viewed with skepticism.

As bad as the transfer of “guilt by association” is from the guilty priests, the Catholic Church has shot itself in the foot and other parts of its body politic over and over. One of the priests in a rectory who reported the criminal activity of a clergyman was treated as a pariah with then-Bishop Louis Gelineau transferring him out of the Diocese because he was also a priest who belonged to a religious order. The message was loud and clear to other priests namely: shut up or lose your ministry. It was only when the provincial of the religious order agreed to send the reporting priest back to testify that the perpetrator professed guilt pre-trial. Yet, the damage was done since some priests mummed up when they should have had the courage to come forward.

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.

EL PASO (TX)
CBS 4 News

July 11, 2019

By Justin Kree

Bishop Mark Seitz of the El Paso Catholic Diocese was called to testify in the trial of a former El Paso priest accused of sexually abusing a young girl in the 1990s.

Seitz was only on the stand for 10 to 15 minutes.

He was questioned about a telephone conversation with former priest Miguel Luna in August 2017.

On Tuesday, Luna pleaded not guilty to all 12 counts of sexual assault of a young girl who served as an altar server in the church where Luna was a priest in El Paso

Seitz faced rapid questioning about the phone call, and was not able to fully answer one question without being asked another.

Seitz recounted that Luna sounded groggy during their conversation — and got angry when Seitz said he had to make public what Luna had done.

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

SALEM (OH)
Salem News

July 11, 2019

Trust that Roman Catholic Church officials will do the right thing about allegations of sexual misconduct by members of the clergy is in question in many countries, not just the United States. What Pope Francis and others in the Catholic hierarchy do about the matter is watched closely throughout the world.

An announcement by the Vatican that its ambassador to France no longer enjoys diplomatic immunity is welcome, then.

As a diplomat, Archbishop Luigi Ventura normally would have enjoyed immunity from investigation or prosecution involving many crimes. Several men have accused him of touching them inappropriately. Ventura denies the allegations.

But French authorities had said the archbishop’s diplomatic immunity had stalled their investigation into the men’s accusations.

That ended Monday, with the Vatican’s announcement. Now, Ventura can be investigated — and, if appropriate, charged — just like any other visitor to France. Let us hope the matter is cleared up, one way or the other, expeditiously.

Sexual predation by members of the clergy is bad enough. Adding to the outrage over Roman Catholic church handling of such crimes has been a pattern over decades of protecting predators. Instead of reporting them to law enforcement authorities, church officials often transferred guilty priests away from locales where they had abused both children and adults, and to new locations where they sometimes committed the same crimes.

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

PHOENIX (AZ)
3TV/CBS 5

July 11, 2019

By Nicole Crites

We are hearing for the first time from a Phoenix man who says he was sexually abused by a former priest who was just extradited to the Valley to face charges after more than a decade on the run.

Now a high school teacher, he asked us to protect his identity as he prepares to testify at trial.

“I’m not showing my face because not everybody can deal with that, and there are gonna be people who say, ‘Hey, watch out for this guy,'” he said

He says former father Joseph Henn sexually abused him when he was an altar boy at St. Mark’s in the late ’70s and early ’80s.

“No one, not one, even to today, these many years afterwards (sic), no one from the church has come to interview me or ask, ‘What happened?'” he said. “They don’t wanna know!

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.

LGBTQ Nation blog

July 10, 2019

By John Gallagher

Proving that no offense is too great for Republicans to overlook, Mark Foley is apparently thinking about a political comeback.

In case you’ve forgotten or were unaware, in the early 2000s, Foley was a high-powered Republican in Congress, having first been elected from his Florida district in 1994. Then he ran into a bit of a problem: the story broke that he liked to hit on underage Congressional pages. Male pages, to be exact.

Unfortunately for Foley, he left a huge electronic trail because he liked to email or message pages with ideas that ranged from the suggestive to the explicit. In the latter category: asking a 17-year-old if he wanted to come over to Foley’s place for oral sex. Or asking another page for a picture of his erection. In several cases, Foley did have sex with ex-pages, but after they had turned 18.

Needless to say, Foley’s voting record in Congress was impeccably anti-LGBTQ. Ironically, given his prediliction for underage boys, Foley made opposition to child pornography one of his signature issues.

Foley was a classic example of someone in a glass closet. He was constantly being outed, and once held a press conference to describe the rumors that he was gay as “revolting” – while not denying them.

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.

EL PASO (TX)
CBS 4 News

July 10, 2019

By Justin Kree and Jala Washington

Bishop Mark Seitz of the El Paso Catholic Diocese was called to testify in the trial of a former El Paso priest accused of sexually abusing a young girl in the 1990s.

Seitz was only on the stand for 10 to 15 minutes.

He was questioned about a telephone conversation with former priest Miguel Luna in August 2017.

On Tuesday, Luna pleaded not guilty to all 12 counts of sexual assault of a young girl who served as an altar server in the church where Luna was a priest in El Paso.

Seitz faced rapid questioning about the phone call, and was not able to fully answer one question without being asked another.

Seitz recounted that Luna sounded groggy during their conversation — and got angry when Seitz said he had to make public what Luna had done.

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

UNITED STATES
National Catholic Register

July 10, 2019

By Janet E. Smith

“Hide the handsome ones.” That was what was “jokingly” said when Theodore McCarrick would visit seminaries. It disgusts me that such “jokes” — which clearly portrayed a reality — did not lead to a thorough investigation of McCarrick decades ago. The likely reason they did not was that, for decades, U.S. seminaries not only tolerated but recruited and favored seminarians who have sex with males.

The McCarrick scandal revealed a fact known by few Catholic laity: Seminarians have been, and still are in some places, preyed upon by faculty, staff, fellow students and even bishops.

The Changing Face of the Priesthood by Father Donald Cozzens (2000) and Goodbye, Good Men by Michael Rose (2002 and reissued in 2015) documented well the extent of the presence of active homosexuals in seminaries among students and faculty and of the accompanying harassment of heterosexuals. A survey done by Dean Hoge at The Catholic University of America in 2002 reported:

“55 percent of priests say such a subculture ‘clearly’ or ‘probably’ exists in their diocese or religious institute. Forty-one percent of priests said a homosexual subculture clearly or probably existed in the seminaries they attended.”

Those comments were made by priests who went through seminaries in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. Pope Benedict, in his letter on the sex-abuse crisis, identified the condition of seminaries as one of the sources of the problem.

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 10, 2019

By Jennifer Roback Morse

Jeffrey Epstein, Harvey Weinstein and Theodore McCarrick operate(d) in different sectors of society, have different marital statuses and sexual preferences and profess different religions. What do these disparate men have in common? A belief system that claims that sex is an entitlement. They operate according to the tenets of the most powerful ideology currently at work in the world: the ideology of the sexual revolution.

Epstein, the millionaire financier and admitted sex offender who pleaded not guilty July 9 to charges of sexual trafficking, allegedly got away with sickening crimes for a long time. But it would be a serious mistake to succumb to cynicism. “What do you expect? Wealthy guys like him have always gotten to do what they want. It is not fair to blame the sexual revolution for their abuses.”

That is, at best, a partial truth. The rich and powerful have always been able to buy their way out of problems that would crush an ordinary person. But the widespread acceptance of the sexual revolutionary ideology smooths their path. To an unprecedented extent, the reigning secular religion of our time enables sexual abuse, disarms victims and empowers predators.

“You don’t want to be a prude, do you?”

“You want to be ‘sex positive,’ don’t you?”

“Sex is nothing to feel guilty about.”

“You just have to take off your clothes and let him look at you. It is nothing be ashamed of.” (That’s one of Epstein’s contributions to the pick-up-line genre.)

“You were born this way.”

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

DENVER (CO)
Catholic News Agency

July 10, 2019

By Christine Rousselle

A priest in the Archdiocese of Detroit who helped to found a nonprofit to support priests accused of abuse, has been temporarily removed from ministry and is the subject of a canonical investigation, the archdiocese has confirmed.

Father Eduard Perrone, pastor at Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Grotto) Parish in Detroit, was accused of groping a former altar boy. The priest strenuously denies the allegations. His suspension was announced by the archdiocese on Sunday, July 7.

After receiving authorization from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the archdiocese conducted a preliminary investigation, the first stage of a canonical process, into the allegations against Perrone. A subsequent presentation to the Archdiocesan Review Board “found that there was a semblance of truth to the allegation,” Monsignor Mike Bugarin told CNA on Tuesday.

Bugarin serves as Episcopal Vicar and Delegate for Matters of Clergy Misconduct in the Detroit archdiocese.

While speaking to CNA, the monsignor avoided describing the charges as either “credible” or “substantiated” and emphasized that at this stage the only conclusion had been of a “semblance of truth.”

Semblance of truth is a legal standard in canon law usually defined as “not manifestly false or frivolous” that establishes only that an allegation cannot be immediately dismissed as factually impossible.

Bugarin emphasized that the process is still in the “very beginning” stages, and will now be referred back to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for further evaluation.

The Archdiocese of Detroit declined to provide details of when the alleged incident is said to have taken place, citing the ongoing nature of investigations, but did confirm that the alleged incident concerns Perrone’s “earlier years of ministry.”

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 10, 2019

A bill that was aimed at reforming mandated reporting laws to ensure that all crimes committed against children are reported to the authorities immediately was withdrawn from consideration following extensive lobbying by the Catholic Conference of California. We are disappointed that, once again, church officials have mobilized to defeat legislation that could help prevent more cases of abuse in the future.

SB 360, a bill that was sponsored by State Senator Jerry Hill, would have removed an exception to California’s mandated reporting rule that allowed Catholic clergy to refrain from reporting any crime they learned about in confessional. But thanks to extensive lobbying from the Catholic Conference of California, this loophole will remain intact for the time being.

Once again, church officials have poured tons of money, time and effort into defeating legislative reform aimed at preventing abuse. Given that the church has spent more than $10 million knocking down other legislation that would benefit survivors and protect children, we are not surprised, simply disappointed.

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 3, 2019

Why does wrongdoing thrive in the Catholic hierarchy? Here’s the answer in a nutshell.

Two controversial bishops have recently landed cushy jobs in Rome, showing again that corrupt clerics continue to be protected – and sometimes promoted – which only encourages more wrongdoing.

A German bishop, ousted because of his extravagant spending, is now “a Vatican official,” notes veteran church observer John Allen. He’s Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, better known as the “Bishop of Bling.

And Argentinian Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta resigned as head of his Argentinean diocese in 2017 – first, facing financial misconduct charges and later, adult sexual abuse charges.

“Despite that, Francis in 2017 not only brought Zanchetta to Rome but named his now Assessor to the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA), the Vatican’s financial powerhouse which oversees both the Holy See’s investment portfolio and its real estate holdings in Italy and around the world,” reports Allen.

Until misconduct is punished, misconduct will thrive.

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.

YAKIMA (WA)
KEPR TV

July 10, 2019

By Thomas Yazwinski

The names of dozens priests and deacons in Central Washington with substantial sexual abuse allegations were released on Wednesday.

Bishop Joseph Tyson, after thorough consultation and upon the recommendation of the Yakima Diocese Lay Advisory Board, has established a website listing the names of priests and deacons with substantiated allegations of sexual abuse of a minor during their time of ministry within the Diocese of Yakima.

Officials say the decision is based on the bishop’s desire for transparency and to encourage victims of abuse to come forward.

The following is a list of all the names of men who served in the area of the Tri-Cities:

Dale Calhoun was permanently removed from ministry. He had multiple claims and lawsuits settled. He served at St. Francis Cabrini in Benton City and St. Joseph in Kennewick.

Robert Davalle was permanently removed from ministry. He admitted to abusing minors and is currently incarcerated. He served at Christ the King in Richland.

Brian Gallagher is now deceased. He served at St. Frances Xavier Cabrini in Benton City.

Gustavo Gomez has been permanently removed from ministry. He served at St. Francis Xavier Cabrini in Benton City.

Peter Hagel is now retired and not in the ministry. He has a lawsuit pending in a new case. He served at St. Francis Xavier Cabrini in Benton City.

Anthony King is now deceased. He had a lawsuit settled regarding sexual abuse. He served at Christ the King in Richland and Sacred Heart Parish in Prosser.

Joseph Sondergeld is now deceased. He had multiple claims and lawsuits settled. He served at
Sacred Heart in Prosser.

John Tholen is now deceased. He had a lawsuit settled and had retired in 1997. He served at Sacred Heart in Prosser.

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.