ABUSE TRACKER

NEWARK (NJ)
Patch

February 13, 2019

By Tom Davis

More names have been released. Leaders of the Catholic Church in NJ said they revealed the nearly 200 names to provide “healing.”

Leaders of the Catholic Church in New Jersey revealed the names of priests “credibly accused” of child sex abuse Wednesday to help victims heal as more revelations have been made in recent months.

The list shows nearly 200 members of the clergy with ties to New Jersey who have faced allegations of child sex abuse. Nearly all of them were either sanctioned by the church, charged with a crime or both.

Patch has the list of priests and deacons provided by each New Jersey archdiocese – Metuchen, Newark, Trenton, Camden and Paterson – below. All five New Jersey dioceses released names; not all provided details on church affiliations.

Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin, the archbishop of Newark, said the list includes all those from New Jersey who were credibly accused of sexual abuse of minors dating back to 1940.

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MOUNTAIN VIEW (CA)
OZY/The Daily Dose

February 13, 2019

By Nick Fouriezos

As the son of a Baptist preacher in Wisconsin, it was a huge scandal in Ronald Lemmert’s family when he converted to Catholicism and later joined the priesthood. His journey had started when he was drafted during the Vietnam War and sent to West Point, where the Catholic chapel needed an organist. “I had a very powerful conversion experience,” Lemmert says, one built around his love for the Eucharist, which Catholics believe is the body of Christ.

But soon after becoming a New York diocesan priest in 1979, Lemmert realized the church was ailing from within. On one of his first assignments, he spent a year with an alcoholic priest who stayed up all night and slept all day. After Lemmert reported him, the priest was reassigned without receiving treatment and continued to work in another parish for years. Later, Lemmert’s fellow pastor at Holy Name of Mary church in Westchester County, Gennaro “Jerry” Gentile, took altar boys to his lake house on the weekends and on overnight trips to Disney World and Italy. Eventually, two families came to Lemmert to voice their concerns that children were being sexually abused. But when Lemmert told the archdiocese, it responded by banning him from the parish, blaming the accusers and sending its vice-chancellor to defend Gentile with the archbishop’s approval.

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KOTTAYAM, KERALA (INDIA)
NDTV

February 10, 2019

“We believe that Bishop Angelo is the apostolic administrator of Jalandhar diocese. But when we see the kind of letters we doubt whether Bishop Franco still wields power in the diocese,” the representative of the protesting nuns told reporters at Kuravilangad near Kottayam.

Rape-accused Bishop Franco Mulakkal, who was relieved of his pastoral responsibilities by Pope Francis, still interferes with the administrative matters of Jalandhar diocese of the Roman Catholic Church, nuns protesting against him alleged in Kerala today.
“We believe that Bishop Angelo is the apostolic administrator of Jalandhar diocese. But when we see the kind of letters (being issued by the diocese PRO and Missionaries of Jesus congregation head), we doubt whether Bishop Franco still wields power in the diocese,” the representative of the protesting nuns told reporters at Kuravilangad near Kottayam.

Their statement comes a day after Jalandhar diocese PRO Father Peter Kavumpuram, who is allegedly close to Bishop Mulakkal, issued a clarification statement countering an e-mail issued to nuns by its apostolic administrator Bishop Angelo Ruffino Gracias.

In his e-mail, Bishop Angelo had assured the five nuns, who are staying with the rape survivor nun, that “there will be no move from the diocese of Jalandhar to oust” them from the Kuravilangad convent in Kottayam district as long as they are needed for the court case.

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KERALA (INDIA)
Independent

February 12, 2019

By Maria Abi-Habib

Women at Kerala monastery say victim’s accusations acknowledged only after public protests

An Indian nun who says a bishop raped her 13 times and was urged by church officials to keep silent about it has been told the case is going to trial.

Bishop Franco Mulakkal, who maintains his innocence, will be charged and face trial by a special prosecutor on accusations of rape and intimidation, police said.

He was arrested on 21 September in the southern state of Kerala on suspicion of raping the nun 13 times between 2014 and 2016.

She first spoke out in June but police started formal questioning only in September as fury over the case mounted.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Daily News

February 14, 2019

By Linda Stasi and Dan Gold

A Queens man claims he endured sexual abuse by a priest who would later be accused of concealing the sins of pedophile priests in the Brooklyn Diocese.

For over four decades, Tommy Davis says, he carried the secret that he’d been repeatedly sexually abused as a teen by Monsignor Otto Garcia, one of the most powerful figures in the diocese — a figure alleged in a bombshell 2003 lawsuit of being “part of the concerted effort” to cover up diocese sex abuse.

And Davis says his shame caused him to fall into drugs, alcoholism and ruined relationships before getting sober. It took him decades to tell his story, only to be ignored by the law and rebuffed by the church after the diocese’s Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program (IRCP) found that there was “insufficient support” to find his claim eligible for compensation.

Garcia denies all of Davis’ accusations.

With the passage of the Child Victims Act in New York State — which was signed into law by Gov. Cuomo Thursday — Davis and other alleged sex abuse victims are hoping for another chance at finally getting divine justice.

But it was a long time coming.

Davis told The News in painful, wrenching interviews and emails over the course of six months that his sexual abuse began when he was a teenage altar boy at St. Michael’s Church in Flushing, Queens. He remembers how happy his parents, devoted parishioners, were when they got the news that he had secured a job answering phones in the rectory after the secretaries left at 5 p.m.

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SPRINGFIELD (MA)
The Republican

February 14, 2019

By Anne-Gerard Flynn

Fifteen reported cases of clergy sexual abuse were made to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield in 2018, according to a two-page report in the latest issue of the diocesan magazine, The Catholic Mirror.

It is the highest number reported since 52 claims were made in 2004, according to the report on how the Springfield diocese handles allegations.

All new cases have been referred to the relevant district attorney, diocesan spokesperson Mark Dupont said.

The published data lists the number of abuse reports made by year back to 1986 and also lists the decades going back to 1930s when the incidents reportedly occurred, something Dupont stressed when asked to comment on the report.

The 1970s is shown as the decade with the highest number of occurrences with 80, followed by 74 in the 1960s and 33 in the 1980s.

Only eight incidents are listed as having happened in this century.

The published report, which can also be read on the diocesan website, notes that most occurrences were reported beginning in 1993 — the diocese set up an independent review board in 1994 — and later. (The list dates to 1986 because that was when the diocese, through Bishop Joseph Maguire, first began a more formal process of handling abuse reports, Dupont said.)

Some 43 are shown as having been reported in 2002 and 42 in 2003.

“First it is important to note the difference between when abuse reports are made and when the abuse actually occurred. In almost all cases the time spam goes back decades. This is part of the difficult path many victims follow in coming to terms with their abuse,” Dupont said.

“But regardless of how long ago the abuse occurred, we offer each victim full outreach and assistance. Included in this is the commitment to report all cases to the appropriate district attorneys’ offices which we have done.”

He added, “The spikes in reporting generally have to do with external factors, mostly major news coverage.”

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BELFAST (NORTHERN IRELAND)
Irish News

February 14, 2019

By William Scholes

WHEN the Irish News spoke to Archbishop Eamon Martin at Christmas about the clerical sexual abuse conference which takes place in Rome next week, he said he intended to draw on the Irish experience to “encourage others to come out of denial”.

“Ireland will be able to bring our bitter, sad experience of what it has been like, how the story of abuse has destroyed lives, how it has damaged people’s faith and trust in the Church,” he said, adding that clerical abuse “has even shattered people’s relationship with God in some cases”.

The summit, which was announced in September, is the first global gathering of bishops to discuss the abuse scandal.

Pope Francis called the meeting following a request from the group of cardinals who advise him.

Dr Martin said he hoped the meeting would also bring “some clearer sense within the Church on issues of accountability”.

“In Ireland, our fundamental accountability is to the law,” he said.

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COLUMBUS (OH)
Columbus Dispatch

February 14, 2019

It seems that nearly every day there is a fresh story of children being sexually abused. This time it’s evidence of such abuse going on inside the Southern Baptist Convention.

The temptation is to hope there is an easy fix that involves setting up training or some other measure against all future abuse. The truth is that this is a complex problem that crops up in so many places because it stems from an evil embedded in human nature. To guard against it, we need our institutions to act proactively, to create a culture of speaking up and acting on evidence rather than ignoring it.

The Catholic Church is grappling with evidence of priests who abused children for decades. This has prompted calls to allow priests to marry and to give laypeople broader authority in the church.

But the experience of the Southern Baptist Convention suggests making such changes won’t solve the problem. A Houston Chronicle investigation showed sexual abuse at the hands of hundreds of pastors and volunteers in a denomination in which pastors are allowed to marry and laypeople historically take on large roles in their churches.

And consider the problem of predators in our schools and universities, where the environment is different from church, and yet, sexual abuse continues to happen. The data on child sexual assault show a widespread problem. According to a 2013 study by researchers at the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, the rate of lifetime sexual abuse or assault at the hands of adults is 1 in 9 girls and 1 in 53 boys. If you were not sexually abused as a child, you almost certainly have a friend or relative who was.

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Patheos blog

February 14, 2019

Bt Gene Veith

The Roman Catholic Church has been shaken by revelations of rampant sexual abuse among its clergy. Now the Southern Baptist Church is being shaken by a similar scandal.

The Houston Chronicle has uncovered 380 church workers–pastors, but also youth ministers, Sunday School teachers, and other volunteers–who have been charged with sexual misconduct over the last 20 years. That list includes 250 who were charged with sex crimes, including rape, sexual assault, and child molestation.

The investigation found some 700 victims. Some were children as young as three. The cases seem to be mostly heterosexual assaults, but some were homosexual. Some of the girls got pregnant and were pressured into getting abortions.

As with the Catholic scandal, another dimension is the cover-up and failure to take action on the part of church officials.

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IRONDALE (AL)
National Catholic Register

February 14, 2019

In the wake of months of sexual-abuse reports and allegations within the Catholic Church, and just before a Vatican summit on the problem, two Texas newspapers published a three-part investigation into the Southern Baptist Convention, uncovering at least 700 cases of child sexual abuse at the hands of church leaders and volunteers.

The joint investigation by the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News revealed that, since 1998, around 380 Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) leaders and volunteers have been accused of sexual misconduct — some resulting in lawsuits and convictions and others in personal confessions and resignations.

“They left behind more than 700 victims, many of them shunned by their churches, left to themselves to rebuild their lives. Some were urged to forgive their abusers or to get abortions,” the Houston Chronicle reported. “About 220 offenders have been convicted or took plea deals, and dozens of cases are pending. They were pastors. Ministers. Youth pastors. Sunday school teachers. Deacons. Church volunteers.”

In many ways, the scandal resembles that of the Catholic Church abuse scandals: children robbed of innocence, pastors abusing their positions of trust and authority, negligence and lack of appropriate, timely action on the part of some leadership once they were informed of abuse, and the shuffling of accused pastors from church to church.

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LUBBOCK (TX)
Avalanche-Journal

February 13, 2019

A church is expected to be a place of sanctuary and hope, populated with leaders who represent God, but sadly a recent joint investigation by the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News found a number of disturbing instances where this was not the case.

The newspapers discovered hundreds of Southern Baptist church leaders and workers had been accused of sexual misconduct over the past two decades, leaving a trail of human brokenness in the wake of another church scandal. In all, per an Associated Press story, more than 700 victims, some as young as 3, have had their lives forever impacted by 380 people in positions of trust at SBC-affiliated churches.

First, one abuse victim in any setting is one too many. One abuser in any position of trust is one too many. Instances where other church officials either ignored what was going on, refused to respond to victims’ cries for help or who enabled this reprehensible behavior to continue are a sad commentary and injure the credibility and mission of the church in the world. That, in some cases, victims and their families were also shunned by churches when they needed compassion is an unimaginably painful scenario.

There are a number of theories as to why churches can be especially susceptible to scandals such as this. Church leaders should be above reproach and often are seen that way by the people they serve, creating an aura of absolute trust, but, as is obvious from this investigation, church leaders are human and fallible. All churches should see these scandals as a call to tighten background checks, accountability standards and measures to protect the vulnerable from anyone entrusted with leadership responsibilities in a church.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Daily Herald

February 13, 2019

By Susan Sarkauskas

Thirty-one years after he founded it, Pastor James MacDonald has been fired as the leader of megachurch Harvest Bible Chapel.

The church announced the move Tuesday on its website.

The announcement said the elders had previously determined they were going to remove MacDonald but that they moved quickly after “highly inappropriate recorded comments made by Pastor MacDonald were given to media and reported.”

The elders fired him Monday, according to the announcement. MacDonald founded the church in Rolling Meadows, and it now has seven Chicago-area locations and one in Florida.

“This decision was made with heavy hearts and much time spent in earnest prayer, followed by input from various trusted outside advisers,” the elders’ statement said.

The comments attributed to MacDonald were broadcast by WLS-AM radio show host Mancow Muller, a former member of the church who said he was baptized by MacDonald in the River Jordan in Israel.

The clips purportedly are of MacDonald talking of a plan to put child pornography on the computer of Christianity Today magazine’s chief executive officer and about whether writer Julie Roys, one of the critics the church sued in October, was having an affair with Mark Galli, editor-in-chief of the publication.

The audio clips include an insult of Galli and an accusation that Roys had approached the houses of people who were victims in a DCFS investigation of a church worker and harassed them. There were also comments about MacDonald being able to raise $100,000 “in a minute.”

Roys, of Carol Stream, wrote on her blog that “Galli and I have never had anything but a professional relationship, and it’s repulsive that anyone — a pastor, no less — would make a joke about that.”

Christianity Today magazine, based in Carol Stream and founded in 1956 by the Rev. Billy Graham, published a story when Harvest filed the defamation suit last year against Roys, Ryan Mahoney of Wheaton, Scott Bryant of Geneva and the two men’s wives. Mahoney and Bryant write The Elephant’s Debt blog critical of the church.

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Patheos blog

February 13, 2019

by Timothy D. Lytton, Georgia State University

Pope Francis is gathering 200 bishops and heads of religious orders from around the world for a global summit in Rome to discuss the crisis facing the Catholic Church over sexual abuse scandals.

The meeting begins on Feb. 21 and will last four days. It is likely to produce a new round of public apologies, expressions of concern for victims and pledges of reform.

But recent statements by leading bishops and the pope suggest that church officials are not ready to take what I believe is an essential step in ending the scandal: providing a full and detailed accounting of their own role in concealing credible allegations of sexual abuse.

I’m a legal scholar who has written a book on clergy sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, and it appears to me that the church’s latest response, so far, is part of a familiar pattern that has persisted for nearly three decades.

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DUBLN (IRELAND)
Irish Catholic

February 14, 2019

When child sexual abuse scandals involving Catholic priests emerge in Africa, they do not draw a frenzied reaction similar to that witnessed in developed countries, but the continent’s Church is affected, Catholic leaders have said.

While there is a general view that the scandals are a challenge of the Church in Europe and America, African officials confirm the incidents, amid reports of some provinces expelling or defrocking priests.

In Africa, clerics view the issue as too delicate and sensitive for the public, and many remained tight-lipped on the subject. At the same time, the Church leaders said they were concerned about the abuses and closely follow any such reports, both locally and globally.

“Africa is also affected like any other continent, but to what extent, I am not sure,” said Precious Blood Sr Hermenegild Makoro, general secretary of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference.

In October, the South African Church defrocked three priests over sexual abuse of children in the parishes. Since 2003, 35 cases of abuse involving priests have been reported to the Church in South Africa.

Sr Makoro said out of the 35 cases, only seven were being investigated by the police, and one has led to a life sentence.

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PARIS (FRANCE)
La Croix International

February 14, 2019

The Catholic Church should overcome its unwillingness to embrace woman and the marginalized, according to Ireland’s Minister for Culture, Heritage and Gaeltacht Irish speaking regions, Josepha Madigan.

“For many, the revelations of sexual and physical abuse scandals, and the denigration of marginalized people within the Church has shaken their faith and sense of belonging to its core,” she said, The Irish Times reported.

The minister, at a Feb. 13 Dublin meeting on why all ministries should be open to women, added that Catholics had a responsibility to speak up for values they expect the church to uphold.The Irish Times reported that Madigan noted that Protestant churches in Ireland have more than 400 women as ordained members of the clergy.”Nobody finds this unusual because in those church communities it is considered quite the norm,” she said.

“Why can’t the Catholic Church be the same? More often than not, it is women who are holding parishes together, doing the lion’s share of the work.”

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

February 13, 2019

Last November, the Diocese of Harrisburg announced that they were creating a victims compensation fund to aid survivors of clergy abuse in their diocese. Today we have learned the details of that fund.

The plan from the Diocese of Harrisburg is as milquetoast as is it ineffectual. The details – giving survivors a mere 90 days to come forward while also precluding their ability to sue in the future – are intended to sound good and mollify an angry public. The fact is, if Church officials cared about protecting children and supporting survivors, they would have devised a very different plan.

We believe that the more information that is known about abusers the better parents, parishioners, and the public are equipped to prevent future cases of abuse. We notice that the Diocese is not offering to make public the information that they receive from victims. Removing a survivor’s right to sue will not prevent cases of abuse, but will prevent survivors from using legal tools that can compel dioceses to release information or correct misinformation.

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

February 13, 2019

Four publicly accused clerics who are not on Omaha”s list of those with “substantiated allegations”

–Fr. Thomas B. Laughlin, who “admitted to molesting dozens of boys over decades,” was described by a newspaper as “one of Oregon’s most notorious pedophile priests,” and who spent “his last years living a quiet existence near family in Omaha.” A Nebraska native, Fr. Laughlin was ordained in Lincoln. He faced numerous civil suits, most of which settled, and was convicted at least once and sentenced to one year in jail. “Laughlin was known as an exceptionally charismatic priest and tremendous church fundraiser who hobnobbed with Portland’s Catholic business and political elite,” wrote the Oregonian.

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

February 13, 2019

Today, dioceses across the state of New Jersey have released their lists of clerics who have been “credibly” accused of abuse. We applaud this move but push for further action.

Between the dioceses of Camden, Metuchen, Newark, Paterson, and Trenton, 188 names of clergy who have been found to have abused children were released. These lists are critical for the prevention of abuse, the protection of children, and healing for survivors. We hope that seeing these names in print will bring solace to survivors and let victims who may still be suffering in silence find the strength to come forward and make a report of their abuse to law enforcement officials.

Yet we also know that there are more names of clerics who have hurt people in New Jersey that were not disclosed today. None of the lists released include the names of religious order or “extern” priests. While bishops often claim that they do not have authority over these clerics, the fact that they worked in New Jersey – regardless of whether they were brought there by a religious order leader or on loan from another diocese – behooves the inclusion of their names on these lists. If New Jersey bishops want to live up to their 2002 promise to be open and transparent, we believe that all those who hurt children while working in one of their dioceses should be listed.

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

February 13, 2019

Two dioceses in Virginia have released their lists of clergy who have been “credibly” accused of abuse. We are grateful for this move but urge further action.

The Diocese of Richmond, VA has released a list of 42 names of clerics who have been accused of sexually abusing children or vulnerable adults. Similarly, the Diocese of Arlington has announced a list of 16 accused clergy.

It is always helpful for survivors when these lists are posted, especially for those who may be suffering in silence. Seeing that they are not alone helps victims heal and could also compel others who were abused – whether by the same person or in the same place – to come forward.

But what is not helpful is when lists are carefully curated to leave off names of priests who have been accused of abuse but whose allegations haven’t been deemed by church officials to be “credible.” We have seen previous cases where accusations have been deemed not credible only for those determinations to have been disastrously wrong.

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PARIS (FRANCE)
LaCroix International

February 14, 2019

By Claire Lesegretain

This is the second in a five-part series on steps taken by Catholic bishops on the various continents. Australia, which has a 25 percent baptized Catholic population, has experienced a series of crises over the Church pedophilia scandal since the first accusations became public during the 1980s.

In 1996, after a rising number of revelations, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference (ACBC) published its plans in a document entitled “Towards Healing” while the Archdiocese of Melbourne developed a plan of its own entitled “The Melbourne Response.”The two protocols set out the procedures to be followed in cases of suspicion and reporting of abuse allegations involving a member of Church personnel.

They included preventive measures as well as a process of accompaniment and compensation for victims.Despite these efforts by the Church, the devastating report of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which was made public in February 2017, once again shone a torchlight on the scandals in the Church.

Prepared over a period of five years and covering more than 4,000 youth institutions – both religious- and government-run, the report showed that “between 1950 and 2010, 7 percent of priests had been accused of sexual abuse of children.”

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IRONDALE (AL)
National Catholic Register

February 14, 2019

By Patti Armstrong

In December, a Boise, Idaho, priest of 45 years, who lived in world of Satanism and child pornography, was sentenced to 25 years in prison. I came across the story, glossed over it, and turned away, finding it too disturbing.

Then an editor asked if I wanted to write about it. Well, not really. But after talking about it with a Catholic therapist and two exorcists, I discovered some worthwhile points to ponder. First, brace yourself for a summary and go here if you can stomach it all.

Thomas Faucher, 73, was caught with thousands of heinous images and satanic pronouncements on his phone and computer. There were 24 charges against him — including possession of LSD, marijuana, and Ecstasy — of which he pleaded guilty to five, claiming he could not remember much due to depression and dementia. Faucher’s interests on chat rooms are testimony to the hideous face of evil: actively seeking interests with gay men, satanic interests, violent and torturous images including rape, torture, and killing children, and fantasies including altar boys and babies.

Faucher’s defense pointed out that he never actually sexually abused a child and that he was a wonderful person who helped many people. Going from a position of power to nothing through retirement led to loneliness, alcoholism and drug abuse, which were blamed for his fall into darkness.

The diocese evicted Faucher while he was being held in the county jail and they had the house exorcised before selling it. Faucher apologized at his sentencing. “I was one really sick puppy. I screwed up big time… I feel so much remorse and anger.”

How Can This Happen?

How could a priest plunge so deep into depravity? I asked Paul Peloquin, a Catholic clinical psychologist in Albuquerque, New Mexico, who was abused as an 11-year-old. He returned to the Church after a thirty-year absence and now helps others to heal spiritually and emotionally.

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NORWICH (CT)
The Day

February 13. 2019

By Joe Wojtas

The Connecticut chapter of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests on Wednesday called on Chief State’s Attorney Kevin Kane to set up a hotline to receive complaints from people who say they were abused by Catholic priests in the state.

In addition, Gail Howard said her organization has identified three priests, in addition to the six priests and brothers identified by The Day, who were not included on the list of 43 substantively accused of sexually assaulting minors that was released by the Diocese of Norwich on Sunday.

Howard, who made the comments during a Wednesday afternoon news conference in front of the Cathedral of St. Patrick, which is just yards from Bishop Michael Cote’s office, also called on the diocese to release more information about those on the list, such as what parishes and schools they served at.

“We need to know where these offenders worked and what parishes allowed them to have access to children,” said Howard, who was accompanied by John “Tim” McGuire of New London, who alleged last summer that, when he was 8 and an altar boy at St. Joseph’s Church in Noank, the late James Curry molested him.

The diocese’s list also did not say what the priests were accused of doing and whether the diocese reported them to police or the state Department of Children and Families, which clergy have been required to do under the state’s mandatory reporter law since 1971.

While all but 10 of the priests on the list are deceased, Howard said SNAP wants to know where the ones who are alive are now living.

“These are people who are a danger to children now. They need to be watched carefully,” she said.

According to the diocese’s list, diocesan priests such as Richard Buongirno and R. Thomas McConaghy still are alive.

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SPARTA (NJ)
Patch

February 14, 2019

By Katie Kausch

A former priest who worked at Pope John High School faced a credible sexual abuse allegation, the Diocese of Paterson said.

James Scott, who was on the faculty at Pope John High School, was named on a newly released Diocese list of credibly accused priests. He served at other North Jersey churches and schools during his career (you can find a full list of churches at the bottom of this article).

The priest was included on a list of 28 from the Diocese of Paterson who face credible abuse allegations. All the priests are either deceased, removed from the ministry, or laicized.

“Such misconduct by those ordained as ministers of our faith can never be tolerated. The faithful of our diocese have a right to know that the diocese is doing everything it can to ensure the safety of our children and to report perpetrators to law enforcement authorities,” Bishop Arthur Serratelli said in a letter.

Scott faces one accusation; more information on the details of the allegation was not immediately available. He was removed from the ministry in 1995.

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WOODLAND PARK (NJ)
North Jersey Record

February 14, 2019

How much of a stain does a priest’s garment carry? How much of a stench of shame?

Certainly not much for most priests, not for “good priests,” not for those who go about their daily walk ministering, first and foremost, to humankind and to the faithful who look to them for spiritual and emotional guidance.

And yet not all priests are good, and we are staggered by the sheer number of priests in New Jersey, past and present, who allegedly abused the trust, sexually abused children under their watch, and, shamefully, were protected by the Roman Catholic Church.

On Wednesday came a long-awaited reckoning for Catholic priests in New Jersey, some of the “bad ones,” believed to have abused young boys and girls, priests who too often were allowed to keep their cassocks and to keep performing Mass — even after their terrible secrets were known to the church hierarchy.

Cardinal Joseph William Tobin greets parishioners at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark before he is installed as head of the Archdiocese of Newark on Friday, Jan. 6, 2017.
Cardinal Joseph William Tobin greets parishioners at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark before he is installed as head of the Archdiocese of Newark on Friday, Jan. 6, 2017. (Photo: Michael Karas/Northjersey.com)

On Wednesday we at last saw the names, 188 of them, from New Jersey’s five Catholic dioceses, who the church said had been “credibly accused” of sexually abusing children. The Newark Archdiocese posted its list shortly after 9:15 a.m. — a total of 63 names that included 33 priests who are deceased. Some of the priests had one alleged victim, but 33 had multiple victims. The Paterson Diocese list includes 28 clerics.

The release of the lists came after Cardinal Joseph Tobin announced last year that the dioceses were in the process of reviewing clergy sex abuse cases. The lists, he said, were compiled during an “extensive review” of records dating to 1940.

The length of the lists and the length of years covered by the lists speak directly to the depth and breadth of the abuse, but it cannot speak to the horror of it.

It cannot speak for long-ago victims who were subjected to abuse by men of God, men who were supposed to be their protectors — not their predators.

It cannot speak for all those who were abused, who had no lifeline to which to turn, save the church, and who had, in the end, neither the strength nor the wherewithal to speak up or cry out for justice.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service

February 14, 2019

By Marnie McAllister

A report by an independent investigator into the Archdiocese of Louisville’s handling of clergy sexual abuse in the course of 80-plus years begins as a story of failure followed by what the report calls “a sea change” in the past 17 years.

Attorney Mark Miller penned the report — that includes a list of 34 credibly accused priests of the Archdiocese of Louisville — after spending three months poring over 400 files and thousands of pages of documents.

He described his process and findings during a news conference Feb. 8 at the Archdiocese of Louisville Pastoral Center, formally presenting his report to the media and John Laun, chair of the archdiocese’s Sexual Abuse Review Board.

The board had requested the third-party investigation last fall, according to Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville.

Miller is a former U.S. attorney, former commissioner of the Kentucky State Police and retired judge advocate general.

During the news conference, Kurtz repeatedly indicated that the report is meant to be preliminary — a beginning, not an end, of a larger effort to bring healing to victims and transparency to the archdiocese’s handling of sexual abuse by clergy.

“Our primary purpose today is healing — healing of people who are victim survivors, many of whom I’ve spoken directly to and who have told me that having a report and a list of credibly accused priests will provide validation for something that has been part of their life, often for many decades.

“And secondly,” he said. “There is the thought that it will inspire others who have not come forward to come forward now for the healing that they truly deserve.”

He urged people who want to report abuse to contact police and the archdiocese, adding, “Do not delay in that.”

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RICHMOND (VA)
WRIC TV

February 13, 2019

By Sierra Fox

The names of 42 Catholic clergy members with ties to the diocese of Richmond were released on Wednesday after “credible and substantiated” allegations of sexual abuse involving minors were made against them.

8News spoke with a woman who said her brother was abused by a priest on the list of 42 clergy members. The woman asked not to be on camera but said her name was Kathleen.

“Sadly, my brother was molested by a priest,” Kathleen said.

She said her brother was sexually abused by Father George George from the age of 13 to 16.
“When I saw the name of the priest,” she explained to 8News. “It really brought back some terrible memories and the terrible time my family went through.”

Kathleen said her brother stopped going to church and started using drugs to cope.

“I’m not gonna let this one monster change the way I feel and celebrate God,” she said.

Some survivors told 8News that what happened to them did change the way they feel and celebrate god. ​​​​​​​

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PEORIA (IL)
Channel 25 News

February 13, 2019

(Warning: This story contains graphic material and is not suitable for a younger audience.)

Although he now lives in Rockford, Jeff Jones was born into a devout Catholic family in Pekin. Growing up in Central Illinois in the 1950’s and 60’s his mother often volunteered at St. Joseph’s. It was during that time he first met Father Walter Breuning.

“He would bring gifts. He bought my mom and dad an air-conditioning unit, he bought them new carpet. And I’m a little boy right and I’m seeing all the stuff thinking, ‘gosh, this guy is tremendous,’” recalls Jones.

At a young age Jones says he quickly grew attached to the Priest. So, when Father Breuning was transferred from his Parrish in Pekin to St. Anthony’s in Atkinson, Jones says he jumped at the invitation to come stay with the Priest on various breaks from school, including his summer vacation. He recalls working odd jobs around the rectory for money by day, sleeping on a couch in the living room by night.

But then, one day, he says the relationship changed.

“He said to me, ‘You know, why don’t you go in here? The air conditioner is better in my room. Why don’t you come on in there and sleep in there?’ And I said, ‘OK,” Jones begin, with a long pause as he looks down and stares at his clenched hands. “He started rubbing my back and I’m thinking, ‘OK, this is OK, and then he started dipping his hand down in my underwear. He took my underwear off and he began to, you know, massage me down there.”

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NEWARK (NJ)
Star Ledger

February 14, 2019

By Susan K. Livio

State lawmakers will announce on Thursday they have reached an agreement that will repeal New Jersey’s narrow two-year statute of limitations that childhood victims of sexual assault say have prevented them from suing churches and other nonprofits, NJ Advance Media has learned.

The new legislation, which has not yet been made public, will allow a victim of childhood sexual abuse to bring a civil suit up until the age of 55 or seven years after they make “the discovery that they connect the injury to the abuse,” said Sen. Joseph Vitale, D-Middlesex, the bill’s prime sponsor.

“They may have known they were abused but don’t connect the psychological damage to it,” Vitale said. “Two years is a ridiculously short time” to have to come to grips with what happened, and tell their families, he said.

The legislation also allows adult victims of sexual assault seven years to file a civil lawsuit, instead of the current two-year time limit, Vitale said.

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NEWARK (NJ)
Star Ledger

February 14, 2019

By S.P. Sullivan

After decades of relative silence, New Jersey’s five Catholic dioceses on Wednesday identified 188 priests credibly accused of sexual abuse against children. The disclosures come amid an ongoing state grand jury investigation expected to identify pedophile clergy and reveal whether there were any efforts to cover up their abuse.

Among the priests identified, 110 are dead. More than 75 had been removed from ministry as a result of their behavior, including some of the deceased. Two were listed as “whereabouts unknown. The records date back to the 1940′s and it is not known how many clergy were ever charged criminally.

But even with the release of the list, legal experts say it is unlikely many be prosecuted even though the state attorney general in New Jersey has launched its own sweeping investigation into allegations of sexual abuse. If similar efforts in other states are any indication, the inquiry could more likely prompt a hard look at systemic failures to stop abuse than put large numbers of priests in prison.

Former law enforcement officials and advocates for sexual assault survivors say clergy abuse cases are among the most difficult to prosecute for several reasons.

It was not unusual decades ago for victims to decide not to report abuse because they were skeptical that there would be consequences. And when victims did come forward in decades past, their complaints were frequently not turned over to authorities by church officials. Also, the lack of witnesses or corroborating evidence complicates criminal convictions further.

Even in Pennsylvania, where Attorney General Josh Shapiro last year published an unprecedented report naming more than 300 priests accused of abusing more than 1,000 children, just three clerics have been criminally charged.

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RICHMOND (VA)
CBS 6 News

February 13, 2019

By Matthew Fultz

Becky Ianni tells CBS 6 that although her abuse happened more than five decades ago, Wednesday’s list of priests that sexually abused minors brought back all of those horrible memories.

“I think I flashback back to the abuse and what he did to me and how it changed my life,” said Ianni. “My first reaction was to check the list here and check the list in Arlington to make sure he was on there and he was,” Ianni said.

That name was William Reinecke, a man who Ianni said abused her for several years as a child.

Today shes the Virginia State Leader for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP). Although she is glad a list was published, she said its information is incomplete.

“There`s information missing. They don`t have listed how many people have accused each of these priests,” said Ianni. “It could be one, it could be dozens of victims. It doesn`t list the perishes they were at. It does`t say when they found out and what they knew.”

The Diocese of Arlington released 16 priests names today.

‘I think there is probably people who aren’t on that list because they didn’t make the cut for whatever reason and we don`t even know what that reason is,” Ianni added.

While the Diocese of Richmond had 42 names of priests who abused minors. CBS 6 took to the streets of Richmond to hear what catholic members had to say.

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WOODLAND PARK (NJ)
North Jersey Record

February 14, 2019

By Sarah Nolan and Deena Yellin

NorthJersey.com’s Ed Forbes discusses the release of names by NJ dioceses of priests credibly accused of sexual abuse. Paul Wood Jr. and Michael V. Pettigano and Ed Forbes, North Jersey Record

The names of 188 priests and deacons who have been credibly accused of sexually abusing children over several decades were released by New Jersey Roman Catholic dioceses on Wednesday.

The public release of the names was the result of an internal review spurred by law enforcement officials launching their own investigation and “an effort to do what is right and just,” according to Cardinal Joseph Tobin, head of the Newark Archdiocese.

The Newark Archdiocese alone released 63 names, 33 of whom are now dead. Of all the accused priests, 109 are dead and 79 living.

Will the priests go to jail?
In most cases these charges are from decades ago, and the statute of limitations has expired, so it’s unlikely. While there is no longer a statute of limitations on reporting sexual abuse of a minor, in years past there were limits on how much time could elapse between when a crime was committed and when charges could be filed.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Religion News Service

February 12, 2019

By Thomas Reese

No one has a greater impact on a Catholic parish than its pastor, which is why diocesan seminaries are key to the future of the church in America. Diocesan seminaries evaluate and then form those men who want to be parish priests. Sadly, in recent decades, too many of the priests coming out of these seminaries have been trained to be authoritarians with few pastoral skills.

Some of them come to seminary with an authoritarian mindset, but faculty at today’s seminaries often do little to change that. Some faculty members even foster it, teaching their students that they have all the answers and that their job is to kick the laity into shape. In these cases, seminarians are not taught to listen, to delegate, to work with committees or to empower the laity, especially women.

This is not true of all seminaries and seminarians. Chicago’s Mundelein Seminary has improved under the leadership of Cardinal Blase Cupich. Some are mixed bags. Others are disaster areas.

In the worst programs, students are told not to ask questions but to consult “The Catechism of the Catholic Church,” the book-length presentation of the teachings of the church prepared under the papacy of John Paul II. The documents of the Second Vatican Council are either downplayed or interpreted through a conservative lens. In too many places by too many faculty, moral theology is presented in a legalistic framework in which everything is black or white.

This has been going on in American seminaries since at least the mid-1990s, after conservative bishops had consolidated their control of seminaries. The result is that many parishioners are unhappy with their pastors.

Seminaries were one of the great reforms that came out of the Council of Trent, the long meeting of the church in the mid-1500s spurred by the Protestant Reformation. Until that time, many clergymen were ignorant and sometimes even illiterate. Trent insisted that the clergy be educated and urged bishops to set up seminaries to prepare men for the priesthood.

Seminaries also were a way of segregating seminarians from the world in order to protect and foster their vocations. Seminaries were often built in the countryside, where the seminarians could be easily protected from temptation. If they don’t interact with women, they will not fall in love and leave.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
The Wrap

February 13, 2019

By Johnathon Schaech

Pope Francis has called an unprecedented “summit” of bishops to the Vatican to discuss for the umpteenth time the problem of sexual abuse by priests — this one is focused on the abuse of children.

The summit starts Feb. 21 and ends on the night of the Academy Awards, Feb. 24. I cannot help but see the significance between the revelations about abuse and power in the Roman Catholic Church mirroring the revelations of abuse and power in our community out here in Hollywood.

Clergy sex-abuse survivors have been coming together and speaking out since 1988 through SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. In 2002, the group helped the Boston Globe investigative team expose the Boston diocese’s practice of covering up for predators and moving them to new, unsuspecting parishes. Hollywood immortalized that moment in the 2016 Oscar-winning movie “Spotlight.”

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BOSTON (MA)
The Atlantic

February 14, 2019

By Emma Green

Cardinal Seán O’Malley has spent decades cleaning up after pedophile priests. Now he’s once again found himself in the middle of a crisis.

A few years after Seán O’malley took over the Archdiocese of Boston in 2003, at the peak of the clergy sexual-abuse crisis in America, he led novenas of penance at nine of the city’s most affected parishes. At each church he visited, he lay facedown on the floor before the altar, begging for forgiveness. This is how O’Malley has spent his life in ministry: cleaning up after pedophile priests and their apologists, and serving as the Catholic Church’s public face of repentance and reform.

Possibly more than any other cleric on Earth, O’Malley understands how deeply the Church’s errors on sexual abuse have damaged its mission and reputation. Today, he is one of Pope Francis’s closest advisers, the only American on a small committee of cardinals who meet regularly at the Vatican. He runs the pope’s special commission on the protection of minors. And he is a member of the influential Vatican office responsible for preserving and defending Catholic doctrine. He believes that the Church has changed, can change, and will change. But as the world’s top bishops prepare to meet later this month for an unprecedented summit on sexual abuse at the Vatican, O’Malley has found himself frustrated, unable to push reforms through at the top.

In an interview on a recent cold morning in Boston, the cardinal spoke about the progress he believes the Church, and Pope Francis, have made in recent years, and what’s still lacking. He detailed his proposal to establish Vatican tribunals to deal with bishops accused of wrongdoing—one of the major problems the Church has yet to address. The pope “was convinced to do it another way,” O’Malley said. “We’re still waiting for the procedures to be clearly articulated.” He often described problems in the Church passively, without directly assigning agency or fault. For example: American bishops have asked the Vatican for an investigation into Theodore McCarrick, the former cardinal who was consistently elevated despite widely acknowledged rumors of sexual misconduct, until he was removed from ministry last summer. After months of requests, an investigation appears to be under way. “Certainly, many of us have personally expressed to the Holy Father and the secretary of state the need to do something quickly,” O’Malley said. “I keep getting assurances. But we’re waiting for the documents to be produced.”

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VIRGINIA BEACH (VA)
Christian Broadcasting Network

February 12, 2019

A multi-month Houston Chronicle investigation into sexual abuse in Southern Baptist churches has rocked the denomination and prompted calls for immediate, aggressive action.

Southern Baptist president J.D. Greear called for the denomination to mourn and repent. He promised to put the Southern Baptist Convention’s spiritual, financial and organizational resources behind an effort to stop predators in churches and other Southern Baptist institutions.

He also called for the care of victims saying “the safety of victims matters more than the reputation of Southern Baptists.”

Dr. Russell Moore, the president of the convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, called on churches to report all child abuse cases to the civil authorities.

Moore also addressed church governance issues which historically have been used by denominational leaders to reject calls for abuse protection measures such as a registry of offenders to track predators who move from church to church.

“Church autonomy is no excuse for a lack of accountability,” said Moore. He called on churches that use issues like sexual immorality or opposing missions to deem another church “out of fellowship” to do the same for churches that cover up rape or sexual abuse.

Last year the denomination created a Sexual Abuse Presidential Study Group, largely in response to the #MeToo and #ChurchToo movements. One of the key goals is to train churches to recognize sexual predators and how to respond to charges of abuse.

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SAN ANTONIO (TX)
Express-News

February 13, 2019

There is much work to be done by the U.S. Catholic Church as it moves forward with restoring the public trust, shattered by decades of failing to properly address allegations of sexual abuse of children by clergy.

The release last month of the names of close to 300 Texas-based priests who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse, including 54 in the Archdiocese of San Antonio, will go a long way toward starting the healing process for many victims and their families. But it’s only a beginning.

The scars are deep.

The cases on the Bexar County list date back as far as 1941 and include 150 separate allegations of misconduct. Most of the allegations were under the radar of most Bexar County residents because only a few ever surfaced in court. A review of Express-News archives indicates the archdiocese had paid at least $6.63 million as of 2011 to victims of sexual abuse by priests in Bexar County.

As painful as these types of cases are, there needs to be continued honesty and transparency going forward. Needed: strong policies that ensure allegations of misconduct are reported to law enforcement in a timely manner and suspects are sidelined from their jobs while investigations are conducted.

Those who participate in cover-ups and allow suspected child molesters to be reassigned must also be held accountable. Pretending the problem does not exist won’t make it go away. Decades of trying to resolve the problem internally have proven futile.

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CARLSBAD (NM)
Carlsbad Current-Argus

February 13, 2019

By Michael Smith

A lawsuit filed in New Mexico’s Fifth Judicial District Court Monday alleged a priest sexually abused a 7-year-old boy more than 40 years ago while the clergyman was assigned to St. Edward School in Carlsbad.

The boy, listed in the lawsuit as John Doe, was allegedly raped by Kerry Guillory, per the suit, on the campus of the school on multiple occasions.

Between 1972 and 1974, the 7-years-old boy was allegedly sexually assault by Guillory.

“The suit was prompted by our client struggling through the failure of what scientists call ‘child coping skills.’ When really bad things happen to children, especially (by a person) in a position of trust and authority over the child, they survive by utilizing whatever coping mechanisms work to block out bad things,” said Albuquerque attorney Brad Hall, who filed the lawsuit.

Defendants in the case are the Catholic Diocese of El Paso, Conventual Franciscan Friars, Province of Our Lady of Consolation, Inc., St. Edward Parish, Inc. and St. Edward School, Inc., read the complaint.

“We have no comment on pending litigation,” said Fernie Ceniceros, interim communications director for the El Paso Catholic Diocese.

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GARDENCITY (KS)
Garden City Telegram

February 13, 2019

My first reaction upon hearing that hundreds of leaders in the Southern Baptist church had sexually abused as many as 700 people in 400 churches, including victims as young as 3, was “how could they?” It was the same reaction I had when news of predatory priests in the Roman Catholic Church, and the cover-up that followed the sexual abuse allegations, surfaced.

I have belonged to Southern Baptist churches in the past, so I know something about their proud “independent” status. Some critics have said it is the lack of a central authority in these churches that contributed to failed oversight. The Catholic Church has a central authority. How do you explain its oversight structure?

The reporting by the Houston Chronicle, San Antonio Express-News and The Washington Post should turn any stomach. Most Baptists have had children in their Sunday school programs. What must they be thinking as they ponder whether to ask their child, who by now might be a teen or an adult, if they had ever been abused by a teacher, pastor or counselor?

The Washington Post reports: ”…instead of ensuring that sexual predators were kept at bay, the Southern Baptist Convention, resisted policy changes. …Victims accused church leaders of mishandling their complaints, even hiding them from the public.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
KYW Newsradio

February 13, 2019

By Steve Tawa

The parents of a man who won what may be the largest payout to date from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia in a clergy abuse case are donating a chunk of it to CHILD USA to track the Statute of Limitations reform movement.

University of Pennsylvania Law School professor Marci Hamilton, a nationally-recognized advocate for survivors of clergy sex abuse, believes that 26-year-old Sean McIlmail, a former student in a northeast parish, died of a heroin overdose in 2013 because he was unable to cope.

“He was under tremendous pressure, because he was the only victim who could go after a prosecution of a priest,” Hamilton said.

She says that was due to Pennsylvania’s exceedingly short limit to file a lawsuit. He was about to testify against a now-defrocked priest, Robert Brennan.

Hamilton says public pressure is forcing state legislatures to allow child abuse victims to go after the Roman Catholic Church.

“Over half of the states this year have already introduced legislation to expand or eliminate the criminal and civil statutes of limitations. That’s a record,” she said.

Sean’s father, Michael, a former Philadelphia police officer, recalls the church approaching the family to donate part of their settlement to the church to deal with abusive priests. They decided instead, to give it to Hamilton’s CHILD USA.

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DENVER (CO)
Crux

February 13, 2019

By Christopher White

Following a trend throughout the country, New Jersey’s five Catholic dioceses released on Wednesday the names of its priests credibly accused of sexual abuse.

In total, 188 names were included on the five lists: 63 from Newark, 56 from Camden, 30 from Trenton, 28 from Patterson, and 11 from Metuchen.

While the majority of the priests named are deceased, one name appearing on two lists remains the subject of intense controversy: Theodore McCarrick.

Earlier this summer, McCarrick, the former bishop of Metuchen and later archbishop of Newark (and then Washington, D.C.), was credibly accused of abusing an altar boy while serving as a priest of the archdiocese of New York during the 1970s.

McCarrick would go on to become one of the most prominent members of the U.S. Church, and the scandal surrounding him led Pope Francis to accept McCarrick’s resignation from the College of Cardinals last summer, along with removing him from ministry.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), the powerful Vatican body that investigates abuse against minors, is expected to issue a decision on whether to laicize McCarrick in the coming days. Should the Vatican make such a move, McCarrick would be permanently removed from the priesthood.

The archdiocese of Newark included McCarrick in its full listing, noting: “Archbishop Theodore McCarrick has been included on the list based on the findings of the Archdiocese of New York that allegations of abuse of a minor against then Father McCarrick were credible and substantiated.”

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TORONTO (CANADA)
The Catholic Register

February 13, 2019

By Michael Swan

Ever since Pope Francis announced in September that he was calling the heads of the world’s bishops’ conferences to Rome for an unprecedented summit on sexual abuse, expectations have been mounting.

He called for the summit as the Church was reeling from several abuse scandals that had implicated priests, bishops and even cardinals. Nine months into 2018, it was already a horrible year for the Church and it would get worse. More than just a Pennsylvania grand jury report on 70 years of clerical abuse and cover-ups, or lurid tales of sexual predation by former Washington Archbishop Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, or having every single bishop in Chile tender his resignation — beyond these ghastly headlines was a relentless drip of revelations of abuse, negligence and concealment.

Then in November the Pope instructed the American bishops to postpone a vote on stringent new abuse protocols that included creation of a phone line to report misconduct by bishops. He wanted them to wait until the abuse crisis was discussed by bishops from around the world. His intervention further fuelled anticipation of major developments when the three-day summit convenes Feb. 21 in the Vatican.

But as the date approaches, the Vatican has been trying to dampen anticipation.

“I’ve perceived a bit of an inflated expectation,” Pope Francis told reporters on the plane as he returned to Rome Jan. 26 from World Youth Day in Panama. “We need to deflate the expectations.”

That doesn’t mean the Pope is having second thoughts about his own summit. But his ambitions differ from the thousands of Catholics worldwide who may be expecting dramatic announcements or the immediate imposition of new measures to combat abuse.

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NEW YORK (NY)
America Magazine

February 13, 2019

By James M. Dubik

When Pope Francis said in a 2015 interview, “I am a sinner,” he reminded us of a fundamental truth: We are all imperfect. Even those striving for both moral and spiritual perfection are prone to mistakes, errors in judgment, blindnesses and biases. As human beings, we cannot be otherwise, and the organizations we create to govern ourselves—whether for business, political, security, social or religious purposes—reflect these imperfections. The Catholic Church is facing twin crises that prove this point exactly: a sexual abuse crisis and a crisis of confidence in leadership practices that allowed, then covered up, the abuse.

The issue now is how to restore trust in church leadership. My experience in the United States Army—over 37 years, 11 as a general officer—suggests that the path of “I’m sorry, trust me this time” won’t work. Rather, the church must become trustworthy, and that means taking comprehensive corrective action.

Addressing scandal in the ranks

At one point in my career, I witnessed how then-Chief of Staff of the Army, General (now retired) Dennis J. Reimer, and the rest of the senior Army leadership dealt with the 1996 Aberdeen sexual abuse scandal. I was a colonel then, General Reimer’s executive officer. This scandal broke when Major General (now retired) Robert Shadley discovered, reported and began an investigation into allegations of sexual abuse involving the Army drill instructors responsible for training new recruits at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Md.

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CAMDEN (NJ)
Cape May County Herald

February 13, 2019

On Feb. 13, 2019, the Diocese of Camden, in concert with the other dioceses of New Jersey, has published the names of all diocesan priests credibly accused of sexual abuse of minors.

The following is Bishop Dennis Sullivan’s explanatory statement regarding the release of names.

In keeping with a promise made by the Roman Catholic Bishops of New Jersey, I am today releasing the names of 56 priests and one deacon of the Diocese of Camden who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse of minors. The other bishops from New Jersey are simultaneously releasing the names of priests from their dioceses.

In the Diocese of Camden, these 56 priests are a small percentage of the more than 800 priests who have faithfully served the people of South Jersey since the diocese was founded in 1937.

As to the names on the attached list, it includes those who admitted to the abuse, those who were found guilty after a trial in the church courts or the civil courts, and others against whom the evidence was so overwhelming as to be virtually unquestionable. Most of these incidents occurred in the 1970s and the 1980s and involved male teenagers. It should also be noted that the majority of these priests, all of whose names have been provided to local law enforcement authorities, are dead.

In many cases, a single allegation from 30 or 40 years ago was the only such charge that had ever been made against the priest and was received after he had died. Thus, he was unable to respond to the allegation.

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PETERSBURG (VA)
Progress Index

February 13, 2019

By Bill Atkinson

Diocese releases names of 42 men with ‘credible, substantiated’ accusations of assault of minors

The Catholic Diocese of Richmond released a list Wednesday of 42 former diocese priests having “credible and substantiated” accusations of sexual abuse of minors, and that list includes a former priest at a Prince George County parish.

In an open letter to the diocese membership, Bishop Barry C. Knestout said the release coincides with his promise for transparency and accountability in how the church has dealt with the allegations. Knestout said the release is being done to help the survivors and their families heal from their past abuse.

“To those who experienced abuse from clergy, I am truly, deeply sorry,” Knestout wrote. “I regret that you have to bear the burden of the damage you suffered at the hands of those you trusted. I am also sorry that you must carry the memory of that experience with you. Moreover, I apologize to family members and friends of the abused, and to all members of the Catholic Church.”

Knestout stated that the crisis calls for the diocese to “be immersed in three aspects of reconciliation” — acknowledgement of the abuse, regret for the victims and a commitment that it never happens again.

“In doing so, we make known — and support with actions — our commitment to repair the damage that has been done,” the bishop wrote.

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NORWICH (CT)
Norwich Bulletin

February 13, 2019

By Kevin Aherne

The Diocese of Norwich this week released the names of 43 former priests in the diocese with “allegations of substance” made against them regarding the sexual abuse of minors, but a group of protesters say the church has not gone far enough to address the issue.

A small group of protesters from the Connecticut chapter of SNAP — the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests — held a press conference Wednesday afternoon in front of the Cathedral of Saint Patrick in Norwich urging the diocese to “come fully clean now” and to out additional priests the organization said were excluded from the list.

Also Wednesday, the Roman Catholic diocese in Richmond, Va., published a list of 42 priests with a “credible and substantiated” allegation of sexual abuse against a child, while New Jersey’s five Roman Catholic dioceses listed more than 180 priests who have been credibly accused of sexually abusing minors over a span of several decades.

Gail Howard, the leader of the Connecticut chapter of SNAP, said the release of the names by the Norwich diocese was a step forward in addressing decades of abuse that had been previously covered up, but more steps need to be made.

Howard also claimed the list of 43 clergy in the Norwich diocese omitted at least nine names, citing six missing names reported Tuesday by The Day, and three more identified by SNAP.

Howard unveiled details on the three priests that had previously gone unreported by the diocese and the media including: a priest who allegedly repeatedly assaulted a boy in New Hampshire in the 1960s and had served in the Norwich diocese at a church in Willimantic; a priest charged in 1993 with molesting a child in Massachusetts who had previously served in the Norwich diocese at a church in Middletown; and a priest who admitted abuse who had served in the diocese at a church in Middlefield.

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TOPEKA (KS)
Topeka Capital-Journal

February 13, 2019

By Tim Hrenchir

The names of five Roman Catholic priests thought to have molested children in other states — though they weren’t on the list the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas released Jan. 25 identifying 22 priests it concluded had sexually abused children — were made public Wednesday in Topeka by the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

Four of the five priests on the list released by Kansas City SNAP leader Jim McConnell are deceased. They include the Rev. Anthony Palmese, whom an obituary provided by SNAP indicated held assignments that included serving at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Topeka.

The archdiocese confirmed Wednesday that two of the priests had served there but said it had no record of sexual allegations against either during their time there.

The archdiocese indicated it had no record of the other three, including Palmese, having been assigned there and had confirmed that with Husch Blackwell, the law firm hired to independently review all its files.

“It is possible that one or more of these individuals worked, undertook studies or lived in the area at some time in the past,” said Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann. “But if they did, we were not aware of it because the records, going back some 75 years, did not show it.”

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post

February 13, 2019

By Michelle Boorstein and Sarah Pulliam Bailey

Virginia’s two Catholic dioceses Wednesday released lists of clergy whom officials say were deemed “credibly accused” of sexually abusing youth, the latest in a slew of U.S. dioceses to make public such names amid a national crisis over clerical abuse and cover-ups.

The diocese of Arlington, which covers the northeastern corner of Virginia, released a list of 16 names. It said the list was the product of two former FBI agents contracted by the diocese and given access to clergy files and information dating to its founding in 1974. It wasn’t immediately clear if any of the names were completely new to Catholics of the diocese.

Bishop Michael F. Burbidge said in a letter that he ordered the list be released to help “victims and survivors of clergy abuse to find further healing and consolation.”

The diocese of Richmond, which covers the rest of the state, released 42 names.

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RICHMOND (VA)
WRIC TV

February 13, 2019

The Catholic Diocese of Richmond has released the names of dozens of priests that are facing ‘credible and substantiated’ allegations of sexual abuse against a minor.

The list, which contains the names of 42 priests, was published by the Diocese of Richmond Wednesday afternoon.

The full list of priests can be found below.

“To the victims and to all affected by the pain of sexual abuse, our response will always be about what we are doing, not simply what we have done,” the Most Rev. Barry C. Knestout, Bishop of Richmond, said in an open letter published with the clergy list.

“We will seek not just to be healed but will always be seeking healing. We will seek not just to be reconciled but will always be seeking reconciliation.”
In an open letter addressed to the Catholic Church community last September, Bishop Barry Knestout says he is committed to addressing accusations of abuse quickly and transparently., Bishop Knestout promised to address all accusations ‘quickly and transparently.’

Snap, or Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, called for the names, “that may have been omitted,” to be added to the list on Wednesday. Snap also asked for additional background information about the priests, including how the diocese handled each allegation, to be made public.

We urge catholic officials in Virginia to not only go back to these lists and add any names that may have been omitted, but also to add work histories, information about current whereabouts and, critically, when the diocese first learned of the allegations and what their immediate response was. Only by including this information can we get a clearer picture of what went wrong in Virginia and what must be done now to protect children and prevent abuse.”-Snap

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OMAHA (NE)
KMTV

February 13, 2019

By Jake Wasikowski

A victim’s support group is calling for more transparency from the Archdiocese of Omaha amid the sexual abuse scandal.

“The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests” is calling on Omaha’s Catholic Church to include four clerics who were accused of sexual abuse on children in other states.

In December, the church released a list of 38 clergy with substantiated claims of sexual abuse or sexual misconduct with a minor.

SNAP says Fathers Thomas Laughlin, Alphonsus Ferguson, James Kelly, and Michael Nash all worked or spent time in Nebraska and were accused of sex crimes in other states. Though Laughlin and Ferguson have died; they say the others could be living here.

“Our view is that any child molesting priest, brother, nun, bishop, seminarian who was in this arch diocese the Catholics and the citizens need and deserve to know about them because we can protect our kids best if we know who and where these predators are,” said David Clohessy, with SNAP.

The Nebraska Attorney General’s Office has asked the Omaha, Lincoln, and Grand Island diocese to share investigation reports dating back 40 years.

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PRAGUE (CZECH REPUBLIC)
Czech Radio

February 13, 2019

Unlike elsewhere in Europe, the Catholic Church in the Czech Republic has faced relatively few scandals involving the sexual abuse of minors or nuns by priests. But as is common worldwide, many cases are never reported or become public knowledge.

Petra Panská, a former nun, is among seventeen people, including victims, who have signed on to a letter to Cardinal Dominik Duka asking him to meet in person with those abused by clergymen. After years of silence, she told Czech Radio, she began speaking out about her own repeated abuse by a Catholic priest, since convicted of multiple counts of rape.

“In my case, I experienced post-traumatic stress disorder, and a multiple personality disorder and depressive disorder also developed. Again and again in my mind I intensively re-live these traumatic events.”

Cardinal Duka has tended to downplay the problem, claiming that only 10 percent of accusations against priests are proven – which does not mean they did not occur. In 2010, when still Archbishop of Prague, he spoke of sexual abuse by the clergy as “abominable” but also said it was over-reported, part of a wider “media campaign” against the Catholic Church and the Pope.

It was for such a stance on the issue that the US-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, includes Cardinal Duka on its “Dirty Dozen” list of papabiles deemed unfit to ever become Pope. This due to his role, according to SNAP, in protecting paedophile priests and making public statements offensive to their victims.

The letter challenging Cardinal Duka to meet face to face with victims was initiated by documentary filmmaker Michal Štingl. He says it stems from the frustration of signatories – all practising Catholics – with the Church’s reluctance to address the issue in open discussion.

“I have repeatedly tried to meet both with the Archbishopric and with the heads of the dioceses where cases have occurred. There was virtually no reaction anywhere. The vast majority are simply not willing to talk about it.”

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Religion News Service

February 13, 2019

By Daniel Burke

Since 1998, about 380 Southern Baptist leaders and volunteers have faced allegations of sexual misconduct, according to a sweeping investigation by two Texas newspapers.

The Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News also found that in the past 20 years, more than 700 victims have been abused, with some urged to have abortions and forgive their abusers.

The newspapers said their investigation included “examining federal and state court databases, prison records and official documents from more than 20 states and by searching sex offender registries nationwide.”

In Texas alone, the newspapers interviewed police and district attorneys in 40 counties.

“Ultimately, we compiled information on 380 credibly accused officials in Southern Baptist churches, including pastors, deacons, Sunday school teachers and volunteers,” the newspapers said. “We verified that about 220 had been convicted of sex crimes or received deferred prosecutions in plea deals.”

Of those 220, 90 remain in prison and 100 are registered sex offenders, according to the report.

The investigation comes as other religious bodies, including the Catholic Church, face accusations of widespread sexual abuse of its members, especially children, over decades.

Churches are autonomous
But unlike the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations, the Southern Baptist Convention is a collection of 47,000 autonomous churches, with little power to force churches to comply with policies.

“The SBC presents no governing policies to churches because the SBC is not a governing organization; it is a service organization. Each church is self-governing,” said Sing Oldham, a spokesman for the Southern Baptist Convention.

“However, the Convention has consistently called on churches to report immediately to law enforcement any known or suspected instance of sexual abuse in a church context and has provided resources to inform churches of ways to help protect their congregants,” Oldham added.

With about 15 million members, the Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Protestant denomination in the United States.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post

February 13, 2019

By Sara McDougall

Speaking with reporters last week, Pope Francis acknowledged that the Catholic Church is confronted not just with a crisis of widespread allegations of sexual assault and abuse of minors, but also the rape and even “a kind of sexual slavery” of nuns.

This statement was not technically news. Many already knew of these long-standing allegations of such horrific abuses of power.

What was new, and what some might consider a grave sin on the part of the pope, was not his silence but his public recognition of the problem.

We know all too well how long Catholic authorities have sought to keep priests’ sexual sins quiet. Only recently, because of the brave children and nuns who have come forward, has the depth of sexual abuse in the church been acknowledged as a crisis that must be addressed.

But why has scandal been systematically silenced in the church for so long? One answer lies in the medieval church’s doctrine on scandal.

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WOODLAND PARK (NJ)
North Jersey Record

February 13, 2019

By Mike Kelly

The names are just ordinary. John and Michael and Robert and Peter and William and Thomas and Ken.

All Catholic priests.

All accused of abusing little boys and girls.

On Wednesday, after decades of CIA-like secrecy and obfuscation, the Catholic church in New Jersey finally opened its files and told the faithful in the pews what it knew about priests who had molested children.

“I wish to express my genuine sorrow to the victims and their families who were so profoundly betrayed,” Newark’s Cardinal Joseph Tobin wrote in a letter that accompanied the list. “On behalf of our Church, I beg your forgiveness. You have my solemn promise of prayers and support as you continue on your healing journey.”

In itself, the list is shocking – more than 60 names, just in the Newark Archdiocese, which includes roughly 1.3 million Roman Catholics in Bergen, Hudson, Essex and Union counties. By noon, the list had grown to nearly 200 priests across the state as New Jersey’s four smaller dioceses of Paterson, Metuchen, Trenton and Camden released names of abusive priests.

Click here for the full list of names.

At the same time, however, these lists– and, in particular, how many priests were named – should not shock anyone who has followed the sex-abuse crisis that has crippled the Catholic church for the past two decades, draining its finances and its moral credibility.

Church officials, in New Jersey and across the world, have known for years that far too many priests led secret lives in which they regularly abused some of the most vulnerable members of their flock.

The list of Newark Archdiocesan abuser priests dates back to 1940. It includes ordinary parish priests and others who became significant leaders. The archdiocese said all the cases had been “previously reported to law enforcement agencies.”

One prominent name is former Newark Archbishop Theodore McCarrick, who regularly abused seminarians but was nevertheless promoted to cardinal and placed in charge of the politically significant Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. McCarrick, now in retirement near Washington, has since been stripped of his cardinal’s title by the Vatican.

DIG DEEPER
Catholic priest abuse in NJ
NJ Catholic dioceses release names of priests accused of sexual abuse
Here’s the list of NJ priests accused of sexually abusing children
Can the release of abusive priests’ names restore church credibility?
Catholic sexual abuse crisis: Where to get help

Another prominent figure is the Rev. Charles Hudson, a well-known parish priest in Bergen County and former chaplain at Holy Name Medical Center, who became a nationally recognized leader in the hospice movement. Hudson died two decades ago. But the hospice he founded, the Center for Hope in Union County, is still considered a trend setter in the care of those who are dying. One of the center’s facilities in Elizabeth is called “Father Hudson House.”

The release of names such as McCarrick and Hudson underscore just how damaging the sex abuse scandal has been to the church and what it sees as its mission to offer guidance on a wide range of social, political and moral issues.

Just a few weeks ago, in the midst of the partial shutdown of the federal government over President Donald Trump’s demand for a wall along the Mexican border, Cardinal Tobin wrote a passionate op-ed article for the The New York Times in which he called for more lenient treatment of immigrants. The article was part of Tobin’s unabashed effort to become a national voice in America’s immigration debate.

“There are moral issues involved,” Tobin said in an interview about his stance on immigration. “I think the responsibility from a Christian standpoint is to welcome the stranger, to assist those in danger, certainly to offer love we owe to children and the mothers who carry them.”

Story continues below video:

Cardinal Joseph Tobin, the leader of the Newark Archdiocese posted this video message on the Newark Archdiocese web site on Feb. 13, 2019. North Jersey Record

This week, however, Tobin has been pulled back to the church’s dark side – its sex-abuse crisis.

On Monday, he announced a special fund to compensate victims. On Wednesday, he released the names of abuser priests.

“The revelations of clergy sexual abuse of minors throughout this past year have provoked feelings of shock, anger, shame, and deep sorrow throughout our Catholic community,” Tobin said Wednesday. “Victims, their families, and the faithful are rightfully outraged over the abuses perpetrated against minors. Additionally, the failure of Church leadership to immediately remove suspected abusers from ministry is particularly reprehensible.”

Instead of calling police or defrocking abusive priests, bishops and other church leaders regularly often moved them to different parishes – a pattern that sometimes resulted in even more abuse.

Nevertheless, the fact that the files were finally pried open just a bit represents a significant change from the church’s long history of secrecy – and, sometimes, outright lies – when it comes to questions of behavior by priests.

But while Wednesday’s release of names of abuser priests in New Jersey represents a renewed emphasis by the Vatican on transparency, the list is still not complete.

Not included were priests from some religious orders such as the Franciscans, Dominicans, Benedictines and Carmelites who served parishes or schools in New Jersey. Last month, the Jesuit order released names of 50 abusive priests from northeast states, including 10 who worked in New Jersey.

Also not included are the files on the abusive priests that could offer some context on how many children were victimized and why bishops and other church officials did not impose some measure of discipline. And finally, there is no reporting yet by church officials on whether bishops or other Catholic leaders might be disciplined for helping to cover up the reports of abuse.

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NEWARK (NJ)
KTRK TV

February 13, 2019

New Jersey’s five Roman Catholic dioceses listed more than 180 priests Wednesday who have been credibly accused of sexually abusing minors over a span of several decades, joining more than two dozen other states that have named suspected abusers in the wake of a landmark grand jury report in Pennsylvania last year.

The lists released Wednesday (and posted below) identified priests and deacons who served in the dioceses of Camden, Trenton, Metuchen and Paterson and the archdiocese of Newark. Many priests on the lists are deceased, and others have been removed from ministry.

Cardinal Joseph Tobin, the archbishop of Newark, which listed 63 former priests, said in a statement that he hoped the disclosure “will help bring healing to those whose lives have been so deeply violated.”

Camden’s diocese listed 56 priests and one deacon; Trenton’s diocese named 30 priests; the Paterson diocese listed 28; and Metuchen’s diocese named nine plus two others who are currently the subject of civil investigations.

State Attorney General Gurbir Grewal formed a task force in the fall to conduct a criminal investigation into sexual abuse by clergy in the state, shortly after a Pennsylvania grand jury report identified over 300 predator priests and more than 1,000 victims in that state.

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RICHMOND (VA)
News Channel 6

February 13, 2019

By Scott Wise

The Catholic Diocese of Richmond has released a list of 42 priests who have “a credible and substantiated allegation of sexual abuse” against a child.

“To the victims and to all affected by the pain of sexual abuse, our response will always be about what we are doing, not simply what we have done. We will seek not just to be healed but will always be seeking healing. We will seek not just to be reconciled but will always be seeking reconciliation,” the Most Rev. Barry C. Knestout, Bishop of Richmond, wrote in an open letter published with the list of priests.

The first “credible and substantiated” incident of child sex abuse was reported to the Diocese in the 1950s, according to a Catholic Diocese of Richmond spokesperson. The most recent occurred in 1993, the spokesperson continued.

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TRENTON (NJ)
Asbury Park Press

February 13, 2019

By Alex N. Gecan and Andrew Goudsward

The Catholic Diocese of Trenton has named 30 former clergymen who stand credibly accused of sexual abuse against children.

All 30 men are either dead or have been removed from their ministries. The diocese did not specify whether the men were priests or deacons, where they worked when active, what sort of accusations they faced or from how many victims.

“This preliminary list will be updated as more information becomes available,” Bishop David M. O’Connell wrote in a statement Wednesday. “I do this with the greatest sadness and a heavy heart.

The Diocese of Trenton is in charge of churches in Burlington, Mercer, Monmouth and Ocean counties, according to its website.
The accused are:
Romanilo S. Apuro
Ronald R. Becker (deceased)
Richard C. Brietske
Gerard J. Brown (deceased)
Francis D. Bruno
Charles J. Comito (deceased)
Benjamin R. Dino (deceased)
Manuel R. M. Fernandez (deceased)
Thomas J. Frain (deceased)
Gerald J. Griffin (deceased)
Douglas U. Hermansen
Frank J. Iazette (deceased)
Vincent J. Inghilterra
Francis J. C. Janos (deceased)
Leo A. Kelty (deceased)
Patrick F. Magee
Terrance O. McAlinden (deceased)
Francis M. McGrath
Joseph F. McHugh (deceased)
William J. McKeone
Richard R. Milewski
Liam A. Minogue (deceased)
Sebastian L. Muccilli (deceased)
Robert J. Parenti
Joseph J. Prioli
Joseph R. Punderson
Thomas A. Rittenhouse (deceased)
John E. Sullivan (deceased)
Florencio P. Tumang (deceased)
Brendan H. Williams

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
WHYY Radio

February 13, 2019

By Joe Hernandez

New Jersey’s five Roman Catholic dioceses on Wednesday released the names of nearly 200 priests and deacons they say were credibly accused of sexual abuse.

The releases from the Archdiocese of Newark and the Dioceses of Camden, Trenton, Metuchen, and Paterson come as the child sexual abuse scandal in the church continues to unfold and just five months after New Jersey authorities announced a statewide investigation of allegations of abuse and cover-ups.

Cardinal Joseph Tobin, the ​Archbishop of Newark, said he wants to restore trust in the scandal-scarred church and provide solace to victims, and he said releasing the names could help get justice for those abused.

“The disclosure of this list of names is not an endpoint in our process. Rather, it is an expression of our commitment to protecting our children, and a new level of transparency in the way we report and respond to allegations of abuse,” Tobin said in a statement. “We must protect our children, first, foremost, and always.”

Yet some critics viewed Wednesday’s news as damage control by a church they said had been uncooperative in investigating child sex abuse.

“My message would be take these lists with a large dose of salt,” said Mitchell Garabedian, a Boston attorney who has represented scores of clergy sex abuse victims and was portrayed in the film “Spotlight,” which profiled the Boston Globe’s seminal investigation of clergy sex abuse.

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NEWARK (NJ)
Associated Press

February 13, 2019

By David Porter and Claudia Lauer

The Archdiocese of Newark released a list Wednesday of 63 Roman Catholic clergy members that it said have been credibly accused of sexually abusing minors dating back to 1940.

Joseph Cardinal Tobin, the archbishop, said in a statement that he hoped the disclosure “will help bring healing to those whose lives have been so deeply violated.”

New Jersey is one of more than two dozen states where dioceses have released the names of abusive clergy members since a Pennsylvania grand jury report in August identified over 300 predator priests.

In the wake of the Pennsylvania report, New Jersey’s attorney general formed a task force last fall to conduct a criminal investigation into sexual abuse by clergy in the state.

Newark’s list includes Theodore McCarrick, a former Newark archbishop who served as Washington, D.C., archbishop from 2000 to 2006. McCarrick was removed from public ministry in June.

All of the clergy members on the list are described as deceased or having been removed from ministry, and about half have been named in previous news reports. About half are believed to be responsible for multiple victims.

New Jersey’s four other dioceses are expected to release names soon of clergy members suspected of abusing minors.

The number of named clerics on the Newark list is likely to grow larger, as the current list doesn’t include those who are currently the focus of lawsuits. The archdiocese said those names would be added if accusations are found to be credible.

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[Friar and founder of Atlético school admits having abused a child]

BARCELONA (SPAIN)
El País

February 13, 2019

By Oriol Güell

Una víctima acusa al marianista Manuel Briñas de haberle agredido sexualmente en un colegio de Madrid durante tres años

El fraile marianista Ángel Manuel Briñas, quien fue uno de los responsables de la cantera del Atlético de Madrid durante más de dos décadas, ha admitido a EL PAÍS haber abusado sexualmente de un menor de edad cuando era fraile marianista en un colegio de Madrid. Los hechos, según la víctima, ocurrieron entre 1973 y 1975, cuando Briñas era el responsable deportivo y de scouts del Colegio Marianista Hermanos Amorós, del barrio de Carabanchel. El centro educativo y el club han mantenido históricamente una estrecha relación por la que muchos futbolistas de las categorías inferiores del Atlético estudiaban allí.

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[The powerful network that overlooked priest Poblete’s double life]

CHILE
El Mostrador

February 13, 2019

By Macarena Segovia

El sacerdote construyó un sistema perfecto con el que no solo sustentó la obra del Padre Hurtado, haciendo crecer el Hogar de Cristo, sino que recobró el poder y la influencia en la élite que los jesuitas habían perdido tras la irrupción de otras órdenes, como el Opus Dei. El poder de sus amistades y benefactores le dieron un “halo” que sumió en la ceguera a sus cercanos, en donde a pesar de que “todos sabían” y se le veía cerca de mujeres jóvenes, “nadie sabía” del abuso y poder que ejercía sobre ellas.

“Polvete”, así era llamado Renato Poblete Barth, el sacerdote que fue pilar fundamental del Hogar de Cristo y del legado del Padre Alberto Hurtado. Un hombre poderoso, “casi santo”, que ostenta el Premio Bicentenario entregado por la Presidenta Michelle Bachelet y que hasta cuenta con un parque con su nombre para honrarlo. Un religioso que protagonizó la reinvención de los jesuitas, luego que la Compañía de Jesús comenzara a perder fuerza entre los católicos de élite a fines de los sesenta, y constituyó la beneficencia como la base de las redes de poder que lo protegieron durante décadas ante los “rumores” que siempre hubo sobre su doble vida.

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[Catholic order promises to cooperate with abuse investigations into Francisco Cox]

CHILE
BioBioChile

February 13, 2019

By Alberto González and Nicole Martínez

Los Padres de Schoenstatt reiteraron que entregarán toda la colaboración a la justicia para establecer la verdad en los casos de abuso sexual contra menores que pesan sobre el exsacerdote Francisco José Cox. Recordemos que el exreligioso, quien fue destituido de sus labores sacerdotales por el papa Francisco, retornó a nuestro país procedente de Alemania para enfrentar acusaciones en su contra por abuso de menores.

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[Apostolic administrator of Puerto Montt asks people not to condemn a deceased former priest]

CHILE
SoyChile

February 13, 2019

Ricardo Morales se refirió al suicidio de Francisco Núñez quien era investigado por abusos sexuales.

El padre Ricardo Morales administrador apostólico de la Arquidiócesis de Puerto Montt, emitió un comunicado público tras la muerte del ex sacerdote José Francisco Núñez Calisto, donde solicitó no reprochar y menos condenar al fallecido.

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PARIS (FRANCE)
LaCroix International

February 13, 2019

Asia has so far experienced very few instances of clergy sex abuse involving minors. One primary reason is that Roman Catholics are just a drop in a this ocean of overwhelmingly Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist and Muslim countries of Asia. Catholics are a majority only in the Philippines and Timor Leste.In the Philippines, “no member of the clergy has been convicted or imprisoned for sexual abuse of children or vulnerable adults,” Bishop Buenaventura Famadico of San Pablo, south of Manila, and president of the Episcopal Commission for the Clergy, told La Croix last September.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
National Catholic Reporter

February 13, 2019

By Heidi Schlumpf

After the release of the Pennsylvania grand jury report last summer, Thomas Mengler, president of St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas, sat down and wrote his archbishop a letter, in effect saying, “You need to get ahead of this.”

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Mengler recommended a lay commission to audit the archdiocese’s efforts addressing the issue and to suggest ways to improve. This would be separate and in addition to the archdiocesan review board that evaluates individual allegations — and this new commission’s members would not be appointed by the archbishop.

San Antonio Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller listened. A well-respected retired appeals court chief justice, Catherine Stone (herself a survivor of sexual abuse, though not by a clergy member), was tapped to head the commission, which issued its report on Jan. 31, the same day the Texas bishops released names of priests accused of sexual abuse.

Six of the seven members of that commission were affiliated in some way with St. Mary’s University; five were alumni, including Stone, whose law degree is from the Marianist school. The commission is one example of how Catholic colleges and universities are stepping up to the plate to assist the church with the crisis of sexual abuse and cover-up.

“I think Catholic universities have a responsibility to help the church,” Mengler said. Mengler told the story of the commission as part of a workshop — ominously titled “Multiple Paths of Securing Money in a Hostile Environment” — as part of the annual meeting Feb. 2-4 of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities in Washington, D.C.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service

February 13, 2019

By Rhina Guidos

In a video posted Feb. 11 on YouTube, Bishop Frank J. Caggiano of Bridgeport, Connecticut, offered support for the “many sisters and brothers who have been wounded, violated, hurt and abused at the hands of priests and deacons” and whose sexual abuse in their youth “changed their lives forever.”

“The crime and sin of sexual abuse in our midst is a deep evil that has created a deep wound,” said Caggiano, who has been one of the most outspoken U.S. bishops on the topic of sex abuse by clergy.

Getting rid of the “evil” is not enough, he said, calling on others to offer support for those who have been victimized, “those whose lives sometimes have been completely shattered.”

“We stand with them because we love them, because they’re part of our family and even though some members of our family have betrayed them, you and I will not,” he said. “We stand with them because in the name of Jesus, his love invites them and us to heal, for we are all in need of healing.”

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KANSAS CITY (MO0
National Catholic Reporter

February 13, 2019

By Michael Sean Winters

One week from tomorrow, the presidents of the world’s bishops’ conferences will begin a four-day meeting in Rome to discuss the church’s response to clergy sex abuse. What can we reasonably expect from such a short meeting and on such a complex issue?

Most prognosticators think the meeting will fall short of expectations. I suppose that depends on what those expectations are. Take for example, my colleague Jesuit Fr. Tom Reese, who offered five reasons he thought the meeting would fail, the last of which was this:

Nonetheless, the meeting will also fail because, in order to succeed, Francis will have to lay down the law and simply tell the bishops what to do, rather than consulting with them. He’ll have to present a solution to the crisis and tell them to go home and implement it.

Francis will not do that. He does not see himself as the CEO of the Catholic Church. He has a great respect for collegiality, the belief that the pope should not act like an absolute monarch. At his first synod of bishops, he encouraged the bishops to speak boldly and not be afraid to disagree with him.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
PennLive

February 12, 2019

By Ivey DeJesus

Catholic bishops have long held that victims compensation programs offer a chance for victims to heal.

That theory is about to be put to the test for potentially hundreds of victims of clergy sex abuse across the Diocese of Harrisburg.

On Tuesday, officials from the diocese rolled out a program that will pay out millions of dollars in financial compensation to adults who were sexually abused as children by priests and church officials. The diocese has not announced the size of the fund or estimates of how much will be awarded to settle individual claims.

Some victims welcome the idea of a compensation award, particularly in light of the fact that the legislative reforms that would allow victims to sue predatory priests in court have up to now failed in the General Assembly.

The majority of victims linked to the findings of the grand jury report are timed out of the legal system because the statute of limitations have expired for them.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Newsradio 1020 KDKA

February 12, 2019

“I was a sophomore in high school when I met David Pullson at Bradford Central Christian in the little town of Bradford and he was my English teacher.” Jim Van Sickle told KDKA Radio’s Marty Griffin and Wendy Bell on Tuesday afternoon.

“He had just come out of seminary that same year. I had just some things happen in my family that had me wondering aimlessly.”

“I was a perfect target.”

Sickle is just one of countless survivors of Catholic priest sex abuse that has come forward to tell their stories in hopes to heal, inspire others, and to get the Catholic Church to stop trying to protect itself, and start healing the survivors of these atrocious crimes.

It is in this pursuit for vindication that has fueled Sickle to travel to the Vatican, where he has meetings set up to speak with people in high-powered positions. He hopes that his meetings will get his messages heard, and, hopefully, be taken to the top of Catholic leadership: the Pope himself.

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INDIANAPOLIS (IN)
WISH-TV

February 13, 2019

The Archdiocese of Indianapolis said Tuesday it has suspended one of its priests from the ministry after a report of sexual abuse involving a minor in 2016.

The Rev. David J. Marcotte is prohibited from all public ministry. The abuse report about the 32-year-old priest was made Wednesday to the archdiocese’s victim assistance coordinator, a statement said.

The statement said “civil authorities” and the chair of the Archdiocesan Review Board were notified of the allegation. Local law enforcement officials have announced no criminal charges against Marcotte.

Marcotte was ordained June 7, 2014. He has worked with these ministries: 2014, associate pastor, SS. Francis and Clare Parish, Greenwood, and Catholic chaplain, University of Indianapolis; 2015, associate pastor, St. Malachy Parish, Brownsburg; 2016, administrator, St. Martin of Tours Parish, Martinsville; 2017, chaplain, Roncalli High School, Indianapolis; Catholic chaplain, University of Indianapolis; and sacramental assistance, SS. Francis and Clare Parish, Greenwood.

In 2018, the Archdiocese of Indianapolis suspended two more priests for sexual abuse allegations. Retired Priest John Maung came to light in August, and Father Patrick Doyle was the subject of credible accusations in September. Doyle later resigned.

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OMAHA (NE)
KMTV

February 12, 2019

By Danielle Meadows

Holding childhood photos and signs, members of a nation-wide support group for clergy sex abuse will stand outside Omaha’s Catholic headquarters tomorrow urging officials to make changes and provide more information.

The support group is called SNAP (the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests), and say via e-mail that Omaha Archbishop George Lucas omitted crucial details and four names from his list of 38 alleged predators released in November.

Members plan to disclose those four names of publicly accused priests who spent time in the Omaha area but have been left off of the Catholic church’s recently released accused clerics list.

SNAP will urge Omaha Catholic officials to add those names to the list and do “more aggressive outreach” towards those who may have been impacted by priest abuse in the city.

According to the e-mail, SNAP hopes Archbishop Lucas will release more details about two clerics accused of sexual misconduct who face multiple allegations but have “apparently not been ousted from ministry,” and provide more information on accused “extern” clerics whose whereabouts are not being disclosed.

The group also aims to urge the Archbishop to provide more details about the allegations against Father Francis Nigli and Father Andrew Syring.

Members will gather on the sidewalk outside the Omaha Catholic headquarters at 100 N. 62nd St. Wednesday at 1:45p.m.

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MEMPHIS (TN)
LocalMemphis.com

February 12, 2019

By Rebecca Butcher

The sex abuse investigation surrounding the Southern Baptist Convention faults a prominent local pastor for being complacent in reporting sexual abuse.

The Houston Chronicle reports current pastor of Bellevue Baptist, Steve Gaines, failed to immediately fire an offender.

Now he says his staff is trained detect abuse.

When Local 24 News asked Pastor Gaines about the incident – he released this statement saying:

“Any form of abuse is tragic and the occasion of great sorrow, and there should be absolutely no tolerance for any sort of abuse. Consequently, all of our staff have been and are being trained on an ongoing basis to detect abuse and know what to do if it is suspected or reported. Every church should do the same. Churches must take responsibility to protect and minister to all victims and be safe places for all congregants. The Southern Baptist Convention now has a Sexual Abuse Presidential Study Group to help churches deal with these heinous issues. I fully support this initiative and look forward to the report and the suggestions that they bring.” ~Steve Gaines, Senior Pastor, Bellevue Baptist Church

According to the report, Gaines admits waiting six months to fire a pastor who confessed to molestation.

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DALLAS (TX)
WFAA TV

February 12, 2019

By Jobin Panicker

Attorney David Finn confirmed to WFAA that the family of Fr. Patrick Koch – a former president and principal at Jesuit prep school in Dallas – has filed a cannon law appeal to the Catholic Diocese of Dallas, the Diocese of Corpus Christi, and the Vatican over Koch being included on a list of priests credibly accused of sexual abuse.

The appeal was hand-delivered to the diocese on Monday before close of business, according to Finn.

The Koch family met with Bishop Edward Burns last Friday to discuss Koch being named on the list. Finn said that the meeting was very cordial and the family said Burns “showed remarkable and unprecedented courage” in meeting with them.

In late January, the Catholic Diocese of Dallas released names of priests “credibly accused” of sexual abuse of minors over the last seven decades. Koch, who was principal at Jesuit from 1972-1979 and president from 1979-1980, was one of 31 priests named.

Finn said the appeal was represented by more than 25 members of the Koch family across the country. The attorney also said the family has also enlisted the help of a cannon lawyer based out of Rome.

“We want to make this very clear: this is not an attack on any victims,” Finn said. “We encourage any and all victims of abuse to come forward. This is about transparency to the process and fairness. My concern is whether there was due process. We don’t know who said what, where, or when. The jury is still out on this. He’s [Koch] not here to protect his good name.”

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HARRISBURG (PA)Penn Live

Feb 12, 2019

By Jana Benscoter

A Manheim Township couple who has stopped attending Mass said they don’t believe the leader of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg when he speaks.

Central Pennsylvania’s diocese has scheduled listening sessions to atone their role in the Catholic Church’s clergy sexual abuse scandal. The fourth session was held at St. Leo the Great Parish in Lancaster County on Tuesday evening. Another session is scheduled Wednesday in St. Joseph Parish in Mechanicsburg.

Harrisburg’s Diocese earlier Tuesday announced its establishment of a victim’s compensation fund, which is why Claire Rennie, 60, said she attended the Lancaster listening session. She said her husband was abused in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese.

She thinks it’s insulting, she added, that Bishop Ronald W. Gainer deflects questions and avoids providing sincere answers.

“We hear the church abused you, the bishop covered it up, you don’t get statute of limitation,” she said..

The couple has been married for over 30 years, but Rennie said she only learned of her husband’s childhood nightmare a year ago.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Agence France-Presse

February 12, 2019

By Nova Safo

The United States’ largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, is facing a sexual abuse crisis after a bombshell report revealed hundreds of predators and more than 700 victims since 1998.

The report by 2 Texas newspapers found some 380 church leaders and volunteers have faced public accusations of abuse, mostly of children as young as three years old.

Some of the accused continued to work at Southern Baptist churches, the newspapers said.

In response to the report, church officials acknowledged the number of victims could actually be higher and urged survivors to come forward.

“One of the things I’m encouraged by are the number of pastors that are actively engaged right now,” in the report’s aftermath, convention leader Russell Moore told AFP on Tuesday.

The revelations threatened to engulf the denomination — with some 47,000 churches and 15 million members mostly in the southern US — in the same type of scandal that has roiled the Catholic Church.

A more comprehensive response was likely to come from the Southern Baptist organization next week when president JD Greear “is scheduled to give an update on a sexual abuse study he commissioned last summer,” said spokesman Roger Oldham.

LAX OVERSIGHT

Unlike the Vatican, the Southern Baptist Convention is a loose network of churches allowed to run autonomously, ordain their own ministers — who are not required to be celibate — and hire staff and volunteers based on each church’s own standards.

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DENVER (CO)
Catholic News Agency

Feb 12, 2019

By J. D. Flynn

Archbishop Theodore McCarrick will reportedly be laicized this week, if he is found guilty of having sexually abused minors.

But what does it mean to be “laicized,” “defrocked,” or “dismissed from the clerical state?”

Ordination, the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, “confers a gift of the Holy Spirit that permits the exercise of a ‘sacred power’ which can come only from Christ himself through his Church.”

The Church says ordination marks a person with an irremovable imprint, a character, which “configures them to Christ.” Ordination, in Catholic theology, makes a permanent change that the Church has no power to reverse.

“You are a priest forever,” the Letter to the Hebrews says.

This change is referred to as an ontological change, or a change in being itself.

In addition to making an ontological change, ordination also makes a legal change in a person’s status in the Church. By ordination, a person becomes in canon law a “cleric.” The word “cleric” is derived from the Greek word for “casting lots,” a process of selection similar to drawing straws or rolling dice, because in Acts 1:26, Matthias is added to the 11 remaining apostles after lots are drawn to select the right person.

A cleric, or a sacred minister in the Church, is an ordained man who is permitted by the Church to exercise sacred ministry. A cleric is bound to certain obligations, among them is usually celibacy in the Latin Catholic Church, and he possesses certain rights, among them is the right to be appointed to pastoral leadership positions in the Church. Clerics have the right to be financially supported by the Church, and are bound by obedience to the pope and to local Church authorities.

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NORWICH (CT)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

February 12, 2019

Three more publicly accused abusers are “outed”
All were left off Norwich’s list of clergy with “allegations of substance”
Victims want Catholic officials to “come fully clean now”
SNAP to CT officials: “Remove time limits for abuse victims”

WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, clergy sex abuse victims and their supporters will disclose the names and histories of three publicly accused child molesters who worked in the Norwich Catholic Archdiocese but were left off a just-posted list of those with “allegations of substance.”

They will also call on Connecticut’s Church officials to

include the three new names on the diocese’s list,
give more details about each abuser, especially their photos, current whereabouts and full work histories and
They will also urge Connecticut’s political officials to act, specifically prodding
CT legislators to totally remove the criminal and civil statutes of limitations for child sexual abuse and open a permanent civil window, and
CT law enforcement agencies, especially the attorney general, to work harder to investigate and pursue charges against clergy who commit or conceal heinous crimes against kids.

WHEN
Wednesday, Feb. 13 at 1:00 p.m.

WHERE
On the sidewalk outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral, 213 Broadway, Norwich, CT

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NEW YORK (NY)
Bustle

February 12, 2019

By Seth Millstein

According to an investigation by the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News, over 200 employees or volunteers at Southern Baptist Convention churches were convicted of sex crimes or pleaded guilty to them in the last 10 years. More than 700 people have reported being abused by church workers since 1998, and dozens of the accused have been able to find jobs at Southern Baptist churches, the Chronicle and Express-News report.

In total, around 380 Southern Baptist ministers, deacons, youth pastors and others have been accused of sexual misconduct in the last 20 years, the Chronicle and Express-News report. Over 250 were charged, around 220 either pleaded guilty or were convicted, and nearly 100 of them are in prison today. There were more accused of sexual misconduct who worked in Texas than any other state, according to the Chronicle and Express-News’ review of court records and newspaper articles from that time. Bustle has reached out to the Southern Baptist Convention for comment.

As part of its report, the two newspapers compiled a database of convicted sexual predators in the Southern Baptist church — a measure that, according to the newspapers, the church itself refused to to do despite requests from alleged survivors.

Since 1998, at least 10 Southern Baptist churches employed, or provided volunteer opportunities to, members who had been charged with sex crimes, the newspapers report. At least 35 accused sexual predators were able to find work at churches after their accusations.

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DENVER (CO)
Crux

February 12, 2019

By Claire Giangravè

A United Nations commission has published a scathing report of Italy’s handling of clerical sexual abuse, stating its concern with numerous cases of children being sexually abused by Catholic priests in the country and calling for an independent and impartial commission of inquiry.

“The committee is concerned about the numerous cases of children having been sexually abused by religious personnel of the Catholic Church in the State party and the low number of investigations and criminal prosecutions,” said a Feb. 7 report of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child.

The committee had summoned the Italian government Jan. 22-23 before the UN’s High Commissioner in Geneva regarding the implementation of the 1990 Convention on the Rights of the Child. Among the main topics was Italy’s alleged complicity in the Catholic Church’s child abuse scandals.

Italy was called to answer about its protection of the rights of minors regarding immigrant and refugee children and awareness campaigns throughout the territory, but the commission left ample space for the issue of clerical abuse.

The committee asked for a national plan to prevent and combat sexual exploitation of children and asked that the country “establish an independent and impartial commission of inquiry to examine all cases of sexual abuse of children by religious personnel of the Catholic Church.”

Other recommendations include “the transparent and effective investigation of all cases of sexual abuse allegedly committed by religious personnel of the Catholic Church, the criminal prosecution of alleged perpetrators, the adequate criminal punishment of those found guilty, and the compensation and rehabilitation of child victims, including those who have become adults.”

The UN panel, composed of experts in the protection of the rights of the child, invited the Italian government to establish safe channels for children to report abuse and to ensure their protection by preventing perpetrators who have been found guilty from having further access to minors.

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NEW YORK (NY)
America Magazine

February 12, 2019

By Michael J. O’Loughlin

Archbishop Theodore McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington who last summer was removed from public ministry and who then resigned from the College of Cardinals, could also be dismissed from the clerical state, one of the highest forms of punishment issued to priests. Also known as laicization and sometimes referred to colloquially as defrocking, a sentence of laicization would complete a stunning fall from grace for the former cardinal, who at one time wielded immense influence in both Rome and the United States. Last year, then-Cardinal McCarrick was reported to the Archdiocese of New York, accused of abusing a 16-year-old boy in the 1970s. Two more allegations of the abuse of minors also surfaced, as did claims that Archbishop McCarrick sexually harassed and assaulted priests and seminarians.

If the Vatican decides to expel Archbishop McCarrick from the priesthood, it would close one chapter of the abuse crisis, but many questions will remain.

What is laicization?
The term “laicization” refers to scenarios in which a member of the clergy, through the use of the church’s legal apparatus, is no longer permitted to act as a priest. Sometimes a priest may petition Rome for laicization, often in order to marry. (A priest who wishes to marry needs, in addition to laicization, to request being released from his vow of celibacy, which is a separate process.)

In other cases, laicization is a form of punishment, commonly described as being “dismissed from the clerical state,” often because of violations of the commandment barring adultery. (Before the 1983 revision to the code of canon law, priests who were laicized were often referred to as being “reduced” to the lay state.)

A sentence of laicization would complete a stunning fall from grace for the former cardinal, who at one time wielded immense influence in both Rome and the United States.
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This is the portion of canon law used by the church to prosecute priests and bishops accused of sexual abuse of a minor. Between 2004 and 2014, the Vatican laicized 848 priests because of sexual abuse. Only the Vatican can laicize priests so accused, which critics say makes the process too cumbersome.

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NEWARK (NJ)
The Associated Press

February 12, 2019

By David Porter

Victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy in New Jersey will soon be able to apply for compensation from a fund representing all five of the state’s dioceses, one of the fund’s administrators announced Monday.

Camille Biros, who also is overseeing similar compensation funds in Pennsylvania and New York, said New Jersey’s will be different because all five of the state’s dioceses will follow the same protocols. Those will be posted on a website by early next week followed by a 30-day public comment period before they are finalized.

The first phase will last at least six months, Biros said, and will focus on alleged victims who have made previous claims. A second phase will focus on new claims.

“We are looking forward to working with the dioceses and are pleased about the fact this is a common protocol for the entire state,” Biros said.

A fund Biros oversees in New York has paid out more than $210 million to more than 1,100 victims in five dioceses, she said.

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HOUSTON (TX)
Hoston Chronicle

February 12, 2019

By John Tedesco, Robert Downen, and Lise Olsen; Multimedia by Jon Shapley

Offend, then repeat

Southern Baptist churches hired dozens of leaders previously accused of sex offenses

Doug Myers was suspected of preying on children at a church in Alabama — but he went on to work at Southern Baptist churches in Florida before police arrested him.

Timothy Reddin was convicted of possessing child pornography, yet he was still able to serve as pastor of a Baptist church in Arkansas.

Charles Adcock faced 29 counts of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in Alabama. Then he volunteered as a worship pastor at a Baptist church in Texas.

The sordid backgrounds of these Southern Baptist ministers didn’t stop them from finding new jobs at churches and working in positions of trust.

They’re among at least 35 Southern Baptist pastors, youth ministers and volunteers who were convicted of sex crimes or accused of sexual misconduct but still were allowed to work at churches during the past two decades, an investigation by the San Antonio Express-News and the Houston Chronicle reveals.

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NEWARK (NJ)
North Jersey Record

February 12, 2019

By Deena Yellin and Abbott Koloff

Hundreds of priests gathered at the headquarters of the Archdiocese of Newark on Tuesday afternoon amid anticipation that the Catholic Church in New Jersey was preparing to release lists of names of abusive priests this week.

Several priests said as they left the meeting that the lists are expected to come out on Wednesday. Others declined to comment, and one priest said the group had been told not to discuss the meeting, which started at 1:30 and lasted a little over 30 minutes.

Cardinal Joseph Tobin, the Newark archbishop, announced last year that the state’s five dioceses were reviewing clergy sex abuse cases. The church, he said, planned to publish the names of all priests and deacons who have been credibly accused of sexually abusing children sometime this year.

The review followed an announcement by state law enforcement officials that they had launched a statewide investigation into alleged sexual abuse by priests.

The state’s five dioceses — Newark, Paterson, Metuchen, Trenton and Camden — are expected to release their lists at the same time. The Diocese of Paterson plans to post its list on its website sometime Wednesday morning, the diocesan attorney, Ken Mullaney, said Tuesday.

Priests who work in the diocese will be notified shortly before the list is published, he said, adding that he didn’t know what time it would be released to the public.

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[Ex-bishop Francisco Cox returns to Chile to face allegations of child abuse in La Serena]

CHILE
BioBioChile

February 12, 2019

By Alberto González and Nicole Martínez

El exobispo Francisco Cox, quien fue destituido de sus labores sacerdotales por el papa Francisco, retornó a nuestro país procedente de Alemania para enfrentar acusaciones en su contra por abuso de menores, informó este lunes la Iglesia en un comunicado.

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NEW YORK (NY)
U.S. News & World Report

February 12, 2019

By Megan Trimble

MORE THAN TWO DOZEN Southern Baptist church leaders had faced sexual misconduct charges, but churches employed them anyway, according to a new report from the Houston Chronicle.

A San Antonio Express-News and the Houston Chronicle investigation found churches in the Southern Baptist Convention hired at least 35 Southern Baptist pastors, youth ministers and volunteers in the last two decades, despite their being convicted of sex crimes or accused of sexual misconduct. The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest coalition of Baptist churches in the U.S. It has refused proposed reforms, such as creating a registry to track abuse cases, the Houston Chronicle reports.

According to the second of three installments published on Tuesday, churches, in some cases, knew of a pastor’s past but still allowed him to work. In other cases, church inaction might have allowed the employees to move between parishes undetected, the report said.

The first installment of the bombshell report revealed sexual misconduct allegations against roughly 380 church leaders and volunteers dating to 1998 and involving some 700 victims. About 220 offenders have been convicted or taken plea deals, the report found.

One pastor has compared the recent report to removing a cancerous lesion.

“The analogy I would give is this: I recently had a cancerous lesion removed from my skin and it hurt and the hole left behind was deep. Was it good? No, it was needed.,” Pastor Wade Burleson told NBC News of the report, which he called a “punch in the gut.”

Burleson told NBC that he thinks the recently published database will lead to change, but he also said he was sad “we didn’t do it ourselves.”

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[Eugenia Valdés, of the Sacred Heart of Jesus: “There are more clerics and women who are abused”]

CHILE
La Tercera

February 6, 2019

Esta semana el Papa Francisco reconoció casos de abusos sexuales a monjas por parte de obispos y sacerdotes, y señaló que esto sería algo que aún ocurre.

María Eugenia Valdés, religiosa del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús, ve como una buena noticia que el Papa Francisco “diga con su nombre y admita que esta es una realidad a voces” los casos de abusos a religiosas dentro de la Iglesia. “Creo que sucede en todas partes”, asegura, y afirma que “hay más religiosas y mujeres abusadas. Debe haber muchos otros testimonios que están en silencio”.

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[Priest investigated for child abuse found dead in Puerto Montt]

CHILE
La Tercera

February 9, 2019

By A. Vera

Tras la investigación y los exámenes realizados por el Servicio Médico Legal se determinó que se trata de un suicidio.

El viernes en horas de la noche fue encontrado el cuerpo del sacerdote José Francisco Núñez – quien estaba siendo investigado por abuso de menores – en su hogar en la comuna de Puerto Montt (región de Los Lagos).

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[Catalan bishops promise to collaborate with civil investigations into abuses of minors]

BARCELONA (SPAIN)
El País

February 12, 2019

By Oriol Güell

La Conferencia Tarraconense muestra su “firme compromiso” con la legislación civil y llama a las víctimas a denunciar

La Conferencia Episcopal Tarraconense, que reúne a los 10 obispos catalanes de las provincias eclesiásticas de Barcelona y Tarragona, ha prometido esta mañana dar un paso en firme para imponer al clero la obligación de poner en conocimiento de la Fiscalía los casos de abusos sobre los que tenga noticia.

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ALBANY (NY)
NEWS 10

February 6, 2019

By Anya Tucker

The Child Victims Act passed unanimously in the Senate on January 28th, but the bill is still waiting to be signed into law by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

This has some victims of childhood sexual abuse growing nervous.

The Child Victims Act would raise the age from 23 to 28 for victims in criminal cases to come forward. In civil cases, it raises the age to 55. It also provides a one-year lookback in which to file those civil lawsuits.

“The purpose of getting this law was to get the statute of limitations clock going. And the law won’t change until he signs it,” says Gary Greenberg.

The childhood sexual abuse survivor says his concern is for victims who may have birthdays coming up in the next couple of days or weeks that would leave them out of the bounds of the new statute. He points to the speed at which Gov. Cuomo signed other bills into law, such as the Reproductive Health Act, on the very same day it was passed.

Gov. Cuomo’s office sent NEWS10 ABC an email saying, in part, “We are working to identify a date for a bill signing with advocates and survivors who have been affected by this issue…[they] need to have an opportunity to attend this historic event.”

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ALLENTOWN (PA)
Morning Call

February 12, 2019

By Steve Esack

The Harrisburg Diocese opened its child sex abuse compensation fund Tuesday, giving victims 90 days to make claims about assaults by clergy.

And victims had better be prepared to bare their souls.

The diocese’s Survivor Compensation Program, administered by a national mediation firm, includes an eight-page online questionnaire asking victims a host of biographical questions about schooling, employment, marital and offspring status, and about criminal history before asking them to detail the alleged abuse.

The form also carries a warning that anyone making an abuse claim that had not been previously disclosed to the diocese as of Monday will have their allegations forwarded to law enforcement and to the Department of Human Services for investigations.

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Victims will have until May 13 to apply for the first round of payouts. Those who receive a payment can still receive counseling services, but must give up their right to sue the diocese at a later date.

Lawsuit payouts typically are bigger than victims compensation funds.

New victims who come forward after the program starts will be considered for future participation in the program.

“The establishment of the Survivor Compensation Program is another step forward in our Diocese’s efforts to show our support to survivors of clergy child sexual abuse,” said Bishop Ronald W. Gainer, a former Allentown Diocese official. “While we understand that financial compensation will not repair or erase the heartache and damage done by the abuse these survivors have suffered, we hope and pray this support can help to improve their lives.”

The Allentown Diocese will open its victim compensation fund in March or April, spokesman Matt Kerr said.

All eight Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania announced plans last year to start their own victim compensation funds after Attorney General Josh Shapiro released a scathing statewide grand jury report detailing decades of child abuse and cover-ups in six dioceses. The two dioceses excluded from that report — Philadelphia and Johnstown — were the subject of prior grand jury reports that found similar abuses and cover ups.

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)
Commonweal

Feb 12, 2019

By Austen Ivereigh

Pope Lowers Expectations for Next Month’s Sex Abuse Summit — the Associated Press headline may not have been heart-lifting, but it was fair. During Pope Francis’ flight back from Panama on January 27, he had told reporters that “we have to deflate the expectations” surrounding the bishops’ first global summit on clerical sex abuse, which is to take place at the Vatican between February 20 and February 24.

Francis described the summit as essentially a “catechesis”: to make church leaders across the world aware of the pain of victims, and their obligations to act against abuser priests, as well as to hear survivors’ testimonies and to pray, penitentially, for the church’s failures. But three days is not a long time, and no one is expecting a revolution. “The problem of abuse will continue,” Francis assured reporters. “It’s a human problem.” No one should be expecting the pope to pull a new solution out of a top hat.

As the Vatican’s press-office director, Alessandro Gisotti, points out, the Vatican meeting is only the latest stage in a long-maturing response. If you thought this was just Rome’s attempt to seize the initiative after the Pennsylvania grand-jury report or the Cardinal McCarrick scandal, forget it. The Vatican’s editorial director, Andrea Tornielli, insists that the issue will be looked at from a “global perspective,” not “solely European and American.”

This is just as much about Africa and Asia and Latin America, where they don’t think they have an abuse crisis, but they do.Still, while Francis may have wanted to “deflate” expectations, he was not saying the meeting does not matter. He thinks it matters very much—just not in the way people might think it does. Before talking about new protocols and procedures, the pope said on the plane, there is something else the bishops have to do: “We must become aware.”

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MEXICO CITY (MEXICO)
Mexico Daily Times

February 12, 2019

The Catholic church in Mexico has revealed that 152 priests have been suspended over the past nine years for child sex abuse, triggering demands that the clerics’ names and whereabouts be made public.

Rogelio Cabrera López, president of the Mexican Episcopal Conference (CEM), revealed the information Sunday, explaining that some of the priests are serving prison terms while others received non-custodial forms of punishment.

However, he didn’t disclose the number of victims.

Cabrera, who is also the archbishop of Monterrey, lamented that there is no national information system which compiles information related to cases of sexual abuse within the Catholic church and said that it was necessary to establish one.

He also said it was the responsibility of bishops to formally report to authorities all illegal acts detected within the church.

Responding to the church’s revelation, the Mexico director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), a non-governmental organization founded in the United States, said he was taken by surprise that such a high number of priests have been suspended for committing sexual abuses against children.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Hawk

February 12, 2019

A panel discussion held on Feb. 6 about Pennsylvania’s 40th Grand Jury Report was an opportunity for candid conversation on reconciling Catholic identity with the Church’s sexual abuse crisis and cover-ups.

Despite the event’s importance, it was sparsely attended by St. Joe’s students, predominantly attracting community members including Charles Gallagher, a former prosecutor who worked on a 2005 grand jury investigation of sexual abuse concealment within the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Contributions from people outside the St. Joe’s community can add new dimension and insight to open forum discussions, especially those regarding issues as widely impactful as sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. Events like last week’s panel can and should be promoted to members of the outside community.

However, as part of a Catholic university, St. Joe’s students have a responsibility to be informed on the topic of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church.

Even if we do not identify as Catholic, and whether or not we have ever known anyone who was a victim of priest abuse, we live and learn in an environment steeped in Jesuit-Catholic identity.

Catholic values are enshrined in our General Education Program in the form of Faith, Justice, and the Catholic Tradition, the theology requirement.

An education on Catholicism is incomplete without an understanding of the institution behind it, and that requires learning about the Catholic Church’s internal structuring and its institutional history of protecting priests who commit sexual abuse. Last week’s panel was an opportunity to learn from experts who have worked with victims of priest abuse and who study the crisis within the Church.

Scheduling conflicts and busy days may also be to blame for the lack of turnout from St. Joe’s students, and that is perfectly understandable. With discussions as important as these, however, the focus should be on making time rather than finding the time.

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HOUSTON (TX)
Houston Chronicle

February 12, 2019

By Leslie Contreras Schwartz

In 1999, during my last semester at the University of St. Thomas, I studied Spanish and Mexican culture in Merida, Yucatan, with a priest as one of my teachers. Father Jack Hanna, a charismatic and charming priest, taught us about Mayan culture and the joy of the Spanish language. Over those three months, I had no reservations in living in a house with him and the other dozen students.

A few weeks ago, the Galveston-Houston diocese released a list of priests “credibly accused” of sexual abuse. Hanna’s name was on the list.

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

February 11, 2019

Yesterday, the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News published the first part of a bombshell series looking into the abuse of children and vulnerable adults in the Southern Baptist Convention.

We are grateful to these intrepid journalists for looking deeply into this issue. As this article shows all too well, abuse by clergy is not just a Catholic issue. In any situation where the powerful have authority and autonomy over the vulnerable there are bound to be tragic situations like this. We have seen this play out from Hollywood to Michigan State University, and in churches across the globe.

What is critical is that the article lead not only to awareness of this issue in the Southern Baptist Convention, but to immediate and decisive action by church and law enforcement officials. We hope that anyone who has seen, suffered, or suspected abuse by Southern Baptists – or any other religious figure – will immediately contact the local police, prosecuting attorneys, state attorneys general, and the Department of Justice. It is critical that law enforcement officials at every level of government look into these cases and determine what actions they are able to take immediately to keep the vulnerable safe and to ensure that those who have abused children or adults are removed from any position of power that would let them hurt others.

More and more people are finding their voice and the ability to speak out about heinous crimes such as those described in yesterday’s article. It is critical that we as a nation continue to listen to and learn from victims as they share their experiences. By believing and advocating for survivors, we can learn from their trauma how to prevent cases like this in the future, to ensure that no child or adult is ever hurt by an authority figure that is meant to care for them.

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WOODLAND PARK (NJ)
North Jersey Record

February 11, 2019

By Deena Yellin

Victims of clergy abuse from any of New Jersey’s five Roman Catholic dioceses will be able to seek compensation from a newly launched Independent Victim Compensation Program, the program’s administrators announced Monday.

The administrators, Kenneth Feinberg and Camille Biros, are noted victims’ compensation experts who have operated similar programs for dioceses in other states, as well as the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund.

“The program provides victims with an attractive alternative to litigation, providing victims a speedy and transparent process to resolve their claims with a significantly lower level of proof and corroboration than required in a court of law,” Feinberg and Biros said in a joint statement.

The announcement of the program drew mixed reactions Monday from advocates for victims of clergy abuse.

“If the compensation fund helps a clergy sexual abuse victim try to heal, then the victim should enter into the fund process. But if a victim wants to try to gain full transparency through a legal action, then the victim should wait to determine if the statute of limitations will be amended,” said attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who has represented more than 50 clergy abuse victims in New Jersey.

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
Times Picayune

February 12, 2019

By Tim Morris

So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. — James 4:17

One common evil in the sex abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic and Southern Baptist churches is the number of people in authority who chose to cooperate, compromise or remain silent in allowing the wrongdoing to continue.

Just six months after a grand jury report provided horrific details of sexual exploitation and abuse by members of the Catholic clergy and laity in Pennsylvania, the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News published a joint investigation Sunday (Feb. 10) documenting similar offenses by pastors, ministers and volunteers within the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention.

As with the Catholic offenses, the worst atrocities are magnified by the church’s indifference to the victims or its protection of the perpetrators.

District attorney says we have a crime problem, not an incarceration problem

A case in point is the story of Debbie Vasquez, who was just 14 when she was first molested by her Southern Baptist pastor in Sanger, Texas, a small town an hour north of Dallas. The abuse went on for years until she became pregnant at age 18.

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