ABUSE TRACKER

CHICAGO (IL)
Sun Times

January 12, 2019

By David Struett

A longtime Chicago-area priest was removed from his Lake View church on Saturday after being accused of sexually abusing a minor nearly 40 years ago while serving at a south suburban parish.

Cardinal Blase Cupich asked the Rev. Patrick Lee, pastor of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish, to “step aside” as authorities investigate the claim made against him this week, according to a statement from the Archdiocese of Chicago.

The alleged abuse happened in 1979 while Lee was assigned to St. Christopher Parish in Midlothian, Cupich said in the statement.

Church leaders have forwarded the complaint to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office, Cupich said.

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PITTSFIELD (MA)
The Berkshire Eagle

January 13, 2019

By Larry Parnass

The Rev. Richard J. Ahern isn’t on the Springfield diocese’s list of clergy who sexually abused young people. But the priest, who served in Pittsfield, died in 2001 with a stack of allegations against him.

A decade after Ahern ended his ministry in Berkshire County, the priest’s own religious order prohibited him from hearing confessions from children, sent him to weekly therapy sessions and barred him from the diocese that includes Pittsfield and is now overseen by The Most Rev. Mitchell T. Rozanski.

“This means, then, Dick — that you are not to visit the diocese of Springfield at all,” an official with the Stigmatine Fathers and Brothers wrote in a private letter to Ahern in May 1986.

But Ahern’s sexual assaults, further documented in court filings and media accounts, did not lead the Springfield diocese to publish his name as an abusive cleric on its website.

Though Ahern served churches in Pittsfield, Agawam, Feeding Hills and West Springfield, the diocese says that, technically, he wasn’t their priest.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Associated Press

January 12, 2019

By Nicole Winfield

The key accuser in the sex abuse case against ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick has met with New York City prosecutors, evidence that the scandal that has convulsed the papacy is now part of the broader U.S. law enforcement investigation into sex abuse and cover-up in the Catholic Church.

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James Grein gave testimony last month to Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Sara Sullivan, who is investigating a broad range of issues related to clergy abuse and the systematic cover-up by church superiors, Grein’s attorney, Patrick Noaker, told The Associated Press.

The development is significant, given that the Vatican investigation against McCarrick has already created a credibility crisis for the Catholic hierarchy including Pope Francis, since it was apparently an open secret that McCarrick slept with adult seminarians. Grein’s testimony, however, includes allegations that McCarrick, a former family friend, also groomed and abused him starting when he was 11.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s office launched a hotline last year and invited victims to report even decades-old sex abuse, saying it would pursue “any and all investigative leads” to ensure justice.

Grein met with Sullivan before Christmas after filing a compensation claim with the New York City archdiocese alleging that McCarrick, the retired archbishop of Washington, first exposed himself when Grein was 11 and continued abusing him for some two decades, including during confession, Noaker said. The church’s compensation procedures require that victims notify the district attorney of their allegations, which Grein did on Nov. 1.

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SANTA ROSA (CA)
NBC Bay Area

January 12, 2019

By Kiki Intarasuwan

Diocese of Santa Rosa Releases Names of Priests Accused of Sexual Abuse and Misconduct
The Diocese of Santa Rosa on Saturday released a list of priests and bishops who have been accused of sexual abuse and misconduct.

In a news release, Bishop Robert F. Vasa said he wants to express “sincere sorrow that so many have been subjected to the evil actions of priests and bishops.” His primary goal in releasing the names is to give victims of sexual abuse the assurance that they have been heard in the church, he said.

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“It is my deepest prayer and hope that this release of names in a consolidated fashion says to any of you who are victims, we have heard you, we believe you, we affirm you in your trauma and we want to help with a healing process,” Vasa said.

The majority of the accusations occured decades ago, the bishop said, but some incidents occured as late as 2006 and 2008.

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NEW YORK (NY)
National Review

January 12, 2019

By Nicholas Frankovich

Peter Steinfels at Commonweal has a long article that needed to be written. It’s 11,700 words (none are wasted) on the sex-abuse scandals in the Catholic Church — specifically, on the Pennsylvania grand-jury report released last summer. The heinousness of the sexual crimes and misconduct described therein has been amply noted by just about everyone who has commented on the report. It was noted by the authors of the report itself, and not just noted but drummed loudly, while they glossed over masses of detail that didn’t fit their story about Catholic bishops. The sum of the evidence in their 1,356-page document belies their broad-brush, monochromatic characterization of the problem, Steinfels contends:

I believe that the grand jury could have reached precise, accurate, informing, and hard-hitting findings about what different church leaders did and did not do, what was regularly done in some places and some decades and not in others. . . .

Instead the report chose a tack more suited to our hyperbolic, bumper-sticker, post-truth environment. . . . Imagine, at least for a moment, that a declamation like “Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all” came from one of our elected or televised demagogues. Would one really dismiss any fact-finding as uncalled for?

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Guardian

Jan 12, 2019

By Harriet Sherwood

The proportion of US Catholics who regard priests as honest and ethical has plummeted to a record low of fewer than one in three, according to a survey.

The fall of 18 percentage points between 2017 and 2018 is attributed to the last year’s scandals over clerical sexual abuse.

Fewer than half of the Catholics surveyed by Gallup said they had confidence in organised religion, a drop of eight percentage points over the period.

The poll was conducted four months after the publication of a scathing grand jury report into sexual abuse and its cover-up by Catholic priests and bishops in Pennsylvania.

An investigation found that at least 300 priests had abused about 1,000 children and vulnerable adults over 70 years, and that their superiors had either stood by or in some cases actively covered up criminal acts.

Since the publication of the Pennsylvania report, at least 13 US states have opened formal investigations and some senior Catholics, including the archbishop of Washington, have resigned.

Positive views about the honest and ethical standards of clergy have almost halved in a decade, from 61% to 31%, but the most recent figures show the largest annual fall.

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Get Religion

January 12, 2019

By Terry Mattingly

The body blows just keep coming.

That’s how many Catholics — on both left and right — have to feel right now, after the daily meteor shower of news about falling stars in their church. All of this was, logically enough, the backdrop to the very open-ended, wide-ranging discussions in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast” (click here to tune that in).

One minute, and it’s new revelations linked to the wide, wide world of ex-cardinal Theodore “Uncle Ted” McCarrick. In the latest chapter of this drama, there were revelations at the Catholic News Agency and in the Washington Post that — forget all of his previous denials — Washington, D.C., Cardinal Donald Wuerl did know about the rumors swirling around McCarrick and his abusive relationships with boys and seminarians.

Want to guess which of these newsrooms dared to note that this fact was a key element of the infamous expose letters released by the Vatican’s former U.S. ambassador, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano? You got it. It was a branch of the alternative Catholic press (must-read Clemente Lisi post here) connecting those controversial dots — again.

Then, on the other doctrinal side of the fence, there were the revelations about Father C.J. McCloskey, a popular conservative apologist from Opus Dei. Here’s how Phil Lawler of CatholicCulture.org opened a post entitled “A bad day’s lament.”

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LYON (FRANCE)
La Croix International

January 11, 2019

The trial of Cardinal Philippe Barbarin and five other senior Catholic officials ended in Lyon on Jan. 10 after four days that shook the French Church.“Thanks to Alexandre [Hezez] for having been the first to lodge a complaint, thanks for having freed the spoken word and for having allowed me to hear Christian [Burdet]. This was overwhelming for me. I am not the same man as I was before. Thanks for having shaken the Church. Changes must be made. This must not stop here.”These were the serious words spoken by Bishop Emmanuel Gobilliard as he looked into the eyes of François Devaux, a plaintiff and founder of La Parole Libérée (Freed Speech) association, during a break in proceedings.

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ITHACA (NY)
Ithaca Journal

Jan. 11, 2019

By Ann Sullivan

Congratulations and best wishes to Sen. Tom O’Mara as he begins his fifth term as state senator from the New York 58th. We wish him the very best for a successful and productive legislation session.

We also urge him to right a great wrong. Senator O’Mara must end his opposition against and vote for a Child Victims Act that would extend the statute of limitations for actions against child molesters to age 28 in criminal cases and age 50 for civil suits, including a one-year window for victims to sue for restitution for acts that have passed the statute of limitations. Under the current law, victims can press charges only up to the age of 23.

The sordid history of powerful institutions covering up the actions of child molesters is well known. In 2004, an official Catholic Church commission reported that 4,000 priests had sexually assaulted at least 10,000 children over five decades in the U.S. Bishop Salvatore Matano needs to release the names of pedophile priests who served in the Diocese of Rochester, which includes Elmira and Ithaca, but clergy in the Catholic Church are not the only authorities dealing with incidents of abuse. Over 30 now-adult victims of the Horace Mann School located in the Bronx reported incidents of molestation when they were enrolled at the elite private academy. Numerous other New York state institutions whose employees came into unlawful contact with children also need to come clean about any history of molestation.

To its credit, the NY state assembly has responded vigorously to the revelations. For the past several sessions, it has passed a version of the Child Victims Act. The Republican-led State Senate, however, bowed to the demands of the NY state Catholic Conference and refused to advance the bill in its house. In one debate, held in Ithaca in 2016, Senator O’Mara unapologetically stated that the Catholic Church’s position on the bill explained his opposition to it. https://ithacavoice.com/2016/10/state-senate-candidates-omara-danks-burke-debate-issues-ithaca/

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[“It’s good news:” Marists welcome Vatican involvement in abuse investigation]

SANTIAGO (CHILE)
Emol

January 12, 2019

By Tamara Cerna

Las autoridades de la Congregación en Roma solicitaron una reunión para tener más detalles del proceso y alcances de la decisión del Papa Francisco.

A través de un comunicado, la Congregación de los Hermanos Maristas valoró la decisión del Papa Francisco de intervenir en las indagatorias por abuso que llevaban adelante. Ayer, el vocero de la Conferencia Episcopal de Chile, Jaime Coiro, confirmó la decisión de Sumo Pontífice de promover un proceso penal en la Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe en relación a las denuncias presentadas contra algunos religiosos.

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[Chile’s Episcopal Conference reveals what’s on the agenda for reserved appointment with the Pope]

CHILE
BioBioChile

January 11, 2019

By Matías Vega

La Conferencia Episcopal dio luces este viernes sobre los temas que serán tratados en la reunión que sostendrán los 5 obispos que conforman el comité permanente de dicha organización clerical y el papa Francisco.

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[Chilean bishops prepare for meeting with Pope and question the presence of two who are under investigation]

CHILE
BioBioChile

January 11, 2019

By María José Villarroel and Nicole Martínez

El lunes los obispos del Consejo Permanente de la Conferencia Episcopal (Cech) se reunirán -en un encuentro reservado- con el Papa Francisco, para entregar avances sobre el manejo de los casos de abusos sexuales. Primero, eso sí, el fin de semana llegarán a Portugal a la Fundación Acton, instancia para el estudio de la religión, la libertad y la economía donde realizarían un curso.

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[Marist Case: Pope Francisco informs Chilean whistleblowers that ecclesiastical criminal proceedings will be opened]

CHILE
La Tercera

January 11, 2019

By Angelica Baeza

Isaac Givovich, uno de los denunciantes en el caso, se mostró satisfecho y contento por la decisión adoptada por el Vaticano. La información fue confirmada por el portavoz de la Conferencia Episcopal.

La Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe dispuso acompañar pastoralmente a las víctimas del llamado “Caso Maristas”, pero además, el mismo Papa Francisco dispuso que se promueva un proceso penal ante la Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe, una vez terminadas las investigaciones generadas a partir de las denuncias por abuso sexual.

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[Netflix will premiere documentary series about abuses in the Spanish Church]

MADRID (SPAIN)
El País

January 10, 2019

El periodista Albert Solé es el creador de ‘Examen de conciencia’, disponible a partir del 25 de enero

Netflix estrenará el 25 de enero la serie documental de tres episodios Examen de conciencia, sobre los abusos en la Iglesia española. La serie está dirigida por el periodita Albert Solé, ganador de un premio Goya por el documental Bucarest, la memoria perdida. La serie explora a través de testimonios de víctimas, periodistas, expertos y religiosos, casos de abusos sexuales en instituciones de la Iglesia católica española.

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[Film will recount how clergy abuse victims came together in France]

LYON (FRANCE)
El País

January 11, 2019

By Silvia Ayuso

Una película contará próximamente la historia de esta organización que ha sentado a un cardenal en el banquillo

“Me decía mon garçon, mi niño, esto es un secreto, no hay que contárselo a nadie. Luego me quitaba el pantalón y me acariciaba”. “Me decía que le siguiera al último piso. Cada vez, yo iba dócilmente. Sentía su respiración jadeante. En mi cerebro de niño, el interruptor se apagaba. Duró tres años”. Los testimonios de los tocamientos, felaciones o masturbaciones a los que les sometió el cura Bernard Preynat desde finales de los años 70 hasta 1990, cuando eran chavales de 10 o 12 años que pertenecían al grupo scout de ese sacerdote, enmudecieron a la abarrotada sala del tribunal de Lyon donde ocho de sus víctimas declararon en un juicio con el que reclaman responsabilidades a la Iglesia que protegió a ese religioso durante décadas.

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SEDALIA (MO)
Sedalia Democrat

January 12, 2019

By David Clohessy

This is a heartfelt appeal to Sedalia area Catholics and citizens who have information or suspicions about a priest who was expelled by mid-Missouri church officials and accused of sexually inappropriate actions with a girl.

While his church supervisors claim he’s no threat to kids, we are highly skeptical.

Following a familiar pattern in these cases, since the allegations against Fr. Deusdedit Mulokozi (or Fr. Deo, as he’s known) were reported to Sedalia law enforcement, he’s been moved three times.

First, he was sent to Kansas City, then to a Catholic treatment center in Texas and then to Tanzania where he is now working among the even more vulnerable people: unsuspecting Catholics in a developing nation with a less vigorous criminal system and an even more secretive church hierarchy.

To be fair, in our criminal justice system, everyone’s entitled to be presumed innocent. But to be honest and prudent, reasonable people should not assume Fr. Deo is innocent.

First, even Catholic officials admit that very few allegations of sexual misconduct against priests are false. A Boston-based research and archive group, BishopAccountability, says that fewer than 2 percent of sexual abuse allegations appear to be false. And a report commissioned by U.S. bishops and conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice concluded that 2.5 percent are false.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Post-Gazette

January 11, 2019

By Peter Smith

A 14-year-old document in the archives of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh contradicts Cardinal Donald Wuerl’s claim to have known nothing until last year of rumored sexual misconduct claims against former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick — the man he would replace as archbishop of Washington.

In fact, then-Bishop Wuerl knew of more than rumors.

In November 2004, a former priest came to Pittsburgh from New Jersey and presented a formal statement to the independent review board that handles accusations against the diocese’s priests. In it, he identified then-Cardinal McCarrick as having committed sexual misconduct against him as an adult.

Then-Bishop Wuerl learned about the allegation immediately and, within days, reported it directly to the Vatican ambassador to the United States, the Diocese of Pittsburgh has confirmed.

The former priest, Robert Ciolek, said by phone Friday that when he saw the 2004 Wuerl memo in a December 2018 review of his case file at the Pittsburgh diocese, his first reaction was: “My God, he actually did share this with the papal nuncio. He did the right thing.”

But Mr. Ciolek said Cardinal Wuerl is undercutting that record by “lying” since then about what he knew and when.

“All that is diminished by the fact that he spent the last five months denying any knowledge” of allegations against Archbishop McCarrick, he said.

Mr. Ciolek also questioned whether Cardinal Wuerl, after becoming Washington archbishop in 2006, ever followed up with the Vatican about the status of any investigation, or took any steps to safeguard other seminarians in the proximity of his predecessor.

“Now that we know you knew, what did you do about it?” Mr. Ciolek asked rhetorically.

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BELFAST (IRELAND)
Belfast Telegram

January 12, 2019

By Alf McCreary

Donal McKeown (68) grew up in Randalstown. He has a brother, James, and sisters Mary and Teresa. As children, they played with neighbours from other Churches.

His first 11 years were spent in a house with a water pump in the yard, and there was no electricity until he was 10.

His father, James, was a watchmaker, and his mother, Rose, a primary school teacher, though she could not work always, because she was married and had four small children.

There was a strong sense of community and of being part of a large family network – his father was one of 13 children and his mother was one of eight. As a young man, Donal McKeown played Gaelic football and hurling with Creggan Kickhams, near Randalstown.

He has run a number of marathons, one in 1982 as part of a 48-strong parish team raising funds for a new church building, and another in 2001 to raise money for a new minibus for St Malachy’s College, where he had been principal in Belfast. He also took part in the Belfast-Dublin Maracycle in 1996.

“My studies at Queen’s University in German and Italian gave me a chance to travel in Germany from 1970 to 71. In my last two years at Queen’s, I was the Belfast correspondent for a German news agency,” he says.

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MUMBAI (INDIA)
Crux

January 12, 2019

By Nirmala Carvalho

In a “dynamic and fast-changing” society, the Church in India must embrace “flexibility” in pastoral ministry, according to one bishop in the country.

“Evangelization demands creativity and innovation. God is ever new and ancient,” said Bishop Thomas Dabre of Poona at the beginning of this week’s plenary meeting of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI).

(The CCBI is the National Episcopal Conference for the Latin rite Catholics, while the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, or CBCI, is the national conference including all the country’s bishops, including those belonging to the Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankara eastern rites.)

The theme of the Jan. 7-14 meeting in Chennai is “The Joy of the Gospel” based on Pope Francis’s 2013 Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium. They have been looking at developing action plans to revitalize the outreach of the Church in India at the diocesan and parish level.

Although considered one of the most religious countries in the world, Dabre said the same secularizing tendency which has affected Western countries is also happening in India.

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BREMERTON (WA)
Kitsap Sun

January 11, 2019

By Ed Palm

Readers may recall that I wrote a couple columns in 2018 about the Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal. As a Catholic school survivor of the late 1950s and early 1960s, I wasn’t surprised to learn that most of the abuses occurred between 1960 and 1980. I suspect that many — if not most — of the priests and bishops involved in these scandals came up through the largely-discarded high-school seminary system of the past.

Thinking they had — or may have had — a vocation, these 13- or 14-year-old boys agreed to be semi-cloistered at a time when many young boys are still unsure about their sexuality. Some may have thought that their disinterest in the opposite sex, or disinterest in sex in general, was a sign of their election — an indication that they had been called to the celibate life. Others probably overestimated their ability to suppress the sex drive as they matured. And some, as we now know, later realized they were sexually attracted to children. The high-school seminaries were schools for scandal, and I am still waiting for an enterprising investigative journalist to determine how many of the abusers did begin to prepare for the priesthood at high-school seminaries.

What brought this to mind was an AP report reprinted recently in the Sun (Jan. 2) about how the Vatican stepped in at the 11th hour to stop the U.S. Conference of American Bishops from voting at their November meeting on a “code of conduct for bishops” and on the creation of a lay-led sex-abuse commission. Cardinal Marc Ouellet, a Vatican official, ordered the American bishops to await the guidance that will presumably come out of a “global summit” Pope Francis intends to hold next month on “preventing sex abuse by priests.”

I can understand why the Vatican would not want American bishops to preempt the Pope on this issue. I can further understand that the Church needs to formulate a set of consistent and coherent policies regarding sex abuse. And for better or worse, as the article reminded readers, “The Holy See alone has exclusive authority to investigate and discipline problem bishops.” But, aside from disregarding abuse survivors’ demands for decisive and swift action, what bothers me about the Vatican’s delay is something that has bothered me from my earliest experience with the Church — the tendency to couch controversial decisions, doctrines, and dogmas in grandiloquent language.

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CHARLOTTE (NC)
Associated Press

January 11, 2019

As dozens of Catholic dioceses across the country have released lists of priests who have been credibly accused of child sex abuse, the Charlotte diocese remains undecided about whether to join what its spokesman calls the “stampede.”

But North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein tells The Charlotte Observer the Charlotte diocese should follow the lead of others, for transparency’s sake. The Raleigh diocese published its list in October.

Charlotte diocese spokesman David Hains says publishing a list might further harm victims. David Clohessy with the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests called that claim “baloney.”

Stein doesn’t have the same powers as attorney generals in states like Pennsylvania where investigations of the Catholic Church are underway. He hopes to convince the legislature to broaden the investigative grand jury statute.

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LOUISVILLE (KY)
WAVE TV

January 11, 2019

By Sara Rivest

A former Louisville priest found guilty of sexual abuse has been denied an appeal.

In 2016, Father Joseph Hemmerle was convicted in Meade County on one count of inappropriate touching. He was sentenced to seven years in prison.

The charge comes from an incident in 1973 where Hemmerle molested a 10-year-old boy at the summer camp he was attending, Camp Tall Tree.

Hemmerle was the camp’s director. According to the appeal, Hemmerle routinely treated campers with poison ivy reactions.

The victim, Michael Norris, testified at Hemmerle’s trial that he was exposed to poison ivy when playing in the woods. He developed an extensive skin rash and sought treatment from Hemmerle.

“I’m now 56 so I live with this every single day, it’s something that never goes away,” Norris said. “Child sexual abuse is a horrible thing but at the hands of the clergy it’s even worse.”

Hemmerle allegedly demanded Norris undress inside his private cabin. He was accused of molesting and performing oral sex on the victim.

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
WVUE TV

January 11, 2019

By Amanda Roberts

Houma-Thibodeaux is the third diocese across South Louisiana to release a list of priests credibly accused of child sex abuse. Bishop Shelton Fabre released the list with 14 names on Jan. 11.

In the Houma-Thibodaux area, Allyce Himel said there was always rumors running throughout the Catholic schools about inappropriate behavior.

“There was a lot of talk about it, but nothing really was done,” she said.

She says now that there’s a list of 14 names released to the public of priests credibly accused of child sex abuse, she’s glad the truth is getting out there.

“It’s horrible. It’s horrible, and like we were saying glad their names are out because it should be known,” said Himel.

Of the 14 names, none are currently in ministry. Eight are still alive: Lawrence Cavell, Alexander Francisco, Etienne LeBlanc, Gerald Prinz, Gerard Kinane, Ramon Luce and Daniel Poche. The eighth living priest, Patrick Kujawa, is incarcerated.

The whereabouts of two other priests, Dac Nguyen and Carlos Melendez, are unknown.

FOX 8 tried to reach those on the list, either by phone or in person, but was unsuccessful.

Gerald Prinz is not a new name. He was also included on the Archdiocese of New Orleans’ list of credibly accused released in November. According to our partners at NOLA.com | The Times Picayune, an anonymous plaintiff sued Prinz in 1995, claiming the priest abused him in the 1970s at St. Gregory Barbarigo Parish in Houma and St. Louis Parish in Bayou Blue.

When reached at his home, a man who identified himself as Prinz’s brother answered the door.

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
The Advocate

January 11, 2019

By Ramon Antonio Vargas, John Simerman and Della Hasselle

The Catholic Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux on Friday identified 14 priests who have admitted or are suspected by church officials of a wide range of sexual misconduct with minors, from possession of child pornography to rape.

Bishop Shelton Fabre’s disclosure marked the third time in as many months that a diocese or religious order has published what amounts to an official church roster of alleged abusers in Louisiana ministries.

The Archdiocese of New Orleans released a similar list of 57 disgraced clergymen in early November, while the Jesuit order that oversees priests and other order members in Louisiana released its own list of 42 names last month, including 19 who worked in the New Orleans area.

The disclosures are part of a nationwide reckoning by Catholic leaders attempting to restore trust with parishioners whose faith in the church has been strained by a sexual abuse scandal well into its second decade.

The latest wave of the scandal hit the U.S. with the July release of a Pennsylvania grand jury report that identified hundreds of credibly accused Catholic priests and thousands of victims there — revealing a problem many times larger in scope than previously documented.

Four of the names revealed Friday by the Houma-Thibodaux diocese had previously appeared on the list published by the Archdiocese of New Orleans. Several other priests named on Friday’s list were subjects of earlier news accounts about their alleged crimes against children and teens.

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ALBANY (NY)
New York Daily News

By Kenneth Lovett

Finally, child victims of pedophile priests, rabbis and scoutmasters will be allowed to seek justice.

Gov. Cuomo announced Friday he will for the second year in a row include language to create the Child Victims Act in the state budget he will propose on Tuesday.

But unlike last year, the Republicans are no longer in control of the Senate to block the measure and the Democrats in each chamber have made the issue a top priority.

“There has been a degradation of justice for childhood sexual assault survivors who have suffered for decades by the authority figures they trusted most,” Cuomo said. “That ends this year with the enactment of the Child Victims Act to provide survivors with a long-overdue path to justice.”

Legislative bill sponsors, including in the Assembly, which passed similar bills the past two years, say it could be taken up by the Legislature even before the budget is finalized in the spring.

“It’s not a matter of if we pass the Child Victims Act, it’s when we pass the Child Victims Act, said Senate bill sponsor Brad Hoylman (D-Manhattan). “It’s possible the Legislature could act before the budget.”

Assembly bill sponsor Linda Rosenthal agrees, noting the budget isn’t due to be adopted until the end of March.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Irish Central

January 11, 2019

By James O’Shea

Former Irish president Mary McAleese has revealed how Pope John Paul refused to shake her hand when they met and shook her husband’s hand, instead, asking him “would you not prefer to be the president of Ireland instead of your wife?”

McAleese recalled she quickly interjected: “You would never have done that to a male president. I’m the elected president of Ireland whether you like it or not.”

McAleese was speaking at an event hosted by the Irish American Partnership in Boston.

Disgraced Cardinal Bernard Law also tried to intimidate her stating, “I’m sorry for Catholic Ireland to have you as president,” she recalled when they met.

Law brought her to a room where a female right-wing lawyer and theologian Mary Ann Glendon was waiting and tried to brief her on why only men should have positions of power in the Catholic Church.

Read more: Former Irish president Mary McAleese brands Catholic Church “empire of misogyny”

Pope Benedict XVI meets U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See Mary Ann Glendon during a private audience at the Vatican on February 29, 2008. (OSSERVATORE ROMANO/AFP/Getty Images)4
Pope Benedict XVI meets U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See Mary Ann Glendon during a private audience at the Vatican on February 29, 2008. (OSSERVATORE ROMANO/AFP/Getty Images)

She said: “His remarks were utterly inappropriate and unwelcome.

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COLLINGSWOOD (NJ)
Philadelphia Inquirer

January 8, 2019

By Jeremy Roebuck

A priest at a Catholic parish in Collingswood, Camden County, abruptly announced his retirement this week and revealed that he had asked to be removed from ministry due to an accusation of sexual abuse — one that a diocesan review board deemed to be credible more than 15 years ago.

The Rev. John D. Bohrer’s decision to resign as administrator of St. Teresa of Calcutta Parish appears to have been prompted by the Camden Diocese’s plan to release a list this year of all its priests who have ever been credibly accused of abuse.

But questions remained as to how Bohrer, 74, had retained his post for years after his accusers’ claims were substantiated in a diocese that has a zero-tolerance policy for clergy misconduct.

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HOUSTON (TX)
KUHT Public Radio

January 11, 2019

By Abner Fletcher

Next month, more than a hundred Catholic bishops are expected to meet in Rome for a gathering dedicated to the sexual abuse crisis. In a letter released by the Vatican from the conference’s steering committee, bishops were urged to meet with survivors of abuse. Committee members say the Church’s credibility is at stake.

The upcoming conference comes as the Catholic Church continues to grapple with the fallout of the crisis.

Some bishops have released names of priests in their dioceses who’ve been credibly accused of child abuse. Dr. Anastasiya Zavyalova says it’s a small step in the right direction. She’s an expert on reputation management from Rice University and has been studying allegations against the Archdiocese of Philadelphia for more than a decade.

In 2005, a grand jury issued a report finding leaders concealed sexual abuse by priests there for four decades. Zavayalova has been examining how parishioners reacted to the archdiocese releasing names of the priests involved.

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SEATTLE (WA)
Seattle Post Intelligencer

January 11, 2019

By Joel Connelly

The Episcopal Church, lifting a statute of limitations on reporting sexual abuse by clerics, has created a three-year window when any allegation of misconduct at any time can be brought forward to church authorities.

“In short, you do not have to wonder if the allegation comes from long ago,” the Rt. Rev. Greg Rickel, Episcopal Bishop of Olympia, has written in a pastoral letter to be read in parishes and missions across Western Washington.

The General Convention of the church, meeting in Austin, Texas, last summer, passed a resolution amending church canons (laws) and suspending the statute of limitations on reporting misconduct. It created a three-year period, starting Jan. 1, 2019 and lasting through Dec. 31, 2021.

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BROOKVILLE (PA)
GoErie.com

January 11, 2019

By Madeleine O’Neill

“You used your position as a man of the cloth to deceive young boys,” victim says of Rev. David Poulson, sentenced in Jefferson County Court.

Rev. David L. Poulson, a former priest in the Catholic Diocese of Erie who pleaded guilty to sexually abusing two boys, was ordered to spend up to 14 years in state prison Friday at his sentencing in Jefferson County Court.

Poulson, 65, received the sentence of two and one half to 14 years of incarceration from Jefferson County President Judge John H. Foradora. The sentence was more than what the prosecution requested.

“These were children who trusted you,” Foradora told Poulson. “These were faithful parents who thought their children would be safe with a priest.”

Foradora quoted from Mark 10:13-16, in which Jesus says the kingdom of God belongs “to the little children.” Fordora also quoted from the Gospel verses in which Jesus said that anyone who would cause a child to stumble would be better off being thrown into the sea with a millstone around his neck.

Fordora also criticized retired Erie Catholic Bishop Donald W. Trautman, whom the judge said left Poulson in ministry. Poulson was forced to resign in February under Bishop Lawrence Persico, who took over as bishop of the 13-county diocese in October 2012.

“I just can’t figure out how anyone in a position of authority would have done that,” Foradora said. “The public was potentially at risk for eight years because of the bishop’s actions.”

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Patheos blog

January 11, 2019

By Jane the Actuary

Oh, man, I started the day with the firm resolve to figure out the liability and asset reconciliations in the 2009 Chicago Municipal Employees’ pension report which were defeating me yesterday. (Yes, I spent December writing about multiemployer plans and am spending January with Chicago pension plans and wish there was profit somewhere in it but in the short term figure that as a silver lining I won’t be at risk of having my credibility questioned by being deemed a tool for some interest group or another.) But then I end up writing about the shut-down and immigration, and then came to the conclusions that I really will get back to the original project for the day as soon as I finish up this older draft article that feels newly relevant with the latest news, that is, that Cardinal Wuerl KNEW about McCarrick, or, rather, that his knowledge, that we all pretty much suspected to be the case, is now documented, as reported by the Catholic News Agency yesterday.

And it’s infuriating, as is much of the news about the topic, though I don’t want to recite it all right now; one certainly has the feeling that the upcoming February meeting that’s supposed to formulate a response will be more a matter of defensiveness and bishop/pope-protection and spin than genuine efforts at a solution.

But I’ve tried to slow myself down.

I still gripe about it, yes. I have also come to the conclusion that a meaningful next step I can take at the parish level is either finding a booklet on the existing policies and make efforts to promote it, or else put together such a booklet myself, as an equivalent to what the BSA does, because it seems to me that this should be the norm.

But as to the rest? This is where I hesitate.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
WAMU Radio

January 11, 2019

By Natalie Delgadillo

The Archdiocese of Washington has confirmed that Cardinal Donald Wuerl was aware of allegations of abuse and improper conduct by his predecessor, former Washington Archbishop Theodore McCarrick, as early as 2004, despite Wuerl’s public denials that he knew about the accusations.

The Washington Post first reported on the discrepancy from Weurl’s past statements. Robert Ciolek, one of McCarrick’s alleged victims, told the Post that he has reviewed documents that showed Wuerl knew about his allegations of improper conduct and took them to the Vatican in 2004. But after the allegations came to light in 2018, Wuerl publicly said he “had not heard” about them during his years in Washington or “even before that.”

Wuerl was pressured over the summer to step down from his position as Archbishop of Washington after a Pennsylvania grand jury report revealed that he had sometimes worked to reassign alleged abusers in the clergy to different parishes during his time as Bishop of Pittsburgh. The Vatican accepted his resignation, but asked him to remain on the job until his successor is appointed.

The Vatican suspended McCarrick from his position as a cardinal last June after receiving a credible allegation that he had abused a 16-year-old altar boy in New York in 1971 and 1972. McCarrick was the archbishop of Washington—popular, well-respected, and well-liked in the region—from 2001 to 2006. Several new allegations arose against McCarrick in the weeks following, both from men who were minors and adult seminarians when the alleged abuse or harassment took place. One of those men was Ciolek, a former priest himself, who said McCarrick forced him and other young seminarians to sleep in the same bed with him and to exchange backrubs, according to the Post.

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YORK (PA)
York Daily Record

January 11, 2019

By Candy Woodall

Harrisburg Bishop Ronald Gainer stood in front of an altar still decorated for Christmas and apologized to priest abuse survivors, and other parishioners, for the Catholic church’s sins of the past.

The abuses and cover-ups that have been publicly reported extend from about 1940 through last year, but the diocese’s safety plans raise questions about whether there are enough protections in place today to ensure children are never sexually abused again.

Gainer spoke Thursday night to about 250 people at Saint Catherine Laboure Parish in Swatara Township near Harrisburg, leading the first of nine listening sessions that will be held throughout the diocese. The final session is the only one that will be held in York County, and it will take place at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 26 at St. Rose of Lima Parish, 950 West Market Street.

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BROOKVILLE (PA)
Associated Press

January 11, 2019

A Roman Catholic priest who pleaded guilty to sexually abusing two boys and making one of them say confession after the assaults is set to be sentenced in Pennsylvania court.

David Lee Poulson is one of two priests charged as a result of a damning Pennsylvania grand jury report that named almost 300 predator priests accused of abusing more than 1,000 victims in six of the state’s dioceses.

Court records show 65-year-old Poulson is scheduled to be sentenced at 1 p.m. Friday after pleading guilty in October to corruption of minors and child endangerment.

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
Religion News Service

January 11, 2019

By Mark Silk

Jason Berry is sipping an Old Fashioned in La Petite Grocery, talking about City of a Million Dreams, the splendid soup-to-nuts history that he’s written to mark the 300th birthday of his beloved home town. The deep theme of the book, he says, is “spirit versus law,” and it’s a theme exemplified nowhere more than in the religion of the place.

Take Padre Antonio de Sedella, the Spanish Capuchin known as Père Antoine to the French speakers who dominated La Nouvelle-Orléans in its first century. He arrived as an agent of the Spanish Inquisition and ended up as the city’s leading advocate for the poor and enslaved. Kicked out of the city by the powers-that-be, he returned to the city in triumph, becoming rector of St. Louis Cathedral and running off any bishop who got in his way.

“He was a megalomanic who wanted to be loved by the people at the margins,” Berry says.

Then there was Mother Catherine Seal, a spiritualist healer whose beliefs harked back to the Great Mother cults of prehistory and whose followers came from every race and class. In the 1920s, she established a sprawling complex in the Lower Ninth Ward that took in unwed mothers, abused women.

And Sister Gertrude Morgan, a mystic who believed herself to be both bride of Christ and bride of God the Father. After World War II, she became one of the city’s celebrated folk artists.

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[Ezzati and key bishops of the Chilean Episcopal Conference head to Rome to meet with Pope Francis]

CHILE
La Tercera

January 11, 2019

By Carla Pía Ruiz

Desde el Vaticano confirmaron a La Tercera PM el encuentro, que, según informó este viernes la CECh, se realizará este lunes 14.

Será una reunión en el Vaticano a un año exacto de que Francisco visitara tierra chilena. Un grupo de obispos clave de la Conferencia Episcopal chilena (CECh) se reunirá el lunes 14 de enero con el Papa en Roma.

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[Chillán diocese extends investigation against priest accused of sexually abusing a minor]

CHILE
La Tercera

January 9, 2019

By Carlos Reyes

El religioso ya enfrentaba una indagatoria por presuntas “conductas impropias al sexto mandamiento”. La diócesis local determinó aplicar las medidas cautelares de “prohibición del ejercicio de todo ministerio público por parte del sacerdote, además de la fijación de domicilio. Asimismo, se le ha apartado de su rol de párroco de Cobquecura”. Además, la información fue remitida a la Fiscalía Nacional.

El obispado de Chillán informó que decidió ampliar la investigación previa que existe contra el sacerdote Jaime San Martín Solís a raíz de una denuncia por presunto abuso sexual contra una menor de edad.

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[Exclusive: Vatican opens criminal process in Marists’ case]

CHILE
The Clinic

January 11, 2019

By Alejandra Carmona López

Una vez terminada la primera etapa de la investigación previa, que concluyó en septiembre, los “hermanos” debieron mandar la información al encargado provincial y después tomar una decisión frente a los numerosos testimonios recibidos sobre abusos sexuales cometidos por miembros de la congregación. Sin embargo, aun no hay sanciones. En una fuerte señal desde Roma, que fue notificada ayer a los Maristas, el Papa ordenó promover un proceso penal ante la Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe.

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[Marist Abel Pérez confesses to sexually touching 20 – 30 children in different schools]

CHILE
The Clinic

December 6, 2018

By Jonah Romero Sánchez

En su declaración ante la justicia canónica, el religioso Abel Pérez reveló que las más altas autoridades maristas sabían de su “problemática”, que por años recibió terapia sicológica y que nunca quiso ser religioso. The Clinic accedió al informe canónico –especie de “investigación previa”- que busca acreditar la verosimilitud de las denuncias en contra de éste, el primer religioso marista en ser denunciado en Chile. El informe -que recoge la voz de sobrevivientes, testigos, y la del propio acusado- entrega pistas sobre la formación de una de las redes de pederastía infantil más grandes en la historia del país.

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
The Advocate

January 11, 2019

By Ramon Antonio Vargas

The Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux on Friday named six Catholic priests who admitted or were convicted of sexual misconduct with children as well as three others who faced civil litigation credibly accusing them of molesting minors.

Another five were credibly accused outside of a court setting of “serious and unacceptable conduct with minors, ranging from inappropriate physical contact … to molestation,” bringing the total number of names on Friday’s list to 14, officials said.

The Bishop of Houma-Thibodaux, Shelton Fabre, has sent parishioners a letter offering an apology “for the egregious sins that have taken place.”

“Let me be clear: the abuse of a child by anyone is sinful, abhorrent and evil, particularly when perpetrated by one vested with the sacred trust of God’s children,” Fabre’s letter read. “Furthermore, any attempt to cover up these sins is even more disturbing. I apologize to all who have been harmed. It is with deep respect and profound reverence that I humbly extend this apology.”

Priests Alexander Francisco and Carlos Melendez admitted to inappropriate physical contact with a minor, and Robert Melancon was convicted of raping a child, the diocese said.

Dale Guidry and Lawrence Cavell solicited children for sex, while Guidry was also accused of molesting a minor. Patrick Kujawa was convicted of child pornography possession.

Three other priests were sued over sexual abuse allegations that the church deemed credible: Etienne LeBlanc, Gerald Prinz and Bernard Schmaltz.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Gallup

January 11, 2019

By Megan Brenan

Amid turmoil in the Roman Catholic Church in the ongoing fallout from priest sex abuse scandals, a record-low 31% of U.S. Catholics rate the honesty and ethical standards of the clergy as “very high” or “high.” This marks an 18-percentage-point drop between 2017 and 2018, when more sexual abuse allegations against priests surfaced and questions arose about the Vatican’s response.

Gallup has measured the public’s views about the clergy’s ethical standards since 1977 as part of its broader “honesty and ethics of professions” poll. Initially high ratings of the clergy have been declining steadily among all adults since 2012.

The latest findings, from a Dec. 3-12 Gallup poll, come after a Pennsylvania Grand Jury report in August detailed accusations of sexual abuse involving more than 300 Catholic priests over 70 years. The report indicated that Catholic bishops and other high-ranking church leaders covered up these incidents.

The latest drop in Catholics’ positive views of the clergy’s ethics, from 49% to 31%, is the second double-digit drop since 2004. Both declines were clearly associated with scandals in the Catholic Church even though the question about clergy does not specify a denomination.

Between 2004 and 2014, a majority of Catholics rated the clergy’s ethics highly, but opinions fell sharply between 2014 and 2015. That 13-point drop from 57% to 44% followed the release of a study by the Catholic Church that found more than 4,000 priests had faced sexual abuse accusations in the prior 50 years.

Although Protestants’ ratings of the clergy have dropped since 2004, the decline has not been as sharp, and the latest 48% positive rating of the clergy is much higher than Catholics’. Still, it is the first reading that falls below the majority level among Protestants.

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HOUSTON (TX)
Houston Chronicle

January 10, 2019

By Nicole Hensley

The criminal probe into a Houston-area priest is on pace to go to trial, which could become the region’s highest-profile clergy sex abuse case in more than two decades.

The priest’s lawyer, Wendell Odom, made the prediction Thursday afternoon after his client, Manuel La Rosa-Lopez, was rushed out of the Montgomery County courthouse through a back door after a status hearing.

“This is such a high-publicity case, in all probability, I think this case is going to go to trial,” Odom said.

The clergy investigation, which expanded last fall with a fourth search warrant at the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston headquarters in downtown Houston, has produced a hefty load of evidence for authorities to examine. The three prior searches happened at the Shalom Center in Splendora, Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Conroe and La Rosa-Lopez’s most recent assignment at St. John Fisher Church in Richmond.

La Rosa-Lopez last appeared in court in October. He was arrested Sept. 11 on four counts of indecency with a child for claims that he molested a boy and a girl at the Conroe parish from 1998 to 2000.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
Patriot News

January 11, 2019

By Christine Vendel

About 250 people attended a town-hall style meeting at a Harrisburg Catholic parish night to hear what their church was doing differently after revelations that thousands of children were molested by priests over decades.

Parishioners asked tough questions at the 7 p.m. meeting at the Saint Catherine Laboure Parish at 4000 Derry Street. It was the first in a series of planned “listening sessions” by Bishop Ronald W. Gainer across the Harrisburg Diocese, which covers 89 parishes.

The Harrisburg Diocese last year was one of six at the center of a grand jury investigation led by Attorney General Josh Shapiro that unearthed widespread clergy sex abuse spanning seven decades, as bishops and church officials turned a blind eye to the crimes.

Some parishioners said they planned to withhold their financial offerings to the church until they felt more trust and saw more transparency from the diocese, said Carolyn Fortney, one of five sisters who were sexually abused as children by the same priest in Dauphin County. All five sisters attended the two-hour meeting.

Patty Fortney-Julius said she thought Gainer spoke from his heart at the meeting but that he remained “disconnected” and still “doesn’t get it.”

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WASHINGTON (DC)
NBC Channel 4

January 10, 2019

By Gina Cook

According to new reports, Cardinal Donald Wuerl knew of sexual abuse allegations against ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick more than a decade ago — despite Wuerl’s statement last summer that he had no knowledge of the allegations.

The Washington Post reports Wuerl reported an allegation of misconduct by McCarrick to the Vatican in 2004.

Robert Ciolek, a former priest who reached a settlement with the church in 2005 for alleged abuse involving McCarrick and other clerics, told the Post the Pittsburgh Diocese has a file that shows Wuerl brought his complaint to a Vatican ambassador.

In a statement to NBC News, the Archdiocese of Washington confirmed that Ciolek “was allowed to review the file regarding his Pittsburgh complaint” and that the “Diocese of Pittsburgh and then-Bishop Wuerl acted appropriately in addressing his complaints.”

“Cardinal Wuerl has attempted to be accurate in addressing questions about Archbishop McCarrick. His statements previously referred to claims of sexual abuse of a minor by Archbishop McCarrick, as well as rumors of such behavior,” the archdiocese said. “The Cardinal stands by those statements, which were not intended to be imprecise.”

Wuerl resigned as archbishop in October amid a storm of criticism after a Pennsylvania grand jury report said he allowed priests accused of sexually abusing children to be reassigned or reinstated when he was the bishop of Pittsburgh.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

January 11, 2019

by Tom Roberts

Editor’s note: The text of the talks delivered by Capuchin Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher of the papal household, to the U.S. bishops during their Jan. 2-8 retreat at Mundelein Seminary, outside of Chicago, are available at this link.

Texts of the 11 talks delivered to the U.S. bishops who gathered for a week’s retreat at Mundelein Seminary outside of Chicago show a heavy emphasis on traditional themes, a robust defense of celibacy, a severe criticism of attachment to money and an endorsement of new lay movements as a replacement for declining numbers of clerics.

Franciscan Fr. Daniel P. Horan writes about politics, culture and theology in his new column, Faith Seeking Understanding.

NCR obtained the texts, 84 single-spaced pages, and they can be seen in their entirety here. They were delivered during the Jan. 2-8 retreat by Capuchin Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher of the papal household.

The talks contain only passing reference to the sex abuse scandal that was the reason behind the unusual retreat, suggested by Pope Francis, and the omission was intentional.

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DALLAS (TX)
Dallas Morning News

January 11, 2019

David Tarrant

Dallas police detective David Clark has spent eight years investigating the horrors of child exploitation — a job that still motivates him because he gets to catch abusers, even if it takes years.

“What really gets me is somebody is living their life and thinking they got away with something,” he said.

Now, Clark’s full-time focus at the Dallas Police Department is on investigating sex-abuse allegations — including many that are decades-old — by Catholic clergy members.

The Catholic Church worldwide has been rocked by the latest spate of sex-abuse scandals, prompting dioceses to take new transparency measures. Victims’ advocates, however, still don’t trust the church, and say outside law enforcement officers, like Clark, need to take the lead on the cases.

Clark — the son of a 41-year veteran Dallas officer and detective who retired in 2012 — joined the department in 1998 after graduating from the University of North Texas. His supervisor, Sgt. Rene Sigala, said Clark is “relentless,” and “will not stop until he solves the cases assigned to him.”

Clark said he’s driven to help adults who have survived child abuse.

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LYON (FRANCE)
Associated Press

January 10, 2019

A court trying a French cardinal on charges he covered up the sexual abuse of minors by one of his priests will render its verdict on March 7, the judge in the case said yesterday.

Lawyers representing nine adult plaintiffs — former boy scouts allegedly abused by Bernard Preynat, a 73-year-old priest — led the charge against the archbishop, since prosecutors declined to press charges because of the statute of limitations.

The abuse relates to acts committed before 1991.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
Associated Press

January 10, 2019

By David McFadden

Maryland’s top law enforcement official on Thursday announced a phone hotline for victims to report child sex abuse associated with a place of worship or school across the U.S. state, which is steeped in Catholicism like few others.

Attorney General Brian Frosh announced the creation of the hotline in Baltimore, home to the country’s first bishop, first cathedral, first diocese and first archdiocese. Unlike counterparts in other states that have formally announced probes into clergy sex abuse, Frosh’s office has only publicly called for victims of abusers linked to schools or places of worship to come forward.

But last year, Baltimore Archbishop William Lori wrote priests and deacons in the archdiocese advising them that Frosh’s office was delving into church records as part of an investigation into child sex abuse. He has pledged full cooperation throughout the process.

Zach Hiner, executive director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, praised the launch of the hotline, saying it gives abuse victims a “new avenue to come forward” and name their abusers.

But he said Frosh and Maryland lawmakers needed to do more. Attorneys general have launched investigations in states including New Jersey, New York, Nebraska, Florida and Delaware, and in cities where local prosecutors are looking into individual priests. Frosh’s office does not confirm or deny the existence of any investigations.

“We hope that this hotline will not only lead to more survivors coming forward, but also provide an impetus for the attorney general to open a full investigation and for Maryland’s state legislature to begin reforming their statutes of limitations and opening civil windows for old cases to be brought forward,” Hiner said Thursday.

Liz McCloskey, part of a coalition of Catholics called the 5 Theses movement that has posted its proposals for reform on church doors in Baltimore and other cities, said “allowing the full scope of the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church to come to light in every diocese in every state will make room for a measure of healing for its survivors.”

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service

January. 10, 2019

By Carol Glatz

By summoning leaders of the world’s bishops’ conferences and top representatives of religious orders to the Vatican in February to address the abuse crisis and the protection of minors, Pope Francis is sending the message that the need for safeguarding is a global issue.

Even though media attention and public fallout for the Church’s failings have focused on a small group of nations, abuse experts and victims know that does not mean the rest of the world is immune from the scandal of abuse or can delay taking action to ensure the safety of all its members.

While Catholic leaders in some countries might not recognize it as a global issue, Vatican offices that receive abuse allegations have a “clear idea about what is the situation now because allegations come from all parts of the world,” said Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, president of the Center for the Protection of Minors at the Pontifical Gregorian University and a member of the organizing committee for the February meeting.

Because the Catholic Church mandates that all credible allegations of the sexual abuse of minors by clergy must be sent to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican, “we have one office that has to deal with all of this so, for the time being, we know what are the allegations that come from different parts of the world,” he said.

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DUNEDIN (NEW ZEALAND)
Otago Daily Times

January 10, 2019

By Chris Morris

The Catholic Bishop of Dunedin is still not ready to decide on a name change for Kavanagh College, but insists he is ‘‘working quite hard’’ on the issue.

Bishop Michael Dooley was commenting as ODT Insight yesterday asked him for updates on the issues of historic abuse being tackled within the Dunedin diocese and nationally.

Among those issues was a push by survivors, their supporters and a group of former Kavanagh College pupils to rename the Dunedin Catholic college.

Bishop Dooley had delayed a decision in November, despite months of revelations about historic abuse within the Dunedin diocese — much of it under then-Bishop John Kavanagh — a public meeting and a petition.

Instead, he would only say at the time he was ‘‘seriously’’ considering a name change, without giving a timeline.

He declined to give a time-line again yesterday, saying he was still listening to arguments on both sides.

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ST. PAUL (MN)
Pioneer Press

January 10, 2019

By Sarah Horner

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis continues to meet terms of the settlement agreement it reached with the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office over its handling of clergy sex-abuse, according to court findings.

Ramsey County District Judge Teresa Warner Thursday signed off on the findings of the second of three court-ordered independent audits to monitor the archdiocese’s adherence with the agreement.

The audit, conducted by Stonebridge Business Partners, found the archdiocese to be in “substantial compliance” with the terms of the deal, according to the report released Thursday.

The audit covered the archdiocese’s conduct between July of 2017 and June 30 of last year. The archdiocese was also found in substantial compliance in its first audit report, which was released early last year.

During a court hearing on the second report Thursday, Warner asked the archdiocese’s director of ministerial standards, Timothy O’Malley, if the archdiocese was pushing itself beyond the court’s orders and truly working toward a change in culture.

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CHARLOTTE (NC)
Charlotte Observer

January 10, 2019

By Tim Funk

Dozens of Catholic dioceses and religious orders across the country have, in recent months, released lists of priests who have been credibly accused of child sex abuse over the years.

In North Carolina, the 54-county Raleigh diocese published its list in October. But the Charlotte diocese, which includes the rest of the state, hasn’t yet.

The state’s attorney general, Josh Stein, says the Charlotte diocese should follow the lead of the others. “I believe that transparency is important,” Stein told the Observer, “not only for families that came into contact with the named priest, but to restore confidence in the institution itself.”

The Charlotte diocese remains undecided about whether to join that “stampede,” as its spokesman called the big increase in such lists since August. That’s when a Pennsylvania grand jury report shocked many Catholics by identifying nearly 300 “predator priests” in that state going back decades.

Why no list so far from Charlotte?

For starters, said David Hains, who speaks for Charlotte Bishop Peter Jugis, there’s concern that a list might further hurt victims.

“There is no empirical evidence that publishing a list brings comfort or aid to a victim,” he said. “(Some Catholic priests) have obviously done a lot to harm victims. We don’t want to pile on and do more.”

The diocese is also torn about what should and should not be on such a list. “There is no standardized approach,” said Hains.

Should the list include, for example, any deceased priest who was accused after he died? “There’s no way that he can defend himself,” Hains said.

But about 60 percent of the 1,000-plus priests named in lists released since August are dead, according to an examination by the Associated Press.

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TRENTON (NJ)
InsideNJ

January 7, 2019

By Tom Barrett

“The trouble is, you think you have time.” -Buddha

In a basketball game if you’re still holding the ball when the shot clock expires, the most jarring noise in the arena, the buzzer, sounds off loud and clear. Known as a turnover, the ball goes over to the other team.

The Catholic Church in New Jersey is losing their match with the faithful. They’ve had more than ample time, decades actually, to do what is right for victims of sexual abuse. Having failed to police itself, the Church must know their time on the shot clock is about to expire.

Otherwise, there is little recourse other than to send in the cops. The same can be said of the New Jersey Legislature.

The New Jersey Attorney General has formed a task force to investigate allegations of sexual abuse by clergy members as well as alleged efforts by church leaders to cover up. To aid their efforts, the abuse cases should be well documented both by the church and the local prosecutors.

The credit for the task force, however, belongs to the Governor, not the Legislature. Legislative leaders, like the Church hierarchy, have had more than ample time to do what’s right.

But, due to the glacial pace of bureaucracies, investigative agencies and legislative bodies the need for justice wears thin.

While it’s now known that New Jersey’s five Catholic dioceses have shelled out more than $50 million dollars in the last ten years to settle abuse cases, that figure doesn’t tell the whole story. That huge sum does not accurately reflect the large amount of money spent by the Church on lawyers and lobbyists to stall legislation and thwart remedies for the abused.

It bears repeating that for the Church it’s no longer about protecting children because that responsibility they clearly know can be ceded to the courts. As for protecting priests, they are now pointing fingers at each other.

The justifiable and high profile case of former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick is a classic example of directing attention to one case while ignoring hundreds of other circumstances of priests and Church leaders gone rogue.

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MINNEAPOLIS (MN)
The Catholic Spirit

January 9, 2019

By Maria Wiering

Frank Meuers and Tim O’Malley meet every month or so, often for breakfast, to talk about the Church and clergy sex abuse. Meuers is the southwest Minnesota chapter director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, aka SNAP, and O’Malley directs the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ Office of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment.

Since its founding, SNAP has often positioned itself as an adversary of the institutional Church, which is why these meetings — and the men’s resulting collegiality — is so extraordinary. Meuers said he knows of no other SNAP leader with a similar relationship to a Church official.

Meuers, 79, is one of more than a dozen clergy sexual abuse survivors in regular — sometimes daily — contact with O’Malley and his office. O’Malley looks to them for advice and insight into improving and expanding the archdiocese’s outreach to survivors, and he expects that collaboration will broaden and deepen now that the archdiocese’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy case is complete.

During the bankruptcy proceedings, more than 450 survivors filed abuse claims against the archdiocese. While some of those claimants worked with O’Malley’s office during the four-year reorganization process, he had heard that others might be newly open to connecting with the archdiocese after the end of litigation.

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

January 10, 2019

The highest ranking Catholic prelates in New York and Boston are in an apparent rift over clergy sex abuse and cover ups, according to a Catholic news source. We are encouraged by this dispute and hope other bishops will emulate the Boston Cardinal.

Boston Cardinal Seán O’Malley wrote the Vatican’s US nuncio to the US about a credibly accused abusive cleric who was kept on the job in New York for years despite a large settlement paid to one of his victims. In reality, Cardinal O’Malley was really pointing out the misconduct of New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan.

The accused cleric in question, Fr. Donald Timone, taught for years at John Paul the Great University in California. Officials there had never been told about the allegations against Fr. Timone in New York, but had been deceptively reassured by the Archdiocese of New York that the priest was “suitable” for ministry.

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PARIS
VOA News

January 7, 2019

By Lisa Bryant

Lyon’s archbishop, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin and five other figures are on trial on charges of failing to act against sexual abuse allegations targeting a priest in his diocese. This is the latest pedophilia scandal rocking the Roman Catholic Church before a key Vatican conference on sexual abuse.

The sexual abuse allegations date back to the 1980s and 1990s. They involve Father Bernard Preynat, a priest in France’s Lyon diocese, who has admitted to wrongdoing and is due to go on trial later this year.

But one of country’s most prominent clerics, Lyon’s archbishop Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, is accused of covering up the abuse. If found guilty, he faces up to three years in jail and a $54,000 fine.

Barbarin denies the charges. He says he took action as soon as he found out about the sexual abuse allegations — many years later.

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POLAND
Reuters Videos

January 6, 2019

Poland’s rural east is one of the most devoutly Catholic regions in Europe. When the Church’s global sexual abuse crisis struck clergy here, it divided towns into camps of denial, fury, and loathing. Marcin Goclowski reports.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
The Washington Post

December 26, 2018

By Michelle Boorstein

In response to recent Catholic Church clergy sex abuse scandals, lawmakers in the District and Virginia say they will soon propose legislation that adds clergy to the list of people mandated by law to report child abuse or neglect.

Both efforts hit at the hot-button intersection of child protection and religious liberty, but lawmakers are expected to give them an open reception at a time when recent sexual abuse scandals in churches and others involving athletes have prompted conversation about broadening legal responsibility to extend beyond positions such as teachers and doctors.

The ideas under consideration by D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine include not exempting confidential conversations for any mandatory reporters, possibly including those that occur in the Catholic Church’s confessional. Texas, West Virginia and a few other states do not exclude the confessional in mandatory reporting laws, but it has been a stumbling block in many other places.

Under D.C. law, anyone 18 or over who knows or has reason to believe that a child under 16 is a victim of sexual abuse is required to report it to civil officials. But the requirements of mandated reporters are more extensive, and Racine is considering taking them much further.

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FRANCE
La Croix International

January 8, 2019

By Gauthier Vaillant

Maverick priest Pierre Vignon strongly criticizes the Church hierarchy but praises the pope’s desire for reform

After years spent investigating sexual abuse cases in the Catholic Church, Father Pierre Vignon of Vercors in the Diocese of Valence made headlines across France last August by launching a petition calling for the resignation of Cardinal Philippe Barbarin of Lyon.

Clearly, it was no accident that his new book, Plus jamais ça! (Never again!), co-authored by journalist François Jourdain, was published on Jan. 2, less than a week before the start of Cardinal Barbarin’s trial in Lyon on Jan. 7.

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ALBANY (NY)
Times Union

January 3, 2019

By Joseph Dalton

In April 2016, the management and board of the Woodstock Chamber Orchestra were unable to reach their music director, Nathan Madsen. The ensemble, which was renamed the Woodstock Symphony Orchestra last fall, plays just four concerts a year and its final appearance of the season was coming up in May at the Quimby Theater on the campus of SUNY Ulster in Stone Ridge.

When Madsen was hired for the part-time position in 2012, he was working as assistant conductor of the Lubbock Symphony Orchestra in Texas. In 2014 he relocated to Florida, where he was a visiting professor of music and doctoral candidate at the University of Tampa.

Soon enough the Woodstock orchestra leadership found out why they’d lost touch with Madsen. In March 2016 in Tampa, he was arrested on charges of child trafficking and child pornography.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Weekly

January 10, 2019

By Andrea Cantor

Pope Francis chastised American Bishops in a complete mishandling of sex abuse by the clergy in a letter penned earlier this month.

“The Church’s credibility has been seriously undercut and diminished by these sins and crimes, but even more by the efforts made to deny or conceal them,” Francis wrote. “This has led to a growing sense of uncertainty, distrust and vulnerability among the faithful.”

Many outlets and critics were quick to note Pope Francis excluded any mention of punishment for those guilty of molestation, including the 301 members of the clergy in Pennsylvania an explosive court filing cited for more than 1,000 incidences of child abuse. Instead, the pope urged the church to internally strengthen and repair itself.

“Let us try to break the vicious circle of recrimination, undercutting and discrediting, by avoiding gossip and slander in the pursuit of a path of prayerful and contrite acceptance of our limitations and sins,” Francis wrote.

One of the people not buying into the words from the pope is Arthur Baselice Jr. He is a father who speaks on behalf of his son, Arthur III, silenced by a fatal heroin overdose in 2006 after years of mental anguish stemming from repeated clergy abuse.

In the mid-1990s, Arthur III was sexually abused by two Franciscan clergyman at Archbishop Ryan High School in Northeast Philadelphia. The perpetrators included the principal Rev. Charles Newman and Brother Regis Howitz, then a maintenance worker at the school.

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MONTEREY COUNTY (CA)
KION

January 2, 2019

By Brandon Castillo and Drew Andre

The Diocese of Monterey has released the names of 30 Clergymen who have been credibly accused of sexual misconduct with a child.

According to the Diocese, the assaults go back to the 1950’s.

There have been two allegations received since the Charter for Protection of Children and Young People was put into effect in 2002 and implemented in the Diocese of Monterey in 2003.

The Diocese hired an outside law firm, Paul Gaspari of Weintraub Tobin, to review allegations against church workers.

“The Monterey diocese wants to ensure their people, there is no priest actively administrating in the diocese against whom there is a credible allegation of child abuse,” lawyer Paul Gaspari said.

None of the Clergymen on the list are currently with the Diocese.

The Diocese of Monterey said there have been no credible sexual misconduct allegations raised against a Clergyman since 2009.

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MONTEREY (CA)
Salinas Californian

January 2, 2019

By Joe Szydlowski

The Catholic Diocese of Monterey has identified 30 priests and other church officials accused of sexual misconduct with children, including a dozen previously undisclosed names.

The diocese has listed the names of its “priests, deacons, religious men and candidates for ordination (seminarians)” accused since the 1950s in a report on its website to “promote transparency and trust.”

The report notes that the number of allegations fell from six in the 1990s to two in the 2000s. The most recent alleged abuse occurred 10 years ago, the report says.

It points to the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People — a new set of procedures implemented in 2003 to prevent abuse, improve the investigation process and help victims — for that drop.

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Get Religion

January 10, 2019

By Terry Mattingly

The tragic (viewed from the right) and spectacular (viewed from the left) fall of Father C. John McCloskey, a popular Catholic apologist, from Opus Dei, continues to get quite a bit of ink.

Let me stress: As it should.

Before I get to a fascinating update at The Washington Post, let me pause and make an observation, or two.

No. 1: Consider this question: Looking at the American Catholic church over the past two or three decades (and at Catholic life in Washington, D.C., in particular), who was the more powerful and significant player — Father McCloskey or former cardinal Theodore McCarrick?

That’s a bit of a slam dunk, isn’t it?

Now, in terms of doing basic journalism, it appears that it has been easier to crack into the heart of the McCloskey case than it has the McCarrick case. Why is that? Is it accurate to state that Catholic officials linked to the McCloskey case have been a bit more forthcoming than those in the powerful networks linked to the former cardinal? Hold that thought.

No. 2: Over and over, people ask me why clergy sexual abuse stories in Protestant settings — evangelical flocks, in particular — receive so much less mainstream ink than Catholic scandals. There are several reasons for this:

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LYON (FRANCE)
La Croix International

January 8, 2019

By Béatrice Bouniol and Céline Hoyeau

Victims of French priest’s sexual abuse accuse six defendants of failing to report him to authorities

On one side of the courtroom, the victims’ faces are lit up by the lights of the cameras. On the other side, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin and his entourage painfully await, shoulders bent, the start of a trial that has attracted the attention of the world’s media.

The confrontation with Diocese of Lyon officials had been long awaited by victims of Father Bernard Preynat, the former scout almoner of Sainte-Foy-Lès-Lyon (Rhône) accused of abusing at least 70 children in the 1970s and 1980s and kept on in his post until 2015. They made it happen through a rare procedure of private prosecution.

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VATICAN CITY
La Croix International

January 7, 2019

Prelate involved in managing Vatican property faces diocesan investigation

Allegations of sexual abuse against a bishop from Argentina involved in managing Vatican property and investments are to be handed over to a special commission if credible evidence is uncovered by a preliminary diocesan investigation.

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FRANCE
La Croix

January 7, 2019

By Béatrice Bouniol and Céline Hoyeau

Civil plaintiffs aim to prove that the archbishop and his entourage failed in their obligation to report a priest’s sexual abuse

Cardinal Philippe Barbarin and five others will appear before the criminal court of Lyon from Jan. 7.

Over and above the case against Cardinal Barbarin, the victims of Father Bernard Preynat, accused of having abused at least 70 boy scouts from 1970-80, are hoping to advance the debate on the reporting of the sexual abuse of minors.

Archbishop of Lyon since 20002, Cardinal Barbarin is the third bishop in France to answer to the charge of “failure to report the sexual abuse of minors” before a court. Found guilty of the same charges in 2001 and 2018, Cardinal Pierre Pican and Cardinal André Fort were given suspended prison sentences of three and eight months respectively.

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CHILE
Reuters

January 2, 2019

By Aislinn Laing

Two victims of sexual abuse by a Roman Catholic Church priest in Chile launched a fresh attack on the country’s bishops on Wednesday, accusing them of failing to reform or learn from the crisis.

Juan Carlos Cruz and Jose Andres Murillo, two prominent victims of the abuse who gave evidence of their ordeal to Pope Francis in Rome, said the pontiff had also acted to slowly in handling the crisis.

Cruz said the Chilean church’s leaders, several of whom face criminal investigation for their roles in allegedly covering up abuse, had failed to follow through on their promises to institute reform.

“What we have in Chile is a veritable band of criminal bishops,” he said. “After visiting the pope, after everything that’s happened, that is happening with civil justice, they have learned nothing.”

Church officials declined to comment.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

January 3, 2019

By Crispian Balmer

Pope Francis accused U.S. bishops on Thursday of failing to show unity in the face of a sexual abuse crisis, saying internal bickering had to end over a scandal that has shredded the Church’s credibility.

In a long and highly unusual letter sent to U.S. bishops as they embarked on a week-long retreat, Francis said the handling of the scandal showed the urgent need for a new approach to management and mindset within the Roman Catholic Church.

“God’s faithful people and the Church’s mission continue to suffer greatly as a result of abuses of power and conscience and sexual abuse, and the poor way that they were handled,” the pope wrote, adding that bishops had “concentrated more on pointing fingers than on seeking paths of reconciliation”.

Pope Francis has summoned the heads of some 110 national Catholic bishops’ conferences and dozens of experts and leaders of religious orders to the Vatican on Feb. 21-24 for an extraordinary gathering dedicated to the now global crisis.

Victims of clergy sexual abuse are hoping that the meeting will finally come up with a clear policy to make bishops themselves accountable for the mishandling of abuse cases.

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UNITED STATES
CBS NEWS

January 2, 2019

Catholic bishops from across the U.S. are gathering Wednesday for a weeklong retreat on the clergy sex abuse crisis at a seminary near Chicago. Organizers said the retreat, which was requested by Pope Francis, will focus on prayer and spiritual reflection and not policy-making.

The gathering comes as CBS News has also learned of several cases involving nuns accused of sexual misconduct. The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests – or SNAP – said it doesn’t keep count of sexual abuse allegations, but CBS News’ Nikki Battiste has spoken with several women who recently reported misconduct, ranging from forceful kissing to molestation, all carried out by nuns.

When Trish Cahill was 15 years old she said she confided in Sister Eileen Shaw at a convent in New Jersey. Cahill said she told Shaw things she’d never revealed to anyone about her now-deceased uncle – a priest – whom she claims sexually abused her, starting at age five.

“I would have done anything for her. I would have died for her,” Cahill said. “She gave me everything that was lacking that I didn’t even know I was lacking. I was so broken. She filled in all those pieces.”

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KURAVILANGAD (INDIA)
The Associated Press

January 2, 2019

By Tim Sullivan

The stories spill out in the sitting rooms of Catholic convents, where portraits of Jesus keep watch and fans spin quietly overhead. They spill out in church meeting halls bathed in fluorescent lights, and over cups of cheap instant coffee in convent kitchens. Always, the stories come haltingly, quietly. Sometimes, the nuns speak at little more than a whisper.

Across India, the nuns talk of priests who pushed into their bedrooms and of priests who pressured them to turn close friendships into sex. They talk about being groped and kissed, of hands pressed against them by men they were raised to believe were representatives of Jesus Christ.

“He was drunk,” said one nun, beginning her story. “You don’t know how to say no,” said another.

At its most grim, the nuns speak of repeated rapes, and of a Catholic hierarchy that did little to protect them.

The Vatican has long been aware of nuns sexually abused by priests and bishops in Asia, Europe, South America and Africa, but it has done very little to stop it, The Associated Press reported last year.

Now, the AP has investigated the situation in a single country — India — and uncovered a decades-long history of nuns enduring sexual abuse from within the church. Nuns described in detail the sexual pressure they endured from priests, and nearly two dozen other people — nuns, former nuns and priests, and others — said they had direct knowledge of such incidents.

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BRONX (NY)
New York Daily News

January 9, 2019

By Marco Poggio and Larry McShane

Two Bronx sisters accused a high-ranking Catholic Church official of sexually assaulting them across five years after he was welcomed into their neighborhood as a parish priest.

The allegations were made public Wednesday outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral by Robert Hoatson, president of Road to Recovery, a charity assisting abuse victims and their families.

The older girl was in her early teens and her kid sister just age 7 when the abuse by Msgr. Charles McDonagh began in their home in 1972, according to Hoatson.

McDonagh had just arrived at Our Lady of Refuge, a heavily Irish parish in the Bronx. The priest, who died in 1999, was later promoted to serve as secretary to Terence Cardinal Cooke and his successor John Cardinal O’Connor, spending about six years in the position.

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

January 10, 2019

Earlier this week we learned that Catholic officials in New York and Chicago quietly moved an abusive priest and let him keep working around unsuspecting and vulnerable parishioners, even after paying nearly a million dollars to one of his victims. Making matters worse, those same officials had promised the victim that her abuser, Father C. John McCloskey would be kept away from others.

Yet the Washington Post reports today that, according to the Archdiocese of Chicago, “McCloskey was in fact allowed to minister with no restrictions for years afterward.” In this way, church officials both lied to the victim who they promised to help and then put others in harms way.

For almost 15 years, virtually no one was warned about Fr. McCloskey and the Church lied to at least one of his victims. Apologies are not enough. If these cover ups are to be stopped, complicit clerics must be held accountable. That should start with Fr. Peter Armenio, the man who was responsible for vouching for Fr. McCloskey after settling his abuse claim.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Religion News Service

January 10, 2019

By Fr. Thomas Reese

“Grossly misleading, irresponsible, inaccurate, and unjust” is how former New York Times religion reporter Peter Steinfels describes last August’s Pennsylvania grand jury report in its sweeping accusation that Catholic bishops refused to protect children from sexual abuse.

The report from a grand jury impaneled by the Pennsylvania attorney general to investigate child sexual abuse in the state’s Catholic dioceses has revived the furor over the abuse scandal, causing the resignation of the archbishop of Washington, D.C., and inspiring similar investigations in other states.

Steinfels argues that it is an oversimplification to assert, as does the report, that “all” victims “were brushed aside, in every part of the state, by church leaders who preferred to protect abusers and their institutions above all.”

Writing in the Catholic journal Commonweal, Steinfels acknowledges the horror of clerical abuse and the terrible damage done to children, but he complains that no distinctions have been made in the grand jury report from diocese to diocese, or from one bishop’s tenure to another. All are tarred with the same brush.

Steinfels’ article will be published in the magazine’s Jan. 25 issue and is currently available on its website.

A major fault with the report, according to Steinfels, is its failure to acknowledge the impact of the 2002 Dallas Charter, which changed dramatically how the church responded to abuse. The charter required reporting credible accusations to police, the establishment of lay review boards and the removal of any priest guilty of abuse.

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CONROE (TX)
KTRK TV

January 9, 2019

By Chauncy Glover

A Conroe priest who is accused of abusing two parishioners when they were teenagers is expected to appear in court Thursday.

Father Manuel La Rosa-Lopez was charged with four counts of indecency with a child.

La Rosa-Lopez turned himself in to authorities at the Montgomery County Jail in September 2018.

One of the alleged victims, who is only going by “Ann,” spoke exclusively to ABC13 in September about coming forward about the alleged abuse, which happened nearly two decades ago.

“I can’t believe it’s happening,” she said. “I’m kinda in shock right now and very numb.”

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ALLENTOWN (PA)
The Morning Call

January 10, 2019

By Daniel Patrick Sheehan

Continuing its response to the clerical sexual abuse crisis, the Catholic Diocese of Allentown has created a cabinet-level position to oversee child protection services and is bringing back a longtime employee to fill the post.

Pamela Russo, former director of Catholic Charities in the diocese, has been heading Catholic Charities of Tennessee in Nashville since 2016.

Russo, a licensed social worker, “will be responsible for overseeing and improving all aspects of abuse prevention and child safety,” the diocese said in a news release Thursday. That will include reviewing all current policies on child protection, safe environments and victim assistance to determine their effectiveness.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
Catholic Herald

January 10, 2019

By Jordan Bloom

While many were enjoying the Christmas season at home with their families and away from a frantic news climate of daily revelations about pub­lic figures, both religious and secular, a rift seemed to open between two of America’s most prominent clergymen. Despite the best efforts of the US bishops’ conference convening in Illinois in the first week of January, the hierarchy is not presenting a united front.

Just before Christmas, Cardinal Seán O’Malley of Boston sent a letter to Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the apostolic nuncio to the United States, calling his attention to a New York Times report about a priest, Fr Donald Timone, in the Archdiocese of New York. Fr Timone had been allowed to remain in ministry despite several settlements with people who had accused him of sexual misconduct. Church-watchers quickly concluded that O’Malley was, in effect, reporting New York archbishop Cardinal Timothy Dolan to the nuncio.

The letter, from which names are redacted, makes reference to correspondence sent to O’Malley from someone in New York. O’Malley wrote: “I note the seriousness of the allegations [redacted] presents with regard to Rev Timone and that today the New York Times has published an extensive report concerning the allegations against Rev Timone.” It is not clear whether the person whose correspondence is being forwarded was one of the people discussed in the New York Times article.

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Patheos blog

January 10, 2019

By Barry Duke

This week saw the start of a high-profile trial in France of six people accused of covering up clerical sexual abuse. But a seventh – Cardinal Luis Ladaria Ferrer – is not among the defendants because the Vatican last year played the diplomatic immunity card and refused to hand the cardinal a summons issued by a French court.

They argued that Ferrer had advised the Diocese of Lyon not to involve the French justice system in the case.

It’s quite understandable why Ferrer is being protected. He is a Vatican high muckety-muck. In 2017 he became Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) – formerly the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition – and 2018 Pope Francis made him a cardinal named him the Cardinal-Deacon of Sant’Ignazio Loyola in Campo Marzio.

In 2010 a British barrister Geoffrey Robertson QC argued that the Vatican isn’t deserving of diplomatic recognition, that its claims to statehood are risible, and that it uses its status as a state to take refuge from international law and to cover up clerical sex abuse crimes.
According to Catholic website Crux, the case was brought to court by nine people who said Preynat abused them in the 1970s and 1980s. The victims say top clergy were aware of Preynat’s actions for years, but allowed him to be in contact with children until his 2015 retirement.

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EL PASO (TX)
KLAQ Radio

January 9, 2019

By Veronica Gonzalez

Since the movie Spotlight was released a lot of El Pasoan’s were in store for a rude awakening. It was towards the end of the movie that we felt our stomachs turn after reading the credits. There were major abuse scandals that were reported from El Paso, Texas.
After discovering the ugly truth about El Paso being a part of the list put some fear into me. Before my son was old enough we had planned to put him in a Catholic private school. The movie Spotlight was released in 2016 which happened to be the first year my son attended a private school.

This kind of movie would raise all kinds of concern especially after El Paso was one of the cities named. El Paso was featured on the first list, second column, and right dab in the middle. It was Rev. David A. Holley that abused over 32 boys and was a part of the El Paso Catholic Diocese. If that ever happened to my son I can guarantee I would earn myself a front row seat in hell for harming a Priest.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post

January 10, 2019

By Julie Zauzmer and Michelle Boorstein

When a woman who was groped by the priest she turned to for counseling reached a $977,000 settlement with the Catholic community Opus Dei in 2005, she was promised that the priest she claimed harassed her — the Rev. C. John McCloskey, a star in the Catholic world who converted prominent politicians to the faith — would be prevented from doing it again to someone else.

On Wednesday night, two days after Opus Dei publicly acknowledged the huge settlement for the first time, the Archdiocese of Chicago said that at least on paper, McCloskey was in fact allowed to minister with no restrictions for years afterward.

The archdiocese disputed some of the account provided by Opus Dei this week about how the conservative Catholic community handled McCloskey, and provided a 2005 letter from an Opus Dei leader that shows the leader vouched for McCloskey even though he knew about the settlement.

What emerges, from conflicting accounts, is a picture of Catholic leadership in both the archdiocese and Opus Dei who told the woman they would restrict McCloskey’s actions — and then left a paper trail describing him as having an unblemished record.

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NEW YORK (NY)
City & State NY

January 10, 2019

By Justin Sondel

For as long as Catholics have been filling the pews in Western New York, church leadership has exerted great power in the neighborhoods and in the halls of government. “Growing up, there was a clear deference to whatever the priests wanted,” said Burke, himself a practicing Catholic. “They sort of controlled everything that was part of that social life.”

As has been the case in so many Catholic communities, the Buffalo Diocese’s response to allegations of sexual abuse has shaken the church to its core. New documents, obtained from a whistleblower by investigative reporter Charlie Specht and reported throughout 2018, showed a pattern of accused priests returning to the ministry in Western New York that was previously unknown. That has contributed to a new political dynamic: Democrats from South Buffalo are engaging in public battles with the church rarely seen before the sex abuse scandals became public, and they are planning to vote with their party for the Child Victims Act, potentially clearing the bill’s path to passage.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Commonweal

January 9, 2019

By Peter Steinfels

August 15 is the Feast of the Assumption, a “holy day of obligation,” when Catholics are expected to attend Mass. This year millions of Catholics went to church sick at heart. I was among them.

The day before, the attorney general of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania had released a grand-jury report declaring that hundreds of Catholic priests had sexually abused minors. The grand jury’s conclusions were summarized in reports that landed on the front pages of the New York Times and other newspapers around the world, as well as lead stories on all sorts of television news programs. Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro spoke on The Today Show and nightly news broadcasts. No Catholics serious about their faith, indeed no one of any sensitivity, could have read about the report without feeling horror and shame. And anger. It was bad enough to read graphic accounts of anal and oral rape, sometimes combined with sacrilegious perversities; it was doubly appalling to be told that church leaders had systematically covered up these crimes and allowed abusers to go unchecked.

Within hours, the Pennsylvania grand-jury report was propelled to international status. The Vatican expressed “shame and sorrow.” Adjectives piled up from Catholic and secular sources: abominable, revolting, reprehensible, nauseating, diabolical. The New York Times editorialized on “The Catholic Church’s Unholy Stain.”

Months have passed but the report’s impact has not. At least a dozen states have announced they would follow Pennsylvania in conducting their own investigations (Illinois issued a preliminary report in December); the Justice Department has suggested that it, too, might get into the act. Pope Francis has called for bishops from around the world to address the sex-abuse scandal at the Vatican in February, where the Pennsylvania report will undoubtedly be a chief exhibit—as it currently is for Catholics both on the right and the left writing farewells to the church.

In fact, the report makes not one but two distinct charges. The first one concerns predator priests, their many victims, and their unspeakable acts. That charge is, as far as can be determined, dreadfully true. Appalling as is this first charge, it is in fact the second one that has had the greatest reverberations. “All” of these victims, the report declares, “were brushed aside, in every part of the state, by church leaders who preferred to protect the abusers and their institutions above all.” Or as the introduction to the report sums it up, “Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all.”

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KOCHI (INDIA)
Press Trust of India

January 10, 2019

Hit by controversies, including sexual abuse involving priests, the Kerala-based Syro-Malabar Catholic Church has decided to set up internal committees at the diocesan level to create a “safe environment” for all, including children and vulnerable adults.

The decision to implement the “Safe Environment Policy” was taken at the Synod of the Syro-Malabar Archiespicoal Church being held here.

This policy is being implemented to ensure safety and security for all, especially children and vulnerable adults, a Church official said.

Claiming that the safety and security for all have already been ensured in parishes, diocese, religious congregations and institutions of the Syro-Malabar church, the official said that the implementation of new “Safe Environment Policy” would further strengthen it.

According to the policy, representation of the laity should be ensured in the committees being set up in the diocesan level to solve the complaints.

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ST. ALBANS (VT)
WCAX TV

January 10, 2019

By Connor Cyrus

Aseries of public meetings with Bishop Christopher Coyne seek to improve communication and transparency within Vermont’s Catholic Church.

Catholic Church leaders say they are ready and listening.

Thursday marks the first of six town hall meetings across the state where Bishop Christopher Coyne will be listening to what people have to say. It’s part of an effort to improve communication and transparency within Vermont’s Catholic Church. The Church says The Diocese of Burlington is seeing the fruits of its effort to be more transparent and to improve communication.

Bishop Coyne says the clergy has met to discuss the future of the Catholic Church. They looked at things like, who they are as a church, how they are living their lives and what they are doing in terms of their mission in Burlington and around the state.

One of the big topics and the inspiration for the meetings is communication. Bishop Coyne says he feels that communication needs to be two ways and the meetings are a way to make sure people are heard.

He says the Catholic Church has changed in many ways over the years, most notably the way it retains its parishioners.

“Now in many ways we are a missionary church, we have to go out and encourage people to come. We can’t just open our doors and expect people to come. It used to be you’d open your doors and the church would be full, you open your doors now people leave,” Bishop Coyne said.

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SPRINGFIELD (IL)
Journal Register

January 9, 2019

By Crystal Thomas

A former City Water, Light and Power employee, who was fired by the city after his name appeared on a list of ex-priests credibly accused of sexually abusing minors, is appealing his termination.

Joseph D. Cernich, 62, was fired as a technical support specialist in CWLP’s information systems division Dec. 28 after the city’s Office of Human Resources conducted an investigation into his employment and hiring.

The review began after his name appeared on a list put out by the Diocese of Springfield in November of all of its priests that have had substantiated claims of child sexual abuse, as determined by a diocesan review board mostly made up of lay people with expertise in law enforcement, psychology and education.

Cernich informed the city Tuesday he will appeal the termination through arbitration. As part of a newly certified bargaining unit organized by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 193, the union will be representing Cernich through the appeal.

Chad Vacek, assistant business manager of IBEW Local 193, said Cernich was told why he was fired. Vacek would not comment on the cause, nor would the city.

Vacek said both sides agreed to skip the grievance process and go straight to arbitration. Once a panel of seven arbitrators provided by the American Arbitration Association is culled to one, a hearing will be held where both sides can present the arguments. The arbitrator’s decision would be final.

Vacek said Cernich’s arbitration case would be “unique.”

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CAMDEN (NJ)
WHYY Radio

January 9, 2019

By Kyrie Greenberg

A South Jersey priest announced his retirement over the holidays, following renewed allegations of child abuse.

In 2002, a man filed a claim with church officials and police alleging Reverend John D. Bohrer abused him as a child at Saint Pius X in Cherry Hill in the 1980s. After a suspension, Bohrer was reinstated by the Vatican and most recently served as an administrator at St. Teresa of Calcutta Parish in Collingswood, New Jersey.

Mark Crawford is the director of the New Jersey branch of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests or SNAP. He says the diocese knew about Bohrer and did nothing. “These are well-educated men,” said Crawford. “These are not mistakes, they are not accidents, they are not ‘oops’ a file got lost. This is somebody who is accused of molesting a child, so it cannot be wiped away or forgotten about.”

In a statement, the Diocese of Camden said the allegation came to light once again after a recent independent review of personnel files by a law firm. Crawford said Bohrer’s case shows the weakness of the Catholic Church’s zero-tolerance policy, which has been on the books since 2002. “The man was accused. They know it. They kept him in the ministry all these years. And they claimed that they had cleared him, but now they are revisiting it?” he said.

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DUBLIN (IRELAND)
Irish Catholic

January 10, 2019

Cardinal pushes Church change as Germans debate priest celibacy Cardinal Reinhard Marx
German Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising has called for change in long-standing Church tradition as the German bishops’ conference prepares for a workshop debate to “review” the issue of celibacy for priests.

In his homily at New Year’s Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady in Munich, Cardinal Marx said the Church must, “in light of the failure” surrounding the clergy sex abuse crisis, modify tradition in response to changing modern times.

“I believe the hour has come to deeply commit ourselves to open the way of the Church to renewal and reform,” Cardinal Marx said, according to a text of the homily posted on the archdiocesan website. “Evolution in society and historical demands have made tasks and urgent need for renewal clear to see.”

The cardinal, who is president of the German bishops’ conference, said that current measures to address sex abuse are not enough without adapting Church teachings.

“Yes, matters are about development and improvement and prevention and independent reviews – but more is also demanded,” he said. “I am certain that the great renewal impulse of the Second Vatican Council is not being truly led forward and understood in its depth. We must further work on that,” he said. “Further adaptations of Church teachings are required.”

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SWATARA TOWNSHIP (PA)
ABC 27 News

January 10, 2019

By Christine McLarty

Anyone with questions can get answers regarding the Harrisburg Catholic Diocese clergy sex abuse.

Thursday bishop gainer will host the first of nine seminars, addressing and answering questions about the grand jury report.

The nine sessions will be held in nine different counties over the next two months. Those counties include Cumberland, Lebanon, Lancaster, and York.

During each meeting, Bishop Ronald Gainer will offer opening remarks and then the floor will be open and to ask him questions about clergy sex abuse.

The grand jury report released in August uncovered sexual misconduct allegations against more than 300 priests.

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CHICAGO (IL)
National Catholic Reporter

January 10, 2019

by Heidi Schlumpf

While the U.S. bishops were on retreat at Mundelein Seminary north of Chicago, a group of Catholic historians were gathering in the city’s downtown for their annual academic conference. In both places, the sex abuse crisis was on people’s minds.

Franciscan Fr. Daniel P. Horan writes about politics, culture and theology in his new column, Faith Seeking Understanding.

Although the American Catholic Historical Association (ACHA) meeting included presentations on various things like the great Chicago Fire of 1871 and Pope Pius IX, the attendees — who by definition are usually focused on the past — were very much thinking and talking about the present crisis and what the future might bring for the church.

“I think it dominates many Catholic historians’ minds these days,” said Brian Clites, associate director of the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, where he also teaches religious studies.

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LYON, FRANCE)
Associated Press

January 10, 2019

By Nicolas Vaux-Montagny

France’s most important church sex abuse trial to date is likely to end in acquittal for a cardinal and other senior Catholic officials accused of protecting a pedophile priest, despite years of efforts by his victims to seek justice.

The Rev. Bernard Preynat confessed to abusing Boy Scouts, and his victims say church hierarchy covered up for him for years, allowing him to work with children right up until his 2015 retirement.

But by the time the cover-up trial reached court in Lyon this week, the statute of limitations had expired on some charges. And even the prosecutor argued Wednesday against convicting Cardinal Philippe Barbarin and other church officials, saying there were no grounds to prove legal wrongdoing.

Victims’ lawyers seemed to have little hope for a conviction, despite an emotional trial in which grown men recounted their childhood fear and shame after alleged abuse by a respected priest.

“That was no surprise,” lawyer Yves Sauvayre said after the prosecutor’s unusual request.

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SANTIAGO (CHILE)
Prensa Latina

Jan 8, 2019

Today, the number of sexual abuse cases handled by the Chilean Public Prosecutor”s Office involving the Catholic Church has risen to 148, with eight bishops on target, according to the latest report from the Public Prosecutor”s Office.

In a balance sheet submitted by the national prosecutor, Jorge Abbott, on these processes, it is realized that in total there are 255 victims of sexual crimes committed by members of the clergy, 10 more than in a previous report presented in the second half of 2018.

The scandals of that court that shook the Chilean Church last year removed the social fabric of the country and, according to different polls, were decisive in a notable reduction in the number of faithful of the Catholic Church.

The crisis reached such a point that the Pope had to intervene in the matter by sending to Chile the special investigator Charles Scicluna, who interviewed many of the victims, and to summon to the Vatican the Chilean ecclesiastical leadership in full, to which he asked for the resignation.

However, according to Abott, the Vatican has only given the Chilean Prosecutor’s Office partial information and not all the information requested to carry out the processes, as promised by Scicluna.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Reuters

January 9, 2019

By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss

Assets managed by U.S. Catholic foundations have more than doubled over the last three years, propelled by increased donations and stable market performance, according to a study by wealth advisory firm Wilmington Trust.

The study showed U.S. Catholic foundations, set up by archdioceses and dioceses across the country, managed $9.5 billion as of the end of 2018, up 106 percent from $4.6 billion in 2016 when Wilmington Trust released its first report on the sector.

The Catholic Church has come under intense scrutiny following settlements on sexual abuse scandals that have plagued it for years. Due to the enormous costs of settling sexual abuse claims, many dioceses have been in dire financial straits resulting in 19 Catholic Church bankruptcies in the last 14 years, according to watchdog group bishopsaccountability.org.

However, Catholic foundations are flourishing as they sought to separate themselves from the shadow of the embattled churches that created them.

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NOIDA (INDIA)
Indian Express

January 9, 2019

By Arun Lakshman

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI), the top body of the congregation of bishops, has not acted on a directive from the Vatican to meet sex abuse victims abused by the clergy before attending a summit in Rome on clerical sex abuse and child protection between February 21 and 24.

The directive released by the Vatican on December 18 states, “The first step must be to acknowledge what has happened and we urge each episcopal conference president to reach out and visit victim survivors of clergy sex abuse in your respective countries prior to the meeting in Rome to learn first-hand what they have endured.”

Interestingly, one of the four signatories of the letter is Oswald Gracious, Bishop of Mumbai and the current president of the CBCI.There are more than 25 clergy-related sex abuse cases in Kerala which have come out in the open over the past 10 to 15 years.

There are several high-profile cases involving priests in the state; some of the accused faced trial and are behind bars, some are out on bail and some are based abroad in cases involving the rape of minors, young women and nuns.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Daily News

January 9, 2019

By Marco Poggio and Larry McShane

Two Bronx sisters accused a high-ranking Catholic Church official of sexually assaulting them across five years after he was welcomed into their neighborhood as a parish priest.

The allegations were made public Wednesday outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral by Robert Hoatson, president of Road to Recovery, a charity assisting abuse victims and their families.

The older girl was in her early teens and her kid sister just age 7 when the abuse by Monsignor Charles McDonagh began inside their home back in 1972, according to Hoatson.

McDonagh had just arrived at Our Lady of Refuge, a heavily Irish parish in the Bronx. The priest was later promoted to serve as secretary to Terence Cardinal Cooke and his successor John Cardinal O’Connor, spending about six years in the position.

The two targeted siblings “worshiped their parish priest,” charged Hoatson. “And, as a result of that, Monsignor Charles McDonagh inserted himself into their family and abused two of the girls in that family.”

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NEW YORK (NY)
America Magazine

January 9, 2019

By Massimo Faggioli

This essay by Professor Massimo Faggioli on the problems and possibilities of electing bishops in the Catholic Church is part of a conversation with Professor Daniel E. Burns, whose response can be read here.

The systemic failure of leadership shown by the bishops in the clerical sexual abuse crisis has revived the centuries-old debate on the procedures for the recommendation and appointment of bishops in the Catholic Church.

Remembering a few historical realities can help us frame the issue. The first is that the power of the pope alone to appoint bishops is a quite recent development in church history. The appointment of bishops has been for most of the history of the church in the hands of no one person only but of a quite diverse typology of actors (local clergy and laity, brothers in the episcopate from the same province, canons of the cathedral, Catholic emperors and kings, and local aristocracy). These players in the institutional life of the church took part in the selection of bishops in different forms that were often unwritten and shaped by customs—and distinct from what we mean by “democratic election.”

The most important element in the appointment of a bishop was not the prelate being chosen by the pope but being in communion with the pope. This is why the recent agreement between the Vatican and the People’s Republic of China about the process of bishops’ appointments there has many precedents in history.

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ROME (ITALY)
Catholic News Agency

January 8, 2019

By Ed Condon

While recent media reports suggest that a trial of Archbishop Theodore McCarrick is underway, Vatican sources have told CNA that his case is not being handled by a full judicial process.

Sources at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith have confirmed that allegations against McCarrick are being considered through an abbreviated approach called an “administrative penal process.”

That decision gives insight into the strength of evidence against McCarrick, and suggests that resolving sexual abuse allegations against the archbishop is a top priority for Pope Francis and other senior Vatican officials.

Canon law outlines specific processes for handling allegations of sexual abuse by clerics. All of these are reserved to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome. When the charges involve a bishop, the CDF requires specially delegated authority from the pope to handle the case.

A full canonical trial is a lengthy affair. Depositions of witnesses and alleged victims are taken by the court at which a prosecutor, called the “promoter of justice” in canon law, and lawyers for the defense are present. Written argumentation is exchanged through a panel of judges, with precise timelines, manners of proceeding, and legal minutiae that must be observed at each step of the way, in order to ensure that the rights of the accused are protected.

In previous sexual abuse cases against bishops, full and formal trials have taken years, and include the possibility of appeals by both the prosecution and defense. But this is not happening with McCarrick.

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BOSTON (MA)
Catholic Culture

January 9, 2019

By Phil Lawler

Yesterday was “one of those days”—a day that found me hating my work, wishing I had some other sort of job.

The first blow, and by far the worst, came with the news, released by the Washington Post Monday evening, that an old friend, Father C. J. McCloskey, had been disciplined for sexual misconduct involving a married woman, and that Opus Dei, of which I was once a member, had (not to put too fine a point on it) botched the handling of his case.

Father McCloskey has done great things for the Catholic Church, drawing many converts to the faith and encouraging many cradle Catholics like myself to deepen their spiritual lives. The charges against him, however, reinforce my fear that every “celebrity priest” is vulnerable to special temptations, and just one misstep away from scandal.

It’s painful to see a friend exposed to public obloquoy. It’s painful, too, to watch the Washington Post—which has shown only a tepid interest in the charges raised by Archbishop Vigano—in headlong pursuit of a priest who never wielded a fraction of McCarrick’s influence. But long ago I resolved that I want to hear all the truth, good and bad. It will be a painful process, exposing all the rot within our Church. But it’s the only way to begin the necessary process of reform.

Then I happened across several more news stories about the two US Senators (Senators Kamala Harris of California and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii) who cross-examined a judicial nominee about his membership in the Knights of Columbus.

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NEW SOUTH WALES (AUSTRALIA)
The Australian

January 10, 2019

By Rachel Baxendale

It was in 1995 that Chrissie Foster first learnt that two of her three daughters had been abused by a priest at their Catholic primary school in Melbourne’s southeastern suburbs.

Twenty-three years and three family tragedies later, Ms Foster’s story moved Scott Morrison to tears as he gave a national apology to child-sex abuse victims.

Side by side with her late husband Anthony, the 63-year-old has been a fierce advocate for child-sex abuse victims, playing an instrumental role in the establishment of the Victorian parliamentary inquiry and national royal commission into the issue.

It is for this tireless work in the face of unfathomable adversity that Ms Foster has been nominated for The Australian’s Australian of the Year award.

In 1999, the Fosters’ daughter, Emma, was hit by a drunk driver, leaving her physically and mentally disabled and requiring constant care.

Struggling to deal with the abuse she and her sister Katie had suffered at the hands of pedophile priest Kevin O’Donnell as children, Emma had become a binge drinker.

Less than a decade later, in 2008, Katie took her own life.

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NEW YORK (NY)
New York Times

January 9, 2019

By Jack Healy

When Larry Antonsen decided to report a priest who sexually abused him during high school, he believed the Archdiocese of Chicago was the right place to go.

Mr. Antonsen and his wife were lifelong churchgoers who sent their children to Sunday school and counted themselves as members of a parish in the archdiocese. The priest Mr. Antonsen was accusing had spent 14 years working at Chicago-area Catholic high schools.

But Mr. Antonsen, who is now 72, said reporting the allegations dropped him into a maze of church bureaucracy, in which his accusations were passed from one office to another before being quietly set aside.

The reason: The priest in question happened to be an Augustinian — one of dozens of religious orders that are overseen not by bishops, but by religious superiors in regions around the country and in Rome. Mr. Antonsen said archdiocesan officials told him to take his complaint to the Augustinians.

“They said because it was a religious order, they didn’t handle it,” Mr. Antonsen said.

Jesuits, Franciscans, Benedictines, Augustinians: the names are iconic, their founders immortalized by sainthood, their members often bound together by vows of poverty and obedience.

But when a priest or brother in a religious order is accused of abuse, victims and advocacy groups say their accusations are often mishandled because they are caught between separate institutions within the church: the dioceses that say it is not their responsibility to investigate, and religious orders that then fail to handle the claims.

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