A digest of links to media coverage of clergy abuse. For recent coverage listed in this blog, read the full article in the newspaper or other media source by clicking “Read original article.” For earlier coverage, click the title to read the original article.
DENVER (CO)
KCNCTV/ CBS4 News Weekends
August 20, 2018
A woman who lives in Colorado is speaking out to give others hope decades after she suffered sexual abuse, allegedly at a Catholic parish.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
VANCOUVER (CANADA)
Vancouver Sun
August 20, 2018
By Denise Ryan
Vancouver’s Roman Catholic archbishop and a victims’ advocate respond to revelations of abuse of children by priests Pennsylvania.
The recent revelations that the Catholic Church covered up the abuse of close to 1,000 children by 300 priests over several decades in Pennsylvania has shaken survivors of church abuse in B.C., victims’ advocate Leona Huggins of Coquitlam said Sunday.
“I got a call from a survivor this morning,” said Huggins, who was abused by a Vancouver priest when she was a child. Huggins now volunteers with SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
Vancouver Roman Catholic Archbishop J. Michael Miller released a statement Sunday saying he is “devastated by these accounts of profound evil,” and that “what the victims of sexual abuse have endured has shaken me and broken my heart.”
The statement, which was posted on the Archdiocese website and read at Lower Mainland masses, acknowledged the sexual abuse, and the poor treatment many victims received by church authorities.
Miller said he is especially upset with bishops and priests “who failed to protect the most vulnerable among us,” in particular those who knew about the abuse but did nothing about it. Miller is calling on anyone who knows about “any abuse happening now” to contact law enforcement and to alert the church through their webpage.
Huggins said Miller’s statement does not go far enough. Huggins said it’s time for full transparency from the Catholic Church “about any credible complaints, current and historical, against priests in B.C.”
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
HARRISBURG (PA)
CNN
August 19, 2018
Duration: 04:13
CNN’s Jake Tapper digs into the past of Cardinal Donald Wuerl, who is at the center of a 900-page Pennsylvania grand jury report that revealed shocking accusations: More than 1,000 children had been abused by 300 Catholic priests in six Pennsylvania dioceses during the past 70 years.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
COLUMBIA (SC)
The State
August 18, 2018
By David Travis Bland
One name is connected to South Carolina within the 1,356 pages of a report on sexual abuse of children and cover-ups by Catholic church officials in Pennsylvania.
Father Robert E. Spangenberg served as pastor at St. Patrick Catholic Church in Charleston. He served at the Lowcountry church from 1990 to 1993, according to the Pennsylvania grand jury report.
In the report, two allegations of sexual abuse are levied against Spangenberg.
“The documents provided by the Diocese of Pittsburgh revealed that Spangenberg was involved with at least two children, possibly more,” the report reads.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
PITTSBURGH (PA)
KDKA
August 17, 2018
By Andy Sheehan
Until three months ago, retired priest Richard Terdine, accused of molesting a 16-year-old boy in the 1980s, was still serving Mass at churches around the Pittsburgh Diocese.
It wasn’t until Bishop David Zubik found that Terdine had been cited in the 800-page grand jury report that the diocese restricted him.
“Would no longer be able to go around to other parishes to have Mass,” said Monsignor Ronald Lengwin.
Terdine is listed on the diocesan website as a having an unsubstantiated claim against him. But, in 1988, he was accused of patting a boy on his genitals, then giving him an x-rated tape and some condoms. Confronted, Terdine denied touching the boy but conceded he gave him pornography, the condoms and a back rub.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
LONG ISLAND (NY)
Newsday
August 15, 2018
By Bart Jones
The leader of the Diocese of Rockville Centre is contacting the Pennsylvania attorney general to correct the errors, a spokesman says.
Long Island’s Catholic bishop on Wednesday disputed a Pennsylvania grand jury report on how he handled the cases of two priests who were accused of sexually abusing children in his former diocese of Allentown.
Bishop John Barres said the report contained factual errors and that the Pennsylvania attorney general never reached out to him for a response.
Barres, who now leads the Diocese of Rockville Centre, is contacting Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro to correct the errors, diocesan spokesman Sean Dolan said.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times
August 16, 2018
By Michael Sneed
It’s a moral catastrophe.
“I wasn’t shocked. Not at all,” said Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke, a devout Catholic and mother of five responding to a Pennsylvania grand jury report detailing the sexual abuse of 1,000 young people at the hands of hundreds of Catholic priests.
“I think every state should convene a grand jury into this culture of secrecy that protected offenders at all costs,” said Burke, who was once interim chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops study on nationwide clerical sexual abuse in 2002.
“It was happening in Chicago, but we had to rely on files the bishops were willing to give us — and we knew there had to be more, but we had no subpoena powers,” said Burke. “We had no government authority!”
“We did a lot of research, but a lot was kept from us and we knew it,” she said.
“And shockingly, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops charter our National Review Board was appointed under did NOT include investigating the BISHOPS! Or even penalizing the bishops or Cardinals for transferring these priests,” she said.
“But we did report bishops were transferring priests from parish to parish and diocese to diocese knowing they had a history of abuse.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter
August 17, 2018
By Heidi Schlumpf
The U.S. bishops’ call Aug. 16 for an apostolic visitation and lay-involved investigations into sexual abuse and cover-ups was praised by members of the first National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People, but at least one member called it “too little, too late.”
Any internal investigation — even a well-intentioned one — would be ineffective, because “the trust is already eroded and gone,” said Anne Burke, an Illinois Supreme Court justice who served as the review board’s interim chair until 2004.
Other former board members praised the bishops’ proposal, released by Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston on behalf of the U.S. bishops’ executive committee, as a “good start,” though they expressed caution about internal investigations and review boards.
“Only secular authorities have subpoena powers,” said Burke, urging all attorneys general and district attorneys to follow the lead of Pennsylvania, where an investigation resulted in a scathing grand jury report exposing decades of sexual abuse and cover-up in six Pennsylvania dioceses.
“That’s the only way I see something happening,” Burke said.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
ST. LOUIS (MI)
KMOX
August 17, 2018
Reaction is still coming in to the massive Grand Jury report in Pennsylvania that found more than a thousand children had been sexually abused by more than 300 priests in the state since the 1940s.
“It’s a devastating report,” says St. Louisian David Clohessy, the former national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. “On another level though, no one should be shocked by this, because these very same conclusions and findings have happened in a dozen jurisdictions around the country.”
The Vatican expresses shame and sorrow in the wake of the report, saying Pope Francis wants the victims to know he is on their side.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
ALLENTOWN (PA)
Lehigh Valley Live
August 16, 2018
By Tony Rhodin
Allentown City Council on Wednesday night fired the city solicitor a day after his controversial handling of a sexual abuse allegation came to light in a statewide grand jury report on abuse of children by clergy.
The grand jury report says Thomas Traud told the Allentown Diocese to discredit a victim and reassign an allegedly offending priest.
Councilman Courtney Robinson introduced the action to fire Traud — something that eventually happened in a unanimous vote — after speaking broadly about the report.
“I am a practicing Catholic and I am disgusted and I am appalled at what was done in the name of my faith,” he said, according to a recording of the meeting posted by council. “As a Catholic and an elected official I feel it necessary to apologize to every victim of this and to state the unimaginable pain and sorrow that you’re going through was only compounded from this.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
VATICAN CITY
Vatican Press Office
August 20, 2018
By Pope Francis
“If one member suffers, all suffer together with it” (1 Cor 12:26). These words of Saint Paul forcefully echo in my heart as I acknowledge once more the suffering endured by many minors due to sexual abuse, the abuse of power and the abuse of conscience perpetrated by a significant number of clerics and consecrated persons. Crimes that inflict deep wounds of pain and powerlessness, primarily among the victims, but also in their family members and in the larger community of believers and nonbelievers alike. Looking back to the past, no effort to beg pardon and to seek to repair the harm done will ever be sufficient. Looking ahead to the future, no effort must be spared to create a culture able to prevent such situations from happening, but also to prevent the possibility of their being covered up and perpetuated. The pain of the victims and their families is also our pain, and so it is urgent that we once more reaffirm our commitment to ensure the protection of minors and of vulnerable adults.
1. If one member suffers…
In recent days, a report was made public which detailed the experiences of at least a thousand survivors, victims of sexual abuse, the abuse of power and of conscience at the hands of priests over a period of approximately seventy years. Even though it can be said that most of these cases belong to the past, nonetheless as time goes on we have come to know the pain of many of the victims. We have realized that these wounds never disappear and that they require us forcefully to condemn these atrocities and join forces in uprooting this culture of death; these wounds never go away. The heart-wrenching pain of these victims, which cries out to heaven, was long ignored, kept quiet or silenced. But their outcry was more powerful than all the measures meant to silence it, or sought even to resolve it by decisions that increased its gravity by falling into complicity. The Lord heard that cry and once again showed us on which side he stands. Mary’s song is not mistaken and continues quietly to echo throughout history. For the Lord remembers the promise he made to our fathers: “he has scattered the proud in their conceit; he has cast down the mighty from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty” (Lk 1:51-53). We feel shame when we realize that our style of life has denied, and continues to deny, the words we recite.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
LOS ANGELES (CA)
The Advocate
August 16, 2018
By Marianne Duddy-Burke
What the church’s horrific child abuse scandal means for lawmakers and LGBTQ Catholics.
No official in the Catholic Church has any credibility when speaking on issues of sexuality, gender, or relationships.
If that was not already obvious, it became compellingly clear with the release of the Pennsylvania attorney general’s report on a grand jury investigation into more than 1,000 cases of sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests in six dioceses across that state. The horrific details of repeated abuse, networks of abusers, and systemic cover-up by church leaders make it painfully clear that care for children and families came nowhere close to concerns about protecting the institution of the church, and even abusers, in the minds of Catholic leaders. From children being raped in hospital beds to serial abuse of siblings, marking targets with “gifts” of gold crosses, and making pornography later shared among groups of abusive priests, what these young girls and boys were subjected to is almost beyond imagining. The after-effects of the abuse impact people to this day, long after the statute of limitations has made criminal accountability for perpetrators and their enablers impossible. Bishops and cardinals repeatedly kept perpetrators out of the reach of law enforcement until they could no longer be prosecuted, through a series of steps the Pennsylvania attorney general called “a playbook for concealing the truth.”
This devastating report follows close on the heels of the resignation of one of the most powerful U.S. clerics, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington, D.C. He was forced to resign from the College of Cardinals for alleged abuse of an altar boy decades ago and after dozens of reports became public that he abused seminarians under his authority. High-ranking church officials from Australia, Chile, and Honduras have also been recently ousted for sexual abuse. Following numerous reports of abuse of their members, the leaders of Catholic women’s religious communities from two continents have called on the Vatican to end the “culture of silence” that enabled decades of exploitation. All of this comes more than 15 years after The Boston Globe broke the story of rampant child sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Boston, and amid the persistent drum of stories that has emerged from across the country and internationally since.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
SPRINGFIELD (MA)
The Berkshire Eagle
August 18, 2018
By Haven Orecchio-Egresitz
In response to this week’s allegations of the sexual abuse of more than 1,000 children by clergy in Pennsylvania, the bishop of the Springfield Diocese has condemned “past failures” of the Catholic church and urged local victims to continue to reach out to his Office of Child and Youth Protection.
The strongly worded letter from Bishop Mitchell T. Rozanski, which was issued from his office Friday, outlined counseling and other services available through the diocese for victims of child sexual abuse.
“Since arriving as your bishop four years ago, I have had the somber task of meeting with victims of abuse and their family members,” Rozanski said. “While I cannot undo the great harm done to them, I can promise victims, their loved ones and the entire community that I remain firmly committed to rooting out this evil in our midst. The failure by any member of the clergy, religious or laity to strictly implement, as well as adhere to, our policies and guidelines will result in removal from ministry.”
A nearly 900-page Pennsylvania grand jury report released this week said that more than 300 predator priests had abused more than 1,000 children in six dioceses in the state. Forty-five of the priests named served in the Harrisburg Diocese.
The first paragraph of the nearly 900-page report said the grand jury knows the truth: that child sex abuse within the Catholic church happened everywhere.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
UNITED STATES
Yahoo Style UK
August 20, 2018
By Marie Claire Dorking
Olympic gymnastics champion Simone Biles has won praise for not only winning her fifth all-round title, but doing so in a leotard that honoured the survivors of sexual abuse.
The 21-year-old donned the specially designed leotard on Sunday as she became the first woman in 24 years to be awarded the top score in every single event of a national championship.
The leotard, which was reportedly eight months in the planning, was a beautiful teal colour, chosen specifically because teal is the designated colour for survivors of sexual abuse.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
DUBLIN (IRELAND)
The Washington Post
August 20, 2018
By Chico Harlan
Pope Francis said in a letter released Monday by the Vatican that the Catholic Church has not dealt properly with “crimes” against children and needs to prevent sexual abuses from being “covered up and perpetuated.”
“We showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned them,” Francis wrote.
The 2,000-word letter addressed to the “People of God” marks one of Francis’s most direct attempts to address the painful abuse cases that have eroded the Roman Catholic Church’s credibility and prompted sharp calls from inside and outside the church for improved accountability.
Francis did not lay out any concrete steps the Vatican would take, but he acknowledged that systemic change is needed.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philly.com
August 15, 2018
By David Gambacorta
George said he never discussed the nude Polaroids, or the twisted, secret gifts he and the other kids had been given decades ago by the men who preyed on them. These weren’t the kinds of things you could share without feeling humiliated, especially if you grew up tough, like he did on the South Side of Pittsburgh.
But you can’t outrun your nightmares forever. So on Dec. 17 — a week before Roman Catholics around the world celebrated Christmas — George met with a Pennsylvania grand jury and told it about the Rev. George Zirwas, a friendly young priest who once took him to a rectory in Munhall, a borough about 25 minutes from downtown Pittsburgh, and introduced him to some friends: The Revs. Francis Pucci, Richard Zula, and Francis Luddy.
During a conversation about religious statues, the priests told George to get onto a bed and remove his shirt, and strike a pose like Jesus on the cross. Then they instructed him to strip off his pants and underwear, according to a grand jury report released Tuesday by Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro.
In the unnerving moments that followed, George claimed that Zula or Pucci began taking photos of him on a Polaroid camera. All of the priests giggled — and then added the photos of George to a collection of photos of other teen boys. According to the grand jury, these men and another priest, the Rev. Robert Wolk, were part of a “ring of predatory priests” who raped children, shared intelligence on potential victims, and manufactured child pornography in parishes and rectories.
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UNITED STATES
CultureWatch
August 19, 2018
By Bill Muehlenberg
At the moment the public spotlight is on the Catholic Church, with revelations of what has transpired in Pennsylvania. In this latest case some 300 priests are said to have abused some 1,000 children over many decades. Before looking at the details, let me say a few necessary things first. All child sex abuse is evil, end of story.
And when it happens in churches, it is even more evil. Child sexual abuse of course can and does happen in non-religious places, such as schools, etc., so we are amiss to single out the church. And Protestants have had their fair share of cases of this as well, so we are amiss to single out the Catholic Church.
I will not engage in any excuse-making here. I hate to see the name of Christ tarnished, regardless of where it is happening, be it Orthodox, Protestant or Catholic. Here I want to let a number of others speak, most of them Catholics, but a few Protestants as well.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
PITTSBURGH (PA)
NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
August 19, 2018
By Tim Morris
More than 30 years after horrific crimes against children in the Louisiana Diocese of Lafayette first exposed a culture of sexual abuse and systematic cover-up within the Catholic Church, the tragedy continues.
The latest evidence comes in a scathing report issued Tuesday (Aug. 14) by a Pennsylvania grand jury that found bishops and other leaders of the church had concealed sexual abuse of children by more than 300 priests over a period of 70 years.
The grand jury said there were more than 1,000 identifiable victims and likely thousands more whose records were lost or who were too afraid to come forward.
Heartbreaking examples in the 1,400-page report included a priest who raped a young girl in a hospital visit after she had her tonsils out; another priest who was allowed to stay in ministry after impregnating a young girl and arranging for her to have an abortion; a 7-year-old boy who was sexually abused by a priest and then told to go and confess his “sins” — to that same priest; another priest who forced a 9-year-old boy to perform oral sex, “then rinsed out the boy’s mouth with holy water to purify him.”
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
PITTSBURGH (PA)
WTAE
August 15, 2018
By Bob Mayo
The Pennsylvania grand jury report on child sex abuse by clergy is about to trigger a new lawsuit against the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 has learned. It could be filed in the next two weeks.
Attorney Alan Perer has represented dozens of alleged victims in lawsuits against the Pittsburgh diocese and other dioceses over the years. Perer said he will argue that revelations in the grand jury report show the civil statute of limitations shouldn’t apply for victims suing the diocese.
“We anticipate filing very soon. I’m already talking to some of the victims,” Perer said. “And our theory is, under the law, if a person couldn’t discover or couldn’t find out information to implicate the diocese — not the priest, the diocese — that there is a way to expand the statute of limitations until the person could have discovered the involvement of the diocese. And we say it’s not until now. Now is when the grand jury, for the first time, has opened up these secret archives
Perer said he’s already making that argument on behalf of alleged victims suing the diocese in the Johnstown-Altoona area. That case is on appeal with oral arguments expected before Superior Court. Perer thinks this fight over extending the civil statute of limitation in these cases could end up before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
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HARRISBURG (PA)
CNN
August 17, 2018
By Joe Sterling
Priest abuse victims share emotional stories 01:47
The clergy sex abuse allegations in Pennsylvania have prompted robust feedback from survivors, the state attorney general’s office says.
Attorney General Josh Shapiro said in a tweet earlier this week that the hotline for clergy sex abuse has been “lit up.”
Since Tuesday afternoon, after a grand jury report was released detailing the abuse allegations, Shapiro said Wednesday that more than 150 calls and e-mails poured in.
And since then, the office said Friday, “the hotline remains, live, active and is receiving calls.”
Survivors “are now surfacing to tell their stories and seek justice.”
The hotline number is 888-538-8541.
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HAZLE TOWNSHIP (PA)
WNEP
August 16, 2018
By Carolyn Blackburne
People in Hazle Township are dealing with the aftermath of this week’s grand jury report into child sex abuse in the Catholic Church.
A street in the township is named after a priest accused of sexually assaulting a young boy.
The report found Rev. Girard Angelo was accused of sexually abusing a 14-year-old boy at a parish in Williamsport during the 1960s.
Now, people who live on Father Angelo Drive in Hazle Township want the name changed.
“My first thought was, well what are they going to do with the street sign that I look at every day. It was devastating,” Joe Tranguch said.
Fr. Angelo was a priest at Church of the Sacred Heart, just a few blocks away from the street that bears his name.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
DALLAS (TX)
Dallas News
August 19, 2018
By Rudolph Bush and Dana Branham
Updated at 4:50 p.m. with additional details throughout.
The Rev. Edmundo Paredes, longtime pastor at St. Cecilia Catholic Church in Oak Cliff, is under investigation for allegedly molesting three teenage boys in the parish more than a decade ago and stealing from the parish, churchgoers learned over the weekend.
Paredes has fled and his whereabouts are unknown, though church officials think he may be in his native country of the Philippines, Bishop Edward Burns said at the conclusion of the 7:30 a.m. Mass Sunday at St. Cecilia.
The news regarding Paredes, who was pastor of St. Cecilia for 27 years, is only the latest revelation in the Catholic Church’s ongoing priest pedophilia scandal. Independent investigations have revealed that members of the church hierarchy both turned a blind eye and actively engaged in covering up the actions of pedophiles in the priesthood.
Burns detailed the allegations against Paredes from the altar Sunday morning and planned to remain at St. Cecilia throughout the day to speak at Masses and talk to parishioners, he said.
“I need to come face to face with the frustration. I need to come face to face with this issue, with the anger, with the rage. I recognize this diocese cannot cover its ears, its eyes, its mouth. We need to look at this head on,” Burns said in an interview after Mass.
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HARRISBURG (PA)
The Tribune-Democrat
August 20, 2018
By Dave Sutor
For about an hour on Tuesday, Cindy Leech sat on a stage inside the Pennsylvania State Capitol, holding a framed picture of her son, Corey Leech, with his shock of sandy-colored hair and broad smile.
She listened as Attorney General Josh Shapiro publicly released a grand jury report that exposed decades of child sexual abuse and cover-up in six of the commonwealth’s Roman Catholic dioceses.
She was joined by more than a dozen other victims or family members of those who have died.
The resident of Johnstown’s Roxbury neighborhood was invited to the event to honor her son, who played a significant role in the process of the investigation before his death in May 2017.
Corey Leech anonymously testified that he was sexually abused by Brother Stephen Baker, when Leech was a student at what was then Bishop McCort High School, in a hearing to determine if the friar’s superiors at the Third Order Regular, Province of the Immaculate Conception – the Revs. Robert D’Aversa, Giles Schinelli and Anthony Criscitelli – failed to properly protect children from the predator.
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AUSTRALIA
The Newcastle Herald
August 19, 2018
By Joanne McCarthy
NSW Catholic MP Catherine Cusack has slammed the “male hierarchy” of the church for “trashing” people’s faith because of the child sexual abuse tragedy, in a speech to Parliament backing a Hunter abuse survivor.
The sexual abuse of children and the church’s cover-ups of that abuse were “a total failure of everything we were told our church stood for”, Ms Cusack said in a speech on Wednesday after petitioning Attorney-General Mark Speakman on behalf of Hunter survivor Rob Roseworne.
“Everything I was literally taught from birth was trashed by the evidence (at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse).”
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IRELAND
The Times
August 19, 2018
By Bryan Appleyard
On the eve of another papal visit, in pubs and parks Irish people say the Catholic Church has lost its grip on the nation
In 1979 Pope John Paul II celebrated mass before 1.25m people in Dublin’s Phoenix Park. Next Sunday only 500,000 are expected to be in the park for mass with Pope Francis.
The real figure may be even smaller. The Say Nope to the Pope campaign has been scooping up tickets that it will not use. Also, off the record, some local churches have been saying their allocated tickets are not being fully taken up.
Catholic Ireland is dying; its iron grip on the Irish imagination has been broken. This is partly because of secularisation but it is the child abuse revelations that have caused real hatred and disgust.
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PITTSBURGH (PA)
WTAE
August 17, 2018
By Sheldon Ingram
A San Diego woman who grew up in western Pennsylvania reached out to Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 about several sex abuse incidents carried out by two priests.
Heather Taylor, 45, says the abuse started when she was 7 years old and happened at St. Gabriel School in Baldwin Borough. She named the late Rev. Lawrence O’Connell and the Rev. Edward Huff as the two priests who fondled her more than a dozen times.
Both men were named in the grand jury investigation report released this week, and the report revealed a handwritten note in which Huff admitted to touching 500 children.
Taylor said she deals with heavy bitterness and pain while still receiving therapy.
“I hate the Catholic Church,” she said. “I have no respect for them.”
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.
HARRISBURG (PA)
CNN
August 17, 2018
By Daniel Burke
The Vatican broke its silence on Thursday about a Pennsylvania grand jury report that detailed decades of sexual abuses by priests and cover-ups by bishops, calling the accusations “criminal and morally reprehensible.”
“Regarding the report made public in Pennsylvania this week, there are two words that can express the feelings faced with these horrible crimes: shame and sorrow,” said Greg Burke, director of the Vatican’s Press Office.
“The Holy See treats with great seriousness the work of the Investigating Grand Jury of Pennsylvania and the lengthy Interim Report it has produced. The Holy See condemns unequivocally the sexual abuse of minors.”
This week, Pope Francis had been under increasing pressure to address a rapidly escalating sexual abuse crisis that has spread across several continents, from Australia to Latin America.
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DALLAS (TX)
CBS 11 News/KTVTTV
August 20, 2018
The Catholic Diocese of Dallas has suspended a priest after allegations of sexual abuse, the bishop announced Sunday.
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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Market Watch
August 20, 2018
By Leslie Albrecht
After the report on systematic sexual abuse in Pennsylvania involving 1,000 children over 7 decades, some worry their donations have been enabling a culture of secrecy
Pittsburgh mom Derya Little is such a devoted Catholic that she wishes she could go to church every day.
But with four small children, she has to limit her Mass attendance to Sundays. Another key part of her faith is the $10,000 a year she and her husband give to Catholic causes. They adhere to a traditional definition of tithing and donate exactly 10% of their gross income to charity per year.
But this week she won’t be leaving a check in the collection plate at her church. In fact, none of the money she and her husband typically donate to Catholic groups will go to her local parish or diocese this year.
Little was so appalled by the Pennsylvania grand jury report detailing how 300 priests sexually abused more than 1,000 children and then bishops systematically covered it up that she can’t stomach giving anymore money to church leaders. Instead, she says, she’ll donate only to Catholic causes she trusts, like the book publisher Ave Maria Press and missionaries who work in her native Turkey.
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VATICAN CITY
Detroit Free Press
August 20, 2018
By John Bacon
Pope Francis on Monday condemned the “atrocities” of sexual abuse by priests and church leaders who covered up the crimes, apologizing to the church community and demanding accountability from leaders in the future.
The letter to the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics was issued less than a week after the latest in a long line of staggering abuse revelations. A withering grand jury report released by the Pennsylvania attorney general alleged that church leaders protected 301 “predator priests” in six dioceses across the state for decades at the expense of more than 1,000 victims.
“I acknowledge once more the suffering endured by many minors due to sexual abuse, the abuse of power and the abuse of conscience perpetrated by a significant number of clerics and consecrated persons,” Francis said.
He said it was with “shame and repentance” that he acknowledged the church was slow in responding to the problem.
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COLUMBUS (OH)
CNBC
August 20, 2018
By John Harwood
Rep. Steve Stivers , R-Ohio, has the toughest job in politics right now: trying to stop a Democratic “blue wave” at the polls this fall. Stivers, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, sat down to talk to CNBC’s John Harwood about the campaign and other factors. Here is an excerpt from the interview:
CNBC’s John Harwood: You’ve got a colleague in Ohio, Jim Jordan, who is accused by multiple Ohio State wrestlers that he coached of having ignored sexual abuse that they were experiencing. Why is it OK for him to remain in Congress, to be a member in good standing of the Republican caucus, to run for speaker of the House?
Rep. Steve Stivers: Well, the Ohio State University has an investigation on Dr. Strauss, who died a few years ago but is alleged to have abused many people. I’m looking forward to seeing their results. We have empathy for the victims and as I have empathy for anybody who was victimized in a sexual harassment way or a sexual assault way.
Harwood: Based on what’s on the public record, and who is making the allegations, are you inclined to think that this was a real thing, a real scandal — as opposed to something that was cooked up by people who are opponents of Jim Jordan or opponents of the doctor?
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UNTIED STATES
Forbes Human Resources Council
August 20, 2018
By Mirande Valbrune
Mirande Valbrune is an employment lawyer with a passion for Employee Relations work. She is the author of #MeToo: A Practical Guide.
Sexual harassment, as highlighted by the #MeToo movement, cuts across all professional industries. Global, high-profile companies have landed at the center of some of the most public sexual harassment cases. With the widespread visibility of the #MeToo movement, what can human resources professionals expect from the fallout?
1. Increased Reporting Of Complaints
With renewed visibility of harassment in the workplace, there is the potential for increased reporting and complaints from staff. Heightened awareness of workplace rights may lead to increased reporting of more than sexual harassment allegations involving a man and a woman. For other protected traits (such as gender identity, sexual orientation, race, religion, disability and age, etc.), it will be important to monitor workplace trends on increased complaints and company exposure in these areas.
Actor Terry Crews and others have added male voices to the conversation after coming out as sexual harassment victims. Men may become more willing to complain about harassment now that they have been a part of the increased awareness of harassment.
What HR can do: Policies and training should be updated to include more focus on gender identity and sexual orientation, and emphasizing gender neutrality regarding who may experience sexual harassment. Strategic and progressive training should be designed with an emphasis on “bystander empowerment” to intervene, as this has proven an effective deterrent. Training on the lines of communication for reporting incidents and how to respond in the moment and afterward will be key to addressing the large number of harassment complaints that go unreported to internal sources.
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VATICAN CITY
Reuters
August 20, 2018
By Philip Puella
Pope Francis, facing sexual abuse crises in several countries, wrote an unprecedented letter to all Catholics on Monday, asking each one of them to help root out “this culture of death” and vowing there would be no more cover ups.
In a highly personal letter addressed to “the people of God,” Church language for all members, the pope appeared to be launching an appeal for all Catholics to face the crisis together and not let it tear the Church apart.
The Catholic Church in the United States, Chile, Australia, and Ireland – where the pope is making a two-day visit this weekend – are reeling from crises involving sexual abuse of minors. Numerous surveys have pointed to plummeting confidence in the Church in those countries and elsewhere.
In his letter, the pope referred to the suffering endured by minors due to sexual abuse at the hands of a “significant number of clerics and consecrated persons.”
The Vatican said it was the first time a pope had written to all of the world’s some 1.2 billion Catholics about sexual abuse. Past letters on sexual abuse scandals have been addressed to bishops and faithful of individual countries.
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BOSTON (MA)
The Associated Press
August 19, 2018
By Will Graves
USA Gymnastics President Kerry Perry says the embattled organization is in the midst of “productive” mediation talks with athletes who were sexually abused by a disgraced former national team doctor.
USA Gymnastics is facing civil lawsuits filed by dozens of athletes who say they were abused by Larry Nassar. Perry said Sunday the legal process is heading toward a resolution. Nassar, who spent more than two decades with USA Gymnastics and abused athletes under the guise of treatment, is now serving an effective life sentence after being convicted of federal child pornography and state sexual abuse charges.
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PITTSBURGH (PA)
The Associated Press
August 20, 2018
A sign at a Roman Catholic high school in Pennsylvania named for Cardinal Donald Wuerl has been vandalized with paint.
Monday is the first day of school for North Catholic High School. It is part of the Pittsburgh Diocese, where Wuerl was bishop from 1988 to 2006. Wuerl is now archbishop of Washington.
A recent grand jury report on six Pennsylvania dioceses accused Wuerl of helping protect some child-molesting priests while he was bishop of Pittsburgh.
Wuerl has apologized for the damage inflicted on the victims but also has defended his actions.
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WASHINGTON (DC)
Yahoo View
August 19, 2018
Carol Lee, Yamiche Alcindor, Eugene Robinson and Hugh Hewitt join the panel to discuss fallout from a report detailing abuse in the Catholic Church.
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UNITED STATES
Variety
August 19, 2018
By Erin Nyren
According to documents obtained by the New York Times, leading #MeToo advocate Asia Argento settled an accusation of sexual assault from former child actor and musician Jimmy Bennett for the sum of $380,000 to be paid over the course of a year and a half.
The claim and resulting discussions of payment are included in documents between the lawyers for Argento and Bennett. The claim states Bennett was a little over 17 years old at the time of the alleged assault, which took place in a California hotel room in 2013 when Argento was 37. The legal age of consent in California is 18.
As part of the agreement, Bennett, who is now 22, gave a selfie of he and Argento in bed and its copyright to Argento, now 42. Three people familiar with the case told the New York Times that the documents were authentic.
The lawyer for Argento who handled the settlement, Carrie Goldberg, in the documents described the money as “helping Mr. Bennett.”
“We hope nothing like this ever happens to you again,” Goldberg wrote. “You are a powerful and inspiring creator and it is a miserable condition of life that you live among s—-y individuals who’ve preyed on both your strengths and your weaknesses.”
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UNITED STATES
VARIETY
August 20, 2018
Rose McGowan has moved to distance herself from director-actress Asia Argento following the revelation Sunday night that Argento herself has been accused of sexual assault.
McGowan and Argento have been among the most prominent women to come forward with allegations of rape against now-disgraced film titan Harvey Weinstein, who is facing criminal charges in New York unrelated to McGowan or Argento.
McGowan has become a vocal activist on behalf of sexual assault victims. In a tweet sent early Monday, the former “Charmed” star said she her “heart is broken” by the New York Times’ expose published Sunday that Argento reached a $380,000 settlement with actor-musician Jimmy Bennett, who claims Argento sexually assaulted him in a hotel room when he was 17.
“I got to know Asia Argento ten months ago. Our commonality is the shared pain of being assaulted by Harvey Weinstein. My heart is broken. I will continue my work on behalf of victims everywhere,” McGowan wrote. A few hours later, she expressed qualified support for Argento in another tweet: “None of us know the truth of the situation and I’m sure more will be revealed. Be gentle.”
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UNTIED STATES
Yahoo Celebrity
August 20, 2018
By Erin Donnelly
Ever since her accusations of being raped by disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein went public last fall, Asia Argento has been one of the most prominent faces of the #MeToo movement. On Sunday, however, the Italian actress and director was the subject of her own New York Times investigation, with the paper reporting that she paid actor and musician Jimmy Bennett $380,000 after he accused her of sexual assault. Bennett, now 22, was 17 and below the legal age of consent at the time of the alleged 2013 incident.
The Times reports that Bennett, who was 7 years old when he was cast as Argento’s son in the 2004 film The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, reportedly pursued legal action after his former co-star emerged as an advocate for survivors of sexual assault following her revelations about Weinstein.
Documents obtained by the Times allege that the former child star met with Argento in a California hotel room on May 9, 2013, where he says she performed oral sex on him before initiating intercourse. Bennett said the incident, which took place three months after his 17th birthday, left him feeling “extremely confused, mortified, and disgusted.”
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YORK (PA)
York Daily Record
August 19, 2018
By Anthony J. Machcinski
In 2006, Jonathan Ulrick was leaving his lay job to pursue a life in the priesthood, and a few of his friends took him out to lunch. One of the colleagues, a person Ulrick considered a mentor at the job, made a statement involving a priest and a child and made light of the clergy abuse scandal.
The colleague meant the statement as a joke, but it hurt Ulrick.
“I was wondering to myself, ‘Is this what this guy thinks of me?’” Ulrick said Sunday.
Ulrick, now a parochial vicar with St. Joseph, knew the Catholic Church’s reputation took a hit – with the clergy abuse scandal in Boston in 2002 and the others after it – but joined the priesthood anyway. He told the more than 200 on hand on Sunday that he believes he could be part of a “renewal” of the church pushing forward in faith so that “things can be beautiful again.”
There were subtle differences in Sunday’s Mass – hymns were sung, readings were read and babies still cried and cooed – but the Pennsylvania grand jury report that named 301 priests accused of child sexual abuse, including four who were assigned at St. Joseph, was present throughout.
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PITTSBURGH (PA)
The Irish Times
August 19, 2018
Rev John David Crowley for decades was the hero of Holy Angels until he abruptly retired in 2003
Everything felt normal until the news alert popped up on Cindy Depretis’ cellphone Tuesday afternoon. It was a link to a list of the hundreds of Catholic priests in Pennsylvania accused of abusing children in a bombshell grand jury report. She scrolled to the names of priests near Pittsburgh.
“I got to the Cs,” she recalled tearfully as she sat in her office at Holy Angels Parish. Friends started to text her. “Is that our Fr Crowley?” She could only force out one word: yes. The Rev John David Crowley for decades had been the hero of Holy Angels, a white clapboard church in southeast Pittsburgh, tucked below the bypass, by the old narrow-gauge railroad running along the creek. He was the pastor there for nearly 34 years, known as one of the most popular priests in the region. Then, in 2003, he abruptly retired.
This week, the church learned why: Crowley had been accused of sexual abuse, including of a minor, and the claim was found to be credible and substantiated. The bishop of Pittsburgh at the time, Donald Wuerl, now a cardinal and the archbishop of Washington, gave Crowley the choice to voluntarily retire and quit active ministry, or face removal.
Crowley chose retirement. The families of Holy Angels were kept in the dark. They even protested his departure on his way out. Across the country this week, Catholics reeled from the news that Pennsylvania priests had abused more than 1,000 children over decades, and that bishops largely hid their crimes from the public. In the Pittsburgh diocese, which had almost a third of the state’s accused priests, Catholics in nearly every parish tried to figure out if the pastors they knew had ever been accused, or had known, of allegations they kept secret.
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UNITED STATES
Fox News
August 19, 2018
By Elizabeth Llorente
Clergy sex abuse of children has rocked the Catholic Church not only in terms of trust and reputation, but also financially, to the tune of more than $3 billion, according to National Public Radio.
The multibillion-dollar expense has gone to settlements in response to lawsuits filed by people abused by clergy, reports NPR. Nearly 20 Catholic dioceses and religious orders have filed for bankruptcy because of the scandals.
An attorney whose firm represented abuse victims said that the money the church has paid because of the crisis is part of justice for those who suffered, though it hardly compensates for all the damage done.
“I don’t like the word healing,” said attorney James Stang to NPR, “because it’s too much of an individual process; but at the end of the day, that accountability is demonstrated by the payment of money.”
The lawsuits have been filed primarily against dioceses and religious orders, which have the kind of auspices over priests that a single parish does not.
The Catholic Church assets involved in settlements include cash, stocks, and land.
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UNITED STATES
The Associated Press
August 19, 2018
By Ivan Moreno and Jeff Karoub
For decades, Michael Drweiga has opened his wallet whenever the donation basket comes around at church, but the latest revelations of priests sexually abusing children brought him to the conclusion that he can no longer justify giving.
Brice Sokolowski helps small Catholic nonprofits and churches raise money, but he too supports the recent calls to withhold donations.
And Georgene Sorensen has felt enough anger and “just total sadness” over the past few weeks that she’s reconsidering her weekly offering at her parish.
Across the U.S., Catholics once faithful with their financial support to their churches are searching for ways to respond to the constant sex-abuse scandals that have tarnished the institution in which they believe, with back-to-back scandals in the past two months.
The most recent came Tuesday when a grand jury report revealed that hundreds of Roman Catholic priests in Pennsylvania molested more than 1,000 children in six dioceses since the 1940s – crimes that church leaders are accused of covering up. The report came two months after Pope Francis ordered disgraced ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick removed from public ministry amid allegations the 88-year-old retired archbishop sexually abused a teenage altar boy and engaged in sexual misconduct with adult seminarians decades ago. Last month, Francis accepted McCarrick’s resignation as cardinal and ordered him to a “life of prayer and penance.”
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HARRISBURG (PA)
USA TODAY
August 19, 2018
By John Bacon
A surge in calls to a clergy abuse hotline in Pennsylvania is breathing new life into a vast investigation of “predator priests” and Roman Catholic Church leaders accused of protecting them.
The hotline has drawn more than 300 calls since the release of a withering grand jury report last week claiming church leaders protected hundreds of accused priests at the expense of more than 1,000 abuse victims.
“We’re answering every call and following up every lead,” Joe Grace, spokesman for state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, told USA TODAY on Sunday.
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VATICAN CITY
AFP
August 20, 2018
Pope Francis condemned Monday the “atrocities” revealed by a far-reaching US report into clerical child sex abuse in the state of Pennsylvania issued last week.
“In recent days, a report was made public which detailed the experiences of at least a thousand survivors… the abuse of power and of conscience at the hands of priests,” the pope said in a letter made public by the Vatican.
“Even though it can be said that most of these cases belong to the past, nonetheless as time goes on we have come to know the pain of many of the victims,” he said.
“We have realised that these wounds never disappear and that they require us forcefully to condemn these atrocities and join forces in uprooting this culture of death,” he added.
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UNITED STATES
USA TODAY
August 19, 2018
The Editorial Board
Catholic Church sex abuse scandal in Pennsylvania gives Pope Francis one more chance to act: Our view
As horrifying tales of priests molesting children have swept through Catholic dioceses across the country during the past 16 years, there is one equally horrifying constant: a systematic cover-up by bishops and cardinals who hid predators, enabling them to ruin the lives of thousands more children.
Last week, the tale was told again in vivid and disturbing detail. A Pennsylvania grand jury found that 300 priests across the state had molested more than 1,000 children over seven decades. The victims included a young girl in the hospital for a tonsillectomy and five sisters, one of them just 18 months old.
The grand jury laid bare the depths to which church elders sank to hide the scandal — its report called it “a playbook for concealing the truth” — regardless of how many children were hurt.
Coming just weeks after Theodore McCarrick, one of the highest-profile church leaders ever accused of molestation, was removed from ministry and left the College of Cardinals, this latest horror makes clear that the Vatican must do more than invoke prayers and make promises.
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YORK (PA)
Reuters
August 19, 2018
By Gabriella Borter
Many churchgoers said they were sickened and saddened by a grand jury report detailing widespread sexual abuse by hundreds of priests in Pennsylvania but they would not let the Roman Catholic Church’s cover-up dissuade them from their faith.
Nearly 200 parishioners filled almost all the pews for Saturday’s Mass at St. Patrick’s Church in York, Pennsylvania, where six priests who at one time worked in that parish are accused in the report bit.ly/2vTa9oY of sexually abusing children.
“I can’t talk about it without crying,” said Kathy Morris, a retired steelworker and a member of St. Patrick’s for over 15 years. “I’m going to Mass to try to find some peace.”
“I’m disappointed that it happened but as far as the faith goes, I’ll never give my faith up,” said Anthony Giuffrida, 66, an usher and lifelong member at St. Patrick’s. “I was raised Roman Catholic and that’s what I’ll be till the day I die.”
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NEW YORK (NY)
The Associated Press
August 20, 2018
By David Crary
Allegations that disgraced ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick engaged in sex with adult seminarians have inflamed a long-running debate about the presence of gay men in the Roman Catholic priesthood.
Some conservatives are calling for a purge of all gay priests, a challenging task given that they are believed to be numerous and few are open about their sexual orientation. Moderates want the Church to eliminate the need for secrecy by proclaiming that gay men are welcome if they can be effective priests who commit to celibacy.
Among the most outspoken moderates is the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and writer whose book, “Building a Bridge,” envisions a path toward warmer relations between the Catholic Church and the LGBT community.
“The idea of a purge of gay priests is both ridiculous and dangerous,” Martin said in an email. “Any purge would empty parishes and religious orders of the thousands of priests (and bishops) who lead healthy lives of service and faithful lives of celibacy.”
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ST. PETERSBURG (FL)
The Associated Press
August 18, 2018
By Tamara Lush
Of all the horrific details contained in the Pennsylvania grand-jury report on child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, one sentence stands out: “The main thing was not to help children, but to avoid ‘scandal.’”
When sex-abuse cases dominate headlines, a familiar pattern often emerges. If it took place at a large organization — be it a church, a large state university or a group such as USA Gymnastics — misconduct is often covered up in hopes of saving the institution’s reputation, and the money that accompanies it.
Why is the role of institutions so powerful? Because they command emotion. They inspire loyalty. And they have established ways of doing things that rev up when problems surface.
Perhaps most relevantly, they often have a community built around them, geographically or otherwise. And preserving that community can become a priority — even over something as seemingly fundamental as protecting the youngest among us.
In short, when bad things happen inside institutions, the ingredients are already there to make things even worse.
“We have to stop protecting our rainmakers, and we have to hold them to the values we espouse, not just move them around,” said Kim Churches, CEO of the American Association of University Women.
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CONCORD (NH)
Concord Monitor
August 17, 2018
By Alyssa Dandrea
An ex-St. Paul’s School teacher who conspired with a former student to lie to a grand jury about their relationship left a Concord courtroom in handcuffs Friday after pleading guilty to lesser charges.
David Pook, 48, of Warner will spend four months in county jail on misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit false swearing and criminal contempt of court. As part of a plea agreement, all felony charges were dismissed.
Pook was arrested by the state attorney general’s office in February as part of an ongoing criminal investigation into the Concord prep school’s handling of sexual misconduct and assault allegations over several decades. Deputy Attorney General Jane Young said Friday that the broader investigation was negatively affected as prosecutors turned their attention to Pook, who schemed with a former student, Stephanie O’Connell, to lie under oath.
“The state is investigating St. Paul’s School for actions of students. The conduct of this defendant and the co-conspirator sidetracked this investigation for months because of their concerted effort to lie,” Young said.
As a condition of his 120-day sentence, Pook is prohibited from holding another teaching job in New Hampshire.
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LAKEVILLE (CT)
National Public Radio
August 18, 2018
By James Doubel
An elite boarding school in Connecticut is acknowledging sexual abuse by seven now-former staffers against 16 students — going back as far as 1969 and lasting until 1992.
The Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Conn., is a private high school of about 600 students.
“For many graduates, Hotchkiss was a wonderful experience, yet a significant number of former students recounted enduring sexual abuse at the hands of faculty,” according to a report from the law firm Locke Lord that was released on Friday.
The report names seven former staffers, including teachers, an athletic director, medical director and choral director. Most of those named were employed by the school for decades, some as recently as the 2000s and one in 2012. Three of them have died, the school says.
Three other adults who were “formerly part of the Hotchkiss community” are not named, but investigators found the reports of their abuse “highly credible.”
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UNITED STATES
Think Progress
August 19, 2018
By Zack Ford
Two cardinals have backed out from the World Meeting of Families.
Fallout continues in the Catholic Church following a bombshell grand jury report documenting over a thousand instances of child sexual abuse from over 300 priests in Pennsylvania. While some Catholic leaders continue to downplay the significance of the allegations, others are canceling upcoming public appearances.
Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, who heads up Pope Francis’ Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, announced earlier this week that he was canceling his trip to Dublin for the World Meeting of Families, which will include a visit from Francis himself.
O’Malley claimed he will instead be focusing on investigations into alleged sexual misconduct at St. John’s Seminary in the Brighton neighborhood of Boston — completely separate from the Pennsylvania report.
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CHICAGO (IL)
WBBM NEWSRADIO
August 17, 2018
By Craig Dellimore
A preliminary report on the Chicago Public School’s sex-abuse scandal shows CPS officials had no idea how much of a problem they had on their hands.
The preliminary findings issued by former federal prosecutor Maggie Hickey and her law firm are blistering in assessing how CPS handled thousands of reports of possible sexual harassment, child welfare alerts, and allegations of employee misconduct.
The report says the school system did not collect overall data to spot trends at certain schools or in specific areas, and so CPS failed to recognize the extent of the problem.
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BUFFALO (NY)
The Buffalo News
August 18, 2018
News Editorial Board
If Pennsylvania can do it, why can’t New York? In the name of long-delayed justice and of helping/pushing the Catholic Church to fully confront the terrible sins it committed, the state needs to investigate the scope of child sexual abuse within the church and the hierarchy’s actions in covering it up.
In Pennsylvania, residents now have an insightful and intensely disturbing picture of abhorrent criminal conduct: the rampant sexual abuse of children by a significant minority of priests and, at least as shocking, the church’s determined efforts to persuade victims not to report the crimes and, unbelievably, police not to investigate them.
That’s called conspiracy. It’s also called evil.
The Pennsylvania report was produced by a grand jury created by the state attorney general. It uncovered child sexual abuse by more than 300 priests over 70 years. It covered six of the state’s eight dioceses – the other two had been previously investigated – and found more than 1,000 identifiable victims. Bishops and other church leaders covered it up, the grand jury reported.
If anything, the issue is likely to be more prevalent in New York, a much larger state with a significantly higher proportion of Catholic residents – 31 percent to Pennsylvania’s 24 percent, according to www.worldatlas.com. New Yorkers of all faiths need to know what happened here.
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ROME (ITALY)
Crux
August 18, 2018
ByElise Harris
Pedro Salinas, author of the 2015 blockbuster book Half Monks, Half Soldiers, detailing years of allegations of physical, sexual and psychological abuse by members of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV), is being sued by an archbishop that belongs to the group, who is charging the journalist with defamation.
Archbishop José Antonio Eguren Anselmi of Piura, was the subject of a Jan. 20 article on the website La Mula by Salinas titled “the Peruvian Juan Barros,” in which Salinas notes that Eguren Anselmi was a member of the “foundational generation” of the SCV, whose founder, Luis Fernando Figari, has been accused of abuses of power, conscience and sexuality.
Barros was the bishop of the Chilean Diocese of Osorno until June 11, when Pope Francis accepted his resignation following an investigation by Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna into clerical abuse in Chile, where Barros was accused of covering up the sexual abuse of Chilean priest Father Fernando Karadima.
In his January article, Salinas, himself a former member of the SCV, compares Eguren Anselmi to Barros, saying the archbishop was a close disciple of Figari, and as a member of the “foundational generation” – which included German Doig, who died in 2001 and was found guilty of sexual abuse – “knew everything” about their founder and what he did.
Salinas asserts that the first accusation against the SCV was made in the year 2000 by a journalist named Jose Enrique Escardo, and that the complaint was directed at Eguren Anselmi.
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STAUNTON (VA)
Staunton News Leader
August 18, 2018
By David Fritz
What’s a Catholic to do in the wake of the damning Pennsylvania grand jury report covering a half century of sexual abuse by priests and coverups by their superiors?
The complicated individual stories span decades. Some catalog the misdeeds of a single priest through an entire career. Too few stories cover one-and-done miscreants. Most were excused by bishops, shuffled between parishes or shipped across the country to offend again.
Individually, the details are horrific. Compiled, they’re devastating first and foremost for the grievous wrongs done to young people. But also in how they tainted the faith, the majority of the faithful – clergy and laypeople – and their works. They defame religion everywhere.
The first thing to do is get angry, suggests The Rev. James Martin, a prominent Jesuit writer. Anger akin to Jesus’ when he drove the money changers from the temple. Martin urges embracing such anger as the way God can work through people.
And anger is easy. It’s out there. It’s flowing. We’ve had too much practice, as these stories have trickled out for decades now. We must make this an inflection point.
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TORONTO (CANADA)
CBC News
August 17, 2018
By Mark Gollom
Grand jury report also documents cases of abuse involving Pa. priests alleged to have occurred in Canada
In 1984, shortly after admitting to sexually molesting a 14-year-old child, Rev. John Connor of Pennsylvania was sent to a Toronto-area facility that helps clergy deal with addictions, mental-health issues and sexual disorders.
After eight months of treatment at the Southdown Institute, officials there warned the church that Connor should not be put in a position where he would have responsibility for adolescents. Yet the church seemed to ignore the institute’s advice, and would later assign Connor to a parish in Conshohocken, Pa., with a grade school and encourage him to “educate youth.”
These allegations are found in the more than 1,300 pages of an explosive grand jury report released Tuesday that claims hundreds of Roman Catholic priests in Pennsylvania engaged in sexual abuse since the 1940s.
Of the victims, more than 1,000 were children, but that total could be thousands more, the grand jury concluded.
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LEHIGH COUNTY (PA)
WPVI
August 18, 2018
Following the unprecedented Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report on sex abuse by priests, a university in Lehigh County is considering changing the names of two buildings named after two bishops named in the report.
A spokesperson for DeSales University tells Action News the buildings in question are the “Bishop Thomas J. Welsh Hall” and the “Bishop Joseph McShea Student Center.”
Both bishops are accused in the report of covering up abuse.
The university will discuss the removal of their names during the next board meeting in September.
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INDIANAPOLIS (IN)
Indianapolis Star
August 19, 2018
By Billy Kobin
Recent local and national headlines have given Catholics in the Indianapolis area plenty to think about.
First, there was the news that Shelly Fitzgerald, a popular guidance counselor at Roncalli High School for the past 15 years, is facing possible termination after church and school officials were presented with evidence of her 2014 marriage to a woman.
Then, in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, a grand jury report accused more than 300 Catholic priests of sexually abusing more than 1,000 child victims. The report details a 70-year “systematic” coverup effort by the state’s church leaders. Five Catholic priests with ties to Indiana were named in the grand jury report.
For many Catholics, the events have created a certain amount of introspection about what might be described as the separation of church and faith. More specifically, some Catholics may lament the church’s positions in these instances, but their faith is unshaken.
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IRELAND
The Guardian
August 17, 2018
by Harriet Sherwood
Catholic priests in Ireland need to be missionaries in their own country to meet the challenges of a changing society, Eamon Martin, the most senior church figure in Ireland, has said ahead of the pope’s visit to Dublin next weekend.
“We are in mission territory in many ways as Catholics in Ireland,” Martin, who is archbishop of Armagh as well as primate of all Ireland, told the Guardian.
“Ireland was always renowned as a missionary country, sending priests all over the world to spread the Catholic faith. But there’s a need for mission here in Ireland now, a need for a new evangelisation.”
In the four decades since the last papal visit to Ireland, that of John Paul II in 1979, the country has seen a steep decline in the numbers of people attending mass and the moral authority of the church has been shattered by revelations of child sexual abuse and mistreatment of vulnerable women in the Magdalene Laundries.
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HARRISBURG (PA)
BBC News
August 16, 2018
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has released a grand jury report naming more than 300 clergymen accused of sex abuse in the Catholic Church.
The document said hundreds of young boys and girls, as well as teenagers, were abused by clergy.
Along with the report, the office of the attorney general in Pennsylvania released this video with testimony from three victims.
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MIDLAND (MI)
Midland Daily News
August 18, 2018
Voice of the Faithful will meet Monday, Aug. 27, to listen to the stories of four people who were abused by priests. The meeting is set for 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic Parish Church, 3516 E Monroe Road, Midland. All are welcome.
“Their stories are heart wrenching,” a VOTF press release states. “Let them be the motivation for our actions to stop sex abuse in the church.”
VOTF is a group of serious Catholics who are concerned about the church and its future. Its goals are to support survivors of clergy sex abuse, to support priests of integrity and to shape structural change within the Catholic church.
For more information, contact Norbert Bufka at 989-835-2832 or VOTF at http://www.votf.org
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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter
August 17, 2018
NCR Editorial Staff
Editor’s note: The following editorial was written and will appear in the Aug. 24-30 print issue of NCR, which went to press the day before Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, revealed that the bishops were inviting the Vatican to conduct an apostolic visitation to the country to lead a “full investigation” into questions surrounding Cardinal Archbishop Theodore McCarrick, that the bishops will take steps to create channels for easier reporting of abuse and misconduct by bishops, and that the bishops will push for better procedures under canon law to resolve complaints made against bishops.
We welcome yesterday’s announcement as a good first step in resolving the crisis that has enveloped the Catholic Church. Particularly encouraging is that the bishops have listed “substantial leadership by laity” as one of the criteria for meeting their goals. That, too, is a step along the way.
Cardinal DiNardo’s statement is addressed to “Brothers and Sisters in Christ” and ends this request: “Let me ask you to hold us to all of these resolutions.” The bishops should know that we will be watching.
With what we have learned about the abuse of minors and seminarians perpetuated by Theodore McCarrick and his parallel rise through the ranks of the church, coupled with the scathing grand jury report out of Pennsylvania that chronicles in vivid detail the rape of children and the culture of secrecy that enabled the abuse to continue for decades, what are Catholics feeling?
Anger and disgust don’t seem strong enough words. Revulsion? Horror? Betrayal?
The revelations of the last two months make undeniably clear that it is time for the laity to reclaim our ownership of this church. We are the body of Christ, we are the church. It is time that we demand that bishops claim their true vocations as servants to the people of God. And they must live that way.
At this time, it seems laity can do very little to effect the changes needed to bring about the solutions to the large issues that plague the church now — careerism, abuse of power, lack of transparency, no accountability. The fact is laypeople in our church today have little power.
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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Daily Beast
August 17, 2018
By Michael Daly
The monsignor who gambled and traveled on the Archdiocese’s dime remained behind bars as a grand jury reported on the crimes of his peers who preyed on children.
Rape and molest trusting young boys for half a century, but do not touch the Catholic Church’s money.
Therein lies the lesson offered in Pennsylvania by Father Francis Rogers and Monsignor William Dombrow.
Rogers’ decades of depredations were detailed in a grand jury report on the Archdiocese of Philadelphia made public in 2005, and which was finally followed this week by a similar grand jury report on six other dioceses in Pennsylvania.
“The Grand Jury will never be able to determine how many boys Father Francis P. Rogers raped and sexually abused in his more than 50 years as a priest,” noted the earlier report on sexual assault committed by an unholy host of priests. “Nor, probably, will we or anyone else be able to calculate the number of boys the Archdiocese could have saved from sexual abuse had it investigated potential victims rather than protecting itself from scandal and shielding this sexually abusive priest. We have learned of at least three victims who we believe would not have been abused had the Archdiocese taken decisive action when it learned of Fr. Rogers’ “familiarity” with boys. We find that the Archdiocese received a litany of verifiable reports beginning shortly after Fr. Rogers’ 1946 ordination and continuing for decades about his serious misconduct with, and abuse of, boys. ‘
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ROME (ITALY)
Daily Beast
August 17, 2018
By Barbie Latza Nadeau
Without Richard Serbin’s diligence and commitment, many of the atrocities committed by hundreds of Pennsylvania’s Catholic priests would never have come to light.
Richard Serbin remembers the day in 1987 when he met 19-year-old Michael Hutchinson. The skinny young man was in a mental health institution for criminals serving time for robbery and male prostitution. “I can remember that meeting very well,” said Serbin, who was 40 at the time and just getting his bearings in what he thought would be a career dedicated to civil cases against big corporations. “He was very hyper and he got all these candy bars from the vending machine. Then he told me what happened.”
Michael, it turns out, was very troubled. He had been sexually abused from just before his 11th birthday until he was 17 by Father Francis Luddy, a Catholic priest in the Pennsylvania diocese of Altoona-Johnstown who has since died.
Luddy, who was in his 40s at the time, was so close to the Hutchinson family he was also Michael’s godfather. He is one of 301 predator priests exposed in a sickening document released by a Pennsylvania grand jury on Tuesday. That document outlines alleged sexual crimes against more than 1,000 children over seven decades of stunning silence and cover ups across six dioceses in Pennsylvania.
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UNITED STATES
Daily Beast
August 18, 2018
By Candida Moss
One central dogma has protected the church through all kinds of clerical scandals.
The news of sex scandal in Pennsylvania is truly sickening. Thousands of victims, hundreds of predatory priests, and what can only be described as a systematic conspiracy to conceal the crimes of those accused. All of which raises the question: How can the Catholic Church survive such a scandal? In fact, in light of previous revelations about sex abuse, how has the church survived so far?
To be sure, church attendance and vocations (the number of men joining the priesthood) have fallen, but to the external observer the ability of priests to maintain authority is baffling. Protestant leaders have been destroyed by smaller scandals, so how does the Catholic Church escape? Given the New Testament’s focus on personal morality and ethics, how can church leaders maintain any kind of authority and status when so many are complicit? Is it just sheer size and economic health that has preserved the church so far?
This is not, unsurprisingly enough for any organization, the first time that the church has encountered scandal on a large scale. Of course there have always been individual priests who have embezzled funds, kept secret families on their estates, and even ordered hits on their ecclesiastical rivals. For the Borgias this was all very much business as usual. But the precedent for how to deal with a widespread crisis of confidence in church leadership was set even earlier: as part of a schism in the church that took place in late antique North Africa.
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HARRISBURG (PA)
The Associated Press
August 17, 2018
A Pennsylvania bishop named in a grand jury report on sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clergy says he has “profound remorse” and offers his “heartfelt apology” to the victims. Harrisburg Bishop Ronald Gainer spoke Friday at a Mass of forgiveness.
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HARRISBURG (PA)
Religion News Service
August 15, 2018
By Thomas Reese
Awful, disgusting, horrifying, sickening — one runs out of adjectives in describing the actions of abusive priests chronicled in the just-released Pennsylvania grand jury report.
The report lists more than 300 priests accused of abuse in six of the state’s eight dioceses. If accused priests from the other two dioceses, dealt with by earlier grand juries, are added, it amounts to about 8 percent of the 5,000 priests who served in Pennsylvania during the 70-year period covered by the report.
The abuse of even one child is terrible, but that more than 1,000 children were abused in that timespan is appalling. Undoubtedly, there are more who have not yet come forward, and hopefully this report will encourage them to do so.
Just as disconcerting is the failure of many bishops in the early days of the crisis to respond appropriately to the abuse. The best you can say about them is that they should have known better.
Why did they not do better?
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NEW YORK (NY)
The Wall Street Journal
August 16, 2018
By C.C. Pecknold
A new grand-jury report on sex abuse shows the episcopate behaving like Judas.
A Pennsylvania grand jury this week published a 900-page report detailing sexual abuse of more than 1,000 children by some 300 Roman Catholic priests over 70 years. The grand jury had spent two years gathering subpoenaed archives from Pennsylvania’s six dioceses. It sought not only to share the victims’ stories but to document an entrenched culture of coverup reaching the highest levels of the U.S. church.
Forensic accounts of priests raping the sons and daughters of Christ reminded me of Judas. On the way back from Mass on Wednesday, with the report on my mind, I asked my 14-year-old son what differentiated Judas’s single betrayal of Jesus and Peter’s threefold denial of Christ. Well-catechized, he simply replied “repentance.” His answer helped us have a frank discussion about sin in the Catholic Church, the human need for penitential disciplines and devotions, and God’s way of helping man triumph over the wickedness of the Devil.
Not even Dante in his “Inferno” imagined crimes as sacrilegiously perverse as those the report documents. In some cases priests used sacramental objects as props for their diabolical predations. While the majority of cases involve adolescent males, children as young as 7 were sexually abused by men trusted to represent Christ. Since most of the crimes occurred in the 1970s and ’80s, the accused are now dead or the statutes of limitations have run out. But the report notes: “The bishops weren’t just aware of what was going on; they were immersed in it. And they went to great lengths to keep it secret.” They must be held to account.
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NEWARK (NJ)
Catholic News Agency
August 17, 2018
By Ed Condon
Recent allegations against former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick include reports that he made sexual advances toward seminarians during his tenure as Bishop of Metuchen and Archbishop of Newark.
CNA recently spoke to six priests of the Archdiocese of Newark, and one priest member of a religious order who was a seminarian in New York in the early 1970s, while McCarrick was a priest of the Archdiocese of New York.
Citing archdiocesan policy and concerns about ecclesiastical repercussions for their candor, the priests agreed to speak to CNA only under the condition of anonymity. The priests spoke individually to CNA, and their accounts were compared for confirmation.
The religious priest who spoke to CNA said when he studied in a seminary in New York, McCarrick, who was then an aide to Cardinal Terence Cooke of New York, would sometimes visit the seminary. The priest said that McCarrick’s reputation was already well established by this time.
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LATROBE (PA)
Tribune-Review
August 16, 2018
By Stephen Huba
Two days after the release of a bombshell report chronicling allegations of sexual abuse by Catholic priests across Pennsylvania — and decades after it removed many from ministry — Saint Vincent Archabbey in Unity on Thursday revealed the names of a dozen members it deemed to have been credibly accused of similar wrongdoing.
The list includes 11 Benedictine priests and one brother against whom “credible allegations” of child sexual abuse had been made to the archabbey since 1993. It was released, the archabbey said, in response to the 40th Statewide Investigating Grand Jury report on 301 “predator priests” in six dioceses, including three archabbey members.
The members, all deceased, were: the Rev. Fidelis Lazar of the Pittsburgh diocese, the Rev. Giles Nealen of the Erie diocese, and the Rev. Charles Weber of the Greensburg diocese.
All but two of the 12 people named by the archabbey are dead. Many allegations stem from pastoral assignments taken by the Benedictines in other dioceses.
“The Archabbey Community is saddened by the behavior of those accused and extends its deep apology to any person who has been victimized by any member of the Archabbey Community,” Archabbot Douglas R. Nowicki said in a statement.
Below are the names and details released by the archabbey:
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BALTIMORE (MD)
The Baltimore Sun
August 17, 2018
By Pamela Wood
Following this week’s release of an exhaustive grand jury report in Pennsylvania documenting decades of child abuse by Catholic priests, there are calls for Maryland’s attorney general to take on a similar investigation.
A spokeswoman for Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh said the office does not confirm or deny the existence of any investigations, and declined to comment further.
An investigation by the attorney general would be the first step before convening a grand jury to review potential findings.
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UNITED STATES
Patheos
August 16, 2018
By Michael Stone
New grand jury report reveals the Catholic Church has a seven step playbook they use to conceal the truth about priests raping children.
It is now common knowledge that the Catholic Church has been protecting and enabling predatory priests for decades if not centuries. In so doing the Catholic Church is responsible for the rape and sexually abuse of countless children.
But now a new grand jury report released by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court explains the policy and procedures the Catholic Church uses to cover-up, deny, and obfuscate the epidemic of sexual abuse and rape of children by Catholic clergy.
The Los Angeles Times reports on the Catholic Church’s seven step playbook for concealing the truth about priests raping and sexually abusing children. The seven steps in the “playbook” are:
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PITTSBURGH (PA)
PennLive
August 17, 2018
By Nancy Eshelman
Barry didn’t sleep well Tuesday night. The release of the grand jury report on sexual abuse by priests stirred decades-old memories. The boat. The school bus that served as a cabin. Motel rooms. Swimming nude at the CYO while two priests watched.
Priests Francis A. Bach and Joseph M. Pease co-owned a boat they kept in Goldsboro. Beginning in the mid-60s, Barry (not his real name) went there several times with other boys from school.
Barry remembers the school bus contained cots. He was not abused there, but suspects others were.
His abuse would come later.
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NEW YORK (NY)
The Center for Constitutional Rights
August 15, 2018
In the wake of the Pennsylvania grand jury report detailing widespread sexual violence across the state and cover-up by senior leaders of the Catholic Church in Pennsylvania and the Vatican, survivors renewed calls for a federal investigation, which they requested in 2003 and again in 2014. The Center for Constitutional Rights and the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) sent a letter to the Department of Justice demanding an investigation and reiterating the facts of the nationwide crisis that has proven to be more pervasive with each passing year. The groups say it is the responsibility of the federal government to protect children in the future by conducting a thorough investigation and taking appropriate steps.
“If they had done what we asked in 2003, how many children would have been spared?” said Tim Lennon, President of SNAP’s Board of Directors.
“Despite all the evidence that thousands of children suffered needlessly to protect the image of the Catholic Church, federal officials have taken virtually no steps to probe or prevent these crimes or cover-ups or punish clerics who conceal or commit them,” said Peter Isely, who is now a founding member of End Clergy Abuse (ECAglobal.com), a new global organization of survivor leaders and human rights activists from five continents and 28 countries launched in Geneva in June. Isely authored the 2003 SNAP white paper and call for investigation to the DOJ. ECA is joining SNAP’s call today to the DOJ on behalf of survivors around the world.
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WASHINGTON (DC)
FOX 5 DC
August 18, 2018
By Cori Coffin
Two days after Cardinal Donald Wuerl sat down exclusively with FOX 5, others are coming forward to refute the Archbishop of Washington’s claims that he did everything he could to protect victims within the Catholic Church.
A growing number of people are also calling for Wuerl’s resignation, including David Lorenz, the Maryland director for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP.
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PITTSBURGH (PA)
The Washington Post
August 18, 2018
By Marc A. Thiessen
In 1972, Pope Paul VI warned that “the smoke of Satan has entered the Church of God.” We see that smoke throughout the report from a Pennsylvania grand jury, which alleges that more than 300 priests abused more than 1,000 children in six Pennsylvania dioceses — including 99 priests from the Diocese of Pittsburgh, which was led for 18 years by Cardinal Donald Wuerl, now archbishop of Washington.
How bad was the abuse? The report notes that “during the course of this investigation, the Grand Jury uncovered a ring of predatory priests operating within the [Pittsburgh] Diocese who shared intelligence or information regarding victims as well as exchanging the victims amongst themselves. This ring also manufactured child pornography . . . [and] used whips, violence and sadism in raping their victims.” According to Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, one victim, a boy named George, “was forced to stand on a bed in a rectory, strip naked and pose as Christ on the cross for the priests. They took photos of their victim, adding them to a collection of child pornography which they produced and shared on church grounds.” Abusing a child while mocking the Passion of Christ is truly diabolical.
Cardinal Wuerl, who served as the bishop of Pittsburgh from 1988 to 2006, did discipline some priests — and even went to the Vatican to fight an order that he reinstate one. But the grand jury also wrote that he reassigned other predator priests — including the one who “groomed” George and introduced him to the ring that photographed him. In at least one case, Cardinal Wuerl required a victim to sign a “confidentiality agreement” barring him from discussing his abuse with any third party as part of a settlement. That is a cover-up. In addition, the grand jury also wrote that under his leadership the diocese failed to report allegations of abuse to law enforcement, advocated for a convicted predator at sentencing, and then provided a $11,542.68 lump-sum payment to the disgraced priest after his release from prison.
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DUBLIN (IRELAND)
Reuters
August 18, 2018
By Padraic Halpin
The Archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, withdrew on Saturday from next week’s World Meeting of Families in Dublin, the second senior cleric to pull out of the Roman Catholic event amid clerical sexual abuse scandals in the United States.
The meeting, a major congress held every three years, will be closed by Pope Francis during the first papal visit in almost 40 years to Ireland where a series of abuse scandals has also rocked the church’s standing in the once staunchly Catholic country.
The withdrawal from the Dublin event followed a bombshell grand jury report this week that detailed widespread abuse by hundreds of priests in Pennsylvania and a systematic cover-up campaign by their bishops over a 70-year period.
Wuerl, who was Bishop for the Diocese of Pittsburgh in western Pennsylvania from 1988 to 2006, has not himself been accused of any wrongdoing against children.
The report found that Wuerl notified the Vatican in 1989 of several priests who had been accused of sexually abusing children but that over subsequent years he granted requests by some to be reassigned to other parishes or to retire early, and in one case approved a loan to assist one such priest with personal debts.
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NEW YORK (NY)
New York Post
August 18, 2018
Post Editorial Board
Of all the horrors in the Pennsylvania grand-jury report on decades of abuse by Catholic priests, the greatest may be this: “Monsignors, auxiliary bishops, bishops, archbishops, cardinals have mostly been protected” — and “many, including some named in this report, have been promoted.”
The 1,400-page report covers decades of secret history for six of the state’s eight dioceses. It lists 300-plus priests who had engaged in abuse, mostly of boys but also of girls. The incomplete roster of victims runs more than 1,000.
Details include a child pornography ring, rape of a pre-teen girl in the hospital, sadistic “grooming,” a girl impregnated and then “helped” with an abortion and on and on and on.
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RANCAGUA (CHILE)
AFP
August 18, 2018
By Ana Fernandez
The prosecutor in charge of investigating a massive sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church in Chile said several bishops could face charges after he questions the Cardinal Archbishop of Santiago, Ricardo Ezzati, for the first time next week.
Prosecutor Emiliano Arias will on Tuesday take a statement from Ezzati, the head of the church in Chile, who has denied allegations that he covered up cases of abuse, including those by a top aide who was jailed earlier this year.
Other bishops “whose actions are being analyzed, could also be accused,” Arias told AFP in an interview at the Rancagua prosecutor’s office 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of Santiago.
State prosecutors began investigating scores of abuse cases last month after outrage around the country over the church’s own probe into decades of abuse by priests, crimes over which it often failed to take any action or handed down too-lenient punishments. Now bishops and other priests accused of abuse in Chile will face the full force of secular law.
Arias said he will have to determine if Ezzati “fulfilled or failed to fulfill his obligations” to protect victims and enforce church regulations.
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PITTSBURGH (PA)
90.5 WESA/NPR
August 18, 2018
By Kathleen Davis
The release of a massive grand jury report into sexual abuse in six Roman Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania is posing a challenge for priests who will address the report to their parishioners this weekend. The roughly 900-page report includes horrid reports of of “predator priests” that conducted “criminal and/or morally reprehensible conduct” — often covered up for decades.
In response, the Diocese of Pittsburgh has requested all their priests read a letter at weekend masses addressing the report. It reads, in part, “We cannot bury our heads in the sand. There were instances in the past when the Church acted in ways that did not respond effectively to victims.” The letter also outlines some ways the Diocese plans to improve how it addresses and reports abuse, including hiring a former state prosecutor to review their policies related to child protection.
Father Lou Vallone says the grand jury report has certainly been on the minds of people in his congregation. He is the priest at St. John of God, a gothic-style Catholic church in McKees Rocks, just outside of Pittsburgh. He’s been at the church for 15 years, but has been a priest in Western Pennsylvania for 45.
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LAKEVILLE (CT)
NBC New York
August 18, 2018
School officials said in a letter they’ve notified law enforcement and other authorities about the report’s findings
The Hotchkiss School, an elite boarding school in Lakeville, Connecticut has found that seven former faculty members sexually abused students primarily during the 1970s and 1980s.
The school in Lakeville said in a report posted on its website late Friday that independent investigators found 16 students were subjected to unwanted contact from male faculty, including intercourse.
It also documents instances when former administrators failed to intervene when made aware of the sexual misconduct, which happened between 1969 and 1992.
School officials said in a letter they’ve notified law enforcement and other authorities about the report’s findings.
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ANNAPOLIS (MD)
The Washington Post
August 18, 2018
By Justin Wm. Moyer
A private school in Maryland has launched an investigation into allegations that a culture of sexual abuse flourished decades ago with administrators’ knowledge.
Multiple former students told The Washington Post they were groomed and sexually abused by teachers in the 1970s at Key School in Annapolis, and in some cases had intimate contact with adults that lasted years.
Two Baltimore lawyers are leading the investigation into the alleged misconduct at the school, which serves students from prekindergarten through 12th grade. Matthew Nespole, the current head of school, said in a statement this month that a February review of the allegations indicated former Key officials failed to protect students.
“It appears that members of the Key community neglected to respond appropriately to contemporaneous reports made by former students of faculty misconduct that includes the sexual victimization of students,” the statement said. “I offer my deepest sympathy to the victims and survivors and sincerely hope the investigation will help us begin the healing process.”
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DETROIT (MI)
Detroit Free Press
August 19, 2018
By David Jesse
When she heard Jordyn Wieber give a victim impact statement during Larry Nassar’s sentencing in January, Becca Bovine was struck by how Wieber was summing up exactly how Bovine felt.
So Bovine told her parents and husband by text that she had also been sexuallyassaulted by Nassar, but wasn’t ready to talk about it. She and her family later attended morevictim impact statements and Bovine, now an adult, made oneherself in Eaton County court proceedings.
Now she’s among more than 50 womento file new lawsuits against Nassar and his employers, including Michigan State University, since the original wave of lawsuits was settled by MSU in mid-May. MSU officials said in a court filing Friday they have been notified by several others that suits are coming.
Bovine has a simple message for others who are still holding abuse by Nassar secret.
“There are hundreds of other people who will support you,” she said.
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UNITED STATES
Fox News
August 18, 2018
By Amy Lieu
A former special agent with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was arrested this week, accused of sexually assaulting one woman and twice raping another.
ICE said in a statement that John Jacob Olivas, 43, had worked for the agency’s Homeland Security Investigations unit in California and allegedly abused his position to convince the women to not report his “violent conduct,” the statement said.
The alleged crimes occurred in 2012, the statement said.
The indictment alleges that Olivas attempted to rape one victim in January 2012 after telling her that any effort to report his conduct would be futile because of his position as a federal law enforcement officer.
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PITTSBURGH (PA)
KDKA
August 17, 2018
By Ralph Iannotti
The board of directors at a local high school is considering removing the name of Cardinal Wuerl from its title.
The new school year is beginning with big questions looming over Cardinal Wuerl North Catholic High School. Will the school undergo a name change because of an online petition to drop Cardinal Wuerl’s name?
Monsignor Ron Lengwin, spokesman for the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh, told KDKA-TV News Friday night, “People were saying, take the name of Cardinal Wuerl off the high school; so, the bishop thought he should talk to some people about this.”
After the release earlier this week of a grand jury report involving clergy sex abuse statewide, and how then-bishop, now-Cardinal Wuerl allegedly mishandled complaints about abusive priests, an online petition to strip the the school of the Archbishop of Washington’s name has already garnered about 5,000 signatures. The organizers’ new goal is 7,500 signatures.
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IRELAND/PITTSBURGH (PA)
CBS Cleveland
August 2018
Caridnal Donald Wuerl has canceled his scheduled appearance at the World Meeting of Families in Dublin, Ireland.
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HARRISBURG (PA)
Daily Mail
August 17, 2018
By Hannah Parry
– A grand jury report revealed that hundreds of Roman Catholic priests in Pennsylvania have molested more than 1,000 children
– It found that the church systematically covered up the abuse using ‘a playbook for concealing the truth’
– State AG Josh Shapiro said: ‘We saw Catholic priests weaponizing their faith… and all the while the bishops, the monsignors, the cardinals covered it up’
– The FBI’s National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime found that the church used a number of techniques for avoiding bringing attention to assault claims
– Such as never using words such as rape in reference to such claims, but simply calling them ‘boundary issues’ or ‘inappropriate contact’
– Priests would be transferred to a new parish where no one knew his reputation or taken to a church-run institute for evaluation if claims mounted up
An FBI investigation has found that the Catholic church had a ‘playbook’ for covering up sex abuse crimes by its priests.
A grand jury report released Tuesday, revealed that hundreds of Roman Catholic priests in Pennsylvania have molested more than 1,000 children and that senior church officials, including the now archbishop of Washington, D.C. covered up the abuse.
The report said the numbers of actual victims and abusers could be much higher.
It found that the church systematically covered up the abuse using ‘a playbook for concealing the truth.’
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DETROIT (MI)
Detroit Free Press
Aug. 19, 2018
Archbishop Allen Vigneron demonstrates that he does not fully understand the priest sex abuse problem.
By bringing up the spiritual and moral failings of the priests and bishops involved, his focus on breaking the vow of celibacy and not living within the call of chastity is off base. The sexual abuse of minors is a violent crime, one that steals innocence from a child and many times robs them of healthy sexual relationships as adults.
Why is it a more severe crime when the perpetrators are priests? By their authority within a parish these abusers grossly misuse power and trust. They also damage the victim’s image of God. God sides with the victims, of this I am sure. Yet, one can’t help but see how this would harm the victim’s ability to connect with a church community and sour the victim’s idea of a loving and compassionate God. Many victims struggle with depression and some have resorted to suicide.
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HARRISBURG (PA)
Associated Press
August 17, 2018
By Marc Levy
Attorneys general around the U.S. have been largely silent this week about any plans to conduct an investigation like Pennsylvania’s that uncovered widespread child sexual abuse in six Roman Catholic dioceses, although New York’s top prosecutor is an exception, saying she is exploring teaming up with the local district attorneys.
The comments by the New York attorney general’s office Friday come on the heels of a sweeping grand jury report that also accused a succession of bishops and other church leaders of helping to keep quiet allegations against 300 “predator priests” who had victimized more than 1,000 children.
Attorney General Barbara Underwood has directed her criminal division to reach out to local district attorneys to see if they can “establish a partnership on this issue,” her spokeswoman, Amy Spitalnick, said in statement. “Victims in New York deserve to be heard as well.”
In New York, the attorney general, unlike district attorneys, doesn’t have the power to convene grand juries to investigate such abuses. Two, in Westchester and Suffolk counties, already have.
Meanwhile, many state attorneys general have a narrow scope of investigative authority, unless a local prosecutor refers a case to them. That’s ultimately how Pennsylvania’s grand jury investigation began.
In 2013, a diocese’s settlement with 11 men who accused a Franciscan friar of sexually abusing them at a Catholic high school in northeast Ohio more than two decades earlier stoked complaints that the friar had abused boys at a Pennsylvania school in the late 1990s.
The friar, Stephen Baker, 62, killed himself shortly afterward, but the district attorney in Cambria County began investigating the matter before referring it to the state attorney general’s office.
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YORK (PA)
York Daily Record
August 17, 2018
By Anthony J. Machcinski
In a nearly 900-page grand jury report on abuse by priests in the Catholic dioceses of Pennsylvania, the name St. Luke’s Institute keeps appearing.
It was where Father Joseph Mueller was sent in April 1986 after he tried to pull down the pants of a teenager on multiple occasions, according to the report.
The Rev. Richard Terdine, too, was sent there after he allegedly patted the genital area of a boy and massaged his back.
In total, at least 30 priests were sent to St. Luke’s Institute, according to the report that goes back decades.
The report released Tuesday, which listed the names of 301 priests in six Catholic dioceses accused of child abuse, names psychiatric treatment centers as part of the issue of dealing with problem priests.
St. Luke’s isn’t the only place where priests were sent. Other mentioned treatment centers include St. John Vianney, a church-run facility in Downingtown, Pennsylvania, where at least 17 priests were sent, and Southdown Institute, a psychiatric facility in Canada where several others took sabbaticals.
The grand jury drew attention to treatment centers as part of the problem.
“(The dioceses) for an appearance of integrity, send priests for ‘evaluation’ at church-run psychiatric treatment centers,” the report states. “(The dioceses) allow these experts to ‘diagnose’ whether the priest was a pedophile, based largely on the priest’s ‘self-reports’,” and regardless of whether the priest had actually engaged in sexual contact with a child.”
Susan Gibbs, a spokeswoman for St. Luke’s, disagreed with that statement.
They are actually part of the solution,” Gibbs said. “(St. Luke’s) provided external information to the diocese so they could make the right steps… By sending people to treatment, you’re giving them treatment that will hopefully end the abuse.”
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NEW YORK (NY)
CBS News
By Jason Silverstein
August 17, 2018
Editor’s Note: This story contains graphic details about child sex abuse that may offend some readers. CBS News is choosing to publish these detailed accounts from the Grand Jury investigative report because the details are essential to understanding the scope of abuse. The report said the victims deserve to have the public know what happened to them. “We, the members of this grand jury, need you to hear this,” it said.
Sodomy with a crucifix. Child porn in parishes. A naked boy posing as Christ.
Those are just a few of the most disturbing allegations from the landmark grand jury report released this week detailing decades of child sex abuse from priests across Pennsylvania.
The scope of the two-year grand jury report is unprecedented: It identified more than 300 alleged predator priests and more than 1,000 child victims. It’s made more shocking by how extreme many of the allegations are.
Over nearly 1,400 pages, the report graphically describes one horror after another, with children being molested, beaten and raped. The report also lays out how priests used the Catholic faith to manipulate their victims, and how church officials buried the abuse for years.
The report said that nearly every case has passed the statute of limitations for prosecution, even when the priests confessed to their crimes. It recommends eliminating the statute and opening a two-year window for victims to file civil lawsuits now.
Here are some of the cases as they were described in the report.
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HARRISBURG (PA)
Associated Press
August 18, 2018
By Natalie Pompilio
A Pennsylvania bishop named in a grand jury report on rampant sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clergy said Friday he has “profound remorse” and offers his “heartfelt apology” to the victims.
Speaking at a Mass of forgiveness, Harrisburg Bishop Ronald Gainer opened by reading the first paragraph of this week’s stunning report that said more than 300 predator priests had abused more than 1,000 children in six Pennsylvania dioceses. Forty-five of the priests named in the report served in the Harrisburg diocese.
The first paragraph of the nearly 900-page report said the grand jury knows the truth: that child sex abuse within the Catholic church happened everywhere.
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YORK (PA)
York Daily Record
August 17, 2018
By Brandie Kessler
The name of one accused priest from the Harrisburg diocese that was listed in the grand jury report released Tuesday was left off the list of names provided by the Harrisburg diocese earlier this month.
Matt Haverstick, the Harrisburg diocese’s attorney, said that the omission of James McLucas was not a mistake.
“This is not shenanigans by the diocese,” Haverstick said. “I don’t care what the grand jury report says.”
Haverstick said McLucas was not among the 72 names provided by the diocese because he did not sexually abuse a child.
“The report is not entirely accurate,” Haverstick said of the nearly 900-page grand jury presentment in which 301 priests are accused of sexually abusing children since the 1940s.
The grand jury report says McLucas was a priest in the Archdiocese of New York living in Elysburg, Pennsylvania, as the chaplain to a monastery in 2014. Elysburg is within the Diocese of Harrisburg’s territory.
“The head Mother of the Monastery called the Diocese of Harrisburg after finding out McLucas had sexually abused a 14 year old girl and continued a relationship with her into her adulthood,” the grand jury report says. “This was reported to the Archdiocese of New York in 2012.”
But Haverstick said a lawsuit filed by the woman who said McLucas abused her mentions nothing of McLucas abusing her when she was a child.
More: ‘Go home, be a good priest’: How 25 bishops in Pa. Catholic dioceses responded to sex abuse
More: List: Names, details of 301 Pa. priest sex abuse allegations in Catholic dioceses
The woman filed the lawsuit in New York in July 2012 when she was 26 years old,
The lawsuit indicates that beginning in July 2007 and continuing through December 2009, the woman was “sexually abused, attacked and harassed,” by McLucas.
At the time the sexual relations began, the woman was 20 years old, and McLucas was working for the Archdiocese of New York.
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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Post-Gazette
August 17, 2018
By Anya Sostek
After months of delay, the grand jury report on child sex abuse among Pennsylvania clergy is out. And for some area priests, the process of consoling a stunned congregation is well underway.
In the days since the release of the report, priests have been addressing it in person, in bulletins and even on Twitter.
The Rev. Lou Vallone, pastor of St. John of God Parish in McKees Rocks and St. Catherine of Siena Parish in Crescent, said that he isn’t sure whether he will address the grand jury report in his Sunday homily. But he’s spent much of the week hearing from “devastated” members of his parishes.
“To be honest, our people are moving beyond anger into rage over this,” he said. “We can and must deal with anger, especially when it’s justified. When people ask me and talk to me, if somebody is enraged and just going over the top, I just absorb it. When they’re enraged, I just stand and absorb it.”
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FORT MYERS (FL)
News-Press
August 15, 2018
By Melanie Payne and Ryan Mills
Four priests with ties to Fort Myers, Naples and Port Charlotte were named in a Pennsylvania grand jury report detailing child sexual abuse by priests.
The four are among the more than 300 — including at least 16 with ties to Florida — who the report states were perpetrators, are being investigated for possible sexual misconduct or were involved in a cover-up of the scandal.
The report, released Tuesday, names the Rev. Robert J. Brague, who once served at St. Ann in Naples, the Rev. Timothy Sperber, who lives in Port Charlotte, and the Rev. Thomas M. O’Donnell, who lives in the Fort Myers area, as priests who engaged in inappropriate sexual behavior with minors but were protected by the Catholic Church.
The grand jury report also names the Rev. Sean Kerins, of Naples, as one of three cases under investigation by law enforcement. He is presumed innocent unless proved otherwise, according to the report.
Kerins, 28, who has family members living in Lee and Collier counties, is listed in the report as living in Naples. According to news reports, Kerins was placed on permanent leave by the Diocese of Erie after officials said they learned he had sent a series of inappropriate text messages to a student at Kennedy Catholic High School.
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WILMINGTON (DE)
News-Journal
August 16, 2018
By Xerxes Wilson
There are Delaware ties to three priests named in a sprawling Pennsylvania grand jury report detailing sexual abuse by hundreds of clergymen over 70 years.
At least two held positions at Salesianum School in Wilmington and another was employed at Archmere Academy in Claymont. Another is said to have molested adolescent brothers on a trip to Rehoboth Beach.
The report covers abuse and subsequent cover-ups within six Pennsylvania Catholic dioceses. The abuse detailed about priests with local ties appears to have occurred outside their duties at Delaware schools though at least one of the priests was previously sued for sex abuse at Salesianum.
The late Father John McDevitt taught at Sallies in the 1980s. The grand jury report states that a man reported that he had kissed him in a confessional at a Pennsylvania High School that McDevitt taught at before his time at Salesianum.
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PITTSBURGH (PA)
WTAE
August 17, 2018
By Paul Van Osdol
A Pittsburgh priest named in the state grand jury report on child sex abuse in six Catholic dioceses refused to answer questions about the allegations Friday.
WTAE reached the Rev. Richard Terdine at his condominium in Shadyside. Asked to respond to the grand jury report, Terdine said, “I’m going out of town for a week” and he would “rather not” do an interview.
The grand jury report says in 1988, Terdine was accused of abusing a 16-year-old boy in the rectory of St. Peter in McKeesport. The report says Terdine admitted to improperly touching the boy and also buying him pornography and condoms.
In 1990, the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh removed Terdine from the parish and assigned him to work as a chaplain at UPMC hospitals.
The grand jury says that in 2003, the diocesan Ministerial Assessment Board recommended that Terdine not be assigned to any parish. The board’s report said that “given the possibility of the truth of averments made by the (victim), the moral integrity of the diocese cannot be jeopardized by any assignment of Father Terdine.”
Yet records show the diocese allowed Terdine to continue celebrating Mass at area churches, including St. James in Sewickley and Good Shepherd Church in Braddock.
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HARTFORD (CT)
Hartford Courant
August 17, 2018
By Dave Altimari
Henry J. Mansell, the retired Archbishop of Hartford, had a role in the 1985 transfer of a known pedophile priest from New York to Pennsylvania, where the priest then had inappropriate contact with school children, a grand jury report released this week reveals.
The report by a Pennsylvania grand jury detailing horrific incidents of child sex abuse by priests also includes other references to Connecticut — including a child pornography case and the treatment of two pedophile priests at the Institute of Living in Hartford. Institute officials previously have said they were unaware the Catholic Church was keeping abusive priests in the ministry after treatment in Hartford.
The nearly 1,400-page report released earlier this week alleged that Pennsylvania church officials covered up child sexual abuse by more than 300 priests over a period of 70 years. The report, which covered six of the state’s eight Catholic dioceses, found more than 1,000 identifiable victims.
“I am not available for comment. The report does not suggest I did anything wrong,’’ Mansell said in a statement released Friday. “We agree with the Pope and the Bishops in the United States regarding what they have said about abuses against children and young people.”
The Pennsylvania grand jury report has stirred strong reaction among church officials in Connecticut, where tens of millions of dollars have been paid in settlements from abuse cases dating back decades. At this weekend’s Masses, priests are scheduled to read a letter from current Hartford Archbishop Leonard Blair that is critical of the way church leaders dealt with pedophile priests.
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HARRISBURG (PA)
The Diocese of Harrisburg
August 14, 2018
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg’s Bishop, Ronald W. Gainer, issued the following statement on the release of the Grand Jury Report on child sexual abuse:
“I read the Grand Jury Report on child sexual abuse with great sadness, for once again we read that innocent children were the victims of horrific acts committed against them. I am saddened because I know that behind every story is a child precious in God’s sight; a child who has been wounded by the sins of those who should have known better.
“As I stressed last week when we released information regarding our own internal review of child sexual abuse in the Harrisburg Diocese, I acknowledge the sinfulness of those who have harmed these survivors, as well as the action and inaction of those in Church leadership who failed to respond appropriately.
“In my own name, and in the name of the Diocesan Church of Harrisburg, I express our profound sorrow and apologize to the survivors of child sex abuse, the Catholic faithful and the general public for the abuses that took place and for those Church officials who failed to protect children.
“We will continue to make amends for the sins of our past, and offer prayers and support to all victims of these actions. We are committed to continuing and enhancing the positive changes made, to ensure these types of atrocities never occur again. Since the turn of the century, the Church has instituted policies that take clear and decisive action to prevent future abuse.
“I want children, parents, parishioners, students, staff, clergy and the public to know that our Churches and our schools are safe; there is nothing we take more seriously than the protection of those who walk through our doors. We send every and all complaints to the proper legal authorities. The safety and well-being of our children is too important not to take immediate and definitive action.”
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