ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED STATES
TIME Magazine

December 6, 2017

By Stephanie Zackarek, Eliana Dockterman and Haley Sweetland Edwards
Photographs by Billy and Hells for TIME

Movie stars are supposedly nothing like you and me. They’re svelte, glamorous, self-­possessed. They wear dresses we can’t afford and live in houses we can only dream of. Yet it turns out that—in the most painful and personal ways—movie stars are more like you and me than we ever knew.

In 1997, just before Ashley Judd’s career took off, she was invited to a meeting with Harvey Weinstein, head of the starmaking studio Miramax, at a Beverly Hills hotel. Astounded and offended by Weinstein’s attempt to coerce her into bed, Judd managed to escape. But instead of keeping quiet about the kind of encounter that could easily shame a woman into silence, she began spreading the word.

“I started talking about Harvey the minute that it happened,” Judd says in an interview with TIME. “Literally, I exited that hotel room at the Peninsula Hotel in 1997 and came straight downstairs to the lobby, where my dad was waiting for me, because he happened to be in Los Angeles from Kentucky, visiting me on the set. And he could tell by my face—to use his words—that something devastating had happened to me. I told him. I told everyone.”

She recalls one screenwriter friend telling her that Weinstein’s behavior was an open secret passed around on the whisper network that had been furrowing through Hollywood for years. It allowed for people to warn others to some degree, but there was no route to stop the abuse. “Were we supposed to call some fantasy attorney general of moviedom?” Judd asks. “There wasn’t a place for us to report these experiences.”

Finally, in October—when Judd went on the record about Weinstein’s behavior in the New York Times, the first star to do so—the world listened. (Weinstein said he “never laid a glove” on Judd and denies having had nonconsensual sex with other accusers.)

When movie stars don’t know where to go, what hope is there for the rest of us? What hope is there for the janitor who’s being harassed by a co-worker but remains silent out of fear she’ll lose the job she needs to support her children? For the administrative assistant who repeatedly fends off a superior who won’t take no for an answer? For the hotel housekeeper who never knows, as she goes about replacing towels and cleaning toilets, if a guest is going to corner her in a room she can’t escape?

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UNITED STATES
The Washington Post

December 6, 2017

By Lindsey Bever

Time magazine has named “The Silence Breakers” as its 2017 Person of the Year — the women (and some men) who came forward with stories of sexual harassment and assault, forcing a nationwide reckoning.

The magazine calls them “the voices that launched a movement.”

Among them: Actresses Ashley Judd and Rose McGowan, whose stunning accusations against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein helped lead to his downfall; activist Tarana Burke, the creator of the #MeToo movement; and Alyssa Milano, the actress who amplified it.

“The galvanizing actions of the women on our cover … along with those of hundreds of others, and of many men as well, have unleashed one of the highest-velocity shifts in our culture since the 1960s,” Time’s editor in chief, Edward Felsenthal, said in a statement to “Today.”

These “silence breakers” have forced a national reckoning on sexual harassment.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Independent

December 6, 2017

We have talked about the abuse in the Roman Catholic Church for decades, now we Muslims need to talk about this on our own doorsteps. These men can’t hide behind their beards anymore

From the outside, this man appears to the world as someone who cares about women. He is the director of a Muslim charity whose aim it is to improve lives, but they don’t know how he destroyed mine.

Fleeting moments for him were the times he served me a life sentence. The day he imposed his perversion on me was my first sexual experience – he stole my own journey of discovery as a consenting adult. I was 13 years old.

When I was a kid I dreamed of being an archaeologist. I studied Hieroglyphics and dinosaurs in my spare time. I was so excited to see Jurassic Park, yet that darkened room was where he took my innocence from me. Images of dinosaurs now give me flashbacks. From then on every night he has climbed into bed behind me, cradling me, as I lay in terror.

After a career in child protection, my adult self sees his grooming efforts for what they were. I would bend down to pick up things he would drop on the floor. I’d arise to his groin in my face. He took his time with every brush, every touch.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

December 6, 2017

By Steve Limtiaco

Former Guam priest Louis Brouillard allegedly raped an altar boy who was sleeping over at the rectory of the Tumon church in the late 1970s, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday afternoon in the U.S. District Court of Guam.

The lawsuit, filed by a 49-year-old man with the initials “J.M.Q.” is the 146th lawsuit accusing someone affiliated with the Guam Catholic church of child sexual abuse. It’s the 91st lawsuit naming Brouillard as the abuser.

According to the lawsuit filed by J.M.Q, Brouillard asked the boy’s father for permission to have J.M.Q. and his brother spend the evening at the rectory so they would not be late to serve as altar boys at Mass the following morning.

“J.M.Q.’s father gave consent without the slightest of doubt, not realizing that he was sending J.M.Q. and his brother to be sexually abused by a predator disguised in the robes of the clergy,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit accuses Brouillard of walking around naked and fondling J.M.Q, and of raping J.M.Q. at the Tumon rectory.

J.M.Q. who was 10 or 11 years old at the time, also was a Boy Scout with the Barrigada troop and helped Brouillard as an altar boy at the Barrigada parish, the lawsuit states.

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ENGLAND
Somerset Live

December 6, 2017

By Claire Herbaux

Offenders targeted two schools: One in Somerset and one in North Yorkshire

An inquiry is looking into paedophilia at a Somerset school and evidence will be heard today.

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) is examining the prevalence of paedophilia in the English Benedictine Congregation and failures in protecting young people.

This will focus on offenders that targeted children at two Roman Catholic schools, Ampleforth in North Yorkshire and Downside in Somerset , over the course of many decades.

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BIRMINGHAM (AL)
The Alabama Baptist

December 6, 2017

By Michael J. Brooks

Research suggests at least 60 million Americans are survivors of sexual abuse.

Concerned churches must be proactive in protecting children in their care from predators.

That was the message of the MinistrySafe Conference held at Canaan Baptist Church, Bessemer, on Sept. 19. The event was jointly sponsored by the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM) and GuideStone Financial Resources.

Greg Love, an attorney and a minister, served as presenter at the conference. Love and his wife, Kimberlee Norris, are co-founders of MinistrySafe and Abuse Prevention Systems of Fort Worth, Texas.

An estimated 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys under age 18 will be sexually abused, Love said. As a place where children are invited and welcomed, churches often attract predators.

Abusers most often go where the barriers are the lowest, Love explained.

“The Church is welcoming and affirming,” he said, “and we’re overjoyed when new people come and volunteer to work with children and youth. The abuser tries to gain the trust of leaders or what I call the ‘gatekeepers.’ They convince us they’re helpful, trustworthy and kind. Then they proceed to gain the trust of our children. This is called ‘grooming,’ and it’s a significant mark of the abuser.”

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EDINBURG (TX)
The Monitor

December 5, 2017

By Lorenzo Zazueta-Castro

[Note: See also http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news3/2004_11_21_Egerton_StexasDA_John_Feit_8.htm]

EDINBURG — John Feit, a former priest, is accused of the 1960 murder of Irene Garza after she went to confession at McAllen’s Sacred Heart Catholic Church. Here is the latest from the trial:

3:09 p.m.

Following testimony from Thomas Doyle, an American Catholic priest, the state called another expert witness in the study of celibacy among Roman Catholic priests.

Richard Sipe, a former Benedictine monk, has written books about Catholicism and the sexual abuses arising from the Catholic Church’s requirements of celibacy.

Sipe, who began collecting data in this field coincidentally the same year Irene Garza was killed, has written multiple books in this field and has had his research used most notably by the movie “Spotlight” — a 2015 film about the Catholic Church’s abuses in Boston.

The state established Sipe and Doyle as experts in these fields to argue that the church exhibited a pattern of concealing indiscretions by its priests.

The court recessed early for the day.

There is an issue the court will take up this afternoon related to the defense’s motion for a mistrial.

The defense claims that Sipes violated the agreement that he could only testify to evidence already entered into the record.

Because Sipes said “polygraph” during the defense’s cross-examination, the defense argued that this was in violation of what was agreed to by the court.

The state argues this was not brought up by prosecutors and that there was never a discussion of the results of Feit’s polygraph, thus no harm.

The judge is set to rule before testimony resumes tomorrow.

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EDINBURG (TX)
CBS 4 News

December 5, 2017

[Note: See also http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news3/2004_11_21_Egerton_StexasDA_John_Feit_8.htm]

Day four of the John Feit trial has ended with the defense asking for a mistrial motion.

After the last witness took the stand Tuesday, the defense asked the court for a mistrial regarding something that Richard Sipe said during his testimony.

The court ruled before Richard Sipe’s testimony that the state was limited to questioning Sipe only on admissible evidence. Sipe, a former priest who deals with mental health problems of priests and their sexuality, used his expertise to identify some red flags in Feit.

During his testimony, Sipe said the word “polygraph”—which was not admissible.

Feit’s defense attorney, Rene Flores, immediately asked for a mistrial.

Prosecutors say the action was a harmless error.

The court allowed the state to submit papers on the mistrial motion, but a decision will not be made until Wednesday morning.

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EDINBURG (TX)
CBS/AP

December 5, 2017

[Note: See also http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news3/2004_11_21_Egerton_StexasDA_John_Feit_8.htm]

EDINBURG, Texas — A former monk has testified that an ex-priest accused of killing a Texas woman in 1960 confessed to him three years after the killing. Dale Tacheny testified Monday in the murder trial of John Feit, now 85, who is accused of suffocating Irene Garza after she went to confession at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in McAllen.

An autopsy determined the teacher and former beauty queen was beaten, raped while unconscious and asphyxiated. “48 Hours” investigated the case in the 2014 episode, “The Last Confession.”

While police had interviewed hundreds of people in connection with Garza’s murder, Feit was their focus. He was the last person to see Garza. However, no charges were filed against Feit at the time. He eventually left McAllen, and the case went cold amid what many believed was a cover-up by the church.

Tacheny said Feit confessed to him in 1963, after the church sent Feit to a Missouri monastery where Tacheny worked. The former Trappist monk said Feit expressed no remorse during the confession.

Tacheny said he didn’t initially report the crime because it “was not my place to make a judgment.” The 88-year-old said he instead tried to counsel Feit to change his behavior toward women. But in 2002, Tacheny went to police in San Antonio and reported what Feit allegedly told him decades earlier.

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EDINBURG (TX)
KRGV

December 5, 2017

[Note: See also http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news3/2004_11_21_Egerton_StexasDA_John_Feit_8.htm]

EDINBURG – After another busy day in court, jurors were dismissed early Tuesday in the John Feit murder trial.

The judge is considering a defense motion to declare a mistrial.

Two experts in Canon and Catholic Church law took the stand Tuesday. A statement from one of those experts prompted the mistrial request.

Before the request, jurors spent most of the day listening to testimony from the two church experts.

At the start of the day’s session, lead prosecutor Michael Garza said it’s a case of betrayal, murder and a cover-up.

One of the witnesses was an expert in church law and the other an expert on the sexual behavior of some Catholic priests.

Thomas Doyle is a priest who no longer conducts church ceremonies. He was given access to some of the church’s files regarding Feit.

The files included letters and memos that were exchanged between priests in the Rio Grande Valley shortly after Irene Garza was killed.

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AUSTRALIA
The Standard

December 6, 2017

By Monique Patterson

A “catastrophic institutional failure” by the Catholic Church to take action on cases of sexual abuse led to more south-west children being abused, a royal commission has found.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Assault released a scathing report on Wednesday, which condemned the church’s Ballarat diocese leaders, who were responsible for parishes across the region.

“That harm could have been avoided if the church had acted in the interests of children rather than in its own interests,” the report said.

“It was only when there was a possibility that the sexual abuse of children by a priest would become widely known that any action was taken.

“Invariably, that action was to remove the priest from the community for a short period and then place him in another, more distant parish.

“Restrictions were not placed on priests and supervision was not given.”

The report said “commissioners heard that there was a tendency by clergy in the Diocese to treat complaints or allegations of child sexual abuse dismissively and in favour of the priest who was the subject of the allegation”.

The commission heard about abuse at a number of locations, including Mortlake and Warrnambool.

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AUSTRALIA
Catholic Outlook

December 6, 2017

Dear friends,

Re: Royal Commission Update

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will shortly release its final findings on public hearings, and its recommendations, related to the Catholic Church in Australia.

These case studies included evidence around the pain and hurt that was inflicted upon victims of abuse by Church authorities, including Diocese of Parramatta personnel.

Once again, I apologise on behalf of the Catholic Church and the Diocese of Parramatta for the irreparable harm caused to people who were betrayed by clergy, religious and lay people who were entrusted to lead ministry in this Diocese. Our response and processes at the time were clearly inadequate. For these failings, I wish to express my profound sorrow.

Throughout the Royal Commission, the Diocese of Parramatta has strived to engage in their processes with openness, transparency and a commitment to learning about our history so that our child protection policies and procedures are strengthened and there is restored confidence in Church ministry.

As we await the final reports and recommendations to be handed down, I would like to remind you that should anyone wish to report abuse by Church personnel to the Diocese, or require support for the impact upon them from abuse by Church personnel, that they may contact the Office for Safeguarding & Professional Standards on 02 8838 3419 or safeguarding@parra.catholic.org.au. Any matter of a criminal nature should be reported to the NSW Police on 131 444.

For any media related questions, please direct them to Joseph Younes, Communications Director on 02 8838 3435 or jyounes@parra.catholic.org.au.

Yours sincerely in Christ,

Most Reverend Vincent Long Van Nguyen OFM Conv

Bishop of Parramatta

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AUSTRALIA
Bendigo Advertiser

December 6, 2017

By Siobhan Calafiore

Clergy sexual abuse survivors feel they have been heard in a report deeming Ballarat’s Catholic Church culture of cover-up as a catastrophic institutional failure.

Survivor Paul Levey, who features in the redacted report released on Wednesday, said there was a sense of vindication in having Australia’s most powerful legal body reinforce survivors’ stories.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was scathing in its findings of the Congregation of Christian Brothers and the Catholic Diocese of Ballarat responses to abuse allegations.

Mr Levey lived at the presbytery in Mortlake after his parents separated in 1982, where he was subjected to daily sexual abuse at the hands of notorious paedophile Gerald Ridsdale.

“It has really put everything in black and white, what we all thought and what we all knew,” he said of the report.

“Because it was pretty bad what the (church) hierarchy did with it, covering it up.

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VICTORIA (AUSTRALIA)
The Age

December 7, 2017

By Melissa Cunningham

A “catastrophic and inexcusable” failure by the Catholic Church in Ballarat to deal with paedophile priests led to scores of children being abused, a royal commission has found.​

The response within the diocese of Ballarat to abuse complaints spanning more than three decades was driven by a desire to avoid scandal and protect the church’s reputation, the report by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse found.

“That harm could have been avoided if the Church had acted in the interests of children rather than in its own interests,” the commission said in a report released on Wednesday.

The findings, which come a day after a similarly damning report about the Melbourne archdiocese, said “there was a tendency by clergy in the diocese to treat complaints or allegations of child sexual abuse dismissively and in favour of the priest who was the subject of the allegation”.

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AUSTRALIA
The New Daily

December 6, 2017

By Lucie Morris-Marr

Witnesses at the Ballarat hearings will never forget the testimony of brave adult men as they recalled the horrific abuse they suffered as children in Catholic schools, choirs and orphanages.

Many shook violently and sobbed as they recalled in fine detail the beatings, the psychological terror and the vile sexual attacks all endured at the hands of the supposedly good men of the cloth.

Many old school friends in the town had already taken their own lives, they said, due to the unbearable memories and sense of shame and confusion about what was inflicted in dark corners of classrooms of St Alipius primary school, presbytery bedrooms and confession boxes.

Some later drove their cars into trees when they were adults.

Others spiralled into despair and depression, tumbling down into fatal hell-holes of drug and alcohol abuse.

The men who gave evidence in May 2015 were the survivors.

But only just.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News (AAP)

December 6, 2017

The Ballarat Catholic Church’s catastrophic and inexcusable failures led to more children being sexually abused by its clergy, a royal commission has found.

The response within the Diocese of Ballarat to abuse complaints spanning at least three decades was driven by a desire to avoid scandal and protect the church’s reputation, the commission said.

Priests were moved to another parish if allegations emerged where they often offended again.

The inexcusable failures led to more children being sexually abused by Catholic clergy in the diocese.

‘That failure led to the suffering and often irreparable harm to children, their families and the wider community,’ the commission said in its report released on Wednesday.

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AUSTRALIA
Christian Today

December 6, 2017

By Harry Farley

A Catholic diocese in Australia is being accused on a ‘catastrophic failure in leadership’ in a damning report into its handling of child sex abuse by priests.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse’s latest report is based on public hearings held in the Diocese of Ballarat between 2015 and 2016. It accuses the diocese of a culture of secrecy and said 90 per cent of the abuse complaints related to seven priests with more than half linked to just one, Gerald Ridsdale, acording to ABC.

Ridsdale was given 16 appointments over 29 years across western Victoria, Australia, and the report said the complaints against him were ‘remarkably and disturbingly similar’.

‘Harm could have been avoided if the Church had acted in the interests of children,’ the report said.

‘That failure led to the suffering and often irreparable harm to children, their families and the wider community.’

The report focuses on schools run by the Christian Brothers religious order and one school in particular – St Alipius boys school – where four of the school’s brothers and its chaplain, Gerald Risdale, were accused of sexually assaulting children.

The brothers’ response to the accusations was ‘grossly inadequate’, the commissions said, adding they ‘completely failed … to protect the most vulnerable children in their care’ and operatedin a structure ‘without checks and balances’.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

December 5, 2017

By Melissa Davey

Ballarat’s Ronald Mulkearns knew or strongly suspected paedophile priest was sexually abusing children and did nothing, report says

Children were sexually abused over many decades by notorious paedophile priests within the diocese of Ballarat largely because the bishop at the time, Ronald Mulkearns, had little concern for children, deliberately left them in danger, and failed to investigate or report offenders to police.

This was a key finding from a report on Catholic church authorities in Ballarat published by the child sex abuse royal commission on Wednesday. The report is the result of public hearings held in three parts in 2015 and 2016 in Ballarat and Sydney.

The hearings examined the response of the congregation of Christian Brothers in the St Patrick’s province of Ballarat and the Catholic diocese of Ballarat to complaints and allegations of child sexual abuse by Christian brothers, clergy and other religious staff.

“There is no doubt from the many documents which are in evidence that, at various times, Bishop Mulkearns, the bishop of Ballarat, knew or strongly suspected that these priests had sexually abused children in the diocese,” the report said.

“His concern was overwhelmingly about protecting the reputation of the church and avoiding scandal. There was little evidence that he was concerned to protect children from these priests.”

Mulkearns died last year aged 85. He managed the diocese from 1971 and during a time when numerous notorious paedophiles, including Gerald Ridsdale, Robert Best and Edward Dowlan, were found to have been abusing children. Australia’s most notorious paedophile, Ridsdale, has been convicted of sexually abusing 65 children, although his victims are believed to run into the hundreds.

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AUSTRALIA
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

December 5, 2017

By Charlotte King

The Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse has released a damning report into the Catholic Diocese of Ballarat, describing its handling of clergy child sex abuse as a “catastrophic failure of leadership”.

The commissioners found a culture of secrecy and failures in the church’s structure led to children being abused across the diocese over a number of decades.

“That failure led to the suffering and often irreparable harm to children, their families and the wider community,” the report stated.

“That harm could have been avoided if the Church had acted in the interests of children.”

The royal commission report is based on three public hearings into Ballarat — the first case study to look at the affect of child sexual abuse on an entire town.

The hearings, held over 2015 and 2016 in Ballarat and Sydney, revealed in gruelling detail the extent of child sex abuse across parishes, schools and homes in the far-reaching diocese.

Ninety per cent of the 140 abuse complaints reported to the diocese related to seven priests, with more than half of those relating to one individual, the infamous paedophile Gerald Ridsdale.

More than 100 pages of the report were dedicated to his crimes across western Victoria, where he was given 16 appointments over a period of 29 years.

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VICTORIA (AUSTRALIA)
The Age

December 6, 2017

By Megan Neil and Brendan Wrigley

A “catastrophic institutional failure” by the Ballarat Catholic Church to take action on cases of sexual abuse led to more children being abused by its clergy, a royal commission has found.

The response within the diocese of Ballarat to abuse complaints spanning at least three decades was driven by a desire to avoid scandal and protect the church’s reputation, the report by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse found.

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ADELAIDE (AUSTRALIA)
Australian Associated Press

December 6, 2017

– Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson is accused of covering up child sex abuse
– Wilson allegedly tried to prevent abuse claims from being reported to police
– He’s accused of covering up abuse by now-dead pedophile priest James Fletcher

Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson has been accused of covering up child sex abuse by the Catholic clergy for nearly three decades.

Crown prosecutor Gareth Harrison told the Newcastle Local Court on Wednesday that Wilson had allegedly been involved in a number of cases where he had tried to prevent abuse claims being reported to police between 1976 and 2004 to protect the Catholic Church.

In his opening address on the first day of Wilson’s trial where he is accused of concealing information about the abuse of an altar boy by now-dead pedophile priest James Fletcher in the NSW Hunter region, Mr Harrison said the evidence would show Wilson had failed to report widespread child abuse by the Catholic clergy and a teacher.

The prosecutor said Wilson had been a priest at a parish in 1976 when an altar boy came to him in the presbytery to reveal he had been sexually abused by Fletcher when he was 10 years old.

The altar boy claimed Wilson was shocked by the abuse claims and promised to look into it but nothing happened.

Mr Harrison said another altar boy, aged between eight and nine years old, went to see Wilson in the confessional box in late 1976 to complain about being abused by Fletcher but Wilson told the boy he was lying.

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AUSTRALIA
The Sydney Morning Herald

December 6, 2017

Joanne McCarthy

Archbishop Philip Wilson allegedly told a boy he “should be ashamed of himself for lying” and ordered him to “say 10 Hail Marys” after the child allegedly disclosed he had been sexually abused by Hunter priest Jim Fletcher, a landmark trial has heard.

Archbishop Wilson, then a junior Maitland-Newcastle priest, allegedly asked the boy “where he got the story from” and told him he did not believe him after the boy protested he was not making it up.

The court heard the boy allegedly told the then Father Philip Wilson during confession in 1976 that Father Fletcher “asked me to put my mouth on his penis, where you go to the toilet” while helping as an altar boy at an East Maitland Catholic church.

The boy was one of two alleged to have told Father Wilson in 1976 that they had been sexually abused by Fletcher.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

December 6, 2017

By Tessa Akerman

The Royal Commission into Child Sex Abuse has slammed the leadership failings of the Catholic Diocese of Ballarat as “catastrophic”.

The commissioners said the failings led to “the suffering and often irreparable harm” to the child victims, their families and the wider community.

“That harm could have been avoided if the Church had acted in the interests of children rather than in its own interests,” they said in the report published today.

The inquiry into the vast diocese in western Victoria spanned from the late 1960s to the early 1990s and examined the conduct of Gerald Ridsdale, Australia’s most notorious paedophile priest.

The commission found Ridsdale admitted his offending to Bishop Ronald Mulkearns by late 1975 and the bishop, who died last year, knew Ridsdale’s conduct was known to Bendigo police.

“It follows that Bishop Mulkearns, knowing that Ridsdale had offended against children … placed Ridsdale in another parish situation,” they said.

“It was inexcusably wrong for Bishop Mulkearns to have done so. It was an extraordinary failure for Bishop Mulkearns to appoint Ridsdale parish priest … it showed complete disregard for the safety and welfare of children in the Parish of Bungaree.”

The commission also found Bishop Mulkearns’ further appointment of Ridsdale to Edenhope was “inexcusably wrong”.

Complaints were made about Ridsdale’s later offending at Mortlake to Father Brian Finnigan, who later became a Bishop, and told the inquiry he didn’t realise parents’ concerns regarding their children.

“Given the questions he asked of the parents, and the need to ‘confront’ Ridsdale, we are satisfied that he understood the complaints to be serious matters concerning an improper relationship that Ridsdale was having with the children,” the commission found.

Ridsdale was later moved to the Catholic Enquiry Centre in Sydney and the commission found the appointment was under the belief it would limit Ridsdale’s access to children.

“We are satisfied that Bishop Mulkearns’ overwhelming concern was to protect his Diocese and the Church from further scandal,” the commissioners said.

The commission also found a former Victorian Police Chief Superintendent offered Detective Denis Ryan a promotion if he discontinued his investigations into alleged paedophile Monsignor John Day in 1972.

Day died in 1978 without being charged.

The commissioners found Bishop Mulkearns, his vicar general Father Frank Madden and some teachers at Catholic schools in Mildura were aware of allegations concerning Monsignor Day by 1972 and then Father George Pell had heard gossip “about Monsignor Day’s sexual activity with children”.

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ADELAIDE (AUSTRALIA)
Ten Eyewitness News

December 6, 2017

The trial of the world’s most senior Catholic official to be charged over failing to report child sex abuse offences will go ahead, after a Newcastle magistrate deemed him fit to stand trial.

Philip Wilson, Archbishop of Adelaide, had his trial delayed last week after “acting on medical advice” not to travel, following pacemaker surgery and because of concerns over his cognitive capacity, according to his defence barrister.

Earlier last week the Archbishop was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, for which his defence team said he was taking medication which could take six months to work.

In a statement Archbishop Wilson said he hoped the prescribed medication would assist in slowing the progress of the disease and improving his current health.

“It is a present reality that much stigma is still associated with Alzheimer’s disease,” he said.

“An initial reaction by many people is to think that life is all but over, and that a person with such a diagnosis cannot continue to live a productive life and contribute to society.

“If a point comes in the next eight years before my mandatory retirement as Archbishop of Adelaide… and I am advised by my doctors that the effects of Alzheimer’s disease might be beginning to impair my ability to function properly as Archbishop, I will offer my resignation.”

But after a one-week delay to his trial, the Newcastle Local Court heard evidence this morning from a South Australian neuropsychologist, who deemed him well enough to stand trial after examining the 67-year-old’s health.

Archbishop Wilson was charged in 2015 with failing to report child sex abuse allegations concerning another priest, dating back to the 1970s.

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ADELAIDE (AUSTRALIA)
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

December 5, 2017

By Lucy Carter and Giselle Wakatama

Archbishop Philip Wilson has appeared in court in Newcastle on one count of covering up an indictable offence after being declared fit to stand trial.

He flew into Newcastle today from Adelaide for the magistrate-alone trial.

The 67-year-old is accused of covering up abuse by priest Jim Fletcher in the Hunter Valley in the 1970s.

The Adelaide Archbishop is the most senior Catholic in the world to be charged with this offence.

Last week, Archbishop Wilson’s legal team told Newcastle Local Court their client had just had a pacemaker put in and had received an Alzheimer’s diagnosis after a fall.

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EDINBURG (TX)
710 KURV News Talk

December 5, 2017

[Note: See also http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news3/2004_11_21_Egerton_StexasDA_John_Feit_8.htm]

Defense attorneys have filed a motion for a mistrial in the murder trial of former McAllen priest John Feit, claiming a prosecution witness violated an agreement to not mention the polygraph tests given to the defendant.

The polygraph mention came Tuesday afternoon as prosecutors were questioning Richard Sipe, a former monk who has written books about sexual abuse among Catholic priests. Judge Luis Singleterry dismissed the jury early and said he will rule on the mistrial motion prior to the start of the trial Wednesday morning.

Prosecutors spent the day showing how the Catholic Church often attempted to hide the actions of bad priests, and before Sipe, they called to the stand another author who has investigated and written about sexual abuse by priests.

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EDINBURG (TX)
710 KURV News Talk

December 5, 2017

[Note: See also http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news3/2004_11_21_Egerton_StexasDA_John_Feit_8.htm]

An expert prosecution witness has been testifying today about past efforts by the Catholic Church to hide the actions of bad priests. Hidalgo County prosecutors in the murder trial of former McAllen priest John Feit today called to the stand Thomas Doyle, who has investigated child sexual abuse by priests and written several books on the matter.

Doyle cited the church’s attempts to cover up crimes by troubled priests by entering into unofficial agreements with local law enforcers that would allow local church leaders to simply move the priest out of the parish in order to avoid tarnishing the image of the church.

Doyle testified he believed that’s what happened to cover up the murder of Irene Garza, believed to have been committed Easter weekend of 1960 by John Feit who was a visiting priest at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in McAllen. Jurors are hearing a fourth day of testimony today.

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SCOTLAND
STV News

December 5, 2017

Theresa Tolmie-McGrane described a catalogue of abuse at an orphanage in Lanark.

A young girl had her arm broken by a nun who had discovered the child was being sexually abused by a priest, an inquiry has heard.

Theresa Tolmie-McGrane told how she had hoped she would be protected when the nun walked in on the assault in 1970, when she was eight, but was instead called a “whore”, grabbed and thrown towards a wall.

She said she was then given a “real hiding” by another nun and threatened with having her other arm broken if she told anybody what had happened.

Ms Tolmie-McGrane waived her right to anonymity at the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry.

She recounted a catalogue of abuse during her 11 years at Smyllum Park orphanage in Lanark, South Lanarkshire, which closed in the 1980s.

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UNITED STATES
The Washington Post

December 5, 2017

By Elise Viebeck and David Weigel

Facing multiple allegations of sexual harassment, Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) resigned as Congress’s longest-serving member on Tuesday, becoming the first lawmaker to step down as Capitol Hill grapples with allegations of inappropriate behavior by lawmakers.

Conyers, who represented the Detroit area for 52 years, yielded to mounting pressure from Democratic leaders to step aside as a growing number of female former aides accused him of unwanted advances and mistreatment. He has denied wrongdoing.

From a hospital in Detroit, the 88-year-old congressman said he was “putting his retirement plans together” and endorsed his son John Conyers III to replace him. Another Conyers family member has already declared his intention to run for the seat, raising the specter of an intrafamily contest.

Asked about the harassment allegations, Conyers said his legacy “can’t be compromised or diminished in any way by what we’re going through now.”

“This, too, shall pass,” Conyers told a local radio station in an interview. “My legacy will continue through my children.”

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Joseph V. Agostino was ordained for the Congregation of the Mission (Vincentians) in 1983. With the exception of a year in the late 1980s at Immaculate Conception parish in Baltimore, Agostino spent two and a half decades at St. John the Baptist in Brooklyn. He was named pastor in 2000, a role he held until 2009.

In 2003 a man came forward to allege that he had been sexually abused by Agostino. The Vincentians and the diocese investigated, both determining that there was insufficient evidence to substantiate the man’s claims. Agostino remained in ministry. In April 2009 the same man contacted the diocese, this time providing more detailed information about the alleged abuse, including that it occurred when he was a minor. Agostino was suspended pending the outcome of a new investigation. In September 2009 he was transferred to the Vincentians’ Eastern Province headquarters where, according to a bio on his order’s website in December 2017, “Fr. Joe has been assigned to various projects by the Superior General of the Congregation.”

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ITALY
Meridio News

December 2, 2017

By Dario de Luca

[Google Translate: So much silence and words pronounced with the dropper. In Bronte , the day after Father Pio Guidolin’s arrest , disbelief prevailed among the faithful . Many have been displaced by looking at the picture of the priest ended up in all the newspapers yesterday. Accused, by the magistrates of the prosecutor of Catania, to have carried out sexual abuse on some minors during the assignment in the church of Santa Croce in the district Sant’Agata Village . A period, that in the peripheral parish in the capital of Etna, with different shadows, including that on the economic management of funds. Elements that force the curia to move Guidolinin another location, and for the occasion the church Madonna del Riparo is located, right in Bronte.]

CRONACA – Dalle fine del 2016, e sino a qualche mese fa, il sacerdote accusato di abusi su minorenni era stato inviato dalla curia diocesana nella città del pistacchio. Dove i fedeli si dicono oggi «spiazzati» da quanto scoperchiato dai magistrati. Non diceva messe, soltanto qualche omelia: «Era pure bravo», raccontano

Tanto silenzio e parole pronunciate con il contagocce. A Bronte, il giorno dopo l’arresto di padre Pio Guidolin, tra i fedeli a prevalere è l’incredulità. In tanti sono rimasti spiazzati osservando la foto del sacerdote finita su tutti i giornali nella giornata di ieri. Accusato, dai magistrati della procura di Catania, di avere compiuto abusi sessuali su alcuni minorenni durante l’incarico nella chiesa Santa Croce nel quartiere Villaggio Sant’Agata. Un periodo, quello nella parrocchia periferica nel capoluogo etneo, con diverse ombre, compresa quella sulla gestione economica dei fondi. Elementi che costringono la curia a spostare Guidolin in altra sede, e per l’occasione viene individuata la chiesa Madonna del Riparo, proprio a Bronte. Il religioso arriva nella città del pistacchio a fine 2016 e ci rimane per diversi mesi del 2017.

«Non ha mai celebrato la messa, ma lo vedevo sull’altare», racconta a MeridioNews un fedele, che preferisce rimanere anonimo. Guidolin durante il suo esilio forzato a Bronte è stato affiancato nella chiesa guidata da padre Vincenzo Bonanno, con funzioni di assistente durante le celebrazioni religiose, senza occuparsi di somministrare i sacramenti. «Ha fatto qualche predica, ed era pure bravo. Con un linguaggio giovanile e netto», conclude il parrocchiano. Lungo le strade del centro pedemontano tutti si dicono spiazzati dal coinvolgimento dell’uomo in questa storia ma in pochi hanno davvero voglia di parlare. «È stato ospita a casa mia e non mi sarei mai immaginata una cosa del genere», aggiunge una donna.

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AUSTRALIA
The Tablet

December 5, 2017

By Mark Brolly

‘The damaged credibility of the Church because of the abuse scandal affects all Catholics’

Church revealed for all its ‘hypocrisy and self-interest, says Australian abuse council head
Francis Sullivan, the chief executive of the Truth, Justice and Healing Council that was set up to coordinate the Catholic Church’s response to the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse, has said the Church “has scandalised the faithful and those who rely on it as a moral compass and prudent guide”.

He made the statement in his regular blog, after speaking to the Australian bishops’ plenary meeting in Sydney last week. The Royal Commission’s final report, to be delivered on 15 December, will make recommendations that aim to support and inform the Australian government, institutions and the general public in preventing and responding to child sexual abuse in institutional contexts.

In the blog Mr Sullivan said the Council was charged to operate for the “life of the Royal Commission”. “That time is rapidly running out,” he said. “As part of our advisory role we will provide the church leadership with our own take on what these last five years have revealed and what the implications for the Church are contained within the Commission’s findings and recommendations.”

However, before the report is released he had a harsh message for bishops and religious leaders. They must commit he said to a future that is not characterised by a “business as usual” mentality. “They cannot fall prey to those reactionary interests within and without the Church who jump at any shadow and too quickly cast any public criticism of the Church as yet another shot across the bow of religious freedom,” he warned.

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ENGLAND
The Tablet

December 5, 2017

By Rose Gamble

Ampleforth did not have means, understanding or the ‘basic willingness’ to deal with child protection matters up until 2006, former social worker says

The national inquiry into child abuse has heard that police raised concerns that a former headmaster of Ampleforth college was “trying to control” an investigation into child sex abuse.

A north Yorkshire police detective asked if Father Leo Chamberlain, headmaster of the Catholic boarding school between 1992-2004, “interfered with the police investigation” by speaking to a victim of alleged abuse before informing the police.

These concerns were raised at the start of the second week of a hearing on the English Benedictine Congregation as part of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA). The Catholic Church is one of 13 organisations being examined by the inquiry, which is led by Prof Alexis Jay.

The inquiry heard details of a report from a Detective Sergeant Harnett, who was involved in investigating allegations at Ampleforth in the 1990s. In the report, he said that Fr Chamberlain had had a telephone conversation with the parents of the alleged victim, after which it was confirmed that the child would not give an account when questioned.

Giving evidence via video link on Monday 4 December, Fr Chamberlain, who worked at the school for over 30 years, told the inquiry: “There was no skulduggery before I put him on the telephone.”

“My responsibility is precisely to tell the parents, he added. “It made no obstruction to any police investigation.”

Police concerns that he had attempted to control the investigation were “completely subjective,” he told the inquiry.

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MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
The Catholic Leader

December 5, 2017

By Mark Bowling

THE Archdiocese of Melbourne allowed paedophile priests to abuse scores of children, according to a report released by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The report, which describes “a culture of secrecy” inside the Melbourne archdiocese, was released on December 5, just 10 days before the Commission’s final report is due to be handed down.

It found former Melbourne Archbishop Frank Little, who headed the archdiocese from 1974 until 1996, “sought to protect the archdiocese from scandal and liability and prioritised the interests of the Church over those of the victims”.

The Commission found Archbishop Little lied about the resignation of priests accused of child abuse, concealed ongoing financial assistance to some accused priests and moved others between parishes.

Sections of the Commission report that appear to deal with Cardinal George Pell who succeeded Archbishop Little as leader of Melbourne’s Catholics are redacted.

Cardinal Pell will face a four-week committal hearing next March as he fights sexual offence allegations. He denies the allegations.

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MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
Illawarra Mercury

December 5, 2017

A former Melbourne Catholic archbishop failed to protect children from a priest despite numerous complaints as he sought to avoid scandal to the church, a royal commission has found.

Archbishop Frank Little’s inaction over Doveton priest Fr Peter Searson left children at risk of harm, including sexual harm, and had catastrophic human consequences, the child abuse royal commission said.

“We are satisfied that there was a prevailing culture within the Archdiocese, led by Archbishop Little, of dealing with complaints internally and confidentially to avoid scandal to the church,” its report released on Tuesday said.

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MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
The New Daily

December 5, 2017

By Lucie Morris-Marr

Among the worst of it was a letter. It was dated August 20, 1984.

The Archbishop of Melbourne at the time, Frank Little, whose role would later be succeeded by the ambitious George Pell, wrote telling parishioners that he would not be investigating allegations of abuse by a priest as requested. He felt it was “improper”.

It was down to them to approach the priest, Father Peter Searson.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has issued a damning final report into “case study 35” on the Archdiocese of Melbourne exposing the culture of secrecy and failures.

In particular they singled out Archbishop Little, who died in 2008, for “abjectly failing to protect the safety of children” and leaving them at risk of “catastrophic human consequences”.

“Complaints were dealt with in a way that sought to protect the Archdiocese from scandal and liability and prioritised the interests of the Church over those of the victims,” the royal commission report said

The report said Archbishop Little, who headed the Archdiocese from 1974 to 1996, dismissed or ignored serious allegations of child sexual abuse against a number of priests including Searson who terrorised children.

And despite the long list of allegations against Searson, Archbishop Little then appointed him in 1984 as the parish priest at Doveton where complaints continued to be made.

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MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

December 5, 2017

By Nicole Asher

The former Melbourne Catholic Archbishop Frank Little led a culture of secrecy to protect the interests of the church ahead of abuse victims, the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse has concluded.

A report released by the royal commission today details how Archbishop Little covered up abuse allegations and moved offending priests to other parishes, where they continued to offend.

The report follows public hearings last year, where the royal commission was told of abuse allegations against seven priests in the Melbourne Archdiocese, including Father Peter Searson.

Father Little moved Father Searson from the Sunbury Parish after a string of allegations in the decade to 1984, including accusations he raped a woman, and threatened a girl with a knife.

He was moved to Doveton Parish where he continued to be the subject of complaints.

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MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
International Business Times

December 5, 2017

By Ewan Palmer

– Report finds former Melbourne archbishop Thomas Francis Little “ignored” allegations against Father Peter Searson.
– Archbishop moved Searson from parish after string of sexual assault allegations against priest.
– Searson found to have pointed gun at children and killed bird with screwdriver in front of them.

The former Melbourne Catholic Archbishop has been heavily criticised for failing to act on allegations of rape, sexual misconduct and animal torture against priests in order to protect the Church from scandal, an inquiry has found.

Archbishop Thomas Francis Little, who headed the Archdiocese from 1974 to 1996, was found to have dismissed or ignored serious allegations against a number of priests, even moving some alleged abusers to other parishes where they continued to offend.

A report from the child sex abuse royal commission focussed on the allegations against one priest in particular, Father Peter Searson, in relation to his conduct in the parishes of Doveton and Sunbury.

Among the allegations that Archbishop Little ignored were that Searson had raped a woman in 1974, made a “sexual advance” to a child in the confessional, sexually assaulted several boys and girls, conducted sex education classes with students in his bedroom and heard how some parishioners would not allow their children to be alone with him.

As well as other concerns raised to Little about Searson’s “unpleasant, strange, aggressive and violent” behaviour, there were also two instances in which he was said to have tortured animals in front of children, including stabbing a bird to death with a screwdriver, pointing a gun at some children and showing a dead body to some altar boys.

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MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
AAP

December 5, 2017

By Megan Neil

A DAMNING new report reveals how this Archbishop protected a gun-toting Catholic priest at the cost of the children he and others continued to abuse.

A FORMER Melbourne archbishop repeatedly did nothing about a gun-toting priest and others who abused children as he sought to protect the Catholic Church from scandal, an inquiry has found.

Archbishop Frank Little led a culture of secrecy in the Melbourne archdiocese designed to hide child abuse complaints against several priests and protect the church’s reputation, the child abuse royal commission concluded.

Archbishop Little knew about a litany of allegations against Sunbury and Doveton parish priest Father Peter Searson ranging from child sexual abuse to complaints about his unpleasant, strange, aggressive and violent conduct.

He did nothing, even when Searson pointed a hand gun at two people, threatened a girl with a knife and showed altar boys a dead body in a coffin.

The archbishop dismissed serious and credible complaints, backing a priest he knew had allegedly raped a woman in 1974 over concerned parishioners and parents.

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MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
The Guardian

December 5, 2017

By Melissa Davey

Royal commission finds former archbishop Thomas Francis Little ‘dismissed or ignored’ allegations of child sexual abuse

The failure of senior figures within the Catholic archdiocese of Melbourne, including the former archbishop Thomas Francis Little, to deal with serious allegations of child sexual abuse “demonstrates the catastrophic human consequences of inaction”, a report from the child sex abuse royal commission has found.

On Tuesday the commission released its findings from hearings held in Melbourne in 2015 and in Sydney last year about the response of Melbourne Catholic church authorities to allegations and complaints of child sexual abuse made against seven priests, and especially the abuse by Father Peter Searson.

Those hearings culminated in evidence from Cardinal George Pell, who gave evidence via video-link from the Vatican after his doctor declared him too unwell to fly to Australia to appear in person.

The commission’s report found that Little, who headed the archdiocese of Melbourne from 1974 to 1996, “dismissed or ignored serious allegations of child sexual abuse against a number of priests” and did not investigate or report them to police. The commission also found Little moved offending priests to other parishes where they continued to offend. Little died in 2008.

“We are satisfied that the evidence in the case study showed a prevailing culture of secrecy within the archdiocese, led by Archbishop Little, in relation to complaints,” the report found. “Complaints were dealt with in a way that sought to protect the archdiocese from scandal and liability and prioritised the interests of the church over those of the victims.”

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ENGLAND
The Catholic Herald

December 4, 2017

By Fr. Alexander Lucie-Smith

And what we can do about it

A recent piece of research shows that trust in the clergy has declined markedly in recent years, as this magazine reports. Though the clergy are far more trusted than politicians and journalists, they lag behind nurses and doctors.

The survey should not come as a surprise to anyone, but one might like to give a little thought to why this is the case.

Once, the clergy were often the only highly educated men in their communities, and thus their words would have counted for much. Now, they are just one of many professions, one set among many qualified people.

Social change has led to a decline in clergy status, which would have happened anyway, but this has undoubtedly been accentuated by self-inflicted wounds, in particular, that of the child abuse scandal, and the attendant cover-up. This cannot be stressed enough: the scandal did grave damage to the credibility of the Church. Because priests and bishops lied to cover up the misdemeanours of some, this created the impression that all clergy were quite prepared to be less than truthful if it suited their own ends. The child abuse scandal gave credence to the charge of hypocrisy, which sounds the death knell of respect for the clergy.

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WALES
The Guardian

December 5, 2017

By Amanda Gearing and Steven Morris

‘Alice’ says she fled UK to escape the painful memories but would return to give evidence in any inquiry into abbey

A victim of a monk who abused girls on Caldey Island has described how she took drugs to numb the emotional pain and eventually fled the UK to escape the memories.

Alice – not her real name – told the Guardian her earliest memories were of the monk, Thaddeus Kotik, and how he lured her with sweets and pets into dens he had set up around the remote island off the Welsh coast.

She had planned not to return to the UK but now says she will come back to give evidence if an inquiry is called into the abuse she and other girls suffered and how it was covered up.

Caldey Abbey is at the centre of a growing scandal after the Guardian revealed a string of allegations against Kotik dating back to the 1970s and 80s. Kotik was a member of the Cistercian order of Benedictine monks and lived on the island from 1947 until his death in 1992.

Six women sued the abbey over the allegations against Kotik, and another six women and a man have come forward reporting that they, too, were abused by him.

It has also emerged that police are investigating a second man over accusations of sexual abuse on Caldey and that a convicted sex offender, Paul Ashton, who is wanted by police, hid there for seven years until 2011.

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ENGLAND
Christian Today

December 5, 2017

By Mark Woods

One of the Church of England’s most senior clergy has called for a radical overhaul in how the Church deals with issues of safeguarding.

The Dean of St Paul’s, Very Rev Dr David Ison, has spoken out in an article posted on Christian Today and Via Media following high-profile cases where survivors of abuse have revealed their deeply troubling treatment at the hands of Church authorities.

He called for ‘robust structures and practices’ aimed at stopping the abuse of vulnerable people by clergy, urging a change in the Church’s culture to ensure particularly male pastors were enabled to understand issues of vulnerability. ‘An inadequate pastor will be flattered or frightened, or assume that it’s all about me, the pastor, rather than all about them, the person in need,’ he said. ‘If the pastor is also emotionally vulnerable, they can exploit the vulnerability of the person in need who is drawn to them – hence so much emotional and sexual abuse in the church and in other caring organisations.’

Controversially, Ison backed calls for the CofE to set up structures for safeguarding and discipline independent of the bishops, whose ministry he said was ‘compromised’ because they had to administer both pastoral care and discipline.

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ENGLAND
Premier

December 5, 2017

By Cara Bentley

In an inquiry into child sexual abuse, a detective has said he didn’t trust the Catholic head teacher at a boarding school.

Fr Leo Chamberlain was the head teacher of the Roman Catholic boarding school, Ampleforth College between 1992 and 2003.

He was questioned on Monday on whether he had interfered with the police’s investigation into a case of child sexual abuse by speaking to one of the alleged victims at his school before the police did.

He said that he spoke to the parents of a boy, who were abroad, over the phone and that “the child didn’t want to speak to anyone”.

The independent inquiry heard from Father Chamberlain that the child did not wish to make a statement and that his parents “did not feel a prosecution would serve any beneficial purpose”.

It was pointed out that he could be seen as controlling the investigation because he took the matter to social services and not to the police straight away.

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UNITED STATES
NBC11 Alive

December 5, 2017

By Sara M Moniuszko

Netflix fires Danny Masterson amid allegations

Actor Danny Masterson has been ousted from Netflix’s The Ranch amid multiple sexual assault allegations, Netflix said in a statement to USA TODAY.

“As a result of ongoing discussions, Netflix and the producers have written Danny Masterson out of The Ranch,” the statement read. “Yesterday was his last day on the show, and production will resume in early 2018 without him.”

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ENGLAND
Christian Today

December 5, 2017

By David Ison

Some recent blogging about sexual abuse and harassment in the Church of England has referred to ‘cassock chasers’. When I read it, it was a phrase new to me; but finding out what it meant was a revelation, in two ways. It’s not only that women are afraid to complain about male clergy harassment because they’ll be dismissed as ‘cassock chasers’ – women who pursue priests and look for revenge when their feelings aren’t reciprocated. But it’s also that some male clergy actually do stereotype women in this way, similar to how many men inside as well as outside the Church may see women, not as people, but as sexual stereotypes – ‘gels’, ‘slags’, ‘slappers’ or worse, to be defined by men’s desires and fears, not understood for who they really are.

Some will say, ‘It’s just a joke’, the dishonest defence of bullies everywhere. But it isn’t, is it? That the phrase even exists, that any cleric could think of a woman as a ‘cassock-chaser’, that any woman could fear being treated as one, is a symptom of how deep-rooted the problem of patriarchal control is in the Church of England. To call someone a ‘cassock chaser’ is no joke, but a shallow, stereotyped and sexualised male-centred response to a person’s pastoral need.

There are many people we encounter in pastoral work who long for love, affection and intimacy. Some may respond to the loving pastoral care of a priest or other caring person by transferring their feelings to them, perhaps projecting onto them their image of an idealised partner.

A professional and caring pastor will handle those feelings carefully, and find ways to help the person concerned, even if because of the person’s mental illness, or because of the transference taking place, they aren’t able to help the person directly.

An inadequate pastor will be flattered or frightened, or assume that it’s all about ‘me the pastor’ rather than all about them the person in need. If the pastor is also emotionally vulnerable, they can exploit the vulnerability of the person in need who is drawn to them – hence so much emotional and sexual abuse in the church and in other caring organisations. And so the need for robust pastoral structures and practice, proper supervision and the confessional, and for pastors – and men in particular – to know themselves well and be getting help for their own emotional issues. If you don’t understand what transference and projection is, you shouldn’t be in pastoral ministry – you and others will be at risk.

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GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

December 5, 2017

By Kevin Kerrigan

A trial date has been set for a pastor at the Living Lighthouse Church who has been indicted on criminal sexual conduct charges involving a minor, who later “became suicidal.”

Renato Capili Bosi, 57, was indicted on Oct. 27 on two counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct as a first-degree felony, two counts of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct as a misdemeanor and child abuse as a misdemeanor.

During a hearing yesterday morning at the Superior Court of Guam, Judge Vern Perez scheduled Bosi’s trial for Jan. 16, 2018.

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GUAM
KUAM News

December 5, 2017

By Krystal Paco

“Pastors get tempted, too”, these words reportedly from Renato Capili Bosi, better known as Pastor Raye of Lighthouse Baptist Church.

The 57-year-old man was arrested two months ago and faces multiple criminal sexual conduct and child abuse charges.

According to court documents, the alleged victim is a 14-year-old girl who stayed with the pastor when her mother was away and her father was sick.

The girl, reportedly telling police Bosi was “father figure” to her.

Though the alleged abuse started last year, the girl reportedly didn’t tell her parents out of fear for their health.

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GUAM
KUAM News

December 5, 2017

By Krystal Paco

To date, close to 150 clergy sexual abuse lawsuits have been filed in the local and federal courts. While the majority have showed interest in settlement, there could be some dealbreakers ahead. The local court giving those uncertain parties a deadline to figure it out, or go to trial.

Will majority of the clergy sexual abuse lawsuits be settled out of court? That depends if parties can agree on pre-mediation protocol. The Court, during a status hearing on Tuesday, hoping to push parties along. Superior Court Judge Michael Bordallo said, “The reality is dates tend to get people to move.”

That day is January 16.

By then you’re committed to settlement or you prepare for trial. Church attorney John Terlaje reporting the majority appear to be agreeable to pre-mediation terms, saying, “About 95% of the cases are involved in this pre-mediation protocol.”

The remaining plaintiffs, Terlaje reports, are the 11 represented by attorney Anthony Perez. Perez said, “It’s not that we’re not on board. It’s just that we’ve been working on it for four months. We’ve had meetings in Hawaii. Meetings in Minnesota. Non-stop emails. And from three months or four months ago to today, nothing’s been accomplished.”

So, what appears to be the deal breaker? Terlaje said, “The biggest issue is if there’s going to be an individual mediation or there’s going to be a group mediation. If the one group stays out and doesn’t want to do the mediation and they insist on individual mediation, so be it.”

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GUAM
Pacific News Center

December 5, 2017

By Jolene Toves

Parties involved in the sex abuse lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Agana are having difficulty agreeing on a mediation protocol.

Guam – Will the cases filed against the Archdiocese of Agana move forward with mediation? That is a question that remains unanswered.

After four months of meetings to determine what mediation protocol to utilize in the numerous sex abuse lawsuits filed against the archdiocese, it appears that no progress has been made, according to Attorney Anthony Perez.

While Attorney Patrick Civille, who represents the Boy Scouts of America which is also named simultaneously in cases involving retired priest Father Louis Brouillard, informed the court that 95 percent of the plaintiffs are in agreement, the remaining 5 percent represented by Perez are in disagreement, as some of the conditions they are proposing, according to Civille “don’t look like they are going to fly.”

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UNITED STATES
The Huffington Post

December 4, 2017

By Hannah Paasch

And purity culture teaches women that it’s all their fault.

“Do I out my high school abuser?” she typed into the group chat on the night #ChurchToo was born. “Probably, huh?”

I knew the weight behind this seemingly nonchalant question. Years ago, when I first met Emily Joy, a college freshman at Moody Bible Institute, she was fresh off the evangelical assembly line. While still decidedly her own person, she had been indoctrinated with some views about holding hands with boys so strange that even my sheltered mind couldn’t quite wrap itself around them.

It took a few months of the late-night coffee dates and Bible school sleepovers that made up our budding friendship before she revealed her secret to me: that a church youth leader had groomed and manipulated her into a romantic relationship at the age of 16.

When the truth came to light, it was Emily who had been censured by her peers in the youth group, punished by her parents and generally ostracized from the cult of good reputation at her local megachurch. The last years of her teens were spent keeping to herself on the outskirts of the church and — thankfully for the world — writing a lot of angry poetry.

She told me of other victims who had suffered at the youth leader’s hands. Their names would echo through my head at the most inopportune moments: in the middle of chapel, in systematic theology class. The cognitive dissonance was jarring.

Recently, as allegation after allegation surfaced against powerful men in Washington and Hollywood, Emily and I realized that it was time to create space for survivors within the evangelical church and for those who have left its walls. So we launched #ChurchToo, a Twitter hashtag that quickly drew out widespread stories of sexual abuse and harassment. It was a reckoning.

For me, it was also the culmination of years of speaking out against and unlearning the strictures of evangelical purity culture.

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VICTORIA (AUSTRALIA)
The Age

December 5, 2017

By Cameron Houston and Chris Vedelago

The Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne has been found to have ignored, dismissed or covered up allegations of appalling child abuse by seven of its priests in a bid to protect the church’s reputation and avoid scandal.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse delivered a withering assessment of the Archdiocese’s handling of clerical abuse, with much of its opprobrium reserved for former Archbishop Frank Little who died in 2008.

“We are satisfied that the evidence in the case study showed a prevailing culture of secrecy within the Archdiocese, led by Archbishop Little,” the royal commission found.

“Complaints were dealt with in a way that sought to protect the Archdiocese from scandal and liability and prioritised the interests of the Church over those of the victims.”

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EDINBURG (TX)
CBS 4 News

December 4, 2017

[Note: See also http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news3/2004_11_21_Egerton_StexasDA_John_Feit_8.htm]

Key witnesses took the stand on the third day of the John Feit murder trial.
John Feit is a former priest accused of killing a McAllen school teacher in 1960.

Eighty-eight-year-old Dale Tacheny gave an emotional testimony Monday as he went into detail about Feit’s alleged confession of Irene Garza. Tacheny said Feit confessed to the murder while they were both at a monastery in San Antonio.

Tacheny says he didn’t tell anyone of Feit’s alleged confession because, as a monk, it was not his place to judge—only to figure out what to do. Tacheny went on to say after some time, the monastery concluded Feit was not fit to live there, and sent him away.

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EDINBURG (TX)
San Antonio Express-News

December 4, 2017

By Aaron Nelsen

[Note: See also http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news3/2004_11_21_Egerton_StexasDA_John_Feit_8.htm]

EDINBURG — John Feit confided that he had gotten away with murder, Dale Tacheny said Monday on the stand in Feit’s murder trial.

Feit showed little remorse, Tacheny testified Monday, yet the troubled priest confessed in 1963 that he was still haunted by the sound of the heels of Irene Garza, a former beauty queen he is accused of killing in 1960. Tacheny was a Trappist monk at Assumption Abbey, a monastery in Ava, Missouri, when Feit was sent there. Tacheny left the monastery in 1967.

“He put the young lady in a bathtub,” the 88-year-old Tacheny testified. “As he was leaving, the young lady said ‘I cannot breathe, I cannot breathe.’ Then he left.”

Feit attacked Garza in the church rectory, fondled her, then stored her in the basement while he went next door to Sacred Heart Catholic Church in McAllen to offer the sacrament of confession, Tacheny said.

Feit took a break to transport Garza to the pastoral house, a hotel in San Juan where he stayed, leaving her in a bathtub before returning to the church to again offer confession. When he returned the next day, Garza was dead, Feit allegedly confessed to Tacheny.

“I asked him, ‘Do you feel bad about any of these things, do you feel remorse, do you feel guilt?’” Tacheny said. “He said, ‘No, I get anxious when I hear … heels on a hard concrete, hard floor,’” Tacheny testified, rapping his knuckles on the witness stand for emphasis.

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EDINBURG (TX)
Court House News

December 4, 2017

By Erik De La Garza

EDINBURG, Texas (CN) – A South Texas beauty queen struggled to understand why a new Catholic priest kept pulling her from the confessional days before she vanished on Easter weekend 1960, testimony in John Feit’s murder trial revealed Friday.

The 85-year-old former priest is on trial in Hidalgo County for the murder of Irene Garza, whose partially decomposed body was found in a canal five days after she was last seen alive, going to confession at Sacred Heart Church. Feit was the prime suspect in the McAllen schoolteacher’s rape and murder but was not charged until February 2016 after the election of a new district attorney, who said “new facts and evidence” had been uncovered.

Hidalgo County prosecutors breezed through seven witnesses on the second day of trial, where jurors saw articles of Garza’s clothing, including her shoe, purse and floral-colored skirt. A McAllen Police Department evidence technician spent the morning unsealing what was left of the items Garza wore on the night she went missing over a “running objection” from defense attorneys.

Feit briefly closed his eyes as Assistant District Attorney Michael Garza held up Irene’s petticoat, more than half a century after Feit sat in the same courtroom for the attack on another South Texas woman, 20-year-old college student Maria America Guerra. He pleaded no contest in 1962 to a reduced charge of aggravated assault in that case and was fined $500, but faced no jail time.

Guerra is slated to testify as a prosecution witness.

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UNITED STATES
AOL

December 4, 2017

Despite being ousted from “CBS This Morning” for alleged sexual misconduct, Charlie Rose doesn’t appear to be worried about his future.

Sources close to the 75-year-old news veteran told Page Six that “it hasn’t quite hit him yet” that his career is likely over after a handful of women came forward with allegations that he sexually harassed them over the years.

“He doesn’t seem to fully get that what he’s done is wrong and that he likely won’t recover from this,” a source told the outlet.

The reveal comes a week after Rose told paparazzi that his actions were “not wrongdoings.”

Not only that, but it also appears as though he’s been able to go on about his normal life outside of work despite the reveal about his past. According to Page Six, the television personality has been eating at his usual jaunt, the upscale Upper East Side eatery Le Bilboquet, where he was spotted “dining solo.”

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UNITED STATES
The Open Tabernacle

December 4, 2017

By Betty Clermont

Emiliano Fittipaldi’s Lussuria. Peccati scandali e tradimenti di una Chiesa fatta di uomini (Lust. Sins, Scandals, and Betrayal of a Church Made of Men) chronicles Pope Francis’ personal involvement in the global sex abuse of children.

Gianluigi Nuzzi’s Peccato Originale (Original Sin) recounts how Pope Francis was personally informed of alleged sex abuse of minors in the Vatican’s preseminary where boys aspiring to become priests serve as altar boys for papal Masses in St. Peter’s Basilica. The pope did nothing to stop it.

From the beginning

Fittipaldi relates how, a month after his election in March 2013, Pope Francis appointed a council of eight cardinals to help him govern the Church. Three had protected and covered-up for pedophile priests.

Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga is the pope’s close friend and he named Rodriguez Maradiaga as coordinator of the group. “Maradiaga had protected a pedophile priest from Costa Rica, a fugitive from Interpol, who was found in bed with an eight-year-old child by her mother,” according to Fittipaldi.

Prior to his selection by the new pope, Australian Cardinal George Pell had made national headlines for years. He was called a “sociopath” by relatives of children sexually abused by priests for his callous and combative treatment of the survivors and their families. When John Ellis, a former altar boy, sued Pell and the Sydney archdiocese, Pell “instructed his lawyers to crush this victim.”

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SALT LAKE CITY (UT)
Deseret News

December 4, 2017

By Kelsey Dallas

SALT LAKE CITY — The recent onslaught of sexual assault allegations has left few industries untouched. Hollywood producers, politicians, celebrities, Silicon Valley insiders and journalists have been outed as abusers, prompting a depressing question: Who’s next?

“We’re in a time of reckoning,” said Dan Darling, vice president for communications for the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.

This reckoning is playing out in mostly secular settings, but it’s centered on moral and spiritual concerns. Religious leaders have a role to play in ongoing conversations about sex and power, said Charlie Camosy, an associate professor of ethics at Fordham University.

“We’re at this cultural moment where we don’t quite know what to do,” he said. “It would be odd to not have all hands on deck to try to rethink our sexual culture.”

Yet, for the most part, faith has been relegated to a small role in initial efforts to improve professional ethics, serving as a resource in the search for ways to reduce temptation.

Fearing accusations of creating unsafe work environments, some business leaders have proposed limiting one-on-one meetings between men and women, like a famed evangelist before them. The “Billy Graham rule” instructs men to refrain from spending time alone with women to whom they aren’t married, and it’s famously observed by Vice President Mike Pence.

“I think a lot of Christians and people in public leadership support some version of the Billy Graham rule because it’s clear. It provides clarity in situations where the boundaries aren’t always clear,” said Katelyn Beaty, an evangelical Christian writer. However, this clarity often comes at the expense of career advancement opportunities for professional women.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

December 4, 2017

Police raised concerns that the head of a Roman Catholic boarding school tried to “control” a child sex abuse investigation, an inquiry has heard.

A former North Yorkshire detective said officers were “excluded” from inquiries at Ampleforth College in 1995 and 2002.

But former head teacher Father Leo Chamberlain denied influencing a boy’s parents during a phone call in 1995.

He told the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse there had been “no skulduggery”.

The Catholic Church is one of 13 public organisations being scrutinised by the inquiry, which is being headed by Prof Alexis Jay.

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CATANIA – SICILY (ITALY)
La Stampa

December 1, 2017

By Fabio Albanese, Translated by Anna Martinelli

One of the minors who refused and reported everything was isolated from the community of faithful, very devoted to the priest

For at least three years a priest who worked in the parish of a working-class district of Villaggio Sant’Agata, on the southern outskirts of Catania, would have abused children who were entrusted to him. Not only he would frighten those who did not want to undergo his “rites”, carried out with a great deal of holy oil. The Carabinieri (one of Italy’s police corps e.d.) arrested him this morning: Padre Pio Guidolin is accused of aggravated sexual violence against minors.

According to investigations, the priest, who for some time had already been subject to precautionary measures by the Curia of Catania, exploited his role and, “took advantage of the particularly fragile situation of several children (under 14 years of age), with challenging backgrounds, by forcing them to undergo and perform sexual acts, as he rubbed them with holy oil (removed from the premises of the Church), claiming his acts had a spiritual sense that could “purify them” and take “their sufferings” away .

The investigation found that one of the children had refused to submit to these “rites” and revealed the abuses but, for this reason he was isolated from the community of the faithful, very devoted to the priest. But it gets worse: when the rumors turned into solid suspicions, and some parents were ready to denounce, Father Pio would in order to stop them, boasted ties within the mafia, as a way to intimidate them and have them back down. One of the parents, however, was denounced for personal aiding and abetting because, after his son was heard by investigators, he had informed the priest about the investigation.

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ITALY
La Sicilia

December 1, 2017

[Google Translate: The carabinieri led him to prison. Various sexual abuses against children under 14 are contested. And those who rebelled were isolated from the religious community and threatened those who wanted to denounce him to have the Mafia intervene. One of the parents investigated for personal aid: when the son was questioned he warned the religious]

I carabinieri lo hanno condotto in carcere. Gli sono contestati diversi abusi sessuali su minori di 14 anni. E chi si ribellava era isolato dalla comunità religiosa e minacciava chi voleva denunciarlo di far intervenire la mafia. Uno dei genitori indagato per favoreggiamento personale: quando il figlio è stato interrogato lui ha avvertito il religioso

I carabinieri di Catania, su ordine del gip del Tribunale di Catania e su delega della Procura etnea, hanno arrestato un sacerdote, padre Pio Guidolin, per violenza sessuale aggravata su minori. Le indagini hanno infatti consentito di accertare che, sin dal 2014, il sacerdote, sfruttando il suo ruolo e profittando della condizione di particolare fragilità aveva costretto diversi ragazzini, minori di 14 anni, a subire e compiere atti sessuali, cospargendoli prima con l’olio santo che prelevava dai locali della chiesa, ammantando così i suoi gesti come “atti purificatori”.

E quando uno dei ragazzini aveva opposto resistenza rispetto alle azioni del sacerdote, rivelando gli abusi subiti negli anni, quest’ultimo era stato isolato dalla comunità di fedeli ed accusato di calunnia nei confronti del religioso.

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ITALY
Rai News

December 1, 2017

[Google Translate: A priest accused of pedophilia was arrested in Catania. Father Pio Guidolin, until now responsible for the parish of Santa Croce in the Villaggio San’Agata in Catania, according to the carabinieri, is responsible for sexual violence against minors. The investigations revealed that he was abusing young and forced them to perform sexual acts, after having them sprinkled with holy oil taken from the Church, thus presenting to the victims their relationships as “purifying acts”, able to soothe their inner sufferings.]

A coprire le azioni del sacerdote anche alcuni genitori dei ragazzi che hanno provato a insabbiare le accuse

Arrestato a Catania un sacerdote accusato di pedofilia. Padre Pio Guidolin, finora responsabile della parrocchia Santa Croce al Villaggio San’Agata a Catania, secondo i carabinieri è responsabile di violenza sessuale su minori. Dalle indagini è emerso che abusava di giovanissimi e li costringeva a compiere atti sessuali, dopo averli cosparsi con l’olio santo prelevato dalla Chiesa, presentando così alle vittime i loro rapporti quali “atti purificatori”, in grado di lenire le loro sofferenze interiori.

Guidolin che esercitava la funzione di sacerdote in periferia a Catania, avrebbe abusato di ragazzini minori di 14 anni, provati da vicende personali che li avevano turbati, approfittando della loro condizione di particolare fragilità. Quando uno dei minori aveva opposto resistenza e aveva rivelato gli abusi subiti negli anni, era stato isolato dalla comunità di fedeli ed accusato di calunniare il prete.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Times

December 4, 2017

By Kaya Burgess

Priests and rabbis left psychologically bruised by their congregations are seeking outside help for counselling and advice on grievances.

Spurred by concerns over internal disciplinary procedures, religious leaders have been seeking guidance not only from God but from trade unions too.

The Unite union has had a surge in ministers joining its faith workers division in the past year. Almost 1,500, including priests, rabbis and a few imams, are members, a rise of almost 200, or 16 per cent, on the year before.

Clerics are unionising although many, including Church of England priests, have no rights under employment law. Priests are “office-holders” rather than employees and cannot have grievances heard by an employment tribunal.

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LEICESTER (ENGLAND)
BBC News

December 4, 2017

A former church choirmaster has been jailed for sexually abusing three boys in the 1970s and 1980s.

Robert Kalton, 82, sexually assaulted the children while he was working at a church in Leicestershire and Wiltshire, Leicestershire Police said.

He had moved to live in Portugal after the attacks and was arrested in 2013.

Kalton, of no fixed address, was found guilty of 15 child sex abuse offences at Leicester Crown Court and sentenced to nine years in prison.

He was also put on the sex offenders register for life.

Police said the victims were sexually abused at a church in Melton Mowbray and Trowbridge.

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MARYVILLE (TN)
The Daily Times

December 4, 2017

By Amy Beth Miller

Over the past two months, dozens of men in powerful positions in entertainment and politics have faced public allegations of sexual misconduct.

The conduct isn’t new, but the response is.

“This has been going on for literally centuries,” said Dr. Tricia Bruce, an associate professor of sociology at Maryville College.

Public allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, starting in early October, provided a tipping point and motivated other women to tell their stories, Bruce noted.

Since then, dozens more men have been accused of misconduct, most recently NBC anchor Matt Lauer and longtime public radio host Garrison Keillor.

Bruce sees similarities with the child abuse scandal that rocked the Catholic church, affecting so many families either directly or indirectly.

Posts on social media with “#metoo” gave a glimpse at how widespread sexual harassment has been.

Bruce’s first book, “Faithful Revolution: How Voice of the Faithful Is Changing the Church,” published in 2011, is about the lay movement that started in response to that crisis within the church.

Like the child abuse within the church that came out in the early 2000s, often decades after the fact, today women are feeling safer to talk about past harassment.

“The behavior itself is not new,” Bruce said. “The question is why are people talking about it now, why is there accountability for it now.”

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IRELAND
Irish Central

December 04, 2017

By Nick Bramhill

Organizers of Ireland’s first-ever healing circle for priests suffering from anxiety and stress have said more therapy sessions are likely to be held across the country from early next year.

At least 10 priests from the Munster region attended an initial group therapy session in Parish Center in Ovens, Co. Cork on Tuesday, November 28.

But the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP), which organized the workshop, said the event could be “the first of many,” provided there is a strong demand from members of the clergy.

Father Tim Hazelwood, a spokesman for the 1,000-strong priests’ group, said the purpose of the sessions was to provide support to innocent churchmen who have been negatively affected by the abuse scandals in the Catholic Church.

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PORTLAND (ME)
Portland Press Herald

December 3, 2017

By Kelley Bouchard

Bishop Robert Deeley informs church members in Cape Elizabeth, Scarborough and South Portland that retired Monsignor Michael Henchal is living with a former church administrator.

Bishop Robert Deeley personally delivered shocking news over the weekend to Roman Catholic church members in Cape Elizabeth, Scarborough and South Portland, telling them that their longtime former pastor and a former parish administrator had started a relationship before he retired in July and are now living together.

Formerly a high-ranking official in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, Monsignor Michael Henchal had been pastor of St. Bartholomew Parish in Cape Elizabeth since 1997. As the diocese consolidated parishes in response to dwindling numbers of priests and active members, he took on additional duties as pastor of St. Maximilian Kolbe Parish in Scarborough in 2006 and St. John and Holy Cross parishes in South Portland in 2008.

Deeley spoke at the start of seven services Saturday through Sunday, sometimes racing from one church to another to accommodate the Mass schedule and staying to celebrate the Eucharist with congregants when possible.

Reading from a prepared statement at the 9 a.m. Mass at St. Bart’s on Sunday, Deeley said that shortly after Monsignor Paul Stefanko took over as the new pastor of the cluster of churches, “a serious matter was brought to his attention” and he “immediately informed me.” Deeley said he was aware of “many stories and rumors circulating” about Henchal and that he was “here to share the facts as I know them.”

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

December 4, 2017

By Haidee V Eugenio

U.S. District Court Chief Judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood ordered attorneys for the defendants in dozens of clergy sex abuse lawsuits to limit their disclosure of the true names of accusers who are identified only by their initials in court documents.

In a Nov. 30 blanket order in at least 101 clergy sex abuse cases, the chief judge said defendants’ attorneys shall not disclose plaintiffs’ true names “until that person has certified in writing that the person is either an insurer or an investigator for the defendants or their counsel and further assures that the true names shall not be disclosed to any other person.”

Among the defendants in the cases are the Archdiocese of Agana, Boy Scouts of America, priests, other clergy, and others associated with the Catholic Church of Guam.

Initially, the chief judge ordered plaintiffs’ attorneys to disclose the true names of the plaintiffs, to defendants’ attorneys.

She also initially ordered plaintiffs’ attorneys to file, along with any complaint not yet filed, a statement with the true name of the plaintiff, under seal.

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ROCHESTER (NY)
The Christian Century

December 4, 2017

By Ruth Everhart

Read the main article, “A pastor’s #MeToo story.”

1. Maintain and update safe church child protection policies.

2. Require all leaders to take boundary training, even non-ordained leaders.

3. Post domestic violence and sexual violence hotline numbers in church restrooms.

4. Teach the warning signs of domestic abuse and abuse of children in the church newsletter or bulletin.

5. Intentionally use the words sexual violence in the liturgy—for example, in a prayer of confession.

6. Use the hashtag #MeToo on the church’s outdoor sign.

7. Take a special offering for a local domestic violence shelter.

8. Hang posters in April for Sexual Assault Aware­ness Month and in October for Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

9. Plan education classes on these issues during April and October.

10. Educate the congregation about the grooming behaviors of predators.

11. Invite a victims’ advocate to lead an adult education class or series.

12. Focus education about sexual violence on justice, rather than healing.

13. Have various groups sponsor a #MeToo night.

14. Preach a sermon or series on biblical texts of terror, such as Tamar’s story.

15. Put women in high-level positions in leadership.

16. Speak about sex from the pulpit in a frank and forthright manner without using code words or making inappropriate jokes.

17. Have the leaders create a no-tolerance statement and post it beside the church’s mission statement: If any abuse occurs within the fellowship of this church, we will prosecute to the fullest extent of the law no matter who the offender might be.

18. Pull the skeletons out of the church closet and prosecute the offenders.

A version of this article appears in the December 20 print edition under the title “18 ways churches can change their culture in 2018.”

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ENGLAND
Church Times

December 4, 2017

By Hattie Williams

A SURVIVOR of clerical child-abuse, Gilo, has criticised the Archbishop of Canterbury for failing to offer “clear leadership” in response to calls for the Church of England to support the mandatory reporting of abuse.

Gilo was sexually assaulted by the Revd Garth Moore, a former diocesan chancellor (News, 4 December 2015), who died in 1990. After his long struggle to tell senior church figures about his ordeal, the C of E settled his claim for £35,000, and initiated the Elliott review, which later called for significant reforms to safeguarding procedures (News, 18 March 2016).

The Archbishop issued a public apology to Gilo in October for the failure of his office to respond to his 17 letters. Gilo is among a group of survivors who have further called for a re-appraisal of compensation awards and the mandatory reporting of all allegations of sexual abuse (News, 10 November).

In a reply to Gilo’s most recent letter, seen by the Church Times this week, Archbishop Welby writes that the “complex issue” of reopening past settlements from the C of E’s insurer, Ecclesiastical, will be taken up by the Bishop at Lambeth, the Rt Revd Tim Thornton.

The question of mandatory reporting is a complicated one, the Archbishop writes. Clerics are expected to report a safeguarding issue or disclosure, and are liable to disciplinary proceedings should they fail to do so. “As you know, we are now in the middle of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse and I am keen to hear its views and wisdom on the subject of mandatory reporting — which is not as straightforward an issue as is sometimes suggested.”

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PORTLAND (ME)
Portland Press Herald

December 1, 2017

By Eric Russell

James Talbot, 80, will face as much as 25 years in prison if convicted of sexually assaulting a 9-year-old boy in a Freeport church nearly two decades ago.

A former Jesuit priest and longtime Cheverus High School teacher pleaded not guilty Friday to charges that he sexually abused a 9-year-old boy at a Freeport church nearly 20 years ago.

James Francis Talbot, 80, appeared Friday in Unified Criminal Court in Portland. He has been held in the Cumberland County Jail since Wednesday, when he was extradited from Missouri.

Bail was set at $50,000 cash. It was unclear where he would go if he were released since he hasn’t lived in Maine for many years, but his attorney, Walt McKee, called his client “penniless,” suggesting that bail was a long shot.

Talbot, dressed in a light brown prison uniform, did not speak.

He has been charged with one count of gross sexual assault, a Class A felony, and one count of unlawful sexual contact, a Class C crime. Both involve a victim whose family were members of St. Jude Church in the late 1990s when Talbot was a substitute priest and religious instructor. If convicted, the Class A charge carries a penalty of as many as 25 years in prison.

Although details about the abuse have not made public in criminal case filings, two people involved in the case have confirmed to the Portland Press Herald that Talbot settled a civil case with the same victim this summer.

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JERUSALEM (ISRAEL)
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

December 4, 2017

JERUSALEM (JTA) — An interfaith initiative has created international ethics guidelines for religious leaders to insure proper conduct with their congregants.

The Ten Guidelines were announced last week in Jerusalem by the International Conference of the Israeli organization Tahel, Israel’s Crisis Center for Religious Women and Children. The new initiative calls upon religious leaders around the world to unite and discuss issues of sexual violence and abuse within the community and to formulate and adhere to international guidelines.

The Ten Guidelines include a reminder to clergy to trust their instincts. For example, the guidelines say: “If you feel that extra distance is appropriate in a specific circumstance, trust your feelings. It’s a red flag, warning you to take extra precautions.”

Another guideline urges religious leaders to avoid virtual communication with their students, congregants and followers, since words can be misconstrued and understood as inappropriate or harassing. They are also encouraged to install glass doors in their offices, place a desk between them and their guests, document any meeting in writing, and avoid all physical contact.

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UNITED STATES
Slate

December 1, 2017

By Rebecca Onion

Her latest column suggests that harassment is a product of the sexual revolution. She can’t possibly believe that.

Finally, we know why sexual harassment happens! Peggy Noonan and an unnamed “aging Catholic priest” she quotes secondhand in her latest column seem to believe that harassment is a product of the sexual revolution, and especially of the availability of contraception and abortion. “Once you separate sex from its seriousness, once you separate it from its life-changing, life-giving potential, men will come to see it as just another want, a desire like any other,” Noonan wrote on Nov. 23 in the opinion section of the Wall Street Journal. “Once they think that, then they’ll see sexual violations as less serious, less charged, less full of weight. They’ll be more able to rationalize. It’s only petty theft, a pack of chewing gum on the counter, and I took it.”

Unfortunately, Noonan isn’t the only conservative to point to the sexual revolution (and, implicitly, the feminists who successfully lobbied to make birth control and divorce more widely available) as the genesis of sexual harassment. At the Advocate, Trudy Ring rounds up links to several right-wing commentators who’ve made this argument since the Harvey Weinstein accusations went public; more recently, in Crisis magazine, Stephen Baskerville wrote an editorial headlined “The Sexual Revolution Turns Ugly.” Don’t forget White House Chief of Staff John Kelly saying that “women were sacred, looked upon with great honor” while he was “growing up,” and that this is “obviously not the case anymore, as we’ve seen from recent cases.”

It’s almost too easy to show the receipts that prove that sexual harassment and abuse are as old as the hills. That’s because, in the four or five decades since the project of writing women’s history began in earnest, historians working within this subfield have made this point over and over again: The harassment and assault of women has existed pretty much as long as there have been women. But, their work argues, protection from these evils has long been much harder to come by if you weren’t well-to-do, white, and married. It’s that part of the picture—the relationship between sexual harassment and other systems of social power—that makes this history so impossible for the conservatives scapegoating the sexual revolution to see.

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SANDPOINT (ID)
Bonner County Daily Bee

December 3, 2017

By Keith Kinnaird

SANDPOINT — A criminal case against a Bonner County man accused of perpetrating ritualized and sexual abuse expanded on Friday.

Dana Andrew Furtney initially faced five criminal charges ranging from lewd conduct to sexual battery and ritualized abuse, but the criminal complaint was supplanted Friday with a grand jury indictment alleging 10 counts of lewd conduct and lone counts of sexual abuse of a child under the age of 16, ritualized abuse, felony injury to a child and felony domestic battery causing traumatic injury.

Furtney, 48, pleaded not guilty to all 14 felony counts during his arraignment in 1st District Court on Friday, court records show. A four-day jury trial is set for February 2018.

Furtney is charged with four counts of lewd conduct against a 14-year-old girl, five counts of lewd conduct and one count of sexual abuse against a 12-year-old girl and one count of lewd conduct with a 6-year-old girl, according to the indictment. Furtney is further charged with ritualized abuse for forcing an 11- to 12-year-old boy ingest Furtney’s excrement as part of a ceremony or rite.

All of those offenses are alleged to have occurred in 2010.

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EDINBURG (TX)
KRGV/CNN

December 2, 2017

EDINBURG, TX (KRGV/CNN) – An 84-year-old former priest is on trial in Texas for a 1960 murder.

John Feit is accused of killing Irene Garza in McAllen in April of that year. He was a 27-year-old priest at the time, and she was a 25-year-old second-grade teacher.

Their paths crossed on Easter weekend at Sacred Heart Catholic Church. Prosecutors said Feit lured her into the rectory and killed her.

He entered the courtroom Thursday using a walker for the first day of the trial.

“Irene Garza went into a church trusting that her soul would be saved, but it was suffocated,” said Michael Garza, Hidalgo County Assistant District Attorney.

Investigators found Irene Garza’s body five days after she disappeared, in a canal. Investigators said she died from suffocation.

For years, Feit has denied killing Irene Garza, whose story has appeared in several TV special investigations, including one that aired on CNN.

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EDINBURG (TX)
The Monitor

December 4, 2017

By Molly Smith

The former employer of a reporter called to testify in the John Feit murder trial is objecting to his testimony, according to court documents filed last week.

Feit, 85, is on trial for allegedly murdering schoolteacher Irene Garza in April 1960, when he served as a visiting priest.

The Dallas Morning News submitted an objection to the prosecution’s Nov. 21 subpoena of Brooks Egerton, a former investigative reporter who currently resides in Tennessee and works as a freelance writer and editor and has written about sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

The judge presiding over the case has yet to issue a ruling on the objection.

Lawyers for The Dallas Morning News argue in the objection that under the Texas Free Flow of Information Act — also known as Texas reporter’s privilege — “a journalist and a news medium hold a testimonial privilege against being compelled to ‘testify regarding … any confidential or non-confidential unpublished information … obtained or prepared while acting as a journalist’.”

Egerton published a 2004 article titled “DA Refuses to Pursue Ex-Priest,” in which he interviewed “new witnesses” in the case — two former clergy members who worked with Feit and, according to the article, said he “incriminated himself in individual conversations with them many years ago.”

These witnesses are Rev. Joseph O’Brien, a now-deceased priest who worked with Feit at McAllen’s Sacred Heart Church — the location Garza was last seen alive — and Dale Tacheny, a former monk at a Missouri monastery where Feit was sent in 1963.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Vulture

December 3, 2017

By Justin Davidson

The investigations have begun, three victims have stepped into the light, and, while his crimes remain in the “alleged” column, James Levine’s career has clearly ended. If the now 74-year-old high priest of the Metropolitan Opera’s pit did what he has been credibly accused of doing, the principal casualties are his victims — three who have identified themselves, those who may soon do the same, and others who never will.

Since the New York Post first reported the existence of a police report in Lake Forest, Illinois, and the Metropolitan Opera announced it would look into the accusations, many music-world insiders have snorted that Levine’s child molestation has been an “open secret” for decades. But for most, “knowing” really meant that we had heard fourth-hand mutterings, with few details and no corroboration. Publications that tried to nail down the story found it slipping away.

There are some, probably many, who cannot believably claim ignorance. So far, his alleged victims have described encounters during long-ago summers at the Meadow Brook School of Music in Michigan and the Ravinia Festival outside Chicago. But it seems highly unlikely that Levine, who lives a few blocks from Lincoln Center, confined his molestation of teenagers to out-of-town trips or stopped decades ago. Even if that were true, Levine has spent virtually his whole adult life as a celebrity in the insular world of opera and classical music, and during most of that time, he has been protected by an elaborate apparatus centered at the Metropolitan Opera. Ever since he became the company’s music director at 26, he has had an army of assistants, Met staffers, managers, and publicists whose job was to keep him happy. We will soon find out exactly how far they went.

For decades, the Met was essentially the Levine Company. Its identity was intertwined with his. His taste in composers, his relationships with singers, his hires, orchestra, conducting style, and even, for a while, his eye for productions all shaped what happened onstage in seven performances a week. Divas remained loyal to the Met because they felt safe onstage so long as he was in the pit. Audiences burst into applause as soon as his corona of springy curls bobbed into the spotlight. Critics — and I include myself — lauded his leadership as well as his musicality. His cheery, seemingly eternal presence thrilled the board and helped keep the spigot of donations open.

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NEW YORK (NY)
The New York Post

December 2, 2017

By Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein

Legendary Metropolitan Opera conductor James Levine molested an Illinois teenager from the time he was 15 years old, sexual abuse that lasted for years and led the alleged victim to the brink of suicide, according to a police report obtained by The Post.

The alleged abuse began while Levine was guest conductor at the Ravinia Music Festival outside Chicago, a post the wild-haired maestro held for two decades.

The alleged victim came forward to the Lake Forest, Ill. Police Department in October 2016 to detail the molestation, including times when Levine would masturbate in front of him and kiss his penis, according to the report.

The alleged victim informed a former Met Opera board member of the alleged abuse in 2016 and she alerted the Met’s general manager, yet Levine continued to wield his baton.

The now 74-year-old maestro, who spent 40 years as music director of the Metropolitan Opera and is currently director emeritus, conducted a performance of Verdi’s “Requiem” at Lincoln Center Saturday.

The alleged victim’s 2016 claims came nine years after the statute of limitations on a possible child sex crime in Illinois had expired. The age of consent in that state is 17. The Lake Forest Police Department investigated the allegations anyway, and turned its findings over to the Lake County State’s Attorney. A State’s Attorney spokeswoman told The Post Friday the case is still under review and no charges have been brought.

“I began seeing a 41-year-old man when I was 15, without really understanding I was really ‘seeing’ him,” the alleged victim, now 48, said in a written statement to the police department. “It nearly destroyed my family and almost led me to suicide. I felt alone and afraid. He was trying to seduce me. I couldn’t see this. Now I can.”

The alleged victim, whose name is being withheld by The Post, said Levine showered him with $50,000 in cash over the years.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Big Issue North

December 4, 2017

The head of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse insists it is on track to complete its hearings despite the criticism and loss of its previous chairs

Not long after qualifying as a social worker in Scotland, Alexis Jay took on some of her “most challenging work ever”. That role was to relocate 45 of Glasgow’s homeless family groups into bed and breakfast accommodation.

“It was a very significant experience for me,” she says. At that point, Jay could “not have imagined at all” that one day she’d be heading a multi-million pound inquiry into historic child sex abuse – one that, if all goes according to plan, could uncover institutional failings in some of the UK’s most longstanding establishments, including the NHS, the BBC and Westminster.

“I certainly didn’t expect to be in this position – chair of a public inquiry – but that’s life,” she laughs, apparently taking it in her stride. In August 2016, Jay, who led the pioneering Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham, was appointed chair of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse (IICSA), which has suffered setbacks and controversy.

“There’s been much frustration along the way,” Jay admits. But nearly 18 months on, she believes progress is being made, even if it’s not as fast as many would like. Although new figures show that only 145 public evidence hearings have been held over a four-year period, Jay is pleased to report that by the end of 2017 the inquiry will have held 10 weeks of public hearings, hosted six public seminars and published five reports.

“It’s no secret that there was a lot to be done when I became chair,” Jay says. “But the most important thing was to get a proper work plan in place to lay out how we were going to proceed. That was a priority. We set that out in a report last December and have adhered to that timescale of public hearings, seminars and other activities. I’m pleased that we’re nearly a year on and we’ve managed to stick to a very demanding schedule. Everyone has worked very hard to deliver that.”

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LANARK (SCOTLAND)
The Scottish Daily Mail

December 2, 2017

By Graham Grant

– Child abuse inquiry heard harrowing testimony from Smyllum Park survivors
– The orphanage in Lanark, Scotland, was run by ‘psychopathic nuns’, inquiry told
– Some 400 children from the Smyllum believed to be buried in unmarked grave

A notorious orphanage ‘covered up’ the deaths of children in its care including a boy who was savagely beaten by a nun, an inquiry heard yesterday.

One former resident of Smyllum Park in Lanark said six-year-old Sammy Carr died days after a nun launched a frenzied attack on him, repeatedly kicking him in the head.

In posthumous evidence, another ex-resident said 13-year-old Francis McColl died after a member of staff hit him on the head with a golf club.

Deaths were ‘covered up’ at the institution, run by ‘psychopathic’ nuns who meted out physical and sexual abuse – and even used crucifixes as ‘weapons’.

It emerged earlier this year that at least 400 children from Smyllum are thought to be buried in an unmarked grave at the town’s St Mary’s Cemetery.

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NEW YORK (NY)
The Washington Post

December 1, 2017

By Rev. Amy Butler

We’re less than two weeks from the special election in Alabama that will determine whether a man accused of sexual assault of minors will be elected to the United States Senate. At the same time that the heirs of the religious right are tripping over their own hypocrisy and white evangelicals remain conflicted on whether to vote for a morally bankrupt candidate, we now are hearing stories about Matt Lauer and Garrison Keillor joining the growing list of powerful men losing their jobs over sexual misconduct allegations. Despite dire warnings of the immorality of a secular Hollywood and the media, it would appear that corporate America is more willing to show moral leadership than the church. This is not merely ironic. The church’s silence and inaction are sins.

The other night I was hosting a Pastor’s Table, a small dinner party at my home with a diverse group of congregation members. As we sat around the table, one of the men in the group brought up the subject of sexual harassment allegations we’re seeing all over the media. He asked what he could do.

As a woman sitting at that table, I appreciated his questions. But it quickly became apparent that those questions were not the most pressing issues on our minds.

Each woman started sharing her story. “I remember the first time I saw a male teacher looking down my shirt. When I complained, I was told to button more buttons.”

“The first time a man exposed himself to me, I was at a neighborhood pool. I was 7.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Catholic Leader

December 4, 2017

By Emilie Ng

SEVENTEEN abuse survivors are sitting in a room in Hobart as a Catholic priest guides them through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

For several days the survivors have unpatched hidden wounds caused by traumatic abuse experiences in their childhood or adult life.

There are a number of people who were sexually abused by clergy, others were the victims of horrific violence, and still more were violated by their own families.

They all long for one thing – to be healed.

Anne Sherston is observing the faces of these survivors, many of whom have kept their abuse a secret for decades upon decades.

Their faces are beginning to change; that spark in their spirit is coming back to life.

It’s what Anne calls the “magnificent” transformation that occurs in people who go on a Grief to Grace retreat.

Grief to Grace is a Catholic ministry founded in America by counselling psychologist Dr Theresa Burke to provide psychological and spiritual healing for survivors of abuse.

The retreat is offered to people who were abused in any way in their history, whether physical, emotional, spiritual, financial, or sexual, including institutional and clergy child sexual abuse, rape, incest or neglect.

According to a 1999 report on ending violence against women, one in three women worldwide has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused.

Open to men and women of all religions, and Catholic clergy or religious, Grief to Grace retreats last for five to seven days and take participants on a spiritual pilgrimage towards healing.

There are no spectators on the retreat; every single person making the retreat has, in some way or another, experienced abuse.

Anne is the first person to bring the retreat to Australia and ran her first successful retreat this year.

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NEW YORK (NY)
ABC News

December 2, 2017

By Joi-Marie McKenzie and Aaron Katersky

Matt Lauer will not receive a payout for the rest of his million-dollar contract, an NBC News spokesperson confirmed to ABC News today.

The disgraced former “Today” show anchor was fired after a colleague accused him of “inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace,” the network said Wednesday in a memo obtained by ABC News.

In a statement released one day later, Lauer, 59, said some of the allegations are “untrue or mischaracterized,” but “there is enough truth in these stories to make me feel embarrassed and ashamed.”

Lauer, who had just signed a contract last year that would put him in the anchor chair through 2018, had a contract worth a reported $20 million, according to Variety.

He had been at the “Today” since 1994 and became an official co-anchor three years later.

After firing Lauer, NBC News’ human resources department said they’re now sifting through Lauer’s emails in an effort to bring more justice to any colleagues who may have suffered in silence.

NBC News president Noah Oppenheim promised swift action against anyone who may have known about sexually inappropriate behavior and didn’t report it.

This comes after NBC News executives learned that Oppenheim and NBC News Chairman Andy Lack had previously questioned Lauer about allegations weeks before the accuser came forward, NBC News reported. When asked about any sexual misconduct, the former anchor reportedly said that he was “racking his brain and couldn’t think of anything at all.”

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UNITED STATES
The Huffington Post

December 3, 2017

By Emily Peck

The Facebook executive is hearing people say this is why you shouldn’t hire women. Actually this is why you should.

Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg warned Sunday morning about the potential for women to wind up on the losing end of what seems like a watershed moment in feminism.

The Lean In author is cheering women on, but she writes in a lengthy Facebook post, “I have already heard the rumblings of a backlash.”

Over the last two months, every day has seemed to bring new allegations of sexual misconduct against powerful men, who are facing real consequences for their actions. And people are already saying, “‘This is why you shouldn’t hire women,’” Sandberg writes.

“Actually, this is why you should,” she continues. Hiring, mentoring and promoting women is the only long-term solution to sexual harassment, which is all about power, according to Sandberg. In her post, she also outlines some basic guidelines that companies should follow if they’re serious about preventing harassment at work.

The solution certainly isn’t the so-called Pence rule ― the vice president reportedly will not dine alone with another woman unless his wife is present ― as some have suggested. Instead, Sandberg writes, men should strive to treat colleagues and employees equally. If you won’t dine or drink alone with a woman, then you shouldn’t do it with a man either.

“Doing right by women in the workplace does not just mean treating them with respect. It also means not isolating or ignoring them,” Sandberg writes. “And it means making access equal. Whether that means you take all your direct reports out to dinner or none of them, the key is to give men and women equal opportunities to succeed.”

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WASHINGTON (PA)
Observer-Reporter

December 3, 2017

By Northrop

“Who did you tell?”

“What did they do after you told them?”

These are questions I ask almost every child that I interview. The answers are important; they tell me not just who the child trusts, but also about that child’s history, including what their life as a survivor of childhood sex abuse has been like. I am a child abuse pediatrician, specializing in the care of children with concerns for neglect, physical abuse, and sexual abuse. The majority of my work is in sexual abuse, and I am often called to court to explain not only physical exam findings, but the process of disclosure. Most commonly, I explain why children wait to tell.

Recent events, ranging from the women-focused “#metoo” movement to outcries of repeated sexual abuse by powerful men in government and Hollywood, have made sexual abuse, child sexual abuse, and disclosure part of the national conversation. Statistically, children wait an average of two years before beginning the disclosure process, if they ever report it at all. No one who regularly works with victims of abuse is surprised to see victims come forward years after their abuse has ended.

Disclosure is a process, not a singular event. The reasons for delaying disclosure vary, but I see many common themes repeated over and over. We see these same themes repeated in the media by victims who have come forward against high-profile perpetrators.

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ROCHESTER (NY)
The Christian Century

December 4, 2017

By Ruth Everhart

“What can we do to make this go away?” a member of the personnel committee asked.

ur culture is facing a new accountability. Each day brings a tale of some powerful perpetrator brought low. Victims tell of unwanted sexual advances that made them feel less than human, less than holy. The stories are not new, but they are newly being heard.

Like so many women, I have unsought expertise in this subject. Decades ago I was raped at gunpoint. Writing a memoir about that event brought me into contact with dozens of other survivors. What strikes me is how our stories echo Tamar’s story in 2 Samuel 13. Our agency was stripped from us by multiple men—not only the Amnons who abused us, but the Jonadabs who connived to set us up, and the Absaloms who silenced us, or even exploited our trauma for their own ends. And in church contexts there was all too often a powerful King David, whose abuse of Bathsheba was visited upon the next generation.

I wrote my memoir to reclaim my own agency. Now I have another story to tell. In many ways, this one is even more difficult to set down on paper. The offender was not a stranger who broke into my home, but a person who’d been charged to care for me. This offender was my boss, my senior pastor, the person privileged to lay his hands on me to ordain me to my first call.

Zane Bolinger was the beloved senior pastor of Penfield Presbyterian Church, a thriving suburban church near Roches­ter, New York, when I received a call to be its associate pastor for children and youth in 1990. “From here you’ll be able to go anywhere!” ZB told me the first time we talked. “The sky’s the limit!” I felt lucky to receive a first call to such a healthy church. My new boss was a recent widower, 62 years old—twice my age—and serving as the moderator of the presbytery. He assured me I would soon be in positions of power, too.

Ministry was the vocation I desired with all my heart. My husband, Doug, and I relocated to upstate New York with our two daughters, a preschooler and an infant. Doug’s teaching credentials did not transfer smoothly so we decided that, for the first few months at least, he would be a stay-at-home dad and I would support the family. We would have to live paycheck to paycheck.

That October, ZB was to preach my ordination service. He said it was important that we get to know each other before that. He took me out for lunch weekly, to nice restaurants, where we talked about church in only cursory ways. Mainly he probed me about my history, especially my story of rape at gunpoint, which I was very private about at that time. He pressed me for details in a way that only the detectives and prosecuting attorney had ever done. ZB wanted to know how I managed to have intimate relationships with men, considering this history. I felt beholden to answer because he was my boss and, I thought, a man of wisdom and power.

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HAITI
The Mennonite

December 1, 2017

James Daniel Arbaugh, a Mennonite missionary, has been arrested and charged with molesting children while serving in Haiti. On Nov. 21, The Daily News-Record of Harrisonburg, Virginia, reported that Arbaugh was arrested on Nov. 15 by a U.S. Homeland Security special agent. Court records show that Arbaugh, 40, was charged with felony coercion or enticement of a minor. Arbaugh attended Mountain View Mennonite Church in Lyndhurst, Virginia, a former Mennonite Church USA congregation, and was a board member for Walking Together for Christ Haiti.

The criminal complaint, filed with the U.S. District Court in Harrisonburg, states that “Arbaugh reported grooming and/or having sexual contact with approximately 21 males under the age of 18.” Arbaugh disclosed the abuse to a counselor during a Sept. 11 session. In Virginia, health-care providers are mandated to report child abuse to social services. According to the Daily News-Record, social services contacted the Harrisonburg Police Department, who then contacted federal agents.

Arbaugh traveled to Haiti from 2009 to 2015. According to a website where he documented his mission work, Arbaugh was a self-supporting “tentmaker” partnering with Walking Together for Christ in Haiti and involved in “media ministry.” The last post on the site is from July 2.

According to the complaint, on Sept. 15, Arbaugh allowed police to look at his laptop and showed police a picture of a 5-year-old boy, the son of a pastor at a church in Haiti, on the computer. The complaint states that Arbaugh confessed to molesting the boy.

The complaint states, “Arbaugh indicated he used his missionary work in Haiti to build friendships with the minors. Arbaugh acknowledged that he groomed the minors in Haiti by engaging in minor sexual activities with them so that one day they would be open to more.”

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ENGLAND
Christian Today

December 4, 2017

By Harry Farley

The Archbishop of Canterbury is facing a mass call to overhaul the Church of England’s approach to sex abuse survivors after his letter to one victim was branded ‘painful’ and ‘disappointing’.

‘Gilo’, a survivor of clerical sex abuse whose surname is withheld to protect his identity, wrote an open letter to Justin Welby urging him to abandon the Church’s insurer, Ecclesiastical Insurance Group (EIG), in the wake of a scandal over its ‘derisory and heartless’ treatment of victims.

Welby replied last month and said the ‘complex issues’ Gilo raised were being addressed through a mediation process and said the question of mandatory reporting of abuse, which Gilo called for, was a ‘complicated question’ and ‘not as straightforward an issue as is sometimes suggested’.

But in a longstanding row over how seriously the Church takes allegations of abuse, Gilo said the archbishop’s response failed to answer the questions he raised.

‘There doesn’t seem any ownership of the crisis, nor recognition that questions such as these need facing at “archbishop level” and the clear call of leadership required to shift the Church into structural and cultural change and towards authentic justice,’ he said. ‘Until the Church buckles under the weight of these things – the shilly-shallying will continue.’

But a legal expert consulted by Christian Today said: ‘On the assumption that the issue might possibly give rise to legal action against the CofE, anything that any senior bishop says on the matter – let alone the Archbishop of Canterbury – must inevitably be guarded so as to avoid any premature admission of liability.

‘The Church’s lawyers would have been totally failing in their duty to their client had they not pointed that out and, in the circumstances, it’s difficult to see what else anyone could have done.’

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TEXAS
Dallas News

December 2, 2017

By Marc Ramirez

Details shared with a South Texas jury Friday portrayed a former priest who was anything but priest-like in the ongoing trial of John Feit, accused of murdering a 25-year-old beauty queen over a half-century ago.

Irene Garza had been raped and bludgeoned to death when she was found in a McAllen canal in 1960, five days after she vanished from church on Easter weekend. A portable photographic slide viewer belonging to Feit was found near the body.

On Friday, as the San Antonio Express-News reported, jurors were told of Feit’s questionable behavior involving other women.

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QUEBEC
CTV News Montreal

December 1, 2017

The inquiry into murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls has wrapped up its first week of testimony in Quebec.

Dozens of families travelled to the Innu community of Mani-Utenam near Sept-Iles to share their emotional stories, many opening up about allegations of rape, murder, and harassment at the hands of police.

Before the hearings got underway Friday, one woman presented commissioners with a gift of moccasins, mittens, and a baby bottle to represent the lost girls of her community.

The commission heard testimony from the mother of an Innu teenager who was kidnapped and tortured in 2011. She recounted how police dismissed the disappearance as a runaway case.

Commissioners heard from a mother whose five-year-old daughter was taken from her in the early 1080s and given to a family. That girl was raped and murdered.

There were also stories of abuse at the hands of a Catholic priest who worked on the north shore for decades.

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SCOTLAND
Holyrood Magazine

December 1, 2017

By Tom Freeman

An adult survivor of child abuse is sleeping rough outside the Scottish Parliament until former Labour leader Kezia Dugdale is voted off reality TV show I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here.

Dave Sharp, who was abused and raped at a Catholic residential school in Scotland as a child, said Dugdale had told him she would do everything she could to help him and other survivors of abuse and that her decision to enter the television show while the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry was going on “hurt”.

He has pledged to remain camped outside the parliament for “the duration of the time she is taking part in a demeaning reality show in Australia for a handsome fee”.

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LIVERPOOL (ENGLAND)
Liverpool Echo

December 1, 2017

By Josh Parry

Stephen Armstrong-Smith has bravely spoken out about his struggle to live with having been abused

A man who endured years of sexual abuse at the hands of a priest was so traumatised he turned to self-harm and extreme suicide attempts.

Father John Kevin Murphy, 93, used his position of trust to groom four boys during the 60s and 70s while working as a priest at St Luke’s Parish in Whiston, and the attached St Edmund Arrowsmith Catholic School.

Today Liverpool Crown Court heard how during his 12 years working in the area, Murphy, of St George’s Court in Maghull, gained the trust of several families and offered to take boys, aged between 11-16 at the time, for swimming lessons, exercise sessions and even camping trips abroad in order to abuse them.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

December 2, 2017

By Thomas Farragher

The roof leaks. The wiring is shot. The heating system is temperamental. And — I’m not afraid to tell you — there are bodies in the basement.

And yet when the priest and the builder, the latest caretakers of the 142-year-old puddingstone church on Washington Street, close their eyes, decades of decay and dust suddenly disappear.

They see a sparkling jewel. They hear an angelic choir and the tolling of 19th-century bells. They can smell incense — ancient and holy — wafting over a congregation who calls this place their spiritual home.

Simply put, they envision a shining, newly remodeled home for the mother church of Boston Catholicism, a home that had grown careworn, even neglected, and needs just about everything — new roofing, new altar, new systems, new floor, plus polish and paint from entrance to apse.

In short, new life.

“This is going to be our most significant renovation,’’ said the Rev. Kevin J. O’Leary, the Cathedral of the Holy Cross’s rector. “It’ll enrich parish life.’’

**
… Across the years, the old granite-trimmed church has been fraying at its edges, and then some. Fifteen years ago, as the global church was rocked by the clergy abuse scandal, whose epicenter was here in Boston, it didn’t seem the time to launch the costly repair work needed.

Now, O’Leary said, it feels a right and proper — and joyful — thing to do.

“For us, for this diocese, it’s going to be a symbol of hope for what we’ve been through,’’ O’Leary said. “The cardinal has been insistent about maintaining a place in the city as a beacon of hope for neighborhood people.’’

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AUSTRALIA
Australian Associated Press

December 3, 2017

By Megan Neil

Advocates say some child abuse victims are receiving lower compensation from institutions than they would possibly get under a national redress scheme.

Some institutions are rushing to lock child sexual abuse survivors into accepting top-up damages payments before a national redress scheme comes into effect, advocates say.

A number of institutions are “herding people through” before the mid-2018 start of the federal government’s redress scheme, church abuse victims’ advocacy group Broken Rites spokesman Wayne Chamley says.

“Individual institutions are rushing to lock people in before national redress can occur,” he told AAP.

Dr Chamley said institutions like the Salvation Army are renegotiating top-up payments of settlements at amounts below what would be provided under the national redress scheme and locking victims in with a deed of release, stopping them bringing a civil claim in court.

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UNITED STATES
CBN News (Christian Broadcasting Network)

December 2, 2017

The Rev. Patrick Mahoney, the pastor of Church on the Hill and director of the Christian Defense Coalition, has called for faith communities to be a leading voice in confronting sexual abuse and assault and to bring healing to those who have been wounded and impacted.

He’s encouraging churches all over North America to become involved and to speak out on these issues.

On Saturday, the Church on the Hill met near Capitol Hill in Washington D.C., to hear Mahoney present “A Christian Response to Sexual Assault and Rape Culture.”

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EDINBURGH (TX)
Univision

December 3, 2017

[Google Translate — 57 years later, they are judging the priest who gave the last confession to the Latina Irene Garza, murdered in 1960. On April 21, 1960, a man discovered the body of a woman floating in a canal in McAllen, Texas. It turned out to be Irene Garza, of Hispanic origin, who died asphyxiated after being raped. The case remained unsolved for 56 years, until in 2016 they arrested the priest who heard his last confession, John Feit, for his murder.]

El 21 de abril de 1960 un hombre descubrió flotando en un canal de McAllen, Texas, el cuerpo de una mujer. Resultó ser Irene Garza, de origen hispano, que murió asfixiada después de ser violada. El caso quedó sin resolver durante 56 años, hasta que en 2016 detuvieron por su asesinato al sacerdote que escuchó su última confesión, John Feit.

Crónica del crimen de una reina de belleza en el sur de Texas hace medio siglo Univision
El 21 de abril de 1960 W. Arnold descubrió flotando en un canal de la ciudad texana de McAllen el cuerpo de Irene Garza. La mujer, de origen mexicano, había desaparecido días antes. Tenía 25 años. Según la autopsia la mujer fue violada, asfixiada y lanzada al canal.

Irene Garza era profesora y solía presentarse a concursos de belleza: dos años antes había sido elegida Miss Sur Texas. Era católica practicante y se confesaba con regularidad. Sus familiares contaron cuando desapareció que había ido a confesarse a la parroquia del Sagrado Corazón en la ciudad texana y nunca regresó. Cinco días después se encontró su cadáver.

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ORO VERDE (ENTRE RIOS PROVINCE, ARGENTINA)
Analisis Digital

December 2, 2017

Está acusado de abuso de menores

[Google Translate: Scandal in Oro Verde with the return of Nicola as parish priest. He is accused of abusing minors. Last Wednesday, the parish priest of Oro Verde, Alfredo Nicola, accused of child abuse as revealed in the latest issue of the magazine ANALISIS, returned surprisingly to his position in the church “Jesus Christ Master and Lord of Humanity and Our Lady of Pompeii”. “The bishop lifted my license, and asked me to show up in the town and start giving mass. So here I am,” was the first thing he said when he arrived. The return of the priest puts in an uncomfortable situation Archbishop Juan Alberto Puiggari, who would be aware of the two complaints of abuse that were presented in the curia and that blame Nicola.]

El pasado miércoles, el párroco de Oro Verde, Alfredo Nicola, acusado de abuso de menores según reveló la última edición de la Revista ANALISIS, regresó sorpresivamente a su cargo en la iglesia “Jesucristo Maestro y Señor de la Humanidad y Nuestra Señora de Pompeya”. “El obispo me levantó la licencia, y me pidió que me muestre en el pueblo y empiece a dar misas. Así que acá estoy”, fue lo primero que dijo cuando llegó. La vuelta del cura pone en situación incómoda al arzobispo Juan Alberto Puiggari, quien estaría al corriente de las dos denuncias por abuso que se presentaron en la curia y que responsabilizan a Nicola. Oficialmente Puiggari no intervino ni dio instrucciones ni tampoco informó si la vuelta del sacerdote es permanente o temporal. La llegada de Nicola creó una situación incómoda: el vicario Daniel Rodríguez, que con la partida apresurada del párroco había quedado como administrador parroquial, volverá a su antigua función.

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VANCOUVER (CANADA)
Vancouver Courier

December 3, 2017

By John Kurucz

Creator of How Star Wars Saved My Life found solace and inspiration in 1977 film

In an alternate universe, the force has moved mountains, dethroned despots and fine-tuned fighting instincts.

For Nicholas Harrison, the force has had a more tangible application — it saved his life.

Harrison is at the helm of a one-man show called How Star Wars Saved My Life, an 80-minute long play that debuts at Performance Works on Granville Island Dec. 6.

The production hones in on Harrison’s experiences as a survivor of sexual and physical abuse and how he reconciled those episodes of abuse as a teenager, and then as an adult.

“On the outside, I’ve got a doctorate, I’m a successful artist and I do all these interesting things,” Harrison says. “It sounds great. But underneath that, what people don’t see, are these hidden stories that we are taught to supress or to feel shame or guilt about. We are told to keep quiet.”

The play is set in a fictional northern B.C. town called Hopeless, and the story picks up with Harrison as a five-year-old. He is subjected to four years of rape and physical abuse from priests and others at the Catholic school he attended.

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EDINBURGH (SCOTLAND)
Sunday Post

December 3, 2017

By Gordon Blackstock

After waiting years to be heard, the children of Smyllum tell their heartbreaking stories

They had waited a long time to be heard.

But in this nondescript office block, as commuters rushed by outside, they would speak at last.

And, finally, after all those years, these adults, who were once children in Scotland’s care homes, would tell their stories. Stories of neglect, of cruelty, of abuse and of murder.

The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry started its second phase in Edinburgh last week as judge Lady Smith, pictured, turned her attention to Smyllum Park children’s home in Lanarkshire, the orphanage where, as we revealed in September, up to 400 children are buried in an unmarked grave.

The hearings were harrowing for those who gave evidence and those who heard it. It was often heart-breaking.

Some in the seats open to the public wept as former child residents – most are now pensioners – described growing up in Smyllum.

One former resident of Smyllum Park in Lanark said six-year-old Sammy Carr died days after a nun launched a frenzied attack on him, repeatedly kicking him in the head.

In posthumous evidence, another ex-resident said 13-year-old Francis McColl died after a member of staff hit him on the head with a golf club.

Deaths were ‘covered up’ at the institution, run by ‘psychopathic’ nuns who meted out physical and sexual abuse – and even used crucifixes as ‘weapons’.

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PORTLAND (ME)
WMTW-TV

December 1, 2017

Former priest James Talbot, 80, pleaded not guilty Friday to gross sexual assault and unlawful sexual touching.

A judge set bail at $50,000.

Talbot is accused of sexually abusing a 9-year-old Freeport boy in 1997 and 1998.

He was recently indicted and brought back to Maine.

Talbot pleaded guilty in 2005 to molesting two students while he was a wrestling coach at Boston College High School in the 1970s.

Talbot was transferred to Cheverus High School in 1980, where he was a coach and teacher for nearly 20 years.

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