ABUSE TRACKER

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.

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EDINBURG (TX)
CBS 4 News

December 1, 2017

Day two of testimony wrapped up in the murder trial of John Feit, former priest accused of killing McAllen beauty queen Irene Garza nearly 60 years ago.

Seven witnesses took the stand Friday, including an evidence technician, friend of Garza, and employee of the church.

Forensic document examiner Kenneth Crawford took the stand and was asked to examine documents from the case, including a letter Feit allegedly wrote admitting that the viewfinder found at the bottom of the canal where Garza’s body was found, was in fact his. Crawford testified that after examining other documents, the letter was signed by Feit.

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TEXAS
Toronto Sun

December 2, 2017

By Brad Hunter

In the dusty, southern tip of Texas that sits on the Mexican border death came calling for a dedicated teacher and one-time beauty queen.

Irene Garza was 25 years old that warm April day in 1960.

She attended confession at a Catholic church in McAllen in the late afternoon.

And then she vanished.

Five days later her lifeless body was found in a lonely canal. She’d been sexually assaulted and strangled.

People in the tiny Texas town have been haunted for decades by the gruesome killing.

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EDINBURG (TX)
KRGV-TV

December 1, 2017

A total of seven witnesses took the stand in the trial of a former priest accused of killing a McAllen woman in Apr. 1960.

There were a few tense exchanges Friday between the attorneys in this case, but there were also a few light-hearted moments.

Day two of John Feit’s murder trial brought two women, who were in their early 20’s around the time of Irene Garza’s death, to take the stand Friday.

Both claim to have encountered Feit.

Beatrice Garcia said Feit asked to photograph her at a cemetery.

“He said I would love to take a picture of you in black by the cemetery, that is him right there,” testified Garcia while pointing at a photo of a young Feit displayed in court.

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SCOTLAND
The Times

December 2, 2017

by Gurpreet Narwan

A nun brought up in a Catholic care home was beaten and sexually assaulted by the sisters in charge, the historical Scottish child abuse inquiry was told.

The witness, known as Sister Louise, who lived at Bellevue House children’s refuge in Rutherglen and Smyllum Park orphanage in Lanark, said that she was forced to eat food and routinely cried herself to sleep at night.

Giving evidence to the second phase of the Scottish child abuse inquiry, Sister Louise said that she was sexually assaulted by a staff member on several occasions and that the sisters would be lying if they denied the abuse took place.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

December 2, 2017

By Niall Coll

In all the reflection on the alienation which clergy experience in this secular age, there’s little sense of the pain and joy that a typical priest finds in the lives of people he serves

Book Title: A Lost Tribe
ISBN-13: 9781843517146
Author: William King
Publisher: Lilliput Press
Guideline Price: €15.00

Even though this novel opens in the context of a priests’ retreat, one’s first impression is of spiritual emptiness and resignation. In many striking snatches of clipped conversation, the novel excavates the effects of the beating that the author feels the Irish Catholic clergy have taken in recent decades at the hands of angry secularists and under the weight of thousands of abuse allegations. The impression is of a beleaguered sub-group stranded in a wider culture which has moved on. One priest quips, ironically echoing Joyce’s outcast character, James Duffy, in the story A Painful Case: “Wouldn’t you feel you’re excluded from the party? Life I mean.” Another is unsurprised at news that a priest has committed suicide: ‘we’re expected to live this nonsensical life. Drudgery and isolation . . . It’s killing us.” The clerical ire reserved for remote, self-absorbed bishops who do little to help priests falsely accused of abuse is a particularly conspicuous theme.

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DUBLIN (IRELAND)
The New York Times

December 2, 2017

By Liam Stack

When Ailbhe Smyth was 37, voters in Ireland approved a constitutional amendment that banned abortion in nearly all cases and committed the nation to the principle that a pregnant woman and her fetus have an “equal right to life.”

Next year, when Ms. Smyth, a former professor and chairwoman of the Coalition to Repeal the Eighth Amendment, will be 72, Irish voters are expected to remove or alter that amendment in a new referendum that could give Ireland’s Parliament the freedom to legislate on the issue and write more flexible abortion laws.

What are the driving forces behind this significant shift in voter attitudes toward abortion and other social issues?

Ireland was long a bastion of Catholic conservatism, a place where pedestrians might tip their hats and hop off the footpath when a priest walked past. But economic and technological changes helped propel a shift in attitudes that accelerated with the unfolding of far-reaching abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church in the 1990s.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

December 1, 2017

By Kent P. Hickey

“This story is going to be hard,” I tell my sophomore Scripture class as we start Genesis 34.

Dinah is raped by Shechem, son of Hamor the Hivite. After the rape, Shechem tells Hamor to “get me this girl for a wife.” So, Hamor meets with Dinah’s father, Jacob, and the two tribal chieftains quickly realize that an opportunity is at hand for a mutually beneficial political alliance. A bargain is struck. Dinah is to marry Shechem.

Jacob’s sons — “speaking with guile because their sister had been defiled” — agree to the arrangement under the condition that all the males in Hamor’s tribe get circumcised. Hamor complies and, after their circumcisions, he and all of his men go to their tents to recover. It’s at this moment of vulnerability that Jacob’s sons swoop in, kill them all, and loot the town. Jacob angrily confronts his sons, to which they reply, “Should our sister have been treated like a harlot?”

The morality of these men’s actions (especially the killing in tents) has been debated for centuries. What hasn’t been debated much is the question I pose to my sophomores: “Whose voice is missing in all this?” That’s right. Dinah, the afterthought.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

December 1, 2017

By David Leser

Punching. Emotional abuse. Eye-popping sexual misdeeds. The accusations made against Sogyal Rinpoche – a key lama in the uptake of Buddhist principles by the West – have rocked devotees, including many in the top echelons of Australian business.

On a late September evening this year, a group of leading Australian business figures gathered in a Sydney boardroom to discuss a series of allegations that had scandalised the Buddhist world, and shaken their own to the core. The meeting was called by David White, chairman of business strategy advisers Port Jackson and Partners; Ian Buchanan, former lead partner with management consultants Booz Allen Hamilton; Diane Grady, non-executive director of Macquarie Bank and chair of Ascham School; and Gordon Cairns, chairman of Origin Energy and Woolworths.

What these four had in common was a long-standing involvement in Practical Wisdom, a series of business retreats held in Sydney over the past 15 years with Sogyal Rinpoche, the Tibetan Buddhist teacher and author of the 1992 international bestseller The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying.

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PORTLAND (ME)
Portland Press Herald

December 1, 2017

By Eric Russell

The allegations of Michael Doherty, formerly of Freeport, nearly two decades ago got Talbot fired from Cheverus High School and led more victims to come forward.

When he returned home to Maine recently, Michael Doherty didn’t expect to face the man he says sexually assaulted him back in the mid-’80s.

Doherty, 49, formerly of Freeport, settled a lawsuit 16 years ago with former priest and Cheverus High School teacher James Francis Talbot.

Doherty now lives in Florida.

But on Friday, he was in a courtroom in Portland waiting for Talbot to formally face criminal charges of abuse involving another victim.

Asked why it was important for him to be there, Doherty said he didn’t want the victim, or his family, to feel like they were alone.

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Scott J. Kallal was ordained in 2011 in Kansas City, Kansas for the Rome-based Apostles of the Interior Life. His whereabouts until 2014 are unclear; the 2013 and 2014 Catholic Directories show that he was assigned to “Further Studies.” During 2014-2016 Kallal was an assistant priest at St. Patrick’s in Kansas City, after which he was assigned to the same role at Holy Spirit in Overland Park.

In July 2017 Kallal was suspended from public ministry, after the archdiocese received allegations from two different sources that he had engaged in “boundary violations.” A man stated publicly that, in the summer of 2015, Kallal had tickled his 11-year-old daughter and touched her breast at a church gathering. Kallal denied “any moral misconduct or malicious intent” and was sent to Maryland for treatment. He was arrested shortly thereafter, on charges of two counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child.

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NEW YORK (NY)
The New Republic

November 30, 2017

By Irene Hsu and Rachel Stone

Two recent cases reveal how the structure of American graduate schools enables sexual harassment and worse.

It was 1998 when Franco Moretti approached Kimberly Latta on an airplane. At the time, Latta was a PhD student at Rutgers, and Moretti a professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University. Latta recalled, “[Franco] came over with a big smile on his face and said, ‘Hello, hello! Do you remember me?’” Latta, who was sitting beside a friend, summoned the courage to respond. “Of course I remember you,” she told Moretti. “And I will never forgive you for what you did to me.”

It wasn’t until this year that Latta spoke out publicly. Latta wrote—on Facebook, in a letter to Stanford administrators, and to reporters—that Moretti stalked and raped her in the 1984-1985 school year, when she was a graduate student and Moretti was a visiting professor at UC Berkeley. Latta is now a practicing psychotherapist; Moretti has been a professor emeritus at Stanford since 2016. (Irene Hsu, a co-writer for this article, graduated from the Stanford in June 2017 with a degree in English.)

Latta’s Facebook post, published in November, followed an essay by Seo-Young Chu, now an associate professor of English at Queens College, CUNY, about how her advisor, the late professor Jay Fliegelman, sexually harassed and raped her when she was an English PhD candidate at Stanford.

These stories have surfaced as part of the #MeToo movement, a watershed moment for workplace equality that has shaken politics, the media, and the entertainment industry. They mark what could be the beginning of a long-overdue public reckoning with power and consent in American graduate school programs. The allegations against Fliegelman (who died in 2007) and Moretti are not singular instances of faculty sexual abuse, limited to a single department within a particular educational institution—in the past month alone, graduate students have spoken out against faculty at Princeton University and the University of Rochester, among a slew of others. They are the product of a larger culture of silence and complicity, which has made for a dangerous, destructive, and exclusionary educational environment.

Moretti became a professor at Stanford in 2000, where he taught until his retirement. While there, he established “distant reading” as a novel and controversial mode of criticism. He is a veritable celebrity as far as literary scholars go, having been profiled in The New York Times and The New Yorker. His research was collected in Canon/Archive, co-authored by 14 others, which was published at the end of October by n+1 books. (Shortly after Latta’s Facebook post, the editors of n+1 books told The New Republic, “We were disturbed to hear of the allegations against Moretti, which only came to our attention yesterday. n+1 does not tolerate sexual harassment and abuse, and we take these allegations seriously.”)

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BROOKLINE (MA)
Wicked Local Brookline

November 29, 2017

By Dr. Ruth Nemzoff and Ellen Offner

Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein’s repugnant behavior has revealed for Americans that sexual predators lurk in schools and workplaces threatening young women and boys. Florence Graves was ahead of her times in 1995 when she exposed Bob Packwood’s peccadilloes, and she suffered retribution for her courage. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), a close ally of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s, has said that in today’s climate Bill Clinton would have had to resign the presidency. What about President Trump?

The excesses of the Catholic clergy, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump exposed this chilling behavior, but Weinstein’s behavior has freed many victims to speak out and awaken the public to this exploitation: in Hollywood, independent schools, colleges, places of worship, Congress and corporations. Wherever powerful authority figures can reward or punish those less powerful, predatory behavior seems all too common.

Times have changed since 1991, when the all-male Senate Judiciary confirmed Clarence Thomas’ nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court despite the chilling testimony of Oklahoma law professor Anita Hill that he had sexually harassed her while he was her boss. Nonetheless, Ronan Farrow, who reported on the “Weinstein Effect” in the New Yorker and on CNN, claims that NBC refused to air his report. This is not surprising since Fox News paid off women who complained about unwanted overtures from Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly. Hence kudos to The New Yorker for publishing outstanding articles such as “Anita Hill on Weinstein,” and “Trump, and a Watershed Moment for Sexual-Harassment Accusations,” by Jane Mayer, and Jia Tolentino’s “How Men Like Harvey Weinstein Implicate Their Victims in Their Acts.”

It is important to note that whereas the headline-grabbing stories are mainly about men harassing young women, male harassment of young boys has also been surfacing. Now the actor Anthony Rapp has stated that actor Kevin Spacey “got on top of him” when he was only 14 years old, Heather Unruh, a former Boston TV anchor, has revealed that Spacey sexually assaulted her son, then 16 years old, at a bar in Nantucket. The family has retained the lawyer Mitchell Garabedian, who represented victims of Catholic clergy abuse and was featured in the film “Spotlight” about the courageous reporting in the Boston Globe. Spacey’s “excuse” that he has decided to live as a gay man is a non sequitur.

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EDINBURG (TX)
The Monitor

November 28, 2017

By Molly Smith

EDINBURG — The judge presiding over the John Feit trial, which is arguably the highest profile case in Hidalgo County history, spent the final pretrial hearing leading up to the first day in court briefing members of the media on protocol.

Given local and national media interest in the case, and in an effort to minimize courtroom distractions, 92nd state District Judge Luis Singleterry designated a single pool photographer and pool videographer.

The Monitor will be providing still photography to all media and CBS’ “48 Hours” will be in charge of video. The crime and justice series previously ran a segment on the Irene Garza cold case in 2014.

Now 85 years old, Feit is accused of murdering Garza, a then 25-year-old schoolteacher, in April 1960 after she went to confession at McAllen’s Sacred Heart Church. He was a visiting priest at the church at that time.

Singleterry ordered that live streaming the trial — both video and audio — would not be permitted. Reporters, however, will be allowed to take to social media during the trial, which the judge said could take approximately 10 business days.

Final jury selection takes place Tuesday and Wednesday and, per Singleterry’s orders, media is not permitted in the courtroom during that time.

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TEXAS
Daily Mail

December 2, 2017

By Matthew Wright

Former priest, 85, ‘who beat, raped and strangled a Texas beauty queen to death in 1960’ appears in court with a walker as jury is shown her tattered outfit, shoe and purse that were found in a ditch

The petticoat, blouse, shoe, belt and purse belonging to Irene Garza were shown in an Edinburgh, Texas court for the case of 85-year-old John Feit

Feit is accused of beating and strangling the 25-year-old teacher and former beauty queen in 1960

Juan Gonzales and Alfredo Barrera testified on Thursday that they had both come across the purse after Garza had been killed

Authorities questioned the then-27-year-old priest who had scratches on his hand and failed a lie detector test but he was later listed as not being a suspect

The case went cold twice before a new jury indicted Feit in February 2016

The tattered outfit and purse of a Texas beauty queen killed in 1960 were shown in court on Friday in the trial of the former Catholic priest accused of killing her.

A crime scene technician looked over the personal effects of Irene Garza, 25, to help the state in their prosecution of 85-year-old John Feit.

Garza, a schoolteacher and Miss All South Texas Sweetheart 1958, disappeared on Easter weekend in April 1960 and was found dead in a canal five days later.

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UNITED STATES
The New York Times

November 30, 2017

By Shaila Dewan

She took decades to come forward. She can’t remember exactly what happened. She sent friendly text messages to the same man she says assaulted her. She didn’t fight back.

There are all sorts of reasons women who report sexual misconduct, from unwanted advances by their bosses to groping or forced sex acts, are not believed, and with a steady drumbeat of new reports making headlines, the country is hearing a lot of them.

But some of the most commonly raised causes for doubt, like a long delay in reporting or a foggy recall of events, are the very hallmarks that experts say they would expect to see after a sexual assault.

“There’s something really unique about sexual assault in the way we think about it, which is pretty upside down from the way it actually operates,” said Kimberly A. Lonsway, a psychologist who conducts law enforcement training on sexual assault as the research director of End Violence Against Women International. “In so many instances when there’s something that is characteristic of assault, it causes us to doubt it.”

Partly this is because of widespread misconceptions. The public and the police vastly overestimate the incidence of false reports: The most solid, case-by-case examinations say that only 5 to 7 percent of sexual assault reports are false. Responses to trauma that are often viewed as evidence of unreliability, such as paralysis or an inability to recall timelines, have been shown by neurobiological research to be not only legitimate, but common. And when it comes to the most serious assaults, like rape, people imagine that they are committed by strangers who attack in a dark alley, and base their view of how victims should react on that idea — even though the vast majority of assaults occur between people who know one another.

Many of the same credibility issues surround reports of sexual harassment involving advances made by a boss or someone in a position of power over the victim.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
Premier

December 1, 2017

By Alex Williams

A jury at the Old Bailey in central London has retired to consider its verdicts in the case of a former abbot accused of sexually abusing boys at a Catholic school in west London.

Andrew Soper, who worked as headmaster and senior priest at the fee-paying St Benedicts School in Ealing, denies 19 offences of indecent assault and buggery against boys during the 1970s and 1980s.

The 74 year old, who was also head of Ealing Abbey between 1991 and 2000, is accused of sexual touching and using a cane to beat youngsters.

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GRANADA (SPAIN)
ChurchMilitant.com

November 30, 2017

By Stephen Wynne

Court orders one accuser to pay court costs after false account dismissed

GRANADA, Spain (ChurchMilitant.com) – After a long battle over false accusations of sexual abuse, three Spanish priests are returning to ministry.

The archdiocese of Granada has announced the Vatican is lifting its precautionary suspension of Fr. Román Martínez and two other priests associated with the case.

In a communiqué released Wednesday, the archdiocese proclaimed:

The archdiocese of Granada, today, November 29, 2017, makes public the decision of the Holy See to have the precautionary canonical measures lifted from Mr. Román Martínez Velázquez de Castro, Mr. Francisco José Martínez Campos and D. Manuel Morales Morales, who had imposed them since October 15, 2014. Consequently, from today they return to exercise their priestly ministry, and on this same day they have received the communication of a new pastoral assignment.

The reinstatement comes after Fr. Martínez, the lone defendant in the case, was acquited of all charges in a Spanish court and complainant David Ramirez Castillo was ordered to pay all legal costs.

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SCOTLAND
BBC News

December 1, 2017

A nun who was brought up in care homes run by Catholic nuns has said the sisters in charge are lying if they deny abuse took place there.

The witness, known as Sister Louise, lived at Bellview children’s refuge in Rutherglen and Smyllum Park orphanage in Lanark.

She has been giving evidence to the second phase of the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry being held in Edinburgh.

She said her abiding memory of her time spent in the homes was fear.

The homes were run by the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul.

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AUSTRALIA
Catholic Herald

November 30, 2017

By Natasha Marsh

In 2017, the Church has endured an abuse crisis, lost a same-sex marriage vote and failed to stop euthanasia. Can it recover?

This Sunday marks the beginning of a new year (Year B, to be precise) in the Church’s liturgical calendar. That may be a relief for Australian Catholics, who will be glad to say goodbye to 2017 a few weeks early.

The year opened on a hard note, with the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse, in its fifth and final year, holding a three-week “wrap-up” session on the Catholic Church in February. The results were shocking and sickening, and were splashed across the news daily. While the vast majority of abuse was historical (between 1950 and 2010) these reports cast a chill on all good-hearted people – Catholic or not.

Many faithful Catholics were further disappointed and disillusioned as entire archdioceses lay paralysed by silence, peeping out from behind media releases and communications offices. Where were the prayer vigils? The novenas? The tears? Church billboards declaring “Not in my name”?

While disappointment was one emotion, another was rage. And the mainstream media capitalised on the zeitgeist, openly speculating whether it was Catholicism itself – from celibacy to Confession – that was intrinsically paedophilic.

Over the months, the spotlight was slowly directed towards one man – Australia’s highest ranking Catholic, Cardinal George Pell. The cardinal became the subject of countless articles, parodies and memes. A comedic song, calling him “scum”, gathered 2.5 million views, while a polemical book Cardinal: the Rise and Fall of George Pell was published in May. In November, an obscene public mural crept across a pub wall in Sydney depicting the cardinal with former prime minister Tony Abbott.

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FREEPORT (ME)
Portland Press Herald

December 1, 2017

By Eric Russell and Megan Doyle

The message to be delivered to parishioners at St. Jude comes after a former priest with a history of transgressions is charged with assaulting a 9-year-old boy there in 1998.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland said Thursday that it plans to encourage members to come forward with any information about suspected sexual abuse by a church official, in light of new criminal allegations against a former Jesuit priest.

James Francis Talbot was indicted this week on charges of gross sexual assault and unlawful sexual contact involving a 9-year-old boy at St. Jude Church in Freeport in 1998. Talbot was a longtime teacher at Cheverus High School in Portland when he also served at times as a priest in Freeport.

Two people involved in the case confirmed for the Portland Press Herald that Talbot, now 80, settled a lawsuit in June with the same alleged victim. The lawsuit describes how the alleged victim went through severe depression, loss of faith and thoughts of suicide as an adult. It also argues that church leaders and Cheverus officials should have prevented Talbot from ever having access to the boy.

Dave Guthro, spokesman for the diocese, said in an email that the Rev. Daniel Greenleaf, the parish pastor, “will be talking to the parishioners at St. Jude in Freeport to address the situation.” Guthro said Greenleaf would provide them with information about how to come forward with information about sexual abuse by clergy members, but he did not know whether the message would mention Talbot.

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LIVERPOOL (ENGLAND)
ECHO

December 1, 2017

ByJosh Parry

Father John Kevin Murphy abused boys as young as 11

A paedophile catholic priest who used swimming lessons and foreign camping trips as a ploy to abuse boys as young as 11 claimed he ‘couldn’t remember’ his sickening crimes.

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.

While teaching the boys to swim, he would put his hands inside their swimming trunks, touch their genitals, and then make them shower naked.

On one occasion, he made one of his victims sit on his knee in a changing room and performed a sex act on him.

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LIVERPOOL (ENGLAND)
BBC News

December 1, 2017

A Roman Catholic priest who admitted sexually abusing four boys over 40 years ago has been jailed.

Father John Murphy, 93, of St George’s Court, Maghull, pleaded guilty to 14 counts of indecently assaulting boys at swimming pools, on camping trips and at a church between 1962 and 1974.
He also admitted two counts of inciting boys to engage in sexual activity between 1963 and 1969.

He was sentenced to three years in prison at Liverpool Crown Court.

The court heard that Murphy had ministered to the relatives of the boys, who were aged between 11 and 16 at the time, and was treated with “reverence and respect” by one of his victims’ families.

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EDINBURG (TX)
San Antonio Express-News

November 30, 2017

By Aaron Nelsen

EDINBURG — A deal struck between the Hidalgo County district attorney and the Catholic Church allowed a priest who was a suspect in the 1960 murder of a South Texas beauty queen to walk free, former reporter Darrell Davis testified Thursday.

It was the first day of the trial of John Feit, now 85, accused of murder in the death of Irene Garza, a 25-year-old second-grade teacher who had gone to him for the sacrament of confession.

Robert Lattimore, then Hidalgo County district attorney, agreed to steer investigators away from Feit, and in return the 27-year old priest would be sent to a monastery to live out the remainder of his days, Davis told the jury. He was a television reporter at the time, assigned to cover the case.

Lattimore “knew that John Feit had killed Irene Garza and the church knew it,” said Davis, 77. Lattimore “had reached an agreement with the church that John Feit would be placed in a monastery for disturbed priests and remain there for the rest of his life.”

It was April 16, 1960, the evening before Easter Sunday and Garza had gone to confession at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in McAllen. Her lifeless body was pulled from a canal five days later. An autopsy found that she had been beaten, raped while unconscious and then asphyxiated.

Two weeks before, Feit had attacked America Guerra at a church in Edinburg. It wasn’t long before Feit became a suspect in Garza’s murder.

Davis was covering the Guerra case and the Garza death for a local television station.

Testifying in the 92nd district court Thursday, the same courtroom where Feit faced charges of assault and attempted rape of Guerra, Davis recalled his off-the-record meeting with Lattimore.

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AUSTIN (TX)
Reuters

November 30, 2017

By Jon Herskovitz

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) – A former Roman Catholic priest took the confession of a Texas beauty queen, then lured her to a church rectory and killed her, prosecutors said on Thursday to start a trial for a 1960 murder that has been one of state’s most notorious cold cases.

In opening statements at a state court in the border county of Hidalgo, prosecutors said John Feit, 84, charged with the murder 57 years ago of Irene Garza, then 25, engaged in “betrayal, murder and cover-up,” local media reports from the courtroom said.

Feit, who used a walker when he entered court, has denied the charges and his lawyers urged the jury to believe facts about the case and not stories.

“There wasn’t enough evidence then, and there isn’t enough evidence now,” defense attorney O. Rene Flores was quoted as saying by the McAllen Monitor newspaper.

Garza, a former Miss South Texas and second-grade school teacher, was a devout Catholic who often went to confession, prosecutors told the court, the reports said.

After the April 1960 attack, Feit returned to the church and continued to hear confessions, prosecutors said.

Garza’s body was found five days later in a nearby canal. An autopsy showed that she had been raped while comatose and died of suffocation, according to the Texas Rangers, a statewide police agency.

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EDINBURG (TX)
KENS-TV

December 1, 2017

By Oscar Margain

EDINBURG, TX – A former priest accused of a 1960 murder of a South Texas beauty queen is now being tried in state court. It’s a case that has left many unanswered questions about what happened the night the young woman went missing.

Day one of the trial wrapped up at the Hidalgo County court house with opening statements and six witnesses taking the stand on Thursday.

John Bernard Feit, 85, arrived at the 92nd district in a walker next to his defense attorney.

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EDINBURG (TX)
The Monitor

December 1, 2017

By Lorenzo Zazueta-Castro

EDINBURG — The Latest on the John Feit trial:

12 p.m.

After more boxes of evidence were opened following the first break, the evidence tech remained on the stand and fielded questions from the defense.

Handwritten letters from Feit to McAllen Police Chief Clint Mussey and an affidavit from the defendant taken shortly after Garza’s disappearance were among the items entered as evidence.

Before the court recessed for lunch break, jurors heard from an employee of Sacred Heart church in Edinburg, Cleotilde “Tilly” Sanchez.

Sanchez, the state’s third witness of the day, worked as a cook in the rectory at the church.

She testified about receiving an anonymous call from a man who made an ominous statement: “Tilly, you’re next honey.”

Despite the caller not identifying himself, Sanchez said she recognized Feit’s voice. She said she often encountered him at the church’s rectory, where he spent time with other priests.

In another instance, Sanchez testified about Feit remarking to other priests, “We should lock the door, and make Tilly disappear.”

Although not part of her testimony Friday, Sanchez has claimed that the threatening call from Feit came shortly after the Guerra incident, in which Feit’s finger was allegedly injured.

This testimony followed Beatrice Garcia, who testified that a man approached her in his car as she walked in downtown McAllen, near the Sacred Heart Church, and told her that he’d love to take pictures of her by the cemetery.

Garcia, who was in her 20s in 1960, said she felt scared by the proposition and later learned it was Feit, who had been implicated in the Guerra incident.

After the encounter, Garcia said her father would accompany her when she walked to work.

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EDINBURG (TX)
CBS/AP

November 30, 2017

EDINBURG, Texas — A prosecutor tells jurors evidence will show an 85-year-old former Catholic priest was responsible for the slaying of a South Texas teacher and ex-beauty queen 57 years ago. 48 Hours investigated the case in the 2014 episode, “The Last Confession.”

Opening statements and testimony began Thursday in the trial of John Feit in Edinburg, Texas.

He’s accused of the April 1960 beating and suffocation of 25-year-old Irene Garza. Garza’s body was found in an irrigation canal in McAllen, Texas. The last time anybody saw the beauty queen, she was going to confession at Sacred Heart Catholic Church. Feit, 27 at the time, heard that confession. He was a visiting priest.

The Monitor of McAllen reports prosecutor Michael Garza told jurors that Feit committed the murder “with malice and forethought.” According to Reuters, prosecutors argued that after hearing Garza’s confession, Feit lured her into the rectory, where he killed her.

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RUTHERFORD CO. (NC)
7News WSPA

December 1, 2017

By Brianna Smith

RUTHERFORD Co., NC (WSPA) — Rutherford County Department of Social Services and the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services has announced a new partnership in reviewing child abuse and neglect cases connected to Word of Faith Fellowship.

A settlement between Word of Faith and Rutherford County DSS in 2005 from a federal lawsuit, has recently become scrutinized. The settlement closed and expunged records of 10 pending cases on children within the Western North Carolina church. The settlement also laid out stipulations for future cases. Those stipulations included giving Word of Faith Fellowship the right to record any interviews Rutherford County DSS had with children, it also to some extent protected a religious ritual inside the church known as blasting. Blastings are prayers within the church that include large amounts of screaming or shrieking and often physical abuse, according to former members. Word of Faith Fellowship has repeatedly denied any abuse claims within the church.

To read the full settlement, click here: Rutherford Co. DSS Settlement

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SANT’AGATA (ITALY)
International Business Times

December 1, 2017

By Jason Murdock

Father Pio Guidolin now stands accused of sexual assault on minors.

Italian law enforcement has arrested a Catholic priest working in the parish of the village of Sant’Agata who, for at least three years, is alleged to have raped several children under the age of 14.

Father Pio Guidolin now stands accused of sexual assault on minors. Local media reported that the carabinieri – military police – arrested the priest on Friday (1 December) following an investigation by the District Prosecutor’s Office in Catania, the second largest city of Sicily.

The priest allegedly exploited his role and took advantage of the “fragility of several youngsters” who were left disturbed by the incidents, read a notice released by the prosecutor of Catania.

Police believe the priest forced children to perform sexual acts. According to La Stampa, Guidolin would sprinkle victims with holy oil taken from his church.

He would reportedly conduct what he claimed were “purifying acts” to “soothe their inner sufferings.”

The police investigation discovered that after one child refused to submit to the priest he was isolated from the religious community.

Local media revealed that after some parents became highly suspicious of his actions he threatened and intimidated them by speaking about his knowledge and links to the mafia.

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EDINBURG (TX)
The Associated Press

November 30, 2017

EDINBURG, Texas (AP) — A prosecutor tells jurors evidence will show an 85-year-old former Catholic priest was responsible for the slaying of a South Texas teacher and ex-beauty queen 57 years ago.

Opening statements and testimony began Thursday in the trial of John Feit in Edinburg, Texas.

He’s accused of the April 1960 beating and suffocation of 25-year-old Irene Garza. She was found dead five days after going to a McAllen church for confession.

The Monitor of McAllen reports prosecutor Michael Garza told jurors that Feit committed the murder “with malice and forethought.”

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EDINBURG (TX)
Texas Standard

November 30, 2017

By Michael Marks
Written by Jen Rice

On April 16, 1960, a 25-year-old schoolteacher and former beauty queen named Irene Garza attended confession at Sacred Heart Church in McAllen. Five days later, she was found dead in a nearby canal. An investigation revealed she’d been sexually assaulted, beaten, and suffocated.

No one’s ever been convicted of murdering Garza. The crime has loomed over the Rio Grande Valley for nearly 60 years. But now, the priest who heard her final confession has been charged with her murder. John Feit, who’s since left the priesthood, will stand trial this week in a case that’s attracted national attention.

Lorenzo Zazueta-Castro, a reporter for the McAllen Monitor, says the trial stems from a campaign promise made by Hidalgo County District Attorney Ricardo Rodriguez Jr., who vowed to get justice for Garza’s family.

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EDINBURG (TX)
710 KURV News Talk

December 01, 2017

By Zack Cantu

It’ll be day two of testimony starting this morning in the murder trial of former McAllen priest John Feit, accused of killing former McAllen beauty queen Irene Garza 57 years ago. Prosecutors kicked off the first day of testimony late Thursday morning by calling local attorney Darrell Davis to the stand. Five more witnesses were questioned before the trial adjourned for the day. Before that, prosecutors used their opening statements to say that Feit engaged in “betrayal, murder, and cover-up” when he raped and suffocated Garza. They told the Hidalgo County jury that Feit committed the murder with “malice and forethought”, saying Feit heard Garza’s Easter weekend confession, then lured her to the rectory of Sacred Heart Catholic Church, and killed her. Defense attorneys, in their opening statements, told jurors there wasn’t enough evidence in 1960 to show Feit committed murder and there isn’t enough evidence now. A 7 woman-5 man jury is hearing the high-profile case.

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UNITED STATES
PBS News Hour

November 28, 2017

By Laura Santhanam

On April 27, 2016, former U.S. house speaker Dennis Hastert was convicted of breaking banking law, but crimes to which he confessed in court — sexually abusing multiple high school boys in Illinois while he served as their wrestling coach nearly four decades ago — would never be prosecuted. Their statutes of limitations had expired.

A year later, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan declared the state had removed the criminal statute of limitation for sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault and aggravated sexual abuse against children. She credited Illinois’ passage of that legislation with the “powerful and courageous testimony of survivors,” many of them speaking publicly for the first time after years of silence, anger and shame.

“Tragically, there are millions of people whose childhoods are tarnished by sexual assault and sexual abuse,” Madigan said in an email to the NewsHour. “For decades they struggle to come to terms with the terrible impacts these crimes have on their lives – including the troubling fact that very few of the perpetrators are held accountable.”

In recent weeks, high-profile and long-buried stories of sexual assault and harassment have cropped up across the country. Since Oct. 5, when the New York Times published its investigation into allegations of sexual harassment against Hollywood film producer and executive Harvey Weinstein, dozens of women and men have come forward with their own stories about sexual misconduct by other powerful men, from Roy Moore, Alabama’s Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, to Charlie Rose, a long-time broadcast news host for PBS and CBS News.

But after they share their stories, what legal standing do victims of sexual harassment and assault have to pursue those accusations in court? That depends in large part on the statutes of limitations that apply in their state.

Nationwide, one out of three women said they have been sexually harassed or abused at work, according to a recent poll from the PBS NewsHour, NPR and Marist Poll. But according to 2016 federal data from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which monitors reports of unwelcome sexual advances at the workplace, 6,914 incidents of sexual harassment were filed that year. Many more cases go unreported.

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ITALY
Rai News

November 30, 2017

[Google Translate: The umpteenth earthquake that makes the Vatican tremble with its epicenter of the IOR, has erupted following investigations by the Vatican Gendarmerie. What emerged forced Giulio Mattietti, added by the General Manager, to resign from his position. He was appointed in November 2015 together with the general manager. But exactly two years after his entry, a dismissal with expulsion (some gendarmes would have accompanied him across the border) puts an end to Mattietti’s experience.]

Le dimissioni sarebbero scattate in seguito a un’indagine della gendarmeria vaticana

L’ennesimo terremoto che fa tremare il Vaticano con epicentro lo Ior, è scoppiato a seguito di indagini della Gendarmeria vaticana. Quanto emerso ha costretto Giulio Mattietti, aggiunto del Direttore Generale, a dimettersi dal suo incarico. Era stato nominato nel novembre 2015 insieme al direttore generale. Ma esattamente a due anni dal suo ingresso, un licenziamento con espulsione (alcuni gendarmi lo avrebbero accompagnato oltre confine) pone fine all’esperienza di Mattietti. Della decisione non si conoscono i motivi ma ci sarebbe stato anche un altro analogo provvedimento a carico di un dipendente dell’istituto. Intanto continuano a circolare voci su Jean-Baptiste de Franssu, il presidente che dovrebbe lasciare come effetto domino per il forzato allontanamento del prefetto della Segreteria per l’economia, George Pell. Secondo la rivista Formiche se la passano male tutti gli uomini vicini al cardinale australiano e al revisore generale Libero Milone, allontanato anche lui in modo plateale e drammatico dalla Gendarmeria. Milone era un’altra creatura del cardinale australiano George Pell i cui enormi poteri, Francesco aveva via via ridimensionato fino all’aspettativa che gli ha concesso Papa Francesco perché potesse tornare in Australia a difendersi da infamanti accuse di pedofilia.

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ITALY
Espansione TV News

November 29, 2017

By Anna Campaniello

[Google Translate: The former judicial vicar of the Diocese of Como, Fr Andrea Stabellini, involved precisely for this role in the service of the transmission of Italy1 The Hyenas on alleged abuses to presbyter Saint Pius X, in the Vatican, temporarily suspended teaching in the seminary in Como but also in Rome and Lugano. For the Diocese it is a personal decision of the priest, who would have asked for a break just in light of the tensions and difficulties related to the affair.]

L’ex vicario giudiziale della Diocesi di Como, don Andrea Stabellini, coinvolto proprio per questo suo ruolo nel servizio della trasmissione di Italia1 Le Iene sui presunti abusi al preseminario San Pio X, in Vaticano, ha temporaneamente sospeso l’insegnamento in seminario a Como ma anche a Roma e a Lugano. Per la Diocesi si tratta di una decisione personale del sacerdote, che avrebbe chiesto una pausa proprio alla luce delle tensioni e delle difficoltà legate alla vicenda.

Don Andrea ha di fatto puntato il dito contro l’ex vescovo di Como monsignor Diego Coletti, dicendo che il presule gli aveva chiesto di non dar luogo a procedere con gli accertamenti sui presunti abusi, sui quali invece il vicario giudiziale avrebbe voluto fare altri approfondimenti.
Dopo i recenti servizi delle Iene, il Vaticano ha comunicato di aver riaperto il caso e disposto nuovi accertamenti.

L’ex vicario, che insegna diritto canonico in seminario ma anche all’università a Lugano e a Roma, al momento ha sospeso tutte le lezioni, a tempo indeterminato. La Diocesi di Como precisa tramite l’ufficio stampa che si tratta appunto di una scelta personale del sacerdote e non di una decisione imposta da altri. Nel servizio delle Iene, è stata messa in onda anche una serie di dichiarazioni che don Andrea ha rilasciato quando gli era stato assicurato che le telecamere erano spente e proprio in questa parte del colloquio ci sono le dichiarazioni che puntano il dito contro l’ex vescovo Diego Coletti.

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ITALY
Quotidiano Venaria

November 29, 2017

[Google Translate: The Court of Appeal has reduced the sentence from 3 years and 8 months to 2 years for the former parish priest of Santa Gianna Beretta Molla di Venaria.]

La Corte d’Appello ha ridotto la pena da 3 anni e 8 mesi a 2 anni per l’ex parroco della Santa Gianna Beretta Molla di Venaria.

Nuova condanna per pedofilia, questa volta in appello, per don Ilario Rolle, ex parroco della Santa Gianna Beretta Molla di Venaria.

L’ex prete che da sempre combatte la pedofilia – dando vita anche al famoso filtro per internet davide.it – ha ricevuto una condanna a due anni per una storia del 2007, quando don Rolle venne accusato da un ragazzino di 12 anni di averlo baciato ripetutamente, sulla guancia e sulla nuca, durante un campo estivo in montagna.

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QUEBEC (CANADA)
The Toronto Star

November 29, 2017

By Allan Woods

Father Alexis Joveneau was celebrated for his work over four decades among the Innu of northern Quebec, but a string of women now say he groped and abused them as girls.MONTREAL—For most of his adult life and for decades after his death Father Alexis Joveneau was regarded as a religious superstar in Quebec.

But the national inquiry into murdered and missing Indigenous women has heard from several witnesses who said they were sexually abused over several years by the priest.

In the predominately Innu community of La Romaine, Que., Joveneau was celebrated, respected, and considered by many to be “Jesus in person,” as one witness recounted. He left a much different impression on his victims.

“He mistreated us. He abused us,” said Noelle Mark, 57, who described being touched inappropriately by Joveneau between the ages of about nine and 15.

She was one of two women Wednesday who described going to church for confession and being forced to sit on the priest’s knee and endure his inappropriate touches, rather than kneeling.

“He would stick his tongue in my ear. I remember that for a long time,” Mark said. “I hated that smell—his breath. I smell it now.”

The Belgian-born priest was ordained in 1951 and requested he be sent to Canada with the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, an international religious order. He arrived in Quebec’s rugged north coast of the St. Lawrence River and spent nearly four decades living and working among the Innu people until his sudden death in 1992.

It was noted upon his death that Joveneau was fluent in Innu-aimun, the Innu language, and dedicated much of his time to safeguarding the language and translating educational and religious books for Innu readers.

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WILLIAMSON (WV)
Williamson Daily News

November 30, 2017

By Diane W. Mufson

Following the revelation of many instances of sexual abuse and harassment from males in powerful positions, Americans seem surprised and ask, “How could this happen and why didn’t people know about it?” The answer is simple. This is as old as time and many people knew about it.

Powerful people, often synonymous with men with wealth and high political, religious or business status, have clout and control. Most were and still are immune from negative repercussions regarding their actions. Often the recipients of the abuse were punished or blamed. So today’s question is this: With all the well-known sexual abusers and harassers being publicly identified, will this age-old practice stop?

In the past year or two, some of the biggest names in media, theater, politics and high places have been identified as sexual abusers or sexual harassers. Until recently, most weren’t a bit worried as that’s been the status quo for eons.

So, why now? Some suggest that last winter’s Women’s March in Washington led women to feel that they actually had a voice; others point to the rise of women in business and elected offices. Many women claim that electing a president who was recorded saying that when you are powerful you can do almost anything you want, including grabbing women sexually, put women on notice that it was their job to take control of their lives. Social media and large numbers of victims speaking out have had a major impact.

Women also can be sexual abusers. The most publicized cases usually involve young female teachers and adolescent male students. This is obviously wrong, but the frequency of these situations pales in comparison to powerful males taking advantage of females. Same-sex sexual abuse, as exemplified by Kevin Spacey, and same-sex child sexual abuse, exemplified by Penn State’s Jerry Sandusky and some clergy as well, are also nothing new.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
Get West London

November 30, 2017

By Aine Fox and Emily Pennink

The jury is out after a two-month trial into alleged sexual abuse at St Benedict’s School, Ealing

A former abbot at Ealing Abbey accused of abusing boys while working at a school in Ealing is awaiting the verdict in his trial at the Old Bailey.

Andrew Soper was headmaster and senior priest at St Benedict’s School, a fee-paying independent school in Ealing, and he stands accused of abusing 10 boys there during the 1970s and 80s.

Now aged 74, Mr Soper denies 19 offences of indecent assault and buggery against the boys, who claim they were subjected to sexual touching and beatings with a cane.

Prosecutors said the school had a history of “both violence and sexual abuse” by the adults in charge, describing it as “sadly prevalent”.

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GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

November 30, 2017

By Mindy Aguon

A former Guam resident who now lives in North Carolina has filed a lawsuit alleging he and other Boy Scouts were paid to swim naked and be sexually abused by a priest in the mid-1970s.

B.G., 58, who used his initials to protect his identity, filed a lawsuit in the District Court of Guam against the Archdiocese of Agana, the Boy Scouts of America and retired priest, Louis Brouillard.

The complaint states that B.G. joined the Agana Boy Scouts troop when he was 14 and participated in various Boy Scout activities when Brouillard served as a scoutmaster and was also a priest for the Agana Archdiocese.

Brouillard allegedly swam completely naked and routinely instructed B.G. and the other boys to remove their clothes as the priest would grope and touch their private parts while they were swimming, the lawsuit states.

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ST. PAUL AND MINNEAPOLIS (MN)
The Catholic Spirit

November 29, 2017

By Maria Wiering

Richard Jeub, a priest of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis since 1966, has been dispensed from the clerical state, according to a Nov. 29 statement from the archdiocese.

Jeub, 77, retired in 2002, but he has been prohibited from ministry since that year, following a credible accusation of sexual abuse of a minor.

Jeub served as an associate priest at St. Joseph, Hopkins, 1966-1967; Our Lady of Grace, Edina, 1967-1970; St. Mark, St. Paul, 1970-1976: Christ the King, Minneapolis, 1976-1978; Sacred Heart, Robbinsdale, 1996-1997; Sacred Heart/St. Lawrence, Faribault, 1997-2000; and St. Rose of Lima, Roseville, 2000-2002.

He ministered as a hospital chaplain at Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park and Fairview Southdale Hospital in Edina from 1978 to 1982.

Jeub’s longest assignment was from 1981 to 1990 as pastor of St. Kevin in south Minneapolis, which merged with nearby Church of the Resurrection in 1991 to form Our Lady of Peace. His assignment history has been posted since 2014 at the archdiocese’s website in a list of priests who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse of a minor.

Commonly referred to as “laicization,” dispensation from the clerical state is an action of the pope. Men who have been dismissed from the clerical state may not present themselves as priests.

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SCOTLAND
BBC News

November 30, 2017

A former resident of a Catholic orphanage has told how he was dragged into a toilet cubicle and sexually abused.

The boy was under the age of 10 when the male staff member subjected him to the ordeal.

The man, now in his 60s, has told the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry that life at Smyllum Park Orphanage in Lanark was “like a concentration camp”.

The witness lived at Smyllum Park in the 1950s.

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AUSTRALIA
Crux

November 30, 2017

An Australian archbishop facing charges over allegedly covering up a case of clerical sexual abuse has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

The trial of Archbishop Philip Wilson of Adelaide was due to begin on Tuesday in Newcastle. He is charged with concealing information about an abuse case from the 1970s.

The court accepted a defense motion to adjourn the case, until a neuropsychologist could assess the archbishop.

Information given to the judge said the “memory part of the brain” was not working properly, and Wilson had suffered a “loss of brain matter.”

In addition, the archbishop suffers from type-2 diabetes, hypertension, and ischemic heart disease.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Newsweek

November 30, 2017

By Ralph Cipriano

It took a near-death experience to convince retired Philadelphia police detective Joe Walsh that he couldn’t keep quiet anymore about what he knew.

It was June 11, 2015, just another sunny day down at the Jersey Shore, when Walsh suddenly felt severe pain in his jaw. An old Army buddy noticed the color had drained from Walsh’s face, told him “Sit down!” and called 911.

In the ambulance, a paramedic asked Walsh if he liked the T-shirt he was wearing. “Not particularly,” Walsh replied. “That’s good,” the paramedic said, before he cut it off with scissors. “He hooked me up [to a monitor], and that’s all I remember,” Walsh says. “Everything went white.”When he came to minutes later, Walsh heard an emergency medical technician say, “Come on, Joe, keep breathing.” Then he heard the paramedic say that when he woke up, he was going to think he’d been kicked in the chest by a horse.

During that ambulance ride, Walsh’s heart stopped beating for two and a half minutes; it took two jolts from a defibrillator to get it going again.The ambulance raced to the Cape May Court House Armory, so Walsh could be flown by helicopter to a nearby hospital for emergency surgery. Doctors there implanted two stents in the left coronary artery and gave Walsh morphine for the pain in his chest.As he recovered from his heart attack, he endured two painful back operations. And while he dealt with all his physical pain, Walsh realized something else was bothering him: his conscience.

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OMAHA (NE)
KETV

November 29, 2017

By Waverle Monroe

A 24/7 crisis hotline that has seen more people come forward to share their stories.

Omaha, Neb. —
A day that never ends,

“Catholic Charities Domestic Violence Services, how may I help you?”

A 24/7 crisis hotline that has seen more people come forward to share their stories.

“I saw that for our 24/7 hotline, we’ve seen a 40 percent increase from last year to this year,” said Catholic Charities Domestic Violence Services Supervisor, Rachel Gifford, “and then in our shelter, we’ve got a 15 percent increase.”

Gifford said those statistics are rising month-to-month.

Seeing the effects of the rise is Nebraska Sexual Assault and Abuse Prevention President, and sexual abuse survivor herself, Ren Drincic.

“It’s really interesting because ever since #MeToo, the hashtag campaign started, that’s really when the influx began,” Drincic said.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

November 30, 2017

By Haidee V Eugenio

A former Guam resident now living in North Carolina said he quit the Boy Scouts of America in the 1970s after he could no longer handle the pain, humiliation and embarrassment that Father Louis Brouillard inflicted on him, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday in federal court.

The plaintiff, identified in court documents only as B.G., to protect his privacy, said in his lawsuit that Brouillard sexually abused and molested him during the time he served as a Boy Scout, around 1973 or 1974. He was about 14 or 15 years old then.

Now 58, B.G. said he joined the Agana Boy Scout or the Agana Troop. Brouillard was a scout master for the Boy Scouts.

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NEW YORK (NY)
USA Today

November 30, 2017

By Erin Jensen

One day after Matt Lauer was fired for inappropriate sexual behavior at work, additional details are emerging about the the former NBC host’s conduct.

Lauer, 59, who co-anchored Today for more than 20 years, has also broken his silence and released a statement Wednesday.

NBC News’ Stephanie Gosk says there are as many as eight victims

Gosk appeared on Megyn Kelly Today Thursday fielding questions from the host about her Lauer investigation. Gosk said that are as many as eight accusers, though tallying is difficult as the accounts have been anonymous.

Several accusers told Variety “they complained to executives at the network about Lauer’s behavior, which fell on deaf ears.” NBC has denied this telling NBC News “current NBC News management was never made aware.”

After Kelly brought up the report of sexual assault from The New York Times, Gosk said the New York City Police Department and police departments in Long Island have been contacted and she is unaware of any open criminal investigations for Lauer.

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OMAHA (NE)
Omaha World-Herald

November 24, 2017

By Michael Kelly

The young Catholic priest who was moved out of a parish for his questions of seventh- and eighth-graders during confession has been reassigned under the guidance of a veteran pastor.

The Rev. Nicholas Mishek will lead the 9 a.m. Mass Sunday at St. Frances Cabrini Church south of downtown. Out of the public eye, he has lived at the rectory there for at least a month, said the Rev. Damian Zuerlein, pastor.

“He is young and inexperienced,” Zuerlein said, “and is trying to learn from this and move forward.”

According to letters to be read at weekend Masses at St. Frances Cabrini and at St. Robert Bellarmine, Mishek’s former parish, the Omaha Archdiocese after outside psychological evaluations found him suitable to return to the ministry.

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ITALY
Fanpage.it Cronaca Italiana

November 29, 2017

By Davide Falcioni

[Google Translate: Three children, two of 15 and one in 16, reported yesterday in the classrooms before the judges the sexual abuse suffered until some years ago by former priest Giovanni Trotta, 56, who at the time was a trainee of those young people in a youth football team in the province of Foggia.]

Don Giovanni Trotta, 56 anni, è imputato per violenza sessuale aggravata, produzione e diffusione di materiale pedopornografico e adescamento di minori.

Tre ragazzini, due di 15 anni e uno di 16, hanno raccontato ieri in aula, di fronte ai giudici, gli abusi sessuali subiti fino a qualche anno fa dall’ex sacerdote Giovanni Trotta, 56enne che all’epoca dei fatti era allenatore di quei giovani in una squadra di calcio giovanile della provincia di Foggia.

Nel processo che si sta svolgendo dinanzi al Tribunale di Foggia, il prete è imputato per violenza sessuale aggravata, produzione e diffusione di materiale pedopornografico e adescamento di minori. I tre minorenni sono stati chiamati a testimoniare sugli abusi subiti. Replicando alle domande dei pubblici ministeri baresi, competenti su Foggia per il reato di pedopornografia, che hanno coordinato le indagini, Simona Filoni e Domenico Minardi, i tre hanno confermato ogni particolare, dalle foto nudi scattate a casa del sacerdote agli atti sessuali a quali erano sottoposti, mimando gesti e raccontando episodi. Hanno chiesto che i loro genitori potessero restare fuori dall’aula e, per ore, tra lacrime e imbarazzo, hanno ricordato quei momenti.

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ESSEX (UK)
The Guardian

November 23, 2017

By Robert Booth

Stephen Jackson, 72, was fired from Tendring technology college in September after police were alerted to catalogue of historical allegations in California

A teacher who has faced multiple allegations of child sexual abuse in the US and confessed to molesting schoolboys has been uncovered working in a secondary school in Essex, the Guardian can reveal.

Stephen Jackson, 72, taught English to 11- to 13-year-olds at Tendring technology college this term despite previously confessing to police in California that he engaged in sexual acts with children.

It has also emerged that he previously worked for two years at a school in south London without being discovered.

Jackson joined the staff of the 2,000-pupil Tendring college, in Frinton-on-Sea, in June this year. However, he was fired after a fortnight of lessons this term after Essex police raised concerns, having received “intelligence concerning a teacher working in the Tendring area”.

He is believed to have left the country, possibly travelling to Venezuela.

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UNITED STATES
The Washington Post

November 28, 2017

By Paige Winfield Cunningham

The science is in: Men who engage in sexual misconduct really can help themselves.

Despite the excuses you might hear from leaders in the political, entertainment and media worlds who are accused of sexually harassing women (and some men) — a list that seems to grow daily — advances in brain imaging have recently revealed that these kinds of behaviors are simply not addictive in the same way drugs or alcohol might be.

Here’s how researchers identify when a behavior is addictive: When that behavior starts lighting up the part of the brain connected to need instead of pleasure. That’s what occurs in the brains of people struggling with substance abuse. But the same thing doesn’t occur in people who say they have sexual urges they can’t control, researchers said.

“Now that we start to look at the brains of people and see what is going on, [sex addiction] doesn’t fit the criteria of a mental disorder,” Joye Swan, psychology chair at Woodbury University, told me.

Psychologists have become so convinced of this that most of the leading scientific bodies have recently released papers or statements saying that what is called “sex addiction” isn’t actually an addiction. Last year, the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists said there’s insufficient evidence to support classifying sex addiction as a mental health disorder. In 2012, the American Psychiatric Association removed “sex addiction” from DSM-5, the handbook of mental health disorders.

The science is something to keep in mind in the #MeToo era, as more and more women have the courage to speak up about their experiences with rampant harassment and misconduct — and the cultural stigma begins shifting from the victims to the alleged instigators.

There’s an increasingly crowded stage of powerful men facing such charges — most recently Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), who yesterday took to the mics to claim he doesn’t recall instances where four women say he touched them inappropriately — but also Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) (the latest charge is here), comedian Louis C.K., media figures Mark Halperin and Charlie Rose, actor Kevin Spacey and many others. President Trump has also been accused of sexual misconduct by 13 women.

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VANCOUVER (CANADA)
Georgia Straight

November 29th, 2017

By Janet Smith

When Nicholas Harrison was nine years old, he saw Star Wars—a movie that didn’t just change his life but, as he puts it, saved it. He’d been invited to his first birthday party, to watch Smokey and the Bandit with some other boys, and started wandering between the theatres of the multiplex. Something caught his attention on one of the big screens: two robots were walking across a sand dune, and one said, “We were made to suffer. It seems to be our lot in life.”

The words struck a nerve in the boy, who had endured more suffering than any child should ever have to face—almost five straight years of unspeakable physical and sexual abuse by the teachers, nuns, and priests at his Catholic elementary school.

Later, another line hit him just as hard: the elderly Obi Wan Kenobi telling the evil Darth Vader “If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”

“Seeing this old man go up against Darth Vader: it was amazing to me, having this courage,” Harrison recalls, sitting with the Straight in a West Broadway coffee shop. “So I had to go back and watch it all the way through with my dad. It gave me hope that this small group of misfits could win against an organization like the Empire. The Empire has order and discipline—it even has black robes…”

The preteen Harrison figured that if he could just use the Force, he would be able to protect himself. “I wanted to know more about what that Jedi was; I kept going back to ‘What was this Jedi?’”

Harrison would follow that dream into adulthood, becoming as close to a modern-day Jedi as might be possible on 21st-century Earth. In his youth, he began studying martial arts. He would go on to pursue kendo, the Japanese martial art that inspired Star Wars’ light-sabre battles, even fighting professionally on the British kendo team. He would become a fight director, working for companies like Vancouver Opera and Bard on the Beach, as well as an actor and a stuntman. “A lot of people say ‘How did you become a fight director?’ ” he says. “And I’m always like, ‘Do you want the short or the long version?’ ”

It’s a story of survival and hope that he turned into his doctoral thesis at UBC. And now, at the encouragement of some of his theatre colleagues, finally into a one-man show—How Star Wars Saved My Life.

A father of two, and a teacher with his PhD, Harrison has put his world strongly back together, but when he talks about the secrets he carried with him in childhood, the raw emotion is, understandably, still near the surface.

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UNITED STATES
VOX

November 29, 2017

By Tara Isabella Burton

Many of Roy Moore’s evangelical supporters see alleged “sins of the past” as no longer relevant.

Onetime Alabama Senate frontrunner (and longtime Christian theocrat) Roy Moore has managed to hold onto his evangelical base, despite being embroiled in allegations of sexual misconduct with at least eight teenage girls when he was in his 30s. Several major evangelical figures, including Jerry Falwell Jr., and Franklin Graham, both of whom serve on Donald Trump’s unofficial evangelical advisory council, have spoken in support of Moore, and, according to the latest Fox News poll, 65 percent of white evangelicals in Alabama still plan to vote for him.

Why?

Evangelical support for Moore is based on a variety of factors. There are those who think that the allegations against Moore are the result of a political smear campaign, or — worse — that diabolical “forces of evil” are attempting to push God out of government, in this case by muddling a staunch Christian politician’s chances of winning a Senate seat. There are those who think that “courting” a teenage girl just isn’t that big a deal. There are those who believe the good Moore can do in office — like working to ban abortion — outweigh the bad in his personal life.

But, perhaps most importantly, an alarmingly common evangelical approach to sexual misconduct — and misconduct more generally — is deeply rooted in theological concepts of sin, redemption, and forgiveness that make it easy to dissociate a wrongdoing individual from his past misdeeds on the grounds that he has already been “forgiven.”

When it comes to the allegations against Moore, this narrative has been pervasive among evangelical supporters. In line with the aforementioned Fox News poll, Dottie Finch, a Moore supporter interviewed by CNN shortly after the allegations came out, took this view: “And if it has happened, I believe the good Lord has forgiven him and he has the right to continue to prove himself.” An Alabama retiree and Moore supporter quoted by the Huffington Post took a similar tack: “And if he had done it, it doesn’t matter in God’s eyes because he’d have been forgiven.” Kenneth Frost, a Baptist deacon, agreed, telling the Los Angeles Times, “I have to forgive him, just like God forgave me.”

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CALDEY ISLAND (WALES)
BBC News

November 29, 2017

There has been a new call for an independent inquiry into historical abuse on Caldey Island to be launched.

Eleven women claimed they were abused by Father Thaddeus Kotik when they were children. He died in 1992.

Welsh Conservatives children’s spokesman, Darren Millar, said the Welsh Government should instigate an investigation.

But he was told during Wednesday’s plenary in the Senedd that a police investigation was under way.

A support group has also called for an inquiry.

It comes after allegations of abuse against Kotik were made to the Pembrokeshire island’s abbey in 1990, but were not passed on to police.

Officers were told about the abuse in 2014 and 2016, but could not prosecute as the monk had died.

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ENGLAND
ITV News

November 29, 2017

Several former pupils at a prestigious Catholic boarding school in North Yorkshire have told an inquiry that they were not protected from sexual abuse at the hands of priests and teachers.

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse has heard there were 40 alleged perpetrators of abuse at Ampleforth College near Thirsk between 1953 and 2016.

A former pupil sexually abused by music teacher Dara De Cogan between 2007 and 2010 told the hearing in London that child protection at the school was “very poor.”

The victim said he was physically inappropriate with her in front of other staff and it was widely known they spent a great deal of time alone together during many evenings, but nothing was done.

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ENGLAND
Mirror

November 28, 2017

By Hilary Duncanson and Lucinda Cameron

A six-year-old boy died 10 days after he was beaten by a nun at an orphanage, a child abuse inquiry has heard.

A witness, who cannot be named, told the inquiry his friend was kicked on the body and head by the Catholic sister.

He was giving evidence at the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry which began a new phase of hearings in Edinburgh on Tuesday.

It is hearing evidence about institutions run by the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul, which has issued an apology to anyone abused in their care.

The man said he was sexually abused by a nun and another member of staff and beaten for bedwetting and not eating his food at Smyllum Park orphanage in Lanark, Lanarkshire.

The witness entered the orphanage in 1959 when he was aged around two.

A witness has told an inquiry how he was abused at Smyllum Park orphanage in Lankarkshire, Scotland, in the 1960s

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ENGLAND
BBC News

November 29, 2017

A head teacher of a Catholic boarding school invited a young pupil into his study and then
sexually abused him, the inquiry into child abuse has heard.

The hearing heard the boy was told to pretend to go to bed in his dorm at Ampleforth College, in North Yorkshire, and then to get up and go to his study.

Two other ex-pupils also talked about being abused and beaten at the school.

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse is currently examining abuse in the Roman Catholic Church.

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

The third day of hearings into allegations involving the Church examined abuse at Ampleforth College, a private school run by Benedictine monks.

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UNITED STATES
New York Times

November 28, 2017

By Benedict Carey

The recent surge in accusations of sexual harassment and assault has prompted some admitted offenders to seek professional help for the emotional or personality distortions that underlie their behavior.

“My journey now will be to learn about myself and conquer my demons,” the producer Harvey Weinstein said in a statement in October. The actor Kevin Spacey announced that he would be “taking the time necessary to seek evaluation and treatment.”

Whatever mix of damage control and contrition they represent, pledges like these suggest that there are standard treatments for perpetrators of sexual offenses. In fact, no such standard treatments exist, experts say. Even the notion of “sexual addiction” as a stand-alone diagnosis is in dispute.

“There are no evidence-based programs I know of for the sort of men who have been in the news recently,” said Vaile Wright, director of research and special projects at the American Psychological Association.

That doesn’t mean that these men cannot change their ways with professional help.

The evidence that talk therapy and medication can curb sexual misconduct is modest at best, and virtually all of it comes from treating severe disorders, like pedophilia and exhibitionism, experts said — powerful urges that cannot be turned off.

Still, there is reason to think that these therapeutic approaches can be adapted to treatment of the men accused of offenses ranging from unwanted attention to rape.

“You’re really looking at two categories of people,” said Rory Reid, an assistant professor of psychiatry at UCLA, who has a clinical practice focusing on sexual problems.

“One is what I call sexually compulsive behavior. The other is reserved for people committing nonconsensual acts — sex offenders.”

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FARGO (ND)
Valley News Live

November 28, 2017

By Melanie Palmer

FARGO, N.D. (Valley News Live) – The #MeToo campaign is now spreading to your church. A new social media hashtag is aiming to bring attention to sexual assault in religious communities. It’s called #ChurchToo.

People are speaking out about their experiences, but an area church is working to prevent these incidents before they even happen.

Twitter is at it again. Except this time, users are hoping to raise awareness on what they call, a hidden crime. It’s sexual assault at church, and the numbers show that people between the ages of 12 and 34 are at the highest risk of being raped or sexually assaulted.

“85% of the people who do abuse are actually known by the victim. We tend to think, it won’t happen here because we know everybody but that’s not the case,” says Bethel Church Senior Associate Pastor, Gary Siefers.

We tried contacting a rash of churches in the F-M area. Many of them didn’t want to talk, they say it’s a tricky subject. But at Bethel Church in Fargo, staff members work hard to ensure no incidents like these happen.

“We do background checks on volunteers and check references through an application process. For the staff, we have training on how to recognize abuse and not put themselves in a situation where that might happen,” says Siefers.

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PORTLAND (ME)
Press Herald

November 28, 2017

By Dennis Hoey

An indictment unsealed Tuesday alleges that James Talbot engaged in a sexual act with a minor in Freeport nearly 20 years ago.

A former Jesuit priest who taught and coached at Cheverus High School for nearly two decades before being fired in 1998 is scheduled to be arraigned in Portland on charges he sexually assaulted a minor in Freeport nearly 20 years ago.

A grand jury indictment dated Nov. 9 and obtained by the Press Herald on Tuesday identifies the priest as 80-year-old James Francis Talbot of Dittmer, Missouri.

The indictment charges Talbot with gross sexual assault, a Class A offense, and with unlawful sexual contact, a Class C offense.

The indictment alleges that Talbot engaged in a sexual act with a minor and subjected the minor, who was 8 or 9 years old at the time, to sexual contact on or between May 1, 1997, and June 14, 1998.

The indictment said the alleged crimes took place in Freeport, but offered no information about a specific location, Talbot’s relationship to the minor, or why Talbot was in Freeport. It also was not clear why the charges are being brought now or whether this is the first time Talbot has been charged in Maine.

According to Maine statute of limitations, a prosecution for incest, unlawful sexual contact, sexual abuse of a minor, rape or gross sexual assault may be commenced at any time if the victim was not 16 at the time of the alleged crime.

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SANDPOINT (ID)
Priest River Times

November 29, 2017

By Keith Kinnaird

SANDPOINT — Criminal proceedings are resuming against a Bonner County man accused of ritualized and sexual abuse.

A preliminary hearing in the case against Dana Andrew Furtney is set for Dec. 6, court records show.

Furtney is charged with lewd and lascivious conduct, sexual battery of child involving lewd conduct and ritualized abuse.

The case against Furtney was put on hold earlier this fall when questions were raised about his capacity to understand the proceedings and assist in his own defense.

Chief Deputy Public Defender Susie Jensen moved for the mental health evaluation because Furtney’s strongly held spiritual beliefs, his belief that he has a personal relationship with God and that his actions were guided by God’s will, court records indicate.

Furtney, however, has now been deemed fit to proceed in the criminal case, court records show. He remains held at the Bonner County Jail in lieu of $500,000 bail.

Furtney, 48, is accused of sexually battering a girl in 2013 and 2014, when she was 16 years old. He’s also accused of engaging in lewd conduct with a 14-year-old girl during the same time frame and engaging in ritualized abuse by forcing a boy to consume feces and urine when he was between the ages of 11-12 years old.

The allegations against Furtney, also known as Andrew Furtney, emerged last month, after some of the alleged victims had relocated to Ohio, according to court documents.

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PATIALA (INDIA)
The Times of India

November 29, 2017

By Bharat Khanna

PATIALA: Police here have booked a priest for raping a 38 year old woman in her house while performing the oblation. The victim woman in her statement to the police had alleged that priest was called in house by her husband to offer the prayers and bring out a solution for the problems being faced by the family including the financial crisis and repeated fever to the victim.

She told the police that accused priest Vinay Sharma of Deep Nagar in city assured her husband of solution to their problems with his religious and occult practices. The priest send victim’s husband outside home to bring some commodities required for the oblation while he send the children on roof of the house. Now finding her alone in the house the accused Vinay Sharma allegedly raped her and threatened her to kill her children if she revealed anything to anybody.

Police claimed that victim claimed that she was raped next day again by the priest who reached their house to collect his Rs 65000 fees for oblation and other practices.

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VICTORIA (AUSTRALIA)
Herald Sun

November 29, 2017

By Shannon Deery

A FORMER school principal of one of Victoria’s most infamous Catholic colleges will fight charges of molesting students.

Former priest Frank Klep, 74, is charged with sexually assaulting three students of Salesian College, Rupertswood, at Sunbury during the 1970s and 1980s.

He was this week committed to stand trial but is fighting all charges.

Mr Klep’s lawyer Antony Trood told the County Court on Wednesday Mr Klep denied some of the charges and could rely on an alibi in relation to others.

“Immigration records are being sought to see if Mr Klep was indeed in the country at the relevant time,” he said.

It is alleged all the assaults took place at the college while Mr Klep was a priest and teacher.

Students of the school say a sickening club of paedophiles roamed its grand halls and manned its dormitories for more than four decades between the 1950s and 1990s.

In 2004, the Australian chapter of the Salesians, the world’s second largest Catholic order, was engulfed in scandal after it was alleged local superiors knowingly moved priests accused of sexual assaults across international and state borders to evade authorities.

The order denied that they moved Mr Klep to Samoa after investigations into sex assault allegations first surfaced.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

November 28, 2017

By Brian Roewe

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests issued an apology Monday to a St. Louis priest and the St. Louis Archdiocese “for any false or inaccurate statements” made in relation to sexual abuse allegations brought against the priest that courts have found false.

The apology was part of a settlement reached in October between SNAP and Fr. Xiu Hui “Joseph” Jiang, who in 2015 brought a civil rights suit against the abuse victims advocacy group and the parents of a boy who accused him of sexual abuse.

That allegation, made in 2014, was the second against Jiang, following one made by a teenage girl in 2012 accusing him of improper contact. Each accusation led to criminal charges and civil suits against the priest. In both instances, the criminal charges were dropped and the civil suits ruled in Jiang’s favor.

In the apology, released by the St. Louis Archdiocese, SNAP said that false claims of clergy sexual abuse do occur, and that neither of its leaders named in the suit, former executive director David Clohessy and current executive director Barbara Dorris, had personal knowledge of complaints against Jiang.

“SNAP acknowledges that false claims of clergy sexual abuse injure those clerics falsely accused and the Roman Catholic Church. SNAP apologizes for any false or inaccurate statements related to the complaints against Fr. Joseph Jiang that it or its representatives made which in any way disparaged Fr. Joseph Jiang, Archbishop Robert J. Carlson, Monsignor Joseph D. Pins and the Archdiocese of St. Louis,” the statement read.

Dorris told NCR that SNAP still maintains it did not make false statements about Jiang.

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BANGOR (ME)
Bangor Daily News

November 29, 2017

By Callie Ferguson

A former Catholic priest who was fired from Cheverus High School in Portland in 1998 and served time for molesting boys in Massachusetts was indicted this month for sexually assaulting a minor in Freeport 20 years ago.

James F. Talbot, 80, has been charged with one count of gross sexual sexual assault with a minor under the age of 14, and one count of unlawful sexual contact with a minor under the age of 14.

The allegations against Talbot have been known to the Portland community for some time, after the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team brought the alleged molestation to light in an the early 2000s investigation of sex abuse inside the Catholic Church.

Talbot already has served time for assaulting teenage boys while he was their wrestling coach at Boston College High School, according to the Patriot Ledger. He was released in 2011 after serving six years of a five- to seven-year sentence, according to the paper.

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EDINBURG (TX)
CW39

November 28, 2017

By Tammy Feldstein

EDINBURG, Texas – After 57 years, the murder of a south Texas beauty queen may finally be solved.

The accused? The priest who heard her last confession.

Jury selection will begin for the trial of former Priest John Feit, 85.

Fifty Seven years ago Feit was a visiting member of the clergy at Sacred Heart Church in Mc Allen, where 25-year-old Irene Garza was last seen alive.

The young school teacher was well-known in the Lower Rio Grande Valley and lived down the street from Sacred Heart with her parents where she went to confession every Saturday.

On Easter weekend in 1960, Garza went to church and never came home. More than 500 members of the community helped police search for Garza. First, they found her shoe, then her purse and days later they found her body floating in a canal. Garza’s autopsy revealed had been raped and beaten.

Police also found a clue; a small slide projector near her body that belonged to Feit.

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HOUSTON (TX)
New York Daily News

November 27, 2017

By Minyvonne Burke

A former Catholic priest who has long been considered a suspect in the 1960 murder of a Texas beauty queen will stand trial.

John Bernard Feit, 84, was indicted on murder charges in February 2016 in the death of 25-year-old Irene Garza.

Garza, a schoolteacher and Miss All South Texas Sweetheart 1958, vanished in April 1960 after visiting Sacred Heart Catholic Church in McAllen for confession during Holy Week.

Her body was found in a canal five days after she disappeared. An autopsy revealed that she had been raped while unconscious and then beaten and suffocated, according to CBS.

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LIVERMORE (CA)
NBC Bay Area

November 27, 2017

Father Van Dinh, a pastor of St. Michael Parish in Livermore, has been placed on administrative leave until the police investigation is completed

A Livermore priest is under investigation after being accused of inappropriate behavior, authorities said Monday.

Father Van Dinh, a pastor of St. Michael Parish in Livermore, has been placed on administrative leave until the police investigation is completed, according to the Diocese of Oakland.

In a statement provided Monday, the Diocese of Oakland said it considers all allegations of clergy misconduct serious. The allegation against Dinh does not involve a minor, but did fall within the protocol for clergy conduct, according to the Diocese of Oakland.

No other information was immediately available.

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UNITED STATES
Yahoo News

November 29, 2017

By Dylan Stableford

Matt Lauer, a veteran journalist and co-host of the “Today” show, was terminated by NBC on Wednesday for what the network called “inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace.”

Savannah Guthrie, Lauer’s “Today” show co-host, made the announcement to viewers on the air at the top of Wednesday’s show.

“This is a sad morning here at ‘Today’ and at NBC News,” Guthrie said before reading a memo that had been sent by NBC chairman Andy Lack to staffers before the show went on the air.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
Catholic Herald

November 28, 2017

An Inquiry into child sex abuse heard that priests should be forced to reveal Confessions in such cases

British priests should be compelled to break the Seal of the Confessional in cases of child abuse, lawyers have told a national inquiry.

Solicitor David Enright, representing former pupils at a Comboni missionary school, said it was a problem that “matters revealed in Confession, including child abuse, cannot be used in governance”.

“One can’t think of a more serious obstacle embedded in the law of the Catholic Church to achieving child protection.”

He added: “The Catholic Church is so opaque, so disparate, so full of separate bodies who are not subject to any authority that it is difficult to see how reform can be made to provide good governance and introduce acceptable standards of child protection.”

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
ChurchMilitant.com

November 28, 2017

By Alexander Slavsky

Apology ends five-year battle for priest

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (ChurchMilitant.com) – After a years-long battle, a priest of the archdiocese of St. Louis is receiving an apology from a group that falsely accused him of sex abuse.

On Monday, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), an advocacy group for victims of clerical abuse, apologized to the archdiocese of St. Louis and the Fr. Joseph Jiang:

The SNAP defendants never want to see anyone falsely accused of a crime. Admittedly, false reports of clergy sexual abuse do occur. The SNAP defendants have no personal knowledge as to the complaints against Fr. Joseph Jiang and acknowledge that all matters and claims against Fr. Jiang have either been dismissed or adjudicated in favor of Fr. Jiang. SNAP acknowledges that false claims of clergy sexual abuse injure those clerics falsely accused and the Roman Catholic Church. SNAP apologizes for any false or inaccurate statements related to the complaints against Fr. Joseph Jiang that it or its representatiives made which in any way disparaged Fr. Joseph Jiang, Archbishop Robert J. Carlson, Monsignor Joseph D. Pins and the Archdiocese of St. Louis.

Father Jiang settled a federal lawsuit against SNAP and the parents of an accuser in St. Louis last month. Court filings in the U.S. District Court in St. Louis reveal that both parties had “reached an agreement in principle.” The judge therefore dismissed the priest’s lawsuit claiming he was falsely accused and arrested after a mishandled police investigation.

SNAP confirmed Monday that the apology was included in a settlement in Jiang’s lawsuit, whose case was dismissed on November 21.

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DRAPER (UTAH)
The Guardian

November 29, 2017

by Andrea Smardon

Sexual abuse survivors say notions of modesty and patriarchal authority make speaking out difficult: ‘There’s a lot of pressure to forgive and to not rock the boat’

When Carol was eight years old, she was baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, otherwise known as the Mormon church. But she refused to stand up in front of the congregation and bear her testimony – to make a declaration about how she knew that God, the Heavenly Father, loved her.

Her father punished her by raping her.

Carol only remembered this years later, in her 20s, while working with a therapist who specialized in childhood trauma. She gradually came to realize that she had been abused since she was a very young child. Her father justified sexual abuse by using an example from the Bible.

“He told me that Mary was impregnated by God the Father. That’s why Mary had to have sex with God,” Carol said.

Now, at age 56, Carol (not her real name) has watched her Facebook feed fill up with messages of women saying #metoo. She thought these very small words held huge stories. As she read others’ experiences, she decided to write her own post.

“It’s almost impossible to describe how heinous this crime is, especially when perpetrated against a child. There’s a reason we call these crimes ‘unspeakable’ … I have no sweeping answer about how to stop the violence. But I have this voice. And I was born to tell the truth,” her post read.

Telling the truth about sexual abuse is hard for anyone, but it has particular challenges in the conservative, Mormon community of Utah where Carol was raised for most of her life and where she now lives. Carol, who identifies as a Mormon feminist, sees a parallel with powerful men in Hollywood and those in the Mormon church.

“It’s men in power taking advantage of their positions of authority,” she said. “In the LDS church or any patriarchal religious community, it’s even more condensed and insulated, and there’s a lot of pressure to forgive and to not rock the boat.”

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ENGLAND
BBC News

November 29, 2017

Two ex-pupils at a Catholic boarding school have told the inquiry into child abuse they were sexually abused by a priest and beaten in the school chapel.

They said they were sexually abused at Ampleforth College, in North Yorkshire, by a monk and Father Piers Grant-Ferris – who was jailed for abuse in 2006.

The unnamed monk treated boys at the school “disgracefully”, one man said.

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse is currently examining abuse in the Roman Catholic Church.

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

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BERMUDA
The Royal Gazette

November 29, 2017

By Sarah Lagan

A leading police officer has been assigned to deal with complaints of inappropriate sexual conduct by a former pastor amid concerns witnesses are reluctant to come forward.

Yesterday, police said they were aware of allegations circulating on social media about a former clergy member at Cornerstone Bible Fellowship.

However, they said no formal complaints had been received, meaning it is not possible for them to launch an investigation.

Detective Inspector Mark Clarke, of the Vulnerable Persons Unit, has now been made the single point of contact for the matter, to give assurance to potential victims and witnesses.

Police reminded members of the public of their duty to report such information.

A spokesman said: “The Bermuda Police Service is aware of allegations circulating on social media about past inappropriate sexual conduct of a former Cornerstone Bible Fellowship clergy member.

“To date, no criminal complaints have been made to the BPS.

“We would like to remind the public that formal complaints are required by law in order for the police to investigate such allegations. Online statements and social media posts do not qualify as formal complaints.

“We appreciate that this is a sensitive subject and that witnesses and victims are sometimes reluctant to come forward.

“Accordingly, we have established a single point of contact so that complainants can be assured that they will be treated with dignity and that their investigation will be conducted in strict confidence.”

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LAFAYETTE (LA)
The Advertiser

November 27, 2017

By Ken Stickney

The Rev. F. David Broussard, charged 16 months ago with 500 counts of possession of child pornography, may yet get his day in court.

But it didn’t happen Monday in 16th Judicial District Court in St. Martin Parish, where he was scheduled to appear before Judge Vincent J. Borne. And it won’t happen until at least Feb. 5, which is when attorneys have agreed to try the felony case.

Broussard’s name was called in court simply as “Felix Broussard,” but he did not appear before the judge after court officials scoured the courtroom to see if the defendant was present to stand. Court officials initially were uncertain why Broussard was absent.

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QUEBEC (CANADA)
APTN News

November 29, 2017

By Tom Fennario

Agnes Poker is a mother many times over and at Tuesday’s hearings of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) she testified about the children she has lost.

“I had eight children in all, four in the tent, four in the hospital,” she told the commissioners. “If all of my children had been born in the tent, everything would have gone well for me, because then I would have seen them die with my own eyes.”

Poker was referring to how in the early 70s children in her Innu community of Pakuashipi would be airlifted from to Blanc Sablon, Que., near the northeastern border with Labrador.

Twice they did not survive

“I speak often to my lost children,” she said. “I would like to know where my two children are laid to rest. Every time I go to Blanc Sablon I go to the cemetery to try to find my children.”

But Poker said she doesn’t even know where her children are buried.

She testified that the hospital also refused to let her arrange or attend any funeral.

“This summer we went to an archaeological dig [in Blanc Sablon], and we said ‘if you find any children bones let us know’,” said Poker.

Christine Lalo, also from Pakuashipi, had a similar experience with the health services in Blanc Sablon.

“When they died we were never given an autopsy report, only many years later we went back and only then did we find out what happened,” Lalo testified.

Tuesday afternoon’s testimony also touched on other difficult subjects that plagued the Innu territory 1,200 km northeast of Montreal.

Topics included a forced relocation of the community and a priest who was a sexual predator.

“We were at the church and I went to confession and I had to kneel before him on the ground and often the priest would invite us to sit on his lap and often he would say ‘I’m your father’ and I would try to give my confession, but when you’re young you don’t have much to say,” said Mary Mark, who chose to be sworn in by an eagle feather as opposed to a bible.

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QUEBEC (CANADA)
CBC News

November 29, 2017

By Julia Page

Women made accusations during testimony at Quebec MMIWG hearings

Two women from Innu communities on Quebec’s Lower North Shore say they were abused by a missionary more than 40 years ago, and that there are likely more victims.

The revelations came out during testimony at the national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (MMIWG) on Tuesday.

The hearings began in Whitehorse in May, and proceedings have taken place in British Columbia, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Alberta and Saskatchewan so far. Hearings are scheduled for Thunder Bay, Ont., and Ranklin Inlet, Nunavut, next month, and Yellowknife in the new year.

Alexis Joveneau was a Belgian missionary working in Innu communities. He died in 1992 in the town of La Romaine, also known as Unman Shipu.

Mary Mark was living in Pakua Shipu, one of the last communities on the Saint Lawrence coast before the Labrador border, when she says she was first abused by Joveneau.

She said Joveneau asked her to sit on his lap and started touching her chest when she was at confessional.

“I am sure I wasn’t the only one to live that kind of things; there were others,” Mark said.

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NEWCASTLE (AUSTRALIA)
The Advertiser

November 28, 2017

By Andrew Hough,

SOUTH Australia’s Catholic Archbishop Philip Wilson has been diagnosed with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease, on the eve of his landmark trial for allegedly concealing child sex abuse.

The Archbishop of Adelaide, 67, was due to begin the trial on Tuesday at Newcastle Local Court, charged with covering up sex abuse within the Catholic Church but he did not appear because of health problems, the court heard.

On Tuesday morning, the court heard he had a pacemaker installed last week amid concerns about his ailing health and that there are worries about his “cognitive capacities”.

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UNITED STATES
Christianity Today

November 28, 2017

By Ed Stetzer

No more prioritizing institutional protection over individual needs

Unless we’ve been hiding in a box, most of us have started noticing a trend in our twitter feeds and daily news headlines: sexual harassment and assault have been running rampant. And it is far beyond Hollywood and Harvey Weinstein, though he seemed to open the floodgates.
It’s also happening in our nation’s halls of power.

The latest, Congressman John Conyers, is a member of the Democratic Party who chose to step down from his seat on the House Judiciary Committee after being accused of sexually harassing a female member of his staff several years ago.

It’s evident that partisan politics simply don’t matter here. When it comes to the mistreatment of women, men on both sides of the aisle are to blame. Women are trying to speak out against these abuses, but certain politicians seem eager to make this about party allegiance instead of victim protection.

This Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press, House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi discounted the accusers in a widely-panned interview—an interview from which she quickly backtracked. But in the moment, instead of speaking out against sexual harassment, she decided to remark on the importance of due process and to pay compliments to Congressman Conyers, a member of her party, for all he’s done over the years to “protect women.”

Yes, it’s true. Unfortunately.

And if this sounds familiar, that’s because it is.

Many remember that after Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore was recently accused of child sexual assault, some (even most) Republicans were quick to condemn his alleged behavior. For that I am thankful.

President Trump recently came to his defense, repeatedly arguing to reporters that Moore was denying all the accusations. He also made a conscious effort to point out that the Senate does not need another “liberal person” like Moore’s opponent, Doug Jones, in office. And it appears that many voters may be swayed by this argument that the most important issue in play is holding onto majority control.

But that’s missing the point of this moment. It’s not about who is in the Senate. It’s about serious allegations that are credible.

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AUSTRALIA
Christian Daily

November 28, 2017

By Lorraine Caballero

Anglican pastors’ wives are breaking their silence on spousal abuse and have started to open up about their bad experiences with their clergy husbands with the help of a private online support group in New South Wales.

Some of the women who experienced spousal abuse at the hands of their priest husbands were part of the Moore Theological College in Sydney. When they opened up about their problem, they said several members of the clergy gave them support while others turned a blind eye on their plight, Patheos noted in a blog entry.

In addition, the blog pointed to the Anglican Church’s extreme interpretation of Ephesians 5:22-24, a passage which instructs wives to submit to their husbands as their leader. However, the part that came after – which tells husbands to love their wives – was often left out.

Just last week, ABC reported that the hashtag #ChurchToo proliferated on social media after poet Emily Joy and religious trauma researcher Hannah Paasch started it to give abused women an avenue where they could share their experiences. The trend was sparked by the series of revelations of sexual abuse in Hollywood and in Washington.

Using the said hashtag, one woman shared on Twitter that her mother was one of the women who experienced spousal abuse and yet their pastor only gave them a green prayer cloth to be inserted in their husbands’ pillows as a way to solve domestic violence. Another victim said she left a fundamental church after she was advised to stay in her abusive marriage.

Paasch told ABC News that she hoped the #ChurchToo trend they started would cause a “cultural and theological upheaval.” She said abuse within the church continues to happen because of racist and misogynistic teaching, and because the people who were supposed to protect the victims have ignored the women’s stories.

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UNITED STATES
Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette

November 28, 2017

By Lowell Grisham

Systems often struggle to recognize misdeeds of the powerful

Our human relationships function within complex webs of power and dependency grounded in trust.

When I am sick, I go to my doctor. I trust him. I trust the power of his training and expertise. I also trust that he intends to serve my best interest to guard my health. In that regard, I am dependent upon him.

When my doctor has a spiritual anxiety or perplexity, he reaches out to me. I am his priest. He trusts me and my training and the symbolic power of ordination that I carry. He trusts that I intentionally serve his best interests to guard his spiritual well-being. In that sense, he is dependent upon me.

All of us entrust other people with power. We have a right to expect them to exercise that power for good. We are dependent upon them to do so. We willingly make ourselves vulnerable to their power.

Think of all the people whom we trust and the critical roles they fill in our lives: professionals like doctors, clergy and lawyers; caretakers and advisers; police officers, firefighters and military personnel; teachers, therapists, coaches, judges and elected officials. The list is long. Every part of society is interconnected by relationships of trust between those with particular power and authority and those who depend upon the faithful exercise of their trust.

When people who are in positions of power and trust abuse their positions and victimize the vulnerable, they damage the whole fabric of society. They destroy trust. Without trust and trustworthiness, community unravels.

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UNITED STATES
Verdict Justia

November 22, 2017

By Marci A. Hamilton

The list keeps growing of powerful men accused of sexual abuse, assault, or harassment. In historical order, just to name the headliners, Bill Clinton, Fr. Paul Shanley, Jerry Sandusky, Bill Cosby, Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein, Roy Moore, Al Franken, John Conyers, and Charlie Rose have all faced accusations of this nature. Thank God. This is the moment that will change history, because the “kings” of our culture are being brought to the public square and revealed for what they are–craven abusers of power.

There has been intense media coverage but surprisingly little if any attention paid to the experts on sex abuse, assault and harassment, who could inject facts into the discourse. There is actually a science of child sex abuse and sex assault. Instead, there has been a lot of hand-wringing by those who do not labor in this vineyard, and over-politicization of the issues to the point that you can’t see what you need to see. When a cable news show staffs its “panel of experts” to discuss these cases solely with political reporters and pundits, they are missing the mark. Let’s start by putting some facts about sexual misconduct on the table.

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ITALY
QuiBrianza News

November 24, 2017

[Google Translate: COMO – There continues to be a debate in the city of the comasco priest, destined for a community of the area, accused of sexual abuse in the Vatican in the pre-seminary of St. Pius X for the damage of the Pope’s clerics.]

COMO – Si continua a discutere in città del sacerdote comasco, destinato a una comunità del territorio, accusato di abusi sessuali in Vaticano nel pre-seminario San Pio X ai danni dei chierichetti del Papa.

Una vicenda che, dopo alcuni anni di silenzio, era stata risollevata da “Le Iene”, che avevano intervistato anche Monsignor Oscar Cantoni, Vescovo di Como, al quale era spettato il compito di ordinare sacerdote il ragazzo.

Il clamore mediatico aveva portato il Vaticano a prendere posizione con una nota, così come lo stesso Monsignor Cantoni aveva pubblicato una lettera aperta ai fedeli per parlare della vicenda.

Ora è ancora la stessa Curia a tornare sull’argomento con una nuova presa di posizione finita sul sito ufficiale della diocesi. Uno scritto in cui si spiega che “i presunti fatti, denunciati a mezzo lettera nel 2013, in seguito agli accertamenti conclusi nel 2014 da parte di tutte le competenti sedi ecclesiastiche, erano stati ritenuti infondati e tutte le valutazioni sulla personalità del seminarista erano risultate positive. Tra la documentazione prodotta non risultava alcun parere negativo da parte delle persone a conoscenza della vicenda”.

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UNITED STATES
BuzzFeed

November 26, 2017

By Katie J.M. Baker

Across the US, people go to Massage Envy spas in search of a soothing, affordable escape. More than 180 people say what they got instead was sexual assault. But the billion-dollar company says that’s not its problem to solve. A BuzzFeed News investigation.

On May 2, 2015, Susan Ingram lay facedown in the dark at her local Massage Envy in West Chester, Pennsylvania, one of the franchise’s nearly 1,200 spas nationwide. It was her seventh session with James Deiter, a massage therapist whom the spa had enthusiastically recommended. By now, Ingram trusted Deiter, and she closed her eyes and relaxed as he worked her muscles. Then, without warning, Deiter ground his erect penis against Ingram’s body. He groped her breasts. He put his fingers in and out of her vagina.

Ingram lay there, frozen in fear and disbelief, until the session was over. After driving home sobbing, she called the spa to report the sexual assault. She was shocked when the manager refused to interrupt the session Deiter was having with a female client, Ingram said, or to connect Ingram with the spa’s owner.

“I said to her, ‘Nicole, he stuck his fingers in my vagina less than an hour ago,’” she later recounted in court. She begged the manager to get Deiter’s client out of the massage room immediately. “She said she could not do that, and she invited me in to talk about my services,” Ingram added.

Frustrated, Ingram called the police, who interviewed Deiter that afternoon. He quickly admitted to assaulting not just Ingram but other Massage Envy clients as well. “I need help,” he confessed. The next year, Deiter pleaded guilty to sexually molesting a total of nine women while working at Massage Envy from fall 2014 to spring 2015.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
The Associated Press

November 27, 2017

ST. LOUIS – A support group for victims of clergy abuse has apologized to a Roman Catholic priest who sued after child molestation charges against him were dropped and jurors in a separate lawsuit concerning the allegations sided with the China-born priest.

The Archdiocese of St. Louis on Monday disclosed the apology from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP.

“SNAP acknowledges that false claims of clergy sexual abuse injure those clerics falsely accused and the Roman Catholic Church,” the group said. The group added that it apologized for “any false or inaccurate statements” related to the accusations against the Rev. Xiu Hui “Joseph” Jiang that “in any way disparaged” him, the archbishop and other archdiocese officials.

SNAP publicized accusations against Jiang after he was criminally charged in 2013 on accusations that he molested a 16-year-old eastern Missouri girl under a blanket. In an unrelated case two years later, he was charged in St. Louis on allegations that he abused a 13-year-old boy in a bathroom at the Cathedral Basilica elementary school. Charges in both cases were dropped without explanation.

The female accuser sued Jiang, but jurors sided with the priest in April. Jiang then sued the mother of the male accuser, along with SNAP and St. Louis police. SNAP was accused of defamation, while police were accused of botching the investigation.

SNAP confirmed Monday that the apology was included in a settlement in Jiang’s lawsuit. Court records show the case was dismissed on Nov. 21, but no details about the settlement, including possible money damages, were included in the records.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
CNA/EWTN News

November 27, 2017

By Mary Rezac

Lawyers in the United Kingdom have recommended that mandatory reporting laws apply to priests in the confessional, in order to curb incidents of child sexual abuse.

The recommendation came during an investigation of Benedictine abbeys and their associated schools, after numerous victims came forward alleging clergy at the schools had committed acts of child sexual abuse.

Richard Scorer, a representative with the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), said during a hearing that mandatory reporting laws should apply even to information bound by the seal of confession.

“A mandatory reporting law would have changed their behaviour,” Scorer said, according to The Guardian. “At Downside Abbey, abuse was discovered but not reported, and abusers were left to free to abuse again and great harm was done to victims.”

“The Catholic Church purports to be a moral beacon for others around it yet these clerical sex abuse cases profoundly undermine it … Why has the temptation to cover up abuse been particularly acute in organisations forming part of the Roman Catholic church?”

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AUSTRALIA
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

November 28, 2017

By Giselle Wakatama and Kerrin Thomas

Australia’s most senior Catholic Archbishop accused of covering up child sexual abuse has had his trial delayed because of medical issues.

Philip Wilson, the Archbishop of Adelaide, was due to front Newcastle Local Court today, but had a pacemaker fitted six days ago and remains in South Australia.

He was arrested two and a half years ago, and has tried, and failed, three times to permanently stay proceedings.

However, Archbishop Wilson’s barrister Stephen Odgers today said his client was keen to have his day in court.

“I’m confident that the advice I’ve received is that one week is OK and he will be able to fly up here on Wednesday afternoon,” Mr Odgers told the court.

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NEW DELHI (INDIA)
National Catholic Reporter

November 28, 2017

By Jose Kavi

NEW DELHI — Catholic dioceses and religious congregations in India are in the process of implementing a set of guidelines that the bishops’ conference required when it released its sexual harassment policy for the workplace two months ago.

A 60-day checkpoint for setting up diocesan and congregation committees as the first stop for sexual harassment complaints passed on Nov. 14 without much progress, but response has also been slow to similar directives in a 2013 national law.

The “CBCI Guidelines to Deal with Sexual Harassment at Workplace” were released Sept. 14 by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India amid demands from church groups for a policy to rein in increasing sexual abuse cases involving priests.

Though the 28-page document, which took two years to prepare, steers clear of mentioning priests, those demanding action against clergy abuse still find it a welcome step by the Indian church.

Astrid Lobo Gajiwala, a laywoman theologian and a founder and member of the Indian Christian Women’s Movement, said publication of the much-awaited guidelines is a “cause of celebration” as the document fills “a critical lacuna in the church.”

Gajiwala was among more than 100 theologians, women religious, priests and feminists who wrote to the bishops on March 22, a month after a Catholic priest was arrested for allegedly raping and impregnating a minor girl, his parishioner, in Kerala, southern India.

The new document sends “a strong message that the bishops mean business when it comes to zero tolerance of violence against women that they advocate in their Gender Policy,” Gajiwala told NCR. She was referring to the “Gender Policy of the Catholic Church,” which the Indian bishops’ conference published in 2010.

Yet the sensitivity of the topic was evident in that bishops responsible for the policy deferred comment to a female secretary of the conference’s Council for Women.

What the bishops have done in the new guidelines is to draw heavily from a 2013 national law on the same matter but also extend it to men and transgender people as possible victims of abuse.

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NEW BRUNSWICK (CANADA)
CBC News

November 28, 2017

By Gabrielle Fahmy

At least 32 civil suits before courts against Leger, and lawyer thinks they’re ‘tip of the iceberg’

An alleged victim of priest Camille Leger says he chose to sue the Moncton archdiocese because the amount he was offered in the church-sponsored conciliation process couldn’t compensate for the abuse that began when he was six.

Jean-Paul Melanson is one of at least 32 men who have filed civil lawsuits targeting Leger, since the church hired retired judge Michel Bastarache to lead an extensive and confidential conciliation process from 2012 to 2014.

“He was a monster for me now,” said Melanson. “If you look at that, he was not a person. He was not normal at all.”

Many of Leger’s victims received compensation through that process, although the exact number is being kept confidential.

Some estimate the Cap Pelé priest could have abused hundreds of boys between 1957 and 1980, the years he served at the Sainte-Thérèse-d’Avila parish.

Now 51, Melanson took part in many church activities in the 1970s. He was an altar boy and a boy scout, both supervised by Leger. He said the children were aware of Leger’s behaviour.

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ISRAEL
Haaretz

November 24, 2017

By Esti Shoshan

Sharing these stories of rape and sexual molestation in Haredi circles is to help all the other victims, so that they know they are not alone or to blame

“The guy who attacked me sexually a number of times when I was 11 years old is a married ultra-Orthodox man. I was dressed with extreme modesty. After my bat mitzvah I visited them on Shabbat, and he asked his wife to go to bed and leave me with him. She shouted, ‘She’s a bat mitzvah! You can’t touch her anymore!’

“And why is it impossible to tell and to complain? Ninth-grade girls in a Bais Yaakov school can answer that. The homeroom teacher told them about a student who was attacked in the street and stayed home for a few days to recover. She went to visit her and told her, ‘It’s your fault!’ The student defended herself, after all she observes all the rules and wears very thick stockings. The teacher answered her, ‘Yes, but there’s something about you!’”

That’s what Racheli Bass, a married ultra-Orthodox woman and mother of three who provides emotional therapy and assistance to victims of sexual assault, writes me.

Not everyone is as courageous as Racheli, who agreed to reveal her horrible story. Women I turned to, who I knew had been attacked, said that it’s better to keep quiet, that they aren’t emotionally prepared for exposure. But here are a few real stories and statements – in some the identifying details have been changed at the request of the victims to preserve their safety and privacy – in response to an op-ed by Israel Cohen (“Learn from the ultra-Orthodox how to stop sexual harassment,” Haaretz.com, November 14) that denies the injustices, sexual attacks and harassment in Haredi society, and extols the policy of separation to prevent such behavior.

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ISRAEL
Haaretz

November 16, 2017

By Rivka Neriya-Ben Shahar

The numbers show that there’s no link between how women and men dress and any harm done to them. Such abuse occurs at every level of society, among Jews, Muslims and Christians

In his piece responding to Rafi Walden’s op-ed in which Walden opposes gender segregation, Israel Cohen suggests that secular Israelis have a lot to learn about respect for women from the ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, community.

“At a time when more and more incidents of sexual harassment in various forms are coming to light, along with damning testimonies about men exploiting their positions of authority against women, the Haredi approach that insists on gender separation appears to make all the more sense,” Cohen writes. “The most efficient way to avoid a repeat of such grave occurrences is simply to prevent unnecessary mingling of the sexes.”

What a perfect solution! We’ll entirely divide society – women here, men there. We’ll dress everyone modestly and solve all our problems. After all, everyone knows that in ultra-Orthodox society, as in other religious communities, separation and modesty totally prevent sexual harassment and abuse.

Cohen adds: “The Haredi approach has proved itself. There are fewer cases of harassment and thus fewer complaints arising from the mingling of the sexes, which is avoided from the start.”

Is he relying on reported data? Has he spoken to young children, adolescents or men and women who’ve suffered sexual abuse or harassment inside or outside the Haredi community? Has he read the shocking testimony posted on the Lo Tishtok Facebook page, which provides a forum on sexual abuse in the Haredi community?

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ENGLAND
The Times

November 28 2017

By Andrew Norfolk

Forty monks and teachers have been accused of sexually abusing boys at a leading Roman Catholic school that allegedly became a “honeypot” for offenders, it was revealed yesterday.

Reports of child sex offences at Ampleforth College in North Yorkshire were disclosed yesterday at a public hearing of an inquiry into the handling of abuse allegations by the Catholic church.

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ENGLAND
The Daily Mail

November 27, 2017

By Josh White

– An inquiry is examining prevalence of paedophilia among Benedictine monks
– Focusing on schools: Ampleforth in North Yorkshire and Downside in Somerset
– Rape to voyeuristic beatings was inflicted on school pupils, hearing was told

Pupils at Roman Catholic schools could still be at risk of sexual abuse despite years of efforts to remove predators and improve child safeguarding, an inquiry heard yesterday.

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) has begun examining the prevalence of paedophilia among Benedictine monks and failures to protect young people.

It is focusing on offenders who targeted children at two famous Catholic public schools, Ampleforth in North Yorkshire and Downside in Somerset, over many decades.

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FLAGSTAFF (AZ)
Gallup Independent

November 20, 2017

By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — The clergy sex abuse lawsuit against the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament and St. Michael Indian School is being settled, according to the attorney for the woman who filed the suit.

“The agreement has been finalized and the parties are waiting for the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament and St. Michaels Indian School to fulfill their promises under the agreement,” Phoenix attorney Robert E. Pastor said in an email Wednesday.

The lawsuit, which was filed in Coconino County Superior Court in 2015, centered on the childhood sexual molestation of the plaintiff, who filed the lawsuit as Jane L.S. Doe to protect her anonymity. The plaintiff, a member of the Navajo Nation, said she was abused by Brother Mark Schornack, OFM, when she was a student at St. Michael Indian School and Schornack, a Franciscan friar, was her bus driver.

Doe, along with another Navajo woman, had also filed abuse claims naming Schornack as a perpetrator in the Diocese of Gallup’s bankruptcy case. Those claims were approved by officials with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court. In April 2017, the Gallup Diocese announced Schornack’s name had been added to the diocese’s list of credibly accused child sex abusers.

The Doe lawsuit began to move forward once the Diocese of Gallup’s bankruptcy case was officially closed earlier this year. Attorneys in the case met with a mediator Oct. 10, and they were scheduled to report their progress to Judge Dan Slayton in an upcoming hearing Dec. 11.

However, Peter C. Kelly II, the Phoenix attorney who represents the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament and St. Michael Indian School, filed a notice of settlement Oct. 27.

When contacted last week, Kelly and officials with the Sisters’ religious order declined to answer questions about the monetary settlement.

Pastor, however, said the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament had insisted the settlement provisions be kept confidential.

“Unfortunately, as a condition of this settlement,” he said, “St. Michaels Indian School and the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament required confidentiality.”

Pastor was asked if his client was satisfied with the settlement agreement.

“I do not believe victims of sexual abuse experience satisfaction when sexual abuse lawsuits are settled,” he said. “Nothing can ever be said or done to repair the scars caused by clergy sexual abuse. By resolving cases like this one, however, we hope it offers survivors of clergy sexual abuse some sense of closure and some sense of validation that the perpetrator is a confirmed sex offender who was allowed to prey upon innocent children.”

The Jane L.S. Doe case is believed to be the last clergy sex abuse lawsuit publicly filed against either the Diocese of Gallup or a Catholic entity operating within the Gallup Diocese.

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IRELAND
The Times

November 27, 2017

By Nick Bramhill

Priests suffering from anxiety and stress caused by a string of abuse scandals in the Catholic Church will take part in a healing circle tomorrow.

At least ten priests from the Munster region will attend an initial group therapy session in Ovens, Co Cork. The Association of Catholic Priests, which organised the workshop, said that the event could be the first of many across the country if there was strong demand from members of the clergy.

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ENGLAND
The Mail

November 27, 2017

Children at Roman Catholic church schools could still be “at risk” of sexual abuse despite years of efforts to root out predators, an inquiry has heard.

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.

But although numerous inquiries have exposed the problem of child abuse within church institutions and a string of offenders convicted, lingering safety concerns could remain, it was heard.

Counsel to the inquiry Riel Karmy-Jones told a hearing at IICSA’s headquarters in south London: “It may be that during the course of evidence and the submissions to come (that) there is some acceptance of failings, but reliance will be placed on changes that have been made over the years.

“But, as you will hear, concerns remain and you are likely to hear evidence that suggests safeguarding problems are still ongoing, in some instances, and with the inevitable result that children may remain at risk.”

The Roman Catholic Church is one of 13 arms of public life being scrutinised for child safety failings by IICSA.

Turning a blind eye to paedophilia should be made a criminal offence so Church institutions are discouraged from hushing up scandals, a victims’ lawyer said.

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ENGLAND
The Guardian

November 27, 2017

By Owen Bowcott

Child sexual abuse inquiry is told that not reporting suspected incidents should be a crime

Mandatory reporting of sexual misconduct and abolishing the secrecy of the priest’s confessional box are needed to protect children at Catholic schools, the national inquiry into child sexual abuse has been told.

At the opening of a three-week hearing into Benedictine schools, lawyers representing scores of victims have called for fundamental changes to the way the church handles complaints and deals with suspected offenders.

Richard Scorer, of the law firm Slater and Gordon, who represents 27 core participants at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), said the failure to make reporting suspected abuse a crime had allowed clerics to evade responsibility.

“A mandatory reporting law would have changed their behaviour,” Scorer told the hearing. “At Downside Abbey, abuse was discovered but not reported and abusers were left to free to abuse again and great harm was done to victims.

“The Catholic church purports to be a moral beacon for others around it yet these clerical sex abuse cases profoundly undermine it … Why has the temptation to cover up abuse been particularly acute in organisations forming part of the Roman Catholic church?”

David Enright, a solicitor at Howe and Co who represents more than a dozen former schoolboys from a Catholic Comboni missionary school – run by an order founded in Italy in the 1860s – said there were more than a million children attending Catholic-run educational institutions in the UK.

One former abuser at the Comboni school had not been punished but moved elsewhere after complaints and eventually became a Scouts commissioner in Uganda, Enright revealed. Removing the privileges of priestly confession would help change attitudes, he suggested.

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