ABUSE TRACKER

NORTH CAROLINA
WLOS

by Tanja Rekhi

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (WLOS) —
A local district attorney wants to find out if his employees had any involvement with allegations of physical abuse at the Word of Faith church.

David Lerner, district attorney in Burke, Caldwell and Catawba counties, asked the SBI to investigate two assistant prosecutors after the Associated Press reported Frank Webster and Chris Back provided legal advice, helped at strategy sessions and did a mock trial with congregants charged with harassing a former member.

John Huddle left the Spindale church in 2008. He said Webster is church founder Jane Whaley’s son-in-law. He didn’t interact with Webster much while he was living at the church and said Webster and his wife were in the “Young Marrieds” group. He and his wife were in the “Middle Marrieds.”

“The defense of religious freedom stopped a long time ago when abuses increased,” Huddle said. “This is not religion. This is not about worship. This is not about freedom to worship. This is about protecting people from being emotionally and physically harmed and having their faith used against them.

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INDIA
International Business Times

A madrasa teacher has been arrested for sexually exploiting at least four minor girls aged between 8 and 11 at a madrasa at Iritty in Kannur. The accused, identified as Muhammed Rafi, was arrested after the parents of the girls approached the police and registered a complaint.

Muhammed Rafi, a native of Tharuvana in Wayanad, has been booked under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO). The local media reports that the accused has confessed to the crime and will be produced in court on Wednesday, March 15. Police suspect that the accused could have abused many other children in a similar manner.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MICHIGAN
Alpena News

MAR 15, 2017

JORDAN SPENCE
News Staff Writer
jspence@thealpenanews.com

ROGERS CITY — The sexual assault case where Rev. Sylvestre Obwaka is accused of raping another priest has been sent to trial.

The defense asked for the case to be dismissed, which was denied by Judge Don McLennan, Tuesday in 89th District Court. This means there was enough evidence presented to the court to move to trial.

Obwaka, who is on administrative leave from his duties as St. Ignatius’ priest, was charged on two counts of criminal sexual conduct Feb. 21. He was charged with a count of first-degree criminal sexual conduct with personal injury, and third-degree criminal sexual conduct force or coercion.

During court Tuesday the alleged victim, a 28-year-old priest with the Diocese of Gaylord testified.

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MICHIGAN
Alpena News

JORDAN SPENCE
News Staff Writer
jspence@thealpenanews.com

ROGERS CITY — The request for bond to be posted for Rev. Sylvestre Obwaka was denied by Judge Donald McLennan during a preliminary hearing on Monday.

“We ask bond be $50,000 and we post 10 percent,” Matt Wojda, one of Obwaka’s attorneys, said. “If it’s higher than that we’ll pledge realty.”

He said it’s a two step process to decide the bond issue. First, he said, there must be enough proof of guilt.

“And if they’re a flight risk is another issue,” Wojda said.

Obwaka is a native of Kenya, not a citizen of the United States, and he was assigned to St. Ignatius in 2013.

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GUAM
KUAM

Updated: Mar 15, 2017

By Krystal Paco

Yet another multi-million dollar suit has been lodged against the Archdiocese of Agana, but not by a former altar boy. 37-year-old Timothy Ryan Shiroma filed his complaint in the District Court of Guam on Wednesday. Court documents state he was only 9 when he was sexually molested by former priest Raymond Cepeda.

Shiroma was a student at the Cathedral Grade School, which was adjacent to the Hagatna Cathedral. While using the church phone after school to call his ride, he alleges Cepeda pinned him to the ground, stuffed his head in his backpack, and sexually molested him. From then on, he rode the bus home and would fake sick to avoid attending mass at the Cathedral.

KUAM News files show Cepeda was laicized – removed as a priest – in December 2009.

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MICHIGAN
WLNS

ROGERS CITY, Mich. (AP) – A Roman Catholic priest accused of sexually assaulting another priest in a church rectory has been ordered to trial in northern Michigan.

A judge found enough evidence against the Rev. Sylvestre Obwaka, pastor at St. Ignatius Church in Rogers City.

Obwaka is charged with first-degree and third-degree criminal sexual conduct against a 28-year-old priest, who testified Tuesday. Police say the alleged crimes occurred on Feb. 1 while the man was sleeping.

Defense attorney Matthew Wojda says “there’s no question” there was sexual activity. But he says it was consensual, not an assault.

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ITALIA
Rete L’Abuso

[Special pedophilia – CLERICAL pedophilia: CAN NOT BE SILENT.]

Allineandosi all’orientamento della stampa nazionale ed oltre, anche “Il Corriere delle Donne” spezza il silenzio sul devastante fenomeno della pedofilia clericale e mette in campo le sue specialiste. Quello che segue, infatti, è uno speciale a più voci che si conclude con un’intervista a Francesco Zanardi, fondatore della Rete L’Abuso.

“La pedofilia nella Chiesa è opera del diavolo – dice Bergoglio – è una malattia diabolica… dobbiamo esserne convinti per curarla. I pedofili vanno capiti e perdonati”.

Ma davanti al dato statistico che la pratica della pedofilia clericale è diffusa in tutto il mondo ed ha proporzioni spaventose, l’opinione pubblica è ormai profondamente indignata e non condivide queste affermazioni assolutorie, al contrario, le ritiene i soliti inflazionati escamotage per continuare a coprire i pedofili e aiutarli a sottrarsi alla giustizia.

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ROME
The Times (UK)

Ellen Coyne
March 15 2017
The Times

The clerical abuse survivor who resigned from the Catholic church’s commission on child safety has claimed that Vatican officials are “defending the indefensible” by dismissing her concerns.

A row has broken out between Marie Collins and a Vatican department over her claims that basic steps to protect abuse victims are being blocked. Ms Collins, who was abused by a Dublin hospital chaplain when she was 13, was one of two victims on the 16-person Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

The commission was set up in 2014 within the central body of the church to propose child protection initiatives. Ms Collins resigned on March 1, citing the obstructive behaviour of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a Vatican body which oversees the theology of the church and has been increasingly involved in child protection measures.

She said that the congregation was not responding to letters from victims and had refused to co-operate with the establishment of a tribunal into alleged abuse, which was announced by Pope Francis and promised significant resources in 2015. The tribunal has since been scrapped.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Gavin Coote

There are mounting calls for a public hearing into child sex abuse in the central west New South Wales city of Bathurst.

The St Stanislaus boarding school has been at the centre of shocking allegations, which have led to protracted criminal court cases.

Last month, Father Brian Spillane, who has been serving 11 years for sexually assaulting students, was sentenced to a further nine years in jail for yet more sexual assaults at St Stanislaus College in Bathurst.

After years of investigations and court cases involving Spillane, some of the survivors and their families came together at forum in the city last night.

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UNITED STATES
Crux

Fr. Dwight Longenecker
March 15, 2017
CRUX CONTRIBUTOR

Vigorous debate over various aspects of Francis’s papacy is entirely appropriate, since the Church is a big Italian family and arguing is what they do. However, what we don’t need is a revolution along the lines of the Protestant Reformation, which ended with everyone being their own pope.

At a church gathering the other day, I quizzed a conservative friend about one of Pope Francis’s latest media bombshells. My friend is a good and cheerful Catholic, but he thought for a moment, then smiled and said, “Every day I pray for the pope…then I ignore him.”

His response reflects a growing discontent with Pope Francis in conservative circles. Anti-Trump protesters wave signs reading, “Not My President.” Perhaps conservative Catholics will soon march on the Vatican waving signs reading, “Not My Pope.”

The reality is not too far from the fantasy: last month Rome itself was plastered with posters picturing a disgruntled Pope Francis. Written in local Roman dialect, the signs charged that the pope had “removed priests; decapitated the Knights of Malta” and “ignored Cardinals.”

The critics are not only wild-eyed right wing conspiracy theorists. Respected journalist Phil Lawler regards Francis’s papacy as “disastrous.” Rod Dreher has joined the chorus of those who not only question Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia’s involvement with a homoerotic mural in a church, but also his appointment by Pope Francis as president of the Pontifical Pope John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

Kathy McCabe
News Corp Australia Network

COMEDIAN and composer Tim Minchin is up for Song of the Year with his controversial, fundraising, viral hit Come Home (Cardinal Pell) at the annual APRA Music awards for songwriters.

Minchin’s song was written to raise funds to send survivors to Rome to witness Cardinal Pell’s evidence before the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse.

It has been nominated alongside master craftsman Nick Cave’s haunting Skeleton Key and the works of breakthrough young artists including Hottest 100 hero Amy Shark (Adore), DD Dumbo (Satan) and Julia Jacklin (Pool Party).

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AUSTRALIA
The West Australian

Simon Collins, Music Editor
Tuesday, 14 March 2017

Tim Minchin’s controversial call for Cardinal George Pell to face the music has been nominated for Australia’s highest peer-voted songwriting award.

Written in response to Australia’s highest-ranking cleric’s claims he was too ill to give evidence in person at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Come Home (Cardinal Pell) is one of five songs in line for the 2017 APRA Song of the Year.

The song, which raised money to send survivors of abuse to Rome to front the Vatican-based Pell, is nominated alongside compositions from Nick Cave, Amy Shark, Julia Jacklin and D.D Dumbo.

After becoming “infuriated” by Pell’s statements, Minchin wrote and recorded Come Home (Cardinal Pell) in two days before it first aired on television’s The Project in February.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail (UK)

By Hannah Paine For Daily Mail Australia

Tim Minchin’s charity single criticising Catholic cardinal George Pell has been nominated for APRA song of the year.

The song, which labeled the cardinal ‘scum’ and a ‘pompous buffoon’, was released by Tim last March after the religious leader failed to leave the Vatican to testify in personal at the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse.

The singer-songwriter told The Daily Telegraph he was proud of the single’s recognition because ‘It managed to be funny about something that’s incredibly painful’.

Come Home (Cardinal Pell) raised money for survivors of child sex abuse to travel to Rome, where George testified via video link in March last year after claiming he was too ill to fly and give testimony in person.

The controversial single was criticised by supporters of George, however, won widespread praise for bring awareness and funds to child sex abuse victims of the Catholic church.

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IRELAND
Galway Independent

Galway County Council has said it will facilitate consultation with the local community regarding the future of the former Tuam Home site.

Since the Mother and Baby Home Commission confirmed the presence of remains at the site, council staff, including its Social Work Team, have made a number of home visits to households in the vicinity.

A council spokesperson said it recognises that there are varying views about the future of the site. A number of former residents have requested that the remains be removed and reinterred on consecrated ground.

“The timeline for the consultation process will, of necessity, be influenced by the continuing work of the Commission, the statutory role of the Coroner and the potential for involvement by other authorities,” said the council, adding it will continue to approach the issue with “sensitivity and compassion”.

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IOWA
Storm Lake Pilot-Tribune

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

By RUSS MITCHELL Special to the Pilot-Tribune

Former Spencer pastor Kevin Grimes appears to be taking steps toward a plea agreement stemming from a 2016 sexual misconduct investigation.

District Court Judge Nancy Whittenburg on Tuesday set a 10 a.m. plea hearing Monday, May 15, at the Clay County Courthouse for Grimes. The judge also ordered the Department of Corrections to prepare a pre-plea investigation report for the possible sentencing process.

Clay County Attorney Kristi Kuester emphasized that “no finalized agreement” for a plea had been reached as of Wednesday.

“I think we’re getting down to the final details of it,” Kuester said. “It still could go to trial at this point, you just never know — but it seems like, within the next couple of months, we’ll probably be looking at getting the plea finalized.”

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MINNESOTA
KAAL

March 14, 2017

A former Cottage Grove pastor pleaded guilty in federal court to distribution of child pornography Thursday.

Forty-seven-year-old William Leonard Helker of Pine City was arrested in October at his home. The arrest came after Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension agents with the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force executed a search warrant at his home and All Saints Lutheran Church in Cottage Grove.

The agency was tipped off by Facebook and Instagram that a user was suspected of possessing child porn.

Investigators said they found Helker communicated with a man in Finland, planning to trade images of preteen and teenage girls, according to the criminal complaint.

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JAMAICA
Jamaica Observer

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

SAVANNA-LA-MAR, Westmoreland — Head of the Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse (CISOCA), Superintendent Enid Ross Stewart, says she is pleased with the recent sentencing of a minister of religion to 20 years in prison for having sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl.

“You would have heard that at least one of our pastors got 20 years, and I am extremely proud of that. Because… I remember when that report came to CISOCA, I remember,” Superintendent Ross Stewart said while addressing a Kiwanis Club of Westmoreland Capital Early Childhood Institution Quiz Competition opening ceremony on Monday at the Hotel Commingle in Savanna-la-Mar.

Fifteen early childhood institutions are participating in this year’s competition which will see the winner walking away with $35,000, plus other prizes.

The minister of religion, Paul Hanniford, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for having sexual intercourse with a minor when he made an appearance in the Home Circuit Court last Friday.

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Christian Truther

By Nate Brown – 03/14/2017

Pope Francis, the first Jesuit pope, has rescinded his policies regarding the crack down on pedophilia, Catholic officials claim. In fact, the last abuse survivor of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors recently left the commission, citing resistance coming from Vatican offices against implementing recommendations.

It is not clear exactly where the opposition is coming from within the Catholic Church, claimed the last abuse survivor Marie Collins, on the Pontifical Commission. However, she resigned as a direct result of the Catholic Church’s inability to implement recommendations that could curb sexual abuse within the Catholic Church.

In Australia, the cases of abuse are quite prevalent, and according to the chief executive of the church’s Truth Justice and Healing Council, Francis Sullivan; “You have to seriously wonder whether this isn’t the Pope backsliding on what has been a strong and determined crackdown on offending priests and the circumstances that allowed abuse to take place,”

According to Sullivan, it is a very dangerous time, he cites both the resignation of Marie Collins, and the resistance from the Church to curb pedophilia. “Together these two developments paint a picture of the Vatican establishment, its bureaucrats, and courtiers, doing all they can to either undermine the Pope or driving an agenda that is about maintaining the status quo and protecting the institution.” …

The Jesuit is coming out.

Before Jorge Mario Bergoglio became Pope Francis, he was potentially involved in at least five abuse cases. The following comes from Bishop-Accountability:

1 Fr. Julio César Grassi
Grassi was convicted in 2009 of molesting a boy who had lived in a home for street children that Grassi founded. After Grassi’s conviction, Bergoglio commissioned a secret study to persuade Supreme Court judges of Grassi’s innocence. Bergoglio’s intervention is believed to be at least part of the reason that Grassi remained free for more than four years following his conviction. He finally was sent to jail in September 2013. See our detailed summary of the Grassi case with links to articles.

2 Fr. Rubén Pardo
In 2003, a priest with AIDS who had admitted to his bishop that he had sexually assaulted a boy was discovered to be hiding from law enforcement in a vicarage in the archdiocese of Buenos Aires, then headed by Bergoglio. Pardo also was reportedly hearing children’s confessions and teaching in a nearby school. One of Bergoglio’s auxiliary bishops, with whom he met every two weeks, appears to have lived at the vicarage at the same time. Typically, an ordinary must give permission for a priest to live and work in his diocese. It is unlikely that Pardo lived and ministered in Buenos Aires without Bergoglio’s approval. See our detailed summary of the Pardo case.

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MICHIGAN
WOOD

[with video]

Barton Deiters
Published: March 14, 2017

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — The lawsuit against the Catholic Diocese of Grand Rapids and schools by the teen victim of sexual abuse by a tutor has been dismissed.

That includes the case against the tutor, 34-year-old Abigail Simon, who remains in the state women’s prison.

The spectacular 11-day trial in November 2014 was the subject of national attention — due in no small part to Simon’s defense that she was the victim of rape by a 15-year-old Grand Rapids Catholic Central High School student, not the other way around. But evidence including recorded phone messages and thousands of text messages convinced a jury that Simon was the sexual aggressor. She was convicted of four felony charges and sentenced to prison for eight to 25 years.

About a year after the conviction, the victim filed a lawsuit against the school, its leaders and the diocese, which oversees the schools.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Bridget Judd

A push to remove the name of disgraced former Ballarat bishop Ronald Mulkearns from schools across western Victoria is gaining momentum.

St Joseph’s Primary School at Warrnambool is the latest to replace a plaque bearing the former bishop’s name.

The former bishop oversaw the Ballarat diocese during a notorious period of sexual abuse by clergy, and was accused of moving paedophile priests, including prolific offender Gerald Ridsdale, around western Victoria.

Mr Mulkearns died last year.

In its weekly newsletter, St Josephs Primary School announced the move after referring the issue to its school advisory council last month.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

RASHIDA YOSUFZAI
Australian Associated Press
March 13, 2017

Hundreds of Catholics are refusing to donate to the church until it apologises to the elderly mother of an alleged sexual abuse victim.

Eileen Piper, 92, is demanding an apology and compensation over her daughter’s alleged sexual abuse at the hands of Pallottine priest Gerard Mulvale.

Her 32-year-old daughter Stephanie killed herself in 1994, a year after she told her mother of about being sexually abused as a teenager.

Police charged Mulvale after Stephanie made a complaint, but she died before it came to trial. Mulvale was later convicted of sex crimes against two teenage boys.

Ms Piper last month met in private with Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart on the sidelines of a royal commission into child abuse hearing in Sydney.

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ITALY
The Local

Three men have been arrested in Turin for raping an underage girl under the pretext of carrying out sacred rites, local police said on Tuesday.

Sixty-nine-year-old Paolo Meraglia, who claimed to be a sorcerer, abused the girl for months.

The victim’s boyfriend at the time, a 19-year-old; his mother; and a 73-year-old friend of Meraglia also took part in the abuse, police said in a statement.

Officers on Monday arrested the three men for gang rape, aggravated by the use of sedatives and the fact their victim was a minor. Police did not say whether the mother of the girl’s ex-boyfriend would face charges.

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AUSTRALIA
The Standard

ANDREW THOMSON
15 Mar 2017

THE name of the former bishop of Ballarat will be removed from a plaque at Warrnambool’s largest catholic primary school out of respect for victims of clerical sexual abuse.

In its weekly newsletter, St Josephs Primary School announced the move after a victim of abuse requested action in relation to plaques on churches and schools two months ago.

The victim became emotional on Tuesday when told of the move.

“I know to many people this will seem a very small thing but the school’s decision recognises the wrongs of the past,” the tearful victim said.

“We are not trying to rewrite history, just to acknowledge what has happened.”

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CALIFORNIA
MyNewsLA

POSTED BY TONI MCALLISTER ON MARCH 14, 2017

A widow sued the archdioceses of Los Angeles and Orange Tuesday on behalf of herself and her four children, alleging her husband committed suicide at age 50 because he was depressed about being sexually molested by a priest years earlier in Placentia.

Robin Ward Agrusa filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging wrongful death and negligence and naming St. Joseph Catholic Church and St. Joseph Catholic School as additional defendants.

Representative of the two archdioceses could not be immediately reached.

The suit states that Mark Paul Agrusa was born into a family of devout Catholics and attended St. Joseph’s Church and its school from 1974-78. During that time, he met the Rev. Eleuterio Ramos, who “set his sights on Mark’s youthful vulnerability,” the suit alleges.

Agrusa became an altar boy and served sacraments during Mass with Ramos, who began sexually molesting him and warned him not to tell anyone, the suit alleges.

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AUSTRALIA
Catholic Leader

March 15, 2017

Posted by: Mark Bowling

IN the wake of the Catholic Church’s final hearing before the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse, Church leaders from across Australia have held a day of “reflection and conversation” on child safety.

The three-week Royal Commission hearing investigated the Church’s response to a crisis of child sexual abuse by members over six decades, and particularly the Church’s plans for child protection protocols and institutional change.

The commission heard that over the past 35 years, 4445 people made complaints of child sexual abuse in Catholic Church institutions, and seven per cent of priests were identified as alleged perpetrators.

National Professional Standards Office executive officer Fr Tim Brennan said New Horizon Day, convened in Sydney on March 9, aimed to assist “in the work of safeguarding children” and “to grow in an understanding of the complexities in which we work at this point in the life of our nation, and our Church”.

“It is a moment of enormous transition,” Fr Brennan said.

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GUAM
Pacific News Center

Written by Timothy Mchenry

Timothy Shiroma was just 9 years old when he says the former priest sexually assaulted him.

Guam – Another sex abuse lawsuit was filed against the Archdiocese of Agana, naming for a second time former priest Raymond Cepeda as the perpetrator.

The lawsuit was filed by Attorney David Lujan on behalf of Timothy Ryan Shiroma, 37, who says Cepeda sexually assaulted him when he was 9 years old. According to the complaint, it happened at the Agana Cathedral when Shiroma was inside the office to borrow the telephone. Shiroma says he struggled and attempted to fight off Cepeda but was unsuccessful.

Shiroma is the second alleged victim to accuse Cepeda of sexual abuse in the form of a lawsuit, the first was Edward Roberto Chan. Cepeda has since been laicized from the church as a result of the other sex abuse allegations filed against him.

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GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

Mindy Aguon |For The Guam Daily Post Mar 15, 2017

Lawsuit alleges sex abuse at Cathedral in late 80s

A former Catholic school student is the latest victim to come forward and file a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Agana alleging sexual abuse at the Agana Cathedral. All of the 28 lawsuits filed thus far alleged incidents of abuse at parishes around the island in the 1960s and 1970s.

The new case filed by Timothy Ryan Shiroma, 37, alleges sexual abuse that occurred in the late 80s.

According to court documents, in 1988 Shiroma was attending Cathedral Grade School, next to the Dulce Nombre de Maria Cathedral Basilica. After school, Shiroma would pass the time playing football with other kids near the cathedral until his grandfather picked him up, or he walked over to his office nearby.

On one occasion, Shiroma stopped by a nearby hot dog stand before heading to his grandfather’s office. When he noticed that his grandfather’s car wasn’t in the office parking lot, Shiroma returned to the cathedral, looking for him there.

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ROME
Catholic News Agency

By Elise Harris

Rome, Italy, Mar 15, 2017 / 02:50 am (CNA/EWTN News).- When reports came out recently about Pope Francis’ decision to modify the penalties for several priests found guilty of abusing minors, the question arose as to whether the Pope was being too merciful in his decision.

Another concern was whether priests found guilty of abuse of minors would continue to be dismissed from the clerical state, or “laicized.”

To address these issues and clear up some of the grey area on this topic, CNA spoke with a canonist, Fr. Damián Astigueta, SJ.

A professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University with a specialty in criminal proceedings, Fr. Astigueta offered insights on what dismissal from the clerical state is, why the Church doesn’t always choose to dismiss from the clerical state priests who are guilty of abuse, what those condemned to a life of prayer and penance actually do, the role of bishops in abuse cases, the lessening of sentences, and more.

What is dismissal from the clerical state?

While frequently used in the media, the term “laicization” doesn’t really exist anymore among canonists, Fr. Astigueta said, and has been widely replaced by the term “loss of the clerical state.”

When a priest loses his clerical state, either because he requested it or because it was taken from him, he is “‘dismissed from the clerical state,’ because this is a juridical status,” Fr. Astigueta explained.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

15 March, 2017

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has released a new research report that finds there are limited programs and services to help prevent child sexual abuse and those that do exist are not well coordinated.

The Royal Commission contracted researchers from the Institute of Child Protection Studies, Australian Catholic University, to examine the potential service needs of a range of target groups, with a focus on individuals concerned that they or someone they know may sexually harm or abuse a child.

The research report, Help-seeking needs and gaps for preventing child sexual abuse, finds there is no coordination of prevention programs for these target groups. It also suggests that the development of programs are often unregulated and their outcomes under-evaluated.

It also finds there is a lack of confidence in the community about how to recognise and respond to concerns about child sexual abuse.

Royal Commission CEO Philip Reed said according to the research, there is a lack of access to information, education and programs that focus on preventing child sexual abuse.

“The report also suggests that there is a gap in support for individuals who have problematic sexual thoughts about children but have not offended.”

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MINNESOTA
Canonical Consultation

03/12/2017

The following was sent to priests of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis from Archbishop Hebda:

From Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda

In January of 2014, before I arrived in the Archdiocese, Rev. Peter Laird petitioned Pope Francis for a dispensation from the obligations of the clerical state, commonly referred to as a “request for laicization.” I have recently been informed that the Holy Father has granted Peter’s request, dispensing him from all the obligations of the clerical state, including that of clerical celibacy. That means that Peter, who had withdrawn from public priestly ministry in 2013, will live as a lay person and will not be able to return to ordinary public ministry without permission of the Holy Father. I am frequently reminded that Peter served this Archdiocese generously from the date of his ordination, May 31, 1997, until his withdrawal from ministry, including as Vicar General and Moderator of the Curia. While his priestly ministry will be missed by many, I am hopeful that Pope Francis’ decision will allow Peter to serve out his baptismal calling in new ways.

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MINNESOTA
National Catholic Reporter

Brian Roewe | Mar. 14, 2017

A former vicar general of the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese who resigned early in the region’s three-year-plus clergy sexual abuse scandal, has now left the priesthood altogether.

Peter Laird in January was granted by Pope Francis a “request for laicization,” or dispensation from the obligations of the clerical state, according to a March 10 statement from Twin Cities Archbishop Bernard Hebda. Laird had made the request in January 2014. This May would have marked his 20th anniversary of his ordination.

“While his priestly ministry will be missed by many, I am hopeful that Pope Francis’ decision will allow Peter to serve out his baptismal calling in new ways,” Hebda said.

Laird had not been in public priestly ministry since his withdrawal from it in late 2013. That October, Laird stepped down as vicar general and moderator of the curia in the wake of news reports that the archdiocese had mishandled allegations child sexual abuse by diocesan priests.

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INDIA
NDTV

KOCHI: The Kerala High Court on Tuesday directed a Catholic priest, two nuns and another woman, to surrender within five days to the police in connection with the rape of a 17-year-old school girl, allegedly by a Catholic parish vicar.

All the four accused are on the run after the police investigating team found that they were involved in helping prime accused Robin Vadakkanchery, a 49-year-old Catholic parish vicar near Kannur, who has been arrested for allegedly raping a 17-year-old school girl, who gave birth to a baby boy last month.

The court gave this direction to the four after hearing their anticipatory bail and also directed the police to ensure that they are given bail the same day by the trial court after the police questions them.

Mr Vadakkanchery was picked up last month when he was on his way to Cochin International Airport to catch a flight to Canada.

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ROME
The Tablet

14 March 2017 | by Christopher Lamb

Prefect of Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith claimed Collins claim was a ‘cliche’ he ‘couldn’t understand’

Marie Collins dismisses Cardinal Muller’s claim he didn’t resist work of child protection commission

A clerical sexual abuse survivor has launched a stinging rebuke to a cardinal who denied his department resisted the work of a papal child protection commission.

Marie Collins resigned from Pope Francis’ safeguarding body in frustration at what she described as resistance from inside the Vatican to their work, with the main opposition coming from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).

In response Cardinal Gerhard Muller, the prefect of the congregation, hit back in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera saying it was a “cliche” to talk of resistance in the Roman Curia, that he “couldn’t understand” the claim about his department not co-operating and that he had never met Collins.

But in a letter published this week by the National Catholic Reporter, Collins points out that she met Muller at a small dinner in Dublin where the commission was discussed. She also states in her letter that it took more than a year before the CDF started to engage with the commission.

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INDIA
The New Indian Express

KOCHI: The Kerala High Court on Tuesday directed four accused in a case related to the rape of a minor girl by a parish priest in Kannur to surrender before the Investigating officer within five days.

The court issued the order while disposing off the bail pleas filed by Fr Thomas Therakam, former Child welfare Council (CWC) Chairman of Wayanad District, Sister Betty Jose, former member of CWC Sister Ophilla, Superintendent- Holy Infant Mary’s Girls Home Adoption Center, Vythir, Wayanad and a midwife- Thankamma.

It is alleged that Fr. Robin Vadakkanchery, former vicar of the Neendunokki parish near Kottiyur under Mananthavadi Diocese of the Syro-Malabar Church had raped a Class XI student, a resident of Neendunooki in Kottiyoor. The victim delivered a baby on February 26, and the child was later sent to Holy Infant Mary’s Girls Home Adoption Center, Vythiri, Wayanad.

The investigating officers, who visited the hospital-where the child was delivered- and the orphanage found huge discrepancies. The police have registered cases under Protection of Child Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and Juvenile Justice Act against six women including five nuns and a doctor.

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WISCONSIN
Wauwatosa Now

Chris Barlow , christopher.barlow@jrn.com March 14, 2017

The case against Robert Marsicek will continue after a Milwaukee County judge ruled that there is probable cause to move the proceedings forward.

The former St. Pius Church and School priest known as “Father Bob” is accused of three counts of felony first-degree sexual assault of a child. He appeared before a judge as part of a preliminary hearing at the Milwaukee County Courthouse March 6.

The church and school are located at 2520 Wauwatosa Ave.

Marsicek is now scheduled for an arraignment March 23. At this stage the defense has several options to consider, including settling on a plea agreement with the DA’s office, asking for another status like an adjournment, requesting a substitute judge, or asking for more time to discuss the case with Marsicek.

At the preliminary hearing, Milwaukee County Assistant District Attorney Kevin Shomin appeared for the state. LeBell and the defense team made a motion to dismiss, which was denied by the court when they found probable cause to continue. Shomin said the motion to dismiss is often done at this stage of any case.

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UNITED STATES/IRELAND
Irish Mirror

BY OLIVIA KELLEHER
14 MAR 2017

A nun based in the States has indicated that she was sold to a family in America after a deal was arranged at the Bessborough Mother and Baby Home in Cork.

Sr Brigid O’Mahony says she was bought by a Texan family in 1954 after an Irish priest facilitated her adoption from Ireland.

Sr O’Mahony, who is based in New York with the Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus, told the Irish Post as soon as she could think, her parents told her she was from a work home in Ireland.

“They explained to me that babies were sold to American parents and that I was lucky enough to be sold to them as many of the children in those homes never got out.

“I was adopted first, I came over just before I was two-years-old, and then they went back to Bessborough and got my brother Gerard who was five at the time.”

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ROME
Crux

Abuse survivor Marie Collins, who quit a papal anti-abuse commission citing resistance to reform from the Roman Curia, has written an open letter to the Vatican’s doctrine czar saying “No longer can dysfunction be kept hidden behind institutional closed doors.”

In an open letter to the Vatican’s top doctrinal official, clerical abuse survivor Marie Collins, who recently resigned from the pope’s anti-abuse commission citing frustrations over resistance to reform within the Roman Curia, warns against a “denial and obfuscation” and insists that key reform moves recommended by the commission have been disregarded.

The open letter from Collins to German Cardinal Gerhard Müller, Prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was published Tuesday by the National Catholic Reporter.

After Collins announced her resignation from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors on March 1, Müller spoke to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera about her claims that his congregation was part of the Curial resistance to the commission’s work. Collins’ letter was styled as a response to comments Müller made in that interview.

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ROME
Katholisch

[Child protection: Collins wants clarifications from Müller.]

Von Widerständen in der Kurie gegen die Missbrauchsaufklärung könne nicht die Rede sein, sagte Kardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller. Das irische Opfer Marie Collins hat einige Fragen zu dieser Aussage.

Missbrauch | Rom – 14.03.2017

Das irische Missbrauchsopfer Marie Collins hat Kurienkardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller zur Klärung einiger Fragen zum Kinderschutz im Vatikan aufgefordert. In einem Offenen Brief, den der “National Catholic Reporter” (Dienstag) veröffentlichte, macht das frühere Mitglied der päpstlichen Kinderschutzkommission den deutschen Kardinal auf mögliche Unstimmigkeiten in seinen Aussagen aufmerksam. Sie halte es für nötig, auf diese Weise zu einem Interview Müllers in der italienischen Zeitung “Corriere della Sera” (5. März) Stellung zu nehmen. Müller ist Präfekt der Glaubenskongregation, die im Vatikan für die Ahndung sexuellen Missbrauchs durch Priester zuständig ist.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Badische Zeitung

[Why is the Catholic Church so hard in dealing with sexual abuse in its ranks? The difficulties at the beginning of March were finally apparent: The Irishwoman Marie Collins left the papal child protection commission in protest. This is explosive because she was thirteen-year-old abused by a cleric and was the last victim in the commission.]

In Freiburg haben Theologen und Psychologen den Umgang der katholischen Kirche mit sexuellem Missbrauch diskutiert.

Warum tut sich die katholische Kirche so schwer im Umgang mit sexuellem Missbrauch in ihren Reihen? Zuletzt offenkundig wurden die Schwierigkeiten Anfang März: Die Irin Marie Collins verließ aus Protest die päpstliche Kinderschutzkommission. Das ist brisant, weil sie selbst als Dreizehnjährige von einem Kleriker missbraucht worden war und als letzte Opfervertreterin in der Kommission saß.

Das Fass zum Überlaufen gebracht habe wohl der Entschluss der Glaubenskongregation, Briefe von Missbrauchsopfern nicht zu beantworten, vermutet Hans Zollner von der Päpstlichen Universität Gregoriana in Rom. Er war einer der drei Teilnehmer einer Podiumsdiskussion an der Universität Freiburg, die sich mit sexueller Gewalt gegen Minderjährige in der katholischen Kirche beschäftigte.

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VATICAN CITY
Marie Collins

Published 14th March 2017 – National Catholic Reporter

Dear Cardinal Muller,

I read with interest the answers you gave to Corriere della Sera March 5 in reply to items in my statement following my resignation from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. There are some things you say in this interview to which I feel I need to respond.

You state you “cannot understand the talk of lack of cooperation” between the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) and the pontifical commission.

Maybe I can help with an example. In 2015, invitations went to your Congregation from some of the commission’s working groups asking that a representative attend their upcoming meetings in Rome to discuss issues of mutual interest.

The invitations were declined and then the members were informed by the Commission Secretary, Msgr. Robert Oliver, that face-to-face meetings would not be possible and any communication with dicasteries must be done in writing.

Things changed eventually, but this took over a year. It was September 2016 before a representative of the CDF was made available and attended Commission working group meetings. The discussions which ensued were very helpful, hopefully for your Congregation as well as the Commission.

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VATICAN CITY
Associated Press

BY NICOLE WINFIELD
ASSOCIATED PRESS

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The clash between a former member of Pope Francis’ sex abuse advisory commission and the Vatican heated up Tuesday, as prominent Irish abuse survivor Marie Collins challenged a top Vatican cardinal over his claims that his office had cooperated with the commission.

In an open letter, Collins pressed her case that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had ignored or scuttled commission proposals to protect children and care for abuse victims that had been approved by the pope.

Collins pointedly corrected Cardinal Gerhard Mueller’s assertion that one of the congregation’s staffers was a member of the board, when in fact he had stopped participating in 2015. And she noted that the commission’s 2015 invitation to have another congregation official attend its meetings was flat-out rejected, though someone eventually attended a session last year.

Collins resigned from the commission March 1 citing the “unacceptable” lack of cooperation from Mueller’s office, which processes canonical cases against pedophile priests. Her departure left the commission without any abuse survivors and dealt another blow to Francis’ record on combatting sex abuse.

In the days after Collins’ departure, Mueller responded to her criticisms by telling Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper that it was time to do away with what he called the “cliche” that the Vatican bureaucracy was resisting Francis’ initiatives.

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IRELAND
KCLR

A walk to remember the mothers and babies who are buried beside St Columba’s Hospital in Thomastown has been organised for this Mothers’ Day.

St Columba’s was formerly a county home and mother and baby facility and has been included in the representative sample being investigated by the Commission into Mother and Baby Homes.

Many of those who died there – especially babies and infants – were buried in what’s known as the Shankyard.

Gillian Grattan is one of the organisers of the walk that’ll take place on Sunday the 26th of March.

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IRELAND
The Southern Star

Monday, 13th March, 2017

Story by Jackie Keogh

A WEST Cork priest was applauded for a sermon he gave on Sunday, castigating the church for its failure to safeguard the innocent, follwing the Tuam babies revelations.

Fr Ger Galvin’s sermon at the Sacred Heart Church in Durrus resonated with parishioners who were horrified by the revelations that an estimated 796 bodies were discarded in a sewerage system in Tuam.

Fr Galvin told The Southern Star: ‘It began with Pope Francis asking for a day of prayer on Friday, March 3rd, for victims of child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. I decided to move it to Sunday so that the whole community would have an opportunity to remember and pray for victims, their families, and the families of the perpetrators.’

However, on Friday, the initial findings of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home Commission were made known and Fr Galvin said he was ‘sickened’ by what he heard. And his sermon on Sunday reflected that. When he was ordained in 1979, Fr Galvin said: ‘I assumed that I was becoming a priest in an institution that would be guided always by the words and the life of Jesus, but I have since discovered that that was a rose-tinted illusion.’

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Fintan O’Toole

In that most searing exploration of the Irish psyche, Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night, James Tyrone urges his ghostlike wife: “Mary! For God’s sake, forget the past!”

Mary Tyrone, “with strange objective calm”, replies: “Why? How can I? The past is the present, isn’t it? It’s the future, too.”

In Ireland, we don’t live in the past – but the past lives in us.

The abusive relationship between church, State and society may, like the dead babies that have haunted us in recent weeks, be buried beneath the surface of our postmodern globalised reality.
But its consequences still lurk in our bloodstream and until we understand them, the past will be our present and our future too.

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IRELAND
IrishCentral

Cahir O’Doherty @randomirish March 14, 2017

You might not expect to hear it from this columnist, but I don’t solely blame the religious orders for what happened at the Tuam mother and baby home in Co. Galway.

Some commentators have called the Tuam baby story a tragedy. It was not.

A ship that sinks after hitting a looming iceberg is a tragedy. An institution that buries infants in an underground “sewage treatment works” is following a policy.

Did you know that when spirited young women fled these ghastly institutions – the mother and baby homes, the Magdalene laundries – they were usually picked up by the Irish police force and returned to them like escaped convicts?

It’s because we so easily conceptualized unwed mothers as criminals then. We thought them people of low character that society should be shielded from.

That’s how they stopped being our daughters and sisters and cousins and started being a dangerous moral contagion. Irish parents often dropped them off at the gates themselves.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

The Government, seeking redress for the Magdalene women, found a religious community unwilling to contribute, writes Conall Ó Fátharta.

The McAleese report into Magdalene laundries was published in early 2013. A State apology by Taoiseach Enda Kenny to the women who worked for no pay in these institutions quickly followed.

Within days of the publication of the report, behind the scenes, the government was writing to the four religious orders that ran the laundries requesting that they contribute money to a redress fund.

What it found was a religious community absolutely unwilling to make any form of financial contribution to the women who went through its laundry doors and who worked for no pay.

In the same month as the apology, the private secretary to the then justice minister Alan Shatter wrote to the orders — the Sisters of Mercy, Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of Refuge, the Good Shepherd Sisters, and the Sisters of Charity — asking them to make “an appropriate contribution” to the redress scheme.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

By Conall Ó Fátharta
Irish Examiner Reporter

A religious order that ran two Magdalene Laundries told the Government that its decision not to contribute any money to the redress scheme for survivors was based on the findings of the McAleese Report.

It comes as Taoiseach Enda Kenny urged the Catholic Church to “measure up” and “get on with it” in relation to compensation it owes to abuse survivors.

A report from the Comptroller and Auditor General showed 18 religious orders have contributed to just 13% of the €1.5bn fund for victims of institutional abuse.

To date, the four orders that ran Magdalene Laundries — the Sisters of Mercy, Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of Refuge, the Good Shepherd Sisters, and the Sisters of Charity — have refused to contribute any money to the redress scheme set up in 2013 to compensate women.

The McAleese committee had no remit to investigate allegations of torture or other criminal offences that occurred in the laundries.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

14 March, 2017

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has released a new research report examining carer recruitment, training and support policies and processes in place across Australia that aim to enhance the safety of children in out-of-home care and prevent sexual abuse.

The report, A national comparison of carer screening, assessment, selection and training and support in foster care, kinship and residential care, was commissioned by the Royal Commission and prepared by Inca Consulting.

Children in out-of-home care, which includes foster care, kinship care and residential care settings, are particularly vulnerable to child sexual abuse due to a range of factors. These include previous sexual harm and other victimisation, social or economic deprivation, family trauma and dislocation from family.

The research found that significant attention is paid to the issue of child sexual abuse in out-of-home care.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Northern Echo

Julia Breen, Deputy Chief Reporter (Tees Valley) / @juliabreenEcho

A NORTH-East man who was honoured earlier this year for his fight against sex abuse risks within the church has spoken of his “grave concerns” about evidence given to an official inquiry.

Steve Rose, from Hartlepool, who was once a member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses but has now been “shunned” after he raised concerns, said elders had refused to reform the “two witness rule” which they required to throw a member out of the church.

The Royal Commission in Australia is looking into institutional child abuse and requested the governing body of Jehovah’s witnesses to give evidence – but they declined.

Mr Rose said: “The elders wouldn’t budge on the two-witness rule, a 2,000 year rule in the Bible where you need two witnesses to a wrongdoing.

“They also won’t accept women to make a decision at a hearing on child abuse. This can be intimidating for the child or even another woman who has to go in front of three elders in a private room.”

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

Celia Wexler, Contributor
Journalist, feminist and nonfiction author, celiawexler.com

03/13/2017

Today marks the fourth anniversary of Pope Francis’s election as pope. It is clear that the Pope has changed the tone of the church, stressing social justice over adherence to strict sexual conduct norms. He’s also spoken out against clerics who are full of themselves, and made protecting our environment the theme of an encyclical – he’s only written two.

I am willing to give the Pope a bit of a pass on his blind spot about women, and his refusal to understand the injustice of not ordaining women to the priesthood. I do not excuse it, but I realize that an 80-year-old prelate from Argentina may find it difficult to really “get” women’s issues.

It certainly riles me when he says that he’s for feminism, as long as it does not “negate motherhood” and “demand uniformity,” whatever that means. I don’t like the fact that the Vatican has not given up on complementarity – the notion that gender determines our character and our mission in life, with women the designated nurturers and dolers-out of empathy and kindness.

But some of the Pope’s actions truly are unforgivable. The Pope has demonstrated some serious weaknesses, particularly when it comes to policing priest pedophiles.

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KENTUCKY
The Courier-Journal

Deborah Yetter , @d_yetter March 13, 2017

Lori Brent knew something was seriously wrong with her infant son from his piercing wail.

“His cry was totally different,” she said. “It was a cry I’d never heard before.”

But Brent was stunned when emergency room doctors told her that the 4-month-old had a broken arm, a broken leg and a fracture from a previous injury. In what she called “a mother’s worst nightmare,” she learned a babysitter was suspected of inflicting the injuries.

Now, eight years later, the Henry County mother is speaking out for Senate Bill 236, a far-reaching measure to give parents, school systems and others who run youth programs access to confidential information about whether someone has committed child abuse or neglect, as found by state social service officials.

Besides allowing parents access to such information — which doesn’t show up on a background check — the bill would require public schools, for the first time, to check when people seek employment and deny a job to anyone listed on the confidential registry as having committed child abuse or neglect.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Michael Clifford

Each new revelation in the succession of scandals to envelope the Catholic Church cast the transgressions of Bishop Casey in an ever more benighn light, writes Michael Clifford

THE rain was bucketing down for much of the morning, but nobody really minded, least of all the man who was up there on the stage in front of a crowd heading for 300,000.

The occasion was Pope John Paul’s appearance at Ballybrit Racecourse in Galway, as part of his Irish visit. It was September 29, 1979, and Eamonn Casey was in his element.

He had been selected as the man to be the warm-up act for Pope John Paul II.

The pope was at the height of his popularity, but so too was the Kerryman who could credibly claim to be a link between the hierarchy and a young flock that was straying in droves from the fold.

Casey was the human face of the Irish hierarchy of the day, somebody who took his pastoral duty seriously, but came across as personable and down-to-earth, capable of enjoying life beyond his calling.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Sarah MacDonald
March 14 2017

A 2006 article in the ‘Chicago Tribune’, titled ‘How Catholicism Fell From Grace in Ireland’, points to the Bishop Eamonn Casey scandal as the beginning of the end for the Catholic Church in Ireland.

The revelation in May 1992 that one of the hierarchy’s most high-profile prelates had fathered a son following an affair with an American woman when he was Bishop of Kerry in the 1970s was, up to that point, the worst scandal to hit the Irish Church. It shocked the Irish faithful and resulted in a storm of international media headlines.

When Annie Murphy went public, telling her story to newspapers and famously appearing on the ‘Late Late Show’ with Gay Byrne, there was deep resentment towards her among Catholics. The frosty reception she received from Mr Byrne mirrored the initial attitude of many, who refused to believe that the story was true – until Bishop Casey resigned and fled the country. She was then resented for her role in the downfall of a popular bishop.

Bishop Casey was known within clerical circles to be a disciplinarian where his young priests were concerned. So the revelation that he had been preaching one thing and doing another was the cause of his long 14-year exile – even when worse clerical crimes of child sexual abuse by others were revealed subsequently.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

Rohan Smith
news.com.au
@ro_smith

CHILD sexual assault is a secret crime carried out by men and women who do everything they can to avoid detection.

Which is why one passage in the Bible is a Get Out of Jail Free card for offenders, particularly when adhered to so strictly by those within religious organisations.

Timothy 5:19: demands followers “do not entertain an accusation against an elder unless it is brought by two or three witnesses”.

It’s a message echoed in Matthew 18:16: that reads, among other things, “ … at the mouth of two or three witnesses every matter may be established”.

The two passages became the focus this week of a royal commission into institutional child sexual abuse within the Jehovah’s Witness church in Australia, of which there are 65,000 followers.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

TP O’Mahony

The revelations of May 1992 robbed the country of a bishop with energy and vision, writes TP O’Mahony.

Ireland awoke in May 1992 to shocking news — Eamonn Casey, the popular Bishop of Galway, had fathered a child with an American woman, Annie Murphy, and had fled the country hours before the story of their affair broke.

The affair, which began when the 25-year-old New Yorker came to Ireland in 1974 to stay with Casey, who was her father’s distant cousin, was kept secret for 18 years.

Annie Murphy was seeking solace in this country after the break-up of an unhappy marriage, and her father arranged for her to stay with Casey, who was Bishop of Kerry at the time.

She recalled that when he met her at Shannon, after her flight from New York, he had a “puzzled look”.

“Maybe he thought, as a result of my father’s letter, he would be meeting someone gaunt and haggard. Instead, there was this relaxed, slim, young lady of 110 pounds in suede high heels and a flattering mauve dress, with small polka dots.”

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

Marie Collins | Mar. 14, 2017

Editor’s note: Marie Collins of Ireland is a clergy sexual abuse survivor who resigned March 1 from Pope Francis’ Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, gave an interview shortly following Collins’ resignation. Collins has written an open letter to Müller in response to that interview, which she asked NCR to publish below.
Dear Cardinal Müller,

I read with interest the answers you gave to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera March 5 in reply to items in my statement following my resignation from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. There are some things you say in this interview to which I feel I need to respond.

You state you “cannot understand the talk of lack of cooperation” between the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) and the pontifical commission.

Maybe I can help with an example. In 2015, invitations went to your Congregation from some of the commission’s working groups asking that a representative attend their upcoming meetings in Rome to discuss issues of mutual interest.

The invitations were declined and then the members were informed by the Commission Secretary, Msgr. Robert Oliver, that face-to-face meetings would not be possible and any communication with dicasteries must be done in writing.

Things changed eventually, but this took over a year. It was September 2016 before a representative of the CDF was made available and attended Commission working group meetings. The discussions which ensued were very helpful, hopefully for your Congregation as well as the Commission.

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GEORGIA
Golden Isles News

By WES WOLFE wwolfe@goldenisles.news

On Aug. 25, 2016, the Rev. Kenneth Adkins drove from Florida to meet with Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents at their office in Kingsland. The next day, he was under arrest for felony child molestation.

The question debated in a motions hearing Monday in Glynn County Superior Court was whether his statement in that Aug. 25 interview should be a part of the evidence in the case against Adkins, who faces 11 counts related to alleged sexual activity between him, an underage boy and an underage girl in 2010.

Adkins has been a pastor in Brunswick for nearly 10 years and runs a public relations firm in Jacksonville.

Richard Dial, GBI Special Agent-in-Charge, conducted the interview with the case manager for the investigation, fellow GBI Special Agent James Feller, and testified during the hearing as to what occurred.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

By Dave Sutor
dsutor@tribdem.com

Victim Services Inc. has experienced approximately a 200 percent increase in the number of adult male survivors of childhood sexual assault seeking help within the past year.

That time period roughly coincides with how long has passed since the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General released a grand jury report, on March 1, 2016, in which it provided details about an alleged decades-long coverup of child sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona–Johnstown.

Mike Oliver, executive director of Victim Services, said there is “no way to gauge” if the report led directly to the increase because “that’s not a question that we ask (clients).”

But the publicity might have led to victims – both those abused by priests and other individuals not affiliated with the church – coming forward. …

Founders of the new local Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests chapter recently reached out to Victim Services to discuss what can be done to help individuals assaulted by church authority figures. “While we don’t have anything official on paper or any type of official linkage whatsoever (with SNAP), we would be able to help those individuals the same as we would be able to provide service to any victim of sexual assault within Cambria or Somerset County,” Oliver said.

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GERMANY
Times of India

Divya Chandrababu | TNN | Updated: Mar 14, 2017

Paedophilia is a diagnosis and not a crime, says Dr Klaus Beier, who leads a programme in Germany to treat paedophilically inclined adults and juveniles.

In an interview to TOI, Beier says to protect children, a healthy society must accept that “paedophilia is a reality amongst us and we need to work towards prevention.”

With India’s legislation mandating reporting which overrides patient confidentiality, he says those found offending must be given stringent punishment but we must simultaneously focus on preventing this crime by investing in assessing and treating juvenile offenders and reaching out to adults before they act out on their sexual urges towards children.

Beier, director of Institute of Sexology and Sexual Medicine, Berlin, was touring cities in India to train professionals and the institute is planning to roll out an online programme in India for self-referred paedophilically inclined men. He was in Chennai earlier to deliver a lecture on preventing child sex abuse and use of child sex abuse images.

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Press TV (Iran)

These are some of the headlines we are tracking for you in this episode of On the News Line:

Priests sexual escapades

The Roman Catholic Church, over the past few decades, has been rocked by revelations of widespread sexual abuse of children and women by priests. The latest of such reports surfaced last week in Italy where a priest was suspended from his parish over claims he used internet sites to recruit potential sex partners. Another priest is also facing defrocking as well as judicial proceedings over allegations he had dozens of sex partners. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg for sex scandals that have tarnished the Catholic Church’s reputation worldwide. Last month, an Australian commission on child abuse made shocking revelations after launching a 4 year probe. It found that 7 percent of all Catholic priests in the country were alleged sex abuse perpetrators. The average age of victims was said to have been 10 for girls and 11 for boys.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Michael O’Regan

Eamonn Casey, who has died aged 89, was a high-profile and charismatic member of the Irish Catholic hierarchy when he was embroiled in a scandal leading to his resignation as bishop of Galway 25 years ago.

The revelation, in May 1992, that he was the father of a teenage son, following an affair with American woman Annie Murphy when he was bishop of Kerry in the 1970s, shocked the church and many of its followers and led to international media coverage.

Although its decline had begun at the time, the church was a much more powerful institution than it is today. It was part of an Ireland with no divorce and no same-sex marriage, while the scandals involving clerical and institutional abuse had yet to emerge.

‘Personal reasons’

It was against this background Casey resigned for “personal reasons’’, following the revelation in The Irish Times that he had been making payments to a woman in Connecticut over a 15-year period.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

That May morning almost 25 years ago had a seismic effect on the Catholic Church in Ireland.

On Thursday May 7th, 1992, The Irish Times ran a front page story headed “Dr Casey resigns as Bishop of Galway”. It referred to “payments amounting to $115,000 to a woman in Connecticut and a lawyer in New York on July 25th, 1990, and other regular payments to the woman over a period of 15 years since the mid-1970s.”

Within days Annie Murphy was interviewed on RTÉ ’s Morning Ireland radio programme and told her story.

The Ireland of 1992 was a foreign country. Albert Reynolds had been taoiseach for three months and in “a temporary little arrangement” with the Progressive Democrats. Minister for health Dr John O’Connell was preparing a Bill to allow contraceptives be sold in public and there were nervous whispers of another divorce referendum.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Conor Lally

A group representing women coerced during pregnancy has stopped co-operating with the Mothers and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation over concerns about how it is being run.

The Irish First Mothers group is seeking clarity from the State on whether testimony given to the commission will be sealed. It is fearful the confidential nature of the commission may mean victim accounts will never be aired publicly.

The group is concerned the evidence may be disbarred from ever contributing to criminal inquiries that may follow the recent revelations about the Tuam mother and baby home.

Irish First Mothers founder Kathy McMahon said the revelations about Tuam had changed the parameters of public debate about mother and baby homes.

Earlier this month the commission said “significant quantities” of human remains found at a home in Tuam run by the Bon Secours order were those of infants.

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GUAM
KUAM

Updated: Mar 12, 2017

By Krystal Paco

They’ll continue to picket until their final demand is met.

Sunday marked the 34th week of protests in front of the Dulce Nombre de Maria Cathedral-Basilica. Dozens of members of the Concerned Catholics of Guam and the Laity Forward Movement greeted church goers with signs demanding that Archbishop Anthony Apuron be defrocked.

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IRELAND
IrishCentral

Frances Mulraney @FrancesMulraney March 13, 2017

Two Irish Archbishops addressed the Tuam baby scandal in their homilies this weekend, both condemning the actions of the Mother and Baby home in the Galway town where a grave containing the bodies of 796 infants and children was confirmed earlier this month.

In his homily delivered at St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral in Dublin on Sunday evening, Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin, stated that all must be done to ensure the full truth of the mother and baby homes is known, calling for a full investigation into practices of the time.

“When an institution becomes trapped within its own self-interest, inevitably there will be those who begin to think that they can act as they wish and can even think and claim that, in doing things as they wish, they are doing the work of the Lord,” he said.

“It is not something that can be wallpapered over or interpreted by clever spin-doctors.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Aodhan O’Faolain

An application by a man seeking information about his infant sister, who is believed to have died in the Tuam Mother and Baby Home, has been adjourned at the High Court for a further week.

Peter Mulryan (73), of Derrymullen, Ballinasloe, Co Galway, whose sister Marian Bridget Mulryan is believed to be among 796 children recorded as having died at the home, has initiated proceedings against Tusla aimed at getting any information that may exist about her.

A Marian Bridget Mulryan is recorded as having died in February 1955, nine months after she was born at the home.

Mr Mulryan went to the Tuam home with his mother just days after his birth in July 1944. His mother later appeared to have gone to a Magdalene institution and he was fostered out at the age of four.

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IRELAND
Galway Advertiser

Sinn Féin councillor Cathal Ó Conchúir has called on Galway mayor Noel Larkin to open a book of condolences for all the children that died in the mother and baby homes .

Speaking today, Councillor Ó Conchúir said: “This is our holocaust and we should at least remember the most innocent and precious lives that passed away in these homes and who were buried in septic tanks. I will also be sending a request to An Coiste Logainmeacha – the committee that are involved in naming estates, roads etc. – to rename the Western Distributor Road as Bóthar Máthair agus na Leanaí in remembrance of the deceased children and as a reminder to society that this can never happen again”.

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UNITED STATES
The Irish Post

March 13, 2017, By Erica Doyle Higgins

A MISSIONARY nun has told The Irish Post how she was sold from a Mother and Baby home in Ireland to an American family – only to be finally reunited with her birth mother five years ago.

Sister Brigid O’Mahony, who is now based with the Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus in New York, says her American parents bought her from the Sisters at Bessborough Mother and Baby Home in 1954.

“As soon as I could think, my American parents told me I was from Ireland, from a work home,” she told The Irish Post in an exclusive interview.

“They explained to me that babies were sold to American parents, and that I was lucky enough to be sold to them as many of the children in these homes never got out,” she added.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Bucks Herald

An 84-year-old priest who lives in Aylesbury is facing four historic allegations under the Sexual Offences Act.

Father Patrick Bailey now lives at a nursing home in Aylesbury, but his offences are alleged to have been committed in Bedford and Chesham.

Father Bailey was in charge of the Holy Child and St Joseph Catholic church in Midland Road, Bedford for many years.

He was also once the director for education for the Northampton Diocese.

Two of the allegations refer to indecent assaults that allegedly happened in Bedford between November 1989 and October 2001. They relate to two different men, both over 16 years of age.

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IRELAND
The Irish News

Tom Kelly
13 March, 2017

A few years ago my work took in me into contact with a religious order, which operated two orphanages in Northern Ireland.

In preparing for media interviews I questioned two nonagenarian nuns who worked in Derry in the 1940s and 50s. Their superiors had committed to sending young children from their institutions to Australia as part of a UK government policy at that time.

It’s hard to imagine anything worse than the enforced migration of young children, splitting them from their already tenuous links to the communities from which they came.

In explaining, one sister described what Derry was like after the war and in particular she admitted that many of the nuns having entered the convents as teenagers had no experience or training in social work or childcare making them totally unsuited to the role of a carer.

Furthermore she described how in some cases widowed fathers unable to cope emotionally but more likely financially, (as they couldn’t become full time stay at home parents), would abandon an entire family at the door of the convent. TB and diphtheria, which were rife amongst the poor and working class, often became rampant viruses in the confined and overcrowded orphanages. She told of nuns visiting local butchers and bakeries to collect food to supplement the inadequate subsidy provided by the government.

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IRELAND
Connacht Tribune

Galway Bay fm newsroom – The majority of unmarked childrens’ graves in Ireland are in counties Galway, Mayo and Kerry.

The government has confirmed that hundreds of unbaptised children are buried across Galway – along with those buried at the site of the former mother and baby home in Tuam.

There are almost 500 unmarked childrens’ graves across the county.

This includes two large so-called ‘paupers graves’ at Mountpleasant in Loughrea, and another site in Tuam, close to the mother and baby home site.

Archaeologists have identified over 1,400 unmarked graves across the country – the majority of which are in Galway, Mayo and Kerry.

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IRELAND
The Journal

TAOISEACH ENDA KENNY is the latest political figure to weigh-in and tell the Catholic Church that they have an obligation to pay the compensation they owe to survivors of abuse.

Speaking in Philadelphia, Kenny told RTÉ News that the Church and its congregations should measure up to their responsibility.

“I would expect congregations and the Church to reflect on serious of this and measure up to their requirements,” said the Taoiseach.

“We had a position following the residential institutions and the amount of restitution to be made there, and that hasn’t been – what was set out in the beginning,” he added.
2002 agreement

In 2002, an indemnity agreement was entered into by the Fianna Fáil Government and 18 religious orders. Under this agreement, the congregations agreed to hand over €128 million in cash and property. This was increased to €353 million after the publication of the Ryan report.

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IRELAND
Irish Mirror

BY PADDY CLANCY
13 MAR 2017

Hail, glorious St Patrick!

How proud I was as a youngster to sing Ireland’s favourite greeting to the man after whom I was christened.

What excitement raced through my boyhood mind as I chanted the next line in the hymn celebrating his name – “Dear Saint of Our Isle!”

I was a bit puzzled when I reached “On us, your poor children; bestow a sweet smile.”

OK, I got the bit about asking him to smile on us! After, all hadn’t he brought Christianity to us and the nuns and religious brothers who taught us and the priests who prepared us for Holy Communion and Confirmation made sure we never forgot that.

But for a long time I couldn’t figure out why we were being referred to in the hymn as “poor” children.

Of course, in my childhood mind I thought poor just meant financially not well off.

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IRELAND
BBC News

The echo of hobnail boots coming down the road was the signal that the “home babies” of Tuam were heading to school.

Kevin Dwyer grew up close to the high walls of the mother and baby home in County Galway, where the remains of up to 800 babies and children have been uncovered in a mass unmarked grave.

The illegitimate children of so-called “unmarried mothers” were, he said, considered “the children of sin”.

They were “the devil’s children, they weren’t encouraged to mix”.

The children are believed to have died from natural causes, but the search for their remains has raised questions about the living conditions and practices within such Church-run institutions.

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IRELAND
Washington Post

By Fred Barbash March 13

Among the bitter images of his childhood at “The Home for Mothers and Babies” in Tuam, Ireland, two stand out as particularly wrenching to John Pascal Rodgers.

Of the first, he has no independent recollection as he was only a year and a half old. His mother told him 48 years later about it. One day at Tuam, she explained, she found out that she was about to be separated from her son by the nuns who ran the home, perhaps forever. So she came in and “cut off a lock of my hair as a memento.”

The nuns then sent her to a workhouse in Galway, he said. She was 17-years-old. “The key was turned in the door and she remained there 15 years until she got the courage to escape.”

Of the second image, some four years later, he does have independent knowledge because he was older then and it was so painful.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on the lack of data presented by those making the case for a “mass grave” in Tuam, Ireland:

Reform advocates, for any cause, have a tendency to exaggerate the problem they seek to remedy, and the extremists in their ranks are even worse. A case in point is the “mass gave” issue.

I have a doctorate in sociology from New York University, and I am accustomed to rendering decisions based on data, empirical evidence, and logic. Everyone has an opinion on any given subject, but those that are unsubstantiated do not carry as much weight as those that are. On this score, the mass gravers come up short. Much of their reasoning is based on conjecture, and some of it is pure fiction. It hardly exaggerates to say that their evidence is lacking.

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IRELAND
IrishCentral

Jean Farrell @IrishCentral March 13, 2017

If you need to know how Tuam babies cases happened look no further than the attitude of the Irish church to women in the 20th century.

It is fair to say the attitude was there among Protestant clergy too, given there were similar horrific deaths in the Protestant Bethany Home, where 222 babies and children died.

Women, especially poor or uneducated ones, were mere chattels of men, incapable of intelligent thought. Certainly, they should never be allowed to vote.

In 1909 Father David Barry wrote the following in a magazine called Irish Ecclesiastical Record:

“Allowing women the right to vote in Ireland is incompatible with the Catholic ideal of domestic life. It would fare ill with the passive, patience, meekness, forbearance and self-repression looked upon by the church as the special privilege of the female soul.”

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INDIA
The Ladies Finger!

March 13, 2017
By Sharanya Gopinathan

Arre, where to begin yaar?

Earlier this month, Father Robin Vadakkuncheril from St Sebastian’s Church in Kottiyoor of Mananthavady diocese was arrested on charges of raping a minor girl inside the church. When the girl gave birth to the child, the priest allegedly asked the girl’s father to find somebody to take the fall for him to save the church from disgrace. In a bizarre twist in an already horrifying event, the father told police that he himself had raped his own daughter. Upon further questioning, he admitted that he actually had not raped his daughter, and had concocted this story in order to protect the priest and the church. He also says that Robin paid the girl’s medical bill in the hospital, and then tried to flee the country to Canada.

Last week, the Mananthavady diocese met to find ways to “protect the sanctity” of the church and prevent such events from happening in the future. Of course, the only measure that they have announced so far is that they will be installing CCTV cameras in all the churches, and said that the rest of the measures are still being discussed.

I can’t for the life of me understand why installing CCTV cameras is the first option people in power turn to when dealing with issues of violence against women. In Delhi, the Aam Aadmi Party’s Arvind Kejriwal made a famous promise to install 15 lakh CCTV cameras all over the city as a means of making it safer for women (and has received tons of flak for failing to do so, but that’s another story). A move like constant city-wide surveillance by the State is a complex issue that needs active public discussion and debate before being implemented as policy, it isn’t something that should just be shoved down our throats by politicians in the guise of protecting women.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Lorna Siggins

Possible interference with birth and death certification at mother and baby homes in Tuam, Co Galway, and in Cork was highlighted as requiring further investigation in official HSE correspondence over four years ago.

A draft briefing paper for senior HSE management in October 2012, marked strictly confidential, noted that deaths recorded at the Bessboro mother and baby home in Cork dropped “dramatically” in 1950 with the introduction of adoption legislation.

“This…may point to babies being identified for adoption, principally to the USA, but have been recorded as infant deaths in Ireland and notified to the parents accordingly,” it said.

It added that further detailed study was required before this theory could be proven or disproven.

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IRELAND
Herald

Jane Last – 13 March 2017

Father Brian D’Arcy says the Tuam and Grace scandals should “fill us with disgust and lead us to hang our heads in shame”.

The outspoken priest asked how Ireland “can establish a pro-life culture if this is how we treated the most vulnerable mothers and babies”.

Writing in his column in yesterday’s Sunday World, the cleric told readers he visited the Tuam site in recent days to see it for himself.

“It left me shocked, numbed and very angry. The problem was – and still is – I didn’t know where to direct my anger.

Blame

“Saying ‘blame the nuns’ is an easy option. The people who ran the Mother and Baby homes, including the nuns, did much great work.

“But what happened to their sense of decency and common sense when they disposed of dead babies in a septic tank?

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Ian Begley
March 13 2017

The husband of Catherine Corless said he never realised his wife was “on trial” as her work on the Tuam Mother and Baby Home was vindicated by the Commission of Investigation.

In 2015, the commission was established by the government to investigate former mother and baby homes across Ireland.

Mrs Corless carried out extensive research and she believes that 796 babies were buried at the site of the mother and baby home which was run by the Bons Secours order in Tuam, Co Galway.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Miriam O’Callaghan show, her husband Aidan Corless said: “When the word started appearing that Catherine was being vindicated, I thought ‘good Lord, I didn’t even realise Catherine was on trial’.

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GUAM
KUAM

Updated: Mar 13, 2017
By Krystal Paco

While there’s been limited information on Archbishop Anthony Apuron’s canonical trial in Rome, Pope Francis gives a brief update during an interview with a German newspaper.

The Pope was providing comment on his decision to send Cardinal Raymond Burke to Guam, which was rumored to be a form of punishment. The pope clarified, “Cardinal Burke was [in Guam] because of some terrible incidents there. For that I’m very grateful to him, he’s an excellent lawyer, but I believe the assignment is almost completed.”

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Kevin Doyle and Niall O’Connor
March 13 2017

Religious congregations need to “measure up” and take responsibility for the restitution owed to victims of abuse, Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said.

Speaking in Philadelphia, Mr Kenny said the Catholic Church had not lived up to expectations in terms of compensation.

He said the Church must “measure up in so far as accepting responsibility or agreements as far as restitution is concerned and get on with it”.

Asked whether the Pope should intervene in order to put pressure on religious orders to pay more in compensation, Mr Kenny replied: “I would expect that the congregations and the Church would reflect on the seriousness of this and measure up to their requirements.

“I referred a number of matters to the Pope when I met with him last year and I would expect that the Vatican would respond to those.”

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INDIA
The News Minute

Monday, March 13, 2017

The Mananthavady diocese, which has been facing the wrath of the people after the arrest of the priest Robin Vadakkenchery in the alleged rape of a minor girl in Kannur, has brought out a set of rules and guidelines to safeguard sanctity of the church.

Last week’s Pastoral Council meeting held in Mananthavady has come up with 12 guidelines and also decided to form grievance cells at the parishes.

The meeting also decided to install CCTV cameras in all churches and institutions that come under the Mananthavady diocese. The Times of India reports that church authorities were not ready to reveal the details of the guidelines.

“In the backdrop of the incident, we will undertake serious reforms and will plug all loopholes to ensure that it is not repeated. The discussions are still under way at different levels. We will come up with an action plan and announce it to the public soon,” the PRO of the diocese, Fr Jose Kocharackal, told ToI.

He also said that CCTV cameras will be installed in churches at the earliest.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio , heugenio@guampdn.com March 13, 2017

The Archdiocese of Agana, which last year spent about $213,000 more than it collected, is trying to restore public confidence in its leadership as it asks residents to donate to the archdiocese and its programs during the current Lenten season.

The archdiocese has embraced financial transparency and accountability to help rebuild that trust, Coadjutor Archbishop Michael Jude Byrnes and other officials said as the church deals with a deficit and at least $125 million in clergy sex abuse lawsuits.

Byrnes said there has been great skepticism, distrust, questioning and lack of confidence by many Guam Catholics toward the leadership of the archdiocese, the curia and the chancery.

“With earnest hearts, greater transparency and accountability, we pledge to restore that trust,” Byrnes wrote in a March 5 pastoral letter appealing for financial pledges to help the archdiocese fund its ministries and services.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors is to hold a global seminar at the Pontifical Gregorian University on safeguarding children.

The event, entitled ‘Safeguarding in Homes and Schools: Learning from Experience Worldwide’, takes place on 23 March and is organized in collaboration with the Centre for Child Protection of the Gregorian University.

It is to have a particular focus on Latin America.

Chaired by the Commission’s President, Cardinal Seán O’Malley, OFM Cap, guest speakers from Argentina, Colombia and Mexico will be joined by experts from Australia and Italy to share their experience of promoting a culture of safeguarding in Catholic schools, institutions and communities.

A communiqué from the Commission says the event will look at “the urgent need for research in this area” and will host experts from the Pontifical Gregorian University, the Pontifical Salesian University, and the Pontifical Faculty for Education Science Auxilium.

Please find below the full communiqué:

The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors [PCPM], in collaboration with the Centre for Child Protection of the Pontifical Gregorian University, is hosting a global seminar on safeguarding and education, with a particular focus on Latin America.

Guest speakers from Argentina, Colombia and Mexico will be joined by experts from Australia and Italy to share their experience of promoting a culture of safeguarding in Catholic schools, institutions and communities.

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AUSTRALIA
Western Advocate

JACINTA CARROLL
13 Mar 2017

THE family of the first victim to speak out about historic sexual abuse at St Stanislaus’ College has joined the chorus of voices calling for the Royal Commission investigating Institutional Responses into Child Sexual Abuse to hold an open public hearing in Bathurst.

Carol Nielsen, whose son Tor was the whistle-blower on the historic abuse at the school, said it was important not only for individuals but for the community that a hearing was held.

She was speaking as Greens MLC David Shoebridge prepares to host a public forum in Bathurst on Tuesday night.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
News Letter

Sinn Fein has demanded that the British government fund compensation payments to victims of historical institutional abuse in Northern Ireland.

Party leader in the Province, Michelle O’Neill, said she has raised the issue with Secretary of State James Brokenshire as part of the current talks to restore power-sharing at Stormont.

Ms O’Neill insisted that she will continue to push Mr Brokenshire on the matter over the next few days.

In January a report by the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA) found that children’s homes run by some churches, charities and state institutions in Northern Ireland were the scene of widespread abuse and mistreatment of young residents.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
4NI

Sinn Féin is calling on the British Government to fund compensation payments to victims and survivors of historical institutional abuse in Northern Ireland.

The party’s leader, Michelle O’Neill, confirmed she recently discussed the issue with NI Secretary James Brokenshiire.

She said: “No one could fail to have been moved by the harrowing evidence brought forward during the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry.

“Sinn Féin believes that victims and survivors are entitled to redress as a result of their abuse.

“We have raised this directly with British Secretary of State James Brokenshire during the current talks, putting forward our position that his government should pay for the redress for victims and survivors.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Monday, March 13, 2017

Daniel McConnell and Fiachra Ó Cionnaith

The Government is on a collision course with the Vatican over the funding of redress payments to sex abuse victims, saying it wants to seize lands owned by the Church.

In some of the strongest terms used against the Church by an Irish government, Taoiseach Enda Kenny warned Church authorities they must “get on with it” in terms of meeting their share of the cost of compensating victims of abuse.

Mr Kenny said the Church must “measure up to the responsibilities that they accepted”.

Speaking in Philadelphia, Mr Kenny said religious orders must “reflect on the seriousness of this” before they are forced to do so.

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JAMAICA
The Gleaner

Syranno Baines

Co-founder of the recently formed Tambourine Army Latoya Nugent is calling for church congregations islandwide to publicly expose ministers of religion who continue to abuse women and children while using their positions in the Church to evade prosecution.

Tambourine Army was formed in January as a result of the sex scandal that rocked the country and which saw three highly placed members of the Moravian church charged with having sexual intercourse with minors in separate instances.

Aimed at fighting gender-based violence in Jamaica, Tambourine Army staged a successful road march from 127 Molynes Road, Covenant Moravian Church, to the clock in Half-Way Tree, St Andrew, on Saturday. The march attracted international attention.

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AUSTRALIA
Insights

Uniting Church leaders appearing before the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse have pledged to survivors to make the Church the safest place it can be for children.

President Stuart McMillan assured the Royal Commission hearing in Sydney on Friday 10 March that the Uniting Church would continue to apply the lessons learned from the Commission’s work.

“As church leaders we pledge ourselves to continue to understand and to implement the lessons of the Royal Commission and remain open to the insights of survivors and professionals.”

“We pledge to continuously seek improvement; to regularly renew our policies and practices in all parts of our Church, to ensure that they reflect the best practice for care, service and support of children.”

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CALIFORNIA
Desert Dispatch

By Charity LindseyStaff Writer

BARSTOW — Barstow Christian School administrators’ recent admission that previous school policy on reporting child abuse was unlawful came just weeks before the release of former school secretary and convicted child molester Kristen Blanton, according to victim lawyers.

While Blanton was set to be released Sunday, a motion filed last month alleges that BCS Principal Heather Bradford knew of Blanton’s inappropriate contact with the 14-year-old male student victim as early as three months before her arrest and failed to report it.

The victim’s attorneys filed the motion in San Bernardino Superior Court to add punitive damages to their lawsuit against the school and Blanton, two years after she was arrested for allegedly molesting the victim multiple times beginning in October 2014.

During deposition testimony last month, according to court documents and the victim’s lawyers, both Bradford and BCS Superintendent and Senior Pastor of Barstow Free Methodist Church Dr. Chris Monroe admitted that the school’s written policy on reporting childhood abuse violates the state mandatory reporting laws.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Samantha Donovan

Pope Francis’ recent decision to reduce sanctions for convicted paedophile priests is a worrying sign, the CEO of the Catholic Church’s Australian Truth Justice and Healing Council says.

“It’s not a good indication of a strong zero-tolerance approach,” Francis Sullivan said.

Pope Francis became leader of the world’s Catholics just as Australia’s royal commission into child sexual abuse was getting underway.

His initial promise to tackle clerical sexual abuse was a promising sign to Catholics like Mr Sullivan.

But in a recent case, the Pope overruled the advice of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to defrock an Italian priest, Mauro Inzoli.

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AUSTRALIA
Border Mail

One year on from a delegation of Ballarat abuse victims to Rome, a senior catholic official has expressed his frustration at the stalls to reform being instigated in the Vatican.

Truth Justice and Healing Council CEO Francis Sullivan said he feared the Pope may be retreating from his crackdown on pedophile priests as Vatican bureaucrats do all they can to undermine reform efforts,

The Catholic Church in Australia could end up as a “marginalised rump” unless there is real change to an institutional culture hell-bent on self-protection and self-preservation, Mr Sullivan said.

Last March a group of Ballarat sexual abuse victims travelled to Rome to hear Cardinal George Pell’s evidence to the Royal Commission.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

By Editorial Board
March 12

WHEN POPE Francis established a commission in 2014 to address sexual abuse by clergy members, he picked two survivors, victims themselves, to serve on the 17-member panel. Now, three years later, both are gone, having denounced foot-dragging and official intransigence inside the Vatican.

The fact that no survivors now serve as active members of Francis’s Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors is a measure of the Holy See’s resistance to change, and of its apparent inability to come to terms with the moral challenge posed by pedophile priests and bishops who enabled them. Sadly, the resignation this month from the commission of one survivor, which followed the forced ouster a year earlier of another, is only one among the more recent indications that the pope’s public pledges of zero tolerance for abuse and expressions of sympathy for victims are unmatched by institutional transformation.

In 2015, it was the pontifical commission that recommended establishing a tribunal to hold accountable bishops who turned a blind eye to abuse within their dioceses by shuffling abusive priests from parish to parish. Francis adopted the recommendation, then dropped it a year later in the face of bureaucratic impediments. He said bishops would be dealt with under existing Vatican rules, but none have been explicitly disciplined for negligence involving sexual abuse.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Lorna Siggins

Archbishop of Dublin Dr Diarmuid Martin has said “everything must be done to enable the truth to emerge” about the treatment of children and mothers in church-run institutions in Ireland.

The sad facts “once again” emerging over such treatment challenges the church to a “deep self-examination and repentance” and “is not something that can be wallpapered over or interpreted by clever spindoctors”, Dr Martin said.

In his homily delivered at St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral in Dublin on Sunday evening just over a week after confirmation of “significant” infant remains at the former Bon Secours home in Tuam, Dr Martin urged full investigation of practices at the time.

“When an institution becomes trapped within its own self-interest, inevitably there will be those who begin to think that they can act as they wish and can even think and claim that, in doing things as they wish, they are doing the work of the Lord,” he said.

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INDIA
Times of India

TNN | Updated: Mar 12, 2017

Kozhikode: The Catholic diocese of Mananthavady, which has been rattled by the arrest of a parish vicar over the alleged rape of a minor girl in Kannur, has come up with a set of guidelines to safeguard the sanctity of the church and to step up its vigil against such incidents.

The meeting of the priests and pastoral council members held at the bishop’s house at Mananthavady last week has decided to implement a 12-point guideline to ensure greater transparency and probity in the affairs of the diocese.

Among the decisions taken at the meeting include installing CCTV cameras in all churches and institutions run by the diocese.

Also, it has been decided to constitute grievance cells in parishes to address the complaints at the local level.

The authorities of the diocese, however, refused to divulge the details of the decisions saying that discussions are still under way.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

ANALYSIS
By Jonathan Flynn

The presentation of victim impact statements is one of the most powerful and revealing parts of a child sexual abuse trial.

Each one is different, a unique voice speaking out, usually after decades of painful, secretive silence. But there is a terrible consistency in the effect the abuse had on these people’s lives:

“I feel pain and self-hatred. I tried to obliterate it with alcohol.”

“It made my life the living embodiment of hell.”

These are some of the statements I’ve heard in sentencing submissions for clerical abusers from my old school, Saint Stanislaus’ College. Depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health problems are described by nearly all the victims. Suicide attempts are also mentioned.

Most of the statements I heard were read out by an advocate or legal representative. At the trial of the worst Saint Stanislaus’ offender, Brian Spillane, the son of one victim read his father’s words.

The abuse had destroyed this man’s ability to have close relationships. His son had remained at his side throughout.

Another of Spillane’s victims read his own statement. It was a similar story.

“I’ve lost the ability to face the world with optimism and hope,” he said.

Then he described the pain of having to tell his wife and children about the ordeal he had been through — causing them suffering added to the injury the abuse had brought decades earlier.

His voice cracked as he read his statement. People in the court were crying. I heard one person behind me whisper “come on mate” as he struggled to get the words out.

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