ABUSE TRACKER

VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service – Bulletin

Appointment of auxiliary bishop of Saint Louis, U.S.A.

The Holy Father has appointed as auxiliary bishop of Saint Louis, U.S.A., Msgr. Mark S. Rivituso, of the clergy of the same archdiocese, assigning him the titular see of Turuzi. Msgr. Rivituso is currently vicar general.

Msgr. Mark S. Rivituso

Msgr. Mark S. Rivituso was born on 20 September 1961 in Saint Louis, Missouri, in the same archdiocese. After attending the “Saint Mary High School” in Saint Louis, he carried out his ecclesiastical studies at the “Cardinal Glennon College Seminary” and the “Kenrick Seminary” in Saint Louis. He subsequently obtained a licentiate in canon law from the “Saint Paul” University of Ottawa, Canada (1996).

He was ordained a priest for the archdiocese of Saint Louis on 16 January 1988.

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.

IRELAND
The Journal

DEIRDRE WADDING WAS 18-years-old when she entered the Bessborough mother and baby home in Cork.

It was 1981, and though Wadding said she was not a victim of “cruelty or physical abuse”, she, like the other girls at the home, suffered emotional and psychological abuse that would stay with them for the rest of their lives.

“I shared a room with a girl who was only 13-years-old, she was a child. I was 18, she sobbed her heart out for her mother every night and I mean it was incredibly, incredibly traumatic,” she said.

“The trauma of banishment, you had the trauma of guilt and shame that was imposed by the very fact of being there. You had the enormous trauma and sorrow of loss of your child being placed for adoption and that’s something that’s left a lasting impact on my life.”

Speaking to TheJournal.ie earlier today, Wadding, who is a People Before Profit councillor in Wexford, explained that all of the girls in the convent were given a new name that they could pick themselves – she chose ‘Ciara’.

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.

IRELAND
Irish Mirror

BYAMY COLES
7 MAR 2017

A mother and baby home survivor said he was close to being “one of those children left in a mass grave” after he suffered multiple illnesses as a baby.

Derek Leinster was born in the Protestant Bethany Home, in Rathgar, Dublin, in 1941.

At four-and-a-half-months old he was “torn” from his mother’s arms and left to suffer through horrific diseases like pneumonia and diphtheria.

Fortunately he survived, but was dangerously close to becoming one of the 220 babies and toddlers who died at the home between 1922 and 1949.

Derek said many of them were buried in paupers’ graves.

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.

IRELAND
Irish Independent

Luke Byrne and Ryan Nugent
March 7 2017

Dublin city’s senior archaeologist has told the private developer of a former Catholic institution that the site may contain human burials.

Dr Ruth Johnson indicated that because the property at The Crescent, Donnybrook, was a former Magdalene Laundry, it could contain remains.

Significantly, her observation was made as part of the planning process in September 2016, five months before the confirmed discovery of children’s remains at the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam last week.

There are calls for every Magdalene Laundry, mother and baby home and industrial school to be searched for secret deposits of human remains – and to halt development on these sites until this is completed.

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

UNITED STATES
IrishCentral

[THE DUNCES AT IRISH CENTRAL – Catholic League]

Cahir O’Doherty @randomirish March 07, 2017

He says not to believe the Commission of Investigation, don’t believe the Irish government, don’t even believe the Catholic Bishops, who have just reacted with “shock” and “shame” at the discovery of “significant human remains” at the former Mother and Baby Home at Tuam, County Galway.

Only Bill Donohue of the Catholic League in New York knows the truth – the same kind of “truth” Holocaust deniers might approve of.

He says it is all ‘fake news,’ nothing to see, no one to be held to account over 800 dead children in a Mother and Baby home in Tuam, County Galway.

He besmirches the memory of helpless young children, some literally emaciated and starved to death, in pursuit of his own grandiose and grotesque need for attention.

He’s the only one who knows the story of a “mass grave” in County Galway is pure hokum. “It was a lie in 2014 and it is a lie in 2017,” he writes.

“There is no evidence of a mass grave outside a home for unmarried women operated by nuns in Tuam, Ireland, near Galway, in the 20th century. The hoax is now back again, and an obliging media are running with the story as if it were true.”

He is contradicting his own Catholic bishops, who accept the horror of what happened at the home.

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.

IRELAND
Irish Sun

BY ED CARTY
7th March 2017

SURVIVORS of institutions for unmarried mothers and their babies have called for an urgent meeting with the Taoiseach over demands to extend an inquiry into deaths in the homes.

A commission set up to investigate alleged abuse at one Catholic Church facility in Tuam, Co Galway has excavated part of a burial site and found a “significant” quantity of human remains in “underground chambers”.

The Coalition of Mother And Baby Home Survivors said it wants all living people who passed through that home or any of the other facilities to be included in a statutory investigation.

A spokesperson said: “It is deeply unfair and hurtful to our community that so many of our fellow survivors have been omitted from the inquiry.

“The real issue here is Ireland’s treatment of single mothers and their babies, not what happened to some of them behind the high walls of the mother and baby homes.

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.

IRELAND
Newstalk

7 Mar 2017
Stephen McNeice

Last week, the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes confirmed the discovery of a ‘significant amount’ of children’s remains at the site of a former Bon Secours home in Tuam.

The Co Galway home operated between 1925 and 1961. It is believed several hundred children were buried at the site, and the recovered remains are likely to date from the 1950s.

Politicians on all sides of the political divide have condemned the find, while the Archbishop Bishop of Tuam Michael Neary said he was horrified and greatly shocked to learn of the scale of the discovery.

Meanwhile, journalists from Ireland and around the world have descended on Tuam amid international shock and horror over the discovery.

Newstalk Drive reporter Henry McKean visited the Dublin Road Estate in Tuam – built in the 1960s and 70s on the site of the former mother and baby home.

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.

MALTA
Malta Today

A new judge will be assigned to the case of 10 victims of clerical sex abuse after a court upheld the appeal and declared that the men would suffer a breach of their right to a fair hearing if the judge currently presiding over the case failed to recuse himself

Matthew Agius 7 March 2017

The Constitutional Court has effectively ordered the recusal of a judge hearing a claim for damages by 10 victims of clerical sex abuse, saying the victims’ fears that the sitting judge’s involvement in Church-related organisations objectively justified their fears of bias.

Former residents at the Missionary Society of St Paul’s St Joseph Home in Hamrun, Lawrence Grech, Joseph Magro, Leonard Camilleri, David Cassar, Noel Dimech, Angelo Spiteri, Raymond Azzopardi, Charles Falzon, Philip Cauchi and Joseph Mangion had filed a claim for damages against the Missionary Society of St Paul following the 2012 conviction of defrocked Missionary Society of St Paul priests Fr Charles Pulis and Fr Godwin Scerri. Pulis and Scerri were sentenced to five and six years’ imprisonment respectively for sexually abusing a number of boys in their care.

When this case was allotted to judge Joseph R. Micallef, the victims had asked him to recuse himself, citing the judge’s connections to the Church as President of a foundation which runs Catholic radio station Radju Marija.

But Mr Justice Micallef had been of the opinion that the rules regulating recusal in the Code of Organisation and Civil Procedure precluded him from abstaining from hearing the case and that he was therefore obliged to hear it.

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.

MALTA
Times of Malta

A case concerning sexual abuse at a church home run by the Missionary Society of St Paul is to proceed before a different judge, with plaintiffs winning a partial victory in court today.

After a long legal battle, the court of appeal presided by Chief Justice Silvio Camilleri, Mr Justice Giannino Caruana Demajo and Mr Justice Noel Cuschieri pronounced that the civil case filed by the ten victims against the Attorney General, the MSSP, the Maltese Archdiocese as well as the two convicted priests, Godwin Scerri and Charles Pulis, should no longer be heard by Mr Justice Joseph R Micallef.

The issue stemmed from the victims’ claim regarding the possible partiality of Judge Micallef in view of his current role as President of the Radio Maria Association.

The plaintiffs had claimed that the judge’s close affiliation with the religious organisation could give rise to a bias which could in turn result in a possible breach of the plaintiffs’ right to a fair hearing as safeguarded under the Maltese Constitution as well as under the European Convention on Human Rights.

In the course of the civil proceedings for damages, the plaintiffs had raised this plea demanding the recusal of Mr Justice Micallef. The plea was however rejected by the judge himself who declared that he was bound by the laws of procedure to continue to preside over the case.

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.

IRELAND
Irish Independent

Tim Healy
March 7 2017

Three victims of paedophile priest Brendan Smyth should get a new hearing of damages claims after it emerged senior clerics were aware of the abuse, the Supreme Court was urged.

The three, in the late 1990s, settled actions in Northern Ireland for between £16,000 and £25,000 (€18,500-€28,900) over abuse by Smyth.

The cases by the man and his cousin were against Smyth himself, the Norbertine order and the late Cardinal Cahal Daly.

His sister’s case was just against the Norbertines, who paid all the settlement monies, with no admission of liability.

In 2014, the High Court halted actions the three brought here against Bishop Leo O’Reilly as representative of the Kilmore diocese over 2012 information in which it was alleged there was a failure to stop Smyth’s abuse in 1975.

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.

AUSTRALIA
Canberra Times

Katie Burgess

The Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn has revealed another former priest living next to a Canberra school could be a concern to the community.

It is understood the archdiocese is in the process of removing the ex-priest from accommodation next to Ainslie School, in Canberra’s north.

The revelation came less than a week after three priests were moved from a retirement home for clergy next to two southside schools.

After the ACT Education Directorate asked the archdiocese if there were any other “arrangements” that would not meet community expectations in place, they were advised there was an “arrangement” next to Ainslie School.

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.

GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Pat Oliva
March 7, 201

Each time I see the Laity Forward Movement and the Concerned Catholics of Guam organizations in the news, they remind me I should feel shame and disgrace for our church. Moreover, they tell everyone (including Protestant church members) that our church has no dignity. They claim membership of the Catholic community, which is easily misconstrued as representation for all Catholics on Guam.

I want to say they do not represent me, a proud Chamorro Catholic.

I understand members of both esteemed organizations want retribution for those who may have done wrong. But do they realize that each time they picket and each time they speak up in the media or are seen out in public as a group, they are nourishing that same division in our church that they themselves are praying to heal? They drag the face of our Catholic Church — the whole church — in the mud in the eyes of everyone, even in front of the Protestant churches and their members.

It says, “Take a look at how bad our church is,” and they say it over and over and over again. Is that really what they are trying to accomplish, and deliberately so? Do they realize this is the image they are conveying, or perhaps they do realize it and just don’t care? Well, whether they realize it or not, it is what it is.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

by Daniel Hamburg

JOHNSTOWN – Monday, bishop Mark Bartchak announced sweeping changes in the Catholic church to protect victims of child sex abuse.

Victims of abuse by clergy are reacting to news of those reforms, including one victim, originally from Johnstown, who says he was abused as a child.

Shaun Dougherty said that Monday’s press conference was a step in the right direction, but more needs to be done in Harrisburg at the state capitol to pass actual law.

Dougherty said he was surprised by the announcement, but happy to see it.

“It was the first big step for the church in moving forward,” Dougherty said. “I think it was a crucial first step for future generations of victims.”

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
Altoona Mirror

MAR 7, 2017

RYAN BROWN
Staff Writer
rbrown@altoonamirror.com

The Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown and the U.S. Attorney’s Office revealed a series of broad reforms Monday, aimed at preventing child sex abuse and responding swiftly to future allegations.

The new policies and advisory bodies, revealed at a joint press conference by acting Western District of Pennsylvania U.S. Attorney Soo C. Song and Bishop Mark Bartchak, come roughly a year after the state attorney general issued a forceful report detailing decades of child abuse cases and cover-ups.

Under the agreement, the diocese will establish a five-member Independent Oversight Board for Youth Protection, slated to advise officials on child abuse prevention and enforcement. The diocese is also set to establish new rules for contacting law enforcement and publishing accused clergymen’s names, to reform its allegation review board and to hire a consultant and a new official to handle abuse, according to the document.

“One year ago I made a public pledge to victim-survivors. … Today I reaffirm that pledge,” Bartchak said.

Song stressed that the memorandum doesn’t constitute a court order; Bartchak was a “willing partner” in the process, she said.

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

GUAM
Pacific Daily News

[with video]

Haidee V Eugenio , heugenio@guampdn.com
March 7, 2017

For about 40 years, Anthony Cruz Flores locked away in a dark corner of his memory, the sexual abuse by a priest who was also his scoutmaster in the Boy Scouts of America.

Flores kept the story even from his wife of 32 years, Doris, who’s been supportive of her husband’s quest for healing, closure and justice since he opened up to her this year.

“What made me decide to tell my story is that I read about two altar boys that were with me at the time,” Flores, now 55, said.

Flores said he is talking about Vicente G. Perez, 51, and Bruce A. Diaz, 47, two of the six who filed sex abuse lawsuits against Guam clergy in the U.S. District Court of Guam in January.

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.

IRELAND
Irish Independent

Cormac McQuinn
March 7 2017

A woman who had to give up her child for adoption after being sent to a mother and baby home has spoken of the trauma she went through as a teenager.

Deirdre Wadding said coverage of the horror at Tuam – where it’s believed that hundreds of babies died – “stirred up my own experiences”.

Now a People Before Profit councillor, Ms Wadding was sent to the Bessboro Home in Cork in 1981 when she became pregnant at the age of 18.

Run by a different religious order to Tuam, Ms Wadding said she didn’t experience “brutality”.
But she said: “You had the trauma of guilt and shame that was imposed by the very fact of being there.

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.

IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Tuesday, March 07, 2017

By Conall Ó Fátharta
Irish Examiner Reporter

The names of almost 800 children who died in two of the country’s largest mother and baby homes were given to the HSE by a religious order in 2011.

This revelation shows the State was aware of the vast number of deaths in Bessborough in Cork and Sean Ross Abbey Roscrea three years before the Tuam babies scandal made global headlines.

The Irish Examiner has previously revealed that concerns over infant mortality rates and other practices at Tuam and Bessborough were raised by senior HSE personnel in 2012.

A report about concerns over Bessborough deaths was forwarded to both the Department of Health and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs that year.

The Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary, which ran the homes, gave the registers to the HSE when it ceased operating its adoption service in 2011. They are now held by Tusla.

In the case of Bessborough, the register shows that 470 infants and 10 women died in Bessborough between 1934 and 1953. A total of 273 deaths come in just a six-year period between 1939 and 1944. However, the Order reported 353 deaths to State inspectors in this period.

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.

IRELAND
Herald

Luke Byrne and Ryan Nugent – 07 March 2017

Dublin city’s senior archaeologist has told the private developer of a former Catholic institution that the site may contain human burials.

Dr Ruth Johnson indicated that because the property at The Crescent, Donnybrook, was a former Magdalene Laundry, it could contain remains.

Significantly, her observation was made as part of the planning process in September 2016, five months before the confirmed discovery of children’s remains at the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam last week.

There are calls for every Magdalene Laundry, mother and baby home and industrial school to be searched for secret deposits of human remains – and to halt development on these sites until this is completed.

Councillor Mannix Flynn said the archaeologist’s assessment highlighted how it was already known that every former Catholic institution site could contain remains.

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.

NEVADA
Reno Gazette-Journal

Lisa Krasner and Irene Bustamante-Adams, Special to the RGJ

Assemblywoman Lisa Krasner and Assemblywoman Irene Bustamante-Adams are from different political parties and different parts of the state yet they are working together to pass bipartisan legislation to extend the statute of limitations for child victims of sexual abuse.

The statute of limitations is the time within which a lawsuit must be initiated by a victim.

Child victims of sexual assault are profoundly affected by the abuse. There is a psychological effect that weighs heavy on a victim. Studies show that many victims report they were unable to deal with what happened to them as a child, until much later in life.

Irene Bustamante-Adams is a Democrat in the Assembly from southern Nevada. (Photo: Provided)
One in four women and one in five men report being sexually abused as a child, yet psychologists believe that most cases go unreported.

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.

MALTA
Malta Independent

A Constitutional court accepted a number of plaintiffs’ requests for the recusal of Judge Joseph R Micallef in a civil case where they are claiming damages over child abuse suffered at the hands of now defrocked and imprisoned priests Godwin Scerri, Charles Pulis and the Missionary Society of St Paul (MSSP).

The plaintiffs – Lawrence Grech, Joseph Magro, Leonard Camilleri, David Cassar, Noel Dimech, Angelo Spiteri, Raymond Azzopardi, Charles Falzon, Philip Cauchi and Joseph Mangion – had filed a criminal case against the Curia, the two priests who had abused them, the Missionary Order of St. Paul (MSSP), the Prime Minister, the Education and Family ministers and the Attorney General in 2012. The plaintiffs had claimed that the authorities had been aware of the abuse, but had done nothing to stop it.

Mr Scerri and Mr Pulis had been allowed to keep their positions at the home, holding absolute control over their victims. Confirmed upon appeal, Mr Scerri and Mr Pulis received a prison sentence of five and six years respectively.

In a separate civil case, the plaintiffs filed an appeal on 28 April 2016 before the First Hall of Civil Court before Judge Mark Chetcuti in order for Judge Joseph R Micallef to be recused, citing a breach in their right to a fair trial.

They originally filed the civil case, being heard before Mr Justice Micallef, against Missionary Society of St Paul, Godwin Scerri and Charles Pulis, among others. The plaintiffs filed a case for punitive damages over abuse that took place while they, as children, had been residents of the Archdiocese of Malta.

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.

AUSTRALIA
Melville Times

Written by Josh Zimmerman

CHILD protection expert Andrea Musulin will host an education session designed to help parents and guardians understand and recognise the grooming that is often a precursor to child sexual abuse.

A 30-year veteran of WA Police, Mrs Musulin worked predominantly on cases involving children, youth and domestic violence.

She has a deep understanding of the lasting trauma caused by sexual predators and is dedicated to helping parents ensure their children are not among the 25 per cent of Australian children who fall victim to abuse before their 18th birthdays.

“I don’t sugar coat any of the information; it is delivered very factually and people go away feeling more empowered and knowledgeable,” Mrs Musulin said.

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

PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

by Katie O’Toole

JOHNSTOWN — Leaders of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests reacted to joint press conference held by the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese and Department of Justice about abuse prevention plans.

The Survivors Network, otherwise known as SNAP, protested outside the Diocese Administration Center last week. Protesters said they felt the Diocese had not implemented enough change in the year that passed after the grand jury report was released.

The 147-page reported outlined abuse accusations made against 50 priests since the 1960s.

The current Bishop Mark Bartchak and acting U.S. Attorney Soo C. Song held a press conference Monday outlining plans to prevent future abuse within the Diocese.

“One case of sexual abuse is too many,” Bartchak said. “We need to repent in that and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

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.

KENTUCKY
Courier-Journal

Andrew Wolfson , @adwolfson March 6, 2017

Disgraced ex-priest Louis Miller, who was accused in lawsuits of molesting dozens of children at four parishes under the watch of three archbishops — and convicted of sexually abusing 28 of them — died Saturday at the Kentucky State Reformatory, where he was serving a 30-year sentence. He was 86.

Miller, the most prolific of the archdiocese’s abusive priests, was accused in civil cases of molesting at least 52 boys and four girls over 40 years, in locker rooms, hallway closets, hospital rooms and church sacristies.

In one parish alone, Holy Spirit, Miller molested 24 students, including 14 members of the class of 1963 who were in sixth grade at the time, according to lawsuits filed in Jefferson Circuit Court filed on behalf of 243 victims that were settled in 2008 by the archdiocese for $25.7 million. The Courier-Journal reported that Miller was moved from parish to parish as abuse was reported.

In a statement Monday, the archdiocese noted that Miller, who was removed from the priesthood in 2004 by Pope John Paul II, “expressed sorrow for his actions and begged victims forgiveness” at his sentencing a year earlier.

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.

GUAM
Guam Daily Post

Mindy Aguon |For The Guam Daily Post Mar 7, 2017

A lawsuit naming the Boy Scouts of America as a defendant in a child sex abuse case that allegedly occurred in Guam decades ago, and involving a former scout and altar boy, was filed in the Superior Court of Guam today.

While previously filed lawsuits named the Archdiocese of Agana as a defendant in similar lawsuits alleging abuse of former altar boys, today’s filing was the first recent child sex abuse case in Guam to directly name the Boy Scouts of America and its Aloha Council as defendants.

Anthony “Tony” Flores, 55, a former altar boy and scout, alleges in the lawsuit he reported sexual abuse to the archdiocese when he was 16, but was told to “be quiet”.

In addition to the Boy Scouts of America and the archdiocese, the lawsuit also names the alleged abuser, Louis Brouillard, a former priest who served in Guam, as a defendant.

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.

GUAM
Pacific News Center

Written by Janela Carrera

This is now the 24th lawsuit to be filed against the Archdiocese of Agana as well.

Guam – A new alleged sex abuse victim has come forward with allegations against the Archdiocese, but this time, he is being represented by a different law firm and has named other institutions in the lawsuit as well.

Now in his 50s, Anthony Flores says he was only 16 years old when he was molested by former Guam Priest Father Louis Brouillard back in the 1970s while Brouillard was the scout master for the Boy Scouts. But in addition to the Archdiocese of Agana, Flores also names the Boy Scouts of America and the Aloha Council of the Boy Scouts as defendants in the case.

A press release was issued by Attorney Kevin Fowler who’s representing Flores. Fowler says his law firm is the first of the 24 lawsuits filed against the church that’s teamed up with a stateside law firm, namely Pfau, Cochran, Vertetis Amala PLLC.

In the release, Flores says he first reported the abuse to Msgr. Zoilo Camacho but Flores says Camacho snapped at him and told him “be quiet and get out of my office.”

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.

INDIA
Outlook

Six persons have been taken into custody for allegedly sexually abusing seven minor girls of an orphanage at Muttil in the district, police said today.

11 cases have been registered in connection with the case, including under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, following a complaint from the orphanage authorities.

The statements of the victims, all below 15 years, have been recorded and their medical examination completed, police said.

The gang lured the girls and forced them to watch pornographic films before subjecting them to sexual abuse, police said, adding, a search is on for three more persons involved in the crime.
They were allegedly subjected to sexual abuse over a period of two months.

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.

INDIA
Hindustan Times

Ramesh Babu KC
Hindustan Times, Thiruvananthapuram

The Kerala police on Tuesday arrested six people who allegedly assaulted seven minor girls of an orphanage in Kalpetta in north Kerala’s Wayanad district. The latest incident comes on the heels of the arrest of a priest in the district for raping a minor girl who later gave birth to baby in a private hospital.

The latest incident unfolded Monday evening when the security guard of the orphanage found a girl in tears coming out of a shop near the Yatheem Khan orphanage. An inquiry revealed that many students of the orphanage in the 12-16 age group were lured by a gang into the shop and subjected to abuse for more than four months, police said.

According to initial reports, the girls were lured by the gang on their way to school. They were offered sweets and forced to watch pornographic clips before being subjected to abuse. They were threatened with serious repercussions if they complained. The police sent all girls to medical examination on Monday night and tests later confirmed sexual assault.

Three more accused are absconding. All accused would be charged under the protection of children from sexual offices act. All children of the orphanage would be counselled to find out whether more girls have undergone similar experience, police said.

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

IRELAND
Irish Times

Fiach Kelly, Kitty Holland, Lorna Siggins

The Government is considering expanding the scope of the inquiry into mother and baby homes to include a far greater number of institutions than initially planned.

Government sources said the prospect of expanding the Commission of Investigation is being examined in light of public concern since confirmation last week that the remains of a “significant” number of babies and infants up to three years of age were found on the site of the former mother and baby home in Tuam, Co Galway.

Several hundred bodies were discovered under the site of the former institution for unmarried mothers run by the Sisters of the Bon Secours.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny yesterday described what has been discovered in Tuam as “appalling, truly appalling”, and said the terms of reference for the inquiry would be expanded, if necessary.

“This is not something that happened way back in the dawn of history,” the Taoiseach said. “This happened in some cases in our own time. It’s a horrendous situation for those whose siblings were treated in this fashion.”

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.

NEW YORK
WIVB

By Marissa Perlman, News 4 Reporter
Published: March 6, 2017

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) – Victims of child sex abuse in New York say they’re being denied their day in court. They say of the catholic church and other powerful groups are stopping lawmakers from passing a bill.

It would change the statute of limitations on filing criminal charges against an abuser.

The bill would create a one-year window to allow for lawsuits no matter when the abuse occurred. The church says this would cause the institution financial harm if they became responsible for decades-old cases that would open only civil cases. They also say it wouldn’t actually put any offenders behind bars.

In a statement, the New York State Catholic Conference says,

“The Catholic Church has zero tolerance for sexual abuse and supports proposals in the New York State Legislature to extend the time allowed under the law to file criminal charges or civil lawsuits against those who abuse children.

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.

TEXAS
Corpus Christi Caller-Times

Krista M Torralva , Corpus Christi Caller-Times

A Bee County jury couldn’t decide whether a priest and philanthropist raped a teenage girl at her grandparents’ Beeville-area home.

State District Judge Starr Bauer declared a mistrial Friday in the aggravated sexual assault trial against Stephen Tarlton Dougherty.

Jurors heard testimony over four days and deliberated about six hours. Dougherty and his accuser, who was 13 when she said he raped her, took the stand. The judge released jurors about 10 p.m. Friday after they said they were deadlocked.

Bee County Assistant District Attorney Terry Breen said he plans to re-try the case. A second trial is slated for June.

The accuser, now 18, told a counselor years later Dougherty raped her in December 2011. The counselor persuaded the woman to tell police and in June 2016 Dougherty was indicted of a first-degree felony, punishable by as much as life in prison.

Doughtery, 60, denied the rape accusation. He and his lawyer, John Pinckney of San Antonio, suggested the woman’s grandparents pushed the accusation after a business deal went bad.

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.

WISCONSIN
CBS 58

[with video]

A Milwaukee priest is charged with felony sexual assault of a child under the age of 13.

75 year old Robert Marsicek appeared for his preliminary hearing Monday.

Marsicek is accused of repeatedly touching a girl beginning when she was 6 years old. Prosecutors say it happened from 2007 until 2010 at St. Pius X Parish and school in Wauwatosa.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
United States Attorney’s Office, Western District of Pennsylvania

PITTSBURGH – Acting United States Attorney Soo C. Song and Bishop Mark L. Bartchak of the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown announced today reforms by the Diocese to protect the children of the Diocese from sexual abuse, ensure that all allegations of sexual abuse are immediately reported to law enforcement and provide victims with access to a full range of counseling and support services.

The reforms are summarized in a memorandum of understanding. The memorandum is the product of extensive collaboration between the Diocese and the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Among other core reforms, the memorandum provides for:

* The creation of an independent, multidisciplinary oversight board;
* The retention of an outside expert to develop a new, comprehensive child abuse prevention program;
* A reporting protocol that requires the Diocese to report allegations of child sexual abuse to law enforcement within twelve hours after receipt; and
* Counseling and support services for victims by qualified and independent mental health professionals chosen by the victims.

“These unprecedented reforms put victims first, providing them with access to needed support and counseling,” stated Acting U.S. Attorney Song. “Through this agreement, allegations of sexual abuse will be immediately reported to law enforcement and suspected offenders removed from contact with children.”

“Since the release of the Grand Jury report last year, I have focused on strengthening our commitment to children and youth protection and providing continued support to survivors of sexual abuse,” said Bishop Bartchak. “The framework announced today represents the culmination of those efforts. As we look to the future, I believe these comprehensive and unprecedented reforms will make the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown a leader in the safety and protection of young people.”

Assistant United States Attorneys Michael A. Comber, Philip P. O’Connor, and Colin J. Callahan handled this matter on behalf of the United States.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
We Are Central PA

By: Chris Miller
Posted: Mar 06, 2017

Johnstown, Cambria County, Pa – There has been a call for change and responsibility after a grand jury report revealed decades of child sex abuse inside the Altoona-Johnstown Catholic Diocese.

In that report, at least 50 priests and other church leaders were accused of sexually assaulting children in their parishes dating back four decades.

Monday, the U.S. District Attorney for Western Pennsylvania and the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown held a news conference to lay out new reforms within the church to better protect children.

Many victims and their supporters have criticized the diocese for what they call a lack of response. Bishop Mark Bartchak said the changes took time because he and other church leaders were committed to finding a detailed and comprehensive approach.

The reforms were detailed in what the Bishop called a “Memorandum of Understanding”.

Some of the key points include:

* The creation of an independent oversight board.
* A new reporting protocol that requires the diocese to report allegations of child sexual abuse to law enforcement within 12 hours of hearing about the accusation.
* Increased counseling and support services for victims by qualified and independent mental health professionals, that can be chosen by the victims.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
WNEP

MARCH 6, 2017, BY NIKKI KRIZE

LOCK HAVEN — A child sexual abuse bombshell rocked a Roman Catholic diocese serving parts of our area last year. On Monday, church officials announced their plan to protect the children in the diocese.

Officials with the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown must now report allegations of sexual abuse to law enforcement within 12 hours.

And the diocese, in agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s office, plans to have an outside agency investigate abuse claims.

This all comes one year after the state attorney general’s office said over the years more than 50 priests sexually abused hundreds of children, including some in Clinton County. Officials at the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown hope the changes announced Monday will protect children.

It’s hard to forget the state attorney general’s grand jury report that brought to life sexual abuse at the hands of priests within the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown.

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.

IRELAND
Irish Times

Olivia Kelleher

Two women who ran away from a mother and baby home in Cork while heavily pregnant are to reunite later this week for the first time in close on three decades.

Catherine Coffey O’Brien was seven months pregnant in 1989 when she fled the Bessborough Mother and Baby Home with her friend Angela (not her real name), who was six months pregnant.

Catherine says the pair were out posting letters for the nuns when they made the decision to flee.

“We were posting cards to America for the nuns when we decided to thumb a lift. We managed to get a guy to stop at Patrick’s Bridge and we told him we were running away from the home. He was ‘bricking it’.

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.

IRELAND
The Journal

A UNITED NATIONS committee has published its concluding observations on how Ireland is eliminating all forms of discrimination against women, and found that there are “several crucial gaps” in the country’s obligations on women’s rights and equality.

The UN committee said that the scope of reference for the investigation into abuse at mother and baby homes is “narrow” and that it may not address the whole spectrum of abuses perpetrated against women and girls.

The committee was also critical of the State’s efforts to address the issue of abuse, ill-treatment or neglect of children in the Magdalene Laundries, it said:

Ireland has failed to establish an independent, thorough and effective investigation, in line with international standards.

It added that “no effort has been made to establish an independent investigation to identify, prosecute and punish the perpetrators who performed the medical procedure of symphysiotomy without the consent of women”.

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.

IRELAND
98 FM

6 Mar 2017
Trish Laverty

A UN committee’s called for independent investigations into Ireland’s Mother and Baby Homes and Magdalene Laundries.

It says victims should get compensation and official apologies, while it’s also criticised our strict abortion laws.

There are calls for the sites of two former Magdalene laundries in Dublin to be examined for children’s graves, following Friday’s shocking confirmation that hundreds of babies’ and childrens’ remains had been discovered in a Tuam home run by the Bon Secours nuns.

‘Significant quantities’ were discovered in a septic tank. Records show that almost 800 deaths were recorded at the home over almost 40 years.

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

IRELAND
Irish Times

Kitty Holland

The terms of reference of the investigation into mother and baby homes is “too narrow”, the United Nations has warned.

It says the Commission of Investigation as established may not uncover all abuses inflicted on women and girls in these homes, the perpetrators of which should be “prosecuted and punished”.

In its “concluding observations” report – following examination of Ireland last month – the UN Committee on the elimination of discrimination against women (CEDAW) says Ireland has, “failed to establish an independent, thorough and effective investigation, in line with international standards, into all allegations of abuse, ill-treatment or neglect of women and children in the Magdalene laundries in order the establish the role of the State and church in the perpetration of alleged violations”.

The terms of reference for the commission of investigation into the homes, “is narrow such that it does not cover all homes and analogous institutions [and] therefore may not address the whole spectrum of abuses perpetrated against women and girls”.

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.

MASSACHUSETTS
Legacy – Boston Globe

JOHNSON, Rev. Richard G. Age 94, died peacefully on March 2, 2017 at the Sancta Maria Nursing Facility in Cambridge. “Father Dick” as he was known was born in Peabody, MA on August 11, 1922 and was raised in Marblehead. He graduated from St. John’s Prep in 1939 and Holy Cross College in 1943 where he served as the President of the Purple Key Society. Upon graduating from Holy Cross, Father Johnson went to St. John’s Seminary in Brighton and was ordained a Catholic priest in 1947. His assignments included St. Mary’s, Ayer; St. Mary’s, Lynn; Sacred Heart, Roslindale; Star of the Sea, Salisbury and St. Mary’s Star of the Sea, Beverly, from which he retired in 1997.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
WESA

By VIRGINIA ALVINO YOUNG

The Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown has agreed to take more steps to protect children from sexual abuse.

Outlined Monday with Acting U.S. Attorney Soo Song, the Memorandum of Understanding comes after a former priest of the diocese was convicted last year of sexually exploiting several boys. A grand jury report detailed more systemic abuse and cover-ups.

Song said the diocese agreed to a comprehensive plan with specific requirements, including “very tight time frames” for suspected abuse.

“So all allegations of good faith suspicion of child sexual abuse (will be) reported to law enforcement in 12 hours,” she said. “Immediately removing suspected offenders from contact with children (and) putting clergy on leave within 24 hours following a credible allegation of child sexual abuse.”

The diocese will also implement an independent oversight board, develop new sexual abuse policies and fund a 24-hour hotline service to receive complaints of assault.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

By Peter Smith / PIttsburgh Post-Gazette

The Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown agreed with federal prosecutors to formal policies Monday to detect and prevent sexual abuse by priests.

The memorandum of understanding, while lacking the enforcement power of a court order, commits the diocese to completely replacing the board it uses to review allegations and to a greater reliance on experts.

The diocese was subject of a withering state grand jury report a year ago this week. That report criticized what it termed a pattern of covering up sexual abuse of hundreds of minors by more than 50 priests and others associated with the church, mostly taking place in the last half of the 20th century.

But this agreement resulted from a parallel investigation by federal prosecutors that resulted in a diocesan priest, the Rev. Joseph Maurizio, being sentenced last year for sexually abusing two boys during missionary trips to Honduras.

Acting U.S. Attorney Soo Song said her office looked into “every possible legal theory to be sure children in this diocese were made safe.” Her predecessor, David Hickton, had publicly floated the possibility of investigating under statutes targeting organized crime.

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.

IRELAND
Irish Independent

The High Court has been urged to help a man find out what happened to his infant sister after she was born at St Mary’s mother and baby home in Tuam, Co Galway.

Peter Mulryan was described by his solicitor as elderly and “extremely ill” with cancer, the court heard.

His solicitor, Kevin Higgins, said Mr Mulryan, whose infant sister Marian Bridget Mulryan is believed to be among 796 children recorded as having died in Tuam between 1925-61, was too unwell on Monday to be in court.

Mr Mulryan is extremely anxious to get whatever records exist concerning her.
He wants Tusla to look at the material it has “and see what happened to that little girl, did she die, was she trafficked or is she buried in the pit”, Mr Higgins said.

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

IRELAND
Irish Times

Mary Carolan

A solicitor for an elderly man described as “extremely ill” with cancer has urged the High Court to help him find out what happened to his infant sister after she was born at St Mary’s mother-and-baby home in Tuam.

Solicitor Kevin Higgins said Peter Mulryan, whose infant sister Marian Bridget Mulryan is believed to be among 796 children recorded as having died there between 1925-1961, was too unwell on Monday to be in court and is extremely anxious to get whatever records exist concerning her.

He wants Tusla to look at the material it has “and see what happened to that little girl, did she die, was she trafficked or is she buried in the pit”, Mr Higgins said.

Mr Mulryan (73), Derrymullen, Ballinasloe, Co Galway, wants leave to bring judicial review proceedings against Tusla aimed at getting any material that exists concerning his infant sister, recorded as having died in February 1955 nine months after her birth at the home. Mr Mulryan went with his mother to the Tuam home in July 1944, his mother later appeared to have gone to a Magdalene institution and he was “boarded out” at age four.

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.

INDIA
Times of India

Kannur: The Social Justice Department has formally removed Wayanad Child Welfare Committee (CWC) chairman Thomas Joseph Therakam and member Betty Jose from their posts and the responsibility has been handed over to the CWC in Kozhikode. The other three members of the CWC also have been temporarily kept in abeyance from the CWC pending inquiry, according to a circular issued by social justice department secretary Mini Antony.

The official circular in his regard was issued on Monday night, after they were accused of helping Fr Robin Vadakkancheril alias Mathew Vadakkancheril, the former parish vicar of St Sebastian’s Church at Neendunoki in Kottiyoor, who is accused of raping the minor girl.

The charge against them is that they helped the accused in hushing up the case. Though the newborn of the rape survivor, who delivered on February 7, was taken to Holy Infant Mary’s Foundling Home, which is part of the Holy Infant Mary’s Girls Home at Vythiri in Wayanad, the same night, the CWC signed the surrender document only on February 20. Though the CWC said the process was as per procedure, an inquiry found serious lapses. The foundling home, which is also facing charges in the case, had raised charges against the CWC.

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.

IRELAND
Irish Times

Barry Roche

A former priest in the Diocese of Cloyne in Co Cork has lost a personal appeal to Pope Francis against his dismissal from the priesthood after the pontiff found a canonical court was right to defrock him for “the crime of abusing minors”.

Dan Duane (78) had already lost two appeals against a decision by the Canonical Court in Ireland to dismiss him from the priesthood after it found he had abused five girls while serving as a priest in north Cork in the 1970s and 1980s.

A native of Doneraile in Co Cork, Mr Duane was ordained a priest in 1963 and served in a variety of parishes, as well as at St Colman’s College in Fermoy.

He was twice tried at Cork Circuit Criminal Court on counts of sexually abusing teenage girls in north Cork in the early 1980s. He was acquitted on the first occasion in May 2011 on the direction of the trial judge and in November 2011 he was acquitted by a jury.

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.

NEW YORK
Syracuse.com

By Kira Maddox | kmaddox@syracuse.com

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — A well-known, retired Syracuse bishop died today, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse announced.

Rev. James M. Moynihan, the ninth bishop of the Diocese of Syracuse, was 84 years old, the diocese said. He was a bishop for 14 years, starting in 1995.

During his time as bishop, Moynihan was the first bishop to lead prayer processions to Planned Parenthood, raised $42 million through his Heritage Campaign — the largest campaign in diocese history — and created the Catholic Education Fund to help people pay for tuition, according to the diocese announcement of his death.

Moynihan, a Rochester native, had significant hurdles to navigated during his tenure, such as the declining number of clergy in the diocese and an early 2000s sex-abuse scandal.

Moynihan told The Post-Standard | Syracuse.com in 2009 as he prepared to leave his job that the sex-abuse scandal was “a time of great pain and humiliation.”

“Everyone was hurting,” he said. “My job was to be there for everyone, the abused and the abusers.”

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.

ROME
GMA News

Published March 7, 2017

ROME, Italy – Pope Francis was urged by a prominent church reform group Monday to oust the head of a powerful Vatican department after accusations that senior officials blocked reforms approved by the pontiff to curb sex abuse.

The row follows the resignation last week of Marie Collins, an Irish survivor of clerical sex abuse, who stepped down from Francis’s child protection panel slamming a “shameful” high-level obstruction of change in apparent defiance of the pope’s wishes.

Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), replied Sunday to Collins’s claim that his department had ignored Francis’s decision in 2015 to create a new tribunal to judge bishops who cover up sexual abuse cases.

In an interview with Italy’s Corriere della Sera daily, he said the tribunal was merely a “project” which Vatican departments felt would needlessly duplicate initiatives already in place to deal with wayward bishops.

An international group called We Are Church issued a statement urging Francis to replace Mueller “with someone who will introduce transparency, justice and compassion” in the CDF.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
Associated Press

PITTSBURGH (AP) — The Latest on reforms aimed at curbing child-sex abuse at a central Pennsylvania Catholic diocese (all times local):

1:45 p.m.

Western Pennsylvania’s top federal prosecutor and the Catholic bishop over a diocese where two former bishops allegedly helped cover up child-sex abuse have announced reforms to curb such abuse.

They include creation of an oversight board to ensure the reforms are implemented and the diocese has hired an expert to develop a new child abuse prevention program. Under the new plan, the diocese has just 12 hours to report credible abuse allegations to police.

The diocese also will pay for counseling experts to be chosen by victims who need it.

Acting U.S. Attorney Soo Song and Altoona-Johnstown Bishop Mark Bartchak announced the reforms Monday.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

By David Hurst
dhurst@tribdem.com

A wide-ranging child protection plan was announced Monday to immediately notify law enforcement officials of sexual abuse allegations within the Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, add an independent oversight board to review such complaints within the diocese and expand counseling options for victims of abuse.

The multi-step approach was outlined by Bishop Mark Bartchak and Acting U.S. Attorney Soo C. Song, whose offices spent nearly a year crafting reform to protect diocese children from sexual abuse in the church.

“These unprecedented reforms put victims first, providing them with access needed to support and counseling,” Song said during a press conference in the Western District of Pennsylvania’s U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Among a list of moves, a memorandum of understanding between the sides outlines:

• The creation of an independent, multidisciplinary oversight board for youth protection that will include a retired law enforcement officer, former U.S. attorney and sexual abuse survivor.

• The retention of an outside expert to develop a new child abuse protection program

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

by Ron Musselman
Monday, March 6th 2017

JOHNSTOWN – The Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown announced sweeping changes Monday aimed at protecting children from sexual abuse and ensuring that all allegations are immediately reported to law enforcement.

The diocese also will provide sexual abuse victims with access to counseling and support services.

“One case of sexual abuse is too many,” Bishop Mark L. Bartchak said during an afternoon news conference. “We need to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

The new reforms include:

• The creation of an independent, multidisciplinary oversight board that will include a former U.S. attorney and a Lutheran clergyman;
• The retention of an outside expert to develop a new, comprehensive child abuse prevention program;
• A reporting protocol that requires the diocese to report allegations of child sexual abuse to law enforcement within 12 hours after receipt;
• Taking immediate steps to prevent any contact with minors by the suspected perpetrators;
• Placing clergy on personnel or administrative leave within 24 hours of notice of a credible allegation of child sexual abuse;
• Counseling and support services for victims by qualified and independent mental health professionals chosen by the victims.

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

UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on why Ireland’s “mass grave” story is a hoax:

The big news about the discovery of a “mass grave” outside the Mother and Baby Home run by the Bon Secours Sisters in Tuam is bunk. I just got the chance to explain why when interviewed by Dublin’s Newstalk, the only exclusively talk-radio station in Ireland. The interviewer was cordial but clueless. I will discuss this matter further later today on BBC radio and other Irish radio stations.

Almost all of the media in the U.S., the U.K., and elsewhere are promoting a fake news account of a “mass grave” containing the remains of nearly 800 children. Here is the basis of my position.

* The official statement by the Mother and Baby Commission, issued March 3rd, makes no mention of a “mass grave.” Why not? If there were evidence of a mass grave surely that would be the lead story. Instead, it says “significant quantities of human remains” were found in sewage chambers. That is disturbing but it does not support the wild claims of a “mass grave.”

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

UNITED KINGDOM
Gazette Live

BY JAMES CAIN
6 MAR 2017

A former Middlesbrough children’s home resident has told an inquiry how she was sexually abused on board a ship when she was sent to Australia.

The little girl was still under 13 when she emigrated after living at Nazareth House in central Middlesbrough since the age of three.

Now an adult, the victim, who cannot be named, gave evidence to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, set up to investigate how British institutions failed to protect children from abuse.

One of the 13 separate investigations launched by the inquiry, is looking into the British child migration programme which saw more than 130,000 children sent to former British colonies, mainly Australia and Canada, between the 1920s and 1970s.

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.

KENTUCKY
WDRB

Updated: Mar 06, 2017

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — A former priest who was serving a prison sentence for sexually abusing Kentucky children has died.

Louis Miller died Saturday morning after a lengthy illness, according to Lisa Lamb, a spokeswoman for the Kentucky Department of Corrections.

Miller was removed from the priesthood in 2004 by the late Pope John Paul II after pleading guilty in 2003 to sexually abusing a Kentucky resident and other victims who were children in the 1970s.

In a deposition transcription obtained by The Associated Press, Miller said he had offered to resign as early as 1962 to his then-Archbishop John Floersh, and that two subsequent archbishops knew of his crimes but continued to keep him as a priest, moving him from parish to parish.

In explaining why he wanted to resign, Miller said: “I just knew that the crime was so horrendous in my own mind that I didn’t feel that I was worthy to remain a priest.” But he said Floersh was “compassionate,” kept him on, and told him “You will always be a good priest.”

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

By David Hurst
dhurst@tribdem.com

The western district of Pennsylvania’s top federal prosecutor and Altoona-Johnstown Catholic Diocese’s bishop are scheduled to announce a plan today to prevent future abuse by clergy.

Acting U.S. Attorney Soo Song and Altoona-Johnstown Bishop Mark Bartchak plan to outline “a collaborative framework to protect the children of the diocese from sexual abuse,” according to a media advisory.

A news conference on the topic has been scheduled for 1 p.m. today in Johnstown.

Tribdem.com will provide a live stream of the news conference.

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.

IRELAND
Broadsheet

Last night TV3’s The People’s Debate With Vincent Browne took place in the Galway East constituency.

During the show, historian Catherine Corless introduced two former residents of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home, Peter Mulryan and PJ Haverty.

Ms Corless said Peter has a sister buried at the home but explained that he doesn’t know where she’s specifically buried.

Both men then spoke.

Peter Mulryan said:

“In the mid-Forties I was born in Tuam, in the home there and my mother was separated from me, just after a year of being there. I was taken out of there after four and a half years in that area which was absolutely shocking. Every child there went through that system, came out with pot bellies and why?

If you starve an animal or a dog, what way do they look? That’s the way we looked. It’s frightening to think we went through the same system and I inquired why this happened. I looked for information from Galway County Council, I looked for information from the church, I’m now asking the State to get heavily involved in this, as Catherine is after saying there, I also have a sister laid somewhere around, I don’t know where. I’m making inquiries, nobody can tell me where that angel lies tonight, nobody. And I will find out, no matter how long it’s going to take, what was done to my sister, laid somewhere and no record.

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.

IRELAND
RTE News

The Taoiseach has described as “truly appalling” the confirmation that significant quantities of human remains were found at the site of a former mother-and-baby home in Tuam in Co Galway.

Speaking in Castlebar, Enda Kenny said the babies of single mothers involved had been treated like “some kind of sub-species”.

He pointed out that this was not something that happened centuries ago in the dawn of history, but something that happened “in our own time”.

Tánaiste and Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald said the discovery is an infinitely sad reminder of an Ireland that was a “very harsh, harsh place” for women and their babies.

She said it shows the tortured relationship the State and church had with pregnant women, saying “it is a tragedy that we are now facing in its entirety”.

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.

IRELAND
Connacht Tribune

Galway Bay fm newsroom – The Taoiseach has described the discovery of a mass grave at the Tuam Mother and Baby Home as truly appalling.

Politicians on all sides of the political divide have condemned the Galway find which comprises of hundreds of discarded babies’ bodies.

Enda Kenny says the relevant authorities should now be given time to decide how next to proceed.

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.

ROME
La Croix

Sexual abuse victim Marie Collins has resigned from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. CDF prefect, Cardinal Gerhard Müller has contested her accusations.

Nicolas Senèze, Rome

Why did Collins resign?

“In the face of obstacles, she felt that the only solution was to shake things up and resign,” said Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State, in the Corriere Della Sera, an Italian daily newspaper.

In fact, the Commission, an advisory committee to the Pope, does not have any direct authority over the dicasteries of the Curia.

The Commission has to count on their collaboration and cannot verify the implementation of its recommendations. Furthermore, it does not have its own budget or actual personnel.

What was the nature of the Curia’s resistance?

The role of the Commission is to “create a climate of the protection of children in the Church”, affirms Cardinal Parolin. However, there are problems with the demarcation of powers between the Commission and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), which is directly responsible for dealing with cases of sexual abuse.

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

PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

Altoona-Johnstown Diocese sex abuse: what each priest is accused of (warning: graphic content)

By Colin Deppen | cdeppen@pennlive.com

Almost a year to the day after child sex abuse allegations first rocked the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese, church and law enforcement officials were set to publicly announce a new set of reform measures on Monday — measures meant to prevent similar abuse from happening in the future.

Acting U.S. Attorney for Western Pennsylvania Soo Song and Altoona-Johnstown Bishop Mark Bartchak have called a news conference for Monday afternoon in Johnstown, at which time they’re expected to announce a collaborative framework to “protect the children of the diocese from sexual abuse,” a media advisory explained.

Further details were unavailable Monday morning.

The news conference comes a year after then-Attorney General Kathleen Kane held her own event in Altoona to announce that a grand jury investigation of the diocese had determined that hundreds of children were sexually abused over a period of 40 years by church leaders, and that at least 50 priests or religious leaders had been involved in sexual abuses. Kane went on to describe the abuse allegations in shocking detail.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
Philly.com

MARCH 6, 2017

by JOE MANDAK, The Associated Press

PITTSBURGH (AP) – Western Pennsylvania’s top federal prosecutor and a Catholic bishop who heads a diocese where investigators say two former bishops helped cover up child-sex abuse by dozens of priests are scheduled to announce a plan to prevent future abuse.

Acting U.S. Attorney Soo Song and Altoona-Johnstown Bishop Mark Bartchak have called a news conference for Monday afternoon in Johnstown.

They’ll “announced a collaborative framework to protect the children of the diocese from sexual abuse,” according to a media advisory.

A year ago, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane released a 147-page report based on secret diocesan records and other evidence that detailed abuse by more than 50 priests and clergy against hundreds of children. The report criticized Bartchak’s predecessors, James Hogan, who headed the diocese from 1966 to 1986 and died in 2005, and Joseph Adamec, who succeeded Hogan and retired in 2005.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
We Are Central PA

Church officials are unveiling new plans Monday, to keep children safe a year after child abuse was discovered in the Altoona-Johnstown Catholic Diocese.

Bishop Mark Bartchak hinted that new policies were in the works last week.

Today, the Bishop will hold a news conference in Johnstown to unveil the diocese’ new plan to protect children from sexual abuse.

Local abuse victims and congressman Mark Rozzi have been outspoken and very critical of the Church’s response after it found more than 50 priests were involved in a cover-up.

Monday’s news conference is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

JOHNSTOWN — The Altoona-Johnstown Catholic bishop, along with Western Pennsylvania’s top federal prosecutor, are set to announce joint plans Monday to prevent future children from sexual abuse at area churches.

This planned announcement comes more than a year after a grand jury report shed light on decades of alleged child sex abuse at the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown.

Acting U.S. Attorney Soo Song and Altoona-Johnstown Bishop Mark Bartchak have called a news conference Monday at 1 p.m. at the Penn Traffic Building in Johnstown.

Song and Bartchark plan “to announce a collaborative framework to protect the children of the diocese from sexual abuse,” according to a media advisory.

A year ago Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane released a 147-page report based on secret diocesan records and other evidence that detailed abuse by more than 50 priests and clergy against hundreds of children. The report criticized Bartchak’s predecessors, James Hogan, who headed the diocese from 1966 to 1986 and died in 2005, and Joseph Adamec who succeeded Hogan and retired in 2005.

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.

IRELAND
The Nationalist

MONDAY, MARCH 06, 2017

The Coalition of Mother and Baby home Survivors has claimed that up to 7000 babies could have been buried at 9 mother and baby homes across the country.

Chairperson Paul Redmond has said the worst is yet to come.

“Tuam is the tip of the ice-berg. It was the fifth biggest of the Mother and Baby homes and some of them like St Patrick’s on the Navan road were four times the size.

“It’s a fact that the further back you go, the worse the conditions got.

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.

IRELAND
Irish Mirror

BY JAMES FOGARTY
6 MAR 2017

A garda investigation into the Tuam baby scandal is the only way to move forward, the Justice Minister claimed yesterday.

Tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald said: “It is inevitable that once the coroner finishes its work there will be a role for gardai.

“We will have to face the pain of it. Not just on this site but on other sites as it is the only way we can put this tragedy in context in order to move forward.”

Speaking on RTE Radio, Environment Minister Simon Coveney agreed with his Cabinet colleague.

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.

IRELAND
Breaking News

06/03/2017

The Bon Secours order that ran the Tuam mother and baby home has come under pressure to disband and to give up their assets to the State, writes Elaine Loughlin.

People Before Profit (PBP) have called on the nuns to make a complete and unreserved apology to the victims of the mother and baby home.

Speaking this morning AAA-PBP TD Bríd Smith claimed the Bon Secour nuns had been guilty of a “massive cover-up” of “criminal activity” which they had denied for many years.

Ms Smith was joined by Deirdre Wadding, a former resident of Bessboro mother and baby home in Cork.

Ms Wadding said the revelations that more than 700 babies had been buried in pits in the Co Galway home, had shocked her but proved that “church and State colluded from the very foundation of this State to oppress women. Women and children have been brutalised by those twin forces for decades now.

“For me it has been a very wobbly few days, to be personal about it, as I read about Tuam it certainly stirred up my own experiences,” said Ms Wadding who was sent to Bessboro aged 19 in 1981.

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

VATICAN CITY
Crux

Inés San MartínMarch 6, 2017
VATICAN CORRESPONDENT

German Cardinal Gerhard Muller, whose Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was cited by abuse survivor Marie Collins as part of the reason for her resignation from Pope Francis’s anti-abuse commission, has fired back, saying it’s time to drop the “cliche” of a reforming pope being hobbled by internal opposition in the Vatican.

ROME-The head of a powerful Vatican office cited by the last survivor of clerical abuse to serve as an active member of the pope’s anti-sexual abuse commission as part of her reason for resigning has fired back, saying it’s time to drop the “cliché” of Pope Francis wanting reform and his opposition in the Roman Curia seeking to block it.

“Sustaining the pope’s universal mission, trusted to him by Jesus, is part of our Catholic faith and the ethos of the curia,” said German Cardinal Gerhard Muller, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Asked to explain why Marie Collins had decided to resign, he said that the work his department and the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors is very different. The congregation, he said, carries through the canonical process against the clerics accused of the gravest crimes.

“Yet the congregation has cooperated in the constitution of the commission,” Muller said. “One of our collaborators is part of it. I can affirm that in these last years there’s been permanent contact.”

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.

ROME
Christian Post

BY FELIX N. CODILLA III , CHRISTIAN POST CONTRIBUTOR
Mar 6, 2017

The annual Lenten retreat this week is very timely for Pope Francis, considering the recent troubling developments besetting the Vatican. What makes it even more relevant is the participation of the Roman Curia, some of whose members are purportedly behind moves to oust him from the throne of the Holy See.

The grumbling among some disgruntled cardinals has been felt immediately after then Jorge Bergoglio was elected to the papacy four years ago when he sought to reform the Church’s bureaucracy, particularly its finances which was said to have caused Pope Benedict’s resignation.

A book entitled Merchants in the Temple exposed the alleged corruption within Rome — from cardinals’ luxurious living in lavish apartments to the questionable use of charity funds — and the setbacks encountered by Pope Francis as he tried to institute economic reforms.

Pope Francis further earned the ire of traditionalists when he issued the Amoris Laetitia, wherein he left it to local bishops whether or not to allow communion for divorced and remarried priests. The document relaxes the old rule that the Eucharist may be received only after the annulment of marriage.

But the governing body’s dissatisfaction didn’t end there. The Guardian reported how Pope Francis displeased the conservatives among them when he expressed agreement to some of the points raised by Martin Luther. “There was corruption in the church, worldliness, attachment to money and power,” he said during the 500th anniversary of the Reformation on October 2016.

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

VATICAN CITY
Religion News Service

By Josephine McKenna

VATICAN CITY (RNS) The Vatican’s top doctrinal official, Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, has rejected suggestions from a clergy abuse victim that Pope Francis is facing critical internal resistance from foes of his efforts to overhaul the church’s central administration.

Mueller, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a key department of the Roman Curia, made his remarks in an interview with an Italian daily on Sunday (March 5) after Irish sex abuse survivor Marie Collins cited opposition from Mueller’s office as the main reason for her resignation last week from the pope’s commission to protect minors.

The interview in Corriere Della Sera was published as the pope joined members of the curia on a Lenten spiritual retreat in the town of Ariccia outside Rome.

“I think you should put an end to this cliché’, the idea that there is on the one hand the Pope who wants reform and on the other a group of resistors who would like to block it,” the conservative German cardinal said.

“It is part of our Catholic faith and the work ethos of the Roman Curia to support the Pope’s universal mission, entrusted to him by Jesus Christ. ”

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.

NORTH CAROLINA
Associated Press

BY MITCH WEISS
ASSOCIATED PRESS

SPINDALE, N.C. (AP) — At least a half-dozen times over two decades, authorities investigated reports that members of a secretive evangelical church were being beaten. And every time, according to former congregants, the orders came down from church leaders: They must lie to protect the sect.

Among the members of the Word of Faith Fellowship who coached congregants and their children on what to say to investigators were two assistant district attorneys and a veteran social worker, the ex-followers told The Associated Press.

Frank Webster and Chris Back – church ministers who handle criminal cases as assistant DAs for three nearby counties – provided legal advice, helped at strategy sessions and participated in a mock trial for four congregants charged with harassing a former member, according to former congregants interviewed as part of an AP investigation of Word of Faith.

Back and Webster, who is sect leader Jane Whaley’s son-in-law and lives in her house, also helped derail a social services investigation into child abuse in 2015 and attended meetings where Whaley warned congregants to lie to investigators about abuse incidents, according to nine former members.

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.

IRELAND
Joe

Last week “significant quantities” of human remains were discovered at the site of the former mother and baby home in Co. Galway.

Speaking on Morning Ireland this morning, Paul Redmond, chairperson of the Coalition of Mother and Baby home Survivors said that he expects the commission of investigation to ascertain that between 7,000 and 8,000 babies died in homes in Ireland from the 1920s up until the 60s.

Despite this, US-based conservative Bill Donoghue has denounced the claims saying there is “no evidence of a mass grave” and slammed the controversy as ‘a lie’.

Writing on the Catholicleague.org, Mr.Donoghue says “it was a lie in 2014 and it is a lie in 2017”.

“If there was a Pulitzer for fake news, the competition would be fierce. Mass graves. Sexually assaulted women. Children stolen. It is all a lie.”

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.

IRELAND
BBC News

The discovery of human remains at the site of a home for unmarried mothers has been welcomed by the historian whose research uncovered the burials.

Catherine Corless said “finally the truth has come out” about burials of infants at the former mother and baby home in Tuam, County Galway.

A state-appointed inquiry confirmed on Friday that “significant quantities of human remains” were found during a dig.

The inquiry was ordered in 2014 as a result of Ms Corless’s research.

‘Underground chambers’

She found death certificates for 796 infants who died at the home from natural causes, but despite painstaking research, she has not been able to locate their burial records.

A statement from the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation said test excavations carried out over the last four months had uncovered a “long structure divided into 20 chambers”.

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.

IRELAND
Irish Times

Marie O’Halloran, Lorna Siggins

The State must fully excavate sites at every Magdalene laundry and Mother and Baby Home where children’s remains may have been buried, a survivors’ group has said.

The Government has not said whether a full excavation will take place at the former grounds of the Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, Co Galway, where a commission of inquiry looking into the religious-run homes for unmarried mothers has found the remains of a “significant” number of children aged under three.

Calling for a wider disinterment programme, the Justice for Magdalenes research group said it had compiled a list of 180 institutions, agencies and individuals charged with the care of unmarried mothers and their children.

It also appealed for a halt to plans to redevelop two former Magdelene laundries in Dublin until it could be established that neither site contained children’s graves.

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.

IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Monday, March 06, 2017

Shane Kilcommins

While the Catholic Church is at the centre of the scandal, both the State and public at large were also complicit, writes Shane Kilcommins.

The remains of a significant number of babies and infants found at the site of a former mother and baby home at Tuam is one further example — and not the last, I suspect — of the systemic abuse that occurred in the archipelago of institutions that existed in post-independence Ireland.

The abuse in all its forms is, of course, horrific, terrifying and shameful. It begs so many questions. How, for example, could it occur in institutions which are meant to espouse Christian values such as kindness, charity, love for thy neighbour, and good will?

How could such abuse and such violence exist for so long in parallel with the supposed operation of a democratic and constitutional state? How could it occur in a “civilised society”?

Many commentators on incidences of systematic abuse and violence inform us that it often occurs when three conditions are met. First, the wrongdoing is tolerated and indeed authorised by the institution, the state, or even by society more generally.

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.

IRELAND
Irish Independent

Teresa Kelly
March 6 2017

I am the chairperson of the Tuam Babies Graveyard Committee.The committee was formed in August 2013. This group of like-minded people wished to do the right thing for the children who were buried in the grounds of what was once the St Mary’s old orphanage.

It was known locally as ‘The Home’. Our initial aims were simple:

* Erecting a dignified memorial recognising the children in name, age, and their date of death;
* We also sought to have the area preserved and maintained in the future as a mark of respect.

These areas had been maintained and looked after by members of this committee for over 40 years prior to the site gaining national and worldwide recognition.

From the outset of this project it was very clear that we wanted these children recognised and remembered.

We felt it was beyond belief that the Bon Secour sisters could have left this area without any sort of memorial or acknowledgement of the children’s existence.

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.

IRELAND
IrishCentral

Niall O’Dowd @niallodowd March 06, 2017

“A great many people are always asking what is the good of keeping these children alive? I quite agree that it would be a great deal kinder to strangle these children at birth than to put them out to nurse.” — Doctor Ella Webb, June 18, 1924, speaking about illegitimate children in care in Ireland at the time.

The story of Doctor Webb’s comments was in the Irish Times that day in 1924. It was allowed to go without outrage or question.

How do you like euthanasia Irish Catholic style?

Have no doubt what happened in Tuam happened in such homes all over the country. Tuam came to light because of a fearless local writer, Catherine Corless, who suspected the truth and tracked it down with forensic clarity.

The same dreadful business was going on in other homes too,

Elaine Byrne, a columnist with the Sunday Business Post in Ireland, discovered the quote above as she researched how on earth were up to 800 children allowed to die and their bodies be stuffed in a septic tank by the Bon Secours sisters in Tuam, County Galway.

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.

INDIA
Independent (UK)

Shehab Khan @shehabkhan

The Catholic Church has sparked outrage in India after it blamed “consumerism” and bodily “temptations” for the alleged rape of a 15-year-old girl.

Priest Mathew Vadakkacheril, from Kerala in India, was accused of raping the child and later arrested.

The girl was allegedly raped several times and became pregnant, according to India Today. The child has since been delivered at a private hospital and since taken to an orphanage, reportedly without the mother’s consent.

Yet it is the response to the incident among the Christian community in India that is now making headlines.

A Christian weekly magazine, which is backed by a Catholic Sabha or association, blamed the alleged victim for the event and said Mr Vadakkacheril may have momentarily “forgotten his position”.

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.

IRELAND
Irish Independent

Ralph Riegel
March 6 2017

An elderly priest dismissed by his diocese over abuse allegations claimed that clerics are now “guilty until proven innocent”.

Fr Dan Duane, who served as a priest for 42 years in Cork, said he now faced losing his Church-provided home and had also had his retirement income slashed.

But he has vowed to defend his good name and is hoping a last-ditch appeal to Pope Francis can halt his dismissal as a priest in the Diocese of Cloyne.

“The lies against me are now threatening to destroy my life,” he said.

“I am an innocent man and yet I face penury and homelessness.

“There has also been a campaign of vilification waged against me in the media despite the fact I have consistently protested my innocence of these appalling allegations.”

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.

INDIA
The News Minute

The diocese’s decision comes a day after he was removed as Wayanad Child Welfare Committee (CWC) chairman by the state government.

TNM Staff

Monday, March 06, 2017

Mananthavady Archdiocese has suspended its spokesperson Fr Thomas Joseph Therakam.

The diocese’s decision comes a day after he was removed as Wayanad Child Welfare Committee (CWC) chairman by the state government as he allegedly tried to help the Kottiyoor priest Robin Vadakkumchery in hushing up the latter’s rape case, in which a minor girl was raped and subsequently gave birth to a baby.

In a statement, Mananthavady bishop Jose Porunnedam on Sunday said the decision was taken after the government’s move to sack Therakam and also said that the Church will stand by the rape survivor.

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.

INDIA
Huffington Post

A magazine backed by the Catholic Sabha in Kerala has put out an article that not only victim-shames a minor girl a priest allegedly raped and impregnated, but also attempts to absolve the church of any wrongdoing in the criminal act.

Dhanya Rajendran, writing for the News Minute, reported that the Sunday Shalom, a Christian weekly newspaper published in Malayalam and English, decided to put the onus of blame on the 16-year-old survivor, rather than on alleged sexual predator Father Robin or Mathew Vadakkancheril. Read what it had to say:

“Here, the girl is above the age of 15. Let me tell you this, as I consider you like my daughter – you are also at fault. Before the Lord, it is you who will have to answer first. Daughter, why did you forget who a priest is? He has a human body and has temptations. He may have forgotten his position for a few seconds, my child who has taken the Holy Communion, why didn’t you stop or correct him?”

PTI added that the police in Kerala on Sunday intensified the search to trace seven accused, including five nuns and a doctor, who are on the run since the arrest of the Catholic priest. The five nuns and the gynaecologist of the church-run hospital, where the 16-year-old girl delivered a boy, continued to evade arrest. The search conducted for the second day on Sunday failed to yield any result, investigating officer Sunil Kumar told Press Trust of India. A helper, Thangamma, is among the accused absconding, he said.

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

INDIA
One India

Written by: Anusha Ravi Updated: Monday, March 6, 2017

The Mananthavady diocese removed its spokesperson Father Thomas Joseph Therakam for helping rape accused pastor Father Robin Mathew Vadakkanchery cover up the rape of a minor. After facing charges of shielding a rape accused priest, the diocese sent a letter of apology to the victim’s parents and also removed its member for making arrangements for the accused to flee the country.

Father Therakam was removed after the church found out that he had not only arranged for the 16-year-old rape victim to be shifted to an orphanage run by the church but also arranged for the accused to flee to Canada after the incident came to light. As ironical as it is, Father Therakam is also the chairman of Child Welfare Committee in Wayanad. The state government had hinted at removing him from the committee but the man is currently absconding along with another member and a nun, Dr Betty.

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.

INDIA
The New Indian Express

IDUKKI: Close on the heels of the alleged rape of a minor by a 48-year-old priest in Kannur, a 20-year-old temple priest has been arrested for raping a 70-year-old temple employee in Idukki.

The man has been identified as Vaishakh Pallikkattil of Madukka near Mundakkayam. He reached the temple at Cheruthony as a temporary arrangement for one day as the priest had taken a leave. The woman, a widow, was under severe stress after the incident and informed the same to doctors at the Idukki District Hospital. The accused was arrested from his house, 90 km from Idukki, on Sunday following a case that was registered after doctors informed the police.

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.

INDIA
India Today

Written by: Neha Vashishth
March 6, 2017

“Consumerism and temptations” are the reasons why a 16-year-old girl from Kerala got raped. As much absurd this sounds, these are the reasons given by a magazine backed by a Catholic Sabha, resorting to openly blaming and shaming the rape survivor, a minor.

People behind the magazine forgot she DID NOT ASK FOR IT and NO-ONE ASKS FOR IT.

Father Robin or Mathew Vadakkancheril of St Sebastian church in Kannur, Kerala was accused of raping and impregnating a minor. He fled the scene, but was arrested for the heinous crime.
The minor was raped several times before she got pregnant. After she delivered the child at a private hospital, the newborn was taken to an orphanage without informing the girl.

But Sunday Shalom, a Christian weekly, said that the rape could have been stopped by the minor. The weekly said, “Here, the girl is above the age of 15. Let me tell you this, as I consider you like my daughter – you are also at fault. Before the Lord, it is you who will have to answer first. Daughter, why did you forget who a priest is? He has a human body and has temptations. He may have forgotten his position for a few seconds, my child who has taken the Holy Communion, why didn’t you stop or correct him?”

Let us remind and would ask all those who are reading this to repeat after us – NO ONE ASKS FOR RAPE.

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.

GUAM
KUAM

Updated: Mar 05, 2017

By Krystal Paco

Dozens of members of the Concerned Catholics of Guam and the Laity Forward Movement picketted for the 33rd consecutive week in front of the Dulce Nombre de Maria Cathedral-Basilica on Sunday morning. The message singular: defrock Archbishop Anthony Apuron.

Apuron stands accused of molesting at least four former Agat altar boys. He’s currently undergoing a canoncial trial in Rome, but was last seen in California earlier this year.

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.

IRELAND
The Times

Catherine Sanz
March 6 2017
The Times

A group of women who were former residents of homes for unmarried mothers have written to the attorney-general seeking genocide prosecutions against the religious orders that ran the centres.

They believe that, due to their status as single mothers, the state-sanctioned and mostly religious-run homes violated genocide laws by causing them to suffer serious bodily and mental harm through mass internment and the forcible removal of their children.

The 63 members of Irish First Mothers, who range in age from early 40s to late 70s, were residents in a number of mother and baby homes across Ireland including Bessborough in Co Cork, The Good Shepherd in Co Meath and St Patrick’s in Dublin.

Most of the women allege that they were pressured or forced into giving their babies up for adoption and three infants born to the women died while in the homes.

They were prompted to write the letter after the recent discovery of a significant number of infant remains were found inside sewage chambers on the site of a former home in Tuam, Co Galway.

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.

IRELAND
Herald

Shane Phelan and Kevin Doyle – 04 March 2017

The religious order that ran the Tuam mother and baby home, where the remains of hundreds of children have been discovered, has failed to issue an apology.

A commission of investigation yesterday announced it had discovered the remains of the young children in underground chambers at the property.

The Bon Secours Sisters said it couldn’t comment on the find, which Minister for Children Katherine Z appone described as “disturbing”.

Significant quantities of human remains were discovered at the site of the former St Mary’s Mother and Baby Home, an institution where unmarried pregnant women were sent to give birth, in Tuam, Co Galway.

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

UNITED STATES
Irish Independent

Ian Begley
March 6 2017

The president of the Catholic League has denounced the Tuam Baby scandal as ‘fake news’.

Despite “significant quantities” of human remains discovered at the site of the former mother and baby home in Co Galway, US-based conservative Bill Donoghue claims there is “no evidence of a mass grave”.

“It was a lie in 2014 and it is a lie in 2017,” he wrote on Catholicleague.org. “The hoax is now back again, and an obliging media are running with the story as if it were true. Any objective and independent reporter would be able to report what I am about to say, but unfortunately there are too many lazy and incompetent reporters prepared to swallow the latest moonshine about the Catholic Church.

“If there was a Pulitzer for fake news, the competition would be fierce. Mass graves. Sexually assaulted women. Children stolen. It is all a lie.”

Independent councillor for Tuam Billy Connelly told the Irish Independent he cannot understand how anyone could denounce the evidence already presented.

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.

IRELAND
Irish Independent

Alan O’Keeffe
March 6 2017

Dublin woman Anna Corrigan said she does not believe that both of her baby brothers born in the Tuam Mother and Baby Home actually died there.

She believes her brother William may have been adopted illegally in the US as no death certificate was issued for him, she said.

A death certificate was issued for her oldest brother, John. Inspectors who visited the institution in the 1940s stated he was in an “emaciated” condition. Later, when his death was listed, a death certificate stated measles as a cause of death.

If the bodies of one or two of her brothers are identified with DNA tests, she wants the remains to be given to her for a family burial. “The Garda forensic team should have been sent to the site a long time ago. I want to give a sample of my DNA to help the investigation,” she said.

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

IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Monday, March 06, 2017

Identifying the remains of young children at the Tuam Mother and Baby Home would be technically very difficult and the prospect of establishing causes of death highly unlikely, according to forensic and Garda sources, writes Cormac O’Keeffe, Juno McEnroe and Conall Ó Fátharta.

Sources told the Irish Examiner that they did not believe it would be possible to uncover evidence of criminality, if there was any, in the deaths.

Garda sources said the exhumation, mass identification, and forensic examination involved would be entering “uncharted waters” given the scale and complexity of the undertaking.

Last Friday, it emerged that the Mother and Baby Home Commission of Investigation found “significant quantities of human remains” involving children up to the age of three, in underground sewage chambers at the former Bon Secours Sisters home.

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.

IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

By Alan O’Keeffe
March 6 2017

Police in the Republic are liaising with the State coroner investigating the Tuam Mother and Children’s Home deaths as a full criminal probe looks increasingly likely.

Last week the presence of a large number of human remains in a septic tank was confirmed at the site, which was run by the Bon Secours nuns.

Relatives of children who died at the home now want full Garda involvement in the investigation being undertaken by a State Commission of Investigation.

Tuam-based Minister of State at the Office of Public Works Sean Canney said it is open to the Coroner for North Galway to call on the support of the gardai and any other authorities as he may deem necessary.

“If there is to be a Garda investigation, so be it. Whatever is required in order to give closure to people,” he said.

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

IRELAND
Irish Times

Marie O’Halloran, Lorna Siggins

The State must fully excavate sites at every Magdalene laundry and Mother and Baby Home where children’s remains may have been buried, a survivors’ group has said.

The Government has not said whether a full excavation will take place at the former grounds of the Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, Co Galway, where a commission of inquiry looking into the religious-run homes for unmarried mothers has found the remains of a “significant” number of children aged under three.

Calling for a wider disinterment programme, the Justice for Magdalenes research group said it had compiled a list of 180 institutions, agencies and individuals charged with the care of unmarried mothers and their children.

It also appealed for a halt to plans to redevelop two former Magdelene laundries in Dublin until it could be established that neither site contained children’s graves.

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.

IRELAND
98 FM

6 Mar 2017
Trish Laverty

There are calls for the sites of two former Magdalene laundries in Dublin to be examined for children’s graves.

It follows a socking report last week that showed hundreds of remains had been discovered in Tuam.

On Friday it was confirmed that significant quantities of human remains had been found in a septic tank on the site of a mother and baby home in Co. Galway.

Records show that almost 800 deaths were recorded at the home over almost 40 years.

There are now calls for the planned redevelopment of the Magdalene laundry in Donnybrook and any potential redevelopment of the laundry off Sean McDermott St. not the take place until the sits are fully examined for graves.

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.

IRELAND
Irish Independent

Chai Brady
March 6 2017

Hundreds gathered yesterday to remember the women who suffered in the Magdalene Laundries, many of whom were buried in mass graves.

The event marked the sixth annual Flowers for Magdalenes.

Mary Merritt (85) was in the laundries for 14 years.

“Every one of those women should have had a separate grave with their name on it,” she said.

“They cut my hair, they took my name, they took my clothes, but I wouldn’t let them take my spirit.”
The Justice for Magdalenes Research group found that there are at least 1,663 women from the laundries buried in cemeteries – many of whom are in unmarked graves.

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.

IRELAND
Irish Times

Marie O’Halloran

The sites of two former Magdalene laundries in Dublin should not be redeveloped until it is confirmed there are no children’s graves there, a survivor has demanded.

In an address to the Flowers for Magdalenes commemoration at Glasnevin Cemetery, Mary Merritt, who spent 14 years in High Park laundry in Drumcondra, said the planned redevelopment of the Magdalene laundry in Donnybrook, and any potential redevelopment of the laundry off Seán MacDermott Street, should not take place until the sites are fully examined for graves.

Her call echoed those of the Justice for Magdalenes Research organisation, the co-founder of which, Claire McGettrick, said the organisation had compiled a list of 180 institutions, agencies and individuals involved with unmarried mothers and their children.

Around the North Circular Road and places in Clontarf “there would have been houses dotted around those areas” involved, she said but the commission of inquiry into mother-and-baby homes was looking at 18. She said they had the names of 1,600 people who died in the laundries.

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

VATICAN CITY
Crux

Marie Collins March 5, 2017
SPECIAL TO CRUX

Crux editor John Allen’s recent argument that my resignation from the pope’s anti-abuse commission will “free me up” and allow me to feel less “conflicted” is not only inaccurate, but patronizing. The problem with the commission isn’t having survivors as members, but opposition from clerical men in the Roman Curia.

[Editor’s note: In the wake of the resignation of the last clerical abuse survivor to serve as an active member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, Irish lay woman Marie Collins, Crux editor John L. Allen Jr. published an analysis suggesting that the outcome may have been both inevitable and desirable.

Collins objected via social media, and Crux offered her the opportunity to reply. The following is that response.]

Firstly I want to thank Crux for offering me the right of reply. Although in the article I am combined with Peter Saunders, I am here speaking only for myself.

I was quite disturbed reading this article as in many cases John Allen purports to know my feelings and how I was thinking in certain situations. I found this not only to be inaccurate, but also patronising.

The statement that my resignation was “inevitable” is certainly not true. There was no “inevitability” of my leaving, unless Allen knew in advance that there were men in the Roman Curia who would be obstructing the commission, and I would refuse to cover it up!

I accepted my appointment to the Pontifical Commission with every intention of remaining for my full term.

The article seems to imply that because I was sexually abused by a priest in childhood I am incapable of independent thought or action, that I must always be looking over my shoulder concerned how my words or actions might be seen by survivors outside the commission. It also stated that I was put in a “politically untenable spot.”

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.

CALIFORNIA
Variety

Maane Khatchatourian
News Editor, Variety.com
@MaaneKhat

UPDATED: The Los Angeles Police Department is conducting an ongoing investigation on sexual assault allegations against “That ’70s Show” star Danny Masterson, which the actor has vehemently denied.

According to journalist Tony Ortega, best known for his extensive reporting on the Church of Scientology, the Church allegedly covered up the allegations — stemming from the early 2000s. The LAPD didn’t comment on Scientology’s involvement with the investigation.

“The Los Angeles Police Department Robbery Homicide Division, Sexual Assault Section, is conducting an investigation involving the actor Danny Masterson,” reads a statement from the LAPD obtained by Variety on Friday. “Three women have come forward and disclosed that they were sexually assaulted by Masterson during the early 2000’s.”

Masterson denied the claims in a statement sent by his rep to Variety, saying the “false allegations appear to be motivated to boost Leah Remini’s anti-Scientology television series.” The accuser’s name has been redacted from the below statement.

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

UNITED STATES
Independent (UK)

Jacob Stolworthy @Jacob_Stol

Actor Danny Masterson, who appeared in sitcom That ’70s Show, is reportedly being investigated by the LAPD after allegations that accusations of sexual assault were covered up by the Church of Scientology.

Variety has reported that the LAPD is looking into claims of sexual assault that were said to have been committed by Masterson – a practicing Scientologist – in the early 2000s. Masterson has denied the claims.

A statement from the LAPD reads: “Three women have come forward and disclosed that they were sexually assaulted by Masterson during the early 2000s.”

The claims that the Church of Scientology covered up the allegations against the actor come courtesy of journalist Tony Ortega.

Masterson’s representative told Variety that the “false allegations appear to be motivated to boost Leah Remini’s anti-Scientology television series [Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath].“

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.

NEW YORK
WNYT

March 05, 2017

SCHOHARIE — A Schoharie County man accused of sexually abusing teenage boys is due back in court Monday.

51-year-old Jonathan Luce is accused of luring boys from church to his home in the town of Jefferson to have sex with them. State police say they know of three victims, ranging in age from 12-17.

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.

NEW YORK
Press TV (Iran)

Victims of child sex abuse in the US state of New York say their fight for justice has been stalled by the political apparatus of the state’s Roman Catholic Church.

The church and other institutions are preventing state lawmakers from passing a bill that would relax one of the nation’s tightest laws of limitations on filing criminal charges against sexual abusers, The Associated Press reported Sunday.

New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo is a key supporter of the Child Victims Act, a retroactive bill that has languished in the state’s Legislature for over a decade.

“These survivors deserve justice, plain and simple,” Cuomo said in a statement to The AP. “Giving victims the opportunity to advance their claims in court is the right thing to do, and I urge the Legislature to join me and pass this measure once and for all.”

A similar law in California, passed in 2002, resulted in Catholic dioceses there paying $1.2 billion in legal settlements.

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

UNITED STATES
IrishCentral

Tom Deignan @IrishCentral March 06, 2017

How about pedophiles and the people who protect them?

In recent weeks, interesting stories about President Trump’s right-hand Irish Catholic man Steve Bannon have been trickling out. Among the revelations: he’s got kind of a man-crush on fellow Irish Catholic and former St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke.

Burke ended up on Pope Francis’ bad side — more on that later — and was booted upstairs to a job at the Vatican. For a while, Burke seemed a raging relic.

At a time when Pope Francis was talking about opening doors, not judging people and protecting the weak — you know, all those crazy things Jesus spoke of — Burke represented the opposition. He proudly wanted to go backward, not forward.

Make the Vatican great again, if you will.

In the end, Burke was out in the cold. But Trump’s election — and Bannon’s budding alliance with Burke — has made him an influential figure again. This should enrage the millions of Irish Americans and other Catholics who voted for Trump.

Rewind to October 2010. Millions — faithful as well as lapsed Catholics — were still absorbing the sex abuse revelations. That’s when Burke was promoted to cardinal by Pope Benedict.

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.

KANSAS
Topeka Capital-Journal

An Overbrook church is being sued for allegedly aiding and abetting the sexual abuse of two children.

A court review of the case is scheduled on Monday, March 6, in Osage County District Court.

The plaintiffs in the case are four unnamed individuals, including two minors. Grace Community Church, in Overbrook, and Richard Calderwood are listed as defendants.

On Feb. 21, Calderwood, 53, was granted 36 months on probation in connection with two counts of aggravated indecent solicitation of a child in Wabaunsee County District Court. His sentence includes lifetime registration as a sex offender. According to the original criminal complaint which was filed in October 2014, the crimes took place between May 1, 2013, and Jan. 1, 2014, and involved children who were 4 and 6 years old at the time the complaint was filed.

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.