ABUSE TRACKER

INDIA
Huffington Post

There’s evidence of the Church’s complicity.

02/03/2017

G Pramod Kumar Contributing Editor, HuffPost India

The recent alleged rape of a minor girl by a vicar and what appears to be an attempted institutional cover up in Kerala has brought the Catholic Church under fire yet again. The vicar was an influential priest who had held important offices of power and the Church had apparently used its various apparatuses to protect him from the law.

This is not the first time that the Syro Malabar Church, the largest congregation of Catholics in the state, is at the centre of controversy. Over the years, many of its priests have been accused of various sexual offences and rights violations, and its institutions of cover-ups. Some have been punished by law, but many have managed to escape as the vicar in the latest rape case nearly did.

The main accused in the case is Father Robin Vadakkumchery, the priest of the St. Sebastian Church in the state’s northern district of Kannur, and the survivor, a 16-year-old girl from a poor family that belongs to the same parish. Allegedly, the priest had been sexually exploiting the girl for a long time and the family came to know about it only when the girl became pregnant. Following this, a cover-up plan seems to have been set in motion by the priest, backed by Church-run institutions.

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NEW YORK
Americans United for Separation of Church and State

March 2017
AU Bulletin

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) has introduced a revised version of the Child Victims Act that would remove the statute of limitations on prosecution of abusers in public and private institutions around the state.

Cuomo’s proposal would allow adults who were abused as children to file civil lawsuits up to 50 years after the attacks occurred, and would allow victims who couldn’t bring their cases to court due to current statute-of-limitations laws to have a one-year window to do so.

Some states began considering laws like this in the wake of a wide-ranging child-abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. The revisions have been met with opposition; some religious organizations that are arguing that the proposed one-year window of reporting and re-visiting old cases is unfair.

New York State Catholic Conference spokesman Dennis Poust told The New York Daily News on Jan. 12 that church officials should see more details regarding Cuomo’s proposal while emphasizing that the church will continue opposing the proposed one-year lookback window.

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NEVADA
Las Vegas Review-Journal

By BEN BOTKIN
REVIEW-JOURNAL CAPITAL BUREAU

CARSON CITY — Victims of child sexual abuse lined up to testify before Nevada lawmakers Wednesday, recounting crimes they endured decades ago.

Many would gain nothing from Assembly Bill 145, but it would empower future victims, they said.

“Give us a fighting chance, because we, the victims, have a life sentence of the crime perpetrated against us,” testified Linda Kirkpatrick, who said she was sexually abused as a child. “Where are our rights?”

AB145 would extend the Nevada statute of limitations for victims to sue by another decade, from 10 years to 20 years. Time starts applying toward the statute of limitations after a victim turns 18 or discovers an injury was caused by the abuse, whichever comes later.

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UNITED KINGDOM/AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

AAP

Two men who were shipped from Britain to Western Australia as children in the 1950s have told an inquiry in London of their abuse by Christian Brothers paedophiles.

One witness, now 72 and living in Perth and referred to as A4 to protect his identity, told the UK’s child sex abuse inquiry he had been in orphanages in Britain since he was a baby before being shipped to WA in 1953 at the age of eight as a child migrant.

He said he was sent to the boys’ home at Castledare where he was sexually abused by Brother Lawrence Murphy.

The national child abuse inquiry is hearing testimony from people who were shipped as children to Australia. Some children sent to former colonies between the 1920s and 1970s faced servitude, hard labour and abuse

He said Murphy woke him up one night in the dormitory to say he must go to the toilet, but instead led him to his bedroom.

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IRELAND
Galway Independent

Former Tuam Home residents and their families are looking for answers, but are being left “in the dark” in relation to the investigation into the home, according to Tuam historian Catherine Corless.

An inquiry into the former Mother and Baby Home in the town is currently underway, with two excavations having been carried out on the site to determine whether children reported to have died at the home have been buried there.

The deadline for submissions to the Mother and Baby Home Commission of Investigation looking into the former Bon Secours institution is today, Wednesday 1 March, and Ms Corless, whose research led to the investigation, is encouraging people to contact the Commission.

The body has asked for anyone who lived or worked in the Tuam Home or in any of the 14 Mother and Baby Homes and four County Homes under investigation to contact them.

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AUSTRALIA
Stirling Times

March 1st, 2017

Written by Kate Leaver

A TUART Hill teacher has been charged with allegedly possessing thousands of child exploitation videos and images.

Child Abuse Squad detectives carried out a search warrant at the 29-year-old man’s property on Monday .

It will be alleged detectives seized several electronic storage devices belonging to the man and identified more than 1000 images and videos containing child exploitation material.

The man has been charged with possessing child exploitation material, distributing child exploitation material and intent to expose a person believed to be under 13 years old of age to indecent material.

A police spokeswoman said the man was employed as a teacher at a catholic primary school in the Central Metropolitan Policing District.

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AUSTRALIA
WA Today

Phil Hickey

A Catholic school teacher from Perth has been charged with online child exploitation offences after police carried out a warrant at his home this week.

Detectives from the Child Abuse Squad executed a search warrant at the man’s Tuart Hill home on Monday.

They seized several electronic storage devices belonging to the man.

A preliminary analysis of the devices has allegedly identified over 1000 images and videos containing child exploitation material.

The 29-year-old man has been charged with possessing child exploitation material, distributing child exploitation material and intent to expose a person believed to be under 13 to indecent matter.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

[with video]

AAP

Child abuse squad detectives have raided the home of a Perth school teacher, allegedly finding more than 1000 child exploitation images and videos.

Police raided the 29-year-old’s Tuart Hill home on Monday and seized several electronic storage devices that allegedly contained the material.

The man, a West Australian Catholic primary school teacher, only graduated from a teaching degree two years ago.

Since then, the man has taught at primary schools in the south-west region, the Perth hills and Inglewood.

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PENNSYLVANIA
We Are Central PA

[with video]

Harrisburg, Pa. – Last year a bill addressing the statute of limitations on child sex abuse cases overwhelmingly passed in the House. That bill included an amendment with retroactivity so that the new extension of the statue of limitations would apply to past cases. That bill stalled in the Senate and a new bill this year passed in the Senate that did not include the retro-activity. Victims say the bill isn’t doing enough.

Both sides of the argument on retro activity agree that the statue of limitations on child sex abuse should be eliminated. However, past victims believe the retro activity clause will give them the justice they deserve.

Shaun Dougherty was a victim of abuse and is fighting for retro-activity. He said, “Without retroactivity, everybody that was found out in that AG’s report last year, will be off the hook scot-free.”

Representative Judy Ward voted against the original bill with retro-activity and explained the difficulty in her decision. She says that she believes making laws that go back in the past is unconstitutional. She explained, “This should never happen and if it happens, it is such a heinous crime there should be no statue of limitations moving forward. I agree with that. It’s just always the retro-activity that i get hung up on.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
Altoona Mirror

MAR 2, 2017

RUSS O’REILLY
Staff Writer
roreilly@altoonamirror.com

Survivors of sexual abuse at the hands of local Roman Catholic clergy don’t believe much has changed since last year when a statewide grand jury revealed that about 50 religious leaders abused hundreds of children over the past 40 years in the Altoona-Johnstown diocese.

About 10 members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests gathered Wednesday for a demonstration in front of the diocese administration building on Logan Boulevard.

Mark Dougherty, who said he was sexually molested as a minor by a diocesan priest, said local legislators as well as church leadership are failing victims who deal with pain from past abuse.

“A year has gone by since the grand jury report. … and actions of the Republican state Senate are suffocating yesterday’s victims and jeopardizing today’s children,” Dougherty, of Johnstown, said.

Last year, the state attorney general recommended that the Legislature abolish criminal and civil statute of limitations on child sexual abuse completely.

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ROME
The Times (UK)

Philip Willan, Rome
March 2 2017
The Times

A group of cardinals who supported the election of Pope Francis are worried that his controversial reforms are leading the Catholic church towards a schism and are planning to appeal to him to step down, a leading Vatican watcher has claimed.

“A large part of the cardinals who voted for him is very worried and the curia . . . that organised his election and has accompanied him thus far, without ever disassociating itself from him, is cultivating the idea of a moral suasion to convince him to retire,” Antonio Socci wrote in the Italian newspaper Libero.

The conservative Catholic author and journalist said that the election four years ago of Jorge Mario Bergoglio had been backed by progressive German cardinals and a curia faction impatient with the rule of his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI.

It was the latter faction who now believed that the Pope should resign and who would like to replace him with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, Mr Socci said. He believed that the group numbered around a dozen, “but the importance of the members counts more than their number”.

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VATICAN CITY
ABC News (Australia)

By Anne Barker

A prominent survivor of clerical sexual abuse has accused authorities within the Vatican of hiding behind a culture of silence and secrecy to avoid dealing with the issue.

Marie Collins has resigned from a special Vatican commission, created by Pope Francis, to tackle the issue of paedophilia within the church.

In a written statement she cited a refusal by senior men in the Vatican to cooperate with the commission as a key factor in her decision.

“The reluctance of some in the Vatican Curia to implement recommendations or cooperate with the work of a commission, when the purpose is to improve the safety of children and vulnerable adults around the world, is unacceptable,” Ms Collins said.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Owen Bowcott Legal affairs correspondent
@owenbowcott
Thursday 2 March 2017

The national child abuse inquiry has been criticised by a prominent lawyer representing victims for failing to seize potentially vital caches of evidence before they are destroyed.

In a letter to the inquiry, London solicitor Imran Khan has called for records from Catholic treatment centres for problem priests, Lambeth council and even the Boston Globe newspaper – which investigated clerical abuse in the USA – to be secured.

Khan also expressed concern that some victims who are due to give evidence in criminal trials relating to abuse have been asked for fresh witness statements in a procedure that might prejudice existing prosecutions.

The inquiry, which began its first public hearing this week into the abuse of British children sent overseas to Australia, is due to hold its first hearing on abuse within the Catholic church in December.

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GUAM
Pacific News Center

There are now 23 lawsuits for civil claims of sexual abuse filed against the Archdiocese of Agana.

(Archdiocese of Agana) – In regard to the latest lawsuits and allegations of clergy sexual abuse to be filed, Archbishop Michael Byrnes extends prayers to Mr. Morgan Wade Paul, Mr. Benny Manglona, Mr. Johnny Bascon, Mr. Albino Bascon and Mr. Roque Flores as well as their families. All Faithful are also asked to pray for all victims of clergy sexual abuse. “With every person or persons who come forward to share accounts of being abused by clergy in the Catholic Church on Guam, each of us should grieve deeply,” Archbishop Byrnes said. “Sexual abuse of children, no matter when or where it occurred, represents a betrayal of trust and harm of the worst kind; it has a devastating impact on the victim,” Archbishop Byrnes said.

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OREGON
The Oregonian

By Jim Ryan | The Oregonian/OregonLive

A Salem pastor has been sentenced to more than 37 years in prison for sexually abusing a girl under 14 years old.

Mauricio Aguilera-Garcia, 56, was arrested in July after a weeklong investigation, a Marion County Sheriff’s Office spokesman said at the time. He met the girl through his church, Our Father’s House, the spokesman said.

Prosecutors said Aguilera-Garcia opted to plead guilty near the end of his first day of trial rather than continue with two more trial days. His victim testified about being sexually abused by Aguilera-Garcia, who was then her pastor and close to her family, the county district attorney’s office said in a news release.

Aguilera-Garcia pleaded guilty Tuesday to three counts of second-degree rape and two counts of both second-degree sodomy and unlawful sexual penetration, court records show. He has since been convicted on the charges and sentenced to 37-1/2 years in prison, prosecutors said.

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OREGON
KATU

A Salem pastor has been sentenced to 37 years in prison for raping a 13-year-old girl.

Mauricio Aguilera-Garcia, 55, was arrested last summer on charges of rape, sodomy and unlawful sexual penetration charges.

Marion County Sheriff’s deputies say he met his victim at his church, Our Father’s House. That church rents space from the Solid Rock Community Church on Ward Drive NE in Salem.

Aguilera-Garcia was barely a day into his trial this week when he entered guilty pleas. The jury had heard emotional testimony from his victim, who is now an adult.

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OREGON
Bend Bulletin

Pastor sentenced — A 56-year-old church pastor has been sentenced to 37 years in prison for multiple counts of rape and other sex crime charges against a child under age 14. The Marion County District Attorney’s Office said in a news release that Mauricio Aguilera-Garcia pleaded guilty Tuesday to rape, sodomy and unlawful sexual penetration. He entered the pleas at the end of the first day of his jury trial after the victim testified. Prosecutors say Aguilera-Garcia also was convicted of sex abuse against a child under age 12 in 1985.

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IRELAND
Limerick Leader

Donal O’Regan
1 Mar 2017

THE BOOK of evidence has been served on a priest accused of sexual offences in County Limerick.

Last July, the man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was charged with eight counts of sexual assault on dates between September 1988 and August 1990. It is understood the complainant was aged 11 or 12 at the time.

In January, he was further charged with six sexual assaults after a second male came forward to gardai. It is believed the plaintiff was a teenager at the time of the alleged offences between September 1988 and June 1990.

State solicitor, Aidan Judge said: “My application to the court is the defendant be returned for trial to the next sittings of Limerick Circuit Court. The DPP consents for the case to be sent forward for trial.”

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CONNECTICUT
New Haven Register

By Ed Stannard, New Haven Register

The Archdiocese of Hartford has been sued by a former altar boy, claiming he was sexually abused by a priest who served three parishes in Greater New Haven.

The Rev. Daniel McSheffery has been accused of abusing the man, now 49 years old, between 1977 and 1982 when McSheffery was pastor of St. George Roman Catholic Church in Guilford.

McSheffery was ordained in 1956 and also served at St. Mary Church in Branford, St. Augustine Church in North Branford and St. Augustine Church and its school in Hartford, according to the lawsuit filed by attorney Thomas McNamara of McNamara and Goodman in New Haven. McSheffery died in 2014, according to Maria Zone, spokeswoman for the archdiocese, who said church officials would have no other comment on pending litigation.

“McSheffery was one of Connecticut’s most cunning and deceitful child sexual abusers ever to wear a Roman collar,” McNamara said. “Parishioners hung on his every word and he used his charisma to inflict lifelong harm on the most defenseless in the St. George community.”

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INDIA
The Hindu

K.P.M. BASHEER MARCH 02, 2017

While the Catholic faithful in Kerala have been rattled by the arrest of a priest for raping and impregnating a minor girl, Church rebels and those in the know of things allege that the Kottiyoor incident is but just the tip of the iceberg.

Four former Church officials — three men and a woman, of whom two wished to remain anonymous — The Hindu spoke to claimed that Kottiyoor was only a sneak peek into the sexual abuse going on within the Church establishment. They also accused Church authorities of using their clout to keep mouths shut.

“If, in spite of all the clout, wealth and secrecy of the Church, the Kottiyoor incident came out into the open, you can imagine the extent of sexual abuse going on,” Sister Jesme, former Principal of St. Mary’s College, Thrissur, who left the Congregation of Mother Carmelite after serving it for 33 years, told The Hindu . Sister Jesme has, in her book Amen: The Autobiography of a Nun, revealed the murky goings-on within the Church establishment, the sexual abuse of nuns by priests and the wayward nature of bishops.

Nun abused

“I know of an incident in Kozhikode early last year,” Sister Jesme said, “a Catholic nun was impregnated by a priest. After the childbirth, the baby was separated from her and she was packed off to an unknown place. The man still continues to be a priest.”

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – Religion and Ethics Report

Wednesday 1 March 2017

The roots of Australia’s own Catholic funk are obvious – revelations from the royal commission into church and institutional sex abuse.

Over the past three weeks, the commission has heard that 1,900 church personnel were accused of abusing 4,500 children over 50 years.

Most cases went unchecked, no reports to police.

The silence intended to protect the church’s reputation.

But what if many priests and bishops stayed quiet because they were hiding their own sex lives? not with underage people but with consenting adults. Not breaking the law but breaking their vows.

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AUSTRALIA
Canberra Times

Katie Burgess

An ex-priest who was found to have inappropriately touched a child has been removed from a home for retired clergy next to two primary schools.

The Catholic Archdiocese of Canberra-Goulburn has also moved two other priests, who had been removed from the ministry for “other reasons”, from Lanigan House due to community concerns.

Catholic Archbishop Christopher Prowse housed former Tumut priest Father Brian Hassett at Lanigan House, next to Sts Peter and Paul Primary School and Malkara School in Garran, for two years after he had been stood down over two incidents involving children in Tumut.

While NSW police did not press charges, the claims were substantiated in an archdiocese investigation overseen by the NSW Ombudsman.

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ROME
Irish Times

Paddy Agnew in Rome

No one who knows how the Vatican works can be surprised by the resignation of abuse survivor Marie Collins from the Holy See’s Commission for the Protection of Minors.

Appointed to the commission at its inception in March 2014, she has found herself frustrated for much of the last two years when dealing with certain departments in the Holy See, in particular the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).

In an interview with The Irish Times, she said the “last straw” had been the refusal of a “particular dicastery” (the CDF) to respond to letters from abuse survivors.

Some outsiders might be surprised at what Collins called the CDF’s refusal to “change their processes”. However, there are many corners of the Holy See where people are reluctant to change both processes and their pastoral approach in response to Pope Francis’s attempted reform of the Curia.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

by Kody Leibowitz

HOLLIDAYSBURG — Survivors of clergy sex abuse and community supporters stood at the foot of the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown.

Signs and pictures of alleged victims were in hand as the group demanded change on a rainy March morning.

“Any priest that has touched a child inappropriately needs to resign,” said Thomas Venditti.
One year ago, life changed for many members of the Catholic faith in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown: a 147-page grand jury report was released.

Fifty priests and religious leaders were accused of horrific abuse against children dating back to the early 1960s. The report laid out a detailed record and revealed a secret diocesan fund that authorities say showed the diocese paid victims specific amounts of money for the level of sexual abuse a victim endured.

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TEXAS
KWTX

By Rissa Shaw and John Carroll

WACO, Texas (KWTX) The Texas Rangers have launched a preliminary investigation of sexual assaults at Baylor.

The Department of Public Safety issued a statement in which it said, “The Texas Rangers are working with the local prosecutor to conduct a preliminary investigation to determine if further action is warranted.”

McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna said the Rangers have been working with his office “to review any information obtained from Baylor University for the presence of any potential criminal conduct.

“Baylor has already cooperated and been providing our office information regarding specific instances of sexual assaults, ” he said.

“We are now going to sit down with Baylor, through their office of general counsel, and discuss the disclosure of the information referenced in the Pepper Hamilton report. The Texas Rangers have been kept in the loop of these communications,” he said.

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VATICAN CITY
New York Times

By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO and GAIA PIANIGIANI
MARCH 1, 2017

ROME — A high-profile member of a commission advising Pope Francis on ways to protect minors from sexual abuse by the clergy resigned from the panel on Wednesday, citing what she called “cultural resistance” from the Vatican.

Marie Collins, who was molested by a priest in Ireland when she was 13, expressed frustration over what she called reluctance among the Roman Catholic Church’s hierarchy to implement the commission’s recommendations — even those approved by the pope.

“I feel I have no choice but to resign if I am to retain my integrity,” Ms. Collins said in a statement to National Catholic Reporter. The lack of action, she wrote, “is a reflection of how this whole abuse crisis in the church has been handled: with fine words in public and contrary actions behind closed doors.”

Ms. Collins was one of two victims of clergy sexual abuse appointed by Francis to the commission when it was created in 2014. A year ago, the commission suspended the other victim, Peter Saunders, after he accused the panel of failing to deliver on its promises of reform and accountability, and he has been on a leave of absence since.

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AUSTRALIA
The Record

Australian Catholic Bishops Conference President, Archbishop Denis Hart has last week acknowledged the cooperation of witnesses, agencies, religious institutions and dioceses across the Catholic Church at the conclusion of Case Study 50 of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

“I particularly want to acknowledge the bravery of the survivors of child sexual abuse who have given evidence, not just in case studies involving the Catholic Church, but across more than 50 case studies so far that have examined the many different institutions throughout Australia,” Archbishop Hart said.

“Over the past three weeks, more than 70 Church leaders and professionals have appeared before the Commissioners sharing expertise, identifying failings and describing best practice for the future of our Church structure, culture and governance.”

“The final hearing discussed many aspects and characteristics of Church and clergy life including: Canon Law, the confessional, celibacy, clericalism, formation, professional support and supervision.”

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CONNECTICUT
Zip06

By Zoe Roos, Staff Writer • Contact Reporter
Published March 01, 2017

A lawsuit has been filed against the Archdiocese of Hartford by a former altar boy at St. George’s Church in Guilford, claiming former priest Daniel McSheffery sexually molested him for five years.

The suit, filed in superior court on Feb. 27, claims McSheffery began abusing the boy in the spring of 1977 when the boy was nine and continued for five years until the boy was 14. In that period, the lawsuit claims McSheffery abused the boy more than 250 times.

McSheffery, who died in 2014, was a priest at St. George’s from 1974 to 1986. Allegations of sexual misconduct concerning McSheffery first surfaced years ago, with the archdiocese settling numerous lawsuits against him with plaintiffs claiming that McSheffery sexually abused them in the late 1960s and 1970s while McSheffery served in Hartford. The Courier first reported on McSheffrey’s alleged crimes in 2002.

The current lawsuit lists the Archdiocese of Hartford as the only defendant, claiming the archdiocese knew of the abuse and did nothing, placing minors in danger.

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CONNECTICUT
Patch

By Brian McCready (Patch National Staff) – March 1, 2017

GUILFORD, CT — A former altar boy at St. George’s Church claims in a lawsuit that former parish priest, Daniel McSheffery, sexually abused him more than 250 times during a five-year period from 1977 until 1982, reports the Hartford Courant’s David Altimari.

McSheffery died in 2014 and he had been involved in eight other lawsuits and the Archdiocese of Hartford, which is the lone defendant in this case, had previously settled claims against McSheffery and three other priests totaling $22 million back in 2005, the Courant reports.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

By Dave Sutor
dsutor@tribdem.com

HOLLIDAYSBURG – On a drizzly Ash Wednesday, about a half-dozen Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests supporters congregated outside the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown’s headquarters, calling upon the local institution to provide more help and justice for victims of child sexual abuse.

The event occurred one year to the day after the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General released a grand jury report that provided details about an alleged decades-long coverup of abuse by at least 50 priests and other religious leaders, all reportedly orchestrated by former Bishops James Hogan and Joseph Adamec.

The attorney general’s office accused the diocese of maintaining a “secret archive” with information about predators, using a specific system to determine payout levels based on the type of abuse, and exploiting connections within the legal and law enforcement systems to keep accusations quiet.

Diocese officials, over the past year, have responded by holding prayer services for victims and releasing the names of priests who have been credibly accused of child sexual abuse.

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UNITED STATES
Boston Globe

By Lisa Wangsness GLOBE STAFF MARCH 01, 2017

The only abuse survivor serving on Pope Francis’s commission to address the clergy sexual abuse crisis resigned Wednesday, citing a “shameful” lack of cooperation from elements of the Vatican bureaucracy.

The departure of Marie Collins leaves Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston and a newly appointed member of a key Vatican department that handles abuse, under pressure to marshal support for the commission’s work inside the fractious church power structure.

Collins’s resignation highlights the stubborn resistance among some in the Vatican to work coooperatively to address important aspects of the clergy abuse crisis, four years into Francis’s papacy and more than 15 years after the abuse crisis exploded into the headlines in the United States.

Collins, an Irish woman who suffered abuse by a priest during a hospital stay as a child, is a widely respected and blunt-spoken voice in the survivor community. She said in a statement that the commission’s work has been hampered by “constant setbacks” that were “directly due to the resistance by some members of the Vatican Curia to the work of the commission.”

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

[with audio]

(Vatican Radio) The Vatican announced on Wednesday that a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, Irish abuse survivor Marie Collins, has resigned from her position.

She had been a member of the Commission since it was established by Pope Francis in 2014. In her resignation letter to the Pope, she cited frustration at the lack of cooperation with the Commission by other offices of the Roman Curia.

In a statement, the president of the Commission, Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, said Marie’s concerns would be listened to carefully and discussed at next month’s plenary meeting. He said she will continue to work with the Commission on training programmes for new bishops and for other offices of the Holy See.

To find out more, Philippa Hitchen spoke to Marie Collins about her decision and about her hopes for the future work of the Commission

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VATICAN CITY
Associated Press

BY FRANCES D’EMILIO
ASSOCIATED PRESS

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Frustrated by what she described as Vatican stonewalling, an Irish woman who was sexually abused by clergy quit her post Wednesday on a panel advising Pope Francis about how to protect minors from such abuse.

The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors said Marie Collins quit out of “frustration” at an alleged lack of cooperation from other Vatican offices, known as the Curia. Her departure delivered another blow to the Vatican’s insistence that it is working to ensure that no more children are abused by predator priests.

Collins, in a statement carried by the National Catholic Reporter, was damning in her criticism. She decried the “cultural resistance” at the Vatican that she said included some officials refusing the pope’s instructions to reply to all correspondence from abuse survivors.

“I find it impossible to listen to public statements about the deep concern in the church for the care of those who lives have been blighted by abuse, yet to watch privately as a congregation (office) in the Vatican refuses to even acknowledge these letters!” Collins said in her statement.

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VATICAN CITY
Los Angeles Times

Alexandra Zavis

In a stinging indictment of Vatican efforts to address sexual abuse by priests, an Irishwoman who was abused as a child resigned Wednesday from a panel that is advising Pope Francis on how to respond to the scandal that has tarnished the Roman Catholic Church for decades.

Marie Collins said she quit the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors because she was frustrated by a lack of cooperation with the panel by some members of the Roman Curia, or Vatican administration.

“As a survivor I have watched events unfold with dismay,” she said in a statement to the National Catholic Reporter. “The reluctance of some in the Vatican Curia to implement recommendations or cooperate with the work of a commission when the purpose is to improve the safety of children and vulnerable adults around the world is unacceptable.”

The commission said that the pope had accepted Collins’ resignation “with deep appreciation for her work on behalf of the victims/survivors of clergy abuse.” It also noted in a statement that she had accepted an invitation from the head of the panel, Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston, to work with it in an educational capacity.

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VATICAN CITY
NPR

March 1, 2017

CAMILA DOMONOSKE

A survivor of abuse has resigned from Pope Francis’ panel on clerical sex abuse, citing “shameful” resistance within the Vatican to the group’s efforts to protect children.

Marie Collins, who was abused by a priest as a child, was the only survivor active on the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. Another high-profile survivor and advocate, who expressed frustration with the slow pace of change, took a leave of absence from the commission last year.

Collins says she is leaving the panel because, as she told The Telegraph, “there are people in the Vatican who do not want to change or understand the need to change. … They are not cooperating.”

She says it was “soul-destroying” to face the Vatican’s resistance on the issue.

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ITALIA
Rete L’Abuso

Riceviamo e pubblichiamo volentieri il comunicato di Raffaella Mauceri e le sue osservazioni sulla re-intitolazione di Viale Luigi Cadorna in Viale papa Wojtyla.

A proposito del viale Luigi Cadorna, apprendo dall’articolo a firma di Salvatore Maiorca pubblicato su Libertà del 26 febbraio, che la circoscrizione di S. Lucia ha inoltrato una petizione al Comune di Siracusa per cambiare la denominazione del viale.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

By Carol Glatz Catholic News Service
3.1.2017

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — One of the founding members and the last remaining abuse survivor on the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors has quit over what she described as resistance coming from Vatican offices against implementing recommendations.

Marie Collins, who joined the commission when it was established in 2014, said: “The reluctance of some in the Vatican Curia to implement recommendations or cooperate with the work of a commission when the purpose is to improve the safety of children and vulnerable adults around the world is unacceptable.”

“It is devastating in 2017 to see that these men still can put other concerns before the safety of children and vulnerable adults,” she said in an editorial published online March 1 by the National Catholic Reporter.

Pope Francis created the commission to be an independent body of experts, including survivors of clerical sexual abuse, to advise him with recommendations on best practices for protecting minors and vulnerable adults in the church. The commission is also charged with promoting responsibility in local churches by “uniting their efforts to those of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, for the protection of all children and vulnerable adults,” according to the commission’s statutes.

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INDIA
Times of India

Rebecca Samervel | TNN | Mar 1, 2017

Mumbai: Two years after his arrest, charges have been framed against Fr Lawrence Johnson (52) for allegedly abusing a teenage boy from his parish in Shivaji Nagar. The court framed the charges under section 377 (unnatural sexual offences) of the Indian Penal Code and sections under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. The case will come up for hearing on March 10.

The prosecution said that on November 27, 2015, the victim visited the church with his brother. After prayers, the accused called the boy inside to keep a box, closed the door from inside and sexually assaulted him, it said. The prosecution said in a statement to the magistrate that the child said a similar incident took place in August 2015. It said the boy was examined on December 1, 2015 and medical evidence showed injuries to his private parts. The case is registered with the Shivaji Nagar police station.

Last year, the special POCSO court rejected the priest’s bail plea. The defence said the priest was dedicated to the church for 15 years. It said he used to allow concessions for students in school fees and this was afforded to the victim and his siblings for some years; subsequently a false case was made up as it was refused.

The Archdiocese of Bombay had appointed a three-member committee to conduct an internal investigation. Fr Nigel Barrett, spokesman for the archdiocese, said, “The inquiry report has been submitted to the Vatican, which will decide if there is merit in the allegations. I am not privy to the outcome of the inquiry.” The priest is receiving legal aid from the Conference of the Diocesan Priests of the archdiocese as part of his “right to defence”.

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CONNECTICUT
Hartford Courant

Dave Altimari

A former altar boy at St. George’s Church in Guilford has filed a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Hartford, alleging he was molested by former parish priest Daniel McSheffery starting when he was nine.

The lawsuit claims that McSheffery took the boy under his wing, offering him counseling and even helping with his schoolwork to gain his trust. The lawsuit alleges the abuse started in the spring of 1977 and continued for five years until the boy was 14.

The lawsuit alleges that during that time, McSheffery, who died in 2014, abused the boy more than 250 times. The accuser is named in the lawsuit but the Courant is not publishing his name because he is a possible sexual assault victim.

The lawsuit, filed this week, names only the the Archdiocese of Hartford as a defendant. The claim is that church officials, including then-Archbishop John F. Whealon, knew that McSheffery was a danger to minors and did nothing about it.

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UNITED KINGDOM/AUSTRALIA
BBC News

A former child migrant, sent from Wales to an Australian orphanage, has told a child abuse inquiry how it was a “feast of kids” for paedophiles working there.

Giving evidence, the anonymous 72-year-old said Brother Lawrence Murphy took him in to his bedroom twice, forcing him to perform sex acts.

If I had told anyone, I would have been belted or got the strap, he said.

Castledare orphanage near Perth, run by the Christian Brothers order, was like “a legal paedophile ring”, he said.

The witness told the inquiry: “If someone did it in the public eye, he’d go to court, he’d get sentenced and he’d serve time.

“If he’d got a habit on, if you’re a Christian Brother then it seemed to be a free-for-all.

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VATIKAN
Katholisch

Aus Frustration über mangelnde Kooperationsbereitschaft vatikanischer Behörden ist das irische Missbrauchsopfer Marie Collins aus der päpstlichen Kinderschutzkommission ausgetreten. Dieses Motiv habe Collins in ihrem Rücktrittsersuchen an Papst Franziskus genannt, teilte die Kinderschutzkommission am Mittwoch mit. Der Papst habe den Rücktritt unter “großer Anerkennung ihrer Arbeit für die Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs durch Priester angenommen”.

Kein Opfer mehr in der Kommission

Damit gehört der nun 16 Mitglieder umfassenden Kommission kein Missbrauchsopfer mehr an. Das zweite Opfermitglied des Gremiums, der Brite Peter Saunders, hatte im Februar 2016 eine Auszeit angekündigt, um über seine Mitwirkung in der Kommission nachzudenken; diese dauert bis heute an. Hintergrund für die Entscheidung soll der kirchliche Umgang mit Vertuschungsvorwürfen gegen Kurienkardinal George Pell im australischen Missbrauchskandal gewesen sein.

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ROM
Kolnische Rundschau

[Vatican setback for the Pope in the fight against child abuse.]

Rom –
Jüngst sagte der einflussreiche deutsche Kardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, dass die katholische Kirche „im Gegensatz zu anderen Institutionen“ bei Kindesmissbrauch wirklich an einer Null-Toleranz-Politik arbeite. Die Worte des Chefs der mächtigen Glaubenskongregation klingen jetzt wie Hohn. Am Mittwoch trat ein Mitglied der Kinderschutzkommission des Vatikans, die Papst Franziskus vor drei Jahren gegründet hatte, zurück. Mit einer Begründung, die es in sich hat.

Aus „Frustration“ über die mangelnde Kooperation der Behörden der römischen Kurie lege Marie Collins das Amt nieder, teilte das Gremium in einer ungewöhnlich offenen Erklärung mit. Die Irin Collins war selbst als Kind Opfer von sexueller Gewalt katholischer Geistlicher geworden. Und sie war eines von ursprünglich zwei Missbrauchsopfern in der Kommission, die eigentlich Schluss machen sollte mit Vertuschung von Kindesmissbrauch in der Kirche.

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IRELAND
Marie Collins

I sent my letter of resignation (copied to Cardinal O’Malley), from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, to Pope Francis on the 9th February 2017 to have effect from 1st March 2017.

Since the beginning of the Commission in March 2014 I have been impressed with the dedication of my colleagues and the genuine wish by Pope Francis for assistance in dealing with the issue of clerical sexual abuse. I believe the setting up of the Commission, the bringing in of outside expertise to advise him on what was necessary to make minors safer, was a sincere move.

However, despite the Holy Father approving all the recommendations made to him by the Commission, there have been constant setbacks. This has been directly due to the resistance by some members of the Vatican Curia to the work of the Commission. The lack of co-operation, particularly by the dicastery most closely involved in dealing with cases of abuse, has been shameful.

Late last year a simple recommendation, approved by Pope Francis, went to this dicastery in regard to a small change of procedure in the context of care for victims/survivors. In January I learned the change was refused. At the same time a request for co-operation on a fundamental issue of Commission work in regard to safeguarding was also refused. While I hope the Commission will succeed in overcoming this resistance, for me it is the last straw.

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VATICAN CITY
ANSA

(ANSA) – Vatican City, March 1 – Marie Collins, an Irish woman who was a victim of repeated sexual abuse by a priest when she was a girl, has quit an international commission on protecting children that was set up by Pope Francis. The resignation was announced by the pontifical commission headed by Cardinal Sean O’Malley. Collins had been part of the body since its inception in 2014.

“In discussing with the Cardinal, and in her resignation letter to the Holy Father, Mrs. Collins cited her frustration at the lack of cooperation with the Commission by other offices in the Roman Curia,” read a statement.

The commission is an important part of the Catholic Church’s drive to stamp out sexual abuse of minors by members of the clergy after a series of scandals in many parts of the world.

After Collins’ resignation, the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors has 16 members, none of whom are abuse survivors. The statement said Collins accepted an invitation to continue to work with the Commission in an educational role and that the pope had accepted her resignation “with deep appreciation for her work on behalf of the victims/survivors of clergy abuse”.

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IRELAND
The Journal

ABUSE SURVIVOR AND campaigner Marie Collins has resigned from her position on the Vatican’s commission for the protection of minors, criticising the lack of resources and powers granted to it.

The committee was set up to help improve measures within the Catholic church to protect children against sex abuse, and Collins joined the commission in 2014.

At the time, she told TheJournal.ie that it was vital that “voice of a survivor be in that discussion”.

In a statement to the National Catholic Reporter, Collins criticised inadequate structures around support staff, slowness of forward movement and cultural resistance within the church.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

Irish abuse victim Marie Collins said on Wednesday she had left a commission advising Pope Francis on how to root out sexual abuse of children by clergy, in a major embarrassment to the Holy See.

The work of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, set up by Francis in March 2014, has been slowed down by internal disputes and resignations.

Collins, who was the only remaining Commission member to have suffered sexual abuse by a cleric, said the panel had been hampered by the Vatican’s administration, known as the Curia, resulting in “constant setbacks.”

“The lack of cooperation, particularly by the dicastery most closely involved in dealing with cases of abuse, has been shameful,” she said in a statement.

Collins’s decision is a major setback for the pope’s efforts to tackle sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, even though she praised him for his “genuine wish” to solve the problem and his “sincere move” in setting up the commission.

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NEW YORK
New York Times

By SHARON OTTERMAN
FEB. 28, 2017

The Archdiocese of New York wants to take out a $100 million mortgage on one of its prized real estate possessions to fund a compensation program for victims of clergy sexual abuse.

The petition for a mortgage, which was filed in New York State Supreme Court on Monday, will be on the land the archdiocese owns underneath the luxury Lotte New York Palace Hotel and a semicircle of landmark 19th-century mansions known as the Villard Houses, on Madison Avenue between 50th and 51st Streets.

Directly across Madison Avenue from St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the land was acquired by the archdiocese in the decades after World War II. In the 1970s, the archdiocese entered into a 99-year ground lease with the developer Harry Helmsley that allowed him to build a 54-story hotel on the property and rent the underlying land for $1 million a year.

The hotel and leasehold were purchased in 1993 by the royal family of Brunei, then sold to a private equity fund, and then to the current owner, Lotte, in 2015. The archdiocese did not say how much rent it receives for the underlying land.

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NEW YORK
PIX 11

MARCH 1, 2017, BY KIRSTIN COLE

NEW YORK – The Archdiocese of New York has a plan to pay sex abuse victims.

It wants to mortgage land behind St. Patrick’s Cathedral for $100 million.

The petition for the mortgage was reportedly field in Manhattan’s Supreme Court on Monday.

Last year, Cardinal Timothy Dolan announced the program to compensate the victims of child sex abuse by clergy.

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INDIA
Scroll

TA Ameerudheen

Barely two months after Pope Francis had exhorted Bishops all over the world to show zero tolerance towards crimes against children, a Catholic priest was arrested on charges of child sexual abuse in Kerala.

Father Robin, as Mathew Vadakkancheril had come to be known as Vicar of St Sebastian’s Church in Kottiyoor in Kannur district of Kerala, was arrested on Monday for allegedly raping a 16-year-old last year.

Vadakkancheril was arrested in Thrissur while trying to leave the country.

In his letter on January 2, 2017, the pope had begged forgiveness for the sufferings of children who were sexually abused by priests. “It is a sin that shames the Church,” the letter read.

Taking a cue from the pope’s advice, the Mananthavady Bishop, Jose Porunnedom, removed the accused from the office of the Vicar and suspended him from exercising his priestly ministry.

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CANADA
Global News

By Paula Baker
Online News Producer

Despite months of controversy in the lead-up to his keynote speech at a University of British Columbia (UBC) fundraising event on Tuesday, former Vancouver Olympics CEO John Furlong was greeted with a standing ovation by the attendees and only a handful of protesters outside.

In his speech Furlong admitted to student athletes and alumni that he’s had “a few challenges the past few years” and in times of hopelessness and despair, the only thing you can rely on is the truth.

UBC removed the Own the Podium board chairman from the fundraiser’s event for student athletes in December, after graduate Glynnis Kirchmeier circulated an open letter criticizing Furlong’s record with First Nations.

Furlong has vehemently denied allegations in a 2012 newspaper article that he beat First Nations children while teaching in northern B.C. decades ago and Laura Robinson, the journalist who wrote the article, later lost her defamation lawsuit against Furlong.

The decision to pull Furlong — and replace him with Ono as speaker — was met with a public backlash. Some social media users who identified themselves as long-time supporters of the university threatened to stop donating to UBC.

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CANADA
The Globe and Mail

LAURA KANE
VANCOUVER — The Canadian Press
Published Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2017

John Furlong received a standing ovation at a University of British Columbia fundraiser Tuesday while protesters gathered outside to draw attention to what they called the “silencing” of First Nations people who have accused him of abuse.

The keynote speech by the former Vancouver Olympics CEO at the student athletics event has been a source of controversy after the university cancelled it in December before president Santa Ono apologized and invited Furlong back.

After Furlong took the stage in Vancouver’s convention centre to thunderous applause from donors and young athletes, a video was played of triumphant moments from the 2010 Olympics set to rousing music. He said he was “very, very moved.”

“I’ve had a few challenges come my way in the past few years that I’d rather not have had to face, but I’ve had to,” he said. “I’ve also discovered that life doesn’t treat everybody fairly. Fair just doesn’t enter into it. But feeling sorry for yourself isn’t worth the time of day and it’s not becoming.”

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio , heugenio@guampdn.com March 1, 2017

Saipan retired Bishop Tomas A. Camacho has been granted more time to respond to a former altar boy’s lawsuit, alleging that the former Guam priest raped and sexually abused him in the 1970s.

Camacho has until March 31 to file his response because his attorney, William M. Fitzgerald, will be in the mainland for a medical check up.

The additional time is part of a stipulation between Fitzgerald and attorney David Lujan, counsel for plaintiff Melvin Duenas, now a 55-year-old Yona resident. U.S. District Court of Guam Magistrate Judge Joaquin Manibusan signed the stipulation on Feb. 28.

Duenas, through Lujan, filed in the U.S. District Court of Guam on Feb. 13 a lawsuit alleging that Camacho sexually abused and raped him multiple times from approximately 1971 to 1974, when Camacho was priest at Saint Joseph Catholic Church in Inarajan.

Meanwhile, Manibusan granted the Archdiocese of Agana’s request for more time, or up to March 10, 2017, to respond to clergy sex abuse cases previously filed in federal court. The judge also granted the petition of four California-based attorneys to be co-counsel, along with a Guam law firm, for the archdiocese in the clergy sex abuse cases.

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IRELAND
Galway Independent

A ceremony to remember the ‘Magdalene’ women buried in Bohermore Cemetery will take place this Sunday, 5 March.

The event will begin at 12noon at the gates of the cemetery. Flowers will then be laid on the graves of the former Magdalene Laundry residents buried in Bohermore. The event is “to remember and honour women who lived and died behind convent walls”, say organisers, who are working with the Justice for Magdalenes Research (JFMR) organisation.

Spokesperson Rachel Doyle said, “A group of us get together every year to remember the lives of the Magdalene women buried in Bohermore. It is important that they are not forgotten and that their lives are remembered and honoured.”

This is the sixth annual ‘Flowers for Magdalenes’ event and similar ceremonies will take place at Magdalene graves around the country. At least 1,663 former Magdalene women are buried in cemeteries around the country, many in unmarked graves.

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IRELAND
RTE News

Abuse survivor Marie Collins has resigned from a panel established by Pope Francis to address clerical sexual abuse, accusing senior Vatican officials of “shameful” resistance to its work.

Ms Collins’ departure is a blow to the pontiff’s attempts to demonstrate that the Church is serious about combating the abuse that has profoundly damaged its image over recent decades.

She is the second abuse survivor to leave the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors

Briton Peter Saunders was sidelined last year after a dispute with other members over how to handle allegations of serial abuse by an Italian priest that were brought to the panel’s attention.

Mr Saunders subsequently told AFP he felt betrayed by Francis and that he had been tricked into taking part in a “smoke and mirrors” exercise.

In her resignation letter, Ms Collins said she believed Francis had acted sincerely when he set up the panel to advise him on steps to make minors safer.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

Abuse survivor Marie Collins has resigned from the Vatican’s Commission for the Protection of Minors due to frustration with some officials in the Roman curia. Her resignation takes effect from today.

She had been with the commission for over three years. “Three difficult years. But I’ve kept the hope that we would be able to bring change because the other members of the commission are very sincere. They’re very good people, as is (commission chair) Cardinal Seán O’Malley. And Pope Francis has supported all our recommendations.”

But she has found “the attitude of a small number in the Vatican’s curia is resistant to the work of the commission and has not been co-operative.”

Her decision to resign followed an accumulation of frustrations at the hands of such officials. It came to a head recently over “one small issue that for me was the last straw. It was in the context of healing for survivors and victims.”

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Mar. 1, 2017

VATICAN CITY

The only active member of Pope Francis’ new commission on clergy sexual abuse who is an abuse survivor has resigned from the group due to frustration with Vatican officials’ reluctance to cooperate with its work to protect children.

Marie Collins, an Irishwoman who has served on the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors since March 2014, announced her resignation in a press statement Wednesday.

In a separate exclusive statement for NCR explaining her choice, Collins says she decided to leave the commission after losing hope that Vatican officials would cooperate with its work following a failure to implement a series of recommendations.

Collins says her decision to resign was immediately precipitated by one Vatican office’s refusal to comply with a request from the commission, approved by the pope, that all letters sent to the Vatican by abuse survivors receive a response.

“I find it impossible to listen to public statements about the deep concern in the church for the care of those whose lives have been blighted by abuse, yet to watch privately as a congregation in the Vatican refuses to even acknowledge their letters!” Collins writes in the statement.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Marie Collins | Mar. 1, 2017

Editor’s Note: Marie Collins of Ireland was appointed in 2014 as one of two survivors of clergy sex abuse to serve on Pope Francis’ Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. She is resigning that position today. She wrote the following statement for NCR about her decision.

The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors has had difficulties to overcome in its three years of existence.

Obviously I intend to respect the confidentiality of my former colleagues on the Commission and the work they are doing, but some of the main stumbling blocks that I can mention have already been detailed by Commission members who gave testimony Feb. 23 to Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

These stumbling blocks include: lack of resources, inadequate structures around support staff, slowness of forward movement and cultural resistance. The most significant problem has been reluctance of some members of the Vatican Curia to implement the recommendations of the Commission despite their approval by the pope.

In her testimony, Kathleen McCormack, the Commission’s Australian member, summed up the struggles and emphasized the need to keep hope. “Like water on a rock,” she said, “we’ve just got to keep at it.”

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VATICAN CITY
Crux

Inés San Martín March 1, 2017
VATICAN CORRESPONDENT

The lone abuse survivor currently serving as an active member of Pope Francis’s commission to fight clerical sexual abuse has quit, citing resistance to the commission’s efforts within the Roman Curia — not over the issue of child protection, she says, but rather the machinations of ‘Vatican politics.’

ROME-Irish laywoman Marie Collins, the lone clerical sex abuse survivor currently serving as an active member of Pope Francis’ Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, is stepping down because she says the group’s work is being “hindered and blocked by members of the Curia.”

“The reason for me leaving the Commission is completely down to the fact that the work we’re trying to do is being hindered and blocked by members of the curia,” Collins told Crux in a phone interview. “The commission itself has been really working really hard and trying to put forth the mission given to us by the Holy Father.”

Her decision to step down was announced by the commission through a statement on Wednesday. Collins has agreed, however, to continue working with the Church to deliver anti-abuse training to clergy, including newly ordained bishops.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors [PCPM] has issued the following statement after the resignation of abuse survivor, Mrs. Marie Collins.

On Monday, February 13, 2017, Mrs. Marie Collins, a Member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors [PCPM] advised Cardinal Sean O’Malley, President of the PCPM, of her intent to resign from the Commission effective March 1, 2017.

Mrs. Collins, a Member of the Pontifical Commission since its inception in 2014 is a survivor of clerical abuse, and consistently and tirelessly championed for the voices of the victims/survivors to be heard, and for the healing of victims/survivors to be a priority of the Church. In discussing with the Cardinal, and in her resignation letter to the Holy Father, Mrs. Collins cited her frustration at the lack of cooperation with the Commission by other offices in the Roman Curia.

Mrs. Collins accepted an invitation from Cardinal O’Malley to continue to work with the Commission in an educational role in recognition of her exceptional teaching skills and impact of her testimony as a survivor.

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INDIA
The New Indian Express

By Babu K Peter | Express News Service | Published: 01st March 2017

KOCHI: Despite attempts by the Church to rein in clerical sex abuse, incidents of exploitation of minors, both female and male, involving priests are on the rise casting a shadow on the Church in Kerala.

Concerned over the increase in incidents of priests sexually abusing minors, the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council (KCBC) is considering a protocol for priests and nuns who interact with students.

“It is unfortunate such cases are being reported frequently. If this is the situation, the Church will have to think of framing a protocol for priests and nuns who interact with children,” said Fr Varghese Vallikkatt, KCBC deputy secretary and spokesperson.

At least five major incidents of child abuse involving priests have been reported in Kerala during the last two years. Only one among the accused in these cases has been convicted.

It was just two months ago Fr Edwin Figarez, who was the parish priest at Puthenvelikkara, was awarded double life term for raping a 14-year-old girl. In October 2016, Fr James Thekemuriyil, the rector of a seminary in Kannur district, was arrested by the police for alleged sexual assault on a 21-year-old seminarian who was undergoing training under him at the institution. Fr Raju Kokkan, parish priest of St Paul’s Church at Thaikkattusery was arrested for abusing a 10-year-old girl. He allegedly abused the girl after inviting her to the parsonage. He had offered a new set of dress for her first holy communion ceremony.

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AUSTRALIA
Eureka Street

Frank Brennan | 28 February 2017

Homily, Holy Trinity Church, Curtin, Transfiguration Parish, North Woden, Canberra, 26 February 2017

Jesus has told his disciples: ‘No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot be the slave both of God and of money.’

We have just emerged from what the media calls ‘the Catholic wrap up’ at the Royal Commission. This three-week hearing culminated in the joint appearance of the five most senior bishops in our Australian Church. They apologised not just for the sins of those church personnel who violated children, the most vulnerable members of our church community. They apologised and acknowledged also the gross failures of their predecessors and other church authorities who failed to act resolutely and compassionately in relation to the perpetrators and the victims, labelling their responses as ‘scandalously insufficient, hopelessly inadequate, scandalously inefficient’, as ‘a kind of criminal negligence’, ‘totally, totally inadequate. Just totally wrong’. Some ‘were just like rabbits in the headlights. They just had no idea what to do, and their performance was appalling.’

Here were our most senior church leaders admitting that in the past there were church authorities seeking to serve two masters, and failing completely. No doubt those past church authorities were professing their faith in, commitment to and discipleship with Jesus who said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them! For the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.’ (Mt 19:4) But in the past, these spiritual leaders were also professing their commitment to an institution which commanded their hierarchical obedience and clerical acquiescence in protecting the institution’s public reputation and its coffers. We are now left in no doubt: ‘No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot be the slave both of God and of money.’

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INDIA
First Post

TK Devasia Mar, 01 2017

An anonymous letter received by a child-line in Kerala has brought to light a major operation to cover up the rape of a minor girl by a Catholic priest in the state with 18 percent Christian population.

The police foiled the operation by detaining Fr Robin Vadakkumchery, vicar of St. Sebastians Church at Kottiyoor in the state’s northern district of Kannur, while he tried to escape to Canada on 27 February.

The police recorded the arrest of the 48-year-old priest, who allegedly raped and impregnated the 16-year-old girl, on Monday and a case slapped against him under section 376 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act.

The priest, who belongs to the Mananthavady diocese of Syro-Malabar Church, one of the three Catholic rites in Kerala, had tried to cover up the incident by taking the girl to a Church-run hospital for delivery and thereafter shifting both the mother and the new-born baby to an orphanage under the diocese.

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INDIA
Yahoo! News

A 48-year-old Christian priest in Kerala, who was arrested on Monday evening for allegedly raping a minor girl, has confessed to the crime, say police.

After successfully managing to hide the crime for months, the police say that Father Robin Vadakkanchery has finally confessed to raping the 16-year-old girl and subsequently impregnating her.

After the police filed a case against him on Saturday, Father Robin was on the run and was arrested from Chalakkudy in Thrissur district.

“During the process of questioning, the priest has confessed to the crime. A case has been filed against Father Robin under various provisions of POCSO including Section 5 (n), 6 and 7. Depending on what the investigations reveal, more sections will be added if necessary,” Peravoor Circle Inspector Sunil Kumar told The News Minute. He will be produced before Thalassery sessions court on Tuesday.

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ROME
Crux

John L. Allen Jr. March 1, 2017
EDITOR

Although the optics of the exit of the lone survivor serving as an active member of Pope Francis’s anti-sex abuse commission aren’t good, the reality is that naming survivors as members puts them in an extremely awkward spot, trapped between their loyalties to the Vatican and to fellow survivors.

In terms of the optics of the situation, there’s just no way in which the departure of Marie Collins, the only abuse survivor who was also an active member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, looks good for Pope Francis.

Citing frustrations with resistance to the commission’s work from within the Roman Curia, Collins announced today that she’s stepping down, though she’ll continue to work with the group in delivering anti-abuse training to clergy. Her exit comes at a time when Francis’s standing with survivors was already taking hits, in part because of revelations that he’s lightened the punishments imposed on several abuser priests in what the pontiff sees as a spirit of mercy, but what critics regard as a breakdown in accountability.

Certainly, the bureaucratic inertia and power games described by Collins raise legitimate questions about how serious the Vatican may be in terms of its commitment to reform. However, if one looks at the situation dispassionately, there’s also a case to be made that Collins’s resignation, along with the inactive status of the only other survivor on the commission, Peter Saunders of the UK, was both inevitable and arguably for the best.

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TEXAS
Waco Tribune

By PHILLIP ERICKSEN pericksen@wacotrib.com and KRISTIN Hoppa khoppa@wacotrib.com

A Hillsboro pastor and student at Baylor University’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary was arrested Monday, accused of sexually assaulting a child after a mother allegedly caught him with her daughter in a car.

Benjamin Nelson, 27, was booked into Hill County Jail after Whitney police found him at his home in Waco.

Nelson was charged with two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child and one charge of deadly conduct, which came because Nelson allegedly drove recklessly near the child’s mother while leaving the scene in a Whitney shopping center, according to Whitney police.

According to his Facebook page, Nelson is pastor of Peoria Baptist Church and a student at Truett Seminary.

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SCOTLAND
STV

[with video]

David Cowan

Police said they found no evidence of foul play in Sammy Carr’s death.

A boy was killed by a nun at a Scottish orphanage, a former resident has claimed.

Sammy Carr died in 1964 while under the care of the Smyllum Park in Lanark, South Lanarkshire.

Police Scotland investigated the claims made by a former resident and said they found no evidence of criminality.

But the sisters of six-year-old Sammy are now convinced he was attacked before he died.

Symllum Park has long been the subject of allegations that some of its young residents suffered physical and psychological abuse. The orphanage was run by the Poor Sisters of Charity, now known as the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent De Paul.

The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry is investigating the facility and four other residential care establishments run by the same order.

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SCOTLAND
Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry

A new factsheet has been added to the website, providing clarification on when the Inquiry may share an applicant’s name with the organisation or person named as an abuser or their legal representatives.

The Inquiry must be fair to everyone involved with the Inquiry. This is a legal requirement. Sometimes the need for fairness will mean that the Inquiry must share the applicant’s name with the organisation or person named as an abuser. Not every organisation or person named as an abuser will be told the name of the applicant. This will only happen when the Inquiry must do so to be fair.

You can read more about this in the new factsheet. A link to the factsheet is at the bottom of this page.

Related documents
Factsheet – Disclosing allegations

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

YOU might think it would be axiomatic that the identities of abuse survivors, testifying at a judge-led inquiry about personal suffering, would be given the utmost protection.

Many will have borne their burden for years, alone: it takes considerable courage to even think about giving evidence to a senior judge, far more to actually do so.

But now, in what appears to be a startling volte face, the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry has said that anyone accused of abuse, or any institution alleged to have overseen abuse, will be told the name of the person making the allegations, unless their guilt has been confirmed.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

by Stephen Naysmith, Social affairs correspondent

ABUSE survivors are threatening to abandon a public inquiry into historic sexual crimes in the Scottish care system after it emerged their identities would be revealed to the alleged perpetrators.

Lady Smith, head of the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry, has said anyone accused of abuse, or any institution alleged to have overseen abuse, will be told the name of the person making the allegations “in the interests of fairness”.

Previously the inquiry’s rules appeared to suggest this was only a possibility and identification would only occur if it was in the interests of its work.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Culture

By Phil Lawler
Feb 28, 2017

Talk about burying the lede! Credit the indispensable Terry Mattingly with noticing that in yesterday’s story about the Pope’s willingness to ease penalties on pedophile priests, AP put the most remarkable information in the last paragraph. So the biggest news was trimmed out of the story by most of the media outlets that carried it (including, sad to say, the story to which CWN linked in our News Brief).

That stunning paragraph focuses on the Pope’s special commission on sexual abuse, the initiatives that it has taken, and the net results:

Francis scrapped the commission’s proposed tribunal for bishops who botch abuse cases following legal objections from the congregation. The commission’s other major initiative — a guideline template to help dioceses develop policies to fight abuse and safeguard children — is gathering dust. The Vatican never sent the template to bishops’ conferences, as the commission had sought, or even linked it to its main abuse-resource website.

We already knew that the papal commission was languishing, because of a lack of funding, shortage of staff, and failure to hold regular meetings. But this news—inexplicably buried in the AP report—is far more damaging. The commission has launched two important projects, and neither has been implemented.

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INDIA
Web India 123

Member of Parliament and AIDWA national leader PK Sreemathy today demanded a probe against the arrested priest of St Sebastian Church for impregnating a 16-year-old girl, who gave recently birth to a baby.Ms Sreemathy visited the family of the girl at Kottiyoor in the morning and said the incident was a disgrace to Kerala. She demanded that the police examine the computer and laptop of the priest and take strong action against him. This is not an isolated incident related to Priest Robin, who was allegedly trafficking poor girls of Kannur in the name of job opportunities, to different parts of India and overseas.Talking to the newspersons at a press conference here, Ms Sreemathy said the allegations of human trafficking were reported after the arrest of Priest Robin. Around 600 teenage girls have been sent to Canada, Gujarat and Bangalore by the priest-led team, on the promise of job. He also regularly visited Canada and other parts of the country.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Altoona Mirror

Editorial

A year ago today — March 1, 2016 — Catholics of the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese experienced a tidal wave of shock, sadness, anger and feelings of betrayal in response to a state grand jury report alleging that hundreds of children had been sexually abused by about 50 priests over more than 40 years in the local diocese.

The grand jury report, delivered in Altoona by then-Attorney General Kathleen Kane, also exposed the horrific finding that two former diocesan leaders — Bishops James Hogan and Joseph Adamec — had covered up priests’ wrongdoing or warded off inquiries about that wrongdoing.

While, 12 months later, the blockbuster revelations no longer are a topic of daily conversation and news reports, what the grand jury uncovered remains planted firmly in Catholics’ feelings and emotions, and many of those Catholics remain troubled about what might come next.

During her presentation, Kane described the report as providing a “day of reckoning” for those whose wrongdoing the report detailed. Looking ahead, the biggest question mark centers on whether similar days of reckoning might be forthcoming for the Dioceses of Allentown, Erie, Greensburg, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Scranton.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Sandra Laville
Wednesday 1 March 2017

Lawyers have called for more transparency from the national child abuse inquiry over the naming of the perpetrators after their identities were withheld from the public hearings.

Aswini Weereratne QC, who represents the Child Migrant Trust, said she was unhappy about the ciphering of the names of abusers at the public hearing particularly as many of them are now dead.

“I want to put it on the record,” she said. “Really it is about the naming of abusers. It is really an issue of open justice that they should be heard.” Weereratne was speaking on the second day of the inquiry’s first public hearings. She indicated she may challenge the whole basis on which the redaction of abusers’ names was being applied.

She told the hearing that the trust was trying to help by providing information to the inquiry about which perpetrators might be dead. “We consider it a matter of the principle of open justice that there should be as much openness about the naming of the perpetrators,” she said.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Derry Journal

A Derry woman who was just seven years old when she was sent to Australia as part of the controversial “child migrant scheme” says she’s worried she may not live long enough to see justice done.

Peggy Gibson, who is now aged 77, was separated from her family and transported to Australia in 1948 where, she says, she suffered horrific abuse.

Originally from Quarry Street in the Brandywell but now living in Melbourne, Peggy says it’s important that her abuse is acknowledged during her lifetime.

Her lawyers have written to the Northern Ireland Executive asking it to ensure that a redress scheme recommended recently by the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA) is implemented with “special priority” given to elderly claimants.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Altoona Mirror

MAR 1, 2017

RUSS O’REILLY
Staff Writer
roreilly@altoonamirror.com

A year after a statewide grand jury revealed the scope of child molestation among the ranks of Roman Catholic clergy in Altoona and stressed that allegations were mishandled by former church leadership, diocese spokesman Tony DeGol said Bishop Mark Bartchak will soon announce his plans for turning the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese into a leader in youth protection.

“Over the past year, Bishop Bartchak has devoted much of his time to collaborating with a diverse group of stakeholders to develop a new comprehensive approach that will help to make the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown a leader in the field of youth protection. We will be announcing the product of these efforts in the near future,” DeGol wrote in an email.

“The release of the grand jury report was heartbreaking for all Catholics, and it was especially painful for the survivors of sexual abuse and their loved ones. Our thoughts and prayers are with them today and always,” DeGol wrote.

The report issued on this date last year named dozens of clergy who went virtually unpunished or uninvestigated by police.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Reading Eagle

Staff and wire reports

Several individuals who deal with the issue of child sexual abuse have said the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General is investigating the statewide Catholic Church.

The process is apparently similar to the grand jury probe that was convened against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown that concluded with a report released one year ago accusing the diocese of carrying out a decadeslong cover-up to protect pre-dator priests.

The AG’s office will neither confirm nor deny the existence of any grand jury.

State Rep. Mark Rozzi, a Muhlenberg Township Democrat, said he has talked to victims, nuns and priests who have testified before state investigators.

Rozzi does not know when the investigation will conclude, but, in his opinion, “This report is going to be one of the most damning grand jury reports.”

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AUSTRALIA
Canberra Times

Katie Burgess

Bravehearts founder Hetty Johnson has called for Catholic Archbishop Christopher Prowse to resign, after revelations he moved a priest he’d stood down over inappropriately touching a child, next to two Canberra primary schools.

“If this is the man we’re looking to in this region to protect children, then we’re looking in the wrong direction,” Ms Johnson said.

“No one should have any faith within that establishment with their children’s safety and wellbeing any longer. If that man was to live in that house for a nanosecond it would be too long, let alone two years. I think the archbishop needs to resign. He clearly doesn’t get it and he never will.”

Her call comes after Archbishop Prowse admitted it was a “mistake” not to tell the principal of a Canberra special needs school about the past of a retired priest he moved in next door.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

28 February, 2017

The Royal Commission will hold a public hearing commencing Monday 27 March 2017 in Sydney.

The scope and purpose of the public hearing is to inquire into:

1. The nature of child sexual abuse and related matters in institutional contexts in Australia and how community understanding of abuse has changed over time.

2. The extent of child sexual abuse in institutional contexts historically and in contemporary Australia, and challenges to identification and prevention.

3. The factors that contribute to the risk of child sexual abuse in institutional contexts:

* factors that make all children vulnerable to sexual abuse and heighten the vulnerability of particular groups of children to sexual abuse

* factors that may contribute to people sexually abusing children in institutional contexts

* institution-specific factors that may contribute to child sexual abuse.

4. The impacts of child sexual abuse and institutional responses on survivors, both in childhood and throughout their adult lives, their families and supporters, and the wider community.

5. Any related matters

Any person or institution wishing to seek leave to appear is invited to lodge a written application for leave to appear at the public hearing by Friday 10 March 2017.

Click here to access the form for applications for leave to appear.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

By Dave Sutor
dsutor@tribdem.com

Two separate bills to extend the statutes of limitation for victims of child sexual abuse have been introduced into the Pennsylvania General Assembly this year.

Both would eliminate all age limits for criminal actions and civil lawsuits against alleged abusers going forward.

However, there is a major difference.

A House of Representatives bill – introduced by state Rep. Mark Rozzi, a Democrat from Berks County, and supported by state Rep. Frank Burns from East Taylor Township – includes a two-year window in which past victims could file civil complaints against their alleged abusers. The Senate version does not contain any such retroactivity.

That point of contention led to the issue going unresolved last year when similar bills were debated after the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General issued a report – released one year ago on March 1, 2016 – that accused the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown of covering up child sexual abuse.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

By Dave Sutor
dsutor@tribdem.com

For decades, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown allegedly perpetrated a coverup to protect priests accused of sexually assaulting children.

Accusations against a few reported abusers, including Rev. Francis Luddy and Msgr. Francis McCaa, became publicly known during those years. But, for the most part, they were treated as isolated incidents by the community, instead of indications of a systemic problem.

That changed one year ago – on March 1, 2016 – when the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General released a grand jury report, accusing the diocese of sheltering at least 50 priests and other religious leaders, allegedly under the direct supervision of former Bishops Joseph Adamec and James Hogan.

The 147-page document provided information about “secret archives” kept by the diocese, a payout chart for different types of abuse, testimony from at least four priests who admitted to inappropriately touching children, and detailed biographies of the accused.

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NEW YORK
New York Post

By Julia Marsh and Bruce Golding
February 28, 2017

The Archdiocese of New York wants to mortgage a prized piece of property behind St. Patrick’s Cathedral to obtain $100 million to pay off victims of priestly sex abuse who agree not to take their cases to court.

The filing in Manhattan Supreme Court says JP Morgan Chase has agreed to loan the money against the archdiocese’s ownership of land beneath the luxury Lotte Palace Hotel on Madison Avenue between 50th and 51st streets.

Although the court filing doesn’t say why the church needs the dough, a spokesman confirmed it was part of a plan announced by Cardinal Timothy Dolan last year to strike out-of-court settlements with people who were abused by priests and deacons.

“When he introduced the Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program, the archdiocese planned to take a loan to cover the cost of the compensation. This loan is to do that,” archdiocese spokesman Joe Zwilling said.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

STEPHEN REX BROWN
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Tuesday, February 28, 2017

The Archdiocese of New York is seeking approval of a $100 million loan by mortgaging land behind St. Patrick’s Cathedral that will be used to pay victims of sexual abuse by clergy.

The loan, which requires a judge’s approval, will use the land, occupied by the Lotte New York Palace Hotel, as collateral.

Joseph Zwilling, spokesman for the Archdiocese, confirmed “the loan would be used to cover the settlement costs” of the Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program.

Timothy Cardinal Dolan announced the program last year meant to compensate victims of abuse of Archdiocese of New York clergy who were barred from bringing claims of sex abuse in court by the state’s statute of limitations.

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OREGON
The Register-Guard

By Jack Moran
The Register-Guard
FEB. 28, 2017

The alleged victim in a Eugene priest’s prostitution case told a jury on Tuesday that she was not completely truthful when testifying before a grand jury that returned a 10-count indictment against the priest last October.

The 18-year-old woman — a key prosecution witness — returned to the witness stand during Daniel MacKay’s trial on Tuesday in an attempt to clear up confusion about what she asserts happened between her and the priest.

The teenager testified Friday about a variety of sex acts that she says occurred during arranged meetings with MacKay.

But she acknowledged Tuesday that she had told the Lane County grand jury only about having performed oral sex on the priest, and had neglected to talk about other sex acts.

The alleged victim blamed alcohol and marijuana use, as well as embarrassment, for why she didn’t provide the grand jury with a complete account. She said she was high on drugs during her grand jury testimony.

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INDIA
Deccan Herald

The police in Kannur on Tuesday recorded the arrest of a Catholic priest in connection with the rape of a minor girl in Kottiyoor in the district.

Questions remained on the reported attempts to cover up the incident and the help that the priest got from some quarters as he attempted to flee the country.

Kelakam Police has registered a case against Robin Vadakkancheril (48) under the Protection Of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and Section 376 (rape) of the IPC. The incident came to light after a17-year-old girl delivered a child earlier this month.

Vadakkancheril was vicar at the St Sebastian Church in Kottiyoor, under the diocese of Mananthavady, and manager at a higher secondary school. He has since been removed from the positions.

The class XI student was raped by the vicar in the parish about a year ago. She was 16 at the time of the incident.

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INDIA
The Indian Express

Written by Shaju Philip | Thiruvananthapuram | Published:March 1, 2017

The Kerala Catholic priest, who allegedly raped a minor, had tried to foist the paternity of the child born to the victim on her own father, police said Tuesday.

An investigating officer of Kannur police said that in return Father Robin Vadakkancheril had promised to look after the family’s financial requirements in future.

Father Robin, 48, who belonged to the Catholic Diocese of Mananthavady, was caught from Kochi on Monday.

The girl, who earlier this month gave birth to a boy, had initially said her own father was the parent of the newborn.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Yahoo! News

The email addresses of people who registered to a child abuse victims forum have been shared with others in a blunder by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse. On the first day the beleaguered inquiry began hearing public evidence after a series of setbacks, the addresses of those on the Inquiry Victims and Survivors Forum were mistakenly made visible to each other. The inquiry team issued an immediate apology and referred the issue to the Information Commissioner’s Office. It came as the inquiry heard about the torture, slavery and rape of children forced to live abroad under the child migrant schemes in the wake of the Second World War.

Many never recover and are permanently afflicted with guilt, shame, diminished self-confidence, low self-esteem and trauma.
One victim of the child migrant scheme, David Hill

The inquiry has been plagued by problems – not least the resignation of three of the chairman and disagreement between some of the key figures in the team. In 2015, a technical blunder caused the accounts of child sex abuse victims to be deleted before even reaching inquiry staff. The latest error saw the email addresses of those who registered for the inquiry’s Victims and Survivors Forum made visible to others on the list. Chief Press Officer Debbie Kirby said: “This morning the Inquiry has apologised to a number of email recipients whose email addresses were mistakenly accessible to others on the list. We have asked them to delete the email. “The email was sent to those people who have registered for the Inquiry’s Victims and Survivors Forum. We will be self-referring this issue to the Information Commissioner’s Office.”

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SCOTLAND
BBC News

The cost of compensation for survivors of childhood abuse in Scotland could total at least £200m, MSPs have heard.

A bill has been tabled which would allow victims to claim compensation beyond the current three-year time bar.

Alistair Gaw of Social Work Scotland told Holyrood’s justice committee the cost could be “highly significant”.

He cited an inquiry in Jersey, where the average cost of a payout was £40,000, expanding this to a possible 5,000 Scottish victims.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A woman who was sent from England to Australia as a child was molested and left so hungry she ate grain meant for pigs, an inquiry has heard.

Marcelle O’Brien was sent to a home in Pinjarra, western Australia, run by the Fairbridge Society, at the age of four.

The then-Queen, wife of George VI, later intervened to ask whether she could return to the UK to be adopted.

But Fairbridge said it would not be in her “best interests”, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse heard.

Mrs O’Brien said she suffered “mental cruelty” and “sadistic” treatment at the home where she was forced to do “slave labour”.

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SCOTLAND
STV

Aidan Kerr

Around 5000 files relating to historical child abuse are held by Police Scotland.

Compensation paid to Scottish victims of childhood sexual abuse could total around £200m, MSPs have been told.

The Scottish Government has recently tabled legislation which would expand the time limit on compensation claims, meaning many more victims may come forward.

An independent inquiry into historical sexual abuse in Scotland is currently under way.

Alistair Gaw, of Social Work Scotland, told Holyrood’s justice committee the compensation bill could run into millions of pounds.

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AUSTRALIA/UNITED KINGDOM
news.com.au

Victoria Craw
news.com.au
@Victoria_Craw

AN EYEWITNESS has told of the horror he experienced at growing up in Western Australia where he was abused by older boys and a priest in a boarding school from age seven.

Speaking to the UK Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, the anonymous witness who is now 70 years old, said he was repeatedly raped and molested by older boys and in the church vestry as a child.

“It wasn’t just older boys it was some of the younger ones as well. Because I was small … they seemed to think it was very funny just to pick on the small ones and they did what they wanted to do.”

“Sometimes it wouldn’t just be myself. Sometimes it would be three or four of us. So I mean it wasn’t just me all the time.”

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IRELAND
Mayo News

Liamy MacNally

In Australia, the Catholic Church is facing a Royal Commission on child abuse. The public hearing was set up on February 6 to inquire into the current policies and procedures of Catholic Church authorities in Australia in relation to child-protection and child-safety standards, including responding to allegations of child sexual abuse.

One participant is Bishop Vincent Long from Sydney, who was questioned by Ms Gail Furness SC, Commissioner Robert Fitzgerald and Ms Jane Needham SC. Responding to a query ‘that clericalism has been described as a factor or playing a role in the abuse of children and the response to that abuse…’ he said:

“I see the clericalism as a by-product of a certain model of Church informed or underpinned or sustained by a certain theology. I mean, it’s no secret that we have been operating, at least under the two previous pontificates, from what I’d describe as a perfect society model where there is a neat, almost divinely inspired, pecking order, and that pecking order is heavily tilted towards the ordained. So you have the pope, the cardinals, the bishops, religious, consecrated men and women, and the laity right at the bottom of the pyramid.”

Bishop Long continued: “I think we need to dismantle that model of Church. If I could use the biblical image of wineskins, it’s old wineskins that are no longer relevant, no longer able to contain the new wine, if you like. I think we really need to examine seriously that kind of model of Church where it promotes the superiority of the ordained and it facilitates that power imbalance between the ordained and the non-ordained, which in turn facilitates that attitude of clericalism, if you like.”

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Michael Sean Winters | Feb. 28, 2017

The headline was alarming: “Pope Francis quietly trims sanctions for sex abusers seeking mercy.” The reporter, Nicole Winfield of The Associated Press, is one of the most respected in the religion news business. But is it so?

The clergy sex abuse story is the ugliest in the recent history of the Catholic church. Under St. Pope John Paul II, a serial abuser like Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder and head of the Legionaries of Christ, was not only unpunished, but he continued to receive support and even adulation at the Vatican. Pope Benedict XVI began a serious crackdown on clergy sex abuse, one of the real achievements of his pontificate.

Those of us who have studied the sex abuse crisis know how intimately intertwined it is with an unhealthy culture of clericalism. Just last week, the bishops of Australia acknowledged the role clerical culture played in both facilitating the crimes and the cover-up of those crimes. Bishop Vincent Long Van Nguyen of Parramatta, Australia, himself a victim of sex abuse, was especially withering in his criticism of clerical culture.

So, it is surprising to read that Francis, who is astute generally, and especially so in diagnosing the ills of clericalism, would be backsliding on the “zero tolerance” policy that is the keystone in the church’s response to the abuse of children. Again, is it so?

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UNITED STATES
These Stone Walls

POSTED BY FR. GORDON J. MACRAE ON FEBRUARY 22, 2017

I had a recent exchange of messages with Jennifer Haigh, a very accomplished author whose critically acclaimed novel, Faith (Harper, 2011), kept me sleep deprived for a couple of nights. It’s a book, of fiction, but for me, the fiction was painfully familiar. It is the story of Father Art Breen, a Boston priest accused of sexual abuse. Cast under a cloud of abuse of another sort – a vague state of priestly limbo called “administrative leave” – Father Art descends into despair as the Archdiocese “investigates” (aka “settles”) the claim.

Father Art’s skeptical younger sister, Sheila McGann, returns to Boston to launch an investigation of her own while younger brother Mike, a police officer, has “already convicted his brother in his heart.” The Archdiocese simply discards its tainted priest and moves on. The book has some surprises, which I won’t reveal, but no one among my family or friends would read it. “The anger and hurt are still too close,” they said.

Some of their anger is at me for not simply caving in. “If you just took the deal,” they say, “you would have been free twenty years ago.” More of their anger is at the accusers who they know, with a moral certainty, rode their wave of priestly scandal all the way to the bank, aided and abetted by the activists and lawyers who were recently unmasked in “David Clohessy Resigns SNAP in Alleged Lawyer Kickback Scheme.”

There is plenty of righteous anger to go around. . Just after that post was published, a priest-friend said it made him very angry. He has never been the subject of an accusation, but having seen the lives of too many priests destroyed, he has become keenly aware of how David Clohessy and others in SNAP exploited accusations under the guise of “survivor support.”

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AUSTRALIEN
Katholisch

[How should priests who experience confessions of abuse during confession deal with this information? On this question Australian bishops want to turn to the Vatican.]

Die australischen Bischöfe wollen von Papst Franziskus eine Klarstellung des Beichtsakraments fordern. Wie die US-Zeitschrift “National Catholic Reporter” schreibt, ziehen es fünf australische Erzbischöfe in Betracht, den Vatikan um eine Klärung zu bitten. Sie hatten zuvor an einer Anhörung vor der australischen Missbrauchskommission teilgenommen.

Die Absolution bei Missbrauch verweigern?

Dabei soll es vor allem darum gehen, ob das Beichtgeheimnis nur die tatsächlich gebeichteten Sünden betrifft oder auch sonstige Informationen, die während des Gesprächs bekannt werden. Die Bischöfe wollen außerdem wissen, unter welchen Umständen Priester eine Absolution des gebeichteten Missbrauchs verweigern könnten.

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ITALIA
Rete L’Abuso

[Pedophilia of the clergy: “sin” or “murder”?]

Chi violenta un minore non “offende” solo la castità (come dice il catechismo) ma compie un vero e proprio “delitto”.

di David Gabrielli

La questione della pedofilia del clero cattolico rimbalza, da qualche tempo, sulle prime pagine dei giornali, ed è tema di libri di successo. Essa – la violenza sessuale su bambini e adolescenti (seppure per questi si dovrebbe parlare di efebofilia) – non è affatto una “esclusiva” del clero; avviene soprattutto in famiglia, o col “turismo sessuale” in paesi esotici, praticata da gente che svolge le professioni più variegate e, di norma, è coperta da un’insuperabile omertà. Tristissimo fenomeno sul quale di solito si tace.

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ITALIA
Rete L’Abuso

[A priest has been sentenced to five years in prison for abusing minors.]

Sette i ragazzi vittime di Don Massimo Iuculano, 47 anni, direttore dell’Istituto salesiano “Sacro cuore di Gesù” di Vercelli. Li invitava in una sala all’interno della struttura, li depilava e li massaggiava con dell’olio. Seguivano palpeggiamenti e rapporti orali.

di Andrea Giambartolomei

Ha risarcito le vittime e ha ringraziato la procura per essere intervenuta a fermarlo, ma non è bastato. Il gup Luca Del Colle del Tribunale di Torino ha condannato a cinque anni di carcere don Massimo Iuculano, 47 anni, parroco e direttore dell’Istituto salesiano “Sacro cuore di Gesù” di Vercelli, accusato di diversi episodi di violenza sessuale su minori. All’uscita dal palazzo di giustizia il religioso ha preferito non rilasciare dichiarazioni. “Prendiamo atto – ha detto il suo avvocato, Carlo Blengino – e valuteremo se presentare appello”.

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GROSSBRITANNIEN
Blick

[Simon Bailey, president of the police association in the UK, describes child porn consumers as “low-risk” and said they should not be imprisoned.]

«Kinderpornos zu schauen sollte nicht strafbar sein», sagt Simon Bailey, Polizeipräsident in Norfolk, zur «DailyMail». Polizisten sollten sich auf Pädophile konzentrieren, die direkten Kontakt zu Kindern haben oder Missbrauch in Auftrag geben, zum Beispiel online.

Bailey will demnach «mindere» Vergehen entkriminalisieren und mit Beratung und Rehabilitation bekämpfen. Ihm sei bewusst, dass er mit dieser Forderung anecke.

Der Grund für seine Forderung: Weil sexueller Missbrauch auch gemeldet werden kann, wenn er Jahre zurück liegt, seien die Polizeisysteme an eine «Sättigungsgrenze» gelangt. Jetzt sei ein Punkt erreicht, das Blatt zu wenden. «Wir müssen nach Alternativen suchen.»

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

Patrick Sawer, senior reporter
28 FEBRUARY 2017

A leading police officer has said that paedophiles who view indecent images should not be charged and taken to court unless they pose a physical threat to children.

Simon Bailey, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for child protection, said low level offenders should simply be placed on the sex offenders register and given counselling and rehabilitation instead.

He said that would free the police to deal with the core of dangerous paedophiles who are seeking out and exploiting children in order to rape and carry out “the most awful sexual abuse” against them.

Mr Bailey said he acknowledged that many people would be “nervous” about his proposals.

But he said it was time to look at alternatives to prosecution because reports of sexual abuse have reached “saturation point”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

This links to the live stream for today’s inquiry hearing.

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UNITED STATES
GetReligion

Terry Mattingly

It is, without a doubt, one of the most frustrating, infuriating things that can happen to a reporter.

You write your story. You are extra careful – since it’s on an emotional topic full of fact-claims that are in dispute – to make sure that you have included several qualified voices offering competing points of view. You make sure your story is the length assigned by the editors.

You turn the story in. Then, when it comes out (this happens A LOT in ink-on-paper news) you see that the copy desk has – for some reason, often page layout – basically cut the story nearly in half. To make matters worse, the editors didn’t thin the story in a way that left the balanced structure intact. They just chopped off the end.

Some of your sources are furious. They accuse you of bias, because the story is so one-sided. They have no way to know that the printed story is not the story that you wrote.

I bring this up because I saw an Associated Press story the other day – with a Vatican dateline – that had me really shaking my head. It had, I thought, all kinds of problems in terms of balance and essential information. It didn’t help that this was on a very controversial topic, one cutting against the grain of most reporting about Pope Francis. The lede:

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis has quietly reduced sanctions against a handful of pedophile priests, applying his vision of a merciful church even to its worst offenders in ways that survivors of abuse and the pope’s own advisers question.

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