ABUSE TRACKER

GEORGIA
WSAV

[with video]

By Andrew Davis Published: February 27, 2017

The Catholic Church is stepping up to protect children.

A conference in Savannah this week is covering a wide range of topics including screening applicants who may be a risk for committing sexual abuse.

Unfortunately – events like this come too late for victims like Chris Templeton. He spoke to News 3 last year about being abused by Father Wayland Brown. Assaulted nearly sixty times back in 1987.

“(I remember) Him raping me in the Rectory. These were the flashbacks I was having, of him raping me in my parent’s home,” said Chris Templeton. “He walked in and told my mother i’ll sit with Chris while you get the girls. and he raped me right on my mom and dad’s couch. I can still see the fibers of the couch pressed up in my face. I can still feel it like it was yesterday. I can still see the yellow and brown carpet in my mom and dad’s house.”

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

UNITED STATES
Frum Follies

We have a serious problem when people say, “But it wasn’t rape,” or “Sexualizing a child without touching is creepy but not sexual abuse.” Creepy is practically a synonym for sexualizing.

Sex crimes should be seen from the point of view of harm to the victim/survivor, not in terms of the mechanics and body parts. There is what I call a “penetration fallacy” where the halachic and legal criteria of severity ignore the psycho-emotional harm.

Professionals report profound harm including suicides and overdose deaths because of sex abuse that did not involve penetration of any sort. As long as the sexual dimension is apparent enough to make it creepy, it becomes possible for it to seriously harm a child. Not every child. Resilience varies. Some can come out pretty well from horrific things while others are deeply harmed by lesser things.

Even the law recognizes the victim’s perspective by considering victim impact reports and statements in setting sentences. The law bases the amount of civil judgements on the basis of the effects such as subsequent functional impairment, not just the acts. This is correct because some children are more harmed by fondling than others are by penetration.

Jewish law has explicit categories for harm: nezek, tzar, ripui, sheves and boishes. Sex abuse, depending on the particulars can include all five: physical harm, pain, medical healing costs, incapacitation, and shame.

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

IRELAND
An Phoblacht

John Hedges
An Phoblacht Editor

THE sixth annual “Flowers for Magdalenes” remembrance event takes place next Sunday (5 March) at 2:30pm at Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin.

This special event aims to remember the women and girls who were incarcerated in Magdalene Laundries during that shameful period of our all too recent history.

The poignant ceremony will feature an address from Claire McGettrick of Justice for Magdalenes Research, Mary Lou McDonald TD (pictured below) and Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire TD.

This will be followed by the laying of flowers on the graves and monuments to the women, many of whom lived and died inside the walls of these institutions.

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

AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

February 28, 2017

Australian Associated Press

Adelaide’s Catholic archbishop will be allowed to once again appeal over a decision not to halt criminal proceedings relating to the alleged concealment of child sex assault.

NSW Director of Public Prosecutions Lloyd Babb SC on Tuesday argued another appeal by Archbishop Philip Wilson would have little chance of success.

But Court of Appeal judges Justice Carolyn Simpson and Justice Arthur Emmett granted permission for an appeal to be heard in front of a full panel of judges.

Archbishop Wilson, who is believed to be the world’s most senior Catholic charged with such offences, is accused of concealing information relevant to the 1971 sexual assault of a 10-year-old boy by deceased pedophile priest James Fletcher in Maitland.

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UNITED KINGDOM/AUSTRALIA
International Business Times

By Frenalyn Untalan on February 28 2017

First-hand accounts of people sent to Australia during the post-war decades will be heard as a step towards an independent inquiry into child sexual abuse. The “largest and most ambitious inquiry in the UK” will reportedly tackle what have really taken place inside the government, schools, hospitals, military and other institutions.

Imran Kahn, who spoke on behalf of former child migrant Oliver Cosgrove, said several children were physical and sexual abused. The scheme to “populate the empire with good, white British stock,” he said, has led to child abuse. Cosgrove has reportedly set foot to Australia in 1941.

“This was a systematic and institutional problem,” Kahn said. Men and women from the UK who were sent to the Land Down Under want to ensure that justice is served.

Based on testimonies at the Australian Royal Commission, schools in Western Australia which were run by the Christian Brothers forced boys to work ad bear beatings. Allegedly, children were also abused sexually and suffered hunger. Christian Brothers in different schools, which include Castledare, Contarf, Tardun and Bindoon in Perth, were named by children as abusers according to news.com.au.

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MICHIGAN
TheMediaReport

February 27, 2017

A falsely accused priest in Michigan has sued the group SNAP, SNAP’s disgraced former director David Clohessy, the Detroit Free Press newspaper, and the Macomb Daily newspaper, claiming that they wrongly charged that he molested a 16-year-old girl in the 1970s.

Rev. Kenneth Kaucheck filed a lawsuit for defamation and libel in Wayne County Circuit Court in Michigan, on January 30, and now TheMediaReport.com is the first to report the news. This is already the second lawsuit that SNAP has faced so far in 2017.

[**Click to read Fr. Kaucheck’s lawsuit against SNAP and the press (pdf)**]

Seeking truth and justice

In 2009, after Fr. Kaucheck had served over three decades in ministry with a completely unblemished record, a lone woman came forward to claim that Kaucheck molested her over thirty years earlier, in 1976. Kaucheck has vehemently denied the charges.

According to the lawsuit, Kaucheck was placed on administrative leave after the allegation, but neither a civil, criminal, or canonical hearing has ever been held for Kaucheck to present his case and fight the false claim.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Timna Jacks

It can start with making a child in their care feel “privileged”. Then might come the purchase of a toy.

What may seem like an innocent gesture may be the beginning of a plot to prepare a child for sex, according to the child abuse royal commission.

But how do you know? Schools, youth groups, and other organisations caring for children are being asked to be alert to grooming, but how can they step in before it’s too late?

The question is even more pertinent in Victoria, with new laws making grooming a criminal offence and the Victorian Government releasing new guidelines teaching children to watch out for grooming.

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

TENNESSEE
WBIR

[with video]

John North , WBIR

A Jacksboro preacher faces multiple sex charges that accuse him of abusing a now 17-year-old girl who lived with him, records show.

Jimmy E. Orick, 68, is accused of aggravated statutory rape, statutory rape by an authority figure, and sexual battery by an authority figure. A Campbell County grand jury returned the eight-count indictment on Thursday, and Orick was arrested the next day.

Orick has a March 6 court date in Campbell County Circuit Court, criminal division. He is free on bond.

The investigation began in December after the girl’s mother called authorities, according to records.

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UNITED STATES
Church Militant

by Christine Niles, M.St. (Oxon.), J.D. • ChurchMilitant.com • February 25, 2017

NAIROBI (ChurchMilitant.com) – A Kenyan home for abused boys needs help — and a faith-friendly crowdfunding initiative is featuring the the home as its newest featured project.

Founded by the Jewish Institute for Global Awareness (JIFGA) based on a concept developed by its co-director Arthur Goldberg, fundingmorality.com is focusing the spotlight on the Kenyan Youth Center for Sexually Exploited Boys. According to Goldberg, JIFGA ‘s mission is to educate people and develop projects to implement the universal ethical and moral values promulgated by God to Noah after the biblical Flood.

“Rich male tourists come to Kenya and lure these boys into this lifestyle,” Goldberg told Church Militant, “and the boys, many of them extremely poor, see it as a way to make quick money and get out of poverty. However, once they experience this life, they come to realize there are numerous damaging emotional, physical and psychological costs.”

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Advertiser

Katie Burgess

28 Feb 2017

A FORMER Tumut Catholic priest who was investigated for inappropriately touching children in the town was housed next to two Canberra primary schools because there was nowhere else to put him, the Archbishop of Canberra-Goulburn has revealed.

Father Brian Hassett has been living at Lanigan House in Garran, on the ground of Sts Peter and Paul Primary School, for about two years, Fairfax Media has learnt.

He was moved into the home for retired clergy, which also sits close to the Malkara School, after complaints about inappropriate behaviour towards children were made against him.

The claims related to his 30-year tenure in Tumut.

A spokesman for the church said one complaint related to a boundary violation and one to inappropriate touching.

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MARYLAND
CBS Baltimore

February 27, 2017
By Denise Koch

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — In the 60s and 70s, Father Joseph Maskell, a counselor at Archbishop Keough High School, was accused of molesting dozens of students — mostly women.

A recent WJZ investigation revealed many of those victims confided in 26-year-old Sister Cathy Cesnik just before her shocking murder nearly 50 years ago.

“She confronted him and she lost her life for it,” says Teresa Lancaster.

Harsh accusations were told to WJZ by many of Maskell’s victims. We have spoken with two of those women, and now a third, Lancaster, is coming forward with a new bombshell.

She told WJZ she was abused not only by Father Maskell, but also by police officers.

“Father Maskell picked me up, took me to a wooded area where there was a lot of policemen gathered around, he left me in the backseat and two policemen abused me while Maskell stood next to the car,” she told WJZ’s Denise Koch.

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INDIA
Mathrubhumi

Peravoor (Kannur): Fr. Robin Vadakkumchery (48), who was nabbed on Monday for abusing and impregnating a Plus One student, has confessed to the crime.

The police are considering to register cases against the hospital authorities who concealed the girl’s delivery and against those who tried to protect.

Police said that Robin confessed to the crime during the questioning. The priest was taken to St. Sebastian’s church to collect evidence.

Police had arrested Robin on Monday from Chalakudy after he went absconding when the incident became public. He was caught while trying to escape to C.

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INDIA
Scroll

A 48-year-old Catholic priest has been arrested in Kochi for raping a 17-year-old girl in 2016, who gave birth to a child a few weeks ago, ANI reported. Father Robin Vaddakumchiryil, vicar of St Sebastian church in Kottiyoor, allegedly got the baby admitted to a facility in Wayanad. Ironically, the accused was known for speaking publicly against child sex abuse.

“The parents had not filed a complaint. But based on a tip-off received by the child helpline, we carried out an initial probe and found the report to be true. We have filed a case of rape against the priest,” a police officer told NDTV.

Officials said a case has been registered against a private hospital, for conducting the delivery without informing the police, Hindustan Times reported. “The priest also made an attempt to implicate the girl’s father in the case. Since the family is from an economically weaker section, he tried to implicate him and told many about this,” said Deputy Superintendent of Police Prajeesh.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By GEORGE ODLING FOR THE DAILY MAIL

Paedophiles who look at indecent photos of children should not face criminal sanctions unless they pose a physical threat, according to Britain’s most senior child protection officer.

An increase in reporting of sexual abuse – including online and historical cases – has meant the policing system has reached ‘saturation point’, according to chief constable Simon Bailey, national police lead for child protection.

Taking a stance he acknowledged would horrify many, he said lower level offending should be de-criminalised and dealt with through counselling and rehabilitation, The Times reported.

But critics argued the proposals could give paedophiles the green light to offend without fear of prosecution.

‘The police service [is] having to deal with an unprecedented volume of reports of non-recent abuse, ongoing abuse, online abuse, peer to peer abuse,’ he said.

‘The numbers are continuing to rise. We have reached saturation point…the police service has responded to the threat but it has now reached that point whereby we have to try and turn the tide. We have to look at alternatives.’

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UNITED KINGDOM
Independent

Editorial

Well within living memory, the British state, alongside charities and churches, was engaged in the mass abuse of children. In what was virtually a modern system of transportation – but without even the semblance of justice in those older cases of the deportation of convicts – thousands of children were in effect removed unlawfully from the UK to Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). The final destination of the White Commonwealth dominions added a little racism to the toxic mix, and these children were indeed treated little better than livestock.

This grotesque system of child disposal only dragged to a halt in 1974. It is, then, not some horror tale from the middle ages or the Victorian workhouse. It’s very much in our time.

The children, as we know now, were sent very often without their parents’ knowledge, let alone permission, and against the wishes of the child. They were dispatched because they were “in care” – the ugly irony echoes down the decades – and because they were perhaps too much bother for the authorities to deal with. They were knowingly sent to work and to be mistreated, and, above all, to be forgotten.

Although the public knew little about these crimes – there is no other word for it – there is evidence that the Government knew as early as the mid-1950s about the scale of the abuses, noting in one official report the “indecent haste” with which children were chosen to be sent away. And who was doing the choosing? Without being sensationalist, many were undisputedly paedophiles.

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AUSTRALIA
The Journal (Ireland)

ENGLAND’S MAMMOTH INQUIRY into historical child sex abuse was told of the “torture, rape and slavery” suffered by child migrants shipped to Australia, at its first public hearings today.

The wide-ranging Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse opened by looking at the schemes that sent thousands of vulnerable children to far-flung parts of the Commonwealth in the decades after World War II.

David Hill broke down as he told the inquiry of the “endemic” sexual abuse at the school he was sent to in Australia.

“I hope this inquiry can promote an understanding of the long-term consequences and suffering of those who were sexually abused,” he said.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Caroline Davies
Monday 27 February 2017

More than 130,000 children were sent to a “better life” in former colonies, mainly Australia and Canada, from the 1920s to 1970s under the child migrant programme .

The children, aged between three and 14, were almost invariably from deprived backgrounds and already in some form of social or charitable care. It was believed, they would lead happier lives.

Charities such as Barnardo’s and the Fairbridge Society, the Anglican and Catholic churches and local authorities helped with the organisation of the emigration.

Once there, the children were often told they were orphans to better facilitate their fresh start. The parents – many of them single mothers forced to give up their child for adoption because of poverty or social stigma – believed this was giving them best chance in life, though often did not have details of where their offspring were sent to.

The reality, for some of those children, was a childhood of servitude and hard labour at foster homes: on remote farms, at state-run orphanages and church-run institutions. They were often separated from siblings. Some were subjected to physical and sexual abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

28 February, 2017

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has released a new research paper, Grooming and child sexual abuse in institutional contexts, which provides an overview of key conceptual issues in understanding grooming and discusses what is known about grooming, particularly as it relates to institutional child sexual abuse.

Royal Commission CEO, Philip Reed, said the research shows that grooming can involve a range of behaviours that target not only children but also others involved in gaining access to the child’s life including parents and caregivers and staff in institutional settings.

“What makes grooming harmful is that the perpetrator’s motivation is to facilitate or conceal child sexual abuse,” he said.

The research describes grooming as an often incremental process that can involve three main stages – from gaining access to the victim, initiating and maintaining the abuse and concealing the abuse.

The report notes that grooming does not inevitably lead to sexual abuse, and child sexual abuse can also commence in the absence of grooming.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Road to Recovery

A Jesuit priest, Fr. Leo Pollard, SJ, stationed at Boston College High School from approximately 1951-1967, repeatedly sexually abused a minor child, Ronald Edward Casey, from approximately 1956 through 1957 when Ronald Edward Casey was approximately 11 to 13 years of age

Fr. Leo Pollard, SJ, held himself out as a Boy Scout chaplain and took Ronald Edward Casey on Boy Scout trips to Camp Loon Pond in Lakeville, MA, where Fr. Leo Pollard, SJ, repeatedly sexually abused minor child Ronald Edward Casey from approximately 1956 through 1957

The Jesuit priests and brothers of the Northeast Province, which includes Boston College High School., continue to re-victimize childhood sexual abuse victim Ronald Edward Casey by not reasonably and fairly settling the claim of sexual abuse of a minor child against Fr. Leo Pollard, SJ

What
A press conference announcing that the Jesuit priests and brothers of the Northeast Province refuse to reasonably and fairly settle the sexual abuse claim of Ronald Edward Casey who is 72 years of age and continues to suffer from the effects of sexual abuse by Fr. Leo Pollard, SJ, from approximately 1956 through 1957

When
Tuesday, February 28, 2017 at 11:00 AM

Where
On the public sidewalk in front of Boston College High School, 150 Morrissey Boulevard, Boston, MA 02125

Who
Ronald Edward Casey, sexual abuse victim of Fr. Leo Pollard, SJ, assigned to Boston College High School during the period 1956 through 1957; and, Dr. Robert M. Hoatson, President of Road to Recovery, Inc., a non-profit charity based in New Jersey that assists victims of sexual abuse and their families.

Why
Ronald Edward Casey was born in 1944 and grew up in a large family in South Boston, MA. His older brother, Bill Casey, was being counseled by Fr. Leo Pollard, SJ, who was assigned to Boston College High School and endeared himself to the Casey family which he visited frequently. Fr. Leo Pollard, SJ, told Ronald Edward Casey when Ronald Edward Casey was approximately 11 years old that he (Fr. Leo Pollard) was a Boy Scout chaplain. Fr. Leo Pollard, SJ, took Ronald Edward Casey on a Boy Scout trip to Camp Loon Pond in Lakeville, MA, where he was forced to sleep in the same cabin as Fr. Leo Pollard, SJ. Fr. Leo Pollard, SJ, took Ronald Edward Casey on at least six more Boy Scout trips from approximately 1956 through 1957 when Ronald Edward Casey was approximately 11-13 years of age. Fr. Leo Pollard, SJ, sexually abused Ronald Edward Casey on each of the Boy Scout trips. Ronald Edward Casey and his advocate will demand of the Jesuit priests and brothers of the Northeast Province that they do the right thing by reasonably and fairly settling his claim of sexual abuse.

Contacts
Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D., Road to Recovery, Inc. – 862-368-2800 – roberthoatson@gmail.com
Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, Boston, MA – 617-523-6250 – garabedianlaw@msn.com

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NEW ZEALAND
Stuff

Britain’s inquiry into historical child sex abuse, dogged by problems since it was launched three years ago and leading to the resignation of three chairmen, has finally begun holding its first public hearings.

On Monday, the inquiry began hearing evidence about those who suffered sexual abuse resulting from British child migration programmes in which thousands of youngsters, many in state care, were sent out to former colonies such as New Zealand, Australia, Canada and Zimbabwe.

The multi-million pound inquiry has been riven by setbacks since it began in the aftermath of 2012 revelations that the late former BBC TV presenter Jimmy Savile was one of Britain’s most prolific sex abusers.

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JAMAICA
The Gleaner

The scandal-hit Moravian Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands has postponed its biennial Synod that was scheduled for April.

The acting president of the Moravian church Reverend Phyllis Smith Seymour has conceded that the recent incidents involving allegations of sex crimes involving three senior ministers were part of the reasons.

However, according to Reverend Smith Seymour, the church also became distracted and would not be able to adequately prepare all the necessary reports, for example, ahead of the synod, the highest decision-making body of the Moravian Church in Jamaica.

As a result, she says the one-week meeting has now been pushed back to July.

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MEXICO
Excelsior

CIUDAD DE OAXACA.

El sacerdote Gerardo Silvestre Hernández recibió una sentencia de 16 años y seis meses de prisión, por el delito de corrupción de menores en su modalidad de inducción a actos sexuales y exposición de filmes pornográficos, tras quedar comprobado que abusó de varios menores entre 2009 y 2010.

El magistrado presidente del Tribunal Superior de Justicia de Oaxaca, Alfredo Lagunas Rivera, confirmó la sentencia de Silvestre Hernándes, quien desde el 2013 está en prisión para enfrentar el proceso ante la justicia.

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MEXICO
Catholic Philly

By Catholic News Service • Posted February 27, 2017

MEXICO CITY (CNS) — A priest in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca has been sentenced to 16 years and 6 months in prison for sexual abuse, marking the first ever conviction of a Catholic clergyman for such a crimes in the country.

Father Gerardo Silvestre Hernandez, a priest in the Archdiocese of Antequera Oaxaca, was convicted in January of corrupting minors while serving as a priest in a remote indigenous village of Oaxaca. His sentence was made public Feb. 24, Mexican media reported.

Father Silvestre was found guilty of plying his victims with alcohol, showing them pornographic films and then sexually abusing them.

The crimes took place in 2009 and 2010, according to court documents, Mexican media reported, although other accusations were reported earlier. A coalition of nongovernmental groups known as the Oaxaca Childhood Forum alleged there have been other victims, too.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

Victoria Craw
news.com.au
@Victoria_Craw

THEY were told they were going to a place filled with sheep, where they could ride horses, pick fruit from the trees and have picnics all day long.

Instead they faced decades of sexual abuse at the hands of the men caring for them, were beaten, forced to work like slaves and rummage in pig bins for food.

Now the first-hand accounts of men and women sent to Australia as children will be heard as part of an independent inquiry into child sexual abuse.

Beginning in London this week, a panel will hear from some of the estimated 10,000 children sent to Australia in the post-war decades as a cheap way of populating the country and solving the problem of how to care for young British orphans.

The Australian story is just part of a much bigger picture that saw an estimated 150,000 children sent overseas to mainly Commonwealth countries over a 350-year period. In a world without air travel and internet, many of them never saw home again. …

In 2014, Clifford Walsh, now 72, told how he was assaulted from the second day he arrived including being punched, beaten and sexually abused. Christian Brothers in four separate schools including Castledare, Contarf, Tardun and Bindoon in Perth were named by children as abusers.

He also recently told the BBC the UK government had sent young children to a “living hell” that put them in the care of paedophiles, 100 kilometres from the closest town.

“I was not good looking and I was badly sexually abused,” he said. “How badly were the ones that were better than me?”

“They sent us to a place that was a living hell … These paedophiles must have thought they were in hog heaven.”

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INDIA
New Indian Express

KANNUR: Police have registered a case against a priest for sexually abusing a 16-year-old girl, who delivered a baby in a private hospital at Kottiyoor in Kannur, on Monday.

According to police, the girl, studying in eleventh standard in a school at Kottiyoor, is a resident of Neendunooki in Kottiyoor. The girl delivered a baby in a private hospital on Sunday.

Following the information received by Child Line, who later informed the police, during initial inquiry said that she was raped by her father.

However, when her father was taken into custody and questioned for the crime, he alleged that Vadakkancheril Mathew (Robin), a priest at the Kottiyoor St Sebastian Church, committed the crime.

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MINNESOTA
KEYC

By Brittany Kemmerer

NEW ULM, Minn. –
The investigation surrounding the Diocese of New Ulm priest placed on leave in response to allegations of inappropriate conduct is still ongoing.

The investigation involves Father Sam Wagner, who was assigned to the Cathedral parish in New Ulm from June 2014 to June 2016.

New Ulm Police Senior Investigator Jeff Hohensee says they have received search warrants for digital evidence that the judge reviewed and signed.

Hohensee interviewed five priests last week and will now be conducting interviews with a few juveniles.

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INDIA
NDTV

by Sneha Mary Koshy | Updated: February 28, 2017

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A catholic priest in his late 40s has been arrested by the police in Kerala on charges of raping a 17-year-old girl last year. Father Robin Vadakkancherry was taken into custody after the girl delivered a baby in Kannur last week.

“The parents had not filed any complaint but based on a tip off received by the child helpline, we carried out an initial probe and found the report to be true. We have filed a case of rape against the priest. He was absconding but now has been taken into custody,” a police officer said.

According to the police, the girl was raped in May 2016. The police carried out an initial probe over the weekend, based on the tip off.

The newborn has been taken to a special home in Kannur based on the court orders, while the girl, a class 11 student, is with her parents.

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MICHIGAN
NBC 25

ROGERS CITY, Mich. (WPBN/WGTU)– A Roman Catholic priest accused of sexual misconduct has been charged.

Rev. Sylvestre Obwaka was charged Tuesday with first degree criminal sexual misconduct using force causing personal injury and third degree sexual misconduct using force. If convicted, Obwaka faces up to life in prison.

The incident allegedly happened Feb. 1 while a 28-year-old man was staying at Obwaka’s house in Rogers City.

According to the Michigan State Police, the 28-year-old man alleges that Obwaka sexually assaulted him while he was sleeping.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Hertfordshire Mercury

Baldock church computer hard drive allegedly containing indecent images of children was destroyed by the priest, a Diocese of St Albans safeguarding report has confirmed.

The report states that Reverend Andrew Holford, rector of St Mary’s Church, admitted to disposing of the computer’s hard drive at the request of the church administrator in 2010.

Mr Holford said: “I now accept that destroying the hard disk was unwise and made a difficult situation worse.

“I am sorry for that and pledge that safeguarding policies will be given proper priority in St Mary’s.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Sandra Laville
Monday 27 February 2017

The national child abuse inquiry has been urged at the opening of its public evidence sessions to name and shame the perpetrators of the sexual abuse of tens of thousands of British children forcibly deported to Australia by the UK government and leading churches and charities.

David Hill, one of more than 4,000 children who were sent to Australia and other Commonwealth nations from 1947 to the 1970s, waived his anonymity at the opening of the independent inquiry on Monday to make an emotional call for justice for victims.

Hill is one of 22 men and women who will give evidence either in person or in written testimony about the sexual and physical abuse they experienced when they were sent to Australia as part of the child migrant programme.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

This links to the live stream of today’s hearing.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Sandra Laville
Monday 27 February 2017

The national child abuse inquiry is to hold its first public evidence session after months of delays and controversy over the way it operates.

Its chair, Alexis Jay, will open the sessions on Monday to investigate the abuse of child migrants who were shipped to Australia and Canada by the British government between 1920 and the 1970s.

The children were part of a programme that saw up to 150,000 youngsters, aged three and over, taken from their families. A parliamentary report in 1998 on the abuse suffered by some of the children in Australia described it as widespread, systematic and exceptionally depraved.

About 2,000 former child migrants are still alive and several are giving evidence at the hearings. David Hill, who has waived his anonymity to give evidence at the London inquiry, said in his submission he was sent to Fairbridge Farm in Molong, New South Wales in 1959 with his two brothers.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

Former child migrants are to give “very emotional accounts” about the physical and sexual abuse they faced, the first public hearing in the independent inquiry into historical child abuse in England and Wales has been told.

Thousands of British children were sent to Australia and other parts of the British Empire up to 1974.

Inquiry counsel Henrietta Hill QC, said thousands faced “decades of pain”.

Its chairwoman praised the “courage” of those who will give evidence.

The first phase of the inquiry is looking at the way organisations have protected children outside the UK.

It will eventually investigate claims against councils, religious organisations, the armed forces and public and private institutions.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Reuters

Britain’s inquiry into historical child sex abuse, dogged by problems since it was launched three years ago and leading to the resignation of three chairmen, finally began holding its first public hearings on Monday.

The inquiry, one of its largest and most expensive ever undertaken, was set up in July 2014 by now-Prime Minister Theresa May in her former role as interior minister after a series of shocking abuse scandals dating back decades, some involving celebrities and politicians.

It is expected to take some five years to complete.

In a number of cases, victims said institutions had actively covered up cases at the behest of powerful establishment figures including senior lawmakers, spies and police officers.

“This is an important day for the work of the inquiry,” chairman Alexis Jay said. “Today marks … the opening of the first public hearing in which the inquiry will hear live and read evidence from complainants.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
ITV

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in England and Waleshas begun its first hearing, two and a half years after it first began.

The inquiry has been dogged by controversy since being set up in 2014 and is now on its fourth chairwoman and has cost £23.6 million to date.

The IICSA was set up after the death of Jimmy Savile in 2011 when hundreds of people came forward to say he had abused them as children.

The spotlight then fell on sexual assaults carried out in schools, children’s homes and at NHS sites, as well as on claims of past failures by police and prosecutors to properly investigate allegations.

The first hearing will begin with the child migration programme, which were large-scale schemes in which 130,000 children from poor families or in the care system were sent to parts of the British Empire between 1920 and 1974, by religious institutions and charities with the aim of giving them better lives.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

The Inquiry has commissioned the Department of Sociology at Lancaster University to provide us with a review of the most up to date research on the characteristics and vulnerabilities of victims of online-facilitated child sexual abuse (CSA). The findings will help pinpoint areas where further research is needed and help inform IICSA’s investigations. They may also inform recommendations for policy and practice. IICSA and Lancaster University are asking organisations to let us know about any unpublished literature or ongoing research in this area. Full details of the request can be found in the library on our website.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

[live stream]

On Monday 27 February, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse begins its first public hearings. These relate to sexual abuse in the British child migration programmes and the institutional failings of organisations based in England and Wales.

The child migration programmes are a case study which is part of the Inquiry’s Protection of Children Outside the United Kingdom investigation.

The child migration programmes were large-scale schemes in which thousands of children, many of them in the care of the state, were systematically and permanently migrated to parts of the British Empire by various institutions in England and Wales, with the knowledge and approval of the British Government. Most were sent to Canada, Australia, New Zealand and what was then Southern Rhodesia, modern-day Zimbabwe. In 2010, the UK Government issued an apology for its role in the child migration programmes.

The Inquiry will hear from a number of former child migrants who have alleged that they suffered sexual abuse in relation to their migration in a range of institutions and contexts. The Inquiry will also hear evidence from expert witnesses about the history and context of the child migration programmes and from the Child Migrants Trust, which supports former child migrants. A further public hearing is scheduled for July when the Inquiry will hear evidence on behalf of institutions and others involved in the child migration programmes.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By Martin Robinson, UK Chief Reporter For Mailonline

The controversial public inquiry into child sexual abuse will start today and hear harrowing accounts from victims sent to the colonies after the Second World War.

The £20million Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) has been plagued with delays and is already on its fourth chairwoman since it was set up by Theresa May in 2014.

The inquiry will draw together a staggering 13 different probes, including investigations into alleged abuse at Westminster, in children’s homes, within the Anglican and Catholic churches and by alleged abusers such as Lord Greville Janner.

Today it begins by considering the physical and sexual abuse suffered by hundreds of children sent abroad after the war – some were falsely told that their parents had died.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

Joanne McCarthy
27 Feb 2017

ONE of the heroes of Newcastle Anglican diocese’s shocking history of responding to child sexual abuse in the Hunter has resigned after alleging he had been “punished by the church for being a whistleblower”.

Diocese business manager John Cleary’s resignation was announced in a statement released by Acting Bishop Peter Stuart on Monday.

“John Cleary has resigned from the Anglican Diocese of Newcastle by mutual agreement following a very demanding time for him and his family,” Bishop Stuart said.

“John has been dedicated and diligent in uncovering child sexual abuse in the diocese and in providing crucial support to survivors. John has spent over four years assisting the work of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.That has been extremely taxing on him and his family.”

Mr Cleary was singled out for praise by abuse survivors at the Newcastle Anglican Church hearing. A final report is expected in the near future.

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AUSTRALIA
Catholic Outlook

Transcript of Bishop Vincent Long’s testimony at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

The following is a transcript of Bishop Vincent Long’s testimony at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Tuesday 21 February. Participating in the interview are Counsel Assisting the Royal Commission Ms Gail Furness, Commissioner Robert Fitzgerald and TJHC Counsel Ms Jane Needham.

BISHOP LONG: My name is Vincent Long Van Nguyen.

MS FURNESS: You’re the Bishop of the Diocese of Parramatta?

BISHOP LONG: Yes, that’s correct.

MS FURNESS: What did you do before your appointment in Parramatta?

BISHOP LONG: I was an auxiliary bishop in Melbourne for nearly five years, from June 2011 till my appointment to Parramatta, which was in June last year.

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AUSTRALIA
Eternity

JOHN SANDEMAN | FEBRUARY 27TH, 2017

Joanne McCarthy is the brave journalist who spearheaded the Newcastle Herald’s “Shine the light” campaign which, arguably, brought about the Royal Commission into Institutional Response to Child Abuse, and an earlier NSW special enquiry. She interviewed about 200 victims of sexual abuse, many of them scarred by alcohol, drugs and depression. She uncovered no less than 12 suicides or drug overdoses among former students of a priest called John Denham. McCarthy is the current holder of Australia’s highest journalism award, the
Gold Walkley.

“My first involvement was in June, 2006. A man rang me, out of the blue,” McCarthy tells Eternity. “I had been raised in a Catholic family and my parents still went to church.

“He was a victim of a Catholic priest called John Denham. He contacted me. For a lot of male victims, I was a mother figure, that woman who writes about her sons and the cars breaking down and that sort of stuff.”

The man on the phone asked McCarthy why no media had reported on the fact that John Denham had been convicted five years earlier.

He told her that Denham was working in Sydney for a Catholic organisation, located close to a school.

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GUAM
Guam Daily Post

Mindy Aguon | For The Guam Daily Post Feb 27, 2017

A Virginia resident who lived on Guam in the 1970’s alleges he was sexually molested and abused by a former priest and Boy Scout Master on Guam in order to attain Boy Scout badges.

Morgan Wade Paul, 53, is the latest victim to come forward and file a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Agana and retired priest Louis Brouillard in the District Court of Guam.

The lawsuit states that Paul became an altar boy in 1974 when he was 11 years old at Mongmong Parish of Nuestra Senor De Las Aguas. Paul alleges that he was required by the Agana Archdiocese to join and also become a member of the Boy Scouts Mongmong troop.

A year later, Paul met Father Louis Brouillard, the Boy Scout Troop Master and parish priest at the Mongong church. Paul was proud to be an altar boy and a Boy Scout and motivated to earn his swimming and lifesaving merit badges, the lawsuit states.

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INDIA
Swarajya

“ The Gospel message of mercy is ultimately a source of powerful healing and of grace,” said the Church as it granted mercy to a handful of paedophile priests last week reducing their sanctions. Pope Francis reduced sanctions against priests charged with abusing children, on the grounds of mercy and granted clemency, rubbing many survivors of abuse and his own advisors the wrong way.

This despite the Church’s benevolence backfiring last year with the Italian courts convicting an Italian priest Rev. Mauro Inzoli. Inzoli, despite being found guilty of sexual crimes against children by the Vatican in 2012, had appealed for and been granted mercy by Pope Francis in 2014, on the grounds that ‘No misery is so profound, no sin so terrible that mercy cannot be applied”. The Church has now ordered a second trial, citing emergence of fresh evidence against him, while the Italian courts sentenced him to four years, nine months in prison.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio , heugenio@guampdn.com Feb. 27, 2017

A former altar boy said a priest gave him his Boy Scouts of America swimming merit badge only after the priest subjected him to repeated sexual abuse in the 1970s, bringing to 23 the total number of clergy sexual abuse lawsuits filed on Guam, as of Monday.

Morgan Wade Paul, now 53 and living in Virginia, said former island priest Louis Brouillard sexually abused him as an 11- or 12-year-old boy scout and altar boy at the Mongmong Parish of Nuestra Senora De Las Aguas in or about 1975.

Paul, through attorney David Lujan, filed a lawsuit against Brouillard, the Archdiocese of Agana and up to 50 other unnamed entities who may have helped, abetted, concealed or covered up the priest abuse.

The archdiocese now faces a minimum $115 million in damages in connection with the lawsuits, which could double in the weeks ahead as attorneys for other survivors confirmed they will be filing similar cases.

As an altar boy around 1975, Paul said he also was required to join the Boy Scouts. Brouillard was a scoutmaster in the Guam chapter of the Boy Scouts at the time.

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GUAM
Pacific News Center

Written by Janela Carrera

The Archdiocese of Agana is now facing $115 million from 23 different sex abuse lawsuits filed against them.

Guam – Yet another sex abuse lawsuit has been filed against the Catholic church and once again former Guam priest Father Louis Brouillard is named as the perpetrator.

The latest accuser is former resident 53-year-old Morgan Wade Paul, who served as an altar boy in the 1970s. Paul says the sexual abuse happened when he was around 10 to 11 years old and while he was a part of the Boy Scouts. In addition to a priest, Brouillard was also the Scout Master for the Boy Scouts on Guam.

Paul says the abuse happened when he was trying to earn his swimming merit badge. Brouillard would force Paul to strip naked, tread water and then molest him in the water, the complaint states.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release Sunday, February 26, 2017

Statement by Joelle Casteix of Newport Beach, California, SNAP Volunteer Western Regional Director (949) 322-7434 jcasteix@gmail.com

Once again, church officials have put the needs and feelings of predators over public safety and the needs of children who are the victims of sex crimes.

[Associated Press]

Pope Francis must remember that there is a difference between crime and sin. Child sex abuse is a crime for which the offender must be held accountable. While Francis may feel sorry for a predator, the only person with the right to forgive an abuser is the victim. And even then, the offender must be held accountable for his actions so that he may not go on to hurt others.

The Pope has created window dressing tribunals and commissions, but as far as we know he has yet to take actions that will actually protect children. This latest move is just another indication that it’s just “business as usual” inside the Vatican. We fear that children will continue to needlessly be placed at risk.

The place for mercy is with victims and children, not offending clergy.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

Patrick Foster
26 FEBRUARY 2017

A barrister at the centre of a child abuse scandal committed a series of sickening assaults against young men after leading evangelical groups failed to report him to the police, it is claimed.

John Smyth QC, a friend of the Archbishop of Canterbury, is accused of carrying out sadomasochistic attacks on boys he met at Christian camps in Britain and Zimbabwe.

The assaults first came to light in 1982, when a victim attempted suicide after being summoned to a beating in the shed of Mr Smyth’s Winchester home.

But both the Iwerne Trust, the Christian group that Mr Smyth chaired, and Winchester College, the school attended by some of his alleged victims, did not report the claims to police.

The part-time judge then moved to Zimbabwe, where he founded a series of summer camps at which it is alleged he again abused young men.

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UNITED STATES
YouTube

John Cedars

Published on Feb 26, 2017

In the first episode of a new series aimed at shining a spotlight on Watchtower-related news, I discuss the Stephanie Fessler lawsuit in Pennsylvania in which Watchtower’s legal team was forced to reach a settlement after only four days of testimony. Joining me is Covert Fade, JWsurvey’s editor, together with John Redwood, who was present for all four days of the trial.

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UNITED STATES
Times of Israel

Guila Benchimol

In light of ex-Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos’s remarks suggesting that mature 13-year-old boys and adult men can have consensual relationships, I want to share what I recently learned at the Global Summit on Child Sexual Abuse in the Jewish Community convened by Kol V’Oz. Listening to the male sex offender who was convicted of sexually abusing young boys in his Jewish community gave me pause about the areas we may have neglected to consider in our quest to prevent and address abuse when it arises in our institutions.

— He began by explaining that he was completely clueless as to the damage he had inflicted on his victim. Most people have no idea how victimization affects a person’s life, both in the short and long term. Sexual abuse exacts real life, long-lasting, physical, emotional, spiritual, and psychological tolls. Because young perpetrators find this difficult to grasp, he stressed the need to make the impact of the abuse explicit to perpetrators, even if many years have passed since the abuse. Interestingly, Professor. Marci Hamilton suggested that survivors’ stories are not the primary way to reach legislators at this point in history when so many stories have been told in the press. Instead, child sexual abuse must be framed as a quantifiable public health issue to make them pay attention. How, then, should we frame sexual violence in the Jewish community so that people care enough to create systemic and lasting change?

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ROM
Katholisch

[Müller: Abuse not systematically covered up. Has the Church systematically hijacked abuses in its own ranks? Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Mueller vehemently rejects such assumptions.]

Hat die Kirche Missbrauchsfälle in den eigenen Reihen systematisch vertuscht? Kardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller widerspricht solchen Vermutungen vehement. “Die Kirche verdeckt auf jeden Fall nichts”, so Müller.

Missbrauch | Rom – 26.02.2017

Aus Sicht von Kurienkardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller gibt es in der katholischen Kirche keine systematische Vertuschung von Missbrauchsfällen. “Die Kirche verdeckt auf jeden Fall nichts”, sagte er im Interview der italienischen Tageszeitung “La Repubblica” (Sonntag). Es könne in einigen Fällen aus Ahnungslosigkeit geschehen sein, “aber nicht systematisch”, so der Präfekt der vatikanischen Glaubenskongregation. “Die Kirche arbeitet, im Gegensatz zu vielen anderen Institutionen, wirklich für Null-Toleranz.”

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ISRAEL
YNet News

Liran Levi|Published: 23.02.17

Former Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel Yona Metzger was told Thursday afternoon by the courts that his prison sentence of three-and-a-half years would be increased by one year, despite a plea bargain signed in January over a string of corruption offences including bribery, fraud and breach of trust during his tenure as chief rabbi.

In January, the rabbi signed a plea agreement with the Jerusalem district attorney, stipulating that he would serve 3.5 years in jail after pleading guilty to the charges of bribery and fraud. Metzger was also fined NIS 5 million by the court.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY DAVID J. KRAJICEK
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Saturday, February 25, 2017

On Sept. 5, 1913, neatly bound bundles of body parts sawn with surgical precision began washing up on the New Jersey shore of the Hudson River.

Over several days, authorities pieced together six fragments — minus the head, which never surfaced — into a single human being, a formerly robust young woman.

The slightest clue enabled adroit cops to connect a name to the victim, raising the curtain on a scandalous crime story that stands apart even in New York’s illustrious record of you’ve-got-to-be-kidding murders.

The tipoff was a maker’s label on a pillowcase used to package the upper torso. The tag led police to Robinson-Roders, a Newark bedding firm, where sales books pointed detectives to a store on Eighth Ave. in Harlem.

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UNITED STATES
Progressive Secular Humanist

February 25, 2017 by Michael Stone

A new report reveals Pope Francis is quietly making the Catholic church a safe space for pedophile priests.

The Associated Press reports that Pope Francis is reducing sanctions against pedophile priests, and even refusing to defrock priests found guilty of sexually abusing children, all in the name of mercy.

In one particularly egregious case, Francis let off one notorious pedophile priest, Rev. Mauro Inzoli, with just a lifetime of prayer for abusing five young boys.

The Associated Press reports about the Pope’s leniency towards pedophile priests:

One case has come back to haunt him: An Italian priest who received the pope’s clemency was later convicted by an Italian criminal court for his sex crimes against children as young as 12. The Rev. Mauro Inzoli is now facing a second church trial after new evidence emerged against him, The Associated Press has learned.

The Inzoli case is one of several in which Francis overruled the advice of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and reduced a sentence that called for the priest to be defrocked, two canon lawyers and a church official told AP. Instead, the priests were sentenced to penalties including a lifetime of penance and prayer and removal from public ministry.

The report notes that by refusing to punish pedophile priests Francis is going against the recommendations of his advisers in an attempt to show “mercy.”

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VATICAN CITY
Metro (UK)

Charles White
Sunday 26 Feb 2017

Pope Francis has reduced punishments for paedophile priests who abused children as young as 12.

The leader of the world’s biggest faith wants to apply his vision of a ‘merciful’ church and has changed the punishments for a handful of priests.

Italian priest Mauro Inzoli had been sentenced to be ‘defrocked’ (removed from the priesthood) in 2012, but Pope Francis reversed the decision in, telling him instead to stop public ministry and do penance and pray for the rest of his life.

The Inzoli case is said to be one of several similar cases when harsher sentences had been recommended by the Pope’s own advisory council on this issue, the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

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FRANCE
La Parisien

[Rouen: indictment of a 73-year-old priest suspected of rape of a minor.]

L’homme d’église est poursuivi pour viols et agressions sexuelles.

Un prêtre de 73 ans du diocèse de Rouen a été mis en examen pour des actes de pédophilie, indique France 3 Normandie. Plus tôt dans la journée, on avait appris son arrestation auprès du parquet et de l’archevêché, après que M6 a révélé son placement en garde à vue.
Il est poursuivi pour viols et tentatives de viol aggravés sur mineur de 15 ans par personne ayant autorité, délits d’agressions sexuelles sur mineur de 15 ans par personne ayant autorité et délits d’agressions sexuelles par personne ayant autorité.

Deux jeunes hommes ont dénoncé ces actes, indique le parquet. Selon M6, l’un des deux jeunes hommes est âgé de 21 ans. Ce dernier, qui fréquentait la même paroisse que l’homme d’église, l’accuse d’avoir abusé de lui lors des dix dernières années.

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CANADA
Huffington Post

[Cardinal Lacroix is reported to have turned a blind eye to a case of alleged sexual assault.]

Un homme de Québec poursuit l’Institut Séculier Pie X pour des séquelles permanentes en lien avec des agressions sexuelles qui seraient survenues dans les locaux de la mission apostolique au sein de laquelle a oeuvré le cardinal Gérald Cyprien Lacroix.

Un texte de Marie Maude Pontbriand

André Lachance réclame 370 000 $ à l’Institut Séculier Pie X, situé à Charlesbourg. Il aurait été agressé entre l’âge de 3 et 16 ans par son oncle et membre de l’Institut, Jean-Paul Lachance. Ce dernier s’est enlevé la vie en 2014.

Les sévices sexuels auraient commencé en 1971 et se seraient produits dans différents lieux comme la résidence de la victime alléguée ou encore les locaux de l’Institut Séculier Pie X.

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AUSTRALIA
Vanity Fair

di Monica Coviello

[Stephanie committed suicide. The head priest of the parish youth group that she attended was abusing her. Since then her mother Eileen tries to get justice and an official apology from the church.]

Eileen Piper, australiana, non è ancora riuscita a superare il trauma: continua a raccontare la tragica storia di sua figlia Stephanie, e non si dà pace. Era la fine degli Anni Settanta e da allora quella mamma, che adesso ha 92 anni, non è più riuscita a dormire una notte intera. Quello che sta aspettando sono le scuse, ufficiali, da parte della chiesa. «Ho il cuore a pezzi – spiega a www.abc.net -. Devono aiutarmi a superare questa situazione, devono chiedermi scusa».

Quando Stephanie era un’adolescente è entrata a fare parte di un gruppo di giovani legato alla chiesa e coordinato da un sacerdote, Gerard Mulvale. Quel prete approfittò delle paure della ragazza per ricattarla e abusare di lei. Stephanie l’ha raccontato a sua madre solo tanti anni dopo: «Le diceva che, siccome era stata adottata, era nata nel peccato e doveva pagare per questo». Mulvale approfittava dell’ingenuità della ragazza per violentarla e assicurarsi il suo silenzio.

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VATIKAN
Huffington Post

Oliver Lippert Fan werden
Kritiker, freier Autor

[The pope has cut the penalties for pedophile priests- including one who has received a sentence of lifelong prayer for the abuse of five boys.]

Der Papst hat die Strafen für pädophile Priester gekürzt – inklusive einem, der eine Strafe in Höhe von lebenslangen Beten bekommen hat. Für den Missbrauch an fünf Jungen.

Papst Francis sagte, um seiner Vision einer „barmherzigen Kirche” nachzukommen, hat er die Strafe für Rev Mauro Inzoli von einer Amtsenthebung auf lebenslanges Beten geändert. Aber der Sprecher des Vatikans sagte, das Priester, die Missbrauch verübt haben, auch aus dem Ministerium entfernt werden.

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UNITED STATES
Ground Report

David Trounce Feb 25, 2017

Many reasons have been put forward in an effort to explain a large amount of under-reporting or even undetected incidents of sexual abuse against boys.

Doctoral research conducted by Scott D. Easton hospitalized, ACSW, LMSW Boston College Graduate School of Social Work in March, 2012 demonstrated that the average reporting time was around 20 years.

In those intervening years many adult males report lengthy periods of depression, anxiety, and fear.

There are a number of reasons for the delay in reporting. Those reasons include fear of not being believed or being considered homosexual for having experienced the abuse.

But the differences do to not stop there. There has been significant research in the last 15 to 20 years on the differences between males and females who experience childhood sexual abuse.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

For several decades, the UK sent children across the world to new lives in institutions where many were abused and used as forced labour. It’s a scandal that is still having repercussions now.

Imagine the 1950s, in the years before air travel became commonplace or the internet dominated our lives. Imagine being a child of those times, barely aware of life even in the next town. An orphan perhaps, living in an British children’s home.

Now imagine being told that shortly you would board a ship for somewhere called Australia, to begin a new life in a sunlit wonderland. For good. No choice.

It happened to thousands of British children in the decades immediately following World War Two, and they had little understanding of how it would shape their lives.

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AUSTRALIA
Blue Mountains Gazette

Joanne McCarthy
26 Feb 2017

GOUGH Whitlam wrote a letter to Pope Benedict XVI in October, 2012, nearly four decades after his government granted formal diplomatic recognition to the Vatican, and only weeks before another Labor prime minister, Julia Gillard, established a royal commission that would expose the extent of child sexual abuse within the Australian Catholic Church.

Diplomatic relations with the Vatican from 1973 was a “memorable and significant initiative” of his government, Whitlam told the Pope. The relationship was one “which has always been maintained with deep mutual respect and consideration”.

“The mutual hopes for closer relations between the Holy See and Australia have been fulfilled in abundance. I shall always have fond memories of visiting Pope Paul VI and of the great enchantment of Rome, the Eternal City,” one of the Labor Party’s great reformers wrote.

Whitlam died two years later, on October 21, 2014, only three months after Vatican secretary of state Cardinal Pietro Parolin declined a request from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse for files of all Australian alleged perpetrator priests held by the Vatican.

Commission chair Justice Peter McClellan said the files would help commissioners understand the extent of allegations referred to the Vatican, and action taken by the church in each case.

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UTAH
Fox 13

FEBRUARY 25, 2017, BY BEN WINSLOW

SALT LAKE CITY — A judge has quashed a deposition subpoena of the leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in connection with a series of lawsuits alleging sex abuse in a church-run program on the Navajo Nation.

Court records show that in a hearing earlier this week, Third District Court Judge Su Chon rejected a subpoena to make LDS Church President Thomas S. Monson sit for a deposition. She allowed the church to appoint a representative to give testimony instead.

“The depositions of lower level corporate representatives or officers should be noticed prior to any deposition of President Monson,” Judge Chon’s order states.

“The Court hereby quashes Plaintiffs’ Subpoena Duces Tecum and orders that Plaintiffs are precluded from deposing President Monson or obtaining the documents sought by way of the Subpoena at this time.”

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JAMAICA
The Gleaner

Thursday | January 5, 2017

Canute S. Thompson

The Moravian Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, as well as her sister provinces across the world must be experiencing what may be one of their darkest moments in several decades, on account of the arrest and charge of a senior minister for allegedly having sex with a 15-year-old girl.

Let me declare interest. I am a member of the Moravian Church and once served as a minister in the Church. I, therefore, come to this issue with a bundle of mixed emotions and thoughts, and some for reasons that would not be apparent to some readers. The pain being experienced by so many of us, and especially close friends, family members, the alleged victim and her family, is beyond words.

BASIC THEOLOGICAL ORIENTATION

My basic theological orientation is one that is informed by an ethic of compassion. I hold the worldview that accountability is an absolute essential in relation to all decisions and actions that adults take – whether or not they hold leadership positions. I, however, subscribe to, what I consider to be, a deeper human calling, namely that redemption, reconciliation, and restoration are the duties and opportunities given to all human vessels as part of the journey of human life. Part of the reason these virtues are so essential is that error and failure to do right is part of the human reality.

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JAMAICA
The Gleaner

Sunday | February 26, 2017

In Part 1 of this series, I explored what I regard as the issues facing the Moravian Church. I argued, in the February 5, 2017, In Focus publication, that the current crisis wherein some ministers have been charged for alleged sexual misconduct involving minors is, in some respects, a symptom of a deeper problem.

I acknowledged that there are many dimensions to that deeper problem but chose to focus on one aspect, namely, how the leadership of the Church understands and exercises power and accountability. I further suggested that the Church’s handling of a 2014 report of alleged sexual misconduct involving a minor, or minors, reflected part of the overall culture of how power and accountability were understood.

I offered the painful, but necessary, critique that for far too long, many of us as members of the Church have been willing to explain or justify the actions of our leaders, which, very often, we know to be wrong or unwise.

In this final part, I offer some suggestions on how the Church might deal with the current crisis.

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GEORGIA
Savannah Morning News

Posted February 25, 2017
By Jan Skutch jan.skutch@savannahnow.com

A three-day conference of Catholic church leaders will convene in Savannah beginning Sunday to discuss the church’s ongoing response to protecting children and youth in the wake of priest sex abuse scandals.

The 2017 Child and Youth Protection Catholic Leadership Conference will feature a number of speakers, including Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory of Atlanta who is co-hosting the event with Bishop Gregory J. Hartmayer of Savannah.

Gregory, then bishop in Belleville, Ill., was head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops when the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People” was adopted in Dallas in 2002.

The charter is a comprehensive set of procedures for addressing allegations of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy. It also includes guidelines for reconciliation, healing, accountability and prevention of future acts of abuse.

In comments in a letter prepared for the conference, Hartmayer said the theme for this year’s conference is “hospitality.”

“This year will be the 12th convocation since the passage (of the charter) in 2002,” he said. “Over the years we have worked hard to protect our most vulnerable, but the job is never complete.

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PERU
Associated Press

BY NICOLE WINFIELD AND FRANKLIN BRICENO
ASSOCIATED PRESS

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Victims of Latin America’s latest charismatic Catholic leader-turned-sexual predator are denouncing the Vatican’s handling of the case, saying the six-year delay and final resolution are anything but satisfactory for survivors of his sexual, psychological and physical violence.

“It’s really shameful,” said Pedro Salinas, who blew the whistle in 2015 on the twisted practices of the Peru-based Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, and was himself a victim of Luis Fernando Figari’s psychological abuse.

Figari founded the SCV, or Sodalitium of Christian Life, in 1971 as a lay community to recruit “soldiers for God.” It was one of several Catholic societies born as a conservative reaction to the left-leaning liberation theology movement that swept through Latin America starting in the 1960s.

The group counts some 20,000 members across South America and the U.S.

Figari was a charismatic intellectual, but he was also “narcissistic, paranoid, demeaning, vulgar, vindictive, manipulative, racist, sexist, elitist and obsessed with sexual issues and the sexual orientation of SCV members,” according to a Feb. 10 investigative report commissioned by the SCV’s leadership.

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NEW ZEALAND
Stuff

TALIA SHADWELL
February 26 2017

Spiritual leaders with access to children are not subject to police vetting, a loophole that urgently needs closing, according to a victim of historic sex abuse.

Ann-Marie Shelley, of Upper Hutt, was abused by Catholic priest Peter Hercock, who molested her when she was a teenager, along with three other girls.

“As more voluntary groups become known for their rigorous screening practices, potential child abusers will be put off even applying for work with children.”

As it stands now, the law states that all State-funded organisations have to vet children’s workers. But despite a legacy of child sexual abuse scandals, the law does not cover religious institutions.

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VATICAN CITY
International Business Times

By Priya Joshi
February 25, 2017

Pope Francis’s decision to reduce penalties for paedophile priests has been met with widespread condemnation from church officials and sex abuse survivors.

Applying his vision of a ‘merciful church’ the Pope previously sanctioned weaker canonical sentences for two sex offenders within the church, which were commuted to a lifetime of prayer and penance after they appealed for clemency.

Reverend Mauro Inzoli was found guilty by the Vatican of abusing boys as young as 12, in 2012 and was ordered to be defrocked.

However, following an appeal, in 2014 Francis reduced the penalty to a lifetime of prayer and to continue service in a restricted ministry.

Inzoli is prohibited from celebrating Mass in public or being near children, and is barred from his diocese. He has also been ordered to undergo five years of psychotherapy.

Pope Francis overruled the advice given to him by the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which recommended sterner penalties befitting the heinous crimes against children, but Inzoli was controversially, welcomed back to the priesthood.

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GUAM
Guam Daily Post

Neil Pang | The Guam Daily Post

An alumnus of St. Anthony Catholic School (SACS) told The Guam Daily Post that he was sexually abused by one of his teachers when he was a student at the institution in the 1990s.

Troy Torres, the chief of staff to Gov. Eddie Calvo, spoke to the Post about the incident that occurred more than 23 years ago and the series of events that followed in which he was able to prevent his abuser from obtaining later teaching posts after a complaint filed with the Guam Police Department failed to result in an arrest.

Torres told the Post that he was around 13 years old and in eighth grade when he was abused by a music teacher employed at SACS. He said the teacher was well-liked, trusted and even seen as something as a big deal around the campus as a talented music instructor.

This is not the first time Torres has spoken about the abuse. In his conversation with the Post, he said he first came out about the abuse a few months after the incident when another teacher who had noticed a change in Torres’ behavior got him to break his silence.

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VATICAN CITY
Daily Mail (UK)

By Isobel Frodsham For Mailonline

Pope Francis has been slammed by church officials and sex abuse survivors for cutting penalties for paedophile priests.

The Pope is said to be applying his vision of a ‘merciful church’ to sex offenders by reducing punishments to weaker sentences, such as a lifetime of prayer and penance.

It has been revealed by church officials that Pope Francis overruled advice given to him by the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith about two priests – allowing them to be punished by a lifetime of prayer.

One of the priests was the Reverend Mauro Inzoli, who was found guilty of abusing young boys by the Vatican in 2012 and was ordered to be defrocked.

However, he appealed, and in 2014 Francis reduced the penalty to a lifetime of prayer, prohibiting him from celebrating Mass in public or being near children, barring him from his diocese and ordering five years of psychotherapy.

Rev Inzoli was then convicted by an Italian criminal court for his sex crimes against five children as young as 12.

He is now facing a second church trial after new evidence emerged against him.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Argus

A FORMER priest who is already serving ten years in prison for 36 historic sexual offences has now been sentenced to nine months in prison.

Gordon Rideout pleaded guilty to one charge of indecent assault on a girl under the age of 16 at a children’s home in Reigate when he appeared at Guildford Crown Court on 20 December 2016. The assault took place between 29 July 1969 and 21 July 1974.

Rideout was originally jailed for 10 years in May 2013 at Lewes Crown Court for a series of historic sexual offences between 1962 and 1973, including attempted rape and indecent assaults on both boys and girls, some of whom were under 13 years of age.

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VATICAN CITY
Associated Press

BY NICOLE WINFIELD
ASSOCIATED PRESS

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.

One case has come back to haunt him: An Italian priest who received the pope’s clemency was later convicted by an Italian criminal court for his sex crimes against children as young as 12. The Rev. Mauro Inzoli is now facing a second church trial after new evidence emerged against him, The Associated Press has learned.

The Inzoli case is one of several in which Francis overruled the advice of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and reduced a sentence that called for the priest to be defrocked, two canon lawyers and a church official told AP. Instead, the priests were sentenced to penalties including a lifetime of penance and prayer and removal from public ministry.

In some cases, the priests or their high-ranking friends appealed to Francis for clemency by citing the pope’s own words about mercy in their petitions, the church official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the proceedings are confidential.

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COLOMBIA
Solo Paisas

[Sexual abuse of children is the parents’ fault: Archdiocese of Cali. The controversy again puts the Colombian Catholic Church in the eye of the hurricane for this response to the lawsuit filed by families in eastern Cali demanding compensation and reparation due to sexual abuse suffered by their children eight years ago by priest William Mazo.]

Así respondió la defensa del clero católico ante el caso de pederastia más sonado en esa ciudad por cuenta del cura William Mazo.

La polémica vuelve a poner a la Iglesia Católica colombiana en el ojo del huracán por esta respuesta, ante la demanda presentada por familias del oriente de Cali exigiendo la indemnización y reparación debidas por el abuso sexual que sufrieron sus hijos hace ocho años por cuenta del sacerdote William Mazo.

Como reveló El Espectador, el abogado Walther Collazos solicitó al juez 22 penal de conocimiento de Cali que revise si los familiares de los cuatro menores abusados sexualmente “hicieron lo que debían hacer” o si su proceder fue “laxo, permisivo, omisivo, abandonado y desinteresado”, y “hoy concurren ante un juez para aprovechar un hecho dañino a un tercero y fingir como víctimas directas”.

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SPANIEN
Deutschland Funk

[The tragedy began at the time of the Spanish Civil War and continued into the 1990s. Originally politically motivated, the babies soon turned into a lucrative business, involving physicians, lawyers, and above all the Catholic Church. It is estimated that more than 300,000 babies disappeared in Spanish birth hospitals.]

Die Tragödie begann zur Zeit des spanischen Bürgerkriegs und setzte sich bis in die 90er-Jahre fort. Ursprünglich politisch motiviert, wurde der Babyraub bald zu einem lukrativen Geschäft, in das Ärzte, Anwälte, und vor allem die katholische Kirche verwickelt waren. Man schätzt, dass in spanischen Geburtskliniken mehr als 300.000 Babys verschwanden.

Von Margot Litten

Die Tragödie begann zur Zeit des spanischen Bürgerkriegs und setzte sich bis in die 90er-Jahre fort. Ursprünglich politisch motiviert, wurde der Babyraub bald zu einem lukrativen Geschäft, in das Ärzte, Anwälte, und vor allem die katholische Kirche verwickelt waren. Man schätzt, dass in spanischen Geburtskliniken über die Jahrzehnte mehr als 300.000 Babys verschwanden und mit gefälschten Papieren an kinderlose Paare verkauft wurden.

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BELGIEN
cath.ch

[A 57-year-old man said former Bishop Roger Joseph Vangheluwe abuse him in the early 1970s.]

Brüssel, 24.2.17 (kath.ch) Gegen den emeritierten Bischof von Brügge, Roger Joseph Vangheluwe, sind neue Missbrauchsvorwürfe bekanntgeworden. Ein 57-jähriger Mann beschuldigt Vangheluwe, Anfang der 70er Jahre von ihm missbraucht worden zu sein, berichten belgische Medien (Freitag).

Der ehemalige Messdiener beschuldigt auch einen weiteren Priester, an Vergewaltigungen im flandrischen Harelbeke beteiligt gewesen zu sein. Der heute 80-jährige Vangheluwe musste 2010 auf öffentlichen Druck zurücktreten, weil er seinen Neffen über Jahre sexuell missbraucht hatte.

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SCHWEIZ
cath.ch

[An anonymous mail suggested that Mauro Jöhri, currently Minister General of the Capuchin Order, is the main culprit in Pittet’s abuse case.]

Zürich, 20.2.17 (kath.ch) Ein anonymes Mail versetzt die Schweizer Kapuziner in Aufregung. Darin wird suggeriert, Mauro Jöhri, zurzeit Generalminister des Kapuzinerordens, sei der Hauptschuldige im Missbrauchsfall Pittet. Willi Anderau, Informationsbeauftragter der Schweizer Kapuziner, vermutet, dass «konservative Kreise um den Churer Bischof Vitus Huonder» Jöhri als Kandidaten für den Posten eines apostolischen Administrators «abschiessen» wollen. Das Bistum Chur will sich nicht zu den Vorwürfen äussern.

Barbara Ludwig

In dem anonymen Mail, das kath.ch vorliegt, werden einige Fakten im Zusammenhang mit dem Missbrauchsfall Pittet aufgelistet. Dazwischen wird immer wieder auf Mauro Jöhri hingewiesen. Etwa auf die Tatsache, dass der Bündner Kapuziner von 1995 bis 2001 und von 2005 bis 2006 Provinzial der Schweizer Kapuziner war und seit 2006 dem Orden als Generalminister vorsteht. Das Mail verweist auch auf Artikel über das Freiburger Missbrauchsopfer Daniel Pittet im Internet. Es sei «klar, dass Jöhri alles gewusst haben muss», heisst es in dem Mail. Dem Orden wird vorgeworfen, «gerade auch unter Jöhri» kein innerkirchliches Verfahren eröffnet zu haben.

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SCHWEIZ
Neue Zurcher Zeitung

[It is about a hushed abuse scandal among the Capuchins, allegedly manipulated media and the turmoil for the succession in the bishopric of Chur: The latest scandal always draws more circles].

von Simon Hehli 24.2.2017

Es geht um einen vertuschten Missbrauchsskandal bei den Kapuzinern, angeblich manipulierte Medien und die Wirren um die Nachfolge im Bistum Chur: Der neuste Skandal zieht immer weitere Kreise.

Etwas kann man der katholischen Kirche gewiss nicht vorwerfen: dass sie langweilig ist. Derzeit ist es ein Missbrauchsskandal, der für Schlagzeilen sorgt. Der Freiburger Daniel Pittet veröffentlichte vor kurzem das Buch «Mon Père, je vous pardonne», für das Papst Franziskus das Vorwort geschrieben hat. Pittet berichtet darin, wie er von einem heute 76-jährigen Kapuzinerpater aus der Waadt missbraucht worden ist, bereits im Alter von neun Jahren sei er von diesem vergewaltigt worden. Der Pater ist geständig, dass er sich seit 1958 an mindestens vierzig weiteren Jungen vergangen hat, darunter auch sein eigener Neffe.

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PENNSYLVANIA
CBS Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — A former rabbi from the Yeshiva Boys School of Pittsburgh is under investigation, accused of sexually abusing children.

Word of the probe first surfaced in the Jewish Chronicle. The publication states there may have been more than one victim and that Rabbi Nisson Friedman, 26, was caught in the act in the school library.

Friedman has been with Yeshiva Boys School since 2013. He has been fired, but is not yet charged.

He’s the son of a prominent rabbi in Minnesota.

The school declined to speak on camera Friday, but in a written statement they said: “We swiftly reported this disclosure to the police and the state’s mandated childline.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Michael Short

The Catholic Church, which has presided over a decades-long international cover-up of countless cases, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of child rape and other sexual abuse is arguably guilty of crimes against humanity.

In Australia, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, launched in 2013, has heard much harrowing evidence that for decades child rapists have been protected by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. Only a few days ago, the Archbishop of Sydney, Anthony Fisher, told the commission the response of leaders of his church to allegations of child sexual abuse amounted to “criminal negligence”.

And although it beggars belief, such despicable betrayal of natural justice and of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth continues. Also last week, County Court Judge Geoffrey Chettle declared that evidence the Catholic Church continued to pay – taking the total to as much as $1.5 million – for the defence of one of Australia’s worst paedophiles, Robert Charles Best, “just blows me away”.

Well might he say that, for Best, 76, pleaded guilty in the County Court of Victoria to the sexual abuse of 20 children between 1968 and 1988 at schools in Ballarat, Box Hill, Geelong and Moonee Ponds. With withering understatement, Judge Chettle said he was struggling to contain his emotion at the gravity and extent of Best’s abuse. “It’s hard not to get angry, and I’m trying.” A lot of Best’s victims have died by suicide. Many others have experienced mental ill-health, substance abuse, addiction and difficulty maintaining professional and personal relationships.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio , heugenio@guampdn.com Feb. 25, 2017

Besides adopting a national charter for protecting young people from clergy sexual abuses, Guam’s Catholic Church now also seeks legal background checks for all its adult ministers and volunteers to help prevent future abuses.

The church also now requires all rites and masses to be celebrated in accordance with the Vatican’s general instructions unless they can show proof of exemptions from Rome by March 1, the beginning of the Lenten season.

The Rev. Paul A.M. Gofigan, rector of the Dulce Nombre De Maria Cathedral-Basilica, issued a two-pronged Feb. 14 memo on background checks and unifying the church.

Gofigan asks all current and future adult ministers or volunteers having close contact with minors, at any level, to sign a waiver allowing the cathedral-basilica to perform a legal background check. He said this is not a credit check but is essentially a police clearance.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Aisha Dow

Victorian child sex abuse victims who receive a capped payout from the Catholic Church should no longer be forced to sign away their rights to future legal claims, a redacted report has recommended.

An independent review into the church’s controversial Melbourne Response scheme was announced by Archbishop Denis Hart in August 2014, but has been suppressed by the church for more than a year.

A heavily edited version was finally submitted to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Friday, containing 24 pages of the 176-page document.

It included 17 recommendations from the report’s author, retired Federal Court judge Donnell Ryan, QC, including that victims no longer be obliged to sign a deed of release in order to access monetary payments.

Mr Ryan said this waiver could be made on the condition that if victims were to receive future payouts through civil proceedings, the money already received through the Melbourne Response would be deducted from the final amount.

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JAMAICA
Council on Hemispheric Affairs

By Andrew Lumsden, Research Fellow at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

To download a PDF version of this article, click here.

On the night of December 28, 2016, police officers patrolling in the town of Santa Cruz in the Jamaican parish of St. Elizabeth, approached a parked car which had aroused their suspicions. Upon further investigations, authorities found 64-year-old Rupert Clarke, the pastor of a church in the nearby parish of Manchester, in what they called a “compromising position” with a 15-year-old girl.[i]

Clarke was arrested and charged with having sex with a minor in a case which has commanded attention as well as shocked the nation.[ii] Unfortunately, this appalling incident is only a small part of a much broader problem in Jamaican society: the prevalence of child sexual abuse.

“A National Crisis”

In 2014, Lisa Hanna, then the Minister of Youth and Culture, described child sex abuse in Jamaica as a “national crisis.”[iii] Between 2007 and 2014 nearly 17,000 cases were recorded by Jamaica’s Office of the Children’s Registry (OCR). [iv][v] The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) notes however, that “the available data does not necessarily reflect the actual magnitude of the problem” because the vast majority of incidents go unreported.[vi] In all, 40% of Jamaicans have said that their first sexual experience occurred without their consent and before the age of 16.[vii]

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NORTH CAROLINA
Daily Journal

SPINDALE, N.C. (AP) — From all over the world, they flocked to this tiny town in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, lured by promises of inner peace and eternal life. What many found instead: years of terror — waged in the name of the Lord.

Congregants of the Word of Faith Fellowship were regularly punched, smacked, choked, slammed to the floor or thrown through walls in a violent form of deliverance meant to “purify” sinners by beating out devils, 43 former members told The Associated Press in separate, exclusive interviews.

Victims of the violence included pre-teens and toddlers — even crying babies, who were vigorously shaken, screamed at and sometimes smacked to banish demons.

“I saw so many people beaten over the years. Little kids punched in the face, called Satanists,” said Katherine Fetachu, 27, who spent nearly 17 years in the church.

Word of Faith Fellowship, an evangelical church with hundreds of members in North Carolina and branches in other countries, also subjected members to a practice called “blasting” — an ear-piercing verbal onslaught often conducted in hours-long sessions meant to cast out devils.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Church Times

by Tim Wyatt

Posted: 24 Feb 2017

TWO clergy in the diocese of London who were strongly criticised for safeguarding failures in the case of an ordinand who was a rapist will not face proceedings under the Clergy Discipline Measure (CDM).

An independent review commissioned last year by the Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Richard Chartres, considered the diocese’s part in the case of Timothy Storey, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison after being convicted of three charges of rape and one of sexual assault against teenage girls (News, 22 April).

Mr Storey worked first as a youth pastor at St Michael’s, Chester Square, where he met his two victims, before being sent to Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, to train as a priest. Both girls reported Mr Storey to the Church, but there was a “wholesale failure” by the diocesan safeguarding team to stop his offending, Judge Philip Katz QC said during sentencing.

The independent review recommended, among other things, “consideration of whether in light of the findings of the review an investigation under CDM is warranted or appropriate in relation to” two clerics referred to in the report only as “clergy persons A and B”. Clergy person A was the voluntary, unpaid Bishops’ Adviser in Child Protection in the Two Cities and Stepney areas of the diocese. Clergy person B was the Two Cities area director of ordinands. Both have since stepped down from these posts.

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IRELAND
New York Times

SINEAD O’SHEA
FEB. 24, 2017

DUBLIN — Cardinal Desmond Connell, who retired as the Roman Catholic archbishop of Dublin during a furor over the church’s handling of cases of sexual abuse perpetrated by members of the clergy, died on Tuesday. He was 90.

The death, in Dublin, was announced by the current archbishop, Diarmuid Martin.

A theological scholar with training in metaphysics, then-Father Connell was a surprise choice when Pope John Paul II appointed him to lead the archdiocese of Dublin in 1988. John Paul named him a cardinal in 2001, making him the first archbishop of Dublin to be so elevated in nearly 120 years.

During his 16 years as archbishop, Cardinal Connell was a stalwart defender of church doctrine, particularly on social issues like contraception, divorce and homosexuality. …

But he was best known for his handling of a sex abuse scandal that eventually engulfed his archdiocese, as it has others around the world.

The abuses first began to emerge after the Rev. Brendan Smyth, a Northern Irish priest, was convicted of child sex abuse and imprisoned in 1994. The next year Archbishop Connell denied that the archdiocese had paid compensation to victims of abuse by its priests. But in 1998, it emerged that he had quietly lent archdiocesan money to an abusive priest, the Rev. Ivan Payne, who then paid an abuse survivor, Andrew Madden.

Mr. Madden came forward to reveal the loan, but Cardinal Connell initially denied that he had made it. In the ensuing controversy he was accused of tolerating or participating in a cover-up.

In 2002, the national broadcaster RTE published a report by the investigative journalist Mary Raftery exposing the archdiocese’s protection of eight priests who had sexually abused children.

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IRELAND
Herald

Sarah MacDonald – 25 February 2017

The Pope’s representative in Ireland has revealed how he witnessed an anguished Cardinal Desmond Connell in tears at the Vatican over the clerical abuse of children at the turn of the millennium.

Speaking to the Herald after the funeral Mass of the former archbishop of Dublin at St Mary’s Pro Cathedral, the Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Charles Brown, recalled seeing Dr Connell in Rome “filled with anguish about the horrors of the sexual abuse of children”.

Cardinal Connell worked at the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith (1993-2001), where Archbishop Brown served until 2011, when he was appointed to Ireland.

“When I say visible anguish, it was visible in his tears which I witnessed,” he said.

He said the evil of that was “completely inconceivable and unfathomable” to him.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun
February 24, 2017

John Lyons accuses Cardinal George Pell on the ABC’s The Drum of transferring a “known pedophile” priest to another town, where he abused again, and says Pell covered up the reasons for the move.

In fact, the royal commission heard Pell knew nothing of the pedophilia and the transfer was engineered by his bishop. Yet no panelist defended Pell.

Here is yet another example of how the media is so determined to hang Pell that nothing, and certainly not the truth, can save him.

Lyon makes his claims five minutes from the end:

It is so sad and telling that not a single person on the panel, including the Disability Discrimination Commissioner, points out the truth about these allegations, although all seem to claim enough knowledge to offer opinions on the issue.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Christopher Knaus

Friday 24 February 2017

Every night, as darkness fell around the boarding houses of St Virgil’s College in Hobart, Tony Rayner watched a handful of boys creep into the bedroom of Brother Patrick Timothy Farrell.

It was the 1950s and an eight-year-old Rayner was envious of the boys’ special treatment. Rumours drifted through the halls that Brother Farrell’s chosen few were rewarded with lollies.

Farrell, a member of the Christian Brothers Catholic order, eventually called Rayner in.

“He sat me up on the bed right next to him, and the other boys were down the foot of the bed – when you’re eight years old it was quite a distance,” Rayner told Guardian Australia. “He said, ‘You wanted to come in here.’ And then he told me to suck his dick.”

A confused Rayner said no, telling the brother it would be a sin. He still clearly remembers the odd moment that followed. “He looked at one of the other boys, who I saw as the ringleader … and he said, ‘I told you Rayner was too young.’”

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OREGON
The Register-Guard

By Jack Moran
The Register-Guard
FEB. 23, 2017

A Eugene priest on trial for allegedly paying for oral sex with an underage prostitute is innocent of the charges and ended up arrested after police misunderstood a text message as part of a flawed investigation, his attorney told a jury Friday morning.

Daniel MacKay’s lawyer, Terri Wood of Eugene, acknowledged in an opening statement to her client’s trial in Lane County Circuit Court that MacKay gave a homeless, 17-year-old girl cash on a number of occasions last year.

But the money wasn’t in exchange for sex, she said.

Instead, MacKay agreed to the girl’s repeated requests for cash because she appeared desperate, and the priest has for years “embraced the duty to help those in need,” Wood asserted. She added that the alleged victim told MacKay that she was 21.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

Australia’s most senior Catholic leaders will ask the Pope to settle the issue of whether the seal of confession can be broken to protect children from sexual abuse as one likened it to bugging the confessional.

Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher said for a priest to repeat anything that has occurred during confession would be a very serious breach of trust and the sacrament.

Archbishop Fisher said he could not withhold absolution from someone who confessed to abusing a child and if they were genuinely contrite would forgive their sin, as he would a terrorist or a murderer.

‘What I can’t do is effectively bug the confessional on behalf of the state to use it to a way of reporting crimes retrospective or prospective,’ he told the child sex abuse royal commission.

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CANADA
CBC News

Former Moncton priest Yvon Arsenault has been sentenced to four years in prison after changing his plea to guilty in October on nine counts of molesting boys, dating back to the 1970s.

Arsenault, 74, of Aldouane covered his face with his hand after Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Zoël Dionne imposed sentence on Friday afternoon.

“​I’m not here to promote religion,” the judge said, “but these people wanted a life of faith, and because of incidents, it became something sour.”

He commended Arsenault’s victims for having the courage to speak out and denounce the abuse.

The nine victims ranged in age from nine to 17 when the abuse occurred between 1971 and 1980 in Shediac and Collette, located in Northumberland County.

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CALIFORNIA
The Worthy Adversary

February 24, 2017 Joelle Casteix

The recent lawsuit against Fr. Richard T. Coughlin, The All-American Boys Chorus, and the Diocese of Orange has sparked a flurry of conversation and controversy online.

Why? A whole generation of kids was destroyed by Coughlin.

And of course, a lot of people were quick to defend the chorus and say, “Things are different now.”

But they’re not.

Singers can be Easy Prey

Choruses can be funny things. I am a singer, so I know. I was sexually abused in a chorus, targeted by a director who saw I was an easy mark.

Singing and the teaching of singing are very personal and very hands-on. It’s one-on-one (and before the days of awareness about sexual abuse, it was done behind closed doors). It’s not unusual for a vocal coach to touch a student (in a NON-SEXUAL WAY) to show a concept. It’s very personal and can get very emotional. Your body is your instrument. If a piano is out of tune, you hire a tuner. If your voice is out of tune … well, it’s personal.

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COLOMBIA
Pulzo

El cardenal Rubén Salazar le envió una carta a Cristina Plazas en la que asegura que el cuidado de los niños es prioridad.

En su carta, el arzobispo de Bogotá pide perdón por los casos de abusos sexuales a menores por sacerdotes que han sido denunciados en el país y promete “cero tolerancia” ante cualquier otro caso.

Asimismo, la arquidiócesis de la capital aseguró que tomará “todas las medidas” para que los responsables de los abusos sexuales sean castigados tanto civil como canónicamente.

Si se comprueba el abuso, un sacerdote jamás podrá volver a ejercer su ministerio”,

resaltó la curia bogotana en la misiva, difundida en su página web.

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COLOMBIA
Colombia Reports

written by Miguel Salazar February 24, 2017

Colombia’s top Catholic clergyman told the government on Friday that the church would fight sexual abuse by priests against minors with a “zero tolerance” approach towards affiliated pedophiles.

“The protection of children and adolescents is an absolute priority for the Catholic Church in Colombia,” the Archbishop of Bogota, Cardinal Rubén Salazar, wrote in a letter addressed to the government’s Family Welfare Institute (ICFB) days after the church had come under fire for sexual abuse charges filed against a Colombian priest.

Catholic Church attacks sex abuse victims’ family for seeking reparation

In his letter, the archbishop said that priests that engaged in child sexual abuse would not just be held accountable before the law, but also within the church.

“We applaud all the effort you make from the general direction of the Institute of Family Welfare to protect all the minors of our nation,” he said. “If it is true that the Church bitterly cries out the sin of her children and asks forgiveness, it is also true that we are committed to renewing all efforts so that these atrocities do not happen again among us.”

Earlier this week, Cristina Plazas Michelsen, the director of the ICBF, had sent Cardinal Salazar a letter calling for the Catholic Church to “set a precedent and express ‘zero tolerance’ to anything surrounding sexual abuse, the most atrocious crime of humanity.” It was in response to court proceedings in Cali, Valle del Cauca, against a priest accused of sexually abusing four children in his community.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph and Argus

Jenifer Loweth

A CHURCH of England vicar has been convicted by a jury of sexually abusing a boy when he was a head teacher in Bradford.

The Recorder of Bradford, Judge Roger Thomas QC, warned David Fletcher he will “almost inevitably go into custody” for indecently assaulting the child in the late 1980s.

Fletcher, 63, whose ministry includes 12 churches in East Yorkshire, was found guilty of two of the eight charges against him by a majority verdict of 11-1.

The jury at Bradford Crown Court cleared him of six further allegations of indecent assault made by the same complainant.

He was bailed to return to the court for sentence on Monday, March 6.

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UNITED STATES
The Daily Caller

MARIA JEFFREY

Lost in the crushing sound of Milo Yiannopoulos’ fall has been the revelation that he was sexually abused by a priest named “Fr. Michael.” In his press conference Tuesday, after his comments on pedophilia were brought to light, the former Breitbart editor said, “Between the ages of 13 and 16, two men touched me in ways they should not have. One of those men was a priest.”

In the video where Milo talks about pedophilia, he states, “I’m grateful to Fr. Michael. I wouldn’t give nearly such good head if it wasn’t for him.”

There has been a lot of ink already spilled over what Milo’s comments on sexual abuse mean for the moral arc of the conservative movement, but no one is paying attention to the revelation that Milo himself was sexually abused as a young teen. Who he was sexually abused by? Who is Fr. Michael? Is he still a practicing priest?

Milo was raised Catholic and is open about his love for the Catholic Church. In Kent, England where Milo grew up, a Catholic priest named Monsignor Michael Smith was arrested in 2010 after sexual abuse allegations were made against him by victim who called Smith a “devious predator.” According to KentLive, a publication in Kent, the victim received compensation from the Catholic Church in a civil suit in 2016.

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AUSTRALIA
The West Australian

EXCLUSIVE, Nick Butterly
Friday, February 24, 2017

The Christian Brothers have taken the extraordinary step of moving the grave of a notoriously brutal brother from the grounds of a WA school as the Catholic Church reels from revelations of past abuse.

The Catholic order has dismantled the grave of Brother Francis Paul Keaney at Bindoon Agricultural College, shifting his remains to a humble plot at Karrakatta, effectively erasing any trace of the Brother from the institution he once ruled over.

Keaney set up the Tardun farm school near Geraldton in the 1920s and was principal at Clontarf and Bindoon Boys Town from 1942 through to his death in 1954.

Child migrants from Britain and Ireland have given evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse telling how Keaney presided over a fiercely brutal regime at Bindoon.

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IRELAND
RTE News

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has said that Cardinal Desmond Connell was the first leader of the Dublin diocese to recognise, albeit slowly, the extent of the damage inflicted on children by priests who sexually abused.

Dr Martin told his predecessor’s funeral mass that the hurt caused by the scandal has yet to be fully recognised and still remains for victims.

The cardinal’s death was announced on Tuesday. He was 90.

Most of the country’s hierarchy joined the Papal Nuncio and Archbishop Martin in concelebrating the mass at which the Cardinal’s sister-in-law, Peggy Connell, was the chief mourner.

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