ABUSE TRACKER

NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY REUVEN BLAU

FBI agents raided a Hasidic school Thursday where a principal was taped forcibly touching two young male students.

The agents seized documents at the United Talmudical Academy and several other locations in Kiryas Joel, N.Y.

The FBI confirmed the raids but declined to provide details. The federal investigation comes after a video was posted on Facebook showing a school principal sitting directly across from a young boy, who at one point clasps his hands over his pelvic area.

The school worker appears to kiss the child on the face for several seconds. School officials defended the encounter, saying authorities looked into the tape and declined to bring charges.

“The principal in question is a respected rabbi in our community with over 30 years experience in religious instruction and administration,” a statement issued by the school Tuesday said.

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NEW YORK
The Jewish Week

Source says the two searches at Kiryas Joel are connected to the video of a school principal kissing a student that surfaced last week.

05/12/16
Steve Lipman And Hannah Dreyfus
Staff Writers

Dozens of FBI agents and officers of other law enforcement agencies conducted searches Thursday morning at a public safety building and the prominent United Talmudic Academy in Kiryas Joel, the chasidic village in upstate Orange County.

A source close to the situation told The Jewish Week that the raid is “clearly related” to a video that surfaced last week allegedly showing the principal of UTA kissing a young student. The 11-minute video was widely circulated on WhatsApp and Facebook. According to the Journal News, the uncut version shows a boy standing between a man’s legs as he strokes the boys face and kisses him. State police confirmed that they had the video and were looking into the incident, but Orange County Chief Assistant District Attorney Christopher Borek would not confirm an investigation.

According to the source, who wished to remain anonymous, the only other explanation for the searches “would be that they’re investigating corruption allegations, such as influence on the Orange County DA.” The source continued, “I heard that they requested the school’s policies on reporting and documenting complaints of abuse. It seems they’re trying to figure out the role Public Safety plays in such investigations.”

According to the West Nyack-based Hudson Valley News 12 television station and the yeshivaworld.com website, the officials have executed search warrants at the public safety building and the United Talmudic Academy of the village, home to more than 20,000 members of the Satmar Chasidic group.

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NEW YORK
Jewish Journal

JTA

Federal agents searched the New York Hasidic village of Kiryas Joel for the second time in the past two months, this time targeting a yeshiva and the town’s public safety building.

According to multiple news outlets, investigators from the FBI, Sullivan County District Attorney’s office, and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms searched locations throughout the town on Thursday. The Journal News reported that at least seven law enforcement officials were observed carrying items out of a building belonging to the United Talmudical Academy, whose principal was caught kissing male students in two separate video clips that were recently circulated.

According to the Journal News, the Satmar school’s board of directors issued a statement Tuesday defending the principal.

“While this type of restraint may be unacceptable to some viewers, it in no way rises to the level of a criminal assault,” the statement said.

It is not clear whether Thursday’s raids were related to the videos. In March, FBI agents raided schools in the village — as well as in nearby Rockland County — in connection with their use of the federal E-rate technology subsidy program. Also in March, a United Talmudical Academy facility in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn was raided, reportedly on suspicion of defrauding the federal school lunch program.

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NEW YORK
Forward

Josh Nathan-Kazis
May 12, 2016

A powerful Hasidic leader has slammed a bill in the New York State legislature that would enforce laws that require religious schools to teach secular subjects.

Moderate Jewish groups that are normally vocal on religious education issues, meanwhile, are staying stayed silent.

The bill, introduced by Assemblywoman Ellen Jaffe in early May, is one of two proposals currently moving through the New York State Legislature that seek to give teeth to existing legislation that already requires nonpublic schools to teach subjects similar to those taught in public schools.

Some Hasidic schools for boys routinely flout the existing laws, offering minimal time for English, history and math, or skipping the subjects altogether. The new bills that would give regulators new tools o enforce those laws come amid increased statewide attention on the lack of secular education in some Hasidic yeshivas, driven largely by the advocacy group Yaffed .

The Hasidic leaders’ opposition to the bill, and the lack of vocal support for the bill on the part of moderate Jewish groups, could spell trouble for Yaffed’s reform campaign.

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NEW YORK
The Journal News

Jordan Fenster, jfenster@lohud.com May 12, 2016

The FBI is raiding several locations in Kiryas Joel, a small, predominantly ultra-Orthodox village in Monroe, in Orange County.

Here are five things you should know about Kiryas Joel and those raids:

1. The reason for the raids is not yet clear

Reports from the scene on social media claim that about seven FBI agents — and as many as 15 — gained entrance to the United Talmudical Academy, a local yeshiva, about 10 a.m. along with local sheriff’s deputies.

The yeshiva is located at 16A Getzil Berger Blvd., and a Journal News reporter observed law enforcement officials carrying items out of the building.

Search warrants are also being executed the local public safety building.

2. There have been allegations of sexual abuse

Two videos surfaced earlier this month showing the principal of the United Talmudical Academy, a Kiryas Joel-based yeshiva, touching students in what some have called an inappropriate manner. The state police said they had opened an investigation, but the school’s board of directors issued a statement defending the principal’s actions.

“The school principal is seen embracing the students who were sent to his office for behavioral issues,” the statement read. “While this type of restraint may be unacceptable to some viewers, it in no way rises to the level of a criminal assault.”

It is unclear if the federal raids conducted Thursday are related to the videos or the state police investigation.

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NEW JERSEY
Daily Recod

Peggy Wright, @PeggyWrightDR May 12, 2016

The murder conviction and life sentence for a custodian who stabbed the Rev. Edward Hinds to death in 2009 in the rectory of St. Patrick Roman Catholic Church in Chatham was upheld Thursday by a state appeals court.

Jose Ramon Feliciano, now 71 and incarcerated at New Jersey State Prison, had claimed after the Oct. 22, 2009 murder that he repeatedly stabbed the 61-year-old pastor to end unwanted sexual overtures. But the Morris County jury believed that Hinds had learned that the parish custodian was a fugitive for 21 years from a Pennsylvania allegation of improper conduct with a female child and intended to fire him.

The appellate court panel, in a 70-page decision released Thursday, rejected multiple claims of an unfair trial by Feliciano. He alleged that then-Morris County Prosecutor Robert Bianchi, who tried the 28-day trial, made inflammatory and disparaging remarks about him, including that he was “narcissistic.” Feliciano also unsuccessfully appealed use at trial of the criminal warrant from his past, and he argued that the state’s use of two witnesses — a pastoral psychotherapist and hospital mental health worker — violated his rights to confidentiality but the appellate panel disagreed.

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VERMONT
WPTZ

[with video]

BURLINGTON, Vt. (NECN) —A leader of two Catholic churches in Vermont’s largest city is on an indefinite leave of absence, during which he cannot present himself as a priest.

The move comes in the wake of the priest’s foul language and misuse of church funds, the bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington said.

Fr. Rich O’Donnell stepped down from Christ the King and St. Anthony’s Parish in Burlington last year, but the reason wasn’t clear until messages from Bishop Christopher Coyne recently appeared in church bulletins.

“To lose a young priest who’s not even in his 40s yet to something like this is a real blow,” Coyne said Wednesday. “And especially, (losing) a priest as popular as Father Rich O’Donnell is an even greater blow.”

Coyne said business administrators discovered O’Donnell misused more than $20,000 of church money in less than two years. The spending Coyne described as “inappropriate” included gifts for parish members and employees, overly generous tips at restaurants and mileage reimbursements for travel not associated with parish work.

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VERMONT
WPTZ

Father Rich O’Donnell stepped down from Christ the King and St. Anthony’s Parish in Burlington last year, but the reason wasn’t clear until messages from Bishop Christopher Coyne recently appeared in church bulletins.

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NEW JERSEY
New Jersey 101.5

By Sergio Bichao May 12, 2016

CHATHAM BOROUGH — A church janitor serving a life sentence for brutally stabbing a Catholic priest to death has lost an appeal that argued that his punishment is cruel and unusual and that he was denied a fair trial.

Jose Feliciano, now 71, was convicted by a Morris County jury in 2011 of killing St. Patrick’s Church pastor Edward Hinds in a fit of rage on Oct. 22, 2009.

Hinds was stabbed at least 44 times throughout his entire body. Police the next day found his cold corpse lying in a mess of blood in the rectory kitchen.

During the struggle, Hinds tried to call 911 on his cell phone, but Feliciano grabbed it and told the dispatcher that no help was needed.

Feliciano admitted to the slaying, telling police that Hinds had carried on a sexual relationship with Feliciano for several years after threatening to fire him from his job. Feliciano said voices in his head urged him to stab Hinds after the priest told Feliciano that he was terminating his employment.

But authorities said Hinds was letting Feliciano go because he had discovered in a background check that Feliciano was a fugitive from justice in Pennsylvania after failing to appear in court back in 1988 on charges that he molested a 7-year-old girl.

Feliciano was sentenced in 2012 to life in prison for murder and also 20 years for robbery and five years for hindering.

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UNITED STATES
The Guardian (UK)

George Joseph in New York
Thursday 12 May 2016

The US Catholic church has poured millions of dollars over the past decade into opposing accountability measures for victims of clergy sex abuse, according to state lobbying disclosures.

The lobbying funds have gone toward opposing bills in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland that would extend statutes of limitations for child sex abuse cases or grant temporary civil windows for victims whose opportunities for civil action have already passed.

In light of major child sex abuse scandals from Jerry Sandusky to Dennis Hastert, lawmakers nationwide are pushing to give victims other avenues to sue. In Pennsylvania, house representative Mark Rozzi, who was abused as a child by a Catholic priest, has led a campaign to extend the age before which child abuse victims can bring on cases. In New York, assemblywoman Margaret Markey is pushing to grant a temporary one-year window for those whose statute of limitations has already expired.

“Many child sex abuse cases are done gradually, under the guise of love or sex education, and so what happens is most victims don’t even realize until literally decades later,” said David Clohessy, a director with the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “The overwhelming majority of us rationalize it. That’s how we as survivors cope with this stunning betrayal. We cope with it by denying and minimizing it.”

Since 2007, the New York bishops’ lobbying arms have poured more than $1.1m into “issues associated with timelines for commencing certain civil actions related to sex offenses”, nearly half of their total compensation for lobbyists in that period. Another nearly $700,000 also went towards lobbying for a package of church priorities, including but not limited to influencing the climate on “statute of limitations” legislation.

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NEW YORK
The Yeshiva World

On Tuesday the New York Daily News reported that the Satmar Rebbe of Kiryas Yoel, Rav Aaron Teitelbaum gave a Drasha to his thousands of followers in response to the city Education Department’s investigation into its schools for failing to provide adequate secular education as required by law.

“These are bad times for us Jews,” said the Satmar Rebbe. “We need to pray to Hashem that (city officials) should not interfere with the upbringing of our children.”

“Worthless … snitches” in the community are urging the government to take action “which the government doesn’t even want,” the Rebbe continued.

Last summer the Education Department announced that more than a dozen private schools would be investigated to make sure their curriculum follows secular education standards.

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NEW YORK
Reason

Previous raid targeted alleged library subsidy scam.
Ed Krayewski
|May. 12, 2016

A series of federal raids were conducted around the village of Kiryas Joel in upstate New York, Forward reports. Accounts on social media suggest participation in the raids by the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco and Explosives (ATF) and the Sullivan County district attorney’s office.

Neither the FBI nor the U.S. attorney’s office provided Forward with a comment, but the Jewish media outlet suggested the raids may have to do with a couple of ongoing controversies in Kiryas Joel—a video of an ultra-Orthodox principal kissing a boy that is being investigated by local authorities (the school defends his actions), and/or a scandal involving alleged misuse of federal e-Rate funds by Orthodox institutions in Kiryas Joel and elsewhere in upstate New York as well as Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

The e-Rate scandal has already led to federal raids in Kiryas Joel and elsewhere in New York. The federal e-Rate program offers money to libraries to purchase servers as well as to subsidize the cost of phone and internet access. The definition of a library and what kind of institutions qualify is determined at the state and local level. In New York, the determinations are made by local library associations. Most require the institutions have a librarian with a master’s degree.

The Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO) offers “collegial” level membership for libraries that don’t meet all the qualifications. Such institutions then qualify for e-Rate funding and, as Forward reported in 2013, some Orthodox institutions joined METRO to qualify for funding, and then allegedly received far more than would be necessary for the institutions given their small size. Many of the institutions were Satmar Hasidic—Forward reports that one of the community’s two top religious leaders had decreed that Satmar children who had internet at home could not attend Satmar schools, thus spurring growth in internet cafes as well as the library-like institutions under scrutiny.

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NEW YORK
Time

Julia Zorthian @jzorth

It was not immediately clear what the FBI was investigating on Thursday.

The FBI and other officials conducted a series of raids across the largely Orthodox Jewish village of Kiryas Joel in Orange County, New York on Thursday.

At least seven agents removed items from a yeshiva run by the United Talmudical Academy, the village’s school system, local news site The Journal News reports. The cause of the raids was not known as of Thursday afternoon.

An FBI spokesperson confirmed the search to Gothamist, but would not comment on the nature of the investigation. An Orange County Sheriff’s Office assisted with the raids. In March, FBI raided other Orthodox communities throughout Rockland County in connection with religious schools possibly misusing federal funding for “e-rate” technology.

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MICHIGAN
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Kenneth Kaucheck was ordained for the Archdiocese of Detroit in 1976. He was assigned to parishes in Clawson, Dearborn, Detroit, and in Troy, where he was appointed pastor. He pastored parishes also in Grosse Pointe, Royal Oak, and Ferndale. Kaucheck served on the Archdiocesan Tribunal for many years and was a Regional Vicar. In January 2009 a woman reported to the archdiocese that Kaucheck had engaged in “sexual misconduct” with her in 1976, when she was 16 years-old and he was her counselor at Guardian Angels parish in Clawson. When a senior priest at Guardian Angels was told of the situation that year, he held a meeting with Kaucheck, the girl and her father and brother. Kaucheck was reassigned. In 2009 the Archdiocesan Review Board deemed the allegation credible, and Kaucheck was placed on leave. In May 2016 it came to light that, along with a nun, Kaucheck co-founded a facility for pregnant teens in 2015. The archdiocese stated that his position there violated the restrictions placed on him in 2009, and that he could be removed under canon law.

Ordained: 1976

Educated: Sacred Heart Seminary, Detroit MI; St. John Provincial Seminary, Plymouth MI; St. Mary’s Seminary, Baltimore MD.; Gregorian University, Rome, Italy. Doctorates in ministry and canon law.

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NEW YORK
Patch

By MICHAEL WOYTON (Patch Staff) – May 12, 2016

KIRYAS JOEL, NY – The FBI and the Orange County Sheriff’s Department are conducting raids in Kiryas Joel Thursday.

News12 said the agencies have search warrants and are executing them at the United Talmudical Academy and the village public safety building.

The Forward.com said dozens of agents, including the FBI, Sullivan County District Attorney’s office and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were on the scene, according to social media.

The United Talmudical Academy is where a principal was recorded on video in close contact with young boys. The Board of Directors of the academy said they are standing in support of the principal.

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NEW YORK
St. Louis Jewish Light

Ben Sales

(JTA) — Federal agents are searching the New York Hasidic village of Kiryas Joel for the second time in the past two months.

According to the Forward, investigators from the FBI, Sullivan County District Attorney’s office, and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms searched locations throughout the town on Thursday.

Last week, two videos surfaced apparently showing a Kiryas Joel principal kissing a male student. In March, FBI agents raided schools in the village in connection with their use of the federal E-rate technology subsidy program.

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NEW YORK
News 12

News 12 has learned that the FBI and the Orange County Sheriff’s Department are raiding multiple locations in the village of Kiryas Joel.

The agencies confirm they are executing search warrants at the village’s public safety building and the United Talmudical Academy.

Authorities have not released specifics about the current investigation.

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NEW YORK
Gothamist

BY EMMA WHITFORD IN NEWS ON MAY 12, 2016

Federal agents are currently conducting searches in the ultra-Orthodox village of Kiryas Joel in Orange County, New York. A spokeswoman for the FBI confirmed an ongoing search but declined to comment further.

The purpose of the raids is as yet unclear. According to reports from the scene on Twitter, about 15 FBI agents entered the United Talmudical Academy, a local yeshiva, shortly after 10:00 a.m. accompanied by a local sheriff and agents from the Sullivan County DA’s office. News 12 reports that the agents are also executing search warrants at the village’s public safety building.

Last week, the Journal News reported that police were investigating a video allegedly showing the principal of United Talmudic Academy kissing a young student. The 11-minute video was widely circulated on WhatsApp and Facebook. According to the News, the uncut version shows a boy standing between a man’s legs as he strokes the boys face and kisses him. State police confirmed that they had the video and were looking into the incident, but Orange County Chief Assistant District Attorney Christopher Borek would not confirm an investigation.

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NEW YORK
Forward

A large group of federal agents and local law enforcement officials descended on the ultra-Orthodox village of Kiryas Joel in Orange County, New York on Thursday morning, carrying out searches throughout town.

A spokesperson for the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s New York office confirmed that there had been “investigative activity” in Kiryas Joel on Thursday, but would not comment further. A spokesperson for the Orange County Sheriff’s office said that uniformed personnel from the Sheriff’s office had aided federal agents in serving warrants.

According to social media reports, officials from the the Sullivan County District Attorney’s office were also on scene at locations throughout the village. The Sullivan County District Attorney did not respond to a request for comment.

Kiryas Joel is controlled and populated by members of the Satmar Hasidic sect. The village’s spiritual leader, Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum, is in a years-long conflict with his brother, Rabbi Zalman Teitelbaum, who is based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and leads his own group of Satmar Hasidim. Village officials did not respond to an inquiry left Thursday morning.

Last week, press reports indicated that local authorities were investigating a video that appeared to show a teacher in a Kiryas Joel school kissing a young male student.

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NEW YORK
Arutz Sheva (Israel0

Dozens of FBI agents raided a Satmar hassidic yeshiva in Kiryas Joel in New York on Thursday, apparently as part of an investigation of a child pornography case according to WABC, although conflicting reports pointed to a corruption investigation.

The agents, together with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and the Sullivan County District Attorney, used search warrants at the United Talmudical Academy, a school where the principal was recently caught on tape doing improper conduct with a boy.

The yeshiva earlier this week issued a statement saying the conduct that was filmed does not constitute a “criminal assault.”

“In these videos, the school principal is seen embracing the students who were sent to his office for behavioral issues. While this type of restraint may be unacceptable to some viewers, it in no way rises to the level of a criminal assault,” read the statement.

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NEW YORK
Times Herald-Record

Agents of the FBI, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office and Orange County Sheriff’s Office as well as representatives of the Sullivan County District Attorney, among others, are seizing documents at various locations Thursday morning in Kiryas Joel.

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NEW YORK
The Journal News

Steve Lieberman and Jonathan Bandler, jbandler@lohud.com May 12, 2016

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s office had no comment.

KIRYAS JOEL – FBI agents and other law enforcement officials are conducting a number of raids across this ultra-Orthodox village Thursday, including at at least one property run by the United Talmudical Academy.

Outside that four-story brick yeshiva, at 16A Getzil Berger Boulevard, a Journal News reporter observed at least seven law enforcement officials carrying items out of the building, most of them wearing FBI jackets.

It was not immediately clear whether the raids were connected to earlier search warrants executed at ultra-Orthodox yeshivas in Rockland County in mid-March. Those raids targeted possible misuse of federal “e-rate” technology funding by religious schools. Several warrants were executed in Kiryas Joel that day and a grand jury continues to meet in that case.

A separate or related probe that led to searches in Williamsburg, Brooklyn that same day was possibly targeting school lunch program spending, according to a report in The Forward.

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NEW YORK
ABC 7

KIRYAS JOEL, New York (WABC) — FBI agents were in Kiryas Joel Thursday morning investigating a child pornography case.

They executed search warrants at the United Talmudical Academy, the yeshiva where a principal was caught on tape with a boy.

It is not known if the search warrants are related to the principal’s activities.

United Talmudical Academy of Kiryas Joel put out a statement earlier this week saying that the behavior caught on tape does not constitute a “criminal assault.”

“In these videos, the school principal is seen embracing the students who were sent to his office for behavioral issues. While this type of restraint may be unacceptable to some viewers, it in no way rises to the level of a criminal assault,” it said.

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GUAM
Guam Daily Post

Johanna Salinas | Post News Staff

The Concerned Catholics of Guam (CCOG) hope to find victims of sexual abuse by members of the clergy with their full-page ad in local print media. The ad has two phone numbers to contact the organization confidentially, but does not provide information on the kind of help the organization will provide.

When asked about the services they plan to have, CCOG supporter Tim Rohr said, “(The CCOG) will provide an attorney for protection (so the victims) can be able to go public with their stories without fear of their perpetrator. Most people don’t want to talk about (their experiences) because it was a powerful person that had hurt them.” Rohr said the CCOG has been in contact with Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. The SNAP organization helps heal those who have been sexually victimized by clergy.

Because of the ad, an undisclosed number of people have come forward and some have also led other victims to the group. “More than one victim (knows) of others and some don’t want to go public. They still are suffering from the damage,” Rohr said.

The CCOG wants to help end the suffering by giving the victims a voice, Rohr said. Although the group is “not equipped” to offer counseling or therapy, it hopes that the victims will heal by sharing their stories with the public. “In the case of the people that (CCOG) has talked to, (the victims) just want to tell their story, because for many it’s too late to file a lawsuit,” Rohr said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Courier

May 12, 2016

BALLARAT Catholic Diocese has confirmed a planned mass for Bishop Ronald Mulkearns will not go ahead.

The mass – which was to be held on Monday – was described as “an opportunity for priests and people from around the diocese to come together to offer mass for Bishop Mulkearns”.

Bishop Mulkearns presided over a notorious period of child sexual abuse by clergy which spanned decades was seen by many as the keep of secret. He died from cancer aged 85 last month. He was the first Ballarat bishop to receive a crypt burial and was fare-welled in a low-key funeral at Nazareth House.

The mass announcement caused outrage within the community. A petition to cancel the mass garnered close to 2000 signatures in a matter of days.

Clergy abuse survivor Stephen Woods was pleased the mass was cancelled but said the damage had already been done.

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VATICAN CITY
The Daily Beast

Barbie Latza Nadeau

With the creation of a commission to study the possibility of ordaining women as deacons, Pope Francis may have just changed everything.

ROME — At what was meant to be a love fest for 900 nuns at a meeting of the International Union of Superiors General at the Vatican on Thursday, Pope Francis didn’t just rock the boat; he may have created a tidal wave.

During the question and answer session of the meeting, one of the sisters at the conference brought up the fact that women had served as deacons in the early church.

Then, according to the National Catholic Reporter, she asked the pope, “Why not construct an official commission that might study the question?”

Francis then said that he had discussed the matter of those early deaconesses with a professor several years earlier, but that he remained unclear about what role they actually served.

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INDIA
Business Standard

A temple priest has been arrested on the charge of raping a minor girl in west Delhi, police said on Thursday.

Accused Rajesh Shukla, 45, allegedly raped the five-year-old girl when she visited the temple in Samata Vihar area on May 9 evening.

Shukla was arrested from Mukundpur area after the girl’s family lodged a complaint.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service – Bollettino

Vatican City, 12 May 2016 – The Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR) today published its 2015 Annual Report. “Building on the Holy Father’s reaffirmation of the importance of the IOR’s mission, the Institute has continued to serve with prudence and provide specialised financial services to the Catholic Church worldwide and the Vatican City State”, states a press release from the Institute. IOR has thus continued in 2015 to assist the Holy Father in His mission as universal Pastor. While visiting the IOR on November 24, 2015 the Holy Father insisted on the need to adhere to ‘Ethical principles that are non-negotiable for the Church, the Holy See and the Pope’. His Holiness went on to state that ‘IOR needs to base its operations on principles that are compatible with standards of morality, consistent efficiency and practices that respect the specificity of IOR’s nature and the example it is required to set through its activities’, so as to ‘combine, harmoniously, operational effectiveness and the essential pastoral nature of all actions’.

In the section relating to the key changes to the IOR’s operating framework, the note recalls that over the last few years Vatican City State has taken major steps in requiring all financial institutions to comply with a new legal and regulatory framework (Law XVIII). In 2015, the supervisory body AIF issued a prudential regulation, Regolamento N. 1 and the Institute has diligently worked towards adherence to the new rules issued.

Between June 2013 and December of 2015, 4935 accounts were closed, effectively terminating the thorough remediation process of past accounts. Procedures in place are diligently applied to all new customer and related activities.

With regard to anti money laundering (AML) measures and the need to “Know Your Customer” (KYC), the same year international tax agreements were signed by the Holy See, leading to enhanced transparency. Key steps were also taken in 2015 to strengthen IOR governance. It includes the creation of an Audit and Risk committee as well as an HR and Remuneration committee to help the Board. In accordance to the Statutes governing the Institute, a new director general was appointed, Gian Franco Mammì supported by Giulio Mattietti as adjunct to the director general, as well as 2 new members of the Board of Auditors (Collegio dei Revisori), Giovanni Barbara and Luca Del Pico.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

VATICAN CITY, May 12 (Reuters) – A drive to tighten financial governance at the Vatican bank after years of alleged wrongdoing has made it “impossible to launder money” there, its chairman said on Thursday.

The bank, which is called the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR), has toughened its rules and closed thousands of accounts since 2012 to break from the murky management of the past.

The IOR’s mission is to manage money for the Roman Catholic Church. But for decades it let Italian citizens hold accounts, which law enforcement officials said helped them launder money and evade taxes.

It holds 5.8 billion euros ($6.6 billion) in assets for clients around the world – primarily congregations, dioceses and other Catholic institutions.

Chairman Jean-Baptiste de Franssu, who took over in 2014 after Pope Francis was elected with a mandate to make the Vatican administration transparent, said the rules were now “extremely strict”.

“Anyone who would be tempted to use an account in an institution to launder money, the last place he would want to come to is IOR,” Franssu told Vatican Radio.

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VATICAN CITY
Banking & Finance

MAY 12, 2016

[VATICAN CITY] A drive to tighten financial governance at the Vatican bank after years of alleged wrongdoing has made it “impossible to launder money” there, its chairman said on Thursday.

The bank, which is called the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR), has toughened its rules and closed thousands of accounts since 2012 to break from the murky management of the past.

The IOR’s mission is to manage money for the Roman Catholic Church. But for decades it let Italian citizens hold accounts, which law enforcement officials said helped them launder money and evade taxes.

It holds 5.8 billion euros (S$8.33 billion) in assets for clients around the world – primarily congregations, dioceses and other Catholic institutions.

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VATICAN CITY
ABC News

By NICOLE WINFIELD, ASSOCIATED PRESS
VATICAN CITY — May 12, 2016

The head of the Vatican’s scandal-marred bank declared Thursday it’s now “impossible to launder money” there after a years-long cleanup that saw norms imposed to fight money laundering and tax evasion.

Jean-Baptiste Douville de Franssu made the claim as the bank reported net profit of 16.1 million euros ($18.3 million) last year, down from 69.3 million euros in 2014. The bank attributed the decrease to lower interest rates and market uncertainties and provisions to fix a foreign tax issue.

In an interview with Vatican media, de Franssu acknowledged that in the past the IOR had been subject to abuse “because you cannot serve two masters, and money is tempting.”

But now that new norms are in place, he said: “It is impossible to launder money at IOR.”

The bank has some 14,801 customers. About half are religious orders which use its investment services and to transfer money to missions around the world. Other customers include Vatican offices and employees. Total client assets under management at the end of 2015 were 5.8 billion euros ($6.6 billion).

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DEUTSCHLAND
Schwarzwaelder Bote

[Was a popular pastor from Ergenzingen a child molester?]

Von Martin Dold 12.05.2016

Rottenburg-Ergenzingen – Mit Bestürzung reagierten am Mittwoch viele Ergenzinger auf die Nachricht von ihrem früheren Pfarrer Alfons Leykauf. Ihm wurde die Ehrenbürgerschaft entzogen. Der Grund: schwerer sexueller Missbrauch.

Ortschafts- und Gemeinderat hatten sich in nicht-öffentlicher Sitzung eindeutig positioniert. “Was wir an Fakten wissen, rechtfertigt den Entzug. Das war unstrittig”, sagt Ortsvorsteher Reinhold Baur und verweist auf eine gemeinsame Sitzung von Kirchengemeinderat, Ortschaftsrat und Kolpingsfamilie, die in Ergenzingen von Leykauf gegründet wurde.
.

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AUSTRALIA
The New Daily

In a new book, the Opposition Leader says his mother’s instincts saved he and his brother from “a monster”.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has revealed how he and his twin brother narrowly escaped the clutches of evil paedophile priest Kevin O’Donnell while growing up in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs.

In his new book For The Common Good, Mr Shorten writes that O’Donnell approached the twins’ mother Ann in the mid-1970s to ask if her sons could become altar boys at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Oakleigh.

“Mum refused point blank,” Mr Shorten writes. “She didn’t like him. It was father Kevin O’Donnell, an evil paedophile who was later arrested and convicted for abusing children.”

“Mum’s instinct was very good,” Mr Shorten adds. “Through her actions, Rob and I avoided a monster.

“He went to jail, but only after he destroyed countless lives.”

O’Donnell was later jailed for indecently assaulting 11 boys and a girl, aged eight to 14, between 1946 and 1977. He died after his release from prison in 1997.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | May. 12, 2016

VATICAN CITY
Pope Francis has announced he will create a commission to study the possibility of allowing women to serve as deacons in the Catholic church, signaling an historic openness to the possibility of ending the global institution’s practice of an all-male clergy.

The pontiff indicated he would create such a commission during a meeting at the Vatican Thursday with some 900 leaders of the world’s congregations of Catholic women religious, who asked him during a question-and-answer session why the church excludes women from serving as deacons.

The women religious, meeting with the pope as part of the triennial assembly of the International Union of Superiors General (UISG), told Francis that women has served as deacons in the early church and asked: “Why not construct an official commission that might study the question?”

The pope responded that he had spoken about the matter once some years ago with a “good, wise professor” who had studied the use of female deacons in the early centuries of the church. Francis said it remained unclear to him what role such deacons had.

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NEW YORK
New York Post

By Joe Tacopino

May 12, 2016

“Saturday Night Live” funny­man Pete Davidson launched an online rant Wednesday against a priest being sued for using profanity at a Staten Island parochial school — including calling women “tw-ts.”

“I went to this high school and I’m glad something is finally being done about ­Father [Michael] Reilly,” ­Davidson wrote on Instagram about the man of the cloth, the principal at St. Joseph by the Sea HS.

“He is an absolute monster and has ruined that high school. He should have been fired years ago.”

The potty-mouthed priest allegedly trashed colleagues at the school in the Huguenot neighborhood.

Three employees are ­suing Reilly, two of his “henchmen” and the Archdiocese of New York for gender and age discrimination.

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MINNESOTA
Catholic Spirit

Maria Wiering | May 11, 2016

Crosier Father Gregory Poser has been accused of sexually abusing a minor in the 1970s while he was serving at St. Odilia in Shoreview, where he ministered from 1974 to 1978 and 1984 to 1985.

According to the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office was contacted and an investigation is underway. The archdiocese is cooperating with law enforcement.

The Crosiers’ prior provincial has placed Father Poser on immediate leave from his assignment as an associate pastor of Holy Cross in Onamia in the Diocese of St. Cloud.

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OREGON
Oregonian

An Oregon priest faces as much as a year behind bars when he is sentenced this month for attempting to lure a 14-year-old girl into his car in Vancouver.

Michael T. Patrick, 59, the former pastor of St. Wenceslaus Catholic Church in Scappoose, entered a guilty plea Friday in Clark County Superior Court, according to The Columbian. He was originally charged with luring in the 2014 incident.

Patrick has been with the Archdiocese of Portland since 1998, according to The Catholic Sentinel. David Renshaw, a spokesman for the archdiocese, told The Columbian that Patrick has not been attached to a parish since his arrest and that his status remains unchanged pending the outcome of the archdiocese’s investigation.

On March 10, 2014, a girl walking home on Northeast 28th Street noticed the driver of a silver or blue car looking at her “strangely,” according to The Oregonian/OregonLive archives. The car turned around and came up behind her before driving past and parking in the bike lane. As the girl approached the car, the driver later identified as Patrick opened his door and said, “Hey, get in.”

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

By Jean Hopfensperger Star Tribune MAY 11, 2016

Archbishop Bernard Hebda had just finished posing for an official portrait at the St. Paul Cathedral in advance of his installation this week when he turned to the assembled staff members with the burning question: “What are you doing for lunch?”

Hebda suggested they check out the cafeteria at St. Paul College. Everybody walked over and had a “great time,” said cathedral rector Rev. John Ubel, marveling that Hebda even knew about the place.

“He can be spur of the moment … and he genuinely enjoys being with people,” Ubel said. “Those are fantastic qualities that will serve him well in the archdiocese.”

Hebda, an unpretentious cleric with a Harvard degree, will be installed as the Twin Cities’ ninth archbishop Friday, taking leadership of a church confronted by more than 400 clergy abuse claims, bankruptcy and restlessness in the pews. He replaces archbishop John Nienstedt, who resigned last June when church officials were charged with failing to protect children.

Hebda has garnered praise from priests to parishioners for his Pope Francis style of engagement. But advocates for victims of clergy abuse wonder when he will contact them, as they represent the central issue behind the archdiocese’s deep troubles.

They say the archbishop’s true colors will not be revealed until the archdiocese unveils its bankruptcy plan for compensating abuse victims, expected later this month.

“I don’t know that he has done a

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

Ronald Mulkearns did not have a funeral befitting a retired Catholic bishop; nor will he even get the public prayers said for dead sinners.

The pain caused by pedophile priests under the 1971-1997 Ballarat bishop’s watch is still so raw that the Catholic Church has cancelled a memorial mass planned for Monday.

Bishop Mulkearns covered up abuse by pedophiles he moved between parishes, Ballarat clergy abuse victim Andrew Collins said.

“While he didn’t abuse children directly, he essentially facilitated the rape and abuse of children all throughout western Victoria,” Mr Collins told AAP.

“And we’re not talking about one or two, we’re talking about potentially hundreds of children.”

Mr Collins said busloads of people had planned to join a silent protest outside Ballarat’s St Patrick’s Cathedral on Monday.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

May 12, 2016

Lisa Flynn

We commend the Palaszczuk government for the steps it has taken to address the archaic time limits that currently prevent survivors of historic child abuse from accessing justice through the civil courts.

This week, it indicated for the very first time that it was open to changing the state time limitation laws for victims of child sexual abuse.

It’s vital that these conversations continue, and that words are converted into action, action that ensures that no further abuse survivors are denied access to justice for crimes committed against them in their childhood.

I have represented hundreds of these courageous men and women, and have been fortunate enough to sit with them, and hear their stories. I’ve listened to them describe their fear; of speaking out, of not being believed, of being ignored or blamed. This fear kept them silent.

They have learnt how to bury their words; a lesson that often led them towards a path of distrust, reinforced by troubled relationships, violence, and substance abuse. They have learnt to block out the memories, and it would be decades before they could finally bring themselves to release the words, and speak of the abuse they suffered.

The delay in a survivor speaking coming forward is well recognised by experts, and has been the subject of much discussion, and recommendation from the current Royal Commission into the Institutional Responses to Childhood Sexual Abuse.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) The IOR – Istituto per le Opere di Religione, or the Vatican Bank, released its Annual Report for the 2015 fiscal year on Thursday, indicating its commitment to assisting the Holy Father in his universal mission of pastoral care.

The extended Annual Report was accompanied by a Press Release detailing the more salient points of IOR’s 2015 activities.

Jean-Baptiste Douville de Franssu, President of the IOR, and the Director General, Gian Franco Mammì, participated in a roundtable event with Vatican Radio and Osservatore Romano to discuss the report.

The full transcription of the roundtable is below:

Q: Why does the Vatican, and the Church, need the IOR, and what are the services the IOR offers?

Jean-Baptiste Douville de Franssu: Let me say how pleased I am to be here today and to be given the opportunity to report on 2015 which was a very important year for the IOR, and I am sure with Dr. Mammi we will have many opportunities in the course of this interview to tell you a little bit about some of those activities of 2015.

Why does the Vatican and the Church need the IOR? I think it’s very simple. First of all, we should remember that the Vatican, being a sovereign state, it has a small economy and like any sovereign state that has an economy, it needs an institution that we would refer to traditionally as a financial institution that allows for transfer of payments to occur and allow the different agents in the economy to function. So that’s the primary role of IOR.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY GLENN BLAIN STEPHEN REX BROWN

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil — and for good measure — confront no evil.

In other words, Albany’s three men in a room still don’t have time to talk about the rights of child sex abuse victims.

One refused to meet with a sex abuse survivor. One had no public schedule and his office didn’t return calls. A third was so annoyed that a reporter dared to ask him about the issue, he made it sound like he was under attack.

“No, stop,” whined Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx), waving off a Daily News reporter on Wednesday.

The News wanted to know if the Assembly was going to take action on efforts to reform the statute of limitations on child sex abuse. Currently, child sex abuse survivors in New York are unable to bring civil or criminal charges against their abusers after their 23rd birthday.

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NEW YORK
Huffington Post

Courtney M. Soliday
AOL. Attorney.

Child sex abuse, the patterns of their predators, and all that jazz has been quite a topic of discussion. Like New York weather, the 2016 legislative season is heating up!

The following child sex abuse statute of limitation bills are pending in the New York Legislature. The statute of limitations is how long a victim of child sex abuse has to come forward and sue their rapist and in civil cases, others who enabled the rape and subsequent cover-up. A window means a “window” will open up for a year where survivors whose time to come forward has expired will have one year to come forward during the window and file a civil lawsuit.

2016 Pending Bill Summary in New York:

Assembly Bill 2872A A. 2872A (civil elimination of child sex abuse statute of limitations in New York and 1-year window to identify previous abuse in New York)

Senate Bill 63A S. 63A (civil elimination of child sex abuse statute of limitations and 1-year window)

Assembly Bill 8567 A. 8567 (criminal elimination of child sex abuse statute of limitations)

View Bill Info on NY Legislature Website

Senate Bill 6436 S. 6436 (criminal elimination)

Assembly Bill 09877 A. 09877 (criminal and civil elimination)

View Bill Info on NY Legislature Website

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

Editorial

Leaders of a secret society rather than an open Legislature, New York’s Democratic Assembly speaker and Republican Senate majority leader on Wednesday refused interviews about extension or elimination of the statute of limitations for child sex abuse.

A press aide for Carl Heastie said the speaker would discuss the topic only after his Democratic conference reached a position behind closed doors. A flack for John Flanagan said the majority leader was just too busy.

Their evasions were perfectly consistent with the Legislature’s practice of resolving controversial issues without public hearings or the input of independent experts even as connected lobbyists have the run of the place.

The Daily News has called for statute of limitation reforms that would open courthouse doors that have been closed to victims and prosecutors. That said, lengthening a statute of limitations raises sensitive due process concerns. After too many years, for example, defendants can lose the ability to defend themselves.

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UNITED STATES
NPR

DAVID SCHAPER

Illinois lawmakers may soon vote to eliminate the state’s statute of limitation on child sex abuse crimes.

The move comes in response to the 15-month sentence given last month to former House Speaker Dennis Hastert. Hastert admitted molesting teenage boys he coached decades ago, but he could only be sentenced for a financial crime related to his efforts to pay one of his victims millions in hush money to cover up the crime.

In Hastert’s case, Scott Cross told a Chicago federal courtroom last month what he called “his darkest secret:” that Hastert, his high school wrestling coach, molested him in 1979. It was a secret Cross held for 36 years.

The federal judge in the case expressed frustration that he could only sentence the former House Speaker for providing hush-money payments because the statute of limitations on the sex abuse had run out long ago.

“I am also frustrated,” Chicago’s U.S. Attorney Zarchary Fardon said after Hastert’s sentencing hearing. “I wish Mr. Hastert had been called on the carpet in 1968, and we’d all be better for it.”

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NEW YORK
Forward

Sam Kestenbaum
May 11, 2016

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has dodged repeated entreaties from advocates against child sexual abuse to support legislation that would enable many victims of this crime to seek justice from their abusers.

In a May 9 statement, Cuomo sidestepped pointed questions from the advocates, and from the press, about his willingness to push the state Senate to pass the Child Victims Act before the current legislative session ends June 16. The bill would eliminate New York’s statute of limitations for sexual abuse, which is one of the shortest in the nation.

“Those guilty of sexual abuse need to be held accountable,” a spokesman from Cuomo’s office wrote in an email to the Forward. “We would support changes to help ensure victims have their day in court and maintain due process.”

The Cuomo spokesman declined to clarify what kind of changes the governor supported or to state where he stood on the only bill now being considered, which is currently stalled in the state Senate.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY MICHAEL O’KEEFFE

A high-profile former prosecutor is railing against state lawmakers for protecting pedophiles with their inaction on the statute of limitations law.

Former Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro faced the harsh reality of the free-pass statute when she went after pedophile priests in 2002.

The grand jury she empaneled then made no criminal charges — but it urged the state Legislature to eliminate the paralyzing statute of limitations on child sex abuse cases.

Fourteen years later, Pirro said, lawmakers are still lollygagging.

“I am disappointed with the thought that legislators are more concerned about lobbyists for certain organizations and getting reelected than justice for sexual abuse victims,” a furious Pirro said in an exclusive interview with the Daily News on Wednesday. “Shame on you. Shame on you.”

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RHODE ISLAND
Roanoke Times

Posted: Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Associated Press

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — In a story May 9 about possible settlements being negotiated over sexual abuse at St. George’s School, The Associated Press reported that Katie Wales Lovkay, who was abused by athletic trainer Al Gibbs, said she wants to see the school own up to what happened and does not want “payoff money.” The story should have made clear that Lovkay would consider settling under certain conditions, such as that she is not placed under a gag order and that the name of a dormitory at the school is changed to remove the name of the headmaster to whom she reported her abuse.

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NEW MEXICO
KRQE

SANTA FE, N.M. (KRQE) – More allegations of sexual abuse involving New Mexico priests have surfaced.

Three more lawsuits have been filed against the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. One of the cases names Friar Jason Figler.

He was accused of sexually abusing at least seventeen boys in New Mexico during the 1970’s. The archdiocese of Santa Fe paid millions of dollars to settle those cases. Sigler also served 9 years in a Michigan prison for molesting a child there.

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NEW MEXICO
Albuquerque Journal

By Olivier Uyttebrouck / Journal Staff Writer
Published: Thursday, May 12th, 2016

SANTA FE, N.M. — Two unidentified men and a woman have filed lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Santa Fe alleging they were sexually abused as children by priests working in New Mexico parishes.

Three priests identified as alleged abusers include Jason Sigler, who served nine years in a Michigan prison after pleading guilty in 2003 to molesting two boys.

Other priests identified in the filings as abusers are Earl Bierman, who died in a Kentucky prison in 2005 while serving a 20-year term for child sexual abuse, and George Reiffer, a former Las Vegas monsignor.

The suits were filed in recent days by Albuquerque attorney Brad Hall in 2nd Judicial District Court in Albuquerque.

A man identified as John Doe 49 filed a suit last week against the archdiocese and St. Anthony’s Parish in Fort Sumner alleging Sigler sexually abused him about 1974. The plaintiff at the time was a 10- or 11-year-old altar boy.

The Diocese of Lansing, Mich., sent Sigler in 1970 to a treatment facility for priests in Jemez Springs operated by the Servants of the Paraclete. The diocese later informed the Archdiocese of Santa Fe in writing that Sigler had been accused of molesting boys in Michigan, the suit said.

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

Celia Wexler
Catholic feminist, journalist, former public interest lobbyist

Last month, at the White House Correspondents Dinner, President Obama jokingly called out noted “journalists” in the room – Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, and Liev Schreiber — who played investigative reporters in the film Spotlight. The story was about reporters who had the resources and the autonomy “to chase down the truth and hold the powerful accountable,” he said. Given the current state of journalism, Obama joked, the film was the best “fantasy” flick since Star Wars.

The film earned its Academy awards through its deft retelling of the story of the investigative reporting team that uncovered the systematic cover-up of sexual abuse of children by priests in the archdiocese of Boston. But Spotlight did not tell the whole story.

The Globe’s exposé was published in early 2002. Nine months before, in March 2001, the alternative weekly, the Boston Phoenix, published its story, “Cardinal sin,” which explored in depth allegations that Cardinal Bernard Law was complicit in the abuse cover-up. Kristen Lombardi wrote that story and seven subsequent stories. The Globe’s reporting did not acknowledge her work.

In the film, her role was consigned to a throw-away line, when Ruffalo dismisses the Phoenix as a weak and under-resourced rival that “nobody reads.”

I interviewed Lombardi, now an award-winning investigative reporter for the Center for Public Integrity, for my forthcoming book, Catholic Women Confront Their Church: Stories of Anger and Hope. Lombardi was born and raised Catholic. The abuse scandal not only challenged her as a journalist. It changed her relationship to Catholicism.

In January 2001, both The Globe and the Boston Herald ran small stories on the ongoing lawsuits against one abusive priest, John Geoghan. The stories mentioned that Cardinal Law had been added as a defendant. To Lombardi and her editor, that meant that “this particular attorney must have had some pretty damning evidence to convince a judge to do this.”

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MINNESOTA
Northlands News Center

[with video]

By Mackenzie Scott

Duluth, MN (NNCNOW.com) — In 2013 Doe 19 came forward as a victim of sexual assault by Father James Vincent Fitzgerald when he served the church in Crookston.

About a week ago, his case was settled and he’s getting the help he needs and Wednesday, documents from the Oblate priest’s file were released and other alleged victims are urging victims to come forward before it’s too late.

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Doe 19 and the Diocese of Crookston and Oblates of Mary Immaculate reached a settlement after the victim came forward after being sexually assaulted by Father James Vincent Fitzgerald… and the anonymous individual wasn’t the only one.

“What Doe 19 and we found throughout this lawsuit was that Vincent Fitzgerald abused a whole lot of kids over decades. He is one of the worst predators that I’ve seen my over decade of working on these cases,” said Michael Finnegan Attorney for Doe 19.

Fitzgerald who died in 2009, had at least 17 alleged victims who have now come forward.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Fiona Gartland

An investigation into sexual abuse by a priest had “major flaws” and the prosecution could have faced problems if the accused had not pleaded guilty, the O’Higgins commission found.

Mr Justice Kevin O’Higgins also found Supt Noel Cunningham’s direction that the case should be dealt with at District Court if there was a plea of guilty was “difficult to comprehend”.

On September 11th, 2007, at Bailieboro Garda station, Co Cavan, a man made a complaint that his son had been sexually abused by a priest, Fr Michael Molloy. Searches were carried out, a computer, mobile phone and other items were seized, and Fr Molloy was arrested three days later. In March 2008, he was charged with child abuse offences.

At Cavan Circuit Court, in July 2009, he pleaded guilty to one count of defilement of a child under 15, one count of defilement under 17, and one count of possession of child pornography. He was sentenced to five years, three years and three years for the offences respectively, to run concurrently.

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NEW ZEALAND
New Zealand Listener

In a book published in 2007, retired Australian Catholic bishop Geoffrey Robinson bravely called on his church to rethink its approach to sexuality. In particular, he argued that forced celibacy
was one of the causes of sexual abuse in the church. Celibacy was not a gift given to everyone, Robinson wrote. For some, it could become a heavy burden that harmed their ability to be good human beings.

His conclusions were based on nine years spent working with victims of clerical abuse. But far from being commended for his courage and insight, Robinson was rebuked by the church hierarchy for daring to question Catholic teaching.

Tragically, that stubborn, blind adherence to rigid dogma continues to cause enormous anguish and pain. That was evident in the Wellington District Court recently when former priest Peter Joseph Hercock, 72, was sentenced to a long prison term for sex offences committed against vulnerable girls when he was a “counsellor” – we use inverted commas because he had no training for the role – at a Catholic girls’ school in Lower Hutt during the 1970s.

In simple but eloquent victim-impact statements, four complainants gave compelling accounts of the psychological damage inflicted when they were raped or indecently assaulted by ­Hercock after going to him for advice about personal problems and troubled home environments. Being assaulted by a priest, one victim said, was too much for a young Catholic girl to get her head around. The ghastly memory of the sex act had never left her. “I was a virgin when you assaulted me, and when it was over, I wasn’t,” she told Hercock.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By TOM OLSEN / FORUM NEWS SERVICE

May 11, 2016

DULUTH, Minn. — Mike Finnegan describes the Rev. J. Vincent Fitzgerald as “one of the worst predators” he’s seen in his career as an attorney and advocate for victims of child sexual abuse.

Fitzgerald had already been accused of sexual misconduct when he arrived in northeastern Minnesota in the early 1960s, according to documents publicly released Wednesday. Allegations continued over the next 20-plus years, much of which time he spent working at parishes throughout the Diocese of Duluth. Fitzgerald died in 2009.

Finnegan, who works in the St. Paul law firm of Jeff Anderson & Associates, now represents 17 people who say they were abused by the priest, but the attorney said there are likely dozens of additional victims who have yet to come forward.

“This perpetrator was known since 1963 to have been abusing kids,” Finnegan said at a news conference Wednesday on the steps of the St. Louis County Courthouse in Duluth. “He was allowed to stay in Minnesota and allowed to keep abusing kids.”

Finnegan released a number of documents from Fitzgerald’s personnel file at the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, the religious order to which he belonged.

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MINNESOTA
WDIO

In 2013, an adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse, Doe 19, filed a lawsuit for sexual abuse by Father James Vincent Fitzgerald under the Minnesota Child Victims Act. Two weeks ago, Doe 19 reached a settlement with the Diocese of Crookston, Oblates of Mary Immaculate after claiming that said deceased Father Fitzgerald abused them back in 1984.

Fitzgerald was a priest of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate religious order who worked in the Diocese of Crookston. Attorney Mike Finnegan, who specializes in these kinds of cases, says at least 17 people have come forward saying they were abused by Father Fitzgerald as children.

In March, the Diocese of Crookston sought to dismiss Doe 19’s lawsuit from court, arguing that it was not liable for the actions of Fitzgerald. As part of Doe 19’s lawsuit, the Diocese of Crookston was forced to turn over hundreds of pages of documents on priests accused of sexual abuse who worked in the Diocese of Crookston.

Fitzgerald worked primarily in Native American communities in Minnesota and South Dakota from the 1950s to 1980s and is alleged to have sexually abused many children in several of the these communities including in the Diocese of Crookston and the Diocese of Duluth. He died in 2009, however, civil lawsuits can still be brought on behalf of his victims under the Minnesota Child Victims Act before May 25, 2016.

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MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

Date: Tuesday, May 10, 2016
Source: Tom Halden, Director of Communications

From Archbishop Bernard Hebda

The Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis has learned that Rev. Gregory Poser, OSC, a member of the Canons Regular of the Order of the Holy Cross, has been accused of sexually abusing a minor in the 1970s, when he was serving in the Archdiocese at St. Odilia parish in Shoreview. The Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office was contacted immediately. In accordance with Archdiocesan protocols, we are cooperating with law enforcement and will take no action that may interfere with its investigation. It is with law enforcement’s approval that I am sharing this statement today.

The Crosiers were also notified of the allegation and, Prior Provincial Thomas Enneking, OSC, has placed Fr. Poser on immediate administrative leave from his current assignment, which is outside of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis.

Father Poser was assigned to St. Odilia from 1974 to 1978 and again from 1984 to 1985.
I ask everyone to join me in praying for all victims of abuse.

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MINNESOTA
Sun Current

By Andrew Wig

For April 27 through May 3, Richfield Police responded to the following calls: …

SEXUAL ABUSE ALLEGATION

A man arrived at the police department around 11:45 a.m. to file a report of first-degree criminal sexual conduct that he said took place at St. Richard’s Catholic Church 40 years ago. Lt. Joe Griffin said police are investigating. Tom Halden, communications director for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, did not provide further details. ” … I’m told the Richfield PD has all the information you need,” Halden wrote in an email.

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OREGON
The Chronicle

By AMANDA RENNER

A former Scappoose priest who was charged with attempting to lure a minor into his vehicle has pleaded guilty.

On May 6, Fr. Michael Patrick, 59, appeared before Judge Gregory Gonzales in Clark County Superior Court, where he pleaded guilty to one count of luring.

On April 2, 2014, Patrick was said to have been returning from a trip out of the country when Los Angeles Police arrested him on a felony warrant after someone reported to police that he attempted to lure a juvenile female into his vehicle.

Vancouver Police Department Public Information Coordinator Kim Kapp confirmed at the time of his 2014 arrest, “Last month patrol received a call that a juvenile had a male that was following her and offering her a ride. She called her parents and called the police. We took the information, developed suspect information on Mr. Patrick and then sent it to the Juvenile Justice Center that investigates child related cases. Information the female provided and the other witnesses provided developed probable cause to arrest him for one count of luring. They served a search warrant on Mr. Patrick’s residence shortly after incident, a warrant was issued and he was arrested in California.”

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

[with video]

BY BARBARA ROSS EDGAR SANDOVAL DAREH GREGORIAN

It’s all bulls–t!

An allegedly potty-mouthed priest accused of belittling his staffers at a Staten Island Catholic school with steady streams of foul insults is calling the claims “absurd.”

The Rev. Michael Reilly, principal of St. Joseph by-the-Sea High School,was sued earlier this week by three staffers who charge his “crude and vulgar statements” have created a hostile work environment at the school.

Reilly, the suit says, often launches into sexist, homophobic and racist rants, referring to women as “b—-es” or “tw-ts,” gays as “f-gs,” and saying he wanted to kick a black teacher “back to the jungle.”

EXCLUSIVE: Staten Island priest sued for vile rants at HS
The priest emailed a letter to school parents Wednesday morning saying, “You likely have seen or heard about a lawsuit that has been brought against several members of the school administration, including myself …”

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ARKANSAS
KATV

BY MARINE GLISOVIC TUESDAY, MAY 10TH 2016

[arrest affidavit]

SHERWOOD (KATV) —

UPDATE (5/11):

Former Sherwood pastor Dave Reynolds has pleaded not guilty to 70 counts of child pornography charged against him.

Reynolds appeared in Sherwood District Court Wednesday. His bond was set at $250,000.

The elders of Cornerstone Bible Fellowship, where Reynolds served as pastor, has issued a statement to Channel 7 News, following his arrest:

On March 7th the elders of Cornerstone removed Dave Reynolds from all responsibility at Cornerstone. Dave had informed two of the elders that he was engaged in pornography and thought the elders might learn of this from another party, hence he decided to inform us of his involvement in this sin. Those two elders specifically asked Dave if he had viewed under age pornography to which he replied that he had not knowingly done so.

Our present concern is with the people of Cornerstone to whom the Lord has entrusted us as shepherds. We have been and will continue to pursue all avenues to determine whether any of Cornerstone’s people may have been directly or indirectly affected by any actions Dave may have taken.

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NEW YORK
The News Journal

Jonathan Bandler, jbandler@lohud.com May 11, 2016

Officials of a Kiryas Joel school where a principal was observed on at least two videos in close physical contact with young boys are defending him and denying that any abuse occurred.

The Board of Directors of the United Talmudical Academy issued a statement calling the principal a respected Rabbi for more than. 30 years with an “unblemished professional record as an educator.”

The board also said the videos have been mischaracterized by the media and critics of the Hasidic community

The statement was released Tuesday, a week after the videos surfaced on the Internet and state police confirmed they had launched an investigation.

“The school principal is seen embracing the students who were sent to his office for behavioral issues,” the statement read. “While this type of restraint may be unacceptable to some viewers, it in no way rises to the level of a criminal assault.”

The videos were purportedly taken with a hidden camera above the principal’s desk. He is seen holding the boys between his legs, seemingly kissing them on occasion and sometimes caressing their faces. It was not known who installed the camera or for what purpose.

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OREGON
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 503 0003 cell, bdorris@SNAPnetwork.org)

An Oregon priest is guilty of trying to lure a girl into his car. Now, Portland’s archbishop and other Catholic officials must aggressively seek out others who may have experienced or ignored or concealed his crimes. And we hope next month he’s locked up for as long as possible

[Columbian]

[BishopAccountability.org]

Fr. Michael T. Patrick left the US after being questioned by police about the accusation. We’re grateful law enforcement officials caught him in Los Angeles. He lives in Vancouver’s Image neighborhood, has worked in Oregon parishes since 1998 (most recently at St. Wenceslaus in Scappoose) and is originally from Sri Lanka.

Archbishop Alexander Sample should use parish bulletins, church websites and pulpit announcements to spread the word about Fr. Patrick and urge anyone with knowledge or fears of his crimes to call police or prosecutors.

Ironically, two months ago, Sample tried to minimize the church’s on-going clergy sex scandal, disingenuously calling it “a tragic chapter in the history of the Church in the United States.”

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OHIO
Daily Kos

By Walter Einenkel

Bishop Richard Lennon is known for going in and fixing Catholic diocese problems. He began in Massachusetts and was promoted to Apostolic Administrator after Cardinal Bernard Francis Law resigned his position as Archbishop of Boston. This meant that Bishop Lennon oversaw a lot of the fallout surrounding sexual abuse and coverups in the Catholic Church. Many people believe Bishop Richard Lennon is a guilty party to the behind-the-scenes machinations of the Massachusetts Catholic Diocese. In 2006 Pope Benedict the scary XVI appointed Lennon to head Cleveland’s Diocese. He’s been closing, and consolidating the Catholic Church’s presence in Cleveland sicne his arrival. But the other day, residents in a low-income area of Cleveland got some terrible news connected with the Catholic Diocese.

About two weeks ago, families who live in at least nine homes on the street got hand-delivered letters that started this way: “This is to advise you that the Most Rev. Richard G. Lennon, Bishop of the Diocese of Cleveland, owns the property in which you reside.”

The letter went on to explain that due to rising expenses, each of their rents would go up by about $400 in the next two months. (Read the letter here or below.)

That’s between an 80 and 180 percent increase, depending on what the tenants pay currently for the apartments or single-family homes.

Obviously, most of the residents can’t pay that kind of increase. Most people, whatever their financial station in life cannot fit that kind of monthly increase into their budgets. More unfortunate than the Catholic Church’s clear disregard for social inequality, is the fact that under Ohio law, these renters are out of luck. Executive Director of the Cleveland Tenants Organization, Angela Shuckhosee:

“Unfortunately, there’s nothing to stop that,” she said. “But it is unconscionable.”

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ROME
7 News

Cardinal George Pell, who was deemed too ill to fly to Australia for the child abuse royal commission, has been spotted out and about in Rome downing a large beer and a hearty meal.

Australia’s most senior Catholic stated that he was unable to travel overseas as the long flight would put him at risk of ‘heart failure’.

The 74-year-old Cardinal was spotted drinking beer and enjoying a lunch of steak and chips at a restaurant in Rome on April 18, leading one heart-broken mother to slam his medical report as ‘bunkum’.

Cardinal George Pell was spotted drinking a large beer and enjoying a hearty meal six weeks after stating he could not fly to Australia for risk of ‘heart failure’. Photo: The Age
Ruth Lane’s six children all fell victim to the abuse of a clergyman in Ballarat with her second eldest son, John, even taking his own life.

She told the Daily Mail she was ‘disgusted’ by the photographs of Cardinal Pell.

“He’s doing that even with a bad heart?” she said.

“I am absolutely disgusted because he is protecting the church, he doesn’t care about the survivors or the victims.

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NEW YORK
NBC New York

Three teachers at a Catholic high school on Staten Island are accusing the school’s top administrators of the “truly sinful conduct” of age and gender discrimination in a lawsuit that also accuses its principal of routinely making vulgar remarks.

The lawsuit accuses the Rev. Michael Reilly, the principal of St. Joseph by the Sea, of unleashing “a constant stream of rude, crude and inappropriate remarks” and using a four-letter word “in almost every sentence in some form.”

The plaintiffs accuse Reilly’s “henchmen,” Vice Principal Robert Richard and Dean of Men Greg Manos, of condoning and mimicking Reilly’s remarks.

In a statement to NBC 4 New York, Archdiocese of New York spokesman Joseph Zwilling said Wednesday that the lawsuit’s allegations are “absurd and strongly denied” by Reilly and his staff.

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NEW YORK
Frum Follies

[with copy of the press release]

A shocking video is ricohcheting around the Internet which was reported by several media outlets. It shows the principal of the Satmar lower school in Kiryas Joel, NY, rocking a child squeezed between his legs against his groin while he is rhythmically moving in ways suggesting masturbation. The boy who appears to be about six years old struggles to get away during this video which runs for eleven minutes. The principal, Moshe Hirsch Klein, uses his hands to alternately caress the boy, stroke his back, and pull him in tighter as the boy repeatedly struggles to get away. See my previous posts, here and here, for more about this case which the police and DA are looking into.

The exhibit du jour is a press release issued today (5/10/16), doubtlessly written by a professional PR firm, claiming they of course care about and don’t tolerate sex abuse, and claiming they fully cooperate with the criminal justice system. Naturally they deny anything happened in this case and the principal is a great guy with an unblemished reputation.

But to really know their mentality consider a speech given by the grand rabbi of the village of KJ, Aron Teitelbaum, openly saying that the authorities were willing to look the other way about their failure to fulfill secular schooling requirements, but for some snitches. See Daily News. Sadly that is also true about sex abuse, as long as the offender is a fellow Hasid. This is because the community intimidates witnesses and delivers block votes which help determine who is elected DA.Faced with difficulty prosecuting cases and mindful of the block votes, DA’s in with large Hasidic block votes, such as Kings (Brooklyn), Rockland, and Orange, they just don’t do their darnedest to protect ultra orthodox children.

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NEW YORK
Raw Story

SARAH K. BURRIS
11 MAY 2016

Father Michael Reilly’s mouth must not have been ordained by God because he unleashed a string of obscenities and inappropriate remarks at St. Joseph By The Sea High School, a recently filed lawsuit claims.

According to the New York Daily News, Reilly called women “b*tches” or “tw*ts,” gay people were called “f*gs,” some teachers were referred to as “d*ckheads,” and at one point he threatened to boot a black man “back to the jungle,” and kick a cancer patient “to the f*cking curb.”

In one incident, Reilly allegedly insulted an elderly staffer calling her a “F*ck crusty, she’s a vodka-sh*tting b*tch that we don’t need.”

The lawsuit against him even alleges that the priest seemed incapable of having a conversation without dropping an f-bomb every few words. He “unleashed a constant stream of rude, crude and inappropriate remarks including saying the word f*ck in almost every sentence in some form,” the 12-page Manhattan Supreme Court filing reads. Documents also show he spread false rumors that one of the plaintiffs was a pedophile priest.

“[The] rude, crude and abusive language and actions committed by Father Reilly … and condoned by the Archdiocese and Cardinal Dolan are offensive to the tenets of [plaintiffs’] religious beliefs,” the suit charges.

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NEW YORK
New York Post

By Julia Marsh May 11, 2016

A potty mouthed priest, the principal of a Staten Island Catholic school — who allegedly trashed colleagues as “tw -ts,” “b —hes,” “d–kheads” and “pieces of s–t,”– better pray that his sacrilegious statements didn’t reach God’s ears.

Three employees of St. Joseph by-the-Sea, in the Huguenot section of Staten Island, are suing the Rev. Michael P. Reilly, two of his “henchmen,” and the Archdiocese of New York for gender and age discrimination.

The St. Joseph staffers, Lawrence Boliak, Maureen Smith and Thomas Rodes, claim Reilly “unleashed a constant stream of rude, crude and inappropriate remarks including saying the word f–k in almost every sentence in some form,” according to their Manhattan Supreme Court suit.

“He calls women ‘tw -ts’ and multiple women a ‘tw -teria. He also refers to women as ‘b–ches,” the suit says.

The man of God even unleashed homophobic and racist tirades, joking that he wanted to kick a black teacher “back to the jungle” and called an administrator a “fat f—ot,” the suit says.

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SCOTLAND
BBC News

A Catholic priest who stole £96,000 in two months from his Ayrshire parish is facing jail.

Fr Graeme Bell, 41, left St Mary’s (Our Lady, Star of the Sea) in Saltcoats last June after financial irregularities were reported to police.

Bell, of Kilwinning, admitted embezzlement at the church between March and May 2015.
Sheriff Alistair Watson deferred sentence at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court until next month and granted him bail.

When allegations first emerged, parishioners at the church spoke of their shock, with one saying: “We knew something was up with Fr Graeme for a while but thought it was stress brought up by family issues.

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OREGON
Columbian

By Jessica Prokop, Columbian Courts Reporter
Published: May 10, 2016

A Catholic priest entered a guilty plea Friday, court records show, to trying to lure a 14-year-old girl into his car as she was walking home from school in Vancouver’s Image neighborhood.

Michael T. Patrick, 59, the former pastor of St. Wenceslaus Catholic Church in Scappoose, Ore., entered the plea in Clark County Superior Court to attempted luring but did not admit to the conduct. Patrick initially faced a charge of luring in connection with 2014 incident.

David Renshaw, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Portland, said Tuesday that Patrick is not assigned to a parish and has not been since his arrest. Renshaw said Patrick’s status will not change until the Archdiocese has completed its investigation.

Patrick will be sentenced May 23 in Superior Court. He could face up to a year behind bars and two years’ probation. However, the prosecution will recommend that he serve six months in jail and a year of probation, court records show. The defense is free to argue for a lesser sentence.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY BARBARA ROSS, LARRY MCSHANE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Wednesday, May 11, 2016

This man of God raised holy hell with his satanic curses.

A stunning new lawsuit accuses a trash-talking Staten Island priest of raining a steady spew of obscenities, insults and slurs on terrified staffers at St. Joseph By The Sea High School.

Women were “b—-es” or “tw-ts,” gays were “f-gs,” certain teachers were “d—heads” to the coarse man of the cloth. Father Michael Reilly once even threatened to boot a black man “back to the jungle,” and to kick a cancer patient “to the f—ing curb.”

In fact, the suit charged the raunchy reverend appeared incapable of expressing a single thought without dropping an f-bomb — or ten.

Reilly “unleashed a constant stream of rude, crude and inappropriate remarks including saying the word f— in almost every sentence in some form,” according to the 12-page Manhattan Supreme Court filing.

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UNITED KINGDOM
ITV

A Catholic priest based in Rochdale is on trial for allegedly sexually abusing ten children over four decades.

Many of the schoolchildren were said not to have complained about Father Mortimer Stanley, 84, at the time, because of the “very high regard” he was held in by parishioners and teachers.

The priest allegedly targeted the complainants – who he called his “special girls” – in his presbytery at St Vincent de Paul RC Church in Norden, Rochdale , where he would sit them on his knee and indecently assault them in various ways.

His alleged victims, aged under 11, were either pupils at the adjacent St Vincent’s RC Primary School or members of the parish.

A tenth, male, complainant says he too was sexually abused as a child by the canon after he claimed something “like chloroform” was put over his mouth and he collapsed.

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SOUTH AFRICA
Eyewitness News

Tara Penny

JOHANNESBURG – A prominent priest, who led calls to forgive the president after the scathing Constitutional Court judgment against him, has reportedly been suspended by the National Interfaith Council of South Africa (NICSA) for allegedly refusing to account for funds.

The Sowetan is reporting that NICSA President Bishop Daniel Matebesi, who is a known backer of the ruling, is also accused of taking the organisation’s members to an African National Congress Women’s League march.

However, the newspaper says the bishop has denied receiving the notice of suspension sent to him on Monday.

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ISRAEL
Jerusalem Post

A sexual harassment complaint was filed Tuesday against Christian IDF enlistment campaigner Father Gabriel Naddaf by a discharged Christian IDF soldier who also claimed exploitation by the cleric of his position as a priest and spiritual leader of the Christian community.

The ex-soldier’s attorney, Eyal Platek, told The Jerusalem Post that at least one more demobilized IDF soldier was preparing to file a similar complaint against the Greek Orthodox cleric.

Naddaf is scheduled to light a torch at the country’s national Independence Day celebrations on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem Wednesday night, an honor he was given for the high-profile campaign he has pursued to encourage Christian- Arab young men and women to enlist in the IDF and integrate into Israeli society.

Since the allegations arose earlier this week, however, there have been calls from public figures for him to withdraw from the proceedings.

“[Naddaf] should prevent embarrassment to himself, and the state he says he serves, and retract his participation in the ceremony,” Platek, said Tuesday.

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ISRAEL
ABC News

By TIA GOLDENBERG and AREEJ HAZBOUN

NAZARETH, Israel (AP) — Israel’s decision to honor a controversial Greek Orthodox priest at its official Independence Day ceremony is driving a wedge in the country’s tiny Christian Arab community as the government recognizes him for his efforts to encourage Christians to enlist in the Israeli military.

Father Gabriel Naddaf’s recruitment drive has deeply divided Israel’s Christian Arabs, who make up just 2 percent of Israel’s population. His inclusion in a ceremony tinged with sadness for many of the country’s Arabs, along with new allegations accusing him of sexually harassing young people he helped, has only added to the anger and risks overshadowing what is meant to be a national celebration.

Naddaf has denied the charges, aired on a TV station this week, and the government said there are no plans to remove him from Wednesday night’s festivities, where he will be one of 14 torch lighters chosen for their outstanding contributions to the country.

Since 2012, Naddaf has led recruitment drives in Christian communities, preaching about the need to enlist more Christians into Israel’s military, which is compulsory for most Jews but voluntary for Arabs. He says it would better integrate them into a society where they often face discrimination.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC Brisbane

[with audio]

by Spencer Howson

Child abuse survivors could soon be able to sue the institutions where they were molested – regardless of when they bring the case. In Queensland right now, you must take civil action by the age of 21 or lose all effective legal rights to compensation.

Of course the issue of time limits is hugely important for adults who have only recently come forward to speak about their abuse, some of them during the Royal Commission.

Last night, Communities Minister Shannon Fentiman hosted a forum in Brisbane for adults seeking justice for sexual abuse they experienced as children. The Minister isn’t available to speak this morning but has sent through this statement:

“Last night I was pleased to announce the Palaszczuk Government is developing Common Guiding Principles to ensure it is a model litigant. The guidelines will set out a compassionate and consistent approach to civil litigation brought against the State by claimants who were sexually abused as children. We acknowledge this is just the first step in removing barriers to justice to survivors of child sexual abuse.”

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AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

Jorge Branco

Early moves toward scrapping a time limit that prevents thousands of child sex abuse victims suing for damages have been welcomed by an organisation that regularly sees the “huge” impact the laws have.

The Queensland government has promised to convene a forum to develop the state’s response to the findings of the child sex abuse Royal Commission.

Key among those was a call for all states and territories to remove any time limits on civil litigation claims from sex abuse survivors, which it labelled a “significant, sometimes insurmountable barrier”.

The statute of limitations in Queensland expires three years after a victim turns 18 but the Royal Commission found it takes the average survivor 22 years to disclose their abuse.

New South Wales scrapped the time limit earlier this month and Victoria did the same last year.

On Wednesday, Queensland Child Safety Minister Shannon Fentiman announced the government would hold a forum to address the findings “soon”.

She also promised “common guiding principles” setting out “a compassionate and consistent approach to civil litigation brought against the state by claimants who were sexually abused as children.”

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UNITED STATES
Reuters

BY FIONA ORTIZ

Minnesota’s reform of child sex abuse laws has given Laura Adams a chance to come forward with accusations she long feared to make public: that an employee of a children’s theater in Minneapolis abused her in the early 1980s when she was a teenager.

Adams, 48, and another woman sued the Children’s Theatre Company and former employees for abuse and failure to prevent it. The lawsuit was filed last year during a legal window the state created for victims.

Hundreds of people have brought similar lawsuits in Georgia, California, Delaware and Hawaii, which enacted similar reforms to eliminate or extend statutes of limitations for up to three years to allow victims to bring civil actions.

Without reforms such as these, people who say they survived sex abuse decades ago have little hope for seeking justice.

Criminal prosecutions of decades-old abuse cases remain impossible since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that it is unconstitutional to retroactively change statutes of limitations. Still, advocates say civil cases give victims a chance to break decades of silence. Most such lawsuits lead to out-of-court settlements, according to lawyers who handle sex abuse cases.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY ANDREA STEWART-COUSINS, BRAD HOYLMAN
SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Dozens of child sexual abuse survivors from across the state descended upon the state capital last week to share with lawmakers their personal stories and the dire need to reform New York’s outdated statute of limitations for the crimes committed against them.

Unfortunately, their bravery seemed unappreciated by some who unceremoniously turned them away.

It wasn’t the first time that these survivors were ignored by the powerful. Hopefully, it will be one of the last.

With a little over a month left in this year’s legislative session, we have an opportunity to finally give these survivors their day in court and to ensure that future child victims of sexual predators aren’t denied theirs.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

Annette Blackwell – AAP on May 11, 2016

The federal government has scrapped time limitations on child sex abuse claims against commonwealth entities such as the Australian Defence Force.

Attorney-General George Brandis has instructed federal agencies not to use a time-barred defence of child abuse claims or to oppose an application for an extension of a limitation period in such cases.

The direction issued last week mostly impacts on child abuse survivors who were just 15 years old when they suffered horrendous mistreatment in ADF cadet academies like the HMAS Leeuwin or HMAS Nerimba.

The federal decision has led to calls for institutions like the Salvation Army, the Catholic and Anglican churches as well as all states and territories to follow suit.

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NEW YORK
The Jewish Voice

A coalition of more than 130 Jewish leaders now back the Child Victims Act which would eliminate the statute of limitation in New York — allowing countless child sex abuse victims to seek justice as adults, according to an extensive report by the Kings County Politics web site.

The strong united show of support on lobby day was held in Albany on May 3 and 4 by advocates of the bill a two-day lobbying effort in Albany to win passage of the long-languishing legislation.

“After decades of denial, cover ups and darkness across New York State, light is finally being shone on the scourge of child sexual abuse,” read the petition signed by scores of high-profile leaders.

Among those signing the petition were close to 100 rabbis and advocates including Jewish Community Watch, Kol v”oz, The Voice of Justice, Mageinu, United Support Network, Jewish Board of Advocates, The Bridge Project.

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GUAM
Radio New Zealand

Transcript

A school teacher in Guam is campaigning for the removal of a statute of limitations for civil claims relating to child sexual abuse.

George Washington High School teacher Joe Santos has launched a petition called Silent No More which he plans to take to the Guam Legislature to compel it to lift the two year time limit on filing civil claims.

He told Jo O’Brien he was prompted to take action after students came forward about sexual abuse.

JOE SANTOS: I am trying to get our senators our legislators to pass a bill and a law that will remove civil statutes of limitations against individuals. So that will allow anyone that has become a victim when they become old enough, mature enough, emotionally and then financially because it is going to cost money to hire a lawyer that they would have that opportunity.

JO: So do you think that is preventing many people from taking civil action?

JS: The first thing that keeps them is that the psychological barrier is somewhat embarrassing that is the first thing that they have to overcome. Then they are confronted with the legal barriers. That is why I say that there should not be a statute of limitations because by the time they become emotionally mature enough, psychologically capable of confronting their perpetrators their hands are tied. And then when they do become, at this point of time the way the laws a written by the time they are psychologically prepared and possibly financially capable what is the reason for bringing it out? There is not going to be any justice there is not going to be any closure you are just going to reopen your wounds.

JO: Do you know why this statute of limitations was put in place originally?

JS: I really don’t. I think these were some issues within the culture of Guam certain things are put. It is your cross to bear that is one of the statements that come out. And then again there is this embarrassment to the family. So a lot of things used to get swept under the rug. But I think we are starting to become a culture that is able to face our shortcomings and bring these things to light.

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IRELAND
America

Rhona Tarrant | May 10 2016

If you were to choose a venue for a public talk with Father Tony Flannery, a Redemptorist priest, the old, disused courthouse in the town of Dingle, County Kerry is as apt as any. Flannery sits at a table by the witness stand to speak about 100 years of the church in Ireland during the Feile no Bealthaine, an annual weekend festival held in the town. But he never gets around to that; the public are far too curious about Flannery and the public and personal trials he has faced since 2012.

It’s been four years since he was “silenced” by the Vatican, with his subsequent struggle detailed at length in newspapers, on radio shows and in his own tell-all book. By his own admission, some of his supporters feel the story has been exhausted. Even so, Flannery still manages to draw a crowd.

Since his suspension from public ministry, Flannery has dedicated his energy to speaking out about the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican body responsible for investigating priests. Flannery was back in the news last month when he joined with 14 other Catholic sisters, priests and lay people, all of whom had been investigated by the C.D.F., to write the Vatican. Spurred on by the release of “Amoris Laetitia,” they argued that the C.D.F. “doesn’t reflect the gospel values of justice, truth, integrity and mercy that the Catholic Church professes to uphold.” The letter was sent to the C.D.F. and Pope Francis, as well as the media.

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CANADA
Daily Courier

OWEN SOUND, Ont. – The former leader of a southwestern Ontario church that police have described as cult-like pleaded guilty Tuesday in an Owen Sound, Ont., court to nine counts of assault.

Fred King, 57, of Chatsworth Township, Ont., is to be sentenced on Sept. 14.

In an agreed statement of facts read in court by Crown Attorney Michael Martin, King admits to spitting on people, kicking, punching or slapping church members and making some of them strip in front of the rest of the congregation.

While King pleaded guilty to the assault charges, 16 other charges — including sexual assault, sexual interference, and uttering death threats — were withdrawn by the Crown.

Known as “The Prophet” at the Church of Jesus Christ Restored in Chatsworth, Ont., King’s charges relate to his time as leader of the Church from 1978 to 2008.

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IOWA
Raw Story

SARAH K. BURRIS
10 MAY 2016

Alex Jacobsen, 26, was suffering from mental exhaustion and anxiety. He hadn’t slept for days despite being in a faith-based treatment program. He felt hopeless and when he spotted a box knife he grabbed it and held it against his neck pressing harder as it cut through his skin.

This all happened 10 days after he stopped taking his medication, which was when he entered himself into the faith-based program, the Des Moines Register reports. He said he trusted his recovery to them and to God and he almost died from it.

The free discipleship program he checked himself into is run by two Assembly of God pastors who hope to heal their patients of addiction, anxiety, anger, depression and “the emotional residue left by mental, physical and sexual abuse” by using prayer, Scripture memorization and developing a closer relationship with God, according to program’s promotional materials. The only requirement of the patients is that you can’t use any mood altering drugs, prescribed or not. Assembly of God churches hold as a cardinal doctrine that the Divine will heal the sick, though they do allow medical help and using prescription drugs if necessary.

The program replaced his mood stabilizers with a dose of Bible study, amino acids and GABA supplements which they told him would reduce stress. Rev. Kevin Grimes, told him “medicine alone wasn’t going to be the answer to my problems,” just a year before that. Grimes isn’t a doctor nor has he ever received any training in pharmaceuticals or medicine.

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CANADA
Toronto Sun

OWEN SOUND, Ont. – Alleged polygamist Fred King, the longtime leader of a cult-like church in Ontario and known to his followers as “The Prophet,” pleaded guilty to a string charges in court Tuesday.

In an agreed statement of facts, 57-year-old King admitted to spitting on people, kicking, punching or slapping church members and making some of them strip in front of the rest of the congregation.

Sixteen other charges — including sexual assault, sexual interference, and uttering death threats — were withdrawn.

The charges date back to his time as leader of the Church of Jesus Christ Restored in Chatsworth, Ont. from 1978 to 2008.

King was alleged to have had several wives, who were handed down from his father, Stan King, who led the church before him.

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CANADA
Toronto Star

The survivor, who was sexually abused as a child at St. Anne’s residential school in Fort Albany, Ont., wants the court to find out why the federal government kept thousands of documents a secret.

By COLIN PERKEL
The Canadian Press
Tues., May 10, 2016

A survivor of a notorious Indian residential school who became suicidal after his compensation claim was turned down will ask a court Wednesday to give him another chance to argue his case.

The Superior Court hearing could have substantial repercussions for other survivors, who may have been short-changed by the process designed to compensate them for the abuse they suffered.

“A substantial wrong and miscarriage of justice has occurred,” his application states.

“(The government) and lawyers for the Catholic Church withheld relevant, trustworthy and corroborating evidence.”

The case involves a man identified only as claimant H-15019, who attended St. Anne’s residential school in Fort Albany, Ont.

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MICHIGAN
Michigan Radio

[with audio]

Writer and poet Kelly Fordon grew up as a Catholic altar girl in the 1970s, and has published The Witness, a chapbook centered around sexual abuse by Catholic priests.

Chapbooks are used by poets to focus on a single theme or topic.

Fordon never expected to write against the Catholic Church, but believes that people shouldn’t be so quick to defend priests accused of abuse. Fordon joined Cynthia Canty on today’s Stateside to discuss The Witness.

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CANADA
Owensound Sun Times

By Scott Dunn, Sun Times, Owen Sound
Tuesday, May 10, 2016

OWEN SOUND – It didn’t take much to set off Fred King, the leader of a small, isolated church in Chatsworth Township.

Sometimes he’d deliver “corrections and chastisements” by punching, kicking or spitting on parishioners, an Owen Sound court heard Tuesday. Other times he used humiliation or did something such as squeezing a child’s hand with crushing force for fighting with a sister.

The victims were his parishioners. In one case when a teen tried to run away, his grandmother tattled and Fred King, who was known simply as “The Prophet,” retaliated fiercely with a beating at a Sunday church service.

“The blows were all over his body, sometimes on the back of his head, but mostly on his arms and legs,” Grey County Crown attorney Michael Martin said while reading into the court record a statement of facts agreed to by Crown and defence.

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ROME/AUSTRALIA
Business Insider

SIMON THOMSEN
MAY 11, 2016

Senior Vatican official cardinal George Pell has been photographed enjoying steak and chips and a beer in a Rome restaurant just weeks after he said he was too ill to return to Australia to face the royal commission into child abuse in the Catholic church.

Two months ago, the Vatican’s financial boss, who turns 75 in June, gave three days of testimony to the commission via videolink from Rome.

Pell had a medical report that said travel to Australia could cause heart failure and, following his testimony, revealed that he had angioplasty and was fitted with a pacemaker “both provoked by travel to Australia”.

Pell is obliged under church protocol to tender his resignation when he turns 75, but it does not have to be accepted. Last week it emerged that he would continue his five-year appointment until 2019.

Overnight, Britain’s The Daily Mail published a series of photos of the senior Catholic cleric enjoying steak and chips with a beer at Domiziano restaurant. They were taken on April 18.

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GUAM
Pacific News Center

Written by Janela Carrera

Vice Speaker BJ Cruz explains why his bill failed and no one could use the two-year opportunity to go after the church.

Guam – Vice Speaker BJ Cruz is accusing Archbishop Anthony Apuron of pulling the strings on a bill passed six years ago that sought to lift the statute of limitations on sex abuse crimes.

Cruz says that on the session floor, other senators were on the phone with the archbishop taking orders from him to add poison pill amendments to the bill.

It was in 2010 when Vice Speaker BJ introduced a bill to lift the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse crimes. On K57’s Mornings with Patti this morning, the senator said when he introduced the legislation, it only contained two pages.

“The bill ended up a little over six pages. They added literally almost four pages of restrictions,” said Cruz.

Cruz says the senators who added the amendments were doing so at the behest of Archbishop Anthony Apuron.

“I don’t mind saying that publicly because I was sitting next to a couple of my colleagues and I could hear the archbishop’s voice directing the instruction of these amendments. So they gutted the bill,” Cruz said.

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AUSTRALIA
Canberra Times

Megan Gorrey Christopher Knaus

A former Canberra Grammar School staff member is facing allegations of historical abuse involving a student.

The allegations are part of a civil matter and no criminal charges have been laid.

The staff member was employed in the senior school and left in the early 2000s.

Head of school, Justin Garrick, informed the school community of the alleged abuse in an email on Wednesday, saying he would not provide further details given the matter was before court and he wanted to protect the privacy and wellbeing of the former student.

The email did not contain any information on the employee’s role at the Red Hill school or the nature of the allegations.

“While it does not involve any current students or staff at the school, I felt it important that you be aware, as legal proceedings may bring it to public attention and I know that such matters can call forward distressing emotions,” Dr Garrick wrote.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Melissa Davey
@MelissaLDavey
Wednesday 11 May 2016

A high-profile spokesman for child sexual abuse survivors, David Ridsdale, has been accused of not being transparent about his own abusing.

Ridsdale, who is the nephew and victim of notorious paedophile priest Gerald Francis Ridsdale, helped coordinate a group of child sex abuse survivors to fly to Rome in February to watch Cardinal George Pell testify before Australia’s child sexual abuse royal commission.

The commission had heard allegations that Pell tried to bribe Ridsdale to keep quiet about his molestation at the hands of his uncle. Ridsdale has repeatedly called for Pell and the church to be transparent about what they knew about the abuse of children within Catholic institutions.

But for the first time abuse offences Ridsdale was charged with in 1995 have been disclosed.

In 1995, David Ridsdale was charged with two counts of indecently assaulting a young boy while he was a youth leader, and he pled guilty. He was placed on a 12-month good behaviour bond, the magistrate noting that his history of being abused may have led to his own abusing.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail

‘I am absolutely disgusted’: Mother whose six children were abused by a priest slams Cardinal George Pell after we found him drinking beer and tucking into steak and chips – despite being ‘too ill’ to face the royal commission

By FRANK COLETTA FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA

A mother of six children abused by a Ballarat clergyman 30 years ago says she was ‘absolutely disgusted’ when photos revealed Cardinal George Pell devouring a meal of steak and chips and drinking beer in a Rome restaurant.

Ruth Lane says the images show Cardinal Pell’s claims of risking ‘heart failure’ if forced to return to Australia to face questioning at the Child Abuse Royal Commission in February was insensitive.

Mrs Lane’s six children were all victims of abuse by family friend Brother Grant Ross, and her second son John took his life at age 19.

Australia’s most senior Catholic was pictured on April 18 inside the Domiziano restaurant in Rome’s Piazza Navona with a colleague enjoying a heavy dinner and beer.

‘He’s doing that even with a bad heart?’ Mrs Lane told Daily Mail Australia.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

Time for truth-telling. The Daily News Editorial Board on Wednesday will call New York’s infamous Three Men in a Room to account about justice.

Gov. Cuomo, Democratic Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Republican Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan stand notified to expect a request for a telephone interview at the heart of which will be the question:

Do you support denying childhood victims of life-scarring sex crimes their day in court against their abusers?

Cuomo, Heastie and Flanagan have gone behind closed doors to negotiate legislative matters, including, for instance, extension of mayoral control of the schools.

None expected the end-of-session agenda to include extending or eliminating statutes of limitations that bar prosecutors from charging many offenders and prohibit many victims from filing civil suits.

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MARYLAND
Washington Post

[List of Accused Priests and Religious Brothers in the Baltimore Archdiocese: Reformatted by BishopAccountability.org for Easier Viewing and Printing]

By Julie Zauzmer May 11

Victims of sexual abuse by priests, advocates say, still feel alone. That painful sense of solitude persists even 14 years after the Boston Globe documented a massive cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, setting off a wave of exposés across the country that continue until this day. Even now, some victims think that they were the only one hurt by a particular priest.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore just took a step to address that pain by joining the growing number of dioceses that have posted a list, all in one place, of priests who have been accused in the diocese, some dating back decades. This step is important, advocates say, so that when victims who have suffered in silence type their abusers’ names into Google, they will see that these men have been accused by others as well.

“The primary motivation in publicly disclosing an allegation is to encourage anyone else who may have been a victim of that individual to come forward,” archdiocese spokesman Sean Caine said. “We’ve heard from victim-surviors that one main obstacle is the sense that they’re alone. They’re the only one. They won’t be believed.”

Thanks to the list, Caine said, that feeling might be diminished. “They’re empowered to find out that other people have alleged against the same person.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Times

Kim Pilling
May 11 2016
The Times

An Irish priest dubbed “a celebrity in the playground” sexually abused nine young girls over four decades in Rochdale, a court has heard.

Many of the schoolchildren were said not to have complained at the time about Father Mortimer Stanley, originally from Limerick, because of the “very high regard” in which he was held by parishioners and teachers.

The priest, now 84, allegedly targeted his “special girls” in his presbytery at St Vincent de Paul RC Church in Norden, Rochdale, Greater Manchester, where he would sit them on his knee and indecently assault them in various ways.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY GLENN BLAIN, STEPHEN REX BROWN NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Tuesday, May 10, 2016

One of Albany’s most powerful lawmakers has broken his silence on the effort to reform New York’s statute of limitations on child sex abuse — by saying next to nothing.

Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan wouldn’t provide a clear answer as to where he stands on the issue — or say whether there would be action on the related bills before the legislative session expires next month.

In the do-nothing state capital, that counts as progress.

Pressed by the Daily News on Tuesday, Flanagan suggested different proposals were under consideration.

“There’s already been movement because there’s plenty of discussion on the issue,” Flanagan said.

The Long Island Republican indicated he was examining several bills including one proposed by Assemblywoman Margaret Markey (D-Queens). “There is more than just the Markey bill. There are other bills out there. They are all going to be subject to discussion. There is no resolution, plain and simple,” Flanagan told The News.

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NEW YORK
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Gregory Yacyshyn was ordained for the Rockville Centre diocese in 1998. He assisted in parishes in Greenlawn and Bay Shore before being named pastor of a Mastic Beach parish in 2007. Yacyshyn was accused in a lawsuit filed in January 2015 of sexually abusing an 8-year-old girl in 2003, around the time of the girl’s first communion. He denied the abuse. When her parents learned of the accusations they informed the diocese and law enforcement. Yacyshyn was kept in ministry. The diocese called her claims, “an unfortunate publicity stunt.” In April 2016 another lawsuit was filed, this time by a 20-year-old man who alleged sexual abuse by Yacyshyn when he was 5 to 7 years-old in 2001-2003. Again, Yachshyn denied the allegations. In May 2016 he remains in ministry.

Ordained: 1998

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